Slowly.. but surely

   Over the past week or so, amongst doing other work, I have been revisiting the Architectural project from Game Production last term. I did this so that I would have more things to incorporate into my UDK scene, but doing it has given me a boost of confidence, because it's given me an opportunity to see how I've improved since then.

   This was my first house, well, pub. At the time, I was so proud of this, but I think honestly I was probably just glad I'd got something done. Looking at it now, it's not AWFUL, but I am not at all proud of it. I have fixed it in parts though, for instance the mortar originally was HORRIBLE on this. It looked like someone had hurled massive globules of porridge at the side of my house (not that I blame them). Not good. I redid this texture, and now it looks a lot better. At least it looks normal anyway.

   This is my new piece, and I am so much happier with it. I still have to make normal maps and some spec maps, but it already looks leaps and bounds better than my other building. It makes me so so happy to see visible evidence that I am improving. Game Production back then was a massive struggle for me, and brought me to tears quite a lot. Sometimes it still does. Not nearly as often though. I actually enjoy it quite a lot now, despite the hiccups I still have here and there. Here's to moving forwards!

Critical Studies: Then to Now - Part 3

   The year 1990 started the 4th Generation Consoles, with SNK releasing their first console, NeoGeo.

The NeoGeo was marketed and released not only as a home video game console, but also as an arcade system board, the 'MVS' (Multi-Video System). The MVS took cartridges, which allowed the arcade operator to play multiple games through a standalone machine. It could hold 4 games at once and you had the ability to switch between them. SNK also saw through the insightful idea for the NeoGeo, of a memory card, so gamers could save their game in an arcade and take it home etc. Although this was an incredible feat of a machine, it had one major drawback... the price. Launch cost of this console was a whopping $650, with cartridges reaching prices as high as $200.
   It's two main competitors were the Sega Megadrive and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The NeoGeo was a slight third wheel in this sense, because of the domination of Sega and Nintendo's rivalry.

   1990 saw the Japanese release of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It was a massive improvement on its predecessor and had sold an estimated 50 million units. It played host to games such as..

...Super Mario World,

...Final Fantasy VI

...and Street Fighter 2

    The Sega Megadrive was released in Japan in 1988.

It's believed to be Sega's most successful video game console, selling 35.3 million units. It lost the competition with the SNES for global market attention, however was still a highly popular machine, marketing well known titles such as Comix Zone (an awesome game based around a comic book artist fighting his creations in an innovative comic book style), Castlevania, Streets of Rage 2 and of course Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

   In 1994, Sony released the first of their console systems, the Playstation.

 The Playsation was a part of the fifth generation of consoles, its main competitors being the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn. My personal favourite is the Playstation. Having been bought it when I was fairly young, it sparked a great deal of childhood loves such as Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot.

   The PS1's competitor, Sega Saturn, was a powerful 32 bit machine, launched in 1994. However, only 240 games were released in Europe and only 245 in the USA, Some of these titles being; Megaman X4, House of the Dead, Xmen vs Streetfighter, what have you.

   The other competitor was the Nintendo 64.

 The Nintendo 64 was designed as a multiplayer machine with 4 available controller ports, for games like Mario Kart 64 and Mario Party. This machine also had the Transfer Pak, which allowed the portable Gameboy color to exchange data with the Nintendo 64 in certain games such as Mario Golf and Pokémon Gold/Silver, allowing you to play these titles on the big screen.

References:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo_Geo_(system)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(fourth_generation)
• http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/pg90-neo_geo.htm#page=reviews
• http://www.nintendo.co.uk/corporate/nintendo-history/Super-Nintendo/Super-Nintendo-627040.html
• http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System
• http://segametro.org/Sega_Mega_Drive
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_(console)
• http://www.segasaturn.co.uk/about_sega_saturn.html
• http://www.nintendo.co.uk/Corporate/Nintendo-History/Nintendo-64/Nintendo-64-625959.html

Architectural Brief

   So.. the four weeks we've had for our architectural project have drawn to a close. I finished this a couple of days ago, and although it's not amazing, I am quite pleased with what I have achieved.
 
   My biggest regret about this piece is that I feel I wasn't ambitious enough with my choice of building. I just chose this cute little pub called the King's Head. This thought didn't really occur to me until I was halfway through the mesh. I'm bad enough with stress as it is, and I didn't want to risk going back and finding something else, only to run out of time to do it. I regret this now, however only slightly, because I came across hurdles across the way, which may have prevented me getting it done on time had I gone back to make something larger. I decided that instead, I'd try and add details to make the mesh more interesting, such as lights, satellite dish, etc.
   The UV unwrapping for this mesh caused me much more headaches than it probably should have.. Thing kept going wrong or I'd have to edit parts of the model and reset my UVs. I did end up learning a heck of a lot from this though, so even though it was a pain at the time... I'm glad of it now.
   The tiling textures I actually really enjoyed. Well... I enjoyed the bricks and the roof tiles... I found the grouting incredibly difficult, as you can see by the tiling still on it. Creating all of the textures took a while, but it was worth it seeing it all on the building.
   Once I'd put all the textures on, I decided to make an alpha for the the sections connecting the lamp to the building and I was really pleased with the results. So after that I added a plane and put an alpha on to display the sign on the building.
   At first I found applying normal maps quite difficult. I used a tutorial off blackboard to figure out how to do it, and I followed it to the letter and it still wouldn't work for some reason. I was in the labs at the time and I wasn't the only one struggling with this problem. We were saved though when a helpful second year student showed us what had gone wrong, and it was as simple as changing how the materials are shown in viewport.

   So overall, I am really quite pleased with how this came out. It's simple, but I think the textures and the normal maps made it look a lot better.

Critical Studies: Then to Now... Part Two

'The Middle Ages'

   The 1950s saw the first time computers being used for recreational purposes. Up until this point, computers had mainly been used for calculations, or, for example, decoding messages during the war.

   In 1958, a man called William Higinbotham created one of the first games, called 'Tennis for Two' and was created using an oscilloscope and analog computer. It was a simple side view of a tennis course, for two players. This just makes me smile. The advancements are amazing, and at the time this must have been a really exciting development. I can imagine that it would get boring fairly quickly though...

   'SpaceWar!' was invented in 1962 by Steve Russell for the PDP-1. The PDP-1 was the first operating system to allow multiplayer, so playing spacebar was more interactive and fun. The players would play against each other, controlling their ships with two boxy controllers. Here's a video of some 'SpaceWar!' gameplay!

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmvb4Hktv7U 

   Looks fun right? The point of the genre is that two players are pitted against one another, controlling spacecrafts. There's a sun in the middle which provides great difficulties for the players as they fire missiles at one another, avoiding it's gravitational pull. SpaceWar! is quite a feat of an achievement, often credited as the first widely available and influential computer game!

   Computer Space, based on Space war, was the first ever arcade game. It was created in Nolan Bushnell (who would later start Atari Computers in 1972).

   There were two versions of Computer Space, a one player machine and a two player. In the one player version, the player controls a rocket ship in a face off against two spaceships, whereas in the two player version, two players battle one another.

Pong

http://www.ponggame.org 

   Here, you can have a go at a version of Pong! Probably famous as one of the symbols of classing computer games, it was originally a training device set by Nolan Bushnell for an Atari employee, Allan Alcorn. Atari was first made as a single arcade machine and put in a pub, and it became so quickly successful that Atari started to mass produce them! 

   Playing it.. it's actually incredibly easy to see why it became so popular. It's simple, but consider how advanced it was at the time! It's strangely addictive, and actually quite fun, and I wish there was more of this now. I wish that it was still the case that you'd pop down the local and there'd be pong or even maybe a PacMan machine.

PacMan 

   PacMan.. the immensely famous, world popular symbol of 80s Pop Culture. PacMan was developed by Namco in 1980 and sold over 100,000 units in its first year. 

   Everyone's heard of PacMan and most people have played a version of it at some point during their lives. It's very easily argued that PacMan is one of the most popular video games in history. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uswzriFIf_k

   It's easy to see why this was so exciting and entertaining to play. There was an introduction of characters, and with the release of Ms. PacMan in 1981, a direct introduction of girls to the world of gaming.

The Magnavox Odyssey

   The Magnavox Odyssey was the machine that introduced the world to home gaming. Designed by Ralph Baer and made available in 1972, it was a digital video game console plugged into the television and controlled by two paddles. It was also released with six cartridges to play twelve different games (one of which, incidentally, being Pong).

Emerson Arcadia 2001

   In 1982, Emerson Radio Corp released the arcadia 2001 console, and a lot of trouble followed this for them...

   Arcadia 2001 was small and powered by a 12 volt power supply, meaning it could be used in vehicles. This would have been a fantastic launch into portable gaming... if it weren't for the face that it required a portable television... no common thing in the 80s, funnily enough.

   Its release wasn't exactly well timed either, as it came out at the same time as the much more popular Coleco Vision and the Atari 5200.

The competition.. the Atari 5200

   Meanwhile, Atari released the Atari 5200. These included an analog joystick, and the controller allowed a full 360 degree movement, however there were troubles with this and the controllers were very failure prone. The 5200 was also one of the first controllers to come with a pause button (What. I would be so lost without that thing.. trips to the fridge would inevitably end in death and disaster...)

   The Atari 5200 was thrown ahead of its competition though, because it had a lot more good quality games that other systems of that year. Unfortunately, the Atari 5200 was short-lived because of the great computer game crash of '83.

The Crash

   There were quite a few contributing factors to the crash in the gaming market in 1983. This article from IGN is a pretty interesting read into some facts about the crash.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2011/09/21/ten-facts-about-the-great-video-game-crash-of-83?page=1

   As it says in this article, one of the main reasons for the crash was an oversupply in consoles on the market. There was the Emerson Arcadia 2001, Atari 5200, the Coleco Vision and many others. Also as Computer gaming became more prominent as home computers became more affordable, these consoles had even more competition.

NES

   The courageous release of the Nintendo Entertainment System is what brought gaming consoles back after the crash. Originally the 'Famicon' in Japan, Nintendo sold the console in America as the NES and it took off in leaps and bounds. No wonder! When the world was being introduced to classics like Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros.

The NES controller, a horizontal block that you hold with both hands has become the standard design used for all consoles nowadays pretty much, with the directional keys on the left and action buttons on the right, with a start and select in the middle.

Nintendo Gameboy

In 1989, Nintendo released the pocket sized revolution for gaming, the Gameboy. The Gameboy offered the opportunity for portability to already much loved classics, such as Super Mario Bros and Zelda, and would also be the leap into the Pokemon gaming franchise. The Gameboy, the first in the Gameboy series, is what we have to thank for our current Nintendo handheld feat, the 3DS. 

The Gameboy and Gameboy Color progressed to the Advance and SP, the games for which could still be used in the Nintendo DS and DS Lite. From the DS lite came the DSi, and we've steadily risen to the 3DS, which still has the fundamental charm and lovability of all of its predecessors.

References

• inventors.about.com/library/blcomputer_videogames.htm
• iventors.about.com/od/sstartinventions/a/spacewar.htm
• www.arcade-museum.com/c/computer_space.html
• www.ponggame.org
• pacman.com/en/pac-man-history/
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/magnavox
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/arcadia_2001
• atariage.com/5200/
• www.nintendo.co.uk/Corporate/Nintendo-History/Nintendo-Entertainment-System/Nintendo-Entertainment-System-627024.html

Critical Studies: Then to Now.. Part One

   Computers have been around for some time now, but how long? They're such a large and integral part of our lives now that we would probably be lost without them. The flip side being that they develop their own consciousness and kill us in our sleep.
 
   Probably one of the oldest 'computers' is the ancient greek treasure 'The Anthikythera Mechanism'

   Not a computer you say? Not the conventional thing that pops to mind perhaps, but consider the fact that all a computer means is;      'an electronic device which is capable of receiving information (data) in a particular form and of performing a sequence of operations in accordance with a predetermined but variable set of procedural instructions (program) to produce a result in form of information or signals'

   Now, let's think for a second about this machine and it's incredible advancement for its time. This sophisticated device predicted solar and lunar eclipses. Its clockwork was identified as resembling the 'Sphere of Archimedes'. Archimedes was a mathematician and engineer.

'The Greeks used their mathematics, especially geometry, to simulate agronomical phenomena, creating an accurate model through the use of gears.'
   I think this is quite frankly astonishing, that something this sophisticated was created so long ago, which essentially isn't all that different from the fundamental ideals of our modern computers, in the sense that they use pre-programmed calculations to produce accurate results and conclusions.

   Jumping forward to 1821, British Mathematician, Charles Babbage creates his calculating engines, to improve accuracy in mathematics and reduce mistakes made due to human error. He created the Difference Engine, which is the first machine to correctly automate mathematic calculation.
   In 1834, Babbage worked on another calculating machine called the Analytical Engine, which was  designed to 'analyse various types of problems based on instructions received from punch cards and could store results for future use.' These two incredible feats by Babbage echo a lot of the main thing electrical computers are used for. The difference mainly being Babbage's were operated by cranks. Essentially though.. they all share the common purpose of calculating and performing based on pre-programmed instructions.

   During World War 2, technology moved incredibly fast. Each side would be battling desperately against the enemy, all trying to develop new ways to gain information and intelligence on their opponent, instruct and direct their troops and overall bring victory to their side. Due to this I think war is probably one of the huge influences that accelerate technological development, because each side is desperate to put themselves ahead as much as possible.

   In 1936, Konrad Zuse designed and built Z1. It had limited programibility and all of its programming comprised of instructions taken from punched tape. The Z1 was the first freely programmable computer which contained all of the major parts of a modern computer, such as a control unit, memory, input/output etc. It was destroyed by the allied forces during WW2. The Z2 and Z3 followed this, many of their ideas based on Z1.
   After 1939, Konrad Zuse was given resources by the Nazi government. For this reason, his work was only really noticed by Germany, and never came to the attention of the US and the UK.

                           -Sidenote!- Konrad Zuse was an artist too! Take a look at some of his work!

Anyway, in 1941, Konrad Zuse finished the Z3 computer, which was essentially the same idea as Z1, in that it was a fully working, programmable, automatic digital computer, with the program code and data stored punched on film. Sadly, the original of this awesome machine was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1943. It has been reconstructed though!

   Meanwhile... in the UK, we were developing our own machinery, unbeknownst to the Germans! In 1941, the Bombe was created by Alan Turing and refined by Gordon Welchman, based on the Polish 'Bomba' which was created to tap into German 'Enigma' machines. The Bombe was used to help decipher encrypted messages the Germans were using during World War 2.

   Jump to 1943 and the US launch Project Whirlwind. The initial idea of this was to create a flight simulator to train bomber crews. This was first built on a large analog computer, but this was found to be inaccurate and inflexible. The idea was transferred to a digital computer, but by the time this was finished it was 1951, the war was over and this was no longer useful.

   Jump forward again, to 1944 - the first colossus is operational at Bletchley Park.

   The Colossus was used against the German teleprinter 'Tunny'. More sophisticated than the Enigma machines, the Germans relied on Tunny to encrypt their communications with German posts across Europe. In 1941, Colossus intercepted its first Tunny message. After a year, the messages were decrypted and they obtained invaluable intelligence, saving countless amounts of lives.

References

• www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/computer
• VALLIANTOS,EVAGGELOS (2012) Deciphering and Appeasing the Heavens: The History and Fate of an Ancient Greek Computer. 45(3) p.251-257
• MATHER, DAVID (2006) Extended Memory: Early Calculating Engines and Historical Computer Simulations. 39(3) p236-243
• inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z1_(computer)
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History-of-computer-science
• www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=cmptr
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe
• ww.colossus-computer.com/colossus1.html