Introduction Personal development

Professional Portfolio Development 

During my personal portfolio development I must demonstrate a full understanding of my chosen Job role within the Games Industry in doing so I will gain confidence and knowledge ready for when graduate University and start pursuing my career.

 I will discuss and research my chosen job role in depth looking at the needed skill set  process' as well as choice of technology which could further the quality of my work, this will help my future employers realize the potential I have and what I can offer their company as an artist.

I plan to research the Games industry within the UK to find out what they expect when it comes to portfolios and during interviews this will allow me to understand what is expected of me once I have graduated  During this first part of this  module I have to produce an Show-reel plan which will be the result of my research through the weeks also will be a representation of myself as an artist.



My Personal Aims and Objectives


To help me further I produced a list of my overall aims and objective in-which I want to accomplish during my portfolio development, as I am not always connected to the internet I will be working with Microsoft word then uploading what I've researched.


1. Career choice
This post will consist of my knowledge and research within my chosen job role that being Environment artist, although I could take the time to research into all main jobs roles within the game industry I think its in my best interest to focus on what career path i intend to follow, As i am currently in my third year of university I have had the opportunity to dive into various aspects of the games industry skill set from animation to 3D modelling so I have basically knowledge of what is needed from me as I've chosen to follow down the path of and environment artist this will be my main focus.

2. UK Games Industry
This post I will follow the games industry from where is first began to current day, this will help me understand the advances within the years of the games industry and how new technologies improved the Overall UK games industry in sales and overall user experience.

3. Looking into Portfolios 
This section of my blog,will consist of my research into various online portfolios this will help me understand what I should consider when producing my portfolio I will add links and images with captions explaining why (Portfolio A.) is good and why (Portfolio B.) is bad, To a certain degree this may boil down to my overall personal preference but I hope this will lead in the correct direction when planning my portfolio and show reel.

4. Interview Practice
During our lectures we will team up and practice interviewing on another as if we want a job within the games industry this will help as understand what we should and should not do during an interview and how we should present ourselves.

5. Job role requirements and skill set
This post I will go and look into various companies/studios and look for what they require to take on a environment artist and what skills are needed, this will get me ready to understand what they want from me as an artist, I will copy and paste their requirements directly from their recruitment page.

6. Improvements I can make
This will be my reflections on what I've researched so far, I will gain an understanding of that I should and will do if I want to accomplish my job role and land in the industry, I will look into new programs which can improve my work and increase my skill set.

7. Show Reel Storyboard and overall plan
This is the main part of my Personal development and future portfolios, Show reels are very useful to getting the attention of the viewer and less tedious than having them click through many images, although I will still have that option for them to view higher resolution images on my environment/assets for a more detailed look, As this is block out show reel I will use images and reference to portray what I want to accomplish, For the sake of fly through during the show reel I will rewind to a previous project where I created a environment this will allow the viewer and myself to understand what kind of viewing angles and fly through I want and how they will connect within the show reel.

Job Role, Environment Artist

Chosen Job Role

Environment artist is my chosen job role, I've always been more interested in the environments of games than anything else, The environments are the aspects of games in-which pull the players in, I think its the one thing when developed perfectly really grabs in the player,making memorable scenes within games can enhance the player experience allowing for more immersive game-play.

Environment Artist

Originally when I thought of an environment artist I just assumed the artist would only be producing direct environment assets, for example a city the artist would have to develop buildings but this job role contains so much more responsibilities which I never knew of there is the obvious previously said creative side but there is also a technical side to being an environment artist.

What I already know

Design

As an environment artist it is my job to produce environments and props from concept art and real world reference this varies depending on the lecturer property if the environment or prop is more unique e.g. fantasy, scifi its more likely to be designed from concept art unlike a generic table asset there will be much real world reference for the artist to produce this kind of asset.

Even in some cases the environment artist will contribute highly towards concepts as the artist will physically be producing these concepts in 3D form, the concept may be UN-realistic in the sense of developing the final product the environments artists can make adjustments to the concept.  

As an 3D environment artist, 3D is not the only aspect of our job we design 3D assets but these are not instantly game ready, we have to produce Texture maps for each asset, these include a Diffuse, Secular and Normal Map (More depending on asset) these are the industry standard for texture maps. There are certain programs available to help the artist produce various texture maps I will look into these more in depth as I progress through my research. So this is a massive 2D aspect to the design process of an environment artist, The textures produce define the asset more so than the actual 3D model, brings life and depth to the overall asset.

Technical

Although an environment artist is known to only produce 3D assets and environments, this job role requires the artist to work with various parts of the game engine being used such as game systems, scripted events and particle effects, I'm sure there are many other technical skills needed within this job role I will research this job role into more depth so that I fully understand the skills I will need.