Task 24. Feedback

Ok I think the first issue I really wish to cover is the separation between the art and the tech students. Of course I completely understand that this is the first year that this has been done combining both art and tech. I think the worst one was the programming based blog that said ‘You may never do programming in your career’ and the review blog cover ‘Your first year as a game art student’ this personally made me feel that we were a minority and therefore insignificant, though I understand this was not intended at all but I think it is important in terms of motivation for the tech students. Even this blogs explanation saying we should do more sculpting and double traditional art, I don’t know whether this is just for this module or discussion for the entire course, but if it is just for this module this is stuff that we have very little, or in my case, no skill or interest in. Of course I understand that we need a base of this knowledge for our programming and we are doing things such as animation in our last year that I figure will require some of this knowledge but not at the depth that the game art students will do.

This wont be all negative I promise and this isn’t a direct attack at anybody I’m just putting what I feel down. I found some of the talks very interesting especially the visit from the guys that made the reservoir dogs game. But the idea that Scott had discussed with us about playing some of the games we discuss and looking at things more practically may prove to be both interesting and maybe more effective learning than pure lectures. Maybe separating this current group into 2 separate groups may prove more effective? Also an interesting idea I thought of was maybe splitting the module up into 50% blogs and 50% coursework. Where the coursework could be to make a game with the game art people (I know we do this in the last year but I think we would understand our roles in terms of the industry and the difficulties for the other half, programmers will realise that artist do more than just draw and its harder than we think and artists learn that programming is a lot more difficult than they think) This would make us have more respect for one another and help us to mix more as there is a certain divide I feel between tech and art. I think this break up from the blogs will also stop the feeling of monotony I felt with these last few blogs, which I feel directly effects my writing.

For my future I have found my entire course has shown me that I seem to have a knack for C programming and I actually quite enjoy it and I think this is a path that I shall investigate further for a possible future career. I found low level programming interesting and much closer towards my previous electronics education, however I find this quite difficult and not so rewarding after completing a task for coursework. Games architecture has been very fun with lectures containing both an overview of the gaming industry along with programming specific to gaming. I especially enjoyed the first coursework for this module as it allowed us to make a full game of our choice and really allowed us to get a very basic feel of what areas you need to consider when making a game. We also reviewed a game of our choice which again showed us how much depth is put into games and how much work is required to produce a really successful game, this is the only practical module that I felt was very game specific and didn’t just feel like knowledge that doesn’t yet have a link to gaming. I like how all of my modules except for digital electronics can be done at home. This allows me to be much more flexible in terms of when I do my work and thanks to blackboard I won’t miss too much if I am sick for a prolonged time.

Another area I feel could be improved is feedback. For the first 8 weeks I was getting a comment for my blogs but since then I’ve received no feedback on my blogs and this then makes me wonder if I’m doing well or poorly or even if my blogs are being read at all? (Which I doubt is the case!) Also as there is no specific piece of learning we will all be leaving this module with different bits of knowledge and the only collective knowledge base will be of the lectures. Also I know this would be a pain due to the changing lecture dates but changing the blog layout to fit with the guest lectures will make the blog and lecture feel more relevant rather than an audio talk while we have an art blog set.

However I did enjoy doing the blogs initially but I do feel a major area is to break up the monotony of it. I also believe that it is essential that we both have this knowledge base before we enter a job within the gaming industry. But I do believe that we can’t teach both an art based course and a tech based course the same way. I feel as a tech student that I learn things a lot more effectively if I’m doing it practically rather than pure listening and reading, but this might just be me.