In this one, I’ve got to round up everything I’ve said and found out about creativity… oh dear… this could be a long one folks, everyone got their sunglasses on for when I bore you to death by droning?
I think I’ll start by commenting on Ben Mathis’s lecture on creativity, or rather a rather blunt and honest take on Ben’s view of the Gaming Industry.
1. He has a rather jaded view but gave an honest account into how art is done in the industry, that concept arts and 3D artists are normally not one and the same unless you’re in a very small group, and that, in his opinion, most Art Directors consider themselves Emperor of Art and like sticking their noses in where it isn’t needed.
He didn’t have that much planned to say because he was supposed to be talking about creativity in the industry and apparently only concept artists get to demonstrate that feature of themselves and the 3D Artists tend to get their creativity out on personal projects…
Like the one we’re working on now, a week project to create a character for a competition and we have to make it in 5000 polys for the model and infinite polys for assets (eg weapons, armour…).
I have plans, I have Photoshop paintings, what I lack is the speed or skill to keep up at that pace, something I plan on fixing over Christmas if I can help it. By the end of Christmas, I am hoping to have finished Sam and have both a Mudbox high poly model and a 3DSMax low poly model that’s textured and looks good.
OK, so, next part of the blog, game review.
2. If you know me, you’ll know just how excited I was about Pokemon Battle Revolution coming out.
It is brilliant, but they haven’t fixed the AI, as it gets to a certain point of the night and the AI decides that it’s had enough losing and sticks Pokemon in your path that you’ve never seen it use before, even if you’ve done this match before and pretty much rips you into tiny little shreds.
I like a challenge, especially in battle, but it gets a bit ridiculous at some points and I feel sorry for Emma and Ray who had to put up with me on Wednesday night as I cursed at it for cheating yet again.
The game itself runs smoothly and gets more and more challenging as it goes on, but there is the cheating factor again and people online do not like losing if they use Ubers or Legendaries. It seems to be polite to share your friend pass with Trainers that you have a good battle with but those with Ubers that I’ve beaten don’t seem to like losing as they don’t do so.
Anyway, in summery, I quote Nintendo Official Magazine from a few years ago – “Nintendo maintain that their games never cheat, we however are not so sure.”
4. Creativity summery.
Wait, what happened to three?
Never mind, I have to get this finished.
Creativity is a wide subject that stretches right across the board, from painting and drawing, to writing and maths. It is not something that can be defined easily and as such it has been something I’ve researched heavily (or attempted to), and have formed opinions about over the course of the last few months. Most of the research has in fact been a major part of my Countdown to Battle blogs that have been going on since the end of November as I counted down until Pokemon Battle Revolution came out.
We were started on creativity by watching a ten minute lecture given by Sir Ken Robertson, discussing if creativity is educated out of people by the school system.
He said yes, and I agreed, having gone through the education system myself and wanting to give it a boot to the head… preferably an ice skating boot… with the blade guard off… anyway, once again I am getting off track.
This led me to think about me and my friends and the various ways that they are creative, I have my Fanfiction, another has their music, another is creative with numbers, none of us use creativity the same way as even when we’re using it for the same things the end product is very different… see Joey Taylor, Robin Moto and Ray Venn Hakubi.
Creativity, I decided, was also drowned in people who were stuck in a dead end, unfulfilling job, as they cannot think properly after an overly busy day and as they’re doing the same thing day in, day out, the creative juices had no spark to get them flowing.
Through my research, I discovered that schools and the education system, seems to view creativity as something that has to be focused into classes and homework and is useless if it’s not increasing the child in question’s grade. There are websites on creativity, on how to make creative things and there’s even a site that gives names and contact details of ‘Creativity Coaches.’
Yes, you read that right.
Creativity Coaches.
Coaches to make people creative.
I have no idea how that works, and in fact I’m not sure I want one considering I’ve always considered coaches to be quite scary people, with the shouting and the screaming and the… unless they mean an actual coach… Ra damn it not again.
Then I found it, the point to highlight just how bad the education system is for creative people. A website, for teachers on how to ‘deal’ with Creativity and creative students, describing creativity as a good thing if it relates to the lesson and a bad thing if it doesn’t and offering advice on how to restrict creativity to lessons only.
This is a very, very bad thing and underscores just how bad the education system has gotten.
Comparing education websites with other websites, like craft ones and such, creativity is considered both the work of the devil and glory from on high.
I suppose that in conclusion, creativity is a great thing, terrible, but great (sorry couldn’t resist, blame Olivander), in the education system being a creative person is something that you will have to fight to hold onto, as teachers will try to fight with you every step of the way to keep your creativity locked in their subject, which isn’t how it works at all and they need a… you know… while outside the system, creativity is a bonus as there are so many things that a creative person can do to keep their creativity going, dancing, singing, drawing, painting, writing, making schools explode, no wait I didn’t say that, joke I swear.
Welcome in universities, Girl Guide Groups and most of life, it’s unwelcome in the education system and dead end jobs.
And that, I think, is that.
A difficult choice of topic, a strange one to summarise, but an interesting one.
Anyway, Merry Christmas to all, and to all… A BOOT TO THE HEAD!
*Runs away*
Joey
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