Whillock: September 2010

New Year, New Project: Short Story about an event that altered our life. Early Ideas Books: Unweaving the Rainbow - Richard Dawkins The Collapse of Chaos - Ian Stewart Guards Guards! - Terry Pratchett Other events: Working in retail - made

Well this is my 200th blog post, so something animation related that's close to my heart at the moment.

I've always enjoyed gaming in its different forms, but never before have I thought a game was really beautiful. Sure, Crysis is pretty but for me, nothing compares to the overall style and beauty of Team Fortress 2. It perfectly realises the dream I had when I was younger; that one day games would be cartoons you were a part of, so much more perfectly than I could ever have imagined.

Looking like Pixar decided to do an war-themed retro-era shooter, everything about it is beautiful and incredibly thought-out. This has been delved into many times before, from the silhouettes of the nine classes for readability, the contrasting RED/BLU territories/colour schemes and so many other aspects.

The environments range from industrial factories, rural farms, missile silos, snowy mountain complexes, woodland hideouts and many more, but all fit the style of the game perfectly, and nothing looks out of place. There seems to be a trend in the gaming industry to relate better games to realism. Now to me, the number of polygons used has nothing to do with how good a game looks. If I wanted realism I'd play simulators.

When I play a game I want one thing - to have fun, and to get that fun I want to be immersed and surprised and entertained. I want to be taken somewhere new and fantastic and be allowed to play. Team Fortress 2 gives you a community of distinct characters and environments, and lets you shoot, jump, talk, sneak, race and blow other people to bits in them. Fireworks of rockets explode, blood splashes up the walls, spys shank you from behind and huge russian men gun you down in a hail of bullets and throaty laughter. You get killed again and again, and always come back for more.

I had no interest in 3D digital animation before Team Fortress 2. It showed me that it can be used for something other than aiming for realism, and dull space-marine-centric shooters. It has colour and style, character and excitement. Every detail matters, and just shows you can always create something new with a common medium.

May your drops be frequent and full of hats.

What Warped Me

Summer 2010

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Just a collection of a few thing I wanted to group together. I always found when I watched cartoons when I was younger, it was the title sequence that sold it to me, if a cartoon had a 'bad' title sequence

Appeal of the Ugly

Summer 2010

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Just another little something I've been having fun with now that Sculpey supplies are ok. Wanted to do something a little more realistic and ugly things are always more interesting than the beautiful and generic. Anyway, will keep you posted of how

Brain Slugs

More Sculpey

Summer 2010

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I had a bit of Super Sculpey left and enjoyed the bit of sculpting I did the last time, so thought I'd have another go. Joe had just done me a rather super avatar, so thought I'd have a go at