After so many things not going to plan during my group project at university I realised how important planning is to anything as well as the importance to sticking to it. It took me back to schools days, back to when I was learning business studies by my legendary business teacher Ms Ballantyne. She taught us the S.M.A.R.T ways to do things in business but essentially it can be applied to anything.
Smart, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Target is the foundations to succeeding in what you want to do well or achieve it.
SMART: has many meanings but in the personally helpful sense here we’re on about the plan being intellectually right and that it makes sense and also to have a point or more reason of actually doing what your planning to do. There’s no point in a company planning to make something that is going to cost more to make then its going to make when sold, unless its for an unprofitable gain.
MEASURABLE: how long is it ideally going to take, can you figure it out and give your self a time scale and stick to it? Do you have any leeway or extra time if something goes wrong or for improvement? If a gaming company went to far over the deadline it could be a case of they don’t have the money to stretch their time scale and risk going bankrupt because they don’t have the income they forecasted from the game that was meant to be released 3 months ago.
ACHIEVABLE: can you actually get it done? Do you have the time and the man power to get the job your setting done? You shouldn’t over estimate something or you can end up having a passive negative effect on all your other plans. First thing we did in the group project was to try and set an achievable sized area for us to do.
REALISTIC: is it something that can even be done, we humans have a great imagination, its been one of our greatest assets to help us develop over the centuries but we still need to be able to tell what’s a good idea from what’s complete madness at the time and era. Otherwise a way of looking at it is do you have the necessary skills and equipment to do your task… a farmer is hardly going to build a NASA space rocket for instance.
TARGET: what is your overall outcome of the plan you are inputting, what must be met in order to finish. Effectively your list of things to do.
From the start of summer I’m planning my own SMART plan to help me achieve more in my yearning to learn and do more for my course as the past to years have seen me do a rather minimal amount due to the lack of a smart plan, so implementing one over summer and setting it right for year 3 will mean I’ll get what I should be doing done if not more. Effectively they’ll be a branch of SMART plans, the major one for the year and the various smaller ones that I’ll make for each individual project.
Thursday 29 April 2010
MULTIPLAYER MODE
In today’s world is a must have for games these days if they want to sell big. We’ve played multiplayer games for millennia’s as human beings, as children and as adults. From hide and seek to stick fighting, British bulldog , football, monopoly the list goes on point is multiplayer games have come in all shapes, sizes, forms and medias, computer games though are the latest thing .
Instinctively man has always strived to do better, strived to survive, strived to conquer… strived to surpass. History shows us that this instinct has lead to many regrettable events as well as a lot of blood shed. So over the years we’ve effectively created less destructive and less dangerous ways to deal with this instinct to eventually more fun then dangerous.
Now as I see it when you’re a kid you play pretend with your friends and you act/rein act a story as it were but strive to win, you however can only pretend and imagine so much though and before computer games came along if you wanted the real experience you’d have to do the real thing, we play war games there were, even still are those who literally went and fought them.
The birth of computer games meant we could finally fulfil this instinct without any risk what so ever part from the occasional thumb strain or crazed friend throwing the controller at you when you beat them., and thanks to different genres and types of games there’s something for everyone real life, rein acting, fantasy and so on. Problem was at the beginning beating a computer by yourself was great for a while but you get used to it, you catch on to it, you know its tactics and after so long its boring you strive for a new challenge and something that cries when you beat it.
And on the 8th day god created multiplayer games and saw it was good. This feature on games has grown exponentially fast and essentially remodelled the gaming world as well as the platforms their played on, from just playing on the same console to connection to friends worldwide, it really is the new age for gaming and with more new ways to interact and compete with your friends always becoming available there’s new ways of satisfying that thirst you’ve got to kick ass.
Left for Dead has got to be one of the newest and latest big hits in the multiplayer gaming world, I’m forever on it as survivor or infected with new people to play against each time you never know what to expect as everyone as what they see as the ideal tactics. Its also good to see that games are in some what way communicating with its players as well as L4D have recently released their own in game blog with new features ready to download. With other big franchises such as COD taking huge advantage of this era you have to wonder what’s next for us and them.
Instinctively man has always strived to do better, strived to survive, strived to conquer… strived to surpass. History shows us that this instinct has lead to many regrettable events as well as a lot of blood shed. So over the years we’ve effectively created less destructive and less dangerous ways to deal with this instinct to eventually more fun then dangerous.
Now as I see it when you’re a kid you play pretend with your friends and you act/rein act a story as it were but strive to win, you however can only pretend and imagine so much though and before computer games came along if you wanted the real experience you’d have to do the real thing, we play war games there were, even still are those who literally went and fought them.
The birth of computer games meant we could finally fulfil this instinct without any risk what so ever part from the occasional thumb strain or crazed friend throwing the controller at you when you beat them., and thanks to different genres and types of games there’s something for everyone real life, rein acting, fantasy and so on. Problem was at the beginning beating a computer by yourself was great for a while but you get used to it, you catch on to it, you know its tactics and after so long its boring you strive for a new challenge and something that cries when you beat it.
And on the 8th day god created multiplayer games and saw it was good. This feature on games has grown exponentially fast and essentially remodelled the gaming world as well as the platforms their played on, from just playing on the same console to connection to friends worldwide, it really is the new age for gaming and with more new ways to interact and compete with your friends always becoming available there’s new ways of satisfying that thirst you’ve got to kick ass.
Left for Dead has got to be one of the newest and latest big hits in the multiplayer gaming world, I’m forever on it as survivor or infected with new people to play against each time you never know what to expect as everyone as what they see as the ideal tactics. Its also good to see that games are in some what way communicating with its players as well as L4D have recently released their own in game blog with new features ready to download. With other big franchises such as COD taking huge advantage of this era you have to wonder what’s next for us and them.
SECOND YEAR
SECOND YEAR, TERMINATION OR CONTIUATION?
Ok so end of another year at university and yet again I‘ve found myself in almost the same situation as the end of year one and rushing to get things done. Though I’ve managed to keep on top of more things then previously I believe I’ve realised that I am just not pushing myself or more encouraging myself enough to learn more or do more, inside I want to, like the end of year one my real passion, my real love for the subject really surfaces because I really focus and motivate myself to do it and enjoy it, after all my agreement with myself is to do something I enjoy. So question is I guess what’s happened in the second year to cause a repeat performance of year; after all I am not going to get to do what if I just keep scraping by.
Now don’t get me wrong I’ve learned a lot this year towards making my future but not really as I expected. To my thinking the second year was designed to be a 50/50 learning curve i.e. 50% is your discovering things by yourself, teaching it to yourself and then putting it into practice within your work and then the other 50% be taught by the course and its lectures and to be honest it doesn’t really feel like its met anywhere near that target. Don’t get me wrong Mike’s words of wisdom and intellect are brilliant and really helpful and Chris’s way of thinking when it comes to art is brilliant and brings new grounds of way of doing things compared to what I was traditionally taught in school, however only getting a one hour tutorial from Heather when were scheduled 10 to 5 once a week, when life models don’t show for life drawing and when your only hour a week with the course leader is cancelled due to numerous interviewees you being to wonder why bother, its kind of like ‘well if that’s all they do and get paid for it then I don’t need to much either’ if you understand me. Back in college my lectures would devote themselves to all of us and work really hard to teach us and because of that I felt it only fair that I work just as hard if not harder, I wanted to be them, doing a job and being passionate about it. See to me if your going to plan something on a time slot that’s already taken reschedule one of the two for another time not completely cancel it numerous time. If your original plan session can’t proceed then compromise more, teach us something else we’d find useful or take us out to somewhere interesting and base a lesson round that. And finally I’m not saying do a 7hour tutorial but break up the day with time where you go round the students to see how they’re doing, its always nice to get someone who’s experienced in what your doing to critique what your doing and set you in a good direction and then use the other time for teaching. I know it sounds quiet abrupt but I feel it just disappointed me when I felt like we were missing out on things vital to our future, which in turn seemed to make me lose my passion for what I enjoy doing, at what point I stopped going to life drawing because of the consecutive times we’d not had a life model and not done anything else as a lesson plan instead so I felt like I was wasting my time going.
Year 2 has been a big eye opener though, I’ve finally come to realise all the sacrifices I must make as well as the amount of planning I need to make from the very beginning and stick to succeed and come year 3 things need to change. Even though I’ve just ranted about what I feel was a lack of lectural input I’m looking forward to the independence that is expected of us in year 3, even though I haven’t thus far shown much independence I’ve come to realise that after working in teams this year as well as the previous issues that you can’t always fully rely on others but instead must do extra work yourself and strive to reach your goal. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy working in teams, yes the team I was working in had some major floors but it was my biggest learning curve of the year and I found it interesting what can be produced when people come together with ideas and designs. I also discovered with the project that planning is a major part of time management, ideal and realistic planning that is, taking three weeks to compile an asset between two people whilst the majority of the rest of the team do practically nothing is neither ideal nor realistic. This then has a knock on effect of which was shown with our group where the major time consuming parts of the project had to be condensed and rushed meaning the ‘finished’ pieced was poor and did not meet the brief. Though a downer in respects I don’t let this partial failure deter me from working in teams in the future to come as I still found it an enjoyable experience even if there was stressful times.
The only other thing that has had a negative effect on my university work production is Sainsbury’s. My mum always used to say wait till you’ve got a full-time job karl and see how easy life is then…. Pufffft she should try doing a full-time university course whilst having a job and also trying to fit a social life somewhere in there to, its not easy. This year I tried to arrange a transfer to work in a store a Leicester so that I might still do university work at the weekends after work however with the present economic climate this was not possible and I couldn’t afford to quit as I need the income to afford university so I’ve been stuck in the same circumstances as year 1 leading to a very similar end to unfortunately. Fortunately arrangements have been made so this does not occur for a 3rd.
So sumatively year 2 has essentially been a repeat of year 1 of both positive and negative proportions. Negatively I’ve aloud Sainsbury’s to interfere again with university and aloud myself to depend to much on others which in turn effected my work output. Positively I’ve learned more and hit a big realisation… that I have a true craving passion for this subject, though it does not show in my efforts really so far this will change, this year has been the kick in the ass to get me rolling again and I’ve put into a place a new life plan to majorly accommodate this new key factor in my life.
For starters over summer I plan to learn and develop my skills in 3dmodeling, engine handling, digital painting as well as development of my traditional art by travelling and visiting interesting and inspirational places, I want to become more independent over summer in readiness for third year and to stop myself thinking that I must rely on others including the lectures to get things done, it needs to become more of a natural part of my daily life.
I’ve also already arranged a transfer to a Leicester store for Sainsbury’s so that I don’t lose time over the weekend that could be spent on developing my skills further whilst also not losing my source of income.
Then my final actions to put in place will be at the start of the new year of creating an idealistic and realistic plan of my own for the year and sticking to it no matter what, whilst always continuing to grow my passion and knowledge of the game art course. I’d actually like to look into working alongside the lecturers more as I’ve an interest in teaching and doing so may help me towards this interest.
All that I need to do now is get into third year…..
Ok so end of another year at university and yet again I‘ve found myself in almost the same situation as the end of year one and rushing to get things done. Though I’ve managed to keep on top of more things then previously I believe I’ve realised that I am just not pushing myself or more encouraging myself enough to learn more or do more, inside I want to, like the end of year one my real passion, my real love for the subject really surfaces because I really focus and motivate myself to do it and enjoy it, after all my agreement with myself is to do something I enjoy. So question is I guess what’s happened in the second year to cause a repeat performance of year; after all I am not going to get to do what if I just keep scraping by.
Now don’t get me wrong I’ve learned a lot this year towards making my future but not really as I expected. To my thinking the second year was designed to be a 50/50 learning curve i.e. 50% is your discovering things by yourself, teaching it to yourself and then putting it into practice within your work and then the other 50% be taught by the course and its lectures and to be honest it doesn’t really feel like its met anywhere near that target. Don’t get me wrong Mike’s words of wisdom and intellect are brilliant and really helpful and Chris’s way of thinking when it comes to art is brilliant and brings new grounds of way of doing things compared to what I was traditionally taught in school, however only getting a one hour tutorial from Heather when were scheduled 10 to 5 once a week, when life models don’t show for life drawing and when your only hour a week with the course leader is cancelled due to numerous interviewees you being to wonder why bother, its kind of like ‘well if that’s all they do and get paid for it then I don’t need to much either’ if you understand me. Back in college my lectures would devote themselves to all of us and work really hard to teach us and because of that I felt it only fair that I work just as hard if not harder, I wanted to be them, doing a job and being passionate about it. See to me if your going to plan something on a time slot that’s already taken reschedule one of the two for another time not completely cancel it numerous time. If your original plan session can’t proceed then compromise more, teach us something else we’d find useful or take us out to somewhere interesting and base a lesson round that. And finally I’m not saying do a 7hour tutorial but break up the day with time where you go round the students to see how they’re doing, its always nice to get someone who’s experienced in what your doing to critique what your doing and set you in a good direction and then use the other time for teaching. I know it sounds quiet abrupt but I feel it just disappointed me when I felt like we were missing out on things vital to our future, which in turn seemed to make me lose my passion for what I enjoy doing, at what point I stopped going to life drawing because of the consecutive times we’d not had a life model and not done anything else as a lesson plan instead so I felt like I was wasting my time going.
Year 2 has been a big eye opener though, I’ve finally come to realise all the sacrifices I must make as well as the amount of planning I need to make from the very beginning and stick to succeed and come year 3 things need to change. Even though I’ve just ranted about what I feel was a lack of lectural input I’m looking forward to the independence that is expected of us in year 3, even though I haven’t thus far shown much independence I’ve come to realise that after working in teams this year as well as the previous issues that you can’t always fully rely on others but instead must do extra work yourself and strive to reach your goal. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy working in teams, yes the team I was working in had some major floors but it was my biggest learning curve of the year and I found it interesting what can be produced when people come together with ideas and designs. I also discovered with the project that planning is a major part of time management, ideal and realistic planning that is, taking three weeks to compile an asset between two people whilst the majority of the rest of the team do practically nothing is neither ideal nor realistic. This then has a knock on effect of which was shown with our group where the major time consuming parts of the project had to be condensed and rushed meaning the ‘finished’ pieced was poor and did not meet the brief. Though a downer in respects I don’t let this partial failure deter me from working in teams in the future to come as I still found it an enjoyable experience even if there was stressful times.
The only other thing that has had a negative effect on my university work production is Sainsbury’s. My mum always used to say wait till you’ve got a full-time job karl and see how easy life is then…. Pufffft she should try doing a full-time university course whilst having a job and also trying to fit a social life somewhere in there to, its not easy. This year I tried to arrange a transfer to work in a store a Leicester so that I might still do university work at the weekends after work however with the present economic climate this was not possible and I couldn’t afford to quit as I need the income to afford university so I’ve been stuck in the same circumstances as year 1 leading to a very similar end to unfortunately. Fortunately arrangements have been made so this does not occur for a 3rd.
So sumatively year 2 has essentially been a repeat of year 1 of both positive and negative proportions. Negatively I’ve aloud Sainsbury’s to interfere again with university and aloud myself to depend to much on others which in turn effected my work output. Positively I’ve learned more and hit a big realisation… that I have a true craving passion for this subject, though it does not show in my efforts really so far this will change, this year has been the kick in the ass to get me rolling again and I’ve put into a place a new life plan to majorly accommodate this new key factor in my life.
For starters over summer I plan to learn and develop my skills in 3dmodeling, engine handling, digital painting as well as development of my traditional art by travelling and visiting interesting and inspirational places, I want to become more independent over summer in readiness for third year and to stop myself thinking that I must rely on others including the lectures to get things done, it needs to become more of a natural part of my daily life.
I’ve also already arranged a transfer to a Leicester store for Sainsbury’s so that I don’t lose time over the weekend that could be spent on developing my skills further whilst also not losing my source of income.
Then my final actions to put in place will be at the start of the new year of creating an idealistic and realistic plan of my own for the year and sticking to it no matter what, whilst always continuing to grow my passion and knowledge of the game art course. I’d actually like to look into working alongside the lecturers more as I’ve an interest in teaching and doing so may help me towards this interest.
All that I need to do now is get into third year…..
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