The Sims 3 Review

I’ve been playing Sims 3 for about a month now on and off. It’s surprisingly easy to loose yourself in the virtual towns of Riverview and Sunset valley, controlling the lives of Sims of your creation. You feel like Christof in the Truman Show, looking down on your little virtual town and playing out major events in your Sim’s lives. You can even leave them for a while and just watch. Sims default at a high level of free will and so can take care of themselves and their needs as well as make their own friends. All they really need is a push in the right direction in terms of career advancement and the pursuit of their lifetime wish. Other neighbours will age and die along with your Sims and after a time, new Sims will appear. It’s a living world, a test tube reality with all the variables under your control.

The major upgrade from previous versions is the ability to move freely around town and the neighbourhood. It’s a big change from being constricted to the square lot for most of your game time with long loading screens whenever you want to send your Sims out on the town. Here you feel free to send your Sims anywhere; you can have one Sim watching the sunset on the beach, another in the park, making new friends around a picnic, another at a friends house catching up on the local town gossip while you watch them, seamlessly flicking from one to the other without a loading screen in sight.

Your Sims are individuals, they have different personalities from one another which effects, among other things, how they interact with others, their fears, their actions and reactions, their skills and their careers. You can combine several personality traits from a choice of more than 60 and have a Sim who is an evil, family orientated coward with a good sense of humour who loves the outdoors… or a hot-headed, genius vegetarian who is a bit of a workaholic and hates children. You can make Sims of people you know and watch as their lives play out. A friend of mine was surprised by how close to the description of evil she really was, so we gave her Sim that trait and watched as she frequently became ‘fiendishly delighted’ at the misfortune of others.

You can design everything in your Sims lives from their clothes to their wall paper, building houses from the ground up, designing and furnishing your dream home while experimenting with architecture along the way. You are no longer constrained to maxis-created textures, you can create your own in game and share all your creations, from homes to Sims with others on the online exchange. The game definitely caters for creatives.

Overall the improvement form earlier versions is a successful one with the game play increasing massively in size with the whole town to explore. While the graphics leap might not be as big as the leap from The Sims to The Sims 2, there are still improvements. Being able to see into the distance, watch the shadows track across the floor as the sun moves across the sky and sets all add to a richer environment. It leaves plenty of room for improvement however- you still can’t see and control your Sims as they work, only the building that they work in for hours at a time. If EA made that improvement while still keeping it interesting, that would be the next step. In the mean time, the Sims still dominates the charts and is sure to please Sims-fans all around the world for a year or two while we wait for the next expansion pack instalment…

Alice in wonderland teaser trailer!

Ahhh, I can't wait!

Clicky

Nimbus's tracks

I've been chatting to Nimbus over the net and he's sent me a few tracks from his upcoming album for his band, Crawlspace. They're all really atmospheric and fairly ambient, when I listen to them, my mind creates clear images of locations and atmospheres that the tracks remind me of. If a track can give me that clear an image, I'm thinking about what it can do to the audience... It would be very useful to have a soundtrack that creates such a clear sense of atmosphere and location. The tracks have really inspired me.

Best of all.. Nimbus said he'd love to collaborate on a soundtrack! :D He also said he could adapt any of the tracks he's sent me to suit a project I'm working on.

The album is quite dark, with a theme of "virus/disease/apocalypse" so I would have to think hard on who I want to Target the animation at. If I targeted it for film festivals, the subject matter wouldn't matter as much as it would for say a TV advert.

Here's a visualisation I made whilst listening to some of the tracks (Industrial ambiance 1-8) they gave me images of empty cities and warehouses, rusty pipes, filthy walls and floors, an approaching danger...

Work Experience Corispondance

I've got in touch with a small production company making a film in the west midlands. Filming starts in september, I'm so excited!

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Thats brilliant news, thank-you for your prompt response, will be in touch soon with more details!

-Louise
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Hi Louise,

Thanks for updating me on the filming date, I don't get back to uni till the start of October so I should be completly free in september. When I get back I will still have at least 2 free days a week. I live locally so travel won't be a problem.

Looking forward to working with you too :)

-Lauren
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Hello,

My names Louise Wood and i'm working for/with Mark on the film Bogo and Flit. This is just a quick email to firstly welcoming you to the team and keep you updated. Although exact roles have not been allocated yet, this will be done nearer the time, you will more than likely be working alongside me.

Okay, things you need to know, the date of filming has now been pushed back to the 14th september but dont worry you will know what you need to do before then. If you could give me your september timetable or list of commitments we can work around it. I can let them know location and times as soon as i do!!!. In the meantime tell everyone about Bogo and Flit!!!

I think thats about it for now! I look forward to hearing and working with you!

Take care

Louise.

Musical Friends

I'm begining to get in touch with old friends of the musically tallented in order to establish connections for possible collaborations.

I spoke to an old friend yesterday from sixthform who said he'd be willing to produce music or a soundtrack for a project I'm working on. He'd already been asking people from his uni whether he could make music for their films. I'll get some songs from him and see whether his style of music fits in with the project I choose.

Also back in art college I made a music video for a band down in brighton who I'm sure would be willing to collaborate on a project or two. They have a rather distinctive style and their tracks are more like soundtracks than music anyway. The drummer, Nimbus is intrested in animation too, so I'll ask.

Children's Animation at BCU

Here's the final group animation for the Audiences and Communication module.




Magic to children has always been exciting, at least it was when I was younger. Our target audience was tricky as it was to children, the industry and perhaps even to prospective students. To appeal to the industry and students we used as many different types of animation as we could to broadcast the variety of animation that takes place at the university. To appeal to the children, we made the ident into a magic show, the stage and opening curtains hopefully having the effect of drawing the audience in and wanting to see more. Origionally, throuought the ident, there was supposed to be magic of all shapes, sizes and forms spewing from the magician's hat causing mayhem. In the end we ran out of time, but it can always be added later.


You can also download it here. Sorry about the file format, that's Kyle's doing.

12 steps to a healthy project

Looking back on past projects has helped me a lot with figuring out some sort of strategy/ pipeline that can be used for future projects.

Strategy

1. Research: Gather as much information on the chosen topic as possible, and plenty of reference imagery, video, sound.
   
2. Target audience: Choose a target audience that I want to focus on ad research as much as possible about them, look at past experiences when I was that age and draw from them.
3. Objectives: Write a brief based on the target audience, or define a series of objectives from a brief that will define what I want to achieve and how I might achieve it.
4. Treatment: What is the mood of the film? Decide on the look/ feel/ atmosphere/ genre, base this on the needs of the target audience.
5. Story: Decide on the story (if there is to be one), I can get inspiration from anywhere as Miles McLeod emphasised. All I need to do is look.
6. Script/ Storyboard: Refine the story and decide on the shots and 'camera' angles needed. Get inspiration from films and look at how they portray atmosphere/ hierarchy/ action/ emotion through the types of shots that are used and the speed at which it cuts. Remember what I defined in my treatment and objectives. Make the storyboard into an animatic and refine where needed.
   
7. Design: Design a character (if there is to be one) that fits in with the design of the landscape and surroundings. Look at the work of other animators and artists to find a style that gives the effect I want and that I'm capable of animating in.
8. Experiment: Test different techniques. Do they work? Do they fit in with the assigned timescale? Do they create the effect I was after?
9. Reference: Create reference videos of the animation needed, test out my acting skills in front of a camera till I have good quality references for all the character animation.
10. Animate: Substitute the animatic scenes for animated scenes as I progress, ask for feedback along the way by peers/tutors/online forums/professionals.
11. Render/Refine/Edit: Make sure the final animation is of the best quality compression for the method of delivery. Is it for the web? For the big screen? Is there anything that needs improving before release?
    
12. Reflect: Ask for feedback from everywhere the film is shown, wherever that may be. Learn from any constructive criticism.