Chris Goodswen, 3D artist, twitter@tincow, portfolio: http://www.tincow.net/
On the 8th of October 10 I was fortunate enough to have the chance to meet an ‘ex’ student of NUCA ‘Chris Goodswen’ who had studied Game Art & Design at foundation level, before he moved on to the BA(Hons). Like most people on this course, we all enjoy playing games and are also creative people, the best of both worlds.
Chris rather enjoyed designing 2D Characters but at the time didn’t know a lot about 3D design and to design characters for the gaming world he needed to know both, which he achieved. Chris then went on to study the BA(Hons) Game Art & Design.
He focused on the popular culture and fashion of the 1980’s with a twist of fairy tale horror. Chris found himself enjoying using software’s such as ‘Mudbox, ‘Maya’ and ‘Zbrush’ to create 3D characters. After he’d graduated Chris then went on to develop his skills at the University of Abertay, in Dundee to do a Master course in professional game play. This really challenged Chris as he only had ten weeks to create a working game and if it wasn’t bad enough he was responsible for all the artwork where he had weekly visits with harsh criticism.
This was the final outcome of the ten weeks. ‘QUAD XNA’
After completing the first semester at Abertay Chris now had a team of six to create another working game, this game was called ‘Trap Inc’. Again he was responsible for the artwork etc, Character design. Only this time whist creating this game and these characters he used software called ‘Unreal Development Kit’ or ‘UDK’ for short. However whilst developing the game Goodswen, he had a very strict brief including the look and feel of the artwork and characters, this often meant that he'd spend hours perfecting the designs to fit the brief.
'Trap Inc.'
In the final semester, Chris was working in a team of 14, yet again he had to create another working game only this time there was to be a public showing. The game was called ‘Mount Dash’ again the game was built on a “UDK’ engine over ten weeks just like ‘Trap Inc.’ ‘Mount Dash’s’ target audience was young children so the game had to appeal to them.
'Mount Dash'
The game was a huge success, after doing everything to get him where he is today, Chris has gained valuable skills and abilities with working with both 2 and 3D designs. These days Chris is a freelancer helping out with various games and Character designs within the gaming Industry. If I’ve learnt anything from having this lecture it’s that to become a Character designer in 2D & 3D design I’ve got to gain an understanding of anatomy and how people move in order to create the human form.
My personal gaming history
My first experience with games was when I was about nine when every time I visited my granddad because he owned an ‘Atari 2600’ which is famous because it was one of the first video game consoles you could play pong and of course he owned a copy of it, so used to sit there for hours playing either against the console or with my cousins but after a couple of months playing this basic video game I grew tired of it, it wasn’t until I was eleven where my parents bought me a second hand ‘Play station’ along with games like ‘Tomb Raider’ and ‘2002 FIFA World Cup’. I rather enjoyed playing ‘Tomb Raider’ compared to ‘FIFA World Cup’ because I felt it was more challenging solving puzzles and shooting various enemies, but this was shortly lived as my parents especially my mother wasn’t keen on violence so it was taken away so there I was left with ‘2002 FIFA World Cup’, not impressed.
So every now and again, I’d steal it back sit there for hours on end until it was light outside then put the game back where I found it and no one was none the wiser, being eleven at the time I thought it was genius. A couple of years later I asked my parents if they would buy me an Playstation 2 after seeing an advert on the television for my twelfth birthday, finally the day of my birthday I was given a Playstation 2 with the game Sonic heroes not really being in to the whole Sonic phenomena I was really fussed about playing it but being the only Playsation 2 game at the time I didn’t really have much choice, months later I had a large growing game library with games such as Splinter Cell, Tony Hawks Underground 2 and Stuntman which I rather enjoyed until my Play station broken, at the time being twelve I didn’t really fully understand why it had broken. It wasn’t until my thirteen birthday I asked for xBox instead of another Playstation 2 the console came with classic xBox games such as “Halo” and “Ford Racing 3” having never played a racing game before I started to get into it however after about a couple of months playing it, I just frustrated with it because I always ended up finishing last or third, even had steering wheel controller, just found the driving round and round a track rather tedious and not really enjoyable. Started looking at other games that were out at that time and ‘Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’, which at the time looked amazing both graphical and as a game, however I could only dream of playing it because of my age but thankfully I had contacts who bought me it much to my mother’s disgust. After playing ‘GTA’ for days on end I fell in love with the whole free roaming virtual world experience.
From that moment where I started driving round, doing drive by's and steal random vehicles I fell in love with the game, I think I simply enjoyed the fact that you could do whatever, go whatever wasn’t all linear in three massive cites each one different to the rest, by playing this game I feel that its greatly influenced me in what games I buy and play today. As I grew up and technology and graphics in games changed greatly I decided it was time to buy myself an xBox 360 with the games ‘GTA IV’ and ‘Fallout 3’. Hence why my personal favourite games would probably have to be, GTA IV, Fallout 3, Mainly sandbox games’ meaning it’s a nonlinear game play present players i.e. me with challenges that can be completed in a number of different sequences, giving me the player more freedom to explore the game. I prefer this to a linear game where I have to follow a fixed route or sequence of challenges. First ever games I played as a kid was generally racing games such as ‘Ford Racing 3’, ‘Forza Motorsport’ and ‘Burnout’ on xBox. As I’ve got older I’ve drawn away from driving games where you compete with others to reach the finish line first, personally I don’t think it’s enjoyable, as I’m not the best driver and end up finishing last, where as when playing a free roaming game, like Fallout 3 it really doesn't matter if you end up first or not and to me that's me more enjoyable than competing against other players.
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