Wheres Bernards watch when you need it

Recognise this image?? seen this sort of epic messiness before? is it a photo of your office? if it please don't post it on the net nobodies interested in your failings. To the blog yes hello again I'm here to mildly entertain while at the same time boring you with the most amount of bollocks i can spew out about this magical and wondrous topic we all love call... ohhh its time management *puts away party poppers*.

Time is precious, for those of you confused by the title you either had no childhood or you were not sad enough to watch it in the first place either way this daft looking kid was possibly the best time keeper of all time unfortunately he is not you! Not to rain on your parade or anything... Any who none of that matters this blog is topical and i will try my best to keep it that way.

So the topic well Bernard's watch stopped time and there is not one person who could no really do with it as there never seems to be enough hours in the day these days.

Time management is a skill at the end of the day. It does require techniques to master it and id go as far as saying that time management is possibly the most challenging aspect of uni life it cannot be spoon fed as it revolves around your lifestyle and you have to self direct it taking several key factors in to mind that allow for maximum productivity and that's what i plan on discussing.

So the first key factor is the obvious one 'Organisation'!! Without being organised then its completely pointless even thinking about time management as this magical factor is the key to getting those extra hours playing Call of Duty or getting drunk you know whatever floats boat and tickles your pickle. So to get organised well its actually the easiest to do but the hardest to keep in my opinion, it is really all down to how slobbish you are as this comes naturally to neat freaks as i like to call them. Having all your work categorised and easily accessible immediately saves time as it prevents the annoying thumbling around desperately searching for that one important document or whatever it may be in a sea chaos that wastes unnecessary time.

Once over that road block its to the number one killer when it comes to time management, this is of course distractions! We all know this one is hard especially with game art students as there is a tendency to be an attraction to boycott work in favour of game playing shenanigans and yes probably with the mentality of if its time enjoyed then its not time wasted. To get past that its quite difficult and needs allot of will power. This will power is the second key to efficiency and maximum productivity. The best way to get over this is to make sure that days are planned out with a fair share of breaks where these activity's can be done, though naturally sometimes things interrupt plans and everything goes a bit pear shaped and this cannot be helped but it does not warrant a panic.

When it comes to arranging and sorting out how to organise your day in a readable manor it really depends on what tools you have to display it. With allot of phones these days heading in the personal organiser direction it gives that option of not using old fashioned paper to organise as obviously its more portable than your average sketchpad. However if you are a broke ass student and living only marginally better than your bog standard pikey then naturally the sketchpad may be the better choice.

As you can see above i have posted my timetable for a few weeks ago thanks to the magic that is the picture button. Now yes it is the old fashioned way of doing it with paper and no I'm not quite a pikey but anyways i just find this method the better of the two for me as my phone plays up like a trouble child on crack. To the point, I'm not saying you should lay yours out like this but it just to give you an idea. When making a timetable it is crucial to consider priority especially if it involves deadlines and this priority is the third key factor of time management.

Fortunately between the time of me writing the above and writing this i have created a tool for creating timetables and printing them and yes sure i could have deleted the text above or rewritten it but for some reason i have a fear of the delete button probably due to me deleting several important work documents on my friends fathers computer when i was younger i soon associated that button with clip around the ear. Its been made with game art in mind and contains a preset system that is fully customisable. Yes it looks a little ugly at the moment but i was thinking printing efficiency before remember that most people don't care ha. So i will pretty it up soon with a more fancy template.


http://www.warpedoutentertainment.co.uk/images/timetable.swf
This brings me onto tools. As with this little program i have made tools can help save time and organise out your week with ease and the easier this process is made the more efficient a person can be with their time and tasks.

Tools are handy for what ever job you have to complete and researching new tools is well worth the extra time as they can benefit you in the long run and often produce better results in half the time. For example i recently spent 2 nights drilling all of zbrush's and cs4's features into my head and sure this effected my timetable, in fact its made it so i have not completed a task in time but now that extra knowledge will help me produce much better work. So taking that time out is immensely worth wild.

To skip back a while before i went off on this tangent i was about to discuss the third key factor this of course being priority.. Now i know your not thick but i still have to write about this. Prioritising work is extremely important. You don't want to spend time on something that isn't necessary straight away so sometimes its best to get it done in the order it was first set! Naturally though ability can play its part in disturbing this because not everyone is good at everything and to achieve the level of others in a subject it may take more time but this is usually balanced out by another subject being easier to handle, so this is the fall back subject and probably gets left till last.

This could also work the other way around of course meaning that the easy one is out of the way first relieving some pressure and allowing focus to be concentrated on just the hard topic (oh no I have gone cross eyed!)

So the main 3 factors to remember when it comes to time management are Organise,Prioritise and Will power and though i didn't write this blog in that order this is the order it should be in but my main issue which i need to work on is organise :) and apart from this blog this is also reflected in my messy sketchbook. As you can also see i have posted a picture left illustrating it in a way that gamers should find visually appeasing. So we all have things we need to work on and now is the time to sort it out before it gets to much and our heads explode or worse!!!

Oh yes while on the matter of heads exploding there is one more thing! When using time management to arrange your life please please please dont forget your 'you time'!! It is extremely important to relax as a 'burn out' can end with you further behind on work or complete mental collapse which of course nobody wants! So yes dont overwork, be sensible with time!

Right and that's the end of another mind blowing blog entry by me if it didn't have the desired effect and blow you mind then its likely that you were thinking about blowing you mind in another way out of bored-ness and for this i apologize... deeply... thanks for reading bye!!!

Jingle bells assessment smells!!! please please go away!!

Aha another term and half the uni gone what am i going to do this jolly Christmas holiday well probably panic actually.

I don't think there is one person in the class this year who can claim that they haven't felt the pinch that is the epic torture of deadlines and immense workloads, yes as the stress increases the blood rushing towards my head gifts me with a throbbing ache on the side of my temple.

The only way to work efficiently is to wrap myself in a self created world of white like a blank canvas with nothing but a single focal point (this of course being my laptop).

The need for silence during these times is always broken by some poor sap who ends up on the receiving end of my verbal abuse and outburst in some vain attempt to release some steam which always results in a frenzy and inevitably more stress from the lack of work produced during the time wasted shouting at these people who are disturbing my Zen state.

The purpose of that rant was merely another form of stress release thanks blogger for wasting my time *slams keyboard* lol....

Lay down on the couch please! oops wrong one..

Hello peoples so this is my first blog of the new uni year and already finding it very difficult to find topics to discuss or perhaps its my general fear of text ahhhhhhh i can see it now cant you?..
Any who this first blog is about why i chose the artist and masterpiece i replicated rather poorly i might add.

I have never really been bothered to study artists work its always been if i see a piece i like then ill appreciate it but it wouldnt make me want to go hmm i wonder what else this artist has done and also what his background was. So from that mentality i have never really known many artists by name except for of course the obvious ones which even then i tend to get mixed up though i have never quite got Leonardo da Vinci and leonardo dicaprio mixed up like my friend managed to in school *epic failure*.

There are a few names that i did know of though mostly because of my college days and the one that popped up and seemed to register in my mind was Lucian Freud. Im sure i managed to get him mixed up with bizzarely incestrial professor named Sigmund Freud a few times back then but now recently i have taken more notice of his work and its a name that unlike others seems to have been etched into my head.

The piece i chose ' Naked young girl' hard not to sound perverted with that but it was the first image i saw in college in what was during a brief spell of traditional art lessons. At the time i thought the level of detail was great and it never really went much further than that, but now when in mikes lecture a few weeks ago when one of his pieces came up i realised this was one of many fanstastic pieces of work at such a high level of detail and attention. For the first time i started paying attention to how he portrayed the contours in the face and brought as much shape and depth as possible forward.

So this lead me back to that picture i saw in college (clever way round saying the title there) and before i never would have dreamed about attempting to reproduce this fantastic piece of art but thats what made it interesting as it was something i never thought i could do. Naturally i know my final piece isnt no where near on the same par as the original but its something that has spurred me on to make me follow his example and try to get the most detail possible out of a painting by focusing on the finer details and contours and this applys to all types of paintings not just portraits.

I learnt alot from doing this and i think during the christmas break i may just attempt to replicate another of his works or perhaps try using the style in a self portrait.
Well anyways thanks for taking time to read this laters people!

The yearly reflection and feedback...

Well the end of the uni year is upon us and its now at least for me that the work begins in what i feel was a rather slacking year for me and all i can do is apologize for that. Year 2 will be the start or the real course and i will be ready for it.

In this blog i realise i am suppose to say about any enhancements and such and happily i will. The one i have been thinking for a while now is wednesdays with Mike. They are good and the speeches and talks are great but what i find is the talks in the morning really motivate me to work but then i watch the film in the afternoon and depending on the type of film all of that driver gets truly zaped out of me. I know im not the only one who feels like this because ive discussed it with a few other students and its why at times unless its a film ive been really wanting to see i have missed the film in the afternoon purposely to continue working. I realise the importance of the films so i normally either borrow them off a friend or rent them out for the night and this system works for me quite well.

So the thougght is switching them around but i can see how this would also be a bad idea and to make it work it would need a little more thinking.

I cant complain about mondays as the layout is fine and everything seems to work the only thing i would say is that the tutorials are done before most people start the work but then again everyone develops their own way of doing things and the new method can be tried on the next model.

ahh visual design its no secret that this isnt my favourite subject lol but its a necessity and once again it seems to work the only annoying thing is that people have switched groups unbalancing the numbers but thats the students faults not the tutors but definatly need to find a way to keep that balance.

Right sorry ajavascript:void(0)bout the ranting but its little thoughts some of which are obvious and some which are not so obvious. To the learning stuff well i think what was writen in the blog brief was a good structure for next year and really until its in action i cant really comment on them but to get another artist in like ben mathis again would be ace and more sculpting is a great idea as it is certainly helping me with form and is definaly rubbing off on to my 3d skills. Not to mention its jst nice to see a 2d sketch come to like in real life 3d form.

Well i know i havent been much help but i tried and thats all that matters, later people..

The scale of this industry...

To continue from the poor title above, the scale of this industry or branch of media as some would put it is getting increasingly bigger. This is displayed in many ways but i have just been made aware of one way which shows not only how much it has expanded but also the seriousness of it all as a business in modern society.

The GDC is basically what i am refering to. It stands for Game Developers Conference and spans all the career roots and what exactly is happening within them. Any people who go along to this go to either see the latest developements in there fields or to see the latest development in the industry in general giving game companys a chance to flex their muscles and display new engines or technologys they may be developing.

Ive watched a videos off the net now and have seen some of the impressive techs that have been developed for realtime heres one to do with lighting that really impressed me as i consider lighting one of the fundimental aspects of a games realism.


Concluding this im really looking forward to seeing what companys have conjured up, personally im hoping for a new point and click technology to add a boom in that area *sigh* i can hope.

life changing or career building???

This is by far the easiest blog to write as i knew before i started the course as to what i stood to gain from it.. For everyone this may be similer or completely different but we all have one common reason for being at uni and that is to pursue a career in computer games.

For me i knew in college that i wanted to be a modeller, and ive gotten pretty good at it and at texturing and rigging as well as animation. But i lack in the drawing area for similar reasons as was mentioned in one of mikes talks about the educational system taking the creativity out of us well sadly as far as drawing was concerned i was one of them and even more sadly it caused me to lose interest in it full stop.

I have already gained from uni in a sense that i am now doing drawing and although im not great im improving all the time and thats one of the things i hope to achieve in the 3 years. I know i wont be picasso but it helps me with my abbition to be a modeller as it gives me a firm understanding of form, in other words if i can draw it and understand the form then i can definatly model it in a 3d package. Of course this also helps my texturing ability as well.

In all every aspect of the course is helping me to improve and move forward to my goal and hopefully by the end of the 3rd year i will be exactly where i want to be.

Games in education dont mock it plumbers, it does exist!!

This is a fairly new concept in education and yes is mocked by most educators who mindlessly do not understand the aspects of game development.
The problem video game educators have is firstly its a forever changing industry and therefore the education and expectations are always changing because of this it makes it a very dynamic subject to teach.

The dilema is mostly down to two different qualitys that companys go for.. One of the qualitys is that companys want highly trained staff and this applys for both artists and programmers alike. However there are other companies that would prefer more creative employees with more tradition skills along the lines of fine art oppposed to studying specifically for games. This obviously posers a issue for game educators as they have to have a fine balance in teaching between the two.

The real question is which one is right and which is wrong, well neither of them are wrong as both contain valuable assets that companys crave so a mix of both is the perfect solution tho obviously this means that companys only looking for one quality may choose to employ someone who has just studyied one of them that they favour instead of a potential employee who has studied both.

When put like that it just shows how hard it must be for a course leader to decide the direction of the course and what to teach and what not to teach.

On a personal level i think the fine balance between the two is the right direction it provides the essencial skills to a reasonably high level while also exploring the traditional aspects or art, but its no secret that in the industry experience is often favoured over fresh meat no matter how talented the person may be but everyone has to start somewhere hey?...

Sounds good to me... sound and video games...

Ahhh i still remember now the crappy mono tones that came from the tv as i turned on my amiga. How far games has come as an industry is evident in every aspect but with sounds its one of the few factors that is almost never recognised.

Its evolution from mono to multi channels was similar to that of the mobile phone howeever it all happened at a much more rapid rate. I remember Mario back on the snes, the sound was aweful with only 5 channels but then it was released on snes in stereo and that was basically like the leap from mono phones to poly phones except there was no hype as graphics always overshadow every other aspect. Further advancements have now brought it up to CD quality but it has taken many many years to reach that.

To the main point though, how is sound used in games?? Well sound is definatly one of the key elements for realism in video games. It gives the ambience and life feel perhaps in todays consoles it gives more of an essense of real life than graphics do. Sounds in games range from theme music to speech to background noises as the channels and quality increases the realism will only get sharper, deeper and more believable.

These days many composers dedicate themselfs strictly to games and i have met one of them in person at a show hosted every year called 'Video Games Live' which i much recommend as its a great show. The Composer that runs the show is Tommy Tallarico. Hes the most established composer in the world and has worked on hundreds of titles spanning around 18 years from prince of persia to lesser titles such as pacman world.

There is one sound from a video game that always comes into my mind as being literally music to my ears and that is the satisfying little tune played on the broken sword titles when you get the puzzle right ahh reminds me of many frustrating hours at the same time though.

Vroom Vroom Game Engines

Many gamers overlook this core factor of games development unless of course you have a keen interest in the programming of a game instead of the visual side. The game engine is just like a car engine, it brings all the components together to work as one but it also acts as the brain of the game. Its pre-coded with scenarios and as the player acts them out it takes the appropriate measures.

A game engine is made up of many key elements and i shell list the main ones and how the are used.

The first is the obvious and that is 'meshes'. Anyone who knows anything about game development knows what this is and if they don't they need to give up and start a career as a nun or priest or something. Meshes is the solid virtual mass made up of triangles (or poly's which is 2 triangles formed to make a quad) to create shapes of buildings,characters,objects etc.. Using another key element called scripting (possibly the biggest element) programmers can move or control other elements and its the scripting that makes the game work full stop.

The main big function of an engine that defines the realism of a game is the physics component. This controls basic physic simulation including collision detection, rigid body animations and vehicle physics but these features are always used in each engine and neither does each engine provide them.

Other Elements that are key in a game that a game engine gives are Texturing and Lighting. The texturing at least in my opinion is the most important factor in the whole engine as it gives realism to otherwise lifeless generic grey models. Of course though mesh is still required so they all need each other. the texturing in the engine connects with another element called Lighting which does what is says on the tin. Combined with normal and specular maps a game engine can give depth to models and textures using the lighting to create a fantastic illusion or 3d on a 2d surface.
--http://everything2.com/title/additive%2520and%2520subtractive%2520environments--

Moving off key elements as there are many more but its one of those snore factors if talked about to much. Its methods of game creation that i didn't really want to have to talk about as it is quite confusing and although important is fairly uninteresting. I'm talking about subtractive and addictive in which this normally refers to environment creation.

Addictive involves the creation of a void in virtual space. Within this space game developers create what i guess is best described by saying imagine a plot of land in the middle of the country.. when builders come to build the house they wouldn't put the furniture in place first and then build around it, they would first build the house then fill it with objects. That's exactly what it is its the addition of a space in non space if that makes sense, i did say it was rather confusing.

Subtractive is merely the opposite, i will use the field as an example again. This time imagine theres a solid concrete block in the middle of the field well instead of adding objects to the scene you essentially carve away the block to create space in the mass.

When it comes to game engines theres always that difficult decision for companies of whether to create and in house engine or purchase licencing for an external one. Both have there benifits and depending on the engine some more than others... the advantages of buying a game engine is a company can get straight on with the games and not have to spend time fiddling about with troublesome game engines development. Another advantage is it will more than likely not only have what you need but also reasonbly bug free.

The disadvantages are firstly the obvious one... you have to pay for it, though granted to create a system it would probably cost more in man power but also the modding capabilitys are limited and customising to the needs of a forever changing industry may not be the case. There is the added perk though of creating an in house engine and that is the company not only can easily manipulate the software but they can licence it off to other companys.

The issues with next gen game engines are the same as the problems faced with the last gen engines and so on. More power, more efficency and better quality of game all of these factors depend entirely on how good the engine is and always will. Curse you cycles!!!

Gaming Cultures... Its a way of life

Ahh the gaming culture personally i think its birth was around the same time doom raided the offices of the world bringing in the concept of cross network gaming and larger communitys of people with a common interest of gaming.

Im sure there are many people out there who would disregard gaming as a culture without fully understanding the community scale and dare i say almost cult status of it in modern society. With LAN partys becoming more and more common in which i myself hold one once a month between my friends, its clear that it is becoming more and more a regular part of our lifes and definatly the more dominant choice of entertainment in the household.

But obviously me saying this doesnt explain the sheer scale of gameing as a culture and its importance. LAN events such as i-36 at Stoneleigh Park which is the biggest LAN party in the UK with thousands of participants each year who get along with each other becuase they all have one common interest.. not to mention there is nothing more satifying than a friendly game of shooting the hell out of your friends and random strangers lol...

When i take a look at myself and games in my life i realise it occupys a huge part of my life.. even when i go out to try and escape from that fact i normally get asked what im doing a uni and unless i lie and say im doing something boring like law, i get 3 hours of game talk so all in all i cant escape it. Its worse now because i feel i have to buy the latest games and consoles simply to study and keep in touch with new graphic movements and styles so what started off as playing games for the fun of it is now an obsessive education move (or at least i try to pass it off as that).

What scared me was when i realised i had so many friends on xbox live that i had never met in reality and the same goes for msn. These days i try to meet as many of them as possible as i have travelled across the country once or twice to meet people as have they travelled to meet me.

Eiter way gaming as a culture is increasing even more as wii brings older generations into the picture and cross network gaming spreads further worldwide..

Game Industry?? meh its doing alright...

Probably one of the fastest growing industry's in the world and still snubbed as a lazy profession by most ( from my experience it is mostly plumbers who have this view i say this because Ive been told it by 3 different ones now... it cant be a coincidence). Even in this Global economical meltdown although slightly effected by down turn in sales from costumers moth filled wallets in which has resulted in several companies with to much ambition and very little budget to cease to exist. Other than that the games industry is virtually unscathed and continues to grow at an alarming rate.

After talking to a few of my friends/colleagues who work in the industry or at least did work for many years in the industry, they all seem to give similar responses tho granted it depends on their job but the universal answer always boiled down to pressure. When working to a tight budget and/or deadline naturally the pressure is on to be fast and still maintain a professional level of efficiency in the work that is produced. I know at least some of the bigger company's hire in house councillors which straight away to me says that plumbers really need to read this.

I guess the big question is what are the implications of the meltdown on the future of the games industry and to be honest if anything i think it will create a boom as new companies will pop up and of course this will also bring new creative idea for games.

Gameplay?? Ahhhh blasphemy

Yes Yes before i even start this i would like to say i use this word and do accept it as a valid term to describe the overall quality of a game so even tho im going to possibly moan about it i do use it.

Ok then, well i guess ill start with what is gameplay. Gameplay is a made up term stringing the words game and play together, that is the obvious observation and even more obvious is what it is used to describe... Well for some my mother thought it was a new way of saying i want to play a game, which i suppose makes sense.

The definition of gameplay is kinda sketchy really but overal very similar and to help me get this across i will be qouting from two sources which are the following..
[http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11137]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameplay]

Normally i would dismiss most information on wiki but to be fair i think the definition and information provided on there is a good representation of what it is. Game play is used to describe the story quality,graphics,sound,features and replay value and in my mind shows the word really is just a use for lazy game reviewers as mentioned in another blog a while back.

Either way it provides the information neccessary for gamers to decide whether they would like the game or not but the term is used more widely and has been accepted and is now used by game companys which brings me to the gamesutra link. The link if you havent read it already is a interview with Peter Molyneux, one of the lead developers on the Fable series. He achknowledges the word gameplay and in his reply to the questions he tells not only of its importance but the increasing demand for more of it to enhance the gaming experience.

Gameplay is something that can be perfected with perfect planning and excellent storyline and graphics but of course this also requires time and gamers are notoriously impatient when it comes to release dates. So no gameplay is not just a random load of graphics and other bit mashed together. It takes planning and concideration of what the customer wants and the best way to fit it together seamlessly.

Show the characters some lovin ^_^

If there is one thing i always take note of its characters.. From there personality to their actions that follow because of the decisions they make due to it.

A character can have extremely strong influences over your emotions whether it be the connection of getting a innocent character like Heather through a death infested mansion to routing for the uneducated and extreme underdog 'Rocky Balboa' willing him on to win and get that last punch in, its from films and games like 'Rocky' and 'Silent Hill' we get these funny attachments to characters and their lives.

The question is why??? We know its just a film or a game yet we do actually care.. i think there is several reasons for this and the obvious one for a gamer at least is it effects their life in the sense they desperately want to complete their game.

Aside from that as far as games are concerned its the same reason we get attached to movie characters.. Subconsciously i believe we all picture ourselves in their position. Asking questions such as, i wonder what its like to be in that position?what would i do? and what would i do in their situation?... In a sense we do what Mike said in the other weeks lecture. We run simulations in our heads of ourselves in their position and this gives us a sense of emotion towards the character.

Another example i remember well was in the 'Lord Of The Rings'. Poor little Frodo didn't want that ring but he was burdened with it and it turned his quiet life in the beautiful green Shire into a journey through hell. Apart from the sympathy that he was lumbered with that stupid ring there was also a sense or admiration later as he had the chance to just walk away and leave the rings fate in the hands of other but he chose not to. This made the little hobbit an underdog and hero and the instant reaction to a underdog and hero is to back them up and that what everyone who went to see that film was doing, this even spread to other characters in the film.

When it comes down to getting an audience to feel like this much of it i think is dependent on a joint effort between both the script writers and the actors... The script writers may define the narrative and story that puts the character through scenarios we can picture ourselves in, but they don't put the soul or personality into a character that is required to allow the audience to fully relate to a character, that is down to the actor.

The actors often are the ones who define the characters looks along with the directer but its how they are portrayed and the sense of realism and belief in the way they vocalise their lines and its this belief factor that is key to triggering some of these emotions and connections.

Moving off films and back to games...

A good game character is crucial to a game and once again I'm going to refer to an underdog as a example. "Guybrush Threepwood Mighty Pirate" oh how misunderstood Guybrush is lol. Hes the pirate that sucks at being a pirate yet we love him for it because he doesn't give up and lives in this fantasy world that he's the greatest pirate that ever lived. Whats so clever about Guybrush is everything! from his gormless expressions and long rather silly looking face, to his rather childish voice and dim witted comments throughout the game. In a way even if monkey island didn't have a great storyline (which to be honest it doesn't really) it would still be a great game because we all love following Guybrush on his unfortunate adventures.

In other words, and this applys in films to! it takes a good character to make a film or game sell and preferably more than one gets the biggest hits and overall makes the difference between a hit and a miss with film goers and gamers.

I can be creative me...

This is a very difficult entry but what is creativity? how do you define it? well im going to give it my best shot.

Creativity surrounds us, its in every man made object in some shape or form. Just take a look at a common object in the household such as a table or a cabinet. These all came from designs which either started on paper that somebody sat and thought about or straight out of the carpenters head. It even gets bigger than that just take a look at the nature of modern buildings and the higher desire to get curves to replace corners. These are two examples of creativity on a large and small scale outside of the games industry which shows how important it is.

Without creativity we would live in a generic world.. in fact without the combination of curiocity and creativity we would not have most of the technology we have today. Who created it though? well we only have to look at ourselves for the answer to that. We all have this drive or urge to stand out and be different in the little things we do dont you agree?

Well its this thirst to be different that spured this desire to create new things. Take clothes for example, its a creative industry like the games industry. I know a few people who do fashion and for this i have asked them why they do it, their answer wasnt for the money (though obviously being a job it does help) they told me it was because they enjoyed designing new, different and wild ideas that make people more individual.

In games creativity is pretty much a necessity in todays market. creativity in games depends on the departments really, as the text document is creative in its own way and the concept art goes without saying. That then follows over to Modelling but really modelling and animating is an observation and not really creativity unless the modelling is done straight from a person head.

Id say creativity is majorly enhanced by technical limitations. Think about it this way when something breaks and you are limited to what you can repair it with, you have to make the best of what you have and the same applys when a artist is given a specification.
For example if an artist is given a limit for a character of 1000 triangles then they have to create an imitation of life using low detailed meshes, which relys on the form and method but most of all and this is the biggest creative factor, the textures...

The textures have to be good and its not an imitation as it has to be better than life and its because of this that i see why Ben Mathis has such a passion for low poly character modelling.

When you try to point out creativity in games it doesnt stop at just the graphics which really are the obvious representation. The programmers also play a part in providing good gameplay and realistic physics which in some cases arnt always based on real life also theres the AI for NPC's (non-playing characters).
I think the best company i have seen for creativity is definatly 'Rare' all of their games are like childrens games for adults or never quite reflect reality but are still satisfyingly realistic.

My idea of creativity is being different and creating from scratch, in other words fresh new designs and styles that have not been used before but its easier said than done.

In addition a great thing i just seen on air crash investigation which explained why they had pilots in plane. Its because in the event of a problem arising they trust that the pilot has the creativity to solve a problem that a thoughless computer cannot. Which sums it up that its all about thought!