Introduction to Scholarship

There was a slightly longer class last week where the librarian went into how we could use the library in the Falmouth and Penryn campus, and how we could use different tools to help us in our research. I personally love libraries, my mom used to take me to the library every week as a kid when I was in London, and after coming back to the UK after more than 10 years, this brings back a lot of memories.

I immediately borrowed 3 books, 1 was the recommended reading on “practice-led research and research-led practice in the creative arts”, and the 2 other were meant to help me with my learning of unity.

the practice led research book was extremely boring. I tried my best to read it but couldn’t after a while. I will say however, that for how much ever I could read, it really did help me. I remember when I had to write my research papers last year for my Bachelor’s degree, I had a really difficult time because it was my first time. A lot of the things said in the book really helped me put things into perspective, and it helped a lot that the book was curated for creatives. The unity books didn’t help at all, but that’s only because the internet has much better resources, and I tend to learn software through video courses and doing things myself.

We were also used to referencing tools like Zotero. I kept thinking to myself this would have saved me a lot of time if I had this tool last year when I was writing my first research paper, and had to make multiple revisions of it because I just simply couldn’t get the “Chicago manual of style” right.

I’m not sure if I’m excited or scared of getting to the point where I have to use Zotero and make a research paper, because I remember that being extremely difficult.

Anyway, today I’ll be visiting the library again to return the “practice-led research and research-led practice” book and get myself something more fun, specifically, “Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho.

Unity Practice Workshop

I’m not sure what was meant to happen on that day because my faculties were very confused on what we were told, and because of this, the class went a little slow.

I’m glad I got to know the people who know unity now though, because that is my engine of preference, and I am very very weak at it.

I could get some stuff working that day, a cube falling to the floor and making an explosion. And it was fairly easy for me to get it to work because of the tutorials I had followed prior to coming to Falmouth. But I think that if I want to call myself a designer, as of right now this is my biggest concern, not knowing unity is my biggest weakness.

Things I did over the weekend

I had no idea we would end up having 5 days every week where we don’t have to do anything, so I’m taking that as a “nudge-nudge we’re expecting to be able to trust you to work every single day”.

Anyway, I went through the books I borrowed from the library over the 5 days. I’ve mentioned a little about “practice led research and research led practice” above. Other than that, I started an illustrated book called “Name of the Game” by Will Eisner, which has nothing to do with games, but it’s a good break from the heavy reading. Its a book that focuses on marriage, family, wealth, and immigration in pre and post world war America.

Also watched “12 Angry Men”, which is a beautifully written movie about a jury of 12 stubborn men who need to decide the fate of a potential murderer. And started a couple of games, “Death Stranding” and “Super Mario Wonders”. Exposure to media has always helped me as an artist, but I need to consume them with the eyes of a designer now, which is a pretty big but gradual change.

I also finished 2 LinkedIn courses, “Unreal Engine Essential Training” and “Game Design Foundations”. The only reason I took the Unreal Engine course is so I can put it up on my portfolio and hopefully get more views on LinkedIn. I am by no means an expert in the engine let alone even a beginner, but at least now I know where things are and I can navigate around.

I tried to watch some history of game consoles as well, and started trying to make a really simple game in Unity, essentially I’m trying to rip off this really old game called “Combat”, and trying to see how far I can go with that. I know I was told not to ever sit down to code player controls but quite honestly, I don’t know how else and what else to learn when I’m starting out new. I’ve already run into some hiccups, I can’t get my player to move the way I want it to, so I’m going to bring that up in the next Unity workshop I have.

Conclusion

Overall, I think I’ve had a fairly productive week, I do truly believe I can push myself much farther, but considering I’m still trying to settle in and I really do miss home very often, I think this is huge progress on a personal level.

I’ve probably mentioned this in my previous blog as well, but I never had a concrete long-term goal as to what I want to do with my Master’s degree. I think from the conversations I’ve had with friends I’m making slow progress on that. I think I’m slowly starting to realise I don’t want to work at AAA studios, I like having more control. I’m also trying to expand my skills, trying to become good at everything, and especially “Game Design”. As of right now, I feel like my goal is, I want to be able to tell my employers “If you need a game, don’t worry, I’ll handle your whole project”. Seems a bit unreasonable now that I’m typing this, but it’s still reasonable progress.

Its also difficult for me to understand how the UK’s job market works. I come from a country where anyone with any amount of skill has an easier time finding a job because it is difficult to get skilled people, while in this country, there are too many skilled people so it becomes harder to find a job. This is something I need to get used to, lots of changes to make, and I’m not sure how I could go about getting hired like this.

One step at a time though, I want to figure out how I can do a good job at what I’m doing, and have some projects to back me up before I really start worrying about jobs and such.

Photography Stuff

I did start taking more pictures as well, these are probably my favourites from the last week.