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The word Cathedral used in a broad sense means a place of worship, usually a particularly large place of worship rather then a small shrine or chapel. As such Cathedrals tend to use very large vertical shapes reaching up to the sky to make the structure imposing, though you could also argue that the tall pinnacles are signifiers of a structure trying to reach the heavens which cultures typically assume lies in the skies. Cathedrals also typically have large front doors acting as symbolic signs of a transition from the mundane outer world into the spiritual world contained within the high walls of the cathedral.

Cathedrals high walls are affordances, as they act as walls of defence as cathedrals are typically build as both literal and figurative sanctuaries from outside threats. However the word cathedral is only usually associated with a christian place of worship, which of course we are meant to avoid for this project; despite this other similar structures such as mosques or temples all tend to share similar qualities such as what I've mentioned so far.

Lighting inside is often created using flame or natural light avoiding electricity as electricity is rarely associated with the spiritual. Even if electric lighting is used it is often made to look like its natural, when you enter a cathedral you will rarely see bare cables, because cables are associated with electricity, electricity is associated with science and science is rarely paired closely with religion. My refined concepts are very different to the usual christian cathedral as they are all focused on single large object, an idol, being a signifier of pagan worship. This however does not really stop it from being a cathedral as it is still a large walled of building worshipping something of religious importance.

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This week we have started the second part of are conceptual studies project with the goal of designing a cathedral. Much like jewellery designs are typically made with more ridged hard edges rather then organic soft edges used in character design which I'm used to but a cathedral could still be made of organic material. For the design I'm trying to focus on the idea of something being worshipped inside the cathedral, either hidden but hinted at through use of powerful lights shining through doors and windows, or peeking out of the top of the walls of the cathedral.

We have also moved onto semiotics in are 'game's as art' unit. Symbols are usually very important in conveying narrative as well as gameplay in equal measure to the player. Though it is a topic I'm already quite familiar with so most that has been covered I'm familiar with, I look forward to further study.

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Barthes talks to some lengths about wrestling and voices his objections on how its considered a sport due to it being more of a performance. He compares the act to that of a play, as each "actor" is largely there to simply convey desired emotions and actions to the audience.

However the question I am asking (or been asked to ask) is to what degree does this monologue of barthes' relate to video games. I'd say it does to quite a large degree.

Video games much like wrestling, much like stage plays, are simply platforms to entertain. They are there to elicit different feelings in the audience; fear, anger, joy, there all there to draw the audience, or in this case the player, in. The player knows no one is actually being hurt nor does the player necessarily enjoy watching the characters suffer through some sadistic desire, yet for a brief moment they are drawn in and they enjoy it. Countless times have I heard friends talk about video game characters as if they were existing people. Much like in wrestling the player is often sitting there hoping there character beats the bad guy and delivers him justice or kills that guy who killed him in the last round of a multiplayer game. There is also certainly that vindictive element in what draws gamers to games.
However the relation can only go so far. Video games unlike wrestling are an interactive form of entertainment (If we are not including Esports). The player interacts as they desire, they are on the front seat, in more well designed games anyway. In wrestling, much like in theatre, the audience sits and hopes for what is about to happen instead of making what they want happen. Though there is undeniably some similarities.

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It seems hard to pin point what, if any, composition technique this artist used however the composition seems to work nicely nevertheless. Attention is largely drawn to the city and then the eye follows the dinosaurs neck to the head or visa versa. Most of the bottom of the image is not noticed.

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This painting by Carle Vernet seems to use quite obviously the 'Iconic' composition technique; looking at it you should quickly see a diamond frame the most significant area of the painting that being the character and his horse. He also gives little detail to things in the background to draw more focus to the man and horse.

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This week concludes my work for the "Jewellery" brief. After having gone through quite a few iterations I hadn't really found any that particularly grabbed my attention; each one seemed to have a problem. However after quickly using alchemy I very easily found a silhouette I can work with. Though I think alchemy is less useful with more specific briefs, with quite broad ones like the jewellery brief it's a useful tool that I will likely use to some extent in the future whenever I've run dry in the idea department.

The final painting I was somewhat disappointing with however, I'm often running into the same problems as usual, I just need to find a way of fixing them. However I think I know the main problem which is confidence, something that is not found easily.

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Image uses a single natural white light source. Despite having a flat surface of water in the image nothing can be seen through the water as it is at such an angle that it only reflects light, the water is almost entirely blue just like the sky. The mountains in the distance lose a lot of detail from being so far in the distance though still reflect a lot of light due to the snow. Occlusion shadows are prominent around the trees and other foliage.

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The first image is a shot from the film "Pan's labyrinth" (2006). The image uses a blue hued light, moon light, as the primary light source making almost the entire image appear blue. A large amount of dynamic occlusion appears at the back of the image while also appearing on the two characters. Light enters from above illuminating the pillar and the wet surface around it the most with reflected light from the centre lighting the rest of the shot. There is also a small amount of green in the shot but is overpowered by the large amount of blues.

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First week has been the start of both contextual games as art studies and concept art studies. For the concept project I've begun using silhouettes and basic line sketches to explore designs for the first brief "jewellery". As this is for a video game, I think interactivity has to play an important role in the design of something supposedly small an easily missed as jewellery. So my designs hope to aim for a piece of jewellery that can interact with a game world in some manner.

As for contextual games as art studies, I've been looking an article on game design which we were told to read which has been at least partly enlightening. Though the writer touches on some pretty basic "common-sense" game design fundamentals I still found it helpful in finding out what design questions are typically used to form the first concept of a game.

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In the article he asks quite a number of questions analysing game design and what is needed, some of the most important questions I think where the following:

1. "How does the player interact with the game?"
Perhaps an obvious one, this is the kind of question any game designer must ask themselves at the very beginning of any game's conception. Interaction is the core of any game so deciding what the core methods of interaction within the game are is vital.

2. "What obstacles must the player overcome?"
As mentioned by the article, obstacles are pretty much essential to any video game, as there must be some kind of challenge. Therefore thinking of what obstacles the player must face is important.

3. "What pleasures does it (the game) provide?"
The purpose of any game is to create some form of pleasure in the player. People do not play video games to bore themselves. Pleasure however can be created through countless ways, often dependant on the player themselves so target audience is quite important for this one but still important when designing any game.

4. "But what makes A better then B?"
Games, that are well designed, are packed with choices. Most will be binary but not necessarily. Nevertheless making each option either unequal or at least having different outcomes is essential in designing a rewarding experience for the player. If each decision leads the player to the exact same spot the player is likely to feel particularly dissatisfied.

5. "What meaning does the game create?"
This might not seem abundantly appropriate with all games but I think it is to a descent degree. A game needs to create lasting meaning so that when the player leaves the game they feel like they've accomplished/learned something; that they are leaving the experience with something more, not feeling like they've just wasted a bunch of hours of they're life.

This is all quite ironic however as most the article seems to argue that gameplay is not really a thing. Though I do understand his point of view it seems a bit bizarre that a word was created to have no particular meaning, gameplay is something in video games, there can be no video game without gameplay. Perhaps the word has fallen into the state of other such ambiguous words like art or love, human constructs composed of many different elements but they nevertheless mean something and no other word will do in its place. Game designers know what "gameplay" is when the word is spoken much like any artists would be familiar with the word "art" which leaves me thinking that he is simply overthinking the definition of the term, desperately trying to break it down into simpler elements yet in the process, he simply makes the matter more complex then it needs to be. In fact I felt the article could have been about half the size and he could have conveyed the exact same points he ended up conveying. However I am only a student, it's quite possible I'm missing a lot of the pieces of the large puzzle that is game design, in fact its certain, nevertheless I feel the need to critique some areas of the article; though I feel most the questions he asks are angled well at tackling the fundamentals of designing the first blueprint of a game.

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http://www.designzzz.com/detailed-matte-digital-paintings/
http://kekai.blogspot.co.uk/
http://dougblot.blogspot.co.uk/
http://guidokuip.blogspot.co.uk/p/portfolio.html
http://drawabox.com/lesson/14

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Pieter Bruegel
Grant Wood
GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE
Terryl Whitlash