Going To Japan at 19

Okay so I'd like to write about my First ever trip to Japan. I went on a 2 week holiday in mid April. I hope this can help someone to achieve their dream as I did mine. :D

I know Japan is a Country a lot of people want to visit and I also realise that its a big step to take, for most people its really far away and can seem super expensive. What I'd like people to know is that it isn't as hard as you think and you should let anything get in your way.

I'm going to start out by giving a breakdown of my basic costs of travel, accomadation and the basic pre travel planning essentials, this can be the hardest part for most as it can seem very overwhelming, deciding on what area to stay in, what airline to choose, what booking sites to use. I struggled with these decisions for quite a while before making my decisions. I'll try to make my costing list pretty simple:

Flights: Flights can be really expensive and this is when a lot of people decide that they can't afford to go and give up, but if you are willing to travel a little bit longer the prices can be cut in half. Choosing to take a flight with a layover can be scary, the worry of not making it all the way to your destination can be daunting but im happy to say that my layover was a piece of cake. everything was easy and smooth, you really can't go wrong, My layover was in Beijing, China. Airports make transfers really easy, you go through security once more and they you just wait in Departures for your flight. easy as that.

My Flights cost: £415pp

Accomadation: The first part of my trip was in Tokyo for 5 days, now I did go for a slightly higher than needed budget for my first hotel as it was for my birthday but trust me when I say it can be a lot cheaper. I diduse much more budget hotels for my last week. For me the best site to use was Booking.com, I couldn't find an easier site to look for hotels and compare prices, they also have a price guarentee so if you find the room somewhere else cheaper they will pay you the difference, you can't go wrong. I also highly reccomend reading reviews of hotels, for me they were one of the most helpful things, you can often see paterns in reviews, so if lots of people say the staff are rude, they probably are.

My Hotels Costs for 2 people:

Week 1: 5 nights in a 3* hotel to Central Tokyo - £500
Week 2: 5 nights in 3* hotel in rural Kyoto - £315
Last 2 days: 2 nights in a 3* hotel by Haneda Airport - £200

As you can see I only stayed in 3* hotels, if you choose to go for a hotel with less stars you can be much much cheaper.

Travel in Japan: Japan has the best transport system in the world, trains are never late and they are very resonalbly priced. this is an area that I wouldn't worry too much about, if you are planning to travel around the country I reccomend the JR Rail Pass, I really can't recommend it enough. if you are planning to go far then you will need the Rail Pass. there are tools online that you can use to see if it would be worth it for you, but I honestly couldn't see myself going without one, if not anything else just for the peace of mind. For travel on local transport I recommend a Suica card, so easy to use and re charge, it can be really confusing figuring out what ticket you need to go where, so just use the Suica card to tap your way around.

JR Rail pass 7 day: £190
Local trains/busses for 2 weeks: £50pp

Food: If there is one thing you dont have to worry about in Japan it's food, there is something for everyone, from McDonals to Sushi, you can't go hungry. Food prices are also very resonable if you are trying to keep to a budget, my one reccomendation is Yoshinoya, their beef and rice bowls were one of my favourite things to eat and they are super cheap too.

Food Prices: You can go cheap from about £30pp per day but realistically with restaurants I would plan for around £50pp per day.

I'll end my First post here, please let me know if you have any questions about your upcoming trip and I will be happy to help :D On my Next post I'd like to go into what to expect on the Streets of Tokyo and what you'll be spending the most money on(and how to save some here and there).

Appleseed Alpha

Characters

Briareos 

Deunan

Two horns

Iris

Olsen

Talos

Nyx

Matthews

Plot

A female solider called Deunan and her partner called Briareos a cyborg fight to survive in a post-apocalyptic version of new York, during one of their missions for their “boss” two horns they meet two people Iris and Olsen who are on a mission to stop a deadly weapon, Deunan and Briareos join them on their mission in hope of finding a legendary city called Olympus.  

Motivation

The motivation for two horns is for him to get as much money as possible and to take over all of New York, but towards the end of the movie he changes his motive to get revenge on Talos and he even started to help Deunan and Briareos.

I feel the motivation for Deunan was to find Olympus so she and Briareos could live peacefully, I think she also wanted to help Briareos in any way she could.

I think at the beginning the motivation for Briareos largely to try and make Deunan happy by trying to get her away from working for two horns, but towards the end of the movie his motive changed to helping Iris and Olsen then ultimately helping Deunan find Olympus.

The motivation for Talos was to create a new world order using the weapon Olsen and Iris were trying to destroy. He wanted to start by destroying New York.

Matthews is just a slightly mad doctor working for two horns. 

Nyx’s motive to help Talos complete his plan for a new world order

Olsen’s motivation is to get Iris to the weapon so he can stop Talos for activating the weapon.

Iris’s motive is to get to the weapon so she can help Olsen to destroy it.

Beginning

The movie starts off with Deunan and Briareos on a subway car on a mission for two horns, they are then ambushed by some cyborgs and they end up failing their mission, they go back to two horns and Briareos tries to quit working for two horns, but he is badly damaged and has nowhere else to get repairs, so two horns gives them another mission, to destroy some battle turrets that are annoying him. On their way the stop off at Matthews work shop to get repairs, while there Briareos gets recharged but he’s damaged so he doesn’t charge properly, they leave his job and start their mission.

Middle

So Deunan and Briareos get to the location where the battle turrets are and briareos scopes out location of the battle turrets using a sniper rifle, while looking he sees a jeep driving towards the small town where the turrets are located, Deunan spots a young girl in the jeep so she runs towards the town trying to help they, the jeep alerts the battle turrets  and they begin a shootout with the turrets, they save them and end up joining Iris and Olsen on their mission to destroy a deadly weapon after Olsen fixes Briareos and makes him run at 100% again, just before they are about to leave Talos and Nyx show up in a helicopter so they hide, once Talos leaves Olsen explains a little bit about their mission and they begin their journey. Talos and Nyx then goes to see two horns to ask about Briareos and why he kidnapped the young girl (Iris), Talos gets annoyed with Two Horns so he gets Nyx to kill him. Two Horns ends up surviving and goes to try to find Iris. Briareos, Deunan, Olsen and Iris get to a small destroyed city and decide to rest there, while they’re there Two Horns finds them and tries to kill Briareos with a very mobile tank, while they’re fighting Iris jumps from a roof onto the tank and blows it up with a grenade, they all regroup and Olsen and Iris go to get the jeep so they can continue on their journey. Olsen and Iris then get captured by Talos and Nyx, Briareos and Deunan try to save them but they’re too late. While on the helicopter Talos gets all the information the needs from Olsen so he shoots him and throws him out of the helicopter, he then flies to the location of the weapon.    

End

Briareos manages to track the location of Olsen and they find his body, he’s holding a memory stick that shows Briareos the location of the weapon, him and Deunan then travel to the location of the weapon and they manage get there just after Talos, they begin shootout with some of Talos’s guards but they get pinned down by two battle turrets, then Two horns turns out not to be dead, bursts in and saves them both, he then gives Deunan a battle suit that Matthews fixed for Briareos he she runs to save Iris, briareos is right behind Deunan but he ends up getting in to a fight with Nyx, he kills her. Talos get Iris to Start the weapon that turns out to be a giant spider like robot. Deunan gets to Talos, shoots him and blows up some of the turrets on the side of the giant robot so Briareos can shoot the generator and destroy the robot, Iris decides to stay behind to keep the robots shield down, and so she dies, Deunan falls off the side of the robot just as Briareos shoots the generator and blows the robot up. They both regroup in a town near where the robot blew up and decide to go on a journey to find Olympus.    

Story-telling in Games

My top ten games list:

1.       War of the monsters

2.       dark souls 2 

3.       The walking dead

4.       dark souls

5.       Resident evil 5

6.       Resident evil 6

7.       Medieval

8.       Crash bandicoot

9.       The Witcher 2

10.   GTA: Vice City

For me The walking dead has one of the best story lines in gaming because you really connect with all the characters and it makes you want them to succeed. the story follows a character call Lee Everit, he is about to get arrested when the police car crashes in to a "walker", from there he ends up meeting a little girl called clementine. As you progress through the game you'll have to make a series of difficult choices to order to keep her safe from harm. borderlands 2 also has a great story line its really comedic and keeps you entertained throughout. You start off by creating your character and you choose from four classes, after this you have to progress through different areas killing bosses and completing side quests in order to get strong enough to beat the main enemy, handsome Jack. 

Games that don’t have a story:

Most mobile games don’t have a story-line, this is because people play them purely for fun and they don’t really care about story lines. Games like flappy bird and doodle jump don’t have a story line, you simply play to beat your friend’s high scores.

Differences in story-lines (Gaming/movies):

The difference between story-lines games and movies for me is games are more immersive than movies, with movies you’re kind of just along for the ride, whereas with games you have more control over the story itself, many games have multiple endings so in a way you can choose how the story ends.

Linear/non-linear games:

 A game with a linear story-line is a game where you have no control over how the story ends, it has a set number of missions and there is only one way to finish the game. With non-linear games you can play side-missions explore more than linear games, non-linear games are also more likely to have multiple endings so you have more control over the game world. 

sound in gaming

Ace combat zero ost- zero

This piece of music really gets you in the mood to fly jets and shoot down bad guys

Legend of Zelda- intro

This intro sounds super retro, like you’re playing the game on an arcade machine, it also gets you in the mood to go on an adventure

Shadow of the colossus- track 01

This piece of music really captures the feel of the game, it is a glum orchestral score that is quite beautiful

Super Mario bros- soundtrack

This is probably one of the most well-known pieces of music in gaming, it’s not a great soundtrack but when you hear it you are instantly reminded of super Mario bros

Halo- halo theme

This is another very iconic soundtrack, it really gets you in the mood for an adventure through space

Music is so important in gaming because it creates an atmosphere, for example horror games will have quite suspenseful music while adventure game will have epic sounding music, the music in games is a main part of what gets you in the mood to play a game, you wouldn’t want to play a horror game listening to happy/cheerful sounding music.

Waveform:

A waveform is a representation of how alternating current (AC) varies with time. The most familiar AC waveform is the sine wave, which derives its name from the fact that the current or voltage varies with the sine of the elapsed time. Other common AC waveforms are the square wave, the ramp, the sawtooth wave, and the triangular wave. Their general shapes are shown below. 

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/waveform

Pitch:  the quality of a sound governed by the rate of vibrations producing it; the degree of highness or lowness of a tone.

Hertz: Hertz is a unit of frequency (of change in state or cycle in a sound wave, alternating current, or other cyclical waveform) of one cycle per second. It replaces the earlier term of "cycle per second (cps)." http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/hertz

Decibel level: The decibel (dB) is used to measure sound level, but it is also widely used in electronics, signals and communication. The dB is a logarithmic way of describing a ratio. The ratio may be power, sound pressure, voltage or intensity or several other things. 

http://www.animations.physics.unsw.edu.au/jw/dB.htm

Sound generator: A sound generator is an object that makes sounds. These sounds may be produced in a nearly infinite number of ways, ranging from a foot stomping on the floor to a fire engine siren. Regardless of the origin of the sound, it is always the same thing — vibrations in the air that make a pattern recognizable by aural senses. While the ways to make sound are nearly limitless, practically all sound-generating objects fall within two main categories: single-tone and multi-tone. Each of these processes makes a full and complete sound pattern, but in different ways. 

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-sound-generator.htm

Foley:

What is Foley? What does it take to be a Foley Artist? Many of you might be very familiar with the craft, or maybe you have only heard the word in passing, but Foley is one of the many sound elements that helps bring a film together. It's arguably one of the more important parts of sound design, because many of the important sounds that really add to the character of the film are all created in post on a Foley stage. http://nofilmschool.com/2012/11/foley-artist-gary-hecker

Timbre:

Timbre is a word that describes the tone or unique quality of a sound. If you play the same note on a piano and on a guitar, each note will have its own timbre. http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/timbre

Psychology of sound

Games that use sound as information:

Super Mario bros – level complete sound

The sound that’s heard at the end of every level of super Mario level signifies the completion of that level and is one of the most satisfying things to hear if you’re stuck on a hard level

Sonic the hedgehog – collecting rings

The sound that’s made with every ring you collect in sonic lets you know you’re doing something right, the faster you collect rings the faster the sound gets at lets you know you’re doing well

Metal gear solid – alert sound

The sound that’s made when you are spotted in metal gear solid tell you that you have been spotted by an enemy. 

Survivor 2015

Survivor

Characters:

Kate Abbot

Sam

Bill

The Watchmaker

Emil Balan

Maureen Crane

Motivation:

Kate’s motivation was to protect her country and stop a terrorist attack. The watchmaker’s motivation was money, he wanted to become a billionaire, and this was also the goal of the businessman. Bill wanted to get his son back from terrorists. Emil Balan (the doctor) wanted to get revenge for his wife who died waiting for a visa. Maureen Crane only cared about her career.   

Plot:

Framed for a terrorist bombing, a Foreign Service officer (Kate Abbot) must dodge an assassin (The Watchmaker) while racing against time to stop a deadly plot.

Beginning:

Starts with soldiers fighting terrorists in a war torn city, two soldiers get captured, one is set on fire. We are introduced to a few characters, Kate starts investigating a doctor that applies for a visa. The doctor then gets his associates to get a hitman with the code name The Watchmaker to kill her, the hit man tries to blow her up in a restaurant but only succeeds in killing her friends.

Middle:

Kate goes to a park but then Bill tries to kill her too but he gets shot, Then Kate goes on the run. Kate goes to a train station to meet her friend to get money, the hitman and the police catch up with her and she escapes through a subway tunnel, the hitman tries to kill her again but she escapes, she then meets up with Sam. They both go to Bills apartment to investigate, the watchmaker then tries to kill Kate again but she gets away.

End:

Kate flies to New York, she gets in a taxi from the airport, while she’s in the taxi the TV comes on and she figures out that the watchmaker is planning to blow up Times Square. The watchmaker is overlooking Times Square on top of a building with the doctor, he kills the doctor and then Kate finds where he is and they fight on the building, Kate overpowers the watchmaker and pushes him of the side of the building.

Lines between begging middle and end:

The beginning ends when the restaurant is blown up and the middle ends when Kate gets on the plane to New York. 

graphics specification

Graphics Specification:

Visual Styles:

Cell Shading is giving an object or character to look like a comic book or hand drawing book. This can be used to give flat colour to have an impression on character or an object. The cell shading can use lighting to have effect on dynamic atmosphere of the mood. Also shading to give it drawing theme to it. For example ‘Naruto Ninja Storm 4’, and new ‘Dragonball Xenoverse’.

Abstraction is the opposite of photorealism, as it does not look realistic. Abstraction can be used to stand out. Some of the object may have resembles to other objects. It usually using game that colourful. This can be used in PG 6 games like ‘SUBRAY’. As it can look friendly. The abstraction use a colourful colours to set feeling calm and exploration. Or on other times it can be used to make game grim and brutal, like ‘Super Meat Boy’. It uses a sharp and hard objects, as it gives a brutal mood to the player.

Exaggeration is mostly used in RPG (Role Playing Game). This can give a fantasy mood in the game. The exaggeration is used by games that is influenced by Comics, Cartoons and Animes. For example ‘Batman Arkham Knight’, the main character has over exaggerated muscles. Also ‘Final Fantasy 7 Remake’, and again the main character has a ridiculously large sword.

Photorealism is term used to make game to make realistic as much. This can be used to make game look as much as the real world. This used in ‘The Last of Us’ and ‘Ghost Recon: Wildlands’. Most Photorealism games are mostly seen in action, horror, survival, and shooter game.

Pixel styled games use chuck, 8 bit graphics. It uses a similar style from 1980s games. Creating a Pixel art is user to create, rather than doing 3D, 64 bit games. Which will take less time to develop. This is used in ’The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth’. They use it as a brutal game as main character has to survive through the dungeons. Using the 8 Bit to give it a brutal atmosphere. Or it can be used to give friendlier feel to it – like ‘Terraria’.

Typography:

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point size, line length, line-spacing (leading), letter-spacing (tracking), and adjusting the space within letters pairs (kerning).

Technical Stuff:

They are to go type of formats good for different uses in computer game graphics. Such as JPEG and PNG.

JPEG compresses the best for photographs and images with no sharp borders. However, your images will have degraded quality because JPEG uses lossy compression (you can fine tune the compression level/degradation when exporting images as JPEG. Refer to your imaging software's documentation for more information on this).

However, as good as JPEG may be, it doesn't support transparency. This is crucial if you want to have images that show through others, or if you want images with irregular shapes. GIF is a good choice, but it has been largely superseded by PNG (there's only a few things GIF supports that PNG doesn't, but they're largely irrelevant in game programming).

PNG supports transparency (and semitransparency), compresses data without degradation in quality (i.e. it uses lossless compression), and compresses fairly well, but not as much as JPG.

Composition:

Composition is all about placement across all forms of art (Media, Film, Video games). The rule of the third is a useful tool to learn about composition, you draw a three by three grid and where the lines of this grid meet shows you where to place things to make them visually appealing to the eye.

Stimulus  

Client brief?:

The client brief is a set of rules set by an employer.

Own brief?:

Your own brief are guidelines that you set yourself based on what your employer has told you to do.

Market research?:

market research is when you see what genres of games are popular and what’s selling well.

 ideas generation

Brainstorming?: 

Is coming up with ideas in groups.

Moodboards?:   

Moodboards are used to generate ideas for the mood of your game.

Thumbnail sketching?:

This is when you come up with ideas for items that might go into your project and then drawing some ideas on paper. 

Concept drawings?:

These are ideas for characters, weapons, vehicles and backgrounds that you can sketch out on paper.

Legal and ethical considerations

What is copyright law?: copyright means that if you create something and it’s protected by copyright law no one else can use it to make money from it without your permission.

What is libel?: 

libel is a form of defamation, expressed by print, writing, pictures, signs, effigies, or any communication embodied in physical form that is injurious to a person's reputation, exposes a person to public hatred, contempt or ridicule, or injures a person in his/her business or profession.

How are female characters represented in games?:

generally in gaming women are over sexualized and are commonly created to have many unrealistic features. however in recent years this has changed a lot thanks to games like tomb raider and Fifa.

What is intellectual property?:

Intangible property that is the result of creativity, such as patents, copyrights, etc.