Theory into practise 1

Task 1

 

I think that my families’ social class is c2, my mum works for Trafford council as a benefits officer and my step works for virgin media as a cable technician.
My friend dean stack’s family would be about a c2 social class. His mum works in shop, his dad works as a gardener and his brother is in prison.

Unfortunately I don’t my neighbours that well so I can’t give them a social class.

 

There was nothing that really surprised me about my friends and families socio-economic social class, as I already know their class, it won’t surprise me. The type of media that would probably them are; the internet, television, movies, magazines and maybe the newspaper.

My friend’s family would probably be interested in around the same thing as we are both the same social class; they might read the paper more than my family.

 

In each socio-economic class there are certain media products may affect them more than other media devises to other social classes. For example Financial Times Newspaper, The Guardian Newspaper and the News will appeal more to Upper Middle Class people.

 

Task 2

 

I have explored some specialist websites, this is what I found.

 

There are certain numbers of people there are interested in a certain number of things. The majority of teenage boys, and a very low percentage of girls, have a keen interest in gaming and computer related subjects. There are a certain percentage of these teenagers who are interested in more of the hands-on type of gaming, like paying hundreds of pounds building your own personal computer and then playing it almost everyday. Such website magazines such as ‘Pc Gamer’ are aimed at these types of demographics and they know these people will buy it because it appeals to them, this is because it addresses their lifestyle interests.

 

Mostly, the gaming community will be able to go gaming websites such as ‘Ign’ which doesn’t have a magazine to accompany it. Whereas with a website called ‘Pc Gamer’ there is a magazine for it. It has been made for the purpose of giving the gaming community more to read about and also for the obvious purpose of gaining more money. Also gamers can receive free cds with magazines which will most of the time include demos, game trailers, developer interviews, news and reviews etc.

 

Task 3

 

 

With most magazines they are always aimed at one particular social group. For the gay and lesbian community there are many magazines and websites to entice them. In magazines such as glamour you will find articles on celebrity gossip, fashion, shopping, beauty, health, sex etc. Whereas with gay magazines you will find articles on sex, lesbian stories and other such things. The front covers of these magazines also show the strong the differences between them, with glamour magazine their will be a famous celebrity on it with a caption underneath saying something like ‘Britney shaves her head’ which will attract a lot of women as most women like to hear about gossip in the Hollywood industry. On gay and lesbian magazines, a picture of a man or a woman half naked, depending on what sexuality it is aimed at, and will usually have a caption underneath saying something like ‘How to make your jock look bigger’

 

Task 4

 

With local newspapers such as The Metro there will be stories about Metrolink prices going up and Big Manchester events as it is in your area and you will be more interested in them. Whereas with a news paper such as The Times which is a national newspaper there will be articles about things from all over the country including your home town but it will be more concentrated on the area where the paper originally came from.

You can learn more from local newspapers than national ones because it has more to do with your community. And you can interact with some of the stories because you can relate to them. With national newspapers you can learn from the stories but it won’t give you the information that you really need.

 

 

 

Task 6

 

A lot of ethnic groups are interested in the magazines and news papers that appeal to their demographics.

 

This website has articles about real Jewish stories from around the world which include reports from Israel and other Jewish communities.

 

With other magazine websites such as The Scotsman it contains lots of different pages on different Scottish subjects. They have a dating page which is only specific to Scotland, a motoring page which tells you where you can find different car dealerships etc.

 

 

Another specific website aimed at a certain ethnic group is The Tablet which appeals to catholic groups.

 

 

 

The Tablet will have Catholic people reading it, but not necessarily from any specific ethnic groups.

 

 

Searchlight magazine will attract people from all kinds of ethnic and social backgrounds but will all have the same interests as other people reading it, as it is a magazine against racism and against fascism.

             

Doom

Development on the Doom engine was completed in 1992 and then the creation of the game started. While the company was finishing off the Wolfenstein sequel the lead designer John Carmack decided to make the game based on the science fiction and action side of the Aliens movies and has the horror side inspired by the evil dead movies.

The Doom engine was and still is a revolution in gaming technology. The original engine for Wolfenstein 3D saw the basics of games engines at the time with rooms and corridors all at the same height. Lighting in the engine was at standard level too as everything is at the same shade and brightness. Doom brought a whole knew level of greatness, with bobbing and swaying movements of the weapon as the character navigated the levels, unseen in any game previously, interactive scenery; doors and lifts can move up and down to reveal secret passage ways, and the floors could raise to show staircases to other secret rooms to complete the level.

  

Level Design

As a successful games designer I would prefer to have a tremendous frame rate, game glow and pacing experience as it will help me grasp the issues of gaming. It would help if I had experience in both subjects.

 

A digital architect is someone who will design, produce and then finish the level designed for the game.

 

Moore’s Law will allow game designers to design and create levels to a staggering capacity, as modern day processors are doubling in speed all the time and will be able make the most realistic looking environments.

 

Designers are likened to be called chefs or ‘glue’ because they will take certain ‘ingredients’ from other game designers and then turn it into something spectacular, while following the design document also known as the ‘recipe’.

 

Peer criticism is a good as it helps the designer take a new perspective from someone that might not have as much experience as he does then ultimately might make the game better or worse.

 

For good level design having both careful on-paper planning and improvisation is the best bet as it will give them the chance to let them look back and really look at what things in the game don’t seem right what does.

 

Frame rate is important as it will allow the gamer to play the game and not have the annoyance of the game running terribly on their system. It will also help because of game reviews. The game might look nice but game play is awful because of bad frame rate.

 

Three notable level designers are; John Romero, the person responsible for the level design in the classic game ‘doom’, Richard Gray, designer for a lot of the levels seen in ‘Duke Nukem 3D’ and ‘Sin’ and

the importance of a renderer

On rendering, the CPU will spend about 50% of its power processing it. Game developers will often be judged be not only their superiors but also by the public and game reviewers. If the game doesn’t have a good renderer then there is a strong possibility that the game will not receive positive feedback and therefore may become a flop.

The acronym API stands for ‘Application Program Interface’ which is how we see what we are doing on our games editor.

 

It is more difficult to build a renderer for a pc game than a console game because with pc games the specification can be completely random and drastic measures might have to be taken to fit certain computer systems. Whereas with consoles there is a certain system specification for the same ones and game developers will know how much texture detail there should be, how many polygons there must be, how big the game should be etc.

 

Vertices are 3D objects stored as points in the 3D world; these are so that the engine knows where to put points and lines. And with more developed systems a great deal of power is needed to create the specified game.

 

Yes renderers can be replaced, even if you don’t want the game code to change, it still can be done with ease and speed.

James Schmalz

James Schmalz founded Digital Extremes on the revenue he had built making games during the shareware craze of the early 90′s. Epic Pinball was one of the most successful shareware games ever made. A sequel soon followed – Extreme Pinball — and together they helped fund brainchild, Epic Games’ Unreal. Both Unreal and Unreal Tournament went on to receive numerous industry awards for their excellence in gameplay, graphics and technology including several Game of the Year awards in 1999 for Unreal Tournament. To date, the scopes of games in the award-winning Unreal franchise have sold more than 10 million units.

https://www.cmpevents.com/GD07/a.asp?option=G&V=3&id=488057

Media Studies

Media studies is important to my course as it gives me an undertanding of what audiences i should be aiming my product at. i ahev also learnt that the media is in nearly evety part of our lives including games, tv, publishing, mus

Media Audiences

Most media companieswill have some sort of input in the games, music, cinema, tv, radio and press.

Music

The music industry cannot predict the outcome of different bands. Depending what kind of groups there are and how much money goes into their production they dont know if they will make it or not.

Games

All of the games production companies will not make one type of game, they will make; first person shooters, stratergy, sport, racing etc. They make each type of game to be aimed at certain types of demographics.

Cinema

In the cinema industry, much like the games industry, each production company will not make a certain type of film they will make; horror, action, thriller, romantic comedy, drama etc. Also unlike games, cinema production has an uncertain outcome as it may not appeal to the right demographics.

Tv

Unreal Game Engine

The unreal engine is a games engines developed by epic games and is widely used by many other games design companies.

The first unreal engine integrated different techineques such as AI (artificial intellagence), rendering, collision detaction etc.

2d games engine history

Originally created for coin-operated arcade purposes ‘pong’ is based on the game table tennis.

BARB

BARB (Broadcasters audience research board) they are the main providers of estimates of the number of people watching television. It contains what programmes on what channels are being watched, and at what time. Also it shows what kind of people are watching these programmes. BARB provides many features; top ten telvision programmes on terrestrial, top ten programmes on cable and digital, weekly and monthly viewing summaries, the history of BARB etc.