Creativity

Creativity

A definition of creativity

Creativity is a mental process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the existing ideas or concepts, fuelled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight.
From a scientific point of view, the products of creative thought (sometimes referred to as divergent thought) are usually considered to have both originality and appropriateness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity


It is essentially to make or produce something from ones imagination. I always feel that a person’s imagination is created by the experiences that the person has during their lifetime. You only have to look as far as the expressionism art movement to see a prime example of how life experiences can affect your creativity. During the war these artists must have seen many horrors, which seem to be expressed within their art work.

"Creativity becomes more visible when adults try to be more attentive to the cognitive processes of children than to the results they achieve in various fields of doing and understanding."

http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/dickhut.html

I love this statement as what it is trying to say is that if we, as adults, stop trying to look for a set procedure of commands as to how to do things, it will evoke our creative imagination. Children really do have a great imagination which is quite hypocritical of my earlier statement that life experiences enhance our creativity. I think that all of us are capable of being creative, in one way or another; it’s just about finding things that inspire us.

Creativity hindered or enhanced by technical constraints?

As a result of technical restraints I believe that creativity can be hindered, it can also cause the artist to re-think their approach to something and to tackle it in a different way. However I’m sure that technology does hold back artists creative advances.

Recently I watched an interview with ‘James Cameron’ in regards to his new film ‘Avatar’, in which he stated that due to technical drawbacks he waited something like twenty years to film ‘Avatar’ as he knew that he wouldn’t be able to create the vision which he had envisaged.

How do games manifest creativity?



Well when creating a video game it is the job of the whole team to be creative. The majority of the decision making falls to the Art director who in turn decides what’s in and what’s not. However there will be specific guide lines for each individual to follow in regards to their job title, for example texture and polygon budgets for the game artists. As far as whether the creativity is down to one person or more, it is most definitely down to a collection of ideas and thoughts from a team of artists, which is then filtered down into some form of final ideas by the Art director. Remember there is no ‘I’ in team!!



How do games manifest creativity?


Video games manifest creativity in many different forms such as the option of designing your own character before you start a game, designing or modifying a vehicle, creating your own game maps to play on or offline and modifying your interface and weapon selections and upgrade’s.


Are there any companies or individuals who seem, to you, to be particularly creative?


As a gamer I take note to look for certain games and in particular certain titles by certain companies. In my opinion I believe that ‘Ubisoft’ is a great video games company and they have some real quality artists working for them, having created great titles such as ‘Assassins Creed’ and ‘Far Cry’, by Artists such as ‘Jade Raymond’ and ‘Raphael Lacoste’.

Also Sam Houser, Cofounder, ‘Rockstar’ Games Critics may decry Sam Houser's "brutally violent" and "sexually explicit" world in ‘Grand Theft Auto’, but there's no denying his genius. Gamers can go anywhere and talk to anyone--all while punching and shooting and driving through windows. The most recent GTA sold a record 6 million copies in its first week!

Another is ‘David Cage’ who was involved in the ground breaking and innovative, recent release of ‘Hard Rain’. Cage's Heavy Rain continues his push toward serious gaming with a story about a serial killer, which asks the player: "How far are you prepared to go to save someone you love?"

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kevin-ohannessian/not-quite-conversation/10-most-creative-people-video-games-industry