Peter Harries

More game stuff

2011-04-10T07:33:00.000-07:00

So here's a video of what I've done so far on my little puzzle / adventure game.

There's are a few game play bugs that need working out, especially the checkpoint system. I also need to get some characters in there but as I suck at character modelling. The environment needs fleshing out as well, more models, textures, better lighting, particle affects and interactive items.

wow just realised that's a lot to do! Anyway aiming to get this section of the game playable so people can have a go at it and maybe even enjoy it!

also start working on DoubleX again on Monday! wwooop!

All hands on deck!

2011-04-03T05:14:00.000-07:00

A shot from the deck of the ship. Started to add weather effects, the rain is a bit big, but it works, want to play around with it a bit but not a priority. Also not quite nailed the particle effects yet, want to have rain hammering down on the deck, I may do this through a post process volume that makes the camera look wet instead.

Hopefully get a video of this up soon. Also need to do the textures. So UV unwrapping, which is the bane of my existence.

A flying ship in UDK

2011-03-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

So doing some tests with a ship model I made. When I'm done modelling it I'm going to smash it up :) at the moment though it's in UDK, you can walk around it, it has 5 floors and 2 crows nests, still needs a lot of modelling work. It also rocks about in the wind. Been trying to put rain battering the ship in but hasn't been very successful. It also needs textures doing. Just added this texture for now to stop the normal's going invisible on me.

If you want a clue to where the smahed up version will end up look at the right hand side of the picture in my last post ;)

Update! added this lil pic, you can see an earlier version of the ship on the right.

some more trees.

2011-03-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

I should be doing my Dissertation, but this is more interesting. Trees are interesting, right?

trees & slime

2011-03-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

Another one!

trees & lava

2011-03-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

A screenshot from a little side project I'm messing aound with at the moment. Models & textures are placeholders. But I do like the super simple style.

My day at Blitz games

2011-03-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

First post in a while! Been crazy busy recently, but with loads of interesting stuff!!

So on March 10th 2011 I got the opportunity to visit blitz games in Leamington spa!! I thought I would do a write up of what it was like to give anyone else thinking of applying an idea of what to expect. (If you're thinking of going already, do it! it's well worth it!)

I arrived in Leamington spa on the 9th and stayed overnight in Buckland Lodge, the hotel it self was a bit dated but overall it was ok. Run by a guy called John who seemed nice and it was cheaper than the travel lodge! Also got breakfast in the morning, always good :)

Next day I was up at 7:30 got breakfast had a bath (no shower in my room! gutted!) and got up to Blitz just before 9. At which point I waited for Rhys (One of the programmers we worked with in the 2nd year, also from Newport uni). But Rhys managed to get himself lost so I just went inside and I was cold.

Once I was inside we got directed through to a room on the 2nd floor where we had coffee and waited for everyone to get there. By 9:30 most people had arrived (besides Rhys who was still epically lost). We had a brief intro to how the day would go by a lady named Kim Blake who worked in Blitz's PR department. We also had to sign Personal Confidentiality Agreements, just in case we spotted anything we weren't suppose to!

After that was all done we were introduced to Philip Oliver (unfortunately his brother, Andrew Oliver, couldn't make it). Philip talked about the background of the company and how and why the operate like they do. This one was of my favourite talks, it gave a nice overview of how Blitz works and how and why a lot of things in the Industry work.

The We had a presentation by Struan Robertson who spoke about project management. He spoke more in depth about how Blitz is structured, who reports to who, and what his role in the company is. He also spoke about the importance of communication and how even after all the management and structuring systems communication between staff was still most important.

Next up came Tom Gaulton who spoke to us about the technology they develop at Blitz. Talking about why the develop their own engine and tools rather than buying it in. What his job involves and how Blitz tech started (with him on his own!).

After a coffee break Lance Winter gave a presentation on Design. Followed by Daryl Clewlow about 2D art, Jolyon Webb about 3D art and finally before another Coffee break Eoin Loughrey about animation. Then a presentation by Jon Mann on audio, Helana Santos spoke to us about programming and to finish up before Lunch Neil Holmes talked about Blitz 1up and Indie City.

During lunch we had food put on for us (sandwiches, crisps and some amazing chocolate brownies). Philip Oliver joined us again during the break and we had an opportunity to question him about various things. He told us about his views on the current situation of the UK industry and how TIGA (he's on the board of directors) are trying to attain tax breaks for UK games development. Which is something I'm quite interested in so it was nice to be able to hear someone who's directly involved in it talk about it. We also got a chance to check out Blitz's cabinet & trophy area, full of games they had been part of from Dizzy Egg onwards!

After Lunch Aaron Miller spoke to us about TruSim. A department at Blitz dedicated to creating "serious" games. Such as training simulations for paramedics responding to a situation that require triage (for example a bomb going off). This presentation I hadn't really been that excited about, however it turned out to be a very interesting subject. Following this Sally Moor spoke to us about QA. This hammered home the point that QA is definitely more than playing games all day. More like very repetitive testing trying to break the games and then in depth documentation on what you've done. Not an easy job! But we did get to see a showreel of pretty funny bugs from dead to rights.

Following this we got a tour around (most of!) the studio. Some sections we couldn't see as what was being worked on hadn't been announced yet, saying that Kim did seem like she really wanted to show us! We did try and persuade her, but no luck. This was my favourite part of the day. Everyone who works there are divided into sub teams who were assigned different projects to work on. Each team has studio space allocated to them and a load of PC's & development kits! It really looked like a cool place to work, room after room of talented and enthusiastic people doing all sorts of cool stuff. The walls were covered in random posters and drawings (one team had a dragon thing going on, so loads and loads of cartoon dragons were all over the walls!) and the shelves were stacked with DVD's, games and books. We got another chance to speak with the 3D artists who showed us what they were working on and talked about creating art that worked across multiple platforms. For example if you create realistically sized grass on an iphone it won't look like grass, just because of the screen size.

After the tour we got divided into groups according to what role we had visited as (I was there as a 3D artist) and our work was shown to the other visitors in the same category as us and two 3D artists already working at Blitz. It was quite scary having my work on a screen in front of seven people I had never met before including the two professional 3D artists. But that feeling disappeared quite quickly as everyone started discussing the work. The guys from Blitz gave great feedback highlighting weak and strong areas of the work. And showing paint over's they had done with various annotations of the work. They both obviously knew what they were talking about. Another incredible part of the day. Also it was amazing to see everyone else's work, I was genuinely impressed, the other guys there had some inspiring stuff! Really made me want to go and learn more about the skills needed to be 3D artist. It also scared me slightly as I could see that if I did want to become a 3D artist for games that the competition is very high! And I have a long way to go yet!

Philip Oliver joined us after the feedback sessions had ended to answer any more question we had. We also got given some goody bags!! Then we were all lead en mass by Kim to a bar called Voodoo! Here Rhys and I met a programmer from Blitz called Chi and a technical artist called Darren. Unfortunately Darren had to leave early to go to the gym (Chi did tell him that you burn more fat at the gym when your drunk, it's scientifically proven! but he didn't believe it.) Rhys had to leave shortly after. I didn't do a great job at networking but did do a better job getting drunk with Chi and some of the other programmers from Blitz! I did get a chance to see one of the designers (who was also on the open day) portfolio, which was two game design / pitch documents for the DS. They were really awesome! but being amazing at networking I forgot to ask her what her name was before she left. One of her games had dinosaurs in which totally rocks! It's about this point I realised that everyone else who had been on the open day had left and I was just sat with the programmers from Blitz and one animator (I think) who was getting told (by the programmers) that soon he would be out of a job because it would all be with procedural programming! we moved to another bar with an open mic night and after that we decided it was time to get pizza and go to bed.

The next morning I did meet Liam & Aiden, two audio designers who were also on the open day and had happened to be staying in the same hotel. Turned out Aiden was on the same train back to Birmingham with me so had a chat to him about the stuff he was doing which was really cool. I did mention that we were looking for audio designers for DoubleX so he might help us out on that! Good stuff!

The day overall was brilliant and if you are considering going you should definitely do it! And thanks to everyone at litz for the opportunity to come and visit!

Minecraft documentary

2011-02-22T09:19:00.000-08:00

Minecraft Video Game, Documentary | Video Clip | Game Trailers & Videos | GameTrailers.com

definatley worth a watch! Very interesting!

Double Cross, modelling and level design - balancing the 2

2011-02-13T04:38:00.000-08:00

After the presentation last week (that I think went quite well!) it's back into production. Over the next few weeks I feel we need to really focus on a couple of things.

#1 - Getting a working prototype out the door.
This is so, so important and thus far we haven't managed to do it. I wouldn't say it's any of our fault that this has happened. But we have such a nice mechanic and at the moment we don't have the technical abilities to pull it off. In short we need someone familiar with programming and is possible scripting for UDK. Now we have two options, hunt for someone who can do this or one of us learn to do it ourselves, possibly sacrificing other areas of the project. So I'm stumped. We have a meeting tomorrow so hopefully we can discuss a solution then.

#2 - Having a defined art style in engine.
By this I mean something within UDK that shows how are game is going to look. At everything apart from the actual static meshes is out of the box UDK (textures, skybox etc.) and it's painfully obvious that UDK is the engine behind the game, not good.

Here's a shot of what I've been modelling. Although it's not great because it doesn't show all the work I've done pulling models apart and making them re-usable... meh. The problem I'm having at the moment is balancing level design and asset creation. Trying to build the level without getting bogged down in details is hard. Of course I want the level to look nice but a lot of these assets need love to bring them up to a better standard. But at the same time I need to focus on the level over all and work on elements of the environment that are important to game play. Basically what I wanted to say is balancing these two is tricky. And I feel at the moment, especially taking into consideration the 2nd point I made earlier, focussing on the features important to game play within the level should probably take priority. As much as I enjoy modelling weird little bits and pieces....

And my website is down :(
Yesterday I posted my double cross dev diary & post mortem on Polycount which must have been read a few times because it killed my bandwidth. Which is a bit of a good/bad situation. I'm happy my site is getting traffic, but now it's dead! Also had some nice feedback from the people over at polycount!

anyway if you want to read the dev diary & post mortem here is a link to it on media fire: http://www.mediafire.com/?5fdfdbzsf69jhjo

Blitz games open day!

2011-02-11T06:24:00.000-08:00

So last Month I submitted my application to Blitz games to visit their studio as a 3D artist and I'm happy to say my application was accepted :D

Blitz was founded in 1981 by the Oliver Twins (Creators of the Dizzy Egg series!!) and has been responsible for several games including the recent dead to rights.

So I'm mega excited, this will be the first time I've had a chance to look around a commercial game development studio and get to meet the people who work there. Hopefully it will be a great chance to get a feel for what it's like to work in the games industry and make some useful contacts.

ssooo I'll be off to Leamington Spa on March the 10th! wwwooo!

Bioshock 2 lead env talks Ryan Amusements

2011-02-06T08:33:00.001-08:00

Bioshock 2 lead environment artist Hogarth de la Plante talks through the world of Ryan Amusements.

Worshippping at the temple of Notch...

2011-02-04T04:42:00.000-08:00

So the reason I've taken days to write this post.....

So it all started with this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UdEFmxRmNE

Done by the Yogcast guys, it was posted on a forum I visit pretty regularly and I spent a whole night watching the series all the way through.

The next day I bought Minecraft...

And so far I realy like it. Probably a bit too much! It's VERY addictive. Two of the guys I live with have been keeping up with the yogast videos and both of them have done the same as me and gone and got the game.

So I'm building a castle. woop!

I was at a lecture Dan Pincbeck (Dear Esther) gave the other day and he described Minecraft as "I am legend" meets Lego, which is pretty much spot on. It's a winning combination that works really well. You get dumped out in the wilderness on your own without much of an idea of what to do. (unless, like I did you watched some videos before buying it). Then it gets dark... Bad stuff happens when it gets dark.

If you've played the free Alpha and been put off buying the Beta version I would say just pay up and go for it! The alpha really doesn't reflect how good the real game is.

Anyway I should probably go do some work (Finish building my castle!) at this point...

January

2011-01-31T15:52:00.000-08:00

First off I would like to introduce my new website!

http://www.peterharries.co.uk/

It's still under construction but there are a few interesting bits on there to have a look at. Including a development diary and post mortem of the pre production stage of Double cross.

Here's a direct link to the preproduction development diary and post mortem.

So please have a look and let me know what you think :)

Since my last post I've mainly been working on those documents but I have done a bit of modelling, you can check out below:

I'm realy tired so I'm going to go and play minecraft some more, then maybe sleep.

Blitz submission

2011-01-08T10:25:00.000-08:00

I've got the 2 JPEG's for the Blitz open day done. Will probably send them tomorow at some point just incase I make any tweaks between now and then.

day 7 and where I'm at!

2011-01-08T08:27:00.000-08:00

So this is what it's looking like!

I want to use this in a submission for the Blitz open day and the deadline is the 10th. My disertation is needing a bit of work too :( So may leave it as it is for now.

I will however keep working on this after the Blitz submission.

The things I want to change are:

- re-do the main body and tower textures, change them to 1024 maps.
- add more geometrical detail to the edge of the roof of the main body, tower, porch and both extensions
- tweak the geom on the edges of the pine end of the roof and the tower to get a better silhouette
- create emissive textures for lamps and windows
- create a smoke particle affect for the chimneys
- work further into the roof textures, especially the edges. Get all the walls and roof.
- add some weathering to the roof tiles.

todays work, sick of texturing

2011-01-07T09:46:00.000-08:00

So I've been trying to get textures down just to cover stuff. It's messy and not finished and still needs tweaking but at least I can get an overall picture of where it's going.

Getting a bit sick of texturing now, have 2 days to go before I want it done so just trying to get stuff done.

textures!

2011-01-06T06:56:00.000-08:00

So I'm going to do it a bit different today and instead of making multiple posts just update this one with my texture progress!

Here's the first shot, pine end of the house, Haven't done the stones at the bottom of the wall yet.

update #1: got bored made this out of parts of the main building!

Update #2: Just got a comment on Polycount about how the wall texture is grainy, I do agree so I may bump the texture up to 1024 for the bigger parts. Here's a texture shot of what it's like now. (actual size).

update #3: Door done!

update #4:WHat I've done today, may revisit the wall texture but I want to get it finished in the next few days so I'll use it for now and hopefully have time to go back to it later. The roof texture needs working on as well.

...to the walls!

2011-01-05T09:58:00.000-08:00

Yes this and my previous post are a reference to lil jon & the eastside boys musical masterpiece that is "get low". :D

So I've unwrapped and done a first pass on the textures, so most of them are big ugly block colours. Still pretty happy with progress and confident I'll get it done in the time I've set myself. There are a few dodgy shadows, I'll try and figure out how their sneaking in soon. Could just be the Ambient Occulsion being weird.

anyway here are some pictures of what I've been doing.

From the windows...

2011-01-04T08:13:00.000-08:00

So texturing isn't my strongest point and I find it really tricky and difficult. Especially when working with anything under 512's.

I'm quite happy with them but will probably re-visit them later. Having to do the artwork with a mouse at the moment because I don't have access to a tablet, so that's a bit of a pain. May go hunting for a cheap one tomorrow. Overall happy with progress, was hoping to get more items unwrapped today but don't know how many I'll get done.

anyway here are some screenies.

And a shot of the texture.

blown apart

2011-01-03T10:06:00.000-08:00

Broken the house down into seperate assets. Hopefully this will let me re-use them if i decide to create a full scene with this, will also let me tinker with the model as I go along.

Edit: Here's the re-assembled version!

adding details.

2011-01-03T06:45:00.000-08:00

This morning I've been adding some details. Plan for the rest of the day is to finish that up, then start breaking it down into sections for unwrapping and texturing.

3D modelz yo

2011-01-02T10:34:00.000-08:00

So I managed to do some work today, I'm happy with the outcome. First time I've done something like this.

I say outcome even though it's miles from finished!

As it stands the mesh is Bad... Very Bad. Loads of un-needed topology and lacking llooaaddsss of details that I want to add. I want to go for a pretty low poly style and hopefully hand paint the textures so the end result will be Warcraft/torchlight-ish. Today my plan was to nail a base concept and I feel I've got that. Next I'll be playing with details and seeing if i can make it more interesting. Then I'll figure out a colour pallet and start texture work.

I've given myself until the 10th! wish me luck!!

2011 and back to work!

2011-01-02T03:25:00.000-08:00

So I've been pretty quiet on here recently! Mostly due to the fact that a lot of the work I've been doing has been paper based design and dissertation work. Some of which is quite interesting and hopefully I'll get a chance to post about it on here. But I much prefer to post visual stuff when I can, gotta love pictures!!

I'm back in Newport Gwent now after spending Christmas and New Year back in Pembrokeshire with the family which was great!

Now I have to face the looming deadlines and get the work done for them! Which does include some modelling work so hopefully I'll be posting regularly throughout the process.

The last of those deadlines is on the 13th after which we'll be jumping straight into Double Cross production! Which I'm really excited about! So January looks like it will be busy!

Happy 2011 everyone!

Double Cross update

2010-11-30T14:49:00.000-08:00

First some assets! These are WIP's. The barrels need a lot of texture work including spec and possibly bump maps.

The sign mesh needs tweaking as it's a bit tri heavy at the moment. Mite play with the textures some more as well.

We've managed to get our forums up and running and have finally found a programmer!

Recently we've just been meeting quite a bit and setting up online stuff. We also had to prepare for a presentation as well so I haven't really had a chance to post on here much! But I will update soon!!

City all meshed out!

2010-11-15T15:46:00.000-08:00

All done, now to give it some detail! This is going to take a while!

And here's a quick UDK workspace worskapce shot for no particular reason.

more progress...

2010-11-15T06:13:00.000-08:00

A bit more progress on converting the building into modular static meshes. It's a pretty monotonous job, exporting a scaled down version of the building from UDK into maya then exporting it from maya back into UDK. But once thats done it means I'll be able to edit the buildings details and test in UDK realy quick, like I've done with the airship docks building. It's getting there!

more airship dock

2010-11-14T10:55:00.000-08:00

The crane's hook swings in the wind ^_^ love little details like that!

quick bedtime update

2010-11-13T19:13:00.000-08:00

This shot was taken on one of the piers of the airship docks looking down towards the river flowing over the edge of the cliff.

The airship docks is a building I've just started modelling with the idea that it was a place that airships could reach the city built high in the mountains. It also gives the player to get a really spectacular view of the (as of yet un existing) scenery below and the mountain above the city!

This may take a while...

2010-11-13T11:19:00.000-08:00

This is my progress on the level so far.

each building in white is a static mesh that has a Maya file and a .FBX file. The maya file can be edited so eventually these buildings will be detailed.

I've started off by creating the smaller buildings as they will only have 1 maya file corresponding to them. However the taller buildings will be done modularly allowing me to use static meshes repeatedly. This will save me time and mean I can edit building size/height very quickly.

This is already implemented on the two tallest towers. The very tallest you can even go inside and walk to the top. But this takes ages (lifts will be implemented! lol)

to avoid the repetition being obvious I'm planning to use decals, props, texture variations and the occasional different modular mesh. For example a floor that has been damaged or has a different layout. Hopefully this will be enough to mask the obvious repetition.

To get an idea of scale the red dot at the lower part of the city is a small vehicle, slightly larger than the player.

It's at this point that I'm worried that I may being too ambitious with what I'm trying to create. Even though it doesn't take a huge amount of time to run through the city it is a large level especially if you include the vertical space. But I'm enjoying it and feel that if i manage to create what I'm aiming for it will be awesome, so I'm going to go for it! Just preparing to have a lot of all night working sessions!!

P.S. www.doublexgame.co.uk it works now! w00t! still under construction though, guess you will have to just wait a bit longer ;)

Double Cross

2010-11-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

Ta-da! www.doublexgame.co.uk (still under construction, hopefully live within the next few hours!)

So things are shaping up quite nicely!

At the top of the page you can see the logo I've put togeather for double cross, everyone seams to be happy with it, but like all things it's not concrete at could change in the future.

So first I'll talk about the city I'm creating. I have it all mapped out in UDK and started to replace the BSP brush buildings with static meshes. I've tried to create a very narrow and cramped atmosphere when on ground level and dizzy heights when on top of buildings. I'm pleased with the results! I'm going to continue to drop static meshes into the environment.

Next I have a piece of promo work I've created for the game. I'm hoping to be able to do a few more images like this to help promote the game. Hopefully there will be a future version that includes silouettes of our actual in game charcters.

we do have a basic mechanic working in UDK but we're going to start looking for a programmer as soon as we're sure our IP is copyrighted. Hopefully they will be able to help us make some progress on the mechanic and that will free me up to focus on environment and level design. Once thats done I'll post a video of how far we're into developing our mechanic.

Designing a city!

2010-11-11T18:57:00.000-08:00

Quick update of the map. This time it's all been done in UDK so a little less rough than maya. It's all to scale and you can actually walk through the buildings and wander around the city, although it's very boring at the moment. It's all done using BSP brushes but these will all be replaced with static meshes as soon as their done. Apart from the floor which will remzain BSP and be decorated with various static meshes.

The numbers on the map correspond to a list of each building including a description, but I'm not going to show that just yet :p

I've also included a screen shot looking up from just in front of building 8 towards the skyline.

now i NEED sleep!!

it's not pretty but it does the job!

2010-11-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

This is a quick and dirty mockup I've done of the environmet for our game (now named DoubleX, as in double Cross!) it's ugly and rough but it does the job. It's purpose is to give me an idea of player proggression through the environment, whats in the environment itself and hopefully this will lead to being able to pin down game pacing and events within the game!

This is a mega short post because I've got a load of stuff to do! but as soon as I can I will do a major update with all the stuff we have so far!

/Ninja edit: a 3D view of the mockup minus the paintover!

GameCity 5 (so far)

2010-10-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

So this week I'm up at GameCity 5 in Nottingham!

We got here on Tuesday, Nottingham is a nice city and the talks and expo's have been great! Also seeing several Newport students showing their games (colour runners, Q.U.B.E. and Mush) was really great! If everything goes to plan it would be great to be in a simmilar position to them next year!

So far The talks that I have found most interesting have been Jonathon Blow talking about the development of BRAID, Chris Hecker talking about Spy Party and Niv Fisher talking about Confetti Carnival. All very interesting and inspirational talks.

One key points that I have picked up on throughout the talks is that plot should be secondary to gameplay and that pushing for what you want the players to feel should take priority. Making the game scary rather than figuring out why the game is scary. So in essence designing with how you want to affect the player in mind rather than the story. Ofcourse this could depend on the game your creating!

Also the use of violence to punctuate what is happening within the game and to create tension. Rather than the game being focussed on violence, the game uses the violence as a punctuation and this creates a great sense of tension in anticipation of the violence that can be used to drive gameplay.

All interesting stuff and still all of Friday and Saturday morning to go!

testing mechanics in UDK

2010-10-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to get our core game mechanic (or a rough version) working in UDK so we can start whiteboxing and testing our gameplay as soon as possible.

This is what I've got so far.

Picking up the shock rifle, makes the currently invisible blue sphere visible and spawns an enemy bot at a set location. This can be triggered multiple times, as other bots/ players pick up the weapon the mesh will become visible to them and another bot is spawned. This is when things start to get a bit mad.

Picking up the rocket launcher does the same for the red mesh.

Eventually I hope to have enemies in the level already and have them become visible when the player picks up a certain item. From what I can tell this will most likely be some sort of material effect using matinee but I'm still working on this!

Here's a shot of our Kismet setup.

more 3rd year project concept art

2010-10-19T10:06:00.000-07:00

Here I was trying to work out an architecture style for the buildings in the city.

The environment is on the side of a mountain so space would obviously be limited, so buildings would be built upwards to get as much real-estate from the area as possible.

I was also thinking the city would be heavily involved in the mining industry because of it's location, so this has also influenced my design.

The City will have been abandoned when the player enters it so this should show through in the environment. There would still be power within the city so several lights would still be working. But the fact that the city is borderline derelict needs to show through.

I'm really happy with this as my first piece of concept work in colour :)

more concept drawings

2010-10-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

Not so happy nwith this one, lot of problems with it. Trying to get a more of a street level view.

3rd year project concept art

2010-10-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

I've done a very sketchy city concept for our third year game. Next I will continue to research and concept ideas for the general feeling within the city. At the moment I'm going quite a modern city that feels very cramped as it's been built on a cliff. So I will be looking modern cityscapes and also places where people live in very cramped areas.

I'll post again with full details of our project later on!

Sim-wis VS Zombies!!

2010-10-10T05:25:00.000-07:00

So it's now a comic book cover! Quite like it, think it could do with a bit more detail in the background, maybe some sort of cityscape, but I want to start working on other stuff now. Maybe I'll come back to this later on, maybe I won't! I'm pretty happy with how it's looking though!!

red heads, boobs, guns and zombies

2010-10-07T17:10:00.000-07:00

Isn't that what the Internet is all about? and lolcats ofcourse.

So I've made a bit of progress, still not quite finished!

The character is based on Sim Wise. Check out her myspace, she also reviews computer games, which is pretty cool!

I'm thinking about turning it into a comic cover, but I'm just seeing what happens as I go.

This could be quite drawn out as on top of being really busy I've contracted man-flu and my tonsils are now the size of ping pong balls :( blergh!

a 'lil something I'm working on at the mo!

2010-10-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

So here's a peak at a bit of what I'm working on at the moment, fun piece to do! hopefully will get it finished soon!

Also working on my personal website at the moment and starting on pre-production work for our 3rd year final major project! Not to mention the new job! Busy!!

Sintel (by The Blender Foundation)

2010-10-02T08:07:00.000-07:00

WATCH ON YOUTUBE HERE

" "Sintel" is an independently produced short film, initiated by the Blender Foundation as a means to further improve and validate the free/open source 3D creation suite Blender. With initial funding provided by 1000s of donations via the internet community, it has again proven to be a viable development model for both open 3D technology as for independent animation film.
This 15 minute film has been realized in the studio of the Amsterdam Blender Institute, by an international team of artists and developers. In addition to that, several crucial technical and creative targets have been realized online, by developers and artists and teams all over the world.

www.sintel.org"

This short film is a must watch. Simply Brilliant!

mega busy

2010-10-01T14:39:00.000-07:00

So basically I've got a new job! I'm working for a chain of clubs (Meze, OTT, Delilah's & Kama) in Newport and I'm really enjoying it, even though it can be quite intense sometimes! At the moment I'm working in the office 5 days a week as a junior designer so main job is designing flyers, menu's, posters, signage etc. also random jobs in the office like answering the phone, organising printing etc. And sometimes I even get to do a bit of promoting via facebook!

When I start uni again I won't be able to do as much work, so I'm hoping I'll go part time. It's a pretty cool place to work and everyone I work with is a good laugh and got to meet a bunch of new people so it's all good!

Also here's a picture of a good friend of mine Chloe Bruce (paint the moment)! I'm majorly enjoying doing type of drawings at the moment so there will probably be a few more soon!

P.S. Chloe, if you read this I will sort out a copy for you that I've signed soon! Sorry for being so slow lol!

some guy

2010-09-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

So here's a little charcter I did. Inspired by Jamie Hewlett's work.

want some BBQ?

2010-09-12T10:21:00.000-07:00

In hindsight I may hage gone overboard on the boobs!

Back in Newport Gwent!

2010-09-09T09:25:00.000-07:00

Back up in Newport Gwent and having a great time!! Majorly busy with loads of exciting stuff going on!! hopefully I'll have a chance to post some of it on here soon :)

Tryfan climb Aug 2010

2010-08-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

So the last few days I've been in North Wales. We climbed Tryfan and walked the Devils Kitchen. It was incredible!

Here's a short video i filmed on a digital camera I had with me, I left it in the car the first day (doh!) so it's only Tryfan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHVb4NkrKGQ

spelling fixed!

2010-08-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

more on this piece

2010-08-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

Overall I'm quite happy with this but I think I'll come back to this and tweak it, not sure what it needs, maybe a bit of colour on the radio and tidying up some of the lines.

oh and I will change the "your" to "you're" at some point!

more stuff I'm working on today

2010-08-21T10:09:00.000-07:00

The first picture is all in my sketchbook, probs going to take it into illustrator!

the sedond is the next stage of my previous WIP.

WIPing it

2010-08-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

a bit of progress!

WIP

2010-08-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

some 'lil something something that I'm working on!

drawing challenge day 2, only a week late!

2010-08-20T05:48:00.000-07:00

Favourite animal, so i sketched a dinosaur, dinosaurs are cool so it kinda works! It didnt take me long, it's very rough, but i like it, i don't do quick sketches often enough!

Cardiff skate plaza

2010-08-19T15:28:00.000-07:00

Went on a little road trip today to Cardiff skate plaza. Really had a good skate! fun little place. Because i suck at skating and photography i dont have any actions pics, but here's a few of the park itself.

GOST clothing

2010-08-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

I found out about a new clothing company called "GOST" ran by the former creative director of "Senate wheels" which was a rollerblading hardware company and "Franco shade" a rollerblading clothing company.

I'm a massive fan of the bold art style, someone get me some of this stuff please!!

Check out the blog @ http://gostbrand.com/blog/

30 days of drawing

2010-08-14T06:08:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine posted this to me on facebook the other day.

When i saw it my first thought was "urgh what the hell is this s***" but when i read it i quite liked the idea, 30 days or drawing diffrenet things. So looking past the horrendous presentation I thought I would give it a go!

so day#1 - draw yourself, here's my attempt. (yes i need a scanner!)

Chloe Bruce (the friend who originaly sent me the post) aka paint the moment and Ollie Elliott aka the enormous blogodile have both done one aswell, here they are.

Chloe Bruce
Ollie Eliott

"Tiny"

2010-08-12T16:23:00.000-07:00

Between Monday 9th of August to Wednesday 11th of August I was in Cardiff / Newport working as production designer "Tiny".

From the facebook page: "Tiny" is a 35mm short film about a young couple settling into a new house and preparing for their first child.

This is the first time I've worked on a film set and I have to say I really, really enjoyed it and would love to repeat the experience. W started on Monday buying props and preparing the house that we were shooting in so I got to get stuck in right away with deciding on what props to use and how to place them. On the Tuesday shooting began it varied between a lot of sitting around whilst the scene was shot and the sound recorded and a lot of rushing around to prepare the next scene for shooting. Because of the amount of equipment and size of the house we had to store anything we weren't using in the rooms that we weren't shooting in then move it all as we came to use those rooms, and then I would have to make sure the sets were tidy and ready to go after all the equipment had been relocated!

One thing I would change is that I would have loved to have a bigger role in pre production so that I could have a better idea of what the shots we were trying to get before the day of the shoot so i could have planned a bit ahead.

Crew
Writer - Craig Dean Devine
Directors - Martin Izzard & Craig Dean Devine
First A.D - Gafyn Holt
D.O.P - Craig Dean Devine
Production design - Peter Harries
Still photography - Jess Brown
Sound - Rebecca Lynch & Louise Lynch

Cast
Abi - Rosie Cripps
Steve - Tom Barker

CLICK THE IMAGES TO VIEW FULL SIZE :)

hectic weeks

2010-08-03T05:11:00.000-07:00

So the last few weeks of my summer holidays have been hectic, catching up with friends, working and BBQ's! I haven't had much of a chance to carry on with modelling the 3D env i was working on :( which is really frustrating. And I may even downsize it a bit, because the concept was huge, will have to wait and see how it goes.

But saying that, at the start of the summer (before I started working 2 jobs!) I did have a chance to blast through some UDK tutorials and have learnt a load about working with the engine.

In these tutorials i learnt about post processing volumes, lighting, particle effects and generally managing the scene to create the illusion of being part of a larger world beyond the playable area.

More recently I've been catching up on some drawing, got some new pens so I've been playing with them and decided I need to draw a lot more frequently!! more hours in the day please!

UDK destructable meshes

2010-06-17T08:53:00.000-07:00

I've recently come back to West Wales for the Summer and work has been a bit slow! Been catching up with friends etc.

I decided that I want / need to learn UDK so I've been experimenting with that, hoping to transfer the level I've been creating in Unity in UDK.

So far I've learnt a load of stuff, but here's one of my favourites so far!

P.S. sorry for the poor quality video!

lit in maya

2010-06-09T07:18:00.000-07:00

I have almost finished texturing the first building, well i say that, I will probably go back and fiddle with it a load before it's finished.

So I decided to throw a light into the maya scene to see what it looks like lit up, and I'm pretty happy with the result!

There's a normal map applied to the roof, but not on anything else. I haven't done a spec map yet but will get around to that as well eventually.

I'm beginning to think this project is a bit to big for me to finish completely, but the whole point was to practice what I already know and learn a bit more about workflow between Photoshop, Maya and whatever engine I use. And I'm definitely learning! So I guess it's all good!

This is the life DVD artwork

2010-06-08T05:12:00.000-07:00

I did this for some friends studying film & video. Their sending the film hey recently finished off to a load of film festivals and needed some DVD artwork done. Here's what I came up with, they seemed to like it, so it's all good!

Oh, and watch the film here! : http://vimeo.com/11686493
It's brilliant and definatley worth a watch!

tteexxttuurrees

2010-06-06T16:52:00.000-07:00

So I've added a few textures, will probably go back and revisit these later or and tidy them up a bit. Nice to get a bit of colour on there. There's a normal map on the roof, but as far as I can see it's not really affecting the texture that much. I mite try it in unreal and see how it looks. Still need spec maps for certain bits, but they don't seam to do that much in unity either.

all unwrapped

2010-06-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

It's not a great unwrap and I'll end up using a lot more texture maps than I actually want to :( But because it's the first time I've unwrapped something this complex I'm letting myself be a bit sloppy.

On the next buildings and props I'll try and make sure the unwraps are tighter so I use less texture maps.

UV unwraps make my head hurt

2010-06-05T14:39:00.000-07:00

Argh unwraping is killing me!

At least I've started texturing.

small update

2010-06-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

Added a few more details on the first building and figured out the placement of the stairwells in the other buildings. Also added a barrel that I made a few weeks ago into the scene.

Next details on the rest of the buildings and props.

Boom!

2010-05-30T05:11:00.000-07:00

So I've been building for far too long and decided it was time to just blow stuff up.

building building building!

2010-05-29T10:06:00.001-07:00

All the buildings have very basic structure now, next I'll be figuring out where stairwells, ladders, walkways and balconey's go. Also I'll be trying to work out what assets I can repeat (stairwells?).

I've cut a chunk of the land mass out from behind the buildings, who would build overly complicated slums perched on the side of a cliff if they had a big flat island to live in? lol

I've also added a little boat that comes with one of the unity example levels, I'll be modelling my own version later on!

more basic structure

2010-05-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

now have the placement for the rest of the buildings and very basic internal layout for the first two.

Next step will be getting the internal structure for the rest of the buildings carved out.

At the moment the scene feels really empty and spacious (still) which is worrying me a bit, so looking forward getting more assets in the scene to make it a bit more busy!

first building basic modeling pretty much done

2010-05-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

The basics of the first building is done! There's a few things in there that I would (will) probably tweak and change. I'm not 100% happy with the walls, some of them are too solid looking and need to feel more like they have been nailed together with scrap wood and sheets of corrugated iron.

Saying that the basic shape and layout of the building is down and that was what I was aiming to achieve.

Next I'll be modelling the walkways along the front of the buildings and hopefully making some plans that I can re-use throughout the level.

What I am slightly concerned with is that it's looking a bit too much like a pirate town at the moment but I hope when I add textures and props that it will start looking more like a slum. Maybe I will add some more partitions in the buildings to give a more cramped feel. The most difficult thing so far has been keeping a consistent scale that can be traversed in unity by the standard first person controller and looks right.

Overall I'm happy with how it's coming along.

Blocking in with maya

2010-05-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

I've made a start on blocking in buildings with maya, trying to work out sizes and how the internal structure will work. Next I'll be finishing the walls and start adding a few deatils before moving on to either the walkways or next building along.

Waterside slums environment

2010-05-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

I'm currently working on a little personal project, It's a small settlement of slums perching on the coast.

So far I've just blocked out the area with BSP brushes in Unity 3D to get an idea of what I wanted to go for. I've added doors (in red) and windows (in blue).

Next I'll do basic block models in maya to work out the interior spaces and what I can get away with duplicating inside the engine.

Wings of Fate finished!

2010-05-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

Download a playable .exe

So we finished Wings of Fate! And our presentation a week after the hand in went excellently!

I'm really happy with the outcome and really proud of the whole team!

Also finished my essay on "why people find le; font-size:11.arning to play games fun".

Now just to wait for feedback and grades!

DIsney entry

2010-04-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

My subbmission to the Disney Interactive Internship. In hindsight I would probably leave the images from the film in the background out.

Wings of Fate update

2010-03-22T12:26:00.001-07:00

Here's a few screenshots of the static meshes in maya.

Stove and chimney. This is where the Cardinals burn the votes during the conclave. There is also a lower poly version of this, but Unity seamed to cope with this model well so I decided to stick with it.

Alter at the end of the Chapel.

North wall including Balcony.

Some Shots from in engine.

The Cardinal model was done By Charlotte Gyseman, the Choir Balcony by Jason Thompson and the Windows and candlesticks by Matt Bustin.

where I've been hiding

2010-03-13T16:07:00.000-08:00

Ok so it's been a while since I updated my blog so this is going to be a hefty post! Basically just explaining what I've been doing that's kept me from updating this thing...

---
UNI Wings of Fate project progress:

In my last post I spoke about our current uni project "Wings of Fate" or as it's now been affectionately named Wings of Fail haha!

So far the project (in my opinion) is going brilliantly! We have a lot of our assets moddled although a few of them require tweaking and some of the team have began to texture. We're having a maya workshop on Monday to iron out any problems with models which should be really good.

As far as level and environment design (the parts that I have been heavily involved in so far) have gone, I have managed to get most of the important assets moddled and into engine although they need the textures working out. Also on Friday we spent our production meeting breaking down the walkthrough I'd written and refining it, which proved very productive indeed. We now have a very interesting level / scenario and I'm looking forward to see how it plays out.

The programmers have been doing an awesome job, We have enemy AI, control mechanic, environment mechanics, HUD and camera mechanics well underway and some nearly complete.
Also we should be releasing a website to promote our game demo soon. When it's done I'll post a link on here for everyone to have a look at :)

---
Dissertation:

We've also been working on dissertation ideas and questions. Along with the WOF project this has really made me think about what aspect of the games industry am I really interested in and would like to aim for as a career. I've always enjoyed creating game environments and levels and have always been an avid reader, particularly enjoy books that have extensive worlds and environments behind them. So one of my main focuses is environment art and level design. I'm Also particularly interested in MMO's and why they affect players so much, to the extent players get nostalgic about things that have happened in game. Also how MMO's are so complex and use this to give players a greater experience.

From this I'm trying to figure out a question for my dissertation. What I've come up with so far is:

"How communities with a particular MMO support and improve player experience"

"How is linear narrative portrayed in a non-linear world, focusing on MMO's"

The feedback from the seminar group so far has been: look for Social structure within online gaming documents on Digra. Also social contracts, what engages people within guilds, what rolls do people assume and what they benefit from being part of a community such as a guild.

Feedback welcome / needed! :D

---
Disney Interactive Internship submission:

I posted a couple of blogs a while back about Disney interactive internship in Hammersmith, London. Well I finished my creative brief and application form and sent it all off with my CV and examples of my work! Hopefully I'll be hearing back from them sometime this month to know whether I will get the position or not, fingers crossed! Once I hear back I'll post my submission.

---
Newport Pembrokeshire brochure:

Last year I designed (with the help of a few good friends) a brochure to promote my home town of Newport, Pembrokeshire for the local chamber of trade. So this year they've asked me to do it again and I'm more than happy to do it! Being a poor student I could always do with a bit of extra cash!

It's really different from any other work I've done as I have to deal with a lot of people who have paid for advertising space and largely have very little knowledge of computers or design. A lot of the adverts have to be built from the ground up which isn't so bad, the ones that are tricky are the adverts that get sent in weird formats. So I either have to re-create them in Photoshop and mimic the original or get in contact with the original advertiser and work something out.

I've got a tidy little spreadsheet with the info for each ad and the stage it's at so production is well underway! haha

But as a project goes it's quite rewarding as at the end I get to see my handy work printed on 10,000 brochures and distributed through south west Wales and along the M4 corridor, which is nice!

---
Dorito's advert:

So recently my little brother linked me to the Dorito's king of adverts competition and it looks interesting. So I decided to involve my housemates and see if they were as interested as I was, they were indeed! who wouldn't be with a potential £200,000 up for grabs!

Then we discovered that some other friends of ours were also interested in doing it, so we now have a team of 8! 5 film and video students, an animator and 2 games designers. We all have skills to bring to the table and I'm really, really looking forward to getting stuck in to this little project!

---
Beer Brewing:

... is fun!

Myself and a housemate recently went halves on a home brewing kit, we chose to go with lager as I'm not a fan of Cider or bitter.

6 days ago we mixed the lager mix provided with the kit and 1kg of sugar with 2 litres of boiling water and mixed it all up, then added just under 5 gallons of cold water and a sprinkle of yeast. It smelt awful, and we had our doubts...

Today the fermentation was done and it actually had started to smell like lager! we siphoned it all off and bottled it. 40 pints worth of lager! Now it has to be left in room temp for 2 days then left outside for 2 weeks.

It's a pretty fun little experiment and so far it seems to be going well. As long as the bottles don't blow up!

2010-02-16T02:34:00.000-08:00

vote Innamorati!

A Bristol based live electronic gypsy dub bass act. We create unlikely fusions of classical gypsy music with gritty raw Bristol dance elements.

Loving these guys music right now!!

Wings of Fate

2010-02-08T15:20:00.000-08:00

So I haven't posted in detail about our latest project "Wings of fate" yet! So it's about time I do it!

We're in a group of 11 (8 CGD artists and 3 programmers) and our brief is to create a playable level for a game with the working title of "wings of Fate".

Our Google site is http://sites.google.com/site/wingsoffategame/

All the major info is on there :)

At the moment I've mainly been working on the website and environment design, which I'm REALLY enjoying, because our game is turning into a bit of a platformer the level design is really interesting. Also the Sistine chapel (where the game is based) is a spectacular setting to work with.

A piece of concept work I did for the environment, focusing on lighting and scale.

A study of the interior of the Sistine chapel, to help with level design and scale.

Wings of Fate pre-production

2010-02-01T08:13:00.000-08:00

We had a meeting today regarding our new project. Here's a quick moodboard of the type of things popping in to my head as we spoke. Mainly focusing on what the characters will be wearing.

WIP

2010-01-26T14:16:00.001-08:00

A WIP, a bit too much of the "Lara" syndorme going on at the moment, Going to start work on another picture of this character soon. Would be nice to get this one finished though, practicing the old painting never hurt!

I want to make a music video for this!

2010-01-20T08:57:00.000-08:00

Ghostcatcher by INNAMORATI

Here's a track created by INNAMORATI which includes a friend of mine, I can't get enough of this track and would love to make a crazy music video for it! Not sure what or how but I know i want to!

Progress on 3D charcter

2010-01-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

So I've made some progress on the 3D character I'm building. Here's a smoothed render to show what I've done so far.

I'll be tweaking it a bit before I start texturing him!

30 sec FMV crit

2010-01-19T12:23:00.000-08:00

Quick summary, Ben, Matt and myself teamed up a few weeks before Christmas to work on a 30 sec game trailer, we would also be coming up with the game concept itself. We eventually decided on a game where the main character (a young boy) is abducted from his bedroom by a strange tentacle monster and dragged into another world, at which point he luckily escapes the grasp of the tentacle monster, as he falls from the grasp of the tentacle monster he notices several other children being abducted, but not waking up and escaping like himself. He falls to the ground and picks himself up to find himself lost and alone in a vast nightmarish world. The main aim of the game being to escape this world and rescue as many other children along the way. The game is called Pallium Somnus.

We showed the video today (you can find in my previous post) which had an overall good reception, the feedback was as follows;

Good points:
The long shot at the end was very effective in showing a vast environment.
The camera dip transition to the other world was very effective.
The sense of being "lost" was very strong towards the end.

Bad points:
The light source and palette choice in the cavern could be more defined to create a better atmosphere.
The bed sheets in the first scene and second scene were different colours and need to be textured correctly.
The camera moved too much, in the second shot in the bedroom the camera could be more still to emphasize the movement of the tentacle.
Spot sound would help in the composition, drawing the viewers eye to certain elements and helping navigate the scene.
The shot with lots of children being abducted could be shown after the boy falls to create more of an impact.
All of the above would help manage the communication of our idea and sell the games USP.

That's all, good feedback, happy with the result. Will hopefully get to tweak the FMV for our portfolio's. Loads of good work getting shown today as well!

emotional realism!?

2010-01-19T02:59:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted in a couple of days, Sunday I was busy writing our essay (What I posted on Sunday was all prepared the night before!) then yesterday we had our hand-ins, game FMV and essay. Then a group of us from the course plus a few others all went to the pub! being the weak person I am, I ended up pretty drunk, but had a great time!

So I haven't actually got any work to post up today! I think this is only the second post with no pictures of things I've been working on!

What I did want to talk about is the essay, as I've not mentioned that here at all. The question was:

“While photorealistic animation and gaming visuals offer a graphic realism, in what ways have contemporary titles such as Half Life 2 (Valve, 2004) succeeded or failed in expressing an emotional realism?”

So I chose to speak about how emotions are conveyed in game and how people identify with characters in narrative and empathise with them. Kathrine Isbister's, Better Game Characters by design, a physiological approach, that I got for Christmas really helped with this as it talks a lot about how characters give different messages in games.

One thing that I hadn't heard of before was the "uncanny-valley" theory which talks about how as graphics get more photorealistic people automatically expect true to life expressions and movements from the characters, and it becomes easier for the character to look unnatural to the viewer and once this happens people find it difficult to identify with the character. I thought this was really interesting and something that will potentially help me in my own work.

Final cut!

2010-01-17T05:45:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to point out things i would like to change or places where we had problems until after the screenings, that way if nobody notices I just won't mention them ha! Also the name has changed!

But I'm really happy with what Ben, Matt and myself have pulled off!

feedback welcome :D

Test render of the first 6 seconds

2010-01-15T14:58:00.000-08:00

It's looking good!

You can see where I havn't textured the boys head properly, I'll try and finish this before the final cut. Also The shadows are a bit pixelated, I think this mite be because I've just been renderig with maya software, but it really bugs me, so I'm going to make the effort to learn mental ray. Doubt i will have time before Monday, but next time!!

Bedroom all done

2010-01-15T10:27:00.000-08:00

Bedroom finished :D now hurry up and animate!! We want to start editing it tomorrow, so late night tonight! Did have a bit of a problem with textures on the boy, but it's ok now (just don't look too close! haha).

a quick smooth!

2010-01-14T18:24:00.000-08:00

Just finalising the body, did a quick smooth so I can get an idea what the finished thing will look like, quite happy with it! There's a few parts that I would change, especially around the legs and feet but I'm eager to move on and start modelling the head, so I'll leave it as it is for now!

Really learnt the importance of an accurate character design sheet here, I'm using a design that only has a front view, a side and top down view would have helped millions! The feet are also drawn in a way that makes them difficult to model using an image plane, to help with that I used some diagrams as reference.

i shouldn't be messing with textures this late on, but....

2010-01-14T12:46:00.000-08:00

Just texturing the books in the room, and got a bit carried away! this ones for Ben haha! :)

progress on bedroom

2010-01-14T11:14:00.001-08:00

just adding clutter to make the room more recognizable as a child's room. Added a little nod to Pixars up! with a poster, i do love that film! haha!