Peter Harries

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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 i...

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 b...

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!

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 ...

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!

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!