UPDATE

New !1080! flythrough of my modular level. woooo

Winter Break

This will be my winter break project.
Credit to the artist - http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?172680-Robin-O-Portfolio

I am not so much looking to finish this whole space but learn a few new things while creating it. There are a couple things in here I can use zbrush to make so I can get familiar with the program. There are also a lot of interesting materials to try and recreate. I think it'll be an interesting project.

Found the art then quickly blocked in the space to get a feel for how big it will actually be...

More updates to come as I progresssssssssssss

Videos

Videos of my board game commercial and the fly-through of my modular level. The fly-through chokes at a couple of points and is already down to 720. I had to submit something so that is it for now. I am going to get it higher res and completely smooth.

Portfolio Update

New beauty shots and some contact sheets on the 'ole website. Check it oooout.

Modular - Clouds

Made a quick panning cloud material. I made a cloud texture and alpha in photoshop and took it into UDK and slapped it on a plane. In the material editor I just panned the texture and added a depth bias alpha to help with the falloff on the rocks. Layered a few of those textured planes on top of each other for depth and wham-o. Easy stuff, but it helps a whole lot. A little before and after of the depth bias alpha action...
Before:

After:

That harsh edge along the rocks is gone. woo.

Modular - Updated Beauty Shots

They're getting there. I messed with the lighting a little bit, but I mostly focused on populating the spaces with props. These are taken on my computer at home so the color is a little bit different.

Ignore those wonky clouds. They were just an alpha and panner test. They will be gone soooon.... Oh, and ignore the noob cursor

Modular - Old Beauty Shots

Here are my old beauty shots.

 I'm not too happy with the way the first set turned out. They were too monochromatic, not set dressed enough, and the compositions weren't exceptionally strong. There is also problems in the shots since I took them in the editor instead of in-game, because the skeletal meshes only start simulating cloth when you're in-game. I'm working on set dressing and lighting some new areas for better beauty shots to resubmit. The first shot from above will stay about the same, adding the new skydome (from images below) and some more set dressing. The next two shots are completely new, and I feel they are far more interesting. Just need a lot of set dressing...

Portfolio

My Portfolio

As of now it only has shots of my board game on it. I'm tweaking some things with my set dressing before I post beauty shots. Enjoy!

Reanimating Nearl Commercial

Finally finished my board game trailer. For how much time I spent on it (way longer than I expected) I feel like it should be much better quality. I find it hilarious just because of how ridiculous it is. Weird voice acting, cheesy 80's rock, and animated lightning - great stuff. I'm presenting it tomorrow so I'll have to wait and see if everyone else is amused by its ridiculous, foolish charm

Here's a little piece of the action...

Modular Kit - Rock Material

This is the material for the 'Super Rock'. It has an intelligent material to retain texel density when scaled and it's vertex paintable. It seems really inefficient and messy which makes me think there is definitely a better way of doing this. If anyone has suggestions to cut out unnecessary and redundant steps leave me a juicy comment.

 I made the diffuse textures with pictures I took of rocks in Arizona. It was satisfying in a way to make a texture with nothing pulled from the internet.

Rocks n Junk

Did I go to Arizona just to get some sweet, sweet rock textures for our modular kit project!? No. But I was out here for break and saw some sweet rocks so I took some pictures of them. I have a pretty old camera but I think a few of the shot are usable for some texture noise overlays or something. Here is a little preview of some rocks:

Whaaaaat, are there shots of the ground too for texture reference!? Yeup.

Feyenuh Urtuhs

I am doing a Fine Arts - Sculpture minor. Here are my first two fine arts pieces ever. They were super fun to work on. I've done woodworking stuff my whole life because my dad had a woodshop in our garage when I was growing up. He is a proponent of hands on stuff and I think it's a good quality for people to have; knowing how to build stuff. All of the stuff I did growing up and this fine arts stuff definitely helps with my 3D work too. It's a different but the same, y'know? There are a lot of concepts that carry between the two disciplines.

Modular Kit - Set Dressing

Just some progress with my set dressing. My map is huge... I'm probably going to have to cut a lot of it out. I lost about 6 hours of work, which was my fault, I think. I'm not exactly sure how it happened but it did. Because of that I'm a little behind where I want to be, but I still feel pretty good about it. I haven't messed around with the lighting too much yet, but here's where I am so far.

Eh, that last one is pretty dark. Sorry about that.

Modular Kit - Awnings and Rocks

I previously made 30-something awnings with all sorts of different colors and patterns. That was bad. I deleted them all. I replaced them with 4 white awnings, all of which have MICs to handle diversity. The whole awning is one SM so I alpha'd and lerped some stuff so only the cloth would change colors.

 Here are the two rocks I made. They are just low poly planes. I tried to use a method I saw in some of the UDK rocks.

With those two rocks I was able to throw together this big rock wall in 10 minutes with some decent variation.

After those rocks I tried to make a super rock. The super rock has an intelligent material to retain texel density when scaled up and down.

The super rock also has the ability to be vertex painted.

The super rock was just an experiment but I am going to try to throw together a better model, and some better textures and put it in my kit for some more rock diversity. 'Cause you can never have too much rock diversity...

The Lens of Emergence

I just realized this was still a draft and was never posted. So with further delay, heeeeere it is:

We had to pick a lens from The Book of Lenses and then apply the questions to our print and play game. I picked #23 The Lens of Emergence:

     How many verbs do my players have?
     How many objects can each verb act on?
     How many ways can players achieve their goals?
     How many subjects do the players control?
     How do side effects change constraints?

How many verbs do my players have? Verbs: Customize, move, jump, attack, defend, draw wild cards. Based on wild cards players can swap class tiles so I guess swapping could be a verb too. I added some different movement mechanics for certain classes. While I didn't introduce a new operative action I applied an existing operative action to a different class. In my game there is a class that can jump over friendly units. There are also secret tiles that, before I implemented the jumping mechanic, had no unique attributes other than they face down and their true identity was hidden. By giving the secret tiles the same jump mechanics as the jump class I added a verb to those classes.

How many objects can each verb act on? Apart from attacking, the verbs only act on friendly tiles.  Movement and jumping are only used on friendly tiles. When attacking you can only attack the enemy. If you have a +attack class tile the attack changes and you get +1 to your die roll which changes the combat mechanic. It might be interesting to implement some kind of checkers mechanic, where tiles can jump over enemy tiles. That way I'm adding complexity to the jump mechanic, allowing the player to do more with one operative action.

How many ways can players achieve their goals? In my game there is one goal: Retrieve the correct secret tile from your enemy. Each player has two secret tiles. One of the tiles is your "king" in the sense that if it is captured, the game is over and you lose. You can choose different strategies to achieve the goal but there is really only one way to actually win, and that is defeating the correct secret tile in combat. You can choose to customize your platoons differently to take an offensive or defensive strategy, you can rush the wild card spot in the middle of the board, you can flank your opponent, or charge them head on. There are many different strategies to achieve the goal.  Maybe I could add something like controlling the wild card space for x number of turns will win you the game also? I don't really like that idea but something along those lines could be interesting.

How many subjects do the players control? Each player controls two platoons of three units each. So at the start of the game they are controlling 6 total units.  The tiles in each platoon must stay connected, so even though you are controlling six units, the six units are making up two big groups you are controlling. A player can never have more than six units but can definitely have less. I have messed around with the idea of adding one more platoon of three units and making playing space bigger and adding one more unit to each platoon, making it two platoons of four units instead of two platoons of three. A requirement for the game is a 30 minute time limit, so for the sake of brevity I think I will keep it where it is at two platoons of three units each. It does make it fun though when you have the extra units to play with.

How do side effects change constraints? The book uses the example of checkers and how moving into different squares changes the game space. This idea of an evolving game space was an concept from early on I wanted to keep in my game. In my game constraints are changed the same way they are changed in checkers, as far as moving spaces. When you move a space you are threatening you opponent by denying them spaces to move into. By attacking and drawing some wild card you can change constraints by eliminating pieces from the game board, not only evolving the playable space, reducing the number of units your opponent has (or possibly the number of your own units).

Print N Play - Done

Finished my board game. There are a couple of things in the physical version that didn't turn out exactly how I wanted to, but other than that I'm pretty happy. I ended up with a simple, enjoyable game. I learned a lot about how to make things fun for a lot of different people.  Play testing was key for tweaking the game and learning what people like and don't like.  Every time I watch someone play my game, I get new ideas on how to improve my game in all aspects. It's a constant learning experience. It was a fun project but I am glad it is over. Here is a game in progress:

This is my painting for the box art. Filthy peasants...

And of course, the print-and-play PDF version:
Reanimating Nearl

Modular Kit - Another Shield

I also made another shield. I started messing around with the material editor a little bit and it is great big fun. There's SO much stuff you can do.

Print N Play - Why can't I hold all these...

Game tiles. A lot of them. Solid oak beauties. Not too much work left to get these done. Only thing I'm worried about is getting an appointment for the laser cutter, since apparently GWiz isn't an option any more.

Modular Kit - Medium Props

I had awnings for my medium prop. I modeled four different variations and textured each model eight different colors. So I have 32 different awnings. There are still some different variations some people want to fit their level specifically. I should be able to throw a couple more together to appease the masses. Here are the four different variations.

I also messed around with the UDK Cloth PhysX quite a bit. That whole system is cool, but very finicky.  So, in addition to the static awnings, I have a few skeletal meshes of awnings. They still need a little tweaking but I got the basics down.

Print n Play - Storytelling Illustration

We needed to create an image that visually communicates the core mechanic and theme of our print and play game. In my game each of the two players has either a head or a body and the goal of the game is to capture whichever part you don't have so you can reanimate the corpse, like a Frankenstein monster. So if you have the body piece you want to capture the opponent's head piece.

I am going to mesh the ideas together of these two drawings for my image.

Print n Play - Prototype

This is a prototype I made over the weekend to get a feel for the size of the tiles I want to use for my game.

I'm pretty happy with this size. Ultimately I am going to make 11 of these and laser engrave the tops of them. The tops will have different designs depending on different class, Nearl's body part, and decoy tiles. I will take those 11, glue them to a sheet of masonite, and cast the engraved tiles in a big silicone sheet mold. After that I'm going to make two different color resin sets of 11 tiles. To make them feel nicer I am going to put tiny weights in each of them. After the resin pours I will paint the engravings for some subtle flavaaaa.

Print n Play - Theme and Concept Statement

Nearl was decapitated. The prophecies told that one day his separated body and head would have to be joined back together so he could be reanimated and show the people how to transcend. That day is today.  Since Nearl was been decapitated his head and body had been split between two rival factions. Each faction is going to battle the other to get the other half of Nearl so their faction will be the one to transcend.

Take charge of one faction and fight for your future. You command two platoons of three units. In each platoon you have one secret unit; one of Nearl’s body parts, and a decoy. The other two units in each platoon are customized by you.  The units in each platoon must stick together to maneuver, trick, attack, and hopefully capture the enemy’s half of Nearl. You must be careful though, if the enemy capture’s your half of Nearl, you lose and do not get to transcend.

I can’t decide on an exact theme. It is either some medieval, pagan, peasant-filled, fantasy world with zombies, OR these other-worldly, primitive, quasi-amorphous, simple, alien, creature things.

Concept statements are tricky. Best I came up with all weekend: Annihilate. Reanimate. Emancipate.

Here is a theme that was put to good use to unify a product. It is an anniversary release of a tv show on [adult swim]. The show is, roughly, about three 8-year-olds and the home movies they make trying to follow one of their artistic visions.  The way they packaged and boxed the whole anniversary set reinforces the theme of the show.

Proops

My easy props are shields. I guess our theme is 15th century Arabic influenced for the most part. So I looked up some 15th century Ottoman Empire business. I modeled like 14 different shields and that was the problem. It took a loooong time for me to put the textures together for three shields.

I'm not even completely happy with the textures I got done. I need to mess with the normals a little bit then fix the specularity. AND tweak a couple of things on some of the models.

I guess it also didn't help I started modeling some of my medium props...

These are just an experiment for now. Going to mess around with putting bones in and weighting the fabric of the awnings then usings the PhysX's cloth simulation engine in UDK to make some cuhrazy stuff.

...AFTER I'm satisfied with all of my shield business.

Print n Play - Playtest Forms

Here are my some of my playtest forms. One is slightly more constructive than the other...

I got some good feedback so far but the game still needs a little bit of tweaking. Since my feedback was basically the game was a little on the boring side I added some movement mechanics that could add a little more strategy to the game and I added some wild cards that can negatively affect the person drawing.

Something I would like to implement, which is what I originally started out with for this game was to have 3 platoons per side instead of two. I think this would add a lot more to the game, but for the sake of the 30 minute time limit I think it needs to be kept at 2 platoons for each player. I would still like to try having 3 platoons. Who knows, maybe it would move even faster.

Another mechanic I added in a gameplay variation section of the rules was merging platoons. If you decide to play this way you can merge your two platoons and switch pieces between them. This is something else that could add a level of difficulty to the game.

Print n Play - New Game

My brainstorming idea got scrapped. I kept a couple of elements I liked and moved on to a new idea... Which also got scrapped. I felt both of the games had a little too much to manage for a game that was supposed to be played in 30 minutes. The games were complex, but not in a good, challenging way. More in an annoying, I have way too much stuff to focus on, boring kind of way.

Late last night I came up with another idea  that pulls some mechanics from the first two games but is completely different. I wanted to keep the customization aspect in the game.

Two player, turn-based game. Each player has two platoons consisting of three tiles. Each platoon has one secret tile and two other custom class tiles. each platoon must stick together with its three members  and move its way to capture the correct enemy secret tile (one is a decoy). There is a die roll combat mechanic for adjoining enemy tiles. Defeat the correct secret tile in combat and win the game. There is a wild card mechanic and different movement patterns for each class. There is also some lore about finding the decapitated head for the body so they can be rejoined and reanimated.

Game in progress:

Set Dress

Started to set dress my grey box level using everybody's modular kits. It's soupa fun to try and figure out how to make everything work together with everyone's kits. It's a rough start but you can see where I'm going with it all.

 

Pretty much what I have near completion. 

 Annnnd what I have left to do. The level is cut off around the middle bridge but it's still a lot of background to throw together. I think I'll be able to get enough mileage out of the stuff we have to make everything look nice. It would be pretty rad if we could use the other class' stuff...