Well didn't the summer just disappear? And to think that the Christmas decorations will be on full display everywhere in a matter of weeks.. scary! I've had a rather turbulent month with a screwed back (worse than first suspected, but better now) a bout of flu, increased pressure in work and last but not least, girl troubles.
As I sit here and type, all of these things are now behind me and I've been looking at various evening courses in an attempt to boost my skill set in particular areas I feel formal training could be rather beneficial. I've signed up for two, both of which commence next week. The first, is a Creative Writing class. I've never been great with expressing my feelings through words, so the hope is that it will strengthen a small project I'm beginning to work on (more on this later) and generally just expand my creative vocabulary and emotional expression. The second, is a Game Design course that's focal point is producing prototypes and working demos using Unity 3d and 3d Max/Photoshop for asset creation. My aim here is to get some formal training with UnityScript as it's the one thing that's been curbing progress for me. Both courses run until Christmas and while 2 nights a week might sound like a lot, it should still leave me enough time to work on other things. The plan for after Christmas, is to take a Creative Drawing class and possibly something else, in the run up to the summer.
So that's it! I bought a second and much bigger (classroom size) whiteboard and have stuck it on my wall - which is now full with notes and doodles, as I plan out the early stages of a game that is loosely based on my childhood experiences. I won't talk about it until I have something concrete to show and/or the concept sticks, but one thing's for sure, I have an exciting few months ahead!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Checking in
Just back from a glorious 2 weeks in Corfu. Plenty of sun, booze, adventures and much needed R&R. I might post some pictures at some point, but at the moment I'm practically incapacitated due to a pulled muscle in my back, rendering the use of my left arm completely and utterly useless. It's laughing at the pain killers at the moment, I just hope there isn't any proper damage done to it. But yeah, I can barely move.
Going to crawl into bed now not move for hours, hopefully this thing can be slept off.
Until soon.
Going to crawl into bed now not move for hours, hopefully this thing can be slept off.
Until soon.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Still Alive
Greetings,
I just finished Portal again and the end credits song "Still Alive" has given me the kick I've needed to update this and let you all know that I'm alive and well and whilst there has been little actual progress on the development front, it doesn't mean I've drifted off into the land of the giver-uppers. The wheel is still turning.
I guess you could say I'm in sort of a development limbo at the moment. I'm juggling a bunch of tools, Unity, UDK, Zbrush, 3D Max and sort of just being unsure as to what to pick and use going forward. It's clear that I've been over-evaluating and procrastinating. One minute I'm pro-Unity, the next, UDK is the best thing since sliced bread (it really is though..) and then I'm modeling vases and walls in 3D Max and having a tonne of fun painting on beautiful normal maps in zBrush, all without an end goal. Dither brain. Sure, it's all practice and I'm constantly learning, but at the end of the day, it's all about how efficient and productive you are with your time, that counts. I can tell you, I have not been efficient with my time.
You can tell from my previous posts and pretty much since the release of Craggy Island, that I've been a right dither-brain, hopping from one idea to the next. Little Big Planet, Virus Attack, iPhone game, AI behaviour game, yada yada. I've made some progress with the AI behaviour game in Unity and hope to post some progress shots of that sometime in September. (2 week holiday to Corfu in August!)
So where does that leave me? It left me in a state of deep and meaningful thought this week. I worry an awful lot about the future. Is this the right thing to do given current industry conditions? What studio should I aim to work at, would they hire me? How should I best spend my time, making nice maps for a pre-existing game, or build some prototypes using my own assets? How do I want my portfolio to look? Should I look to join a mod team and contribute content? Should I skip returning to college and spend the near 20k I will have saved on funding an indie game?
These are the questions running through my head on a daily basis. They've pretty much been clouding my mind and have left little room for the creative part to breath. So I've come to the conclusion that I will no longer think or worry about what the future holds and instead focus all of my energies on creating COOL SHIT. I'm sure that any of you reading this are probably shouting the monitor "Well DUH" but sometimes it's not as easy as that. In this case though, you'd be right. That's right, I'm going to make some cool shit. Some seriously cool shit. Make cool shit and the rest will take care of itself, right?
I will primarily be using Unity for the AI based game. There are some really interesting behavioural and pathing libraries out there that can be integrated into Unity's API. We won't be sticking to any rigid game design just yet, rather just testing the waters with the hope of something interesting emerging from that. To speed up production and save some hair, we'll most likely look to get a programmer on board. The library integration will take a little work and neither myself or Sergio are immediately equipped with the necessary skills to bring our visions to life.
Hopefully soon enough I'll be blogging about something productive and less about promising to be productive.
Have a nice Sunday.
I just finished Portal again and the end credits song "Still Alive" has given me the kick I've needed to update this and let you all know that I'm alive and well and whilst there has been little actual progress on the development front, it doesn't mean I've drifted off into the land of the giver-uppers. The wheel is still turning.
I guess you could say I'm in sort of a development limbo at the moment. I'm juggling a bunch of tools, Unity, UDK, Zbrush, 3D Max and sort of just being unsure as to what to pick and use going forward. It's clear that I've been over-evaluating and procrastinating. One minute I'm pro-Unity, the next, UDK is the best thing since sliced bread (it really is though..) and then I'm modeling vases and walls in 3D Max and having a tonne of fun painting on beautiful normal maps in zBrush, all without an end goal. Dither brain. Sure, it's all practice and I'm constantly learning, but at the end of the day, it's all about how efficient and productive you are with your time, that counts. I can tell you, I have not been efficient with my time.
You can tell from my previous posts and pretty much since the release of Craggy Island, that I've been a right dither-brain, hopping from one idea to the next. Little Big Planet, Virus Attack, iPhone game, AI behaviour game, yada yada. I've made some progress with the AI behaviour game in Unity and hope to post some progress shots of that sometime in September. (2 week holiday to Corfu in August!)
So where does that leave me? It left me in a state of deep and meaningful thought this week. I worry an awful lot about the future. Is this the right thing to do given current industry conditions? What studio should I aim to work at, would they hire me? How should I best spend my time, making nice maps for a pre-existing game, or build some prototypes using my own assets? How do I want my portfolio to look? Should I look to join a mod team and contribute content? Should I skip returning to college and spend the near 20k I will have saved on funding an indie game?
These are the questions running through my head on a daily basis. They've pretty much been clouding my mind and have left little room for the creative part to breath. So I've come to the conclusion that I will no longer think or worry about what the future holds and instead focus all of my energies on creating COOL SHIT. I'm sure that any of you reading this are probably shouting the monitor "Well DUH" but sometimes it's not as easy as that. In this case though, you'd be right. That's right, I'm going to make some cool shit. Some seriously cool shit. Make cool shit and the rest will take care of itself, right?
I will primarily be using Unity for the AI based game. There are some really interesting behavioural and pathing libraries out there that can be integrated into Unity's API. We won't be sticking to any rigid game design just yet, rather just testing the waters with the hope of something interesting emerging from that. To speed up production and save some hair, we'll most likely look to get a programmer on board. The library integration will take a little work and neither myself or Sergio are immediately equipped with the necessary skills to bring our visions to life.
Hopefully soon enough I'll be blogging about something productive and less about promising to be productive.
Have a nice Sunday.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Busy Busy!
I'm a terrible blogger. Setting aside 30 minutes a week doesn't seem like a monumental task, but lately that's proven quite the contrary.
I may have to give up the day job the way things are progressing, as there are options and projects coming in on all fronts at the moment and I'm going to have to start balancing my time very carefully. I can't go into much about what I'm doing, but two things that look likely to rob all of my time for the next few months, are building an iPhone game with a team of 3 developers and also helping put together an advanced AI-based prototype for a college paper. It's a really exciting time for me and I love nothing more than to be kept busy.
I will of course divulge you more once things are moving along (though I will be under NDA with the iPhone game so posting progress won't be an option until later in the cycle) and I will make every effort to post on a more regular basis. It's just so much easier to work a blog schedule into a project schedule, as apposed to now, where I'm just tinkering with various technologies and libraries.
The project I spoke about working on in my last blog will be on hold until I have a proper schedule in place. Being a personal project, it must take a back-seat and if I can fit it into my week, even an hour here or there, I'll do that. A part from that, there is something else in the works that will require a small time investment, but the benefits are crystal clear. More on that later.
On a (natural!) high right now, this is exactly where I want to be and what I want to be doing.
It's a beautiful evening, summer is here, L.A Noire is out in just over 2 weeks and Osama Bin Laden is dead.
Life is good. Have a nice evening!
I may have to give up the day job the way things are progressing, as there are options and projects coming in on all fronts at the moment and I'm going to have to start balancing my time very carefully. I can't go into much about what I'm doing, but two things that look likely to rob all of my time for the next few months, are building an iPhone game with a team of 3 developers and also helping put together an advanced AI-based prototype for a college paper. It's a really exciting time for me and I love nothing more than to be kept busy.
I will of course divulge you more once things are moving along (though I will be under NDA with the iPhone game so posting progress won't be an option until later in the cycle) and I will make every effort to post on a more regular basis. It's just so much easier to work a blog schedule into a project schedule, as apposed to now, where I'm just tinkering with various technologies and libraries.
The project I spoke about working on in my last blog will be on hold until I have a proper schedule in place. Being a personal project, it must take a back-seat and if I can fit it into my week, even an hour here or there, I'll do that. A part from that, there is something else in the works that will require a small time investment, but the benefits are crystal clear. More on that later.
On a (natural!) high right now, this is exactly where I want to be and what I want to be doing.
It's a beautiful evening, summer is here, L.A Noire is out in just over 2 weeks and Osama Bin Laden is dead.
Life is good. Have a nice evening!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Unity 3d
I promise to make a far more elaborate effort over the coming week or so once I have something vaguely interesting to write about (which also explains the lack of activity here lately) so until then I will just summarize up some tidbits that I'd like to rant about. Before I launch into said rant, I've not been sitting on my arse, contrary to how the impression my blog would give. Instead I've been an extremely busy bee learning the crap out of Unity and JavaScript. JAVASCRIPT!? Yes, you heard it here, I am stuffing my brain full of code. So far so good actually, I have a pretty solid grasp of variables and their syntax, and I've just started on IF statements. Funnily enough, I'm surprised to say that I'm enjoying it. The plan is to become a fairly proficient scripter to compliment my level and content building, which will hopefully make me that bit more employable at the end of the day.
Onto Unity then. It's great. Everything is almost TOO streamlined and coming from an in-house oriented toolset to this user-friendly, thoroughly thought out set of tools is almost too good to be true. It really is fantastic. I've come across countless little quirks that have literally put a beaming smile on my face. It's all about the detail people! I expect big things from Unity over the coming years. I've only just scratched the surface of it so far, but so far, so impressed.
Myself and a friend, Phil, are now in the early concept stages of a game built using Unity. This time around, everything will be custom made and the hopes are that we will release a browser based game by the end of the year. We have a strong idea, one that I'm not prepared to reveal just yet, but we feel very confident about it. I mentioned before that I did my room up, but since then I've added a second monitor to my setup and a whiteboard, which is now plastered in scripting. As for the second monitor, it makes me wonder how on earth I put up with just one for Craggy Island's development. The difference is incomparable. Watch this space!
Bulletpoint rant a-gogo!
Onto Unity then. It's great. Everything is almost TOO streamlined and coming from an in-house oriented toolset to this user-friendly, thoroughly thought out set of tools is almost too good to be true. It really is fantastic. I've come across countless little quirks that have literally put a beaming smile on my face. It's all about the detail people! I expect big things from Unity over the coming years. I've only just scratched the surface of it so far, but so far, so impressed.
Myself and a friend, Phil, are now in the early concept stages of a game built using Unity. This time around, everything will be custom made and the hopes are that we will release a browser based game by the end of the year. We have a strong idea, one that I'm not prepared to reveal just yet, but we feel very confident about it. I mentioned before that I did my room up, but since then I've added a second monitor to my setup and a whiteboard, which is now plastered in scripting. As for the second monitor, it makes me wonder how on earth I put up with just one for Craggy Island's development. The difference is incomparable. Watch this space!
Bulletpoint rant a-gogo!
- Dragon Age 2 - Almost too easy to forget the utter rage that was taking place on RPG forums across the interwebs just a few weeks ago. It's all blown over and what are we left with? A 79 Metacritic score (Probably about right..) and a free copy of Mass Effect 2 on the PC, as a gesture (apologetic?) of thanks for hitting the 1 mill sales milestone. Come on Bioware, I enjoyed the game, but you can offer so much more. Step it up for DA3.
- Duke Nukem Foreeeeeever - Old news now, but fecking hell Gearbox. Publicity stunt or final polish? Who knows.. but at least Randy Pitchford made us all smile with this cheeky video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r96OQXknoho I love that guys enthusiasm.
- Nintendo 3DS - Biggest Nintendo console launch ever? I find that hard to believe when there is stock sitting on every retailers shelves. I work in a large retail chain with 180 stores around the country. We sold about 40% of our allocated stock, which was exactly the same as week 1 DSi stock, yet that couldn't be found for love nor money. Personally, I find it a total gimmick, I tried a few games and even though I could see the 3D in full, it failed to demonstrate to me how it was providing an enchanced experience. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt though, launch titles always suck. The stock is gathering dust on my shelves, we've not sold one yet. Poorly targeted? Who am I to know.
- Crysis 2 - Visually stunning, but the singleplayer experience is a bit drab and the multiplayer is just plain broken. Homefront didn't work for almost 2 weeks either. Is this the new direction that publishers are taking? Let the early adopters be the testers? Are budgets being tightened this much to warrant an obvious lack of quality control? Sort it out big fish. Or I'll start buying your product a month later at a discounted price.
- Battlefield 3 - CoD beater? John Riccitiello seems to think so. EA are going to lock horns with Activisions behemoth, as they both release in November. A reported $200 mill marketing budget is being spat around, which could be better spent building 4 triple A games if you ask me, especially considering the games will sell anyway. CoD will pip it again, but this year will see the Battlefield franchise gain some serious ground on the number one contender. Wishful thinking, but I'd like to see them launch the same day. I'm personally rooting for Battlefield. FIGHT!
- Holidays - 2 weeks booked in Corfu with a friend in July. Can't wait!
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