3D Space Ship

In todays session we created a 3D space craft. This was interesting as I found creating something like this space craft was easier to do. Issaac actually gave a good reason as why I found it easier, based on the fact that space craft are built from imagination unlike cars which are built a certain way, we would find because there is no real design for space craft that it's easier to let out imagination go wild, because there is no doubt we have it wrong.

I am personally proud of this one and it is by far my best creation in 3DS Max in my opinion. I will have to play around with this more and get a better grip on the program, but I do think everything is coming to me quite well.

Concept Artwork

This section of my blog is going to hold a compilation of my concept artwork that I have done throughout the two years that I will be spending in college. It will showcase all my designs and I will explain each one and point out each segment and explain what was the hardest part of such to accomplish.

Trian the Elven Druid

 

Quite a charactristic name that I have given to this particular character. There is no story behind this concept, so I will just explain how I did it. Creating the general overview and effect of this selected piece was done by trial and error. I spent one hour on this character and alot of changes took place. Even a gender change! I particularly like the hair on this concept and the neck outlines itself rather better than I first thought it would. 

Some parts of this drawing when wrong, such as the wonky left eye and the fact his right eye seems to be shut. Intially that eye was open and feeling the breeze, but I miscalculated the eye level and it looked far to bad to leave it open. A quick bit of DIY patch up and it seem to come out well. 

To get the kind of cell shading effect I did, I simply added a cutout filter in photoshop to get the desired effect. The cutout filter is something that I highly reccomend using as it proves to create a more raw concept look and feel to the image. 

Tools: Adobe Photoshop CS3, Graphics Tablet, Patients.

3D Name

In todays 3DS Max class, we learnt how to write our name in 3D and apply a variety of textures to it. It was a simple precedure and consisted of but a few steps. I will explain them below on how to get started creating your name in 3DS Max. Before that I give an example on the 3DS Max name I created..

As you can see from this model, I had added a texture that gives it a ink and cartoon effect. This is a preset built already into 3DS max, called Ink I believe. It gave me the texture that I think worked very well with this kind of 3d model. In a sense it provides a 2D feel to a 3D object.

 

This is my second texture. It holds a rather metallic look to the design. I think this is pretty nice as the light seems to glow of the surface area of the 3d faces. 

Steps to making your name in Max: 

1) Open Max and click on the Shapes option next to your standard primitives. Make sure that the drop down menu is set to splines. You can then, go and select Text from the option box. If you don't know what a Spline is, it is basically a 2d model inside of a 3d enviroment. 

2) After you have drawn down your text change the text in the text box to the bottom right to your name or any other text that you want. From that area you can change the font type and even set the kerning type of the object and space the letters further apart from each other. This is useful for when you need to turn the letters into 3d later to make sure the 3d faces don't conflict with each other and make it look a huge mess.

3) Now you need to turn the text into a editable mesh. This is done by right clicking and coverting to editable mesh. What this does is create polygons on your text objects so you can make it 3d. Once you have done this you simply, highlight all the polygons and extrude the object to make it 3d. 

4) Now you have your 3d text play around with materials (M) and diffuse, and gloss your colours. Add some lighting to you final render and make your name all pretty.

The video below is my animated text that made go around around using basic animation techniques in 3DS max.  

Desktop Project - Final Design

The following image is my final desktop design. It differs some what from my orginal design as it was supposed to be a hand with a blue pulsing aura around it. As of such I decided during creation to go for a more floral and abstract design which I think worked well. It shows a more calm side of media and offers a different appearance to the overall feel and ambience of the design.

My original design which was on paper was as follows:

As you can see from this design the ideal changed quite dramatically. While I kept the overall hand idea I did change the second aspect from a futuristic, mystical design to a more floral and calm design. I think the new design works very well and I am happy with the outcome. Compared to the original, it seems to have kept some aspects, but the outer layers are totally redefined even the background colour and general theme changed. Although if I am honest it kept the mystical element some what.

Peer Group Review 

During our group review we took a look around everyone's desktop design and and review and gave pointers on where it can be improved. As we came to mine, the group generally liked the design, quoting 'It is original'. The only thing they said I could improve on was to add 3 more points and to make it easy to read. Upping the opacity and maybe making them black so they stand out more within the area.

My own critical opinion would be that I haven't left much room for the desktop icons and chances are that they will be hard to read and understand with the contrast of this desktop.

Improved Design 

Below is my improved desktop design. You can clearly see here that I have improved the colour and readability of the 6 points, and added 3 extra points as pointed out. I have used keywords to make them as short as possible but large enough to be readable by people with bad eyesight or good. 

Does the end product match your orginal intentions?

In some ways the end product matched the original design in others it hasn't. The main theme has changed from my original design but I have kept the same imagery that I have chosen before. The blue pulsing aura that I decided to use has changed to a more floral design and this has changed from original intentions. 

Is the end product apporpriate for your chosen audience?

I believe that the end product is appropiate for my audience as it holds no threatening or abusive, terms. Also it is a rather peaceful design and doesn't show anything that I would refer to as inappropiate.

Discuss the techincal aspects of your work and highlights the strengths / areas to develop.

The design was created using a series of brushes and font faces. I went for a rather abstract design and if I am honest wasn't that difficult to create. The hand I took a picture of and added some filter effects to it to give a more postery effect. I saturated the overall background to give it a more lucid feel. My strengths lie in my creativity and ability to create an absract piece, as well was knowing what brushes and filter effect to use to get the desired effect.

Discuss the content / style of your work.

I encountered few problems with my overall design outcome. The brushes were all there and I only needed to download one font type. From this experience I have learned news skills in filtering and creating abstract designs and templates, I have developed by ability to use layers and to properly layout my design using the correct tools. I also made use of layers for every seperate piece of art, for easy removal if I need it.

I managed to meet the deadline for my desktop project and didn't have any problems with keeping the time that we was alloted.

If I had the chance to make this desktop image again I would change the filtering used on the hand, and also the selection of brushes that I used. I would also change the floral theme and make it more darker and sinister to go with a more opposite design theme. 

Desktop Project - Font Choices

As a part of my desktop design projectm I was required to compile and select a group of fonts. I choose many different fonts that believed filled the role well. I choose many Script based font faces and a couple Sci-Fi/Game based font types. I am going to address and dicuss the final three choices that I believed will work well with my font face. I will then discuss the final choice and why compared to the others that I choose that font type.

Neutronium

This font type is particular interesting due to its both hybrid

ability to look a little scripture and at the same time game orientated. By

game orientated I am referring to how it makes itself appear rather

modern and futuristic. The advantages of this type of font is the ability for it

to be textured and effects applied to it in Photoshop. This particular font type gets a rating for 4.2 out of 5.

DeLarge

This font reminds be particularly of games. Especially the old arcade type games.

This font fits in well with the digital media course/ games development that I am taking and would

probably work well in the media rooms.

Although it is rather easy to read it still has a rather blocky element to it. It is not particularly fitting to my design and because of this, I will give it a rating of 3.2 out of 5.

Sloe Gin Rickey

This font reminds me a lot of the old harley davidson motorbikes. The reason I choose this font is because of the uniqueness and interesting boldness it implies.

Although it would fit in even less with my design as the DeLarge it was still the

most readable one there and shows a much better flow than the one above.

Because of this I will rate this design at 4 out of 5.

The Winning Font:

The Winning Font face is going to be Neutronium. It provides the elegance but at

the same time the game orientation which is incredibly useful to my design. I will be using this design

over the others because of this facet.

What this font has compared to the others is a nice readable font, aswell as ease of editing

within Photoshop. It also has a more elegant feel than the other ones and while DeLarge has a more

game interfacem Neutronium has a more sci-fi and less over the edge game appearance.

3D Car

In todays 3d lesson we created a 3d car using box modelling techniques. Again most of the general techniques I knew and are comfortable with, but I did learn alot more on texturing and a little something I wasn't aware of before hand. I found that the skills I learned will help me in the future to create my own 3d game "Dark Age" although I do believe I need alot more work with my modelling and of course take a lot more time when creating my models.

Unity Engine Work - Tavern Interior

Over the past weekend I have found a keen interest in the inner workins of the Unity 3D engine. It has allowed me to create my own games by simply importing my own 3d scenes and models from 3d studio max. I will discuss more on the engine in an other post. But for this one I would like to address one of the issues I faced when designing my game named "Dark Age". I wanted to create a tavern interior. Not with my somewhat limited knowledge of 3d I thought I could simply delete a few polys and allow people to walk inside. No, I found when I did this I could see through the model, plus it didnt allow easier interior editing. Plus the fact when I added the mesh collider (This is to create a sort of force field to stop players running through models) it would not allow me to enter through the gap as this was apart of the mesh even though the polygons were not present. To counter this issue, I created the interior the same way I did the castle in previous 3d lessons. I made four walls. This allowed not only easy interior design and seperate wall designs (Which was useful for the beams and windows) but also allowed me to add a mesh collider and not worry about the problem of not being able to enter interiors.

Above is a base design of my tavern. Here you can see I have added a few textures to the interior design. This is not finished by far and will obviously take a while to finish up but I hope this shows what I plan to do. The floor and ceiling textures will be replaced but for the purpose of presentation I wanted to allow people to see how it is done. In the future I will show this tavern perhaps with more placeables added in such as bar and tables which I will also create in 3d studio max.

Examples of Logos

In this blogpost I am collecting an example of numerous logos. I have compiled a collection of sources from over the internet of logos that interest me, and I find related to both games development and equality and diversity theme.

Firstly though, the below logo is one that I did on photoshop. We was required to find a certain logo and then create a path around it. Then taking our finished path or trace and use that to create a different logo to the original design.

** NO PHOTOSHOP IN STUDY CENTRE. CAN'T CONVERT IMAGE INTO PNG UNTIL LATER

    http://obsoletegamer.com/free-stuff-every-lucasarts-game-soundtrack-in-mp3/

This logo is from Lucas Arts. The company behind all of the Star Wars video game franchise. The reason I have selected this logo to present in my blog is that it not only represents in it's own a game logo but that of diversity. The man in the logo looks to be clearly spreading out his arms, from which looks like the sun rays or beams petrude behind him or from him. It would represent peace and diversity. But also because the company is heavily based on Star Wars. The general believes of the Jedi would be echoed in this image.

     http://www.geekosystem.com/video-game-company-logos-old-new/

This logo which belongs to the company 'Lifes's Good' particularly caught my interest. It is a rather simplistic design in it's self but I feel it work well and does respresent a sense of equality in it's working. The main logo with is a circle which cleverly bares the intials of LG (Life's Good) and that of a face. It represents a person and to be that represents equality. Such as such, even the name of the company respresents some form of diveristy.

       http://www.techeye.net/software/open-source-outfit-snubs-linux

This logo is the base Linux logo. Linux for those who don't know is an open source (Meaning free!) operating system that rivals Windows. Linux provides there users with excellent options and interfaces as well as a base platform for developers to build off. Cutting out all the pointless media orientated gag that Windows uses and fying for a more secure and simplistic design interface.

The reason I chose this logo is simply how much of a logo it doesn't look like. It just shows how anything can be used as a logo and it doesn't generally have to be anything to do with a symbol to make it interesting and catchy. Although recognisable to some, this logo has before been mistaken for other company logos that use a similar image.

     http://www.20three.com/2009/03/ubuntu-a-flavour-of-linux/

This is again a logo related to Linux. This is one of the platforms that was built off of the linux base. It is called Ubuntu, one of the more famous Linux platform applications designed by a group of developers. The reason I choose this logo is not for my love of Linux (To be honest, I find it useless to me right now) but rather of how catchy and interesting there logos are. To some this logo may look like a circle with a few spots, but if you look outside the box you will notice how it is actually three people holding hands. This represents diversity and peace. As well as equality in there logo. Which if you look at the principles behind the Windows V Linux campaign it generally represents there struggle against the mircrosoft tyrant.



3D Castle Tower

In my second session concerning 3d modelling, we was to design and create a building in 3DS Max. We was only allowed to use box modelling techniques and standard/extended primitives. In this design you can see that I went for something rather simplistic, but I definitely  like what I created. The box modelling techinques I found useful and interesting and really sparked my interest in 3d modelling.

Jame: 'It's excellent!'

Desktop Project Planning

In my plan I was asked to create a mind map that shows my themes and images that I have decided to use in my project. I was also asked to include the four designs of the project that I drew up during our session. I went for something a little mysterious but at the same time im my opinion media orientated. It is of a hand with a blue pulsing aura around it, meaning to dipict the power of media. It is a rather simple design and something I feel works well.

 

Above is my minmap. It has all the information concerning my desktop project and intial plan that I descide to use.

Above is my four sketches. The last fourth image that is in colour is the design that I will be going with. To achieve this I will take a picture of someones hand on a plain white or black background and photoshop the background out. I will then use photoshop to design the aura and such around the hand and give it a rather streamlined effect. I am planning to create the text of the six charter points branching off in a smoky effect off the hands to match the general smoky blue aura that the image will give off.  I have also decided that the icons will be organised into categories around the desktop to keep things organised.

3D Castle - Box Modelling



In lesson we began to learn about box modelling and the advantages that it produces. Box modelling is useful for a variety of tasks and we learnt how it is vital in everyday model and how most models begin as boxes and modelled up and further. We also learnt how to work with bevel and extrude and I used this to get some more detailed aspects of the castle I created, such as the windows and wall beams. I would have liked to have made more effort and tried to add more to the door and some steps leading to it which I began but never finished. Next time I will aim to take more time and add more detail to my designs.

If I compare this to anothers work, such as the work provided here:

http://portfolio.chrishanrath.com/projects/xl_castle.jpg

I can see how alot more time was put into this particular model. I would have liked to have created by something similar to this and I believe I could create something like this with my attained skills. I particular like the gate and the portcullis that is used in this model, and the roofing is pretty neat aswell.

Mr.Heartless - 3D Character

This is my 3D character design that I first drew up on paper and then built into 3DS Max. The intial design was simple as I was only able to use Standard Primitive shapes. I am though, unhappy with the general outcome of the model, as I tried to make it look more realistic and fluid instead of rather blocky and simple looking.

Next time will add a more fluid effect to the model and morph the shapes so I can make them look more like the actuall parts of the body, such as shoes and hands. Event the Torso.

3D Robot

This is the 3D robot I created during our second 3D Lesson. I used 3DS Max to create this robot, and used a variety of Standard Primitive Shapes aswell as some extend Primitives, such as the arms and legs where made by the hose shape.

On my robot I went and customised it a little further by adding in a material to the chest plate and adding a single cone onto the top of it's head. I am happy with the overall outcome and would like to progress further and create something less blocky and use alot more customisation with shaping and smoothing.

Above is the screenshot of the four panel view window is 3DS Max. It shows the wireframe in three frames so you gain a much better idea on how it is put together with a variety of shapes. The lesson overall was productive and useful and helped me gain a better understanding of the 3D world, and also much more confidence.

Neon City Project

Neon City is a project that I have been building, knocking down, making better and crying about for the last 7 months. It is a huge text-based mafia based city game where the player takes the role of a single individual within a vast city. They most work there way to the top by building up there stats, gaining money, buying into businesses, properties even marrying. Joining up with player crews and factions and even becoming the mayor of the city as voted by the people.

Neon City is also a constantly expanding realm that is aimed to provide a community based enviroment for players to gather and talk to each other about there interests and such at the same time as playing the game. The game will hold a variety of tools, such as;

- Casino (And the ability to own casinos and rename/change prices/ban players/employ Wokers) <- Owners.
- Attacking/Killing (Rather Shooting, Beating any player that dare get in your way).
- Level up and apply stats to help increase your character.
- Earn Money.
- Buy Player Houses and the Like.
- Buy into businesses and employ other players.
- Run gangs and factions fit with there own custom ranking system designed by you the player.
- So So So Much more...

Expanding on such I have decided to upload a few screenies of the development progress of this project. Below you can see the main interface of the game. Some may not believe that such interfaces take quite some time to build. The general look and feel is all done in CSS minus the general HTML side of things. What I had to take into account while I am building the interface is user capability, how easy it is to navigate, and how much resource it will be gathering as a heavy load often leads to players leaving.

 

Below is the interface without the CSS stylesheet applied. As you can see the styling makes a huge difference to the overall design and usuability of the general interface.

  

While this is knuckling into the designing of web based systems, it still provides an inkling into general understanding of designs and gets you into thinking about users, especially those wtih difficulties in sight who might not be able to see links aswell, so you have to balance design and usuability. Which is something I personally find difficult and time consuming.

I do like to compare my web design and sites to other sites. A -rival- game you could say which I based my design quite heavily upon would be Mafia Death. 

  

This is a rather complex design but I personally believe it works well. It isn't too bright and easy on the eyes. Although some aspects are rather narrow and small the general overlook is a good one and it is why I based my website design on this one.  Another rival game site would be torn city and you will see a huge influx in there design, and once I would refer to as a bad design. (While simplistic it is rather small and hard to navigate, yet how the site gains around 50k + players a day beats me.)

  

As you can see a rather simplistic and rather robust design. It isn't fancy, which in some cases is good, but neither is it attractive either. I have found in the market of the current web design industry that design has a huge impact on first impression of what a visitor would think, and such is that if they think your design looks shabby they tend to leave, especially if this is a web game as players tend to both believe you to be a malicious user after vital details or just believe you to be a shabby coder and not capable of protecting your user data. First impression are vital. 

NEW UPDATE OR RATHER REBUILD WILL BE UP ON THE WEBSITE.
Link to Website HERE!

Unit 19 - Desktop Project Collage

 

Above is my collage compilation for the Desktop Project. This collage represents the four main genres within the gaming industry. Horror, Sci-Fi, War and Fantasy. I collected these images from magazines and pasted them down onto paper which I believe represented these genres well.

We have discussed and covered the four genres in detail and even realised how alot of games multi-cross genres such as War and Sci-Fi. Also we realised how games cross into sub-genres aswell such as FPS, RTS and RPG.

Horror: Thrills and Jumps is what horror is all about. Freakish beasts and gored bodies. Not for the faint hearted.

Sci-Fi: Space, Adventure, Quest. The Sci-Fi genre is generally futuristic and involves large ships, plasma weapons of varied amount and lots of space like aliens and soldiers. Famous Sci-Fi games would be Halo, Mass Effect and Crisis. 

War: War games generally involve alot of shooting and taking over command points. It involves majority of the time the army and war time, although some war games can involve a stratgey type view and branch off into many different sub catogories like RTS, FPS and even Mutiplayer. 

Fantasy: Fantasy involves a medieval timeline most of the time although it doesn't nessarily have to follow those guidelines. The general meaning of fantasy is in it's word meaning it can be anything abnormal and unique. Most Fantasy games follow a story and a somewhat sort of RPG element. I like to think of Fantasy Games as a Opposite type over Sci-Fi.

Compared to a variety of Collages that where created, I would like to compare mine with Joe Connells. (http://wolfsaiyan.blogspot.com/). Joe has incorporated a orgranised design to his collage, while I on the other hand did a more free scape collage. With this though, his collage is easily distinguishable as which area is which as mine is more of a artwork piece. But the parts are generally both easily understandable by the quality of the images that where used in both blogs.

3D Models and Plans from Mass Effect

Mass Effect created by BioWare is a massive 3D RPG. It incorporates alot of visulization into it's games aswell as VFX and the like, the most interesting and by far breath taking thing about Mass Effect is the 3D models. I have chosen one in particular I found to be simplistic but at the same time, interesting.

The Normandy is the ship the player spends quite some time aboard. I found this intial sketch from google that shows in quite details the level and different segments that is involved with the ship. I would see this though as a general design and something a developer may pass onto the modeller for them to try and create. I found this render to be rather simplistic but effect. It had a nice streamline look and really gave me as a viewer a more interesting feed into the world I was entering.

http://3d.dtuts.com/3d-tutorials/creating-normandy-sr1-in-3ds-max/

 

I found this untextured model aswell from google. This shows the rendered model after it was created. So far no textures have been created onto the model, but can get the general idea. If you look at the above sketch and then to this you can see how the author has used the different segments involved in the sketch and used this to create the model. Also on how close it is to the sketch which means that the model was based on the above sketch.

The above link also had an awesome set of images and explanation reguarding the creation of the normandy based upon that image. I will place a few of the images below as reference. All this images stem from the same link above the sketch design.

 

I found this image interesting as it shows the basic creation of the Normandy. Using the sketch images as a blueprint for the design.  This shows the basic building of the skeletal structure of the model.

Above is the first finished segement of the model. Before of course any texture is added to it. You can see from the image above it that is has been extruded out and made into more of a smoother shape rather than keeping the static polygon shape it had before. 

 

I like the above image as it shows how it is building off of the general design behind it. Rather like builders build off the blueprints of a house. This is interesting to look at and gives me a more in depth look at the way models for games are created.

Finally the finished product will look something like this.I found the end result to be breath taking and really enjoyed reading through the little tutorial on how this is built.

First 3D Modelling Session

In todays lesson was an interesting one, as we delved into the software of 3DS Max. We was taught how to do some very basic functions within the program such as create basic shapes and rotating and moving objects around the screen. It was very interesting being able to create objects and the like.

Out next task was to create an absract 3D design, by using different shapes and rotating them around the screen and moving them to create a rather abstract design. I wanted to delve alittle deeper so I added a few materials to my plane and attempted to add a sky material by incorporating a sphere over the whole plane and trying to add an image to such. Unfortunatly I could not find a way to invert the sphere, or figure out how to use the Mirror Modifier to turn around the selection. My next goal would be to create a interesting material sky to add a more realistic feel to the whole scene.

My Favourite Game - Neverwinter Nights

 

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/reviews/pc/neverwinter-nights-2/

Neverwinter Nights

Neverwinter Nights is one of my all time favourite RPG's period. The base game itself is not what interests in either the first or the second one, but rather the multiplayer and the development toolkit that is provided with both games that allow the creation of modules and custom content that can then be placed online on NWN specific servers run by gamespy. 

The game was created off the aurora engine, a engine /toolset created by Bioware and used only for the NWN 1 game creation. NWN 2 created by obsidian uses the Electron Engine used only for NWN 2.

The reason I like this game is due to the great community involved with the games, also the fact that it allows me to delve deep into the engine used to create it and forge my own creations, and even delve into the scripting language used by the them allowing me to create fully custom and interesting creations that I can share with an online community of around 500 players daily. 

Above this the other module creations are of very interesting developments and can allow for hours of honest fun, and role-play that allows you also to really get into creating your character and history which is just fun if you have the hours to spare on such games. 

Aurora Toolset Video

Introduction

Welcome to my Games Development Blog. This is a compilation of my work over the next two years on the BND Games Development course. This blog will hold all my concept art, designs, videos and any upcoming work that I may produce in the next two years.

Over the next two years I hope to achieve alot in terms of my skills, and goals within a gane industry standard work load. I would like to be able to comfortably be able to build and render a quality standard 3D model and then be able to from there animate and use it to create a trailer or in the end use it as a part of a larger project based around the actual creation of a game.

I also in time would like to increase my knowledge in the game industry so in the future I can use this to help be gain a foothold when the time comes to creating or running my own projects. I wish to increase my knowledge in my key area of programming as well so by the end of the two years I can confortably program objects and functions that will help with the game creation.