Manny's Year of the Plague Production Blog

I hate getting sick!!!

2005-08-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!! I hate getting sick! Especially at the least oportune time like the last week of school when everyone's cramming to get their projects done. Body aches are the worst b/c you just don't feel like doing anything, even just sitting in front of the computer. That's why this blog is so late. Ugh!

Well, got UV layout done. Continuing to texture & rig. Skeleton is done. Now just binding to finish rigging & then finally get on to the animation, the real fun part for me. I would rather specialize in animation if I can get to work in a big game company, but I know that i will have to start off in smaller companies like startups or something. In those smaller companies, workers are jack-of-all-trades doing everything. I'd just rather animate, that's all.

Oh my goodness. Everyone else is animating already. So much to do. I hope i can make it.

Here are some pics:

Finished Modeling, now uv's & rigging.

2005-07-23T02:00:00.000-07:00

Here's how the modelling went:

I subd'ed the head b/c I thought the triangle limit was about 9K. But it's actually 6K - 8K. So, i needed to reduce it.

Here's the final model:

Went back to the low poly head & added detail to that. Added a nose hair & ear hair to make it more gross. Got feedback to model the ears & the hair. I was going to just paint hair in w/ textures, but i wanted to hide some problem geometry behind the ears. At first, the hair made him look like a really mean school teacher. Tried a different hair style but it didn't make him look like an upper class merchant. So, went back to the school teacher hair. Maybe w/ the goatee he will not look like a school teacher.

Hope I can finish the uv layout by end of tomorrow. They want the textures by Sunday evening. UV layout for this model is tricky b/c of his nose. Not quite sure how i'm going to lay it out w/ obvious seams. Really should be doing rigging at the same time too, but got a rendering project to do for another class also.

Videogames Useless?

2005-07-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post, i gave a link to the videos from the GDC lectures. There's one by Keita Takahashi, the designer of Katamari Damacy, the PS2 game that won the most original game of 2005. If you're not familiar with that game, you just roll a ball around that picks up everything from stop signs, people, buildings, up to whole countries around the globe. If your ball gets big enough, it makes a star or something. Haven't tried that game. Don't have a PS2. (Will borrow a friends later when i rent that game.)

In any case, Keita said in his lecture that ultimately videogames are useless. He said that if videogames disappeared from the face of the earth tomorrow, the only people to complain will be the gamers & the world will go on as normal.

I hope not!

I love to play videogames. I say, videogames are as useless as music is useless. Sure the world could function just fine without music, but it would be a very different world wouldn't it? The same thing would be true of videogames. We most certainly live in a very differnt world than when videogames did not exist. Many of us "older people" can remember a time without videogames and know how different it was.

Keita knows that there are certain things that can only be done in a videogame. That's how he got his idea for Katamari Damacy. But I understand his criticism & can see where he's coming from. The gaming industry now lacks a lot of creativity & is motivated by money.

Well, hopefully, what we are doing in this class can help videogames not become useless because of its use in education. If a student has to play this YotP adventure game for his class as a requirement, then it will not be useless.

I think it was the spanish director of Hellboy (delToro or something, i forgot) who said that videogames have an emerssive quality that happens only in the best movies. In a videogame, the viewer just doesn't watch something happen as in a movie or video, the player actually experiences the events and things happen to the player. There's a greater potential for empathy in videogames that hasn't been tapped into just yet.

Anyway, that's my rant for this week. Hope the one or two of you who actually reads this blog enjoys it & posts a comment. Thanks.

Production Phase

2005-07-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

I thought I was done designing, but it looks like my classmates had some good suggestions. I really wanted to start modelling already. In fact, I already started. Here's the model sheet I made using the original design.

A classmate had a suggestion to make the body pear-shaped. Also, I posted a question about the door widths b/c I knew my character as currently designed would have a hard time walking thru doors. Jim responded that the characters could not be so exaggerated in proportions. Soooo ..... gritting my teeth, i redesigned the guy. But to save time, I didn't make another 3/4 view but made the changes directly to the model sheets so that i can get them approved & get modeling on the new design. I'll have to make a new 3/4 color concept pic another time. Or, i could leave it up to the Concept team to do that, maybe.

So, now Able Hartog can fit thru doors, but he's the shortest character so far. He's even shorter than i am. I think that's fine b/c he's supposed to be the foreign visitor. So, he's supposed to stand out from the other characters. Caught Rick on MSN Messanger & got the approval. Here are the new model sheets.Red rectangles are one foot in length. The door in my room is 2.5 feet wide, so i used that width & he now just barely fits thru with his hands to his side.

Here's a screen shot of the model so far.

Have to fix the hat's brim. Rick pointed out that those faces might be one-sided. It would look better to give the brim a thickness.

Onward! ...

Able Hartog update

2005-07-09T04:37:00.000-07:00

Here's the updated concept sketch w/ feedback from Rick, character team lead:New idea is to make him more macabre & not cute n cuddly. I thought the warts & hair growing out of the warts should do the trick. Long nose was Rick's idea. Hopefully I can model this guy already.

GDC Lectures on streaming video

2005-07-09T04:32:00.000-07:00

GDCTV http://www.pqhp.com/cmp/gdctv/

Will Wright's "Spore" demo lecture & Peter Molyneux's "Black & White 2" demo lecture are on that website. Wish I had seen a demo of Spore at E3.

This is somewhat tangentally related to educational videogame development. But I just thought those videos are cool.

Another long awaited update

2005-07-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

Turns out art style is not really "Tim Buron"-esque but more realistic than that but just with exaggerated proportions.

I think the limitations of my drawing skills are starting to really show thru. The style is supposed to be more realistic buy my concepts are still cartoony. Oh well.

Here are my new attempts:

This one takes into account some suggestions from classmates like the glasses & shorter legs. I thought the buckle should be a little bigger.

In this next one, I tried to go for more exaggeration with the clothes proportions, making the buckle super huge, huge pockets & buttons, a different style for the sleeves, red stockings & forearms. Maybe he can keep his money in those huge pockets. Maybe I should have coins falling out of them. His expression makes him look a little snobbish, which I think is right for his character as a merchant from Holland. Oh, the collar is a differnt style too. The other style made him look like clergy too much for me. For some reason, the shape of the hat makes him look like a fireman to me ... for some reason. Good thing it's not a red hat.

We're supposed to be modelling this week & I haven't even gotten mine approved yet. So many other classmates already have their sketches approved.

Other developments: meetings moved.

I can't attend the breeze live sessions any more b/c they've been moved to 6pm PST which is 3pm HST for me & I'm at work in the afternoons. I can reschedule my work hours but my current schedule allows me to do homework in the day time & get a lot of stuff done. I wish I didn't have to work but I gotta pay the bills ya know.

Long awaited update

2005-06-29T13:41:00.000-07:00

Been really bad about updating this blog. Lots of stuff goin' on.

Groups have been assigned. An artstyle has been determined. It's "Tim Burton"-esque like his "Nightmare Before Christmas" claymation animated movie. I think it's a great style. Had to rent it again tho' b/c it's been such a long time since I've seen it. I think I'll by the dvd from ebay soon.

I'm in the character art & animation group, what they call the C Team. Each team member will create one character from start to finish, everything from concept, to modeling, rigging, textures & animation.

I have a couple of sketches of my character Able Hartog. He's a character I developed from earlier classes, but now I'll have to stylize him.

Here's the first concept image from those older classes:

In my original sketches from other classes I forgot to give him those wooden clunky dutch shoes. This time, he'll have them.

Here is the short fat version. I put some color in this one to see how some gold trim will look on black. A classmate of mine, suggested that he should look a bit like the mayor from "Nightmare B.C." with an overall cone shape. Well, I gave him longer legs so that we can see those dutch shoes, & if I gave him that tall skinny hat, it'll infringe on some copyrights. Would've given it good contrast tho'.
Here's the tall skinny version.

I'm still trying to figure out the character of this guy. Being Dutch in England around the 17th century meant that you would get a lot of discrimination from the locals b/c they believe you brought the plague to them. Well, if u read the bio of this guy earlier, you would know that he's actually half English & half Dutch but fully culturally Dutch. So, he would get a lot of flack. So, would a skinny nervous character fit this guy better? I'm still trying to figure it out, but I'd better decide soon, b/c these 8 weeks will fly by fast. Now, I think it's only 5 more weeks. Oh No!

Better get movin'.

First Blog Post to Test This Thing

2005-06-23T02:24:00.000-07:00

Starting off in the brave new world of blogging with this educational videogame production blog.