So, I've realised...

I really, really don't like blogging. I made it my homepage for firefox, so that maybe, when I needed to use the internet, I would be reminded to post in my blog. Well, that doesn't work. Unfortunately the reminder that I have a blog only makes my face cringe and I begin to take issue with it again. This blog of mine, unless I post in it regularly, simply exists without purpose. So a dependency is born! The blog depends on me, so that it's lot in life is fullfilled. Without me it withers and the dates between posts grow farther apart, and it, as a creation of man, becomes a less relevant reflection of my actual life. So I feel pressured to post in my own blog, otherwise I have let a creation of mine slip away... but if that isn't a true sign of an Artist I don't know what is!


So, vacation happened. Got sun-burned on a boat, fishing shirtless. It was awesome. My back will tell you otherwise. Vacation was nice though. Very relaxing, and it was nice to see my family. I met up with a friend from back home who was also in South Carolina (visiting his father). Looks like his birthday is at the end of this month, and being that we present next Wednesday, I should be able to go back home for the weekend of the party. Jon, my friend, wants to fly me back for the party, that's where the original idea came from. He insists that it is going to happen no matter what, and I hope he's right. I really miss my girlfriend and it would be nice to see her again.

GCA is over!

So, GCA (Game Cinematic Assets) is officially over. Our turn-in time was about 46 minutes ago @ 9pm, and I am proud of the work that I turned in. What else could I have hoped for really? All I can do is my best, and try to do better on my next piece! Anyway, here is what I turned in, I hope you find it enjoyable!

Aftermath

My critique went well! Our Course director really liked the way I'd done the hair on the bust. He said it fit the Double-Fine style, which is perfect. I got a great reaction from everyone about it, and I feel like a million bucks! Here's some pics, enjoy!

BETA Turn-In

So, yesterday was BETA... I think it went well on my end. I got all of my new enemies finalized and in the game. However, some of the tech integration last minute did not go well, and I don't believe the enemies were actually in the turned-in build. This does not bother me, I know that they are finished, and awesome, and I intend to use them on my demo reel, regardless if they make it into the game. Which, I'm not worried about, these programmers are a smart  and tenacious bunch and I don't put it past 'em to pull off some amazing things in these last few weeks.

This morning, we went out as a team, to breakfast. I had a over hard egg, bacon, and a light, crispy waffle with powdered sugar-cinnamon sprinkled over top. It was probably the best breakfast I have had in a while. Overall today has been pretty great, so far. We have critiques today, and of course, we all fear the worse. I believe that I'm at a good point, definitely 90%. I feel pretty confident about it, but we shall see what the verdict is.

A New Landon

Mark Landon, the main character for Dark Matter, has been an incomplete character for sometime and being that I have had my mental faculties allocated to the enemies for some time, I have not had a chance to work on him [Landon]. Well, now that the enemies are finished and being integrated into the game, Landon is my next project for Dark Matter! With a fantastic building block provided by my Art Director, I already have a head start on him, and hopefully, if I remain vigilant, I can have him finished for Monday's BETA Turn-in!

A week ends...

And with it, my work on the enemies for Dark Matter. Originally, I was scheduled to have only the models and textures completed by Beta Turn-in. However, that was before my new I.P.s  realized just how much work I can get done in two weeks. So now, I have not only modeled and textured the new enemies, but rigged and animated them as well. This means that they are completely ready to go into the game and my hands are clean of them for the mean time. My next task? Pass Game Cinematic Assets! My Chaplin bust is coming along nicely and with the turn-in being thursday, I don't think I have to much to worry about. Here's to lookin' forward.

So, alot has happened...

I know it's been awhile since my last post, but alot of things have changed, and this blog needs a new start. To catch you up on the recent goings-on of my life, I will start with the cancelation of Speckt. I don't want to point fingers, but the fault was on the programmers, and there's nothing that the artists could do about it. So, my art lead and I have both been moved to team Avant-Garde. Fortunately, their character artist left in the first few months of final project, so there have been many chances for me to get my work into the game. (I will include a picture of the enemies I have created.) Secondly, I have been approved for a character demo reel! I had to fight my point with our Course Director, but I got it, and now I am working on a bust of Charlie Chaplin, stylized to fit within the Double-Fine (Brutal-Legend) art style.

The good times

So, today, in the world of Harry, Inspiration has struck! My favorite video game of all time, Psychonauts, originally had a different main character concepted for the game. Well, I already love Razputin, the main character that made it into the retail game, and I was skeptical when I heard about this D'Artagan. Well, I was happily surprised to find out that "Dart" was as awesome as Raz! Dart got cancelled because of his hat, which was too "expensive" to animate. Well, i took my inspiration, and made this today. So far it's been 8 hours of work, and I still want to improve the texturing, but here's where I'm at in my little side-project!

Hello again

So, it's been awhile since my last post. Been doin' alot of work. The head/volcano hes been separated into two pieces, and z-brushed separately as well. The Game-Res models for the Golem's boulder arm got modeled and UV'd last week, as well as a base diffuse applied to them. Um, our art lead, Tim and I sat down and wrote up a text document defining our asset-list changes since POC. I was tasked with and finished a Shenanigames Studio splash screen. As well as making our in-game tool-tip window. However, as fun as all this stuff is, I cannot wait until I can work on the robot again! We had alot of work that needed to get done to re-align our art with the new direction of the game. Feature Frag 1 is Monday, and I think we're ready for it. WE HAVE A GAME! ^_^

work work work

Lotsa lotsa work! The new direction speckt is taking is gonna be  AWESOME! I'm so psyched! We're gonna have more assets to make, and we're gonna be able to populate this game with lots of interesting things! For right now though, I've been working on the Kroaton (the nature golem). Just today I modeled a low res for both the left forearm and the golem's head. See, each part of the golem's body is going to be it's own static mesh, with it's own texture map. Because the golem is frozen in time, all we have to do is pose each piece and then cover any seams with static's such as vines, rock, moss, etc. Anyway, I got the low res models donw, and then I took 'em both into zbrush! Woah! lot's of work for one day!  Tommorow I gotta do the whole right arm >_>. Should be fun though, it's the first path up the Kroaton, so I gotta make it "Kickass." Here's a few images of the golem stuff I worked on today. L8t's! 

So, it's been awhile...

I know, I haven't updated in awhile. I apologize. Ya'll were probably thinkin' "Classic Harry... not updatin' n' stuff..." But indeed I have been very, very busy getting everything in order for POC, or Proof of concept. A very important milestone, that unfortunately, did not do very well... and that's being nice. From a code standpoint, well... some things are being cut so that we actually have a "Game." Us artists, apparently we didn't do so badly, but we don't have a grade yet, because our art wasn't able to be reflected in the build due to code issues. However, because of the pulls from the gameplay, our environment is going to be changing drstically. No longer will the creatures of the level move around their environment. Instead they will be frozen in time, in some battle pose or what have you. This will allow us to place many more static meshes around the environment and really turn this into a lush, beautiful game. The game is going to have a much sullen feel, with the environments being more ruined and old, and our robot, the wee Nanobot is going to be... shall we say, "Steampunk'd."

Hiccup!

Hiccups indeed! Everyone hates hiccups, and right now, we got 'em bad. Our team has run into quite the headache with our animation exporter. We've tried so many things. We've re-rigged the nanobot, using a method that was so meticulous that it's virtually unthinkable for something to go wrong with it. We eventually tried out another mesh, a simple cylinder that could bend and wobble around. This test worked fine, and we realized that the exporter was only reading one joint chain. So, from the robot's hip, the exporter read to his shoulders, and then just picked an arm, and never came back for the other arm, or legs! So currently, this is our hurdle. Hopefully it will be a past memory by the end of the day. We shall see!

So, after much deliberation and some solid critiques from me peers, I have made some changes to the wee Robot. His Specular map, which identifies how light reacts to the surface of the robot, has been modified to reduce light reflectivity on areas where the robot is worn down. In addition, his color map has been dirtied up a bit to make the little guy more interesting. Here he is, in all his glory. I hope you guys like him as much as I do!

Quite a little Road Bump!

So, Wednesday, I head into class feeling great. I had just rendered my Ambient Occlusion and Normals for the nanobot. I was about to get to texturing. Such Progress! However, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction! And such progress wrought upon me problems that would hold me back a whole day. Fortunately for myself, I was two days ahead of schedule ^_^. So, the problems with the model ended up being mostly range-of-motion issues. Anyways, I fixed those, which led to some interesting changes in the model. (for the better I think) So, I ended wednesday right where I had began it. For the good news! I am done on time, with the model and it's textures, and I am proud to post this splash image of the robot! Hope you enjoy it, I know I do!

Step one=a month ahead of schedule

Today was a fine day in the world of game art! I finished the final Speckt character model today! Not only did I finish modeling it, but it's been UV'ed, and I've begun Zbrushing the high res for my normal maps and ambient occlusion! Below I have some pictures of the model, and my UV collage w/ a 512 checker texture.

So it begins...

It has been a long time since blogs first appeared on the interwebs. And for the whole of that time, I have been able to keep myself from making one. Yet now, I find myself typing away at my computer, making my first post ever. Why now you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Up until now, I had no reason to keep a blog. However, now I find myself amongst a group of extremely talented people, and we are working together in the final months of our schooling, to create a video game of
EPIC PROPORTIONS!!!
I feel like the work I will be doing between now and our sweet release of graduation is worthy enough to be put down, for the whole of the internet to read if they so please. So I hope that in the blog posts to come you find content worthy of your interests.