Girls attempt real-life version of video game
The headline to this article sounds like it precedes a story of criminal violence but it does not. It seems kids will do just about anything these days to scare the living hell out of adults. While the date of the article makes me think it’s an April Fools joke, I have a feeling that it is not. If it is true, it is sad. If it really is a joke, it’s hilarious.
IDEAS is this Saturday, April 1st from 10am – 5pm at Studio 5 in the TV building. Come to the show and check out some music, animation, games, and other neat multimedia things.
UPDATE 4/2/2006
The IDEAS festival was a whole lot of fun — I want to thank all of you who attended and I hope you had a good time. Asym and Kelthas (two of my projects) were on display as well as many other very interesting exhibits. Studio Cypher was also on hand and they hosted several rounds of Non Compos Mentis [sic], which was a pointless word game involving mundane social interaction and very loose rules. “Indiana Pacers Public Relations Representative” cannot compete with “Kokomo.” Needless to say, I didn’t win.
From the above link you can watch the entire pilot episode of “Heat Vision and Jack.” The show premiered in 1999 and stars Jack Black, Owen Wilson, and Ron Silver. Fox canned it before it ever got a chance. It’s a shame it was cancelled because it looked like the series would have been hilarious.
Tuesday I went to Midway Games’ offices in Chicago for a portfolio review. In addition to looking at my stuff, the guy I spoke with let me know about the software and techniques I should be implementing in my models in order to find a job in the field. He emphasized working with next-generation tools as opposed to current gen programs. This isn’t much of an option for me, but I can at least try to use what I have to fake some of the stuff he mentioned. Newer game engines can support models with a slightly higher poly count as well as additional materials like specular maps and normal maps. Some of this stuff can be generated in Maya and then baked into a color texture. It’s not as pretty but it’s easier than trying to simulate the lighting effects in Photoshop.
I was happy to discover that a game artist’s porfolio doesn’t have to be huge in order to get a job. Just a simple portfolio with a few scenes is sufficient as long as these things show comprehension of the skills the company wants. Simple websites are also preferred. There is no reason to have a giant Flash-extravaganza if you aren’t trying to get a job that requires Flash. Just a simple image gallery is fine.
Visiting Midway Games was a great experience and I’ll jump at the chance to do something like this again.
My graduate department has established a guild on the Drak’thul server appropriately named “Mimesters.” We have a lot of fun though our levels are continually growing farther apart. It’s sad, but all the more reason to play I suppose. I enjoy playing the game now more than I ever have before. Sure, it’s a lot of mindless adventuring from point A to point B, but it’s a rewarding experience in the end.
One interesting observation I’ve made while playing WoW is that the models — buildings and characters — are VERY low-poly. Just for a point of reference, low-poly models contain less geometry than a high-poly model (i.e., a six-sided die or cube vs. a twelve-sided die or dodecahedron). It’s almost like Blizzard corralled some of the models from Warcraft III and just ported them over to the new game. This is not to say that low-polygon models are “bad” just as low-resolution images could be considered to have minimal detail. The textures more than make up for the 3D and from a technical standpoint it’s quite amazing what Blizzard has accomplished.
Speaking of low-poly models and mindless fun, I’ve also been playing a bit of Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS. It’s not a very time intensive game if you don’t want it to be. Cheating by changing the DS time spoils the game and those who partake in this wretched activity (almost everyone I know who’s played it) will face the consequences in this life or the next.
You might notice that I’ve changed a few things on the site. I changed the graphics around a bit and added an image gallery (a link is on the right). The main reason for updating the site was to get a better system implemented to manage the graphics I’ve created. I’ve posted a lot of artwork from Ares Station, an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) or multi-player novel* I worked on last year.
*credit for this term goes to either Ian and/or Will.
My friend, Ian, showed me this clip a few days ago. It’s still funny.
UPDATE: Ian’s “Garbage Day” remix
I’ve been doing quite a bit of work on the asymgame.com recently and I figured it was worth a post. It’s the same setup as this site except for a few plugins I’ve installed that do some neat things. Grade440 (the dev team) is a group of IU students (including myself) that is working on a total conversion mod for Unreal Tournament 2004. We’ve been at it for about 7 or 8 months now and the project is coming along great. There will be more information on the site real soon, so stay tuned for details.
I just finished playing a bit of the new (well, sorta new) Call of Cthulhu game for Xbox. Some might call it a scary game. I screamed out loud when this hideous man yelled at me for “snooping” around an abandoned store.
Hutton Honors College Bulletin (PDF)
Check out page 7 for some Kelthas coverage. The main photo on this page is the last known photo of my mohawk. According to the caption at the bottom right I am a part of Steve‘s “gamer posse.” I like that. You might ask, “Rory, why do you have such a scowl on your face in the photo?” Well, I brought a copy of my map to the photo shoot because the photography people thought we’d use it in a few pictures. You might be able to gather from the lighting in the photo that it was not a very good day — the weather was a bit like it is today, actually. Kinda rainy. What I learned that day is that the slightest bit of rain mixed with Indiana’s horrible humidity is a disaster for plotter prints. The instant I unrolled the map the ink began to drip right off the poster. So that’s why there’s an unhappy face… well, that and the fact that we were standing in the rain. Luckily the ruined map was only one of three copies I had made and it is not the final version of the map. The final version has some minor modifications in order to make it work better with the game. I’ve got a bit left to do on that map. Back to work.
I was just thinking how the photo looks like the album cover of some cheesy fantasy metal band, like “Lord Tsabo’s Kelthinators” or something.
