it’s been a while

it’s been a few weeks since I last posted. I’ve been posting at the official blog with updates for alphabetica.

so here’s a post of my own experiments and self-learning.

i’ve been playing around with the Unity engine for a while, as it’s the engine we’re working with for alphabetica. and I was able to import some half decent assets from maya straight into unity, and set up a test for myself. the test is this: see how complex or convincing an environment I can set up with minimal 3-d assets. so far I have 2 imported. a concave half circle of stone, and a cluster of crystals/

here are some screenshots of what I’ve been able to create so far.

a screen of the rock formations and some crystal "forests"

a shot of the "interior" of the dome, which includes a few crystals

added some lights and lens flare effects

here’s what i’ve been working on.

my friend Matt has been giving me pointers to get a portfolio together. so here’s my first real attempt at some next gen asset work.

it’s an alien auto turret, placed inside some kind of shrapnel wall (which hopefully will be made of some kind of mineral fused concrete or stone. grey with flashes of polished and colorful energy crystal or something…)

so here’s the first two steps i’ve got. roughed in the shape, then refined the mesh a bit.

James

Last post on this blog?

the official blog for Alphabetica has come online. check it out @ zendavis.com/blog

 

I will be posting there from now on, although I still might stop in here from time to time to update. perhaps I’ll make this blog the James King blog, rather than my Alphabetica blog.

 

James

rough weeks and no time at work

having a very rough week, so little has been added to the list of accomplishments for Alphabetica on my end. I did think up a series of locations for sketchpad world today. and I kind of planned out the locations for each place. I don’t know how well the list of locations will fit in with the script that zen comes up with, but i”ll have to wait untill he gets it to me to tell if my locations will work.

I also thought up a few objects to model for small props in the ice cream world.

6 colors of gumdrops (these are great, because they can be made with less than 20 polys each, and be brightly colored with only 1 pixel of color.)

a few candys with the twisted wrapper around them. again, small amount of polys and pixels.

and star shaped sprinkles in little bunches, (these could be made like 2-d grass sprites, but horizontal.)

i guess this is mainly a brainstorming post, to get myself working again, after a bad week and not having much time on the computer at work.

 

James

 

mind writings

hello. I always seem to start my posts with hello….

(wait, just checked, I guess I don’t start my posts with hello too often. perhaps it’s just my e-mails.)

anyhow, I don’t have any new images today, but I have some mind writings. They are just simple things i’ve been thinking about.  perhaps you will enjoy them, perhaps not. but thats up to you.. they are My mindwrits, not yours, and I like them. (by the way, I just made up the word mindwrits, but I think i’ll stick with it.)

mindwrit #1

I would love to talk to anyone about any ideas pertaining to a mmorpg that gets it’s world from a genealogy based system. A system where NPCs and monsters alike change on a monthly bases, a system where after leveling your player up so far, you have the option, and at a certain level, the obligation to find a partner and create a child. this child would then become your new character. the process of a heir would work very well for most mmorpg plots and worlds, especially as many are based in fantasy tolkien-esqe worlds. we all know tolkien loved family trees.

Also, the engine behind the genealogy would force the “world” the social environment in which players interact, to undergo challenges that would mirror those in real world situations, albeit on a gentler and less extreme level.  the details would only be known through the random(or perhaps not) movements and curves that the players would create.

all of this is probably more advanced than what is possible now, in places probably a decade or more away, but it’s a fun thing to discuss.

well, thats about all I have time to write about. time to get back to work, perhaps tonight I’ll fill in with more mindwrits.

new post with new flowers.

here’s two new flowers for the flower world. a thistle and a rose. the rose’s texture map needs some tender love, but overall, it’s got the shape down.

also, a quick render with some paint effects for the high res flower. experimenting for the final renders for the backdrops in game.

James

update with sample for hig res version

here’s 2 quick renders to show the first high res version of a prop.. I give you flower1.

 

quick render before uv map was done

added paintFX grass

 

quick render 2nd pass with uv map and paintFX grass. also threw a light and some glow into this one.

 

james

ice cream world update

quick update for ice cream world.

here is another shot of ice cream props. this shot includes new scoop hut, and whip cream volcano.. i’m not sure about the volcano, may need to re-work the shape.. the team had discussed a fountain in the middle of town which flows with chocolate syrup, which I still plan on doing, but i figured it would be cool to have a whip cream mountain as well. at the moment, the whip cream fountain is pink, which doesn’t make sense, so I’ll have to figure out what we want to do with it.

other changes to notice are the ice cream sandwhich and shapes of popsicles.

 

this level seems like it’s much heavier on the props side than the groundplane.

I feel that this level and the sketchpad world will both have lightweight groundplanes. for example, if this world uses mostly flat ground, I could make the whole world’s groundplane out of a couple hundred planes, where as the flower world’s ground was over 9k planes which had to be cut up.

 

2-D UPDATE

although I am the lead 3d artist for this game, I think it’s also my job to create various 2-d elements such as grass and possibly character art, so here are some updates on what I’ve been working on for level filler. I have created a variety of grasses, as pictured below, and here are two character pages showing brainstorming sketches for the characters that inhabit the sketchpad world. we’re still discussing how we want them to look. we have talked about having them be like hieroglyphs, or like quick charcoal sketches. also like some kind of symbol or icon.. I am leaning more towards having them be 2-d sprites, which would allow the use of many more on the screen than if they were 3-d assets. we’ll see how it pans out though.

 

update to flower world flowers

here’s the newest update to the flowers, showing the addition of leaves and new color scheme for the two shorter flowers. roses on the way.

 

 

also, pretty exited.

I have a new video card coming in hopefully on monday. it’s a quadro fx 580, which should greatly improve my home workstation’s capabilities and speed when it comes to working on the higher end (for the PC port) models and scenes. (sneak peek coming soon.)

James