Back in the day... okay that makes me sound old. Seriously though I picked up 3D Studio Max way back when. I remember eagerly awaiting the character studio with 2.5.... and well lets just say I've been using Max a very very long time. I'm familiar with it and happy with it but well it's expensive!
Getting it out There In my relatively short time in the industry I seem to have attracted a few fixer-uppers, reboots, ports and all round oh do you mind just finishing it off jobs. Some of the biggest of these I have been Lead Programmer or Lead Designer on.
So I was listening to Another Castle interview the extremly interesting Eric Zimmerman . They were talking about the subverssive nature of play when my brain started drifting to tutorials, thinking about Limbo. Then I realised that not once on Glo did we ask, do we need tutorials ?
I pull in Nick Lewis and Neil Richardson again to discuss some technical art talks from Develop. The main talks we focus on are Jolyon Webb from Blitz games RnD talk, and a talk about the EyePet from James Answer. We talk about RnD teams, and process.
I pull in Nick Lewis and Neil Richardson to discuss balancing art and code needs. We talk about how to get the best out of both. How programmers and artists can get the most out of each other. Communication between teams, and how to manage it.
Aqua Attack Facebook Page So into the hot box I grab Tony Carter and DT to talk about our new release, AquAttack. Some topics we cover. Micro Production vs Traditional Console. Difficulty, Challenges and High scores. Finding the Fun. Digital Marketing. Quality and Innovation balance.
Progress Shots
Animation test for Hand
So the second biggest shot, the walk up and meep sequence needs some polish. I need to re-render it at a higher quality. The little guy needs to blink. I wasn’t happy with light balls. Now the real question… White or Green lighting strip?
I am back at work. My laptop is 20hrs into a 90hr render. Post from iPhone as my laptop is locked in the grasp of uber render.
All done. The pipes are cleaned up. I’m not cleaning the IK pipe as its a messy mangle, but I’m leaving it in because its educational and this is a university assignment. I’ll just make sure the camera avoids it. Tried making the red lights wash more to the nearby materials.
Overnight. Okay so some serious progress with texturing, cameras, materials and the like. The render times are getting silly though. I rendered an overnight job at full quality every 45th frame (not all included due to Tumblr limit).
Success!!! Doesn’t look very different but its VERY different. The wires animate around the pipes. The second pipe is in using spline & loft (animates nicer than my messy IK). Everything without a proper UV map has been mapped.
Glass Glass Glass. Wrapping my head around the materials system again. I think the work will need some great texturing and lighting to come alive. Also I think the quality of the green goo and smoke will have a high impact. I still want to keep things light though.
Soooo the university tasks list commences. I have a short amount of time to do a lot of overdue work :P. Story Board Notes. Camera fly around. Focus on Read outs. Start Drainage. Camera pull back for full view. Drain tube and drop lid. Heavy smoke emissions from the top of the tube.
I feel about this tolerant of idiots at the moment.