Gephoria

Rants from a game developer, a guy, a prophet, and well a general person, i may be boring but i find fun stuff from time to time

I recently saw two things in the news this morning that made me want to blog.  I apologize for not keeping up to date recently but this is a doosey (if that's how you spell that made up word). 

First off let's talk about imaginary lines, or real lines that should not be crossed.  If I were to see a car accident and be the first one to witness it as if it happened right in front of me, I would at least call emergency services to respond to the incident.  That being said would I also cross a line if I just kept going? Or pointed and laughed and kept driving?

San Francisco, up to 20 people witnessed a gang rape of a 15 year old girl in a dimly lit area she was being raped by students from the age of 15 to adults in their mid twenties (which makes me sick unless she herself was drunk enough to confess to it then the twenty year olds still should have backed off or at least I would... that's somebody's little girl/daughter).  Current.com has the full story also MSNBC, I just respect current more.  I seriously think the by standards that didn't notify law enforcement should be punished, or at least told what they were really looking at if they were not aware of the situation. 

In other news, I witnessed a clip from Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 here it is, if it is taken down it may be taken down forever.  The video depicts terrorists taking over and shooting up civilians in an airport.  With all of the 9/11 controversy this is definitely crossing a line if it were to happen IRL(in real life)

I thought this video wasn't all bad, as long as the people can tell the difference between the video game and reality... I would  hate to see some crazed out Iraqi or Vietnam war vet play this and get flashbacks, then go crazy and kill their family, yes, but also most people can tell the difference between digital violence and physical violence.  with that being said the UFC game for Xbox 360 is awesome and really is no worse than this if the subject (player) cannot tell the difference between reality and virtual reality. 

I sincerely hope that Inifinity Ward does not receive too much negative feedback about this.  In all reality the U.S. army will probably use these simulation styles to protect our airports better than what they currently are today, or maybe inspire new architectural advances. 

Lately I feel I have failed miserably at breaking into the video game industry.  I know I have the skills and communication nessecary for almost any position within the world of GD. Here I am going to list the resources I have been going through, maybe through comments or suggestions you can help me or maybe these resources (thinking of Randy Pausch: the Last Lecture here) can help others achieve their dreams. 

I'd think that going straight to the developer would be the best way to go, straight to activision, blizzard, EA, Midway, Interplay, Rockstar, Etc.  I first saw this website and fell in love with the idea at least.  The map has locations that are able to be clicked on and each location has a list of game developers associated with the corresponding location. 

Game Dev Map

GamaSutra

Elance

Now I will state that I would have hoped my college administration would have done a better job of student job placement (or internships or projects for that matter) but then again i'd have to state that they fell short of themselves in their own standards.  Some students that didn't have final projects completed still passed classes sad to say.  some students that have failed X amount of classes and had to retake the class X amount of times should eventually be kicked out of school for lack of effort. Honestly the school and my former teacher send out as many jobs as he can and I would be afraid that the corruption within the classroom would lead to the alumni as well.  Say that Student 1 and Studnet 0 both apply for the same job, would Student 1 get a more favored opinion from the school's faculty than student 0 because of a personal preference factor from the school? Yes probably and I don't blame the school for trying to make itself look good. At the same time this is crooked behavior and should have attention pointed at it.  Just like the internship deals that were happening when one student who I will not name received his internship through "a teacher's company" before other students even got the approved list of available internships. to put it simple it doesn't feel like i've ever played on a level playing field in this game of life. 

(apologizes now sorry i had to let that out)

With that being said, other great places to find employment seems to be various forums.  CGTalk, GameArtisans, Game-Artist, GameDev, DevMaster, and various other 3d oriented websites

Anyways, I'm looking for any work, may be relocating to the bigger MPLS soon.  General labor, craigslist stuff, web design, Freelance graphic or 3d work would be the greatest. 

If I discover more later I will update, have a peachy day everybody!

This is the order that I personally attack my LOW HARD DRIVE SPACE. Since Brown College partitions the students' hard drives into a small C:\ and a larger D:\ it gets annoying managing them both and I don't feel comfortable merging them into one C partition. 

1. Disk Cleanup
My Computer -> Your Target Drive -> Right click -> Properties -> At the bottom of the new window that opens is a

2. Defragment
My Computer -> Your Target Drive ->Right click -> Properties -> Tools Tab -> Defragment Now
I would like to recommend Auslogics Defragment Program. It is a true gem of defrag programs and runs more efficiently than the Microsoft Defrag from what I can tell.

3. Uninstall Unnecessary Programs
Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Find programs you do not use, or are not necessary and uninstall them.

4. Uninstall Unnecessary Windows Components
Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Add/Remove Windows Components
NOTE: Some of these are required for internet access.

5. Manage Your Swap File
My Computer -> Right Click -> Properties -> Advanced -> Performance -> Settings -> Advanced Tab -> Virtual Memory -> Change -> This is your paging file.  how and where it is set up and also size is all set here.  You usually want to have this somewhere around the size of your ram, you can always let windows manage it by selecting system managed size, otherwise you can relocate it for example a 1152-2048 size swap file from C:\ to D:\
NOTE: if you set this too high or too low you will experience system failure.

6. Registry Cleaner
Download and Run a Registry Cleaner or Registry Cleanup.  Simple as that if you do not know what a registry cleaner is Google it!

7. Archive Files
Go to your "My Documents" or wherever you keep your personal files that you don't use much.  Then select a bunch of the files (prefferebly the ones you do not use often.  You can also do this with porn and other

8. Delete Windows Help Files
These are often unnecessary for an experienced windows user If you are sure you will never need the help files windows provides (for the Operating system not necessarily associated programs unless you use visual studio or other programming applications) besides you can probably Google the information and it will come up. 

I hope these help you in your quest to have a good functioning computer! take heed of the notes and you should be fine!

Jason, Travis and I recently all started doing the Swordmaster tutorial from 3D Total

I also have been working on a couple other pieces of art. I started on an axe that I plan to ZBrush and make it look uber pretty visit my DeviantArt Page for more information.  also a staff that I may Zbrush unsure if i want to yet or not.  Here you go please leave critiques and comments. 

Here ye go!


Swordmaster head WiP 1 by ~Gephoria on deviantART
 


WTFStaff 1 WIP 3 by ~Gephoria on deviantART


Axe WIP 1 by ~Gephoria on deviantART

Today I found the "HOLY GRAIL" of zbrush tutorials.  After downloading dozens of gigabytes worth of videos that later i realized they are so large i cannot more them from one location to another hard drive I found something useful! I came upon these videos while noticing a ZBrush 3.5 advertisement, naturally I was curious on what was new in 3.5.  I visited the Pixologic website in search of the new features but I never got to them last night nor thismorning yet...

What I did discover is that Pixologic hosts free professional quality training videos on ZBrush.  I feel stupid for not locating these earlier (or they could be brand spanking new) in my education.  They really teach you all you could need to know about how to utilize their software. I stumbled upon this vast knowledge and treasure chest of wisdom accidentally and humbly pass it on to my readers!

Link:


This is a tutorial based off my learning experiences with Autodesk's 3ds max program. With that being said this tutorial is intended for people who use 3ds max and possess basic knowledge of how to use the program (at least making primitives). With that being covered this tutorial I will cover Layers, Creating cameras in a scene, scene states, and setting up batch rendering. I will be using my own scene and do not believe in downloading stuff for this small tutorial. 

Here is the Scene

 

 

In this scene I have a platform and three grenades I would like you to start by creating your cameras. To do this simply push "P" to get yourself into a perspective viewport, and when you are content with the positioning of the cameras press "ctrl + C" This will create a camera from the perspective view you are currently in. There are hundreds of ways to create cameras; this is the easiest way for me and probably most beginners also. After you have all of your cameras set in place (however many cameras you want) we can begin this tutorial. 

 

We will start by placing everything into layers in 3ds max. think of layers just like they are in Photoshop, you can hide/unhide layers and freeze/unfreeze layers, you can also control objects by the layer they are on changing the color/scale/rotation whatever variable you can create or think of it can be manipulated by layers in max the way you can manipulate an object on the scene graph. If your scene does not have any layers currently you can make one by hitting the Tools Menu -> Layer Manager. 

 

You select all the objects you would like on your new layer, and simply hit the "new layer" button. This puts all of the selected objects into a new 3ds max layer. The layer you have selected is important and is indicated by a check mark to the right of the name of the layer. 

 

For an example here is my layers dialogue from this scene:

 

 

As you can see I like to place all my cameras on one layer, environment on another, and the actual model or center of attention on the default layer. NOTE: If you right click and go to unhide all it will ask if you would like to unhide all layers, if you lose something in your scene this is another way to find it as opposed to the schematic view or other methods (they all work fine I think). This isn't the best way to do it just using it for this example and it's what I’m used to. 

 

Now that we have our layers organized properly we're almost ready. Next step is to set scene states!

 

You can set up your scene states by pressing the Tools Menu -> Manage Scene States. Next you are presented with a dialogue box that looks something like this:

 

 

Next I will select the layers I'd like to hide, my first one I’d like to show everything but the already hidden reference modeling pictures that I have in the scene. When the scene is ready select save button in the Manage Scene States dialogue. This created a scene state that shows everything you had shown (new items added will be excluded from this and will be shown until you re-save the scene state). Next I will do the same only having one grenade show on each one. Eventually you will have all your scene states as I do below:

 

 

Ok we are almost ready to start our batch render! How exciting!

 

Go to Rendering Menu -> Batch Render this will present you with a new dialogue box. Batch render works directly with the scene states, scene states works directly with layers, it all intertwines somehow and there is some programming genius out there laughing at us all but oh well here we go!

 

 

Basically all you have to do here is Click or hit the "ADD" button; this adds a line to the batch render. This line has some options

 

 

View: Name the view, doesn't matter, you can name these for your own organization.

Camera: Select the camera you would like the render to use

Output Path: completely up to you probably start with C:\...

Range: this will render 1-x frames of your animation.

Resolution: self explanatory

Scene State: set this to your predestinated scene state you would like to render

Preset: this is your own render preset choose wisely!

 

 

In the end you can either hit the render button OR you can export a *.bat batch file. To double click later and have that batch file just start rolling with all the delicious information you put into it.  It will work flawlessly if you set it up right (and really it's not that complicated until you get into scenes with hundreds of objects dozens of scene states and multiple cameras). 

 

 

On a personal note, I got evicted from my place of residence the other day spent a weekend finding a new location.  Here are my Updates sorry if it is not much. 


F410 Knife WIP Shot 1 by ~Gephoria on deviantART
 


F410 Knife WIP Shot 2 by ~Gephoria on deviantART


WTFStaff 1 WIP 1 by ~Gephoria on deviantART


WTFStaff 1 WIP 2 by ~Gephoria on deviantART

got the knife idea from a pic on my HDD, the staff is just random modeling i guess.  Promise to make tuts tomorrow! until then my watchers keep modeling and keep your heads up in this post-bush economy. 

TORN

is a game developed by Joe Chedburn.  He has had this idea since the age of 16 and carefully grafted it out in his head and in code.  He is a self proclaimed geek and a computer whiz kid.  TORN is about  a city Torncity and it's crime, crime is the object of the game but so is surviving and some law enforcement.  I would have to recommend you give it a go it is probably the best text based game I've ever played.  It's fun, intuitive and has 41,000 active users.  Here is a link to the original article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6264082/21-year-old-computer-geek-makes-1m-with-online-game.html

Sorry about not updating for a couple days, my computer caught the BestFriendVirus that happens to be like aids and you can't get rid of it (at least this is what Google told me) unless you reformat and start over from scratch.  I wouldn't feel content without posting in contribute like I normally do! With that being said, there's some big news in my world. 

Dota refiner Icefrog has achieved a position at Valve Software and now has a team to help him (I'm assuming) recreate a Dota like game with Valve software engineers at his disposal! That's great news and I'm extremely happy for him.  I'd hope that it doesn't get entangled in the IP that Blizzard Entertainment, Blizzivision or Actiblizzard (Activision Blizzard is stupid I think for a name splice) currently has market share on. The excellent custom map was created and refined by generations of programmers.  Almost everybody that plays Dota loves it and really it is the best part of Warcraft III for a great number of Battle.net users.  I hope it goes smoothly for Icefrog and his Valve Software team. 

I would also like to give props for this picture


Console war? by *Mikeinel on deviantART

I thought it was an awesome pic I wished there was a representation of the Wii, but then again it is in it's own category some could say. 

With that done here is my personal update (I started the tutorial I mentioned earlier, coming in a future post). 


G1 Gernade WIP by ~Gephoria on deviantART 

 
G125 Grenades by ~Gephoria on deviantART

Have fun til next time!

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   Greetings! I feel like I'm not posting enough but I'm content with the current rate I'm working at! I am going to be doing my secret shopper thing later this week.  Let's start with the important stuff!

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   My new piece of art, i have 4 more grenades coming shortly. While working on this piece I came up with my next idea for a tutorial or explanation, I will be preparing (not sure when I'll post it) a tutorial on everything from Scene States, Grouping Objects, Cameras, Layers and performing Batch Rendering in 3ds max. When rendering out the shots for the grenade above I performed a batch render, it's really easy. 

   Well I am losing my mind listening to "under the Sea" from the little mermaid for some reason lost my train of thought. 

   Interesting news I heard, I read on Kotaku that Fans of football teams (rugby for anybody not in America) are suing Game Developer Giant Electronic Arts for being placed in the most recent Madden game.  I hate to think it but the designers probably wanted to add some overenthusiastic fans, and well, get sued as a result.  Here is a link to the full story

One more thing today, made this image with the new pedestal in my boredom time! Cheers!

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Today I will be showing the masses about three point lighting.  I made this display pedestal or platform whichever you wish to call it. 


This is set up with the basic 3ds max default lighting currently we are going to fix this. First thing that comes to mind with three point lighting is there's 3 lights duh! The next picture will show where i put the lights in the scene, keep in mind the key light is usually coming from above via the sun or ceiling fixture. 

Moving Right along, so here are the settings for the KEY light.  The hot spot or beam parameters may be changed depending on the scale of your scene in the 3d application.  The key light is the most important light and when you add the key light if you turn it off and try to render you will get black screen because there is no lighting, the one light you turned off! AKA when you add a light in 3ds max, the default lighting is removed until you remove all lights.

This is what my image looks like after rendering with the key light!

next we will add the fill light, this is the light that produces rays that bounce from different angles in front of our object.  here are the settings for our fill light reference the diagram above for placement, if I had a human model on this i would want my fill light at about eye level with the model. 

I did not do a render of just the fill light, sorry if i ruined your hopes and dreams during the tutorial. 

Here are the settings for my backlight!

The backlight only, if you turn the fill and key lights off should look something like this:

Now in the end with all 3 lights in place positioned properly, and set up to our specifications will look something like below! This model I created is not using specular mapping, just normal and diffuse in case you were wondering by now. 

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I have and hope to see you come back again, until then I'm on the quest for followers and to get out of Minnesota! Farewell Fellow Readers!

I just have to share this with all, I loved playing the Final Fantasy series games as a kid and I am sure you at least know somebody who did at one time or does currently also.  Final Fantasy VII is quite possibly the best game I've ever laid my eyes on.  Without Further Ado here's the new trailer to FFXIII.  I really love the way the combat system looks, and some of the environments are breathtaking. 

   Many newcomers to game design often are told to pursue their dreams as a modeler, programmer, texture artist, or some kind of animator or motion capture stunt guy.  Often the ones that want to become the "lead designer" are not directly told about the living entity that the entire game relies on as a bone structure to hold it up before the team working on it. 

Game Design is about many things, creating art assets, animation, programming, but all of that comes together where? That's right, the Game Design Document (I will refer to this as the "GDD" from here on).  This is a document but it is like a living thing, because as the project progresses this document changes to accomodate the modifications to the game and also may be changed due to restrictions in the engine. 

Topics a Very Basic GDD includes:
Target Market: Children, Teens, Adults, Aliens, Mermaids
Platform: PC using x game engine, PS2, XBOX360, NES, Etc...
Background Story: This adds tot he plot and outlines the history of the game world
Gameplay: describing how the game is played, platformer, action/adventure, first person shooter, strategy, any key elements like switching from strategy to first person etc...
Purpose: Educationl, entertainment, edutainment, effective orientation training maybe.
Setting: Again adding on to the description of the game world, what is the setting, what's it like how are the people behaving, is the world in chaos or is it barbie ranch.
USP (Unique Selling Point): Is your game based on my little pony or Unicorn raising? maybe breed a Pegasus in the middle of the game or at the end and that allows you to beat some evil horse hating boss? your USP can be anything really, the better you can make it sound the more likely the game will sell good.

To view a REAL Game Design Document Click Here(MSWord97-03)
This is a game design document used by bigger developers, this helps management budget and schedule the time between artists, programmers, and others in a more efficient way.  I will talk about SCRUM in a future post and how it works it's really magical.  Any-who, This document outlines everything, if there's something in your game that IS NOT in the design document you did something wrong obviously. 

Other Cool Places that have game design documents:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070220/bateman_01.shtml
http://www-personal.engin.umd.umich.edu/~bmaxim/cis488/BaldwinGameDesignDocumentTemplate.doc
http://digitalworlds.wetpaint.com/page/Example+Blank+Design+Document

Creating TGB/TGE Splash Screens

Start by creating a new project or editing one that you have existing.  In the game.cs file add this line of code towards the bottom:
playsplash0();

After that create your two GUI's of your splash screens, I am not going to go over creating the GUI's but I'll give you mine as an example. 

//--- OBJECT WRITE BEGIN ---
%guiContent = new GuiFadeinBitmapCtrl(Splash0) {
canSaveDynamicFields = "0";
isContainer = "1";
Profile = "GuiDefaultProfile";
HorizSizing = "right";
VertSizing = "bottom";
Position = "0 0";
Extent = "800 600";
MinExtent = "8 2";
canSave = "1";
Visible = "1";
hovertime = "1000";
bitmap = "~/data/images/Splash0.jpg";
wrap = "0";
fadeinTime = "750";
waitTime = "2500";
fadeoutTime = "500";
done = "0";
};
//--- OBJECT WRITE END ---

then you are going to want to create the Splash.cs file mine was modeled off of a tutorial i did a while back, it's pretty simple and straightforward. 

// ============================================================
// Project : Flash Cards
// File : .\game\gameScripts\Splash.cs
// Copyright :
// Author : Brent Jorgenson
// Created on : Tuesday, September 15, 2009 1:35 PM
//
// Editor : TorqueDev v. 1.2.3430.42233
//
// Description :
// :
// :
// ============================================================

function playsplash0(){
canvas.setcontent(Splash0);
schedule(100,0,checksplash0);
echo("Splash 1 init");
}

function checksplash0(){
if(splash0.done)
{
playsplash1();
}
else{
schedule(100,0,checksplash0);
}
}

function playsplash1(){
canvas.setcontent(Splash1);
schedule(100,0,checksplash1);
echo("Splash 2 init");
}

function checksplash1(){
if(Splash1.done){
//startGame("MyProjectFolder/data/levels/MyLevel.t2d");
}
else{
schedule(100,0,checksplash1);
}
}

Next thing you want to do is exec these files

exec("./Splash.cs");

exec("~/gui/Splash0.gui");
exec("~/gui/Splash1.gui");

The only other things to do is add your startgame function or uncommend the one I have in the function checksplash1() put your main menu or first level there and you should be good to go, test it out and have a blast!

Other Tutorials on this topic:
http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TGB/Tutorials/Multiple_Splash_Screens
http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TGB/Tutorials/SplashScreen

These are like generals they cover most of the topics a lot more than one engine and have huge communities attached to them.
http://www.GameDev.net
http://www.DevMaster.net/
http://www.GamaSutra.com

Art
GameArtisans
CGSociety
Game-Artist.net
CGTextures

Engines                                   
Torque Game Engine
               Torquedev
               Torsion
               Codesampler's Tutorials
               DevJana's Tutorials


Torque Game Builder
               TDN - Torque Game Builder
               GarageGames Forum
               GarageGames Docs

XNA Game Studio
               XNA Creator's Club


Unreal Editor 2.0-3.0
               Unreal Developer Network
               BeyondUnreal
               WikiDot UT Mapping

Source Engine
               Valve Developer Forum
               3dbuzz.com Source Tutorials
               ModDB.com Source Tutorials

Warcraft World Edit
               TheHelper.net WC3 World Edit Tutorials
               WC3C.net Tutorials
               HiveWorkshop.com Forums

Later on I will take it unto myself to organize these better and make them easily accessible. I will continue to add to this list so please send me your suggestions.  that is all for now, watching Beowulf before I pass out.  Good night and Good luck!

How to change your Warcraft 3 background ~ By Gephoria

Let’s start by locating two things first will be on your computer, your Warcraft 3 folder most people have it located at “C:\Program Files\Warcraft III”

Second we need to locate the software online and download it  http://w17.easy-share.com/1702547323.html

There may be a different way to install this but I threw mine into the Warcraft III folder for easy location recognition.  So it should look something like this “C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\RU-Theme-Wizard\”

It’s as simple as running the “RuTheme.exe” in the folder, I personally have never had Warcraft 3 mess up with this but

IT IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA TO BACK UP FIRST!!! 

Now you can select any 3d background you’d like from the available options for both Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne scenarios. 


,,,,,,,,,,,,

These are my definitions of the people who have the systems they have and why they have them

Wii: The most enjoyable system ever, exercise while you play, get hot girls to do the hula hoop activity on Wii fit in underwear makes for a good day

XBox360: these people love first person shooters, the 360 has a solid number of good fun enjoyable games that are decently priced along with the system, awesome online multiplayer experience and all in all a solid choice for a gamer to choose this system over the other two based on the games available

PS3: I'm sorry Sony but this thing is for fanatics only still, the system is still 300$+++ on top of that there are very few games that get good ratings since Sony shut game developers out after the ps2. My friend bought a ps3 2 years ago. I’ve only witnessed him play it once or twice during the two years. He bought it for resident evil 5 and that was it, it's a blue ray player for him mainly, or a machine you stick a flash drive into and watch *.avi files on his HDTV, but a XBOX360 can do this function also

PC: true nerds play the pc, I am one of these, I love strategy games and some fps games on the pc, counter strike, Warcraft 3 world of Warcraft, every now and then roller coaster tycoon (cut it's fun to launch people to their death at a theme park) I like modifying games for any system also though, that's why pc is my choice, I have a Radeon x600 mobility and it does me solid far beyond what I would have imagined (I do high end graphics work with 3d applications such as 3dsmax/ZBrush/nVidia composer) and I am satisfied. The newer games will not run on my compupter but I can still make stuff for them. 


Today was a challenge; I designed a logo for a person on Craigslist this morning. Then I proceeded to program a bit in TGB. I am having fun with the coding process now it's not as strenuous as it was before in school. Sure it is harder to find help and resources but luckily I was the library assistant for 2 years I know where to locate resources!

I must admit I tried out a product Google recommends called Picasa today and I simply fell in love with it. Despite that it automatically references and categorizes my thousands of 3d.sk human reference photos it's an awesome program. It feels a lot like Adobe Bridge but more fluid within the windows environment.

I also would like to say blogging isn't as easy as I originally intended it to be. It is becoming more and more work each time I glance at the blog but in the long run I could love this, my childlike infatuation with the media and how news spreads I could see myself really getting into blogging especially if I become a teacher or instructor of some sort. There are a lot of tools out there the one's I have been utilizing today are:
http://www.blogcatalog.com/
http://www.bloggersforum.com/
http://www.blogtoplist.com/

I also took a bit of advice and redid some of my signatures on forums etc. I am working more on my grammar and punctuation when posting these just because of the sheer amount of content I would like to put in, I type faster than my pinkies can hit the shift keys so all the I's come out lowercase until MS word. I have to thank Microsoft for a piece of software that works well, and the spellchecker feature is ingenious really.

That is all for now my peeps I’ll be doing and adding more tomorrow!

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I recently have been playing with Torque Game Builder (TGB) and Microsoft's XNA game engines, both are fun, I'm finding it easier to utilize Torque game builder probably because I've used it before though.  XNA's programming in C# seems like in the long run it could be easier to produce with. I will post both online when I complete them just for reference, and others to see if they wish, never limit the content of a  blog. 

Torque Game Builder - Breakout Tutorial
The only issue I'm having with this final result is the ball get's stuck on the wall when approaching from an acute angle as far as i can tell. Ball also get's stuck in corners easy and sometimes on unbreakable blocks. I was disappointed to see the tutorial ended but I am creating power ups and other fun features on my own now.

XNA Beginner Tutorial
I have not yet finished this tutorial but i am enjoying it non the less.  XNA and C# Programming is a new thing to me a new adventure in a sense.  I am liking the methods of programming and how well written the notes Microsoft put in the generated code. 

That is it for now I'll post another update soon. 

title says it all i like the way this web design look turned out more than the previous.  I am back to modeling and coding more stuff contemplating a new unreal or source level, tell you what since I cannot decide Email me and let me know what engine YOU would like to see. 

Well it has been an interesting couple of weeks, car impounded, lost job, all of this happened but I still remain positive on my outlook at life.  The new website design I am implementing for Brentjorgenson.com is almost live, need a few more downloads and other things to put on there before ic an upload it and feel 100% better about this site than the last.  Adding more content you will see the cannons and poket monsters that I redesigned a little bit.  that's it for now sorry to keep you all hangin by a thread but you know what you know and everybody seems to get by knowing that. 

Also uploaded video to youtube.  check it out. 


Just a short update b ecause i haven't done one in a while.  i am preparing for my move to california.  With that comes the new responsibilities and challenges that lie ahead of me in my path i call life.  I am going to self motivate myself the best way i know how.  I found out i am not leaving the people i have been helping survive these tough economic times behind in a bad situation either so My leash is about to be cut and I am going to take the world by storm. 

I feel it coming, You'll feel the Wrath of Brent!

in all honesty lately i've been busy doing one of the following:
1. Reformatting Computer/Reinstalling Software
2. hooking up A/V Equipment for friends with new stuff
3. organizing files on computer
4. making new content as well as new website design that i like a little more than my older one that is still currently up at http://www.brentjorgenson.com

More updates coming soon! I promise!

Well not another big update today, just showing off of my pokemon/sackman.  first let's p ost Indiana Sacks and his progress, i still have yet to put other maps on here (and get the normal to work i used the wrong settings). 

 

Now introducing my hour of boredom last night, in the form of Magneton.  this electric pokemon is by far one of my favorite (design wise). 

 

and this is the most recent, you can kind of see the progression, still have details to add, want the most detailed magneton pokemon ever for some reason.  after, i'm thinking of making the other 2 evolutionary forms, in the first screenshot you can see that there is part of the magnamite form off to the right. 

there is detail in the eye, but it is hard to see here.  For higher rez images please visit my Imageshack account at http://profile.imageshack.us/user/Gephoria/

Well I have been meaning to update this blog in hopes of attracting more visitors (I really don't know the first thing about attracting visitors to blogs especially in the 3D community). Today i Update! in celebration i am going to drink a liter of vodka and go party and probably get laid tonight. In other news, I am becoming increasingly addicted to GameArtisans.org and their forums full of help and 3d "ness."

This is Indiana Sacks, for the (extremely late entry) in the game artisans mini challenges, this looked like fun, just did a diffuse for him so far normal, spec, glow etc, to come in a future update.


The cannon update, I updated the texture on the base ( still might change it more).

Updated the textures on the wheels (leaving it i am satisfied)

Still working out what to do for the cannon barrel and what color the hooks will end up being. After I get the cannon situated and happy with itself I am toying with the idea of modeling a pirate ship around the cannons.

Updates on other things:


Well I officially feel like i have been slacking off too much. But with my freedoms being robbed and all I guess i'm constrained to only get so much done at one time. Today has been the first day in a long time I got to sit down and enjoy modeling new stuff. From forging new ideas for games (I should really put together some concept documents for some of these ideas and no, i'm not sharing) to just having fun making 3D assets giving people good critiques and critisizm on forums. I must admit i do not visit http://www.gamedev.net often enough there is really a ton of useful information on that website from programming to art and asset creation.

Some lamps for you from amazon.com.

This is a p retty generic looking treasure chest, going to jazz this up later with a kick ass texture.

'The texture on the cannon is making me unhappy i think i am going to re-work the platform everything connects to re-model it and make it more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Cannon Animation

The Barrels from last week

I'm loving these cannons threw some color on the naval cannon and saw how it looked, i think i'd better unwrap it to make it look the best and/or re-model the naval cannon's wooden frame due to errors I see with the mesh. Chamfering loops didn't work for me this time. 

Below are my basic models/shapes for the staff of apocalypse i modeled and next to it you can see the "pre smoothed" model that the basic shape came from, threw a UVW cyl map on it during unwrap it turned out fine i just cannot seem to locate the texture for this one at the moment. 


Today I just worked on another quick update for the cannons of my life to punch through the barrier that is society into a 3d artist position somewhere at some company.  Recently focusing on more on attention to detail and everything else, I think; NO, I know I will make it in the Computer Graphics Society today.  Everything I have learned came together in my head a year or so ago and I am learning and harnessing new tools.  I’ve been learning both in 3D computer world and in real life. 

 

Here's the Cannon Update!


For the last couple days I have been modeling weird cannons out of boredom. I also started a couple 3D Sketchbook threads on a couple cg websites. The addresses are as fallen at the bottom of this post. 

 

If you were curious about what they looked like here it is. 

I'm finding out that my 2D skills are sadly under par. Either that or I just plain cannot concentrate whilst drawing. Either way I am keeping busy and finding new things to model and find passions in. I really find myself looking forward to the new starcraft 2 game coming out later this year. I am sadly disappointed that Blizzard announced that Starcraft II will not have a LAN (Local Area Network) option included with it. This leads me to believe that blizzard will put either a fee on the game (let's pray not) or they are sick of third party clients and trying to eliminate them by eliminating the options they utilize. Either way this makes me unsure of purchasing starcraft II. I'd rather go back to playing World of Warcraft!

 

As Promised here are your links. 

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=5966981#post5966981

http://www.game-artist.net/forums/sketchbooks/10358-gephoria-s-boredom-cannon.html#post97377

Thinking about today in many ways, the way I just out of nowhere noticed that the Earthshaker Character in DOTA (Very successful custom map for Warcraft III), has the letter S or number 2 I can’t decide which it is and a smiley face on the little log he carries. Thinking about that it leads me to believe that blizzard artists threw in small details everywhere you can and cannot see. I’m going to start paying attention to the faces more and more I think as a result of this.

I have to admit DOTA is probably the best thing about Warcraft III. Just based on the fact that it’s spawned networks of attention, it’s a relatively simple game like Tetris built on a larger platform yes, but yet it’s so complex at the same time. In my personal and humble opinion viper and Necrolyte are vastly overpowered now because of Viper’s slow and Necrolyte’s ignorance to damage well I hate playing against them both. Viper gets vanguard early game it’s hard to deal with him he can double kill easily and possibly kill your whole team if you are terrible enough.


Well I am utilizing all of my free time to perfecct my demo reel.  working on some new models and really just keeping up with the speed of technology, as impressive or unimpressive as that may sound.  So other than that i am planning a trip to California later this year.  The most i can do otherwise is just work work work til then.  Add more lines to the resume and after that land the job of a lifetime in a failing economy.  Dream jobs consist of Blizzard, Pixar, and Google. I feel bad this is a short update but other than that I pledge to myself to update this blog more often.  Still have it set up in contribute so I will begin to utilize that and harness it's energy whatever it may be.  Chow I hope to hear from you later. 

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Bachelors of Science in Game Design and Development
BrentJorgenson.com
Gephoria @ Deviantart

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