Gephoria

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!

Recommended Reading List!

Game Development Essentials: Game Project Management
Game Development Essentials: Game Level Design
Game Design: Theory and Practice (2nd Edition) (Wordware Game Developer's Library)
Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume I: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal Engine 3
Creating the Art of the Game
Digital Lighting and Rendering (2nd Edition)
The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque: Under the Hood of the Torque Game Engine (GarageGames)
Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp
Virtual Vixens: 3D Character Modeling and Scene Placement
3ds Max 2010 Bible
3ds Max 9 Essentials: Autodesk Media and Entertainment Courseware
Inside 3ds max 7
3D Game Programming All in One

Most of these books I have read while in college, a couple I have not but I have heard excellent stories and feedback about, I will be adding onto this list in the future and eventually it will become a widget on the side. 

   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

Creating TGB TGE Splash Screens

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. 

XBOX360,PS3,Wii,PC,Mac,360,XBoX,PS2,Sony,Playstation,Nintendo,Microsoft,Console

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!

microsoft,xna,garage,games,garage games,TGB,Torque,game,builder,programming,c++,C#,engine,gaming,development,API,windows,linux,xbox,360

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.