OneMrBean: Art + Games

Time For New Things!

2011-01-26T03:10:00.004-05:00

I regret to announce that this will be my last blog post ever... on this blog.... because I have my own website now! :D

www.onemrbean.com

Please make sure to update your bookmarks (or add one if you haven't already) and to update to my new RSS feed as well (or start following if you haven't already)!

This fancy new website thing will be the new home not only for all my future bloggings, but also the home for all of my creative endeavors, including indie games, portfolios, random crafts, and even my oldest Flash work. My goal is to be more active with my posts, being sure to at least let you guys know what I'm up to. I have some exciting things planned indeed :]

This blog will still be kept intact since I don't feel like migrating all of my old posts over to the new system. However, that doesn't mean there isn't any content yet on my new website! Here are a few points of interest:

A Games page, formally gathering all of my indie games work!
Individual pages for Grandfather, [Together], [Yesterday], and more, all able to be commented on! Think of these pages as the unofficial discussion forums, or something!
An About A Bean page, including a self-interview where I call myself out on things.
More cardboard! :D

I just wanted to say thank you all for taking an interest in my work! I wouldn't be putting this new website together if I didn't want to continue making new things and pushing myself to create, so rest assured that I will be looking forward to showing new things in the near future!

See you on the other side,

...But That Was [Yesterday]: Soundtrack!

2010-12-06T04:58:00.003-05:00

Click to go to download page!
I've finally gotten around to putting together a mastering of the soundtrack to my latest Flash game, ...But That Was [Yesterday]!

There are five unique tracks totaling 10 minutes of music based very closely after the events that take place, with some added flare here and there that I never got to add to the game.
A bonus sixth track is included, which is just the first five tracks seamlessly connected (meaning the bonus track is as long as the rest of the album :D)
Tracks 2, 3, and 4 can be rearranged in any order since they are identical in beginning and end, and have gapless playback encoded.
300x300 album art included for you ID3 junkies :] (pictured above)
Click here to go to the download page!

The voting period for CGDC9 should be ending either today or tomorrow, so be sure to check out the results (and go play all the awesome games. Vote too if there's still time!)

Enjoy and happy listening!

...But That Was [Yesterday]: Sketches!

2010-11-25T14:52:00.006-05:00

As I mentioned earlier, I usually don't like to draw anything for my games until it's time to actually make some art assets. This game had its fair share of complex shot sequencing, so I wanted to make sure things made sense before I dove head-first into Flash. The following is a set of scans from my game design sketchbook, mostly sketched out in one sitting at a coffee shop whilst getting lost to the sounds of Toro y Moi.

Keep in mind that these sketches are about as spoilerific as it gets, so if you haven't played my game yet, it's highly recommended you do that first.

Click here to play ...But That Was [Yesterday]!

The girl's story was the easiest one to start with, since I already knew a lot about her from [Together]. This page plays around with some swingset designs (which were ultimately scratched) as well as ways to represent her being gone via the bedroom and surreal airplane flybys. The phrase "The wind comes..." at the bottom was a note to myself about the possibility of having the sound of wind be an overlying element to tie the various stories together. I ended up not using wind literally, but the transition that I use in the game is comparable.

Some familiar scenes can be spotted here, such as the schoolyard rain sequence (top left), the patience of the doggie (middle), and the rooftop-jumping sequence (bottom left). Note for the rooftops that I wanted the interactive smoke stacks very early in production, yet I didn't get time to code them in until the day the entry was due O_o. I also have a list of visual effects that I felt were necessary to help drive the story/gameplay forward (middle left), the only one not making it in being water refraction (during the underwater sequence).

In the top right is one of many deleted scenes from the dog's story (which has unfortunately been reduced to a day playing in the snow). The hearts (middle right) were originally supposed to act as warp points in a sort of hub world, the player choosing which story to experience in his or her own order. This was nixed once the teachings of the various friends was simplified down to an ascending level of interaction.

Rounding out this page, we can see the moment I got the idea for using the swings to rotate the world 90 degrees at a time (those black squares under the dog), found through slouching on a couch and having my sketchbook fall over in my lap. The dialogue in the bottom right is me discussing with myself how the game should end.

These two pages are the biggest spoilers of the lot, spelling out - in words - how the various stories should unfold. At first I designated specific ages of the main character during the three stories, but I eventually decided to keep him relatively the same (a difference of years as opposed to decades).

The right page has probably the most important content in my sketches: the rules as a game designer for building this thing. My last two games were a little more than difficult to complete (to put it lightly), so in order to be sure most people would be able to get through all these different stories, I simplified both the gameplay and the inputs. It was much more important to me that people be able to play the game from start to finish in one sitting, rather than lose or get stuck and then already know half the story on a second playthrough.

The rest of the page is a series of rules for how the world works, how it transitions, and various ways to end the game. The ending in [brackets] eventually went on to evolve into what is currently in the game. An alternative to the heart hub world was a room of statues (bottom left), the statues acting as relics of memories that are glorified and trapped in stone.

That pretty much does it for my sketches (at least for this game). After I drew these up I pretty much jumped right into the production phase and didn't stop until 2 months later. Along the way, lots of content was cut, stories were altered, scenes were removed (sorry, doggie ♥), but it was all necessary to both tell the story that was most important and to of course finish on time =P.

One of the scenes I did cut almost made it in, so I figured I'd finish drawing in the characters to show you something that could have been. This shot was fairly complex and did things story-wise that weren't found anywhere else in the game, so it was cut to keep things simple.

Lastly, I thought I'd also share the only sketch I ever made for my last game, [Together]. I already had the heart types figured out, but I felt like drawing them one day to see how they looked together. I suppose it was worth it since I went through four different types of hearts for outerspace, eventually settling for the comet type.

That's it for this week! I'll be putting out the soundtrack to [Yesterday] sometime in the near future, closer to the end of the competition on Dec. 6th.

Links to my games mentioned above, in order of release:

And lastly, my thanks go out to everyone for playing, enjoying, loving, hating, etc. If you think you've learned something from playing this game, just imagine how I feel :] ♥

...But That Was [Yesterday]: Unveiled!

2010-11-16T03:58:00.005-05:00

My newest Flash game has finally been finished! After about two months of working in my freetime, I'm proud to announce that my game made it just in time for JayIsGames.com's latest Casual Gameplay Design Competition.

This is easily my most complex game yet, involving dozens of characters & animations (including variations of recurring ones), four dynamically-layered songs, and multiple endings. I usually don't write anything down while I conjure up everything about my games. I've found that once something has been drawn or written, it has an associated visual and becomes much harder to evolve, toss out, or modify. However, I had way too many scenes this time around, and made a storyboard out of Post-Its on my mirror:

I purposely kept this image small since it's technically a spoiler of every single thing that happens in the game. The missing areas in the grid are where I had to cut scenes because of continuity and/or time constraints. That paper in the top-right was my schedule for the last three weeks of development, which has its own baby Post-Its for when I moved tasks around (and eventually I just stopped looking at it since I couldn't afford to waste time making time).

I did, however, release a few teaser shots in the last week, so here are the Post-Its that went along with them:

I think the Post-Its were more so to organize my thoughts and not necessarily to communicate the details of each scene. That would explain the scarcity of the title screen Post-It:

...This should make more sense once you play the game :]

I'm posting this a little before the competition goes live, but it's likely that by the time you read this, it will have started already [Edit - competition is live!]. So, here's the link!

My game is titled: ...But That Was [Yesterday]
Click here for a direct link to play!

To see all of the fantastic entries, check out: Casual Gameplay Design Competition #9: "Friends"

And for any and all news regarding updates / changes / words of thanks for my game, be sure to keep an eye on my Twitter since I update it much more regularly than this blog. I plan to do some more making-of posts in the future, so come back soon!

♥!

Two Albums For The Price of None!

2010-08-08T04:10:00.004-04:00

I've gotten requests from various people (family, friends, strangers who are now friends) to upload mp3s of the music from my recent Flash games, How My Grandfather Won The War and [Together]. I decided to do a little more than just loop the songs a couple times, incorporating a little post-production and even doing a few new recordings for [Together]'s album. However, the best news of all is that both albums are free to download, and available by clicking either the image above, or the link below!

Click here to download both albums! [10.4MB]

For those still wondering at this point, I composed all of the music heard in these games. Software includes Jam Sessions for Nintendo DS, g-tar for Android, sfxr for that 8bit goodness, and Goldwave for post-production.

Direct links to play my games:

[Together]

2010-08-02T02:28:00.003-04:00

So... it's been 8 months since my last post (D:). What's happened since then? Most importantly, I packed up my life and moved out west to pursue professional videogame development! I'm currently happily employed at Namco Networks as a 3D Artist, working on the next great games for iPhone and iPad. It's been pretty exciting these past few months and I've created a lot more artwork than I thought possible. The only bad news is that I can't show it here, and probably never will be able to, so just trust me that I'm drawing lots of pretty pictures :]

But let's get to more recent news! If you recall my Flash game competition entry from last Fall, then you may be excited to hear that I spent the last two months working on my latest game (pictured above), which is available to play (and vote on) at JayIsGames.com. This competition's theme was "sandbox", which I took the liberty to tear apart and interpret as I saw fit. The resulting game that came out is something I'd been meaning to make for years, but finally got the chance to do.

It was super fun to work on this one, especially since there was so much traditional animation involved, including a 20 second intro cinematic. There are lots of small details to be seen in the characters and world, so hopefully people don't mind squinting to see all the little things going on :]

To play my game, [Together], simply click here!

There's a 3-week voting period at first, so if you happen to like what you see, don't be shy to let the world know. There are a bunch of great entries from all over the world, so be sure to check out how everyone incorporated the theme!

Below are various screenshots from my entry. Since there's so little to do in the game, these few shots are technically major spoilers, so you might want to play the game first and get the experience the right way. On the other hand, there's a lot that's missed when the game is in motion, so I'd recommend taking a look at these after playing through. Enjoy!

And for anyone who came here looking for clues to the ending of the game (I know you're reading this), let me just say I'm glad that you've taken an interest in knowing the unknown. I'm not going to tell you what there is to do, if anything, but I will say that giving up is probably the last thing you'd want to do, especially if you've come this far...

Hogwarts: The Foldable School of Magic

2010-01-01T01:40:00.004-05:00

This was a fun Christmas gift to make, mostly because I have this undying love for single-piece pop-ups. Technically, this one is made of two pieces, but the key is to create all cuts and folds from one solid piece of paper with no added adhesives to suspend the illusion. I guess you could count the additional two sheets used as a backing behind the actual pop-up, so we're at 4 pieces of paper, but that's definitely the limit here. I promise.

This is easily my most complicated pop-up so far, so I had a nice challenge to balance intricacy with stability. The more cut-outs and holes I make, the weaker the entire piece becomes. This actually makes the backings play two roles: one to simplify the silhouettes of the windows, and the other to keep the whole piece from collapsing (see top of towers in the shot above). Easter Egg Alert: I threw in Hagrid's hut on the bottom right, despite it being geographically much further than that from Hogwarts. I hope that doesn't ruin the whole thing for you diehard Potter fanatics...

The right half of the pop-up was created after I had roughed in the left half, so I used some tricks I learned earlier to make some more complicated layers, such as the church at the base of the valley.

I totally miscalculated the distance the major bridge would extend from both sides, so the two ends had to overlap considerably for the suspension bridge above to connect as well. Noted for next time.

Some more recognizable landmarks are here, including the eating hall and the living quarters. I kind of ignored the fact that the towers, when folded, would protrude behind the "sky", so I had to make appropriate holes in the backing to let it fold completely. The same goes for the little part of the hill on the bottom left.

Okay fine. I used tape here, but only because I accidentally cut the HP logo too thin and the midsection ripped off. My blisters were sore enough by this point, so I cheated a bit. At least we know that section will outlast the rest?

Here's the full rough draft composed into one shot. This is literally what I printed out, traced, and used as reference for folding (green = mountain fold, red = valley fold, black = cut), so these 8 sheets of paper helped me out the whole way. In total, there are 311 windows, arches, and cut-aways across the two pieces of paper. The dimensions are 14in tall x 16.5in wide x 8.5in deep when fully assembled. I guess I'd say the total time from drawing the blueprints to making the final fold was roughly 10 hours, half of which was spent cutting out windows. It's okay, as that day The Matrix Trilogy was on in HD, so I had some nostalgic ambiance to keep me cuttin.

And yes, they do indeed fold completely flat. The scariest and most exciting moment is when you first fold an entire piece flat, which is the same moment when you realize just how accurate your measurements were. Folding is the final step of the whole project, so there's a lot of anticipation to see if the project simply folds, let alone looks cool. Thankfully, I've recently found how helpful it is to measure things digitally, so there were no doubts of right angles going crooked or millimeters adding up to centimeters of error. The only variable factors this time around were my cutting skills, which seemed to do a satisfactory job (this judgment being gauged by the lack of additional gashes on my table).

So, hope you enjoyed, had an awesome holiday-filled week, and have a fantastic start to your new decade!

How My Grandfather Won The War: The Art Of

2009-11-16T22:51:00.011-05:00

For those who are still gritting their teeth in anticipation over the competition's results, you can rest at ease as they were revealed just a couple weeks ago! I happened to tickle enough of the judges' collective fancies and scored 3rd Place in the ArmorGames Award category! The prize is a generous monetary gift along with a front page sponsorship at ArmorGames.com. Much thanks goes out to the judges, the fans, my Facebook supporters (my one Twitter supporter), my testers, and especially those who enjoy a challenge (which in turn re-mentions people in the former categories).

The original game can be played here and the ArmorGames version here (though they're 99% identical, so you'll be getting roughly the same cardboard experience).

Also, there is a review (:D!) of my game available here.

I've gotten polar-opposite responses from people regarding the visuals and the gameplay, so I'll save the gameplay chit-chat for another day. In the meantime, let's take a look at some of the artwork for the game.

The whole idea of the narrative was not to tell too much, but to try and keep it from a familiar point of view. That's where I got the idea to tell it through a sort of 2nd grader's cardboard puppet show. I've been watching lots of awesome cardboard videos for the last couple years and even fitted my portfolio website using all cardboard, so I figured it would be fun to continue working on a cardboard world.

Here are a few of my inspiration videos, all very cool stuff: here, here, here, and here

I originally had plans for crazy moving parts and multiple layers of brown parallax, but factors of time constraints, Flash's limited power, and gameplay mechanics had me cut back unnecessary effects. The most important rule that I upheld as much as possible was to suspend the illusion that this game could actually be recreated in real life. That's why the plane you control is held up by strings, why duct tape is seen on seams, why explosions are held up by sticks, and generally why nothing simply appears out of nowhere.

So, where did I begin? Well, first I went to various wholesale clubs in my area and did some free box shopping.

Awesome. So then I ripped them up, scanned them in, and created everything digitally. That part took a few weeks.

The loading screen needed to be simple while also following my one rule, so I figured I could have a roll of masking tape roll across the screen, while simultaneously collecting a strip of tape. Doing so reveals the game within as the 4 panel flaps lift up for the first time. I ended up using them as the transition between any two screens for the sake of continuity.

The title screen was one of the last things I put together, mostly because I wanted to have a good feel of what the rest of the game would be like before I tried to design what the player would ultimately see first (excluding the loading screen).

I just wanted to show the Settings screen because those slider buttons took a while to get right and I love how they turned out. :]

The death screen shows up whenever you get hit by something bad. This happens a lot, so I wanted to have some sort of notation to let you know just what went wrong. Again, to suspend the illusion, the life display at the bottom is held up by metal dowel rods and change their graphic by flipping around.

As for the rest of the game, I thought I'd do you a favor and show every single asset in the game, namely the bad things and their counterparts underneath. Needless to say, if you're still interested in discovering what lies ahead as you progress through the game, the following image contains every single spoiler in the game... so don't click until you're absolutely ready. For the rest of us, this is a nice chance to not only see how things match up with their happy alter-egos, but you can also see them in detail without having to worry about dodging, charging, and shooting. And if you're wondering why some objects don't have an alternative form, that's because of gameplay design choices, which I'll touch upon another time.
I'd normally have some kind of concept art to show where the designs came from, but for the sake of a time-sensitive competition, I just kept messing around with the colors and shapes in Photoshop until I was happy with them. In general, though, the process for each asset was to:

Draw the basic shape of the object
Color & shade for volume
Add cardboard texture behind and filter it through appropriately
Readjust colors (as the brown cardboard can make things too red)
Cut out a cardboard shape around the object (to make it appear like scissors cut it out)
Fade the color out subtly in areas where the corrugation is exposed
The drop shadows were added in Flash, with the exception of the planes' wings.

That's about it!

Ikaruga Pumpkin Carving: Halloween Harmony

2009-10-31T22:21:00.008-04:00

I originally had two separate pumpkins planned for tonight, but I ended up taking a lot longer on this one and didn't have enough time before the trick-or-treaters would be bombarding my door this afternoon with fabric-softener-riddled pillowcases and fancy costumes that just begged for me to give them extra candy out of adorableness.

This sucker took about 6 hours from gutting to cutting. Though it needs no introduction, this is a depiction of the two playable ships in the 90s shoot-em-up Ikaruga. The game itself is based upon a balance between black and white, which I tried my best to replicate in the carving.

Out of the ~100 people that came to my door, not one of them recognized the fighters, though I really can't blame them, especially with less than 100,000 people [in the world] even owning it on XBox Live.

It's one of my favorite games ever, takes only 20 minutes to play from start to finish, and I've never beaten it, despite having put in hundreds of hours. Clearly, I do like a challenge. Below you'll find a YouTube video of it rotating, along with some other detail shots. Happy Halloween and eat that candy slowly!

How My Grandfather Won The War: The Game

2009-10-20T14:02:00.006-04:00

After roughly 7 weeks of working on a Flash game from conception to completion, I can now finally show you my entry in the 6th Casual Gameplay Design Competition hosted by jayisgames.com, a game I lovingly refer to as How My Grandfather Won The War.

The game is hosted along with the other entries for the competition, and voting is open to anyone and everyone. If you happen to like my game, I wouldn't mind at all if you helped out and gave a helping vote. So, click below to go to the competition page and check out all of the unique games. My entry features a picture of a red airplane, which is placed randomly in the set of thumbnails.

--> Competition Page

And because I always make sure to post something visual, here are a few screenshots from the game:

So, in summary, I had a lot of fun making it, and I hope you enjoy playing it as well. If it seems a bit difficult, just keep on trying, and I'm sure you'll make it through. Afterall, the game takes about 5 minutes from start to finish.

Many thanks to my testers for helping me make the game playable (but not necessarily easier).

Oh, and voting is awesome, so go support indie games.

Enjoy!

Network is the Name of the Game.

2009-10-04T17:29:00.010-04:00

So, during the first week of August, I traveled down to New Orleans to take part in SIGGRAPH's first ever gameJam! competition, willing to spend 24 hours in a chair to create a game out of thin air (with the help of my wonderful teammates of course). The experience was fantastic, the food delicious, and the game... experimental. We spent about 3 hours just coming up with what you do in the game, constantly throwing out ideas that had been done before. Our final result was something special (which is what you get when you toss out things you know were successful elsewhere). The good news is that we won the Committee's Choice Award, which effectively granted the three of us passes to next year's SIGGRAPH in LA. As for the bad news, there is none. Awesome, right?

I would be apologizing for the 2-month tardiness of this post (the competition itself taking place exactly 2 months ago today), but I was waiting for something special. That something finally arrived in my mailbox this week, which greeted me with some fantastic postage in the corner. I'm too used to Liberty Bells and Homer Simpsons on any packages I get, so this was a wonderful treat.

As far as what was inside, that would be September's issue of Animation Reporter, "Asia's leading Animation industry magazine." And inside on page 18? That would be my first ever appearance in a magazine, an almost full page feature on my team and our game Network. It was part of a larger feature that covered both the gameJam! and the FJORG! competitions from SIGGRAPH 09. A lot of my Ringling friends were featured in there, along with their own interviews, so go check it out!

And since you've been wondering this whole time, yes the game is playable right now. So go play and enjoy!

Also, there may or may not be a two-part behind-the-scenes video of the experience at gameJam... Okay, there is.

A Picture of My Face and a Faraway Place

2009-07-31T15:52:00.002-04:00

Here's a self-portrait I threw together in about 6 hours. The hardest part was bringing myself to cut my glasses in half ;]

In other news, I'm off to New Orleans next week in a two-fold plan that involves both breaking my 22-year timezone curse and participating in SIGGRAPH's 1st annual gameJam! 24-hour game design competition. The awesome part is that by this time next week, I will have created and finished a fully functioning game (with the help of my two teammates, Jonathan and Drew). That's saying a lot, what with how many games I've finished otherwise this summer (official count: zero). The important part is that they're seeing progress, so rest assured that they will one day be available for the world to enjoy. I suppose playing other games along the way isn't necessarily helping get my own done, but it sure does allow me to see what else is going on out there. I warn you all to stay away from Kongregate. There are quite a few gems there that sneakily make time fly like no one's business.

Apparently I Make Miniature Houses, Too.

2009-06-13T18:25:00.006-04:00

The project here was to make a Wizard of Oz-themed retirement cake that leads to a house with the phrase "There's No Place Like Staying Home." I was tasked with making the house and helping out a bit with the cake (grass and brick laying, below).

Working from memory rather than reference

Plans for the house made in Flash. I tried to create it
in as few pieces as possible, for stability's sake.

Pre-taping phase

Chimney, bushes, and Roosevelt

I don't even think people could get this low to the cake.

Sunroom located in the back. Windows were made
super tinted for lack of better materials
(we're talking 1/2 in. width for the whole thing)

Assorted views. Coloring done with Prisma Colors.

Beginning of cake. That lemon brick road was delicious.

Coconut grass. And lots of it.

Not as grandiose as Emerald City,
but it sure seems a lot cozier.

EDIFICE

2009-05-04T21:45:00.006-04:00

So, my senior thesis at Ringling has finally been completed! Production started in December of 2007 and really hasn't taken a break since. I couldn't have done it without the help of my teammate, friend, and partner in crime Patrick Haskew, the other half of Team Bonesaw. Clicking the image above will take you to my website where you can (finally) watch it. And for those of you wanting a few more pixels for your pleasure, here's a link to the HD version on YouTube.

In other news, my second project for senior year is also completed, though it's of a much smaller scope (17 months vs. 4 weeks). It too is available to view on my website, under the Animation section.

Other than that, I'm off to graduate from Ringling in a few days. What I'll be doing after that, I'm not too sure. I have a few Flash games I'd like to polish up and finish, so look out for those in the coming months.

We'll meet again someday soon :]

Must go faster. Must go faster. (A bat's story)

2009-04-08T19:04:00.003-04:00

Here's a few screenshots from my latest Flash game I've been working on for a few months. The idea came to me one day when thinking about cool things to escape from. An erupting volcano immediately came to mind, and our lovely bat friend followed shortly after. I'm not sure when the game will be available to the public, but I can assure you it's been a blast to work on so far.

Other than this, I have a couple other Flash games under production as well (yes, the heart game is still beating). I've also recently finished my senior thesis animation with my partner Patrick, so that should be available on my portfolio website in a few weeks. I'll of course make word of it here as soon as it's available.

Just a few weeks of school left, so hang in there. I have a few things to take care of first.

Parry Like You Mean It

2009-03-13T04:39:00.005-04:00

This was done as a present for my good friend Berto, but it also stands for a few things - the recent release of Street Fighter IV, a glorified portrait of our virtual battles, how important it is never to give up even when you're down, and of course just how large the moon can become when fighting to the death in a sacred forest. Just something to munch on for now (as we all know my mouth is soon to be filled with a hadouken).

Cardboard Needs Love, Too

2008-12-05T20:36:00.004-05:00

Looks like my portfolio website is all ready to go, for your viewing pleasure. I spent a couple months programming, designing, and basically getting the whole thing together, which has resulted in this little cardboard world where you can come see my most cherished pieces of work.

I'll keep putting work up there as I finish them in the coming months (the big update coming in May 2009 when I finish my senior thesis). Meanwhile, stick around these parts for some progress updates on my other side projects in life.

Enjoy,

Still Rockin On.

2008-11-09T21:38:00.003-05:00

Hi all. I may not have been posting recently, but I assure you I've been working on fun things. To answer a few common questions:

- Yes, the Heart game is still in production and is coming along nicely.
- Yes, I do make hip-hop instrumentals as a hobby. You can find my finished beats at onemrbeats.blogspot.com.
- No, I won't be posting any animation from my senior thesis until sometime next year. It's a slow and loving process.

Recently, I've been working each day on my senior thesis with my partner Patrick, slowly bringing our vision to reality (I mean virtual reality, right?). I've also been putting together a senior portfolio of my work, so expect a nice little link to my portfolio website in the coming weeks.

Other than that, enjoy the self portrait posted above. I think I was excited to get laceless shoes for the first time. They're treating me mighty fine to this day.

Hearts Are Meant To Be Played With!

2008-05-06T20:36:00.004-04:00

I've wasted no time this summer vacation starting work on a new Flash game. I have far too much sudden freetime and motivation to create something new to not take advantage of that dead space between school and a summer job. Production is already well underway in both programming and art direction. Here's some early work I did on deciding upon basic shapes. The colors may change, the shapes may change, but the general positioning of things is set in stone. I can't get too much into how the game works or even what kind of game it is. All I can say is that I'm excited to work on it and I'll keep you updated on any major progress points I hit along the way. Until then, enjoy the sunshine and be productive in your journeys!

Kinkaku-ji: The Golden Pavilion

2008-04-19T05:12:00.008-04:00

I recently finished up work on a gaming level using the CryEngine 2 SDK. It was for my world and asset building class in the Game Art + Design minor. This is the first class of its kind, not just at Ringling, but in the world. That pretty much comes down to having the students in the class doing extensive research and trial & error in figuring out how to get things to work in this brand-new gaming engine. It's been a fun adventure learning how to create all elements of a world and make them work together.

My level is loosely based upon an actual building in Kyoto, Japan called Kinkaku-ji, or The Golden Pavilion. It used to be a retirement home for a shogun in the 1300s, but later became a Zen temple. It actually burned down twice, which is cool that it's still standing today. There's even a live webcam feed showing it off 24/7. I picked this building as my reference based solely upon the beauty of the building and the surrounding area during winter, when the snow falls enough to give a great contrast between the dark woods and the pond. The real challenge for this level was to build organic objects - like trees, rocks, grass, etc - from scratch, with no formal training in such a task. All in all, I like how it turned out.

And here's a shot of the temple at a different time of day, making use of a new color scheme to get a different mood.

I would have loved to get video of my level in action, but we're currently trying to work things out with video capturing software. It's pretty fun to move around in there, especially since the pond is frozen and you can run on top of it.

Three D Me

2008-03-22T18:20:00.004-04:00

Here's a small taste of my Lip Sync caricature model that's being used for various exercises in Computer Animation this semester. We spent a while last semester planning out designs and storyboarding our animations, and this year we got to finally go ahead and build everything. Being an animation aficionado, I didn't start having real fun until a few weeks ago, so I'm glad things are in motion now.

And while we're at it, let's take a look at the full body, including a t-shirt I wish existed and some Superstar kicks. This also happens to be the stage used for my final Lip Sync animation, to be completed within a week. Take care and enjoy Spring, folks.

It's Animation Time!

2008-03-04T22:06:00.008-05:00

And now it's time to show my work from last semester in my Computer Animation III class. We designed, modeled, textured, and rigged a character from scratch (mine being an alien with spikes named Prickle). Then we spent the rest of the semester making three 15 second animations, each one's production time lasting about 3 weeks. Click the images below to watch each one.

Expect some content from the current semester in my next update. In the meantime, enjoy these little guys!

Have You Blasted Your Metroids Today?

2007-12-23T23:19:00.001-05:00

[located in the Games section]

It seems as if I had to have the semester end before I could make any progress on my Flash work. Thusly, this time of the year allowed me to finish working on Metroid Blaster, a game I started almost a year ago. The original purpose of the game was to take a beloved franchise (Metroid), change its genre (platformer/adventure to arcade action), change its controls (controller to keyboard/mouse), and see if it still functions.

As per usual with all of my Flash games, I always try to learn something new that could benefit me later. In this game, I finally dabbled in the world of stereo sound. Hopefully my effort in that department is working. Other than that, I had to cut a lot of content out of the game, for if I continued working on whatever I thought could be added, it probably would never get finished. Omitted items include missile powerups, various level designs, fusion Metroids, and a final boss Metroid that doesn't fit on the screen.

Many thanks to my beta testers that helped me out over the summer. And for those of you Metroid fans that feel the need to mention it, I'm well-aware that there were never any Metroids in Old Brinstar. That level simply has a fond place in my pixelated memory. Have fun playing and enjoy.

The Bean Bag, ver. 4. Finally.

2007-11-30T16:44:00.000-05:00

The Bean Bag

I finally got around to updating the look of my website that showcases my work in Flash, including games, experiments, and animations from the past that I'm glad I've learned from. I went for simple this time around, making sure that it doesn't take too long to get to anything on the site.

The bad news is that there's nothing new on the site content-wise. The good news is that I'll be adding a game I've been working on for a few months relatively soon. I just have some things to tighten up before it goes live. I suppose more good news is that all of my games work in Firefox now, which had nothing to do with me. Firefox simply doesn't support a feature that naturally works in IE. It's been resolved on my end, though, so everything should be fully functional now. Enjoy.

Informal Introductions

2007-11-27T17:59:00.000-05:00

Greetings Everyone,
As you no doubt have guessed, this is my blog. I thought I'd start things off with a piece from my Drawing for Animators class. The first image shows the general order of progression I went through to get the composition, while the second image is my final piece, after adding values, color, blurs, and other assorted visual candies. I rather enjoyed working on this piece.

And the final drawing:

That'll be about it for now. I plan to use this blog for school work - including animations, images, and gaming materials - as well as things for fun, such as Flash experiments and games. It should be pretty fun as I get more content here. Until then, enjoy yourselves.