Cardboard Needs Love, Too

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.

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!

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

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

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!

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!