Finally

Took damn long enough for my cold to finally start going away. Now I'm in that post-cold phase where I'm so tired, ugh!, but at least I'm not coughing like a maniac. I hope everyone had a great Christmas so far. And onto the topic of gifts, heres a funny video titled "What NOT to buy a Black guy for Christmas".

Checked Out For Christmas

Who am I trying to kid? I'm still sick and coughing, Christmas and New Years is near. I may do some small 3d stuff between the holidays but it won't be anything significant. Will be back 100% after the new years. I'll propbably post some non-3d stuff, like this kitten!

Even More Games of 2007

Okay last one, I promise :)

Dungeon Runners
Summary: nice little hidden gem, free to play for the most part

Found this game while browsing in the PlayNC Launcher that Tabula Rasa installed. So far, it's pretty fun. It's basically a Diablo clone, hack 'n slash through dungeons for loot. I like how the game doesn't really take itself too seriously. Such as the absurb naming of items and some stats. There's a merchant in the starting area who sounds like Krusty the Clown, lol. And its free to play, well.. maybe not completely free. Non-members will have a banner ad and a short advertisement clip to watch here and there. Compared to Pirates of the Caribean, however, they aren't as intrusive as they sound. Membership fee is a low $5 per month and lets you access higher grade items, major potions and many other things. This is the funnest free MMO I've played this year, and that includes free trials of major MMO releases. Check it out at http://www.dungeonrunners.com

More Games of 2007

Ahh.. nothing like a having a miserable cold to try out more games.

World Series of Poker 2008: Battle for the Bracelets
Summary: Straight out console conversion, haven't found a way to change mouse sensitivty, I swear the computer cheats sometimes, but you'll still like if you like texas hold'em poker

This game is definetly not optimized for computer play. Lots of little things that bug me all over the place, too much to mention. However, if you like watching the WSOP on TV, and like playing hold'em poker, you'll like this despite all the negatives. You can live your fantasy of playing in an WSOP event with all the pro's, and nothing feels better than bad beating an all in bet versus a pro character. Though, I feel that sometimes the computer may be cheating.


Tabula Rasa (3 day free trial)
Summary: Fun to shoot guns, not a medieval world

The more MMO's I try, the more I realize how perfectly designed World of Warcraft is. WoW didn't have the greatest graphics, but it had great color choices. Tabula Rasa's environments and monsters are a bit too bland and tend to blend into each other forming kind of a mush. However, I liked shooting the guns. Even though it seems like an FPS, all attacks are based on stats and not your FPS skills or lack thereof, but you could've fooled me. I had a blast (no pun inteded) running around with my shotgun. Heck, there even barrels that serve no other purpose than to explode when shot at. Sadly, I never had a chance to try out any instances in my trial. Overall, it was nice to play an MMO that is not based on tryed and true medieval settings and classes. I'm tempted to continue to play, I hear the first months free. Here's the link to the 3 day free trial, courtesy of www.MMORPG.com, http://www.mmorpg.com/freetrials/tabularasa_trial.cfm. The serial code is on the bottom of the page and just follow the instructions.

Games Of 2007

Kinda drowsy from my cough syrup and definetly overslept (yet still feel tired) today so I'd thought I'd write about games I played/am still playing this year, in chronological order too.


World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
Summary: Very enjoyable leveling 60 to 70, grindfest after that

I ended my addiction to WoW this year shortly after hitting level 70, which makes my WoW career about 2 years (or however long its been since release). If I could travel back in time I would tell myself not to play it ever, cause thats 2 years I'll never get back! Anyways, WoW:TBC was quite enjoyable. Everything that was good and fun leveling 1 to 60 was put into the new content with little to dissapoint. After that, however, I found alot of the further content require way too much reputation grinding. And lets face it, once you hit the level cap, you either PVP or go raiding. Being put through Naxxramas before the expansion, I had lost my urge to raid and I don't PVP. But, also, I needed to get back to my real life :)

Lord of the Rings Online
Summary: Fun epic story group instances, not a great game but not terrible either

A few months after I quit WoW I was harsh jonesin' for an MMO so I grabbed LOTRO. Luckily it wasn't as addictive as WoW, but I'd like to think I had more self control too. I really enjoyed the epic story group instances, which are instances that follow along an epic storyline. Unfortunately, there weren't too many which is a pity because they were very fun. I quit after about a month and a half.

BioShock
Summary: Love the mood, story, graphics.. hate the very frequent crashes, high computer requirements

From the short time that I could actually play before crashing, it was very good, very well made. Unfortunately, I had to turn the very beautfil graphics down because it was just so sluggish. Unreal engine games and my computer never got along in the past and I guess won't be anytime soon unless I cough up a fortune to upgrade my computer. I wish I could write more but I spent so much time on the Bioshock forums trying to find a fix to the crashes, which apparently, is happening to everyone too. I tryed it on XBox360 later on, but somehow, it just didn't have the same feel as the PC.

Team Fortress 2
Summary: Very fun, lots of replayabilty

Instead of buying the Orange Box, I grabbed TF2 seperately from Steam for $30 because I'm a cheap bastard and I didn't have much interest in the HL2 Episode 2 (or whatever its called) nor the Portal game. I'm still playing TF2, its super fun, incredible replayabilty because of all the different classes you can choose. What's great is that there are no two classes that play the same or even similar!

Crysis Single Player Demo
Summary: Meh

Lots of hype on this game, turned out to be boring. I barely used any of the powers of the suit other than the improved shield and cloak. I didn't like how I need to unload an entire clip to kill one enemy, my gun looks more power than that. Just bleh... I liked the foliage and trees though, they were done really well.

Call of Duty 4
Summary: Rad + Awsome = RAWSOME!

This is what any serious FPS should be like. There is so much to like about this game. Perfect mix of tactial and arcade style FPS.. its not like SOCOM and not like Doom, its a perfect balance. If you want to play tactical, you could, if you want to run and gun you can also but to a certain point. Graphics are fantastic and ran at a better quality and framerate than Bioshock (unreal engine). It's a more movie like experience, and they did an incredible job of keeping the player immersed. All games need to have realtime cutscenes, seriously. Best game I've played in years, was so much fun.

Gears of War PC
Summary: I need a better computer

Grabbed this mainly for the new Unrealeditor included inside. I had alot of fun playing the Xbox360 version, I didn't feel it had the same magic on the PC but then again it's hard to match that "first time" GoW experience. I don't know if it's my computer, but I felt the textures didn't translate over very well.. they were all blurry and ugly even when I had it on a high settings.

Pirate of the Caribean Online
Summary: Uhmm.. it's free

I am a weak, weak man. I really like MMO's I just wish they weren't so life-sucking :) I saw this and it was free, so I gave it a try. It was very laggy and choppy even though the graphics were minimal. In order to play in full screen (yes, you have to play in an unsizable window mode with banner ads) you have to pay the small monthly subscription. Anyways, I never went farther than the intial in game tutorial.

Viva Pinata
Summary: Cute, charming, crashing

I heard good things about this game when it was released for the consoles. Unfortunately, it suffers from BioShock syndrome.. so again I went on the forums and, hooray, no patch. I don't see how companys can release a game that can't even work properly, especially decent releases like this and Bioshock. From the short time I could play, it was indeed charming and seemed like it could be fun. It felt too much like a console port though... sometimes I can't click on things and instead have to press down as if I'm using a console controller.

Conclusion
This year was definetly the year of the FPS. I'm still so surprised at how good Call of Duty 4 was. I totally thought it would be bland and just mindless shooting, but instead, it had everything.. great gameplay, great immersive story, great enviroments and levels, and fricken realtime cutscenes!

*Cough, Cough, Cough*

I have moved out of denial and admit I have a cold.

Abandoned Gas Station: Terrain Madness

Well... at least I got some baby steps in today! Not happy with the outcome so far of course but I am learning.. yes.. thats my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Hello Christmas, Bye Bye Productivity

So I still have my cold, though its reduced to a dry cough and I don't feel rested after I sleep.. uggh. Well, Christmas time is here! My brain is already on vacation and my body refuses to do anything strenous. I really want to finish off my gas station, but I know deep down I just want to relax and enjoy the holidays, what a dilemna! Well see how this week goes...

I Think I'm Feeling Better

My cold bug seems to be fading today, so hopefully can get back to my gas station. And all the snow is gone, only took one night of good ol' Vancouver rain to wash it away, haha.

It's Snowing

Nothin says "It's Christmas Time" like having cold symptoms and snowy weather! Okay so my cold is pretty mild but still, would like to have one christmas season without any cold bugs. Heres a pic of my front yard taken from inside my room... I'd probably get a better picture if I actually went outside but its cold and I'm kinda sick, so there..

Cold Symptoms Again? WTF

Ughh.. I knew I felt some weird stuff yesterday, woke up today with cold symptoms. Although its very mild, I had some last month too... can't be the flu cause I got a shot last week. What is up with the winter months and cold bugs flying around! :( Gonna try to do some terrain texturing today.. I'm content with my tree so far, will probably tweak it later anyways.

Abandoned Gas Station: A Better Tree

Spent the day learning, trying, messing up and fixing my tree. I think it looks alot better than before. Probably gonna spend some more time tommorow to tweak it, try some more things.. all in the name of learning!

Puppy Attack!

Tried to sit down today to learn to do a better Tree but my brain crapped out on me. So, heres some puppies!

Abandoned Gas Station: LOLTrees

Spent half the day trying to get my windows right. Spent the other half trying to model and texture a tree.. didn't turn out too good so far. Kinda looks like a branch with toothbrushes lol! Need to spend more time learning to make trees.

Abandoned Gas Station: Texturing Update #5

Getting a little bit sick of working on this scene... going very slowly, mostly textured the little bits of junk on the ground and other smaller items. I didn't plan out my modeling, so it was very brutal unwrapping some of the UV's. Here's a screeny

Abandoned Gas Station: Texturing Update #4

Yup, I'm still at it.. textures coming along nicely. I'm learning as I go along so its slow but its great seeing it progress! Check out the screeny.. I added a basic sky to the background

Abandoned Gas Station: Texturing Update #3

Getting some good progress on it.. got stuck a bit yesterday but I learn good! Kinda grimey hopefully my terrain will put all the dirt and rot in context haha. Heres a screeny, I mostly worked on the red beams today

Abandoned Gas Station: Texturing Update #2

I like how the texturing is turning out so far.. I did alot of the main building wall today. Lots of grime put into it... had fun too! check out the screeny

Texturing Epiphany

Ahh finally the light bulb goes off in my head. I got frustrated with trying to stick with tiling textures so I checked out other peoples art on cgtalk.com and got inspired. Instead of sticking only with tiling, I'm gonna use unique textures for my gas station. I like how its turning out so far, so we'll see how it goes in the coming weeks!

Abandoned Gas Station: Texturing, Hmmm...

I think I better spend more time on learning to texture, lol. Gonna give myself the entire month to texture my gas station and learn during the progress. Right now my texturing is nooby, which makes sense since I haven't fully textured anything yet :) Heres what I have so far...

Abandoned Gas Station: Pretty Much Done Modeling

I think this should be good. I'm missing a tree on the side, I'm not sure how to model those, will probably learn as I texture and add it in. Probably gonna learn alpha textures too in order to add those long weeds on the ground and the leaves on the tree. Overall I feel happy about this... we'll see how the texturing goes next week! :)

The Dark Side Of YouTube

The things you can find on YouTube.. wow.

Abandoned Gas Station: Coming Along Nicely

Mostly adding the smaller stuff and props today. I'm not sure whats on the sides and roof so I get to use some of my own creativity I guess :)

The Power Of Tylenol

Feeling much better today, should be able to get back to modeling. I think regardless, I should be close to a full model by this weekend and then start texturing next week.

Flu Season and Dirty Dancing

Blech.. feeling kinda nasty. I was hoping to get a good solid week of modeling, but feeling under the weather today, guess I'll take a break. I went over to gametrailers.com to see whats new and decided to view the trailer for the Dirty Dancing game. It does not rock, check it out lol

Abandoned Gas Station: Start

Doing a new model this week, of an environment. I've decided on an abandoned gas station. Here's screens of my reference and what I've started :)

My reference


What I've done so far today

Normal Maps.. I Will Have My Revenge

Okay, spent more time trying to get Normal Maps generated. I even downgraded to ZBrush 2 to use the Zmapper plugin. Still not coming out right. Anyways, I've spent way too much time obsessing over this, I need to move on and I'm sure I'll have my revenge!

Celebrated Too Early

Bah! Fix one problem and another one pops up with my normal map generation. Things are flipped properly, but now I'm getting lines where my polygon edges are in my low res model.. very lame and frustrating.

My Normal Map Problems, Solved!

Finally I figured out why my normal mapping keeps getting flipped. It's because ZBrush, by default, flips my model whenever I import and export, how lame! All I had to do was turn those off... I have to say, out of all the techniques, this particular process was the most difficult to find. I would get some bits here and there but never the complete process. So, I think I may make a tutorial for any other noobies like myself..

End of Week Retrospective

This week, I've learned lots. My main goal was to learn the basics of lighting in Maya which I accomplished.. although I almost fell asleep watching the tutorials because of the narrators voice :) I also learned layered projection textures. I still don't have an answer to my normal map problem, but I guess that can wait. The thing I haven't learned yet is Specular Maps, which I'll probably get into when I texture my next project... a real environment! So, I'm gonna relax for the weekend and maybe do some brainstorming on what type of environment I want to do... it'll probably be something simple but with enough detail to keep me busy next week. I'm excited! I feel I have enough knowledge to make something of good quality

The Game Plan, Update #3

Well I posted my Normal Map problems on CGtalk.com so hope I can get an answer.. while I wait, I learned layered projection textures. Luckily it was covered in the Environment tutorial DVD I had.. still kinda confusing with all the connection stuff in the hypergraph window, but the result is very cool. I applied a graffiti projection texture to the underground parking lot. I also smoothed out some edges on my pipe and the pillar, duh! I totally forgot about that option in maya..... check it out!

The Game Plan, Update #2

Just updating my game plan this week..

1) Found lighting and basic rendering tutorials, will go through it this week
2) Got answers to my UV question as well as another one I had regarding snapping, thank you CGtalk.com forums
3) Still gotta try getting my Normal Map to export/import/work properly
4) Hopefully have some extra time to look over layered textures

Here's a little render of a parking lot... my brother showed me some texturing techniques. He did the floor, I did the uglier quality stuff heh.. I also messed around with lights while I was going through some lighting tutorials

The Game Plan, Update

Alright, heres a better game plan for this week. I need to learn/do these things:

1) Lighting in Maya
2) Need to get an answer on a UV thingy in Maya
3) Figure out the proper way to do my normal map, proper Maya to ZBrush to Maya pipeline

And then after those, I think I'm going to model a basic environment and from there, I'll learn to make a specular map for it. See.. told you my brain can sort these things out :)

The Game Plan Thus Far

I know my learning habits is very strange! I like to pack all different types of information at once and my brain just sorts it out after a while :) There are a few areas that bug me still, which I'm going to tackle in the next weeks, these include:

- Specular Maps (what is this? and then learn how to make it)
- Diffuse Maps (same deal, learn what these are, and make one)
- Displacement Map (kinda know what this is, need to learn to make one)
- Still want to get my Normal Maps working properly
- Create a texture with an Alpha transparency
- Finish off my ZBrush Tutorial DVD
- Model something that uses all these cool maps... or at least is considered "current-gen" (xbox360, ps3)
- Layered textures in Maya

Velociraptor: Messed Up Normal Map

After going through DVD 1 of my ZBrush Tutorial I realise I'm not even going to remember a quarter of all this info, so I decided to try making a normal map from my Velociraptor model. I import it into ZBrush, pushed and pulled a few things and then baked it in Maya. For some strange reason, the normal map comes out inverted.. fine, I'll invert it in photoshop.. but then the normals are inside out, bah! I need to get more info on this before proceeding further.. . I think I might as well just starting making environments and learn a few organic modeling later on.

Oh velociraptor, why do you get more and more ugly?

Learning ZBrush

Okay, I decided to get acquainted with ZBrush. I bought some eye drops and read up on relieving eye strain, so hopefully I won't get these darn headaches.

What To Do, Hmm...

I'm not sure what I should do, hmmm... I'm learning all this graphics stuff by myself and I can't decide what to learn next. I want to paint and texture my Velociraptor, but I also want to add a normal map which means I will need to learn ZBrush, luckily I have a great introductory DVD to help me with that. On the other hand... I eventually want to specialize in environment modeling, so maybe I should just start modeling environments. I may need some advice from my brother on this, I'm kinda leaning toward learning ZBrush though.

Environment DVD Done

Finished the introductory environment DVD. It was really helpful and I learned some modelling tricks too. Things are starting to gel for me as far as Maya is concerned. Still lots to learn though... I also need to continue my velociraptor. Will probably do that this week.

Learning Stuff

Been going through the environment modeling DVD, learning lots of nice things in there. I also learned some basic normal map stuff using the Transfer Map tool in Maya. Maybe later will put my velociraptor into Zbrush and make a cool normal map. I know, I still haven't completed my velociraptor yet but I am having fun learning lots of different things... all the peices of the puzzle will fit, I'm sure of that :)

Velociraptor: Why You So Ugly?

I finally got my leg and arm duplicated with the UV's. Now I'm stuck on the teeth, trying to think how to stack their UV's so I only paint them once. Anyways, I pasted a rock texture to see how my velociraptor is turning out.. damn its ugly! I think maybe I need more polygons next time, or maybe it has to do with my texture, but we'll see! Onto the texture painting!

Not gonna be winning any beauty contests soon! lol

Velociraptor: In The Meantime...

Okay I can't figure out how to duplicate both UV's and geometry for my arms and legs... gonna ask my brother when he's free. In the meantime, gonna view my intro Zbrush and environment modeling DVD's.

These specific DVD's are:

Introduction to ZBrush 3 by Meats MEIER, from Gnomon, located here

and

Urban Environment Creation in Maya, from Digital Tutors, located here

Velociraptor: UV Mapping My Anger, the Trilogy

Sooooo.... the pelting plugin helped a lot. And now I'm stuck on how to duplicate my UV's properly for the other side of my legs and arms. I tryed going back and just mapping it out with the plugin again but it likes to erase all my UV's when I do that. Needless to say, I have a headache again and need to take a break.

Velociraptor: UV Mapping My Anger, the Sequel

Somewhere around 5 hours into my mapping I noticed I accidently selected a bunch of vertices and merged them in the mouth area. Seeing as how I always save, I go through some old saves. Turns out, I have to go all the way to a save where I have no UV's Mapped! Okay fine, I need practice anyways so I'm mapping it all over again. A few hours in, I realize there has to be a better way of doing this because my wrist is hurting and I'm getting a headache. My brother shows me "pelt mapping" in 3d max and after some google searches, we find a Pelt Map MEL script for Maya located at http://sunitparekh.com/pelting/. Going to use that tommorow. I'm done for today, I need a break.

Velociraptor: UV Mapping My Anger

Okay.. so UV mapping this bastard is taking longer than expected. I definetly did not model with seams in mind and now its a real bitch unwrapping this neatly lol! I wanted to connect the legs to the body but it's not working, so I'm gonna restart and do a cylindrical map on the body and then have the legs seperated.. uggh


Alex mad!

Velociraptor: Wireframes Done

Finished my wireframes for my velociraptor today... I think it took me about 13-15hours, not totally sure, will need to track my speed exactly for next model. This came in at just under 2000 polygons... I like how the wireframe turned out, time to unwrap and texture!

Start of Modeling: Velociraptor

I decided my next model will be a velociraptor. I spent a little bit of time today with the modeling.. I got stuck a bit on the eye part and where the legs extend from the body. Real sloppy right now but just trying to block out the shape and trying to do it quickly. Here's a screenshot of my wires

My First Model And Painted Texture!

My painting skills are much better, definetly due to reading the drawing book. This is a very low poly sword. From my own concept sketch all the way to full texturing... phew! Here is a screenshot from Maya, and the texturemap which is very messy heh..





Things I need to do for next model are:

1) Fully decide on color and texture scheme during concept phase! This really slowed me down during the painting phase and made me force tiling on some of my handle texture cause I got a bit frustrated

2) Add more details to my model

3) Stack more of my UV's

Before And After.. Hmm..

I just finished the last exercise in "The New Drawing On The Right Side of the Brain".. which is to do a self portrait. I'm not liking how my scans turned out, and I'm getting the "Do I really look like that?" feeling. Anyways.. there is definetly a huge improvement within 9 days and I learned alot of fundamental art theories too. Time to apply this to 3d!

BEFORE


AFTER

I'm Like A Male Model For USB Flash Drives

Who wouldn't buy a USB Flash Drive with my awesomeness gracing the front page? http://www.flickersticks.org, upper right hand corner, lol

More Catching Up...

So yadda yadda, I'm stuck on painting my cool sword. Luckily my brother drops by and paints some of my sword and I realize I have no clue what is going on! Okay so after a bit of thinking, I decided to get a drawing book from Amazon, I went with The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. As of this blog posting, I am almost done it and I can say it is amazing. I really have absolutely no drawing skills and this book has really opened my eyes and taught me so much already! I will post some of the exercises when I'm done. I also grabbed 3D Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop for the future and also to get the free shipping :)

And now, you're all caught up!

A Little Catching Up....

When I created this blog, I am already about 2 weeks into deep independent studying with some basic Maya a few weeks earlier. So let's catch up on what has happened so far....

After my brother taught me basic modeling with Maya, he introduced me to UV Mapping and Texturing. So we went out and took some pictures of basic shapes and things for me to model and map.. We did a garbage dumpster and a mailbox.

During the next few days I tried modelling several animals without much luck :) So I decided to do my guitar which turned out better. Except that at first I started it using a Polygon Plane which created all these bad floating vertices and faces, so I redid it starting from a cube.

Now I'm feeling all confident and stuff.. so I decided to sketch a concept for a cool sword and model it

Nice! So I go and attempt to create the graphics for it... but my lack of art skills bit me big time!! I literally could not paint if my life depended on it!!! At this point I was stuck dead

The Beginning (Okay, I'm Cheating)

I guess I should mention my brother is working in the same field I want to get into and will help me out when he can.. but I still have to learn :) Following his suggestion, I am going with Maya as my 3d modelling software. After a quick intro to basic modelling techniques, I am off. I feel confident I can soak up all the information.

Introduction

I made this blog so I can see my progress in the coming year. I guess a little introduction is in order. I've been doing music for a large part of my life... there's been ups and downs (and middles) but it's not a living. Time for Alex to grow up! It was very hard to do but I've put music as my second priority now. So here I am, square one and I see a long hard road ahead. I have no training or natural talent for 3d graphics and art in general. I've also decided not to enroll in any schooling and decided to teach myself... GASP! Okay.. here we go!