PS: Also, a question for anyone who knows the answer to this: Why does Quicktime have different gamma settings and how do I compensate for it in After Effects CS4? This is really quite baffling to me.

http://www.therealdanpeavey.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/sneak_me_1.mov

http://www.therealdanpeavey.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/speed_concept_critique1.jpg

NOTE: The ground texture, water shader, and skydome are inhouse UT3 assets. The three variations of rock (< 290 tris each) and two rock textures (512×512 each) are made by me. I’ll post renders soon.

NOTE2: Run over to our Polycount thread and see what Mike Fowler is cooking!

Some of you wanted this. Here it is! (http://www.therealdanpeavey.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/UVgrid.zip)

Ben Bolton: “May I inquire as to the advantages over a standard black and white checker pattern?”
Me: “Academically, none. Placebo maybe.”

If for some reason you have been following my posts up to here, you’d know I am currently participating in the high-profile game art competition, Unearthly Challenge 2009. In addition to this, I am about a month into the preproduction phase of Requiem for my senior team thesis for my final year of Champlain College.

Starting off with UC2009, you can visit Team T*shiba and the BEAR! ATTACK‘s contest thread here over at Polycount. The team is my good friend Mike Fowler and I, and we are currently moving into wrapping up our white-boxing of our environment. With the inclusion of cgtalk.ru and leewiART thrown into the old rivalry between Gameartisans and Polycount, there is some stiff competition this year. With only 7 seats to aim for in the top spots, the only way I can currently foresee winning this competition is to learn faster than I ever have at a grueling work pace. That, or we can always drive 200-tonnes of dynamite into a building on fire. Either way, I don’t intend to stop until I feel this piece can win.

I’m happy to say that we have a strong idea for a focal point and a composition – we’re just going to have to see how it feels once we get the orange box down.

Then there is Project Requiem, for my senior team project. I am the only artist on the team working with creative director and engineer Auston Montville, as well as game designer and LD Joel Pelletier.  I couldn’t have joined up with a better team. I have worked with Auston last summer on Always Forever nearly side-by-side for three straight months without break, and Joel on a level design process with America’s Army over in Emeryville, CA with the Emergent Media Center at Champlain College. Working on a game with people I know well helps immensely, especially in these crucial early stages where we have to set the foundation for the second semester team expansion. Without going into much detail, I’ll leave this game’s description as follows:

Requiem is about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
You fly a spaceship.

Its a great tag-line and we’re keeping it.

As it stands now with Requiem, all of our mechanics are programmed and ready to go. We just need art and level-design to fill the space. Our design doc is practically complete, and I’m going into the texturing of our biggest most risk-heavy art asset in the game. With that said, we’re clearing all the major roadblocks as soon as possible, and it seems this approach is working so far. Though we could be sleeping more, its worth it. If all goes as planned we’ll make the IGF submission with a few hours to spare.

Poke around the journal, feel free to critique and comment anything you see or like.

Peace.
-pv

Unfortunately, a discovery I made while thinking over this concept was that it ultimately makes our main character sound like a terrorist on paper. Have fun figuring out what that means… or until I explain it another time.

Requiem is coming into focus. Gently, but surely. This is an architecture concept we’re going with – its intent is a very “industrial revolution” feel, with a lot of modern-esque ventilation effects on the roof for sake of greebling from the bird’s-eye view. The color is merely me playing around with a possible pallet for the city level – something hyper realistic and very warm. This will ultimately translate to a low-poly building asset, to be used probably over a thousand times in combination with different roofs, connections, and silhouette breakers. Next plan is to wreck this thing. Utterly.

G’night.

~1 hour
C+C welcome as always.