tiistai 28. lokakuuta 2008
Now This is Awesome
ILoveSketch from Seok-Hyung Bae on Vimeo.
Found this from Vimeo the other day, and my imagination just went berserk. This kind of tools would really let you feel the design and not bother you with specifics. One of the biggest reasons why I like Luxology's Modo and Pixologic's zBrush, they both just feel natural, yet they are powerful enough for serious work.
Hopefully this sees some commercial application somewhere someday.
lauantai 17. marraskuuta 2007
Brush, mud and modo
Starting to get the hang of things in zBrush 3 and loving Modo 301 I downloaded the trial of Mudbox to see what that is all about. I know some people who use it in their pipeline and what impresses me the most is that people at Blizzard Cinematic team are using Mudbox. I'm sure that they use a wide variety of software there, but I don't think that they would use anything if it didn't fit in their current pipeline or if the added value didn't compensate the cost of the tool.
Autodesk bought Skymatter, the original developer of Mudbox some months ago. But even before Autodesk brought Mudbox to my attenttion with their buyout, it was used by Weta Digital to make the movie King Kong. I didn't know Mudbox back then and always assumed that they used zBrush to create the fine details for Kong.
Now that many tools have become standard in my pipeline (Modo, zBrush, Photoshop, Illustrator) I am not so eager to change it. But I would like to learn animation, but haven't had much luck finding a modern and easy tool for that. Much of the appeal of zBrush and Modo is that they are really graphic designers tools, 3ds Max and others feel too complicated and feel more like engineer's tools often sacrificing creativity in the process.
People often tell me that XSI has superior animating tools compared to those inside 3ds Max and Maya. I have yet to try them out and since my very first and only experience with animation comes from 3ds Max I don't know what to expect. I have kept away of animation thus far because I feel that it is way too complicated and a lot of work before I can see the results. Very much the opposite to the tools that I have right now, I live on instant gratification.
At some point, I just have to take the leap and get my feet wet. The experience on animation will become handy when I need to make models that animate well, pure theory will only get you so far.
Software mentioned in this post:
Modo
zBrush
Mudbox
3ds Max
Maya
XSI
Autodesk bought Skymatter, the original developer of Mudbox some months ago. But even before Autodesk brought Mudbox to my attenttion with their buyout, it was used by Weta Digital to make the movie King Kong. I didn't know Mudbox back then and always assumed that they used zBrush to create the fine details for Kong.
Now that many tools have become standard in my pipeline (Modo, zBrush, Photoshop, Illustrator) I am not so eager to change it. But I would like to learn animation, but haven't had much luck finding a modern and easy tool for that. Much of the appeal of zBrush and Modo is that they are really graphic designers tools, 3ds Max and others feel too complicated and feel more like engineer's tools often sacrificing creativity in the process.
People often tell me that XSI has superior animating tools compared to those inside 3ds Max and Maya. I have yet to try them out and since my very first and only experience with animation comes from 3ds Max I don't know what to expect. I have kept away of animation thus far because I feel that it is way too complicated and a lot of work before I can see the results. Very much the opposite to the tools that I have right now, I live on instant gratification.
At some point, I just have to take the leap and get my feet wet. The experience on animation will become handy when I need to make models that animate well, pure theory will only get you so far.
Software mentioned in this post:
Modo
zBrush
Mudbox
3ds Max
Maya
XSI
keskiviikko 10. lokakuuta 2007
A second, second opinion
I read some crazy things on the internet, but that is why it was invented. So people had a place to write crazy shit about the subject of their desire.
Firstly this thing about Microsoft wanting to do open source development. Oh yeah, that has been their target for how may years now? While I really don't care about that, I have to say that I would like to see Microsoft open up their stashes for the people. I hear they have some cooky stuff on the stove over there, but because they don't have any commercial products to release them with they usually are buried deep in to the archives like the one in the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. But let's not cry over spilt milk over here.
I have been reading MSDN and Coding4Fun for years now, and I enjoy the variety of projects they are working on there. Like that X10 stuff is cool as hell and when I make some money I'm going to install that to my house and program my computer to automatically control every electrical piece of equipment in my house, just to see if it will go crazy and kill me. Now THAT would be an event worth blogging about.
Now on to games...
I have been working on several game projects on my pastime, many inspired by the games of my past, ones I still play and ones I can't or won't play because they are better the way I remember then than they actually are. But such is a power of a game designer that I can actually make those shitty games in to good ones. What I need is some time.
I'm all for casual gamers geting their game on, but the line between casual and hardcore is becoming hazy. "Why what do you mean Mr. Suspense" yes, you can call me Mr. Suspense, I like that, almost like Snake which reminds me of Cobra Commander and that is a good thing. I mean that many who used to be in the "casual" category are now racking more hours in front of their screen thanks to World of Warcraft. Videogame addiction is hardly something I would call casual. Also, thanks to Nintendo's DS and Wii more and more people are finding gaming, and I use the term gaming loosely because even if I love Brain Training and Wii Sports, I can not call them games.
Let me give you an example. My brother almost never plays, unless few parameters are met. One is the social aspect. Playing games alone is not something a family man can do. Second is the content. While hardcore gamer will play the most utter bullshit like the umpteenth FPS game undisguishable from it's competitor, a casual gamer like my brother demands solid quality in the content. Many hardcore gamers will deny this and declare that they only play games of the utmost quality, they fail to see that their favorite game is something like Quake Wars or Battlefield 2.
Ok, everyone has a weak spot and my brother's is tycoon. But hey, we all like tycoon games of some kind. Go play Travian if you don't believe me. I believe that tycoon games are a good exaple of addictional gameplay that creeps in like a cocaine habit, unnoticed. Crafted like something anyone could play for a minute or two, this is what we call "easy to pick up" and hooks you forever with it's "instant gratification system" but still it's "hard to master".
These three methods applied to game design will make your game cool. I'm not saying that they will make you a millionare, because like we all know, that is what Halo did. And it has almost none of these things. Though it banks on one thing a game like that can, a story. But that is something you can design in to a game no matter what the rest of the game is like. My mantra is, greate a good game to give a good experience, then worry about the story. A completely reversed mentality of the movie business.
So. What did we learn? Make a good game, that makes you a good game developer, make a good story, that makes you a storyteller.
Firstly this thing about Microsoft wanting to do open source development. Oh yeah, that has been their target for how may years now? While I really don't care about that, I have to say that I would like to see Microsoft open up their stashes for the people. I hear they have some cooky stuff on the stove over there, but because they don't have any commercial products to release them with they usually are buried deep in to the archives like the one in the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. But let's not cry over spilt milk over here.
I have been reading MSDN and Coding4Fun for years now, and I enjoy the variety of projects they are working on there. Like that X10 stuff is cool as hell and when I make some money I'm going to install that to my house and program my computer to automatically control every electrical piece of equipment in my house, just to see if it will go crazy and kill me. Now THAT would be an event worth blogging about.
Now on to games...
I have been working on several game projects on my pastime, many inspired by the games of my past, ones I still play and ones I can't or won't play because they are better the way I remember then than they actually are. But such is a power of a game designer that I can actually make those shitty games in to good ones. What I need is some time.
I'm all for casual gamers geting their game on, but the line between casual and hardcore is becoming hazy. "Why what do you mean Mr. Suspense" yes, you can call me Mr. Suspense, I like that, almost like Snake which reminds me of Cobra Commander and that is a good thing. I mean that many who used to be in the "casual" category are now racking more hours in front of their screen thanks to World of Warcraft. Videogame addiction is hardly something I would call casual. Also, thanks to Nintendo's DS and Wii more and more people are finding gaming, and I use the term gaming loosely because even if I love Brain Training and Wii Sports, I can not call them games.
Let me give you an example. My brother almost never plays, unless few parameters are met. One is the social aspect. Playing games alone is not something a family man can do. Second is the content. While hardcore gamer will play the most utter bullshit like the umpteenth FPS game undisguishable from it's competitor, a casual gamer like my brother demands solid quality in the content. Many hardcore gamers will deny this and declare that they only play games of the utmost quality, they fail to see that their favorite game is something like Quake Wars or Battlefield 2.
Ok, everyone has a weak spot and my brother's is tycoon. But hey, we all like tycoon games of some kind. Go play Travian if you don't believe me. I believe that tycoon games are a good exaple of addictional gameplay that creeps in like a cocaine habit, unnoticed. Crafted like something anyone could play for a minute or two, this is what we call "easy to pick up" and hooks you forever with it's "instant gratification system" but still it's "hard to master".
These three methods applied to game design will make your game cool. I'm not saying that they will make you a millionare, because like we all know, that is what Halo did. And it has almost none of these things. Though it banks on one thing a game like that can, a story. But that is something you can design in to a game no matter what the rest of the game is like. My mantra is, greate a good game to give a good experience, then worry about the story. A completely reversed mentality of the movie business.
So. What did we learn? Make a good game, that makes you a good game developer, make a good story, that makes you a storyteller.
maanantai 8. lokakuuta 2007
What is it now?
For long I have had the inted to run a production diary of my many projects on a blog but my previous ventures have not been succesful. Mainly as I don't like to run a blog as much as I would like to write one.
Thusly, Idle Animation is created, and about six days from now I shall rest. But now is not the time for resting.
I have got to hand it to the people at Google (tm), the Blogger templates look like ass. I'm amazed that they couldn't make even one template that looked nice. Meh, this one shall suffice for now. I can't really be assed to make a new one just for this, if I'm going to make something, I'm going to finally finish the template for my new production company site.
I could go on. But I won't, so I'll continue with the topic of the day which is...
Movies! Yay!
I started a movie project about a year ago, and I have been poking around the script for months and months, nothing seems to be interesting enough. I could make a dark comedy, I love that kind of humor, but they are not usually very visual, and I would like my first project be something visual. I have so many good shots I would like to try out.
This new script I'm hammering right now is greatly influenced by Martin Scorsese, especially The Departed, and Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi. Visually I'm hoping to try out something akin to Zach Snyder and David Fincher, but maybe I'm aiming too high, I would be perfectly happy with a hint of Guy Ritchie. But that just means that there is a lot for me to learn.
Yesterday I scouted few locations and rather than just writing my script as I felt, I am going to build it around the scouted locations and set pieces. I find it easier that way when I'm basically making a movie with no budget, I would be happy to get few sponsors but that could compromise the marketability of the movie. You know, if I ended up selling it, OR even showing it at Sundance or Cannes. I COULD sell it on the internet, which is what the Star Wreck guys do, and they have some sponsors too, they seem to be doing alright. Oh I don't know, it's way too soon to be worrying stuff like this.
BTW. Where in the hell do you get actors! Everybody I ask doesn't seem interested, which is odd because if someone asked me I'd be over it like no tomorrow. BAH! People are wieners, a fact I must accept.
Well, that is enough right now. Next time I might rant about my game projects.
Thusly, Idle Animation is created, and about six days from now I shall rest. But now is not the time for resting.
I have got to hand it to the people at Google (tm), the Blogger templates look like ass. I'm amazed that they couldn't make even one template that looked nice. Meh, this one shall suffice for now. I can't really be assed to make a new one just for this, if I'm going to make something, I'm going to finally finish the template for my new production company site.
I could go on. But I won't, so I'll continue with the topic of the day which is...
Movies! Yay!
I started a movie project about a year ago, and I have been poking around the script for months and months, nothing seems to be interesting enough. I could make a dark comedy, I love that kind of humor, but they are not usually very visual, and I would like my first project be something visual. I have so many good shots I would like to try out.
This new script I'm hammering right now is greatly influenced by Martin Scorsese, especially The Departed, and Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi. Visually I'm hoping to try out something akin to Zach Snyder and David Fincher, but maybe I'm aiming too high, I would be perfectly happy with a hint of Guy Ritchie. But that just means that there is a lot for me to learn.
Yesterday I scouted few locations and rather than just writing my script as I felt, I am going to build it around the scouted locations and set pieces. I find it easier that way when I'm basically making a movie with no budget, I would be happy to get few sponsors but that could compromise the marketability of the movie. You know, if I ended up selling it, OR even showing it at Sundance or Cannes. I COULD sell it on the internet, which is what the Star Wreck guys do, and they have some sponsors too, they seem to be doing alright. Oh I don't know, it's way too soon to be worrying stuff like this.
BTW. Where in the hell do you get actors! Everybody I ask doesn't seem interested, which is odd because if someone asked me I'd be over it like no tomorrow. BAH! People are wieners, a fact I must accept.
Well, that is enough right now. Next time I might rant about my game projects.
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