Practicing textures

It was brought to my attention that I just might be doing texturing wrong, or at least badly after a meeting for one of my projects. Now, this is partly due to me still working on my skills in this area, and partly due to no one really giving me a whole lot of instruction as to what they wanted. For example, they said model a house as one object, so I did; however, putting everything that goes into a house on one texture map was apparently not part of the plan. So I listened to what they had to say and have been watching a set of videos they reccomended. Still working on finishing the set, but already learned some neat tricks.

Anyways, here are the results of following the videos so far for texturing:

Basically the videos walk you through modeling the thing and even unwrapping and some texture work. However, I still modeled the object and everything on my own. The videos were sort of an instruction booklet for putting something together from scratch.

Anyways, going to finish this set of tutorials and hopefully get back to some project progress soon!

Back to Work!

Anyways back to working on various things, sorry it has been awhile since I have posted. It was not that I was not working, it was that I am trying to forget about blogging, again lol. For this update we have a mansion I have been working on:

and the interior

The textures are still very rough at the moment, but I do like the roof at least.

A different project has me working on some filler items to put in some rooms and such:

Still very rough, but the basic idea is there!

GDC, The Survival Guide

Whew, well, I survived the week of GDC! A quick overview of what I learned:

The Survival Talk

(imagined a crumpled list, perhaps it has been stepped on or ripped by being caught in an escalator; hopefully you are in better shape than the dirty tattered thing remaining):

1.) Don't put aspiring anywhere in your GDC badge title. Reason? Well, the short of it is everyone is aspiring to something, or should be. Find a label for yourself that matches you as closely as possible so you don't basically label yourself a GDC noob. A speaker commented about this and I turned my badge around in shame when I spoke to him lol. The badge title can help you meet people, or not meet people in this case (though if they get close enough to read your badge they're close enough to better explain at least!).

2.) If you want to get into a popular talk show up at least an hour early. Popular talks may vary, but a common thread is: if you see people from Riot or Blizzard speaking this is likely to be popular. If in doubt, show up early if you really care about seeing or hearing the thing to check the line. Also, the portfolio critiques are popular. Bring your own device as well (I was looking around at all the portable portfolios and initially thought my phone would work in a pinch, but it apparently doesn't support flash). They might have had laptops, but the guy with the ask me shirt said they probably didn't. Lesson learned: be more prepared and observant earlier instead of passing time with a book. The upside is at least it was a good book.

3.) If you are attending an igda meeting the floor is pretty open... Ask questions earlier. I wanted to know more about the Atavism plugin, so I ended up asking around after and no one knew about it. I guess ultimately that means it isn't popular or well known and my initial thought of too good to be true is correct. Or it could mean someone knew something but since I didn't ask the entire room at once when I had the chance I will never know!

4.) When looking for food or whatever the people you met can point you in the right direction. If you lose all your friends after the first day at least your phone will still be there.

5.) If you lose all your friends after the first day and find yourself on your own don't panic or get depressed. In fact this might be an advantage, people flying it solo are easier to approach, and you can also approach others easier as well.

6.) Networking woes. if you are worried about networking, don't be. Even if you absolutely suck at talking to people you will end up talking to people and learning a ton if nothing else. However, it is a great opportunity to just walk up and ask someone who might be a big deal some noob question. They are surprisingly approachable, and while they might not hire you for some dream job they can and will try to help you out by answering a couple questions. Nothing is lost by talking, and yeah it can be scary, but if you know you have some skills or are looking for something let people know! If you don't have some skills or know you need to improve try to find similar skill levels to work with (personally I like online forums more for this like tigsource, but it can work in person too).

7.) Most importantly think of what you gained. Many people I talked to were jealous I got to go to this event when they couldn't. I mean a lot of people do get the chance to go but in the big scheme of things that bunch of people swarming around in the conference is about as many that attend a popular university. Speaking of which, I compare everything I learned and did to about a years worth of classes. So much is out there that you have access to and it is all in one place: industry experts, new tech demos, students looking for work, employers looking to hire. It is like one massive convention with something for pretty much anyone into this sort of thing. So if you do get the chance to go I would definitely recommend it, even if you have to attend on your own for the most part. The city is noisy, and annoying in my opinion, but the conference is like going to one of the most intense schools ever.

closing remarks: You might be asking why I wrote this little guide or list of tips. Well, partially for myself, but also because I couldn't find a lot of accounts about what the conference was like as a whole. I want to remember that 1st GDC, there will never be another one for me personally (I mean another 1st, it is gone like many other 1st experiences one may have). Another question might be: why is stuff about GDC on your game design blog? Because a trip like this changes ones perspective. You see people in all walks of life at all ages discussing games and tech. The advice given in the talks has definitely influenced how I approached designing games. That is why it is all here. Anyways, I hope any who read this enjoy my little survival guide, I definitely enjoyed the experience that inspired it. See you in a bit after I recover, hopefully all my projects are still doing well and ready for my return!

GDC day 2 and 3

Couldn't get hotel internet to work before I headed out this morning so combining a summary of the days here. Day 2 was the conclusion of the game design workshop. It was very tiring mentally after the first day. The first activity was basically recreating a game without any of the digital graphics. So, taking a video game and using just some paper and dice to try to replicate some of the feeling of it. We ended up choosing League of Legends, which was horrendously hard to boil down to a simple tabletop game prototype. It felt like the teams were a little too large, as it seemed only four of the six were able to contribute here. I sort of felt left out no matter how I tried to put forth some input, but that may have just been this group of people being less collaborative. I play tested some lane fights with the remaining member while the others hammered out their idea and ignored us for the most part. I then went to lunch alone, ah well, can't always have an awesome group like that first session.

The final activity was trying to make a story to change how a game played. Basically descriptions of what pieces represent or the situation they are in can drastically change a game without changing any rules. Interesting stuff all around!

All in all even just the workshop was great for meeting people and was almost as good as a year in some game design course imo. Definitely worth ones time!

Day 3: 
This was today. First I went to a presentation about Real Sense from Intel, featuring some devs creating games for this new tech. Basically it is a camera that allows a computer to sense human gestures or bio metrics; pretty sci fi stuff! However, it is still pretty basic at this time. Still, even just what I heard was pretty neat: gestures controlling game actions, voice commands, games reacting to increased heartbeat. Lots of potential here, and I look forward to the future of such tech, especially as Virtual Reality options improve.

After that it was basically a solo day, relaxing and taking in similar presentations. I needed to sort of distance myself and recover after those first couple days. Still, after seeing all this mind blowing stuff I can't help but feel a little intimidated as well as inspired. I guess it is best to think of it this way: These guys are breaking new ground with new tech, we are all constantly learning new stuff in this industry! One step at a time into the future of gaming!

See you tomorrow for day 4 as GDC week continues!

GDC day 1

Originally I was not going to post a lot of updates. However, after the first day I have to say that there is just so much I need to do a sort of journal to even organize it!

When I first got here there were crowds everywhere. They weren't there to stand in line to register, but just to chat with groups of friends; big groups of friends. Registering was as simple as signing in and printing off the badge. After that, this being my first GDC and the groups looking pretty well exclusive I decided to just rest up for tomorrow.

Good thing I did too, because the next day when GDC officially started was a whirlwind. I met a couple other first timers, some volunteering for the convention, some paying like myself. We talked about what we did game design wise and a little about ourselves, the usual.

Afterwards I went back to my room and prepared to go. In fact I should have went earlier than I did, the game design workshop was pretty packed even arriving early! Pro tip: Arrive about an hour and 30 minutes early at the minimum for this popular workshop. Passed the time in line chatting and exchanging business cards. Then the game designing started. We ended up in some random team modifying a game first, then later in the day had to design a game based on a random set of constraints. That is two games with a fresh team in one day, which was crazy fast; amazing what we could do with a little guidance from industry vets. Thanks guys, it was an awesome first day!