So busy I missed a week. Anyways, still working on various art endeavors to improve including a couple projects. On deck atm is this guy:

I dislike the fur pattern a bit, so will try and blend it together more. Other than that is it just refining details now and the bump map. This model is taking some time as I had to learn about alphas almost from scratch. Been learning a lot lately, it seems you can find tutorials for just about anything on youtube or floating around the internet.

Another thing I was looking at was atavism, but it seems somewhat incomplete at this time (see http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/atavism-whats-your-opinion.260957/). A lot of base elements are there, but to truly customize you still need to know how to create content. Honestly the idea reminds me a lot of Spore:galactic adventures. I put together a few scenarios/missions in that. It was cool, but no matter what you do the weapons or powers are the same presets. To add more you would have to get into the code and then add models, effects the works, or sub out what is already there for something else.

Anyways, that is all I got for game creation etc for the last couple weeks. See you again soon for more updates!

So here we have another character I started last week. Some sort of zombie. Anyways, lots of projects on deck I edited my thread on tigsource saying that I had all the projects I can handle at this time. Great place to meet up with other peeps and get better at creating things.

Also, I find myself thinking about GDC and its a combination of nervousness and anticipation I feel. Then I distract myself with project thoughts because it is easier to think about that stuff than a completely new experience lol.

Creating a demon, crazy how fast I got this mapped, a testament to a good base mesh? Hope so!

Other than that still working on various projects thanks to TIGsource forums for giving me stuff to work on. Skills leveling up, now if I could just get a game finished with a team hah. I have been noticing that many are eager to start projects, but few will take them to the finish. I am guilty of this as well, though I at least finish my part of the project if it is a team. Something about being in a team makes me feel like I have to at least keep going for other people. A solo project seems harder because as your own boss you can be too easy on yourself. Though I have read a deadline shifts some of that to a time limit and puts a challenge forward to finish something. Either way lots of projects cooking, so that's something at least.

Not much to report this week. Got distracted from my game, but this is a good thing actually. I think I need to think about scale and story elements. What would make my dungeon game unique? Also I might have to make a simpler game, hard to say at this time.

In the meantime other projects all over that I am working on in addition to learning some more odds and ends about programming via MIT open Courseware.

below: trying my hand at some pixel art and other styles for small sprites.

below: More zbrush stuff, working with alpha brushes to bring out some rough stone textures.

all in all not a bad week, good for learning especially.

2015 has rolled around and it has been pretty slow lately for me. I have been battling a wretched cold that is lasting forever. However, I did manage to get some things done. I got a start on a throne and added a golem boss to my dungeon game. I also have started blocking out the second level for said dungeon game:

I go into more detail on the video about what the plan is here but basically it is another quest type thing. Gather some keys, fix a bridge a bit later on. Currently I am considering the story and how exactly I want to present it to the player.

After each dungeon the player does go back to town and receives some gossip and another mission objective. I could use the built in text messages, but they are kind of small... Perhaps I will use a sprite to convey the story that is destroyed on a click. Decisions decisions... anyways see you next week!

Ah the holidays, a time of chaos, confusion, friends and distant relations all gathering in one place. Due to these various distractions it is difficult to get much work done hah. Anyways this week I mainly fiddled around with creating a way to spawn a boss mob. In this instance I decided to have the player gather three tablets and spawn a boss.

It was a lot simpler than I thought it would be. It was just a matter of setting up some global variables and then having them be set to true when a tablet is collected. An and statement then checks to see if all the variables are true in a step event and then spawns a boss if they are. The boss then destroys the invisible object that spawned it to prevent more bosses from spawning.

However, the boss location is yet to be determined. I could have it spawn in the dungeon and seek out the player or have the player see out its room. Or I could have the player move to a room dedicated to the boss upon collecting the tablets. Even that option has me asking if I should place an object for the player to touch to go to that room or just have them warp there after collecting the tablets.

I suppose I am getting ahead of myself though, first I need to make a boss that is somewhat interesting to fight. Some sort of golem that tosses rocks around, perhaps it bounces the player back upon contact as well.

So I completed the little scenario game idea I was making and dubbed it: Trial by knight. It is a mission to collect 10 treasure piles while avoiding or dealing with the armies of enemy knights and traps in the dungeon. Minor bugs remain at this time, but I found the game breaking one that was crashing the game (massive memory leak due to my sloppy programming lol). Still I learned a lot about what certain code does in GML. Also I do appreciate the internet, because someone out there somewhere knows how to make the engine do what I need it to do. Wonder if anyone will ever invent a sort of language to code translator, that would be nice hah. In the meantime I guess we all have to learn a little coding ourselves on independent projects.

And here is the video overview of progress from last week:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmIhDjdr45I&feature=youtu.be