Normal Maps

2009-02-12T04:40:00.000-08:00

Hello internets!

My life has been changing quite a lot recently. Firstly I just got slammed with comments about wasting time and not improving all that much. It's the truth and if they used up their time to write that I believe that's because they care about me. Among those were a lot of positive messages and resourceful web links. The one that helped me the most was "Do It Now" by Steve Pavlina. There were things I already knew but the way he put them made me look at them differently and actually apply a few. I changed several things about the way I work, including the area in my house where I do so. I'll probably write about those changes too, if they prove to be really positive.

There were also comments about the flash gallery I used in my website. Luckily Rui Martins, known in the internet as rmsm was already helping me to create a new one. He did most of the technical part and I truly owe him one.

Some people suggested I get in touch with a team so that I have direct feedback and, most importantly, deadlines. I started looking for a mod and right now I am waiting for a team to tell me if they're interested in what I can do. I am also working on my submission for the G-Switch art competition at Gamedev-PT and just finished getting references for my next model.

There are some new projects in the works but I'll only write about those when they're ready to be announced.

Lowpoly Littlebigplanet

2009-01-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

After all this, I forgot to post it here.

This is my mockup of how LittleBigPlanet could look like if it was on a portable console like the PSP. That would make me buy one.

Total triangle count for the scene is 3172 and I used 4 point lights.

The only thing I added to the Maya screengrabs is the gradient frame in each picture.

What do you get when you pay for a game?

2008-12-21T06:07:00.000-08:00

This is something that's been bugging me for a while.

I had recently bought Counter-Strike Collection and when I started installing it a pop-up showed up prompting me to register in "Steam", something I had read about some time ago. The purpose of this was to make me log in everytime I wanted to play so they could make sure I was using a legal copy of their software.

Fair enough, I paid for it and it was an online game so it wasn't that big an issue.

Sometime later I bought Valve's Half-Life Anthology. The main game I wanted to play using it was the original Half-Life. I started installing it on my computer, which wasn't connected to the internet and at that time simply couldn't be. Suddenly a pop-up showed up. "Register your copy on Steam or you won't be able to play the game". I couldn't.

It was a singleplayer game, I had paid for it and it was there in my hand but they wouldn't let me play it. What had I just bought?

Apparently I had just bought permission to play the game but only if they were watching.

(I'll probably write more about this in the near future.)

Dice

2008-12-03T05:17:00.000-08:00

I have started rolling the dice about two weeks ago.

I sent out CVs and portfolios to some companies I was interested in, mostly for the jobs of Junior Artist and QA Tester. I know I still lack a LOT of practice but I feel that I need to start sending all of this stuff right now. I might get a positive answer.

So far I have recieved some negative answers and one that sounded positive but some time later was denied. Right now there is another one that I feel optimistic about but will not detail further on this post.

Time to work on my texture painting skills.

Portable programs

2008-11-16T09:47:00.000-08:00

I found something cool today and I'd like to share it with you guys. It's free.

I don't know if you know portable programs but the name is pretty self-explanatory. These are programs you can use without an installation process. This means you can carry them around in any data storage medium and use when needed.

I've had issues opening exotic format files in other prople's computers, or trying to open videos encoded with strange codecs and this makes these things a lot more interesting.

This website developed a system wich allows users to integrate those programs in an easy to use interface, which helps if you want to teach a computer newbie to use it. The basic platform lets you build your own little system and add or remove programs at your will, making it as heavy as you want it to be.

Honestly, after trying it for a while I thought I don't really need all that and just kept the executables I thought were useful. Bye platform but hellooo programs.

The programs I found are web browsers, internet messengers, image editing software, games (of course!), openoffice, media players with several codecs, file compressors, pdf readers and editors. There's also a portable version of Blender if you're interested. Here's some more.

It's pretty nice, I feel like I have a digital swiss army knife now!

London Game Career Fair: Day Two Report

2008-11-05T05:24:00.000-08:00

This was a quiet day compared to the previous one. We had already talked to all the companies so we spend a bit more time at the games' part and some more swag-collecting action (Lionhead "Fable 2" mugs and yo-yos and Relentless "Buzz!" t-shirt!). They had some games that weren't there on the previous day and sometimes they changed their places, refreshing the layout of the place a bit.

I only noticed that one of the zones was a "+18" area now because it really wasn't obvious. We had already played some of their games (Fallout 3!) and we saw nothing shocking except the usual videogame violence and the occasional swear word.
I think marking the area and not really caring about the people who go in makes the whole thing a bit useless. And about those swear words...the players themselves curse way more than those games whenever they see something really good or really bad, it doesn't matter.

I met two of my Escape friends there and it was fun seeing them again. After picking up a couple of free energy drinks (one was orange-flavoured and the other one was supposed to help with hangovers!). Their sense of humor is still the same and we all talked during the whole time they were there. After lunch they left as well as Nuno who had a plane to catch.

Me and CG got back to the event to play some more games.

After we left the event we got back to Piccadilly Circus to see if Tokyo Toys was open and it was. After checking some other places out we walked to Hamley's. That place still impresses me because of its huge size. Didn't find was that I was looking for and got back. CG went back home and I went back to Zavvi and HMV to look for a couple of things which I did find.

Swag!
Because a game fair without it isn't really a game fair! Here's the best of it.

-2 mugs, a "Banjo-Kazooie" one from Rare and a "Fable 2" one from Lionhead
-"Buzz!" T-shirt from Relentless
-yo-yo from Lionhead!
-pens from Microsoft, Other Ocean, Streamline and Starbreeze
-badges from Relentless and Streamline
-"Banjo-Kazooie" mousepad, from Rare
-awesome "Fallout 3" postcards, from Bethesda
-the smallest pack of matches I have ever seen, from Streamline

All this, the contacts and the advice I got made it a really worthwile trip once again.
I missed London.

(London, 29-10-2008)

London Game Career Fair: Day One Report

2008-11-05T05:09:00.000-08:00

I got there fast because I thought it opened earlier so I got to wait in line for a while, looking around trying to find the portuguese people that I knew would come. Outside they had a big Ubisoft place, a Warhammer 40.000 Space Marine Tank, a big Motorstorm 2 car and this place that was giving out free energy drinks.

Nuno Ramiro got there early too so we had time to talk about all the weird things that happen in London all the time. CG was the last one to get there and as such she had to wait longer to get in.

As the doors opened we got our blue bracelets (which probably mean "noob" or something) and saw the littlebigplanet tryout booth. Let me tell you the game is exactly what I expected. It is beautiful, polished and most of all: fun. I don't have a PS3 and this game is the only one that makes me desire it. After about an hour of really awesome co-op play and some creation demonstrations, we remembered why we were in the fair for and started looking for the company booths.

There were none in sight, just tryout booths for some of the most expected games of this season. To list a few there were Fallout 3, Mirror's Edge, Prince of Persia Prodigy, Resident Evil 5 (actually most of the copies called it by its japanese name, Biohazard 5), Endwar, Gears of War 2, Killzone 2 and Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts.

After searching for a bit we found out the fair was even bigger than last year and it had two floors. This first one was full of gaming kiosks and the upper one was the one where the companies were hiring, so we headed there.

What a relief, it was bigger than last year! So much people and so much swag we didn't know where to start. As you probably guessed we only talked to game companies and pretty much ignored all the booths that were announcing game-related courses.

The "Most Arrogant Booth" Award goes to Sega for the second year in a row! Showing up at a fair like this, not accepting CDs of portfolios and telling us to apply at their website is even more ridiculous than not showing up. Enjoy your prize guys, you deserved it.

The "Coolest People To Talk To" Award goes to Streamline Studios, with only two people but really nice ones. They asked everyone if they had heard of their company before and apparently we were the only people that said "Yes". The conversation simply flowed from there. They know a friend of mine that works there and once they realised that they got really informal about the whole deal. We went back to talk to them several times because they were that cool. The runner-ups were Rare, Lionhead and Longtail Studios.

The "Sorely Missed" Award goes to Team 17. After some really good advice from them a year ago I wanted to show them what I had done in the meantime. Well, I'll send them an e-mail or something.

We weren't at the lectures because they were almost the same as last year's.

I recognized a few faces. Some fellow Escapees and Paul Wilkes, some people from the company booths and even the "Be my first animation/modeling job" girl from last year! I guess the cherry t-shirt wasn't enough.

The most curious thing about the fair was probably the Live Action Pong. Yep, two guys dressed as the paddles and a girl dressed as the ball were trying to re-enact that famous game.

After everything started to quiet down we left for a pizza at Leicester Square. We were served by a kind italian guy who absolutely loathes Dr. Pepper and when we left we were surprised the whole city wasn't really expecting. Snow. The kind that melts right when it hits the ground. We still had to walk a bit to get to Piccadilly Circus so it wasn't the most pleasant experience ever but it was fun.

(London, 28-10-2008)

Bad PR stunt is Best PR stunt?

2008-10-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

A few days ago most gaming journalism websites were quick at reporting the news that LittleBigPlanet was going to be delayed because of the lyrics in one of the game's songs. Apparently it includes two quotes from the Qu'ran and doing so is offensive to those of Islamic faith.

This has lead Sony to retrieve all of the game's copies in order to replace them with "fixed" copies which don't feature said song. Not only that, it enraged most people who have preordered it, except muslim people, though.

While the corniest gaming websites were busy writing articles with titles like "Is LittleBigPlanet doomed?" gaming forums all over were flooded with threads where users started discussing religious matters. News websites and broadcasts have been mentioning this all around the globe.

Now, guys like Phil Harrison agree with Sony and say replacing the game was the best decision they could have made.

I have followed a few of those discussions and some of those were actually good. Though we might have been lead to believe it, not every gaming website is filled with hate-consumed tenage trolls.

What do I think about this? First of all I don't think recalling all of the game's copies is a good idea for several reasons. A patch that cut access to the song should suffice.

There are people who defend this is not enough and say that the people who don't have their consoles connected to the internet wouldn't "benefit from this correction to the game". Why would someone buy this game if they don't have their consoles connected to the internet? It is a major part of the game.

Well, even though I wish MediaMolecule the best of luck and believe their intentions are good, this sounds like too much luck to be just an innocent mistake. Because of this the game had a gigantic amount of free exposure and loads of people who didn't know this game was coming got to see bits of gameplay during primetime.

It seems like a trend like this could show up anytime:

1. Include something offensive in your game
2. Remove it due to pressure from the media
3. ????
4. Profit!

inérciaDemoparty2005 in 2008 report

2008-10-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

Well well here we are again! InérciaDemoparty was a blast and hopefully this post will prove it.

I left my house at about 13:00 or so in order to meet zeroshift in Lisbon so we could do some finishing touches on the demo we were doing for Inércia. The sideways head-bobbing animation was born here to much enthusiasm.

The trip lasted longer than I expected. We left later than we had planned (21:00?) and made a detour to pick up another scener and some pizzas, plus another stop for caffeine. We had plenty to talk about for the whole tour.

We got lost inside Porto while looking for two things at the same time: inércia and a bathroom.

At about 4:00 we got to the partyplace. Khozmic, Filami and Kazuya started finishing their demo and just wouldn't stop for anything so that got me curious. It looked great.

Didn't sleep in that first night because I would regret it later.

The next day came rather quickly, along with a lot of extra sceners. We had lunch at a Pizza Hut (I see a pattern here) followed by the afternoon activities.

The first one was the GameDev-PT Show & Tell, a really interesting idea that worked well. Several members from GameDev-PT organized themselves and showed work they had done and thought it was interesting to everyone. It really was.

Afterwards it was time for a Blender introduction workshop by zeroshift. It's a really interesting program and I was there to see its features. It's free so check it out.

After a McDonald's fueled dinner (I hate it but the idea of eating pizza for the third time in a row was bothering me more than those things) we got back to the partyplace and after a -traditional- delay the compos started.

The first one was the combined graphics compo, where my image was so confusing it crashed ps' Mac. Next, the music compo. I did an all-nighter the night before and the low lights and soothing songs made me regret it a bit.

Demo compo time, the moment we were all waiting for.

There were five productions. First up was vs* with a Processing demo that was nice though a little too procedural-looking for my taste. Next it was Jae's turn with a GP2X demo, one of the shortest I have ever seen but it was enjoyable. After that was Khozmic, Filami and Kazuya's time to shine with their demo. It looked really great but for some reason it ran rather slowly on EviL's laptop.

...and this was it. After following the demoscene for a while this was the time to see the first demo I ever worked on grace the bigscreen. The crowd was surprised by the name (and I was surprised they didn't know it yet) and a bit later they were laughing really loud, which lasted through the demo as new scenes were being shown.

I was really proud of it.

Then, a really stylish animation by Kamikaze_Tutor (dude, sometimes I don't know wich nickname to use) was shown. I like it a lot.

A while later it was time to sleep.

5 hours later I woke up. Once again sleeping on the ground didn't make my back hurt at all. I think sleeping at demoparties regenerates me a lot more than sleeping under "normal" conditions.

Healthy conversations, breakfasts and some demos later, the results were announced. Zeroshift won the combined graphics compo, there were no awards given on the music compo and on the demo compo our demo won first place! Here it is!

Packed, took a picture and got back. It was quicker this time.

I slept from 24:00 to 12:00 today. I'm ready for the next one!

...and don't forget to come to inérciaDemoparty 2008!

2008-10-03T03:56:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that inérciaDemoparty is back and its recent edition starts today! And it will be the first time I have something up my sleeve. I'll be entering in at least two compos, one being the demo one (finally!). More info here.

I'll tell you all when I get back.

lowpoly sackboy

2008-09-26T04:19:00.000-07:00

After a while without posting models, here is the last one. It's my version of Sackboy, the main character in MediaMolecule's first game, "LittleBigPlanet". The way it's made makes it easy to just drop a texture underneath the stitches and AO and it works with just some minor tweaks.

Edit: As a fellow polycounter suggested, here are some screenshots with lights and some poses.

Spore: Is piracy justified?

2008-09-14T05:14:00.000-07:00

As many I have been eagerly awaiting Will Wright's new game, "Spore". Since its unveiling at GDC 2005 the media has been buzzing all over each new bit of information about it. Curious, because the "unveiling" itself was 30 minutes long and it only seemed to scratch the ear of the beast.

It was, without a doubt, the most ambicious videogame I have ever heard of.

(I am considering those games I believe will be finished, not some newbie Wow-killers or anything ridiculous as that. Those don't usually leave a sheet of paper or a couple of text documents.)

Then, the Creator Creator demo came out and amazed a huge amount of people due to the weirdness of some characters, the likeness to other well-known ones or even the insane amout of Spore-made penis monsters. The term "Sporn" was coined around these few days. Maxis must be having a blast trying to stop those from populating the other players' galaxies.

Then I had the luck of being in the portuguese lauch of the game but I don't usually pay more than 30€ for a game so I didn't buy it. I'll save my speech on game prices for some other time. Anyway, I have been talking to some people who bought it and reading online reviews and checking Amazon and this was what I found:

I tried to understand why this was happening. While some people were raving about it, a whopping lot of people were giving it negative reviews.

Well, it seems the copy protection sistem included with the game is really, really agressive. You have to connect to the internet during instalation and you only have the permission to install it 3 times. 3. You paid full price for a game that will evaporate rather quickly.

Some people are defending that you should buy the game if you really want it and then download a copy without those protections and play it as you wish. Other people are saying they should simply boycott it and leave it in the shelves. The most otpimistic say you should buy the game, don't open it and then return it saying the reason is the horrible copy-protection system.

These measures are making me think twice about buying the game, even when it gets to the 30€ price tag which is a pity, I wanted this game to have the success I believe it deserves. Why couldn't this happen with the next WWII shooter?

These are sad times.

The people who atually buy the products still have the "YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR" ad thrown in their faces when they try to play their movies or go to the movies and gamers have measures that stop them from playing the games they bought or even slowly destroy theyr machines. Remember Starforce? Excuse me while I throw up, I shouldn't have thought of it after eating.

[edit:] These polls say a bit more about DRM than I did. If you want to know more about this subject, check this out.

London Game Career Fair '08

2008-08-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

Hey dudes and dudettes.

It's that time of the year again! Last year I got to be at the London Game Career Fair, talking to several people from some awesome companies, i gave them business cards and portfolio CDs. First time I left the country alone and first time in London. This time I have better things to show. If you want to know more about the event, here's the official link.

How did I get the money to go there?

Well, let me show you what I was doing one year ago:

Which one am I?

That's right, you just know it from the bottom of the heart.

We have lift-off!

2008-08-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

After some weird experiments involving html, xml and a weird ftp method, I bring you my website! It is basically an online portfolio that will be constantly updated.

I will try to improve it so it's a bit more functional, but right now it's enough. It only needs better art and that's what I am doing right now. I'll show it when I can.

Simple website, simple viewer

2008-08-07T08:04:00.000-07:00

After researching I found the best solution for a simple website is to use something like Simpleviewer, a lightweight (17kb) flash gallery. It has its limits but there are ways to get over most of them. There's a free version and it works just fine.

Pros:
-Simple to use and customizable
-Good-looking transitions and loading animations
-Free

Cons:
-Doesn't take up more than 50 pictures per gallery
-You have to create the thumbnails manually

One of these days I'll have a gallery website made using it. So, for people who are looking for a quick way to have a gallery website online there you go. Hosts are an issue for another post, I still have to deal with that.

Now I have to keep on texturing. See ya!

Achievements

2008-08-01T04:41:00.000-07:00

I was writing a post on how Achievements are just sand thrown in the eyes of the "hardcore gamers" but this image captures it in a way I wasn't being able to put it. Thanks internet!

ZApplink for lowpoly

2008-07-19T04:58:00.000-07:00

I recently finished another model for my portfolio and while trying out some things I came up with something that helped me a lot and some of you guys might not know yet. It's not groundbreaking but it helped me to speed along the texturing part smoothly.

As some of you may know Zbrush has a plugin that allows you to project textures directly on your model (as long as you have layed out the UVs beforehand) and that is done using ZAppLink, which connects Zbrush to your image editing program of choice. Mine is Photoshop.

I was trying to use it to texture a fairly lowpoly model of a head (250 tris) but it was giving me some awful results that looked like a shattered mirror instead of a projected picture. It can give you a faint hint at some things but overall it is not that useful. That is because of the model's polygon density. What can you do when you get to this point? Logically you can subdivide your model until it has enough density, but what about ZBrush's pet hate of triangles and vertices with more than one edge connected to it?

Turn this...

Apparently the problem only rises if you want to change your geometry afterwards. In some cases it wrecks your model and that's why if you want to use Zbrush to actually sculpt it's mandatory that it's all in quads. This means you can bend one of Zbrush's main rules: "No triangles, just quads!" to your advantage.

...into this!

So subdivide your model until you have enough density (35.000 tris was more than enough on this case). Some of your model's definition will be lost because smoothing causes it to be a lot more rounded.You don't even have to save your subdivided, unaltered model. After all, the model you're texturing is the one you already had in the first place.

Of course there's a lot of work to do in Photoshop after this is done but hopefully it helps those who find it hard to start texturing. I used about six main projections and a couple of small ones for the whole head.

Good texturing!

(The reference pictures come from 3d.sk)

"Where does the newborn go from here?"

2008-07-18T02:22:00.000-07:00

Alright, I'll come clean: I'm not sure what path to take with this blog right now.

It started it with a goal that changed when I went to London. Then I used it to write about the course's progress so that everyone interested could simply come here and read about it. At the same time I wrote some of my thoughts about videogames and their future. I usually upload a picture with the post so that it's not that dry and devoid of interest for those who read it and don't really care about videogames.

Right now I'm back to Portugal, making portfolio pieces and improving a lot of models I had started but not finished. Getting ready for the next steps. Most of the people who came here to see if I was alright have already talked to me in person and are in a more constant contact now so I believe they stopped reading this.

So the question is for the rest of you:

What do you want to read about when you visit this blog?

Blizzard's Diablo 3

2008-07-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

This was going to be a big rant but it was stripped to its bare essentials because I think it's not something to waste that much of your time reading. Simply put...

...whoever blindly supports the Diablo 3 petition probably likes this HL (something) 3 preview image.

OH GOD THE BLOOM

Chapter 3 ends

2008-06-30T05:44:00.000-07:00

After not having an internet connection for a while, I'm back. Not only that, I'm back home again!

Now it's time to refine the work I started during the course to the point where I feel totally confident with it. I restarted a few things and I focused more on some other ones but now I have to get it all done and show it to the world. That's why I need to look into making a simple gallery website with my contacts on it.
In fact it's what I'll do now. Brook Green Hotel is getting some overlays.

In other news, Diablo III was confirmed and it looks absolutely stunning.

Dark Age 2.0

2008-06-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

My internet connection at home is gone so bare with me for a couple of weeks, ok? Sorry everyone.

Quick summary of the last days:
-Light mapping
-Moderation on Normal Maps
-Parallax Maps
-Modular sets
-Environment Mapping
-Trip to Blitz Games
-Conversation with the Technical Art Director from Ninja Theory

I have to go now, take care.

Persian props

2008-06-01T13:13:00.001-07:00

week 3

2008-06-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

(real-life pixelart in Manhattan)

I am aware I didn't show the second week's progress and the reason is I decided to remake the model and I have been doing it in my short free time since then.

This week was different from the last. If I said last week was intensive, this one was insane. First day was a bank holiday, second one was a day full of theory about a lot of things and a briefing for the next three days.

The goal was to make one or two items that could be in a Prince of Persia game, mostly Sands of Time. We had a list of about twenty differend objects we could do. I am also here to train myself to work under strict timelines, so I chose to make three objects. I am proud of what I have achieved.

The images in the next post represent those three days. (This is so I can have a separate tag for "Gallery" for clarity's sake)

Last-gen/Next-gen?

2008-05-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

(Squirrel in Shepherd's Bush Green)

This week was intense. It made me rethink a lot of things I had taken tor granted in 3D and it made me work until late in the evening once again. I learned a lot about Ps2/Gamecube style graphics, about techniques like vertex lighting, tiling textures, UVs, poly counts, planar continuity, normals...I could just go on and on.

It was frustrating. I was really proud of everything in my model but as I got close to the end I understood how vertex lighting worked and had to redo most of it. I didn't finish in time. It's not a strict thing but it was a deadline I really intended to meet. It's another thing I wanted to improve. The teacher was really proud I didn't give up or restart the model and says I should finish it in my free time. I agree, it's too much to throw away.

Today I found out our class is visiting Blitz Games in two weeks. They asked us to bring the things we have been doing in the course and offered to ask our questions and show us their workspace.

In other news Vlad's daughter was born three days ago! Hooray for him!

Meet the set

2008-05-17T10:12:00.000-07:00

I was challenged to make TF2-style textures (diffuse, specular, normals) for my small set and this is how far I got during the time Escape was open today. I wanted to remake them all but wasn't fast enough to remake them with TF2 style and quality. Still I worked a lot faster than a week ago and a lot of people recognized the colors instantly.

The light is the one I had yesterday without any changes. It has nothing to do with the style of the game though.

Maya, Photoshop, Gamebryo

2008-05-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

It's hard to describe what I'm feeling today. This day is being a great one so far, and one I'll not soon forget. Today I created textures, speculars, alpha and normal maps really quickly and in the end exported the models into Gamebryo and walked around in it as if it was a videogame for the first time. If you don't know much about cg graphics or game engines this might not sound impressive but it was an important moment for me. It's the end of the first week and I feel like I've learned so much it's "Unreal". Sorry for the really bad pun, I just had to do it.

The image above is a simple screencap from Maya without depth map shadows and the set was made with these pieces.

Chapter 3

2008-05-13T15:27:00.000-07:00

I am writing this on the end of the second day of the course. Why is that? Because yesterday I stayed up for hours redoing what we did earlier. I did a Half-Life 2-looking set with the essencial props (models and UVs). That's right, wall, door, ground, crates and barrels. Twice. Long but rewarding first day.

It was the first time I felt comfortable with UV mapping. Finally.

Today was texture day. We only did the texture for the barrels but tomorrow we'll do the spec and at least try to do the rest of the set. I learned a lot new tricks in Photoshop. We were so interested in it that neither the teacher or us realized it was an hour past exit time already.

The class is full and this time I'm the only portuguese. The guy who came from furthest away is australian. The rest is one cool guy I knew from Core, some Sony fanboys and a guy who wants to work in architectural visualization (yeah, weird - but I actually think the future of architectural visualization will shift from static pre-rendered images to real-time "visits" to the buildings in game engines though).

On related news, seven of the previous Games Escapees passed the first test to get into Rare today. This doesn't mean they will end in there for sure, but it's definitely a good sign.

Back from Portugal, ready for chapter 3

2008-05-10T13:11:00.000-07:00

(image by hioxz)

Landed in London at midday. Got back easily, without mistakes and found my room just as I left it which means I have some long overdue laundry to do.

Going back to Portugal was really nice, though I didn't do a lot of things I wanted to do. I won't dwell on it. I ate home home made food again! "Mother-made", which is even better! I got to be with my best friends and travelled to several places from Portalegre to Santiago de Compostela (Spain). Watched some movies I enjoyed and some episodes of good shows. I didn't sleep much for several reasons.

I'll try to compensate some sleep tonight. Hopefully I won't be woken up by Tony Carreira again...ugh. I thought I was far away from that but once again it chased me.

Wobsite

2008-05-05T06:01:00.000-07:00

Sorting out my priorities once again. What do I really need? Work done, to show and to practice. I also need a website in that I can direct people to, somewhere where they can see what I can do.

So I set off for the cheapest and quickest way to get a website online. Checked out several things like hosts and Joomla! but Vlad said in my case Flash makes more sense and he's right. It's not the best thing for a site like this, but it is a program I already feel familiar with. I basically just need a clean wall where I can hang the best things I have done and will continue to do. Better to start now so I have it done and polished when I need it the most.

Flash it is then.

The real deal

2008-04-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

Warning: This post is way too long.

It is being written as a load off my shoulders, not as an apology to someone. I feel I have been overconfident and underproductive with my time over the last few years.

From about six or seven years I have felt my free time was something I could and should use in order to develop work or skills that would help me later on. That would give me an advantage over people who didn't do the same, at least.
Those areas I covered depended on the areas of interest I had at the time, like Flash, Photoshop, comic-book scripting and drawing and in about three years ago it switched to several aspects of videogame creation.

As I started getting into several online forums I started to get invited to several projects. A while ago I had several at the same time, juggling with the personal projects I still had. Most projects weren't finished mostly because the person who was directing them called it off, because someone wasn't working enough or taking it seriously. I felt that person wasn't me and I still believe it wasn't.

A while ago I quit my course to get better in creating graphic assets for videogames in order to start working in the videogame industry. I started using my free time to get acquainted to Maya again. to learn new things as a warm-up exercise. It worked.

During the course I had some projects I was helping and other spontaneous helps that worked well but two of those projects were a bit left behind. They were finished but I felt they could have gone a whole lot better.

I was invited to work in something I was proud to be working as I was studying. I would do things in my place and send them over the web. I knew the Games course would start relatively soon and I would have to juggle both things but I was so glad was invited to do that I said yes, while thinking "This is a bit suicidal but it will be an awesome thing if it goes well".

A bit later I came back to Portugal and I thought I would have a lot of time to work in it. So much that I could focus a bit more on the upcoming course when it started, actually. I immediately started to get invitations to go here and there, see everyone again and that's where this came from.

I tried to do both things and after a while I was disappointing the other people in the team because I wasn't delivering my work on time or with enough quality. That was shown to me and I was asked if I thought it made sense to continue having a part in that. I agreed it doesn't, especially because the course is coming very soon.

Why didn't I do everything I was supposed to? Honestly. I slept too much and when I worked on it I would stay up for too long, creating a loop and I accepted too many invites of friends, cutting my time short. I started creating a new lowpoly model to gain a bit more experience with 3D and spent some time reading and researching about game engines and graphic technology. I didn't take it seriously enough.

I disappointed friends and workmates and probably they won't trust me with a similar thing again. I was helping them in a videogame. It would have my name on it when it got published. I spent time reading about making games and training for it instead of actually doing that in the real deal, the game. It's so clear now and it's so embarassing.

They were too kind to explain all that to me and I feel like I have learned a valuable lesson, though it cost me trust and future oportunities. I feel ashamed of myself. From now on I feel I will rethink my priorities in order to achieve what I want for myself.

Thank you for reading this. It was too long, wasn't it?

Attempts on letting the toasters fly on the web

2008-04-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

Here are two of the many attempts on putting my video on a website in order to be able to show it to everyone who wants it. The gamma is messed up so the contrast is overblown. I'll fix that once I get my hands on Shake again.

It is also a test to see if embedding videos is as easy as they say.

....and on Vimeo.

P.S: It is!

Sackboy is real!

2008-04-15T07:31:00.000-07:00

I was wondering through the interwebs and I found a post in the MediaMolecule blahg that made me smile. Apparently the mother of one of the artists knitted Sackboy, the "main character" from their upcoming game, LittleBigPlanet.

Here's the original one:

And here's the one made by the courageous mom, Silvia!

The game looks promising too!

Engines

2008-04-09T17:43:00.000-07:00

I have been spending a fair bit of time planning one of my next steps in terms of training for videogame models. Something I noticed in the forums I participate in or just occasionaly lurk, most people don't try to make models for integration in specific engines or games. I am not saying it is essencial but I face it as a nice way to train things like poly limits, texture resolution limitations and the most rewarding part...including them in the game and playing with them/blowing them up!

I found Unreal Tournament 3 Limited Edition in London for 20£ but it is a bit too much for my PC in terms of hardware so I am downscaling. Right now I am looking at Source Engine (Half-life 2, Counter-Strike Source), Unreal Engine 2 (Unreal Tournament 2004) and Gamebryo (Oblivion, Fallout 3).

Hopefully I'll create some models I'll be able to integrate in the engine I choose and go a bit further in my training.

"Olá", you say?

2008-04-04T06:23:00.000-07:00

Isn't this utterly charming?

Anyway, after a turbulence-filled flight, here I am. Back to Portugal just in time for my birthday, almost missing my family dinner because the car broke down in the middle of the highway. It's kind of ironic. In the end we were able to go to said dinner because dad took us (he had already been there and had just got home just in time to go back again!).

Whew.

It is tough trying to do all the things I am supposed to do during this period in Portugal. I already had some plans and things I would like to to but I also have some things I must to while I am here. Yes, work. For me and for people who let me work for them. No, I don't want to go everywhere and talk about everything that happened three months because that would mean accepting virtually every request and there's not enough time for that. Sure, I'll go to some places but others will just have to wait for the next time I return. I also need to rest because the next course will be hard. I'll make it even harder for me because I want to impress the people there so....
Sorry guys, that's what this website is here for.

Chapter 2 ends

2008-03-29T10:30:00.000-07:00

Flying toasters!

Yesterday was the final day of the VFX course and that picture is one of the frames from my final shot. It only lasts a bit over 6 seconds because the original clip wasn't too long. Anyhow, I think I did a fine job, well over my initial expectations. The shot could still use some tweaking but as Lee says, our work is never finished. It's always work in progress and we're getting better all the time so it's hard to get an ultimate version. In the end this was what I have accomplished in the time I had, at this moment in time.

When I get it online I'll publish the link here.

The course was intense. I still believe it's not possible to learn these things at a higher speed than this without the brain exploding into pieces, killing all your classmates and damaging the school's equipment.

I survived!

Balloon Bliss

2008-03-24T05:58:00.000-07:00

At last "Balloon Bliss" was released.

It represents the first step of an independent videogame development team called Vortix Games into the casual game industry. I feel proud to have followed at least part of their journey until they got here. This motivates me and is yet another proof that good planning and motivation will get you where you want to go.

BigFishGames' website info on the game:

"Imagine that you are looking at a balloon rising slowly into the bright blue sky. As you focus your eyes on it, it pops, and slowly you start to feel your feet rising off the ground. Your toes tip up, if only by an inch. Amazed by this recent discovery, your gaze rests on another balloon, and again you start to lift towards the clouds. Suddenly you are flying and discovering the scintillating joy of Balloon Bliss. Curl your fingers around the strings of these bright balloons--feel as if you're actually flying in this gravity-defying Match 3 puzzler.

Legendary storyline.
Artistic Match 3
2 amazing game modes
Joyful simulation"

link here.

Go Vortix!

Frets on Fire

2008-03-21T07:56:00.000-07:00

If you'd like to play something like Guitar Hero on the PC and for free take a look at Frets on Fire.

It's a Guitar Hero clone and the songs are created by the users (yes, you can find all the songs of the original Guitar Hero titles all over the place) and it's highly customizable. There are even MacOS X and Linux versions and a version you don't even need to install.

If you think it is not possible to enjoy the full awesomeness of Guitar Hero without having the guitar controller, then look at this!

I am hooked on this game yet again, though not being as geeky as it's supposed to be because you cannot hold a laptop's keyboard like that. It's really addictive because it's one of those games in which you know you can do it better than the last time and obviously you try again.

...and again.

....and then you notice it's 4:00 AM and you need to get up early on the next day.
(not that it happened to be of course!)

Play.com live

2008-03-15T12:55:00.001-07:00

Guess what is happening in Wembley Stadium.

Oh snap it's in the title. Jeez, I always forget that.
Anyway I spent the afternoon there trying out new and a few other games that have already been out for a while. So far this was the biggest videogame expo I have been in but not the most interesting. It was mainly a consumer fair but there were a few nods to future game developers like the almost private Far Cry 2 demonstration I had the chance to see. There was not enough room so I sat on the ground, on the front row.

A few people dressed as mascots reminded me of the summer! There was Mario, Sonic and on a more serious note Darth Vader, Sophitia and a hot girl on a bike, always relevant. Sonic and a kid posed for me and I don't really know why but I took the photo anyway.
Also, booth babes.

There was some cool videogame merchandise such as replicas from Halo weapons and lightsabers and the food was so expensive there. 2£ for a small bottle of water and 4£ for a sandwich? My hunger was suddenly gone.

On a swag point of view it was modest but nice. I got a few pins and cards, the trial for LOTR online, a Stuntman Ignition license plate and keychain, a Conan limited edition mini-comic, Ratattouille keychain, Guitar Hero 3 necklace keychains and Ice Age Extreme Cool Edition DVD (wich I believe is to make us be aware of the fact we don't have the blu-ray version or the huge screen in wich they were showing it there).

Main cool games: LittleBig Planet, The Bourne Conspiracy (I can't believe it either but the game looks really promising), Rock Band.

Main let-down: Star Wars: Force unleashed will only be there tomorrow. Wankers.

I can't believe I found it here

2008-03-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I was coming home using the tube and the line where my stop is got closed because of something so I had to improvise my way back home by bus. After a while I didn't know where to go next, walked a bit and saw this.

I love British humor.

Have a toast!

2008-03-04T10:50:00.000-08:00

I came across lots of new things in the past two weeks and I do mean A LOT. Camera tracking in three different programs, dynamics, particles, shaders and MEL scripting.

I believe I didn't write about it but in the first day Lee showed us the student showreel from the last course and their work was amazing. In one shot he actually had to point out what was CG in the scene and show us the original footage. Right after that he told us it was best to start our final project as soon as possible. That's right. On day one.

After some random ideas Bhaumik (teaches dynamics) suggested something that led me to a really interesting internet search that brought me to....the classic flying toaster screensaver! My final project will be a VFX shot that has a lot to do with that. Just you wait.

Meanwhile have a toast.

A future form of entertainment

2008-02-28T15:24:00.000-08:00

Have you ever watched a movie and wanted to be there with them or even be the main character? Huge domestic screens and surround sound suggest people really want to be inside the movie. What about those who want to make decisions which affect the course of the story? The eternal "What if?" question.

I believe a new entertainment form rose from that question, mainly as its answer. It's not a totally new thing but it is being perfected to a point it's worth discussing. It is a mix between movies and videogames. I am not talking about those damn movie adaptations to games or games adapted to movies. Just forget those for a while.

This new form of entertainment is what can allow you to have a movie storyline being told while giving you just enough freedom to feel like you're playing a game. There are a few examples of movie-like scripts that spawned games instead of movies keeping the storyline, like "James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing" or "John Woo's Stranglehold".

It's not going to threaten movies or games, it's just a "new" form of entertainment that has possibilities. In my opinion the best "cinematic game"so far is "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater". Great storiy, great characters, great acting and great soundtrack. It's like playing a really good movie. In fact it's done in such a cinematic way that in the special edition of the game there's a whole disk with all the cutscenes and other parts captured in video so the player can watch it as if it were a movie.

Pacman stuff

2008-02-23T06:10:00.000-08:00

I am not the biggest Pacman fan but lately I have come across a vast amount of pacman stuff. Today I bring you the best so far!

Cheese Pacman

Guitar Pacman

What the skeleton of Pacman would look like.

Awesome Christmas tree.

And now imagine if they had used the original name. Thank the testers for noticing the obvious pun. "Puck Man" with those letters and the long nose...the future of videogames would have been ruined right from the start.

Overload

2008-02-19T11:24:00.000-08:00

VFX course started yesterday and the teacher is a really amazing guy. I have had an interest in Visual Effects for a while, have watched lots of extras in DVDs and done a few tutorials to try to understand how they really do the awesome looking imagery but nothing prepared me for the sheer amount of information I got yesterday. I feel like I don't know a thing about this.

Everything is even more complex than I thought. I heard names of programs I never knew existed. I heard of techniques that are the basic element of VFX and I didn't know that they were even necessary. I am out of my element but I believe if I keep paying atention and taking notes I'll eventually get into it. Today was way more comfortable.

Now the hard part about all this is making my mind up about my current situation. I came here with the main purpose of learning how to make good 3D models for videogames but now I had the chance of being in this course I have to start investing in both areas in terms of time, attention and work. I have do develop impressive material for both areas, two showreels. Two careers until I get a job. This is tough for a perfeccionist. Time does not stretch.

This blog's subtitle may end up being wrong. I warned you.

Chapter 1 ends

2008-02-16T05:02:00.001-08:00

Six weeks, four pens, one and a half notebook later...

Maya Core ended yesterday and that watch I posted was my final project. It took two weeks with classes everyday, so in the end I didn't have half a day to spend in it, and I tried to rest in the weekend because I knew the week would be hard. I am not completely satisfied with it but there were a few unexpected things that took a lot of time to solve.

This was insane. When I first heard of the course and saw a few student's final projects I honestly thought it was impossible to go through so much in six weeks. It is possible, believe me, but you will have to sweat and drink a lot of coffee. I have never been taught so much in such a short period of time. If you value that and really push yourself then it's worth it.

And now...a bit of rest, two weeks of dirty clothes waiting to be washed and almost no food so I'll have to go out and get some. Chapter 2 starts on Monday.

Watch

2008-02-15T18:36:00.000-08:00

Final project of Maya Core. Modeled in Maya and textured in Photoshop.

Ninjabear

2008-02-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

Those who know me know I have a lot of people I look up to. One of these guys is Tiago Sousa, aka Ninjabear. In a country with only a few people making games and even fewer in big companies outside Portugal this guy was handpicked by a team that was being formed in Germany! They wanted the best of each craft and they saw a demo he developed, Illuminatu. Impressed, they contacted him and he went to Crytek.

Sometime later in 2004 Farcry was released, one of the games with the best timing to reach the market I can recall. It came out right before those year's heavyweight FPSs, Half-Life 2 and Doom and was the first "next-gen" FPS at the time.

Now Crysis is out and it's probably the best looking game out there at the moment. It looks so good the four main guys who did the effects were nominated for this year's VES awards. Guess who was on that list? You're right.

Well the results came out yesterday and Halo 3 (not Crysis) won.

For me Tiago was the great winner of the night. It's rare for a portuguese guy to be working in games and I can't recall the last time one of "us" was nominated for an award in this field. He is setting an awesome example for all of us and he's proof people whould be doing what they like to do in order to achieve better results.

1up

2008-02-08T12:38:00.001-08:00

Isn't this a nifty surprise.

I came to London to get a course about 3D for Games that was separated in two parts, the basic learning of Maya (and it goes far beyond the basics in my opinion) and the long awaited Games part. Well, the Games part was postponed for May 12. I don't usually think this but portuguese curse words swarmed to my brain after about thirty seconds of vacuum.

12 weeks of nothing in between courses, 12 expensive weeks if I stay here and a lot of time to wait. 12 weeks in Portugal would make me lose the rythm I have now and I don't want that. They were very correct and talked individually to every student that had paid for the course and they volunteered do refund them for the cost of the course they weren't having, plus £500. I really wanted to take the course so I told them they didn't have to give the money back if I was just going to take the course the next time they would teach it.

I went and talked to the course managers to see if I could get a place in a studio or something, whick is something which I usually don't do but this time I felt like it was worth taking the chance. Seems like I hit the jackpot. I was offered a respectable discount wich allows me to be in the VFX course as well. This changed my life from now on.

Now I have to study and work for two distinct areas but without a doubt I'll have a bigger preparation. It's all happening so fast.

The world's coolest wrapper

2008-02-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

Sorry about all the posts with pictures but I just had to show you this. I went out to top up my Oyster card with a weekly bus pass but when I saw this I had to get it too.

Gaze of the awesomeness of this Snickers bar.

Fanboy

2008-02-02T14:13:00.000-08:00

Mornings

2008-02-02T06:19:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to my new morning routine in a few photos. These are some of the things I have been seeing everyday for the last month.

This is what you see when you're on the top floor of those big red buses.

This is BBC Victoria Road.

Normal-looking London street.

This is amazing and I don't know if it's an advert or just rare good-taste vandalism! Anyway I had to take a few pictures of this.

This is Shepherd's Bush Green and a big bus stopping us from seeing it properly.

...how could I forget?

Notebook over, third pen approaching the same fate

2008-01-29T11:52:00.001-08:00

(Art by fellow deviantArt member Transfuse)

Finally we got to poly week. Now I am learning what I really wanted to learn in terms of modeling.

Now that I'm in the U.K. I remembered I can buy some games for my Gamecube on ebay.co.uk and pay less for the postage charges. This is what I have been doing the last few days. Bidding and comparing prices. If all goes well I will have all the major Gamecube games during the next month. (the very top of the charts and some original -cheap- ones)

Today the I got the first one and it rocks. It hasn't got any scratches and really looks new. It's Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. I started playing the first one this weekend and I can't believe this got right past me when it was released. It is without a doubt one of the most beautiful, most intelligent and certainly one of the best games I have ever played. It really pulls you in.

I hadn't become this hooked in a game for a while. Neither had I cursed one while playing (save for Resident Evil 4). After it got extinct the Gamecube started to amaze me and I am loving everything it has offered me so far.

Demo or Die!

2008-01-27T05:14:00.000-08:00

Well this may come as a shocking title if you don't know this sentence. It exists for almost every subculture so don't be offended by it. It just means demoscene is a pretty important thing for some people.

Anyway, free things are always welcome, right?

I recently found these DVDs called "Demo or Die!" and they are pretty good actually. It's basically a selection of demos captured in video that spans for five DVDs (so far, I bet bartman will make another one with the demos that were released in 2007 because some were astonishing). They are mainly PC demos. I would like some captures from other platforms because I don't have them. I know about emulators, though. It's not the same thing.

It's useful if you want to watch demos in a big screen or if you want to introduce someone to the scene. I recently downloaded all of them and the selection fits my taste almost perfectly.

...did I mention they're free to download?

Accents

2008-01-24T11:21:00.000-08:00

Ever since I heard the first british person talking in my way here I thought "Well, I might as well try to mimic the accent so they understand me better" and sometimes I do. Just some words, actually. It must sound really weird for them. Some sentences have the accent right or partially right and some of them are way off, some just stray near the end - it really depends on the mood. So far I have been understood.

Let's hear my english in two months and see if it has evolved. Right now I can tell it's more fluid. I can speak way faster and pick the right words most of the time. When I can't fix a sentence I go back, like resetting it. It works.

Despite all my efforts to blend in, having three portuguese classmates creates some awkward situations where we start talking in portuguese to one another. Sometimes it's faster, sometimes the perfect expression for it is in portuguese ("foleiro" por exemplo!) and I believe sometimes we just need to hear some more people speaking in portuguese.

I asked a classmate how portuguese language sounds to them and he said it sounds like Russian. I guess it's the way we say the "R" or something.

[edit:] Well, I asked another classmate and she said it sounds nothing like russian. She couldn't find a language that sounds like portuguese but she said spanish sounds way different. She's amazed how we can figure out most of what they're saying.

Second pen is over

2008-01-22T13:45:00.000-08:00

...tomorrow.

I thought it would be today but as this is "NURBS week" we reviewed something about NURBS I had already written about in the notebook. I don't find NURBS interesting and learning more about them is showing me that they are even less useful than I thought (because when you render them they are tesselated in triangles, so they don't look as smooth as a purely organic shape) and polygons make a lot more sense to me.

I have picked up the two models I was making after classes a couple of times last week. I simply can't complete them. I can't work on them on week days. Not after spending about seven hours a day in front of Maya. As much as I like the program and want do spend my life working on it, I can't do it all day, all the time. I really like the models and I would like to finish them and begin some new ones but it seems I really give out all of my daily awareness to the classes. I pay a lot of attention and keep asking questions and taking notes while doing what Gideon is doing in Maya. I feel like I have to take the most of them and this is the result. Brain drain.
When I get home I can't do anything that strains my brain so I have been watching Rurouni Kenshin and the X-Files.

I still hope I can take care of them in the weekends. At least the school projects we'll do in two weeks will be nice addictions to my portfolio but I still want to create some more. Also, the whole "Games" part of the course will have some interesting results.

Is this vandalism to you?

2008-01-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

It's not vandalism to me.
(This is near Central Middlesex Hospital, London)

First pen down

2008-01-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

When I got here and realized I hadn't brought a pen with me I borrowed one and took my notes. In the end of that first day as an Escapee I bought a pack with two and another notebook. One week and a half later the first pen is finished, the second one is at less than half and the notebook is more than half full.

Almost every page is filled with notes and small sketches to help me understand it when I look at them in THE FUTURE. I don't want to forget a thing.

This picture is what we see near the Lounge Room where we take our breaks and where the coffee machine is (who some people seem to love). There's a wii, a xbox 360, controlers and some games in an unlocked cupboard but we still haven't touched them. We talk about them all the time when we are there, mainly because the wii is always turned on and the screen is projected on a wall. Oh, what these guys do to tease us. Finding the remotes was too easy.

Some more delicious cakes

2008-01-15T12:07:00.000-08:00

I once wrote a post about a videogame wedding from one of the Blizzard's guys but here are some more videogame delicacies I found lying around the internet. There's crazy people everywhere, but this is wonderful. Interesting-looking food is nice once in a while. I know I just said that but I think if I ate a slice of any of these I would feel like I was destroying a work of art.

A delicious work of art.

This one is a NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). Remotes and all.

If I identify this you'll probably feel insulted, so I won't.

Really cool Super Mario Mario Bros one.

Wind Waker cake featuring Zelda Gashapons on top. No, they are not eatable.

Detail on Tetra and Link gashapons.

Incredible Fallout "Bloody Mess" cake.

I have a few more crazy fanatic things about gaming in my hard drive, hang around if you want to see them. I just felt like breathing some fresh air into this blog.

First Week

2008-01-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

Lisbon airport. The day was cloudy in order to give me a smooth weather transition.

Yes, this queue leads me to the place where they told me I had over 7 kgs of extra weight in my main bag. Luckily they didn't complain about the hand luggage until I was inside the plane.

This is what I saw during most of the trip.

This is what I see every morning. The bus stop is near the end of the road, to the left. Note the cars ride on the wrong side of the road here. I get confused all the time when I am crossing the streets. Some places have "Look Left/Right" imprinted near the sidewalk.

This is what I see if I look back. I am sharing this place with about 12 people but I still haven't met all of them. The ones I met were extremely nice.

The second time I saw the Biffas I had a camera on my pocket. Aren't they gorgeous?

As you can see today was my first trip do a near supermarket, Asda (not Asma!). It's near but I still have to get there by bus. See if you can spot some familiar brands. I'll explain part of the reason why the salt is there too, it's not that obvious for people who don't know what I am talking about. Notice the healthy-looking food.

Now I'll do the laundry for the first time in my life.

R.I.P. SegaWorld

2008-01-12T07:17:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I was studying English in Azambuja. Every year near Easter (i think) they organized a trip to somewhere in the UK. Going there was not the main point of interest for me.

For me the coolest things about actually going there were:
-Travelling by airplane for the first time
-Checking if those English guardsmen weren't realistic statues with silly hats
-Having the chance of being the first person to meet the Loch Ness monster
-Spending a few days with my friends and colleagues in an informal environment
-Having the chance to go to SEGAWORLD!

Needless to say it would always be an expensive trip so I never went on one. The desire of going to SegaWorld came back every year. It faded when they chose to go to Scotland (happened a few times). I thought things like "When I grow up I'll go to SegaWorld once a year" because Sega was my favorite videogame company at the time (Nintendo was a close second) and I imagined all sorts of amazing things would be inside, like being able to play on the arcades for free or even Virtual Reality! It was my Disneyland.

I never saw pictures of it and I wasn't sure it actually existed but I trusted the guy who told me.

When the Sega Dreamcast was officially extinct the company still continued to develop games. It kept on making games and Sonic still popped up sometimes (most of the times I wish he didn't, but there were a couple of good games). It even went as far as joining Mario and Sonic in "Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games" recently.

In October I came to London mainly for London Game Career Fair so I wasn't here in a tourist trip. I got a free day before the flight but I used it to go to Escape Studios talk to Joseph and it led me to where I am now. I didn't check anything on SegaWorld but I hoped it was still there.

Yesterday I was beginning to face the weekend as some time to check this part of the city and I remembered to check it out on the internet. If you want to read about it ckeck here. Though I expected it to have disappeared by now some part of me wanted it to still be there. I never got to visit it. Neither did I ever have a Sega Console.

A series of tubes

2008-01-10T11:57:00.000-08:00

The speed they teach at Escape (and I really mean teach, not just casually mention things) is nothing short of amazing. To have an idea of that speed check out this. It's the best way I can show you.

Internet in my room suddenly made me feel at home. I could contact with everyone without going to a payphone or using up my 20 minute breaks to check Gmail. Now you'll probably get more pictures if I find them interesting. I don't mean to turn this into a diary, though. I will still write some stories I think will be fun to read but I don't want to make this feel like a chore.

Ok, so fun things! I found out the teacher of the Games part of the course will be a guy who worked on Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (which has a studio in London by the way) and was involved in games like "The Getaway: Black Monday", "This is Football" and"EyeToy Kinetic". This is really exciting for anyone who likes videogames. I'm looking forward to it.

And thanks PRE for mentioning me in his blog (and consequently prt.sc)! You-ve tripled the views this blog has per day for a day, let's see how it goes from here. Thank you too, Google Analytics.

First Day

2008-01-08T09:12:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I wrote about the arrival so today I'll write about the first day. For starters I woke up before the time and only had half an hour till the alarm clock would explode so I turned on the DS (I missed it, hadn't touched it for days) and turned on Chessmaster. Played about 6 chess games and lost them all. Hmm...I guess I hadn't played chess for a while too.
After leaving the house I felt like taking a picture and so I did. The sir who I am renting this room to appeared from the back and scared me, he looked amused.

Once again, kind of lost. I guess this is happening because I am not taking the underground, I am using the bus. It's way cheaper.

Walked around for half an hour but got there five minutes late. The breakfast was already gone. Those guys ate a lot and I hadn't taken breakfast because they said there would be food. They presented us to the main people there and separated us into the appropriate studios. I'm in studio 2 with the rest of the Maya Core guys. To my surprise the first guy I talked to was portuguese (but I couldn't have guessed because he said his name is Perseus). He quickly introduced me to the other two portuguese guys in the room (a Miguel and another Manuel).
The teacher is Gideon and he's one of the most organized people I've ever seen. He really understands Maya and its logic and really knows how to explain things. I do not regret choosing to take the Maya Core as well because this first day already taught me a lot I didn't know. I could find lunch in a mall for less than 2 pounds which is awesome.

When I got there I realized I had forgotten to bring a pen. No, not from the room. From Portugal. I brought a notepad though. I thought this was ironic until I found a guy who only brought a pen. Ha!

After a while I remembered the school PCs have internet so in the last 20 minute break I started checking my e-mails. I stayed there an hour later than the end of the class just to answer what I could.
Got lost again returning home because I thought I had missed the bus stop and left a few ones earlier. After walking for a while a guy told me the better way was to get into a bus and do the rest of the way like that. It's really humiliating but it's what I did.

I am trying out a new approach, writing these posts at home and just copying and pasting them into the blog when I'm at the studios. I am getting really sleepy now, this was a really tiring first day.

Chapter 1 Begins

2008-01-07T09:30:00.000-08:00

(If you can't see the picture clearly, it's a recicling bin that says "Biffas". It was one of the first things I saw this morning and I thought it was hilarious. If you are portuguese you'll certainly get this.)

Well, the trip was smooth but the real trouble started after getting out of the airplane. I had pointed out that the bags were overweight and we had to pay 45 euros extra in Lisbon just because of that. In London I had to wait an hour for the first bus out (missed it for about five minutes while I was calling my parents) then after an hour and a half (Luton is outside London) I got on the underground.

I must remind you that I was carrying one 27 kg bag in one hand and an overweight pilot handbag (a Gamecube and my laptop inside with lots more) in the other, plus one bag with water and plug adaptors for the electricity and I was climbing stairs! Of course after two hours I was already feeling my arms were quite tired and in the end I admit it, I screamed a couple of times just by looking at stairs. Today I feel I was on an Olympic rowing competition and won first place.

Oh, and I must say I was kind of lost for a while (wich didn't help at all - more stairs). Nevertheless I got home and...I'll tell you the rest some other time. I got pictures too but right now I'm at Escape and I have no way of getting them in here.

Preparing for liftoff

2008-01-05T08:31:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'll leave for London. I am getting more anxious than I thought I would be. I could barely sleep today. Though this is a dream come true and a long thought goal, I am already missing some people and some places. Seeing a friend of mine hold her tears as I left and knowing she let it all out after I was gone really affected me.

Well, the show must go on. This is probably the best part of my life, the part where I can still choose paths. The part where I can still make my dreams come true. They have to understand it and I am making my best to explain why I'm doing this. It's the right time and I have the resources. I am escaping mediocrity and building a career I can be proud of.

Oh, and I bought a camera to record this stage of my life so prepare for a visual report too. I could post one of the few pictures I took to test it, but I think this one says it all.

WIP - Fanboy

2008-01-04T06:19:00.000-08:00

When I decided I wanted to take this course and my parents supported me I immediately started learning the things they will be teaching me there. Why? Because I believe that a good warm-up is important and I want to be ready for everything.

My objective was to start learning Maya from scratch (for the second time, though I didn't know much in the first one) and to complete a 3D character that could be put into a videogame. I set a poly limit, drew a small sketch and started modeling.

Here's the sketch:
And this is the point where I left it (1750 tris):

And already close to Christmas I started the fan (and took off the lights):

There's still a long way to go, but I had never done something close to this. I had never layed down UVs, created a texture or even created a humanoid model. Painting textures is awesome, I really want to spend more time learning it.

I leave in two days, my posts will take some more time to appear here because I don't know what kind of internet connection I'll have (or even if I'll have it at home). Wish me luck.

Nintendo 64 kid

2008-01-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

There is a slight chance you guys haven't seen this video so I'll give you the link here.

It's basically a kid who gets a N64 for Christmas and then starts going wild about it. Saying it is the best gift ever for him isn't enough for him. He has to shout, shake his fist to the heavens and even start a drum solo on the box.

I never had one.

This New Year's Eve I was with a bunch of guys who used to play it back then and they played Mario Kart and Goldeneye. I felt like a kid again watching them play, but the way their eyes shone as one of them found the cartridge of Goldeneye and showed it to them without a word made me absolutely sure this is the path I want to take.

Man, this video is just awesome.

Family's reactions to this

2007-12-27T03:12:00.000-08:00

A while ago I was wondering wether I should quit the degree I was taking or just bear with it and put my dreams on a shelf. As you can see I chose my dreams over a diploma. This may sound romantic and it actually is, but there's a downside to it and that is having to tell the same story over and over again, mainly to friends and family.

This happens all the time with almost everything I do but this time it's a bit more serious. Decisions like these shape the rest of my life, they close some doors and open others. Some make sense and others don't. Some seem they don't make much sense and a while later they do, like working as a mascot, dressed like a big orange seahorse near the beach.

Most of the times after telling the same story a few times I lose the love of telling it, I change my mind but tell it the same way, realizing I don't feel the same about it. I try not to make it too obvious though. The people who know me better have noticed I changed the way I talked about that degree, the most attentive ones know I stopped talking about it in the same way after I spent a while there. Part of my family was happy knowing I was taking a degree and studying near the place they were born and I didn't want to disappoint them.

They had no idea about my main interests. I don't talk that openly to them because most of the time I would be talking about topics they know nothing about. This has been going on for years now. This Christmas I only asked for money to help paying the London course. Now they know it's real. They agreed and instead of getting a book, videogame or DVD I got an envelope. Well, four envelopes by now.

Most of them are afraid everything might go wrong but they support me still. It's great and I like repeating stories about this new path over and over again. Sorry about it. I am not losing any enthusiasm right now. I take it as a really good thing.

One step closer

2007-12-24T06:28:00.000-08:00

My dad found a cool room with an awesome price in London. It's a lot cheaper than most which is nice and it's near the school I'll be attending. It's all coming together!

...oh, and Merry Christmas to you too!

Good Characters

2007-12-20T14:06:00.000-08:00

After some years reading novels, watching anime, movies and playing videogames I noticed one of the things these things lack the most are good characters. They are what pulls me into whatever it is and it can create awesome dialogues in wich what the characters say is much more important than what they do say.

The best characters I found were mostly in a few fantasy books and in a few animes. On the books, Raistlin Majere of the Dragonlance series (hence the blogger nickname) and Drizzt Do'Urden from the Forgotten Realms. In the animes they shone brighter. What I felt about the characters in Neon Genesis Evangelion was nothing like what I felt about the characters in Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. I related to them, I felt at home and I loved them for the good parts and all the flaws. I miss those characters.

In most other places I find generic and one-dimensional characters which only fill the vacancies for "tough guy", "blonde/brunette/redhead bombshell", "nerdy teenager" or "evil mastermind" and nothing else. I watch the movies and half an hour later I can't even remember their names.

In videogames I count by the fingers of my hands the characters wich had that kind of impact. Just off the top of my head the best I remember is Guybrush Threepwood.

Hats off to Tim Shafer.

Polycount

2007-12-17T07:23:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you about an online forum that I recently began frequenting. It's Polycount and it has taught me a lot of things just by reading some of the threads there. It's a forum focused on 3D for videogames and there seem to be a lot of people who really know a lot about it there. I only made a few posts there to get some constructive comments on a model I am doing and those guys helped me right from the start. That whole "sincerity" post came from that. The first comment I got there was a negative one and it was ok. I needed to "hear" that.

The adress is: http://boards.polycount.net/

To give you an idea of the relevant info existant there take a look at these:

The ultimate be-all end-all normal mapping thread
Color and Specular Maps

Oh man, the world needs more places like these. The world or the internet anyway...

The Journey - Prologue

2007-12-13T08:51:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you of the secondary point of my blog. As you may have read in the title, I want to document my steps from being a videogame art enthusiast to...well, to where I may go.

Here's the point I'm at:

I quit the degree I was taking in order to pursue a better education and to point my forthcoming career in the right direction. After a time of indecision and a lot of experimentation I finally admitted to myself and to everybody else the path I want to take is in art for videogames.

I worked in the summer and I used that money to go to the London Game Career Fair, where I talked to people from some of the companies that made some of my favorite videogames and they answered a lot of my questions about careers in the area. I felt welcome there.

After I got back I started learning Maya again, this time a lot more motivated and the results started to show right away. Maybe I'll start showing the models here. I contacted some of the people I admire in order to seek advice and they were so kind I don't know to thank them properly. I have tried, though.

When the next year begins I'll start packing and a few days later I'm off to London again, this time to take an intensive 3D course in a good training place.

Then the real Journey begins.

Challenges

2007-12-10T09:56:00.000-08:00

What do you need to get out of the couch? I could bet a good challenge would do it.

In my opinion they are the best way to learn and if it works for me, it probably works for anyone. I will state this as a biographical note but it's only an example. If you understand this you'll probably ignore the biographical part. If you understood the first sentence you'll probably won't need to read the whole post.

First challenge: Learn Art, Make art

The second or third time I got interested in game development was the time I decided to register myself in a portuguese game development forum, GameDev-PT. Quickly I came to the conclusion I had to contribute to the community. In short, how could I be seen as an artist if I had almost no pieces to show?

Second Challenge: Be useful to a team

When I started reading posts I found a guy recruiting every kind of game developer to be on his team to make a groudbreaking massive online game (for gamers, MMORPG with a FPS interface). I contacted him and quickly I was on the team. Now I only had to make a difference there. Initially I was the only one so it wasn't much of a challenge. Despite that, I created a schedule for me. One A4 page filled with concept sketches a day. I had classes at the same time so it seemed reasonable.

The project eventually crumbled but I learned a few things and I mastered new tools. I met people related to that area and I came one step further to achieving my dream.

Third challenge: Figuring out what to do next

After that I had no team and no project, so I created my own. With that I kept learning by myself until I was in a team again and after that I got back to my projects, learning so that I can be even more useful next time.

In a nutshell, I dare you to learn and to make something you're proud of.

Videogame Wedding

2007-12-08T05:03:00.000-08:00

And now for something completely different.

Sometimes I think of myself as a geek but things like these make me feel like a noob. One of the guys from Blizzard got married a while ago and he had a videogame-themed marriage. It's not a Blizzard-videogame themed one, the photos indicate a more Nintendo-themed approach.

The wedding's entrance music was The Legend of Zelda main theme and the party music was the Super Mario Bros one. The tables were named after videogame consoles, according to their actual timeline. The head table was called "Press Start to Begin"...and just look at the cake!

I wish I could have been there!

Full article and more photos here.

Sincerity

2007-12-06T09:41:00.000-08:00

In the past years I spent a bit of time in online forums. Those were enough to give me an idea of how they work and let me tell you this: it's rare to find an extremely sincere person and those guys have the most valuable opinions.

You will probably hate your first encounters with these guys because they are the ones who have the guts to tell you which parts of the works you show are wrong. They are the ones who notice the parts that could be better and point them out. They are likely to have a whole lot more experience than you and they know of the importance of their sincerity. If you understand what they have to say you'll get better quicker. Trust me.

Good comments made by friends feel awesome but they are not neutral comments because those people want to see you happy and they will always say it looks great. If you can take all these comments in a constructive way you'll grow to a point where you'll be sincere and people will hear you roar. And you'll be right.

Scenemusic

2007-12-04T09:32:00.000-08:00

A while ago I wrote a post about videogame music. It was not the only important kind of music in that period of my life. Another important presence and fuel was scenemusic. As it name kind of indicates it is music produced in the Demoscene subculture and it deserves a good listen. As demos, it's free.

Some of these musicians are really good at what they do and even though I don't know them all I leave you the links of my favorite ones.

Podcasts:
Surprise!Podcast This rocks so hard. The best podcast I know.
Hardread Podcast Also good but I haven't explored it much.

Musicians:
Little Bitchard I was a fan of a bunch of demoscene musicians. After looking at a list of this guy's aliases it turns out I am only a big fan of one!
Jeroen Tel Awesome 8bit sounds.

Collections:
Demovibes 80 minute compilations of the best scenemusic ready for burning on CDs. It's really good for people who are out of the scene.

Netlabel:
Enough Records Netlabel from fellow demoscener ps.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Dreams are important

2007-12-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

I had heard lots of beautiful stories about dreams and giving everything you can to achieve them. I heard people saying it is really worth it.

Well, it is.

I haven't achieved most of them but the ones I did were worth it. They were the bottom of the ladder in terms of my personal dream list but they gave me the strenght to start climbing it to see where I can go. The dreams you have when you are younger shape you and make you way more receptive for the things you are interested the most.

That means if you're interested in something from an early age you pay attention to that area, perhaps even look for some answers and information about the subject. You have the time to decide if you would like to spend the rest of your life inside that world. You'll likely be better off in an area you are inclined to do than what your parents want you to do. It's not what they thought but when they see you happy with your decision, whatever it may be, they'll be happy too.

If you like several things, make a list. It may actually be worth writing in order of importance because it puts things on a new perspective and can help you later on.

My dreams were mostly impossible in the country where I live but I discarded the ones I liked the least and now even the country is changing and it's starting to meet the conditions I needed to achieve them. Dare to dream.

Good luck!

(Photo by UK street artist Banksy)

3D created graphic whores

2007-11-30T06:42:00.000-08:00

This post is going to raise a few eyebrows.

As 3D came into the videogame world and became a standard because "it made things look more realistic", 2D was shoved to the corner of childish things. By the time of the Nintendo 64 and the Sony Playstation the standard was 3D. It was the future Sega Saturn had pointed years before.

By that time 3D was cool because it was new. Bad 3D was chosen over good 2D because a lot of people thought it was cooler. Ok, it gave people the chance to do new things because they could move the camera and all that. It represented technological breakthroughs in the hardware and programming side of things.

3D games were hot and 2D were not, or so it seemed. There were exceptions, of course. The interesting part is that some games were proud to be 2D and some of them were only fun because they were planned that way. Money was speaking high and there were conversions. Lots of conversions. Some of them were rubbish but a few pearls were created. Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid. New genres of gaming came from that time. The classic DOOM spawned thousands of clones and a few were good.

Where was 2D? Mainly in puzzle games and RPGs and mostly on the PC. I love good 2D graphics and by that time the best games kicked in. Awesome RPGs like Diablo, Baldur's Gate and Fallout showed up. Worms came out of nowhere and gathered a cult success by sheer fun and humor.

With these new generations of consoles and graphic cards the emphasis is on the graphics instead of the concept of the game, good characters or stories. I know people who can't enjoy a game if it's not running at full speed and full resolution and that actually makes me sad. They spend hundreds on pc parts to have the games running like that. They only play games and don't use it for anything else.

Nowadays people are divided in various sectors but the people who really enjoy games for what they are couldn't care less if the game is in 2D or 3D as long as it is good.

The coolest tattoo I've ever seen

2007-11-28T12:46:00.000-08:00

Wow. WOW. A few years ago I was a fan of tattoos and even wanted to have one done, but I have a phobia for needles and really couldn't find something I would not regret having on my skin for the rest of my life.

I kind of lost interest but today I spend the day sick at home and decided to finish The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker on the Gamecube. After that I went to look for some pictures of concept art of even screenshots to further study its wonderful graphics and I found THIS.

I have no words to describe it other than "The coolest tattoo I've ever seen".

Here is a photoshop mockup of what it will look like when colored:

Further info here.

Learning from books

2007-11-26T10:15:00.000-08:00

Today a book I ordered from Amazon arrived. It's about creating 3D models for games from sketch to rigs and normal maps. This has reminded me that I should probably talk about learning from books.

In my humble opinion a book is good as long as you commit yourself to it. If you don't take it seriously you aren't going to learn. It can even be the best book ever written and it just won't work.

You can also learn from the internet and the same rules apply. The major difference is that a book can gather most of the topics you need and a tutorial can talk about a subject only. This means you will probably need a tutorial per subject and there's a high chance at least one of the tutorials is about a previous or newer version of the program and one of the tools will be in a different place. A book like this can help you from the start of your project to finish and you don't need to be looking at a screen the entire time.

I mean, after writing this I will pick it up, go downstairs and enjoy a quiet evening near the fireplace, learning and resting my eyes. How good does it sound?

Pretty good to me.

Super Mario Bros theme has lyrics

2007-11-25T04:48:00.000-08:00

A while ago I was told this and I was amazed and nostalgic at the same time. You probably don't know this, but the Super Mario Bros Theme has lyrics. Not just any kind of lyrics. In fact they are really japanese ones. If you know the japanese culture you'll get why.

Go Go Mario

Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
Go save Princess Peach! Go!
Today, full of energy, Mario runs
Today, full of energy, jumping!
Today, full of energy, searching for coins
Today, keep going, Mario!

Get a mushroom - it's Super Mario!
Get a flower - it's Fire Mario!

Goomba! Troopa! Buzzy Beetle! Beat them all!
Mario is always full of energy and strong!

[Spoken] The only one who can reverse the spell that has captured the Mushroom People is Princess Peach. But Princess Peach is hidden underground, in a far-off castle. Ah, the days of peace... if we could once more return to those days... to save Princess Peach and bring peace back to the Mushroom Kingdom, that is why Mario is on his journey today.

Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
Go and beat the Koopa tribe, go!
Today, full of energy, Mario runs
Today, full of energy, jumping!
Today, full of energy, searching for coins
Today, keep going, Mario!

Get a star - become invincible!
Quickly, go save Princess Peach!

Lakitu! Blooper! Cheep Cheep! Beat them all!
Mario is always full of energy and strong!

Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
He's made it to the castle and gets fireworks!
Lightly sidestepping the Hammer Bros.
Show the last of your power, Mario!
It's been a long journey but it's nearly at an end
You've done it, you've done it! You've defeated Bowser!

Princess Peach says "Thank you"
Mario's got a great big heart!

Mario's adventure is over for now, but
Mario's dream lives forever...

For the complete article and video of a live performance, chech this link.

3D Tutorials for Maya Beginners

2007-11-23T10:46:00.000-08:00

As a Maya beginner I have been searching for tutorials on the several parts of making a 3D model for videogames. Lowpoly and highpoly, I have been reading about it all in order to have an idea of the whole process from sketch to game engine.

I recently formatted my PC and lost my bookmarks, but these are the best tutorials I have found so far:

3D Modeler's Network
Texturing by 3D Total
Maya UV mapping
UV 101 (highend 3D)
UV 101 continues
Continuity(NURBS Oriented but you'll understand why it's important)
Making models for Quake
Making a model for UT2004

As you can see from the list I am having a bit of trouble with the UVs and the best help I had so far were these videos from Youtube. You really can find everything there.

Video 1
Video 2

Realistic vs Stylized

2007-11-22T12:34:00.000-08:00

When you consider the look and feel of a game and think of visual flaws, which games come to mind? Most likely the games you think of immediately are a couple of games that try to be realistic.

In my opinion this is their biggest flaw. They try to be so realistic that it becomes terribly hard to make. With that comes criticism. The game may look better, but the flaws are way more noticeable. They pop right out of the screen into the eyes of everyone in the room. Gamers and non-gamers alike get a little disappointed at it and if there are more, they may cease to take the game environment seriously. It breaks the suspension of disbelief.

With stylized or cartoon games we can live on with those flaws because they don't actually matter most of the time. You'll think "Ok, he's laying there like a board even with half his body off the set. Ok he just got up. It's Super Smash Bros, who cares? Now let me try this...(mumble mumble)". The whole environment is cartoon and we don't expect the same level of realism. It just draws you away from all the fun.

Some of these games try to be so accurate in their mechanics in order to achieve realism that it becomes rather hard to play even a simple game. Comparing racer titles, Burnout titles are fun and rewarding and GT games are visually pleasant but ultimately boring to me.

To resume, I think full realism is only useful for accurate simulations. If you want to shoot people and have the whole environment in Full HD, perfect physics and all that...try AirSoft. If you want a racer, try karting and if you want realistic football play it with friends, far away from the TV screen.

Videogame webcomics

2007-11-21T11:53:00.001-08:00

One of the things I use to complete my suite of videogaming goodness are webcomics about videogames! That's right, there are webcomics about games as there are comics about anything else. Some of them are really good and they get updated regularly.

This things are great and...free! That's right, you can keep saving up for the new hot games and read these at the same time.

Below are my favorite ones on the subject. Behold!

Penny Arcade (a Legend among webcomics)
Ctrl+Alt+Del
Machall (this one is over, but it was great)
Extralife (not always on topic)
PVP Online
Megatokyo (not always on topic)
Gone with the Blastwave (not directly about videogames, but it reminds me of Fallout!)

Enjoy!

Videogame-related Events

2007-11-20T09:29:00.001-08:00

What better way to get some answers from people from the industry than really asking them face to face?

If you're really interested in making videogames I advise you to use your free time looking for information and answers and most of all actually making your own projects, be it art or programming. I have written about the importance of online forums and learning with them but if you play your cards right you can get an insane amount of information in a videogame-related event.

I have only been in a few and only one of them was relatively serious but I tried to get the best of it. I believe I succeded. There you can get information about the skills you need to get the kind of job you want, you can deliver portfolios and business cards. You can go to the company's booths and ask them a few questions.

Also, booth babes.

One of the best parts is realizing it's not impossible. Those guys aren't superheroes, they are people. They have a sense of humor and they love games. They may work at one of the coolest game companies and still get excited about a game their rivals released. Most of them took a chance and that's why they are there.

I want to be there. If you want it too try to go to every game-related fair you can.

Good luck.

Demoscene

2007-11-19T03:22:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in computer graphics ou may have come across this name in the past. This is a text for the ones who haven't heard it yet.

If you happen to be a gamer, the word "demo" is of course a demonstration of a game. Something that lets you try the gameplay for a while, an interactive limited experience. Well, this is not right. Demos can also be the showcase of a programmer's work or in this case, a technical showoff crafted out of time and love by their makers with the main purpose of making your jaw drop.

Demos started as signatures for cracked software and soon began to gather attention to themselves and now they are separate areas. Who make these things? They are called Demogroups and are composed of a short number of people who spend their free time learning and working together in order to build a piece of non-interactive software. They have several goals, like making the most realistic-looking real-time graphics, creating envolving atmospheres by using graphics and sound, letting their message come through or sometimes just making all of this using the smallest amount of space. This can go as low as 1kb.

There are demos for every platform I can remember. All the gaming consoles, PC, I have even seen 3D demos run on cell-phones!

A lot of people do this to win competitions but there are those who do it just for the fun. The best part of this is the non-commercial attitude. It's refreshing to see something so good be distributed freely online. That's why I can provide you with links so you actually get to see what I'm talking about!

These are some of my favorite demos. (Debris has some problems with AVG Free because of the compression algorytm, so please avoid it if you have it installed. If you have to do this it's too bad because it rocks.)

"1995" by Kewlers
fr-025:the.popular.demo
fr-041: debris
STS-02: Electric Kool-Aid
Gerbera by Moppi Productions
Lifeforce by ASD

Want more? Check Scene.org or Pouet.net.

If you didn't understand yet, this is a great way to learn computer graphics from either the art or the programming side. Most demosceners say they are anti-gamers but deep inside they love them.

And don't forget to come to Breeze Demoparty 2008!

I love Lifeforce.

P.S: Zeroshift, you can has demo: Metal Flirt by Napalm Core

Old-school Videogames and me

2007-11-18T05:50:00.000-08:00

I was lucky to start playing videogames at an early age but I missed a lot of the now-called old-school classic videogames. I was paying attention to them, though. Watching some videogame-related tv shows, reading magazines and talking to my friends kept me up to date on the new ones.

I loved when we visited a friend or relative which had a videogame console or cool PC games. I ignored everything else and played it with its owner. This may seem unsensitive and maybe it is, but it was the chance to play the Super Mario and Sonic games (my favorite ones at the time).

At home I played SimCity (yes, the first one!), Supaplex, Rodent and another videogame about the Olympic games on the PC. It was nice, but they weren't my favorite games. I wanted to play something from Sega, or Nintendo! Those guys delivered good games that hooked me right from the start. They created characters that looked cool and videogames that seemed long and fun.

When I was introduced to the Game Boy and the Game Gear my brain almost couldn't handle the excitement. I couldn't handle the cost, either. When I learned the price and counted my savings, it remained a dream.

When I got my first Game Boy Pocket for my birthday, my life changed.

Online Forums

2007-11-17T05:05:00.000-08:00

Two years ago I had only registered myself in one online forum. After a whole lot of them in which I wasn't really relevant and one in which I was a moderator, I have learned a lot more than if I was just fiddling with the programs I was trying to use.

Online forums are a great way to show what you are doing in order to get good feedback. You just have to choose them well. Lurk around them, read the new and old posts for a few days and if you think it's worth it, dive in.

You'll probably feel more confident about yourself if you get a few compliments, but you also need to know how to introduce yourself or else you may sink. You have to be humble and open to criticism. You can't go in and write your posts like you're trying to teach them, otherwise they'll refuse to read what you have to say.

Don't be overjoyed by everything you read there. Really. Somethings are worth it but other times if you don't say something constructive about it it will be like spam. I have read a lot of "ZOMG THAST AWSUM HOW DIDYA DOIT??!!?!?!??!" posts and I hate it. Even the person who posted the thing you adore so much will most likely be scared and confused by comments like that.

Show your work. If you're in an artist's forum, you won't be taken seriously unless you prove you're worth it. A fancy diploma doesn't help you here. Either you give constructive feedback or you show some good work. Sounds easy, right?

The last thing I have to say is: Please write properly in online forums. If I have to translate 13375p34k or street talk it is most likely not worth my time. Mine or anyone else's, so it's spam again.

Worldwide forums for artists:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/
http://www.conceptart.org/
http://boards.polycount.net/ubbthreads.php

I am portuguese, so here are a few more links for the Luso ones:
http://www.gamedev-pt.net/
http://www.dimensao3.com/forum/index.php

If I forgot something don't be shy to comment!

Learning Art

2007-11-16T02:38:00.000-08:00

I am not the perfect example for what I'm about to say, but this is the way I think.

I am one of those who think if you want to learn Art for videogames, you first need to learn Art in general. You may not realize the importance of it at start, but there will be a whole lot of conflict situations that are important. I for one hated some of the most famous painters and didn't understand what was so special about some of the most famous works of traditional and modern art.

Studying it really put it all on perspective. Knowing the context in which they were created is crucial to understanding them. I don't love most of it anyway, but I understand it and I know here to look if I seek some more information about it.

You will be asked to create some weird things in a short period of time. It's good practice and your brain will be trained for weird situations, wich is nice. Frequently they will ask you to change most of the things you've done near the end of it. I believe this is on purpose so that you'll be trained to be flexible. You never know what your bosses will ask you next.

Learning how to draw is the most important part of it. You will begin by making weird doodles that are abstract and they will probably mean nothing to you but after a while you will be learning the most important things such as perspective, proportion and shading. Drawing people is also extremely important if you want to be a Character Designer.

The best think you can do is train while you're at it. When you can choose a subject for a research, choose one you think it's going to be useful to you. If the class is extremely boring, draw something! If the daily trip for school is long, even better. You have a chance to read books, draw a few things, look at people (it's actually important, you know), make plans. If you have to take that trip with a friend, talk about everything that pops into your mind. You'll have made a friend for life by the end.

When you've finished it you'll feel like it went on pretty quick, despite some long nights doing weird things or missing school to look for a rare material that is only sold in one place of the city you're in. It's all part of it.

Videogame Music

2007-11-15T08:42:00.000-08:00

One of the things that brought the joy of gaming to me was listening to old videogame tunes. I thought my fate was sealed and it had little to do with videogames. They brought me back. I was studying animation away from home, everyone thought I was happy, even myself. My goal was to be in an independent videogame team and help them develop games while I was there. Finish my degree with a few games to show, or at least some art that could be used in videogames.

I love videogames and after the first semester without playing due to the hard work and parallel projects, I snapped. I had to play and I had to be informed about what was going on. I got a second hand Nintendo DS and a few games. I figured out it was the only way to make the most of my waking hours. It was awesome for a while, then the second semester began.

Every shred of free time was snatched from my hands and I could do nothing to stop it. If you know me you already know that when I make something I give it my best. I wanted to finish my degree and be on a different level. I wanted to shine and I wanted to prove my parents I had made a wise choice on the degree. All my time was sucked into the degree.

No free time and soon my sleeping hours began to disappear. Just too much work. The only way I could contact with games was to do it while I was working and also in some of the most practical classes. Music was my way to fix that. I knew podcasts were a vehicle of it, so I searched around. They helped me to work and they helped me to rest.

They helped me.

They helped me to make a choice. Nintendo and videogame music helped me to better understand myself. Demoscene was quite important too, but that will be the subject of a few posts to come.

For Videogame music check these, they might just trigger something in you:
http://www.ocremix.org/
http://www.vgdj.net/
http://www.eightecs.com/infinitegamemusic/

Intro

2007-11-15T07:28:00.000-08:00

Hello to those who read blogs and an even bigger hello to those who want to be part of the Videogame Industry.

I am not part of it yet but hopefully will be. The idea behind this blog is to provide links and interesting articles about videogame art, as well as the best tutorials I find along the way. This blog also represents my growth as an artist, now that I admitted this is the way I want to lead my life.

If thinking about videogames brings a smile to your face, join in. Check it once in a while.