Alpha 0.0.5

A few items are now in the Temple of Izore and can be used. next up is weapons and armor then I'll have the monsters in. Its kinda slow going and frustrating at times, but I'm having fun.

New roguelike entering per-alpha

The game I've wanted to make since I was but a mere teenager is well on its way. It's in a very very early alpha as a learn the programming language of choice...python. I'm excited about working on it...I've always wanted to be a animator and programmer...such high goals haha...still beats doctor and lawyer in my opinion.

Side tracked, off track, something

I still want to do creating a scene. However, I think I bit off a rather large scene. Also I really really want to get a new website design up...I was having someone else do it, but that seems to have fallen through, leaving me to do it myself. Oh well, such is life.

Demo Reel 2011

New demo reel.

My new demo reel is complete. It should be making its appearance online in a few hours. Have to let it sit and I'll go over it again to makes sure its still like I wanted.

Creating a Scene - Part 1 - Inspiration

There are a ton of tutorials out there. How to model, texture, light, render. A lot of them are just a single piece in a giant puzzle that is 3d art. This blog series I will go through how I go from an empty scene to a final render. This isn’t step by step tutorial, but I encourage you to follow along with your own scene and ideas. I predominantly use Blender for my 3d work, but this series it doesn’t matter what software is used, the ideas, concepts and execution will roughly be the same. Without further ado let’s get started with the hardest part of all.

Inspiration – What do I do?!?!

There are millions of scenes that can be done. From single objects to vast vistas. The first thing to set before starting is what the goal is. Ask yourself, am I going for photo realistic, cartoon, painting, etc… Next is the focus of crafting the piece. Is one of the goals to learn new things, like hard surface modeling, attempting organic modeling, a mixture? Am I just going to practice something I’ve already done.

One of the best sources for inspiration is the internet, from Google image search, Flickr, photography sites, Youtube, it is easy to find tons of art and pictures. Don’t disregard playing, drawing stuff on paper. Because my drawing skills lack I just hop into Blender and randomly model objects, sometimes these turn into something, sometimes they get trashed. I may start modeling something that I like and slowly a scene will build around it.

The world around us also holds a lot of inspiration. Observer your surrounding and something may pop out. If you don’t have a good memory carry a notepad to write down or sketch out ideas, before they get lost.

What will I be doing for this series? Well while doing a Google image search for reference images of a “dark forest” I found this…

Credit for the picture goes to whoever created it, I could not find a name or company.

Queue light bulb and inspiration to create my own version of this scene in 3d. I decide what I need for the scene. Scarecrow, tree, barn, ground. These are my main objects. My method of work will make all of my art teachers cringe, I don’t sketch thumbs, I don’t lay out my objects, I do zero planning. Why? I like the idea of free flow. I’m not locked into a concept or construct. I can change things on a whim and not worry about things down the road. Some of the best things I’ve done have been unintended mistakes and screw ups that just worked. If I put rules out there those might not happen as often or well. This, of course, goes for personal projects. Projects that have a chain of command, may have a different criteria. A client may want to see thumbs before any modeling is done.

Most important of all though! Don’t get discouraged! Psychologists say it takes about 10 years for someone to master their craft. A good reference to this is Marek Denko at http://marekdenko.net/ he shows his early works, from 1999, 12 years ago. They are very amateurish, but his art now, is incredible!

Find your inspiration. Next blog will be the start of modeling.

Reality Series! - Creating a scene.

I want to blog. I've wanted to blog. I didn't know what to blog, and didn't want to do random crap. I came up with a plan of making a series about how I do an art piece from start to finish. I want to share the trials and tribulations of the process. It should be fun and I hope both of us will learn something new.

A little about the series. Its going to start basically from nothing and be about how I start, what I do first and proceed all the way to the finished product. I'll write about what I've done and post the occasional screenshot of the work in progress. I'll post things that went right, and things that go horribly wrong. 

It not really a tutorial series in how to model, texture, animate and all that. There is a lot of information out there about those. This is about process. A lot of the tutorials are splintered and fragmented from the big picture of a final scene, and how to fit something like that into your work.  However, feel free to email me 

Should be a fun ride and I'll attempt to be as entertaining as I can.

You can find me on twitter @morokiane and Google+ as Geoff P

Lux render

I downloaded Lux render .8 this morning so I've been playing around with it. I like it, the GPU rendering seems to be faster. I used the piano scene to test it out...both were after an hour...the top one is CPU render and the second one is GPU.

Stuff I've been up too....

So...yeah...I haven't posted in ages. I've finally decided to crack my knuckles and trash my graduate demo reel and make one that I love. Here is some of the stuff I've made.