Filler Post

I keep this blog for the sole expressed purpose of presenting my artwork to my family. I have accounts on DeviantArt and ArtBistro, on the other hand, to present my artwork to the world (aka, whoever finds it). Usually I refrain from posting anything unless I have an actual product to present, but since the blog has been dead for a while, I thought it best to keep it active by posting a little bit about my projects and perhaps some of the procedures that I go through to make them.

Currently I have a couple of projects going that either haven't been completed yet or are pieces I don't consider high enough quality to be posted. I've created a strange pangolin creature thing that wears a gasmask and walks anthropomorphically, possibly wearing a suit later on in the future. It's not too bad for my first real attempt at a completely organic creature, but for right now it's not ready to be unveiled. I've also been asked by a friend at school to help him on an animation project as a prop/environment modeler. Once that kicks off and I get some stuff made, I might also be able to present the objects I make and hopefully the end animation.

On my own time, I want to return to a couple of projects I have let gather dust for a while. The first is my Chopin video, which only just began before I got distracted. The biggest hurdle on that animation is finding the right actions, lights, or animations to use for any given part of the song. It's hard to put together some kind of interesting show that accurately fits the music and remains interesting throughout the length of the video. Couple that with some pretty processor-intensive rendering options, and making a simple 3 minute animation becomes quite a task. I have a couple of ideas for the animation, like setting the whole thing on the top of my Observatory tower, but if anyone else has ideas for what can be done with it, please leave a comment.

The other project is my Russian Roullete flash game. I posted the working "maze" generator while I was still working on it, but I got stuck trying to give the player the ability to manipulate the dimensions of the maze, and ultimately got distracted like I usually do. I want to return to it, but I haven't yet decided how I want to attack the project. I've got a pretty functional maze generator already, but I'm not sure if I want to worry about how the player manipulates the options or how the bullet you will eventually shoot will find a way to move through a maze that is randomly generated. The biggest issue with the latter is that I have to be able to give the code within the game a way to keep track of how the maze is put together. I can make a bullet and tell it to move, but I have to give it a way to know where the walls are and how to react to them. The process should be as simple and intuitive as possible and apply to every situation regardless of how the generator creates the maze. I believe that if I can get the core features of the game in place, I can then worry about how the game looks and how the player can manipulate the experience.

Well, those are the things I'm working on, along with my Algebra and Humanities class at school. Things remain busy, so I apologize for the decrease in activity on the blog. I should have some good stuff to show soon.

Also, since I'm breaking the norm of the blog already, I'd like to refer some of you to a couple of the works I've found and really liked. These are on DeviantArt, so if you have something against the site, don't clickie!

Thunder Factory
Best Homework Excuse Ever

Also, my friend has decided to put together a little internet comic about Left 4 Dead. If you've played the game, or just like funny little comics about games, I think you'll enjoy this. I've been throwing lots of ideas at her, so I can sorta take some credit for the content *evil laugh*

(possible language warning!)
L4D Tales: How not to survive the zombie apocalypse

Homemade wall-mine:

An instructional pamphlet designed to show you how to create your own solution to the "pesky guard" or other bipedal nuisances.

For my modeling midterm, I was to create a hand-held object, so I decided to model a tape gun! Then I got the idea that I should also model a grenade, and this entire idea was the natural progression of things. The two models are created and done for the midterm, but this pamphlet was just my own self-indulgence. :D

Enjoy! Clickie for bigger image.