Archive for January, 2009
Finding a look and a level of detail for which the five of us can quickly produce content has been a battleground of taste and capability ever since we started. The trailer for this (hopefully) final version will be done in the next couple of days.
I’m still trying to work out the best format to display these. For now, the open the first image and the rest should link through.
Enjoy!
I’ve upped a quick showreel we put together one freezing December morning. Preparation for a meeting with some voice actors.
02:44: The environment for the trailer’s new version is rendering on three of the office machines. As each frame slowly builds, the virtual camera follows the space where the character will eventually be. He will be rendered separately once his clothes are stitched.
This is an untouched render so the the colours are flat and the hues are off, but it does superficially demonstrate the new texturing method we’re using: photographic diffuse maps, smart blurred and overlayed with a high contrast black and white detail layer.
We are scraping our way toward artificially attaining the painted look Studio 4c and Mimoru Oshii have dozens of master craftsmen to draft by hand.
The lighting between these two images doesn’t do the shift in aesthetic a great deal of justice, but I found an example of work we were doing back in November. Below is the straight laced photo-realism attempt. This approach gave us problems later, when it came to our character design. Realistic backgrounds want realistic characters, and although our facial animation is getting stronger, its nowhere near photo-real.
Trying to find the best way round uploading and navigation for comics on this site, the test version I’m using now is here.
All the tracks from my final year game design collaboration, Extasis, are now available on the Extasis OST page.
Added a new short story to the writing section. It is called A Relevant Party, and was written for the first round of the NYC Midnight Writing Competition.
