Look What I Found

again with 3d printing, seriously cool stuff.

http://www.businessinsider.com/3d-printer-builds-house-in-24-hours-2014-1

Geek Sqeak: 002

So cool. I love the idea of this. We have been saying about how Saturn's moon titan has one of the greatest potential for life under its layers of ice. Liquid water from the tidal forces of its parent planet, so cool! I couldn't be more excited to see that they are actually working on it.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=titans-seas-get-an-earthly-stand-in-as-robot-explores-chilean-lake&WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook

Thought Block: 002

Time for another thought block. This time around I want to talk about workflows. Finding an effeicnt workflow is incredibly important, and being able to adapt that workflow for any situation makes you a powerful tool in your studio's tool belt. Now what do I mean when I say workflow? Let's take your standard 3D model workflow. For me it starts with concept, very rarely can you produce a great game asset from scratch. For me, having great artwork no only helps me create an awesome final product it has a huge motivation factor. When I see art the gets me excited about what I'm working on it reflects in my work, I work faster, and create better content.

Modeling. There are an infinite number of ways to push and pull polys. Have fun with it, again having great concept plays a huge part. When someone has a great idea and the first thing that comes to mind is "that looks like a ton of fun to model" I know I'm going to have a great time modeling it. Nobody wants to model something they don't want to model. In terms of workflow, hot keys, hot keys, hot keys... Use them to your advantage, being able to quickly accomplish simple tasks with hot keys makes your workflow faster. I use maya, something that I ALWAYS do is quickly hitting CTRL+G to put what I'm working on into a group. Not that the center pivot is on the 0,0,0 I can CTRL+D and quickly hit R to scale it into the "-1" and take advantage of symmetry.

Texturing is a major part of 3D, you can have a beautiful model but if the texture falls short your model will suffer. The first thing I do after exporting my UV's is open up Marmoset. Marmoset Toolbag is a super powerful tool. Being able to instantly get feedback on a texture makes this process much quicker. Also bing able to work seamlessly with PSD's makes a quick CTRL+S update everything in Marmoset. Personally I use Headus UV Layout for laying out UV's. But I'll be exploring new more up to date methods in the near future.

That's all for now, keep creating.

Geek Squeak: 001

This series is going to be me expressing all the science-y things I like to geek out on. From new technologies to the latest discoveries in science, how I feel about them and why it gets my geek on.

Today I find myself particularly interested in Dark matter. Now, If your not fimlir "Dark Matter" is basically gravity that cant be accounted from mass. In other words we have NO IDEA what it is, and it makes up around 70% of our Universe. So when I say we have no idea what it is, doesn't mean we can't say what it might be. I theory about dark matter that I like to subscribe to is the idea that Dark Matter is just regular matter, but who's influence (gravitational pull) is transcending from another universe. This ties into the multiverse theory, where you have multiple or even infinite universes.

I find this theory very intriguing, one because it give he multiverse theory more merit and two, because its just seriously cool. The reason its unaccounted for gravity is because there isn't any corresponding mass to account for the gravitational pull holding galaxies together. When we build a model of a galaxy and put it together with only the mass of the matter we can account/calculate for, it falls apart. The galaxies get ripped apart because they are moving too fast and theres not enough mass to hold them together.

Awesome stuff I highly recommend youbtubing some of this stuff, Neil Degrasse Tyson has some pretty cool videos on it. Also on that note listen to his podcast Star Talk Radio, great stuff.

Stay Geeky, til next time.

Thought Block: 001

As a video game developer, I have a lot to say about my industry. Where video games are heading, where the industry as a whole is going and the process that goes on behind the scenes and more importantly how we as consumers play an important roll. That's what this segment or series is going to be about, my thoughts on anything and everything about game design.

I want to kick things off with my thoughts on something that I've become quite fond of "The rolling release" or buying into a game during its alpha state. A perfect example of this is any kickstarter funded game. I think it's great when a community of consumers get together with a developer to create something they want to play. Kerbal Space Program is an excellent example of a rolling release. I love it as a game, and the fact that I can look forward to up coming updates and be a part of that process in the community is amazing. I like the idea of a game never really being done and always improving. The end product is something that truly becomes what it was meant to be, a game created and loved by the people playing it. A shared experience between players and developers. 

I would love to see this model be picked up by larger studios, we would never have disappointments like that Star Wars mmo that was a total flop if players had been involved throughout the entire process. As fans we would have ended up with a product we wanted not what the developer thought we wanted. 

That's all for now, til next time. 

One for Science, Another for Art: 002

Now who doesn't love exoplanets? Am I right? With 2013 coming to a close, here is a list of some of the major exoplanet discoveries!

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/top-exoplanet-finds-2013

There have been an awful lot of great findings this year in science, and I urge all of you to go out on the interwebs and read up on all the cool stuff we have done in science. I can't wait to see what 2014 holds. Quick story between links. I remember when I was freshman in high school around 2005 I wrote a science paper on building a space elevator. All my research said we could have a space elevator, carbon nano tubes and all by 2014. Fingers Crossed. 

Now, for art! You will find I like to dig up my art stuff from Polycount. Its a truly amazing website. Go dig through their forums and your sure to find some inspiration. There is some seriously great stuff in this review article, I really like the one from "Clavin" I work with a similar art style right now :D

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/top-exoplanet-finds-2013

Look What I Found

So for this weeks Look What I Found, I think everyone should give it a read. We can't afford for something like this to happen. I had no idea what I had been taking for granted. Net neutrality is incredibly important, losing that would spell disaster for how we use the internet.

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/11/so-the-internets-about-to-lose-its-net-neutrality/