Website Design

Jayden says he's better at the development than the design, and I've always enjoyed the design more than the development... so I thought I'd have a go at designing the website. Jayden's already emailed around the first prototype, and it's looking good. I feel like I'm betraying my design training by wanting gimmicky features (what with one of the first rules of design being - simple is better).

Crude design made in Paint:

I've also created a more complex design template in HTML, although it is difficult to take a printscreen on account of the relative dimensions. If anyone knows of a quick way to take a panaramic screen shot of a webpage - I'm all ears.

26/02/13 group meeting

We are piecing together all of our components together this session. Thus far we have a white boxed map, a basic UI into the engine and a custom camera in development, the character is yet to be animated but the basic model is made.

My (Greg's) first model of the Brunel labs seems to have corrupted, but progress shouldn't be a problem from here on. The plan is to make a base frame for each building to a reasonable quality, then to look at texturing the core pieces of the map as portfolio pieces and to bring to life the tutorial area of the map. Destroying the buildings will come after completing the map, as having a playable map that is less destroyed is better than partial rubble.

Links:
http://www.creativecrash.com
searching for fracture scripts: a way to decompose my constructed buildings into ruins without manually doing each.

progress update

-Quick reminder: group meeting starts at 3 this week-

So after last week there was a positive vibe in the group, with things coming together and each of us being able to focus on our own roles more individually.Sound too good to be true? yeah.. so I've had a week of technical difficulties ranging from having no internet since Wednesday, to my computer completely locking up at times for no apparent reason. Despite this I have managed to create something... not as impressive as I would like, but a start.

I took some reference photos of the Brunel labs, and started to model from them. I started with this building as is quite central to our map, and has some unique quirks that seemed interesting to build.


From these I have made a start on the model, with many surfaces flat but with textures in mind (i.e. the windows)

There have been for few issues I've been having with Maya, but having the internet to solve those would probably have been enough... but I feel I will be able to pick up the pace a bit (thankfully) over the next week.

And I thought getting used to Maya's controls would be hard...

Let's just say without a formal introduction, me and Zbrush will NOT get along. I had to use Google just to figure out how to zoom in and out - that's just counter-intuitive!

When are those workshops again?

I think I'm going to try and animate ZBrush's default skeleton, and make this my "whitebox" for the zombies... then I can just add "clothes" in the form of  decomposed arms and sagging flesh. I think it'll look awesome.

No concept artwork, I'm afriad. My plans for last week were ruined changed when my mum reminded me I was going home for the weekend (for my birthday).

PR - Abhuman Studios

We haven't really discussed PR, but as part of our company image I think it would appropriate (is that the right word?) if we actually dressed up as zombies for demos and such. Even if it's zombies in suits.

Image from: http://browse.deviantart.com/art/zombie-14448624

I'm not a religous person... but this was a miracle!

TA DAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! LOOONGGG over due and after literally hours of arguing with software!

now to model each of these in detail... learn UVW/texture mapping and make it look pretty! still, very satisfying to walk around this at last.

Zombie Slayer

(NB: Edits below.)

After much frustration with Maya, I decided to mess around in Photoshop. A champion wielding a uprooted sign was something I came up with when trying to think of post-apocalypse, makeshift weapons - and I think Darius pulls it off well. I wanted to manipulate the zombies arm to look more ghouly, but I couldn't for the life of me come up with a search term for that iconic "zombie hand from the grave" pose shot.

(He wouldn't have a cape in Hordes - that would just be silly).

Stock:

• http://hokunin.deviantart.com/art/Zombie-107256041
• http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Darius/SkinsTrivia
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/auntiep/149416088/