NEW SITE

I have a new portfolio/blog website - so if you are interested simply go to dameanlyon.com

Ok there is a lot to catch you up on. The last few weeks have been a bit hectic but have produced a lot. Mostly I have been focused on art work so that is a relief, but in addition to my work I have been producing a short film and banners for Forward Solutions. Forward Solutions is an entrepreneurial  company that mainly focuses on training items or tools for military personnel.

The most recent product is the BTM-1, a small simulation explosive that is meant to train military and law enforcement people in how to handle disarmament/avoidance of IED’s (Improvised Explosive Device).

Moving on to school and our game and art projects. Our most recent rapid prototype is a game driven to teaching engineering students Thermodynamics – one of the hardest theories to grasp from what the Engineering department states. Our game is a 3rd person exploration game. The premise is a you are trapped in a space station and you need to find a way to escape. You will use exploration, laws of thermodynamics, problem solving, and potential combat to work your way out. My part in this is of course all of the art. Initially I began with the though of doing a platformer, since this was a rapid prototype and older games like ‘Super Mario Bros’ and newer games like ‘Rayman Origins’ have the greatest appeal to people who don’t generally play video games. After drawing up several character designs my group changed the format to a more realistic setting. My new points of reference being ‘Metroid Prime’ and ‘Dead Space’. I don’t have any delusions that these games can be created so easily but it will be a fun challenge to try and tackle.

I have already modeled a corridor and a splitting hallway that can be repeated easily. At first I tried to do a very high res hallway and use a transfer map to created the detail on a lower poly model. The programmers are working with XNA and I remembered from my work in ‘Heroes of Hat’ that a shader needs to be written to handle bump/specular maps. To alleviate the weight of there shoulders I revamped my model to much more simple but still contain enough elements to hold the same feel as the style of games we are exceeding to. Unfortunately I don’t have the model at the computer I’m posting from so I’ll show you later. What I can show is some of my earlier character concepts.

For my game art class we have had a few assignments.

The FIRST of these is to take a standard alleyway model and apply a texture, normal map, and specular map to create the best product that you can. I used several existing tag png’s for the graffiti and created a tiled brick, cement, and street texture off of stock photos. I also used a Gobo to create the tree silhouette on the side of the building, and created the street poles and newspaper to add a little more to a mundane scene.

The SECOND was a series of drawing assignments. The first was to draw 3 pictures of your family doing an activity. The second was to do a few pages of weapons. Third was my own assignment to try and emulate a new style of characterization.

1st – I would show you the others but I tried to do them in pen and they aren’t my proudest of drawing moments =(

2nd

3rd – my next personal project will be to try and emulate the level design of the game ‘Rayman Origins’ which has some of the most incredible artwork, and color design.

The THIRD – is an on going assignment. The assignment is to create a building with normal/specular maps, under 3K tris, and a total of 1024×1024 texture size. The building choices are between the Wells Fargo building in Salt Lake, the Grand America, or the State Capitol Building. I chose the capitol since it seems like the most difficult and a good challenge. I finished the model, UVs, and first stage texture and normal map last night. The next step is to create a better texture for and normal map for the area with pillars. In the first run I simply created a texture in photoshop – but in this next run I will create a model that I can used to do a Transfer Map w/ambient occlusion, and normal map, to pull the best results out of my simple model.

Oh! and last but not least is the speed model challenge. In the beginning of every Game Art I class we receive an image from our professor. We then have the next 45 minutes to an hour to do our best to model (not texture) whats in the image. Here is todays work

Post Mortem & More

Cheese Monger is finished. We presented to the client ‘Beehive Cheese Co.” which went very well. Both professors as well as the client stated that I really captured the lovability of a character and look within the game which in turn allowed me to stand a little taller for a few minutes =) There was no real negative feedback but I know that many of the visuals could improve. Since it is a prototype I won’t obsess about it though.

After the presentation we did a post mortem assessment of how things went. We broke down everything in the time line and everyone put of posted notes about what they felt went good/bad during the project. Even through the good we discussed what we might have been able to do better – the main thing being more constant communication.

On the side I finished the head of a big enemy character that I had thought up several months ago during the EAE summer camp (a high school 3D modeling course for the University of Utah – which I helped TA). I had worked on the character for awhile but I couldn’t ever get the feel right on the face. I used the sculpt geometry tool in Maya and quickly messed with the shape to find something I found much more appealing.

On the side of school, this month I’m going to be doing more art for Rogue Corps. They have a weapons convention soon and want to display a new website and an animation that displays the setup of IED’s (Improvised Explosive Device) in the way that they are used in war today.

Why can't I freeze time!!!

Well much of my work for this week is already finished. I have completed my;

• 500 tris or less character
• Mass amount of game design and virtual worlds reading
• 3D model and animation for the Cheese Monger character
• Imagery for the menu system in the Monger game
• 5 pages of tree drawings
• Logo for an outside company

The 500 tri character wasn't too hard of a challenge.  It was fun for me to dive in and work through the character quickly. I knew that I didn't want a copy so I tried characterizing Darth Maul to a more lanky toonish character. My professor gave me some good feedback after I did the texture to try and embed highlights/shading to make the texture less flat so I used a little photoshop to paint in highlights and shading - then put in some directional lights and glow effect on the saber for the final render. 

The reading was very interesting - most of it was based on the structure of a game. Both my Virtual Worlds, and Game Design class reading discussed how the rules, barriers, and tools are what help make the game fun, as well as, are what define games apart from experiences. There of course are the difficulties of making interesting narrative, challenge, character, and other things that make a good game, but the meat of the discussion was making sure the base functions and goals of the game are great. 

In Fat Knight we made a lot of work for ourselves in using 3D objects in a side scrolling game. It created more work in trying to optimize character to function on a mobile device instead of focusing more on character design. In Cheese Monger we are still using a 3D for the level but for the character I rendered out a sprite sheet to save processing time and space. I have only done a simple animation for the run, jump, and a getting ready to run animation. These should be more than enough for a rapid prototype.

The Menu System for 'Cheese Monger' isn't really in depth - it is only a basis to show how things would be laid out and not how they would be as a finished product. I'm happy with some elements of what is laid out but the main screen seems elementary to me and could do with more research in to what make UIs appealing. 

Drawing is again what made me thing I could do this job. The 5 pages of trees was simple enough for me since the only focus for this week was to make sure I focused on the lines while drawing trees - as apposed to my habits of trying to shade things. After the 2nd or 3rd tree it felt very natural to create random twigs and branches that could pass for a trees true silhouette. Speed was a self proclaimed roll for me in this assignment. Habitually I will take a deal of time to ensure accuracy across my image, since much of our work needs to be done quickly I made sure that I didn't spend too much time on details no one would be able to pick out and focus more on the big picture. I don't have my final page but I will post most of my work. 

Rogue Corps is a company owned by my brother. Most of it's function is to keep injured veterans (mostly those whom now function with prosthetics) in an active lifestyle. I have done other projects for my brother and his company including weapons spec model and concept gear to be sold to the military. To advertise the company more he asked me to create a logo to go on t-shirts and other items to be sold at functions and sponsored in athletic events. His request was to include a Crow design from another company, a soldier with rifle and ball cap, his style of prosthetic (since he is a double amputee himself), and the american flag not to bold on the character. It took a few days of back and forth to match what he had envisioned but it is finished and already doing very well generated attention and sales to the company. There are already over 200 orders for the t_shirts in the first couple of days and it is going to be present and the upcoming Tough Mudder comp, and the Marine Corps marathon in Washington, DC. 

There is a lot more work for this next week but I'll save it for the next post. 

Beginning a Master's title

   It is the first week of the EAE Masters program at the University of Utah and I am BUSY! Although it is a lot, I'm excited for the work. It was great to meet up with my team and have the excitement of starting a new video game project with an enthusiastic group. I'm attending a Rapid Game prototyping class, Game Design class, Virtual Worlds study class, and a Game Arts class. I have my work cut out for me as one of three artists in the entire program =)

  Currently my group is working on a project for the Beehive Cheese Co. A representative came down from the company and let us try some AMAZING cheeses. Two days later we pitched a game and now in the process of making it happen. There are 7 teams all prototyping something to show but 'Cheese Monger' (my game) has the most promise. It a 3rd person runner - a combination of the new Sonic, and Temple Run. I won't spell out the specifics until the game finishes it's many renovations but it offers the best image and repetition of branding for our client. 

The first gameplay image for the pitch

This is the first take on a character for the game. My attempt was to appeal to the public audience who would think of an actual cheese monger as more of a cook or butcher. Our client loved it but wanted some renovations to fit more of the average type of monger - whom is more typical to be dressed as a hipster.

After changing a few the things our client is very excited with the new style of character. 

My list of things to do

 - Create a hive texture for the track

 - Model a track

 - design obstacles & collectable characters/icons

   Other classes have me up to my neck in reading material but my game arts class. One of the reasons for my choosing this career path is my enthusiasm for drawing in my AP Art classes during high school. Through high school I was asked to design many things for the schools clubs, local bands, and some graphic designers who did skateboard and snowboard designs. Even in the military I was asked to use my skills to design prints, new emblems, and murals for units and officer's clubs. My point in all of this is my assignment for the art class. It is well know that a basic knowledge of drawing will help you in all other aspects of game art and design - so our assignment is to draw. 

   This week it is simply to draw 5 rock formations but I'm trying to add a few so that I might have a broader range of skill and style.  I'm working on characters, and a broad range of styles - this week I'm working between pixar's cartoonish round types of characters and the more elongated/exaggerated characters of Team Fortress. 

I used to be more of a pencil artists but I have found that using pens makes me commit more to my drawings and think more before I let my pencil just run away with my usual style. 

   Fat Knight has hit a few bumps but is still close to it's finishing - I just need to find the time to do a few more animations and icons for a power up system.  

Ok all caught up - catch you next week.

A Big Revision

Hello and it's been awhile. Heroes of Hat has been having great success and I can't wait to see how it does in Indiecade & Dream Build Play once our latest update gets released. So now that all but the promoting of HOH is done - it's on to a next one!

Fat Knight is a mobile app project that I had worked on about a year ago. It wasn't ready for release but we did have some designers from EA and Avalanche who recommended that we don't let it go. You can check out the current/broken version here. The changes from that version will be: Full 3D characters, a viking level with 3 new enemies and main character, boss fights, an Oriental Level with another set of new enemies and main character, a series of power ups and special attacks. Oh and it will function properly.

What I have done so far:
 

• 3 Enemy characters concepts - designed for the viking level
• 4 3D models for viking and knight levels (Not Textured)
• Main Viking character concept and 3D model

For this week I still need to finish my last viking enemy and begin character concepts for the boss fights. We had a team member drop out so we may have to cut the Orient level. So that we don't invest too much we will work solely on the knight and viking level till they are done and polished before moving on to the later. The team consists of 2 artists and 2 programmers. A very small group but we are cherry picked as the best and hardest working so it shouldn't be a problem.

Close to the cutoff - National Photographic/Yellowstone

Much of my time on this project has been spent fixing things. Fixing rigs, textures, UVs, triangles on models and redoing it again. Since we finally have the "It's good stamp" from our client on all the animals we have been able to get most of the animals done. As of my own work I have done the rigs for every animal but the big horned sheep and have completed the; 

-walk cycle and trot for the wolf 

-run, walk, eat, startled animation for the deer 

-walk, run, stand up, get defensive for the bear

-fly cycle for the eagle

- slow and fast swim and a jump for the fish.