Monday, September 28, 2009

Perfectly normal maps


Click above, I broke my embed codes.

This about one second's spotlight for my leading actress Will came to be as a part of my slowly regenerating trust for my PC's current updated state of not constantly crashing and actually being able to run 3Ds max properly. I began studying Zbrush and learned how to bake normal maps out from it, something I'd wanted to learn for some time now. After all, the games nowdays are pretty dependent on normal mapping and it feels like one of those things that every modeler should be able to handle.


So Willow here is my little learning dummy, she suffers from many flaws since I haven't built her that properly from the start, more like applied all newfound knowledges on her as time has passed, so she isn't finished by all means; the skinning needs work (the sleeves for example), her shirt -arms mostly - is probably going to get new geometry altogether (once again), she has yet no facial rigging at all, only that constant ":[|"-look on her face, and so forth. The actual NM's show best for some few frames as the light hits her jeans.


Anyways, as I baked her those maps, I thought that what the hell, might as well see if I remember anything from those After Effects -classes too. So I changed the moving light that was originally there just to show the NM in different lighting into that little glowing whatever, built a scene for her over this old low-res forest painting I'd made ages ago and tried to put her in there at least somewhat decently. Lots of different layers of noise, color correction and blur occured.


Spent only one late night for this scene and didn't bother with too much detail, but this proved to be really useful for me as I went through the phases needed for getting stuff into proper polygons and out of 3Dmax into a moving picture.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Brontotype


What I've been doing the past four days? Playing Prototype, that's what.


I had no idea I'd get so deeply consumed -- exploring Manhattan, and the ridicilous feel of raw power just blew me away and glued me to my PC for every free moment I could spare. It probably will today also, as soon as I'm done with this entry.
Even though the story mode is completed, there's the free roam mode which lets you, well, freely roam through the island and complete little events to gain more exp.




Alex isn't as subtle in his gentle pushes as his look-alike Altaïr.


Or in his attacks.


Or in his feeding habits.


He just likes to slam his fists to the ground all day.


"Ugh..no more dude, I'm done drinking for tonight."

The fact that the slimy dude sitting there is called a Hunter and Alex looks like a Hunter from L4D with his hoodie, is such a huge little joy for me, a hunter hunting hunters. Heh :|.

Also this.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Level up


So, I got my rig updated. I can finally shoot zombies with every possible eye candy there is without my PC choking up all the time!


Miss Internet.





With that look on her eyes, she'll probably take him as far as Valhalla.
..I dunno, this just somehow got me thinking of Valkyries.


The motion blur looks pretty neat, especially in screenshots. Featuring Miiz as bouncer.


"Shit. You did all this?"

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Uaah







I did it! I hacked and purged her mainframe.

I'm sorry ;_;.


Couldn't be helped, slicing up a whole space station full of people is a bit harsh, not to mention the endless threats of spreading her nasty virus-thingie to Earth. I mean, I can't even use the infestation.


This place was creepy, didn't expect such a Gigerish approach from her.
And that stuff crawls - pulsing red veins underneath it. You should've been there.


Meanwhile, I caught a roomfull of these guys sleeping on duty. How sweet.


Her elites tried to give some resistance, then I remembered the RF-07 Skorpion I'd picked up earlier. Minor damage yeah, so here's 3 x minor damage's per click from a 100 bullet mag; swiss cybernetic cheese.


There's she is, finally. Didn't go quietly, no.


But oh well, when this baby gets to its destination -- we should always watch where we dump our garbage, now shouldn't we.

It's funny, but now after the original it's much easier to see the little things that are 'missing' from SS2. Nothing too big and nothing that makes the game any less brilliant, but still some little things point out even sharper now.
Like the lack of cyberspace/simplified hacking, some UI-things, and there's the omnius presence of the badly executed 3D that makes the sprites actually look good and stuff like that. Derms, I really miss those little patches, but I guess that's just the influence of me reading Gibson's Neuromancer a while ago. Good book, you should look into it.

I also started a new game in SS2 with a PSI-fag, let's see if his neuromagic can replace guns completely. As if.