Monday 25 February 2013

My amazon link, please help a starving artist

My amazon affiliate link, help feed a starving artist. Nicks amazon link just use the link above to help buy shoes for my daughter.

Tuesday 14 February 2012

nubbix  from the New Boston Forum has asked how to create a window in a wall in max, so I created a little video tutorial.


Hope this helps mate.
Ive managed to get permission to show you guys an initial block out video of the first level of the game, its bit rough but was made to give us an indication of what the track may look like and the amount of detail we will need to add to the scenery, where its placed so we can get onto to doing some serious planning. Next step is to join everything together properly and to make it playable. Things will change over time and we want a section or two to be more like a conventional reace track but this is where we are starting from.

Any artists / coders and sound guys that want to be a part of this project we would love to hear from you, sign up to Http//:www.3d-for-games.com and in the welcome section mention that you would like to join the team and we will find you something.

Also we are still looking at raising some money for this project so we can get  definatly get it off the ground, we need $20,000 so if you have some spare change and want to do something usefull with it please donate it here we will be very grateful, we are already giving up huge amounts of our time to get this done but unfortunaly we need a little cash to get it finished.



Thursday 9 February 2012

Most people that know me well especially my postman know that I am a bit of an amazon junkie and will often buy hlaf a dozen books a month of various art related themes but this one book has stood out.

 http://tinyurl.com/7l5gz9w

The topics are concisely covered. Not a how-to for using 3ds Max, but rather a how-to for the techniques used which are applicable specifically to the field of video games.

It's very easy to find a topic of interest with the colored chapter headers; I could almost choose the chapter based on size without even opening the book - the big chapter is the low-poly vehicle, and the bigger, big chapter is the 3D environment. The entire book is a breeze and a pleasure to read with its pertinent, refined content. Even the sound advice found in the portfolio and interview section can generally be applied in just about any field - it's very well said.

If your focus is on games modeling, this is an interesting, fun read. The most notable thing I enjoy in this book, as anyone would enjoy from a published work, is that nothing is drawn out. The many, full-color illustrations are an easy study, and the instruction is easy to follow.

I may not have considered using some of the techniques which have been generously shared by their experienced contributors and there is a vibrant forum to help readers of the book who get stuck or need extra help as well as pushing the more experienced further on.

Sunday 5 February 2012

Do you want to help us out

The Pixel Bullies present - Formula Force

Above 220mph you’re creating enough down force to drive upside down, enough lateral force to take a hairpin at 10g, and enough kinetic energy that one mistake will leave nothing more than a greasy smear across the track.
Breathless speed, Stomach churning loops, Grudge filled scrambles for the finish line
Close, personal, frantic.

Our new racing game is designed to be played on the new generation of tablets and PC's. It's innovative track design and exciting gameplay will be a must for race fans - this is Formula 1 of the future.

The full game will feature 10 unique race venues across the globe in real world locations. Formula Force is set 30 years in the future, with excituing new architecture strangled by these amazing race tracks.

We are looking for funding to help us to complete the prototype for the game - we have small team working on this right now, but to complete the prototype and playeable version of the game we are looking for game fans, race fans and visionaries to fund the hiring of specialis skills.
Once the prototype is complete we will use it to demo to publishers and developers to secure funding or talent to complete the project.
This is a very exciting project from an indie developer, and we already have publishers interested in seeing a working version. The key team members have over 20 years experience of producing games and are self funded - we do not need the funding to pay the bills - it is solely for specialist skills to make the game the very best that it can be.
Any additional funds collected will roll over to development of the full project and develop additional content for the game. Currently we have characters, vehicles and the race track in production, along with a a very playable prototype version of the track which funders can play and comment on.
All progress will be tracked online and funders over $50 will be given secret access to the forums where they can play the prototype, comment on the progress and suggest any ideas that they may have.
 
You can make a donation here

Monday 30 January 2012

I have managed to beg permission to show some of the early concept art of the game we will be making, Really big thanks to The Pixel Bullies for allowing me to post these images, there are loads more but alas I cant show you all the stuff for obvious reasons. We are starting to get some input from the Derby students now and some of there ideas look really cool, if your into game making and would like to be a part of this project sign up at 3d for games and we will try to get you involved in some way.

Anyway hope you like the images, I am looking forward to getting started on the modelling.




 

Sunday 29 January 2012

Well its probably best to start off with an introduction, I am a 3D game artist,  often referred to as Frap on many game art forums most notably over at Http://www.3d-for-games.com where I assist in the daily running of the site. I took up 3d art after years of making freeware games with my brother usually in dark basic or blitz and many can still be found on the net though I am unsure how they will run if at all on a modern PC. I got into the art side of things as we couldn't find anyone to produce stuff for us starting with simple sprites at first. A friend showed me 3DS Max and I was hooked immediately. My first efforts where really bad space ships that looked really blocky at best but I was so proud of them I insisted we wrote a games for them.

I am currently working with the Pixel Bullies on a new i-pad game which I hope to be sharing some details on this Blog as time goes on. We have some Derby game students helping on this project so it will be interesting to see what they can do as the art gets made.

I have just finished a personal project done purely for fun, despite working on race cars and super cars in my day job I have never made a model of a car so over Christmas due to the really poor television I decided to break this duck and produced a Porsche 962 game model.


I get a little fed up of seeing really shiny polished cars in peoples portfolios so I had to make this look like it had done a 24hr race with dirt, oil stains and a patch of race tape. I was pleasantly surprised when the lead vehicle modeller from Simbin requested that I sent a copy of the model to him for review, as yet I haven't heard back from him.