Man of Action
In Progress
Marcus Fenix – Part 1
Feb 28th
The week after a crunch week is usually low on productivity. This week was spent doing some more behind-the-scenes management and design for Dinosaurs with Guns.
On top of that, I started a Zbrush model of Marcus Fenix from Gears of War. I want to work on this progressively over the rest of the Road to Epic, in between DwG bursts, so I can take my time getting it as photo realistic as I possibly can. That should be a pretty good test of how far I have come along this road.
Grid and Scale Tests
Feb 23rd
Crunch Week 04 – Day 7
Today was another mixed bag in that I was preparing for another Zbrush model I want to start, and there was a lot technical stuff going on with Dinosaurs.
People are often unaware of just how much work goes into making a game. It’s all the little details that make a game feel right in the hands of the player that can soak up a lot of the development time. Tweaking, refining, and testing repeatedly until everything is intuitive and fair.
Many aspects have to be considered for a seemingly simple jump:
How high does the player jump?
How fast do they accelerate to the peak of their arc?
What kind of hang time do they get?
Can the player control their trajectory in the air?
What linear distance can be achieved from a standing position versus a running start?
The list goes on.
Most of tonight was spent setting up some scenes and looking into how the player will control their character. There are numerous ways to accomplish this. I decided to use my strengths in 3DS Max and mock up a scene that I can keyframe a test rig approximately the size and proportions of Triceratops to see if the motions look good. This will give me a good starting point on the variables necessary when it’s running in engine.
I also started toying around with possible button layouts with the feature list I have in place. This game is being built with a controller in mind, but still easily accommodates standard keyboard/mouse configuration. The layout will most certainly change as development continues.
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Giant Sloth Concept
Feb 19th
Crunch Week 04 – Day 5
A large portion of today was spent project managing. There are 2 more people on board who will be helping with the 3D work down the line. I had to find some options to keep everything organized.
For the rest of the day, I conceptualized a giant sloth enemy.
I uploaded an earlier copy of picture elsewhere and got some good feedback. It looked like a fuzzy bear before, but I’m reworking parts of it to look more giant sloth-like. I’m not quite there yet, but it is an improvement.
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Style Sheet Progress
Jan 16th
Some more progress on the style sheet from Wednesday. It’s not finished yet, but it should be there tomorrow night. I’ll start some more concept work over the course of the week and update it all next Sunday.
Also, I started putting together some information on the DWG project in the top navigation bar of this page. I’ll update the project information as I go along.
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Witty Title
Jan 12th
Crunch Week 03 – Day 7
Wooh. One more crunch week in the books. It’s just unfortunate that this one ends in the middle of the week, so it feels like a bit of a fizzle. I got a lot done this week, regardless.
I usually work my day job fairly late on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so the time to crunch tonight is less than I would prefer. I have some progress on another style sheet for Dinosaurs with Guns. This one is a bit more action-oriented.
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Doom and Gloom
Jan 10th
Crunch Week 03 – Day 5
To help pin down color schemes and a style for the game, I’ll need to make style sheets for every environment. These will encompass the lighting, the mood, and any other visual information that is crucial to portray in game. Here is some progress on a style sheet for the first level. I should be able to start splashing in color tomorrow while continuing to add detail. This is right after the gun meteor impacts.
Dinosaurs with Guns – Style Sheet – Part 1
And I’m revisiting the logo from before for the other game project. It wasn’t scaling very well and reading at a distance.
Sketchy
Jan 9th
Crunch Week 03 – Day 4
Kind of a mixed bag today. I moved over all the portfolio galleries from the old layouts to the WordPress. So, my portfolio should be back to a presentable state.
I also set up a Dinosaurs with Guns group on DeviantArt to try to drum up some followers. No content yet. It’s mostly a placeholder for now.
http://dinosaurswithguns.deviantart.com/
The second character that will exist in the Dinosaurs with Guns prototype will be the heavily favored T-Rex. These sketches are similar to the ones from yesterday and should to be done for every character in a game. This is just a tiny number of the total sketches that need to be done before a character is animated.
I’ve also been spending some time researching and picking some plants that will be stylized a bit to ease the game off of being visually realistic without being too cartoony. Here are just some initial sketches.
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Dinosaur Stories
Jan 8th
Crunch Week 03 – Day 3
Alrighty, for the second half of the Road to Epic, I will be working on a small game prototype to learn the UDK inside and out. I was trying to think of ways I could avoid announcing it outright so soon, but when the second update is a storyboard with the title of the game, it’s tough to tip toe around that.
For people that wish to be surprised by the game when it gets released, I won’t post the full storyboards or any other materials that could be construed as spoiler material on the front page. That kind of content will be hidden behind links.
Full Intro Storyboard – http://www.garydraws.com/inprogress/images/11-01-08-storyboardintro.jpg
By the way, the meteor is made out of guns. I just didn’t want to draw all that detail at the moment.
Triceratops – Character Concept Sheet.
Here I am trying to figure out how the character will carry a gun at a variety of angles.
I have been working very hard to whittle down an idea to a project small enough to tackle in the time I have left. I will be getting help as I go along though. There will be other artists involved for background work, animations, and anything I can’t get done by myself. This is a legit game development project that I would like to see reach full production after the prototype is finished. I’m excited to start it now and give people the opportunity to watch a game get made, realizing just how many steps are involved.
Midweek Crunching
Jan 6th
Crunch Week 03 – Day 1
Schedules changed, and I’m starting Crunch Week midweek. It sprung up on me last minute, but I still got a full evening of work in.
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