Concept Art

Concept art for Providence for a United Aegis Federation Barracuda hunter drone unit. I wanted to make this faction designed more bizzare unlike traditional human science fiction forces. I tried to base most of the units off animals, with this one a giant hovering eelfish. With a combination of science fiction futuristic feel and fantasy magic based abilities, the Barracuda is used by UAF forces to hunt down enemy infantry and terrorists in urban areas as it hovers and snakes through smaller corridors. besides 6 minature lasers it uses to attack enemies it can generate a field that sucks the lifeforce off living creatures within a certain radius around it making it ideal for taking down infantry or hunting fugitives.

Rising Rebellion

Our gameplay is complete for our FLASH game!

 Providence: Rising Rebellion is a bullet hell space shooter that will be free online, and we will port this game to Iphone and the Droid within the next few months on ActionScript3. Unlike other space shooters, we added special abilities that are cooldown based over charge based, a temporary defensive shield, a homing missile salvo barrage. This allows the player not only attack and dodge but also time your abilities for special situations. The bosses we also try to be unique, besides huge barrage attacks we have homing attack drones and big danmaku (bullet curtains). Will come out soon, once we fix a few preloader issues!

Itano Circus Shots

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzXfVgYCxWI
As a fan of japanese animation I watched a lot of mecha shows when I was little. I noticed there was a interesting shot called the itano circus (the person that created it was Ichiro Itano) where a ship will fire a ridiculous amounts of missiles and then it goes into a high speed missile chase. The missiles themselves will usually move in impractical angles but it creates an almost art with the shot. Trying to see if its possible to replicate it in our 3d space shooter game.

Spaceship plating textures

http://www.moddb.com/tutorials/basic-hull-plating

Ive been working on a lot of futuristic spaceship style games and had some difficulty trying to make a "realistic" plating for ships and I started to use this tutorial to do that. Its also useful in tiling levels so it doesnt look so smooth. To help create a interesting effect sometimes I create two layers in photoshop and darken the bottom layer. Then I would slightly erase the upper layer to have pieces show through giving it a rougher rustier texture.

Script Tutorials for Photoshop

Ive been looking through several tutorials I googled on Photoshop scripting. I was then recommended by Travis to check http://morris-photographics.com/photoshop/tutorials/scripting1.html

After going through it I thought it was one of the better tutorials, because it starts from the very basic before going further rather than many other tutorials that assume you know the basics and focus on working on one small detail.

Biztech FLASH presentation

New outline frame we designed for business technology competition presentation. We wanted a mechanical futuristic feel to it. Thinking of adding more gears and lights to it though....

Mechanical doors will open with gears and then reveals this interface. The right side corner will have all the buttons to change pages.

Preparing for Business Technology Competition

Business Technology Competition is finally coming near, we are preparing the presentation and the announcement of our two upcoming titles....

Animation Series Project Agreement Success!

Success!

After negotiations with Studio 2 in Asia we have initiated Project Onion!

We will form a media franchise intellectual property and use our cooperation to release multiple product lines. Studio 2 will be forming the animated series while we provide video games. This strategy will allow us to reach a beachhead into china and in exchange bring them to the US. Rapscallion will hold licenses in the US and Europe while they hold license into Asia.

Development of the world will begin this summer and postproduction will initiate mid 2012 for 6 months, and then 1 episode per month afterwards (13 episodes). Meanwhile Rapscallion will provide several small website indie games during development and release final product when series is released!

Back from Asia

Haven't been able to post for some time due to my trip to Taiwan and China. I had fun experiencing different cultures and I took particular notice with the games and animation there. As expected in Taiwan it was very Japanese anime oriented and even China had some reminiscence of anime in their cartoons, especially with the big eyes.

On the video gaming side, I talked with my cousins and apparently American games dont seem to be performing very well. With the exception of Blizzards World of Warcraft and Starcraft. While its still very Japanese centric, there seems to be a huge surge and transition to online gaming in the Asian market. Especially MMO type games are on the rise.

Another interesting thing I learned there was when I talked with my cousin Chiu Liwei was that to create entertainment media in China you need a Chinese company to claim ownership. This is because the country is trying to promote its own animation and gaming and doesnt want outside companies. To compensate, many chinese companies simply take ownership of outside titles for release inside which I think is extremely stupid.

MUGS!!!!

The mugs with my artwork designs have come in!!! My uncle owns a giftware business and he has a machine that prints art designs on mugs! :D

Providence PC game hero ship models

Finished textured models for hero ships for Providence PC game, shown are the bomber (Left) and fighter (Type) spaceships the player can choose for missions.

Bomber Type: This ship is larger and slower but has more customizable equipment addons as well as heavier firepower and armor/shielding. It also can be equipped with lances, which are attack drones that detach to focus down nearbye enemy aircraft. It focuses on more kinetic weapons such as missiles, rockets and rail guns.

Fighter Type: This ship I designed it stubbier because my programmer wanted two huge engines. It is much weaker than the bomber type in firepower and has less customizable upgrades. However it is much more manuverable and possesses more special abilities, particularly in using magical weaponry and energy based weapons.

The game will take place in a science fiction universe with some magical fantasy aspects during the invasion of the Systems Ordianance League and their crusade to retake the seperatist territories against the United Aegis Federation. The player will play as a military contractor mercenary faction under the UAF as they assist in repelling the SOL armada to profit off this conflict. However both factions are corrupt each with subgroups and personal agendas. The player will not be a hero, but rather in a more grey point of view, rescuing and liberating rebel planets as well as commiting atrocities and taking advantage of innocents as long as it profits and meets the agenda of your company and the profit lords that watch over the UAF....

With our current development schedule (and my amazing programmer Ian) we will have the game roughly playable by next week (with a lot of placeholders) and gradually insert details in.

During the process of making this and porting it as a obj file to my programmer I learned that the models tend to have multiple objects with different objects as quads or tris. To resolve this issue I learned that I needed to combine all objects and then trianguate the polys in Maya before I export.

Assignment 3 Part 5: Creative Use of Color

Was playing around with the color wheel code to see if I could do anything interesting with it. I liked how the color cube project had a more 3D aspect to it than the previous wheel assignment so I decided to add a z axis as well. The layers of circles gradually become more saturdated as they go up, also the center space gets bigger too.

float $rotate = 360/30.0;
float $translate = 1.0/5.0;
string $name;
string $name2;
for ($x=0;$x<30.0;$x++)
{
    for ($y=0;$y<5;$y++)
    {
     for($z=0;$z<8;$z++)
//Add a z axis
       {
          $name = `shadingNode -asShader blinn`;
          $name2 = $name + ".color";       
    $angle = $x * $rotate;
          $saturate = $y * $translate;
          $hue = $angle/360.0;       
//Assign Blinn shaders
          vector $color = hsv_to_rgb(<<$hue, $saturate, 1>>);
//Convert HSV to RGB, set max of 1 (if RGB are all 1 it creates white)      
          setAttr $name2 -type double3 ($color.x) ($color.y) ($color.z);
//Set shaders
          sphere -ch on -o on -po 0 -ax 0 1 0 -r 0.0538244 -nsp 4 ;
//Make Nurb Spheres    
          xform -translation $saturate ($y+1.0) ($z/7.0);
//changed transformation from previous circle code for translation changes
          rotate -pivot .1 .1 .1 0 $angle 0;
//translating the balls to form circular shape
          hyperShade -assign $name;
//Assign shaders   
 }   
    }
}
;

Assignment 3 Part 4: Nonlinear Complementary Transitions

For a nonlinear transition that is complementary but doesnt go thru the grey, I went back to the colorwheel concept. Instead of going thru the center, have the colors go around like in a color wheel and determine hue angle wise but just make the balls spawn in a linear fashion. In general its a more simplified version of the color wheel code with unecessary things deleted such as saturation and having multiple layers.
float $rotate = 360.0/30.0;
string $name;
string $name2;
for ($x=0;$x<15.0;$x++)
{
    for ($y=0;$y<1;$y++)
//set 15 balls around so it only goes half a circle so its complementary(30 is full circle), change to 1 ball since you dont need layers like the original color wheel. Rotation will still be needed for hue changes.
    {
        $name = `shadingNode -asShader blinn`;
        $name2 = $name + ".color";       
 $angle = $x*$rotate;
        $hue = $angle/360.0;
//Assign Blinn shaders, note despite linear transition angle is going to be needed for the hue changes
        vector $color = hsv_to_rgb(<<$hue, 1, 1>>);
//Convert HSV to RGB      
        setAttr $name2 -type double3 ($color.x) ($color.y) ($color.z);
//Set shaders
        sphere -ch on -o on -po 0 -ax 0 1 0 -r 0.0538244 -nsp 4 ;
//Make Nurb Spheres     
         xform -translation (0.25*$x) 0 1;
//Translate balls in a linear fashion and ignore the angle
        hyperShade -assign $name;
//Assign shaders       
    }
}
;

Same code concept for second one the only difference is I shifted x so it goes forward from the colorwheel so it changes to different complementary colors

float $rotate = 360.0/30.0;
string $name;
string $name2;
for ($x=5;$x<25.0;$x++)
{
    for ($y=0;$y<1;$y++)
    {
        $name = `shadingNode -asShader blinn`;
        $name2 = $name + ".color";       
 $angle = $x*$rotate;
        $hue = $angle/360.0;
        vector $color = hsv_to_rgb(<<$hue, 1, 1>>);       
        setAttr $name2 -type double3 ($color.x) ($color.y) ($color.z);
        sphere -ch on -o on -po 0 -ax 0 1 0 -r 0.0538244 -nsp 4 ;      
       xform -translation (0.25*$x) 0 1;
        hyperShade -assign $name;    
    }
}
;

Assignment 3 Part 3: Complementary Linear Transition

string $name;
string $name2;
 float $red2;
 float $green2;
 float $blue2;
 int $x = 0;
for ($x=0;$x<15.0;$x++)
{
 $red2 = 1.0;
 $green2 = 0.0;
 $blue2 = 0.0;
//sets color variables, default is red
 $red2 -= ($x*0.06);
 $green2 += ($x*0.06);
 $blue2 += ($x*0.06);
//set color transition
     $name = `shadingNode -asShader blinn`;
     $name2 = $name + ".color";
//assigns shaders             
     setAttr $name2 -type double3 ($red2) ($green2) ($blue2);
//sets shaders
     sphere -ch on -o on -po 0 -ax 0 1 0 -r 0.0538244 -nsp 4;
//create nurb spheres      
     xform -translation (0.25*$x) 0 1;
//spawns the balls in a line
     hyperShade -assign $name;
//assigns shaders to balls    
}
;

For different color transitions, I adjust the $red2, $green2. $blue2 by changing the positive and negative

string $name;
string $name2;
 float $red2;
 float $green2;
 float $blue2;
 int $x = 0;
for ($x=0;$x<15.0;$x++)
{
 $red2 = 1.0;
 $green2 = 0.0;
 $blue2 = 0.0;
//sets color variables, default is red
 $red2 -= ($x*0.06);
 $green2 += ($x*0.06);
 $blue2 -= ($x*0.06);
//set color transition
     $name = `shadingNode -asShader blinn`;
     $name2 = $name + ".color";
//assigns shaders             
     setAttr $name2 -type double3 ($red2) ($green2) ($blue2);
//sets shaders
     sphere -ch on -o on -po 0 -ax 0 1 0 -r 0.0538244 -nsp 4;
//create nurb spheres      
     xform -translation (0.25*$x) 0 1;
//spawns the balls in a line
     hyperShade -assign $name;
//assigns shaders to balls    
}
;

Assignment 3 Part 2: Color Wheel

Color Wheel 1: Basic Single Ring Color Wheel
float $rotate =360/30.0;
//float $translate = 1.0;
string $name;
string $name2;
for ($x=0;$x<30.0;$x++)
{
    for ($y=0;$y<1;$y++)
//set 30 balls around
    {
        $name = `shadingNode -asShader blinn`;
        $name2 = $name + ".color";       
 $angle = $x * $rotate;
        $hue = $angle/360.0;       
//Assign Blinn shaders
        vector $color = hsv_to_rgb(<<$hue, 1, 1>>);
//Convert HSV to RGB       
        setAttr $name2 -type double3 ($color.x) ($color.y) ($color.z);
//Set shaders
        sphere -ch on -o on -po 0 -ax 0 1 0 -r 0.0538244 -nsp 4 ;
//Make Nurb Spheres       
        xform -translation 1 0 0;
        rotate -pivot .1 .1 .1 0 $angle 0;
//translating the balls to form circular shape
        hyperShade -assign $name;
//Assign shaders       
    }
}
;


Color Wheel 2: This time I tried to implement a color wheel with saturation values and greys

float $rotate = 360/30.0;
float $translate = 1.0/5.0;
string $name;
string $name2;
for ($x=0;$x<30.0;$x++)
{
    for ($y=0;$y<5;$y++)
//set 30 balls around added translate to keep balls closer together
    {
        $name = `shadingNode -asShader blinn`;
        $name2 = $name + ".color";       
 $angle = $x * $rotate;
        $saturate = $y * $translate;
        $hue = $angle/360.0;       
//Assign Blinn shaders
        vector $color = hsv_to_rgb(<<$hue, $saturate, 1>>);
//Convert HSV to RGB, set max of 1 (if RGB are all 1 it creates white)      
        setAttr $name2 -type double3 ($color.x) ($color.y) ($color.z);
//Set shaders
        sphere -ch on -o on -po 0 -ax 0 1 0 -r 0.0538244 -nsp 4 ;
//Make Nurb Spheres     
        xform -translation $saturate 0 0;
        rotate -pivot .1 .1 .1 0 $angle 0;
//translating the balls to form circular shape
        hyperShade -assign $name;
//Assign shaders       
    }
}
;

Assignment 3 Part 1: Color Cube

Color Cube with Mel Script

based on what we did in class

Open Maya->Window->General Editor->Script Editor to open the Mel Script Editor

Script
for($x=0;$x<8;$x++)
{
  for($y=0;$y<8;$y++)
  {
    for($z=0;$z<8;$z++)
     {
       $name=`shadingNode-asShader blinn`;
       $tmp=$name+".color";//blinnShader1.color
              setAttr $tmp -type double3 ($x/7.0) ($y/7.0) ($z/7.0); //color order
       polySphere -ch on -o on -r .03;//ballradius
 xform -translation ($x/7.0) ($y/7.0) ($z/7.0);//balldistance
       hyperShade -assign $name;
     }
  }
}

Business Technology Competition

Although not directly relevant to art and design, Ive been contemplating and preparing for the UNM business technology competition. This competition engineers and business people work together to form their own business plans and present to a board of angel investors, bankers, and entrepreneurs for prize money of up to $25,000 to help your startup. Ever since my disastrous failure last year of not being in the last competition Ive been organizing and planning my revent for revenge and desperation. It is the last semester and our team really needs funding to be fully operational.

This time besides giving a decent presentation from business side we decided to make our presentation more over the top. For example the image above is part of our FLASH presentation opening where gates will slide out and the gears will turn to reveal the presentation instead of a stereotypical Powerpoint. That being said the content is revealed pretty straightforward and simple except with cool art backgrounds.

Last year some of the judges mocked us for being a little garage studio filled with ideas and no product so this time we will unleash our full potential with progress in our main project we need funding for as well as our current games were about to release. We also made money from our previous Xboxlive game Abaddon and hopefully we can get some indie funding from kickstarter and 8bit funding to show them we are making money and mean business. Failure is unforgivable, I have failed all my partners that have struggled and put so much sweat equity in. For me personally it was a insult since many teams have entered just to get the prize money and run, though some I respected for having the same determination as me in making their dreams come true. I will do whatever it takes to win and destroy my competitors. LONG LIVE RAPSCALLION!!!

Now back to the art and computer science perspective. I noticed a lot of students have ideas and goals such as forming their own studio, being a director etc but they are stalled by fear or "I dont have the money". The reality is nobody does when they start, you have to go out and pound the pavement like a dog to succeed. Even if you hate those greedy corporate people you still have to appeal to them because they have the money in their pockets, so you need to understand what appeals to them and how to get your show/game out there. It really isnt as bad as people think, as long as their is making money involved there is potential.

3D space shooter game development begins

Now that the 2D FLASH game is near completion and will soon be released, I have turned my assets towards our 3D space game with my other programmer Ian.We wanted this game to have a slight cartoony design so for the heroship we tried to make the fighter a more stubby style design. I also started texturing the bomber hero fighter shown below.

It has multiple weapons attachments much more than the fighter but is less manuverable.

Cynical View of Entertainment Industry

Picture unrelated to topic, doodle I made on Photoshop

Sometimes I worry about art students trying to get into the entertainment industry with their naive outlook. Many of them believe that they want to go into Pixar in animation, or video games they want to go to work for Blizzard . In truth I feel its a very competitive and cruel industry especially due to the art aspect. If purely an artist the odds of getting into one of the major companies is extremely hard.

You cant just get a mere A in all your classes and expect a job when you graduate. In fact you have to be THE BEST to even have a chance. Its not just matching up to most of your peers but rather being the top 1% of your class, and even that it is rarely sufficient. This may also be why a lot of students that go for design majors eventually end up in fast food or working at starbucks complaining how their majors were useless. Its not the degree that counts but rather the portfolio. In a sense besides hard work you need natural talent similar to how it is in professional sports and I feel very concerned for my peers with the idealistic outlook.

From a personal point of view, I do decent in illustrations but I cant get a job with these. I have tried to apply for concept artist positions for major game companies and they dont even bother with me. Now this may sound like Im being arrogant of my skills, but I know a lot of artists want to get into these positions, to even stand a chance they have to be able to easily draw at a much higher caliber to even stand a chance of even being considered for a interview. Now I have decided to go a different route instead of going the all art route after realizing this.

The issue I noticed is that even with this high competitiveness there really is no gold at the end of the rainbow. Animation and concept artist jobs pay like crap. Also many designer and art based jobs are based on contract, once your done they get rid of you. Those anime fangirls and boys that want to draw for japanese companies will be hard pressed after realizing that there is no incentives for them to hire foreigners and you get paid horribly in making $1000 a month. Also, most people have the ideal that they can make stuff they want in the industry, dont be so naive. Unless you are at the top you work under direct orders of your director and slave away for 10 hours a day or more. Its highly competitive with very little reward.

This is a cruel reality, in truth I believe even in IFDM probably less than 1% of the students will ever reach their idealized goals. I suppose if they diversify with a technical skill background like programming they can greatly increase their odds, however artists alone is a very dangerous road to go down. I believe that getting some technical skills to supplement your art is good but also learn a bit of business so you know how to market yourself competitively. Sometimes its not what you know but rather who you know. This really is a dog eat dog industry, then again I cant really comment on others since I am engaging a even more dangerous approach myself...

FLASH Game Beta Is out!!!!

Our flash video game is in beta stage and we are distributing it to see what other people think as well as help find bugs so we can fix before final release! :D

Mug Designs

Edited some old images for custome mug designs all done in photoshop :)

Game complete screen

Working on game completion screens, this one is made by me and Travis. To get proportions more accurate we created the rough models in Autodesk Maya 3D ships. Then we propped the ships and took a screenshot of the scene. Afterwards I painted it over with photoshop and added stars behind. Then Travis did special effects such as bluring the hero ship and adding special lighting for missiles and glows.

Beta almost complete!

Almost complete with beta version of company FLASH game. Still requires a lot of tweaking still and needs to be more challenging. The game is a bullet hell that we will plan to port a extended version for droid once our programmer learns as3.

Mechanical Aegis Lich

Did a concept doodle for large game development project with my company. One of the factions I wanted to make it reminiscent to fantasy ish style with a combination of new age science fiction style technology. This one I tried to make it look like a lich with a crown. Similar to a lich the body is temporary and the "soul" is stored in a phylactery like object similar to a hardrive. Used particularly by the corporate monarchs of the Aegis Federation faction.

Bouncing Ball Animation

Here is my bouncing ball animation as a GIF. I tried to minimize mouse clicks by using 2D traditional animation sketching

Software and Equipment

• Pencil & Erasure
• Lightfoot Light Table
• 35 Sheets of animation paper
• Adobe Photoshop
• Scanner

1. With Light Table, place one animation paper over it. The first page I draw all the rough ball movements in one page eyeballing the angle (if you cant eyeball, I would suggest use a 1 point perspective and draw lines to show the angle the ball is coming from and how big the ball will scale as it gets closer).
2. Once rough outline of the drawing of the entire animation is done on one page, place a second page over it on the light table and trace the first ball location and add details, then take it off and place another page and draw the next ball frame...etc. Remember to number all your page frames.
3. Near the end I decided to make the ball stop and open as a critter, I made the ball have little plates and decided that to stop one of the plates will pop out and stop the rotation, afterwards it will open up like a pillbug.
4. Once all drawing frames are done scan them into the computer with a scanner (be sure to name the images in order). Then turn all layers off (layer toolbar click the eye symbol)
5. Open Photoshop and drag and drop all the images into one file. Have each animation frame pasted on a layer over the previous. Once u paste it in same image it automatically puts it over the previous layer.
6. Go to Windows>Animation to open the animation toolbar in Photoshop. Click the little square icon to create new frames and change the layers. Make frame 1, then make layer 1 visible (click the eye). Then do the same thing for frame 2...etc
7. After you have all the frames, double click each frame and set the timer of the frame to 0.2 seconds
8. Export by going to File>Save For Web And Devices. Make sure its a GIF file and save it!

Best Work?

Its really hard for me to say what is my best work... mainly due to two reasons

• I don't value my work, unless theirs some purpose or project that needs it theirs no reason to save it after its done. Art is a blast! I enjoy the process but see little value in the result from a art appreciation point of view.
• I don't like to consider a work my "best" because that means that I have reached my maximum potential, I believe I wont ever get a best piece of work due to constant improvements and advancement.

That being said, I will put down my more recent Photoshop digital paintings to keep this post a little interesting. I would say my biggest achievement (not necessarily art, but is related to digital media) is starting my own video game development company. Although my technical specialty is in animation and art rather than programming, I planned since high school to make this dream come to fruition. By networking with programmers and artists, I was able to convince people to work together on larger projects. Currently we have released a project with Firestorm Studios the game Abaddon Retribution, working on a PC game for Steam along with a free online website game, looking for investors to advance our current large PC game project. and designed 2 logos for foreign companies in Asia. 

Although this isn't much accomplishment wise, its a start. I consider it as a personal achievement since it was challenge because normally I am a introvert that is afraid to take risks.