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.