The Adventures of a Misplaced Artist vol.7

Term 5 - Weeks 3, 4 & 5

2012-02-06T18:49:00.001-07:00

Hi!

This is the fisrt post that includes not two but three weeks all in one. The reason is simple: Too much work in the past weeks prevent me to do anything else.

First two week post, too much work to do to even post on the game blog. During these past weeks, production hit M1 and M2, and even when i feel that we are a little behind schedule, we will manage to deliver the whole thing on time.

So what happened during these weeks? Well we got the Game Design Expo from VFS. Several designers from different studios came to give everyone a talk about their work and problems they got and how they solved them, followed by a Q&A (most of the cases). At the end of the day, they all spent some hours with the attendees talking more personally about their projects, more questions and the industry. We also got some very important feedback from several people and attendees for our game, and we already made the needed changes. Here's a list of the people that gave us talks and panels for the expo:

-Bioware - Emmanuel Lusinchi
-Bethesda - Bruce Nesmith
-Eidos Montreal - Bruce Kelly (GD 04)
-Gameloft - Patric Mondou
-Slang Six Games - Ian Christy
- Independent Developers - Jake Birkett, Chevy Johnston (VFS teacher), Brian Provinciano, Brenda Gershkovitch, Rick Davison (VFS teacher).
- Network Session with all the attendees.

As for our game itself, I had being pumping 3D assets like Architectural objects (close to 70 in just a few days) and i had to revamp the entire UI (both front end and HUD) to make it easier to understand or to accommodate the new features .

Last week we went to EA Burnaby, their buildings are amazing and they even have a inner basketball court and several sports areas, like football or even sand volleyball! it was cool!

In some weird news, we got our first Brony meeting here at school (LOL). It was kinda weird to be watching a tv show that i had being watching alone because of certain shyness i had but we had a blast. We may have another one this week.

On febrary 1st i had to move places because the previous landlords started to remodel the basement. However it was a small nightmare because the keys didn't worked and i had also school and stuff to do. Adding to all that, i had a small cold and i wasn't feeling that good. Speaking of that, right now and during the weekend i had a very, but VERY bad coughing (almost to the point of puke) and i had to skip school during the weekend, which puts me behind on schedule.

Also i had the opportunity to have, again, an extra New Year celebration with the Chinese New Year! Welcoming the Year of the Dragon.

Finally, coming from the internet show: Extra Credits, we had the visit of James Portnow. He gave us a small talk about the industry and the next day we had him one on one with all the team and how can we improve it.

If you want to know more about Extra Credits, please go to the following site:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/show/extra-credits

See ya
Antharias

P.S. some of the pictures aren't mine, so i thank to those that help me go get them, and also they deserve the credit for taking the picture.

And before you go, here's the best video ever! Prepare for Madness!!!

Term 5 - Week 2

2012-01-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

Hi!

Before anything else, i have to say that the mid-week posts are suspended until further notice in favor of posting some stuff in the project blog. BTW the website changed to:

www.terminusgame.net

the weather had being behaving as an actual winter season and because of that i had this small incident where i slip from the sidewalk and ended on the asphalt and had to react very quickly because i saw two trucks coming towards me. Not much damage really, but a small scare there.

The project is coming pretty good, and we are now working for M1 on friday, which means is sprint time (actually we are on sprint every day, but you know.). Also, the Game Design Expo is this saturday and im a volunteer to help in the setup. VIP people from the industry are coming and hopefully i will have a conversation with one of them.

www.gamedesignexpo.com/

In other news, I went to Jagger's this past Friday to celebrate the new Gen 25, it was fun, nothing mayor, except that i really talked that day, it feels weird when that happens.

Some bad news, I got a cold on the weekend so i have to keep this quick.

See ya
Antharias

Term 5 - Week 1

2012-01-08T23:24:00.000-07:00

Hi!

We finally started production on the final project and there are some developments already. The game is officially known as Terminus Station. We already have the models of 5 characters and Front End done with the HUD in progress. All information regarding the project, including but not limited to production videos and art, please refer to the following sites:

http://terminus.transistorcollective.net/

http://twitter.com/TerminusGame

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Terminus/195402187213198

As for this term it feels more relaxed because we made our own schedule with core hours between 10 am to 6 pm, however we always stay longer to polish all details that we can.

In some more random notes, after three weeks of waiting we have a new MLP episode, FTW! Also, my Ultimate Fanart project is also in progress, so expect some screenshots as soon as I have some time.

Sorry for the weird and short post, but I'm a little tired.

Antharias

Happy New Year 2012!!!

2012-01-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

Hi!

What an incredible year 2011 was! I returned to Vancouver, studying game design, met awesome people, went to Microsoft, learn a ton of stuff, saw Wicked the musical, attended to Siggraph, too much stuff to name literally. However to change pacing, this new year's eve i decided to stay home. I did went to downtown a little bit, walked for a couple of hours and then ate sushi at a restaurant and then went back. Why so lame decision you asked? simple! I wanted to be as rested as possible for the next four months, and since school starts on tuesday, if i had went to a party of something will had resulted in recovering again the next day and left me only one day off.

Now is time to put everything to practice, to give the last step before knowing what will be in my future. But you already know that i had sacrificed too much already for not having any results, so make it happen.

To close this post, i wish all visitors to this blog a happy new year and may luck smiles on you all year long.

See ya next post!
Antharias

Christmas 2011

2011-12-29T23:56:00.000-07:00

Hi!

What happens when I don't have anything to do and been unleash into the wild? I travel and get pictures, that's what!

So my break started with me finishing games and going to parks and forest as I previously mentioned, but after a few days of relaxing, i started working on the project to gain some time after next week. So besides that, i wandered around downtown looking for presents because i was going to Seattle in the following days.

So a few days ago i took the train, the same line i took to get here some months ago but now it was turn to go the other way around. I don't remember the feeling that time, maybe because i panicked XD, but this time it felt like a hybrid between a bus and a plane. And i were talking to a nice lady half of the way, which made the trip easier.

I got to Seattle and my friend Ruth (you remember her, from the summer break pictures) took me to her new home where his BF and brother were living now. And it was a great place! Quiet and cousy. On the 24, we made the Christmas dinner and then went to visit some people, which ended in a drunk Jenga game (which i didnt played because i was the designated driver) which was very fun and unexpected ending.

The following days we watched a lot of movies, but DVD or at a theater and went out for dinner. So here's my quick reviews:

REVIEWS ///////////////

Sherlock Holmes: a game of shadows - 4 out of 5 stars

I really liked this one! It was a great improvement from the Deus machina that was the first one. They learned what worked and what didn't and apply it. Of course there are a couple of details here and there, but those are overlooked by the pace of the story.
Must watch for this winter season

X-Men First Class - 5 out of 5 stars

Speaking of improvement, just look at this movie! No more "last stand" or "origins" half baked movies. This one is definitely a back into form for the X-Men franchise and you can thank Bryan Singer for producing this one. I won't say anything else, just go and watch it!

Hanna - 3.5 out of 5 stars

Based on the story and script of VFS graduate Seth Lochhead, is a story of a kid that is trained into an assassin in the forest. A little bit predictable and a few scenes are very over the top but is still watchable. If you like movies like the transporter (and i mean in pace, not story) then you will like this one.

The Keg: Steakhouse & Bar - 4 out of 5 stars

One of the nights we went to this place called "The Keg". A very stylish steakhouse with a great selection and interesting layout. We went to the following location:

18110 Alderwood Mall PKWY.
Lynnwood, WA

or look for other locations and menu at:

http://www.kegsteakhouse.com/en/

///////////////

A day before going back the worst happened! My computer got a virus and i had to reformat! but it doesn't stays there, i got two other viruses in the new installations! WTF!?

But karma payed off and i got invited to pass a day at the Microsoft campus at Redmond! IT was interesting, but the biggest point was the company store. I can dare to day it looks better than any apple store i had gone before, it looks more sparkly and has better use of colors. So i spent the rest of my budget in less than 10 mins XDD.

Unfortunately the viruses were too much and i spent all the night repairing my laptop and installing updates and antivirus software. But it was all good, another experience.

In my way back, i noticed the amount of bridges around the train. I think someone said that crossing a bridge is a sign of renewal or a way to connect into a new life. If that's true, then i was renewed and got like 10 new lives all together.

I still have some days to spare before starting what will be the start of my most critical time in life. And everything will pay off for real.

See you next time
Antharias

P.S. As usual, here are the pictures ^_^

The "Sleeping days" Post

2011-12-19T00:31:00.000-07:00

Hi!

4 days after the end of school translate in 4 days of catching up with sleep. Im not a slacker by any means but i really needed it. How can i tell? because after i got home today i fell asleep twice while chatting with a friend, that's why.

Anyways these days i had being cleaning my room, doing laundry, repairing and updating my computer, I finally beat Oblivion and was temped to play Skirim (but somehow i managed to get away from that life sucker for a few more days), so i'm playing singularity again (which is a bioshock clone somehow and i like that).

And today i went to Central park at Burnaby after almost 8 months since i got here. The weird mist around the trees made the whole park/forest look so mystical and the freaking squirrels are as cute as ever and always want something to eat. BUT it was a little late and cold so I went to Metrotown, and damn it was packed! So packed indeed that i rather go away than trying to walk in a straight line without bumping with someone.

So i bought my groceries and got home.Quite a relaxing weekend at last, even my eye twitching has lowered down a bit.

See you later
Antharias

Term 8 - Mid week post

2011-12-14T19:51:00.000-07:00

Hi!

I'm right now at my desk, doing a backup of my files before leaving for the rest of the year. Today is the last day of this term and as i clean up my desk I recall the journey so far. A very demanding journey that is that is already paying off. When i come back i will be on the very last sprint towards the end and in production. As some of you know, i won't be back to hell for the holidays for different reasons and that's not that bad really. I will take some time to wander around the city looking for my peace that i had lost from some time now. I may go to another city to past the holidays but is something I'm still thinking.

For now I need to rest before the last storm. The post will be sporadic, may it be daily or weekly but i will post from time to time.

Until the next post!
Antharias

Term 4 - Week 7

2011-12-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

Hi!

First of all, our game has a twitter account, expect us to do updates during next year! ^_^ Please, visit us at:

http://twitter.com/TerminusGame

Our Facebook page and official website are being develop as we speak.

So this week was a very, but very exhausting one and i couldn't upload anything for the mid-week post, sorry for that. Anyways, we finished our documentation, from GDD to art bible and we also did a couple of pitches for mentors and sound design people from VFS. After that we had being overwhelmed by extra assignments and the fact that this term is 8 and not 7 week long as usual.

Finally, im right now doing a deathmatch level for portfolio so i can't write much this time. However i can say that i had adquired Gears of War 3, so expect a review soon

See ya

Antharias

Term 4 - Week 6

2011-12-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

Hi!

So we are in the last part of the crunch time, after this only three more assignments and we are done! However i had over worked myself a little bit more and literally my body hurts from exhaustion. Doesn't matter, i raised up like 3 levels this term and now can confidently say I'm ready for game production.

Speaking of game production, I finished both models and animations that i showed you at the beginning of the term: The fish man and Qua ina. Although you will have to excuse my horrible textures, I had little to no time to finish them (like an hour and a half). Unfortunately, the network is on maintenance right now and i cant access the fish man, sorry for that.

I tried to go home for the holidays, but a change of plans will make me stay here for Christmas. However i can use that time to start working on the project or sleep (which is more probable).

See you next time
Antharias

Mid Week Post

2011-11-30T22:14:00.001-07:00

Hi!

So right now I'm confident enough to say that the media bible for the Terminus Project is at 65% done. In which this week alone i finished 30% of it. Which is good since we need to deliver it by next week.

Here's a sneak peek of our main character. Is not the final version (I will put the final version in the project's web site). We wanted a strong female character for our game. She is a though detective that stills cares for others but doesn't hesitate to pull a gun when someone is in danger.

Her name is Rachel and she is based on Angelina Jolie's character in the Bone Collector and in Amy Pond from Doctor Who.

For this draft i used a comic style of art to speed things up. But because of the time (ironic isnt?) I just gave it a base wash of colors.

This is the main reason of why I'm in a burnout state right now. The amount of art assets i had done (along with some design for HUD and Front End) is quite a lot and the 13 hrs shifts arent very helpful. But we must go on! We are Design WAR MACHINES!!! And we will deliver the whole documentation next week or die trying! * Raises hand to the sky*

Antharias

Term 4 - Week 5

2011-11-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

Hi!

One more week to finish our game Pre-Pro and we are up to here with stuff that's not related to it. But worry not, we will manage to finishing it up. My part in it is the Art Bible, and i think we have all the parts already described, however I yet have to paint all the art for it. It's just a matter of discipline and time organization.

I just realized that my UVing speed had improved drastically, i dont know exactly why since i had spent more time modeling than UVing, but im not complaning.

Yesterday i took the whole day to think about I am right now. If i was expecting the harder time of my life, this is it. No more games (ironic but true), this is the final 4 months towards see if it was worth it or not. I do have several options for after im done with this course, but in the meantime if i dont have a decent portfolio then i have nothing.

Crunch time is on us, so i'll give you my review of Mirror's Edge next week

See ya
Antharias

Mid-Week post

2011-11-23T20:49:00.001-07:00

Hi!

So we are finalizing our schedule for the next 2 terms and our game. the result is that i will have to work at least 70 days to finish..... ....WOW!...... .... but that why im here isnt? We'll hope for the best.

Anyways, puting that aside, i had being really worn out these days, it takes me a little while to start working on something even when i do want to work on it. these days had being a little stressful.

So we finally got the successor for Twilight Princess: Skyward Sword, and unfortunately can't play it because i don't own a Wii. *shrugs* what can we do?

A good news out of this is my speed to produce a conceptual piece. Instead of the 14+ hours it took me in previous years it takes me less than 5 hours these days. And that's gonna be really handy in the next months. Also my times to model in maya had decreased by a 5% but is good enough so far. Hope i can keep with those improvements until the end.

See ya on the next post!
Antharias

Term 4 - Week 4

2011-11-21T18:32:00.000-07:00

Hi!

We just hit Crunch-time again! which means I won't update on schedule.

Last week was a meh one to be honest, not much to report except that i finalized the model sheet from one of the characters and there are like 7 more to go. Unfortunately for my demise, i had being playing oblivion too much lately which is a bad idea when you need to finish stuff up. T_T
Also, I'm sacrificing Level Design to finish the game art assets, not that i would like to make something more amazing, but I dont have time.

So we finally got our real snow today (mixed with rain but still counts) and all the streets were covered with a white layer of snow. If this goes on, the school-house route will get difficult.

Somehow i had found time to play Mirror's Edge a little bit and is quite nice the whole game and im trying finish it without shooting any gun at all!

I have to keep working now, I'll see you in the mid-week post.

Antharias

Mid-Week Post

2011-11-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

Hi!

A surprise for this week! We got snow on Monday night! but only for 10 mins and it became hale. but still it was very unexpected. I was just laughing at it and i don't know why.

Pre-production for Terminus just hit overdrive and we have a lot to do . Yesterday i finished the conceptual for two AI and i will have to make the main character again because some changes had to be made. I do have some silhouettes to share:

This week special is RIGGING! we learned to rig a model in Maya at school so one of my projects will be fully poseable by the end of the week!

Also i finally went to Fatburger. Food is good, not much to add really. 3 out of 5 stars.

And yesterday was a classmate's birthday! Happy post-birthday Carson!

See you on the weekend
Antharias

Term 4 - Week 3

2011-11-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

Hi!

For a change, this was a very relaxing week. The project has officially kicked in and we have our first character draft and story. There are a few problems with the future platform but if worse thing happens, we will have to develop for PC. I wish we don't have to go that way. And as soon as I can publish more details, I'll let you know. Anyways, I present to you "Project Terminus":

So 11/11/11 came by with is SKYRIM!!!!! But i didn't bought it XD. However most of the people in the campus did and the place was deserted most of the weekend. For those of you that doesn't know what Skyrim is, it is an open world adventure game, that takes place in the province of Skyrim north of Cydorill, where the player makes a viking style avatar and levels it up in an RPG style by finishing several quests around the game world. if that was very vague for you, here's a video:

Also if Skyrim is not your style of game, there also POCKY! November 11 was also pocky day! so if you did got some pocky that day, thumbs up, if not, then leave everything you are doing right now and run to your favorite store to get one box. you can thank me later.

Anyways, i had found some problems with my social skills lately. I'm having translation problems and I'm being awkward when talking to any other student in the campus. Somehow i just don't have anything else to say, just i give the"hi, bye". Im wondering what's wrong with me, since I'm sure i make other people uncomfortable with my lack of conversation. And sometimes is the other way around. May be tiredness or that i don't go outside much these days.

IDK, I'm still checking myself what could it be. Although I'm a little upset with some people that talk to you only when they need help, but as soon they are happy, they completely forget you. I really don't like that kind of persons.

End of rant and of this post.
Antharias

Mid-Week post

2011-11-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

Hi!

Remember that "all nighter" i told you about? well, the tiredness just catch up yesterday. Literally i was falling asleep during a meeting XD. heck, i didnt even wanted to play anything when i got home.

Anyways, been working on polishing the 3D models i did last week to unfold the UV maps later. Is interesting how you have to think about the places the model will bend for animation and the faces you can take off from other places that really don't need too much detail. Also i learned the differences between patch modeling and box modeling. Even when box modeling is faster to give the overall silhouette, i found it more difficult to polish than patch modeling. however patch modeling is too slow to show any progress in the matter of minutes. For me, i rather use both and depending on which area of the body is the technique i will use. I will post a screenshot in the next post about it.

And as promised, here are a few pictures from skytrain.

See ya
Antharias

Term 4 - Week 2

2011-11-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

Hi!

For reasons beyond my skills i had to do an "all nighter today (Sun-Mon), therefore i couldn't upload any pictures. So i stayed the whole night finishing a single player experience in UDK which turned good enough for portfolio purposes.

Anyways, during the week i finished another 3D model (besides the one i shown before). This time is a weird fish-guy in less than 3k polys. So far i had become faster because of all this practice, however im still a step behind what i need to the end of the year. hopefully by the end of the term ill be ready to take on the final project.

Speaking of finals, we had been in too many meetings and some of them even 8 hr long to decide. This past saturday we finally decided on project "Wizard Assault" (working title). However i cant give you more details until we talk to the mentors and that they green light it.

In the social part, last friday was GD24's party and it was entertaining for a change. not much to say really, but small space, too many people and too much noise.

Since my incursion into the Brony Fandom i had found more Bronies around school, which is awesome! And even more awesome is the fact that the studio that makes the animation for the show is like 6 - 8 blocks from here XD. BTW, i had been reading articles about parents miss understanding the word "Brony" for some kind of pedophile related stuff. PARENTS: read more plz! Brony comes from Bro (brother) and Pony. It has nothing to do with any pedo sh*t! BRONIES: If you are going to tell you relatives about your liking of MLP, please explain your parents and invite them to see an episode. the worst thing that always happens in any situation is miss information. Let's try to avoid that ^_^

Putting rants aside, last week we had the first snow in the mountains. Which finally concludes the warm season and makes me wonder if i packed enough warm clothing for the rest of the season T_T.

I which i could keep writing more about the weekend and my strange behavior after an "all nighter" (i can say i don't feel tired at all but who knows), but school is on and i need to put atention.

see ya on the mid post
Antharias

Mid-Week post

2011-11-02T23:07:00.000-06:00

Hi!

A couple extra pics from Monday!

BTW a warning to all of you out there! Playing multiplayer games at night when having 9 am classes the next day is not a good idea in any level. Just don't do it, I'm right now suffering for that bad decision of the last 3 days.

/////////////////////////////General Qua'ina 3D Process

Her story is about a beautiful but very proud and cold woman that had an accident that left her without leg functionality. She is another experiment with limb exchange in the Cretian army but at her own will. When she lost her legs in an attack while being part of the Air Squad, she asked the Generals to replace her legs with anything else. The result never let her fly again as she expected.

As you know, i had been working on a character from Maison de Laches in the Character Design class. I made the character as a silhouette for quick visibility purposes in around 5-10 mins. In this term i made a sketch of what i wanted for the character (which took more than an hour while doing research for it) and redefined the shape overall (i thought it was too thin for the game). After that I worked the shape in 3D (took around 2.5 hours with a new technique) and revised the height to reflect the documentation specs.

Well thats for today's post. See ya on the weekend

Antharias

Term 4 - Week 1

2011-10-31T19:13:00.000-06:00

Hi!

I had being reading "1001 Video Games you must play before you die" this past week. It describes the best games (both milestones or just plain fun) and why they were fun or relevant to the industry. It goes chronologically up to 2010. Is fun and interesting to read, even when it won't change your life and is very subjective in some points.

Today is monday by the way, and I'm now having a meta costume in our school:

Mario in a Mario costume in Game Design

Just think about it O_O

Speaking of games, I found out that some guys are making a My Little Pony fighting game. And since a newly added Brony to the herd, i decided to follow the project. In a more objective approach, these guys, out of nowhere made a team capable of not only make an incredible pre-alpha video, they managed to make a better game than any other official product could be AND they even nailed music that will make most studios jealous.

Anyways, our new term is quite interesting, and we got new teachers and T.A.s. I'm very looking forward character design and 3D modeling 2. Let's hope I didn't scope things up again (very unlikely, since i already finish one of the characters' design and is too much) and finish things on time.

Our team now is very cooperative with each other. Sometimes things get a little bit hot into the discussion but is all for the good of the project we have in our hands. We are still talking the technical parts of the high level concepts, because is the only part that will stops us.

////////////////// REVIEW: Robson Sushi - 3.5 out of 5
We had being having dinner on this sushi place lately. For me is a different style of buffet since they give you a menu and you order from it instead of they have everything on big tables and you take what you want. Price is right for the service and they serve you food as much as you like as usual. A nice place, but not much to add.

Is located at the west end of Vancouver Downtown at 1542 Robson St.

Finally, the weather had gone definitely gone chilly and lots of rainy days. To be honest, i don't know if i have enough warm clothing to keep up with the temperature dropping.

See ya
Antharias

Mid-week Post

2011-10-26T18:21:00.000-06:00

Hi!

We started 3d modeling this term with character modeling! I know is bad to say it myself, but i find what i did so far looks fairly good. I'm expecting this to be my main priority class (along with character design).

And for the character design, im planning on making a boss character from Maison de Laches, let's see how far can i go with it.

By experience, this time i won't let week 1 go without finishing at least one assignment. This is because i saw this pattern of letting week 1 of any term to just pass by and been relaxed which creates a chain reaction that makes me suffer for the rest of the term trying to finish the assignments on time. In other words, if that was a small pieces of procrastination, i'm getting rid of it.

In the same way, im trying to read at least 10 mins a day, either a novel or a design book, to keep using my time as best as i can. Trying to be as prepared as i can (and also to fill the fact that i don't have a TV [which is good too]). Also, I'm trying to do some exercise each 2 or 3 days to maintain certain health level (the cold weather is here and is not getting any better) and avoid getting sick is now a main priority.

Finally i had an interesting time doing an exercise in level design 3 about making a difficulty chart that will be reflected in a game area or level. It makes you to understand the differences in difficulty changes and how the final product can reflect such changes in different ways.

See ya
Antharias

Week 8 and quickie break

2011-10-23T21:22:00.000-06:00

Hi!

This time there will be no pictures because i didn't left my room on purpose to finish stuff. Sorry for that.

So finally, i played the Bastion Demo, and it was good. Since it is the demo, i can't say much, but i really liked the way the narration works in the game. And the art is outstanding without a doubt. I think it should work better with a gamepad, however i tried to plug in one but it didn't worked.

If you don't know the game, i really suggest you try it. I'll leave this video just in case:

I also tried the Space Marine Demo, it was also good. And I can't avoid doing the Gears of Wars comparison. Is a little slower but it feels a lot like the Warhammer 40k Games: Heavy but freaking awesome. Although i didnt liked that Relic also suggest us PC player to use a gamepad to play it. So i had a little bit of a hard time doing the setup on my Nostromo.

Finally in the list of Demo played this weekend is Limbo. I was really expecting a lot from this one, the art looked very minimalistic but had a lot of heart in the trailers. But to be honest, it wasn't what i expected. It wasn't as scary or compelling as everyone said it was. Don't take me wrong, it is a well designed game, but I think i let my expectations to run too high and maybe that ruined it for me. But not you! you have to played it and judge it by yourself.

On the other side, I'm currently playing Singularity. I had read that it was good but that Raven decided to put a lot of "parts" from other shooters in it, compromising the originality (and is not a pum) of the game. In my case, i do like this not-so-original parts and scenes. I mean, comparing the game to Bioshock, Half life 2 and even a little bit small tiny part of call of duty is not a bad thing, means that they are in the right track, but they still have to push the envelope further more.

But, since i just started playing it, consider those (and the Demo) half baked reviews not worth a cent, until i get the final product (of finish the game).

JOURNAL /////////

So i finally got a break from school, the bad news are that i only had 4 days. So i tried to do as much as i could:

- I finished projects that I had left half done in previous months.
- I watched a ton of show episodes
- I finally started reading my HP Lovecraft Anthology.
- Sleep more than 7 hours a day.
- Cleaned up my room, my laptop and my laundry.
- Updated my Linkedin account
- Overall, i had time for myself.

So, I'm now ready for term 4 and if the pattern keeps the same, is going to be another hard two months, but i'll try to post on time (and i emphasize "try").

This is the start of Volume 7.

Antharias

Week 7 at mid-week 8 - End of Vol 6

2011-10-21T19:42:00.000-06:00

hi!

As you can see the UI was changed in favor of Volume 7, however i changed it before ending volume 6 XD. Anyways, the last 4 days of term 3 were pretty stressful and busy. I managed to finish the last assignment 15 mins before midnight in the very last day. And to make things worse, we only have 2 days of break before going back. Not that I'm complaining, i love the school and all, but this last time got a little bit of my sanity and i dont think the break will help to gain it back completely.

The last assignment was a full Game Design Document and i did it on the same game i pitched for my entry to VFS. As you well know by now, is Maison de Laches. Maybe someday i'll try to make it. for now, it will stay in GDD form.

Speaking of games, I got my copy of Mirror's Edge at last! it was very cheap so i gave it a try. So far is quite good, although i haven't got too deep into it. Maybe when i finish it, ill give my very late review about it.

The smaller-than-a-peanut break is right now and im just cleaning up stuff and doing things (like this post) that i haven't got time. I must add one thing, I had never worked that hard in my life, specially in a school T_T.

the Bastion demo postponed again. No excuses this time.

I tried to repaired my caanoo today, unfortunatelly i failed and nothing got better, but nothing got worse. As for the weather, it has become chilly so jackets are been used more frequently. Also there's this lovely reddish color in many trees around the city. I had seen pictures of it, but never in person. Very lovely.

I had plans for this break, but since is too short, i think i will only do two or three things after all:

1. Lycia model sheet for modeling
2. Blender training
3. Start with my Ultimate Fan art piece
4. (if i can) play some video games for a change

Finally, i had reached the mid-point of my training at VFS. I really had fun going all the way here and i would change it for nothing. For next term i expect to polish my 3d skills good enough for the final proyect, specially on my texture skills. I expect also the same amount of work as term 3, therefore this blog may suffer as well this time. BTW, i managed to finish a placement gun with textures, specular, ambience, and normal maps in 2.5 hrs with less than 700 polys! I'm very proud of myself for doing it so quickly. It doesnt look as good as i expected but with more time it will.

Yesterday, after a dinner with the Awesome Daydream team (name may be changed) we visited the Japan Center and i got the mother of all Pocky (at least for me). Is Chocolate pocky surrounded with more Chocolate! Those didn't saw the light of day of the next day XDD.

5 stars out of 5. No questions!

Finally i have to brag about our small triumph in a quick contest to design an app in term 2. We won a print of conceptual art from resident evil racoon city. No, im not lying, no i wont post a picture, yes i have all three posters right now and soon to be delivered to their respective owners. Good work Guys!

BTW Kudos to the guy that was dressed as the Medic from Team Fortress 2 yesterday night at Grandville street. He even talked in the way the real medic does (warning, cartoonish and stylized blood and gore next):

This is the end of Volume 6. Thanks for joining me in this 6 months ^_^

Antharias

Week 6 and mid week post unite!!!

2011-10-13T10:44:00.000-06:00

Hi!

Is the final push in term 3, therefore i couldn't update with a post last sunday. It was a very hard weekend, along with bad dreams, reaching home at 1 am everyday and a single map in UDK that doesn't let itself to be finished until this very day. To be honest, i had being in the edge of breaking down but i managed to hold one until today (and a great sleep without bad dreams helped).

however not everything was hard. This sunday was Thanks giving in Canada, so i had dinner with my team mates at the apartment of one of them. we talked about classes, ideas and games. It was very pleasant and the view was amazing!

Sometimes life's gets hard, but you have to be harder to succeed. Always remember your goal, and commit.

I had been talking about my game level but not details at all. The level I'm making in UDK is a single player experience with a special mechanic. I'm combining Alan wake flashlight mechanics with Bastion narration. All wrapped in a small and nice scary Lovecraftian environment. It will start very slow and low difficulty but after the second half it will turn fast paced and medium to high difficulty. The reason is to built up to a very impressive ending.

BTW No bastion review until further notice.

The weather has being very humid lately and lots of rainy days. But still we had being in cool 12 degrees lately.

Speaking of cool stuff, the NHL season just started and I already used my Canucks jersey twice! Is good to be in the jersey again ^_^.

My plans for for the break:
- Go to Central park at Burnaby
- Go to Richmond and Kwantlen to visit old colleagues.

Next week: Real Steel Review

Thanks to those that took some of their time to visit my armour and vote for me, i appreciated

See ya!
Antharias

and suddenly: Pictures!!!

Mid-Week Post

2011-10-06T00:32:00.001-06:00

Hi!

Before the sad news, i would like you to help me with a small voting. I entered a contest to design an armor for the game Deep Realm from Playdom. If you are interested in how it looks, here's the link:

http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/a7aa8b0e1863826cc3464bfcbe918c23/233

The voting starts in 10 hours from now and if you like it and think that it has potential to be created in-game, please vote for it in the same page. I appreciate your time in advance. Domo, Gracias, Thank you, Merci.

///////////////////////////////

I had planned to do a post about school, but things change...

As most of you well know, today is a sad day for technology and entrepeneurs because a great man left us. I'm talking about Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple.

I couldn't believe it and when i saw the news i even joke darkly about it (too soon, i know, i already got my karma attack back). However inside i began to think what this person did in his life and how truly change the technology as we see it.

I remember when i got my iMac (which i still have), how excited and marvelled i was of such great design. Clean hardware, clean software, fast and even sexy, that mac made me change my idea of what a tool should be.

In those days I read about Jobs and how he founded Apple, then got fired, then rehired again and change the whole brand for good. How he dared to think different indeed and made a computer that was very easy to understand. How he thought that the future was music and portability.

Now days we think that certains technologies are for granted, but we dont think it was one man that decided and changed the world because if his risks. Almost any MP3 follows what the iPod makes standard, same for any phone and the iPhone, computers with the iMac and all new tablets and the iPad.

Arguably we can say that Apple isn't the same company than 5 years ago and they may have got their ego inflated. But nobody can deny that their apportation towards human communications, entertainment, mobility and game design. I'm my area, there wouldn't be those opportunities we have with mobile games if it wasn't for that man. Think about it. The future of video games was originated by Jobs idea of creating the powerful mobile device. In the same way Nintendo made easy to anyone to approach a video game, Apple made the same and then some.

A man that left us too soon, his legacy that all we share and we should make him proud. Yes, whatever they say, a man can change the world, and Steve Jobs proved it.

October 14 is officially Steve Jobs day. Remember that.

Thanks Steve, thanks a lot.
Antharias

Term 3 - Week 5: the no pictures post

2011-10-03T14:12:00.000-06:00

Hi!

Macross II Manga Review
//////////////
3 out of 5 Stars

I just got an old issue of Macross II manga from Viz communications from way back in the 90s, and it was quite cheap.

The characters were decent, but not outstanding. Unfortunately for this title, when the characters started to get some development, the ends comes in and rush everything. Specially Ishtar, who in the last pages says something to two other characters that comes from nowhere.Yet the artwork is decent for the time. You know, the time where the 80's and 90's were combined and we have clean stylized yet detailed characters.

The big one was the page count I got for this one. Almost as much as a small dictionary and in that time for just 17 dlls. Not bad at all. In the end, just another movie adaptation without anything else to show.

Personal Thoughts
///////////////////////

Since we are little, every adult tells us to be different to be successful. However what they don't tell us is that it takes perseverance, sacrifice and above all, discipline. Even along the way they tell us that we are too stubborn (anti perseverance), that we should play safe (anti sacrifice) and that we should live more (anti discipline). Even above all, most of them never put the example.

What i had found during my life is that there is no right and wrong, only social biases that are inconstant around the globe. However, putting such biases aside, some of the constant things that had worked for me are:

- Discipline: If you planned something, stick with it. Leaving things for the next day is never a good excuse. Keep focus in what you want and commit. Is not bad to change ideas from time to time, but when you are changing every 5 mins, then there's a problem.

- Constant learning: there's always someone better than you and all stuff had already being made, but not by you! Keep learning, even mundane stuff. Never stop trying to know more because someday you will need that knowledge for a small head start.

- Sacrifice: Parties and social events can make you find interesting people and have fun, but in the end those are just superficial things in life. If you really want something, then invest in it, even when this means to be alone in a small room working on that idea. I had found many people along the way that always want to go places without really committing to it. Don't take me wrong, I'm also a dreamer, but when the "action people" always do stuff but without substance, is the dreamers how have all the substance and they only need one push to change the world.

- Follow your dreams: Every adult will tell you to follow your dreams but nobody will tell you how. To their defense i can say that every dream is different and since there is no right and wrong (only shades of grey), there are no real guidelines towards your goal. I can talk only about myself that everyone told me to follow my dreams but every single time a lot of people told me that i was crazy, that i wasn't big deal, that such things were childish ideas. Yet here I am, trying to keep up with my childhood dreams and haven't let go.

During my life i fell, got up again, fell again deeper and got up again, had been hated and understood, passed through bad relationships but also through good ones, had other people's decisions harm me but i also made bad decisions myself. But i haven't reached the middle of my life yet and there's more to come and a lot to do, learn, people to meet and places to go. How or when? I don't know. I just hope to find every character of the theater IRL (4 found and plenty to go).

Life
///////////////

Something happened this Sunday and something bad for a change. I was copying my Level Documentation of the game to the desktop when the computer sent me an error window. I cancelled the whole thing and tried again. But there was something wrong. I couldn't find the file anywhere! I undo the whole thing and some files appeared but no document. I look at the desktop backup, nothing. I was suppressing the need to scream. I look in the whole area in the computer, nothing! I use the recovery tool installed. It recovers files from a month and a half, but no that exact file from 10 mins ago.

FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!

Two days wasted! So the classic parabola of refusing, denial, anger, acceptance, gaining strength to start again came over and i passed it in an hour or so. So in 4 hours i managed to write the document, but my plans were to be done with this that day.

Oh well, you can't win them all. At least i could finish the base color for the armor.

Since I'm currently at school trying to keep up with assignments, I can't write more stuff down, so see ya in the mid-week.

Next week: Bastion Demo review & more pictures (promise)
Antharias

Mid-Week Post

2011-09-28T23:02:00.001-06:00

hi!

Again, me at school and working ^_^. And since mid-term crunch time is almost over, i can show you some screen mockups that i had being working with. The idea of creating an art mockup is to show the artist the idea a designer has about a front-end, a menu screen in-game or even the whole game itself. A designer can use his own art or modified pictures to express the whole idea [without ever claiming the ownership of such pictures]. Of course the artist will make it a lot better because that's his or her job. A mockup also helps to maintain the visual vision around the entire team and can help to do some changes or even change the mockup if the result is not the desired.

The following menu mockups are from a game I'm designing called "Maison de Laches" [House of Laches in French]. Is a fast-paced side scroler with fighting elements. I can't say more because the GDD is still in development until the end of the term.

See you on Sunday / Monday

Antharias

Term 3 - Week 4

2011-09-27T00:51:00.000-06:00

Hi!

We are in mid term crunch time which made me post this more late than soon. Sorry for that.

Duke Nukem Forever Demo Review
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Since this is a demo, i can only give a quick review about it. Unfortunately for this one, it isnt good at all. Putting aside the visuals feeling old, the gameplay is not like any other Duke Nukem game, but in a bad way. It tried to amalgamate a couple modern FPS shooters but being Duke, it doesn't translate well at all. Another bad point is the fact that there's no variation between the action and narrative (if any), which makes a very dull experience. The only point in favor is the phrases that Duke says here and there, thats the only part of Duke they did right.

Sorry, but i will call this a 2 out of 5 stars. I hope the next Duke game makes him return to his former glory.
////////////////////////////

Journal

Last week we went to Ricky's All Day Grill that is close to the campus to celebrate a friend and Awesome Daydream team member. Also, it was our first reunion after the last game and a welcome to the new member of the team.

Following one of my favorite bands advice, i got a sirloin plate and i asked for "Medium Rare". It tasted good, don't take me wrong, but i like things more cooked. For a reference, here's a video explaining the "medium rare" thing:

The place is quite nice, and the prices are reasonable. I'll give the steak a 3 out of 5.

BTW, the faces were blurred to protect the innocent (that's means me from being sued).

The weather had being very unstable! the weather is warm, then it rains in the morning, then stops, is still warm then rains again and then the temperature drops like 5 or 7 degrees! All in the same DAY! Da heck!? I was waiting for the days to being cooler, but not all so sudden.

Anyways, if you had notice by now, I'm testing a new and slightly bigger resolution for the pics posted. this to make the city look a lot better than before. If you find if better, write a comment, if you don't like the new size, then you can go. Just kidding, also let me know if it doesn't fit you at all ^_^.

Since is almost midnight and I still have to finish some mockups, gameplay documentation and adding some more stuff to my level, i will have to stop here today. However I'm very pleased by the way my mechanics document is turning, i wish i had more time to develop it more, but that will have to wait for the final documentation.

Next Week: Macross II Manga
Wish me Luck!

Antharias

Mid-Week Post

2011-09-21T16:01:00.000-06:00

Hi!

Again, I'm at school (and in class [Shame on me]), but i wanted to share the final (or maybe not so final) version of the map W.I.P. that I showed you last week. Unlucky me, i got to change several parts because i didn't knew we couldn't use any high technology. And even right now, I'm still finding parts here and there that need tweaking.

Hope you like it. See ya on Sunday/Monday
Antharias

Term 3 - Week 3

2011-09-19T01:24:00.000-06:00

Hi!

////// Movie Review //////

Attack the Block (2011)
Country: UK
Directed by: Joe Cornish
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Plot (no spoilers)

A very young street gang in the sound of London find themselves in the middle of an alien invasion and nobody seems to notice it. Is up to Moses and his gang to stop the invaders and save the planet, or at least their block.

Story
It may sound campy, but the story is very well developed. The hero's journey is all there, but with the twist of events. Because I'm trying to avoid any spoilers I won't give you any hits, but I can say the return with the elixir is a LONG way.

Characters
This is one of the contrasting points of the movie. The characters fall in two categories: very well developed or complete forgettable. To be fair, there was many characters and little time for every one of them to develop. However, of course, Moses shines and matures with the film. Is one of those characters that is despicable at first but then you relate to him. The two younger lads are awesome too! Expect some surprises from them.

Soundtrack
The exact soundtrack for the exact production. Very European, so this movie! It not only comes along the way, but enhanced the whole experience as few movies had done so well lately.

FX
Is well known that almost nobody can beat Hollywood in FX realism, however this movie is not going towards that. The budget for effects is very well understood, however the director used tricks to make it count. With all the budget constricts, the cheap feeling goes away in the first minutes of the film and not only they get away with some obvious flaws but makes you believe something like that can exist. Just another European movie comes in mind that had done so well besides the obvious flaws: Asterix and Obelix vs Cesar (1999).

My biases
Since i saw the trailer I got hooked sligly by the film. Looked a little campy but made me wanted to see the movie. However it was for UK, so i put my hopes aside and forgot about it. This week a friend asked me if i wanted to see it and i didn't doubt any second. The thing is that i didn't expect it to have a domestic release so soon.

Being the directorial debut of Cornish, the movie is very well done. I can only add that this movie was better than i expected and I can't suggest it more if I wanted. Is the perfect movie for the end of this summer season.

/////// Journal //////////

Another week and more levels to finish. The more Lighting classes we get, the more we realize the importance of it. It gives more feeling to a game or movie, it is part of the narration beyond i had known. And when I still have a long way to learn, i now can't see a game or movie again without having in mind that interesting way of narration.

Because of the same subject, i haven't being able to wander around this week (hence the lack of pictures in this post). The thing is that even when we have more assignments than last term, i don't feel that pressure anymore. We are getting used to that workload, which is quite good, because when I get into the industry, i will be able to give my best without any barriers.

Something peculiar happened in the past week. I got a couple of visits from a person(s) that use iPad! I wasn't expecting that. Thanks! Speaking of visitors, the past month I got some people from Germany (Hallo Deutschland!), some from Japan (Konnichiwa Nihon!) and Malaysia (Hello Malaysia! [Seems they do speak english besides Malay]. I would love to know how is a normal day for a native of each country.

Anyways, now i can say, we officially are out of summer. The clouds are back and so does the rain. Expect more cold days from now on.

Next Week: Duke Nukem Forever Demo (or Bastion Demo) [Whatever comes first]
See ya!
Antharias

P.S. If you have any thoughts about the reviews here or stuff i do (or don't do), please, send me a comment, don't be shy ^_^

Mid-week post (more like a weekend post)

2011-09-16T19:34:00.000-06:00

hi!

I just wanted to share a couple of screenshots of W.I.P. I'm doing right now. Not much to say since I'm still experimenting with some meshes and lighting. But first of all, the level is not mine, but my job is to "skin" AKA polish it. The idea is to have an exercise about having a level made from another member of the team and be creative with the low resources you have to create a good polished level. This time I'm uploading some mid-res images and i hope you enjoy.

Next post: "Attack the Block" movie review
Antharias

Template

Work In Progress

Term 3 - Week 2

2011-09-14T21:01:00.000-06:00

Hi!

////// Manga Review //////

Chevalier d'Eon Vol. 1 & 2
By: Tou Ubukata & Kiriko Yumeji

"A mysterious cult is sacrificing beautiful young women to a demonic force that has promised them the kingdom of France in return for the blood of their victims..."

The tale goes around D'Eon de Beaumont, a Police member who also is a member of the secret service of the king (and tries to keep this secret), who just lost his sister Lia de Beaumont to the mysterious cult and is trying to find who and why. By some weird situation, his sister's spirit is inside him and posses him when a murderer (called Poet) is about to appear. To his aid is Robin (previous secretary of Lia) and Nell, a cat with powers that react in battle (in a very sailor moon style).

Art
Yumeji Sensei did an awesome job! The outlines are interesting, the inking style is interesting, the whole thing is full of detail both in the outlines as in the shadows. Easily i can put this one along my favorites like Sword of the Dark Ones.

Story
Based only in real figures but changing the setting completely. The real Chevalier was a member of the king's secret police however he never had a sister, he was Lia, along with costume and all. In the manga, Lia is totally a separated individual and is the main reason for own hero to jump in the hunt for the poets.

For me the story was a little weak, not the idea of hunting a secret cult in france, but the way of making it look like a magical girl kinda story. Having the cat Nell being a enhancer of weapons doesn't help much to the previous argument.

Characters
The best character so far for me is Jean Le Rond d' Alembert, who in real life was the creator of Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une société de gens de lettres, AKA the first Encyclopedia. This was a controversial publication at the time that gave him strong enemies and allies. At first i judge him as an enemy, because the outline, expressions and design. However i got fond of him when Yumeji Sensei drew him with the other range of expressions, going from friend to funny, which was very unexpected but welcome.

Against the TV version (my own bias)

The TV version seems more mature and more grounded than the manga version and the art style suits the history. However after reading the manga i so wish the art style of the TV version were as awesome as the manga, it makes it look so plain. However i do also wish the horror and "realistic" feeling that the TV had into the manga.

Either way, no matter which version you pick, it will deliver a pleasant time to the viewer.

TV version more plain but more mature, Manga more detailed but more magical girl.

/////// Journal ////////

So after two years and a half, i finally found the Steam clock at Gas town as we walked looking for a beer place. Looked interesting, even when i couldnt had much time to analyze it, and it was getting too late at that time which brings us to the second thing in the list: Steamworks Brewing Company.

So we went into it and seems a rather expensive place, but it wasn't! Good place and because their are a brewing company, means that they make their own beer. We tried a couple ones and even when i dont have much experience with alcohol (which i found out recently i can't get drunk whatever i wanted or not, somehow), i could taste the difference in fullness and body.

Check them out at:

http://www.steamworks.com/

During the past weekend we had some kind of reunion from GD 15 to GD 23 people in Jaggers, it was interesting and cool to have so many generations in the same place at the same time.

These past few days i had being in crunch time, which explains the lack of update in the past few days. Unfortunately a bad decision in team management lead me to work overtime to compensate for lack of substance in some of our works. But as usual, everything is part of the experience.

Mid-Week Post!

2011-09-07T23:41:00.000-06:00

Hi!

/////////// Game Review ////////////

Cthulhu Dice
Steve Jackson Games
My score: 4 / 5 Stars

Each one of the players is a Cthulhu cultists that are trying to bring Cthulhu to this world again. The problem is that either of the cultists wants to share the glory and will try to make the others insane.

A player chooses another and will try to curse him/her with the dice. Whatever happens, the other player retaliates against the first one. After that curse is resolved, the player to the left of the first one goes and the whole thing repeats. The Dice has different faces that makes the players to loose sanity counters therefore, the last one being "sane" wins. But sometimes no one will win.

Speaking of a-lot-of-fun in a very small package! The package only has a big D12 Dice with some counters and it gave us like an hour of fun before the classes started again. I do suggest to play with 3 people or more, the more the merrier they say (and highly applies to this game). Personally i found these features to be appealing to any kind of player:

- Easy learning curve
- Party style game
- No need to be a Cthulhu fan to play
- Even when you get "insane" you are still in play

Personal Bias review
This game is about punishment rather than reward, the same as Arkham Horror but the main difference is not the number of pieces but the fun factor. Yes, both games are about Cthulhu, that alone sells it to me, but with Arkham Horror is damn too punishing to fully enjoy it in the first run, as for Cthulhu Dice lets you relatiate from your punishment.

This in no way means that Arkham Horror is a bad game, on the contrary, is even more complex and has many more ways to play than many other board games out there. Is just that it was too punishing for me the first time i played.

However i do expect to play it more of both games, but finding more Cthulhu gamers out there that will want to play it is a little hard. Maybe if i pray to Cthulhu the cultists will come...

////////////////////////////// Randomness Starts //////////////////////////////

Don't worry if the next paragraphs are weird or non-grammatically correct, because are just ideas that I'm taking from the top of my head to let them go for now.

Listening to the last song i posted, I realize i was in peace with my younger former self (for now). I analyzed myself and so far I'm on a good path of how I planned my life when I was young. If i had to confront my younger me, maybe i could tell him that until this year i wasn't completely fulfilled our life plans. My excuse was that I had only fulfilled a part of it (the illustration part and being of the small portion of my generation that finished a career). However i wasn't completely happy with my options back there. Surely i would had being scolded by myself and told to keep doing more things, to not to be part of the rest.Now that I'm where i wanted to be, I feel happy, yet i know that there are more difficulties coming before everything settles.

Among changes i had found in myself the last few days are lightness when running, english proficency (or complete brokeness), quicker lapses of brainstorming and quickness in learning other programs and applications (blender, visio, C++. Right now I'm infront of my workstation at school, I just finished my Lighting and Game UI assignments and during the day i finished the tests of UDK Kismet to make an automatic turret and Vehicle spawning.

After 4 months, i found some time today to cut my hair. Now I look more younger than before and I hope i won't be asked at the bars for my ID.

///////////////////// Randomness Ends ////////////////////////////////////

Next Post: Chevalier D'Eon Manga Vol 1 & 2.

Antharias

Term 3 - Week 1

2011-09-05T01:22:00.000-06:00

Hi!

I had a good first week and I'm rested finally. So lets start with some quick reviews.

American Cinematographer
http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/August2011/current.php

To be honest, i don't know much around the world of a director. I know about how to make a story, a script, about props and actors, but nothing about hardware that is used to make them, besides the digital ones (PC and software). I can say that what took more of my attention in this magazine were the adds of cameras and hardware used to the industry. Very interesting stuff. And even when this review is pointless, maybe it could help those that are interested to find a new source for information about the industry.

Animation Magazine
http://www.animationmagazine.net/

With 25 years of experience, you can't go wrong with this animation industry magazine. My pick for the edition i read is Damian Nenow's Path of Hate:

Another pick is Shapeshifter (a 3D poem)

&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;asd

CGW
http://www.cgw.com/

This is the first time i pick up this magazine. I think i had seen it before but i never tried to read it. It has very concise information about 3D and VFX. And of course, i liked the transformers VFX section and the Captain america too.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Abney Park
http://www.abneypark.com/

Searching with random words on youtube i found this band "Abney Park" that plays Steampunk music (i didnt knew there was a steampunk genre in music). But i liked a lot. Based on Seattle, they used to be a Goth band, but eventually changed into Steampunk and the change is quite welcome.The song "Letters between a little boy" is amazingly strong; is about a conversation between the child age and the adult age of a single person and how what we planned as children about our lives is not always the same, but that we can change and redirect our paths if we decided to.

 asd

///////////////////////////////////////////////////

Breaks trip part 2 and current trip

I walked again on Richmond's streets, at my own pace this time. It felt like i had never left. Got some new shoes (i really needed them) and a couple of video games (if i have time to play them i don't know). I also visited the superstore over there and it was the same as two years before. Maybe somethings doesn't change as fast as others, and is something that i welcome.

Walking with my groceries bag i found this store i didn't noticed before: Memory Express. I remember that back then it was a sports store, but i assume it wasn't selling well and these people got the place. It was refreshing seeing a place that had real "on sale" items. Actually there is where i got the new games (that after i play them i will give you my review, even when aren't new releases at all). Anyways, give them a shot, good service, good prices and friendly staff.

http://www.memoryexpress.com/

As usual, here are the rest of the pics for this week. Next one is a hard one, so i won't give you a preview of what i will write this time. Is getting colder a little bit, which means the "Silent Hill" days are coming, be afraid, very afraid XD.

Antharias.

Siggraph 5 and Break's end - Long post, BEWARE

2011-09-01T16:02:00.000-06:00

Hi!

So this is my final post on the Siggraph Experience, which means that i left the best for the end. So here we go!

**DISCLAIMER** Pictures may not be related to the subject in turn.

Wacom
If you are into digital arts or what to, you should had heard about Wacom. They not only make the best digital tablets (not to be confused with PC tablets or iPads), but also had the biggest tablet market share in the world.

At Siggraph they were show casting their current line of tablets, focusing on the Cintiq line. One of them was very helpful when i asked them about replacement parts for older models.He showed me that they had updated their website and they now sell again replacement parts for my tablet.

Speaking of tablets, here's a quick list of the mayor models they have now:

Bamboo - Don't get fooled by the size or price, this first entry tablet as a lot of power. If you are new to this kind of hardware, this is a good model to buy in the first place. Depending on model, you can paint with a pen, with your finger or even with both. This model replaced the Graphire model (shown in picture).

Intuos - The flagship model of the company. Anyone can use this tablet, from enthusiasts to professionals, is their most well known model and for a reason. Now in it's 4 version.

Cintiq - The biggest and baddest of the line. Not only has all the capacities of an intuos but also is a monitor, so basically you are painting, drawing and modeling on the monitor. Comes in two flavors: 12 inches and 21 inches. Expensive, but is worth it if you want some more in-depth performance.

**Picture showed here is not owned by me. It was used for demonstration purposes**

Kai Studio
An animation and VFX studio from Korea. Their stuff is pretty promising. I can say that their animation is pretty good and so does their technology. Their last animation piece is Captain Banana that will be showcased in Siggraph Asia this december.

Check their demo reel at:
http://www.kaistudio.co.kr/index_ENG.htm

Shapeways
When i approach the booth i wasn't sure of what to expect from it. Was it a materials company, a 3D printer company? It had a Nyah cat and that was cool, but nothing gave me an idea of what they do. Then one of their staff member approached me and told me what was all about. And it was amazing! The basic idea is that you choose or upload a 3D model, pick the material and they will make it for you with their 3D printing technology. The stuff they have in their inner stores is great! specially the Thorn Dice set (it has some of us salivating for the damn set). The materials go from plastic to silver, so there's something for any kind of budget you have. Also, they have on sale a sampler of every material they have.

Take a look:
http://www.shapeways.com/

Point Grey

Had you ever thought about how does Google makes the "street view" in their maps? Had you thought about having one of those cameras for your self or for your company? Well these guys sell these pretty cool 360 cameras! They introduced LadyBug 3 at their booth and i can say is quite compact, it delivers exactly what they say it does and i like the red finish on it. The LadyBug can also be setup up to other kinds of views, like multicamera or dome view.

Check their products at:

http://www.ptgrey.com/

JourneyED.com
Even today I'm still a student, and as many of you are and were I find a little difficult to get software licenses because those are too expensive. Fortunately, the guys from JourneyED also know this and they sell such licenses in discount prices. The only low side to this, is that you have to be in school to get such packages. However if you fill this requirement, you are all set! I'm not going to name any deals here, but you can see their catalog online. What i can tell you is that they have from the mayor 3D software out there to hardware (both educational and pro versions).

check them out at:
http://www.journeyed.com/

Belfry Animation & Toys LTD.
This is one of those booths i really can't remember, maybe they were very conservative in their demos or something. Seems to be a Hong Kong based studio that focuses in children's animations. But boy i got impressed by their DVD demo. The show that i was more impressed with was Starwalkers. Amazing render, nice ideas (even for a kids show) and it really hooks you up. The only downside to all of this, is the fact that their website is not up yet, and even if you try to find them on the web, you will not find much. So you will have to take my word on this one, they exists and their animation is not bad at all.

If they manage to upload their website:
http://www.belfry.cn/

Digipen
I may be betraying my own school in this one, but is not with that purpose. If you are into videogames you possibly had heard about Digipen. Based on the state of Washington, Digipen are well known because of their connections with Nintendo. Back at Mexico they became famous because of the official Nintendo magazine back in the 90's. So i finally had the opportunity of approaching them and have a small chat. I checked their demo reel and portfolio and it was very impressive!~ If i had the money (and were younger) i would had loved to be there. No regrets though.

And they not only have Game Design, but you will have to visit their website to take a look!
https://www.digipen.edu/

Rainmaker Entertainment
If you thought i wasn't going to "fanboy" a little bit @ Siggraph, then think again! Previously known as Mainframe Entertainment and known for creating the first CGI animation of all time: Reboot (that Pixar got an oscar a year after reboot stills puzzles me [and i did told the guys from Rainmaker, so]). So there i was, expressing my admiration for their shows (including the critically acclaimed Beast Wars) and to make things even better, Warren Franklin was visiting the booth (i did took a pic of him, but it was very blurry), he is Chief Executive Producer of the company. They had a short film for the animation contest called Luna.

Show them respect at:
http://www.rainmaker.com/

Ringling College of Art and Design
Seems that Florida has a lot to offer as of Game Design and Computer Animation goes. Their demo reel is very convincing, giving us shorts from their animation and game design departments, each one a jewel and each one totally different from the other. With also other programs in their campus, this colleges is another great contender for your future studies.

Please take a look:
http://www.ringling.edu/

Blender Foundation
Talking about life surprises. Way back, i tried blender (around v. 2.39) when i got my first iMAc back in 2005. Unfortunately for me, i had zero experience with 3D and the GUI in Blender wasn't forgiving at all. Using some tutorials i managed to create some crystals for an illustration the next year but nothing much after that.

Some months after, Elephant's Dream was released. I was amazed of how much an open source software was capable of and got a new version of Blender without much success. Time passed by and i got more into 2D than 3D (besides, in my school they never taught us any 3D).

Two years after, Big Buck Bunny was released. I was so amazed again of the maturity of the program and though (And i have to ask for forgiveness on this) "this is a slap in the face to Pixar and Autodesk". I was so impressed, but the impression became frustration when the new version of Blender was as unforgiving as the first time. So I desisted and went to another easier 3D program.

By 2010, Sintel was released but i never put attention to it somehow. By that time i was more efficient in Maya than any other 3D app i had used before, and i already knew how Blender was in its GUI so i passed that one. I never lost hope on Blender, ever, but it was too difficult to control for me.

Some months passed (you already know the story) and at VFS i had some time in a class break and started looking at short films on Youtube, and stumble again with Sintel. I decided to give it a try. I never regret those 5 minutes i "wasn't" in class. Appealing story, beautiful rendered, and great ending.

A couple of months passed again, then i got my Siggraph pass and started researching which companies were going to be there, and guess who? the Blender Foundation was one of them! FTW! I was planning to buy a couple of stickers and the Sintel 4 DVD pack.

On wednesday the first thing i tried to find was their booth, and conveniently was almost at the end of the whole thing (convenient so i can finish with a blast the whole visit-the-booths-trip).You already know the thing: I went all around, took my time, went here and there.

I approached the booth and one of the guys asked me if i had used it before, i told him that i just tried. He replied with a quick overview of the current GUI (now in the 2.5 series) and i was interested again with the more user friendly. Then another guy approached and asked him about the animation possibilities. So with that said, the staff member gave us a 10 minute crash course on animation and post processing rendering on the fly! In 10 min, the guy did a walking cycle like it was just a "walk in the park" (pardon the pun)! I was so impressed! I couldn't do that on Maya that easily!

After the quick tutorial, i asked him if they had any merchandise for sale. He turns to another person, he looked older than him and had an accent (i thought European maybe). I told him again (again i went into fanboy mode) my story with blender. He then goes to a desk and grabs something bellow it. I just stare at him without a clue what going on. He gets back at me and give me a DVD package. I told him that i wanted to buy some stuff, not to get freebies. The tells me that this was the Sintel 4 DVD pack and if I wanted to pay something i could by supporting them with donations via their website.

I couldn't thank him more and after showing me the blender game engine i went off. As I walked i couldnt believe my luck on that one. Not only i got a free Blender DVD but also a tutorial and a movie pack for free also! But there was something that bothered me, who was every one of them? who was this guy with different accent that gave me such freebie without a second thought?

When i arrived home i couldn't take those questions of my head and took some 20 min to research the staff members. I recognized Ian Hubert, the director of Project London but the last guy i had only saw him on Hubert's talk two days ago.

Then it hits me! In the Blender official webpage I found the story of the program, an name and a picture.... .... the guy that game me the pack was Ton Roosendaal! Founder of the Blender Foundation and the main person responsible for making Blender open source, the producer of Elephant's dream, Big Buck Bunny (and game) and Sintel (and game too).

I met the main guy behind everything Blender related.......

And i stood there in shock for a couple of minutes (and Im not being dramatic [ok, well a little bit]).

I was so surprised how easy going he was, even when thousands of people own him something because of his software (even the guys of Autodesk at some point), he is not a douche as other i had met that had not even done a quarter of what he had done.

So i made a decision, I was going to learn Blender now, it had everything i needed now so i can start working on my projects with it. Not that I will leave Maya on the road, but I now will add Blender to my software skills. And BTW, as soon as i can i will donate some bucks to the foundation, i own them at least that.

And as a fanboy, i highly encourage you to try Blender, the worst case scenario will be that you can't understand it but you will not loose a single penny doing so. If you find yourself not compatible with the software, you can watch their Short films and also the films from other talented artists out there that used it.

I will leave you here their 2011 Demo Reel, enjoy.

Siggraph Asia 2011
Even when it took me 5 parts to review all of these incredible companies, i just spoke about the tip of the iceberg. Imagine what can you see in the next Siggraph! Even better, why don't you go and see it closer to your home (for those living in Asia). I'm already jealous of the people that will make it to the Asia expo this year.

Hong Kong, December 12 - 15, 2011

http://www.siggraph.org/asia2011/

//////////////////////// Break trip part 2 ///////////////////////////////

So the break's has come to an end, and I couldn't do everything i wanted to (what a shock). But it was fun. Having a good friend on my side all that time was cool, like being in high school all over again. We did went to a lot of places and walked as never before (even for me that i walk a lot), but from those places I can give you a couple that were the surprises of the week:

Osake - Artisan Sake Maker

Based on Granville Island (at the Railspur Alley), this Sake Studio has a very different style to brew sake. Instead of waiting all year to create one batch on winter, they decided to make several batches during the year with several different ingredients acording to the season. Lead by sake maker Masa Shiroki, who puts very clearly that "sake is not distilled alcohol and it is not similar to beer". So remember that always.

http://artisansakemaker.dreamhosters.com/

Hon's Wun-Tun House LTD.
One of the times we were at Chinatown, we discovered this place out of curiosity (and they were the only ones around a block that accept card payment). We saw their window full of recognitions from the locals so we gave it a try.

We ordered the special for two and thought that we may had to order something more (we were very hungry). OMG we were so wrong!!!! It was a 3 or 4 person feast! Delicious! Soup, rice and main dish. You can't go wrong with so much food at such cheap price.

http://www.hons.ca/

So as the title said, I'm not in school again. Unfortunatelly I couldn't make all the plans I had in mind, but I also did something even cooler than that. So is all good. And also this means that I'm back to the Sunday(Monday) - Wednesday posts (if times allows).

Next Sunday I will give you more pictures about the break and some magazine reviews

Until Sunday
Antharias

Siggraph 2011 part 4 & Break!

2011-08-27T01:40:00.000-06:00

Hi!

So let's continue with the Siggraph Experience and products, shall we? Let's start with some quick mentions:

Molebot
Control a mechanic mole to play with everyday objects
http://designmedia.kaist.ac.kr/

3D Display project - Hidei Kimura : Burton CEO
This is another step into having real 3D holograms like in Star Wars (ok, I geeked here a little bit).

Virtual Crepe Factory
Looked like a game, but it was really an application of haptic rendering, hydro particles rendering with fast update rate.

Facial Animation Toolset 2012
A very interesting software toolset for facial deformation and sound sync. Interesting demo reel and above all, is FREE! but for non-commercial and research use. So if that's your area of interest, give it a try at:

http://research.animationsinstitut.de/

SandCanvas
"A multi-touch medium inspired by sand animation." Looks promising
http://sandcanvas.com/

Hayabusa Renderer 2.0 for Rhinoceros
A very impressive plug in for Rhinoceros 3D software. You have to see their gallery to believe it!
http://www.studioeggman.com/

/////////////////////////////////////////////////

At the Khronos Group booth i tested a little bit the Mali Arm graphic processors. And i was very impressed of what the Arm processor can do now days. Being somewhat experienced in using that kind of processor in my PDAs, i was always complaining that those can't be half good to portrait graphics in real time; however after i tried the newer versions im very pleased of what the future will bring to the ARM technology.

http://www.malideveloper.com/

If your style is more the human anatomy, Zygote created the more detailed 3d models you can find anywhere. Such models had being used by companies as: Google, CBS and Discovery Channel for their presentations and software.

http://www.3dscience.com/

"Vector Field" for Pedestrian Traffic Control
Even when we are in a digital world, when some people cant live without a digital device close by (including myself), we find analog stuff that surpasses such digital objects. Imagine a way to redirect people around a place to avoid traffic blockages. Now imagine that system not using any electricity at all. Now imagine that the people themselves are the ones that do all the work. Impossible? I found out is not! Created by Hiromi Yoshikawa, Taku Hachisu, Shogo Fukishima, Masahiro Furukawa and Hiroyuki Kajimoto from the University of Electro-Communications @ Japan; such device really works. They presented it at the Studio also, and you could see the demo at all times and I can say first hand that it works. I now find myself wishing such device could be already in use every place that has high people traffic, like subways and office buildings.

http://kaji-lab.jp/en/

At the event i could also see several live demos with actors, specially with the 3D scanners and Mo-Cap systems. I had the chance to use from Optitrack their complete Mo-Cap capturing and directing system. You have the classic actor with the black suit with bubbles in a stage, and some tracking cameras around it. The interesting part was their virtual camera system that works like a film camera, and with their plug ins for your favorite 3D Software, you can use such camera system to emulate a real camera system, which means, panning, zooming, tilting, all in real time.And if your budget is not for that kind of complex systems, they still have a very affordable MoCap camera within their products.

http://www.naturalpoint.com/optitrack/

Going to one of the big boys of hardware, ATI was a good booth to visit. As some of you well know, the competition is always between Nvidia and ATI in GPU cards. However seems that these past years, Nvidia has been into the lead with their Physix proprietary technology. However, after talking to one of the ATI experts, i think is not a one-sided competition.

Of course they can't have the extra power of Physix, however to their favor, they have price (always a big deal in a budget), they have OpenCL (an open source standard in graphics) and they can up to 6 displays at the same time! Not bad, eh?

http://www.amd.com/us/products/workstation/graphics/ati-firepro-3d/Pages/ati-firepro-3d.aspx

Going around the Booth area i found some interesting pc hardware, but the one that just hit my 3D enthusiast self was 3D Connexion and their line of 3D mice. If you are used to doing 3D, you know that you waste some time turning the model all around to keep working on it. Well for me, the solution is having a 3D mouse that takes away most of that wasted time. Going from the affordable SpaceNavigator to the SpacePilot Pro, you can find any of their products to fit in your budget.

Personally, i have a couple of weeks trying a Space Navigator i got at the expo and i find it really good for my work flow. The down side is the sensitiveness that the hardware has from default, but the response is amazingly quick. If you carve for something different that helps or are really thinking on buying one, I can say that for me, it was really worth it.

Works with every mayor 3D software (including Blender).

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

This week we, again, went all around the city, walking. However, this time i will let the pictures to talk by themselves.

See ya on Sunday (with, hopefully, the last post in the Siggraph Experience)

Antharias

Week 8 End of Term 2 - Siggraph part 3 & Weekend trip!

2011-08-23T12:16:00.001-06:00

Hi!

So we are done with term 2! We finish our game, we finish everything and now we have glorious 10 days of nothingness! So let's start:

I was really impressed of Intel's ICore technology @ Siggraph. Even when i already own a I5 laptop, i was impressed of what they showed at their Booth. I asked them what are they trying to do with their motherboards and internal video cards. The answer was very down to earth: They were not trying to catch on Nvidia or ATI, but they are just learning from their experience from the past and trying to give the best product they can. In other words, even when their internal video system is not as good as a dedicated system, it still has some enough power for a regular customer. Also i have to thank them for their "rally" prizes around their booth (no, i wasnt bought out by them, is just that i didnt expect to get freebies from them at all).

if you are interested in getting more news about the INTEL world check:

http://software.intel.com/sites/billboard/

You can get a free subscription to their magazine.

I would like also to thank the ladies from Red Stick International Animation festival, who gladly gave me a t-shirt. ^_^

http://www.redstickfestival.org/

Another of the advances that catch my attention at the Studio was Recompose. Is a system that uses a kinect to manipulate a divided surface and make it change altitude:

http://kiwi.media.mit.edu/recompose/

A device that i had the chance to play with and get a demo was the PocoPoco, made from students of the Tokyo Metropolitan University:

Is one of those devices that you would like to have but is not in production yet and you are a little desperate to have.

http://ia.sd.tmu.ac.jp/lab/idea/pocopoco/introduction.html

From I-CubeX we have some interesting hardware devices for capturing movements. To be honest i couldnt understand much, but it seemed interesting (and the prices arent high at all).

http://infusionsystems.com/catalog/

If you like beyblades but you thought the encounters where pretty quick and the R/C version was also too quick, then try Interactive tops from Koike Laboratory:

http://den.atsuage.net/wiki/index.php?Project%20InteractiveTop

One of my favorites (that i mentioned in previous posts) was the Roly Poly. Designed by Design Incubation Centre, these two eggs move when you move the other one, creating the sense of comunication and presence.

http://www.designincubationcentre.com/site/#/

Another of the interesting projects was Surround Haptics by Disney Research Pittsburgh and sponsored by Black Rock Studios. In a shell, is a vibration system for movies and games. The good thing, is not as every other system out there at all! Using a different system of vibration nodes, the device is very much silent and also gives more area of vibration and patterns that feel a lot better than all the rest. I tried it myself for around 10 mins and then talk with one of the staff members about it. I got very interested in this system and is one of those i would like to keep a close eye on it for further tests in game design.

http://www.surroundhaptics.com/

Back in the Booth section i pass by the incredible Digital Domain booth. For those that are wondering who those guys are, is a SFX studio created by the now late Stan Winston, Scott Ross and James Cameron. They had worked in movies like: Tranformers, Xmen first class and Tron legacy. And above all, seems they are hiring. So if you think you can bring some good elements to the team (and your experience is above 3 years) give it a shot.

http://www.digitaldomain.com/

For some time now i had heard about V-Ray by Chaos Group, but hadn't an idea of what it was. Now i know that is a render solution software that deliver, if not the best, some of the best rederings around. And it works for the mayor 3D software around: Maya, 3Ds Max, Blender, even Sketchup (GD21 scream in agony).

http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/index.html

Another of the big guys was ZBrush by Pixologic. Used widely in the film and video game industry, ZBrush is a 2D/3D software for modeling. Is like modeling digital clay of some sort. The software has won the appreciation of millions and is still growing.

http://www.pixologic.com/home.php

I also recommend ZBrush little "brother", Sculptris. A free software (for now) based on Zbrush:

http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/#

//////////////////////// Weekend Trip /////////////////////////

My friend Ruth came to visit on thursday and we went all around the city in the following days. And man it was tired to my feet.

Friday

So we went to downtown to leave Ruth at the US embassy to do some stuff, while i was wandering around waiting. I took some notes and ideas for some plans i have for this break. Then we went to Pacific Center to eat something. And the staff member bailed on the bubble tea and instead gave me some watermelon stuff. After that we found ourselves having a tan infront of the art gallery, because the city administration made this weird wavy platform with plastic grass that feels great, and a lot of people were taking sun baths as well. After that we went to false creek and keep walking until we reached Yaletown station and took a train home. Unfortunately i had a last D&D session at Next Level Games, so i had to go again to downtown after we got home.

And the Epicness of Epicness of battles took place in a small meeting office in a building close to the main library. I won't tell you the ending (yet), but it was awesome!

Saturday

So we got relatively early and we went to a place @ China town. After that we got into a shuttle to Capilano Bridge, which now has a new cliff bridge that is so narrow, i promise you will get nervous too. Then we went all the way south to Richmond to Aberdeen and finally get some real bubble tea. However it was too late already to get to a couple of parties we were invited, but still was a lot of fun.

Sunday

This was walking day and i mean it, we WALKED a lot! We started at Denman, ate something (and some crows were just waiting for us to leave before taking all the food rests) and walked all the way to the second and third beaches, then Prospect point, then some very deep trails inside Stanley park. Finally we emerged at the Totems site and walked again to take some more buses and skytrains to get home. I can't add more than my feet hurt a lot.

That's all for now! See you in a few!
Antharias

Week 7 - Siggraph 2011 - part 2

2011-08-17T21:02:00.000-06:00

Hi!

Because of the length of the experience, I'm breaking up this posts into more parts than I expected. please bear with me as i also am at the final days of term 2. *Update* I'm done with term 2 as for now.

I awoke on Wednesday a little late and i took my time to wake up. I knew i could go to a talk very early, but i was exhausted for the previous days. I ate some breakfast and went to the bank to get some do just in case.

I had my plans to go to different talks on the day, but i was very interested in going to the booths to see how it was different or similar to AX.What i saw blew up my mind!

In one direction: IDN, 3D world and ImagineFX, Animation mentor. To another direction: Pixar Studios, Intel. To the other: AMD, Nvidia and Wacom.

Before loosing my mind i started from the first aisle and keep walking and taking flyers.My first encounter was with the guys of IDN, a well know graphic design magazine. As i walked in i found the guys from Future Publishing that make a couple of my favorite magazines: 3D world and ImagineFX, among others. Then i found the guys from Wiley that print a lot of books.

You can find them @

http://www.3dworldmag.com/

http://www.imaginefx.com/
http://www.wiley.com/

As i walked into the last of the first lane i saw a bunch of people making a line for something, when i asked them why, they told me that Pixar was giving up some tea cans with stuff in them. But since i didnt had much time i decided not to make any lines and keep walking.

Along the aisle i also found the animation mentor booth. Guess what they do? However what you dont guess is that they are a online school! I'm subscribed to their newsletter for a reason.

http://www.animationmentor.com/

I found also the booths of 3D Total (CG assets page), The Bakery (Interactive lighting and shading software developers) and IDV's Speedtree (they create middleware software for tree creation in games and animated films: Avatar and Tiger Woods golf games).

http://www.3dtotal.com/
http://www.speedtree.com/
http://www.bakery3d.com/

I didn't went to the second lane immediately but i decided to go to the very last guys way back in the room. I found out that there's a company, British Columbia Film Commission, that helps the film industry folks to find locations for their films around vancouver, and got a very cool picture mini book from them.

You can find them at:

www.bcfilmcommission.com

I also saw the booth for King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, which had a very interesting marketing plan! They were giving up not only brochures and business cards but also pins with 3D matrix codes on them, GENIUS!

http://www.kaust.edu.sa/

Finally for this post, i saw the guys from Houdini 3D animation tools. I think we can call their product middleware, because ease of use and it takes some load from the animators to keep working on more stuff.

http://www.sidefx.com/

Before I go for this post, I want to add the info contact of the Hapmap (the rail system for the Iphone) and the 3D touch screen system (ironman style) Touche:

http://tachilab.org/

http://www.immersion.fr/

Japanese and French respectively.

I have to change the style of this series of post again, because i have too much to talk about and very little time to recall the whole experience, so on the next post and so on, I'll be taking all the flyers and stuff that I got from Siggraph and start talking more about them and my experience with them (if any). However there are some stuff that i will express my complete admiration for, like the Blender booth or the Intel Booth.

Hope you had enjoy so far
Antharias

Mid-Week Post - Siggraph 2011 part 1

2011-08-12T02:01:00.001-06:00

Hi!

First of all sorry for being so late with a post, but I now have a very good excuse, and it not just the Siggraph, so let me tell you about what happened.

Last week was running normally (full of work, not much time to rest) when the D&D started. OMG!!! everything was backwards! We reached the peak of a mountain to try to find a teleportation device when we found an illusion "IT'S a TRAP!", then a blue dragon attacked and suddenly an abberration came in too! then the dragon dissapeared because of an enemy elf, then we had to fight the aberration and a group of elven rouges. So far a normal D&D battle. Suddenly someone appeared at the sky and tried to shoot us. Then another fighter apppeared and tried to stop us, we heared another guy inside of a chamber and a kid screamed for help.

We managed our way into the chamber and things went wild. Our bard became ethereal and started shooting his way into the battle, our wizard started acting anything but logical and gave a sacrificial drink to the little boy, one of our paladins just stood there while the other one got treasure crazed and our rouge didnt wanted any treasure and finally i started to act like a chaotic evil character. So the wizard gave this drink to the kid and guess what? the kid was a DEMON, he destroyed the enemy team for us and we thought we were done for it. But surprise surprise! the demon helped us to recover and to stop the teleportation device, because he was the device! So the day ended with us asking what just happened and had the most extreme D&D session to date.

So I returned to my workstation to work a little bit more on the flash game and went home.

Next saturday I got up and went to school as usually do, all day work, nothing much, but i had already gave notice that i was going to siggraph the next day so i had an excuse. Unfortunatelly for that day, our main programmer got sick and he couldnt show up until sunday, so we were already bitting our nails for the alpha iteration.

As some of you already know, i got the fortune to get a free pass for Siggraph 2011 and i never imagine that it wasnt the only thing i was going to get for free nor that was the only incredible experience i was going to get from it. So sunday came and i awoke late because I already had being tired from last day. So i made lunch for the rest of the day and went to the convention center. Siggraph had just begun! And the first sign of it was a incredibe big poster of Buzz Lightyear with the Pixar Canada logo above him.

I started at the Studio, a small pavilion where students, amateurs and small companies show up their advancements in technology, art and game improvements. The big theme was 3d Printers this year. However for me the most interesting projects were the prescence egg (i forgot the name, sorry), the walkers directional system (i forgot the name too) and i was very interested in the Disney research project for game immersion (to which i got an interesting talk with one of the guys in the project).

However the booth section wasnt opened yet, so i decided to go to some talks. The first one was from the Game Developers association and their Game JAM. Basically if you know the 24 hrs Comic book challenge then you know how the game jam works: 48 hrs to create a video game. And is beginning to be quite big as we speak. I'm really looking forward next year on january.

Then i went to one of the bookstores and i was astonished that they had several Gnomon training dvds, the Expose, Exotique and massive black books and even other art books that are difficult to find even here. however i hold my horses because of my budget.

After that i wen to one of the Blender foundation talks. I found out about a live action movie that is being using Blender as their primary SFX software. Project London is looking pretty cool, i really recommend you to take a look:

Also in the panel there was this guy who talked with an accent and seemed to be directing the rest of the crew, little i knew that that person was going to give me one of the shocks (but a good one) of my life.

After that i went into the Studio again to get some flyers and I was very interested in VHS (vancouver hackers space). They have cool stuff, i will have to check their store soon.

However i phone my flash PM and he told me everyone was at school working, so i decided to go there and lend a hand for a few hours. Few that became my first "all nighter", which means that i stayed working on the art assets all night and we all got pretty crazy and illogical, it was hilarious!

As i started finishing stuff, i never felt tired until the next day, i saw the dawn of monday as we worked to reach alpha. So we had our morning class and then i got the burden of the work. I tried to go again to the convention center but decided on stay and keep working. And so i did. The day ended, we uploaded the project and i went home.

Tuesday came and i was still tired (i think i had nightmares or something). But i was already planning my big day on wednesday. All day at Siggraph and full steam ahead! But before that, i decided to go to T&T to buy some stuff to eat, and i got another of those culinary experiences: An orange drink with real orange pulp in it. I give it 3.5 stars out of 5 because it wasn't enough. And a squid snack! yeah, to my astonishment they made it a snack. However it was so hard to chew! even harder than snails! tasty although. I was like squid jerky. I give it 3 out of 5. but with a "just for the brave" warning!

So that's what happened from tuesday to Thursday and I haven't got to the best parts. See ya on Sunday to keep writting what happened after that.

Thanks for reading!
Antharias

No Sunday post, maybe mid week

2011-08-10T00:27:00.000-06:00

Hi!

Unfortunatelly I wasnt able to post anything this past Sunday, the reason is simple: I spent the rest of the night at school working for the alpha iteration of our game, my first "all nighter". I saw the set and dawn of sun XD. And didnt slept until 7 pm of monday.

So i will try to post something on wednesday or thursday about all what happened since friday and of course the Siggraph experience.

I'm out for tonight to wake up early tomorrow to continue such experience.

see ya
Antharias

Mid-week post : deja vu

2011-08-04T00:15:00.000-06:00

Hi!

A weird thing happened to me on Monday because i finished my assignments before 6 pm: I had no idea what to do! The stores were already closed (after 6pm and BC day) and there was sunlight outside. But, since is Vancouver, i just started walking like in the old days. And i walked and walked, i walked to false creek, then science world, then the olympic village, then granvile island, then broadway street then Chapters, then the pizza place and then i finally took a bus home. It was a deja vu all over again! I saw the olympic village finally complete, i took a picture of the same white bridge, then i took a pic of myself in the same way, then i walked to granville and took pictures too and so on and so on.

It was great to walk 4 km without feeling tired at all. ^_^

I have to keep this one short because i need to go to sleep. But i will say that Siggraph 2011 starts this sunday and i already have my schedule to go (10 pages of schedule XD).

See you on Sunday
Antharias

Term 2 - Week 5: The laughing week

2011-08-01T02:40:00.000-06:00

Hi!

Why the laughing week you ask? Well, we were in the D&D workshop on friday, and then this small event happened that i promise i will make a webcomic panel about it when i have time. It involves a three Minotaurs and a D20. And when it happened, i laugh so hard! i was on my knees in the floor and i think i laughed like 5 or even 10 mins straight (im not sure). Even some of the guys told me i got broke or something.

Anyways, i had being relaxing this weekend before finishing the whole flash game because alpha is in one week T_T. I managed also to make a UV map on my own from the same model i showed you last post, but it took me a little while to understand the procedure.

Tomorrow's the VFS summer picnic at Stanley park, hopefully i will have some time to go. But i really don't think so.

Changing topic, the neighborhood cat (AKA Jiji) visited me today and made me sleep (Seems that cats make me sleep, weird eh?). But seems he starts to trust me somehow. And after he left, i cleaned the room and went to the store for some groceries. Im good for the rest of the week now ^_^

I made some dumplings this thursday and it was great, but i ate the whole package T_T. The good thing though is that i didnt got hungry all day.

Finally, even when it is the end of July, there is still some snow in the mountains, and i can't get used to it, but is beautiful. And the weather has being changing too quickly lately, too much rain but is good.

See ya in the mid-week
Antharias

mid - week post - another late

2011-07-29T18:32:00.000-06:00

hi!

Right now I'm at my workstation, working on another UV mapping for a contest. I'm having some trouble trying to manage my assignments but nothing to worry about. I didn't had the pics i took this week today, but i'll let you another quick UV map i did for an assignment.

Also as usual (ok not really though) i give you a piece of music to hear. Maybe i'll make this a section of the blog. Instead of a hurried mid-week post, maybe i can put the song/music of the week. Let's see how deep i can dig into the tube.

See ya
Antharias

Term 2 - week 4 a little late

2011-07-26T00:30:00.001-06:00

Hello!

Wow, is crunch time now at school and hence the late post. So i had forgotten to say that i got a Caanoo! is an asian handheld which strength resides in its open source infrastructure which allows anyone to make games for it and also to play a good amount of emulators and free games for the system. Nice idea, it lacks some decent games for the original system, but are good enough for the rest. Great design, interesting speakers, touch screen, and the hardware is quite good. im impressed.

Yesterday the friendly neighbor cat appeared at my window and after some petting he left again. love the neighbor cat, now called Jiji.

In school i now have a metal Mario mushroom, which is ironic because of my name and the place im studying at. Maybe a concidence? IDK. The other day some crew was filming inside of our school, some zombie flick, which was weird because there were zombies in the hallways and then last week another crew filmed something on the street. Seems Chinatown is quite popular, eh?

I tried a new brand of noodles today, a taiwan one, and i can say im impressed. Maybe those aren't nutritious at all, but the taste is a lot better, thats for sure! 3.5 stars out of 5.

Finally, even when i had never had so much work at once in my whole life, and having days and nights infront of my workstation instead of going outside and meet new places and people, I'm still standing and following my dream. I won't give up! And for every one that told me that i wasn't important and that i won't reach any goals in my life.... Guess what? I'm still here and I'm free. And I won't change every day I inside working for nothing, is my future and is what i want.

I hope to see you again in the mid-week post

Antharias

Mid-Week Post

2011-07-21T00:31:00.000-06:00

Hi!

Today we had some extra hours after school so i decided to start finishing my list of stuff to do. Today i played a demo for A Vampyre Story from Autumn Moon Entertainment. I must say i found lovely the idea of an opera female vampire that is in some sort of denial and since it was made by former Lucasarts employees who also worked in Monkey Island and the legendary Day of the Tentacle, what can go wrong? So far i can tell is Mona's voice. From that is a good demo, I'm actually looking forward find it and buy it. A little cheesy but worth looking for it.

Today i finally finished my first 3D level on UDK. I have to say i had some trouble at first to find out my workflow in the system but even when i didn't use all the space the assignment required Im proud of what i made with three days, from zero to good. i'll give you a couple of screenshots and an accidental INCEPTION shoot.

The current week was a heavy one personally, some stuff happened that i have to go through alone. So if this is what i have to suffer to get a better life, so be it. I'd choose to bear with it. Unusually enough, I found a sound piece that described my feelings through these days. I won't try to geek out tonight, but if you manage to listen to this piece without your eyes but with your ears and soul, you will understand what i past through. I appreciate your time to listen to the next piece.

Good night
Antharias

Term 2- Week 3

2011-07-18T00:22:00.001-06:00

Hello!

Well, this was a really difficult week and i haven't finish that damn level design because i was so exhausted! This week i had to calculate an isometric animation for a walk (i haven't finish the actual animation), i saw cool cars around China Town and i created a new recipe: Spaghetti with mushroom cream!, and tastes amazing! And still i arrived at 3am today because of a pixel art assignment.

We had a meeting for our flash game and we have the level idea and puzzles to solve. BTW, the screenshot you see here are from the programmer's notes, i hope he don't mind. But again, i'm a little behind schedule and i havent finished the animation T_T.

Well, at least Rosa was able to "Walk" a little bit after some months.

Anyways, i had being researching more game engines and i can say I'm very interested in working with Panda3D, Love2D Engine, Bennu (and Bennu 3D) and a couple more i just found today. I had also heard a lot (and got a great recommendation from my mentor) about Lua scripting. I think the Love2D engine uses it so i may have to learn Lua after all.

I wish i could talk a little bit more, but tomorrow i have an early class at 9 and the rest will be spent finishing that damn level design.

No pain no gain! And here we go....!

Antharias

Term 2 - Week 2

2011-07-11T00:14:00.000-06:00

Hi!

Things are starting to heat up and assignments are flying all over the place! This week we got the GD22's welcome party that turned amazing! damn you 20's for giving us a lame party (JK). Also this weekend we got our campus invaded by zombies! yes, zombies! Seems that one of our advisors was filming a new zombie movie and they invaded the second and third floor with brains, zombies and kid zombies.

Anyways, in more nice news, i won a basic pass for this year's Siggraph! i couldn't believe it! i found myself jumping when i got the news! And the best thing is that we have permission of absence when on those days.

Last week i finally was able to set up my room into a more confortable setting. I put some reference books outside, clean it better and even placed my vancouver map on the wall. Is like another Deja Vu.

Unfortunatelly for me, last week meant also another shopping spree at Chapters. I don't regret buying those books, but only the fact that i must really take care of my expenses. Between those books i got the novel from the current Magic the Gathering cycle "Scars of Mirrodin" which goes back to the plane of Mirrodin, a personal favorite, and while i dont play it anymore, i found fascinating such plane and characters, and to my surprise, they managed to turn everything around and made Glissa Sunseeker into Glissa the traitor, amazing! I hope to find time to read it as soon as possible, but is a long way though.

Finally, school is great so far. I had seen some problems between some classmates because of their teams, but we all are like a big family, which is cool.

Let's see what this new week brings me.
Antharias

Mid-Week Post

2011-07-07T00:23:00.000-06:00

Hi!

I can say that officially we are making games. I know we had done a couple of game-related stuff, but today kicked with an official meeting and roles. Here are the first quick character concepts for Omega VI (title pending).

Antharias

Late weekly post

2011-07-05T00:55:00.000-06:00

Hi!

Sorry for the late post, but there was a lot to do on Sunday. Anyways, I can tell you a little bit about the Riots aftermath. Well, there was a very positive response from the citizens of Vancouver, first of all, the next day a large group went to the zero zone and helped with the cleansing. After that, the damaged stores put these pieces of wood in their broken windows as a temporary measure, and many other people start writing positive stuff on them, even apologizing in the name of the city. Nice work guys!

I had being walking around downtown and chinatown lately and i had found interesting stuff around as usual. A friend found some glasses that will help him to sleep in class for example.

Anyways i started trying stuff with my cooking and i made this recipe of curry with meat and vegetables. it tasted so good, and i didn't had to spent all the ingredients.

Unfortunatelly, today was a problem with skytrain and the service was suspended, which made me run 4 blocks to the nearest bus stop and i lose my flash drive in the process. If someone sees it, plz return it, i really need it. T_T

Finally today was a D&D game day and it was a hard battle.

see ya
Antharias

Before the Weekly post

2011-07-04T14:19:00.000-06:00

I heArd someone is haviNg a hard time. This is just a sonG for that person with the purposE of cheering up. I know is not that person's style of music, Vut' the messAge is what it counts. I just hope this reach that persoN's eyes and ears and the message Is understandAble.

Next post will be tonight or tomorrow, it's being a hard weekend.

Break's over!

2011-06-26T22:28:00.000-06:00

Hi!

Wow! I really needed that break! I managed to stay at my bed a whole day! and i don't regret it because i really need it! After that, i went around the city to places (like Robson street, Chapters from grandville st, Kaz's place) and the whole weekend was a complete dejavu, I even met a couple of people that were at the Manga meetup way back. But at the same time is like i had (mostly) never left. I'm again where i left off two years ago, specially today, that i went to Stanley park, the same way i visited it two years ago when i left at Prospect Point.

I also got some Meiji chocolates from Japan Center, ill give them a 3 out of 5, decent but not much to say.

(11th Doctor style) So! For those of you that had being with me the past two years will remember a couple of pictures from my lasts post before i left! And the first one to indicate (with link) 6 pictures (3 current and 3 from that time) that look alike will get a free sketch ^_^.

And here are the pictures, enjoy!

Antharias

P.S. Tomorrow all starts over again, wish me luck.

End of Term 1 - We survived!

2011-06-23T17:43:00.000-06:00

hi!

just a quick mid-week post. and as the title says, we finished term 1 and went parting! as usual at jaggers but this time i did drink more than ever and it didn't made any reaction on me, which is sad because it confirms my theory that i can't get drunk.

anyways, today i got a visit of a new friend! a black cat (and it reminded me of Jiji). He just got into my room from the window and he just sleep here for 15 mins. then left.

This was also cleaning day, so i rearranged my room, did some laundry, repaired the laptop, pda and books and im not planning to do anything else today because is a free day. So tomorrow my escapades will began again.

No school 'till monday, so let's see what will happen in 4 days

see ya!
Antharias

P.S. Siggraph 2011 is coming soon, i hope i can make it.

Week 7 - one more to go!

2011-06-20T00:52:00.001-06:00

Hi!

Well, some stuff had happened since the riots. But i think the most important was to see a good friend after two years and even better, i got to see a new place i hadn't been at before: Surrey. The trip was a long one and the day was a very difficult one too. I woke up, i went to school, then to surrey, then to school, then to another's friends house, then school, then home at 2 am. Speaking of difficult schedules, eh? But no matter it was a great saturday. However i felt very tired today, beyond anything i had felt before. Hopefully i will rest after next wednesday and even i can visit a couple of places i had being forgotten these past days. But i also had seen a couple more that i missed so much: Metrotown and Central park.

Anyways, friday was a great day too! I went to a classmate house and to the D&D workshop in which we advanced a lot, i think it was our finest day so far. And the campaign is so good, that we even start to mimicry our own characters, we were engulfed into the magic circle a lot. Also, our DM bring some Pocky and not the simple kind! but heavy Almond Pocky! Man! those were incredible delicious, thanks! I also have to thank one of our D&D team that gave us this feast of food with even sushi! Thanks Lornum!

Today i tried something different, a piece du resistance, Snails! And i can say that I... ....dont like them, EWWW, too hard to chew nicely. But i can say now that i had tasted those things.

As for my expenses, i'm now thighten up everything, for example, this weekend groceries list was the cheapest so far, i hope to keep it that way.

Wish me luck in the last 3 days of this term.
Antharias

3/4 week post - Riots

2011-06-17T12:15:00.001-06:00

Hi!

Unfortunatelly, as many of you know already, the Canuncks couldn't win the Stanley Cup, sad. However it was a great season, but i must say, the referees where on boston side all game. On the very bad side of this, as many of you know already too, there where a lot of Riots around downtown for the rest of the night. I find it sad, that such a great city and people find this game as an "excuse" (that is not even an excuse at all) for destroying stuff and try to get away with it.

But within the riots, a incredible moon could be seen.

But after that and finally finishing some term's courses, we went to jaeggers yesterday and it was a nice change.

See ya on Sunday!
Antharias

Week 6

2011-06-13T02:22:00.001-06:00

Hi!

Finally the week ended! I think it was the longest week since i started the course. Sadly there are two more to go with the same weight (don't take me wrong, i love being there, but by now everyone's already burnout). Is 1230 of monday and im still doing a presentation T_T.

Some important stuff happened this week but let's start from the beggining. First, as I told you before, im a new fan of Doctor Who. How did i happpened, i think it was because that video of Adam Savage dancing to the tune made from testla coils. And since i liked the tune i started to do some reseach in youtube and even saw the 6 mins full storry explanation (from 1963 to 2010). Doctor Who is the longest Sci-Fi Series, even before star trek or star wars, and by now, there had being 11 doctors to which David Tennant (the 10th) is arguably the best doctor ever (and also the lonelinest). I found him with a great range as an actor and to be honest some of the scenes from his episodes made me let out a tear or two (you saw the last video). After him we have Matt Smith, who i think had to fill some big shoes after Tennant departure, but in the end he didnt had to fill those shoes, instead he started to made his own shoes and they are quite big. The guy is funny as hell, and is a great doctor too (his speech about Pandorica is one of the epic-est ever), and also he is the youngest actor to portrait the Doctor (at the age of 26 i had read).

Second interesting thing that happened is that i finally got a Canucks Jersey which strangely enough give me 10k instant friends when they win each game. You don't believe me? Well, i can say that it was 130 am in the middle of the street and a guy gave me high five, then another ask me for help about the bus schedule and then a bunch of girls and a guy asked me for a picture (they had a canucks shirt too). And all that in just 5 mins.....

Imagine what will happen tomorrow night if the Canucks win the Stanley Cup here at their home (5 mins from my school), just imagine that, you had already seen the pictures of the people, now imagine winning their first Stanley Cup at home.....

"We want the CUP!!!!!"

And the third and most impressive thing that happened to me, is that i can finally take out of my bucket list one thing: Wicked the musical. After two years, plans, books, youtube videos and memorizing the songs, i finally had the chance to see the play, and it worth every single day i waited for it. I sang with the actors, laugh at their jokes and got so marveled at the end of the first act (with their flagship song Defy gravity) that i got speechless for five minutes. Yes! is that AMAZING! Not only the actresses that played Elphaba and Glida were great, but the actor that portrayed the Wizard of OZ was amazing, he managed to steal scenes from Elphaba herself!

I'll see you next week, and i hope i can make a mid-week post again with a Canucks related video ^_^

Antharias

P.S. Is mid June and the mountains still have much snow on the top. Is not the first time i see this but i dont get used to it.

Almost mid-week post

2011-06-10T01:29:00.000-06:00

hi!

I just wanted to share a small scene from the End of Times episode from Doctor Who. Why? because it has an outstanding acting, an interesting view of the doctor and does a great job at creating emotion in the viewer. Also i relate to the doctor in this scene, because of problems, feelings and emotions that I'm passing through these days.

Week 5

2011-06-06T01:43:00.000-06:00

Hi!

Wait! what day is today?! Wow! this was a hard week indeed! I really don't remember exactly what happened every day, but here we go with the help of some pictures ^_^ !

Finally i played Arkaham Horror (based on the lovecraft mythos)! And it wasn't what i expected T_T. The fan in me is amazed how the game resembles the novels and stories, but the gamer is unsatisfied with the no reward the game gives to the players. Anyways, maybe another round will help to clarify my doubts.

As for school itself, i can tell you i had being learning and reading a lot! and the thing is that i havent read enough. From the hero's journey to c#, everything is too much to comprehend in one sit. but i have to try, i have just started and no way im gonna stop now.

Unfortunatelly, because of the week, i lost Pixie Zwei (maybe at commercial drive station) T_T is so sad. However i have to welcome the new member of my adventure Elphaba (you will know why i named her like that). Is a Palm Treo 755p which is ironically a phone too, but i dont have money for that thing, maybe another time (and im really tempted).

And yes, The Canucks are in the Stanley Cup finals and is a wild thing to happen! The city transforms completely, onslaught after onslaught of fans around the city when they win (and it's 2-0). I really wanted to get a jersey, but when i got to the store, there were like 20 people waiting to get one. And to make things worse, i decided to go from granvile station to stadium before the game..... ....bad idea...... ....bad idea indeed.....

Sometimes we go to Jaeggers, a popular bar at downtown, and of course is good to be there once again.

Anyways, two more things before i go. The first one is that i saw not one but two seagulls on top of a public light, the usual sign of me being here again ^_^. and the other one, which will delete something from my "bucket list" is that i got a ticket to see Wicked the musical! after two years i can finally go and see it. And the wonderful thing is that is so close to school, i dont have to lose so much time. AWESOME!!!!

Is so good to be here indeed.

Antharias

p.d. For no particular reason, i just became a Doctor Who fan but thats something for another time to explain.

Week 4

2011-05-29T23:53:00.000-06:00

Hi!

This week was a very, very difficult one. However i went to some places but i forgot to bring my camera T_T, sorry for that. However i do have a couple of pics.

First of all, one of my classmates invited me to this places called Meat and Bread. And is awesome, and quite cheap too! Is at hastings and even when is a small place, it has a theme and is very well done. 5 stars out of 5. Highly recommended. and thanks again to my friend from Chicago.

This week we got a small meeting with the department's headmaster. He told us a little bit of how things are right now in the industry and how it seems to move to. Also how the same department is changing and why we are the first ones to be part of that change. Also he did a little bit of Q&A and make us feel secure again ^_^.

Every friday we have this D&D night, which is part of the optional classes we have at VFS (yeah, D&D is officially a class here, figures.) and if you called me geek, let me tell you something: everyone is a geek! Everyone has a passion and loves to know more about that passion, that is called a geek. But anyways, every friday night is quite interesting, because we are part of a group that will depend on each other to survive in a class, that has to do some performance in live action to be successful and it teaches us that inside of a team, everyone is an important part of the whole quest.

Finally i had to move to a new room around town. Why? good question, i wish i could have an answer for that but it a nice place, better than before and all the room is mine. However this weekend i had some misfortunes and hurt my back badly, and the moving part hurt it a bit more. but no pain no gain, isnt?

For the last part i wish i could write something i feel right now, maybe random and without sense, but is a reflection of my reality in this moment and besides, this is for myself and to remember the times i lived.

Antharias

    Here I am, behind schedule and with a back pain that hurts as hell. Yet i feel good because this is my city, this is the way i want to live and my future if i can make it. This second time is not normal, it doesnt feel different or i feel alienated of the city. I feel part of the city and the city feels part of me. This is where i want to live and where i had met interesting people from around the world.

     My mind tells me that i miss something, a memory of grey that doesn't want to let go. But i need to go on, i want to move on. I can't go back again. Not again, not ever. Im above that now and i have peace. Chances were given and weren't took. Can't do anything about it. The city calls me, it had shown me its beauty, but thats for my mind only. If my future is here, is mine for the taking, if not then i still keep it in my heart.

     As i walk through the streets i feel my peace again. Inside one of the most busy cities, the heart of electrone and information, an explorer search for a system that will help him find the way into the beauty of electricity.

Canucks for the Cup!

2011-05-25T00:19:00.000-06:00

Hi!

This is a special occasion! Hockey here is so great that the last class wasn't. You read right, we spent the whole class watching the last game between the Canucks and Sharks. And the Canucks won (I need a Jersey now)! So the whole game design building went crazy and then the skytrain and then Rogers Arena and the the whole downtown and city! It was a massive congregation of people! I couldn't walk through Granville St.

If you could had seen what i see and you could hear what I'm hearing now....

Week 3 Extras

2011-05-23T01:23:00.000-06:00

A couple of my discoveries at school were a couple of cyberpunk bands i found interesting and cool. All happened because a 1 min pitch we had to do at pre-production class and because of the theme of my project, i decided to research more about it. And the bands i found were Angelspit and Covenant. I hope you like them as i do now. I find Angelspit to speak to my wild and uncontrollable side and in the other way, i find Covenant to speak to my conservative, melancolic side. (I regret not knowing these bands before, specially when Angelspit came to el Paso on March this year T_T).

Week 3

2011-05-23T01:17:00.000-06:00

Hi all!

Another week, another bunch of stuff learned. A little depression came by, but I'm alright now and I'm planning something to get noticed some way ;)

Monday
Storyboarding class was interesting, we created a camera setup for a scene and presented it to the public. Storytelling was a free class because the advisor had a child on the weekend (congratulations to John M. and wife). So i used that time and unity lab to finish the game assignment finally. In game production i got scared because we got a preview of what a mid-term exam was and i wasn't prepared (for lack of time from the other assignments).

Tuesday
For this day forward in the rest of the week i could sleep more than 7 hours a day. And the only thing i remember from this day is Magicka Vietnam! Everyone was sold by the trailer and several (including me) bought the game just for the expansion XD is a good and funny game, i really like it.

Wednesday
More Unity for everyone! and now with scripting instructions (finally). Seems the advisors do hear us and change sometimes the classes to help us to improve faster, thanks for that. Then we had a lady from student services to give us more info about resources and then some pre-production assignments.

Thursday
Guess what? more board games! We played Carsonne and settlers of catan. Both interesting german games, unfortunatelly you have to play them to understand because i found the manual instructions to be too complex. Some non-existent art lab after that and finally some Game theory (analog) class.

Friday
There were no classes today, but one of my classmates kindly gave us a three hour scripting class (thanks again) in more mundane terms which was better. After that the weekly D&D course came and we had a blast, I'm having a great time playing as a douchie character. But it was too late when i got to my room so i just slept.

Saturday
I spent the whole day visiting places to rent. I found one decent enough, of course not as good as the one I am now, but is the whole room to myself and has a nice closet. A little far away, but cheaper and i will be saving the same amount there. and I think is quicker to get to school from there somehow (via skytrain of course).

Sunday

I went to school and work on my assignments, but also went to a new supermarket (for me at least) called T&T. All i can say is that if i carve for asian food, that's the place for me. And of course i got some new stuff like some snails to eat (yeah, im going to try that way T_T). But for now is only a drink with strange seeds inside. And somehow i discovered United Front Games, which is close to my current location and never saw it before.

Anyways for the Pandan drink, I can only give it 2 out of 5 stars. Tastes a little old at first and then nothing. I don't know how to describe it, is not unpleasant, but not something that i would drink each day.

Week 2

2011-05-14T21:43:00.000-06:00

hi!

So there goes week 2, a little rough, fun, and with a burden on me that will last the rest of the month. But lets first go into the details, shall we?

Monday

We had our first storyboarding class and Storytelling. Not much to say here, it was the first class so mostly everything was about stories and writing. Then we had our Unity Lab, which we didnt had at all since there was not much to work with (yey, free time). Then our second Game production class, which i dont really remember by now T_T.

Tuesday

Fortunatelly i could rest more than 7 hours today and to be even better, we had our first field trip to the Art Gallery, it was fun. However it also reminded me how scared are some people of me. After that the guys convinced me to get some buns to eat. These buns are sell close to the campus and are quite cheap, and it took only 3 of them for not feeling any hunger until next day at lunch time. WOW. Anyways, we had our second level design class in which we saw more details about it and got a preview on our next week assignments.

Wednesday

We had a VERY interesting class today: Copyright Laws Lecture at the old campus. I wish we could have more of those again, very interesting stuff. After that, more unity and we finally made our first game (kinda), a pacman clone that is. After that, more BUNS! my classmates made me an addict, but the buns are so good! Anyways, we had another pre-production class in which i had to do a 1 min pitch of a self made game, and they like it ^_^

Thursday

Another day to wake later. And we started with more board games, the classics: Chess, Checkers, Go, and another one i didnt liked. Then more Art lab (free time too) and finally game theory. And we all are wondering what would happen if we gave a redbull to the advisor? He talks too fast and sometimes i don't understand him, sorry.

Friday - Saturday

We don't have classes but i had being going to school to finish assignments and we had learned a lot of Unity. I'm already polishing the game assignment.

However this week came with a cost. A reminder that it is TOO difficult to get into the industry, but i have no more choice, i have to do it and I'm not running away. Also unfortunately i have to relocate for unknown reason (yeah i have no idea really), i hope i can find a place by may 31.

I could explain each pic in detail, but i think those explain themselves. Also i had being in some very familiar places, how i missed them these past two years.

Parties and Weekend

2011-05-08T14:56:00.000-06:00

Hi!

After going to wal-mart, i went to GD's party at VFS cafe on hastings and homer! It was cool, everyone playing from mortal kombat to losing their dignity in that dance game for the kinect, and i got a free freesbie of wii sports, too. After that we all went to Jaeggers, which is the same pub we went with the Artery two years ago and at the same room back at the end. It was crammed with people, we talked a lot, but i had to leave early because i went to a friend's apartment to another party. So i crossed all downtown from one end to another diagonally and reached there a little late. We played Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2 (for my taste MW2 plays a lot better and quicker) and also lose more dignity at the same dance game XDD. Also I ate this cake made of japanese sweet beans and green tea which tasted awesome! i had never tastes anything like that, is not that sweet but enough to fill my sweet carving for the night. After that it was back to my apt and checked some news and stuff on the web. Damn it was raining a lot that night.

As for Saturday and Sunday, i had being doing some assignments which took me some time because i got a writer's block half through but today i got over it and finished 37 ideas. Not very promising ideas, but is a start, specially when i had never played underground board games, except with a couple of exceptions. But i still have to do the one minute speech. wish me luck

Oh! i almost forgot! I also tried a couple of new products this weekend: Frutopia juice (carton) and So Nice soy milk.

Frutopia wasn't spectacular, just your regular multi-fruit based juice. not much to say here. As for So Nice, it was a nice taste. it doesn't really taste like milk entirely but doesn't taste bad at all, specially when is the Vanilla flavor. So is 2.5 out of 5 to Frutopia and 4 stars for So Nice vanilla.

bye
Antharias

VFS - Week 1

2011-05-06T18:37:00.000-06:00

Hello!

What an incredible and hard week this was! So hard that i had to re-plan everything at my apartment twice, specially with food. I'm trying to save as much as i can, but still i had to buy more than my plan, but that's not a problem. And so incredible because what happened each day, so let's begin:

Monday

I woke up to make my breakfast and lunch but I almost got late on the first day (miscalculation of cooking times). Anyways, i arrived at the new building at China Town (next to a beautiful garden) and the guard asked my if i were with the GD21s, and I'm like "GD what?". So he escorted me to this room on the third floor when i saw all the people i saw at orientation day and some more.

Our host for that part was Dave Warfield, basically the responsible of EA sports franchises to climb up in previous years, who is the head master of the Game Design department. He introduced all the staff members, all of them professionals in the field with several titles under their hand and even the assistants had a couple of titles shipped. So we took a step foward one at a time to introduce ourselves to the new advisors and keep joking about stuff and making questions. And guess what? We all got a backpack, all the books we need, pencils, umbrella, water bottle, the whole set! Finally that class ended and we had an hour to chat and stuff.

The next one was also an orientation class from the I&T headmaster. However he just made more confusion that solve some troubles but nothing really bad. Having three hours to spare, i returned home to get another lunch since i miscalculated my food consumption. And went back again at 630pm.

Game production was an overall description of the game design workflow, which is not very different to graphic design in some ways, just the product itself. That day i understood that i will be arriving at 10pm at least for this term. I also have to report you that i cant take any pictures inside the building, the reason is simple: recreating a studio environment in which pictures aren't allowed.

Tuesday

Jebus Chrits!!! I had never got a class like this before EVUR! We spent 6 hrs, yes you read right, 6 hrs playing Diplomacy (looks like Risk but without dice and is heavy on the conversation between teams and players) and all was part of the class, yeah, that was the class (BTW our team Turkey won)! And it got even better! At Level design we were introduced to, what else, level design, but using Unreal Tournament 3 (hell yeah!), we were playing (and pownding one to another, even the advisor, which got a little upset) the whole class.

Wednesday

Since i was in group A (and in first place to make mattes worse) I was of the firsts ones to attend Presentation skills, in which we were taught how to explain an idea to a client and sell it in 3 minutes (but we made in 8 min :S). After that, we got the Unity class, which i have to take back my previous review of it and now i found it quite easy to handle and with a lot of potential. Finally we got pre-production techniques which was like an extension of game production.

Thursday

Finally i could sleep more than 7 hours and we got two classes today. The first one was Visual Design principles AKA Photoshop (oh yeah!) and to my surprise and the advisor I was the only one in several classes that answered correctly a couple of artists he showed us (Syd Mead [a favorite to us two] and Ben Procter [google them]). And everyone likes my Camo-Gundam-Cat i made in the class.

Friday

Just one class today, but i learned about some great sites to make a portfolio and some indie/student games in the process. And since it was groceries day, i went to wal-mart this time, but my card is having trouble and i dont know why.

As for the following days, i plan to do my assignments (yeah, we still got those and are game related, F Yeah).

Bye bye!
Antharias

Long week, and one more.

2011-05-06T01:04:00.000-06:00

hi!

Unfortunately for school policies, i can't take any pictures of VFS facilities, this is to maintain a professional environment of one of a game studio. Also my schedule is very thigh, so i will have to post advances only at the end of the week and if I'm able to. For now i just leave you a small pic of what an incredible week it was. I'll give you the complete brief of what happened.

bye

meat, granville, moving

2011-05-01T19:23:00.001-06:00

hi!

As the title said, i finally could taste some meat a couple of days ago, but i wont talk about it again (yey! meat!). Anyways, yesterday was a walking day again (an another foot strained, damn it, when it's gonna end?) and i got quite a nice day.

First of all, the internet at my dept wasnt working, so i walked to the central library, in which they also had a book sale (a lot of people, so i didnt stayed long) and got a internet guest card so i could send some congratulation emails to my father. After that, seemed that my feet were ok now (later i discovered it wasnt), i decided to walk all the way to granville island, of course, half way my right foot gave over but im not going to keep telling you the same thing over and over.

So there i was, walking through familiar terrain, remembering and rediscovering places i used to and still love to go to. The first thing i did was to get into the market area, and it was as great as i remember it, so i got my 4 honey flavores straws as usual! ^_^ There was an open house of the cement fabric, interesting actually. and the usual performers all around the island (which i don get why is an island).

After that, i got home to eat something and then go to a corner of downtown to buy some books (a dam good deal i must say) and i got a creativity lapsus with my headphones. Finally i went to a friend's apt to watch a movie and play some kinect. Since is my first experience, i found it interesting, but i still have to do more research.

Anyways, today i changed rooms for the last time and today was cleaning day all over the apartment. Laundry day too.

Tomorrow's my first day at school, so it finally starts.

BTW, you can now stop salivating on your PCs because of the pastries and chocolates you saw here. thank you!

Rainy days lately

2011-04-29T11:29:00.000-06:00

Hi!

As you know, Vancouver is know for their weather, in which rain take a great part of it. The last three days (yesterday not much really) i had been missing my umbrella a lot (MIA you are not forgotten). However, even with (again) another foot strained i had to go to a new (well not new, just new for me) Canada superstore and finally, after two years of waiting, i can finally taste again KORMA! FTW!!! Yeah! there's gonna be a party in my stomach like is nineteen ninety freaking nine! woot!

Also, i tried something new, not that is the big deal but is new for me nevertheless. I made a transfer to a skytrain line i had never used and interesting enough that goes along the same way that the train that i took from seattle and i saw places (like AI Institute) that i saw when i arrived. Also i found a wal-mart two blocks from the superstore. Someone told me is a little more expensive, but i think i can find stuff i can't in the Canadian SS.

And as usual, i took a pic in my way back inside the skytrain.

BTW I finally tasted real meat after a week of not doing so, i think i already lost a couple of pounds. That would be good if i were on a real diet, not starving for the lack of food XD.

See ya

Antharias

Downtown, how did i missed you

2011-04-28T17:36:00.000-06:00

Hi!

So i haven't healed completely of one of my feet. Unfortunately i try not to walk much, but still it hurts badly and quickly. But heres a view of my department:

And as usual in this place, i found seagull friends all over the place. So orientation day came and i had some interesting view of VFS programs and the quality they have. After that, i decided to walk around downtown and remember how it was like two years ago, and also what had changed. Fortunately i saw many known places and stores, like book-off, churches, the art gallery, chapters.

And finally as any geek, i saw again the Shangri-la Hotel, which was used in Tron: Legacy as Encom headquarters.

And here are the pics, enjoy!

T-4 1.21 gigawatts!?

2011-04-26T00:11:00.000-06:00

and in this day, is when everything got ugly. I started my day by walking 5 km to Queen Elizabeth park to fulfill a goal i had in my list, but in mid walk my left foot started to hurt badly, i had to stop each block because was unbearable. Then after the park i walked another km to a mall to eat something and there's when the other foot got the same feeling. Fortunately the Canada Line station was next to the mall, otherwise it would be fatal. So that day i spent 10 hours without a place to go (i had checked out form the hostel and my room wasn't ready yet), but this reminded me of the time i had nothing to do when i was here last time.

However i had spent the last two days inside to avoid further problems with my feet. seems (according to the mighty internet) that i had some kind of tendonitis and it will get cured in a couple of days more.

So here are the pics

T-3 Great Scott!

2011-04-25T23:18:00.000-06:00

^_^

This day was walking day, nothing but walk. The only "mission" i had was to check the new VFS building and to check how much time does it takes to get from the new place to school. And since there's a lot to tell, i will just give you pics and try to guess where and what i saw.

Finally, i went to visit some good friends close to Stanley park, it was great to see them again. But my bad luck hit again and i had to leave somehow early and ran 11 blocks in 12 mins to get to the hostel because it closed at 11 pm. This made a strain the next day but im getting ahead of myself.

T-2 this is heavy!

2011-04-25T22:35:00.000-06:00

Hi again!

After a shower and being a little late, we drove to the station 15 mins from the department, but what came in was my worst freak out moment so far. I weighted my luggage and the staff member couldnt accept one of the cases because it was too heavy, and i freaked out badly. After some curses and taking out some stuff from the briefcase, i made a run on the plattform (which i was scolded by one of the staff) to ask if they can let me weight the luggage again, but they told me to take it on the wagon myself and it will be ok. So i ran again back (scolded again) and quite nervous took my luggage and said good bye (I apology for the moment to my friend on an email after that). Another apology i gave the staff member and the journey began again. The cool thing about the train is that you have more space than a plane, and more speed than a bus, you also have a cafeteria inside, many restrooms and vacation magazines, also you travel from parts that you can't in other way of transportation. We passed around 4 tunnels, everything went black for a moment and it felt nice. Before arriving to the border, i saw a victorian-like building and red, which i found weird because of every other building around was 20 century like.

Some time later, we passed the border, which is the opposite of the mex-us one: green, flowers and the "no-man's land" has even a white arch. Time passed and i started to see more buildings and familiar settings around me, bridges and islands. I was getting close.

We arrived the train station and we all made a line to check in the custom's office. Unfortunately, my bad luck haven't dissapear just yet, and the guard dog got interested in my luggage (maybe the candy i had or my shoes, i don't know, but i swear im not a drug user). So i was sent to another room where i waited for an hour or so. After an explanation and passport return, i took my luggage and went to the park in front of the train station. I waited so much for this moment, but at the same time it felt unreal, like it wasn't happening.

I walked to Sky train (i had even to carry my luggage upstairs) and got in. A friendly person helped me at Burrard station to get to an elevator (thanks friendly anonimous guy). I walked another block to take the bus and went down at Nelson street. I looked for the hostel and checked in.

Interesting enough i got a membership card and a free day. The place smelled like the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland (you know, very old and crowded). By the time i hit the bed, i was exhausted physically and mentally. And i haven't got a real place to crash, which added to the stress. But i was finally here, where i wanted to be....