Gamer's Log - Minecraft

The best game to feature tree-punching mechanics.

Minecraft, where do I begin? Minecraft is the most talked about game right now, it seems no one can escape its 16x16 pixel grasp. I had heard whispers of what the game involved and viewed quite hilarious videos involving various structures being unintentionally razed but it wasn't until I heard my friends talking to each other about all the insane contraptions and structures they had built and planned on building in the future that I decided I must buy it. This seems to have been the way Minecraft has gathered ninety percent of its popularity; friends tell friends who tell other friends and so and so forth until we have over one million registered players. Oh yes, and I forgot to mention the game is still in Alpha.

So why is this game so damn good? The first thing I noticed is the way it doesn't force you to think a certain way or throw you into a pre-conceived universe. You begin the game in the middle of a procedurally generated environment made up of cubes coloured with a 16 pixel by 16 pixel texture map, with nothing but a block hand sticking out in front of the screen. What you do from this point on is entirely up to you, the only constant being that at night time there will be monsters and they will try to kill you. The addition of monsters to the game add a welcomed necessity factor to the already enjoyable and addicting building mechanic. During the first night you'll probably only have enough time to dig out a stone dwelling in the side of a cliff with a couple of torches scattered around but by the fifth or sixth night you could possibly have a multi-layered castle fitted with mechanised doors and a moat running along the perimeter.

The brilliance of Minecraft, in my opinion is only unleashed once you're playing on a server with a group of your friends, working together to create a land of wonder and mystery. On the current server I play on for example, I've created the aptly named "Ben Island" which is a hidden underground labyrinth, guarded by giant cobblestone walls and furious cacti.

I'm feeling more of a need to write about all of my creations other than the game itself and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It's this kind of creativity and social interactivity that has made this game such a phenomenon and is absolutely a wake-up call for all game designers out there. Minecraft is a video game, can only be a video game and will ever only be a video game. Markus Persson (the creator of Minecraft) has fully embraced the medium he's working in and is being rewarded for it.

Alien Fisherman - Cage Mesh

Cage mesh is complete! At a grand total of 3417 polygons, here is the Alien Fisherman in a stance which says "I'm about to get UV mapped":

Click to embiggen.

Kind of makes that whole "Pants" update even more lame.

Alien Fisherman - PANTS!

Not the most exciting update ever but here is the cage mesh for the Alien Fisherman's trousers:

Click to embiggen.

Alien Fisherman - Retopology [REDUX]

I've decided that I'm not the biggest fan of ZBrush's retopology tools, nevertheless here is the finished cage mesh for the Alien Fisherman:

Click to embiggen.

It's not perfect, I still have a lot to learn in regards to edge flow and intelligent placement of polygons but it's one of the few humanoid characters I've ever modelled and it's miles ahead of the last humanoid character I modelled so I'm satisfied in that regard.

It ended up being 3,946 polygons, giving me plenty of polygons to play with for the trousers, straps, boots and fishing rod.

I'm going to sleep.

Business Cards!

Hello internet.

I'm heading up to GCAP (Game Connect Asia Pacific) next week and I feel like I'll need some business cards to hand out to all the important people I'm likely to meet. I checked out some websites where you can order cards based off a pre-made template and they look horribly generic and boring. I don't like to think of myself as horribly generic and boring so I decided to make my own:

Click to embiggen.

Here is how this particular design developed, I had the typography and composition down within a few minutes but it took my so long to decide what to add as my own personal touch... I ended up with a slug:

Oh yes, these cards also reveal my new online portfolio internet website which is still in development... well, it has all of my concept art and sketches up, I just need to sort out the rendering of my 3D artwork.

Alien Fisherman - Retopology

In lieu of my ZBrush study I have discovered that the program actually has some nifty retopology tools, I'm slowly working my way around the mesh, adding polygons here and there. The face tendrils are giving me the most strife but I feel there's enough information there for the time being. Here's what I have so far:

Click to embiggen.

Click to embiggen.

As you can see I have finished the head and I'm working my way down the neck 'til I reach his... hips? Or torso stub, I'm not quite sure what to call it. I'll do each of the objects separately i.e. the straps, the wading trousers and then it's on to UVing and texturing.

Here's a neat animated gif of my work in progress:

Voren'thal - 40/M/Silvermoon City

With the release of the latest expansion for World of Warcraft, Cataclysm looming ever closer it became harder and harder to resist the call of the Lich King. Roughly a month ago I answered the aforementioned call and my alter ego Voren'thal was on the other end. He's a pretty cool guy, see for yourself:

Click to embiggen.

So what have I been doing over the past few weeks to prepare for Azeroth to be torn asunder by the ever-growing Maelstrom, you ask?

Smelting!

I smelted so much ore. I dropped my previous professions of Alchemy and Leatherworking and picked up Mining and Engineering instead. It was a good move.

I've also acquired a couple of neat new mounts such as this Swift Brewfest Ram:

And this Bronze Drake:

Since I quit playing over a year ago, Blizzard has added a few fantastic new features which make WoW much more streamlined and accessible such as the Dungeon Finder. The Dungeon Finder is an excellent new way to find a group of fellow players to plough through an instance with, you simply select which dungeon you would like to run (or select 'random dungeon' if you're not picky which will reward you with gold, Emblems of Frost and a nice buff for the duration of your run) and your role and you then join a queue for that instance. The best part of this feature is that it works cross-server, meaning you could have a party of five players with each being from a different server.

There's also an Auction House in Dalaran purely for engineers.

It makes me happy.

I'll upload my thoughts on Dead Rising 2 within the next couple of days. Here's a hint: You can kill zombies with two chainsaws duct-taped to a paddle and it has co-op.

P.S.

For the ladies.