Mouth 'n toes

The puppy now has vague front toes. They are still in development. Ok, they look like human toes more than puppy toes; this was harder to see whilst zoomed in playing with verts. I think I'll need more detail (more lines and verts) to really get them. Then on to the back feet. Woot.

Puppy forging ahead in the Summer

This is the latest Sketching-out animatic/story board for my Hungry Puppy project.
I worked on the model today, Adding in the inside of the mouth. Somehow I'll need teeth, maybe lips and a tongue too.

Still no luck porting it straight, click here to see the video.

To see the model in progress, click on the 'Hungry Puppy' label.

Meeting Notes

Met with Kyle, here are notes posted so I can't lose them.

• Divide up rooms/props with Michele so we don't work on the same thing (she's making a list so that should help get us started).
  
• Ward style is relatively modern, believable as a real place, only small things going on that are weird and out of place.
• Possibly Cel-shaded (cartoon-y) for the whole level; making the level of reality several notches away from Full realism (which we cannot afford in time or effort)
• Story isn't really nailed down
• 150 tris per prop a good starting place for sinks and such.
• Multiple level of detail settings available- low mid high.
  
• Lambert skins only, Engine won't run other skins at this time.
• Yard sale collected sofas, not matching.
• Portraits and landscapes on the walls, again yard sale.
• Game objects and skins are in the Tutorial Base folder.
• (I need to figure out the adding to game process and placement)
• Use Show tool to check work-- make sure it works on Mac.
• Style guides: find picture to serve as style guides for this non-specific, non-time period Ward. Check the good ones with Kyle.
• Game code. Hack into it and figure out how it ticks.
• Demo completion date: end of Fall term.
  

Enough for now? I think so.

More Ref pics, cabinet and bookshelvs

Woot more ref pics. Searching 'medical cabinent' led to stranger and creepier things than 'creepy hospital bed.' Who knew?

Computer and Body storage refs

These photos are for the computer props and for the med room cadaver storage. It feels like I'm getting stuff accomplished when I'm just googling images and pasting them... but they'll be useful references someday. really.

Exterior ref shots (maybe)

Bored at work, so trying to look up interior design references for the Psyc ward game. There's a band, or was one, named psyc ward.
I didn't have any luck on interior, but these are from a hospital built somewhere out in the boonies. The shots are acutally the worker's 'homes' built a quarter mile away from the hospital, as there wasn't enough housing in the surrounding area for the workers. one of the buildings caught on fire at one point, which I felt was a possible neat touch for the game, depending on where the story goes.
I have forgotten what the time period of the game is, but these 50's-60's block homes could fit many periods, depending on the level of decrepid-ness.
Kyle mentioned a city, but maybe this could be a hike or a load screen/bus ride away. I guess sand box and load screens don't really go together. Blah.

Skinny sink

This is the sink with the first, in-maya pass at the skin. I need to work the UV map a bit more to get the details to work, but this is a good start to work from in photoshop for the real skin, then bump map...
They won't all be bloody, but that's just a matter of swapping skins I believe.
I'm assuming that I'll be able to use this in Photoshop, we'll see...

Some work, and Some news

I hopped into the ole saddle and mozied on down the tutorial path some more today; working on skeletoning. They had some stuff I'd seen before and some I had not. The next chapter is on attaching the skin, which has always seemed like a dark art portion to me, but after seeing some to the graphics looks fairly simple. We'll see.

On another front, I was poking around Blizzard's help wanted page today, and found something to warm my heart. In addition to having great 'What to have in your reel/resume/coverletter' stuff, they describe the depts and jobs within. And in that description is a preference for generalists who can help out on various parts of a given pipeline. Instead of excelling at one part so they can stick you in one spot on an assembly line, they want you to be able to jump around and help on story and tech and lighting and rigging and modeling and concept and maybe even quality assurance :)

This thrills me, as I am drawn to learning all sides of a creative effort, not just excelling at one. The stuff I'd been reading about the movie industry suggested that a niche specialist was what was wanted, and that made me a little sad.
The little catch being I haven't played WOW and it or making mods for it are mentioned on most of their "preffered" sections... right now I really cannot afford it, either, in time or money. But it's not like I'm going to be job hunting this next year...
We'll see if I can get better at being a 'functional addict' with the gaming, using a timer to limit my binges and keeping up the rest of my life before I try the Wow crack.