Monday, November 15, 2010

Still Alive

Hey Folks,

It's been a long while since I've updated my blog. I'm alive and well and will make it a personal responsibility to update this more frequently. A brief update in my time, from then 'til now. Much has happened since I delved into the busy Games Industry. Frozen Codebase, of Green Bay, Wisconsin was the name of the place. I started my first bit of in-studio work with them November the 15th, 2007. Eighteen months into my servitude to FCB, I have 3.5 games under my belt; published and out in the networks of PSN, XBLA, Wii Ware, and PC.

Zombie Wranglers!

My very first title. I managed several of the game's environmental assets; including much of the environment design. I was responsible for modeling, diffuse color textures, some animation, concept art, and placement inside the game engine Vicious 2.5. To be more specific, I modeled props, weapons, critters, and a few of the zombie designs. The game was so much fun to work on. If you can imagine a game of arcade style Gauntlet, bearing up to 4 player co-op, in a zany, cartoony universe, comprised of 4 unique kid heroes; sucking up comedic,themed zombies in vacuum contraptions-- let's just say it was a great start to my career. It released in the fall of 2008 for XBLA.




Needless to say, I was really proud of this project. For those of you who helped me grow, I just wanted to say thank you. This game really jump started my motivation and work ethic, and helped me solidify my love for 3D and always strive to get better at it. It introduced me to the commitment and dedication required to create something special to share with other gamers.


Sandy Beach

My Second game in the mix. This was a fun Wii Ware title that delved the player into a sunny, relaxing, castle building, tower defense game . The art style was very simple, but I did my best to make it work. I took art lead of this game and designed about 95% of beach assets, and did most of the animations-- actually I think all of them. The only art I did not cover was the UI. Here are a few examples:



AC-130: Operation Devistation

In this game, you take a ride within an armed to the teeth AC-130. You fly mostly at night with an infrared visual for a s creen. You have the ability to change between visual modes depending on what works the best for you. You are armed w/ three large guns-- the Howizter, the Bushmaster Cannon, and the Gatling gun. You suit up and are thrown into the fray of about 10 or 15 missions with unique objectives. I had fun with this game, although we were only given 4 months to work on it. I worked on models, textures, and destruction states of those models and textures.. that was different, but a fun learning experience. I'll show some examples now:


for this pic, I can't take credit for the model, but I did a LOT of editing to the mesh, as well as the unwrap and textures for this picture. This was one of the first images I ever attempted to composite together to create a finished image.

Here are just a few of the assets I was required to model, and/or texture, animate and place in game.. there were many buildings as well.. I just find these models to be the most interesting. It was a fun short project. Very intense. It was published by THQ in late 2008, and can still be found in stores like Best Buy and Walmart.

That about wraps it up for this update. I am no longer with Frozen Codebase, but I still maintain valuable friendships with the people I worked with from that studio. The work I post next will be a gradual shift from digital to my recent traditional art projects. My goal is to get back into the Games Industry with a much stronger finish than what you see here. I'm excited to get this art train rolling!

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