Global Game Jam 2014

Wow and amazing!! Thats how I would summarise my GGJ weekend in Stockholm. First of all everyone was very friendly. in the beginning there were some lectures that we could attend and those were fine but not really important or critical for the jam itself but still it was interesting to hear what they were talking about. I was kind of anxious about being at the jam since it seemed that all of the participants were really proficient at what they are doing. Compared to them i looked like a total noob specially when i grouped up with a all pro team. I kinda felt useless in the beginning but they were really friendly and i was tasked on making the background objects for the game. i don't have a lot of pics and the ones i have are bad but i did not actually had time to take pics during the jam everything was kinda hectic and stressful. surprisingly enough I thought that it was a good method to do things because everyone was on 130%! Some did not even sleep the first night!!

all the people in who participated in the GGJ Stockholm around 50 people

Now, to my group's composition and the game that we made. Our team is called Team Disco

Design & Sound:
Alberto Amigo
Programming:
Mark Scheurwater
Michel Paulissen
Art:
Hannes Delbeke
Nils Ruisch
Philip Bretschneider

aaaand heres the link for the game ^^
here's for more info on the game

Jmonkey Animation Trouble

The Story
  So still working on the Grave Runner project, all was going well but then I hit a brick wall. I have made an animation complete with rigged bones and everything. The problem was I should have researched which files I have to export them in. Heed my advice this is a very important thing  to do! trust me because apparently Jmonkey is not compatible on with Maya because maya is not able to export objects or animations into xml files without pro scripting skills.

The Problem
  Yeah apparently Jmonkey only takes in xml files when it comes to animating meshes (simple .obj are ok if you are not going to animate them). I tried to solve the problem with maya for three weeks looking at old outdated forums from 2008, desperately trying to find a solution. The whole class is counting on me to solve the problem and if I can't solve it we would be forced to change our UDK and that would set us back five months in developing time. No one wants to do that!

The Solution
  After hundreds of forums, twenty different downloads and thirty times of backtracking I finally solved the problem! And the solution was... switching to blender and that solved everything mostly everything animation wise. Hello Blender my old friend.

Epilogue
  Now i'm back on track with animating but in Blender this time. the only small problem i ran into was importing the mesh with the Uv mapping intact but the solution was very simple just export the mesh into an .obj. Not .fbx because that's what i did at first

(I added some Ik handles after i took this screen)

As you can see Grim is fully imported in Blender and it is rigged and ready to go (animate that is).

Lonesome Journey

This is the concept that I have made by my self. this is going to be a long one and I will update this now and then with pics and comments until i have finished this project.

Note: Sorry if you I aren't able to see the drawing because i decided to make the background black.

I have polished it a little bit since the last time I worked on it, which was about 2 years ago. I stopped working on it because back then I did not have a digital drawing pad; I only had a mouse to work with.  

Like the last time I am not sure about the hue of the painting but that does not discourage me to try different ways of coloring and experiment with them.

What i did here is that I am trying a technique which is to firstly make a base color then apply in shadows in another layer so that i can easily take edit the shade without morphing the base color. I have the tendency to scratch-paint or sketch-paint what ever it's called i can't maintain a consistent brushstroke, i don't know if that is good or not.

At this point I have shown my painting with some of my friends, they gave me some constructive critique like "ooooh it sucks" or "why are you even trying, you'll never be as awesome as me!". Nahh just kidding but seriously they gave me a lot of nice feedback that i really needed. Joel fixed the brightness and i learnt something new about photoshop. The castle is at a wrong perspective plus it's size is too big. I might increase the size of the mountains in the background to a make the proportions right.

Man this doesn't seem to en but I think i'll have to stop here and move on for now because right now I feel like i am stuck on the same piece and not getting any progress done but i might revisit this one after a while when i get more experience in painting. This was kind of a big project and i have bitten off more than i could chew so i'll leave it for now and chew it off with some other things and then come back some more some other time

Sapling Shooter Concept and Other Things

I've been really busy making a lot of projects for me to do because of my christmas vacation. The painting is a concept art for my own game. I am making it on Game Maker and it's going to be a small game not at all complicated. Other things on my project belt which are unfinished are:

A fanart for starbound

A Mananangal model

And an own original painting that i am working on