I love some of the characteristics that were hit upon that makes video games stand out from most other artwork. Especially the discussion of forced interaction with an audience and how it reinforces the narrative. I’ve always enjoyed street art and installations for this same reason. To be able to engage with the audience in their environment creates a compelling experience.

   Hello all! I’ve been so busy, so I’ll be making quick updates in the next few days. First off that at the end of summer, I’ve decided that I needed to narrow down the focus of my projects strictly to game development. So there should be more of that and less videos in the next coming weeks. I’ve made a lot of progress already and will share my ideas soon.

   The Ninja Gaiden short film has now turned into a three part Youtube series! While I’m officially done with the project, there are still a few more weekends of shooting to gather the final shots. It is already looking amazing, and I hope that the first episode is out soon! If you think this will be an awesome series, please share! We put a lot of hard work in over a very hot and grueling summer. In the end, we will have an awesome series that really captures the Ninja Gaiden feel.

   The only reason this teaser would not pump you up for the project is because there is a ninja behind you that has killed you, and you did not even realize it.

   Hello all! I have almost finished doing a ton of video work over the summer. One project is still pretty much under wraps until it’s finished or a trailer is released. So before I can talk about that one, take a look at this fan film that director Gabe Miller and I have been shooting.

   We planned for the end result to be a live-action trailer about the story from the original game Ninja Gaiden. While filming the necessary scenes and fights, Gabe decided early on to go ahead and film those scenes in their entirety. So the expected end result now is to have a short film that we may release onto the masses if the actual trailer gains some popularity.

   We have one more day of shooting with a few pick-up shots needed. After that, all the hard work is left to Gabe to create the visual effects, edit, color grade, and release it! I’m excited about the short, and I’m not just saying that because I shot 90% of the video :) I think it looks great and captures the feel of Ninja Gaiden!

   Hopefully fans of the original game will appreciate our hard work (shot mostly in 100+ degree heat!). Once the trailer is finished, I will post it here! Thanks for checking it out!

   Ok, I have been a little slow with the updates lately, but I’ve been busy! Here is a quick run down of all that has gone on in the past month. This will also serve as an overview for the next couple of posts. Well first off the Dodge Challenger calendar was finished, printed, and handed to me. I’ll post photos of it next time! After that, I received my new Nikon D7000… more on that later :) I visited New Orleans for a week. Again more on that later…. See the trend? :) I did game art for a friend on his thesis project. I then worked on the set for Home Creations and took set photography.

   I’ll condense my next post down into a more detailed update on some past projects I finished up. The Home Creations set photography will probably be it’s own post. I should have time this week to make the appropriate posts :) Again I apologize for being a bit late in my updates! More to come soon!

So at work we have started this new game with a loose project name of “Energy.” Since our lovely game/instructional designer parted ways, we only have a few key elements really designed. One of these includes the environment, which is all the artists really need to get started on some basic props. The game will take place in a prairie, grassland setting (Oklahoma/Texas). There will be oil equipment, a farmhouse, barn, and the usual Oklahoma-like vegetation.

Having been more unfamiliar with normal maps than Gabe, I’ve been taking my time to really understand the best way to use them. I’ve achieved some pretty good results, though it could be better! It’s been really fun learning how to make “next gen” art assets. I believe the models that I have completed have been a valiant effort, but with practice, I know that I can make them more realistic.

My biggest complaint is that we are not going for a real style in our game. I know the setting is suppose to be authentic (which is a buzz word that researchers in the academia setting like to throw around too often), but I would like to do something more along the lines of Pixar or Team Fortress 2. The style of these two are unmistakable. It would be awesome for a school to look at one of our educational video games and immediately know who developed it. This is unfortunately of little concern to academia. To them, research and findings play an important role to the success of the game.

I could rant about all the little things that bother me with our process or what our company thinks a game should be, but that will have to be for another post. Regardless of how I feel about developing in an academic setting, I’m glad to be given this opportunity to increase my skill. Here are a few renders of some of the objects I’ve created. I’ll make an update once I have a handful of new objects to show off!