Well now! Zen United, the official Western branch of Japanese game studio Arc System Works, have uploaded the official trailer for BlazBlue Continuum Shift 2 - which is coming to Nintendo 3DS and Sony PSP on the 4th of November. I took a 2-week break from Kudan's augmented reality fun to join Zen United (downstairs!) to edit this trailer.
As you can imagine, the most time consuming part was assembling the introduction scene, which involved browsing through Zen United's archive of game sketches and concept art for extended periods, selecting vaguely corresponding character poses and then filling in the gaps with stills from the final character art!
Unfortunately, there was no quick n' clever way to patch up these sketches into a fight scene. With the selected files at hand, I simply assembled them in Photoshop, frame by frame. Even (most of) the characters' slight movements were just down to the placement of the layer in each frame. With the addition of some random, Japanese notes from the sketches flickering around, I had a complete fight scene - totalling around 70 frames.
Exporting these frames as transparent PNGs to After Effects allowed me to do whatever I wanted with them - from changing and animating backgrounds, to masking and moving sections of the animation. Even the titles were just still PNG files knocked up in Photoshop.
I'm pretty pleased with how it came out, considering the short timescale. Safe to say there's loads more that could be done with more time. Before making this, we discussed loads of different options, more ambitious ones. Who knows, maybe Zen United will make more viral stuff soon!...
For a few weeks now I've been working an internship at Kudan, part of Clifton Cowley in Bristol. My job is to produce video mock-ups that represent the Qoncept marker-less augmented reality engine. This idea suggests something that could be used to promote good sexual health - or advertise condoms, of course...
Watch the video (in 1080p!) and let us know what you think!
After my final uni project finished, I started rummaging through my hard drives to see what creative projects I had started last year. Like most arty people, I have a tendency to get excited about and start new projects in my spare time only to exhaust my enthusiasm within a couple of months because there is no real ultimate positive outcome (as there is in a uni project, for example)!
Nevertheless, I often still like the ideas, even if I may never continue them again. To cut to the chase, I started making a 2D side-scrolling shooter game last September. Take a look:
I did this in YoYo Game Maker 8 Pro, which is an amazing piece of software for anyone who wants to have a go at making games even through they have no coding experience. Through doing stuff like this, you gain some proper understanding of how coding works, and many people have started out in this program before progressing to real scripting platforms like Java.
It's also a great program for making pixely/8-bit artwork. One of my classmates - Tom Clark - made his entire final uni project animated film in an 8-bit style, but he said that the only way he could enlarge his MS Paint drawings without them being horrifically blended out was to zoom in and capture a screenshot.
GM has a built-in graphics editor, which is basically like an advanced version of MS Paint. Fundamentally it works the same as MS Paint, but with tonnes of extra features, not least the animation feature. For my sprites, I drew them in Game Maker first, then exported them to Photoshop for some precise shading and weathering - which is surprisingly difficult with such a small number of pixels!
It was particularly challenging trying to make the train's wheels look like they are spinning fast - with only 5 pixels making up each wheel!
I enjoy using GM to test out ideas. It seems that I always spend much more time on the sprites (graphics) in the game, as that is what I am most interested in.
For the past month or so I've also been working on a new game. It's inspired by a 2D version of Minecraft; which itself is not particularly original, but all I am interested in is creating the blocky, destructible environment, after which I will make it a game in its own right. Unfortunately I have spent all of that time working on the game's engine as oppose to graphics, so it still looks far too awful to show anyone...I am even using 'Billy the Garden Boy' from Lumen Soup as the character, because I haven't got round to drawing a new one! Maybe I'll post it here if it ever starts to look good...
I'm sure you've heard of Duke Nukem before - ya' know, that hedonistic game character who shoots alien invaders - Either from the new Duke Nukem Forever or the old skool Duke Nukem 3D from 1996. Don't worry, there's nothing 18+ in this post!
I have been playing Duke Nukem 3D since it first came out - when I was 6 years old. Is that bad? Safe to say Duke Nukem forms a decent chunk of my childhood!
I recently uncovered a small gathering of Duke Nukem drawings I had done when I was 7 - about half a year after the games' release.
The most inspiring thing about the game for me is the level design. 3D games before Duke Nukem 3D mostly involved endless, dull corridors as the setting; and not much better are the photo-realistic environments of modern games. Where's the creativity in that?
Duke's levels are an art. Not only can you explore the most wonderfully mediocre of settings, including police/fire stations, banks, subways and even a Japanese restaurant, but their layouts are simply brilliant.
Researches innovation, teaches kids stop motion, paints things rusty, collects toys, plays games, and makes After Effects content that lands in all sorts of strange places. Loves Gerry Anderson, carries a 7D, and always searching for the question to the answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
