Animation FX

I recently started mucking around with creating particle effects for games and I have to say I'm really really loving it so far. I've always been interested in it ever since I did a few units of FX at uni.

I guess I am attracted to it for the same reason I am attracted to animation. Giving things life. there is something just so satisfying about making a fire effect or an explosion.
I'm also finding it a lot easier to pickup than animation. I love the technical side of things and with my level design background I feel I find it really easy to navigate within UDK and within cascade.

Anyway here is a link to my updated folio. I have included a new FX reel and an updated animation reel.

Swing by and check it out at www.brendonvince.com

Smoke

First pass smoke WIP

My New Animation Blog

So I Figured it would be easier and far less confusing to just have two blogs one for my animation work and one for my level design work.

I moved over my current animation posts to this blog here
http://brendonvince.blogspot.com/

Trying something new(Old)

So I've been a bit down,unmotivated and undecided on what I want to pursue this year.

As a result I haven't really done a lot Level design work or anything.

However this week after reading a few inspiring articles I'm starting to get motivated again. I'm thinking of trying my hand at getting into a lot more 3d modelling stuff and animation.
Seeing as I do have a Games animation degree its a bit of a shame to not be using any of the skills I have learnt. So my current plan is to get back into 3d and animation. I'm guessing I'm going to be really rusty seeing as I havent done any proper animating bar a few props here and there in the last 5 years.

Also the new version of 3d studio max does scare me a bit :P. But I'm sure i'll get my head around it .
I'm going to start with brushing up on basic animation principles and might even participate in the 11 second club animation for may :).
http://www.11secondclub.com

Think the key is really keeping myself active and getting involved in a few communities. from what i've seen the 11 second club community is very good and maybe might even try to be more active on cgtalk.

Here's a bit of a blast from the past my character for my short film at uni in 2005, where has the time gone

Elevator Evacuation Update

Figured I would give everyone an update on how my Elevator Evacuation gears of war level is coming along.

Most of work on this level latelly has involved fixing up bsp brushes to ensure that everything is properly alligned to grid and that no brushes are overlapping.

I have also been adding more detail to graybox and added a lot more buildings that are outside of the playable area.

Gameplay wise I have cut out the stop the elevator makes on its way to the top floor as it felt a bit random and confused the player.

I'm also in process of making the basement encounter more exciting and adding some more build up on the top floor leading up to the bezerker. Hopefully another 10 hours and the graybox should be final and ready for me to move on to the fun stuff of placing meshes and lighting :)

Will all come down to how much trouble this last bit of unreal scripting it going to cause me

Eascaping the creative black hole that is World Of Warcraft.

Howdy Everyone,

Its been a long time I know,

with starting a new job and the release of Cataclysm havent had a lot of spare time to do a lot of level design stuff. I've been slowly tinkering away at my gears of war level.

Either way I am feeling refreshed after taking a break and ready to accomplish a lot this year.
My main goals are to get my modeling up to scratch, learn some scripting and improve on my level design skills overall :).

An Update

Hey everyone,

havent made a post in a while.

I been really busy the last couple of weeks working on some job applications and tests.
However it's all paid off as I'm starting a new job this week for a game company. It's only doing QA work but its a step in the right direction. Plus its for a company doing game's i'm really passionate about so it should be a lot of fun.

I'm still working on my gears of war level and after some feedback from a level designer friend i've been making some modifications for the better.
Hopefully i'll get the grey box finished soon. I've been taking things a bit slower with this level latelly as after 6 months of constant portfolio work I've enjoyed having a week of relaxing and getting back into games again.

Been really enjoying Nba Jam on xbox 360 and the new cataclysm changed in world of warcraft look amazing.

Elevator Evacuation Greybox Update.

So i've finished blocking out my gears of war level up until the start of the berserker fight.
I have decided that i'm going to leave the end boss fight in this level for now as I really want to get this level finished quickly so I can put it up in my portfolio. I may return to it after I have finished the level.

Anyway I have finished blocking out all the basics for the level.
Been a lot of mucking around with kismet as i'm learning all the basics. Moving an elevator with button triggers turning on and off was a bit of a pain.
If you watch the Video below you will notice there are still a lot of lighting issues with the elevator as I'm having trouble getting the dynamic light to move with the elevator.

Also the second courtyard fight needs a lot of tweaking as the enemies tend to just run forward towards the player instead of being defensive. Im guessing setting up proper cover groups might fix this.

Another thing to note the basement where you encounter wretches doesn't look that hard in video but in the final version of the map this area is going to be really dark so its going to be a lot harder to see where the wretches are.

Anyway any feedback at all is appreciated

Please see the HD video on youtube. below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLQTwHo6hY0

Progress Update

Hey guys,

Its been a short while since my last update. I've been a bit busy with some shifts at work plus as a result of walking around in all the cold weather I got a cold :(
Hopefully my new thermals and jacket will protect me from the elements in future :P

Anyway I have begun mucking around with matinee a bit more and have set up my first camera event for my gears of war level.

Also since my last update on elevator evacuation I have blocked out the second encounter in section A of the level, It all seems to work alright the biggest problem i'm finding is that if the player gets the Boomshot from the first encounter it makes the second encounter with the turret really easy. So I might have to look into dropping the ammo down to 1 on it or adjusting encounter to compensate.

Here's a quick upload I did of my level so far. I apologize about the frame rate my computer doesnt like it when I play levels with fraps running.

Here's the link for the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9DUOQz1btA


Heres a shot from the cutscene :P

Updated Portfolio and video's

Over the past few days I have been busy updating my portfolio to include gameplay footage from Legend of the Guardians the Owls of Gahoole (the game I worked on)
This was quite a pain as I had to record video via dazzle and then edit it together on my pc. Unfortunately the dazzle only records in SD which is a bit of a shame but oh well.

I also set up a matinee camera path through my dm-waterfall level and took some footage of my finished level.

The video's can be found in my professional work section and personal work section of my website.

www.brendonvince.com
or at these links if you are to lazy to navigate :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej8CfyPQLaM
Dm-Waterfall Flythrough (Dont forget to watch it in 1080 :P)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_mmQMFH1o
legend of the guardians gameplay compilation

Dm-Waterfall - Crypt Revamp

Today I worked on revamping the area underneath the church to be more like a crypt.
I also added a set of stairs that come up on the outside of the church.
I think this makes a huge improvement to the overall flow of the map as it makes the underground area alot more accessible.

The crypt is looking alright still not 100% happy with it. Biggest issue i'm having is that I dont have any static mesh's for coffins so I have to make them out of bsp brushes which are resulting in less than stellar results.

its time's like these I wish i was using gears of war version of unreal ed so I could place all the cool damaged books and ground debris assets they have :)

Anyway here are a few screenshots.

DM-Waterfall Second room Update.

Ill make this blog short.
After trying a bunch of different things I finally settled on having ramps in the new room instead of an elevator to get up to the second level.
I also added some more trim and add a cover to the stairs that go to basement

Heres an update.
The level is now playable again :)

The next big thing I need to do is make the downstairs basement more exciting I was thinking of giving it a complete re-work to make it more open instead of just a long hallway.

I'm just debating whether I want to do that right away or take a break from dm-waterfall for a few days and put in some time on my gears of war map.

Ill see how I'm feeling tomorrow :)


Still need something on the floor to break it up trying to work out what

Dm-Waterfall Second room WIP

So I spent today working on the second room that i added in my dm-waterfall level.
The main reason for adding this room was so I could make a set of straight stairs leading down to basement of church instead of the crappy dog leg ones I had before.

I also think it adds a lot more to combat as well as it gives the players another room to fight in and gives the players another opportunity to use the second level.

Here are a few screenshots of the room so far. I'm pretty happy with it the main things I need to do is fix the lighting up so more natural light comes through the windows and to decorate the back wall and the floor a bit.

I also need another way to get up onto the second floor/walkways. currently the only way up there is via the stairs at the other end of the church or by going the long way from behind the waterfall.

I am thinking about maybe putting an elevator in this room because I cant see a clean way to get a set of stairs going up to the second level.

You can see in the 5th picture I have a platform on the ground that I was thinking of using as an elevator but don't think it quite fits in. any advice from anyone who's done a lot of elevators on a good way to get it to fit in?


This is my favorite shot for this room as it looks really polished in this shot :P the other shots show things that need a bit of work :P



Now with added doorway above altar.

DM-Waterfall Church revisions

So I spent the day working the main room of the church.
Think i've got it to a point where im pretty happy with it. Only thing it really needs is some more trim on the walls as they are a bit bland at the moment.

Today I finished the lattice work on the roof added in some columns, the altar, added a new floor and added some rubble decorations to the floor to help break it up a bit.

The only thing im not sure on is the second reaper placed high on the back wall im thinking of moving it to be the centrepiece of the new room im building as its a big cylindrical room and I need something to break it up.

Im currently in the process of building another room behind the altar which is going to have a straight set of stairs leading into the mausoleum below which I will have to rebuild from scratch.

Anyway here is what it looks like at the moment (Still needs few minor touch ups)

Any feeback appreciated :)

I can do better (Dm-Waterfall Revisions)

So I was having a look over my Dm-waterfall level today the interior of the church especially and the really long boring tunnels located underneath the church and on the way to behind water and thought I can do better.
So With Sigur ros music playing as my inspiration I've begun to give this level an overhaul starting with the church interior.
I began work this afternoon on it and as you can see from the original picture its very dark and un-interesting.


Heres a WIP of the updated the ground level and upper walkways still need re-working but I think overall its feeling a lot more open. Also need to work on the godrays as i've kinda spammed them at the moment



Also here's a shot of the roof from outside




One last bonus screenshot before I head off to bed :P

Elevator Evacuation WIP Video and An updated DM-Waterfall Video

Today I spent a bit of time sprucing up my UDK level Dm-Waterfall and made a small gameplay video to show some game play in the level, Unfortunately the footage is really low res as im still experimenting with movie maker.

I have also uploaded a small video of the WIP of the first area in Elevator Evacuation. The music is very silly in the video as i didn't realize that fraps recorded all audio on my computer, But figured it was an interesting contrast in music to have playing while i was slaughtering locust :P

Check out the video's on my youtube page below
Dm-Waterfall Gameplay Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9u0f3AK19M

Elevator Evacuation Area 1 WIP Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNctAEfR97A

Dragon Age Environments

So I've been playing dragon age pretty full on the last few days and am really enjoying it.

One of the things I have been blown away by is how impressive all the environments look and how well all the area's are designed.
I love how through awesome lighting, god rays and placement of decoration props they can make simple square hallways look interesting.
I think my favorite location is the abandoned temple in briscillion forest (did I spell that right)
I've included a few screenshots that I've taken in area's that I found inspiring below.
Makes me really wanna do another fantasy level, I've downloaded the dragon age toolset. I'm not sure how powerful it is and if you can make your own levels with it but figured I would give it a whirl at some stage down the track.

Anyway Hopefully I can finish dragon age in the next day or two so I can get back to building my gears of war level.




Love how nice this simple square room with pillars looks so interesting because of the lighting and prop decorations

Dragon Age

So after almost a year of my wife telling me I should play dragon age I got it off steam yesterday and figured id give it a decent go.
I had played it briefly before as a mage character using my wife's copy but for some reason it didnt appeal to me.
I created a combat rogue and so far am having a lot of fun with it, it sucked up about 8 hrs of my day yesterday :P
I still cant get over how awesome the graphics are in it I love the visual art style and all the outdoor landscapes and structures are beautiful.
It's given me some inspiration and I think my next map after Elevator Evacuation is going to be an outdoor fantasy environment in UDK where i'm thinking I might make a bunch of fantasy props myself to get my skills up in 3d studio max again.

But in the meantime my gears of war level is coming along pretty well. Ive fully blocked out the first encounter and despite a few cover glitchs it seems to be working well. I will post up some gameplay footage of this area in the next few days when i've ironed out a few bugs and can drag myself away from dragon age :P.

Long as I keep telling myself im playing dragon age for level design research its ok ;)

Elevator Evacuation progress update

Just thought id post an update to let you guys know what i've been up to and how my gears of war level is coming along. (All 4 of you who actually follow my blog lol)

To start of with I have updated my CV. I felt that it was a bit cluttered before so I've reworked it a bit to make it more concise and to the point. Hopefully this will pay off and get me some response :).

I've also started working on the first street area of my gears of war level.
Ive done basic grey box for the first street area and started working in kismet to get Dom to spawn and the first set of enemies when the player moves forward into a trigger.
I'm finding the initial planning I did and maps very helpful however from some basic testing I think ill have to move a few cars and other cover points around as I'm finding at the moment there is way to much cover making it very easy to take out the boomer and the 4 locust drones with minimal risk.

I think the biggest obstacle at the moment is the lack of information and tutorials on the net about Unreal editor for gears of war.
I've found the following two sets of tutorials helpful for basic things like setting up exploding propane tanks and setting up a basic matinee sequence.
I'll post the links below in case anyone else is interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCnWppj6i28 (This tutorial has 3 parts and goes into brief details on how to set up a few basic things)
http://www.youtube.com/user/Shaffizlee#p/a/u/1/cOQEAQ1sfDo (basic matinee sequence in GOW)

Anyway here are a few basic screen shots of the level so far.

Gears of War editor Is GOOOOOO

with the level design document for my gears of war level "Elevator Evacuation" now complete (A link to it can be found Here in case anyone is interested). I finally get to open up the gears of war editor and start work on this bad boy, Im Really excited :)

Learning from my mistakes on my last map DM-waterfall where I progressed through the blue box stage too fast resulting in a few gameplay issues like long boring corridors and epicly tall stair cases, On this map Im going to get the entire map blue boxed, complete with all enemies, gameplay and matinee sequences completely done and thoroughly tested by myself and anyone else I can wrangle into giving it a go before I even think of making the level pretty.

Anyway stay tuned for some exciting updates over the next week.