Gephoria

As you may have noticed

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Sat, 08 May 2010 17:53:00 +0000

my blog is changing colors, and also it is moving soon, I have picked up and played with wordpress and I fell in love with it. You also may have noticed my domain went down, it will be back up shortly.

If You Ignore the Past, You jeopardize your future

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:59:00 +0000

Adam Savage Speech about Failure – really inspiring stuff here

The best thing about Zombieland is No Facebook Status Updates and Free Parking!

World’s Strongest Man to fight former UFC Champ

My new Deviant Art Submissions:
Just mainly some photographs I snapped today on the First official day that FELT LIKE spring.

Awesome Pictures I found on the Internet recently:

Voltron Girl

Old timer New Party

Olympic Hockey Glory/WTF

I gotta hand it to Canada for their hockey teams, good job canada you've earned a drink, although when I came across this pic I thought WTF why is one good and one bad?

All that the sun touches will be yours one day.

Where the FUCK are my COOKIES!?!?

Responsibility

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:55:00 +0000

I worked for a friend today, his boss was moving his store from location A to location B. I helped them pack up clean up the back area that was full of toner and pack up product and dismantle shelves that were previously used at the retail outlet. I will admit that I was not expecting more than $10.00 per hour for the job. We took adequate cigarette breaks and well every time I ran out of things to do I always asked for more. My friend's boss cut me a check for $70.00 for the 7 hours worth of work, a fair trade I thought. Although my friend mentioned cash in hand at the end of the day. The following day me and my friend went to the bank the check was made out to. and to my dismay it's a bad check. Here this check would have gotten me the essentials to start interviewing again around where I am, public bus fare, laundry money new pair of shoes, but alas that is not the case. I received a white receipt stating "the funds are not available" from the debtor's banking cartel. Really leads me to believe that banks run people's lives whether you want them to or not.

I come home to be star trekked to death. Once I got home I made a sandwich and started programming away on Unity. Figuring out the little tweaks and modifications I can do to other's code to make it function for the purpose I'm looking for. I will get back on that horse when I can. It is hard for me to concentrate with so much distraction around. Maybe when and if I can cash that check I will invest $5.00 in a trip to a coffee shop or something to break the cycle. Ever since my roomate woke up he's been watching Star Trek. That was about 2:00P.M. yesterday and seriously I don't mind Star Trek, they have some very interesting theories and ship designs and creatures in their made up universe but this marathon is beginning to feel unbearable to me. I love Patrick Stewart in all of his roles and although I think that Professor Charles Xavier would completely pwn Captain Jeun Luc Picard in a fight, his bald head is really beginning to irritate. Needless to say that there is also a ton of bad acting in Star Trek from one time show cast members that get invited on. I'm sitting here enjoying Star Wars the Clone Wars (The Animated Series) with headphones on so that I don't freak out at the moment. Yay for self management. After I get done with this blog entry I will call my friend ask him if he heard anything back from his boss, and if nothing else I will go visit a check's cashed place to rectify my financial problem.

Sleep is valuable I realize, a normal schedule is valuable in the effect that you can barely contact useful people late at night. this almost feels like a Confucious statement but take it as you may the late night crowd are usually selfish with their time and I realize this now. I won't post too much info about my room mates I'll have to save some of that for later on because it could be an entertaining story from my perspective.

Wierd Dream #2

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:19:00 +0000

This starts out as a unreal tournament style team deathmatch (but to be honest it felt more like counter strike source). the team was stacked on the other side i was on the counter-terrorist force. We were on a level that was composed of two warehouses, to the east of the south and the west of the north was a tricked out army golf cart, to the north of the north and south of the south was a isuzu looking tricked out army truck, and in a cargo container on the east of the north and west of the south were snowmobiles. This whole thing was on a boat and the warehouses from afar looked like fries, a burger, and shake (ATHF). I do not remember going inside the warehouse of fast food as i described it.

it was 16 vs 16, my team was sucking mad dick and half of them were dead when we only got about 4 of the terrorists down. I caught one coming around the corner in the head he was down, threw a flash and went around after it went off, This was key to my success. I went around the corner and cought one guy up close in the chest with 2 shots, and noticed 2 more in the distance on the other side of the boat one was taking cover behind the golf cart and another was behind the building to the right (i went around the west side of the building/bridge(as i'm assuming it was a bridge) i got those two and realized there were about 8 left the remainder of my team wasn't doing half bad. before i know it ther ewas only 3 of them left, i see one go down on my HUD and see my teammate go down shortly after. I ran to the Terrorist side of the map and caught one inbetween the warehouses took him down with a shot to the arm then chest. at least effectively making him incapacitated. I arrived at the T side of the map and started shooting at their golf cart, then effectively the snowmobile in the crate(there was no snow). i noticed their truck, got in and rolled it to the other side of the map at this point there was one terrorist left and he had done the same by shooting up my snowmobile and golf cart. he got in the truck and was playing ring around the rosie with me on the boat around the buildings. i arrived back at my original point on the map and noticed there was a crane coming off of the straw of the shake. i parked the truck underneath it and went for the controls behind where the truck started out. I noticed my truck was gone and got a little worried, but i lowered the crane on top of the truck and destroyed it effectively ending the match and as i'm guessing the last remaining terrorist's life somehow because i never saw him again.

After this I was on the boat, with Mrs. Berkvam my high school and jr. high school dean. i don't know where we were going and the boat felt really magical we were at sea for a couple weeks, surviving off of the burgers fries and shakes in the warehouse. the waves were rough and there was a storm at one point that almost killed us both i think. the boat required very little operation and was covered in astro turf. We arrived at a port that had buildings around it resembling the japanese culture. we got there there was no required passport and I am still unsure why we were there Mrs. Berkvam said she was going there on business and that i could come with. I noticed lots of wierd looking white people populating the port like bats hanging around the batcave after it had been domesticated and turned into a technological wonder.

As we set foot off of the astroturf boat i was greeted by a man who looked black he said "welcome to japan konnichi wa" I responded with "Konnichi Wa Watashi Wa Brent, and thank you" we each bowed to each other in respect and i continued on my way. one white man located abovve us started throwing rubber duckies onto the deck of our ship. I did not think much of this yet

Next I arrived at a great shopping mall, many beautiful japanese women were around and i remember staring in awe at the intricate angelojapense fountains in the middle of the shopping center. I was told by a short japanese male security guard to walk on the left side of the path instead of the right. I was looking up and there was transparent glass and what appeared inside to be a tattoo and body modification parlor. We happened upon a cafeteria and I noticed a white guy by the name of Charlie packard at a laptop, I have a curse that if i see a computer i have to identify something about it, he was running rosetta stone. I complimented him on it and asked him how thank you is said in japanese, he responded with domo or arigato, which i confirmed this morning and is correct. I bowed to him and said arigato. I came upon a businessman that happened upon me and paid me $$$ for some unknown reason maybe for his own karma and mine i am unsure i thanked him with domo arigato and he bowed graciously and kissed my hand upon kneeling on the ground.

At this point i still felt like an alien to the place, There was a train where the fountains were behind me, this train had a bunch of retail goods on it car after car, it resembled a child's ride at a carnival but a small bit larger, these train cars were each filled with retail items, one with balls of all kinds, one with jewelery one with food and sandwiches, all of the goods looked good, i wanted to browse it but i began running on the right side of the train's direction, i realized after a short period that i would have to run as fast as i could to catch up with it even to look closer at the items. I stopped realizing it is more than likely disrespectful to run on the wrong side of the traffic lane in the mall. I went up to the second floor the check out the tattoo parlors and hair salon's whatnot was up there. the second floor was all body modification/oxygen bar/bar/other wierd places where the only product was something that would change your look possibly forever. there was a marijuana bar that a handful of japanese executives were smoking at, i poked my head in the room and caught a small contact high. one of the businessmen waved at me motioning to come in and entereth the bar he would cover me I told him hai that means yes, and shook my head no, said arigato and left on my way. feeling like i confused the poor man with my japanenglish i walked back out to where the boat was held at port

Upon walking out there i noticed there were alot more rubber duckied being showered on the boat, i cleared some off and the guy up above throwing them down shook his fist at me. I noticed the black guy from earlier but he looked whiter for some reason. He said "Do you need some scales?"

I replied with "thank you but no thanks" knowing he knew english, he kept trying to push them off onto me like some sort of drug that teens would get high on I thought to myself maybe that's the cool thing in japan. Upon closer examination of his face his eye up to his eyebrow over to his temple and down to his mouth on the left side were all covered in scales, fish scales almost or maybe reptilian. I asked him about them, said it looks cool and he should get the other half of his black-white face done in them. He concured and told the guy up above to stop throwing rubber duckies down at us and my boat. Mrs.Berkvam came back and left on the boat, leaving me at port in japan to start what essentially felt like a new life.

The dream last night was halfway interpretable, but this one i have no idea on lol...

Wierd Dream #1

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:43:00 +0000

At the start of this adventure a warlock named Putrid Stein imprisons me and three others in a tomb. This tomb has a noxious gas that puts any being inside of it asleep in a very effective method.

First off I would like to state before I continue this was a dream I had, when I woke up I remembered it and well, it was fucking awesome I don't care if you don't like it.

Life is a giant adventure, for me and others this is a good thing as long as those experiencing it can learn from it; I have had dreams that predict the future before.

With that being said, this quest starts out awaking from the tomb to be introduced into a mirror maze. The maze must have been at least a football field's length and width before I reached the end, I encountered the people: Lance Spicher, John Moga, J.T. Dalton, Kelsey Ward, Michelle Schroeder-Lancelle, Darcie Martin, Ruthie Hetchler, Jeff Pyle, Jade Klanderud, Munky Pyle, and many others that I was not even familiar with (I think one was a Megan girl that smoked a dime of weed at my house when we were all younger and she went to the hospital afterwards for it).

After the mirror Maze and trivial challenges that were provided to me, I came upon a Great Slide! This slide was enormous by any scale. It's like the big yellow wavy slides you encounter at small amusement festivals for kids, but this one was gigantic. This slide also had houses attached to it. This slide and the houses really reminded me of the Beetle juice series and seemed like the residents that lived here used the slide as transportation, to and from work, but I am unsure how they got back, it was very steep and yellow. I took the plummet down, as I went down I heard a scream to my left, it was Kelsey Ward. I noticed her hands were bound and a guy by the name of Travis (I forget his last name)(but he was a child rapist) standing over her bound hands, she shrieked and was trying to escape, I yelled to her and tried to stop myself and climb back up but could not :( sorry Kelsey

I focused on the right half of the slide I was able to grab on to the edge near the entrance to a house on this house Kari Rud was bound by the wrists hanging with a male figure standing over her. This male was of African descent and a little bigger than I. I outsmarted him in the house, grabbed a fire axe and lured him around a corner. As he came around the corner I swung with all my might, decapitating his hands at the wrists. I went back to Kari and unbound her, after these events unfolded she grabbed on to me and we went down the slide some more.

There were others in the houses I passed on the slide. But I could not help them, it was as if I had made my choice with Kari Rud and that was the only choice I got, I attribute this to marriage or a soul mate type thing, when you find the right one you cannot have an additional significant other.

At the bottom of the slide there was a chess game going on. The White Rabbit departed upon my arrival with Kari, Kari sat on the sidelines and watched attentively. This time there were friends and people I know trapped within the king and queen on the white side, I was playing the black side and did not see anybody entrapped within the black pieces. Alyssa Brletich and Kiki Snell were held in the Queen and the King pieces on the white side. I will not express the details of how this game went and frankly it is hard for me to remember (as it is a dream and this is chess) towards the end of the game I was MEANT to lose, but Kari on the sidelines flashed the black pieces and they made a wrong move, I expressed my gratitude "Thank you Kari" as all of the pieces shattered apart on the white side Kiki and Alyssa were freed from their oversized glass prison. Both Alyssa and Kiki run up and give me a hug for saving their souls and/or lives, Kari comes up and asks who they are. Alyssa runs off to find her parents in this post apocalyptic paradox of a dream I had and Kiki joins me and Kari

Kari, Kiki and I walk through what appears to be a Car recycling area, after a few days of walking we come upon a racetrack that appears like NASCAR and I think to myself great this is going to be a bunch of left turns. There are other Racers here like Dan Gudbjartson, and Joey Miller. The cars available for me to choose from were, a Pagani Zonda R, a tricked out Chevorlet Camaro 2009 style body, Ford GT, the Ferrari Indy car, and a Subaru WRX STI. I am unsure how I arrived at the decision but I chose the ford GT (I think because it always intrigued me how similar it looks to the cockpit of a space shuttle). At this point Kari gave me a kiss on the cheek and said she would be fine. Kiki got in the passenger seat and I in the driver seat. After a second glance though this didn't look like the driving area of a ford GT it really started to resemble a space shuttle. We started the race, and the NASCAR Track was dynamically changing into a way more complex track. The road hopped off of the ground and went outside of the stadium, at this point I was thinking I should have picked the Zonda due to the increased down-force it generates. Kiki cuddled up next to me and was looking extremely beautiful, She looked like the girl from NCIS, but her eyes glimmered with an almost elvish style sparkle to them her smile was the most beautiful ever it looked like the stars at night in a non-light polluted sky glimmering at you like the existence of others from billions of light years away. I usually would compare her smile to Kelsey ward (rest in peace from earlier in the dream) but she was more akin to Harlequin a sharp sensitive smile that also induces the thought of mischief and seduction. Her perfect curves on her body reflecting light ever so carefully. Kiki had an aura of pixi-dust around her that is more akin to tinker bell performing her magic wherever she walks. As the track looped and leaped over terrain obstacles such as the arch down in Louisiana and mountains. I don't remember the end of the race, but towards the end Kiki was cuddled up next to me and I'm assuming I didn't die along the way so we stepped out of the car and onto a remodeled party bus.

This party bus had my friend Adam Arnold on it. This bus was refurbished it looked like to survive the apocalypse. It was reminiscent to that of the bus in Resident Evil Extinction on the outside armored and with spikes on the tires, although the tires were greater in number to total about 24. Jeff Pyle was there, Pops was there and A.J. aka Schmallz was there. We were all sitting there as Kiki and I were explaining the adventure and she mentioned how she got trapped within the chess piece of the queen.

She said that she was tricked, I am unsure by whom, as she lay down and rested her head in my lap Adam came through with a bong load and we all hit it except Kiki. At the second time around this bong I said I was good, I think because I did not want Kiki to think ill of me at the end of this adventure. I remember seeing her upper lip as she laid her head down and noticed it looked like lipstick on the inside of her mouth also, it was hot in its own way.

There was a knock on the door, it was Donovan Higgins, and he came on the bus, looked very uncomfortable. Donovan asked for some product from Adam, and went back to his car (I’m assuming docked outside the moving bus) Adam went to go fulfill his wishes and came back shortly after. Adam stated that he threw Donny off the moving bus because of him being a douche bag or something to the liking.

Kiki and I cuddled up, down on the couch on the driver's side of the vehicle, Schmallz fell asleep sitting upright, and Adam was practicing his yoga on his famed yoga mat. And that is the end of the dream

Random Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:54:00 +0000

Ok, I have been out of touch with a lot of stuff lately. First off My apologies, I know nobody reads this blog and hence I feel I have no reason to update it but then again it’s kind of fun from time to time, I have made content recently that has inspired me to update the world on my boring life.

First off about me

I moved to Minneapolis from Apple Valley, it was fun, and it’s semi-descent up here but more competition for jobs. Cool story happened, daughter and father were caught drinking in a parking lot nearby where I am now
Dreaming of my dream job at Blizzard Entertainment located in Irvine California, working towards that goal slow but sure trying to get lines on my resume which leads me to number 3
Joined a dev team where the #1 priority is keeping everybody on board and to be honest I think 2-3 people are doing all the work and the rest of the group is dead weight that could easily be left behind if this were a zombie apocalypse.
Getting contracted to make a website for a friend, need required documentation to start the layout though and haven’t received any yet
Probably the best news, I have joined a gaming community that claims to be the largest in the world and well stretches across a bunch of games. I found these cool custom made gloves that go with the Noob Galore group. These inspired me to make a knife texture or skin to go with it and match it up. You can find the knife texture here

Other than that here is some cool stuff to hopefully attract readers or watchers to my clog on the internet (yes I spelled it clog because it’s a crappy blog).

Hottest Pikachu in the world
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Epic Beard Man Video 1

Epic Beard Man Video 2

This is better than all of the crappy superbowl commercials put together this year:

Favorite Music Video of the Month (it reminds me of the cool wierd stuff bjork used to do):

I also have to give a shoutout for innovation to chatroulette.com I have seen some really cool pics come from there and tried it briefly the other day truely innovative for a chat program and well kinda fun minus all the pedophiles nexting people with their dick's hanging out.

That is all for now enjoy and I'll be back with another post shortly. I will post my postmortem for the game dev group up on here and what I think went wrong and what could have been handled better. Also I have some dreams I recorded down in as much detail as I could.

Controversial Levels...

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:39:00 +0000

I recently saw two things in the news this morning that made me want to blog. I apologize for not keeping up to date recently but this is a doosey (if that's how you spell that made up word).

First off let's talk about imaginary lines, or real lines that should not be crossed. If I were to see a car accident and be the first one to witness it as if it happened right in front of me, I would at least call emergency services to respond to the incident. That being said would I also cross a line if I just kept going? Or pointed and laughed and kept driving?

San Francisco, up to 20 people witnessed a gang rape of a 15 year old girl in a dimly lit area she was being raped by students from the age of 15 to adults in their mid twenties (which makes me sick unless she herself was drunk enough to confess to it then the twenty year olds still should have backed off or at least I would... that's somebody's little girl/daughter). Current.com has the full story also MSNBC, I just respect current more. I seriously think the by standards that didn't notify law enforcement should be punished, or at least told what they were really looking at if they were not aware of the situation.

In other news, I witnessed a clip from Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 here it is, if it is taken down it may be taken down forever. The video depicts terrorists taking over and shooting up civilians in an airport. With all of the 9/11 controversy this is definitely crossing a line if it were to happen IRL(in real life)

I thought this video wasn't all bad, as long as the people can tell the difference between the video game and reality... I would hate to see some crazed out Iraqi or Vietnam war vet play this and get flashbacks, then go crazy and kill their family, yes, but also most people can tell the difference between digital violence and physical violence. with that being said the UFC game for Xbox 360 is awesome and really is no worse than this if the subject (player) cannot tell the difference between reality and virtual reality.

I sincerely hope that Inifinity Ward does not receive too much negative feedback about this. In all reality the U.S. army will probably use these simulation styles to protect our airports better than what they currently are today, or maybe inspire new architectural advances.

Game Design Job Search Resources

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:52:00 +0000

Lately I feel I have failed miserably at breaking into the video game industry. I know I have the skills and communication nessecary for almost any position within the world of GD. Here I am going to list the resources I have been going through, maybe through comments or suggestions you can help me or maybe these resources (thinking of Randy Pausch: the Last Lecture here) can help others achieve their dreams.

I'd think that going straight to the developer would be the best way to go, straight to activision, blizzard, EA, Midway, Interplay, Rockstar, Etc. I first saw this website and fell in love with the idea at least. The map has locations that are able to be clicked on and each location has a list of game developers associated with the corresponding location.

Game Dev Map

GamaSutra

Elance

Now I will state that I would have hoped my college administration would have done a better job of student job placement (or internships or projects for that matter) but then again i'd have to state that they fell short of themselves in their own standards. Some students that didn't have final projects completed still passed classes sad to say. some students that have failed X amount of classes and had to retake the class X amount of times should eventually be kicked out of school for lack of effort. Honestly the school and my former teacher send out as many jobs as he can and I would be afraid that the corruption within the classroom would lead to the alumni as well. Say that Student 1 and Studnet 0 both apply for the same job, would Student 1 get a more favored opinion from the school's faculty than student 0 because of a personal preference factor from the school? Yes probably and I don't blame the school for trying to make itself look good. At the same time this is crooked behavior and should have attention pointed at it. Just like the internship deals that were happening when one student who I will not name received his internship through "a teacher's company" before other students even got the approved list of available internships. to put it simple it doesn't feel like i've ever played on a level playing field in this game of life.

(apologizes now sorry i had to let that out)

With that being said, other great places to find employment seems to be various forums. CGTalk, GameArtisans, Game-Artist, GameDev, DevMaster, and various other 3d oriented websites.

Anyways, I'm looking for any work, may be relocating to the bigger MPLS soon. General labor, craigslist stuff, web design, Freelance graphic or 3d work would be the greatest.

If I discover more later I will update, have a peachy day everybody!

Computer Maintenance 1

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:53:00 +0000

This is the order that I personally attack my LOW HARD DRIVE SPACE. Since Brown College partitions the students' hard drives into a small C:\ and a larger D:\ it gets annoying managing them both and I don't feel comfortable merging them into one C partition.

1. Disk Cleanup
My Computer -> Your Target Drive -> Right click -> Properties -> At the bottom of the new window that opens is a

2. Defragment
My Computer -> Your Target Drive ->Right click -> Properties -> Tools Tab -> Defragment Now
I would like to recommend Auslogics Defragment Program. It is a true gem of defrag programs and runs more efficiently than the Microsoft Defrag from what I can tell.

3. Uninstall Unnecessary Programs
Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Find programs you do not use, or are not necessary and uninstall them.

4. Uninstall Unnecessary Windows Components
Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Add/Remove Windows Components
NOTE: Some of these are required for internet access.

5. Manage Your Swap File
My Computer -> Right Click -> Properties -> Advanced -> Performance -> Settings -> Advanced Tab -> Virtual Memory -> Change -> This is your paging file. how and where it is set up and also size is all set here. You usually want to have this somewhere around the size of your ram, you can always let windows manage it by selecting system managed size, otherwise you can relocate it for example a 1152-2048 size swap file from C:\ to D:\
NOTE: if you set this too high or too low you will experience system failure.

6. Registry Cleaner
Download and Run a Registry Cleaner or Registry Cleanup. Simple as that if you do not know what a registry cleaner is Google it!

7. Archive Files
Go to your "My Documents" or wherever you keep your personal files that you don't use much. Then select a bunch of the files (prefferebly the ones you do not use often. You can also do this with porn and other

8. Delete Windows Help Files
These are often unnecessary for an experienced windows user If you are sure you will never need the help files windows provides (for the Operating system not necessarily associated programs unless you use visual studio or other programming applications) besides you can probably Google the information and it will come up.

I hope these help you in your quest to have a good functioning computer! take heed of the notes and you should be fine!

Quick Art Update

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:25:00 +0000

Jason, Travis and I recently all started doing the Swordmaster tutorial from 3D Total

I also have been working on a couple other pieces of art. I started on an axe that I plan to ZBrush and make it look uber pretty visit my DeviantArt Page for more information. also a staff that I may Zbrush unsure if i want to yet or not. Here you go please leave critiques and comments.

Here ye go!

Swordmaster head WiP 1 by ~Gephoria on deviant ART

WTFStaff 1 WIP 3 by ~Gephoria on deviant ART

Axe WIP 1 by ~Gephoria on deviant ART

<3 ZBrush and Tutorial Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:36:00 +0000

Today I found the "HOLY GRAIL" of zbrush tutorials. After downloading dozens of gigabytes worth of videos that later i realized they are so large i cannot more them from one location to another hard drive I found something useful! I came upon these videos while noticing a ZBrush 3.5 advertisement, naturally I was curious on what was new in 3.5. I visited the Pixologic website in search of the new features but I never got to them last night nor thismorning yet...

What I did discover is that Pixologic hosts free professional quality training videos on ZBrush. I feel stupid for not locating these earlier (or they could be brand spanking new) in my education. They really teach you all you could need to know about how to utilize their software. I stumbled upon this vast knowledge and treasure chest of wisdom accidentally and humbly pass it on to my readers!

Link:

3ds max scene states, layers, batch rendering

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:34:00 +0000

This is a tutorial based off my learning experiences with Autodesk's 3ds max program. With that being said this tutorial is intended for people who use 3ds max and possess basic knowledge of how to use the program (at least making primitives). With that being covered this tutorial I will cover Layers, Creating cameras in a scene, scene states, and setting up batch rendering. I will be using my own scene and do not believe in downloading stuff for this small tutorial.

Here is the Scene

In this scene I have a platform and three grenades I would like you to start by creating your cameras. To do this simply push "P" to get yourself into a perspective viewport, and when you are content with the positioning of the cameras press "ctrl + C" This will create a camera from the perspective view you are currently in. There are hundreds of ways to create cameras; this is the easiest way for me and probably most beginners also. After you have all of your cameras set in place (however many cameras you want) we can begin this tutorial.

We will start by placing everything into layers in 3ds max. think of layers just like they are in Photoshop, you can hide/unhide layers and freeze/unfreeze layers, you can also control objects by the layer they are on changing the color/scale/rotation whatever variable you can create or think of it can be manipulated by layers in max the way you can manipulate an object on the scene graph. If your scene does not have any layers currently you can make one by hitting the Tools Menu -> Layer Manager.

You select all the objects you would like on your new layer, and simply hit the "new layer" button. This puts all of the selected objects into a new 3ds max layer. The layer you have selected is important and is indicated by a check mark to the right of the name of the layer.

For an example here is my layers dialogue from this scene:

As you can see I like to place all my cameras on one layer, environment on another, and the actual model or center of attention on the default layer. NOTE: If you right click and go to unhide all it will ask if you would like to unhide all layers, if you lose something in your scene this is another way to find it as opposed to the schematic view or other methods (they all work fine I think). This isn't the best way to do it just using it for this example and it's what I’m used to.

Now that we have our layers organized properly we're almost ready. Next step is to set scene states!

You can set up your scene states by pressing the Tools Menu -> Manage Scene States. Next you are presented with a dialogue box that looks something like this:

Next I will select the layers I'd like to hide, my first one I’d like to show everything but the already hidden reference modeling pictures that I have in the scene. When the scene is ready select save button in the Manage Scene States dialogue. This created a scene state that shows everything you had shown (new items added will be excluded from this and will be shown until you re-save the scene state). Next I will do the same only having one grenade show on each one. Eventually you will have all your scene states as I do below:

Ok we are almost ready to start our batch render! How exciting!

Go to Rendering Menu -> Batch Render this will present you with a new dialogue box. Batch render works directly with the scene states, scene states works directly with layers, it all intertwines somehow and there is some programming genius out there laughing at us all but oh well here we go!

Basically all you have to do here is Click or hit the "ADD" button; this adds a line to the batch render. This line has some options

View: Name the view, doesn't matter, you can name these for your own organization.

Camera: Select the camera you would like the render to use

Output Path: completely up to you probably start with C:\...

Range: this will render 1-x frames of your animation.

Resolution: self explanatory

Scene State: set this to your predestinated scene state you would like to render

Preset: this is your own render preset choose wisely!

In the end you can either hit the render button OR you can export a *.bat batch file. To double click later and have that batch file just start rolling with all the delicious information you put into it. It will work flawlessly if you set it up right (and really it's not that complicated until you get into scenes with hundreds of objects dozens of scene states and multiple cameras).

On a personal note

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:15:00 +0000

On a personal note, I got evicted from my place of residence the other day spent a weekend finding a new location. Here are my Updates sorry if it is not much.

F410 Knife WIP Shot 1 by ~Gephoria on deviant ART

F410 Knife WIP Shot 2 by ~Gephoria on deviant ART

WTFStaff 1 WIP 1 by ~Gephoria on deviant ART

WTFStaff 1 WIP 2 by ~Gephoria on deviant ART

got the knife idea from a pic on my HDD, the staff is just random modeling i guess. Promise to make tuts tomorrow! until then my watchers keep modeling and keep your heads up in this post-bush economy.

TORN

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:18:00 +0000

TORN

is a game developed by Joe Chedburn. He has had this idea since the age of 16 and carefully grafted it out in his head and in code. He is a self proclaimed geek and a computer whiz kid. TORN is about a city Torncity and it's crime, crime is the object of the game but so is surviving and some law enforcement. I would have to recommend you give it a go it is probably the best text based game I've ever played. It's fun, intuitive and has 41,000 active users. Here is a link to the original article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6264082/21-year-old-computer-geek-makes-1m-with-online-game.html

Gernade Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:53:00 +0000

Sorry about not updating for a couple days, my computer caught the BestFriendVirus that happens to be like aids and you can't get rid of it (at least this is what Google told me) unless you reformat and start over from scratch. I wouldn't feel content without posting in contribute like I normally do! With that being said, there's some big news in my world.

Dota refiner Icefrog has achieved a position at Valve Software and now has a team to help him (I'm assuming) recreate a Dota like game with Valve software engineers at his disposal! That's great news and I'm extremely happy for him. I'd hope that it doesn't get entangled in the IP that Blizzard Entertainment, Blizzivision or Actiblizzard (Activision Blizzard is stupid I think for a name splice) currently has market share on. The excellent custom map was created and refined by generations of programmers. Almost everybody that plays Dota loves it and really it is the best part of Warcraft III for a great number of Battle.net users. I hope it goes smoothly for Icefrog and his Valve Software team.

I would also like to give props for this picture

Console war? by *Mikeinel on deviant ART

I thought it was an awesome pic I wished there was a representation of the Wii, but then again it is in it's own category some could say.

With that done here is my personal update (I started the tutorial I mentioned earlier, coming in a future post).

G1 Gernade WIP by ~Gephoria on deviant ART

G125 Grenades by ~Gephoria on deviant ART

Have fun til next time!

G2 Gernade Update!

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:04:00 +0000

Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

Quickie update

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:39:00 +0000

Greetings! I feel like I'm not posting enough but I'm content with the current rate I'm working at! I am going to be doing my secret shopper thing later this week. Let's start with the important stuff!

Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

My new piece of art, i have 4 more grenades coming shortly. While working on this piece I came up with my next idea for a tutorial or explanation, I will be preparing (not sure when I'll post it) a tutorial on everything from Scene States, Grouping Objects, Cameras, Layers and performing Batch Rendering in 3ds max. When rendering out the shots for the grenade above I performed a batch render, it's really easy.

Well I am losing my mind listening to "under the Sea" from the little mermaid for some reason lost my train of thought.

Interesting news I heard, I read on Kotaku that Fans of football teams (rugby for anybody not in America) are suing Game Developer Giant Electronic Arts for being placed in the most recent Madden game. I hate to think it but the designers probably wanted to add some overenthusiastic fans, and well, get sued as a result. Here is a link to the full story

The Pirate Cannon!

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:35:00 +0000

One more thing today, made this image with the new pedestal in my boredom time! Cheers!

Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

Three Point Lighting Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:45:00 +0000

Today I will be showing the masses about three point lighting. I made this display pedestal or platform whichever you wish to call it.

This is set up with the basic 3ds max default lighting currently we are going to fix this. First thing that comes to mind with three point lighting is there's 3 lights duh! The next picture will show where i put the lights in the scene, keep in mind the key light is usually coming from above via the sun or ceiling fixture.

Moving Right along, so here are the settings for the KEY light. The hot spot or beam parameters may be changed depending on the scale of your scene in the 3d application. The key light is the most important light and when you add the key light if you turn it off and try to render you will get black screen because there is no lighting, the one light you turned off! AKA when you add a light in 3ds max, the default lighting is removed until you remove all lights.

This is what my image looks like after rendering with the key light!

next we will add the fill light, this is the light that produces rays that bounce from different angles in front of our object. here are the settings for our fill light reference the diagram above for placement, if I had a human model on this i would want my fill light at about eye level with the model.

I did not do a render of just the fill light, sorry if i ruined your hopes and dreams during the tutorial.

Here are the settings for my backlight!

The backlight only, if you turn the fill and key lights off should look something like this:

Now in the end with all 3 lights in place positioned properly, and set up to our specifications will look something like below! This model I created is not using specular mapping, just normal and diffuse in case you were wondering by now.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I have and hope to see you come back again, until then I'm on the quest for followers and to get out of Minnesota! Farewell Fellow Readers!

Final Fantasy XIII New Trailer!

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:00:00 +0000

I just have to share this with all, I loved playing the Final Fantasy series games as a kid and I am sure you at least know somebody who did at one time or does currently also. Final Fantasy VII is quite possibly the best game I've ever laid my eyes on. Without Further Ado here's the new trailer to FFXIII. I really love the way the combat system looks, and some of the environments are breathtaking.

Your Bible! The Game Design Document!

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:36:00 +0000

Many newcomers to game design often are told to pursue their dreams as a modeler, programmer, texture artist, or some kind of animator or motion capture stunt guy. Often the ones that want to become the "lead designer" are not directly told about the living entity that the entire game relies on as a bone structure to hold it up before the team working on it.

Game Design is about many things, creating art assets, animation, programming, but all of that comes together where? That's right, the Game Design Document (I will refer to this as the "GDD" from here on). This is a document but it is like a living thing, because as the project progresses this document changes to accomodate the modifications to the game and also may be changed due to restrictions in the engine.

Topics a Very Basic GDD includes:
Target Market: Children, Teens, Adults, Aliens, Mermaids
Platform: PC using x game engine, PS2, XBOX360, NES, Etc...
Background Story: This adds tot he plot and outlines the history of the game world
Gameplay: describing how the game is played, platformer, action/adventure, first person shooter, strategy, any key elements like switching from strategy to first person etc...
Purpose: Educationl, entertainment, edutainment, effective orientation training maybe.
Setting: Again adding on to the description of the game world, what is the setting, what's it like how are the people behaving, is the world in chaos or is it barbie ranch.
USP (Unique Selling Point): Is your game based on my little pony or Unicorn raising? maybe breed a Pegasus in the middle of the game or at the end and that allows you to beat some evil horse hating boss? your USP can be anything really, the better you can make it sound the more likely the game will sell good.

To view a REAL Game Design Document Click Here(MSWord97-03)
This is a game design document used by bigger developers, this helps management budget and schedule the time between artists, programmers, and others in a more efficient way. I will talk about SCRUM in a future post and how it works it's really magical. Any-who, This document outlines everything, if there's something in your game that IS NOT in the design document you did something wrong obviously.

Other Cool Places that have game design documents:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070220/bateman_01.shtml
http://www-personal.engin.umd.umich.edu/~bmaxim/cis488/BaldwinGameDesignDocumentTemplate.doc
http://digitalworlds.wetpaint.com/page/Example+Blank+Design+Document

Creating TGB/TGE Splash Screens

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:31:00 +0000

Creating TGB/TGE Splash Screens

Start by creating a new project or editing one that you have existing. In the game.cs file add this line of code towards the bottom:
playsplash0();

After that create your two GUI's of your splash screens, I am not going to go over creating the GUI's but I'll give you mine as an example.

//--- OBJECT WRITE BEGIN ---
%guiContent = new GuiFadeinBitmapCtrl(Splash0) {
canSaveDynamicFields = "0";
isContainer = "1";
Profile = "GuiDefaultProfile";
HorizSizing = "right";
VertSizing = "bottom";
Position = "0 0";
Extent = "800 600";
MinExtent = "8 2";
canSave = "1";
Visible = "1";
hovertime = "1000";
bitmap = "~/data/images/Splash0.jpg";
wrap = "0";
fadeinTime = "750";
waitTime = "2500";
fadeoutTime = "500";
done = "0";
};
//--- OBJECT WRITE END ---

then you are going to want to create the Splash.cs file mine was modeled off of a tutorial i did a while back, it's pretty simple and straightforward.

// ============================================================
// Project : Flash Cards
// File : .\game\gameScripts\Splash.cs
// Copyright :
// Author : Brent Jorgenson
// Created on : Tuesday, September 15, 2009 1:35 PM
//
// Editor : TorqueDev v. 1.2.3430.42233
//
// Description :
// :
// :
// ============================================================

function playsplash0(){
canvas.setcontent(Splash0);
schedule(100,0,checksplash0);
echo("Splash 1 init");
}

function checksplash0(){
if(splash0.done)
{
playsplash1();
}
else{
schedule(100,0,checksplash0);
}
}

function playsplash1(){
canvas.setcontent(Splash1);
schedule(100,0,checksplash1);
echo("Splash 2 init");
}

function checksplash1(){
if(Splash1.done){
//startGame("MyProjectFolder/data/levels/MyLevel.t2d");
}
else{
schedule(100,0,checksplash1);
}
}

Next thing you want to do is exec these files

exec("./Splash.cs");

exec("~/gui/Splash0.gui");
exec("~/gui/Splash1.gui");

The only other things to do is add your startgame function or uncommend the one I have in the function checksplash1() put your main menu or first level there and you should be good to go, test it out and have a blast!

Other Tutorials on this topic:
http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TGB/Tutorials/Multiple_Splash_Screens
http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TGB/Tutorials/SplashScreen

Creating TGB TGE Splash Screens

List of useful Game Design links

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:22:00 +0000

These are like generals they cover most of the topics a lot more than one engine and have huge communities attached to them.
http://www.GameDev.net
http://www.DevMaster.net/
http://www.GamaSutra.com

Art
GameArtisans
CGSociety
Game-Artist.net
CGTextures

Engines
Torque Game Engine
               Torquedev
               Torsion
               Codesampler's Tutorials
               DevJana's Tutorials

Torque Game Builder
   TDN - Torque Game Builder
   GarageGames Forum
   GarageGames Docs

XNA Game Studio
               XNA Creator's Club

Unreal Editor 2.0-3.0
               Unreal Developer Network
   BeyondUnreal
   WikiDot UT Mapping

Source Engine
               Valve Developer Forum
   3dbuzz.com Source Tutorials
   ModDB.com Source Tutorials

Warcraft World Edit
   TheHelper.net WC3 World Edit Tutorials
   WC3C.net Tutorials
   HiveWorkshop.com Forums

Later on I will take it unto myself to organize these better and make them easily accessible. I will continue to add to this list so please send me your suggestions. that is all for now, watching Beowulf before I pass out. Good night and Good luck!

Change Warcraft III Main Menu Background

noreply@blogger.com (Gephoria) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:19:00 +0000

How to change your Warcraft 3 background ~ By Gephoria

Let’s start by locating two things first will be on your computer, your Warcraft 3 folder most people have it located at “C:\Program Files\Warcraft III”

Second we need to locate the software online and download it http://w17.easy-share.com/1702547323.html

There may be a different way to install this but I threw mine into the Warcraft III folder for easy location recognition. So it should look something like this “C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\RU-Theme-Wizard\”

It’s as simple as running the “RuTheme.exe” in the folder, I personally have never had Warcraft 3 mess up with this but

IT IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA TO BACK UP FIRST!!!

Now you can select any 3d background you’d like from the available options for both Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne scenarios.

Gephoria

As you may have noticed

If You Ignore the Past, You jeopardize your future

Responsibility

Wierd Dream #2

Wierd Dream #1

Random Stuff

Controversial Levels...

Game Design Job Search Resources

Computer Maintenance 1

Quick Art Update

<3 ZBrush and Tutorial Videos

3ds max scene states, layers, batch rendering

On a personal note

TORN

Gernade Updates

G2 Gernade Update!

Quickie update

The Pirate Cannon!

Three Point Lighting Tutorial

Recommended Reading List!

Final Fantasy XIII New Trailer!

Your Bible! The Game Design Document!

Creating TGB/TGE Splash Screens

List of useful Game Design links

Change Warcraft III Main Menu Background