Evolutions update

3-4 months and no post, I've been really busy working on 4 projects outside of work. I didn't want to post up snippets of projects as opposed to workflows. Outside of work I only have about 5-10 hours a week to get stuff done and among the 4 projects and various other things that time soon disappears quickly.

Evolutions:
So I've learn't the command and conquer 3's build of Worldbuilder editor and been working towards getting a nice looking map setup for the public beta release of Evolutions.

 I started off by blocking out the rough layout for the map and building a series of human Meshes to go with the scenario idea; Defending a UNSC power station from covenant built in an arctic environment. I created 7 environment assets based on Halo 4's Multiplayer map set in the same setting.

Then i began adding detail with the Snow Environment props I created previously.

I then decided to go back to drawing board and figure out what I could create to make the map a more convincing artic/snow environment. I looked over some of my favourite Ice envrionments in games and from Icewind Dale's art especially.

I created a piece of concept art to figure out what I could do, drawing and photomashing over a screenshot of the level.

Once I was happy with my concept I moved onto creating the new art needed

I've added the meshes into the current build of the level.

I've also been making progress with graphics and designs for some of the default Heretic faction units designs.

Thanks for reading,
-Andy

The gender gap in the game development community isn't how you might think it is.

Let me begin by saying I know this subject is a zombie dead pirate ship with a crew of clichés. But there’s something I really wanted to discuss about this subject, which rises up more than it appears to ever exist and that’s the approach and attitude people have towards raising awareness and creating actual change.

Unfortunately because most media articles are designed to grab the attention of the viewer and relate to their readers emotions they play out this fictional drama, which in my opinion has a negative impact on women in the games industry. I'm going to start off by discusses the benefits of raising awareness to a subject, then talk about the benefits of the actual content and the impact of such content.

So there are obvious advantages which come to raising awareness to a subject, in that support for the issue can appear more legitimate and people are more willing to acknowledge and discuss how to deal with the issue, even if they would otherwise wish to look the other way. I think most of us in industry have acknowledged the gender gap as an issue for a long time; it’s not only something that’s been a recent concern. It has been a rising concern with the increased numbers of women playing video games in general.

So do I agree it’s good to raise awareness to acknowledgement of the subject? No. Now before you ready your rifles carry on reading, the reason lies entirely on the content and approach you are raising awareness towards, it’s not important to simply raise awareness to something people are already aware of. What is important however is raising awareness to help create a community, which helps avoid this issue for the future. This brings me on to what I have to discuss about content.

The content and approach to dealing with the issue is far more important than just awareness. It doesn't help to remind people of something they’re unaware of how to improve and unfortunately most the content I have read and seen does very little to discuss how you can actually address the issues raised in the long run. I sympathise that this isn't entirely the media's fault, as the solutions aren't going to come from people who are only in the gaming or gaming media community. The real solutions lie in the game developer community.

Now before people start pointing fingers and gnawing away at game developers and companies let me make it clear. The game development community is exactly that, a community it’s not some hierarchical structure or dictatorship and it involves a lot more than the average person not involved within it realises. This is why I feel compelled to write and discuss about it, it’s something I've been part of and have been involved in online for 14 years.

You see people fail to address how people become game developers and get involved in the community in the first place. So let me start by mentioning the average person I know in a none QA role in industry has spent at least 4-5 years practicing to become a game developer. Many more have been part of the community for over 5 years like myself, it is a difficult creative community and industry and developers usually become part of it long before being involved in the commercial side of it. I mention this because is the point where people start to become game developers and this is the stage in which the problem people have with the gender issue begins. It doesn't begin in the job sector, it begins in people choosing to live the lifestyle of creating video games.

Being from the UK the best none video games example I can give is football, ignoring the physical differences involved in sports. If you’re hiring football players regardless of gender, you’re far more likely to interview more men. This is because their are far more men to choose from, who have likely played football from an earlier age. This mainly because the environment, community and male role models involved in football has developed this way and inspires more young boys to play football than it does girls, the only way you can address this if it’s an issue is for women to help contribute and build a community for female football players who can also become female role models for the future.  

If you are looking to create a more gender balanced community this is the place it must start, you can only unfairly alleviate the symptoms to create equal numbers from there otherwise. When those boys and girls grow up into awesome developers the only thing that should get them through their job interviews is what they’re capable of, there experience and their character.

The average person can have a great impact on both society’s perception of and supporting a community, just as they can be at tearing it apart. So I ask you before you throw you negative actions towards people you don’t even know, be considerate. Don’t intentionally go hating upon a community which isn't seeking you harm and if you’re a women come and contribute to it. After all isn't that what the people concerned want? If you want the issue to change, that is what it will take.

Little update for the progress with my Unreal Game Blockade

So i've got an atlas (1 texture maps) for all my 64x64 materials and cut it up into 16x16. Got the ideas from Minecraft textures packs/sheets. Using the material editor I've divided up the texture space and altered the UV's to view one section and offset the UV's for each material I've made referencing to the same texture.

Also used the same material set-up to pixelize drop the rez of the results in the sky-dome materials to create I nice looking voxel sky. The done the same to one my own grass textures for a quick floor placeholder.

I've coded the destructible blocks to store an up-datable material instance, so I can offset the uv's of a texture which stores a damage overlay for my materials, I can eventually make a better looking and unique one for each material however for now I've made a quick generic ones for testing purposes.

Scalar Paramater setup which is passed to the code which calculates the blocks health percentage remaining and uses a case statement to update the block to the appropriate UV space of the damage overlay.

 Test texture