2015 - Update

It's been the longest pause since updating my blog since starting it 4 years ago recently. So I thought I'd come back here and make a new post updating anyone interested in what exactly has been happening in my life over the last 8 months in terms of game development.

Firstly, I'd like to start of my mentioning I finished up and released the UT2004 map shown in my previous entry and couldn't be happier to say it was featured on gamebanana.com and has been downloaded over 200 times in the last 3 months from the site. Check out the link below :)
http://ut2k4.gamebanana.com/maps/187234

Using little more than hand-painted and sculpted diffuse textures and vertex lighting, I have created an environment i can be proud of in Unreal Engine 2.0 one of the very first, first person shooter games I've ever modded. It has been quite nostalgic and I am continuing to do more art to help further sustain this classic FPS title. It has reminded me the quality of art still and always will depend upon our artistic ability above any technical constraints and innovations in game engine tech.

As mentioned I have began creating some new content for the game and will be slowly building it over the next year or two in my spare time. I have also began work on a new project which has yet to see any public screenshots which i will be discussing more in the near future. One which has kept me rather busy with 3d art over the past 6-8 months along side my Job at Psiclone games.

This brings me onto the second thing I would like to mention, I'm now working full-time as a game artist amongst the gambling sector creating the artwork for Retail/Casino games since early April this year. The jump to a secure salary and full-time position has been quite a huge one in my career and I've learn't an abundance of new skills using Autodesk 3dsmax, Adobe After effects and Photoshop. Something which i intend to make great use of in the coming year on my next project "Army of Acorns".

I will finish up this post by showing a screenshot of some of the assets in the works for my new project and a piece of work in progress concept art. :)

Thanks for viewing,
-Andy

Everquest UT2004 maps - more textures and UV fixes

I've created some more textures using 3D and 3D sculpting for the Rock, Marble rock and grass in the scene. I then i had to spend a significant amount of time fixing and creating all the unwraps as all the texture warp on the ground/walls was incredibly noticeable with decent 512 and 1024 resolution textures.

Heres a screenshot with the original 64x64 Everquest textures

 and here is a screenshot with my 512 grass and 1024 rock texture.

It's been quite fun trying to retrofit this old scene but there's only so much I can do before it starts to loose its appearance, I'm going to finish up with the wood textures and move on from the map soon.

I've started creating a new map inspired by the Legend of Zelda: Windwaker using some simple hand-painted textures painted directly in Photoshop not using any sculpting at all. Below is an unlit screenshot of the scene in 3dsmax.

Thanks for reading,

-Andy