2D Game Show Case

Over the past six months I have been involved with the development of quite a few games here at my job at eQube Software & Technologies. Most of these games are 2D puzzle games aimed at a less technical crowd that combine both arcade style game-play with gambling and the ability to earn money, they also run either on Touch LCD monitors or Tablet PC system which gives them better user interaction but can limit what and how you do things.

I just got the clearance to provide a few samples of four of these games that I have been co-developing the game design and developing most if not all of the art for, so here they are:









Note: I only have project descriptions up for Dabber Craze and Chip Flip right now, all the other links from the images lead to larger versions of the same image for the time being.

Max Quad Menu Work Flow Trick

I thought that I would take a few moment to share a little 3DS Max trick for speeding up your productivity when you are doing a repetative task such as creating polygons/faces, adjusting skin weights, etc..

As you already know, when you are working in a particular modifier in 3DS Max most of the commonly used commands/tools from that modifier are accessible from the quad menu. But what I bet you don't know is that if you are frequently using one of these commands/tools from the modifier you don't actually need to navigate through the quad menu or the modifier panel. Instead you can quickly access that command/tool again by clicking on the header group that that command/tool is assigned under in the quad menu.



In the above image you will see that "Create Polygons" is hilited in the quad menu list, this is because it is the last command/tool that I just used. If I adjusted my view, applied a transform to an object or something and wanted co use the "Create Polygons" tool again all I need to do is click on the group header for that command/tool which is "Tools 2" which will instantly turn the "Create Polygons" command/tool on so that I can use it again.

Overall this is a handy productivity trick that I recommend that you try out and get used to.

Contracts, Levels, & Shaders

This past weeked marked the start on some new work for a variety of projects which I am very excited about.

First up is a continuation on an art contract that I am doing with the great guys over at 21-6 Productions on a product that they are developing called Dimenxia (which is an educational based FPS game). I recently completed some character, enemy and weapon art for them and now I get to work on a few more character weapons & items, some teaks and a bad ass tank!

Realm Wars work continues at a slow but steady pace with construction on a new map/mission for the next release. Right now everything is getting concepted, roughed in and sized up so that the environmental artists will have an easier time getting everything just right. I am probably going to take some time too and get into the Map/DIF creation process and hopefully keep a full head of hair. I am still waiting on a response from Markus about the new shield DTS shape and the latest bug we have on it, but hopefully that won't be too long of a wait. In the mean time though I am going to start work on a new Axe and tweak the hand to hand animations once again so that they are a bit cooler.

Lastly work continues on a new HUD for Lore Invasion infantry. The overall goal I am approaching with this HUD is to utilize much of what we have going already for the MAV but give it a more simplistic approach (while also giving the MAVs a bit of a tweak to look more technical than they already are in regards to their HUDs).

As an added bonus I am going to start playing with Shaders next week on one of the Lore Invasion MAVs as a test using Torque Shader Engine. The overall goal is to get the in game MAVs looking as cool if not better than some of those high resolution shots I did for the GDC '05 posters. This is obviously a real boon as it will assist in the creation of Realm Wars going TSE sometime after this next release.

Side Note: Need to remember to put in more images to help outline and describe my current task lists better.