iamrece : blog

brb...

2011-10-15T17:46:00.002-04:00

Been really busy, but been trying to stay vocal and show my work/progress. I recommend following me at my twitter account (if you haven't been) instead for awhile. It's easier for me to just snap a photo from my phone and put a quick blurb.

http://twitter.com/iamrece

Homework:Orientation - Modelling Sticks

2011-08-11T00:19:00.001-04:00

Who didn't fight with sticks back in the day?!

Proj5 == Homework: Orientation

2011-08-06T05:47:00.005-04:00

Annnnnnnd... It's up on playtesting. Homework:Orientation is my Proj-5 game. :) I'm still playing around with the visual style of the title treatment though. The playtesting build is a bit rough, but I'll get to see what other people think of it. If you have an XNA account, check it out. Let me know what you think.

Link: http://catalog.create.msdn.com/en-US/GameDetails.aspx?catalogEntryId=03391619-0074-4daa-9383-49621b92e53b&type=1

Proj5 - Still on track

2011-08-03T02:42:00.002-04:00

Here's some code. Still going... I have about 5 freelance projects I'm waiting on approval on before posting to the site as well. Still hyped for this weekend. Get to kinda see what people think of stuff.

Check back soon...

2011-07-31T19:52:00.002-04:00

Proj5 - OMG this is taking forever!

2011-06-30T22:19:00.002-04:00

Don't get me wrong, I love developing and making all the aspects of the game. Just some parts of development wears at the morale sometimes, cause it doesn't look like much is getting done. Technically it's easy though (just have to put the square block in the triangle hole... wait... square?).
Well, it's going well and got some stuff back to good standing. Cut-scenes are there, but need polishing. Game is running on 4.0 now (i was using 3.1 previously). Have/Had to make some changes to the assets a bit (but I think it might be a slight upgrade? we'll see...). Trimmed some unnecessary gameplay functionality (switching stance to interact/fight) - also saved a bit of memory too. Found some weird fbx exporting gliche that inflates the files size (made a post about it on xna forums if you're interested: http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/85687.aspx). Got a nice audible sketch of the theme music (pretty cool and out of my comfort zone too!). Umm... so yeah, switching over to 4.0 took longer than expected (what doesn't) and some changes/updates were done. Trying to get it to a playable so I can evaluate what else needs major attention. Geez!

Proj5 - Visible Invisible Boundaries

2011-06-30T22:13:00.002-04:00

Building the invisible in-game boundaries... so the Player doesn't fall off the world. Thought it looked cool.

Updated Website

2011-06-30T22:04:00.004-04:00

Some new work and some old work, and a bunch not shown (because it's not good enough). Been busy though. Lots of freelance and a bunch on my game. Check out the updated site: http://iamrece.com . :D

Proj5's Title Treatment

2011-04-17T00:06:00.006-04:00

     It's been awhile since I've posted progress on my game. I have been working on it though, and I'm hoping to release a trailer/playtesting build of the Game:SectionA really soon (along with the full title). I recorded some audio and need to put that in for some foley. Also, I've been designing the title treatment from some sketches I did awhile back.
     Things are coming together nicely. A bit slow on production and progress posts, but I'm a freelance designer/developer so I have a bunch of things that often take over in priority. If you care to know what I do for freelance work; it's mostly iPhone apps for local places (lawyers, restaurantes, etc), but some of it is game related for their marketing purposes. Right now I'm actually making a 3D sort-of-racing game. It's a bit more involved using OpenGL ES2.0 C/C++ than the XNA dev, but it's also going well - and I'm learning a bunch more lower level programming techniques (which is totally making the full version of Proj-5 larger/better).
     Also, my Proj-5 game has pulled in some early press in the form of 2 web articles and an email interview (links below). Pretty cool stuff I think. So, in short: There are 2 games in the works. A Proj-5:Prologue and Proj-5. Hopefully the hype will continue to grow and hopefully my plans, code, and artwork will surpass the hype. Thank you for reading and following and everything.

Links:
+ http://www.gamemarx.com/news/2010/12/05/screenshotsaturday-project-5-iamrece.aspx
+ http://www.extraguy.com/2011/02/xblig-early-look-proj5
+ http://www.extraguy.com/2011/03/xblig-in-depth-proj-5-only-as-ambitous-as-its-developer

Proj5 - Skeleton

2011-02-27T00:58:00.002-05:00

Been a little busy. Here's the current rig for this character. It has 120 Bones. There is a good amount of bones in his hair so I can have a nice flow and follow through. There is also some simple bones placed over other bones to counteract certain areas. The reason for this is cases like his shoulder. Normally when the arm raises up or twists, it will look horrible because of the joint being a simple hinge instead of a ball and socket with muscles and etc. So while one bone operates his arm, the secondary bone in that same position will operate the shirt. Arm bone twists that area into looking horrible, then I use the shirt bone to twist that area back to looking normal. I can also get a nice sway with the sleeves. Kind of confusing, but hope that made sense. I might have to make video tutorials for some of these features once I get a new rig (Setting up skeletal structures, coding 3d ledgeGrabbing, protoyping large amounts of 3d platform data quickly, having thousands of polys running at 60fps in addition with enemy AI, etc.). We'll see I suppose.

Thanks for reading

2011-02-13T14:01:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to send out another "thanks for reading" to the people checking out my progress and sending kind words (I think there's 2 of you now, hahaaha). Thank you though seriously. It's nice to get the feedback, and keeps me posting stuff. I try to show a diverse amount of in-game/process without throwing each entire build on here. Of course I'm holding back on a bunch to keep the story and other things a surprise when it releases, but if there's any areas you'd like to see more of or have questions how I'm doing some things - feel free to ask (through comments/twitter/email/aim/whatever). I like talking shop. Thanks again for checking this stuff out.

Stretch before fighting...

2011-02-13T01:02:00.002-05:00

Some quick poses to re-familiarize myself with the rig limits and get some hype going before animating. Had fun. Gotta do a few in-game tests to make sure the weapons/etc connect correctly and stuff, then start animating attacks and recoils. Lots of iteration to get things looking right.

The Field

2011-02-12T02:34:00.004-05:00

The middle image is the wireframe of the ground that my character is standing on (looking back towards the forest, not inwards of the field). A small portion of the ground can be seen in the top image. Roughly, the character is standing on that yellow square. That one square is maybe 20x20 meters?... that sounds wrong. I'll have to check my conversion chart thing. The bottom image is a size reference of the character to that square. It really makes that field seem gigantic looking at that, haha. It feels right though running across it in-game. I played with the size/design of the areas a bunch and watched the time it took to get to certain key points. Also, there'll be deterrents/obstacles/enemies, items, npcs, etc.

I'm having a lot of fun on this phase. Majority of the world is already made in those temp grey/shaded models and I'm going through kinda filling in areas that need more punch, texturing and remodeling, removing/editing areas, etc. Right now the field probably isn't going to get the polish treatment just yet. Need to focus on more story-driven areas and also polish up the fighting mechanic. I can't wait to cut & show an actual trailer of this.

More current working...

2011-02-11T22:51:00.000-05:00

bridge... very very early, but you can see where it's going.

Area I'm working on

2011-02-11T22:20:00.000-05:00

Jammin...

Proj5 Updates and Process

2011-01-27T20:25:00.007-05:00

So here's some updates (in-game and process work). I'll be participating in the GlobalGameJam in Austin this weekend so my ScreenshotSaturday posts will probably be about that project instead.
The first few are just updates I've made to the forest (tree branches and leaves, etc). I've added a dock and a ominous pond/lake. The dock is still in progress and edits will be done to it. The fence that extends out onto it will be removed (fence on the dock seems weird and takes away from the look). Also, the water isn't done yet. The fading effect as the water gets deeper is looking the way i want, but it needs some ripples or waves of some sort. I'm still playing with it.
The process work is showing a little bit of the work done for the dock. When I create a new asset I use a grey model of the hero for size reference. I wanted the dock to look old so I bent and twisted the panels (each panel has a slightly different twist/bend value).

Some tech shop talk...
Also, there's a shot of the UVMapping. If you look at the top 4 panels you can see they are exactly the same texture. This shot is showing how I moved/scaled/flipped/ and rotated the UVs to get the panels to look like unique boards of wood. However, they are all taken from that same image on the left (in particular, that small rectangle portion). At this point in the texturing - I just want it to look good. If needed, I'd pull in another texture map and continue mapping onto the boards. I didn't need it for the dock though, but just showing how you can get tons of different textures just by scaling/flipping/rotating. You don't always need a new texture per board of wood (esp if you want to save on ram while working in 3d). Anyway, after I have the textured look I want, I duplicate all the models over and attach them as 1 object (Objects A-J were copied to create object P. Object P is occupying the same space as objects A-J still.). So then I create a UVMapFlatten on object P and use objects A-J's texure to bake onto P. If i need to edit the texture, I only need to edit A-J's texture and rebake onto P again. I also, normally, setup a lighting scene with only object P and any other objects T-Z that may be casting shadows onto it - and I render a lighting pass baked onto object P. Now I have a Color map and a Lighting map that I can then merge to create my texture for object P that goes in-game. I didn't create a lighting pass for this dock yet. I tend to create quick dummy passes just in color to test the look I want in-game. If I like it, then I edit and render the large texture passes I want. It's gotten down to a quick iterative process, but the final render passes I want tend to take much much longer (and I work on something else while it's rendering). Thanks for reading all that. Hope it's helped.

Process - Trees and Leaves

2011-01-22T13:43:00.002-05:00

More process screenshots. Small portion of my forest that's being updated with better branches/leaves and smoother trees. Getting everything off-ground updated so I can then render a lighting pass for the ground and update that.

Process - Rocks

2011-01-22T02:33:00.004-05:00

Here's some process work on proj5. Rocks. And some grass. Will show the in-game comparison once I fix the ground texture that they go on. Needs some shadows from the rocks and bushes - and in general could use some UV layout refreshing (due to hills I updated).

Also, I'll probably re-render the lighting pass on these to get a less polygonal look. I like the geometric/sharp look, but some of the edges to the polys are a little to defined (the cross section inside the squares).

And... If you haven't noticed - you can click the images to get a larger view of them. My layout is a bit narrow so it shrinks stuff a bit for preview, click it to view the actual image.

Annnnd... that last video was from filming the tv from standing in front of it. Only thing I had on hand at the time. It's very dark and muddys the image significantly. There'll be better videos later, but not a real need to spend time cutting video just yet.

Annnnnnnnnd... I don't know who actually reads these posts, so if you wanna see more in-game, more process, etc. just comment/tweet me/ email/whatever and i'll try to get more of that up here. Thanks.

Proj5 - Short Vid

2011-01-16T10:54:00.003-05:00

Short video of my character running around a section of the forest. Excuse the poor video quality. I'll use input wires to get better video later, but this was what I had on hand at the time. See previous posts for a better idea of what the game currently looks like.

Forest-y forest

2011-01-08T20:10:00.002-05:00

A little bit further than this on the forest, but I had to brake a few things to add... and it's not all back in and pretty yet.

Current Desk Library

2010-12-30T22:15:00.002-05:00

Even though I'm busy with Project-5, freelance work, teaching, etc I try to still set aside some time for reading, sketching, and other research. Here's what I'm currently reading:

Gunn's Golden Rules by Tim Gunn
Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design by Michael Bierut

I've read a bit of Rework before, but I got my own copy of it over the holidays and I'm almost finished it. Amazing book. Fresh ways to look at things. Most of it I agree with, but the other opinions can be still useful in seeing things from a different perspective.
Tim Gunn is just awesome so I had to read this. I like the Project Runway show and I like Tim's mannerisms and personality. Very interesting and I like what he has to say. He's like the "Chuck Norris of fashion." I imagine he wakes up and a nice fresh suit just forms onto him, haha. Read a bit of the beginning, but I'm trying to finish Rework first.
Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design I actually saw today at Half-Priced Books. Just the design of the book was enough for me to stop and check it out (You should definitely look at the design of the book. It's pretty cool.). I haven't read any of it yet, but it looks really cool and sounds like a good read.

So yeah... I read. I've posted pictures of my growing book collection before, but thought I'd drop a note to what I'm reading right now.

Cliiiiimb

2010-12-30T00:12:00.000-05:00

Some Platforms...

2010-12-29T15:44:00.002-05:00

Handful of standard ground platforms pulled in from a maxScript I wrote. Happy with the pipeline I have going on that (Build world in 3D, strip the platforms out through a script, strip the walls out through a script, etc. etc. etc.). Saves me from manually typing thousands of platform, wall, etc, vertices, and let's me spend more time creating and changing the world. Also, let's me prototype an environment quickly.

Proj5 - More Treehouse

2010-12-18T03:10:00.002-05:00

The renders finally finished and I was able to put them all together. :D More surrounding environment and sky coming soon.

Mmmmmight be pushing it a bit...

2010-12-14T03:53:00.002-05:00

Forest tree&foliage test. I might be pushing the textures a bit too much. We'll see, but hopefully I won't have to tone it down. :P
Still (yes still) rendering passes of the treehouse inside (dealing with baking various passes and varied UVMapping projections, post editing of the images, etc. I also don't have a super computer by any means so it's taking some time, ha. Contact me if you want the full complicated explanation). The inside of the treehouse is all textured out though... just waiting on the final renders to finish so i can put 'em together. Will show when it's done.

Blueberry Boy!... it'll make sense.

2010-12-11T21:44:00.002-05:00

Still a progress update on the Proj-5 game. Doing some lighting, texturing, and rendering tweaks on finishing the treehouse environment. Wanted to have it done for ScreenshotSaturday, but doesn't look like it'll make it in time though (maybe sunday, monday?). Anyway, this is in the Proj-5 game. This specifically is a poster that will be in the treehouse, but there may be more Blueberry Boy... (we'll see :P )

Project 5 - Added textures/Updated lights

2010-12-07T01:55:00.006-05:00

Added the textures for the comic book boxes, dry erase board, exposed computer, and the "i heart books" poster. Also put a simple peach|blue directional lighting to help push it a bit more. Feels warmer and adds a bit more depth/realism to the lights.

*Caught him blinking in the first screenshot, ha!

i heart books :)

2010-12-07T01:03:00.000-05:00

Project 5: Early / Very Early Screenshots

2010-12-05T23:19:00.002-05:00

Sketches (plural)

2010-12-05T22:56:00.011-05:00

it's been awhile... geez!

2010-12-05T22:02:00.004-05:00

geez. it's been almost a full year. Well, never too late I suppose. Scanning and sizing stuff to post as a type... Well not at this exact moment, but you get the idea. Posts to arrive momentarily........

Above image: Simple text created in 3DSMax then taken into Photoshop for effects, glow, faux rendering screen. Didn't want to stop at the pretty glow effect, so I ended up degrading the image down and having fun taking it into a different direction. Pointless work for a blog post banner image, but a break is good every now and then.

another self-portrait

2009-12-20T23:36:00.000-05:00

yeah, i'm a geek and love books.

Dot Error

2009-12-14T00:31:00.000-05:00

The game just went live! Check it out on Xbox LIVE Marketplace Indie Games. It's $1 (80 points).

[ Send it to my xbox! ]

[ More info... ]

Etsy page is up and running... go buy cool stuff!

2009-11-22T14:04:00.000-05:00

Click [ here ] to go to http://www.etsy.com/shop/iamrece and buy cool stuff!

Dance With Me

2009-11-05T01:57:00.000-05:00

Holding Onto Knowledge

2009-11-03T03:48:00.001-05:00

penguin

2009-11-01T14:11:00.001-05:00

more math, numbers, and trees

2009-10-25T01:53:00.000-04:00

playing with watercolors, pencil, and photoshop

2009-10-14T03:06:00.000-04:00

yyyyeah, still pretty new to the watercolors.
[ photoshop mixture | greyscale watercolor + pencil | only watercolor | only pencils ]

my xbox

2009-10-06T00:48:00.000-04:00

from gifts

2009-09-22T14:03:00.000-04:00

that old struggle

2009-09-22T04:59:00.000-04:00

R. Volume 2

2009-09-14T04:19:00.000-04:00

night chair!... umm, sketching with vectors.

2009-08-27T20:52:00.000-04:00

DotError box art

2009-08-21T12:14:00.000-04:00

Sorry no post yesterday, just did some sketching. Here's the DotError box art though and the website with trailer: http://iamrece.com/dotError

schemmmmmmatic

2009-08-19T19:48:00.001-04:00

fancy fansi

2009-08-19T18:40:00.001-04:00

FollowingSamOnAnUploadPerDay

2009-08-17T17:05:00.000-04:00

chatty chatty text chat text beep

2009-08-05T19:49:00.000-04:00

Randomness for work, check it out [ here ]! It was to mimic the live texting using these devices. On the pages they are made to look like they're two people talking to each other (like with only 2 devices per page instead of all 4 reading the same XML page). The timing and message, avatars, etc are all dynamic. This is actually 1 SWF file that reads in a corresponding XML file that will tell it which device to use, who's talking, etc. (On the page shown i have copied 4 instances just to show all of them at the same time.) Pretty neat (but random) actually.

[ LINK ]

New Site Is LIVE :::: Check it out.

2009-08-05T01:34:00.000-04:00

Here's the LINK. [ :::::::::: ]

happy :)

2009-07-29T15:10:00.000-04:00

chillin...

2009-07-29T14:13:00.000-04:00

XboxFanForce.com review of Chalked

2009-06-18T14:37:00.000-04:00

"Looking around The Xbox Live Marketplace -- you won't find anything like Chalked. The Xbox Live Indie Game features unique visuals, addictive gameplay and a soundtrack that is sure to get stuck in your head.... "

read more of it here: http://xboxfanforce.blogfaction.com/article/108693/xna-developer-spotlight-rece-studios

an ACTUAL clear monitor screen

2009-05-27T19:50:00.000-04:00

so.. apparently if you breakdown a mac laptop far enough you find some cool treasures. It no longer backlights correctly, but it's clear and near a window so that's cool. white colors allow me to see through the monitor while blacks and dark colors fill in as a solid.

IGN.com review on Chalked

2009-05-16T14:55:00.000-04:00

Just got an awesome review from Sam Bishop at ign.com on my game Chalked for Xbox LIVE Community Games.

"Chalked had me the second its hilarious entirely human voice-powered theme music kicked in. That the rest of the game, which has you either destroying or rescuing a city by way of planting bombs and entering a quick detonation sequence or simply by touching the bad buys before they can destroy all the buildings, is just as endearing only sold me more and made me make a massive paragraph-long run-on sentence to describe it all. Thanks, rece, you grammar-breaking bastard!"

link: http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/982/982981p1.html

E3!

2009-05-11T18:41:00.000-04:00

It's official (as official as having a badge gets) that I'll be attending it.

ahhh, people are following me... on twitter. ha!

2009-05-11T17:39:00.000-04:00

follow me [ this way--> ]

Chalked is on Xbox LIVE Community Games!!!

2009-05-11T14:07:00.000-04:00

It's official. The game is live. Go check it out at the
"Official Website: http://iamrece.com/Chalked" or the
"Page to buy Full or Trial from Microsoft"

zoo

2009-04-01T18:32:00.001-04:00

fun with a photo from the zoo.

ahh, bee season!!!

2009-03-17T18:04:00.000-04:00

i was on G4 - Attack of the Show, yay

2009-03-03T14:52:00.000-05:00

[ link to video ]

inspiwall

2009-02-25T17:49:00.000-05:00

Playing with an idea on how to show links that i like on my site. The way it's set up I'll just need to add a link to an XML file and the SWF on the page will automatically configure how many shades/tones are needed to be created. Still fairly early, but you can check it out [ http://iamrece.com/inspiration ] < - there.

from valentinesDay

2009-02-24T18:20:00.000-05:00

wacom wacom

2009-02-24T18:18:00.002-05:00

llama llama?

2009-02-24T18:18:00.001-05:00

sketch

2009-02-22T19:12:00.000-05:00

sketch

2009-02-22T19:11:00.000-05:00

spacebear!

some sketches

2009-02-22T19:07:00.000-05:00

Cut&Paste LA 09 - sketches

2009-02-22T18:27:00.000-05:00

Although i didn't make it through, it was AWESOME. Here are some of my sketches/ideas i had tried out before going on.

Cut&Paste 09

2009-02-02T15:05:00.000-05:00

i will be a contestant in the Cut&Paste 2D competition on Feb 21, 09. It's gonna be awesome! [ Come check it out! ]

sketch

2009-02-02T15:04:00.001-05:00

glass-y

2009-01-27T19:19:00.000-05:00

sketch

2009-01-27T02:04:00.001-05:00

sketch

2009-01-27T02:01:00.000-05:00

squarepusher is awesome

2009-01-26T17:56:00.000-05:00

yeah, Warp Records is all awesome. listening to the new Squarepusher now. check it out [ here ] or just go to http://www.warprecords.com . i just had to design something in the style of warpRecords, just zoned out to the music.

blu

2009-01-23T16:15:00.000-05:00

fun windmill thing

2009-01-20T20:08:00.000-05:00

scavenger

2009-01-20T13:35:00.000-05:00

treehouse assignment #2 sketch.

mmmmmmm, math

2009-01-17T01:49:00.001-05:00

it's alliiiiiiveeeee!.... again.

2009-01-17T01:43:00.000-05:00

So it's back to working again. :D ....for now.

threeojm

2009-01-15T19:39:00.000-05:00

my three o'clock jam with some good ol techno.

web map

2009-01-15T14:47:00.000-05:00

zoomed in on a few streets of the interwebs, haha.

digital doodle

2009-01-15T13:30:00.002-05:00

treehouse assignment #1 with color

2009-01-15T13:30:00.001-05:00

treehouse assignment #1

2009-01-15T13:29:00.000-05:00

sketch for the treehouse assignment.

too much techno

2009-01-15T13:28:00.000-05:00

face

2009-01-15T13:27:00.002-05:00

skelething

2009-01-15T13:27:00.001-05:00

interface

2009-01-15T13:26:00.000-05:00

quick sketch of an interface.

break from coding

2009-01-15T13:25:00.000-05:00

took a break in developing and decided to sketch in code.

buildings or boxes

2009-01-15T13:24:00.000-05:00

playing with color and depth.

jazzy

2009-01-15T13:23:00.000-05:00

been listening to jazz this day.

top down

2009-01-15T13:21:00.000-05:00

if i could sit on the ceiling and draw myself, it'd prolly look something like this.

it's aliiiive!

2009-01-15T13:20:00.000-05:00

got my mac laptop working :) (although sadly it is back to not working... it'll be back.)

crazyness

2009-01-15T13:19:00.000-05:00

my desk at home.. well only a side of it.

my cup-o-pens

2009-01-15T13:18:00.000-05:00

another quick sketch of my desk.

straight lines

2009-01-15T13:16:00.000-05:00

tried a quick sketch with only using straight lines and keeping the count down.

ahhhh! a bee.

2009-01-15T13:12:00.000-05:00

he doesn't look so evil as most bees do.

i can see my shoe

2009-01-15T13:10:00.000-05:00

my hand with armwarmer and sweater

2009-01-15T13:07:00.000-05:00

it's cold in here!