Jane Jensen's Moebius & Pyroclysm

I have the great honor of working on Jane Jensen's Moebius. I am so pleased to be animating for such a wonderful story teller. Her writing definitely brings game story telling up to the level of a novel.

We have been working on this for a few months now and it has been public knowledge, but the Moebius website just went live last week so I figured it was a good idea to write a little bit about it.

Here is an overview of Moebius:

Malachi Rector has a photographic memory and a genius for history.  He’s parlayed that skill into a lucrative career evaluating antiques for prestigious auction houses.  But when a secret government agency called F.I.S.T. (Future Intelligence Science & Technology) hires him to look into the life of a dead woman, Malachi realizes that there may be a deeper level to history, and even to space and time, than he ever suspected.

In his quest to solve the enigma, Malachi will visit Venice, Cairo, Paris, Zurich, and D.C..  He will escape attempts on his life and explore underground fortresses.  Who was the dead woman?  What role did she have to play in history that made her a target?  Malachi also learns that he has his own destiny to fulfill—if he can survive.

Sounds intriguing, right?




In other news, the game Pyroclysm is finally done and we are submitting it for sponsorship tomorrow! That is pretty exciting and I am proud of this game and all the hard work that John Yau has put in for the amazing art and backgrounds, and for the tough work that Christian Atin has done with the programming side.

It must be a pain to work with me because I do have such a clear vision of what I want and sometimes, I just want it that way, even if it means things need to be done over again. Congrats and thank you to both of you guys for sticking with me for this long!

You can play PYROCLYSM online right here!

Pyroclysm, my first indie game!

I've been working with John Yau for the past couple of months on our indie game, Pyroclsym and people are starting to take some notice! 

Capsule Computers just posted an article about us. 

That's pretty exciting considering that we are brand new and  have only been working on this game since mid December!

If you would like to try an alpha build of the game, you can download it right now.

If you want to check out some concept art, you can go to the Indie Animation Studios' web site and see some of the beautiful design from John Yau.

Indie Game Design, Here I Come!

I love Indie Games! I just can't get enough of them! I mean, I do love all kinds of video games but I guess I love seeing one person, or a small team of people creating something that reaches millions of people.

When I was a little kid, my parents had a cabin on the Rogue River in Southern Oregon and I remember going to the town of Shady Cove and visiting with a couple of guys there that were making games for the Vic 20. The freaking Commodore VIC 20! This was the predecessor of the Commodore 64. Man, I'm old.
Anyways, their little company was called Nufekop and I don't remember anything that we talked about, but I do remember a lasting impression of the fact that there were two guys sitting there, making games that people all over the world would play. Scott Elder wrote a book about Nufekop if you are interested in reading about old video game companies from the early 80's.

My dad bought a Commodore 64, and the very first game that I made was from some tutorial about machine language. The game was called Turkey (I think) and the gameplay was super simple. You are a waiter holding up a tray and you slide back and forth across the bottom of the screen. That was your only movement was to go left and right. There was this big turkey that you had to keep in the air. The turkey would come down and you would move the waiter underneath it and bounce the turkey off the tray. It was really like a game of breakout without the blocks to break. I guess it was like playing PONG with yourself.

Somewhere in my life, I had lost my way and lost track of what I have always wanted to do, work in video games. I am so thankful that even this late in life, I get to start over and do what I want. Animation Mentor was a huge turning point in my life and got me into animation and I have been animating in games since right before I graduated.  Now, in my spare time, I am going to make my own commercial game. I am finally doing it.

Walk Cycles Are Fun - Part 2

I woke up this morning and got rid of that annoying left hand going all over the place. I toned it down a bunch and I think he is looking sexy as all get out!

I made a quick pass through all the curves in the graph editor, took about two hours to just go through and smooth out some things, get rid of some little hiccups and make the tangents on both ends go into each other nicely.

I also added some subtleties that are really hard to see, like his belly getting bigger and smaller throughout the whole shot and there was a breathe control that I was messing with. It doesn't really look like he is breathing, but it does help to give his chest a subtle rubbery feel that I like..

 

I'm still thinking about what I'm going to do with the hands. I've also been thinking about doing a completely different walk or run cycle with this same guy.

Walk Cycle Fun

I was messing around tonight with a walk cycle trying to give him some interesting personality. I think I did pretty well contrasting the body shape and size with the attitude of the walk.This is just my blocking, I have yet to open up the graph editor and really dig in. Also, the fingers on this rig are going to be tough to make some interesting hand shapes, but I am fully up for the challenge.

 

This rig is called Groggy and you can download it at Creative Crash.

It's an easy to use rig and works quite well. I just wish the hands were a bit more appealing and, since this guy is a bit rotund, it would have been nice if I could have animated his pectorals to give it a funny fatty roll bounce.

I've been messing around quite a bit with his left hand path and at first, I had it more stable with his wrist flopping a little bit, but then I wanted to see what it would look like with a bigger swing and a nice figure 8 arc. Figure 8's are fun to look at, but I really think tomorrow that I am going to go back and make his left arm not move around so much. It will give it much more contrast to his right arm. Contrast.....there, I said it again.

At least Groggy looks happy!!

Cognition Trailer for PAX

Reverb is now our publisher and we have a new trailer that is going to be shown at PAX this year for the game Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller - Episode 1: The Hangman

I'm pretty excited about the way this came out. The trailer has a great vibe to it and leaves you wanting more in the end. The one shot that's mine is the somersault.