I just "completed" Assassin's Creed 2 in the early hours of the morning and am still in awe from its awsomeness, very American, I know, but this game is just that good. I have to admittedly say that this is easily one of my best games of all time. To me it gives everything a game can possibly offer - action, romance, revenge, vengence, etc. The story is brilliant and the first game compliments it very well as you play as another one of Desmond's ancestors, Ezio Auditore. There is so much depth to the story and Ubisoft touch on some controversial topics that people discuss today about religion, power and conspiracies.
Ubisoft put a lot of effort into putting variety into this game and it shows. The introduction of "Tombs" was a welcomed one, it brought back the adventure platform puzzle style that Ubisoft were so great at with the Prince of Persia series. Although there is much more variety in Assassin's Creed 2 compared to its predecessor, you could count the number of variations on one hand. There is still an obvious formula to how they varied missions/side-missions/hiding spots, etc. Hopefully this is something they will work on in the next game and come up with a much more dynamic formula.
The combat has also got an upgrade and has been executed excellently. I actually have no issues with the combat at all, it's perfect. Even assassinating has become more like I wanted, which is having many possibilties to execute it either stealthly or just barge in with your sword hanging out! Either way combat is great and with the additions of new weapons and special moves it has become one of the greatest combat systems of a 3rd person action adventure to date.
One of the greatest parts of the game for me was uncovering the mysteries of "The Truth". The puzzles given to unlock data were really brutal at times. I was stuck on one for about 30-45mins, although it was frustrating at times this is what I want a game to do for me. It got me really involved, got me thinking hard. I refused to get any hints or help off the net, because I wanted to understand the answer to the puzzles and not only do it to get the clip. But you soon discover when unlocking the truth you are just left with asking more questions than you were before, the suspence is immense!
Another great addition to the Assassin's Creed series is economy. You can steal, earn and spend money. The system they put in is very simple but just gives you another thing to think about and manage, which is a good thing. The only thing that seemed a little bit pointless was the purchasing of weapons and armour because it was too easy to obtain. What would have made it more interesting is to have armour pieces and weapons spread out thoughout the cities where you would have to find them, or have to assassinate/rob a person to obtain it. The on going mission to get Altair's armour is exactly what I'm talking about, but if they applied that to get his sword it would've been a nice little addition. Ubisoft also shouldn't be afraid to raise the difficulty level on obtaining these special items.
There was one major downside to the game that really started annoying me.... it was the free-running system. It may just be me, but it seems like it took a downgrade since the first Assassin's Creed or they didn't improve it at all to handle all the new possibilites of ledges, walls, fences, etc. to catch on to. I found myself dying sometimes when trying to do a leap of faith because it didn't catch on and also while free-running Ezio just not going in the direction I want him to. I also experienced some animation issues when climbing. Ezio's arm would sort of be bending in a humanly impossible way, which doesnt really take away from the gameplay but you'd expect things like that not to happen in a highly budgeted game such as Assassin's Creed.
Another downside that I wasn't pleased about was the optimization of the graphics engine. It had people/objects popping into view when you get close and in a very obvious way. It felt like I was playing on a low spec PC sometimes. I understand that this game is very heavy on processing crowds and objects, but with the power of the PS3 it should be more able to avoid these issues. I haven't played this on the Xbox360 but I know that it runs better on it. The first Assassin's Creed performed poorly on the PS3 and although they have reduced the gap between them the PS3 still performs slightly worse. Check out this article highlighting the issues more specifically - click here.
Overall this is an amazing game and despite the minor issues the gameplay and story is not affected, so you still get the mind blowing experience that Ubisoft intended.
Assassin's Creed
Friday 1 January 2010
Monday 10 August 2009
Anime Style Animation - WIP
Last week I teamed up with my cousin Jatinder Singh to start work on a anime style animation. Jatinder is a very talented artist and is currently studying at an art school in London, Elephant & Castle. We always planned to work on a project together because we both have some brilliant ideas and we both possess skills that complement each other.
Currently Jatinder is working on the concept art and is drawing up some characters that we want to put in this animation. We definately know the main story and jist of it and we already have a lead character, 'Monkey Boy'. We are also going to elimnate the need for sound effects or voice acting and just have music playing through, which will suit the mood of the emotion.
I won't go into too much detail about the story until we have a more solid concept and made a few more decisions on setting. What I can say is that it is about a boy (Monkey boy) alone in a dead and deserted city (think of 'I Am Legend'), he seems lost but hears this blissful music, and he goes in search to find the source of the music, hoping to find someone.
I've been doing some test renders, trying to get the cell shading similar to animes, and found a very useful 3ds Max plugin that generates building blocks (Greeble).
Below are some concept drawings of monkey boy that Jatinder did and some test renders I did in 3ds Max.
Currently Jatinder is working on the concept art and is drawing up some characters that we want to put in this animation. We definately know the main story and jist of it and we already have a lead character, 'Monkey Boy'. We are also going to elimnate the need for sound effects or voice acting and just have music playing through, which will suit the mood of the emotion.
I won't go into too much detail about the story until we have a more solid concept and made a few more decisions on setting. What I can say is that it is about a boy (Monkey boy) alone in a dead and deserted city (think of 'I Am Legend'), he seems lost but hears this blissful music, and he goes in search to find the source of the music, hoping to find someone.
I've been doing some test renders, trying to get the cell shading similar to animes, and found a very useful 3ds Max plugin that generates building blocks (Greeble).
Below are some concept drawings of monkey boy that Jatinder did and some test renders I did in 3ds Max.
The Temple - WIP
I had an idea for a game concept a while back, which I only decided to start developing and refining a few weeks ago. As I am a massive Star Wars fan, I was heavily influenced by it and in reality if I were to describe this game, it would be an IP of Star Wars, cue intro:
"Thousands of years after the events of 'Star Wars: Episode VI', the Jedi are merely a myth..... Nothing remains of their existence, just ruins and evidence of years of battles.... A young archaeologist and scholar in history believes the Jedi race to really have exist and goes in search for evidence.... He arrives at the planet Yavin IV, which is now a dead planet covered in desert.... He finds the ruins of the Massassi Temple and so his journey of discovery begins...."
This is basically the idea that I imagined, but I am not going to use any reference to Star Wars or Jedi for that fact, because in this setting Jedi don't exist and no one knows about them. This young archaeologist/tomb raider just happens to discover some sort of energy/force in the temple ruins he is searching and unlocks this force within himself, then go on to face his dark side, which is just an evil version of himself.
It is not meant to be a long game, just a demo for my portfolio, but even so it takes a lot of time and is a very long process when doing it alone. I am planning to make all models low-poly, say to the standard of a PS2 game. This will help save a bit of time and give me a chance to go through the process of making my game efficient and optimising it as much as possible. I am planning to use the open source graphics engine OGRE3D, its a very popular engine and will save me a lot of time that I wouldv'e spent trying to optimise the graphics. There are many plugins that people have developed for OGRE too, and hopefully with some more research and testing I will be able to find a physics engine/plugin for this game too. I mean the main purpose of creating this game is to get experience in developing games and I don't want to start re-inventing the "wheel" as they say, so I will try to get my hands on all major parts of a game from whatever sources I can. I have recently downloaded the evaluation edition of the Havok engine, so I am going to look into this more and setup a working environment for it.
Below are scans of some concept sketches for 'The Temple' and a couple of screens of the main character model I've done so far (beware concept drawings are rough).
As usual I would appreciate any comments, thanks!
"Thousands of years after the events of 'Star Wars: Episode VI', the Jedi are merely a myth..... Nothing remains of their existence, just ruins and evidence of years of battles.... A young archaeologist and scholar in history believes the Jedi race to really have exist and goes in search for evidence.... He arrives at the planet Yavin IV, which is now a dead planet covered in desert.... He finds the ruins of the Massassi Temple and so his journey of discovery begins...."
This is basically the idea that I imagined, but I am not going to use any reference to Star Wars or Jedi for that fact, because in this setting Jedi don't exist and no one knows about them. This young archaeologist/tomb raider just happens to discover some sort of energy/force in the temple ruins he is searching and unlocks this force within himself, then go on to face his dark side, which is just an evil version of himself.
It is not meant to be a long game, just a demo for my portfolio, but even so it takes a lot of time and is a very long process when doing it alone. I am planning to make all models low-poly, say to the standard of a PS2 game. This will help save a bit of time and give me a chance to go through the process of making my game efficient and optimising it as much as possible. I am planning to use the open source graphics engine OGRE3D, its a very popular engine and will save me a lot of time that I wouldv'e spent trying to optimise the graphics. There are many plugins that people have developed for OGRE too, and hopefully with some more research and testing I will be able to find a physics engine/plugin for this game too. I mean the main purpose of creating this game is to get experience in developing games and I don't want to start re-inventing the "wheel" as they say, so I will try to get my hands on all major parts of a game from whatever sources I can. I have recently downloaded the evaluation edition of the Havok engine, so I am going to look into this more and setup a working environment for it.
Below are scans of some concept sketches for 'The Temple' and a couple of screens of the main character model I've done so far (beware concept drawings are rough).
As usual I would appreciate any comments, thanks!
Dragonball Z Mini Flash Game
I haven't posted my work as much as I should be, you could say I'm not the "blogger type" but I will try and make much more of an effort.
So here is something I did just today, I wanted to get something up and just put my game development knowledge into practise with something I'm very familiar with, Flash. I programmed in AS3 and did minimal artwork to save myself time. I will however go back and improve the overall artwork and animation of the main character. I also wanted to put a cut-scene at the beginning to give a reason to why he is blasting rocks in the air using his "qi" (a term used to explain a persons life force energy, some people may know this as "chi"). Anyway, I wanted to use an existing concept so that people that play this would be able to understand the premise of the game and/or charcter, so if you're an anime fan you would recognise this as Dragonball Z. As this game is just for practise and demo purposes I didn't seem the harm in using someone elses concept.
Sprites provided by http://sdb.drshnaps.com/SpritesSNES.htm
You can play my game by clicking here
Controls:
I would appreciate any comments, thanks!
So here is something I did just today, I wanted to get something up and just put my game development knowledge into practise with something I'm very familiar with, Flash. I programmed in AS3 and did minimal artwork to save myself time. I will however go back and improve the overall artwork and animation of the main character. I also wanted to put a cut-scene at the beginning to give a reason to why he is blasting rocks in the air using his "qi" (a term used to explain a persons life force energy, some people may know this as "chi"). Anyway, I wanted to use an existing concept so that people that play this would be able to understand the premise of the game and/or charcter, so if you're an anime fan you would recognise this as Dragonball Z. As this game is just for practise and demo purposes I didn't seem the harm in using someone elses concept.
Sprites provided by http://sdb.drshnaps.com/SpritesSNES.htm
You can play my game by clicking here
Controls:
- Move: Up, Down, Left, Right
- Attack: Ctrl
I would appreciate any comments, thanks!
Tuesday 30 June 2009
My first ZBrush creation
This is the latest piece of work I have done. Its not finished as I want to add more effects and probably re-render to move the lights around and change the intensity of the them. All the friends I've shown so far have been a bit confused about the character and have not understood it. Let me say, there is no story behind this character, it was literally a quick sketch and model I did to experiment with ZBrush and mental ray in 3ds Max. But the thought at the time of creation was that he is a mix between the Hulk and Wolverine.
Apps used:
- Modelling: ZBrush
- Detail Modelling: ZBrush
- Texturing: Zbrush
- Hair: "Hair & Fur" 3ds Max modifier
- Render: 3ds Max 2010 (mental ray)
- Post-Processing: PhotoShop CS4
Please leave comments as they will be a crucial step for me to improve and progress.
Getting Started...
Well this is my first blog post EVER! So let me just start by giving the reason for starting this blog. I am looking to change career by going into the gaming industry. I have always wanted to do this ever since I learnt how to program. I love games and I have never stopped finding it fascinating how games are made and what new techniques developers use to acheive results for specific features.
I graduated from Queen Mary University of London 3 years ago with a 2:1 in BSc Physics & Computer Science. Since then I briefly worked for a property development company, Manhattan Properties, as IT research & development. This job included looking for new technologies to use in their high-end properties, as they use home automation supplied by Crestron, I went into learning about Crestron systems. With Crestron integrated into a home you have the possibility to control your lighting, HVAC (Heating and Ventilation), security/alarm system, all AV equipment, etc. The Crestron systems required programming, so I saw this as a chance to utilise my skills and go into that, plus it was cool to control and use the Crestron systems. Anyway, I continued to work at Manhattan Properties for 3 months, but found myself not progressing and achieving what I thought I'd be, so I found that I could continue to work with Crestron and Manhattan Properties but as a separate entity. A friend that I met at university always talked about starting a business together and now that I thought we had a service/product to sell, I contacted him about the idea and from that TC Innovations was born.
For the next 3 years we built up TC Innovations from scratch, initially developing websites for companies including Manhattan Properties and Crestron, but then went on to programming and installing Crestron systems into properties. We had a brilliant year in 2008 and were overwhelmed with projects, but it was very difficult to expand and bring new people on board, as we still wouldn't be able to afford staff and a larger office. We finally decided that to expand we would have to take big risks with our personal finance and at this point it was just not an easy option to take, so we should pursue the careers that we always wanted.
Now I am looking to break into the gaming industry as this is my dream. During the 3 years running TC Innovations I have been learining and practising 3d modelling using 3ds Max. I want to embrace my artistic skills as I feel more comfortable in this line of work and I have many ideas that I feel I can express best through 2d/3d art. I have an art background as I was studying and producing art work from as far back as I can remember up until my A Levels. I always continued to sketch ideas and kept a little sketch book where I doodled whenever I was bored. This is one of the reasons I started this blog, because I want to display all artwork I can dig up and post up on here, no matter how bad it is. I would also love people to critique my work and tell me where I can improve, as I think this is an important factor in growing as an artist.
Right now I have got to a good level of skill on 3ds Max and am now using ZBrush to do detail work and paint textures, and I also use PhotoShop to draw concepts, touch up 3d stills and paint/touch-up textures. I will be posting up my work as I go along and any work in progress.
Check back to see my work and please leave comments!
I graduated from Queen Mary University of London 3 years ago with a 2:1 in BSc Physics & Computer Science. Since then I briefly worked for a property development company, Manhattan Properties, as IT research & development. This job included looking for new technologies to use in their high-end properties, as they use home automation supplied by Crestron, I went into learning about Crestron systems. With Crestron integrated into a home you have the possibility to control your lighting, HVAC (Heating and Ventilation), security/alarm system, all AV equipment, etc. The Crestron systems required programming, so I saw this as a chance to utilise my skills and go into that, plus it was cool to control and use the Crestron systems. Anyway, I continued to work at Manhattan Properties for 3 months, but found myself not progressing and achieving what I thought I'd be, so I found that I could continue to work with Crestron and Manhattan Properties but as a separate entity. A friend that I met at university always talked about starting a business together and now that I thought we had a service/product to sell, I contacted him about the idea and from that TC Innovations was born.
For the next 3 years we built up TC Innovations from scratch, initially developing websites for companies including Manhattan Properties and Crestron, but then went on to programming and installing Crestron systems into properties. We had a brilliant year in 2008 and were overwhelmed with projects, but it was very difficult to expand and bring new people on board, as we still wouldn't be able to afford staff and a larger office. We finally decided that to expand we would have to take big risks with our personal finance and at this point it was just not an easy option to take, so we should pursue the careers that we always wanted.
Now I am looking to break into the gaming industry as this is my dream. During the 3 years running TC Innovations I have been learining and practising 3d modelling using 3ds Max. I want to embrace my artistic skills as I feel more comfortable in this line of work and I have many ideas that I feel I can express best through 2d/3d art. I have an art background as I was studying and producing art work from as far back as I can remember up until my A Levels. I always continued to sketch ideas and kept a little sketch book where I doodled whenever I was bored. This is one of the reasons I started this blog, because I want to display all artwork I can dig up and post up on here, no matter how bad it is. I would also love people to critique my work and tell me where I can improve, as I think this is an important factor in growing as an artist.
Right now I have got to a good level of skill on 3ds Max and am now using ZBrush to do detail work and paint textures, and I also use PhotoShop to draw concepts, touch up 3d stills and paint/touch-up textures. I will be posting up my work as I go along and any work in progress.
Check back to see my work and please leave comments!
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