Lab96

Kitchen

I recently spent some time discovering the world of architectural rendering. It’s been a very fun and rewarding experience. The room is based on reference from an Ikea catalogue and rendered with Vray.

Boombox

I’m working on some models and textures on a music video for MVMT and jazz/rap band Blitz: The Ambassador. Just a simple retro boombox and casette:

Game Design Challenge

I participated a small game design contest over GameCareerGuide. The idea was to make a 500 word pitch of a video game based on classic or contemporary literature. I based my entry on Animal Farm by George Orwell and got an honorable mention. Here’s my entry:

Animal Farm, a novel written by George Orwell, stands as a powerful dystopian commentary on how human societies can be shaped depending on the men who lead them. The novel tells the tale of a society of British farm animals revolting against a negligent caretaker and then having to come to terms with their own freedom and eventually a corrupt leadership.

It can also make for a compelling single player farm-simulation game with an emphasis on resource and unit management, simples puzzles and story.

At the outset of the game, the animals revolt against their neglecting owner. During the introductory tutorial sequence, they wrest control of their farm and are now free. Afterwards, the story can branch depending on which character is selected. There are two choices available: Jessie the sheep dog or Napoleon the pig. Choosing Jessie will lead the player across the game as one of the normal animals that directly follow the leadership of the Pigs. Choosing Napoleon will allow the player to enforce strict laws upon the animals of the farm and command them with an iron hoof. Both story paths give access to all the same game mechanics, but feature different story perspectives and endings.

The game takes place over 3 years of a fictional calendar. After the last year the game ends with the appropriate ending depending on the results of the path taken. Story moments happen on different days depending on the success of the farm and are mainly conveyed through cut scenes, in-game voice-overs and text.

The player controls his animal avatar directly in a third-person perspective and navigates the farm buildings and territory by running, jumping, using tools, interacting and assigning tasks to non-player characters.

The main resources to manage are a “Food” and “Fatigue”. “Food” is the standard resource and his consumed by animals at the beginning of the day and restored by a certain amount at the end of a successful day. “Fatigue” is a personal rating to each animal type and affects how much food will consumed each day. Animals with higher fatigue consume more food.

Each day of the calendar, the player needs to complete tasks to assure the continuing success of the farm such as milking cows or harvesting fields. Almost any group/type of animals can contribute to any task, but some animal are better than others. In sufficient numbers a flock of chicken could very well repair a stone wall or with cooperation, milk cows. Want your animals to be stronger? Feed them more at the start of each day. Want them to be faster? Upgrade them by making them study books.

On some days, angry farmers or wild animals will attack the farm and the game shifts from managing tasks to strategizing combat for the day. Each animal can be sent in to fight. For example: horses and donkeys act as heavy damage-dealing units while a flock of flying geese can blind enemies temporarily with droppings.

Do go read the other entries.

Demo reel 2009

My first demo reel in english is finally completed! It mainly showcases my work design, model and texture work for projects related to the Unreal 3 engine. Here’s the video! You can also watch it here for a better ambiance.

Low-poly Reel

Odd1 Inc was gracious enough to permit me to show some work I had done for my last video game project: Odd Society. This reel mainly showcases low-poly model work and textures.

Robot and truck

Here are some models I’ve been working since I’ve finished school.

The robot (Steamy McSteam) his basically a joke/mascot character my team and I made up during my final studies project. Since it was a steampunk, we figured “Why not make a character that encompasses everything steampunk is about, but… as a robot!”. Of course, the model isn’t that stylized like that now, but the name stuck nonetheless. I didn’t do a concept phase and started designing and modelling directly in 3DS Max. Steamy is about 18 000 polys and will be rigged and animated after I get around to texturing the fella.

The truck is for a student game project I’m currently involved to keep myself busy like an irrational bee. There’s not a lot of details to talk about, we just started. I had never modelled a vehicle before, so this was a nice challenge. The tanker part was easy, but the driver’s area took a while for me to figure out how to built it efficiently so I wouldn’t have to go back later and undo mistakes.  It’s somewhat optimized for game engines, with a poly count of around 7000. I didn’t have any clear guidelines, so I may need to cut down on some details like the drivers area. I’ve realized this recently: you can’t cheat cylindrical shapes in low-poly models, it almost always looks bad.

If you like Steamy’s desigh, I made this. I was bored and I’ve been playing Team Fortress 2 in my downtime.

Fact3 objects

Here are some objects I made for Fact3. They were fun to do. Pretty much everything I desire to do is like that. More to come soon! As soon as I get more bandwith…

Fact3 released!

I’m overjoyed that, Fact3, my final studies project I worked with my team is finally released! Fact 3 is total conversion mod of Unreal Tournament 3. During the 3 months of production, my team and I managed to make a 100% custom level, 4 differents characters and introduced character classes to the Unreal World. I worked as 3D modeler, texture artist and sound editor on the project. Here’s the final 10 minute trailer:

Gray Sky Arena

Finally! I’m proud to say that I am now able to distribute my first Unreal Tournament 3 map ever! It is a deathmatch-type map with a circular design which was built around the idea of “risk versus reward” scenarios. If you want to download it, just click on this link! Here are some screenshots:

The center gives access to bonuses like extra armor, health and weapons to the player. Except the path to them is treacherous, since it is surrounded by toxic pools. Plus, with sniper spots in the sky and other players on the ground, players need to think twice. I made this under a week back in December of 2008. From concept, modeling, unwrap, textures, it’s all me from start to finish! : D