Monthly Archives: February 2014

Make a Successful Indie Game Using Kickstarter… Make The Game First (part 2 of 7)

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So, you’ve been thinking about that game you want to make. You’ve thought about it for a long time, and you think you know exactly how you would go about doing it. You decide you’ll post your idea on Kickstarter.com so you can get funding to start making the game…

…yeah… don’t do that. Your first step for getting funding to make your game is to make the game.

Doesn’t make sense? Hear me out. Kickstarter projects often succeed on credibility, about how much backers trust that you can make what you promise you can. Also, it’s difficult to understand exactly what the game would be without seeing the game in action. Even if you think you need money to make it, you won’t get any money without making it first. It’s a classic Catch-22 scenario.

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Make a Successful Indie Game Using Kickstarter… Why? (part 1 of 7)

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So, you’ve been thinking.

You’ve been watching television. You’ve been reading internet news. You’ve been reading the local newspaper and magazines and books.

You’ve seen that Kickstarter is a great way to get money directly from fans/customers for you to use to create your product.

You’ve seen that many indie games have achieved success on the site.

You’ve decided that you will make a Kickstarter campaign for your game!

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Merging 3D and 2D Animation: “Three-dimensional Proxies for Hand-Drawn Characters”

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I’m surprised I didn’t see this research before, but I’m glad I have now, and wanted to quickly tell you about it.

Hand-drawn (traditional) animation and 3D (computer) animation have been separate forms for a long time. The over-abundance of computer animation has caused some people to mutter, but computer animation is easier and more effective in many ways, so some animators have tried to merge the benefits of both mediums. Oscar-winning Disney short “Paperman” is one such example of how such a style might work (still not able to replace hand-drawn in my opinion, but it comes very close and captures the general heart and soul very well).

But on this webpage, you can find a research paper by Eakta Jain (and Yaser Sheikh, Moshe Mahler, Jessica Hodgins) at Carnegie Mellon titled “Three-dimensional Proxies for Hand-Drawn Characters,” just one of several efforts made by Jain to somehow use traditional animation with modern technology. The included video shows the potential of combining 3D computer models for physics (with environments and cloth effects) with hand-drawn characters. It looks great, and was partially funded by Autodesk (creators of 3D software “Maya”) and Disney Research. Love or hate Disney, their research division really does catch on to some fantastic work.

Of course, it appears additional technical input is required on the artist’s part to make the two artworks mesh together properly, and I assume this is all pre-rendered and may have little to do with the potential in games or real time tech demos, but it looks good nonetheless.

The website I’m talking about is here: http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/threeDproxy/ . Give it a look, it might inspire you.

So You Want To Make A Successful Indie Game Using Kickstarter…

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Most of my blog posts revolve around personal views on how you should make games and how to sell them (based on my own personal views and mistakes after a tiny bit of experience). I’ve meant to do this next bit for a long time, and here it is…

A multi-part guide on “how to make a successful Kickstarter campaign for your indie game!”

A handful of you know that I had a (failed) Kickstarter campaign for my first indie game, “James – Journey of Existence.” It certainly doesn’t give me too much credibility to give you advice after only one attempt (a failed attempt at that), but I’ve learned a lot about crowdfunding and the indie community in general, and you can never have enough advice on the Internet!

Also, I know I haven’t followed this advice myself… but I wished I did, and will try to from now on. My mistakes are what led to this series.

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Hayao Miyazaki: The Anime Industry is Full Of “Otaku”

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The great Japanese animator and famed director of Studio Ghibli: Hayao Miyazaki is said to be retired now, leaving his latest film “The Wind Rises” as his last piece of art. I haven’t seen it yet, but I certainly look forward to seeing it later this month.

Recently, he said in a interview that the anime industry is filled with staff who are “otaku.”

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