Author Archives: A.H.

Kickstarter Plans For Traditionally-Animated 3D Game

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Firstly, anyone who has been reading this blog knows that I have been planning a hand-drawn 3D game, using traditional animation for the characters. This game never had a proper title, but I’m giving it one now:

James – Journey of Existence

Catchy, right? No? Ok, it’s a tenative title. Anyway…

I’m also announcing my tenative plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign to help fund this project. Ok, anyone who read past posts would have seen this coming a mile away, but it feels good to finally say it. Such a Kickstarter wouldn’t be up until late in the month, but keep an eye out for it; no Kickstarter is successful without supporters!

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Traditional Animation in a 3D Game: How and Why

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As anyone who has read my posts so far would know, I am working on a hand-drawn 3D game, the first of its kind. You may be curious on how such a endevaor was started, so I give a post here to explain that. Otherwise, feel free to click here to check out that game project in greater detail.

I love animation. All types of it. It makes me wonder why we use live-action footage at all for filmmaking, as it feels cheap in comparison. Animation requires a true artist to create everything entirely from scratch (not that I’m trying to put down live-action directors, the two mediums just involve different artisitc qualities). Taking the time to make something come to life, frame by frame by frame… I can’t help but admire the hard work that goes into it.

I love games in a similar manner. Here, not only is something coming to life in front of you, but you as a player are in control of that life. It’s hugely rewarding. Being a fan of animation, I eventually noticed that hand-drawn, traditional animation wasn’t being used as much anymore in the mid 2000’s for film; instead we got several computer-animated films each year, most of which were either bad or very forgettable at the time. If for no other reason, the excess of computer animation made the medium as a whole not worth what it used to be.

And so, I wondered… was there a way to make games with traditional animation? Of course, 2D games do this already, and do it especially well now, but what about 3D games? Sure, 3D graphics and models have made their way in 2D games (usually to great effect), but why not the other way around? At the very least, why haven’t we come up with a way to make computer animation mimic traditional animation to acheive this effect?

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Project James – Hand Drawn 3D Game (level update)

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No matter how hard I try, I find it hard to stay away from working on this…

Those of you who read my blog know I am working on a 3D game where the characters are entirely hand-drawn. Previously, the background was kind of unfinished, but here’s some screenshots of the new introduction level (still not entirely finished, but that’s mostly what I’m going for):

 

Hand-Drawn 3d game update

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Stress…

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Actually, stress hasn’t steeped in quite yet. This is that time of the year where student assignments are done but exams aren’t for another week. The calm of the storm. But the storm will come.

(Don’t expect too many updates in the next three weeks. But expect something very soon afterwards… until then, here’s a nice analogy of my brain.)Rope_Medium

Sprite Lamp – Some Smart Guys From Australia

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I don’t normally talk about what other people are doing. This is a site dedicated to Dust Scratch Games after all, and I am a rather selfish fellow. But sometimes, something comes up that just knocks my socks off.

Here is a group of guys from rural Australia who are working on something called “Sprite Lamp“, a dynamic 2D-lighting mapping tool for game development. It doesn’t sound like much… why not just have a point light in your environment and move it to where you want light to be? Well, with 2D art and 2D planes, that light gets reflected the same for the entire sprite, and it appears this new tool offers a way to define the effect light has from certain positions on a sprite. The result is some incredibly detailed art, making 2D pixel art look new again.

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