Tag Archives: art

November’s Over Already?

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Wow, time flies. And to think, I planned to give a brief teaser of what games I was working on for November 1… even now, I’m not at where I wanted to be with that. I guess I have a fair excuse: research projects and marking lower classes as a University student has kept me busy, and I may be the new programmer for another indie developer’s game due early in 2015 (more on that later). But darn, I really hope I can get back into my own projects soon. Expect fewer and fewer blog posts until I have more progress.

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The Big Book of Ideas

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There’s one thing that concerns me with a lot of indie developers, filmmakers, inventors and artists, especially when they first start out. They have a great idea, a REALLY great idea, and know that once they make it real, they will be rich and famous.

I certainly didn’t have such high expectations for my first indie game, which was good. I expect many people, if they ever do finish out their ideas, reach a similar state. Even for the really good ideas, many of them never see the success they deserve.

So what do you do? Simple: never rely on a single idea, and go back to the book.

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Unity 3D Shaders for Two Transparent Textures

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I like programming. C++ and C# make sense to me. Graphics and shaders, less so. I understand them, I just don’t have much experience with the syntax used in Unity 3D’s shader system.

And so, I was annoyed when I wanted to have a shader that faded between two transparent textures. I assumed that this might be a good way to smooth out 2d animations. But while I could find shaders that would fade between two normal textures, I couldn’t find ANYTHING that supported alpha transparency in those textures.

Anyway, after much experimentation, I made up the shaders myself. They work quite well, too. Sadly, they don’t work well for what I need: the first shader is based on Unity’s transparency shaders, which work great by allowing semi-transparent colors, but this causes errors with rendering order and isn’t good for more complex scenes with a lot of transparent textures. I typically stay away from that and use cutout transparency shaders, which don’t allow semi-transparency, but don’t have the errors I mention. From an animation perspective, the first (transparent) shader looks better, but the second (transparent cutout) is necessary for actual use but doesn’t look as good. I provide both here, hoping it helps some of you out. Maybe I can use it elsewhere…

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“Hullabaloo” About Successful IndieGoGo 2D Film Project

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Around the time of this writing, IndieGoGo campaign “Hullabaloo” will end.

“Hullabaloo” is a 2d animated film project. It features a strong female lead in a steampunk world. It basically hopes to accomplish what Disney and other big-name animation studios haven’t done for over a decade. Yes, it’s technically a series of short films, but it’s success may also lead to a feature film if we’re lucky.

I pledged just before it ended (for the record, IndieGoGo made it incredibly easy to pledge even without an account, making me like it even a bit more than Kickstarter). I’m excited for this project. Not just because I love 2d traditional animation. I’m excited because, when asking for $80,000 on IndieGoGo, it raised over $450,000. That’s a lot.

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Microsoft Surface Pro 3: A Artist’s / Game Developer’s Review

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Warning: I am a indie game developer and an artist by hobby only. Therefore, your requirements may differ depending on usage.

No doubt you’ve seen many reviews and previews of the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet, which Microsoft claims to be the “true” laptop killer (which they’ve said for versions 2 and 1 as well). I’ve been tempted to buy one… who wouldn’t be interested in a tablet that can do everything your computer can? I remember making fun of the original iPad as a oversized-iPhone, only to realize that the larger touchscreen was the perfect device for note-taking and digital sketching. As an artist-wannabe, that meant something. But the only issues with the iPad were that it didn’t have USB connections, and that the OS itself was different (therefore, not compatible with any software I need to use). In fact, given the iPad’s relatively affordable price, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple ditches the iMac one day for a “professional” iPad to appeal to more consumers.

So the Surface Pro seemed like a great thing. It was a professional tablet with full Windows OS, and unlike most other tablet-PC’s, it came with a pen stylus and a decent processor and other specs, making it a true replacement hardware-wise for your PC. I was torn between the Surface Pro 1 (nice price), Surface Pro 2 (Wacom-pen with latest improvements to tablet), or the new Surface Pro 3 (even more new improvements). I eventually took advantage of Microsoft’s student offer and got a i3-Surface Pro 3 for about $700 (plus tax). Here are my thoughts after a few weeks.

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