Creating Blue River Canyon with Brian Lockett

Hey, folks!  Yes, it's been quite a while since my last post, but you know how life can be--so perfectly in your way.  Anyways, here's a video I created, a sharing of a workflow in creating a mid-poly canyon terrain using Blender and World Machine 2.

This is the first of three videos planned as a series, and all the stuff you see in the video comes in a zipped source file (available on the Downloads page here), released under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.  This and other videos I produce will be found on the Sharetorials page.  Hope it helps somebody!  Later!

(Oh, and I want to make several updates later when I get some time.  But I can't today--Super Bowl Sunday!)

- Brian

TWO demos for the Kickstarter and other news

I'm working on two different playable demos to present as the example of my game Cyka, which I'll be seeking some support with through Kickstarter.  What kind of two demos?  Well, one demo is being developed with the Unity game engine and one is being developed with Unreal Development Kit.  And they're both representing two great versions of the game Cyka.

One game, two game engines. six stores!

I needed two versions to fulfill the potential of this game.  I wanted this game to be available for as many platforms as possible and to play seamlessly cross-platform and persistent-world online between those platforms, and for that, I'm choosing the Unity game engine to develop the "standard" version of Cyka.  I wanted this same game to be even more visually-stunning, the environments to be even more destructible and interactive, and to be available for Steam (which currently does not support cross-platform with such other platforms as mobile devices), and for that, I'm choosing the UDK to develop the rather "enhanced" version of Cyka.

This second UDK version will be called Cyka: Steamed Edition (fitting for a steampunk-themed game), will include the Cloud Quest mode found in the non-Steam special edition of Cyka called Cyka: Cloud Quest Edition, and the present plan is that it will be priced lower than the original wider-platform version of Cyka.  But both versions will be huge genre-bending experiences, beautifully-rendered, done with 100% quality, and put you in the company of thousands of gamers online.  And we still plan to enter our a working demo of each version of our game into the Independent Game Festival (IGF) and IndieCade 2013 both next year, and yes, we aim to win the top prizes in both (we're that confident about the brilliance of this game).  My company PolyKhrome will be pushing the limits of both game engines, as our game pushes new limits in the genre of online action real-time strategy games.  I explain it all here on my developer's blog.

If you'd like to know a little more about what game I'm creating, please visit my development blog.  And if you have any questions or comments about the game or my company, please e-mail me at PolyKhrome@gmail.com (soon to be BrianLockett@PolyKhrome.com when our official website is complete).  Some details about the Kickstarter have already been revealed, and there's more to come in coming days.  I've got some great offerings in store for supporters, but without the demos, they mean nothing.  So PolyKhrome is diligently working to develop two demos that'll blow you away.

If you're interested in possibly joining PolyKhrome, send me an e-mail and provide me with a link to your website, blog, or portfolio, and we can talk.  I'll provide more details then, but I can say that while experience with Blender and Photoshop are preferred, we can work with users of other software, but good experience with Unity and/or UDK is necessary.  We'll be looking for an assets artist or two (characters, environments, props, and 2D elements), an additional game programmer or two (preferably one with some network programming experience), and an illustrator with some graphic design experience.  Later, we'll be looking for an additional game musician/sound designer, though we already do have plans for later seeking a particular amazing freelance game musician in mind.

Also, this summer, I'll be starting back my Operation Moogle effort on the side.  It was a project I started last year to respond to Square Enix's call for an organized effort to be enough of a united voice saying we wanted a Final Fantasy HD collection from them of their most beloved Final Fantasy titles of the past.  Last year, we went into a hiatus as summer came to a close, but this year, we're picking up right where we left--and our supporters are ecstatic!  And Square Enix are listening--we currently have an employee with some brass at Square Enix following us on our Twitter page!  If that sounds interesting to you, check it out, sign our petition, and take our poll--your voice counts.

And finally, I'm excited about the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2012 (or E3 2012), just 12 days away!  Personally, I'm very interested in the only officially-announced next-gen console to be showed there, the Wii U from Nintendo, as both a gamer and an indie game developer.  I've been following the development of this console for the last year and a half, back when it was just a mysterious project, and when it was finally unveiled last year at E3 2011 (and I talked about it here on this blog last year), I can say that I immediately saw what I could do with that system.  It immediately addressed some of the things I wanted to do with gaming, and its controller is really all I can ask for as a game developer.  I can definitely say that the Wii U will be in PolyKhrome's future, as soon as we become a better established to do so with our current work!  I'd love nothing more than to see the likes of Cyka II (which is already being planned) on the Wii U someday...

Anyways, folks, that concludes this post.  I hope to hear from some of you soon!  I tell you, this is going to be one exciting summer, folks!

- Brian

Just a little bit longer, folks, but check this out in the meanwhile...

Hey, guys!  Oy--sorry about the delay!  Ran into a few personal issues, and freeing up time has been crazy for me lately, but I'm back and running.  Anyways, I don't have much here to report just yet, but I did update my Downloads and Sharetorials pages a bit, and you can check out my uploaded Blender theme if you'd like.  I call the theme "Dream Blue" and I designed it specifically for my desire for a Blender color scheme that uses other colors than the dark gray scheme (which I think most 3D packages employ way too much these days).  This is just one of many themes I plan to design.  I want to keep them vivid and engaging, all while still being easy on the eyes.  Blue is one of my favorite colors, and is known to produce a calming and refreshing effect (and trust me--I need that!), so I used shades of blue together that relax me but don't make me sleepy.  I think it kinda looks like Daphne Blake's clothing motif from Scooby Doo a little.

I'm putting a lot of time in my videos, and I'm making more than one.  I had some issues with my screencasting software--like finding a free one that doesn't bug out on me!--but I think I've found a solution.  I am also working on a few scripts ideas for Blender add-ons, and these are some pretty neat ideas for add-ons that I'm working on, if I do say so myself.  And I'm still brainstorming some ideas for my software in development, which I promise you'll like if I can complete the thing.  Sorry I've been keeping any of you waiting, but I'm balancing a lot of things right now, so I hope this little bit of news shows some indication to you all that I'm working hard on my projects and will hold you just a little while longer.  Though, I must say, besides my coming work, there are a lot of things that I'm anticipating in the coming months that have got me really excited.

I'm looking forward to the release of Blender 2.58 coming next month on June 7.  I'm looking forward to end results of the various Google Summer of Code 2011 projects being done with Blender and Gimp.  I'm also looking forward to E3 2011, for news on upcoming releases for the Nintendo 3DS (which I'm just dying to develop some games for) and undoubtedly the event that will steal the show at E3 this year, "Project Café" (which, in case you haven't heard over the last few months, is the codename for Nintendo's next console, and Nintendo's really kicking butt and taking names with this one).  I've been following this project almost since day 1, and have been following the hints from Nintendo previous to this project's announcement, and I'm so glad to finally see some confirmations on this project, and that Nintendo will officially spill the beans about it at E3 this year.  (And Nintendo will be the first to present their baby, much to Sony and Microsoft's dismay!)

Some thing have been announced already, like the fact that the "Project Café" will debut sometime in Spring 2012, they're really pushing strong third-party support, and that the console will feature a revolutionary controller, but Nintendo is being careful not to have many leaks about their product.  But what they have revealed about the console, and what some rather third-party game developers and popular sources have been leaking and rumoring about the next-gen console from Nintendo, has me sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for Nintendo's official revealing at E3.  I'll just say this: as a lifelong Nintendo fan, I haven't been this excited about a Nintendo home console in a while!  You can trust this guy David Turnbull on his news, updates and discussing rumors about the Nintendo 3DS and "Project Café" (which, reportedly, many are tentatively calling the "Nintendo Stream" due to the console's special "streaming" controller scheme).  In fact, I recommend that you "Subscribe" to everything this guy David has to offer, if you care about this kind of stuff!  When E3 comes next month, there's gonna be a whole lot of awesome stuff to pique your interested throughout all this and next year (if you're a gamer)!  [giddy squeal]

Anyways, that'll do it for this one.  Be sure to Ctrl-click my links in this post and check them out.  I'll be back with more stuff pretty soon.  Later, and keep exploring!

- Brian


>> Be about others, and you will never be bored. <<


CORRECTION: I meant to say that the E3 show was on June 7, not the release of Blender 2.58.  That was a backspace error I forgot to fix when rearranging the sentences.