Fern Finished

Finished Fern randomizer. Just showing off the goods.

Basically same thing as the last video, but now it has the right  mesh, the right textures, and it grows and it is more optimized.

 OH! I also added the capability of adding more layers by just inputting a number. that has to be run at play start, since you can't spawn BP in the construction script, but it is a pretty cool little addition.

Fern/ radial mesh randomize tool

Not finished yet, it still needs some cleaning up to do, as you will see with the collision sphere, it could be better, just a quick little tool to help me make more interesting ferns more rapidly. With this implemented, with the right mesh, I should be able to have a two level fern with 10 leaves. pretty sure there could be other applications, but not yet sure what they might be.

I'm still not fully sure what is the most optimal way to use the "stream" variable type. As it stands I have five of them to hold the various initial locations of the ferns, so they don't rotate every time the construction script runs. This seems like a smart way to be able to have randomization, but also be able to have some expected results, so that one might be able to create expected silhouettes.

my GDC experience Ch 04

So to end wednesday night with a bang, I went to my first, and only party of this years GDC. There were parties happening everywhere, but I chose to attend the Epic Games party at a local bar. For those into this kind of scene, there was an open bar and dancing, and perhaps best of all confetti and a light show.

I no longer party as much as i at one time did, so although this was a fun experience, it was a bit louder than i would have liked, especially to network. I prefer the quiet one on one style talking i was experiencing in the CA lounge.  I guess that is a major pro versus con idea that attendees should weigh. Don't just go to parties because it is a cool environment, but really weigh what benefit going to said party may provide you. loud clubs aren't the best place for me, but for some they may be great.

Thursday and friday were more of the same awesomeness. Again, booths and booths of information. So much happening always. Thursday I had some time, so i spent most of it in line.

I stood in line for an hour for an 8 minute demo. It may sound a bit crazy, but it was wonderful. For one I spoke with an artist from gearbox about many of their awesome achievements. We joked about games looking so similar (space... the more space... then gritty space) and he told me about some cool programs to check out when working on projects. Eventually, the line did end, and then i put on a newer oculous prototype, and watched a video created by weta in conjunction with unreal and nvidia, meant to push the power of the systems. Having smaug walk around me threatening to kill me, is something i may not forget for some time to come. 

Most of the rest of my time, I spent walking around the expo floor. There was literally too much to see to describe. There were amazing things from all the popular engines pushing their work. Colleges vying for attention by showcasing their best work. Small companies doing amazing things with PBR, pushing render times to be instantaneous, and mobile games competing with last generation graphics, attempting to make their mark in the industry as viable gaming resources.

 To end thursday, which was kilt day, a couple of lead artist and designers at bioware, came to talk to CAs interested in working with them, and how to maybe better get ones foot into the industry.

Friday, came and went in a blur. I didn't get much time to take photos with a full day of work, but it followed suit with days prior. amazing talks, amazing people, and amazing fun. In the afternoon, before closing the GDC store discounted all of their stock, and it was swarmed with people eager to get souvenirs. To say goodbye to our Fellow CAs, was bittersweet, and we did so in a post mortem, where I met even more friends, and future colleagues, and won some free swag.
Saturday morning, I hopped on the Bart train line- got to the airport, and said goodbye to San francisco. Hope to see you next year.

In closing.... I think everyone even partially interesting in working in games NEEDS to go to GDC. This is an experience one cannot explain, but it is great. Yes, travel costs alone were a heft chunk of money, but it was worth it. I have made friends that i know i will have for a very long time to come, I have met people in the industry and am keeping on contact with them, and i am more driven in my art, then possibly ever before. I have more direction and purpose, and I think that is easy to lose as things get hectic. Being surrounded by so many creative and technical minds, all of whom I look up to was inspiring. If asked if i would do it again, the only response I can muster is an emphatic yes.

my GDC experience Ch 03

Wednesday was a huge day for the conference.  I was busy most of it, but i did have enough open time to explore some of the expo floor, and go to one talk.



Just so happened to be the unreal talk. With unreal's CEO Tim Sweeney

In a packed room, I sat toward the front of the room, eager to hear about how unreal would be handling it s new free business model. Being as I'm an artist, but would love to make games myself, I love the way unreal works, and was glad to hear that its visual scripting system would now be more accessible, whereas unities plug-in would still cost 100 dollars. as long as i don't make anything especially profitable, unreal 4 would be free to use. Adding to this excitement, who should come in and unveil their new product but:

Jen-hsun Huang, CEO  of nvidia. The Titian X is supposedly a marvel in GPU processing. I don't fully understand it's specs, but they do sound cool.


The expo floor! Perhaps one of the main reasons to go to any conference is the ability to go to their exhibition floors and career pavilion. GDC is no different. this is the place where things happen that you cannot watch on the vault. Even if you could, who else has a PC running an nvidia X graphics card?
I could have spent all five days of the conference down in the exposition hall, and still needed more time. There was so much to see, and still supposedly this was a slow year. there were several places vying for attention in the VR headset world, mobile games were the center of attention for many as the graphics of the little computer in your pocket can now rival the top line consoles from last gaming generation.

Many tech giants were pushing what they are known to do as well as promoting areas where they may not be as well known. For instance Nvidia is working and pushing a cloud based gaming console called the Nvidia shield. Houdini was promoting their Houdini Engine, which would allow for better portability of effects through the different artist programs. 

Mocap will make the non animators life so much easier. just saying.

After a day heavy in expo exploration,  the evening was exciting and filled with the Game choice awards. 

This event was filled with humor and awards for games. 

For instance it was joked Gabe Newell would speak, but for obvious reasons he did not. Gamer humor.

Monument valley I believe took home the most awards, but GOY went to Shadow of mordor. good job :D

Explosive Fun

I'm not sure if anyone knows this, but i like it when things go boom. Blame the child in me who never grew up. Nonetheless i like it when i am given an opportunity to make thing explode.
so here I give you my cannon:


A surprisingly simple toy, it detects your position, detects how far you are from it, and then upon you getting close enough, it activates an inactive particle effect, waits for a specified amount of time, then spawns an actor with an impulse force behind it.

A timeline runs an animation on the cannon, adding kick back, and basically you have a cannon.



The ammo of the cannon, fire works, have three states based on their impact.
one is the slow burn. it ignites and hesitates before a force is applied.
two is fire away, the firework, fires off, no hesitation,
and lastly, with enough force, the fire work will simply go boom.

My GDC experience 2015 chapter 02

The first two days of the conference are the quieter days. Only a few thousand people in attendance. During these two days, most of the action is happening in talks and sponsored events, since the expo floor isn't yet open nor set up.
 Throughout west hall, many small showcases had been set up.  Ubisoft had a booth., as well as microsoft, and a collection of board games were set up for attendees to play and critique. Indie developers were set up and in a small collection. there you could play some of their games such as mushroom 2 and that dragon cancer. The wild rumpus was a popular place of interest, with prime, main floor real estate, and a relaxed atmosphere where many people congregated to play some experimental games and relax in massive bean bag chairs.

Running through the whole event, there was an underlying feeling of professionalism. Everyone was there to network, and engage with the industry, but being as everyone was passionate and respectful about each other, it wasn't too serious. Signs promoting employment, didn't take themselves too seriously, though their missing commas did annoy the grammar nazi in me. 

My monday was my most art intensive knowledge day. I sat in the talks labeled the art direction boot camp. these talks focused on the simple ideas of being a good art director, such as being a cheerleader for a project first, and making the team excited to work on it, a "boss" second. Other talks focused on taking the stress off of art directors thinking of themselves as the top or bottom of the pyramid, and attempted to sell the idea of working more as a key component in the middle of the process, funneling everything into a working project.  

Other talks focused on adding women to games, and how thinking differently can set a project apart from others. a simple concept, but it does raise good questions such as how can one take a tired trope such as zombies, and make it interesting- or as the art director of ninja theory discussed, how they took hell and make it bright and colorful, because reality equals pain. A good thesaurus can go a long way for creativity.

 My monday evening was more hanging out with the various CAs. It was really surreal for me to play card games and talk about life with people who are professionals in the industry, getting paid to make the games i enjoy playing.


My tuesday started well.

there are perks to living in a hostel. though you may sleep across the hall from a man who sounds like a blender full of rocks is shoved up his nose, you may also wake up to free bread.

 As a CA every morning begins with a morning meeting.  Today an acapella choir made of CAs sang for the other CAs.
Here cool concepts of the conference are brought up such as the use of the gender neutral bathrooms, and the introduction of a gender neutral pronoun "E".

I didn't have much time to attend talks on this day, having a full day of work shifts, I only attended one talk about level design.  The speakers were, Steve Gaynor and Kate Craig, who worked on the game "Gone home" and they, discussed creating non linear experiences in linear environments, and creating realistic feeling environments by using iconic images that people associate with a given space. In other words to create a child's bedroom, it may be too time consuming to create every asset one might see in entering the room of a real life child, but by modeling a teddy bear, and having a bed, the age of the child starts to become a given, and the rooms purpose is also expressed; simply with two assets.

This night many of the more experienced CAs came together and provided portfolio reviews and resume critiques to those who may be looking for work. There was discussion on how to best present oneself, and even a bit of talk on how to shake hands with potential contacts. Some of us were warned that QA can be a black hole in some places, being a void where many aspiring developers cannot find a foothold to get out and grow, and we agreed overall that cover letters are a universal annoyance for most- including recruiters.
 It was explained that sometimes, a form of... creative lying.... may be necessary, but to think of it as lying isn't the best look on the idea. An interview is a game, and if the game isn't played, the interviewee becomes a victim, not an asset to a company. so if one responds to a call by saying "I need to check my availability for this month, I am booked solid," Knowing full well there is nothing going on for them this month, much less this week; it isn't lying so much as it is doing what is necessary to be wanted and appreciated.

Branding was also brought up as a reminder that we are always promoting our personal brand. every action we do affects our personal brand. we were advised to buy our domain names and get professional emails. If someone is asked what others think of them, it shouldn't be a question one responds to with shrugged shoulders but rather an answer given with confidence, knowing they have sculpted the vision that others see of their brand.

My GDC experience 2015 Chapter: 01

This year, I was granted the opportunity to attend the game developers conference (GDC) in San Francisco: a week long, inspiring, possibly life changing event. Not only was I going to an Event where developers of all different focuses, levels of experience, from all around the world were congregating, I was going to be working the event as one of the "ask me I can help" neon shirted conference associates (CA), which only added to this possibly once in a lifetime experience.

First and foremost, this was my first time going to California, my first time going to the city of San Francisco, my first GDC, My first time staying in a hostel, my first of many things. It was a Process, one in which I took a single step at at time.

Checking my carry on into luggage because I was on a full fight flight, it was time for the adventure to begin.

My flight itinerary included a layover in atlanta Georgia, and as the plane passed over the sprawling landscape of the world below, I looked out of the window to see foreign grey masses of trees reaching up to the heavens. What types of trees were these, I asked myself, as we descended closer. They blanketed the georgia landscape with such consistency, yet none could be seen while in Florida.
It was only while landing that I came to realize, my two years living in Florida had made me forget that being as I was traveling at the end of february, it was still winter in most places, and what I was staring at puzzled was the barren trunks and branches of leafless trees.
Florida spoils its residences.

From Atlanta to San Francisco I was looking at a five hour plus flight, but luckily a selection of in flight movies were available, so I spent the Time charging my phone, napping, and watching the movies birdman, 21 jumpstreet, and 22 jumpstreet. I am now more versed in pop culture references. Thank you in flight movies.


So now the fun would be beginning. I was officially a stranger in a strange land. Waiting for my bag to come around on the luggage pick up, is always a scary experience, because if your bag doesn't come around the bend, you get to spend time away from home wearing only one set of clothing, hoping you don't smell too bad as you run out of creative methods to re-ware a single pair of undergarments, while all the clothes you painstakingly packed into the tiniest spaces imaginable, go on an adventure themselves. With every passing second, and every bag I saw go past me to its rightful owner, this seemed like the more feasible reality, until with a wave of relief I saw my bag come violently down the chute.
Grasping the handle to my bag, I left the airport with some fellow travelers from school, where we hopped onto a shuttle, from lorries shuttle service, and were whisked off into the evening night air, of San Francisco.


The hills are real.
Don't go to San Francisco with a good pair of walking shoes. If you know nothing else, know this. The famous hills of San Francisco are a reality. You will walk up and down 30 degree hills that extend of hundreds of feet. This is not something just made up for sonic games and animated films.

After unpacking, in a mostly empty hostel, I went for a walk to go find food with the earlier mentioned fellow travelers from school. We found a nice sushi place, not too far away, where we didn't order any sushi at all. We ate, laughed, paid for our food and went back to our various hotels. The next day would be my first experience with Moscone Center- the place where GDC would happen.



So me and my fellow hostel dwellers traveled out early on Sunday morning to register for the event. The hostel lifestyle truly wasn't too bad. Initially I was frightened, especially when the man below my bunk, proceeded to violently play the butt trumpet as I was unpacking my bags, but I slept well, and then found that in the morning, rather than traveling alone I was able to travel with a dozen other CAs all going to the same place. We were immediately bonded, and could call each other at the very least associates, if not friends, simply from being in the same situation. As well, spending only 250 dollars for a week long stay in San Francisco wasn't too bad at all.

So on Sunday, as CAs, we would register for our Conference badges, and some of my fellow CAs would bag stuff. I personally would not. I spent my day becoming acquainted with the layout of the rather massive Moscone center- a three building, three floored center, that would house the game developers for the next 5 days.
After getting my badge in moscone north, I then went back to the CA lounge in moscone west (remember three buildings) where I began some networking.




Networking may sound like a scary term, but in this case it meant playing card games, and basically being the geek I already am. For anyone who has never played a card game called Boss Monster, I say you should give it a try. It's pretty fun. Though I also came no where near winning.
If games like Boss monster seem scary, just touch up your skills in a little game known as Cards against humanity, since I also spent a good deal of time getting to know people's darker sides through that game.



After a few rounds of card games, a pit stop a a chipotle, literally acrossed the street from the event, and getting milkshakes at a wonderful dinner, named mel's, it was time for CA, orientation. For anyone just attending the conference, not working it, this would be pretty boring for me to explain, but For those luckily enough to have been granted the title of conference associate, this was the beginning of being welcomed into a new family, that you never knew you were missing, but struggle to imagine a life without.
This involved a run down of the key players making this event possible,  discussing what was expected of us as people working the event, success stories of prior CAs in the industry,  and basic training on job related tasks, including but not limited to using scanners, and various badge types.  Most importantly there was a guide on how to hug. Because hugs can be important, but must be done right.
From here I played my first round of witch hunt (I am not a witch) which would become a running theme through my nights as a CA, and then went to bed eager to start my time as a CA, and ready to attend GDC.