King Tutlr

That is a picture of a new character I'm working on. I actually made that the other day after a couple hours of screwing around in Zbrush. I haven't had a chance to continue working on it, but it should be pretty cool when it's done. There are a lot of new ideas for stuff I want to model and things around me are starting to change which is giving me a boosted work ethic.

I've started making a LOT of prop models for Vteractive's Facebook game Questinations. They are all up on my website on the props page. We're breaking into the Easter stuff now so I have some eggs and baskets to make next. I also finally finished that mobile crane for Flaming Brain studios. Speaking of which, Flaming Brain has just redone their site and it's looking pretty snazzy, so check that out.

I'm going to spend the rest of this entry venting about the gaming news site Kotaku. Kotaku is a site that I love because it gives gaming news in a fun way. It "was" easy to read, very simple, and had people that are passionate about what they are writing about. But in recent months, the site has gone through a lot of changes. The visual changes to the site are very different, but that kind of thing I can get used to. What I'm a little upset with is the changing in the actual articles. I don't know if they have always been like this, or if I'm just getting older and starting to think about things more. I'm going to make mention of a couple in particular that bothered me.

The first comes from the writer Stephen Totilo and the article is called 'A Plea For Games To Grow Up". Stephen was at GDC this week and he walked into a presentation by David Cage (founder of the company Quantic Dream and creator of Heavy Rain among other games). Totilo explains how he started listening to Cage before dismissing the speech as "information he already knew" and so he moved on to another presentaion across the hall that interested him more. This is perfectly fine in my opinion. I probably would have done the same thing if another panel interested me more, but Totilo explains how he returned to Cage's presenation and found that it was a pretty moving speech. People were all abuzz on Twitter about how great it was, and so Totilo felt he had made the wrong choice by skipping out on the speech. He tries to make up for the fact that he missed it at the end of his Kotaku article, but honestly, there is no reason to, and I don't really care anyway. I understand that you are upset and a little embarassed that you missed the speech, but then why even add any of that to the article? Why not just report on what it was that Cage talked about and leave the rest out? Is that so hard? You shouldn't be so hard on yourself anyway, Totilo, because I think you were right in your original accusation: that the speech was all information you've heard before. I think you are just overcome by peer pressure.

Another article that I read just this morning is called "Why All The Call Of Duty Hate?" and it's written by Mike Fahey. This article takes the cake. The last one was just a little irriating, but this thing just angered me. Fahey talks about Call of Duty (CoD) and how people "hate" on it for no reason. He even goes as far to say that "In my honest opinion, I think these comments are because, well, they are horrible at the game." Fahey actually blames haters of the game because they "aren't good at it". Are you fucking kidding me? That is a response that a 14 year old would make. The fact of the matter is, everyone has their opinion, so Fahey can say whatever he wants, but belittling the people that play games, people who don't like the games that you like, and the readers of your own articles is a pretty shitty way to be a journalist.

People like Mike Fahey are the reason I don't like to play shooters. Not because I'm "not good at them". Not because they are or aren't "the same thing every time". Because assholes like Mike Fahey are fans of them and then spout off on professional web blogs about how shitty everyone else is because they don't like the same things he does. Grow up, ya big poop face.

And while I'm on the topic of poop-faces. Go to my friend Reuben's blog: http://reubnick.wordpress.com/
This kid is about 6 years younger than me, but he writes like a pro (and not really a poop-face). I only wish I could write blogs well as he does.

Maybe then someone would actually read this one........

Get it Get it

Here is a render of the mobile crane I've been working on for Flaming Brain Studios. This image depicts the low poly model with the normals, AO, and base colors applied. I've had a rough go with the normal map projections, but I believe they are cleaned up well enough to work. I'm sure by the time the initial diffuse map is completed, I will have fixed up the normals as well as the AO more thoroughly. I expect this model and all of its maps to be completed in the next few days. At the same time I am working on a handful of models for Vteractive's current Facebook game, Questinations. Once I get the next set of those completed, I will throw up some renders of them as a group.

Other than modeling, I have been doing some digital painting as well as reading. If you may not know, the new season of Power Rangers debuts this Monday on Nick. They are trying to promote the new series using Facebook and have been holding fan art contests as well as other ploys to draw attention to the new show. And considering how every single piece of art submitted has either been a poorly photoshopped version of an image, a copyrighted piece of artwork, or just a really bad fan creation, I've been trying to make something pretty cool. I have about 14 hours into this painting and it's sure to be bad ass. However, by the time it's done, the new show will have premiered, and for all I know, the facebook page will cease with all of its promotional antics. But oh well.

My last post was about my hatred towards the videogame world, which is ironic because that is where I'm trying to succeed career wise. I don't want people to view me as a hater of videogames or something like that, I just hate the way ALL of the media portrays the genre. Last night on the Colbert Report, they had Jane McGonigal come on and talk about the state of the videogame world and how it should be viewed by the public. She attempted to "enhance" the image of gaming in the public eye, which is understandable. She wrote a book and talked about how videogames make people more productive, give people confidence and have better lasting effects on a person than most would think. Ultimately she told the world that she wanted more people to be playing games and playing them for longer periods of time during the week. She spoke about how they are making games to teach problem solving, games that work towards solving world crisis, and games about working to cure cancer.

I understand the whole problem solving thing, but I really have no idea what she is talking about when it comes to curing cancer and that kind of stuff. I probably have to read her book in order to fully grasp what she was saying, but what it all comes down to, is that she (as well as others) are trying to change the image of videogames in a more positive way. And although I like that idea, I don't think making videogames about curing cancer is the right idea. Video games are FUCKING GAMES. They are made for entertainment. They are made for fun. You can talk about how videogames are helping to solve the problems going on in Egypt all you want, but the other day I watched a video of a 10 year old falling off a subway platform because he was playing PSP and wasn't looking where he was going. No kid is going to purchase a cancer curing game. They want something fun. Sometimes, mindless entertainment.

Videogames are a form of entertainment created for the enjoyment of people. Nobody needs to make them into some world saving tool. They are GAMES. Let them be GAMES. Society is going to hate them regardless and I'd rather have people hate them for being violence inducing weapons then think they are some kind of life changing tool created to help the world, because that's just dumb. The fact is, any videogame is bad if you spend a majority of your day sitting on the couch playing it. It's the same with television. It's the SAME THING. Don't make it into something it's not. Comic books were under fire when they first arrived on the scene, but i don't believe anyone strove to make them into manuals on fighting cancer. They are stories with pictures. Just like videogames are stories with controlled movements and flashy graphics. It's all the same.

That's not to say games and comics alike can't have stories that push people to think about world events or science, because they can and have. But they are created for entertainment first. It's all entertainment. Society needs to just deal with it, and I belive that they will. In about 30 years, videogames will take their place as just another entertainment medium alongside movies, music, tv, comics, and theater. I don't really think we have to fight it. We just need to stand up and reassure people what videogames actually are, and keep reassuring them over and over and over and over again.