My Varsity Final Project:Test level

So, as in all games we need a playable level.
Now this didn't need to be this completed but we wanted to give the Artist and the Musician a platform in which they can get a feel for what they will be working with.

I spent two days researching and prototyping level design and on the third day I pitched a "final" level to the team and they liked it. The level was done in Blender.

Note: the player controller is just the basic physics Unity FPV controller with the VR weapon...I needed something for the player to play with. How even...I do have a bit of a bug where if you run straight into the wall at high speed, there is a chance that you'd get stuck. An odd way to get out is turn to face the wall, walk back and fire the weapon.

Pictures:

Note: if you get stuck, and cant get free...just reload the page (the files should be buffered). Bad fix...but this is only a level demo. And yes, we know...getting stuck is frustrating.

So, that is the state of the level till thus far. Will do an update again on when I get the locomotion of the VR player down or the Artist/Musician delivers something.

Stage 2: VR prop                                                                                                                      Stage 4: Conclusion

Insurgency (Short Review)

Recently I've been spending a lot of time playing Insurgency (a standalone version of the HL2 mod). It was part of a Humble Bundle a while back (even though I bought it before that on Early Access on Steam).

It's a modern FPS shooter...so many of you are probably going "eugh, not another one" right about now. But what I find is a nice change of pace in this is its' approach too the whole 'modern' thing. Sure it's still generic murica' vs taliban isk vibe, but what it lacks in the area of setting originality if makes up for solid mechanics.

"But you said it's a FPS...I mean how hard is it too make solid FPS mechanics?" you might ask, well let me break it down for you.

-It's unforgiving. That's right, unforgiving. Why? Because it takes 1 bullet too the dome or 2 chest shots with practically any weapon.
-The is no HUD (Heads up display) other than where the objective is and mebe your team mates marker (if they are close enough). That also means no ammo counter (only mag count), so be careful
and count them bullets. Also reloading a half full mag doesn't through left over bullets in a bullet pool...that half a mag stays there until you use it again (I've had where I had like 3 half mags mid firefight...not a pleasant experience)
-Heavy emphasis on team work and communication.
-Visually not ground breaking, but very nicely well polished. Also even if in the event of frame drop, the game still feels smooth so you hardly notice it.

Its kinda like half way between Counter Strike and Arma.

All in all a very pleasant experience. I'd give it an 8.5/10.
(Recommended for those who prefer some tactile game-play, without having to remap 4 keyboards just too move around, above the run and gun COD games)


If you like this kind of review and like too see more let me know. Also If you'd like too comment on where I can improve, by all means let me know, I'd be very grateful..

Lightpack: Ambient Lighting system

I can haz a new toy.

This my friends is something I've been looking at for a while. Hell, I even started learning basics of electronics to try and DIY this...well, Lightpack kinda made that unnecessary.

"What is it", you might ask, simple my dear Watson. It's is a Ambient Lighting system.

Ambient Lighting system? Jip. What this does is detect the colours at the edges of your screen and then projects these colours onto the wall with very bright RGB LED's (I've set mine to 25 ms between updates), essentially extending your screens effective display area(well...not completely, more of a colour bleed). This reduces the sudden change in contrast between the screen and, well, everything else behind it. This in turn makes it less straining on your eyes to work/play on the screen. Not only that but it makes things feel more "immersive" and just looks bloody cool.


Now that class session is done, lets get to the juicy part...THE UN-BOXING!!!

Package all the way from China. (had to wait for a month for this, because my country's postal services are currently having a fun little strike)

All neatly packed, with some writing on the back of the box (In 5 languages, English, German, Spanish, Chinese and Russian)

The black box opens up from the center revealing all the components and an user manual. Parts include: Base station, 10 led light strip wire thingies, USB connector cable, power brick with 3 interchangeable prongs(so this should work no matter which country you live in) some organizing things + cable ties and extra double sided tape.

User manual, "Quick" Install guide

Ooooh, pretty diagrams

Pretty much the only reason why I bothered to look at the manual...I mean, just look at that thing  o_O

The LED Wire/Strip thingy. It's quite long, so this SHOULD work for most screen sizes.

Stuck everything to the back of my 21' (laying everything out just like the manual said).

The "Cleanup" block I was talking about

Nice and "organized"

Once done you can't even see that it has this thing attached to it.

So after I downloaded, installed and ran the setup or the driver/program, I gave it a go.
I tested it with video and games, and worked pretty well with both. Note, if you are planning to play games with this make sure your run it in border-less mode, full screen doesn't seem to work, also know that the higher you put up the refresh rate the more of a performance knock you'll experience (as it does a screen grab every set amount of ms).

A test on my system (a video, mirrors edge and bf4).

Sorry about a) no sound, only had headphone so phone couldn't hear it b) Image quality and stability...it's hard to play and record a video with your phone c)me being bad at Mirrors Edge

Interestingly enough, the Lightpack system can run tandem with more than one...so I you are fortunate enough to have a monster sized screen , you can do something like the following (using 2 Lightpack's)

All in all, I'm very pleased with this purchase. I think it's bloody awesome...probably my best bought item 2014

More details about the Lightpack can be found on their website: http://lightpack.tv/

Any question, suggestions or general smack talk is always welcome.

An update (finally)

So someone approached me the other day claiming that a blog needs to be updated regularly with content people want...so I shut him up before he could say anything else, but not before he got me started thinking.
I really Haven't update this thing in a long while, let me see...6 months and 2 days ago, without any advancement on that project...oops.

Now I can't promise that my updating will become better, but I will do my dammest, it's not like I've been doing nothing...Iv;e just bee doing less. When they (some randoms) said that varsity will be hard work...i didn't believe them =/

Any how, back to What I have done, lets see...

First up is some digital drawing/practising I did
Yuri from street fighter

I also did a logo/emblem thing for my local table top/rpg/larp thingy

Also did a few posters for my varsity's anime and gaming society

And a few other posters...but i don't have the rights to post those (some free lance work)

Also did some channel art for a friends YouTube channel 

I've also been playing quite a few airsoft games, but still don't have any way of attaching my gopro wannabe cam, sooooo...no footage yet.

Speaking of airsoft, my current project (for the past few months) is upgrading my Tavor (internally and currently externally)

This is how it's gonna look

Being my cqb weapon, camo won't help much, so I decided to make it look awesome.

(Idea was taken from the CS:GO weapon skin Asiimov)

Other than that, not much happened. I've been playing all the games I can get my hands on in my free time (again, didn't do any game recording....no proof).

Anyway, I should probably pay atention in lecture right now, the math lecturer is giving me funny looks.