Ghost in the shell wall painting

A "Quck" little update on a project I'm working on (you know, besides varsity, gaming and the 300+ other projects I never finish xD)

In my room I have this "massive" bare white wall, and for a while I've always wanted to do something on it. However it seems that I have commitment issues or something, because I could never decide on something that I would like to keep there. Then I had an idea, why not do it on canvas, so if I'm tired of it I can just take it down. (brilliant xD)

So, with this new founded 'hazaa', I set of to find a image I would really like on my wall.
Now I really like myself some Ghost in the shell...so why not a painting/picture from that. I started re-watching the series and came upon this scene

And I just had to do this.
So I started with the layout of the canvases (because a large one is expensive...and I had these lying around)

Then, just to get an 'Idea' of the layout, I overlapped the image onto the canvases using Photoshop.

Now excited with how this could possibly look, I pulled away at redrawing the low res image iver onto canvas. Took a while, still needs some touch up but ended up with this.

Used a light blue clutch...this means that trying to get a picture of the sketch visible...kinda hard

Next step would be to start the colouring (painting) in. Stay tuned for updates on those.

Longboard paintjob

So for my brothers birthday I thought I'd surprise him by having his longboard "stolen" and give it back to him on his birthday with a custom paint job. I tried to keep up with pictures as I was making it...so here we go

So I started with taking of the trucks and sanding of the old design (the old art was an attempt of my brothers with which he wasn't to happy with...so me taking it of is fine...right?)

Hand sanding with 100 grit sand paper...fun (took me about an hour)

I then proceeded to think up a design, something my brother would like. So let's see, he is starting high school, likes anime, ninjas, oh and lets not for get girls...aha...light bulb. Anime, ninja, assassin girl....thingy. Now that I have an idea, I started sketching

Started with a light pencil to sketch out the basic concept

Got the design how I liked it, so went over with darker pencil

I then had to start painting...now my experience with traditional painting is nothing short of lacking...so this was going to be interesting. To add to the challenge, I'm strapped for money...so no fancy paint or variety of colours (yes I spell colours with a u). I decided to go with acrylic paint, as it's fast('ish) drying and easy to manage. Due to budget constraints...I had 3 colours; Black and white (they are not colours) and then Red, Blue and Yellow. Prime colours go.

I started with the skin, moved on to the jacket, then the scarf, then pants & top and finally the hair.

So I kinda forgot to take pictures here so the most recent one was approx 1/3 through the painting process.

Started with basic colours and shading

Some more colouring...majority on the face and small details like sword and accessories

 After a few days for touching up here and there, getting the shading down to an acceptable point, I painted the peach blossoms in the background and started the out lining.

The end is nigh

2 days before my brother birthday, I finished it up. As a final touch I signed the bottom of the board (cause...you know...art) and sealed everything in nicely with Rust-Oleum Satin clear lacquer. I re-attached the trucks and waited for D-day.

The final product

 I wasn't there for his birthday (as he had his birthday on a Monday...and I was on campus) but was told he loved it (and was surprised...so success).

All in all, it was an interesting project. Took aprox 2 weeks to do, and the results looks pretty damn interesting (if I may say so myself)

MYO armband (Start of project grasp)

A while ago (about a month give or take) I received this little package

This my friends is the first part to my prosthetic hand project (Yes you heard me, I'm going to attempt to make a prosthetic hand).

It's a MYO motion gesture armband made by Thalmic Labs (link).

Myo motion gesture armband

I'll be using this to read (hopefully) the users muscle contractions and convert that into data which I can hand (hehe..hand, get it?) it over to the prosthetic hand.

Without a further ado, a quick un-boxing:

All nicely snug packing with some bubble wrap.

Once I was able to tear myself away from popping all the bubble-wrap,
I get the first glimpse of the MYO armband in it's very professional packaging.  

Just the back end of the display box/case (yes the orientation is wrong,
 just turn your head 90 degrees....see it as a stretching exercise for your neck)

Whats inside the box?
1x usb dongle, 1x micro usb cable, brace re-sizer (for those with smaller arms)
1x Myo Armband, 1x thank you for purchasing card

The Myo armband (with protective plastic)

Fits nice and snugly (and possibly fashionable as well XD )

Till thus far haven't been able to properly play around and develop with this (Due to varsity gut punching me with tests, assignments, workshops and projects), but from the little I have played with this it seems very promising.

For more details on this product go and check on their website Thalmic Labs (link).

With this I'll be one step closer to beginning the prosthetic hand project (more details and concepts to come)
If you have any question do feel free to ask.

Global Game Jam 2015

Global Game Jam 2015

This past weekend I took part the annual Global Game Jam event.

1. "A game jam is a gathering of game developers for the purpose of planning, designing, and creating one or more games within a short span of time, usually ranging between 24 and 72 hours. Gamedevelopers are generally made up of programmers, game designers, artists, and others in game development-related fields."

This years theme was: "What do we do now".

Diversifiers (Optional conditions):

1. Noise Generator: The mechanic of the game is based on players having to stay in constant communication with each other.
2. Folk: The game uses a folk or indigenous art style of your region.
3. NES: Make the game playable on an old school console, either directly or through an emulator.
4. Wrist Watcher: The game is playable on a smart-watch, or uses wearable technology in some way.
5. Clueless Parents: The game helps kids teach something to their parents or other family members.
6. Batch Job: The game is a batch file from any operating system, using command line tools found in an out of the box installation.
7. Chimera: The game is played partly as a digital and partly as a non-digital (board, card, etc.) game. (we did this Diversifier) 
8. Hyper-Local: The game is set in your town/city and contains elements locals can identify, while still being entertaining for a global audience.
9. Can I Try?: Any spectator of the game automatically becomes a player as well.
10. This is How it Feels: The game raises awareness of how hate speech or unfair accusations feel, and what kind of effect they have on their targets.
11. Stephen Hawking Can Play This: In the game everything (including any menus) can be navigated with one button, without any need for quick / precisely timed presses.
12. Eagle Ear: The game is primarily visual, but is also playable by visually impaired  players, either through audio design, or through a screenreader (VoiceOver, Talkback, JAWS etc).
13. Relatively Speaking: A game based on the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which explained that massive objects cause a distortion in space-time, such as light bending around black holes.
14. Public Domain Class of 2015: Make a game based on the works entered to Public Domain on 1st January 2015 - for instance works of Wassily Kandinsky, Edvard Munch, Edith Sitwell, Piet Mondrian, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Felix Nussbaum, Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti, Glenn Miller, Flannery O’Connor, and Ian Fleming (cough, James Bond, cough), depending on your country.
15. Code for Good (Sponsored by Intel): Make a game with the goal of improving literacy, or inspiring interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

So when this jam started I was like, "I'm not going too code a single line of code. This year I'll be purely art-ing"....I ended up being the only coder in a team of 5.

Anyhow, it was tons of fun, this is what we made.

Augmented reality card game where players play cards to give their beasts weapons and actions. To start the game, each player chooses their character and takes the associated deck. Shuffle the deck and draw three cards each. Each card has an image, description of impact and the energy cost for the card. You cannot play a card if you do not have enough energy to play it. Decide which player will play first and place both creature cards onto the play mat. Player 1 selects one card from his or her hand and plays the card face up on the player mat card slot. The computer will calculate damage and reduce energy. It will then be Player 2's turn to play a card. The game continues until one beast has been reduced to zero health. Note: If a card indicates that you gain or lose defense percentage - this applies for the attack in the very next play of the opposing player. to use AR, ensure you have a decent webcam connect too the system that can see the cards.

GGJ link

The team

Jacques Botha (back middel) - Augmented Reality & Game coder, Project Manager, 3D modelling + rigging + animation, DJ

Ben Geldenhuys (back left) - 2D Art, Creative Metal Direction

Richard Ramsbottom (back right) - 3D modelling & rigging

Megan Hughes (front right) - Card game design

Adam Linder (front middel) - Music

Game screen shots 

Tech demo vid

Augmented tech: Vuforia

All in all it was fun, stressful, hard work and most importantly very very educational (even if we didn't stick to the theme). We as a team are contemplating on maybe continuing developing this game for a few months and see what the results turn out too be.

Senior Scouts Adventure Hike & Christmas project

From the 11th Dec to the 23 Dec I was in the Cederberg....which is here 


This is what I 'had' too wake up to every morning

Terrible right ;P

A panoramic of our site

I was a base Staff on the Senior Scout Adventure Hike (More details on the hike: website). Our base was the Electronics base (The base's website: link). Our goal is/was to introduce the scouts to the wonderful world of electronics and the making there of.

We had 2 activities running at this base, conveniently named Activity A and B. A was compulsory, where B was optional but had a competition (will that too that shortly).

In Activity A each scout received a package with all the necessary components to create a project. This year the made a 3 segmented displayed digital thermometer (with indoor and outdoor temps + min/max). Previous years they made a voice modulator, and a GPS. We then thought them the basics about the components they'd be using and how to solder (It's pronounced SOL-DER, not bloody SOD-DER, anyway). We then put them to work and assisted them as they worked. A wise man once say that if you can fart you can solder...apparently not. The amount of de-soldering we had too do was over 9000. Also I've learned than 90% of people just don't read instruction manuals...who knew?

Activity A tent

Andrew (Base staff member) doing the Activity A Presentation

Scouts working hard on their project

Me working hard on either fixing a scouts project we found was faulty during calibration, or me tinning the 3 meter wire that the scouts need for the outdoor thermometer.

Activity B was all about breadboard'ing (prototyping electrical circuits and reading basic electrical circuit diagrams). Again we started of explaining how the components they will be using work and how too read circuit diagrams. They then had too make a basic press button to make LED shine by reading it off a circuit diagram.

Then we took it a step up and had then make a press button to switch LED off (using a transistor) once everyone completed the first circuit.

Now that they have warmed up, we announce for the 3rd and final circuit we are upping the game...it's competition time.They  had to make a fully functional flashing LED with a 555 IC, LED, capacitors and resistors. First one to make a working one won a over-sized t-shirt (might not sound spectacular...but if you have been hiking for a week a clean shirt was amaze-balls)

Activity B tent

One of the scouts hard at work building his circuit on the breadboard 

Our base leader (Robert...guy with the beard on right) vigorously explaining to the scouts what they are doing wrong

2 of our many winners

Some of the base staff got ever excited

A patrol had between 8 and 11 members in it, we had (I believe) just under 40 patrols come through our base (each spending a total of 3 days and 2 nights with us)...safe too say, we where busy.

Somehow I got nominated as the base's designated 1st aid person, which in it self is not a problem. You'd think the worst I'd deal with is blister from walking and maybe someone deciding to pickup a soldering iron on the wrong end...but alas I was not that lucky. Here in the Cederberg temperatures hitting 40°C walking a common occurrence, that also means that while hiking water is something of a scarcity....see the problem here? So more than once I had too strap on my running shoes and run out a hour hike route under 20 min for dehydration cases. Luckily as the event proceeded the scouts where warned too pack in extra water, so our dehydration cases decreased.

Fun times.

Also, while there my drawing hand stared too itch (that, and I didn't have time too buy my brother a Christmas gift...oops) so I decided I was going to make him something.

He has/had this OC of is, a post-apocalyptic sniper wit a gas-mask (think stalker and you are on the right track)

So I stared off with the sketch:

The sketch

I then had a brain fart...I'm sitting on an electronics base with components such as red LED's, 555 IC's, resistors, transistors, capacitors....see what I'm getting at? No? Take a look at this circuit diagram

Faading LED's....FOR HIS EYES!!! I thought this was brilliant, so with some help of other base staff (who has some more experience soldering small components) I ended up with this:

I then cut out the eyes of the character and covered them with 2 pieces of an Energade (an energy drink) bottles matt-plastic to diffuse the light

The final result had the effect as if the character was breathing, the eyes would glow...looked bloddy awesome (especially in dim light)

Totally not Photoshop'ed gif (because...well I dont have it anymore...it's a gift remember)

Anyhow, going to participate on the Global Game Jam 2015, so stay tuned too see what monstrosity comes out that XD

Cheers

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..

Exams done...now what?

So, my exams are finally done. So i now have a 3 month vacation (SCHWEET XD ).

So this is what I've been doing in my off time till thus far.

- Finished the Tavor repaint

Notes: Had too simplify the design as the paint kept running (even if i masked it off correctly). But happy with the overall result. Next up the fire control system. Here is the painting process: link

- Worked on some weapons for an up and coming project:

Anyhow, any new projects and events I'll keep you posted.