End of May update!

SUP!.. It has been a long time since I have 'blogged'. Here are my biggest updates since September.

Q.U.B.E got released on Steam
Look! I'm in credits hur hur hur! I honestly didn't do that much with this game.. I was asked a lot to do scripting tasks which isn't part of my skill-set.. I was working on a cool hologram like effect but they decided to drop it =( Still though, I have met good contacts during my time with these guys!!

Look! I am beside Valve! =)

I left Spiral Game Studios
I mainly left due to a build up of university work and had to prioritise! I was sad to leave but I got over it...


Degree has finished
Yeee haaah! After four long years of long late nights I have finally finished my degree. By July I should have a Masters in Computer Engineering. Like I mentioned in September, my thesis was going to be on a "Customisable Character System" for a games engine! I finished this and managed to score a fat 82%. The video below is the technical demonstration of my project:

As well as this! Our games creation group made a game for the charity organisation 'Water for Africa'. It's a management game and can be played on the following link:

Water for Africa Management Game

Lastly, an environment piece I made using Zbrush, Max and UDK! I could have done soo much better for this and I'm not sure on how I will do for it!

Orion: Dino Beatdown released
Spiral Games title which I worked on got released! Unfortunately it was extremely buggy on release! I would have prevented that! ;) but it's getting there with patches! Check it out on the steam store.

Updated my portfolio
I have yet again changed my portfolio website, design wise and content.

Pixel Maniac


Got a contract offer from Digital Arrow Studios as a Technical artist

A nice group of developers wanted me to join their project doing techy things in Unreal however I had to decline their offer due to something else I got into!!!!! (Below!)


Got into Dare to Be Digital 2012
Me and some friends got into an amazing project called Dare to be Digital! Instead of telling you about it, watch this video!

Definitely cannot wait till this starts! We submitted our video pitch however got very lucky when they "lost" our application but reviewed it and let us through to the next stage. We then had to go to Sheffield for a presentation and question session which went amazing! No bad comments or feedback at all! They mentioned a few really positive ideas so we look forward to adding them! I'm in a team with four other people including:

Alastair, Aggressive Team leader - Level Design and 2D flash art
Bradley 'Auzzie' Austin - Programming and game design
Heather 'Twitter Bitch' Cooper - Programming and game design
Steven 'Geordie' Daord - 3D art

So all is well with that and I can't wait to tell more when I get to Dundee!!

September Update

Hey guys! Again, it's been a long time since I've done a blog update!

So what's new?

I've continued to work heavily with Spiral Game Studios and been making a massive impact on their game "Orion: Prelude" and have been offered a studio job. Here is some recent progress of the game!

Note that Spiral Games have recently been at GamesCom and PAX! Was very busy times for our CEO..

I have now moved back to England to finish my university masters degree so hopefully that goes smooth along with my work with Spiral.. My main masters project will be based on creating a customisable character creation system for UE3 and I will post updates later in the year on that!

Game creator "Dan Da Rocha has asked me to create the outro cut scene for the up-comming puzzle game Q.U.B.E, so I also look forward to that =)

That's it really! I also have two new blogs, one on the spiral game studios forums and one on the game dev forum! Links are below..

http://spiralforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1876

http://www.games-dev.com/forum/topic/2498-scotts-tech-blog/page__fromsearch__1

2 months later

I just wrote my entire blog and the iPad decided to refresh the page :/ loosing everything.

So what's changed since my last update?

I'm now back in rainy Ulster with no hope of full time work :( out of the 8 or so studios I applied to, I only heard back from one, and that was a decline. On a happier note, I got my university results and passed with flying colours leaving only one year left to complete (postgraduate level)!

Work wise, I'm fixing computers for the locals which gets me some drink money but im also working for two indie companies:

Toxic Games - QUBE



Spiral games - Orion Prelude



Both are great projects and I get to use a lot of the UDK :D doing things from creating crazy creature rigs to implementing in game elements and features. Hopefully these projects will last until the end of the year which will give me some good industry experience for my CV and portfolio.

I haven't been doing much to my personal website, but very soon I will be doing a major overhaul including more recent work and a "prettier" layout.

Huzzah! I am blogging

I have began the journey towards the "Tech Side"

So I have recently finished my 3 three degree in computer games design at Staffordshire University! It has been a long struggle but it feels good. I handed the last of my work in on Tuesday and now awaiting my grades =) hoping to do well but time will tell...

I have been recently thinking upon my role within the games industry and some people have suggested "Scott, you love all the techy stuffs, why don't you become a technical artist". At first I thought... Rigging, scripting "Bleeeh". After lots of research and looking into the role of a technical artist, I have decided to start learning more tech related things.

I have pretty much completed my website: http://www.pixelmaniac.co.uk and feel quite happy with it, although us artists shall never be happy >.< -

With my website completed I have began to look into the power of the script. I looked at an awesome website that a senior lecturer linked me: http://www.scriptspot.com/ I managed to download a complete collection of Maxscript videos called MaxScript 101 by John Wainwright, they were good but very hard to follow as I have little prior scripting experience.

From there I decided that I would make a script that would quickly prepare a game mesh for exporting to engine. I scripted a sequence that would reset pivot points and then move it to the very bottom Z point. Then it would reset Xforms and collapse the stack. For me it works perfectly and worked each time, unless you somehow manage to screw up the meshes rotation pivot. I have released this first build called 'Mesh Prep' and it can be downloaded from my website as well. http://www.pixelmaniac.co.uk/maxscript/MeshPrep.ms I have used MacroScript so that it can be installed on the toolbar and so on =)

Final thing to mention is that I have been really busy applying for jobs and hopefully will hear back within a week or so from various studios in the UK. Fingers crossed.