Returning to my Roots

July 14, 2008

They say all good things must come to an end. Such is true for my one week of summer vacation. It was brief, yet enjoyable. Got to celebrate my birthday with my family, eat grilled food and lots of potato salad, and also take the usual trip to Tulsa. It's a pity that it was so short, but I'm complaining too much. The school is giving me a bachelor's degree in less than two years, so this time next year I'll be out of school. But that's a story for another day.

As you may recall, last month began my two month long journey through the wonders of Flash. Last month focused primarily on Flash as it pertains to design, teaching us the interface, motion tweens, and just a hint of ActionScript. This month, however, is dedicated to nothing but ActionScript. To demonstrate these "newly acquired skills" our final project consists of making a game.

Now, I put "newly acquired" in quotes for a reason. For anybody who's frequented this blog long enough you should know by now that I am, or at least used to be, heavy into coding. Because of this I have an unfair advantage over the rest of the class in this regard and as such I am taking my project to ridiculous extents (far above the scope of the course). The nice thing, though, is that the instructor actually acknowledges the fact that I am as proficient as I am, so much so that I took the place of the lab instructor for one day (whilst the real one was waiting in line for his iPhone 3G). Being able to talk to the instructor about geeky stuff as equals is a nice departure. But, enough ego stroking, about the actual project itself.

I chose to challenge myself and create essentially a dumbed down clone of Street Fighter, but be completely extensible through external configuration files. The first thing I avoided was the use of graphics inside Flash itself opting instead to load sprite sheets from external sources. Everything is configured through XML sheets that define how a character should react, define where animations are within a sprite sheet, stages, etc. Amazingly, I've achieved most of this and all very, very quickly. The biggest problem I foresee is the addition of enemy AI, but I've got ideas on how to achieve this as well. Overall, though, I'm loving being back at the helm of the coding ship. I'd forgotten how much of a thrill can be derived from hours of typing if statements and nested for loops. Damn, it's good to be back.

It's Super Awesome Vacation Time!

June 25, 2008

Summer is here, and with it vacation. Unfortunately for us Full Sailors, we only get about a week of summer vacation (I get ten days because all my classes let out early). However, that's not to say I'm not going to take advantage of the time off. Quite the contrary. Tomorrow I will be heading back to the good old midwest and chill with my folks. It's been over half a year since I've seen them, so I'm definitely looking forward to going back. I'm especially looking forward to potato salad. Mmmmmm....

Interestingly enough, tomorrow is also one year from my graduation. It hardly seems like I've been here for nine months, but there it is. It probably helps that I'm usually pretty busy and that most of this is pretty fun. Though, I will admit, Flash was pretty boring. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed working on my projects, but they were small enough that I finished pretty quickly. And the last half of the course was a beginners guide to programming, something that I really don't need. So, while I did try to do more advanced things than what the project originally called for, there wasn't a whole lot of room to flex my muscles, as it were. You can check out my final project here. Yes, it is an homage to egoraptor's series of awesomeness (who I had the great pleasure of helping recently). My other class this month was 3D modelling. That class was a lot of fun. The teacher was cool, the project was fun; I just enjoyed the entire class. I'll have my final project up on YouTube sometime soon.

In other news, I have begun and am about half way through animating a real Flash cartoon, one which will be entitled Phoenix Awesome. I hope to have it up on Newgrounds sometime over break.

Well, that's about everything. I'll leave you with my MGP final project which I never actually posted on here. Enjoy

Updates and what not

May 7, 2008

It seems that since I began school this blog has gotten more and more deserted. I was reading through old entries last night and I feel that things may be beginning to get empty. So, here I am once again poring forth my soul into the void that is known as the internet.

Last month ended my two month journey that was motion graphics. I am sad to have to leave these classes as I seem to have found my calling in mograph. To be frank, I had way too much fun and I probably created my best work ever in those two months. Of course, just because I'm not in the class doesn't mean I won't be dropping it and forgetting about it. No, I plan on doing small projects through out school that I can dump into my demo reel down. Even now I am working on a small advertisement for a friend. After that, there's a Dockers "make your commercial and have it aired on TV" contest that I'm thinking of entering. The more I can get my work out there, the more chance I have of going immediately into the industry after I graduate.

But enough dwelling on the past (or the future), and let us reflect on the present. This month I have probably what is going to be the easiest class off all time: web development. For anybody who doesn't know me personally, I've been involved in web dev for going on eight years. All that YPN stuff and what not. Of course, for those of us who are already fluent in web dev they're going to try to get us to use modern and clean coding practices (tableless design, emphasis on CSS, etc). Oh, wait. I already do all that. I feel like a jerk talking about this class like it's useless crap, but it's really not their fault. However, I don't want to be talked down to as if I know nothing or am new to the whole web stuff. As with most technologies I've taught myself, I not only learn forwards, but backwards as well. I'm well versed in tricks of old as well as new. Alright, enough of that borderline ego stroking.

My other class, which I haven't actually attended yet, is, or will be, developmental psychology. I really don't know what this class has in store for me, but at the very least it should be more interesting than web dev.

Today, I got to get my feet wet in the field of game testing. EA's Tiburon division, which develops most of their sports titles, resides just seven small miles from my house. Once or twice a month they bring people in to do a couple hours of game beta testing in exchange for a free game. I've been on the mailing list since December after Ian Cummings, lead director of the Madden series, put in a recommendation for me after reading my Rock Band drums post. Of course, that was for a full-time job doing game testing, but being a full-time student as well these two hours sessions were the next best thing. But, I digress.

Anyways, I got to go to the EA building, which I must say is very, very nice looking. I even got to sign a non-disclosure agreement that forbids me from telling anybody what I played or what I saw. Kind of cool, actually. I will say, I enjoyed what I played and the best part of all is I obtained myself a free copy of Command & Conquer 3 for PC. I haven't actually installed or tried the game yet, but I'll probably post something when I do.

Well, I suppose that about wraps things up for now. I'll be putting up a post about my final project for motion graphics soon (currently waiting on something). Oh, and for all those tiny little updates be sure to check out my Twitter account. I've also placed a convenient little box above the RSS feeds that shows my latest tweet. Until next time, keep your staplers running.

Full Sail for Girls

April 15, 2008

Not going to put a whole bunch of useless text on this one, however I will explain things a bit. This is yet another project for motion graphics. The criteria on this one was to create a commercial for a demographic outside of my own. So, I decided to market Full Sail to women (because we don't have near enough). Enjoy.

A Little Motion Graphics to Bring Out the Nostalgia

April 3, 2008

I've wrapped up my first month of motion graphics (MGR), and with it I finished my sixth month of school. Hard to believe it's already been half a year. Time does fly when you're having fun. But that's hardly why we're here.

For MGR, our final project was to create a magazine layout and thirty second animation for a product, service, etc. I had a few ideas for mine before settling on something that was close to me: Crayola crayons.

I've never really touched much on my artistic background, but I've always had a box of Crayons crayons handy. I can remember buying crayons with my birthday money (it was the only time I ever had any) many times. Also, whenever we'd take a trip to visit my grandparents I'd always be drawing stuff with a bowl of crayons that my Grandma would set out. Even now, sitting next to me on my desk is a box of 64 Crayolas, and they're not unused either. And, for the record, those other brands aren't really crayons. Crayola's have a distinct smell, texture, and feel that has not been duplicated by anybody else. I don't mind spending a little extra for them. Upon opening the box and getting a whiff, I am suddenly a little kid, lying on the floor doodling and day dreaming away as only the innocent can.

But, enough of the schmaltzy stuff. Before you can watch the video you must see the ad. It kind of sets the mood.



And, now, for the coup de gracie. Enjoy!

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