Monday 16 August 2010

New House: First Floor and Stairs

Showed my sister Yvette and her friend Shannon what I've done so far.

Yvette used to love play Tomb Raider when she was little, and she is loving seeing our house take shape on a computer. Haha.

I haven't actually done any UV maps yet, and there aren't any windows. I've just applied a texture in Unity to help you see where the walls are as you wander around. Gotta say, it's looking a lot tidier than my actual house.

We have a lot of random stuff in our house, this shot doesn't really do it justice..

I think Yvette said she wants me to put Lara Croft into it, so she can run around shooting stuff in a place that looks like our house. Cough... although... I don't think I can really deny the fun in the idea..

Friday 13 August 2010

New House: Ground Floor

Here's how the ground floor looks so far:

The First Floor will probably be trickier because of the angles of the roof.. I'm thinking I'll model the First Floor separately then put them together later. Haven't actually finished modelling the ground floor, still need to raise the internal walls, do the windows, the actual floor and the ceiling. And then after the modelling there's the UV map... and then texturing...

I wonder who will finish the place first, me virtually or my dad for real.

Thursday 12 August 2010

Nerd It Up

Soon after the last post, I went to my dad and asked him if he knew where a microscope was. I knew he had one, turns out he has two, and within the hour I was peering through the eyepiece at some mould I'd scraped off my bedroom door.

I'm so glamorous.

And now, I'm thinking about illustrating science.


If there is anything that Bill Bryson has made clear to me in his book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, it's that despite how much humans have learned, there is still a lot out there left for us to learn. Even the stuff we do know is a bit foggy. Whether it's illustrating species, explaining phenomenon, or presenting theories, there's always something to do. Which means... I'll always have something to draw.

Here's some I did earlier. What do you think?

I think I like painting bugs and stuff. One time, when I was younger, I painted a snail with nail varnish to make him pretty.

Maybe I'll utilise my CGD skillz to create interactive informative stuff. It doesn't even have to be interactive stuff, I could model skeletons, or draw bugs, or do cartoony learning aids like I would do for myself back in school...

Just an idea. In other news, I've actually now gotten my dad to give me the plans and elevations for our house as it will look when he's finished the extension. So, as soon as I've had some food, because I am very hungry, I'm going to get to work on them and start building the place up in Maya.


Monday 9 August 2010

Feng Shui the mould away! [This has nothing to do with Games.. yet?].

I don't know why, but ever since I was little I've been a little into astrology, zodiacs, fortune telling, faeries, runes, and all kinds of old mystical stuff. The human imagination is a fascinating thing. I should probably start a research blog about it, since I return to it so often. I wonder how many people actually make a comfortable living off of it. Anyways, recently I've been focusing on Chinese Astrology, with it's Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches and Yin and Yang and Five Elements and Feng Shui and Four Pillars of Destiny.


It's a lot more complex and interesting than the Chinese Restaurants would suggest, where most people only ever come into contact with a list of 12 Animals. I'm not saying I believe in any of it, but I'd like to sometimes. Probably because I enjoy [and therefore spend so much time] reading about it...

As for Games stuff: Not done a lot. I have been pining away for uni because I miss the lifestyle, and my room here is horrible, cold and mouldy [literally]. I reckon my recent obsession with Feng Shui is just part of my drive to get rid of the mould. The sister I share my room with deals with the mess much the same way as I've read scientists in the past have dealt with strange phenomenon they can't explain: She ignores it. Instead of trying to minimise as much as possible the kind of environment mould loves, she buries her nose in a biology textbook and pretends it doesn't exist. But look what it does to my boots after only a week spent under the bed!!


The picture doesn't do it justice well, but they're supposed to be plain grey. I was raging. My sister probably doesn't care much because most of her stuff hasn't been that badly affected, and she doesn't want to have to do anything about it. I think I'd be more forgiving if she wapped out a powerful microscope now and then to examine the stuff that's started growing on the sides of the furniture, but alas, no...

Maybe I'll tell her that if she gets a microscope, I'll get a telescope and we can share them between us.. At least it would give me more stuff to look at in the RL, and she can feel more like a real scientist.