Below are the 17 most recent journal entries recorded in gordon_whyte's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007
12:58 am	Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a Hellspawn? Every now and than I try to convince myself I'm not a talentless, waste of space by drawing something that I think looks cool. This time I decided on Todd McFarlane's Spawn. You've got to feel sorry for Spawn, he spent his life fighting, died, leaving his wife behind and then sells his soul to the devil, goes back to Earth as a hellspawn which is just an ugly, broody, batman/venom ripoff and is forced to live on the street. I feel for the guy. So I drew him. This is the initial sketch: Can you hear me yearning for a graphics tablet? I scanned him, obviously, then went over the lines in Illustrator: And then coloured him in, again in Illustrator in order to retain the nice, smooth vector lines: The background is yet to come. But I'm thinking of a city-scape in Maya. Or perhaps alternate backgrounds. An animated background? We shall see. And now on to some more 3D modelling. Firstly the USS Enterprise from the Original Series of Star Trek (Kirk, Spock, McCoy etc): I started it on the first afternoon of the holidays. Perhaps I'll try to finish it before the end. Next up is a lightsaber handle I made so that my Dad could fiddle with how the lighting fell in one of his crazy three-year-long-process artworks. I'll finish off the textures soon. And finally, is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nuff said. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 5th, 2007
10:26 pm	Adventure Game Development and Ponderings Having been an adventure game junkie since I first set eyes on the beautifully pixelated Melee Island in The Secret of Monkey Island when I was six, I have spent large amounts of time trying to find the best ways to create adventure games of my own. This has led to various types of experimention. The great thing about adventure games is that they're the closest kind of game to an immersive world. 'Better than Life' in Red Dwarf terms. Every detail is written out, descriptions of items, people and locations, thousands of lines of dialogue and endless avenues to explore. They are the only kinds of games I've felt disapointment in when finishing as I wished they'd gone on for longer. The adventure games that I love the most are the classic Lucasarts style adventures, the Monkey Island games, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle etc. I also enjoy the Seirra adventures, primarily Space Quest and Quest for Glory which was able to combine rpg style as well, paving the way for the popular games of today such as Zelda and Final Fantasy. So came the time when I decided I wanted to create computer games of my own using whatever means possible. I began with Hyperstudio on the Mac my father used to bring home from work in the school holidays. Which meant that all of my early adventures were lost, they included a Shadowgate appropriate and an adventure through the streets of Cairo. Hyperstudio was best suited to creating Myst style games, with very little character interaction or inventory the game was more of a maze, which have in turn become hated features of adventure games, while I still enjoy the mazes in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade stumbling around beneath Venice and in the envelope of a Nazi zeppelin. Christmas 1995 allowed me to enter a new stage in the development of adventure games when I recieved Europress's Klik and Play application for Christmas. I admit that the first games I created with this weren't adventures but more arcade style, which are a lot easier to create, especially for an eight year old. It wasn't until years later I began to create my first Monkey Island fangames. Trying to mimic the style of the first two games with the graphics stolen from the third. These games fell apart under the pressure of the engine that I had cobbled together with chewing gum. After playing Chris Ushko's brilliant The Devil's Island and sequel MI2 I began to better understand the use of Klik and Play in the creation of adventure games. Finding a copy of the games factory with its superior interface, options and graphical capabilites helped as well. Then came programming. As an elective in my final two years at high school I decided to take up 'Software Design and Development' for obvious reasons. This really is a great course and introduces programming concepts that I hark back to still. But why did they choose to teach us Visual Basic 6? It is almost impossible to create adventure games with Visual Basic. I tried my best and for my final major project that was submitted at the end of Year 12 I created an adventure game based on a piece of comedy science fiction that I've been kicking around for years. The game had all the aspects of an amateur graphic adventure. Humerous characters, many lines of dialogue and even puzzles, an intergral part of adventure gaming. But there were many setbacks. Objects that were picked up in the play area were not removed, the inventory could be filled with objects which were never deleted even when used somewhere else. The main character didn't even have the ability to walk around the screen. Sure it saved time on tedious walking animations, but the static-ness of the experience made the adventure somewhat stale. So I decided to go back to the Games Factory. And I developed an engine that worked. The only problem was that it would take an age to recreate every rule on every page as the Games Factory has no global capabilities. I started to recreate my Sci Fi adventure. Which brings me to the reason for this long winded introduction: Adventure Game Studio. After playing Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw's fantastic horror/slasher/thriller Trilby/John Defore adventure quadrilogy I decided to look at the tool he'd used to create it. A neat little package called Adventure Game Studio which seems to give the author the ability to recreate a perfect style replica of the classic Lucasarts and Sierra adventures games. Everything seems to be covered down to the way the program seems to convert well-rendered artwork into pixellated goodness. The inventory is easy to manage. Dialogue is created both globally and locally. Rooms are easily linked. It seems to be the perfect tool. I look forward to trying to find a problem with it. Perhaps the drop down menus need to be a little more categorical and the graphics not as pixellated but it is still a great tool. I'm going to recreate my sci fi adventure game with it, starting over the next month and probably not getting as far as I'd like by the time I have to go back to university. The planning stage can almost be the most enjoyable element of creating interactive adventures. I'll post my progress as I go. AGS. I salute you in true Space Troop fashion! Here's an image of how the game has looked in The Games Factory: Links: - The AGS Official Site - Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw's site - Awesome adventure game reference with great forums (Comment on this)
Monday, January 29th, 2007
1:49 am	Some Random Designs Here are a few designs filed under 'Misc'. At least they would be if my computer was that organised. I've created them over the last few months either for assignments or just dabbling and generally faffing about. This friendly fellow is an Alien known as a 'Testiculoid' from my comedy science fiction novel 'Space Base'. These are the 'Daleks' of the Space Troop. I created this as a kind of personal logo combining imagery that I love; skulls, flames and guitars. The only thing missing is a space ship. This logo was for a website, the design of which was changed at the last minute to incorperate more flash elements. I have no idea where this design came from. Probably just the product of a particularly dark evening in. (Comment on this)
1:30 am	X WING FIGHTER I created this X WING Fighter for my final assignment in 3D modelling. I created it from my toy X Wing that I've had since I was 9. This is an earlier rendering with a background that was deemed 'too boring' And a slightly earlier model without rendering: (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 15th, 2006
3:21 pm	In the first week of the Digital Wall design the class appropriated the popular iPod commercials. Members of the class were turned into silhouettes and placed on different coloured backgrounds as shown: Another idea was to have an iPod chord connecting each of the frames: The frames would then shuffle throughout the three refreshes and return to a state of order: The following weeks developed the designs further so that they would cover different objectives that were set in the design brief. My group attempted to show the difference bewteen Architecture and Design Computing. I came up with the idea of showing the Wilkinson Building in a number of different forms throughout the refreshes: a blueprint to represent the architecture component, then two photographic elements followed by a futuristc version of the building which showed Design Computing. These final digital wall designs are as follows: Refresh 1: Refresh 2: Refresh 3: Resfresh 4: (Comment on this)
2:48 pm	I created three alternatives to display for the children's museum. Two were completley disregarded while the other was chosen to be displayed the following week. The chalk board design and the space design were not deemed appropriate. The electrical design was the one chosen to be presented at the end. The designs were: (Comment on this)
Monday, May 15th, 2006
2:36 pm	In this weeks design brief we were required to create a Navigation Bar that would be posted on the DECO1100 website rather than the plain text version that was currently there. I came up with three different designs each based on the different design excercises that we had already completed. The final design I submitted is as follows: I used different images from the lettermark excercise completed previously in semester and used three different icons for each of the options on the menu; a book for the syllabus, the Louvre for the gallery of design excercises and a Camera for photos. These were rollover buttons that changed when the user moved the mouse of the top of the images. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 18th, 2006
10:52 am	Image To Tell A Story This is my first design in which I tried to tell a story with an image: (Comment on this)
Friday, April 7th, 2006
12:51 pm	Tolerance Poster This weeks design was to create a poster that would be placed in a bus stop for passers by to notice. The poster had to be A1 in size and be on the topic of 'tolerence'. No requirements were stipulated apart from the compulsory word 'TOLERANCE' in the bottom left hand corner. My initial idea was to create a design in which the word 'Tolerance' was displayed a number of times in many different languages with 'Tolerance' in English highlighted in red for emphasis amongst all others and to catch the viewer's eye. This became the following: This image shows how each different culture has its own language and traditions but all have a word for tolerance. Therefore, every group should be able to tolerate fellow human beings. The second idea I had was a different type of tolerance. That of sexism and respecting people of different sexes and persuasions. To do this I combined three internationally recognised symbols, those of the venus and mars/male and female symbols and the international symbol of peace showing how the two sexes can live in peace and harmony. The third and final design I came up with used the concept of the traditional racial stereotype within popular culture. I took images of stereotypes, cropped them from their backgrounds and combined them in a large group. The characters in the image include: Slowpoke Macgregas from a Looney Tunes Cartoon, Rufus Griffin as Marty McSuperfly, this is a comedic look at a stereotypically african american version of Back to the Future from the program 'Family Guy', Grounds Keeper Willy from the Simpsons, Super Mario from many popular Nintendo titles, Rabbi Krustofski from The Simpsons, Bumblebee Man from The Simpsons, Luigi from The Simpsons, Luigi from a range of popular Nintendo titles, Speedy Gonzalez from Looney Tunes, Oliveira da Figueira from Tintin, Fat Tony from The Simpsons and a stereotype from an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. These combined show the ways history has viewed foriegn cartoon characters and shows that we are able to except them and take part in their rich culture. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 5th, 2006
11:28 am	Final Emotion Image I've finalised my emotions image thanks to some feedback I recieved. Here is the final result: Using the same original photo I also created this small image for fun. I experimented with the textured background and the different filters to see which would be more dominant as the 'leader' figure in the foreground. (Comment on this)
Friday, March 31st, 2006
4:39 pm	Children's Discovery Museum Brochure This weeks design brief was to create an A4 folded Brochure for a proposed Childrens Museum in Western Sydney. The brochure had to include: - A description of the museum - Possible Exhibitions - Ways in which people and companies were able to contribute - Contact Information I began by simply thinking back to my childhood and remembering the types of images that would have captured my attention. Something bright and colourful and as the museum was science and technology based, pictures of machines, animals and all sorts of related images. I then drew two basic designs on which to base my developed work. I folded a piece of A4 paper into 3rds and drew my main motif: a line that would stretch throughout the poster so as to guide the viewer's eye through the various information. I then numbered each page according to when the viewer's eye would view them. The two sides of the planning document are shown here: I then began compiling and editing images that I felt were relevant to the brochure. I edited these by first converting them with the 'stained glass' effect and then by applying another filter to give them colourful and varied outlines. I then created an A4 page in Illustrator and started the line on one side to carry the viewer's eye. I made this thick with a number of different shades of blue to give an electric while still organic looking feel. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 29th, 2006
5:19 pm	Next Emotion I was liking the liquify effect, so I experimented again with a similar but more recent image with the hand element. (Comment on this)
3:52 pm	First Digital Design Studio Image This is the first experiment I have tried for my Digital Design Studio. Can you guess the emotion from joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, tranquil and love? (Comment on this)
Friday, March 24th, 2006
10:20 am	Beethoven Concert Posters (Comment on this)
12:06 am	Concert Posters (Comment on this)
Friday, March 17th, 2006
10:00 am	Lettermark Thursday 16th and Friday 17th of March The brief for this weeks design was to create a lettermark that would use initials from my first and last name to make an interesting and reflective design. I began by looking at the letters of my name. Attempting to delve beneath seeing them as just letters, but to also see them as shapes by themselves. I then looked at some various logos and methods that were used in industry. These included logos such as Calvin Klien, United Airlines, Kelloggs, Hyatt, Bankers Trust, Pfizer, Lancome, Hertz and the logo from popular television program Red Dwarf. I noticed one major trend when looking at the logos. When they are typed out as normal eg. Calvin Klein Kelloggs etc I realised that the person viewing the logo would have to actually read the logo rather than view the image and recognise it. By using the actual logo the person does not even have to read the image. eg. I then began my own designs. Looking at each of the letters of my name as images: G and W. I wrote them out a few times, experimented with the different fonts we were allowed to use and started to rework each of the letters so as to create my logo. The first one I created I called my 'regal' design, as that is the feel I was trying to give it. I attempted to give the impression of the W in my name supported the G in the form of a roman pillar. [URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/779/1regal1ic.jpg[/IMG][/URL] I felt this did give a very regal effect to my name. But decided to go beyond this point and experiment with another design. I experimented with the illusion of intertwining letters but layering two letters over the top of each other and giving the top one a white drop shadow so as to make them look seperate without have to combine the two. This turned out as follows: [URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/7630/2overlayed2ua.jpg[/IMG][/URL] After these two, I drew a third influence from the Red Dwarf logo which contains the letters spelling out the name surrounded by a red ring to give the illusion of a planet. Thus a 'universal' feel.' eg. I achieved this by taking the letter W, giving it another white drop shadow and reflected the G, warping it, so that it surrounded the W in the ring shape. [URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/4426/3dropshadow2ri.jpg[/IMG][/URL] The final design I decided to go with was the second design with the intertwining illusion. I felt this revealed a complex side of my personality as the design seemed very busy and had a flowing lower case g as in the new age trend to show relaxedness but also a jagged and sharp capital w to show two sides of a complex personality. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 13th, 2006
5:15 pm	Typographic Self Portrait 9th and 10th of March The typographic self portraight involved creating a self portraight using only typographic charactrers in order to express an emotion that displays your inner feelings, or the way in which you wanted someone else to see you. A few specifications were put in place, the size of the image was to be 640 x 480 pixels, the media used had to be black letterforms on a white background and the format was to be saved as a pdf. In order to create my typographic self portraight I began looking at a photograph of my own face. I decided the best one to view was that from my student card: [URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/490/facephoto5lg.jpg[/IMG][/URL] Using a black pen I began to sketch my face roughly on a seperate piece of paper so as to get a feel for the major elements of my physiognimy. [URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/959/facesketch10ng.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/9035/facesketch29dq.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6756/facesketch30zu.jpg[/IMG][/URL] Each time looking closer and experimenting with the different elements of my face. I then wrote down each letter of the alphabet, a -z in lower case and upper case abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ This enabled me to look at each shape of the letter, delving beneath what I actually saw as a letter, but a shape on its own. My main ideas behind my design for the self portraight was to show two different levels of my personality; a seriousness that lies beneath the other happiness. Behind the boyish, playful exterior beat the heart of a passionate and serious person. I also wanted to capture the essence of emoticons, small images that are used in chatting programs and in emails in order to use facial expression rather than words, examples of these include: :-) :-( ;-) :-D :-O etc Within my typographic self portraight I wished to make myself look almost like an emoticon. So I looked at using only a small amount of letters for my self portraight. I looked back over my photograph and my earlier preliminary sketches and began to map out the main features that I felt expressed my personality. [URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/9352/faceofshapes6kl.jpg[/IMG][/URL] I could therefore see the letters that I wanted to use in order to capture my face. I decided I didn't want to look for a complete likeness but use the face as a way of seeing the emotion within. I then used illustrator to create my face. [URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/6042/facedesign2nk.jpg[/IMG][/URL] Using different fonts and sizes to create my different facial features and my hair. Using my initial inspiration of the emoticon I managed to capture a slight likeness to myself and a way of capturing different emotions when the image was viewed closely. (Comment on this)