Indierover: Indie game development and more

I work like a 3d designer for a studio called Glucogeno. I usually make virtual visits of 3d interiors and exteriors. They are usually videos with thousand of frames that take a lot of time in order to be rendered.

I use vray like renderer and despite it’s a great plug-in, sometime we have problems with it. For example, last day we were rendering a video, and after 200 frames we realized that in a place of the screen some strange red points were appearing:

You can imagine my boss wasn’t very happy with me. But… it was not my fault!

The 2d graphic designer of the studio were looking at the screen and said: well, I will have to fix them one by one by photoshop. What a crazy work! 200 frames!

So I started to think in something for making the work easier. I got quickly with the solution: LooverLib.

One year ago I developed a 3d-accelerated engine for 2d games (using direct 3d) called Looverlib (I’m sorry but the documentation is only in Spanish). It took me 2 years in order to finish it and its a very robust and useful 2d library.

One of the classes it has called LOV_Image has functions for managing images: getpixels, putpixels, filters, saving and loading in several formats, etc.

So I started to implement a really easy program in order to fix all the red points of the images. I finished it in 2 hours of working.

It works taking all the images and searching pixel by pixel for the red ones (using a scale of shades). When it finds a red pixel, he looks between the pixel that are near and are not red, and it takes the average shade of all them.

Simple but effective!

And so, my boss was really happy with me. Designer and programmer: two in one

Et voila!

It’s here! Draco Mahjongg is coming to Indie Rover! Soon in your PC!

I’m working hard in finishing this game. Its just a remake of other game I released 5 years ago. The funny Draco you can see in the image has been modeled by David Ferriz. I designed all the tilesets and menu buttons myself, and of course, the source code.

Don’t forget to read Indie Rover each day because soon there will be a big surprise: Draco Mahjongg is not the only game which is being cooked in my oven! And you will know soon more details about this new game that is 70% finished.

Well, I have lot of pictures I made some years ago (I think that 5 years ago), its time to open the memory’s chest.

For mixing the textures and giving this old touch I combined two plugins: dirty reyes and quick dirt.

Each surface has at least the mixing of 5 textures. Mixed with QuickDirt maps and other maps made from textures.

As you can imagine it was not for real time. It was for an adventure game we never finished, just for a background.

Specifications

• Poly count: 74813
• Max texture size: 2048
• Time it took: 7 days
• Plugins: Dirty Reyes, Quick Dirt
• Renderer: Cebas FinalRender
• Software: 3d Studio Max 5

I’m just getting ready for going to Poland september 22th for Erasmus, its incredible, finally I’m going! For one year! Poland is going to burn!

For those who don’t know Erasmus is a exchange program for European students. So you go to other country to “study” and to improve your skills in the language. They give you a ridiculous scholarship and of course the validation (if you are lucky) of the subject you pass.

The better thing of Erasmus of course, are the parties . Maybe you will hear some people saying that are going to study… they lie! (but I’m going to study don’t think bad of me). Erasmus is one year unique in your life, something that will never repeat again. There is no one night there isn’t and insane party and you meet lot of people of all Europe! And sometimes also from other countries that are farther because there are different exchange programs but the students go to the same parties.

But you will say: how do you know all this things if you haven’t gone yet to make your Erasmus? Well, I can say that I have made and Erasmus in my own city this year! . In fact, in each city that there are Erasmus, there are also associations than help them, and I am a member of the one of my city. (Murcia, Spain).

In September of the last year, after the euro-trip I made doing interrail, I was really interested in meeting people of other countries, because its something really interesting to know other cultures, languages, different ideas and of course… parties! To know people of other countries is like travelling without moving!

And so, this September (2005), I met some Erasmus just in the street. Like all the Erasmus when they arrive they were a bit lost and really interested in meeting people of the country. We started to make some parties together and really quickly I met lot of Erasmus people (there are a lot! ).

Some days after, I met in a party one boy that was a member of the ESN (Erasmus student network) and two friends and me enrolled quickly in the associations. And its great to be one of the members because you can do lot of parties, to meet lot of people, to make trips, etc. Of course you have to do things for helping the Erasmus (like to prepare all this travels, activities and parties I talked about) but are really funny things in fact.

So, I’m really happy because I’m going to make an Erasmus myself, you only have to see a film like L’Auberge espagnole for realizing that has to be something really interesting.

I’m studying computer engineering and I’m going to Lodz (Poland). In other post I will tell you why I’m going to this city and what I know about it.

I let you with two funny things

The first thing…

Is this adventure game much like Sam and Max, Telltale’s Bone adventures and Monkey Island. In it, you assume the role of a twenty-two year old Italian Casanova using a student exchange program as a cover for attempting to bed hot Swedish girls (I think he doesnt study a lot). If you’re thinking Leisure Suit Larry, then you’re partly right. But it makes me remember more other Spanish game I played lot of years ago Igor Objetivo : Uikokahonia (I’m sorry I dont know the name in english). Click on the photo for going to the official website:

The second thing…

Is this video (I’m sorry is in Spanish) about Erasmus. I have cried from laughing with it.

Well, this is a really really simple model I did some time ago in only 1 hour. It was a gift for a very special person and now I will let you to play with it

I modeled this dog really fast using only primitives and resizing the pieces.

The materials of the skin and the tongue are made using the bump channel mixing a cellular and noise map. I tried to use a fallof like I used before in other models but I did’nt like the result. You can try different materials if you wish. For the eyes I used a marble material that I usually use in 3d interiors. The nose is a simple vray black material.

The black part of the tail is not a texture but some detached polys, I made it by error when traying to change the size, but I realized it was perfect like this. It has the same material than the nose.

The illumination and textures are maybe the things that give the render the life it has. I used vray like always. There are only 2 lights in the scene: one Directional Light and one VRayLight. It took me some time to adjust well the parameters of the shadows of the Directional Light, finally I chose an Sphere Area Shadow with boxsize 20.

But you will see all the parameters of the render in the max file. Enjoy it!

The blue room with a different look.

Only 22 days for going for erasmus to Poland!

I think this is a great post for being the first one in “travels!” section, the last one for finishing the structure of this blog.

But its to late today, I will talk about my future eramus other day

You will find my photo gallery here: Gallery

This is one of the rooms of a 3d house I designed some months ago. The furniture and some objects are from evermotion library. It was more a light experiment than other thing and finally I was quite happy with the illumination and textures of the image. I used vray, like always, for rendering it.

One of the more difficult things was the blue wall with bump. I made lot of proofs until I was happy with it.

Hope you like it

This is a short film I directed some years ago. The characters are my friends Tono and Pilar. It was really funny to film it.