493 Update Week 7; pt. 2

In addition to finishing my health packs this week, I also kit bashed and re-purposed one of my old effects. It's about half way where I want it to be right now, but it's better than starting from scratch. I hope to re-do the up rays, add a new blast ring around it, as well as some fire elements.

My effect so far...

An example of how I plan to re-purpose my effect.

I'd like some more contrasting up rays as well as that hot and solid "blast ring".

493 update Week 7

Have my three stage health pick up effect blocked out and mostly done. It could use some polish here and there, but as I'm happy with it as is, and am pressed for time I will call this "done" for now.

493 update Week 6

Currently polishing my health pack effect. Hoping to have video soon

493 update #1 week 4

Started sketching out ideas for a large scale project, transferring a high detail simulation from 3ds Max into a game engine. For this project I will be attempting to import the destruction sim into UDK3. Over the weekend I have been learning up on Max as a program, since I will probably need most of the features to achieve my goal.

Started running through the 5+ hours of digital tutors' Max intro tutorials

I found a model from the game Devil May Cry 4 that would make a good statue to smash.

I put him in a pose and rendered a side view for demonstration and sketch purposes

A quick sketch of my idea for the scene and simulation

List of project needs:

1. Model, UV'd
2. Stone/Marble texture
3. Pedestal 
4. Blocked, lit environment
5. Fracture plugin (Rayfire, MassFX, Thinking Particles)
6. Object to smash statue (most likely Digital Tutor's project ship)
7. Ground fracture effect

493 post week 3

VFX Updates

For 493 this semesters I will still be working on my vfx work for games. I'm starting off with sketching out ideas for two projects I have in mind. First will be just basic health pickups you would see in games. I have been playing around with ideas and sketching them out, shooting for ones I can add the most particle and material work to without overdoing it. Since I want to focus on health pickups with fancy but robust effects, things like: metal containers containing health fluid, med kits, and the "syringe" idea are out. 

I sketched them out with the direction of a "small, medium, full health" idea. Adding visual progression to each stage as best I could come up with, with a scale reference to an "average" sized character to whatever game it would be in.

The other effect I have been sketching out is more material based, with a focus on material transitions. For this I came up with the idea of a holographic projection gun. The idea of this is instead of swapping weapons directly from and inventory, a hand-held holo-constructor would construct and deconstruct the players weapons. This would happen in a sort of Tron style, bright light projection from the base. As of right now I have the concept for a pistol, assault rifle, sniper rifle and rocket launcher; the standard FPS weapons.

CDES 219 Blog Post +10

Reflections

Social media influences the day to day lives of every person who has a social media account. With it you can connect to all sorts of people and for various reasons. Whether it is a site like Linkedin, for professional connections, Facebook to keep connected and updated with friends, or Twitter to post random stuff for anyone to follow. They can effect everything from what you eat today, (maybe someone posted about pizza and now you want pizza, or see a picture of what someone had at a restaurant) to what you watch on TV. 

I think social media has made us less social, and has inflated people's egos, or gives others a false sense of our lives. I think things like "thumbs up," "favorite" and "retweet" stand in the way of people having actual conversations. However social media makes it much easier to organize events, with times, directions, invites and such that are much easier and faster to update than emails or phonecalls/texts.

The most promising aspect I see in social media, is getting only advertisements for products you want from things/companies you like. No more seeing commercials for Venus razors if you are a guy just trying to watch the game. 

CDES 219 Blog Post #9

The Future: Predictions

The future of social media holds many promises. And individual can share his or her ideas, news can be updated in a second, companies can crowd source input on a new product, stores can advertise... and all to a target audience for almost no cost. My focus was on the use of social media by companies for advertising and selling products. Although these companies cannot rely entirely on social media sites for their function, as they still need at least a website for consumers to by their product at, social media gives them a powerful form of advertising.

This advertising is not only cheap, but generally efficient, as individuals who are interested in the company's product will receive the updates. These followers, will likely share this information to others they know who would have interest in the products. Companies have feeds like Twitter and Instagram where they invite their customers to share pictures of themselves using their product. The users can tag and link the company in the post with its name or a specific hashtag. This offers a huge advertising resource, because each of those individuals is likely to have followers or friends view their pictures, see the product, and look into it themselves. Not only can these companies share their their product, but can receive feedback on their products and input on future products. Most of the companies that I've been following offer special offers and discounts specifically on their social media feeds.

I believe that companies in general, not just companies that offer a product, will begin to use social media more frequently. In an age where cable TV is slowly declining and shows and movies are watched over the web, social media will be used more as an advertising medium. With it, you no longer have to purchase air time, or a specific slot to run your add. No longer do you have to compete with others for the time or channel with the most exposure. If you think you aren't getting through because someone's news feed is clogged up with other posts? Promote your post and have it at the top of the feed for very little cost.

In an age of wanting things faster and faster with little delay, I foresee companies directly linking purchases through links in social media posts. An example would be an company is having a sale on a certain item, all you have to do is click/tap on the post and it will instantly take you to the company's site, in the check out with the item in your cart. This could possibly be taken even further by linking a credit card to social media sites, so that when you click on an offer it already has your information put in for the order. All you would have to do is click purchase and wait for it to be mailed.

My advice to others, make a profile on a large social media site, and like/follow all the companies that you buy things frequently from. You will get special offers, deals and information on those products, as well as possibly find a community you share an interest with. For me, the fitness and gym-going community generally revolves around the same sorts of sites with people of the same mind set as me.