Episode 10: The Way of the Jedi

I have buddies working hard on the new Star Wars game, The Force Unleashed, so I thought I'd throw up this clip for their amusement.

I found a lightsaber tutorial online a while back and thought it'd be fun to let my daughter and nephew play Jedi for a day. Using a very cheap camera, I threw this together over a weekend about 7 years ago. Of course the music was borrowed from the Soundtrack, but 95% of sound effects was homemade using a computer mic, a fan, hair clippers, a plastic Safeway bag, my own vocals and some Legos.

Thumbnails

Here are the thumbnails I did for the last anim in the previous post. I used to thumbnail everything back at school. But for the past 4 years, I've only thumbnailed about two percent of all my animations.

I'm making it a point these days to plan a bit more and get back into thumbnailin'.

The Beginning

Before I even knew what a Graph Editor was, let alone a Dope Sheet, we had to make characters move the old-fashioned way--one drawing at a time.

Here's a comp of some pencil tests from the good ol' days back at SJSU.

Super-Soaker Evade-Attack

Is this kid...The One?!

I couldn't get the particles to slo-mo in Maya correctly so here's a couple of versions, including a hack using Premier. In the game it's supposed to slow into "bullet-time" without loosing any frames.

Also, please excuse the particles, it's another hack.

San Jose State Spartans

The day I saw that first 300 Trailer, I ended up re-watching it at least 20 times that night. It got me super-pumped! I wanted to grow a beard! But since I'm nowhere near as ripped as those mo-fo's, I had no choice but to throw down a painting.

As for the movie, my high expectations got the best of me. Although it was still enjoyable, it didn't reach the level of Braveheart or Gladiator as I had hoped. But it did have some sick battle moments!

Devil May Cry 4

(The above image is a screenshot.)

I've just pre-ordered my copy of DMC 4 yesterday! I had to get the Special Edition since I'm a sucker for "Making-Of" featurettes.


Now let's talk games!...


So we've been doing this "Next-Gen" thing for a bit amount of time now, and everyone seems to be pushing to make things more "real", more cinematic. This is all fine, but we should never forget one thing: in a game, game-play should always come first.

What I love about the Devil May Cry series (and Capcom for that matter) is that they're not afraid to push the "over-the-top"-ness of things to ludicrous levels. Not only will you have to suspend disbelief, you'll have to throw it out the door. Everything, from combat moves and poses to audio and VFX, is cranked up. Characters are idealized, beyond just "realistic". Heck, everyone in the game battles Demons while dressed to impress! And everyone seems to have the best hair-stylist in town. Sure things could get cheesy. And some of the moves are outright ridiculous. But that's what makes it cool! It's a game! It's supposed to be fun, first and foremost.

Now I'm not saying that a cinematic presentation, a good story, and a cast of characters that you care about aren't important. I'm not saying that at all. As long as they're icing. Just as long as they don't sacrifice any game mechanics. Also, don't always worry if things in the game world would never work in the real world. In the end, if it comes down to it, I believe gamers are more likely to remember and appreciate a fun game than a good-looking one.

I know we all know this, but in our quest to create beautiful and believable gameworlds, we sometimes forget.

With all that said, if a game has both, then I'd definitely sacrifice sleep to play it!!

Trailer_1
Here's an example of some of that awesome cheese and over-the top action I'm talking about. Make sure you at least get to the cut-scene about half way through.



Trailer_2
Now if you like what you see, here's part 2 of the showdown!




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And in case you can't get enough...

Contact Sport

So what is this kid practicing?! I can assure you it's not golf or baseball. And since I can't reveal too much about the game yet, take this as a teaser for more animations to come once this game ships in February.

Firing It Up!

Hello everyone, I've finally decided to give this blog thing a shot!

I want to set this off with a tribute to Saturday morning cartoons--I'm talking about the good ones from back in the day! Shows like Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Thundarr the Barbarian, and Dungeons & Dragons, played a big part in what I'm doing today.

This piece was originally done a while back for a Wizard Magazine contest. Although I wasn't able to trick the judges into giving me a prize, it was still a lot of fun. (In case anyone's wondering who this is, it's Firestar from Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends)

Finally, I wanted to give a quick thanks to everyone who's been busy bloggin' these past years--all of your postings continue to inspire me!