Ctrl-Alt-Delete ...or L1+L2+R1+R2+Select+Start
Reset buttons. Life doesn't give you many, but going to school has been the most life-changing push of that fateful button I have ever known.
I know I've failed to keep up with my own set regimen of one post a week. That was a newb's hope, the rigors of school and work leaving me with just enough time to wind down and sleep before having to start all over again.
I'm now 1 1/2 semester's into my education, and I've already learned so much. In the last 8 weeks, I've learned how to make 3D models in 3DStudioMax, texture them to make them look pretty, and even animate them. I've learned a entry-level chunk of C++ and can write a Console application that does just about anything I want it to, now.
Most importantly, I've made some incredibly awesome friends. I had a spattering of classes with them last semester, but the four of us all wound up in GSP240 last Session, and grouped up to form a team that has been lovingly dubbed "Team Awesome" by our classmates and even some of the faculty. Alongside making 3D models and animating them, we had to make a game, completely on our own. No hand-holding, no tutorials, nada. Not only that, we had to make it in two forms. A fully playable board game version was due the first four weeks, and a fully playable digital version featuring at least 4 levels was due the after the second four weeks.
Needless to say, this group of compatriots I've worked with and I earned the name Team Awesome through hard work, and going well above and beyond the expectations laid before us. The board game we came up with was such a huge hit amongst the class, and other classes that we are now putting it into a pre-production phase. Once we've hammered out a few more kinks, we'll be patenting and trademarking the game and putting out at local game shops to be playtested, and finally, we're going to sell it to a producer. I can't tell you how exciting this whole process is, and the support we've gotten from our professor's and fellow students has been overwhelming. The digital version was also a huge hit, and our team recently recieved information from our professor that he spent the week break between sessions playing our game. I'm not saying it's a masterpiece, or that it's ground-breaking...and neither was he. However, he did tell us that he played it so often out of amazement that students this early into the curriculum produced something like it at all. He even had friends over during the break to give it a play, and they too were impressed.
So, in a short time, we're going to put the digital game online for download, and if anyone is out there reading this, you'll be able to give it a play for yourselves. I'm really looking forward to the feedback we'll get once it goes up, both good and bad.
As for the programming end...I've found that there are few things I love in the world as much as writing code. How many times in your life will you ever hear anyone say that!? Programming is something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life. It's artistic in a way that I can wrap my head around. I don't have any real artistic talent, but with a few hundred lines of code, I can weave together a program that can do just about anything you could want. And that's beautiful to me. Function over form...it's how I've always looked at things.
Well, this post is getting ridiculously long. Look forward to pictures of the board game during it's production (once the patents and trademarks are in place) and the digital version coming even sooner. Until then, I'll try to post as regularly as my schedule allows.
Setzer out.
I know I've failed to keep up with my own set regimen of one post a week. That was a newb's hope, the rigors of school and work leaving me with just enough time to wind down and sleep before having to start all over again.
I'm now 1 1/2 semester's into my education, and I've already learned so much. In the last 8 weeks, I've learned how to make 3D models in 3DStudioMax, texture them to make them look pretty, and even animate them. I've learned a entry-level chunk of C++ and can write a Console application that does just about anything I want it to, now.
Most importantly, I've made some incredibly awesome friends. I had a spattering of classes with them last semester, but the four of us all wound up in GSP240 last Session, and grouped up to form a team that has been lovingly dubbed "Team Awesome" by our classmates and even some of the faculty. Alongside making 3D models and animating them, we had to make a game, completely on our own. No hand-holding, no tutorials, nada. Not only that, we had to make it in two forms. A fully playable board game version was due the first four weeks, and a fully playable digital version featuring at least 4 levels was due the after the second four weeks.
Needless to say, this group of compatriots I've worked with and I earned the name Team Awesome through hard work, and going well above and beyond the expectations laid before us. The board game we came up with was such a huge hit amongst the class, and other classes that we are now putting it into a pre-production phase. Once we've hammered out a few more kinks, we'll be patenting and trademarking the game and putting out at local game shops to be playtested, and finally, we're going to sell it to a producer. I can't tell you how exciting this whole process is, and the support we've gotten from our professor's and fellow students has been overwhelming. The digital version was also a huge hit, and our team recently recieved information from our professor that he spent the week break between sessions playing our game. I'm not saying it's a masterpiece, or that it's ground-breaking...and neither was he. However, he did tell us that he played it so often out of amazement that students this early into the curriculum produced something like it at all. He even had friends over during the break to give it a play, and they too were impressed.
So, in a short time, we're going to put the digital game online for download, and if anyone is out there reading this, you'll be able to give it a play for yourselves. I'm really looking forward to the feedback we'll get once it goes up, both good and bad.
As for the programming end...I've found that there are few things I love in the world as much as writing code. How many times in your life will you ever hear anyone say that!? Programming is something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life. It's artistic in a way that I can wrap my head around. I don't have any real artistic talent, but with a few hundred lines of code, I can weave together a program that can do just about anything you could want. And that's beautiful to me. Function over form...it's how I've always looked at things.
Well, this post is getting ridiculously long. Look forward to pictures of the board game during it's production (once the patents and trademarks are in place) and the digital version coming even sooner. Until then, I'll try to post as regularly as my schedule allows.
Setzer out.
posted by Setzer Valorin at 5:47 PM
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