Schedules + Me = Lol nope

Apparently I can't work on schedules that I create for myself. Once I plan to do something ahead of time I never want to actually do it when that time arrives... So, new plan: setting goals rather than planning schedules. The basic idea is that I'll have several goals I want to accomplish and each goal has a list of tasks associated with it that I'd like to do in order to complete the goal. Each day I'll pick a task to do from my list of tasks and get closer to finishing the goals. If I'm in the mood to finish a certain task, I can plow through it and get it done rather than not wanting to do it at a different time.

Pros: I'm doing the same tasks at times where I actually feel like working on them rather than planning out tasks in a way I won't want to do them. The same tasks get done but the goals get finished quicker (more efficient). It also allows more freedom and flexibility; tasks can be done whenever as long as they get done (plans/schedules don't explode if I miss a deadline).

Evidence: My website! I decided last week to work on my website and I ended up working on it for several days. I finally have a layout that I like after countless iterations. I wish I still had my old iWeb site from last year to see the progress! (Update: I searched through my backups and found my old sites. You can see what they looked like here and here.) There are some minor things that still bug me (mostly just the colors; they're what I want but seem a little off) but now I'm going to be focusing on pure content going forward. I've learned a bunch about CSS and HTML in the process, especially from http://www.w3schools.com/. You can check it out here: http://chrixeleon.com/ (Comments, suggestions, and criticism welcome!)

Cons: Sometimes I stray off the goals list... I want to get a lot of 2D artwork made and get more experience with designing games in flixel because that's what I want to do: make 2D art and design games. But something about 3D stuff keeps me coming back. I never really liked Maya and don't want to be a 3D animator, but modeling and texturing are things I'm starting to like.

Evidence: I started making a 3D museum in Maya with the goal of putting it into Unity with textures, normals, etc. and making it playable online. It was a quick idea I had about making my portfolio interactive, where you'd walk around this 3D museum and my drawings and paintings would be hanging on the walls (possibly with some 3D models around as statues). So last night I put together a quick model, threw it in Unity with a basic First Person Controller, and that's what I'm doing right now. :D

So that's what I've been up to recently. My goal for this week is to finish up this Unity project and add it to my portfolio. Next week, who knows. I have an unfinished drawing/painting that needs finishing, so I think I'll try to get that done next week. I'll try to remember to update with a final museum and preliminary drawing/painting soon!

Updates + Summer Plans

It seems that it's been about a month since I last posted. Well, anyway, here's what I've been up to.

Updates

First off, I'm still creating art for the Higgins Armory Virtual Joust project along with Alfreda Smith. In March I refined and created some UI elements for the game. This included altering the existing art for the "heraldry creator" as well as creating heraldic emblems. I also created a prototype logo for the game which will be polished in the near future.

This past month I worked on creating 2D audience members to populate the stands with Freda. I did this by digitally painting sketches of cartoony people I drew and scanned into Photoshop. The people were then arranged together and placed on planes with transparency. When these planes are stuck in the environment, they'll give the game more depth and detail. Moving forward we'll be working on polishing existing aspects of the game.

Another project that I've been working on this term is a small Flash game for the WPI Game Development Club's Development Team. I didn't participate in C-term for various reasons but I made a point to help make something in D-term. The GDC Dev Teams don't have the best track record for putting out games or keeping projects alive (something I experienced last year), so I tried to keep it going this time. Luckily, the team picked one of my game ideas allowing me to work as a designer instead of just an artist.

Our game is called Building Bashers. It's a beat-em-up game where you control transformed robotic buildings and fight other robotic buildings, causing much chaos and destruction. Other than providing the idea I created a design doc at the start of the term, created some art assets, and even did some coding towards the end (menus and particles). We used flixel and various art tools to create the game; Andy Wolff was our programmer, Joey Chipman made player/boss and robot enemies, Dillon Lankenau made menu screens and some enemies, Graham Leto was our project manager and also made sounds, and I created a player and enemy robot, some GUI stuff, and particles. As with most small game projects, we didn't get to implement everything we wanted to but we have a playable game we can show off. You can try it out here!

Summer Plans

So, school is officially over and I'm going to be graduating in less than a week. That means I need to get an actual job now! I feel that I have most of the skills needed to get a job but I don't have enough to show off my skills. That said, my plans for the summer are to make some nice pieces of art and games to showcase in my portfolio and then start applying for jobs. This includes fixing up my resume, tweaking my website, and looking for places to apply. My goal is to start applying by July, which gives me about 2 months to get my act together. I also plan to update my blog more frequently with art, games, and whatever else I work on so stay tuned!