L3D - J. W. Waterhouse in 3D / Artist for hire

Hey Fellow Game-Designers,

I shall start by again introducing myself because I haven't posted in a very long time. My name is Florian Van Damme, I'm 17 years old, and I live in Groningen, the Netherlands. I've been designing 3D for about 5 years now. It's been a heck of a time, and I still enjoy it more and more. I've been working with Torque for about 4 years, and I also have experience with Active Worlds, a kind of second life engine. I'm in an Dutch educational organization called L3D, and it stands for "Leerlingen leren Leerlingen 3D". That means Students teach Students 3D.
So our main goal is to teach as many people to design in 3D. I also am a teacher, teaching eight graders and giving private lessons.


The last couple of months I've been very busy with a project that we got from the Groninger Museum. It's one of the best known museums in the Netherlands. They currently are running the biggest Waterhouse exhibition ever assembled, and they've asked us to make a 3D world where children round the age of 12, could experience a part of the exhibition in a enjoyable way. Since museum's are struggling to involve children in their exhibitions, they are running this project.

So me and a college, started by looking at some of his paintings, and the one's that stood out above others in our eyes were the paintings about the siren's and Circe. And after some thinking we started designing and after 2 months we were done :).

We decided to recreate a part of the Odyssey. So the visitor starts on the island of Circe and he is being told by his crew that they we're attacked by a witch, and you need to rescue the crew. As you go on, you will meet Hermes who will tell you that the witch is actually Circe, and she's especting you. So you will need to find a magical plant called Moly to resist her magical potion. So after having found the moly, you will go to Circe and confront her with the bewitched crew. After making some right decisions, you will need to sleep with her, and afterwards, she will turn your men back to man, and she will give you warn you about the Siren's you will encounter in your Journey.


After this you can go back to your boat and continue your journey to the siren's. Here you will need to help a mermaid, and she will tell you how to protect yourself, and to find wax and some rope to protect your men from the sirens. After having done this, you can sail past the siren's and finish the little story.


The game isn't a huge world, but a small cosy world, and we've tried to make it fun to walk trough. We've had a lot of limitations on the engine, since Active Worlds is a very old and static engine, but we've tried to make the best of it :). I did all the custom art, some props were used from an object database, and my college did all the scripting.

I've had a lot of fun making this, and it is a very special experience for me. The museum was very exited, and they gave us the same job for the next exhibition they are running :).

You can check it out by going to our website http://www.l3d.nl,in the right top corner is the English version, and downloading L3Daw.
If you are in the engine, you need to click on Teleport to, and fill in "grmgame". This will bring you in the virtual museum, and you will need to walk to the Waterhouse room downstairs, and jump into the painting :). The main downside is probably that the whole world is in Dutch, so it might be hard to follow the directions and clicking on help.

Here are some more mandatory screenshots:
img6.imageshack.us/img6/4755/53592545.jpg
img10.imageshack.us/img10/395/ten06.jpg


Some other relevant links:
www.groningermuseum.nl
www.l3d.nl
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Off course, if you want me to make some custom art for your game, please contact me, and we should be able to figure something out!
If you any specific question, you want to see some more of my work, or any other, you can e-mail me at: florian_van_damme@Hotmail.com

Cheers