Plan for Adam deGrandis
by Adam deGrandis · 05/26/2005 (11:33 am) · 8 comments
Ladies and gentlemen, i now have a degree (bachelor of fine arts). I always thought that Id feel a bigger sense of accomplishment when I graduated college. Alas, nothing. Mostly I feel I have successfully demonstrated that I can jump through a marathon of hoops. I guess its true when people say the most important learning that takes place outside of class. Im far more proud of the stuff I did when I was teaching myself rather than the stuff I did to satisfy an assignment... Not to mention all the quintessential lessons on life. But enough about that. Its not very interesting, and besides, there arent any screenshots associated with it. :)
As Andy Schatz mentioned in his last plan, Ive joined PocketWatch Games and am helping to develop Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa as a level artist. Im pumped. :) The game is tight, there is a lot of room for creativity, and besides that, the thought of actually earning money by doing what I love is BLOWING MY MIND. Theres some even more interesting news coming down the pipe regarding Venture Africa, but Ill let the big man himself take care of telling you all.
Not that there arent plenty of other announcements. For instance: Im currently working on a series of car packs. Ill get to the details, but first, here is a screenshot of a earlyish WIP.
Instead of modeling a bunch of random vehicles, i wanted to model several sets of similar vehicles. The first set, which the screenshot is from, is rally cars. As it exists on paper right now, each set will have two cars with two textures a piece.
The car in the shot is inspired by the Citroen Xsara and Ford Focus. I wasn't sure if there were any legal issues with making (and selling) accurate representations of vehicles, so I decided to nip it in the bud and just make models that have traits from existing vehicles without being carbon copies..
Theres another reason that I didnt want to model specific cars, although its artistic rather than legal. Its more fun to make something that you have a say in rather than something where you need to follow an established, well known design. Yet another reason is that "generalized" cars are more useful to a wider market. If someone is making a rally racing game based on the actual WRC, then they have specific art needs. Making specific things is not a great way to sell to a large group of people. At least I can't imagine it is in this case. If any marketing types want to correct me, I definitely invite you to.
After rally cars, the next set Im going to work on is muscle cars. Actually, they are already started, but Im not gonna waste all of my screenshots on one plan. :) I want to do a "future cars" set as well, but I may be all carred out by that point, so Im playing it by ear.
Games Extract News
Ah yes, my poor little site. It was neglected while I finished school up. Well, if you check it out right now, you'll notice I have a new section up. Utilities. Its not as expansive as I wanted right now since Im still searching for the places where I downloaded half of the programs I wanted to showcase. Regardless, the point of the page is to link to scripts, plugins, and freeware apps that I find rather handy and use on a regular basis. Besides that, Ill have some exclusive applications that me and my programmer whiz brother have made.
One such thing is a little java based image repeater. Here is the title graphic.
Basically all it is is a window that you load an image into. The image repeats across the area of the window. I use it to check for patterning in my textures. It also has a scaling function; you can type what scale you want the image to be and presto chango it scales right in the window. Its great for when you're curious how a texture is going to look tiled over a very large area.
And lets not forget the tutorials. If I could write tutorials non-stop and get paid for it by some larger corperation, I would. Unfortunately, as I said before I dont feel right personally charging for knowledge. And since I need to pay the rent, it means tutorials have to come second to my other work. To solve the dilemma of having too little time to do everything, im going to start writing tutorials based on whatever pack Im currently working on. Im thinking that if Im already in the mindset of a particular creation, words will flow better. Not really two birds with one stone, but pretty close.
What that means for the near future is that I PROBABLY wont have any new tutorials for a couple months until I finish up some of current work. Then again, Im not sure that many people actually go to the site and use my tutorials, so perhaps its really not that critical.
Its still fun to think that it spells the end of the artistic world, though. You know, because Im an egomaniacal jerk.
So thats that. There are a few projects Im not mentioning yet, but like I said earlier, Im not going to give everything away in one plan. I head out to Eugene June 2nd. After a bit of a cross-country site seeing trip, Ill arrive on june 13th. By the following weekend, im sure I will have managed to at least break a chair or coffee mug or something, if not burn down the entire building. Its the beginning of the end, folks. You heard it here first.
As Andy Schatz mentioned in his last plan, Ive joined PocketWatch Games and am helping to develop Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa as a level artist. Im pumped. :) The game is tight, there is a lot of room for creativity, and besides that, the thought of actually earning money by doing what I love is BLOWING MY MIND. Theres some even more interesting news coming down the pipe regarding Venture Africa, but Ill let the big man himself take care of telling you all.
Not that there arent plenty of other announcements. For instance: Im currently working on a series of car packs. Ill get to the details, but first, here is a screenshot of a earlyish WIP.
Instead of modeling a bunch of random vehicles, i wanted to model several sets of similar vehicles. The first set, which the screenshot is from, is rally cars. As it exists on paper right now, each set will have two cars with two textures a piece.
The car in the shot is inspired by the Citroen Xsara and Ford Focus. I wasn't sure if there were any legal issues with making (and selling) accurate representations of vehicles, so I decided to nip it in the bud and just make models that have traits from existing vehicles without being carbon copies..
Theres another reason that I didnt want to model specific cars, although its artistic rather than legal. Its more fun to make something that you have a say in rather than something where you need to follow an established, well known design. Yet another reason is that "generalized" cars are more useful to a wider market. If someone is making a rally racing game based on the actual WRC, then they have specific art needs. Making specific things is not a great way to sell to a large group of people. At least I can't imagine it is in this case. If any marketing types want to correct me, I definitely invite you to.
After rally cars, the next set Im going to work on is muscle cars. Actually, they are already started, but Im not gonna waste all of my screenshots on one plan. :) I want to do a "future cars" set as well, but I may be all carred out by that point, so Im playing it by ear.
Games Extract News
Ah yes, my poor little site. It was neglected while I finished school up. Well, if you check it out right now, you'll notice I have a new section up. Utilities. Its not as expansive as I wanted right now since Im still searching for the places where I downloaded half of the programs I wanted to showcase. Regardless, the point of the page is to link to scripts, plugins, and freeware apps that I find rather handy and use on a regular basis. Besides that, Ill have some exclusive applications that me and my programmer whiz brother have made.
One such thing is a little java based image repeater. Here is the title graphic.
Basically all it is is a window that you load an image into. The image repeats across the area of the window. I use it to check for patterning in my textures. It also has a scaling function; you can type what scale you want the image to be and presto chango it scales right in the window. Its great for when you're curious how a texture is going to look tiled over a very large area.
And lets not forget the tutorials. If I could write tutorials non-stop and get paid for it by some larger corperation, I would. Unfortunately, as I said before I dont feel right personally charging for knowledge. And since I need to pay the rent, it means tutorials have to come second to my other work. To solve the dilemma of having too little time to do everything, im going to start writing tutorials based on whatever pack Im currently working on. Im thinking that if Im already in the mindset of a particular creation, words will flow better. Not really two birds with one stone, but pretty close.
What that means for the near future is that I PROBABLY wont have any new tutorials for a couple months until I finish up some of current work. Then again, Im not sure that many people actually go to the site and use my tutorials, so perhaps its really not that critical.
Its still fun to think that it spells the end of the artistic world, though. You know, because Im an egomaniacal jerk.
So thats that. There are a few projects Im not mentioning yet, but like I said earlier, Im not going to give everything away in one plan. I head out to Eugene June 2nd. After a bit of a cross-country site seeing trip, Ill arrive on june 13th. By the following weekend, im sure I will have managed to at least break a chair or coffee mug or something, if not burn down the entire building. Its the beginning of the end, folks. You heard it here first.
About the author
I'm an veteran game artist, teacher, and all around nice guy. Check out my portfolio at adamdegrandis.com.
#2
Seriously though, looking forward to having you out here Adam! :-)
05/26/2005 (12:10 pm)
HOLY MAMMARIES THATS A SWWEEET CAR!!!!11111Seriously though, looking forward to having you out here Adam! :-)
#3
05/26/2005 (1:03 pm)
Very cool stuff adam, looks swank!
#4
An idea, have you considered wrecked cars? Not many packs out there.
Nick
05/26/2005 (1:14 pm)
Congrats on your degree Adam! I know how much of a relief it is to get that out of the way!An idea, have you considered wrecked cars? Not many packs out there.
Nick
#5
Car looks cool.
I've visited your site and learned from your tutorials (most notably the high-pass filter.. I read the other articles you linked to as well, very interesting stuff. I now use high-pass all the time). That's a good idea to write tutorials as you go. Keep up the good work.
05/26/2005 (3:07 pm)
Congradulations on graduating. I felt just the way you do when I first got my diploma... this is only the beginning of your learning journey. You've graduated to the realization that you are your own best teacher, and that the best inspiration to improve comes from within, not from an assignment or a grade.Car looks cool.
I've visited your site and learned from your tutorials (most notably the high-pass filter.. I read the other articles you linked to as well, very interesting stuff. I now use high-pass all the time). That's a good idea to write tutorials as you go. Keep up the good work.
#7
And congrats again on graduating!
05/27/2005 (12:17 am)
Nice Adam. :) It's great that you're working with Andy, and we can't wait to have you out here at the office. Going to be a kickass team of art interns this summer with you, Jeff Gran, and Matt Mitman. And congrats again on graduating!
#8
I should say something about the model in the screen shot... The flow of the mesh of the back looks kinda nutty right now because it took me a while to get a technique for modeling all the subtle curves. Ive got it down now but I havent reached the back of the car yet.
If you want a good example of what Im ultimately going for for a final product (quality-wise), check out screenshots of the cars Trackmania Sunrise. (Really, you should really just spend the 30 bucks and get the game cause its insanely fun).
05/27/2005 (9:20 am)
Thanks for the compliments and congrats all!I should say something about the model in the screen shot... The flow of the mesh of the back looks kinda nutty right now because it took me a while to get a technique for modeling all the subtle curves. Ive got it down now but I havent reached the back of the car yet.
If you want a good example of what Im ultimately going for for a final product (quality-wise), check out screenshots of the cars Trackmania Sunrise. (Really, you should really just spend the 30 bucks and get the game cause its insanely fun).
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