Blog for Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner at GarageGames.com

GarageGames Internship

Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner — 2007-07-09T14:30:47+00:00

Hi!

It's been one week since I left Eugene,OR and I guess it's probably the morning in USA now.
It was a great experience: discovering USA, meeting new people, working with them, driving an automatic car, watching magnificent sceneries, learning the street/avenue system, drinking bad coffee and still gives a tip to the waiters, and many more enjoyable stuff.

As I'm not sure what works I can show, I'll just make it some kind of photo traveling diary from France to Eugene.

Roissy Charles de Gaulles Airport, start of the trip, ready for an 8hours flight...

...wich drives me to Portland Airport.

That's the plane to Eugene. It's small... anyway, as long as we can take off and land...

Wooot Oregon from the sky!

And finally after 48hours of traveling without sleeping:

This is Eugene. A very casual scenery right next to GG office

So many squirrels in this area!

The intern house, yes not everything was clean... (mostly because of me :) )

Something you can see if you go south of Eugene.

Eugene in the evening.

The Crater Lake trip was great. That's the cool thing with America, there are some huge place like this.

Oregon roads, smooth and pretty!

My favorite american food: sandwich with peanut butter and jelly. I've tried to find decent peanut butter here, but it sucks so far!

The campus, close to the intern house.

And now GG office.
Unfortunately, I took most of the pictures too quickly and a lot of them are blurry. So here's the one wich are still ok:

Mister Todd Pickens! Hi !

Looks like Pixar studios doesn't it?

Hi guys, I know you're all blurry, but every other pictures are even worst.

Nice!

Many people missing but I'm sure everyone is already tired of seeing the pics. :)

Well, miss you guys, it was really nice meeting you! Be sure to come visit me if you go by France someday. :)

(Btw, my email is in my profile if you want)

Bye!

Graphist seeking work and one free texture :)

Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner — 2006-05-10T11:29:29+00:00

Hi,

Well first, I would like to say I'm sorry for taking this .blog as a portfolio but I promise I really don't have any other place to do so now (I'll have to rework my website).

----
To be a little forgiven, here is a free texture for your mapping project:

It's not a lot but it has been made with personal photos, you can do whatever you want with it.
----

I'm seeking some contracts for this summer as the previous one will not gonna happen finally.
Skills: Anything 2D - Anything 3D - Photo editing and a bit of animation

If you need someone to work on your project, feel free to drop me a mail: djagg@tridinaut.com

Some pictures:

Bounty and stuff..

Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner — 2006-04-17T16:31:25+00:00

Hi,

I was focused on school stuff these last weeks and I didn't had so much time to work on anything else.

It's holidays and I finished Oblivion and HOMM5 demo, so what should I do... well, bounties of course!
Maybe it's not paying as much as a contract, but at least, it can be some useful work for the community.

So here's my progress on an environement tile set. Normally it "can" work in iso,side,top depending on the chosen effect.
Each element will have its own alpha and can be put wherever you want.

It will also include some kind of -tree generator- for photoshop. So you can edit branches and leaves to create customs trees.

I'm enjoying doing this so it's all good ;)

Well, I hope some people will find it useful.
Please, you can ask here for some stuff you'd like to see in this set.

On a sidenote, I did a lot of video (for school and my clan):

bybye

Art in videogame

Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner — 2006-02-14T11:29:20+00:00

First, I would like to thanks GG for offering me the associate status. It's truly a great reward. :)
I think the GG community gave me more than I gave it. This is really the place where "I've grew up" thanks to many people. It started on Realm Wars community project about 4 years ago, working with great people (a special thanks to Pascal Bos ;) ). Many projects later, I have now some products here on GG and more great people to work with (special thanks to Josh Williams, Tim Aste, Jeff Gran, Karen Peal and of course Nermin).
Well, enough for massive licking! Just THANKS GG ;)

Art in Videogames

Studying in an Art school is a strange experience made of enthusiasm and frustration. When I say Art, it's not only drawing/painting, it's also in the philosophical way of creating and producing. To be clear, we'll say Art like we can see in History of contemporary Art.
Let me tell you in such school videogame is not really the common practice. It's strange cause they are extremely linked together and close both in term of interactivity and sensitivity.
There is a same creative process behind a videogame or an art piece bound by our cultural echoes.
Well, my point is simply that Art and Videogames would gain a lot in being associated.

Let's see with concrete example, I don't consider myself as an artist, but I'm exploring that world:

++ In a volume class, we were offering a few themes to work with. I've chosen Architecture, fantasy and mechanism. It resulted (after a few search) in an utopic architecture.
Globally it's an architecture wich is normally impossible to create in real life.

I created a process of randomized architecture through a special invented unit: the omnixel. It's a virtual material (a brick) wich is potentially unstable and can turn into any other material. The concrete can become mirror or transparent, liquid, warm or cold, it can expand or contract.
With this unit, I'm building a known architecture (a bridge for example) and then I let them live and become unstable, it can then result in a totally useless building or something in the opposite totally new and useful.

I found this to be interesting for a videogame wich can TOTALLY take advantage of utopic architecture since we're in a virtual world. The process of randomisation exist for dungeon of course, but what about having the player evolve in such chaotic world, potentially unstable. Maybe some platforms, a path...
And what if the player could push a button to change the properties of the blocks until he/she found the right configuration he/she thinks is possible to pass?
It can be the beginning of an idea, I don't know...

++ An other example with a movie on the theme CartonMan (carton is cardboard) for the animation class. I thought about something just damn old in the end: communication. Understanding each other is still a recent problematic and it has been for centuries.
So the movie is about a man, waking up in an empty cardboard box of 4*4*2 meters. Then begins the impossible dialogue of the box and the man wich are 2 very different entities: one can talk and write, the other can only express with folded paper and paper-made objects.
The first one to communicate is the box wich understand the man is not at ease and create a little box in the middle of the room so he can sit.
Then comes the mimetism, etc...

This is closer to classic animation, but still, the philosophical side of communication, the difference between 2 entities is maybe an hint for a new kind of gameplay. Imagine what it could be to incarnate a cardboard box creating only paper volumes.
What about a game where you face several entities on a journey and you must communicate with them to access higher level/adventures. Each one with a particular way of communication.
Again it's just a track to get our wheels on.

That's it for Art and Games :)

Now, some general progress/news.

I'm working on a free PSP Adventure game. It's very pleasant sometime to be alone on a game creation, at least you manage everything :)

It's called Jip Adventures and will be done made in several episodes that the player can finish in 30min to an hour. It's using the web browser so it can potientally be running on any 2.XX PSP.
Some pictures:

Those are not real size screenshots.
A creature of the second part of the game:

The introduction is finished (gfx+code). I'm actually working on the second part :)

I have also redone my website so it fits with the project: www.djagg.com

And finally, I'm working on a PC title too, more info soon.

Wooot, plan finished! was long!! If you've read everything you're just so cool.

Monday Oct 24 21:26

Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner — 2005-10-24T21:26:12+00:00

Recent graphical work. New school -> 3 years left (oh no!)

It's getting harder to update a GG blog on my recent work, time is a precious ressource!
The culprit is a school, the "Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux" wich I entered a few weeks ago.
This is kinda a weird experience, I couldn't tell yet if I totally enjoy it, but I had some crazy damn good classes.
This is the national art school and we're exploring the traditional mediums (drawing, sculpture, painting) but also the new one (video, CG art, sound, happening).
Working with his own body as a tool led me to a different thinking about the painting itself and the several creative way I was used to.
We also have a forge I can even create some medieval weapons in reality now! ;)
It's very positive to discover this new expressions and maybe, bring them into the videogame world.
Anyway, the pics!

The front of the school

A random sculpture I did on the theme "Nature/culture" It's some kind of cocoon made with wood tied together. The heart is of paper (kinda akari light, isn't it?)

Enough of this, back on the computer :)
First, some work for Snachurz (compiled on one pic)

I purposely didn't put any detail or sshot, Craig will speak about that in an upcoming plan I guess.

The empire state building I did for a video ( for www.subjectil.com)

And a random drawing, just like that.

I have also some other content pack project with Tridinaut... more info on that in some weeks.

bybye!

Tuesday Aug 2 10:34

Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner — 2005-08-02T10:34:47+00:00

Rock'n Roll backgrounds and soldier pack

The soldier pack was a nice experience, mainly a learning experience. Bringing a character to life is something hard...
I had almost no experience in that. I realised how different a rendering may look from the actual look in game; it's something to take into account for the next character I'll work on.

Big thanks to the GG guys, especially Josh for his coolness and Jeff for all the work done in anims and export (and customer support :) )

I'm now finished with the 2D plateformer: Rock'n Roll (set in prehistory). In this game you must roll a wheel to the end of the level without breaking it. See previous plan for some monsters.

Here are some of the background:

And the Game over screenshot ("12000 years later...") where wheel are replaced by some weak legs :)

Tuesday Jul 12 22:48

Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner — 2005-07-12T22:48:00+00:00

2D platformer, art pack, De-railed and GID plans (!)Picture inside

I spent the past days finishing a 2D platformer started something like 3 years ago.
It's a puzzle platformer set in a prehistorical universe, it's quite fun and addictive. :)

The introduction screen:

The cavedude is leaving his home with his new invention: the wheel.

And the several monsters created in 3D and rendered. I've worked quite quickly on them since I knew it had to be seen from only one point of view.
A few bones more and they were animated.

www.tridinaut.com/djg/ptero2.avi

And finally a screenshot of the game with temporary background (it's the hard part, finding right tone to emphasize foreground, but without looking too simplistic).

I'm still not done with it, but I hope to finish it in 2 days.
This game will be on sales on www.phelios.com

In a very soon future I'll have 2 art pack here on GG. I don't tell more about it, it's a surprise :)
It should be really useful to many people in the community. I've put many effort into creating those packs and delivering a cool product. :)

On a sidenote, being a member of De-railed now, I hope to be back on Snachurz in a week or less.

(a concept art for Snachurz, yes already seen in Craig's plan I guess).

And finally, I'll try to do the new GID, wich theme is ghost.
For now I have mainly a graphical idea from wich I believe a gameplay can be found.
A human "driving" a ghost, as if it was an exoskeleton offering many power.
So the game could end up being a duel for example. Or sport game ...

I've drawn a concept so it's clearer :)

Thursday May 12 23:30

Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner — 2005-05-12T23:30:23+00:00

GID 12 - How to make an exploding ant soldier? o_O

As always, making art for a GID project is quite fun.
Check Tom .plan to learn more about this project: Antapocalypse Now.

Here are the few art I did for the project:

This is the ant soldier, semi military inspired.

I made a little update of www.tridinaut.com with some new pics. We are still available for contract work (interesting game ideas only).

Super Smash breakers is going well, here is a new pic:

It needs some perspective tweaks and a few more thing, but the global mood is here.

Hopefully next plan will contain new models and some sculptures too (a hobby).

bybye

Friday Apr 22 21:25

Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner — 2005-04-22T21:25:15+00:00

Medieval weapons pack finished!! :D

It was such a long work! Monthes of work even, but in the end we did it.
It's now official you can buy the weapons pack for 50$.

I've posted a snapshot with some more info, here is the picture:

You can buy it on our website: www.tridinaut.com

Many thanks to all the people who gave advices, support and all the kind words about the pack :)

Edit: dwarf is not included ;)

Thursday Apr 21 11:32

Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner — 2005-04-21T11:32:48+00:00

Update on Tridinaut website, RTS Tree pack for free.

First, medieval weapons pack is finished. We are in the very end of packaging everything. (terribly long).

You can see the site and its latest stuff there:
www.tridinaut.com

Also I'm working on a RTS tree pack for free. There is 5 trees with some extra skins. It will be available on Tridinaut.
Check the video to see them.

Btw, I'm searching someone to help me export them to dts.
I have this bug:

I didn't found a way to have it working, also polycount is strange (may be an hint for that bug?) normally it's 100 polys.
SORT:: algorythm didn't work (bad boy) so I'm stuck...