Voyage of the ARGonauts: Project A.R.Go.

Greetings fellow voyagers! Today's update reveals a crucial element of the AUG: Project A.R.Go. As a part of a team, consisting of myself, Connie, Mario, and Robert, we were able to complete the materials and textures for the individual A.R.Go. pieces. Then, I carefully edited them all together to form a seamless piece of technology!

Voyage of the ARGonauts: You Can't Kill the Metal

We meet again, fellow ARGonauts! Today's feature brings you the next step in the texturing! Thanks to teammate Mario, we got an amazing method of creating MentalRay-looking materials WITHOUT using MentalRay! Once he shared this info with the rest of the team, we had everything set!

Voyage of the ARGonauts: Sticks and Stones

The Voyage continues, loyal ARGonauts! Today's adventure brings you the first venture in texturing the pieces of Project: A.R.Go!

The preliminary task was to just come up with a set of metal-ish textures. My initial design was a galvanized metal, with a goldish tint to it. Once I got the swatches applied, immediately I felt that it looked to worn and outdated; hardly something a shadow cabinet group like the Messengers would have and maintain for inter-spatial/dimensional travel. As Art Director for the ARG, I had to put the halt on any more textures in this fashion. To add insult to injury, our fearless leader took one look at the textures and thought they were stone! Needless to say, my first pass was less than exciting...

Back to 3ds Max!

Voyage of the ARGonauts: Hope Springs Eternal

Hello again, fellow ARGonauts!

This update delivers another piece of the AUG Portal!

Nicknamed the 'Blue Alien', this tiny piece will sit nicely on the top of the portal to act a form of energy conductor, and help feed energy into Project: A.R.Go.

Voyage of the ARGonauts: The Color of Love

ARGonauts unite!

Today's update brings you part one of a modeling journey!

For the last Sprint of the Spring 2012 semester, I decided to take a break from leading teams, and do some 3D work [as that's my focus, and it's what I'm learning].

For the AUG, there needs to be a Portal which takes the human travelers away to a faraway planet! Dubbed Project: A.R.Go [hence, ARGonauts], its pieces are to be split up and hidden for the employer players to find, collect, assemble, and then travel through to accomplish their mission.

The first piece I modeled is a part that is designed to be an energy capacitor of sorts, colored coded as 'purple'.

Voyage of the ARGonauts: AUGuing the Point

Ahoy, fellow ARGOnauts!

In my last installment, I showed you the foundations of the AUG and how it was to play out.

My team and I then took this framework, and built upon it.

We decided to break it up into four main Quest points, and then have six smaller quests. The four main quests would move the player throughout the Portfolio Night, leading up to the Portal. The six smaller quests would be more story driven, and thus not be as essential in completing.

The objective of the main quests is to collect pieces of the portal, which are hidden away from the bad guys who seek to stop the good aliens from succeeding in their mission.

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1wobNyaRT_SCK0NoxZeEAL5zAXf_97CDIx5qOYD7gy5w

Voyage of the ARGonauts: AUGust is Far Away...

Greetings, my fellow ARGonauts.

This latest installment brings you a very special piece of the Augmented Reality Game of Voyage of the ARGonauts.

In order to build the game itself, there needed to be a framework on how everything was structured.

A team consisting of myself and team mates Tim, Mario, and Mike, came up with such a framework, simple in it's construction, but it laid the groundwork for the next big piece of the puzzle.

Without this piece of work, the AUG would be a whole different beast.

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1nq9_thM65dWq3eYT6VtUizzm12jBgfN6yTCwOuJ-7X0

Voyage of the ARGonauts: Stellar Synchrony

At the beginning of the Spring 2012 semester, I was assigned to help out with the ARG minigames for the Voyage of the ARGonauts. The game I worked on was Stellar Synchronicity, developed by my classmate Jeanette, with animations done by another classmate, Eldon.

My job was to update and insert newer textures for a sun and supernova!

Voyage of the ARGonauts: Cut 'Em Up

The beginning of the latest Sprint allowed us to assess the video projects we completed the semester before.

For the Beta build, I re-edited and re-cut Videos 1 and 4 of the ARG!

Voyage of the ARGonauts: Fruits Of Our Labor

My team (7Rings Entertainment) has finally come to a milestone. Below is the Alpha state intro video for the Voyage of the ARGonauts.

It has been a long, arduous semester, but it was worth every minute of it. My team of Connie, Mario, Robert, Scott, Jacob, and Daniel helped to make it all happen. They are the best!

Voyage of the ARGonauts: Leggo' my Logo!

Ahoy, fellow ARGonauts!

Today's installment brings you the piece of the puzzle that I finally found: the ARGonaut logo!

After painstaking trial and error, I finally arrived at the box modeling process (Thanks Keith Kamikawa!). Using the MentalRay renderer, I gave the logo first a chrome material, but it was WAY too dark and wouldn't play nice with the lighting and background.

Using advice from my fellow classmate (Yo Joel Swanson!), I decided to go with a Semi-Polished Stainless Steel material!

The final result speaks for itself!

Voyage of the ARGonauts: Roadmapping is Fun

Before we could get started with any of the Projects associated with the ARG and AUG, there needed to be some kind of framework; a way to see where everything goes and how it gets there. For this necessity, I used the site 'bubbl'. Their mind mapping feature allowed me to get everything organized and situated for our projects, thus allowing me to get the work done that you've seen thus far.

Voyage of the ARGonauts: What Was and What Might Have Been

Here is the first rough draft of the Game Design document for Midnight Riders, the 7 Rings production before it was scrapped for the Voyage of the ARGonauts game.

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1IqiaD8_Ny7TdeUeNjoubzYrE9ZLL8N5WfYLO9LdlL78

Voyage of the ARGonauts: Plot Points

For the Voyage of the ARGonauts ARG, I assisted in a team of three to come up with the overall story for the game itself. Coupled with the character design, we created a flawless set of documents that illustrated through words what the game should look like and how it all flows.

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1azPYi-BOMNlqiEoFDqim9_hHJ5tOAeNAlqE2MYWn9M0

Voyage of the ARGonauts: It's About Character, Stupid!

As part of the game creation process, my team was tasked with creating the plot, the world, and the characters of the ARG. Using what I know from previous experiences, I took on the task of creating the characters used in-game.

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1hD8TS2vlJ0nj9Gtgk-kZHMDAOPzSWM5B3Z7pYT3RNzs

MATC - Voyage of the ARGonauts: The Scripting Process

As Product Owner, I directed my team to come up with what we needed for our portion of the ARG, which is a video that has elements for the player to follow. To get things started, I took on the task of writing the shooting script. It was touch and go for a bit, but I finally got a final draft done to work from.

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1JUNs_rn28FTP_s7BSvJoDz5AEtSYvk56DJ7o7szQh0U

MATC - CSG Production: Voyage of the ARGonauts II

Welcome back another journey into mystery via the ARGo!

This installment features a preliminary set of storyboard sequences aimed at structuring the A.R.G. video for the school-wide Augmented Reality Game!

After several attempts at creating a workable premise and script, the gallant ARGonauts started anew, taking what was good, learned from the bad, and contemplated the maybes and concepted an ARG video that was packed with a lot, but needed very little! Packed with subliminal messages and hidden clues, the ARG video is the gateway to the AUG at MATC's Portfolio Night!

Sequence One: This is the opener, starting with a shot of space. This space is interrupted via mysterious glowing disks! Cut to a web cam on the intrepid Dr. Kee, who is tracking said disks' movements, as well as decoding and deciphering transmissions! Enter the enigmatic Mr. Locke! As Locke and Kee interpret the events unfolding, the two Messengers contemplate the next move...




Sequence Two: The light disks make their way planet side, descending without impediment! Cut back to out web cam on Mr. Locke as he reads a news feed regarding missing people. Our good Dr. begins to think that the disks have something to do with the missing people, but that can't be. BUT SUDDENLY...THE ENEMY STRIKES! All is not as it appears!



Sequence Three: A cryptic message from the Doc! The light disks carry the allies! But, what is Kee NOT saying! Why is he in trouble! What is up with Locke, and how can Kee be in two places at once?!



Sequence Four: Dr. Kee has braved the invasion of the evil aliens, while making ready for the good guys' arrival! He's scrambled messages everywhere and set clues to find the hidden bad guys...who are closer than you think! MWA-HAHA!



In all seriousness, this is the beginning stages of the scripting process. rather than try and write it all out, my team and I created a structure so that we can word it all out later. Most of the images were drawn late in the day, after I'd put in long hours at the office/pool on only a few hours rest. You tend to get silly in that situation.

MATC - CSG Production: Voyage of the ARGonauts

Welcome back to the wonderful world of student video-game design and production!

Today's topic covers my awesome task of designing the logo and title for the school-wide Alternate/Augmented Reality Game my class/team is currently orchestrating.

As soon as my professor told us it would be an A.R.G. and that we needed a name, 'Jason and the Argonauts' quickly flew into my head. I really liked the idea of using a play-on-words, and when I proposed it, along with my logo, the class seemed to like it too. My prof dropped his name from the title portion, but immediately ok'd the logo.

Now, my task is to render it all in 3DS Max!

...good luck to me.

MATC - CSG Production: Character Design

Production art for an in-game character for our ARG! Using an existing image of myself along with another model, I drew this up for an idea of what our characters would look like in the AUG portion of the game.

MATC - Computer Simulation & Gaming: VICOM 115

For my major, I'm taking video game production classes. My team's initial idea was to create a racing game based on Paul Revere and William Dawes' ride to warn the Colonists about the British Invasion.

My role as Art Lead required me to be in charge of many design elements. MY first round of concepts involved what the 3D models for the player hands would look like in the HUD.

Sadly, our project was scrapped to make way for a much grander game to be made over the course of the rest of the year.