machai-umno

I got tired looking at the old site, so I pushed up the new one...incomplete and with issues... there are some load issues I need to resolve and some broken links that need fixing but it's nice to give DFG a face lift.

Working on the Leviathan Crusader, I have his feet done as well as the Vulkan cannon. I will work my way up the legs to the torso and head and finally the claw. The feet took about 35 hours to complete because this model can be posed, everything had to be engineered not only with the movement and collision issues in mind but also with how it would need to be broken up for casting.... Very complex and a challenging build. I feel like I deserve an honorary degree from M.I.T.

A look at the printed model, courtesy of Miniature Review, seen in this comparison to a 15mm scale T34/85 tank

Now it is time for the final part in these series on puzzles in horror games! This post will be about some puzzles in Penumbra that I personally find especially interesting. Because of this, the post will be filled with puzzle spoilers so if you are planning on playing any Penumbra game and have not yet done so, do so before reading! First I am going to go through some basic guidelines we had when designing the puzzles though. General puzzle design Our main rule when implementing puzzles was something we called the "Island approach". What this means is that all things needed to solve a puzzle are located in the same area, the "island", and connections between islands should be very few and quite obvious. An example of this kind of connection was the hand and head needed to open the door the in residential area in Black Plague. The puzzles to get hold of the head and hand where both confined to their respective islands and where then linked together, hopefully obviou...

In between all the freelance work I get to work on my products... This is a much more heavily detailed arm and gun for one of the Mechs I'll be making.

John at Moddeler does some good work, keeps me and my clients happy. Hats off to Comfy Chair.

I had the opportunity to work with Chris at Outland Games. Chris has a great sense of humor and wanted this reflected in his models. This was a hard project for my to wrap my mind around because I'm so used to designing with a mind set that its got to look lean mean and 100% killing machine. After some back and forth I realized what he wanted and got to work. The large weapons were supposed to be on tripods and gun mounts but I wanted to add some personality and quirkiness to the design. I envisioned the weapons on robotic mounts that would wobble to the next firing position as its crew scurried to keep pace and rather than complicated fire controls on the back of the weapons, just a big red button labeled DESTROY! ;) Chris describes his race of "Skins" as funny little aliens that use weapons that look like toys, but they are the baddest fighters around. Ultimately I enjoyed working on this project and hope to work with Chris again to flush out some more not so serious ...

Bob wanted a building that you could stack. This design strays a bit from his original concept but I could not help myself from adding architectural details to make something that would look at home in most contemporary cities. You can go from a three story structure to a skyscraper by simply adding more middle floor sections.

Bob has been such a great client and this model did not take as long as many to design, so I wanted to do something nice for him... Bio-Dome was on the house.

Hi there again! This time I won't show a new tool, but a new feature for our good old Level Editor: Decals. These are used mainly to add nice details to the level without much sweat. Here is a little video demonstrating how these can be used (to create a nasty mess for example :) ) Nice to know I'm not cleaning that As you can see, there is some stuff to be tweaked and optimized, but I tell you it's still cool to use :D

This is an APC for Jon over at Khurasan Miniatures, just sent over for final approval. You can see his drawing and my CAD execution of his design. It's manned by the Felids, a cat like race that are vicious and prone to breaking delicate things so everything needed to be utilitarian and robust.

Yeah, late again... development is becoming more intense, but I will try and keep the blog entries coming in some kind of regular fashion! A major feature of many games is to let the player become a another person, to play around as some fantasy alter ego. In God of War you take the role as a powerful spartan, Tony Hawk lets you become a professional skater and so on. All of these games lets you have skills and attributes that you normally do not. In God of War it is super human strength and combat abilities. In Tony Hawk it is abilities that normally takes lots of talent and years of talent to acquire. In most adventure games, the player takes the form of some type of Sherlock Holmes character and here one runs in to a problem: How does the player become Mr Holmes? How can she be given Sherlock's wit and problem solving abilities, just like she is given Kratos' strength? That's what the rest of this blog entry will be about. Physical attributes, like dexterity and stren...

Comfy Chair is at it again :) This is a pre final sent to Bob for his approval, see attached his original sketch and below my CAD execution of his vision. Bob is growing quite a product line. JBR created the Wolf, the Spider and soon the Scorpion.... Add to this the Fly and the Cobra.

Name: [REC] Type: Movie Link(Movie details): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1038988/ This is a spanish little gem in the "first person documentary horror" genre, same as the first Blair Witch movie (which I have not seen by the way). While pretty famous in Spain, I'm not sure how known it is worldwide, I think you will at least know the american remake "Quarantine" . I like the original better, just my opinion. The movie is shot from the point of view of a cameraman in a fictional TV show called "Mientras usted duerme" (While you sleep), as he films reporter Ángela Vidal during a usual Barcelona Fire Dept. work night, until there's a seemingly rutinary emergency call from an old apartment block. I don't want to give away anything further than this, so if you want to know more on the plot, you are adviced to watch the movie instead of checking the internet for details :). The actors do a nice job, the set is claustrophobic enough, it actually gets ...