'ardWare

Void Destroyer: Hardware

2012-02-09T13:44:00.004+11:00

Sneak preview of some naval hardware from Void Destroyer, this multi-role vessel is armed to the teeth with a good variety of weapons systems ideal for dealing with fighter squadrons and light capital ships. Like all vehicles in the game, the player can command this warship via tactical interface as part of his fleet, or assume helm control and pilot the ship directly.

The Aegis hull was designed around it's weapons and other critical systems (engines, etc) with armoured plates protecting vulnerable areas - there is an assault variant on the drawing board that will field heavy guns and massdriver arrays against larger vessels as well as armoured platforms and stations.

Blog: TEMMCO

2012-02-05T15:17:00.001+11:00

Web design, site maintenence and e-branding for TEMMCO P/L - Total Energy Mining Maintenence Company.

Commenced January 2012, work in progress. Still to do: Complete content migration, graphic development. Check back for updates.

Blog: Naughty Kitten

2012-02-05T15:06:00.004+11:00

Meow.

Graphics, brand development, brochures and web design for Naughty Kitten Clothing Company.

Commenced December 2011, work in progress. Still to do: populate database, add shopping cart. Check it out here.

Void Destroyer Interview

2012-01-12T10:13:00.003+11:00

In Space nobody can hear you swear.

True PC Gaming has just published an interview with Chasosavy about the trials and tribulations of indie game development. Apart from some late breaking screenshots showing some of the new graphics, Paul offers some excellent insights into the whole process.

Read the whole thing here.

Void Destroyer

2011-09-11T11:10:00.007+10:00

Strategy games are great fun, especially in space but leave the action fans out in the cold a little - if you are anything like me you often find yourself musing on how cool it would be to be able to jump in the cockpit and drive all those ships around like Top Gun on crack.

OTOH space games are usually twitchy point-and-shooters which are a great diversion but often lack depth. Wouldn't it be great if some genius figured out a way to combine piloting and fleet tactics into a proper space game...

Well fret no more strategic action fans. Void Destroyer is a brilliant new indy project in development by Chaosavy which pitches powerful space fleets against each other in a rich space based RTS where you not only construct and command your ships, but also lead them into battle.

Since this is obviously very close to my idea of the perfect game I am extremely happy to be on board as of August 2011 to make pretty graphics and hassle Paul about Ogre shaders and physics and stuff.

The game is currently in alpha and latest version can be downloaded from www.voiddestroyer.com. Early days yet, but I'm sure fans of either genre will see the potential immediately.

Here's a sample of things to come...

Epic Salvage

2011-06-10T16:29:00.006+10:00

How it was sposed to look.

Unbelievably after 4 years of development hell in a shed, I managed to recover a few old hard drives. Among other things, a bunch of assets for Epic were salvaged and will be included in the next patch...

EDF Gunstar defence turret

EDF Scrap Silo

EDF facility

EDF Armoury

EDF Service Bay

Tools: Particle Universe

2011-05-28T01:34:00.004+10:00

Chess enters the Nuclear Age.

Now we know what happens when stuff gets obliterated we can start trying to draw it. For that we need a particle system and a rendering environment and this one is pretty cool and free (or at least pretty cheap for commercial use).

Particle Universe by FXpression is a full featured system with a flexible and easy to use editing suite built in that uses the OGRE engine. PU is being used extensively during ongoing MAD development, so far it has proven to be a great design platform with provision for rendering out stills or animations as well as easily and painlessly generating robust particle scripts.

Reference: BOOM!

2011-05-28T01:18:00.006+10:00

Humans are dumb.

Designing and scripting effective particle systems is a challenge for the designer, especially when it comes to realistic "next-gen" destruction. Explosions involve some very specific processes, so it helps to understand a little about what exactly is going on when things blow up.

CGSociety is hosting an excellent article by Keiron Helsdon on the anatomy of explosions, everything from a firecracker to a H-Bomb is described in detail and accompanied by a bunch of great reference images. Check it out.

Farewell Niko.

2011-05-19T20:48:00.009+10:00

And now the bad news...

Sometimes life is a right bitch.

On this sad day we farewell Nikola Fisher - musician, artist, surfer and pal - now that his long struggle with cancer is finally over.

Niko was the grandson of Schnikelfritz himself - the same Freddie Fisher responsible for the music of Warner Bros. Loony Tunes - and with his father King on the clarinet, Niko carried on the great family tradition of music and farce with aplomb.

I remember an elderly punter at one local gig who was thrilled to have had the opportunity during his life to enjoy 3 generations of Fisher genius. I am not alone in feeling privileged to have shared much happier times with Niko and his family.

Anyways, adios mate. You are sorely missed but I'm sure you are having a good laugh wherever you may find yourself - you never did lose that Niko sense of humour, even if the rest of us struggled to find ours.

Check out http://www.myspace.com/mosquito_creek for a little of Nikos life and work.

Remember Kids...

2011-04-14T14:54:00.004+10:00

Explain, explore and expose that which is Forbidden.

Speaking of, the latest iteration of The Forbidden Pit is about to go gold. For those of you scratching your heads check the projects page or head over to www.theforbiddenpit.com for details.

Beat the shit outta your mates and not go to gaol!

M.A.D - Ogre Engine Renders

2011-02-10T00:52:00.008+11:00

Nothing to see here...

MAD is starting to come together nicely, here's a recent screen showing off a few playable rides in a desert environment. MADs gameplay will feature a bunch of different settings to break stuff in.

...or here. Piss orf.

Tools: Tree[d]

2011-01-26T12:52:00.007+11:00

Now with 3D wind.

Digital orchard, grow forests of procedural low resolution 3d trees for free. Includes a bunch of textures and runs as standalone or plugs in to their Gile[s] app apparently, hugely useful for the busy mapper. Game resolution output for current gen engines is quite feasible.

Grab it here immediately. It's extremely functional, generates awesome output and will likely save huge slabs of time.

M.A.D - Back on the warpath?

2011-01-06T19:12:00.006+11:00

Happy 2011! Welcome to The Future...

Baby it's cold outside...

In late breaking news, work has resumed on MAD. Check the projects page for details and screens from early builds. It's shaping up to be a cool game, great to be back on track!

Latest fixes address terrain shadows and editor. I guess I'd better finish that tank.

Science: gut feelings...

2010-11-19T01:16:00.014+11:00

The following started of as a quite silly BZU forum thread (that sprung from an even sillier thread), but some unusually good points raised inspired me to organise my current ideas about WTF is going on with the whole existence thing.

Discussion and debate are firmly encouraged...

Science has a pretty solid explanation for the formation of ...Galaxy, Sun, Earth...higher life forms, Man. Wherever there is dots in the last sentence there is a gap in our knowledge.

We don't quite understand the origin of the Universe yet, although we totally get lots of stuff since then. Keep reading thread later for a theory if you interested. It's not mathsy or physics really, just a deductive thought process based on a few key observations.

We also don't understand fully how life originally evolved or whether or not it commuted here - this field of research is called Biogenesis.

The theories (primordial soup, volcanic cooking, panspermia etc) are of varying accepted validity, just harder to prove cos 3.5 billion yo germs leave crap fossils. The theories may ALL be correct, it's not exclusive rights.

But we do have a really really good picture of where life went from there through Evolutionary Biology and Molecular Biology - even if we don't quite yet know where it will go next, we know what drives it onwards.

Science has trouble with the very beginning of the Universe (Creation, Big Bang, Inflation etc) - for physicists the math often goes into weird unreachable realms at the edges, especially when you start talking about before and after. M-Theory (which to my understanding suggests that our Universe is floating about with others as a multidimensional membrane-like structure in supergravitational hyperspace) has a snap at it by trying to define an exterior frame of reference to observe it from. String theory is still stumped by it last I heard.

Imagine nothingness.

Tricky huh. If there was no Universe then that's what there'd be instead - utter timeless emptiness, not even a void, cos there's nothing for it to be devoid of...

Time is meaningless cos matter and energy are non-existent. Nothing.

Therefore the state of play before existence itself came into being is largely meaningless, even to itself. In much the same way as you wake in the morning to find 8 hours have passed more or less instantly, an eternity of nothingness may as well be an eyeblink.

So the obvious alternative state is for something to exist. And this is where we find ourselves, sitting about in a Universe that does apparently exist and wondering WTF it's all about.

Therefore the whole point of existence seems very likely to be existence itself. Nothing more is needed, cos anything less is meaningless. That make sense?

OK so that's the why taken care of anyways. It's utterly unarguable, don't even try - it is self evident.

It is a common habit of people to look at the world as if they are apart from it, this is of course useful for observation and even true to a certain degree for an individual creature. Christians tend to view God as a discrete external presence, even though doctrines of omnipotence and omnipresence would seem to immediately refute the popular mindset.

However in the case of The Universe (or indeed GOD) your separate identity and your physical body are a bit of an illusion, and provide only your unique frame of reference as an individual human.

You are in fact a completely and utterly integrated sub-set of the Universe, and NEVER external to it. In fact if you think about it, each and every organism in existence can be seen to be the eyes and ears and tentacles and minds of the Universe (and/or GOD) itself.

In much the same way as our unobservable eternity of emptiness is meaningless, the Universe would also be kinda pointless without life.

A rock can't look at another rock or shag it to make more little horny rocks. Life therefore is maybe the best way for the Universe to know that it exists - and in so doing provide the meaning that non-existence lacks. This is therefore most likely the ultimate purpose of Life, to permit the Universe to observe itself and thus validate existence with a multitude of unique, individual, internal frames of reference - or more basically, to provide for individual life forms that can form any frame of reference at all - a rock or a cloud can't do this, only a life form can.

So it would seem that Life itself is critical to the existence of the Universe. Even moreso, based on observable phenomena, it could be utterly and intricately integrated into the actual mechanism of Existence.

Back to the Big Picture.

How can nothing turn into something. It obviously can't. 0<>1. However we ain't talking maths. "Before the Universe existed" is meaningless cos there was no such thing as time before time itself existed. And there were certainly no numbers.

We can get to that later. The obvious point to make again is that if nothing exists then that's it - nothingness is simply a non-state with no relationship whatsoever to anything that did ever exist. Just like apes didn't turn into humans - nothing didn't suddenly become The Universe, neither was it even filled by it or replaced by it.

Just like Atheism isn't a belief but the lack of one - anything outside the boundaries of The Universe effectively doesn't exist. You can't even effectively place a hypothetical observer there - he has nowhere to sit. It is NOT a Universe sized hole, that'd be a void - it is NOTHINGNESS.

Maybe the Universe as we know it began with an explosive phase shift from meaningless nothing to meaningful everything at some indeterminate point, but it's much easier to imagine that everything has always existed simply cos the only other possible state is meaningless non-existence.

The scientists among us might now interrupt and say "but they kinda know the age of the Universe, its about 17 trillion years (or something)". And I'd answer "Sure - but that's in our time frame..."

Time is relative - everybody has heard that old nutshell. I often wonder if a gnat lives the the equivalent of a rich gnatty life in its eyeblink 3 day existence. But processes at sub-atomic levels move faster still, at speeds approaching the speed of light.

In the very early Universe (like first few minutes-> hours in our frame of reference) free sub-atomic particles were the only things that existed, atoms hadn't even formed yet it was apparently too hot. It was all pretty wild and bright apparently, stuff was zinging around at near light speed all over the place. But again the times and velocities involved are relative to us...life such as ours would have been impossible for many billions of years yet.

However anybody who has waded through all this so far should have spotted an issue...

If Life is necessary to the function and validation of the Universe as reasoned above, then it is almost inevitable that Life formed either with the Universe or occurred VERY soon afterwards.

Now I'm not saying life as we know it Jim. Not fish or plankton, not humans, not even virii and archaea. I have no idea what kinds of life would flourish in the early Universe, but if the reasoning is sound then something must have been alive somewhere for it to even get past the first few minutes. Maybe very tiny, very quick little analogs of us. Maybe beings of energy (or spirit?).

Maybe just maybe it was even God. In fact if you want a good argument to spin at a non-believer for Why God can reasonably be deduced to exist according to physics, you should maybe re-read the bits above very carefully.

The relativity thing comes into it now, gafftaped firmly to the Anthropic Principles.

After all, to any life form that existed at that (early) time, would have been suited to it. It's entire lifespan might take nano-seconds of our time, it's "planet" may have existed for a second or two. But to our alien, that was a long life and career and kids, and his planet an entire ecosphere with all the grandiosity of our own that supported his kind for billions of generations. Since I don't know a word for it, I'll call it "Speed of Time."

I reason that the speed of time would start hitting the stratosphere as you approached the zero point - and I suggest to the physicists that approach it is all we'll ever do - it is a hard limit, beyond which is nothingness.

But as you approach that point, relative speed of time compresses approaching infinity. In this way, the Universe is actually infinite in time, just doesn't seem so to us cos our relative speed of time is so frikken slow that it seems linear when it is in fact curved - steeper (faster) in the past and ever flatter(slower) into the future. At T=0 speed of time is infinite.

So... Why does the observer have to observe at the beginning? Why can't it come in at the end?

Why can't the mere fact of an observation happening at time 6 determine that times 1-5 happened the way they did?

Good question - which is why I included the caveat that maybe life evolved shortly after, perhaps as soon as it was possible - before this there was just sub-atomic haze which itself is mostly meaningless...if there was nothing there able to observe it, that could mean that time didn't even come into being immediately...its a gray area.

Makes the head spin don't it :)

Very early in the Universe antimatter (non-baryonic) was apparently quite prevalent in addition to normal matter (our baryons). The 2 forms of stuff are opposite in fundamental ways and annihilate when they contact, creating large amounts of energy. This energy signature has been detected and measured BTW.

More recently than this Hawking postulated his own brand of radiation, created by the action of what he calls virtual particle pairs - empty space inside the Universe is never quite totally empty - it might be said to be non existent if it was. So what you get apparently, apart from the odd dust or gas particle is little particles than spontaneously pop into existence by borrowing energy from the background radiation - almost like water droplets get blown up by wind on a pond but most of them immediately fall back in.

These particles are always in +/- pairs and usually annihilate each other pretty much immediately. Sometimes, often near the event horizons of black (w)holes, they don't get a chance to. Read Hawking to know more, he's good.

To me the whole baryonic/non-baryonic annihilation event sounds supiciously like a really big ass virtual particle collision...

Maybe the initiation of the Universe was exactly that - maybe our entire Universe is the little puffy cloud of energy that was released into the void of a vastly larger Universe when a random pair of it's virtual particles collided. Or something like that anyway.

If that was true, then it stands that virtual particles in our Universe may well be tiny little pocket Universes, exploding into life at the point of annihilation and then evolving, fading and dying, all in a nanosecond of our time...how wonderfully infinite :)

Perhaps it's just a bigger version of the virtual particles, leaping spontaneously from a much more profound sort of void, but the micro/macro universe thing, where every single virtual particle event births a new baby Universe full of its own life forms and natural wonders is so much more appealing.

Maybe this is even the reason for the strange stretchy behaviour of relative time at really high speeds (time travels slower for you the faster you go) - it all functions to give the little guys their own time frame. In fact the virtual particles go so fast that anything outside that system would be at a relative standstill - no time and meaningless empty space is getting closer and closer to relative nothingness outside really...

Inflation/expansion is then neatly taken care of too - as are the kinds of phenomena that inspired M-Theory. What if the Universe is the result of some kind of titanic annihilating collision of two inconceivably large particles?

No wonder we can't see outside - even if we are like some kind of little pocket particle universe we may well be moving at very near light speed compared to whatever enormity we're floating in and still be vast distances from anything else... external light couldn't enter cos we are at lightspeed anyways, we'd effectively have our own event horizon.

...we can conclude that the Universe is expanding, relative to its own components, but not relative to anything else, because we cannot find anything else to measure it against.

Very neatly phrased.

Following the nested Universe idea, Our Universe would be expanding into real spacial void containing other stuff just as real as we are... however well beyond our event horizon, therefore could bear no possible physical relation to us -> doesn't exist for us -> relative nothingness.

And we already know the little guys are so quick that it's hard to catch them at all, we certainly can't see what's going on inside them. Our Universe is perhaps just the same relative to its pond, but one order of magnitude larger.

The speed of light limit and the vast timescale differences would act to prevent any interaction or information transfer between any of these universes (except perhaps gravity, which is what the supergravity people already suppose - super meaning "outside or above" in this case).

As was previously stated, you cannot have nothing and create something from that nothing. There must have been something out there before time (a measurement of fates unfolding, if you will) began.

Exactly - which is why I don't tend to believe that utter nothingness was ever an actual "real state" - it almost can't be real. If this nested virtual particle collision model is right then it's actually not utter nothingness just relative nothingness which is apparently enough (see below).

The linear time thing is deceiving for a start tho - we are trying to understand what went on in the first seconds of existence based on our perception of those seconds as mere seconds. If we'd have actually been there at that time, we may well have perceived those seconds as billions of years, and this would likely grow exponentially as you approach T=0. The Universe would be infinite to itself.

For those who do not believe in God, the argument is that the universe is constantly recycling itself. It starts as a "big bang," expands, stops, begins to contract, combines as a tiny little ball of compressed matter, and, once again, explodes, expands, etc., forever and ever.

This would be a "closed" Universe IIRC? Expansion slows, halts then reverses to Big Crunch when then may or may not go boom again?

I used to like the symmetry but these days this result has long odds - given weakness of gravity, proton decay and sheer speed of expansion, I dunno if there'd be enough gravitational mass to ever cause a crunch given the distances involved.

Einsteins cosmological constant "C" (which he postulated to kinda reverse gravity to a replulsive force over distance) wouldn't work on much except big singularities once the protons start really popping...supermassive singularities might manage to vaccuum it all up eventually but it seems unlikely that our big explosion will ever actually turn itself around and spontaneously implode - that's not something you see a lot of in nature...

Using the reasoning above, the Universe would more likely be open - the little puff of gas and energy would eventually fade away, dissolving back into the void of the macro Universe (a void in it's frame of reference, but to the particle Universe it would be a largely timeless void because of the speeds involved - ie : relative nothingness.)

The other thing is that our Universe seems to be expanding faster and faster - not slowing down as it cools. This almost seems to suggest that it is expanding into some kind of vaccuum or void that is exerting a force on the matter. Otherwise how could there be acceleration unless Einsteins "C" constant actually was correct or something?

We are looking for a method by which A Universe can just spontaneously commence existing. I suggest the best place to start is to look at any other natural phenomena which features matter spontaneously appearing and see what that's all about.

Virtual particle pairs are the only other example I can think of that seems analogous...seems uncannily so really, especially the polarised baryon V non-baryon thing.

Any outside force that is causing our stuff to accelerate outwards could almost only be external gravity leaking in - much like the supergravity people seem to conclude (or else some form of vaccuum energy I guess). And that force must be stupendously huge relative to internal gravity.

The russian doll virtual particle Universe idea above might help explain the presence of external gravity acting from a region that should be nothingness - it's only nothingness and meaningless relative to Our Universe...but it actually might contain stars and galaxies itself.

Tools: Balancer

2010-11-12T22:03:00.002+11:00

A standalone LOD processing application by Atangeo, free for non-commercial use. Again this is untested by me personally, but it may prove useful when producing those pesky manual LOD states, or trying to squeeze high resolution models into Real Time render environments.

Epic Tileset: Deep Impact

2010-10-27T19:31:00.005+11:00

A few screens below to show off the new WIP deep space lunar tile set. This map will likely be thinner on props than the other new maps - but the visibility is huge and maps will feature seismic activity, volcanos and asteroid strikes as environmental hazards.

Since you got this far, here's a sneak peak of the new EDF Support Tower (front) and remodelled Motion Tracker that will be available soon in Epic V1.1 update.

Big gun with even bigger afro. BZ2 is so retro...

Tools: Fragmotion

2010-10-27T16:10:00.005+11:00

Create really angry animations.

Excellent 3D animation editor, specifically designed for easy creation and portability of skeletal animation for games. Supports heaps of 3D formats, includes UV mapping and a bunch of other goodness. Free version is available for non-commercial use (modders) but license is cheap regardless.

Tools: Ivy Generator

2010-10-26T04:00:00.004+11:00

Make giant dogturds look dignified.

One of my personal favourites, wish I had more opportunity to be using it. Ivygen generates realistic vines and ivy which grows procedurally over another model of your choice. Set stem and leaf size and density to create the look you want then simply seed and watch it grow. Absolutely beautiful results, too high rez for games but can be useful in texture creation...

Tools: Stone Generator

2010-10-26T03:43:00.006+11:00

Nice grass too.

Amazing what you can find if you think to look. This is a very recent find, I haven't tested it yet so no guarantees - but by all appearances it lets you generate realistic rocks. This may prove very useful for game designers on a time budget. Grab it here and let me know.

Tools: Gordian Knot

2010-10-26T03:25:00.003+11:00

Glass things are going nowhere.

Gordian Knot is a very clever standalone application that easily creates 3d "string" based on nodes and a cross section that you specify. Use it to easily create realistic pipework or cabling or vines, or tie up an object with 3D rope that obeys surface collision and can knot around itself realistically. To minimise vertex count (for eg: game models) use a low rez cross section...

Tools: Celestia

2010-10-26T03:07:00.006+11:00

All it needs now is guns.

This is really nifty and totally free with heaps of cool addons. Celestia is an excellent 3D real-time map of known space basically. You want close up renders of planets, or just to go sightseeing in our solar system and beyond then this is the shiz. Stellar cartography at your fingertips.

Tutorial: Starfields

2010-10-26T02:45:00.003+11:00

Space is big. REALLY big.

Click the image for an excellent tutorial by Greg Martin on the topic of creating realistic starfields. This guy does great stuff, and this tute is simple and works like a charm.

Be sure to check his gallery for some stunning abstracts and astronomical art.

A Design Process IV: Final geometry

2010-10-20T00:23:00.008+11:00

The first draft got the basic lines down, now it's a short step to finalise details. The shot below weighs in at about 4000 verts and already has some shared texture areas UV mapped to various components. These details immediately distinguish it as being Kautylian.

Final geometry with partial UV mapping

Changes should be fairly obvious - tweaked proportion, a few details updated, and it's got a heavy railgun in it's main hardpoint now - the word "bristling" springs to mind. In reference to the design issues I noted before, each of the details has a specific purpose. Given that this model isn't a slavish render of something from real life and I'm not a tank engineer and I don't get to drive one around for a job or anything like that, problems with this design would be immediately apparent to anybody who really knows their tanks. But happily such people are sufficiently rare that this should be convincing enough to run with for a game.

The turret features: a crenellated hatch with a spotlight and ladder, artillery and gun ammo auto-loading bays, a sensor blister with cameras, radar and rangefinders, racking for crew gear, smoke and flare emitters. The main hull has various removable plate sections and guards, additional gear racking which doubles as slat armour, a driver hatch and secondary sensor dome, a front mounted hull plate designed to hydroplane, rear mounted cargo bay with winch, shielded headlights and rear signal lights. Ideally hinged front and rear lower wheel guards (mostly hidden in the above shot) would swing down when the vehicle was in water, to create additional hydroplane lift surfaces but MAD doesn't support that kind of behaviour so they are just wheel guards.

Areas in green will get a new texture - although the improvised and makeshift look of the Antiarchs allow them to quite easily map back to a generic texture, the Kautylian units need to look more manufactured so texturing needs to be more specific. This unit has great big flat surfaces which need particular care. Mainly in order to break up the solid colour areas, Kautylians use black armour plating on front facing surfaces, so the diffuse colour texture should look roughly like this...

Colours layered in 2D helps plan UV and texture scheme.

In many cases, a designer might have drawings or conceptual sketches to work from - in this case since I already had a look in mind, the sketch phase was done in 3D. Even so, it's useful to spend the time on mockups like this prior to the next bit. Sometimes things can look terrific in a sketch or in your head but kinda gormless or otherwise weird in 3D.

Next step is the remaining UV mapping and painting in the diffuse textures.

A Design Process III: First Draft

2010-10-17T16:32:00.009+11:00

Our new tank is now pretty well defined in the abstract, time to start on the actual design. At this stage it's helpful to have a good selection of reference images featuring actual tanks and vehicles from reality - if a vehicle ever engaged in actual warfare then you can be pretty sure that it was functional and should look the part. The sense of realism we desire can best be achieved by emulating real objects to a certain degree.

We also have a few parameters we need to work within if this new tank is to slot neatly into a tech tree with other units. The style of the thing is in many ways pre-defined - which can be equally helpful and restrictive. In this case it means we already have a library of detail objects from other Kautylian vehicles that can be easily added to our new tank to unify the look and imply standardised technologies. It also means that the lines of the new unit should be clean, straight, efficient and probably not stray too far from modern designs in order to best fit with the existing build tree. Modern designs are therefore an ideal starting point for inspiration.

One of many rejected drafts for this unit.

Early in the conceptual phase I mucked about with complex suspension rigs and other techy looking features, but they never really fit well with the economy and pragmatism of a post apocalyptic setting, and would totally outclass the Antiarchs. Most modern wheeled tanks in reality look more or less like this or this. Sure they look pretty badass, however perhaps a little too close to the existing Kautylian Medium ATV for our nefarious purposes.

Since we are creating a heavy tank and want it to look the part, something like this or this might be closer to the look we'd ultimately want - lean, mean, futuristic but definitely well within the realms of the plausible - using wheels instead of tracks will give ours a certain uniqueness. These also look solid enough to mount our big guns.

Next point on the brief is the semi-aquatic functionality - amphibious main battle tanks kinda integrate various features of boats and look like this (Google image search is the designers best friend...) - in MAD they struggle on water so amphibious aspects can be minor, but should still be present.

The final consideration is logistics.

Most designers who dabble in this field should have a vague idea of the method used to create AAA FPS game assets. Here is not the place to delve deeply into that process, but it involves creation of a high resolution version of your game model that is used to "bake" ambient occlusion and normal maps onto the low resolution model. I'm not using that method for several reasons.

Firstly, unlike most AAA titles that feature vehicles, MAD has a much greater RTS slant and increased visibility - therefore vastly more vehicles may appear on screen at any one time than in Halo for instance. The downside to the texture baking is resource cost - each model needs it's own set of unique textures and this adds up very quickly when you consider the resolution each texture may also need to be.

Also because I am the sole designer on this project I have a lot on my plate, especially considering I also still need to pay rent. In order to punch out 2 or more full tech trees (plus all the maps, props, particles, textures, GUI icons etc.) I need to work with an eye to efficiency.

Therefore unit textures are shared as much as possible across each build tree. Parallax, specular and ambient occlusion maps are then generated from a heightmap, which I paint in manually based on the diffuse texture. It's less exact, but certainly functional and far less costly in terms of resources. Additionally, I tend to re-iterate designs as I get new ideas - shared textures allows me to do this much more efficiently and work on several units at once.

Currently the Kautylians use 2 textures, if possible I'd like to keep it that way. Many of the fine details like lugs and ammo crates etc will obviously lend themselves well to this kind of recycling - however to make life easier later when trying to shoehorn the UVs about, if I am creating any new geometry it should stick to shapes that will fit well to the shared diffuse textures. This bit can be a bit trial and error, but it is surprising how much variation you can get by just mixing it up.

This might fit the bill.

After a bit of mucking about in my app of choice, I arrived at the above as a first draft, decided to run with the boxy MBT look and replace treads with wheels. I kinda like it - the details are fast and loose, but it has that no-nonsense look I'm after. Currently it's armed with the Antiarch artillery weapon - because that is the bulkiest of the large cannons, the main turret hardpoints need to be designed around it. It maybe needs bulkier armour and more plating but overall it fits OK I think.

Although it's beyond the scope of this article to teach 3D modelling, the method used to create the tank above might be useful.

Next: Step by step.

A Design Process II: Start your engines...

2010-10-16T03:22:00.009+11:00

So we've checked out some cool pics and watched some tank shows on Discovery. We now know enough about tanks to design something that might pass for one.

Next thing to consider is some parameters. Firstly the scenario.

MAD is set in a post apocalyptic future world with a mixture of high and low technologies, and limited logistics and resources. Although high tech construction methods are available and elements like weapons and engines are futuristic and efficient, the types of vastly complex battlefield systems available to modern military forces are no longer functional. Without GPS and satellite tracking, the actual business of warfare would change dramatically, re-assuming a WWII type dynamic. Our new unit must fit into this world seamlessly.

Our tank will be Kautylian, and a heavy siege tank cos that's what I'm up to. Check the other Kautylian units and note the style. Kautylian ground vehicles are fairly conventional in terms of look because they will be the first faction the player gets to command and therefore need a high level of visual familiarity to ease the transition of the FPS player into an unfamiliar RTS style command role.

A Kautylian.

They feature more or less straight lines and flat panels because they use composite carbon fibre/ceramic armour plating on vulnerable areas. The style is slightly bulky and industrial, as if these vehicles have been refitted and pressed into military service. Note the slight asymmetry which helps the illusion of function. However our new tank will be a little more military and substantially less conventional than it's siblings...

MAD's gameplay and engine requirements are the next parameters that need addressing. MAD vehicles can feature 2 to 8 wheels, 1 turret and a cargo bay. Turrets are considered to be automated since there is no facility for adding pilot geometry to a manned vehicle or turret to simulate a gunner. For similar reasons all vehicle cabs are enclosed and opaque. Plotwise it's a toxicity thing, that lets me get away with enclosed motorcycles. This is obviously less of a problem for a tank.

However one limitation of MAD that will fundamentally affect the design is the lack of support for tank treads - our heavy siege tank must be wheeled. Now it's getting interesting.

It seems reasonable that tyres are easier to replace than tank track in a post apocalytic wasteland so fair enough, we want a big ass wheeled tank. The Antiarch analog is a huge mutant battle truck thing - our new unit must be able to stand toe to toe with it, both functionally and visually. So it's gotta be big and mean looking too. It also needs to be able to mount a similarly big gun as well as a light anti personal weapon onto it's single turret, and use them effectively without clipping into the chassis. Finally it must at least look partially amphibious, since MAD tanks float and can navigate slowly through deep water.

That then is the brief. Next: Sketching out a look.

A Design Process I: Keeping it real

2010-10-15T23:57:00.032+11:00

This is the first post in a series describing the creation of a MAD unit from concept to finished asset. I'll be more or less building the unit as I go, so it may take a few posts. Before we start getting tangled up in geometry and textures however, we need to develop ideas and form some basic strategy.

MAD vehicles are designed to be realistic within the limitations of engine functionality and construction methods, and this kind of result can require a little preparation and research. First step towards realism is always to understand as far as possible what it is that you want to create.

Design as defined by Dictionary.com

–verb (used with object)
1 - to prepare the preliminary sketch or the plans for (a work to be executed), esp. to plan the form and structure of.
2 - to plan and fashion artistically or skillfully.
3 - to intend for a definite purpose.
4 - to form or conceive in the mind; contrive; plan.
5 - to assign in thought or intention; purpose.

It's useful to note at this point that while actually drawing stuff is mentioned, the design process as defined is much more about planning and purpose. This is particularly true when designing game assets, specifically alien or futuristic versions of identifiable current technologies that must function within a pre-defined game environment.

A tank is, well a tank. It has certain tank bits and a particular form that instantly identify it as a tank in our minds (assuming one has ever seen a tank before, and been informed at some point about its' intended function and generally fundamental tank-ness).

Like any other vehicle, a tank has some form of motive system distributed around an enclosed platform, which features a roughly horizontal place to sit (or some kind of local equivalent) for any crew. Unlike other vehicles however the tank tends to be larger because it features an additional, much larger horizontal place to put the big heavy guns and stuff you want it to carry around. That's pretty much it really - a cab, a place to put guns and engine stuff, and some viable method to move it to within range of whatever it needs to be shooting at.

A functional 3D game tank.

We'll be wanting more than that however. We got 10000 verts that exist to be used in interesting ways and we want a realistic tank cos we have buff next-gen GPU's that push polygons around so fast you can cook bacon on the heat sinks. The perception of realism in any visual artifact is tied intrinsically to the suspension of disbelief it can elicit in the viewer. And for these cool next gen games and tech savvy players, when talking geometry that's all about attention to detail.

However it moves, a tank needs to be all terrain. It must be able to effectively steer and still balance the load at speed. Because they are likely to encounter bad-guy tanks they are armoured, so usually bulky. We still have an engine to consider - this requires space for mounting and might need to be ventilated both ways and fueled, without being vulnerable.

The tank must usually have a way for crew to get inside, and then see out to navigate and aim once they are there. They may also require such little luxuries as, say clean air, and possibly water if they are planning any long trips. The weapons must be mounted where they will be functional and may or may not need ammunition and/or reloading, cooling, armour etc. If the crew plan to be driving at night it'll likely need lights or else high tech sensors. Most tanks belong to someone dangerous, so are covered in tags and warning signs and may be camoflaged in various ways. Often crew gear is stored on the outside of the tank so it's less cramped inside.

There is such a thing as greebles. Greebles are defined as "meaningless detail introduced in order to imply complexity" and are seen in such places as Death Stars. Greebles are to be avoided - mainly because if you have the right mindset you don't need them, especially for little stuff. The secret to making something like a tank that looks even vaguely realistic in form is about using contextually relevent details to create the illusion of realistic function.

The Best way to understand details like that without getting some formal engineering skills is to study and consider resources like this image and then start thinking about the other kinds of things that your future tank might need to be able to handle if it were real.

If you try and make your tank too alien (especially in arbitrary stylistic ways that are oblique to the nominal functionality and economy of a tank) then you run the risk of players being less and less able to visually relate to it. Futuristic or alien sci-fi vehicles with a pre-assumed level of technological advancement might use vastly different technologies to achieve something like a tank but the key functionality (ie: a big armour plated people mover with guns on top) remains more or less true throughout the known universe...

Next: Start your engines...

Tutorials: Realistic Hard Surfaces

2010-10-15T13:23:00.013+11:00

I've received requests for some tutorials on how to go about making 3D game stuff. I'm certainly happy to share some tricks of the trade, will upload some tutorials as I get time to make them. Meanwhile make sure you check the Resource links regularly, as I'll be updating with the best graphics and game design tutes I stumble across.

Paint textures like Stefan Morell

Start with these excellent tutes by Stefan Morell for hard surface textures, found here and here.

For more amazing CGSociety magic feast your eyeballs here...

I may as well update this post with the best links as I find them, there are thousands out there and many are superb. Please feel free to post specific requests for the kinds of stuff you want to see explained so I can write and be posting the most relevent items. Stay tuned.

MAD Vehicles

2010-10-15T01:30:00.006+11:00

Just snapped off some new renders of a few of the MAD vehicles in their current state, obviously there's still a few small UV niggles in parts but they're largely complete. There's a few more designs in various states of texture mappedness that are less developed, if there's interest I may post some wireframes. Check out the MAD Project page here.

Epic V1.0 Player Feedback

2010-10-09T18:01:00.024+11:00

It's always gratifying to discover that hard work is appreciated. Epic 1.0 is now playing, despite a few loose ends - here are a few comments lifted from the BZU and BZ2MD forums.

"I think I'm in love.... it's so puuuurdy...."

"I've been playing EPIC, and I say, i can never go back to regular BZ2. Maybe a good idea would be to convert the original SP, and/or some of the more notable mods to EPIC, give it the new look that rocks so much."

- Roadkill

"Didn't have much time, died attacking the Cerberi Base, but in all it's awesomeness... golden awesomeness."

"That first pic, the forest one, took my breath away. Awesome and unexpected from the BZ2 engine..."

- Avatar

"Hard to believe that first pic was rendered in BZ2. It almost looks like a painting someone did for a book."

"Love the mod BTW. It makes you feel really small, like how you should be in a real war. I'm surprised at how effective the bombers are. I never wouldve imagined that one could modify the AI to be so effective at bombing runs."

- Zero Angel

"This is the absolute best expansion I have ever seen for any game, period. Insane improvement on the graphics, a lot of new races to play as, and MUCH more balanced than the last one. Great job, and keep up the good work, there are still thousands of people that play BZII, and your expansion will definitely bring more in, I have gotten some friends to download your expansion, so keep up the good work."

- Commando38

Gotta be happy with reviews like that. Thanks go out to the BZ2MD Epic crew and everybody who has given it a run.

Epic V1.1

2010-10-08T21:58:00.009+11:00

After way too long, BZ2 Epic V1.0 finally hit the stands a few weeks back to much rejoicing from discerning action/strategy game fans throughout the known universe. Unsure how many actual aliens grabbed it, but happily quite a few humans did - maybe we can revive interest in the genre just a little. Big kudos to the crew on BZ2MD for assembling the final assets.

Currently working on some polished new tilesets for the first major update, recently declassified screenshots from Epic V1.1 below. Remember this is a 10+ year old game engine folks...

Thanks GSH and Ken for the 1.3 upgrades. There's a few more WIP tilesets that are less developed, I got more ideas than time unfortunately. As well as the new maps, the V1.1 update will also fix a few reported issues and upgrade playable tech for all factions. Check www.bz2md.com for latest news.

Yeah OK OK...

2010-10-08T20:02:00.000+11:00

Welcome to the blog. My name is Drew, I'm a designer and here's some of my stuff.