Minalien.com » Life http://minalien.com Game Programming Weblog & Portfolio Sat, 21 Jan 2012 23:05:10 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Update! http://minalien.com/2011/09/update/ http://minalien.com/2011/09/update/#comments Wed, 28 Sep 2011 18:30:55 +0000 Ken http://minalien.com/?p=276 So once again, it’s been forever since I’ve updated this blog (or, sadly, put up the next tutorial in my SFML-Zelda series). I’m still alive, I’ve just been busy between work, school and my personal experimentations. I’m hoping to be able to pick up the SFML-Zelda series again near the end of October, so keep your eyes open!

In the mean time, I’ve been playing around with a fair amount of OpenGL, trying to break into the third dimension– I’ve grown tired of two-dimensional projects. Accompanying this is my attempting to get at least a general understanding of 3D modeling, and I’m getting to the point where I can create something that I feel will be passable in a game, so hopefully I’ll be able to show some things off here soon!

And last, but certainly not least, is my new gaming computer- Miyako. She’s a beast of a machine, specifically tailored to be ready to run Skyrim at its highest on release. She’s equipped with an AMD Phenom II 3.3GHz/3.7GHz Turbo X6 six-core processor, an AMD Radeon HD 6950 (soon to be dual, with CrossFire), 8 GB (soon to be 16) of RAM, and a Blu-Ray Burner. All-in-all, I’m looking forward to upcoming PC titles, and hopefully I’ll be able to crank out some powerful effects and experimentation with some OpenGL 4 and Direct3D 11 projects soon enough.

In the mean time, here’s some of what I’ve worked on in Blender.
Biped_Front Biped_Right Buster Sword - Untextured Ice-Untextured

]]> http://minalien.com/2011/09/update/feed/ 0 Portfolio Work http://minalien.com/2011/06/portfolio-work/ http://minalien.com/2011/06/portfolio-work/#comments Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:43:29 +0000 Ken http://minalien.com/?p=179 Well, the SFML-Zelda tutorial series is going to be on hold for the next couple of weeks as I go through a CCNA course outside of the Marine base in which I’m stationed. Here, I’ve got limited internet access on my personal computer – really, all I have to work with is my cell phone’s Wireless Hot Spot capability, which gives me just barely enough to be able to take the nightly Cisco module assignments and finish up my college work while I’m out here.

While I’m here, however, I’m going to be doing a lot of work offline to get more projects portfolio-ready, in preparation for the completion of my military contract. Right now, I am working on a couple simple game projects that should hopefully give me more content to put up here, and I am doing some more experimentation with 3DS Max and Maya in preparation for 3D development. Learning to do even basic programmer art is… slow, to say the least- the sacrifice of what artistic talent I had as a kid served me well in helping me focus on more logical tasks, but it’s left me with the ability to struggle at making even basic models for testing.

I have added the port of Michal Budzynski’s HTML5 Canvas game tutorial (Stairway to Heaven) from JavaScript to CoffeeScript to my portfolio, mostly as a test of the new portfolio theme I’ve grabbed from the WordPress themes site. At the moment, it’s just showing up as a black square on the Portfolio page, but that will change once I can get a screenshot (Internet Exploder 7 doesn’t support Canvas) to set as the portfolio item’s featured image.

I also figure that it might be a decent idea to blogroll, so if anybody out there has a development-oriented blog and want to jump in, let me know.

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