As I mentioned before, I’m currently hard at work on making my own indie game at Sprixelsoft.
I’m going to be going to PAX Prime in Seattle this year, but we’re actually very hopeful that we might get accepted to the Indie Megabooth. It would mean that I no longer require the ticket that I’ve already purchased for PAX… and it will mean that I’ll probably get to see a lot less of PAX… but it would also mean a great shot at gaining some exposure for our game… which is nothing to scoff at.
We actually went into a bit of a crunch mode in an attempt to get something to display for the game in time for the deadline for the MB. At the beginning of May we had barely anything more than a proof of concept that we could have sprites moving on a background… so I’m pretty please that by May 13th, we actually had a demo where two people could fight each other. I’m excited for when this becomes a finished game.
If you want to check out our work in progress, here’s the video that we made for our application. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they see the potential that we see in the game 🙂
If you’d like to check out more about the game, we’re reporting about it pretty regularly. Here’s some places you can follow:
- * Sprixelsoft
- * IndieDB
I’ve also been writing a series of Game Dev articles for Young Web Builder which you might be interested in checking out:
Hey! Look at that! It’s been a damn long time since the last update, and for that I should really be ashamed. But you know what? I’m not! It’s been a busy time in my life since I moved to Vancouver, and there’s so, so, so much cool stuff I got up to there that’s well… just as cool as all the stuff I didn’t tell you about that happened in Australia!
Ha!
So here’s the deal! I’ve been working on other people’s projects for a while now, and doing something like that leaves a huge creative itch welling up in little ole me that has to be scratched. So as of January 2013, I’m on a break from working on other people’s stuff. I’ll of course need money again in that futurey thing known as the future, but in the meantime I’m working on a project for me.
It’d be really awesome if you could check it out. I’m working really hard on it, and I do make frequent updates to that blog. The website is called Sprixelsoft and you must follow it. Seriously. The world depends on you.
Greetings all,
Welcome to Sprixelsoft’s main site and dev blog.
I’m excited to get the site up and running and look forward to posting about our exploits, game dev progress, and other such foolishness. For now, a brief salutation and some pretentious ramblings.
I suppose I should start off the blog with a bit of a “Hello World” statement, as well as pointing out that while you are indeed looking at the blog right now, also take note of the top bar where there will be a dynamic link to whatever our latest “News” item happens to be. If you’d like to learn more about Sprixelsoft, Matthew Langille, and myself; feel free to poke around and see what’s what. And also be sure to click on the below link to get a bit more detail on just what it is that I’ve been up to now that I’ve quit my job, moved to San Francisco, and hope to fulfill my dream of making video games
It’s be ages since I last updated you, my dear internet!! I got carried away with my life in glorious Australia and need desperately to retroactively chronicle my adventures. Expect me to do so in the semi-near future! In the meantime, the gist of it is this: Australia is awesome. I’m now in Vancouver working at Digital Domain on some live action goodness, and I’ve got a metric crap ton of chores that need to be done. Relocating my plot of interspace was a priority as my lease on it expires in 3 days, but that has now been taken care of so I must cross off some other priority items.
I’ll be back soon! And I’ll bring photos!
My wife and I decided to head out to the Blue Mountains for Valentine’s Day, and so I can now say that I’ve finally ventured further outside of Sydney than the airport! We picked up a rental car and ventured out on Saturday to spend the night in Richmond, giving ourself lots of time to relax and just be unrushed with our trip. Figured that this would be a good idea as I have never driven either in a city or on the left side of the road, but it also ended up being a good idea as not 30 minutes on the road we ended up with a flat tire! When that was all resolved however, we continued on our way, and arrived in Richmond after sunset, had ourselves a great dinner at a placed called Embers Wood Fired Pizza, and tucked ourselves into bed for the night.
On Sunday, we continued on our way up to Mount Tomah. I’ve had a new reversal ring for a while that I’ve been meaning to try out on my broken 50mm 1.8 II lens and this proved to be a pretty good day for it. I have to say, that I quite thoroughly enjoyed the Botanic Gardens, and am pretty happy with the photos I took. I heavily recommend checking out this place if you ever have the chance. We’re looking forward to scoping out more of the Blue Mountains when we get the chance.
Happened to be out in the Humber Valley in Toronto in May 2010, around the time that this white floaty stuff was in the air. I’m assuming that it’s seeds of some sort. Gave a very calm, magical type of feeling. Reminded me a lot of some keep alive effects that I was currently doing at work, and is kind of nifty reference imo.
This is an older video that I took, from May of last year, but I think it’s cool visual effects reference for water running down glass.
Welcome to the New Allegro Digital! Make sure you update your RSS feeds! I was a little later than expected with bringing this new layout live, but I’m pleased with how it is working. In my last post I mentioned that I had gotten a flickr account up and running, but now I’ve got a better connection between that account and this site so that I can automatically update images in the gallery as I update flickr. Things aren’t so automatic with the video section, however I do intend to update regularly as I’ve currently got a backlog that I want to process and add each week. I’ve just added four more videos to the VFX reference page in the Multimedia section. This is a section where I hope to share some random video that I capture while out and about. There isn’t much from a narrative point of view in this footage, but rather I want it to be a library of live action footage that will help visual effects artists figure out effects that they may be working on.
A new year always seems a time for reflecting and looking forward, so to the side you’ll see my new list of goals for the year. Last year I met the majority of my goals. It was a blast getting back on stage and doing some live music again. It’s something I want to keep doing when I get the chance, and while I fell short of my musical goals last year; I think that it’s worth trying to be a bit more practical about it this year and rather than setting out to record x number songs to focus on improving in general.
Participating in a Competitive Tournament for Left 4 Dead 2 was also a fun experience. Team Awesome (my team) ended up losing to the team that won 3rd place, unfortunately partially due to having only 3 teammates present for the match, but also largely due to the fact that you have to play these games an insane number of hours to know all the ins and outs required in competitive play. I still love L4D, and of course all games in general, but I think I’ll stay out of competitive gaming in the future. It’s just so much of a time sucker and can feel more like a chore than a game.
Speaking of gaming, the downside to being a consumer I guess is the tendency to buy things. I sometimes find a game I want and buy it because it’s on sale though no time to play it. By the time I do get time, it isn’t necessarily my first choice to play. And so I have built up a small collection of games that I’ve either never played or have only just barely played. Assassin’s Creed, Drake’s Fortune, Dragon Quest V, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, and Final Fantasy VII Dirge of Cerberus are all games that fit into that category. I decided to make my way through these games last year, but after participating in the L4D2 competition, I also tried to just have fun and play games that I was in the mood to play rather than just forcing my way through games because I felt obliged to. Loved all these games by the way, but once I accomplished the final goal in my list by moving to Australia, it seemed that my options for completing my collection of games were suddenly limited. I got part of the way through Twilight Princess, but made the decision to leave all my video game systems in Canada when I moved and so have not gone though TP, or the two Final Fantasy games on the list. Some other games that I ended up playing (and loving) last year include Scott Pilgrim and Megaman 10 on PS3, and thanks to my laptop finally beating River City Ransom and Act Raiser. But I’ll have to wait until I’m back in Canada before I can touch my GameCube or PS2 again or finish my munny. I must say, I’m somewhat partial to the lack of clutter now that I have fewer possessions with me.
I did get the Wheel of Time re-read done though in time to start and finish The Gathering Storm before my move, and have picked up Towers of Midnight and read that here too. I thoroughly enjoy this series and kudos to Brandon Sanderson for picking up quite excellently where the late Robert Jordan left off.
I did end up making a triptych though and a bit of other printed work late last year. For those interested, I can have prints of any of the photos in the gallery made and shipped internationally. The price is largely dependent on the size however, so if you’re interested in having a print, hit me up and we can work out the details. The ones that you see in this triptych for example are 12″(~30cm) by 18″ (~46cm) each and start at $150 US per print for canvas prints.
First thing’s first: I opened a Flickr account! So now you have even more ways to stalk me! I’ve had a growing interest in taking photos for quite some time now; photography is an activity that I’ve been interested in for years, but couldn’t really afford to get into. It can be a rather expensive hobby for those who want to get real slick control over how their photos will turn out. Over the years I’ve had a few consumer level cameras and was never happy with the results. When I went on my honeymoon I had to borrow a point and click camera from my mother in law as my camera had broken years ago. I got some snaps on that trip that I was happy with largely because they were capturing memories, but was rather frustrated both with the fact that it was a borrowed cam and that I just couldn’t get the fine tuned control I wanted to get when it came to focusing on specific objects or the shutter speed. I decided that I didn’t want to go on more vacations without getting a “proper” camera of my own and so in November 2009 after doing my research, I splurged on a Canon 7D.
Fast forward to September 11, 2010. I’d just looked at about six apartments in my quest to find a more permanent place to lay my head at night and decided to stop off at Bondi Beach for some photo ops. I’d gone by briefly one day but hadn’t had the time to really stick around. This time I brought my 50 mm 1.8 II, as well as my EFS 10-22mm lens. I started at the south end of the beach, and did a little bit of climbing on the cliffs looking for some interesting features on the rocks to photograph, and then eventually worked my way to the northern end, stopping about halfway along the beach to get some photos of the massive kites that were flying in anticipation of the kite festival that would take place the next day. I then continued on my way toward the cliffs at the northern end and eventually out onto the rocks. Bondi is a rather impressive beach in my opinion. Nothing really compares to the sand dunes of Prince Edward Island’s beaches, but there’s a reason that this is such a well known beach. I really do have to recommend you take a look at the photos I’ve made available at the very least, but you should also pack your bags and go see it for yourself. Aside from the cliffs, there are some fantastic splashes that happen on the rocks at the northern end that are a pretty impressive spectacle to bear witness too.
The thing that you need to keep in mind however, is that water is a force to be reckoned with. Many people fall victim to these splashes each year… mostly unaware tourists who don’t really get how quickly the swells can grow in size. This unfortunately includes myself. While I was getting closer and closer to these splashes getting video and photos, I hadn’t realized that the swells were getting larger too. I thought I was safe enough, but eventually a wave came in that instead of splashing against the rocks, swept right over it. This brought just enough water over the rocks that it was impossible for me to retain my footing and I was swept backward, over the rocks, and into a pool of salt water. I got only some minor wounds… some surface cuts on my legs, belly, arms, and feet… and in fact appear to have fixed an injury that I’d developed in my knee earlier in the year. Unfortunately my new iphone that I’d purchased not a month earlier, my canon 7d, and my two lenses fell victim to the salt water. I attempted to flush everything with spirits and fresh water… but the electronics had all been on at the time, the lenses aren’t weather sealed, and I wasn’t able to get any of it properly taken care of before the heat had already caused the parts to start drying. It was a very expensive day for me with little consolation but that my memory card still worked and I was not seriously harmed.
Now, for the happy ending. November 23rd was my last blog post, but it was also when my wife was en route to Sydney to join me, and with her, she brought a brand new Canon 7d. Huzzah! I’ve now decided that photography is too expensive for it to remain purely a hobby. With that new 7d also came me having to replace my 50mm 1.8 II (which I “upgraded” to a 50mm 1.4) and repair my 10-22 mm lens. Cameras and lenses are expensive, and I can’t justify all this expense unless it’s more than just me enjoying the photos. This is the reason why I’ve started my flickr account, and this is why in the near future I plan on redesigning my site again to have more of a photo centric point of view. There are more lenses I want, and I’d really like to be able to pick them up by selling prints of my work. I’ve done a few for myself, and one for my parents for Christmas, and would like to think that there are people out there that would like some for themselves. In the meantime, I’d also like to point to some sites out there where people can go to find information on photography if they’re interested in getting more into it. I haven’t taken any courses in it, and have either found these sites to be very helpful, or am looking forward to looking at them some more as I need them.
- Canon EOS Beginners FAQ – Wow. This one is intimidating. It’s very comprehensive, but I can’t tell you how amazing it was to have something like this to read when trying to figure out what all the camera jargon is, and how lenses differ. This is the mother load of information right here, and it’s not for the weak of heart. I learned so much from this FAQ.
- What lenses for my digital SLR (Canon) – Some short and simple suggestions of what some lenses are that you may want to pick up if you’re shooting with a Canon DSLR.
- The Best Canon EOS Lenses – Bob Atkins Photography – Another great resource if you’re looking for some quick suggestions for the best lenses available.
- Photography-on-the.net – An invaluable resource, the link in particular that I’ve linked to, where you can really see what type of photos a given lens will provide. These forums are a fantastic place to go for info and while I’m essentially just a ghost on there, looking but not contributing, I can’t stress enough how useful I find this site.
- Canon & Nikon Digital SLR Camera and Lens Reviews at The-Digital-Picture.com – While the above link may be fantastic as a forum, and for meta-review, I find that this link is another great place to go for a more detailed, coherent review on various equipment. Personally, if I’m spending hundreds of dollars on a piece of equipment, I like to know what it is I’m getting myself into. The more info, the better.
- Lensplay – Find A Lens – While the sites listed above will talk generally about what lenses are the best, this is more of a database that lets you search based on focal length, aperture, or price. Lenses have a reasonably detailed description and will specify whether the lenses are weather proof or not and are user rated so it’s a pretty decent resource when you know you want to start looking for a specific type of lens. Also helpful since you’ll be able to find lenses from lots of different manufacturers.
- LensHero | DSLR Lenses – This one is a brand new website, but it seems like it is also quite useful. I own a Canon and so of course tend to look at Canon centric sites for my information, but this is a handy lens centric site that will allow you to see what’s compatible with your camera whether it’s a Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Fujifilm, Olympus… the list goes on. You type in your camera body, specify your budget, and a broad style of lens that you are looking for. The results are a little odd to me… I can’t figure out why they’re listed in the order that they are…it doesn’t appear to be alphabetical, or by price, or by the field of view… but the results are useful if you’re constrained to a particular budget and want to find a lens that you can afford. Each result comes up with a small blurb and some ratings, and you can click on it to get some more detail. My personal opinion though is that the site doesn’t have detailed enough descriptions about the lenses to make this worthy of being the only place to look for info. I feel like I’d rather search for a lens based on my needs and worry about the price later… but perhaps that isn’t the same agenda that everyone has, and it’s always nice to have a few sources to go to to find information since this is an expensive activity.
- Great Colour in Blurb Books – A Terrific hour-long video that a friend of mine sent me just last week that details how to predict what your colours will look like in print.
- Gizmodo Photo Challenges – Love these. I’ve only presently had the time to participate in but a single one of these challenges myself, but it’s fantastic seeing the results each week of these challenges. I certainly hope to participate in more of these in the future. They’re very inspiring and I hope Gizmodo keeps it up.