New Blog layout

So, I got a new Blog Layout. Over the weekend I noticed the blog layout I had been using had an error and was no longer viewable. I guess the hosting location of the title image is no more which lead to some strange display errors. I think this new design suits my blog a little better anyways.

"Reveal" A Freelancers Dream tool?

This morning I woke up to a Facebook post titles "50 Tools for Freelancers". Half way down the page was a website and service called Reveal.

"You only get one chance to make a first impression. The job market is saturated with thousands looking for work in the same field.
Raveal allows you to perfect your message: define your professional profile with a resume, portfolio, and social voice.
Have an in-depth career profile? Give your visitors a pre-recorded audio introduction to help explain pertinent items."


Reveal is basically a quick alternative to building and maintaining a website - portfolio. I've been playing with the free version to see if this is an avenue I want to go down. So far its pretty interesting. Check out my Reveal Site:




This may render my website pointless...

Nova-Watch

So... I had the worst cold of my life last week. Still got the cough. A wise man once told me that being creative while sick will return great rewards... Something about brainwaves being different due to the virus and whatever cold medicine you are taking. Needless to say I had to put that theory to good use as I had nothing better to do. :P


Here are the fruits of my labor: Nova-Watch Observatory.
The Nebula background I painted by hand, in Photoshop with a little help from Apophysis, about a month ago on a cold, wet, rainy Sunday. The Station I started "doodling" two weeks ago in 3D Imaging. Last week I combined them and added some things. In the end I rendered it at three different exposures and then ran it through Photomatrix for the HDRI effect. Total build time was roughly 14 hours.

Millionants Productions

For the last couple months I have been working with a group of very talented individuals and our collective dream of starting a production company. Adam Zwakenberg and I have been pulling double duty to get our website ready for today, our official launch.

Millionants Productions is a full service 3D animation video and interactive production company based out of San Fransisco, California. We produce graphics and interactive media for companies and the military. I'm their Director of Interactive overseeing the interactive multimedia pipeline. Check out our site!

Millionants.com

RQS Concrete, Inc

So recently I redesigned RQS Concrete, Inc's website. Hosted by yellowpages.com. RQS Concrete serves commercial, industrial and residential customers and has been serving the bay area since 1986. Based out of Hayward CA, they bring more than 35 years of design and construction experience to the job.

Check out their site at: rqsconcrete.com

Never fading calling...

So recently I found this amazing free Fractal program called Apophysis. After some playing with it, and a quick Lens Flare I rendered in 3DS Max, here is an image I put together...



Wide Screen Version:

Mod DB

Just thought I'd post this:

http://www.moddb.com/members/pectabyte/addons

Today I copied over all my maps from Map-Factory to Mod DB. Hope it will drive up the number of downloads I get. From now on any new maps will be posted at both places.

Killing Floor "Grind House" Map Competition Follow up.

This is a follow up to my post:

"Killing Floor Grindhouse” Custom Map Making Competition

So Wave 1 of the "Grind House" Killing Floor Map Contest has concluded. I didn't place but got reviewed by the Vice President of Tripwire Interactive. Here is what he had to say about DM-DOOMed Beta:


Awesome fun map. Need to fix being able to fall out windows into unplayable area that you can't get back out of. Lighting is really nice and it looks good. The room where the "exit" is in the original doom map is far too defendable. You can set up there and fight off any onslaught. This is a shame, because the gameplay in the rest of the map is very fun. You need to make sure that zeds can get into this "exit" room from more directions. This could be done with air vents that stalkers and crawlers spawn in for example (like you have done in other rooms).


Cheers,

Alan Wilson
Vice President
Tripwire Interactive LLC

That is pretty cool he took the time to play my map let alone give me direct feedback about it. I guess I'll make the changes and put a final coat of polish on it and release the "final" version. Maybe I can still submit it to Wave 2...

"Killing Floor Grindhouse” Custom Map Making Competition

So, Tripwire Interactive released a game called Killing Floor a few months back. They are having a custom map making competition. First place is $5,000.00. I entered my map "KF-DOOMed-Beta" into the competition. I am REALLY excited. The game runs under Unreal Engine 2.5. It was a trip down memory lane opening the editor every night to work on my map.

I've been really lucky to have such supportive friends, namely Nikki, who kept uploading the new revisions I made up to the dedicated server she Admins so people could actually play and test my map. She was a bi Its a major thrill to play your map with other people.

You can download the Beta Here

The following are a few Screenshots from the map:

Left 4 Dead

I've played a LOT of games in my life. When I think back over the course of my game playing carrier a few titles stand out. Final Fantasy 7, Deus Ex, Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith, ect... Games these days seem to lack something. Replay value? Originality? Witty dialog? Probably all of them.

While doggy paddling though the Ocean of crappy games these days I've latched onto one I can't get enough of Left 4 Dead. I've had it for a few months and all I can say is WOW. Even after I've played all 4 of the current Campaigns dozens of times I can't get enough. I find myself loging onto Steam to play on those lonely nights at home. Having virtually no story line doesn't bother me in this case. There really doesn't need to be a story line as long as I get to blow away hordes and hordes of Zombies.


Another thing about this game that feels so right are the weapons. The shotties don't feel useless like other games. *cough* Combat-Arms *cough* And who doesn't love Duel Pistols? I prefer the Hunting Rifle as I typically play on advanced or expert and you need power over everything else when it comes to the Boss Zombies. Being able to pick off a Smoker from 50ft away is more important than being able to mow down 15 zombies in front of you. You can always play a drum roll on your alternate fire key when in close quarters ;)


All in all I have to say Left 4 Dead is an amazing game. One of those rare gems these days. Its worth buying on PC or Xbox 360. You'll play it over and over again trying to get all the Achievements. Look me up on Steam. My ID is Pectabyte.com Go figure ;)

Unity. Sweet Sweet Unity.

So for the last week or so I've been playing with Unity Game Engine. REALLY Impressive stuff. Its amazing how versatile this Engine is. I checked it out because I'm looking to expand past Unreal 3 not that there is anything wrong with it but rather because the pipeline can be very difficult for a single artist to produce a highly polished looking level that plays and feels good. I take pride in creating my own models, textures and shaders and Unreal can be a rather hard beast to tame when doing all of that yourself. Unity on the other hand seems to be design with small Dev teams and individuals in mind. Its very liberal about what file formats it accepts and the whole process of creating shaders in Engine is stream lined. I've had a lot of fun playing with the Cell Shaders. The following are some screenshots of a "Just for fun" game I've been working on.

New Venture

Been a while since I posted. Yesterday I put into action an idea I had brewing for a while but was just to lazy to do it until now. Basically its a video blog site like failblog.org or everything is terrible. My idea is to have videos with the topic "Natural Selection". Its comedic of course and consists of videos of people doing stupid things. I see these videos all the time and thought why not start a blog of them. As of now this is the url:

http://naturalselectionblog.blogspot.com/

My roommate is helping with this. We'll have to see where this leads.

My Combat Arms Clan Site.

Well as of now my map has been downloaded 43 times. Not bad for 24 hours. Not bad at all.

On another note a few months ago me and my roommate began playing a free MMO shooter game called Combat Arms. Its really a great game. We found enough people to scrape together and make a clan and get a ventrillo server. Check out our clan Fuster Cluck.

New Website.

Well I'm still waiting for map-factory.org to post my map. In the meantime I overhauled my website.

Check it out at www.Pectabyte.com . Its a lot more conducive to freelance opportunities.