Digitarum Is Here!

I'M PUBLISHED (self-published at least)!

After months of hard work and countless revisions, my independently written and published novel is finally available through the Amazon Kindle Store. It is eBook only at this point, but an exciting step forward in terms of my goals as a writer.

To check it out, you can go to the Amazon Store Page or the Official Facebook Page. It's a pretty wacky tale that may not be for everyone, but hey, that's what Amazon samples are there to help you out with right?

Spring Game Jam 2015

Last weekend, I participated in SNHU's 48 Hour Spring Game Jam. My primary role on the team of five was that of the Environment Artist and Designer. The majority of the environment tiles seen in the images were done by me with the exception of the gravestones and several of the interior pieces (which were done by Alexander Paleologopoulos, Nate Laurin and Xavier Christens - Patrick Ryan coded the game).

The theme of the jam was H.P. Lovecraft so we decided to make a sinister semi-turn-based mystery action survival game that made use of pixel art set at a forty-five degree perspective, Unity, and a VR headset which worked with our programmer's phone. The result was terrifying immerse and the team plans to continue the project now that the competition is over.

Title Screen by Nate Laurin

Wide shot of the map

The upper portion of the Town Square

 Close up of the Bar/Inn Town Hall and Clinic

Shot of the Church and its Cemetery

A look at what lies within the buildings when the player enters (normally they would only see one interior at a time)

Now that I can make a second pass at this environment, I will be working on optimizing the image files, adding more variation to some of the pieces, putting in assets like trees which did not make it into the final build and just improving the overall quality of this spooky Louisiana port town.

Learning Maya Part 1

During my time at SNHU, I learned to use a number of different programs including ZBrush, 3ds Max, CrazyBump, Photoshop, Sketchbook Pro, and game engines like Unity, Unreal, and Construct 2 (though Unity 5 is my favorite). Despite all that, I wanted to add another tool to my arsenal so I am trying to pick up Maya as well.

Why Maya? Well, as an aspiring game artist, I am seeing a lot of job postings asking for knowledge of Maya and I can't help but wonder if my not knowing it is hurting my chances of getting a job in the industry. Another strong motivator is that Maya LT is now a thing so learning to use this tool could open up a number of freelance or indie options for me. The sword below is my first project in this program which was made by following a tutorial by this YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/BrainPoof 

This isn't the most exciting or original design that I have worked on, but it's more of the new program that it was built in that I am happy about. Brain Poof's tutorials are some of the finest I have seen online and they seem to cover the complete game art pipeline within Maya including high res normal baking from the looks of what I have peeked ahead at.

At this point, I am only through the first 9 of some 40 + videos so I'm excited to continue this piece. I'm at the part where I have to unwrap it for texturing (which typically takes a while even in familiar programs) it so it may be a bit before this thing gets an update. There will be much more to come on this thing in the future.

First Post

It seems appropriate for the first post to be an introduction of sorts. So first off, a little about me:

I am a graduate from Southern New Hampshire University with a BA in Game Design and Development. Since Graduation I've been working as a Permissions Coordinator by day and pursuing my passions at night. I am into writing, art, animation, project management, and of course, games and gaming.

I don't have a whole bunch of time in my schedule to do all the creative work that I want to do and I find that a lot of the time, I hop back and forth between projects in order to keep all my skills sharp. This blog will serve as a home for all the random things I am currently working on so long as they are not confidential in some way.

I will be posting up things I am trying out, things I have improved upon, current projects, works that I have published somewhere/somehow (particularly writing pieces), and maybe even just things that I like. I already have a portfolio site which can be found at http://derekbailey.me which is a more formal place for me to post up what I think the best of my work is, so this blog is going to be a place for...well for everything else. I think it will be beneficial for me, and hopefully it will be entertaining for someone.