Sunday 29 September 2013

Another Fallout 3 Mod Complete!



A few weeks ago I started a new Fallout mod following the success of my first one, and today I finished it and it's now uploaded at the Fallout 3 Nexus Site. This mod was heavily inspired by Breaking Bad and involves a quest in which the player infiltrates and takes over a drug lab.

This mod is a lot more complex than my first one, which essentially just added a lot of detail to a pre-existing game area. This mod not only involved the creation of a new game area, but also involved creating a quest, which itself meant a LOT of complicated scripting, which I was totally new at, so it was quite the learning curve. My self-imposed deadline was the 29th of September; the date of the airing of the final episode of Breaking Bad in America. I actually uploaded the mod at 11.57pm on the 29th of September. Very, VERY narrowly making the deadline. So I'm pretty happy about that, even though some last-minute issues made it a very stressful experience. This project called upon a wide range of my skills, even including Photoshop, which I used to create the promo picture that can be seen at the top of this post.

Here's a few pictures of the game zone that I created!





Sunday 22 September 2013

Alleyway Scene Completed!

So for the past month or so I've been working on my Alleyway 3D modelling scene project with the goal of getting it finished before my first day back at Uni. Today I completed this project, which is convenient because in 12 hours or so I'll be on my way into Uni for my first day back, so I just about made my deadline. As seen in my previous posts, I've been pushing the boat out a bit with this project and trying to test and develop my skills. I definitely think this had paid off, I'm pretty happy with how this scene has turned out. 

This scene features more 3D models than any scene I've done in the past, the most complicated of which is the dumpster which took a damn long time to model, and longer to texture. This is also my first scene to feature a model with an alpha texture.

As usual, the 3D models were made in Maya, the textures were made in Photoshop with a graphics tablet, and the final scene was created and presented in UDK.

Here's a couple of pictures!





Tuesday 17 September 2013

My First Finished Song

This year I had a very musical Summer involving a lot of time playing guitar and writing songs and so on, I also bought various music peripherals (microphone, interface etc). I also managed to produce my first ever full track using Logic in my brother's home studio and it's now uploaded on my Soundcloud page.

It's a trippy guitar-led instrumental rock track. The guitar tracks were recorded via interface and the other instruments (synth, keyboard, drum track etc) were recorded with a Midi keyboard. One of the two guitar tracks (the more distorted solo track) was improvised.

Check it out on my Soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/denimkid

Saturday 14 September 2013

Springvale Chem Lab - My 2nd Fallout 3 Mod

It's been almost two months since I uploaded my first ever Fallout 3 mod and it's been much more well received than I ever expected it to be, with over 200 downloads and 4000 views so far. I'm pretty surprised at the stats because it was only a very simple mod without any scripting or associated quest.

I've now started a second mod that WILL involve scripting and a quest that I will write and script from scratch. This is all new to me but I'm definitely getting there bit by bit by watching and rewatching tutorial videos.

In short, the mod will involve a hidden chem lab that the player takes over in the quest. The mod is heavily inspired by Breaking Bad and is going to involve just about as many references to the show that I can think of/get away with, the first of which being the simple retexture of the in-game drug, "Jet", seen below (blue meth anyone?)

Not much in the way of screen shots so far but here's what I've got!


Entrance to the Chem Lab

Retextured Jet

Thursday 12 September 2013

Dumpster - 3D Model

Today I've finished one more 3D model for my upcoming alleyway scene. This is probably the most complex 3D model I've made so far because it involved several separate objects. The wheels, lids and bits on the side (I'm not sure what they are to be honest) are all their own separate objects. I also put a lot of effort into the texture and tried to make it as detailed as possible with graffiti, dirt and so on. The amount of stuff that I had to fit onto the texture meant that some of it looked a bit stretched but either way I'm quite happy with it.


My goal of getting this project finished before I restart Uni on the 24th is looking quite realistic. I'll probably do one or two more 3D models and the textures for the walls and floor of the scene then it'll be done!

I've also made a Pinterest board of research pictures that can be seen here: Alleys and Backstreets.

Sunday 1 September 2013

Two New 3D Models - Alleyway Scene

I've completed two new 3D models for my alleyway scene today in what can only be called an intense Maya sesh. The first is a simple cardboard box. The model isn't fancy at all, just a 3D rectangle (which I have just learned is called a "right rectangular prism", thanks Google) with a simple texture that includes some typical box-ey phrases and sellotape.

The second item was a cola bottle. This one was a bit more complex because I tried to loosely base it off a real world Coke bottle in terms of shape. With this one I finally got around to relearning how to use alpha textures to make semi transparent surfaces on 3D models! So I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Here's some pictures: