Maverick's Workshop

It seems that time is flying by us as another year is almost about to end. Well 2012 is going to be a year of lots of changes. I will become a graduate student and will start getting a job and becoming an earning member of my family.  Time is flying for our game too, and finally a good news. Sanjay has got his new system and will be up and running tomorrow. We have a lot of work to do, i will be giving all the pre-production stuff to him we hope we will be able to complete the work as soon as possible. Today i wont be working as i will be taking the day off since i am not feeling too great. Tomorrow a new year and a lot of new beginnings.  I wish everyone a prosperous new year and a happy one too...

Well today i decided that for now i need to shift my priorities from learning cryEngine to learning photoshop because i understand i need an intermediate level of understanding of photoshop to get anything done in cryengine so for a week from today i am dedicating myself to learn photoshop as much as i can then i will put time for rest...

Well today decided to see how the road from Santhome to parry's looks as this will be one of the more important roads in the game. Took up google maps it took nearly 5 hours to get 50 photos stacked up from santhome chruch to parry's, these photo's were taken at a height of 20m and then photos with height of 200m was taken to put in the background now this is the final look at the road. Well now i need to take this into cryEngine on how to do this i have really no idea, i have a plan in my head and i am working according to it. Let me see what happens...

Well today proved useful, i was able to get a lot done in terms of work. Started watching tutorials for the CryEngine and was reading the manual that is available. A lot of work to be done. Sanjay has decided to buy a PC so he will be up and running soon. I am still not in a working mood since i am in my hometown but its ok i will be in a few days and pre-production is Sanjay's department, i am getting my head inside CryEngine, the darn thing is so vast that i cant wrap my head around it. For people looking for tutorials i am glad to help if there are any doubts, i am not a pro but the basics i can tell you. For people who are already following my blog i once put that people who know 3ds Max will find Cryengine easy because the interface is somewhat similar. Interface of CryEngine 3... Well tutorials are available at the following locations... http://www.moddb.com/engines/cryengine-3/tutorials http://www.i3dtutorials.com/view/Tutorials/CryEngine http://eat3d.com/bl

Well as usual got up late and today we have a function we need to attend so i went to get my hair and beard cut as they were getting long and then went to the function. Updating a blog is tough buisness especially if u are doing it daily. I like doing this but is also tough, today most probably i will get the chance to watch the tutorial i downloaded.  Finished ACR with a 80% tried to do all side missions sadly once the game is over i cant go back into the animus, the ending was just epic... Now i am downloading Coldplay Live in Glastonbury, its 4GB oh and almost forgot my first ever Blu-Ray disc was put in the drive today. It was pirates of the carribean On stranger tides, we bought it for 450rs and the quality OMG!! the disc is nearly 22 GB. God just four movies would fill a hard drive. ooh... butterflies... From left to right, Guy Berryman, Will Champion, Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland Pirates of the Caribbean, On Stranger Tides BLU-RAY!! Assassins Creed Reve

Well got up late, these days getting food and a lot of sleep nothing is happeneing in terms of work but its ok i need rest once in a while no? Jassif called me and told that he needed some games so i ordered them from Ebay and then went with him to buy somethings for him, his father and sister will be coming tomorrow night and he will get his PS3, i dont think i will be disturbing him for a week as he a lot to do :P Assassins Creed Brotherhood After confronting the borgia Ezio returns to Monteriggioni and also does Desmond and the gang as thier hideout was comprimised. The next day the place is attacked and his uncle Mario is killed and the apple taken away by the Borgia lead by Cesare Borgia. Ezio tires but fails and then helps his mom and sister escape and then leaves to Roma only to succumb to his wounds on the way. He wakes up in Rome and there is rebuilds the brotherhood to fight against the borgia. Finally Ezio defeats Cesare and gets the apple, he hides the apple in the

A Christmas without my mother, great. I went to church in the morning, i really do hate the speeces given by priests they have zero usefulness to me. To me the things he told felt racist, he was comparing christians, i feel bad that we all follow Jesus but truth be told god said that one who does idol workship will be condemened but isnt that what we are doing now. I mean nowhere in the bible did Jesus ask that he be workshipped as god. Sadly people dont feel that way and based on what i dont know christians are now seperated what a great world we live in.  I remember Assassins Creed now, in revelation when we kill the final guy who is Ahmed, Sulieman's uncle Ezio asks why he does this and he says that to bring humanity under one rule there should be one god, one people when people are split, when there are differences people fight for those differences all this bloodshed can be avoided if there was no differences in humans. I support that guy, all people on this world are equal

Wow a christmas eve without my mother dang, by this time if mom was there she would make me run around buying stuff and my freinds would ask when are you going to invite us to house, they love the food my mom makes. Sadly this time she isnt here but its all for good, she is with dad, i hope he gets better food, the hotel food in oman is really bad sometimes it smells like toothpaste :P Today was a get together for our +2 batch mates and so was with them in the morning and in the afternoon it was delivery service as i had to give cake to my aunt. Well like i promised yesterday Assassins Creed, This game was one the most mind boggling games ever made in history, the concept is so vast that it spans for decades, the first game released by Ubisoft to have an impact on me was prince of persia and now this.  Assassins Creed In the first game we play as Desmond in the year 2012 who is a bartender and a decendant of the assassins. He is kidnapped to learn the secrets of his a

Oh my god, what happened to Trivandrum, on my way to the airport i was amazed at the buildings there, it was like i was in Dubai or Muscat, tall and exquisite skyscrapers to greet us and what the what happened to the airport, did i reach muscat no i am in kerala, they built the new terminal and it was awesome a flyover to enter the airport. My friend Jassif had also left to send his sister too. We reached the airport 4 hours before the departure, i decided to look around and it was huge the parking space etc, i wondered what happened to the old airport, this was glass and so modern. It was written on the boards that we can go into the terminal if we pay 60rs so i went and got a pass from the Airport manager and went inside, sadly i can go only till the checking but its good to see her make all the things and the staff was there to help to.  The Entrance of the Trivandrum International Airport... The Main terminal of the airport... I love Oman Air they are the best, the col

Today my mom is leaving to Oman to my dad who is there for quite sometime, the state of his food and health condition is bad so we had to persuade mom to go to oman, she was afraid that something would happen to our grandmother, well now i have to get up at 1am and then the driver will come at 2am and we will go the airport, need to help mom pack...

Reached kerala at 8 am in the morning and well sadly we stopped at Marthandam a place at the border of Kerala and TN and had to get down from the bus and board another bus, the problem was as they told was that mechanical, we knew that they werent allowing vehicles with TN regisrtation into kerala and vice versa. So i reached Thampanoor bus stand and then to the train station luckily there was a train to kollam got on the train and in an hour reached kollam from there an auto to home. Reached my home, mom was really happy and relieved to see me that i reached in one piece. Well freshened up took some rest decided to pick my sister from school sadly my Aviator is not responding, maybe battery dead so now sister has to come in bus. Maybe it will work tomorrow. Mom is telling me all the things i need to do when she is away so i am trying to remember everything.

Well all is set for me to leave to Kerala, i made the call to SRM to know whether there will be any problems on the way and they assured me there wont be any problems. 3 bags and a lot of clothes Kerala here i come...

Jury, No jury. Reached college expecting jury only to know that the persons who are needed for jury are away on calls so Jai sir said that we will be directly jumping into the pre-production jury which will encompass all things related to pre-production and finally some good news, the game department had a blog and there was stuff related to our jury there so now i need to see that too. Well in terms of the presentation just as i expected he was not happy with the quality of the visuals and now i need to make the presenation look with the one in the blog. I made some changes along with sanjay with the presentaiton. Jai sir gave us the form for the acceptance of the final year project and we needed to get signatures from many faculties. Sanjay and me got it ready as time was not available for me as i am leaving for kerala tomorrow. So now i have given it to sanjay to get the signatures from the people needed.  My good friend Prashanth bought a Alienware M17x, it was for the first ti

Today was productive in terms of production of the presentation, i am really impressed with the tools and stuff that are available in powerpoint i was able to make really interesting flowcharts in it, with its help i made the asset workflow and other things. I made the presentation somewhat with the template availabe i dont think Jai sir would be pleased, maybe i will change it later. Screenshot  of the presentation i made... Well nothing else happened, playing COD cant wait to go back to Kerala, things are getting intense between Kerala and Tamil Nadu, i hope they solve all the problems fast, inncoent people are getting hurt.

Today was another day filled with boredom, things are going the same way for the past few days. I hope in the coming days things will get better and something regarding work will happen. As usual playing COD with Deepak, Vivian and Durga is keeping me sane. Started working on the presentation for the upcoming jury on monday. I think me and sanjay will be able to present the final story and things to the jury on monday with the changes in the story and stuff. I am trying to avoid the designs i made for the previous presentaiton and make the presentation look like a presentation, i dont know how things are gonna fall. I am short on where and what i need to do so in the upcoming days maybe things will change.

Well today me and sanjay went and told Jai sir the plot i wrote yesterday, so now the concept had more meaning he gave some more advice for the story. He told that the accountant is now playing with Karthi he doesnt want Karthi to win but then also gives him a chance for a good laugh. Tensions are brewing in Chennai about the Mullaperiyar issue i best return back to kerala ASAP...

Yesterday was a long night for me i sat down and started on the plot for the game as to how the story came and how BRC came into existence. So here is the plot for the BRC, please do comment if you like it... Chennai is one of the most busiest and developed cites in south India, its only rival is Bangalore. In the year 2009, the government and the industrialists are poised with a problem that is been in india for a very long time. The amount of black money that has accumulated in Chennai has reached mind boggling amounts; the people handling the money are in a situation where there is money like the ocean. So all the leaders and industrialists come for a meeting at the house of Muthaliyar, muthalyiar is one of the most influential people in Chennai, after a long discussion they decide what needs to be done to get rid of all this black money. So Muthalyiar puts forward the idea of BRC, Black Race Club. BRC will be a racing club that will host racing events in Chennai and the cl

Well today was my mom's birthday, i got up from sleep when dad called me in the afternoon, and yes nowadays i get up in the evening dont know why. Wished my mom wishes and then sanjay called and said that Jai sir wanted to pitch the concept to him today so i went, well things didnt go so well with him, he wanted the story to be more deep and i will be working on the story tonight and also the presentation too, i asked vivian and deepak for a better logo for the game let me see what comes out. The weather in chennai is getting weird it rained today and luckily i didnt get any cold form it or did it rain when i went to college, i was afraid whether it would rain since i had my laptop. Since it was my mom's birthday i went to subway today and ate, i am keeping money since i am returing to kerala so i will need some for travelling i cant go empty handed like many times before. I will try to update my story with the help of google docs too let me see what i can do...

Yay finally had the chance to play saints row 3 today, i have been waiting for the game since i finished playing saints row 2, this game is better than GTA is all the possible ways. This game 10 times better than the second and in a way better too, i have started the Co-op campagin with Deepak hope we will finish it soon. I also installed RAGE the graphics is really good and the game is the sucessor of Doom and Quake with the new id5 engine it better be good. Nothing happened in terms of the game will do something tomorrow.

Well today was really good, we came to college to see that Harish Sir and Jai sir are not there in college. We went to seminar hall and saw all our peers there. So we started pitching our concept to Alagappan sir, so things started off with Giri and Mayank whose game is about a kid who killed gigantic microbial enemies using chemicals, they are trying to make it more informative by telling how detergents and other things work in day to day lives. Its educative as far as i am concerned. The second game was from Varun and Ravi, their game was about a guy who gets cursed that he cannot die and in order to move to the next level he needs to kill himself, the game is about finding ways to kill the player, o.O it sounds kinda similar to Never dead by Konami i guess that is 3d and this is 2d and its their game i wont comment more. Then came our chance we started explaining the game, i think i was going at a jet speed, got tensed. He had to go out for a second so we rethought of our strat

Things are going well with the game in progress, tomorrow we will be presenting the concept in front of the jury for the first time and we hope things get accepted with them. I have been collecting games for my good friend Jassif so i went to city center and spencer plaza to see if i can get a few PS3 exclusives i got Killzone 3 and Infamous 1. We also bought some other games for PC like Assassins Creed Revelations, Batman Arkham City, Saints Row 3, NFS The Run and Rage. But Batman, Rage and Saints had a CRC (Cyclic Rundancy Error), that means scratch error. So now i need to get new ones after exchanging this.

Things are looking dire, i dont know why. My mind is in a state of mental coma, nothing is coming to my head, last week was productive, this week nothing has happened. My dad keeps asking me about the game and well its going thats all i can say right now. A lack of enthusiasm surrounds me now, there is mental tension and what i am writing here is to me sad. I am explaining my pathetic condition. Well then there is the good news i had started posting in two websites about the game i was doing, and so far the comments i have been recieving was so heart-filling that it thrills me to do this game. Now there is no backing out i guess. Sorry i havent been regular with the information buisness too, i promised information but got lost in stuff i guess. I will try to better at things, i will do things slowly but i will be here 24/7 if u need me you know where to look.

Well today was a really good day in terms of many things, i finished mass effect 3 without getting my team mates killed well that was for the first time i did that. I still rememeber the first time i played mass effect when i was in Oman, hours without rest and finally my dad started to shout at me to stop playing the game, i was so addicted to it i couldnt stop playing. Crysis 2 soundtrack done by Lorne Bafle is one of the best i have heard, the one he did along with Hanz Zimmer, the tracks are awesome, they are like a record that keeps playing in my head. Also is Assassins Creed Revelations Theme done by Lorne Bafle, Hanz Zimmer and Jespyr Kyd awesome tracks. I wish i was able to play those games, sadly i will have to go to kerala to get the games. Well my good friend deepak is starting tutorials in his blog, it should be really interesting this is his blog id: http://idreamworkz.blogspot.com/2011/12/tutorials-coming-up.html If any custom tutorials are needed feel free to ask

Well as the title says it, this is my 50th blog entry and its quite surprising to me that the view count has passed 1000, thanks to everyone who has read my blog and truth be told i see more people from US that India LOL. Anyways thanks to all. I will be continuing this blog for a very long time. Today was a bit harsh, COD was getting on my nerves, its just that people tend to use grenade launcher really often, it really makes me angry, it explodes any where near me and i am dead, its sad me and Deepak never use the GL, occasionally maybe but its not our weapon of choice. We were playing sabotage that means we need to take the bomb and put it at enemy base and wait till it explodes, we started off at 2-4 us at 2, then it became 3-7, i was fed up with the GL's and stopped paying attention and put the music on. Thank you Hanz Zimmer, his soundtrack of crysis 2 really put me in the mood, me and Deepak went to 7-7, but then as usual GL's at our faces and we died. Its just sad.

Well the game is progressing in a really slow pace now, we are doing some of the things that are needed by us on the 10th of this month to show to the panel of teachers who will be assessing the game. We have done quite a few of them there are many things remaining in the game and also the initial pilot study too. Today most probably i will start with the presentation needed for the jury. I will try to use many games that are already there to start the presentation with. I went through the survey we conducted and got many interesting results, so that is going to add up in the pilot study too. To sum up the things we decided, the main thing is that people are not interested in 24/7 racing, they want RPG elements in the game too, they want more interactivity. To do somwthing like this i think NFS Run and Ubisoft's Driver San Francisco is the perfect example. It would be best if i give a short description of the game too: Ubisoft's Driver San Francisco, Image Courtesy o

For those who dont know what COD is, its Call of duty a first person shooter game from activision. It has one of the best multi-player i have ever seen and it is so addictive that one would play hours of the game. It needs all the requirements of a gamer and a team worker. It is so good in terms of building team-work and communication skills, well there is the occasional swearing and stuff but its all part of the game. We started a survey for our racing game and posted it on various blogs and forums that we are on, if anyone is interseted please fill out the form at the following page... http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Z6QPLQS , it wont take much of your time :) Well for the intern game today i did the credits screen, its a simple renditon of the works that i  did earlier, i did a red ang grey-scale work, a few gradiants here and there. As i mentioned before, i cant post the images anymore so sorry :( Well for our game we did a demo level flow chart, its just a demo we dont

Well today ravi, our game programmer for the intern game called and asked for a credits screen and and a final level that congratulates the player for finishing the game. So i decided to recycle some of the old elements from the profiling menu and level selection screens. Those sadly will not be implemented in the game since we are running out of time. This is what i have done so far for the congrats screen, it has a menu option that lets you play the game again, go to the credits scree or exit the game. Sadly it has come into attention that i cannot be putting stuff related to my intern game so most probably i will stop posting things visually about the game that i am doing.

The condition in college is somewhat tiresome, we are being kicked around like football i guess. The thing about this college is nothing is permenant, if there is something that needs to be done and there are ten million ways to do it and its like all depends on us. There is no directive, the only thing that i firmly know are the modules: Final Year Project. Dissertation. Portfolio Internship Buisness of media If there is more please feel free to inform me pls... My internet connection is seriously deteriorating, BSNL fix this please... GameBitz Well in my previous blog i told something about the Id Tech Engine that powered games such as Doom and Quake. Today we will take a look at one the most known game engine UDK (Unreal Development Kit). Image Courtesy of : http://udk.com/ This engine has created some of game industries best games.. Some of them are here: Gears of War Trilogy. Gears of war created by Epic Games and Microsoft Game studios was one of the best

Well today my friend who came to visit me is leaving back to salem. I havent slept and feel really tired i will be going with him to the railway station to send him off. Today nothing happened in terms of work maybe i will update things later.

Today was a really good day, my good friend Darshan Sreenath came to visit me from Salem. We have been friends for nearly 12 years, i met him when i moved to kerala from Oman and we were close by to each other at homes too. I had to leave him after i left to oman in 9th and 10th and then later came back to be reunited in TKM, well not exactly in the same class but in the same college. We had a great time and went to city centre and showed him around. He will be staying for a while. Since my friend came i couldnt go to college today and well i have no idea what happened today. With the free time i had today i made a collage wallpaper for my Asus G74SX, i love the Female Commander Shepherd from Mass Effect, the latest wallpaper of the female character was just awesome. I wanted to do something with it so it took a few logos like the Asus logo, the nvidia GTX logo and the intel core i7 logo. Then i looked for something that looked welcoming and then finally with the help of difference

Well after discussion within ourselves we have decided to implement two more things in the intern game we are doing. One is the profile screen and the other is the level selection screen. Obviously our game will be propelled  to new heights if we are able to successfully implement the following things... Profile screen... I made this look like a officer recruitment screen and i decided that on leveling up the players will increase their rank among the police. The players will start of with level 30 that means cadet and then progress ahead, havent decided all the names yet since i need the approval of the dev team. It includes many things from the previous screens and i think i haven't overdone anything. The option to change the name is also included in-case they want to change the name later. The profile menu, i think i will have to remove some elements from it... Level Screen... After the players have typed their name they will be shown this screen. Before our game us