Mark Robinson

5th June - Above Them - Keep Smiling

2010-06-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

Alright I will admit it, Keep Smiling by Above Them is actually not that bad. It does not break any musical boundaries by any means, but heck I don't ask for every song to be "Stairway to Heaven" I suppose. It has that feisty three-piece punk-rock punch in vein to other bands like Fighting With Wire and a feel-good chorus to it with some nice vocals and it does not wear after a couple of listens. So certainly worth investing some time into if you are a fan of this particular genre, you probably will not be disappointed

Catching Up...

2010-06-03T05:45:00.000-07:00

So it has been a while since i posted anything on here last...

The idea of using this as a production diary kinda went out of the window but! We must move on and go forth so it is time to look towards to the future. With university over this blog will now hold updates on a number of different projects...

1. I shall be starting over Cassion's Lair as my main project taking in the positives and negative from the final build used as my AGP. The big difference this time is instead of using UDK i plan to use Unity inspired by my good friend Russ Morris.

2. I am also planning to have a side project of sorts with another good friend from university Chaz Ali, the details of this are minimal so far but i will keep this updated when things come to fruition.

3. I write several reviews per month for the internet magazine 'Noise Addiction' although as-of-late i have been a bit behind due to university commitments, but have no fear! I will be getting back on track and will post all reviews i do on here, but feel free to check out the published work itself at www.noiseaddiction.co.uk

4. Also as my own little personal project i will be starting game reviews, hopefully every now and again in audio form with Russ Morris if we can get that started. I shall hope to have my first review up of 'Red Dead Redemption' soon.

That's about all i can think of at the moment but if anything else comes to mind i shall keep you posted!

Mark

2009-11-27T06:22:00.000-08:00

Great help from the Hourences' website, got a platform moving now which will make up the main puzzle of the main chamber, now to get working on that, hope to have it in some form by tonight

Meet Pat...

2009-11-18T13:48:00.000-08:00

... The CatTrap Cat!

My Tangible Play presentation is on a gadget to inform the house owner of whether their cat has entered the house or some other intruding animal has come through the catflap.

The way it works is a small pressure mat is placed next to the catflap and 2 RFID tags are used, one is inserted into the catflap while the other is inserted into your cats collar. When pressure is applied to the mat it checks to see if the RFID tag was completed. If the circuit is not completed then a small alarm goes off to notify that household owner that there is an intruding animal.

Water, water, everwhere...

2009-11-15T02:03:00.000-08:00

Created a water texture, still a few problems but early on it looks great. Light is still streating it as solid mesh and can't quite figure out how to fix it but i am sure there is not much to it.

Diagram shows the creation of the water texture

2009-11-11T15:11:00.000-08:00

and Fog properties are useless too...

Unreal Texture Imports

2009-11-11T14:51:00.001-08:00

Are an impossible task...

AGP Progress

2009-10-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

Storyboard is done, Level layout is finished and i'm happy with the way it will work. Decided to drop the Decompression sickness mechanic. The creation of the game will probably run a lot smoother now as some of the puzzles will not have to be thought out with this mechanic in mind and can simply be worked around being underwater.

Pictures are for reference point, and not for artistic merit!

Contracts to do tonight, and AGP pre-production documents to be handed in Monday 26th Oct

2009-10-22T04:46:00.000-07:00

Before i head off to uni, layout of the level is done... can not see any places where the game could break, but will have someone look over for good measure, will post picture up later

Starlings

2009-10-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

Made some ground with Russ' project today, a couple of layers done, just need to see what he wants done from here

AGP Pitch / Dissertation Woes

2009-10-16T15:53:00.000-07:00

So my AGP pitch this time round didn't turn out any better or any worse, only issue seems to be over the concept of the 'Decompression Sickness' game mechanic, as Jerry stated his case that it may be unnecessary with gentle brooding nature of the gameplay. He noted that the gameplay itself reminded him of Ecco the Dolphin (Sega:1992) which i had not previously thought of before but i understood where he was coming from. I may end up ditching the gameplay mechanic in question.

I'm still having great difficulty in pinning down a specific topic for my dissertation as it is still to 'broad' my plan to discuss the relationship of narrative and visual aesthetic between video games and film will have to be further refined. I'm presuming along the lines of a specific genre and narrative (i'm worried about the originality of said subject) but my readings at least follow along the lines of the sci-fi/horror genre so at least its not all been to waste.

2009-10-16T15:09:00.000-07:00

To create a better understading and visual of my project i have uploaded a peice of work from my Phsyical Education unit created last year. It was in some ways a rough demo of my current project, just to see if i could create the atmospheric underwater environment i was after. The project was created using the Unreal Engine 3 which my current project will also be created with.

All your blogs are belong to me

2009-04-22T15:54:00.000-07:00

Just starting off... will write something of importance soon.