Games Design 2nd Yr Results- so close to an overall 1st!!

Just got notified by a friend of my module results, I did very well! Got two 1st's and three 2nds. I'm a bit bummed at the overall since it came to about 69.4 (70 is a 1st overall) D:!!!! Oh the woes....

Norway: Stavanger

Been busy with travels, I'm in Norway at Stavanger. Recently there's been a terror attack at Oslo (capital of Norway), but where I'm staying, everything seems fine. It's very unfortunate what has happened, I wish the best for those who were involved.

Visit my Travel Blog, to see how my travels in Norway are.

I Won My First Competition

On DeviantART. That's a journal entry to announce the winners. Just found out half an hour ago, and I'm so bloody happy!

Among many other prizes I received this wonderful image from SiegeRedWolf: -

It will be coloured, printed and sent to me eventually :D

Gopoh

Original Character does not belong to me. Second Entry for the contest :)
http://rikona.deviantart.com/journal/39983057/

Inertia's Rebellion

This was made for a contest being held on DeviantART. The character does not belong to me.

Work in Progress

My Great Family

Leon (deceased at 3), Katie (7), Saki (6) and Bobby (1). 

After the tragic death of my first cat (whom I found lying at the bottom of the staircase, dead and frothing at the mouth), we took a year before getting another, he was only 3. His name was Zampetto Barnabi Brio- but I just called him Leon, and he was a brown coated Burmese cat. His grave is high up in the mountains in the valleys. "May you rest well sir cat".

When we bought our second, my brother was given the chance to name her, and gave her the the most generic un-cat like name ever. Katie.

She used to be pretty loud, but these days will just focus on sitting around, and will grab at any chance to sit on YOU if you are static. 

Add a Reply Button to Your Comments

Just added a 'Reply' feature to my blog. This is very useful, if you have a blogger, definitely take a look:


Add A Unique Reply Button To Blogger Comments

Happy Father's Day

Work in Progress

Got RAM? - An Amazing Tweak

My 2 x '4GB Corsair XMS DDR3'sticks arrived today. I had used 2 x '2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3', and had looked to upgrade them, but sadly my motherboard didn't like having another two that supported XMP (something almost all RAM sticks have), so I gave up and just decided to replace the current two with bigger memory sticks.

After installing I used a very clever tweak my friend Staeton suggested (only suitable if you have a lot of RAM, 8GB+, and a hard drive that's quite slow).

You can significantly decrease the size of Virtual Memory or completely disable it. Virtual Memory, is effectively fake RAM on the Hard Drive. So if you have at least 4GB chances are, when you switch between several open programs, the giant lags are due to a slow hard drive rather than 'not enough' RAM.

Virtual Memory is stored on a file called 'pagefile.sys'. It's a hidden file in your C drive (or whatever drive you're using for your Operating System). You can easily see it by altering folder viewing options: Uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)'.

My 'pagefile' took up a crazy 8GB, it was almost like having crappy RAM.

Here's where you find the settings for virtual memory

[Warning: if your computer is not suffering from lag and you have a fast hard drive or a Solid State  and decent RAM, then FABULOUS, you shouldn't have to do this. Also do not do this, if you have no idea what you are doing- I use Windows 7 x64, and my specs are found at the bottom of this post]: 

Computer Curse

For the past two years, I have changed/swapped parts, dealt with silly software issues and hardware issues that were very uncommon (according to a Computer Tech friend). Today I received my third replacement of the Motherboard, and decided that from now if it does go bonkers again, I will just have to buy a new motherboard entirely. I won't go into detail, but in the past two years, I have never experienced such bad luck with my parts! Mainly the motherboard, honest to fricking Buddha!

The only parts that have been working very well are the PSU (power supply), GPU (graphics card) and the HDD's (Hard Drives), and the Tower: (Cooler Master) Mid Scout.

Small Game Collaborations

This was a while ago, back in January 2011. I collaborated in the making of two small games with a friend. I was the artist/modeller, so I didn't really play a big part. :) Still, it's nice to post it here.

Duck VS Flies

http://skauert.users.avalanchehosting.com/DvF/

The music was taken from games like Bejewelled, I'm not entirely sure, so if you hear something familiar- that's the reason xD. In the end it was a university assignment, so as a Disclaimer: neither me or my coder buddy stole anything on purpose okay?

Space Match

The game we made before was a Pairs game called Space Match, it's downloadable only since it's 3D and uses openGL. To try out make sure to:

Download and install this first: Microsoft Visual C++ Re-distributable

Then download the game: http://skauert.users.avalanchehosting.com/rars/SpaceMatch.rar 

Panorama- Mumbles

Today, I went to Swansea's collection of beaches with a bunch of my university friends and house mates. The area is called Mumbles, and it was probably the only time of the week we could enjoy the sun.

I took over 200 photos, but here are some of the best!

On our way to Mumbles Pier

On top of a mountain by Mumbles Pier

Summer Break

Since it's summer, there won't be much work related content to post here... perhaps I'll post silly things. Here's an old drawing *throws in a random old drawing*

Wonderland 2009

Old 2- Flash animation

A few years ago when I was studying in an Art & Design Foundation course, I made a flash animation for my final project. Sadly it wasn't received very well because all the art lecturers were computer illiterate, and couldn't understand the process of creating the animation. It took a long time, put it that way. 

Group Level Design- Design Document

Illustrating Character Stones

TROLLFACE Graphical Error

The Game Developement Venn Diagram

A good acquaintance found this randomly in photobucket:

I have to say, it speaks a lot of truths!

Learning a New Language

I woke up today, feeling the laziest I've ever felt for the past 6 months; today is the day of rest, since I only have one deadline left. I sat down on my PC and thought... 'I really wanted to learn a new language, maybe today I can dedicate some time!'

The only problem is, I don't know what to learn- and it seems really out of the blue, but I have been thinking about it for some time... preferably European or Asian, I've already narrowed it down to:
German, Mandarine/Cantonese, Japanese, Norwegian.

Rosetta Stone is great but I couldn't find a Norwegian course, and yes, because it's the one that's inconveniently unavailable I decided to pick it. Why? No idea, you always want what you can't easily get I suppose.

Group Work: Level Design

Today we had our last presentation of the academic year, showing our group level design. It wasn't meant to be finished, and just required us to make a game level that was playable. In the end I think we did well, although I regret not putting more time into it: I modelled a few assets and the character (textures and rigging too). Here are the concepts and video showing a demo of the level:

Concept of our level Asguard

Concept of main character Loki

Level & Asset Design