Starting back on my Final Year

The semester has just started and already I'm going a little CooCoo from anticipation of thinking up a really bad game idea. Yes, this year us third year Games Design students need to concept and make a game. While I love the idea of painting out concepts, I am also given the task of 'designing' the actual gameplay. Tsk, this is my fault for wanting to work alone.

I've started a new blog for that (yay, I must have zillions by now) and called it something rather boring like Final Year Project...

I'll at least say that my game idea is Horror themed- and by 'themed', I mean it's not necessarily the type that will creep and scare, it may thrill people though. I'm pretty excited/scared this year :) the busy-ness might cause me to not blog so much (except for the blog meant for the project).

Any-who. Just thought I'd make a post explaining future absence and lack of blogging. Here's also a caricature I  just finished for fun (it's me by the way).

I'll be linking my Project blog on the side.. and here-  gsfinalmajorproject.blogspot.com

Alsie WIP

Abeo Initio WIP

Victoria's Abstract Art

Victoria Richards, a good friend of mine, decided a while ago she would blog her hobby, which is painting abstract canvases. She studies Medical Sciences and will be in her second year soon, she's very smart and witty!
Recently she has also decided to set up shop, and asked me to help make her banners, please check her blog and shop out! She never painted so much before, so I'm fully supporting her! It's ironic that she makes more money in art than I do hahaha.

Perhaps I should make myself a nice banner too, my blog is looking a bit plain! I never got around to doing it since I thought it was better being plain, but now that I've seen what I can do with Vikky's banners, it's got me thinking. How very silly indeed.

Work In Progress'

I have SO much work that I can't show. It really sucks when you're creative energy is spent but you have nothing to show for it. Luckily I've had some time (and by that I mean when I get home feeling really tired and have an ounce of will left to draw something) to work on my 4K Kiriban image(s). I have also been working on an image for a friend's novel, I'll probably update the work in progress, but here's what I have so far...

Babylon sucks!

It sucks so much I actually have to post about it.
Guys, if you're ever after a translation program, NEVER go to Bablyon (at least if you're not planning to buy it). It's a giant virus/spyware of it's own. It attaches itself to your browser (in my case it was firefox), and ceases to let go even after uninstalling.

Puddle Puzzles, mobile game released!

Great news! The mobile game I helped work on during my internship at ChaosTrend (ended May 2011) has just been released in the iphone/ipad/itouch app store. ^^ It's the first ever game I helped make being released... even though I only did some artwork, I'm still quite excited about it. I think it will only work on 3GS and above, the HD versions are for retna screens (in other words higher resolution screens).

Full Game HD
Full Game non-HD

Free Game HD
Free Game non-HD

Puddles Puzzles release date!!

On 18th August, Puddle Puzzles will be released for the iphone! I contributed a small amount of work to it, and while it may be a small mobile game, I'm still quite proud. It feels silly to say this since I only really did the promotional work and influenced the image of the game by a very small amount. It was during my first ever work experience with a games company, in this case for small mobile games called Chaos Trend Ltd. The Chos Trend Blog gives more information:

CV Tips for New Artists

http://www.rsart.co.uk/2011/07/31/what-new-artists-need-in-a-c-v-and-portfolio/

The Inception Fan

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.