3D Modeling: Household Objects

Common household objects was the theme of the final project in my 3D modeling class. I made a Gillette Mach 3 Razor.

Unity 3D: Tidal Fury

single player

two player split-sceen

Tidal Fury is a game that pits two boats against each other in head to head combat. The game was coded in Java using the Unity 3D game engine. This was a group project, my part was coding the game play, and modeling and animating one of the boats (the red one).
   The project presented many unique programming challenges; Realistic buoyancy for the boats, split-screen multiplayer, a mini-map, a cannon that adjusts for the rocking of the boat using a counter weight, a homing missile that locks on to a player when they are within range, and cannon bullets that skip off the surface of the water.
   One of the more interesting challenges was handling the 3D sound for both players. Unity 3D has built in code for handling 3D sound.  There is a sound source, an object that emits a sound from a specific location, and a sound listener, the object that picks up that sound and outputs it to the left and right speaker channels in a way that simulates depth. But, add another player, and you need 2 sound listeners, which is not allowed by Unity. To get around this we had a single sound listener for both players. When a sound is played, it spawns a sound source relative to the sound listener. So, if there is an explosion between player1 and player2, the closest player to that explosion is found, then the relative distance from that player to the explosion is calculated. This relative distance is then given to the sound listener object, which spawns a sound source in an equivalent relative distance from itself.

Player 1: Air-Boat Tank

Hybrid Pinball/Video Game: Making pinball popular again.

Problem: Pinball is no longer popular.

Overview:
Pinball is an interesting part of gaming history that is now dead in the eyes of the mainstream gaming audience. In a broader scope, pay-to-play arcade games are pretty much dead. Arcade games, like pinball, just can't compete with the kind of sophisticated play experiences one can have at home. However, people still enjoy arcade style gaming that incorporates new interesting ways to play, think DDR, guitar hero/rock band, Wii, Xbox connect. You could place all these into a category of games that offer a unique tactile experience, and they were all very successful because of that factor.

Graphic Design: Corporate Executive Club

This is the front and back of a business card I made while working for Corporate Executive Club (CEC). CEC is an Orlando based company that hosts social events for executives to meet other execs and people in a variety of industries.
The card was made using Inkscape, an open source clone of Adobe illustrator, and Gimp, an open source clone of Photoshop.

Hybrid Pinball/Video Game RPG: Silver Striker

Silver Striker is a hybrid pinball machine/video game. The only other example that comes to mind is the
Baby Pacman Arcade Machine
Silver Striker is a role playing pinball game RPPG. The RPG element of the game is your typical final fantasy/dragon quest style RPG with random battles, experience points, hp/mp, and so on. What makes Silver Striker unique is its unusual pinball controller, called the Striker Controller.

 
The Striker Controller works like the mechanical version of the Pong (arcade game) paddle. You grip the controller by the two handles and move it back and forth along the guide rail. When the pinball hits the launcher, press the Launch button with your index finger to send the ball flying across the play field. The Launcher mechanism works exactly like a pinball bumper. A typical pinball bumper has a thick band of rubber stretched between two posts, when the ball hits the rubber a switch is triggered and a third post, located in the middle of the rubber band, shoots forward pushing the band outward, stretching into a triangle shape. The ball is launched forward if it contacts the middle of the band, or it is launched at an angle depending on how far it is from the center, much like how the Pong paddle worked.

This is how a typical battle sequence would play:

You choose an area on the map from a list using the left and right buttons. You then watch your party of 4 warriors walk to the chosen destination on the map. During their journey to the chosen destination they may run into a pack of monsters and a battle will be initiated.
The monsters are arranged on the screen in 4 separate areas, each battle target corresponds to its adjacent area on the screen. So when the ball hits one of the battle targets, it counts as an attack on that region of the screen. As the battle progresses, the monsters move towards the foreground, if they make it all the way they will attack you and deal damage to your party members. Attacking the enemies knocks the monsters back into the foreground where they can't reach you. Some monsters have ranged weapons that they can shoot at you. Your Striker controller represents the position of the party member you are currently controlling, so if you want to dodge a ranged attack, simply move the controller out of the way, close range attacks however, can't be dodged.
The area behind the targets is actually lower than the main play field. You go into this area when you have charged up enough energy in your "melee meter". The battle targets are suspended on a bar going through the center. normally they are locked into position so they don't spin around the bar. When the melee meter is full they become unlocked so that the ball can pass through them and down into the lower play field. In the lower play field there is an array of targets called secondary targets. A certain number of these targets light up, to make up a region that represents the monster that you are attacking. As you hit the targets, the lights turn off and the region becomes smaller and harder to hit. Their are hidden bumpers below the combat targets that automatically launch the ball towards the targets, you can control where the ball hits, by moving the target region back and forth using the striker controller.
The top lane has a number of uses depending on the context. Normally it is used to charge your melee meter. If you hold down the launch button, a menu appears with a list of items, you can move through the list by pressing the select button. To use the selected item launch the ball into the top lane and hold down the launch button when it passes through.
So that's just a basic introduction to the game, there is a lot more in the design document.
I think pinball as it is now is out dated, but I wouldn't say it is dead. I think with a little creative innovation, future generations will enjoy it just as much.

First Animation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrQsrbJNdB4

I'll have more animations uploaded to my Youtube account when I finish and scan them.