Tag Archives: Crow

Crows, Games, Pie, Stove

Tank Re-visted.

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After stepping away for a while and coming back, I really wasn’t happy with the tank prototype, so I’ve gone and given it some tweaks. Here’s an adjustment to the design which I think feels much better:

The sloping adjustment to the top of the track created by the larger front wheel gives it a more dynamic, less stiff feel. I also made the exhausts smaller because they were competing with that gun barrel. Tut…tut…tut… This is a tank! It’s all about shooting, so I need to emphasize this!

I’m thinking of sloping the top of the body where it adjoins the turret a little, too. I think avoiding any purely horizontal/vertical lines adds more fun to a silhouette, which is something easily forgotten when wrestling with a methodology for making 2D tank tracks work properly. Have I mentioned how unfathomably difficult that is yet? Why must I engage that damned left brain hemisphere so often?

But…I still haven’t resorted to digging Maya out, so I’m not yet cheating. Still all 100% Adobe Creative Suite, vectors ‘n’ old fashioned painting. 🙂

I’m also toying with this flag design for the Crows. Perhaps I’ll add an eye. 😉

Random thought regarding game sound: What if all Stovey sound is 100% synthesized and all the Crow sounds are real recordings? If we treat them with a textural process, they can live in the same sonic place, but have a different vibe to them. Would anybody notice? Would it sound disjointed, or somehow add to the experience? Only one way to find out…

Also, it might be a good idea for me to stop posting animated gifs. It’s beginning to look like The Internet, circa 1997. 😉

Crows, Games, Pie, Stove

New Pie!

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It’s time for a new pie for Stovey:

Behold! The new pie. This thing was way more complicated to draw and animate than it should be, but I’m not resorting to any 3D because that’s cheating! Now, I have to design some more types of pie. Perhaps a Square Pie. And a lattice pie. So many pies.

Games

More Stoves And Crows Are Flying

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The prototype is coming along nicely with some explosion particles and a few other tweaks. While it’s beginning to be really satisfying shooting the crows, we’re now concentrating on audio/visual feedback for sucking them in. We have a good gameplay plan which adds a bit of strategic choice to the game.

The next video will feature the new dive bombing crow attack animations and perhaps some fat stovey and sucking action.

Games, Tools

Sprite Something on iPad

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Behold:  A Crow in his Crowship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made this animation with Sprite Something on the iPad.  It’s pretty fun and quite useable, but could do with some additions like cloud sync through dropbox, colour palletizing and a few other tools.  I do like that it builds sprite sheets and includes the info in an email (Along with animated gifs up to 4x the original size ).  Neat.

I haven’t touched pixel art in years, but now I’ve got an iPad, the idea of clicking pixels on and off again with a finger is fun.  Back in the early ’90s , I used Dpaint III on the Amiga for my sprites, backgrounds and animation.  I loved that software to death, but the mid ’90s saw me shift into Photoshop textures and polygons, as was the fashion back in those foolish days.  Recently, I got the urge to go pixelly again, so let’s see what happens…

Painting

Fall 4

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Another Fall painting, but this time Digital.  I’ve revisited this image a total of 4 times now, in oil, acrylic and pencil on toned paper.  It’s somewhat of a compulsion and I just can’t see myself stopping any time soon. It’s the first time a crow has appeared in one of these images and it’s just occurred to me that the crow might represent death. Or perhaps these paintings are merely about obsolescence?