Boyz and their Toyz

[Redrobes]

Heh wicked ! No I don't mind at all. Just if you go into printing off millions decking out the rich and famous with the new 3D face picture fad then can I have a cut

I was hoping that with the ability to scan and do 3D terrain that maybe I can get some freelance games work. I am more of a programmer than artist but I could never believe that games companies art department could run without some programming ability.

My early scanner was used on one game for some aliens. "X-Com apocalypse ?". The game is really really good actually but since I did the aliens you have to play it for months before you get powerful enough to deal with extra terrestrials and that's when my object scans come in. I don't know why I never pushed harder to do more work with more people really. Life just gets in the way of fun sometimes. When I asked about those years ago you would get a response like - 50000 polygons for that head ? Our <Lara Croft equivalent type character> only has 350 in total... at the time it was a bit ahead of it but now I reckon there's many people with the ability to do it so I doubt ill get involved with work for that reason instead. But ill have a go.

Still, it was all there sitting about doing nothing and I just had to put a new motor on it so I thought heck lets get that thing fired up again.

Edit -- Just looking at this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM:_Apocalypse Theres the mention of the megapod. I scanned that one. I might have an image somewhere but I ought not to post it because its a licenced item. I think I safe to talk about it tho The original sculptures were done by this famous SF sculptor dude but I cant for the life of me remember who that was.

Edit2 -- Oh yes I still have the (battered) piccy. Some UFOs, the Food Chamber and the Maintenance Factory are marked on it. I never bothered with the in game names they were all object1, 2, 3 etc as far as I was converned. Theres a UFOPedia in the game where you get the pics logged. None seem to survive on the web tho.

Edit 3: YESSSS I dont believe it. Check these out... http://xcom.strategyplanet.gamespy.com/x3u8.shtml

Edit 4 ! BTW that link you provided is awesome - check out all of those lovely 3D models and figures. Ohhh I drool looking at those. Have some rep !

Edit 5 !!! It seems I have a power 3 repping stick ! Ok no more edits - this is getting silly now. Yes very silly.

[Midgardsormr]

I am more of a programmer than artist but I could never believe that games companies art department could run without some programming ability.

Indeed not. Most smaller shops prefer to hire people with skills in more than one discipline because it means they don't have to hire as many people and there's less downtime. A decade or so ago, of course, they'd have artist-programmers creating their own tools, but that doesn't happen as much now, from what I understand, because there are more commercially-available tools than there used to be.

And heck, putting down on your resume that you built your own 3d platter scanner can't possibly hurt anything! I imagine your talent with heightmaps and erosion modelling would be pretty desireable, too.

[Redrobes]

This is just gratuitous pixel porn but I was messing about with the textures in blender today faffing about with that head so just wanted to share...