Bored at work... yeah, I' m kinda back.

Sup guys. I' m sitting in a phone meeting at the moment for work and am bored out of my mind. I was browsing sites trying to entertain myself and thought about the forums. Haven' t talked to you guys in a while so I thought I' d say sup.

To give a little update on my life I' ve now graduated with my Game Art & Design degree. I' m working for a videogame recruitment firm while I' m looking for an art role. Other than that not a whole lot is new.

How ya guys been?

XBL Gamertag: Rampage99

" Basically, pollute the air all you want, your just speeding up the inevitable. Our future generations are f*cked as it is and there' s really nothing we can do about it. Have a nice day "

No job, fiance left me, my basement flooded, and I' ve been diagnosed with Ultra Cycle Bipolar Disorder...oddly enough Im not really doing all that bad considering. Mostly because im very optimistic on a few things. Plus Im throwing a huge ass party in a couple days. Few weeks and I hit the reset button and put all my plans into motion and see how it all turns out.

You got CoD4? Quite a few of us had played eachother on there.

Damn dude, sorry to hear that. I' m glad you' re keeping your head up though.

I' ve got CoD4 but not the 360 version. I just bought a new computer so I got it for that. I got a Dell XPS 720, here' s the specs-

Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz
NVidia GeForce 8800GTX
4Gigs of RAM @ 800MHz
320Gig Hard drive
Windows Vista Home Premium

I managed to get it for under $2,000 after getting rid off all the shit that Dell tries to over charge you on. 2 of the four gigs of ram I bought off new egg for $60. Dell was going to charge me an extra $700... yeah, holy shit. I also got it without a monitor which knocked off a lot. Ended up grabbing a Samsung 22" monitor from Best Buy on Black Friday for $100 off. Crysis and CoD4 are incredible on this thing. I can run Crysis maxed out.

XBL Gamertag: Rampage99

" Basically, pollute the air all you want, your just speeding up the inevitable. Our future generations are f*cked as it is and there' s really nothing we can do about it. Have a nice day "

You lucky bastard. Ive shyed away from PC gaming. I started there then backed away and tried to hop back in but just cant get myself going. So now Im downgrading my PC to a basic tool of internet browsing and art hobbies. Overtime I' ll probably try and have at it again...most likly when I land a decent job. I did pick up a new moniter tho. Dropped my 26" Olevia HDTV for a 22" Hanns G Moniter, mostly due to the fact I move around alot and dont like to leave my 360 and PC to far behind.

I mainly upgraded for 3 reasons. First, my Alienware laptop is basically garbage at this point. Alienware really screwed me over with the whole warranty fiasco. It still runs... but that' s about it. Second was I wanted a computer that could tackle Crysis. Finally I wanted a setup that I could rely on for high end 3d and art programs. On my laptop I was getting some serious slow down when putting together my 3d scenes for my demo reel. Render a 3 second shot took 20+ hours. It was not a fun experience.

I' ve tested a few games on here but haven' t become too much of a PC gamer. Right now all I' ve got installed is Crysis, CoD4, WoW (don' t really play it but I pay half price since I know a guy at Blizzard), StarCraft, WarCraft III, World In Conflict, and I think that' s about it...

XBL Gamertag: Rampage99

" Basically, pollute the air all you want, your just speeding up the inevitable. Our future generations are f*cked as it is and there' s really nothing we can do about it. Have a nice day "

Is it the 64 bit version of Vista Rampage?

If not, how much RAM is you OS able to access? About 3GB?

Oh yeah, ...good to see you back!

Dude! Welcome back!

My life' s been pretty eventful.

-I quit my job.
-Fell head-over-heels in love with my best friend, now girlfriend.
-My 360 died (I knew I had a good reason for not buying a year of Live).
-Almost had a nervous breakdown & (lead to me quitting job)stopped seriously posting/cut off most of my net presence for a while. I' ve only really started up seriously again in the past couple weeks or so.

You got CoD4? Quite a few of us had played eachother on there.

I' ve got CoD4 but not the 360 version.

Bah, No excuse! Sell a lung or something. Half the fun of CoD:4 is playing with these lunatics anyhow!

Majik- Thanks man. Actually I' m running the 32 bit version of Vista so it only recognizes 3 gigs. I tried updating to 64 bit but the Dell version of Vista only gives you the license to the 32 bit unlike a store bought version which allows you to install either. I ran 64 bit for a while using the Windows trial but had more problems with it than I cared to deal with. ITunes didn' t work, my iPod Touch isn' t compatible with 64 bit, several driver issues, couldn' t use the antivirus software that came with the computer, software for using my jobs remote desktop (used to work from home) didn' t work, and so on... So not being able to access one gig of ram seems like a decent trade off for now. My computer never seemed to use that extra gig anyway.

Eddie- Much appreciated dude, glad to be back. That is some pretty eventful stuff! Hope everything is working out. Speaking of dead 360s I think I' m on my 5th one and this one is about to get returned because the disc drive locks up by either not opening or refusing to close. It' s a good thing I love it so much so that I don' t just completely trade it in. It' s also good that I have the best buy warranty because I can just take my 360 in and trade it on the spot.

I would like to get CoD4 for the 360 but I' m trying to save up some money right now. All my Christmas shopping is done and I finished buying everything for my computer so now I have to get some cash put away for whenever I move. Probably moving out west once I get a job in the industry.

XBL Gamertag: Rampage99

" Basically, pollute the air all you want, your just speeding up the inevitable. Our future generations are f*cked as it is and there' s really nothing we can do about it. Have a nice day "

Eddie- Much appreciated dude, glad to be back. That is some pretty eventful stuff! Hope everything is working out.

Yeah, life has been getting progressively better since Summer, which is a bit of a life-trend change for me.

Speaking of dead 360s I think I' m on my 5th one and this one is about to get returned because the disc drive locks up by either not opening or refusing to close. It' s a good thing I love it so much so that I don' t just completely trade it in. It' s also good that I have the best buy warranty because I can just take my 360 in and trade it on the spot.

Ah! I can fix that! Better yet, you can fix that, without voiding the warranty I might add. It' s uncommon, but I' ve heard of it (Mine & Ghost' s both do it). Lemme know if you want to try to fix it. Worse comes to worse, you bring it back to Best-Buy and they give you a brand new one.

I think it' s just going back to Best Buy. The console is also the loadest out of all the ones I' ve had. This thing is literally louder than the Dreamcast which I didn' t think could be possible. I can hear the damn thing over my surround sound.IT' s wierd too since it' s one of the holiday bundle Elites. It should have the 45nm chips in there which requires less use of the fans. I think it' s just overall defective.

XBL Gamertag: Rampage99

" Basically, pollute the air all you want, your just speeding up the inevitable. Our future generations are f*cked as it is and there' s really nothing we can do about it. Have a nice day "

Doubt it, it' s probably suffering from the same ' ol GPU failure. The new Elites actually aren' t 45nm, they' re 65, down from ninety.

And even still, only the CPU is in 65, the GPU (the one giving all these boxes grief) is still stuck in crappy ' ol 90.

There' s no telling what they' re throwing in their boxes these days. I' ve heard of & seen some absolutely crazy innards coming stock from Microsoft. It' s making me think they' re repackaging & reselling refurb units. Old motherboards with Zephyr (elite) heatsinks, and no HDMI ports. Falcon motherboards (the new 65/90 split boards) with the old heatsinks. All kinds of crazy stuff. I mentioned their criteria for hardware specifications over on Xbox Scene a while back.

Criteria for determining whether or not your new Xbox 360 has an HDMI port, a heatsink, or 65nm architecture is as follows:

A)Was it a full moon on the evening of your purchase?
B)Do all the male members of your mom' s side of the family have all 5 fingers on their left hands?
C)Do you hang to the right?
D)Did you support VHS or Betamax?
E)Do you make a bi-weekly net income of over 1800 US Dollars?
F)Have you ever been charged with recklessly slow driving in Milwaukee?
G)Were you subsequently convicted of recklessly slow driving in Milwaukee?

If you answered anything to any of those questions, you' re one of the thousands that has no effing clue what Microsoft is putting in their machines these days!

Oops, I meant to say 65nm. But yeah something isn' t right with my current console and it' s about to get kicked to the curb. May do that tonight in fact. I' m headed to Sport Authority to pick up new running shoes anyway and Best Buy is next door.

XBL Gamertag: Rampage99

" Basically, pollute the air all you want, your just speeding up the inevitable. Our future generations are f*cked as it is and there' s really nothing we can do about it. Have a nice day "

-Fell head-over-heels in love with my best friend, now girlfriend.

really i didnt know that, we need pics.

Nice to see you back Rampage.

Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.

Viva La Revolution! erm, I mean Viva La Wii!

If not, how much RAM is you OS able to access? About 3GB?

32 bit can access 4GB including the memory on your videocard. I have 32 bit Vista OEM (tied to my MOBO). With my 8800GTX I have 3.25GB. When i upgrade my mobo and CPU next year I' ll get the 64bit version. Crysis actually benefits from 64 bit. I imagine most future games and applications will.

Nice to have you back Rampage.

"This is sad. There's no other word for it. The person who invents a way to punch someone in the face over the Internet will make millions from the demand generated by people like this." Youtube comments

Good to have ya back Rampage.

Thanks guys!

XBL Gamertag: Rampage99

" Basically, pollute the air all you want, your just speeding up the inevitable. Our future generations are f*cked as it is and there' s really nothing we can do about it. Have a nice day "

Hey Rampage, last I remember of you is you asked me about a playable map on
Double Agent, that was AAAAges ago.

Congratulations on graduating, all the best!

I have been:

-Moping about since I left my job at Carphone Warehouse in March 07 where I
realised I had so much free time for games, then turns out there aren' t many good
games at the time.

-In June started a year long ambitious project to boost my portfolio and show
LionHead studios what it means to say " You don' t have enough Computer-aided
drawing" , unknowingly they have made themselves a target for my scourn, bless em.

-Now in November just working at HMV, trying to look at as many industry insiders
as possible. I missed Jade Raymond by about 2 seconds which sucks.

-Yeah, and now waitng to see the New Year in and finally show the world I am
ready to enter the gaming industry with my oodles and noodlesof lovely " shopped"
work and WACOM ccrrreeeeeeaaaaaazzzzyyyyy skillzz.

-Ah, and got feedback from a senior artist at Bioware for a couple of drawings.



I s' pose you could say things are looking good...

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

Very cool! You got a site with your drawings? If not post a few so I can check them out.

Btw, here' s my portfolio from graduation.

It was kinda rushed and I should have put more effort into it but doing work and school full time restricted things.

XBL Gamertag: Rampage99

" Basically, pollute the air all you want, your just speeding up the inevitable. Our future generations are f*cked as it is and there' s really nothing we can do about it. Have a nice day "

I don' t have a site with my drawings on as of yet.

That demoreel was cool Rampage, I didn' t know you did 3D as well as 2D, some of
the monster/beast designs were particularly detailed, and even though you
rushed it, it still looks good.

Here' s a picture I can show though:



The above is the beginning of a concept drawing for a project.



I showed this one before, but it' s copied fan art. I copied the image from the
Shenmue Online trailer. It took about eight hours, just one of the main four that
I have done.

So there' s a few there, I have no demoreel, but hopefully soon.

So are you looking to apply for a job in the gaming industry? From what you' ve
said, it sounds as though you' re satisfyingly close.

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

ORIGINAL: Tiz

Here' s a picture I can show though:

What happened to her feet?

I have a problem where I work from the top down, and get slightly bored arriving
at the bottom, I have been doing that pic for weeks on and off.

The final one will have lovely feet though, I just need to use reference for the feet,
because I have no idea what shape/design her boots are.

She' ll kick your ass once she' s in 3-D!

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

Yeah, the top half is great, the hood especially - kinda reminds me of Darth Maul...

I take it it' s unfinished though?

Yeah, it is very unfinished, I still have to re-position the left foot, redo the right
boot and whatnot, and everything else that is flat, " unshaded" and unfinished.

It feels like a long process, but it works for me. Yeah, I' m a bit of a nut for
hooded characters, it' s an obsession I can' t get rid of.

Darth Maul? lol She' s way hotter than Darth Maul, and Darth Maul is hot!

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

Your work is definitely improving. What kind of wacom are you using again?

I' m using an A4 Wacom Intuos3. Which set me back more than what I spent on
my 360, and what I would spend on a PS3...

It is SO worth it though, i' m churning out loads of monochrome images, one day
I am going to have a colouring day and actually finalize my portfolio, I' ve been
getting a bit of feedback from Tim Appleby at Bioware, it' s cool he likes my stuff,
but I have to really think about lighting, which is true, only because sometimes
I sacrifice realistic lighting to have more fun in putting detail, but that' s
paranoia on my part.

I think that if people don' t see detail everywhere, and they see shadows and stuff
that my ability gets questioned, so I remove any realistic shadowing and put detail
and unecessary light sources.lol

You wouldn' t believe how long it took me to make an educated decision on and
around the hood.

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

I struggled to get used to Wacoms in the beginning. The learning curve is pretty steep. I' m looking at the Cintiq range at the moment - i want a hands-on before i make up my mind though.

Lighting and shadowing are important, but not overly so. It depends on how you' re using it. If we' re talking character concepts and there' s bare skin, unrealistic highlights and shadows can take a lot away from the overall piece. The easiest way to approach that is to use photographic references.

I think physical direction and portrayal of movement are more important though. I was constantly critisized for my static characters when i started university and hand to work on getting movement and weight right.

Anyway, you seem to have cloth down, and that' s not easy. Have you been posting on Conceptart.org and CGSociety? Can we see more of your stuff?

You' re buying from the £2,000 + Cintiq range?? I' ve tried them, and whilst they' re
amazingly high detailed, and the response and accuracy is second to none, my lack
of funds forced me to learn to " get bent" and use the Wacom Intuos3, in which I
learnt that the Cintiq is really for people that can' t transfer techniques from
drawing ordinarily on paper to the Wacom, the Cintiq cuts out the middle man.

Unless of course we' re not talking about the giant 19 inch screen ones?

I' m trying to find the right time to spring a ton of work on you guys for c+c and just to show some pretty stuff, but I wanna overwhelm you guys, I can show in dribs and drabs though, it' s just mostly pencil sketching and monochrome images. I also dare not put a piece of work on CGsociety and coneptart.org until I have at least 20 finished pieces for people to look through. That' s just me, although I am
always on CGsociety, and get tips from people like:

Henning Ludvigsen
Marta Dahlig

Both of which are my two favourite artists on that site, Henning more, because he
just does photoshop, and Marta uses Corel Painter and photoshop, and I can' t be
asked to learn painter just as yet.

Out of curiosity.... What did you want to use the Cintiq for? Apart from to draw
obviously, but, in terms of projects, personal gain, etc.

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

ORIGINAL: Tiz

You' re buying from the £2,000 + Cintiq range?? I' ve tried them, and whilst they' re
amazingly high detailed, and the response and accuracy is second to none, my lack of funds forced me to learn to " get bent" and use the Wacom Intuos3, in which I learnt that the Cintiq is really for people that can' t transfer techniques from drawing ordinarily on paper to the Wacom, the Cintiq cuts out the middle man.

Unless of course we' re not talking about the giant 19 inch screen ones?

I think it' s 18" - although they do a 15" model too. I haven' t checked them out properly yet and i wouldn' t buy one without a hands-on anyway.

The cost isn' t a massive issue, but with any luck i' ll be able to get one through work - even if what i' m doing doesn' t exactly require one

ORIGINAL: Tiz

I' m trying to find the right time to spring a ton of work on you guys for c+c and just to show some pretty stuff, but I wanna overwhelm you guys, I can show in dribs and drabs though, it' s just mostly pencil sketching and monochrome images. I also dare not put a piece of work on CGsociety and coneptart.org until I have at least 20 finished pieces for people to look through. That' s just me, although I am
always on CGsociety, and get tips from people like:

Henning Ludvigsen
Marta Dahlig

Both of which are my two favourite artists on that site, Henning more, because he
just does photoshop, and Marta uses Corel Painter and photoshop, and I can' t be
asked to learn painter just as yet.

Digital art kicks my ass. Not only have i never been able to fully adjust to Wacoms but i' ve always struggled with raster graphic packages too. They may have been covered pretty heavily at uni but due to my condition i was apparently unable to take it. Kinda sucks.

I like CGSociety, but i prefer Conceptart.org. I know several lead artists and game directors who use both it to find talented artists, so it' s worth spending the time to post in both forums.



What are you using for 3D work? ZBrush?

What are you using for 3D work? ZBrush?

Surprisingly, no. I only discovered ZBrush after watching a Heavenly Sword
featurette, and reading an article on Gears of War over at CGSociety, but by that
time most of my efforts had been invested into 3DS Max, which I am finding so
much easier to make characters and weapons in than before.

I' d like to get to grips with ZBrush however, because it looks as if it' s designed
to be used with a Wacom, isn' t that how they managed to get so much detail in
King Boham' s face?

I recently bought a book on Studio Max to coincide with my " Project" and so far
it has helped me make some pretty cool water effects, but once this is done, I
want to do my next project using as much ZBrush as possible so there is none
of my vision lost in translation (or i' d like to maintain as much of it as possible).

They may have been covered pretty heavily at uni but due to my condition i was apparently unable to take it. Kinda sucks.

Condition?

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

Anterograde and retrograde amnesia caused by a head injury in my late teens.

It' s why i took a year out of my games design degree.

Caused by a head injury?? What happened?

That would annoy me if I had to do that, take a year out of something I like doing.

The worst injury I had was falling on a bucket in the snow, and scarring
underneath my bottom lip. I still remember it, and I was 4.

I also fell into the deep end of an empty swimming pool once, about 6 or 7 feet,
I laughed first then started crying.

..... Fun times.

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

The second was rather recently wasn' t it?

That blows nitro.

Great pics tiz, hope you get in somewhere big and makes lots of money, just don' t forget the little people when you do. Also i sent you a friend invite, but you never accepted.WTF?

ORIGINAL: Tiz

Caused by a head injury?? What happened?

I was hit over the head a couple of times with a cricket bat a few days after throwing a known drug dealer out of a house party.

ORIGINAL: Tiz

That would annoy me if I had to do that, take a year out of something I like doing.

It was awful. It' s all i ever wanted to do.

A friend invite?? On what?

X-box Live?

Well, atm, I think I am on 99 friends, when I get home, I' ll delete some...

When did you send it?

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

So what do you do now Nitro, if you' re not doing that Games Design Degree?

Last I remember seeing/hearing you were an IT consultant.

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

ORIGINAL: Tiz

So what do you do now Nitro, if you' re not doing that Games Design Degree?

I didn' t drop out, i just had to take a year off.

I was supposed to be moving to Canada and so hadn' t pursued much in this country and had been working in IT, ...but after being rejected i had to focus closer to home - at least in the short term.

I' m still looking to set up my own business in another country, but i have couple of commitments here now so i' m doing a couple of non-design game based things in the interim period.

Yeah I ended up deleting the request, but I will resend it. It was a while ago when I was sending them to everyone on kikizo, I just added rampage. Speaking of which do you have COD4 rampage or for that matter do you Tiz?

I have CoD4 for the PC and don' t play multiplayer on it. I do play Halo 3 often online. I also bounce around in Team Fortress 2 and Gears occasionally.

Lol, I was trying to figure out who you were last night when I got that friend request.

XBL Gamertag: Rampage99

" Basically, pollute the air all you want, your just speeding up the inevitable. Our future generations are f*cked as it is and there' s really nothing we can do about it. Have a nice day "