Unity – Full Adam Demo Video

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 20, 2016

When I was a kid, I got the premier issue of a magazine (Discover?) which had this great illustrated article about computer graphics. Maybe that’s one of the things that sucked me into being a game developer. It showed the evolution of 3D computer graphics up until that point, focusing on non-real-time rendered images. How […]

Filed Under: Art - Comments: Read the First Comment

Games as Art: Communication Required?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 22, 2016

I recently read an old essay (we’re talking pre-WWW!) discussing what makes art, and the author suggested that for a work to be art it has to engage the audience in a conversation… inviting them to mentally and / or emotionally contribute, interpret, and invest something of themselves into the work to derive meaning from it. […]

Filed Under: Art, Geek Life - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

How “Old School” Graphics Worked

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 26, 2015

Oh, man. This brings up some memories. I worked with the Commodore 64 graphics for years. Never produced anything commercial, but I certainly struggled with these challenges. There’s something he doesn’t bring up in the video about the Commodore 64’s sprite mode. Each sprite had its position dictated by two bytes – one for X […]

Filed Under: Art, Programming, Retro - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

A Brief History of (Video Game) Graphics

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 24, 2014

These are fun to watch as either a gamer or as a game developer, this is a five-part series of short videos explaining the major revolutions / trends / milestones in video game graphics over the years. From vector graphics to bloom effects, it’s a pretty entertaining little set of videos. For us old-school fans, […]

Filed Under: Art - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Pixels 4Ever?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 7, 2014

Old-school bitmap art can be pretty dang awesome. Like this, from the incredibly cool arcade-style freeware game Maldita Castilla, by Locomalito Games. Check it out – it’s freeware. Tip the creator with the number of quarters you would have dumped into this game if it had been in an arcade machine: My kids and I thoroughly […]

Filed Under: Art - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

Challenge: A 3D Modeling Tool for 2.5D RPGs

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 24, 2013

Yeah, I *wish* I could participate. I suck at making tools, and I’m behind schedule as it is. But I love this idea, and I hope somebody (maybe even somebody from this community) rises to the challenge… Daniel Cook (DanC) has issued a challenge to make a 3D modeling tool for creating content for 2.5D […]

Filed Under: Art - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

A Relatively Complete Blender Tutorial

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 8, 2013

If you are unfamiliar with Blender, I consider it one of the major “success stories” of the open-source movement. Beginning life as a commercial 3D modeling program, it was later re-purchased through a very early version of crowd-funding (we’re talking back in the 1990s, here), released to the public, and has since been steadily evolving […]

Filed Under: Art - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

From Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Demanded

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 11, 2013

The ideas people have come up with for completely useless psychic powers yesterday was a source of amusement all day long. Thank you! Three winners have been emailed with instructions for claiming their prizes. Thank you to everybody who has participated so far.  And a big thank-you to the game developers who have contributed copies […]

Filed Under: Art, Deals, Rampant Games - Comments: 13 Comments to Read

Picture: Worth 1000 Words, Costs 5000

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 22, 2012

My favorite death in the original Zork adventure game came from my attempt to brush my teeth using a tube of what appeared (according to the description) to be toothpaste.  Apparently, it was actually “All-Purpose Gunk,” a kind of fast-acting glue. The result was… well, it was actually hilarious, and not entirely unexpected. But one […]

Filed Under: Adventure Games, Art, Retro - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

The Problem with Programmer Graphics…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 8, 2011

I saw this on my calendar the other day. I can relate. For many (most? all?) people, failing to obtain a minimum threshold of quality – or even failing to match the particular style they prefer – causes this sort of reaction. They’ll never look past the graphics to see the game underneath. Actually, that’s […]

Filed Under: Art - Comments: 13 Comments to Read

Game Art: Wow, it’s a… dead bird.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 30, 2011

This isn’t really a Frayed Knights update so much as a sharing of what I’ve been doing, because what I’m doing tends to be so all-consuming it’s hard to come up with other ideas for posts. BTW, do you have a guest post you wanna write? Please feel free! Anyway, the stage of development right […]

Filed Under: Art - Comments: 12 Comments to Read

Does GIMP Cut the Mustard for Indies?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 11, 2011

Here’s an explanation as to why professional artists prefer Photoshop to Gimp , I guess: Why GIMP is Inadequate I’m not a professional artist, so I doubt I’m qualified to comment on the author’s specific points.  But the arguments seem reasonable – and GIMP (I guess it’s just GIMP now, and no longer “The Gimp”) […]

Filed Under: Art - Comments: 16 Comments to Read

Blendering

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 13, 2010

I’ve been using an old-and-creaky version of Blender (around 2.43) for a long time, now. I had an exporter I knew worked for my engine (which is no longer being maintained), and I was pretty used to how things worked. I finally upgraded to version 2.49 – which is getting a little bit old-and-creaky on […]

Filed Under: Art - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Sintel

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 5, 2010

If you haven’t yet seen the short film Sintel on YouTube,  here it is: The coolest part? It was made by independent funding from donations, and was created using Blender – the free open-source 3D modeling package. In fact, the goal of the project was “to further improve and validate the free/open source 3D creation […]

Filed Under: Art, Movies - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

Best Game Cover Art?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 16, 2010

One annoying tendency I’ve discovered with some  indie digital download games is that there’s a depressing lack of cover art sometimes. It seems this is more often an issue with newer indies on their first release, as they tend to be far more willing to invest in an impressive cover piece on their second or […]

Filed Under: Art, General - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Making Epic 3D Dungeons, Part 2 – Applying the Lessons

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 21, 2010

A couple of weeks ago, in Making Epic 3D Dungeons, I talked about the evolution of the classic “dungeon” paradigm from dice-and-paper gaming through the development of computer RPGs, and how its fared through the pseudo-3D and finally fully 3D presentation. There are a couple of additional resources I want to recommend: Brenda Brathwaite article […]

Filed Under: Art, Design, Frayed Knights - Comments: 6 Comments to Read



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