Game art

 I did the VFX for Creature Quest, mobile game,  all the particle effects that will brighten up the UI, maps, combat fx, and enhancements to the creature art work. This was a free to play RPG game made by JVC (from NWC, Might and Magic franchise). There was a limit to the particles count and sizes due to the game running on older devices, and I learned Magic Particles software on the job. The particle software is basic with a lot of manual typing and manipulating curves, but it gave decent results. Youtube VFX

I did Flash game prototyping for educational games by Lakeshore Learning (called Whiteboard Games, meant to be used in school classrooms). Lakeshore would provide the storyboard, audio files and initial vector graphics, and I would process it: optimize graphics, animate characters, generate popups linked with audio, script the randomness of the game, etc. and return a complete working game to them.  It was a great experience working on a variety of subjects that it never got boring.  

 I was a flash developer for ABCmouse, an educational website. I did both animations and scripting in the early stages, before the company website went live. They had a variety of things to work on: painting, reading, animals (like the fish tank), and games.  

Dragonshard was an RTS game built by Liquid Entertainment. These units were low poly due to the potential of having hordes moving on the screen (grunts 100 triangles, bosses up to 500 triangles). This used a proprietary engine. Here are screenshots of the game in action, you can see my beholder, war turtles and hydra as they are larger than the grunt units.

 These are some characters modeled Neverwinter Nights prototype. Someone else created the textures, and then I would rig and animate for the game. The people were segmented for swapping and toggling on/off accessories (i.e. sleeves, boots, armor, weapons). The texture maps were larger for this game.

   One of my favorites to draw and animate is a dragon. I was fortunate to have dibs whenever there was a dragon in the game ;)   These were modeled, textured, rigged and animated for: Heroes of Might and Magic (rendered sprite), Might and Magic (lowpoly FPS), and Dragonshard (lowpoly RTS). Lowpoly dragons. Top 2 for D&D, Bottom 4 for Might and Magic Lowpoly green dragon, different pose, used in Might and Magic. Rendered as sprites for Heroes of Might and Magic Rendered as sprites for Heroes of Might and Magic

 Here are some of the artwork stages for making creatures and characters. All models were rigged and animated into a working game engine. After the concept art is the modeling (wireframe mesh), then texturing applied, next is rigging/skinning, then animation and export. For realtime engines the export format is usually .FBX.  3dsMax is the software of choice for lowpoly games, it is easy for me to work with, and contains all the tools in one package: from modeling, animation, and rendering (i.e. cutscenes). Character Studio biped is often used for humans and mocap files. lowpoly war turtle, Dragonshard lowpoly beholder, Dragonshard lowpoly chameleon with firefly container, Dragonshard lowpoly lizard shaman, Dragonshard lowpoly fighter, NWN

These are some of the characters and props that I modeled, textured, rigged and animated for Liquid Entertainment. Characters for D&D Characters for D&D Buildings and props from D&D and LOTR Props used in LOTR

I made these for my screensaver starting in 1999, they are the creatures of the Might and Magic series. The earlier 3d models have less detail due to them being such small rendered sprites (click picture to view larger version). Back then, the monitor pixel resolution was 640 x 480 with Windows 95.