My Bachelor of Arts research in Virtual Worlds in Video Games

My Bachelor of Arts research in Virtual Worlds in Video Games. A study in video game worlds, where they started, and their way to today's super realistic 3D Video Game Worlds.
The Evolution in software and hardware from the Text adventure games to the gigantic virtual world of the modern MMORPGs.

Unfortunately this is in Greek, a translation is coming soon.


http://nikapa.freehost.gr/baWeb.pdf

The Abstract Wallpaper

Click for bigger resolution. 1600x1280p.

We are moving!

Hello everyone, because this blog is general for my projects, now that the adventure project has a name I'm moving it to it's own blog here:


http://multiversethegame.blogspot.com

Everything from now on, will be posted at the new blog, where you can also find the old posts and comments.

There will be no new posts here for the adventure project so if you wish to follow the project just come in it's new home!

Have a nice Autumn!

The laboratory

Hi again, here I am once more with another update.

The whole project is on the go but the progress is short of slow. This is mostly because officially I'm on vacations and I swim, I get out and things like this and on my "free" time I work on the project and also trying to get familiar with open source programs, like gimp and inkskape. You see I really want to work exclusively on open source programs, for many reasons.

Anyway this is not the place to say why to use open source, so I return on topic.

I'm working on the laboratory, actually the first level of the game which will also be the "intro" of the whole story. I did had an accident with the first file I made with the laboratory, I made the "teleportation device" and then the saved file didn't want to open again, vue 8 was just keep on crashing, I also tried to open it in my desktop and no difference, crash on load. It was short of push back because I designed a mechanism to hydraulic open and close the device's door, and also linked the objects in a way to be used for easier animation. It took me about 4 hours and all are lost. At least I designed the mechanism in hand first and it will be easier to remade it.
After that I decided to design each part of an object separately and then join them in a new file, this seems like safer way to do things.

The results are this:

 

The main body of the device.

And this:

This is the window of the device and I made an aged alternative of it to use elsewhere:

Also I used the lamb from the preview post and joined all the objects together to make the "teleportation device":

All I need to finish the device now is to make the door and the mechanism to open and close it.

Also I made some handmade artwork with a BIC pen... I don't have any other mediums available here so that was the best I could do, another problem was that I don't have a scanner available so I shotted it with my macbook's web cam, the image is terrible but you can get an idea before I will scan it.

So this is the artwork for the teleportation device and the door mechanism:

and a plan from top view I draw to know what will go where inside the laboratory, because of the terrible quality you can't read what is what, sorry for that I will scan a better image soon.

Also I did a high resolution render to the device to see more details:

You can get it from here:

http://fav.me/d2ut7ub

That's all for now!

A little update

Hello! I finished with my college for this year so I'm enjoying a few days of vocations. However I still work on the adventure project.

I though of a name, since the game will take place in parallel universes, I though it might be cool to call it "Multiverse".

I was also working on the first scene of the game. The laboratory where the whole adventure will begin...
A disaster! I worked overnight to make the "teleportation" device, with some short of real looking mechanism to open and close the door, I saved the file and once I tried to open it up again... BOOM! Vue 8 crashes!

I was hoping that this is some short of problem in my macbook so I tried, full of hope to open it in my windows desktop, still crash...

It seems I have to remade it from scratch, at least I draw the mechanism in hand before go on with the 3D modeling, so it will be easier this time.

I also remade a scene which is not part of the current project, but it can be used for it.


It is some short of water well, the original is this:

and the remake is this:

Also I made a lamb :

and an attempt to add it on a wall:

The Island animation

I know it is stupid to keep working on the island without even a project plan yet, but I can't stop!
So I made the animation and did a small render to check things.

Scenario

Hello everyone I hope you are all fine, the latest events in Greece does not make me feel fine myself but well...
Anyway I fall behind a little with the project, I was busy with my studies and yesterday it was a bad day, and my morale was really really down, because of all that shits that happens in my country.
As I said a part of the scenario is already done, and all it was needed was to translate it. So here it is:

Our hero is typical scientist who works day and night in his laboratory and he tries to make a teleportation device.
The research in theory is moving smooth but the experiments does not, since so far he is not able to move an object from the place A to place B, or maybe he did, but he does not know where the hell this place B it is.
Another routine day in the lab and our hero is doing some changes in the device (think a box with a door, for the device), and one of the cats he got for experiments in the lab went free from her cage and pressed the activation button of the device. As a result our scientist (he does not have a name yet, maybe Gordon Freeman? :P) he disappears!
After a really crazy and surrealistic journey he lands in a strange place. The place looks like a desert but there is no sand, just an infinite plane. All of a sudden, in front of him appears that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU8iXPbC-oI and starts to talk to him.
The strange life form, explains to him that Einstein's theory for the parallels dimensions was right, except the part of how many they are, because there are an infinite number of them.
Each dimension is been over watched by it's guardian, like that life form who talk to us. The guardian have to make sure that there is balance in his dimension and in rare cases like now, to help any "intruder" return to his dimension without disturbing the balance and order in the other ones. The problem is that the connection between the dimensions are one way, what means we can not return back that easy. We must found a way through the other dimensions with the help of their guardians.
The guardian inform us that our life form will change in each dimension, like it did now (here it pop ups a mirror like thing and show us that we look like the guardian), and we must find the guardian of each dimension to move us to the next one (till we made it to ours).

After that we are been teleported at the next dimension. There we see that it is an artificial world where the only living beings are robots and computers. A small robot show up and says that the guardian sends him and he will help us to find our way to the guardian. This will be a dummy entry level to make the user familiar with the controls and in most of our way to the guardian we will do thinks that the little robot instruct us to do.
Next it is the island level which I gave shots a few days ago. From that on we are at our own and we have to use logic and tips around the world to made it to the next guardian.
When I say logic I mean for example that : "there is a boat, it seems clickable but nothing happens once you click. The reason is that it is useless without the paddle which is somewhere close but with smaller clickable area, so it will be harder to found it with a simple mouseover". In that scene with the boar if you can't find the paddle and move on the next area there will be a dead end, but if you look careful enough, you will see a tip, which says that you will need the paddle to take the boat, and go to the island next to that one you are!

This is it so far, I have a couple of ideas about other areas and I will make some artwork for each one of them soon.

Later.