Friday, January 27, 2012

Find: WebGL Playground

GameDev News
WebGL playground is a straightforward idea: type in your WebGL script and see the results. But the cool part is that the editor and the results are just on the same page and that you get a handful of features that make your life easier.
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Find: New Book: SketchUp for Game Design

An alternative to 3ds and maya?

Google SketchUp
I’ve yet to meet a SketchUp modeler who doesn’t—at least just a little bit—want to work in the video game design industry. I get a stupid grin on my face when I think about how much fun it it would be to make battle tanks and exploding oil drums and secret doors for hidden basements full of zombies. In the gaming world, boring things like gravity and cost take a backseat to novelty and sheer coolness.

But how to turn your SketchUp habit (and job cranking out toilet stall details) into days full of armor design and wandering through bad neighborhoods looking for interesting photo-textures to shoot?


Google SketchUp for Game Design is Robin de Jongh’s newest book; he also wrote SketchUp 7.1 for Architectural Visualization. It presumes that you’re a SketchUp beginner, but then quickly gets on to the good stuff:

  • Finding good resources for photo-textures
  • Using Meshlab to convert your models in useable 3D game assets
  • Working with the Unity 3D game engine (which is widespread, free-or-low-cost middleware for designing game levels)
  • Creating high-quality textures for games
  • Adapting your models for use in video games
  • Authoring custom levels
  • Modeling low-poly game assets (including cars) and selling them online

Robin’s writing is accessible and easy to follow. He packs a lot of information into each page, but manages to keep the tone friendly and even funny at times. While the book’s in black and white, color versions of the images are available from the publisher’s website.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Find: The Best of CES 2012

Quadhd & very high res tabs (~2500). 

AnandTech

CES is all wrapped up and everyone is back home, and one of the questions I’ve been asked repeatedly by friends and family is, “What was the coolest thing you saw at CES this year?” Now, keep in mind that I am only one person and I didn’t even see a fraction of the show floor, as there were plenty of meetings set up around Vegas, so this is just my perspective on the coolest technology trends at the show. You’ll also notice that there’s a common thread in what really impressed me, but this is a highly subjective topic so take it for what it’s worth: one man’s opinion. What three things impressed me most at CES this year? Read on to find out.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Find: Color filtering Van Gogh

Via former lab member Alex Kuhl. Interesting color deficiency study applied to van gogh.

Best, Ben

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Posted this to my Twitter feed, but thought I'd send this along to you guys in case you don't catch it on there.

http://asada0.tumblr.com/post/11517603099/the-day-i-saw-van-goghs-genius-in-a-new-light