The batch of raw milk that nearly killed me was contaminated by a bacteria called ‘Campylobacter Jejuni’. This little bugger is one of the common ailments that have the potential to cause problems with improperly cooked poultry/eggs and raw milk.

This last week, the same week I was able to be back at work finally, I bought yet another half gallon of raw milk. Yup, I wasted no time to jump right back on it. “But why so soon”, you say? Why the hell not? The farm that produces this milk temporarily shut down production to clean their entire facility out and the health department certified it. There is absolutely no reason that I should wait or get all freaked out about something that, quite honestly, is extremely rare in the first place.

To put this in perspective: There are far more incidents of people getting sick from fresh vegetables and fruits such as lettuce and cantaloupe, and despite that, people STILL go back and buy more of it. You don’t stop getting something because of an unforeseen accident. You realize those things don’t happen all the time and you deal with it.

So I really hope this incident doesn’t give that farm too much bad press. I know how crazy people are about the whole raw milk thing. I mean, it’s even illegal to make/sell in some states. What the hell kind of backward thinking is that? Yeah, we’re going to outlaw a raw, unprocessed milk that is actually better for you than pasteurized milk. You know, states, you could just have your health department go around and make sure the farms are storing them correctly and have a production facility capable of handling it. Get your head out of your asses!

Ok, that was a bit harsh, but the public really does need to have more informed literature on raw dairy products. It’s retarded. Yeah there are outbreaks, but it’s nothing compared to other foods.

</rant>

I spent months getting myself psyched for the event. Not only for the event, but for getting to hang out with Chad and Ryan. I was REALLY looking forward to that. Come time of the Jam, I started feeling a little off. When it was about time to give my part of the Tech Talk, I was getting cold and hot flashes. I originally attributed this to an anxiety attack, but as the night progressed, it was increasing in severity. I was able to catch the start of our game taking shape, but quickly had to have Andy take me home. Even when I had gone to sleep Friday night, I was thinking it was still aftermath of an anxiety attack. Little did I know…

Woke up Saturday morning with some pretty bad flu-like symptoms. Insane fever, nausea, runny nose, and an added sharp pain in my bowels. That day seemed to last forever. I did eventually throw up once, and dry heaved the rest of the day. After throwing up, though, that’s when the REALLY bad stuff started to kick in. Saturday night into Sunday morning bore witness to the most destruction my porcelain throne has ever endured. After hours of the continual process of wrecking the bathroom, hobbling back to bed in utter pain, back n forth, I finally figured it was time to head to the hospital. I was losing way too much fluid. The only other instance I’ve been subjected to more pain was when I came down with Appendicitis, and this only overshadowed that due to the duration of the pain.

Apparently, what I had (well, HAVE at the time of this writing) was some sort of intestinal flu, or so they thought. I later found out that the particular batch of raw milk I purchased the week before was bad and there were other reported cases of people getting sick in the same fashion. Now, I love raw milk. I will still most likely buy it again after this. Yeah, I run the risk of having this happen again, but it is very rare. I just happened to be one unlucky bastard.

Sooo, what does this mean for me? Well for starters, my 365 day project is severely behind the times and I don’t know if I can get caught up now. I wanted to keep at it and keep it up to date, but that just isn’t possible now. Meh.

Fortunately, since I wasn’t at the game jam, and since I wasn’t there to help complete the game, we’ve decided to finish up the game we (they) started in place of working on the tech demo for Codename: Runner. So here’s to a speedy development time!

*********************

Early years

Throughout the 25 years I spent diving through various interests, a similar theme was prominent through each phase: the NEED to create. Looking back on my childhood, I must have seemed like a strange kid. I rarely ever talked, even to other kids my age. I had these massive tubs of legos and kinex and would sit there for hours and hours building contraptions. Apparently, this was very confusing to my parents. It wasn’t until 5 years ago that I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, which makes my childhood a whole lot less confusing.

It seems that I lot of us have had similar experiences in school; Being the strange kid who struggled through grade school. I was anything but a model student. I don’t think I ever acquired an ‘A’ grade on anything during my time from grades 1-12; Mostly C’s, D’s, and F’s. I was told by many teachers throughout those years, that if I couldn’t do well in school, I wouldn’t be able to attain the job I wanted.

Part of the reason that my grades were so poor, was that I played video games on my computer every day, and barely got any work done. I also dabbled with the Descent 2 level editor (which was cube-based) as well as Ray Dream Studio that a friend of mine had. Naturally, my parents would take away the computer for a few weeks as punishment, but I would just find other ways to amuse myself. I would start drawing (I use this term loosely as my drawing skills were and still are horrific) concepts of spaceships, robots, and weapons (I was big into Descent at the time).

Yet, even at that point, I was not interested in art. Wasn’t on my radar at all, at least not consciously. I started my interest in game development early when I joined the Descent 4 mod team in 2001, when I was just starting 10th grade. My role was that of the sound designer. Throughout grades 6-12, I was very interested in music creation. I learned the piano, the guitar, and a few brass instruments, and had stocked up on a handful of studio condensor mics and mixers. I knew how to manipulate sounds to get a desired sound effect, so it seemed like this was the direction my life would go. I even looked at Full Sail as a potential school to go to for sound design in movies and games.

I followed my sound design pursuit after high school, recording some friends and their bands, and I made a little cash on the side. But it didn’t stick. I got bored and realized that I truly didn’t know what I was doing. The drive to figure that out just wasn’t there.

Graduation from high school was rather anticlimactic. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and thus I did not want to head off to college only to find out that I wasted my money (which ended up being the main gripe most of my friends had about college, so I guess I dodged a bullet there). So for 6 long years, I did nothing but play video games, while living in my parents house. I did try to pick up on programming during that time, only to realize that I sucked at it.

The drive to create was still there though.

The Lead-in

There wasn’t so much of a break-in to the industry as a long and gradual lead-in. Around spring of 2009, a buddy of mine had a birthday coming up and wanted to do this crazy video prank/joke/collage thing (I won’t link to it out of sheer embarrassment at how bad it is). I saw a certain type of effect in a commercial that I wanted to replicate, and I did some digging and found that the software used was called Adobe After Effects. I had never heard of this thing before, but downloaded the trial and saw what I could come up with. I was able to pick it up right away; The UI fit me like a glove and I instantly fell in love with it. I started to make short animations here and there, following Video Co-Pilot like the rest of the mass of newbies wanting to learn how to make cool shit. Don’t get me wrong, VCP was great for starting out, but they don’t really go past the “give a man a fish” to the “teach a man to fish” mentality.

For that, I required something more substantial. I needed to learn more about art/color theory, principles of animation, best practices, and develop my own techniques and style; Something that would set me apart from the mass of tutorial copiers. After about a month of fooling around with my own animations, I asked the professor in charge of the art and film department at the local post-grad tech school to see what he thought of my work. According to him, I was beyond anything he could teach me, so I went on to attempt to do some freelance work here and there.

Freelance sucks. I hate it. So many variables that you need to take into account if you want to be successful with it. It is nerve wracking wondering how (and moreover, IF) you’re going to make any money for the month. Success in freelancing largely depends on how much demand there is in your area of work, and how well you’re able to market yourself. I started off making promotional videos for a few of the larger LAN party groups on the east coast; GXL, FITES, and PITTCO. I had the opportunity to do these only because I was part of FITES staff originally, and the other two just jumped in on the fun.

It was during this time that I realized that I can’t freehand draw for jack shit. So I stay away from that. But vertex art? Now this is something I can get my head around. Makes a whole lot more sense! Case in point:

The big slap in the face for me was stepping into the murky waters of corporate and studio freelance. A friend of mine who worked as a motion designer for a studio that did work primarily in TV spots, called me to do some work on a rebrand pitch for the Sundance Channel. Mostly just logo reveals. I was just starting to use Cinema 4D at the time to compliment my motion graphics in AE. Suffice to say, that at the rate they accepted to pay me, well.. they didn’t. After a few emails back and sending the invoice a few times, I gave up. Fortunately, I started an internship at a web dev shop nearby called MudBrick Creative.

The Break-in

SO! On to the meat of the story. I started working at MudBrick back, well… literally 1 year ago this month. I started off doing motion graphics stuff for them. Website animation here, demo reel there, exploding cubes over here, minor web assets, etc. Later on, I started to get more into 3D modeling, and learning how to model instead of just kitbashing primitives together.

Around March of this year, my boss suggested that I spool up on UDK so I can start to remake our office. This environment was to be used for this crazy contraption called a Virtusphere. A Virtu-what, you say? It’s a giant hamster ball on wheels that you run around in with a gun controller and a VR headset. A completely nauseating experience, as our programmers have insisted that I be the guinea pig for their testing:

Since then, part of MudBrick has broken off to form Lighthammer FX, and are now developing games for PC and mobile. So, a bit of a long and gradual process, but I got there, thus fulfilling my teenage dream, and spitting back at the teachers who told me I would never get here. Huzzah! The height of this adventure has been having lunch with the Creative Director at Ubisoft, Jason VandenBerghe. Seriously awesome guy.

What to take away from my experience?

Surround yourself with people smarter than yourself. Not only online, but in life as well. If you hang around people vastly more intelligent than yourself, sure.. you might feel stupid, but over time, the intelligence can rub off on you, and you will be a sharper person because of it. Use that noggin! Most of us have barely scratched the surface of what our brains are capable of.  I would also suggest taking part in the twitter 3D art community. The  artists there tend to be a fantastic group of people if you want near-instant and constructive feedback.

Generate contacts and form relationships. Networking and contacts are your greatest ally.

Build up your skill set. The more proficiencies you have, the more viable you’ll be in the long rung. Don’t get me wrong, you should still specialize in a specific area of work, but don’t limit yourself to that. The more you know in other areas, the better chance you’ll have with keeping your job secure. Versatility is key!

*********************

In addition to what I wrote there,  I would also like to share some advice. If you are a budding artist looking for a job, your overall attitude is a MAJOR deciding factor for employers considering you for the team. I understand that having graduated from an art school might fill you with some misguided sense of entitlement, but you seriously need to leave that mentality at the doorstep. Or preferably, the trashcan. Trust me, if you ignore suggestions or advice that the current team members offer to you because you feel that you don’t need it, you’re hurting yourself and the respect your teammates have for you. Don’t be a moron.

I say 99% because one of our coders is still situated out in California and won’t be moving out here until after the jam. But everyone else will be rocking the place! I can’t wait to meet up with Jason Vandenberghe again. After his talks at HU this past October, and the fact that Paul, Andy, and I got to have lunch with the guy, I have been pumped to meet him again. For those of you who are unaware of who Jason Vandenberghe is,  he is currently the Creative Director at Ubisoft and is working on Far Cry 3 as the Narrative Director (I googled him for you if you want to see him).

Aside from that incredibly awesome individual, we’ll have the full Lighthammer art team with us: Chad Timmerman (Environment Artist), and Ryan Harrison (Character Artist).  Both are exceptional artists and great guys. I am proud to be working with them both.

I am slightly nervous though. Not so much for the jam itself, but that Andy and I will apparently be giving some sort of “Tech Talk” Friday evening before the jam kicks off.  Not really sure how to take this. I mean, I guess it’s cool, but I haven’t done any public speaking in front of more than 5 people since.. well, high school. I’m going to go on the record beforehand by saying this makes me really fucking uncomfortable. But we’ll see how this goes.

I will keep this blog updated with Game Jam goodness as the week progresses.

I also decided to include a color-coded image to show the individual models:

This next week will be even more crazy so I might end up doing another one of these amalgamations later on.

Day 13 is some sort of rivet or socket thing:

Day 14 is a metallic plating or cap piece:

Yay for kitbashable nurnies! (translation: I get excited about odds and ends)

The curved piece looks slightly funky despite it being a perfect curve.. *shrug*

Workflow: