This game is the culmination of years of iteration and refinement on the same basic concept. Most of the core gameplay mechanics go back right to the original 1989 version of SimCity. I expected a high level of polish and approachability from this game. For the most part, my expectations were correct. Continue reading →

I made an interior environment as a project for a Maya class. This was the first major project I made in Maya. I’ve decided to post a full progression of renders of the project so you can see what one of my 3D art pieces looks like as it comes together. Note that there are some places near the end where I could have stopped, but the last few final optimization steps are really what make the whole thing work.

There is usually about 1-2 hours of work between the images.
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Alastair Reynolds’ Chasm City is difficult to categorize. Borrowing elements from film noir, gritty crime novels, and hard-as-rock science fiction and space opera, Reynolds has assembled an idea-rich narrative that will keep any technically and creatively interested reader interested.

Chasm City follows three parallel storylines. The main plot focuses on Tanner Mirabel, stone-cold killer extraordinaire, on a personal quest to exact revenge on the man who killed the woman he loved. At the same time, we follow a flashback plotline of an earlier time in Tanner’s life as he protects his gun-trading boss Cahuella while they hunt hundred-meter-long snakes in an extraterrestrial jungle.

Just to throw another story thread into the mix, Tanner gets indoctrinated early in the book with an engineered virus. The virus is designed to indoctrinate him into a religion based around the worship of Sky Haussmann, the founder of his homeworld. As the book progresses, we follow the Haussmann storyline as it is injected into Tanner’s dreams by the virus, and eventually, into his waking life as well. Continue reading →