Blogs - ShiftedDesign

I'm sure someone thought I was dead, sorry I'm not.

I was really busy building a website from scratch in 4 weeks.

Anyways I'm back, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! First order of buisness, replace those UDK rocks in the Lava arena, Done!
And a lovely Image for you:

(Not even my project manager knows about this yet) Haha!

Anyways, now that I have free time, I will continue work on the Snow Arena building tunnels in the mountain and what not. If you have and ideas for chambers in the mountain please feel free to suggest them, I might just use it! I will credit you some way in game!

Well, yeah, that was about all I could do in 2 and half hours so, now I have to render production lighting! That will be done tomorrow morning so expect a new screenshot.

Also, if you are one of those Twitter people feel free to follow me I will follow you back :D : Twitter.com

I also pre-ordered Guildwars 2 if you have as well you should listen to this song: Youtube.com

Hope everyone didn't miss me too much! <3

Oh yeah, I also had my birthday so now I'm no longer a "Teenager", woo for being old.

So, in my last blog post, I talked about the custom sword that was awarded to the first 200 watchers of Siege of Inaolia. Well, some of us decided it wasn't fair for people to not be able to obtain this custom content some other way later on.

Some of the ideas we had were:

1. Extend the amount of watchers to 300 that can receive the sword.
2. Make it a low value Kickstarter donation award.
3. Let the Public decide. (Public Suggestions)

After narrowing it down to these 3 choices we are putting up a poll to see what people actually want.

If you are interested in sharing your idea or want to cast your vote in this please do so here:
Moddb.com

We would love to hear back from the community!

So, it's been a while since my last blog post, I'm back in Dallas, dealing with my up coming job for the next semester so I haven't really had time to post.

But there has been progress with Siege!

First off, if you currently a watcher of Siege of Inaolia, then Congrats you get access to the new Duncan Blade!

If you aren't currently a watcher, than you should become one because we will have more rewards for our watchers later on as well!

Do it:
Moddb.com

Also, about that Snow Arena, it has had some progress (sorta). I posted this update a while ago also to Siege, but never got around to making the update:
(Actual in-game screenshot)

I'm also suppose to be getting new rocks for the snow Arena and the Lava arena, so once they are done I will be able to pretty much blast through it.

Yeah so, subscribe if you like custom equipment!

So, I'm currently in Austin, waiting for my summer courses and my game modding to start back up.
I head back Tomorrow night, so I just wanted to give a quick update before I left.
But before I do that, I saw this:

Get it?
Level 8 Designer? :D
Level Designer!

Anyways, if you have been hiding under a rock, and have seen this yet, I updated the fly through for the lava arena, for Siege of Inaolia. Can be found here:

Survival Arena Preview #2 - Mod DB

So, after I got that done, I had surgery done on my toe, which was great... because it gave me time to relax and play Tribes: Ascend! If you play Tribes you should add me: ShiftedDesign

Also, one last thing, if you are a level designer like me, and are still looking for a position or need a better one. There is actually a paid spot for a Unity Junior Level designer, here.
Another Unity spot (unpaid) here.
And a non-paid Hammer one here.

I hope you all have a great weekend and happy modding!

Goin on a rage moment right now, I've noticed that people are posting generic posts in the recruiting threads trying to either recruit or form a new team.

People, saying something along these lines is NOT going to grab people's attentions:

"I'm making a ________ type of game who wants to join?"

You need to inspire the people to join your cause.

Here is an example I will do for Siege:
"Night falls as the men of Whitefalls stand guard on the gate dividing the demon lands and human territory. It has been years since the last war between the demons and humans, who were drivent back beyond the mountains and sealed behind the gate. The winter chills the men to the bone as they huddle around a small fire. The night is still, as if the world was holding its breath. Suddenly the sound of a sharp "twang" rings out as a single arrow crosses the night and strikes one of the guards in the head, on the gate. A shout is heard to raise the alarm, a mass moves in the night as several bodies suddenly shift towards the gate. Cries ring out alerting others to the imposing force. The demons have returned! The siege has begun "

You don't even need the part that was above as long as you have something like the following:

In the game Siege of Inaolia the player is able to play as 3 different characters through a mideval 3rd person RPG in the war with the demons. The player is also able to play with up to 2 other players in a co-operative story mode and arena style game play. Focusing mainly on character development and story the player will become attached to their player giving them a special experience not normally found with games. We are currently looking for __________ to join our team to be part of something amazing. We are expecting the following skills:

Skill 1
Mad skills 2

Bonus stuff.

Paid? y/n

Contact info

Are you up to the challenge?

You need to grab people's attention and get them excited to work on your game!
Trust me it works!

Alright, so I've had a lot of down time due to school kind of eating all my time.

So I am officially back, I am currently working on the next arena for Siege of Inaolia.
As, I am posting this I am rendering the newest version of the Lava Arena, so that will be up in a few hours.... yes, hours.

Also, we recruited a new member today who will be working on Level Designs with me, so I will probably feature some of his stuff on here as well, for his first level we decided on a similar level to that of Valhalla from Halo3. Mostly the idea of open planes with a possible water source flowing through the middle.

If you don't know what Valhalla is, here is a screenshot for you:

Yes very pretty and what not, as for Colin, yes his name is Colin, you can check out his portfolio here. I am looking forward to working with him!

So, yeah... Look forward to new updates!

So I ended up putting my update for my blog in the beginning of the podcast, so go check it out!

Moddb.com

*The above area would normally be the end of my blog but it seems that I have to have at least 300 characters? So yeah just some filler.

So, Monday is approaching fast and I am hoping to hear from Gearbox about the internship. But, I had a random thought about doing some kind of Shoutcast or Podcast, for games that are being done one ModDB, giving updates and possible reviews.

I thought it would be interesting to have a way that people can get updates for highlighted games of that week or so, also take suggestions for games on the next week, and possible interviews with game developers. So, I guess I am asking, does anyone want to do this? I also may just be slow and not know of one that already exists, so either way if you are interested in doing this feel free to either comment or message me, I'll see them either way.
*You must have a microphone!!! (duh)

I may end up posting a thread on the forum later on as well, who knows.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

So it's been a while since I have had an update, and some of you are probably wondering WHY YOU NO UPDATE?!
Well, it's because I have pretty much become the "Lady in Waiting" for Gearbox, that's right I am in the process of trying to get an internship for Level Design (Dream come true!). So, yeah I've been kind of sitting back and waiting to hear the yae or nay so I don't have to drop mid level. Of course this meant that I had to get an online portfolio and, BAM!

Ianowen.net

There it is. Feel free to snoop around and look at the work that I have, (Which is all on ModDB already it's just more organized). Or if you want to by my super stalker there is a picture of me on my about me, yes I am devilishly adorable. Anyways, I spent my spring break pretty much working the whole time while my friends all went to Padre (so sad). But in the end I got that QA offer and now this so I'm pretty happy, especially since all my friends ended up breaking some expensive object or losing said object. BRILLIANT!

So, I ended up buying the domain through GoDaddy, and today I got a call at 11am and it went something along these lines:

Me: "Hello?"
GoDaddy: "Hi is this Mr. Ian Own?"
Me: "Yep."
GoDaddy: "Hi, how are you? I was wanting to take some time to talk about recent activity on your account with the purchase of ianowen.net, was that you?"
Me: *Thinking, you have to be kidding me. "Yeah that is my name."
GoDaddy: *Suddenly realized the situation "Oh of course, well you have a great day then Mr. Ian Owen."
*Hangs up.

Of course this was the day that I didn't have class till 1pm so I don't wake up till 12pm, lost an hour of my beauty sleep because of an activity check. Though, I don't mind it normally but really?

Alright finally a game update... Sorta

Alpha 2.5 will be hitting Siege of Inaolia soon, as in Today or Tomorrow, unless Aaron forgets then it might be later. Lets just say it is compiled and ready to be posted!
Includes some detail changes to the level, audio (The lava bubbles now!), and AI improvements so that the Orcs will now follow you to the ends of the earth and kill you, its wonderfully horrifying.
So, go get it do whatever to it, break it, if you can, and post a screenshot!

OH, I nearly forgot, I had a fellow ModDB member, sondrebot, asked me some questions about UDK and requested that I do a time-lapse for the next map that I create. This isn't something that I normally see done, so I was happy to do it, unfortunately, if I do get the internship with Gearbox it might be a little longer than expected to get it done. So, be on the lookout!

So I had an interesting day,

I was contacted by Gearbox asking if I was interested in a QA position, of course I was very excited for the offer. But it turned out that it was a full time job, Mon - Fri, 10-7, +Weekends. So being a full time student it was impossible for me to take the position.

But this proved a valuable point for me, I'm doing something right. If I am able to get Gearbox to send me an offer for a position then I am on the right track. Though I was sad that I couldn't take the job over all I am happy with where I am going.
Hopefully I will land a job some where in the near future :)

BUT, I really want to know why YOU view these blogs.
Is there a point, like does it add to your progression bar or are you really interested in what I have to say?

Someone tell me!

Edit: I've also been messing with the Unreal 3 Editor on Mirror's Edge, so I'm hoping to find a way to create some beautiful city spaces. And possibly have more of "open" areas, so there this more than one path to any where.