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Sketchup

Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
Co(bra)taku
01.27.11 | Permalink | Comment?

For years I have been reading Kotaku on basically a daily basis. It’s a great source for all things game related. One thing I like about their site is that they feature a lot of fan made art and game related crafts. Another thing I like is that they seem to share my love for the old arcades. I decided to send them some images of my Bully cabinet, and they were kind enough to post them on the front page.

I’m happy to finally contribute to that community after years of following it quite loyally. It’s also neat to have a place to show these things to people who appreciate them. My blog doesn’t get a lot of traffic, and what little it does seems to shy away from commenting. I am really enjoying reading the comments people are leaving, even though the majority of them have nothing to do with my creation. It’s just neat to see how many other Bully fanatics are still out there.

Here’s some of the nice things people said:

“Bully is easily one of my favorite games ever. I would literally drool over this arcade cabinet… awesome, awesome stuff.”

LucasReis

“Bully was such an awesome game. I’d love to have this.”

Chewblaha

And here is my favourite comment thus far:

“Take the exercise bike out. Nothing can glorify exercise for me. Not even awesome games. NOTHING! ”

SgtBarry

Another neat thing… I think the first ‘tweet‘ in history that had (indirectly) anything at all to do with me was posted by one of gaming’s most notorious writers, Stephen Totilo.
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
When there’s no more room in hell… the dead will play arcade shooters
01.26.11 | Permalink | Comment?

As I said earlier, I saved the best for last. This is my favourite of the three arcade cabinet concepts I made the other day. This one is specifically for killing the reanimated third reich. I’m not sure if it’s my favourite to look at, but it’s definitely the one I’d like to play with the most. Originally I had planned to make the cabinet look like it was a window from in the game (for those who aren’t familiar with Nazi Zombies, the players battle against undead soldiers who enter the map via windows which the player can board back up for points and a brief delay of imminent death). I quickly realized that the easiest way for people to identify it as a window from the game would be to have the boards on it. Unfortunately boards over the screen would be a little impractical.

I also considered changing the texture on the PPSH in this one to make it look more like the upgraded version – The Reaper. I changed my mind after I remembered the terrible shiny tribal patterns that the game designers decided to use in World at War. I also considered changing the crates on the cabinet to the Mystery Box. I only changed my mind on that one because I figured with my lack of texturing knowledge I’d spend a few hours trying to get it textured, and it’s a fucking box. I have no doubt that I could do it, but for what. It looks neat like this in my opinion.

The only thing I’m sad I wasn’t able to include was a Monkey Bomb. I wanted to model one to plant dead center of the top of the machine, but I decided the monkey alone would take me more time to make than both machines did combined. I even looked for a pre-made cymbal monkey in the 3d warehouse, but it seems those aren’t big on the Sketchup community’s to-do-list. I suppose I could have searched for teddy bears though, and used one of these. Maybe I’ll add one later.

I think for now, this will be the last arcade cabinet I model just for fun. I probably could have done a fair bit of work on Jon’s project instead, but I got sidetracked. It happens…

If I ever get mega-rich, I will commission whoever I have to in order to actually own one of these.
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
World at War at the arcade
01.26.11 | Permalink | Comment?

I wish I was more talented and had the resources to turn these concepts into a reality. Maybe someone like Ben Heckendorn will read this and see it as either a great idea or a challenge. I doubt it, but still… a dream got us this far. And by this far, I mean my badass model of a Call of Duty: World at War arcade cabinet! I made a pair of these last night (the second is coming shortly) after dinner. I used a few components I already had, mainly the PPSH and the bullets. To be honest this was the second of the pair, but I like the other one better so I’m saving it until last.

The way I see it, this cabinet is for playing the campaign mode in WAW. Players would use the PPSH replica to defeat the Wermacht, while hiding behind crates for cover. The major flaw in this design is the lack of player movement control. For it to work at all, the game would have to be redesigned as a rail shooter, but it still looks cool. And at 25₵ a play, that’s a steal!

Like with my Bully cabinet concept, the idea of rendering a “realistic” version of this is impossible. Although I did manage to make a material for the cabinet graphics (minus the title), there is still no way for me to render the screenshot. I suppose I could do one where it looks like the screen is off, but that’s just not as cool.

I have one more to come, but since Holly just came home in dire need of food it’ll have to wait.
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
Bully: Cobra Canem Edit
01.26.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Lately I’ve been playing through Bully: Scholarship Edition for the third time. The first time I played it was the day it came out on the PS2 (or perhaps a few days before… man I miss the old days of simple video game piracy) back in 2006. I instantly fell in love with it. I was already a big fan of Rockstar’s sandbox games which seemed to get better every time, and this game quickly became my favourite of the bunch. It had my two favourite modes of transportation from the Grand Theft Auto series; bicycles and go-karts, along with some fun game play and an amazing soundtrack. I still listen to this soundtrack regularly, if you’re interested most of it is up on youtube.

When the game was re-released for the xbox 360 I got a copy and decided to finally get 100% completion (never quite got it on the PS2 I don’t think). The game had other plans, and I got stuck with 99.9% and no way to get the last point. If you’ve never played the game (or one like it), there are many random (nothing is REALLY random when everything is programmed, but whatever…) missions which pop up when you’re in the right place at the right time. In my game however, one of these instances refused to trigger. I got frustrated and gave up trying to get my last achievement.

I am currently 78.9% of the way to my goal. I lost my old game saves along with all my old save data when I lent my xbox to my brother. I have played a lot of games (thousands… maybe tens of thousands?), but rarely do I ever play a game twice. Even more rare is when I play it a third time. I can only think of about a dozen off the top of my head. This time I’m loving it more than the others. I’m not sure what it is about this game, but I can’t get enough of it.

Well, since I was in an arcade cabinet modeling mood the other day I decided to get imaginative (even though Roan says I’m incapable) and model something that I wish already existed (even though I’d be incapable of affording it). I present to you all my concept for a Bully arcade game. It features a slingshot controller, 1p and 2p joysticks, a beam cola dispenser, and a working bicycle for leaving Johnny Vincent and the Greasers in a trail of dust, while inadvertently getting Lola hot to dance – in her pants.

I had intended on doing a sweet rendering of this machine, but that idea got scrapped once I realized the imported images (meaning the screenshot on the display and all the graphics and logos on the cab) don’t work with Indigo. It would have been pretty sweet, but whatever. I still dig it.

There are a few more of these to come. I’ve had some spare time…
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
Cobra cabinets
01.24.11 | Permalink | 1 Comment

This weekend I decided to model some old arcade cabinets after my xbox crashed and I lost a bunch of unsaved progress in my re-play through of Bully: Scholarship Edition. I didn’t feel like redoing all the missions I had just completed so I thought I’d get to work on some models for Jon’s project. I need to make environments as well as weapons, so that means I need lots of little items to fill these environments (think furniture, crates, common everyday items).

I have recently had an urge to go spend a few hours at an arcade. A few days ago I watched a short documentary about arcade-fighter tournaments (which don’t really happen on arcade cabinets anymore), and one on the evolution of the first person shooter (which is more about PC gaming than it is arcades, but it still reminded me of tons of games I used to love as a kid and haven’t seen in years) while I was working. I’ve also been talking about pinball table restoration with my dad a lot since we brought the family table out of storage, so all these things lead to modeling the above cabinets.

Originally I had planned to just model the cabinets and leave the screens blank (as if they were unplugged), but then I decided to have some fun and make up some games that never existed (but if they did, I’d want to play them). I tried to keep with the tradition of retro arcade games and put far more impressive visuals on the cabinet than actually appear within the game.

The machine on the left takes it’s inspiration from one of my favourite games to play at the 7-11 when I was a kid: Golden Axe. Originally I planned to call it Swordious the Savage Slayer, after my very short lived World of Warcraft character – Swordious. Then my hatred for all things WOW prevented me from doing so. The game on the right is my own original concept for a space shooter called Pew³ (or Pew Pew Pew: Space Shooter Awesome!). I would pump quarters into both these machines based on name and cabinet graphics alone.

I did my best to make the text and images on the displays look like shitty 8-bit graphics, but I don’t think it shows up well. You can click the images if you want to see a slightly bigger version. I doubt these cabinets will actually get used for Jon’s project, but I had a lot of fun making them and imagining what they would actually be like (in terms of game play, story, etc.). I may still use the cabinet model, but I’ll strip it right down probably. It all depends on what environments they decide to use really.

I also plan to make a cabinet for Bully. I want to write an entry about why I love that game, and I thought it would be cool to make an image of an arcade version to go along with it. First I have to finish it again. last time I played it was in 2006! I almost couldn’t remember the hot art teacher’s name…
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
Misreads: As Ed rims, Me ass rid, Mars is Ed
01.24.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Here’s my attempt at illustrating what the recoil would look like on this gun if it were to actually fire (which it never will).

I’ll dedicate an entire blog post to commending the cleverness of the cobra who can correctly identify what the hell the deal is with this posts’ title.

Send your guesses to cobrachronic@gmail.com.
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
Cobra Custom Cremator
01.14.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Here’s a 360˚ view of the flamethrower I created the other day. It’s got two full tanks of something flamable, and an Obus Forme orthopedic backpack/headrest. I thought about modeling an iPod dock and some speakers for the person that has to lug this thing around during a zombie apocalypse, but luckilly I sometimes manage to stop myself before doing things that sound good or funny in my head.
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
BFG4aBFF
01.13.11 | Permalink | Comment?

I like this model a lot. Generally when I like a model a lot it’s difficult to decide on a particular angle to take an image of. Instead I often export a series of .png files and compile them into one animated .png (like the one above). Expect a couple more of these in the near future. I really like a lot of the weapons I’ve been making for Jon and look forward to doing many more.
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
Guns = funs
01.11.11 | Permalink | Comment?

I’m still waiting to hear from James about how we’re going to proceed with the layout, so I suppose I’m technically on vacation. Since I have nothing to work on for him, I’ve spent a little time working on some models for Jon. He’s creating a game with some friends in his spare time, and asked if I’d be interested in doing some artwork. I told him I was more than happy to help out in any way, and promised to start as soon as I had the time.

I can’t go into too many details about the game itself, but I am allowed to tell you it’s going to have zombies in it and will be totally and completely badass. I can also tell you that I’ll be modeling the weapons and environments for them for now, and maybe even the finished assets for the game. That would be neat!

At first Jon wasn’t sure what I should model, he just said “Weapons.”. I took it upon myself to model a few machetes and a sawed-off shotgun (essential in any zombie game I figure). I sent some images of the models to Jon and he was pleased. I asked him if I needed to model replicas of real-life weapons or if fantasy was allowed. He gave my imagination the ‘okay’, and I spent a few hours last night making all these models.

In case you can’t figure it out, there is a pistol, a flamethrower, and what is commonly known as a BFG (Big Fucking Gun). I want to do some sweet renderings of each one of these, but I’ll wait until I’m done the book layout I think. I would hate for my machine to die on me because I was messing around with Indigo.
Book stuff, Life, Sketchup
Just skip this one
01.03.11 | Permalink | Comment?

If you’re as tired of reading about the never ending saga that is this book, as I am writing about it, then follow the title’s advice. If you haven’t had enough (or perhaps you love to read about my misery) then feel free to carry on.

Since my last book related post I’ve had plenty of time to get the majority of the book redone in the new layout style which James actually liked. With the boys at their father’s house for a week and Holly super busy at work, I’ve been working a lot more than usual. I had only one short chapter left to layout yesterday when James called (Sunday is his favourite day to call and have long chats and add to my workload) and informed me that he wanted to change the layout again.

After looking at other books, he came to the conclusion that most books printed at 8.5″ x 11″ use two columns of text rather than one. His solutions are either re-size the entire book, or switch to a two column format and keep the current size. Either option results in me starting over (essentially from scratch) yet again. This wouldn’t be quite as disappointing if I hadn’t have already brought this all up at the beginning of this project, and he said it was fine. I don’t see how something so important could be ignored or avoided for so long. These things should have been decided on before layout began. I even suggested he find his printing company before we began the layout so we could avoid any potential issues, and have a better idea of what sizing to go with.

I fought off yelling “FUCK!” into the phone, and informed James that I had almost completed the new layout of the first book, and asked him to please look at what I had so far before deciding it wasn’t good enough. I also suggested he find a print-on-demand service that could fulfill our needs and provide us with a one chapter sample (I figure if he can see what it will actually look like he’ll decide it’s fine, and not something that goes against all the rules of book creation) for now, and a finished product in the near hopefully near future. I really hope he figures it all out and makes a firm final decision soon.

Before I hung up he also added some more work to my already intimidating load. It turns out he’s decided we need to show people some more examples of what you can do with simple modular post and beam construction, and therefore we need to add some images of other P&B houses. One of the examples he wants to include is an image of his old house, which is now the ISBA student residence. I was excited at the idea of getting to model this building, as it’s one of the nicest places I’ve ever seen. Instead, James suggested he take his old book and get it photocopied, then mail me the image. I tried to convince him it would be better and more consistent if I put the effort into modeling it. He was completely against the idea so I told him to leave it to me, and I’d see what I could do.

Today I sent him an email with the image above. It’s a photo I took of the image in his old book, then fiddled around with until it looked decent. In the email I made one last plea for the ‘Okay’ on modeling the house, but I doubt he’ll even read it. It always amazes me how many corners he tries to get me to cut considering he’s one of the hardest working, most motivated people I’ve ever met.

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