Robot Ivan

trino in review on community games

2009-05-05T23:13:00.000-07:00

Trino Pre-release Trailer from trinoteam on Vimeo.

well not technically out, but its up for review! if you've got a creators club account, take it for a whirl :P Here's a trailer

persist

2009-04-23T02:05:00.000-07:00

another shot of trino doing something awesome, what it is i haven't a clue

animal throwing

2009-04-17T22:59:00.000-07:00

A little game i worked on a few weeks ago with some friends that won 2nd place in a game jam:

play it here http://wildpockets.com/node/346

or under the game arcade section of this site: http://www-2.crispygamer.com/byog/

book model icon

2009-04-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

got bored today and made a book stack in 3D to make a 128x128 png24 icon. if you download it let me know what you think :P

chapter 2 title screen

2009-04-09T23:50:00.000-07:00

another title screen for trino. maya high quality screenshot + after effects + lightroom (with marginal help from photoshop) I needed this screen to do 2 things: be totally awesome and remind players of something new. We'll see if it does both :P

fun with lights

2009-04-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

I was messing around in maya trying to come up with a new chapter title and playing with the hypershade way too much. Four lights hitting 3 different spheres with transparency and specularity. go realtime hardware rendering! I should mention this is the latest iteration of Trino evolution form 2. There's now upwards of 17 different Trino forms.

chapter 1 screen

2009-03-31T22:49:00.001-07:00

an intro screen for chapter 1 - using maya's high quality setting with some help from lightroom and photoshop.

game over - again

2009-03-25T05:33:00.000-07:00

After finishing up the third boss, I realized that the 'game over' loosing screen still had the first boss. Here's the new game over screen. Like before, i tried to hide just enough of the boss's detail yet still making it look evil. Not sure about the text but, meh, its 5:37am, need to look at it with clearer head later.

New Menu System mockup

2009-03-24T00:42:00.001-07:00

Trino needs a scalable level select system. After team discussion we decided to build a whole new menu system. This is an extreme mockup using loads of bloom+vinette, blur, and the old backgrounds from the postcard and original trino hexagon background. Its slightly related to the previous idea i had back in january of trino in the UI itself. The last evolution shape you played as will be shown in the main menu system.

another boss concept

2009-03-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

boss concept [possible chapter 3]

millipede boss [chapter 2]

heavy boss [chapter 1]

Here's another concept for the third boss, its a big departure from the previous two bosses ( heavy and millipede)

third boss concepts

2009-03-14T00:31:00.001-07:00

Trying to build a jelly fish boss. Its prooving to be a little tedious to build for some reason. Characters are viewed from top view in-game.

yet another enemy

2009-03-05T23:26:00.000-08:00

Been a busy week, so not that many updates. Here's a new enemy, guess what it does

heart shapped UV

2009-02-28T13:23:00.000-08:00

I was re-unwrapping trino after deciding to rebake some lighting and color. somehow i ended up with a heart shapped uv map :P

new forms

2009-02-23T01:46:00.001-08:00

not sure what these are for just yet, but i decided to model them. always liked trilobites and since trino is inspired by skates and manta rays, it makes sense to blend the 2.

morphing

2009-02-15T16:23:00.000-08:00

[a work in progress]

I'm trying to figure out a proper in-between mesh for trino. Its possible that we might cut back to 4 evolution forms instead of the 7. Originally I had modeled 12 different forms but nothing comes close to being a good blend of 2 from left and 4 from left.

[1] Trino before capture (no white robotic shackle) [2] Trino after capture with shackle [3] a rough mesh [4] current 5th evolution form [5] current 7th evolution form

more models

2009-02-14T13:08:00.001-08:00

haven't updated in a while. been a little sick, but here's another model set

random models

2009-02-05T02:27:00.001-08:00

Can't say what they're for :P

updated screen mockup

2009-02-03T23:01:00.000-08:00

forgot to update my mockup from a few posts ago with the new cover art

more enemy iterations

2009-01-29T00:29:00.000-08:00

more enemy concepts, not going to say what they do :P

enemy iterations

2009-01-25T16:10:00.001-08:00

Here's a few iterations I did for a new enemy type. Lots more to go!

Poster/Postcard Final Design

2009-01-18T14:16:00.000-08:00

Here it is. I'm pretty happy about it. Most likely will be the cover art for the game (with minor changes of course).

screen mockups

2009-01-16T02:41:00.000-08:00

I figured the best way to test out the art is to see it in action. Here's some mockups that i slapped together real quick.

trino postcard + poster

2009-01-15T02:53:00.000-08:00

Last year I made some print material to go with Trino: postcards + posters. Since the project is back in production I decided to update:

This year's iterations (front + back)

Last year's final work (front + back)

late happy holidays

2009-01-15T02:50:00.000-08:00

I made this in late December 2008 but decided to share it here. Love the reindeer.

ui iteration

2009-01-11T02:57:00.000-08:00

Here's a very rough concept i had for the main menu interface. Trino's evolution form since your last play session would be represented in the main menu. This would also bridge the menus with the start of gameplay. Had a bad case of artist block while making this -_-"

more boss art

2009-01-11T02:11:00.000-08:00

Snake Boss

Split Boss

Haven't updated in a while, decided to throw up some in-progress boss concept art. I feel like taking this series of boss characters into interchangeable parts to emphasize their robotic nature. The most evil creatures in games are usually the bosses, but they also are a reflection of the level or chapter. More on the way

New UI

2008-10-14T01:32:00.000-07:00

Redesigned the UI yet again. Everything is more transparent to allow players to see through the UI rather than get distracted by it.

Triangle Drop

2008-10-13T21:56:00.001-07:00

Idea for powerup/special feature: when at max triangle ammo drop all triangles around you at once.

Outline before dropping

After dropping triangles

Currently players find that producing lots of triangles at once only enables them to capture quick moving enemies or keep enemies away momentarily. This would create a temporary shield and capture anything nearby at the cost of losing all triangles at once.

cleaner "how to play" screen

2008-09-16T22:20:00.000-07:00

new

old

one alternative to the some what messy yet inclusive "how to play" screen

game over screen

2008-09-14T02:21:00.000-07:00

New version (top), Old version (bottom)

I've had to update all the Trino UI graphics into an HD friendly format. After re-making the winning game over screen, and needing a higher resolution (HD), I decided to re-make the game over screen that players see after loosing the game.

different backgrounds

2008-09-07T01:25:00.000-07:00

1st level (level 0 internal)

random pattern - 1st level (level 0 internal)

2nd level (level1 internal)

3rd level (level2 internal)

Seems that very iconic stuff is a bad thing (like the level shape). the original hex pattern is ideal because its a pattern with small repeatable shapes. Also what really works is placing stuff either in the center of the texture or the corners (since the background is tiled)

little flash experiment

2008-09-04T23:03:00.000-07:00

[check it out]

I recently started picking up flash (after a long haitus since flash 8) and decided to try out rendering stuff. So here's that battlefield i made back in april (http://robotivan.blogspot.com/2008/04/first-post.html)

new boss for trino

2008-08-29T14:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a collaboratively made end of game boss character.

new game over - win screen

2008-08-28T00:52:00.000-07:00

new screen + old screen

Been meaning to replace the old game over screen made back in may.

Another UI iteration

2008-08-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

Issues to address:

show players that they have triangle "ammo" and can make shapes/triangle fans (far right)
im hoping the small bar at the top visually communicates that there's a connection between the EP bar and the triangle ammo
get players to notice time (i hope its visible)
make "lives" clear

Removed the "Lv7" or character level title from the EP bar.

Debating on whether or not to make each character level reflected in the triangle ammo. First game level requires 2 triangles. so maybe show a square?

More Trino tshirt fun

2008-08-02T21:05:00.001-07:00

Here's a bit of fun I had with the Trino logo for the tshirt. Guess i got bitten by the print design bug. Finally got around to getting some descent silk screening supplies so i think i'll print some myself haha :D

UI mockups

2008-08-02T09:17:00.001-07:00

Trino's UI needs changing. here's some mockups

replaced "points" with "# of triangles" in top right.

moving everything in priority to a top bar (lives, time are important, followed by everything else)

Trino tshirt graphics

2008-07-30T05:21:00.001-07:00

Going to make some Trino tshirts. Preliminary tracing and color separation work for two characters.

Main character: "Trino"

Enemy: "White Whale" or "Sushi"

Enemy: Point Eater

Enemy: Squishtard (from Trino pre-alpha "Moi Moi")

Enemy: Player Eater

Post a comment if you want a tshirt (size, character)

About me

2008-05-02T17:40:00.000-07:00

Since this is my first blog (i've been using the internet since 1993 -_-) i figured i'd throw up an 'about me' post for those that do find this blog. but i'm lazy so you can check my about page on my website: http://www.ivanortega.com/about.php

super low poly soldier

2008-04-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

Forgot to post a soldier model i slapped together for fun. I tried to be as low poly as possible but still have enough for proper skinning/rigging. Texture size is 10KB with 8 colors and 64x64 pixels.

First post

2008-04-30T22:34:00.001-07:00

After using blogger for keeping track of a game project (Trino!) I finally broke down and created one for myself. Its basically a lazy way for me to post new art or small game projects without touching my portfolio website. So without further ado, some art:

This is a small environment I created literally in 14 hours. It was engineered to fit within the DS hardware spec: fit inside 512KB texture memory (2 textures of 256x256, 16colors at 76KB total), function without texture filtering, and under 10K tris.