Blog Posts

Secret Super MIG - The Red Mist

14/7/2019

For this months United 3D Artists forum modeling challenge, I present China's secret weapon: The Red Mist jet aircraft.

It's a silly concept of course but that's what you get when I get to come up with the theme for a modeling contest.

It was a fun model to work on but maybe, with working on Hyperventila and all that maybe I should have gone a bit more easy on work this weekend.

This week has mainly been getting the Shipyard in Hyperventila to work. I finished the interior model last week.

The other big pain in the butt was the video production aspect being producing the latest two Hyperventila Showcases. Windows no longer comes with its own video editor so I had to download one from the internet, I ended up using Shotcut which while OK for my needs (it renders fast and the quality is quite good as far as I can tell).

Here you can see the shipyard in action:

I still want to produce better video content, and to be honest, coming from doing my old YouTube let's plays, I thought it would be a lot easier but I don't think I've quite gotten used to the limitations I currently have to deal with.
My old powerhouse of a computer is out of reach and I don't even have an external monitor to extend my small 13" laptop display. On top of that both my gaming mice are dying with both of them being almost unable to left-click any more (thank you trueSpace for wearing out my left-clicks).

It's not all bad though. This little HP Spectre x360 that I'm now doing all my work on is still really powerful for a PC of its size. I still suspect it has some cooling issues that it had from the start but at least it keeps my legs warm.

That's it for this blog.

As always, have a nice day!

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VITRIOL 3D Is 10 Years Old!

4/7/2019

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VITRIOL 3D is 10 years old this year!

Time flies!

V3D started as my personal website and portfolio in 2009 and has become my own personal brand and network since.

Here is to another 10 years!

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A little Hyperventila Update

19/6/2019

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Introducing one of the larger structures in the game, the shipyard. This is where you will be able to repair, upgrade and purchase new ships.

Hyperventila has come quite a bit further since last I posted an update on here. Having launched a Patreon, Discord Server and Twitter account I can now say that Hyperventila is really out there.

Other recent updates include a ship builder/level editor and proper dialogue and questing.

That's it for this quick update.

See you in the next blog or possibly on one of the social medias!

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Realtime Lighting for HyperVentila

25/3/2019

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Thanks to Xor Shaders I now have a 2D realtime lighting system in HyperVentila that really adds to the look of the game!

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A work in progress... indeed

27/2/2019

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Still the game is this ever evolving program turning around the axis of an idea in my head. There really hasn't been as much progress as I would have liked in the past month. Technical setbacks plagued my infantile programming and as of late another big change has been consuming a lot of my time; namely, an entire redesign of the artstyle and feel of the game.

Work in progress Atlas One Tanker Ship and a Transport Ship for scale comparison

It has been a long time coming, I've been toying with various styles for months but now my mind is more or less made up. The original artstyle, not unlike that of the game FTL: Faster Than Light, was just that; based on two ship designs I had laying around from a mod I made for FTL. Well no more, while the 2D style was far more time efficient than making 3D models the style of old science fiction movies just suits this project so much more and I am a lot more confortable doing designs in 3D than in 2D.

Of course the top down mechanics of the game remain. This visual change isn't going suddenly make the game in full 3D, no matter how much I'd like that.
No, the extent of the change doesn't go that far unfortunately.
Additional new features include some space scavenging for items that can be found floating around in space as well as the occasional lost escape pod.

That's the latest of updates on the game development of HyperVentila: The Game.

Until Next Time!

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Setting the Stage

31/1/2019

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Yesterday we were very fortunate to see Ian McKellen on stage at the Young Vic theatre for his 80th birthday UK tour.

His show started with a thunderous intro to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack after which he read a passage from Fellowship of the Ring, doing his famous lines such as "You Shall Not Pass" and "Flee You Fools".
He had brought along his wizards hat and Glamdring which he rather casually showed off to the audience before inviting someone up to handle it on stage, he then paused for an autograph and selfie after which the show was ready to begin.

He took us on a journey through his early years in life, at school and how he gained an interest in theatre all while acting out real life characters from his past. Often finishing with a resounding poem.

Then he took us through his early roles and after a brief interval; the complete works of Shakespeare.
From his King Lear to Romeo and Juliet he ended his show with a powerful rendition of Macbeth.

It was, despite a relatively small theatre, a grand show in the theatre heart of London at the end he got a standing ovation by the audience and even by Sting who was sitting one row in front of me with his family. Rather unexpected but certainly caught Ilaria's eye right away. Such is London life I guess.

After the show, on the way out, I got a chance to thank and congratulate Sir Ian and to shake his hand. It was a most memorable evening and I'm very glad we went.

In other news, the game has been going well in the past month. Despite many set-backs due to a decision to reprogram much of the core of the game I now have something far more complex as a basis that will allow me to realise this project the way I had imagined it.

I have very little to show right now but since I like posting screenshots and renders here is a one of a minor hacking component I finished yesterday:

A black market hacking PDA will be a useful tool when breaking into derelict space stations and other structures.

That's it for this blog. Bye now. :)

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Always on the move...

19/12/2018

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Hello again, blog. Yes, Edinburgh is still there but I'm not. Following Ilaria to her new job, I've found myself down there in southern England again, in London town.

It is here that I will be spending the next year or so. We've got a place in the Surrey Quays area that while kind of breaking left and right still is nice and cosy and it's not too noisy despite the air traffic in London looking something like out of The Jetsons.

As for the game... it's coming along. I have mainly been working on getting the ship and station interiors to work but I've got a new ship design to reveal and a fully interactive tactical map for all your scanning, navigation and missile launching needs.

Check out the brand new website at HyperVentila.com.

That's it for this blog. I wonder what I'll write in the next one...

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The Mikomwood Spin-off that time forgot . . .

12/10/2018

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...well that I forgot anyway. Like this blog! Yes it has been a year since my last post about squirrels. But the resillience and absoluteness of this blog shall remain resolute and keep going for a while longer. Well another four years at least since I apparently bought quite a considerable domain extension a few years ago.

A lot has happened in this year. After Oxford I spent some time in London finally ending up in Edinburgh and the summer I spent mainly in Edinburgh and various places in Italy.

Still rather unsure of what to do and where to go next, with no work and no stable future in sight, I decided to start a game project. This brings us back to the title of this blog post where Mikomwood finally gets a worthy future counterpart; HyperVentila.
Many years in the making ( in my head ) this mad science fantasy spinnoff from Mikomwood has been a bit of a mystery of how to make. While Mikomwood was to me what the Discworld was to Terry Pratchett, HyperVentila would of course seem like another jump to mad comic novelist and radio-play writer Douglass Adams and his Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Not this time! I wanted HyperVentila to be something else.
A universe of exploration, making your own madness and interactivity. So a game of course!

What have I got to show so far? some screenshots! and a silly Android port on my phone...

Some things have been a challenge in designing this game so far but I've learnt a lot.

I also recently designed a website for my dear Ilaria: www.ilariagiacon.com Check it out!

That's it for this blog. Until next time.

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Squirrel

1/9/2017

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Brace yourselves....

30/4/2017

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...more paracord stuff. Yep, that's about it. Oh and I made a watch strap for a watch. The theme of this weekend was red-black-silver... as with pretty much any other time.