shashank uchil » Age of conan

10 steps to make a level

shashank — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:45:12 +0000

One of the Producers at work wanted to know how a level is made…this is the mail i sent him

1. Layout
Review
2. Blockout
Review
3. Paintover
Review
4. Modelling
Review
5. Texturing
6. Vertex paint/ Blending
7. Lighting
8. Collision
9. Particles
10. Environments
Review

_shank

Rinse, Repeat.

In other random news…i reinstalled Bioshock. I bought it the day it came out. Found it too old school and did not play it much. Decided to finish it, again did not play much. The reason i want to finish is because i want to buy some new games.

Left 4 dead
Mirrors Edge
Tomb raider Underworld
Silent Hill 5

Problem being i cannot stop playing Quakewars…something about the game that is as good as Quake3 (which in my opinion is a perfect game).

In work related news. One of the BIG levels i worked on for Age of Conan will be out soon in the next patch. Its a level in the Thunder River section. These are few paintovers made over my mockup. This is one of the three levels that i have done post launch and are far better than any levels we have in AOC as of now. Will post the rest as and when they are made public.

**Click the images for hi-res images. The hi-res images are few mb in size so it could take some time to load depending on your connection speed

A hint of color

shashank — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:41:11 +0000

…in the frames.

I write is blog as i watch the works of Mark Romanek…

The sun is out so is the rain…but no rainbows

Pesto is good whereas chicken tastes like chicken which is quite generic…

Why drink beer when you can drink fizzy wine…

Why work when you can play…

saw this on my way to work…a day after 17 of may…the norwegian day…it says something…

tuesday…the game went live in the US…without any hitches…a reason to celebrate…

saw this at home…

friday night at work…

the first roll of velvia…with the OM1…quite a few scans turned out bad as the scanner was exposing it for shadows…and the fact that the film is unforgiving does not help…one more reason to shoot bw…

thats what i see at work…

thats what i see at lunch

the sun was out a few weeks back…good time to eat an icecream

strange pattern at the top…

on way home…

on my way to work

on my way home…

having lunch on friday…

fuck PETA…seriously…

on our way to the launch party

helga bought some new sandals

the green carpet…

eat carrots…

Positive, Negative and Tmax @ 1600

shashank — Sun, 18 May 2008 16:37:38 +0000

The game went live yesterday…and it went all smooth…goto work today and played it…and lvld upto 10…

After a crazy day yesterday…which was a all day breakfast starting for 10 and ending at 12…only because i had to get to work today…pics and details for another post in the future…

Back to the topics on hand…been quite annoyed by people being all negative and shit…and for some reason people end up talking to me about how bad things are…as if i can do anything about it!!!

so people…if you feel like talking bad about something or someone…go somewhere else…

It been raining and gloomy all week…not good…

Playing a lot of GTA4 which is awesome…

Shooting a lot of film…shot a roll of 3200 with the OM1 which supports a max of 1600…which meant i had to underexpose each frame manually…will be interesting to see the results…hopefully it wont be that bad as i was shooting Delta…which tends to have low contrast…

Just had a pizza…

Listing to *its all gone pete tong* soundtrack

Funny thing happened yesterday…in case you have not watched the movie Once, watch it…the topic of the movie came up and i told someone that its a nice romantic movie…to which someone said…”no shank its not a romantic movie…its does not have any of the kissing and stuff”…

Enough chit chat…time for some Tmax +2…i am amazed at how well this film holds up to being pushed…provided you expose it properly…

Tmax@1600 | om2 | 50/1.8

this must be two weeks back…friday evening…at a student bar called Evergreen…this guy came upto me and told me he too has a OM2…and how awesome it is…i ask him…”if its so awesome, where is it?”…to which he told me its home…i told him that i will take his pic…to which he went around looking for a girl…totally random…and posed with her…crazy times…all good

ah…meet a pretty girl with a complete asshole….MR.Asshole tells me that i cannot take pics inside the bar without asking him…yeah right…and the highlight of your life is being behind a bar in some cheap student bar…told the girl what exactly i think of the guy before i left the bar…the expression on the girls face was worth a frame…

wow…forgot his name…cool dude…friend of oystein…loved the OM…i had taken a couple of frames(read 36) only to realize that the film was not loaded…i sux…

yes meet Mr.Stupid who does not know how to load a roll of film properly…

Age of conan launch party…as i had the whole roll left…i took it the party…knowing that it would be dark…need more DOF…rakel looks really sleepy…

abs…was looking pretty as usual…tmax 400 @ 1600!!! and its still smooth…

the music was average…but the dj was hot…my metering was not…the OM is pretty bad when there is a strong source of light or back light…

but i got this one…makes up for the above frame

the other half of abs…my boy joel…

the gang…will soon move apart…but we have this frame taken by joel

yes…i like to crop the feet…this one should have been color…

big boss gave a really good speech…unlike few others

man…i want those glasses…

she is the awesome voice behind the in-game songs…

lost lots of frames due to bad metering…mostly backlighting…need to keep this in mind next time…

Age of Conan at Holmenkollen

shashank — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:22:08 +0000

First thing first…big shout out to Oystein for help me out with the script to automate making the links for the images…i hate doing manual work when it can be automated…so i installed cygwin and used this awesome command…and no more donkeywork

$ find /cygdrive/c/shank/photo/Norway/69_may_week_3_AOC_PR_event/blog -type f|awk -F ‘/’ ‘{ a=$(NF-2); gsub(“_”, ” “, a); printf(“\n”, $(NF-2), $NF, a) }’

Following the launch party last week…we had a BIG pr event held at Holmenkollen…it was a good party…though it was a bit annoying to see all the random people mooching off on all the free food and booze…they better write good stuff about the game…

Strangely i had forgotten about the party and was carrying the 50mm…which was a bit painful as i would have preferred to use the 28…had to make do with the 50 and the frames ended up being quite good with whacky angles to fit in all the stuff

there were a group of people doing tricks with fire…talk about playing with fire!!!

did not get too many portraits as i was bored of it

thats the BIG ski jump Holmenkollen is famous for…

there was a lot of people from the press and tv network…serious stuff

hmm…eirik came to work with a t-shirt and shorts…not smart as it was pretty cold…and i had to lend him my jacket…as you can see he was not happy about the fact that his balls were freezing

i have not see so many people with cameras

people doing serious stuff

more machines

this lady was from MTV…ok you cant really see her…i know

was petty cool

if hungry eat fire…nice

ohhh…more machines

ahem…olve and his shiny new nikon

maja and her shiny new purse from japan

pretty people doing serious stuff

there were people who were all dressed up for the occasion

as i said…it was cold…this is norway…what do you expect…i am wearing 4 layers of clothing today

gin and tonic…

more camera porn…

olve was cold as well…

all the cold made people angry and all hell broke loose

only one survived

and the night ended with some nice firework

good times…

Age of conan launch party

shashank — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:20:25 +0000

The Age of Conan launch party was held at DogA on the 9th…i was expecting crapy lighting…so carried all my cameras…which in hindsight was not the best thing to do. As i was exhausted carrying 3 body and 4 lens…i should have just taken the om with some 3200…but shit happens…

Anyways…the party was…decent…too dark and not so good music…but the food was excellent…

Most of the images are on film which i have yet to develop…i did get a few frames with the digital as well…and this time the 50/1.4 did not let me down…nice lens…

launch party" />
We found a floor light out in the smoking area…and decided to shoot some artsy stuff…which for some reason brought out the worst in olve

and maja

thats how the sky was at 10pm

Sara and eirik…sara thinks i am stuck up as i did not want to get drunk at a company event…

the guy to the left is the voice of conan and seemed like a hustler

was trying to get some street style stuff in a party…me likes…1/10 with a 50mm…i am good…kidding

able was not drinking for some strange reason…but was giving a killer look…

i have a sharper frames but its posed…this one, though oof, is real…

markus…this for some reason reminds me of Raj Kapoor form one of this movies 1/3

oof helga…oof is the new bokeh 1/3…what was i thinking…1/3!!!

some more artsy stuff…no its not posed…i just saw helga do it and told her to freeze

red carpet…i know its bw…still

sunday at work…you know things are not as they should when you have to eat mcd…bad karma for those who planned it

at least i goto got to a barbecue…olve was preparing some sausages…the norwegian national dish

while maja was enjoying the sun

and i was looking forward to eat ice cream…

goto go home and eat some pork i prepared over the weekend and then some ICE CREAM!!!

be nice…