NASCAR 2007 Video

I bought my Canon digital camcorder for many reasons, but the NASCAR race at Infineon was high on the list of stuff that I wanted to film. So when this year’s Toyota/Savemart 350 came around, I didn’t pull any punches. I visited the racetrack ahead of time to look at the preparations, camped out near my old apartment to film the arrival of the team trucks, hung out at the Speed stage for quite a while and aimed my lense at the garage area for such a long time that I had to sit out the next day because of a really bad sunburn. All in all, I filmed over 5 hours of video, and I had fun doing it.

Because of Lair crunch time and other projects it took me a while to edit all that footage into a movie, but it’s finally done (enough) to show to the world. So I proudly present my first Youtube video! NASCAR at Infineon Raceway – Matt’s documentary montage. I hope you enjoy it

As it naturally is with Youtube, the quality of the clip is very crappy. The source video is 1920×1080, but I had to render out a 320×240 version (which Youtube then compressed the hell out of). I’d post the full video, but can’t really do that for bandwidth reasons. To give you an idea of the quality difference, here’s two still frames of the “real” movie:

I’m pretty pleased with the outcome. Some of the shots are too shaky (and I didn’t bother stabilizing them in post), but I feel that the edit (and how it plays with the music) is professional quality. The camera just happened to be consumer I might do another video at a later point – with 5 hours of raw footage, I wasn’t able to put close to all the shots in this one video that I wanted to use.

Harry Potter

I’m prepared to go on record on the 7th Harry Potter book (no spoilers), even though the following admission might lead to humiliation and ridicule. But here it comes: I think reading the new Harry Potter book before sleep is giving me nightmares.

I just don’t seem to be sleeping all that well during those nights. My dreams are filled with paranoid and disturbing scenarios. And let’s be honest, the last Harry Potter book isn’t exactly a joy to follow. People die left and right, things get lost or destroyed every other chapter, pivotal characters are defamed and painted in pictures never imagined… the whole story is just bleak. It’s well written and I’m glad to be reading it – but joyous and fun? Barely.

There, I said it; I feel better I’m wondering if I’m just being a wimp or if the book affects early readers even worse than me. The story above might also be the reason why I’m still not done with the book even though the rest of t he world probably is.

Drag Racing!

We went to the FRAM Autolite NHRA Nationals in Sonoma today and shot some video. Most of the actual runs didn’t come out too well because the ground was shaking too much as the cars were running by But the burnouts worked out nicely. These cars create 7000(!) horsepower and cover a 1/4 mile distance (400 meters) in less than 5 seconds! That means accelerating to over 330mph (over 500 kilometers) and then braking back down per chute in less than 10 seconds. That’s pretty incredible once you really wrap your head around it.

Download video 1 (20mb) Right-click and “Save Target As”.
Download video 2 (10mb) Right-click and “Save Target As”.

Both videos are 1920×1080 resolution in WMV format. Beware, the videos are louder than your typical TV coverage! I watched the TV version afterwards and it was nice and all, but their sound never quite matches up to the real thing.

Lair is officially done!

As announced earlier this week, development on Lair has finished and the game is off to duplication! It will be in stores on August 14 September 3. I learned a ton of new stuff making this game – and if you pour 2 1/2 years of your life into something, it had better be worth it on some personal level.

I’m aware of the reviews, of course. Some are very positive, some are not. The common complaint in those bad reviews seem to be the controls – putting the dragon streering on the motion-sensitive SIXAXIS controller doesn’t sit well with some of the experienced gamers. First of all: try it out yourself, give it a chance!
And if you want my side of the story, I will share a simple anecdote: Victoria’s family, lead by my 83-year old grandfather in law, was able to pick up Lair in less than 5 inutes, to fly around with the dragon and to play the first mission of the game.That experience right there beats anything that the reviewers can say. Because let’s face it: the hardcore crowd is an important part of the market, and I sincerely hope that everybody who reads my page and/or hangs out on NeoGAF, IGN, 1UP on a daily basis will buy Lair and enjoy it. Your guys’ opinions are important, and they matter.

BUT… making a game that my entire (extended) family can play, that’s how we will keep the creative flame (and our industry!) alive.

Check the official sources for more information on Lair. I enjoyed the experience and have tons of ideas on what to do next. In other words, I have already moved on to the next project…

P.S.: Hope you like the new vegetation in the final build

Congratulations Ninja Theory!

The main character in the Heavenly Sword demo looks absolutely stunning. Best I’ve seen in a game yet. Gameplay is well executed – but what’s with the length of that demo? That took less than 10 (gorgeous) minutes to complete!

Toyota/Savemart 350

Of course Victoria, Michael (her dad) and I went to the NASCAR race this year. In fact, I recorded 5 hours(!) of video from that entire week, waiting to be edited into a mini documentary of the race and what it does to the Sonoma area.

I just haven’t found time yet to really dig into the video – but hey, here is one frame! I’m trying to get back to blogging regularly, there should be more on the race later.

What happened to Matt?

Not a lot of updates lately, eh? Well, I’ve been very busy finishing a certain game and preparing Future Sauce. And that bandage isn’t helping, either – I sliced off the top of my index finger Nothing that won’t completely heal, but nasty and annoying. Be careful with them knifes there, kids!

Still…not sure when, but regular updates should resume pretty soon!

Lair Art Show

I will be at Cogswell Polytechnical College tomorrow (Saturday the 2nd) for the opening of the Lair art show. The college will host an open day with tours of the facility, and we will do a panel with various people from the team (including me) answering questions from a moderator and the audience.

“The Art of Lair”
Exhibit Dates: June 2 through July 27

Special Exhibit Events – Saturday, June 2, 12:30-6:30:

• Cogswell Open House: 12:30 to 3:00 p.m.
• Panel Discussion with Factor 5: 3:00 to 4:30 p.m.
• Gallery Reception: 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Cogswell Polytechnical College announces an exciting new exhibit for The Gallery at Cogswell. Factor 5, Inc. of San Rafael will present work from its eagerly anticipated video game, Lair. The exhibit will run from June 2 through July 27. Lair, a dragon combat action game, was developed by Factor 5 and will be published by Sony Computer Entertainment for its PlayStation® 3 platform. [...]

AMA Superbike Race

Victoria and I went to the AMA Superbike race at Sears Point on Sunday. We spent a good 5 hours walking the track, sitting in the sun, and watching the races. Here’s some pictures from the winner’s circle!

I hadn’t followed the AMA circuit before going to the race, so I had to make sense first of who was who and why this or that matchup were intruiging. Spies? Mladin? Didn’t really ring a bell until I watched the SPEED coverage afterwards. But that’s what I love about living close to the racetrack: we get four major national events each year (AMA, NASCAR, NHRA and Indy), and it’s so easy to say “You know what? I bet that riding this track at over 100MPH – on motorcycles! – must be quite a sight to see. Let’s go, it’s not that expensive.” So we did. And we had a great time. And now I know a little bit more about the Superbike competition

I also recorded over 50 minutes of video on my camera. You can download a clip of Sunday’s Superbike start. It’s 18MB, DiVX encoded. The video is 1920×1080 resolution and pretty damn cool, but unfortunately the bikes ghost quite a bit. Too bad, but such are the restrictions of the HDV format.

Happy Birthday Beyond Belief!

10 years ago today, Beyond Belief was released. How time has passed!

I knew that I wanted to make a Quake episode from the moment the game got released. I kinda had to, after all the Doom design work I had done before. And those were interesting times – the mapping and modding community was still in its infancy and a tight-knit group. There weren’t that many games to mod for, anyway – Doom, Quake and Duke Nukem. Quake was the only true 3D game. We’d hang out in the #Quake and #QuakeEd channels a lot, trash talk about various things and generally discover the exciting internet world that was out there. I’d clog up my parents’ phone lines the entire night, using a long phone extension cord that ran from my room to the lobby. It’s hard to imagine these days, but back in 96, talking to people from all over the world was something incredibly new and exciting.

Initially, I wanted to make two Quake episodes with 8 maps each, but eventually I settled on only one. Building these levels took a lot of time, and while I didn’t exactly kill myself with my university workload, I had other things going on in my life that also required attention. The tools weren’t quite up to par to what they are today – I made most of my maps in Quest. A very capable editor, but it lacked basic niceties such as shaded 3D view. All my levels were build in wireframe, and in the beginning I had to align textures by hacking the text file and manually typing in the UV offset. I’d compile the level, run it and see if the texture looked correct. If it didn’t, I’d count the number of pixels that I had to adjust for. Back then that was possible because the textures were low-res enough and there was no bilinear filtering to disguise the shapes.

[Read more]