In the last few months I had no time to update this blog and I think it will be discontinued (or moved on my personal web-domain). Latest project included the end of courses at NABA and SPD. The year was pretty long but, as always, full of satisfactions. NABA’s course was at the 7th edition and in my opinion is now time to update the program. I started this series of lectures in October 2007 and even if I did some corrections and modifiations during the time, I think now the core of the course should be redesigned. SPD gave me great satisfactions (while with Domus Academy the experience was a little different) regarding 3D lectures. What I love of SPD is that I’m considered in the planning aspect of the course. Logically there is an academic office that take decisions, but I think is very good that they asks us (teachers and professionists) what we think about some new implementations, like software update, schedules, planning and so on. This make SPD very professional in the approach.
Anyway in november my new edition of Autodesk 3ds Max, V-Ray (and other surprises :)) should start again on NABA, Domus Academy and SPD. For the second semester there is possibility that other schools would insert my program in lectures regarding CG subjects. This is a “maybe” but I’m also discussing with two new schools outside Italy’s border and I hope to repeat the amazing experience I got time ago as visiting professor at Helsinki’s Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. According to lectures, me, Andrea Peduzzi, Filippo Zanoli and Donald Cortese did a deep workshop in another school in Como. I’m glad to work with them in VideogamesLab project: we do basic but functional workshops on game development. Our main goal is not to “create” game developers (it would be too ambitious, expecially in short periods like workshops). Our goal is to show an approach to game development business both to students and teachers.
About videogame development lectures I’m also partecipating with the brand new Spicchi team in a series of basic lessons on game development as business path. Courses are open to everybody but designed for parents that desire to understand more about this possible path for their childs. In this period I’m preparing my new speech for ViewConference 2014. In 2010 and 2011 I spoke about videogame development and realtime technologies using 3ds Max and Unreal. Last year I spoke about 3ds Max, V-Ray (thanks to Chaos Group for believing in my knowledge), 3D Printing (with Massimo Temporelli) and Augmented Reality with Unity 3D.
This year I plan to surprise you with a practical approach to virtual reality both for presentation and entertainment. For the occasion I bought an Oculus Rift 2 (inspired by Luca Roncella taht made me try his one). So get ready to be inserted in a 3d environment :), I’ll wait you at ViewConference 2014! About PlaySys works we never stop and year after year we are more stable on the market. Even if there were some difficulties in publishing department (because of the ending of two magazines like Professional Photoshop and Fotografia Facile) we still continue with Digital Camera. Also 3D renderings for architecture and design are proceeding properly and our information platform (3DArchitettura) got renewed recently. Render Academy by the way is proceeding slowly but I hope it would be ready in september with a lot of surprises. Still with PlaySys we are updating our games like Kitty Scratch 2, Augmented Cat, we developed a new simple one named Grayville and we are in the pre-production phase for a new one, with better story this time, I promise 🙂
In the meanwhile during august I want to speed-develop a platform; it will be a solo project and the challange is very appealing! PLAYSYS
KITTY SCRATCH 2
STEEL HERO
GRAYVILLE
Last but not least, I released my last music solo project on iTunes and Spotify. Project name is Nihilistista and the album is named Eclipse. This project started about two years ago and I’m very satisfacted of the result, recording guitar, bass, drum and mastering together in the album. My working projets are taking time from my music, in the past I would never expect this would happen (expecially when, 18 years ago, I was playing drums 2 hours per day). I promise myself that one day I’ll get back in music with a band or something like that…hopefully I would keep my word 😉 Well, that’s all I think. There are many other stuff happening in the between but I can’t write them all and this is still not my memoirs 😀
It’s just a quick summary of what happened in this silent period and I’ll do my best to keep this blog updated somehow.
I just finished the instrumental part of my next album: Nihilistista – Back To Origins.
In the past I published different titles as drummer with bands like The Five Stars Luxury, Mind Phaser, Rim Shots, Complesso Mentale and experimental solo projects like Silence Please, Blurred Reality, Be Happy, it’s Gray, The joy of life, WronGrown, Nothing Inside and Musique Pour Iannis Xenakis. This time the challange was to mix together the previous experiences: death metal drums in a solo project.
The main concept of Nihilistista – Back To Origins is an album composed and performed by me, with the style I had in the past.
The album will be released in the next months, with a vocal line as completion of the product. In the meanwhile you can listen the base track on my SoundCloud account here. I’m very happy about this new release, also because I’m receiving many messages and fb contacts, asking me what will be next, and suggesting me new, interesting cooperations.
You can find me also on:
Today I have a great announce: Our videogame “Kitty Scratch 2” is avaible to play on AppStore! This project represent a new, exciting step forward for PlaySys. After the experience of Kitty Scratch 1, released in 2010, and that was mostly an experiment for us, we had a long break. As “break” I mean a huge series of lectures, conferences, 3d renders, 3d animations and interactive media. During the 2013 we also did another videogame, Steel Hero, for a prestigious customer: Museo Nazionale Della Scienza e Tecnologia “Leonardo Da Vinci”. That game was developed by PlaySys and Broken Arms Games that supported us with the programming code. After the experience I got so interested in discover more about programming that I attended a full immersion during easther period. I studied, researched, experimented, red and watched tons of tutorials and at the end I took a decision: develop a videogame without outsourcing. With PlaySys we prepared a full game design document and the 2nd of September we started the official development. Today, after 2 months the game is on the “shelves” of AppStore and I’m working on the porting for Android and, if everything goes right, tomorrow the game’s .apk will be delivered to Google Play. I want to credit here the cool team that supported me in the development of this game: Pamela De Lorenzi – Producer Filippo Zanoli – Game Designer Elisa Cristantielli – Art Director Elena Kartseva – Interior Designer Lorenzo Cardile – 3D Artist Beniamino Valentini – Animator Bo Zhang – 3D Artist Intern Alessandro Carpentiero – Musician and Composer Andrea Peduzzi – PR Now let me conclude saying that the game is far away to be a GTA5 or a colossal, but is funny to play and we tryed to do our best to include dynamic 3D stuff on mobile devices. In fact the game behave differently accordingly to the time of the day in which you play it. Every 12 hours the system gives you 50 scratches to use and you can extend the game experience with mini games. Kitty Scratch 2 – Episode 1 is the first of 3 episodes and the remaining will be released from now to January/February. To discover more please follow the links below and enjoy! 🙂 Last but not least: Please note that PlaySys don’t support any kind of violence. During the development of this game no furniture was damaged or injured. This game is also for kids.
Dal primo di settembre fino al 21 Ottobre mi sono cimentato in una nuova esperienza: lo sviluppo di un videogioco per quanto riguarda la programmazione. Il risultato è “Kitty Scratch 2, episodio 1”, disponibile da oggi su AppStore e a brevissimo su Google Play! QUI il comunicato stampa ufficiale. Avevo già partecipato in passato allo sviluppo di progetti videoludici più o meno impegnativi, per quanto riguarda la grafica 3d e per quanto riguarda qualche tentativo di scrittura del codice. La mia avventura iniziò alla fine degli anni ‘90 con una copia di DarkBasic e una successiva migrazione all’allora ben più potente BlitzBasic. A quel tempo non esisteva un editor di gioco e dovetti programmare il sistema necessario per posizionare correttamente gli elementi nello spazio 🙂 Il mio interesse non era quello di creare un prodotto giocabile, bensì scoprire come far funzionare il tutto al meglio: scoprire come creare quello che sarebbe potuto diventare un videogioco. Gli anni passarono e il mio percorso professionale si avvicinò sempre più alla grafica 3D. Chi mi conosce, associa la mia carriera alla grafica 3D, ma in realtà ciò che più mi affascina sono i processi tecnico-creativi che si nascondono dietro alle nuove tecnologie…a quel tempo la grafica 3D e il render fotorealistico rappresentavano una sfida notevole (torniamo al 1998, Kinetix 3d studio max 2, scanline render, photoshop 4 e così via). Durante gli anni mi sono avvicinato ad altri engine: Kaneva, Torque, S2, XNA, UnrealEngine poi UDK, C4, HeroEngine, Truevision, Zenith Engine (protagonista della mia tesi di laurea nel 2007), CryEngine, Unigine, Corona, Unity. Ho avuto modo di testarne parecchi, acquistandone una licenza o ottenendo direttamente dagli sviluppatori una copia per uso non commerciale. Kitty Scratch 2 rappresenta un nuovo traguardo per me; sono pienamente consapevole che si tratta di un semplice casual game, prevalentemente rivolto ad un pubblico giovane e femminile, ma l’averlo programmato da solo è una soddisfazione incredibile. Ovviamente tutto il gioco è stato sviluppato in team: 9 collaboratori di PlaySys mi hanno supportato per quanto riguarda concept, grafica, audio, marketing e il fatto di essere partiti con lo sviluppo il 2 Settembre e averlo finito in un mese circa è per me motivo di doppia soddisfazione. Simo tutti d’accordo sul fatto che Kitty Scratch 2 non è paragonabile a colossi recenti come GTA5, Beyond o altri, ma il gioco rappresenta per noi il primo passo concreto verso lo sviluppo di nuove realtà e conclude una lunghissima serie di test e prove più o meno riuscite, realizzate in 10 anni. Il gioco è composto da 3 episodi che usciranno a cadenza bimestrale e una parte del team è già al lavoro su un nuovo concept che entrerà in produzione nelle prime settimane del 2014. Abbiamo investito parecchie energie per quanto riguarda l’aspetto visivo del gioco: modelli, texture, illustrazioni hanno richiesto un lavoro notevole, così come le colonne sonore, che sono state composte ad hoc per il gioco. per quanto mi riguarda la sfida del codice è stata notevole:
gestione assegnazione graffi
validazione partita e controllo anti cheat
programmazione controlli e meccaniche di movimento giocatore/avversari
salvataggio e gestione dati con tanto di achievement su Game Center (prima volta in cui metto mano in tutto questo)
gestione dinamica del livello di gioco: i personaggi cambiano posizione in base al tempo di gioco…un po’ come avviene durante la giornata di GTA5, con grande semplificazione 😀
debug gioco, fixes e preparazione Store
Se trovate dei bug o delle imprecisioni fatemelo sapere commentando questo post o sulla pagina ufficiale del gioco, per favore. Sto sistemando alcune imperfezioni che ho notato e conto di rilasciare una versione 1.1 entro la fine di novembre (data in cui la verrà lanciata la versione per Android). Buon divertimento!
A quasi sei mesi dalla presentazione ufficiale, Steel Hero, il videogioco sviluppato da PlaySys sotto commissione del Museo Nazionale della Scienza e Tecnologia “L.Da Vinci”, sta riscuotendo un enorme successo. Se ne è parlato (Wired – Game Search – Chooze) e se ne parla ancora su molti media, quello più recente è un video dell’Università degli studi di Milano e trovate info sul nostro contributo dal 50° minuto (link permanente). Le affluenze del pubblico visitatore, italiano e straniero, sono sempre molto alte e i risultati di gioco a Steel Hero sono ben oltre le aspettative che credevamo di poter raggiungere. Per chi non lo sapesse, Steel Hero è un videogioco sviluppato dalla mia agenzia e che consente al giocatore di focalizzare la propria attenzione sui benefici del processo produttivo Arvedi ESP rispetto a una produzione tradizionale dell’acciaio. Il gioco trova posto nell’apposita sezione permanente riguardante appunto la produzione dell’acciaio. Per la realizzazione abbiamo usato 3ds Max, Photoshop, Unity, FL Studio e Arduino, mettendo in campo tutte le nostre capacità tecniche e artistiche. Per quanto mi riguarda mi sono occupato personalmente della gestione della produzione, parte delle mappe UV + texture e ho realizzato interamente la musica…non posso concludere questo articolo senza la mia – sfocatissima – foto come segno di soddisfazione durante la presentazione ufficiale della sezione 😉
After a very long period without publishing new songs, I can now proudly reveal my next project: Nihilistista – Back To Origins. My plan for the album is to compose an EP of 4 songs that represent my actual musical status: a mixture of styles from mathcore, grindcore, metalcore, djent, everything in my typical dark style 😉 Track #1 – Back To Origins The name of the album has roots in the 2012 when i finished a romance affair with a finnish girl and everything appeared meaningless. In reality, Nihilistista album has a lot of meanings and I invite you to discover them all! Hope you enjoy my work! Track #2 – Magnitude
Nasce una nuova area interattiva al Museo Nazionale della Scienza e Della Tecnologia "L.Da Vinci" di Milano. Un’area dedicata all’acciaio, alle sue caratteristiche e ai suoi processi di produzione e lavorazione. A promuovere la creazione di questa nuova sezione è Arvedi, partner dell’iniziativa e detentore del brevetto sul processo produttivo Arvedi ESP.
The Museo Nazionale della Scienza e Tecnologia “L.Da Vinci” (the most visited museum in Milan, Italy) last week has opened it’s new interactive area dedicated to the steel production: its chemical composition and production methods. Arvedi participated as the main technical supporter of the new section, providing informations about ESP (endless strip production) method introduced in Arvedi factories.
L’area del museo dedicata a questa nuova sezione permanente, ospita anche un videogioco, Steel Hero, realizzato apposta per l’occasione da PlaySys. Il gioco mostra le differenze tra i due cicli produttivi: classico e Arvedi ESP. Attraverso un percorso sonoro, si vedono tutte le fasi di produzione ed è possibile confrontare tempi e risorse impiegate per entrambi i procedimenti. Due livelli quindi, che scorrono su una pista 3D, percorribile con un’astronave.
The permanent exibition area consists of interactive objects together with a videogame created by PlaySys: Steel Hero. The game demonstrates the differences between two steel production processes: Standard and Arvedi ESP. The game, representing metaphorically a steel production sci-fi environment, demonstrates by the means of audio and video the differences in lengh of process and consumpion of resources.
The game experience is similar to WipeOut + Guitar Hero and we are really proud to be compared to them by professional media (like Wired for example).
I got contacted by the Fade To Rain band for drums performing in their new album. This is the first track of the EP: Betrayed. Enjoy
My drum recordings in Fade to Rain’s Betrayed
For the recording we used hybrid acustic/electronic setup, here is one of my dears 🙂 Here are a couple of nerdy pics of the production recording, thanks to Alessandro Carpentiero for the audio engineering.
After some months of hard work and after one year from my previous release, my new album “Musique pour Iannis Xenakis” is out!!! You can find it on the biggest stores: I composed the entire album keeping in mind the research done by a great genius, I’d like to dedicate my album to: Iannis Xenakis. I suggest you to read something on his wikipedia page and his association. Personally I feel a deep connection between my interests and his research. In my album I hope you can find a natural evolution of his opera, of course mixed with my music taste. This is my first release without lead synths, hardcore kick drums, progressive basses and so on…the album was composed and recorded using classical instruments. The work required me many weeks: after the composition and the performance recording, there was a deep mixing, balancing, equalization and mastering on the entire work. I suggest you to give a look (or an ear at least) al my previous work, always available on iTunes, Amazon and other stores: Nothing Inside. Enjoy (and don’t torrent it please it required many night of work)!
YES! Finally my last album is out!!
My new cd name is Nothing Inside, and is a full album with 11 great tracks. This is my 2nd solo project; the first one was wronGrown, but the style is changed a lot. Now my tracks are better composed and balanced, you can listen or dance them. The sound quality is more clear and the mood is less depressive than the previous one 😉 I received lot of feedbacks from wronGrown, and crafted Nothing Inside with these suggestions in mind.
You can listen a preview and buy the album (or some single track) from iTunes or Amazon. Let me hear your feedback, they will be really important for my next musical work. ENJOY IT!
