The Legend of Zelda: The Shadowgazer

Usually I would just put the links on the right to go directly to the main website, but there's currently more official information right here.

The Legend of Zelda: The Shadowgazer is a fan-made game being created by "Kim Mob." There are a ton of Zelda fan games out there, but this one is really something else. Currently still in production, the videos and screenshots of the project appear to be absolutely fantastic. I hope that if Nintendo sees the project, they admire the work and talent of such a dedicated fan.

There's also a demo out it seems, if you are interested in seeing part of it in action.

Fall Semester Begins

Tomorrow (Monday), my classes start back again. This is just a notice that my activity for the project will once again be decreased.

trueSpace7.6 Now FREE!

The popular software trueSpace is now free! This is software used for 3D modeling, animation, and rendering. Check out their website here.

Needless to say, this is software is going with my current list of awesome free technical software. Furthermore, as you download it, there's also an entire manual (over a thousand pages long) and training videos. Good gosh, yes! The following is from a post made by the CEO of Team Caligari.

Dear Caligari community member,

Today is an important day in the 23 year history of trueSpace. We are releasing a major upgrade to our flagship product with trueSpace7.6, bringing significant improvements in modeling, animation, rendering and workflows, plus new direct export to Virtual Earth. Most of these you might already expect if you’ve been following my regular Captain’s Blog. What you may not expect is that we are making trueSpace7.6 available to everyone at no charge, in a giant step forward to bring high-end 3D authoring tools to all who want them!

trueSpace7.6 is far more than a SketchUp-style 3D architectural modeling tool. Instead, it provides a complete 3D authoring environment for any type of 3D content creation, whether that’s images, animations, objects for games, or content or worlds for online interactive shared spaces.

trueSpace7.6's modeling tools feature a variety of surface representations including full polygonal editing, subdivision surface modeling, NURBS, metaballs, and implicit surfaces. Those are supported by 400+ modeling tools, like real-time Boolean operations with full construction history, so you can move subtracted parts of your design at any time during your work, or even change a subtraction to an intersection.

trueSpace 7.6 also provides advanced surfacing tools like layered materials, texture maps, normal maps, procedural materials, UVE projections, real-time DX9 pixel shaders that include shaders to simulate subsurface scattering, reflection, refraction, smoke, fire, water, anisotropicshader, metallic paint, glass – and those are just the real-time shaders!

The animation capabilities are even more impressive.trueSpace7.6 supports key-frame and motion capture animation on fully hierarchical objects. Key-frame animations can be seamlessly blended with procedural animations and physical simulations, all of which can fully interact with each other. This means you can have a walking character animated by key-frames getting hit by a procedurally animated car and fly away in response to the collision thanks to physical simulation.

In trueSpace7.6 you can also create fully articulated characters and interact with them using full body IK with editable direct manipulation widgets for joints (including physical stiffness), and apply physics or animated morphs for facial expressions.

If you want to create a photorealistic images or a video, built-in Lightworks high quality offline renderer will give you spectacular rendering results including soft shadows, raytracing, global illumination in form of hybrid radiosity, image based lighting, caustics, tone mapping, HDRI, anisotropic reflectance, multi-pass rendering to Photoshop layers, motion blur, depth of field, lens flares etc.

trueSpace’s award-winning direct manipulation interface with its easy-to-use 2D controls and 3D widgets has always been highly praised by users and press alike. For version 7.6 we have streamlined many workflows in extensive collaboration with our Beta testers. The UI is context-based and fully configurable, including toolbars, panels, widgets, layouts and projects. With universal drag-and-drop you can simply drop your model from the 3D workspace directly into an e-mail, written document, etc, and vice versa, clicking on the object in an e-mail will automatically open it in trueSpace.

There is also a series of advanced editors. In addition to the 3D workspace and modeling editors, there is a universal 2D node link editor, script editor, non-linear animation editor, material editor, UV editor, and more. Plug-ins are now accessible from the real-time 3D workspace and we expect to release truly amazing plug-ins for trueSpace7.6 in the near future, as well as stimulate 3rd party creation of independent products both free and commercial thanks to the availability of an SDK.

Finally, trueSpace7.6 is the only 3D authoring tool on the market which will allow you do all of the above in real-time shared 3D collaborative spaces where members of the design or animation team can maintain real-time interaction from anywhere in the world.

We are taking the unprecedented step of making these tools available to everyone for free in order to stimulate content creation for the present and future online 3D environments, and so that any artist out there with a dream can fulfill their vision without finding themselves trapped by budget limitations. This is particularly true if their vision includes emerging 3D online worlds, where free and unrestricted communities of web artists can collaborate on 3D projects and even establish new kinds of communities the likes of which the world has never seen before, way beyond simple chats in isolated 3D rooms or 3D islands.

trueSpace7.6 will empower you to create anything you dream up, whether you want to make illustrations for National Geographic, design products for Rolls-Royce, create buildings for Virtual Earth, make advertising or training videos, architectural walkthroughs, innovative video games, or animated films. All of these possibilities are now open to you simply by downloading trueSpace7.6 and learning what its powerful 3D authoring tools can do for you!

To download trueSpace7.6, visit the link below: http://cart1.caligari.com/web/Truespacemainreg.aspx

Also, to aid in your learning process we have made all of our video courses, previously $79 each, available at no charge, and you can download those courses from the link above.

At a time when other companies are removing their low cost products to make it even tougher to get started in 3D, it gives us great pleasure to enable all artists regardless of age or income to create 3D in whatever field they dream of. We hope you enjoy your copy of trueSpace7.6.

Roman Ormandy
Founder
Caligari Corp

Lucent Stones Progress!

The production of Lucent Stones has not been so bad today. Actually, there have been two major accomplishments that have taken some days to accomplish.

First and foremost, I would like to say we have our first NPC (Non-Player Character) in-game where players may speak to her, ask questions, and get information. Where there is one, more is bound to follow! I'd like to start including more interactive scripts into the game to sell items or to heal abnormal conditions. At any rate, this is the tip of an iceberg and a good start in the right direction.

Secondly, a stamina system has been implemented today and finally working correctly. As players run for a long period of time, they will become tired and must either take a break from running or start walking.

For the odds and ends of the progress, Siraj has been hard at work with the graphical side of things lately. And also, I'd like to say a huge "Thank You!" for everyone who is currently contributing to the project. None of this is possible without your motivation and enthusiasm.

We'll keep you posted!

Microsoft Dreamspark

What is DreamSpark?

Microsoft DreamSpark enables students to download Microsoft developer and design tools at no charge.

Now, for the first time, Microsoft is giving its valuable software developer and design tools directly to students worldwide at no charge! This site enables students like you to download professional-level Microsoft developer and design tools to unlock your creative potential and set you on the path to academic and career success, by supporting and advancing your learning and skills through technical design, technology, math, science and engineering activities.

In order to get this software from Microsoft at no charge, you will be asked to establish or verify your student status once every 12 months. This process is built into this DreamSpark site itself. Verification of valid student status will enable students from around the globe to download Microsoft developer and design tools at no charge. Note: You must be at least 18 years old or have otherwise reached the age of majority in the place (province, state or country) where you live, or if not, your parent or legal guardian must accept the Microsoft DreamSpark software license terms on your behalf, in order for you to download and use the software

Wings3D

Wings3D is free software used to model 3d objects which can be used for many applications, games, presentations, etc. Although it may not be as complicated as other 3D modeling programs, this one is nice enough to deserve a spot on this website. Click here for more information.

Test Server

Today, was a very successful day! A number of great things have happened today, David has gotten the server to run correctly, and you should be able to join without much of a hassle. I, (Siraj) David, and Spyko have gotten a start on testing the client. A number of ideas have also come up, from Spyko and David, for example, we now are working on a stamina system, meaning if you run or swim for to long your character will slow down. Also note that the client testing is only for our private users, anyone intrested in helping test the client should message David Brown. We also have fixed some bugs that we found almost instantly. Anyways thats all for today.

Private Test Server for Lucent Stones

Everyone who is currently helping me with the Lucent Stones project will now be able to login to a private test server. Although there is not much going on here, it will give the team a feel of how the real game may actually turn out to be and the potential the game engine has.

Please view the private forum on the discussion board for more information on joining this test server. For those who would like to join our volunteer team, please send me an email.

dbrown30@gmail.com

I look forward to testing out how this works with some of you!

Guests on Forums

Although it is very simple for us to eliminate spam on the board, we have taken an extra step to stop unnecessary posts made by guests, or people who have not registered on the forums. From now on, guests may only post on existing topics and will not be able to create new ones.

If off-topic posts appear as posts, we will simply disable this feature as well and require everyone to register an account first.

Chrono Symphonic

Chrono Trigger is definitely one of my favorite games of all time. There have been several game projects that have tried to recreate some of the fun aspects for the game, but most of all of the major ones have been stopped by SquareEnix.

However, there is a completed project of a cinematic interpretation of the soundtrack from Chrono Trigger called Chrono Symphonic. I have added a link to it in the right menu under the inspiring game projects because it's just that awesome. There are two CDs worth (and even printable lables if you want to put them on the CDs and case).

All in all, if you are a fan of Chrono Trigger or music recreation, this is definitely something you would like to check into.