Search results for 'app:weblogs' matching tag 'screenshot'

I Didn't Know You Could Do This in Kodu

mattmac — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Tavishhill2003 is one of the acknowledged masters of Kodu set building. He has completely outdone himself. I pulled these screens from a fantastic new video up on the 'tube. Recommend you go see it there because there is some beautiful dynamic lighting and shakycam work. Out. Stand. Ing.

Honestly, we're still trying to figure out how he pulled some of this stuff off. Video link at bottom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXfovBy1LTA

Kodu Peer Review Process 66% Complete

mattmac — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:00:00 GMT

We're all just sitting around, making games, talking about our incredibly exhilarating / exhausting weekend, and refreshing the peer revew status page every five minutes. It's currently at 66%.

While we all sit around, taking notes, making games, and waiting to clear the review, we've got another desktop for you - a little more abstract, a little dark, a little dangerous... ;)

I love the little worlds floating in space. One of the things we talked about when we started Kodu is those cool little isometric vignettes in Scientific American - like ones that show a little cutaway view of, say, an ocean scene, showing the research vessel on the surface and the diver down below. Cubes of water are cool.

Kodu Released to Peer Review

mattmac — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 05:00:00 GMT

We put Kodu into peer review about one minute ago.

This means that independent developers who belong to Microsoft's XNA Creator's Club will be reviewing Kodu for basic stability, appropriate content, and copyright issues.

If they find a serious bug, we'll fix it and restart the process.

If all goes well, once a certain number of developers sign off on it it will go live for sale on the XBox. The soonest this could happen is Tuesday the 30th as it takes about 48 hours after approval to reach the service.

If we do hit problems, I'll give an update here. We've been so through many different permutations I'd be surprised if we found a bug that took more than an hour to fix.

The team has been working all weekend chasing down all kinds of increasingly tiny fixes. No major last-minute earthshakers, but a few interesting twists.

It's looking really good, but we're all super-tired.

But not too tired for a new desktop!

Once we clear peer review I've got a tour of the sharing system. It's a peer-to-peer sharing system with your friends list. If folks want to swap levels, my gamerTag is RandomWave - feel free to friend me - I'd love to gather cool levels from folks.

Code with your kids

mattmac — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Here's a world I built under my daughter Milena's (5) direction. She sits on my lap and tells me what to build and I build it.

I make some land

"It's an island! Where's the ocean"

I make some ocean. What should be in the ocean?

"A submarine! Make it swim"

"A boat should be there too and follow it"

"Why aren't there trees on the island?"

tree..tree...treee

Should we see from the submarine? I add a clause that if you're holding the left trigger you get the sub's POV.

Eventually we added a hot air balloon, some blimps floating around on the island. I showed her a wall and she insisted "the trees need more privacy" so eventually the wall encircled the island.

Bonus Screens for You

mattmac — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:00:00 GMT

This guy is definitely one of my favorite character designs from Kodu. (Hi Jeremy!)

Programmatic beauty. This wisps are moving in a complex pattern built in five or six lines of Kodu.

One of the latest-generation styles we've been playing with for terrain. Our goal is to support your ideas, but we like to throw in some crazy stuff too. This game, by the way, is played with one button.

2D Platformers

mattmac — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Here's a snap from a sweet little 2D platformer that Brad cooked up to prove out the genre.

The two tricks you need for a side-scroller are:

- lock a characters motion to a single plane parallel to the screen

- lock the camera angle so it can follow a character from a fixed offset

The other key is to use roads as platforms you can jump onto. You can raise all or part of a road into the air.

The look here was also Brad's invention - if you turn out all the lights and choose a bright background, the characters wind up looking like little 2D illustrations. It's very beautiful in motion, particularly when missiles start flying, etc...

A Look at the Load Screen

mattmac — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:00:00 GMT

This is where you go to load up worlds. We had to make it capable of dealing with tons and tons of files, so you have this gigantic list that scrolls left and right. We put the files into "buckets" (these are across the top) for the major categories. There's another layer of categorization in the filter menu ("show".) This gives you a bunch of tags for different genres so you can keep your creations organized.

The blue arrow on the big tile shows you that this world is marked for sharing. This means that when you enter a sharing session other folks will be able to download this level from you. More on sharing later...

So Busy, So Here's a Screenshot

mattmac — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Click here for newer Kodu posts

I'm doing final content passes as we get ready for release, which is the end of June. (Exact day TBD)

Thought I'd snap this nice picture of one of the "old school" sample levels, Pandemica. I like the details here. Mark and Stephen sure do nice shader work.

Action Shot and VFX

mattmac — Sat, 09 May 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Just happened across this freeze-frame today and thought I'd share it. It's the cycle jumping and doing a crazy Alex pose while he's at it, and I just liked the silhouette. This image is also fun because of how many image effects it shows in a single frame:

- the heat wash from the exhaust is distorting behind him

- his tail light is doing a visual bloom

- left tail pipe is out of focus

- saucer has a glowing aura

- both are showing the old-school "RKO Radio" effect

The rock in the background was just thrown by the cycle. I'm having fun with rocks (and rock storms) today.

water creatures

mattmac — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:00:00 GMT