0702 Hw 3ds Max - It's my Name ทิวากร

SPECIAL INTEREST - Universe in Thai Beliefs (Tribhum holy scripture)

Besides my interest in history of Thailand, I also have an attention about the Universe in Thai Beliefs which in my opinion is the great resource for developing the Story Structure of RPG and MMORPG game.

The Universe in Thai Beliefs

Prior to the introduction of astronomy and the knowledge of the solar system. Thai people held fast to the stories of the earth and the universe from the holy scripture. The universe, they were told, was vast, with the Sumeru Hill at the epicenter. It was surrounded by seven rivers, running through seven mountains, stretching to the edge of the universe.
On the Sumeru is the Indra’s heaven, where heavenly beings reside. The Supreme God and his followers live on the upper level, while earthlings scatter in the four continents. The one in the middle, Chomphu Continent, is the only resided by those with defilements, committing crimes that condemn them to hell.
The deep belief in universe has great influence on Thai life, which on the force of good and bad deeds in particular. Architects and artists working on religious structures and also refer to the belief, as seen in temple murals, the design plan and the buildings, laid in accordance with the concept of Buddhist cosmology.

Considering from the existing RPG and MMORPG games from the past to present (such as Dungeon and Dragon, Ultima, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Ragnarok Online, MapleStory and World of WarCraft etc.), the Story Structure of all these games are based on the Middle Ages of Europe which begin from collapse of the Roman Empire (476 A.D.) to the 15th century (before the Renaissance), the society was ruled under the Feudalism, Christendom, King, Nobleman, Knight and the beliefs in witch, wizard, evil and myths. Then the characters and props in these games are generally classified as Swordman, Thief, Acolyte, Archer, Mage, Merchant, Warrior and Wizard etc. The scenes often rely on repeatedly places such as Forest, Village, Castle and Dungeon.
In 1994, there was a big change in the Story Structure of the RPG game because of arrival of Final Fantasy VI on Super Nintendo which have changed the story from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolutionary Ages (~1760 A.D.), which have a lot of mechanical and steam engines as the element of game. After this change the Story Structure of subsequence Final Fantasy series have evolved and expanded into the unlimited way. This is the new flavor, new pleasure and new experience for the users.
Actually, the history and the beliefs of the Oriental are also interesting such as in the Tribhum Holy Scripture which was initiated in India (from the Brahman and Hindu) and subsequently widespread to the South East Asia. The cosmology and universe in Tribhum has many spectacular places, beings and social structure, for example, in the Himmapan forest of Chomphu Continent has a lot of amazing beings and creatures originated from imagination of the ancient such as the Waree Kunchorn (the creature which the mixed between elephant and fish) and Sagoon Kraisorn (the creature which the mixed between Sinkh and Bird) etc. These are the great resource for develop the classification system of pets and monsters in the RPG and MMORPG game.

Example of mixing creatures in Himmapan forest.

SPECIAL INTEREST - Story Development, Game and Graphics Design

While working as a game developer at PromptNow Company, I have developed the game project and prepare to present to the Thailand Software Industry Promotion Agency (under the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology) which as known as SIPA, an organization that promote the applications and games development especially the edutainment applications and games that give knowledge and encourage the good culture for the youths. For the game which I have designed, due to my interest in history of Thailand, I chose to design the game that based on the story of Thailand around 100 years ago. When Thailand was called “Siam” and the canals and the rivers are the main channel for communication and transportation (In this era Thailand was mentioned as the “East Venice”). In this period, Thailand was developing in many fields and adopting technology from the western; there were a lot of foreigners which working as architects and engineers. The society was very various due to the blending and contradiction between the traditional and the new culture (In the coast there were a lot of row boats, while in the middle of river there were huge steamships, the trams, horse carriages and automobiles were running on the same road.) In my opinion, this era of Thailand is very attractive and interesting because of there were many cultures, architecture styles and social dimensions.

Thailand around 100 years ago.

The sketches of traditional Thai house.

Modeled with 3DS Max8 using Polygon Tools.

Texture Mapping and Rendering by Mental Ray renderer,
and scene composition test in Photoshop.

This game was design in 2.5D Side Scrolling which allow players to move in both broadly horizontal and vertical direction in order to be easily exploring any places in the scene. The map is divided into the scenes which are connected via the junction. This scenes structure is suitable for map of the big and complex town plan. The scene graphics are combination of the 3D Pre-Rendered and the 2D painting background, while all characters are in 2D painting style.

The Prototype of character animation for defining look and feel.

Prototype of the Character design and animation focus on the players from age 6 – 12 years old. The design begin with the pencil sketch, then scanned into computer and finally painted in Photoshop using Pen Tool, Brush Tool and Matte Painting Technique.

0630 3ds Max - My Abstraction No.1

My first 3ds Max class...mr. cho taught us about the basic of using 3ds Maxsuch as viewport manipulation, basic primitives, object tranformation (translate, rotate and scale),
rendering and also the subobject manipulation for Editable Mesh.After this class we got an assignment to create a 3d scene and render it to the final image.

For me I decided to create something simple but look complicated by using the basic Editable Mesh sub-object manipulation. Begining from a simple primitive box and set the segments to be 6 and then convert it to Editable Mesh. After that select its vertices rondomly and twist its.

Clone the original twisted box and place its all around the scene, set the colors randomly and render it from the Perspective View.

The final result is quite interesting especially the shadow on each adjacent faces of the twisted box.I will call this the "My Abstraction No.1"