Hareesun

v0.2

So i finally got around to making a site that’s actually nice to look at for everyone. Next step now i suppose is getting my portfolio online, and then the v1.0 of the site. Which hopefully when done i’ll be happy with and wont want to change every few weeks. Lets hope.

Under Construction

It’s come to my attention that some viewers are having a hard time seeing the site. With this knowledge i plan on building something a little more user-friendly and much clearer.

Hang tight and come back soon to check it out.

Game Design pt.1

As a kid, i grew up on a strong and healthy diet of Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Brothers and Jazz Jackrabbit. Three of the most iconic and fun video games of the 90’s. Moving up, generation by generation, i’ve always tried to keep up with the latest games console. But it seems this current generation, the PS3 is a little out of my reach. So i figured, why not use what you’ve got, one hell of a powerful iMac.

I did the dirty, and installed Windows through Bootcamp, managed to get that working, sound and visuals all tuned up and ready to roll. Then came the challenge of finding a game beautiful enough to test the waters of what i could do. After asking around and much deliberation, i decided upon Crysis, one of the best rated games, for it’s graphical intensity and sound capabilities alone. Once i finally get the installed, and i’ve picked my jaw up off the floor, i start looking into the games built-in level editor and tools. Very in depth stuff, with some really amazing mods and patches being released all the time it’s quite amazing how expandable by the player & studio the game can be. Almost, inspiring. So i start playing around in the “Sandbox” of Crysis, but it’s all way too busy and over developed. You’d have to read alot of tutorials to be able to understand how to use this things. It’s amazing, but yikes, not exactly user friendly.

So i get thinking, what would it take to build your own game. From the ground up, totally devoted to one platform. The iPhone & iPod Touch. A very accessible device, of which many over the world already own, and a built-in store to boot. With a freely available SDK, hundreds of books and tutorials available, the iPhone is the obvious choice. When Zach Gage released his 2nd iPhone app, Unify, i knew that i had to get working on an app too. After talking to Zach a little, he pointed me in the direction of Open Frameworks and a book, Programming Interactivity. After having played with Open Frameworks a little and reading through the related chapters in Programming Interactivity, all i feel is even more inspired, but now enthused with some knowledge of where to start.

At the drawing board. I’ve been coming up with ideas, story lines and feature models. Got a few pages full in my sketchbook full of level designs and written descriptions of how a game could work. The mechanics and controls. Still, nothing finalised as of yet, but as soon as i’m happy, i’ll be sure to post about.

The Making Of Fantastic Mr. Fox

Possibly my favourite film of the past decade, and i’d never read the book. After having seen the film with my girlfriend on the weekend of it’s release i’ve been raving about it since, so much so that my amazing girlfriend decided to buy me the Making Of book. Which is totally awesome and i recommend as much as i do the film.

But tonight, i bring to you a video edition, just as wonderful as the book, which is just as wonderful as the film. Enjoy.

Link

Climbing The Family tree

After the death of my fathers father, my father decided he was going to find out who his fathers fathers fathers fathers fathers father was. After a month or two of digging through records and phone calls to the other side of the world to people who never knew he existed, an incredibly rough and illegible family tree had been completed.

It was then that I knew there just had to be a better way than the typical “tree” style everyone expects to see. From time to time I’d draw what to others what might look like a city-scape, some form of scientific diagram or a sunrise. My goal was to find a way of presenting alot of quite simple data, but doing it in a very different way. And so I present to you… Family Slice.

This is just the final design as I’ve still obviously got quite a few names to fill in, but I’ll post the complete Slice when it’s done.

DECODE : V&A

“Decode at the V&A showcases the latest developments in digital and interactive design, from small, screen-based, graphics to large-scale interactive installations. The exhibition includes works by established international artists and designers such as Daniel Brown, Golan Levin, Daniel Rozin, Troika and Karsten Schmidt. The exhibition features both existing works and new commissions created especially for the exhibition.” ∞

This, I’m excited for. Definitely going to be visiting the gallery in the new year.

Minted*

I finally did it. I’ve been thinking about purchasing Mint for up to 2 years now, but yesterday i did and now it’s working away at my stats.

Mint is a self-hosted service that provides a very statistically based way of viewing your website stats. To most, this’ll sound pretty dumb, but when you’re  building websites for clients or yourself, it’s always a good idea to be keeping track of the way people access your sites and other information the viewer. On the pulse you could say. This is where Mint  and it’s many Peppers come in. They give you that pulse.

The best way to understand Mint is to take a look. So just click this → to take a look at my installation. Obviously it’s pretty new on my site at the moment, so the stat’s look pretty weak at the moment, but it’ll pick up soon.

You can check this out anytime by clicking the same link in the footer of my site. It’s just down there ↓

Hareesun.co.uk v1.0

Finally a site worth looking at…

I’ve been thinking about actually building myself a usable website for at least a few years now. But as it is for every developer, building yourself a website is always harder than building for others. With client work coming first, and then being indecisive as to how it should look, etc…

But here I am, with my new website, and some real work to talk about. So please, take a click around, and feel free to leave me some feedback through the contact page.

More coming soon. :)