My, my, it's been a long time.
But then again, I guess it's a good thing because it shows I've been busy or at least so lazy that I've been disregarding my most favorite of blogspots! (You decide, my devoted non-fans!)
Anyway, I thought I'd make a little re-introduction / summary of what's been going on.
I'm Corwin VanHook, a budding game developer and programmer going to school at Westwood College in Los Angeles, California. I love playing video games, and I love that feeling of playing god, to some extent, when you create a world that behaves in new and exciting ways. I really love learning more and more about how to make games, and I'm doing my best in my spare time to better myself in that respect, so I hope I'll live up to my expectations of myself.
So I've been at Westwood for a little bit over a year now, and what do I think? Well primarily I've done almost all my general-education, and I'm a third of the way to a Bachelor's degree. Most of my class-time hasn't really regarded my craft thus far, but I'm now taking an intermediate programming class and my schedule looks to be full of primarily 'core' classes (that means all the things regarding what I love).
I've gotten a chance to really make my console programming skills solid, and exercise my skills regarding some 2D game engines (see Torque Game Builder (TGB, T2D)). I've also made some good friends, some of which will be graduating shortly, and it saddens me to see them go after I've barely known them, many of which are (or are going to be) very good programmers and designers.
I've made contacts in the industry through Westwood's inaugural 2D game competition several months ago, and also through Jason Seabaugh, who was the artist on S.P.I.D.E.R. (Jason now works at 7Studios, along with a programmer friend of mine, Tyrus Alexander!).
So all in all, school has been an exciting thing for me. I've had a lot of time to do a lot of cool things and I'm only 19.
On the programming side, I've just now started to make the jump to 3D game programming. It's really a daunting task, and I'm using Microsoft's XNA to soften the blow a little bit and help me understand core concepts better. With no one to really teach me the fundamentals of 3D right now, it's a little bit difficult, but it tastes all the sweeter.
Here's an example of my first 3D renderring (found the dinosaur on turbo squid's free section). A symbol of one of my first triumps in the area ;P
On other fronts, my brother just graduated LA Film School and finished his directorial debut with his thesis project: A Warrior's Death. It'll be on youtube shortly, and I'll let you all know.
I promise to post relatively soon with more 3D updates and all that goodness.
Write at you later,
~Corwin
