EBUCs Artwork

Ok, here's the EBUCs game logo and the EBUCs promo poster.

EBUCs are a lot more diverse than those shown, of course, but the composition is busy enough as it is and painting all the accessories etc would end up in a very cluttered picture. For that reason, I went with something closer to Matt's original designs.

EBUCs look ridiculously sweet and happy, I know. I got a sugar overdose painting this, but I wanted something bright and colourful to catch the eye and also something that would look good as a PC wallpaper or poster on someone's wall.















I tried to make the logo funky and humorous. I left it in b/w but it can be easily customized color-wise.


Feedback please!

~Olympia

Library Symbols

non animated mock up

that's where i'm at so far!
- Iain
(The video should become available soon, youtube's doing it's weird processing thing)

Snow Boarding Mock in RL

Hand Glider

Thought it would be cool if he could fly around the room....

making some props, struggling with ideas... I thought jousting might be cool.

Ideas would be welcomed.

Wee dude to animate

He doesn't move yet, that's the next step
- Iain

Symbols for Iain

I'll do others if they don't really work with your animation...

will upload the psd to docs if you want to use 'um

Yeah...

just realized i did the same as ken, buggr. been playing around with rendering stuff.
- Iain

HalfPipe

Coulden't help me self!
- Iain

More Legs

like / no like?
I'll rig the ones people like, their just geometry at the moment.
- Iain

Ebuc Snowboarding Animation

There are quite a few problems... I'll fix them one day.

Ebuc Snowboarder from Kenneth Stewart on Vimeo.

artist meet

had a wee chat yesterday, talked about the accessories for the ebucs.
when you start the game and make your own ebuc, the stuff that donna has done so far is good! we can stick with that.
the other extra stuff would be bought with real money / points earned in the game.
the stuff would be to increase the ebucs fitness, intelligence, creativity and beauty.
fitness:
tread mill
hula hoop
trampoline

Intelligence:
Books
glasses
manacle
bubble pipe

Creativity:
Easel
musical instruments (piano, drums, triangle, kazoo)
garden

Beauty:
hats
dress up stuff

feel free to add more!
their was also a thought about having some things to be cruel to the ebuc, like slap / whip / flail? the girls weren't too keen on this!
also, each item has 3 levels - home made, cheep and expensive. the ebuc gets more out the pricey ones...

Ebuc moods would be on a sliding scale with 7 levels, if it reaches the happiest mood it might float away and if it reached the saddest / angriest level it would run away then if you started another ebuc and entered it into a competition the old one would come back and sabotage it to get revenge.
also, the combination of features you choose for the ebuc at the start would result in it tending towards a specific mood, kind of simulating a personality. the moods could be shown in the shade of it's colour - vivid meaning it's happy, dark = sad / angry, pale = ill

also if you didn't sign into the game for a while the ebuc would get sad/ depressed/ suicidal

a few more ideas were floating around but not discussed much - you could send it away to ebuc school, send it to a friends house (if an ebuc was sent to your house you would have more to play with but the owner would have to trust that you would treat it right and not start slapping it about loads)

- Iain, Donna, Suzanne, Olympia

Website Update

Hi all,

I am making good progress on the website template and I hope to have a rough version published by the weekend. Everyone can then give feedback on improvements etc...

I thought it would be a good idea to promote the concept with some social networking, so I am going to set up an ebuc facebook page, flickr page ( for artwork display), twitter page etc... all with links back to the website:-)

- Suzanne

Art Style

Hey,

I have made a little character customiser in flash that I will upload to the blog now.

Obviously the bitmaps need to be swapped so they look better and the body parts fit together etc. So I would like to be able to meet up with the artists at some point to to discuss the style of characters before I go any further.

It would also be cool if everyone could think of some ideas for "accessories" for the ebucs that can be unlocked and give them special attributes that I could add in to it and what these attributes may be. Would need some info on specifics of the "competitions" or assault courses - whatever we decide on - for this, so it all fits together.

Cheers - Donna

meet 8th

still good, need to meet up some time next week and get stuff moving faster.

iain - free anytime except tuesday morning

james - free anytime before 5pm monday, before half 4 on wednesday

- Iain

someLegs

- Iain

Keyframes of Animation

EBUCs origins etc

I've been trying to come up with an original idea for where the EBUCs came from but since there's little room for political drama in a Tamagochi game, I ended up with the following:

• EBUCs are little aliens, who accidentally destroyed their own little planet far, far away. They landed here and need to be trained to adapt to the new environment/grow strong to fly back. If you decide to give the player some goals, mechanical parts could be the reward for certain challenges and the ultimate goal could be to build a new spaceship or something similar.

• EBUCs are programming code gone very wrong. Some nameless poor chap spent many sleepless nights developing an advanced artificial intelligence but after a computer crash, the file was corrupted and the sophisticated AI in development shattered into hundreds of wacky EBUCs.
• They only exist in virtual space and they still display fragments of intelligence and personality but unlike the original AI that was intended to be serious and knowledgeable (think Cyc) , EBUCs are silly and fun-loving. They like playing games and small rewards make them happy.
• I generally imagine them conscious of themselves and each other, with their likes and dislikes, capable of at least some emotion and possibly reproduction. But they are fragments of unfinished code, after all and that leaves room for interpretation as to how smart EBUCs are and what are their limitations (which, I assume, will be decided according to our limitations, programming wise).

On a side note, here's a nice art style. Take a look around the rest of their website as well. I was thinking about going this direction with the promo stuff. What do you guys think?

~Olympia

meet 29th

They're still lovin this concept!
for next week
James - record intro / in game / ... / music
Iain - build + rig some more assets + charicter
Ken - competition mock up
Matt - video tracking in max with a charicter for an example video
Donna - flash video of making your ebuc
Suzanne - web site
Olympia - background story for the ebucs (keep in mind it needs to be open for the players to create and customize their own ebucs)
Mark - chill


- Iain