Got this from Geoffry.com.au. There is a 3D Studio Max conference in Fremantle, Western Australia. They'll be presenting and covering all the new features of 3D Studio Max 5, with special guests, open discussions, and other funky stuff. It doesn't cost anything to attend, so if you've got nothing to do on the 27th of AUGUST in W.A, you might want to check it out..
Ok, I was pretty floored when I heard that there was a new Rygar happening, but this has made my day. System 3 (yes, they're still around! although they call themselves Studio 3 now) have been working on... The Last Ninja 4 !!! I absolutely loved the series on the C64!! There are tonnes of screenshots here, and this is the place to find out news for this title. Also, here's a page of info on what the game is about. It sure does look like a Last Ninja title, with some very familiar settings (…
Gamersclick has a review of LeMans 24 Hours on PC. The original Playstation 2 game by Melbourne Houses' racing game was ported by Torus.. Some not-so-good words about the conversion though. Read the article here!
Games Domain has an article about Activation's Activate conference which was held in Dublin recently. They had this to say about Doom II on the Gameboy Advance, which was done by Torus.
"Doom II on GBA was frankly amazing. It was fast, smooth, playable and managed to capture the sheer feel of the PC original all on a little screen. Monsters were more plentiful than the first title on the handheld, yet Nintendo's machine barely battered an electronic eyelid."
Sounds good! Read the article here.
Australian IT has another article about the booming games industry. It details the industry in Australia, how many students there are at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE) and what opportunities they have for the future. And it looks good.
"This industry's going to blow right apart, even triple in size. At the moment, the games industry is taking in more money than the box office.
"People are looking for more value for their money, like buying a game rather than going out to see a…
I know you like freebies. We all like freebies. Here are some freebies..
"What does the SimbiontMAX 2.1 package include?
SimbiontMAX 2.1 includes 2 plugins (1 material and 1 map), 10 shaders, 24 procedural maps, 110 procedural materials, example scenes, and an html user guide covering the plugins, shaders, maps, and usage methods."
It's for 3d Studio Max 3, 4 or 5. You used to have to pay for it, but now you don't! Go get the freebies..
3D Gamers has just put up a good selection of new pictures from Blue Tongue's Jurassic Park: Project Genesis game. If you want to see the pics, click here!
Activision has officially announced Doom 2 for the game boy advance, to be developed by Torus Games.
"DOOM II supports co-operative play so gamers can team-up to rid the world of hellspawn, or go head-to-head with up to four other players in classic Deathmatch mode where it's every marine for himself."
Read the planet gamecube article here.
I found this months ago, but I have to mention it. It's an essential file for any modeller using 3d studio Max and Character Studio 3. Madcap Studios (from Sydney) have an awesome free download from their site - it's a motion capture file called skinning test.. what the model in that file does is a set of limb and body stretches so you can spot any edges that need turning, or any joints that need fixing / extra polygons to be added. As I said, it's an essential file, so go get it here :)
Games sure are gonna look cool in a couple of years, although the numbers thrown here may remind you of when Sony blurted something like a 75 million polygon per second Playstation 2.
"It will have the ability to do north of 1 trillion mathematical calculations per second, roughly 100 times more than a single Pentium 4 chip running at 2.5GHz...
IBM is expected to begin manufacturing Cell (the name of the chip) as soon as 2004 or possibly early 2005.. "
The Zdnet article here. Slashdot has it…
