This post is dedicated to the Portuguese game developers and aspiring game developers! 
GameDev-PT.net has a new layout and new restructuring of the forum, not only that, we also opened the Knowledge Box section again and we’re slowly bringing the good old video tutorials for game art, and other topics as well.
In the future, we also intend to bring new tutorials in, that covers more modern ways to make game art, etc.
I’d really love to see the Portuguese GameDev scene to increase it’s pitty numbers, so guys, there’s no excuse now!
Hey guys!
Been a while I haven’t posted anything here, and the main reason for that lies on this very own post so I hope it makes up for my absence of posts on my blog! 
Crysis 2, the game I’ve been working on for almost a year now here in Frankfurt, Germany. Amazing how fast time passes when you’re doing something you love, time really is relative to the observer.
The project is shaping up rather well, I’ve been mainly working on design-friendly assets, some Environment Art and Level Art (Level Beautification or Set Dressing), I hope that when we ship Crysis 2, I’ll be able to post some of the props I did, and in-game screenshots, for now I’ll leave you here with the first Crysis 2 Official Trailer, and a few screenshots that we made for the media a couple of months back and we had a lot of magazines covers with those!
Website: http://www.sosnewyork.com/
Hey guys.
Here’s a small asset I did, once again for a competition over at the awesome community Game Artist!
Crysis 2 ~ First Trailer and Screenshots »« Interview ~ Photoshop Portuguese Magazine aPS
If you’re into Photoshop magazines, and you live in Portugal, make sure to check out the latest issue of the Photoshop Magazine aPS #15.
Some pictures from my portfolio are being showcased, and a 8 page interview where topics such as games industry, photoshop usage in the games industry, tips, etc are covered.
Thanks to Paulo Sales and everyone in the magazine for the interest in my work!
Cheers!
Hey guys.
Few weeks ago, I participated on yet another speed texture competition, which I am also proud to say it got first place!
By the way, some people asked me for the high polys, so here it is, the full thing! 
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This is the source files for my entry on speed texturing competition at game-artist.net
http://www.game-artist.net/forums/speed-texturing/10170-stc-43-june-14-june-21-exterior-wall-9.html#post95965there’s everything in there, .MAX with the original high poly, the low poly (just a plane
and I’ve also included the original PSD files for all the maps. I’ve resized them to 1024*1024 tho,
as the originals were 2048*2048, they got to big to pack it into a RAR file.I used xnormal to bake my original piece, but if you select the plane on the .MAX file It’s already set up
to render using Max’s baker.You’ll need XOLIUL viewport shader to properly view this in Max’s viewport, I’ve placed it on the RAR as well,
just in case. (Although, you wont have parallax mapping on it, that’s why I used marmoset to submit my final pic)This is it, keep in mind of course, that [U]I’m sharing this solo for your learning![/U]
I’m all for freedom of information and transparency, so I hope I encourage others to do the same
and share their workflows!Be nice!
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Download: http://rapidshare.com/files/249054816/HP_STC_wall.rar
Interview ~ Photoshop Portuguese Magazine aPS »« Environment Art ~ Sci-fi Assets
Hey guys! It’s time I update the blog with some stuff I’ve been working / practising on.
I just had 3 days of vacations, which I placed them to good use, and practise hard surface texturing (metal), folowing a couple of tutorials on the internet, like this one for sub-d modeling, or obviously Stefan tutorial on how to make good metal, also the awesome Texturing a Metal Crate tutorial by racer445.
For this one I started up with a high poly, inspired by Doom3 style.
Here’s the normal map, baked from the high poly, onto a simple rectangular box.
Then I jumped to the texture painting, from left to right. Diffuse, Normal Map and Specular map. I could have use parallax on it, (height map) but I guess the normal map already does a great job giving depth to the texture.
And the final piece!
A sci-fi prop, based and inspired on Doom3 style as well.
And the texture sheets:
And, the final piece:
Exterior Wall ~ Speed Texturing »« Venturing into a new future..
As some might know, a few months back I’ve been at Crytek’s offices in Frankfurt, Germany, for a on-site interview.
I really enjoyed those brief days. Frankfurt is a beautiful city, I had the opportunity to get to know some people I only knew from MapCore forums and to see the next Crytek project.
Although, obviously I can’t talk much about it, needless to say I was speechless with what I saw!
Not only the project, but also the team and the offices are very nice. I’ve been offered the position of Level Artist, and I’ll start in July! Can’t wait to get started, wish me luck…
Although, like we say in Portugal, not everthing is roses. It’s not easy to leave your girlfriend, friends, family, old job, culture and life behind, but It’s the price to pay for one to pursue his dream, there are some oportunities in life, that we just cannot say “no” to! And I’m sure I won’t regret this, games and game art are my passion, and I’ve been doing it for more than 5 years now, and I intent to keep on doing it, and keep on growing professionaly!
I don’t want to finish this post without mentioning two other things, my beloved girlfriend who I have to thank for the comprehension, and of course Seed Studios, where I worked on Under Siege, the project I’ve been working on for the last year and half. (Schedule to be released somewhere around September/October on Platstation3 Store, make sure you get it and support the small but constantly growing Portuguese games industry)
I have the utmost respect for those guys, I’ve learn’t a great deal on my time there and I hope everyone will be satisfied by the work I’ve made there! It was an honor, and I’m going to miss you all, keep on rocking guys!
Environment Art ~ Sci-fi Assets »« Vulcano ~ Another fan made video
Here’s another fan made video of my map Vulcano, thanks to crysis modding community member HomelessLD for making yet another awesome video!
Thanks a lot!
Enjoy!
Venturing into a new future.. »« Aliens SFAM ~ Competition Entry
Hey there guys! Me, Lee and Buddy finally finished working on this scene, right on time for the competition!
It has come a long way since I started this small project, then Lee joined along and after a few weeks Buddy joined in as well. Thing is, I’m so glad they did cos I don’t think I would make it on my own, it was a very ambitious scene!
But here it is, dead line for the competition is finally over and here is what we submitted, enjoy!
I would also want to thank Honza Rükr (creator of the website, Aliens Papercraft) who has helped us providing really great reference material for us to work with, he was a valuable help!
Moodboard
Primary Screenshot
Click to see wireframe image
Secondary Screenshot
Click to see wireframe image
Diffuse Map
Specular Map
Normal Map
Alpha Map
Credits:
Helder Pinto
Hélder Pinto – Online Portfolio
e-mail: helderhp”@”gmail.com
Lee Amarakoon
Lee Amarakoon | Level Designer
e-mail: gizmosan”@”gmail.com
Wojtek Starak
Wojtek Starak – Online Portfolio
e-mail: buddy_gman”@”hotmail.com
Honza Rük
(References)
http://aliens.humlak.cz/
Vulcano ~ Another fan made video »« Scene for a Movie ~ Aliens (Update #2)
Here’s another small update from our work. We got 10 days to finish this scene, and so much stuff yet to do… Crunch hours awaits us.
Enjoy the updates, all WIP stuff of course!
(Again, to see more up to date progresses of this scene, check the original thread at game-artists.net)
Ground texture I made especialy for this scene:
PS. Thanks to some websites that have been making articles about our work, we really apretiate that we are getting the attention.
But, keep in mind that although that I was the one that started this, this is not MY work alone. There’s 3 of us working on this, Lee3Dee, Buddy, and me (HP).
Aliens SFAM ~ Competition Entry »« Scene for a Movie ~ Aliens (Update #1)
