My Fantasy

Download our game and play it at: http://www.taomasters.com/downloads/

Taomasters Promotion Video I make (30 second version):

To see more Promotion Video I make, click here

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Introduction: Taomasters is a strategic role-playing game that uses the written Chinese language as the basis of its gameplay. You will play the role of an aspiring Taomaster and the written Chinese characters will be the weapon accompanying your journey.

Gameplay: Written Chinese characters are formed by one or more radicals. In Taomasters, you must combine the radicals correctly to fight in battles and solve puzzles.

Story: The story takes place in Tang Dynasty, the golden age of China. You will not only feel the blossoming of creativity in the empire, but also the subtleness beneath the grandeur.

Art: Fluid and beautiful, the visual of the game draws references from Chinese water color paintings as well as Chinese theaters.

By combining unique gameplay, dramatic storyline and stylized art, our team is dedicated to make this game an entertaining, engaging and inspiring experience for players.

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My role: Game Designer/ Concept Artist/ Texture Artist/ Sound Designer

1. Game Design: As a co-founder of Taomasters project, I participate in making gameplay mechanics, story scripts, storyboard.
2. Concept Art: As a main concept artist in this project, I’m responsible for design Characters, Monsters, Environments, Posters/Half-Sheets/Team Business Cards.
3. 2D Animation: I work on environment animation (In 1st scene, the sunshine and fireflies in the forest)and Promotion Videos.
4. Board Game Prototype: For game designer’s convenience, we make a board game prototype for testing the game balance. As the main concept artist, I’m responsible for designing the layout of our board game and leading other artists in our team to accomplish our goal.
5. 3D Texture: To match our Chinese Water Painting Style, I produce cartoon-liked texture for our 3D models in Maya.
6. Sound Design: After our composer passes his original composition to me, I have to work with our audio programmer. I’m responsible for adjusting the balance and making any change needed to the music, to ensure the music are on the right track and fits the feeling of our game.

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Main female character: Cang-Ji: Talented but cold, Cang Ji may appear to be emotionless sometimes.  Although she is a reserved person, the scar on her face seems to tell the story of her painful past.  Deep down inside, Cang Ji has a kind heart that deeply cares about others and the world.

Element: Wood

Main male character: Chen-Xing: Optimistic and friendly, Chen Xing hopes to become a good Taomaster like his companion, Cang Ji.  Although he has lost his memory of the past, he still faces everyday with courage and an open heart.

Element: Human

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Board game prototype

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Game play Video:

The name of our client is under NDA agreement.

Introduction: We are looking for a solution for both navigating 3D world and 2D data, by using multi-touch interface and multi-touch screen. We build our own touch screen, based on FTIR technology, and design creative and intuitive gestures to interact with our software system. My work is to prototype our interface system on paper, and come up with those gestures. In the end of the semester, we use the multi-touch software framework we create, integrating multi-touch hardware interface to present our final presentation.

My role: Interface Designer/ Texture Artist

1. Design: Create 50+ intuitive gestures for users to perform multi-touch inputs to our system; providing FSM diagram storyboard for programmers.
2. Art: Produce textures for 3D objects in Maya and 2 illustration videos to explain our another 2 kernel ideas to our client.

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2 Illustration Videos I make:

1. Virtual on-screen keyboard: Due to the limitation of our time and human resource, we decide to make 2 illustration animations to explain our anther 2 ideas to our client, instead of programming the whole system. The first idea is about Virtual on-screen keyboard System, which allows users to put both palms (up to 10 fingers) on our touch screen and a virtual keyboard will appear accordingly. That’s the way we would like to introduce for improving the typing words on a multi-touch screen.

All the contents of this project are under NDA agreement.

Introduction: We cooperate with SHARP corporation to explore prototypes of cutting edges technologies.

We’re the first Japan-based ETC project. We have 8 persons in total. 5 persons stay in Osaka for the whole semester and 3 persons stay in Pittsburgh. I’m one of the 3 people staying in Pittsburgh. We have a teleconference on Skype on every Monday. The reason why we separate the whole group in 2 different locations is that we can update and get feedback from faculties on both locations more easily. But it also makes our team’s communication more difficult and complicated, such as the 12-hour jet lag and long distance. It’s hard to get response instantly when we need other teammate’s help. The Skype video teleconference sometimes are not stable, which needs us to re-setup the computer and software. Although this project is rough and we encounter many obstacles, we think it’s worthy. Working with Sharp corporation is a precious experience to me personally. We learn how to communicate well across 10000 miles. We learn how to work in different time zones which have 12 hour jet lag. We learn how to work with a bureaucratic-oriented company, which is very different from western culture. Finally, Sharp corporation were amazed by our final product so that they asked for working with ETC students for one more semester.

My Role: Designer/ Texture/Interface Artist

1. design: To develop the prototype with other teammates.
2. Art: Responsible for the textures of our 3D environment. Responsible for designing the interface.

Building Virtual Worlds: Building Virtual World is a course which requires students to create a new world every 2 weeks with different teammates. Because your teammates are decided by the faculty, it forces students to learn how to communicate with the people who they are not familiar with. The schedule is very intense. Usually every team has a presentation in class on every Monday and is able to get feedback from all the people in class.

BVW Show: In the end of the semester, the faculty will choose 10+ best rounds from all the works in a semester to perform publicly. Normally it’ll be held in Carnegie Mellon main campus.

My Role: Designer/ Concept Artist/ Texture Artist

1. Design: Focus on making virtual experiences and produce creative storytelling idea; making interesting game play and organize a complete play testing package.
2. Art: Design characters and environments. Produce 2D animations, and textures in Maya.

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In the 5 worlds I made, 2 of them entered the BVW show:

Round 2 - Monster Training Center: A game to train a horrible monster. The player will play as a giant monster and  learn how does his shadow on the screen interact with the objects in the game. The player needs to either destroy buildings or scare people to progress the game, and eventually fights with the giant robot to save his son — little monster.

Live Video: Monster Training Center on BVW Show:

Round 3 - starry Night: Have you ever dreamed about making your own night sky? Player can choose stars in any color and shape, then rotate, scale and shoot them to the sky. In the end by clipping both hands, all the stars in the sky will start to fall down, performing a romantic 3D animation.

Live Video: Starry Night on BVW Show:

Round 4 - Draco Story: Draco is the name of a blue dragon. People in the village are afraid of him because they think Draco is a evil dragon. In fact Draco has a kind heart and is willing to help human being. This round didn’t enter on the BVW show but I would like to show you the 2D intro animation I make for this round.