Mass Effect

As long as I'm praising scores to video games I might as well include Mass Effect.

The game was pretty neat, but the two noteworthy elements were the production design (which is drawn from early 80's sci-fi concepts) and the music.

The score is heavily influenced by 80's classics like Blade Runner, Dune, and TRON. It adds a surreal quality to the game and is very atmospheric and moody on its own.

http://rapidshare.com/files/370233199/Mass_Effect_Score.zip

Merchant Prince

I rarely think about Captain Rondo any more. It's one of those dream projects I had when I thought I was going to be a film maker and was young enough to imagine such things were possible for me. How little I knew.

So I'll devote a section of this blog to detailing story elements and ideas as I think of/remember them. I never had a complete script, just some ideas sketched out in rough form.

I'll get into origins and other specifics later. Right now, the idea I had tonight. For some reason I feel the need to record it.

Ok, I never had my head fully wrapped around the second movie. The main story/bad guy plot shifted straight from the first to the third. The idea being, you thought the bad guy was dead in the first movie, but then we bring him back in the third! I guess they did that with the Death Star though, huh? Turning an idea on it's head? Who knew?

But the second movie was always a little hazy. I had some vague notions that I wanted it to be more character driven than pure action - and I wanted it to be more of a sequel in the vein of The Road Warrior or Temple of Doom, in that we take the main characters and introduce them to completely new environments - and learn a LOT more about them from there.

So I thought it would be neat that since this is time travel/paradox type stuff, why not do something more Star Trek and have the main characters meet themselves? Sort of.

Simply devise a scenario where Rondo meets his present self - IF his home planet had won the war. See, Rondo is living on the fringe of society after his homeworld is defeated. He lies, cheats, steals and cons his way from one situation to the next, barely putting out the last fire (if at all) before moving on to the next. He's bitter and jaded, but not inhuman.

Ok, he's Han Solo. But we never really got to see enough of Han Solo, did we? That's where a lot of this sprang from.

So Rondo's alternate self is a merchant prince. He has wealth, power, a nice yacht, a loving family and oh, yeah - Einstein is his slave.

Einstein is the Navigator/Engineer on Rondo's ship. She was a slave that he won in a game of chance. He didn't really need a domestic and since she kind of tricked him into believing that's all there was to her, set her free. Little did he know that she was a super-genius with advanced degrees in astro-temporal mechanics and dimensional navigation (or whatever). He DID need an Engineer/Navigate at the time, so he hired her on.

Little did SHE know that Rondo didn't really destroy her deed and set her free. He tucked that away for potential future use and destroyed a fake chip/card/scroll with a ribbon on it in her presence.

So here we go a full movie getting to know and love these characters and now in the second movie we're confronted with this mess. Rondo would have turned out to be a pretty great guy had his planet survived the onslaught and...oh yeah. He owns another character we all loved from the first movie. How awkward for everyone involved.

Awkward, indeed, since we were able to sprinkle just the right amount of romantic Moonlighting-style dialogue between the two characters. By the end of the first movie it's clear that there's attraction between them and there may be a chance for these two. This just tosses a wrench into that little scenario and brings out a lot of hidden truths and hurt feelings.

The kids, they love this stuff!

3D Mugs

I've been going through as many tutorials as possible in Rhino 3D. Sometimes the results make me giddy, as is the case here.

The tutorial I was working emphasized color, ambient light and reflectivity. Basically, it involved changing the surface values and transparencies so that you see the difference between, say, a milky, ceramic mug and one made of glass.

Here is the result of changing a couple of values. I had no idea my software was this cool. (Click for a closer view!)

And here's what happens when we lower the lights and change the light emission values on the mugs. Coffee, anyone?

Yeah, I know. It's just a bunch of mugs. But it's a bunch of mugs that I made in my computer! Trust me. This is all leading up to awesome stuff. Baby steps.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura

Here's a little gem from 2001. It's the score to Arcanum, a steampunk D&D style video game - really cool. The music is composed for string quartet, so it's nice and soothing.

If you get a chance to play the game, definitely check it out. Some of the most fun I've had while sitting at a computer.

http://rapidshare.com/files/369086169/Arcanum_Score.zip