Friday, October 31, 2008

happy halloween from the dreamhive!!!


on wednesday of this week, wes and i decided to step out and attend a really cool get together that our friends at profile east put together. it was a halloween party at a great murder mystery theatre here in orlando called slueth's mystery dinner shows. wes and i were also invited to talk about our studio and show some of the stuff we've been up to. well, i feel it was a huge success and something worthy of a blog post! if anything, as you'll see, it definately is perfect for a halloween blog post.



(from left) gary davis--autodesk 3D animation and compositing specialist, me--goober, wes grandmont III--cool guy, rick pumphrey--autodesk territory manager for southeast america

there were around 80 people in attendance and our demo really seemed to please. wes and i have done several talks, demos, and classes seperately...but never together. i have to say that i think we work well together;) wes stood up front with the mic and talked about the studio while i got set up. he gave a little backstory about our work on the iron and the maiden project(the chase massacre) while i provided a little color commentary. ya see...i like to think i'm funny. once i was set up we showed footage from the chase massacre. people were really floored and applauded quite a bit when it was finished.

wes then talked about squish squash--our upcoming iPhone game--while i showed a slide show of mathias' artwork for the game. some stuff we've posted here, other stuff that's brand spankin' new. don't worry, i'll be sharing mathias' new artwork for squish squash this weekend.

after that i added to our squishy halloween themed presentation by providing a little splatter. i talked about our current work on namco's upcoming revival of the original survival horror game and huge cult hit...splatterhouse. we're helping our friends at bottlerocket with this game by providing character art and animation. i did a quickie demo on how to model and texture brains on one of the zombies we'd modeled for splatterhouse. things went smoothly as i showed off some of the coolest features of mudbox 2009. finally, we showed something extra special. an exclusive world premiere teaser for splatterhouse!!

see, when i told the guys at bottlerocket that we were doing this halloween themed demo for the studio...they proved to be a very generous client indeed. they allowed us to show artwork for one of the many zombies we created for the game and then they surprised us with the opportunity to show an exclusive video that was only going to be available one other place. it was awesome and was received very well by the crowd.

after the demos, we were all treated to dinner, free drinks, and a very, very entertaining murder mystery show.

we would like to thank the folks at profile east for giving us this great opportunity and we'd like to thank bottlerocket for the great video.

now, as our little halloween treat for you folks, take a peek at the exclusive trailer for yourselves...
Click me
click on the image to view the preview.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Squish Squash



is it better to crush your enemies? or squash them? once you get your grubby fingers on Squish Squash...the answer will be clear.

"what is Squish Squash?" you may ask.

well, the short answer is that it's the upcoming iPhone/iTouch game currently in production at The Dreamhive.

the long answer...well, it's long and i have artwork to create. plus it's a lot more fun to see than read about. so, we'll save the long answer for later when we plan on treating you guys to some gameplay footage.

however, i wanted to take a moment and hit you guys with some killer pre-production artwork by mathias.

enjoy and make sure to keep popping by because we plan on sharing all kinds of goodies with you guys as we work diligently on Squish Squash.

fun to say...ain't it? Squish Squash.

heh, heh...

even more fun to play!


Squish Squash :)



Thursday, October 16, 2008

join the cause with roxy calhoun!!


here at the dreamhive we love us some new IP. this has been one of the things we've been putting a great deal of effort into the past few months. as a result, we have some great new ideas to share with you folks.

having said that...meet roxy calhoun.

in the 1940s a group of daring young women did some-thing women weren't supposed to do then: they flew fighter planes, bombers, and every other kind of plane the army had. they were WASPs: Women Airforce Service Pilots and they were some of the bravest, unsung heroes of world war II.

roxy was one of these daring pilots. an orphan raised in small southern towns, roxy learned early that no one was going to hand her anything. she had to earn it. growing up in the south, she developed a tenacity and moral fortitude that served her(and her country) well in her life.

she left the south as a young woman and made her way to new york working her way up within the ranks of the booming newspaper trade. she became well known as a fast learner and someone able to dig up any news she puts her mind to. this reputation landed her a special assignment in hawaii. one that had her reporting on the growing unrest in the area.

following the advice of a trusted friend, roxy became a pilot to have better access to the hot spots around the pacific. she was literally flying high and reaping the benefits of her hard work and go get 'em attitude. she had no way of predicting how her idealistic world and newfound sense of freedom would get blown to bits.

when the japanese attacked pearl harbor on the morning of december 7, 1941, roxy watched from a small training plane in the sky...

...the very next year she was one of the first women to join the WASPs.

the story of how she became a WASP is well known. exactly WHAT she did for america during the war is not. in fact, roxy thought the secrets of her past would stay hidden forever and she would fade away secretly. as years passed, she became more certain that the fact that she was one of america's greatest unsung heroes would never be discovered. that is...until her grand-daughter, aspiring to become a journalist like her grandmother, was able to locate some of roxy's journals.

coming soon...the dreamhive invites you to join in the investigation and discover exactly what this daring dame did for her country.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

the dreamhive is getting touchy feely!



The Dreamhive has become an official developer for iPhone games. We received word this past Friday and are now hard at work on getting our first game "Project Squish Squash"(game title TBD) out the door in time for Christmas.

The Dreamhive chose iPhone/iPod Touch as the platform for our gaming debut because we feel with iTunes and the App Store it’s the quickest way for us to deliver awesome games directly to folks.

Expect to see fully immersive worlds wrapped around fun and addictive game play. We're just all kinds of excited that we've found a perfect match for our ideas.

stay tuned...in the meantime, check out one of Apple's ads for the new iTouch.

Friday, October 3, 2008

the dreamhive creates cinematics for nerf n-strike



the dreamhive is proud to announce our involvement in the upcoming super-hot nerf n-strike wii game. we were fortunate enough to get to work with some collegues at EA-Salt Lake on this kid friendly first person shooter that's coming out in November exclusively on Wii. this was a great experience for us because we got to do character and background design along with full in-house production on the cinematic cut sequences. the co-founders of the dreamhive all have worked with the studio's art director, dustin hansen, in the past. therefore, he had no problems trusting us to focus internally on the art direction for the cinematics while he focused on the game. after some initial art direction and feedback during concepting and design stages...we were set loose on the project with the task of making these things cool. it was a BLAST!!

you can judge for yourselves on the outcome in November when the title launches...however, until then, here's a taste of what to expect from the game and what you'll be treated to with our cinematics.

we'd like to thank our friends at EA-Salt Lake for providing us with this awesome sneak peek!