(also, if anyone watching or reading this happens to be in need of ANYTHING involving my abilities, hit me up. I’m definitely up for hire.)

ANYWAY, on to the game. Or as of right now, I’ll just say “game.”

I’ve been going to Kennesaw State University for some time now. I’ve also been skateboarding for the greater bit of my life. I skate around campus to speed up my transportation, and I ride longboards mainly, because of their superior handling and speed. In my time riding, I’ve always enjoyed the density of the campus, its abundance of sidewalks and roads,  and the hills and valleys that create so many fun skating routes. I’ve also always had to worry about hitting pedestrians, cars, equipment, etc. while weaving across the grounds at such high speeds.

At the same time, I’ve been studying computer science, hoping to find a career in game development, and doing all things visual in terms of design. This includes 3d modeling, animation, photography, and graphic design. These interests put me on staff in KSU’s Student Media department. During my time as Production Manager at The Sentinel, We needed a high quality vector of the map of the campus for a “welcome” issue. (you know, one of those issues where we say hi to all the incoming freshmen and tell them where all the different things on campus are.) I was given the official campus map, all in AutoCad format, to clean up for use in production.

I exported the vector map and saved it into Adobe Illustrator, and looking at it, I got this idea:

What if someone made a longboarding game where you could skate the campus?

The vectors could easily be imported into Blender, my 3d graphics suite of choice. I popped the data in and i saw how possible (albeit daunting) this could be.

That’s how the idea of “Owl Country” came to be. As a matter of fact, the very name of the project, “Owl Country” only just now came to me as i’m writing about it. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

It’s taken a couple revisions to see how i could correctly and accurately design this virtual campus, (I’ll go into that in later posts.) but I’m at a point now where i think i’ve got a workflow that will allow me to make a highly accurate map of KSU, then use the massive, complete map as a huge open world to skate in, much like San Vanelona in the “skate.” game series

I’ve shown bits and pieces of the map in progress to  friends and family, and they have all said that this could be made into an interactive campus tour that KSU could have available, so that has also become my goal. I want to try to make a map now, of Kennesaw State, of all of “owl country”, with interior and exteriors freely navigable.

Once i get at least the exteriors done, i’ll be importing the map into a game engine (which i’ll figure out eventually) and make the longboarding game I’ve been wanting for so long, as well as all the other ideas that friends have been suggesting to me. This will be a pretty fun adventure, and I hope to learn a lot from it. The things i pick up along the way, I’ll be sure to share on here.

They Might be Giants – Experimental Film

It’s still being grown.

But it exists.

Stick around for awesomeness.