I’m a big fan of the steampunk trend or genre, be it in books, games or movies. I collected here a collection of the most beautiful examples of steampunk inspired gadgets.

According to Wikipedia, Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction and speculative fiction, frequently featuring elements of fantasy, that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used — usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England — but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of “the path not taken” of such technology as dirigibles, analog computers, or digital mechanical computers; these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or with a presumption of functionality.

Steampunk is often associated with cyberpunk and shares a similar fanbase and theme of rebellion, but developed as a separate movement (though both have considerable influence on each other). Apart from time period and level of technological development, the main difference between cyberpunk and steampunk is that steampunk settings usually tend to be less obviously dystopian than cyberpunk, or lack dystopian elements entirely.

Do you know any resources for steampunk art? Or steampunk game design?

An unknown virus has destroyed almost the entire human population. Oblivious to the true nature of the disease, the only remaining survivors escape to the sea. In great ships, they set off in search of uninhabited land. So begins the exodus, led by one man…

Official web site: http://www.thearkfilm.com/

It’s a bit late, but for those who haven’t seen the movie here it is.

Source: http://rathershort.com/movies/ark

I usually don’t write about games, not on Blog Tycoon, but this caught my attention as I’m working on a game myself. It’s not about the action, it’s about the atmosphere, skeleton movement, visual FX and overall impression.

The game is pushing about four million polygons more than Halo 3 overall, we were told, with a completely re-written animation system and A.I. The result, Bungie hopes, will be a much more realistic world to look at and be involved with. From the stills and footage we saw, it’s on track to deliver — the game looks phenomenal. It promises to sound great, too, as every sound effect has been re-recorded.

joystiq.com

Textures and lighting are impressive with separately-modelled bolts sitting proud of the girders they support and general background textures looking much less garish than previous Halo games. The guys talked about how this was to be a darker story, a more human story and that is reflected in the surrounding visuals.

Where the game really impresses, though, is the character and weapon models. They zoomed the camera into an assault rifle (which has been redesigned, along with new weapons added – Needle Rifle, with scope, anyone?). The serial number was clearly visible. It’s hard to describe and they wouldn’t let anyone film or take photographs but the rifle model looked completely real. I know that may sound like hyperbole but I mean every word. It looks real.

thesixthaxis.com

And here are my particles tests on my alpha, not-yet-developed game:

No description, no teaser video yet, but I’m heading in the right direction.

I was looking for some inspiration the other days for some pixel art tycoon city, and bumped into these absolutely perfect pixel art drawings. Shared.

Also, check out this cool Hong Kong pixel map.

I also remembered the good ol’ days when I was programming Dawn, the RPG browser game. And this brings back more ideas. Do you remember Illumia RPG?

You might have noticed a new banner in the sidebar, the one with “My work available at TurboSquid”.

Yes, I decided to upload my 3D work to TurboSquid. It’s a small part of everything I’ve done during time, but I’ll fill everything in for 3D fans.

TurboSquid has been named as Autodesk® Seek’s exclusive marketplace provider for the purchase of user-generated 3D content. TurboSquid will provide marketplace services for 3ds Max, Revit, Maya, Softimage, AutoCAD, Mudbox and other Autodesk application files.

Again, regarding 3D work, check out my YouTube channel.