I have never heard of Pocoyo (but I googled it) and they are kinda similar but any simplistic cartoon 3d character is gonna share a lot of similarities.

started on a new character. Time to unwrap and texture

Probably overambitious Rpg..Still fun though.

thats dope! I like the 3d cobble-stoney stuff.

I just finished on figuring out a cheap and easy rim-lighting solution for Zero Gear, you can read up on it here:
http://nimblebit.blogspot.com/2008/02/rim-lighting-extravabonanzathon.html

I know it's not pixel art or extreme low poly, I don't fit in well 

Shows the stark contrast of the kind of success the games industry has set itself up for:
http://firstsecondbooks.typepad.com/mainblog/2005/11/revised_strip.html

just finished off the basics of a new track and finished implementing a rudimentary vehicle model for Zero Gear.  Video here -

[Phil's Awesome Ideas INC.]

im starting a new company.

Phil's Awesome Ideas INC.

you need more awesome? call me! for a small fee, i will pull awesome out of my ass.
here's a free preview.

a half-man half-monstertruck ex-CIA vampire must save the world the only way he knows how: with the help of the ROCK.

fixed that for you

The modders may be independent, but the games they modify are still usually mainstream and commercial right?

Mostly I think this shows why all definitions get fuzzy at the edges and trying to defuzz them is silly.

Or perhaps we should take a leaf out of the IAU's book and call modders 'dwarf indies'.

Flash is a very mainstream and commercial product made by a very large company Adobe, does that mean that anybody that makes a game using Flash is not an indie?

Mods using commercial game engines is usually just a technological choice, not an idealogical one.

'Made by gamers for gamers' is a good one, but if you would take that too(?) literally (popular) mods would be 'indie' too. Not sure if I would agree with that.

this is an interesting view, why would mods not classify as indie to you?

To me they fit the bill marvelously.

a couple late nights and many hacked .js files later: a video of our kart customization GUI working in the game

another day, another kart.

thank you so much for this resource frosty, so many of us don't know where to start with a lot of the things you cover here.  I haven't gotten to the point of registering a company yet, but I have recently started working on my indie project fulltime, and I am going to use the healthcare site you mention to help me find some coverage.  Thanks!

I love the visual style of both of those!!  They feel very warm and cozy.

made a new little driver dude

to model stuff or for the game?

I use maya for modeling and we are using ogre3d for rendering.

*edit* more stuff

been experimenting with rimlighting a lot after playing super mario galaxy:  a video of it on one of my tracks:
http://nimblebit.blogspot.com/2007/11/rimlighting-test-2.html

and a little gif showing the difference

I think PR is usually not the on the main list of things to focus on with most indie developers, for our game I want to make sure we develop a brand and a community, so I spent all day putting together a blog which I'm hoping to update frequently with our progress. 

http://nimblebit.blogspot.com/

I enjoy the challenge of squeezing as much character and life out of a limited set of technology.  Sometimes having all the latest shaders and complete bump-mapped, ray traced, technology feels like brute forcing something that took a little bit more of a human artistic touch to pull off before.  In any case someone will always be doing amazing looking things with every new technology they can get their hands on.

I'm very curious about the technology and art direction behind galaxy as well, tonight I was actually working on rendering a scene I already had with rim lighting inspired by mario galaxy:





one thing in particular I notced from an art direction standpoint is that the rim lighting really shines in galaxy because almost everything is rounded, which gives things a chance to show off a highlight from most angles.

that sounds synonymous with freelancing then.  What about a situation where a company  might need direction on how to set up a graphical pipeline, or needs to know what kind of people with what kind of skillsets they need to hire to complete a job.  Companies that are new to games space or such.  Something that requires the direction of someone with experience rather than the actual task to be completed.  I've always thought that consulting was dealing more with that kind of thing.

I have a fair amount of experience as a games artist, and in the near future I might be considering offering my knowledge and experience for hire.  The only problem is that I'm not really completely sure what exactly consulting entails.  I have heard of people doing it all the time, but I haven't ever seen exactly what tasks or information these consultants provide.  Is it as simple as answering the client's questions for a fee?  Does it require actually completing work for the client?  If so, why isn't it simply freelancing?

Anyone with some experience or knowledge on consulting in the games space that could shed some light on this would be much appreciated.

thanks!  I've done a lot more but I don't want to spam this thread with images.  I have more stuff displayed here

Some of the trends I am most excited about in gaming are digital distribution, free-to-play model games, and models where the public are the gate-keepers.  I love the direction of things such as Steam and Kongregate.  Kongregate to me is a shining example of a new way for game authors to monetize their efforts where there previously was no easy avenue to do so.  Steam, catering to larger more traditional games - is less open, but has the same philosophy of  bringing developers one step closer to their audience, as well as a neater way to manage a collection of executeable games.  So there is Kongregate on the small end of the spectrum, serving up free, fast, flash games - and there is Steam on the opposite end, serving up commercial larger scale executeable games.

The question I am posing is: is there room in the middle?  What if there was a steam-like service that had a large collection of free to play executeable games?  Like Kongregate, all these games would be free to play, but there would be ads displayed somewhere in the process, with the authors of all these games getting a majority cut of the revenue.  Brainstorming, here are some bullet points that this distribution method would feature:

- One application for all features:  As with Steam, all applications and other functionality are launched through one app.

- free to play: free, free, free.  No (financial) barrier to entry.

- as few gate-keepers as possible:  like Kongregate, almost any game is accepted into the system and the system is entirely transparent.

- democratized content:  the community decides what games are showcased through the system

- easy to use:  browse, click, download, play, all stored in one place (like Steam).

All these things have been done and are being done currently, in different places and in different pieces.  What this platform's goal would be is to take all the free indie downloadable games that are sitting in their own small dusty neglected corners of the internet, and creating an opportunity for authors to monetize them, while at the same time and perhaps more importantly display them somewhere they can get many eyeballs at once, all the while fostering a community around them all.

What do you think?  Is there any demand for something like this?  Is this already being done as described?  Is it even technologically possible given the wide gamut of dependencies and such needed for downloadable games?

lastest thing I have finished for my kart game: