Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Assassin's Creed Ubiday's Trailer...



OK everyone, as many of you know I have been putting in a lot of extra hours into work, the reasons besides the project coming to a close can now be revealed. I have been one of the people helping out on this trailer.

The trailer, has been worked on by the team, and I know that their intention was to show just how beautiful the game can be.

This is just a small taste of what will be in the finished product we thought about showing some more, but thought that it would be best to leave people hanging, besides plenty more will be seen at a later date.

You all know what I do so you should be able to work out which bits have been worked on by me, I've been told that apparently I can't say exactly which parts I've worked on, although I'm not so sure about this, but best to be on the safe side. As you can imagine I'm excited that this is now out in the public and I'm sure that there will be plenty more about the game in the coming weeks and months leading up to the release, and can't wait until more can be said about this game.

But for now I hope you enjoy the trailer...

Assassin's Creed Ubidays HD trailer hosted on Gametrailers

Long Weekend with the Purdy’s.

The Purdy’s (Darryl and Stacey) extended their hospitality to Paul, Jolyne and I for the long weekend, I was late for the train as usual so I didn’t have time to buy a ticket so I managed to run and just catch it thinking that I would buy a ticket when the guy came by to check them, so the entire train journey was spent with me anxiously checking the door waiting for the inspector, lucky for me we got to Pointe-Claire without me getting checked.

The weather was perfect BBQ weather, the beers were chilled and the kids, Shamus and Breagha were ready to pull out every book they owned to show us.

Work has been it’s usual hectic self, with some interesting developments that will be revealed in due course, so I welcomed the relaxing time we would be spending on the West Island, and to save us the hassle of traveling all the way back downtown, we were going to stay the night. I had every intention of leaving the drinking until much later on in the afternoon, but as Darryl said “It’s a long weekend, it would rude not too” so by 1 o’clock I was willingly nursing my first Corona of the day.

Like with most get-togethers everyone always gathers around the kitchen table. Stacey was wielding a knife whilst talking to us, and telling me about the time she was given a $100 fine for not having bought a train ticket, not so sure I would of risked the train journey had I known that, but to be honest I was so focused on her knife action that I was too scared to listen to what she was saying properly… well at least until I tentatively took it out of her hand.

So after the we all did exactly what Stacey wanted us to do, and Shamus had managed to get Darryl to read him 2 or 3 stories we headed out to Pointe-Claire village, with Paul trying to give Shamus the benefit of his ‘wisdom’, I like to think of them as Paulizum’s, but the best advice I could give you Shamus… Don’t listen to Paul…

We get to the village for ice cream and swings, bringing back childhood memories of chipping my teeth on a giant rocking horse, and jumping off the swings at their peak into the sand, it were Ace!!! To coin a phrase I used to use as a kid.

Time for BBQ, and the marinated chicken kebabs and hot dogs, I’d been looking forward to this all day, and now all the driving was done and Shamus and Breagha were safely tucked in bed, Stacey and Darryl could let their hair down and have proper drink, the beer and wine flowed, and out came all the sorts of embarrassing stories, maybe its something to do with having kids, but Darryl and Stacey really can tell a story and the more they drank the more the stories came out. The Goonie's gets put on in the background and Stacey continued to hit me, which according to Jolyne means she approves of me, but I have bruises on my right arm now. Darryl fills us in on some Goonie’s facts, and lets just say the film isn’t the same in my eyes, it’s childhood innocence has now disappeared and replaced a new found appreciation for 80’s film effects.

So thanks again for a really relaxing, very adult feeling weekend, it was exactly what I needed to prepare me for the weeks ahead, it was a great way of getting rid of the stress that I’ve felt building the past couple of weeks.

Just a side note, but my camera battery ran out, hence the lack of pictures, but everything I said happened is the truth, and you'll just have to believe me on that one.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Jeff has left the building.

Jeff is the latest one to up sticks and move to what is quickly becoming Ubisoft South "Pandemic" in Brisbane, now Jeff was one of the first people I was introduced to when I arrived, with his bizzare Scotish, Canadian, English hybrid accent I could immediately tell that he didn't take himself too seriously (at least out of work, in work he was forever the professional.

So in the little under 2 years I have seen my original group of Ubisoft friends decemated, Jez, Stoof, Vic, Nick Oroc, Steve many of them enjoying a brief stint at A2M before heading off to new pastures. Leaving Paul, Blake and myself... Wow.

Jolyne mentioned I should do some sort of photo montage much the same as my birthday one back in November, so with a hangover and still gutted that Saima had just left, I thought it was a good time to go through all my photo's from my time here, and Jeff seems to of been prominant, he just looks so bizzare, and interesting to photograph as I'm sure my montage will show.




Take it easy Jeff, good luck in Oz... ya wierdo.

Don't believe me, just check 00:34 on the vid!

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Saima's here too.

For the eagle eyed amoung you, you will also notice in the previous post about Andy and Sha being here that sat in the middle of them was the lovely Dr Nawaz, she had also made the trip to Montreal as she just so happened to have some time off as well. No one comes for ages then everyone comes at once.

This was her second trip out, but this time the weather was a little warmer and there seemed to be a lot less snow than last time, she's also been working really hard and deserves a break more than anyone I know. So I wanted her trip to be a holiday as much for her as I wanted it to be for

It's always great to see her, and we don't see each other nearly as much as I'd like, but thats a whole different story not for public consumtion, it seemed like we crammed in so much over her week here, but the main goal was to just relax, chill and generally hangout, we always have a great time, and I was gutted to see her go, although I seem to be good at hiding it to her face, the trip back to my place always seems a little empty.

So much rest, made me realise how much I should value my none work time, and although I have loads to do before the end of Assassin's Creed I want to make sure that I stike as positive a balance between work and social life as possible enjoying the Montreal spring/summer whilst still working to a level that I feel will produce some of my best animation.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

The Gordons in Montreal



The past few weeks have been hectic as usual, so a welcome break of Andy and Sharon arriving in Montreal, they had always promised to come out so with them actually delivering, and coming out for 4 short days, I wanted to make sure that they had the best possible time.

I think they did??? But it seemed like they got the rough end of a lot of the Quebec hospitality, with them encountering a lot more rudeness from people than I had imagined they would get. But in true British style they seemed to find it quite funny that instead of kindly asking you to repeat a question with being anglophone but faced with a shreeking "WHAT!!!!" instead of a nice polite "Pardon"... But these were just minor blips on an otherwise great time, thanks for coming over guys and will be seeing you again soon.

Some more photos of their visit can be found here.

How Many Visits
Free Webcounter