Brian Frank | Portfolio

I served as Technical Artist @ the IC² Digital Media Collaboratory for the NER0 project built in the Torque Game Engine. NER0 is the first Real Time Strategy game to feature a truly adaptive system of artificial intelligence that actually learns from its environment. Players can train their robots with a system of rewards and punishments for a variety of behaviors as they explore their surroundings. As each robot individually learns new information, they are subjected to an accelerated form of natural selection in which only the strongest variants survive. From there you can pit your uniquely evolved combat force against your friends in an online multi-player battle!

Link: www.nerogame.org

From 2005-2006 I was contracted by the University of Texas Distance Education Center to produce a series of educational cartoons that would introduce K-12 students to their school curriculum in a fun and engaging way. I did my best to improve each episode by creating music and sound effects beyond the scope of my initial contract as an Animator. The audio additions were well received and my contract was extended to produce music and sound effects for 26 episodes! I had a lot of fun with this project. Click on the link below to see samples of my work.

Link: AskMe Gallery: Sound Design Selections

jPatchwork is a graphical user interface I am programming in Java which allows the user to visually create Csound instruments by creating a flowchart, similar in use to a modular synthesizer. jPatchwork is an open source development project with the primary goal of creating a cross-platform version of the original Patchwork for Windows created by my former electronic music professor Dr. Russell Pinkston at the University of Texas Electronic Music Studios.

Link: jPatchwork @ GitHub

What is Machinima you ask? Well that's the very question we answer in this groundbreaking Machinima film. The audience is guided through the process of creating a work of art in this new medium of virtual film production, taking place entirely within the Unreal Tournament 2004 game engine. "Inside the Machinima" is the brainchild of Jonathan Perry who sought the help of his two best friends to co-produce this hilarious and informative short. Not only was "Inside the Machinima" featured in the 2005 Machinima Film Festival, but it is the first of it's kind to use OC3's Impersonator to generate lip sync animation, and features the voice talent and likeness of none other than... ME! I had a lot of fun contributing to this project which was well received by the Machinima community, and it even landed my buddy Jon a job as Cinematic Designer at Bioware for their upcoming Xbox 360 title, Mass Effect. Way to go guys!! Encore!

Link: Machinimated Studios