Haku: Spirit Storm - Winnah!

The results are in and I’m happy to announce that Haku has won a prize in the latest MochiAds contest for best integration of the Freespin3D plugin. There were around 600 entries in the contest and even though not all games had to include the Freespin3D plugin, B and I are pleased with the result.

Check out the contest page and the other winners here
For the press release on Reuters go here

If you’ve not yet given Haku a try, find it here.

3 Responses to “Haku: Spirit Storm - Winnah!”

1. Dada says:

   September 22, 2009 at 2:17 am

   I just saw this - respect! Love the concept and execution.

   I hope you can help - I saw HAKU and it got me started now using the FreeSpin3D (for CS4).
   How do I get that smooth “snake” motion and have it move in and out of depth (Z).

   Thanks!
   DaDa
2. Dan says:

   September 22, 2009 at 10:01 am

   Thanks for the comments DaDa.

   For a smooth snake motion in Freespin3D we actually had to cut back a little in the effect we wanted to achieve. “Embrace the constraints” is a nice motto we got from some other devs.

   In short, you can only animate one or two axes at a time. We used Z and Y rotation, and if we tried to add X rotations it went very jerky.

   With those limitations out the way, the animation is simply based around the sine curve. At each point the head is traveling along a sine curve, turning (Z axis) with the angle of the curve, with a little body roll (Y axis) to show off the 3D.

   D
3. Dada says:

   September 22, 2009 at 6:57 pm

   Hi Dan,

   Thanks for sharing!
   Now back to the basement to work on it.

   DaDa