ivan ortega - portfolio - user interface

A collection of UI work. I've been playing around and designing user interfaces for fun and work since 1996 on Macs + PCs.

ProjeX - XBOX 360 game
cooliris - FireFox Plugin
Codec Calculator - bitrate calculator
Cool Season Turf - educational interactive CD
Code3D - World Builder
Spaceship - installation
Recruitment Game
Puma: Patagonian Predator - web 3d game
Lautaro - interactive video game installation
Mortal Elephant Seal Mating Behavior Alpha 2 - fighting game

Trino - click above to watch the trailer

(2008) - XBOX Live Arcade project @ EA

project blog - DOWNLOAD THE GAME!
project website

Trino mentioned in IGN

Starting up the game: team logo, title, menu screen

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How to Play, Credits, Screenshot

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Screenshot, screenshot, Game Over: fail

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Game over: win!, Early UI mockup

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cooliris - download it!

(2008)

Created video recordings of software, ad campaign assets and user interface assets working with other designers and programmers

Screen grabs of ad campaigns

Codec Calculator

(2000-03) - bitrate calculator for mac specific codecs

PLATFORM - Mac Classic + Carbon

Total Downloads - over 20,000 world wide

Codec Calculator started as a pet project while i was working on lots of video projects. I didn't want to sit around waiting for something to compress to know how big it going to be. Initially released in 2000 as a classic mac program and later ported to carbon. It hit the top 20 utility downloads a few times on version tracker and download. Was also listed in a version tracker snippet in an issue of MacWorld in 2002.

I no longer support this program any more and development will not continue.

Turfgrass - click to visit the store + purchase a copy

(2002-06) - Interactive Multimedia Educational CD

Teaches students how to identify 15 species of turf grass. Built in Director - collaborated on design with 2 other designers. Created 3D models of 15 grass species.

Screen grabs

Code3D: Web Demo

(2007) - 3D World builder on the web

I was charged with creating a web demonstration of a 3D program for a job in the summer of 2007. Rather than just record a bunch of video and make a flash site, i decided to port 1/4 of the program into a web friendly format. This solved two problems: show people what you could do with the program and train them to use it so they would hopefully want more features found in the full product.

To do this, i chose some key content from the original product. Took high poly + high textured models to low poly + low res texturing. I resolved the low res texture look by simply multitexturing. The UI was designed in Photoshop and implemented in 3D. So the camera you look through in this 3D program has all the UI floating in front of it. Early versions allowed you to see those controls and interact with them via first person view. This took all of two months to code, implement, LOD content, design the UI and customer experience.

To try this out and build some worlds yourself make sure you have the shockwave plugin and click here

terrain choices, bird's eye view, first person view

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Spaceship User Interface

(2007) - interactive installation

I was asked to create panels for a touchscreen monitor for a spaceship installation. Guests would press on different sections and watch videos based on their selections. Very much like a high tech museum interactive piece

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Northrop Grumman Recruitment Game

(2007) - interactive installation

Watch the trailer on Youtube - (I didn't make the trailer)

Worked on a small semester long (4 month) project to develop a recruitment game to be used at job fairs. The team (4 programmers + 1 artist [me]) decided to build a head to head, two-player game that would bring people to the recruitment booth. I was charged with designing the user interface, designing the levels, converting models to game engine ready format and everything on the art side (environment, texturing with normal maps, art directing).

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PROJECT - Puma: Patagonian Predator

(2006) - stealth

PLATFORM - PC web

BUILD TIME - 1.5 weeks

Puma, was developed in 2 weeks as a final for my interactive media (basically a flash course) in my fine arts undergrad. Despite the course being only flash, I switched to Director and MAX to ensure that my vision would work out. I did all the game design, level design, environment work, character modeling, texturing, rigging, animation and AI programming. All this with 3 other finals for other classes. I didn't sleep much those 2 weeks :P

Downloadable game coming soon!

PROJECT - Lautaro

(2003-05) - Installation video game art

PLATFORM - PC

This project started back in fall of 2003. I knew in 2 years I would need a thesus for my BFA. The project goal was to expose people to the performative aspect of video game playing. Originally I thought that I would build an arcade cabinet and link everything to a GameBoy Advanced (cheap hardware + open source software). When I couldn't figure out a good pipeline for the GBA, I switched to Director + 3DS. In 2005 I began establishing a pipeline and researched game design by playing loads of classic + new games. By September 2005 I had a game engine running. My senior thesus course involved weekly critiques. This was fine for pre-production, but I was on full production! Effectively, I was working in a one-man SCRUMM for 14 weeks. By December 2005 the wild ride was over and I had something of a game running on a 1GHz PC inside an arcade cabinet I built. It had arcade controls for the player and 2 DDR pads located behind the player for audience to step on and reveal avatars onscreen. It tended to make most players aware that people were behind them, watching them play. There was also a screen behind the cabinet that provided other views into the game world. Not only could audience stand behind but also in front of the player.

Mortal Elephant Seal Mating Behavior Alpha 2

(2008) - 3D fighter

This started out as a UI test for a game company but it quickly grew into something much more. Everything was made in a period of 2 weeks. I chose all the art to work on low end hardware like the DS, PSone, N64 or Saturn. Three characters were made: a male elephant seal, great white shark, and a walrus. The environment was the first thing made during my research time. I spent the first half of the first week doing research for art style, behavior and fighting games. The game is on hiatus until I finish work on my other game project, ProjeX

Title Screens

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