With the launch of a new game "Star Trek Online" Came a new opportunity for me to flex some of my skills and design a map for the Star Trek Online Galaxy. . .

"I can hear you all screaming GEEK, by the way :P "

Anyway, although the game is VERY good the in game map lack functionality so i decided to build one using PHP, MySQL, XHTML and Javascript.

This map added the abilty to search for system, which in game you cannot and often waste valuable time looking for the system or asking someone.

This map also has the abilty for players to add additional information about each system... obvioulsy once approved.

Another feature the map has is a autocomplete script when typing system names.
It is a real pain sometimes remebering how to spell the systems because they have strangely spelt names

You can click on each sector on the map and it will load the "Sector Space Map" which is basically a map inside a map.

This is the second version of this map the first was just a simple search box giving you the details of were the system is.

I have styled the pop ups and buttons to resemble the ingame style. I think personally that this make it feel more part of the game.

You can view and use this Star Trek Online Map here

I'm currently working on a new Navmap for the Game Star Trek Online, while working out how to make constellations and galaxys, i got a bit side tracked and made this scene on photoshop.

It consists of two moons a planetoid and some rings, it was very simple to make if any of you are interested in finding out how please post on the forum and ask for a tutorial :)

Tip
I used maps for the planetoid and moons and used the filters clouds, twirls, noise for the rings, the sun was a simple lense flare.

After using many different CMS's including Drupal, E107, NukeEvo, Raven Nuke, Nuke I decide they just weren't cutting the cake they way I wanted them to so I decided to start a project to build my own CMS "Clan Management System" ;-)

I started off wireframing which I done a lot of, once I was happy with the layout I chose a colour scheme, seems as the clan was called "The Dark Shadows clan" I thought it was best to keep the style as dark as possible with a few injections of colour to catch the eye.

I then set about creating a user system for the site and then built around that fusing everything together.

The CMS is almost fully object oriented and what isn't will be converted as the beta stage of the site comes to an end.
Why beta test this site? Well the answer is simple, the admins and I were getting tierd or lazy of doing website chores all the time.

With Nuke everything is separated and not very fun and very time consuming! With this site everything is integrated and 90% automated, yup the admins barely have to lift a finger.
The beta stage of the site will run for a few months to weed out any issues and also add some new functions to the site which have been suggested by other members.

The site was built using XHTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL
The website validates as

Encoding: iso-8859-1
Doctype: XHTML 1.0 Transitional

Here is a list of some of the features this site has

• Forums
• Gallery (Including a flash gallery which is auto updated on approval of images)
• FAQ (With ask a question function)
• Clan Roster
• Music Player
• News
• Private messaging

You can view this site by going here Ds Clan You can view more images here.

Something i designed for another game. Snow and icicles done using smudge tool, plastic wrap, burn tool and noise.

This was originally going ot be the background for the dark shadows website, although its not textured it has quite a dramatic effect.
I used Vray only to render the environmental lighting, using standard target direct lighting with a volumetric effect to give the effect of a misty dust.
Tip
I used a handy little plugin for the piramid effect named "GREEBLE" you can get it from here Max Klanky.
If you like using it as much as i do please support his charity "Pineview Wildlife Rehabilitation Center!"

This is a concept of a futuristic interface for a clan website using multiple layers in photoshop.

Many different gredients, bevels, glows and shadows were used to get the disierd result, however for me this wasnt enough and there was always something missing.

I am happy with the layout of this concept it took a few wire frame attempts to finally get what i was looking for. I normally sketch a few layouts on paper and then when im happy with a few i redo them on photoshop using plane shapes.

I built this template using Photoshop I will soon be converting it to a fully operational website. This site will contain

• A shop
• Contact form
• Flash gallery (using istock footage)
• DHTML menu

This was designed on Photoshop, when the client was happy with the overall design i began to work on the flash gallery and the coding of the website.
This site has the following

• Gallery
• Greybox on all pictures
• Facebook business page
• DHTML Menu
• Flash flip page menu

You can view this site by clicking here

Building a new website for Ds programming the entire website using PHP and MySQL Original Concepts designed on Photoshop i will be using "div" tags for better accessibility and quicker loading times. Most if not all graphics will come form CSS... The picture you see here is the concept i came up with on Photoshop.
This site has a

• Flash intro
• Gallery
• News(News_submission)
• Clan roster
• Profiles
• Forums

This was my first attempt at a PHP and MySQL driven site, its based around a game called FREELANCE built by Microsoft and digital anvil it was published in 2000 the Navmap was designed to help new players to find there way around the vast expanse of space (in the game :-P ) You can click on a target on the Navmap and it will show you what is inside that area of the map also you can do a search for way points using the search button at the top. Click here to view the NavMap

Pure Clans banner with built in navigation, Pure Clans was a free clan/team/faction website for gamers use the CMS Nuke Evolution. Pure Clans ran for about 3 years, with over 300 Free hosted websites unfortunately due to financial circumstance I had to shut it down. All of site's were backed up including databases so all owners could install there sites were ever they could find the available hosting.

These medals were designed and created by me using 3dsMax. These were created using splines, nurbs, various materials and Vray lighting to produce medals
Tip
To make the barbed wire create splines and the use the render settings to thicken the wire for the curled spikes use the helix then use the loft modifier then use the deformation tool select your helix and do a path constraint now just snapshot it to duplicate it and your done

This is a creation on AutoDesk 3ds Max based on a pen, I bought a new tablet for my PC and the pen (I know this sound stupid) gave me some inspiration to design a spaceship although this model isn't finished yet you can see how a simple object can be manipulated to create anything. My next task is to add some simple animation to the project making the sun phase and solar flares also making the ship come of of some sort of jump gate and fly straight towards the screen. Keep your eyes pealed for the updates.
Tip
The sun uses simple noise maps and bump maps to produce the texture of the sun and the gases have been created using "Afterburn combustion."

This menu was made using flash and actionscript 2.0 as you can see it gives a nice effect this is used using this action script
Tip
_root.image.onEnterFrame = function() {
if (mouse_over_image) {
_root.image.nextFrame();
} else {
_root.image.prevFrame(); }
};

A nice water effect using flash ActionScript 2.0

This gallery was built using Flash and has an added steam effect for hot foods, This gallery was built for a local pub of mine for there website which is located here
Tip
A simple gallery can be constructed using frame selection. Click on the desired frame in the time line convert to keyframe then name that frame or just remember the number of that frame. All you have to do now is convert an object into buttons use this code
on (release) {
viewer .gotoAndStop ( 5 );
}

You could also change the 5 to a named frame

This flash banner has a pre-loader with a small slide and glide effect complete with sound effects and all at a total size of 1.49 MB.
Tip
Importing high quality sounds and graphics will always increase your overall project size, unless you compress/optimise your files.

This is simply a room built using AutoDesk 3ds Max very low poly count high graphic maps from ArrowWay Textures and then Afterburn combustion for the fire like atmosphere tunnelling down the room.
Tip
The 3d text material was a chrome effect using "Raytrace in the reflection maps. I then used a HDR map as the bitmap on the reflection map to reflect the picture I used..

Ogame theme modified using css and the new Ogame formats pictures.
Tip
Play Ogame? Feel free to use this theme or just check out the full design. The link
http://www.shadow-world.co.uk/ogame/skins/