It's been a ridiculously long time since I last posted here. More than a year. And while it's been an eventful year, I haven't really done that much art-wise. I've done a handful of paintings, I've gotten into doing RedditGetsDrawn portraits, and I've done some doodles, but overall my time has been devoured by /r/ArtFundamentals, which since the time of my last post has evolved into a proper website, drawabox.com. It eats up a lot of my time, but I've been able to monetize it reasonably well, with both ad revenue and a patreon campaign.
Before I get into all of it, I'm gonna warn you - this is a really, REALLY long post and if you want to get to the art, jump all the way to the end.
Showing posts with label Rambling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rambling. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Saturday, December 15, 2012
20121214
Been missing a few days, but I still haven't gone a single day without drawing. Not since October 13th, anyways. That makes just over two months, but I suppose that doesn't really matter. They're just numbers.
So last night, and carrying on to this morning, I found myself very discouraged. Fact of the matter is, anyone can improve their technical skills, given time and effort. There are other skills, however, that are not so easily improved, such as the ability to generate ideas. I know that as a child, I was a wellspring of imagination, but that evaporated by the time I was thirteen or fourteen. Whenever I think about it, I get scared - what if I'll never be creative enough to succeed as an artist? I mean, on top of everything, I want to work in concept art. I can't possibly get anywhere in that field if I can't produce ideas at the drop of a hat.
Yesterday, watching Feng Zhu's latest Design Cinema video, Before and After, I was hit with the same realization. The video shows works from the application portfolios of some FZD students, and then compares it to their current (some of whom were only a few months into the one year program, while one other had graduated). While promoting the program, this video seemed to really highlight the significance of what was present in those initial portfolios, despite the demonstration of amateurish technical skills. Feng Zhu pointed out the design that was struggling to emerge. The problem wasn't that the artists were unable to come up with designs, but rather that they were unable to communicate their ideas effectively. It made me think, I could receive the best training in the world, but it wouldn't help me become successful if I'm not bringing certain things to the table.
I mentioned that to Khuyen today, and she helped shake some of my fears - for the time being, at least. She reminded me that there are things I can do to improve, and made me realize that when I draw, I seem to be skipping a crucial step. For the most part over the past month (since I stopped doing photo studies), I mostly spent my evenings marking down random lines until something started to emerge. I've never liked that process, because it always felt so horrendously hit-or-miss. Even when something great comes out, it wasn't necessarily planned from the beginning, so it feels a little cheap. I came to realize, however, that if designs and ideas are solutions, then I am entirely lacking a problem to be solved when working this way. How does one come up with a solution, if there is nothing to solve aside from a blank canvas that needs to be covered?
That motivated me a little bit. Finding something I can change, something I can do differently, reminds me that I haven't yet exhausted my options. When I got home, I dug up all of the past Conceptart.org Industrial Design of the Week challenges and started saving off anything that seemed remotely interesting into a text file. I didn't want to look at the forum itself, along with all of the other artists' interpretations, because I didn't want my mind to be clouded with what other people had done. If I can give myself problems, then perhaps I'll have an easier time producing solutions. I'm going to try to avoid bogging myself down with technique for the time being - I won't outright ignore it, because I don't think I'm capable of that - but I'll accept for now that my perspective and proportions will probably come out wrong. What's important are ideas.
I did one this evening - only one iteration, sadly, but I hope to do more as I get used to squeezing them out of my brain. Also, for sketching, I've moved away from Photoshop and given Autodesk Sketchbook Pro a shot (which I've had sitting around on my computer for some time, since I bought the Autodesk Suite to get my hands on Maya a few months back).
The brief detailed a "Think Tank," a tongue-in-cheek war machine powered by brains. I mostly just noodled around, and had trouble for the first while getting any sort of a bulky, tank-ish, vehicle feel. But here's what I got:
So I may or may not have mentioned in the past my plan to work for a couple years (of which I've completed six months already), before going back to school with the intent of pursuing art more seriously. For the most part, I've been aiming at The Gnomon School of Visual Effects' Entertainment Design program in Los Angeles, which still looks fantastic (and isn't too hard on my bank account). There are a few hitches though, primarily my being Canadian and the program being a bundle of individual courses at a discounted price, instead of a proper accredited program. Basically, I can't get a student visa to attend. I can (probably) attend under a tourist visa, but that would require me to return to Canada within six months, breaking up the one year program into two chunks. Not exactly desirable, and it would make renting an apartment pretty tricky. Not the kind of complications I'm overly eager to deal with.
The other option is the Feng Zhu School of Design (FZD), which is all the way in Singapore. I've been there, and I distinctly remember myself saying, "If I had to live anywhere in Southeast Asia, it would be here." Ironic. The option's starting to look far more attractive, but equally terrifying. I'm practically a homebound hermit, so the idea of moving anywhere for a year scares the crap out of me, but it's something I'm going to have to get over either way. Moving all the way across the planet, though? Hrm. On the bright side, Singapore is known for being extremely safe and clean, and everyone speaks English (more or less). I'm getting off topic - I should be focusing on why the school itself is attractive.
As I mentioned before, I've been following Feng Zhu's online videos as well as his somewhat older Gnomon DVDs, and his philosophy behind the teaching of these skills really seems, for lack of a better word, correct. I would be lying if I said I wasn't attracted by the quality of the student work, and how quickly they seem to be improving. Of course, I'll always take that with a grain of salt, but when matched up with the teaching philosophies, I suppose it makes sense. At the very least, I will apply - probably in a year or so. Since they judge portfolios primarily on the applicant's creativity/ideas/visual library/whatever you want to call it, I feel like it would be a good test to see whether I have even the slightest chance in this field. If I don't... well, I suppose I'd have to stick with programming. Until then, here's to working my ass off.
So last night, and carrying on to this morning, I found myself very discouraged. Fact of the matter is, anyone can improve their technical skills, given time and effort. There are other skills, however, that are not so easily improved, such as the ability to generate ideas. I know that as a child, I was a wellspring of imagination, but that evaporated by the time I was thirteen or fourteen. Whenever I think about it, I get scared - what if I'll never be creative enough to succeed as an artist? I mean, on top of everything, I want to work in concept art. I can't possibly get anywhere in that field if I can't produce ideas at the drop of a hat.
Yesterday, watching Feng Zhu's latest Design Cinema video, Before and After, I was hit with the same realization. The video shows works from the application portfolios of some FZD students, and then compares it to their current (some of whom were only a few months into the one year program, while one other had graduated). While promoting the program, this video seemed to really highlight the significance of what was present in those initial portfolios, despite the demonstration of amateurish technical skills. Feng Zhu pointed out the design that was struggling to emerge. The problem wasn't that the artists were unable to come up with designs, but rather that they were unable to communicate their ideas effectively. It made me think, I could receive the best training in the world, but it wouldn't help me become successful if I'm not bringing certain things to the table.
I mentioned that to Khuyen today, and she helped shake some of my fears - for the time being, at least. She reminded me that there are things I can do to improve, and made me realize that when I draw, I seem to be skipping a crucial step. For the most part over the past month (since I stopped doing photo studies), I mostly spent my evenings marking down random lines until something started to emerge. I've never liked that process, because it always felt so horrendously hit-or-miss. Even when something great comes out, it wasn't necessarily planned from the beginning, so it feels a little cheap. I came to realize, however, that if designs and ideas are solutions, then I am entirely lacking a problem to be solved when working this way. How does one come up with a solution, if there is nothing to solve aside from a blank canvas that needs to be covered?
That motivated me a little bit. Finding something I can change, something I can do differently, reminds me that I haven't yet exhausted my options. When I got home, I dug up all of the past Conceptart.org Industrial Design of the Week challenges and started saving off anything that seemed remotely interesting into a text file. I didn't want to look at the forum itself, along with all of the other artists' interpretations, because I didn't want my mind to be clouded with what other people had done. If I can give myself problems, then perhaps I'll have an easier time producing solutions. I'm going to try to avoid bogging myself down with technique for the time being - I won't outright ignore it, because I don't think I'm capable of that - but I'll accept for now that my perspective and proportions will probably come out wrong. What's important are ideas.
I did one this evening - only one iteration, sadly, but I hope to do more as I get used to squeezing them out of my brain. Also, for sketching, I've moved away from Photoshop and given Autodesk Sketchbook Pro a shot (which I've had sitting around on my computer for some time, since I bought the Autodesk Suite to get my hands on Maya a few months back).
The brief detailed a "Think Tank," a tongue-in-cheek war machine powered by brains. I mostly just noodled around, and had trouble for the first while getting any sort of a bulky, tank-ish, vehicle feel. But here's what I got:
The other option is the Feng Zhu School of Design (FZD), which is all the way in Singapore. I've been there, and I distinctly remember myself saying, "If I had to live anywhere in Southeast Asia, it would be here." Ironic. The option's starting to look far more attractive, but equally terrifying. I'm practically a homebound hermit, so the idea of moving anywhere for a year scares the crap out of me, but it's something I'm going to have to get over either way. Moving all the way across the planet, though? Hrm. On the bright side, Singapore is known for being extremely safe and clean, and everyone speaks English (more or less). I'm getting off topic - I should be focusing on why the school itself is attractive.
As I mentioned before, I've been following Feng Zhu's online videos as well as his somewhat older Gnomon DVDs, and his philosophy behind the teaching of these skills really seems, for lack of a better word, correct. I would be lying if I said I wasn't attracted by the quality of the student work, and how quickly they seem to be improving. Of course, I'll always take that with a grain of salt, but when matched up with the teaching philosophies, I suppose it makes sense. At the very least, I will apply - probably in a year or so. Since they judge portfolios primarily on the applicant's creativity/ideas/visual library/whatever you want to call it, I feel like it would be a good test to see whether I have even the slightest chance in this field. If I don't... well, I suppose I'd have to stick with programming. Until then, here's to working my ass off.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
New Job, a Return to the Sketchbook and Harddrive Woes
I warn you now - this post contains nothing but rambling about my own life.
New Job
On June 4th, I did the impossible - I started a new job. And it wasn't even web development! I'm now one of a few game programmers at Rullingnet, a company that develops games for the Vinci Tablet. I can't thank Ben King enough, for helping me land this position, although hopefully I'll be able to by developing a portfolio website for him. That is, once he's settled on a design.
Basically I develop really simple games that are intended to be played by very young children. You'd think that this would be boring, but it's actually far more interesting than I expected. It's given me a new appreciation for Unity3D, and I feel like I'm actually picking up a lot of new information. For the time being, I'm definitely quite pleased with where I am. It also helps that most of the work force is fairly young - my own supervisor graduated from the same program as me only one year prior. Despite this, I find that they're all good at what they do, and that makes being part of this team fairly fulfilling.
A Return to the Sketchbook
Unfortunately, having just started this job, and being an individual who doesn't adapt too quickly to change, I've found myself coming home feeling extremely drained. It's hard to motivate myself to open Photoshop, or work on any of my own projects. That said, there is a silver lining. I'm sure I'll adapt to this and get back on the bandwagon, but for now, I see this as a great opportunity to return to just doodling in my sketchbook. This is something I haven't really been able to do since I was very young, largely because of this deeply rooted fear of creating shitty art. If I make a mistake, I feel this overwhelming urge to turn the page and start afresh. The fear also keeps me from drawing much at all, and if one does not draw, one does not improve.
I've bought myself a brand new sketchbook, and I've set myself out some guidelines. For each day, I will reserve only two pages of the sketchbook - that is, two facing pages. Unless I happen to be feeling extremely creative and fill up that set space, I will limit myself to this. No turning the page to avoid looking at mistakes. No treating individual doodles like masterpieces that cannot be marred. If I want to draw a figure completely, and have to draw over something else in order to do it, that's okay. It's pretty daunting for me, but I think that by doing this, I can only improve. Furthermore, I'm going to distance myself from drawing digitally for a while. We'll see how this works out.
Harddrive Woes
Finally, something bad happened to my computer yesterday. Well, not terrible, but pretty bad. Windows reported the imminent failure of one of my hard drives. My setup's fairly secure in this regard - Two 60GB SSDs set to RAID1 for my OS and some incidental applications, Two 1.5TB drives in RAID1 for larger applications, games and important data. Then one 2TB drive for videos - mostly TV shows and movies. (Note: RAID1 means that between two drives, one is a direct copy of the other, for backup purposes). It's this last one that's failed. Funny how it's also the only one that doesn't have a redundant backup. It's also the newest.
Initially I could access my files, so I was trying to use Windows 7's backup functionality to copy its contents to another drive. This... didn't work out so well. So I tried some 3rd party applications. Gradually the state of the drive was decreasing, until finally I couldn't access the drive and the computer saw it as an unformatted disk. Chances are that the drive itself is physically malfunctioning, but I really don't know. I'm trying one last ditch effort to salvage the data, but my hopes aren't particularly high.
The thing is, whenever something in my computer fails, out of sheer hubris, I don't just replace it with equal parts, but I tend to go a bit overboard in general. The first problem I'd encountered a couple years ago was my SSD (of which I had only one, for the operating system) failed. In retaliation, I bought two of the newer model (same capacity) and set them up in RAID1. A few weeks later I got a new SSD in the mail as a replacement from the manufacturer. This one I set aside for a rainy day. Back in November, my video card's fan started having issues. So, I replaced it with a newer model with twice as much memory.
Those last two upgrades are pretty reasonable - first one made the problem less likely to be less crippling. The second one was even more reasonable, since I had to replace the card anyway, why not get one that'll be a wee bit more future proof. But this time? I'm a bit ashamed of myself.
So I went to the store and picked up a 3TB drive to replace my failed 2TB HDD, and while I was there, I picked up two 128GB OCZ Vertex4 SSDs. Why? I don't really need them, but it was bothering me a bit that my C drive (the current RAID1 60GB SSDs) has only about five or six gigabytes free. So, while replacing my failed hard drive, I'm going to clone the C drive over to a new array of SSDs. Totally unrelated to the problem at hand, and kind of wasteful. Although they were on sale. $50 off on each one is nothing to scoff at. I'm also thinking of dropping in that rainy-day 60GB SSD as a dedicated scratchdisk for photoshop, and keeping the current RAID1 SSDs in case my drives fail in a truly catastrophic manner (despite the redundant backups) and I urgently need something with an OS on it.
For now, I'll wait for my final recovery attempt. It'll probably take another eight hours to run the scan, which is a painful wait, but worth it for my 400GB anime collection. I think I'll go doodle in my sketchbook for now!
Edit: The recovery attempt with Seagate File Recovery was successful! Unfortunately, copying my OS drive over didn't work as planned, and I ultimately ended up doing a fresh install of Windows. Probably for the better though, it's always good to do a clean format every once in a while.
New Job
On June 4th, I did the impossible - I started a new job. And it wasn't even web development! I'm now one of a few game programmers at Rullingnet, a company that develops games for the Vinci Tablet. I can't thank Ben King enough, for helping me land this position, although hopefully I'll be able to by developing a portfolio website for him. That is, once he's settled on a design.
Basically I develop really simple games that are intended to be played by very young children. You'd think that this would be boring, but it's actually far more interesting than I expected. It's given me a new appreciation for Unity3D, and I feel like I'm actually picking up a lot of new information. For the time being, I'm definitely quite pleased with where I am. It also helps that most of the work force is fairly young - my own supervisor graduated from the same program as me only one year prior. Despite this, I find that they're all good at what they do, and that makes being part of this team fairly fulfilling.
A Return to the Sketchbook
Unfortunately, having just started this job, and being an individual who doesn't adapt too quickly to change, I've found myself coming home feeling extremely drained. It's hard to motivate myself to open Photoshop, or work on any of my own projects. That said, there is a silver lining. I'm sure I'll adapt to this and get back on the bandwagon, but for now, I see this as a great opportunity to return to just doodling in my sketchbook. This is something I haven't really been able to do since I was very young, largely because of this deeply rooted fear of creating shitty art. If I make a mistake, I feel this overwhelming urge to turn the page and start afresh. The fear also keeps me from drawing much at all, and if one does not draw, one does not improve.
I've bought myself a brand new sketchbook, and I've set myself out some guidelines. For each day, I will reserve only two pages of the sketchbook - that is, two facing pages. Unless I happen to be feeling extremely creative and fill up that set space, I will limit myself to this. No turning the page to avoid looking at mistakes. No treating individual doodles like masterpieces that cannot be marred. If I want to draw a figure completely, and have to draw over something else in order to do it, that's okay. It's pretty daunting for me, but I think that by doing this, I can only improve. Furthermore, I'm going to distance myself from drawing digitally for a while. We'll see how this works out.
Harddrive Woes
Finally, something bad happened to my computer yesterday. Well, not terrible, but pretty bad. Windows reported the imminent failure of one of my hard drives. My setup's fairly secure in this regard - Two 60GB SSDs set to RAID1 for my OS and some incidental applications, Two 1.5TB drives in RAID1 for larger applications, games and important data. Then one 2TB drive for videos - mostly TV shows and movies. (Note: RAID1 means that between two drives, one is a direct copy of the other, for backup purposes). It's this last one that's failed. Funny how it's also the only one that doesn't have a redundant backup. It's also the newest.
Initially I could access my files, so I was trying to use Windows 7's backup functionality to copy its contents to another drive. This... didn't work out so well. So I tried some 3rd party applications. Gradually the state of the drive was decreasing, until finally I couldn't access the drive and the computer saw it as an unformatted disk. Chances are that the drive itself is physically malfunctioning, but I really don't know. I'm trying one last ditch effort to salvage the data, but my hopes aren't particularly high.
The thing is, whenever something in my computer fails, out of sheer hubris, I don't just replace it with equal parts, but I tend to go a bit overboard in general. The first problem I'd encountered a couple years ago was my SSD (of which I had only one, for the operating system) failed. In retaliation, I bought two of the newer model (same capacity) and set them up in RAID1. A few weeks later I got a new SSD in the mail as a replacement from the manufacturer. This one I set aside for a rainy day. Back in November, my video card's fan started having issues. So, I replaced it with a newer model with twice as much memory.
Those last two upgrades are pretty reasonable - first one made the problem less likely to be less crippling. The second one was even more reasonable, since I had to replace the card anyway, why not get one that'll be a wee bit more future proof. But this time? I'm a bit ashamed of myself.
So I went to the store and picked up a 3TB drive to replace my failed 2TB HDD, and while I was there, I picked up two 128GB OCZ Vertex4 SSDs. Why? I don't really need them, but it was bothering me a bit that my C drive (the current RAID1 60GB SSDs) has only about five or six gigabytes free. So, while replacing my failed hard drive, I'm going to clone the C drive over to a new array of SSDs. Totally unrelated to the problem at hand, and kind of wasteful. Although they were on sale. $50 off on each one is nothing to scoff at. I'm also thinking of dropping in that rainy-day 60GB SSD as a dedicated scratchdisk for photoshop, and keeping the current RAID1 SSDs in case my drives fail in a truly catastrophic manner (despite the redundant backups) and I urgently need something with an OS on it.
For now, I'll wait for my final recovery attempt. It'll probably take another eight hours to run the scan, which is a painful wait, but worth it for my 400GB anime collection. I think I'll go doodle in my sketchbook for now!
Edit: The recovery attempt with Seagate File Recovery was successful! Unfortunately, copying my OS drive over didn't work as planned, and I ultimately ended up doing a fresh install of Windows. Probably for the better though, it's always good to do a clean format every once in a while.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Senior Project is Over - Sort of
Today was the senior project fair. I'm having a bit of trouble looking at the screen right now, what with my eyes getting all squinty from exhaustion. But boy do I have a story, and it must be told. I warn you, it is as long as my day has been.
It seems that despite the fact that people have always seen me as an excellent programmer, so far neither of my game projects have been without an extremely bumpy submission day. Today's had the potential of turning out horribly, but we came out alright.
7:00PM, Last Night
I was in the lab, running some last minute testing. I was hoping to test our installer out on the lab PCs we were going to be using for the Senior Project Fair, but unfortunately the local admin account password the systems administrator left us was unreadable, and he had gone home. I still don't know what the second last character was. An h? Maybe an r. No matter. We ran some further tests between my laptop and a team member's, and then called it a night. Figured I'd spend that night at home fixing the bugs we did find (of which there were a handful), then come back bright and early the next morning.
Fixed the bugs on my PC at home (which is a significantly better environment for working than my tiny laptop), and fell asleep at 1:30AM.
6:00AM, Today
I woke up. Several nights this past week, I was going to bed around this time. Despite the natural urge to go back to sleep, I didn't feel too tired. I think I've broken my internal clock so badly that it doesn't even understand when I should be awake or asleep.
7:30AM
Everything's going as planned. My bug fixes seemed to stick. A few new issues may have popped up, but they were easily dealt with. I also implemented a dodging mechanic, along with an animation that would flip to match your direction of movement! It was a quick affair, and certainly got me motivated to move further. Technically, though I should have been done all of the coding a long time ago, but being the only programmer on a fairly sizable game project definitely saw my time stretched beyond its limits.
9:00AM
The systems administrator (who is a significantly kinder fellow than I realized over the past five years) logged us into the local administrator, and so we nervously went on to test our packaged installer. We'd heard stories across the hallway that despite the admin access, some people still couldn't install their games. Thankfully, we were in the clear. It installed fine. Then I tried to run the game - opened, and crashed.
But it's okay. I anticipated this, based on an absolutely random hunch from having worked on XNA many months ago in a similar environment. Preparing for this random chance, I brought with me 6 pairs of headphones (half of which were broken) - one for each PC. Plugged one in, and the game opened just fine. Turns out it was crashing because it could not find an audio device. Come on guys, not everyone has speakers.
Of course, it can never be that easy, right? Things were going too well. I moved on to logging myself in, and then checking the server list to see what the situation was there. Slight problem. The game was built expecting every network to have a single external IP address, allowing me to filter the server list and show only hosted games within the network. This was all being pulled from a MySQL database, mind you. A strange set up - local game, but all the accounts and data was hosted on the internet. Fixed the problem by removing the filtering and clearing the server list. Okay, we're still good. Maybe we won't be able to connect to a hosted game?
Nope, that worked too.
10:30AM
Here came the whopper that made up for all of our pleasant sailing: on the client computer, the server (and I assume, every other player) was naked and bald. Furthermore, none of their attacks were animating, though running and dying was working fine. I flipped my shit. Something I had changed the previous night had caused this ridiculous problem.
Finding what the problem itself was proved simple enough, but not so for what was causing it. There is a single struct that contains all of the information regarding my player's loadout - all of the armour they equipped and the abilities they chose before joining the server. That one struct was not being replicated for new players, as they joined.
It seemed to me like every five minutes, I would have a "OH I KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS" moment, and every time for two and a half hours I would be horribly wrong. I haven't yet figured out what the cause was, though I do intend to go back and fix the damn thing - and perhaps another handful of bugs.
12:45PM
It is a truly horrible feeling. I was the only programmer in the whole group - all of this was resting on my shoulders, and if I could not fix this, it seemed like we would make complete fools of ourselves. Not only did I desperately not want to let my team down, but it kept ringing in my head. I didn't even want to do the programming for this project - I wanted to create and texture 3D assets. Characters, armour, weapons - that was the direction in which I wanted to expand my portfolio, and I wanted to build myself a reputation as a 3D artist. Or the beginnings of one.
Unfortunately, I was the only one in my group with an aptitude for programming. Everyone else was in the art category, so I had to pick up the coding side of things. Or did I really? Maybe we would have managed just fine. Maybe it's all in my head. I don't know anymore.
So, 12:45- I was thinking there, thinking about the fact that not only would I not be noted for having skills as a 3D artist, but I'd instead be crowning my five years of university with a disaster. I wouldn't even be remembered as a good programmer. At best, I'd be "that kid who bit off way more than he could chew." And they'd be right.
At this point, I accepted the fact that I probably wouldn't be able to solve the problem - I packaged the game up and rushed my team members into installing it on all the machines. At least we'd have something multiplayer to show - it's better than nothing. But no, it seemed that nothing was, at least at the time, what we were destined to show.
We tried joining a hosted game with the lab PCs - something that had worked some two hours earlier. Nothing. No response whatsoever. I could feel my heart break. We had a mutliplayer game with no multiplayer. At best, we had a game with a simple character creator, a couple of trainer skill trees, a marketplace and an (admittedly pretty cool) loadout screen where users could drag and drop their equipment icons onto slots and see it update a 3D preview in realtime. Oh, and we could host a game and allow our visitors to run around alone in the arena. And yes, that's right. Visitors. They were coming in already, it was past 1:00PM.
2:00PM
This was around the time the judges were supposed to come and see our project, and we were supposed to present. The presentation itself would have been alright. Professor Arya or Professor Whitehead (I honestly can't remember who it was anymore, my memory is hazy) offered to bump us to the last group, giving us an hour at least to figure out what was going on and fix it. I told him flat out - I don't think extra time is going to help us. Thankfully, he didn't listen to my stupidity and bumped us to last. I may have plenty of sour things to say about my program's faculty in private, but today I really cannot swear to any of it. They weren't condescending or critical of my failures as a programmer at all - only encouraging and accommodating.
It wasn't too long after that Nick Zou (the team member who was helping me debug earlier) suggested that we try the game between our laptops. Just to get something going, if we could. I had virtually given up, but at this point I really had nothing to lose, so I gave it a shot, expecting to not even be able to join the game. I was wrong.
We were able to get into a game together, but the bug from earlier that morning that kept the client from seeing animations, weapons and armour was still happening. But the host could see everything perfectly... Then we had an idea. I can't remember if it was mine, or his, or if we came up with it together. But it resulted in Nick sitting in the far corner of the class, hidden by a sheet, and me setting my laptop out on the open table for people to see.
Nick played blind.
He couldn't see what anyone was doing. All he could see was people running around. Couldn't even see if his own attacks hit. But somehow, he managed to kick a lot of people's asses.
Interest in our project started to grow, and despite only having one functioning copy, people were crowding around to watch the fight. I'm sure other groups got much larger crowds, but considering the state of our game, we could do worse. What's more: people seemed to enjoy the game. It was difficult, it was unbalanced, and Nick was making mince meat of most contenders, but they were enjoying themselves. One guy kept coming back - although he was equally interested in the programming aspect of it, and had been trying to help me figure out what the problem was. I can't really remember his name now, but I wish I could thank him again.
Edit: His name was Harold Mintah
3:30PM
From here, the story's fairly linear. Presented to the judges, they seemed to like it well enough, but the game wasn't anything special. They did, however, like the art style, and I saw some employer-type fellow asking Marie (who did a lot of texturing) for a business card. I don't think anyone was particularly wowed by anything I did, though some of the judges did come to me afterward to make a few suggestions regarding the flow of animations and other such things. I guess they were mildly impressed by the fact that I coded it on my own, but really that just makes me look irresponsible, since the product itself was essentially broken. Another truth.
It definitely is disappointing that despite the countless hours I put into this project, I don't think I'll get much out of it. I do, however, intend to clean it up, and fix the bugs as well as I can, before putting it away. If anything, I will get some decent video footage for my portfolio.
My eyes are burning, I think I need sleep.
It seems that despite the fact that people have always seen me as an excellent programmer, so far neither of my game projects have been without an extremely bumpy submission day. Today's had the potential of turning out horribly, but we came out alright.
7:00PM, Last Night
I was in the lab, running some last minute testing. I was hoping to test our installer out on the lab PCs we were going to be using for the Senior Project Fair, but unfortunately the local admin account password the systems administrator left us was unreadable, and he had gone home. I still don't know what the second last character was. An h? Maybe an r. No matter. We ran some further tests between my laptop and a team member's, and then called it a night. Figured I'd spend that night at home fixing the bugs we did find (of which there were a handful), then come back bright and early the next morning.
Fixed the bugs on my PC at home (which is a significantly better environment for working than my tiny laptop), and fell asleep at 1:30AM.
6:00AM, Today
I woke up. Several nights this past week, I was going to bed around this time. Despite the natural urge to go back to sleep, I didn't feel too tired. I think I've broken my internal clock so badly that it doesn't even understand when I should be awake or asleep.
7:30AM
Everything's going as planned. My bug fixes seemed to stick. A few new issues may have popped up, but they were easily dealt with. I also implemented a dodging mechanic, along with an animation that would flip to match your direction of movement! It was a quick affair, and certainly got me motivated to move further. Technically, though I should have been done all of the coding a long time ago, but being the only programmer on a fairly sizable game project definitely saw my time stretched beyond its limits.
9:00AM
The systems administrator (who is a significantly kinder fellow than I realized over the past five years) logged us into the local administrator, and so we nervously went on to test our packaged installer. We'd heard stories across the hallway that despite the admin access, some people still couldn't install their games. Thankfully, we were in the clear. It installed fine. Then I tried to run the game - opened, and crashed.
But it's okay. I anticipated this, based on an absolutely random hunch from having worked on XNA many months ago in a similar environment. Preparing for this random chance, I brought with me 6 pairs of headphones (half of which were broken) - one for each PC. Plugged one in, and the game opened just fine. Turns out it was crashing because it could not find an audio device. Come on guys, not everyone has speakers.
Of course, it can never be that easy, right? Things were going too well. I moved on to logging myself in, and then checking the server list to see what the situation was there. Slight problem. The game was built expecting every network to have a single external IP address, allowing me to filter the server list and show only hosted games within the network. This was all being pulled from a MySQL database, mind you. A strange set up - local game, but all the accounts and data was hosted on the internet. Fixed the problem by removing the filtering and clearing the server list. Okay, we're still good. Maybe we won't be able to connect to a hosted game?
Nope, that worked too.
10:30AM
Here came the whopper that made up for all of our pleasant sailing: on the client computer, the server (and I assume, every other player) was naked and bald. Furthermore, none of their attacks were animating, though running and dying was working fine. I flipped my shit. Something I had changed the previous night had caused this ridiculous problem.
Finding what the problem itself was proved simple enough, but not so for what was causing it. There is a single struct that contains all of the information regarding my player's loadout - all of the armour they equipped and the abilities they chose before joining the server. That one struct was not being replicated for new players, as they joined.
It seemed to me like every five minutes, I would have a "OH I KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS" moment, and every time for two and a half hours I would be horribly wrong. I haven't yet figured out what the cause was, though I do intend to go back and fix the damn thing - and perhaps another handful of bugs.
12:45PM
It is a truly horrible feeling. I was the only programmer in the whole group - all of this was resting on my shoulders, and if I could not fix this, it seemed like we would make complete fools of ourselves. Not only did I desperately not want to let my team down, but it kept ringing in my head. I didn't even want to do the programming for this project - I wanted to create and texture 3D assets. Characters, armour, weapons - that was the direction in which I wanted to expand my portfolio, and I wanted to build myself a reputation as a 3D artist. Or the beginnings of one.
Unfortunately, I was the only one in my group with an aptitude for programming. Everyone else was in the art category, so I had to pick up the coding side of things. Or did I really? Maybe we would have managed just fine. Maybe it's all in my head. I don't know anymore.
So, 12:45- I was thinking there, thinking about the fact that not only would I not be noted for having skills as a 3D artist, but I'd instead be crowning my five years of university with a disaster. I wouldn't even be remembered as a good programmer. At best, I'd be "that kid who bit off way more than he could chew." And they'd be right.
At this point, I accepted the fact that I probably wouldn't be able to solve the problem - I packaged the game up and rushed my team members into installing it on all the machines. At least we'd have something multiplayer to show - it's better than nothing. But no, it seemed that nothing was, at least at the time, what we were destined to show.
We tried joining a hosted game with the lab PCs - something that had worked some two hours earlier. Nothing. No response whatsoever. I could feel my heart break. We had a mutliplayer game with no multiplayer. At best, we had a game with a simple character creator, a couple of trainer skill trees, a marketplace and an (admittedly pretty cool) loadout screen where users could drag and drop their equipment icons onto slots and see it update a 3D preview in realtime. Oh, and we could host a game and allow our visitors to run around alone in the arena. And yes, that's right. Visitors. They were coming in already, it was past 1:00PM.
2:00PM
This was around the time the judges were supposed to come and see our project, and we were supposed to present. The presentation itself would have been alright. Professor Arya or Professor Whitehead (I honestly can't remember who it was anymore, my memory is hazy) offered to bump us to the last group, giving us an hour at least to figure out what was going on and fix it. I told him flat out - I don't think extra time is going to help us. Thankfully, he didn't listen to my stupidity and bumped us to last. I may have plenty of sour things to say about my program's faculty in private, but today I really cannot swear to any of it. They weren't condescending or critical of my failures as a programmer at all - only encouraging and accommodating.
It wasn't too long after that Nick Zou (the team member who was helping me debug earlier) suggested that we try the game between our laptops. Just to get something going, if we could. I had virtually given up, but at this point I really had nothing to lose, so I gave it a shot, expecting to not even be able to join the game. I was wrong.
We were able to get into a game together, but the bug from earlier that morning that kept the client from seeing animations, weapons and armour was still happening. But the host could see everything perfectly... Then we had an idea. I can't remember if it was mine, or his, or if we came up with it together. But it resulted in Nick sitting in the far corner of the class, hidden by a sheet, and me setting my laptop out on the open table for people to see.
Nick played blind.
He couldn't see what anyone was doing. All he could see was people running around. Couldn't even see if his own attacks hit. But somehow, he managed to kick a lot of people's asses.
Interest in our project started to grow, and despite only having one functioning copy, people were crowding around to watch the fight. I'm sure other groups got much larger crowds, but considering the state of our game, we could do worse. What's more: people seemed to enjoy the game. It was difficult, it was unbalanced, and Nick was making mince meat of most contenders, but they were enjoying themselves. One guy kept coming back - although he was equally interested in the programming aspect of it, and had been trying to help me figure out what the problem was. I can't really remember his name now, but I wish I could thank him again.
Edit: His name was Harold Mintah
3:30PM
From here, the story's fairly linear. Presented to the judges, they seemed to like it well enough, but the game wasn't anything special. They did, however, like the art style, and I saw some employer-type fellow asking Marie (who did a lot of texturing) for a business card. I don't think anyone was particularly wowed by anything I did, though some of the judges did come to me afterward to make a few suggestions regarding the flow of animations and other such things. I guess they were mildly impressed by the fact that I coded it on my own, but really that just makes me look irresponsible, since the product itself was essentially broken. Another truth.
It definitely is disappointing that despite the countless hours I put into this project, I don't think I'll get much out of it. I do, however, intend to clean it up, and fix the bugs as well as I can, before putting it away. If anything, I will get some decent video footage for my portfolio.
My eyes are burning, I think I need sleep.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Truly a classic - the gameplay is boring, it's riddled with bugs, and much of the cities get repetitive very quickly, but my god, I love this game. I played it first a few years ago - I can't remember when, but it must have been at least two and a half years. I found it painfully frustrating at times, but I adored it for the characters and the brilliant voice acting, both of which really brought the entire world to life.
Now, it was on steam a week or so ago, so I picked it up for something like five dollars. I was dying to play it, but unfortunately, the last week had me working like a dog on senior project, since approval for participation in the senior project fair was to be granted yesterday based on a demo to a couple of profs. Our demo was buggy as hell, didn't entirely work, but somehow we got in.
But back to my main point - I finally got to play it yesterday evening, after a four hour nap (prior to that, I'd been awake all night, working a total of 19 hours on senior project without a wink of sleep). Just as good as I remembered. There are a whole slew of things that I wish could be improved, but at the end of the day, this game is eight years old, and it is still fantastic. They really put such a wealth of effort and money into the story and characters, and all the tiny details that give the impression that you've entered a real universe. It almost makes me want to step back and work on a game with graphics that are considered sub-par today, and gameplay that is painfully simple.
Anyways, so I put the game down for a few hours and started sketching out a scene - needless to say, it was way more sexually charged than I've attempted in a long time. I only really explored a progression based on a single thumbnail, but I wasn't really sure what direction to take with it. I want to keep the characters clothed, but I'm afraid it might seem unnatural and out of place. Maaan, I donno.
Now, it was on steam a week or so ago, so I picked it up for something like five dollars. I was dying to play it, but unfortunately, the last week had me working like a dog on senior project, since approval for participation in the senior project fair was to be granted yesterday based on a demo to a couple of profs. Our demo was buggy as hell, didn't entirely work, but somehow we got in.
But back to my main point - I finally got to play it yesterday evening, after a four hour nap (prior to that, I'd been awake all night, working a total of 19 hours on senior project without a wink of sleep). Just as good as I remembered. There are a whole slew of things that I wish could be improved, but at the end of the day, this game is eight years old, and it is still fantastic. They really put such a wealth of effort and money into the story and characters, and all the tiny details that give the impression that you've entered a real universe. It almost makes me want to step back and work on a game with graphics that are considered sub-par today, and gameplay that is painfully simple.
Anyways, so I put the game down for a few hours and started sketching out a scene - needless to say, it was way more sexually charged than I've attempted in a long time. I only really explored a progression based on a single thumbnail, but I wasn't really sure what direction to take with it. I want to keep the characters clothed, but I'm afraid it might seem unnatural and out of place. Maaan, I donno.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Cain and Abel, the Second
Tried looking for reference, especially for the figures of Adam and Eve embracing each other, but I couldn't find anything that would really even remotely suit the pose. So, I will have to wing it, I guess. Oh well. I'll try and give myself plenty of chances to re-evaluate my direction before I take this to colour (I'm still well away from that stage), so I hope I can work out some of the more glaring issues.
In other news, I managed to finish the annotated bibliography that's due on Tuesday for art history. We've been given a good twenty-three paintings (all, or most on display at the National Art Gallery) to choose from for our essay. I quickly narrowed it down to three; a Giordano, a Rembrandt or a West. Unfortunately, I could find next to nothing in terms of articles on the first two... Although in retrospect I don't remember looking particularly hard for the Rembrandt ("The Tribute Money"). I think I forgot about it, while fussing over the Giordano. It's too bad, because it really is a lovely painting. But anyways, I found a fair bit about the Benjamin West painting, and despite initially not being particularly taken by it, reading the articles really increased my interest in the piece. I think by nature I'm more drawn to pieces of classical nature and subject, but it is very much the fact that West pulls away from that standard that makes "The Death of General Wolfe" so alluring in its own right. Also helps that I remember doing a project back in junior high about the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, so I'm familiar with some context.
Considering, though, that the painting itself can be interpreted in so many different ways, and holds so many layers of meaning and significance, I shouldn't have too much trouble writing an essay on the topic. I hope.
In other news, I managed to finish the annotated bibliography that's due on Tuesday for art history. We've been given a good twenty-three paintings (all, or most on display at the National Art Gallery) to choose from for our essay. I quickly narrowed it down to three; a Giordano, a Rembrandt or a West. Unfortunately, I could find next to nothing in terms of articles on the first two... Although in retrospect I don't remember looking particularly hard for the Rembrandt ("The Tribute Money"). I think I forgot about it, while fussing over the Giordano. It's too bad, because it really is a lovely painting. But anyways, I found a fair bit about the Benjamin West painting, and despite initially not being particularly taken by it, reading the articles really increased my interest in the piece. I think by nature I'm more drawn to pieces of classical nature and subject, but it is very much the fact that West pulls away from that standard that makes "The Death of General Wolfe" so alluring in its own right. Also helps that I remember doing a project back in junior high about the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, so I'm familiar with some context.
Considering, though, that the painting itself can be interpreted in so many different ways, and holds so many layers of meaning and significance, I shouldn't have too much trouble writing an essay on the topic. I hope.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Painful SQL, More Shiny Latex and Uneducated Drivel
Painful SQL
So today I was working on one of the contracts I've currently got going - the task itself is not large, but it has a few somewhat challenging components. I (kind of) conquered one of them today. An immensely complicated SQL query that involves sorting the returned rows by how the relative ratios of protein, carbohydrates and fats in each item retrieved differ from a user's goal. Furthermore, it has to take into consideration that it is less desirable for the bulk of the difference to be in one category instead of spread out across all three. Somehow, with a combination of standard deviation equations and some handy experimentation on my part, I managed to come up with a solution - hooray for first year statistics class! Still, thanks to the fact that you can't use aliases for much within the query itself (can't multiply two aliases together, etc) I ended up with an absolutely HIDEOUS query. Surprisingly enough, I had very few syntactical issues, and none of them came from the part to do with value on which the results were sorted. Enjoy:
More Shiny Latex
On another note, I did another latex study. It's nice, you know, to have a blog that no one reads - means I don't have to be self conscious for using latex fetish models for studies. Today's was Susan Wayland. Still needs work, and I threw the face and hair on there rather quickly because I was getting tired. Not that I should be making excuses.
Uneducated Drivel
Oh! Today's Art History lecture was very interesting, once again. It pains me that I've missed two classes already thanks to the weather (I haven't been keen on driving through snowstorms for an evening elective). It's not common for me to regret missing a class or two. Today we covered various interpretations of Baroque art; Spanish, Flemish and Dutch. A lot of beautiful pieces, although I didn't find myself particularly fond of the all-too everyday paintings of Vermeer. I mean, I know they hold deeper meaning in raising the average person to a piece of interest, but it just doesn't do much for me. Even some of the still lifes from the same period and region seemed more intriguing to me. Then again, it may have been the particular pieces our professor showed us - I do remember finding The Girl with the Pearl Earring somewhat interesting.
But oh jeez. Las Meninas, by Velázquez? I have no words. The amount of depth in the painting, and how the mere presence of a canvas blocking off the far left brings the viewer into the piece is astonishing. By adding that border element, it seems to knock away all other edges and immerse you into the scene. I did appreciate that same sort of element of Vermeer's The Art of Painting, but I think its disregard of the viewer, counters that connection and allows me to detach all too easily.
... But seriously. How does Vermeer know what his own back looks like?
So today I was working on one of the contracts I've currently got going - the task itself is not large, but it has a few somewhat challenging components. I (kind of) conquered one of them today. An immensely complicated SQL query that involves sorting the returned rows by how the relative ratios of protein, carbohydrates and fats in each item retrieved differ from a user's goal. Furthermore, it has to take into consideration that it is less desirable for the bulk of the difference to be in one category instead of spread out across all three. Somehow, with a combination of standard deviation equations and some handy experimentation on my part, I managed to come up with a solution - hooray for first year statistics class! Still, thanks to the fact that you can't use aliases for much within the query itself (can't multiply two aliases together, etc) I ended up with an absolutely HIDEOUS query. Surprisingly enough, I had very few syntactical issues, and none of them came from the part to do with value on which the results were sorted. Enjoy:
SELECT it.items as name, it.grams as grams, it.portion as portion, it.calories as calories, it.grams_p as protein, it.grams_c as carbs, it.grams_f as fat, it.grams_sat_f as saturated, (SQRT(((((14 - (it.grams_p*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) - (((14 - (it.grams_p*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (56 - (it.grams_c*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (30 - (it.grams_f*9/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))))/3)) * ((14 - (it.grams_p*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) - (((14 - (it.grams_p*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (56 - (it.grams_c*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (30 - (it.grams_f*9/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))))/3))) + (((56 - (it.grams_c*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) - (((14 - (it.grams_p*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (56 - (it.grams_c*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (30 - (it.grams_f*9/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))))/3)) * ((56 - (it.grams_c*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) - (((14 - (it.grams_p*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (56 - (it.grams_c*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (30 - (it.grams_f*9/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))))/3))) + (((30 - (it.grams_f*9/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) - (((14 - (it.grams_p*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (56 - (it.grams_c*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (30 - (it.grams_f*9/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))))/3)) * ((30 - (it.grams_f*9/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) - (((14 - (it.grams_p*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (56 - (it.grams_c*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (30 - (it.grams_f*9/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))))/3))))/2) * ((14 - (it.grams_p*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (56 - (it.grams_c*4/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))) + (30 - (it.grams_f*9/((it.grams_p * 4) + (it.grams_c * 4) + (it.grams_f * 9)))))) AS sortorder FROM items it LEFT JOIN intake int_f ON (it.id_foods=int_f.id_foods and int_f.Date >= DATE_SUB(CURDATE(),INTERVAL 4 DAY) and int_f.user_id='1') LEFT JOIN intake int_fg ON (it.id_groups=int_fg.id_groups and int_fg.Date >= DATE_SUB(CURDATE(),INTERVAL 2 DAY) and int_fg.user_id='1') WHERE int_f.id_intake IS NULL and int_fg.id_intake IS NULL and ((IF(it.meal_id=0,it.meal_id,(SELECT SUM(sint_f.id_intake) + SUM(sint_fg.id_intake) FROM meal_ingredients ming LEFT JOIN items mit ON (ming.item_id = mit.id_items) LEFT JOIN intake sint_f ON (mit.id_foods=sint_f.id_foods and sint_f.Date >= DATE_SUB(CURDATE(),INTERVAL 4 DAY) and sint_f.user_id='$user') LEFT JOIN intake sint_fg ON (mit.id_groups=sint_fg.id_groups and sint_fg.Date >= DATE_SUB(CURDATE(),INTERVAL 2 DAY) and sint_fg.user_id='$user') WHERE ming.meal_id=it.meal_id))) IS NULL or it.meal_id='0') ORDER BY sortorder ASC LIMIT 15
More Shiny Latex
On another note, I did another latex study. It's nice, you know, to have a blog that no one reads - means I don't have to be self conscious for using latex fetish models for studies. Today's was Susan Wayland. Still needs work, and I threw the face and hair on there rather quickly because I was getting tired. Not that I should be making excuses.
Uneducated Drivel
Oh! Today's Art History lecture was very interesting, once again. It pains me that I've missed two classes already thanks to the weather (I haven't been keen on driving through snowstorms for an evening elective). It's not common for me to regret missing a class or two. Today we covered various interpretations of Baroque art; Spanish, Flemish and Dutch. A lot of beautiful pieces, although I didn't find myself particularly fond of the all-too everyday paintings of Vermeer. I mean, I know they hold deeper meaning in raising the average person to a piece of interest, but it just doesn't do much for me. Even some of the still lifes from the same period and region seemed more intriguing to me. Then again, it may have been the particular pieces our professor showed us - I do remember finding The Girl with the Pearl Earring somewhat interesting.
But oh jeez. Las Meninas, by Velázquez? I have no words. The amount of depth in the painting, and how the mere presence of a canvas blocking off the far left brings the viewer into the piece is astonishing. By adding that border element, it seems to knock away all other edges and immerse you into the scene. I did appreciate that same sort of element of Vermeer's The Art of Painting, but I think its disregard of the viewer, counters that connection and allows me to detach all too easily.
... But seriously. How does Vermeer know what his own back looks like?
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Saints Row the Third
So as I mentioned before, I've been playing Saints Row 3 lately. Surprisingly awesome game - even though everyone I spoke to said it was good, for some reason I never saw myself getting into it. It's remarkable how it is in so many ways a clone of Grand Theft Auto, but in so many ways an entirely different, and better game. One of my friends compared it to tracing over someone's drawing and calling it their own. The more I think about it, the more I feel that a more accurate analogy would be to say that it's much like copying the general compositional framework of a drawing.
More than anything, the steal-cars kill-people run-missions aspects of Grand Theft Auto (which pretty much describe it fully as a game) are ultimately the foundation of a genre more than things that make the game itself unique. The only reason we see it as the latter is because it was, for a very long time, the only major title within its own genre.
Anyways, enough of that. Yesterday I started drawing my Saints Row 3 character, using several varying pieces of reference, along with multiple screenshots. Here's my progress so far.
More than anything, the steal-cars kill-people run-missions aspects of Grand Theft Auto (which pretty much describe it fully as a game) are ultimately the foundation of a genre more than things that make the game itself unique. The only reason we see it as the latter is because it was, for a very long time, the only major title within its own genre.
Anyways, enough of that. Yesterday I started drawing my Saints Row 3 character, using several varying pieces of reference, along with multiple screenshots. Here's my progress so far.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Underworld: Awakening and a Horsey
Today, in a reasonably rare feat of unnecessary house-leaving, I decided to catch a movie before going to my seven o'clock art history lecture. The fourth (or third, depending on who you're talking to) installment of the Underworld series. Now, I am not a film critic, and for this I am thankful, as I can therefore enjoy dumb movies without feeling stupider for it.
Underworld: Awakening was a good time, plain and simple. I didn't expect a whole lot from it aside from awesome werewolves and Kate Beckinsale in black latex and a corset. It certainly didn't disappoint! Sure, the story seemed stunted and unimaginative, although one twist they threw in really did leave me feeling mildly, and pleasantly surprised. It also didn't help that the ending was an obvious lead-in to a sequel, and ultimately made the story (which did contain a beginning, middle and end) feel halved and episodic. At the same time, though, it pleases me to think that there will likely be another Underworld film.
Oh, and my art history lecture was pretty interesting, too. Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael were the primary targets of today's class, and while they are interesting enough on their own, my professor (Brian Foss) definitely did a great job of adding to it.
Anywho, I also did a quick horse-sketch/study while watching the ninth episode of Game of Thrones. As a rule, I am horrible at drawing horses - and I don't believe that has changed. Tonight's sketch is exponentially better than my usual depiction of horses, but I think it might just be a matter of an improvement in the area of drawing from observation. Which is good too! Better, in fact.
Underworld: Awakening was a good time, plain and simple. I didn't expect a whole lot from it aside from awesome werewolves and Kate Beckinsale in black latex and a corset. It certainly didn't disappoint! Sure, the story seemed stunted and unimaginative, although one twist they threw in really did leave me feeling mildly, and pleasantly surprised. It also didn't help that the ending was an obvious lead-in to a sequel, and ultimately made the story (which did contain a beginning, middle and end) feel halved and episodic. At the same time, though, it pleases me to think that there will likely be another Underworld film.
Oh, and my art history lecture was pretty interesting, too. Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael were the primary targets of today's class, and while they are interesting enough on their own, my professor (Brian Foss) definitely did a great job of adding to it.
Anywho, I also did a quick horse-sketch/study while watching the ninth episode of Game of Thrones. As a rule, I am horrible at drawing horses - and I don't believe that has changed. Tonight's sketch is exponentially better than my usual depiction of horses, but I think it might just be a matter of an improvement in the area of drawing from observation. Which is good too! Better, in fact.
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