Saints Row the Third, the Third

Got some work done on my Saints Row 3 character portrait. Don't really know how I feel about the tattoo, it's kind of distracting. I might try and subdue it, or remove it altogether.

UDK Woes

So yesterday I buckled down and spent the whole day working on getting the main menu hooked up for my senior project game. Needless to say, I didn't get anywhere near as far with it as I would have liked, but I really figured a lot of stuff out - stuff I didn't expect to be quite so challenging. Granted, some of those things were due to my own stupidity (accidentally saving maps in the folder of an older UDK release and wondering why it kept complaining about external packages, and also not noticing when my debug log statements were showing up in the window amongst all of the other crap UDK feels like printing).

So it seems that taking the ActionScript 3 route was not the greatest decision - it's only been supported in UDK since the November release, so needless to say they're still working out the kinks, and some of the AS3 specific details are sparsely documented. Still, I truck on.

I ran into a couple major issues - one of those being that my custom GFxMoviePlayer class' WidgetInitialized method not being called. At all. Funny thing! This is supposed to be the official, supported method of having UnrealScript recognize the initialization of various components within a flash file (buttons, for example - so you can hook up event listeners and have UnrealScript handle the clicks). Totally busted. The developers are aware of this, however, and the problem's fixed on their end - so it should be out in the next release. Unfortunately, I have to get these things working now. More info here.

Thankfully, the link above suggested a convenient workaround, which brings us to the very rudimentary elements of flash-unreal communication. Using ExternalInterface.call lets you call any UnrealScript method within the custom GFxMoviePlayer class from ActionScript. Generally used as follows: ExternalInterface.call("myFunctionName","firstParameter","secondParameter",...)

Unfortunately, I hit another speed bump soon after - Adding event listeners in UnrealScript doesn't seem to work! So I could (I think) send the button objects to unreal, but couldn't do anything with them. Some forum posts suggested that the name of the event type had changed from 'CLIK_press' to 'CLIK_buttonPress', but it still didn't work for me. So at the end of the day, I decided to rely on the flash end to handle everything to do with the input, and just send data to unreal using ExternalInterface.call. I'm not sure how this would affect performance, but since it's a relatively unintensive menu system, it shouldn't be too bad.

At the end of the day, I ended up only managing to get a menu system with the Quit button working... but it's something.

Snow Monkey

A japanese macaque!

(10:52:34 PM) jaein:
NOO THEY'RE SNOW MONKEYS

Sure, sure. My friend really likes snow monkeys, so I felt compelled to paint one. Didn't spend too long on this one, only about an hour and a half. Or anyways, that's not particularly long for me. Now I must shuffle off to bed, before this night turns into another late one - although I guess by most standards, it already is.

Saints Row the Third, The Second

No self-important opinions this time, just an update on my Saints Row character painting. Gonna take a break on this one, for tonight at least (although I don't know if that counts so much as a break, because I did spend the day on it). There's another quick grayscale study I'd like to do, so I'll hop on that instead. I'm still fairly happy with this piece, though, so I'll probably aim to take it to completion.

Ugh, tomorrow I have to focus on my UDK work again... I donno, I really enjoy working in UDK, but for some reason lately I've just been wanting to draw!

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.

Another Unfinished Figure Study

Sooner or later I'm going to run out of post titles - that is, if I'm not allowed to use the same name twice. Obviously this one isn't finished, and I didn't spend much time on it to begin with, but here it is. Reference is a photo by Marcus J. Ranum.

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.

Half-Done Figure Study, Finished

More or less.

I spent more of my evening than I intended playing Saints Row the Third, but by around one in the morning, I turned on the next episode of Game of Thrones and set myself to work. There are things of this painting that unsettle me, but I cannot put them to words. Similarly, there are things that I really like about it, but again I am not quite sure what they are. Perhaps it's the variance in colour for the flesh, but I'm not sure. Regardless, I think it's neat.

Revisiting the Half-Done Figure Study

Three-quarters done figure study? Maybe? Kind of deviating from the study I worked on during this week's Awesome Horse episode as I venture into colour. It's quite a bit of fun, I've found, to just splash colour onto a heavily-worked grayscale piece. I'm particularly enjoying incorporating a lot of blues into the fleshy reds on her face. Overall, I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm still enjoying it.

So why did I come back to it? Partially because I liked it, but partially 'cause Marc Scheff commented on it on wipnation asking if I intended to continue working on it. Yeah, I'm spineless and susceptible to the whims of those better than me. So what!

More Sleepy Drawing Time

Ugh, I need to start getting to bed earlier - although it's unlikely that will happen. Going to sleep this late just seems to make sense right now. Aside from my irrational compulsion to stay awake in order to maximize chances of talking to a particular person, it works out with my class schedule pretty well. Not a bad deal, having my earliest class at 2:30PM... Although I suppose the biweekly meeting with my senior project advisor at 1:00PM counts, sort of. Still, that's pretty late.

Anyways, here's hoping I'll gradually be able to slip more detail into my work before passing out, with each attempt. I guess I should focus on the face less... No, that doesn't sound right. Faces are important. To hell with the rest! Oh, and I suppose this should be noted - reference used from http://kristhania.deviantart.com. Working off a low-res photo was really irritating, especially after working with the super-high-res ref earlier from Awesome Horse, but I liked the particular one, so I decided to... yeah... I think sleepiness just swallowed my ability to make coherent sentences.