Jan 8 2017 - Displaying images sanely

I think one of the most difficult challenges I face with not having a strong programming background is not knowing exactly how syntax is set up for different languages.

Case in point: Renpy. You would think flipping an image is a simple thing. Spoiler alert: It is. But figuring out how the heck the engine expects you to do it with the spaghetti documentation that exists is kind of a nightmare in my experience.

I have a picture, and I want to be able to display it facing left or right. This isn't a difficult thing to ask. But there are a lot of ways to do this, some of which are more trouble than others. It's possible to declare the image transforms upon initialization, but when you could potentially be flipping thousands of images, you need a much better solution. Same with exporting duplicates of every image that could be flipped and hoping you remember the naming conventions.

It's a nightmare, and while it might work for a one-off instance, it DOESN'T work for my project at all (or most projects, I'd wager).

Fortunately, there's a much easier solution, one that isn't covered in ANY of the documentation at all.

I present to you the xzoom command.

    scene black

    "This here is just a test scene meant to play around."

    "We're going to play around with some images right now."

    show tzania happy at right:

          xzoom -1.0

 The gist here is pretty simple: By declaring a show command with a colon, you can apply transformations such as scale, zoom, rotate, whatever. It does NOT work like the following:

                 show tzania happy at right with xflip

Despite the fact that the documentation seems to indicate this should work. (It doesn't because it has no idea what xflip is. Or xzoom. Or a lot of other things for that matter.)

So lessons learned once again, and if you ever need to flip an image in renpy quickly, this is how you do it. (You can also use yzoom -1.0, that works just as well but with the other axis.)

I'm sure I'll figure out other ways I can use this to my advantage in the future.

Dec 13 2016 Devlog: Cracking the code

Tonight I'm going back to the usual tone I've set lately, and delve into some of the programming issues I've been wrestling with. It comes with a surprising revelation: I'm actually sort of okay at this thing it seems.

I still feel like a hack when assembling things, but tonight was one of those nights where I made a plan, followed it through, then came up with a better way to do it immediately after. So I'm going to be talking about that.

Tonight's progress cut short

No images, sadly, and very little time allotted to actually updating due to house findings and potential job offerings. All in all, important stuff. Here's what I did manage to touch on though:

- Attached ear to side of the head
- Attached hand to the body
- Mirrored and attached geometry
- Minor tweaks to base mesh


Unfortunately, it seems mirroring the geometry only worked to identify several key problem areas that will need to be addressed. Lots of strange geometry down the center of the model, and there are a lot more points with lots of vertexes meeting, and several Ngons that are aggravating me. Sadly though, I must be up early tomorrow in order to go to work, so that's about as much as I'm getting done tonight.

Also, odds are low of a game occurring this weekend it would seem: Friend Zeth is unfortunately back on the road again, due to Home Stuffs which I gather are greatly important, and sadly one of the group's other mainstays now has a night-time job, which will likely preclude him from any games. In addition, with the loss of Eyolo due to babies, things do not look very good this weekend.

From what I'm seeing, probably the best game prospect at the moment is Wildly Inadvisable, which I suppose isn't a bad thing. It's about time I got back into the swing of things with that anyways, and it will give me a chance to really sit down and take a second look at how status effects and the skills system works.

Anyhow, that's all for tonight. Perhaps tomorrow will see another update, but with the weekend looking to be a bit hectic, I may not manage another entry until late sunday. We'll see.

Not as much progress as anticipated, but progress nonetheless

As the title, not much progress has been made, but some progress has in fact been made. Worked for a little bit to try to find a solution to some strange oddness that was occurring when I would open the file, with any luck it should be gone now and I shouldn't have anymore errors when I open the model up in Maya. Did some tweaks on the legs, added some geometry for a knee, adjusted the ankles/feet a little, and promptly got to work on the next big ticket, the ear.

Ears are always one of the more difficult portions of a human model - not only does it have to look right, but you have to find a way to attach it to the head as well, which can make it difficult to get it to play well with whatever geometry currently exists. A lot of thought goes into ears due to their peculiar shape and strange way that they attach to the head.

I think I've more or less gotten that dealt with now, so all that remains is to finish working on getting the ear attached, then I can take the hand, place that on there, and the basic model will be more or less complete. Mirror geometry, and I can begin work on the next phase of the model, which is skinning it and preparing for ZBrush, or maybe Mudbox (which I have not yet had a chance to play with).

There is some oddness in the model which has me curious, however, but I unfortunately am unable to determine the cause of it. The oddness is that there are portions of the model which appear to be smooth-ish, but then there are other portions where the edges are clearly defined and extremely harsh, and I have no idea why it appears to have such a stark divide. Some experimentation before I sleep will be in order, but odds are I will be heading to bed shortly anyhow.

Tomorrow, perhaps some pictures of what I've been working on. In the meantime, that is today's update - tomorrow may see some gaming, or at the very least perhaps a bit of poking at Wildly Inadvisable.

*edit*

The answer to the oddness appears to have been solved - it would seem that I have to occasionally reset the normal angle for the model on occasion, as different portions of it seem to have different hardness angles set. Additionally, having a high angle appears to make things softer, while a lower angle would appear to make things appear extremely angular. Making a note of this as it could be interesting to play with later.

A note on updatage

An actual update will occur tomorrow. Was planning to do some work once I'd gotten home, but then that got torpedoed by stuff, which is not something I'm liable to go over here.

Mostly because it is boring.

Also, upcoming gaming weekend, hoping to finally get back into the swing of things. Currently on my docket of scheduled games are Roguelife and Wildly Inadvisable. I've been pondering system stuff for the latter, and am considering taking another long look at the core mechanics of spells - namely status effects and such, and really asking myself how one can make interesting spells while at the same time not making something be completely broken beyond belief.

I may also be considering dealing with how skills are laid out, and how one improves upon them. The idea of using the skill system to enhance the defensive characteristics (such as status effects) is interesting, but far too cumbersome. After looking at a few other systems (notably Legend), I may be considering changing the whole thing. The point of the game was to make something lightweight and easy to use, not something that requires advanced algebra every time you want to do something! That is not very fun. Well, okay, maybe it is, but it is just time consuming, which detracts from the real fun!

I may roll some advantages into that instead, and remove the previous 'cap'. For example, perhaps one can take advantages that grant defensive benefits, such as increasing your overall status defense by one, or granting you a +2 defense against a specific type of effect (see how I re-used an idea there?).

On the docket to be played this weekend... unknown, but there could perhaps be some Guildion. For as far as I know, Flotilla is currently on hiatus, due to the GM having a terminal case of the babies, who takes up much of his free time to do much of anything. Like concentrate on a computer screen for more than half an hour. So until that is resolved, odds are pretty good that game will be on indefinite hold until further notice.

Anyhow, real stuff tomorrow - this has already gone on far too long as it is.

Monday update

Although today is technically tuesday, I suppose. Whatever.

Sat down to work on the Andrea model some, here's what I managed to accomplish:

- Created and attached a foot
- Worked on the breast region, and got at least something that makes for a good stand-in as a breast
- Created recessed areas for the eyes and mouth
- Made a placeholder for the ear, which still needs to be made
- Some changes to topology, attempting to get rid of n-gons and also attempted to get rid of vertexes with more than four intersections. This was not as successful as I would care for.


Overall, quite a bit of progress for only a few hours of work, I managed to kind of get myself kick started again. Made an investment in a digital timer, and am attempting to utilize a new workflow for myself to kind of get into the swing of things. Basically, I set it for 25-30 minutes during which time I focus solely on modeling an aspect - either I am directly modeling something, or I decide I am going to work on adjusting whatever. Once the timer goes off (or if it is very close to going off), I go do something else for 10-20 minutes. This could be just surfing the net, lounging around listening to the mood music, or maybe even drawing if I feel like it (which I did tonight, for about ten minutes, and it was rather relaxing).

I find it a little easier to concentrate if I force myself to do things in this manner, so with any luck it may even help me to be a tad more productive. I can say "I won't let anything on the computer distract me from working until this timer goes off", and it seems to work well enough.

So, the laundry list of things that still need to be done:

- Need to attach the hand to the arm
- Need to create and attach the ear
- Some basic hair might not hurt, even if it's just a crappy wig-like solution
- Need to mirror geometry
- Should create some eyeballs after geometry is mirrored
- Probably want to create some sort of teeth geometry, though probably nothing too outlandish. Odds are a tongue is out of the question.

Once these things are done, I can say the modeling phase is more or less complete. Excepting of course the need to do cleanup-related items, such as ensuring all n-gons are removed, and hopefully eliminating any potential problem areas with the geometry while maintaining a good edge flow (which is extremely difficult, but that's part of the challenge!).

If I had to write anything else... modeling humans is unlike anything else. Anyone can make a sword or a shield and make it look decent. But organic modeling, particularly human beings, with whom we interact every single day, is infinitely more difficult, because we are so intimately familiar with the subject that we can tell when something just doesn't look right. If you ever want to become a really good 3D modeler, model people. Because it is pretty freakin' hard.

With that, I'm off to bed, because I am tired and have to work tomorrow.

Getting on Track

Because I seem to have done too many titles beginning with the word "Let's" lately, I suppose I ought to change up things a bit.

On occasion, my curiosity gets the better part of me, and I look at things, like if places like Bethesda are hiring. Also on occasion, I find out "oh wow, looks like they do have some positions open."

Even better are when they seem to have posted things that I actually mostly qualify for.

How awesome would it be if they hired me? BRB, moving to Maryland would probably be the first words out of my mouth. But it really makes me think about what I am capable of doing, if I apply myself hard enough.

I really want to break into the games industry. Not because I want the money - if I was in Animation for the money, I'd be focusing elsewhere. Games provide an immense challenge, with tremendous personal reward, I think. Yeah, so you can spend days or weeks rendering your beautiful images. So what? I want them rendered in stunning detail sixty times per second. That's a true challenge, in my book, and it is one I know others like myself share.

I want to do this because it is something I love, and something I believe holds great value. I want to be a part of making some of the greatest entertainment on the face of the planet. To be a member of a group whose creation makes it to millions of people, that makes them smile, laugh, cry, or maybe even frustrated in a good way. But this is nothing new.

So a realization dawns on me as I look at the job posting. I could actually *do* this. I am fully capable of doing something relatively amazing. I just need to brush up on skills.

First things first, I need to finish the human model I've been poking at. I've lost a lot of steam on it, but I think I have what it takes to finish her. Will she look good? Probably not. Will she look passable? Most definitely. It will look like a human woman. Probably not attractive, but then again the model itself isn't very attractive. The original goal was to throw her into zBrush and have fun from there, but I think I'm also going to rig and animate her, for shits and giggles.

Of course, if I want the zBrush mesh to work well, then I'm going to have to export the zBrush model back into Maya before I make my changes - that way all I have to do are fix the textures.

But then, that might also mean I will have to have completed the zBrush model of the character *before* I decide to do any mucking about. But that is part of what experiments are for, I suppose.

So, I want to try to set a goal for myself this week, with perhaps a bonus objective. I have thought about perhaps attempting to reward myself for good behavior, as a way to incentivize my actions. Also, I don't care if that's not a word, because it is now.

- Complete basic Andrea model by the end of the week; This includes basic eye and mouth parts
--*Bonus*-- Skin model for texturing
- *Bonus* - Import into zBrush and begin sculpting process to create a new base mesh, to be taken back into Maya
- *Bonus* - Begin work on rigging character by adding a basic skeletal structure and re-learning the process of rigging.

It's work, but then again, that's work for you. These things take forever, but if I don't start working on them bit by bit, then I'll never get anywhere, will I? As of right now, the Andrea model I have still needs to have a foot created and attached, the hand completed and attached, and a breast region defined to look breast-like. In addition, I still need to complete the head by creating and attaching an ear, and also creating an actual mouth plus eyes.

I've also been thinking a lot about how Bethesda approaches their model designs, and I really wish there were better ways. I like how efficient some things are - such as not completely attaching hands to the rest of the body, neck/head regions not attached to the rest of the body... that kind of thing. It is something I think I would like to find a way to do. Perhaps create my own "base mesh" sort of thing that I can then tweak, like a character creation engine - throw in some sliders, that sort of thing. It's a highly-advanced character rig, but I think it would make for an interesting project at some point, personally.

But for right now, I should just stick to basics. Another thing I would like to do would be to use this model to create a high-poly bust model in zBrush. Those seem to be rather popular, and are a decent way to show one's skill with modeling and sculpting.

I'm not even going to worry about texturing, because that's a whole other beast entirely. Although, I suppose that I *do* need to make sure I skin the model before I can animate it. So I'll add that to the list up top. It should be a higher priority than other things, I think. Or I can just let zBrush deal with it. We'll see.

Splitting the model into different sections is another reason I think that it would be more "efficient", at least from a texturing perspective. That way one can focus on having a few high-resolution textures (or even medium-resolution) to comprise a complete model. Of course, a single texture is the most efficient, but one must also balance making something look good as well as making it workable. So if every character model utilizes four or five different texture regions, that would be highly inefficient. Most likely the same thing for complex items as well.

I keep trying to see if I can find a way to import the model information in Skyrim to work in Maya, and I keep finding issues with it. I'd really love to see how everything fits together, and take a peek at how they do their texture maps... but I guess that will just have to wait until I can actually figure out how that is supposed to work.

By this point, I believe I have written more than enough, so with that, I bid you adieu, and with any luck I'll have another post perhaps by the end of the day with any progress I've made. Additionally, I will make efforts to attempt another post by wednesday, in attempting to keep with my 'normal' schedule.

We'll see if we can get this thing off again properly again, and with any luck I may be able to get some games running off the ground as well once more.

Try Something New

Sorry for the long break. (Who am I saying sorry to? The Internet itself? Myself? The blog? Perhaps all of that.) Being sick took more time to recover mentally than anticipated, but I need to force myself back into the swing of things, so here we go.

Sometimes, you just need to get out and try something new. I've started coming to this realization that my life is getting to be a bit too samey. While samey can be kind of nice, when it starts to fall back on the exact same kind of samey, it gets irritating - understandably so, since it means that you aren't growing.

It can be something as simple as going out someplace public you haven't been to in awhile - for me, it was the flea market I used to go to a few years back. Still pretty nice out there, and man was there all kinds of fantastic junk to be found (the best part of flea markets, really!). It really started to get the gears a little oiled, and kind of helped me shift perspective a little.

The mind is a funny tool, because it can put things together in very odd ways that don't always seem to make sense at first. I guess it's because the brain works on the substitutive property or something like that. Basically, it sees something and analyzes it in many different ways - it's like finding out you've got a round hole, and then taking every single square peg and trying to mash it in there any way it can, until it gets something that kind of works. Eventually, something clicks - maybe because it just happened to be the right sort of peg, or maybe because your brain found a way to actually smash that sonofabitch in there.

Don't mind me, because this is where I probably ramble on a little bit before I get back to my point. Anyways, on occasion your brain will consciously re-analyze these things and ask itself, why does this thing work? Or if you're real fortunate, what else can I apply this particular thought to?

The thought this lead me to was that a lot of people do things like run flea market stalls probably because they love what they do very much. After all, I can't see a lot of those places making a ton of money. One particular place that caught my eye, though, was a fairly large showroom of paintings a man had done himself. He had so many of them that they were also placed out in the hallway itself in a long row outside the shop. I imagine he likely didn't sell very many of those paintings... but why have a shop if you can't sell something?

Probably it's just one of those things where the money doesn't matter - it's the act of doing something you enjoy and then letting other people take it in that matters most. It makes me wonder what *I* enjoy doing that I can share with other people.

Which leads me to the whole point of this post: doing something different can yield some very interesting results. People tend to be noticed if they are doing something that most other people aren't doing - or by doing something particularly well. Even moreso if they are doing both at the same time. So I'm thinking to myself, what is the one thing I love doing at any given time? That leads me back to a thought I had earlier in the week, which is that I seem to feel a lot better if I take some time to just hum to myself. Sing, almost. I get these amazing pieces stuck in my head sometimes, and it just wants to flow out, yet I tend to deny myself these urges because it's... well, weird, to be frank.

But maybe that's just my brain trying to tell me something. Maybe I need to make some music again. There's nothing wrong with making a bit of noise once in awhile - particularly if that noise turns out to be something.

So I'm finding myself going back to try to teach myself some things I tried to learn many years ago, long before college. I've got this whole 3D thing figured out, maybe I ought to take some time to learn this music thing. If the songs in my head are so inspiring to me, then maybe it would do me a world of good to try to digitize them, slap them on repeat, and see what my brain can churn out then.

Sometimes, doing something different can yield some very interesting results. So go out and try something different, and see if something new occurs to you.

As a side note: Sweet Genius is a pretty good show, and has also started to shift my thought process some. Not because I'm a cook mind you (I'm not all that good at it), but it does get the creative gears going, as the main goal of the show is "Take these ingredients, get inspired by this object, and make something amazing."

If your mind is open to it, interesting new ideas can pop up many places. So go out and inspire yourself, and see what happens.

I'm going to try to start updating this thing three times a week again. Since I plan on doing some organizational things soon, perhaps a post or two about finding new ways to organize might be in order or something. Who knows, I might just find it useful again someday.

And just because, a quote from a commercial that also seemed to strike a chord with me: "What if someone had told Beethoven 'that symphony should have been done weeks ago?'"

Great things take time, so learn to take your time... and best utilize it, I suppose.

Ugh, Get It Away!

Some observant people may have noticed I haven't posted anything in awhile. Other observant people may have been able to attribute this to my being sickly as of late.

Here's the thing about me getting sick: It doesn't happen very often, and when it does, it tends to hit me pretty hard, but it takes a long time to catch up to me. Which means it drains my energy, and makes it nigh impossible to do anything remotely resembling something creative.

Though in the last few days, I've stumbled across some rather interesting things, so I'll just gush on them real fast.

First of all, witty and vulgar comes the Myths Retold blog. It's pretty rad, and kind of historical. Sort of. Maybe not so much. Through reading some of these entries, it led me to my latest art crush, Gunnerkrigg Court. I have to admit, it's got quite the archive, and at first I wasn't certain I would be a fan of it. A few chapters in, though, and I was hooked. It's a shame I've already made my way through the archives and caught up to current - seems like this story is going to be going on for quite some time.

I've also taken the time to catch up with the good ol' Doctor Who. Completely loving what's been going on, but my favorite episode of the season is still the one Neil Gaiman wrote: The Doctor's Wife. Still, despite that, the season looks like it will be wrapping up nicely with the death of the Doctor... or will it? I've got a lot of ideas as to where they can take this, and after the preview of the next episode, I think I can safely say there is definitely a whole 'nother season coming around soon enough.

That's probably as much as I'm getting out at this point. Sinuses are still being a bother, but maybe once this passes I'll be able to do something resembling creativity - and maybe even update this blog regularly again.

Inspiration: Find It Any Way You Can

Missed wednesday's post - I'll try to make it up by doing a second entry tomorrow night, possibly after whatever game has been run. Tonight, I'll be (finally) talking about some 3D modeling.

It isn't easy, first of all. It looks easy, of course, but the thing is that you can do pretty much anything with 3D. That's the problem, really. There's so much to learn, you can spend a decade and still not know everything there is to know about the things you can do with it as an art form. Just mastering the very basics takes forever - four years of art school and let me tell you, after nearly three years of that playing with programs like Maya, I've still got a lot to learn.

Because there is so much to it, it puts people off. Infinite complexity means nothing if you can't wrap your head around some part of it. For the longest time, I've been depressed over just how horrible my models tend to look - they look too bland, to me. Now, I think I can understand why: a good model means absolutely nothing without an amazing texture to go with it.

Which is kind of the whole point of this post tonight, I suppose - finding new ways to inspire creativity in yourself. Some time ago, I was curious about "how do I do this?" or "How can I solve X problem in a manner that pleases me?" Such topics include rendering a beautiful, lush field of grass that doesn't look like crap, or like someone threw a texture on the ground. Other topics included things like using textures that look crisp and sharp.

That was my problem - I didn't fully understand the render nodes. For the uninformed, render nodes are basically little tree-like diagrams connected sort of like a web. Things connect in different ways, until you get to the very top node (or the root, if you will), which is what you use to slap onto an object. Suddenly, voila, you have a texture on your thingus! It's akin to magic, or so I am told.

Last night, I took some time to sit down and try to re-educate myself on how I can use these to create amazing-looking textures without making everything look so cookie-cutter. One such instance of this is when you are looking at some wood cabinets. Sure, if you get some pre-fabricated cabinets, sometimes they use the exact same mould for all of it - which makes everything look all the samey. Real wood cabinets, however, have distinct and varied patterns - no two pieces are the same, though they will usually share some similarities.

Using the pre-made "wood" shader in Maya is no good, as I have now come to learn. There is nothing 'standard' in 3D (another pitfall, I am finding). Everything must be custom-tailored to one's needs in any given project (which of course makes it more difficult, since you must know everything in order to proceed in any given project). However, knowing how to tweak it is something entirely different - you can get some amazing results in a fairly short order if you understand the purpose behind the nodes you are given, and how to utilize them properly.

Of course, now that I understand how to properly use this one little thing, it's got me thinking in a completely different direction... now I am starting to see how I can use this for *other* objects. Metal textures, rock textures, anything that has a distinctive pattern to it that needs to be varied but similar, the possibilities are starting to swirl about in my head.

Sometimes, taking a step back and looking over the things you've done in the past is a good way to re-inspire yourself. Look back, sometimes, and ask yourself: Was there something I wanted to learn but forgot about? Can I find a solution to that problem now?

You never know - you could surprise yourself.

As a side note: if I ever manage to get something half-decent as a render (likely a simple object), I'll probably throw it up on the internet somewhere and link it here. I'm likely to start with things like tables and cabinets and desks, just to make it easy on myself and to get a feel for how to really make something shine. Then, maybe I can tackle dynamics... because knowing how to produce life-like flames is freaking amazing.

You can quote me on that one.

Online Piracy - Hidden Threats, or Hidden Opportunity?

The internet has changed the entire world - a pretty big feat, considering it's age relative to how long it's taken to make such sweeping changes. Sure, the net itself was first invented back in the sixties, and didn't really start to take off until the boom in the nineties. But since then, it has transformed everything we do. I can remember a time ten years ago when it was impossible to watch movies online - when animated gifs were all the rage, and trying to download a file 300 mb in size could take an entire week.

But things are different now, and the culture that has begun to evolve on the internet has also changed the people who use it. Obviously, people resist change, and many battles have emerged over it. One of the biggest topics of debate: Piracy, or online file-sharing.

To be honest, file-sharing has a pretty spotted history. Back in the day, it was pretty hard to download anything directly - it was kind of illegal, after all, and nobody wanted to risk putting anything up for risk of being shut down (because, y'know, it was sort of illegal). But some people wanted to share whatever it was, for whatever reason - and someone found a rather ingenius workaround. Of course, it required a bit of technical knowledge (not too much, but enough to stump computer illiterate), and it also required a great deal of time. There were no filters on these early Peer-To-Peer (P2P) networks, so half the time you might get porn. If you were looking for porn, it might even work. If you were looking for porn in the first place, it probably came with a plethora of viruses that would make your desktop explode with popup windows from hell. Or reformat your hard drive.

Obviously, this high-risk situation made a lot of people leery about using these sorts of things, and so the culture thrived, as well as it could. Networks were "attacked" by companies after awhile, and the RIAA and MPAA started realizing that people were downloading their entertainment for free, and no one was getting compensated for it. Lawsuits were filed, and a lot of people were hurt as a result, due to complete ignorance of how the internet worked, or due to blatant disregard for the fact that it is stupidly easy to change one's IP address.

Meanwhile, at this time, social networking was starting to take off in the form of Myspace, and eventually Youtube began to emerge - a cool place to show the world whatever videos you wanted. Over time, the RIAA and MPAA started aiming their sights there as well - but at one time, it was possible to watch full movies on Youtube, for free, and technically, you couldn't be held liable for it at all - it's not a crime to watch such material.

The Internet had started what can only be described as a 'sharing culture'. Nowadays with current social networking like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook 'Likes' and Digg, the internet is all about sharing things. Saw something cool on the internet, gotta share it. It's just like with anything else - when you see something cool, you want to tell as many people about it as possible. Saw a new movie? Gush about it to your friends who haven't seen it yet - make them want to watch it. Heard a new CD or bought a new video game, and are eager to tell your friends? Invite them over to play it or listen to it and hang out. It's the sort of culture that's always existed, but on the internet, it is magnified - now you don't have to leave the bathroom to access this awesome video your friend saw on Youtube - he'll just tweet you a link you can pull up on your smartphone to enjoy.

Is this culture of sharing a bad thing? It's hard to say, because there are a lot of divisions on that topic. On the one hand, it shouldn't be a crime to want to tell/show people something that is awesome - on the net, you can put pretty much anything just a single link away. On the other hand, making these things takes a lot of time and effort on the creator's part, and every album/DVD/movie ticket not sold hurts the industry that produced it.

I was lucky enough to have an actual comic-book industry-based teacher by the name of Pat Broderick at my school. Some real hard nerds who actually pay attention to credits might recognize him as an inker and penciler for both Marvel and DC from way back in the day - and trust me, he still does a lot of that stuff and it looks amazing. But the best part were some of the conversations I had with him, particularly some of his insights into the whole 'piracy' thing.

To him, and this is something I see echoed many other places by many other artists, reading his comic books online (or anyone's, for that matter) is theft, plain and simple. He does this for a living, and every time you read a new book online without having paid a single penny, he is being denied that which he's worked a lifetime to earn. Which is kind of understandable. In so many words, he may have described the people who upload these things as having needing something particularly violent and disparaging occur to them. Which, again, is understandable.

On the other hand, if we take a look at some of the older stuff - bronze or silver age comics, whose value is quite measurable - those things are pretty hard to find - particularly some of the truly rare ones, such as some of the original Uncanny X-Men comics. Is it wrong to want to share those as well, with other people? The true value of these comics has long since exceeded what the original companies have done - after all, those books were already paid for and sold - now it is their very rarity that keeps people scrambling after them. Is it a 'lost sale' when you re-share something ten years old on the internet that didn't get a lot of popularity back in the day? If you share a long-extinct comic book series that was fated to ten-issue obscurity?

There is the same argument with movies and music. Is every single download/view a lost sale? That is how the RIAA and MPAA and other companies view it. Is this right, though? That is one of the primary arguments out there - each download does not constitute a lost sale, and the market is slowly changing to embrace this, but still there is that divide present.

Why is this all important to know? Because in the last few years, there have been a lot of concerned messages popping about the internet, about how certain companies would like to 'run' the internet, and take away its freedom to share anything, out of fear of lost profits. Youtube is already there, with people's videos being removed just because they used a song from a particular recording label, despite the actual content of it being more than just a song - fanmade compilations of shows, or 'fan music videos' being one of them.

Is it truly wrong to want to do these things? Some companies would say yes, and would prefer to force everyone to pay them money to enjoy themselves. But is that what's really right?

Being someone who wants to move into the entertainment industry, I look at this objectively, and I see where both sides of the argument arise, and wonder if maybe there isn't some form of compromise that can be reached. Anime in particular is one industry that has slowly started to accept what its fans want - streaming episodes of series shortly after or the same time as the original air date in Japan, with full translations, for free. Is that wrong? Technically, when you see something on TV, you don't have to pay for it (unless it is Pay-Per-View, of course). The money comes from the advertising that occurs during that show, and if no one wants to watch it...

Because of this, I think the entertainment industry as a whole needs to wake up and realize the world has changed. We are no longer using casette tapes, and VCRs are a thing of the stone age. This is the digital era, and we have come to expect things much differently. When people make these televised shows, really they are trying to pull viewers in to see the advertisements that companies pay them insane amounts of money to televise. The more people tuning in, the more likely they'll see those advertisements, and the more likely they will be to want their service/product.

The real money for these studios comes in after the fact - it's not the televising, it's the products that come along with it. The Anime industry is a great example of this - the real money isn't in the shows themselves, it's all the related merchandise: the limited edition DVDs, the figurines, the toy deals, the lunch boxes, the art books... all of that is where the real money comes in. Lately the gaming industry has started taking note of this as well - nothing makes me more likely to plop down extra money for a game if it includes an art book or something.

Why can't other entertainment industries attempt to follow this model as well? The point shouldn't be to force people to pay as much as possible for the initial product - it's everything that comes afterwards - the director's cuts, the limited editions, the posters bundled into the comics. Insanely cheap to make, but mass-produced and kept limited in quantity, you can make a real bundle off of those things, by making them hard to get - and people will gladly pay for them, because unlike something they can download on the internet, physical products are still something that cannot truly be replicated.

You can copy a video, but you can't copy an original figurine. And you can make that figurine cost three times what a single DVD is, or more if it is high quality and large-sized.

Seems to me that the logical way for the entertainment industry to take advantage of the digital age, maybe they should start looking at their own products as a form of advertisement. For bands, they see it as invitations to come see them in concert - can't duplicate that either. Sometimes you can watch them on TV, but is it the same as being there in person? No.

In the end, is piracy a good thing or a bad one? There's no good answer to that, and there's as many answers as there are people in the world. But I think I can safely say this: attempting to punish the world because a few people are jerks is kind of unreasonable.

Shift your thinking, and beat your competition. Look at those pirates as competitors, who are offering your very same product at a much better price. Give customers incentives to purchase your product as opposed to downloading for free (bundled extras help!). Special little extras available only online also work. But don't punish the people who just want to try your product out for a test drive - who knows, if you make it more available to them, they just might be interested enough to plop down the money for it - and then share it with their friends, who will also buy it.

Let's Get Creative

Doing anything creative takes a lot of time and energy. It's a lesson I keep forgetting myself, growing disheartened because something is taking "too long". But really, what is that determining factor when something takes "too long"? Does it really matter how long something takes, so long as it gets done?

I like to think this is a hurdle all of us face at one point or another - particularly with creative types. Modeling anything in 3D takes ages, but the gaming industry makes it all seem like it's effortless. Week after week we are bombarded with new things - some industry powerhouses manage to produce new material week after week - and when it comes to trying to compete with that, it can be overwhelming. How can we ever hope to be that good?

But here's a few things to remember about those places: one, they have a highly talented staff (usually) who are super-motivated to create things. Two, they've got sometimes upwards of a hundred people working on the same project, making the time it takes to complete anything far shorter. Lastly, these people working on these things are working on them every single day.

It's no wonder it's hard to compete with such a thing. Really, I believe that people thinking along these lines are maybe looking at the puzzle from the wrong perspective. The point here isn't *just* to make something awesome - it's to make something you enjoy. To do something for yourself that you are also willing to share with other people.

Art is supposed to be fun. But in today's uncertain times, it's harder and harder to justify that kind of fun - especially if it doesn't even feel like it is productive fun.

So today's short post is just a helpful reminder to myself, if no one else: make something for you, and then share it with other people. It'll matter to all the right people, and if it only matters to you? That's fine too - because that's the most important person it *should* matter to.

Looking For Schedule

One of the main problems plaguing me is this whole creative process. It's hard to get into the swing of things when your life is so turbulent, and when you don't bother to set goals for yourself in order to accomplish anything.

When I started this thing, I thought I'd have a lot to talk about (which I do). The problem being, mostly, that I write when I feel in the mood - and most of the time, I'm not in the mood. Thusly, everything suffers - this blog, my creativity, and everything else surrounding that.

So, starting from today, I am going to set a schedule - at least three updates a week, monday, wednesday, and friday. I will do my best to talk about something going on - be it one of the games I'm playing in, what I think went well and what could have gone better, or any projects that I am working on (which will hopefully inspire me to see some of those further along the lines to completion).

So for this week, things are already quite behind. I'll have to go ahead and fix that, starting tomorrow (because what better time to start than on the next scheduled day?).

Tomorrow's topic will likely be musing upon either my homebrew tabletop system, Wildly Inadvisable, or it will be musing on my Apoc game that's just started. Maybe even both, who knows.

Sometime next week, I expect to be picking up Deus Ex: Human Revolution. And I am sure I'll have quite a bit to say about that as well.

Sometime later that week, I may even have some things to say about modeling as well - because I'm trying to pick that back up again, as a means of getting better at that thing I went to college for, while at the same time trying to bone up for a project I probably shouldn't have put off for as long as I have.

Since this post has been kind of short, I'll go ahead and talk about that just a little bit. For many years, I've had an idea burning in my skull. At first, it was just a simple little roleplaying thing for me - but over time, I realized it had evolved into something quite incredible, even though I really had no clue how to properly express that awesomeness.

I tried to start things with it - flash animations that never went anywhere, drawings that never really materialized, and half-written stories that just stopped going anywhere. But now that I have this degree in Computer Animation (a Bachelor's of which I am rather proud of), I should start working for myself to start seeing some of these dreams to completion.

I want to start small, of course. I want to model the main character that this revolves around, so I can finally visualize him well. (Drawings would help this, of course). But to do it in the way I wish, I'll want to utilize cloth and hair simulations, two things I am very unfamiliar with. Additionally, I want to try to push my high-resolution texturing skills to the test - which means I've got quite a bit of work ahead of me.

So my first step for now is to continue trying to get back into the swing of things, and to get modeling people! Following online courses from the ever wonderful Digital Tutors is a great step in the right direction - but of course I need to set goals and guidelines for myself so that I can make the time to actually sit down and do the damn things.

As of recently, I've finished up the first part of a modeling humans tutorial, which has helped immensely. Now the real test begins: can I recreate what I learned by using my own reference images?

With that having been said, I'm starting where the best place to begin is: the head. I've got a rough model already sketched out for the head - a bit more work and I can move on to roughing out the torso, then the arms, hands, legs and feet. And of course the bobbly bits (since in this case I'm attempting to model a female reference).

That's where I'm at right now. Some more practice with that stuff will do me quite a bit of good - and putting to practice those skills I've learned recently will go a long way, I feel. In the near future, I hope to be going over some fur/hair stuff, and then cloth simulations once I get that far as well. The end goal here is to attempt to make a very short animation of the character in action, so we shall see just how far that gets me.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just be moseying along. Tomorrow's post: It's The End of The World (or Doing Something Advisably Stupid). We'll see which I decide to go with tomorrow. One deals with game design, the other just running games. Such tempting little topics.

Taking Time

As with most things in life, good things take time to achieve. This is most important with anything creative or artistic, be it game development, writing, or drawing a picture. Everything takes time - often far more time than it takes to actually appreciate whatever it is you are looking at.

For example, a good book can take years upon years to finally see the light of day. All for maybe only a few day's worth of reading. Video games are a great example of this, requiring teams of hundreds of people working constantly for two to four years (or more!) before releasing it, only to have the average consumer spend anywhere from 30-60 hours on it before moving on to the next big thing.

This is common knowledge, right? Everybody knows that good things take a long time to do right. That's why they take so long to get done. But when you bring it down to the individual level, on a more personal level, this common perception falls apart and loses all meaning. As with many people, I have this little problem called "lack of focus". It means that I don't like to sit down and spend a lot of time doing the same thing, or working on the same thing (unless it is a particularly engrossing task, like a video game or a good book or something).

Obviously, this is a huge problem as an artist and creator, because I fall into what seems to be a very common trap: Things take a long time, and I am not good enough yet to do them in a very short amount of time, and therefore I shouldn't even bother in the first place.

But of course, in order to get to where you want to be, you've got to take those first painful steps. One will never be 'good enough' if one is not terrible at it first. And that's what separates the wheat from the chaff - those who can manage to actually sit there and be terrible at something long enough to do it right wind up actually making something worthy of praise.

Which brings me to the bulk of today's post: How do we take the time to do the things we must?

My grandmother once told me (when I was learning piano and of course complaining about not wanting to do something) that the best way to deal with something you don't like doing is to just sit down and get it done and over with. When faced with a list of tasks, deal with the ones you hate the most first, and then you can focus on the ones you like.

It's the same thing when you're crafting up a game scenario or working on an art project: get rid of the stuff you don't like so you can get to the things you want to do. I have a particularly difficult time struggling with this these days, because there are so many tempting things that wish to take me away from doing those things I need to. Instead of teaching myself new modeling techniques and brushing up on the ones I have, I spend that time playing video games. Or talking on the internet. Or sitting staring at a blank screen going to myself "Maaaan, I don't want to do this, it's so booooring."

But that's the crux of it - it's boring, but necessary, and you have to find a way to work past it. Just like with writing these blog posts, I've already hit the first of my many flaws - lethargy. But forcing oneself to sit down and just get it done and over with instead of doing fun things (like watching a movie with my roommates) is just one of those little things we have to do.

The other part of today's post focuses on the actual doing things - if you're going to do something you hate, don't half ass it. You'll just hate yourself for it later. If it's drawing feet or hands (because who doesn't hate that?), if you half ass that stuff you're just going to cringe when you look back at it. It will drag you down as an artist, and a person. Focus on those things you hate, and then have some fun after you get that stuff dealt with.

If you're going to do a task, you may as well take the time to do it right.

So how do we deal with these things? A few tips if you're like me, and have trouble forcing yourself to stop playing those online games and need to desperately focus on a given task:

1. Try to set up a schedule, and stick with it as much as possible. Deviation from the schedule will cause things to fall apart rather quickly. Get into a 'swing' as much as possible, and keep the momentum going. Once you fall into a pattern and it becomes natural, that's one less thing you have to worry about.

2. If you have problems with that (or your schedule doesn't allow for that sort of idyllic pattern), try getting an egg-timer. I prefer one of the old style twisty ones, not those newfangled digital pieces of crap. The 'tick tick tick' of the timer can be soothing, and remind you that you're on a schedule - don't look at the timer, just focus on whatever it is you're doing, and lose yourself in it. If you set the timer for, say, 20 minutes, it might feel like forever. But so long as you're able to make your goal to complete whatever task it is within 20 minutes, and you can hear the time ticking away, it can be a welcome reminder that if you accomplish your goal, it will all be over sooner than you think.

3. Get away from the distractions. Move to a different room. Make a cup of tea or hot chocolate to drink - avoid sugary drinks or caffeinated beverages - the goal is to make yourself relaxed, not hyped up. If you can calm all the buzzing thoughts in your mind down, you'll be better able to focus on the task at hand.

4. Set deadlines for yourself. Say "I must get this done by tonight", and then see how far you can go with it. If you can actually meet that deadline, reward yourself somehow.

5. Turn off the Internet, if at all possible. The Internet, for all of its wonders, is the single most largest source of distraction - and all at your fingertips. Get away from it, unless you must use it.

6. Simplify your life. Get rid of the things you don't need in it anymore, and just kick back and relax. Years ago when I entered college, I found my life relatively simple - go to class, do my work, come home, talk to my girlfriend and play silly internet games. Even when I was working, the routine was more or less the same. Simplify your life if at all possible, and see where that leads you.

Of course, some of these things may or may not be the greatest advice. Most of it is pretty duh stuff. But that's just part of the whole "trying to do something right the first time".

Maybe later this week I'll see if I can't comment on some 3D artwork or something. Not having a schedule is really making this blog suffer, so for now it will just go through some growing pains until I can manage to get into the hang of it all.

Entertaingineerment: Or how I made up an important-sounding word

Welcome to Entertaingineering. What the heck is this? Well, for one it's an attempt to get myself to put out goals and deadlines for myself, to finally get around to doing all those "fun things" I keep saying I'll get around to. Additionally, it's also a place for me to share all the fun gaming-related stuff I make, such as house rules for various P&P games, or just odd little dissertations on something even tangentially-related to entertainment.

That means I'll occasionally ramble on about some awesome new movie or show I saw. Or horrible movie or show. On occasion, it may even be both.

So what's this guy who types things like? My name is Ed, and currently I am 25 years old, living in Florida. You'd think this was a great thing, but honestly, I can't wait to get out of here - between the job market and the humidity, I'm ready to pack my bags and call this whole thing done.

I came to Florida for one major reason: to go to school to learn Computer Animation. I succeeded, and after four years of study (the last year repeating the same class over and over), I'd like to think I learned something. The initial hope was that I'd go off to do some grand things.

Except I realized that I had no money to move, no jobs in the area, and uh... not enough connections to land a job anywhere else. So far, I've managed to tread water, and things have improved. With any luck, I'll be looking to move out to Texas sometime next year, and we'll see how things develop from there.

Enough of that crap though, that's not why you're here (I hope!). The important thing is fun! Because that's what this blog is all about - attempting to document my chronicle through learning new artistic abilities, and expanding on ideas that have been bounding about the inside of my skull since I was a child, and letting them out to play for a bit.

Ever since I was young, I had a couple of dream jobs. The first one was a rail-road train track switcher. Then I wanted to be a conductor on a train. When I grew up a little and hit maybe four or five, I got it into my head how awesome it would be to become an astronaut. Then I grew a little more and decided I wanted to be a writer.

Well, I think that about settled it, really. I was huge into cartoons growing up, and TV shows were awesome. I used to read quite a bit growing up. I never really lost that writing bug, though after a traumatic childhood event early on nearly stopped me from ever writing again, it did take me eventually. In early High School, I got into drawing a bit, but never really thought a whole lot of it... despite having tried to create webcomics on three different occasions. One of which actually managed to see the light of day at some point.

As for gaming.... when I was a wee tyke, I was hooked. Five years old, we went to my aunt's to visit our cousins. They had an NES. I remember very distinctly staying up late to play games... I also remember another time that we went to visit, they were renting an SNES, and had such amazing titles as Road Runner's Death Valley Rally. I remember it clearly because I was somehow more awesome at it than my older brother OR our older cousin. I was hooked on those. Next Christmas, our parents got us an NES and an NES Entertainment System to go with it, and a few choice titles.

From then on, we got our games mostly from pawn shops or the like, but I was hooked. Zelda, Double Dragon, Megaman... those were the worlds I longed for, and as a child I would often dream of how awesome it would be if the 'cartoon world' and the 'video game world' and OUR WORLD were combined. Needless to say I was a tremendous fan of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Next to Princess Bride, it's still on my list of top favorites.

Moving along, the other game that help shape my childhood was a little board game called Hero Quest. It was described to me as a lighter version of D&D, which sounded awesome to me growing up. After all, it has Dungeons, and it has Dragons, so how the hell could that be anything *but* awesome? Obviously, despite my parents somehow owning an original Red Box, I was never allowed to play it. Didn't keep me from staring at it for weeks on end, wondering to myself if it was worth climbing the shelf to take it down and take a peek inside.

But Hero Quest put it into my mind how awesome tactical board game combat could be. I was hooked, and I didn't even yet know at the time just how badly addicted I was to this stuff.

My first initiation to D&D was much without my parents blessings. They didn't know for many years that I was gaming with my older brother (who had come back from the military by that time). They never knew their son was going out to gather together with people mostly 8 years his senior (and then some!) to pretend he was some badass from another world, where magic reigned supreme. Within the first year, I wanted to Game Master.

And boy was I terrible at it, but over time I started to get better, and now I think I can safely say I'm at least halfway decent at it.

I love to say that I've played more games than most people have even heard of. From CCGs to Tabletop to freeform-forum-posting. I've played Magic, Lord of the Rings, Deadlands, Star Wars, Star Trek, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Legend of the Five Rings.... and probably some others I've forgotten over time. I've played AD&D, D&D 3.0 and 3.5, Pathfinder, d20 Modern/Future, and recently I've played some 4E as well. I've played GURPS, RIFTS (don't get me started on that), and made a few characters for various iterations of Shadowrun. I've ventured from Rogukan to Eberron to Greyhawk and beyond - I've tasted Spelljammer and been left wanting more.

I think it's fairly safe to say that few people know entertainment quite the way that I do. Because quite frankly, I've made it a tremendous part of my life, because I feel that it too is a medium for artistic creativity to blossom.

As a child, I always wanted to go and make people feel something. As that same child, I was influenced by the books and television shows and movies and games I played, and I always desperately wanted to give something back.

So here we are today: Entertaingineering. Or learning how to create something entertaining.

I hope that you are better understanding the sort of person I am. And if you are thinking that I tend to ramble on an awful lot, you're probably correct. But I only ramble because I feel it's the only way to properly convey all of the information I wish to impart, because for whatever stupid reason, I feel that it's important.

So with all of that said.... here's what I hope to convey on this blog:

- Things related to my gaming group - materials, settings, or other awesome things that occur. This can range from gaming mechanics to just general table play, or plot hooks I think are kind of neat.

- Inspirational images, movies, television shows, books, whatever it is I come across. For some time I was doing movie reviews and such on another blog of mine, so I may continue that trend here on occasion.

- Plans for moving forward with my artistic career - either works that I am currently working on modeling or animating, or talking about webcomics or my plans to create a series I feel has never been matched in the world.

- Stuff relating to the previously-mentioned comicry/entertaining medium. Because I've never decided where I wanted to put that thing.

- And occasionally, things pertaining to writing, because it is an important creative medium nearly as old as painting itself.

So with all of that said, I hope and pray that any other entry I write will never be this long. Unless it is super important. Or super silly.

Hope you stick around for the ride.