| (no subject) |
[Sep. 8th, 2008|11:04 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Dr Horrible -- My Eyes | ] |
(LJ being weird to anyone else?)
Being on the making side of the video game pipeline for the first time in an interesting experience. Especially in regards to the community. Poking around the forums for Fallen Earth (http://forums.fallenearth.com) makes me want to, rather frequently, post something to the effect of "get a life" or "get some perspective" or "no, we're not going to hire you based on forum posts". Seriously. We opened up the initial round of alpha testing a few weeks back, and a lot of people (many of them followers of the game for 3+ years now... which is another topic in itself) suddenly got all whiny and bitchy about losing the draw to get in. Looked like only some prudent banning avoided an insurrection.
Makes me wonder if I was like that at some point.
(NOTE: Anyone a post-apocalyptic MMO tester kind of person? I might have some alpha invites hanging around, but you've gotta be able to test and report as much as play, if not more. Drop me a line if interested, and I'll check my quota on Monday.)
But it is great that we're actually getting somewhere now. The game's been in development for many years now, but we've really kicked it into gear over these past few months. Feature complete last month, content complete in a few weeks now, beta in a few months, and finally release next year. I've gotten to work on interface stuff lately, doing Flash apps for the tutorial and character creation screen. But since I'm the only flash coder in the company, I also have to pull duty for the company's other projects, so I've unfortunately been unable to spend a lot of time on the game. It's too bad since I think there's a bunch of stuff we could do with in-game flash stuff.
This last week, though, there were higher ups off at a show in LA showing off the one big non-FE project I've been coding all by myself: a 2d isometric flash client for our back-end software. Think Habbo Hotel, Puzzle Pirates, Diablo, and the like. And apparently it's a big hit. Yay for job security. Only if they were paying me more.
(NOTE 2: Dr Horrible's soundtrack is A-W-E-S-O-M-E. And Penny's H-A-W-T.)
I really need to start doing art stuff again. If for no other reason than pad my portfolio. I don't think this area has a lack of places that I could potentially show stuff at, but before I can do that I need stuff to show off. I need to stop being so anal about quality and just make stuff, even if it ends up being crap. It really shouldn't be as hard as it's turning out to be -- my sort of thing (pen and ink and such) isn't, generally, very time consuming stuff -- but coming up with subject matter is just painful. I need to get over my wariness of pin-up, portrait and character sketch stuff just to fill up the space between bigger ideas. There's a potential gold mine lurking in old CFW stuff if I can weed any of it out.
(NOTE 3: Spore awesome. Nothing more to say.) |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 11th, 2006|11:03 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Save My Soul - Save My Soul - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy | ] |
Well, after waiting forever for medical stuff, tomorrow I'm finally off to Raleigh, NC for the summer internship I got just about a month ago. I'll be doing programming stuff for Icarus Studio's MMORPG in production (Fallen Earth), and will be spending the rest of the summer down there in Raleigh (Thus why no con this year, Tess ;)).
Now, this doesn't mean the heart stuff is over. I completed the latest round of tests last Friday, so there's at least one more doctor visit in the future, but I'll drive up from Raleigh for whenever it'll be. The temporary medicine the doc gave me has been doing a pretty good job, though. But, seriously, in the last month I'm sure I've had more medical attention than I've had in at least the last five years. Probably even ten.
So, now I pack. I'll be staying in one of those extended stay hotels until (if) I can find an apartment or something to stay at for the rest of the time. How exciting.
Oh, and Red (the Mini S I get to drive) sounds like a jet when it's idling. That car's just so awesome.
EDIT: I'm playing with a new layout for my web site/portfolio. How's this look? --> http://www.headlesschickenstudios.com/hcs3/home.php |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 27th, 2006|10:48 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | As Ugly As I Seem -- White Stripes | ] |
The heart-capades continue...
So I don't have a thyroid problem. That leaves an actual heart problem or maybe something like stress (I'd be doubtful). The doc says this is good -- thyroid stuff can be annoying -- but I say it does not bode well to be 21.5 years old and have heart problems. Or maybe being able to treat it early/young is a good thing.
But now I get to be poked and prodded some more. The doc wants to put me through a chest x-ray, an echocardiogram and a 24-hour holter monitor. Whee. At least I can just go down the road to the hospital to have them done.
Needless to say, this is kinda screwing up my summer plans. Here I was, hoping to be able to work at the internship all summer, but 1/3rd of the summer's already done. And my bets are on this not being done by next week.
So, in the meantime, pardon me while I keep my <3s to myself.
And everyone should post (Except Tess since she'd be waiting for me, but everyone else knows who you are). |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 13th, 2006|12:02 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Once Upon a Time - La Nouba - Cirque du Soleil | ] |
I finally went to the doc to have my heart checked out (It's been beating harder than normal for a few months now, for those that don't know). Got hooked up to an EKG and was drained of some blood. The doc said that he thinks it's a thyroid thing -- since there's a family history of it -- but we're waiting on the blood tests to find out more. Needless to say, I've made use of Wikipedia since getting back :) Just now have to wait to see what happens...
Of course, though, this could throw a wrench into the internship I'm wanted for at a game studio down in Raleigh. If it is a thyroid thing, the treatment could very well last the summer and I don't know if I'd want to go plant myself in a strange land while needing a treatment. And the possible leads I had for getting a coding job here around home seem to be drying up. The doc asked me what my stress level was on a scale of one to ten; the 4-5 I told him comes largely from this job thing ;)
Got to drive the Mini S down for the appointment, though. Heh heh (I was good, though). Here's to hoping I get to take it back to Savannah... |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 11th, 2006|07:52 pm] |
Finally got around to seeing Advent Children. Here are my thoughts:
Story/Characters: Meh. A little shallow. The fights were too DBZ for me. The voice acting wasn't too bad; I'd be willing to say that the script might have let them down at times.
Character Models: Hit and miss. I think the best one was Marlene and Tifa was close behind. The animations seemed a bit stiff at times, which was weird since the credits said they were motion-captured, but the motion actors could have been stiff. The shadowing of the character's wasn't all that good, either: they could have been much more pronounced instead of being like pin-up lighting the whole time. And the shadows on the world cast by characters were horrible -- the motorcycle ones were especially egregious as they were way too soft, and made it look like they were floating.
World Modeling: The modeling of the world, however, was amazing, especially the wide-shots of Midgar from street-level. The church was pretty good, too.
Overall, I think I would have preferred FF7 the game with nothing changed except for modern graphics and music. |
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| Short Story Number One |
[Jan. 17th, 2006|12:38 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | writing | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Modest Mouse -- Bury Me With It | ] |
For anyone out there that's interested (or needs a quick distraction from other stuff), here's the first draft of my first story for my short story class. The prof limited us to 500-1000 words so it is short.
( The Story )
I'm not sure quite what I think of it (it was a bit of an automatic writing); while I think I might have a good idea I don't know if I executed as well as I could have. Of course, any comments/suggestions would be appreciated :) |
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gallahad's journal