Monthly Archives: February 2016

day 72

Posted by aabicus on

Rewatched the video on Blender art. I really need to get back to those Blender videos. Wouldn’t it be cool to know how to create assets like that? I’ve just been pretty downtrodden these past few days. Hard to get back into the swing of things. But I’ll get there. Eventually. 🙂

So my friend tried to show me Flashpoint and I was legitimately interested in what sounded like an interesting premise for a show. Plus the main character is Nick from Left 4 Dead 2.

[The first episode opens with a hostage situation. A man in a busy street has a woman held hostage, a gun pointed at her temple. Police have roadblocks but are keeping their guns lowered.]
Man: Don’t you come any closer or I’ll shoot!
Police: Don’t do anything rash now etc etc
[Cut to Nick perched on a rooftop. He’s got a sniper rifle and the crazy guy in his sights. But the guy’s waving his arms and making it a difficult shot with the hostage.]
Man: That’s it! I’m gonna shoot her!
Police guy (through radio): Nick, take the shot!
[Nick starts to squeeze the trigger as the music crescendos–]
[Immediate cut to Nick’s happy family eating breakfast with him. Caption: Two days earlier.

Aaand I turned it off. I hate that narrative copout so much, and so many shows use it. I remember first seeing it used in the “Tabula Rasa” episode of Stargate Atlantis when I was 17 and hating it there too. It’s a cheap ploy to start the story with something exciting and then dial it back to the “real” beginning which is boring tripe that would make everyone change the channel were it the actual beginning. In that case, maybe consider writing a decent beginning instead using more creative ways to display the character dynamics and information. Otherwise you’re wasting your audience’s time with the plot equivalent of clickbait “Number 15 will shock you!” titles. They’re riding entirely on the audience sitting through bullcrap thinking “I don’t care what’s happening right now, I just want to see how that forced cliffhanger is resolved!”

Day 71 or something, didn’t check

Posted by aabicus on

 

Okay so I think the interview went fucking amazingly. There were definitely things I said that made me look less than perfect, but I think they got a taste of who I was, and if they don’t hire me, I know I couldn’t have done better.

Yesterday had its own weird event when I got hired for my first ever freelancing nude modeling gig. It was at a shadowy place I’d never heard of starting at 7:30pm and with higher pay than normal ($25/hour!) so I was kinda scared it was like a snuff film or something, but they turned out to be great people and I’m totally game to return whenever. So that worked out.

And with its departure, I’m all out of excuses to not keep doing Unity videos, so we’re restarting Block 4 and leaping back into Brick Buster. Today I rewatched in intro video and cycled 30 minutes and so stay tuned for daily updates again! You nonexistent readers are so patient with me :3

Explanation

Posted by aabicus on

If you want to know what I’ve been up to, it’s freaking out about the upcoming EA interview. I’ve got an on-site interview February the 24th. I made it to the second round of interviews!!!!

I’ve been playing Madden and looking up EA sites and EA twitters and EA everything and in general losing sleep and worrying and it’s been super hard to focus. I’m putting everything on hiatus until after that interview. Sorry but it’s gotta happen

Day 72

Posted by aabicus on

Okay, we’re back on the chain. Watched the next video, it contained advice on using GIMP to make a block for our upcoming Brick Attack game. Did not actually do it; gonna rewatch it tomorrow and do the actual stuff. I gotta get to bed so I can take my interview outfit to the dry cleaners and make it look damn purdy; made it to the second tier of interviews! 😀

Day 71

Posted by aabicus on

Jesus, guess I took off till the 18th anyway. Look at what happens when you break the chain sonny! Nothing good!

But fuck fuck fuck I gotta get back on. Finished the Gimp video today, but didn’t actually do the work. Gonna rewatch it tomorrow and actually do all the stuff.

In other news, I published my fourth video to The SPUF of Legend and I’m getting positive comments from my readers. Makes me feel very loved :3

Day 70

Posted by aabicus on

You see, Nick? You see what happens when you break the chain? Bad things, that’s what. You keep breaking it. And it’s twice as hard to get back on.

I did a lot of useful stuff, to be fair, but none of it was Unity videos. It wasn’t even working on the video games, with was other stuff like Daily SPUF articles and SPUF of Legend videos. And now today I’ve got nude modeling and I haven’t slept because i couldnt. I laid in bed fom 3am to 11am failing to sleep and now its time for nude modeling and Im already tired and it hasnt even started 😦

I blame breaking the chain, personally. I’ll watch a video today, but i doubt ill be able to do the content. Save that for after I’ve gotten a real sleep

Day 69 – Happy Valentine’s Day!

Posted by aabicus on

You think you have it bad, being girlfriendless on Valentine’s Day? Try being bisexual and single, we get that feeling when we look at anyone.

And yes, I let the day count nudge forward just so Valentine’s Day could be day 69. I’m totally an adult, you guys.

Made progress on the game, but I’m not sure if I’m okay with abandoning the Unity course till the 18th. Like, I’m making headway on Gamer 2, really, but, like…its fucking Gamer 2. Talk about a time sink. I mean sure, finishing it and throwing it up on itch.io to bolster my portfolio  would be useful but you know what would be even more useful? Doing the same shit with Unity games! Add like microtransactions and whatever I want, install Blender and GIMP and make harder faster better stronger games and put THOSE on itch.io. So I’m abandoning the hiatus as of tomorrow. I can get them both done at the same time. I mean, I’m unemployed right now. NOW is the time to get as much training as possible so I can keep it going when I have to juggle a job and real life responsibilities.

Day 68 con’t

Posted by aabicus on

Yeah, I think it’s time to make it official; I’m taking a break from the chain. You could say I’m breaking it. But it’s really a hiatus; and I’m putting a specific deadline just to prove it. February 18th. I get exactly one week to ignore the chain. It’s a good time to do it, what with Brick Breaker starting right now. And there’s one other addendum; not only must I continue posting on this blog every day, I must also made serious legitimate headway on finishing Gamer 2 and/or Electra City so I can publish the two games. Where and how, I dunno. But they’re so close to being done, and they have so much work already put into them, I want them out and finished. I want real games I can point at as evidence that I know what I’m doing. I’m creating streams and publishing videos to the SPUF of Legend (just rerecorded my second video with commentary) and I’ve been super motivated. I’m flying through the content creation phases, its awesome. The 18th is because I legitimately think I could be done with those two games by then. So full steam ahead!

If you want to see my progress making Gamer 2, go check out the videos on my Twitch stream.

Day 67 and 68

Posted by aabicus on

Didn’t do yesterday I admit, but in my defense I’d watched seven Blender videos the day before. Today we installed GIMP so we can use it for our future texture-creating adventures. I was gonna be a go-getter and do more but my nude modeling called needing an urgent last minute filler model, and I didn’t feel like turning down 80 bucks.

Also I’ve made a lot of progress on Gamer 1 for no fucking reason! Basically I was looking through my old games trying to find things I might want to finish and publish. Electra City is still languishing in Mute Hell, but Gamer stuck out because the controls I’d added were damn solid. I downgraded the storyline extremely so that the game is over once she leaves the city map, and I’m okay with this because it’s a portfolio-builder, doesn’t need to be long. I streamed myself making some of it on Twitch for funsies, and got an audio silence because I was playing Fallout Boy in the background. Point taken, not doing that again. Also uploaded another video to the SPUF of Legend, just getting content out everywhere. Who needs a girlfriend, right?

I’m hoping to stream again tomorrow, which means I should go to sleep right now.

Day 66

Posted by aabicus on

I think it went really well! Really got my points across and gave some concrete examples of times I handled various problems and situations. It worked out really well. I’m going out to Panda Express tomorrow to celebrate.

Today’s video was a shameless plug for the the same instructor’s Blender course, currently on sale for $171 off, aka 24 dollars. And darn them, it worked. I’ve always wanted to know how to model and texture shit, so full steam ahead say I. Blender’s got another plus in its court, seeing as how its freely available on Steam. Anything I can get on Steam gets free points in my book.

Watched the first few videos today, dunno if I’m adding it into the Once-a-day repertoire. That might be a bit much, but you never know. Also watched the recently-released Land Before Time 14: Journey of the Brave, and was pleasantly surprised. Solid sequel-quality-sequel. I predicted that Reba MacIntyre’s character had suffered cranial damage in her backstory and her rambling stories about her idiot sister were projections of herself, somehow I was completely wrong.