Up, Up...

And away. I'm taking an extra day off this week, right before the Easter long weekend here in Australia. I'll be going away for it, and won't have my computer with me, so stuff like Blender and all that are going to have to wait. As an aside, I have been using Blender even more, and am really starting to get the hang of things. I'm thinking while I'm away in the country, I'll have a go at sketching (on paper) a few models, and see what I can do there.

Have a nice holiday, all :)

The Blender Bender (as opposed to a Bender Blender)

Over the weekend I've been on something of a blender bender, and for once, not with the scripts. (Don't worry, they're coming, but will take some time to get all the kinks out). I've been working on my modelling skills a bit, for the purposes of making mods for TM. I have to say, MED is a great tool, and so is the 010 Editor. With those two things, I've been able to correct all sorts of problems that the current scripts make.

Spent hours trying to get the uvmapping for a sphere exactly right... then found it teared strangely on export, but eventually found a way around it (exported the correctly textured mesh to 3ds, reimported, exported to TM, and it was fine).

Lots of fun, either way.

GLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM!

I've just noticed Gleem got my e-mail, since my big ugly avatar's been posted on the DCMF main page. That means a number of people may be showing up, so WELCOME :) This is going to continue being a mix of modtalk and whining, so try to get comfortable. Please feel free to comment, too :)

Oh, and if there's specific stuff you'd like me to talk about, tell me :)

Do Something Incorporated

Years ago, when I used to play a MUSH called "Star Wars: A New Threat" (and if you're not familiar with mushes, look them up. If you're into them, I highly recommend "Star Wars: Uprising", since I helped create it). I had a habit of running divisions on the game, or organisations for want of a better word. Other than bragging rights, and in-game status, it didn't bestow anything special upon you, though in many cases, such people were ended up in admin. Many, like myself, treated the head position in the division as a quasi-gamemaster. We saw our role as not just being a figurehead in our roleplay, but also providing scenes/RP to those in our division. One of the last, though I forget where in the timeline it was, was a little organisation we called DSI. We came up with some RP-y acronym, but in essence, it stood for "Do Something, Inc." We (those that were part of that division) did it as a means to shake things up. Get things happening.

At the time, things were pretty slow. Dead boring. Our goal was to cause good scenes to happen all over, and basically try and get things happening to renew interest in the game. It didn't work out long term for reasons beyond our control, though for a time, the scenes I was involved in with it were pretty fun. It lessened the quagmire that resulted from a mushwide multi-arc plot that probably didn't have a clear resolution, or at least, one flexible enough to cater for people that didn't act in pre-conceived ways.

The relevance of all this? (What, my nostalgia ain't good enough for you!?!? - No, not really)

Through a prison that's been entirely my own making (well, there's contributing factors, but at the end of the day, it's me that's done it.), I'm in a quagmire of my own. The question of what-to-do-next in a creative sense has plagued me for a long, long time. Too many ideas. I have ideas I want to make, I have mediums I want to do things in, I have content for ideas. The trouble is, they don't all match up. There's stuff I want to make that I can't in the medium I want, because I don't have the content to do it. In a nutshell, I'm stuck. I can make other ideas with that content, but I'm not necessarily excited about them. I can do the stuff I'm excited about in other mediums, or badly in the one I want to use.

What a bind.

Anyway, maybe channeling my old DSI days, I threw something together in a night, and it turned out fairly decently. Admittedly it was a script I've had for a while, but threw it together in a night with minimal mods. It's surprising how versatile this little game we use actually is. It makes me think I oughta just make this however I can, and worry about revisiting it later. If I do, I have sort of set things up with starmaker to do it properly - even allocated actors to every role I have so far.

I think maybe it's the way to go. I could always do a pre-vis version, after all, and go from there. Just gotta DO SOMETHING :)

What a Shame!

As some of you (that eventually show up here) might know, I code - both for work, and for fun. Anyway, I've been doing training this week for work, and I won't say what it's for, but wow.. where's the challenge? The only thing that's put my brain into a gear above neutral this week (beyond trying to understand my wife), has been working on the TM Blender scripts. Generally it's that or writing (either my endless attempt at a novel, or film script, whether intended for "real", or for TMO).

One of my biggest problems is that when I get bored, my mind wanders. I generally laze around, or eat. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for what's coming up, but hear me out :)

Over the years, I've done a lot of game-related stuff, and it's been not only an interest (Simply put, I'm a games fanatic), but I've often gone into some form of making them. It was rare that the interest held long enough for a number of reasons (when I don't have the tools, I think up all my ideas, and when I get the tools, I forget them), when it did hold I did some killer stuff. Even when I made nice progress, it was more of a question of "Well, what should I do with it?", and it rarely went beyond that point. I've always been more of a one-man show unfortunately. One of my best achievements was the 'mushcode' I used to write, which was in a softcoded scripting language for some online text roleplaying games. Character creation, space systems, etc etc... That was fun stuff, not to mention challenging.

Recently, it's been digging into The Movies - learning my way around modding, Blender and python. It's probably a bit more complex than I'd like, but it's a challenge. It plays on my mind. Not to mention TM's been like a rocket under my seat with regard to my writing, and it's clear to make a connection: Job-related stuff is mind-numbing, Lionhead-related stuff is interesting.
Usually whenever I investigate any game industry stuff, I end up disappointed, because I've been using a programming language for the last 9 years that nobody else in the world seems to use. Anyway, despite this, I had a look, and found the following for the Fable2 team.

Standard Gameplay Scripters

Experience:
Essential

• Some coding background, preferably either a degree in a related subject, or a year or so in the industry
• Both a logical mind and a creative side
• An interest in this genre of game

An advantage

• C++ or lua experience
• Any scriptwriting/story writing skills (Dialogue etc)
• Any film making skills, camera work and shot selection.
• Familiarity with world building tools.

Coding experience, yes. Degree, yes. Logical and creative, hell yeah. An interest in the genre --- Above and beyond yes. Modern-day RPGs are almost like successors to the great adventure games of old, (which I've also dabbled in). C++/Lua -- Not exactly. I used C++ back at uni, and a little after. I've done other scripting, though, have recently played with a little C#, a lot of Python. I'll skip ahead to world building tools: In a nutshell, yes. I've used the Morrowind/Oblivion tools, and various other ones going from Half-Life 2 back to Doom. Nothing awesome, mind you, but it's familiar.

The rest, though, is... wow. Film-making, camera work, shot selection: Yes. Even without taking into account TM (which I'm going to, because it's relevant to game stuff), it's a yes. Always been into film, I get compliments on my camwork when I'm videoing my son (though he's so cute he probably makes up for any errors on my part), and I see shots in my head.

Writing... Yes. Double, Triple, Quadruple yes. It's so yes, I'd make it my life if I could, but I don't have the guts to take a chance.


So, why is it a Shame? Because it's not in Australia. I can't imagine my wife being willing to move to England, and since we have a kid, I couldn't bear to be away from him for a huge length of time. Oh well...

What a shame.

Back Again

After the last fall-over with my last blog, I thought to myself it was time for a break, though I was recently shown some of the posts from when it was most active, and begun thinking to myself "Hey, why not do the blog thing again."

So here it is. The trials and tribulations of Tarison, as he messed about with The Movies, Writing, and Life in general. Probably a dull read to most, though it's going to be one hell of a place for me to air my grievances!