Oh, By The Way...

Since the beginning of the semester, I've been testing the Live Let's Play waters. For those that don't know what a Let's Play is, I'll tell you:

Initially, a Let's Play was an interactive screenshot-based play through of a video game which enabled forum posters the power of suggestion of behavior or movement. However, after a while it's melded into more of an expression of the Let's Player's-- or LPer's-- own experience within a game. Some of them have glitches, others include a degree of original material created for the sake of the narrative they were weaving. A personal favorite which I find myself reading over and over again, The Terrible Secret of Animal Crossing, is a popular one and an excellent example of how Let's Plays can entertain and show how others experience video games.

In recent years, the Let's Play community delved into video commentary, which was for a while considered dodgy in terms of legality. After all, the entire game is shown to all! Surprises and the story are left for all to see-- and without paying a dime! However, because it's all purely shown and not actually played by the viewers themselves, that in and of itself is considered a performance, and a person's performance in a game cannot be owned by those that own the videogame IP. Additionally, many of these Let's Plays are also reviews by nature-- when playing a game, a comment about a buggy physics engine is often expression, for example, and thus it can also legally count as a review. IN this sense, and with these in mind, I knew I could manage to get away with doing livestreams. Hell, Twitch.tv is dedicated to it.

So far, I exclusively livestream games of the Horror genre, for better or worse, Triple A to Indie, Immersive  to RPG Maker. I also play these blind because, well, I typically have at least one other person with me. This way, either I or one of the other 'cast members' will be legitimately spooked and bring about entertainment to my viewers that way, or there'll be another person for me to banter with, cracking jokes all the while. I use it a a means to study game design and to showcase the state of horror games as a whole.

We started off with Five Nights At Freddy's. We couldn't make it past the fifth night, which is fine since we weren't supposed to make it past the fourth night anyway. We've covered a multitude of games by the time of writing this bog post, having streamed Five Nights At Freddy's 2 this time last night, closing out this semester and marking the change to another recording location for a time. All in all, I've found it enlightening for a couple reasons. Namely:

1. It's hard to find a good horror game. In fact, a lot of horror games suck.

2. Even a good horror game can have otherwise scare-happy individuals bored.

3. Not all horror games have a win condition.

4. It's easy to find terrible tropes and memes within the horror game community.


I learned a lot more than that, such as how to test audio levels, which softwares to use and how, whether a game will function properly in X settings rather than Y, or if I have to rig up a Z setting somehow, et cetera. the entire thing is a learning process. iI do plan to continue streaming Saturday nights at 8PM like clockwork, however, regardless of my low viewer count. I do it for my own amusement, anyway, so it's not like I have much reason to stop. With that being said, I do take it seriously and any suggestions are much appreciated. IN the coming months I plan on releasing the recorded videos to the world of YouTube-- edited a tad for various reasons-- and the creation of a Facebook page-- possibly a Twitter-- so I can more easily post events and make them known.

With all that said, here's the link to toteslegitstream. Nothing has taught me more that everything is a constant learning process than this personal endeavor, and nothing brings me more joy than to reduce my friends to tears through either fear or laughter.

Tune in at 8PM EST every Saturday for a streamed horror game with commentary.

News Trustworthiness Survey

In a departure from the regular topics on this blog, I'd been tasked to create and spread a survey in late September in order to collect and view and analyze the information-gathering habits of those interested in fulling it out. In particular the survey asked about which news sources they trust the most, how many and which other sources they use to verify the accuracy of their primary source's information, and other such factors. My results were vaguely interesting.

 "Other" Responses:

This first question was meant to see which mediums the respondent uses as a means for following current events. I should note that these were not exclusive choices. As the chart states above, a surprising percentage of respondents cited print as one of their means of following current events, while just as many follow entertainment-oriented news talk shows as sources of information. One less person uses cable TV news networks for their news than their accompanying websites. This would coincide with the overall perception of a drop in cable subscribers as well as a drop in those that care for the 24-hour coverage networks as a whole, vying for more immediate and succinct news blips-- if not for the fact that entertainment-oriented talk shows are just as high as print media. This discrepancy could be a result of either the availability of the entertainment-oriented talk shows on streaming sites or the dark nature of current events-- the fact that they primarily cover negative topics-- benefits greatly from a comedic boost to lighten the impact or simply acts as a degree of separation from the negativity of the situation.

Roughly half of the respondents cited news aggregate websites as sources. This suggests the individuals either prefer getting multiple sources regarding the same story or prefers increasing the likelihood that any particular story will surface; some agencies don't post about certain topics until after another agency did so, and some falsely report. Alternatively, they only follow the news aggregate websites focused on particular topics of interest or, in the case of Fark, find the headlines funny. Some specifically listed Reddit as their source, though it technically counts as a news aggregate site due to the way it operates.That being said, 'Print' is the real outlier with 75% of respondents stating they use it enough for it to count. Well, aside from the .edu/.gov sources.

Lastly, Facebook is listed as a source, suggesting said individuals do not actively  pay attention to current events unless in response to another person's reaction. It makes sense: Why hunt down news if someone else is going to post about it anyway? However, in my own Facebook feed I've seen this behavior in practice; many times the sites turn out to be hoaxes or less-than-scrupulous Onion knockoffs which intentionally exist to spread articles meant to illicit anger so their site receives more links. Many times the articles are easily refuted with a Google or Snopes search and two minutes of my time. Even so, those that had responded on average use multiple mediums.

"Other" Responses:

Here I wanted to see, of course, which news networks they followed specifically. I see that two people skipped this particular question. Again, they were non-exclusive answers alongside an "other" category. Two more people follow CNN than MSNBC or Fox, which both received four respondent marks. The Blaze-- Glen Beck's news network-- actually received a mark.  One person actually mentioned PBS, another mentioned the Sourcefed network on YouTube, and NPR was made mention with a solid two.


 I notice they did not include NPR in the previous question's set. Either that's a failing on my part or they simply did not consider including in in the previous question's data. CNN is viewed by over half of the remaining respondents. This suggests that these individuals habitually view CNN at the very least for the sake of verification-- or it's the other way around. Either way, there's definitely overlap regardless of medium.

"Other" Responses:

This is starting to paint a fairly clear picture. It's beginning to seem as though CNN's website is at the very least the go-to site for verifying a news article seen elsewhere and at best their primary website and cable news network source with seven respondents. This is in contrast to Fark with a whopping zero-- despite its user-aggregate and comedic overtones. A very significant portion of respondents rely on Reddit, another aggregate site that may or may not have comedic overto9nes in a post title. Digg is used by some, as is Fox, though not many. One individual points to blogs, NPR, and interest-based aggregators, another pointed to BBC's companion website. Still, one person focuses on .edu/.gov sources.

With this data, I'm beginning to see the data form a cohesive picture. My theory is that, for Websites, CNN is the main go-to for current events once someone is made aware of it by another source.  This most likely occurs with news aggregate sites or Facebook: A person makes a post linking to the article, so someone checks CNN to see if it's a real thing that's going on, and they move on to anther source. Alternatively, it's directly linked by the aggregate site itself, bringing them to the page.. The basis for aggregate sources is that it's user-driven rather than executive-driven, meaning that the user-base determines the frequency of which any given site is linked.

This reinforced my theory that CNN is at least checked s a method of verification. More importantly however, it shows a level of distrust regards of a single news source: nobody that took my survey chose zero on this question. This means they always verify a current event story with at least one other source they consider credible. This suggests that the people I reached out to, on a whole, don't fully trust any one source. The numbers diminish from five to three with every additional source used to verify an initial source. This suggests they follow the "Trust, but verify" model of thinking. IN this case, it could very well be they want to verify certain facts aren't just wild speculation on the original source's part, however it could be to simply verify the story is, in fact, a real one; as I've stated earlier, some websites exist solely to receive links, and include both real and false current event articles in order to keep their readers on their toes.The more sources used to verify information, the less the individual trusts the initial-- or any-- one source. This suggest that the prevailing issue is in regards to false stories.

I wanted to know where people went to for their primary source, and asked them to specify:

Two people skipped the question entirely, and one person failed to follow basic instructions; another person's was vague. However, CNN, Reddit, and Facebook posts seem to be the most widely  relied on as primary sources. However, what about trustworthiness of a news source?

There you have it: Each of my ten remaining respondents stated they prefer verifying every article they come across to make sure it's legit or correct. Some are simply distrustful of the Internet, and others cite experiences with news agencies being incorrect or falsely reporting in the past. Not a single respondent has a significant enough level of trust to not worry about story verification.

While CNN, Reddit, and Facebook are the primary sources of information among those that responded, none of those surveyed trusted their primary news sources enough to take them at their word. People on average would verify by two other articles regarding the same story before coming to any conclusion or ending their research. A significant portion of individuals use multiple mediums for news-- TV, print, and Internet sources seem to be used in tandem, though print and websites seem to be the most popular. The takeaway from this is that people are distrustful of single sources of information, and as such rely on as many sources and forms off delivery as possible for verification of data either until they're satisfied or until they get bored and move on to amusing cat pictures.

Totes Legit Inspiration and Design Process: A Story.

So, back in the spring of 2013, I was taking a Web design course. We were tasked with making a website for ether a real or fake retail store. As I was-- and still am-- an amateur web designer, I opted to create a fake store website. What type of product, though? We had to have a main page and ten sub-pages, which meant we needed content. At this same time, I was really struggling with CSS; I couldn't make heads or tails of them, honestly, until my third project. I opted to make a site for a used video game store because I had a few ideas on how to fill up the page requirement effectively and lazily. Don't judge me: I'd had a bunch of ideas floating around already, so implementing them were gong to take a bit of time regardless. the effortless part was the brainstorming aspect.

Implementation, of course, can be difficult. especially when first using CSS. I wound up using a solid image for all of my backgrounds, meaning none of the content boxes would be able to extend or shorten based on content. While it was originally a problem, it worked out in the end; when I tried to create buttons using the 'slice' tool in Photoshop, the buttons came out mangled. From there, the site looked totally sketchy and untrustworthy. Which gave me an idea.

I don't know where I heard it, but someone said "totes" instead of "totally" in my vicinity and-- as an Internet addict-- I was already aware of the 'seems legit' pseudo-meme. So I combined them into 'totes Legit', as in 'totally legitimate'. It's meant to be somewhat sarcastic. From Totes Legit, I decided to roll with it and create a mascot based off of different attributes people associate with sketchy characters: Sunglasses prevent us from seeing a persons eyes which can give away signs of lying. not only that, but studies have shown we tend to engage in less scrupulous behavior when we perceive ourselves shrouded in dark, even if it's just because we're wearing sunglasses. People with scars on their face are assumed to be former criminals or otherwise perpetually up to no good because of social schema associated with scar tissue, so he had to have a scar on his face. A trench coat is, obviously, meant to creep people out because of the pervasiveness of the 'flasher' trope in society, though also as a reference to the classic 'meeting an informant in an alleyway' trope associated wit some spy films. The fedora is also taken from that same trope. The blank, featureless skin or mask is there to remove their humanity further. The fact that he smokes is meant to make him even less appealing for parents and children as someone they'd want to approach on the street to further go over-the-top with 'creepy guy' tropes. He has a nose in profile, of course, but otherwise Legit's features aren't noticeable. For all practical purposes, it's a white mask that he can eat, drink, talk, smoke, and breath through unhindered.

I came up with a throwaway back story for this character and everything, and then worked on the rest of the website, writing things based on what I'd love to see in a game retail store. Here's the link:

http://cantonweb.net/kear100/project_2/index.html

I was- and still am-- quite proud of the result. Sure, when I eventually re-make the website it'll actually be well-made. however I like that the website is so shoddily put together; it almost adds to the sketchiness of the store.

Fast forward to Fall 2013: Digital Illustration + Typography. I made it into a thing:

This was my final project for the class. I wasn't allowed to do anything else, either My teacher found Totes Legit so awesome and my InDesign work so good that I had to make, specifically, a Totes Legit magazine cover with two interior pages. Took me about a week in total to make.

So, Totes Legit is a silly thing I created almost two years ago which is slowly becoming a major part of my life. Originally, I wanted to create a completely new character for this superhero comic we're supposed to make, however a short-story deadline was up, so Totes Legit was my fallback. I spent the bulk of my time trying-- and failing-- to come up with another. Call me unimaginative, but I think it works out well. IF I'm going to be creating this character in Mudbox, I'd like to enjoy the source material. I drew up a crude sketch for class:

He wears dark brown or black leather gloves, has a light gray trench coat, smokes, etc, and has flaps for video games embedded in his jacket. I wrote a new back story for him earlier in the semester which is viewable in a previous post, however it's incomplete-- and intentionally so.

His powers will be that he has an easy time finding obscure objects in containers, the more obscure the better. for example, Custard's Revenge is easy for him to find-- there's probably a copy floating around in his jacket-- but a copy of Destiny would be nigh impossible for him to reach should he actively search it out. Also, his attack involves thrown video games. In part of his back story, his magical abilities manifest in the ability to use a particular type of item as a throwing weapon which increases density and speed based on some attribute. His powers accidentally imprinted on crappy video games, so now if he fights crime, he throws terrible video games at his foes, the worse the better. Their density and speed increase to compensate for one another and result in really fast, really hard-hitting blunt instruments. They disintegrate on contact as a result, reverting to their original density immediately after impact. I don't mean necessarily story-wise terrible games, but on all aspects of a game. A game that's equally as bad as another game is good can still hit just as hard as the good game if it's enjoyably bad. His ability to find obscure items works only for a copy. Not any unique versions, save for special exceptions.

Also, his suit and mask cannot come off. His hat puts itself back on upon it being taken off and tossed, and his sunglasses reveal only another identical set of sunglasses underneath. He cannot create an infinite number of sunglasses because it's a permanent physical illusion rather than a duplication glitch. His hat and sunglasses dissipate as soon a they make contact with a solid, liquid, or sufficiently think gaseous surface or environment. Only those that desperately need him can find him, which suits him fine. He's incapable of removing the suit, however he never gives off a foul odor. He's also unaware of his real origin and identity.

Only well-after creating Totes Legit did I encounter Stoned Gremlin Production's "Game Boys" film and animated series. In it there is a mobster that sells old video games and peripherals to people in an alleyway. While Game Boys predates Totes Legit by many years, I had not seen it nor was the animated series in production until well after I created Totes. There might me some inspiration for his ability to fnd obscure items, however. Here's a link to Game Boys (Warning: It's Shot On Shiteo, so the video AV quality is terrible):

http://blip.tv/the-cinema-snob/game-boys-4122704

As you can see my process for creating Totes Legit is pretty indicative of the character.

I Have No Skills But I Must Animate

so, I've been doing absolutely terribly in Maya. I've never een humbled by a piece of software before to this degree for so long. Aspects of 3D modeling which I'd expect to be relatively simple are painstakingly tedious and obnoxious. Yet, animation is largely easy for me.

Seriously. the first tutorial we did was the animated solar system,which I found only lightly tedious and partly fun. that was a nice tutorial. This time, however, I had to animate this:

So, when I first started to try this tutorial, I expected to have even more problems. after all, I had trouble simply putting things together-- let alone having them move around. Oddly enough, though, I found this particular tutorial incredibly straightforward and somewhat easy. Mind you, when it came to exporting the poses as an animation file to create a .gif, I totally forgot how to do so since it'd been well over a month since I did anything regarding that and the tutorial didn't outright detail how to do it again. so, there is that. Barring that, though, the thing animated well, and I was even able to move my keyframes around in the graph editor. Here are the poses I screen-capped for posterity:

With this tutorial I learned a lot about how to map joints together and mapping skeletons to geometric shapes. I also learned that up-and-down motions also have to be animated unless the character runs in such a way which prevents head-bobbing. I actually found this fairly entertaining and enjoyable... probably because I didn't have to mess with the graphics. Maybe I'm better with the animation back-end than the visual attributes? What does that say about my graphic design prowess? I ma have to lay down for a while.

The Tutorial I couldn't Even Start

I'm just going to be honest here: I couldn't even start this tutorial. When it was assigned, I was already actively working on two of them-- the wagon and the lamp-- which were giving me countless problems even up to the points where I stopped. Since the textured decorative box requires successfully finishing the Wagon tutorial, I went in thinking that maybe-- just maybe-- the book would be lenient and write this mesh tutorial as though the wagon wasn't touched on in the book. It'd make sense to do that anyway: Most software tutorial books I've used in the past have correctly assumed users would be jumping around in the book rather than approaching it as a sequential form of literature.

I am disappoint.

no, that was not a typo. Here's as far as I got:

 That box I did not create. I had to load up a box made for the tutorials because I wasn't able to get to putting the finishing touches on my own. I already went into detail in there, but as a reminder, here's the last step of that tutorial:

I more or less told you in times past, dear reader, that the creator of this book knows Maya is an incredibly clunky, difficult program. I hesitate to refer to the writer of this book or Maya evil, however. that suggests a level of ingenious intent to troll by either Maya's creators or the book that, frankly, I don't think either are capable of. the textbook's attempt at humor falls flat when their own tutorial is largely what demoralizes me-- more so than Maya itself.

When the start of this part of the tutorial includes a note that four of the meshes were missing, I internally shouted "DONE" and metaphorically flipped a table:

 

Next time: The last assignment in Maya (that I know of) and an odd upturn.

UVs Are My Anti-Happiness

So I think this blog is aptly named. not only is it half-superhero monologue, half-3D modeling practice,but I feel as though I'm simply just flailing about in Maya-- to an extraneous amount. So, Superflail.

Not that anybody wants to know even more about what I'm not capable of creating in Maya, but I'm going to cover how I failed at simply texturing this wagon:


                                   

 It's a lovely wagon, isn't it? Too bad the wire mesh tool isn't given it's own section in the book. Otherwise this proper example of a mesh wouldn't look like it was starting to be stretched out by a black hole's event horizon. Here's the book's example:

 

And below is what I had in class. Mind you, I did try to fix it, but the tools aren't exactly intuitive or easy to use, and I wasn't really able to scale it properly. as I recall, many of us had trouble doing just this part:

 [Lolwat.]

Now, while I did learn a bit about UVs at the time, none of that information stuck because I was distracted by trying to make my crudely-drawn white stripe adhere properly to the side of the wagon. Unfortunately, I was never able to get it right and I had to move on to other work. when I revisited it today, I had to reapply the shape from scratch, leading to this: 

Note the tiny white specks near the front of each side. Yeah, I was able to apply the mesh again, but it had forgotten how to orient the image I was applying to it, so even less of the texture shows. for the record, here's what the book asked me to create in Photoshop:

Beautiful.

Yes, you read that right: Not only does this book miss loads of steps throughout, but it also assumes you have access with at least Adobe Photoshop. If using a legitimate, legal copy (for the record, I have the CS6 Master's Collection) of Photoshop, the cost of entry for this tutorial book just skyrocketed exponentially, even though the purpose here is to learn 3D Modeling techniques in Maya, not creating the textures themselves. A person who could only afford Maya and this tutorial book would then be screwed unless they hunted down an open-source software capable of the same mechanics. A bit of a tangent, but it's an issue I have with this text on principle.

Anyway, I filled in the lines as best as I could when using the transparent wire mesh I'd created. When I input it into Maya, however, it was skewed and did not line up well at all. when I had to re-apply the texture, it lined up even less. From this, I learned a few things:

1. When texturing a mesh, you have to be 100% exact.

D. Whenever a work uses external files, it's often best to work in one long session rather than stopping for a while and returning later-- otherwise, Maya will troll.

~. Never trust the book and iterate the save both before and after doing anything.

XI: Document everything via screen shots.

I did learn a bit about UVs, but I'm more confused by them than anything and I'm starting to think that 3D modeling just isn't my strong suit.

 

I don't Trust My Book

I'm using the textbook "Introducing Autodesk Maya 2014" tutorial book Dariush Derakshani. I think that was our first mistake. With every tutorial we've covered in my course, they've either forgotten a crucial step, assumed (wrongly) that the person following the tutorial would remember art of a step mentioned halfway through a tutorial two chapters previously, or would flat-out get the operation wrong. I'm thankful that the pdf is available online so I can show screen-caps from it.

Now, i'm not saying that's the case with the Lamp tutorial;however, I can't help but sit here perplexed when, after following the tutorial by the letter, what should turn into one of these highlighted items:

I instead get this hollow ring:

 I set everything how the book said prior to creating the ring, and the next set of steps moves on to copying and pasting the product of the CV tool curve. So, according to the book, what i did was supposedly correct. and yet, a setting is clearly wrong. I can only imagine that, when it had me center the pivot point, it centered on the wrong point, thus creating the ring. It makes sense; the center of the ring is clearly in the center of the scene. however, I didn't see any move tool or anything pop up when I centered the point, and the tutorial didn't say to move the project to the center; I'm clearly meant to have the pivot point for the curve moved from there. So, I have no idea how this happened. It's as though the book assumes Maya is going to work. except the writer of this text knows Maya is an incredibly temperamental program and it doesn't always work, even when it should-- as evidenced by the following line when it comes time in the book to render the decorative box from before:

"14. Save your work, grab someone you love, and give them a hug."

When your textbook includes demoralizing lines such as this when it's trying to teach you how to do something-- when the text itself is inaccurate to the point of hair-pulling frustration-- then something is terribly wrong.

It's not to say that these tutorials are absolutely impossible; I'm sure that I'd probably understand things better if I as able to take a lot more time on each given section, and if I wasn't so easily confused by the text. It could even just be terrible reading comprehension skills on my end-- who knows? Or the text is just not set up in a way that's beneficial to my form of learning. I did learn a few tool shortcuts, however, and I'm getting a lot better applying flat textures to surfaces. I'm absolutely terrible with multi-surfaces meshes, as we'll soon see with my poor excuse for a wagon. Still, Maya stopped fighting me when applying textures directly to planes! So, progress? I also did learn how to use CV Tools despite failing in this instance to continue past one. so, at the very least, I did take away a few lessons from this particular project.

Totes Legit Potential Backstory

So, we were tasked with creating a short story about our superheroes/villains/antiheros. I opted for a backstory. It's a couple of dates late; I originally wanted to try to do something not related to Totes Legit for once, but the powers that be-- namely, writer's block-- forced my hand. so here it is, in all it's rough-draft glory:

Totes Legit: Sort Of A Backstory

"Nothing good ever happens in grungy alleyways. At least, that's what my mom and television taught me."
A tall, incredibly pale man leans up against the corner of an old, dilapidated brick building in downtown Detrago. Donning a black, red-rimmed fedora and an old gray trench coat-- presumably lifted from the refuse of the Salvage Corp. dumpster-- he waits for action. For a mark. For business. He idly flicks ash off of his cigarette, draws a breath through the carcinogenic tube, and continues to speak.



"They were places of corruption, of crime, and of terror. They were to be avoided at all costs no matter how convenient they were for slicing time off our daily commutes to shops catering to our preferred vices. Of course, when I was a child, these streets were more overtly violent, so there was legitimate concern. These days they're not much better; the violence is just rearranged like a depressing shell game centered around tourist revenue under the guise of an urban renewal. "Nothing good ever happens in grungy alleyways," I always told myself that. Until one became my home, that is. He inhales yet another drag from his cigarette, the smoke blowing out through an invisible mouth. "Funny how things work out like that."



"How'd that happen, anyway?"



"Oh, you don't want to hear about that. It's a boring story. No, my life was never particularly interesting until I hit rock bottom. That's when this happened." He raises his free hand and looks up as the shadows seem to dissolve away to reveal a blank, featureless canvas save for a single black scar poking out from underneath his dark sunglasses. "I don't know how this works, it just does. It's great for business, but..." He removes his sunglasses, revealing yet another pair underneath. He wipes them clean, then tosses the shades to the side. As he does this, they seemingly fade from existence as they touch the dirty pavement. "It's quite difficult for personal relationships. As to how I got like this? I like to call it a wardrobe malfunction."



"That doesn't really explain anything. What's with the suit?" Totes looks off to the side at his companion.
"You really wanna know? It's pretty exposition-heavy and may take a while."
"It's not like I'm going anywhere."
"Fair enough. I found it in the dumpster." Totes flicks his cigarette butt at the wall, and starts searching for another cigarette in his coat.
"And then?"
"Then I started a traveling business finding and selling things to those in dire need, sometimes saving kittens from trees, stuff like that." Eying a suspiciously-placed piece of rubbish, he overturns it, revealing an old pack of smokes. "Ah, there we go." He grabs the pack and stands back up, leaning against the wall again.

"I meant, why's the suit stuck to you? Why's your face all white?" His companion is starting to get impatient; he could tell by the unamused stare he was getting. Totes drags a cigarette from the old, weathered pack. he puts it in his face where one would expect a mouth to be, pulling out a sleek lighter from seemingly nowhere. He lights the cigarette, and takes a puff.



"Alright," he says, closing the lighter and pocketing it, "First, I wanna say that I got all of this information second; third; twelfth-hand. I wasn't there for it, and this is just what I pieced together over the years, so I can't exactly speak to it's credibility. It starts with a children's show."

___________



Suddenly, the scene shifts--dark, wet, grungy. A long abandoned talk show studio set, vandalized and busted to pieces with nothing of consequence left, save for the terrifyingly stained furniture and the faint remains of what took place one fateful week. Remains even some among the dead would consider cause to board the nope-train to Nopesville.



"You know that old studio? The Detrago Public Access complex?" Totes looks at his companion, taking a drag before expelling rings into the air, waiting for an answer.



"Yeah; it closed down a decade ago. I heard it was closed down 'cause the building was deemed unsafe." his companion asked quizzically. Totes lets out a hollow, short-lived laugh. The scene fades to a clean set, an audience in the cheap, bleacher-style seats. A handsome-yet-generic, tall man with perfectly tousled hair wearing a dark pinstriped suit and a black, red-rimmed fedora is on stage.

"It was, but not structurally, no no. Some magician that went by the name Gilbert the Great used to have a children's show every day right around the time kids would be getting home at school. Part of his shtick was that he'd have a half-assed plotline throughout the week that typically played to some moral lesson. He made the mistake one season to try to speak out against the mob's corrupt practices. He figured, 'If the children learn to laugh at adversity, maybe the rest of the city will follow.', you know?" He takes another drag, then flicks the ash off his cig.

"Well, the local mob boss didn't take to kindly to his likeness being reduced to a caricature. So one day, dressed in his mobster getup, Gilbert walked up on stage, business as usual. As the story goes, partway through his act, the mob opted for a fairly public execution. They busted onto the set, forced him into a chair, and had his eye gouged out and forced down his throat. Remember how I said it was a live recording? It was also a live broadcast-- the boss wanted an example made of those that spoke up. He wanted people of all ages too scared to act out. Far as I know, they confiscated the footage after, since I haven't found any trace of it."



Denial, then shock, then panic washes over the crowd as the terrible act befell the man. Parents, children, and even his assistant run screaming-- those that aren't too paralyzed with fear. Gilbert's twitching body is left mangled, abandoned, still strapped to the chair. The scene ends, fully returning to the present alley in which we find our duo.

"From there, details are pretty sparse. All I know is rumors that the mob just left the body there, fully-clothed but defiled, rather than their usual disposal methods, and that some punk kids messing with occult rituals they found for shiggles cursed the body-- or at least his clothes. and I only know that because one of 'em came searching for the guy's hat looking for a keepsake a bit after, and only found me wearing the guy's clothes. Freaked him out a good bit, though I dunno why. It's just a cursed hat. and suit, apparently."

"That got dark hella fast."

"Yeah, well, that's this city for ya."

The view pans out, showing Tote's companion in all of their glory:

A porcelain cat, black, with yellow eyes, wrapped around a lamp post as if rubbing up against it for attention, the cat's gaze peering through tote's location into the black, empty void.

"Sooo... what else does the suit do, other than obscure your features?" Totes squeaks, poorly performing ventriloquy to himself. he flicks the but of his cigarette at the same brick as before, pulls out another cigarette and, flipping out his trusty lighter, chuckles.

"That's a whole other story. Gimme a sec to collect my thoughts. 'sides," He takes a long draw, and peers down the street, eying a desperate-looking balding man frantically looking down the alleyways as he passes them by, swiftly approaching Tote's location."I think I have a customer en route. I will say this though,"he turns to look at the porcelain cat, "Sometimes, great things happen in grungy alleyways."

Maya Is Fickle and Loves to Troll

So. That Catapult that I was working on? Not happening.

not for a lack of trying, however; I just can not dedicated any more time towards it. This is for two reasons:

1. Since the beginning of my work with Maya, I've had to deal with it either refusing to let me select/move items in wireframe 2d views, outright hiding major parts of my project from view in said perspectives, or opting to take away access to texture mapping with little to no explanation.

2. It set me way behind schedule on other work, and I know well enough to let things go. The completionist within is screaming at me, but I'd rather not be perpetually lagging behind.

I ws going to show example of Maya hding bits from view, but guess what else Maya has started to do?

It started to-- apparently-- start working fine for me. I don't know if it's doing so just because I  was trying to capture it's trolldom in all of it's glory, or f the systems I'm using have decided to start playing nice with one another. whatever the case may be, I think I may start seeing the light at the end of the poorly-rendered tunnel. With that said, I'll show you how far I got.

Oddly enough, I'm finding the lamp we're supposed to have finished soon is a bit easier for me to work on.

Maya Gets Handsy

So, I made a hand in Maya. It's nothing special, but I did learn quite a bit on the Extrude tool. Plus, it's the first time ever having to enter the 'Smooth' view. that being said, I'm just happy Maya decided it wanted to work with me again Though, it did hide the 'Modeling toolset' icon for about an hour and a half.

I swear, Maya is the first program where performing a Google search for the answer only turns up more questions. Questions such as "What if XXX isn't there?", "Am I missing a fundamental and basic step?", and "Why have you forsaken me, Internet?" I've determined there is a god in the machine, and that god is a huuuuuge troll.

That being said, it doesn't look half-bad considering the tutorial ends before it gets too crazy. It looks kinda like an inflated surgical glove. sort of.

Those knuckles, though.

What's My Superpower?

I always found it kinda funny how some superheroes are treated in terms of power disparity. They're largely kept on a relatively even playing field, and only popularity of the character-- or the current story arc-- determines how effective or ineffective their abilities are. Wolverine has a strong healing factor, an Adamantine skeleton, and retractable claws. These are very powerful, inhuman traits. I don't find him particularly interesting, however, because  death-- such as it is in comic books-- is never a risk for him.

I see wolverine as Marvel's Superman analog. Both of them are incredibly boring to me. Why? They both rely solely on their powers instead on ingenuity and out-of-the-box tactical thinking to solve problems. This is to be expected; neither of them really having to fear death leads people to focus on the more direct approach. While Superman's skin is literally strong enough to stop bullets, wolverine has bones which are nigh-impossible to break and a healing factor on top of that, keeping him largely immortal and healthy. There's no risk to their lives doing what they do. If put up against an incredibly cunning and intelligent antagonist, then they're interesting because they aren't able to play to their own strengths, making it easier for the reader to identify with them. I want to see The Riddle go up against Superman (I'm hopeful for the upcoming Batman Vs Superman film)  without anyone helping him. Superman's critical thinking skills aren't exactly the best, so playing to his weaknesses would make him much easier to handle as a protagonist. Wolverine Vs Dr. Doom, in theory, would also be interesting since no matter what happens, Dr. doom's plans are always advanced- whether he wins or loses. On their own though, they're both incredibly boring to me, and I kinda hate both characters as a whole. So, why the rant about them?

What super powers we'd choose, if able, can tell a lot about a person's personality. A person that's more interested in diversion and hit-and-run tactics would probably pick either Nightcrawler's Blink/teleportation abilities, or go with the Dazzler's ability to turn vibrations and sound into various forms of light, including lasers, while being immune to the effects of excessively bright lights and loud sounds. These are superpowers which are not directly or strictly useful in combat; Nightcrawler uses his teleportation as a means of transportation more than anything else, and the Dazzler primarily uses her abilities to create awesome light shows at her concerts. Green lanterns are by nature only as effective as their willpower and ability to think outside the box with their creations. On the flip side, the juggernaut is simply incredibly strong, and wears a helmet which specifically prevents psychic manipulation, and Wolverine can heal just about any damage that's incured on him without having to worry about breaking a nail. That sort of power set suits a person that either considers hit-and-run tactics as cowardly, or a personality that's very direct andprefers tackling challenges head-on. Of course, the individual's mental and physical capabilities also factor in when considering a super power.

See, as I write this wall of text which probably only one of you will bother reading to completion, I'm pondering what superpower I would have if only based on my current abilities-- strange things I've noticed I can sometimes do in my own mundane human existence. I'm also pondering what super powers I'd choose, if I could. So, what would my superpower be, if I had one?

I'd have to say Precognition. In general, I've found myself pretty apt at finding greater patterns in not just isolated circumstances, but in days, in people, and life as a whole. However-- and this is probably an extension of what I just said-- I also tend to have very strange dreams. See, I experience a sort of tonal dissonance in my dreams. That is, the mental visuals & audio do not match the feel the dream's feel to it. Imagine the best dream you've ever had, and then imagine the worst nightmare you'd ever had. That feeling that jolts you awake in a cold sweat, flipping out? That's the feeling I get when I dream about regular days. What happens is this: I'll dream of a regular day as if it's really going on, I'll wake up in a cold sweat, and then within the next couple of weeks to the next few months, that day will happen almost verbatim to what I dreamed. I never have any context to the events, however it still leaves me less likely to be surprised when things happen. Other times, I've had what some would consider creepy dreams which foretold an important event in another's life. for example, a month or so before I even knew the guy existed, I had a dream which told me the first name of the person a very close friend of mine would wind up marrying. That particular one still worries me. As an side: Does it could s cheating if you cheated off yourself in a dream? No? Okay. The only downsides are that I have to remember the dreams-- and I have a terrible memory-- and that I can't exactly control it consciously, so it's completely random whether it happens or not, and it's always when I'm asleep.

If I could choose, though? well, I'm not exactly one for being direct. If you saw my first post, you'd know that to be the case. additionally, I'm an avid Dungeons & Dragons player, and I tend to go for sneaky characters in whatever game I'm playing. Knowing that, I can see myself choosing the Dazzler's skillset, though I'd also need access to Tony Stark's technical abilities. I'd fashion a suit with speakers all over, making the entire form a giant Dubstep-powered weapon of deadly flashlights. I'd be incredibly weak physically, and heat-based opponents would be incredibly tricky for me to take down.

Another power I'd like would be the ability to manipulate the chemical balances of the people around me through my strength of will. It'd be incredibly useful for infiltrating enemy bases by making low-level goons like me enough to not mind letting me through, I'd be able to get free drinks at bars, and social engineer my way towards my ends. It'd also be incredibly easy to abuse, though: It'd also mean I could cut a person's dopamine or serotonin production or reception completely, which can make people go insane or get incredibly depressed, or even trick the body chemistry into an adrenaline-fueled rage, triggering the fight-or-flight response and generally causing a ruckus. It'd have to be maintained for the effects to not right themselves naturally over time, of course, but the amount of damage an individual can do would be incredibly easy and incredibly powerful. In a direct fight it would require a lot of concentration, and anyone properly shielded would be immune. I'd still probably lose to the Juggernaut.

Last power option would be to use my mitochondria to expel energy in ways which simulate magic, as is the case in the video game franchise Parasite Eve. Making others spontaneously combust or turn into goo is always interesting.

Maya Hates Clothes

When I took on this tutorial, things seemed pretty self-explanatory, at first. In fact, I currently understand what it is I'm supposed to do to get this decorative box to look like it does in the provided pictures. That being said, Maya has taken it upon itself to ignore my attempts to connect my hypershade textures to the flat planes. It wants the planes-- and the box itself-- to be naked and fly free.

When I was working on it in class originally, it worked perfectly fine with no errors. Sure, my flat planes were intersecting, but that was fixable. I opted to finish the boxes later, for I had other unrelated work to complete. I had Maya on my personal laptop, and I'd been saving all of my resources and projects on my external SSHD for consistency's sake. So, I loaded Maya up after completing the other project, and tried to work.

Then, the trolling began.

first, Maya decided that textures weren't even a thing. I know for a fact I'd been saving with each increment, and when I originally worked on the box, I was going along with the class, so I did have the textures loaded at one point. I hit the shortcut to switch to textured view, and nothing.They just weren't there anymore, but my box form was still there, it's flat planes naked and afraid. I felt for them, with their cold, shivering naked forms screaming out for someone, something to come and help cover their bare attributes I go to the book, and follow the steps exactly as I had previously done. I imported the three textures yet again, linking them to the proper corresponding Lambert renders, and then dragged them to the flat planes, expecting them to appear dressed and warm. I yearned to save them from their cold, bland existence.
 

But alas, Maya is a cold and harsh machine deity of Greek proportions. their cries and my actions fell upon the uncaring ears of a malevolent being. Despite all of my efforts, all of my searches and all my attempts to turn back the clock to earlier increments before things could have feasibly gone wrong were for naught.

I do not have the free time I wish I did; I don't think anybody does, honestly. so, I'll admit defeat on this one. What I learned here, though, is that there is a time when it's best to walk away, and that Maya will look for reasons to ruin your day.

Here's what it was supposed to look by the time the feet are extruded from the bottom of the basic box shape:

 

And here's what my box looks like. you can clearly see that I had already completed this step, and yet the textures are missing from the flat planes, despite recreating the hypershade work:

 

Clearly, Maya doesn't like me or my taste in textures.

Well, hopefully it will like me better when I create a hand and a catapult.

So I Did A Thing

It's not really anything special. I just created the solar system through a tutorial in Maya 2014.


Yes, that's Pluto in the corner.

This was my first time working with Maya, and it was an animation project to boot. Mind you, the .avi file seems to do... odd things on my laptop when using VLC to view the video:

 I like the effect the washed out color and scan-lines gave it, though-- Takes me back to playing SNES games using an old Commodore 64 monitor.But I digress.

Just like with any software I'm thrust into, I found myself slightly overwhelmed with the sheer volume of menus, options, and hotkeys. As if I were a child recently dunked into the deep end of the pool by the older kids at the family reunion, far from the merrily-drinking adults, I clung to the tutorial as I would a floating shark. It was my lifeline, my friend, and my guide.

It also said at one point that, if a particular action didn't work for me, that Maya doesn't like me. So, it was a bit sarcastic, which I like.

Once I was able to get a handle on the menu system-- finding the various buttons, menu screens, and whatnot- I found myself quickly speeding up in the production process. While Saturn took me about ten minutes to put its animations together properly, each other planet from then on took significantly less time. I think this is because, while overloaded with tools and options, Maya does one thing really well: they still manage to prevent the 'excessive button presses per action' problem of some interfaces. The ease- and speed- with which a program can be used by a person can often be loosely boiled down to the number of buttons-per-action. In this instance, Maya was able to be used quickly and effectively once I was used to the tools in question.

Overall, I found it pretty fun. Tedious, since I was animating a bunch of balls spinning on their access while spinning around other, larger balls, but still enjoyable. I look forward to our next dive into Maya.

What Makes A Superhero?

This question was posed to me by one of my instructors and, the more I think about it, the more difficult it is fr me to come up with an answer. So, I'm going to walk through it here, and come to a conclusion alongside you, the reader.

A hero's roll can be just about anything, and this is where things get really muddy for me. Here we're going to largely only focus on those that deal with when things go wrong. We often refer to emergency response workers as heroes. to an extent, this is very true: Entering a dangerous profession meant to help the rest of society can be a fairly noble and important part of maintaining not only order, but safety and justice, and many people- I like to think the majority- value that aspect of their chosen careers above all of the benefits that come along with them, tangible or not.

That being said, some operate as volunteers who engage in the profession without monetary compensation. Volunteer firefighters rush into burning buildings and risk their lives so others may live, and many do perish in the process. EMTs risk a multitude of health risks ranging from assailants to disease exposure. And so on, ad so forth. so here's where there's a bit of a disparity among 'heroes'.

On the other hand, there are individuals that pursue careers in law enforcement for less-than-virtuous reasons and actively abuse their authority. Fire departments have a constant problem, having to weed out potential pyromaniacs. Lastly, many people called heroes are largely pursuing a career and just happened to make a significant difference by happenstance. this poses a question in my head.

Is it really wise to call someone a hero if they're paid to perform the task?

Another thing that puzzles me is that we often refer to soldiers as heroes. In some cases, this can be true. However, once a difference in opinion arises between two or more sides regarding political, religious, or cultural issues, which side is 'good' or 'bad' is completely and totally subjective. So, a set of questions arise from this.

Can a hero truly be a hero if they actively work to propagate non-universal ideals? And if so, does this mean a hero can also be considered a villain?

Let's go back to the first question, and answer it: It depends. the way I see it, there are various tiers of heroism: those that do things purely for the sake of trying to improve the world and actively deny compensation are at the highest tier, those that accept rewards or are actively paid for services rendered are at lower tiers, and so on. Let's say the Tangerine Flamingo was the only superhero capable of saving Troubled City. Let's say he has a contract with the city where he's paid on a per-incident basis, after damages, but hasn't received his last payment yet. If he still did the thing necessary to save the city knowing he may not get paid, then he's still a hero. If he actively refused to help until payment was rendered, then he would not. It really depends on where his priorities lay.

Now, for the second and third question: Of course! A hero is more likely than not going to have a set of strong, personally-held beliefs that bleed into their work, and that has to be acknowledged. People forget, however, about the people who have different cultural backgrounds or ideals. Sure, Superman may try to save people all over the world, but he's still seen-- and identifies as-- America-centric, fighting for 'truth, justice, and the American way", despite being an extraterrestrial. It's unrealistic for such a hero to be considered a hero universally. And that's fine. This means that, in theory, he should also be considered a villain. To Lex Luthor, for example, he is: Superman does make humanity more reliant on a celestial being to help solve their problems, and when he eventually dies or goes insane or evil, humanity would be worse off than if he never showed up in the first place.

The problem I have is that there's some unwritten rule that a superhero can only have a villain as an arch-nemesis. Anyone introduced into the superhero's story is usually treated as a villain rather than  an identifiable antagonist also fighting towards anther set of arguably beneficial ends. This is less of a problem in contemporary comic books, however superhero-infighting is largely short-term and relegated to crossover events.

What about the super- prefix?

I brought up heroes earlier for another reason. What's the distinction between a hero and a superhero? It's not the existence of superhuman powers: Batman has money, but even without it he'd be a crazy guy running around in the streets at night beating up criminals and fighting high-profile crime lords; the only things 'super' about him are his obsession with justice and determination.

So, that's where I draw the distinction between a volunteer firefighter rushing into an inferno to save an old lady and people who fly around in their underwear fighting crime: the dedication of the individual and their individual capability of effective change without significant help must be, to some degree, super-human. Batman is crazy and obsessed, pushing him into superhero status because he dedicates entire being to his cause, making up for his lack of real superpowers.

So, what makes a superhero?

After pondering all of these questions and exploring my issues with the term 'superhero' as a whole, I think I came up with an answer that satisfies my own need for a definition. This won't really apply to everyone's ideals or opinions on what a superhero should be, of course.

A superhero is someone who can- and does- strive to effect good positive change in a community. Some insist superheroes shouldn't kill, or don't count as superheroes if they do so. In my opinion, however, taking up a rigid 'no killing' stance can cause more harm in the long-term and only serves to help the superhero avoid an existential crisis in the short-term. There's also those that think superheroes shouldn't be compensated. However, medical bills- if applicable- are costly, as is the maintenance on costumes and equipment. No matter how resourceful they may be, these things still cost a ton. Superheros can accept rewards or payment. They just shouldn't be a jerk about it.

So to me, a superhero is an individual who can and tries to dedicate their lives towards a cause intended to improve their chosen community, be it in the long-trem or short term, and be it with or without compensation. They can kill, but it depends on the context. They can do it as a career, so long as they don't lose sight of the purpose of being a hero-for-hire. They can have powers or not, but they must still be able to affect the universe in some significant way a run-of-the-mill hero cannot. They can be villains to some, and probably should be. Lastly, 'good' does not necessarily mean 'nice'.