Standing on the edge

Update

No I haven't forgotten about this place but, phew what a couple of months.

Final hand ins, placement opportunities, job hunting for the summer.
And to top it off unstable internet and the HMRC office asking me about work I did two years ago, talk about a time delay.

So yes I've been busy, and then I've been prevented from getting online, but I'm online now so I best make the most of it while I can.

Work

Well this years hand in is finished now I just need to talk about it in the morning.

Having been given an aggressively small time limit and a ridiculous number of slides to fill up the presentation will look less like an overview of a years work and more like an episode of zero punctuation without the swearing.

Anyway, fingers crossed.

Personal time

Mostly concerned with finding a placement and getting the last university things wrapped up before heading back to Berwick for the the summer.
But I've been continuing the sketch of Damien (albeit slowly) and finally done something I've been planning for a while.

Some people may know my online title Guilt Blade, based on a story I wrote a while back. Well the story is mostly forgotten but the name stuck.
But the image I used to have for the blade dates back before my ability to sketch and my usage of photoshop.
So whenever people asked me what the name meant I would tell them the story and show them a rather dull looking, scratchy doodle.
No longer, as a new image has just been finished (about 2 hours work on a graphics tablet) complete with rather over the top flame background.

Lineart

Basic colour

Additional colour and shade

Textures

Clean up and done

Pictures at last

Damien Salem
Ahh Damien, poor poor Damien.

So the set up.
That presentation on gaming required the use of White Wolfs storyteller engine.
Now the best example of that engine in my opinion is the massively successful World of Darkness (WoD) game.

So what better way to gain an understanding of this system , but to play it.
Now I know a great person who was about to run a WoD game in the near future, but I have a problem.

I don't actually like the World in World of Darkness.
In a game of modern fantasy, in which vampires manipulate men from behind the scenes, Werewolves hide themselves as everyday people, Changelings are haunted by the fey and Giests walk around long after their deaths, I can't bring myself to like any of them.

But a solution was found, in a poor fool now called Damien Salem. A character who was created as pure mortal, a normal every day man waiting for some unspecified horror to befall him.

The agreement was that I would play a normal man for the first game, and the Storyteller would surprise me by springing a random transformation on him.
So now Damien, Navy seal and British immigrant, lazy as sin and hates red wine, is a mage with control over time, space and luck.

I laughed so hard I just had to draw him, which is why I have here 1 sketch and 1 line-art.

The aftermath

So I posted some videos, and in those videos there's some guy talking about some slides. But you can't really see those slides so I went and got them for you.

Slide 1

Slide 2

Slide 3

Slide 4

Slide 5

Presenting Table top gaming

So tabletop gaming is this thing.
Not sure if I said it before but its also a thing I'm interested in.

And on top of that I gave a presentation on the topic for a case study.

I've been splitting it up into videos.

It's technical

So long time no post, or rather a lot going on to prevent a post being released.

You see I don't wish to release a rather dull post with out any pretty graphics for readers, and most of my work has been graphic free.
Well that's not true but unless you wish to see version four of the silver path released as individual trees and dirt there isn't that much for you.

But how about a progress update to tide you over and to keep this place looking lively.

TIME

This project has changed alot of late.
I purchased myself my Arduino UNO board (I can't believe how tiny it really is) and finished building a DIY pulse meter to patch it into.
Now if my camera behaves you can have some photos.

That little rat tale like bit covered in white tack? That's the infra-red LED.
This is quite a cheep little board (not the Arduino sitting on top , the thing hidden in the black box of mystery), so it works by sending infra-red light through the thumb, and receiving it as it exits. It will then register as a binary on or off depending on the amount of resistance from the blood in the finger.
This activates one of the most annoying little buzzers I've had the misfortune of working with.

Now the plan is that this will feed into my Silver path project, which is being expanded to take the used on a journey following the path and exploring the environment.
But with a twist, the value from the pulse meter will dictate the pace of the journey and, if Flash will allow, the volume of the sound.
This will terminate at a certain point, when the pace is too fast with a dramatic and sudden stop, flash and eventual reset.

The idea is to show case a new element for interactive programs. Take a horror game such as the recently released Dead Space 2 by EA, or Amnesia dark decent.
These games try to induce a state of panic, to horrify and startle. For this they have to rely on pre-scripted content, or in Amnesia a 'sanity metre'.
But this could be dictated instead by the users condition, a fast pulse meaning a peak of terror has been reached, or optimum suspense.
Then events and in game effects would be in direct response to the user instead of an arbitrary value or being forced onto a user.

All this from a simple USB device.
And the best part?
All this is possible with none specialised kits at a current total of £20 (not including batteries and fancy black box). An official piece made for games consoles or gaming computers can be churned out easily.

Marx

Its done.
There's nothing else to be said on this one, I'm going to put together a little flash demo but its just a slide-show for the most part.

Well OK, there's two new elements in it now.
Conflict sections are the equivalent of the final boss fight, or rather the closing curtains for each segment.
A little bit of a Hegalian reference.

Next there's now storyboards for small side animations, going on in the background of the program to create a more living environment.

In closing

Well that's it for a status update, I'll post as soon as I have a new visual for you all.

Still soldiering on

Karl Marx


Nope I haven't forgotten this project, in fact its been a key focus of late.

An opening screen, seeing as we're working with the original Icon books series, what better cover could there be?

Dun dun dudun. du dun dudun. Hmmm? Oh right. Segment two of Marx's life is his wedding to dear Jenny.
note the organ pipes, the copy of the Rhenish on the floor of the isle and the flowers by the alter.

 

Ahh the desk job. One of the more miserable parts of Marx's life, his time in Paris where he worked in  job he could not stand.

The Silver Path


Well I didn't expect this one to go on for so long, but no matter how close to an end it seems to get I just don't want to put it down.

With the code all finished and the new animated segments edited in I could call it a day here with this project but I think I'll just keep dropping in the occasional thing here and there.
Fingers crossed this LINK works.

Karl marx, In the forest, at night with the semi automatic

Comic Book Kid

So a variety of projects are under way right now.
I've made some progress on The Kid, although as a personal project that's mostly on the side to keep in practice.

The colours in this are far too strong for anything other than a personal project, although its helping me find a few new techniques.
For instance, the rubbish effect is infact a a series of overlays and underlays of a forest floor, altered to give it a diffuse appearance.

Woodland Darkness, Silver path project

A recent theme we've all had the distinct joy of toying with is Time, both with the long term Time project and the recently finished time and place project. A smaller project in which we were asked to look at various locations and times and depict them in an ambitious way.

The early stage of this can be seen in the gallery (all the way down the bottom if you haven't seen it) where I reproduced my walk too and from university both during the day and night.

Later this was turned into a pair of A2 posters to be displayed side by side.

And with this it was the unanimous decision that the Night time project was the best one to proceed with.

Now the experimental nature of this project is that it contain action script to create an illusion of 3D.

As a demo have a screenshot.

Karl Marx, this is your life

So I've expressed my interest in Marx before and with good reason, a project has us looking at a variety of philosophers and I drew Marx.

This means I have to actually work with Marx, not just read about him.

So what I am actually going to produce is the design, ideas and perhaps a demo for an informational game on the life and works of Good old Karl Marx.

A simple sketchy design Aesthetic to keep to that within the books we were each handed.

Blockage of creative juices

Everyone gets a creative block sometimes, so to help get past a recent one of my own I went back to a much older style of mine and started on some character illustrations.

The kid, as he is simply called, is more along the line of a comic book super hero character, crossed with a little Japanese manga and thrown into the Marvel and DC universes.
A teen age boy in appearance, Kid is the result of research into lost precursor technology. An archaeological dig in the Himalayas uncovers a series of remarkable finds from a long lost civilisation, among which is a device seeming to contain a wealth of technological information.
The device passes through several hands before being claimed by those of your typical evil corporation or super villain firm of choice, who decide to gain complete one to one access of the information stored within.

To this aim they artificially grow a human body around the artefact, essentially creating a child as the interface for the device. But it did not take long before it became clear that this device was less of a store of knowledge, and in fact a direct link to knowledge, the some total of it.
In essence, they had a person who contained a direct wireless link to the Akashic records, something they were tapped into from their creation.
The end result, a person who could recall any piece of information that could conceivably exist, and the knowledge to form the shape of that information in the physical world.
You may think, a person with the building blocks of creation in their hands is a little too powerful to let loose, so did his makers, whom decided to program his brain while he was still being formed inside the lab.

This is where you insert the dramatic entrance of the Super hero team, blowing huge chunks out of the lab and smashing all sorts of delicate equipment. Right at the worst but last possible moment.
The implanted commands that were going to be loaded into the kids brain are instead replaced with heavily corrupted personal files, in this case the music library of the computer system.

While still limiting their creations power, now his access to the records, his ability to form and create and to fight are all limited to whatever music is stuck in his head at the time.
So to drive him into a battle frenzy in which guns and swords drop out of air around him, all you would need is to psych him up with some heavy metal, while some ambient electronica would mellow him out.
Just don't try country and western.

(in progress photoshop)

Filler material, masochistic Marx and Game mastering advice

Blog post, 26th of January 2011.
So very tired.

Working update
Obligatory Simpson's references to one side, I had hoped to release a demo tape of a certain project here today.
Unfortunately that tape hasn't made it to my in-box and so I can only supply vague details on the project, insert disappointed crowd noises here.

Recently a side project was offered around the course, a real world brief, offered by a real world organisation, with the promise of a real world commission.
Naturally almost all those present jumped at the thought, and so one of the tightest deadlines possible was set to select which ever team could propose the best method of meeting this brief head on.
This deadline has now past, and I am happy to say that the group I belong to (all two of us) is still in the running, the bad news is so is everyone else.
As this is such a rarity for a university course, they cant afford to hand it off to a team who can't do it justice. This means an additional 2 days and the possibility of various teams being merged to form the best results.
The deadline is closing and so I look forward to announcing the full results, discussing the winning teams victory no matter whom they may be.

Marxism
So Slightly inflammatory opening title aside, Karl (or Charles) Marx.
A recent task called for an examination of one philosopher from a huge pile of potential subjects.
Seeing as his works made such sense to me in the past, I picked up a book on comrade Marx and began re-acquainting myself.
However, I ran into a bit of a problem. You see all my prior teaching focused only on Marx's theories in regards to sociology, while the current book takes a look at more of the history. In specific Marx's own history.

And despite all he inspired, all the events for which he was a catalyst, it doesn't change the fact that the poor man lived and died in absolute poverty because he wasn't very popular.
His views were so unpopular with the Bourgeoisie he was 'revealing' that they cast him out of France and Germany, forcing him to live in England with not a penny to his name.
At many points he could have salvaged something of his life, recanting his views in return for a university posting, or focussed himself on the life of the working class and strived for better.
But no he did not, and suffered for it, loosing loved ones and station for his views.

I can't really decide if this was noble self sacrifice, stubborn headiness or anything in between.

Game Mastering
As noted elsewhere, I play and run games.
In fact I play with people from across the world, am a player in a long running pod-cast soon to be published as a game book of its own, and run stories for audiences ranging from 15 to 28.

So its little surprise I have a thought or two to spare on the matter.
The piece of advice I wish to suggest today goes for both players and game masters.

There is a party limit.
This may differ for each game but be aware there is an optimum number for the story.
Many people know the song about how lonely the number one is, well games often run down the same line. 1 player will get lonely with just themselves and the "game master".
The challenge soon dissolves, and a huge section of the game is missing due to the lack of anyone to interact with. You may as well be a pair of children with their toy box for all the character development and story that gets done.

Two will always feel like their missing something, needing to spread themselves too thin to cover all bases. Being unable to specialise and forever finding themselves incapable of acting when their other half is missing.
Not that its impossible, in fact a great Pod-cast I recommend you visit has a series of two man party games.
(http://www.anim5.com/IDDFOS/TGS/index.html Captive souls adventures).


But most games require either a trinity of power, or a classic fantastic four. Three and four member parties manage to find how best to balance against one another, how to cover all that is needed without loosing a focused identity on each character. Perhaps its the standard templates enforcing themselves upon us, or just how people best function but you can't deny the most common themes are a trinity or Warrior, Rogue and Mage, or a 4 person team of specialists.

This doesn't rule out a larger group, but bare in mind, the lager the party the harder a job it is to keep everyone happy.
In a group of six your often going to find yourself stretching to find reasons to keep the team all together at once, to involve them and keep them involved as a functioning unit without just lumping them all into a horrific conglomerate creature.
But even if you do manage it, your players will notice. A good party consists of the right people, your friends who will recognise the strain being put on you and so in turn feel regret, and probably leave the campaign for the greater good.
While its no bodies fault or anything everyone will feel let down by their own inability to include that unlucky ex-player.
So please take this on board, there is always a party limit, and you should never feel sorry for having to remind people of it.

Not the tyre company...

Thank you for visiting this particular blog.
Here will be a record of my own ramblings, as well as the progress and designs of my work.

The nature of my work will range from a small commission to sketch a new born child, to a treatise on the concept of time and how it can be toyed with.
On this blog, you can follow the progress made, as well as see the changes to a project over time as it evolves from a simple line sketch to a full size colour poster.

Each page contains various major topics and off beat comments about my leisure activities.
Fair warning, nearly all of it will contain long winded sentences and all are my own personal opinion on the topic.

Thank you for reading and hope you enjoy,
J Goodyer