The boy, the Dream, the Journey

January.21.2021

Are you warm and do you feel safe here? ... . this is blog page 2. the old blog page got too big

Like a detective's bulletin board with all the case files- That gets put into a manilla folder once they apprehend that killer, to be filled again with leads and tangents on a separate but equally important focus.

I have gotten my hands on five new books,,,. Three of them are books on animation- Reading an animator's perspective on core concepts is always a treat/ The other 2 books are Rainbow Six strategy guides. I Love the thumbnail screen shot images that paint each page.

When I was a kid I had the strategy guide for Animal Crossing: Wild World. I loved that guide. The small thumbnails of the game were very saturated from the color printing on the magazine style glossy pages.... It was like I was playing the game when looking through the guide some times. Like it made me happy and relaxed, as did the game. I would wake up at 5 AM before school and play for 2 hours;

I don;t play many video games these days but I am interested in creating one. I have a lot of creations, but a game will require me to make many of the creations from scratch; which is okay, but I understand the large scope involved and I have to clear my calender before serious work begins. In all of my work now, since making the initial demo, I create models as if I had to bring them into a game engine- I am mostly speaking about the texture work; I will create a 1024x1024 "atlas" of all the textures I need for a prop or environment, with modifications for specific use-case-and then use that large image canvas as a single material rather than having 17 different materials, each with their own image texture. This is a best practice workflow, and I have grown to like it more than my old way (which was horribly unorganized, and has led to many blend files with missing texture data)

I have one large animation project at the moment that is occupying my focus,. and I have recently grown to enjoy this 1. And then a smaller project that I am chipping away at/ then I have my personal project too. But everything I make, I have to bring it close to my core or else I will be miserable. External work is good, but I am pretty upfront with the other party like hey,,, if we are going to make something, Im gona go silent for a few weeks while I work and expand the idea in my head and output as I go. Things take on a mind of their own- it is a flow state I am quite fond of, but it requires me to focus on very little besides the task at hand/ It is a quick thinking, shotgun interpretation, solution-churning, leap frog idea interpretive dance as I chip away at the rock face of work.

Planning your attack and strategy guide is critical for this to work though- Because in order for the on-the-fly changes to work, you first need a solid framework to bend and melt. If the concept was not laid out, creating meaningful gear shifts is not as dynamic or easy. without the base, more "random", less cohesive , which is Okay, but not what I aim for. I like to warp transform my existing ideas. cohesion embedded in the warping. And you can;'t really do that if you dont have the idea yet

I look forward to the future; I am thankful for all human brain power. I think it is good that we have brains