Since January of 2008, I've been working on a computer game called Alden Ridge -- it was originally meant to be something of a promotional item for my novel of the same name, but it's taken on a life of its own. Starting in November 2008, I've also been working on a game called AI War. These two games are now progressing to the point that I'll be ready to release AI War within 3-6 months, and Alden Ridge in another 3-6 months after that.
With these goals in mind, I'm founding a limited liability company called Arcen Games. The paperwork is still pending for the company, but the website is open. Check it out: http://www.arcengames.com/.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
On Writing
It's been a while since I've posted here -- the focus of this blog has been changing for quite some time, same as my foci have been changing. This blog started out being exclusively about writing and publishing, but it's gradually become more about art and computer games.
In the last six months, I've made a decision to focus more on creating computer games for the moment -- I'm better at that than I am at writing, at least for the time being, and it provides satisfaction instead of frustration. Don't get me wrong -- I'll never stop being a novelist -- but there are some things that I just haven't figured out yet about writing novels, and I'm giving myself some time out to find those answers. Writing is the hardest thing I do, as well as one of the most rewarding, and I'm reconsidering my desire to have that be my full-time job. I've have several dozen novels in me, I think, and at twenty-six I have plenty of time to get them out. Even though I'm not actively writing at the moment, I'm reading as much as ever and dissecting the styles and techniques that I see.
In the last six months, I've made a decision to focus more on creating computer games for the moment -- I'm better at that than I am at writing, at least for the time being, and it provides satisfaction instead of frustration. Don't get me wrong -- I'll never stop being a novelist -- but there are some things that I just haven't figured out yet about writing novels, and I'm giving myself some time out to find those answers. Writing is the hardest thing I do, as well as one of the most rewarding, and I'm reconsidering my desire to have that be my full-time job. I've have several dozen novels in me, I think, and at twenty-six I have plenty of time to get them out. Even though I'm not actively writing at the moment, I'm reading as much as ever and dissecting the styles and techniques that I see.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Converting System.Drawing.Bitmap to XNA Texture2D
For those of you who visit this blog for art or writing topics, this is your fair warning: this post will hold no interest for you.
For those independent XNA game developers who find this post via Google, I hope I can help with a problem I've seen talked about in a few places on the 'net.
In the game I am currently working on, I have a need to load a bunch of bitmaps into memory, and then I need to turn those bitmaps into texture objects. I'm using a blend of GDI+ and XNA in my application, you see. Previously, when I was using MDX in conjunction with GDI+, this was no problem because there was a direct conversion available. Since XNA is dual-targeted at both the 360 and the Windows platforms, there isn't a conversion available.
On various forums I've seen solutions batted about relating to doing a per-pixel copy of the images from one format to the other (often using Bitmap.GetPixel, which is horribly slow -- you're much better off using Bitmap.LockBits, but even that is not nearly ideal).
The solution I have is simply relating to memory streams, since a Bitmap can be saved to a stream, and a Texture2D can be loaded from a stream. This approach might seem like a waste of memory, but it's the most processor-efficient way to do this. My game is able to process several dozen 28x28 images in under two seconds using this approach. The trick is to do the conversions just in little bits, as you need the images, rather than doing them all up front (which would take forever, and really give the garbage collector fits). I leave that part up to you. Here's the C# code for the actual conversion, which is quite simple:
That's all there is to it!
(Added point of interest: It seems that XNA is unable to load GIF files -- presumably a licensing thing, knowing GIF -- but of course regular .NET is able to load those just fine. Using this sort of code provides a way for you to load GIFs or any other format that .NET supports but that XNA does not into XNA Texture2D objects. This is handy for me, because at present my project has... uh... just over 8,500 GIF files in it.)
For those independent XNA game developers who find this post via Google, I hope I can help with a problem I've seen talked about in a few places on the 'net.
In the game I am currently working on, I have a need to load a bunch of bitmaps into memory, and then I need to turn those bitmaps into texture objects. I'm using a blend of GDI+ and XNA in my application, you see. Previously, when I was using MDX in conjunction with GDI+, this was no problem because there was a direct conversion available. Since XNA is dual-targeted at both the 360 and the Windows platforms, there isn't a conversion available.
On various forums I've seen solutions batted about relating to doing a per-pixel copy of the images from one format to the other (often using Bitmap.GetPixel, which is horribly slow -- you're much better off using Bitmap.LockBits, but even that is not nearly ideal).
The solution I have is simply relating to memory streams, since a Bitmap can be saved to a stream, and a Texture2D can be loaded from a stream. This approach might seem like a waste of memory, but it's the most processor-efficient way to do this. My game is able to process several dozen 28x28 images in under two seconds using this approach. The trick is to do the conversions just in little bits, as you need the images, rather than doing them all up front (which would take forever, and really give the garbage collector fits). I leave that part up to you. Here's the C# code for the actual conversion, which is quite simple:
Bitmap b = new Bitmap( nameOfFile );
Texture2D tx = null;
using ( MemoryStream s = new MemoryStream() )
{
b.Save( s, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Png );
s.Seek( 0, SeekOrigin.Begin ); //must do this, or error is thrown in next line
tx = Texture2D.FromFile( GraphicsDevice, s );
}
That's all there is to it!
(Added point of interest: It seems that XNA is unable to load GIF files -- presumably a licensing thing, knowing GIF -- but of course regular .NET is able to load those just fine. Using this sort of code provides a way for you to load GIFs or any other format that .NET supports but that XNA does not into XNA Texture2D objects. This is handy for me, because at present my project has... uh... just over 8,500 GIF files in it.)
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Smooth Scaling Tiled Sprites In XNA
For those of you who visit this blog for art or writing topics, this is your fair warning: this post will hold no interest for you.
For those independent XNA game developers who find this post via Google, I hope I can help with a problem I've seen a lot of frustration on (and experienced frustration with myself). For background with the problem, see these posts (#1 and #2).
To summarize what you will find at those links, basically there is a "problem" when scaling images in XNA or DirectX wherein if you use the Sprite/SpriteBatch objects to draw a series of tiles, you'll get cruddy little lines, grids, or seams between many of your tiles. But the problem ONLY happens when zooming in (i.e., scaling 2D textures to a resolution higher than their native resolution), and it's fairly inconsistent. Sometimes half a pixel or so, sometimes up to a pixel, but never more, and it doesn't always even make a grid between every tile.
The main theories on this were that this was some sort of floating-point rounding error, or that this has to do with odd-sized textures (that perhaps are not powers of 2 -- mine, for instance, are 28x28), or that this was related to lacking the Clamp state of the u and v axes of the SampleState. Personally, my money was on some sort of "off by one" issue relating to zero-indexed widths and heights. None of these are correct.
As one enterprising programmer on the above links figured out, the real culprit is interpolation. By default, when scaling textures, Bilinear Interpolation is used to make it look nicer. If you are familiar with how that algorithm works, basically it's using a 2x2 grid of pixels adjacent to each target pixel, and blending them together. That works great in the middle, but at the edge of each tile there is nothing there -- each sprite tile is rendered independently (for the most part), which is why the black line creeps in. That line isn't a gap at all, it turns out, but rather a factor of the interpolation.
The quickest solution to this is to use point-based interpolation, which is basically no interpolation at all. In XNA, the C# code would be this:
Problem solved, right? Well, yeah, but now we have a new problem -- without interpolation, your zoom is going to look awful. Programmers on the message boards had a bevy of potential solutions to this, some involving custom shaders, some involving replacing the SpriteBatch class, others involving manual edits to every image used in their game.
I have a vastly simpler solution (both in terms of programming effort/time, and in terms of processor time). Here's my rationale: this is an interpolation problem based on the fact that each tile is rendered separately, right? So the problem is not that we're scaling these tiles up, but rather that we're scaling them up one-by-one. If only there was a way to combine them all before rendering the current frame, and then scale them up together!
But wait, I hear you say -- something like that doesn't sound processor-friendly, right? That would basically double the amount of rendering we need to do, wouldn't it? If that's not what you were thinking, ten points for you for remembering that we're already doing that -- it's called the back buffer!
Since we're already rendering these sprites to the back buffer, then flipping them to the screen all at once, we've already got this pretty much handled. All we need to do is tweak the size of the back buffer before rendering, and it will automatically scale up to the view area -- perfect interpolation, great quality, no lines. The C# code looks like this:
A few last points of interest:
- You'll notice that the zoom is inversed here. The zoom of 0.8 is actually equivalent to zooming in 1.2. The reason for the inversion is that we are shrinking our back buffer relative to the surface it will be rendered to.
- "this.ClientWidth" is assuming that you are calling this method from the Form, Panel, or whatever handle is your render target.
- As you may have already noticed, this method isn't compatible with your traditional "camera" approach, where you move a viewport relative to the world coordinates. To implement scrolling in your window (which is presumably the point here), you'll want to implement a global offset to your X and Y coordinates that are passed to SpriteBatch.Draw. NO NEED to do some massive global update of all your objects' coordinates as your window moves -- that's crazy. Leave your game world coordinates alone, and just do an offsetting of them as they are rendered in SpriteBatch.Draw. That way everything gets rendered efficiently, no massive updates are needed, and there isn't significant processor overhead incurred.
Happy coding!
For those independent XNA game developers who find this post via Google, I hope I can help with a problem I've seen a lot of frustration on (and experienced frustration with myself). For background with the problem, see these posts (#1 and #2).
To summarize what you will find at those links, basically there is a "problem" when scaling images in XNA or DirectX wherein if you use the Sprite/SpriteBatch objects to draw a series of tiles, you'll get cruddy little lines, grids, or seams between many of your tiles. But the problem ONLY happens when zooming in (i.e., scaling 2D textures to a resolution higher than their native resolution), and it's fairly inconsistent. Sometimes half a pixel or so, sometimes up to a pixel, but never more, and it doesn't always even make a grid between every tile.
The main theories on this were that this was some sort of floating-point rounding error, or that this has to do with odd-sized textures (that perhaps are not powers of 2 -- mine, for instance, are 28x28), or that this was related to lacking the Clamp state of the u and v axes of the SampleState. Personally, my money was on some sort of "off by one" issue relating to zero-indexed widths and heights. None of these are correct.
As one enterprising programmer on the above links figured out, the real culprit is interpolation. By default, when scaling textures, Bilinear Interpolation is used to make it look nicer. If you are familiar with how that algorithm works, basically it's using a 2x2 grid of pixels adjacent to each target pixel, and blending them together. That works great in the middle, but at the edge of each tile there is nothing there -- each sprite tile is rendered independently (for the most part), which is why the black line creeps in. That line isn't a gap at all, it turns out, but rather a factor of the interpolation.
The quickest solution to this is to use point-based interpolation, which is basically no interpolation at all. In XNA, the C# code would be this:
sprite.Begin();
GraphicsDevice.SamplerStates[0].MagFilter = Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.TextureFilter.Point;
Problem solved, right? Well, yeah, but now we have a new problem -- without interpolation, your zoom is going to look awful. Programmers on the message boards had a bevy of potential solutions to this, some involving custom shaders, some involving replacing the SpriteBatch class, others involving manual edits to every image used in their game.
I have a vastly simpler solution (both in terms of programming effort/time, and in terms of processor time). Here's my rationale: this is an interpolation problem based on the fact that each tile is rendered separately, right? So the problem is not that we're scaling these tiles up, but rather that we're scaling them up one-by-one. If only there was a way to combine them all before rendering the current frame, and then scale them up together!
But wait, I hear you say -- something like that doesn't sound processor-friendly, right? That would basically double the amount of rendering we need to do, wouldn't it? If that's not what you were thinking, ten points for you for remembering that we're already doing that -- it's called the back buffer!
Since we're already rendering these sprites to the back buffer, then flipping them to the screen all at once, we've already got this pretty much handled. All we need to do is tweak the size of the back buffer before rendering, and it will automatically scale up to the view area -- perfect interpolation, great quality, no lines. The C# code looks like this:
float zoom = 0.8;I'm assuming here that you're using WinForms-hosted XNA code like from this example (http://creators.xna.com/en-us/sample/winforms_series1). If not, you'll have to fiddle with how to get this working in your environment. The basics are to set up a PresentationParameters variable with your desired width/height and to then do a graphicsDevice.Reset() and pass in that variable.
this.GraphicsDeviceService.ResetDevice( (int)Math.Round( this.ClientWidth * zoom ),
(int)Math.Round( this.ClientHeight * zoom ) );
A few last points of interest:
- You'll notice that the zoom is inversed here. The zoom of 0.8 is actually equivalent to zooming in 1.2. The reason for the inversion is that we are shrinking our back buffer relative to the surface it will be rendered to.
- "this.ClientWidth" is assuming that you are calling this method from the Form, Panel, or whatever handle is your render target.
- As you may have already noticed, this method isn't compatible with your traditional "camera" approach, where you move a viewport relative to the world coordinates. To implement scrolling in your window (which is presumably the point here), you'll want to implement a global offset to your X and Y coordinates that are passed to SpriteBatch.Draw. NO NEED to do some massive global update of all your objects' coordinates as your window moves -- that's crazy. Leave your game world coordinates alone, and just do an offsetting of them as they are rendered in SpriteBatch.Draw. That way everything gets rendered efficiently, no massive updates are needed, and there isn't significant processor overhead incurred.
Happy coding!
Monday, September 22, 2008
Regarding Breaking Dawn
***SPOILER ALERT***
If you want to read this book and have not, don't read any further.
Okay, so you've already read the book, or you're that sure you'll never have even a passing interest in it. Fair enough either way. My wife and I have both enjoyed every book that Stephanie Meyer has published so far, and Breaking Dawn was no exception. I tend not to read criticism of books I like (there is rarely any point, as it boils down to taste), but in this case the criticism was inescapable.
I started reading this book the day it came out, and finished it within a day or two, so it's been a few months since I've read it. I'm a bit late to the party with posting my thoughts on the novel, but I've been busy. Mainly I want to respond to some of the criticisms that have been made against this book:
1. The book is fan-service.
Well... this is true. Seems like kind of a fitting way to end a series to me. The protagonist gets what she wants, and everybody goes away happy. It doesn't make for a groundbreaking, emotional knife-twisting, but it sure made me happy. The Time Traveler's Wife was both wonderful and haunting, and it left me miserable and depressed for days afterward. Quite the opposite with Breaking Dawn. Personally, I think there is room for both kind of books -- those that reaffirm life, and those that speak to the inevitability of death. I'd really hate to imagine a world with just one or the other. I tend to trend toward the bittersweet or dark endings in my own writing, so this is in no way a defense of something I might do. But I'm not opposed to the idea that something I'd personally never do is still a valid thing to do.
2. Bella is too perfect, creating a vehicle for the author to fantasize through.
Well... I can see that, too. But this is hardly new. Superman and a lot of other comic book heroes come to mind as falling into a similar mold. It's satisfying to read something like this every once and a while, though it would have been boring if the whole series had been this way. It is indeed more interesting when the main characters have flaws, but Bella has been so flawed for the rest of the series that it's quite an interesting change to see her as the active, powerful one for a change (she has been so passive in many ways in the other books, so it's a notable shift). I can see why this would turn some people off, but I don't think it's right to make a sweeping dismissal of the work for this reason.
Oh, and the complaint that all the guys fall over her even though she thinks she is ordinary? Well, this really happens. Whether or not it happened to Stephanie Meyer is irrelevant, this is the story she was telling and it is not as fantastical as some people seem to think. The same thing happened to my wife a lot in high school before we got engaged (and after, a bit). Of course, I know the truth is that my wife is far from ordinary, even if she never seemed to believe it!
3. The birth scene.
Squeamish, are we? My wife and I plan to have kids in a few years, and this scene did not change our views on it one iota. It's an interesting bit of science fiction. I guess maybe this was unexpected for some in a YA book, but Stephanie Meyer has noted that she never set out to write YA with this series.
4. Overuse of adjectives and descriptors like "dazzling."
This is definitely a glitch in Stephanie Meyer's writing, but it's hardly something worth condemning her for. If she were not so popular, people wouldn't complain about this. For a relatively new author, she's extraordinarily polished and professional in her presentation and wording. People complained about "saidisms" and other extra adjectives in J.K. Rowling's books, too, but I also felt that those complaints were a bit on the nitpicky side.
5. The book is angsty.
Well, so are a lot of teenagers. So are a lot of people in love. I think that part of the reason this series works, and the reason it resonates with people so much, is the fact that it is truthful in its emotions and its story arcs. If you're jaded and don't remember what it was like to be young and in love (or missed that boat entirely), I guess it would seem a little overmuch. But again, this boils down to a taste thing. I wouldn't want every book to be like this, but I wouldn't want every book to be like any single work. This book does an excellent job of honestly telling the story it is trying to tell.
6. Characterization blunders.
(Jacob and Edward's shift in views throughout the book, the easygoing nature of Charlie and the mother when it comes to Bella's wedding, etc.) Some people have complained that these parts of the story seemed out of character with past novels, but I didn't feel that way. I was surprised at how easy Charlie and the mother took it on Bella, but it wasn't grossly out of character -- his laid-back attitude and the mother's flighty nature had been long established. Given that, it wasn't much of a stretch to have their reactions be comparably tame so that the story could move along.
As for the changes with Jacob and Edward, there was support for their changes in past books, too. Edward has long made it clear that he would do whatever is best for Bella even at the expense of his happiness (hence his offer for her to have "puppies"), and Jacob has also been fairly prey to Bella's whims. The "imprinting" thing was also long established, and provided an interesting and funny plot arc.
7. Build Up To Nothing
So they do all this preparing for a battle that doesn't happen, right? I disagree. The battle very much happened, but it was more about positioning and maneuvering and discussion than just brawn-on-brawn. Surely you don't think the Cold War wasn't a real war just because we didn't have tanks and planes and nuclear weapons firing left and right?
Yes, there was not a battle in the traditional sense (as there was in Harry Potter), but I think this was one of the strengths of this work. The physical/magical battles in Harry Potter were long established through the series and so to not have one at the end would have been a letdown to be sure. But in the Twilight series, physical violence has been far overshadowed by the threat of violence along with emotional and mental conflict. Stephanie Meyer delivered on all these fronts without taking the story in a cliche direction just for the sake of having a "big battle" at the end. I thought it was the right decision, and it tied together nicely with everything else she had written so far.
8. Bella doesn't lose anything. There are no sacrifices.
Yep, this is a pretty "happy ending" type of book. In some respects, it is almost one long epilogue to the rest of the series. As I said before, that's not the sort of book I'm likely to write (I trend darker than that), but it doesn't offend me in the least that Stephanie Meyer chose this path. I found it interesting, and enjoyable, and a wonderful way to say farewell to the characters. In fact, if she wrote another book that was an "epilogue to the epilogue," so to speak, I'd read that one, too.
There are room for all kinds of stories, and not all of them have to center around suffering and loss. Bella and Edward (and Jacob) certainly suffer plenty during this novel, and there is conflict everywhere even when an overarching plot is not evident, and I felt like that was more than enough to keep the story interesting and meaningful. The fact that the suffering is passing and that everything works out is perhaps part of the uplifting theme of this book -- some genuinely dark and scary stuff happens (the birth in particular), but at the end of it things are better and life goes on. Surely this is a message worth writing about at least in some books?
There were other complaints in addition to these, of course, but most of them were so clearly rooted in taste that they aren't really debatable. To me, the most important thing is that Stephanie Meyer's work was original and interesting -- she didn't fall back on formulaic tropes, and she didn't bore her audience with self-indulgent tangents and explanations. Almost everything fit, the pace was reasonable, and she left at least this fan with a pleasant memory of her series at the end of it all. You can argue the artistic merits all day long, but I think there's value to be had in doing just what Stephanie did.
If you want to read this book and have not, don't read any further.
Okay, so you've already read the book, or you're that sure you'll never have even a passing interest in it. Fair enough either way. My wife and I have both enjoyed every book that Stephanie Meyer has published so far, and Breaking Dawn was no exception. I tend not to read criticism of books I like (there is rarely any point, as it boils down to taste), but in this case the criticism was inescapable.
I started reading this book the day it came out, and finished it within a day or two, so it's been a few months since I've read it. I'm a bit late to the party with posting my thoughts on the novel, but I've been busy. Mainly I want to respond to some of the criticisms that have been made against this book:
1. The book is fan-service.
Well... this is true. Seems like kind of a fitting way to end a series to me. The protagonist gets what she wants, and everybody goes away happy. It doesn't make for a groundbreaking, emotional knife-twisting, but it sure made me happy. The Time Traveler's Wife was both wonderful and haunting, and it left me miserable and depressed for days afterward. Quite the opposite with Breaking Dawn. Personally, I think there is room for both kind of books -- those that reaffirm life, and those that speak to the inevitability of death. I'd really hate to imagine a world with just one or the other. I tend to trend toward the bittersweet or dark endings in my own writing, so this is in no way a defense of something I might do. But I'm not opposed to the idea that something I'd personally never do is still a valid thing to do.
2. Bella is too perfect, creating a vehicle for the author to fantasize through.
Well... I can see that, too. But this is hardly new. Superman and a lot of other comic book heroes come to mind as falling into a similar mold. It's satisfying to read something like this every once and a while, though it would have been boring if the whole series had been this way. It is indeed more interesting when the main characters have flaws, but Bella has been so flawed for the rest of the series that it's quite an interesting change to see her as the active, powerful one for a change (she has been so passive in many ways in the other books, so it's a notable shift). I can see why this would turn some people off, but I don't think it's right to make a sweeping dismissal of the work for this reason.
Oh, and the complaint that all the guys fall over her even though she thinks she is ordinary? Well, this really happens. Whether or not it happened to Stephanie Meyer is irrelevant, this is the story she was telling and it is not as fantastical as some people seem to think. The same thing happened to my wife a lot in high school before we got engaged (and after, a bit). Of course, I know the truth is that my wife is far from ordinary, even if she never seemed to believe it!
3. The birth scene.
Squeamish, are we? My wife and I plan to have kids in a few years, and this scene did not change our views on it one iota. It's an interesting bit of science fiction. I guess maybe this was unexpected for some in a YA book, but Stephanie Meyer has noted that she never set out to write YA with this series.
4. Overuse of adjectives and descriptors like "dazzling."
This is definitely a glitch in Stephanie Meyer's writing, but it's hardly something worth condemning her for. If she were not so popular, people wouldn't complain about this. For a relatively new author, she's extraordinarily polished and professional in her presentation and wording. People complained about "saidisms" and other extra adjectives in J.K. Rowling's books, too, but I also felt that those complaints were a bit on the nitpicky side.
5. The book is angsty.
Well, so are a lot of teenagers. So are a lot of people in love. I think that part of the reason this series works, and the reason it resonates with people so much, is the fact that it is truthful in its emotions and its story arcs. If you're jaded and don't remember what it was like to be young and in love (or missed that boat entirely), I guess it would seem a little overmuch. But again, this boils down to a taste thing. I wouldn't want every book to be like this, but I wouldn't want every book to be like any single work. This book does an excellent job of honestly telling the story it is trying to tell.
6. Characterization blunders.
(Jacob and Edward's shift in views throughout the book, the easygoing nature of Charlie and the mother when it comes to Bella's wedding, etc.) Some people have complained that these parts of the story seemed out of character with past novels, but I didn't feel that way. I was surprised at how easy Charlie and the mother took it on Bella, but it wasn't grossly out of character -- his laid-back attitude and the mother's flighty nature had been long established. Given that, it wasn't much of a stretch to have their reactions be comparably tame so that the story could move along.
As for the changes with Jacob and Edward, there was support for their changes in past books, too. Edward has long made it clear that he would do whatever is best for Bella even at the expense of his happiness (hence his offer for her to have "puppies"), and Jacob has also been fairly prey to Bella's whims. The "imprinting" thing was also long established, and provided an interesting and funny plot arc.
7. Build Up To Nothing
So they do all this preparing for a battle that doesn't happen, right? I disagree. The battle very much happened, but it was more about positioning and maneuvering and discussion than just brawn-on-brawn. Surely you don't think the Cold War wasn't a real war just because we didn't have tanks and planes and nuclear weapons firing left and right?
Yes, there was not a battle in the traditional sense (as there was in Harry Potter), but I think this was one of the strengths of this work. The physical/magical battles in Harry Potter were long established through the series and so to not have one at the end would have been a letdown to be sure. But in the Twilight series, physical violence has been far overshadowed by the threat of violence along with emotional and mental conflict. Stephanie Meyer delivered on all these fronts without taking the story in a cliche direction just for the sake of having a "big battle" at the end. I thought it was the right decision, and it tied together nicely with everything else she had written so far.
8. Bella doesn't lose anything. There are no sacrifices.
Yep, this is a pretty "happy ending" type of book. In some respects, it is almost one long epilogue to the rest of the series. As I said before, that's not the sort of book I'm likely to write (I trend darker than that), but it doesn't offend me in the least that Stephanie Meyer chose this path. I found it interesting, and enjoyable, and a wonderful way to say farewell to the characters. In fact, if she wrote another book that was an "epilogue to the epilogue," so to speak, I'd read that one, too.
There are room for all kinds of stories, and not all of them have to center around suffering and loss. Bella and Edward (and Jacob) certainly suffer plenty during this novel, and there is conflict everywhere even when an overarching plot is not evident, and I felt like that was more than enough to keep the story interesting and meaningful. The fact that the suffering is passing and that everything works out is perhaps part of the uplifting theme of this book -- some genuinely dark and scary stuff happens (the birth in particular), but at the end of it things are better and life goes on. Surely this is a message worth writing about at least in some books?
There were other complaints in addition to these, of course, but most of them were so clearly rooted in taste that they aren't really debatable. To me, the most important thing is that Stephanie Meyer's work was original and interesting -- she didn't fall back on formulaic tropes, and she didn't bore her audience with self-indulgent tangents and explanations. Almost everything fit, the pace was reasonable, and she left at least this fan with a pleasant memory of her series at the end of it all. You can argue the artistic merits all day long, but I think there's value to be had in doing just what Stephanie did.
New Art
Over the last few months, I have added a variety of new images in my latest gallery. Some highlights:
Broken Gravity - Panoramic
Hangar Scaffolding
Back Creek 2
Blowing Apocalypse
(This monster is the one I am considering making a plastic model of.)
(This monster is the one I am considering making a plastic model of.)
Broken Gravity - Panoramic
Hangar Scaffolding
Power Substation
River Vegetation 2
(Now with realistic shoreline)
(Now with realistic shoreline)
Swallowing Pills
This is more of a public service announcement than anything else. All my life, I have been unable to swallow pills. In twenty-some years, I've never swallowed ONE single pill. For years I have had acid reflux disease, but it has gone untreated because I couldn't take the medicine. Now the consequences of that have become more serious, so I finally managed to teach myself how to take pills.
According to some statistics on the Internet (who knows how reliable these are), perhaps as many as 40% of all adults have trouble swallowing pills -- to the point that they sometimes skip their medication out of frustration, etc. I tried all the various techniques from all sorts of different sources. I also bought the surprisingly-inexpensive Medi-Straw to try to improve the situation. Nothing worked for me (but there are lots of good ideas on those links, and the Medi-Straw would probably do great for people with different swallowing methods than me).
But I kept at it for weeks, trying to swallow this stupid little slow-release pill that was fast turning into a demonic tormentor. The trick, for me, finally came with analyzing how I normally swallow and focusing on that. Let me explain:
Like a lot of people, I eat relatively quickly. This means I was already swallowing fairly big chunks of food while eating -- much bigger than a pill at times -- without thinking about it at all. This is something we all do, and so it stands to reason that we can all learn to swallow pills easily with practice. Two months ago I would not have believed I would say that, though!
My breakthrough came from tearing off half-dollar-sized chunks of wonder bread and chewing it, then swallowing it. No pill yet, just the bread. I noticed that I could comfortable swallow pretty much the whole thing in one go without incident or discomfort, after chewing it a bit. I focused on the way my tongue stayed out of the way (it had historically been blocking the pill from going down my throat, or keeping it pinned against the roof of my mouth), and the mechanics of how I swallowed when I wasn't stressing about something foreign (like the pill) being in my mouth.
At least for me, it was nearly impossible to swallow the pill until I paid more attention to how it felt to swallow naturally. I suspect others will find the same. Once I was comfortable with how it should feel to swallow the pill, I took another half-dollar-sized piece of bread and chewed it up. At the last second, when I was ready to swallow, I instead paused and dropped the pill in first. Then I swallowed, and presto -- I could hardly believe the pill was gone.
This remained difficult for another week or so, often taking up to 45 minutes of trying to successfully complete, but with more practice it became gradually easier. Sometimes I had to chew the bread a little more with the pill actually in my mouth (careful not to chew the pill itself), but in this general way I was able to get the pills down reliably.
Now it's been about two months, and I can easily take pills on the first try with just a bit of bread. I've also taken them with brownies, grapes, lasagna, and other random foods that happened to be handy at the time. I still can't take it with liquid, but pretty much any food can be chewed up and swallowed with the pill. It's not a matter of "disguising" the pill inside pudding, or some other sort of food -- it's a matter of suppressing my gag reflex and satisfying my subconscious that there aren't harmful foreign bodies in the food. Once I learned how to do those two things, it all became possible, and in fact surprisingly easy.
You can do it too! The last tidbit that helped me on this long road was this: evidently it is impossible to accidentally inhale a pill given the mechanics of how your mouth is constructed. This was extremely reassuring, let me tell you. Best of luck everyone out there who still can't take pills reliably -- I have every confidence that you can accomplish this thing. If I can do it, after all those years of failing, truly anyone can.
According to some statistics on the Internet (who knows how reliable these are), perhaps as many as 40% of all adults have trouble swallowing pills -- to the point that they sometimes skip their medication out of frustration, etc. I tried all the various techniques from all sorts of different sources. I also bought the surprisingly-inexpensive Medi-Straw to try to improve the situation. Nothing worked for me (but there are lots of good ideas on those links, and the Medi-Straw would probably do great for people with different swallowing methods than me).
But I kept at it for weeks, trying to swallow this stupid little slow-release pill that was fast turning into a demonic tormentor. The trick, for me, finally came with analyzing how I normally swallow and focusing on that. Let me explain:
Like a lot of people, I eat relatively quickly. This means I was already swallowing fairly big chunks of food while eating -- much bigger than a pill at times -- without thinking about it at all. This is something we all do, and so it stands to reason that we can all learn to swallow pills easily with practice. Two months ago I would not have believed I would say that, though!
My breakthrough came from tearing off half-dollar-sized chunks of wonder bread and chewing it, then swallowing it. No pill yet, just the bread. I noticed that I could comfortable swallow pretty much the whole thing in one go without incident or discomfort, after chewing it a bit. I focused on the way my tongue stayed out of the way (it had historically been blocking the pill from going down my throat, or keeping it pinned against the roof of my mouth), and the mechanics of how I swallowed when I wasn't stressing about something foreign (like the pill) being in my mouth.
At least for me, it was nearly impossible to swallow the pill until I paid more attention to how it felt to swallow naturally. I suspect others will find the same. Once I was comfortable with how it should feel to swallow the pill, I took another half-dollar-sized piece of bread and chewed it up. At the last second, when I was ready to swallow, I instead paused and dropped the pill in first. Then I swallowed, and presto -- I could hardly believe the pill was gone.
This remained difficult for another week or so, often taking up to 45 minutes of trying to successfully complete, but with more practice it became gradually easier. Sometimes I had to chew the bread a little more with the pill actually in my mouth (careful not to chew the pill itself), but in this general way I was able to get the pills down reliably.
Now it's been about two months, and I can easily take pills on the first try with just a bit of bread. I've also taken them with brownies, grapes, lasagna, and other random foods that happened to be handy at the time. I still can't take it with liquid, but pretty much any food can be chewed up and swallowed with the pill. It's not a matter of "disguising" the pill inside pudding, or some other sort of food -- it's a matter of suppressing my gag reflex and satisfying my subconscious that there aren't harmful foreign bodies in the food. Once I learned how to do those two things, it all became possible, and in fact surprisingly easy.
You can do it too! The last tidbit that helped me on this long road was this: evidently it is impossible to accidentally inhale a pill given the mechanics of how your mouth is constructed. This was extremely reassuring, let me tell you. Best of luck everyone out there who still can't take pills reliably -- I have every confidence that you can accomplish this thing. If I can do it, after all those years of failing, truly anyone can.
The Protomen
The Protomen are absolutely amazing. I've never been a particular fan of Mega Man, but their music video (see link) really hooked me and I bought both their albums. If you aren't into NES-style chiptunes (I love them) you should stick with the first album, though.
The Protomen are basically a band that creates rock operas surrounding the story of Mega Man. Their title track, Hope Rides Alone (the music video linked to above) is pretty amazing, but a lot of their other tracks are just as good, if not better. The Will of One is just incredible, as are The Stand and Sons of Fate.
As with most rock operas (another personal favorite: Beethoven's Last Night), I found I had to listen to the Protomen album multiple times before I caught everything that was going on. The first few listen-throughs I simply found the material compelling, and a good listen. After I really understood the story, however, I discovered a truly unexpected emotinal weight to it. I've always thought of Mega Man as largely uninteresting, lightweight robot fare (apologies to fans), but the story presented here is something I won't stop thinking about for a long time. This just became one of my favorite albums.
The Protomen are basically a band that creates rock operas surrounding the story of Mega Man. Their title track, Hope Rides Alone (the music video linked to above) is pretty amazing, but a lot of their other tracks are just as good, if not better. The Will of One is just incredible, as are The Stand and Sons of Fate.
As with most rock operas (another personal favorite: Beethoven's Last Night), I found I had to listen to the Protomen album multiple times before I caught everything that was going on. The first few listen-throughs I simply found the material compelling, and a good listen. After I really understood the story, however, I discovered a truly unexpected emotinal weight to it. I've always thought of Mega Man as largely uninteresting, lightweight robot fare (apologies to fans), but the story presented here is something I won't stop thinking about for a long time. This just became one of my favorite albums.
Shapeways
If you haven't heard of Shapeways and you're at all into 3D computer design, check it out. It's a service for printing three-dimensional objects made of lego-like plastic. That probably sounds like sci-fi if you haven't heard for 3D printing before, but it's quite real. What's unique about this service is its relatively low cost compared to most 3D printing shops.
For authors that are also into 3D modeling, or who know (or can pay) someone with that skill, this is a pretty cool opportunity. Personally, I'm planning on making a plastic model of one of the monsters from my current novel -- if it is published, that will be a pretty cool thing to have for giveaways, and as a talking point at any signings, etc. Definitely better than pens or buttons or whatever (though those have their place).
Maybe I should be selfishly hoarding ideas like that for my own personal use, but someone else is bound to think of it anyway. And really, hoarding good ideas is for lonely jerks. Let's see some durable, painted, limited-edition figurines of characters from upcoming novels!
For authors that are also into 3D modeling, or who know (or can pay) someone with that skill, this is a pretty cool opportunity. Personally, I'm planning on making a plastic model of one of the monsters from my current novel -- if it is published, that will be a pretty cool thing to have for giveaways, and as a talking point at any signings, etc. Definitely better than pens or buttons or whatever (though those have their place).
Maybe I should be selfishly hoarding ideas like that for my own personal use, but someone else is bound to think of it anyway. And really, hoarding good ideas is for lonely jerks. Let's see some durable, painted, limited-edition figurines of characters from upcoming novels!
State of the... me
It's been a long time since my last post, hasn't it? Well, there's no surprise there for me -- it was inevitable. I stink at routines. Everything I do in life seems to happen in spurts, since I have so many things competing for my attention. I'm sure everyone here is familiar with that juggling act.
"Everyone here? You mean he expects that someone is still hanging around this dusty old blog?"
Well, oddly enough, the weekly hits to my blog/website have hardly dropped at all during the long silence, though the visitors are of a different nature. Where once I primarily had aspiring writers popping in from blogs like Miss Snark, Nathan Bransford, or Anne Mini, now it's mostly people finding me through keyword searches on Google or Google Images. Amazing how free art can bring in random traffic. I hope people are putting it to good use / enjoying it.
But I digress. At this point I should be launching into the cliche Blogger/Livejournal "I'll try to do better" post, right? God knows I've written my fair share of those already this year. But I'm not going to flog that dead horse again -- time to stop apologizing. Fact is, I'm not a "good blogger" and I don't really aspire to be one. Daily content of merit? Lord, I don't think I have it in me. Weekly is even a huge stretch. I've long been fascinated with the cartooning careers of Gary Larson and Bill Watterson, wondering how they managed to keep up a daily flow of great work over what basically amounts to a decade. And now I know... I'll never know. I'm just not that sort of writer. I don't write poems or short stories for much the same reason -- everything worthwhile I write requires forethought and marination, as well as page space to stretch its legs.
Hence why my blog posts have always been a bit too long for comfortable daily-digest-style reading. This just isn't my format. Besides, all the time and effort I might spend on trying (and ultimately failing) to maintain a "good" blog would just be siphoning that time away from more meaningful pursuits.
Here I considered going into a lengthy definition of "more meaningful pursuits," supported by commentary on why I'm unhappy with many of my prior posts about writing, but one thing I'm learning these days: less is sometimes more. I trust you can draw the needed inferences yourself, and if not... well, you probably don't really care anyway.
SO. What's this blog still doing here, if I'm not going to treat it like a proper blog? Well, my current plan is to mistreat this poor webspace for years to come. Yes, blog, you're in for an extended, lonely, world of pain: you've just become primarly... *gasp*... a news page.
Basically, if I have some news to share, I will. If I don't, I won't. How frequently will I update? Who the heck knows? Will my posts be long and insightful? Probably not! Will I provide interesting links on occasion? Yes! Posts of new art? Yes! Lot's of rhetorical questions and exclamation points? Let's hope it ends here!
In all seriousness, sometimes I have things I need to share with the world, but there's not a lot of value in me blathering on about nothing during the in-between times. I'm not very good at it, and it's not a personal goal. Lately it's been quiet on the personal-news front because I've been writing, working on another project of a different sort (to be announced in around a year, most likely), and basically taking some time to enjoy life and spend time with my wife.
The writing well, for me, really dries up without those other stimuli and activities. This is the main thing I have learned about writing in the last quarter year: some activities sap my ability to write well (like watching copious amount of low-grade television or movies, Internet/blog addition, reading too many novels that aren't in a style I admire), while other activities enhance it (video games in moderation, exercise, healthy eating, watching mostly movies and reading books with writing I do admire).
I've also finally been able to answer my most burning question to my own satisfaction: What is a novel? As in, what does it consist of, how is it made, why and in what way do some novels become more than the sum of their parts, while others sputter on the runway? I'd love to be able to share that revelation with you, but I can't really express it. It's a personal thing, anyway -- everyone who's really considered the question could probably give you a wildly different dissertation on the subject. It's not so much my answer that should matter to you; the important thing is, if you are truly serious about writing, that you take the time to vigorously search for your own answer. Finding mine has taken roughly three years of struggle, and I'm quite positive my thoughts on the matter will grow and evolve -- perhaps even change completely -- over the coming years.
So, for now, that's the news. All is well, my writing is proceeding at the correct pace for maximum quality of the novel and sanity of the author, and so on. A few more frivolous posts to follow (links to things I've found interesting recently, but haven't posted about).
"Everyone here? You mean he expects that someone is still hanging around this dusty old blog?"
Well, oddly enough, the weekly hits to my blog/website have hardly dropped at all during the long silence, though the visitors are of a different nature. Where once I primarily had aspiring writers popping in from blogs like Miss Snark, Nathan Bransford, or Anne Mini, now it's mostly people finding me through keyword searches on Google or Google Images. Amazing how free art can bring in random traffic. I hope people are putting it to good use / enjoying it.
But I digress. At this point I should be launching into the cliche Blogger/Livejournal "I'll try to do better" post, right? God knows I've written my fair share of those already this year. But I'm not going to flog that dead horse again -- time to stop apologizing. Fact is, I'm not a "good blogger" and I don't really aspire to be one. Daily content of merit? Lord, I don't think I have it in me. Weekly is even a huge stretch. I've long been fascinated with the cartooning careers of Gary Larson and Bill Watterson, wondering how they managed to keep up a daily flow of great work over what basically amounts to a decade. And now I know... I'll never know. I'm just not that sort of writer. I don't write poems or short stories for much the same reason -- everything worthwhile I write requires forethought and marination, as well as page space to stretch its legs.
Hence why my blog posts have always been a bit too long for comfortable daily-digest-style reading. This just isn't my format. Besides, all the time and effort I might spend on trying (and ultimately failing) to maintain a "good" blog would just be siphoning that time away from more meaningful pursuits.
Here I considered going into a lengthy definition of "more meaningful pursuits," supported by commentary on why I'm unhappy with many of my prior posts about writing, but one thing I'm learning these days: less is sometimes more. I trust you can draw the needed inferences yourself, and if not... well, you probably don't really care anyway.
SO. What's this blog still doing here, if I'm not going to treat it like a proper blog? Well, my current plan is to mistreat this poor webspace for years to come. Yes, blog, you're in for an extended, lonely, world of pain: you've just become primarly... *gasp*... a news page.
Basically, if I have some news to share, I will. If I don't, I won't. How frequently will I update? Who the heck knows? Will my posts be long and insightful? Probably not! Will I provide interesting links on occasion? Yes! Posts of new art? Yes! Lot's of rhetorical questions and exclamation points? Let's hope it ends here!
In all seriousness, sometimes I have things I need to share with the world, but there's not a lot of value in me blathering on about nothing during the in-between times. I'm not very good at it, and it's not a personal goal. Lately it's been quiet on the personal-news front because I've been writing, working on another project of a different sort (to be announced in around a year, most likely), and basically taking some time to enjoy life and spend time with my wife.
The writing well, for me, really dries up without those other stimuli and activities. This is the main thing I have learned about writing in the last quarter year: some activities sap my ability to write well (like watching copious amount of low-grade television or movies, Internet/blog addition, reading too many novels that aren't in a style I admire), while other activities enhance it (video games in moderation, exercise, healthy eating, watching mostly movies and reading books with writing I do admire).
I've also finally been able to answer my most burning question to my own satisfaction: What is a novel? As in, what does it consist of, how is it made, why and in what way do some novels become more than the sum of their parts, while others sputter on the runway? I'd love to be able to share that revelation with you, but I can't really express it. It's a personal thing, anyway -- everyone who's really considered the question could probably give you a wildly different dissertation on the subject. It's not so much my answer that should matter to you; the important thing is, if you are truly serious about writing, that you take the time to vigorously search for your own answer. Finding mine has taken roughly three years of struggle, and I'm quite positive my thoughts on the matter will grow and evolve -- perhaps even change completely -- over the coming years.
So, for now, that's the news. All is well, my writing is proceeding at the correct pace for maximum quality of the novel and sanity of the author, and so on. A few more frivolous posts to follow (links to things I've found interesting recently, but haven't posted about).
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Character Names
Originally in response to a post by Anne Mini:
Character names are definitely something I agonize over, and I use everything from baby name resources, to phone books, to random name generators (often just looking for syllables I like), to census records from various locales (the census records make for particularly interesting results).
I almost never use a first name I find with a last name I find with it. I search until I find one name that sticks, and then search for its companion. Of course, if the names are at all common, someone has that name, but I never start out trying to pick the same name as someone else.
Even my main characters tend to change names over the course of my planning, and sometimes also over the course of my writing and even late-stage editing.
In a literal sense, the person’s name is all we can “see” of them, and so the name has a lot of connotations for how I picture a character. A Mary looks a lot different from a Tzer-Talan, even if you give them the same detailed physical description. Even a Pam looks different from a Mary in the above situation.
I’d say I agonize over the major character’s names just as much as the title (even though I know the title is probably going to change, I want it to be the best it can be out of the gate). The minor characters are less troubling, but still really important and often hard.
Sometimes, when I don’t have much planned for a character, I pick a name that evokes something interesting and then build the character up around that. An unusual character name can almost be as good as a writing prompt!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
More Art, and Checking In
I apologize for not blogging more in the last few months (or posting on other people's blogs more). I've been very busy in my day job, and when I have had spare time I've been writing or making art instead of blogging. I can't show you any of the writing yet (though I will say that I started completely over on Alden Ridge), but here is the art I've done since mid-April or so:
One of my new favorites from my own work. Somehow everything just gelled in this one -- the water, the light, the trees and the rocks and the sky. This is a rare image where I used an secondary light source (in addition to the sun) in order to achieve a specific effect. The same shadow and light effects could have been achieved if the positioning and density of the clouds was just right, but that would have been much harder to set up and then control.
Perhaps my favorite thing about this image is the sense of depth to it, and the way the river winds through the landscape. I used four separate terrains in this image to achieve that effect (rather than trying to chop a river into a single huge terrain). Not sure why I haven't ever done that more before...
I was very pleased with how this image came out, not the least of which because I learned more about how to effectively use displacement mapping in Vue. I modeled both the fence and the ruined house in SketchUp, but the house was rendered almost a year ago for a Bryce rendering called Snow Crest. I was very unhappy with how the house looked in Bryce, and so stuck it way off in the distance in the original image. In this new rendering, the house is right up close and I used displacement maps to add that extra realism that makes it work (the much better lighting also helps with the realism factor).
This is something of a spiritual successor to the very first rendering I ever did (though I had done some games related 3D modeling before that rendering). I love the refraction and reflections of the glass of the arch.
I modeled the arch in SketchUp.
The sky in this one was rendered at unusually high quality, and I think the results are quite worthwhile. I recently upgraded my computer to a quad core, however, and it still took about 4 hours to render. On my old computer, based on speed comparisons I've done with other scenes, it would have taken more like 12 days to render (yes, days).
The building shown here is a modified version of the office from Treetop Office. I think it quite works as some mysterious semi-camouflaged desert outbuilding.
This rendering is based on something I saw during my weekend in Virginia. This rendering is from memory, and isn't an exact match, but it's a pretty good approximation of a very cool view I saw near the end of sunset. If you'd like to see a photo of exactly what I was looking at, that is now available here.
I modeled the pier in SketchUp, but the lamp post is an object packaged with Vue.
River Vegetation
One of my new favorites from my own work. Somehow everything just gelled in this one -- the water, the light, the trees and the rocks and the sky. This is a rare image where I used an secondary light source (in addition to the sun) in order to achieve a specific effect. The same shadow and light effects could have been achieved if the positioning and density of the clouds was just right, but that would have been much harder to set up and then control.
Perhaps my favorite thing about this image is the sense of depth to it, and the way the river winds through the landscape. I used four separate terrains in this image to achieve that effect (rather than trying to chop a river into a single huge terrain). Not sure why I haven't ever done that more before...
Rural Ruins
I was very pleased with how this image came out, not the least of which because I learned more about how to effectively use displacement mapping in Vue. I modeled both the fence and the ruined house in SketchUp, but the house was rendered almost a year ago for a Bryce rendering called Snow Crest. I was very unhappy with how the house looked in Bryce, and so stuck it way off in the distance in the original image. In this new rendering, the house is right up close and I used displacement maps to add that extra realism that makes it work (the much better lighting also helps with the realism factor).
Rolling Arch
This is something of a spiritual successor to the very first rendering I ever did (though I had done some games related 3D modeling before that rendering). I love the refraction and reflections of the glass of the arch.
I modeled the arch in SketchUp.
Angry Desert
The sky in this one was rendered at unusually high quality, and I think the results are quite worthwhile. I recently upgraded my computer to a quad core, however, and it still took about 4 hours to render. On my old computer, based on speed comparisons I've done with other scenes, it would have taken more like 12 days to render (yes, days).
The building shown here is a modified version of the office from Treetop Office. I think it quite works as some mysterious semi-camouflaged desert outbuilding.
Night Pier
This rendering is based on something I saw during my weekend in Virginia. This rendering is from memory, and isn't an exact match, but it's a pretty good approximation of a very cool view I saw near the end of sunset. If you'd like to see a photo of exactly what I was looking at, that is now available here.
I modeled the pier in SketchUp, but the lamp post is an object packaged with Vue.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Forest Fence and Other Renderings
It's only been a few days since my last art post, but right now I'm in an art-creating binge. Also, I recently upgraded my computer to a quad-core, so I'm now able to get a lot more artwork done in the same amount of time (my time just waiting for the renders to complete is drastically reduced by this). Without further ado:
This image is a bit darker than I would have liked, but what can I say, this is the lighting in which it looks the most realistic (I tried several sunnier variants with no luck).
I'm definitely really happy with the overall look of this, though -- if you've been following my renderings for a while, you might remember that I've previously had a lot of trouble trying to get anything approaching a realistic forest scene. I feel that I've finally done it.
I'm also pleased with the quality of the fence, which is something that I modeled from scratch in SketchUp. I think it turned out exceedingly realistic. My wife and I went up to Virginia this past weekend, and I saw some fences like this and knew I wanted to render them.
Thanks to an excellent comment by Stephen Parrish, I decided to take another stab at my Loss theme. This is the same image as Loss 3, except that I've completely redone the water (new waves, light flares, two layers of water, displacement mapping, and subsurface scattering). The result is a much more pleasing shadow for the tree (I think), softer waves, and a more vibrant solar reflection in the water.
Another great suggestion by Stephen Parrish, who asked about orthogonal views in the rendering packages I use. While this rendering isn't strictly top-down, it's as close as I wanted to come (a little bit of side-perspective adds more depth).
The fence is the same one I used in Forest Fence, while the houses, tower, and chapel are all free models by the fine folks at Turbo Squid.
Forest Fence
This image is a bit darker than I would have liked, but what can I say, this is the lighting in which it looks the most realistic (I tried several sunnier variants with no luck).
I'm definitely really happy with the overall look of this, though -- if you've been following my renderings for a while, you might remember that I've previously had a lot of trouble trying to get anything approaching a realistic forest scene. I feel that I've finally done it.
I'm also pleased with the quality of the fence, which is something that I modeled from scratch in SketchUp. I think it turned out exceedingly realistic. My wife and I went up to Virginia this past weekend, and I saw some fences like this and knew I wanted to render them.
Loss 4
Thanks to an excellent comment by Stephen Parrish, I decided to take another stab at my Loss theme. This is the same image as Loss 3, except that I've completely redone the water (new waves, light flares, two layers of water, displacement mapping, and subsurface scattering). The result is a much more pleasing shadow for the tree (I think), softer waves, and a more vibrant solar reflection in the water.
Rural Overhead
Another great suggestion by Stephen Parrish, who asked about orthogonal views in the rendering packages I use. While this rendering isn't strictly top-down, it's as close as I wanted to come (a little bit of side-perspective adds more depth).
The fence is the same one I used in Forest Fence, while the houses, tower, and chapel are all free models by the fine folks at Turbo Squid.
Rob!
This is hilarious. I'd never heard of Improv Everywhere until literary agent Kristin Nelson mentioned them, but this is just the sort of thing I love. It's sort of like Candid Camera, except much larger scale. Another favorite is the Slo-Mo Home Depot stunt -- the reactions of the employees are priceless.
Friday, April 11, 2008
12 Dreams of Steel and Coal
It's only been a few months since I got Carrara, so I'm surprised to find myself already moving on. Vue is an even better program that recently came into my price range (it's still on sale, if you want to give it a look). This is one of the few rendering packages I've used that has made appearances in commercial special effects (Pirates of the Caribbean 2, most notably).
I'm sure I'll continue to use Carrara some, as I may use Bryce on occasion, but Vue is now the prime tool in my art milieu. All of the pieces from my latest gallery (still in progress) were done in Vue. Here are some of them:
This is an instant favorite for me -- and it's also one of the most realistic renderings I've ever done. I hope to be able to realize this level of fidelity in many more renderings.
My 300th rendering (not counting those in The Dregs or those that have never seen the light of day at all)! That seems fitting, because this was an instant favorite for me -- its a spiritual successor to one of my earlier works, Sky Castle, which was created nearly ten years before. 300 renderings in 10 years... that's not too shabby for something that is, after all, a hobby.
The building models are not by me, but rather came packaged with Vue 6.
This is my second remake of perhaps my most popular image ever, Loss. The original version was done in Bryce 2.0, way back in 1998 when I was first learning how to do renderings. The second version was done in Bryce 6.1 in 2007.
When I was heavily into Carrara rendering, I tried to make a version of this image using that program. However, I found that the fantastical nature of the image just didn't turn out very well in such a realism-minded program. I was afraid the same thing would be true with Vue (which is equally realism-minded), but the flexibility of the atmospherics model in Vue is such that I was able to achieve my unrealistic sunset with a modicum of tweaking.
It's been a really long time (almost a decade, I think) since I last rendered a low-lying landscape from this height and perspective. I love this sort of view, but the challenge of realistically managing the horizon has always kept me sticking with more mountainous terrains (which I also love, of course). Finally, with Vue, I'm able to achieve the sort of effect I've been looking for all these years. This is one of my few renderings that someone has mistaken for a photograph at first glance.
The sailboat is a stock item from Carrara 6, imported into Vue.
These are the first building models I've created myself in a while. Vue is able to import directly from Google SketchUp, and is able to do so in a manner that makes it easy for me to apply complex textures (which Carrara and Bryce both had trouble doing with SketchUp objects), so I imagine I'll be doing more such modeling from now on.
The twiggy brush in the foreground is also of my creation, based on a different solidgrowth tree in Vue. In general, I was very pleased with how dismally industrial I was able to make this scene.
"God rays" are a favorite subject of mine in landscapes, and this image marks my first foray into that territory in Vue. I was also particularly pleased with how the crags of the mountain came out, along with how the foreground grasses add realism and perspective.
I love this one. In some ways it reminds me of the opening chapters of the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time game, but I designed it as a 3D re-imagining of Subcon, from Super Mario Bros 2 (one of my favorite games). I love the look of this one in any case, though, with its multi-layered ecosystems.
This is also the first night scene I've done in some time, because I was having a hard time making those look right in Carrara. It's actually more complicated to make night scenes in Vue (in Carrara and Bryce there is a simple toggle), but the end result can be much better. I imagine I'll be doing more of them.
This was my second rendering in the full version of Vue. I wanted to see just how good the lighting and cloud effects could be -- the answer is "quite good," I think you'll agree.
One thing I really like here is how volumetric clouds are treated almost like meta blob objects (rather than simple bounding cubes). This allows for low-level clouds that look more organic, both by giving each component cloud a more realistic shape, but also by letting them "merge" together into larger clouds in a realistic manner. It's a little hard to explain if you aren't already familiar with this sort of thing, but let's just say that it lets artists model unusual natural phenomena more easily.
This is a re-envisioning of one of my favorite early renderings.
This one was unusually tricky to get right, and took me several more iterations than normal to get right. I'm pleased with the end result, except for the horizon line.
This is another one that took me forever to get right. In the end, the composition is completely different from what I had originally imagined, but I'm happy with it.
My first rendering in the full version of Vue. I was immediately floored by how realistic the "ecosystems" component is. These sorts of grasses and trees wouldn't be possible in any other rendering package.
One of my moodiest pieces ever. I was particularly pleased with how the ocean waves turned out.
I'm sure I'll continue to use Carrara some, as I may use Bryce on occasion, but Vue is now the prime tool in my art milieu. All of the pieces from my latest gallery (still in progress) were done in Vue. Here are some of them:
Overcast Marsh
This is an instant favorite for me -- and it's also one of the most realistic renderings I've ever done. I hope to be able to realize this level of fidelity in many more renderings.
City Cloudscape
My 300th rendering (not counting those in The Dregs or those that have never seen the light of day at all)! That seems fitting, because this was an instant favorite for me -- its a spiritual successor to one of my earlier works, Sky Castle, which was created nearly ten years before. 300 renderings in 10 years... that's not too shabby for something that is, after all, a hobby.
The building models are not by me, but rather came packaged with Vue 6.
Loss 3
This is my second remake of perhaps my most popular image ever, Loss. The original version was done in Bryce 2.0, way back in 1998 when I was first learning how to do renderings. The second version was done in Bryce 6.1 in 2007.
When I was heavily into Carrara rendering, I tried to make a version of this image using that program. However, I found that the fantastical nature of the image just didn't turn out very well in such a realism-minded program. I was afraid the same thing would be true with Vue (which is equally realism-minded), but the flexibility of the atmospherics model in Vue is such that I was able to achieve my unrealistic sunset with a modicum of tweaking.
Overland Sailboat
It's been a really long time (almost a decade, I think) since I last rendered a low-lying landscape from this height and perspective. I love this sort of view, but the challenge of realistically managing the horizon has always kept me sticking with more mountainous terrains (which I also love, of course). Finally, with Vue, I'm able to achieve the sort of effect I've been looking for all these years. This is one of my few renderings that someone has mistaken for a photograph at first glance.
The sailboat is a stock item from Carrara 6, imported into Vue.
Distant Skyscrapers
These are the first building models I've created myself in a while. Vue is able to import directly from Google SketchUp, and is able to do so in a manner that makes it easy for me to apply complex textures (which Carrara and Bryce both had trouble doing with SketchUp objects), so I imagine I'll be doing more such modeling from now on.
The twiggy brush in the foreground is also of my creation, based on a different solidgrowth tree in Vue. In general, I was very pleased with how dismally industrial I was able to make this scene.
Cliff Rays
"God rays" are a favorite subject of mine in landscapes, and this image marks my first foray into that territory in Vue. I was also particularly pleased with how the crags of the mountain came out, along with how the foreground grasses add realism and perspective.
Subcon Palms
I love this one. In some ways it reminds me of the opening chapters of the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time game, but I designed it as a 3D re-imagining of Subcon, from Super Mario Bros 2 (one of my favorite games). I love the look of this one in any case, though, with its multi-layered ecosystems.
This is also the first night scene I've done in some time, because I was having a hard time making those look right in Carrara. It's actually more complicated to make night scenes in Vue (in Carrara and Bryce there is a simple toggle), but the end result can be much better. I imagine I'll be doing more of them.
Desert Fire Fog
This was my second rendering in the full version of Vue. I wanted to see just how good the lighting and cloud effects could be -- the answer is "quite good," I think you'll agree.
One thing I really like here is how volumetric clouds are treated almost like meta blob objects (rather than simple bounding cubes). This allows for low-level clouds that look more organic, both by giving each component cloud a more realistic shape, but also by letting them "merge" together into larger clouds in a realistic manner. It's a little hard to explain if you aren't already familiar with this sort of thing, but let's just say that it lets artists model unusual natural phenomena more easily.
Sunset Ruin 2
This is a re-envisioning of one of my favorite early renderings.
Sky Canyon
This one was unusually tricky to get right, and took me several more iterations than normal to get right. I'm pleased with the end result, except for the horizon line.
Blue Crags
This is another one that took me forever to get right. In the end, the composition is completely different from what I had originally imagined, but I'm happy with it.
Autumn Mountains
My first rendering in the full version of Vue. I was immediately floored by how realistic the "ecosystems" component is. These sorts of grasses and trees wouldn't be possible in any other rendering package.
Stormy Islet
One of my moodiest pieces ever. I was particularly pleased with how the ocean waves turned out.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Two Tone Range
Two Tone Range
Purely an experiment in lighting and atmosphere, the end result is something I really like. I enjoy the contrast of the ruddy darkness beneath the clouds with the grayish light above them. This sort of duality is the sort of thing that occurs all the time in nature, if you think about it, but it's the sort of thing we are rarely able to see from ground level.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Hairy Spaceship
Hairy Spaceship
One of my stranger renderings of late, it's also one of my favorites. I wasn't really sure what I was going to create when I started with a blank slate in Hexagon, but the underlying structure of this model was what emerged. I thought it would make a good base for a translucent crystal of some sort, but when I started working with it in Carrara I quickly decided to go with something darker, opaque, and reflective.
The hair was the stroke of inspiration that tied this all together for me -- the weather, the water, and the patchy mist clinging to the ship all serve to refine and emphasize this one aspect of the scene.
Frankly, I find the end effect pretty menacing. Always a good thing.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
So Many Clocks!
I've never really thought about this before, but this world really is filling up with clocks. Doing a quick mental inventory of the clocks in my house, I come up with:
1 oven clock
1 microwave clock
2 wall clocks
3 alarm clocks
2 desk clocks
2 watches (at least -- probably more)
3 computer clocks
1 clock in answering machine
1 clock in VOIP phone
4 clocks in entertainment center equipment
3 clocks in miscellaneous other electronics
1 clock in wall thermostat
1 clock in bike odometer
That's 25 clocks right there, and I know I missed a good number of them. I also only counted those clocks that have some sort of visible display, whether on a monitor/screen readout or whatever. I'm sure various other electronics have some sort of internal clock of which I'm not even aware.
This is a pretty random thing to quantify, on the surface -- but on the other hand, it seems pretty descriptive of our society that we are perhaps more surrounded by timepieces than any other civilization on Earth has ever been.
1 oven clock
1 microwave clock
2 wall clocks
3 alarm clocks
2 desk clocks
2 watches (at least -- probably more)
3 computer clocks
1 clock in answering machine
1 clock in VOIP phone
4 clocks in entertainment center equipment
3 clocks in miscellaneous other electronics
1 clock in wall thermostat
1 clock in bike odometer
That's 25 clocks right there, and I know I missed a good number of them. I also only counted those clocks that have some sort of visible display, whether on a monitor/screen readout or whatever. I'm sure various other electronics have some sort of internal clock of which I'm not even aware.
This is a pretty random thing to quantify, on the surface -- but on the other hand, it seems pretty descriptive of our society that we are perhaps more surrounded by timepieces than any other civilization on Earth has ever been.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Force Feedback In Managed DirectX
I recently wrote my first article for Code Project. It's on a pretty niche programming topic, specifically controlling the actuators in game controllers via C#. This is something that should be a pretty basic topic, but a longstanding bug in some Microsoft libraries prevent their examples from working with many game pads. My article outlines the basics of how to do that sort of code, and shows how to work around their bug.
Let go of my CD!
I recently discovered an online comic called xkcd, and I must say it is hilarious. A lot of the jokes are things that would only be funny to programmers, but I think anyone can appreciate this one. I enjoyed many others from that strip about turing tests, sysfaults, compiling, imaginary kilobyte denotations, and many other topics, but I doubt you'd be as interested in those if you're part of my normal readership (aka, other writers).
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