Got some lighting and environment work done on my animation project. I think maybe there needs to be more shadow. #Blender #Animation #WIPㅤㅤㅤ

Would anyone be interested in me making a 3D model and some animations of Anastasia here? Also I'm working on some weapons designs for her. I'll maybe make a couple and post them to gauge what people like. I'm either thinking of an estoc or saber of some kind.

It really feels like to me with these new MKIV marines they just took the MKVI guys and edited them. It looks really apparent on the shins and knees. Like it looks like they just took a knife to the MKVI legs and just cut out the knee pads from them. It looks the most apparent to me with the one in the bottom left. It feels like the legs have the width and profile as the MKVI.

To follow up on this take about TADC and why I think Therapy speak is bad writing, I want to distinguish between what I feel good writing is and what bad writing is. Good Writing: -Shows Behavior, character is revealed through actions. -Earns feelings, emotional beats are earned through what happens. -Themes naturally emerge, the ideas arise from the story events naturally. -Every word works and tight word economy, nothing is wasted or is put in that shouldn't be there or doesn't work. -Details are specific, exact, particular, and anchored. -Consistent internal logic, the work has its own internal rules that it follows that make sense within the established world. Bad Writing: -Explains characters, character stated through dialogue or narration. -Announces feelings and explicitly signals emotional beats, emotions are told to the audience directly. -Message is delivered, characters deliver the author's point rather than intuitively understood through events. -Padding and repetition, poor word economy, same point made multiple times. -Vagueness and abstraction, vague wording that can be fit into any story. I think if you look at the criteria The Amazing Digital Circus fits heavily into the latter group. TADC uses character dialogue to tell the audience how the characters are feeling rather than really showing us through events and actions. Or more specifically it heavily relies on character dialogue. And it's just not really interesting to watch a bunch of strangers talk about their problems, especially if their problems aren't very interesting. And on top of that half the time when they are actually DOING things it gets interrupted and everything grinds to a halt so that they can process their feelings. Another side note, it seems most of the characters emotional problems are very mundane real world problems that they've carried into The Digital Circus, but honestly the most interesting and traumatizing thing any of these characters have been through is being trapped in a literal digital purgatory. I don't really see how dropping out of community college or having a poor relationship with your crazy mother is supposed to take precedence over what they are currently going through. I could get these backstories can inform their present behavior and personalities but to make that the focus? I remember when Pomni was tortured in episode 8 and people questioned where her traumatic backstory was and why wasn't her past being used in this sequence but really what happened to her in The Digital Circus would be the worst thing for most people. I guess getting hit by a truck would be up there though. But putting that aside, TADC falls into a lot of bad writing traps. Behavior vs explanation is the biggest one. Character is revealed through the choices that the characters make under pressure. It's those choices that define them. Showing the audience who a character is through what they do. I think the character they do this best with is Pomni, and the worst at this is Gangle. But there are still scenes like in the finale (spoilers) where Kinger just tells the audience how strong pomni is and how quickly she adapted compared to other people in the circus. NO. SHOW US this through Pomni's actions. And honestly the show kind of did where pomni got less insecure over time and more confident, the only thing missing was giving us a contrast to how poorly other people adapt compared to Pomni, so the show didn't really need to just tell us this. It should be something we figure out through just watching Pomni do things, how she behaves, and the choices she makes. Also I think the show does a poor job at presenting it's themes and and it's thesis. I believe Gooseworx said that it's about finding meaning in a stagnant world, but if that wasn't explicitly stated by the creator I don't think most people would come to that conclusion. Hell, I still don't really see it. Because from what I can see the thesis of the show is "You need to form connections with people and talk about your feelings, normalize struggle sessions, and don't bottle things up, ect." and it's focused on characters past rather than the existential situation they're in. Pomni I think being the character most focused on her struggles with the circus itself, at least initially. Like Jax is one of the main characters, but his whole arc and backstory and everything about him seems to have nothing to do with Gooseworx's stated thesis. But maybe I'm just beating a dead horse and repeating myself too much. I guess I'm breaking my own rule and making the same point multiple times. But I just wanted to outline what is and is not good writing more specifically and why I think TADC falls into the bad writing camp. I could go on and list more specific examples but I think most people can look at what I outlined and see how TADC falls into these traps a lot.

Got off work early today.

Well I saw the TADC movie. After watching the whole series now I think I can conclusively say I really didn't like it and found the writing pretty cringe. I liked the Gun bit in episode 6 and that's it. I respect the animation craft that went into it though. My problem with Digital Circus is that I simply don't think that Therapy Sessions are good writing. The Show wants to be a character Drama but none of the drama feels very earned. Like I think pomni crashing out about how much she hates the adventures in episode 3 would have landed better if we got to see her go on more adventures. Instead she goes on 1 and then just tells us how she feels about them. Characters in this show are explicitly verbalizing their inner states to each other and to the audience constantly which goes against the principal of "show don't tell". The characters going "I'm struggling with my Trauma" is a genuine technical problem with the writing, not really a taste preference. Good writing delivers this with subtext and implication and lets the audience feel these things, not be hand delivered pre packaged emotional gift boxes. But weirdly in the digital circus they are sometimes vague about certain things and explicit about others. Like I still don't get what I'm supposed to feel when Gangle runs out of the fast food place and it slows down and plays the music. That moment felt like it was cargo culting "show don't tell". Like "this is what it looks like to indirectly imply something" without actually doing it. And people will push back saying "Therapy speak is a buzzword" but I'd say it's a legitimate craft problem. But for whatever reason there's a large subset of people that genuinely believe explicit verbalization of feelings is good writing because of some communal recognition of their feelings. "i want character to name this aloud so I can feel seen". It's an entirely different language of consumption that I just do not get behind. I would have liked the show better if it was more adventures that utilized the premise of being in a digital world and going on crazy digital adventures more. Like a DnD Esque episode, or even more video game references or other stuff. Like "todays adventure is the istvann drop site massacre!" Or something. Give us time to have fun with these characters and then subtly show us the interior world of these characters through implication and actions. I know gooseworx said they didn't want "filler" but I actually think that those are important things to include. It almost feels like the writers went "well, the Tumblr crowd loves feelz and just feelz, so we'll trim all the fat and cut away most of the non feelz bits so we can just skip to the parts people want!" Which to its credit seems to work with the intended audience but leaves it lacking overall to me. I think I just do not speak the same language as the people who enjoy this show. Again, respect to the animation crew but not for me. I gave it as fair a shake as I could. (The only reason I saw the movie was because a friend invited me. I'm just very glad no one smelled bad.)

The Millennials in the gaming industry continue to be entirely dethatched from and contemptuous of the average gamer. No one wants quirk chungus dialogue and no want wants to play as a homely 45 year old woman in an action game from a series called "God of War". Nothing about this is appealing. Like the creator of God of War said, it looks uninspired and dull. In spite of constant flops and failures of games that follow this direction, they continue to go down this path either out of stubborness or spite. They can't accept that people just do not want want their selling and want to foist it on everyone anyway. And they will never change, they can only go bankrupt. The games industry needs a complete reset.

Sometimes I really wish I had a close creative partner to work with on projects like how Flashgitz do.

Still working on this animation. I think I may have over-keyed this part. Still in rough blocking but I'm hoping the end result will look much smoother. I really want the fighting to look good and snappy. #Blender #Animation #WIPㅤㅤㅤ

Progress is being made on the video, but it's going to be a bit late. Probably coming out Monday or Tuesday. I'm sorry to keep the three or four of you waiting, but it'll be worth it. I kept running into hiccups with a lot of my assets and rigs, and I ended up just making some of my own props which delayed everything.

New video coming next week. Master Chief has a new job. #FNAF #Halo #Blender3D