I was going to post an entry about how I need an animation project to keep me busy and argue the pros and cons of three projects I'd like to create, only one of which I'd have the time to make.
However that's been thrown out the window as I have made my decision. I do believe it is time for me to create an animation of my beloved 'Dogs Of War' series. What I plan is to animate one of the episodes that would appear in the series, if it ever was to be produced. This will not be easy. This will be a half hour animation done just by one person. Not just the animation, but character, background, prop and other asset development. The bulk will the 2D computer animated but some 3D scenes will be thrown in too. This means for some assets (mainly vehicles) I will need to build both a 2D and 3D model. Sooo, yeah. I'm going to be busy and I hope I have the patience to get through the design stage. That in itself can take ages.
The good thing is that as I go along, I'll be creating lots of stuff I could put up on this blog site. So finally I'll be putting up things you can actually look at.
So far it's been a week and I'm half way through drawing up the storyboard.
Here's hoping I can get through the entire project.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
War's probably not what it used to be
Yesterday I watched an episode of Two And A Half Men. It was an episode that involved Walden and an old business partner of his developing a bit of software that ultimately, could be used to turn off the power to any region in the world. I hope the producers of the show realise that Walden would be legally accountable for any accident that may have occured during this 'blackout' and quite frankly, such an act could also be considered terrorism. Think about that next time you watch the show.
As much as I love to nitpick, this is not what this blog post is about. This episode actually raised quite an interesting point. We live in an age of information. Just about every aspect of our lives can be fulfilled by a gadget or computer program. Now, with my Dogs Of War TV series idea, I try to be as accurate as can be when it comes to how a world war may be fought. As you'd expect from the title, my series is all about war, with fighting, shooting, explosions and soldiers rolling in to smack the crap out of everyone. In other words, conventional warfare. However after watching the aforementioned episode of Two And A Half Men, perhaps my apporach is all wrong. Imagine if you could do something like remotely deactivate the power grid to any nation. You could cripple a country without firing a single shot. Yes, various institutions may have backup generators, but for the most part you could bring a nation to it's knees. They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but a computer mouse trumps them all. I know warfare today is still about shooting and blowing things up, but these are smaller engagements. I'm looking more at what a World War could end up like, should the world go mad again.
I feel I should say that I'm not planning to go to war, goodness no, nor am I encouraging anyone else to do so. The reason I have such an interest into how a war can be fought is purely for research purposes for my TV series. There. That's the legal kerfuffle out of the way.
As much as I love to nitpick, this is not what this blog post is about. This episode actually raised quite an interesting point. We live in an age of information. Just about every aspect of our lives can be fulfilled by a gadget or computer program. Now, with my Dogs Of War TV series idea, I try to be as accurate as can be when it comes to how a world war may be fought. As you'd expect from the title, my series is all about war, with fighting, shooting, explosions and soldiers rolling in to smack the crap out of everyone. In other words, conventional warfare. However after watching the aforementioned episode of Two And A Half Men, perhaps my apporach is all wrong. Imagine if you could do something like remotely deactivate the power grid to any nation. You could cripple a country without firing a single shot. Yes, various institutions may have backup generators, but for the most part you could bring a nation to it's knees. They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but a computer mouse trumps them all. I know warfare today is still about shooting and blowing things up, but these are smaller engagements. I'm looking more at what a World War could end up like, should the world go mad again.
I feel I should say that I'm not planning to go to war, goodness no, nor am I encouraging anyone else to do so. The reason I have such an interest into how a war can be fought is purely for research purposes for my TV series. There. That's the legal kerfuffle out of the way.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Birthday 2012
Well, it's my birthday. Another year older, another year closer to insanity. Or something.
It's always been awkward having a birthday wedged between Christmas and New Year's, mainly because everyone's preoccupied with holiday things. My siblings are married/have kids, which keeps them busy, dad's been busy with his yacht racing and many friends are doing their own holidaying stuff.
Oddly though, this shouldn't bother me. I don't like having a fuss made over me - I certainly don't want to be the centre of attention. However I don't like being ignored, either. I prefer some kind of middle ground. 'Acknowlwdged' is probably the best fit.
However if I'm ever able to get my animation ideas out there into the world, then oh boy, things will change for the better. Or at least I hope they will.
Anyway, I hope everyone has had a decent 2012 and it shall be interesting to see what 2013 will offer.
It's always been awkward having a birthday wedged between Christmas and New Year's, mainly because everyone's preoccupied with holiday things. My siblings are married/have kids, which keeps them busy, dad's been busy with his yacht racing and many friends are doing their own holidaying stuff.
Oddly though, this shouldn't bother me. I don't like having a fuss made over me - I certainly don't want to be the centre of attention. However I don't like being ignored, either. I prefer some kind of middle ground. 'Acknowlwdged' is probably the best fit.
However if I'm ever able to get my animation ideas out there into the world, then oh boy, things will change for the better. Or at least I hope they will.
Anyway, I hope everyone has had a decent 2012 and it shall be interesting to see what 2013 will offer.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Nintendo
Ok, so the Nintendo Wii-U has just been released in Australia. Will I be buying one? You betcha, but not until there's a 'must have' game available and I'm employed and earning money again.
But what I'm more interested in is what the competition - Sony and Microsoft - are doing. As far as I'm aware, very little, if anything, has been said about their next consoles. It would seem Nintendo will have free reign for a while.
Part of me likes to think that the others are holding back, waiting to see how Ninty's new console will fare before they make their own moves. After all, when the Nintendo Wii was released, showing the appeal of motion control, Sony and Microsoft both then decided to bring motion controls to their current consoles. If you were to ask each company why they would bring out a motion control scheme during the mid-life of their consoles rather than saving it for their next one, they'd probably say some kind of PR fluff like 'We believe motion control is the next step in producing entertaining and immersive gameplay experiences.' when in reality they probably mean 'We underestimated how successful Nintendo would be with their motion control and we are kicking ourselves for not following suit ealier. We have developed these motion control systems now as a hasty means of playing catch-up and getting our hands on the money and success we did not want our competitor to have.'
Speaking of which, Ninty seems to have always been the trend setter with video game controller design. The button layout of a PlayStation controller is more or less identical to a SNES controller, then both Sony and Sega (remember Sega and how they used to produce consoles?) added analogue sticks to their controllers once the N64 came into play. I think Nintendo may have also introduced the rumble feedback feature to controllers (but this is pure assumption on my part, I may be wrong) and then there's the aforementioned motion control.
However one thing that may be a concern is the fact that the Wii-U hardware does not support DirectX 11, which will make the console incompatible with games using the upcoming Unreal Engine 4. As I understand it, the current version - Unreal Engine 3 - has been used in well over 100 different games and this next engine is likely to be just as popular. It may not affect those games made directly by Nintendo, but may have an impact on third party support further on in the console's life cycle. Time will tell.
Apologies for the long gap between blog posts - I've been busy with my engineering studies. I haven't forgotten about my readers (all ten of you), so I hope you can forgive me for these occasional lulls.
But what I'm more interested in is what the competition - Sony and Microsoft - are doing. As far as I'm aware, very little, if anything, has been said about their next consoles. It would seem Nintendo will have free reign for a while.
Part of me likes to think that the others are holding back, waiting to see how Ninty's new console will fare before they make their own moves. After all, when the Nintendo Wii was released, showing the appeal of motion control, Sony and Microsoft both then decided to bring motion controls to their current consoles. If you were to ask each company why they would bring out a motion control scheme during the mid-life of their consoles rather than saving it for their next one, they'd probably say some kind of PR fluff like 'We believe motion control is the next step in producing entertaining and immersive gameplay experiences.' when in reality they probably mean 'We underestimated how successful Nintendo would be with their motion control and we are kicking ourselves for not following suit ealier. We have developed these motion control systems now as a hasty means of playing catch-up and getting our hands on the money and success we did not want our competitor to have.'
Speaking of which, Ninty seems to have always been the trend setter with video game controller design. The button layout of a PlayStation controller is more or less identical to a SNES controller, then both Sony and Sega (remember Sega and how they used to produce consoles?) added analogue sticks to their controllers once the N64 came into play. I think Nintendo may have also introduced the rumble feedback feature to controllers (but this is pure assumption on my part, I may be wrong) and then there's the aforementioned motion control.
However one thing that may be a concern is the fact that the Wii-U hardware does not support DirectX 11, which will make the console incompatible with games using the upcoming Unreal Engine 4. As I understand it, the current version - Unreal Engine 3 - has been used in well over 100 different games and this next engine is likely to be just as popular. It may not affect those games made directly by Nintendo, but may have an impact on third party support further on in the console's life cycle. Time will tell.
Apologies for the long gap between blog posts - I've been busy with my engineering studies. I haven't forgotten about my readers (all ten of you), so I hope you can forgive me for these occasional lulls.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Too... many... ideas...
Gah! I've been bitten by the creativity bug (Insipriationonus Creativitus) and have about a million projects I want to work on. Problem is that I don't have the time. Well, I do, but the big problem is that I want it all done at once. At present I've been creating an animation to put up on my YouTube account. It isn't finished yet and already I'm itching to get started on the next animation project, but I'm trying to get into the habit of finishing things before moving on. The other idea that's recently popped into my head is to write an episode guide to my Dog Of War series. Yes, that's right. An episode guide to a series that doesn't actually exist. That's how obsessed I am with my ideas. Mind you I'm only half thinking about it. I wouldn't mind getting it commercially published, but the idea of an episode guide based off something that doesn't exist may be difficult to convince someone to publish. Oh well. We'll see.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
No comic for you
Bugger.
My graphic novel prospects seem to be dead in the water. I haven't heard back from the people I sent my proposal to which, given the span of time that's past, means that they would have rejected the idea.
While disappointed, I'm not overly surprised that this happened. I often get what I want in life, but never what I really want.
The other problem though is that I've had a look at some other publishers, but from the outset it doesn't look any easier. The requirements to get publication seem a little more demanding than I feel I could provide and one of the publishers seem to suggest that they are currently not even having a look at any submissions.
Mind you I've only been looking at the top comic publishers in the industry. There may be smaller publishers or those that distribute comics/graphic novels digitally. I'm sure there's someone out there who would pick up my idea. The problem is that I have no idea where to start looking.
I'm not giving up, though. Perhaps what I need is to get my ideas out there in some form - gain some public interest. Maybe that could make it easier to convince someone to publish my work. Or even get advice from the public on the best course of action I should take. I just need to find a place to put up my ideas. Not here - while I do get visitors from around the world (which I greatly appreciate and am curious on how you stumbled across my blog. I haven't really advertised this space) the overall traffic is quite low. I need access to a wider audience.
My graphic novel prospects seem to be dead in the water. I haven't heard back from the people I sent my proposal to which, given the span of time that's past, means that they would have rejected the idea.
While disappointed, I'm not overly surprised that this happened. I often get what I want in life, but never what I really want.
The other problem though is that I've had a look at some other publishers, but from the outset it doesn't look any easier. The requirements to get publication seem a little more demanding than I feel I could provide and one of the publishers seem to suggest that they are currently not even having a look at any submissions.
Mind you I've only been looking at the top comic publishers in the industry. There may be smaller publishers or those that distribute comics/graphic novels digitally. I'm sure there's someone out there who would pick up my idea. The problem is that I have no idea where to start looking.
I'm not giving up, though. Perhaps what I need is to get my ideas out there in some form - gain some public interest. Maybe that could make it easier to convince someone to publish my work. Or even get advice from the public on the best course of action I should take. I just need to find a place to put up my ideas. Not here - while I do get visitors from around the world (which I greatly appreciate and am curious on how you stumbled across my blog. I haven't really advertised this space) the overall traffic is quite low. I need access to a wider audience.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
I don't have the patience to wait
Grr, I'm getting frustrated.
Recently I sent off a submission of my graphic novel. I've been waiting and waiting, but haven't heard back from the publisher. Mind you, they did say that it would take up to a month for them to send a response if they were interested - so far it's been a little over two weeks, so there is still a chance, but I'm starting to lose hope.
Sure, there are other publishers out there I can try my luck on, but the publisher I sent my proposal to seems ideal and I just want to be able to get my ideas into production.
What I find most agonising though, is that I want to be able to get my ideas out into the public consciousness. I want people to enjoy and appreciate what I come up with. Every time I see a film, book, TV series - anything that is the result of someone's creativity, I get envious. I want this too. Yes, I could put some stuff up on the internet - which was sort of the point of creating a blog, but I'm a bit cagey when it comes to the concept of copyright.
Now, I'm no expert on how copyright laws work exactly, but as I understand it, copyright of intellectual property is obtained as soon as it's put up on public display. However there are a few well known and used sites where it's not quite clear cut. A recent email on a digital artist mailing list described how they lost ownership of a showreel clip on YouTube due to owners of referenced material getting all antsy about their work being used, even though the person who put up the clip had acquired all the necessary permission to use someone else's material in their clip. Or something to that effect. And I don't have any examples off the top of my head, I may have read somewhere that a few places where you can put up things (now that I think about it, Facebook might be one), where everything you put up, may be owned or part owned by the owners of the site, in the off-chance they wanted to do something with it. This is why I've momentarily stopped putting up pictures on this blog and instead these essay length ramblings. I don't know what the policies are on user's retention of ownership on material on blogger.com, but I'm erring on the side of caution.
The other reason is that I'm reluctant to share most of my ideas until I really get at it and get my ideas out there into popular culture. This is because someone may see an idea of mine, think it's good and adopt something similar to their commercial work. Even if it's done in a way that does not infringe copyright, a similarity may still be there and despite that I may have come up with the idea first, the fact that it has been adopted into someone else's, more pouplar work, means that I lose some of the originality and uniqueness of the idea. These ideas of mine have been swimming around my head for over a decade. They mean a lot to me.
I suppose it's best for me to keep trying to get published, but I don't want to wait - I want it NOW. Oh well - Borderlands 2 is out tomorrow so that might keep me distracted for a bit.
Recently I sent off a submission of my graphic novel. I've been waiting and waiting, but haven't heard back from the publisher. Mind you, they did say that it would take up to a month for them to send a response if they were interested - so far it's been a little over two weeks, so there is still a chance, but I'm starting to lose hope.
Sure, there are other publishers out there I can try my luck on, but the publisher I sent my proposal to seems ideal and I just want to be able to get my ideas into production.
What I find most agonising though, is that I want to be able to get my ideas out into the public consciousness. I want people to enjoy and appreciate what I come up with. Every time I see a film, book, TV series - anything that is the result of someone's creativity, I get envious. I want this too. Yes, I could put some stuff up on the internet - which was sort of the point of creating a blog, but I'm a bit cagey when it comes to the concept of copyright.
Now, I'm no expert on how copyright laws work exactly, but as I understand it, copyright of intellectual property is obtained as soon as it's put up on public display. However there are a few well known and used sites where it's not quite clear cut. A recent email on a digital artist mailing list described how they lost ownership of a showreel clip on YouTube due to owners of referenced material getting all antsy about their work being used, even though the person who put up the clip had acquired all the necessary permission to use someone else's material in their clip. Or something to that effect. And I don't have any examples off the top of my head, I may have read somewhere that a few places where you can put up things (now that I think about it, Facebook might be one), where everything you put up, may be owned or part owned by the owners of the site, in the off-chance they wanted to do something with it. This is why I've momentarily stopped putting up pictures on this blog and instead these essay length ramblings. I don't know what the policies are on user's retention of ownership on material on blogger.com, but I'm erring on the side of caution.
The other reason is that I'm reluctant to share most of my ideas until I really get at it and get my ideas out there into popular culture. This is because someone may see an idea of mine, think it's good and adopt something similar to their commercial work. Even if it's done in a way that does not infringe copyright, a similarity may still be there and despite that I may have come up with the idea first, the fact that it has been adopted into someone else's, more pouplar work, means that I lose some of the originality and uniqueness of the idea. These ideas of mine have been swimming around my head for over a decade. They mean a lot to me.
I suppose it's best for me to keep trying to get published, but I don't want to wait - I want it NOW. Oh well - Borderlands 2 is out tomorrow so that might keep me distracted for a bit.
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