M dot Strange's blog

Now posting on Substack as this place sucks 0_0

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 18:20:00 -0700

I will be posting text/podcasty stuff here now. Come read/listen and interact/comment or not- whatever bruh we makin movies over there shiiiiiiiiiiiiit

imaginationrabbit.com

Mobile phones are the opium den of the 21st Century

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 15:23:00 -0700

As the title states mobile phones are the opium den of the 21st century. Dopamine instead of opium.

The phone itself is like the pipe the addict smokes and the apps, games and everything else running on the phone itself designed to provide dopamine hits are the opium.

Apple, Samsung etc are selling the pipes to smoke the opium and Zuckerberg, the google dweebs, candy crushing game developers, and the other tech douchebags are the actual drug dealers.

%98 of the adult U.S. population is hooked. The first thing they do when they wake up and the last thing they do before they go to sleep is hit the pipe.

You hit the pipe and waste your life while they make money from your wasted time and potential.

When do you put the pipe down? When you're physically dying?

I've never owned a mobile phone so I don't hit the pipe.

I laugh when I see celebrities talking about the brave individuals they know who have a "flip phone" like its some kind of rebellious act- living out their ascetic existence with their humble flip phone ^_^

You don't have to have a mobile phone at all. I use Google voice on my laptop for texting/calls when I need to.

Here's my tip- if you claim to be a creator- get rid of your fucking phone- it's destroying your imagination and your ability to focus for long periods of time which is required to make great work.

Its going to be painful at first because you are addicted but just allow yourself to let go and be consumed by the work, it will do things for you that no phone or app can ever do.

Strange man on an Amtrak train talking to strangers: Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Sun, 1 Dec 2019 15:18:00 -0800

I take the Amtrak train here in California once or twice a year for various reasons... One of the trains I take is the "Coast Starlight" On my way out I catch it at about 8pm and it arrives at the destination at 3am. On the way back I catch it at about 2am and arrive at 10am.

I never sit in my assigned seat... I sit in the "observation" car... It's a car with tables... so I write/draw/work on my laptop...

My open sketchbook on the Amtrak with a drawing I made there

But most of all... I end up talking to strangers...

So this train is usually running in the middle of the night... the observation car is quite dark... there's always a few people sleeping inside of it for some reason... the Amtrak crowd is usually senior citizens, young people, and people who cannot afford other means of transportation... its nothing like European or Japanese trains...

Anyway... my wife will hang out with me for a little while then she'll go back to our seats to sleep...

So I sit in there by myself...

The last time I took it... it was about 10pm... earlier in the night on the train we had met are were talking to a human rights lawyer from Los Angeles who was taking a long ride up to Portland to visit friends... interesting guy...

I don't ever ask anyones name on the train... I just talk... some times they ask who I am and I give them my website...

So its about 11pm and I'm in there alone... there's a group of age 55+ people two tables away from me and another two guys with their heads buried into their ipad's with headphones on... the group of people are playing cards and eating chocolate...

The door behind me opens and a pale thin young man walks in and sits at a table behind me, two tables back... almost immediately he buries his face into his hands and starts crying out loud... the kind of crying where you are trying to be silent but the emotions overtake you and you can't help but make sound...

I immediately look back at him... the ipad guys don't notice because they have headphone's in... the group of people older than me look over at him with a "that's a shame" look on their faces then go back to what they were doing...

I of course start talking to him as I still have a soul... I ask him what happened... he tells me he was just about to propose to his girlfriend who he works two jobs for to put her and himself through college when he found out she's been cheating on him...

I tell him to come sit at the table next to mine... as he does... one of the older women from the group walks over and gives him some water and food and a hug...

Over the next 3 hours... I talk to this young man how I wish a man would have talked to me when I was 19 years old and heartbroken...

I share with him a quote I've always found inspiring when bad things happen... I don't remember where it's from but it's something like this "The greatest heroes are seared with the most horrible scars"

He shows me the deep surgical scars covering both of his thin lower legs... he tells me that he was born with both feet on backwards and has had 20+ surgeries for them...

While he was still crying and explaining his situation... he mentioned that both of his parents were dead... and his grandfather who raised him had just been put in a care home... he felt all alone... he wanted to go back to his home state of Texas but didn't have the money for it at the time...

One of the things that initially calmed him down was that I told him that if he needed help with that I could help him out...

He explained that his girlfriend and himself were out in California to visit his fathers grave in Sacramento then up to visit his girlfriends family in Redding... the same destination as me...

He explained that right after visiting his fathers grave is when he learned about his girlfriends deeds...

His father was born the same year I was... strange eh?

After talking to him I convinced him to stay on the trip with the girlfriend as they had a return plane ticket 5 days later that was already paid for... Since we were going to the same place I gave him my contact info and invited him to come to some Halloween events we were going to check out...

At about 1 or 2 am after he told me how well he was doing in college, finishing a year early... his plans for the future... he thanked me profusely and said "you have no idea what you just did for me" I told him that's what friends are for...

I saw a broken young man collapsed into a table and I did my best to help him stand back up... everything else in his life was going great so I tried to help shift his perspective... a lot of times that's all we need...

He was really smart and doing well in school... supporting himself and excelling... so he was a lot stronger that he thought he was considering everything he had been through... I just tried to remind him of his strength...

When we got to our destination I saw him and a young blonde girl get off the train and be picked up by a woman in a mini-van... he didn't see me but I watched him sort of hanging his head as he got into the van...

I never did hear from him... but whatever his situation I hope our talk was useful....

I look forward to talking to more strangers on trains in the future... I wonder if any of them remember the time they talked to the strange man on the train in the middle of the night?

On the way back I talked to a young man who was a traveling buddhist monk... he dropped out of college and now travels from monastery to monastery... He really seemed like he wanted to talk to people... I noticed him sleeping on the ground at the train station before the train came... he explained the whole theory of reincarnation to me on the train which I thanked him for...

There was also a young woman who was a freshman at San Francisco State University... who said talking to us(Me, my wife and the buddhist guy) made her feel better as she was from a rural part of northern California and going to the madness that is San Francisco... she had decided to change Universities to one closer to where she was from... a good decision me thinks...

The takeaway is... talk to people as long as they don't look outwardly super dangerous of course AND as long as your not a woman alone talking to strange men in places that are not %100 open and safe with other people around...

But yeah... I'm working alone on my PC most ALL of the time and have very limited social opportunities outside of my home so I look forward to talking the Amtrak... now don't get me wrong the Amtrak SUCKS compared to trains I've been on in Japan and Europe but I like the talking to new people part ^_^

How to survive as an obscure creator?

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Sat, 30 Nov 2019 15:18:00 -0800

DO SOMETHING ELSE FOR MONEY.

That's it ^_^

If you are in it to make uncompromising personal work that does not arrange itself to fit trends or the market you are in for a world of HURT if you also try to make a living from your obscure creative works.

I tried to do it for some time and it was destroying me. So I just flipped a switch and separated things. My creative work is my therapy, my calling in life, my passion BUT it's not going to make me a living.

So I do other things for money. Luckily those other things don't require much of my time so my lifestyle didn't change very much except that it removed the CRUSHING pressure, anxiety and self immolating internal conflict when it came to my creative works and making money with them.

So if you're struggling trying to make money with your creative works and are an uncompromising creator like me then just switch gears. Find or create a new thing that is designed for making money and leave your creative work to be pure.

If you can find/create something that creates a passive income that's always the best because it gives you the most free time. I know in writing that I make it sound like its easy but look at it from my perspective...

I was making 2 hour animated feature films by myself. That's 1,500 - 2,000 individual shots consisting of multiple animated characters, voices, sets, sound fx, modeling, animating, music etc etc... and I stayed on schedule and shipped every time.

I was doing all that myself + everything else I do with virtually no budget. Those things are traditionally done by 50 + people.

Doing that stuff was REALLY REALLY difficult. Compared to THAT "making money" is not difficult.

I didn't always think like that though... from failing to make substantial amounts of money so many times with my works I had convinced myself that I was retarded in some way when it came to money. I had mentally locked myself out of being "successful" in that sense.

As dumb as it sounds... Then I started to realize that no one else was doing the things I was doing... and I realized it was because the things were really difficult... they required tons of discipline, dedication and focus... as well as skills and knowledge...

I looked around and saw people lacking those qualities/abilities making tons of money... so I said to myself... "If they can do it, of course I can too"

So I bought and read a bunch of business books, attended free seminars/talks on related things... and yeah, it is NOT as difficult as making a 2000 shot animated film by yourself... it just takes time and dedication like anything else.

So if you are an independent creator and have a similar mental block when it comes to money... just reframe and separate things and maybe that will help you too.

Game dev thoughts while making God Machine

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 17:40:00 -0800

I've been posting some stuff in the Game Dev Grit discord as I work away on God Machine-

I realized that Discord server is a walled garden and not googleable so I should post in here as well so that it can be found...

This is a dump of random stuff- from now on I'll also post here in a more organized way-

High Level Game Design

1:27 PM]MdotStrange:
Something I was doing wrong with my enemy design with my big game- I was designing enemies based on "cool enemy ideas" - So, since it was fun I designed all these enemies based on the areas they were in and "cool designs"- I realize now that the enemies should be designed on how they interact with specific player mechanics-

[1:28 PM]MdotStrange:
So in the future I won't design any enemies until all the player mechanics are locked in- and then the enemies will be based on adding risk to certain player mechanics

[1:29 PM]MdotStrange:
Simple example- if your player can fire projectiles- design an enemy that has a shield that can bounce the projectiles back at the player to damage them

October 31, 2019

[12:15 AM]MdotStrange:
While making music for my level as I was building the level I got to thinking about that Goethe quote "Architecture is frozen music" (have been reading basic architecture books) I started thinking about matching a games visual design with its music in a different way- like my levels are simply built using synthetic materials(metal,stone), it has Japanese influences and 8 bit elements- the music I am making is electronic with tradtional Japanese  and chiptune instruments- so the visual level design and music match in a way as if the architecture was the frozen version of the music and vice versa-

[12:16 AM]MdotStrange:
Its like how pixel art and chiptune go together so well- the music is a liquid version of the architecture-

[12:17 AM]MdotStrange:
So I'm going to really make sure the architecture and the music match up in this way

[12:18 AM]MdotStrange:
This book is in no way in depth but I've found it VERY useful when thinking about architecture for level design https://www.amazon.com/101-Things-Learned-Architecture-School/dp/0262062666

Low Level game Design

MdotStrange: Time tracking/management through git commit history or milestones? As I start to finish the early levels of the game I want to know how long it took to complete each level- Since I commit a few times a day and write pretty detailed descriptions I'm going to start using my commit history to track level building time so I can get an idea how long future levels will take... anyone do anything like this? [5:24 PM] MdotStrange: Github milestones seem like a perfect solution but afaik they need tasks/issues attributed to them to use them- somedays I commit a bunch of work that is not an issue/task nor does is close an issue- so that work would not be visible to the milestone... [5:26 PM] MdotStrange: So my current solution is to create a milestone for each level with only two issues/tasks attributed to it "Start X level" and "Finish X level" I'll close those issues on the start and finish of each level- making it easy to see how long each one took- [5:29 PM] MdotStrange: The reason I'm interested in tracking the time is so I can have a reasonable estimated completion date- So I'm documenting the time it takes to finish each levels first pass using a simple spreadsheet

8:13 PM]MdotStrange:
I think hierarchy organization for level design is a bit like refactoring code- if you go quick and dirty its best to go back and clean things up in the hierarchy

[8:13 PM]MdotStrange:
after an hour of work my hierarchy is a mess so I stop and put things into their folders

October 30, 2019

[8:42 PM]MdotStrange:
Thinking about WHEN to add fine details to a level- fine detals like decals,  greebles(tons of small items to add detail) and vertex map painting- Should this be done when the level is "finished" but untested? Should it be done when finished AND tested? Should it only be done when all the levels are done? Just wanted to get some opinions on when to add the final visual polish to a level...

Strange scribbles inked by an algorithm on vacation

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Sat, 7 Sep 2019 16:45:00 -0700

I've been playing around with this to ink my sketches

I like the style it gives- its sort of like some haunted digital virus images or something?

I drew most of these on the flights to and fro Maui, HI- as I was there for 8 days for my wife's birthday- we brought some friends along too- it was a good time- but you know me my favorite place is with my imagination and my tools of the trade-

I also did this pixel art animation on the plane based on this funny photo I have of my wife from when she was a kid- its called the "sad baby"

Anyway- I'm back home and back to work on GOD MACHINE+ some other things-

How to learn

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 15:34:00 -0700

Ask questions

Ask other humans questions especially if they have experience in the field/area you are learning about
*Even if they don't have experience in the same area if they are an expert/have a lot of experience in ANY area you can ask them questions about how they do things which can help you in your area
Ask search engine's questions through queries- "how to do x" filter through the results and pull out and read the best material

I'm always asking people questions- every time I encounter a person who is experienced in an area I know nothing/not much about I ask them questions about their workflow and how they do things-

Read a lot

When I want to learn something new I search out the highest reviewed books in the area and buy/read them- even old books can be really helpful
Find the best articles online on the subject and read them all
*READ in depth sources, not just click-baity articles that don't go in depth- you want an IN DEPTH understanding not a bite sized click bait trivial understanding

Watch good presentations/tutorials made by people who are doing what you want to do

There's a million youtube videos out there made by people who have no valid experience on the subjects they are discussing- AVOID THESE-
*Example for game dev- GDC talk by game developer who made a game you like vs. Youtube persons tutorial who hasn't made any games
*If you are not willing to watch a GOOD 45 minute video you don't have what it takes to learn

Focus on and BECOME the subject you are trying to learn

Become obsessed and make the subject fill your thoughts
You see the subject in everything
You talk about the subject with everyone you know
Become a human sponge for the subject

I made a little game in 5.5 days for the 2019 SubZero festival

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Fri, 14 Jun 2019 00:24:00 -0700

M dot me in front of my "booth"- a shabby table showcasing Shabby Town Breakball

You can download/play the game here

It was a rush job as I only had a week to do it but it ended up being a fun little game that lots of people at the festival enjoyed- one kid played it about 30 times trying to beat my high score- he ended up taking spots 2- 5 ^_^

I made a youtube video going over how I made it which you can watch here-

In addition to manning the "booth" with my wife I was shooting footage for a little documentary about the festival which I still have to edit etc-

This week I'm off from my normal work hanging out with friends from out of town- I need the week off as I did about 80 hours of work in 5.5 days to make that game + 10 hours over the weekend manning the booth/shooting the doc + talking to people and all that-

I went to the nearby beach town--> Santa Cruz on Tuesday to relax but as I was sitting down by the water an older woman surfer was coming in to get out of the water near these concrete steps I was sitting near and started groaning- long story short her legs had cramped up and she couldn't get out of the water so I took her board which was still tied to her to prevent her from being taken out further and also from losing her board- I got soaked in the process after being mashed by some waves into the concrete steps- it wasn't a big deal but it wasn't relaxing haha-

So this week I'm not doing any work- I'll be back at work on God Machine on Monday-

God Machine update 5-20-19

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Mon, 20 May 2019 19:28:00 -0700

So I just updated the intro cutscene to the game and uploaded it to youtube with a tiny bit of gameplay test footage- you can see it here-

As I've finally started the actual real game's level design I've had to add some art- lighting, materials etc-

As I've done so the style has gone the direction of my old style I used in We Are The Strange which is STR8NIME

Now I didn't purposely use the style- its just where the game guided me and before I knew it I was back in the style I used to love ^_^

Though I'm refining the style and now I love it even more- Its been 12 years of experience making things since I did We Are The Strange to learn all sorts of new stuff-

So right now I'm putting the finishing touches on the first level's art- well the art is done now I'm just doing the cutscene's that happen inside the level- I've found that I'm definitely leveraging my filmmaking skills with these cutscene's to really add an emotional connection for the player to the game-

I'm using WonderUnit's Storyboarder to do my cutscene storyboards-

I'm just sketching using the mouse as my boards are really rough- then I export a Premiere xml file and fine tune the edit to the musical score I've created for each cutscene-

When the fine edit is done I go to work making the cutscene in Slate-

Screenshot of what the guts of a cutscene made inside Unity using Slate looks like-

Creating elaborate cutscene using Slate can be a little tricky- there's some annoyances like every time you add a new animation or audio track you have to press stop then play again to see the changes- I really like working fast so there's a few frustrating things about it BUT its just a tool and tools are never perfect- I'm just going to be thankful that I can create such cool cutscenes inside of Unity-

All the player mechanics are locked in- that is until play testing shows me whats broken ^_^

I think I did mention in a previous post that I started doing pixel art for the game icons and the like-

Icon for the "Doll Head" item you get and have to wear in the game to access certain areas... look familiar? ^_^

I also discovered some cool royalty free pixel art UI sets by an artist named "Buch" that I've integrated with my art for the game's ui and menu's like in the above image and also here-

I've been doing a lot of simple pixel art but advanced shading and the like is beyond my skill set right now so I was happy to find this cool stuff to use for my menu's etc-

It seems I've created over 4 hours of original music for the game's soundtrack so far...

Now- most all of that music was made before I started designing the functioning levels- as I have been designing the real levels I've found I need more low-key music so I'll probably end up making another hour or two of music to fit the levels-

The 4 hours of music came out of my imagination so it wasn't tied directly to existing designs of course- so there is a need to make new very specific music-

Right now I'm working towards finishing the game's first 4 level's which are like the pre-game that prep you for the big journey- I plan to release the pre-game as a sample of things to come- and to generate interest in the full game etc-

This first level design is going a lot faster than I anticipated as its just about dropping in/arranging/connecting things that already exist- so as of right now I hope to have the playable pre-game out in 3-4 months-

Doing this pre-game answers a lot of questions about the game's workflow- you can plan all you want but you don't know what you really need until you really start making the thing-

When working on a big game in Unity things like Hierarchy organization become important- this is the direction I'm going in now-

When you have these big scene's with hundreds of objects hierarchy organization is really important- I'm not sure this will be the final method though-

Also asset organization becomes important as well as you need to pull out different objects all the time to add to your scene-

This is my Prefabs/ScenePrefabs folder- as of right now this structure with BARRIERS - CONTROLLERS - DECORATION - HAZARDS - KEYS - LOCKS - SMARTOBJECTS - TRANSPORT is working well though I'll probably fine tune it a bit-

One of the advantages of using STR8NIME is that a blocky/pixel look fits the style and is very performant- for example a look at the first level -

The whole level is built with cubes and planes-now this can be very repetitive and boring aesthetically if you don't know what you are doing- I'm doing my best to keep it interesting-

One of the main reasons for using a cube based design is performance- well performance and simplicity- A big game like this cannot rely on Mesh Colliders so I would end up having to build my own compound colliders using Box colliders, Sphere's, Capsules-

I've done this before and I hate it! So my solution is to lean on the Str8nime style and be creative with my box based designs- when it comes to adding colliders to my geometry I just add a box collider and I'm done ^_^

Also the player can cling onto any surface(moving and static) AND place bombs and other things onto these surfaces(moving and static)- I built the systems so that they cannot be used with Mesh Colliders so all signs point to boxy level geo- since I'm going with a str8nime style I'm happy with it-

The game uses fast, dynamic, flexible gameplay and I don't want to trade that for fancy level geometry- I'm making the game I want to play and I don't care about fancy/high poly art- I want the gameplay to be great and have cool looking STYLISH level geo-

So the levels are simple low poly art arranged in interesting ways and since I'm quite adept in the art of lighting I think its going to be ok ^_^

PLUS I'm going to be using Pizza Borders!

I'm going to use this Pizza Border technique a lot from this excellent video by Carlos Coronado - I would really recommend checking out this vid as this Carlos dude is really resourceful and has some great techniques-

Another thing I've really been grinding on is trying to find the optimal level design workflow for my work- this is my current workflow

So yeah- lot's getting done- lot's more to do!

Until next time-

I started a new game dev podcast ++

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Fri, 17 May 2019 03:55:00 -0700

I started the Game Dev Grit podcast so I could talk to other developers about the most difficult parts of development in hopes of finding some new solutions to the problems-

You can find it at the site linked above or through Anchor or Spotify (Click listen in your favorite app for Spotify etc)

I'm using this site called Anchor to host/distribute the podcast- its so easy to use I'm considering doing another podcast called "Diary of a strange man" where I'll talk about things with myself or whoever I encounter everyday and turn it into a podcast-

In other news- work on my big game is going GREAT- I'm working on the first playable level right now with graphics/sound/music and everything- its pretty awesome ^_^

I'm updated the graphics since I put out that trailer for the intro cinematic as those visuals are updated now too-

The style of the game has ended up becoming.... STR8NIME! Anyone remember that? ^_^

I have this weird sort of creation amnesia- I forgot about the things I've made- I found myself integrating low poly 3d with 8 bit art and I thought too myself "I think I've done this before?!" I had to go watch We Are The Strange so I could remember how I did that style before... because I forgot 0_0

The STR8NIME in this game is a much more refined version- its going to be so awesome- you just wait!

Also- My wife and I have been talking about doing the third DOTTIR album- got an awesome concept for it and I'm excited to start on it when I get a chance-

Things have just been busy- the days are flying by- so much to do for this game-

I do the same thing everyday- get up- check my internet stuff- workout - cold shower - work for 2 hours- take the cats outside to play while I have a beer(ASAHI extra dry((I wish it was extra-cold as well but I don't have that magical machine they use in Japan))- work a few more hours- dinner- work for a few more hours- watch some stuff online- sleep

Since I'm trying to be better at being a human being- every Sunday we go to a park and hike and/or do something active and outside- get away from all the madness of a California "big city" in 2019-

Here's a photo so you can see that I'm still alive- yes, people can manage to be alive even if they don't have a phone or social media-

I'll have new stuff from my game in a month or two- I plan to release the intro(first 4 areas) of the game within 6-

Best,

M doTs

My advice on producing 3d films/animation in 2019

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Fri, 3 May 2019 13:27:00 -0700

Someone emailed me to ask me some advice on producing 3d animation/films over the internet- hiring freelancers and the like-

I thought my replies might be helpful to others to I'll post them here-

Q- I would greatly appreciate any advice regarding hiring talent, paying talent, publicizing the work, or any creative advice at all. Thank you very much for reading, and I look forward to a response.

A- As far as hiring talent goes- I've really only hired voice actors and a few 2d artists-

For the voice acting I've done that through the internet and worked remotely with really good results. I found all my voice actors on youtube- I just searched for peoples voice acting auditions or for youtube people that did impressions of famous voices- I only chose people that displayed the skills I wanted in their demo's- so the "audition" process was me listening to their material and making lists of what people would work for what role-

I think the important takeaway for me from that process was that I only hired people who had already displayed the talents I wanted- so there were no surprises when it came to do the voice I needed-

For my last film I am Nightmare- I hired 3 voiced actors and between them they did about ten voices- I purposely chose people that could do a variety of voices for that purpose- working with a large group of voice actors can be difficult so try and get some voice actors who can do multiple voices-

I paid them through Paypal- After we agree to the price- I pay half up front and then half on completion of the work- NEVER pay them all of the money up front- I've done that a few times for artists and never received the finished work- you've got to keep them a little hungry for $ so they will finish the work on time.

I highly recommend the 3 main voice actors I used on my last film

Ricky Grove https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0343988/

Calvin "Jazz" Walker https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5850686/?ref_=tt_cl_t8

Anna Brisbin https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5588182/?ref_=tt_cl_t2

The production strategy I would recommend is not a typical one yet but its something I'm doing now and I predict will be more popular in the future- produce your animation using a game engine- Use Unity https://unity.com/

IF you use Unity you will have access to thousands of really affordable/free assets including art/animation/fx etc from the Unity Asset store https://assetstore.unity.com/- If you are resourceful in using Unity and pre-made assets(you can modify them to make them your own, changing materials/textures etc) you can create work cheaply with a TINY team- even on your own that will look like it was made by large teams for a lot of $

So I say- use Unity- get/buy pre-made models- customize them to your liking and enjoy the realtime rendering in Unity- As far as production goes- you'd only have to pay voice actors and a sound designer/mixer if you don't do that yourself-

I recommend that because that is what I am using/doing now- if you look through my youtube channel at my music videos- the last 6 or so have been made using Unity with the techniques I've described-

Q- Thank you for suggesting using Unity to produce the animation, I have watched your videos and understand. Real-time rendering and customizing pre-made assets sounds like great benefits, but do you have an opinion on using Blender as an alternative? Blender seems to be fully free, customizable, and Blender's EEVEE engine is a real-time renderer. I wonder if the free Blender Version 2.79 (or the upcoming 2.8 in July) would give the same amount of customizability and potential as Unity's $125/month Pro Plan?

I feel confident in being able to work with a team of voice actors, sound designers, and artists remotely. If I were to put together a team of 3D animators, would communicating among them remotely be functional as well?

A - Blender is a great tool for the creation of 3d/cg assets- the reason I steer more towards Unity is that you can utilize pre-made assets from the asset store that you modify slightly instead of making them inside of Blender etc- It takes a lot of time to create such assets and hiring cg artists to create new ones will be much much more expensive that purchasing collections of pre-made assets- there are also a lot of free ones that can be modified-

Blender is a useful tool in this process though- I would use it to modify pre-made assets and use it to make new assets if you cannot find pre-made ones that work for your use-

So I say- go out and see what pre-made assets are out there- collect/buy all the ones you need then if there are any lacking then look to hire someone to make them for you or model them yourself-

For example on my current big game project- I purchased/repurposed a lot of low cost models from the Unity asset store and Turbosquid- I tweak them slightly to make them "mine"

I'm not familiar with Blenders animation/timeline engine so I can't comment on it when it comes to producing animation inside of it- the pitfall to watch out for with "realtime" renderers is that they sometimes require expensive GPU's to work in realtime or near realtime- With Unity I'm using a 4 year old $120 gpu and I get realtime renders-

Another positive for Unity in my perspective is that it makes it very easy to create an executable out of your film/project- that allows you to market/sell it in a huge market like Steam as an interactive film etc-

I just see Unity as a much more progressive pipeline-

To produce films inside of Unity you can use the Free version- there is nothing in the paid versions that will enhance the filmmaking process-

Working with freelance modelers/animators is going to be very difficult- that's another reason I recommend going for pre-made assets- I think if you hire freelance artists you are going to spend most of your time trying to wrangle them- trying to get them to stick to deadlines and give you the work you want- I would try to avoid that- when shopping for assets you get exactly what's shown- when hiring people to make art- you don't know what you are going to get- and you'll have to pay more/wait to make any changes etc-

I've looked at art station myself but haven't used it- my current strategy is to contact Unity asset store creators whose models I have purchased/used- when purchasing models-especially character models- the character topology/Uv's/polycount/Rig etc is very important- when you buy/use their assets you see how they do all this and can test it within your pipeline- so you know whether their methods fit with what you're trying to do-

For example- I purchased assets from this publisher- and I like the way they make things so if I wanted to hire them I'd email them at the address listed on their asset store page- https://assetstore.unity.com/publishers/27420

Tokenization + creation is going to be big! Try it out!

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 12:43:00 -0700

One the things I'm excited about in the crypto/blockchain space is the tokenizing of everything- since I create things I've very interested in tokenizing my works-

I made my own erc-20 token some time ago but never did anything with it because there weren't any markets I could trade them on-

The new tokens I've referring to use updated token standards including erc-721 and erc-1155- you can look those up to learn about them BUT one of the big deals is that they can be "non-fungible"

Now what the hell does that mean? It means- you can create and sell/trade ONE OF A KIND ITEMS and there are markets for them that you can easily participate in.

To make your own tokens its free or will not cost very much $ right now- like $30 usd-

Here's some links with some info + things you can try for yourself! This stuff is going to be HUGE maaaaaaaan ^_^

How to use Erc-721 tokens to fund a kickstarter type project

Create tokens using Enjin (Has Unity integration)

More interesting features using Enjin + Unity

Using Enjin to promote your project and raise $

Create tokens using Mintable

A market to sell these tokens on

I predict that these technologies will eventually replace crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter- donation services like Patreon- and put a dent in any company/service creators are using where $ is involved as well as open up totally new markets for creators to participate in.

In the end you will work directly with your fans/etc with NO middlemen(not even financial ones) which will lead to a new artistic period with actual free speech and expression- and will allow creators to thrive no matter if the status-quo(Censorific--> U.S. dollar collared Media-Military complex) likes them or not.

Why is everybody talking like a robot?

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Wed, 17 Apr 2019 12:37:00 -0700

No, I don't mean the overuse of vocal pitch correction on modern(shit) music- Melodyne, Autotune etc-

I'm talking about talking- words-

NOT ONCE have I ever referred to what I create as "content" and why should I? That's silicon valley corporate speak- it disempowers the creator and homogenizes the creations-

It was created by corporations to help in the great monetization- MONETIZE ALL CONTENT-

"I would like to license 5 hours of content"
You mean these Beethoven symphonies?"
"Negative, just give me the audio content so that I can monetize!"

It's all content to them- yes, there are different "grades" of content- but once you go in that direction its not going to be good for anyone BUT corporations-

This new language was once reserved for the Steve Ballmer's of the world- the soulless corporate fucks who suck the life out of life for money- people who can't tell the difference between a Rachmaninoff piece and a song by some shitty popular DJ from 2019- its all "content" to them- sure, they would put them in different genre's(metadata) but to them, its all the same audio "content"

We're not all tech CEO's so why should we talk like them? Oh I forgot, they are part of our new ruling class- we must talk like the king!

Let's say I meet one of my favorites authors- I'm not going to say to him "I love your content" - I'm going to say "I love your BOOKS" why? Because I have respect and REVERENCE for the art and craft.

I'm not sure if they are indeed biological humans- but sometimes these things leave comments on my various works online with stuff like "I love your content" - If they are not actual bots I know they mean it as a complement but I don't take it as one- The statement means nothing to me.

It's the same as if a bot spat a string in the comment box- Why do people want to act like bots?

Also- I don't think "love" and "content" should ever be used in the same sentence.

"Deborah, I love you! Did you read the content I sent you in the mail?!" "No Johnny, I've been working hard on my own I.P. , I'll read your content tomorrow"

I know, I know- you hear and read all these flunkies who write articles or make videos shilling themselves out for whomever will monetize their time/text- Those innumerable, endless, replaceable "content" shills- and they throw "content" all over the place-

They are all mini corporate CEO's- wannabe tech kings-

They use words like "content" - "I.P."

"So M dot, how are you?"
"I'm fine, just working on my content, you know- I have to build up my library of I.P. so the monetization will allow me to retire and consume my favorite content all day- as well as allowing bandwidth for copulation and other enjoyable physical activities before my physical vehicle expires"

If you claim to admire a work a biological human created then at least show enough respect to call what they create what it is.

And don't talk like a Silicon Valley corporate fuck just because you see/hear all these other soulless replaceable monetization humans doing it unless you have given up your self sovereignty and pledge to forever be latched to the teat of tech.

If you're not on stage at some tech convention it just sounds ridiculous- and this is me addressing creative people that claim to have a soul.

If your a soulless human- please continue, it makes it easier to identify and avoid you.

Adblock is a great thing- I'd like a new tool to filter out the "content" + "I.P." organisms-

God Machine Update 01: A name and FINALLY some art!

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Tue, 9 Apr 2019 13:03:00 -0700

So this is the first *official* update for my newest game named 'GOD MACHINE'- its changed names a few times but I'm sticking with this one-

If you didn't see the game's now OLD intro as I updated yesterday ^ ^ you can see a youtube video of it here-

The game itself is low-ish poly 3d but I'm integrating pixel art/animation and rough ascii art- I might go nuts and do a level in stop motion as well since it does have We Are The Strange connections-

I recently bought ASESPRITE and I love it! Besides playing around with Mariopaint on an emulator back when I was making We Are The Strange I've never done pixel art/animation- I've started to delve into it and I love it- I'm not that good at it yet of course after 3 days but I really enjoy the process- there's some zen quality to it-

So now my recreation is sitting in my studio tent at night and drawing pixel art ^_^

Here are some studio tent pictures(the studio tent is an REI tent out in the yard with an extension cord running into it)

Notebook, laptop + additional monitor on an arm in a TENT ^_^

Little plant shadow puppetry

A daring jumping spider or a "jumpy" as I call them

It may seem weird that I'm so excited about pixel art when I can do 3d modeling/animation etc but I spent a lot of time in my childhood playing NES games which use pixel art of course- so its a bit of nostalgia but I just also really love the aesthetic-

I've still got a long way to go on the game's art as I was working on everything else all this time- BUT I've started doing some art/music and it feels great ^_^ It's like a light at the end of the tunnel sort of thing-

I've now done 54 songs for the soundtrack so far which adds up to 3.5 hours of music but they are just audio sketches at this point- I sequenced them as they are now so they sound good as standalone tracks but I'll eventually slice them up into additional pieces to sprinkle/loop them around the game-

I was staying disciplined by not adding art too soon which I've done before on a previous iteration of this game and others- and learned the hard way- so now the art has started to trickle in though I'm still polishing the mechanics/code of course-

I'm doing some new/innovative things with this game both in the game itself and in what I'll call supplemental materials- no one has done it before so I'm not going to say what it is as I've had people borrow my ideas in the past a few times before I got to implement them after I shared them verbally/textually-

I might be taking on some interns- both paid and unpaid on this game as the project goes further as there's some repetitive things like manually adding colliders to level geometry that I do not want to do for all the games geometry 0_0 AND before someone that doesn't know what they are talking about says 'just add a mesh collider'- those are not performant on a huge game son!

I'm considering even bringing people on to do modeling for the games level design based on my designs of course- when I do I'll post something here and make a youtube video looking for people before I delve into the freelancing sites(artstation etc)

I'd prefer to work with someone who is familiar with my work but it doesn't have to be that way-

Thanks for reading and I'm off to another day working on the game-

P.S. Our cat Bibu did not have lymphoma as we feared- he was going through heart failure due to a heart issue BUT he is still alive and well while receiving daily medication- I'm happy everyday he is alive and happy ^_^

Bibu watching birds while hanging out with me in the tent studio

We don't know how long we- or anyone we care about will be alive so do your best while you are here to be the person you want to be and do the things you want to do!

New music video- Wasteful "DEAD PIG"

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 13:41:00 -0700

Concept art for video set

More concept art

The finished video

Here is a little making of video

Some game design tools and info I found useful

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 06:00:00 -0800

I wrote a post some time back wherein I was discussing my issues with figuring out a good way to handle the low level design for my big game project. Now, after grinding on it for a bit longer, asking for advice from a friend and doing more research its finally starting to come together for me.

One of the problems I was having was figuring out what application/materials to use to collect all the high level and low level design data- I tried OneNote- I tried Scrivener- I tried a few others but none of them were doing what I needed-

I reconnected with a game designer friend I hadn't talked to in awhile and asked him what he used and he pointed me to Articy:Draft- I had looked at it some time ago but at a glance I didn't really know what you were supposed to use it for- I thought it was for writing dialogue in-

Well, Articy does a lot more! Yes, you can create your dialogue trees in it- as well as draw your maps linking all your items, Npc's, quests and more! It's the perfect application for what I was looking for-

You can use it to manage all your high level AND low level design- There are video tutorials and doc's BUT they don't do a very good job and explaining/demonstrating the full power of the application-

I've spent the last week pouring my data into Articy and its finally starting to come together-

Now, there was another thing that had me sweating bullets- What order to do certain things in- Do I create lists of the level objectives before I draw a map of the level?

This article was VERY useful- it explains a workflow that I'm using now that makes a lot of sense to me- especially the bubble thing and the macro charts-

That same article points to this video which is GREAT- on my own I have been developing the game in a way similar to the way he describes given my reliance on pre-production in animation/filmmaking-

So just wanted to post an update to say that I'm figuring it out ^_^

If you are struggling with your design like I was check the links and grab Articy!

Your favorite Pi-Hole!

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Sun, 3 Feb 2019 16:32:00 -0800

If you are not a masochistic internet surfer you are running one or more Adblockers on your browser of choice- Adblockers are cool because they sift through everything coming into your browser and block out the annoying bits called "Ad's"

I don't use mobile devices much but I do know that unless you use Brave browser on ios or Android the other browsers/Apps do not allow you to install adblockers-

I have had a raspberry Pi 3 sitting around for awhile now and decided to put it to use as a Pi-Hole-

Pi-Hole site https://pi-hole.net/

When you run a Pi-Hole your internet traffic goes through the Pi-Hole before it touches your devices so the Pi-Hole removes/blocks the ad's before your devices read them-

So it allows you to block ad's on all devices- it works really well- You still need to run an Adblocker to catch the pesky crap that gets through- I use Ublock Origin + Ublock Origin Extra- and in conjunction with the Pi-Hole I'm not seeing any ad's at all anywhere-

The Pi-Hole dashboard lets you monitor what its been doing- since I've been using it for a few weeks now- It seems between %18 - %30 of my incoming internet traffic is ad's that the Pi-Hole is blocking-

Blocking this junk will save you time and increase the performance + battery life of your devices-

I thought setting up Pi-Hole would be a weekend project but it only took about 15 minutes as my Pi was already running- just needed to install/configure Pi-Hole- you can spend more time on it adding new blocklists-

For my next weekend Pi project I'm going setup my own BtcPayServer instance...

The rise of the "dumb attention" economy

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Sat, 5 Jan 2019 16:58:00 -0800

Now if you know anything about markets/investing- you are familiar with the term "dumb money"- If we've participated in a market we were all probably "dumb money" at first unless we were taught the basics beforehand-

Dumb money throws itself into scams, pyramid/ponzi schemes believing them to be good investments- the dumb money believes that they will get something in return for what they have put in- in this case its money-

But what ends up happening is that their investment sinks to zero- they lose what they put in and are left with nothing but a bad taste in their mouth and a valuable learning experience-

Lets now think about "attention"- we only have so much attention to pay to something each day- attention is in limited supply and I'm going to take the stance that attention is one of the MOST VALUABLE commodities that we have as human beings-

Let's think about that phrase "PAY ATTENTION"- this phrase itself refers to attention as a currency with the word PAY

So let's assume that by paying attention to something we are investing in it since we are paying with our attention-

Let's also assume that since we only have so much attention to pay with each day we can run out of it- we can become attention poor- familiar with any of the symptoms of being attention poor? Inability to focus? Inability to concentrate? Decreased memory? Feelings of being lost and confused?

Now lets think about the internet advertising economy, clickbait and the rise of the Youtube commentator on everything yet expert on nothing- they take your attention money- they implore you to "follow, like and subscribe" and what is YOUR RETURN ON INVESTMENT?

The early dumb attention money sponge was the television- and it still is- but you couldn't carry it in your pocket- now the attention money suckers are portable and everywhere at all times-

There's millions of pages/things to view on FaceBerg, Instagoon, Twatter, WhatsAss just waiting to take all your attention money-

There's millions of "time waster" apps and games just waiting to get you addicted and suck down all your attention for the day-

There's millions of Youtube videos to watch created by people/groups people that haven't accomplished anything in life except figuring out how to get people to pay attention to them-

All of these things are taking your ATTENTION MONEY and converting it into REAL MONEY for themselves-

You can probably see where I'm going with this-

I searched around a bit and couldn't find anything relating "dumb money" to "dumb attention" so that's why I'm writing this-

Who or what are you throwing your attention money into every day? Are you acting like "dumb attention" and indiscriminately throwing your attention investment money into a hole hoping to get something VALUABLE in return?

When I first starting investing real money into things I was dumb money- I'd throw money into any person/group that promised the world and used buzzwords I was familiar with-

After seeing the signs enough times and losing enough money I became pretty good at avoiding the scams that prey on "dumb money" Now I consider myself "sort of smart money" ^_^

How do you spot "dumb attention" scams/scammers?

"Time wasters"- that LITERALLY is a category of apps/games! What they should be really called is "ATTENTION WASTERS" now think of "paying attention" and you are wasting your attention money on these things that offer NO RETURN ON INVESTMENT- do they give you skills/knowledge/abilities that you can use to improve your life/and or make real money?

Faceberg/Instagoon/Twatter/etc - I know what people say- "I use these for business, to market myself etc" BULLSHIT, maybe a small minority of users do BUT as an outsider to these kind of horrible attention traps all I hear people taking about in regard to these is USELESS INTERNET DRAMA- Person A posted this and this happened then this person said this and blah blah FUCKING BLAH!

Youtube experts of nothing - "Like and fave guys"- If you are watching these people who pontificate and ponder any subject people will pay attention to without having any special knowledge/skills/qualifications/achievements you are "dumb attention" and you are wasting your time-

Ask yourself this- what GREAT thing has X person done besides figuring out how to be popular on the internet? Yeah, yeah I know they all have a toy line, clothing line, podcasts about internet/pop culture drama, books about being internet famous etc but really- what makes them irreplaceable besides being currently popular?

No one is talking about the "dumb attention" economy especially here in Silicon Valley where I am- Why? Because they are raking in billions of dollars through it!

REMEMBER people in the financial sectors LOVE DUMB MONEY as its what is lining their pockets! The rich don't want the poor to be educated in those matters as they would have to actually work hard for their riches- instead they launch their scams and the dumb money pours in.

Its the same way with "dumb attention"- the people profiting from your attention want to keep you dumb as they are getting rich from it!

Start thinking about your attention as a CURRENCY- as MONEY because thats what we are being used for! And it has a LIMITED SUPPLY- it is very VALUABLE so don't throw it into stupid investments unless you want to be "attention poor" and suffer all the side effects of being so-

It's your life and your attention- please start treating it like the valuable resource it is because you've already made a lot of people rich through giving it to them.

Sketches from the airport

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 18:39:00 -0800

The San Jose International airport is my new place to hangout and I'm not even going anywhere- I ride along this bike path near the airport- then lock my bike and walk into the airport-

I sit near this piano- Last week this guy with a long white beard played the piano epically and then winked at me after- I'm pretty sure he was a time traveller but then again I'm really not- my brother in law thinks it was me from the future but we'll never know.....

I try to go to the airport every weekend- its a nice place to think/draw and come up with ideas- So I recommend your local airport as a creative hangout- fancy hotel lounges are great hangouts too-

Here's the rest of my airport sketches from the last weekend in 2018

Unity/Game dev notes + book recommendations

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 13:26:00 -0800

I'm now finished with most all of the programming for my big game project- all the code required for the entire game has been completed- I'm sure some small things will pop up and there's still a lot of testing to be done by third parties BUT all the components I need to make the game are done-

Working on this, the second iteration of this game and the first one using C# scripts instead of Playmaker fsm's for everything started out pretty chaotic- When I started it I knew a little bit about programming but NOTHING about clean programming-

I had huge classes that did all sorts of things- my data was mixed with my logic- it was a mess-

I kept working through it though- refactoring as I learned more-

Now my classes are much more modular- I finally got it- when you start out you are so excited to get things working you ignore your working practices- instead you want to "finish" the script/mechanic and move on to the next one- leaving behind a hodgepodge mess of classes-

Here's an example of my new practices- the first class just receives a call to switch something- it doesn't care what and fires a SwitchedOn or SwitchedOff event- the second class checks to see if the player has a certain item or items, a key, or amount of coin- or a combination of all those things- it fires events on success or fail- in the image its set to flip the switch on success-

In the past I would have put all of that code in the same class that used it 0_0 From making a ton of shitty things I learned with great help from learning materials to create re-useable modular components-

Here's another example with my health class- the health class doesn't take the damage itself- the damage is taken by the ReceiveDamageToHealth class- I did this in part because I wanted the health script to always be at the root game object and the DoDamage class looks for an IDamagable interface on the object it hits- Given those two things in order for it to work only the root object could take the damage- I needed to be able to have an object receive damage from anywhere on its object if I needed it (Collider on head, collider on hand etc)

So now the Health class just manages the health and calls an event on death- it doesn't process the damage- the Receive... class does that- I also implemented DamageCheckTable's- its a simple scriptable object class containing enum lists- each damage dealer and damage receiver has a table- they are used to see if the objects can damage each other-

The health amount is exposed in the image for debugging purposes- its set by another class on initialization-

Trying to debug things and not being able to easily is what really pushed me into writing more modular code- I tried to do it "my way" and it was terrible so I sought all the wisdom I could to help write better code-

These were the most helpful resources for me in writing cleaner C# for use with Unity-

Book ----> Clean Code
This book is magical manna to the lost messy coder

Book ---> The C# Players Guide
This book is a great user manual for C#- awesome reference with great examples

Youtube channel ---> Unity3dCollege
This channel covers a lot of intermediate/advanced Unity coding stuff not covered anywhere else

Youtube Video ---> Schell Games on Scriptable Objects
This presentation blew my mind! I got their code and went to work implementing many of these things in my game which added muchly- not a word but I don't care- love this presentation!

Here are some of the lesser known Unity assets that I'm using in my game that I love- the full list is linked at the bottom

Easy Character Movement
I use this on every game I make now- It's very easy to implement/modify and has great performance- Includes a third person/first person/ and Navmesh agent controller!

Master Scheduler
If you've tried to squeeze all the performance you can out of NON-ECS Unity code you've probably used threading and hit the "thread safe" walls- this scheduler works a little differently but you can run any code and make sure it doesn't lockup/cause spikes in Unity

Camera Controller
I use this flexible and elegant camera controller in all my games- third person camera systems(especially collision handling) are difficult to get right and this one does a great job with everything

Non Convex Mesh Collider
This one has a very programmerish name ^_^ What it does is... automatically generates primitive compound colliders for your odd shaped objects- saves a TON of time and performance(vs. mesh colliders)

Full list of Unity assets I'm using and recommend

This latest month or so of coding that I just finished came after outlining the gameplay for the entire game which you can read about in a previous post here- So after finishing that outline there were some things I needed to be able to do that weren't built yet- so I built then and cleaned up/streamlined the other code as well-

I know that if you are reading this you've heard a lot about this game but haven't seen much- I've been working on everything but the art so far BUT the time will come to get to the art then you can expect a torrent of strange awesome coming from me ^_^

In the following run-on sentences when I say "design" I mean draw on paper then model in 3d-

What I'm doing now is designing the rest of the enemies for the game- all NPC's are done(and modeled etc) + 15 or so enemy types(modeled + animated etc)- will probably do 20-30 more enemy types- I also have to do additional level design-

So after a month or so of more coding now I'm back to drawing and doing creative stuff until its back to coding to make it all work-

I'm looking at 2020 for releasing this game- 2019 is going to be a busy year for studio me ^_^

Best,

M.

Why did I scrap the previous version of my big game project?

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Sat, 8 Dec 2018 02:43:00 -0800

Sometimes you start projects over because you are stuck in a loop of -->

This project is fucked
If I start over now with what I know it will be better
Start over and rebuild it better than it was before
Proceed to fuck up project
Go back to step 1

(Spelunky dude Derek Yu writes about that trap and many more useful things here)

On the previous version of this project I liked how it was going BUT the iterative process was SO SLOW and the "code" at the time which was made up mostly of Playmaker state machines was a MESS- I knew nothing of code architecture at the time- so yeah it was a nightmare-

Now that the project is back up to speed and humming along better than ever I thought I would show some proof of the improvement-

A note about speed- in game design- the speed/ease of iteration can make or break a project- so a slow iteration time just kills the project and your motivation-

The Unity startup time is the time from pressing play in Unity to having a live game-

The compile time is the time Unity locks up as it compiles a script change-

Old version startup time = 35 seconds

New version startup time = 9 seconds

The new version is 3.9x faster

Old version compile time = 1minute 4 seconds

New version compile time = 16 seconds

The new version is 4x faster

So yeah, imagine making any change to any script and having to wait a minute+ to be able to use Unity again 0_0 YEAH IT SUCKED!

Here are some images for reference to show some of the slow mess of the old version-

The old version player Animator setup

The new version player Animator setup

The new version uses Sub-state machines and blend trees- the original mess did not 0_0

The old version player to show attached scripts etc

The new version

As you can see the old version has a ton of Playmaker fsm's as I didn't know how to code back then and that's the only way I knew how to do things-

In the new version the Player only has one fsm- its being used to do what I later learned fsm's were really designed to do- manage high level state- on the old one I used Playmaker for everything 0_0

Not using a million fsm's impacts performance, usability, and a ton of other things- also Playmaker fsm's are tough to debug compared to regular C# scripts so hunting down bugs etc takes much longer-

Back with the old project working was agony as everything was so slow and I had to wait a minute here- a minute there-

Here are some tips to make your Unity projects faster

If you use Playmaker-

Read a book like "Clean Code" it will help you design your fsm's so that they are more modular, easier to debug- and will just generally make your Playmaker life better

Use something like "Run Fsm" as much as possible to build generic pieces of code that you can reuse and when you need to change things you just edit the template being used-

Avoid using Global variables- they are easy to use and seem awesome at first but on a bigger projects they soon become a nightmare to track/debug etc

Read books about how to be a good programmer like "Clean Code" I know we use Playmaker because we don't want to have to deal with programming BUT we are programming so learn about it or pay the price-

Learn enough programming to make your own custom actions and interfaces for Playmaker- this will make your life much easier- instead of searching for and cobbling together solutions you design them the way you want from the start

General tips

Learn how to use Sub-state machines, Blend trees and animation layers for your Animator setups- you'll have much simpler, easier to maintain setups

Learn to use and exploit Scriptable objects for your game data- watch this presentation it will blow your mind!

Don't import third party assets consisting of art/sound/models/animations etc into your main project- instead import them into a blank project and pick out the objects you want to use- then create and export custom packages that collect only the objects you are using-

If there's a well designed, highly reviewed, elegant third party asset that would save you from having to build an inferior solution yourself just buy and use the asset- I'm thinking about Dialogue System for Unity, Odin inspector, PoolManager, Behavior Designer, Camera Controller- things like those-

If your project is a nightmare to work with like mine was- just bite the bullet and either scrap it or rebuild it like I did-

Random note: I got a comment recently on one of my gameplay test vids for this game- the person was concerned saying it didn't look good and proceeded to give me tips on how to make a Unity project look better- using effects etc ^_^

They must have missed the music videos I made in Unity in days that looked kinda cool like this one...

But anyway- I know people mean well- they just make assumptions a lot of the time as if they understand the intentions/motivations of a creator-

OH YEAH this reminds me of this dude who after watching my film Heart String Marionette in a movie theater asked me if I knew what a camera dolly was! Haha- nah man- I've just studied filmmaking/cinematography and made films for 15+ years... I have no idea what a camera dolly is!

I have no doubt in my mind that I can make things look and sound cool as that's what I've been doing the past 15 years or so- Adding cool visuals at this point would only slow the project down and serve no purpose-

I know when most people share a game/project etc they are doing so because they want approval from others/attention/press- I don't care about any of that at this point- I'm sharing these things for historical purposes and to perhaps help others who are doing the same-

THIS also reminds me of the Unity subreddit- there's this weird thing where people post about their games and ALWAYS use words/phrasing like "I'm really PROUD of this" or "I worked REALLY HARD on this " or "I'm really HAPPY how this turned out " or "I worked for 2 years on this AND am really PROUD of it"

It always trips me out- it's like they are trying to shield themselves from the truth- shielding themselves from honest criticism by playing up how HAPPY and PROUD they are or how HARD they worked for such a LONG TIME-

So like- if you give them an honest comment that isn't THIS IS AWESOME it makes you seem like a dick because you're being mean to the happy, proud, hard working person-

Anyway- this is why I don't participate in any creative communities-

I just wade through the quivering humans looking for interesting things-

This badass Unity dev posted a few things like this and the place had a melt down- there were so many comments like "I hate you for being this good" it was disturbing-

Here's a few things I learned through the years-

You are not your work- if your work isn't "great" yet it just means that you need to work harder for a longer period of time to get there- if greatness is what you truly desire you will get there in time-

Jealously is really ugly and self destructive- admire and allow it to inspire-

Since we are not our work- we shouldn't take criticisms of our work personally- and in the creative world all we have is human opinion so nothing means anything any way-

We shouldn't get mad at people we think are "better" than us- it just disempowers us- instead of trying to be as good as person X- try to be the best you- allow yourself to be yourself which is going to be different than person X-

Amazing people should inspire us to improve BUT not with the goal to be as good/better than them- we all have different paths to walk-

Anyway I'm back to work-

I updated my site with some things you might have missed

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Mon, 3 Dec 2018 03:35:00 -0800

I'm not the best at presenting my completed works ^_^ I made a new site at mdotstrange.com you can check out. There are probably some things there that you haven't seen before so go take a look!

I'm still working on my big game project which is going really well- to prevent burnout and to give me some much needed breathing space from the project I've decided to work on other projects on the weekends-

So far my weekend project Queue includes: Visual novels, a regular novel, new strange school full courses, and music of course-

*Geek notes

I made the site using the new Google sites- which I think is a brilliant web design tool- After using it for five minutes I cancelled my old/slow/expensive web host and moved my sites over to Google sites- So if you need a site (Which if your only web presence is in a walled garden like DouchebergBook etc you should probably have a site on the open internet)

The Circle Closes In: A strange visual novel

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 00:01:00 -0800

I kicked out a new visual novel called "The Circle Closes In" I would say this is my first "real" one- the Anime one was just me messing with the tools-

Here is the trailer

And you can download it here

There's a few unpublished scripts that I have that I'm considering turning into visual novels- And I'm going to finally turn this story idea I've had for years into a regular novel on the side-

My current work plans are to work on my big video game M-F and work on visual novels on the weekends-

Anyway- the strange train keeps going- full steam ahead! ^_^ Expect more everything-

Anime Flesh Invasion : A level IV super senior visual novel

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:08:00 -0800

I took a day off from my current game project to make my first visual novel "Anime Flesh Invasion"

You can download and "play" it on my video game page thing

Geek notes: I made it using Ren'Py in a day - its an awesome little program! If you have a wacky little story you want to make that would work as a visual novel give it a try! It exports the executable you can then upload on itch.io like I did-

I got almost all the art for free here at Cloudnovel and made most of the music in 10 minutes in Ableton-

The Ren'py language was designed for non programmers so its really easy to use- though it does get a little tedious with longer stuff-

Anyway- I'm back to work!

The man without a phone

noreply@blogger.com (M dot Strange) — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 20:58:00 -0800

The man without a phone

There once was a man that never owned a dumb mobile phone, let alone a smart one.

When he told people this they looked at him like he was a freak that was missing all the fun.

Day after day- the man without a phone watched peoples behavior change, to him they started to seem quite deranged.

They stared at their hands day and night- at these small screens and the apparent world of wonder inside.

They ignored their children, they ignored their pets, they didn't notice the man with the knife walking behind them about to blood lett.

These people seemed so nervous, bothered, and anxious when they weren't using their device-

They seemed like they were addicts- and without their drug they were lost little test subject mice-

On the street the man without a phone still says "Hi" to anyone on the sidewalk- most don't hear him or they ignore this unscheduled biological human voice talk.

But they always hear their phone-

Once they get home they pop a pill and post about feeling so alone.

Meanwhile the man without a phone goes about his life- happy and aware of the butterflies, birds, his fellow man and that guy with the knife.