Week 6 - Titles Are Hard To Come Up With

This week we had the best GDW session ever, which was fairly easy to top, but nonetheless was nice. That being said, it involved us being trapped naked in a medieval prison cell, our only hope of escape being two years of dried urine (or so we came up with). In terms of work, I got my model UV mapped fairly quickly and to an acceptable level of quality, meaning that my time spent brooding in the sterile grey shadow of Maya was, at the very least, minimal (for this week). Project management was as confusing as ever, leading to us accidentally doing our next due assignment on top of what we handed in on Tuesday. I got a 70 on my astronomy midterm, meaning that I probably know more about the rest of the universe combined than I do about my major (yay..?).

On a positive note, I've done a lot of independent writing lately, so hopefully I'll collect a few email addresses at MIGS so I can start sending out for some work.

On a less positive note, I've started playing Dark Souls and am more confused as to what is driving me to continue than ever before. After getting through its predecessor, Demon's Souls, without much trouble, I'm stunned at just how little progress I've been able to make. The game is emotionally devestating to play, every crushing defeat chipping away at my faith in humanity, for why would a human being with any love for his fellow man do this to me? And yet, every single time, I dust myself off and head back out to face the openly malicious 1s and 0s that so happyily stomped on my face mere seconds ago. But you can't stop, because every time you get sent back to the beginning you get just a little bit better. The monsters never change their starting positions so once you've played through a section 80 times (and you will), you not only know how and when to dispatch what lies before you, but also what enemies to avoid completely, giving you an ounce more of a chance to make it through....to the boss section that will flatten you.

Week 4 - Dear Maya

What happened to us, Maya? We used to be close. First when we met, you showed me all the cool crap you could do and I thought you were like Flash on some sort of computer based steroid. Even when you showed that you weren't the most reliable one in the world I looked the other way. I thought, "Hey, I too sometimes quit working for no good reason, this could be the beginning of something beautiful." Now look at us, squabbling over what you will and won't do peacefully. I feel like I have to constantly be on my guard with you. I do the same things that I've done a thousand times before without hassle and all of a sudden you throw a fit and refuse to move. Acting a tad childish, aren't we? I don't think that I can live like this anymore...It's a shame, look at what we managed to come up with when you'd co-operate.

Do you see that? That's a connection. Crashing in the middle of a vertex drag and making me lose all my work? That's not love. Goodbye Maya, I'll remember the hours we spent together the next time I hurl my mouse across the room in frustration.

Love

Your Friend

Best Wishes

From,

Ryan

So yea, that's what I've accomplished this week, along with some things for my elective classes. I'll be starting my game engine homework tomorrow after I get my astronomy assignment done, here's hoping that next weeks blog isn't titled "Dear WildMagic++"

Week 3 – Maya Head Hurts

                This week had been dominated by two assignments. The first assignment we completed was project management, in which we had to come up with three separate projects, one being our game, and then support why we would develop our game over the other two ideas. We came up with a completely over-blown MMO, a text game for the kindle (which I think is a great idea, but we had to make it seem bad for the sake of the work), and our game. We then filled out our project’s charter, and the projected financial information for the project over the entire semester.

                The second assignment is the modeling of our designed character in Maya. This project has been a trial, as my Maya experience was pretty limited when I began. As I’ve worked on my character, I have become much more proficient with the tool, but the time spent floundering with the different functions and controls have hindered my progress somewhat. What 15 hours of modeling time has yielded is….unfortunate, but I’ve since sped up after learning some hotkeys and shortcuts. All I have left to do is the head; I’ll post a render once I’ve finished.