On the legacy of Art in human history.

I was up late last night. I had this idea rolling around in my head since then and I've recently discovered that it's best to just let the brain-twisters out so you can free up the core(texes) for other things that are less... esoteric. Anyway. It all started with the idea of how communication and art forms are related. Imagine that you're an early homo-erectus kind of creature. Somewhere in the vein of 1.5 to 2 million years ago. The main form of communication is body language and perhaps grunts. Soon enough these gestures become a language that you may call acting. Hundreds of thousands of years later this language becomes more refined. Along with language comes visual art, you tell everyone to get together in the cave and tell tales via shadow puppets. Audio images are culturally established at this point and so a new art form takes place. A quick note about these methods; they seem to have a relationship to each other in the same way that you could say a child class inherits from a parent class in OOP structure. Where... a picture or a word can be a gesture but a gesture is not by definition a picture. This tradition of imagery evolves. Finer arts emerge and at some point writing is invented. Writings are words but language is not explicitly writing. Eventually as we skip through generations hybrid forms of Art emerge ( sculpture, architecture, poetry, theater and so on ). Another interesting aspect of this tale in human art history is how quickly these forms synthesize and take shape. Let's start with the photograph. Compared to cave paintings the siblings of the photograph combined much faster than any previous forms ( save technology, we'll be there in a flash ). So.. remember. Film or motion pictures are pictures. But a photograph is not a film. The art of audio/visual/text imagery matures in the 1960s ( see 2 million years, no sweat ) and at that point the videogame hits the scene. A hybrid of most previous art forms ( including games ) but using technology as an interface. That pretty much brings us to present. In the last 40 years of this industry there have been many in-corporations of older art that draw from the entire spectrum of human art history. But now we get to the frontier and 20/20 hindsight is useless. A video game is in some way a film or a book or a toy. But neither of the latter are by definition the former. So what could possibly lie ahead after this medium matures? Some say virtual/augmented reality ... I remember in particular the PS2 ad where they illustrated the PS9 ( or Play Station for all you non-gamer folk ). Aside from naming this future art, how can we imagine it's content? What will the videogame breed with? My wildest guess is interdenominational. That's correct. Essentially, contrived quantum points of view where reality itself is the clay. It's very dangerous and there are many steps between here and there. There is no way to tell how or when this kind of thing will happen. But my guess is that we may be able to communicate with each other on an almost psychic level and tell tales that way. Would it include technology? Probably at first. But. Imagine if that standard of expression were to survive ( along with humanity itself for that matter ) another 2 million years. What then? 

As an Audiophile.... I kinda need this.

MINI PROJECT : Slyly Teach your kid cousin some drawing rudiments.

So... I had a small party celebrating my birthday and that of a few others in our small community here in Copperas Cove. And my kid cousin Mallory accidentally left her sketchbook at my house. At first I left it alone and had it set out on the table where she left it so that I would remember to call her mom and have it picked up. After a couple days I decided to flip through it and see what the girl had been doodling. She had trees and animals and little drawings of princesses and trolls. Curiously there were some blank pages between her drawings. Eventually I took it upon myself to impart some of my knowledge to her in her sketch book. I covered a few techniques that she could learn with a number 2 pencil and I included a chunk of my kneaded eraser that I happen to carry with me at all times. In a matter of hours I had created a bunch of little tutorials and worksheets that contain beginner to intermediate rendering techniques and I threw in some math terminology as well. I took my time and underlined some artist vocabulary that she would need if she were to take this little hobby into high school. This is my first attempt at making a drawing tutorial for an eleven year old and I liked the project so much that I decided to share my mini project with the internet. Enjoy! 

Well Played Google.

So.. I've been thinking about this for a little while. Google has won. Many times. I assure you that Facebook's golden age is over. I've been getting a lot of things together in order to end out this year. Cleaning up inboxes and the like. I noticed that I was running low on my Gmail inbox space. That never ending well of storage that we all couldn't believe was 'free' later capped at 15GB. This was well planned. Let's say I have over half of that space full. I will soon need to upgrade my googleDrive storage. I didn't expect that time to be so soon. I thought the free space would last me a lifetime. Now.. I humbly face defeat. I am more than willing to pay 5 dollars a month for something that, by the time I need it, will probably cost me about 5 dollars for a one time purchase of a usb stick anyway.  So you got me. I am going to be sweating fivers through my thirtys. Why not let us all join in? Flippin Brilliant. 

I've been curious about the Google 10 year plan for quite a while now. And now I see that I'll have to do the same in order to make some of these things happen. Good on ya. 

Waiting. For ... Amazong approval.

Yo. So I'm going to let the spelling errors ride on this one. I uh.. Am about ready to launch the kickstarter. One thing that I learned is that the overhead for prizes is much more money than I ever needed for the actual computer itself. But I was able to budget all of it out. Time was probably the hardest thing to budget. I made the video with my smartphone , a chromebook and... just a bunch of practical effects... It's all good. And I am real proud of it. I have a couple of other small projects that I'm going to handle while I wait for the chance to get a new computer. Until then I'll be on this chromebook trying to figure out if I can make video games with it. Because. There seems to be a good amount of online audio software. Since I have to wait I'll give up the picture of the kickstarter page. It's about a week away from going down. So keep out an eye!

5AM , I'm still editing.

The video length is coming out to be near 5 minutes. I think I'll save the credit roll for the blooper reel. And I don't know when i'll be able to re-upload a bunch of stuff and get to that. But I'll do the best that I can. Some things really work out. Others were kinda close. But my goal of having this project up and running by Friday / Saturday is going quite well. It's been a hell of a week. And instead of posting all my notes because that takes a ton of work. I'll just kick back and silently move on to the next project. Then the next one. And of course that other one. And the one that I came up with along the way. I guess there is some good news. The Spark of Life OST is finally complete. I'll post a playlist here! 

Getting Ready to Sell Some Soul.

I've spent the last 4 days working on my KickStarter project. I want to get a new laptop you see. So.. As part of the prize pool, I will be giving away some select art pieces from my past. Uhh.. and I wanted to see if the Picasa SlideShow embed tool still works. One thing that I've learned in this process. It's amazing what a smartphone , a chromebook, and five dollars will get you. When the time comes, you'll know what to do. 

In cat face.

About to wrap the shoot. You'll see.

Giving up.

Been smoking for about eight years. I'm turning twenty six next weekend and I think its time to put that vice aside. A tiny little gift to me. Been working hard this week. Gotta finish this solar cycle on a high note. I am quitting the underground art business. Angrycrow and I are about to take flight. 

Ghetto Rig

This is my camera stand. I'll upgrade it a few more times before I show you how to make one.

Coffee Stain Art Week #9

This week using the Abbey Road mug: we have what appears to be two suns and the hero grasping at power with two powerful gauntlets.  What do you see?

All I Ever Wanted.

There's a song in there somewhere. 

So... I'm planning on making a move or two. I guess if you aim for Saturn you'll probably make it to Mars. Seems like all I ever wanted is going to happen before I know it. We're getting to the point where we're going to have to come up with some new dreams. It's almost too much to handle. Soon come. This has been the most interesting year of my life so far and it's just beginning to finish. The next Solar cycle is about to start. The first act is near complete. But will he get the girl? 

That's the song. 

GAMES TAB REVENGE !!!

Thanks to the typo rule you can now play the less buggy version of my #LD48 entry at the games tab! 

http://sotgdc.blogspot.com/p/portfolio-stuff.html

Please let me know what you think! I'm real excited about this one. If you don't know where the games tab is and you just want to play click HERE

- Peace! 

Coffee Stain Art Week #8

Using the Abbey Road Mug:

Here we see some other form of sealife. Or an ION CANNON weaking havoc on some prawn aliens. What do you see? 

LudumDare 27 : 48 Hour Entry : Development log and how this project changed my life.

I've wanted to be a game developer since I was four years old. I remember playing 1942 for the NES at my cousins house when I was a kid and have been glued to the video game culture ever since. I went to college for game design and have been making games for a living ever since. It hasn't been easy but I am quite blessed to be able to do what I love to do every day. My buddy Slugger turned me on to Ludum Dare when we were still in school and I didn't man up to take the challenge until LD21 came around. Me and 2 friends ( Cislunar and PooLatka ) got together for a weekend and did our first game jam ( Hipster Park in the GAMES tab of this site ). We were really proud and transformed by the experience because of the intense work that it took to get three people to communicate and work toward our goal in under 72 hours. I've worked on and with several games and game engines since then and this time around, in the middle of my HTUR ( also GAMES tab ) project decided to go solo on the next Ludum Dare 27 as a sort of 48 hour amnesia exercise to test out some of the things I've learned since the competition a few years back. 

I'm going to start with the development log because the competition is still on and I haven't digitized my notes yet... Actually. Let's start with the notes. During the project I dealt with the Pen and Paper approach almost exclusively. So here are the images from my notebook, I'll transcribe my terrible handwriting so you can see the major events during the development cycle : 

So it gets a bit rushed and more messy near the end. For those of you who can't read it ( most people ) here's what went down : 

8PM

The theme : '10 Seconds' is announced. LudumDare website is down from all the refreshing at the start point so I find the theme on twitter and get to work on brainstorming.

855PM

I pick the first concept that makes me laugh uncontrollably " 10 Second Pay Toilet Adventure ". Immediately get to work on fleshing out the flow of the game. The game idea gets very deep very fast. Different settings Hazards and actions come in to focus. During this process I nab an idea from HTUR where I decide that the level is going to move around the player. I make a Component list and a rough list of the art assets needed.

1030PM

The concept phase is coming to an end. I come up with the idea of context based actions and decide to make little quick time event mini games for variety. Here I make my first list of things that I want the game engine to be able to do by the end of the first night. ( Starred )

11PM

Started unit testing, Also implemented the camera look and had some time to figure out how the toon shader works. 

1125AM

Begin Scripting .

1211AM

Make Interact Icons.

1258AM

Finished Context Icons.

116AM

Mouse context implemented.

135AM

First BUG : FIXED @ 1140AM.

234AM

Started working on player movement through the world. Build myself a little test level.

305AM

First problem with version control ( or the lack of ) and I have to go back and fix a mouse Down error.

319AM

333AM

Debugging player movement

340AM

Made a 2d chart to help me find the cleanest way to lerp the world around the player from move node to move node. 

353AM

GOT IT!

416AM

Move on to the 'Sign" object so I can label different things the player can interact with. 

457AM

First Asset : Urinal 

507AM

Event Manager Skeleton made.

517AM

555AM

2 Assets complete!

607AM

"HOLD" minigame prototyped. Started planning for other game events. 

636AM

Event Manager prototype completed.

643AM

726AM

HOLD minigame complete! 

733AM

TIMED minigame prototype started . made a chart for budgeting time in 4 hour chunks/sprints.

815AM ( 25% of time limit )

another minigame started. Completed @ 952AM

10AM 

Toilet asset completed. Went to work on the animation and the other stall assets. Originally I wanted to have the player turn around but rotating the whole world didn't work the way I wanted it to.

...

130PM

Finally the 'sit' action works but the art doesn't make any sense.

205PM 

JAPANESE SQUATTER TOILET SOLUTION!!!

225PM

Re-modeled the toilet to be more like the Asian style. No world rotation needed! 

318PM

Almost finished stall sequence. Found a bog where the player can jump through walls.

408PM

Fixed movement bug and stall action bug @ 446PM.

~430PM to ~8PM considered sub actions or things that you can only do once you've used the restroom like... using toilet paper. 

830PM ( 50% of time passed )

Back to work, , Make another chart to re-prioritize the remaining chunks of time. 

840PM

Set up milestones for 4AM.

856PM

!!!

959PM

Basic X-Level complete.

1021PM

More art assets are made.

1041PM

Found Bug with multiple stalls.

1141PM

Basic art is ready to go. 

1142PM

1149PM

1222AM

Begin work on REPEAT mini game. 

1244AM

Repeat minigame out to testing. I decided to go nuts and found a great way to fix the implementation of the Event Manager.

103AM

Decided on a song to play that I cannibalized from another project. Did some brainstorming on the full paper towel ball minigame. Started first round of polish. 

122AM

141AM

Testing paper towel minigame. 

153AM

ITS PERFECT!

308AM

TRASH CAN GOAAAAAALLLL! Working! 

314AM

Ball game is done. 

316AM

Back to the multi Stall bug FIXED @ 515AM

524AM

Restructure of Event Manager. make notes on game rules and the requirements for the next milestone.

550AM

Notes about some level design concepts. 

633AM

Begin scripting game rules 

710AM

Structure in place for game rules. Found some new bugs, went after em.

800AM

World structure in place.

802AM

810AM (75% time passed)

Breakdown of the last 3 chunks/sprints left. First is game rules. Second is Feedback design. Third is polish and testing and posting. 

943AM

Timer started, FINISHED @ 1035AM 

1035AM

Most of the GUI is blocked out. 

1052AM

Finalizing GUI.

121PM

EventManager OVERHAUL ( breaks many features of the game while I'm at it ).

158PM

Made list of things to finalize by the second to last chunk ( 4PM ). Around this time I was pretty loopy. I made 3 new stages for the game and spent most of the remaining time fixing things that I had previously overhauled to death. The move was a good one. But I had to re-tread much of the code to get things like End of Game functionality to work. I spend the next hours fixing what I can and breaking things along the way. I took a couple more breaks. But I didn't have time to make notes on what I was doing. 

815PM ( 100% time passed ) 

THE SUBMISSION LINK IS STILL OPEN ( probably due to the halts at the start and end of the competition ) I make my submission entry and start winding down after submitting a not perfect beatable but still broken game. 

1000PM

(Much needed at that ) 

SO... THIS IS WHERE THE REALLY INTERESTING STUFF STARTS TO HAPPEN : 

I wake up, Thrashed from the excitement of the event and immensely proud of what I was able to output in such a small amount of time. But during the night my brain must have completely reset. I used to say "Make stuff for the sake of stuff existing". But this morning ( Monday after the compo ) I felt quite different. Obviously after a weekend like that I wasn't in a rush to get back on my computer and go back to work on HTUR. For the first time in my life I realized that across the table from me, my mom was watching this crazy person dance around the house when he hit milestones and as she describes it ; " A concentrated injection of who I am " unfolded in front of her eyes. I was hyper-focused , organized, excited and hard at work. I didn't see myself in this process. But it made me realize that a large part of who I am is how other people perceive me and not just me in my own head and how I get through my different creative efforts through techniques that I've picked up in a life of art and design. I became curious about my outward appearance during my early childhood and I started asking my mother about traits of my personality that have survived my experience. We took out some old photo albums and for the first time I saw my sisters as people. And I saw the photographs as context for me to build memories around ( during that time I of course came up with a couple of other mini projects to do ) . We spent all day talking about my early childhood with her and I was able to re-form a whole new sense of self. It was like hearing your favorite song for the first time. When I took a break from that conversation and sat down to play some piano it was an entirely new experience. I still knew how to play "One Note Samba" for example. But now, instead of simply playing the song as well as I could, I could hear the song for the notes and the melody that it was made up of. I could play with the experience of HEARING the piece instead of just executing technique. The jazz standard found a new life in my performance. It became more dynamic , I had access to the feel of the tune. I could play with the pace and the volume , begin to make breaks in the main idea of the song and start to experiment with my own ideas while still considering the position of the observer. 

A week prior to this I was on the phone with TheUrchin on the topic of our project HTUR. He's always been an influence to me as an artist since we first met. He talked about this thing he heard or read somewhere , basically he said that most of the time when we make art it's for the sake of the finished product. ("Make Stuff for the sake of Stuff") But he said that was kind of backwards. If you instead put your ability and concept aside and place the USER/CONSUMER/AUDIENCE at the center of your creative process then you will make something that speaks with people. You'll have a whole new range of levers and buttons that you can push and tug to invoke the people who experience what you've produced. "Ten Second Water Closet" was my first project where I didn't realize it but I focused mostly on rewarding the player for being adventurous and for playing the game. Often times , in games at least , there is a need to balance out rewarding experiences with punishing experiences. But I didn't put any time into the hazards that I had planned for the player. And the result was very pleasing. 

The PRIZE of Ludum Dare is that by the end of the 48 hour competition, you have a game that you can do whatever you want with. You've already built it so you know all of its ins and outs. AND ITS YOURS. You can sell it, post it on kongregate or make a mobile version and give it away. In my case I ended up with a cute little FPS ( First Person Shitter ) that was built on a really smooth point and click game engine for unity. I can re-purpose that code for anything in the point and click genre. I intend to complete the game and put it in the GAMES tab on this site at the very least. Just another mini project I guess. But never again will I say "Make stuff for the sake of stuff". I learned that I am not completely defined by my choices and specialties. The other half of my identity is in my impact on the environment. And if I have to comment on content creation in the future. It'll be more to the tune of :

"Make stuff for the sake of enriching the life of the audience"

Thank You Ludum Dare. You have changed my life. 

-Ben 'Angrycrow' Nix-Bradley 8.27.2013