mkb11/6/24

W. 10/30/2024

I didn't sleep last night. I stayed up until like 2:30am working on the Studio and Seminar projects, and at that point, it seemed likely that I would sleep through an alarm. So I stayed up.

I had roughly 20 hours of work done in the past week to show for this Milestone (4), so I felt pretty confident during my presentation. I also had specific questions at the end— mostly about modeling— and I got some good feedback.

For Studio, I had forgotten to include the time spent on each task, but I managed to verbalize it. I'll remember for next time. Adam and Dia critiqued my Rachel model. Key takeaway: work with specific references for each part.

I finished my overdue Totem Pole assignment tonight. I managed to UV it, bake it, and texture it in one sitting. That was pretty magical.

If I can submit my insect assignment by Monday, I'll be caught up in all of my courses. Seems reasonable.

I played Final Fantasy XVI for about an hour and a half today. It is masterful. I'm playing on easy mode (so special attacks are pretty much keybound to the standard attack button), but it doesn't feel droll. It's cinematic, and I feel like I'm growing. Additionally, when I close my eyes, I can see Clive's acrobatics behind my eyelids. It's wonderful to know that I, until recently, could do that kind of gymnastics.

(Also, "Keybound"? A musical bloodbound? I'm making an updated Wanderer's Guide to Dromknost, so I have the liberty to add stuff.)

Th. 10/31/2024

It's Halloween. I'm not really doing anything for it.

I slept late. I don't feel bad about it. I needed the rest.

I've been thinking. Planning isn't going to help my oversleeping. I can't think my way out of it— but, ironically, I've been thinking— and if I can identify what core needs my oversleeping is satisfying, I can replace the behavior with something more productive.

I played FFXVI another hour and a half today. I played it earlier (I just ended at 6:15pm), so that my roommate isn't kept up by the sound of my button-mashing. It really is a spectacle. Spoiler: it was apparent that Clive was the Ifrit Eikon from the beginning, but it was an example of narrative irony, because Clive didn't know that. Now he does. There was some really good voice acting this session. "I won't let you... stand in my way!" This line was delivered pretty slowly, but it was filled with passion, and the resonance in the voice actor's voice was evocative.

In this game, the Eikons are modeled after real-world legendary mythological creatures. It's kinda sabotaging every other game dev by doing this; now, if we were to name any of our characters after one of those creatures— or even, any other mythological legendary creature— it would just appear that we were copying FFXVI.

F. 11/1/2024

It is 4:09 am, and I've been working on the Insect modeling assignment since 6pm last night. So, 10 hours? Wild. Here's what I have.

I started on it yesterday at 6pm. I've been working nonstop. The only reason I'm taking a break is because Blender won't let me zoom in to the seams for UVing it. It started by letting me mark seams easily, but for some reason, the viewport just won't let me zoom in past a certain point. It works in Layout mode, but I need to be in UV Editing mode to, you know, edit UVs.

Sa. 11/2/2024

I figured out the issue with the zooming. And I did the UV, the baking, and the texturing. It started out just as a creepy spider, but it turned into the Nameless, the big bad from my favorite completed D&D campaign that I ran, years ago. For the texturing, I experimented with gouache and metallics, layering low-opacity strokes in different colors over a dark base. I had some trouble getting the angles of the renders right, so I sent the below image to Ezra for review, before submitting it.

Oh yeah, and it 1:24 am.

I went to sleep at like 6am yesterday, woke up just before 2pm, and I'm going to do the same tonight. I didn't oversleep yesterday— like 8 hours— but I oversleep if I go to bed early— so, as I told my mum, I might as well play with the current rules instead of hoping they'll change.

It's supposed to look like an oil slick on wet asphalt. The left-most image is the POV of the Player Characters standing below it, atop the library of Elderville.

I dragged all of my tech stuff out into the hallway— so I can work late without disturbing my roommate.

Later.

I started watching Hazel Brown's Realtime Hair Tutorial series, but I halted my progress after realizing that I don't even know how to navigate in Maya. So, I watched about half of a tutorial claiming that I could learn Maya in twenty minutes. I got the gist.

I also drafted a new Druid subclass during a break. It's called the "Circle of the Eternal Green"— it's about becoming a warden of nature powerful enough to preserve it. It might just be my exhausted state— I'll get into that next— but the concept doesn't feel very clear.

My exhausted state. I'm concerned that staying up until the morning might be a bad idea today. My mind doesn't feel sharp, and I'm trying to learn complicated new skills. I also am going to have a call with my aunt around 2pm (it's her birthday)— but 2pm is when I woke up yesterday. Will I be able to get up early enough to be alert for the call?

Later.

It's nighttime again. I'm going to be working on stuff for this Seminar project, but I got some feedback from Ezra on my spider model, so I'm working on that, first. I made the legs more angular, and inflated the joints. Now it looks even more disgusting. Zremeshing was getting rid of my surface detail, so I found a video on projecting detail from a previous version history onto the remesh. I'm waiting on the remesh to load, currently.

It worked! Now I need to re-UV it, then I can re-bake it, and re-texture it.

Su. 11/3/2024

I wrote a bit more of The Mongrel Sings. I have seven chapters drafted now. It's 43 pages so far. If I write five pages a day through November, I can reach the 50,000 word count for NaNoWriMo. That's roughly 166 pages.

It's really weird, because writing Chapter 7: Like Birds, I had the idea of the martyrs who captured Algonale being unvirtuous— of really showing that anyone could be a bad person— but as I was writing, it quickly turned into those captors being slavers. And I had the idea of "deathdays", where martyrs can know someone's day of death. This interacts with the now existing slave trade; buyers can know exactly how long their investment will last.

And martyrs don't celebrate birthdays; they celebrate the anniversary of the day that they will die.

And Jesus, sitting in a chair so much, for so long, is destroying my ass. I need to exercise— or do anything active— but I'm so focused on creating these works of art— it feels all-consuming.

Later.

I had to spend all night reworking the spider model. For some reason, the high poly model had four legs in slightly different spots from the low poly— but I only realized that after doing the UVs and the baking— so I had to re-remesh, re-UV, re-bake, and then...

M. 11/4/2024

I just finished and submitted it. It's 4:34am.

It looks really good.

Tasks going forward today:

1. Write for NaNoWriMo
2. Re-sculpt Rachel
3. Worldbuilding assignment
4. Marvelous Designer tutorial 4.1. Find clothing references
5. Sculpt Alice's stone arm
6. Oh, and, of course, class.

Later.

I had a cup of decaffeinated chai. I'm fasting, but since my last meal was at 1am, I'm breaking my fast at 5pm. I might breakfast a bit earlier. That's a bit late.

RPG Maker MZ is on sale! And with the bundle of RPG Maker XP (the Ruby coding one), it's actually cheaper than just buying MZ by itself— $42.

Later.

I finished Monkey Man (2024).

Later.

It's been a while since I presented a piece in front of my Modeling class. I've been behind for multiple assignments— and, of course— going reverse alphabetical— I was last to be shown— so all of the critiques I heard before mine arrived— they all piled up like an unwholesome mess of bones carrying me down to a personal Hell of waiting.

But when it was my turn— after everyone else had gone— none of those other critiques were relevant to my work. Everyone really seemed to love it— Ezra included. All that worry— it was all for naught.

I think it helped that I had 1) sent him the first draft over the weekend— so he could see that I had improved upon it, and 2) I had a story. The choices that I made were all purposeful. That petrichor spyder, it had a narrative. Over a year of preparing and playing a D&D campaign— all of that interplay with my players and the months of writing beforehand; Elderville was the best campaign that I ever completed. And that spider— that model— it held all of that.

Later.

I watched The King's Man.

T. 11/5/2024

I've been nocturnal for roughly the past week. Does that make me predator or prey? Am I a craven mouse scuttling from hidey hole to another— afraid of the light of the sun— or am I a panther? This morning, I watched Kingsman: Secret Service. I've been sleeping less— sleeping when the sun is up— but I fear that my extra time is overbearing upon me.