captainhoers - Tumblr blog

[captainhoers]

[captainhoers]

“I want games with worse graphics if it means less crunch time” is a fine sentiment, but, like, it’s still very much buying into a framing of what having good graphics means that’s been constructed to favour AAA studios at every level.

Straight up, the number of polygons a game engine can push tells us nothing in particular about whether it’s nice to look at. I’ve seen games with sixteen-colour pixel art and a native resolution of 320x240 that look amazing, and I’ve seen games with photorealistic 4K graphics that look like shit.

We’ve been suckered into accepting a notion of “good graphics” that’s defined purely in terms of how labour-intensive they are to produce. We’re like a bunch of 16th Century noblemen shovelling our faces full of whipped egg whites and pretending it doesn’t taste like eating a plate of cold air because hey, not just anybody can afford to hire some poor peasant to spend all day destroying their arms whipping egg whites by hand, and exclusivity is the measure of quality, right?

We can talk about how “good graphics” aren’t important all we want, but unless we challenge the idea that pouring hundreds of thousands of person-hours into shadow-mapping every individual hair on the protagonist’s horse’s nutsack is the definition of “good graphics”, we’re playing by the AAA studios’ rules.

Like, the AAA studios aren’t stupid – the reason they do ridiculous shit like that is precisely because it allows them to define what a quality product looks like in a way that only they have access to.

[captainhoers]

safe space

[captainhoers]

oh heck i've been commissar'd!

surprised and delighted to be featured in this episode!

CaptainHoers

Left: CaptainHoers's OC, Gote, as interpreted by @thebirdgang

Right: CaptainHoers's actual OC, drawn by brainiac (source)

See how we got there on the latest episode of Draft Horses!

[captainhoers]

I realise this is my third thank post in the genre of "quick doodle of the gote being overworked and exhausted" which is maybe a symptom of a systemic issue anyway

January thank post is a little late because it slipped through the cracks while I was in the US for a couple of weeks after HarmonyCon doing the Vol 3 mailouts to the US! I will also say that the last couple of months have been a lot, with the Vol 3 printing and shipping, an animation project for Vanhoover Pony Expo, two panels for HarmonyCon, the bonus mini comic for patrons to make up for the missed postcards in 2023 - oh yeah and I've been doing a comic in between all this!

I think I need to just. Slow all this down a little bit? For March I'm going to be dialing back on these "extracurriculars" and re-establish my baseline. I'm also going to be giving myself room to like... completely mess up if it turns out I just really need the recharging time. If I put out like 12 pages of Stardust in March? Great! If I just end up putting 200 hours into Helldivers 2? That's also fine! The point is to have a few weeks of "normality" - no trips, no projects, no crunching. Y'know, that healthy work-life balance thing.

Anyway I'm going back to bed

[captainhoers]

UK PonyCon vendor applications are open. You gonna apply? It would be awesome to see you!

I'm in two minds about it. It would be nice to do stuff at a UK con again and October is definitely enough time to prepare? I'm just aware that UKPC is much more of an all-ages con and collector fair, and I'm just not sure my stuff fits the vibe? Like if I'm the only table with pride flags and my blackest black comic covers with "explicit langauge" warnings on them I'm gonna feel a little weird.

That said, I don't know the event very well, I've never been, so I could be wrong! I'd also considered leaning more on the board games and maybe pitching a board game lounge? In any case I have like a month left to make a decision and I literally just got back from the US yesterday so like

gimme a minute lol

[captainhoers]

Based on life experiences and a song you won't find online because apple has Garth Brooks by the balls

It's called Standing Outside the Fire

I would post it but I'm afraid apple will fuckin get me

Anyways enjoy

Featuring my pony oc Brainiac who is also my mascot he's like really old made him in 2011 @captainhoers @scarletstar121 @suiginmigasuto87 @unluckyshadow @knickknacky-fox and many many more who either don't have a tumblr or if they do I don't know it

I powered through this today all in one go so pls kiss my hand it's got a booboo ;~;

Anyways lmk what you think bye

[captainhoers]

hey look a blog restarted

Readied actions are a useful tool in combat.

[captainhoers]

machine learning art has more in common with readymades and aleatoric music than it does with the mass market media it is attempting to wear the skin of. the public won't buy it, the "author" is still a fiercely engrained concept and toying with that concept has always been an activity relegated to the realm of heady conceptual art that no one understands. if a generative marvel movie ever plays in cinemas it'll be like getting a pack of normies to sit in a theater to watch Ten Skies

[captainhoers]

Ok but like. What the fuck is there to do on the internet anymore?

Idk when I was younger, you could just go and go and find exciting new websites full of whatever cool things you wanted to explore. An overabundance of ways to occupy your time online.

Now, it’s just… Social media. That’s it. Social media and news sites. And I’m tired of social media and I’m tired of the news.

Am I just like completely inept at finding new things or has the internet just fallen apart that much with the problems of SEO and web 3.0 turning everything into a same-site prison?

[captainhoers]

Hey! I'm distributing the handout I made for my panel at HarmonyCon: It's these two fun models I made of the convention mascots, along with a little guide on how to use them! Also in the folder is the wave animation I used for the title screen, and importantly, a guide on how to use these models, which includes a quickstart on Blender itself in case you're unfamiliar with it. Like everything I do, these models are CC-BY-NC-SA, meaning that as long as you credit, don't sell it, and pass along likewise, you can do whatever you like with these models - change them to look like your own characters, make them do the griddy, whatever. That said, the characters are convention mascots (originally designed by Nevaylin, this year's designs by Brittany Ackerman), so I'd ask you behave with the stock models. Have fun!

[captainhoers]

One small but extremely annoying effect of Tech Modernization or w/e is how UI contrast is garbage anymore, especially just, like, application windows in general.

"Ooh our scrollbar expands when you mouse over it! Or does it? Only you can know by sitting there like an idiot for 3 seconds waiting for it to expand, only to move your cursor away just as it does so!" or Discord's even more excellent "scrollbar is 2 shades off of the background color and is one (1) pixel wide" fuck OFF

I tried to move a system window around yesterday and had to click 3 times before I got the half of the upper bar that let me drag it. Why are there two separate bars with absolutely nothing to visually differentiate them on that.

"Well if you look closely-" I should not!! have to squint!!! at the screen for a minute straight to detect basic UI elements!! Not mention how ableist this shit is, and for what? ~✨Aesthetic✨~?

and then every website and app imitates this but in different ways so everything is consistently dogshit to try to use but not always in ways you can immediately grok it's!!!! terrible!!!! just put lines on things again I'm begging you!!!!

[captainhoers]

Sovereign Objection - chapter 7

[captainhoers]

Hi! I'm playing Thunderdrome with my friends on tabletop sim, and aside from learning that Bug isn't available for physical purchase, we're loving it. I do have a question about it though: is the starting grid a three wide track? Or is it meant to be a weird "one track with enough space for all the players"? Because it feels like if it's the three wide track it would give an advantage to the players in the front, especially if they're first in the order.

Hey, really appreciate it!

As for this piece of errata: the Grid card consists of two lanes with three spaces each on them and counts as such for purposes of traversal, same as one of the two-lane, three-space straight pieces you can pull out of the regular deck. The advantage of starting on the front row (along with first player advantage) is actually kinda dependent on the track you draw! If there's a bottlenecking corner in the first 5 spaces (so first or second card), then being first in the turn order is way more important than being on the front row, and being on the back row can actually be an advantage depending on your card draw, but if the first corner isn't for 6+ spaces, then the front row advantage can persist - but ultimately I think the advantage is small enough that it quickly gets swamped by how each corner goes, especially on tight tracks, which gives more advantage to turn order and pit strategy. It's also worth mentioning that taking and holding the lead on the first lap can also just give the person in second a free source of fan boost. Because of this I feel like the game gains more from the thematic value of a two-by-two starting grid than it loses from the slight advantage it gives.

[captainhoers]

i finished an old sketch i like I hope you all like it as well I do these paintings to relax when im stressed and i am glad they are starting to look better

[captainhoers]

imagine concorde growing up on this kind of moderately unhinged science communication

Kinematic Formulas! Used Krita brush pack by @abluskittle