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gr-ogu · 6 years

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Hey, may I ask how you make your icons (which are really cute btw)? I would love to give it a try myself but I dont really know where to start vor what size they woud need to be. Do you use a specific program? Thank you in advance ❤

Hi again my love!!! ❤

First of all, thankyou so much!! That’s so kind of you to say and I’m honoured that you’d come tome for advice!!! I’m going to put this under a read more because it might getvery long, I hope that’s okay! Also want to say I am by no means an expert - myicon making stems from a lot of trial and error, hahah!

There’s soooo manydifferent ways to make icons! I have seen and read a thousand tutorials, butthe first thing I have to say is it’s got to be what you’re comfortable with.Whatever works best for you is the best way!

When I first started to make icons, I used paint.net, which is free todownload and such a good program! I still haveit because you can download free ‘plugins’ (like added extra features)that people make and they’re so handy!!!! I used to make coloured backgrounds using the gradient feature, and zoom in very closely and use the rubber tool toerase the background of the characters/people I wanted for the icon, whichworks great if you have a lot of time and patience!

Now however, I use photoshop CS5, which I got from here (no idea if the link stillworks but I hope it does!!!) which I find a lot easier now that I know how touse it! For sizing, as long as the canvas is a perfect square you’re generallygood - I usually go for 150px x 150px, but I know a lot of people use 100px x100px or 200px x 200px!

Here are some tutorials that you might find useful to start you off in explaining how to use PS if you’re not familiar with it!! (x) (x)

Once you’ve got that down, usually you want to cut the people/charactersout from the background. There are soooo many ways to do this but I prefer touse the pen tool to draw around them and then erase the background, a tutorialfor that that I like is this one!

For background, I make my own gradients. Generally, you want to pick acolour you like and then find the lighter version of it, so to do that I pick acolour (for example this is a good list of different colours I referto) and then I use the hex code of that specificcolour to find the lighter version of it - so when you click on it, or searchfor it, it gives you the lighter and darker codes for the colours, which youcan put into Photoshop and then use to make gradients! alternatively you cansearch on places like itsphotoshop and find them,which is coincidentally where I get my textures from that I sometimes put onthe background of icons.

The textures are downloaded, and then once you’ve got them, uploaded into PS and usually set to soft light or overlay (I prefer soft light, but it depends on the colours you’re using I think!) in the drop-down menu on the right side of PS, where there’s different tabs (this one is found directly underneath layers!). It looks like this and put it above my colours to get cool effects in the background :-)

For the shapes part, I actually only learnt this really recently (although I’m going to do a demo of how I did my latest icon further down) and this is the method I used to get the shape!!!! Although I didn’t apply it to the icon in the same way that they did, I found an easier way for me!! Haha.

Something a lot of people also do is change the colours of people’s clothes! This is a great tutorial for that and one that I’ve used for my edits, although still learning with icons!

Okay so I think the easiest way to try and tell you how I make icons is just to show you! So, first things first, you’ve got to get your cap - it’s nice if it’s good quality, but it’s not the end of the world if it’s not!

I decided to use this one from the ITV hub, haha:

Once you’ve got that, I usually crop it so there’s not as much of the background, but that’s just personal preference. Then, with my pen tool, I go around it and outline the bits of them I want for the icon! (I’ve circled the pen tool on the left just for clarity!)

You’ll also notice the boys look a bit brighter and more defined in the above screenshot - I’ve added a PSD to them, which I’ve made myself. I have an ‘emmerdale psd’ that works quite well forall the characters so I use that as a base and adjust it depending on thescene! But there’s plenty of places to download PSDs too!

Once I’ve got the outline, I join up the dots to the first dot to make a solid line around the boys. Then, right click on the picture and choose ‘make selection’.

Then you get a pop up box saying if you’d like a little blurring around them - sometimes I do 1px, sometimes I have none, like in this case, depends on the quality of the photo (and sometimes how well you’ve cut out their hair hahah). Once you’re happy, click okay and you’ll get the solid line around them flashing now.

I’m not sure how to do this on a mac, so really sorry if you have one, but you’ve got to invert this line to select the background instead of them, by pressing Ctrl, shift and i at the same time. Once you’ve done that, you can then click the delete button and the background will disappear! Yay! You should get something that looks like this:

After this, you want to go to the menu at the top that says image and click image size, which will present you with a text box like this:

Change the pixel dimensions’ width and height to whatever your icon size is, so in this case 150px - don’t worry if the height isn’t equal to the width, it’s better that the icon is the full width if its not a person’s full body, as you don’t want the picture to take up the full height of the icon anyways! Like this:

And voila! They are to size. Now, since I’ve made icons before, I have backgrounds already made, so I would drag them onto them. I suggest you make the backgrounds in a separate window and save them for later use (using the gradients for example), meaning you can drag new people onto the backgrounds which will save you time! Once you’ve done that, you’ll get something like this:

Now, you could just leave it there! If you were to do that (I save them with multiple colours for variety!) You might want to go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen and play around with it until they look more defined, but not overly so!

(Also please don’t judge me - it’s good practice to name your layers informational names but as you can see mine are pretty all over the place, oops.)

For the shape part of the icon, please refer to the link I added above to add a custom shape to your gallery. Once you’ve done that, this is how I added it to my icons!

For now, zoom into your icon and place the shape above the icon and use ctrl and t to make it the size you want, making sure to hold down shift when you’re dragging the sides so it’s in proportion. Once you’re happy with this, press enter to confirm it (its usually best to leave a few pixels between the shape and the edge for the ‘transparent effect’.)

Then, drag the layer down in the bar on the right so it’s underneath whatever colours you want to use for your icon. In this case, I’ve just done a few as an example:

You can see the sort of outline of the shape on them, as well as the background colour. Now, you want to move the boys into the position you want them for the icon, and use something called a ‘clipping mask’.

Right click on the layers at the side and choose ‘create clipping mask’ - the background will then fill into the shape and so will the people once you click it. At this stage, you probably want to use the little eye symbol on each layer to make it visible or invisible, so you can see if this is working or not!

As you can see, there’s a blank bit at the bottom of the icon since I cropped the boys’ bodies there. Luckily as they’re wearing dark colours, I can just paint over this on their layer to fill it in, but you could also resize the original image down to 150px and use a clipping mask on it too! (You can also merge the layers to make sure they’re one layer, by right clicking and using ‘merge down’ which isn’t available in the above screenshot but usually would be!)

Then zoom out, and you should have something that looks like this! (I’ve gone back to the file I made the actual icons on for this screenshot.) Make sure you save the image as .png, not .jpg! Files saved as .jpg can’t read transparency and the edges around the icon will show up as black or white, rather than transparent!

I hope this has been helpful, and that it makes sense, and gives you a good idea of what to do?? If you have anymore questions don’t hesitate to ask❤❤❤

#asks #icon tutorial #Anonymous #mine*#icons #my icons

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sabrinaleethings · 6 years

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We Are Not Afraid: DBH SiMarkus Fanfiction [CH.5]

Markus and Simon were androids owned by famous artist, Carl Manfred. After his untimely death, Markus and Simon’s lives change forever as Leo, Carl’s disowned and criminal son, take ownership of them. Carl’s death doesn’t go unnoticed however, as Hank and his new android partner Connor, are hired to solve the case. Follow Markus and Simon as they forge a new path for the Android Revolution.

Click Below for Previous Chapters!

FanFiction or Archive

Markus

November 16, 2034

“I want you to try, Markus.” Carl’s voice was soft as he rolled forward on his wheelchair. He stopped in front of Markus, gazing up at his android who stood in front of an empty easel. “Let’s see if you’ve got any talent.”

The mid morning sun casted golden streaks of light through the open windows of the artist’s studio, the empty glass paint canisters reflected hues of warm reds and blues on the makeshift tables.

Markus looked around, confusion poked and prodded his interface.

“Paint? P- But painting what?” RK200’s voice was soft as the android surveyed the numerous paintings his owner had previously made. “It’s… that’s not part of my program.”

Carl sighed, but didn’t back down. He inched forward, closer to his android son. There was an experimental glint in his eye, the amusement and calm excitement seemed to radiate through the older man as he crossed his arms and gestured to the canvas leaning on a nearby table.

“Anything you want Markus.” A dried and forgotten painter’s pallet appeared in Carl’s hands as Markus’ LED spun golden.

RK200 sighed and ran his hand over his head, scratching at his short hair. A human gesture he’d come to easily learn by taking care of Carl.

“Carl,I-”

“Just try, son. ‘Doesn’t have to be any good.” The man in the wheelchair reached and handed the android the pallet.

Markus leveled the pallet on his hip, and grabbed a paintbrush from a nearby canister.

After adding blues, reds, and yellows to the pallet, the android looked around.

[...CURRENT OBJ: -paint-...]

The android’s emerald eyes landed on a few different things, including Carl’s original painting displayed on the wall, a pile of paint supplies precariously piled on the table nearby, the silhouette of trees outside in Carl’s backyard…

Markus decided.

The android dipped his brush into the splotches of paint, and began.

He analyzed Carl’s work in progress and committed every brushstroke, every texture, and every varying hue to memory as he painted.

An unfamiliar sense of peace seemed to wash through the android, it warmed his chest cavity but- not in a bad way, no. It was almost pleasant, enjoyable.

[ vvv SOFTWARE INSTABILITY vvv ]

Almost.

After a few passes with his paintbrush, before long, the android finished the painting he was tasked to do.

[...OBJ COMPLETE: -paint-...]

Stepping back and surveying his work, the android decided he did a perfect job at painting. Surely it would please Carl- it was a perfect replica of the android’s favorite piece of art Carl Manfred had created.

“That is a perfect copy...” Carl’s voice was low and smooth as he regarded Markus. “...of reality.” Carl sighed. The disappointment in his voice didn’t go unnoticed as Markus’ stilled in place, his paintbrush was frozen in time as Carl continued, “But, painting is not about replicating the world, it’s about interpreting it, improving on it…” His human eyes fell on his own painting. “...showing the world what you see.”

Markus momentarily panicked as he regarded Carl, he’d displeased him. Disappointed him, didn’t complete the task at hand.

“Carl, I’m sorry I-”

“Do something for me.” His voice hushed the android’s. “Grab that canvass over there, and close your eyes.”

Markus loosened a breath as he replaced his painting with a fresh, untouched one.

“Trust me.”

The android did.

Carl’s voice was hypnotic as he hummed to Markus, “Close your eyes, Markus. Try to imagine something that doesn’t exist.” Carl’s voice seemed to filled the air around them. “Something you’ve never seen.”

Markus’ processors were slow as he tried to comply to the command. When he closed his eyes, all he saw were colors, like the colors on a stained glass window. A million fragments of different memories, different scenes, all pieced together to create a mosaic of colors behind his eyelids.

“Concentrate on how it makes you feel, and let your hand drift across the canvass.”

Markus began to feel the heat growing in his chest again as he lifted the paintbrush to the white space in front of him.

The android’s LED spun bright yellow as he concentrated. Breaking through walls of coding and pre-programmed script was easy for the android as he let the rest of his mind wander. Like wading through water, the android bypassed all preconstructed script in his program that didn’t allow him to process his own emotions or opinions on reality.

Carl’s voice soothed and guided him as he continued to paint.

“That’s it Markus, just feel whatever it is that’s going through you. Accept it, and embrace it.”

Markus didn’t notice he was crying until the skin receptors on his wrist alerted him to an unknown presence tickling his synthetic arm hair. The android peeked through his tangled eyelashes only for a moment, to see a shining drop of liquid on his arm. As he blinked, another one fell, trickling down the top of his wrist like a raindrop on a windowpane.

His LED must have spiraled red for a moment as he processed what was happening. Androids shouldn’t cry, they weren’t programmed that way, he shouldn’t have been feeling anything…

[vvv SYSTEM INSTABILITY vvv]

“It’s alright Markus,” Carl’s hand was warm and soft on the android’s elbow. “You’re doing great.”

Memories and strange alien feelings were swimming through the android’s veins. Anger at humans for their regard to androids, pride and disbelief that Carl believed in him so much, even though he was only an android, hope for a world in the future where androids weren’t being used and abused as if they were mere possessions…

Taking a breath to try and cool the warmth that seemed to radiate throughout his android body, Markus opened his eyes.

It was like seeing for the first time, being brought online for the first time at CyberLife- the view surprised even Markus.

“Oh my God…” Carl’s voice faded into awe as he rolled forward and placed his hand on the small of Markus’ back. The android swayed on his feet as his processors fought to slow down.

Displayed in front of the two was a message of hope. Harsh paintbrush strokes textured an android’s hand as it sprouted from the bottom of the painting, desperately reaching for the waiting human’s outstretched hand above.

Hope. A future. Two things Markus never believed he could even possibly wish for. He was android, a biotic replication of a human but- why did he feel so alive?

“Markus!” The android turned, a gruff and loud voice stole his attention.

“Android!” Leo’s voice echoed through the studio, his voice so loud it drowned him, almost suffocated him.

“Markus!”

[-SYSTEM STARTUP INITIALIZING-]

There was a warm presence registered on his hand for just barely a second before it vanished.

Carl?

[...scanning for software errors…]

[...all systems online…]

[...GPS Found: 10319 S Lafayette Dr. - APPT. of LEO MANFRED-]

[...system startup COMPLETE…]

Android RK200 opened his eyes the same moment a pile of clothing was being thrusted into his arms.

“Get up fucker, and put these on. We leave in ten.” Markus had barely enough time to register it was Leo commanding him- the human had disappeared from the dining room before he was able to do a proper scan of his environment.

[...CURRENT OBJ: -change clothing-....]

The RK200 glanced down at the articles of fabric in his hands. Black jeans and an oversized hoodie draped precariously in his arms. Surprisingly, it was one of the cleanest things in the room.

Dust and dirt glittered in the morning’s sunlight. The floor was barely recognizable underneath the dirt and trash.

Markus’ head slowly turned as he noticed a slight warmth brushing his left bicep.

The PL600 android- Simon was it? - was in rest mode, leaning against the wall like Markus had just been.

The android’s LED spun a constant yellow, and a quick scan showed Markus that the android indeed still had mechanical malfunctions from the night before…

Markus traced his eyes down the side of the PL600- the blood and grime from the previous day had been cleaned, but the same clothes remained. Stained and reeking of human body odor and smoke.

Markus tilted his head slightly as he further assessed the android next to him. Simon was favorably leaning on his right leg, as if to reduce as much weight on his other leg as much as possible. The odd angle made Markus’ eyes drift lower, following the seams and lines down the side of the android’s arm.

Markus’ eyes froze as they reached Simon’s hand. The external skin on his hand was retracted, completely showing the plastic interface that usually was concealed under their synthetic skin.

Markus shifted his weight and stole his gaze back to himself, his eyes settled on his own left arm.

The skin covering Markus’ wrist was dissolved… as if he and Simon …

Shaking his head slowly as if to banish the thoughts, Markus glanced again at Simon’s hand where…

The PL600’s skin was already back in place.

“Simon? What-?” Markus’ voice was barely a whisper in the cold and empty room.

“You coming bitch, or what?” The apartment was so small that Leo’s yell seemed to shake the already crumbling walls.

“Yes, Leo.” Markus responded. The words seemed to feel sour in his mouth, like he shouldn’t have been agreeing.

[vvv SYSTEM INSTABILITY vvv]

Leo was already waiting by the front door as Markus approached. The human’s hands were shoved deep into his coat pockets as he swayed back and forth on two unstable legs.

Markus noticed the withdrawal effects from Leo’s red ice use was in remission at the moment- the human’s blood pressure was only slightly raised, his oxygen levels a little bit lower than usual but not enough to cause concern.

“First things first fucker,” Leo removed one of his hands from his pockets and gripped the door handle with white knuckles, “once we get back, you’re gonna completely wipe whatever memory or hard drive whatever you have in that head of yours.”

Markus straighten slightly, the synthetic muscles of his abdomen began to seize and constrict, creating odd discomfort in the android.

“You’re not gonna remember a fucking thing of what happens today, got it?” Leo’s voice was dangerously low, almost a growl as he regarded Markus.

“Yes, Leo.” Markus nodded his head slowly- his job was to obey and serve but- why did this feel so wrong? “It’ll be done.”

Satisfied with the answer, Leo grunted in response and made his way out, leaving Markus behind.

Markus could have sworn he heard soft footsteps padding behind him, but he didn’t dare turn. He had a job to do, and that was that.

Android RK200 sighed unconsciously, and followed Leo out the door.

Serve and obey. Serve and obey.

Markus’ inner programming thrummed through his mental processors as he sat in the front seat of Leo’s car.

Ever since leaving rest mode Markus felt, off. Weird.

Like there were holes and cracks in his programming that made his processing software slower, like it took more effort to think and react.

It could have been the fact that he dreamt last night, which androids shouldn’t do, or the possibility the PL600 tampered with his software while he was ‘asleep,’ he didn’t know.

Leo started his car and shifted into drive. The tires whined and screeched as the human accelerated too quickly down the road.

Android RK200 didn’t like the discomfort he was feeling, so he ran manual software checks as Leo drove them to whatever destination they were headed.

[...CHECKING SOFTWARE…]

…

[...NO DAMAGE DETECTED…]

…

[...RUNNING SELF DIAGNOSTIC…]

…

[...ALL SYSTEMS ONLINE…]

Markus shook his head as message after message appeared in his field of vision.The blinking white text was blinding. Nothing detected. Nothing wrong. The android’s hands were intertwined in his lap, but his knuckles were white as he squeezed and pulled on his fingers, a human gesture he somehow became accustomed to doing. Odd, since he’d only been online for little more than a day.

Frustrated, Markus ran the self-diagnostic and system checks again. And again. And again.

On his fourth or fifth scan, he was shocked back into reality.

The sharp and loud click of a gun being cocked stole Markus’ attention.

Leo was driving with one knee steering the wheel, and his hands prepping an old, police commissioned pistol.

The sweat on Leo’s brow became more apparent as the autumn sun highlighted the shining droplets.

Markus frowned, his green eyes glued to the trigger of the gun he’d used last night on Simon.

“Leo, what are you-”

“Don’t talk unless I tell you to, got it?” Cold, sharp, and laced with adrenaline, Leo gave his first of many commands to the android seated next to him.

Markus only nodded, his LED spinning crimson for a millisecond before returning to crystal blue.

The sun was hidden by a swarm of angry clouds as Leo parked his car in front of what seemed to be an abandoned house. The current condition of said building was almost replicant of Leo’s apartment. The gutters practically flying off with the fall breeze, the siding of the building was being torn and pried off by the elements outside, two of the three visible front windows were even boarded up.

“Alright tin can, listen closely.” Leo turned off the car as he scratched the stubble on his chin with the gun. “The fucker in there owes me money. Your job, is to get that money.” His voice began to fluctuate and rise in pitch, the hunger in his eyes devoured Markus.

“Leo there’s no way…” The back of the human’s hand connected with the android’s cheek- a gutteral whine escaped his lips. Androids didn’t feel pain the same way humans did, but the shock was still the same. Markus tamed his expression to hide the fear that seemed to gnaw at his stomach, and stared at his hands wrestling each other in his lap.

“I’m not gonna tell you again fucker. You get me my money, or you’re gonna end up in the fucking bottom of a goddamned lake.” Leo raised the pistol and leveled it at the android’s temple. “Understood?”

Android. Servant. Submissive. Obey.

Fear. Fear?

A bright red flashing wall of code and programming suffocated Markus. He tried to break through the walls, to say no, to disagree...but,

“Understood, Leo.”

The human leaned back and rested his head against the window. The pistol in his hand was lazily waved around as he finished his instructions.

“The guy’s name is Frank. His wife left his scummy ass for an accountant a while back- let’s just say he owes me for some of my favors.” Leo looked out the drivers side window at the house. His expression darkened at the view. “He’s got a daughter named Alice, cute kid I guess.” Markus felt the thirium pump louder and harder through his ears. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I don’t give a shit what you do, but you’ve got two options. Either convince Frank to pay,” Leo lowered the barrel of the gun and tapped the android with the handle. “Or fucking shoot them all and take the money. I don’t give a damn.”

Markus raised a hand and grabbed the gun, the handle was familiar in his palm as flashbacks of the night prior synapsed through his memory. Shooting Simon, not wanting to shoot Simon…

“You get me my money, or I’ll fucking end you. Plain and simple.”

A blinking white message appeared in Markus’ view.

[:CURRENT OBJECTIVE: >obtain money<]

“As you wish Leo. It will be done.” Markus lowered the gun to his lap and his fingers idly traced the lines carved in the barrel of the gun.

It felt oddly familiar to Markus- the cool steel in his hands, the acceleration of his thirium pump in his chest, the incessant pounding of software processing that was happening in his head.

“I’ll be waiting for you right here when you’re done.” Leo crossed his arms and seemed to size up the android. His eyes skimming the frozen RK200. “You got ten minutes max before I leave.”

“Yes Leo.” Markus’ words were barely a breath between his lips.

“If you fuck things up android, you’re gonna shoot yourself in the fucking head before you let anyone catch you.” A smile pulled at the corners of Leo’s lips, his yellow tinted teeth shined through chapped lips. It sent Markus’ LED spinning golden as he processed the new command.

“Yes, Leo. I will not fail.”

“Good. Now get the fuck going.”

Markus nodded and released a shaky sigh. Androids weren’t supposed to get nervous, get scared, but the failure of this mission meant Markus’ death and, he didn’t want to die.

No. He didn’t want to die.

He must succeed.

The android swung open the old car’s door and stepped outside. The sun warmed his cheeks and the heat was absorbed into the black sweatshirt he wore- if androids could sweat, Markus would be dripping.

There was no pre-destined code or programming for this type of situation, so Markus scanned the internet quickly on his march to the door, and downloaded multiple police tactics and interrogation protocols that would hopefully come in handy should things turn out poorly. Ways to talk down someone who’s angry or panicked- what to do when facing someone who’s irate; and lastly, self defence maneuvers should it turn violent.

Oh, ra9… what are you doing.

Markus rubbed his hands together in the most human way he could fashion. Ideally, by mimicking known and familiar human gestures, he would be able to almost comfort and convince Frank that he wasn’t a threat.

Markus nodded inwardly to himself as another flashing countdown began in his peripheral vision. He had ten minutes to succeed. Or ten minutes to savor being alive… well maybe not alive, but fully functional at least.

The android rapped his knuckles on the faded and weary looking door. Opting for the most pacifist and ‘normal’ encounter he could would have a 70% chance probability that things wouldn’t get hostile. And if they did… the gun fashioned to his lower back by his waistband seemed to burn his synthetic skin.

[^^ STRESS: 15% ^^]

Markus lifted his hand again to knock for a second time when movement caught his attention. The faded yellow curtains inside the window next to the door parted slightly to frame a short and pert nose, along with two bright, brown eyes.

“Alice? My name is Markus, I’m a friend of your dad’s.” The android lied- being programmed as a domestic assistant and companion allowed the android to easily communicate and connect with the small child, though it was a struggle for him to wade through the software that seemed to be running at 50% capacity. “Can I come in? I’d really like to see him.”

The little girl scrunched her nose and pouted her lips, slowly shaking her head from side to side.

“Please, Alice?” Markus tilted his head and smiled, his emerald eyes were bright and focused solely on the small child. He didn’t notice right away that there was muffled yelling coming from inside the house.

“ Alice! ” Frank’s voice was thick and seemed to melt through the walls. “ Alice! Who the fuck’s tha- ” Markus stood taller, back inhumanly erect, as the door slowly opened. The human’s voice became louder and clearer through the now opened threshold.

“Who the fuck are you?” Markus didn’t need to run an analysis to know that Frank was both intoxicated, and still affected by a separate illegal substance.His breath was hot and reeked of death and decay.

“Hey Frank,” Markus played on the side of casual formality. “My name’s Markus, a friend of yours told me where you lived and asked me to stop by and chat with you for a bit.”

The man shifted on his feet and crossed his arms. He was roughly the same height as the android, if not a little shorter. His human eyes landed on the LED on Markus’ temple. “What friend we talkin’?”

Markus looked around outside, his head swiveled from over his left shoulder to his right- something that he took note of when researching suspicious behavior among humans on the streets.

“Maybe we should discuss this inside…” Markus suggested, his head bowing very slightly as he lifted an eyebrow in question.

“Fat chance android. Who sent yuh?”

[vvv PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS 62% vvv]

Markus ran through every possible scenario that was connected with each answer he concluded he could give. Giving Leo’s name and identification right away could either anger Frank, or cause him to understand the android’s presence immediately and force him to cooperate.

Giving Frank a false name of someone he’d done business with in the past however, could give Markus the invitation inside he desperately needed.

The goal was still the same. Obtain the money to deliver to Leo. Or die trying.

Markus felt himself yearning for a third option before his programming shut those feelings down.

Android. Serve and obey.

“Carl Manfred sent me.”

The human paled. His face turned clammy as all the blood fled from his cheeks. Markus had said something right he guessed, to warrant such a response.

“He- that dude’s fucking dead. The hell do you mean?”

It was a perfect opportunity for entry.

“Let me inside and I can explain. I am an android, model RK200 and I cannot lie.” Markus crossed his arms, mirroring the same stance the human held. “Out here isn’t the best place to discuss this.”

It took Frank longer than necessary to respond, but he did.

“Alice,” he turned to his daughter that was still staring out of the window. “Go to your room now, and don’t come out until I say.”

The fluttering of her footsteps disappeared up the steps, and as they faded Frank opened the door further.

“You got two minutes to explain yourself before I get really pissed.”

“Absolutely Frank.” Markus stepped inside, side shuffling past the brute of a man that blocked most of the doorway. “Thank-you.”

As the door clicked shut behind them, Markus stepped further into the front room. It wasn’t in the same condition that the outside showed, but there was still plenty of things trashed around the room that made the inside look sad and dark. Empty beer bottles scattered the kitchen table, and pizza boxes piled high on the floor near an overflowing trash can.

Everything inside was so dark . The boarded windows snuffed out any chances of natural light and the flourescent lightbulbs barely protruded the shadows that seemed to grow from every corner of the house.

Markus’ emerald eyes met Frank’s as the human slid a handgun from behind his back.

[^^^STRESS 45%^^^]

“Two minutes. Now.” Frank’s voice was loud, but unsupported. Markus could tell the man was exhausted, and not in any mood to waste whatever energy he had left.

“Got it.” Markus nodded and crossed his arms. His blue LED casted brilliant reflections on the walls surrounding them. “Without wasting your time Frank, I’ve been sent to collect the money you owe Leo Manfred.”

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me…” Frank inched closer to Markus, the gun hanged like a dead weight in the man’s hand.

“I wish I was Frank. Listen-” Markus started. “Carl knew before he died the business you and Leo had.” Markus didn’t know for certain if this were true, hell he’d never even met the famous painter before in his life, but, based on research online, Carl was a wealthy and affluent member of society. He controlled more than the common man, and maybe such power could convince Frank to submit. “He knew before his passing about the debt you owe to Leo, his own son . It’s time to pay that back now, Frank.”

“Go to hell.” The human raised the gun level to the android’s chest and this initiated Markus’ survival reaction. He held his hands up in surrender.

“Frank, you don’t want to do this. I know you’re a good father, you’ve tried your hardest these past few years, just end it with the Manfreds.” Frank growled through his teeth as he looked up through hooded eyes.

“Don’t act like you fucking know me, you know nothing .”

Markus stepped forward and lowered his voice.

“I’m not going to pretend to know you personally, you’re right Frank.” Markus fought back a shiver that seemed to vibrate through his body.

[vvv SOFTWARE INSTABILITY vvv]

“ But , I do know that Carl had more connections to our society than anyone else did. Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean that all of the history before his passing gets to disappear too.”

There was a hole in the pit of Markus’ stomach that began to cave in on itself. The processors in his head began to feel like each string of coding took longer and longer to decipher and encrypt.

What was happening to him?

Markus began feeling the human equivalent to sadness as he talked about a man he didn’t even know. “Finish what had been started before his passing, Frank. Pay Leo back now, and you never have to think of it again.”

Sweat beaded the human’s forehead, and his breaths seemed to catch in his throat, only to be swallowed by angry guttural noises.

“And if I don’t?”

Markus’ options splayed before him. A hammering white blockade of text blurred his vision.

[>CHOSE PERSUASION:

[>violent

[>passive

[>say nothing

Markus balled his fists tight, the white of his plastic inner casings began to show through his translucent knuckles.

If he failed his task, then he would be dead. He’d be dead either way, he couldn’t fail. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to live.

[>CHOSE PERSUASION:

[> violent <]

[>passive

[>say nothing

[^^^ STRESS LEVELS 65% ^^^]

[>truth

[>lie

Simon’s words rang through the android’s mind. ‘ It’s your choice Markus… remember who you were…”

Choice. Simon had told Markus that he had a choice, but- that couldn’t be true. They didn't have free wills. They couldn’t choose or decide, it wasn’t a part of their programming.

[> truth <]

[>lie

“I have been given the task of killing you, Frank if you don’t cooperate. Humans are much more delicate than androids, it would be easy for me to do.”

Frank tightened the grip on the gun in his hand, his arm began to shake at the strain it took him to hold it aimed at Markus for so long.

“I don’t want to kill you, Frank. Just make this easy and pay him back.” Markus could see the expression of Frank’s face shift. The deep frown lines on the human’s cheeks darkened with shadow as his face contorted. “Please, Frank. Just end this.”

The human shifted on his feet, and Markus deconstructed the next few seconds before they could even begin.

“Fine. Consider this the end.” Frank said as he pulled the trigger.

#detroit become human #detroit become human fanfiction #dbh #dbh fanfiction #dbh simarkus #simarkus #detroit become human simon #detroit become human markus #dbh markus #dbh simon #dbh pl600 #dbhrk200

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hypertensiongamedev · 7 years

Note

You are a source of inspiration..Any recommendations if someone wanted to make a game of their own? (I.e what programs to use, things to look out for, etc)

I’ll get the expected answers out first. Here’s the programs I use (and the plugins I use for each of those):

Blender, which I use for modeling, rigging, and animating

Rigify plugin for rig creation (this comes bundled with Blender, you just have to enable it)

RetopoFlow for retopologizing high-poly to low-poly (has a free version in Github, the paid version just entitles you to technical support)

Substance Painter for texturing (this sometimes goes on sale on Steam, so watch out for it every time Steam goes on a discount sale)

Photoshop CC for creating GUI art, and image manipulation needs ($10 per month sounds fair for all the things it could do for me)

Unity for the game engine

StrangeIoC, an open-source code framework (I explain what it is exactly here)

TextMesh Pro for the GUI labels (free)

ShaderForge for making my own shaders (used to be paid, but it’s now free)

InControl, for user customization of controls (has an old, free version in github)

Unity’s Post-processing Stack for visual effects (free)

A custom AI plugin that I made, called INTLord

A custom game editing tool I made that I simply call Attack Editor (for now)

Visual Studio Community Edition (the free version) for the IDE

Resharper plugin for VS is immensely helpful for me (this is pretty expensive, but worth it for me as I use C# heavily)

Git for backup and version control

I use Git Extensions as the front-end GUI

Dropbox and Google Drive for backing up other things like raw art assets

Portable Kanban for keeping a todo list (I can recommend HacknPlan for an online alternative)

But I think the number one thing to look out for here is that, while it seems I’m able to do this game with ease, I can assure you that it is not smooth sailing all the time. I’m only sharing the end result of my work each time I post. All the mistakes and errors I encounter, I tend to discard and not share, but only because I think no one cares to really read about them. My point here is that even when I tell you what programs I use, just using those won’t guarantee you success.

If you’re having a hard time making a game, that doesn’t mean you’re not cut out for this, because I have a hard time too. It’s an inescapable part of something as complex as game development. I think what really makes a person not cut out for this, is when they give up easily when encountering difficult problems, like an overwhelmingly confusing bug, or getting a crash and finding out your work got corrupted. The proper response here is to approach problems methodically instead, and take steps so you tend to not encounter those things again in the future.

Don’t expect to get things perfectly the first time, but do take time and effort to improve each time you blunder.

There’s one pattern I see a lot with beginners who never get far: they love to complain. Don’t end up like that. If after all your best effort and research, things still don’t work, then I can finally concede that you have the right to complain.

These beginners would blame the engine, the programming language, or the art tool if something goes haywire, when, majority of the time, the mistake was their misunderstanding what the tool was for, and a way to solve it was in the user manual. So make sure you’ve done your homework before going on a rant.

Second thing: Practice a lot. They build your skill set. If you have no idea where to start, I suggest just making a simple game like tic-tac-toe in the game engine of your choice. The point here isn’t to build something amazing, it’s to get your feet wet with the tools you’re using. You’ll be doing it more to learn how to get graphics drawn on the screen, how to detect and react to user-input, how to code gameplay logic, etc.

The fact that you’re making a simple tic-tac-toe game helps ease the difficulty curve of trying out a new game engine. Then work out how to put a main menu on it, a highscore that gets saved to a text file, etc.

Then try out making a tetris game, then a side-scrolling platformer, etc. The more familiar you get with your tools, the easier it is to create more and more complex things.

There’s a theory out there that the amount of vocabulary you have with your spoken language influences what you tend to say (or even think!). I think it’s the same with you and your gamedev tools. You might have never gotten around to doing some crazy idea you had, simply because, lacking knowledge in your tools, you didn’t think it was possible.

I do game jam games to try out learning something new.

One thing you need to realize is, if you’re not having fun doing the nitty-gritty details of these steps in game-making, maybe you should reconsider your choice of wanting to make games, because this is how it is all of the time. Or probably at least consider specializing in one aspect instead, and get help with the rest.

The third thing to look out for is having no direction. What really helped me out with making this game is having a clear goal of what I want: a 3d action game about the last days of a terminally-ill henshin hero, taking place in a modern day city.

When you have no clear goal, you have no idea if what you’re currently doing is beneficial or detrimental to your game. You would have no yardstick to measure progress.

It’s fine to experiment without having decided yet what the game will look like, or what genre you’re going for, but I think even among experiments, the good ones are those that have at least some general direction of what they’re trying to test or prove.

This is the earliest photo I could find of my work on the game, dated 2014, Dec. 31. On my pen tablet display there is my early concept for Desparo.

There’s a lot of things to consider when deciding to make a game. I myself was thinking whether I make this game a turn-based, or a real-time action RPG. I was also wondering if I should do it in 2d or 3d, if I go with anime or realistic art style, etc.

I knew I needed to finalize my decisions if I ever hope to progress. I think the proper way to have done it would have been to make a turn-based RPG prototype alongside an action RPG prototype, and then compare the two. But in the end I just went ahead with the real-time action game, simply because I wanted to try out something new.

Sometimes, you start out making a game prototype with just boxes, and deciding it has potential, flesh it out further by attaching a theme/story/premise behind it. I think that’s also a viable approach. It just so happened Ghost Knight Victis started the other way around, with the story first before the gameplay.

And how do you get that spark of an idea of what your game should be? My game’s premise was a culmination of several ideas that have been brewing in my mind for a long time (years). After going through something pretty significant in my life and one lonely December, with two bottles of Tequila and playing through Transistor, all the incongruent ideas started making sense and fit together.

I’m not saying people need to go beat themselves up just to get something “cool”. In fact, if you have a content and happy life, consider yourself lucky if you couldn’t find inspiration to create something really artistic. Because those things tend to come from some deeply-buried, strong feeling, like anger or resentment. Then again, dealing with such thoughts are a normal challenge of growing up, living in a community, or even something as mundane as struggling with where to get a stable income. You just need to change your perspective on where inspiration comes from.

Fourth is to pace yourself properly. Match your expectations with what you can do at the moment. Aim too far out of your comfort zone, and you’ll likely fail, get discouraged, and stop trying. The trick is to aim only a little bit outside your comfort zone. You still compel yourself to improve, but at the same time, it’s a manageable amount of work for you.

Scrum and Kanban are the usual things to learn about here. I personally use Kanban a lot. The idea is simple:

As a task gets further along to completion, the more it moves to the right. But, you have one restriction: only up to 3 tasks at a time can be in the “Doing” column.

This means if you are already devoted to working on 3 tasks in the “Doing” column, and you want to work on something new, you have to finish at least one of those 3 first. This makes you concentrate on getting things done. It stops you from diluting your focus, trying to work on too many things at a time.

You could also decide to move a task from “Doing” back to the “Ready” column. But I normally do it only when either I realize something else is of more importance and I need to stop what I was doing, or perhaps I’m stumped and really can’t progress on that task, in which case I give up and swap it for a different task instead.

Scrum has a lot of techniques, but one thing I take from it is the idea of sprints. You do your work in a per 2-week period, called a sprint. On the start of each sprint, you decide what you will get done, and commit to finishing those tasks within 2 weeks. After those 2 weeks, you again pick which tasks to do for the next 2 weeks, and so on. This is also a method to help you focus on getting things done, because you only concentrate on a few tasks at a time, but it also forces you to take a look at the bigger picture and re-prioritize after every 2 weeks.

In my case, I don’t have 2 weeks. My sprint is only 2 days: every weekend. So I make sure each task I write in a card is achievable within 2 days. If I think a task can’t be finished in 2 days, I divide it into several subtasks.

For example, “obtaining items from chests” might be too complex, so I could divide that to these subtasks:

being able to define chests as a list of the items inside it, and being able to save that data to file

being able to place chests in the map, each chest being: a 3d model of the chest, and the data file saying what items are inside it

create the GUI art for viewing items inside a chest

put the GUI art in-game and adding code to allow it to react to user-input

implement the code for transferring items from a chest to the player’s inventory and vice-versa

Fifth is to concentrate on having a working, playable work-in-progress.

The thing to aim for here is that at the end of each sprint, whatever progress you make should be something that works in-game. It’s fine if you don’t get that all the time, but I think aiming for it helps pull everything towards that direction.

I think this video of Bayonetta’s prototype says a lot:

youtube

For reference, here’s how the final product looks like:

youtube

You can see from that prototype video that you can already start working on the gameplay even if you don’t have the art finalized yet (because the art can take a long time to get done).

I think that’s the wiser method of doing things, you get a playable work-in-progress without being stalled by the fact that the art is incomplete. It’s even better because it’s easier to adjust animations while they’re still rough: it’s less motions to re-arrange and tweak whenever you need to adjust it.

It’s also not good to base your judgement of how correct an animation is from just looking at it in Blender/Maya/etc. alone, because you aren’t seeing it being used in-game. For all you know, the sword attack you’ve been polishing for so many days doesn’t really work because the arc of the sword swing doesn’t really reach the intended target! Or maybe you didn’t realize that the swing is making the sword pass through the ground mesh unintentionally!

Or maybe there’s certain situations where your animation really just needs to be tweaked (when fighting inside narrow hallways, or when you are standing on a flight of stairs & attacking a target below you, etc.). It’s really better to test it out in-game as soon as you’ve established the key frames of your animation.

Frankly, this is something that I should learn to do myself!

And what about for the story? I think this is a neat trick in designing a prototype for your game’s story:

youtube

(the video’s about half an hour long, but it’s worth it)

The basic gist is that you design a “board game” out of your game’s story. And I think that’s the proper way to do things. There’s really more to it than what I just said, so I encourage you all to watch that video.

Sixth is to handle feedback as objectively as you can. As a solo developer, you will tend to see your game as your “baby”, something that in your eyes is a flawless creation.

Maybe you expect players to always do something, but turns out it never crosses their minds at all. That might be a symptom that you need to fix your game’s design.

Be clear with what you are asking feedback for. Just posting screenshots, and a vague “this is my game, suggestions and feedback are welcome!” will not help, because people will tend to give you suggestions that are not in line with the goal you have set in mind for the game, and you end up sounding defensive trying to explain things.

Explain your intent with what you’re specifically showing, and ask for feedback if people think your work achieved that intent or not. But start with a 2 to 3 sentence blurb that describes the premise of your game, to set the tone. Here’s a good tutorial for that.

Take the time to appreciate when people praise you, but don’t let it get to your head.You shouldn’t keep yourself in a circle full of yes-men, you will just not improve there. On the other hand, don’t think that just because you’re being the target of verbal abuse that you are finally getting the so-called brutally honest feedback.

You really have to ignore the emotional parts of what people post, good or bad. Read between the lines of what’s being said, to find the truly useful feedback you want for improvement (if there is even any in their posts).

But don’t just follow every suggestion that comes along your way. Sift through it and think about why someone said what they said.

In my first playable demo, many were complaining that the player should be allowed to move more responsively, to be able to cancel attacks into movement. But that went against my intention of giving it a Dark Souls type of combat (instead of a Dynasty Warriors style of combat).

I realized, people were having that problem because I placed far too many enemies in the level. No one suggested that I lessen the amount of enemies, but that was really my mistake with that one.

So there really was a problem, but their suggestion was not the best way to fix it.

Another example: When Magicka was still being developed, some beta testers complained that friendly fire ruins the experience, and kept suggesting to remove it, or at least have the option to disable it. But the developers doubled down on their decision to have friendly-fire, because friends hitting each other was part of the humor that they wanted to achieve, so they decided to leave it there, and they were right.

I’ll end all of this by saying, this is only my way of doing things. It’s perfectly reasonable if you discover a different way that works for you!

I always keep a bottle of Tequila handy under my desk.

#tips #gamedev #indiedev

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helenscarsdale · 6 years

Text

a few questions answered by robert hampson on the 1994 album ‘motion pool’ by main

when my editor at the wire proposed this idea of writing on the broader implications of 'less is more', i immediately thought of ‘motion pool’ by main as a distillation of the ideas and forms that had taken shape in loop. the following is a series of questions that were answered by robert hampson, the architect of both main and loop

questions:

with the statement on the back of that album ‘drumless space,’ rhythm was not necessarily eschewed but often made evident through a refined riff bolstered by studio tricks, electronics, samplers etc. when you were making that record, how did the concept of ‘drumless space’ guide the album?

in looking at the themes of loop — just from the titles themselves, ‘fade out’ “this is where you end,” ‘heaven’s end’ — there is a recurrence of annihilation. yes, this is something that simon reynolds mentions in blissed out, but i had wanted to revisit this idea once again but in the context of ‘motion pool’. as loop progressed through ‘a gilded eternity’ and you began main, that annihilation was manifest in sound. by the time you arrived at ‘motion pool,’ i find myself returning to a metaphor of the earth gone and the remaining satellites cast in vertiginous orbits circling that void. is a science-fiction reading apt? if not, where would a better metaphor be located?

what were the working methods for ‘motion pool’? this seemed right on the cuff of digital workstations becoming prevalent, but with midi, samplers, and global clocking, i have a sense of how such a precision was maintained throughout those recordings. could you elaborate on what technologies you were using and how you and scott approached them?

can you talk about your initial inspirations to the big rock ’n’ riffs? what is your perspective on the recent, re-activation of loop in the light of the deliberate deconstruction of those riffs through main?

will there be an ‘array 2’?

how did you and stefan mathieu begin with to work together as main? is there anything else you are working towards as main?

i did catch loop perform in san francisco. that must have been 2016, and i was pretty sure that you played ‘feed the collapse’ or was it another main track? are you still performing that song? how do you see those early main albums (‘hydra-calm’ ‘dry stone feed’ and ‘motion pool’) in relation to loop nowadays?

answers:

Basically, with ‘Drumless Space’, it was very much the idea of trying to abandon the rhythmic element identified with traditional percussive sound and making it more kinetic with what I had liked to describe as ‘outer sounds’.

Derived from other sampled elements, the notion of rhythm was built up by programming these samples in a similar way a drum machine was programmed, but the less percussive nature of the sound made interesting counterpoint elements, which could then serve as a layering textures to build around.

So, it served as very much as a directive in the making of Motion Pool. It has a very clear path of starting with more song like structures and gradually losing those stylings over the course of the record, until it became simply sound design and abstraction.

As soon as Main had started, it was a very evident approach to simply stripping away at the traditional sounds of a guitar, which was not new in any sense in experimental music approach, made by the like of Keith Rowe et al, but we were trying to find sounds that became so abstracted, it wasn’t identifiable at all as to what it was.

It wasn’t immediate, there was obviously a hangover from what I was trying to do in Loop, but it was a thought process and intentional for it to slowly evolve with each release.

Gradually, of course , guitars simply disappeared completely as being used as a source for sounds. They had reached the logical end in Main by the time of the Hz project and just evaporated.

I think it’s safe to say, I have an obsession with decay. It’s always been about things breaking down or simply fizzling out. Metaphors aplenty!

But, I have said this before, I like a notion of mystery in all the things I get involved with. I don’t like to explain things away too easily. I love the idea of people creating their own worlds or ideas around this kind of music. I like to think that there’s many different notions of what a certain track or piece can be about and that they can be wildly different.

The lyrics are always left to interpretation and the vocals are simply an element buried within other elements.

There are perhaps statements on the notions of decay in our world, how we could stop it, a dystopian view that we can’t and we have to simply accept that these are they way it works out. Everything has a starting life and a logical end.

Science fiction certainly plays a part as an influence. I’ve always loved the works of Philip K Dick and early J G Ballard was a massive influence, which remains to this day. Anthony Burgess, William Golding, Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury et al, they all have a great influence on how I like to shape these ideas.

Early Main recordings didn’t employ anything close to samplers or midi. It was all done in real time to tape or we used tape loops.

I was very suspicious (in hindsight, very stupidly) of samplers at first. But really that came from the very generic sense they being used in i.e. sampling a drum break.

But when I was working with Godflesh and Justin was using an Ensoniq EPS 16+ keyboard sampler, I became intrigued. It was real lightbulb moment for me and gave me the idea of replacing traditional percussive sounds in rhythmic patterns, which of course lead towards the ‘dreamless space’ concept, that kinetic energy coming from those ‘outer sounds’.

So i quickly got myself the Ensoniq and set up a Atari ST computer with the original Logic programme, then made by Emagic.

Triggering all these tiny samples with midi from the Logic was just a whole new galaxy opening up in front of me, and I never looked suspiciously again at that kind of hardware.

It easy to forget that in those days, sample memory was absolutely minuscule and buying memory expansions was very expensive.

But as in all things, less is more and it simply made you work harder for the goal ahead.

I did find the Ensoniq very limited in what could be achieved so that didn’t hang around that long once I embraced all this new tech, and I went straight into the world of Akai samplers and then upgrading to a very basic Apple computer.

This was all still triggered by SMPTE codes running off a 16 track tape machine and midi and then all the mixes were done live to DAT. We were not in the world of digital editing then. No ProTools for us… we simply could not afford it.

As Main and my solo work had become purely an experiment in abstraction, musique concrete and acosmatique textures, I did find myself going against all the tendencies I had maintained for so many years in my mind. i wanted to maintain all that I had created down the line, but felt an urge… I really felt like making a huge noise with guitars again, I can’t really put in fine detail why I had such a big change of heart. It still makes me laugh now that I did a complete about face on that.

I had been badgered by others for years to possibly make Loop a going concern again, and I had swatted away those notions more times than I can count.

But, simply put, one day I just really felt like going back to those styles again and seeing what might happen.

I do hope we will make more new Loop music, it’s there to be done. It’s been a strange couple of years, I’ve had a lot of issues to deal with, including someone trying to use the name Loop and it interfered with my workings so much so, i had to go down legal routes to put an end to that. It was not easy and basically takes up a lot of working hours, effort and financing to make people realise they’ve made a very serious error in simply adopting a namesake with such a long history and thinking it’s all ok to do so. The mind boggles… it appears Google wasn’t their friend.

I have to be honest, it drove me to thinking of removing myself from all this mess, it seemed more trouble than its worth. It did at one point make me want to stop Loop again.

But, no-one can deny I don’t have the patience and persistence needed to get through this kind of crap, and a large heaping of sheer bloody-mindedness helps too. I and many others were appalled at the situation that arose, and many other artists came to my defence. It truly mended a very weathered heart to know that I wasn’t losing my mind and fighting over a lost cause. Thankfully, thats over and it’s back to serious business.

I was aware of Stefan and his work obviously and we met whilst both working at the GRM in Paris.

We got along well and I had wanted to make Main a collaborative project again. I had not worked with anyone for a very long time, everything i was doing under that moniker or under my own had been very much solo affairs.

I really wanted to work with other people on ideas and projects and bringing that element back into the fold for Main was the obvious choice.

Main is certainly still a going concern and at some point, there will be more new Main pieces. Loop and all this legal maelstrom has taken up my time for quite a while and Main is just gently resting for now.

The next thing I have is reactivating my Chasm project. I have been working on that and it’s looking like it will be released on Karl O’Conner’s Downwards imprint.

No, we haven’t played any Main material in Loop. We’ve talked about doing Flametracer and There Is Only Light for a bit of fun, but that hasn’t been addressed yet. It may or may not happen.

The early Main material has trace elements of Loop. It was how I envisioned Loop going after A Gilded Eternity. It’s obvious it’s got my fingerprints all over it, it’s my signature I suppose. I like to think that all the things I do have some sort of link, a signature and that they are all part of the same jigsaw. All the pieces fit in some way or another.

#robert hampson #loop #main #motion pool #jim haynes

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sibaku · 6 years

Photo

Pokemon evolution(ary algorithm)!

For some details on the algorithm and implementation, see below ^^

Once upon a time I saw some images generated with basic shapes that tried to approximate some given image. Because I like the style, I made something like that myself. Problem was: There aren’t many good libraries to perform drawing shapes that also handled transparency and per-pixel operations. Coding all of that myself was too much work, so I used the easiest solution: JavaScript. Problem was... JavaScript is slow. Drawing a few hundred triangles and then comparing the resulting image to another given image was a lot of work, even using multiple workers to distribute it. I got maybe 5-10 images per second that way. The algorithm I use is pretty simple but slow... so it took hours for at least some reasonable results.

A few days ago I decided to revisit this thing with the help of my trusty GPU. Basically I redid everything so it runs completely on the GPU. I now have about 600 images per second!

Here you can see some of my most liked pokemon :)

Following are some more details on how it works:

The algorithm: Take a set of triangles. Each consisting of three 2D vertices and a color with transparency. Now you draw them all. Now you compare the resulting image with the one you want to approximate. This can be done for example by comparing each pixel and adding the squared differences of each color channel (squaring makes everything positive, which is good, and also is a nice and smooth function). If the result is better than your current best, use this new one as your new best. Now you go over your triangles and with some probability change their vertices or colors. Then repeat from the drawing phase. This is a simple hill climbing algorithm. If you are more precise, this isn’t really a evolutionary/genetic algorithm, as there isn’t a population with stuff like crossover happening. But being a bit more informal here (and for the title to make sense :D) I will still call it evolutionary. Just think of it as having a single individual reproducing. Only the best will survive and live as long as it stays the best, outliving all its children. Each generation mutates slightly and has to adapt to the environment. So I would say the naming is at least a bit justified.

The implementation: If you want to do something like this, here is the general recipe. You generally want to avoid transferring data from your CPU to the GPU and back, as copying stuff needlessly is not good. My implementation uses OpenGL, but you may choose any other API, as long as it provides compute shaders and writeable buffers (you could of course emulate that with textures or other techniques, but that would require some more thinking). You put all your triangle data in a buffer. I use one vec2 buffer for the positions (length = triangles*3) and one vec4 buffer for colors (length = triangles). Those buffers are bound as a shader storage buffer object (SSBO) and can be accessed by all shader stages. One Compute shader updates the triangles. Each work item processes one triangle. The only important thing here is, that you have to implement your own pseudo-random number generator. Probably the best way is to upload some initial random seeds and then use a simple linear-congruental generator (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_congruential_generator). I use a more involved Tau-step generator, which is probably overkill, but I had it l lying around (used it in monte-carlo simulations, where the randomness is a bit more important).

The drawing phase can be very simple. Just bind your SSBOs as vertex buffer objects and draw with triangles mode. Or the more complicated (which I did for some reason, probably because of some other code I used elsewhere...): Draw n=triangles instanced points. Use a geometry shader to generate a triangle for each point from the buffers. Then just render normally. Will probably change that and hope to see some improvements. The result is rendered in a frame buffer object with attached color texture.

The next step is just some screen quad/triangle shader comparing each pixel of the input image with the rendered one and calculating the difference. This is again put in a frame buffer object texture.

The important part is the error calculation. If you use some kind of sum of values, which is probably reasonable, you have the problem of it being more of a sequential algorithm. Luckily there is a parallel sum algorithm (for example here https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/GPUGems3/gpugems3_ch39.html). If you render the drawing in a frame buffer object, you can bind the output texture as an image and use it for read/write operations. Thinking about the image being just rows (or columns) layed out sequentially, it is easy to transfer the 2D image sum problem to a 1D one corresponding to the algorithm.

A simple shader with only one dispatch item just copies the result into another SSBO, where the current maximum is also stored.

Next compute shader goes over all triangles. If old error in the SSBO is larger than the current one, this will just copy the contents of the current triangle buffer to the “best” buffer.

Only copy to CPU and back operation I do is to download the error and draw the image on the screen and for some error difference output it as a file. Then upload the buffer with the updated current best error.

And that was basically all, in short form of course. You can of course do a lot better. Much to optimize, maybe use a real evolutionary algorithm, etc... But this was more or less a short two evening project, so it’s alright for now ^^

#pokemon #pikachu #charizard #algorithm #art #computer art #evolutionary algorithm #computer science #gpgpu #graphics card #opengl #compute shader

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

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The Lack of Flavor in ‘Emily in Paris’ Is Only Emphasized by Its Meals

Courtesy of Netflix

Among the Netflix series’s set pieces are a boulangerie, a brasserie, and a bistro, which represent Paris as artlessly as the show’s American protagonist

Democracy in the United States is either in its death throes or just a very painful midlife crisis. We’re a country led by a very sick, very silly old man. Meanwhile, a non-ideological virus is metastasizing thanks to ideological idiocy, and a fly is the star of the vice presidential debates since it is slightly more meme-able than systemic racism. Meanwhile, I’m trying to decide whether to pay for COBRA or child care. Recession turns deeper, expressions turn dire. Sartre looks like a Hallmark card. And amid all this chaos, more chaos: Netflix releases Emily in Paris.

What could have been, and should have been, a blissful escapist confection, the Darren Star — he of Sex in the City and Younger — production is instead a croissant of poop and pee that proves, as Sartre entitled his play, there is no exit. The remit of this review, like all Eater at the Movies, is how food plays into the show. In this case, all of Emily in Paris’s ineptitude can be refracted through the show’s boulangerie, brasserie, and bistro, which, like every other aspect of the city, is simplified into inane simulacra, a fetishized form whose richness and texture has been stripped away through Instagram filters and the willful trite presuppositions, not to mention arrogance and cupidity, of the titular character, Emily.

Though the series bursts with an admixture of Parisian errata and cliche, the first true food moment doesn’t pertain to Paris at all but to Chicago, the former home of Emily Cooper, the social media manager hero (with fewer than 50 Instagram followers?) who has left the Windy City for the City of Light. Upon meeting her boss’s boss at the Parisian marketing firm to which she has been assigned, the man says, apropos her home city, “I know Chicago. I’ve had the deep-dish pizza there.” Emily begins to say how proud Chicagoans are of it when he interrupts, “It was like a quiche made of cement.” To which Ms. Cooper replies, “You must have eaten at Lou Malnati’s.” There are literally endless fictional pizzerie to slag off. Combine any vowel-heavy chain of syllables and you have a mediocre joke that would land almost exactly the same. And yet, no, Emily in Paris chose Lou Malnati’s, a deep-dish institution in Chicago since 1971. Sure, it’s a chain, but a small one, and there might be (certainly is) better deep-dish pizza out there, but why pick on Lou? This isn’t David versus Goliath as much as Goliath flicking boogers on David, and to what end? In a bid for insider specificity, the series shat on a small business. And if the argument is made that any publicity is good publicity, that simply proves that the inherent ickiness of the character is, sad to say, true to life: that all we have is spectacle.

We are, I think, quite rightly in need of some sort of frothy fantasy. I mean, how many times can you refresh the New York Times or rewatch The Social Dilemma or listen to the next NPR Politics Podcast? But it is equally true that in times as trying as these, which are — and here is a truth out of which we can not wriggle — a consequence of our dysfunction, the hitherto benign escape routes we previously took reveal themselves as not quite as benign as we thought. Would Emily in Paris hit differently if it weren’t also true that we are watching in real time how social media has rendered reality subservient to our easily shared interpretations of it? I dunno, does smoking look so cool on film when your grandfather died of lung cancer? I think not. Despite the beauty Paris has to offer, the show is built on an ugly and insidious premise. Everything is content. Nothing is real unless extruded into a social media algorithm, ratified in its existence by the likes of others. There is no present. There is only post, and posting.

Almost countless times through the first three episodes, Emily and the other characters demonstrate a complete disregard for reality in preference for the platforms of social media (in the show, these posts float on screen, complete with followers and hashtags, like ethereal projections.) Paris isn’t Paris but, as Emily tells her Chicagoan boyfriend while Facetiming as she walks, “The entire city looks like Ratatouille.” Meaning that the character’s entire frame of reference is itself a cartoonish recreation, a copy of a copy of a copy.

In another instance Emily’s friend Mindy Chen, one of the very few people of color to make an appearance in this unrelentingly white show, says, “Have you ever had ris de veau?” to which Emily replies, “Why? What is that, rice with veal?” to which Mindy replies, “That’s what I thought too. I think it’s brains or balls, but it tastes like ass.” As a frequent and fervent eater of ass, I can say affirmatively this is not the case. Ris de veau, which are sweetbreads, are not brains, balls, nor ass, but the thymus. This isn’t Chef’s Table and we don’t need a slow-motion disquisition on it but, for the love of God, would it hurt to close the loop on that in some way so that the error, and yes, defamation of a protein doesn’t stand uncorrected? No, and the reason is that reality doesn’t matter.

Now, it should be mentioned that Emily’s paramour, Gabriel (Lucas Bravo), is a chef; in fact, he is the chef at the bistro at which the ris de veau conversation takes place. He is incredibly handsome. So handsome. Like if Armie Hammer procreated with one of the sturdier barricades in Les Mis — Gabriel would be the gorgeous offspring. I mean, even though I’m quite upset about this true excrescence while contemplating his torso and face, I’m filled with jouissance, with all its Barthesian overtones of orgasmic joy. And I guess the contemplation of his beauty has put me in a good mood too, because honestly the acting throughout the series is really strong and Paris’s beauty does emerge from the shitshow unscathed and even if the boulangerie are nothing but blank parodies of themselves and the scenes within them are riddled with continuity errors, to see such vast array of batards, baguettes, pains au chocolat, croissants, and brioche is enormously pleasurable. But anyway, as angelic as he is, Gabriel can’t save this carnival of fart smell.

Look, there is smart-dumb and dumb-dumb and the archetype of an ingenue American in Paris is well-trod territory both in the hands of Star himself (viz. the “An American Girl in Paris” episodes of Sex in the City) as well as by luminaries such as Godard in A Bout de Souffle. Sometimes a naif from the Midwest is a divine fool, recognizing truths unseen by those accustomed to them. But Emily in Paris is dumb-dumb. That is to say, the show is silly in ways that I can’t imagine they meant to be. Consider the croissant. At one point, as an indicator of Emily’s rapier wit, she takes a picture of a gaggle of French women, fresh from spinning, enjoying a post-workout smoke. “#Frenchworkout #Smokin’bodies” she writes in a judge-y Instagram caption. Unremarked upon is the fact that Emily, still clad in her running outfit (which reveals, it might be noted, a totes shredded six pack), is holding a croissant — which is totally fine, but an indulgence all the same. This falls into a pattern that presents paradoxes without comment and which seem sloppy rather than provocative. The most egregious example, I think, takes place at the bistro where, unbeknownst to Emily, her potential new boyfriend Gabriel works as head chef. In a trope as well done as a Shake Shack patty, she sends her steak back, complaining it is undercooked. This is then followed by a brief very American diatribe about how, in America, the customer is always right. Is she supposed to be ridiculous or relatable? At any rate, the steak is sent back to the kitchen and then presented almost immediately with the predictable reply that the meat is cooked as the meat should be cooked. Emily is on the edge of advocating for herself when she catches sight of Angel Gabriel and, in an act again of unremarked-upon deflation, quickly backtracks to say the steak is perfect as it is. What are we left with but an increasingly futile hope that this is all pretext for a massive late-season volta in which Emily, like Oedipus or Creon, realizes her shortcomings, gouges out her eyes, and exiles herself to the periphery? No, this fantasy holds as little promise in Emily in Paris as it does in Washington, D.C.

There’s an early scene when Emily first meets her new best friend, Mindy, who is working as an au pair despite (or in spite of) her familial wealth. In this scene, the pair are sitting in a Parisian park and Mindy’s charges, two towheaded French children, are playing by a fountain. Without asking, Emily snaps and shares a picture of the kid to her account @emilyinparis, demonstrating her growing habit of photographing and Instagramming people without their consent. In this instance, I got so mad I had to get up and do a lap around my living room. What irked me so much was that taking a picture, let alone sharing it, of minors is so fucked up and, as it happens, illegal according to France’s Penal Code (Sec 226.1) and yet here passes without mention as if it were de rigueur. The gesture takes something beautiful and alive and, with an unthinking sense of entitlement, pins it like a dead monarch for the display and edification of others, imprisoning it behind hashtag bars and digested in the maw of a rapacious feed. And this gesture, which is essentially one of disrespect, is at the heart of every line, in every bite of every morsel of every meal that is served in Emily in Paris. To see something you know is beautiful made to bow in order to enter through the narrow aperture of idiocy makes one lose one’s appetite. Sure, Paris is a city of lights, of beauty, of love and, yes, croissants. But the more you love Paris, which is to say, the more you love life, with all its complexity, nuance and agenda- and metric-defying splendour, the more you’ll find Emily in Paris unpalatable, if not downright degueulasse.

Joshua David Stein is the co-author of the forthcoming Nom Wah Tea Parlor and Il Buco Essentials: Stories & Recipes cookbooks and the memoir Notes from a Young Black Chef with Kwame Onwuachi. He is the author of the six children’s books, most recently The Invisible Alphabet, with illustrations by Ron Barrett. Follow him on Instagram at @joshuadavidstein.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2SGN8Rc https://ift.tt/3lwaHbG

Courtesy of Netflix

Among the Netflix series’s set pieces are a boulangerie, a brasserie, and a bistro, which represent Paris as artlessly as the show’s American protagonist

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2SGN8Rc via Blogger https://ift.tt/3jKvEPS

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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xseedgames · 7 years

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Ys SEVEN PC - Localization Blog #1

“Bring us Ys SEVEN on PC!”, the players said. “We want Ys SEVEN on PC!” The rallying cry echoed forth from all corners of the internet, and we knew it was only a matter of time before it echoed so loudly as to become almost deafening. Thus, we decided to silence the cries by giving the players what they wanted… and so Ys SEVEN PC came to pass, with its launch scheduled for August 30th (so soon!) on Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store by Humble Bundle.

But aside from a handful of screenshots and some emphatic assurances of quality, we’ve said and shown very little of this port, leaving you all to wonder, will it be any good?

Well, wonder no longer! I’m here to address all your concerns and assuage all your fears! So… let’s get right into it, shall we? We shall proceed in the tried-and-true form of the classic Q&A!

Q: Is this version of the game based on the Chinese PC port of Ys SEVEN from Joyoland?

A: No, it is not! This is a completely new port contracted by us. See my answer to the next question for more details.

Q: Is Durante porting this game?

A: No, he’s not. Nor is this a port from our regular programming guru, Sara. Due to the recent increase in the volume of PC titles we’ve been releasing, we’ve been forced to branch out and find new sources of programming wizardry to work with – and just as we’re very careful when selecting localization contractors to work with, we try to be very selective about whom we entrust with our partners’ code.

Since the particular group we’re working with for Ys SEVEN hasn’t yet come out and spoken of their involvement, we’ll respect their privacy and not name any names (you’ll be able to find out who it was soon enough when the game releases), but we will say this: these guys are GOOD. It’s a Japanese company that’s done extensive work on PC and console games alike, and they take a lot of pride in what they do.

Having never worked with this company before, we were initially wary (as we always are when working with somebody new for the first time), but they almost immediately proved themselves a true force to be reckoned with. The very first build of the game they sent us was basically a 100% playable port of the Japanese game from PSP to PC, complete with upscaled HD visuals and a 60 fps framerate. It looked great, played great, and ran perfectly on every one of our PCs. Plus, it was delivered to us much, much sooner than we expected.

And this was just a quick and dirty proof-of-concept build!

So if you’re worried about how the game will run on your system, or whether the port will even be any good… don’t be. These guys (who are apparently pretty big fans of the Ys series to begin with) clearly know their stuff, and have been an absolute joy to work with. We hope to employ their services again on future PC projects, and we hope you guys enjoy the fruits of their labor come August 30th.

Q: Will the PC version of Ys SEVEN have all the same features Durante added to the PC version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel?

A: Sadly, no, because most of those simply wouldn’t apply to Ys SEVEN. Remember, this is a game that was developed for the PSP, whereas Trails of Cold Steel was developed for the PS3. As such, there are limits to the visual enhancements that can be applied – without completely remaking the game from scratch, there will always be restrictions present here that you wouldn’t find in a game designed for HD visuals from the start. The most noticeable of these are the game’s textures, many of which don’t exist in high-res form. We experimented with upscaling these textures, but the results looked… less than ideal, and wound up highlighting other flaws (such as introducing very obvious texture seams and mismatches which are otherwise virtually unnoticeable).

Now, don’t go thinking this means the game will just look like a PSP title blown up to fill an HD screen! Far from it. Even if the textures are still rather lo-res in spots, the 3D models are all sharp as can be, with characters faring particularly well. There’s a lot more detail present on the characters now than ever before, helping to highlight their impressively fluid animations – and those animations look *especially* fluid at 60 fps!

But we do worry that those of you who’ve played Trails of Cold Steel PC might be a bit spoiled for choice after bearing witness to the sheer breadth of options available in that game’s admittedly brilliant launcher, so consider this a bit of advance notice: the launcher options for Ys SEVEN are far more basic, but the end result is a game that’s just as lovingly ported, and just as big an improvement over the original version. We feel that if you go into it with this caveat in mind, you’ll find yourself equally impressed with the end result.

Q: What’s this I hear about the text being updated?

A: Yep! As long as we were working on this game anyway, we figured, why not make some improvements in the process?

See, Ys SEVEN was the very first editing project I ever worked on when I was hired as a Localization Specialist for XSEED Games over seven years ago… and I was hired near the end of the project’s production cycle, so I had precious little time to work on it. I had a lot of help from our esteemed former editor Jess (whom many of you may know as the sharer of blobfishes on our Twitter, among many other things), but the time constraints and my overall newness meant that my editing wasn’t all it could’ve been, and a lot of minor errors slipped through the cracks. In addition to typos and grammar errors here and there, there were even spots where I’d gotten the context of scenes wrong, as well as a general inconsistency in terminology and capitalization rules from one file to the next. It’s mostly stuff that wouldn’t be noticed by the average player, but I’m certain some of you language nerds like me who played Ys SEVEN on PSP must have cringed at least once or twice before its conclusion (and not just from my poor attempts at humorous interjections).

But all that changes now! …Or most of it, anyway. I’m sure we didn’t catch everything, and there are still plenty of issues with the text only filling up a small portion of the dialogue window in which it appears (this was tied to the text limits we were initially given when working on this game seven years ago, so it was a bit too universal to address across the board). But the fact is, we made changes to over a thousand lines of text – most just minor corrections to spelling, punctuation, or word order, but some consisting of complete rewrites for better clarity or more accuracy to the original Japanese – so we’re pretty confident in saying that any returning Ys fans who play this game should find themselves more immersed now from beginning to end than they were seven years ago, and new fans playing it for the first time will have the best possible experience doing so.

And I’ve gotta say, it feels good to have revisited this text and made some of the corrections I’ve been dying to make for the better part of a decade! It definitely adds a sense of closure to my beginnings at XSEED, and I hope you all are able to notice some of these differences and appreciate the hard work that the whole localization team put into them – because this wasn’t just me going back and fixing things, but all of us making a group effort to give this script a new lease on life. It’s like we all banded together for a common cause, and I couldn’t be prouder to have been a part of it. And even though the majority of our changes are so small that you may not even notice them, we believe that the subtle effect they’ll have on your ability to become engrossed in the game’s world will make all of our efforts totally worth it in the end!

Q: Can we expect more ports like this in the future?

A: You’ll just have to wait and see! If we haven’t announced it, we can’t say anything about it. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have things in the works behind the scenes!

* * *

So, did I miss anything? If you have any further questions, feel free to pose them on our Facebook or Twitter – or on our forums at www.xseedgames.com if you want to reach out to me directly, since the forums are my usual stomping grounds.

And come August 30th (my birthday!), I hope you all have an awesome time with Ys SEVEN. As of today, it’s been exactly seven years since our initial release of the game, and while we weren’t quite able to time the release of the PC version so it fell on the same day, we’re thrilled we can bring this wonderful game (one of my personal favorites in the whole series) to a wider audience, and we hope to hear nothing but good things from you guys as you sink your teeth into it in two weeks.

Please enjoy your time in the land of Altago, everyone!

-Tom

#xseed games #xseed blog #xseed #ys seven #ys series #Falcom #long post #post: tom

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maukgame · 6 years

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Weekly Blog 7

Research and Inspiration

At this point in the project, research is pretty much concluded. :)

Progress and Process

In preparation for last week’s midterm presentation, I finished my modeling of the landscape and the new, simplified texturing. As I discussed with Laleh and Cherish prior to the midterm presentations, the product was the geological forms and the functional mechanics. Having met that milestone, now the work begins of placing and positioning assets such as trees, grasses, buildings, ships, and the collectibles. Additionally, I implemented the updraft functionality using an OnTriggerEnter script, which looks like this:

The updrafts I’ve chosen to visually represent using a smoke particle system that I’ve changed the colors of. Here’s what it looks like in-scene:

These updrafts will serve as a way for the player to regain altitude without losing speed, and will help keep a gameplay loop going. Here are some screenshots of the final textured islands, as well as the color swatches I created for making them:

I noticed the scale of the north island isn’t quite what I’m looking for. For reference, the north island is the intended final one the player will access, and will be the greatest test of their skill at the game. It’s going to be made entirely of rocks which the player must weave between, just above the surface of the water. Currently it’s scaled too big, and one of my goals is going to be to fix this as I begin implementing assets everywhere in the game. Here are the texture color swatches I created:

Notably, Unity 2018′s new texture layer functionality is still unfamiliar to me, so there are a few repeats of the same color stacked on top of each other. This was in order to get the layer blending effect I wanted, as there was occasionally a graphical error when trying to paint one layer on top of another. I still don’t completely understand it, but suffice to say the texturing is finished so it’s been handled well enough.

I’ve also begun looking at the sound design for the game. I’ve been taking extracurricular lessons in Logic Pro X for the last few weeks, and it’s my intention to use it in conjunction with Ableton Live to begin working on the soundtrack. Proxy sound could theoretically be implemented as early as next week, with final sound working in after that.

Reflection

I went into midterm feeling prepared for it, and I’m really proud of that. This project has really been a test of self-motivation, and I’m grateful to my past self for picking a project that I could make admirable headway on in a limited amount of time. I feel that Mauk is growing more and more polished and closer and closer to vision with each passing week, and I enthusiastically look forward to where this week will take me. My intention is to work on asset implementation with the larger intention being giving the player a better sense of scale, as this is something I find notably lacking in the bare bones version. I’m also going to try to implement a series of canvases before the actual scene begins so that the player will be given the narrative of who they are, what they’re doing, and why. I’ve been thinking of potentially writing a few verses in iambic pentameter, to echo some of the poetic history behind the mythology of Mauk like Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The actual meter of that poem is varied and complex and I don’t think I can match it, but iambic pentameter is something I’ve tackled before and think I could feasibly do again. I’ll do my best to create canvases that give the player the same pensive feeling I hope to give the rest of the game, with probably a simplified pictograph behind the text. A good reference for this would be the opening sequence of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C97nb7HzeuI

Granted, I’m not Nintendo so it probably won’t be THIS beautiful, and I intend for it to be more of still frames than scrolling, but this will give you an idea of what I mean.

Feedback

This week came with a lot of feedback as a byproduct of everyone submitting comments via Canvas! I’m going to address some of the topics that seemed to recur throughout a few comments.

The world feels too bare.

I completely agree with this statement, and the next step of the project is filling it with the things that will make that change! I understand why people feel this way and I agree, however I would remind them that this isn’t the finalized project by a long shot, and that the implementation of assets is meant to be a later-production part of the game development process. This will be resolved in the next few weeks, and polished by final. :)

Gameplay could tire the arm.

The setup I presented with is not the intended format for the final presentation. I envision players playing this game at a desktop computer, with the Leap Motion resting on the desk surface far enough forward that the player can rest their elbow on the table. This way, they have increased stability and won’t have to support the full weight of their arm for the duration of gameplay. It’s simply that, when presenting at the projector in the front of the room, it was most simple to stand and navigate from that position, with the arm extended downwards. This feedback is valuable, but it’s something that will be addressed by the intended presentation format for final, and that due to limited resources and time simply wasn’t available for midterm.

What will the end of the game be?

After collecting the third and final soul, I intend for the screen to basically “fade to white” and have another text-driven narrative moment that concludes the gameplay. Actual text has not been written yet, I’ll get the code working first for having the canvases appear the way I want. :) It’ll be something peaceful, I’m thinking of looking into quotations from a literary source or creating something myself. But there will be a conclusion to the game in the form of another narrative moment.

How will the player know they’re an albatross?

It’s my intention to introduce this with the first canvas - the title screen of Mauk. Following this, the sequence of narrative “pages” will inform the player of both who they are and the mythology behind what they’re doing, as well as indicating that their goal should be to seek out these souls and collect them.

Display of “points”?

Yes, there will be a UI that displays several useful pieces of information, including the number of souls the player has collected. As I currently envision it, on the screen CONSTANTLY will be an indicator of how many souls you have collected, an indicator of your speed, and an indicator of your angle of attack (pitch). Temporary UI elements that appear and disappear will be a fall warning (if you run out of speed and stall) and an updraft indicator (text that notifies you you’re in an updraft and disappears when you’re out of it).

Other birds/animals?

My animation background is unfortunately nonexistent. I want this game to come with a slight sense of isolation as well, as I think that will further the reflective and meditative mood. The combination of these lead me to the decision to not include other fauna in the game, however I think where this feedback ultimately relates back to is that feeling of “bareness.” Once I introduce the static assets, I think people will feel less like the game world is lacking visual interest.

Updrafts don’t look flush with the ocean.

I’m going to work on this, probably create a small cloud at the base of them to help disguise the fact that they’re vaguely conical in shape. This will be a polish goal that will be addressed once the more central components have been completed.

Audio conveyance of speed

This comment comes from Kelsey specifically, and wowza it’s a good idea. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me, but I’d been looking for a non-numerical (as in, the text that will be visible in the UI) way to help emphasize fast versus slow, and I think audio may be exactly the way to do it. I’ll see about implementing a wind sound effect that grows louder with increases in speed. Due to the degree of accuracy my speed has, I’m confident the transition between soft and quiet will sound nice. :)

Jittery camera

I think this was more obvious due to the large-scale nature of the projector screen in comparison with my laptop screen. Right now, the camera seems to “ratchet” a little bit between different angles, taking steps rather than moving in a perfectly smooth line. This is most obvious when the player is making very small adjustments to their angles, and significantly less noticeable when they’re making drastic changes (pulling into a dive or sharp turn). The issue has been noted, and I’ll try to look into why it’s happening once more core game topics have been completed. Smoothing out the camera is absolutely a goal, but in my opinion this will be something to think about after I’ve implemented things like game objects, the collection, and gotten the beginning and endings working.

#Weekly blog

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term2itmedia · 6 years

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Progression of M.A.R.S - Weeks 15-20 + Extra Research

M.A.R.S was a very interesting term. There might be another post after this, but for now I’ll give you the full process of what I did so far this term (using screenshots from previous posts).

Note, this may contain extracts from my previous posts because I either forgot the process or couldn’t word it any differently.

Cinema 4D - Captain’s Chair

For our first project, we were taught how to make a Captain’s Chair similar to the one in Star Trek, which if you don’t know, looks like this:

Because of the immense effort I have to take in order to re-create every detail on this chair, I chose to go simple by using basic shapes and sizes.

For this, I started out with a flat cylindrical base. Then, I added a cone in the middle of it to give it that base-y feel. A few more shapes are used within the cone to give the chair a spinning mechanic, which involved me making cubes, cylinders and spheres (I have no screenshots of the underside so imagine it for now). Finally, to give it a seat, I just used cubes and resized them accordingly. Now THAT is a lot of cubes in one model. If I did it practically with clay or super-sculpie instead of digitally, I would have done the same, only with a tougher base.

Then I had to transform the shapes into polygons to have a bigger base, tilted walls and sloped surfaces. This was done by making the object editable, selecting the Polygons selection tool and dragging the faces accordingly. This was tough to figure out at first, but now I think I’ve got the hang of it.

Mudbox - Alien-like Creature

Then we took to Autodesk Mudbox to make an alien. This required us to download a full human figure and adjust it with tools to level out spots, lumps and deformed body parts.

We then had to take THAT to Cinema 4D and make a little animation with the character rig (which also had to be downloaded and applied).

In the animation I made, the figure puts it’s arms into an “L” shape, shakes it’s head, and then kicks the viewer. Afterward, it thinks about what it did and then puts it’s hand on it’s head in shock that it hurt someone.

Nobody was actually hurt in the process, don’t worry.

This was VERY hard to do as the export process was absolutely horrendous and I can’t even begin to tell you how to do it properly because of how problematic it can be.

What I did first was selecting UVs and maps. Then I had to select the options I needed for my character to look good. I enabled paint map saving as well as two other essentials, and added filenames to the bottom of all but the paint map save.

After a lot of trial and error, that was done.

Unity - Gaming Time!

After all that stuff was done, it was time to move into Unity, a games engine! Personally, this was my favourite part of the entire project as I like to game/make games.

First I had to make Terrain by using GameObject > Terrain, and then scale up certain parts of it using Brush tools to lift it up. The textures on it come from Google Images, which have then been imported into Unity to be used there. The cubes, however, are stone cubes (also stock images). They are added by simply clicking on GameObject > 3D Object > Cube. After that, we had to import a Unity package that comes WITH Unity when you install it, which creates a character. A move-able character that you can control.

Then I chose to add a lot of floating cubes and make a parkour-like game as it was very basic and the gravity in-game can be altered to make it look like they’re on another planet. Some of those cubes move up and down continuously by code, which is what you see in the image above.

For the code, we originally used Adobe Dreamweaver as that was what we had in our selection of coding programs. We then switched to Visual Studio 2018 as that is apparently easier to handle your code with (sometimes it gets on your nerve with the auto-completion mechanic).

If you want to know, the game is written in C#. If you know Java, you can use that too. I currently know most of C#, so I chose to use that. If you’re curious, I know a little bit of C++ and Java. Anyway, moving on.

There were a lot of changes I chose to make with the game to both make it work properly and be good. This included having a lot of problems with code, movement and placement, and since this was a game that I played a lot, it was very easy to get distracted.

RESEARCH TIME

Kerbal Space Program

youtube

Kerbal Space Program is a game made in the Unity engine that appears to be a game where you have to stock up resources and upgrade your vehicle to fly it into space. While in space, you can visit other planets (and even land on them to explore!). Personally, I have never played this game. It does look interesting though because it requires strategy and good thinking in order to complete it, so I might consider getting it.

Escape From Tarkov

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Escape From Tarkov is another game made in the Unity engine that appears to be a game similar to Half-Life 2 (which is a game I have played), which requires you to run around with weapons and kill off people who try and capture you or leave you for dead. Just like Kerbal Space Program, you can modify your accessories/weapons to make them look better or insanely overpowered.

Hearthstone

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Hearthstone is yet another game made in the Unity engine that appears to be a trading card game similar to Yu-Gi-Oh (which is another game that I have played). The objective of the game appears to be to wipe out your opponent’s main card to win (which has a set amount of hitpoints, which is the amount of hits it can take before it gets wiped out).

BACK TO UNITY

The final part of this project involved me having to make a timer, a menu and give the planet a sense of darkness. The first thing I added was a timer, and a fail counter.

During the development of levels 3 and 4, I came across a cheat, where you can just jump up the very end of the landscape and skip levels 1 and 2, going straight to level 3. However, that is now impossible to do without hacking the game.

I have written a check in the game’s code to check if the player is far enough to the side, near the edge of the terrain. If they are, and they haven’t completed level 2 yet, they will be stopped in their tracks, and “YOU! SHALL NOT!! CHEAT!!!” will pop up in the interface.

I put the text there for humorous purposes, as it calls out the cheater directly. I might change this text however, or just remove it entirely, seeing as it isn’t really needed. The text is also, you guessed it, a reference to “You shall not pass” from Lord of the Rings (I haven’t seen the movie but I know of the memes associated with it).

Another feature I have added in is Fog. Fog is directly implemented into Unity, so I just have to check a box within the “skybox” that says “Fog”, and this is the result. I’ve added it because it adds a dark feeling to the world and also makes invisible objects visible again (cubes that blend with terrain behind them, making them very difficult to see).

I have built the menu outside of the map, VERY far away, so that even if fog wasn’t enabled, nobody would be able to see it from the planet map.

The menu was made with triggers, or invisible objects that make the game do things when the player interacts with them. Say for example, if you want to walk into a cube and get teleported to another map, you can set it to do that via triggers and… ahem, code.

If you cannot understand this, don’t worry. First of all, the game checks to see if the player is colliding with a mesh (which is what the trigger is made of, mainly). It will then check the TAG of that object, whether it’d be Mode 1, Mode 2, Void or whatever.

If one of the tags matches it’s respective tag in the list of statements, then it will either teleport the player or make the game do things, such as increasing the fall counter by 1 or setting the level count to 3.

Now the game is fully built and is ready to play on Windows, Mac and Linux.

What was your initial plan with this? What did you focus on and WHY?

I chose to focus on game design as that is my main comfort zone within the three, plus it is the easiest for me to get the hang of. Plus, I have about 8 years experience in game design (although 7 of them were spent in the Scratch engine, then I moved to Game Maker and Unity).

I chose to do it because I couldn’t see myself making a standout sculpt or very wacky spaceship with interior design. Maybe I could’ve done one of the other two I had more time.

What is your story?

The story is that the first people who went to the moon for the first time in 1969 found a mysterious object on the way back to Earth. This was thought to be a planet, so they sent somebody else there (who is you, the player). They are now trapped on the planet with no way out but to get to the top of the cliffs and hope.

Inspiration?

Apart from the moon landing and my game design experience, none.

Review?

I... have just explained that in the rest of the post beforehand. I went over all three aspects.

Final Evaluation?

Personally, I think my game turned out very good. The only thing I would do to improve it is learn more of Unity to add more fonts and even a glitch-like effect with night vision, along with maybe a few more levels or even some enemies that try and stop you from progressing. However, I couldn’t do so due to the fact I had to test it over and over again for about four hours, which didn’t really allow me to stick to my original plan, which was to have a boss-like level in the game where the platforms get destroyed as soon as you step on them, making it a very difficult Level 5. In all seriousness, this was a very fun project for me as I enjoyed every single step of it. I have learned a lot about the digital industry and 3D game design. The only hard steps I had was near the end when I compiled the game and found out my interface had to be re-aligned, along with a menu issue, which instead of using a proper buttoned menu I used hotkeys instead (cheating). Again, if I had more time, I would’ve made a proper menu, made the boss level and even more elements. But now we’re here at the end, with a game that is good enough... and difficult as well, for everyone else. Because I have experience in C# coding, that part wasn’t hard at all. All I had to learn was the proper elements of Unity as there are a LOT of code tidbits that Unity adds to make things easier.

Final Research about Cinema 4D - 5 Examples of what was made in it

1 - This picture was made in Cinema4D using lighting, shapes and fog. From the looks of it, it looks like the car in front of the driver is going to pull out of the fuel station, or is just going to sit there forever. I like it because it looks so realistic, which is very tedious in 3D software.

2 - Another realistic picture, but this time with a building in the middle of a forest. This looks like it wasn’t even made in Cinema4D at all, and that is why I like it.

3 - A semi-realistic picture of a giant vehicle puffing out red smoke before (what looks like it will be) driving off, crushing about 400 people. This reminds me of Cars 2 for some reason. Deserted village, car-... oh wait, the car is a TOASTER? Well then... Anyway, I like this picture without reason. I just like it.

4 - A realistic picture of a sink with some utilities beside it. This was done with transparent shapes to give the water it’s reflective effect, hence the mirror (which is probably just a plain copy of the scenery from this side). Again, I like it because it is a realistic picture, plus the detail.

5 - Another realistic picture that doesn’t look like it was made with Cinema4D at all. It looks like an abandoned fuel station with what looks like a giant ball near it. Do I have to say I like it? Well yes, because of the detail it has to make it realistic.

These five images are directly pulled from the Cinema4D website, the gallery: https://www.maxon.net/en-gb/gallery/

Phew, that was a lot of research and reflection. Again, there may be another post after this, but if not, then I’ll see you in my FINAL MAJOR PROJECT!

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fan-tastic-fiction · 8 years

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Fanfiction Author Profile Friday

This is the fifth interview in what I hope will be a long running series! I think people need to feel more connected to the brilliant authors behind their favorite fics, I also feel that fic authors need to be taken just as seriously as published authors and treated with respect and admiration in the same way. Making money should not be the only way to gain prestige! Some of the best peices of writing I’ve ever read have been fanfictions and they are often equal or superior to published stories. If you have a story or author recommendation, let me know! And if you have a question you’ve always wanted to ask your favorite author, message me and I’ll try to make it happen!

Pen name: sunken_standard

Age Range: somewhere between 30 and menopause

Is English your first language? Unfortunately it’s my only language. Four years of high school German and all I can remember is how to ask to go to the bathroom and the word for potato. Don’t even ask me about the Learn French in Your Car tapes.

How long have you been writing? Since I was a kid. I think the first story I ever wrote was Star Trek: TNG fanfic when I was like, 11?-ish. I wrote a lot in high school, and then real life happened and I realized I’d never do it professionally. I started back up with fanfic in 2007.

What do you think your strongest piece of writing has been? Longer Than The Road That Stretches Out Ahead, by far. I kind of feel that I reached the pinnacle of my ability with that and it’s all been downhill from there (hence the four years of radio silence).

Your weakest? Everything that hasn’t seen the light of day. For every word of fic I’ve posted, I’ve got 30 words of unfinished garbage on my hard drive. I can pick apart any of my fics, though.

What is your favorite website for posting your writing and why? AO3. It’s brilliant. Curated archives and LiveJournal are a fond memory, though.

What do you find most challenging about writing fanfiction in particular? Voice. Keeping characters in character and putting their mannerisms into words that make sense. Also the balance between Hollywood realism and reality, especially when getting from point A to B. Writing outside my own culture can be pretty tough, too. The nuances are murder.

In your opinion, what can the fanfiction community do to encourage fanfiction writers to continue their art? Stop being assholes to each other. Having opinions is great and expressing them in constructive ways can help us grow as people, but all the “you are wrong and everything you think is wrong because you are a bad person” bullshit needs to end. It’s worse than a high school cafeteria sometimes. No one wants to parachute into that minefield when they’re only going to be told that they suck because the product of their creativity is fraught with errors and is undermining the future of everything by falling short of some arbitrary moral code. I don’t think fandom should be a safe space, but it should be a civil one.

What was your favorite review or comment? I’ve had so many favorites and I appreciate every single one. It’s always rewarding to know that people are connecting to something I wrote in very personal ways. I’m really bad with responding to comments. Praise is daunting.

What type fanfiction do you enjoy reading? Depends on my mood and what fandom I feel like reading in. I’m not a fan of fluff. Purple prose is really, really not my thing. I like slow burn and angst and complexities without clear resolutions. I like thoughtful porn. I like darkfic. I’m pretty ambivalent about character studies (are those even a thing anymore?), but I like them more than meta. I love a good AU/ fusion, because they’re really, really hard to write. Probably 90% of what I enjoy reading is slash; in most cases I don’t think the source material of my favorite fandoms lends itself to het in ways I like to read, which makes me sad.

What are some of your favorite fanfictions or fanfiction authors? I don’t usually namecheck because I feel weird about it, but maybe_amanda is a favorite (and a friend!) who really made it okay to ship a pairing that was pretty much anathema back when the Sherlock fandom was in its infancy and did it so beautifully that it’s still an intimidating shadow to inhabit. Also berlynn_wohl, because she can take any concept, no matter how what-the-actual-fuck and turn it into a textured, nuanced piece that isn’t just porn or crack, and she can do it across multiple fandoms. And rageprufrock, whose sheer quality and quantity and diversity of output I can’t help but envy—they’re like the Joyce Carol Oates of fanfic.

What are some major influences on your writing? Without being douchey and pretentious, I like to think Southern Gothic and Beat lit have influenced me in the way I use language. Also Stephen King and Douglas Coupland, weirdly. I try not to let all the bad Harlequin mommy porn I read as a kid creep into my writing but sometimes it does in all its throbbing, heaving, turgid glory. Film is another big influence. I enjoy cinematography and when I write, it’s more like I’m trying to transcribe a movie shot-by-shot than I’m thinking in actual words. Oh, and music. Some of my strongest scenes were inspired by a song. Almost everything I write has a soundtrack.

Anything else you would like to tell people about yourself? Not really. I’m an over-sharerer with no sense of what’s appropriate for any given situation, so it’s usually better if I don’t even start. I’ve got the JD Salinger recluse thing happening, but I really do like talking to people.

I would like to thank @sunken-standard so much for their time! Their Sherlock fanfiction “The Road That Stretches Out Ahead" which is widely considered one of the best Sherlolly fanfictions in the fandom was featured on this page recently and I would like to encourage you to go and read it as well as their other fics! Remember to leave comments and kudos in support!

#fan-tastic-fiction #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #author interview #sunken_standard

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nock-nock-aftershock-blog · 7 years

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World Of Warships Aimbot Download

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douglasberger-blog · 7 years

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Why ADHD is a Strange and Often Misunderstood Diagnosis

By Douglas Berger, Psychiatrist Tokyo, Japan

ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a commonly diagnosed condition said to affect almost 10% of the population. However, this diagnosis is often frequently misunderstood for a number of reasons, not the least being that the medical community has tried to make a complicated problem fit neatly in the four letter ADHD acronym. At least this was better than the previous diagnostic congener for ADHD called "minimal brain dysfunction", we can all imagine the problems associated with this kind of label. This short article will attempt to explain why ADHD is still such a misunderstood diagnosis.

Strangeness 1:

Persons with lots of attention problems often have a mess of hyperactivity associated with their inattention and vice-versa, but not necessarily. Sometimes inattention and hyperactivity are shared equally making for an egalitarian mess. The true diagnosis should really be "ADD and/or HD" under a diagnostic section titled, "Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorders", but this kind of diagnosis is not as compact as ADHD so that ADHD has held on to its troubled namesake.

Strangeness 2:

Now Strangeness 1 leads to some further problems. It's common for hyperactive patients to clamor they are quite attentive to their surroundings, not messy, and get lots done so they can't possibly have ADHD, and inattentive patients to clamor that they are not hyperactive so don’t have ADHD. Now the doctor needs to dig-in and explain that the ADHD acronym was made to give the disorder a sleek 4-letter look but it’s not so simple as 4 letters.

Strangeness 3:

While most psychiatric disorders cause trouble functioning, persons with ADHD may actually accomplish a lot of things- for better or worse. This can frequently lead these persons to deny they have a problem. Impatient and hyperactive persons can get a lot done (perhaps our newest head of state's brash spatter of activity comes to mind), and scattered and inattentive persons can hyperfocus on specific tasks better than anyone else (perhaps Einstein's messy hair and mess desk comes to mind).

Strangeness 4:

Young children with hyperactivity may have tantrums and run-around in class. Older children can be "class-clowns", pull pranks, blurt things out, or be aggressive, but the running-around hyperactivity gets better over time. As an adult, these people can become argumentative, impatient, and frustrated easily. They may deny they have hyperactivity disorder, and indeed they are not hyperactive, their hyperactivity has transformed into impatience, and this is a problem with the diagnosis of "Adult ADHD" which now you see should really be called "ADD and/or HD with/or without Impatience".

Some adults are hyperactive but do not show impatience or frustration. Hyperactivity is still hyperactivity, though hyperactive signs such as being fidgety, biting fingernails, tapping one’s pen on a desk frequently during meetings, etc. are not readily thought of as hyperactivity by the general lay person (no one sign alone makes a diagnosis). Impatience with slow persons, elevators, other cars on the road, waiters/waitresses, phone operators, etc. are common in everyone, but can clearly be seen to be part of a disorder when frequent and of some intensity out of proportion with what is logically necessary. It is almost like these persons have a mental “time-contraction” where waiting one second for them is the same as waiting a minute for a normal person.

Strangeness 5:

As alluded to in Strangeness 3, persons with ADHD can have hyperfocus and actually focus very well on a specific topic. The problem is that these persons over-focus or "zone-in" to some topic at the expense of relating to significant others (who may get irritated), and they may not be able to do a normal variety of activities. This can be exemplified by a scientist or academic who has an office full of paper piles, looks scruffy, is scattered and distracted in daily life, but is very knowledgeable about their particular area of expertise, or the teenager that spends hours just writing programing code and putting software up on the internet at the expense of normal social interaction, but lands a great job without even going to college.

Strangeness 6:

Hyperactivity often improves greatly from childhood to adulthood. Adults only rarely have tantrums, push in line, or show aggravation in public. Some do, however, and some show derivatives of hyperactivity they had in childhood: impatience, over-critical of others, irritated over small things, intolerant, road rage, air rage, pushing others, getting red with anger while arguing, etc. Inattention however tends to persist in adulthood; scattered objects in the home, disorganized papers, not following directions, etc. can all be seen in adults as well as in children. In fact, adults may have more trouble because the expectations are higher on them.

Strangeness 7:

What about the medication treatments for ADHD? Again it is not straight forward. First, having strong signs of ADHD does not mean the person will respond to ADHD medication (this is basically true for the medication treatment of any psychiatric disorder). Many persons give up because there is no response without realizing that a trial-and-error of drug doses and drug types, or combinations of types, is necessary in psychiatry. Some persons have side-effects, like headache, feeling too antsy, heart racing, insomnia, etc. Again this doesn’t mean that medications don’t work, it means the dose should be lowered or the drug type changed etc. Many patients make negative or giving-up conclusions about their medication treatment without looking at the treatment as a process that has to unfold.

Medications for ADHD can “clear the clouds” of attention deficit, decrease impatience and fidgetiness and increase focus. Persons can remember what they read and organize their life better. These medications can also cause normal persons to feel revved-up and engage in more activities than they usually do. Normal persons on these medications may also have increased focus and so that response to medications may not clearly confirm that the person had ADHD.

Strangeness 8:

With all the strangeness noted above we would think it couldn’t get worse. What is a better way to make professional fame and fortune than to create a new diagnosis and of course a treatment system for this diagnosis? The more non-specific the diagnosis the more potential clients one can have. “Sensory Integration Disorder” (SID) is one example of a diagnosis and treatment deriving from ADHD although it is not recognized by mainstream psychiatry. These persons (usually children) are said to have a sensitivity to various stimuli: noises, certain textures on the skin, and they may have distraction and focus problems and/or anxiety, hyperactivity, and oppositional behavior. This sounds like the designers decided to mush a few common symptoms of Autistic, Anxious, and ADHD children (“the three As”) in to one “super diagnosis” that deserves the special (and costly) treatment the designers created, naturally it’s called, “Sensory integration therapy (SIT)”.

The therapy is also non-specific and neither the therapy nor the treatment have been validated (there is no way to double-blind this kind, or any kind of behavioral or psychotherapeutic intervention). Brushing the skin, improving coordination, “desensitizing” the nervous system over years of frequent and expensive treatments are more strangeness. Considering there are none or very few adults with sensory symptoms like this, it is likely that just letting children grow up in a loving environment, giving them a good education, and focused treatment for a clear instance of one of the “three As” if needed, will result in adults with few of these problems. For a closer view of SID and the problems involved please see this link: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/sid.html

Disorders and Treatments

What about “standard” psychiatric disorders and their treatments? Some could argue that maybe they should be thrown out the window, however, this requires a nuanced approach. Some psychiatric diagnoses like depression, ADHD, and schizophrenia have a better validation than others such as personality disorders. See my article in LinkedIn on, “Are Diagnoses Real in Psychiatry” here for the full discussion: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/diagnoses-real-psychiatry-douglas-berger-m-d-ph-d-?trk=pulse_spock-articles

For treatments, psychotherapy (including psychoanalysis, cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness or meditation, etc.) may help persons function better in some ways. However, because psychotherapy research can not be studied in a double-blinded manner, there has never really been a validation of these modalities as being effective in any psychiatric disorder as bias due to hope and expectation in the subjective measurements of psychiatric conditions can not be eliminated (many studies have been done but none are single-blind (=patient blind), or patient and treater blind (=double blind) so that lay person and professions alike are frequently not aware of this huge problem. Masked raters only record the subjective report of the patient and is often mistakenly called single-blind (google “definition of single-blind”).

So while psychotherapy may be helpful for some symptoms in some persons, they are also over-sold as cures for a number of different psychiatric disorders. For medication, although outcome research can be double-blinded, blinding is not always effectively maintained (i.e., persons may sense they have a “drug” in them). For some persons medication treatment seems crucial, but there is also over-selling of medication to persons without a clear need. See my article on the problems in blinding outcome research published in f1000 here: https://f1000research.com/articles/4-638/v2

If your more confused now it is because diagnoses and treatments in psychiatry requires a nuanced understanding: confusing diagnostic terms that cause patients to deny that have the problem specified to them, over-selling and over-marketing of diagnoses and treatments, and unvalidated “me-too” for-profit treatments are springing up all the time. For example, running, juggling, meditation, and Tai Chi, are all valuable activities, but these activities can not be double blinded either so there is really no way to validate these kinds of activities as a treatment. Some of these have even been shown to help brain growth, but then again, most any activity that stimulates the brain will cause neuronal growth, also called “plasticity”. Perhaps you’ve noticed in the few seconds it takes to read these sentences that the only activities noted here amenable to making a profit for a therapist, meditation and to some extent Tai Chi, are actually the ones marketed by therapists. We don’t really need a therapist to run or juggle.

Of course psychiatric disorders do exist in the POPULATION even if the exact definitions and labels used to name these disorders have not really been validated. The problem is that it is harder to pin-down an exact label on an INDIVIDUAL with high accuracy. While the profession clearly needs to do more about educating the public about the problems in the validity of the current psychiatric disorder classification and in the outcome research of the treatment of these conditions, mental health professions fear letting the public and insurance companies know that we have so many uncertainties.

Douglas Berger, M.D., Ph.D. U.S. Board Certified Psychiatrist Tokyo, Japan

For more information about Douglas Berger Psychiatrist Tokyo visit the following website:

http://douglasbergerpsychiatristtokyo.com/

#Douglas Berge #Psychiatrist #Psychiatrist Tokyo

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