#poorly rigged video game characters

[pop-punk-girl-thing]

do you ever love someone so much that you like. want to clip your hitbox into theirs? not even like sexually, just like romantically

[mistmoose]

I'm only twenty minutes into Deliver Us Mars and already I'm wondering who TF did the rigging on this model because girlie is standing/walking/running like she's got an invisible cylinder between her fucking thighs.

She looks awkward af and I can't help but think it must be so painful for her to even move.

I'm hoping like hell it's just a glitch and it rectifies as I continue playing because otherwise, I'm going to have to start side-eying KeokeN Interactive and their tenuous grasp of human anatomy.

[microtonalmatt]

Redesigning Aife

Hey so it's been a while since I did or said anything with/about Beeknighted. After the launch of the demo disc, I updated the game feverishly for a couple weeks, but I got into some dire financial straits and was looking for more work for a long while. I also took a break from Beeknighted to work on Star Crucible, which was only intended to be a one-month quick little project for a game jam that has spiraled out of control. It's still in the back pocket but I need to let it simmer for a while I refine some of its ideas.

I'm now working on a third project, this time something I'm telling myself I'll actually get done in a short time (I know, I know). But I just couldn't stop thinking about things I wanted to do with Beeknighted. I've been writing characters, chunks of the main quest, designing weapons and items, all just on paper because I haven't really had a chance to properly work on it for a while. But I thought I shouldn't set aside both Beeknighted and Star Crucible without at least dropping a crumb or two, so I've been working on the redesign of Aife, the bee.

First off, why the redesign?

The bee was the first full 3D model I had ever created, textured, and animated. Period. It had...a lot of problems and beginner mistakes. And I didn't just wake up one day and bust out a perfect model of what was in my head. Version 1.0 of the bee was...quite frankly horrifying.

Yeah, it...it was bad. It was made in 3 days for a game jam using youtube tutorials for a guide (which was not the fault of the tutorials at all, simply user error). When I decided to develop the game further, I set about retexturing the model, thinking I could save the geometry. I really just cleaned up the face and body.

But this didn't fix the underlying faults with the model. The rig was just plain bad. There were weird issues with weights where if you bent the character too far forward the head would shrink, the hair couldn't animate well, there are no shoulder bones so no shoulder movement, lots of issues all around. Those weren't easily fixed when I already had made around 40 animations using the rig.

There were also issues with the body geometry. The arms/hands/legs/feet/wings were all fine, but the head, thorax, and abdomen, to get technical, were all imperfect. There's weird shading issues you can see on the body that are a result of bad topology. A failure to properly triangulate the abdomen caused it to look weird at some angles. And the head is just poorly modeled overall. It uses a lot more triangles than necessary and doesn't achieve the intended design goal. Heads are hard, faces even more so. She doesn't even have a nose.

Even if you can excuse the mediocre rigging and amateur geometry, you can't excuse the biggest problem of all: my crime against video game collision shapes:

I shouldn't even be allowed to touch a computer after this atrocity.

It was really important to me that the collision represent the shape of the character for the combat to feel precise. But this disaster meant platforming is all over the place. Not to mention if the character gets horizontally wedged between two walls, there's no escape because the character can't turn around. I had thought "Spyro did it [an oddly shaped character], so can I" but I am not a seasoned Insomniac developer. Even so, I don't know how I was allowed to sneak in this egregious sin against video games for so long.

So in short, these changes had been a long time coming.

The goals of the redesign:

First and foremost, the bee had to stand more upright (or else more horizontal, not diagonal) so that I could use a regular upright collision capsule. At the same time, I wanted to maintain as many bee elements as possible.

The abdomen had to be a bit smaller and more out of the way so the player could always see where the feet were landing for platforming purposes. This was a bigger problem than you'd think.

The character had to appear older but still look small. This was simply a mistake in the old design that the face looked too young by the nature of me struggling to draw faces + the bad geometry. The bangs were meant to hang down more but the model didn't allow for it.

Details needed to be crisper, bolder, and chunkier. When I played the demo on my CRT, I noticed the thinner points of limbs threatened to get lost on screen. N64 characters tend to be noticeably more chunky to compensate.

My inspirations for the initial character came from a range of sources. Obviously with the game being inspired by N64 graphics, I picked inspirational references from contemporary characters, as well as characters from media that had been created/released in the run-up to the N64 that might have inspired later works. I wanted the bee to look like a mix between a silent JRPG protagonist (or, y'know, Link wouldn't be a bad pick) and classic fantasy/horror anime female protagonists (the ones that all have that same long hairstyle, black/dark hair, poofy bangs in the front).

My moodboard included Yuuko from Valis, Utena from Revolutionary Girl Utena, Popful Mail, Aika and Fina from Skies of Arcadia, a handful of leading ladies from late 80s/early 90s horror OVAs (like the kind Madhouse was putting out at the time, but usually worse), and some Fire Emblem characters.

The N64 doesn't really have a lot of 3D "anime" characters to use for references. You've got the oft-maligned Quest 64, some of the bosses from the Goemon games (all the npcs are very chibi), and some of the more anime-inspired characters from the Zelda games and a handful from Megaman 64, though Megaman's art style and way of 3D modelling is fairly unique in its own right.

I suppose I should emphasize that while the main character and some of the side characters are anime-inspired, the point was not to make an anime game per se. I chose the look because of its potential to create expressive and amusing faces because I wanted the bee to have as much character as, say, Link from Wind Waker, who is constantly emoting about anything and everything.

The New Version

Aife's new model sports a totally remade head and body. While using the old limbs, I thickened them up a bit for visibility while still trying to maintain that bug-like spindliness. The abdomen is slightly smaller and the geometry is simplified. I simply didn't need that many triangles. She stands more upright, and the head is in a more natural place above the shoulders, and the human-ish proportions are better. The redone body uses vertex colors, rather than textures, but leaves the option open to texture new costumes. I also redesigned the bangs to drape lower on the face but not get in the way of the expression. The old bangs made the character look too childish, imo. All of the textures have been redrawn, simplified, and cleaned up. She now has a nose.

Despite all of the improvements and added details, the model weighs in at 100 fewer triangles than the old model, for a total of 672 tris.

I'm much more confident that this new Aife will be better suited to the highly animated gameplay required of her, and can't wait to dive into the rigging/animating process. But that's all for now!

[antisocialxconstruct]

PLEASE WRITE AN ESSAY ABOUT SRHK IT SOUNDS GREAT

gfdsg OKAY WELL... it's a topic I've got stashed away for a possible video for the Hypothetical YT Channel but I can give sort of an overview 👀 These games are kinda old by now but spoilers for individual character arcs (not the central plots) in both Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong, for anyone who's concerned about that.

Basically in my opinion one of the most poorly aged and problematic elements of Shadowrun lore is the concept of "essence." From a game mechanics standpoint it makes perfect sense, the more cyberware you have and the more specialized you are for decking/rigging or combat, the less magic you can do. It's just a way to balance things so no single character can do too much of everything. What I don't like is how this is canonized by tying essence to a concept of someone's ~soul~ and humanity, so what you end up with is pretty much cut-and-dry "the more your body is changed the less human you are." The fact that it's also associated with psychosis and the risk of becoming violent is uuhh... a Bad Look. It's just ableism and saneism any which way you slice it, and it's especially frustrating because it would have been so easy to make it just... Not That.

But! I feel like someone (or multiple someones) on the Harebrained Schemes writing team must have had a personal vendetta against essence because there are at least three characters between Dragonfall and SRHK that feel like they were explicitly and specifically written to challenge that idea and then explore it further.

The first one is one of the main teammates, Glory, in Dragonfall. When you first meet her she's presented as exactly the stereotype you might expect of a "burnout" who sacrificed all their essence and ability to do magic for mods. She's cold and distant, doesn't seem emotionally invested in anything, and more or less comes off like little more than a killing machine. But then this crazy thing happens... you can talk to her, check in with her after runs, ask her about herself, and pretty quickly she starts to light up. She emotes more, expresses stronger opinions about things, and eventually opens up to you about her (pretty devastating) past. In my opinion it seems fairly evident after a while that the thing making her come off distant and unattached wasn't her cyberware, it was good ol' fashioned unresolved trauma. She came from multiple environments where her emotions, both positive and negative, were punished or weaponized to hurt her or others around her, while she was made to feel like she was already less than human because of her magical affinity. So when she eventually got away and made the decision to cut herself off from her own power, she attached her emotions to that process, and convinced herself she had cut them out as well, that she didn't need to be human anymore. But she still feels, and she feels strongly, once she realizes she's being given a space where she can do that safely and without punishment.

Then in Hong Kong we have two characters who interestingly contrast each other but I think touch on the same idea: Ambrose, the local street doc, and Racter, another teammate. Glory elected to have her mods installed, but both Ambrose and Racter received theirs out of necessity. They're mobility aids. Ambrose is a lot more visibly so than Racter, but they are both disabled. Right from the start Ambrose seems to go directly against the stereotype: after a disastrous accident he's more machine than man at this point, and at one point even describes his own remaining essence as "a shred," and yet he's boisterous, personable, and shows remarkable respect and compassion for all his patients. While deeper talks with him reveal that he carries a lot of trauma from that experience, it seems as if he's had time to work through it, find his own coping mechanisms, and build a community around himself that keeps him connected to his sense of self. On the other hand, Racter also eventually discloses that he has extensive cyberware as the result of an accident, but believes he avoided the psychological impact of losing his essence because of his clinical diagnosis of psychopathy. Throughout his life he has never experienced affective empathy, he doesn't really connect with people on an emotional level, and he has no strong attachment to the concept of his own "humanity"--essentially, he had none of the things most people fear losing during the modding process, and so he lost nothing and stayed himself.

All of these character concepts taken together seem to present an interesting angle on the concept of essence: the loss of humanity is psychosomatic. For whatever reason, people believe that extensive cyberware impairs your ability to feel and to connect with others, and so they withdraw, lock down their emotions, and stop trying to connect with others. But it's not an inherent consequence of the mods themselves. This is speculation on my part, but it seems to me you could argue that this is a cultural artifact. If the world that eventually becomes the Shadowrun universe is at least as ableist as ours (and why wouldn't it be), I have no doubt that as cybernetic enhancements and prosthetics became more widespread, they would be met with prejudice. It's easy to fear someone who paid a lot of money to have knives or a gun put inside their arm, and isn't is suspicious? Who would want to be a finely tuned killing machine, anyway? Someone crazy, right? Someone less than human. And it's not hard to imagine people extending that fear to anyone with mods, because hey, you never know how extensive they are or what all they can do! If enough people who need or want cyberware hear that kind of rhetoric, for enough generations, of course they would start to believe it, internalize it, and replicate it, and the popular conception that essence loss is also loss of humanity would become common knowledge.

[warsofasoiaf]

I'd love to hear your thoughts about Cyberpunk 2077 when you are ready/have finished the game. Maybe besides the game itself you have an opinion about the crunch, bugs and general feeling of disappointment in a good portion of the fans

Sure thing. It’s going to be a long write-up and there are going to be spoilers, so you better believe that this is going to have a cut. Reader beware. For context, I have beat the game, and I played it on PC and only on PC.

I’ve been a fan of the cyberpunk genre for a long time. Transhuman and techno-utopian sci-fi always struck me the wrong way; that it was too optimistic and ignored a less savory element of human nature that simply would not go away with the advent of new technologies. While I only briefly dipped my toes in the water of the Cyberpunk tabletop game (I was always a bigger fan of Shadowrun), I did enjoy the genre and was eager to see a AAA cyberpunk game. I also really liked CD Projekt Red with what they did with RPG’s like the Witcher 3. Particularly when it came to the smaller sidequests, they really found a way to bring a lot of noir elements and hard-hitting character moments to the game, and I believed that it could translate very well into a cyberpunk game. After all, noir was a similar response to detective fiction to what the cyberpunk genre was to earlier elements of sci-fi. So I was quite optimistic when it came out. What we got was...well, it didn’t quite meet up with expectations.

There are some good things about the game. Assuming you have a beefy rig, PC cyberpunk looks pretty good. Not only does it look good, but it looks like the dismal 1980′s inspired future that had defined the genre, with its neon lights, omnipresent advertising to the point of satire (amphetamines are available from vending machines in a variety of flavors and commercials are completely ridiculous). The fixers are great examples of different cyberpunk archetypes like Regina Jones being a media or the Padre being an underclass civic leader looking to protect his community with a bit of a violent streak. Plenty of the characters had great personality, the nomads and Panam were enjoyable, Judy had a great questline that detailed optimism and bitter disappointment (and the character looks cool and is a bit of a cinnamon roll), River’s quest was a perfectly serviceable cop questline with enough horror elements, they were all fine. Keanu wasn’t a great voice actor, but he did serviceably and was apparently just wonderful with the staff, so I’m willing to cut him a pass. The level design can encourage a variety of different play styles, with attribute points opening up certain pathways. Given that it’s an open-world sandbox game, the goal should be to immerse yourself in the world, and touch on elements of cyberpunk as you go through the various quests, and you do see some of that. You see the gross exploitations of dolls in the sex trade when you go to Clouds, the bizarre elements of self-expression that new technologies can offer such as the twins in Kabuki, Pacifica is an abandoned recreation ground for the rich with the nice image of rotting Ferris wheels and abandoned malls, and you can see the divide between the have’s and have-not’s on full display both in the opening (compare and contrast the Street Kid with the Corpo beginnings) or take a look at the Peralez’s penthouse apartment versus Judy’s cramped digs. Honestly, one of my favorite things in the game were just the consumables to highlight the different food and drink available to the people of Night City. The heavy population means that foods like fried ants or locust pepperoni are common, amphetamines are available in a variety of flavors, and there are no less than 20 burrito vending machines on every street (the future is not all bad it seems). I like little worldbuilding moments like this in video games because it does give a sense of completion and immersion within the world. I honestly felt bad for Johnny Silverhand, because by the end of the game I had to be a bloated man-ball of Holobites Peach Pie and Cirrus Cola. 

The game even took a few things that had aged poorly in the cyberpunk genre and improved them. The Mox is a gang specifically meant to stop the Disposable Sex Worker trope, it’s small and part of the reason it survives is that it’s small, but it offers a chance of improvement over the exploitation that the Tyger Claws offer. The cyberpyscho quest is probably the best one of this. Earlier Cyberpunk had cyberpsychosis as a serious concern directly correlated with how many implants you got. The Solo archetype even spoke about how you risk losing your humanity with your implants as you became stronger, better, faster. Even later iterations had depersonalization/derealization disorders as people who could see in the dark lost connection to those who couldn’t. A quick thought in our present though, changes this. My eyesight and hearing is just fine, but I don’t lose connection or common empathy with individuals who are blind or deaf. I have two arms and two legs and I have not lost empathy for amputees. Why then, would I lose empathy and connection with someone with average human eyesight after I get my eyes replaced and now I have the ability to see in the dark or have telescopic sight? The cyberpsycho quest actually took this concept to task; cyberpsychos around the city are seen as horrifying threats that need the high-threat response of MaxTac to deal with, but Regina is looking to see if she can cure cyberpsychosis. Mechanically, the cyberpsychos are boss-fights with elements of puzzle gameplay (how to handle the different skillsets that they have) and a bonus reward for non-lethal damage which rewards certain playstyle archetypes or prepwork for those who ensure that they have a non-lethal option. The information you find around each cyberpyscho showcase different problems in the target’s life, no real common thread or inciting incident that you can trace the onset of cyberpsychosis toward and identify a culprit. After you complete the quest, you learn the twist: there is no such thing as cyberpsychosis. Each of the targets were actually just experiencing different stressors within their lives, such as PTSD, losing their job, drug abuse, etc. and the breakdown is made much worse because these individuals have the ability to toss dumpsters like they were baseballs or pick the wings off a fly with a cybernetically enhanced brain with a .50 cal. Some of these individuals had terrible implant surgery done by bargain-basement ripperdocs and temporarily lost the ability to discern reality from fantasy, something that could easily be seen as a science fiction adaptation of temporary insanity brought on by a poor reaction to medicine. It’s backed up by the game too. V can fill every slot in their cyberware deck but never once experiences cyberpsychosis. Oda has ultra-legs and flaming-hot mantis blades and is in perfect control at every point in the game, even when he’s trying to jab those mantis blade through your sternum. Cyberpyschosis isn’t real, the irresponsible media just ran with it because fear sells. For all the flaws of the game, I respect the game for taking cyberpsychosis in that direction.

But for all those good things, the game couldn’t help but feel shallower than the Witcher 3. The side-gigs were formulaic to the point where they even led with a category. There were few twists and very little that was surprising. Exposition for these quests was limited to a short text dump and a minute voice-over. Night City was big but it was relatively sparse. NCPD never seemed to intervene in any crimes (giving the character the chance to do so) but every so often they were around a taped-off crime scene, giving a sense of inconsistency that hampered the world. While it was a bustling city, it felt empty, most of the people I saw on the street were meaningless, just NPC’s walking around to give a sense of activity. There was little in the way of things to see and experience that was unique or different about these NPC’s. They weren’t crowds I could hide in like Hitman, they didn’t have ambient dialogue that showcased something like the Witcher 3. Much like other open-world games, this sense of shallowness pervaded much of the empty space of the world; it was incredibly *big* but there was little in it. Much of the time I was driving or running through empty space that was completely worthless to me. Normal for city living, but all of that is wasted time going from point A to point B, and unlike the Witcher 3, there were no small in-game beats to help flesh it out or build it. I never had Millie from “Where the Wolf and Cat Play” give me a little picture, I never had people from a liberated village say “hey, look, it’s that guy Geralt, thanks for killing those harpies.” These were things that made the Witcher 3′s world really come alive. I didn’t have that, and I was left

Of course, we also have to handle the elephant in the room, and that was CDPR’s conduct both during production and after release. Crunch has become an increasingly common part of video game development and it’s not healthy to developers. CDPR had been called out on it once before, but it seemed there was little change in how that happens. I’m not quite sure if there’s anything we can do, and I’m sympathetic to the need to hit target deadlines to actually deliver a finished product, but there’s got to be a better way, whether that’s a change to the incentive structure, or something, because it’s hurting folks. I like games like Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2, but I understand that there was a real human cost to these masterpieces, and I wonder if there’s something we can do about that. 

Similarly, what happened after launch was beyond terrible. The last-gen console version were simply not ready for release and shouldn’t have been released to the public. CDPR openly covered up this, by only previewing the PC version, they hid the fact that the game wasn’t ready, and they avoided delaying the last-gen console version because they were looking to capitalize on holiday sales. I’m sympathetic for the need to generate sales, but the flip of this is that you have to deliver the product you advertise, and for last-gen consoles, they didn’t do so. Bugs are one thing, these games are massive undertakings of interacting systems and bugs are inevitable; some of my favorite games were buggy at release, notably Fallout: New Vegas, Witcher 3, and so on. But this went past bugs and into malpractice and deception, and that’s something that’s less forgivable. I personally had few bugs that were out-and-out game breaking but things not loading, quests bugging out, floating bags and other physics wonkiness, all of that hurt the immersion. I’d be more willing to forgive the game without the deception; I can laugh at bugs but not at ignoring quality control to get holiday sales instead of delivering a quality product. Consumers are angry at CDPR and have every reason to be, and I’m one of them. I can express my disappointment and I will do so, we need developers to stop these practices and the only way we can do that is through our wallets and words. I’m not going to tell anyone not to buy CDPR games, that’s entirely your decision because I’m a radical individualist. But I am going to say that they’ve burned a lot of their good karma with me; credibility is a hard beast to gain back. Much like other big name developers, CDPR has hurt their standing in my eyes. Whether that means I need to resort to going to indie games for a little bit or something else, I don’t know, but it’s rough. I liked CDPR and wanted to believe it’d be different, but it seems to not be the case.

Overall, I think it’s another AAA open-world game only made better by my love of the genre, and that stings. I enjoyed some aspects of it, and I hope that through Free DLC, patching, and other good deeds, the game can redeem itself and stimulate new love of the genre. But CDPR needs to do a lot more than that to win back my affection. If anyone has anything specifically that they want to know about the game, such as talk about the main story, individual characters, or so on, just ask.

Thanks for the question, Khef.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[stemmmm]

An Animation-Term and Keyword List For People Who Haven’t Studied Animation

I’ve decided it’s time to put my BFA in animation to use and share with you all about 40 terms I could get off the top of my head that I’ve seen confusion and misconceptions about.

If you know a term that was missed here, feel free to add a definition or ask for one! 

Animation (in this context) -- The act of taking a series of images and putting them in a sequence next to each other which is then viewed in rapid succession, thus giving the images the illusion of movement.

Anime -- The Japanese word for “animation”. This term is often used to refer to the style of drawing in the west, but it literally ONLY means “animation”. 

Animatic -- Unfinished visuals and audio cut together into a watchable video format. This is NOT another word for short animation. An animatic would use visuals from a storyboard rather than rough or finished animation

Anticipation -- A slower movement made by a character to lead into action. This is used to great effect in comedy animation and in games like Dark Souls. The posing and buildup makes you expect something is going to happen.

Cel -- A tool for animating. Traditionally, this is a sheet of clear plastic that a frame of animation is drawn on and painted color is applied to. These are set on top of background images and photographed so they can be used in the final animation. The term can also be applied to hand-drawn digital animation. Pre-digital nearly everything was animated in this fashion, like Bugs Bunny cartoons or classic Disney movies. Some Japanese animation is still done like this, but the move to digital has only recently begun there.

Claymation -- A branch of stop motion animation, it is when moldable clay is shaped, photographed, and reshaped in a manner that gives it the illusion of movement.

CGI -- Stands for Computer Graphics Imagery. Any image that is generated by a computer. This applies to all digital artwork, even 2D, but is most commonly used to refer to 3D images created by a computer.

2D -- Flat images such as those you would draw on paper. They have height and width but no depth.

3D -- Images with height, width, and depth. Computer generated images and physical sculptures fall under this category. 3D computer animation and stop-motion animation are 3D.

3D Computer Animation / 3D Animation -- Animation done on a computer specifically using 3D software to either give the image more depth or to make it look more lifelike. It is made by creating digital sculptures of characters which a “rig” is attached to which gives the animator the ability to move the sculpture like a puppet. If you say 3D animation, people will know you are referring to computer animation. Most American movies in the past decade are or include 3D animation.

Digital -- Any animation done on a computer. This applies to 3D animation, 2D graphic animation, and hand drawn animation done on a computer. Most animation has moved to digital formats because of computers ability to automatically in-between--thus saving large amounts of work. Computers also eliminate the need to physically store easily lost or damaged piles of paper and film, and they eliminate the need to manually photograph individual animation frames.

Flash -- Refers to the now mostly defunct Adobe Flash program which gave animators the ability to turn 2D drawings into puppets that could be animated. The similar Adobe equivalent is now called animate. It popularized a style of puppeted animation similar to paper cutouts in a digital format, but while it is known for that, it can be used for hand drawn animation as well. This puppet style of animation has improved dramatically since it’s beginning in Flash, and the same (or similar) technique is used by people who animate with programs like Toon Boom. Shows animated in flash include Johnny Test and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

Frames -- A single image as part of the whole animation. A picture of a cel on a background would be one frame.

Frame rate/ Frames per second -- How quickly the frames are played back for the viewer. Film standard is 24 FPS, or 24 frames played in rapid succession for the duration of 1 second. Games often play at 30-60 FPS to aid reaction time.

1′s and 2′s -- To animate something on “1′s” means to create 24 distinct frames to play for a full second. 24:24, or, just 1. 2′s--also known as 12FPS--similarly means you do half that amount of work. 24:12. Most things are animated at 12FPS because it is less work and accomplishes approximately the same thing as animating on a full 24 frames. Animations at these rates are still played at 24FPS. Contrary to popular belief, classic Disney movies are mostly animated on 2′s.

3′s and 4′s and so on -- Like 1′s and 2′s, but less. 8 and 6 FPS respectively. These rates are used more commonly in television than movies, but even then rarely. 3′s and 4′s most often exist in conjunction with 1′s and 2′s to both save work and give the animation more expression. These are also always played at 24FPS. Studio Trigger most notably animates like this.

Hand-Drawn -- Animation that is fully drawn by hand and does not involve manipulating a puppet character. Traditional 2D animation is hand drawn, Flash animation isn’t.

Hold -- When a frame or pose lasts longer than normal. A hold can be completely still or have slight movement. They are used to break up action and very often used to create anticipation of an action. 

In-between -- Frames that connect the action happening between keyframes. They change something from a set of poses to actual animation.

Keyframe -- Important frames in the animation, often major poses in an action. These are sometimes taken from storyboards but not always.

Meaningful animation -- Or animation with intent. Parts of an animation that were specifically made to do a certain thing. This comes up in discussions about higher frame rates and whether or not they matter to a work. An action that could be expressed in 8 frames played at 24 FPS does not necessarily need 24 frames, because the additional frames provide too much visual input, could be drawn more poorly, or are a waste of time to do. A computer generated tween is not always meaningful because it was not always intended to exist by the animator. The frames generated when you take an animation at 24FPS and modify it to be 60FPS are not meaningful.

Mocap/ Motion Capture -- When a person wears a silly suit with little balls or other markings on it and acts around a stage, that is for motion capture and animation reference. Motion capture tracks a persons movement and can apply it to a 3D rig, but it is not perfect so animators are still needed to correct the movements and make it work in the final product. This is used in many live action movies that feature CGI and notoriously in The Polar Express.

Mograph/ Motion Graphics -- This is the animation style used in many commercials, how-to explainer videos, and animated company logos. This is the lovechild of graphic design and animation. It is most often 2D, sleek, and heavily design focused as opposed to character focused. Most often made in Adobe After Effects.

Paper cutout -- A form of stop motion animation where pieces of paper are placed on a flat surface and photographed from above. This can be done with light from the front to see the full detail of the paper, or back lighting to give it the effect of shadow-puppetry. The first animated film was done in this style.

Pre-production -- Work that is done before something is animated. Includes character designs, environment designs and layouts, scripting, storyboards, audio recording, and anything else necessary to have done before you begin the arduous process of animation.

Post-production -- Anything that needs to be added after all pre-production and animation is finished. It includes editing everything together, adding effects, and whatever else must be done before you can call something “finished”.

Procedurally Generated Animation -- This is animation made entirely in a computer through use of algorithms. Used more often in games than anything else. Animations are generated in real time to create more variety in the movement. It allows for things that can’t be done with pre-made animations like making characters feet land and/or slip on rocks or track their head and eyes to look at something.

Puppet Rig/ Rig -- A skeleton applied to any type of puppet you want to animate. 3D and puppeted stop motion animations both use this, though in stop motion it is more likely called an armature. 2D animations like Flash animations also use these

Onion Skin -- A 2D animation term. In traditional animation, a person works on paper over a light table which shines light through the paper and lets them see the frames they’re animating between. In digital animation, you press a button and the onion skin will display in either a lighter color or different hue the frames in front of or behind where you’re working to a point you can set and adjust. It’s called onion skin because peeled onions are transparent.

Reference -- Looking at something from life to base your work on. If you are animating a flying bird, you need to know how their wings move, so you need to watch birds or maybe film them and play it back slowly so you can see the small details. Animation since Snow White has used life action reference heavily, many old animated movies were fully acted out and recorded before they were animated. Movies today don’t do that much, but animators will record themselves acting out scenes they’re working on to capture body language and lip sync. Reference is not tracing or rotoscoping, but it can be.

Rotoscope -- Animation drawn directly over life action footage. This is reference to it’s extreme, because the drawings do not take inspiration from the movements so much as they are an exact recreation. It is often easily noticed for the higher framerate it often has and for having movement unnatural to animation. Unless the character is heavily stylized, rotoscoped animation often looks strongly like real people. 2D animation traced over 3D animation is not rotoscope. Motion capture is also not rotoscope. Many classic Fleischer films had rotoscoped sequences and Anastasia is known for it’s heavy use of the technique. 

Rough Animation -- Animation in it’s early stages, it may not be fully in betweened, but even if it is, it isn’t cleaned up or finished. Drawings in the rough stage are often messy and incomplete so it is easier to throw out frames and replace them.

Rough Cut -- The next step from an animatic. A rough cut contains all finished and unfinished work as a preview of what the final product can be. They can have any combination of animatic materials, rough animation, and finished work.

Stop motion -- Animation of physical objects on a set, photographed one frame at a time. Covers everything from claymation, to paper cut outs, to puppets, and more. More prominent in early film as visual effects before that became what it is known as today. The most popular form is puppet animations like those done by Laika studios.

Storyboard -- A sequence of rough drawings paired with script that dictate what will happen in an animation. These are not keyframes for animation, nor should they themselves be animated.

Timeline -- In digital animation, this is the bar that holds the individual frames in sequence so they can be played and viewed as you work. You can also stretch the frame length to last longer or shorter, hence “time”.

Traditional (Cel animation) -- Earliest form of 2D animation, the same as hand drawn animation only it’s done on physical paper. The terms are blurred together however, so when talking about traditional animation you may need to specify whether it’s on paper or digital.

Tweens -- Computer generated in-between frames. Applies to 3D animation, but most often refers to puppet rig 2D animation like flash animations. Often used as a derogatory phrase, as computer generated frames can lack the visual appeal of hand made ones. Tweens move extremely smoothly and evenly from pose to pose, which is the tell of a puppet rigged animation.

VFX -- Stands for visual effects. They are effects applied to a film in post-production that can be CGI or not, but are very often CGI. Includes aspects such as explosions, weather effects, background details, cleanup, etc. 

[danwhobrowses]

A Personal Rant before Sword and Shield comes out

I’ve sat idly by for months, tried to weather a few negative responses but given that it’s now 6 days from release and I’m hearing that devs are getting literal death threats I’m going to put my foot down

If you’re already shitting on a game that hasn’t been released yet, you are all juvenile bitches, and I’m about to tell you why.

Before we begin, I’m not saying that you’re not allowed to dislike a game, that happens, but usually it happens after you play a game, not before.

You are viewing this game through a keyhole and judging the room and what you’re seeing is not worthy of this much hate. Let’s start with the big one Dexit: Not as Big as You Think Having No National Dex is of course not ideal, but it doesn’t ruin the game. Let’s Go has no National Dex, all it had was Alola forms and nobody whinged about it. Ruby and Sapphire didn’t have a National Dex until FRLG, and nobody whinged about it. Sun and Moon and Ultra Sun and Moon do not have a National Dex And Nobody Whinged About It Do you know why? Because it’s not actually a big deal. People who complain about it are bandwagoning because ‘Dexit’ is a meme, its name literally parodies an event in current Britain that many people don’t actually want to happen.  Now currently, the anger of Dexit is that Bulbasaur and Squirtle are not in it, which frankly is hilarious because the last wave of bitching was ‘Kanto mons are getting all the new stuff’. You wanna know how many main series versions Bulbasaur and Squirtle have not been in? Seven, only way to get them is trade and event. The other complaint is that there’s ‘only 400′ Pokémon. Remember those days where people were fine with 150? 400 is huge, in fact it’s 3 less than USUM and it’s not accounting for the Gigantamax forms Don’t let headlines fool you either, Sun and Moon had 302 Pokémon, it’s far from the ‘lowest dex number since 2003′. Do your own research with these things. Kalos’ regional dex was 151, BW2 was 300, BW 153, Sinnoh 210, RSE has 386 and GSC had 252 Don’t get me wrong, it smarts that some Pokémon isn’t there, but it’s not a dealbreaker, like let’s be honest here. For a good year and a half all your pokémon are gonna do is sit in an unused cartridge or a PC box, you’re literally whining about the fact that you can’t move your perfect IV Pokémon from one box to another. You could simply just let them stay in Let’s Go or USUM, you don’t have to use Bank or Home on continued subscription for that, so your complaints are only set on the foundation that you feel like you have to continually pay to not transfer your Pokémon, Finally, people act like these Pokémon are deleted forever, they’re not, this is for spacing to make sure this game doesn’t break down from the sheer mass of models and textures it has to maintain in a massive open world space, the local and online camping and battles. Just use the Pokémon that are there! There’s new Pokémon don’t you wanna try those? You can also look at FRLG or Emerald and consider that maybe more Pokémon will get patched in once the game proves to be stable. I don’t think you’ve noticed, but the Nintendo Switch isn’t as powerful as the other consoles out there, sometimes it runs like shit. Believe me on that one, Switch is still in a very buggy development phase. Let’s Go was kept small to test it’s capability and Sword and Shield can’t just fly in and give you all 1000 Pokémon just so one of the ones you want can be in there

You have to be much less obtuse with this, I mean this was a long time coming. You’re gonna have to live with the fact that not every Pokémon ever can be supported on one game alone. Disk, Download, Cartridge and Patch Sizes have limits in Compliance, you can’t just throw everything at it. Waah, the New Pokémon Don’t Look Good They do, you’re being petty. It happens every version, the people dislike the starter evolutions or just one in particular. Remember all the Oshawott hate? This all comes and goes because people have simply gone on the first instinct that ‘new and different is scary and should be shunned’ You’re that Simpsons meme when young Homer accuses Grandpa of not being ‘with it’ I won’t spoil to those who haven’t seen it, but I like the new starters, and some of the new Pokémon will need some growing but not every Pokémon looks good at first glance. If Mr Mime, Hypno or Gastly came out nowadays they’d be crapped on so much for lacking creativity or for looking weird. Look at Drampa as well, thing looks like Falkar from The Neverending Story, when I first saw it I thought it look weird but now I like it. You should offer these things time And actually fall back on past experience, you’re reacting like this isn’t the same thing that happens every version; the dex gets leaked, people whine about the evolutions, people get over it and accept that they overreacted. hIgH QuAlItY aNiMaTiOnS I’ve seen that video, 2 clips and you judge a whole game how classy of you? If you don’t see improvement you’re blind. You can’t shit on a game for keeping the battle animations, you can’t expect every Pokémon to move their own unique way to the exact position of the body part the opponent needs to get hit by, that’s just unrealistic. You’re also failing to equate to the new moves and all the new movesets. You have to ensure that each Pokémon is capable of calling this animation as well. The second clip in that video was Hop and Hau having the same rigging, and once again, that’s not abnormal. Rigging is not easy either, do it wrong and it sticks and deforms texture. There’s nothing wrong with Hop having one animation that matches Hau’s, you’ll probably find that many models actually have similar rigging as previous games. Because it’s not that big of a deal and it saves money, as an example look at Disney they copied hand-drawn motion and stuck a different character on them, Robin Hood’s Little John dances just like (animated, for those too young to know otherwise) Jungle Book’s Baloo The thing you’re also ignoring from that clip is the graphical improvement of Hop compared to Hau, Hau looks like a balloon with a smiley face but Hop’s face has depth and his mouth actually moves like a normal person, his clothes have far more contrast and complexity, but no just zero in on one fighting animation and one rigging that’ll surely be worth abusing a game that’s not even out... B-But Charizard I’ve already explained this before but Charizard is Leon’s main, it’s obviously going to have a Gigantamax, ergo it’s also going to be in the Dex. Does Charizard get a lot? Yes, but the reason is because Charizard is popular. One of the rarest cards is a Charizard Hologram Card, Charizard is one of the first version mascots, it is one of the most recognized Pokémon Ash has in the anime Reality of the matter is that like Pikachu, Charizard is a recognized Pokémon for all ages, it appeals to a demographic that’s not playing In Layman’s Terms: that part is not for you A reality you really need to face. Pokémon is a game for all ages, so elements of the game are not always going to be tailored to your age range. The gimmick of Dynamax and Gigantamax is for merch sales and young children because it’s got an audience there, you can’t expect the Biggest Entertainment Brand in the World to simply shut out a large fraction of its demographic just to appeal 100% to you And again, it’s not a big deal, so there’s a Charizard there, just save a Stone Edge and be done with it, if you hate Charizard so much this’ll be catharsis, but in actuality you’re complaining because it’s something to complain about Kanto are getting Everything That went down like a lead balloon didn’t it? Reminder that the first Gigantamax forms were Galar Pokémon, so you can’t really say that anymore. There are Galar forms from non-Gen I Pokémon too I assure you, but the reason Kanto gets a lot of them is because Kanto is the oldest. Let’s not pretend that other gens don’t get love either Or should I remind you of Mega Ampharos, Scizor, Heracross, Houndoom, Tyranitar, Blaziken, Gardevoir, Gallade, Mawile, Aggron, Medicham, Manectric, Banette, Absol, Garchomp, Lucario, Abomasnow, Steelix, Sceptile, Marshtomp, Sableye, Sharpedo, Camerupt, Altaria, Glalie, Salamence, Metagross, Latias, Latios, Rayquaza, Lopunny, Audino and Diancie? It’s true that the Johto starters could use something, but I don’t think they’re being purposefully ignored, perhaps the right design hasn’t come along. Rather it be done right than poorly wouldn’t you agree? The Devs Should’ve Done <Insert Thing Here> People who say this kinda stuff have no idea how a game is made. I have a First Class Bachelor’s degree in Computer Gaming and Animation Technology and I can tell you that none of the stuff you want them to do is easy. Even getting grass right is a complete hassle. You want small insights you should watch Corridor Crew react to Good and Bad VFX, they tell you about the mechanics of CGI a few times on those vids. This is what annoys me with the prior swipe at the Battle animations and rigging, even with 2 years this is a heavily massive workload and Game Freak have only recently expanded the team that work on Pokémon which makes communication much more widespread and difficult to manage, likewise they are working on other games too they are not just Pokémon, currently their next IP is why Toby Fox was able to do a bit of music for Pokémon, because he’s collaborating with them on another game. The work doesn’t stop, most of these people are overworked and still doing overtime, they bring out a good product and all it gets is ‘but it should have this’, and unless it’s a huge part of the game that’s needed to function then that’s really disrespectful Before you start critiquing on what the people making this game ‘should’ve done’ perhaps you should try to make a game yourself, because it is not easy even for pros, I call back to Toby Fox because creating Undertale took 32 Months to create, that’s 2 years and 8 months for those slow with math, it also took 3 years before it could be ported to Switch because the Engine couldn’t support the platform, Pokémon has less time to do that, greater graphical and animation quality to achieve and more characters to battle, attacks to animate and more songs to compose. Conclusion: You’re All Just Bitter I’ve already seen it happen recently but this group of people senselessly bashing something because of ridiculous demands, expectations or arguments based on a lack of understanding all combine into something I’m simply calling the ‘Bitterness Fandom’. It’s people hating for the sake of hating and trying to bring something down just because it’s been a popular force for so long, and it’s not just Pokémon that’s getting it It’s already been happening to Star Wars. The Last Jedi and Solo were great films but the Bitterness sank its fangs in and act like neither are as good as the original trilogy (like killing Snoke without knowing anything about him and Phasma before she could do anything is any different to killing Sidious and Boba Fett in Jedi or Maul in Phantom Menace and Grievous in Revenge of the Sith), a lack of awareness to reality and the desire to complain for the sake of complaining continues to infect Star Wars. We even have a thing called ‘Star Wars Fatigue’ Star Wars can’t release a film every year because of ‘Fatigue’ but Marvel can release 5 MCU films a year and nobody bats an eye. Those frustrations aside, I refuse to let the Bitterness sink in without me calling them out, because you are not Pokémon Fans. If you were you’d know that having no National Dex isn’t new, you’d know that the graphics have improved and leaks of the game happen every time, you’d know why Charizard is popular and that some features are not intended to be targeted at you Shock and Horror to the heavens above but games can’t do everything And if you’re that naive to think so then you’re clearly not doing your homework So let’s throw out an absolutely WILD suggestion shall we? Let’s decide our opinion on a game After playing it? Because shitting on something you don’t even have hands-on experience with it is a fragile pedestal to put yourself on. If we all think it’s bad then, so be it, but I sincerely doubt that is the case When my copy of Pokémon Sword gets delivered to my house I am going to enjoy it because I will not let petty and incorrect statements sway my feelings and I swear to Arceus if you think the Bitterness will bring down Pokémon that easily then you did not see the queue to the London Poké Center that had been amassing since midnight and was forced to stop taking more people when the doors opened What should matter is how you enjoy the game, play it before you judge it And honestly, don’t send death threats, why we need to tell you that is beyond me, the ones who made these games are people who have worked their asses off day in and day out to provide something you aren’t even going to play because one Pokémon isn’t in it, the irony is not lost on me when I say this but deep into the very bottom of my heart: Grow Up. If you don’t like the game, don’t play it, don’t bother people about it, we don’t need your shit here Enjoy the Game People

[scrawnydutchman]

“There’s Always More Show”; A Bojack Horseman Essay

It’s about time I talked about one of the finest ongoing shows in animation right now. I. LOVE. Bojack Horseman. I must have binged the whole series 5 times at this point, and it’s rare for even my absolute favorite shows to get me to do that. The dialogue is so poignant I have entire exchanges between characters burned into my memory. The jokes and societal commentary are so on point that many lines have gotten me to burst out laughing among company.The characters themselves are so complex, so filled with depth, that they are all well deserving of their own analysis. The writing is SO tight and the storytelling so consistently engaging that I hang onto every little detail. I swear they foreshadow events from as late as season 4 and 5 as early as season 1. Even it’s animation, while admittedly pretty primitive character rigging with a handful of noticeable errors, takes some amazing creative liberty at times, particularly with subjectivity in the drug trips. While the art design has taken a few people off guard for it’s blinding colors and it’s premise has discouraged a less open minded audience with it’s animal-human hybrids living among people, those who stick with the show will get a sophisticated while simultaneously wacky romp that is both the silliest and most real show you can watch right now. So with a show this dense that has characters this deep, there are many themes it tackles such as the perpetual meaninglessness of existence or the pursuit to being a good person, but there’s a more central theme Bojack keeps bringing up which I’d like to talk about.

Oh and, uh, Spoilers incoming for Bojack Horseman . .  . obviously. Get Netflix and watch all of this show right now before reading. seriously. But for those reading who don’t care about spoilers but are interested in what makes Bojack so great and may like to watch it themselves, here’s a brief summary:

Bojack Horseman (played by Will Arnett) Is a horse-man hybrid living out the so called “glamorous” life style in Hollywood, Los Angeles (later called “Hollywoo” in the series for reasons I won’t spoil here). Out of work, out of shape and out of touch, Bojack wastes away his days in sorrow as a past-his-prime actor who goes day to day being disrespected. Back in the 90s he was the star of a very famous “full house”-esque sitcom called “Horsin’ Around” and he longs for the days where he was in the prime of his life, but nowadays he mostly just sits around the house watching old reruns of his show. He constantly struggles with depression, dependancy on narcotics . . . and the ongoing guilt he feels for every shitty thing he’s done in life . . . and as viewers will no doubt find out . . . Bojack has a LOT of baggage. He finds new friends in life like his responsible ghost writer of his memoir Diane Nguyen (played by Alison Brie), his easygoing  freeloader and best friend Todd Chavez (played by Aaron Paul), his happy go lucky Labrador rival Mr. Peanutbutter (played by Paul F. Tompkins) and his workaholic pink cat agent Princess Carolyn (played by Amy Seradis). The show centres around his ongoing relationships with these people as well as their own journeys of self discovery . . . and the occasional wacky schemes. Through his surrounding positive influences can Bojack learn to grow past his personal demons? Or will his shitty tendencies and depressing outlook permanently spoil the lives of the people closest to him like he so often fears?

Spoilers begin NOW

In what is perhaps my favorite episode of the show, episode 6 of Season 5 titled “Free Churro”, Bojack gives an improvised eulogy for his recently deceased mother . . . and that’s it. The episode is just a full 20 minutes of Bojack talking about his dead mom . . . and struggling to find anything positive to say about her. His mom was nothing but cold, hard and abusive to Bojack his entire life and Bojack laments about how he never received a single loving gesture from his mother for as long as he’s known her . . and now that she’s dead that chance is permanently gone. In his ramblings, he mentions an episode of Horsin’ Around in which the writers juice the idea of main cast character Olivia leaving the show for good, only for her to be written back into the status quo, because as Bojack puts it 

“Of course that’s what happened, because what are you gonna do? Just not have Olivia on the show? You can’t have happy endings in sitcoms -- not really -- because if everyone’s happy, the show would be over, and above all else the show has to keep going. There’s always more show. (And) You can call Horsin’ Around dumb, or bad, or unrealistic, but there’s nothing more realistic than that. You never get a happy ending, because there’s always more show.”

That right there sums up the entire ongoing struggle of every character in this show. In many ways, Bojack Horseman the Netflix series is like a typical sitcom turned upside down. You have an ongoing setup of colourful, over the top characters doing outrageous things for our amusement, and in a lot of ways they’re actually terrible people but they’re just SO endearing that we have to keep tuning into their antics. Much like how an average Friends episode is about every titular friend trying haphazardly to cover up a lie for 20 minutes when their problems would so easily be over if they just had the maturity to be honest about how they’re feeling, characters like Bojack, Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter are always up to something silly whether it’s poorly covering up a lie or coming up with elaborate sabotages for selfish ends. But there’s one core difference. In Friends, everybody forgives each other in the end. In the gritty and merciless world of Bojack Horseman . . . every wrongdoing has long term consequences, some of which can never be forgiven. 

Bojack’s antics especially cause permanent stains on his relationships. When he sabotaged Todd’s rock opera by getting him readdicted to a video game so he wouldn’t leave, he permanently makes a wound in his and Todd’s relationship. He only makes it worse when he has sex with Emily, Todd’s best friend and kinda-sorta girlfriend. Todd had faith in Bojack early on in the show, but he makes it apparent later on that the less he has to do with Bojack the better off he is. Todd’s an easygoing friend that can forgive easily, but Bojack really tests his patience. As he said once he found out Bojack had sex with Emily

“You can’t keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it okay. You need to be better.”

In the luxurious  yet phony and superficial world of Hollywoo, everyone has an outlook on life as if it’s a sitcom. The center of mass produced film and television has everyone believing in achieving against the odds, amending their wrongs in the end and getting satisfying conclusions as if the credits of their very own movie will roll any second. But real life keeps on hitting these characters like a truck, as if to say “there is no happy ending , you aren’t the main character and the harm you’ve caused is permanent. Get used to it.” Bojack gets his hard hitting reality more prominently than anyone. He keeps looking for backdoor solutions to his pain like getting back with Charlotte, starting a new Horsin’ Around spinoff, finding meaning far away from L.A. or straight up finding solace in drugs, but every solution to his search for meaning ends in him hurting somebody else even more. He has to separate the idea from his head that shitty things like nearly sleeping with your old friends daughter is just a wacky sitcom hijinks situation, and that the guilt he feels is just an ongoing conflict he feels every day. He even tries at one point to get forgiveness from his old show writer Herb Kezzaz after betraying him, only to be greeted with Herb saying 

“No. I’m not going to give you closure. You don’t get that. You have to live with the shitty thing that you did for the rest of your life.”

Sometimes Bojack will go to more silly extents for his so desired “happy ending”, like humming his own credits as he embraces Sarah Lynn when she comes out of rehab.

But as screwed up as Bojack is, he’s not the only one who’s mind is warped by the empty promise of a “happy ending”. Diane Nguyen, for as much as she comes off as the moral compass of the show who isn’t afraid to call anyone out for their bullshit, is what I like to call “Bojack lite”. While she’d be grossly offended by the accusation that she’s anything like Bojack, she shares a lot of his toxic traits. Sure, she’s not actively life ruining for anyone, but she has a tendency to harshly criticize people as a means to deflect any criticism towards herself and she often manages to find the negative connotation to even the best of situations. Also, she struggles with getting drunk a lot too, which is often enabled by Bojack. Diane makes a lot of rash decisions in her life hoping she’ll find some sort of “happy ending”. She married Mr. Peanutbutter longing for a simpler, more laid back life for she just settles down with her loving husband. However, unwilling to keep up with Mr. Peanutbutters love for spontaneity and grand gestures, she ends up divorcing him, deciding instead to try and find solace in being her own woman who doesn’t need a mans affection to be happy . .  .but that leaves her empty too. Every time she gets what she asked for, she ends up having to fight all the challenges that go with it, and those challenges end up obscuring her vision of that made her want that thing in the first place. She thinks it’s something wrong with her, like she just can’t ever be satisfied.

“Why can’t I be happy? Am I busted?!”

If we’re comparing each Bojack Horseman character to standard sitcom fare, Mr. Peanutbutter likely comes the closest to fitting the mold of what we expect from a likable television comedy protagonist. Everyone loves him. He’s endearing, he’s funny, he’s sweet. He makes silly mistakes but has a good heart, and even if he does touch some raw nerves along the way he can usually win his audience back with some sort of grand gesture. If Diane is Bojack Lite, then Mr. Peanutbutter is the yin to Bojack’s yang. They live virtually the same lives to a point where Mr. Peanutbutter even got famous off of what is blatantly a knock off of Horsin’ Around, The key difference though is that while Bojack is incurably pessimistic, Mr. Peanutbutter is obnoxiously optimistic, and why wouldn’t he be? He sees the good in everything and everyone and manages to get his way shearly through people loving him. He never has to learn anything because nobody ever challenges him. But that precisely is the rub. Mr. Peanutbutter is a cautionary tale about what would happen if you DID get that life full of happy endings and comfortable conclusions. Much like how many a sitcom protagonist never learns to tell the truth or to take responsibility for their own health, Mr. Peanutbutter never grows past his mistakes. It’s why he always does grand gestures for Diane despite her repeating several times that she doesn’t like them. It’s why he keeps dating women much younger than himself. It’s why he keeps getting divorced. He never takes any kind of long term lesson from what happens to him and never evolves as a person. Nowhere is this more prominent than in Season 5. Whenever Mr. Peanut butter does something wrong, he’s usually blind to the responsibility he must take to it. He either dismisses it as somebody else being mean or unreasonable or he makes an empty promise to not do it again. But for the first time ever, he partakes in betraying somebody he cares about. After divorcing Diane and getting with Pickles the Pug waitress . . . he has sex with Diane again behind Pickles’ back. This time there’s nobody to blame but himself . . and he doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that he did an unforgivably shitty thing. In fact, he’s the least equipped character to do so in the whole show. He even pleads for Diane to break the news to Pickles and tries to force a silver lining by getting back with Diane as a result of it. In the season finale, when Mr. Peanutbutter has to tell the awful truth and knowingly hurt somebody close to him . . .much like a sitcom character, he instead pulls a happy ending out of his ass and decides to propose to Pickles instead. He actively decides not to do the tough, but right decision, and thus does not evolve. This is especially interesting in the finale because, for the first time ever, Bojack is a step ahead of Mr. Peanutbutter when it comes to committing to making things right. After Bojack nearly strangles Gina to death on his drug high, he turns himself into rehab with the help of Diane and starts taking real steps to self improvement. In contrast, Mr. Peanut butter . . . is just up to his same old tricks. 

You wanna talk about reaching that sitcom happy ending? It’s all this workaholic cat ever thinks about. Princess Carolyn leads life with the philosophy that with enough grit and go-getter attitude you can make anything happen for yourself . . . and to an extent that actually serves her pretty well. She gets out of her hick town to pursue her dreams as an agent and whenever the other characters are knee deep in their own mess she’s always the one with the solution to get them out. She compulsively helps people while refusing to take help for herself because . . well, she wants a happy ending . . .but she wants to be the one responsible for it. She had an opportunity as a kid to have everything in her life decided for her but once she had her miscarriage and that dream fell apart, she instead decided to pursue a career in the big city. She made tons of sacrifices to get where she is including leaving her own mother, and she’s also afraid of falling into the same trap of dependency she almost fell into as a kid again. That’s why she rejects Ralph Stilton’s offer to help her with her adopted baby, even though he’s irrefutably the best boyfriend she ever had. Time and time again Princess Carolyn will willingly be pushed right up to the edge before she accepts any kind of help, because she thinks doing so is a sign of weakness. She keeps herself motivated with fantasies about that wonderful happy ending, whether that means living in a cottage in a beautiful painting or succeeding enough that some future ancestor can give her class a family heritage report all about what a great ass kickin’ gal she is. While Princess Carolyn is definitely the most well adjusted and most durable to the constant hustle and beating down of reality, she’s got her own toxic tendencies as a result of thinking she’s a main character. She thinks she’s got to do everything on her own . . . . and if she doesn’t get past that insecurity soon, it may swallow her whole.

At long last we come to mr. Todd Chavez, the endearing little brother of Bojack Horseman’s family of main characters. Upon first glance, Todd seems the least prepared for life’s harsh reality out of all our leads. He’s a 20-something year old with no real job, no real responsibilities and no real goals in life. He’s very upfront and honest about how he spends his time, be it spending all day watching Youtube videos . . . or building a knockoff Disneyland. And yet, when we analyze him with the thesis that these “sitcom characters” are all trying to get by in a cruel and merciless world, we suddenly realize that ironically . . . Todd grows the most naturally out of everyone. Bojack lets Todd down time and time again and rather than accepting status quo as God like many a sitcom character might do, he takes it upon himself to distance his relationship with Bojack. He initially has faith in Bojack to be better, but doesn’t beat around the bush when he’s lost his faith in him. When he realizes that he was nothing in common with Yolanda aside from being asexual, he breaks up with her before prolonging the painful inevitable. The cast of Bojack Horseman go through their share of changes in what they want and who they want to be, but Todd is always the one who knows what he needs and makes an honest effort to be better. He’s surprisingly wise for an adult manchild flunky. But he gets up to wacky sitcomish schemes too, about as much as Mr. Peanutbutter (who is often his partner in crime with these things) . . . yet even then through his ernestness and cuttthroat honesty he manages to overcome better than the other characters.

Conclusion:

*decided to include this gif because i love the animation in it*

Hollywoo is a world of sitcom characters pulled out of the TV and trying to get by in everyday life under the harsh, uncompromising grip of reality. In a culture so entrenched in it’s ideals of maintaining superficial likability and celebrating yourself no matter what you do or who you hurt, each character’s mind is warped into buying the illusion that for how screwed up they are there’s a happy ending waiting at the end of the horizon for them. They all deal with it with different levels of success. Some take change in life with stride like Todd. Some think they found their happy ending but only remain empty like Diane. Some get everything they ask for and thus never evolve and never better themselves like Mr. PeanutButter. Some cling on for deal life as they get everything thrown at them, believing that they’ll be rewarded in the end, like Princess Carolyn. And then . . . some are a depressing cocktail of all of those things. They have opportunity land at their feet and think they’ve finally done the thing that will preserve them, only to find themselves empty. They work through the pain in their life hoping that at any point they’ll get some grand gesture or reward that makes everything they endured worth it, only for that chance to become officially non existent. But occasionally . . . very occasionally . . . they do something wonderful and heartfelt and sincere that maintains a glimmer of hope for their capacity to be better. That is Bojack Horseman. Bojack hurts the people closest to him much like his parents did. He remains bitter and sad and petty and self important . . . but he IS better than his folks. He’s like his late mom . . . only for him the grand gesture really does come.

But as Bojack says

“The grand gesture isn’t enough. You have to be consistent. You have to be dependably good. You can’t just screw everything up and then take a boat out on the ocean to save your best friend or solve a mystery and fly to Cansas. You need to do it everyday, which is so . . . hard.”

The truth is, all of these characters, even Bojack, have the potential to be better as long as they deconstruct their worldview shaped by watching television. They have to rid themselves of the illusion. The illusion that there’s some great happy ending that’s going to make all the pain worth it. The only ending in life . . . is death. Until then, there’s always more show. Time’s arrow neither stands still nor reverses; it always marches forward. There will be days these characters make mistakes and days they do great things . . how much they do of either is up to them. Sometimes they’ll do things that they will never get closure for . . things that can’t be forgiven  . . . but that doesn’t ruin their capacity to do right the next day.  Bojack’s right . . .it IS hard to do better every single day. But as the jogger near Bojack’s house says “It gets easier”.

And my essay concludes . . . .riiiiiiight after this anecdote.

I think what makes Bojack Horseman so special is that it holds up a mirror to how a screen infested world has permanently warped our sense of self worth and our understanding of how life really works. In a way, we’re all “sitcom characters” roaming around real life. We think of ourselves as the main characters of our stories, that there’s some sort of satisfying conclusion waiting for us. That we can win whoever we want back with a grand gesture and that we never have to evolve, we just have to be “good enough” . . .and that’s all . . SO wrong. That mentality makes us toxic. It makes us self important and hypocritical and petty, while also leaving us empty. It makes us incomplete. We all have to learn that there’s no ending until we die, that we have to do good every day . . . and that we aren’t the main character.  Everyone is important. Maybe we’ve been watching too many sitcoms and have had these fallacies drilled into our heads . . . and maybe Bojack Horseman is like a rehab for those bad tendencies. As Princess Carolyn points out in the finale of Season 4

“I got into this business because I love stories. They comfort us. They inspire us. They create a context for how we view the world. But also you have to be careful because if you spend a lot of time with stories you start to believe that life is just . . . stories. And it’s not. Life is life . . . and . . .that’s so sad, because . . .there’s so little time and . . . what are we doing with it?”

[turkiyeecom]

E3 2019 in photos: Gooigi, crazy arcade machines, and a DOOM museum

"Great work!" — Plus, the National Videogame Museum returns with some of its craziest rarities yet. Sam Machkovech and Kyle Orland - Jun 16, 2019 1:00 pm UTC LOS ANGELES—If you couldn't or didn't make it to E3 2019, you're not the only one. Anecdotal evidence suggests this was the most poorly attended E3 in some time (though its organizers at the ESA insist that this E3 had only 3,000 fewer attendees than 2018's jam-packed affair), owing perhaps to Sony's no-show or the abundance of live-streamed options for enjoying the event at your own home. Luigi and Gooigi attracted hordes of attendees excited to pose for photos. Sam Machkovech Inside the Luigi's Mansion 3 booth, fans could pose with a guy in a Luigi costume. Nintendo went all-out building a haunted house for these kiosks, but my photos of it turned out terribly. It was easier to get photos of the toy dioramas built around the Link's Awakening gameplay kiosks. Nintendo built four of them in all. A closer zoom on the plastic minis Nintendo built just for this occasion. Link delves into a dungeon. "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" "Wrong series, dude." I'll admit, I kinda lost my mind seeing this adorable Link and Marin meet-cute diorama. Marin in Smash Bros. Ultimate? A guy can dream, right? The EA Play event at the Hollywood Palladium included this impressive cast of paid Apex Legends cosplayers. Yes, the person cosplaying as Octane is a bilateral amputee. You couldn't buy these impressive 10" Apex Legends statues at EA Play. But you could buy a ton of shirts and hoodies. As an Apex Legends fan, Ars's Sam Machkovech nearly bought the "bamboozled" one. For some reason, EA Play hosted an Anthem gameplay session... and for some reason, attendees actually waited for it. FIFA '20 hosted an arena-soccer match. The McLaren Senna features in the new LEGO Speed expansion pack for Forza Horizon 4, so naturally, Microsoft had someone make a life-sized McLaren Serra model out of LEGO bricks. They went to pretty insane trouble to include significant elements from the real deal. Real wheels, real LEGO blocks. This refreshed version of the Xbox Elite Controller (dubbed "version 2") will launch in November for $180 and features such perks as a rechargeable battery, a controller-charging case, increased hair-trigger responsiveness, and more. We couldn't test the new XEC with any games, but its newly texturized grip and significant heft felt good to hold on its own. C'mon, Xbox, you think we're gonna steal this thing? How dare you. Say hello to one of Gears 5's newest, most disgusting monsters. It's not a Gears of War character if it doesn't have chest-high cover nearby. The best thing about Gears 5's new "Escape" mode is that it supports three-player split-screen co-op. More of this kinda thing, please, Xbox Game Studios. The newest LEGO Star Wars release this coming holiday season revolves around the "Skywalker Saga," so naturally, it's time to trot out the old LEGO Han in LEGO carbonite statue again. Coach's Pac-Man line of bags and accessories. For the discerning, fancypants gamer. More Pac-Man and classic-Namco swag. Pretty solid 10" Tekken statues. The entire Bandai Namco fancy-collectible wall was pretty great, honestly. I couldn't take photos of the Final Fantasy VII Remake gameplay kiosks, but I could take photos of the series' Shinra Corporation stuff all around it. For example, this recreation of an iconic FFVII backdrop. Square Enix put up a few Shinra advertisements around the kiosks. See? They have Midgar's best interests at heart! I really hope there's a full cartoon series hidden inside of FFVII Remake starring this cartoon dog. Someone please translate this for us. A small detail of the amazing theater room for Psychonauts 2. TEETH! Arcade1UP had a significant E3 presence with its home-friendly versions of classic arcade machines. The manufacturer used E3 to reveal its newest product: a Star Wars Atari arcade trilogy collection, coming "late 2019." Another look at its handsome side cabinet art. I had to stand on a stool to get a better look at the screen and controller. Because this cabinet was set up on a precarious platform, it was not playable at E3. An Arcade1UP representative said it collaborated with Disney and Lucasfilm in the making of this cabinet, then studied original classic arcade hardware to recreate the controller. Rather than answer my technical questions about how the controller was constructed in this modern version, the Arcade1UP rep insisted that it sought input from arcade cabinet collectors to confirm that its version nailed the original cabinets' feel and mechanical action. Another new Arcade1UP cabinet: the TMNT collection, which includes both of Konami's four-player brawlers in one cabinet. (Most of their cabs include at least two games, if not a few more.) It seems to comfortably support four players, but I liked this group's tweak: letting the middle player simultaneously control two turtles. Then there was this absolutely ridiculous thing that Arcade1UP built for the heckuvit. That's intrepid Ars Technica editor Sam Machkovech up there pretending to play the game. I hope the hand on the joystick makes clear how stupidly massive this whole rig was. But it worked... and Sam won his match. Really, Sam? Be professional. Sega's booth had its own oversized-controller gimmick to celebrate the impending launch of the Sega Genesis Mini this September. It's not really E3 until Ubisoft has a stage full of professional dancers and average fans getting down to Just Dance as one awkward collective. A peek at the poster-covered walls inside of Cyberpunk 2077's behind-closed-doors booth. Capcom had a relatively meager showing at E3, with this new Monster Hunter World expansion taking up most of the company's booth. But, hey, at least they had some nice 10" dragons under glass. Hold me closer, tiny draaaagonnnnns. Sorry, Street Fighter fans. Capcom didn't come to E3 2019 with any news about either SFV or any new fighting games. Just 10" figurines. Chun-Li and Cammy, kicking ass beneath glass. Larger than life. Just like Borderlands should be. Kyle Orland This was by far the best part of the Destroy All Humans revival attempt. Kyle Orland Pixl Cube was one of the more inventive games at the Indiecade booth, a tilt-sensitive box with LED dots that moved through a maze as if pulled by gravity. Kyle Orland In the entryway for Youtube Gaming's creator space, blocks from the show floor, a Google Stadia controller sits behind glass with a mock-up of a retro game store. Kyle Orland The YouTube Gaming space also featured some streamers on old-school CRT TVs, which was a weird look. Kyle Orland Cute. Kyle Orland The YouTube Gaming logo sits on a fake cartridge alongside... Hyper Chroma Ultra? Kyle Orland Nothing says "E3" like a guy in a Yoshi/Mario costume livestreaming himself as he balks loudly at the show floor's $6 pretzels. Kyle Orland New Wave Toys is expanding its Replicade line of authentic miniature cabinets with the likes of these two Capcom classics. Kyle Orland MyArcade is expanding from miniature cabinets to massive portable systems capable of playing actual NES and SNES cartridges. Kyle Orland MyArcade's upcoming Contra cabinet even includes link cable support for two player action. Don't you DARE touch this actual Contra cabinet in the MyArcade booth, though. Kyle Orland That being said, we attended, and Ars Technica came back from Los Angeles with plenty to show for it. In addition to a few more hands-on previews coming (which will build upon the best-of E3 2019 list we already filed), we took our cameras out at both the official E3 halls and nearby events (Xbox Fan Fest, EA Play). I gotta say, in this modern political climate, I have been calling every year "the year of doom." A very nice pencil sketch taken from the original PC game's box art. I'd never seen these minis before, but now I want to play DOOM-opoly. A better zoom on these metal beasts. Collect me plenty. Now for some impressive 3D molds of famed DOOM demons. See? It's like a museum. Funnily enough, this is my "I don't know what to do with my hands" pose when I stand for photos. The secret for awkward photo poses: turn your arms into massive rocket launchers. Way less awkward! As one of DOOM 64's longtime fans, I stood at this specific panel for a while. This might be the least-blurry these N64 sprites have ever looked. (The N64 famously smothered its sprites in a disgusting, smeary blur.) More figurines on display. More figurines on display. More swag on display. More swag on display. The result is a whopping three image galleries here. The first is a catch-all for most of the basic, expected fare, while the second and third focus on retro elements: a DOOM-specific mini-museum, and a curated collection of very rare gaming hardware and collectibles courtesy of the National Videogame Museum in Frisco, Tex. (If you've never been to that physical location before, we strongly encourage you to book a trip.) You know the retro portion of E3 is serious when they put this thing behind a rope. Truly one of a kind. Click the image to get a better look at the information placard. Yep, those are traditional Saturn controller ports. We'd never seen these Vectrex prototypes and variants before. The innards of a prototype color Vectrex system that never saw production. Kyle Orland Anybody think they can repair this thing? Yes, the only scoring cart that remains from this Super Nintendo championship event. Also, a killer Vectrex jacket. How the heck does the NVM keep finding and showing off such incredible game-history rarities? Some cool mementos from the original Mortal Kombat. The placard explains how rare this system is... ... based on this specific message signed by none other than Bill Gates. I don't care how puffy this jacket is. I'd wear it. Every year, the National Video Game Museum trots out at least one previously confidential binder taken from a major gaming company. This year's was Nintendo. I'm always fascinated by internal '80s and '90s documentation about piracy and cartridge backup systems. This section went on for a few more pages and even included grainy photos of various cartridge-copying devices. Video games: the board game! Video games: the, uh, VHS game! Well before the Game Boy revolutionized portable gaming, kids of the '70s and '80s were stuck with these clunkers. One wall was dedicated to particularly rare game consoles that launched solely in Japan. Eat your heart out, Donkey Konga. This is one of Gunpei Yokoi's classic electronic games that he designed for Nintendo in the '70s. This makes me wish Ulala was in an actual '80s cartoon. Kyle Orland In addition to popular and common fare in the coin-op section, the NVM trotted out a few machines we rarely see at classic gaming expos, like this fetching Jungle King cab. True story: we asked Double Fine studio founder and creative director Tim Schafer if he could step back for a second so we could take a photo of this handsome Omega Race cabinet. "I used to play this game all the time as a kid," he remarked before stepping away slowly. (If you're wondering, he signs his name "TIM" in high-score tables.) And we couldn't leave E3 without a walk through the almost carnival-like selection of vendors and inventions in the expo's very back hall. Look below at the show's weird "et cetera" section. Here's a gallery of E3 2019's oddest booths and products. "Wow, how nice and COOL!" we're sure you are saying to yourself. Kyle Orland Thermoreal uses superconductors (?!) to simulate a cold or hot feeling in metal. The company integrated this tech into VR-compatible gloves and a VR headset. As the VR environment changes, so does the sensation of real-life temperature. Trippy! Kyle Orland This 1,000 MaH battery pack for the Switch was heavy, but the harness made it pretty easy to slide on and off to use only when it's needed. Kyle Orland Some extremely generic-looking custom chip boards for use in mini-arcade devices and portable emulation devices. If anybody reading this has the rights to the Atari Jaguar Mini, look them up. Kyle Orland Why stream games to a smartphone with Google Stadia when the Smach Z packs an entire 1080p gaming PC with a 6" screen into a rather bulky portable package? Doom (2016) ran with noticeable judders, and the unit got noticeably hot in our test. But the fact that it works at all was impressive. Kyle Orland The Tactsuit haptic system jolts your body when playing compatible VR games and software. Kyle Orland The Vuvana system has something to do with using a new blockchain cryptocurrency to buy and "own" items in virtual reality, which you can view on a cell phone with this included viewer, apparently. Kyle Orland Oversized controllers were all the rage at E3 2019, but this one went to the trouble of building in a monitor for its game, Street Fighter 2. Kyle Orland Remember the iCade Mini? Someone sure does... Kyle Orland GameBoks is just like it sounds—a wooden box that houses a monitor, power supply, and a space to hold and connect your game console. Between this and the new Atari VCS, wood paneling is apparently the hot new retro-hardware trend. Kyle Orland Proximat is being sold as a "mousepad for your virtual reality feet." It gives VR players a physical indication of their play space's center point, complete with high-grade gel for foot comfort. Kyle Orland If this is a thing you're looking for (for some reason), E3 has you covered. Kyle Orland Amazingly, a product with "360 ONE X" in its name has nothing to do with Xbox (it's a 360 degree camera designed for VR) Kyle Orland Neither vinyl nor fidget spinners are dead at E3 2019. Kyle Orland I need some quick energy after seeing all of these amazing products. It's my lucky day! Kyle Orland How do you make money selling $100 worth of stuff for $40? It's an economic miracle! Kyle Orland This balance board is mainly meant for some easy exercise while at a standing desk, but its producers were marketing it to gamers with a Mortal Kombat 11 display. Kyle Orland And the award for "most dystopian sounding slogan at E3" goes to... Kyle Orland "In the 1989 Future" is a legitimately great tagline, we have to admit. Kyle Orland Listing image by Sam Machkovech Read More Read the full article

[vfxgreenwich]

01. Cut ruthlessly

As head of international outreach at DreamWorks, Shelley Page says: "There's no such thing as a student film that couldn't do with editing." Many student films take on too much, resulting in what one jaded recruiter describes as: "typically five minutes of poor animation on poorly rigged models in poor environments".

"Don’t get attached to material that ultimately doesn’t showcase your best work, even though you have an emotional attachment to it," stresses Patricia Kung, senior recruiter at Animal Logic. Demo reels are about focusing on one's strengths and not trying to be, for example, a character animator if your genius lies in modelling and texturing. Or as Dave Throssell of Fluid Pictures says: "I don't want to wade through a showreel where someone's thrown in everything they've ever done."

02. Keep it short

It’s worth considering showreel duration from a studio’s perspective. They’re likely to receive unsolicited reels on a regular basis, and endure an avalanche every time a position does actually become available. Creating a reel that outstays its welcome is not a good way to gain their attention.

"Because we have to look at so many reels, we would recommend for them to be roughly one-and-a-half to two minutes in length," says Claire Anderson of The Mill. "We don’t even always get all the way through, so I’d also say to put your best work at the beginning."

03. Start and end well

Neil Gallagher, senior lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire, suggests opening with your best work and then, just to ensure you don’t begin with a bang and end with a whimper, close with your second-best piece. Beyond that, if your third-favourite piece does in any way look second-rate, you might want to consider whether it really belongs on the reel at all.

04. Think of it as an ad

If in doubt, try to think of each segment in your showreel as an advert, where the product being sold is you. As Lee Danskin of Escape Studios points out: "Commercials are 30 seconds long for a reason. Too much longer and they get boring."

05. Match your reel to the vacancy/studio

All studios look for different skills, so do your research, and tailor the reel to the position you’re applying for. The reel should show some of the work the company deals with. But don’t throw stuff in just because it’s relevant, be sure that it’s great.

"Some people don’t even know what job they're applying for," says Trond Greve Andersen, co-owner of MIR Visuals, which specialises in architectural visualization. "There’s not much point in a studio like ours looking at models of orcs."

06. Make your role clear

One of the reasons why recruiters don't like student films is that they're usually team efforts, and it's often unclear what the applicant contributed. If there are three characters on screen, is it obvious which one you lit or animated or modelled?

"In the case of group work, it’s important to explain what the student has created," says Neil Gallagher. "Either indicate this in the video when there are group pieces, or provide a breakdown as a PDF or Word document."

07. Show your workings

What you've created speaks for itself to an extent, but people will want to know how you did it too. "Provide a shot breakdown, showing what your contribution was and the software used," says Patricia Kung. "If you’re applying for a technical role, it shows you have a good creative eye too."

08. Keep things simple

It's better to do something that's simple and done well, than going for more complex projects and looking like an amateur.

"You see far too many animators trying to build their own five-minute Avatar, and they end up getting so sidetracked by everything else that the actual animation becomes the last thing they do," says Andrew Daffy of The House of Curves.

"By contrast, I always remember the story of one the guys who became a key animator on [the BBC TV series] Walking with Dinosaurs. His reel was about a minute and-a-half long, and it was a five second sequence that got him hired. All it showed was a stick figure. It was even badly rendered but the body language was so perfectly animated."

09. Technique beats orginality

Demo reels need some flair, but never at the expense of basic skills. "If it's a choice between originality and technical quality, again I'd go for something that was simple and done well," says Throssell.

10. Clichés to avoid

Some CG cliches should be avoided if possible. "If there's one thing that makes my heart sink, it's a demo with spaceships," sighs Joylon Webb, R&D Art Director at Blitz Games Studios Ltd. "They're usually textured cylinders that don't display any modelling skills: you can't see weight, they don't interact with surfaces, they don't display composition, and they're a cliché that has been done for 20 years." Other clichés to avoid in general include dragons, robots, cameras endlessly flying round sets and worlds populated by supermodels and manga heroes.

However, it’s not always the subject matter you pick that matters, but how you choose to treat it in your work. "There’s nothing wrong with putting a dragon on your showreel, so long as it has an original design or looks like it stepped straight out of a Harry Potter movie," points out Andrew Daffy. "The work can’t look at all corny. It needs to be quite sophisticated, or at least handled really well."

[mirodis]

Do you ever see a video on youtube’s recommended and you’re like “dude this looks like it’ll be fun to watch” then by 30 seconds in you can feel your soul leaving your body as it turns out to be the worst pile of crap you’ve ever seen?

I saw a video that was like, “Mass Effect Andromeda character redesigns” and, i shit you not, the first thing the fuckin dude-bro starts talking about is how feminism is ruining video games. He was whining about how it’s aaall Feminisms fault the characters look so ugly. Completely ignoring the fact that like.. They’re not really ugly they’re just VERY poorly rigged????? It’s not the designs, it’s the animation. If they had pot more love in to actually making the characters move naturally it would be 30 times better.

Not that Bioware just completely shit the bed and didn’t give a damn about their game. Nah. It was feminism. Obviously.

[zhumeimv]

The Ending Of The Mandalorian Chapter 7 Explained

The Ending Of The Mandalorian Chapter 7 Explained

Date: 2019-12-19 15:00:07

[aoa id=’0′][dn_wp_yt_youtube_source type=”101″ id=”_hIY7-WaLvE”][/aoa]

We knew Mando’s scrappy little plan was going to go poorly, but we didn’t expect it to be quite this much of a disaster.

In Chapter 7 of The Mandalorian, Mando’s troubles are stacked higher than ever before. Titled “The Reckoning,” the newest episode of the Disney+ series proves that a reckoning is…

[blogbitz-blog]

Bitz Gaming Pet Peeves

So recently I’ve played a game that pretty much soaked up all of my pet peeves in a single sponge of poorly developed software that come about with video games not sure if I’ve done this list but these are the top things that will make me drop the controller and walk away.

No light

Granted in horror games or with a light system its fine but when you play a game, especially a fps and you have no idea where your going because the programmer couldn’t be bothered to even put a few lights, outlines, enemy lights, something so your not stumbling in the dark its rubbish.  Its as fun as being locked in a closet.

Enemy with no spawn animation or particle.

If your going to play a game that has enemy's spawn at least have some particle effect, or momentary animation to let the players see what or where the enemy is and react rather then simply dropping them and die because they had the ability to just appear.  Laziness on the programmers part to not put in something that would let you see whats coming, no tell tale noise or moment of smoke or magic just appearing, its the signs of the laziness.

The guise of “challenging”

A rubics cube is challenging.  A rigged carnival game is not. I’ve played challenging games and honestly been not able to beat them but know that I could, know the challenge exists but not feel cheated when I die but when a game is buggy, glitchy, undefined, and cheap with the idea of the selling point posing bugs as a feature it is just lame.  Imagine if you would playing a game of dungeon and dragons with someone and the DM being vague and trying to put the pressure on the players far too early on.  When you ask that DM to maybe ease up he responds “Its not supposed to be a walk in the park, suck it up and have your level 1 fight these 8 bugbears guarding the gate.  Also before you came in a thief stole your items from the shop that’s who that person was at the door.”  Once again a challenging game has not a spike in difficulty, its a trial and error but its not painful.

Some games have it be the joke of the game other games take it seriously blaming the players other then fixing their problems in a patch.  

Floaty or delayed controls.

When one cannot regulate their jumps or even have to start compensating that 3 seconds at the button command it reacts, the game becomes its own problem.  The worst part of the game is not being able to play said game.

Hidden or vagueness in object or point to go too.

Half Life does it right, theirs puzzles you have to solve using your various weapons and jumping, and crouching, many game developers should take notes when it comes to their level design and types of puzzles.  Difficult but its told what you have to do, but I’ve played games that pretty much has a half inch ledge that doesn’t look like a character could walk across it and that be the whole “puzzle”, a giant room, thats a pit, no items, no way to go back just a ledge that blends into the wall because the color pallet is poorly chosen.

Cheap swarming and lack of health pick ups.

So I’ve played games that thrown swarms at you of enemies and thats fine but imagine if you have no room to strafe or jump, enemies move faster, and attacking does nothing.  So after you cleared this and lost half your health then you need health for the boss prior aaaaand no health packs.  You would think one could take a page from the HALO route and auto heal or heal at the end or beginning of a level?

I know it seems I’ve done far too many negative posts recently but thought I would share my pet peeves when it comes to the games themselves, perhaps you have some of your own?