Short Blue Sky

Games User Research Summit, GDC 2012

2012-03-08T02:38:00.001-08:00

My GDC trip this year is shaping up to be a lot more exciting than I'd expected it to be. I'm enjoying the chilly San Francisco breeze (I miss it a little), and marveling at the city architecture.

Tuesday I attended the Games User Research Summit, and definitly learned a few things:

On Touch Interface
Visual assets for touchable buttons should be at least 7-9mm in width.

The visual asset should be at 60% of the touch target size.

Three ways to classify Interfaces are by their Freedom, Precision, and Direct Manipulation.

Intuitive is misleading, because everything is learned. Familiarity and Awesomeness is a more efficient targets.

On ABC model of attitude
Affect -> Emotion
Behavior -> Action
Cognition -> Thinking

Each of the three affect the other, and recursively affect themselves. They are immeasurable because this state is always changing and in the moment.

Behavior is observable while Affect and Thinking can only be intuited.

Media can affect one of these aspects to influence another.

Bartle's Player Types and Biometrics
A researcher presented a study that he did on players of a trivia game, as requested by the developers. He quickly realized that the data that was needed required observation of the four Bartle player types in relation to one another.

It is important to note that the decision to use Player Types: Killer, Explorer, Achiever, and Socializer, were a result of the data, and determined to be fitting after properly analyzing player behavior under their target behaviors.

The researchers watched for the interactions between two players and measured the frequency of:
Shared awareness
Requesting Info
Shared History
Shared Sucess
Shared Failure
Team Optimisation
Trash Talk
Self Indulgence

ABC in Games
During this talk I realized that this would allow me the vocabulary and surface understanding to put one aspect of Spectra into words. The purpose of Spectra was to place players in a situation where they would have to help the other player, their partner. My intended result would be that these repeated acts of kindness would influence the player's emotions and thoughts about each other.

The game never yielded an answer, as I haven't observed enough play sessions of it, or run lab tests with specific player-types, but I have had good reaction to the premise and players tell me that they enjoy the game.

Maya =X

2012-03-02T06:14:00.000-08:00

OK, so I finally tested the murky waters of the 3D world. 6th semester out of 8 here at USC, it's a good time. I feel like I can comfortable learn the software, and that makes me happy. For the past three years, I've only ever worked on drawings and 2D animations.

Taking this course is like dipping my toes into the 3D environment, making sure that the temperatures aren't too cold. I'm so deep in my 2D work right now (it's only getting more and more exciting!) that my focus is still in that direction, but I'll be learning Maya steadily!

Modeling is pretty fun! For my next step, I want to model a character.

Mariya

2012-02-18T02:59:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a fighting game now. The only ones I play myself are Street Fighter (Juri and Sakura), Super Smash Brothers, and a bit of Melty Blood. We're going to have a couple of characters, and I'm having a lot of fun repurposing a sketchbook drawing into a game character.

These are the two puppets, rigged in Flash's skeleton system.

Check out Mariya!

trying out different color schemes. I started with the one on the right and in the end we stuck with that one. The final puppet is missing that round face =/

i based Mariya's fighting pose on this doodle.

this is a poor attempt to change the proportions of the characters.

Late Night Mariya

2012-02-11T05:23:00.000-08:00

One paper down.

New Year, New Semester

2012-01-24T13:11:00.000-08:00

This Semester I've reduced my number of units to twelve... I never thought I would do this, but here I am, taking the least required amount of units. The gaps in my schedule are intedended for side projects, of which include Pid Rescue. I took a random job in the beginning of the semester, and am in talks about another one. But a combination of a Japanese Literature and a Writing for the Arts class doesn't leave me with a tremendous amoung of leisure time.

In short, I have work to do, especially for Combiform. You'll probably see me paint a bit more, as I explore the effectiveness of studies and warm ups. I have not given up on playing games, however, and there are those nights where I disappear into the world of Deus Ex for 12 hours @_@, and come back with the whole world looking a tad orange.

Here's some commissioned work for a lad's short film (It was on a very tight schedule and we had to cut corners):

He kept saying his video was going to be raunchy. This is what I imagined

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-27T14:11:00.000-08:00

Every drawing feels like style exploration >.< Merry Christmas!

Ludum Dare #22 - Surume

2011-12-20T03:02:00.001-08:00

So I did the Ludum Dare Game Jam with a bunch of friends! It took place over the weekend of Dec 16th, and I even had a buddy sleep over. I had to take care of most of the programming, which, unfortunately, is not my strong suit, but I'm glad we pulled through at the end.

Our game is titled: Surume: The Little Squid

and you can play it here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8680

The First of December

2011-12-02T04:43:00.001-08:00

The First of December came and went as quickly as the Winter winds blow. The day before, Erica Zhao and I turned in a completed build of Spectra for class. No project is without its crunches, and Spectra was no exception. I worked as many hours as I could as soon as Thanksgiving Thursday ended, clocking in about 5 hours of sleep by Monday night.

Here's the one minute teaser video we put together to showcase our game:

The major changes that occurred during this looong weekend were:

-color changing flashlight

The boy's sprite was overly static compared to the girls. She would have her hair dyed a different color every time her powers changed, whereas the boy had a 2 frame flashlight animation.

I separated the flashlight from his sprite, and let it change colors. It's only a small number of visible pixels compared to the entire screen, but better associates the floating circle with his wand.

-animated, reactive picture frame (hud element)

Spectra is bordered by a picture frame. I'd always wanted it to be one that changes according to the game-state, but the design/insignia had always stumped me. I ended up animating a vortex, as if light were emitting from a source in the center of the box.

each individual tile changes colors after every animation cycle, and the color that is matched with the girl's current color is lit brighter than the rest. I will try to post a video soon, but for now, imagine twinking stars.

-simplified node sprites

The color fountains that I had going before had too much unnecessary detail. I removed the pillar that held up the orb and diamonds, so now they're just left with the base and shape.

-background

Anh gave me a rough pencil sketch for the background. I then spent the entire night painting the repainting the entire thing. Sometimes the flow of the lines would direct eyes out of the picture instead of inwards, and those sections would have to be repainted. Othertimes detail would accumulate in certain areas. Since the background is a decorative element and is not part of the playspace, i had to simplify and remove anything that was distracting.

If you've heard me pitch Spectra before, I talked about playing in a stained glass world, where the picture and the game are one. I mentioned how players would be brought into the stained glass environment. In practice, it is a difficult goal. I do plan on experimenting with that idea again, but it seems unlikely that we will be able to find a convergence of gamespace and the background.

In its place, I plan on implementing 'glitch world' levels, where the the entire screen is filled with gameplay elements, platforms, and players will have to find their way through its maze-like structure.

10-Day MEGA Hackathon

2011-11-14T22:51:00.001-08:00

A friend of mine invited me to contribute some art on a hackathon project. We were given 10 days to work on it, minus whatever time we would want to spend on Actual Classes that cost money. The theme was the poem My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Our game was a sidescrolling action platformer in which the player manipulates the position of the shadow of a priestess(placed on the floor, on the side of walls, or even right behind him), to execute different abilities, which both support her platforming and her combat.

Here is the stuff that I put together for the project:

And Yet Again Those Four Colors

2011-11-03T03:06:00.000-07:00

I've been yearning for a course on color recently. My school does not seem to offer one, and the closest I would be able to get to color theory would likely be the Painting class and/or certain Animation courses. I remember watching the Gurren Lagann production documentary, and noting that a key role in the entire process were the people in the coloring department.

Another instance was a Toy Story 3 presentation by Lee Unkrich in which he showed how the entire film was color keyed to set the mood in each sequence.

Agent Purple?

In this last game I worked on, Agent Purple, (again for CombiForm), I made sure not to recycle any previous colors, instead opting to practice using the Photoshop color picker. I ended up referencing the original cover for A Study in Scarlet, and, at my producer's suggestion, Patrick Owsley's rendition of Secret Squirrel.

Fall Figure Drawings

2011-10-14T21:28:00.000-07:00

I just did my first set of figure drawings since the beginning of the Fall Semester.

As usual, they get better as the session goes on.

Color Coded Characters

2011-10-06T01:23:00.000-07:00

Last year in Game Design Workshop, for the first Paper Game, my team created a spy themed laser gun board game. Each spy was given a color, and as such things usually go, we settled on Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, finding success in Google's logo design. What makes it such that these four colors represent basicality? The inclusion of Green instead of Orange or Purple a consequence of being complementary to red and a combination of the Opponent colors Blue and Yellow?

That's not to say that Green does not fit into the team. Look, he's just as good a spy as any other:

I recently worked on another set of color coded characters, and as usual opted to assign them as hair colors. These one's for Pop Quiz, a CombiForm math game:

Sis Puella Magica

2011-09-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

I successfully completed my part in an art trade this weekend. I gifted a fanart of Kyoko Sakura from the anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica. If you havent seen it yet, consider it a must watch because Yuki Kajiura is behind the music.

In other news, I've been continuing game development as the new semester has started. This time around I'll be creating art and designing the experiences around Combiform, Pid Rescue, and a tentatively titled Stained Glass (in one way or another inspired by Kyoko here). Artists are much in need here, as the curricula focuses mainly on design and programming, and I've had classmates constantly suggest that I contribute drawings to their work. I already have much to do, but that isn't to say I there arent other projects that I wouldnt mind doodling here and there for.

Having gotten an iPad recently, Zach and I have begun platform testing with Pid Rescue. Flash developed applications absolutely do not run efficiently on Apple's devices, but with Machinarium working finely on the ipad2 and breaking sales charts on the App Store as a Flash app, making Pid Rescue run smoothly should be definitely possible.

I just found this resource today, which seems to provide a good starting point:
http://flashapplications.de/?p=808

vacation's about to end

2011-08-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

Summer break is about to end! Here's a couple of sketches and WIP, that I'll be working on as school starts up again.

The first drawing was part of a live stream at livestream.com/shuandang. Any suggestions between ustream and livestream?

Summer Blues

2011-07-29T00:50:00.001-07:00

I accept your challenge!

Baldy

2011-07-10T00:02:00.000-07:00

Finished a spunky character I started last night.

Yesterday was fine. It'd only been a day, and I had preoccupations. Today, however I woke up feeling empty, cold, carrying a nagging emptiness inside. It hurts, it will inevitably scar; If only I'd been strong enough to carry the burden and prevent the blood from spilling.

iPad LiveSketch doodles

2011-07-05T23:16:00.000-07:00

Some quick doodles on my friend's iPad during a 4th of July celebration. It's pretty fun for random sketching.

Secret Summer Game! Project Duet

2011-07-03T00:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a sneak peak of what I've been working on in the weeks since E3. There isn't really a reason to be secretive, but for now, I will be anyway. I'm one of the designated programmers on the project, so there will be a shortage of art from me, but, whenever I draw something, I'll post it up!

Elise and style exploration

2011-06-21T00:54:00.000-07:00

Another painting done with a palette of colors. This time it came out really bland. This is a painting of Elise done in a different style than the original drawing I had of her. Expect some more style exploration with her!

I've also played through the ending of Mass Effect yesterday, skipping many side missions (the universe was in immediate danger!). I've transferred my ME save into ME2, and its very tempting to ignore work and continue the adventure. Here's a bunch of screenshots from my gameplay, mostly of femshep. http://steamcommunity.com/id/kajiuran/screenshots/

On another note, I've finally earned enough points for Rumble in League of Legends! My favourite yordle and I rock lanes with him!

Naginata and line-art

2011-06-12T16:52:00.000-07:00

I think I'm getting the hang of line art. This time around, I also prepared a color scheme so that I wouldnt get lost from all of the color choices. Ah, traditional painting, with its more limited color choices, is so much more simpler.

http://shuandang.deviantart.com/art/Naginata-212893555

Rusty

2011-06-11T02:46:00.000-07:00

Here’s a work in progress! My drawing’s been so rusty since Fanime and E3, and this is the only good drawing from a sketch dump of bad doodles I made to get back into shape.

Attempts

2011-05-27T02:13:00.000-07:00

Trying to make sketchbook drawings look nice.

Also trying to figure out a cost friendly phone plan (trick: there isn't one), and utterly failing at it.

Caffeine Girl

2011-05-19T03:28:00.000-07:00

Meet "Caffeine Girl". I found her hiding in an old notebook from last year, originally created to be in a game set in your local cafe.

She's that cute girl that that sits alone at the other end of the room, sipping her coffee and looking out the window. And you wonder to yourself, What's she thinking of? And you feel the urge to walk over, and ask. But you hesitate, and take another sip from your cup.

Instead of The Cafe, it could take place in the The Laundry Room (Days of College), On The Street (Murakami), or In The Library (Scott Pilgrim).

Anyway, I checked the local Coffee Bean and she wasn't there. Turns out she isn't a person you're supposed to search for.

Determinism

2011-04-30T01:40:00.000-07:00

Hey look I drew a 4-koma. The idea was taken from a discussion on philosophy and sketched on the bus ride to work the following day. Watch as my handwriting evolves panel after panel.

Figures (Spring 2011) Set 4

2011-04-27T19:57:00.000-07:00

27 April 2011

Here's what I got from sneaking into my friends' drawing class!

Figures (Spring 2011) Set 3

2011-04-27T19:40:00.000-07:00

16 February 2011

Aphra

2011-04-20T12:57:00.000-07:00

I've been playing Portal 2 since launch on the PS3. Here's a character I drew in my notebook as I was idling in Physic's class (2011.02.06). Ideally it would have been the Women Writer's class, as I'd be able to steal an author's name that way. The page of notes after the drawings are on Aphra Behn.

Start with Why

2011-04-10T23:47:00.000-07:00

I like dull colors but I'm unhappy with these. At time's I still wonder why I draw. Simon Sinek: Start With Why If I'm still drawing hoping for fame or profit, I'm probably doing it all wrong. Other time's I'm fearful of drawing, afraid it'll all come out wrong.

Figures (Spring 2011) set 2

2011-02-26T14:37:00.000-08:00

Sketch Crawl #30 (2011.01.22) @ Los Angeles National History Museum

2011-02-26T14:30:00.000-08:00

Met some great people at the sketch crawl. I'm definitely looking forward to the next one!

Figures (Spring 2011) set 1

2011-02-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

Here are a bunch of figures from a drawing session in Tom Sito's Character Design class.

Hatsune Miku

2010-04-18T05:17:00.000-07:00

Hatsune Miku came out around the time that I had a strong focus on drawing drawing and drawing. Video after video was released on Youtube and NicoVideo, and the popularity was hard to ignore. Despite her excessively long hair, I took an interest in her character and have often used her as one of my hieroglyph anime characters. Her costume is probably the one that I know best.

Back!

2010-03-29T18:05:00.000-07:00

I'm going to post sketches.

Well, the paper is white, but I'm not going to scan, so woe to that. I guess this camera likes adding its own mood to the image. Back to work!

AVATAR

2010-03-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

Thank you, James Cameron, for the wonderful experience. In the same awe-inspiring way that Lucas' Star Wars created an exotic galaxy to be discovered, Avatar detailed just a fraction of a single life-supporting moon.

First off, the 3D. I'd held off on watching any 3D films, save the new Terminator ride at Universal Studios, for Avatar, and it was well worth it. The depth of vision really enhanced the illusion of a real world that our protagonists are visiting, and allowed my eyes to graze over and around the textures of every object, person, and even the beams of light piercing through the forest canopy. At first glance the CG looks top-notch and is undoubtedly the best in the world at this moment. The film really was "dream-like" and flying through the breathtaking view of the Hallelujah Mountains with its waterfalls evaporating into the wisps will not be topped anytime soon. While great stylized animated films rest unchallenged on their golden thrones, the struggle for realistic computer graphics is a continuing struggle in which each successive film tops the next with a bigger budget and better equipment. However, the lush landscape of Pandora has a magical quality that I feel will last.

With his having chosen to work on Avatar over Battle Angel first, I hope that James Cameron has learned enough about stereoscopic and computer graphics technology to have it be second nature. Adapting Battle Angel Alita into the film Alita, I hope, will be both an exhibition of groundbreaking visuals and of a successful adaptation of a Japanese manga into a live action film. Cameron has picked his title well, as Battle Angel Alita is less likely to suffer from whitewashing of the cast that film adaptations of Street Fighter, Dragonball, and Avatar: The Last Airbender have. With his announcing of the plot of the first Alita to be based on the Motorball arc, I wonder though how Cameron will be able to faithfully adapt the work and present it to film audiences.

My only gripe with 3D (that is, excluding 3D gimmicks), is the jarring experience of having to refocus my eyes to see the 3D when my eye wanders too far from the area on screen that is in focus. For video games that were presented in 3D at GDC this year, this was not so much a problem as the planes in the video feed were all in focus. Watching someone play a baseball game, I could observe the entire field, and should be able to do so considering that it is essential information to the player. With Avatar, however, whenever my eye strayed too far away from the protagonist to look at, say the bunker beds in the background, the 3D effect wore off. It was so much more an experience in which my eyes were asked to be on rails than be in the world.

One particular shot in Avatar caught my eye. In my notes here I wrote cliche, but reflecting upon it, I'll just regard it as another choice of shot. The shot is sometime into the film when the army flies into the Hallelujahs, and we, from a distance, see the entire fleet flying amongst the mountains. Where I would expect a cut, Cameron use a dramatic (I would call tacky) zoom into the ships to bring them closer to view. It's exciting, and this is an exciting film, though I can't help to wonder if Cameron used this technique from documentary work. It felt like a shot from a handheld (a very expensive one, I would imagine) , and director Kitamura would probably not approve.

Going into Avatar, I had read that Cameron took a scientific approach to making the film, creating and documenting the moon, Pandora, so that it would be as plausible as possible. The final product, however, only gleaned on the science fiction, coming nowhere close to the original scriptment. Given the length of the movie and the target audience, though, the cutting of geeky explanations was kinda necessary.

Lastly, Jenova Chen's "game" comment caught my eye. The press, Ubisoft, and Cameron were both excited about presenting a video game and film that underwent production simultaneously. However, sales failed to meet expectations despite the movie going on to become to highest grossing film of all time. To quote Chen: "Avatar is good. But based on the emotion the film try to convey and its plot, I feel it would be more impactful if it's told through a game."

The World and The Wired

2010-01-21T00:14:00.000-08:00

I feel lost between the boundaries of The World and The Wired.

Today, I spend more time peering though Windows into the depths of cyber-space than looking out through my window at the city outside. And I see a billion people like myself looking around also at this massive pile of data. This internet lets the minds of the world connect, not as fundamentally as the neural network of Pandora, but extensive at least throughout human beings. And I feel this urge to 'upload' myself to this network. Yet this is not possible. All that can be seen are strands of thought, a silhouette of person. Perhaps my expectations for this technology are too high. An Avatar in today's sense is not a complete projection of a person's being though the wire. While Jake Sully was able to 'soul exchange' into a Na'vi, I can only project a cross-section of myself here. The Wired, on the hand, merges the real world with the internets through IPv7. No boundaries. No problems.

An Alternate to Diary

2010-01-02T23:49:00.000-08:00

Well, since I'm spending so much time on the computer anyway... I thought I'd take on a paperless version of my Diary. I've fallen so far behind on it! Lack of motivation, or the inconvenience of it all, I don't know, but here I am setting up a blog as an alternative. My friend Yさん has kept one up for years now, and I thought I'd give it a try, in addition to all of the other blogs that I keep on the internet. Though, splitting my life through all of these different strands feels... like I'm partially hiding my complete self from the internet. As if the internet were a sentient being. I just did some digging up into Blogs and Internet Diaries. It turned out Justin Hall, a USC IMD alumnus pioneered blogging, and kept it up for eleven years before stopping and turning his focus on his local world.

This is boring, personal information that followers of my work need not read. As an alternative, this stinks as I cannot draw in the side margins of the "diary" nor will i staple mementos to the pages. A couple more regrets and things to rant about, but that one is an interesting anecdote, which we'll leave for another time, eh? ;D

This reminds me of the Orwell Prize blog that was set up around George Orwell's diary. Some days he would just "log" the number of eggs laid by his chickens, but, most importantly he wrote something down. Always starting off with the weather, he wrote at least one thing about his day. Now I'm having second thoughts of expanding this to that language blog site Lang-8, where if I were to blog in Japanese, a native Japanese speaker would comment and correct my mistakes. That would be a great learning experience. Some people blog a lot. Others not so often...

This Lang-8 system looks like it would help me a lot in my studies as a supplement to daily class. Look out for my upcoming Lang-8 blog ;D.

Today (2009.12.28)
Yesterday I woke up late as usual, what with the terrible nightowl sleeping habits. Not as bad as some fellow college students, who go to sleep way past 3 and 4 a.m. Guh, was very annoyed at my father pestering me to finish the chicken soup that Grandma cooked for me. It was a great soup, however. Just remembered that I haven't drunk the swallows' nest drink yet. That stuff is mighty good for ya'.

Listening to: 大胆にいきましょう↑Heart & Soul↑ (Daitan ni Ikimashou) - Tamaki Nami

Cross Cultural Music

2010-01-01T23:06:00.000-08:00

Isn't it just great when music is shared across borders?

A*Teens - Perfect Match
Tamaki Nami - Daitan ni Ikimashou (Heart & Soul)

There's Tamaki Nami's cover of A*Teens' catchy song. I'd always thought "Daitan ni Ikimashou" felt different from her other music. Especially with that -desu in the first line. Unforgettable. I would always have to readjust when my playlist goes from "Reason", "Realize", or "Believe" to he bouncy, light, full-stop-at-the-end-of-every-line "Daitan ni Ikimashou".

So I've been listening to "Upside Down" and sketching out the next two AnimeLA paintings. No, no, none of the characters are going to be bouncing off the ceiling in a fit of love.

Another Blog.

2009-12-28T01:05:00.000-08:00

I've just created another blog. I have a terrible habit of starting and starting and starting and never finishing. No, rather, I continue to set up finish lines but don't make any effort towards crossing them.

I'd created the blog for another purpose, but what the hell, I can't let snatching up that blog name go to waste. So, I've canceled one project not even half an hour into it. And then've started a new one. One whose finish line is set... nowhere in sight. Welcome to Grandpa's Violin. Sometimes I wonder whether using Blogger over Wordpress is a good idea. Anyway, I had intentions to make a diary blog but in my narcissism decided to scrap that. "Grandpa's Violin" is the one Yuki Kajiura song that my dad recognizes. Well, if you haven't heard it yet, please do so now. I'll wait patiently.

I'd originally planned the title to be based off of my favourite song "Winter" but the theme was too general. Everything from "handinhand" to "darknessofwinter" was taken. What i could get was "throughwinter" or "thruwinter" or "middleofthewinter". Now, Through Winter isn't such a bad name for a blog, but Grandpa's Violin--now that evoked some real emotion and antiquity.

I sure wish i had a Grandpa with a violin.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T19:27:00.000-08:00

December 25th, 2009 Yay Christmas!! The year is also almost over. Unfortunately, I've gotten sick over the past few days. Not sure if it's poor sleeping habits, an infected tooth, or both. I've come down with three dis-eases: a toothache, headache, and the chills; they always seem to come together. Anyway, here's what I've been slaving over. Christmas cards!

These hand-made ones have been taking my time away from Anime LA convention preparation. They take so long to make! I've uploaded a couple at DeviantArt #2.

Winter Break preview

2009-12-23T01:45:00.000-08:00

This winter break, I've decided to work on some fanart for Anime LA! This will be my first time staying in an Aritst's Alley, and hopefully my first time cosplaying, so I'll be both nervous and excited! Here's a sketch of Miku. My plan is to have three paintings, one each of Hatsune Miku, Lal'c and Nono, and Ayanami Rei ready for the convention. Time to get to work!

Figures Week 11?

2009-12-04T15:05:00.000-08:00

Either Week 11 or 12, most likely eleven. Anyway, on to the pictures. Maybe some sketches coming up in a post. I'll have to quickly fill the sketchbook up, and post the best scratching and scribbling i've done in my most recent.

Ugh, sorry about the bad lighting.

Figures Week 10

2009-12-04T14:51:00.000-08:00

Week 10, the 4th of November 2009. Is it just me or does the conte not go well with the paper? Dangit i accidentally used flash on the first image.

Figures Week 13

2009-12-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

Catching up on some old posts. Stuff must be so unorganized now. Week 15 was skipped for an Interactive Media showcase. Awesome work being done by the students here.

Teaching Moral Character

2009-11-27T01:01:00.000-08:00

I'm visiting a friend at UCLA this thanksgiving. What? USC students can't get along with UCLA students? Anyway, she's gone to bed after claiming her one hour of sink/bathroom time, and we'll be getting up, not too early tomorrow to go Black Friday shopping! Sadly, there are no awesome classic films being shown right now, and every girl wants to see New Moon. Ugh, at least i was forced to watched Twilight last, Friday, was it by Cさん. Terrible movie. The awkwardness in the character interactions made it seem as if there was absolutely no script at all, or the actors couldn't perform. Awkward. I haven't read the book,but I've heard that it's just as terrible. Terribly popular.

Well, we had our student made, dorm-made thanksgiving dinner. I washed the rice; what an accomplishment! Victor was introduced, no, I was introduced to Victor, I don't know if it was Hさん's poor introduction, as she failed to mention my name, or the fact that the fact that I was a trojan that triggered no response from him. Not even a "Hey, welcome to UCLA!" Is it my face? *Hさん's keyboard's s key is tricky. What did I like? Talked about video games again. H?さん is a Neotokyo player. I've finnaly found one. Also an avid(if i have any idea how to use that word) MMORPG player. No games for him in college though. I brought my PS3 to school, but have only really been able to play recently, and just Assassins Creed II, with all the hype surrounding it's launch. Ubisoft at USC, the Lineage trailer, got me excited enough about the game that I didn't wait for the delayed PC version. I've loving the game, but the graphical capabilitie of the Playstation don't seem to be able to handle the field of vision well at all. Is it just my system? When the textures shift slightly, or objects appear before you as you close the distance between you and them, the "reality" of the game, the immersion that I expected (as i play with nearly no HUD), is broken.

Anyway, H?さん says that his approach would be improvement on existing ideas, basically, "I want to make an MMORPG, now what can I do differently to make it better." Everyone asks, what kind of game do you want to make. Yet, I hesitate to choose. There are genres to be created. I want to make a kind of game that you didn't even know existed. My approach would be to build the framework from scratch. I hope i don't give up after laying the *whatever those wooden, oh, piles?! (wiki...) yes, a PILE! I'm urprised I even remember the word. Oh, and just looking up contruction on wikipedia, I realized the green material clad around the to-be Student Union isn't just and Orange texture placed in for the level design of the build. It's an insulator. I really though it was just temporary texture. -_-

So, what did I want to talk about? Oh, we had chicken. Yes, chicken, pre-cooked turkey was sold out ;_; On the boring side, list of events. I got off the bus at the right stop, after freaking out thiking i had gone all the way to Santa Monica, Then I couldnt find the small Le Conte cross-section, walked down to Westwood. The reliability of buses scares me. Epecially after that close shave in Irvine. Don't think the bus wa ever gonna come. *Wow this paragraph is really boring, but I'm putting down some reasons to learn to drive.

Hum, any meaning to today's events? I read Wolpaw's interview (VALVe, with the other writer, also) but maybe those thoughts should be posted to IMD? He views the world through his (i'll dub) "current-project" filter, and everything that happens, experienced, sees, hears, is compared to work. "How can this be used in my game?" So, maybe I should turn on my filter right now. I chose paper as my currect game project while sitting in the dining hall, Parkside, I believe. Twyla Tharp says to keep your project a secret though, and they'll be more fun to do and FINISH. I desperately need to finish, or even, start. The star I'm reaching for is iPhone game. Unfortunately, the concept suits 3D more, so maybe i should develop the other one. Maybe

What I wanted to talk about in the post was my experience reading on MangaFox today. One Piece. Awesome. Bleach, scanlators left a "watermark" and it was unreadable. So I didn't read it. Naruto, nudging forward a bit. One Piece movie-prologue chapter? Double-awesome, reminded me of tons of characters, which I'm sure One Piece alreasy has. That nostalgia calls for some re-watching of One Piece, if not the entire series, whatever my sisters will.

This caught my eye. *Oh and there's so many topics in the post I wont know how to tag this.
Well, I'd like to include an image with everpost, but the image might defame my blog, and I just had technical trouble, own no rights to the image (thought i posted Bae Doona), and, yeah. *typing that out on the internets.

So, the title of the manga Need a Girl *translated from korean (여자친구만들고파!) caught my eye. Hey typical manga for teenage boys, I wanted to see how this one would hit the demographic, and its portrayal of women, and the art (actually, "any short-haired girls?"). It's a little too straightforward on the perversion. From the pages that I've read, lots of fanservice, fantasy, relations with classmates. But what really caught my eye was the use of popular Chinese idioms, wise sayings, phrases your parents or teachers would recite into your brain in an effort to encourage better, healthier behavior. At first, I had thought "The early bird gets the worm" would be the main theme of the chapter, but the idioms kept coming. I'm not on my computer right now, so maybe I'll edit this post with the idioms in Chinese later.

But, these were four-character idioms that I learned in Chinese Culture class, coming right back at me. I love it. I love the idea of applying those timeless sayings to a situation in a manga. However the schoolgirls are a tad bit too distracting.

How would this be taken in a game? Perhaps the interactivity would make the lesson stick, for the lack of a better term. Mostly, a choose your own adventure/visual novel with moral elements. Thoughts, thoughts?

P.S. How many words have i written in the past hour? Blog vs. Diary! I'd rather not hurt my head over it, but my organizing self can't resist. Perhaps a historian would like to do the dirty work and compile it later. I don't feel obligated to have work done by others. Now, those labels...

Figures Week 8

2009-10-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

*cough cough* After a week of midterms, my hand churned out a whole bunch of useless drawings, the connections between my eyes and my brains fell apart... Life goes on. Here's Week 8. terrible. Again with the left hand. I'm sick and tired of it, may be alternating from now on.

Figures Week 7

2009-10-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

~~Hmm, Google's new image system is throwing the order of my pictures around, sorry.~~ I'll just have to leave the thumbnails medium sized. Here's Week 7, mostly with the left hand, whilst I coughed from a sore throat.

Figures Week 6

2009-10-23T02:43:00.000-07:00

Silhouette exercises. Then we switched into a left-hand exercise (and vice versa for left handers).

Bae Doona!

2009-10-11T22:51:00.000-07:00

Last Friday we screened Take Care of My Cat (2001). I sat there astounded by Bae Doona's performance, her tomboyish appearance, short hair cut, the silent rebellion she put up against her family. Her face was perfect for that. Cute and bright-eyed, she was the nexus of the group of five friends, always making the phone calls and trying to get them to stay together.

It's a feeling that I can't explain clearly,... when I am left with a great impression of an artist, and ... perhaps nostalgia..., and they come back to me after a period of time and touch me again with another piece of work, except that I do not recognize them immediately. Two weeks ago I learned the name of Zhao Wei, my favourite Chinese actress, after learning that her song "畫心" trumped alan's "心戰" for Red Cliff in the Hong Kong Film Awards (I just noticed, both composers are Japanese). I remember her as the actress for the tv series Return of Princess Pearl and the film Shaolin Soccer. Even she was in Red Cliff.

And Natalie Portman went under my radar with V for Vendetta, until I soon fell in love with her role in Leon (1994). Who else? It's just that feeling that I get. The first time it's just "Omigosh what a great actress". The same thing happens for another film, and then its only later that I realize that both characters were played wonderfully by the one and the same.

I just noticed, that for the competing songs, both composers are Japanese. That leads me to my main point of the article. We also screen Hirokazu Koreeda's After Life (2001), and it turns out that Doona ~~is going to be starring~~ starred in his upcoming film Air Doll. Professor Lippit talked about the inter-national, cross cultural cinema that is rising in East Asia. For example, he said that Takeshi Kaneshiro can be quintessentially Chinese in a Chinese film, and also be quintessentially Japanese in a Japanese one. Talk about a great actor.

I'm really looking forward to seeing Doona's performance. Unfortunately, it may be just for Doona's performance, as critics are stating that the adaptation is "lacking substance." I'd also like to see what trend Koreeda is paving in his cinema. We're seeing a convergence between the Asian cinema's, now when's the localisation going to pick up?

Figures Week 5

2009-10-02T17:59:00.001-07:00

This week's model danced for and met Michael Jackson! He was a wonderful model, and brought lots of new poses. Bua showed us his work in progress, some wonderful artwork, and taught us about the intricacies of ownerships of rights and photographs and likenesses. A company can own the right to your likeness. And if i do fanart I could argue to say that my work is selling because it is drawn by me, and not because it is a drawing of a popular character. Right, people buy drawings of their favorite characters all of the time, and sometimes even terrible artwork gets sold. I wonder how I'll do when and if i get my prints out in the Artists' Alley.

First two pages fixed up a bit by Bua.

Figures Week 4

2009-09-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

Starting this one off with a demonstration by Justin Bua.

And then my stuff, which pales in comparison. I think it was ten 2's, some 5's, and wrapped up with three 10's. I'm still churning out a bunch of incomplete stuff, and i need to use my conte stick to sight more. I've just started a blog for my and my friends' left-hands, so ~~watch out for it~~.
Edit: changed the name to something more appropriate.

Figures Week 3

2009-09-17T01:18:00.000-07:00

I was sleepy through the first half of the day, and sleepwalked through the rest. Here's week three. I didn't realize that I liked my idea in the last one until half-way through it. And by then i had made so many irreparable mistakes.

はじめまして、

2009-09-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

私はUSCの一年生です。　専攻はインターアクテイ　エンターテイメント　です。　私はカリフォルニアのサンノセから来ました。

Figures Week 2

2009-09-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

My second time around. I really tried to draw the form correctly this time, and that cost me time. Lots of incomplete gestures here.

Figures Week 1

2009-09-07T02:16:00.000-07:00

My first live nude drawings.

Life, and Death

2009-07-30T21:53:00.000-07:00

Where are you Alan!? I haven't been playing on KGS at all because of your absence. Hurry up and get back here in the West Coast. I spent a few days, from, uhh. the 17th to the 24th building a website over here. It was fun, and HTMLDog definitely helped me out a lot. The only thing thing missing now is artwork. And we all know art doesn't just draw itself. *sigh* back to work...

Been thinking about a book blog, Short Blue Books? Can I just put everything in one blog and leave it at that? It wouldn't hurt would it?

The Test from Beyond the Grave!

2009-06-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm still heartsick about having to leave a dear friend of mine for post-secondary education. And this feeling isn't going to go away anytime soon. Might I suggest to myself to take this opportunity and jump-start my poetry career-on-the-side? Anyhow, I'm still working on her yearbook pages, moreso on the art than the writing (what was that about poetry?).

Here I am again, courtesy of Alan Chang, who finally revealed his long-kept secret blog. He blogged ME and I didn't know it?

Well, today has been semi-productive, and i've used "well" twice now. C'mon inspiration please. Finished my hibari sketch after familiarizing myself with the mean kid with a few images off of google and two chapters of Reborn!. I was just joking when I told myself he'd be on the top 10 anime husbands, but I jinxed it (<--- remind me to never again use that word), and he snatched number one. Shirley sure knows how to pick a husband.

I do my best to avoid having to deal with the SAT, taking the PSAT once, and studying a week for the real thing in an attempt to take it out in one swing. Baaam 2190. Not good enough but better. And now my job is to tutor a prospective SAT customer. Well (#3), let's make the most out of it.

listening to:　千の風になって

Which reminds me, karaoke last weekend was a blast. Shian's voice was unexpectedly nice and high, and I was reminded of my need to further my Japanese. And Chinese. My imitation of Akikawa Masafumi, according to Mei Mei and Louise, passed.

Just began my read of Tolkiens Silmarillion. I've only just finished the opening myth, but I know it's shaping up to be a really great book. Yes, I'm late to the party, and I haven't read LotR yet, but hey, I'm starting before the First Age, here ;D.

Noes

2009-03-29T02:07:00.000-07:00

I've been expecting this, but.... rejected (or as they put it "not admitted") from Carnegie Mellon. I've had to wait an entire week to get this notfication. It's not fair that admitted students are notified first. An entire week of waiting when we could have moved on with life.

Acceptance!

2009-03-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

Woot, my first image! And I've been accepted to USC's Interactive Media Division. Honestly, I don't feel like I'm qualified, but I'm excited at the prospect of going (and have been nervous the past few weeks). This nearly makes up for my UCLA rejection. I shouldn't have tried to apply to their Design | Media Arts program, knowing that I wasn't ready at all. Now all there is left to worry about are my application to Carnegie Mellon's integrated BCSA program, and whether or not I will receive enough financial aid to reasonable enroll at these schools.

With the SCVMA Math Field Day at SJSU coming up this Saturday, I feel really pressured, as I also want to put time into Heart of Darkness (just crammed with details, required reading for English 4AP class), Doodle 4 Google (I just love google, and really want to participate, also the chance for a 15k scholarship), preparing for CMU's fateful decision, and even my pages for our chinese school yearbook (>_> what pictures of myself?). I'm going to be participating the in the Leap Frog Relay, with the erudite Ken Cheng. I've had these practice questions for two full weeks, and yet i only begin to look at them with two days left until judgement. What terrible work habits.

Us children. Bob Ross, some reading power childrens' show, Wishbone, Simply Ming, Chen Jan (sp?), etc. We haven't watched the tele in such a long time, everything was made fun of.

SJSU Art Show

2009-03-17T20:38:00.000-07:00

Followed STさん to San Jose State University. He needed extra credit for Photography... 'said it was harder than he thought. Sean needs extra credit? Saw Juliana Rico's photo gallery, she had a bunch of night pictures, and people who moved were blurred. I liked the fire-breathing one, and the photo of a cosplaying child (robot head) captivated by the balloon-making clown. Someone left a Pac-man note, so I drew a ghost for them. Cute! Other galleries include an unwanted gallery, with a lot of sad testimonials from people who feel left out and unloved, a Tetris clone with musical notes instead of blocks, and a pottery showcase.

In the hall, two paintings caught our attention. One yellow one had the screws take a part in the image, it reminded STさん of Steamboy. The screws looked attached to joints of machinery. Another painting featured what looked like flying sushi, and fiery food that fell through the sky like meteors. Mhmmmm, hungry.

Blindness

2009-03-16T22:36:00.001-07:00

I am just amazed at how I could just miss the sight of my girlfrend as she entered the room to sit across from my desk. Well, I was walking about the room, cleaning up my drawing materials, and she did look so much like a freshman Art I student. Even with glasses, I still continue to make assumptions about the environment... and seek to ignore, maybe too much of it. It seems that I'm still a ways off from a strong state of awareness.

Open up!

2009-02-04T23:46:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine chooses to call her sister to have her open the door instead of use the door bell. Hello, she's what, 100 feet away from you? Yes, cell phone are useful. I can see how you might feel more secure knowing you you are opening the door for. Maybe you're urging to speak with your family. But being wired so often feels intrusive. I can just see this used as a comedic moment in film. maybe one about the unusefullness of cell phones and their slowly eating away at our plot devices. What will i ever do without my secret knocking codes?

2008-11-11T21:42:00.000-08:00

Today I start a blog when I should be drawing my artist's book.

Green curry + coconut rice = ugh.