Aphelion's Radiance

Happy birthday...here's some forced sleep...

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:46:37 GMT

So, when most people throw up on their twenty-first birthday, it's because they're having a hangover. In my case, it was because my body decided that the stress was too much and I went to bed at two in the morning yesterday feeling awful only to wake up two hours later to empty my stomach of everything I'd eaten in the past eight hours (and again two hours later). I then proceeded to attempt to go to class, only to skip half of them because I was feeling too miserable, and spent the next twelve hours sleeping on and off, interspersed with the consumption of weak tea, English muffins, and oatmeal. So yes, I skipped two classes, an organization meeting, a department meeting, a meeting with my group for animation class, and my office hours for graphics. But I got sleep and I'm actually feeling much better than I have in weeks right now, ignoring the pending mountain of work I have to attend to now.

Really, it was simultaneously the best and worst birthday ever. I got sleep...which doesn't happen that often here... I also got flowers...and a cake...which I could not eat at the time...but now can... I also sufficiently managed to thoroughly wreck all of my boyfriend's plans for my birthday by being sick (although he was nice enough to take care of me almost all of yesterday and cover my office hours for graphics, so I was very grateful for that). I must say though...of all days for my body to violently break down, yesterday was not the day to do it.

But I guess I'm twenty-one now and my consumption of alcohol is now legal. In fact, I'm more enthusiastic about being able to keep cooking wine in my dorm room than anything (and rum, so I can flambe pineapple). Mmmmm....flambeed pineapple with tasty coconut ice cream and caramel...

Ugh...Not Again...

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:24:51 GMT

I swear, the workload here is deceiving. The week that I don't have very much due is actually still horrendously busy with stuff that will be due. This, countered with holding two jobs, one of which has a horrible deadline for this Thursday coming up, is not healthy. I'm eating roughly 1.5 to 2 meals a day and getting about six hours of sleep per night on average. Free time is...occasionally existent...but unproductive since I spend so much of it being lazy and burned out.

Also, everyone around me is being incredibly unsympathetic. But that's college, I guess. We're all busy. We don't have time to worry about other people or do other things. We can find time for the things we love, but there's so much we want to do that stuff inevitably gets shoved on the back burner. Like writing my game... Like writing an incredibly awesome fluid simulation... Like pursuing things I care about... Like having time to play a single game...

Unfortunately, the only thing that I can do is keep on struggling through it in the hopes that someday, it'll stop before finals. Carnival is next week; guess who's going to be too busy to go and enjoy herself? Oh, did I mention that last year, they had the most adorable plushies and I didn't get the chance to get one? That orange lobster was so cuuuute.

I know I shouldn't be complaining, but I must say that everyone around me seems to be having fun. I'm probably just being crazy, since it is 3:20 in the morning and I need to write up a project handout, start graph theory, and make a powerpoint all by tomorrow in the waking hours when I am not in lecture, not finding edible sustenance, and not in the graphics cluster fixing ray tracers (and telling the students that they need to debug their own code). I guess I'll apologize for complaining now...night...?

Where has the time gone?

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:27:52 GMT

Why hello there. This is a welcome screen to look at, after staring at Maya for the past sixteen hours (it's more like nineteen, but I got some sleep in there. There was a point when I thought that animation would be really fun, really. I think I'll stick to programming the actual stuff and make animators do it for me because I am thoroughly convinced that animation assignments are tedious, obnoxious, and by far, the most painful of any art assignments I've had to do. I've been locked away from the world for hours, madly modeling (since when does it take two hours to attach a character's leg to its body) and failing at animating, although I finally understand this inverse kinematics stuff they regally failed to explain adequately in class.

If you're wondering why I'm wasting my time updating, it's because I'm rendering a test sequence to figure out why the hell it looks like crap and then going to spend the rest of the day fixing it, minus some small errands. Working in Maya will only make the program crawl right now, so I'm taking a break.

I think I need real food at some point, since living off of half of a package of Chessmen butter cookies, some apple cider, a can of soup, and small handfuls of semi-sweet chocolate chips is not healthy. I keep telling myself that one of these weekends, I'll get to go shopping and do something fun, except every time I even harbor the thought, I get assigned something else to do. Four classes, two jobs, an organization, internship applications, etc. I think by the time spring rolls around, I'm going to be too drained to even think about all of the work that I need to do then.

Oh good, rendering done. Now back to woooork...

There's no use being annoyed, only resolute...

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:47:33 GMT

I have decided that I am sick of being miserable. I have also decided that I am sick of being a burden on people. I am also very angry at people who act humble when they are actually good at things. I am not included in this set of people because I am clearly not good at things. I also hate arrogant people who tell me I'm good at math and I know they're lying between their teeth. Also, Nash-Williams, I hate your theorems. You and graph theory are making my life very sad, but I know if I continue whining, nothing will get done.

Which is why I am going to have the best, most awesome party ALONE in my dorm room tonight with my nice package of Chessmen butter cookies, apple cider, and my graph theory homework (after I visit the TA at eleven and figure out what the hell I'm doing wrong). I will pull an all-nighter listening to loud music and singing (so long as my roommate does not come back early) and it will be great. Then I will lock myself up in here for the weekend after Friday to do my animation project. I will emerge from the quagmire on Sunday afternoon and feel great.

I decided a long time ago that I would endure four years of potential hell to become a better person when I got out of here. That sentiment has not changed and obnoxious, intelligent, arrogant peers in graph theory will only steel my resolve to be better (and to give myself the chance to take them down, whether or not they're friends).

Oh graphics...

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:48:11 GMT

Adrien threw chalk at the class in graphics lecture just now (and nearly hit my friend Val)...

Damn, I love my job TA-ing for him...

Resolved, Reborn

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:40:06 GMT

These past few days have been pretty emotional and hectic. Out of the despair, the angst, and the self-hatred, I think that despite everything I've just done, I would gladly live it all through once more because the good it brought has certainly outweighed the bad. And I finally think that I can clearly, honestly say that. Thanks to everyone who spent hours trying to un-break me over the last week. I love you all.

I also have decided that the solution to my sense of self-hatred can only be remedied by believing that I can be a much better person and acknowledging my own faults. Seems pretty simple, but it's taken me a while to fully wrap my head around all the finer details. The one thing I have resolved to do now is to become a better person so that I don't make the same mistakes I made last time. And I believe I've found a reason that I want to better myself for (it's graphics...just kidding). But that's an obvious secret...

Wide awake...and ready...?

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:46:11 GMT

It's an hour until I get to give my first lecture... This mixture of apprehension, dread, and excitement is the only thing keeping me awake on five hours of sleep... I can't tell if the stomach-hurting thing right now is just butterflies or actual pain from not getting enough sleep... Mmm, graphics... Yumyumyum.

For a single screenshot shown on a single powerpoint...

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:05:23 GMT

...I am apparently crazy enough to pull an all-nighter, miss my first class of the semester, and nearly pull a second all-nighter... Ah, graphics is going to drive me nuts this semester...

But as ridiculous as these past couple of days have been, I acknowledge that it's been fun... I might just feel the slightest bit empty when I'm not stressed out about that class...

I'm thinking we made p4 too hard...but you're getting it anyway...

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:21:51 GMT

I don't know if I should be appalled or amused that I just pulled an all-nighter for a class that hasn't officially started yet. Locking myself up in the graphics conference room for for seventeen hours was fun...in a sick and wonderful way. I'm not a masochist and spending those seventeen hours thinking about nothing but implementing math was painful BUT TOTALLY, INCREDIBLY WORTH IT.

I promised myself that after all of the complaints that I heard about the class last semester that I'd do about anything to make it awesome. And with three other equally awesome and competent TAs working to make it good as well, I think we can handle that. So if you're taking 15-462 this spring, you're going to be in for some epic stuff.

Even better, I get to the first half of the second lecture of this course in Wean 7500 on Thursday to the alleged one hundred students taking it. Oh, and an additional one on the topic covered by the fourth assignment right after midsemester break. This means that by the time I come out of this, I'll have TA'd one of the best courses ever and I'll be an expert on photon mapping.

Now, naptime for three hours...then it's back to ~~work~~ some fun plotting, then work.

Another semester down, another adventure begins...

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 01:34:57 GMT

Despite the fact that California is generally warmer than Pittsburgh during this time of year, my house is a freaking icebox. That's probably because the heat in my dorm room is in the eighties thanks to a broken thermostat (or Morewood just being stupid) and I'm not used to the twenty degree drop.

So yeah, break. Woot. I passed all of my finals (even 451, wheee) and made it through what was probably the best semester gradewise that I've had so far. Well, that's done. I made it through the calculus, the Navier-Stokes equations, the proofs, and everything. And I'm aiming higher. Time to turn my attention to more pressing matters, like the actual work I have over break. Yes, work for both actual job and school, but it's fun enough work that I'll be doing it gladly.

Especially when said schoolwork means rewriting the entire structure for the labs for computer graphics. Oh, I'm a TA for that class (one of four) and it's going to be phenomenal next semester! I'm really excited because enrollment next semester is high and all of the other TAs/professor are awesome. So I intend to help make it awesome! Even if this means writing code over break! Because coding is fun! (Ironically, job work involves modeling a bunch of stuff for said graphics professor, so that's pretty cool, too.)

Plus, January marks the start of an interesting new adventure: the start of actual development of Aphelion's Radiance, the game that's been in plotting for a long time and is now finally getting done. The team so far is made up of some seriously talented people and we're not going to settle for making a half-hearted semester-long game. Nope, we're going all out with a serious, intelligently-designed 3-D engine, level editor, motion-captured animations, and as much computer graphics magic as we can possibly cram in for the next year and a half. It's time to see how much of this computer graphics stuff that I've learned so far will pay off.

Somehow...managing...

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:54:01 GMT

In the process of developing a proper simulator for particle-based explosions, I have managed to invent my own temperature system where 0 degrees roughly corresponds to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Well, ignoring the fact that half of the parameters I'm using are probably very off and the fact that my explosions look more like four-leafed clovers, I think I am in perfectly painful shape for an all-nighter tomorrow...or is it today already?

It has occurred to me that I've never felt this busy during a last-week-of-classes before. This semester has been excruciatingly frustrating in that I am constantly busy, have developed a horrific sleeping pattern, eat about one meal a day, and spend all decent gaps between lectures (where I could be eating) at work only to find out that I apparently suck at my job despite the ridiculous amount of effort I'm throwing into it.

Honestly, the only thing that keeps me going is some sort of ridiculous motivation that these are absurd challenges and that the rewards will be great should I surpass them all.

Also, it would be nice if I officially knew whether or not I get to TA the computer graphics class next semester? I'd rather not find out when I get back that I get to spend an entire semester debugging Open GL code; I am not particularly adverse to this, but I would like to mitigate the pain by at least getting friendly with the online red book over winter break. I like graphics enough to spend my entire break brushing up, but there are all of the things that I haven't been able to do this semester for reasons above that I would also like to do as well.

It seems I have acquired a mild addiction for nurikabe. I have also confirmed that 9x9 grids are tasty, but too easy; I demand grids that are at least 20x20.

Merry...Err...Election...Day...

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:05:31 GMT

I must say, it is terribly distracting to find one's homework being interrupted by the sounds of sirens and screaming college students, even more so when you realize that a veritable mob of people is running up the street screaming "Obama" at the top of their lungs. And yes, there are police cars. Lots of them. The flashing lights are rather pretty, if not somewhat schizophrenic with the alternating red and blue thing going on. Kind of like this whole election thing that I have successfully managed to ignore for the past month thanks to work.

For that matter, I am terribly jealous of the people running up and down Morewood Avenue right now. This is not because I would like to be amidst a mob of hysterical college students celebrating the results of the election, but because these people actually have the time (or can actually find excuses to make time) to do such silly things.

Remember when I said things were going to get busy? Well, I wasn't lying. Guess who got stuck writing the first draft of the proposal project for technical communications class at the last minute?

That said, I'm going to need a lot of caffiene to stay awake in class tomorrow. Well, that and stabbing myself in the arm with my pen to keep me awake... I hope you can't get ink poisoning. That sort of thing would be most unfortunate.

I can say "finally, I'm here" to so many things...

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 03:54:40 GMT

Well, I survived post-midsemester madness (namely those darling Navier Stokes equations). The workload has cooled off a little and believe it or not, I found myself rather confused last night when I realized that I didn't have a mountain of work to do. I know I'm going to regret saying this, especially since it's going to pick up significantly after Monday night with four presentations, a psuedo-research project, a quiz (really more like a mini-exam), and two writing projects due before finals. Balancing that, my job, and my project with GCS this semester is going to be...unpleasant, but the results will be worth it, I swear.

There is the possibility that I will be a teaching assistant for 15-462: Computer Graphics next semester. One of my professors this semester is teaching it and hopefully I'll get the position, since I won't know until registration rolls around and our advisor takes into account the number of people taking the course. I really want to TA the course because I love the subject, but also because I want to help other people enjoy it as well. The TAs that I had could have been better; in fact, a lot of things about the course could be better and I want the opportunity to change that. I want to help people taking the course find it to be as challenging (in my case, painfully at first) and enjoyable as I did. Haha, I must sound so silly and cliche saying this, but it's true.

Next semester's classes will not be as epic as I had hoped they will be, especially since Game Programming isn't being taught and the graduate course in graphics overlaps with one of the undergraduate courses (so of the three graphics courses I had planned, I only get to take one, boo). On the positive side, it means I get to knock off more of my required courses (like those two blasted science courses I still have left).

On a side note: it is approximately 60 days until the seven months projected for the second (and actual development) stage of Project AR begins. I've waited a year and a half to formally begin working on it; it feels like a lot longer than that, but I'm excited because I'm finally started to feel like I'm ready to start. Exactly a year ago, I only had the faintest inkling of what computer graphics meant and it's been a good year's worth of learning to get here. Project AR is meant to take everything I've learned and implement it. I promise you, it will be epic!

For the moment, alive...

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:23:44 GMT

I sincerely hate midterms week(s). The past two weeks have been abysmal to the point where I've seriously wanted to do nothing more than curl into a little ball and cry at how incredibly awful and not fun everything has been. Somehow, I'd care a lot more about the stuff I was doing if it were fun.

Like writing a fluid simulator. Ok, so it's not that awful and I know it will look amazing even though it will be a pain to implement. But somehow, getting all cozy with the Navier-Stokes equations sounds like the worst way to spend midsemester break this Friday. However, I don't really have a choice. I'm going to get this thing done by the 22nd (yes I know it's due on the 27th) and then screw around with it for five days to make it better. The particle system officially broke a good portion of my brain along with my sanity and I ended up not making it cool, so this time around, I'm not taking any risks. I'll just keep telling myself that this is a necessary hurdle to jump over in order to get one step closer to reaching the pinnacle of computer graphics, SIGGRAPH, and everything that I want to do with my career.

There are so many things I want to do. Like write a really good ray tracer. Having one on hand will be useful for next semester. In fact, having one now would be even more useful. But unfortunately, I simply don't have the time to write one. Learning Maya right now would be wonderful. Unfortunately, it isn't going to happen. I'd like to draw the character designs for the project next semester, but that won't be happening either. Work just keeps getting enqueued on the priority queue and I can't dequeue it fast enough.

What I really would like is just to have one day where I can curl myself up in my room and do everything I've wanted to do for the past month. Having this much work is seriously starting to get unhealthy and I'm also slightly sick. Great.

Also, Scaife Hall has really nice classrooms (and I like the lattices over the windows) , but it's so far from anything that there's no way I can hold GCS meetings in here. Boo.

It's a wonderful, wonderful world...

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:11:41 GMT

Classes have begun to settle into a routine now that my graphics course has finally started (it's now in its second week after starting a full two weeks after my other courses). It is by far the most fascinating class I am taking this semester and is entirely project based with really interesting projects coming up. The best part is the total absence of exam-based assessment. I tend to like classes like that. I also tend to like classes where all of the papers I've been reading so far have been written by scientists working for Pixar.

At this point, I am thoroughly convinced that computer graphics is going to be my focus for the next two years and that I will be scrabbling to take every class I possibly can on the subject. I want to be good enough so that next semester, I can try and see if I can TA the basic undergraduate course, even if that means I have to re-teach myself all of the matrix algebra and calculus that has gleefully leaked out of my head after not doing it for a year. Honestly, almost everyone I know is TA-ing a class this semester. I kind of don't want to be left out of the loop.

But I've got a long way to go. It's kind of scary realizing that there's so much I don't know and how little I do know. A year ago, I had no idea what splines, raytracers, and octtrees were (or why any of them were useful). I want to keep soaking all of this up as fast as I can. There's too much stuff out there that I don't want to miss and yet two years doesn't really seem like enough time to take it all in.

In all, it's really good to be back here. Algorithms is going to give me a headache only because I can't do math at the speed of light. Graphics is going to give me even more of headache because differential equations are involved. Art history will be tedious because there is a research paper. Statistics is statistics. And technical communications will be...interesting. Could be worse, could be better. But either way, there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

As we await to return to the field of battle...

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 04:18:56 GMT

I am once again reminded that California has amazing weather, made even more amazing by the fact that it is August and that it is not over 90 degrees outside. Good weather is mostly subverted by the fact that I am miserable since I cannot consume anything but soft food because they took out my wisdom teeth. Oh, and the fact THAT I AM NOT GOING TO SIGGRAPH, which is a major letdown because I reeeeeeeeally wanted to go...but couldn't thanks to the teeth thing.

I said goodbye to Seattle/Redmond about a week ago. That was depressing, although made up for by the amazing amount of last-minute awesomeness that happened. Internship was amazing, hands down, nothing else to say. If I am to take anything besides the amazing amount of memories, learning, and free stuff from it, I certainly want to add that I am now filled with a delicious resolve to do great things with the remainder of my undergraduate education and that I now have a significant amount of confidence that I can do so.

In other news, the dev box arrived in the mail today. How I'm going to get it back to CMU so I can make games on it, I have no idea. But that aside, it is black, it has 120 GB of space, and it is the first game console I have ever paid for on my own. And I still find it hard to believe that it's actually mine. Hopefully, this will prompt me to make more games and stop playing games. I briefly pondered if I should leave my DS at home when I go back...and then I remembered I need it to play the new Castlevania and the new Fire Emblem... Yep, still addicted.

So for the next week and a half, I plan to do everything that I cannot do when I get back to school, so that when I do get back, I can concentrate on 1) academics, 2) finding a research job, 3) making games, and 4) not wasting the next two years I have left because I can't change the things I managed to screw up during the first two.

Also, I made flan yesterday. Mmm, tasty custard for the win.

One week before it ends with you...

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:23:50 GMT

It's a mildly depressing thought that in exactly a week, I will be on a plane headed back for California, at this exact time no less. It's really quite sad, since I've come to like Redmond a lot and I certainly wouldn't mind coming back here next year, although that all depends on if I can stay up to par for another internship with Microsoft. I think this summer's done wonders for my confidence, which I suppose I should enjoy now before I head back to school and see all my ambitions brutally crushed upon realizing that my classes are going to be tougher than before.

You know how they tell you it gets easier after freshman year? Well, it's a LIE. Either that or I'm unintentionally being a masochist and breaking the standard paradigm.

The summer's been filtering away like mist and I feel like I haven't done that much work. My novel's gone nowhere, although 3.5 of the 12 characters I made a promise to draw for it are done. And the main heroine took two weeks to draw (two blasted weeks), although she undoubtedly looks the best of them. I haven't done as much work on my game as I would have liked; heck, it doesn't even have a spec yet and I don't know if it will until I get back to school.

But I have made progress. My art got better over the summer and I managed to catch up on some anime, a luxury I haven't had in a long time. No seriously, watching the entire series of Saiunkoku Monogatari was awesome. I haven't beaten a single video game (I suppose this because all of the ones that I've attempted take a while and I get bored easily).

Well, I suppose I could spend my last Sunday here doing something cool instead of moping around. I'll probably take the rental car I have out and maybe find a Peet's coffee or something, along with finishing the rest of the main heroine's twin brother's fiancee that I'm currently in the middle of drawing, although I'm having a debate over whether or not her dress should have lace or ruffles (but not both). Then I guess I'll fire up XNA and start building my prototype. Battle engine for my RPG, here we gooooo!

That moment when you've found your niche...

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 02:53:18 GMT

Another day in the office with less work than normal, thanks to some nice events that kept me out of the office (OOF) for a bit. It's been a pretty busy week with lots of events on hand, so I've probably done less work this week than normal.

More importantly, rest in peace, Randy Pausch. I've been blasted in the face with news of his death all day long (even a post on the Microsoft interns mailing list) and I've got to say, it's terribly depressing. It hurts even more because I'm shooting to go to the ETC that he was responsible for co-founding while knowing that I'll never get to take a class with him or even meet him.

The ETC... It would be worth staying (and paying to stay) in academia just to go there; in fact, it would be worth staying in academia regardless of what happens as long as I get to pursue my passion with computer graphics. It's times like these, especially this summer, when I'm reminded that I'm surrounded by very intelligent people, but that I'm starting to carve a path that makes me different from other people. I'm reminded that while my forte in CS isn't theory or systems, there's still a place for me and I'm going to do everything to hang onto the dream of reaching that place no matter where I go..

At this point, I'm not too sure what I want to accomplish. I know I want to see my senior game project built and I know I'll cry when it comes together. But even beyond that, I want to share the beauty that I've found in CS and more specifically in computer graphics with everyone I can. How I intend to do that, well I'm not sure, but I've found something so wonderful that I'm so passionate about that it would be a waste if I couldn't share the happiness I've found with other people....

I really hope that if you haven't had that moment of euphoria when you realize that you've found something so wonderful that you don't ever want to let it go, that you'll find it soon...

A slight tendency to disregard what I once considered good...

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:12:33 GMT

A long time ago, I came to the notion that no matter how much I wanted to, I could not and can never achieve making a game on my own. For as much as I wanted to program, design 3-D models, draw in-game art, and above all, design the freaking architecture of a game (ignoring music for now), I realized that I couldn't really do all of this.

And so, art got shoved at the bottom of the priority queue, only to be forcefully yanked to the top whenever I was pitted with a cluster of programmers to make a game. Yeah, girls programming, right? That's like some sick joke, right? For your information, I'd like to think that I'm a better programmer than some of the dorks who dedicate themselves to programming half-assed games for a certain on-campus game creation organization. Can't exactly prove it without showing off what I've done, but let's just say that I will. Soooon, you fools, soon.

I know I'll never end up 3-D modeling stuff. That's not what I'm interested in (but I still want to take that class in Maya). I'm fascinated by two parts of the game making process: designing stuff and making stuff move. And a job that can give me a perfect blend of these would be the most optimal thing in my life; unfortunately, I've yet to find a job that gives me the creative power of a designer and the freedom to hack as an animation programmer, so I'm not too optimistic about finding something like that.

And then there's drawing. I consider seventh grade as the time when I began to develop what has slowly, over the course of now seven years, become my draiwng style. It began as an effort to help visualize the stories I was writing; that has not changed, although now it encompasses the games I design. I also happen to have a habit of becoming friends with people who draw better than me and I suppose it makes me envious whenever I see their work.

After all, you'd think after seven long years, I'd finally be able to draw hands the way I wanted to. Hands, feet, complicated poses, heads at certain angles, proper clothing folds... Everything seems to elude me even after this long, despite the countless hours I've spent just looking at pictures to try and figure this out. There's so much I want to capture on paper because I can visualize exactly how it should look in my head, but I can't convey it the way I want it to look. Like the picture I've been working on for the past month? Well, it was good when I started it. And now, despite how much I try to like it, I hate it. And here emerges a problem: whenever I see something better than what I've done, everything I've done is now rendered worthless and the bar is automatically raised to a level I can only hope to achieve at some later date. It doesn't matter how good it is; if something is better, then I will inevitably see whatever I do (in this case, draw) as ugly and worthless.

There's a point I want to reach and I hope it'll happen before I graduate. I want to be able to take something inside my head and slap it down on paper without a second thought. I want it to look exactly the way I've pictured it. Right now, the best way I can describe my art is "constrained," that is, everything is constrained by lines, boundaries that feel stylized and appromixated, which fail to capture the supple natural way things like hair and cloth really move. That way, if I do see something better, then I'm assured that I can't simply dismiss my work right away; I drew it exactly the way I pictured it and I can't complain.

Haha, maybe I should just spend less time brooding and more time drawing.

In other news, Etrian Odyssey II has now officially taken precendence over all other video games and is managing to sufficiently frustrate me to a shivering, nerve-wracked mess with its difficultly level. Hahaha, that's an overstatement, I guess. But that game is haaaard. Too bad I...oh noooo...that hair on my latest sketch looks soo icky. Better go fix it...

Full of fail...

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:12:47 GMT

I'm not sure exactly why I continue to watch Monochorme Factor because each episode keeps getting progressively worse. I'm always hoping that there will be some shred of incredibly awesome action (like the really kickass fight scene from the second book). Or at the very least, an interesting twist.

The plot in the manga is nothing incredibly unique, but it's the sleek and refreshing cast of interesting characters that serves to make it interesting and funny (especially with the chibis). The art is lovely, the fight sequences are fun, and the series does not dip into the romance genre in the slightlest. It's raw modern-day fantasy, action-adventure all around and it's delicious.

The anime, by contrast, is degrading to a nauseatingly bad level. Episodes 7-9 have been basically recycling the same, stale plotline: a forgettable character-of-the-episode/damsel-in-distresss is introduced, the main characters investigate, Kengo shows off his prowess as an idiot, and there is the briefest appearance of Nanaya followed by a silly battle that is over far too abruptly. And it continues to be presented in incredibly arbitrary ways: episode 8 involves Akira playing Hamlet in a school play written by a Shakespeare fanboy, and episode 9...? Infiltrating a demonic house in order to reach the legendary hot spring located at the top, also involving Kengo fighting off legions of kokuchi while wearing nothing but a towel...? I think the writers are on some sort of awful crack. The preview for episode 10 does not look promising either...

Akira has not even fought that blue-haired bastard Nanaya yet, has not proceeded to show off his real powers to any degree, and is still stuck with his silly pair of hunting knives as a weapon. And Shirogane? I don't think I can fully describe how badly his character has gotten screwed over, but he's slowly turning from interesting to fading-into-the-background-boring. It's really sad, since I like Shirogane's character (both design and personality) and he's becoming an uninteresting, goofy, half-flirtatious flop. Not to mention, one of the best characters in the series, voiced by one of the most amazing voice actors ever, has yet to make his appearance. As a result, I am clawing my keyboard in frustration because he really needs to show up and start being badass and awesome (and evil).

I probably could go on about why this series is now full of epic fail, but I'm going to bed, since I think there's a meeting tomorrow and I'm really bad at staying awake...

But before I go, In more interesting news: Star Ocean 4 is coming to the XBox 360 next year! Hurrah! One less reason to buy a PS3! The trailer shown off at the Microsoft conference in Japan looks absolutely gorgeous and it was one of four RPGs (Infinite Undiscovery, Last Remnant, and Tales of Vesperia) shown off that day (the other three of which I really want to play as well).

Seven Days....

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:23:54 GMT

Work is work. We'll be hitting development soon, which means actual CODE. CODE THAT I CAN WRITE. The spec'ing of the project is fun, but the code is much more fun. Especially since it's jscript/javascript, html, and xml. Unfortunately no C# (waaah), but I can jscript is enough like Java that it's been fairly easy to learn. The upside to all of this is that I will be pimping out my school website in the near future now that I'm learning html/css...

Survive for seven days? Attack with psychic pins? Wear fashionable clothes to boost your attack? The World Ends With You (my current video game undertaking) is by far, the strangest mix of pop culture and JRPG ever to grace the DS, let alone the gaming world...? Love the battle system, although I am only so adept at switching between screens, although mashing the arrow keys occasionally works (though most of the time, I'm breaking my wrist with the stylus controls on the bottom screen). This game is being horribly sadistic by allowing you to level up your abilities ("pins") and being OCD, I am determined to level up and unlock every freaking pin in this game. Stupid, I know. But seriously, check this game out if you haven't already. It's wickedly fun (and hellaciously hard beyond normal mode).

The fashion-equipment system, on the other hand is fun. I must say, being able to give Joshua a frilly, gothic parasol makes my day, even if it is mildly disturbing.

Blaaaah

Sun, 18 May 2008 18:04:03 GMT

For some reason, I'm finding myself incredibly bored and apathetic. Perhaps it's just the stress of school grinding down to an utter halt, but there's so much I need to do: reread my matrix algebra textbook, reread the graphics textbook, play with Processing, draw, work on finishing up one game, work on starting the other, study some C#... And I'm completely bored. For some reason, I can't start anything. Instead, I've been lounging around and doing mindless things (like playing Harvest Moon). At least I have Internet, although it's only because I'm running a fifty-foot Ethernet cable from the router down the hall to my computer.

In other news, Monochrome Factor (the anime) is getting insane. The humor is good, the chibis are cute, and the voice-acting is very enjoyable. But on the other hand, they've taken the story and completely screwed around with it, making for a strange mismash that feels like filler and isn't. Oh, and the battle sequences are still plain, very plain.

Anyway, I kind of just want Akira to take on Nanaya already, get sufficiently kicked around, and see Shirogane ~~turn into Sephiroth~~ break out his (Sephiroth-esque) sword. That and put the main villain in the show already, so I can hear him voiced by Okiayu Ryoutaro. (And if his hair is red, I will be convinced he is a clone of Axel from Kingdom Hearts.)

In other news, I have acquired the artbook for Okami and I'm sorely tempted to turn my white wolf plushie (nicknamed Hayate) into a version of Amaterasu (because that would just be awesome).

Packity...packity...and a PhD course...

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:26:25 GMT

I really should be packing, but it's break time. It never occured to me until now that maybe, just maybe, I have too many clothes here. Every month, I tend to acquire a new shirt (lots of tech shirt freebies from company events, especially). Subsequently, I'm finding it rather obnoxious that most of the the stuff that I've been packing so far is clothes.

In other news: I AM IN AN 800-LEVEL GRAD COURSE. OFFICIALLY. IN A PHD LEVEL COMPUTER GRAPHICS COURSE. (And I am fully aware that this will mean my semester this fall will be full of ridiculous MADNESS, but it will be fun).

As of currently:
15-221: Technical Communication for Comp. Scientists (9 units)
15-451: Algorithm Design and Analysis (12 units)
15-869: Special Topics in Graphics (12 units)
36-225: Introduction to Probability and Statistics (9 units)

This will be supplemented by one of the following:
(currently)
15-396: Project Course in Pen-Based Computing & 60-357/79-321: Picasso and 20th Century Art (together 18 units)
(preferred)
60-415: Advanced ETB: Animation (10 units)
(or as a possible substitute)
60-210: Electronic Media Studio II (10 units)

I am currently carrying 60 units, which will definitely drop by the start of the semester once I figure out what's going on with the art courses. As feasible as that is, I am not a masochist and I am going to be making another game next semester, more specifically, I'm going to undertake the making of an RPG...a real RPG...

And in other news, I have cupcakes in flavors of passion fruit, cherry pop, chocolate, and strawberry lemonade. A nice way to end my last day in Pittsburgh for the semester, no? Oh, right, I'm flying back home tomorrow. Yeaaaah...

Cherry tree for your thoughts...

Sun, 04 May 2008 05:52:32 GMT

I finished Okami today and it's been the best game I've played this year. It's definitely up on the same level as Shadow of the Colossus on the awesome scale. The artistic design is fascinating, the little plays on Japanese mythology (of which I'd like to consider myself well-versed) are charming, and the music is beautiful. It's a fascinating, utterly breathtaking experience...truly...

Granted, it has its share of issues: gimicky Wii controls that punish you for not drawing the line perfectly (straight lines, ugh) and certain tedious characters (Issun was basically Navi, but possibly worse). The game also felt a bit short; I spent around thirty-five hours and for some reason, the ending felt a little abrupt and unsatisfying.

But eally, there's nothing more satisfying than flicking out the Wiimote and drawing a circle in order to see a barren cherry tree burst into full bloom. Or that nice warm fuzzy feeling you get when you feed the hungry animals. Or when, in one of those moments when you finally get the somewhat finicky Wiimote controls to actually work, you whip out your sword/reflector/rosary and start wailing on an enemy for a combo that lasts a good fifty hits or so.

I like artsy games. I also like epic games. So when artsy meets epic, it's thrown into the favorite game category. And Okami has definitely met all the criteria to be thrown in. It's simply mind-boggling as to how Okami slipped under my radar the first time it came out on the PS2 and I can't believe I let that happen.

Now to make everyone else play this game... That is, if I can stop them from playing Mario Kart Wii first...

Old friends don't come back...

Thu, 01 May 2008 23:31:55 GMT

I don't like to dwell on dreams too much, especially since they tend to be incoherently random. But last night, I dreamt of everyone I knew back in high school and for some reason, we were all together again, talking like we used to, acting like we used to.

Ok fine, so I "dropped off the face of the earth" when I went to college and got a new AIM screenname, effectively cutting off every form of communication possible with the people I once knew. An inevitable consequence of meeting people around me, meeting people in my specialty, and thus finding less in common with old friends. Well, there was something else I did; something awful and horrible and completely unforgivable that makes me want to punch myself in the face because I went around the completely wrong wrong wrong way.

This leads me to the question: have I been forgiven? If I was randomly thrown together with these people once more, how would they see me? Would there still be resentment between me and some of these people for things I did? Would they hate me? Would they even acknowledge me as a friend anymore? And what of them? Have they all moved on? Have they ever kept in contact? I'd assume it's easy for the people up in the northwest to stay in contact, I guess.

But the worst thing is that I'm really too scared to find out. I'm so scared that if I were to dig around and let's say, email them, they'd ignore it completely. I know I have nothing right now, but for some reason, I can't convince myself that I really do have nothing to lose by trying to get ahold of everyone once more. I know I need to move on, but I don't think I can without knowing how everyone else feels.

I briefly entertained the notion of trying to see if anyone I knew who was going to school in Washington would be willing to talk this summer when I go to Redmond to work for Microsoft (given the caveat that they'd be there at the same time) or at the very least, recommend some nice places to eat. Then I realized that I have no way of getting ahold of these people anymore.

And all I can feel now is this wonderfully disgusting feeling of regret. Regret not being able to tie things up and move on... Regret for believing that they'd still accept me after two years... Regret for wanting to see them just to confirm that I wasn't forgotten, disregarded, or hated...