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Unrequested Fission Surplus - LiveJournal.com
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So.
I've always found it frustrating when people I read just randomly drop out of sight so I figured I at least owed folks this much of an update.
There is a lot of personal stuff going on which I'm not sure I'm up to talking about in public, just at the moment, but it has squeezed out most of my activities that I usually talk about here. I am putting up the odd post on my gamedev blog at http://mayflystudio.tumblr.com/. Other than that, though, things are likely to be quiet around the LJ for a while.
That's all for now.
Afterlife Blues update.
What will happen next? Probably a different scene!
Afterlife Blues update.
I just wanted to draw one of those bits where a police officer picks up a gun with a pen, even if it doesn't really make a lot of sense in this context.
Afterlife Blues update!!
Welp, back at it then. I'd like to say I've been up to all sorts of crazy and exciting things the past few weeks but... no, not really.
Afterlife Blues update.
You know, that sort of grabbiness was more adorable when Caprice was doing it.
In other news: Finally beat "More than Machine" in SpaceChem, which was brutal -- it took me days. The next sector looks completely insane.
Afterlife Blues update.
We're such teases.
I have now bought Seasons 3 and 4 of Stargate: SG-1 off eBay. #4 I sniped at the last possible minute -- it was totally by accident, I swear. But now I'm impatiently waiting for them to arrive because I WANT IT NOWWWWWW.
In other news, by which I mean I'm still playing SpaceChem: I've finally figured out how to avoid the problem of pipeline stalls. You have to forward all the molecules needed for a product through every intermediate reactor they arrive in, never waiting for molecules of a particular type, and only pause to assemble them in the very last one. That way, you never get the situation where the final reactor has all of Product B it can hold and is waiting for Product A, but the intermediate reactor is stalled because the pipeline where it was pushing out B is full and it can't move on to look for newly arriving A. Alternatively, if there's a recycler in the level you can just have the intermediate reactor throw away incoming atoms it doesn't want just at the moment so that the final reactor is guaranteed to receive what it needs in the order it needs it, but that does lead to a slower solution.
One week ago I couldn't even spell nuclear physicist and now I are one!
One of the neat things that SpaceChem does is track your efficiency -- how many instructions you used to solve a puzzle and how many cycles it took to complete -- and then show you a bar graph that compares it against how many symbols and cycles other players took, letting you know the average time taken as well as the outliers in both directions. Often this graph is dispiriting, as I've managed to put together some hideously slow production lines on the more difficult stages. But nonetheless it's a fun challenge to try to build research reactors that are as fast and efficient as possible, finding weird techniques to squeeze out every last cycle.
Here's a few of the tricks I've come up with when optimizing the simplest reactors:
You don't have to drop an atom to bond it. If the atom happens to be over the bonder when the instruction happens, it will be bonded. If a waldo is carrying the atom when it bonds, it will scoop up the entire new molecule it was bonded into without missing a beat. You can even bond two atoms that are being held by two different waldos that are in motion. As long as one of the waldos lets go before they move apart, you'll be fine.
You can also have one waldo drop an atom and the other one pick it up in the same frame. Time it right and the atom will never stop moving as it is transferred.
A completely linear loop can be created for very simple waldo programs by placing directional arrows that reflect the waldo straight back on its path. Anything which you want to only happen once during each loop has to be placed at the ends of the line; everything else will get executed twice, once coming and once going. Linear loops are obviously also faster than full-sized loops, since each corner is an extra tile the waldo must travel around.
Since you never have to wait for input In research assignments, you can get away without using sync nodes if you time the waldos perfectly. When running in perfect sync, one waldo can execute an instruction the other needs at that moment through the loop, such as requesting input or bonding.
Time taken for a waldo to go around a loop back to its starting position after it's done doing work (dropping off an item in the output area, for example) is wasted time. You can have the waldos hand off atoms to each other halfway across the reactor, substantially reducing that wasted time.
All this is very nice and I've managed to create some very small and fast solutions to research problems. But, those tiny little bars at the far left of the chart, to the left of my best times and symbol counts, still taunt me. Someone completed "Double Bonds" using only seven symbols, better than my nine. Someone has a trick that let them do "A Complete History of SpaceChem" in less than 70 cycles, compared to my 107! It's driving me crazy. I must figure it out.
Afterlife Blues update.
"With all due respect, sir, you're a giant doodyhead!"
Man I love that show. Perhaps this is too fanboyish of me to say, but watching SG-1, it really just feels like this was more than another job for everyone involved. The writers, the actors, the producers, set builders, effects people, costumers, they put their all into it, and it comes through in the overall quality and cohesiveness of the end product.
Afterlife Blues update.
It is a page. You can probably tell from how sloppy the inside of the car is rendered that I really am tired of drawing that thing. That being said, I'm very pleased with Panel 3 for some reason (the station wagon pulling into the garage next to an armored embassy limo.) It's a more "high concept" panel than I usually try to draw, but I feel that it worked. At least a bit. COME ON JUST LET ME HAVE THIS.
In other (brief) news, a visiting co-worker wanted to see Neon Galaxy, so I actually spent a half hour slapping together a real test level instead of just the big pile of test levels I'd had up until now. And, you know... it's actually fun. The game genuinely works! That's pretty cool, not to mention a bit of a relief. Hopefully I can record a video of a level playthrough sooner rather than later and share it with y'alls.
Afterlife Blues update.
It is a brand new page just packed to the gills with subtle implications about the global political order in the looming future! Please enjoy it, assuming you can wade through the snowdrifts to reach your mouse and click on the link.
I like that phrase, "looming future." I'm pretty sure I first saw it in a Don Simpson comic.
I cede the balance of my time to the instrumental bit from Freebird.
So today I reviewed the list of enemies in my Neon Galaxy design doc and was rather shocked to see that after today (when I added burst fire capability, actions taken upon receiving damage or dying, and the ability to pick up items) I've implemented, at least on a basic level, all the AI features I need for every single enemy on the list. That's crazy! How could I have gotten so much done??
This is at least an appropriate moment to consider the whole Mayfly Studio Tumblr thing I've been doing for the past several weeks. Now, on the one hand, I really like using Tumblr. It's so convenient to just toss a screenshot into the hopper, type a few words, and off it goes, that I have to restrain myself from putting in an update whenever I implement every little thing. And it's also nice to review it and see all the NG updates in one convenient place; it reminds me of how much progress I've been making on the thing. But on the other hand, I get orders of magnitude less feedback on the Tumblr than I used to do when I posted the big updates here on Livejournal. I guess it's part due to the friction in asking people to head over to another site to read something, and part due to Disqus being pretty terrible for writing comments in (and don't get me wrong, I'm not trolling for comments here!) but either way that's still too bad.
Realistically, I suppose I should just stick with the Tumblr and work towards getting the game in a state where I'm comfortable announcing it in a larger forum, such as TIGsource; no doubt that'll get more people reading about it, and at that point I'll be glad to have a focused blog for the game.
On an unrelated note, holy cow the new OMD album. I can't stop listening to "History of Modern Pt. 1" over and over again.
Afterlife Blues update.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand scene.
So one thing I thought was important about this bit is that despite her breezy attitude Faith got kind of beaten up and had to flee the scene leaving vital clues behind. This is a good thing. Not because I want to see Faith getting beaten up in and of itself, but because it's important for the heroes to be genuinely impeded. I've read too many lousy stories, fanfiction especially, where the protagonists win every single fight, each villain is killed off the scene after they appear, and the only time anything happens to interrupt their unbroken series of victories is the equivalent of a cutscene in a video game, where due to some absurd contrivance the bad guys get to kill some minor characters and burn down Good Guy HQ or whatever to add a bit of pathos before it's back to the unbroken triumphs. Having a bad guy who can cause legitimate grief is a part of avoiding Cutscene Syndrome.
Ya know, I've meant to write a little essay about that topic for years. I think I basically failed just now, but oh well, at least it's out in the open.
And me still writing 1911 on all my checks, too.
2011, huh? Well, a year with a name like that -- seriously, the only more cyberpunk year than 2011 will be 2019 and possibly 2017 -- had just better bring some really futuristic stuff. Like, I dunno, self-driving cars. Or discovering Earth-sized planets around other suns. Or the bad guys' doomsday weapon program being crippled by a weaponized computer virus. Something wild like that. YOU CAN DO IT, 2011, DON'T LET ME DOWN.
Afterlife Blues update.
Just about done with this bit here. As mentioned, the next update will be Friday the 7th of January in the distant future year 2011.
Status update on Neon Galaxy at the Tumblr. Short summary: No, there won't be an alpha out by the end of the year after all, but nonetheless I am extremely pleased with the progress I've been making on the game. Cautiously optimistic that it will actually join the very short list of things I've managed to complete in my life. I have to start thinking of some ways to get a bit more attention for it.
Put your helmet on, we'll be reaching speeds of three!
Wrote an article over on the ol' Tumblr about optimization in Neon Galaxy. So if you like the more techie sorta things I post here on occasion, you might want to check it out.
(I'm sometimes a little hesitant to share detailed information on how and what I code, for fear of revealing hideous naïvete on my part, but eh, what the hell.)
Afterlife Blues update.
Wait, no, but seriously, the bad guy might be allowed to get in one punch or something but afterwards the heroes should always win effortlessly!
I did want to mention that I was watching the Stargate SG-1 pilot episode on DVD while drawing today's experiment. Man, I'd forgotten how good that show was.
HEY PROGRAM WHERE'S YOUR DISK
So I braved the foul weather to see Tron: Legacy today. (At the movie theater literally across the street, so don't go assuming it was too much hardship.) The executive summary is that it's not bad. My thoughts, in no particular order:
Tron: Legacy takes itself relentlessly seriously from the moment it starts to the moment it ends. This is a good thing, because it's the sort of movie where if the illusion broke for even a second it would all fall to pieces. Nothing about how the Grid works or how the society inside the computer system functions makes any sense whatsoever outside of the context of the movie. So as long as you stay in that context, you're good to go; the movie helps you do that by not quite being ridiculous at any point, which was no mean feat.
The music is unbelievably fantastic. Gonna buy the soundtrack the moment I finish this post. In fact, I just did.
Olivia Wilde is teh hawtness in this movie. Seriously, wow.
Bruce Boxleitner remains one of my favorite actors, even though he only has a minor part in the film.
3D effects don't work for me any better than they did back when I saw Up. I should just save my money in the future.
Elsewhere, a friend of mine threw some cold water on the anticipation for this flick by stating that the original Tron actually wasn't very good. He's correct, of course. I last saw the original when I was a very small boy so my attitudes may be colored, but I recall it being generally ponderous, humorless, nonsensical, and self-important, with the only redeeming feature being the pretty graphics on the screen (I was mad for any kind of computer graphics as a kid.) That may or may not be a fair assessment but I certainly have no desire to rewatch it. This film does take straight off from stuff that happened in the first one, and it's pretty clear that not having a fresh recollection of those events means I didn't get the full impact of various major revelations and whatnot. But oh well, I guess I'll have to live with that. If you're a person who actually liked the original I imagine you'd be pretty pleased with the callbacks and whatnot.
So, yeah. I don't regret seeing it. Well, maybe the extra $2 the theater tacks on for 3D.
In completely unrelated news, there are new posts over on the ol' Tumblr with more chatter about Neon Galaxy work. I got the entire between-level shop working, and it'll even kick you back into another level when you're done shopping, which is a nice accomplishment. Getting pretty close to having all the basic pieces of a game here.
Afterlife Blues update.
It's a Christmas miracle!
Hmm, was there anything I actually wanted to mention here? Well, as I said, fight scenes are really fun to draw. I'd never realized that before. Man, imagine all the time I've spent drawing comics where people talk to each other and work out their problems when instead they could have been throwing punches and exchanging gunfire!
Oh, and speaking of people talking to each other and exchanging gunfire, I finished playing through all the Mass Effect 2 DLC yesterday. Started with Firewalker, then did Kasumi's Stolen Memory, then Overlord, and finally Lair of the Shadow Broker... and that was the right choice, as it was pretty much a straight line of increasing awesomeness from beginning to end. Shadow Broker in particular is a magnificent addition to the game; if you buy only one DLC, get this one. The aforementioned Lair is easily the most spectacular environment in all of ME2, there's lots of fun fighting and conversations, and it solidly wraps up the Liara plotline which was kind of sitting on the floor at the end of the original game (in fact, it did an amazing thing by actually getting me to like Liara, at least a little bit.) You even unlock what I can only describe as a cheat room at the end. But oddly enough, my favorite part of Shadow Broker is a little epilogue scene after the main story ends. I'll put in a spoiler...
...it's the bit where Liara visits the Normady and has a little heart-to-heart chat with Shepard. Specifically, it's the bit right at the end, where she asks Shepard two questions. First, does Shepard really, seriously think they can beat the Reapers? And second, why fight so hard: is it for life in the galaxy? For love? For personal survival? And you, the player, get to choose Shepard's answer.
I found this fascinating because in most games the protagonist doesn't get to have any motive or agency. They just do what they do because all the other doors besides "go through this to fight the evil" are either locked or just painted on. But not only does Shepard have a motive, it's a motive the player can influence. Actually seeing Nariya Shepard, the character I created three years ago and have played through both games with, say "I have no idea how we're going to win, we have hardly any chance against an enemy of this scale... but I'm going to keep fighting, because the people of this galaxy deserve to live and I'll do what I can to help them survive" colors the entire Mass Effect experience for me and gives it a reason to play out as it does. I hope we see this sort of thing again in ME3.
On That Day, Forty-Two Years Ago
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Mayfly Studio update.
I wrote an article on my Tumblr noodling around some ideas for a game based on exploration. Please check it out and add your thoughts in the newly-enabled comments section over there (you can use your Livejournal as OpenID to comment); I'd be interested to hear how the idea strikes people, and if it triggers other ideas in turn.
Afterlife Blues update.
Wait, what is this? The heroes are always supposed to win effortlessly!
Also, curse you and your astronomical phenomena, Jon, by mentioning it you predictably jinxed the weather. It's been snowing all day here in the Boston area and is supposed to continue through Wednesday.
A Miracle of Science update.
Two more uncolored pages down today! Except I noticed that another page towards the end is only half colored, so that's three more to go. Of course, lazy past me colored everything on that new page except Dryden. Man, that guy is such an ass, he causes me so much trouble.
On the plus side, today was the last time in my life I will ever have to color Pindar or the ball lightning gun. From this point, things can only get better!
Progris Riport
Two more MoS pages colored, four to go (plus the cover for Book 2.) Turns out there's something that's more of a pain to color than Pindar or the ball lightning gun: Pindar getting shot with the ball lightning gun. Sigh.
Also, there's a minor update on the Mayfly Studio Tumblr, talking about the end-of-level escape sequence.
In other news, I started playing Uncharted 2 today. Uh, I guess somebody let Naughty Dog know that I like train levels, because holy crap is that ever the biggest, most elaborate train level I've ever seen in my life. Wow. It's hard to picture how they're going to top it in the rest of the game.
Afterlife Blues update.
It looks like we weren't quite done with this bit after all.
Mayfly Studio update.
I've added a few posts to the ol' Tumblr, so if you like clicking on hyperlinks and then reading what you find at the other end this is your lucky day.
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