The last week was busy for me. I just moved out to a new place! A place that’s about half the size, but the rent and location are ideal. House-mates also tricked me in doing a terrible paint-job for the room, but that’s my fault.
Tag Archives: andrew hlynka
Deadlines Don’t Exist Anymore…
Well, I came back from that second interview from that game company. I told them I had already made commitments to graduate school, they were really nice about it and agreed I should finish school, and may skip the interview process a bit should I apply again next year. Also gave me some free swag, including their most recent game for PS3 (here’s a hint: it made over a billion dollars within the first few days of its release). Great guys, couldn’t ask for better people or location to work. UPDATE: Although, every other student I talk to says I’m an idiot for not holding out to try to get the job… but they don’t know my plans for indie development, my need for a “break,” my plans to use graduate school research for other means, or that the company agreed I was probably better suited for another position that was already filled. I might be making a huge mistake, but I think I know what I’m doing…
Also thought about game deadlines. One of the reasons I like game development is that there is a set product at the end, a final stage, at which point you ship out the final product, take a break for a few weeks, start fresh on the next project.
Not anymore.
What Have I Been Up To? (“The Great Penny Robbery”)
I haven’t made a post in a few weeks. Why? Because I had exams. I am a student after all. Thankfully, that’s over, and I can focus my time on important things for the next few months.
But I’ve done a lot in the last few months, too. None of it is really important or “complete,” but some of it is actually pretty darn impressive given the short amount of time it was completed in.
An Important Decision…
(A open letter of personal conflictions.)
If you religiously scan everything about me on the Internet, you would be a little creepy. And, while there isn’t too much out there to go on, you’ll know I am a university student. I am finishing soon, expecting to graduate within months with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science. As my classes come to a close, I have some important decisions to make.
Most people are asked throughout their student lives the same question: “What will you do when you graduate?”
How do we answer? Often, we don’t know yet. Some people, even after college or university, don’t know exactly what they want to do.
At least, that’s what they say. I think, deep down, everyone knows exactly what they would like to do. The problem is that it may or may not be viable or realistic, or are just too strange for people to be willing to admit. If you have a passion for becoming a Fortune Cookie Writer or Professional Whistler, then great, but that might be a difficult job to obtain, let alone the fear of what your family or friends would think.
Improving RAM For Hand-Drawn Pseudo-3D Graphics
I keep thinking about better ways to improve my method for pseudo-3D hand-drawn graphics in games. It isn’t a very advanced method, and yet expands older methods that have been abandoned decades ago, creating traditional animation in 3D games in ways that computer animation has still be unable to mimic.
The problem with it? Never mind how it looks (I am not a professional animator in any sense, that it looks as good as it does with my ability alone is enough to convince me of its potential). It takes a lot of work to animate (still less than the typical animated film, which is hardly a comparison). More importantly, it takes a lot of RAM and hard drive space. Unlike CGI models, where the animation takes less data than the model itself (and thus animations can be added to a model with less concern), my method multiplies RAM used with every frame of animation. Every frame is its own, hand-drawn texture.
Add that there are different perspectives of one character (currently 24 in my latest version). If I have one animation with five frames, that’s 24*5 = 120 frames. If I have several animations, or add more frames for smoother animation, you can see how one character can have thousands of hand-drawn frames.
