Family's reactions to this

A while ago I was wondering wether I should quit the degree I was taking or just bear with it and put my dreams on a shelf. As you can see I chose my dreams over a diploma. This may sound romantic and it actually is, but there's a downside to it and that is having to tell the same story over and over again, mainly to friends and family.

This happens all the time with almost everything I do but this time it's a bit more serious. Decisions like these shape the rest of my life, they close some doors and open others. Some make sense and others don't. Some seem they don't make much sense and a while later they do, like working as a mascot, dressed like a big orange seahorse near the beach.

Most of the times after telling the same story a few times I lose the love of telling it, I change my mind but tell it the same way, realizing I don't feel the same about it. I try not to make it too obvious though. The people who know me better have noticed I changed the way I talked about that degree, the most attentive ones know I stopped talking about it in the same way after I spent a while there. Part of my family was happy knowing I was taking a degree and studying near the place they were born and I didn't want to disappoint them.

They had no idea about my main interests. I don't talk that openly to them because most of the time I would be talking about topics they know nothing about. This has been going on for years now. This Christmas I only asked for money to help paying the London course. Now they know it's real. They agreed and instead of getting a book, videogame or DVD I got an envelope. Well, four envelopes by now.

Most of them are afraid everything might go wrong but they support me still. It's great and I like repeating stories about this new path over and over again. Sorry about it. I am not losing any enthusiasm right now. I take it as a really good thing.

One step closer

My dad found a cool room with an awesome price in London. It's a lot cheaper than most which is nice and it's near the school I'll be attending. It's all coming together!

...oh, and Merry Christmas to you too!

Good Characters

After some years reading novels, watching anime, movies and playing videogames I noticed one of the things these things lack the most are good characters. They are what pulls me into whatever it is and it can create awesome dialogues in wich what the characters say is much more important than what they do say.

The best characters I found were mostly in a few fantasy books and in a few animes. On the books, Raistlin Majere of the Dragonlance series (hence the blogger nickname) and Drizzt Do'Urden from the Forgotten Realms. In the animes they shone brighter. What I felt about the characters in Neon Genesis Evangelion was nothing like what I felt about the characters in Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. I related to them, I felt at home and I loved them for the good parts and all the flaws. I miss those characters.

In most other places I find generic and one-dimensional characters which only fill the vacancies for "tough guy", "blonde/brunette/redhead bombshell", "nerdy teenager" or "evil mastermind" and nothing else. I watch the movies and half an hour later I can't even remember their names.

In videogames I count by the fingers of my hands the characters wich had that kind of impact. Just off the top of my head the best I remember is Guybrush Threepwood.

Hats off to Tim Shafer.

Polycount

Let me tell you about an online forum that I recently began frequenting. It's Polycount and it has taught me a lot of things just by reading some of the threads there. It's a forum focused on 3D for videogames and there seem to be a lot of people who really know a lot about it there. I only made a few posts there to get some constructive comments on a model I am doing and those guys helped me right from the start. That whole "sincerity" post came from that. The first comment I got there was a negative one and it was ok. I needed to "hear" that.

The adress is: http://boards.polycount.net/


To give you an idea of the relevant info existant there take a look at these:

The ultimate be-all end-all normal mapping thread
Color and Specular Maps

Oh man, the world needs more places like these. The world or the internet anyway...

The Journey - Prologue

Let me tell you of the secondary point of my blog. As you may have read in the title, I want to document my steps from being a videogame art enthusiast to...well, to where I may go.


Here's the point I'm at:

I quit the degree I was taking in order to pursue a better education and to point my forthcoming career in the right direction. After a time of indecision and a lot of experimentation I finally admitted to myself and to everybody else the path I want to take is in art for videogames.

I worked in the summer and I used that money to go to the London Game Career Fair, where I talked to people from some of the companies that made some of my favorite videogames and they answered a lot of my questions about careers in the area. I felt welcome there.

After I got back I started learning Maya again, this time a lot more motivated and the results started to show right away. Maybe I'll start showing the models here. I contacted some of the people I admire in order to seek advice and they were so kind I don't know to thank them properly. I have tried, though.

When the next year begins I'll start packing and a few days later I'm off to London again, this time to take an intensive 3D course in a good training place.

Then the real Journey begins.

Challenges

What do you need to get out of the couch? I could bet a good challenge would do it.

In my opinion they are the best way to learn and if it works for me, it probably works for anyone. I will state this as a biographical note but it's only an example. If you understand this you'll probably ignore the biographical part. If you understood the first sentence you'll probably won't need to read the whole post.

First challenge: Learn Art, Make art

The second or third time I got interested in game development was the time I decided to register myself in a portuguese game development forum, GameDev-PT. Quickly I came to the conclusion I had to contribute to the community. In short, how could I be seen as an artist if I had almost no pieces to show?

Second Challenge: Be useful to a team

When I started reading posts I found a guy recruiting every kind of game developer to be on his team to make a groudbreaking massive online game (for gamers, MMORPG with a FPS interface). I contacted him and quickly I was on the team. Now I only had to make a difference there. Initially I was the only one so it wasn't much of a challenge. Despite that, I created a schedule for me. One A4 page filled with concept sketches a day. I had classes at the same time so it seemed reasonable.

The project eventually crumbled but I learned a few things and I mastered new tools. I met people related to that area and I came one step further to achieving my dream.

Third challenge: Figuring out what to do next

After that I had no team and no project, so I created my own. With that I kept learning by myself until I was in a team again and after that I got back to my projects, learning so that I can be even more useful next time.


In a nutshell, I dare you to learn and to make something you're proud of.

Videogame Wedding

And now for something completely different.

Sometimes I think of myself as a geek but things like these make me feel like a noob. One of the guys from Blizzard got married a while ago and he had a videogame-themed marriage. It's not a Blizzard-videogame themed one, the photos indicate a more Nintendo-themed approach.

The wedding's entrance music was The Legend of Zelda main theme and the party music was the Super Mario Bros one. The tables were named after videogame consoles, according to their actual timeline. The head table was called "Press Start to Begin"...and just look at the cake!

I wish I could have been there!

Full article and more photos here.

Sincerity

In the past years I spent a bit of time in online forums. Those were enough to give me an idea of how they work and let me tell you this: it's rare to find an extremely sincere person and those guys have the most valuable opinions.

You will probably hate your first encounters with these guys because they are the ones who have the guts to tell you which parts of the works you show are wrong. They are the ones who notice the parts that could be better and point them out. They are likely to have a whole lot more experience than you and they know of the importance of their sincerity. If you understand what they have to say you'll get better quicker. Trust me.

Good comments made by friends feel awesome but they are not neutral comments because those people want to see you happy and they will always say it looks great. If you can take all these comments in a constructive way you'll grow to a point where you'll be sincere and people will hear you roar. And you'll be right.

Scenemusic

A while ago I wrote a post about videogame music. It was not the only important kind of music in that period of my life. Another important presence and fuel was scenemusic. As it name kind of indicates it is music produced in the Demoscene subculture and it deserves a good listen. As demos, it's free.

Some of these musicians are really good at what they do and even though I don't know them all I leave you the links of my favorite ones.

Podcasts:
Surprise!Podcast This rocks so hard. The best podcast I know.
Hardread Podcast Also good but I haven't explored it much.

Musicians:
Little Bitchard I was a fan of a bunch of demoscene musicians. After looking at a list of this guy's aliases it turns out I am only a big fan of one!
Jeroen Tel Awesome 8bit sounds.

Collections:
Demovibes 80 minute compilations of the best scenemusic ready for burning on CDs. It's really good for people who are out of the scene.

Netlabel:
Enough Records Netlabel from fellow demoscener ps.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Dreams are important

I had heard lots of beautiful stories about dreams and giving everything you can to achieve them. I heard people saying it is really worth it.

Well, it is.

I haven't achieved most of them but the ones I did were worth it. They were the bottom of the ladder in terms of my personal dream list but they gave me the strenght to start climbing it to see where I can go. The dreams you have when you are younger shape you and make you way more receptive for the things you are interested the most.

That means if you're interested in something from an early age you pay attention to that area, perhaps even look for some answers and information about the subject. You have the time to decide if you would like to spend the rest of your life inside that world. You'll likely be better off in an area you are inclined to do than what your parents want you to do. It's not what they thought but when they see you happy with your decision, whatever it may be, they'll be happy too.

If you like several things, make a list. It may actually be worth writing in order of importance because it puts things on a new perspective and can help you later on.

My dreams were mostly impossible in the country where I live but I discarded the ones I liked the least and now even the country is changing and it's starting to meet the conditions I needed to achieve them. Dare to dream.

Good luck!

(Photo by UK street artist Banksy)