A1

While I'm still glad I bought my copy of The Movies, I'm finding that for my current story I'm getting a lot more mileage out of the iClone package. Partly this is because they encourage mods to add characters, scenes, and props while Lionhead Studios has an official policy of ignoring what is going on with mods. IOW, they are willing to look the other way, for now.

Add in that iClone has a decent motion editor that lets you decide how the characters are going to be positioned and move, although that freedom makes it harder to put a character in a prop such as a wheelchair. For a Visual Novel, I only have to get "close enough" that the posed character appears to be sitting in the chair. If I had to animate that, it would get more interesting quickly.

Once I finish the current project, then I think I'll try to scope one that plays more to iClone's strengths and see just how hard putting 20 minutes of animation together might be. For now, though, it's letting me get done what I need done.

Much as I enjoy watching the fansubs of various Anime series, I'm surprised that the companies making those series aren't doing their own subs and making some money off of it.

Now, I'm not talking about charging for subs of Anime series. There's not a pay market for that. You do well enough to make money on a dubbed DVD series. What I'm talking about instead would be for a company like Media Factory or KyoAni to produce their own subs, and then submit them to a service like Metacafe where they would get paid for every X number of viewings. That way, they can build an audience with the subs like they do now, and get some money out of the process.

By having the companies do it, you would probably get a higher quality product (though some of the fansub groups should probably be contracted to do work based on what they can produce), and there would be no question about the legality.

In fact, just compare the buzz about Kanon 2006 and Haruhi to the two seasons of Aria. KyoAni takes a hands-off approach to fansubs, and so the anime community gets introduced to the product, lets their friends know that there is this great series coming, and the dubbed DVDs have an excellent chance of generating major sales. Then you have a fantastic series like the Aria one by Media Factory - but there is no buzz and hardly any interest because they try to prevent fansubs from being created - and so no one talks about their subs or their series, and I'd be surprised if they sell 1/10th as many DVDs (if they sell them in the US market at all). Instead, they could control their product, AND make some additional cash, AND generate more market awareness by simply following a more Web 2.0 model.

Just a thought...

One thing I'm finding as I continue to work with my new Nokia N800 is that in many ways it's what I thought I was getting when I bought my Sony PSP. There are ports of XMame and the GBA emulator which means I have a ton of games available. It supports VOIP and has a built-in web cam. It has a touchscreen and supports cruising the Web. You can develop your own programs for it. You can easily buy a bluetooth keyboard as an attachment. Decent battery life. Plays videos and music and uses an SD card for storage.

Now look at the PSP. It has a nice sized screen, but not enough resolution to let you easily browse the web without a fair bit of scrolling. Sony actively works to keep you from putting programs on it that don't come on a proprietary disc format, and even the memory cards are proprietary. While it supports WiFi it has no microphone for doing VOIP, and the camera is an extra accessory you can't even buy yet. Not to mention that the screen isn't a touchscreen, so the only type of typing available is moving a cursor around a virtual keyboard - yuck! Why not at least make the virtual keyboard a circle so you can more readily use the navigation keys to jump across to a letter...

Anyway, with the exception of Tiger Woods PGA, I probably won't be using my PSP much if at all in the future. I have to wonder how many other folks will reach the same conclusion.

Based on this headline from here in San Antonio:
I-10 shuts down after 18-wheeler carrying chocolate candy catches on fire

Can only imagine the odor...

So far the Nokia N800 has proven to be a useful little tool, but I'm already finding some things missing that I hope are just because I haven't looked enough. Right now the biggest problem is finding a note taking application that will let me use "Digital Ink" (to borrow a Tablet PC phrase), and create as long of a page as I want. The ones that will let you ink your notes seem to want to do pages of a screen length or two. You can then create additional pages, but that cuts into your note taking.

Handwriting recognition is as poor on the Nokia as it is on the Tablet PCs. If you take your time it is ok, but if you're in a meeting and trying to keep up, forget about it. The full finger keyboard is pretty good, but you still tend to get behind - probably because of the lack of tactile feedback so you keep looking to see if you missed anything.

It turns out that some of the apps do support pressure-sensitive drawing, so it is a decent substitute for a graphics tablet - if you don't use a lot of levels in your work. For me, it so far does what I need - lets me draw a line.

As mentioned elsewhere, this thing is quite good at finding WiFi spots. Even if you get one with one bar, it will latch on pretty well. So web browsing is definitely enhanced. I look forward to trying it eventually with a bluetooth phone for some more distant connectivity.

On the Camp Handiba front, I've mainly been working with iClone and "The Movies" the last week. I've pretty much given up on iClone. It doesn't support enough flexibility in creating characters as I'd hoped, and it gives you TOO much freedom when it comes to making things interact. I still haven't found a way to put a character in a wheelchair and move the character and the chair together. Partly that is because the motion editor only lets you edit your character's motion - it won't show you the prop.

"The Movies" works well with props that are already in the game, but I'm having difficulty figuring out how to take the wheelchair mod and put it in a set that I'm using. I have at least gotten the Starmaker package to create the six main characters, and gotten them into the game. Can also make a custom script with the advanced movie maker, although I'm just getting familiar with how to make it set the shot. Since I mainly am going to use it to stage my screen, that should prove to be less of an issue eventually.

So, that's where I'm at for now. Hope things are going well where you are.

First, if you haven't already read the ArsTechnica Review of the Nokia N800, you might want to do so. Having read this, and some of the other reviews floating around the net, I decided to use my share of our Tax Refund to purchase one of these. I'm a little nervous since I had to order it from Tiger Direct - since they're the only place that has them in stock currently. But I should have it no later than Monday.

I like that it has a decent sized touch screen, and that it has a very Internet focused layout. Plus it runs a variant of UNIX, and has a VNC viewer program. Which should make it handy for a lot of stuff I like to do.

Second, I've decided to take the plunge, and ordered The Movies DVD and the expansion pack for it. That appears to be the "easiest" way for me to get some 3d characters and sets that I can manipulate to create the images I need for Camp Handiba. Am also helping to beta test a product that I look forward to using eventually to do this - but it probably won't be out in final form in time.

At least I've got some things going to keep me busy ;-)

Well, after several visits and tests, it turns out I'm no closer to an answer than when I started a couple weeks ago. I was given the choice of - "Let's do a few samples via biopsy" or "Let's monitor this for a couple more months and see if we can determine a trend."

Given my pain threshold, I chose the later :-)

Otherwise I'm busy trying to figure out what to do about Camp Handiba. Being a writer but not an artist is no fun when it comes to creating Visual Novels. Not being rich enough to hire anyone is also a rather big pain. So I find myself trying to figure out some way to develop what I need, and running into obstacles. Oh well...

Hope things are going well wherever you are...

Don't do this very often, but today I'm serving as "Guest Services" for a group of people who are here studying for their PMP certification. Since I'm already a PMP (pronounced Pimp, which leads to rather predictable humor), I get a few points toward my renewal for being willing to sit around and direct people, sign for lunch, etc.

Would also like to point folks at the MyToons site. This appears to be doing a good job of mashing up DeviantArt and MySpace for the animation/anime set. Since I belong smack dab in the middle of that, I was pleased to get my invitation earlier today. If you get in, be sure to look me up (EwanG).

Hope you're having a great weekend!

Well, the Ewan Photos site is back to having nothing on it. The service I was trying out made for a nice looking site, but even with nearly $40 in Project Wonderful advertising to support it, I couldn't get a single order in 10 days. So I'll wait until I can put up a proper template of my own rather than using something that costs $30/month.

In the meantime, the other Caves and Caverns package is now up at Renderosity. So we'll have to see if that does any better.

With the photography stuff out of the way for a bit, it's on to doing the taxes this weekend, and trying to get caught up on the Camp Handiba artwork. Always something, right?

Have a great weekend!

OK, my first product was finally approved for hosting on Renderosity. So if y'all are looking for some Caves and Caverns backgrounds, you can now get some :-)

Will have to see how that does compared to the individual prints for sale at the other site.

In the technical realm, I was interested to see that Amazon and Tivo are hooking up to offer downloadable movies direct to the Tivo. Of course, if you are using a Series 2 Tivo with Tivo GoBack, you can just DL to your PC and transfer over. Given the problems there have been with UnBox compared to BitTorrent, I'm not sure the Amazon setup is enough of a better solution to get most folks to switch. In other words, I don't think it's so sufficiently easy compared to the "free" solution that folks would be willing to pay for the convenience factor.

Finally, while I like the look of the new iPhone, I think the pricing is a little above my pay grade. So I'm happy to see Samsung coming out with their F700 that has some of the same style features, while including a QWERTY slide-out keyboard for us old-fashioned typists. It also has a much better camera included that makes me think I'll be happier with it than I would the iPhone. Not that I know if I'll be able to afford either when I can do the upgrade on my current Cingular plan (September...)

Hope you're having a good one

OK, spent the morning getting a CT scan of my liver so we can see if I have something called "NASH" or another liver condition. Much hilarity ensues...

Got quite a few of my photos up to the Ewan Photos site, and have started doing some advertising using Project Wonderful. I like the way they allow you to bid on ad space on a large number of webcomic sites and even some blogs, and am looking forward to seeing some sales to justify the time and expense so far. Or at least determine if it's worth going forward with that.

Still haven't heard back from Renderosity, but tomorrow is day six, so hopefully by then. Will have to then compare how that goes to the print route.

Otherwise, it's pretty much a matter of keeping up with a couple contracts we're currently working on.

Oh, one Anime series I'd like to pass along for your consideration is Nodame Cantabile. Enjoyable series without being too formulaic. Worth watching if you're into music and/or romantic comedy.

Hope you're having a good one!

The website for my photos is starting to come together. You can visit Ewan's Photos and see that I have some of my cave and cavern photos posted as well as an integrated cart if you're looking for prints. I'd be interested in knowing if folks are also interested in photo gifts or framed prints. Wanted to start out simple however.

Senior Year has received a couple thousand downloads, and I'm still hard at work on the next visual novel - Camp Handiba. Expect to see Senior Year appearing on Downloads.com soon, and that will hopefully drive a lot more exposure to the game.

As if all that wasn't enough, I've also been working on a store area at Renderosity for some photo backgrounds. I have a number of photos that aren't necessarily appropriate for art prints, but that will be useful for folks who need large backgrounds for their games and other 3D rendering.

Hopefully as I'm getting over the hump of getting all of this set up, I'm going to have a little more free time to be here as well. Kind of miss letting folks know about what is going on. And there are even some Anime series I need to let y'all in on.

See you again soon!