Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Panzertron The Ruiner's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
4:07 pm	ataque de pánico Someday... (The one thing I don't get is, that one guy who gets out of his car to gawk at the robots - why does he run away? He has a car.) Current Mood: impressed Current Music: Grails - Outer Banks (4 Credits | Insert Coin)
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
3:35 pm	colors may vary Working on coloring and texturing the my Big, Still-Unnamed 3D Project. Nothing's finalized yet. ( work in progress ) Tried out a Wacom tablet for the first time. Very weird and hard to get used to, but I could see it being very useful for some things. I still have yet to actually get one of my own. Still playing around with various colors/textures, but all that's gonna get shoved aside into my free time because we're supposed to start rigging now. Rigging this thing is gonna be a bitch and a half because of all the car parts and stuff hanging off of the model. Probably gonna have to rig each piece of kibble (yes, there's a word for that) as a separate limb on the skeleton, so they can all be controllable when I start animating. Hell, I haven't even decided what I'm gonna make it do, other than probably transform, and that's gonna affect how I rig it in the first place, to a certain degree. This is a huge, daunting task I've chosen for myself. I can see that it's probably gonna make me feel very accomplished when I'm done with it... if I ever get done with it. It feels like I've been working on this forever, and there are times when I don't know if my brain can learn hard enough to make it through. I guess we're always our own worst critic. But I'm not just criticizing my work; I'm criticizing myself, and what kind of person I am, and whether I have what it takes to see this through. This class is literally probably the most difficult/complicated thing I've ever attempted with any measure of success, and it makes me feel like I'm constantly on the edge of not succeeding. I feel parts of me trying to slack and be lazy, and I have to keep forcing myself to keep going. I remember what happened with "real" school, and how that didn't work out, and I feel a lot of the same things I felt back then. But this thing is different. This has to be different. This is what I want. I have to make this work. Current Mood: determined Current Music: Funker Vogt - Int'l Killer (We Won The War mix by Velvet Acid Christ) (2 Credits | Insert Coin)
Monday, October 19th, 2009
12:39 pm	chitinous nightmare Current Mood: hungry Current Music: Suicide Commando - Evildoer (3 Credits | Insert Coin)
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
12:15 am	innominata Progress has been made. Modeling is just about done. Car parts are all "attached" (most of the "attaching" is just a fake ball-and-socket joint type thing that looks like an attachment point, but really they're just floating; rigging will make them move like they're actually attached). Halfway through class, I realized I'd attached the car doors wrong. I pictured the transformation sequence and how all the parts would shift around, and the doors were attached to the hips upside-down, so I had to flip them. Next is UV mapping and painting/texturing. I haven't settled on an exact color scheme yet, although I do know 1) her head is gonna be white with red eyes and a black "helmet" (like the Seekers - Starscream, Thundercracker, etc.), and 2) the outside surface of the car panels is probably gonna be gray and dirty (I'm actually thinking Panzergrau, like how I colored the original Kübelwagen model), although the actual torso and limbs might have some purple and black or something. Caution stripes on the bumpers and lower side panels, maybe. One of the square indentations on the shoulder armor will have a Decepticon symbol; I dunno what the other will be yet. I did slap some red shiny stuff on the eyeballs for a sec, just for fun. So... I think I might be able to make this work. Even if I can only make her transform, I'll be pretty frakking proud. But my 3D instructor and I seem to agree that this project has a lot of potential. Current Mood: tired Current Music: And One - Military Fashion Show (2 Credits | Insert Coin)
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
6:35 pm	Walküre I'm not dead. I still function. I know I haven't posted anything in a long-ass time. 3D animation class has been kicking my brain's ass. Hopefully I'll get some free time soon for artwork and/or writing. In the meantime, some random pics of what I've been working on for class: ( +3 ) She's gonna be a Transformer who turns into an old Volkswagen Kübelwagen (which I modeled for an earlier project). Definitely a Decepticon. Haven't decided on a name yet. Any suggestions? Current Mood: hungry Current Music: Nachtmahr - Tanzdiktator (1 Credit | Insert Coin)
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
3:53 pm	"Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence." ( Star Trek. ) Current Mood: tired Current Music: Nav Katze - Change (Aphex Twin mix #2) (2 Credits | Insert Coin)
Monday, April 20th, 2009
12:14 am	rising from the ashes, the monster is born ( So. Resident Evil 5. ) Current Music: pr0metheus_buRning - Confronting Pandora (Insert Coin)
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
2:45 pm	i believe in blood Watched Låt den rätte komma in (Let The Right One In) last night. Not necessarily the best vampire movie I've ever seen, but I thought it was really good. It was especially refreshing, since vampire movies in this country have apparently been reduced to Twilight's sparkle-vampire bullshit. I think what I loved about Let The Right One In that made it so unique was that the vampire was a 12yr-old girl. Admittedly, she says, she's been 12 for a long time. She has the haunted eyes of an old, tired soul. But because she became a vampire so young, and then stopped aging, she still has the mind of a child. This isn't one of those stories where a child vampire will somehow develop the mind of an adult over an unnaturally long lifespan. Her development is frozen. She doesn't seem to fully understand what has happened to her or why. I don't think she ever even actually uses the word "vampire" at any point. So, rather than ridiculously pretty high school kids who sparkle in sunlight, Let The Right One In is a vampire story through the eyes of young children who are still trying to figure out what life is, and what it means. The nature of vampirism as being separate from human is less horrific to the human boy character, because he is still trying to figure out what "human" is. He is still "growing into" being human. It's a more... engaging type of vampire story, I guess. Incidentally, apparently Sweden has very different rules/standards concerning 12yr-olds in movies walking around in their underwear or with no pants on for no reason, or lying in bed naked (implied) together. I dunno. ANYWAYS. The special effects were kinda downplayed, for a vampire movie, which made them all the more meaningful when they were used. My favorite effects shot of the movie was in one scene where the vampire girl enters a darkened room. Her face is in shadow, but after a second or two her eyes start to glow very faintly with reflected light as her eyes adjust to the dark, like cat eyes at night. This only lasts for an instant before the boy turns on the lights behind her, and you catch a glimpse of her slit-shaped pupils almost instantly returning to a normal human shape. The boy never sees it, and you might miss it if you're not paying attention. I love how subtle it is. The ending isn't exactly a huge surprise, but that doesn't make it any less good. Highly recommended. Current Mood: tired Current Music: Nachtmahr - I Believe In Blood (2 Credits | Insert Coin)
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
10:09 pm	now i'll have the song stuck in my head all day. again. I've been waiting for someone to do this. I was considering doing it myself, but my skills and software are lacking. (Link from robziel, among many others.) Current Mood: amused (Insert Coin)
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
11:47 am	occlusion Occlusion pass of the Kübelwagen project. I just thought it looked cool and surreal like this. Current Mood: tired (2 Credits | Insert Coin)
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
1:10 pm	all ahead full Spam in my inbox this morning: Get her on the pleasure boat Current Mood: amused (Insert Coin)
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
6:52 pm	yankee gal My 3D instructor just showed us this. Apparently it took four students a year to make. Current Mood: inspired (Insert Coin)
Monday, February 23rd, 2009
9:59 pm	keine Rettung / ich trag dein Gift schon in mir So I loaded up the Resident Evil 5 demo I downloaded. I didn't actually play it, I was just trying to get acquainted with the new, more complicated controls. Um... it's gonna take some getting used to. Pressing the D-pad in one direction makes your character take out some kind of shotgun. Another direction makes him put it away and take out a smaller handgun. A third makes him put all weapons away and take out a health pack to give to the female character, while leaving himself defenseless (even though he has a whole other hand free for a knife or a gun or something). The fourth direction apparently makes the characters argue with each other. Character 1: "LET'S GO!" Character 2: "YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS!" Panzer: "Wait, WTF is even going on?" Of course this is based on me fiddling around with the controls in the alley where the demo begins. Supposedly, the characters are able to communicate and give each other commands, but all I was able to do in my few spare minutes was make them pose and yell at each other ineffectually. Oh, that, and apparently there is a button that makes the main character stare at the the female character appreciatively locate the female character with GPS or something, even when she is hiding behind things. For what it's worth, at this point, they did a really good job of giving the impression that the game is set in a dusty town, in a hot tropical climate, and that it probably smells pretty bad. Which is impressive, given that video games are, by nature, a purely audiovisual medium. I think I'm gonna wait until I finish beating Silent Hill: Homecoming into submission before I even try RE5. I don't think I'm quite ready yet. I need a few more moments to savor my temporary feeling of victory, before I try another "game where you run for your fucking life, for hours, until you die". RE4 is probably the hardest, most intense game I've ever actually beaten, and it gave me a correspondingly great sense of achievement. RE5 looks even harder and more intense. I dunno if that's bad or good. Current Mood: tired Current Music: Eisbrecher - Schwarze Witwe (3 Credits | Insert Coin)
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009
11:02 pm	the coming of the shadows More work-in-progress on the Kübelwagen. Made the texture on the ground smaller and less obviously pixelated. Also, I found out that my lighting rig and shadows weren't working right because my sky-dome was basically blocking all the light and casting a big shadow over the whole scene (I had neglected to change the settings so that the lights could pass through it without casting a shadow), and once that was fixed it suddenly... looked a lot more like it was supposed to. ( 4 pics. ) Hopefully soon I will be able to do this faster, better, and more thoroughly and confidently. Current Mood: tired Current Music: Bonk - Soot (Insert Coin)
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
10:53 pm	this will be even better once i actually know what i'm doing If my head doesn't explode first. ( What I've been working on in class. STILL a work in progress :P ) Current Mood: tired (11 Credits | Insert Coin)
Sunday, February 8th, 2009
10:10 pm	reload Current Mood: entertained (1 Credit | Insert Coin)
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
5:50 pm	movie Blitzkrieg A couple of these are movies I didn't watch very recently, but never got a chance to post about. ( Outpost. ) ( Sukiyaki Western: DJANGO ) ( À l'intérieur ) ( The Fall ) ( Resident Evil: Degeneration ) Current Mood: tired Current Music: Amish Rake Fight - I, Croupier (3 Credits | Insert Coin)
Saturday, January 31st, 2009
8:22 pm	the snuggie This pretty much summarizes my feelings on the subject. Current Mood: amused (2 Credits | Insert Coin)
8:08 pm	mit viel Oktan und frei von Blei [http://panzertron.deadjournal.com/518186.html] The deliverable for this unit in 3D class was a short playblast* of our car models "driving" around our model terrain. I remember picking a kinda blasted wasteland terrain like Iceland to model because I thought it would look cool. In retrospect, I was just making a huge amount of extra work for myself. It's extremely hard (at least for a beginner like me) to keep the wheels of a car from floating above the ground or clipping into it, if the ground is uneven and undulating. There was one part of the playblast where my Kübelwagen did this weird ass-wagging sort of maneuver that I wasn't able to get rid of (there's a graph editor where you're supposed to be able to move key points around on the graph to make stuff move or rotate or resize on various axes, but I couldn't seem find the keys that were making the car shake its boxy booty). Also, there's some weird issue with the alpha maps I made, where parts of the ground look semitransparent from certain angles. I keep telling myself it's a work in progress, but progress is slow. At least the Kübel's wheels spin and steer now. * - The best way I can explain a playblast is... um... basically, the computer just takes snapshots of the model moving around on the screen like you see it when you're modeling it, rather than actually going through the trouble of rendering it; the textures are just kinda roughed in and there's no fancy lighting or anything. About as quick and dirty as you can get. Current Mood: my brain is smoldering Current Music: RAMMS+EIN - BENZIN (Insert Coin)
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
12:21 pm	on a less depressing note Current Mood: amused (Insert Coin)