Ayarane Project @ LJ

Stuff comes in threes

Tue, 15 May 2012 06:35:52 GMT

Seeing as my brother is somehow going to make Diablo 3 cooperate with his old-as-fart machines (else I let him borrow Yggdrasil), looks like I get to play, too. Why not, eh? And simultaneous Mac version release, hot.

Blastoise and Dinah are standing by with their installers... Only a half hour until I find out what the fuss is about. I've heard the Diablo series described as "Blizzard does PSO," to which I would say "WELLTHEN" and... yeah. :P

Turtle, Resurrected (Again)

Fri, 11 May 2012 09:09:43 GMT

Once more Blastoise is back, and in proper form. Awesome card is awesome and low-powered (good lord, that 570 was a greedy jerk, eating up not only two six-pin connectors but an additional two pins, where this 550 only demands a single six-pin connector) and everything is all clear across the board. Blastoise is running on 270.61 and most importantly he's got dual monitor mode back. YES. I've missed that so much.

No driver failures, no blue-screens in CoH or WoW, no green-outs on YouTube, no broken textures... good. STAY THAT WAY. Please?

And as it turned out, the raid got bumped to Monday anyhow. So even if I did have problems, it wouldn't have held me up for anything I had plans for.

Detour Downstairs

Thu, 10 May 2012 07:26:05 GMT

Uh... well that just happened.

I woke up to a BOX!!!1 on my side-table. It was my video card, of course, but like hell am I going to crack open Blastoise until I've nibbled something, because Yoshi+ empty stomach + robo-surgery = faceplanting on dusty desk with potential to inhale extra case screws = NO.

And then... I get summoned downstairs (!) with Dinah (!!) for an experiment: the installation of a curtain over the puppy gate. In theory this would stop the Berserk Cacophony of WOOF that gets triggered whenever I come downstairs for whatever reason (usually to take pizza delivery). This also comes with the bonus of keeping Evil Stepfather from staring at me like a creeper.

I wanted to do the card swap while there was daylight because Blastoise's case is painted such that it sucks out artificial light (but not natural). But... this sounded worthwhile, and I kinda wanted a change of scenery for the day anyway, even if the most likely end result was that I'd just sleep on the couch all day because it's not often I get to sit on a real couch. :P

...which is exactly what happened, albeit interrupted by my cat jumping on and shuffling around on top of me, that little purrbot. Though... I DID get pizza and discovered I actually have the Blu-Ray version of the first Men in Black. I think it came with one of the Blu-Ray drives I installed. It was still in its shrink-wrap and cardboard insert, haha!

Anwho, experiment is a partial success. Dogs can't go berserk at the sight of me, but incidental (and unavoidable) noises like doorbells still set them off. Well, it's SOMETHING, I guess.

Blastoise gets cracked open in the morning. Hopefully nothing goes bad and he's up and running before raid time. :P Cripes I miss dual monitors.

Third time's the charm

Wed, 09 May 2012 06:07:09 GMT

Blastoise's replacement video card (the EVGA GTX550) hits tomorrow. A step back from what I was packing before, but, hell, according to seraphzero it works and, slightly more importantly, I get my dual monitors back so I can freaking roll Instant Ramen and other stuff again. (Note to self: Driver #270 or GTFO)

In other news, even though I have all these games and projects backlogged, I am inexplicably bored out of my mind. Do not want! Also incredibly lonely and such, but that's not new. >_>; Where's my cat, I need some purrbot time now...

Can't catch a break

Thu, 03 May 2012 22:08:24 GMT

Well, poop. Blastoise just can't win when it comes to games.

Ever since I cleared the first Mass Effect, it's been back to the usual MMOs until I can get the dude another SSD or something to act as additional app storage. Only then I started having driver issues up the nose, and it only got progressively worse until today.

The 285 driver made YouTube pretty much unusable (most videos would "Green Out"), but 296.10 was even worse-- couldn't play games OR run any kind of video without Blastoise totally upending himself and forcing a hard reboot. Running the beta driver (300-something) kinda stabilized things but not by much. So I went back to the 270 driver that the card came with.

Plan B entailed diving into the settings for underclocking. Now... OCing/UCing is territory I don't wander into since I figured it's best not to try to reinvent the wheel, but this particular card (the Galaxy MDT GTX570) is factory overclocked, and it was suggested I manually ratchet it back to the default clock speed. That appeared to work for City of Heroes on the short term, but had catastrophic results for WoW, which would just crash outright after character select.

Oh hell. This had to happen on a raid night, too. Thankfully Dinah the Badass Ninja MacBook is always ready to step in, but.... yeah.

The fact that I'm even having to take such arcane measures to whip MMOs into submission (and they're pretty low on the gaming food chain) should be signal enough that something has gone REALLY bad in this card. At least unlike the previous, I still have basic Windows and video playback usability, but I'm a couple days out the return window at Amazon so I'm kinda SOL there. :(

At this point I would just say "f you nVidia" and go back to ATI, but I still don't have any love for bloaty Catalyst. Aaargh. I'm already looking at having to pay the Stupid Geek Tax again since this will be Blastoise's second video card replacement and this form is barely 5 months old.

On the flipside? Whatever I loot this time will give me back twin monitor functionality. Good lord I've missed that. T_T

Cleanup Act

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 23:57:46 GMT

It appears part of cleaning up my office also involves cleaning up my actual bedroom, since that way I can start packing up empty DVD cases whose contents are stored in my big CD binder. I managed to clear a huge swath of junk (mostly fallen fast food paper towels and human hair balls) that had piled up between my bed and the wall opposite my big TV, and also much of the junk atop a make-do endtable (actually an old slanted stool from a broken office chair with a tray on top). Of course, in doing so I kicked up lots and lots of dust and cat hair, so I was coughing up like ow. (Strangely, this only woke the dogs once.) That reminds me, I should also request a wash cycle for my sheets because...

...HOLY CRAP I HAVE NEW PILLOWS YOU GUYS. It's a big freaking deal-- Target had 'em on sale for $3, and what passed for "pillows" here were, uh... four ratty old things doubled-up and stuffed into two pillowcases. I think they may very well be older than ME. But now I have fresh pillows and they've got that new pillow crunch and fluff like those you would find in a hotel.

New pillows.
Happy place.
I am IN IT.

*cough*

In other news... I'm not sure what the hell is up with Blastoise's video card now. It has issues with either games or video playback or some combination of the two, depending on what driver I'm using. Older drivers pretty much neuter much of YouTube (it green-screens most videos) but games are playable. The current driver is the worst, since it crashes after a few minutes of running any games and a video (even if said video is minimized) or even just running a video by itself, and the beta driver isn't much better-- no crashing with video playback, but just unstable as crap.

Is it just nVidia's hit a rough patch with drivers as of late? I've seen lots of complaints about the current driver release (296.10), so I'm hesitate to write this off as a bad card thing, but... worst case, I think I'd still be within the window to RMA if I had to. :|

Where logic tries to self-immolate

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:51:18 GMT

Once again my dreams try to commit logical suicide. I mean, I know dream canon is not supposed to be coherent all the time, but this is starting to be ridiculous. Even more bizarre is the "Catfather Rule" is locked in-- that is, Kestine does not exist, but Father is still alive in some capacity.

In today's instance, I'm at Macy's (which I'm pretty sure DOESN'T have an extensive selection of plus-size clothes but whatever) because I got invited to some Jewish social event that brendala's involved in-- the txt mentioned something bout latkes and I'm all "so freaking there, dood." :O~ SO. I manage to find some black pantsuit + long scarf that makes me look like a semi-classy adult rather than just a nerd that just wears whatever is clean and not shredded by cat, and here comes mother who is pressing me to hurry because we have to go pick up Evil Stepfather from somewhere. I go to get in line to pay for my loot but mother's all "HAY LET'S TRY THIS NEW APP THAT WILL LET YOU PAY THROUGH THAT" and it turns out to be this convoluted mess that involves using the iPhone's camera to scan but it doesn't work. Eventually I'm just "screw it, I'll order this stuff online" because it's taking way too long.

When we get to the Yoshi Car (which is parked in the unloading area in the back of the store) I find that mother has stuffed it with contraband that she snagged from some Post Office holiday kegger. Mostly booze and jewelery and a crossbow (WTF). I try to clear out the driver's seat so I can get in, but this junk keeps moving itself back into place and jabbing me in the head and back to do so. Oh hell. This is the part where the laws of physics and logic are trying to kill themselves and take me with them. I'm not having any of this and push the red "WAKE UP" button on the dashboard to end this BS.

Why can't I have a happy dream? Preferably one with kittens? :( Everything that's been popping up for the past several months have been this head-breaking nonsense. Sad Yoshi is sad.

Time to order pizza for mah raid.

(WIP) Dragon Munchies

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:42:34 GMT

If I were to start inking that pile of junk food now, I'd be here until at least 9. And with this awful demon chair... no.
Besides, uh... later I'll have real-life reference materials for at least the muffin tier. Yeah.

(WIP) The Dragon's Nest

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:36:09 GMT

Ugh, being reduced to single-display mode sucks. Sure, it allows me to focus better, but I hate having to alt-tab to check reference images and such. Boo. That said, it's WIP time after a loooong break from the Ramen, and it's the long awaited "junk food" piece:

When a dragon's gotta eat, she's going to eat. At EPIC proportions.

Deeum has something that she makes Velan prepare every so often... the "Dragon's Nest," a platter of sweets that no smarmy human could hope to conquer. Donuts, muffins, twisted/glazed bar donuts, marshmallow squares (aka Rice Krispy Treats), Twinkies and, on top of it all, a glazed cinnamon pull-apart bundt cake. If that doesn't sound evil, I don't know what does.

Hikaru joins in for this session of face-stuffing (dragons gotta fuel the regen somehow). As much as she hates that this requires another kitchen explosion to create... well... you can't say no to a mountain of sweets. Woe unto anyone who dares to steal even a single piece off that pile. Even if you're Chelsea. (I would also think that Numair would know that it is NOT worth being subject to a Deeum-brand clobbering... Hikaru would probably just glare him into the floor and, uh, not do anything to help. Yeah. that's right.)

There's still some things to be added in (like the couch and the milk/coffee pitchers and such) but you can see where my priorities were in this wireframe. :P

Why do I do this stuff at 3:30am? Ahahaha.

Ayarane Project @ Hover

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 08:29:10 GMT

This is probably of little interest to non-geeks, but I've changed the domain registrar for Ayarane Project.

Once upon a time, AP was born from GoDaddy (and hosted at Interscot) because at the time, domains were just starting to not cost an arm and a leg to register. Also at the time, GoDaddy was, uh... "no, seriously, it's not porn, it just SOUNDS sexy!" Obviously, that no longer applies as they've recruited sexy models as part of their advertising. (And their "too hot for internet" ads weren't even that good!) I could care less about that, however, as it was all the clunky interfaces and attempt to sell extra services that kinda bothered me.

Enter Hover! It sounds like a no-name registrar, but if you've been on the internets as long as I have, you would know that they are owned by the dudes who run Tucows. Man, that brings back memories! :D Anywho, they happened to advertise on TWiT (specifically, FrameRate),special domain and all, and AP was up for renewal anyhow, so much like an Angry Bird, into the domain slingshot it went. I like Hover's UI, it's all "I just took a bath!" clean, and the worst it tries to do on upselling is pitch more email-- a redundancy if you go elsewhere for hosting. :P

I still need to buy up a couple other domains but at least the one that matters is covered for the next 3 years.

My Office Sucks

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 07:19:42 GMT

I'm pretty sure the general lack of art posts (or me just being on Blastoise much outside of raiding) is because my office is quickly becoming a not-comfortable part of what little personal space I have left. Let's assess:

- My chair is 10+ years old, creaky and falling apart
- My floor mat is cracked and sunken
- I'm down to a single monitor because while New Video Card is AWESOME, it is also weird in that it won't take twins. Something about virtual display fusion blah blah blah. TRIPLETS OR GTFO.
- I can't add a third monitor because my "desk" (actually two sewing tables in an L formation) is a total mess with boxes and other old crap that I piled up so Kestine couldn't wander behind the monitors.

Basically it comes down to me having to make a concerted effort to clean my desk space to free up room for another monitor. Odds are what will end up happening is that I'll retire my 19" Samsung CRT (that was Yoshi Day loot from 2003; it's a miracle it still works, as it's super-ghosty and is interfering with Painter, which is why I can't do Instant Ramen even in forced single monitor mode) and pick up TWO monitors-- one to replace said CRT and the second to fill the third monitor slot. The secondary display (also a Samsung) is thankfully in perfect working order.

And that's just the monitors. There's also issue of my demon chair... this awful thing that makes me fall asleep and one of my hands go numb because it's an ergonomic nightmare. Too low to the ground, and I can't scoot in because the floor mat's cracked and... ugh.

The desk cleanup has to come first, at least. The only reason I dread doing it because it's sure to be noisy as hell, which means those evil bulldogs downstairs will go into a clusterfwegh of WOOF and then everyone will be all pissed off over the noise. Only way to lessen the drama is to do it while parental units are out (preferably on a vet trip with one of the bulldogs) since there will be less barking and human yelling.

Not looking forward to dropping lots of coin on this overhaul (two monitors + new chair + floor mat) but it's necessary in the long run. I should troll like hell for commissions when this is all done to take the edge off. :|

Level 28

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 06:40:03 GMT

Oh hi. So I'm 28 yet I still feel like I'm barely an adult, just fatter and nerdier and even less conventionally-attractive. Go me!

...absolutely nothing of note happened on Yoshi Day, as predicted. Just as well, it was too cold out to do much anyhow (it had drizzled earlier that morning). My brother did break his "radio silence out of laziness" for birthday wish TXT messages-- as I suspected, his WoW account expired and he's just been paying bills. Hi, it would have been nice for him or boss to give me notice or, better still, promote me to a level that I can reinvite returning players to Shattered Knights. Oh no, but that would be "work" for them, wouldn't it? They LOL'd at me for being inexperienced before, but can't be bothered to act like responsible adults for even a few minutes to make sure there is always someone wearing something resembling boss pants. Bleh. (And because I'm too damn nice, I'd still issue 'em Scrolls of Resurrection for when the expansion hits the live servers.)

Speaking of WoW... who has two thumbs and kicked Deathwing's ass during tonight's Dragon Soul 10-man? This dood. "Koyoshial, Destroyer's End" FTW! Finally, I have something I can dangle over my brother's head for once. (But I still want Kingslayer, too!) I also walked away with a nice little pile of upgrades, among them being the T13 mage hat (Time Lord's Hood) which puts me in full Time Lord's Regalia. Hot.

*ahem*

I forgot to snap pics of the cake... but just as well, it wasn't what normally constitutes "birthday cake" anyway. (The store actually ran out of generic birthday cakes that day!) It was one of those fancy cakes that are... uhm... I guess the closest possible context would be that it's a "mature" cake that adults eat, something classy and expensive-looking that you would get at a high-class restaurant. But it was solid chocolate, so who am I to complain? But easter is coming up and I'm pretty sure mother is going to loot another cake for that one as she is convinced I hated the "backup" cake I got and I'm just saying I liked it just to be nice. (...what? That's not true at all! It may not be standard birthday cake, but cake is cake, especially chocolate cake.)

I haven't unboxed most of my loot yet: I only just opened one of the three, a Big Brother-type Angry Birds plush (w/ sound chip). I'm holding onto the other two until I can drag neophoenixte on Skype since one of them is obviously his. (A reused NewEgg box with kooky writing on it...)

Very very slowly cleaning off the left arm of my "desk" so I can jam a third monitor in here and thus make my new video card fully usable. Mmm, triple monitor mode... it's going to rock faces off. I'm almost tempted to just retire this bigass CRT monster early (it still works, just 9 years old and has hardcore ghosting that is starting to interfere with Instant Ramen) and pick up two Samsungs that I saw on sale a few days ago on Amazon to replace the CRT and fill the 3rd display slot. My office is going to be effing Mission Control at this rate. I mean, it is already... just even MORESO. Or maybe it's a Gundam cockpit...

This dumb chair is bothering me, which I guess is my cue to let Blastoise pass into sleep mode and go play Tales of the Abyss for the rest of the evening.

Effect of Mass (retake) + Yoshi Day 2012

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 03:03:52 GMT

One system rebuild and one emergency video card swap later, I've cleared the first Mass Effect. (Let's hope Blastoise doesn't make a habit of killing his video card every time I play a new game. :P)

I got roped in because of Boss Kar (from WoW) and I believe Jessie further prodded me into playing. That was back in, uh, September. For some reason, I didn't get very far and I got distracted by something else, and by the time I was about to resume, Blastoise got torpedo'd by some new virus and I had to rebuild him, losing my saved games in the process. And you know what happened with the second time around, the whole "FemShep is so awesome she made my video card kill itself!"

Short game is.... amazingly short. (Especially for something that eats 10GB, ouch) You can easily burn a few more hours digging through all the star systems for surveys and away missions, but I gather the main story is about 10 hours long. Not that it's a bad thing, mind you! I mean, it's not like any corners were cut plot-wise, things just happen to unfurl and resolve themselves in a small timeframe. Ha ha ha.

Also, if you're like me and shooters aren't normally your thing because you have crap for reflexes (I could barely handle Metal Gear and Metroid Prime), Mass Effect is extremely forgiving in that department. There's no shame in picking Casual if that's the case. Sure, there are achievements for higher difficulty settings, but as far as I know, toggling it doesn't mess with the story, any.

I like when, during one of the side missions, I found a Geth assault rifle! (Can't remember the name off-hand.) It's kinda like how in later FF's where you find a kickass weapon (usually a "dormant" version of your final weapon) but has no upgrade slots. But it was good enough to last me the rest of the way. Also: PEW PEW PEW. No, really. Cute laser beams! :D

I used Liara and Tali for pretty much all of my missions as soon as I got them.

Now I just have to get another hard drive (probably another SSD, devoted entirely for games) so I can loot the second and third games, I can't keep swapping out installs on my system drive, it's way too messy that way.

---

I have no bloody clue what's going on locally for Yoshi Day. Not a peep from Robert (via TXT or WoW). It could be that I'll have to take things online-- I've got a free pizza credit and a webcam (two if I plug the eyeball into Dinah), and I've been meaning to play with Google Hangout anyhow.

For those on the Twitter side, you know what would rock faces off? Get #YoshiDay trending, because April Fools sucks and should GTFO. Cakes trump pranks, dood!

Ah, here come the first of the automated "happy birthday" emails (from forums and such). :P

It Gets Weird(er)

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:50:10 GMT

Dumb Yoshi is DUMB and should have read the documentation better. This card (Galaxy MDT GTX570) is basically "one monitor or three/four/five, no twosies for you!" Basically, I need to get my hands on a third monitor, preferably one that matches my secondary (a 22") if I want to go anywhere. For now, Blastoise gets to be One-Eye McPirateFace and I'll have to drag Dinah over to make her pick up IM/Twitter watch.

...though, Amazon says 22" widescreen Samsungs are $150, that's not TOO bad...
F it, I'll make Robert get it for me. :P Ha ha ha!

I was planning on going triple monitors sometime, this just wasn't how I was going to go about it. Oh well. This also forces me to clean up my desk hardcore (and soon), I've got soooo much junk out here. >_>;

Oh, I forgot to mention this but I investigated Blastoise's non-working frontside USB ports... turns out I'd put the header into the Firewire port. OOPS. Now that that's fixed, that's opened up, like... 3 more USB ports. Rock!

It Gets Weird

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:40:33 GMT

One video card swap later and Blastoise is back... mostly. I didn't change out one of the DVI adapter-things for the one that came with the card, so while Blastoise knows the secondary monitor is there he can't see through it, so he's still "blind" out of one eye. But at least the primary monitor works for now, and I'll do the adapter swap tomorrow since I don't have enough natural side-lighting to do it now. (Can't use artificial lighting because the way his interior's painted sucks up light like crazy. Doesn't matter if I crank up my overhead and use my headlight. Boo!)

Whatever the case, as soon as he's fully back in action... HOPEFULLY Mass Effect doesn't cause his card to commit suicide again. >_>; (Or if it does, it'd better be within a month since it'd fall under the warranty time frame.)

---

I think my subconscious got bent or something. If I stay asleep long enough to dream for a good while, said dream eventually takes a turn for logic to try and break itself no matter how much I try to set it straight.

The constant in all of the dreams I can remember is that they all take place within a large but confined space-- an office building or a house of some sort, broken up into smaller compartments and halls. And I don't really have any interaction with anyone I know in depth... usually some kind of passing acquaintance or even someone I saw on TV or a podcast.

The first time, I was passing through some large building (airport lobby/hotel?) and I stop at a panel to log in... except the computer rejects my name as a copyright violation. "The name Yoshi Ayarane is property of S. Miyamoto. Please enter a different name." WTF? Even my own dream world thinks I'm the Nintendo character? Still, I keep trying to log in and it says that I am either trying to pose as that Yoshi, or that my name doesn't exist, or some other kind of system error. All in all, whatever I'm trying to log into is insistent that I do not exist in the system, that I may have committed some kind of error in asserting my identity. Yet somehow I know I can end everything by waking up, and that it's probably best to wake up now and try again in what would presumably be a fresh instance.

...which is good because ohgod my nose was stuffed to hell and I needed to get up and walk around to clear it. At 5am.

Today's was even weirder. This time I'm in the "TWiT Infinity House," a (fictional, of course) new building that King Leo either bought or commissioned for show guests to stay in if they're coming from out of town. For some reason, it's got old Reconstruction-era diaries and books on back-lit corner shelves and... you know, country-barn trinkets like painted horses and dolls. I don't get it, either. And then I find out why it's called the "Infinity House" because the house literally NEVER ENDS-- there is no absolute limit to the X or Z axis (the building is single-level) and it keeps spawning rooms and hallways forever and ever, and the farther one deviates from the entry at the north-center, the less gravity, to the point where you're floating if you jump even the slightest.

I wander a bit too far out, enough to where I'm floating in the rooms because gravity no longer has influence... only to be pulled out even more by some other kind of force. Once I try to go back, that pull becomes even greater to compensate, like it wants to keep me from returning. This isn't right. But I can't fight it... I just don't have the means to. All I can do to save myself is to wake up and terminate that instance.

What is it with logic and reason and physics trying to break itself and take me with it?

I think I would prefer it if my dreams went back to trying to convince me I'm really a lesbian. I used to get those a lot. (It probably has something to do with my voice and interests and how nerdy I am!) At least they don't involve the universe trying to collapse itself and consume me in the fallout.

---

Nearly 4 days out from Yoshi Day, doods. Uhm... is that a skill level or talent point level? I can't remember these days. What patch are we on again? :P

Blind Turtle-bot

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 04:40:23 GMT

Who's got two thumbs and gets to replace Blastoise's video card already? This dood!

I was on Blastoise earlier and decided to play some more Mass Effect 1 (since I had to restart as my old saves were on old Blastoise). I get to the Citadel to do its clusterfwegh of side missions, and... o hi, BSOD! Well, in this case it's more like "go directly to black, do not pass go or collect $200, just press the damn reset button."

Big deal. Even the best machines burps now and then. Pick yourself up and try again! (Also auto-save FTW.)

I get a little farther, into Chora's Den and... ow, geez, another BSOD. This is starting to get a little scary. True, it's been awhile since I've updated my video drivers... but then again I'd just built Blastoise in December, so it's not like that should affect things either because he was just fine before today! I made a note to look into that later, I just wanted to get this Citadel crap done so I can go get Liara. (VA nerdery: her VA is Lightning! :D)

I'm just about to wrap up the last side mission and during the chatter... oh wow, total meltdown. Blastoise freezes up mid-syllable and won't visibly reboot properly even after hitting the reset button or even doing a hard reboot. I let him sit for a few and try again while I go get another Pepsi, and I hear the Windows startup sounds. Oh good, he recovered, right?

Noooope. It's, like... the keyboard and tablet LEDs flash like normal, and his webcam orients itself like normal... but the monitors aren't having any of this nonsense. Even after checking the monitor connections, it's still a no-go. I'm guessing Blastoise's card went bad in such a way to kill video export but not enough to completely brick itself (or else I don't think Windows could even proceed, heh). Whatever the case, if I can't see anything, it's no good. I don't have any spare cards to throw in as a temporary measure, either (remember, the one in his old body is impossible to extract, I must have cemented it in or something), so I get to loot a new card.

If you forgot from the previous "let's rebuild Blastoise" posts in November/December, he ended up using the N560GTX (I actually bought it through NewEgg since Amazon was sold out at the time). I'm wondering if I should just get the same card again or if another kickass mid-range go-to card has cropped up since. I would like to stay nVidia, and putting a soft cap @ $300.

Bleh. I was hoping not to spend major coin for awhile (since I did get mother her iPad and I still need to get new glasses) but, well, poop happens. :\ Looks like this will be my Yoshi Day loot (in place of Tales of Graces f and another mega-sized Angry Birds plush), haha. That aside, I'm only mildly pissed that there's no Mac version of Mass Effect so I can at least continue through Dinah. :P

And, of course, it's when Blastoise goes down that I really want to paint. Boo!

---

Speaking of Angry Birds... dude, Angry Birds Space kicks ass. I got it on Dinah-- you really do benefit from having more screen space here compared to the other variants. No wonder Rovio partnered with Samsung for this one (to pimp out the phone version of the Galaxy Note).

Also, I swear that the Space version of Red Bird looks like Kamina from Gurren Lagann. "Who the squawk do you think I am?!" or something. :D

(Instant Ramen Sketchbook) Party For Me 2012: Lowenthal Edition

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:34:29 GMT

In which I get my TOTALLY NOT A CREEPER Yuri Lowenthal fangirl on. This time we throw a birthday party for a handful of his characters. Shenanigans ensue. Also I want that cake.

Seriously, though, I think my game cards for FF4 DS and Tales of the Abyss are making nasty faces at each other and fight over who gets to sit in the 3DS card slot while I'm not looking. It's true that Asch could have just dropped Explosion and be done with it, but having him steal Mieu from Luke is funnier. :D

And now I'm going to crawl into bed with my 3DS and Abyss it up until I fall asleep... or the Morning Stream starts, whichever comes first. :P

(Instant Ramen Sketchbook) Kill it with Force Arrow

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 04:22:57 GMT

I wonder if this would satisfy the "WAIT I'LL FIX IT" entry in the request queue? XD

When in doubt, don't kill it with fire or nukes, kill it with Force Arrow. Charge Beam doesn't have squat on this!
One of these days I'll have to do at least a pencil-render animation of Chelsea using Force Arrow, complete with Noisy Cricket-esque recoil. Yeah, the recoil in Tales of Destiny is actually pretty minor (she just staggers back a little) but here we like to take it to 11!

Flea Vest mode because we like pink pajamas with random F prints.

Also, YouTube version since this was last night's Instant Ramen LIVE episode, after all:

It's pretty much settled now that Instant Ramen LIVE will be a weekly event on Wednesdays at 7pm PT. It is a little late in the day, but for me I know I'll have a definite 3-hour block that I can dedicate for live painting for all the internets to see. And, uh... even if nobody shows up, at least Justin.tv autorecords server-side so I can at least have a recording for the record. Together with the 10-minute YouTube versions that I post the next day, everybody wins!

For now I'm keeping the pieces on the live show to those I can knock out in a single session, but this doesn't rule out more complex, multi-session pieces in the future. :)

Only In My Dreams

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:04:52 GMT

Hi. I have a Nintendo 3DS as of 9:30 this morning. (Early delivery is EARLY! Damn.)
Aqua Blue, of course! It's close to being Maximillian-blue as I'm going to get.
Of course, you can't have a game system without a game* so I looted Mario Kart 7 with it, and Tales of the Abyss is on preorder, to drop next week.

Graphically, holy smoo on a cracker did Nintendo win it this time. I've had low expectations of Nintendo on a graphical level for quite awhile (see: the Wii and its lack of true HD, using component barely gets you widescreen but you're still capped at 480p). The original DS was... okay with its graphics that were Nintendo 64-equivalent and all matte-looking and still bitmappy in places, but the 3DS really is a dramatic jump ahead in this department. I'd put it on par with late-phase PS2/GameCube. There's actually reflective/shiny surfaces, and the lens flares actually looks like a convincing lens flare and not like a bunch of bitmaps synchronized to simulate a lens flare. :P

One tiny little problem, though... and this isn't really Nintendo's fault as it is just the great Random Number Generator that I got stuck with during Real Life Character Creation. Seems I'm stereoblind! Doh! Though... looking back, I never could get those stereograms to work for me. I remember getting a headache trying to get a stereogram print of Luigi to "pop out" and it never did. (Amusingly enough, so says Wikipedia: stereoblindness is common among artists. Hah!)

Fortunately, even us stereoblindies can still enjoy the 3DS. Nobody in their right mind would code a game dependent on the ability to see stereoscopic 3D. Not to mention, since this is useless to me, I can just turn it off and save on battery charge. :D

It's going to rock next week when Tales of the Abyss drops. I don't think it adds anything that wasn't in the PS2 version, but I had to get it on principle. It's like how I MUST own every variant of Final Fantasy 4 that gets released here. >:D

HD Fodder

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:33:58 GMT

Now that Disgaea 4 and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky have stopped nibbling on my soul for awhile...

What's this? "HD" Hikaru? (in b4 stupid gag about how her initials are also HD. trolololo high definition)

Have some Numair, too. Because it would be nagging me forever until I did just ONE frame.

RT graphics fodder, yes. And probably I shouldn't have gone right to the final equipment, but this is just an HD test to see what the minimum fullsize I can comfortably work at-- in this case, 800x800 to be shrunk to ideally 150x150 but no smaller than 120x120 before too many details get lost and I have to dive back in for repairs. Both field and battle sets will be done like this for consistency (as opposed to the current system which has, uh, low-res sprites for the field and "SD" sprites for battle).

"HD" is kinda misleading-- high definition implies you can jam in more details, right? Yes and no... you can certainly add some, period, but not too many since you have to account for things being blended or nearest-neighbor absorbed in the great shrink.

Drawing HD sprites like this... well, it demands a bit of a drastic shift from my usual tactics. For one thing, I have to make the head about 10% bigger than normal-- that is, I have to turn off "anatomically/proportionally-correct" because otherwise on shrink, most of the face details are lost and would necessitate a repair dive. And then, of course, I can't go drybrush at all-- the paintjob is ENTIRELY 3px Detail Brush out of the Acrylics subtools, and restrict to 3 colors per "thing" (skin, armor, hair, etc.), exception being metallic parts where I can have two midtones, a shadow and a highlight.

Hikaru's going to be the most time-consuming to convert, of course, since being the main character she has THREE outfits (cavalry plate with and without the Majestic Goat, and the Maximillian), a mount, and more "emote" frames than the others. Oh yeah, and a freaking DRAGON. Oh well. That's what you get for being the main character, after all. :P

(Instant Ramen Sketchbook) Triple Complete Birthday, Dood

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 04:16:29 GMT

Screw your Double Rainbows! Triple Complete Birthday, Dood!
Yes, I know a crapton of other famous people have 1/17 birthdays... but this is for NSFW. How long has it been since I did an Instant Ramen piece this complex in one sitting? 12+ hours from start to finish... uh... 2 hours for the line art, I think, and the rest of it was coloring. And 2/3 of the coloring was on that background, which got the most feedback from the chat room.

I didn't livestream this and just as I thought going in, I PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE (if only to have a recording). Doh!

I would say that I should go lie down because I'm still congested like a plugged-up warp pipe, but actually standing up makes it not so boo. Also my cat is putting his paws on me again in potentially-inappropriate places (because kitty is a lover and not a fighter). Keep on top of the Twitters, and your forks/chopsticks polished for the next alert of Instant Ramen LIVE, doods!

Yoshi Hot and Cold

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:12:59 GMT

Bwah, I did an extended one-shot Instant Ramen as birthday gift art for NSFW... I think it was 15 hours from start to finish and most of that was the paint job, and most of THAT was attempting to recreate the backdrop of the roundtable set of the TWiT Brickhouse. I'll do a proper Instant Ramen post later...

So today I was all "buhhhh" and sore and rather out of it, just fading in and out throughout the day and coughing a bit. I thought it was because I had done that stupidly-complex Ramen piece and not taking enough breaks, but I think I might have caught whatever bug mother has since she was super-congested and such, and she had given me her leftover fries when she brought back McDonalds.

This wouldn't be a problem except... tomorrow-- er, today? I'm being summoned to do a virus purge, which involves going outside. Yoshi + sudden temperature changes = NO. x_x Not only are the "re-chills" painful (moreso when it's after showering), it also drastically increases my likelihood of getting an awful headcold or worse. :(

What to do...? I said I'd do the virus purge, but I would like very much to just let this bug pass quietly without being exacerbated by temperature shifts and what-have-you. But then I'd be a flake for backing out and a jerk for not fixing someone's laptop in a timely manner... not to mention a total wimp for not wanting to go out when I may be brewing a bug. Boo. (I'd be more willing to go out in the cold if I weren't already a little under.)

In other news, I'm just now getting to play Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. I played Red Rescue Team a few years ago, and found that I liked it WAY more than anything from the mothership. Mystery Dungeon-subseries are often written off as being too cute and... other things that suggest that it's not serious, but they are actually very well-written compared to the mothership titles. Of course, you still get to scratch that "collect them all" itch in the post game... and evolve, too. Plowing through as a Blastoise kicks ass. >:D

(Instant Ramen LIVE) Hummer Hydro Pump Attack!

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:15:22 GMT

The best kind of ramen is the kind that's made fresh, just for you! Instant Ramen LIVE!
For those who were unable to make tonight's yet-again-impromptu livestream, the time-lapsed YouTube edition:

By gosh, I think I've found the magic combination for converting from Justin.tv autoarchive into a format that won't get artifacted too badly on YouTube. H.264, WHY haven't I used you sooner? XD It exports hella fast into a nice, small little thing that uploads to YouTube in about 10 minutes.

What do you doods think, anyway? Is time-compressing the streams into 10-minute fun-size versions awesomesauce, or do you prefer watching at the original speed? (Because I can easily toss the stitched-but-otherwise-unaltered versions on my server if you wanted to loot those.)

Also had quite a few doods in the audience/chat room this time, just some passers-by who were curious about the software and thought this was fan art. XD

In any case, I'ma try to assemble the actual wallpapers before raid time. As for what's next... uh... oh yeah, something for NSFW since the next episode is TRIPLE COMPLETE BIRTHDAY (one of the hosts, a frequent guest and one of the TWiT tech director doods).

(Instant Ramen LIVE) Turtle on a Stick

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:46:45 GMT

What? Another time-lapse release of the last Instant Ramen LIVE broadcast? Okay!

We're... getting there as far as video quality goes. But I get the feeling that it's not going to change much if I go past 1mb/s, since it appears the other half of the problem is something that can't be fixed (video compression hates line art... which is what this IS, and is less glaring when I add moar color). But now I've gotten a means of speedily extracting, polishing and punting to YouTube. :D

Now it's just a matter of getting more doods to show up and watch, so I can open up Skype for what would ideally be a 3-way+ sass commentary. Yeah, I should be doing these streams much earlier in the evening.

The next part (Blastoise dual-wielding the giant Hydro Pump cannons) will be ~~tomorrow~~ tonight.

(Instant Ramen Sketchbook) Time Lapsed Blastoise

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 07:25:16 GMT

I didn't know whether to flag it as a WIP or completion, but the video below documents more or less what goes on from ink to color and... oh, just watch the damn thing already.

Low bitrate is looooow. Sure, it'll load pretty fast, but holy crap all the jitter and artifacts and ew. You can be sure I'll crank up the capture bitrate for future streams and captures. :P
But yes, if you have ever wanted to see how Instant Ramen gets drawn and polished, look no further! This particular piece probably won't be exported as a standalone piece, but will be included in the immediately-following wallpapers I'm drawing up for Blastoise (crouching with his spear, summoning the pressure cannons for Hydro Pump, and a third one I've not yet wireframed).

I would like to livestream as much Instant Ramen as possible, though in reality, odds are I'll probably stream just the major pieces and commissions.

Semi-related: drawing this kinda makes me miss Blastoise's PSU/PSPortable2 form. I may go pick up the latter again...