The ad for the last installment of Yamato 2199 is by orders of magnitude far the shortest of them all.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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^{Art...indisputable art by Tomioka Jiro}

I have a friend who does art. He used to be a professional animator and he's done a bit of small press work in comics. He's been doing art in various capacities for 30 odd years and has a wide range of interests.

He also haets himself some Miku Miku Dance.

I mean anything involving MMD or Poser will get under his skin and if applied for more than a few minutes will send him into a white hot rage rage. It's rather bizarre, its like his IQ drops 35 points and until the offending media is removed all he can say is "Duuhh..I hate dat stufff..." Now this is not a rational response and would seem to be a matter of personal preference and pig-headedness but he recently made an interesting argument when I pointed out that he'd seemed to like The Incredibles.

Well he does like Pixar films...mostly. His argument is that the MMD videos and such aren't actually art because unlike the big studio productions they're just using someone else's creativity.  The person doing an MMD video on YouTube in his eyes isn't doing much more than posting a paint by numbers painting and calling it his. The programer has done all the art.

Now, as it happens, I'm tinkering with MMD right now, but I'm not making much progress because, I'm not artistically inclined and doing that on a Mac is clunky. With MMD one is manipulating these wire frame models and even at the most basic level choosing ones choreography. However the facial expressions in particular ARE all built into the program and were put there by the programers as are (I'm told) some basic movements). It's my understanding though, that MMD can be used to produce things like this....

I'm unsure of the provenance of these .gifs (which I nicked from 4-Chan) except that they seem to be from some Touhou fanfic. I understand that one can download Touhou "skins" for MMD wireframes now (fans made those available some years ago) However, even if the creators of this did use off the shelf " paper dolls" for their character designs there is the matter of the choreography and the subtitles which imply writing a script. Of course this is Touhou so it's fanfic anyway. However the potential seems to be there and is certainly present in the professional versions of Poser to apply ones own skins to the products frames. Such additions would require artistic ability (and being 3d would be akin to rendering a sculpture), but the objection of my friend is that those using this medium are using someone else's art.

My feeling is that this is akin to using Legos or perhaps a paintbrush. I'm of the opinion that even MMD can teach aspiring animators about computer animation, choreography and editing, which in the computer age are quite different skills from what they used to be. However, I don't do art, my figure drawing makes Randall Munro* look like Da Vinci so this is most definitely a layman's perspective. I'm really not sure how much ones brush needs to stray outside the numbers before ones effort becomes art.

I'm pretty sure that this piece done with Poser qualifies though

...but at what point on the spectrum between that piece of magic and simply having Lady Hatsune make a leek face it stops being analogous to stickers on ones Trapper Keeper...well I'm not qualified to answer that.

_{*Of course his humor certainly IS art.}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:14 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1

The person doing an MMD video on YouTube in his eyes isn't doing much more than posting a paint by numbers painting and calling it his. The programer has done all the art.

The same way Fender and Gibson did all the art and Mark Knopfler just played notes that were already there.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Fri Aug 9 06:51:17 2013 (PiXy!)

2 If you produce fine, handcrafted, heirloom-quality furniture, you probably have a low opinion of Ikea. But for a lot of people, Ikea is the difference between nothing and making do with milk cartons.

Or, if we're going to talk about paintbrushes... I use a Kolinsky sable brush from W&N, because it's a really good brush (quite a bit better than the painter, if I'm going to be honest), and the few extra bucks it costs isn't going to break my bank. It's nice having a brush that can hold a point that well. There are also artificial fiber paintbrushes made for the three-for-a-dollar crowd. There are people who get fantastic results with the former, to be sure - but there are also people who can take the three-for-a-dollar paintbrushes and do amazing things with them, because the tool isn't the talent, and it isn't the vision.

Sure, if you're a professional-level animator, you're not going to like tools that let people bodge together their own animation. Professional sound guys scoffed at software that let you do your own mixes on a home PC... and it turned out that a lot of people were pretty good at mixing without being a "professional" sound guy. Heck, for that matter, I'm sure that plenty of vocalists aren't too fond of Vocaloid.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Fri Aug 9 21:39:20 2013 (pWQz4)

3 At around 1:55 in the video, she appears to be firing the gun by cycling the charging lever on the bolt.  Reminds me of a gunslinger firing a revolver by fanning the hammer, although I've never heard of a rifle fired via the bolt lever.

Posted by: RickC at Fri Aug 9 22:28:04 2013 (WQ6Vb)

4 @Avatar comment#2:
I think Vocaloid is a better argument for my friends point of view than MMD. The tone, pitch, and everything else is actually done by someone (or something) else. That being said, editing and songwriting are each definitely arts in their own right.

One thing that (I think) set my friend off is the ease of tracing with the computer. He was in awe of how much better some people were on the computer than on paper. I suspect that this generally has two causes.
1: the person is just much more comfortable in the computer medium (I'd wager that this is very common today given the amount of time people spend on it).

2: They're doing vectors.

This latter has turned out to be the case quite often in his recent experience.

As for MMD, given the sheer ammount of stuff pre-programmed into even the most basic version, I think my friends argument is not without some merit at the most basic levels of competency. I tend to think that his argument breaks down rapidly once one moves out of the orientation phase.

Of course some of this is just crumudgeonism on his part. but given the complexities of the tech, asking at what point a work becomes art and particularly ones own art strikes me as not entirely unreasonable. However, while I'm inclined toward your and Pixy's point of view on this, not being an artist at all makes me wonder. I mean look at the amount of clip art, embedded videos and such I use here.....though of course no one would call the blog "art".

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Aug 10 00:17:21 2013 (F7DdT)

5 @ Rick C comment#3:
I'm unfamiliar with bolt actions in practice, however one can do something similar with a pump action weapon if one cycles it very hard and holds down the trigger. Note too that it has been mentioned in the series that she built the weapon herself so chambering a round and closing the bolt might automatically fire it.

Also:

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Aug 10 00:25:40 2013 (F7DdT)

6 I've been curious about playing with MMD, but at the time, it seems like people had to patch it to get english or something.  Of course, at one point I was going to dabble with Daz 3d (don't bother).  And I used to futz around with POV-Ray, but nothing ever came close to some of the amazing images out there.

I just don't really have the commitment to achieve skill with these things, which kind of shoots down the idea that skill isn't required.  (Although DAZ probably does, since it's basically a paper-doll system where more talented artists sell content for you to add to the program.  It can't really create its own.)

Posted by: Mauser at Sat Aug 10 04:04:20 2013 (TJ7ih)

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As I post this, it's a bit more than an hour before episode 5 of Stella-Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch airs on Crunchyroll. I note this is almost a WEEK after most all the cool kids  have seen it.

I've been judiciously avoiding spoilers, but here's not much point in blogging this one.

UPDATE: OK. For those of you who've already seen this.....

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:08 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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While still not up to the level of its premiere, episode 3 of RWBY has recovered quite a bit from # 2, though slapstick visual 'cheats' don't work as well in this medium.

This is definitely a cliche' buffet and it has some technical issues, but it's amusing me. This episode was all dialog and the voice work held its own and remained pretty engaging.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:09 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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His blog brings all the boys to his yard.
Of course having put it in those terms...I'd best get off his lawn before he comes at me with a Chen-saw.

^{Twin Tailed Touhou-ism is by Omikoshi2}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 12:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Though we've mentioned before that it's being released as a series of movies, it bears repeating that Yamato 2199 being broadcast right now on TV in Japan. Despite the fact that it almost never shows up in season previews, this is, IMHO the best action show on right now. In fact, despite the rather anachronistic design of its titular spacecraft, Yamato 2199 is one of the better scifi shows of the last decade.

For those of you who watched Starblazers those many years ago, here is a brief promo clip of the battle at the rainbow nebula. For those poor deprived souls that didn't, this isn't terribly spoilerish, it's one of several battles our heroes fight, this one taking place in a remarkably dense, multicolored nebula.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:06 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Episode 2 of RWBY is only about six minutes long but we do learn a couple of things.

Ruby's Scythe is named Crescent Rose....she made it herself. It seems that she's something of a geek-girl with regard to weapons.

"Vomit Boy" seems to be a decent enough fellow, but he's really not overcoming the ignominy of his opening scene. 

Today's physics lesson:

"...not only that, it collapses, so  if I get tired of carrying it after a while I can just fold it up"

"Um...but doesn't it still weigh the same?"
...
...
"Yeah....It does."

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:11 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Stella WAHSDC³ has been pleasant enough thus far. The other club members are all likeably eccentric. The problem has been main character who is SO damned insecure and introverted that by episode 3 it begins to grate. Yura has problems. She is terribly introverted, indecisive and afraid of her own shadow.

However, in this episode (#3) these issues stop just being a character trait and become a plot point.

They're at a paintball tournament. Unlike Girls Und Panzer boys are allowed to participate in the league and indeed make up the majority of players at the tournament.  Our girls school heroines win for several tournaments but don't wipe the floor with the competition. The competition is VERY good at what they do.  All is well until they encounter the team from Sisters of Bitchieness Girls School of Implacable Small Unit Tactics For Sadistic Combat Monsters Whose Uniforms Are Black....or something.  This fight is personal, there is some history there and our heroines get routed...well....The team aside from Yura gets taken out...Yura's response to this is not to go down fighting....not to try to make a dash for the flag...not even to run and at least make it hard for them....she jusy says "Eh what the hell"...and gives up. This Of course is a FORFEIT.
...and I'm like "You selfish little &^%"
It got worse...the team came over and comforted her and told her it was no big deal.
OK at that point I just about logged off but at that point Kashima, the president stepped in and tore her a new one. She pointed out quite rightly that Yuna had let them all down, damaged their reputation and essentially insulted them.

It was almost like there were certain minimal standards of behavior expected of people.

Given that she's going to an exclusive girls school that looks like a pink Versailles about the size of central park...I gather that Yuna has probably been pretty sheltered life and hasn't been socialized to grok such concepts as loyalty and honor except as abstractions.

Well...she does seem to understand that she has screwed up mightily.

She understands it SO well that at the end of the episode, she's cut her hair very short.

This is a big thing to the Japanese. Cutting the hair dramatically signifies a major life change. This indicates that she GETS it.
  

It appears that our heroine has come to grips with her problem and is growing as a character.

And I find that cool.

_{As an aside, the actress doing Kirishima is knocking ot out of the park as far as conveying the oddness of the character most effectively.}

UPDATE: Teh Banshee has a fine analysis of Yura's conundrum in the comments.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:21 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Right here. It's a disquisition on the pros, cons and history of pneumatic postal systems scaled up to eleventy.

Now you, gentle reader, may wish to suggest that there is no such post here. To that I'm afraid my response must be...

Don't. You. Think. I KNOW THAT!?
THERE WAS!!1!! BUT NOT'NY MORE!!

 I was almost...almost done...but I pasted a url in the text so I highlighted it and hit backspace.
It's what your supposed to do right?  Blogging...b..basic word processing...imple isn't it?...and and then the screen jumped to the previous page.

A..and it was gone..all those words. ALL OF THEM!

They say that there's no devil...but there is...it came and ate my post RIGHT OUT OF HELL!!

 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:15 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Over the course of the last several months, four computer animated shorts have been released, each focusing on an "eponymous" character from an upcoming animation series called RWBY.

The first two were superb and used color and music to great stylistic effect. The second was less stylish but had a good deal of action and a voice actress whose purr was husky enough to pull a dogsled. The third had a heroine who was not particularly likeable and its pacing was uneven, but it was technically impressive (rather too much so...it had a tendency to break You Tube) with very well imagined action sequences and a fine score. These trailers have generated much anticipation for the series...and now that series is here...

In contrast to the first two trailers, which had a very ephemeral, almost European atmosphere, the first episode has a more or less conventional Japanese Shonen comic feel to it.

It seems that "Red" from the first trailer is going to be our lead.



Ruby Rose is a student at a college that specializes in training monster hunters. She's a typical shonen heroine, idealistic, enthusiastic to the point of being a goofball, and a very adept at the utilization of her .50 caliber, bolt action, magazine fed, fully articulated, rocket assisted, collapsable scythe. Her immediate goal is to graduate college and do her graduate work at Beacon University, which is required to become a huntress. Huntsmen and Huntresses are the elite monster hunters of this rather anachronistic world.

How anachronistic is it you may ask? Well, for one thing, they presumably have monsters. Additionally, they have magic (which is facilitated by a McGuffin called "dust"), machine guns, cities that look like a cross between 1930's Chicago and Vienna, airships, a broken moon, advanced tablet computer devices and villains who wear derby hats....



Meet Roman Torchwick. He is a well known criminal who has decided to rob a dust, dry-goods, jewelry, magazine and music store. Unfortunately for him, Ruby happens to be loitering in the magazine section. While Torchwick relieves the owner of his dust, an ill conceived bit of initiative by one of Mr. Torchwicks henchmen makes Ms. Rose  aware of their shenanigans and fisticuffs ensue.  Things proceed to escalate rather quickly after that, to swordplay to gunfire and eventually all sorts of magical 'splodies. 



Mr. Torchwick has formidable resources at his disposal and (despite the intervention of a professional huntress on our heroines behalf) he makes good his escape.

Afterwards,  she is questioned by the huntress, handed off to the huntres's supervisor and we learn that Ruby Rose is not just a formidable fighter, she collects huntress/ hunter autographs, is hyperactive to the point of being something of a spaz and she can eat a pile of of chocolate chip cookies as big as her head.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:23 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Here we have 4 girls looking for a girl.
Now, being girls, they presumably know all about girls and how to find them, so it's with considerable interest that I note that in addition to he usual methods involving optical detection they have broken out the dowsing rods. I'd never considered dowsing as a means to meet the ladies....I also note that I'm single. Correlation does not indicate causation but this may warrant further study.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:12 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Sony has released an informative How-To video walking prospective users through the involved process by which they share games on the new PS4.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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DRM Free!

...comic book publisher Image Comics announced at its Image Expo convention that it will now sell all of its digital comics as downloadable via its website for both desktop and mobile users, making it the first major U.S. publisher to offer DRM-free digital versions of comics. Readers can even choose the file format they prefer: PDFs, EPUBs, CBRs or CBZs.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 04:59 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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...that will give you a completely erroneous idea of what sort of show Gargantia is.

It will also get you fired, 'cause it's TOTALLY not safe for work....and as for me? Well, I'm going to that special hell for linking to it.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:45 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Attack on Titan continues, and while our heroes don't accomplish much in the way of their goals this episode, an awful lot is happening. 



Yeah, things are not going well for our would be giant slayers. At the end of last episode, everything pretty much went to worms and this has  a sort of cascade effect, so they just cannot seem to get a break.



As we learned in previous episodes, Eren has used his experience points to purchase the "Turn into Giant" perk. At the end of last episode we find this comes with the limitation " Become non-sentient, feral, berzerker beast". Mikasa tries to reason with him to no avail, but he is so feral and mindless that she unwittingly gets him to punch himself out. 

Meanwhile, it turns out that all the giants regard the unconscious Eren as food despite his size and lack of congeniality.


This leaves our heroes trying to hold off the giants in the hopes that he will de-biggulate and/or  regain reason, but he's attracting a LOT of giants as Mikasa explains to Arimin when he arrives.



While the A-listers fight a delaying action, Arimin, whose combat skill is dubious, stays to try and awaken or reason with Eren and decides to cut him out of giant body...with poor results. Meanwhile Jean is running through the city dealing with giants as a pedestrian, due to a a broken set of maneuver gear.

 

Nicely paced with an even better than usual score, episode 12 is an enthralling three ring circus and the show seems to be well and truly back on track.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:19 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...and so was all that other stuff...

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This always bothered me about Star Trek...the whole "We have no money, we....ummm....uh....stuff" thing was always put out there but handwaived..

Of course there are all sorts of problems with this notion as it means that whoever is in charge decides what and who has value....and doesn't.  This may appeal to a certain type of control freak, academic or fanatic, but it is unlikely to work out for those not in favor with those who take it upon themselves to define value.

This is explored extensively in episode 11 of Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet which holds forth in part on how NOT to set up ones economy and society.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:15 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Is not available on iTunes or Amazon, it long predates CDs and of course all vinyl containing it was ordered destroyed by Nixon's FDA so my quest to add this to my MP3 queue is still unfulfilled. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:20 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:24 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Remember Melty? She was on the fleet that left and is now anchored near an island in perpetual mist. She's started her own courier business and delivers dispatches to all the captains...as such she has a pretty good view of what's going on. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 04:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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