by Phoenix | Aug 19, 2021 | Artwork, Praedia, ProFantasy
Fractal Terrains 3 is interesting. It’s not the first time I’ve looked into it, but it is the first time I’ve actually used it. This is not a review, just my thoughts on trying to use it to recreate Zavodia and the other Praedian landmasses.
I think there are two deciding factors on whether I commit to fully remaking the world with FT3 or not. Those are the export resolution limits and how well the editing tools work for me. So far the results have been far less than ideal.
The program’s responsive and well thought out, but it’s hardly intuitive for me. I feel like I could remake Zavodia using my old brush techniques faster than I could in FT3, which obviously defeats the purpose. I’m not just trying to make the map faster, though. I’m trying to make it higher quality than I can currently do myself. It’s hard to tell if improving my ‘from scratch’ method or learning FT3 is the better time investment. I’m really not sure, yet.
Once again, this is not a review. Something like that would be a heck of a lot longer and go over some specifics. I’d also spend more time experimenting with it before talking about it. One thing I can say about FT3 is that while it doesn’t seem like it’s a good fit for me (at least not at the moment), for someone trying to make a world from scratch, they would probably be just fine with it.
by Phoenix | Aug 18, 2021 | Editing, LGT
I’ve decided to try out posting my self editing process as it develops. Brainstorming sessions might also be a thing at some point. This is probably only going to be done for content that’s already published. Maybe recording that sort of thing will help me get more comfortable with the whole process. I’ll be going line by line in a lot of cases. I also like to work backwards from the end of a scene or chapter, so the more of these I do, the closer we’ll be getting to the start of LGT1 rather than the end. I’ll keep in mind how edits to one area affect prior ones so the flow of a scene doesn’t unravel from the bottom. Anyway, let’s get started.
The last line in the chapter is extremely important, so I doubt I’ll ever be satisfied with it.
“I’m here to serve,” Enya smiled, bowing after accepting her things from Irving. “What’s the next item?”
Enya just got hired to work for one of her personal heroes. Being able to end the chapter like this is a major step for her, but I know the way it’s written can be much better. Let’s try this.
“I’m here to serve,” Enya said. She bowed to her superiors with a smile, knowing all was well. “So, what’s the next item?”
There’s no need to point out the fact that Irving gave her back her things. It’s already been mentioned. Granted, I could move the book portion from Irving’s dialogue down to Enya’s, but that could clutter Enya’s line, Enya’s extremely important line. We don’t want that.
As for that new ‘knowing all was well’ part, I wanted Enya’s smile to convey that, but I’m not confident it does. Even with the context of the rest of the scene, the smile feels more isolated, as if it’s not about the entire scene, and the joy and relief she feels about the way things turned out. It still works in context, but I think the smile needs just a little more help. I thought about taking out the smile and leaving in the new part, but somehow, that left Enya with an air of refinement she’s only trying to emulate right now. That’s also why I added ‘so’ to the last thing she said. It reads and sounds more natural from her while deflating some of that real refinement I mentioned.
Next up is Todd and this one makes me nervous.
Not one to be left out, Todd hastily added, “You did good, kid. Trust me, I was there,” and gave Enya a thumbs up.
I’m tempted to scrap the entire line because I’ve put an ‘adequate’ amount of characterization for Todd throughout the chapter already. More over, there might be a better moment and method for him to chime in. This line isn’t especially important, but it does hint at less overt aspects of Todd’s character. Even so, as I write this, I can think of other interesting ways to drop those hints. I’m even considering leaving a version of this line for LGT Chapter 2, near the start. It could easily be placed into another conversation and flow perfectly there.
Yeah, I think it’s decided, then. Let’s omit this line entirely. Anything that’s not carrying its weight in the story needs to be trimmed down until it does, or just be removed. While it’s true, Todd isn’t one to be left out, he’s had plenty to say in this conversation already. he’ll be fine. Promise.
Next up, Irving. When it comes to blending actions and dialogue I’ll probably always be clumsy about it, but that’s no reason not to get better at it. In the last three lines of the Armor of the Unburdened, Irving congratulated Enya, handed her the book and winked at her. It’s not a whole lot, but it’s still a lot, and I blended those actions together like this:
“Well done,” Irving said, offering back the book and Enya’s bag with a wink, “on both of your assignments.”
Still, I’m starting to think something along the lines of, ‘Screw blending it all together!’ … in this one instance, at least.
Irving returned Enya’s book with a knowing wink. “Well done, on both of your assignments.”
It’s even a bit shorter. My diction could always use improvement, but I like this. It stays for now.
The last part of Enya’s assignment for the chapter was to move the Armor in its case onto a slot that basically binds it to Lydia’s treasury. It’s okay, but rereading it a few times, I can think of some improvements.
“Yes!” Enya handed her book to Irving and then approached the case. If Todd had finished with his part, all she needed to do was push the case onto its slot. That would complete the procedure and officially return the Armor of the Unburdened to the Golden Treasury. She knew the case was heavy, even without the armor, so Enya wouldn’t underestimate it. She got the wheels turning with some effort and carefully rolled the whole thing into place. The floor seemed to latch onto the case from underneath and lock it into position. Enya took a step back as mana conduits appeared on the case. Light flowed up through them for a moment, and then the case went dark again.
As for the improvements, let’s try this.
“Yes!” Enya handed Irving her book and approached the case. As long as Todd had done his part, all Enya had to do was push it onto its slot. The Armor of the Unburdened would be officially returned to the Golden Treasury. Enya wouldn’t underestimate how heavy the case was now that the armor was inside, and gave it the full body effort the item warranted. It wasn’t long before the case passed over the slot and was stopped cold by a locking mechanism. Enya stepped back as once invisible conduits lit up with mana. All of the light flowed up the armor’s case in a single long wave before vanishing at the summit.
Even this could probably use some tweaks, but I think it flows better than the old version, so we’ll keep this for now.
Another crucial line cometh.
“Now,” Lydia gestured toward the armor and its case, again, “would you do the honors?”
Enya’s hero utters those wonderful words to her just before that last effort you ready above. … and suddenly it occurs to me that I’m not even sure what I’d change here. Even Lydia’s wording is spot on. Sure, she could say ‘Now then,’ instead of just ‘Now,’ but that doesn’t quite fit her character. Not in this particular instance. Is it really that important? Somewhat. Definitely enough to try to avoid using ‘Now then’ here, especially since that phrase lines up more with Irving’s character than Lydia’s. I can think of a half decent edit for the line in general, though.
“Now, would you do the honors?” Lydia gestured at the armor. There was still one more job to do.
It’s about the same length but there’s a bit more said in spite of that. I can’t say it flows better or worse, though.
Let’s keep it for now.
Alright, that’s all for now. This was just a test run to see how I work under these conditions, and I’m liking the results so far. Future posts will be much longer since I’d like to do entire scenes and not just a few lines. First things first.
Session #2
by Phoenix | Aug 17, 2021 | WoWs
I haven’t gathered my thoughts on FT3, yet, but in the meantime there’s plenty to write about. For example, the absolute failure of Wargaming to reach out to its player base in a genuine way. I don’t want to beat on that war drum myself, but it’s clear that no matter how much WG claims to want to correct their past mistakes and build back the trust they lost, they’re not willing (or in the very base case, not allowed) to do it. It’s incredible how quickly all of this exploded.
As much as I enjoy the game (when it’s fun at least) I’m standing with the levelheaded and not make any more purchases from Wargaming until they get their act together. There was a collaboration coming up that I was excited for, but this just isn’t the time. Maybe Wargaming will get their act together sooner rather than later. If not, things are going to get a lot worse going forward. For them; not for me. I’ve got an enormous backlog I can look at and a ton of work to do. Not in that order.
EDIT:
I’m not surprised that WG’s response wasn’t over the target. No apology to LWM (even got her name wrong, interestingly enough), shifting the fiasco away from her to the Missouri drama, and implementing some minor updates relevant to that. There’s a little more to it, but it just goes to show how companies start to operate once they’re too big to effectively communicate and redress individuals anymore.
The toxicity in the WG community is self sustaining at this point. I honestly think that even if they came out with some otherworldly update that magically fixed everything in the game, that one voice in the crowd saying something akin to, “Why didn’t you do that sooner? WG let all that drama go on for years for no reason,” would in fact rekindle said drama. Even if you conjured up the perfect game, an entire community of alienated gamers is going to have more tempting things to do than just play it. More over, since praise is much, much harder to gain than criticism, that’s about all WG has coming in the future.
I’ll probably still play the game until it eventually fizzles out, but it’s more as an obligation to my clan than any strong desire to play. It can still be fun, but even in-game you run into this constant negativity on top of being burned alive by the HE shell mechanics so much of this game is ‘balanced’ around. I really hate that. I hate having to deal with my own gripes and everyone else’s at the same time. Like I said, the toxicity is self sustaining at this point, and I’m not interested in feeding into it. When I play this game, I’m only interested in playing it. I can always review something here on the blog if I really feel the need.
by Phoenix | Aug 16, 2021 | Art, Praedia, ZAP
I know I shouldn’t be making things harder on myself by making the Zavodia map from scratch, but every program I find that can help with this sort of thing is always missing something crucial. I wish I knew how they made the map for Europa Universalis IV or Hearts of Iron IV. They’re not quite what I’m looking for but fairly close. Oh well. I’ll figure something out before I get too deep into it this time. The main issue now is less the way the map looks and the sheer scale I need to apply to it this time in order to use it in other materials, regional, political, cultural, racial maps and so on.
I’m thinking of taking another look at some of the programs I passed up. There’s a chance that combining some of them could net me what I’m looking for for the ‘real’ map, the version that’s essentially a set of satellite photos. We’ll see. For now, the outline’s finished. It’s just a matter of finding the right tools and either importing that outline or using it as a reference. That’s all for now.
by Phoenix | Aug 15, 2021 | Site
I don’t really know if this is going to be the final look (barring any tweaks I make to advertise or celebrate something), but I’ve been using this layout since roughly August of last year, so it’s clearly grown on me. This theme is meant to reference the site’s namesake, the Praedian Records. Better to think of that as the Akashic Records of the Praedia setting, but with a couple of twists.
This theme could probably use some tweaks to the hues throughout. The entire look is based on the ‘reference state’ of mana in the Praedia setting, which varies between cyan and teal. It’s tough settling on exact values when mana actually looks different under different conditions in the setting itself. That goes for real life, too; each of my monitor settings is different and I haven’t found a good balance. So, what’s the best value for something like a border or a background haze? Still figuring that out, but I’d say it’s close to where I’d be comfortable keeping it for good.
Speaking of final looks, I’ve got some colossally bad news. Praedia’s physical size is being changed. Even if the geography was exactly how I wanted it, I’d still need to redo that globe. Since it’s not, I’ve got a lot to do to bring the planet up to date. That’s going to take time but when it’s done, that will probably be one of the most notable changes with the look of the site. It’s not coming for months though, even at the earliest. I tend to make these things from scratch so it can’t be helped.