So the main problem with being an autodidactic learner like myself is that your faced with many problems usually never even considered by more passive learners. The first of these is obtaining good information to begin with. This can be particularly frustrating because often when your at the beginning of learning something new you really know very little about it so its hard to assess what the quality of the material is to begin with. This can lead to learning poor solutions to things or in worst case scenarios just getting wrong information. This puts the responsibility on yourself for cross referencing knowledge to make sure its legit. The next problem is having your learning become a jumbled mess of inconsistent knowledge. This is where you learn 50% of what you need to succeed and then just keep spamming what you know to do everything. I guess it would help if I used a specific example of what I've been learning recently which has been programming little video games in as3 using the flash IDE. So basically there are a couple different ways to make video games and this makes it sort of easy to stick with the first methods you learn and resist all the other ways without actually understanding the advantages and disadvantages between different approaches. This problem could be mirrored by any sort of creative practice from writing music to writing novels. Basically sometimes you can get stuck into using the patterns that you understand the most rather then the best ones. Similarly to the earlier problem the only way you really get around this by yourself is being opened minded to everything regarding what you're learning and sort of piecing it together by yourself. You have to suspend a lot of concrete ideas until you get really deep into a topic. So, I'm still kind of stuck in this transitory position in programming video games. Its like I KNOW some things but I also know there are different ways to do the same things. So basically I think the best thing is to try not to reuse too much of anything until you know its here to stay. As a last note to everyone listening the project to finish all this reading/ coding has been progressing nicely. Still have a shitload of work too go.
Books:
Essential Guide to Flash Games: 520 --> 450
AdvancED ActionScript 3.0 Animation: 440
AdvancED Game Design with Flash: 740
Game Design AS3: 40
Game Design Workshop: 450 --> 425
ActionScript 3.0 animation: 100 --> 50
total pages = 2290 --> 2140
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Damn, School is meh.
So, I'm at this cross roads in my life where I've realized that I basically am spread too thin... The only thing to do is drop something. Thats why I've decided I will do as little work on my classes and school as possible to give me more time to learn to program video games. Its unfortunate because I've always felt like I need to do pretty well in my classes to feel in control. The thing thats become more and more apparent to me as I grow up and learn more about myself is that I am pretty bad at school. The structure and flow of school has always clashed with myself. I never figured out if the pace of classes was too slow or too fast also for me. I guess it sort of depended on the class specifically. Going to listen to some teacher lecture for an hour everyday is soo boring anyways. I don't know what it is. I love learning but I guess I never got engrossed in school to find it interesting. Too bad.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
The 10 week AutoDidactic Challenge
So, its been quite while since I posted anything here and I figured I've give an update on my plans in the next ensuing weeks. Basically the plan as of now is to prepare for December 15th, or the first day of my Winter Break. I have 7 weeks and 4 days until this day arrives and I plan on using every last second of it. Here is the list of books I plan to have finished reading by the end of these 7 weeks.
This list factors in parts of books I've already read which is why some book page number counts are so much lower.
Books:
Essential Guide to Flash Games: 520
AdvancED ActionScript 3.0 Animation: 440
AdvancED Game Design with Flash: 740
Game Design AS3: 40
Game Design Workshop: 450
ActionScript 3.0 animation: 100
total pages = 2290
These books were all picked by myself based on the customized education I want before I start mass producing indie games with Flash AS3.
Based on the amount I must read plus the amount of time I have available I have figured that I basically have to read 44 pages a day to reach my goal from one of these books(excluding the school responsibilities I already have and whatnot). I figure what I really need to do is push my programming skills as hard as I can to improve up until December 17th so I can embark on the REAL crazy challenge. Let me tell you the challenge during winter break now then.
So basically during the 3 weeks I have off I'm going to write a piece of music everyday and release it on a website called newgrounds. I will be making 3 video games, one for each week I have off, as well and also posting them on NewGrounds. During the next 10 weeks I'm going to occasionally post about my endeavor and its challenges and the experience as a whole.
This list factors in parts of books I've already read which is why some book page number counts are so much lower.
Books:
Essential Guide to Flash Games: 520
AdvancED ActionScript 3.0 Animation: 440
AdvancED Game Design with Flash: 740
Game Design AS3: 40
Game Design Workshop: 450
ActionScript 3.0 animation: 100
total pages = 2290
These books were all picked by myself based on the customized education I want before I start mass producing indie games with Flash AS3.
Based on the amount I must read plus the amount of time I have available I have figured that I basically have to read 44 pages a day to reach my goal from one of these books(excluding the school responsibilities I already have and whatnot). I figure what I really need to do is push my programming skills as hard as I can to improve up until December 17th so I can embark on the REAL crazy challenge. Let me tell you the challenge during winter break now then.
So basically during the 3 weeks I have off I'm going to write a piece of music everyday and release it on a website called newgrounds. I will be making 3 video games, one for each week I have off, as well and also posting them on NewGrounds. During the next 10 weeks I'm going to occasionally post about my endeavor and its challenges and the experience as a whole.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Some Musings On Sound Design
CAUTION: RANT AHEAD
So, I do enjoy simple, conceptual sounds more often than not. Since a lot of my music is melodically driven, I tend to forego at least some of the "dressing" that is perhaps customary. While my music is usually not minimal (I suppose I'd view minimalism as an intentional and rigorous reduction of a medium to its fundamental elements) I do view some basic sounds as "sufficient" for carrying a melody or some melodic element of a phrase and hence make no further effort to add interest value to the sound itself, as that would possibly even distract from what I want the listener to focus on. In fact the melody carries itself (or should, at least).
I've posted a piece called "Tapioca" on Newgrounds just now. I've had it on my drive for a while, but only just got around to "publishing" it, which spurred automatic mental review and also general reflection. Take the guitar-ish sound from its middle section, for instance. It is basically just a monophonic pluck with some porta (made in Massive). The important details are that its pluckiness comes from an enveloped low pass filter variant (I used Scream, which is surprisingly smooth if you null the resonance), which reduces some of the high frequency content, making the pluck somewhat smoother, and the porta is a legato type, which is basically the only kind I ever use, since it allows you to shape your melody in a micro way and make it more diverse (as opposed to all-glide or no-glide). It's simple. It's functional. It incorporates the needs of my melodic considerations into its design, but nothing more (there is some more, such as reverb and some amplification stuff, but those are basically no brainers).
And that kind of approach appeals to me, because, mentally, I'm still in that stage where I often don't have the patience to engineer an entirely unique and complex sound from scratch, while also making sure it's capable of being used melodically.
If you've heard Knife Party's "Sleaze", the gated formant lead they use is a good example of a sound that relies solely on its own design to provide interest value. I shan't muse for too long about what precisely defines a melody, but I think it's relatively safe to say that "Sleaze" contains basically no melodic content in the traditional sense, and that doesn't in the least stop it from being great music, because it just has really nice structure, sound design, and it's innovative, in some respects. It's just not the sort of music I'm good at, or even capable, of producing.
I probably wouldn't mind being an electronic music guy in the 80s and/or 90s. Hell, even today's market pushes lots of software that emulates analogue sounds and whatnot. There must be some demand or interest in it, at least. But I feel like this is beside the point. Producers back then were doing the best they could with the tools available to them, and the same approach would equate to something totally different now. But, I'm emphasizing mere functionality.
But, speaking of maximum utility, Massive is such a great VST, and for more than just bass sounds, though it seems like a lot of its appeal comes from that. Or maybe there's just a lot of online content that's just like "Oh, how do I make deh Skrillex wobbles, gotta use Massive". Yeah, I've used Modern Talking... ONCE. Anyway, this is all just a stereotype. People know that Massive is dynamic.
rant.end();
So, I do enjoy simple, conceptual sounds more often than not. Since a lot of my music is melodically driven, I tend to forego at least some of the "dressing" that is perhaps customary. While my music is usually not minimal (I suppose I'd view minimalism as an intentional and rigorous reduction of a medium to its fundamental elements) I do view some basic sounds as "sufficient" for carrying a melody or some melodic element of a phrase and hence make no further effort to add interest value to the sound itself, as that would possibly even distract from what I want the listener to focus on. In fact the melody carries itself (or should, at least).
I've posted a piece called "Tapioca" on Newgrounds just now. I've had it on my drive for a while, but only just got around to "publishing" it, which spurred automatic mental review and also general reflection. Take the guitar-ish sound from its middle section, for instance. It is basically just a monophonic pluck with some porta (made in Massive). The important details are that its pluckiness comes from an enveloped low pass filter variant (I used Scream, which is surprisingly smooth if you null the resonance), which reduces some of the high frequency content, making the pluck somewhat smoother, and the porta is a legato type, which is basically the only kind I ever use, since it allows you to shape your melody in a micro way and make it more diverse (as opposed to all-glide or no-glide). It's simple. It's functional. It incorporates the needs of my melodic considerations into its design, but nothing more (there is some more, such as reverb and some amplification stuff, but those are basically no brainers).
And that kind of approach appeals to me, because, mentally, I'm still in that stage where I often don't have the patience to engineer an entirely unique and complex sound from scratch, while also making sure it's capable of being used melodically.
If you've heard Knife Party's "Sleaze", the gated formant lead they use is a good example of a sound that relies solely on its own design to provide interest value. I shan't muse for too long about what precisely defines a melody, but I think it's relatively safe to say that "Sleaze" contains basically no melodic content in the traditional sense, and that doesn't in the least stop it from being great music, because it just has really nice structure, sound design, and it's innovative, in some respects. It's just not the sort of music I'm good at, or even capable, of producing.
I probably wouldn't mind being an electronic music guy in the 80s and/or 90s. Hell, even today's market pushes lots of software that emulates analogue sounds and whatnot. There must be some demand or interest in it, at least. But I feel like this is beside the point. Producers back then were doing the best they could with the tools available to them, and the same approach would equate to something totally different now. But, I'm emphasizing mere functionality.
But, speaking of maximum utility, Massive is such a great VST, and for more than just bass sounds, though it seems like a lot of its appeal comes from that. Or maybe there's just a lot of online content that's just like "Oh, how do I make deh Skrillex wobbles, gotta use Massive". Yeah, I've used Modern Talking... ONCE. Anyway, this is all just a stereotype. People know that Massive is dynamic.
rant.end();
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