First attempt at character modeling

So I've started, over the past few weeks, to try and model one of the characters for my novel. So far, I'm pretty unhappy with it, but it's  awork in progress. I suspect, at the moment, that I've included too many polygons, and it's becoming hard to clean things up, so when I make some small mistake, it blows up quickly.

However, in the interest of completeness, I'll post what I have so far here.

Breasts are definately harder than I expected, and if I went back and did them again, I might have a better shot. However, as it is, I tried it one way and am somewhat regretting it. The hip/groin area I'm also not happy about, though it's much better than it even was just this morning. All in all, progress but this is going to take some work. Arms and Legs are my next major area to tackle (as you can see, they're quite low detail).

Burning Wheel Postmortem

It's been a while since I brought gaming into this blog. So I think it's about time. My regular gaming group has been trying a bunch of systems recently. Trying to find the ones we really like. After a successful session at MACE and listening to some podcasts about it, I decided to give Burning Wheel a try. After dropping about 75 bucks on books, we played a game this semester.

Pros:
So the system has some definite pluses. It's pretty realistic, which is a plus and a minus. For people who like that in a game, it's pretty hard to say "But shouldn't my x do y against z?" It's also got some great storytelling aspects. I've mentioned beliefs & instincts before, in my character post. While these are really useful in setting the stage for a story, there's more to it and we'll revisit it later. It also has brought up some interesting questions about failure, which I'm going to be bringing more into my other games. This was probably one of the biggest wins for getting involved in this game. Their ideas with skill chains is also really interesting, and has brought a good twist for a story to bear. Some of the stuff in the magic book is also pretty cool, and merits further investigation.

One of the more interesting parts of the system is character creation. You basically write your characters history through the creation process. They also use a system of Traits that let you really customize your character, and define what he/she's like. All interesting ideas, but it seriously limits the setting because of the amount of work to transfer these.

Cons:
So despite some of the good points, there were some issues. We had a really hard time sorting out beliefs and instincts. While they are good for narrowing in on a character, getting them into play is pretty hard. Maybe we need more experience writing them, I'm fully willing to believe that. However, it's a steep learning curve, and that just wasn't what we were prepared for as a group.

The other main problem, I already alluded to, was the crunchiness of the system. Lots of die rolls to resolve things. Many of the rules are "optional", in a sense, but most of the players got lost in the shuffle. Again, I'm sure we weren't doing things completely right, but the learning curve was just steeper than we expected. The core mechanic is straightforward, but you miss out on a lot of the setting that way. For instance, adding something as simple as Armor to the game adds a whole level of complexity to the fight mechanics, even without the full scripting.

Conclusions
So it's a nice system, and I got something out of trying to learn it. But the learning curve was steeper than we were willing to commit at the time, so I think I have to save it. Maybe in a few years I'll find a group willing to try again, but for now we'll keep digging our heels into World of Darkness, and exploring a few other systems. We're about to dig into the Fate system, for Dresden, and a few others high on the todo list. Should be an interesting year.

Physical Description and my Super Secret Summer Scheme

Today we're going to talk a little bit about description. As a storyteller, I think description is one of my weaknesses (though let's be fair, my strongest strength is an average to below-average command of plot...). I've noticed it more and more in my RPGs which makes it really hard to set a good mood. I noticed this very strongly the other night when I was using a description from a module, for a body orchard (a grove of trees etc. which are basically made out of human flesh. Flowers w/ ears, trees with eyes and blood running down the trunk...it's a poignant image.)

So the trick of course is to balance plot and exposition. Margaret Roland wrote a post about this last week in the Magic District blog. Her big comment was that you have to balance what hte reader needs to know and what the reader already knows. Stephen King mentions in his book On Writing that adverbs should only be used if they change the readers perception of the event. Chuck Wendig makes a similar post in his blog post on physical description. His argument is that you pick one salient feature of your character, something that's exaggerated, and bring that description into play. What distinguishes your character from any other person. Jim Butcher mentions similar ideas in his post on Characters, between his arguments for exaggeration and his tags & traits model.

So I've come up with a plan to help with this, at least with my characters. We'll try and talk more about scenes and scenery in another post. So for characters, I have a hard time holding a good image of the character in my head. Certain aspects are usually exaggerated traits stolen from people I know IRL, which is a dangerous road to walk down since if they don't like the character, that's an issue. So despite my complete lack of any artistic ability, I'm going to try and create a visual representation of some key characters. Probably going to select a few characteristic poses, and maybe a couple other aspects. I'm going to use Blender, an open source 3d modeling software. I've been watching tutorials in much of my spare time for this week, and I think I've got a handle on the workflow and controls. I started modeling a simple cruciform sword, and I might post it online once I've added some more detail to it.

The trick with modeling people, at least at first from what I've seen from these tutorials, is working from a good set of reference images. At least 2 shots, one from the front and side in the same pose. The one people seem to like to work with is the Da Vinci pose, that he used to illustrate the proportions of hte ideal man. The problem is I haven't managed to find some reference images, and there's a few reasons I can't really ask anyone, most obvious being that the less clothes the better.

So the current plan is to try and get some generic body references, and then use whatever pictures I have (either on my hdd or facebook), to try and get some better individual detail. So my homework for the week is going to be to try and find images I can use for the bodies, one stock male and one stock female, and then we'll see about modeling that first. The other thing I'm doing in the short term is starting to think about poses, and props, for each of the 3-4 characters I want to model. Current plan is my 3 protagonists and my main antagonist, and then I'll go from there. May also do the lead character from my short story, but we'll see how things go.

Book Review: Jim Butcher

I had intentions for this week, but they didn't pan out. Instead, I'm going to go ahead and do a review of the last book I read. I have two library books really soon in my queue, and two new books taht I might read sooner rather than later.

The book of the day however, is Death Masks, by Jim Butcher. Like the previous one, we're starting to see more connection between the books. This one involved the Knights more, which was kinda cool. There was some interesting religious aspects, made more interesting by the fact that I started listening to it on good friday. The MacGuffin so to speak in this one turns out to be the Shroud of Turin, the one which Jesus was wearing during the resurrection. There was also some cool stuff about a 7 yr old girl with the knowledge of all the world. Heady thing.

Sorry for the short entry, I'll try and do better next time.

Writing Experiment: Scene 1

Here's the first scene. It's a long time coming, but I hope you enjoy it. I'm not happy with the way it ended, but it managed to add a nice new element to play with in the story. Hopefully w/ some revision it can be fleshed out into a better scene.

***


``I give up.'' Cat dropped her head into her arms, resting on the
heavy wooden desk. She pressed her forehead against the smooth vaneer
finish, blocking out the flickering light with her arms. ``I just
can't do it.'' She felt the warm pressure of a hand on her shoulder.

``You'll get it Cat, just focus. Use your frustration. Fire feeds on
emotion.'' She turned and looked up into the starling blue eyes of her
cousin. ``Just take a few deep breaths.''

``Easy for you to say. You're a natural.'' He sat down beside her, and
pushed a book across the table. ``Another book? Do you really think
this'll help?''

``Come on Cat! It took me months to track down that book. The
Alethenian Codex were supposed to have been destroyed. Do me a favor,
just try it.''

She ran her hand along the worn leather cover, inhaling the musty old
book. She dropped the book as a fit of sneezing came over her. ``Damn
books. One of these days, you'll be the death of me Michael.''

She gently opened the book, squinting to read the careful writing
inside. As she worked her way through the writing, her head swam with
images. The mages described in this book were not just
elementalists. They talked of drawing higher magics, bending other
parts of the known world to their will.

She read more carefully until she saw something that made her blood
run cold. ``Michael? Are you sure this is a good idea?'' Her hand was
shaking as she slid the book over to him. ``The codex were destoryed
for a reason. We've stumbled across something dangerous.''

His lips moved as he read the passage. Cat closed her eyes and tried
to push the images into the back of her mind. Such callous disregard
for human life was abhorant. ``They really think this worked?''
Michael's voice was a harsh whisper. He slipped the book back towards
her. ``It's still one of the most complete treatises on magic that
ever existed. If half of what they write is true, it might still be
helpful.''

She sat back up in the chair, taking deep breaths that filled up her
stomach. She pushed the breath deep inside her, feeling the power stir
inside her. A spark warmed her belly, and she blew it out into her
hand.

``Oh please, you call that a fire? Even a mundie can do better. Maybe I
should bring one of them in here.'' The spark faltered and she dropped
it. A book slammed shut behind her, casting a plume of dust into the
air. The small candles flickered, casting pale shadows along the book
on the table.

``What are you doing here? Don't you have some children to steal or
something?'' She bit down on the venom in her mouth, closing her
eyes. ``Get out of here Sam, I'm trying to work.''

``Sitting there all day with your nose in a book isn't going to
help.'' He waved his hand, pulling shadows down over the book in front
of her. ``You can't learn magic from books, no matter what Michael
says.'' He smirked, and got to his feet. ``You two enjoy
yourselves.'' He flipped a match onto the table in front of
Cat. ``Maybe you can use that to finally start a fire.''

Before she could blink, Michael was out of his chair and punched Sam
squarely in the jaw. Sam touched his fingers to his busted lip. ``You
actually hit me? A lord of the council assulted me. Well the council
will love to hear about this.''

``You leave her alone,'' Michael growled. ``The Princess has more pull
than you'll ever have.'' He punched Sam again.

Cat stood up as a third punch landed. ``Stop it, both of you.'' She
took a few more steps and felt a wave of power pass over her. She took
a few deep breaths to steady herself. ``Michael, stop. Just let him
go. Sam, it's time for you to leave.''

``Aww Princess, we were just starting to have fun. Can't stop until
someone looses an eye, right?'' He winced from the pain as he
grinned. ``Can't stop till then.''

``Leave! Now.'' Anger swelled in her as she pointed at the door. Power
flooded from her, leaving her weak at the knees. A burst of flame
lanced across the room and struck the door in a shower of
sparks. Michael just barely managed to pull Sam aside as the door
burst into flames. His face was pale and his nose, lips, and ears were
oozing dark red blood. He scrambled to his feet and ran through the
door.

Cat stared in horror as Michael started calling water. He doused the
flames, and sat down next to her. ``Well, I guess now we know. Blood
magic exists after all.''