blog : last 10 entries
development : Tightening the focus.
posted 2010.08.16 at 16:01 | comment
This weekend was enlightening, to say the least.
The trailer (which I've muttered about on IRC, in metadata and to various people in the meatsphere) is still a good idea, still something I want to do, and definitely not an August Project. For one thing, August is half over and I'm still working on the July workload. For another, holy shit on toast - while my hardware can barely handle 720p, my current disk capacity can handle, at most, twenty or thirty seconds of it. As for rendering... thirty minutes of setup, five hours of grind for a five second preview render that looks good aesthetically but falls way short in the animation department and I'm back to thinking Best Use Of Limited Time.
Right now, that ain't it. Another six months of heavy grind on pages and I'll definitely have something to talk about. Six pages from now, DCR will be done with transitional material and setting. All Plot, all the time. Three and a half chapters of it. Finally.
In light of that, I think production of actual pages needs to be the priority. After most of a year (or two years, depending on how you look at it) of shifting, splitting, multiplying, changing priorities... putting another distraction in front of the story seems like something I need to stop doing.
Like, now.
That said, any work or real solid decision-making on the DCR website is also A Distraction, at least at the moment. As such, DCR strips will post to the DCR site until the end of chapter two, which is a good time and place to shift gears - consolidating the comic projects onto the ATC site and retooling the DCR website as.... something else.
website : Readership : Now lower than ever!
posted 2010.08.01 at 04:08 | 9 comments
I know regular updates matter quite a bit, but damn. Averaging thirty hits a day for ATC and eighteen or so for DCR, with almost all of DCR's traffic coming from google image search.
Anayltics numbers don't go back to The Beginning - back then I used Webalizer - but they do go back far enough to see a definite dip.
That's what happens when you don't advertise, don't interact with the community, and don't update. Or so I've been told. Updates are the only thing I really have to go on, and there haven't been many of those over the past couple of years - moreso over the past couple of months, if you want to count the Rewriting Rampage as updating. Which, if the numbers are anything to go by, nobody did.
Not really sure what to do about that, really - marketing has never been one of the legs this thing stands on. I'd like the site to be in better shape, but I've been using that as an excuse for years. I'd like to be updating regularly again, but my workload presently prohibits that... which, as a starting point, is something I can eventually fix.
I'd also like to get to a point where I can write outside of a bar or coffee shop. That will probably take longer.
Or, perhaps, it'll happen concurrently.
Maybe it'll all happen concurrently.
Things usually do.
development : It also means "Advised To Clean"
posted 2010.07.26 at 02:02 | comment
July has been a busy month. It's not over - not by a long shot. The workload that nuked comic production back into neutral will be bleeding over into August - how long that'll last, I don't know. With luck and proper planning, things will be getting thing again in a couple of weeks.
I'm Re-Jobbed, at least for the time being - I don't know how stable it'll be or how it'll shape up in terms of workload, but for the time being it's looking good. That'll have positive benefits in the near and hopefully long term - in the immediate term, I still have a ton of freelance work to wrap up... and as soon as those projects are finalized and the clients are happy, I'll be hacking out new business cards and doing some work on the DCR website.
What kind of work, I don't yet know, exactly. An overhaul at the very least, potentially a total repurposing. Something involving less duplication of effort.
On a web-related note... there's still a ton of work to do on the ATC site. Mostly in Universe, but comic chapter descriptions still need a rewrite, analytics is still being a goober, I'm cleared for ads I still need to figure out where to put, etc.
The DCR chapter two script is inching along - upcoming scenes are now on their third or fourth draft, the next few pages have been finalized and have layouts, and I've managed to get some plotting work done but nothing in terms of actual work. That comes later, after the bits in the previous paragraphs have been dealt with.
development : My love is stronger than most explosions.
posted 2010.07.01 at 20:01 | comment
16:48 < xeno> <- Wagner : Die Valkure
16:49 < xeno> solios: you need to learn flash animation and do a short of wangfish launching like rockets synched to ride of the valkyries.
16:49 < xeno> it would rule.
16:49 < solios> hah.
16:50 < xeno> with a silhouetted Val conducting
16:50 < xeno> a la fantasia
16:50 < solios> hah.
16:50 < xeno> or mst3k
16:50 < xeno> fagbot: doot my brainmeats.
16:50 < fagbot> 2.25 and a handjob
16:51 < xeno> pretty much
16:51 < xeno> except it's more like .45
16:51 < xeno> solios: it would only need to be about 2.5m, because at that point Sven would be chasing her around with a straitjacket
I do need to learn some Flash, but not for that reason. And I *do* have an ATC video thing in the Serious Consideration pipeline. Bits of storyboards, some editing and CG ideas, but no time to work on it at the present.
If I can get my clone out of storage - or pull off some other form of time management miracle - then maybe I'll be able to do something about that little project this month.
Further bulletins etc etc.
dead city radio : I'D RATHER BE SAILING
posted 2010.06.10 at 19:15 | comment
Look, a screenshot!
That's a not-entirely-accurate-but-I'm-going-to-use-it-anyway floorplan for 608 - Casa De Whitehouse. After a couple of days spent dusting off the floorplan, refamiliarizing myself with the production toolchain, promising myself I'll hate it less after I've reacclimated.. It's GO TIME!11. Meaning, time to fill the apartment with stuff. Stuff like doors - with no future scenes planned for the bedroom or bathroom, the first item on the to-do (now that the apartment is all set for work) is sealing those off. Then it's closet doors and the usual tchotchkes, starting with the few items that can be swiped from The Dualist and proceeding to more complex things, such as the couch, Whitehouse's guitar, etc.
Time estimate : I have no idea. Soon, I hope. It's going to be awhile before I can do anything new with EVE, so I'm making the best of it.
A couple of Studio apartments will be getting some love soon, but I don't need them just yet - the order of operations is (basically) 608, parking lot, studio - with a strip as soon as 608 is useable. My development preference has been for TV space hardware - fortunately, that's not really slowing anything down. Not that things could get much slower - getting over my CG mental block has been an epic* ordeal, so at this point I'm jumping on any inspiration that hits me. The days of trying to manage the idea flow are long past, at least lately - right now, I'll take what I can get, apply my trademark Myopic Determination to what comes along, and hopefully get something done.
I'll settle for moving. That screenshot is a tremor in the windsock - I'd like a typhoon, but I'll settle for a breeze.
The story's in good shape - I just gotta grind out the CG to get things moving again. That's been the case for about two years, give or take - with the rewrites behind me, the whiskey evicted from the apartment, and my video game addiction at low ebb... well, hopefully it'll be easier to get moving again than it was to get moving the first time.
Inertia's a bitch.
* Epically boring, but still epic. And definitely an ordeal.
dead city radio : Signs of life.
posted 2010.04.06 at 16:04 | 2 comments
I just posted a Squelch file from April of 2009 to the DCR website. If you read both sites and are of a mind to comment, this would be the place to do it - I still need a field test of the new comment capabilities and the usual hoard of test monkeys have been sucked into EVE.
When things are being thing again, I plan to update DCR strips, followed by full pages to the ATC site when they're completed. Meaning if a page is a four strip stack (like they've all been so far), there'll be one ATC update for every four DCR updates. If it's a three strip stack, one every three, etc. Strips to DCR, pages to ATC. You get the idea.
With the exception of the new pages created for TD2E, the next new strip - the next new page - of DCR will mark the first time the story has progressed since July of 2008.
That's a heady thought.
In other news, there's sneeze on my monitor.
idle : Bedtime Stories
posted 2010.03.15 at 04:13 | comment
01:07 < dasunt> solios: Tell me a story where everything turns out right in the end.
01:07 < dasunt> And I'm happy.
01:07 < dasunt> And I don't have to go to work in 5 hours.
01:08 < solios> dasunt: well.... 50,000 years ago, 7 entities destroyed the entire human race.
01:08 < solios> or rather, they tried to.
01:08 < solios> they missed.
01:08 < solios> then, plot happens!
01:08 < dasunt> Damnit!
website : Comments re-enabled, CAPTCHA'd.
posted 2010.03.12 at 22:51 | comment
Also turned off for all entries prior to the previous blog post. I would have preferred to leave 'em on, but I Hate Spam, and killing the ability to spam my old blog entries should go a long way towards turning the tide.
Comments are CAPTCHA'd and currently post straight to the site without email authentication. If the CAPTCHA proves an ineffective spam deterrent, I'll re-mandate the moderation queue.
Also, a Twitter feed has replaced the old progress box. I don't think I'll be using it much, but who knows? I thought the same about Facebook.
I do believe that's it for site mechanics. Maybe some formatting stuff for the First Edition metadata of The Dualist - I'll poke at that in a few minutes.
In the meantime, VICTORY!
Oh, and - if you feel like beating on the comments thinger, go for it. Feedback appreciated, etc.
website : Website v2010.1 Release Notes
posted 2010.03.11 at 18:35 | comment
ATC site version 2010.1, code name "Furnace."
Participants
dmh - Aesthetic, slicing, initial assembly (html/javascript), font formatting and text-container CSS. Application of final template to MT plumbing.
vai - Created a partial "alternative" build that proved useful in finally freeing the site from tables.
ejp - Finalized the left-hand menu and FPNC, made things work for IE7+, stepped up as CSS mentat for several stages and essentially finished the base template. The man is a God.
Fun fact : the CSS file for the site has mutated quite a bit over the years. I got the original document from bda for use with my first MT blog. He got it from Dan Engler. I'd adapted it over the years to various site layouts, set it up for this one, and then pasted in a bunch of stuff from vai. Eric then hacked at it quite a bit.
GO TEAM CSS!
Build log
Q4 2009 and Q1 2010 - Paper design, with extensive thinking on how to add the content lost in the current build back into the site.
20100306 - Started on UI graphics. Realize some bits of the paper design are going to be a huge pain in the ass no matter how the site is implemented and streamline the proposed look to something closer to the previous version.
20100307 - Aesthetics "testing." xeno approves, and I start hating the previous build. Impatient to get the new UI up and running.
20100308 - UI graphics completed, sliced, optimized. Base tables-and-javascript template assembled and basic CSS formatting. Vai takes a poke. IE6 hates it.
20100309 - Further work done on CSS. Some formatting taken from vai's work of the previous day. Eric takes over as CSS go-to guy. IE6 continues to be a pain in the ass, everything works in Firefox, Chrome, Safari/Mac and Safari/iPhone. Most of the IE issues are resolved simply by switching to 7. Link buttons created.
20100310 - Fine-tuning of CSS by Eric with input from vai. Rollover images for all comic books and chapters created.
Major changes from the previous release
1. It's a lot darker, obviously. And prettier. The pretty isn't just my opinion - that's been the consensus of those who've volunteered opinions. It won't win any awards (the flavor is intentionally "web 1.0"), but it's certainly nicer than the previous release. It's also a lot more expressive - each section has its own header, and the space between the comic navigation buttons is finally being used for something.
2. Tables are GONE. Giggedy GONE. Yes.
3. While this thing is still image-heavy, all the text formatting and - more importantly - all the boxes that words reside in have been moved out of table cells and into CSS. This means the launch UI might get tweaked a bit after I see how it looks With A Variety Of Content.
4. Comments are OFF for the time being. You can thank the spam bots for that one - they'll come back later. Since commenting is its own mess of formatting it hasn't been a launch priority.
5. Transitional Voices has an icon.
6. The wiki is gone. It's been replaced with "universe," which is a self-contained blog similar to the old-old Lexicon. It's a bit sparse at the moment, but there's plenty of content from the old-old site that I can copy, revise, and paste back in, so it won't stay that way for long. Point of fact, "universe" is something of a priority. It should update to the front page along with the blog - if it doesn't, it just means I haven't gotten to it yet. Or I've been blogging more than I've been documenting. The major upside for me is that it handles like the rest of MT, which means I don't have to noodle with formatting for Yet Another Web Thing.
7. Old.atc is still around, if only for archival purposes. All of the old "hard to find" content that never made it over here in the previous release - all the stuff I'd intended to dump into a wiki at some point - will be integrated into the current website over the next...
Oh, fuck it. I'm not going to lie. I think it's a priority now but I will probably get distracted. There will be bits - Cast, at least. How quickly the rest of it makes it over is anybody's guess.
Testing
The development template was tested in the current build of Chrome, Firefox 3.5.x, Safari 4, IE6 (for laughs), and IE7 (for real, unfortunately). All issues worked out apply to the initial template only - some kinks may crop up when the template gets applied to the website. IE6 was given up on, and a redirect has been created. Think of it as an easter egg.
Wonkiness
1. Aside from flat-out abandoning IE6 and ignoring Netscape (Communicator 4.7 was a favored target of mine for awhile, and was the first browser I stopped giving a shit about), there's one display difference in IE7 that I haven't tested in IE8. It's not a deal-breaker, so I'm not worried about it.
2. I have no idea what this thing looks like in Opera, on the PSP, or anything other than the test platforms listed above. There may be wonkiness. As Google Analytics has indicated that some of you use these platforms to read ATC, any input would be appreciated.
Remaining
1. The one major issue on the backend to-do list is comment capability. For the time being that's been stripped out - I'll add it back in at some point in the near future. With any luck, the planned work will solve the comment spam problem that's been plaguing the site for the past few months.
2. Along with that, probably, some kind of twitter integration. I've been thinking on it for awhile, and I consider it a viable alternative to the old progress bar. Logging of material is something of an issue for me in other respects - it's the one area that's always been "fire and forget."
3. Oh, and. Uh... uhm. Content, obviously. But that's not a backend thing. Further CSS refinement will follow, along with the usual tweaks and broader testing and debugging that'll occur after the new site goes live.
4. Ads. That's what I was thinking of. The Wall Of Spam seems to be standard-issue for all other comics, so I suppose I should get around to slipping some of it in somewhere. As the site has run ad-free since inception, I can promise you this - any implemented ad thing will be either Below The Fold or respectfully unobtrusive.
5. Highest priority of the "remaining" TDL - CSS for Universe logos, images, notes, etc.
universe : It ain't canon - yet.
posted 2010.03.11 at 17:40
The present content of the Universe section has been salvaged from the old-old version of the website. As such, the entries are horribly dated (pre-TD2E) and should not be taken as canon. I'll get to revising them after the CSS is debugged.