All of the missing DCR metadata has been added – an exercise in data management that’s given me focus and kept me sane for the past couple of hours. That’s the last bit of “paperwork” for the reworked books. There’s still a lot of work to do on the Universe, but as far as DCR, The Dualist and Transitional Voices go, well…. there’s nothing left to do but MOVE FORWARD! *

Happy holidays, etc.

The next step? Well, I’m thinking about making the blurbs less intrusive. Either a CSS-based “flipper” sort of thing, or fiddling with templates and “forking” the comic into two display versions – one that’s Just Pages and one that’s Pages With Blurbs. That’s the horns of the dilemma – there’s a hell of a lot of emo I’d love to eject, but the blurbs are also a production bible and blog of sorts – something I’d like to keep, but something I’d also like to sweep out of casual view. “Forking” the metadata into a separate page stream will be interesting for analytics, and in that respect it’s certainly worth trying. I’ll figure out what I’m going to do with that eventually – in the meantime, I need to figure out what I’m doing with the DCR website. That’s been a “priority” since late 2009 – put off until DCR.2 was completed, then put off some more while the DCR.3 script was hashed out and finalized.

Inertia. Gotta size that up and ambush the hell out of it in a dark alley – there’s a lot of little, easy things I can do with the site to help push things forward. At this point it’s largely a matter of figuring out how to put myself in a position where that impulse – that type of work – comes naturally.

That said, pulling the comment logic and “extended” entry bits from the comic pages would be fairly trivial – adding a template “fork” would be a bit more work. My initial tests are looking good, though there’s a CSS issue to sort and the question of which template the front page writeout will “grab.” Work will be progressed or completed when the Web Ninjas are available, after the holiday.

* Oh, and the book and chapter synopses. Still gotta do those… but I don’t associate a summary paragraph with page production, which is what I’m referring to above – all the pages have been combed over, all the associated metadata has been filed appropriately, everything’s been rewritten once or twice (or three or four times)…. page-wise, it’s all good to go. Finally. :D

It took awhile, but there it is. The chapter story is solid enough that this can go up without causing undue head-scratching. Slightly more commentary in the page metadata, as per usual.

Stuck on the environment for the next scene – the geometry is something like 95% complete. I’m stuck on mapping and layouts – or rather, I’m not stuck on layouts, I still need to do most of them. Which influences the environment, which influences how crazy I get with the texturing. I’m not going to over-model or over-map this one, dammit!

I’m also not getting a lot of work done on it at the moment, due to a swath of external factors – some I can deal with, some I need to wait out, some I’d need to call in some voodoo favors to clear. Huzzah.

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.

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.

I just uploaded the DCR rewrite. it took awhile, but as of a few minutes ago, EVERYTHING has been Rewritten. All of The Dualist, the first chapter of Transitional Voices, the first chapter of DCR and the first four pages I’d completed of chapter two of said.

The comic hasn’t been this “ready to go” in years.

Next up – new version of the web site. Some time this month.