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YaVaho155

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Half a year since last entry, I suppose I should write something new for the two people that were tirelessly waiting for signs of life in other forms than "art".

College has been killing me last year. I've been going through a massive stroke of bad luck for a certain subject that resulted in me failing the course dramatically.
That combined with the constant stress of a few other courses (I was competing in the Microsoft Imagine Cup for one of them), failing to win my crush, and general discontent about my life led to the inevitable: depression.
Now, there's never been an official diagnosis, but when your parents both majored in Psychology you get pretty good at self-diagnosis.
I got sick of everything. Try to paint something you love? Five minutes later I'm screaming from frustration and delete it. Finish your 3D (which I did in the end and passed, even though I'm still not happy about the result)? Many hours of work resulted in only a slight improvement. Maybe code a bit for that programming exam, you can do that with your eyes closed? The very first compile error was also the last for the rest of the week due to not coding. All right then, you won, go ahead and start up a game. I quit 5 minutes later because of guilt (and an overheating laptop). Maybe clean up your room? Cleaning equipment broke down, so why bother?
...... I just realized again how much of a mess I was. Worst part was that I was constantly scolding people I actually cared about, working my frustrations out on them. I'm so glad they took it like a boss. If any of them is reading this: thanks for sticking with me.

Then, a few weeks before the exam, one of my teammates for the Imagine Cup steps up to me and says: "Dude, become a brony. You'll feel tons better after watching cartoon ponies for 20 minutes."
And so I did. I was familiar with the concept of bronies not being trolls or gay, and altough fandoms in general have never really been my thing I decided to give it a shot.
Holy shit. I never thought I'd be fond of an overly shy yellow pegasus, an overdramatic fashionista (BEST PONY imo), a dorky magician (okay, that one might have been possible), an overly competitive tomboy, a Texan or an ADD and Newton-redefining party animal. I felt happy, like I took some instant prozac as soon as I saw the intro of that show. Best thing of all is that the feelgood stayed without having to watch episodes on a regular basis. Some friends might look at me weird now and then, but as soon as they see me blasting Behemoth or Motörhead through the headphones they know it's still good old me.
Like one of them said: now we just know for sure there's one side of you that isn't entirely bent on darkness and the destruction/enslavement of mankind.
It also helped me shaking off the rejection I got from my crush. Normally one doesn't just get over a girl they've been in love with for over a year, but somehow I managed.

That didn't change the fact I was royally fucked for school, altough ultimately the end result could've been far worse. Next week I'm starting my next year, and it'll be relatively calm. I only have 3 big subjects in the first semester, and 2 subjects in the second. It's a shame I couldn't do more stuff of the 3rd year already, but so be it. Gives me more time to work on other things.

I've gone back to painting things more actively, and have grown rather satisfied with some of my work. Then suddenly a model asks you to paint her, well I'm very flattered to say the least.
I want to ask you people a question by the way. I'm currently working on that paint for the model, would you guys be interested if I made one of these walkthrough posts about it once it's finished?
I'll be showing my workflow and describing the few tricks I have up my sleeve, not to mention try to make a few jokes so people who're far above my level would still like reading it :)
Also, I'm thinking about changing my name one way or another. I've been known as YaVaho155 for ages, but let's admit it: it's a sucky name. Since the artist training ground on EquestriaDaily I've been using the name Yandalf more often. It's old and it was meant as a pun (I first used it in some game when I was about 10 years old), but it struck me it was actually a pretty clever name. Anyone out there who'd want to gift me a day of Premium Membership so I can change it, by chance? :p

Of course Diablo III has come and gone. Great job, Blizzard. You made me wait for 8 years on a game that was way below all standards in terms of lastability. I grew bored with it faster than any other game I ever played. I didn't even bother to play until lvl 60 (my main, Witch Doctor, is stuck in the 50s)! It's simple: after seeing New Tristram two times, the third time really isn't that interesting (and I searched every nook and cranny for random dungeons).
Good thing Guild Wars 2 has been amusing me very well for now (I'm still rather low-level: 25 on a Sylvari Necromancer and 20 on an Asura Mesmer). For the people who read last post and still wonder by the way: I got a CE, altough without the pre-order bonuses. Seems I pre-ordered a launch edition. Not that I really care, I have the statue, the art prints, the book, items and OST. Me == content.

I guess this wraps it about up. See you again in half a year! xD
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10th of April! Many gamers had noted this day down, because today we could finally place pre-orders on Guild Wars 2!
My brother and I, being long-time fans of the original game (ever since Factions came out, to be exact. So we're "2nd-hour fans") and our target was very clear: We had to have that Collector's Edition.
So this morning I woke up at 9AM and prepared to travel to Mechelen, the closest city to us with a Game Mania (the store with the distribution deal here in Belgium).
However, when I got there the clerk simply informed me that the Collector's Edition pre-order was no longer available, all available units had been reserved for people who ordered them.
For all clarity: today was the first day people could place orders on this game, and I got at the store only half an hour after opening time and the place was deserted, indicating there hadn't been a mass of people waiting outside (Belgium isn't very big on this kind of events). Turns out that Game Mania simply took up reservations (calling it like this ensured they didn't violate their contract with ArenaNet, the game's developer) about a year ago (long before the collector's edition was actually announced), which were sold out after only half an hour. So there I am.
How does that feel? In all openness, I feel screwed over, cheated upon, backstabbed, call it whatever you want. This is an outrageous sales trick that at least heavily skirts the boundaries of the contract they had.
Game Mania sold things to people without even knowing whether they'd even have that in the end, and blatantly covers up this whole operation now that they actually did get a Collector's Edition ensuring that nobody who decided to wait until the official unveiling of this is able to get what they want and deserve.
A pre-order or pre-purchase is in essence a reservation, so now we had to reserve a reservation? What will we have to do for, say, Guild Wars 3? Reserve our right to reserve a pre-order/pre-purchase/reservation?
Handling your customers like this is simply criminal. Game Mania has simply become a Maffia organisation to me. They get a deal, exploit it, and leave their customers with a bitter aftertaste while also leaving them dependant.

There is a very slight chance there'll be a restock of Collector's Editions tomorrow, and being a dedicated fan I have no choice but to go again (altough this time, my brother is going) and hope luck doesn't desert us.
This cannot possibly be the way ArenaNet wishes its fans to be treated. If any employee reads this, please take note and reflect.
Sincerely,
A fan.
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Go West!

1 min read
All right, I'll be more inactive than ever for the next few days.
I'm traveling to Seattle and Vancouver in the USA and Canada, and not taking my laptop with me.
There's 10 days of visiting only a few of the most awesome companies in the world in store.
EA, Microsoft, Digipen, Valve, Vancouver Film Studios, Gaspowered Games, Bungie, Nintendo, possibly Pixar and last but not least: Arenanet!
See you guys soon, and please keep the spam down ;)
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All right, pfew.
I just finished a huge school assignment, having to make a high resolution 3D model using 3Ds Max and Zbrush (deadline: next monday).
Mine was a woman in a rope bondage-like outfit, which is (I realise now) one of the hardest things you can imagine to do in 3D.
I already heard the game-over tune from Mass Effect in my mind when the teacher of 3D told me female bodies are about the hardest things you can do, and knots aren't that easy either (I cheated on the latter ones).
Something the design teachers who told us to make these characters first might have told us, what stuff's hard and what not.
Anyway, right now all that's left for me is doing a bit more of fixing up (smoothing some hard lines here and there) and all is done. I'm simply exhausted.
Screens will probably follow later.
Next thing: design a cartoon character! Yaaay! I'm 2 weeks behind on that assignment due to my concepts being refused up to now. Hope I'll come up with something before monday.

In other news, it has been a shower of games for me. First of all I finally got my Collector's Edition of Assassin's Creed Revelations (PC release was postponed 2 weeks, I hate you Ubisoft), and during a sale
I got myself Mirror's Edge, Fable: The Lost Chapters and Alice: Madness Returns for a friggin low price (how I sometimes love the PC. Games are 10 euros cheaper on average than on a console. Suck on that).
Shame I haven't been able to play a lot on them yet.

Anyway, now that the big jobs are slowly coming to an end, I might get more time. Who knows, maybe I'll post some new work here (Nuzlocke pages are on the list, I just hope my painting hasn't suffered like in my last hiatus).
Can't make any promises though, teachers are very fickle with us.
Now, let's have a game break for a small hour!
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All right, so this guy here thought he'd be rid of complicated programming for the next two years at least.
He was, sadly enough, mistaken.
Teachers thought it'd be fun to let us make a game in the Unity3D engine by the end of next week as an assignment.

Now for those who don't know anything about it: Unity3D is an engine that was developed with the designers in mind.
It was meant to be an easy to use, light engine with which games can be made even with unconventional programming language (read: the idiots included Javascript and C#, but forgot to implement the HANDY language that is considered THE language in professional studios video games: C++. Why? Since it grants more control on the matter and has a less retarded syntax)
One should be able to make simple, often-used game objects such as controllable characters, levels, platforms, interactive items etc. in no time.

The reality is this: one way or another I managed to make my objects ignore gravity and hit detection COMPLETELY just because of my code (which doesn't, for the record, include ANY line that's supposed to do that).
I have not the slightest clue about what could possibly go wrong (except if, very unrealisticly, the same code with the same variables is used for ALL instances of one object, thus making it that if one object doesn't hit, none of them do. This is impossibl since else my code would go rogue on other places that DO work as they should).
Worst of all, seems there's nobody that can clearly tell me what's going wrong. Most fora and documentation on Unity simply take their hit detections for granted (gravity is not such a big issue atm, so I ignore that for now) and assule that if you just add a certain component to your game objects EVERYTHING should be fine (which is not in my case).
Teachers didn't bother to provide thorough support (two of our teachers were slower than us figuring out the engine) or documentation for this assignment, and are of course all on holiday so they don't check their mailboxes for the next few days.

In short: I'm fucked. Even though the deadline is still relatively far away (one more week) there simply seems no way for me to deduce what exactly is going wrong or fixing it.
I have to get used to a completely new engine (which normally, according to some pro programmers, takes at least a full year) AND language (I can do some C++ since they thaught us last year. C# was considered the devil by my programming teacher of last year. Oh, the irony), and make a game out of it. They're asking someone who chose to specialise in VISUAL ARTS. Is it me, or are they retarded?


In other news: I know I hit 5000 views and that I said I'd do something to celebrate that. Screw it, atm I don't even have the time or mind to finish my artwork for school (which I really should do, but I simply can't get myself to it).
Yes, you won't see a lot of artwork from me in a while. My schoolwork for art just sucks in my own opinion (basically, create a character of a race the teachers provided. Sounded cool in the beginning, until they started imposing stupid and illogical restrictions), and working on free stuff atm is just asking for getting myself killed.
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Featured

So what's been going on? by YaVaho155, journal

Guild Wars 2 and its Maffia connections by YaVaho155, journal

Go West! by YaVaho155, journal

Ever worked so hard? by YaVaho155, journal

Headbanging against a computer screen by YaVaho155, journal