A story of how Baka grows old, eats too much pizza, acquires the holy grail AND the lost ark of his NEO-GEO collection, and almost dies! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO READ MORE!!!

Next: Part 1, In which Baka encounters the first plot twist.

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Hmm, let’s see here… What have I had going on?

Well, a couple posts ago, I talked about being burnt-out and needing some ‘me-time’. I ended up quitting my ‘job’. The conditions had changed dramatically. I went from holding up my end without killing myself, to there not being enough work that I was actually capable of doing (Because the senior staff joined the junior staff in taking all the easy and low-level support tickets) and me spending so much time trying and failing to meet my performance expectations that I was literally doing NOTHING ELSE with my time. So I just determined that it wasn’t worth it anymore. I basically took two weeks and just completely put it out of my head, and guess what? I GOT THINGS DONE! Not only that, but I got SO MUCH stuff done, that the benefits outweighed what I was getting from the job.

Anyway, still waiting on a couple replacement SRAM chips so I can fix the 1-slot NEO-GEO board I spoke of in a previous post. I was at least able to get my 4-slot board to boot; it used to just show a bunch of random garbage on the monitor… After looking it over like ten times, I finally noticed a missing capacitor. Replaced it, it worked…but there’s something wrong with the graphics still…

I also managed to rewire my standard JAMMA wiring harness with all the modular connectors that an MVS harness has, and make all the additional harnesses that hook up to it, so now I can swap my test rig (a.k.a. the UNCABINET) between single slot MVS boards (And any standard JAMMA arcade boards) and my multislot boards, by only swapping 6 connectors (1P and 2P controls, Video, Speakers, Power, Test/Service) instead of the 50+ connections I’d have to swap to completely switch harnesses. (Now both use the MVS harness’ control-panel harness through a pair of 15-pin connectors.)

I moved all my arcade stuff into a corner of the livingroom and took this picture before cleaning up and moving this bookcase into the corner. The state of my collection hasn’t changed much.

Yesterday, I was watching a free 2-hour web seminar on cartoon illustration and concept sketching… So of course, I couldn’t find my tablet stylus. (I actually managed to find it, after an hour, by bitching on IRC about it in the right channel….it was in front of the monitor)

So, some of you have heard me talking about the comic I’ve been writing. A story set in the cyberpunk universe of the Cyberpunk2020 pen and paper RPG. There’s actually a couple. There’s what has become the main focus, ‘Gaijin Samurai’. And then there’s the original story I was writing, which is more of a ‘movie’ to GS’s ‘long-running series’. This story is ‘Fool’s Errand’, and it was the backstory for the main characters that developed into Gaijin Samurai.

So, my standard intro…

The story takes place in a near future of armed warfare between multinational corporations and all sorts of other nastiness in a world gone sideways with more technology than it knows what to do with.

This is an excerpt from my script for a scene near the beginning of the story, just after events are set in motion, but before anyone knows what the hell is going on.

This particular scene I started writing around the end of 2007, though I finished it and polished it today. Parts of Fool’s Errand and Gaijin Samurai date to as far back as 2001.

–Updated!–
Added a quick glossary.

Updated again with a reference pic for the aerodyne!

Read more! »

We all know about my recent arcade kick. Well, I focused my attention on SNK’s NEO-GEO hardware. I’ve been collecting and collecting, and I have quite a bit of gear now. And great things are going to start happening soon.

There’s quite a bit of stuff, so I’m going to split this. More after the jump!

Read more! »

Yes, well. It turns out that writing what basically amounts to interactive anime porn is really embarrassing for anyone with so much as a single moral fiber left in their being. Apparently I qualify. I also might have alienated a few people who know me…

Of course, it may just be the fault of western culture in-general. *sigh* I blame the misfortune of my birth.

So yeah, I decided that, instead of trying to make Owaranai no Natsu just yet, I was going to make a short story. I had sort of had this idea for an ero doujinshi in my head, but it wasn’t fleshed-out…so to speak…

More on that later, as I’m not sure I’m ready to reveal it…so to speak…

Well, I haven’t attempted to make any further progress on the game prototype yet, as I’ve been concentrating mostly on the lack of art. I experimented with doing 3D characters and rendering them to 2D, and that’s still a possibility, but for the moment, I’m trying to level up my drawing skills as that would actually serve to accomplish more goals.

I did make quite some progress on the 3d modeling though.

First celshaded render of v0001 body.

Render of v0005 body.

More progress. / Another angle.

This is where I left off. / Celshaded version.

After running into problems time and time again modeling the arms and legs, and wrestling with the fact that my model was not stylized enough for my needs, I ripped some models from Illusion’s celshaded 3D eroge, Schoolmate, and decided to look at how they were put together. I started a new model using those proportions as a guide.

But then I got sidetracked with drawing. As most of you know, I went ahead and dropped a king’s ransom on an Intuos3 Special Edition 9x12 tablet… I would have liked to have gotten a Cintiq, but I like my organs more.

Anyway, I cleaned up my desk a little to make room…which also allowed me to finally put my other 19″ LCD back into service. I no longer have a workspace, I now have a…PWNSPACE!

Wacom’s Intuos3 Grip Pen is quickly becoming one of my favorite writing implements, just behind my Rotring 600 series mechanical pencil. Hopefully I’ll have something to post before the weekend is over. I find I am steadily improving, if only from ’shit’ to ‘crap’ so far.

Well, I’ve been doing a lot of stuff… Of course, most of you can’t tell because I seem to be asleep or just waking up most of the time. I’ve gotten into a sort of a cycle… Get up. Have something to eat. Get down to work. Work until I start getting really tired, go lie down and play Disgaea on my PSP until I can’t keep my eyes open, sleep. Rinse and repeat.

The problem is, this cycle doesn’t have an exact period or duration… Anyway, enough about that…

As some of you may know, I’ve written a story called ‘Owaranai no Natsu’, but having no drawing ability, I was unable to make a manga like I’d wanted to. Time and time again I’ve hit upon the idea of modeling characters in 3D and going from there… I’m very good with Lightwave Modeler, but cannot model organics for the life of me…

Putting all that aside, I started looking at other aspects of this whole thing… Like how to tell the story. I came up with the idea of doing a Visual Novel. After searching around a bit, I found Ren’Py (A portmanteau of Ren’Ai and Python) a Visual Novel / Ren’Ai / Eroge engine built on the Python programming language.

From the website, it looked difficult to write for. After downloading it and trying for myself, it made a lot of sense and was very easy to get a handle on. (As evidenced by the fact that I of all people can write for it.) I made a little test program to learn basic functionality. (The character artwork is a downloadable from the Blade Engine website.)

But again came the question of art… Just what was I going to do?

-UPDATE-

I’ve updated the test program. I’m going to try and keep this post current with new releases. Though I will probably move this to a dedicated post after a couple more revisions.

Latest version

Version History

v0.0005 - First public release.

v0.0006 - Added character portraits, progressive text display, and Click-to-Continue indicator. :D

So, a recent alliance between the GPMoD and a secret society that stands against evil in all its forms (Especially stupidity) Has spawned the idea of doing a 2D fighting game with characters based on our online personas and our respective communities’ in-jokes. I’ll have more to say about this project at a later date.

I really need to catch up on my anime… I haven’t finished Minami-ke or Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei, and now Minami-ke Okawari! and Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei are airing… Gundam 00 still sucks. Code Geass doesn’t return until April. The only thing I’m staying current on is Kaiji. I’ve been watching Triad’s subs with my father. He really liked Akagi… Kaiji doesn’t seem to appeal to him as much, but he still likes it.

Also, Evangelion 1.0 is the greatest thing to ever happen to the franchise, and perhaps anime in-general…but I’ll talk more about that in another post. (I swear to fucking GOD, I want to go to Japan just to SEE it in the theater!) It doesn’t come out on DVD and Blu-ray until late April… I have plans to make that my first hi-def purchase… And then I will write a fansub script for it. One that is in no way based on the original US translations… A completely new reinterpretation of the dialogue based on intense study of the background and mythos of Shin Seiki Evangelion, (This from someone who named their computers ZEROGOKI, SHOGOKI, and NIGOKI, on workgroup EVANGELION, hooked up with Blue, Purple, and Red ethernet cables…) and conforming to an ideal of ‘accurate translation at any cost’. People don’t know what the fuck is going on? Tough shit, you obviously don’t know something that you’re SUPPOSED to know. Read a fucking book.

I am serious about this. I am sick of all these half-assed translations on OFFICIAL DVDS, and ADVs crap releases. I am going to do this, and deliver them the goddamn script with the warning that if they alienate the intended demographic for EVA 1.0 with a shit sub, there is little doubt they will lose 90% of all sales of the movie to hi-def rips of it on bittorrent. They need to learn once and for all.

    GOD’S IN
    HIS HEAVEN
    ALL’S RIGHT
    WITH THE WORLD

So, back in September I talked about the Baka’cade project, and the controller I had made. I still haven’t gotten it into a real housing yet, and that sort of irks me… But I’ll get it sorted out eventually.

I’ve had a small surplus of money that’s been burning a hole in my paypal account, and I’ve been itching for something to do with it… I finally settled on taking the next step with the arcade project.

I revisited GroovyGameGear.com and picked up the parts needed for the 2P controls. As well as some T-Molding and other items. Only came to $43 shipped. One of the ‘other items’ was some custom made leaf switch units that are drop-in replacements for the standard microswitch package that is used in most arcade buttons. Leaf switches have a couple advantages such as less activation travel and reset travel, less resistance, no click, smooth operation, faster response times, etc. These things sound really cool, and they’re custom made by Ithaca Digital Visual Technologies (The name of the company behind GroovyGameGear), so I just had to try them out! I bought three of them, to replace the ‘punch’ row of my controller setup. (Since I use Ibuki, my most critical moves depend on the punch buttons!) If they’re all they’re cracked up to be, they’re definitely replacing everything except the player start buttons. (Wonder if I can use them on the joysticks…)

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So a couple weeks ago, I got the urge to play some good ol’ fighting games. Not just on my PS2 or something, mind you… Real arcade fighters. So I broke out MAME and got my hands on some ROMs… It was fun, but something was missing… I was playing them with a Dual-Shock2, which wasn’t really suited to the task.

I saw an arcade controller on Play-Asia a while back, and it got me thinking…

I mean, I know people have built their own upright cabinets to play MAME, and there’s plenty of commercial solutions out there… How much would it cost to build something like that? It turns out, not much. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

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