Macro Man Jr. Blog

Where You Been, MMJ?!

2011-08-30T15:48:00.002-04:00

Well, long story short--for the past two months, I've been looking for a new apartment in a certain region in New York with no success...aaaaand tomorrow's my last day with my current apartment's lease. And I'm living on less than $1000 until the next available pay period way at the end of September. Yeah... Going through a bit of a hard time, but I'm not worried. My situation could be worse, and I have confidence that things will work out soon.

Meanwhile, I've been running this effort on the side called Operation Moogle, and if you're a gamer, I urge you to check it out. Even if you're not a Final Fantasy fan, we're on the forefront of staring something new in the gaming industry--a possible new era where game developers actually ask for the gamers' voice towards developing a game.

A bit of good new is that I'm starting active development with my first indie game title. I'll need a new computer soon, though, but first, I'll need to find a new apartment before I can get a new computer. And I don't want to reveal too much about it at the moment, but as I have revealed before that it an RPG title of Japanese style, I'll further add that it will feature a third-person shooter battling engine and will be developed using the Unity game engine.

Oh, and I'm still working on my software idea, too. But I'm still holding on revealing details about it for now--it's a really good idea, and I think it'll double the 3D modeler's workflow, but I don't want anyone beating me to the punch. I want the credit of being the guy who invented it. Maybe they'll erect statues in my honor. Hehehe.

As a quick announcement--check out my new MMJ Favorites page here on this blog. I just put that up today.

Anyways, that's what's been going on. By the way, I've been thinking that the white text on black background might be a bit harsh on the eyes, so I'm trying out this softer light blue color. What do you think of it--do you like it better or not? Any suggestions, if you don't? I'd appreciate your feedback on this. Keep exploring!

- Brian

>> Be about others, and you will never be bored. <<

New Video from ctrl+Paint: The Power of Line Weight

2011-08-30T14:10:00.003-04:00

I recommend...that whole website, actually. But here is a link of Matt Kohr's latest video on ctrl+Paint.

Click here: ctrl+Paint: The Power of Line Weight

INKLING BY WACOM

2011-08-30T11:03:00.000-04:00

Be about others, and you will never be bored.

Okay, Update: Life is changing on me fast!

2011-06-22T08:39:00.002-04:00

Okay, here's a quick update on me. I'm moving to New York in September, I've got to work my butt off the find a new apartment soon (because the lease to this current apartment is over on September 1), and this has been taking a lot of my time. I've been so tired lately, staying up night after night working on this move and managing time for my projects. I also got very sick during the last two weeks, so that's slowed me down a lot, too. I was high with horrible headache pains for days, and though I'm much better now, I've still got a lingering cough with me.

Man, I was away from this blog WAY too long--longer than I attended. There's some gallery updates I need to do later. (Later because I need sleep right now!) And I've had to scrap my sharetorial video because halfway through recording videos with the screen capture recorder I was using, the video would get all messed up and the audio goes off-sync. When I settle down from this moving situation, and when I get my new computer pretty soon (a significantly more powerful computer than this computer I'm using), I will definitely give the sharetorial another shot. (And I'll probably break down an buy Camtasia, because the free ones don't seem to do the job well enough!)

One thing I am very excited for is working hard towards acquiring a developer's kit from Nintendo. That is a part of my plan as an indie game developer. The Wii U next year will launch next year, and I'd like to get to work on my long-awaited game idea as soon as possible. This console is a dream come true for my main game ideas! And it's been my dream to develop a game for Nintendo since I was about 15. I'm going to try to develop my games for the Wii U because I have ideas I'd like to do before someone else does something like them but don't do it as well as I plan to do it! I have some killer ideas that I want to deliver as soon as possible! I haven't been this excited for a console in a long time! I also have plans for a Nintendo 3DS game.

Anyways, I'm going to stop making deadlines for updating my blog, since I never seem to keep up with doing that. So just know that I want to come back to update my gallery, post another Post talking about my other websites in production, and give some news about my open-source program. I just need to sleep! And take care of other stuff concerning my moving situation.

Oh, and thanks for the 700 views so far! I promise you, folks (esp. those who return to this page periodically), that I'm going to make make the waiting of my various "projects" worth while! You'll see! I want to include you in my process in going about some of these ventures. I'll reveal more soon enough!

So I'll talk to you later. Keep explorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...[Writer falls asleep at the keyboard]

- Brian

>> Be about others, and you will never be bored. <<

Just a little bit longer, folks, but check this out in the meanwhile...

2011-05-16T17:13:00.007-04:00

Hey, guys! Oy--sorry about the delay! Ran into a few personal issues, and freeing up time has been crazy for me lately, but I'm back and running. Anyways, I don't have much here to report just yet, but I did update my Downloads and Sharetorials pages a bit, and you can check out my uploaded Blender theme if you'd like. I call the theme "Dream Blue" and I designed it specifically for my desire for a Blender color scheme that uses other colors than the dark gray scheme (which I think most 3D packages employ way too much these days). This is just one of many themes I plan to design. I want to keep them vivid and engaging, all while still being easy on the eyes. Blue is one of my favorite colors, and is known to produce a calming and refreshing effect (and trust me--I need that!), so I used shades of blue together that relax me but don't make me sleepy. I think it kinda looks like Daphne Blake's clothing motif from Scooby Doo a little.

I'm putting a lot of time in my videos, and I'm making more than one. I had some issues with my screencasting software--like finding a free one that doesn't bug out on me!--but I think I've found a solution. I am also working on a few scripts ideas for Blender add-ons, and these are some pretty neat ideas for add-ons that I'm working on, if I do say so myself. And I'm still brainstorming some ideas for my software in development, which I promise you'll like if I can complete the thing. Sorry I've been keeping any of you waiting, but I'm balancing a lot of things right now, so I hope this little bit of news shows some indication to you all that I'm working hard on my projects and will hold you just a little while longer. Though, I must say, besides my coming work, there are a lot of things that I'm anticipating in the coming months that have got me really excited.

I'm looking forward to the release of Blender 2.58 coming next month on June 7. I'm looking forward to end results of the various Google Summer of Code 2011 projects being done with Blender and Gimp. I'm also looking forward to E3 2011, for news on upcoming releases for the Nintendo 3DS (which I'm just dying to develop some games for) and undoubtedly the event that will steal the show at E3 this year, "Project Café" (which, in case you haven't heard over the last few months, is the codename for Nintendo's next console, and Nintendo's really kicking butt and taking names with this one). I've been following this project almost since day 1, and have been following the hints from Nintendo previous to this project's announcement, and I'm so glad to finally see some confirmations on this project, and that Nintendo will officially spill the beans about it at E3 this year. (And Nintendo will be the first to present their baby, much to Sony and Microsoft's dismay!)

Some thing have been announced already, like the fact that the "Project Café" will debut sometime in Spring 2012, they're really pushing strong third-party support, and that the console will feature a revolutionary controller, but Nintendo is being careful not to have many leaks about their product. But what they have revealed about the console, and what some rather third-party game developers and popular sources have been leaking and rumoring about the next-gen console from Nintendo, has me sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for Nintendo's official revealing at E3. I'll just say this: as a lifelong Nintendo fan, I haven't been this excited about a Nintendo home console in a while! You can trust this guy David Turnbull on his news, updates and discussing rumors about the Nintendo 3DS and "Project Café" (which, reportedly, many are tentatively calling the "Nintendo Stream" due to the console's special "streaming" controller scheme). In fact, I recommend that you "Subscribe" to everything this guy David has to offer, if you care about this kind of stuff! When E3 comes next month, there's gonna be a whole lot of awesome stuff to pique your interested throughout all this and next year (if you're a gamer)! [giddy squeal]

Anyways, that'll do it for this one. Be sure to Ctrl-click my links in this post and check them out. I'll be back with more stuff pretty soon. Later, and keep exploring!

- Brian

>> Be about others, and you will never be bored. <<

CORRECTION: I meant to say that the E3 show was on June 7, not the release of Blender 2.58. That was a backspace error I forgot to fix when rearranging the sentences.

A site I like and some updates on me

2011-04-03T12:59:00.004-04:00

Hey, y'all. Sorry it's been a while (to anyone out there actually waiting to see stuff from me, if any). I've been doing a lot of digital clean-up on my computer. I was down to about 100 MB on my computer's hard drive, and I couldn't really go further on some of my stuff until I cleared enough space! It took me almost two whole weeks to do, from all the searching and sorting and organizing through over 650 GB worth of junk between my computer's 150GB HDD and my external 500GB MyBook HDD, and it was tougher than I thought it'd be, but I managed to clear over 20GB! I just burned a lot of crap onto double-layered DVD+R discs and now I can finally get back to finishing my first sharetorial video soon and just save some more work in general.

Anyways, that's what I've been doing. I don't like to make definite plans, as I can never seem to keep them, but I will say that I plan to show more of what I'm working on this week. I've been a busy guy, but delightfully so! Last week I finished an overall story for a game, and I actually like it! It's an indie dev game, an RPG of Japanese style, and as soon as I get some actual character concepts down in illustration form, I'll share it. It's a relatively small project to start my other projects, and I plan to invite other developers to help me develop it! What fun! But I'm still working on my webcomic Kung Fu Space Cowboy as well, as now I'm fighting with a change in both story and art direction, so now I'm back to square one! While I want to keep a comedic element to the story, I also want to keep an action element to the story, too, so that it's hilarious half the time, and awesome the other half of the time. I want people to look at the webcomic and laugh at the ridiculous title, but also say, "Hey, KFSC kicks serious butt!" I dropped the love-story element. I was originally going to include, so now the plot has kinda changed and my vision of the art style with it.

While I'm here, I just want to give a little attention to a site that perhaps some manga art lovers like me would like to visit. The website site is called Dreamchaser, and it's by a professional manga artist named Marlon currently living in Japan (if I'm not mistaken), though originally from the Netherlands. She's very good, and I like her style (she illustrates in many styles). I got wind of her work through her YouTube videos under her name bluemonika, as she makes (relaxing) videos where you can watch her draw. I'm pretty sure sje has a deviantART account as well. Anyways, I like to promote other people that I like, like I did Feng Zhu and his YouTube videos a while back, so check her out sometimes.

Well, that's all for the moment. Keep exploring!

- Brian

>>Be about others, and you will never be bored.<<

Gallery Update

2011-03-22T16:50:00.002-04:00

New pics in the Gallery. I should have some more posted there today. When I'm done with this character, he'll be a sleazy character, I think rather fishlike, and I'll post up his textures and model for download and stuff. Maybe I'll animate him or something. Laters.

Just An Update: New MediaFire account and gallery page soon

2011-03-10T09:40:00.001-05:00

I've got a new MediaFire account, which is good because it will allow me to share rather sizable downloads with anyone. In the future, this will come in handy when I make links to any available software builds from project I'm working on. At the moment, I'm working on just one of my ideas which is currently just in concept stage of development. I won't give too much away, but it's a software that many 3D artists are going to appreciate, a real time-saving and fun-to-use aid for the 3D modeler that especially keeps Blender in mind but will be handy for 3D artists any 3D package, and it will be free. I'm looking forward to charting that adventure soon enough, and I'll be using Ohloh to chart development in addition to adding posts here once I begin some programming.

I'm still working on that stuff I posted last post about working on. I will put the .blend files of my finished 3D vehicle concept models here, and post new pictures in a new gallery page I'm adding to this blog. Though, I don't like to give away stuff in early development, I'm getting closer to completion on some character designs for my Kung Fu Space Cowboy webcomic. I'm also getting some ideas for the first season of story for it. I want this to be an action comedy, strange yet stylish, an adventure with even a dash of romantic element. Despite the inanity of the storyline and purposely simple title, I'm working on making this brilliantly executed with the art direction.

Anyways, that all for this post. Keep exploring!

- Brian

>>Be about others, and you will never be bored.<<

More Stuff Coming...

2011-02-15T17:00:00.002-05:00

I have some stuff that I'll be posting up soon. Primarily, I want to post up a tutorial on perspective, some time-lapse illustrations videos, some early concept designs of characters for my comedic action webcomic, Kung Fu Space Cowboy, and I want to post some shots of some 3D vehicle designs, which I will render them quite photorealistically and do some post-production to them. I'm working on a lot of different projects right now, and I'll be keeping this blog very busy pretty soon. Keep your eyes peeled for stuff coming from me.

Also, if you're into concept art, check out these series of videos on YouTube produced by an expert in the industry, Feng Zhu, who has contributed to the industry for more than 11 years, and has worked on films like Transformers, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Tron: Legacy, and on such games as Command & Conquer III, Dead Space, and The Lord of the Rings Online. He is the founder and director of FZD School of Design, and co-founder of Possibility Space, Inc. and Gamma Ray Studios. In other words, he REALLY knows his stuff. He created the first industrial design DVDs for The Gnomon Workshop, and has been teaching at his school since he founded it two years ago. He releases free lessons and tips on some of the basics of industrial design (concept art and design for films and games) on YouTube under the channel name FDZSCHOOL, available for both his students and other YouTube watchers, and they're all just so top notch. In these videos, Feng is casual and easy to understand and yet professional and knowledgeable. I highly recommend them, and encourage you to subscribe to their YouTube channel. Just thought I'd give him a shout-out. I'm a big fan of his work, and have learned a lot from him.

I also want to mention that I will also be looking into designing a software project I've been wanting to do a long time. I won't give it away yet, because I prefer to work in secret first and then show my progress, but it'll be a wonderful piece of software that I plan to make free and open-source. It's a 3D graphics-related program, and I'm just working hard to get some more time and money to begin it. But in the meantime, I'll be using this time to organize and weigh my ideas for it, and really just have arranged for it a good layout of what I want to do and how I will achieve it. I'll keep you informed about it.

Well, thanks for reading yet another post from me. Keep exploring!

- Brian

>>Be about others, and you will never be bored.<<

Hi! Welcome to MMJB! (See, I've got an acronym already!)

2011-02-03T11:38:00.000-05:00

Hi! Welcome to my blog! Let me introduce myself a bit. My name is Brian Lockett, and I do computer graphics, among other things. I'm constantly exploring something new, and love developing new interests daily. I would love to travel Australia, Japan, Ireland, Switzerland, Alaska, and Spain someday, and live in New Zealand. I love other things like classical movies, foods from around the world, the Universe, and all things Japan. I love music, play some guitar and piano, and though I like practically any genre, my top favorites are classical music, rock music, jazz music and folk music. I don't like to make definite plans, but I do like to strive for aims. Some would call me an autodidact, but I say, no one really teaches themselves. I view that all we do is explore, explore with our own perspectives about the universe around us and share in people's explorations of it in talking, books, film, music, etc. We're all explorers, the emotional computers built to relate to the universe around us and with each other. Everybody is like a traveling vessel and every life an exploration. We're like a network of emotional computers linked together by curiosity and communication--or at least, we should be. I aim to be a better person, because I enjoy excellent character and want to showcase such character.

Now to share some of the tools I use in my production. I use Blender 2.56a, though when I want to use an external renderer like YafaRay, I use Blender 2.49b. Some other software I use are MyPaint, Inkscape, and Photoshop CS4, though I do use GIMP 2.6 sometimes. I use a Wacom Intuos4 graphics tablet, though sometimes I scan pencil drawings as well. I use an Asus notebook computer with Windows XP and an old Dell LCD monitor as a second monitor. When I'm coding, I use Notepad++, and the programming languages I like most are Python, C/C++, VBScript and the web languages of HTML 4.01/CSS 2.1/JavaScript. When I'm writing and organizing storyboards, I use Celtx. My browsers of choice are Google Chrome and Firefox, though I use Chrome more. I love to support FOSS software (that's "free and open-source software), and I would love to contribute to one soon.

I'm working on a few projects, one of them being a webcomic I'm working on. I won't give anything away about it here, but I'll post something about it soon. I am get very excited when it comes to being able to create things, and there's nothing more I love to do than create and share my creations. I also love to go exploring other people's worlds and be a fan of what they may create. I want to make stories that are very complex but held together by simple binding principles. I love intricate artwork that creates a living breathing atmosphere, and characters that are not so predictable but feel like real individuals. I love simplicity, as I love to simplify complexities, which I hope to do in my stories--simplify the complexities down to a defining moment that captivates the individuals reading my stuff. I love character, and I want my work rich with character, rendered with quality.

Anyways, I wanted to keep this short, so I'll stick to doing that. I thank you for reading this, and I hope enjoy my company! If you're into art, too, give me a holler! And if you like me so far, I hope you subscribe! I hope you have a good day! And keep exploring!

- Brian

>>Be about others, and you will never be bored.<<