“Look, technology is not the problem here. Thinking of male characters as “default” and female characters as “extra” is the problem, as is a history of poor representation in games meaning there are fewer existing assets that can be reused. You fix that by recognising that it’s not a tech issue. You fix it with planning, with remedial work so that you have as many stock female assets as stock male ones, with processes that don’t place the ability to fiddle with a character’s weapon loadout ahead of their gender. You can’t fix that with polygons. You fix that with people.”
Mary Hamilton
A proper go.
I’m taking courage and inspiration from Mary Hamilton’s Blogging Principles and giving this thing a proper go. Just 10 years to late, s’all.
Firstly, my employer BDH has posted a new showreel of our work. It’s less heavy on the natural history this time. There’s a few peaks at the animations we created for the forthcoming BBC documentary “War of the Words: Poets of the Somme” and quick shot of a digital enhancement of my beautiful beautiful face (keep ’em peeled for that).
Friend, fiend and colleague, Tim Willmott started a Facebook page for his zany visual experiments, it’s called The Secret Stuff Laboratory. You should like (follow?) it. Mine too, while you’re at it.
I bought this track of off Bandcamp by The Parlour Trick, a musical collaboration between Meredith Yayanos (aka @Theremina) and Dan Cantrell. They do fantastic dreamy music, it makes me want to animate stuff to it.
I had a half day at work because the plumber was coming round. He finished early so I had a spare 2 hours, so I bit the daffodils and saw the new Godzilla movie. I was going to wait for the DVD release after the traumatic experienece of 1998, but I couldn’t stand the idea of everyone else seeing it whilst I sat grumpy in the corner. The craft and CG is amazing (obvs). I don’t really want to give it a full review because I don’t like spoilers.
If anyone can do anything half as good as this with the property, then give me a call.
I might give that Pacific Rim a go soon.
Ok, that’s that for now, I clicked all the buttons so this’ll get pinged to all the platforms, that’s what you do these days isn’t it?
Every player is an author
“Storytelling in a game is not a broadcast act with a teller and a receiver. It’s an act of authorship that’s incomplete until it’s played.”
“I wrote this, it was difficult, and I am proud of it”
“At 15, in an adult ward on constant observation, at lunch I hid a metal knife up my sleeve. I carried it around for a time waiting not to be watched in the bathroom, the toilet, the shower; a flat metal bar against the tendons on the inside of my right wrist. At 23 I was Altair, an assassin with a blade strapped hidden to my arm, springloaded. I hid from the guards. I took wound after wound but did not stop fighting. I regenerated. I lept wildly from towers and did not die. In real life I moved out of the house I shared with my boyfriend, had shared for more than a year, to sleep on the sofas of friends. I snuck back in to take my Xbox 360 so I could carry on climbing impossible buildings to gain new sight and falling from great heights and landing safely, while I jumped from a long relationship into a new house, a new job, a new life.”
(website)
Paul Greer 