winter | enthusiasm | windy tales | mapmaking

the cold brings out so much positivity in me.
autumn is my season being born in april, and growing up in melbourne means long winters and relatively short summers (thank god). i have so much more of a sense of atmosphere about winter, whereas summer i tend to remember heat and its amazing ability to incapacitate anyone at any time of day or night. i’m naturally warm blooded so the cold rarely worries me – it never disturbs my sleep. the only time i need a heater is in the morning first thing as i wake.

in any case, the cold brings enthusiasm, but more than that, though less credit lies in the cold, fantastic changes are taking place in my mind and spirit. i never want to stop learning, but just when you think you’ve had a big dose of learning and things seem to slow down a little, another fantastic opportunity presents itself. with Laura i am learning unbelievably more things about myself, about her, about love and life and people. she is showing me so many things about my self, directly and indirectly, and i feel so alive to be learning so much. it might be frightening, and really really big, but i’m still excited and really keen to see as much as i possibly can.

last notes – i’ve downloaded shiloh’s april and may mixes from hybridized.org – haven’t had a chance to listen to may, but the april mix so far is fantastic.

other recent downloads are the first five fansubbed eps of windy tales from production IG – watched the first ep with chibi-r tonight, and it’s absolutely brilliant. if it carries itself well, i can see myself ranking it with the likes of haibane renmei or chobits. it’s a wonderfully warm anime, with a striking visual style, and warm atmospheric music. i can’t wait to see the entire series.

mapmaking in timesplitters 3 (future perfect) has invaded my brain so that after a good session of working, it still lives in my head for the next hour when i’m TRYING TO GO TO SLEEP. i think it’s getting to the point where i have an unconscious awareness of how much space each item will take up in the free memory alotment meter. the small freedoms the third generation editor has afforded actually open up a whole new dynamic which i’ve only just begun to explore. when i first acquired ts3, i worked on a simple map to learn a few things, but the map i’m creating now is only the second to that, and it’s taking me quite some time to finish it. i think the tiles and items are about right, the only thing i have left to is the lighting.
i’m enjoying mapmaking so much, when i’m not mapmaking i’m thinking of tiles and how to be creative with them. after seeing some footage of pariah’s mapmaker, i have serious doubts whether it will be anywhere near as good. sure, the maps are outdoors, but they seem featureless unless you spend valuable memory space on objects. how on earth will i construct my ninja scroll wooded hunting ground then? i hope trees don’t cost too much memory… though it seems they don’t have many structures to place in the map either. perhaps i’ll have to get creative with fog… either way i’m going to have to rent it first before i buy it. i almost couldn’t care less about the single player campaign except that it’s co-op which appeals to me greatly.

hmmm – windy tales really is good – it’s kicking out the maps from my brain…