Tag Archives: thyilos

Trying to break my chains

Sticking to the title right there, I’m literally doing exactly what it says. I’m trying to break my habit right now of being lazy. Seems since my laptop broke down, I lost all work motivation and albeit, slipped into a bit of depression. So lately all I’ve been doing is aimlessly browsing the net, and trying to find actual work so I can get some money on my plate. Which isn’t entirely a bad thing, since finding a job is important; but my old hobbies were once my dream to be my job, and I can’t just forget about them.

Truthfully, I feel very guilty about my lack of work ethic, so over the last month I’ve been forcing myself to do a little bit at on something, but each time I do start I only get a little bit done and then get distracted by something else. But I’m going to change that right now! It’s time to go back to %100 focus. Normal sleeping hours, normal waking hours, and I think I’ll kick my caffeine addiction and drink more tea instead to limit myself. Then i can go back to posting updates here, rather than feeling like its pointless because there’s nothing to post an update about (which is kinda ironic since over on LucidFlame it’s me who was always telling the others they should post updates on their work regardless of how small it was, just so the readers know what’s going down. Talk about a taste of ones own medicine).

So, to conclude this, here is some stuff I DID manage to do in the last… I think it’s been two months now. >_<

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RunicGriphonCharm
RunicShield

Both these designs I’d created for a Role play narrative I’ve been taking a part in. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that a person who loves writing would take part in an RP. I think they’re quite good ways to improve ones writing skills since you’ve gotta adapt on your feet to keep canon to the narrative and characters present, whilst others do the same, sometimes at the same time you are. Always fun to have to edit your last post due to another posting right you were. πŸ˜›

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Collage of Kingdom banners link~
This is a large one, so rather than clog up everything here, I’ll just link it back to my DeviantArt page.
The image is a collage of the kingdom banner designs I’d bee working on while my laptop was dead, which I recall in a prior post over a month ago, I said I’d upload… better late than never?
I haven’t done enough with the full vector version of these, however, to warrant uploading those just yet, but I will hopefully do so soon.

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That’s it from the work I do have to put up on display. Aside from these, Legonds from Thyilos has still been progressing, slowly. I’ve lacked motivation for doing actual work on it, so I’ve instead been doing other written pieces associated with its lore. One of the bigger pieces is a written journal by a rather important figure-head in the series, called Rein. I was thinking of doing a biography of him, but when I truly considered it, and the man Rein does become, a biography became impossible!
There is not a single sole alive throughout Thyilos or any other dimension who would ever be able to get close enough to actually interview Rein.

So instead, his background is narrated through him by way of a journal. It starts off when he is only ten, and goes on from there. I’ve got some ideas in my mind about twists and such that could be precursors to the man he becomes today, but I’m still a while off from there. It’s a bit of a challenge though to write this journal though. mainly because even though he’s from a wealthy family and has the proper education, he’s young. So I’m having to write as a young boy would, not as I would write today. it’s all a part of showing his growth.

Another key reason for doing a journal instead, which I thought was rather a good plan, is that if Rein were to still keep journals to the current date, then that would show his human side. Even though he is current meant to be a mad, near-inhuman monstrosity whose selfish ambition is to annihilate and control the world as the one dominate ruler. He is still a human, somewhere… really deep down… Maybe inside that black void of a soul he has? Who knows. But if it exists, and it might, even if just a teeeeeeny bit. It’d be noticeable in his journals. Which, unlike getting a biography. It’s possible to steal Rein’s things, provided someone were able to somehow get inside his dark castle and do so.

Before I depart once more, hopefully this time not for more than a week, I’d like to announce a new member to the LfT production team. A good friend of mine, David R, has agreed to being the games musician, and he’s already presented his first piece of work; a remix of the default theme I’d been using for the games title screen. I’ve high hopes for this partnership, and am elated to have the chance to see someone create music to fit the narrative.
Depending how things progress, me or he, my put up the audio examples for people to hear.

That’s all from me folks. Hope you’re having a good start to the week!

~Shea


Back in action!

After a not so much to plan 3 months, I’ve finally gotten a hold of a tasty new computer! It put up a bit of a struggle when there were some hiccups with getting it installed and configured right, but its now going at full power and ready to take on all the bits and pieces of work I’ve had on hold for way too long!

That said, I’ve still got another day before I can actually jump into any major work, because it’s still taking a good day to transfer over files from my external that were recovered from my ex-laptop; along with getting necessary programs and such installed and updated, etc.

I am jumping back into working of Legends of Thyilos, a game which was meant to have a Beta Demo 6.2 released, quite coincidentally, the night after my laptop ceased all function. The 3 month over-due patch release will hopefully go up tomorrow night (Friday), and then with all major bugs having been taken care of, I can set sail for the Full Demo release sometime later. My estimate was July 31st, but I’m not all too confident I can make that date due to other projects; ie Within 10 Minutes tutorials and getting back into a routine of making animations in After Effects and the like.
So the Demo will probably go up in two months from the Beta 6.2. Enough time for myself to tackle it head-on and get some major features fully implemented! I’m pretty ecstatic about it!

There’s some bits of work I’ll be scanning onto the computer in the coming days, and then finishing them up in Illustrator and Photoshop. I might stick up the sketches on here, but since they’re all game project related, I might slip them onto the Lucid Flame site instead; but I’ll be sure to link back here.

As for my novels, I’ll be trying to get back to them. I never did manage to get anything done on them, both to a lack of motivation, looking for work, and constant house-work and renovations going on. But its something I will not let slip into back of my folders. Eventually I’ll return to working on UNTITLED, and I’ll also pop out the lost final chapter for Samurai 2020.

While I’m rambling about novels though, I’ve concluded that the Thyilosian Lore book I was working on is not going to work out, as the knowledge specified would not fit into the current time and perspective. So the book will be broken into a series of different books. The current Thyilosian Lore will be a collective knowledge of the world so far, excluding any knowledge about the “Shroud”, a impassible barrier which is meant to have a whole kingdom within it.
The next will be inside the Shroud, and be a collection of knowledge from that, and I’ll work on this when the games relating to within the Shroud commence.
The third is a Biography of Rein; an evil tyrant who caused the utter damnation of part of the Kingdom of Zanzibar, and launch a genocidal campaign. The bio will give a look into the region he reigns over both before and after, and also shed light into the mad mans min.
The last book, will be like a lost tome written by the Ancient Immortals when they still existed. it’ll contain their own personal history and be more like a log book of key events and such. It’ll go as far as up to the Calamity, when the Immortals disappeared.

It'[s going to be a lot of work to get these done, but thankfully I have good friend willing to proof read and tell me where I screw up so that each book works!

I’ll be going back to regular postings soon, and I might put up my new computers specs later just for a random post. It should be able to tackle some intense 3d, but my real test is going to be going into Minecraft, a Java-based mining/exploration.adventure/sandbox/building game you may or may not have heard of. And seeing how big a cubeic stack of TNT I can detonate at once before the game completely crashes. A friend of mine could manage 100×100, and he has a pretty powerful laptop. I’m hoping my machine can hit 200×200!

Wish me luck with that little “stress test”, and a warm hello to all of you. its great to finally be back to routine. πŸ™‚

~Shea


A momentary return!

*POOOOFF!!*
That was the sound of me appearing through a cloud of smoke wearing a ninja costume! Because I am apparently like the wind and can do awesome ninja stuff like that.

I’ve stolen away the computer at a friends in order to drop by onto here while I hurriedly check the accumulation of emails from around four weeks! But I didn’t just slip onto here to describe myself being a ninja, I slipped along in order to announce that the previous delay for when I can get a new computer is a lot closer than originally thought! It’s just a simple matter of saving up the last few hundred, then getting together some brain trust to find parts to build a new computer! Preferably something that can render out in 1920×1080 HD 3d models with lots of lovely delicious details on it, and 3d modelling is a definant to return to! Especially since I keep getting notifications about people subscribing to the Studio Wisp Youtube page, in which I am certain are mostly there for the 3d Tutorials that were put on Hiatus when my laptop lost the ability to do anything involving OpenGL.

I have other great news though! When I was getting information extracted from my laptop, things were taking a WHOLE lot longer than expected. Turns out the drive had seriously done itself over. Only a few tiny scraps actually made it over from Drive C, nothing really useful. But to my great relief, Drive D, though slow, did eventually transfer its files over, and Drive D is exactly where the Project Files are stored, namely Legends from Thyilos, which means as soon as I can get a new computer that project will be right back on the go. A Beta 6.2, meant to have gone out literally the day after my laptop died, will be finished and uploaded as soon as possible in order to take care of the bugs I knew about, and some bugs others have come across.

On he topic of game projects, the LF team might be announcing another little project soon too. I might have mentioned it already here, or perhaps just on the Dev team site. But it’s seen some progress, and though we may not yet be able to start on its actually development, there could be some little illustrations to get the juices going in anticipation for its call to go!

I think that’s all the news I have. The house, since the floods last November, is finally being put back together. The flooring in the lounge-room and kitchen is first, then the hallway and bedrooms. Once they’re in, the new furniture can come in, and if I’m really lucky, the computer will follow shortly after. It feels good to know the house will be back to normal. The winter mornings have been quite chilly, and having no curtains or carpet has rendered the heaters a little useless as the house can’t hold much heat.

Ah, one other thing before I disappear again. I’ll be helping out a friend with a short film he’s doing for his Uni course. I’ll be playing the role of an Ice Mage! Should be good fun. If he does happen to upload the film at some point in the future, I’ll be sure to link it up. He’s going to be some tasty VFX and from our conspiring last night when he showed me the script, some crafty cinematography too. It’d be interesting to see if any of those tricks are picked up on.

That’s all for now, I must be off! Up, UP, AND AWAAAYY!!! (yes, ninja;s can fly now)

~Shea πŸ˜›


A week late?! ARRGGHH!

So since my last post, I’d intended to make both a little mascot for Studio Wisp, and, hopefully a new background theme for the website.

At least a small start on the mascot began?

So for the last two weeks the house has been undergoing a lot of renovation. Back in November some abnormal storms hit Victoria, and up where I live, it managed to over-run quite a lot, and our house was flooded out! Which led to a pretty entertaining week… But now things have been finally going on, and there new floors and such are being put together, so I’ve been up and about cleaning and migrating constantly. But it’s not so much I couldn’t have done the work I wanted to do, as much as a lack of motivation from fatigue and lack of sleep. But at least Tales of Thyilos has been going forward in progress, and project is probably more important than making a caricature for Studio Wisp. Or at least that’s the excuse I’ll have to stick to.

On another little matter that’s come to mind. The current novel I’ve been putting up named “UNTITLED”, has run out of chapters. I’ve got one more I’m going to put up after this post, but then that’s it. So between other things, I can either read up on what I have so far and work on a new chapter between making ToT and looking for work; or alternatively, I can slip on a “To be continued”, and start uploading chapters from a different novel.

I’m on the fence about both, because I’m too focused on Tales of Thyilos still, but I do want to continue that novel, but the same can be said for re-writing the lost chapter to Samurai 2020.
So if anyone has an opinion on whether or not I should put a focus into writing more chapter to Untitled as a priority; or else to focus on working on ToT and just upload chapters from a different novel for the time being (or none at all?), drop me a comment in here. I value your inputs!. πŸ˜‰

Tata for now everyone! Hope you have a great weekend.

~Shea


Gained a year!

So I’ve gained another year, which I guess if I were a tree means I’d have another ring inside me, which should I be spliced in half would show my years. But I don’t really want to test similarity, instead I’ll stick to the bags under my eyes or wrinkles in my brow.

But this got me thinking that I started this site about a year ago. Technically, I’d been using “SilentWisp” as a business name for projects for years, but this site itself came to be sometime in February. But, its officially didn’t come until I changed the name to something that made more sense and registered my first web domain!

So if WordPress’s records are right, “StudioWisp” reaches 1 year old on the 17th this month! So I guess I should do something special for it, because if not for this site pestering me in the background scene to keep doing work, moderating the spam que, and leaving its pages as a reminder for why I started work as a graphic designer, I’d probably be sitting in a cubical taking calls from people who’ve forgotten which AV leads plugs into what (which admittedly, I sometimes confuse myself on too).

Now, I’m not sure how to thank the site for these things, but I have an idea. In some cases, mostly on Facebook and Google+, I’ve posted under “StudioEntity” or something similar along those lines. Soooo, what I’m thinking of doing is giving that ‘entitiy’ I keep posting as a face! Which means tracking down some old folders I had when working out concepts for the site and seeing if that can give me any ideas, but you can expect it’ll probably have something to do with Wisp’s, or maybe I’ll go for the classic one-eyed floating fluffy green critter like thing?

I’m also planning to vamp up the theme on the site.

On an unrelated note: Tales of Thyilos is once again on the lookie for people who’d like to get a first hand chance to play the game before the next Beta is release. The current version is still up, and this time I’m almost %100 sure it can be played through without crashing at some point… Never-the-less the next release may crash, but only because I’ve deleted most everything in the default database in order to build it from scratch. That’s kinda why I’m hoping to find people who’d like to help and make sure it’s playable.

People who want to be an official tester get crediting for their help in the game and may get a sprites version of themselves made and put into a secret room I’m making in the game, OH SPOILER!! πŸ˜‰ I’ll be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in posts that’ll hint how to find that secret.

If you’d like to help, you can comment on this post here, or send an e-mail to smeadth.studiowisp@gmail.com

Now, it’s time for me to go, for there is a far-too-large-for-most-humans-to-eat-by-themselves-pizza with my name on it, and if birthday rituals exist, then I’m sure gorging on it is mandatory!

Till next time, have a great day (or night) everyone!

~Shea

( ps: one more important caviar to mention, I set up a livestream account for Lucid Flame. Follow the link here to read more )


Released: Stand-alone version of ToT Beta Demo!

The first thing on my agenda from yesterday, since my laptop was finally functioning again with its new (and looking twice as durable) power pack, was to release a Stand-Alone version of the Beta Demo.

Essentially, we had to do this to make sure the game would work on as many systems as possible, and there seemed to be people having problems with the previous versions, which we think could have been due to their computers not liking the XP RTP the game needed.

So this version solves that by eliminating it completely eliminating that out of the picture, and it should run on (as far as we know) every Windows OS out there.

Which leads me to highlight something now I’ve mentioned Windows.
RPG Maker has only ever been a Windows OS program, and thus, only makes games for Windows.
However, if anyone knows how to make an executable work as a application, I’ll be sure to pass accreditation in the end for those who can help in that case with sharing the game with a broader audience.

Click this link to download the game, which also includes the same Alpha Version of Thyilosian Lore as before, and now also a short game guide.
Thankfully, a friend and also one of our game testers, is proving to be great help in refining the book. So with his help, we’ll be able to make sure that the pieces fit together and its hole free. All the while, not spoiling the game or future games to come. (hint hint of big series)

You can read up more by following either of these links as well.
RPG Revolution – Where I’ve also tracked the version fix notes
Planet Indie @ HuskyHeart Media – also tracking fix notes
Or at the dev site, Lucid Flame, where I’ll be keeping more frequent tabs about the game there than here.

That’s it for today. ^_^
Though now I am back, I better keep to my promise of getting back to uploading chapters of those novels. But first, there’s other matters to attend to, so I’ll finish this post up, and since I’m late and its Friday tomorrow anyway, I’ll put up a couple chapters!

Have a great day everyone, and hope you enjoy the game. πŸ™‚

~Shea


Tales of Thyilos – Public beta demo

Finally, I’ve released the demo. Albiet, its a couple hours later than I promised, but compared to some game companies, I’d say that’s pretty good.

I’m sorry about having to be blunt about this, but I am quite tired and need to rest, lest I lose myself to insanity and an overdose of coffee! But, I have posted detail on the Lucid Flame dev page, and you may read all about the demo and get a link to it from there. πŸ™‚

Hope you can enjoy it if you do play it. If there’s any comments or suggestions about it, or perhaps you found a bug, please, do let me known as soon as you can via commenting right here, or by e-mailing me at smeadth.studiowisp@gmail.com

http://lucidflame.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/tales-of-thyilos-public-beta-demo/

~Shea


Getting back to writing

After lazily disregarding my promise to post a new chapter or section of a novel each week since I started doing so, months later I’m making sure I’m getting back to theΒ habit. Next week I’ll be trying to put up a chapter each Friday night, which will hopefully stir me back into writing as its been so long since I wrote anything outside of the story-boards for Tales of Thyilos.

I’ll have to re-read back on everything I’ve written thus far to make sure I’m up to scratch with what my narrative direction was, which is a good excuse to re-draft earlier pages.
The Chapters I’ve put up are Chapters 10 through to 14.
Though I am posting u UNTITLED at the moment, I am going to re-read all of Samurai 2020 and re-write that lost chapter so that it can finally be put to its rest. Or at least, put the draft version to rest.

Comments/opinions on my work is a muchly appreciated thing from the constant barrage of spam. πŸ™‚

Lastly before I go, it seems the Beta Demo for ToT will be released on the 30th.Β MainlyΒ so I can exploit the last moments of time to make sure that we really have done what we can before the public release.

Till next time! ^_^
~Shea


Awkward, yet wonderful

I wanted to do a little something different today, as a the other week I was watching an couple of anime movies with a friend, both by the same director; Satoshi Kon.

To be honest, before now I’d not seen any of Kon’s works and when my friend told me, “You’ve gotta watch this, its going to blow your mind!” I of course had to take his word on that. But the result was a lot different. Probably because instead of watching the first intended movie, which was Paprika; we instead watched Perfect Blue. Which to sum the end result of watching it up quickly would be to say it even made me feel uneasy, and I assure you its not a gorey or horror based movie. Instead, its more a psychotic-traumatic thriller.

Now to get to the point of why I’m posting about this; The movies directed by Satoshi Kon, from the two I’ve beheld and the trailers I’ve seen for the others, he is a genius of his art, and the resulting creations are beautiful and inspirational (despite the uncomfortable chill one may get at times). It’s truly a great loss that he has passed away a couple years back.

So before I move on to the next announcement I’m putting up today, I strongly recommend his work to watch, and just like my friend also says, watch it in English Subtitles if you’re able. English Subs are typically more accurate as a literal translation to the original text than an English Dubbed version. Also, the subtitles will make it a whole lot easier to understand what’s going on, and in Perfect Blue I doubt I’d have managed to make some sort of possible logical sense of what was going on without them.
But I also recommend that if you’re feint of heart, watch something like Paprika first. It may be a be still a bit of a mind twister, but its a lot easier to grasp. There’s also much more colour to it.
Then watch Perfect Blue… cuddled up under a warm blanket if you wish. But you’re only missing out if you avoid this awkward, yet wonderful piece.

Moving on now, Tales of Thyilos has little over a week before the Beta Demo is to be released! It’s come a fair way and the group is doing whatever they can to get it ready. I’m hoping that the gameplay will be nice and smooth for everyone; though there’s bound to be the odd bug fix. But since this will be a public release, as opposed to the Alpha releases meant only for testers, if people can put forth their opinions and ideas, and note any bugs or issues, then the game will progress wonderfully and I feel such a thing will give a strong push for the game and boost morale.

The Alpha Vr5 is still up in on my mediafire account, and is open if anyone wants to take a early look at what’s coming in the BETA.

The Demo will host around 2 hours worth of game play. This is factoring in what there is to explore. There’s four Kingdoms in the game, hence the title, and thus far, the first section is only just nearing completion! Then its on to the next part of the narrative which starts off on a neighbouring Kingdom.

I’ve also finally started to paint the map for the Four Kingdoms and since only snippets of this are used in the game, I’ll be getting a good quality photo and uploading the completed piece around the time of the Demo’s release.
The Thyilosian Lore book is also on schedule!

That’s it for now, but before I do go, I’ve slipped Satoshi Kon into my page of wisdom, because after I managed to recover from my awe, I realised I was in love with his work and found myself with an unwavering bout of inspiration for the next few days.

Till next time!

~Shea


First Update of the new year

So it’s 2012 and there’s a fresh new year ahead to get right into the thick of it! With TAFE over and done it’s time to focus 100% on my design practices, which is exactly what I intend on doing, and this month should be a heavy one!

BETA Release of Tales of Thyilos is due this month along with my promised BETA Release of the Thyilosian Lore book, which is that complete narrative piece I mentioned in an earlier post last month and specified that I’d intended to make at least one hard-copy and auction it for charity!

Hopefully this month I will get my hands on anew computer. It’s been months since me and person I’m collaborating with did the tutorials. At first we paused new work to focus on study, then my laptops video card got fried, and though it still does work, 3d programs glitch-out and recording became impossible. But this’ll be solved when I obtain a new computer! Hopefully we’ll expand and release some tutorials for different applications as well.

With this luck holding, some older projects that needed clean ups will be finished, especially the Major Production I’d meant to complete! But we can’t always foresee a technological mishap, and without a 3d program working it can’t be finished, as about 80% of the entire project is 3d environments compiled with Live Action. But it’s something I plan on finally finalising sometime at the end of this month, and having up not too long into February.

I’ll leave off with the latest piece I’ve put up. This ones a part of a Product Photography assignment, where we had to design a scene and set up for a full on production shoot of our chosen product, which in my case was for coffee. I rather enjoyed this assignment, but it’s always easier to enjoy something when its with something you enjoy, or on a subject enjoy; in this case, for me, it was both of those!

And before I forget! I’ve added a new page with hotlinks right to any tutorials that are created with us. πŸ™‚

Till next time! πŸ˜€
~Shea