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As of my freshman year, I will be posting content centered around a certain topic. You can expect my blog posts to feature well-written sentences.
Brady Bryan
Chances are, if you play video games at all (especially if you love doing so), you are more than acquainted with the general video game community. Of course, the communities in which you interact with depend on the type of game that you are playing. Different video game communities function differently than others, and tend to have different interests and attitudes because of it. Generally, each community has certain types of groups within it, which affects the popularity of said community. Some groups are good, some are bad, or typically referred to as "toxic," and some are either both or neither, making them unclassifiable to an extent. I'll start off by describing the good groups of a video game community. These are the type of people that encourage one another, and will lend their help to a fellow member of their community. They are the good influences, and are the highlight of their community. If you ever need assistance on a mission or are seeking advice about what to do, they will become your compass. The most common video games that have a prominent positive group are Pokemon and Monster Hunter. In Pokemon, other players are willing to share team comps, ways to raise your Pokemon, and many different strategies on how to overcome your opponent. In Monster Hunter (a game about hunting monsters surprisingly), you can hunt with three other people so you won't have to tackle a tough monster alone. Furthermore, Monster Hunter veterans can teach you about the behaviors of monsters that were in the original game, along with which parts to break. With the good, you have the bad, and unfortunately, the bad outweighs the good when it comes to the entire video game community as a whole. Even if you don't play video games, you might be able to tell which franchises are home to the toxic players, as well as their "mannerisms." These players get tilted at every little detail and feel the need to express their dismay in the game chat. They'll use every profane word known to man to state how they shouldn't have died, and how the person accused was cheating. You can find these people while playing Call of Duty, Overwatch, Rainbow Six Siege, or pretty much any shooter game with a multiplayer mode. If you even think about having fun, they will be the ones to shut you down. They expect everyone around them to play the way they (the toxic person) want instead of playing the game in their preferred game. This deters everyone around them from enjoying the game, which is the primary goal is playing video games. They are so stuck-up, self-centered, and inconsiderate, and can ruin anyone's day just by spreading the misery. Then you have the people in between. These people can be a mix of both based on the situation, or they can just not be an active member of a community. There isn't much to say about these guys as most of the things previously stated can apply. They can be just as common as the bad groups, and can also be a facade of a toxic player before they reveal their true colors. These guys can be found across multiple genres and franchises. Knowing the types of gamers in a community can help you understand what defines them. While it seems as though there is more bad than good, there are various sites and applications designed towards interacting with a specific community. Two great examples include Discord, which features voice chat and is largely used nowadays, and Amino App, which caters to a specific community and is home to some of the most supportive people you will ever meet (I speak from experience). Whatever may be the case, don't let others get in the way of enjoying the game. Recap:
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Brady Bryan
As if it isn't evident from the title, this is going to be a continuation of any previous blog post on the popular video game: Fortnite. This is a great time to continue this as it's most recent major update known as "Season 4" added and tweaked several aspects of the game, and it's causing a massive uproar amongst the player base. For starters, it added several modern dances such as "Tidy" (a.k.a Snoop Dog's dance from Drop it Like It's Hot), "Popcorn," "Hype," and the infamous "Orange Justice." In fact, you could make a very convincing statement that the main driver of the new Season 4 update is that one repetitive emote. Essentially, it originated from a prominent YouTuber and Instagram celebrity "Roy Purdy." It was called the "Purdy Dance," and it took the world by storm (not another Fortnite reference I promise) as it was such a unique and captivating dance. After the dance was revealed, Epic Games (the company behind Fortnite) held a contest to implement a certain dance into the game. All that one had to do to enter was to film a video of them doing the dance that they wanted to be in the game and either tweet it or use the hashtag "#BoogieDown" on Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, or other social media. On Reddit, one kid (whom the internet has named "Orange Shirt Kid" due to his wearing an orange shirt) attempted to recreate the "Purdy Dance," but it just wasn't the same as the original. Luckily for him, everyone saw his video on various sites, and left comments and hashtags saying "#JusticeForOrangeShirtKid," as it was apparent that he was trying to "Purdy Dance," and people found it quite comical. This gained so much traction that the devs (developers) decided to not only implement the dance into the game (done properly mind you), but named it "Orange Justice" along with the caption "It's also a great exercise move." The caption is a reference to a phrase that the Orange Shirt Kid says, in which he states that it makes for a great exercise move. The contest promised its winners in-game rewards, but since he wasn't listed as an official winner in the top five, it is unclear to note whether or not he received said in-game prizes (he placed 23rd). This may just have been a little joke/nod to his entry and the traction it garnered. This is what makes Fortnite such a great game. Aside from just being a battle royale game, it knows what it's players want, and it does an excellent job delivering it. This is a great example of a company being interactive with its consumers instead of following its own agenda. It's good to have your own vision for your product, but if it doesn't interest others, then it is bound to fail once it hits the shelves. For a game that is still in "Early Access" mode, it sure is doing wonderful in terms of popularity, and I can't wait to see what Fortnite has in store next. Recap:
Brady Bryan
Ever wanted to create a model of your favorite cartoon character? Perhaps even for your own 3D video game? Then 3ds Max is the application for you! It is an application that allows you to do just that with a plethora of tools. It is unlike any Adobe product (unless you count Adobe Fuse) in that you work with 3D shapes (primarily that is) instead of 2D graphics. It is also more hardware heavy as a result, so don't expect it to work on an old computer. As soon as you open 3ds Max on your computer, you will be prompted with a window that features different templates. These range from a deep sea background to a forest background. As this is your first time in 3ds Max, it is recommended that you ignore the templates provided, as they will be a distraction to your firsthand experience. Simply exit the window to reappear in the standard window. You will be greeted with four different squares, each with a different angle of the same image. These are called "viewports," and will quickly become your best friend as you continue to model, as they allow you to view your product in several different ways. Inside each viewport is a grid, which serves as a basic surface to begin modeling on. The coordinates of your product are located right beneath it in terms of the "X, Y," and "Z" axes. The most common angle of a viewport (and recommended) is perspective. Just as the name suggests, you are able to view your product at any angle possible. You can maximize the size of a viewport by pressing "Alt-W." In order to pan across the viewport, simply press down on the scroll wheel of your mouse and move it around. To rotate around it, hold down the "Alt" key while panning. To zoom in and out, simply scroll up or down on the mouse respectively. If you think that navigating throughout a single viewport is troublesome enough, you'll have a harder time understanding how to model. Regardless, all of these techniques will become ingrained in your memory as you get used to using 3ds Max. You will be able to navigate without a second thought. It will take a long while before you even get to learn half of 3ds Max's tools and settings by heart. All it takes is a little willpower... Recap:
Brady Bryan
To create the robot for the assignment, I used a few different modifiers on certain primitives to make their edges more round instead of sharp. This was accomplished with the chamfer modifier, and was used on the feet of the robot, as well as its body and mouth (essentially only on the boxes). The feet were the first objects that were chamfered, and was used as a reference point for the other objects to decide on an appropriate amount and tension for each object. I would liked to increase the number of segments for the chamfered objects to make them look smoother, but 3DS Max couldn't handle it. For the legs, arms, and "pants", I used the tessellate modifier on four copied cylinders to give the ends of the cylinders an interesting edge. This also makes it look as tough the robot has joints where the cylinders meet. I simply added a tessellate modifier to the "pants" and arms just for consistency. For the fingers, I added a ripple modifier to two cones to bend them slightly. For the eyes and eyeballs, I just used a shell modifier to expand the spheres, and I brought the eyeballs out along the x-axis to have them poke out slightly. Recap:
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AuthorBrady Bryan is quite familiar with blogs since he had to frequently post on his blog in 6th grade. Although its been a long time since then, he still knows what a proper blog should look like. Archives
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