A Northern Thanksgiving

     I have to remind myself that not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving like the Americans over here. I keep asking Canadians what their plans are for the holiday.

    Here in the Northeast Kingdom there are a lot of Canadians, and plenty of people who speak exclusively French. There have been times when I've been unable to speak to a person because English is not in their vernacular. When we were living in Texas, I'd run into the situation with individuals who only spoke Spanish - an interesting contrast between the two states, providing a sense of familiarity in an otherwise unfamiliar environment.

    Yet another hurdle: vegetarian food, better yet, northern food. I miss heavy spices and vivid flavors.  I'm used to the bold and rich flavors of southwestern Americana, to peppers and overwhelming spice, and to Cajun kick. Things taste muted here. Not many people are a fan of that kind of food here. There seems to be a lot more gravy and bread, and a lot more greens.

    Also I thought I knew what poutine was, thanks to a restaurant in downtown Chattanooga that my wife and I used to frequent, I did not. Real poutine is thick cut potato wedges, deep fried, some cheese curds, and some brown gravy drizzled over top (I prefer the non-traditional ones from Chatt)

    Anyways, I drew up a quick animation about the short life and death of a turkey for a non-vegetarian's Thanksgiving meal. This one was only 64 frames of animation, using a single color pallet for once. Nice and simple.

    Regardless, I have plenty to be thankful for: I have a place to live, food to eat, a fire to warm my bones. I have a family to love, to love me, and an abundance of hope for our future together, no matter how many miles may separate us all.

   I hope that you have plenty to be thankful for this year too, American or not. 

   Until next time, stay warm and toasty.

Coffee Scene Project, Update #4

    Over the past eight years, I've dedicated myself to the dream of launching my own coffee shop. In meticulous detail, I've crafted logos, devised equipment purchased, meticulously priced out every element, brainstormed innovative shop layouts, and conceptualized an array of specialty drinks featuring custom syrups. Drawing from a wealth of experience gained through employment at various coffee establishments and countless hours immersed in the coffee culture, I've cultivated a profound passion for both the craft and the unique atmospheres these spaces create. 

    Its fair to say its an obsession.

    Today I took a crack at cleaning up the rooftop area of the coffee shop scene. I started by adding a pretty simple pattern with some overhead lighting.

    You'll notice that the countertops look "thicker." This was to accommodate the animation of the barista in the last post. Finally, I felt I needed to add some more clutter to the empty spaces.

    This came in the form of shelves for merchandise, more coffee related decor, some plants, and another empty shelf that becomes more relevant with the addition of all the animations. Here is a relevant technical fact though, a GIF file only supports up to 256 individual colors. I'm well over that limit in this short animation. Attempting to export it as a GIF file led to a lot of strange image artifacting. Instead, I had to export 78 individual frames and convert them into a video file (MP4) through a website called Clideo, which, annoyingly, threw a watermark on the file and wanted to charge me $9 yearly. I'll have to research a better way of going about making videos out of these image exports. But for now, here's the video of all the animations added to the scene:

    

    Annoyingly, the video compression seems to have hit it pretty hard, and the frame time changed from 100 milliseconds to a whole 0.1 second each. This is why the animation seems to stutter. Oh well, it's a problem to solve later on, when I actually want to start recording high quality videos of all of these animations.

    Until then, stay warm and toasty.

Our Doggo

     This is Ruby:

As a baby, the week we got her.

    Here she is redrawn in pixel art, as a little practice:

D20 Tavern Game Concept

     Let us set the scene: A gathering of intrepid adventurers, seated in a lively tavern, meticulously strategizing their upcoming escapades. Among them are a mage, a cleric, a rogue, a barbarian, and a knight—united in eager anticipation of the epic quests that lay ahead.

    In this narrative, you assume the pivotal role of the tavern keeper, entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining and overseeing what will one day be the most renowned tavern in the lands.

    This was the starting idea for a game concept my best friend and I started working on: a D&D tavern management game, centered around the same twenty sided dice used in most chance rolls in the role playing game. I started creating art work in my preferred medium, pixel art:

    The idea would be based around catering to customers, serving them drinks, food, and entertainment. Certain elements of the tavern would influence the dice rolls, such as the decor, the other customers, the upkeep of the shop itself, the weather and warmth inside, etc. The higher the patron's roll, the more money the patron would pay, and the higher the tavern's reputation would raise. The higher the reputation, the better customers.

    It was our intention to add world events and stories that would evolve based on some dialogue options when talking to key patron characters, which would then in turn affect which patrons visit. Encourage a mage to become a necromancer to bring his dead family back? The tavern's patrons may all become skeletons and zombies and ghosts! Side with a certain faction during a kingdom's war? The other side may boycott your tavern! Or maybe the king listens to your advice about some tax laws and now all of your patrons are broke!

    Where we were struggling was within the main game-play loop. How does the character interact in the tavern daily? Does it need to deliver each plate and drink individually? Does he sing for the customers? How do we encourage engaging interactivity? Do we make each delivery and service a small mini game to increase the D20 roll odds?

    This is where we ground down to a pause in our development. But the idea is far from dead, we'll be back to it again soon.

    We developed a basic male model that we intended to be customizable (hair, skin and eye color, clothing color):

   

 

     We had several assets done as well, including a lot of meals and drinks, coin payments, and a VERY basic map layout.

     And then, finally, we had a recurring joke character of mine that I dubbed "Jerry" that would be the player character's guide. He was an animated skull of mysterious origins that would be revealed throughout the story. Unfortunately, this particular element may not stay, as it feels too close to Graveyard Keeper's assistant character. This is still to be determined though.

    We're developing the project in Godot, and the artwork in Aseprite. Both are excellent programs.

    We'll come back to this project, and maybe it'll go far! We're definitely passionate about the idea.

    Until later, stay warm and toasty.

Coffee Scene Project, Update #3

     Working afternoon shifts definitely gives me adequate time to focus on this set in the mornings before I have to head to work! So before I started my animation, I followed up on my commitment to clean up the space a bit:

 

    I think this is an improvement over yesterday. There's less contrast in the background and not a ton of distractions off to the left (though I still need to delete the chair and table, and maybe throw a potted plant in that corner). Additionally, the foreground is now obvious, and the counters aren't as messy and distracting - just a nice simple pattern to imply texture. I added some detail to the top of the room that I'll end up changing down the road as well.

    Next, I added another character to the scene. The all important barista:

    It's just my character without a beard and a few color and detail changes. Why work too hard? I started by having him pull a shot of espresso:

     Once I was decently happy with that, I convinced him to make lattes in perpetuity:

    I was happy with the end result on this particular animation. That's it for my work on this today!

    But, there's more to come.

    Stay warm and toasty!

Coffee Scene Project, Update #2

     Sunday was productive! I got some of the assets scaled down and converted over to a style I feel matches my character:

    To do here: Clean up the "counters" and make the green backsplash/tile a little bit softer. The menu sheet thing stands out a little too much as well. I'd like to make the espresso machine, coffee machine, and the register the obvious foreground.

    I believe I was getting ahead of myself here, I should have focused on a more concentrated scene but I had a larger cluttered coffee shop envisioned in my head.

    Kate suggested I make the windows rainy to make it feel more cozy. I think I got distracted with the other side of the room at this point and went off the rails.

    This is where I stopped. I think when I come back to this I'll cut out the scene left of my character and focus on cleaning up what I have. I'll add some animations to the machines and the barista I've created behind the counter here. But hey! Progress is progress, and the practice and reflection is invaluable.

     More to come.

     Stay warm and toasty!

Coffee Scene Project, Update #1

     Over the last year or two I've been playing with the idea of building a coffee shop, piece by piece. Here are some of the assets I've made previously:

Coffee Brewer

Espresso Grinder

Espresso Machine

     Of course, none of these match my vision, stylistically. I'm working on scaling them down and swapping up the feel of them to match a little animation of my character that I whipped up today:

     A sip, a yawn: the perfect encompassment of a cozy Sunday morning cup of coffee. 

 

    More to come!

    Stay warm and toasty.

Winter is Setting In

    It's officially too cold to venture out here in Vermont. This move has marked a significant shift for us—from the bustling metropolitan area of Chattanooga, TN to one of the least populated states, Vermont. Moreover, we've settled in one of the most sparsely populated areas within Vermont itself. We now find ourselves immersed in the world of farm and feed stores, where Carhartt is the prevailing fashion choice, businesses close shop by five, and internet access is scarce. There's a peculiar dichotomy of residing in one of the most liberal states of the Northeast Kingdom, while being surrounded by conservative ideals in the rural countryside.

    The city we now call home has long surpassed its peak in population and economic prosperity. The passage of years has been unkind, witnessing an exodus of both businesses and young residents to larger cities. Those that endure struggle to secure enough work or workers to remain afloat. Restarting my career here has proven challenging, and the thought of relocating to larger cities to sustain ourselves looms on the horizon.

    Yet, amid the hardships, Vermont's beauty persists.

    We're surrounded by sweeping landscapes, serene lakes, soaring mountains, roaring streams, waterfalls, and more natural beauty than any state I've had the pleasure of visiting. Unfortunately, winter has already set in here. 

So, now that I'm inside, warm and toasty from the wood stove, I've turned my attention back to my blog. Tonight I took a stab at animating a simple frog in Aseprite. Here's how that turned out:

 

 I started out trying to design him with a quirky larger eye. You'll see that I cleaned that up pretty quickly as I started to add some animation frames in: 

 

 And the final product:

    I hope you're all doing well. 

    Stay warm and toasty.