My Top 5:
Animé- Naruto
- Ghost in the Shell
- Full Metal Alchemist
- Death Note
- Ranma 1/2
Super Mario Galaxy: Finished.
2010-02-22 At last I completely completed Super Mario Galaxy, including the 'Grand Finale', with a total of 242 power stars. Along the way, I have discovered a fresh and abiding hatred of Gearmos - the hosts of the game's worst minigame and most repetitive, infuriating subsections. And now I'm moving on to finish other things. Yay!
Blender 2.5, Durian Modelling Sprint
2010-02-20 Saturday afternoon:
Blender Durian Modelling Sprint - I spent most of the 'active' part of today enthralled by the frenetic activity of other people in the IRC channel, and eventually made a teeny contribution that may or may not be useful at all… but it felt like it would have been a total cop-out to contribute nothing whatsoever, so I sculpted a melted candle stub, thinking vaguely of the ridiculously over-the-top gnarled ones in the Diablo 3 cinematic trailer. And I ended up enjoying myself. Oh my god, sculpting mode is so brilliantly, drastically improved in 2.5 I might just collapse from the anticipation of the stable release coming this summer.
Wheel of Time Book 12: Finished. Yay, but nooo!
2010-02-03 That is a really fantastic book! I'm so happy I read it because of all the great scenes. But now I'm sad and devoid of Aes Sedai intrigue, and I have to wait an excruciating 9–10 months for Towers of Midnight. Damn it!
Wheel of Time Book 11: Finished.
2010-01-17 Since I started The Eye of the World in May/June, I've been reading Wheel of Time more or less non-stop. The 11th installment, Knife of Dreams is, I think, the best one since book 4. A lot has changed since then, but a lot of main plot threads have now all reached their conclusion, and some jaw-dropping plot twists have appeared. There's also a lot of subtle revelations in here too. Once again the books don't obey any sensible book ending or beginning boundaries and are strangely paced, but damn, this one is really enjoyable. As with many of the previous volumes, the name doesn't have a great deal of relevance to the plot.
I also made a start on book 12, which looks very promising, and I like the new author's introduction and explanation.
Half-Life 2: Finished.
2010-01-03 Last played (according to save game) on Thursday June the 18th, 2009, I've spent the afternoon/evening completing Half-Life 2. It has a few enjoyable moments. To sum it up in one word, the game is: Over-rated. In fact, probably the most over-rated videogame in history.
“Realms” Demo
2009-05-01 A lot of exciting projects and opportunities are flying around at the moment, and Realms of Ashana's scripting system recode is on ice while I finish prototyping something else - however, the old feature-sparse demo is now bundled into a state that runs online, so without further ado: Realms of Ashana Live Demo! Fanfare!
News & Update 7th January 2009
More artwork and demo-reel footage of Realms of Ashana has been added. I hope to spend some more time working towards the next project goal soon!
Creative programming & design
I'm a software engineer, digital artist, independent games developer and general digital media enthusiast; ACi is my personal portfolio/experimental web space.
So, dispensing momentarily with all the requisite self-congratulation, the main content comprises:
my software and art portfolios (including personal game development projects), my CV, helpful topic-sorted art/design tutorials, and some writing material from my in-progress novel.
Jaw-dropping free software
Blender is the most astonishingly fantastic piece of free software I have ever discovered. Anyone even vaguely creative or interested in 2D compositing, animation, 3D modelling, video compositing, or game development, should get it this instant!
The lost update
18:50 2007-03-05 Only some 88 days, 12 hours and 16 minutes since Twilight Princess was released, I'm back to update my site and remove the timer. A lot has happened since then, including WoW: The Burning Crusade sucking me in like… a complete sucker; then there's work-related Linux setup and new software aplenty, the best discovery of which is Blender 3D. I'm amassing huge amounts of knowledge every day, and only sometimes wondering what I'm going to do with it all. Meanwhile, 3-R is screaming out for attention, and I'm tracking the games I'm playing simultaneously with helping to test a nice little app being developed as part of John's site.
Wiiii!
19:38 2006-12-07 In a shade under twelve hours I'll be picking up my new console in town. Game are not doing a midnight launch, but are opening early, that is, 7:30am. So I've added seven and a half hours to the countdown timer, to more accurately reflect when I'll have started Twilight Princess. I shake my head in bemusement at everyone who, some 20 hours ago, started queueing at British stores that are doing a midnight launch tonight (4.3 hours from now). It seems inexplicably foolish to me that anyone would fail to preorder the console, then do enough planning to arrange an all-night stay outside a shop. In December.
Twilight Princess.
2006-11-01 In fevered anticipation of an event that only comes around once in a blue moon, my site is proudly counting down the seconds to the next epoch in sheer gaming perfection. Twilight Princess has drawn huge amounts of attention. It is almost unthinkable that it will be anything other than the best game created to date. It will very likely be the best game made for many years to come: and my only remaining hope for it is that it truly will surpass Ocarina of Time.