Science/Faith

Never expected to have bought 2 of The Script's albums, but I just copped the second one.

Science & Faith. Do both of them go together? They can co-exist, but I don't think they go together quite well. In fact they contradict most of the time.

Had the first 6-hour lab session yesterday. Though it went on quite smoothly, my IR spectrum is a gone-case. Time to scratch my head for the report.

THE INSANITY II RELEASED ON GAMESHED!

Be the first to play it here

By Ear

My ability to play music on the keyboard by ear is improving.

Playing music by ear is basically just hitting the notes according to the song you hear without referring to any sheet music. And making your own arrangements and accompaniments. I can tell you that the feeling and the satisfaction you get when you're able to play a song you just heard on the radio impromptu is AWESOME.

Who hates reading sheet music? *Puts my hand up*

Starting out will be a little tough, but as time goes by, you gain experience. For me, when I wanna play a new song I just come across on the Net, I start out by only playing the basic melody on my right hand. Once the melody and the gist of the song is clearer, I add my left-hand chords, changing and improvising the style and arrangement as I go along. Tried Shontelle's "No Gravity" which wasn't too tough. Today, I played a song that I heard for the first time. And it's relatively easy because the chords are pretty standard. It's The Wanted's new single, "Heart Vacancy", which is a lovely song. Peep the music video below!

There's Just Something 'Bout DA's Music

And of course DA = David Archuleta.

First things first, I'm not a 10-year-old pre-teen fan-girl gushing over DA.

But I gotta commend his music because:

1. It's sincere and heartfelt;

2. I can relate to most of his songs;

3. The songs are filled with catchy hooks and melodies.

I wasn't a fan of DA initially when he was on Idol but I bought his debut album and I have to say I'm gonna get his next one when it's out on October 4th. While his debut was more about love and whatnot, the upcoming one focuses more on being positive, optimistic and embracing your struggles, and these messages are embedded in tracks like "The Other Side Of Down", "Elevator" and "Things Are Gonna Get Better". I guess right now I really need those songs to pull me through in this trying time, to help lift me up before I can crumble down.

DA's music actually means a lot to me. And I'm so grateful that these songs are written and recorded, that I have the chance to listen to them. :)

Ok. Enough stanning for DA. Back to reality.

No more 3-day weeks for me!! :(

Lab and tutorials start this coming week and I'm gonna be frigging busy. Still on the fence on buying that Astronomy textbook. Such a waste to use it only for one semester. And it's not as if it's necessary, but it's recommended. WTH.

I wanna catch Resident Evil 4 but haven't got the time and the company. Not to mention playing my keyboard.

Talking about the keyboard... I feel like I can and enjoy creating melodies and hooks better than writing lyrics. Honestly, my song-writing skills suck and most of my songs all deal with the same subject that it's getting boring and tough. I think I prefer creating melodies on the keyboard instead (i.e. producing songs). We'll have to see about that.

PRELOADING MADE EASY IN CS5?

New pc yeehaw!.

PRELOADERS

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It's pretty much known around the Flash stratosphere that preloaders are -always- a pain in the ass to get working. The first INSANITY game was a complete nightmare to set up, I had to painstakingly go through every movie clip, untick the Export in first frame box and drag each one into an asset holding movieclip on the 2nd frame of the main timeline. THEN for each and every sound I had to build a layer and drag the sfx onto their own individual layer. And even so everything was set up properly I still had some weird issues like sounds playing randomly on the title screen and such. To this day I still wake up Ripley style after a disturbing dream related to preloader setting up.
So there I was coding the 2nd INSANITY game thinking - "Oh man sooner or later I'm going to have to go through all that bs again" when I thought of something that might work.
I set up my timeline for the preloader as usual:

• 1st FRAME - Preloader code&graphics
• 2nd FRAME - Empty skippable Frame *used for the assets*
• 3rd FRAME - Title screen
• 4th FRAME - The entire game

I started dragging things into the second frame for a bit then I thought I'd try something. I went into Publish Settings/AS3/ and in the Export To Frame box I changed the 1 to 2. So Assets are all loaded on the second frame. Then I just compiled the game as normal and to my surprise and delight the preloader worked perfectly! Without the hassle of dragging all that crap into an asset holder.

Well slap my ass and call me Sally but I had no idea you could do this that easily. Do take note.

OTHER NEWS

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Hmmm, well as far as I know 'INSANITY II' is pretty much sold. I'm onto my new *unnamed* project, a Golden Axe clone. Currently struggling with pixel art and such, though I believe I'm onto a good technique. Actual fighting engine code is coming out smoothly as essentially all I'm doing is exporting my AS2 Streets of Rage demo engine to AS3. This time I'm all about keeping the game simple, done&dusted in under 3 months. No complicated ideas that will lump on production time. A few bits here and there to up the replay value by including many random factors.

Example- any 'stage' can contain a number of random enemies but their properties will be controlled by the difficulty level of that stage. Also there will be a chance some randomly selected enemies will be 'LORDS' ie a little bit higher than their actual level, like the Black Phantom characters in the PS3 game Demons Soul. You can win the game as quickly as in 5 lucky hint-giving stages, or just go through the game stage by stage and try to complete all 99 (for a special medal of course).

Damn coding a fighting game is fun. And it's playable almost as soon as you get your main sprite launching combos with a keypress. Why didn't I do this earlier?

INSANITY II ETA

Deals have been done- Looks like 'THE INSANITY II' is about to go public veeery soon, watch this space for an announcement.

Breaking Point

I finally got my PERFECT timetable!!! :D

Suddenly thought of trying my luck in STARS to see if anyone left my desired tutorial slot. And alas! There was a vacancy. And I switched. Thanks to whoever that person was.

If you're wondering why I'm blogging now, you can refer to my previous post.

Anyway, school started out pretty fine, but I'm already lost in 212. Time to start catching up!

Plus I now have company for all my modules. Awesome!!! :)