Another strange dream I had and one to bookend March 2024

Back in March 1st 2024, I made this post about a strange dream I had sometime around 2014 where Madame Medusa and Solid Snake got scared shitless because of stepping on Fiedler the Porcupine.

If you want to read the story, here's the link:

https://maverickmartinezarchive.blogspot.com/2024/03/how-overused-emotion-1977-movie-and.html

Anyway, back to the main topic. I never realized that come forth the end of March 2024, I had another dream that's about as weird as you can imagine and one that's more recent too.

And yes, Disney characters were involved in the dream..... sort of.

The dream I had was an alternate take on the 1977 film THE RESCUERS.... sort of.

Some scenes in my dream took place in the Vancouver's Downtown Eastside which doesn't make sense since both The Rescuers and it's Sequel DOWN UNDER take place in Manhattan, New York.

Yes the dream turned out to be quite funny since it had the most BUTT-MONKEY of all villains involved. And that's Edgar Balthazar the butler. 

"Oh nice.... You're talking about me."

So what happened?

Well some parts took place at night

At a hotel of all places.

Anyway, it was late at night and I saw some kittens bickering about the absence of the butler.

Then Morning came and I heard someone falling down the stairs.

It was Edgar....

"Sacre Bleu, it's not funny if I fell down the stairs."

After getting himself fixed up after the fall, Edgar turned towards me and snatched a package out of my hands with Glee. 

What did he order?

A panini press.

Edgar was all giddy about the cooking his McDonald's sandwiches with that thing but he soon got frustrated with it.

Turns out the Panini Press got damaged in transit.

"How could this happen? And I paid a hundred dollars for that thing!"

And for some reason, He falsely accused me of breaking it but the reality is, I never broke the press to begin with but that's the reality of how shipping companies handle packages according to the retro computer community on YouTube.

Edgar was mad at me about the damaged panini press. Fortunately, there were two people who were willing to take the blame for the damaged press and bail me out of a SNAFU.

"What are you glaring at me for? It should be Bezos you should be glaring at."

Well to be honest, It wasn't just those two above who were trying to bail me out but also Madame Medusa..... from both the 1977 movie and my 2014 Porcupine dream. 

Sorry but Solid Snake wasn't in my recent dream this time.

That was the basis of this dream I had. A little bit more absurd than I initially anticipated but at the same time, perfect fodder for getting ideas written down on a screenplay for a movie or tv series. 

But I highly doubt the stuff I just wrote on this blog would ever be used for an actual script due to it's use of copyrighted characters.

And one more thing before I end this blogpost, My cat MISO THE FELINE is doing fine. She had her dental appointment and after resting for 2 days after the treatment, she's back to her normal self.

"Oh that's a cute kitty you've got there, Dan Martinez."

.... Thank you Yura for acknowledging my cat's presence but Miso's treatment did not come cheap. I paid $577 for her treatment. That's how expensive it is to have a pet in this economy.

"Chill out, man! At least Senpai doesn't rambling about the high cost of living from where we're from. 

Thanks for your sympathy Nagatoro but on the other hand, the payment and dental treatment has already been done so it's time to move on....

Anyway, hoping things are better for us all in April 2024..... I highly doubt so considering the craziness that's been permeating this year but like I said, we should all move on.

Toon Boom Harmony Tips 01-Drop Shadows on Puppet Rigs

The series is still mostly postponed due to my Weekend Headache as well as my airport cafe job as well as my Cat's oral health scare but that doesn't mean I can't get a head start right?

Any, have a look at this nice Puppet Rig of LUZ NOCEDA from OWL HOUSE.

This is not an official rig by Disney or Dana Terrace but rather a fan made rig made by this guy on GUMROAD who goes by COLM DOWLING. The rig is free by the way so If you have Toon Boom installed in your PC or Mac, here's the link to the rig:

https://colmartwork.gumroad.com/l/luzrig?layout=profile

Anyway, notice anything about Luz? 

Stumped?

That's because I finally found a way to do Drop Shadows on Puppet Rigs..... sort of.....

But first, A prelude:

Remember a time when animation was still done on traditional acetate celluloid?

Cruella Deville remembers..... 

I have stated many times on this blog that when cartoons and anime switched to the digital ink and paint system of today, something was lost in translation.

Sure, the drawings were still done on paper before being scanned into the SGI Workstations and later x64 workstations of today but coloring the characters with tools meant for a high resolution digital art form does have some issues to deal with.

I've read many stories about how many artists in the 90s refused to switch to DIGITAL INK AND PAINT because to them, if animation was to be inked and painted completely on uber expensive workstations, the effort to make them aesthetic enough would be lost.

Don Bluth is one of those people. Until Anastasia, he refused to allow his films between ROCK-A-DOODLE to PEBBLE AND THE PENGIUN to get the digital treatment with his argument being that he fought the digital system in an effort to have art that he can physically touch the dried acrylic paint.

If you don't believe me, look up the ANASTASIA DVD featurettes on YOUTUBE and wait till he mentions the digital process where he admits how he fought the system.

Anyway, back to the main topic.

I was obsessed with the older style of 2D Animation but considering that the North American industry says no to the old techniques due to budgetary concerns, I started to experiment with the Puppet Rigged method of animation.

Then HAZBIN HOTEL was released on AMAZON PRIME.

I mentioned on a January 23 2024 Post on how intrigued I was about Hazbin Hotel's use of drop shadows.

But until I've seen a single episode on my free time, I'm going to assume that the series is puppet rigged..... but if so, then what are the producers doing to combat the puppet rigged nature and allow the drop shadows to be used?

I use Toon Boom Harmony Premium as my choice of 2D animation software... in fact, I was encouraged by my Art School to pay for the Premium Package because it has more features for puppet-rigged animation and nodes.

Honestly, I care more about the nodes than I care about the way puppet rigs works so anyway, with my knowledge of NODES, I experimented with ways to manipulate.

One thing I did was to add drop shadows to my animation cels.

The way I did it on Photoshop was to just add my Cel and Background to my canvas, then select the cel layer, add a drop shadow to the cel, merge the layers together, use a grain filter and fiddle around with the settings.

And there you go. A wonderful looking cel of the CLIQUE from my show concept MARYLANDIA.

With animation, it's different. Photoshop is strictly a raster graphics software but TOONBOOM uses vector graphics for it's Inks so how I did it is I just focus on animating my character on my WACOM TABLET. Then I color my character using the paint bucket tool.

Once I'm satisfied with my results, I go into my NODE Graph and insert my nodes for things like Pegs, Composites, and most importantly at least for me, SHADOWS.

Since the shadow has a set default, I had to go to TOONBOOM's live render mode so I can see how the shadows will look.

If anybody's concerned about my computer and whether or not my system will be hampered speed-wise, I'm running a 12-Core AMD Ryzen 9 7900x3D CPU paired with a 16GB GIGABYTE EAGLE RTX 4080 GPU as well as having 32GB of DDR5 Dual-Channel U-DIMM RAM in my system so It's pretty fast for my needs.

Of course, If you've seen the cel of SHASTA above, I also drew a Dry Brush Blur because I needed to punctuated the action so it also needed it's own Drop Shadow as shown on the Node Editor above.

Anyway, about Puppet Rigs,

"WHO YOU CALLING PUPPET RIGGED YA TURD!!!"

I barely understand why the node construction of the rigs isn't like that of MAYA which I'm more accustomed to. Because of that node construction, I thought there was no way for my to add my coveted DROP SHADOWS to the TVG nodes on the editor.

And then LUZ NOCEDA proved me wrong that fateful Monday March 25 2024.

To a logical extent anyway. I just needed a quick way out of this so I can dedicate more time to these blogposts so I just took whatever combination of Nodes I could find, connect that to the main cluster as well as the composite and here we go. 

The above Drop Shadow applied to the LUZ toonboom rig was just my quick and janky attempt to do drop shadows on puppet rigs and...... well....... I still got a long way for me to go.

If I had more time, I would have to go in depth into the rig and apply each shadow node to each TVG node of Luz's body construction as well as connect those SHADOW Nodes to the COMPOSITE nodes on my editor but let me know if this quick method is ok. For me, I'm going to leave it at a grey area.

And this method of Drop Shadows I did to the Luz rig was only on Luz herself. There are other Rigs out there. Whether they be from GUMROAD or by another studio, the rigs are constructed differently.

Yes... Just like us humans aren't created equal, 2D Puppet Rigs aren't created equal. They may have a different system to how they were constructed.

Well this post didn't go well for me but then again, life issues, cat health, my headache, and of course my Job at the Cafe so I barely could dedicate all the time I had for a proper post about TOONBOOM so I whipped up whatever I could with my favorite topic which is Drop Shadows.

And for those who may ask what version of Toon Boom I'm using?

I'm using TOON BOOM HARMONY PREMIUM 22 so yeah I'm pretty much up to date...

And yes, TOONBOOM works very well on AMD CPUs. Despite the website listing mostly just Intel on their requirements page, AMD CPUS still work very well with TOONBOOM due to both INTEL and AMD sharing the exact same x64 instruction set.

Maverick Quickie-Why the lack of updates?

Why is there a lack of updates on my Blog?

It's not writer's block, it's not another Hollywood strike, and no it's not another one of the DAVID ZASLAV's anti-art shenanigans......... 

*COUGH* #SAVECOYOTEVS.ACME *COUGH*......

Please excuse my subliminal cough.......

The lack of Updates is because of all the things going on in my life. I had a major Veterinary scare on March 15 2024 where my Cat MISO had gingivitis on her gums so now we have to feed her some medicine to ease the pain as well as brush her teeth which is easier said than done.

Others include my job at the airport. I work the evening shift on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and it's been really eating up my schedule, that and I've had my share of additional shifts due to some other people who work at the same cafe I'm working at having issues like personal problems or they have schooling.

With all of that eating up my schedule, it leaves me no time to focus on anything in this blog whether it's a main topic or a Maverick Quickie. It may seem like I have all the time in the world but the reality is, filler or not, I need to think about what to post on my Blog.

The last post I did about the Various Cameras and Smartphones was just a quick post I came up with due to some photos of Cameras I had saved on my USB stick so I whipped up something on the long run.

Fridays and the Weekends are really when I have all the Free time I can dedicate to creating a post but for some reason, I could not work those days this past weekend.

The reason was I started to develop this really bad headache during Thursday when I had my evening shift at the Airport Cafe and the headache got worse during Friday. It lingered on during Saturday too.

I guess it was a combination of being out in the cold as well as the day the power repeatedly went out in my area again and I almost blew a gasket over that.

Either way, I was mentally incapacitated for 3 days due to the headache I had. 

Sunday was when I recovered but I decided to just take it easy since I don't want a repeat of the headache problems I had during the weekend but this ate up a lot of my need to get my Toon Boom posts ready since they need my Screenshots and my knowledge but with the headache and other things, I could not focus and I could not work..... that as well as I have my job at the airport.

Anyhow, having recovered, I'll get back to doing proper posts at the moment but I'm way behind on my animation knowledge posts so I'll have to work with what I've got at the moment until I'm back on my feet. 

So I guess the Toon Boom blogposts will have to be postponed to April 2024 due to my job at the airport as well as the headache I had during the first week of Spring break....

My First Video Camera I was aware of+Digital Cameras and Smartphones in general

Camera are one of the many reasons why I'm obsessed with movies...... or at least until my tastes have changed and Hollywood had changed to something I'm no longer familiar with.........

Anyway, What got me into movies was is this CAMERA shown below:

There was a time when the way to film your family or your many adventures in your backyard or bedroom where you had to lug this thing around with your right hand.

This is the camera that introduced me to the realm of filmmaking in the long run. 

This Sony Handycam Camcorder does what it does: It records movies on Magnetic Video Tape but for those who never touched this thing before, it records on Sony's Proprietary Tape Format known as High8 tape.

I seriously got tons of tapes from my Childhood but at the moment, I'm currently lacking a way to transfer the media to a digital source.

I mean, I do have the USB Capture hardware to get the footage but at the moment, I have no working camera to transfer the footage. 

But still, I can't stress how this camera has brought nostalgia to many people who shot footage using cameras like this.

The camera above is actually my most preferred of them all.

The camera shown below was the one I used most but...

This camera has issues for me. For one, It has no speakers, Viewing footage can only be accomplished via the VIEWFINDER unless I use an AV Cable.....

But still, I have many scenes that were shot with this camera and I can't stress enough the memories of of shooting movies on it. 

Most of my shots were pretty experimental, often it was me pointing at random things, messing with the effects, etc.

When YouTube showed up in February 2005, People often had to choose between filming with their Handycams or a digital camera.

Some people like the Higher Fidelity of 480i Video footage better so they use Handycam Camcorders but how do they get the footage into their computer?

They use things like capture cards or pray that their camcorder has USB or Firewire Support.

Other's however had to contend with Cameras like this Olympus FE-20 shown below.

Why? Because it was easier to transfer the footage via USB or SD Card Readers built into your desktop, Laptop, or with a USB SD CARD Reader.

This camera shown above has given me some memories but It's more of a mixed opinion in my part. 

I find that the specs often shown on the Box or the camera itself doesn't lend itself to quality and as far as I know, the specs are bogus for Video.

As it turns out, the high megapixel count often advertised on these cameras are just for the still photography feature so when you take Pictures with these cameras, the quality is high but the movie mode is crippled by a longshot.

Part of the problem with these Early Digital Cameras for video is due to the amount of money that be spent on the tech. 

For a lot of these cameras, the more compact the camera, the more crappy the footage will be.

On many of these compact digital cameras, Video Mode is a crapshoot. You have to find the right resolution or the right settings to get the best picture and framerate you want. 

And that's the least of the problems. Many Digital Cameras have shitty microphones so when you view your video footage, the sound sounds like a blanket or towel as covering up the mic but that's how shitty these microphones were.....

And the shitty microphone quality was exacerbated when taken into some editing software..... at least if WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER is an indication. I remember hearing the muffledness of sound on my OLYMPUS FE-20 camera suddenly turning into NAILS ON CHALKBOARD sound quality when I edited the footage on MOVIE MAKER.

And movie mode often messes with other things such as the Zoom. 

My OLYMPUS was notorious for disabling OPTICAL ZOOM whenever I shoot footage with sound but if I disable audio, I regain Optical Zoom.....

IAN THAYER, aka TWEETERMAN287, had a Samsung Camera that kept Optical Zoom when recording video but every time he used the zoom, the sound mutes every time.

And that was for his 2008 videos. By December of that year, he switched to a better CANON FS100 camcorder and used that for a better part of 2009 until he again upgraded to a CANON VIXIA just so he can be part of the HD Video boom of the 2010s.

If you wanted to have great footage without compromised functionality or a crippled microphone, you had to invest in a Digital Camcorder or a professional Camera like this one shown below.

The problem however is the cost. 

If you look up the cost of these Professional Cameras, you'll be shocked to see how UBER-EXPENSIVE many of these cameras can be. 

I understand that some of my readers who read this, especially those born after 2000 will be confused about Sony Handycams or Olympus Cameras I've talked about but that's either they never grew up with them or they have used them in childhood but they've forgotten about the era of cheap dedicated cameras or phones with low-quality cameras.

But yes, these cameras existed and yes, I've also dealt with the older cellphones and older smartphones where the cameras were even crappier than their dedicated counterparts.

Take for example this MOTOROLA RAZR above. My mother had this phone and my goodness, the camera quality was abysmal but it was the best this phone could take.

To give you an idea of the RAZR's photo quality, here's a photo taken on this RAZR featuring my previous cat PEACH.

My mother later got an LG Neon Slider Phone with a slightly better camera but it's quality was still miles behind the newest iPhone of 2010 which by that point was the iPhone 4.

Anyway, here's are two photos of my mood taken with my mother's LG Neon.

Optimistic Dan Circa 2010

Pessimistic Dan Circa 2011

My very first Smartphone I had with a proper and dedicated Phone Plan was this baby shown below.

Ah yes, My NOKIA C6 smartphone.

The phone may be considered mediocre even by early-2010s standards but it had a better camera and better microphone than most of it's cheaper competition. maybe even better than most Androids back in the day but still underpowered compared to most iPhones back in the day.

I wish I had some photos to show off but many of them were store in a 2GB Micro SD Card that I've long since lost so I have very little to show off.

I do have some videos but I'll leave that for a future post.

But My Nokia had a better microphone than my next Phone which was this baby shown below.

My Second Phone was this NEXUS 5 from Google and so far is my only ANDROID Phone I've owned since.

It also was my first proper SMARTPHONE.... as in my first phone to have apps that are standardized by release platform.

Yes, I did use this Phone as my Camera and while the Video Quality was ok, the Microphone however deteriorated.

Since December 2015, I've been using iPhones ever since.

That phone above which is an iPhone 5S was my first iPhone I had. Amazing how my phone possession has evolved since then and now I have an iPhone 15 Pro.

So why are compact digital cameras no longer available in stores today? Because of Smartphones like the iPhone and Android Phones like the Samsung Galaxies or Google Pixels.

The tech has evolved so drastically that it became redundant to have devices that are for dedicated functions so it caused many a Phone User to just buy a Phone with a decent camera via a dedicated plan like that of AT&T, SPRINT, VERIZON, TELUS, ROGERS, TELCEL, VOTAPHONE, etc.

Dedicated Digital Cameras thankfully are not dead.. yet.... just crazy expensive because those manufacturers know that those cameras are desired by people who feel no matter how high-res of a camera their phones have, the camera CMOS in a dedicated Camera offer superior results when compared to your phone's camera.

For me, While I like the Camera on my Various iPhones, I still prefer to have pictures and videos shot on a dedicated camera like those of CANON or LUMIX but for now, I'm stuck with my iPhone until I save enough money to buy a Lumix Camera.

On a side note, Yes I set my Videos to 60FPS.... While I could shoot exclusively in 4K and 60fps, my iPhone uses up a lot of storage for that and the footage uses a proprietary format that isn't MOV or MP4 friendly for most people who use older operating systems.

Although I use Windows 11 Pro as my Operating system in my PC, I still prefer the MOV or MP4 file formats for video since they're the most efficient formats for my footage. Especially on my MSI Laptop which is stuck with Windows 10 due to it's KABY LAKE Intel CPU.

This isn't a Maverick Quickie but this post did sort of deviate from my Animation Knowledge I usually post. I had many posts that were in the works but so far, I'm suffering writers block and writer's remorse so many of my posts are in the backburner until I feel my posts are ready so that's why I made this post dedicated to Phones and Cameras because I'm bored and rather nostalgic....

British TV Camera Techniques-Film Outside, Videotape Inside

You ever watched those old episodes of your favorite TV show made in the UNITED KINGDOM and wonder why some footage is running at 60fps while other times it's running at 24fps?

Well, it's a phenomenon referred to as FILM OUTSIDE, VIDEOTAPE INSIDE.

This was in the days of old when the magnetic video was used for INDOOR STAGE scenes while 35MM filmstock was used for outdoor scenes.

Whenever that happens, the framerate obviously changes to reflect that. 

Well, the issue, according to a TV Tropes Article on the subject, is that Video Cameras were very bulky and heavy and couldn't be transported easily. That and they consumed a lot of POWER.

Film on the other hand was much more portable for both the cameras and the filmstock... and even though the film had to be developed before editorial, it's still easier to manage on a MOVIOLA or FLATBED than it is editing videotape which requires a lot of rewinding.

Also, Filmstock had much better dynamic range on the colors when compared to magnetic videotape. Have you ever taken out your SONY HANDYCAM Camcorder out the bright sunlight and find the footage gets washed out a bit? Well that's why.

Of course, the colors are unaffected when shooting during an overcast....

speaking of which, VANCOUVER which I live in still, it's pretty famous for having a lot of CLOUDY OVERCAST white skies.... and that's mostly during the spring, fall, and winter.

So yeah, the fact that you often dealt with this on such classic British Shows like 

MR. BEAN, DOCTOR WHO, RED DWARF, etc, it can get jarring when the framerate and the color dynamic range change abruptly when watching those shows.

Today's Younger Viewers on the other hand will definitely get caught off guard by this due to the fact that they barely grew up with the older analog tech.....

For example as part of my generation, I think I did watch shows recorded on 60fps Video Tape but then we made the transition to HD and the highest it can achieve in Framerate is 30fps and that's been the norm for most tv programs. 

The viewers younger than me, not so much.

Also, it can be hard to find most of your classic MR. BEAN or DOCTOR WHO clips on YOUTUBE in the original 60fps because most of the official YOUTUBE channels for those shows choose not to upload the clips in 60fps so we're stuck with the version of VIDEOTAPE that's lost a great amount of frames due to being converted in a palatable 30fps format for most of YOUTUBE even though YOUTUBE is capable of 4k 60fps uploads.

........

Notice I didn't mention MONTY PYTHON?

Well, I wanted to surprise you people with a joke:

Did you know the guys from MONTY PYTHON actually mocked this practice of Outdoor scenes in film and indoor Scenes with tape?

They did it so well, if it weren't for the issues with 60fps uploads though.

Here's a link to the Monty Python Video I was talking about mocking this camera practice...... it's pretty funny on how they executed the joke.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoExamples/VideoInsideFilmOutside 

What metaphor does the original IBM PC Speaker tell about today's music

Well.... I'm obsessed with metaphors so why not talk about the metaphors about today's music.

And what better way to describe it for metaphorical use is the good ole IBM PC Speaker from the bygone days of the IBM Compatible machines...… I mean, technically we still use the PC since the PCs of today are descendants of the architecture powering the original IBM 5150 PC from 1981.

So, This little 8 OHM Cone Speaker........

What metaphor can I think of with this little guy when it comes to music?

I think the reason my generation wants to only listen to the most explicit of GANSTA-RAP is because they too feel like the other parts of music that you listen to the RADIO or SPOTIFY is utter crap.... at least the modern stuff and I can see where this is heading.

Whenever I hear music from the likes of Modern Artists after 2010, I often cringe because It's often nothing but jabbering or using AUTOTUNE....

GODDAMMIT.... WHY DO I HAVE TO HEAR THAT AUTOTUNED SHIT ON THE RADIO.

So what's the metaphor behind this rant?

Well, the PC Speaker is often referred as a single voice generator that only does SQUARE WAVES as a sound which makes sense since it's original purpose was to talk to the user via a beep....

As in those POST Beeps you hear every time you start up your computer back in the day. We still have those beeps in today's desktops but they're disabled be default on your motherboard's BIOS and often the pins for these speakers are not inhabited by the speaker.... oh and the speaker is also not a cone anymore but rather a small PIEZOELECTRIC Barrel held by dangling wires.

But the underlying principle is that the Speaker generates tones.

What separates the PC Speaker of the IBM PC when compared to it's fellow competition is the fact that the speaker is pretty flexible due to the Integer Timer built on these PCs since 1981.

Yes, I'm talking about this guy above this sentence. This is the timer chip used for driving the tones used by the PC Speaker.

You ever wondered how the PC can generated pseudo-polyphonic melodies despite being only a single voice generator? Well, the chip above is the one responsible for all the tone generations.

It actually made the PC far better at optimizing melodies than the APPLE II since it didn't have any hardware timers and just fed the timing to the 6502 CPU,

It also made the PC more versatile than the Commodore PET which had 4 hardware timers.

But how many hardware timers does the PC have with it's PIC Chip?

It's probably best not to think too much so let's move ahead.

I've heard many good compositions on the PC Speaker, if the right amount of effort is taken to programming those square waves. This term is what we refer to as ARPEGGIO.

It's to allow the device to alternate at a fast rate from one note to another in rapid succession. Have you ever whistled in the show or hummed a tune during a walk on the street and you tried to hum or whistle a melody that has more polyphony? Well, think of the arpeggio of the PC Speaker as your own voice humming or whistle.

I wish I could embed a sound file to this BLOGPOST but it ain't possible. The issue is not just the space but rather the integration. 

YOUTUBE videos could be another alternative to embedding the audio so I'll look into that in the future.

But what does the PC Speaker arpeggio logic have as a metaphor for music?  

Well, there are some people who just can't stand today's music due to what they perceive as a cacophony of crazy noises or nonsensical polyphony.

John K. for example criticizes all music made after the 70s and prefers music from before 1969. Maybe that's why REN & STIMPY always uses music that sounds like it was recorded in the 1940s.

For me, I enjoy a lot of music made before the 2010s because that's when most of the artists didn't become so preachy about using AUTOTUNE.

I can't tell you how many songs I've listened to that has that goddamn auto tune and it's really baffling to me that it's still used today.

And even I have issues with today's POP Music regardless if it uses AUTOTUNE or not.

But wait, there's more to back up my critique: 

You ever played around with that sound app pre-installed on your NINTENDO DSi or NINTENDO 3DS.

Here's something you should try if you still have your Nintendo 3DS:

Put a modern song in your 3DS' micro-SD card and try the 8-bit filter.

Notice how when you do that, the filter doesn't know what to do with the song? 

Yeah, that's kind of the metaphor I was looking at.

But that 8-bit filter is pretty polyphonic so imagine taking away all the polyphony of those extra voices and leaving only one voice?

Now imagine the PC Speaker trying to arpeggiate those songs.........

You decide for yourself if it's possible to arpeggiate a melody of today's modern music with just a single voice square wave generator.

Just don't tell that to HERMIT, aka Isaiah Letinihn who I know from high school.....

Update as of October 5 2024:

The sentence where I mentioned Motherboards disabling the Beeper Speaker by default was referring to my old MSI Motherboard.

I've since switched to a GIGABYTE AORUS Motherboard where the sound of the piezoelectric buzzer is turned on and there's no way to toggle it in the BIOS.

I guess Different Manufacturers have different standards for BIOS Settings for the piezoelectric buzzer after all.

Maverick Quickie-The Simpsons and Taxes.

I anticipated that since December 31 2023 and Now I've got it.

On April 5 1998, The Trouble with Trillions aired on FOX.

It portrayed Homer Simpson having dealt with issues with his taxes not being filed on time and properly so in an effort to appease the members of the IRS in Martinsburg, Virginia, he has to expose dirty secrets as well as find the ONLY SINGLE PRINTED TRILLION DOLLAR BILL.

At the same time,  I was watching multiple times this LGR video on the 2018 Tax Outage.

What I learned is that TAXES are now processed via computers and it's been that way since the 1960s. While the hardware has evolved since the 60s, the underlying tech behind this system lives on through emulation of the old system.

By the way, the first computers used for this purpose were IBM 360 Mainframes..... or as the IRS dubbed them: THE MARTINSBURG MONSTER.

And the Quadruplex tape storage used for these files were eventually called the INDIVIDUAL MASTER FILE.

We've come a long way since the days of Mainframes and Quadruplex tapes that belonged only to mathematicians, scientists, and government officials.

Now we are at the cusp of our Laptops or Custom Built Desktop PCs.

Whether it be for gaming or business, it depends where and how you spent your money on your computer hardware and what you intend to use it for.

So what happened on 2018? 

Well, according to the LGR video, the current systems from IBM being used were supposed to have a firmware update but the IRS decided against that.......

Boy did it really bite them hard in the ass.

Except, I was in Canada at this point.... in fact, I still am.

Us Canadians didn't have to worry about this Tax Snafu as we while we have a similar system to the original Martinsburg Monster, We file our taxes differently.

For me, I had to get the money from my bank account and send them to this accountant who's also a member of my Baptist church. He gives me the papers, he gets the money, I sign, and then I wait for my returns via an automatic Transfer to my account.

So, yeah, things have changed since the 1998 broadcast of that SIMPSONS episode but the stress of filing our taxes is the same. Just that unlike in the episode where it's post-office driven, we file via our accountants or online.

Why did I make such a post? I just got my returns. 

No I will not tell how much I got... Personal stuff...

The Symbolism of LITTLE ISLAND+Metaphors with animation and computer graphics

I decided to unwind a bit.

And during that time, I've decided to watch some animated stuff for a change.

One of those is an old 1958 animated short made by the Late Richard Williams.

This is his first animated short, long before he did Roger Rabbit, and certainly way before he ever did THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER..... so the animation being far more limited is an indication that he was just getting started in the medium.... before receiving his education on the medium....

And by education, I meant independent education by being mentored by industry veterans like Milt Kahl.

other examples include Ken Harris and Art Babbit.

Funny how the man who prefers full animation over limited managed without the proper art school education required..... well actually, Richard did go to art school but it wasn't for animation but instead, it was for fine arts. 

Using this REMBRANDT example due to Williams being inspired by the artist.

For me, I had to get two animation school educations to get to where I am. The first I took for exactly one semester before a dropped out. Then four years later, I reapplied and this time, took all my classes and then graduated with a diploma in ANIMATION AND ART DESIGN.

But enough talking about my art school education and let's get back into topic.

The film has no dialogue but that doesn't mean it's completely silent. 

Today, we live in an era where sound is a must but even a silent film should at least have sound and music. How else are you going to explain all those PIXAR shorts where they have no dialogue?

The way the three men in this short communicate at first is with crazy noises.

"NICE GOOD OLD RCA PHOTOPHONE CRAZY NOISES!!!"

"HEY, YOU'RE SUSPOSED TO BE SILENT!"

"SHIT! WE'RE SUSPOSED TO BE SILENT!"

Uh Oh.... somebody's breaking character in my blog..... anyway.....

Other times, it's with their imagination. 

*No lightbulbs here. Just lotus flowers.*

Very surreal but in this case, PSYCHEDELIC SURREAL.... this was 1958, almost 6 years before the rise of the HIPPIE movement. But still qualifies.

Despite how limited the animation is compared to Richard's later works, I often find that if you spend too much time on doing Full Animation, you risk not even telling something funny or poignant. 

So in essence, the short Little Island is an early example of Substance over Style, a direction which Richard would reverse gears.

The Bald guy, who goes by the name of BEAUTY, will visually demonstrate my allegory.

This same argument of style over substance also applies with VIDEO GAMES too. If all that matters to a video game is amazing graphics, then that's all that there is to it but even then, the gameplay won't be that good.

Despite example shown, I still love Crysis for it's merits and benchmarking potentials.

This GRAPHICS PRIORITIZATION PROBLEM didn't start with 3D games on PCs or game consoles but rather started much earlier. I don't know where it started but let's just use the COMMODORE AMIGA as a starting example.

When the COMMODORE AMIGA 1000 was released on July 23 1985, it was absolutely a QUANTUM LEAP in the realm of gaming on a computer. It could do many things that many computers and game consoles couldn't even dream of doing until the 90s rolled in.

But this Quantum Leap was also it's downfall too.

As nice as the graphics are for many games on the AMIGA, it also presented a problem:

GRAPHICS PRIORITIZATION.

It's where a game company prioritizes on Game Graphics instead of perfecting the gameplay and story of the game....

Many old games often don't stand the test of time due to the limitations of the Graphics from whence they came and that's disheartening especially when my generation who's first exposure was 3D games often get exposed to these older games. Since a lot of Younger Generation Gamers want really good graphics, they might disparage the older games for their primitive nature of how they were made.

But the reality is that it's not Game Graphics that are to blame. It's actually the deadlines that companies enforce for game development so that leaves companies scrambling to get the game finished on time but the focus is SHOULD THEY PRIORITIZE GAMEPLAY? OR THE GRAPHICS?

Don't have good examples of game deadlines so instead, I'm using this screenshot of a Calendar from NEON GENESIS EVANGELION.

Other times, the deadlines aren't a problem but rather the hardware of the era when these games were made. RAM prices were very expensive in the 80s and 90s and increasing it on the motherboard from the factory would introduce pricing problems for the hardware.

So while the Amiga could do lots and lots of colors, it couldn't do it at high resolution at first due to the cost of RAM needed for the screen buffers and draw routines and that could make things prohibitively expensive.

But then you'd argue, well how did those CGI Short Films get away with such hardware?

Well the fact is, the AMIGA wasn't used for shorts like Luxo Jr.

 or Tony de Peltrie.

 

Those films were made on different hardware, often minicomputers the size of a refrigerator or a closet and made by the likes of DEC or SGI... and costing more than over $10,000.

Anyhow, This problem escalated with the rise of 3D Game Graphics as they got better and better and suddenly, we have games that look absolutely nice but the gameplay is not great.

Blame it on companies like EA who only care about the money and not about the schmucks who pay for their games......

To give you assessment for the argument, I talked with a coworker of mine at the airport and she said she plays Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3(2023 version). 

She understood the game is not great but she still plays it....... out of spite.....

Look up MWF's score on STEAM to get an idea what I'm talking about.

The same argument can go for animation too. I've seen projects where they have limited animation but they tell better stories than animation done all buttery smooth.

But then I see that the films from the likes of Disney start to hog all the awards, thus making projects such as IRON GIANT, EL DORADO, CATS DON'T DANCE, BALTO, practically all those made by  competitors who feel like their work is all for nothing when they lose to Disney both with critics and box office numbers.

But it's not helped that a lot of those projects are trying too hard to be like Disney.... with all the musical numbers and the full animation, it's no wonder these projects try too hard and slumped and the only reason they prevail today is because they have a cult following that reappraises said films.

By the way, the Push for Competitor's to be like Disney is often blamed on Executives who...... 

Oh you know what I'm talking about......

Films like BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD, SOUTH PARK, they don't need to compete with Disney since those films are their own thing. They don't need Musical numbers.... well...sort of. 

SOUTH PARK BIGGER, LONGER, UNCUT is a musical but more befitting of parodying LES MISERABLES than Disney.... as a matter of fact, Trey and Matt dislike Disney so they don't care if they compete or not....

But Trey hated losing to PHIL COLLINS in 1999 but what do we care....

"To quote my 1982 hit song: I DON'T CARE ANYMORE."

Where do I stand with whether I should do Full or limited?

Well, I'm sort of in the middle.

I do like Nicely drawn animation but at the same time, is it worth animating on ONES? 

.........

Anyway, Metaphors over...... what's the symbolism of LITTLE ISLAND?

Well it's all over the place.

My personal favorite is the buildup before the big fight.... 

where BEAUTY turns into a snooty HARP PLAYING Figure,

 annoying the others with his harp playing

And whipping his snooty hair

Kind of reminds me of these drawings of a similar snooty guy.....

If you're wondering who the snooty guy on these three images is, he's the gangly guy with the pointy nose, sweater vest, sharp shirt collar, and eyelashes.... also his hand gestures too.

Anyway, the guy painted in red blood, his name is GOOD, has had enough of BEAUTY'S Snooty attitude. So he decides to take action

Of course, BEAUTY isn't without rage and clearly, beating the shit out of him as well as jacking his precious feather is enough to piss him off......

And transform so he can have his revenge.

All while TRUTH, watches in horror as the two fight.

So the symbolism of Little Island most likely would be about the Cold War and the ideologies between the two superpowers. After all, this short was released around the time Tensions between the U.S and U.S.S.R were at an all time high before things simmered down during detente period.

This is most likely where I'll end this post.

I admit, I went into another rant..... or was it..... Yikes..... this Short was enough to inspire me to go off the kilter with metaphors instead of focusing on one thing which was the short.... 

I guess I have something in common with LITTLE ISLAND.... and that's breaking away from the general topic at hand....

But many of my comments about Amiga Graphics are true.... from a Youtuber's perspective. 
The comments were from David Murray, aka THE 8-BIT GUY, where he criticized developers for prioritizing Game Graphics over gameplay.

And I've seen the memes where GAME GRAPHICS were prioritized but I currently don't have the meme to show you so I'm doing this clearly by memory.

But this post is not me bashing the RTX cards or anything, otherwise I'd be bashing myself for buying a $1700 RTX 4080 in November 2023. For one, Yes, I like the ray-tracing in today's games but at the same time, games should also prioritize gameplay over making the graphics look hyper realistic.... Look at what has happened with CALL OF DUTY. No wonder Bobby Kotick resigned from ACTIVISION but I guess the failure of 2023's COD MWF3 wasn't the real reason for his resignation.

Yes I've read the criticism of Kotick.... but is he as bad as David Zaslav or worse? 

I'll let you be the judge of that. For me, I'm just going to leave my viewpoint at a grey area.

One final thing, I've finally got Blu-Rays playing on my PC. Took me over 6 months to get it working but it's finally doing the job.

Here's a screenshot from my HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME Blu-Ray.

If you click the screenshot, it will look much larger than my other screenshots I've taken with VLC player when playing DVDs. 

The Screenshots will still look big compared to my DVD Screenshots but you might want to check what monitor you're using as your daily driver. I'm using a 1440p monitor so my mileage may vary on my end but it's definitely better resolution than on DVD.

And that's only the playback of Blu-Rays. I haven't got the menus working yet due to missing JAVA files so I'll have to work on that in the future. But still, a major achievement.

I'm almost DEJA VIEW level of high quality Screenshots from Physical Media.......

By the way, check out ANDREAS DEJA's blog DEJA VIEW while you're at it.

As for THEIF and the COBBLER, I'm keeping my eye out for the MARK 5 print of the film. So far, we're still at Mark 4 for most downloads. And the YOUTUBE Page dedicated to Richard William's work hasn't uploaded MARK 5 yet...

As it turns out, there is a Mark 5 but according to Garrett Gilchrist, Mark 5 is unfinished due to lack of funds and lack of motivation. 

But someone was dedicated enough to let it loose on ARCHIVE.ORG. Here are the links to the film:

https://archive.org/details/the-thief-and-the-cobbler-recobbled-cut-mark-5-wip

https://archive.org/details/the-thief-and-the-cobbler-recobbled-cut-mark-5-wip-06-20-23

Man, all these metaphors and ramblings are making me hungry for more information. I got a sneak peak, sans pictures though:

THE SWEATBOX.

Believe it or not, I saw this Documentary in College and I want to point out a few things in the Documentary that's going to be very educational and will.... just wait for the surprise.