Welcome to my personal void

No one knows what goes on here, least of all me

Tag: VisualAssignments

  • Final Blog Post: Story and Summary

    Chosen Assignments:

    What do you get when you get a bisexual mess of a woman in the year 2197, cybernetic augments, and a recently discovered affinity for psychokinetic magic?

    A fucking headache, that’s what.

    The name’s Alana. I was born in the New Germany sector, and now live in what was once the Pacific Northwest of the now decrepit United States. Nowadays, independent countries like that are obsolete, instead replaced by a worldwide republic known as the Unified Nations of Gaia.

    Not many of us humans still live here on Gaia (or Earth, as you 21st Century individuals called it), now that intergalactic travel is commonplace. I’m just one of the ones who couldn’t quite afford it. Instead, we’re kept under surveillance by the power-hungry bureaucrats and corporations that took power a couple decades ago. You’d think it’d become some dystopian nightmare written in old society texts, but it’s not actually that terrible.

    – A metal identification card, recently issued after the individual turned 25 and received their cybernetics

    Most are required by those above us to get cybernetic implants once we reach the age of 25, under the reasoning of it “extending our lifespans” and “improving us beyond our human limitations”. It’d be pretty swell if they told you about the whole “tracking your location and what you see and hear at all times of the day” thing, but for most, that’s not really much different from the external surveillance everywhere in the major districts. At the very least, they do allow us to customize what kinds of modifications we get, although most true “superhuman” upgrades cost far too much for anyone but the elite to access. I personally went with improved neural abilities and senses via a special headset.

    (ignore the NPCs and the pet slime in the house, they’re not here in this narrative but I made this for a playthrough and I don’t have anywhere in-game to relocate them to)

    As for my personal life, I currently own a little house near a lake far away from the hustle and bustle of any districts and spend most of my days crafting any kind of tech for any interested party. I’m not a big people person, so I don’t really question what they ask of me or what they’re using it for as long as they pay me and leave. I have admittedly been developing feelings for a certain someone, however; Merete, a beautiful lady with a biomechanical arm who frequents my shop for new tech and repairs. She exudes the energy of someone who knows that they’re gorgeous and powerful and owns it, and yet you can tell she has a soft side to her under her down-to-earth and rigid exterior. I just hope one day she can notice my feelings so me and her can connect as partners in something other than business.

    (a mixture of Laufey “From The Start” and Good Kid’s cover of it, I attempted to upload it to Soundcloud but it was flagged by the system since it contains someone else’s song. Unfortunately not much I can do when merging two preexisting songs.)

    It’s a simple life, but I enjoy it well enough. Well, at least, I DID enjoy it until all of it was thrown to hell a couple days back.

    – The cosmic rock that granted Alana her psychokinetic powers

    About a week after getting my enhancements, I was working on my bots as I tend to do when I heard a massive crash come from outside. When I went outside, I saw a greenish smoke coming from about a quarter mile away. My gut was telling me to stay far away from it and report it to the authorities, but something in me was refusing to let me, so against my better judgement, I went to investigate.

    Upon arriving, I found a pretty sizable crater, astronomically larger than the singular green gemstone sitting squarely in the center of it. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but I decided to take it. Perhaps it could be of use in one of my machines, and if not, I’m sure I could sell if for a fancy sum when I next take a visit to one of the market districts near me.

    Upon grabbing it, however, it started glowing a magnificent green, and before I could drop it, it flew up to my head and embedded itself in the neural headpiece that I mentioned before. The pain was tremendous, and if not for said headpiece, I’m sure that I would not have lived the experience. When my head finally stopped hurting enough for me to think, I felt a weird kind of clarity in my mind, like I was thinking so much more than before and for myself alone.

    I went home shortly after to try and sleep it off, but by the time I got back, there were a pair of officers sitting outside my home, one tall and lanky and the other short and with an impressive mustache. I asked them why they were here, but then something in my head told me to move immediately. Startled, I did so, and barely dodged an electroshot they fired from their pulse pistols. The short one tackled me to the ground, and as I attempted to wrestle out of their grasp, I felt some feeling of energy wash over me as they were blown backwards.

    The tall one looked shocked at his much bulkier partner being launched, but before he could do anything about it, he suddenly fell over unconscious. Behind the two collapsed officers stood Merete, having just swung at the tall one and with a grim expression on her face. Without time for me to recuperate, she rushed me inside and explained what she knew of what was happening.

    Apparently, the gemstone planted into my headpiece is the most recent of several stones which have fallen from the sky. Merete reveals that she has a similar stone to mine, only red instead of green and imprinted on the hand of her robotic arm, and states that they appear to disconnect the individual from the larger surveillance system as well as improving the functions of the tech it imprints on. For her, that means that her physical strength is massively enhanced, and as for me, it grants me the ability to mentally will things to move in the physical world. She says it’s a magic called psychokinesis, and that we could further develop our magic if we trained with it, and while normally I’m a firm believer against the existence of such nonscientific ideas, it’s hard to argue with what I’ve just experienced.

    It’s been roughly a week since that incident, and things have only gotten more chaotic as things go. Me and Merete have been on the run from the law, as they’ve appeared to want to detain us for our unwilling powers. We’ve also picked up a man named Ike along our travels, who appears to have gained incredible speed through the blue gem imprinted on his mechanical legs. We’ve experimented with our powers a bit, and I’ve started being able to lift things from afar. Nothing super heavy or far, but it’s something.

    Oftentimes, I look at what I’ve become and wonder if I’m even still the same woman I was only about a month ago. I’ve abandoned my home and work to go on the run, I have both cybernetic and mystical augments, and I don’t even know what our ultimate goal with all of this is. All I know is that nothing is the same, and that I can’t stop now that I’ve gone this far.

    So yeah. That’s my story. Just a country bumpkin who’s found herself a fugitive, cyborg, psychic, and hopelessly in love. Certainly not what I expected for my birthday, but you know how life is, it never is quite what you predict. Tomorrow morning, we’re heading out to try and seek information on our predicament from the region’s central district. Wish us luck, and this has been Alana, signing off.

    And that was my final story for this class, hope it wasn’t too shabby. I’ve learned a lot over the course of this class, and while it’s been a massive headache and I’m not sure I’ll end up using most of these techniques in my future career, I’m still glad I ended up taking this. I Definitely feel that audio was the biggest hurdle for me to understand initially, but once I got the hang of it, I actually found video to be the hardest and most time consuming.

    I’ll be honest, I don’t think I could ever going into this field or teaching a class like this. There’s just so much to consider in terms of not only the story you’re telling, but how you’re going about it, and I just don’t think I’m equipped for all of that. If I did theoretically take over the class, however, I feel like I’d probably send out a lot more emails. Not that we weren’t supplied information and feedback, anything but that, but I know myself well enough to know that I’d end up worrying a ton about keeping track of my students and their progress.

    As for my favorite project, definitely the Lyric Video I did last week. Not only is it something that I put a lot of time into, and thus feel proud of the product for, but I felt like I contributed to the internet as a whole since I couldn’t find anyone else who made the same video for that song.

    I don’t really have much else to add, so I wish you a good summer and good luck with your future classes!

  • Intro Visual Part III-4: World Pup (Draw-It)

    “Take a photograph of something (If you take a picture from the internet, make sure to be nice and cite the original) and transform it through GIMP, Photoshop, etc, into a drawing.”

    One day, there was a corgi, and with her was her trusted ball. Now this dog was not the brightest or the most graceful, but she had a dream. This dream was to one day win the World Pup, the ultimate test of talent for any soccer-loving canine around the world. So every day and every night, this pup trained her hardest to become the best soccer dog ever. Her bounds went from clumsy to calculated, and she scored goal after goal after goal. Every single move she made, she made with her favorite soccer ball.

    Finally, she felt ready. She convinced her owners to take her to the World Pup, and got prepared to team up with her fellow corgis to take home the trophy. They won the first round, and then the second, and found themselves squaring up against the Australian Shepherds. They played their hearts out, and were evened up with the much larger dogs until tragedy struck. Our corgi’s favorite ball, in the heat of the game, tore upon and got destroyed!

    She was absolutely devastated, and while she still tried to play, it just simply wasn’t the same, and in the end, they just barely lost. Her ball was gone and she didn’t make it to the top. She went home in a slump, and thought she would never play again. However, when she woke up the next day, she saw a miracle: her owners has taken home her ball and put it back together, good as new! Our corgi friend realized then that she didn’t care about being the best, or for winning the World Pup. All she cared about was that she had her favorite ball back.

    My Dog and Her Ball

    This has been my story, based on my own beloved corgi Maggie. Her favorite toy is her fake soccer ball, and we often make jokes about her joining the World Pup, so I decided to roll with this and spin it into a story of attachment, heartache, and most importantly, a very, very good dog.

  • Intro Visual Part III-3: Magic of Nature

    I saw one about creating some nature-themed text, and I decided that I wanted to take my hand at that with a little sorcerous flair to it. One, I just like magic and think it improves the contrast of the photo to have a magic missile soaring through, but two, there are so many things in nature explained as science that I refuse to believe isn’t just magic we somehow understand. Like, what do you mean worms can just duplicate when cut apart? That’s straight magic and I refuse to hear anything else.

  • Intro Visual Part III-2: Favorite Photo

    I’ll admit, there’s not really much deep reason as to why I chose this as my favorite photo I’ve personally taken. For one, it’s probably one of the higher quality photos I’ve taken, but more importantly to me, it’s of my dog Maggie that I’ve had for years at this point. I rescued her from a shelter before I moved here and she’s been one of the most important faces in my life since, and I can’t imagine myself without her.

    The apple on the head just adds to her overall silly nature, she is a complete brat and goofball and I wouldn’t change a thing about her.

  • Intro Visual Part III-1: City Graphic Poster

    I decided to make a horizontal banner-style poster as opposed to a portrait-style one for this assignment. I ended up deciding on San Antonio, as while I’m not from there specifically, I grew up in Texas and loves our visits to the city. The food there was awesome, the Alamo was a nice place, and the canoe rides were fantastic, so I have fond memories of there.

    I mainly used GIMP for this assignment, as that’s the primary photo editing software that I use. I use the Oilify artistic filter to make it look like, well, an oil painting, then replaced the background with almost a sunset gradient. Finally, I put in the location’s text in the back with it being partially behind the city’s horizon. There’s not much more to say, it’s not a very complex image.