Whoops just fixed the typo in the header

I genuinely never noticed until you pointed it out

I'm still playing through Pokemon Violet, but also started playing Jedi Fallen Order on my Steam Deck. I've already played through it on Xbox, but it was on sale for a few bucks during the Autumn Sale and I can't resist a handheld version of an already great game.

I've been listening to a bit of Blu DeTiger lately. I first heard her song "Vintage" on the college radio station and looked her up after that because I love a good bass riff. She even has a pretty good Talking Heads cover of "Once in a Lifetime".

She also looks so much like my friend's sister that I thought I was witnessing a Hannah Montana situation for a little bit.

I've heard good things about Blender and it's basically the most widely used (free) 3D modelling tool. Though in my experience it's pretty hard to get a grip on using it, but there's definitely more than enough guides online to help you with that.

Seconded. Blender is free, so it's the best place to start. I've seen some amazing things made with it... but not by me. I learned 3dsmax and Maya in college. I wasn't great at either, but I made a couple cool looking things. But when I tried Blender I couldn't get to grips with the interface. With the expensive commercial software, I think you're mostly paying for UI/UX. It's just a lot more user friendly.

That said, CSP is a fantastic program (their... forays into subscription-type stuff and the godforsaken AI shit they pulled these last few days aside); I honestly originally bought it solely for its posing tools and things like perspective rulers, symmetry, etc that fill in gaps that PS can't cover. I regularly use it as part of my workflow nowadays. Can't see it replacing PS for me any time soon but it's a great tool to have in your arsenal! Any reason why you're thinking of moving away from CSP?

Honestly, their recent business decisions are the main reason why I want to move away I know that I can (and probably should) just ignore them, but I don't know... It just feels kinda gross, I guess, to continue using it?? Like, I'd rather use an application that doesn't pull that garbage :-P

I had to look up what's going on because I'm out of the loop. Sounds like they're pulling exactly what Adobe did with the Creative Cloud subscription.

I hung onto my copy of Photoshop CS6 for almost a decade before eventually caving in and buying the subscription. I have a really high resolution desktop monitor and CS6's UI doesn't scale, so that was part of my decision; but it was actually the AI features that convinced me to upgrade. I understand the controversy around Stable Diffusion and Dall-e generating entire images after being trained on other artists' work without their permission. That's pretty shitty, especially if those images then get used commercially. But I like Photoshop CC's Neural Filters that let you easily modify an existing image rather than generate an entirely new one. Being able to swap backgrounds, reposition lighting and even adjust facial expressions is pretty cool.

I also use Photoshop for work, and am employed full time, so the cost isn't too bad and easily justifiable. But all of these subscription models really aren't friendly to any lower-income creators or especially students. And being able to use the software for cheap (or free, considering how easy it was to pirate Photoshop 5 when I was in high school) is a great way to train and hook in the next generation of people who will be using it professionally. I probably wouldn't be so high on Photoshop's fumes if I hadn't spent all of high school playing around and learning how to use it.

I have tried a lot of different programs and Photoshop is easily the best. It really does everything.

Other programs that focus on doing one thing well, like painting or vector art, are great for that niche. I actually prefer Clip Studio Paint for drawing line art with the vector brush, and it's great for comic layouts. For quick sketches I like having Autodesk Sketchbook on my phone or tablet. Krita was really nice for painting.

But when I want to draw, paint, animate, make pixel art or do web design, Photoshop does all of that with a great interface and nice AI tools.

Gimp tries to compete in the same space, and does do a lot of things Photoshop does, but it doesn't do any of them as well. If cost is important, Gimp is fine for a free tool. But if you have the money, Photoshop is really worth it.

I love all of these, but I think the ultimate cozy '80s song has to go to Peter Gabriel.

:innocent:

This reminded me of "Since I Left You" by The Avalanches, so that's what I'm listening to now.

I'm glad the links page is getting so much love.

My favourite part of old sites was usually the humour section. I especially liked reading fanfics where familiar characters all act like idiots, or short comic strips.

exactly! and i do love the re1 remake, sorry i didn't make that clear lol. and i wonder if re2 and 3 will get fan remakes like re1 has? that would give me some hope for a good reinvigoration of those titles.

I read a while ago about a mode for the RE2 remake that used fixed camera angles. Actually, I think there was an official game mode that Capcom scrapped before release and a fan mod as well. That would have been great to see.

Yeah but isn't that reflective of how many certificates and "services" are being used nowadays, doing things like collecting user data and selling it to advertisers?

Back in the day, that would have caused a massive outrage, but over the years, it's become normalised.

I think you've got cookies and certificates conflated. Certificates are used to authenticate and encrypt connections to a web server.

Cookies, definitely. Those are rampant thanks to sites like Facebook and can be used to track your activity all over the web. They even deviously managed to create self replicating cookies that couldn't be cleared. I don't know if those are still in use or if they got rid of them once they were exposed.

You know, getting all of these "certificate"/cookie notifications has made me realise something: Back in the day, those were seen as dangerous and risky to accept, to the point it stops you in your tracks to let you know they're there.

Now you're never told anything. The risks have been way downplayed since and are seen as normal, and you're the weirdo for not liking them. I'm sure this was no accident.

Don't worry, it's not a conspiracy. Older browsers just don't recognize the newer method of using a single IP to issue multiple certificates.

Certificates that don't come from a known trusted source recognized by the browser will cause a warning so you have to manually accept them.

I watched The Blob (198:cool: last night! It was clearly a huge inspiration for Stranger Things although non CGI whitch really adds a lot to it; if you enjoy classic 80s over the top horror I recommend it!

I watched the Blob a looooong time ago, when I was honestly too young and it freaked the hell out of me seeing the half-dissolved people inside of it.

idk how controversial this is, but i'm not liking the resident evil remakes. they removed a lot of the clunkiness/actively hostile features that make the experience fun to me, and focused a lot more on action than horror; it just doesn't feel the same when i can, for example, sprint through the entire map without having to take the pauses the door animations mandate, and moreover i think that the pauses in pace it creates are necessary to immerse oneself in the horror, not to mention the beautiful (terrifying) moments when the "rules" of that are broken (i.e. zombies coming through the door at you, enemies breaking doors to get to you). the new games just feel so fast and... punchy (i guess?), but they don't make me afraid like the originals did.

I like the RE2 and 3 remakes well enough, but I do wish they were more like the RE1 remake. My general feeling of remakes is that, when done well, they make the original obsolete. That's exactly what the RE1 remake did, but the RE2 and 3 remakes are just too different to truly take the place of the originals. They're basically entirely new games with the same general story. If you want to play the original Resident Evil 2 but with modern graphics and polish, you still can't despite the remake being right there. You get a very different experience from each.

Is anybody else playing the new Pokemon? Which version did you get?
 
I'm really impressed so far. This is the first Pokemon RPG I've actually enjoyed since Red. I bought Violet because I liked the look of the legendary more.

And also Eiscue!

I know a lot of people are talking about the game being ugly and running poorly. I don't really agree. It's definitely not the prettiest game on Switch and it does have some performance issues, but it's not nearly as bad as a lot of the complaints I've read make it out to be and neither issue is severe enough to ruin the game.

To me it feels like one of the old RPGs crossed with Pokemon Snap. It has the classic gameplay, but you get to see the Pokemon out in the world doing things naturally. There are maybe too many Pokemon scattered around, so the world feels kind of cluttered and like their placement is haphazard. But I prefer that over there being too few and having to search endlessly to find something, like hunting in Red Dead Online.

For a while now I have been suffering from this same condition, hopping from Linux Distro after Distro (I am currently trying to stick to one, switching back from Ubuntu Unity to Pop!_OS again), Programming language after Programming language, Project after Project, Goal after goal, and not really accomplishing anything.
Which I find absolutely frustrating as I want to do things that I have been wanting to do for a long time (like making a long-term video game project) and accomplish some portion of my dreams but never doing it because I keep getting distracted.

When I first got into Linux, I did the same thing. I tried out a whole bunch of distros one after the other and then didn't really do anything with it after. Just the experience of getting it running and trying it out was the fun part.

In your case, that dopamine hit for something you can relatively easily accomplish might be what's getting in the way of tackling the harder goals that don't come so easily. Your brain knows the thrill of trying a new language is right there. Trying anything new comes with those early novice successes, but then you hit a wall where you run out of those early successes and need to work toward bigger goals. It's the novice-intermediate-master hump that so many people get caught on. You make a lot of progress early on, then things get harder and harder until you're not seeing those fast results. A lot of people give up there, but pushing through it and reaching the mastery level makes even those difficult tasks quick and thrilling, and the challenge comes from combining techniques in novel ways to accomplish what you want.

When people think of their long-term goals, they can think of the success as being at the end and it seems daunting, so they prefer the short quick wins they can get elsewhere. One approach might be to break the long-term goal into smaller tasks so that you can get that satisfaction early in small doses. Think of a small module that would go into your game, or a piece of artwork like a single sprite animation. Something that you can achieve early on. Make each little piece your next "shiny object". You can build the project from the ground up from these small chunks and see where it reaches, rather than trying to have a master plan in place and then working to fill it with all the necessary pieces before you'll be satisfied with anything you've made.