The Bastille

Hi, Welcome To The Bastille, Hope You Enjoy Your Stay

[stayhungry-stayfree]

PSA: Cellulite and stretch marks are normal. The only reason we’ve been told that they’re not is because companies want to sell you products to reduce, minimize, or eliminate these very natural body characteristics. Your body is not a photoshop picture. Stop beating yourself up for being human. 

[skrotchevo]

[taggthewanderer]

Time to deck the halls.

[oscarorozcoorejel]

The stranger things kids enchanting thier weapon

[iamalivenow]

for everyone who’s excited about obsidian dragging bethesda this isn’t just about how fucking trash garbage 76 is, this is about how obsidian was shafted by bethesda when fallout new vegas came out.

heres the thing, obsidian used to work on a weird kind of business model where they would make games on a budget for certain companies and if they met a certain review quota they would get a bonus.

new vegas missed the quota by 1 point.

1 point because bethesda didn’t give them enough money to make one of, if not the best game in the franchise, and rushed them continuously through production

this isn’t new drama

this is obsidian finally getting its vindication after bethesda robbed them and almost sent them into financial ruin

and its Great

[royalharkinian]

If we’re all going down I'm going the way I lived, making shitty memes in the face of peril.

[that-twink-over-there]

This is a MASTERPIECE

[the-kouchfort]

[itskyalenotkyle]

I want to talk to the manager 😂😂😂

[vincentvanleggo-deactivated2018]

It really be like that tho

[yermemeblog]

That one friend who takes sneezing to a whole new level.

[medusolo]

[roxasxx]

Mermista is only in around five episodes but man does she know how to make an impact.

[truckhole-deactivated20181203]

god today i ID’d an old dude buyin booze and he pulled out a fake ID with an elvis pic, then laughed and pulled out a matching one but with curly from three stooges on it, and im like okay please and he finally pulled out his real license and his legal name was steve sinner

[margbarcis]

that was the devil

[cofficionado]

[jvlioo]

“Girl you think I give a fuck about this job. I don’t want this job, I want you.”

- Barack Obama

[holguindev]

Following The Eye

Eye-Trace For Games

When the camera in a game is done well everything feels just right, everything just flows. It’s the reason why Journey, why Inside, why Mario Kart 8, and just about every Nintendo game feels just as if anyone could play them.

Knowing how to deal with the eye not only helps you make your game more accessible but it also makes it easier to follow in the most hectic of moments.

From: PlayDead’s INSIDE

My goal: Is to explain how to design the game around the eye’s limitations and create experiences that are more comfortable for our users. I will start with the simple yet effective concept of Eye-Tracing.

An example:

From: Mad Max Fury Road

Follow the red circle: We can immediately read where the motorcycle is between shots and we see the barrel on the shotgun, each shot takes less than a second, yet we read every beat, and that’s because the eye is directed so well here.

Eye tracing is an editing technique used to direct where the eyes of a viewer will be across several shots, in other words it’s strategically moving the eyes of your player to a specific point in the screen and using it in different fun ways.

Create an environment in which you know which part of the frame your player is most likely to be looking at, this can be performed a number of ways but I wont get in the details of composition, color theory, photography or animation. I will only talk about the eyes.

Now, how does something from cinema world, a world where everything is scripted, and there’s a cut every 5 seconds or so apply to an interactive medium? Well the answer is simple it does so in a completely different way.

I will jump back and forth between games and movies but this is a game focused article.

-

Do Your Eyes Follow?

What does the player see? What do you as a creator want them to see?

Do those 2 align? Can they?

Eyes have a 5 degree central vision, this is where we read books, if our target moves outside of the near-peripheral section of our eyesight the eyes will have to change positions.

TVs tend to hang in the mid peripheral, it feels as if it covers the whole vision but it really doesn’t. Close one eye and make a frame with your hands observe how much your monitor or your TV takes of your vision space.

-

My rules are: 

Screen Is A Plane Not A Window.

Eyes Are Slow.

Eyes Need A Home.

Up And Down Before Left to Right.

One Thing At A Time.

-

The Screen Is A Plane Not A Window

The screen is a flat surface, not a window to another world.

The key word here is Planar space! This is the basis of eye tracing, and designing moving media in a way that is easy to read for people. Even 3D movies need to compose in planar space.

Maintaining the focus in a slowly moving point in planar space makes it easier on the eyes because your eyes have to move way less.

-

Eyes need a home

Even when there’s nothing to be seen, the eyes should be directed to a point on the screen.

From:Mario Kart 8

In hectic game-play, having one direct point to return to is imperative as it makes the gives the eyes a simple point to return to as they jump from object to object during the action.

In games like Mario Kart the player doesn’t have to worry where the character is, but where the obstacles are.

-

Eyes Are Slow

Eyes are freaking slow, if you bring motion to a target and this target moves too fast the eye will unhook from it, this occurs because of something called Saccadic Masking a mechanism in our brain so we don’t see our eyesight motion blur.

This means things on the screen need to move at a slow pace but not in any space but in planar space, remember the first rule The Screen Is A Plane Not A Window, as long as the characters move slowly through planar space the characters will be easy to follow, we are aiding the player to follow the character by moving it as little as possible.

If something moves slowly across the screen the eye has an easier time reading it.

Speed of movement in planar space matters, if you move to quickly the eye gets lost.

For example this is easy to follow by the eye.

This isn’t.

From: Playstation All-Stars

Now on this.

From: Super Smash Brother’s Ultimate

Unlike PlayStation All-Stars, Super Smash Brother’s camera is designed around the philosophy of making the action as easy to follow as possible.

Game camera attempts to make the characters move smoothly through planar space, it will even sometimes hook characters if they don’t move for a bit.

This philosophy means everything, this philosophy created this marvel of technical prowess. Regardless of how it was engineered the camera in Smash Brother’s is superbly created.

-

Up And Down Before Left To Right

It’s easier for the eyes to follow vertical motion than horizontal motion.

This is why magazines design text in small columns, and entire languages are designed to be read vertically. Eyes find moving up and down more comfortable.

(Read on a large screen)

Up to down

Left to right

This also helped Journey’s devs to create a smoother camera that otherwise would have wobbled inelegantly.

Vertical motion will still cause Saccadic masking if motion is too fast, vertical motion just happens to be slightly more comfortable to follow than horizontal motion.

-

One Thing At A Time

One thing at a time, and only one thing at a time.

I’m not going against the laws of composition nor framing, you can do amazing things with multiple characters, and crowds. This rule here talks about how even in highly composed shots we still only see one face at a time, one item at a time, or one enemy at a time.

Eyes can only see one thing at a time. Crazy huh? You have to literally stop looking at one thing to look at another. Hell it’s even scientifically proven we can’t multitask. So don’t force people in your supposed-to-be-entertainment product to attempt things that we aren’t biologically designed to do (unless it’s multiplayer, or if you figure it out, who am I to stop you).

From: Super Mario Odyssey

Make sure that if something is happening on the screen that only one thing is happening that requires the player’s full attention, now this may go against the idea of action game-play for a lot of people, specially in games with a lot of AI going at you, this is easily remedied by having only one AI attack at once, think, and ask yourself the question, What is the main focus at this very moment? and make it immediately readable. Yes, even if it’s outside the screen.

-

Solutions

I will give some solutions to improve your game on the engineering side.

1) Create the camera system backwards.

Engineer the camera system to respect the points in planar space first and then calculate to it.

2) If you know where the eye is, use it.

Dynamically determine where the eye is right before the next shot, or right before elements are to be displayed.

We can create things that only games can do, we can dynamically adjust the camera, the next shot, or item position for our users.

3) Guide the eye.

It’s your job to guide the eye, figure out ways in which you can do it the most effectively.

Things like the opening in Journey are just brilliant. The eye follows the character to the top of a hill just to bring an even bigger from the horizon.

-

The Future

I hope this gives people an understanding of how the eye works in games and helps us understand the one issue that I think plagues entertainment software the most, we think of the camera as a dual state either it is a “Game Camera” or a “Movie Camera”, that just has to stop, I think we can embrace cutting and create something that is neither Game nor Movie camera.

With a better understanding on how to handle eye-tracing we can do things film can’t even imagine, so I hope this article helps you learn something I noticed. And helps you realize that one thing that only your game can do that will blow us all away.

Cheers,

-Fern.H.W.

Liked this article? Follow Me In Tumblr

https://twitter.com/Fern_hw

[routins-bye-deactivated20200724]

finding out people dont usually add numbers by first adding something to make a ten (for example 7+6= 7 plus 3 is 10 plus another 3 is 13) & that its actually an adhd thing is the WILDEST shit literally ive lived like 10 years (or however old i was when i learned to add and stuff) thinking thats how everyone does it. what the fuck

[c-bassmeow]

[pocketss]

it’s just one of those croissant days

[pocketss]

we love a recovery

[egobuzz]

when in doubt just ask a dog 

[egobuzz]

someone send “BOOF!” to your crush/significant other and share the results with the rest of the class please 

[orewing]

better response than expected!

[lyinginbedmon]

IS THIS WHY YOU SENT ME THAT MESSAGE?!

[cyborg-furby]

[pavlovsfox]

[gummybearattacktheworldofdespair]

[trixify]

[sswifts]

i honestly didn’t expect anything less

[plantkissed-deactivated20160611]

new ask meme where u send a boof on anon if im ur tumblr crush

[serenefreakgeek]

send me BOOF on anon if I’m your tumblr crush ♡

[world-of-cats]

Source

[dankmemeuniversity]

[gallusrostromegalus]

A Short List of Shenanigans My Parent’s Dog Has Engaged In:

This is Arwen, she’s a Husky/Kelpie mix and a little Asshole:

“I wonder if she can jump?” my dad asks the first five minutes we have her.  She perks up at the word, and clears a six-foot fence form sitting on the ground. “Oh.”  Says dad. “Shit.” Later that night she got up on the counter and ate three pounds of corned beef in roughtly 68 seconds but this was considered part of the learning curve of having a new dog.

I wake up at 4 AM to the sound of the toilet being flushed repeatedly in the hall bathroom, and assume plumbing is now posessed by angry and wasteful ghosts.   I get up to disconnet it and find her in the Bathroom, standing to flush the bowl, then shoving her head in to drink the running water.   I’m not totally awake, so I stand there like an idiot trying to understand this, and my sister gets up to see what the noise is, sees the same thing and also stands there.  Fiance notices my absence and does the same.   Mom eventually wakes up and finds us standing around like very confused zombies and almost joins the parade of baffled zombies before shreiking “THE WATER BILL!” We got her a circulating water bowl after that.

My parent’s don’t have AC, but they haveone of those “fridge on top, pull-out-freezer below” fridges.  Last summer, we were remarking that we might need to shave her so she didn’t get heatstroke, to which she looked up and made a disgusted noise at us. …Then got up, used the dishrag to pull open the freezer and climbed on top of the frozen vegetables, stretching out and sighing contentedly.  “Arwen,” Mom began, but was interrupted by a loud ‘WHAAAaaaaarrr?” from Arwen.  “Ok you can stay there for now but we’re getting you a kiddie pool so you have to get out when we get back.  Don’t eat anything.” She ate a bag of frozen green beans and farted for three days straight.

Took her walking along the lake with the long lead so she could sniff things to her hearts content.  She went about shoving her head in the undergrowth, usually coming up with her head covered in leaves and pollen. Except for the bush where she came back out with a 7-foot Bull Snake wrapping itself around her ehad and neck, trying it’s best to strangle her before she can eat it.   She immediately ran back to me, the parts of her face not occupied with the snake arranged in a gleeful expression of “Look!  I found Snacks!” I screamed, not immediately regognizing that it wasn’t a rattler, and fell, splitting my knee on a rock.  The screaming made her let go of the snake, but I still had to grab her and wrestle the snake off her because it lacked the sense to just scuttle away.  I finaly got it lose from her (Despite her best effort to continue trying to eat it and turned around to fling it off the trail-  -And directly into the face of one of my 90-year-old neighbors who’d come out to see what the screaming and profanity was, making her collapse. I’m pretty sure being told “I accidentally threw a snake at my neighbor.” was the highlight of that EMT’s day.  Dottie was unharmed but she still doesn’t speak to me.

One day, we left her in a Harness and overhead tether in the (at the time) unfanced back yard so she could enjoy some relatively free-range outdoors time.  I walked by the window not a minute later to find her completely GONE, and race out to the yard to find her.  It took me a good heart-pounding five minutes to realize the overhead tether was goign UP into the ancient silver maple and realized that  1. Arwen can apparently do something really weird with her shoulders where they pop out sideways, allowing her to bear-hug the tree and  2. climb a good 40 feet into the three to fight 3. A porcupine, which i didn’t even know LIVED out here. Fortunately, Porcupines weigh considerably less than Awen and she couldn’t get a good enough foothold to get all the way up to it, but I still had to climb up there and lower her down, barking dog profanities at the porcupine the whole way.

My parents recently acquired a mechanized recliner which has been instumental inmom’s hip surgery recovery.  Execpt that Awen Also likes lounging on the furniture, and is more than capable of hitting a large, elder-friendly button with her paw.  So now when she gets back from a walk or the dog park she makes a beeline for the living room, get in the recliner and pushes the button until it’s flat and stretches out in it.  My parents didn’t have a problem with this because she gets out of the chair when they ask her (Mom even tells her “Go get my chair ready” in winter because she does a good job pre-warming it), until last winter when Arwen taught my dog Charlie, another devoted couch animal how to do this. One afternoon there was a tremendous outburst fo barkign and snarling from the living room and we rished in to find both dogs in the recliner, Charlie on the fully-reclined back and Arwen on the elevated seat and foot rest, bellowing at eachother for control of the recliner, thier movments having pitched it back to it’s two hind feet, the device swaying to and fro like a leather covered boat upon the high seas, a furry mutiny on board.  Neither dog was willing to yeild the plush throne, nor to listen to the humans yelling at them to knock it the hell off, until Arwen tackled the usurper, kocking him off and managing to cantaleiver the recliner clean over, flipping it into the hall, both dogs and all humand miraculously unharmed. She still doesn’t let him sit in it.

I love her so much.

(If you got a laugh out of this, please consider donating to my Tip Jar or Paypal to get Arwen (and Charlie!) nice treats)

[gallusrostromegalus]

Evening reblog with an additional Shenanigan I just remembered:

One of the regulars at the dog park was an unfixed basset hound with an obnoxiously indifferent owner.  “Brad” shows up pretty much to smoke weed and let “Bojangles” harass the other dogs, in spite of regular complaints about Bo starting fights and trying to mount every dog, leg, and toddler in sight. 

One evening, Bo was particularly interested in Arwen, aggressively following her, nipping her heels and trying to mount her, even after her usual wolverine-like Snap’n’Snarl, which has tended to discourage unwanted suitors before.  Brad was Too Damn High to notice, as usual, but mom knew that if Arwen actually bit Bo, Arwen would be the one in trouble and was trying to call her when Bo made yet another attempt and Arwen finally had it.

Instead of rightfully tearing his face off, Arwen instead did what Mom described as “A Judo-style front-flip” that pulled Bo clean off the ground and threw him on his back, Arwen landing on her feet like a cat.  Bo’s stubby little legs didn’t allow him to right himself before Arwen  jumped on him, front paws slamming into his saggy basset balls, squatted over his face, and peed on him.

“ARWEN NO!!” howled my mother as nearly everyone else present laughed, but having made her point, Arwen daintily got off Bo, and trotted to the gate, ready to go home. Bo yelped but got up and skulked away, only moderately bruised, cowering under the bench by Brad, who finally noticed something might be amiss.

Mom remembers hearing “Dude, why is my dog all wet?” right as they were leaving.  Apparently nobody told him what happened, becuase Brad still brings Bo to the park, but Bo has much better manners now.

[symphonyofmars]

I read this whole thing to my mom and upon reading the end part she was like “OH MY GOD! Our dog Lady once flipped another dog and I didn’t know it was a thing dogs could do!!” 

So there’s that.

[gallusrostromegalus]

Update: Arwen was at the vet’s office for a check-up and daycare, and decided partway through the afternoon that the other two kelpies were annoying her, but she didn’t want to go inside to be kenneled for a nap, so she instead…

…ninja’d her way onto the vet’s roof despite there being three people in the yard watching the dogs and no clear way up there. She had a pleasant hour of watching the vet staff try to figure out how she did that and how they were going to get her down before mom came to pick her up.

“Arwen, get your furry butt down here!”

At which point Arwen obidently got down by jumping into a nearby tree that’s technically inside a neighboring house’s yard, shimmied down that like a bear, then walked out of their side yard and back around the block to come sit at Mom’s feet, putting her paws up like she expected a treat.

That tree is not accessible from the daycare yard. We still have no idea how she got up there.

Shine on you beautiful bitch.

[snarkasaurus]

This just gets better and better every time i see it

[the-muse-of-many-more]

I…

I have fostered doggos for a good majority of my life and my brain simply cannot process half of the bullshit in this post…

What the actual fuck?

[gallusrostromegalus]

Arwen was trained as an Autism Service Dog by inmates as part of a prison rehab/service dog charity program.  So like, 90% of her Bullshittery comes down to:

1. She’s a mix of two extremely smart breeds 2. She’s a mix of two extremely energetic breeds 3. The inmates trained her to do lots of “Extracirriculars” like veritcal leaps, how to climb chain-link fence, agility courses, physical-comedy type tricks becuase they finished teaching her the regular Service Dog Cirriculum and wanted to keep working with her.   4. Due to said Extrcirriculars, she doesn’t have any fear of heights, strangers, animals, or the nonsense of other dogs.

She does do the Professional Service Animal thing when we put her vest on, but then she’s working and has things to do like teaching social skills to people or being a living stress ball to someone having a bad time, so all that brains, energy and training can be put towards a productive end, but if she hasn’t got an active job, Shenanigans Ensue.

[afanofmanystuffs]

I love everything about this omg

[gallusrostromegalus]

Update:

She ate a four inch hole in the carpet because someone dropped a pork chop there. She’s completely fine, it all passed without so much as an upset stomach on her part.

-also ate the garden hose because we weren’t spraying her with it.

-conned one of the guys that installed the AC out of his sandwich by pretending to bark at something on the other side of the house, and doubling back when he came to investigate.

-is back on the therapy circuit helping kids in a summer school program get better at reading by having them read books to her. Her favorite student right now is a boy from Venezuela who is still learning English who gives her a big hug every morning. She doesn’t normally like hugs but she puts a paw on his back to hug him back.