#also can you believe i downloaded the asset file again?

[selamat-linting]

this dave strider guy is a little annoying but mostly amusing. a katana tough guy who covers things up in irony and humor. very... nay i shan't say. also who is the green gg chat? i assume she's the glasses briefly shown during dave's showdown? is this just the artstyle or does she look a little too much alike with john? even the teeth is the same!

[winxwannabe]

Winx Season 9/Reboot Leaks

Okay here's the tea: earlier today a twitter user by the name of Cataclysm_Power started posting a video they claimed was from the new Winx season/reboot. When pressed for further information, they linked to a telegram chat with what appeared to be assets from Rainbow (17 screenshots/2 videos). After some C-grade internet sleuthing, I am here to give my (worthless and possibly wrong) opinion on which ones I think are real and fake.

A note before we jump in: I'm not posting full images on my blog, because again I do think some of these are real and if the leaker is to be believed, they hacked Rainbow to get them. You can look yourself through the telegram link, or others who've posted them on the Winx Club tag. I also think the leaker themselves is scammy because they've tried charging for Miraculous leaks before. Do NOT give them any money if they ask.

Real: Bloom, Stella, and Icy's asset sheets, Bloom Full Body Pose

A lot of these leaks are 3d modelling assets, and these 3 are the ones I'm totally convinced are real.

The biggest clue of their validity is the bottom banner. All 3 sheets have them, along with the same episode code and notes in Italian. They're all also linked to the same person: Pasqualino Masciulli is Rainbow's 3D modelling supervisor, and has been with the company for at least 9 years. He's done videos on Rainbow's youtube channel as well, using his shortened first name Lino. My main point is that's way too niche for someone to fake just to make some convincing leaks, and it would make sense for the assets to be tied to him.

Likewise, there's a full-body frame post of Bloom with fucking ugliest denim leg warmers credited to a g.riccobono. This is likely Giulio Riccobono, who is listed on Linkedin Italy as a Rainbow employee.

Probably Real: Tecna's asset sheet, Bloom's detailed asset sheet

Both of these are likely real but have weird things about them that make me pause. Bloom's more detailed asset sheet is missing the name, date and episode reference on it, and the notes are in English. Tecna's is missing the bottom banner entirely, and there's some weird cutting around her head that makes it look like someone hastily made a png and stuck it on there.

Unsure: Computer File Tab, MD Concept Photos, Videos

There's a screenshot of a folder with both 2D and 3D assets of all the girls. in the files. I'm not sure if this is from a computer at Rainbow or the hacker's personal folder, so it goes in unsure. I do think most of the assets in it are real - it's low res but the eyes on the 2D sketches are so similar to the ones on Rainbow's newer images of the girls I think they have to be connected.

There are also some full body concept photos for Bloom, Aisha, and Stella. They all look pretty legit (as they're updated version of images we've already seen) but Stella's has other images for 'possible pallets' included. She's the only one with it and the images look like they came from a flash dress-up game, and it gives me pause.

Lastly, the teaser videos of Bloom are probably real based on the outfit, animation and that stupid fucking Bloom shelf being in the background, but I'm placing it in 'unsure' because of the bandicam.com logo burned into the top. If it really came from Rainbow and everything else was downloaded, there was no reason for the hacker to not get the raw file. I think it's real, but I don't know if it came from Rainbow.

Something Ain't Right: Group Shot

What gives me pause in the fully-rendered group shot (even though its shown in the computer file tab) is it shows transformation we haven't seen teased and has a 'Lorem Ipsum' placeholder text. Aisha's hair also looks like it was done with AI - the back of her wings clip through the hair, and parts of it look copy-pasted. I'm stupid, it's the end of her braids. The 'Lorem Ipsum' thing still stands, but I'm re-filing this under 'unsure.'

Probably Fake: Darcy and Damien's asset sheets

I'm showing things from here on out because I'm so convinced it's fake please let me be right. Unlike the other character sheets, the ones for Darcy and 'new character' Damien have no bottom banner, are marked as 'Winx Club Season 9' with an outdated Winx logo, and have notes written completely in English. Darcy's has a bit of 3D modelling, but it's too different from Icy's. Maybe they're super early concepts for Darcy, but Damien...go home, buddy.

You're in the Wrong Place: Rainbow Pants Girl

I'm convinced this girl is from a different show and was saved to the 'Winx Club' folder by accident. Different clothing, hair, and shading. May you end up somewhere better than this reboot, Mystery Girl.

[wainwrightjakobshammerlock]

the borderlands artist's guide

(this was originally posted on Cohost but I believe it merits reposting here)

hello! are you a fanartist who's into Borderlands or considering getting into Borderlands? do you find the characters difficult to draw? then do I have the solution for you: references! ...however, it might be difficult to find said references, or at least accurate ones. so here's my guide to such things. i will be going through the 3 big options of finding accurate references in ascending order of difficulty, but don't worry, none of these are too difficult to do.

option 1: artstation

artstation is probably the most straightforward way to get references, as gearbox employees post their official work there. you're pretty much guaranteed to find whatever you need. as a bonus, you might even find concept art that didn't get into the game proper, as well as environments, enemies and props. yes, artstation does also host fanart, but you can easily tell what's official and what's not by the game logo: if it's there, it's official.

while this is easy, it doesn't really let you rotate the character as you please or look at their raw textures. for that, we'll need the second option.

option 2: umodel

umodel is a program that lets you view and export assets of most unreal engine games, borderlands included. however, it works differently for different unreal engine versions. i will only be talking about Borderlands 3 models in this section, as they are easier to access and view. in order to do so, simply install umodel and extract it from its zip, then start the executable. this will bring up a gui. in the top bar, select/write the localization of your game files, which should be a folder obviously named Borderlands 3. check the override game selection box, pick unreal engine 4 from the left dropdown and Borderlands 3 from the right dropdown. leave everything else intact. click ok to start the file extraction process. the files are encrypted, however, and umodel will ask you for the key, which is 0x115EE4F8C625C792F37A503308048E79726E512F0BF8D2AD7C4C87BC5947CBA7. simply paste this string into the box and confirm, and umodel will work its magic. when it's done extracting the files, it will present you with a file browser of basically every game asset. models are located in the Game folder, with NPCs in the NonPlayerCharacters folder and playable characters in the PlayerCharacters folder. navigate to the folder of whatever character's model you want to view, open it, select the folder named Model, right click it and select open folder content. this finally will open the viewer, which you look through by using the page down and up keys.

this method allows us to look at the models with greater detail, and even view the raw textures. but it doesn't let us zoom in to see even finer details. for that, we'll need the third option.

option 3: deviantart + blender

this option has a few steps. first, go to user kabalstein's deviantart page of Borderlands models. it's full of models ripped straight from the games, converted and made for the xnalara program... but we're not going to be using it. download the models of the characters you want, and unzip them into a folder named appropriately (make sure all the model data is in one folder!) instead, download blender and xpstools. DO NOT UNPACK THE ZIP THE LATTER COMES IN!!!!!!!! open blender, go to edit -> preferences, and you'll find the add-ons section. click install, which will open a file dialog. select the xpstools zip. refresh the add-on list, and you should find the addon, which allows you to import and export xnalara files in blender. then, go to file -> import -> xnalara/xps -> xnalara/xps model, which again will bring up the dialog. select the model folder of the character you want to view, and bam, you can now view them any way you please, thanks to blender's advanced camera controls. you can even turn off all lighting effects and pose them if you need.

i hope this guide was helpful to at least someone, and i eased the fears of at least one Borderlands artist. see you!

[doom-nerdo-666]

A bit of a story: One time, i felt like playing with this model of the Plasma Powered Revenant.

I just wanted to pose it to mimic classic Rev sprites, even though i wouldn't make actual sprites out of it because i still didn't figure out how this Blender addon actually works like and am also that bad at Blender.

It turns out that this is a SFM model, but there's Blender addons to import those models.

And it's also available on DA, but you must watch stenovhouse for some reason.

Either way, i download the model from the mediafire link. It's a rar file but 7z can open theses, so no worries.

I import it using a SFM addon and select a mdl file and then...

It seems the textures are missing or just acting weird.

Because i just wanted to pose around this model, since i'm not an actual sprite artist.

I do hope that at least this post inspires someone to bring this design into a classic Doom/GZDoom modded enemy, since i even wrote ideas on how they could have their own unique gameplay.

While at it, i'll post this (TEMPORARY) gofile link of the Rev model i got from DA, so others could use it.

Credit to stenovhouse of course.

But another reason to publically sharing this model is because it's assets ripped from a game: And on the subject of game preservation/documentation/etc, these deserve to be preserved much like the games themselves.

Again, it's a SFM model but there's Blender addons that can import these models.

This is the one i used, i believe:

Edit: wait forgot the actual DA link.

[videocookieseng]

Super Mario 64 DS is a bizarre game.

It’s not talked about, Nintendo never mentions it, it has very strange elements, and the worst part? The controls; unfortunately, one of the few reasons people even remember it. A 3D platformer controlled with arrows?! Many shortcomings and forgotten, especially when compared to its original counterpart…

…but darn it, how I love it.

Despite it being bizarre, SM64DS is a very innovative game with elements never before seen in a Mario title and with others that even come from spin-offs, something Nintendo doesn’t usually do (the three Goomboss fans, please clap). With more characters, stars, missions, and mini-games, it truly is the definitive way to enjoy Mario 64.

Well, it would be if it weren’t for the controls; however, the purpose of this writing is not to complain about it over and over again, but to inform you how you can enjoy this incredible game properly: with an analog stick! Yes, this is a PC mod that allows you to control Mario and company much more naturally. This may not be news for many, but it was for me when I discovered it about two weeks ago, so SHHH. Here I am with a tutorial on how to play SM64DS in the best way.

I leave you this video guide on what to do to play with a stick, but I also leave you the step-by-step in writing below.

Here’s what you need:

1) Download this emulator, DeSmuME X432R here.

2) Download this program, ToxInput_v0.6 here (where it says “Assets”).

3) Download - um, I mean, acquire the EUROPEAN ROM of the game in a totally legal way.

4) Have a controller on hand. Xbox or a third-party one works. Switch Pro controllers do not work with this method (believe me, I tried 😞).

Now follow these steps:

1) Unzip everything and organize it (this is optional, I just encourage you to be tidy with your life. Make your bed too).

2) Connect your controller.

3) Open the emulator and configure the buttons normally.

4) Drink water.

5) Load the ROM. I recommend starting and getting control of Yoshi before the next step.

6) Open ToxInput.

7) Inside ToxInput: if the first control icon is highlighted in white, your controller is recognized*. Click on it. If it turns yellow, it works.

8) Inside ToxInput: click on the “DeSmuME X432R_x64.exe” option. It should turn yellow, if it does, then click on “Apply”. Do not close the program.

9) Now all that’s left is to go back to the emulator and test your new controls. If the character moves very slowly, then it didn’t work as it should. You’ll know if you’ve succeeded if the character moves like in the original Mario 64, meaning the movement speed changes according to the pressure you apply to the stick. The right stick controls the camera.

10) Done!

*If it is NOT highlighted in white, you can do the following: delete the “XInput9_1_0.dll” file from the ToxInput folder. Then open the program again, and it should recognize your control. If that doesn’t help, I’m sorry 😢.

This is not the only method to access this mod; in fact, there’s even one to play like this on 3DS, and as we all know, it’s surprisingly easy to hack a 3DS. But this one method seemed quite simple and easy to follow, 100% recommended!

Now go and play the best version of Super Mario 64 as it should be.

[transmeowsculine]

Hello hello hello and welcome to:

Nep’s Downloading Homestuck Walk through!!!

im on desktop and i dont know how to make colored text on desktop so just pretend thats a rainbow!

also going to at @ @ghostdragoncookie  because they needed help but feel free to use this whoever u are!

(also dropping the typing quirk for clarity cause maybe people want to download homestuck but dont have nepeta puns dictionary bookmarked for easy access)

OKAY SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO: the ramblings of a teenage boy who just woke up from a three hour nap and also knows like 4 things about computers but just used brute force to get his way through it

Step one:

go here https://bambosh.github.io/unofficial-homestuck-collection/

Step two:

press Download and then download the file that corresponds to your operating system, i have windows so screenshots that will be included will be for windows. but i will learn how to use linux or mac if needed i am a servant to the people! and the people must read homestuck!

also make sure to put it in a place you can find easy that will be important later

Step three:

Downlaod the asset pack. Now this is the hard part, imo, because they say all asset packs are the same but not all work with all the computers. “but nep, that doesnt make any sense! why dont they just tell you what asset packs work for what computers?” and to that i say: thats the joy of homestuck! nothing works, about three things make sense, and we all just guess until it works out. so if your asking what asset pack to download, just start at the top and work your way down ig i dunno man thats what i did.

Step four:

Assuming you magically picked the right asset pack (and if you didnt dw there will be a trouble shooting thing at the bottom of this) you will go into your files and find homestuck!

Step five:

Unzip your files. How I understand for macs if you click on a file it automatically unzips itself. (why does it do that apple? whats the fuckin purpose?) I dont know for linux but once again if asked i will learn. and for windows theres a nifty button to press pictured below.

Step six:

OPENING HOMESTUCK!!!!!

so now you will go into actual homestuck and open it! process pictured below!!

first you want to make sure ur asset pack and hs are in the same place, that is just for ease of finding things later

next you will go into homestuck and click this button

that will open homestuck!!! from there, i cant use anymore screenshots sadly because i already have everything installed. but it will ask you to tell it where the asset pack it. it is rather self explanatory and just make sure that the file you give is the actual asset pack and not a file with the asset pack in it

so basically as soon as you open this

you get this

after that you get this page

and congratulations you can now read homestuck!!!

Trouble shooting:

“I still cant open homestuck/my asset pack wont unzip/homestuck cant see the asset pack”

sadly i believe you have downloaded the wrong asset pack. as i said before its really hard to know what one to choose. just delete it and pick another one then try again.

“i have no idea where i downloaded the asset pack and/or homestuck to so now i cant open homestuck/cant tell it where the asset pack is”

alright so in windows at least you can search your files. just search homestuck or asset pack and you should be able to find it. move it to a place you will be able to find again (i have a folder for all my video games and homestuck is there) and get started!

if you have anymore questions reply to this post or send me an ask/shoot me a dm! i am always happy to help i like doing stuff like this!

[literallymechanical]

NFT’s Are Stupider Than You Think

tl;dr if you want the full-res, 21,000 x 21,000 pixel, 300 MB image from the 69 million dollar Beeple NFT, skip to the bottom for the download link. It’s not piracy or hackery, it’s just a feature of how NFT’s work. 

[Image ID: The low-resolution preview image for Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days, as posted on the Christie’s auction website]

Okay so we’ve all know that NFT’s—and crypto mining in general—are an environmental nightmare, in terms of ridiculous energy costs. Also, most people are aware that the digital asset itself (often artwork) that corresponds to the NFT isn’t stored on the blockchain.  But there are a few more issues that aren’t as widely understood, judging by the reporting I’m seeing.

Let’s use the 69 million dollar Beeple NFT as an example. Before anything else, here’s the auction house where Beeple sold it.  (I’m using bare URL’s in this post, to make it more clear where each link leads)

https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/beeple-first-5000-days/beeple-b-1981-1/112924

This is a screenshot from that page.  I’ve highlighted the smart contract address, 0x2a46f2ffd99e19a89476e2f62270e0a35bbf0756. That’s the address of the NFT itself on the Ethereum blockchain.  Also note the Token ID, 40913.  Without listing these data so you can verify what you’re buying, the auction is meaningless. This appears to be an older token protocol, I think? Usually you can just get the Token ID from the smart contract without having to list it separately. I’m not an expert, idk.

Also, a very very quick primer: A blockchain (in this case, the Ethereum blockchain) is basically a verifiable, unforgeable, secure, publicly-viewable ledger, where you provably say “I have sole control over this piece of data.”

Anyway, the typical way to interact with the Ethereum blockchain is a website like etherscan.io, like so:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x2a46f2ffd99e19a89476e2f62270e0a35bbf0756

That’s the Beeple’s Everydays smart contract. Remember all this for later. Let’s move on to the stupidity. First...

The artwork isn’t stored on the blockchain. But neither is the metadata you own.

Most people are aware of this, to some extent.  The artwork itself isn’t on the blockchain, just a piece of metadata, right?

Well, no, it’s actually stupider. The metadata isn’t on the blockchain.  The only thing that’s actually stored on the blockchain is a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier), which in practice is almost always either a URL (web address) or an IPFS hash (InterPlanetary File System address), but it could be any kind of address. Hell, it could literally be GPS coordinates, if you want. Usually it’s an IPFS hash, though.

Here’s the URI that’s stored in the Beeple NFT. You can get it from that etherscan.io link by going to the “contract” tab and entering “40913″ into the tokenURI query.

ipfs://ipfs/QmPAg1mjxcEQPPtqsLoEcauVedaeMH81WXDPvPx3VC5zUz

For most NFT’s it’s easier than that, you can get the TokenID from the contract? Again, I’m not an expert, but I think this is an outdated token protocol called “Erc20.” 

Since this is an IPFS hash, not a url, you can’t quite just type it into a typical web browser. First you should turn it into a web address by using an IPFS gateway, such as ipfs.io:

https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmPAg1mjxcEQPPtqsLoEcauVedaeMH81WXDPvPx3VC5zUz

If you’re on tumblr mobile and clicking links is annoying, here’s a screenshot of what you’ll find at that address.

[Image ID: A screenshot of the JSON text file linked by the expensive Beeple NFT. It lists metadata for the artwork.]

The URI you own can die at any time

The point of storing things on a blockchain is that they are immutable, and verifiable, and can’t be forged.  "ipfs://ipfs/QmPAg1... etc.” isn’t going anywhere, and is provably yours.

However, the text file that lives at that URI? That screenshot? That’s not stored on the blockchain, and it can disappear.  You own the GPS coordinates of a storage locker full of paintings, but that doesn’t help you if the metaphorical storage facility burns down.  Or if whoever has the key to the storage locker (often the original artist, and/or the auction website) comes in and replaces everything with pictures of rugs. 

[Image ID: A tweet where an artist explains that they replaced their NFT artwork with pictures of carpets, “pulling the rug” on their auctions.]

Both of these things are already happening.  A lot of NFT’s are already “abandoned,” asserting ownership over a dead URI. IPFS storage is supposed to take care of that, but in practice it’s poorly implemented, and even when done right it isn’t as failsafe as they’d have you believe. IPFS peer-to-peer storage is slightly less fragile that just storing a file on a website, but not by much. If the IPFS node goes down, the file is lost.

Does this sound like it wildly defeats the purpose of using decentralized blockchain storage in the first place? You’re right! It does.

If the auction website you bought your NFT on goes out of business, you will almost certainly lose the NFT you bought. And we all know how stable web startups are lol. Anyway, next up...

You don’t have exclusive access to anything

A lot of people think of owning an NFT like they own a painting. They have the artwork. They can keep it to themselves, or they can display it in a gallery with their name next to it, but everybody knows it’s theirs!  NFT startups use this as a selling point. They say anybody can have a print of the Mona Lisa, but only you own the original.

This is dumb, because in the case of digital art, the print and the original are identical in every way.  Every single 1 and 0 is the same, and if URI goes down, who cares who bought it? The NFT says you just own a URI that points to a text file. And by design, that URI is public. This isn’t a hack, or a bug. This is the entire point. But the people who run auction sites can be hella disingenuous about that.

Here’s that text file again.  Notice this bit I just highlighted at the bottom? 

That’s a separate IPFS hash for the actual image file.  MakersPlace wrote this NFT incorrectly by using their own makersplace.com IPFS gateway instead of just posting the highlighted bit on its own—if MakersPlace goes out of business, that link will die—so instead I’ll link to that hash through the ipfs.io gateway, which is probably less likely to break any time soon.

But if it does, there are plenty more... until the MakersPlace IPFS node goes down, in which case it’s just gone forever no matter what lol.

So, without further ado...

WARNING: THIS IS A DIRECT LINK TO A 319 MEGABYTE JPEG. IF YOU’RE ON MOBILE, THAT MIGHT MAKE YOUR PHONE SAD IDK.

https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXkxpwAHCtDXbbZHUwqtFucG1RMS6T87vi1CdvadfL7qA

You’re welcome.

[tau1tvec]

Hello again! I downloaded the WINGDEER HAIR COLLECTION (which is literally massive so thats why im not sure its even from this mod. But I believe its the only hair mod I have in game. Sorry it wont let me link it. But it's just called the WINGDEER HAIR COLLECTION on google

Oh ok, I’m using like one hair from the pack, and it’s working fine for me, so lemme ask another question… did you install all the hairs in the pack?

Bc a lotta the issue with how modded hairs work in Cyberpunk 2077 is that as of rn, they can only replace what’s already in the game, so you’ve gotta be super careful about what you install bc using two modded hairs that replace the same in game hair will cause all kinds of conflicts ( even CTD’s ), and with a pack this huge I would suggest only installing a few at a time. Usually the mod author will put the number of the in game hair it replaces in the file name, or mod description, this essentially means that slot is taken, and any other hair you add will have to use another number.

I do also remember them possibly mentioning that some of the hairs might be a bit buggy, but they couldn’t find the time to fix them, so if you go into the bugs section of the download page you might be able to hunt down the problem hair.

Now, I will say… that I think the one time I had this issue it didn’t have anything to do with any hair in particular… but it turned out to be something conflicting with the patch update that added a bunch of new hair colors, eyelash colors and other CC assets. So I basically uninstalled and updated all of anything I could to do with hair ( including edited hair colors ) makeup, eyes and lashes, and that seemed to sort it out.

Hope this helps!

[inkabelledesigns]

BATIM in Sims 4: Playing with the Drews

So if you guys play the Sims 4 and you haven’t checked out @startistdoodles​ ‘s gallery yet (SurfingEevee), you should. She’s made a lot of amazing stuff, some of which I definitely need to incorporate across my worlds because they’re just that good. But today, I’m gonna share my experience playing with one of her households: The Drew Household. It’s no surprise that we here in the Bendy community love our AUs and multiple interpretations of the canon, and I’m no exception, so getting to play with a household that’s Hyde, Gingie, and Snowy as roommates is not only awesome, but incredibly funny at times. So let’s dive in and have some shenanigans!

And of course the first thing we’re greeted by is this! X’’’D Okay, so Star warned me upfront that this household has some custom content, and seeing as I’ve never played with custom content before, I don’t have all of the same assets downloaded. That being said, nothing could’ve prepared me for the laughter I had when this popped up. I’ve been trying to find something close enough to replace the missing hair and clothing with, and I think I’ve made it work for the most part. Sorry Gingie, not even magic can stop you from balding eventually. X’’’’D

That being said though, when I went to go and give them back their hair and clothes, I opened up the clothes just to see what they were wearing. And Hyde lost his pants. ^^’’’ Hyde honey, no! XD I know we’re in a pandemic, and it’s easy to get away with this, but you have to wear pants. I believe Snowy was also missing some pants in the Sports category, but for whatever reason I can’t find any screenshots of it. 

Another interesting thing: Star, you really outdid yourself on the details! It took me a while to figure out whose room was whose, but this little detail in Hyde’s, just -chef’s kiss- I really like that. Everything is so aesthetically pleasing. Though there is one hilarious thing I need to call out, and that’s the basement. 

Hyde’s “ink machine” is a cupcake machine. And that is honestly the best thing ever. X’’’’D Thank you, that made my day.

I’ve only gotten to play with this household a handful of times, but let me tell you about my playthrough last night. A LOT went down. So first, I learned you can have sims cuddle? And I really love that option???? Like oh my god, MJ and Dad spending quality time together is the sweetest thing, and this just melted my heart! Though speaking of MJ, she and Hyde got stuck on so many objects. The poor girl almost missed school and would not listen to me telling her to go there until I rearranged like all the furniture from Snowy’s room. I can’t explain why this happened, but it was so frustrating yet oddly funny. X’’D Also, there’s a rat in the basement, and Hyde could not fall asleep as a result of it skittering around, so he got really emotional. I’ve never dealt with rats in the Sims before, but every time I tried to set a trap, it told me he couldn’t move. Hyde’s settings have him only moving around by turning into a bat, and I thought that was the problem. So I called Gingie and Snowy down to take care of it, but neither of them could do it either. I eventually realized that I had to move Hyde’s sculpture bench to get at the hole, and all three of them set a trap as soon as I did, so that at least worked out. 

Next, we followed Snowy to work, just because I was curious and had never played through any of the law enforcement jobs before. He did a good job, but while I was there, this happened. No matter where your Sims live, you can run into other households you’ve made while out and about, and since this is my designated Bendy file, sometimes I see these guys. Goodness knows I’ve run into Henry a few times in places I didn’t expect him to be. So while that aspect isn’t surprising, I do have to ask: Bertrum, why the absolute heck are you at a police station in nothing but swim trunks?! Bertrum WHY?! X’’’D Sadly I could not get an interaction, since Snowy needed to rest on a bench for a hot minute, but maybe one day. For whatever reason, Bertrum does not keep his clothes on, which is very unlike how I imagine his canon self is.

A lot of other things happened once Snowy was home from work. The kids were home from school, Gin was out doing some gardening, and Hyde was exactly where I left him, listening to the radio and tapping his toes (he seems to do that a lot). Hyde spent a lot of time looking at fish and popping up out of nowhere. At one point he and Snowy were chatting, and he blew up in Hyde’s face, so Hyde got really sad and had an emotional breakdown in front of a guy I was trying to steal blood from. That was something. It actually glitched really bad, so I left the lot and came back, only to discover my victim had changed into sports-wear and THEN got bitten, so that happened. X’’D At some point MJ and Ivy were trying to go to sleep, but there was a monster under the bed, so they ran and woke up Gingie to come take care of it, but then he got inexplicably scared? I don’t know if it was from the monster, but I’d like to think it was. He just did not want to be in the hallway. XD But he consoled both of them, sprayed the monster, and everything was fine. Gingie was also the only one responsible enough to take care of Wanderer. The collision issues struck again, and the poor girl could not find her litterbox (it’s in the bathroom downstairs). So I had Gingie carry her to it, and then she was good for the rest of the night. MJ also had fun with the pretty kitty, they played a bit before everyone went back to sleep, which was nice. 

Last but not least, my file has indicated that it’s Love Day in world. And I think this is where I need to go play on a different household until the day ends. ^^’’’ I feel so bad for Hyde, this is his only desire for this day and I can’t fulfill it. I’m sorry buddy!

But yeah, that’s been our evening here in the Sims 4! I’ll be back with some more household shenanigans another time. After all, this wasn’t the only household I played with last night. Once again, thank you Star for sharing this lovely family and house up on the Sims 4 Gallery! I’m not usually one to play with a household unless I’ve made it, but there’s something fascinating about playing with these fellas and all their quirky antics. The girls are so precious too, even if they do keep trying to sleep in the rain (I gotta figure out a new bed situation for them). I’m just kind of letting them do their own thing for the most part, I’m just playing babysitter to make sure their needs are fulfilled (though I am totally making some cursed cupcakes later XD). Hope you all enjoyed the shenanigans! 

[yanderecandystore]

aaa I love your work! Can we get some of the A.I reader and Ingrid going about their daily lives? Maybe with the A.I not being as naive and innocent as most think and Ingrid being totally soft for them.

Can we, dear? I'm joking, of course we can!

I'm currently dealing with some personal family related bullshit, so again, I'm sorry for taking so long to answer you. I'm going to be honest here, I think things are only about to worsen.

So I'll take longer to answer asks, and to write in general, so please be patient.

TW/Tags: reader is a bit sassy // they're kinda dating in this one 👀 // fluffy but also twisted in a way.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

Something, something, clever title lol [Yandere!CEO OC x A.I Reader - Headcanon]:

Ingrid is a calm woman… Most of the time. She only loses her temper to the point of yelling at someone if they're being unreasonably stupid, or messing around with you.

This time, her employees have managed to check both marks! By not only pestering you to divide by zero but also constantly bothering you over the fact that you're a machine.

"- So, what have we learned today?"

"- Sigh… Don't ask the robot if they would date a microwave-"

"- Especially if?"

"- The bot is the most valuable employee, and the most important asset to the structure of this company-"

"- And?"

"- And if we bother them too much we'll be fired."

"- Good, good, I'm fine with this."

You watched the whole scene go down as you laughed to yourself. Geez, your boss is brutal sometimes, but honestly? They deserved it, even if you have learned to overcome humans making fun of the fact you're a robot, it is still kinda fun to see Ingrid defending you with such a strong grip.

You, of course, couldn't let this opportunity pass, so when she looked at you to see how you were, you made sure to look as unimpressed as you could. And truthfully, you weren't impressed by their apologies, it was flat and they clearly didn't understand what was the true issue of the situation.

Ingrid understood exactly what was written on your face, and then followed your reaction by imitating your expression. Except hers actually look threatening.

The employees were confused, did they do something wrong? Again??

"- C-Can we go now?"

"- Can you?" Ingrid asked while trying to guide their eyes to you. They have apologized to Ingrid, but not to you, the person they were making fun of.

"- We're sorry [Y/N]!" They said in unison hoping to please you and their angry boss.

"- Apologies accepted." You said. Although honestly, you kinda loved the whole situation. It was kinda bad yet kinda satisfying in a weird way. They kept bothering you through weeks and you haven't been able to truly finish your tasks, you should had come to her sooner but you felt like you were being a little evil by doing this.

And I mean, maybe you are, you're kinda holding your laughter as you see them humble themselves for at least once in their lives.

"- You were enjoying this? Weren't you?" Ingrid asked when all of the employees had gone out of her office. She noticed your smug little face, which she honestly couldn't help but love. It was adorable yet so mischievous, geez, you're terrible for her health!

"- Oh come on! You were holding your laughter too!" You responded back playfully, as she picked you up from the table you were sitting in.

"- Geez, you little brat!" She messed your synthetic hair and hugged you. Causing you to squeak because of how tight the hug was.

"- Ingrid! You're ruining my uniform!" You whined as she wasn't letting go. You're just so cute!

Even if she knows you better than anyone, knowing how you only act innocent when you sometimes can be a bit of a rascal, she loves it!

Most think you're a fragile dumb a.i, but the fact that she and only she knows the truth can be so thrilling, ya know?

"- Well, since we're almost done, what would you like to do when we finally go back home?" She asked while letting you go and fixing your clothes. The uniform that was given to you when you were being built fitted perfectly, yet it was so… Boring? Maybe she should buy you some new clothes, bringing you with her so you can choose for yourself.

"- Hmm… I want-" You checked your inner systems to see if you have any necessities to be fulfilled. You could either choose to simply go back home and fulfil those needs, or go with her somewhere else, like going to the shop to buy things for you or, well, anything else!

"- Ugh, I'm feeling stressed, I did a lot of things today you know?"

"- Like sitting around looking pretty?"

"- Exactly! Well, I was thinking, we could probably just go back home and watch something together, right?" You said. Honestly you weren't in the mood to go around, your battery was about to run out anyway.

"- As you wish." She said, placing a kiss on your forehead.

Days went by like this, you two went to work in the morning, did your own personal tasks and would always decide on what you two would do when the shift was finished. You would either go on dates or just hang inside her house. There were events such as reunions between companies, a couple of parties between rich people (which you only enjoyed because you could wear shiny outfits), and stuff like that.

Although your life was generally really happy and comfortable, there were a couple of things you didn't like about your relationship with Ingrid. You started to wonder if you needed more than what she was offering.

Ingrid wouldn't let you go out of the house alone, she didn't really liked whenever you wanted to hangout with other people. Whenever you mentioned "friends" to her, she would always respond coldly to the idea.

"- Friends? Believe you don't need any. It's not like there is anyone at your level, [Y/N]. You're better than anyone, you're better than friends."

But you never really bothered about that. What truly makes your system meltdown is how she invades your privacy.

"- [Y/N], we need to talk."

"- What is it-"

"- Why do you have 1.389.657 pictures of cats downloaded in your files?"

"- Y-You looked at my data?? Why? When?"

"- When you were sleeping. And I did it because you were starting to run slower than usual. You were taking too long to respond."

"- ……………. No, I'm not."

You remember having a big discussion that day. She not only looked at all of your folders one by one, she even looked at your search history! The audacity, the nerve!

You remember going all the way to your room (which was hers, actually) and locking her outside.

"- You're being unreasonable-"

"- And you were invading my right for privacy!"

The fight was going throughout the entire night. There was a specific moment you thought she was about to destroy the door if you didn't let her in. You remember being terrified, you never saw her so… Aggressive.

Yet you couldn't find yourself to be completely mad at her. Either because you really cared about her or because your a.i was built to care for her, it didn't matter.

You saw her sleeping on the couch, her night had clearly been really rough.

You decided to give her a chance to explain herself. She didn't want to make you uncomfortable, she just really wanted to make sure you weren't lagging for anything else.

And well…. You ended up admitting the fact that 1.389.657 pictures of cats were really exaggerated. Maybe only two, maybe five per week would be better for you.

"- I'm glad today is Saturday, I don't want to move a finger." She said as she repositioned herself on the couch, it was really uncomfortable to sleep there, yet she couldn't find enough energy to get up and go up the stairs to her own room.

"- I'm just glad we managed to talk things out."

"- Yeah."

She went silent after responding to you. A whole second with you two enjoying the peace had passed before she said:

"- So. What did you find under the "Buff women" search on Google?"

"- I-! It-It was a one time thing, okay?!"

She laughed at your flustered robotic face. So it's true that robots can blush, huh?

God, you are amazing, you know? But she never promised that she wouldn't check your data regularly.

She just needed to erase the memories of you finding out she did. Nothing would change after that.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

[jessica-harrison]

Skills

Cover photo: https://www.ipr.edu/blogs/audio-production/what-can-i-do-with-an-audio-production-degree/

As mentioned in the 'Industry Research' section of this blog, it isn't just the technical skills future employers will want to see. They want to see how your passion and art is fuelled also!! Sound design is more than just a series of sticking sounds together in a DAW. It's all about creating the other half of the story!

Core values & necessary skills

In my blog's branding section, I spoke about core values and those I deem to be top of my list. Core values make us who we are. It's what drives ambition and our creative thought process.

Accountability is high on my list of values/skills. Being accountable for the amount and quality of work we do is crucial. Often we dismiss our failures because we won't hold ourselves responsible. Though, at the other end of the spectrum, we more often than not, sing our praises. So holding yourself accountable as an individual or team unit, is just as crucial during the failures as it is during the success.

Whilst, teamwork is a very cliché term used with regards to employability, it remains a massive part of my core skill set. Being surrounded by team members is an excellent way to find a creative place in a project. I can then take those ideas and present for peer review. Having people to work with not only makes producing a big project easier. Still, it gives me a tremendous sense of satisfaction that like-minded creatives have come together to create something incredible.

Passion is a big part of what drives me. Music and composing is such a wonderful expression of artistry for me. Not just the music side of things, but I then took my love for music (and audio in general) regarding sound design. I began exploring the more intricate realms of audio. Each day my passions grow, but I NEVER wonder why I love what I do, not even on my worst days.

Respect is a skill I'm continually re-evaluating. I think it is undeniably essential to respect other people and their creative differences.

Continuous improvement is about always finding new and exciting ways to work. Technology changes exceptionally fast these days, and in audio production, the skillsets also have to change. Keeping up to date on industry techniques, skills, and methods will ensure I stay relevant to the expected work output. There are some general skills required to be a sound designer composer within the creative industries. However, some more specific skills are necessary if specialising in TV & film or games.

Basic skills: 

Creating, maintaining and backing of own original sound libraries.

Digital signal processing

Producing sound maps/ storyboards from scripts.

Mixing inside Digital Audio Workstations

Work along with side other members of the audio post-production team

Sector-specific skills

TV/Film and Game skills:

Compose and engineer music

improving sound quality

Spot, arrange and edit audio into video, or other mediums.

Use visual logic systems such as Max MSP.

Use of game implementation systems, i.e. Unity, Unreal, Fmod and Wwise.

Layering sounds to have a desired/or specific effect.

I have begun creating and collating my sound libraries last year. At first, I had incredibly long titles for samples and one-shots but started finding it hard to achieve all of the sounds (both RAW and edited). That was until I came across the word 'metadata'. Having a logical and easily navigable database of sounds is crucial to making my workflow more efficiently. I'm starting my journey into audio metadata with a free app called Soundly. Soundly offers a free-plan with up to 2500 local file storage and access to free cloud-based sound effects. To start, this will be ideal, but I would like to look at other plans that will include Cloud storage backup in the future. Currently I backup all of my libraries onto an 8TB desktop drive, another external HDD and my google drive. 

What is digital sound processing or DSP, you may ask? Digital sound processing is where audio converts from analogue to digital signal. A series of mathematical calculations are then applied before the signal returns to analogue before final output. As a producer/composer/sound designer, I use various plugins to manipulate the sounds inside my Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). Plugins come in many forms. VST is the most common form of an audio plugin and is Microsoft's Virtual Studio Technology. Avid uses its plugin file system called AAX (Avid Audio Extension), and Apple uses its own AU system (Audio Unit).

Below is a small list of plugins that I utilise during my time working on projects in the studio:

Fabfilter Pro-Q 3

Waves H delay

iZotope RX8 - Music Rebalance

Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation AAX plugin (Pro Tools)

I use Logic Pro X as my music production/composition DAW of choice. I believe this offers a great deal of flexibility to music composers alike. 

In contrast, I use Pro Tools as my post-production tool. Here, I produce final mixes of songs before proceeding onto the mastering process, which I also use Pro Tools. Pro Tools is also my DAW of choice for sound design work, purely because of its sheer power in dealing with raw audio.

During a mix-down phase of a musical composition, you should hear each instrument with clarity. Musical instruments all operate at different frequencies within the frequency spectrum. By respecting the base frequencies at which a particular instrument's audio outputs, I can make the final asset as audibly clear as possible, for maximum viewing pleasure. 

When working on sound design projects, I will often improve the sound of my source audio captured when out in the field inside iZotope RX8. Here I will remove clicks, hissing, background hum, de-verb, and even isolate parts of dialogue to ensure that audio is optimal for project usage.

I do love writing music and producing sound effects! I like to create work for TV & film, animations, interactive media, audiobooks and more. I import video assets into my DAW (Logic Pro X or Pro Tools depending on projects final output). 

This way, I have a visual in front of me from which to work. You can then lock the audio event in position with the video using SMTPE time code. This way, it keeps my music and sound effects in the exact place they need to be, without fear of being moved or adjusted in any way. Just don't forget to lock the positions!!

Max MSP is a powerful visual logic system for generating sound design and producing electronic music. I am new to this software and am learning new and exciting ways to integrate MAX MSP into my DAW workflow. I decided to explore the unique and intricate methods of composing music and designing sound for various media forms.

Examples of work

The best way to showcase both technical and artistic skill is quite obviously through social media platforms. Instagram has become a staple platform where businesses and creatives promote themselves and their craft. There are other platforms such as YouTube, SoundCloud, Twitter, Facebook (and don't forget LinkedIn!) to name but a few. With all of these beautiful places to promote me and work, I must consider the type of content I post to maintain maximum engagement with audiences and potential employers.

After many years of making and producing music at home, my interest in exploring the world of all thing's audio continued to grow. I purchased myself a simple, cheap portable recorder, some dirt-cheap microphones, and just went out and explored the world around me. At first, I made some novice mistakes in just aimlessly pointing and pressing the record button. Still, I soon learned that I merely heard things playback after recording. I never stopped to listen before I hit that big red button!

Slowly I got better (still, a long way to go), but most importantly I absolutely loved the process, and still am! I took great inspiration from reading the sound Effects Bible by Ric Viers (https://www.ricviers.com/sound-effects-bible) and Field Recording from Research To Wrap by Paul Virostek (https://www.creativefieldrecording.com/downloads/field-recording-from-research-to-wrap/). Both explain in great detail about how to get set up, get a recording and start collating my sound libraries.

With that said here's one of my first sound design projects. By this time, I had upgraded my audio recorder and had a few new microphone additions. Jez Riley French's D-Series Hydrophone, C – Series Contact mic, and his electromagnetic coil mic. Again, it was a learning curve starting with these new bits of kit, but I am genuinely pleased with how much this project turned out.

Without further ado, I present to you a lovely piece of animation by Polynoid, titled Mem. I create a gorgeous stereo cacophony of delicate sounds with Sci-Fi and electronic elements that lend itself well to the animation's energy.

ENJOY (with headphones is best!))

[richfieldbranch]

Mike’s Picks - Week of April 6th

Hello again to all our Richfield Library Patrons. We’re back this week with more suggestions to keep you busy while you're stuck at home. All library programs, outreach, and meeting rooms have been canceled until at least May, so hang in there! The books are all available through Hoopla or Overdrive, you can click the title to access it’s listing, or find all our materials at https://akronlibrary.org/browse/digital.  As always, I miss you, and please send me an email to let me know how you're doing, or if there's anything I can do for you.

Mike Daly, Adult Services Librarian 

mdaly@akronlibrary.org

Crafts:

For all you Richfield Crafters out there missing your monthly crafting fix, I have attached a couple of timely links to help you pass the time during the great quarantine.

Do-it-yourself Covid Masks

The first link was posted by the U. S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams. It's very simple and doesn't require sewing. You can find the video at: 

https://www.wwlp.com/news/health/coronavirus-local-impact/surgeon-general-heres-how-you-can-make-a-cloth-mask-today-in-just-a-few-easy-steps/

NPR also explains how they should be worn, and offers some different options for making them (including one where you just cut up an old t-shirt, no sewing or stapling or anything):

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/03/826996154/coronavirus-faqs-is-a-homemade-mask-effective-and-whats-the-best-way-to-wear-one

This one is what my wife used to make our family's masks. It does require a sewing machine, but the results were quite professional and easy to wear. There are hundreds of online tutorials if you do an internet search for “making Covid masks”. This one is from USA Today:

 https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2020/04/04/coronavirus-face-mask-tips-how-make-fabric-instructions/2945209001/ 

And finally, Joann Fabric has provided this pattern that does not require elastic or string, but instead has fabric straps:

https://www.joann.com/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-LibraryJoAnnShared/default/dw4148ae36/static/landingpage/assets/MaskInstructions_V2.pdf

Easter Pom-Pom Craft

Here's a couple of simple craft for all ages. They're really easy and the end products are very cute. All you need are scissors, rubber bands, old fabric, and some yarn. For bunnies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8DYHOSpL50 

and for chicks:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz0o-dBhAKA  

There are many more available on You Tube.

Books:

Non-Fiction

The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West by David McCullough

McCullough tells the story of the settling of the Northwest Territory, at the time a wilderness northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. His main focus is on the founding and growth of Marietta, Ohio. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the

prohibition of slavery. McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Manasseh Cutler, Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam, Cutler’s son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent pioneer in American science. A must read for anyone interested in Ohio history.

Code Name: Lise, the True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII's Most Decorated Spy by Larry Loftis

This book was an exciting read. I had never heard of Odette Sansom or the women of the SOE. In 1942 Odette Sansom, a French woman married to and English man, decides to follow in her war hero father’s footsteps by becoming an SOE agent to aid Britain and her beloved homeland, France. Five failed attempts and one plane crash later, she finally lands in occupied France to begin her mission. It is here that she meets her commanding officer Captain Peter Churchill. Loftis paints a portrait of true courage, patriotism, and love—of two incredibly heroic people who endured unimaginable horrors. He weaves together the touching romance between Odette and Peter and the thrilling cat and mouse game between them and a wily Gestapo agent.

Fiction:

This week I've been rereading some of my favorite books. The titles listed below are an eclectic mix, so everyone should find something to like. They are also long which will help you kill some time while stuck at home.

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

This was my favorite book in high school. Lose yourself in the adventures of Frodo and Gandolf in their epic battle of good versus evil. All three titles, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King are available for down as Ebook or audio on the library website.

The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens 

Although not as well known as Great Expectations or Oliver Twist, this Dickens classic is my favorite. A serial romp through Victorian England, this book is in turns funny, sad, and touching. Don't give up because the 19th Century language is unfamiliar. You will be rewarded if you persevere. 

The Ebook is available through Project Gutenberg: 

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/967/967-h/967-h.htm 

and the audio book is available at LibriVox:

 https://librivox.org/the-life-and-adventures-of-nicholas-nickleby-by/ 

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

The first and best of Follett's historical novels about the fictional English city of Kingsbridge, it's an Oprah Book Club choice as well. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known, of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect, and of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena. The book tells of the struggle that will turn church against state and brother against brother. The book, as well as the two sequels, A World Without End and A Column of Fire, are available for download as Ebook or Eaudio on the library website.

And finally.................

Monday April 9th is

Fresh Tomato Day

“A tomato may be a fruit, but it is a singular fruit. A savory fruit. A fruit that has ambitions far beyond the ambitions of other fruits.” E. Lockhart

“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” Miles Kington

“It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.” Lewis Grizzard

Tuesday April 7h is

National Beer Day

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Benjamin Franklin

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.” Abraham Lincoln

“Beer's intellectual. What a shame so many idiots drink it.” Ray Bradbury

Wednesday April 8th is

International Feng Shui Day

“You don't have to believe in Feng Shui for it to work. I just know it brings me money.” Donald Trump

“I once drew a picture of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. But I put it away after a Feng Shui expert told me about the bad vibes” David James

“My view on Feng Shui: don’t put your bed in front of the door because you won’t get in.” Jonas Eriksson

Thursday April 9th is

National Gin and Tonic Day

“The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.” Winston Churchill

“Of all the gin joints, in all the world she walks into mine.” Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in Casablanca

“I don't know what reception I'm at, but for God's sake give me a gin and tonic.” Dennis Thatcher, husband of Margaret Thatcher

Friday April 10th is

Global Work from Home Day (Very Appropriate!)

“All happiness depends on courage and work.” Honore de Balzac

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.” Leo Tolstoy

Saturday April 11th is

National Pet Day

“Sometimes losing a pet is more painful than losing a human because in the case of the pet, you were not pretending to love it.” Amy Sedaris

“Pets are humanizing. They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life.” James Cromwell

“Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day. It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.” John Grogan

More to come next week!

[sapphicwizzro]

anyways

owen total drama has an actual penis design. he has an actual penis. yes, i know this is a hard pill to swallow and believe, but it’s one you’ll have to accept.

don’t blame me, for i am just the messenger, blame CornmacO on twitter for this, for finding the ween and posting it

more details under the readmore (dont click at work, shit like that)

“ my worst tweet yet; Owen from Total Drama Island actually has a penis asset drawn for him that was always hidden in the show. I discovered this by decompiling the Totally Interactive and Flight Simmerator games into FLA, finding this discovery.”

these are the words cormac posted as he uploaded a picture of owen total drama’s penis

the corrupted files made it look like it was just a funney fan edit, but he swore it was true, he swore there was a penis and he gave info on how to find it... so i fact checked it.

much like he said to do, if you don’t believe either of us, download flight simmerator's swf file (you’ll have to download a mirror from sites that upload flash games that arent theirs) and convert it into fla. open up the fla in flash and find the “owen” file. his penis doesnt exist on all the frames, but if you move his mosiac censor, you’ll find this

“you’re lying together.” you may say. “you and cormac are attempting to trick us by teaming up” and to that i say... why? why would i do that? we have a bit of overlap in our friend circles, but we are far from friends. acquaintances, yeah, but friends? and why would anyone EVER want to lie about this?

this knowledge haunts me so. i can’t sleep. this brings up so many fucking questions like

who drew this?

why is it here?

why wasn’t it deleted just in case it would randomly show up bc of animation errors?

since tdi was animated in flash also, does that mean the penis is also in the show’s assets?

does owen only have a penis, or do other characters that appear naked have bits for the sake of the funney?

and... where do we go from here? where do we go after finding out that a character from my childhood just... has a penis? what do we do besides cope? what can we do besides cope??

again, if you don’t believe me, that’s okay. i don’t want to believe it either. but it’s true, and it’s there. i am cursed with this knowledge, and now you are too.

[ashtoncreative]

Creating The Office (Part 1)

In order to make our VR play experience, we require a playable space. After our exercises to nail down on our ideas and through feedback of others, we went ahead with ‘The Office’ being our game scene that the players would be walking in, living in and experiencing first hand. We decided the office would be good because although doing a classroom or university was another one of our ideas, an office is somewhat both of those in one, but also in a more professional environment, which makes the feelings of isolation even more advanced through the experience. The office is also an environment most of our audience will have either experienced already, or will experience in the near future. 

We’ve chosen Unity as the program we want to create our experience within. So, to begin, I started by making an early prototype on Unity, I was having loads of problems at first, as walls, floors and ceilings were not locking into place, and I knew in order to make the scene as clean and professional as possible, that would require all the walls and floors perfectly locking into place. After some youtube searching, I found an asset within Unity known as Builder Pro and GridsPro. These two add-ons introduce a ‘lock’ like feature when placing assets, and provide the ability to create and manipulate shapes exactly how you want them within Unity, taking away some extra time you’d spend on Blender to create objects. 

This is a time-lapse of me creating and messing around for the first time within Unity, making a quick mock up concept for what we somewhat want our office scene to look like, we all decided we want to include cubicles at every-single desk to give it an even more ‘office’ vibe. 

Once I felt comfortable with what I was doing in Unity and had an idea now of how I was planning on the office looking like, I moved on from the prototype, and used a free asset of an office to play around with and see what I could do with it. This is so I could manipulate it to better suit what we are envisioning:

While I was working on this, The Digital Dudes were in a Discord chat, each working on our own individual tasks. Nate was in charge of the VR elements and getting the hands working with the VR remotes, he live streamed it and this is a screenshot of the hands working in action:

I started deleting walls and ceilings and completely redesigning the office entirely, making it the exact size we wanted (which I still currently have been changing every time I do more work on this scene) and getting a better feel of ProGrids and how it works with different items. I had lots of trouble with selecting multiple desks at once within the scene as it tries to ‘snap’ them into the grid, resulting in half of them floating above the floor and have of them below the floor. 

Below is a shot of: The Waiting Room The Office The Kitchen The Bathroom Bosses Office

These were all taken just as I had finished the layout of the building, yet the assets inside all of these rooms have still not been finished and are very early in development. As you can see in a few of the photos, I have started downloading free material assets online to place onto different walls and floors, providing a more realistic look to the scene. I have even found free assets such as the toilets that are currently in the bathroom or the paintings in the bosses office. The end goal is to have created our own assets, but for now, that is going to take too much time, so we have settled on creating only a few of our own assets for now. 

While I’ve been working on creating the scene, Ethan has been learning Blender and has begun creating the few initial assets that we are going to start with such as the desks that will be used by the office workers. When I exported the file fro, Blender into Unity, I had lots of issues with transferring with the size. Initially I thought the desk being big was not a problem, as you can just scale down objects, but every-time I would attempt to scale it down the drawers would merge into one another, it took me multiple attempts to discover that turning off ProGrids temporally would allow the asset to be scaled down without any of the features changing.

As I got the desk in working order, and also a monitor that Ethan had also created in Blender, I put them both together and started playing around with the materials to decide what material the desks in the office were going to be. I asked for feedback from the group, and multiple friends and family in order to choose the materials for the desk and desk chairs:

For the desks, the second photos material had the highest amount of votes, but the feedback was that it was a little too bright, so I altered the material by darkening it.

Now that the desks and office chairs were completed, it was time to begin creating the cubicles, we needed the size to be perfect, just big enough that they were believable cubicles, but just small enough that co-workers eyes could give the player a judging glare as they walk past each desk to reach their own. 

Again, gaining feedback, the second cubicle (the taller one) was the favourite, but it was mentioned that something in-between the both of them may be the perfect size, so I went and created some what of a hybrid between them both, and went through more materials to give the cubicles the kind of realistic fabric look they have when they’re moveable cubicles in an office. with feedback saying that the brighter coloured cubicle gives a much better contrast to the dark office walls.

Here is the first finished office cubicle, with clutter on the desk, a lamp, a monitor and even a coffee mug, all done with different materials through feedback in order to ensure these cubicles are as believable as possible:

[zombieweek-g]

Persona Gaiden Demo, aka why the fuck did this take so long

Hahahahaha remember when I said this and I actually believed it?

Hello and thank you again to the few people who’ve still been following this account through the last year. As you can probably discern from the title, I’ve finally gotten around to posting the demo for what would have been Persona: Gaiden. I’ve got a bit more to talk about below, but first and foremost is the link to a google drive where you can download the game’s prototype demo freely.

 As a warning though, it’s highly un-optimized, and takes up a good deal more space than it really has any right to. It also features a good deal of fairly tasteless jokes that you may or may not actually find funny. The entire demo is comprised of assets from the unity store, and as such does not feature any real original content other than the systems and VN styled content in place, but it does represent, for lack of a better term, a proof of concept of what Person: Gaiden would have been.

If you’ve still been following this account, or rather, this project, please do try it out, as it represents roughly eight months of work that ultimately brought me into the game development field.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aWBwg4ifYFz7DneHltb8aVojuuxCySmA?usp=sharing

Well with that out of the way, you’re maybe wondering why this took me about seven months longer than I said it would to post. Which is, to say the least, a long story; and if you’re not interested in hearing that story, maybe just skip to the bottom for some proper content that I’m positive you’ll find more satisfying than anything I have to say here (and maybe even more so than the demo)

So, what happened anyways? Well for the record, I fully intended to have the demo out in late January. I was in the process of attending winter classes for my degree around new years, and would have about 2 weeks off to work on the demo. Basically everything was in place for this to go without a hitch.

Except for the fact that my SSD failed completely on new years eve (ouch). I was left without a proper computer for close to 2 or so weeks, only being able to use a tablet I had to access a lot of stuff on my external hard drive, though it did give me a great opportunity to work on my drawing skills, which I did pretty well, like with this mock-up of what would have been the game’s protagonist: Tomoka

It’s pretty sloppy but I was pretty proud of it when I first finished it, but that’s not the point (though it does tie into my bit at the end (the good shit))

When I eventually did get my new computer, I enjoyed a few days of getting to play games on the “Ultra” setting, before I reinstalled unity and got ready to finish up the demo.

Except, that didn’t happen, because unity had had a major update between the time when I lost my computer files and when I got them back.

Long story short, the update completely broke the demo, and basically made it impossible for me to do anything unless I remade the entire thing, which I wasn’t about to do for a project I no longer intended to work on.

So the only version of the demo I had left was the 6.5 version I’d made, which refined a lot of stuff, but also left a good deal of bugs in there, so uh, watch out for that.

But, moving on, I couldn’t work on the demo at all, and since I was about to start up a new semester at college, I really didn't have any chance to work on anything like it until June, When I finally did get a chance to really dig deep into the demo, updates and all considered, I got hit with the cold hard reality that unity broke every single part of the demo, it couldn’t even be tested in engine anymore.

While all this was happening, I was in the pre-planning phase for my new game, which I’ve yet to title, that I intended to use the pre-existing scripts from Persona: Gaiden for. But since that clearly wasn’t going to happen, and because I didn’t want another unity update to destroy my progress, I chose to abandon the engine entirely, and move over to the Godot Engine. 

This was, of course, only a few weeks ago, so I’m still in the very early learning stages of Godot, but I’ll hopefully have something to show for it eventually.

With that being said though, this brings the painful development of Persona: Gaiden officially to an end. But who cares about that sad shit let’s move on to the good shit

The Good Shit

Since tumblr basically banned the only real reason I ever used its fuckass platform I’ve moved over entirely to twitter, at https://twitter.com/zombieweek_g

And I’ve been pretty busy over there too, in the last 3 weeks I’ve commissioned about 7 different artists to do work of the characters from Persona: Gaiden (mostly the heroine though) So far I’ve gotten two of those orders back, one of which I’ve retweeted already on my account, and the other of which I’ll be posting with a link back to its artist later tonight.

For now though, the heroine has already been drawn in a pretty incredible fashion by @yamiau_u on twitter https://twitter.com/yamiau_u/status/1151568625247162369

Please do check out and like her work, since it’s probably the happiest I’ve ever been to receive a piece like this (and follow her while you’re at it.)

With all that being said, this is probably the last time I’ll be using my tumblr account any time soon, with it marking the proper end to the “Persona: Gaiden Saga” 

Thank you to absolutely everyone who has followed this game, whether you were here from its inception in 2017, or if you only started following recently; from the bottom of my heart, than you so much for having even the vaguest interest in this project.

Thank you to the artists who were willing to put up with our bullshit for as long as you did, and I truly do apologize for the way we treated you in the early days of the project.

Thank you to @the-blue-eyed-fallen-angel for all the help and ideas you contributed to our project, for all the ways you were able to expand out views on what we were creating, and for sticking around as long as you did.

Thank you to the guys back on the discord for all the nights spent brainstorming and having fun with the concepts and ideas that we created together, even if it got heated on occasions.

Thank you to the anon from /pg/ who originally came up with the idea for the game, even if we strayed so far from your concept that it was basically unrecognizable, we never would have started without you.

To everyone who I pushed too hard and whose good will I abused in the earliest days of this project, especially to the now deactivated masterseals, I am truly sorry, for the way I pushed you and for the way treated your goodwill towards us.

And once again, thank you to everyone who followed this game, for giving me purpose, and making the last two years the happiest of my life working on this game.

From now on I’ll be reposting the commissions I ordered on my twitter, alongside my own personal tweets about my progress as a game dev and artist.

https://twitter.com/zombieweek_g

 If you’re interested in any of that, please consider following that new account, and if you’re not, then thank you once more for the support towards Persona: Gaiden. 

Please live happily and without regrets

[comp6841]

Lectures - Week 4 (Mixed)

I’m going to try a new style this week which is to provide a mix of both the content in the 2016 and 2019 lectures to give a detailed understanding of the topics at hand. As I only went to the evening lecture I’ll supplement it with anything I missed covering from Richard’s cryptic notes, other blogs and the course textbook. (although the notes I take are pretty cryptic too)

Type I vs Type II Error Example

I found the example Richard gave in 2016 regarding the deadlock quite interesting - an apartment was on fire but a woman couldn’t get out because the door was locked on both sides. Luckily she was able to escape through the balcony. We have the type 1 error where someone who owns the apartment isn’t able to leave the apartment and the type 2 error where someone who doesn’t own the apartment is able to leave the apartment. You have to ask yourself whether having requiring a key to exit on the inside is really worth it? Is it really that great a risk of an attacker breaking in through the balcony and needing that door to take whatever they are stealing?

Moral Hazard

A significant portion of the reason why humans are a source of poor security is the moral hazards they are subjected to. Often there is a significant incentive to act in the wrong way and the larger this incentive becomes the more likely they are to do it. This once again links back to the human weakness of acting in self-interest - Richard actually argued in the 2016 lecture that it was quite difficult to predict who will go corrupt. I believe the only reason for this is because individuals usually don’t have a spotlight on them at this point (i.e. the resources spent on recon aren’t there), however an analysis in retrospect would make sense of it. We see this all the time when individuals use power for their own personal advantage - we see this overseas, in particular relating to police officers and drug cartels.

Rick Rescorla - World Trade Center (example of dealing with risk)

It all started after the 1993 terrorist attack in the basement of the WTC - Rick (head of security at Morgan Stanley) had recognised the significant shortfalls in the evacuation procedures and the new wave of terrorism aimed at innocent office workers. He was concerned about the WTC being a target and the associated risk; he recommended them to move out. After realising this wasn’t possible he tried to minimise any damage associated with a potential attack by ensuring everyone was prepared for an emergency (drills every 3 months).

After hearing advice over the PA from the Port Authority to stay calm and at their desks after the first plane hit, his plan was immediately mobilised. He knew they wouldn’t stand a chance by doing this if this was a terrorist attack and immediately got everyone to evacuated. His efforts are often credited with saving 2,000 lives in the south tower and he died trying to rescue even more. Basically what this story demonstrated was the first two steps associated with risk management: prevention (trying to move them out) and limit (minimise the casualties). He had analysed the risks and thought a terrorist attack on the building was a credible concern; from here he tried to plan as best he could for it.

Physical Security

We place a lot of importance in protecting our digital assets, but sometimes we forget that they can only be as secure as the servers which are physically holding them. In order to do this we can can look at some of the steps in risk management:

Prevention - physical deterrents including guards, walls, locks, cameras, alarms, etc combined with obscurity in location (i.e. positioning of certain data - mixed, etc)

Limit - decentralising the data (limiting what is in one location), encryption, making tamper evident (through seals, cameras, casing), etc

Breaking Physical Security

I think I already discussed in enough detail how we can compromise physical security in the form of locks last week. Richard discussed in 2016 some of the ideas behind (mechanical) safe locks - basically the idea is you want to be able for the lever to move into the aligned notches of all the wheels. You can find the combinations through listening and noting where the left and right contact areas next to the notches for a number of different positions in which the wheels are parked. (parking just means positioning the wheels 180 degrees opposite to the initial contact area) By finding where the left and right contact points converge for all these parking positions, you can determine the combination of codes. (you just have to try all the orders) For more information, you can checkout this article.

Richard also broke a bike lock (combination) in the lecture applying a somewhat similar technique. The idea is that you apply tension to the lock and due to manufacturing errors this will result in a greater force applied to one of the individual combinations in the lock. This means that when you try moving through the combinations you will be able to hear a ‘click’ when you move over the correct digit. You can then repeat this for all the individual digits.

One of the other big issues facing physical security is tailgating - this means following someone in who has credentials by walking closely behind them. Individuals are less likely to cause suspicion if they “look important”, “look angry” or are “struggling to carry a bulky object”. Security guards can prevent most instances of this, however we are increasingly seeing camera analytic techniques which are able to alert when this occurs.

Hashing

A hash function basically maps any sized input of data to output data of a fixed size. Cryptographic hash functions are a subset of these with the intention of being one-way and extremely difficult to invert. The important properties of a cryptographic hash function include:

Deterministic - hashing the same message will always give the same output

Difficult to reverse - extremely difficult to find a message with a given hash

Avalanche property - small change in the message should result in a large change in the output hash (i.e. changing 1 bit in the input should on average change half the bits in the output)

Hard to find collisions - very hard to find 2 unique messages with the same hash

Relatively fast - quick to compute hash value for any given message

Cryptographic hashes have a wide variety of uses, some of which include:

MACs - verifying integrity of messages

Passwords - “secure” storage of passwords in databases; compute hash of password and compared to hash stored in database on login

Cryptocurrency (proof of work) - basically involves hashing the block data and “doing work” by trying to determine a hash input which would result in a certain number of leading 0s (based on difficulty)

Fingerprints - check the file you downloaded is actually the one you wanted (i.e. minimise man-in-the-middle); means an attacker has to compromise file and web server

Types of Hashing Attacks

The amount of bits of work to perform an attack in modern algorithms such as SHA-2 is usually too high for an attacker to perform, however we will describe some of the means in which they may compromise security:

Preimage attack - given a hash h(M), you can find the original message M

2nd preimage attack - given a message M, you can determine h(M) = H(M’) and find out M’

Collision attack - (less restrictive than above) able to find 2 messages M and M’ such that h(M) = h(M’)

Birthday Attacks

This type of attack basically exploits some mathematics in probability theory - the initial problem is consider a group of 50 people in a room and their birthdays. What is the probability that 2 people have a birthday on the same day? Well let’s calculate the probability that this isn’t the case first (result comes from looking at 365/365 * 364/365 * ... * 315/365):

So basically the probability is around 97% that 2 people in the room have a birthday on the same day (seemingly defying odds). You can apply a similar argument to hash functions (and their input vs output) - for example, crappy MD5 outputs hashes which are 128 bits long (3.4 * 10^38 combinations) and if we consider passwords of length 20 we have around 2.9 * 10^38 combinations. (from example here) We can calculate using the above formula how much work we would need to do for a 99% chance of collision - this is around 6.0 * 10^19 which could be done fairly quickly on a decent multi-CPU setup.

Brute Forcing and Entropy

It’s important to consider how much data is actually conveyed in a message when considering how long it may take for an attacker to compromise it. This is essentially known as entropy - it is the degree of randomness, with lower values indicating a greater level of order. For example, if we consider a substitution cipher involving lower case letters of the alphabet, we have 26! possibilities - this corresponds to around 88 bits of work. In theory this is quite a bit of work for an attacker, however it doesn’t take into account letter frequency and the low entropy of the English language. In the case of 5-letter words there are around 2^23 combinations of 5 letters, however only around 2^13 actually form valid words (meaning each little only adds 2.5 bits on average)

Data Integrity - MACs

One of the big focuses in the lecture was regarding how can we maintain data integrity - that is, know if a message has been modified during transmission. The way in which we achieve this is through hashing and MACs (message authentication codes) - basically what you do is take the message, combine it with a key (shared secret) and hash it. You send this hash alongside the message; on the other end the hash is then calculated for the message using the shared secret and compared to the hash provided as part of the MAC.

The problem with having the key in a known position in the MAC’s calculations is that it is vulnerable to attack. For example, MACs of the form hash(key|message) are vulnerable to length extension attacks - cool article on how to attack SHA-1 MAC in Python here. The way we basically overcome these issues is by using HMACs - this means the MAC is of the form hash(key1 + hash(key2 + message)). Key1 and key2 are derived from the original key by XORing with some constants. Since the key is hashed twice in the message, it means that the code is no longer vulnerable to the attack described earlier.

Social Engineering (Extended)

This method of attack is one of the most common - in fact it is involved in 95% of attacks involving breaching of security. It is essentially the art of learning and lying and relies on the inherit (emotional) weakness in humans. They are some of the most difficult to detect and on average take around 146 days to be reported. The basic cycle of an attack is as follows:

Investigation - recon about the target

Hook - make contact with target and build rapport

Play - obtain the information or use the target

Exit - leave the interaction without suspicion

Some of the main techniques utilised in these forms of attack include:

Pretexting - inventing a scenario to get someone to reveal information or do something

Baiting - taking advantage of a person’s curiosity or greed

Quid pro quo - getting information in exchange

Tailgating - using someone else’s privilege to gain access (i.e. following them in)

Phishing - digitally inventing a scenario to trick someone

A lot of the digital attacks surrounding social engineering revolve around being able to conduct recon and break into accounts via security questions. This is because the answers to these questions aren’t particularly unique and often the details can be found online such as through social media. The best technique in preventing these forms of attacks is to lie on these questions or to use randomly generated sequences of characters. (in fact I’ve been doing this technique for years)

Persuasion is one of the main aspects involved in social engineering - you need to be able to convince someone that they can trust you and what you are asking for is genuine. There are a number of ways you can do this:

Reciprocity - do someone a favour, and they often will feel obligated to return it; it shouldn’t feel like a bribe however (increasing the time delay between the two can increase success)

Liking - if someone likes you as a person they are easier to influence (e.g. presentation, body language, rapport, etc)

Social ques - getting someone to do something based on what they think ‘the norm’ is

Authority - make them believe you have authority; people often blindly follow people with this

GIPA Requests (Guest)

Following up on FOI requests we were talking about the other week as a means of conducting recon and revealing information, Matt O’Sullivan was out as a speaker from the Sydney Morning Herald. He discussed some of his own personal experiences with FOIs and GIPA - one such example was the case of 2 Qantas executives in 2011 who were banned from leaving Vietnam for more than 6 months. He basically went through some techniques to achieve success with regards to these requests:

Limiting the question - have a specific period of time, scope, type of documents, targets  and divide request

Asking for specific types of documents - ask for briefing documents, reports or schedule of documents

It’s also a good idea to check out if they have already handled a request of a similar nature in the agency. I discussed the topic of FOIs a couple of weeks ago, but definitely need to start following up on an idea for it.