#the only thing I can understand is the audio mixing is a little wonky on certain songs like burned at both ends

[takami-takami]

My biggest red flag is my favorite Motionless in White album (probably) being Infamous. The one critics hated. That got no radio time. The album chris motionless immensely hates. That no one liked. I love infamous. I love it so much.

And it's not just because Hatefuck is on there and that's the funniest song I've ever heard in my life. Like genuinely Infamous is just so much fucking FUN. The transition from the first song, Black Damask, to Devil's Night makes me SO happy. The creepy crawliness of BD to the foot stomping BAM. BAM. BAM. of DN. It just makes me so happy.

God. It's so angry and it's so fucking FUN. <3

I know If It's Dead We'll Kill It is a fan favorite of MiW fans too, and it's on Infamous. People forget that!!!

Ugh. I'm halfway through relistening, currently on the Divine Infection and it's PURE fun. I mean come onnnnn. Virgins beggin for a hit with original style 😌 !! CROSSED OUT WRISTS BOUND, EVERYBODY GET DOWN!!! COME ON AND GET ME!!! COME ON AND GET ME!!!!!! 💞

[nobody-knose--archive]

well, today i figured i didn’t have anything better to do & liveblogged the pingry ep. it’s probably a better stepping stone further into the tally void than incomplete demos, coming right off of complete demos, at least.

-from what i know this one basically includes all the mmmm songs that weren't on complete demos (andrew singing ones wahoo) & the expected demos that didn't end up anywhere else + just a friend. i also believe this one was recorded similarly to complete demos so i really have no clue what to expect for taken for a ride's vocals. anyway here i go

-the bidding sounds impressively professional to start things off, but i suppose humming isn't a terribly complex technique anyway. the intro feels a little longer th

-whoah there if that aint a marked difference in audio quality here we go

-guitars also sound different & i don't remember if this album has steve or ross on it i now realize

-goodness the mixing is wonky for rob's segment. the backing vocals do not need to bounce between channels

-why do they have kinda weird voices for the chorus. sounds like they're trying an accent or something. i can barely recognize who's singing

-the keyboard backing in zubin's segment sounds the same as usual, as in, it sounds so stupidly similar to the questions answered backing music that i'm offended i couldn't pick up they're the same for so long

-less echo on disappear actually. at least they still had the brass section

-still a weird sound on the chorus but maybe i can chalk that up to different mixing & more red

-outro sounds not super different. still very good drumming on display which will give me the push i need to decide it's ross drumming

-however i don't hear him shouting out the auctioneer stuff, and given that it was presented as a video during the mmmm recording, i might assume it was done specially for the mmmm releases, so maybe he didn't drum for this album after all

-it does have a greater similarity to the live performances even if the keyboarding is using a different synth

-well now. that's a real piano

-and as any piano will be when played that low, it's out of tune. very

-and everyone's singing? i can't hear andy in the slightest. this is interesting

-i mean i can certainly hear him doing plenty on the piano. but. it's interesting

-i suppose given the ep's hallmanac description, as a compilation of acoustic/one-take recordings i shouldn't be surprised taken for a ride is this different. but boy is it jarring. sounds incredibly different without the heavy synthesizing and complementary instruments

-barebones certainly. not much more of a way to describe it. that's what i expected just not in this way. i like the sound of this bridge though

-do very much wish i could hear andrew's actual voice. even at acoustic live performances he would sing at the very least. then again, that was years later i suppose.

-and it's only now at the final chorus that i realize, somehow, this is a piano-only song. no guitar, no drums even. that's really interesting. even the album version had some drums & bass

-red's singing isn't as impressive here. not as many high notes. understandable. bitch

-different rhythm on the quick part! bet steve feels lucky he didn't have to drum this part although i am hearing some sort of. pants-slapping? now that would be a sight to behold irl

-and that's the end

-goodness. be born. considering how this song was always & every time performed acoustic live i really expect to hear nothing here i haven't from concert recordings

-we're missing whatever the hell that skittery little shaker is called. alas i am not a percussionist & do not know the name of every auxilliary instrument ever

-rippin it up on the melodica bay be. a suitable replacement for whistling considering that never was all that good live. nobody can compare to bora karaca at whistling

-there's extra bass harmonies on display here. swell

-also no percussion i'm realizing

-da-da-da!

-but yeah normally ross uses brushes on a box/seat drum (also don't know what that's called!) for some good gentle percussion & it's not here. really hoping this won't be a trend because i'm fond of drumming even if it's from stebev himself

-bah (chorus) bah

-wait a minute that's not a bah! that's a doo! big difference! what are you doing rob

-i can tell it's one-take because rob has to take a breath in the middle of that final long bah there

-ooh dropping off the guitar there real quick are you? and not even doing the full outro too. good way to spice things up at the end.

-honestly maybe the reason i & so many other th fans dislike be born so much isn't even the country sound and weird subject matter, it's the fact that this song lacks a whole lot of the variability that might separate it from other music. in the album versions there are violins/fiddles, and the live versions... don't have that. maybe some halfway decent whistling at best. it just is what it is. especially compared to the rest of mmmm- g&e could often be more faithfully recreated on stage, but mmmm got to mix things up most of the time, except for be born. food for thought

-anyway. of all the songs i would expect to be absolutely completely identical (other than be born) the whole world and you definitely takes the cake. a delightful song. i should listen to it more.

-but yeah it was a toy orchestra piece long before a tally hall piece, and toy orchestra was & is nothing but silly little live performances. how on earth could they make this one completely different

-other than. the "punk rehearsal" i've heard of from incomplete demos. that's just. a thing i think

-oh hold on i didn't even listen to the end of be born there was a tiny outro with chat at the end oh that's adorable

-hey i can hear andrew's voice! nice!

-starting off with a full ensemble vocals, all sorts of harmonies in action, and a normal piano instead of a toy piano, so already i'm being proven decently wrong on this song's inability to be greatly altered

-other than that. i kinda like how it sounds as if they're stumbling over their words at points

-boy has andrew's voice changed hasn't it. i know i haven't listened to the solo albums so i'm not exactly one to speak but he really developed his singing a lot over time

-clapping live & not in a studio sure sounds a lot worse, especially when it's like 4 people max doing it and not a whole crowd

-zubin (i'm pretty sure) flexing on us all at the end there. good for him

-ayyyyyyy

-it's the song that's sure to invoke an emotional response out of me >:}

-it's also the song i was convinced had andrew vocals in the background (the badadum's between verses) for a good while. still not 100% certain it's rob instead but it's not like i can ask them themselves

-yeah i'll admit it right here this is the song i listen to when i'm going through emotional turmoil. not this version of the song, and no, i don't mean i listen to i'm gonna win or even the tally hall rock version of this one. i mean i listen to the cover of it from we think we're playing in a band. and that's enough on this subject!

-however given the above information yeah i am pretty familiar with this song already. not a new experience right here

-i greatly appreciate the heavy piano work. it's one of my favorite parts about the song

-oh and i should stop talking about that subject right there as well. actually i think i should just say nothing about this song in general. you'll see why in about uhh pauses video

-this friday or so? damn that's sooner than i thought lucky me

-everything will be fine! i'll be making it through!

-oh hello there. "ALBUM" is not a word beamed directly into my brain with great volume thank you very much

-so. it's the outro to good day done with weird haste. looping. no actual chord pro-

-this is. is this some sort of radio performance? what the hell is going on

-steven!!! hello there thanks for the confirmation & god is it surreal to hear his name truly uttered in the context of red rob zubin andrew. wow

-pingry school spring fling. how the hell have i never heard about whatever the hell this track is before

-wait- is it over? song listed as good day but it's in fact the outro to good day done on. a radio program maybe. and now it's a really strange sounding performance of yearbook

-i genuinely can't tell if there's a filter on rob's voice or if the micro- shit that's loud

-what in the hell is going on is this another radio performance or something? like ok yearbook at least was on songs about girls by listedblack but i really want this to be made clear soon

-all i really think i need to know about yearbook is that it's another rob "heterophobic homophonic" cantor angsty boy band song and. listening to it for the first time her. that impression sure isn't going away

-at least i get to hear andrew twinkling those ivories in the back. got a good sound. even if the mixing here is all sorts of wack. a song this complex should not be performed live with only like one microphone

-alright rob i get it you were in love with a girl- and it's over? ok

-live performance of just a friend holy shit hell yes hell yes hell yes for some reason i thought this would be the studio version but no

-i cannot imagine what this song will sound like with steve on the drums hell yes oh will there be banter will rob forget his lines will red say some random 4-syllable phrase will zubin be the best singer in the whole damn band give me an answer now

-already hearing some banter :}

-they're moving weirdly fast and andrew's already got the piano playing even in the beatboxing part. wowie

-ooh kick it andy do those riffs hell yeah

-"that sounded fishy... zubin sedghi!" i'm in love

-KICK IT ANDY

-AND ZUBIN

-and there's the drums! go stevie. go stevie

-good ness andrew just will not let up on the sick as hell keyboarding will he fukc yeah bro kill it

-rob sounds unbelievably tired for this i'm half expecting him to trip up the lyrics at any moment

-"i don't buy it" "don't gimmie that!" you say it boys. oh classic zubin line right there preserved on an official tally hall recording for all eternity, what a treasure this is

-hm isn't this a bit early to go into the pseudo-breakdown chorus? no it works. andrew still rippin it up of course

-and there's the tambourine bay be!

-buildup to the "oh snap" isn't as intense as it could get in later performances which i will gladly blame in its entirety on steve <3

-boy oh boy does rob's voice just sound generally different here. so young so so young

-shooby-doo-wah. well i had low expectations which were not quite fulfilled but it's technically more than what we got on the studio recording so. i won't complain

-THERE IT IS

-BARBEQUE SAUCE BAY BE

-what a fool i was to pause the moment he said it. silly old me <3

-no, no, thank you for coming! but hold on one second. is there not... one more track? technically not a song, technically something i think i've heard before, but if i take a step over to the tally archive...

-cell phone call.

-circus you say? if i had to guess it's the whole world & you given the 08 version of the song but that's a vague guess. can't think of anything better but my current answer isn't that good on its own

-ah! it's joey jo joseph. this wouldn't happen to be that phone call spoken of that, like, invited joe into the band in the first place, would it? i remember that story from an old bio or something, but it doesn't seem like the type of thing that'd be recorded & put on an album. hard to say

-pj? like a certain rob cator frat dude voice JP!?

-well well well now. i'm not sure what to say. i don't recognize that song they're playing as the outro. it could either be some vague listedblack or miscellaneous early tally hall song lost to the void or a demo. i wouldn't exactly know. anyway that ends the pingry ep. shorter than i thought it be, lucky old me. hope you enjoyed!

[mysynthfetish]

The Lair, Ludicrousness, & Life.

So here's the current incarnation of The Lair of Nefarious Machinery. The only things not in the photo are the VT-4 I recently hot-rodded and a controller keyboard to go with it, the HS-80 I chop-shopped, a second EP-11 (trying to get one working unit out of two semi-broken ones, then mod it), and an effects processor or three. Oh and the Alisa. I don't know what to do with that one. I need shitloads more time than I already don't have to properly deal with bringing that one back to life. Oh and an HR-16B I'm not sure what to do with.

Recent fun is as follows. First, this guy joined the family.

Ok how can you not like a synth that has a preset patch called Death? Hehehe. It does live up to its name, it's a bona-fide fuckin' freak. I've only explored two of the oscillator engines and already I'm really impressed. I've got it run through a BOSS DD-3 delay then a Digitech Polara reverb and wow do those put the icing on the cake. Understandably, for a synth you can pick up for less than $300, you won't be getting any built-in effects. Pedals to the rescue! In any case, I wanna spend more time with this thing. One little irk I have with it is that in the manual it says you can power it over USB, even with one of those portable power brick thingies I see all the chinese tourists powering their phones with, but they recommend you always use the supplied DC adapter, as it's a 3-prong, earthed deal, and the capacitive touch stuff can get wonky if the unit is not grounded. I did use the supplied adapter, and earthed it, and holy shit the NOISE that came through!? High-pitched digital whine from bog knows what part of this condo building, on top of the 60Hz hum that was going on. Jeez! Yanked that fucker right out and back in the box it went. Using a 10,000 mAh USB power brick now and guess what, NO noise or hum or anything, and the capacitive touch works fucking fine. No idea what the hell is up with that. Whatever works.

I put a lot of stuff up for sale on the auction, and am slowly getting bites. Gotta pay some shit off, and send $ back to the old man to help out with his caregiver lady thing. I may even reluctantly part with one of the Big Hitters in the setup (Virus, Polivox, ION) but that will be the end-of-the-line, last-ditch-effort, no-other-option scenario, and I hope it doesn't go that far. I had both MFBs listed, then had second thoughts about the 503. I think there's no drum machine as small as the 503 with as big of a sound, and as fully featured. The Drumbrute Impact caught my eye for a minute, then I saw that it doesn't store knob positions (or save the sounds you made for any particular pattern) with the pattern and that was a deal breaker. The 503 DOES this. And there are so many editable parameters per sound, it's more like a drum synth than a simple 909 clone. I do wish it had a rimshot though. Anyway.

I spent half an hour yesterday in full Sherlock Holmes mode, trying to hunt down the source of the 60Hz hum I could hear with everything turned on but nothing playing (turned the noise gate on the Compounder off for this). Oh speaking of the Compounder, for whatever reason, the channel one limiter LED stays lit all the time even when there's no signal present. Fuuuuck. I noticed that some weird shit was going on with the mix too, so I looked for a replacement and someone had one listed with a buy-it-now of about $100 so out of necessity I bought it. It works fine. I sent an email to Focusrite support asking for any advice on where to look to fix the problem. I had an issue with this Compounder a few years ago, and asked if schematics were available, so I had to sign an NDA and they sent them, and they pointed me in the right direction as to what I should look at and possibly replace to fix the issue I was having, and that did it. Fixed. Quite helpful, so hopefully I'll get the same this time.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Noise sleuthing. I'm using a Soundcraft Spirit Folio Lite as a sub-mixer for drum machines, with the main bus insert going to a BOSS NS-50 stereo noise suppressor, then into the Radius 3 Fat Man. When I dropped the channels on the main mixer that this mixer is being sent to, the noise went away. Ok, let's have a look. I undid then redid all the audio and power wiring for everything going into the mixer, then reset everything on every channel to zero and PFL'd the works. Looks like I was getting carried away with EQ and Gain settings there as time went by. MORE BASS!! LOUDER!! Heh. Anyway, zeroing out everything and starting over is probably a good thing to do every now and then.

And now for the Ludicrousness. I had the MC-505 stood up on its side, on the floor, just so it was out of the way and I could move shit around. I bumped into it and it fell over, so I tried to catch it and in the process the EFX knob, with the pot shaft in it, broke completely off. AAAARGH!!!! Same shit as the volume knob when I got the thing. Pain in the ass but a solderless fix. Took half and hour and I was swearing up such a foul storm my wife came in and was like "You ok? What happened?" I was so goddam pissed off. Silly, I know, but AAAAAAARGH already! In any case, the fucker works so that's all that's important.

And now for something completely different.

I love spicy food. Every time I return to the US, I make sure to bring back a few packages of different varieties of chili peppers, and this last time was no exception. I used to have a bag of Naga Jolokia, and those things were fucking hot. But I've used those all up, and wanted to try something a little different this year, so I went with Castabel, which I've never tried before but they looked cool, like little pumpkins or something, along with Morita (which are smoked, so they have a very interesting flavor and personality, different from the others) and the usual Habanero to make my own custom blend of oral agony inducing chili pepper flakes. After cutting them up a bit and removing the seeds, I noticed that the Moritas were still kinda pliant and not completely dried, so I thought I'd just set the whole works next to the large sliding glass door in the sun. After half an hour, the whole condo reeked like someone set off a can of pepper spray two doors down and the scent had wafted in on the breeze. Boy did I catch shit for that too! Hahahaha! Moved them to another room in the place, opened the windows and closed the door. Mischief managed!

[vondehnvisuals]

Hello every One, welcome to the Fabulous Free Lance Friday Edition of the Good News Journal, thank King You for the Gift of Your Presents.  It is a Fabulous Friday in Deed as I mentioned in yesterday’s Thoroughly Thrilling Thursday Edition I’ve been very busy and taking lots of photos that have been somewhat off topic and Free Lance Friday is the perfect opportunity to share some of them with You.  Today’s feature photo is the freshly landscaped patio table.

Remember these?  This goes back to June 20.  The photos are reversed, I suppose as the one on the left are all the re-potted branches cut from the plant on the right.  One might be thing King I destroyed it, and I suppose in some Way I did.

All that was left of the plant on the right was this.

And this is about four days later which is also Good News because that’s not really too long to wait for new growth after such a crazy operation.  The scabs where the stem has dried out will eventually fall off and it Will look like new again.  The squirrel or one of My other garden culprits knocked over one of the cutting and the loose earth around it fell away.  When I went to pick it up to put it back into its pot yesterday morning, I noticed it already had a decent set of roots developing.  I put together a bunch of ideas I’ve been thing King about for a while and saving plastic containers for and decided to transplant these little ones.  These Will be semi-permanent pots that should last this type of plant two to five years before needing another transplant.  I’m just going to include the whole series of photos which essentially shows what I did step by step.

I’ve got three of these planters in My kitchen window sill now and they look amazing.  The plants that use the top as a bottleneck planter are not top heavy, either, though it appears they would be.  The weight is still evenly distributed in the center and they drain beautifully.  I mix the soil with sand fifty-fifty for My succulents and it usually works pretty well.  Finer sand would be better but this was all I could find.

I also made an absolutely epic chili!!!  I’m going to save the rest of the photos for that one for another Post at which time I’ll include the recipe, too.  Chili is the one thing I can always remember how to make without a recipe, though it’s also one of those things where I am never really consistent with how I make it.  Sometimes I Will be heavier on some of the spices if I Wish to make it hot.  For this recipe I’m relying on the peppers themselves, sauteed with the onion, garlic, and beef at the very beginning, and using only cumin, chili spice, paprika and black pepper for heat and in moderation considering the quantity.

I am also very excited to have My email to the Canadian National Bank published.  I Will be tall King about that Letter in greater detail perhaps in the Saturday or Sunday Edition of the Good News Journal.  There is a line from a Gordon Lightfoot song that used to echo in My Mind, “Letters I’ve Written never meaning to Send.”

I always Wondered what the point to Writing a Letter would be if One never intends to Send it.  Now I know there is great Power in doing so and something I understand the meaning of intimately.  In many cases I don’t receive a response to My most serious Letters, so I’ve developed something of a sense of humour about it and don’t waste excessive time and Energy on it; once the intention is expressed and made physical in the Universe, it is no longer ‘contained’ in the body, it has been Given new Life.  Those Words Will have an impact on the physical Macrocosm, even if the Letter is never read by another soul and burnt in a fire.  It also allows for Me to be pleasantly surprised when I do hear a reply, which I am very pleased to announce was the case today!  And it was so genuinely courteous that I am cautiously optimistic there is more Good News on the Way!

With everything else going on, I had forgotten to mention the documents and Letters I Will be war King on for Monday.  There Will be one for the provincial governor general of Ontario, a second for the federal governor general of Canada, and a third to the Canadian National Bank.  As serious as all of that sounds, I’m also war King on a package for Ottawa Hydro and am still waiting to hear back with respect to complaints filed with the city of Ottawa and the Ottawa Police Service.  It was the city of Ottawa that got back to Me today in response to the complaint I filed a week ago last Lucky Wednesday.

I did mention My sleep has been a little wonky lately, too and I’m trying not to Give My Self too much of a hard time about it because I’m being so productive when I’m awake.  I already have everything I need to print on a USB drive and have created different folders for different respondents.  Whenever I Wish to print documents for a particular file, I can just print the whole folder to get a copy of everything I have on it.  The point is, I heard My phone ringing but am so accustomed to People not responding to Me, I thought it was My alarm.  Conveniently, My alarm sound is exactly the same and the call was fifteen minutes before My alarm was scheduled to go off.  I don’t usually use an alarm at all.  I do get a lot of other notifications to My phone, so I just cleared the list and went about My day, did not even notice the little tape-recorder icon at the top until just before sitting down to Write this Post!  It was Truly one of the most endearing messages I have ever had the pleasure of listening to, it was a Fabulous Friday surprise.

“Hello?  Uh,…”, brief, nervous pause.  Then, as if taking a quick, silent, deep, confidence-boosting breath of Inspire a Sean, charismatic and steady, “Hello.  This is a message for King Sean.  My name is Christine from the city of Ottawa and I am calling in regards to the complaint that You filed last week.  I would very much look forward to discussing this Matter and finding a resolution to Your Issues…”

I am paraphrasing but I Will upload the audio, it is in fact the first time I have been addressed in response to a complaint as ‘King Sean’ on the phone.  The voice really was steady and confident, charismatic, genuine, and said all of the right things a diplomatically impartial individual should if they Wish to remain in Honour.  As funny as it all might sound, if One receives a Letter from a stranger who claims to be King, unless One knows that individual intimately enough to know it could not be True, it would not be wise to Question it, it would be an insult to the Man’s character.  It would be like as King of a doctor to Show a graduate degree before One Will Honour the title.

Starting with, “This is a message for King Sean,” is really the smallest example of the level of professionalism of the call, but it seems the most significant because the title is King.  It’s all the little details I have been tall King about here and it seems every recommendation I have ever made was implemented on the call.

Again, I Will be tall King more about this in the Saturday and Sunday Edition because everything seems to be coming together at once.  Resolving one Matter resolves them all and with respect to My father’s estate, time is of the essence.  I’m not sure if any One else has noticed but it seems like something of an unusual coincidence that both My sister’s lawyer and the law firm for the Canadian National Bank are both here in Ottawa – and I don’t mean there is anything suspicious about it, just convenient for Me, like the Voice of the Universe drawing Me to it.

Alright, this is a little late for a Friday, but better late than never.  I Will get back to Posting early in the day by the end of this weekend.

Love and Blessings,

Volume CXIX: The Fabulous Free Lance Friday Edition; Domestic A Sean and the King’s Keep Hello every One, welcome to the Fabulous Free Lance Friday Edition of the Good News Journal, thank King You for the Gift of Your Presents. 

[sunshinetechnophile]

[Repost, don’t reblog!]

full name: Prompto Argentum other names: Prom, Prompt, PromProm, etc title: ...uh. Noct’s best friend? Annoying Commoner? I have no idea, guys. age: 20 by default, but will vary upon verse! gender: Male race: Magitek Trooper Human Possibly some wonky genetics there. Bit of a mutt sexuality: Prompto will tell you’s 100% Heterosexual but such is not the case. He’s Demisexual which basically means you have to have a close bond with someone before romantic feelings arise, which is why he’s so handsy with the ‘bros. He also doesn’t realise that he kind of treats them all like they’re a polyamorous bubble of manliness, so that ball will be interesting once it drops. He also has an eye for aesthetics, so while he says  he’s straight, he’s been caught checking out others of various genders too. If your plumage is bright enough he might just be taking a look. origin: Nifleheim | Which he left when he was one. He has no memory of it, as people do not retain memories from that age; you are recovering from the trauma of birth. current location: Generally somewhere in Lucis on the roadtrip, but it is largely verse-dependent nationality: Fully documented and Legally:  Lucian ethnicity: Well we don’t know what ethnicity his mother was so he’s probably mixed? But: Whatever the ethnic conjugation of the nation of Nifleheim is. He’ll say he’s Lucian though. Safer that way. Less likely to get your friends to turn on you because you popped out of someone’s bits in a country you were only in for a single year.  spoken languages: Common Depending on the verse he knows a bit of whichever language is spoken in Nifleheim which gives the mun Russian/Polish feels religion: He wasn’t particularly observant and kind of thought they were more legends than anything (and it was a defense mechanism too, because Lucian gods and Lucian kings wouldn’t want someone like him, right?) But then the whole roadtrip happened and he kind of... wondered if he should have been a little more observant when you’ve got Ramuh literally coming to save your ass or have to tangle with Leviathan height: 5′8″ body type: From his teens to his twenties and beyond he’s rather fit, and has worked hard for it. There’s still some bits of insecurity and spider-like stretch marks around his upper thighs and lower stomach. He has some pretty defined arms and legs, so he’s worked hard to be where he is today. He’s not quite punch-a-behemoth-and-it’ll-thank-you stacked, but he’s got definition. hair: Blonde, with the uncanny ability to change from ashy to chocobutt yellow depending upon the lighting. Were he not in close quarters with four other men most of the time, there might be suspicion that he dyes it; but nope. That’s his natural hair colour.

eyes: Blue. tattoos: None that he has willingly gotten for himself. He kind of came pre-packaged with a certain codeprint though. He’s considered a few times getting that arm done up into a sleeve of stark black and white geometric designs and figures, to try and hide the codeprint in a more artistic way, but his bracelets work well for now. piercings: No, but he’d look pretty good with solid black gauges in a small setting. educational background: Public school, which he wasn’t much good at. His handwriting was... well, not bad, but it takes him a full six minutes longer to write something that another student can jot down in seconds and half the time he doesn’t understand the way things are presented. He has a few niche subjects he was good at, and managed to scrape by with low marks, but his intelligence isn’t based in book learning and standardised testing.

social media: If you can name it, he has it. Generally he’s making an ass of himself on Twitter and Snapchat, his YouTube is pretty old now and has some acoustic guitar covers of some songs on it and tech builds, his Facebook is a mishmosh of anything and everything interesting, and his Instagram is projects, food, and chocobos. His phone has locations services turned off after the fall of Insomnia and his posts on those platforms cease without warning or notice. smoking: He runs, so, no. drinking: Only to get absolutely plastered, and at that, give him all the mixed drinks that taste like candy or fruit or happiness so that his mouth doesn’t taste like he was licking a urinal when he wakes up. drugs: He’s tried a couple towards the end of high school, but generally he just sticks to his anxiety meds and stomach meds. athletics: Running, and a crash course of self-defense with Cor. That’s about it. hobbies: Photography, taking apart thrift store finds and putting them back together into new items, tech builds, computer tech, coding, re-appropriating tech-based weaponry and turning it to his advantage, annoying his friends, no-longer-plays-it-but-has-moderate-guitar-knowledge, running, accidental-health-blogging (and failing miserably),  going to concerts and shows of local bands, refugee history in Lucis, messing with audio tech as well, etc. virgin:  This depends upon how we interpret the whole ‘virginity’ thing but if it is ‘bringing a mutual and consenting partner to orgasm’ then, yes, he is a virgin. ... not for a lack of trying. Despite flirting, he gets cold feet pretty quickly. favorite drink: Teas that taste like cakes or candy, Hot cocoa with vanilla, cinnamon, and chili powder in it, sparkling waters in citrus flavours, coconut milk, water, aloe vera juice with pineapple, etc. Whatever tastes good, he’ll generally drink it.

favorite food: Anything spicy, anything based in coconut, and anything bright and fresh-- except bananas. There’s a yet-to-be-written headcanon about how he made himself disgustingly sick and bananas are at the crux of it. He’d also prefer it to have some sort of meat in it, to make up for a lapse of judgment in his youth where he ended up raw vegan for a bit. Never doing that again. favorite music: Up-and-Coming No-Name Local Bands who suffer from sound errors such as mic screeching or poor acoustics is his absolute favourite, but he’ll listen to pretty much anything. Generally the more weird and discordant it is, the more relaxing, but if you ask about it, he’s probably listened to it. clothing style: Ecclectic. Highly personalised. Makes risky fashion choices and rocks them.

underwear type: Boxers with novelty prints on them generally. Or plaid. Looooots of plaid boxers, but everyone seems to catch him in the chocobo ones.

tagged by: @outofmychair tagging: @immortalaccursed @reluctantprince @xghiranze @roadsleadingtoaltissia {For Eliza} and um... whomever else wants to do this!

[rozalynpaige]

“How should I go about getting the entirety of what is currently released of the Kingdom Hearts series?”

Basically, I just did a little bit of research and math for three different ways you can go about getting the whole current series.

I started with checking GameStop’s website, since they tend to give the prices you tend to find anywhere else (unless there’s a sale wherever), and then I checked Amazon. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like you cannot get the PS2 games on GameStop’s website? Anyway...

Getting them on the original-ish platforms:

KH1 (PS2) - $15 Re: Chain of Memories (PS2) - $18 (Assuming you want Re: CoM on PS2 instead of the original GBA version which is $5.) 358/2 Days (DS) - $20 KH2 (PS2) - $15 Birth by Sleep (PSP) - $20 Re: Coded (DS) - $15 Dream Drop Distance (3DS) - $30 Total: $133 (or $120 if you get CoM on GBA)

This is the most expensive way to go about it, even if you already have all the necessary platforms. It gets even more expensive when you consider that KH3 will be $60 (raising the total to $193) and that you may want 2.8 for 0.2 Birth by Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage (which Nomura said will help understand some things in KH3) and the KHX mini-movie. 2.8 costs $60, which then takes the total up to a whopping $253, or $240 if you drop Dream Drop Distance from the list since 2.8 has Dream Drop Distance HD.

Getting them across PS3 + PS4:

1.5 HD ReMIX (for PS3) - $20 2.5 HD ReMIX (for PS3) - $20 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue (PS4 exclusive) - $60 Total: $100

This is, to be honest, actually the cheapest way to go about it (by $10), and it even has benefits over going the “all originals-ish” route.

1.5 and 2.5 have KH1: Final Mix, KH2: Final Mix, and Birth by Sleep: Final Mix, all of which were previously exclusively available in Japan. What’s different about the Final Mix versions is:

I’ll start with the biggest thing - KH2: Final Mix has extra cutscenes.

They each have extra keyblades and an optional boss fight

KH1: Final Mix has KH2′s system of having the player press Triangle to interact with things instead of having to move the cursor to the bottom of the command box and press X. Super convenient.

Birth by Sleep: Final Mix has much nicer graphics, considering it’s taken from the PSP and turned into a console game.

For some reason, the Unversed (the enemies) in Birth by Sleep: Final Mix are recolored??

However, you may consider it a downside that you’re receiving 358/2 Days and Re: Coded as cutscene movies instead of video games. I haven’t played 358/2 Days, but I’ve heard that, while the story is nice, the gameplay isn’t very good, so assuming what people say is true, that’s actually a win. Allegedly, they were trying to remake 358/2 Days for 1.5, ran out of time, and already had all the cutscenes animated and voice acted.

Another downside is that the games in 1.5 and 2.5 have some glitches.

TL;DR: Cheapest method by $10, with it only costing you $100 (which turns into $160 once KH3 comes out) assuming you already have a PS3 and a PS4. You’re getting special versions of three of the games, which even gives you new cutscenes in KH2. However, you’re getting 358/2 Days and Re: Coded as cutscene movies, and there are glitches in the actual games.

Getting them all on PS4:

KH 1.5+2.5 (for PS4) - $50 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue - $60 Total: $110

Only $10 more expensive than going with PS3 + PS4. Once KH3 comes out, your total will go up to $170. The new 1.5+2.5 pack on PS4 has changed some of the games from 30 FPS to 60 FPS. However, there have apparently been some complaints that the 60 FPS makes some fights harder due to how fast some of the attacks and enemies are because of the increase in FPS. There have also apparently been reports of games crashing. As I type this, it’s March 15, 2017, and it’s unknown if Square Enix will patch 1.5+2.5, but there’s hope since they patched some issues in 2.8.

TL;DR: Only $10 more expensive than going with PS3 + PS4, but there are complaints of the increase to 60 FPS making certain fights harder in the series’ earlier games, as well as games crashing. Currently (as of March 15, 2017) unknown if Square Enix will patch this, but they did patch 2.8.

For reference, if you get the four games that are actually still games in 1.5 and 2.5 on their original-ish platforms, that comes out to $68, and if you add in the two games that are cutscene movies, that makes $103. Compare that to $40 for 1.5 and 2.5 on PS3 and $50 for 1.5+2.5 on PS4.

Alternatively, you could spend the money on the combo packs and then spend $35 to get the actual playable DS games of 358/2 Days and Re: Coded, meaning you spend $75 or $85 (this total not including 2.8 and KH3).

Edit: Additionally, if you don’t have the funds to buy the games and/or the time to play the games and be ready for KH3, I know of a Youtuber who makes KH Let’s Plays: MegamanNG. I found him when I couldn’t continue playing BBS, since my mom’s PSP went all wonky. He’s great because:

He’s already played the games before, so he knows what he’s doing in his videos. You won’t see him wander in circles trying to figure out what to do or fight the same boss over and over again.

He doesn’t record when he’s doing major grinding for levels, so you don’t have to sit through that.

When a cutscene comes up, he stops talking, and he increases the game’s audio so that you can actually hear the cutscene! Once the cutscene is over, he lowers the game’s audio back down so you can hear his voice.

He has Let’s Plays of the Final Mix versions.

LPs as of the date this was posted:

KH1 Final Mix, on PS3

Re: Chain of Memories, on PS3

KH2 Final Mix, on PS3

Birth by Sleep Final Mix, on PS3

Dream Drop Distance HD

0.2 Birth by Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage

[nobody-knose--archive]

so guess who bought complete demos today on a whim

yeah i wasn’t expecting this one to be over as quickly as it was either. have your liveblog

-complete demos. i bought it today & already forgot the tracklist. listening to it on the mp3 player i got for hmcrmshcidshdamsth because why not. makes pausing/typing easier that's why

-who the heck just coughed

-good lord the mixing is. and boy that's steve drumming isn't it. wow

-i mean we've got the stereo panning just like ever but this is incredibly rough. they are true babies aren't they

-oh those flutes are amazing what the hell. can people stop yelling in my individual ears

-and there's the rough megaphone. it's so incredibly clear that these aren't studio recordings but like. still tally hall!

-i think i'm finding many of these a little too funny but gotdam you're pitchbending your own voice do you really expect that to not sound so goofy at such a high pitch

-oh we're not slowing down at all, this is the same tempo as before for sure

-the flipping around audio channels is very not good at all when it comes to disguising the cuts between takes

-a sculptor you say? (is that one in the later versions? i don't remember it at all)

-nothing but rob's voices in the background and maybe 1 or two from red. no ross bits whatsoever. that's wild

-quick move into the greener intro and even quicker movement into greener itself

-well those are extra harmonies. interesting that they removed them for later versions because they're not bad, maybe a little out of place though

-honestly the biggest difference in steve vs ross drumming seems to be more a difference in the quality of the drums themselves. or the recording software but that applies to everything in this album

-it's painfully obvious that everything was recorded in really different circumstances & not mixed professionally and yep. complete demos alright. not inaccurately named in the slightest

-reminds me of the beta versions of g&e songs we heard live before they appeared on the album, makes me wonder if we could've gotten an admittedly complete demos for g&e somehow

-anyway these little different synths-

-hello there rob. alternate bridge. i have remembered this is a thing. something about tissues? a shoulder to cry on? cool

-yeah the little different synths do capture my attention from time to time

-and a basic piano for the outro? huh. sure gives it a different tone alright

-hm? who's that right at the end there- ooh! wtth time! and this still has steve in it doesn't it?

-generally more enthusiasm when it comes to that T, wonder what lost him attention in later years

-boy is that beatboxing weirdly mixed.

-lawn

-well this chorus is actually rather snazzy. the vocals seem better mixed than anything else i've heard in this album

-"who's to blame?" that's like the 4th time now i've heard someone's random voice that i can't recognize. ...it couldn't be steve, could it? i am now aware i have absolutely no clue what his voice sounds like but that seems like it could fit. hm

-zubin sounds really unenthusiastic here. just faintly unenthusiastic all over the place. still sounds more like "badiggle" than anything else

-oh shit they're falling down a well

-red's bit is hella unchanged other than the direct invasion of my individual ears & extra megaphone useage (i really wish the megaphone became more of a tally icon than it did but that's neither here nor there)

-it's rather more barebones though. less andrew keys in general. the calliope-reminiscent synth he uses is different i suppose.

-they did more stuff with funny crowd voices i think i've noticed. playing around with falsetto, as a college band dude might do

-ok yeah steve is a worse drummer. don't ask me what made me change my mind but i did

-wow a crowd that can consistently clap on the 1-2-3-4? how utterly unrealistic

-no wonky wild & weird intro to taken for a ride because i don't think it's on this album. understandable, i can't imagine what sort of wild hell the vocoder would be if it was attempted this early in its lifespan

-1st 2 piano chords of just apathy has me thinking of i know your name (deporitaz ver.) which is certainly as good a start to a song as any

-extended piano intro has me thinking of the ending of mold en mono but nope here's rob's voice to completely knock that impression out of the water

-ohoho? rob cantor swearing momence? i hadn't realized there'd be this many lyric changes

-interestingly enough this track doesn't seem horrendously mixed so far- nevermind that guitar/piano together is way too loud

-the guitar itself does have a pretty cool unique sound. obviously they hadn't had any access to string instruments at this point so given that those're the main thing separating this song from your average sade rock ballad there aren't a whole lot of notable differences here other than said guitar

-very different tone to this lil bridge. faintly reminiscent of weezer but it's not like i know anything about weezer

-sounds like the same synth from wtth being used in the bg there. what, did they have just that limited a selection so as to need repetition that frequently, or did they really like how it sounds? hard to tell with 200 (uhhhh) 4 college band dudes

-and right into two wuv. yes i had heard there's no haiku in this one but i forget what else will be missing. not sure if anything else will other than hidden in the sand. they would have ruler of everything, right? and a track that appears here but not any other albums? something like that i think

-more of that piano in the bg and more of mildly unenthusiastic zubin singing. different melody for said singing but it's not much of a secret that these guys were more untrained vocalists at this time

- .subsides?

-this chorus sounds significantly more laid-back than the later version

-the extra piano part sure moves this piece way further away from "rock love song" & way closer to "andrew horowitz song", especially that lil flourish where a bee buzzing might otherwise be

-ooh! andrew! he speaks! so does zubin! this song's two olsen boys coming in for a weird bridge bit! hell yeah oh this is adorable

-"because there's 2 of them :}"

-hm. are they actually just removing various parts because they don't have the technological capabilities to do a straight fadeout here? got dam

-i suppose letting zubin do a final solo-ish cadence works too

-uh- say it ain't so‽ w. no this is stationary love, the song that appeared here & nowhere else. cool, cool. strange but cool i guess

-i guess that can explain the multitude of weezer comparisons made for these lads. it's certainly there. honestly andrew was the only thing keeping them from being true weezer successors

-pure acoustic guitar thus far. this is my first time hearing this song of course & it seems like a pretty typical rob "homophonic heterophobic" cantor song

-nothing but acoustic guitar. nothing but rob vocals. nothing but alloromanticism. guess what! it's not my cup of tea! however i can't help but think if this song was worked on more, fixed up a la either mmmm release, with some more andrew/red touches, i could enjoy it some more

-not even any drumming. the simplicity could easily explain why it wasn't played live very often at all

-so the next thing i expect is some very funky & very weird spring and a storm which should highlight steve's (worse) drumming more than anything else i'm sure

-nevermind banana man's just getting slapped directly in here out of order compared to the later mmmm releases. this version i have indeed heard before because it's the version used in the music video

-therefore i have very little to say about it i haven't said on any of the other banana men. or other tracks on this album. the intrusions of vocal harmonies seem jarring because they're not mixed professionally, an effect that's only enhanced by the stereo panning & intense reverb

-this song really didn't change all that much over its lifespan, did it? vocal flairs were redone, but relatively few harmonies were added/removed, i don't think things like the bridge(s) were modified severely. not as noticeably as any of the other songs, at the very least

-i'm pretty sure i can hear andrew's voice in there but beyond that this is severely unsettling

-back to the chorus wahoo. relievingly  familiar territory

-get out of my left ear hawaiian guitar- wait a minute are my earbuds on wrong

-no i'm good

-oh holy shit i forgot this had to be somewhere didn't it‽ i know it's just the same! ok ok

-i've heard this one but only because i had no idea it was from complete demos, it's like rather polished too so i had never considered it would be on an unpolished album like this. i also had no idea that was goddam steve drumming in there too hot damn

-and this is the only recording of it‽ that's wild i always thought it was redone at some point & just kinda. manifested in one of the vague ways miscellaneous high quality tally hall songs do

-it's another romance one but the guitar arpeggios and extra layers give it a pass in my book. man i should watch the music video for it shouldn't i

-i still think it's utterly wild how tally hall played this at an actual high school's homecoming once. wouldn't that just blow your mind

-there's not a major difference between how it's performed here & what i've heard of it in from the occasional live performance, which is making me realize i should watch more live performances of this song

-angstier prequel to hidden in the sand

-or sidequel maybe. depends really. we can tell whatever stories we like

-did my hidden in the sand sotry come out of the queue yet? i feel like i queued it a while ago but also like y'all would've said something if you'd seen it

-bit slow paced innit. much like everything else in this album, it would have gained much from a professional studio treatment, but its mixing & general quality is still surely the best out of everything i've heard so far

-working your falsetto there aren't you my dude? ooh boy

-ruler of everything.... so no spring & a storm? >{

-yeah. ok. weird glockenspiel. almost sounds like a music box

-no vocoding either! i just realized that's a thing here! curious. and... those are some heavily wonky sfx in the background

-who's singing those aaaaas anyway? it's not a chorus which i thought could surely be handled and there's really minimal reverb too; strange considering not only is reverb a jh trademark but easily doable here

-the piano synth used is mostly identical to the 05 mmmm- oh holy shit there's different lyrics & they're being beamed directly into my skull

-even more nonsensical & it's because you can hear them hella easily too. that backwards segment did not need to go on as long as it did. also

-so no zubin vocals? >{

-slapping 5 billion vocal effects on doesn't make up for a lack of the best singer in this damn band

-especially because he sounds reminiscent of goddam fred. being fred before fred was even a thing. oh how accursed

-quiet down your guitars when you're singing shouting through a megaphone if you please

-and there's the earstrain-ass reverb + vocoding on the flibbity jibber jabber reprise. i feared as much would happen. doesn't sound horrible i just need to turn down the volume on my mp3 player

-honestly thing whole thing isn't bad at all in the sense that it's mostly just strongly different from the later versions & lacks zubin

-lease stop yelling though my dude schwiggling your voice like that isn't always a good thing at high volumes

-is that the end? are we.... at the end? i heard that's the name of some song from like sketches or something

-no. how silly of me to assume as much. anyway my dude needs to fix up his ukulele this one sounds like shit

-no vocal effects makes me realize how few times we got this one live-

-now what would you call a wonky little transition like that? puts a smile on my face, even if it does take me by surprise at the same time

-but at least one of the times this was done live featured casey shea

-now for the love of god i already hate the ending of something glowing (view-monster) for its weird-ass asmr finale don't reverse someone's cough & twiddle your ukulele strings directly into my right ear to end an otherwise really nice version of hidden in the sand if you please. oh mama mia. good night

[suzanneshannon]

Lessons Learned from Sixty Days of Re-Animating Zombies with Hand-Coded CSS

Caution: Terrible sense of humor ahead. We’ll talk about practical stuff, but the examples pretty much all involve zombies and silly jokes. You have been warned.

I’ll be linking to individual Pens as I discuss the lessons I learned, but if you’d like to get a sense of the entire project, check out 60 days of Animation on Undead Institute. I started this project to end on August 1st, 2020, coinciding with the publication of a book I wrote featuring CSS animation, humor, and zombies — because, obviously, zombies will destroy the world if you don’t brandish your web skills and stop the apocalypse. Nothing puts the hurt on the horde like a HTML element on the move!

I had a few rules for myself throughout the project. 

I would hand-code all CSS. (I’m a masochist.)

The user would initiate all of the animation. (I hate coming upon an animation that’s already halfway through.) 

I would use JavaScript as little as possible and never for animation. (I only ended up using JavaScript once, and that was to start audio with the final animation. I have nothing against JavaScript, it’s just not what I wanted to do here.)

Lesson 1: Eighty days is a long time.

Uh, doesn’t the title say “sixty” days? Yes, but my original goal was to do eighty days and as day one approached with less than twenty animations prepared and a three day average for each production, I freaked out and switched to sixty days. That gave me both twenty more days till the beginning date and twenty fewer pieces to do.

Lesson 1A: Sixty days is still a long time.

That’s a lot of animation to do with a limited amount of time, ideas, and even more limited artistic skills. And while I thought of dropping to thirty days, I’m glad I didn’t. Sixty days stretched me and forced me to go deeper into how CSS animation — and by extension, CSS itself — works. I’m also proudest of many of the later pieces I did as my skills increased, and I had to be more innovative and think harder about how to make things interesting. Once you’ve used all the easy options, the actual work and best results begin. (And yes, it ended up being sixty-two days because I started on June 1 and wanted to do a final animation on August 1. Starting June 3 just felt icky and wrong.)

So, the real Lesson 1: stretch yourself.

Lesson 2: Interactive animations are hard, and even harder to make responsive. 

If you want something to fly across the screen and connect with another element or appear to start another element’s move, you must use either all standard, inflexible units or all flexible units. 

Three variables determine when and where an animated element will be during any animation: duration, velocity, and distance. The duration of the animation is set in the animation property and cannot be changed in relation to screen size. The animation timing function determines the velocity; screen size can’t change that either. Thus, if the distance varies with the screen size, the timing will be off everywhere except a specific screen width and height. 

Look at Tank!. Run the animation at wide and narrow screen sizes. While I got the timing close, if you compare the two, you’ll see that the tank is in a different place relative to the zombies when the last zombies fall.

To avoid these timing issues, you can use fixed units and a large number, like 2000 or 5000 pixels or more, so that the animation will cover the width (or height) of the screen for all but the largest monitors.  

Lesson 3: If you want a responsive animation, put everything in (one of the) viewport units. 

Going halfsies on unit proportions (e.g. setting width and height in pixels, but location and movement with viewport units) will lead to unpredictable results. Don’t use both vw and vh either but one or the other; whichever will be the dominant orientation. Mixing vh and vw units will make your animation go “wonky” which I believe is the technical term. 

Take Superbly Zomborrific, for instance. It mixes pixel, vw, and vh units. The premise is that the Super Zombie is flying upward as the “camera” follows. Super Zombie smashes into a ledge and falls as the camera continues, but you wouldn’t understand that if your screen was sufficiently tall.

That also means that if you need something to come in from the top — like I did in Nobody Here But Us Humans —you must set the vw height high enough to ensure that the ninja zombie isn’t visible at most aspect ratios.

Lesson 3A: Use pixel units for movements within an SVG element. 

All that said, transforming elements within an SVG element should not use viewport units. SVG tags are their own proportional universe. The SVG “pixel” will stay proportional within the SVG element to all the other SVG element children while viewport units will not. So transform with pixel units within an SVG element, but use viewport units everywhere else.

Lesson 4: SVGs scale horribly at runtime.

For animations, like Oops…, I made the SVG image of the zombie scale up to five times his size, but that makes the edges fuzzy. [Shakes fist at “scalable” vector graphics.]

/* Original code resulting in fuzzy edges */ .zombie {   transform: scale(1);   width: 15vw; } .toggle-checkbox:checked ~ .zombie {   animation: 5s ease-in-out 0s reverseshrinkydink forwards; } @keyframes reverseshrinkydink {   0% {     transform: scale(1);   }   100% {     transform: scale(5);   } }

I learned to set their dimensions to the final dimensions that would be in effect at the end of the animation, then use a scale transform to shrink them down to the size for the start of the animation. 

/* Revised code */ .zombie {   transform: scale(0.2);   width: 75vw; } .toggle-checkbox:checked ~ .zombie {   animation: 5s ease-in-out 0s reverseshrinkydink forwards; } @keyframes reverseshrinkydink {   0% {     transform: scale(0.2);   }   100% {     transform: scale(1);   } }

In short, the revised code moves from a scaled-down version of the image up to the full width and height. The browser always renders at 1, making the edges crisp and clean at a scale of 1. So instead of scaling from 1 to 5, I scaled from 0.2 to 1.

Lesson 5: The axis Isn’t a universal truth. 

An element’s axes stay in sync with the element, not the page. A 90-degree rotation before a translateX will change the direction of the translateX from horizontal to vertical. In Nobody Here But Us Humans… 2, I flipped the zombies using a 180-degree rotation. But positive Y values move the ninjas towards the top, and negative ones move them towards the bottom (the opposite of normal). Beware of how a rotation may affect transforms further down the line.

Lesson 6. Separate complex animations into concentric elements to make easier adjustments.

When creating a complex animation that moves in multiple directions, adding wrapper divs, or rather parent elements, and animating each one individually will cut down on conflicting transforms, and prevent you from becoming a weepy mess.

For instance, in Space Cadet, I had three different transforms going on. The first is the zomb-o-naut’s moving in an up and down motion. The second is a movement across the screen. The third is a rotation. Rather than trying to do everything in a single transform, I added two wrapping elements and did one animation on each element (I also saved my hair… at least some of it.) This helped avoid the axis issues discussed in the last lesson because I performed the rotation on the innermost element, leaving its parent’s and grandparent’s axes in place.

Lesson 7: SVG and CSS transforms are the same. 

Some paths and groups and other SVG elements will already have transforms defined on them. It could be from an optimization algorithm, or perhaps it’s just how the illustration software generates the code. If a path, group, or whatever element in an SVG already has an SVG transform on it, removing that transform will reset the element, often to a bizarre location or size compared to the rest of the drawing. 

Since SVG and CSS transforms are the same, any CSS transform you do replaces the SVG transform, meaning your CSS transform will start from that bizarre location or size rather than the location or size that is set in the the SVG.

You can copy the transform from the SVG element to your CSS and set it as the starting position in CSS (updating it to the CSS syntax first, of course). You can then modify it in your CSS animation.

For instance, in Uhhh, Yeah…, my tribute to Office Space, Undead Lumbergh’s right upper arm (the #arm2 element) had a transform on it in the original SVG code.

<path id="arm2" fill="#91c1a3" fill-rule="nonzero" d="M0 171h9v9H0z" transform="translate(0 -343) scale(4 3.55)"/>

Moving that transform to CSS like this:

<path id="arm2" fill="#91c1a3" fill-rule="nonzero" d="M0 171h9v9H0z"/>

#arm2 {   transform: translate(0, -343px) scale(4, 3.55); }

…I could then create an animation that doesn’t accidentally reset the location and scale:

.toggle-checkbox:checked ~ .z #arm2 {    animation: 6s ease-in-out 0.15s arm2move forwards; } @keyframes arm2move {   0%, 100% {     transform: translate(0, -343px) scale(4, 3.55);   }   40%, 60% {     transform: translate(0, -403px) scale(4, 3.55);   }   50% {     transform: translate(0, -408px) scale(4, 3.55);   } } 

This process is harder when the tool generating the SVG code attempts to “simplify” the transform into a matrix. While you can recreate the matrix transform by copying it into the CSS, it is a difficult task to do. You’re a better developer than me — which might be true anyway — if you can take a matrix transform and manipulate it to scale, rotate, or translate in the exact way you want.

Alternatively, you can recreate the matrix transform using translation, rotation, and scaling, but if the path is complex, the likelihood that you can recreate it in a timely manner without finding yourself in a straight jacket is low. 

The last and probably easiest option is to wrap the element in a group (<g>) tag. Add a class or ID to it for easy CSS access and transform the group itself, thus separating out the transforms as discussed in the last lesson. 

Lesson 8: Keep your sanity by using transform-origin when transforming part of an SVG

The CSS transform-origin property moves the point around which the transform happens. If you’re trying to rotate an arm — like I did in Clubbin’ It —  your animation will look more natural if you rotate the arm from the center of the shoulder, but that path’s natural transform origin is in the upper-left. Use transform-origin to fix this for smoother, more natural feel… you know that really natural pixel art look…

Transforming the origin can also be useful when scaling, like I did in Mustachioed Oops, or when rotating mouth movements, such as the dinosaur’s jaw in Super Tasty. If you don’t change the origin, the transforms will use an origin point at the upper left corner of the SVG element. 

Lesson 9: Sprite animations can be responsive

I ended up doing a lot of sprite animations for this project (i.e., where you use multiple, incremental frames and switch between them fast enough that the characters seem to move). I created the images in one wide file, added them as a background image to an element the size of a single frame, used background-size to set the background image to the width of the image, and hid the overflow. Then I used background-position and the animation timing function, step(), to walk through the images; for example: Post-Apocalyptic Celebrations.

Before the project, I always used inflexible images. I’d scale things down a little so that there would be at least a little responsive give, but I didn’t think you could make it a fully flexible width. However, if you use SVG as the background image you can then use viewport units to scale the element along with the changing screen size. The only problem is the background position. However, if you use viewport units for that, it will stay in sync. Check that out in Finally, Alone with my Sandwich…

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Lesson 9A: Use viewport units to set the background size of an image when creating responsive sprite animation

As I’ve learned throughout this project, using a single type of unit  is almost always the way to go. Initially, I’d set my sprite’s background size using percentages. The math was easy (100% * (number of steps + 1)) and it worked fine in most cases. In longer animations, however, the exact frame tracking could be off and parts of the wrong sprite frame might display. The problem grows as more frames are added to the sprite. 

I’m not sure the exact reason this causes an issue, but I believe it’s because of rounding errors that compound over the length of the sprite sheet (the amount of the shift increases with the number of frames). 

For my final animation, It Ain’t Over Till the Zombie Sings, I had a dinosaur open his mouth to reveal a zombie Viking singing (while lasers fired in the background plus there was dancing, accordions playing and zombies fired from cannons, of course). Yeah, I know how to throw a party… a nerd party.

The dinosaur and viking was one of the longest sprite animations I did for the project. But when I used percentages to set the background size, the tracking would be off at certain sizes in Safari. By the end of the animation, part of the dinosaur’s nose from a different frame would appear to the right and a similar part of the nose would be missing on the left.

The dinosaur on the left is missing part of his left cheek and growing a new one next to his right cheek.

This was super frustrating to diagnose because it seemed to work fine in Chrome and I’d think I fixed it in Safari only to look at a slightly different screen size and see the frame off again. However, if I used consistent units — i.e. vw for background-size, frame width, and background-position — everything worked fine. Again, it comes down to working with consistent units!

Lesson 10: Invite people into the project.

While I learned tons of things during this process, I beat my head against the wall for most of it (often until the wall broke or my head did… I can’t tell). While that’s one way to do it, even if you’re hard-headed, you’ll still end up with a headache. Invite others into your project, be it for advice, to point out an obvious blind spot you missed, provide feedback, help with the project, or simply to encourage you to keep going when the scope is stupidly and arbitrarily large. 

So let me put this lesson into practice. What are your thoughts? How will you stop the zombie hordes with CSS animation? What stupidly and arbitrarily large project will you take on to stretch yourself?

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