This is the condensed version of how my days go, concentrating on how only one of many projects goes awry...
I got a great idea! One of my new stories I conceived as a comic, but knew I couldn't draw in the style I wanted (realistic, DC/ Marvel type stuff). After stewing over the idea for a couple months, I had an AHA! moment! I could make it in a video game engine! There are tons that are freely available, the assets such as animation, skins, characters, animations, all come with. If I am not making a game, and just some web shorts, this shouldn't be hard at all!
Do some research, find the perfect solution-- Source Filmmaker. Uses the Source game engine, but also has built in movie editing features. Fantastic!
Download the file. Crashes on startup. Try again. And again. And again. Crashes. Try a different SDK from Source. Crashes. Now I am suspicious. Try Source games. Crashes. All of them. Off to google to find a solution. Error message is too generic, and help page from Valve takes hours to go through. Nothing helps. Expand to forums. Nothing helps. Try more games that are not Valve games. Crashes too. One gives an error log. Hmmm...
Next day, back on the hunt. Research error code, find out it is related to directx 9. Go to Microsoft and try all their solutions. Download everything remotely related to it and install. Nothing helps, takes hours to track everything down and slog through more forums. Have had enough of this shit, dig out all my save game files, then completely scrub all my Steam games. Reinstall fresh. Crashes. FUUUUUUUU!!! Out of curiosity, try a non Steam game. Crashes.
Oh, it's on. Make a new profile on Windows. Try a game. It launches. Bloody hell. Log off and back onto my main account. Only two processes are running on my main that aren't running on the spare profile. One is a tiny little fan utility. Turn it off. Games are fine.
:|
Now I'm curious. Google the problem. Find out that this was a problem isolated to that ONE version of the utility. I had just reinstalled Windows, and downloaded THAT VERSION when I did so. Never had a problem with it before, so I didn't suspect a thing. I pay attention to what is running on my computer, and never imagined that was the culprit.
Two full days lost. Day three, back onto the project!
First, morning stuff. Breakfast. Dishes. Bring in trash. Check mail. Check email. Reply to email. Try to print out return label. Printer doesn't print. Still. Decide I have had enough of this shit and begin to troubleshoot printer. Spend an hour doing to same thing over and over again. Perform some technology voodoo. No idea what I did. It prints! Now to get down to work...
Following a tutorial side by side with the game. Realize the keyboard is awkward to use for this, my keypad would be perfect. Try to pull it down, realize cord is stuck behind monitor. Go behind monitor to pull out cord, and realize how dusty it is. Grab can of compressed air and clean. Realize the tower hasn't been dusted in months too. Dust out case. See that my nice scanner is dusty. Dust that. Look for dust cover in room. Now dog thinks it is time to play. Play with dog. Cover scanner. Realized how ridiculous that just was, and thought it would make a funny blog post. Decided I was too set on my project, and it would be best to end my sidetracking now. Continue with tutorial.
Set up keypad. Try to use new-fangled software and get confused. Keystrokes aren't registering properly. Manually enter stuff in and try to continue with the tutorial. Try to program more keys into keypad, and have trouble again. Sick of this shit! Start poking around keypad, find the setting that was causing problems and confused me about the keypad. Now it works great! Finish programing and continue with tutorial. Realize empty can and bottle on my desk are preventing a clear view of screen, so I take them out to the recycling. While outside, I notice the sprinkler in my garden was on. I had been considering moving some plants that weren't getting enough water underneath it. Decided now was a good time. Rearranged plants. Pulled some weeds. Picked some grapes and figs. Ate some grapes and figs. Tisked at some dead plants. Pulled more weeds. Moved some stuff around. Too hot for anything else, so I went back inside. Realized I just did it again. Fuck. Ok, time to blog!
Been up for six hours already today, third day working on this project, only 15 minutes into tutorial.
ADHD much?
