Finally, Some News!

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Wow, more than a month since my last post. But I have some good reasons, and I think you'll like em!

For starters, I had midterms this week, so I would have gotten this out sooner but I wanted to be around while you checked it out. So that's excuse #1.

Anyway, so here's what I spent the last month or so working on: Andrew Animation 2.0! (technically it's the 4th logo I've had so it should be 4.0, but I don't really care). I've been working on the main site for AndrewAnimation.biz, but that's still in the works (I'm going to get some advice from someone on it, but my part is mostly finished), but more importantly, Andrew Animation Games has a completely redesigned site. In fact, it's going to replace this blog! I read up on Wordpress code, and finally got the site looking the way I wanted it. Granted I'm still not 100% satisfied, but it's good enough. After what I went through attempting to code my own Wordpress-style site, I realize how much work goes into it. I also figured Wordpress was more secure if my games ever become more wide-spread.

Point is, register and comment there if you'd like. There's one post there waiting for you, as well as a few pages I've written. Take a look at them, tell me what you think (just not here).

Oh right, the link. Go here.

And for those of you wondering why I didn't post anything else before this, it's because I wanted to close this blog with exactly 50 posts. =)

New Video

Considering my username is VideoGuy, you would think I'd actually make more than one video every six months. Oh well. Anyway, it's a collection of footage of my family setting up our christmas tree with TSO music in the background. Much like the one I did last year. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaQFqvlzgJE&feature=channel_page&fmt=18

I Really Shouldn't Promise Stuff

So, here are my TSO pics, two weeks later. Sorry for the holdup, but I've been busy. Actually, no I haven't, I've been....um.......well, here they are.







They're from my cell phone camera, so not that good, but the concert was pretty awesome.

Anyway, I think me and AP might release a demo of our game soon. Although from what I learned from the title of this post, I probably shouldn't say that.

Thanksgiving Aftermath

Not too much to say about this. Thanksgiving was pretty good, I ate a lot, etc. Anyway, we made a LOT of food, even though it's only me and my two parents. Because of that, we had a few leftovers:



I'll definitely have a post tomorrow, since I'm going to a TSO concert tonight! Yay!

I Knew That Would Happen

I write the below post two months ago, and saved it in draft hoping I would remember to update it before the day came around. But that didn't happen. Anyway, so my blog's been around for six months now. Not much to say about that, oh well.

Anyway, so Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Only 27 days until Christmas!

PS. Me and AP might have a demo of our game soon. But don't hold me to that, knowing how I am with predictions.

6 Month Blogiversary

I actually wrote this two months ago. I hope I remember to modify is when the blogiversary comes around.

Cold!

Right now, it's pretty cold and windy up in New England. Yesterday, we had a wind chill of 10 degrees, and the temperature's been hovering in the 20's. This may not sound that bad, but it's not November weather. We shouldn't be getting this until February. Apparently all this cold air's been coming from Canada, so.....I blame them.

And yeah, nothing new to talk about this week. Just the weather.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

What a Boring Week / Questions for You

I feel like I'm wasting a post this week, as I don't really have anything to talk about that I've done. So instead I'll make a list of things I would do if I had unlimited free time.

1. Redesign my Website

I actually am working on this one. I've finished most of the homepage and basic layout, but I need to fix the Flash menu (try moving over a button, then moving out of the menu. I don't want it to stay lit when you do that), and the homepage still looks a bit bare, but it's coming along.

2. Work on my/AP's Game

Right now, I'm working on some pretty complex "dynamic-level-loading based on camera movement" code. That probably doesn't make sense to you, but the point is that the entire level isn't moving around, just individual clips that it needs at that moment based on where you are. Again, I haven't had much time to work on this lately, but hopefully I will sometime this weekend.

3. Make my Own Blog

I've said it before, but I don't really like having a Blogger blog, because of the lack of customizability. I want to set one up on my own server, but ideally, I don't want it to be just a blog. What I want to create is a hybrid blog/forum, where there's one main post that's always visible created by the admin, but members can also create your own topics/threads. Sorta like a combination of Wordpress and bbPress. As usual, their code is too complex for me to figure out on my own, so I would have to start from the ground up. And I know I could do it, but it would take time, something which I don't have much of these days. What are your thoughts on this? Should I try to make this once I get a few other projects out of the way?

4. Make "Maze Adventure Flash"

I've wanted to do this since I got Flash 5 back in July, but AS1 couldn't do tile based stuff. Now that I have CS4, I tested some code, and it works! Unfortunately, the original Maze was made out of graphics I made with gradients in Powerpoint. If I wanted to make this into a serious Flash game, I would need to do a lot better than that. And I've found that drawing stuff from above is MUCH harder than drawing things from the side. Add that to the fact that I can't draw, and.....yeah. It actually wouldn't be that hard to code, but the graphics wouldn't look that great. If I did somehow get good graphics, do you think the game is good enough to make it on ArmorGames? Perhaps even get sponsored? Remember, I won't get around to this for a while, so don't worry about our game, AP. That's still on.

So, if you have any response to those questions scatterd throughout this post, please give them in the comments. Thanks for your help guys!

New Site Demo

In case you didn't notice, I added a link to the blog's RSS feed over there -->
Certainly wouldn't mind if you guys wanted to click that.

Anyway, this is what I've been working on for my own website. I haven't redesigned my site for about one year, and I'm very restless when it comes to the design of my site. If you're wondering, this is what my original homepage looked like:
http://andrewanimation.biz/old.html

Looking at my current site, it doesn't look that much different. Although I just don't think it looks very professional. It looks like some 13-year-old who had just learned how to make a webpage that wanted to put something online (which was true, but that's beside the point).

Anyway, I've looked through a lot of other web design websites, and sortof based this new design for mine off of those. You can view my prototype design here:
http://andrewanimation.biz/old/new.php
(path is a bit ironic, don't ya think? well, /old is just where I put all my junk files)

Note: there is no content on that page yet, and the links do not go anywhere. It's just a demonstration of the new design for the site. If anything looks off, or just doesn't look good, please comment. I want this new site to look real professional.

I've really got to start talking about my collab game with AP. I'm just having some problems getting the levels together. Once I get those fixed, maybe we'll post a demo or something...

Epicer News

Now, you're probably thinking, what could be more epic than me getting Flash CS4 as a Christmas present? Well, here it is. My Halloween pumpkin!


Not epic enough for you? Well how about this? I got Flash CS4 now! After my insane first quarter at school, it was sorta moved up to be an early Christmas present. So I have the software now, and let me say, it is AWESOME! Of course, I haven't really tried anything new, except Bitmap Cacheing, which works great. The large levels I've been working with scroll without lagging at 30 FPS! I can't wait to try out some more stuff.

Besides, it's great to have software that doesn't crash half the time you try to start it up.

Epic News

Wow. Two posts in October. That's IT? And only one of them actually contained something important. Man, this is staring to look like Nyubis' blog. :-D

So, yesterday was Halloween. As usual, we bought loads of candy. Which would have been good like, 7 years ago, when there were a lot of little kids in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, there aren't. We filled half of a cardboard box with candy, and by the end of the night, it barely looked like Halloween had passed. So now we have a big box of candy sitting around that has to be eaten. Poor me.

No, but seriously, I will get sick of candy within the next two weeks.

Next, remember the "6 Tests in 2 Days???" post? (I certainly do) Well, I just had 5 tests in two days on Thursday and Friday. So I guess some things never change.

So you're probably thinking: "Was that the epic news? That wasn't that epic." No, it wasn't. I'm not sure why I titled the post that and then talked about my lack of posting and Halloween. And now you're thinking: "There is no epic news, right? This was all just a scam to get me to read this post." And yet, you're still reading this, hoping that I will say something epic, just so that you feel like you did something useful in your time. Well, if you haven't given up yet, here's the news.

I have FLASH CS4!! Well, officially it's a Christmas present, so I can't use it until then, but still, it's pretty awesome to know that in 53 more days, I won't have to put up with annoying Flash 5 anymore. I consider that pretty epic, anyway.

Also: I've begun a redesign of my site. Don't expect anything that soon (it'll probably take a while, knowing how busy I am), but I am working on incorporating the new logo into it.

New Header!

Title pretty much says it all.

I've wanted to redo AndrewAnimation's logo for a while, and I've actually had this design for about a month. Except I've never done anything with it, since I haven't had ANY TIME TO DO ANYTHING BESIDES SCHOOLWORK!!!!!! Yes, still, the homework is ridiculous, and I just spent my entire weekend working. Seriously. But anyway, I want to redesign my site soon, using the new logo soon.

So....do you like the new logo? Did you like my old one better? Let me know your thoughts through comments, if you read this.

No Post This Week

Sorry, my brain won't load today. There will be no post this week.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

I don't agree with that song, cuz of my birthday and all, but I could understand why people would want to sleep through September. This is such a busy month for me, between school, my town's 375th anniversary, and confirmation classes, I don't have much time. Although I wouldn't want to sleep through the Big E. Teh Big E is awesome!

Anyway, I was thinking about the awesome song "Through the Fire and Flames" and how it relates to school. It's actually closer than you think. Read my analysis:

On a cold winter morning
we always have to wait for bus/carpool then
In the time before the light
when I have to wake up (before the sun rises)
In flames of death's eternal reign
We ride towards the fight
carpooling to school

When the darkness has fallen down
And the times are tough alright
The sound of evil laughter falls
Around the world tonight
that describes some of my teachers well

Fighting hard, fighting on for the steel
fighting to get through the hallway crowds
Through the wastelands evermore
The scattered souls will feel the hell
Bodies wasted on the shores
???

On the blackest waves in hell's domain
We watch them as they go
watching the new freshmen come next year
Through fire and pain and once again we know!
we will remember what it was like

So now we fly ever free
leaving at the end of the day
We're free before the thunderstorm
free before we have to start homework
On towards the wilderness
Our quest carries on
we still have to go back the next day

Far beyond the sundown
Far beyond the moonlight
that's how long I'm usually working on homework
Deep inside our hearts and all our souls!

So far away we wait for the day
For the light source so wasted and gone
We feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days
Through the fire and the flames we carry on!
we still go back the next day

As the red day is dawning
And the lightning cracks the sky
They'll raise their hands to the heavens above
With resentment to their lies
not sure.....teachers maybe?

Running back through the midmorning light
There's a burning in my heart
worrying about a test
We're banished from the time in a foreign land
To a life beyond the stars
detention, maybe?

In your darkest dreams see to believe
Our destiny is time
And endlessly we'll all be free tonight!
we'll get out of there eventually

And on the wings of a dream
So far beyond reality
All alone in desperation
Now the time has gone

Lost inside you'll never find
Lost within my own mind
being confused about the subject
Day after day this misery must go on!
indeed

So far away we wait for the day
For the light source so wasted and gone
We feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days
Through the fire and the flames we carry on!

Now here we stand with their blood on our hands
We fought so hard, now can we understand
at graduation, maybe?
I'll break the seal of this curse if I possibly can
For freedom of every man!
not sure

So far away we wait for the day
For the light source so wasted and gone
We feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days
Through the fire and the flames we carry on!

Okay, so there were a few imperfections, but I'd say it was pretty close.

See ya later!

Birthday

So......yeah. 14 years this time.

At the current point in time, I'm in school (you guessed it, scheduled post), and will probably come home and do homework. But I'm not sure. I'll edit this post if necessary.

Large Update

I have a feeling this is going to be the longest post I've ever made or ever will make on this blog. (written before I started)

So... a lot has happened since my last post. And I've been holding it in for the last two weeks, since I haven't had much time to get to this blog. For one thing, I started High School last Friday. Let's just say it's a LOT more work than I'm used to. And that's probably because I'm in all honors classes now. Except Spanish. So you can probably guess why I have so much work.

Part 1: Homework Rant
Each teacher says they give about a half hour to an hour's worth of work every night.Now let's think about that. I have nine periods in one day. Take out lunch and my two free periods. That leaves six classes. Now I'm not to great at maths (although I am in Honors Geometry, so maybe I am), but I think that calculates to about 6 hours of homework a night.

And the worst part is, that's about accurate. Say I get home at 3:00. I work til 5:00 (that's when The Simpsons are on), then start again 6:00, work til 7:00, have dinner, then work for another two hours, til I have to start getting ready for bed. If you paid attention, that's only five hours. And spending that much time on homework seems excessive already. So I've had busy nights. If you've noticed a lack of posts on the forum from me, that's probably why.

Part 2: Dance
Although High School isn't all bad. We had our first school dance for Freshmen only (and some Seniors there to help out) on Friday. At my old school, "dance" was just a name for it. Not many people really danced. It was mostly just hanging out, listening to the music, or talk about who likes who. Now, people actually do "dance". Including me (Note: if you're picturing me breakdancing, forget it :-P). They did a part where you randomly picked a person and danced with them. I'll just leave it at that for now. You don't need to know that many more details, heh heh.

No seriously, it wasn't that eventful.

Part 3: The Big E
If you remember that picture of me I posted on the forum a while back, I was wearing a shirt that said "The Big E". I think I told you this, but The Big E stands for "Eastern States Exposition" (Big E is much easier), and it's a fair that rolls around once a year. Despite the lack of time I've been having, my family was able to go there today. I think we had a pretty good time. They have a lot of cool rides, good food, etc. there, so I enjoy the visits we have.

If you remember the "Block Party" post a while back, and how I told you I had a vast variety of food there, it was pretty much the same for this. I don't remember everything now, but I had quite a variety of stuff in my stomach when I got home.

Part 4: This Blog
I've been thinking about this blog (although I don't have much time to think these days) and am considering changing it's layout a bit. If I make any more longs posts like these (and I'm sure I will), it's not gonna fit in this skinny column I have for content. I was looking at the "edit code" feature of Blogger, but I can't make much sense of it, even though I am a web designer. Not to mention, if I start making serious games, I'm gonna need a real blog to post stuff on.

And if the whole world's gonna be reading my blog, I won't post all this personal stuff on it, like this post. Funny, how I call it the "Andrew Animation Blog", then wind up talking all about my life. I think I would keep this one exclusive to my readers in the UK, Holland, and Sweden (sorry if I got your country wrong).
Note: I didn't say United States. Aside from maybe Brad or FO, I don't think anyone in the US reads this. I haven't told any of my friends, and the only link to it comes from the Forum. So enjoy your exclusivity.

I thought about installing Wordpress on my server, but I've worked with Wordpress before, and I don't particularly like it. It doesn't really offer the customizations that I would want as a web designer. Now, I probably could code my own blog. I know enough about PHP, mySQL, and all those fancy languages, but (remember what I said above) I don't have any time! If this were summer, I could code my own blog in a few days, but it isn't. I have to do it on weekends, when I'm already doing stuff I've pushed off during the week.

Part 5: New Engine
I fixed the gravity rotation bug! And a few other things. (AP, you haven't seen the gravity fixed, so try this engine). new engine!

Enjoy! XD

That about wraps up this long post. Man, I never thought I would use the "arg *head explodes* tag again. If you actually read this whole post, have a cake.

Looking back on it, I think my vacation post was the longest. But I did that over four days, so this is the longest thing I wrote in like, half an hour, or something.

And feel free to leave comments, as always.

End of Summer

I've been dreading the idea of making this post, but I think I will anyway.

Today's my last day of summer, and school begins tomorrow (even though I get Wednesday and Thursday off). Looking back on it, I think I had a pretty good summer. Here are some of the things I hoped to do, and what became of them.

1. Get 120 Stars in Super Mario 64

Done! Took me forever, though. My last two stars were in the clock level. If you've never heard of it, watch this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg-YIIk5t0k . It's not me, but that was pretty much how it went. I kept almost falling, and I almost ran out of coins at the end. I actually got the 100-coin star while I was falling, so I had to keep climbing back up and trying to land on it.

Anyway, in return for finishing the game, you get to meet Yoshi. He gives you 100 lives, a wing cap to use (only outside of the castle), and then jumps off the castle (suicide, sortof). That's it. No new challenges, no Luigi, nothing. Just 100 lives to replay the whole game. Oh, and you get to race a fatter penguin in Cool, Cool Mountain. I was expecting more, honestly. Oh well.

2. Design 3 Web Sites

Done! Mostly. It was actually quite an interesting time designing these. One actually uses a database to store different items of jewelry, so I spend time learning how to do that. Only one is online so far, and the other two will be online soon. If you're interested, here are the links:
italiancornerrestaurant.com
hairnailgallery.com
dgbeaddesigns.com

Italian Corner was a redesign, and it's the only one up. Hair and Nail Gallery is actually next door to the Italian Corner, and D.G. Bead Designs is run out of HNG. So they were all referrals.

I also did maintenence on another site:
modskinlabs.com

I mainly just did the press page and the home page. I didn't design the whole site, but I did make some important changes for them.

3. Make a Flash Game

Done! I guess I wasn't thinking I would make a whole game, just learn how to, and make an engine for it. And I would say that came out good. My engine is pretty good, and can do a bunch of things. And since I'm in a good mood today, I'll update it. Here is my latest engine:

http://andrewanimation.biz/games/flash/engine5.html

New stuff includes walljumping, improved platform code, new spring code, and an air meter for underwater.

4. Make a Few More Videos

Not done! I don't know where the time went this summer, but I just never got around to doing this. I have a few videos I wanted to make, but I guess I was just too busy with my websites and stuff.

All in all, awesome summer.

Video!

Remember that movie class I've been in for the last four weeks? Well, here's the final video that we made. It's about seven minutes long, and there aren't any FPA references, but I think you'll like it. I'm not sure what genre it is. It's a combination of mystery, horror (don't worry, it's not scary), drama, and comedy. Take a look

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkgLlDKazlk

Embed:



Use whichever method you like.

Block Party

So yesterday I went to my neighborhood's annual block party. It was actually more of a barbecue/cookout than a party, since it was mainly just eating and talking. But there was a lot of good food there, so you couldn't walk away hungry.

Now we weren't sure at first that there was even going to be a party, since this was what the radar looked like about two hours before it started.



But eventually that storm passed and there wasn't any other rain for the rest of the night.

First, the food.
In my travels, I had

• Cheesburger
• Pulled Pork
• Beef Briscut
• Nachos
• Potato Chips
• Hot Dog
• Fruit Salad
• Pasta Salad
• Brownie
• Chocolate Cake
• Chocolate Raspberry Cake
• Countless Glasses of Ginger Ale
• Countless Glasses of Ice Water

Yeah. That much. Nobody walked away hungry from this thing.

Now one of the problems with this was the lack of areas to sit down. Some people brought folding chairs, but whenever I tried to sit in one, the owner of it came by and wanted to sit in it too. My other choice was to sit on a cooler, but they were all condensing (ice inside, hot outside), so you felt a bit wet after sitting on them. Now, standing for hours on end tends to cause foot pain, so whenever I went back to my house to use the bathroom, I would sit down on the couch for a few minutes.

And now the best part of the whole party: one of the neighbors had set up Rock Band in their garage. Finally, something to do! I had actually never played the game before, (played Guitar Hero, though) so I played the guitar part. Now I don't think I could ever join a band like this, but I basically laid the guitar down and played it like a piano. Which of course isn't what you're supposed to do, but it got me 91%! on easy The only downside was that the TV we were using was not that large, maybe about the size of your computer monitor. But all in all, it was an awesome game. [edit] Think more of a laptop computer monitor, which is only 15-16 inches.

Right.....long post, I know. But the party was a lot of fun. If you really want a laugh about a party gone wrong, go to this post on WJUK's Blog (got it off the randomizer).

Mancala: Final Release

July 2:
Anyway so the point is that I'm making a small game that shouldn't take me more than a week to do. I'm not going to guess on a release date yet, since I always underestimate, but it shouldn't take too long.

July 7:
As for Mancala, I've changed some code and it's working better, but I'm not focusing on it as much cuz I want to learn Flash 5. So I'll probably finish it soon.

July 10:
The programming aspect of Mancala is pretty much done, now I just need to write up the instructions on how to play. I may have it finished by Monday, assuming I don't find any other bugs.

Today, August 1:
Released! Finally! I don't think any of you knew this, but I've had a beta up on the AndrewAnimation Games page for a week ;-).

Anyway, gameplay is simple enough and is all explained in the rules.

You can play the game from this link, or go to Andrew Animation Games.

Have fun! Or at least as much as you can with a puzzle game.....