Pokemon GO Cheaters... you have been warned

"Niantic’s warning to cheaters and hackers remains clear: Don’t do the thing, unless you want your Pokémon to suffer the consequences."

I'm all for it if it stops lazy-ass 'tards from cheating, forces them to get off their fat greasy arses get outside and play the game properly because I've walked every inch of the 1300-odd kilometres I've done in-game and busted my hump to get a pretty average battle roster so far (1400cp Lapras out of a 10k egg yesterday, I mean WTF!)... fucking annoys me that I have to battle 3000cp Dragonites in gyms that weren't earned fair and square.

More 3D Messin'

I've been playing with Adobe's Project Felix some more... decided to model a pocket watch, why? Because I've been dying to draw a precision watch face, which, to be honest, doesn't require any kind of 3D modelling whatsoever! But, what the heck, I drew it then surrounded it with 3D afterwards!

All profiling and the watch face drawn in Adobe Illustrator, modelling done in Photoshop, then textures and rendering done in Felix.

Parks & Recreation

This TV series has, literally, helped stave off my depression... Amy Poehler's character - Leslie Knope - is soo positive all the time that she massively lifts my spirits, plus the rest of the cast are such a good comedy mix too.

So to all the cast and crew of Parks & Recreation: thank you! :)

Niantic are preparing for a major change to Pokemon GO gyms...

Rumour has it that a multiplayer element is possibly being added... great, so now instead of having to wade through stacks of hacked Dragonites and Blisseys offline I'll have to live-battle against and get owned by some snotty fourteen-year-old's 3000cp Dragonite that the spawny little git got from a 10k egg that he/she walked off by strapping their phone to a turntable.

"The capture mechanic is fun, but you’re a lone wolf, you’re going out there on your own.." says Niantic. "Maybe you’re with friends, but there’s not that, kind of, connected experience. We think there is an opportunity for collaboration in that area, but more to come on that.”

"FUCK OFF!" I like being a 'Lone Wolf'!! I realise Pokemon GO puts you out and about in public but this game is my me time and I don't want it to involve other people. So I really really hope Niantic aren't going to nerf Pokemon GO to such an extent that I'll be forced to have to speak to people!

Aah well... to cheer myself up I drew a Snorlax... and here it is...

Adobe Felix

I've spent some time recently with Adobe's latest 3D app, called Felix... what I like about it is that it's being made for graphic designers, not engineers... which means it has a simpler, more intuitive interface for creative professionals.

I've used plenty of 3D software over the years, Strata3D being my most favourite and recently Photoshop CC's built-in 3D tools however I've found Felix very easy to use. So far my testing has been limited to importing models made from Photoshop, apply materials and rendering as Felix doesn't have modelling built-in (and may not have in future builds) but it is, very, very good. So good that I find it's rendering engine much better than Photoshop's. So now I transfer projects to Felix for rendering, freeing up Photoshop for other projects (a render job in Photoshop locks the entire app until it is finished).

The pic below is a rendering of a marble, it's a combination of a revolved object that's been twisted and distorted, then placed inside a sphere. I didn't bother adding materials, I just exported the 3D objects (in .obj format which is what Felix requires), once imported successfully I did some camera controls tweaking then applying Felix's built-in materials (glass mainly) and hey-presto! A rendered 3D marble... which, I have to say, I loved collecting when I was a kid!

Pokemon GO T-Shirt

I made myself this t-shirt recently to celebrate walking a 1000km in-game... I took a screenshot of the gold medal award graphic from the game, uploaded it to my Mac then re-traced it in Illustrator, saved it as a PDF then uploaded it to my favourite online t-shirt service - spreadshirt... they did a cracking job of re-producing it :)

My life so far...

Haven't posted much recently... my father passed away over Easter, been too depressed to do anything, certainly not been inspired enough to update my blog.

Anyway, recently, as an exercise to try to haul myself out of this deep funk I took my contributions to social media up a notch, by joining Twitter and Instagram.

I didn't join Facebook... Facebook can go fuck itself.

My Twitter feed is now bolted to this blog's sidebar, so that I can tie the two together... Instagram is mainly for my nature photography... a place for all my creative outpouring, such that it is at the moment.

Anyhoo, here's my latest abstract drawing, called 'Faded Tartan'...