Best arts & photography books according to redditors
We found 47,990 Reddit comments discussing the best arts & photography books. We ranked the 17,779 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
9. Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need
89 mentions
Michael Wiese Productions
Ok, now take note of what went wrong with your drawing and try again, and again, and again. Then after a few weeks go back and compare your latest drawings to this one.
The master has failed more times then the novice has tried.
If you want some resources, here are some youtube channels:
And also some books:
You should also check out http://drawabox.com/ and https://www.ctrlpaint.com/.
Edit: Labeled the links.
Edit 2: Just in case anyone saved this post, here's a couple of youtube channels I started watching recently:
I hope things are going well for you. And remember, as long as you keep moving forward you'll get to where you want to go eventually, even if your steps aren't as big as you'd like.
Here's my list of the classics:
General Computing
Computer Science
Software Development
Case Studies
Employment
Language-Specific
C
Python
C#
C++
Java
Linux Shell Scripts
Web Development
Ruby and Rails
Assembly
>He will publish an official ASOIAF cookbook before TWOW if he wants to.
He already has:
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
As a pseudo-musician/sound engineer here's a couple of tips I learned over the years.
Lastly, have fun. Learn to accept your mistakes. Even the best bands in the world don't replicate their album songs exactly for many reasons most of which is because you can't and it detracts from the energy of the performance.
I hope that helps
Well considering you’re probably an adult. I’d recommended the Alfred Adult Level 1 book. I’ve played piano for 8 years and this is what my instructor uses for her beginning high school who have never even touched a piano. There’s 3 levels and all have pretty well rounded lessons. It teaches a lot of chords, note names, scales, and etc. good luck! Adult All-In-One Course: Lesson-Theory-Technic: Level 1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0882848186/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_.hRQAb5KQXXJC. If you ever need help shoot me a message
I coloured this photo, here's the original at Library of Congress. These are curb brokers on Broad Street, around the 1900s it was common to trade stocks on the literal street: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curbstone_broker
>The curb brokers had been kicked out of the Mills Building front by 1907, and had moved to the pavement outside the Blair Building where cabbies lined up. There they were given a "little domain of asphalt" fenced off by the police on Broad Street between Exchange Place and Beaver Street, after Police Commissioner McAddo took office.[8] As of 1907, the curb market operated starting at 10'clock in the morning, each day except Sundays, until a gong at 3 o'clock. Orders for the purchase and sale of securities were shouted down from the windows of nearby brokerages, with the execution of the sale then shouted back up to the brokerage.[8]
>The noise caused by the curb market led to a number of attempts to shut it down.[1] In August 1907, for example, a Wall Street lawyer sent an open letter to the newspapers and the police commissioner, begging for the New York Curb Market on Broad Street to be immediately abolished as a public nuisance. He argued the curb exchange served "no legitimate or beneficial purpose" and was a "gambling institution, pure and simple." He further cited laws relating to street use, arguing blocking the thoroughfare was illegal. The New York Times, reporting on the open letter, wrote that brokers informed of the letter "were not inclined to worry." The article described "their present ground on the broad asphalt in front of 40 Broad Street, south of the Exchange Place, is the first haven of which they have had anything like indisputed possession."[8]
Other streets usually weren't as crowded as this, although people seemed to walk more freely compared to today.
A quote to imagine what the noise was like:
>"...journalist Edwin C. Hill described the curb trading on lower Broad Street as "a roaring, swirling whirlpool... like nothing else under the astonishing sky that is its only roof.”
A bit about the process: Color Mode in Photoshop and choosing a colour is all guesswork - you will never get the colours 100% right but you can get pretty close by looking at color photos or videos of historical clothing and other man-made objects from museums, movie sets, paintings etc.
Over time you will get a feel for how colours for different materials (clothing, stone, wood etc) behave in different lighting. You look at what time of day and setting the photograph is taken in and adjust your colors to reflect the proper tones. You are practically a painter aiming for realistic colors so knowledge in how colors interact with the atmosphere come in handy. I'm self taught but early on I learned a lot about this in this book by James Gurney: https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719
For anyone that’s interested in these kinds of things, I highly recommend the book A Feast of Ice and Fire, which is an officially licensed cookbook featuring meals right out of the books.
The animator's survival kit. Still an unbeatable book for this sort of thing.
In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch. Had to read it for Editing II and have read it 3 more times since. Great book about editing and philosophy. Very light read as well.
https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Eye-Perspective-Film-Editing/dp/1879505622
In the Blink of an Eye (Walter Murch)
Shot by Shot (Steven D. Katz)
Making Movies (Sidney Lumet)
Hitchcock/Truffaut (Francois Truffaut)
Something Like An Autobiography (Akira Kurosawa)
​
Those are all must reads, in my opinion. But this is just off the top of my head. I'm not next to my bookshelf at the moment, so this is the best I can do right now! =)
​
EDIT: Back with round two.
Seductive Cinema (James Card)
Orson Welles's Last Movie: The Making of the Other Side of the Wind (Josh Carp)
A Hundred Years of Japanese Film (Donald Richie)
All the Emperor's Men: Kurosawa's Pearl Harbor (Hiroshi Tasogawa)
Making Documentary Films and Videos (Barry Hampe)
The Haunted Screen (Lotte Eisner)
I received the Feast of Ice and Fire Game of Thrones cookbook as a gift last year. We decided to make meals from the recipes based on different regions from the show for watching different episodes this season. This week it seemed only appropriate to cook food from King's Landing and invite a few people over for a feast to celebrate the wedding :)
I normally always include recipes for all the things I post but this time it seems a bit wrong since it would just be copying recipes from their cookbook. I shared the ingredients for some of the items in the figure captions and have typed out the recipe I modified for my favorite dish the salmon fig tarts
I wish I could have taken better pictures, but I just had time to snap a few shots before we started eating. There was nothing that I didn't like. The game hens were a bit boring but still tasted fine. The cheddar onion pie, the salmon fig tarts, and the lemon cakes were my favorite! I'm excited to try out more recipes from the book. I think the authors have more of their recipes posted on their blog
I totally love the Christopher Alexander books. Definitely check out his The Timeless Way of Building which is a great companion piece to A Pattern Language. You should know that his works, while great in my opinion, are sort of considered idiosyncratic and not really in the mainstream of architecture/urban design.
Here's a short reading list you should look at:
The Smart Growth Manual and Suburban Nation by Andres Duany & Jeff Speck. Another set of sort-of-companion works, the Manual has a concrete set of recommendations inspired by the critique of modern town planning in Suburban Nation and might be more useful for your purposes.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs is probably the most famous and influential book on city planning ever and contains a lot of really original and thoughtful insights on cities. Despite being over half-a-century old it feels very contemporary and relevant.
The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler is similarly mostly a critique of modernist planning principles but is both short and very well written so I'd definitely recommend checking it out.
Makeshift Metropolis by Witold Rybczynski: I can't recommend this entire book, but it does contain (in my opinion) the best summary of the history of American urban planning. Really useful for a historical perspective on different schools of thought in city design over the years.
The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup is the book on parking policy. It's huge (700+ pages) and very thorough and academic, so it might be harder to get through than the other, more popular-audience-oriented titles on the list, but if you want to include parking as a gameplay element, I really can't recommend it highly enough. It's a problem that's thorny enough most city games just ignore it entirely: Simcity2013's developers say they abandoned it after realizing it would mean most of their players' cities would be covered in parking lots, ignoring that most actual American cities are indeed covered in parking lots.
Finally there's a bunch of great blogs/websites out there you should check out: Streetsblog is definitely a giant in transportation/design blogging and has a really capable team of journalists and a staggering amount of content. Chuck Marohn's Strong Towns blog and Podcast are a great source for thinking about these issues more in terms of smaller towns and municipalities (in contrast to Streetsblog's focus on major metropolitan areas). The Sightline Daily's blog does amazing planning/transpo coverage of the Pacific Northwest. Finally [The Atlantic Cities] (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/) blog has incredible coverage on city-issues around the world.
I hope this was helpful and not overwhelming. It's a pretty big (and in my opinion, interesting) topic, so there's a lot of ground to cover even in an introductory sense.
If you're really interested in paneled story telling check out Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud.
This little sample gives you some pretty good ideas for telling jokes with simple visual transitions. It's a must read for anyone who really wants to create impactful messages through images.
Um, part of UI design involves considering how you expose functionality to your users. You provide affordances so that people can maintain their mental model of how the object works. In this case, there was nothing to indicate to the user that a significant portion of the functionality (all dragging and dropping) had been disabled, nor was there any affordance to indicate how to re-enable that functionality. Choosing to not indicate to your users what state the object is in is a textbook example of poor UI design.
UI design is not just about visual composition, as you seem to be implying. That's a very narrow view, mostly held by web designers who (in their defense) are limited to working within the user interface of a web browser.
If you're actually interested in UI/UX considerations, and not just trying to troll and insult people, you might want to read The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.
EDIT: links
I had really good luck learning to draw at age 25 after no real effort, interest, or talent beforehand by reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I try to plug the book on every thread like this in the hope that someone will stumble across it just like I did years ago.
Here is my before and after (having read the book) drawings:
tl;dr: I drew like this, stumbled across this book on slashdot one day, now I draw like this and you can too.
Just because someone can open Illustrator and arrange some faces and use textures over them, doesn't mean its being effective visual communication. Proper grid structure, typeface choices, and hierarchy would make this much more effective in getting across the message.
I dislike stuff being posted looking like a photoshop/illustrator online tutorial threw up. ಠ_ಠ
Edit: These will be very helpful, even to those not in the industry.
The Elements of Typographic Style
Thinking with Type
I'm not familiar with anything current but I'm sure it exists. When I was doing the bulk of my learning we were still carving holes in strips of cardboard to produce code. Someone younger would probably give better, more current advice.
In general, refining your problem solving skills involves a great deal of introspection. Everything you complete you should go back and analyze the stumbles you had along the way. What caused delays, what produced bugs, what just didn't work very well. Look at these things and try to determine what you could have done differently. No better teacher than failure.
Two very old books that got me started: Aha: Gotcha and Aha:Insight. They are amazing puzzle books written by the master of puzzles, Martin Gardner. They have a bit of a math slant, but not too much. Read the reviews to see if it floats your boat.
Math, imo, is the basis of solid problem solving. It's the reason we learn math from pre-K all through university. You're not doing it so you can do calculus at the grocery store, and I've never used a lick of it in my career, but it does teach you how to think in a logical manner, breaking big problems down into little ones.
Another book that had some impact on my career was Design of Everyday Things. Good read for usability.
Start with these 3 books.
1
2
3
It's amazing how few people grasp the high cost of "free" parking.
Actually I think it's visual innuendo. The comic begins by implying that he's looking at porn, so things are starting to get blue, a bit naughty. The silhouettes reveal less, you can't see clothes (maybe they aren't wearing any), and leave more to the imagination—get you thinking 'what's he looking at there?'.
There's a lot more to comics than 'artistic effects' and the dialogue. If you're interested further, check out this book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Understanding-Comics-The-Invisible-Art/dp/006097625X/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=15NXBCDIMJODD&coliid=I3HBL84XK10YEE
This is an improvement. I'll give you that. I appreciate the effort that went into it. It's very pretty in some ways, and the mouseover effect on the tiles is kind of cool I guess.
It's still an incredibly space inefficient way to distribute information. Look at this. I've got a 1920x1080 monitor with Firefox full screen, and I can't even see 9 of your links at once. I can't read the preview text of any of them without mousing over. Is there some reason you can't display this information in a manner where I can just, y'know, read it?
A good start to being able to display a lot of useable links to articles at once is within the article archives, which with a slight bump in title size would be an excellent front page set of article links, but even that is a pain to deal with because this is the first thing you see upon loading the archives. Full screen on a 1080p monitor and I can see the entire preview text of exactly one article without scrolling down.
This site was designed by someone who thinks a lot about how to make things attractive and is good with graphical design software, but has no concept of User Interface Design. Please buy everyone on your design staff a copy of The Design of Everyday Things and make it mandatory reading. It's very possible to design for both visual aesthetic as well as functionality, that just hasn't happened here.
Aside from that I'll echo the disappointment that you can't middle click on the giant boxes, only the "read more" link, no idea why that functionality doesn't work.
Let me reiterate that I believe this is an improvement and I appreciate that effort is being made to make a better experience, but there's still a long way to go, and a company the size of WotC shouldn't need me to tell it that.
Go The Fuck to Sleep
Well, because of gin, I'm now going to recommend another book: "Design of Everyday Things". This is a longer, drier book, that goes more into the psychology and general patterns of good and bad design, which complements the more specific directions of "Don't Make Me Think".
I'd highly recommend the High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup (RIP) on this subject. Great, pioneering book about how we fail to deal with the huge externalities of personal automobiles.
That’s a million dollar question, literally. If there were a formula for defining fun, all games (video, board, tabletop) would be fun.
Some games like Minecraft and DnD5e hit just the right marks to make the authors filthily rich, but no one has ever managed to make more than a few hundred rules of thumb to get there.
If you want to dive deeper into this question, there are hundreds of books about game design available. I haven’t followed the field for quite some time now, but my personal favorite is The Art of Game Design. The author made his name by creating rides at Disney Land.
Animator here. I love this little animation! Your sister has a lot of natural talent! If you are looking to encourage and inspire her, THIS BOOK is the Bible for animators, and can help put her on a creative path that could include a future in animation! Tell her to keep at it; art as a career can be tough, but creativity is a lifelong companion that is always worth embracing.
This guy is a brilliant painter. One of my favorite painting books is written by him:
light and color
Thank you! Here's a quick list of the ones I can recall. :)
Figure drawing - Michael Hampton
alla prima - Richard Schmid
figure drawing for all it's worth - Andrew Loomis
drawing from life - George Bridgman
Color and light - James Gurney
As for videos, a whole lot of youtube ones, specifically from these channels;
Bugmeyer
Feng Zhu
Stylusmonkey
and a few workshop videos by Whit Brachna, Brad Rigney and Donato Giancola.
hope it helps some. thanks for the interest! :)
Understanding Comics is pretty much the first thing you should give them. It's a breakdown of the basics of style and structure of comic books. When my freshman-year roommate took a comics course in college, that was pretty much the textbook.
The Sound Reinforcement Handbook by Yamaha
Other great YouTube is Dave Rat
Depends on what you want to do — UX is a pretty broad field. I'm a user interface designer with a UX background, which means I've designed sites, web apps and mobile apps, but there's plenty of UX positions that don't require any sort of visual design or front-end development experience.
For example, there are labs that conduct user research and interviews, run focus groups, or do user testing. Hell, you could even apply to be a user tester at a site like usertesting.com. Not sure how much money you can make from that, but it's something.
Also, there are UX positions that go from beginning research and discovery for projects up through the wireframing, which doesn't require any visual design experience. You'll usually hand off your UX work to a designer or a developer to implement.
Some good books to read about UX are:
There's also plenty of online resources about UX. Smashing Magazine has a ton of articles on it.
If you are good at puzzles, love solving complex problems, and contain any shred of empathy, user experience could be a good field for you.
Since everyones just tossing accolades, I thought I'd toss out some constructive criticism.
From a pure mixing standpoint, I'd have to suggest going for more low pass/high pass filters before compression. Everything sounds a bit mushy to me as if it were tracked but not mixed properly.
[This book] (http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807) will really help you get the most out of your mixes in a small studio environment.
And if she’s up for something different I highly recommend the game of thrones cookbook, A A Feast of Ice and Fire , There is a blog too , so you don’t need to invest. I love the cookbook and trying out the medieval recipes vs the modern versions. It’s fun and gives perspective on how food and cooking/baking has changed.
And if you pm me an amazon wishlist link I would more than happily gift it (that’s how much fun I find this book).
Also, I’m glad you made caring for yourself a priority it’s a great example for the kids. When they see you making self care a priority they will too. ❤️❤️❤️
Comprehensive List of Books Relating to Music Production and Creative Growth
***
On Composition:
Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies - Dennis DeSantis
Amazon Link
This is a fantastic book. Each page has a general idea on boosting creativity, workflow, and designing sounds and tracks.
Music Theory for Computer Musicians - Michael Hewitt
Amazon Link
Really easy to digest book on music theory, as it applies to your DAW. Each DAW is used in the examples, so it is not limited to a specific program. Highly recommend this for someone starting out with theory to improve their productions.
Secrets of Dance Music Production - David Felton
Amazon Link
This book I recently picked up and so far it's been quite good. It goes over all the different elements of what make's dance music, and get's quite detailed. More geared towards the beginner, but it was engaging nonetheless. It is the best 'EDM specific' production book I have read.
Ocean of Sound - David Troop
Amazon Link
Very well written and interesting book on ambient music. Not only does David go over the technical side and history of ambiance and musical atmospheres, he speaks very poetically about creating these soundscapes and how they relate to our interpersonal emotions.
***
On Audio Engineering:
Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio - Mike Senior
Amazon Link
In my opinion, this is the best mixing reference book for both beginners and intermediate producers. Very in-depth book that covers everything from how to set-up for accurate listening to the purpose of each mixing and mastering plug-in. Highly recommended.
Zen and the Art of Mixing - Mixerman
Amazon Link
Very interesting read in that it deals with the why's more than the how's. Mixerman, a professional audio engineer, goes in detail to talk about the mix engineer's mindset, how to approach projects, and how to make critical mixing decisions. Really fun read.
The Mixing Engineer's Handbook - Bobby Owinski
Amazon Link
This is a fantastic companion book to keep around. Not only does Owinski go into great technical detail, he includes interviews from various audio engineers that I personally found very helpful and inspiring.
***
On the Industry:
All You Need to Know About the Music Business - Donald S. Passman
Amazon Link
This book is simply a must read for anyone hoping to make a professional career out of music, anyone wanting to start their own record label, or anyone interested in how the industry works. It's a very informative book for any level of producer, and is kept up-to-date with the frequent revisions. Buy it.
Rick Rubin: In the Studio - Jake Brown
Amazon Link
Very interesting read that is a semi-biographical book on Rick Rubin. It is not so personal as it is talking about his life, experiences, and processes. It does get quite technical when referring to the recording process, but there are better books for technical info. This is a fun read on one of the most successful producers in history.
Behind the Glass - Howard Massey
Amazon Link
A collection of interviews from a diverse range of musicians who speak about creativity, workflows, and experiences in the music industry. Really light, easy to digest book.
***
On Creativity:
The War of Art - Steven Pressfield
Amazon Link
This is a must-read, in my opinion, for any creative individual. It is a very philosophical book on dealing with our own mental battles as an artist, and how to overcome them. Definitely pick this one up, all of you.
This is Your Brain on Music - Daniel S. Levitin
Amazon Link
A book written by a neurologist on the psychology of music and what makes us attached to it. It's a fairly scientific book but it is a very rewarding read with some great ideas.
***
On Personal Growth and Development:
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
Amazon Link
Although this seems like an odd book for a music producer, personally I think this is one of the most influential books I've ever read. Knowing how to be personable, effectively network, and form relationships is extremely important in our industry. Whether it be meeting and talking to labels, meeting other artists, or getting through to A&R, this book helps with all these areas and I suggest this book to all of you.
7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey
Amazon Link
Similar to the recommendation above, although not directly linked to music, I assure you reading this book will change your views on life. It is a very engaging and practical book, and gets you in the right mindset to be successful in your life and music career. Trust me on this one and give it a read.
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Amazon Link
You know the feeling when you're really in the groove of jamming out and all worries tend to slip away for those moments? That is the 'Optimal Experience' according to the author. This book will teach you about that experience, and how to encourage and find it in your work. This is a very challenging, immersive, and enlightening read, which deals with the bigger picture and finding happiness in your work and life. Very inspiring book that puts you in a good mindset when you're doing creative work.
The Art of Work - Jeff Goins
Amazon Link
A very fascinating book that looks at taking your passion (music in our case) and making the most of it. It guides you on how to be successful and turn your passion into your career. Some very interesting sections touching on dealing with failure, disappointment, and criticism, yet listening to your intuition and following your passion. Inspiring and uplifting book to say the least.
***
Happy reading!
Yeah, and then he picked up on prompts in their questions to expand his story, creating and fixing false memories, and the tale grew for 7 years before publication.
By the time it was published, the minnow was a whale.
Honestly, the book is like 2 pages of this kids story and the rest of the parents blabbing, many years after the supposed events. If this is the level of proof people are willing to accept for their beliefs, it's quite sickening.
Nobody in more reasonable countries cares, but in the US there's like 10 different versions in any bookstore I go to (for kids, conversation guide, etc). At least it has now dropped below "Go the Fuck to Sleep" on the Amazon top seller list, which was a much more credible and intellectually stimulating book by far.
That's a big question! I've been painting for 30 years and was an art teacher for 17. I think the secret ingredient to what I do is TIME--literally decades of practice--and a heaping dose of patience. I've recently started a channel on YouTube where I attempt to show people my techniques, if you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/user/pupedd As far as books go, I don't have much to recommend for watercolor, but I received this one recently and it blew my mind as far as color and light are concerned. Wish I would have had this as a student! http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719
Sound Reinforcement Book
Sound reinforcement handbook
The Sound Reinforcement Handbook https://www.amazon.com/dp/0881889008/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_0ry1DbHK6J2GB
Luckily, other people have thought very hard and determined that mandatory off-street parking raises the cost of living overall.
You are undoubtedly and unpopularly correct.
https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
I think he’s ready for this children’s bedtime classic:
Go the F**ck to Sleep
ETA: Which is a real book in case anyone didn’t know
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1617750255/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_eqnZDbAFTS1SD
adobe photoshop CS6, Wacom intuos 3, this is a good book http://amzn.com/0740797719
>Ok, what's unique about US problem?
Oh my god, I'm sure a plethora of master's theses have been written on this subject. This book comes to mind, for starters:
http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/193236496X
(Note that it is written by a UCLA professor--yes, Los Angeles, the city with arguably the worst traffic problem in the world.)
Also note I am not saying that the USA is a special snowflake; that's SAS fodder and I know it. But yes, we are unique in the literal sense of the word.
Now we're beginning to scratch the surface. Or at least, that's what I believe.
^But ^I'm ^really ^upset ^and ^overwhelmed ^with ^my ^fucking ^university's ^course ^scheduling ^process ^in ^this ^moment: ^disclaimer.
Why couldn't you submit your script?
If turned into a video, it'd be about 1minute of footage. It's bare-bones and could use more polishing and details. In 7 pages of script, D.Va cries in 4 of them.
>despite having no industry experience
Save The Cat! is highly recommended if script-writing is your passion. Consider your first work a rough draft, and keep at it. Looking forward to seeing the animated version in a few months :)
We all tease Gurm about the food descriptions, but we all love them. I've been cooking out of A Feast of Ice and Fire for days now. It's AWESOME.
You're in luck! They actually HAVE an official GoT cookbook!! https://www.amazon.ca/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
The best book to read as a developer is The Design of Everyday Things. If every developer read it, the software world would be a better place.
I've been playing for a long time now, and have never experienced this thing which you term 'piano culture'. Of course there are competitive people in every field—from music to lawn-mowing, probably—, but do you have to associate with them? Absolutely not.
It should not be at all challenging to find a teacher who is willing to teach away from the exams. You may find that you want to take them down the line, or see how well you're progressing by practicing material from the grades. This is fine, as is staying away from them altogether.
At the end of the day, if you want to learn: learn. Self-teaching is not frowned upon at all, it's just more of a challenge and, on average, you probably won't progress anywhere near as quickly as with guided instruction. If your enjoyment motivates you to learn solo, then do that. Lots of great musicians have, and will continue to.
***
Edit**: If teaching yourself is your favourite option, I recommend the Alfred's Basic Piano Course series! Best of luck :)
I've got the World of Warcraft cookbook and the Game of Thrones cookbook from the same author, and I highly recommend. She's also done a Hearthstone cookbook and a Shire(Hobbit food) cookbook that I've got on my wishlist. Looking forward to adding this one to the collection!
I'm a comic book artist that went to school for it, still aspiring.
For understanding things like panel layout, pacing in comics, etc, check out Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and Making Comics are pretty good for helping both artist and non-artist get what makes comics comics. Knowing how to create the visual comic, even if you can't draw, will help you direct your script.
Also, there is no official, streamlined way to write a comic script. Just make sure you put in all the necessary details while keeping things clear for the artist. Like if there's a bad guy with a secret weapon, make sure the artist knows that the moment he shows up so the artist can plan for it. And unless you're planning for a particular effect, don't make a guy do more than one thing in a panel.
You are not writing a story or a novel, you are writing a set of instructions for an artist and nobody will really see the script. I've seen scripts say things along the lines of, "The detective removes his hat, revealing a masculine, sexy face, like (insert actor here)".
It's also important to know about comic book panel layouts and whatnot because often it's acceptable for the writer to give the artist a drawing of a suggested layout.
Eh. It's a fine method, it's not the only method and I'd probably advise using multiple categorization systems to look at your game. Yes they mention that it's only one of many but I don't think they really highlighted that particular point enough.
You can find many different patterns in game design if you look - but games are not really made of such discrete parts.
So yeah look at the planning, improvising and practice involved in your game. But also look at the different challenges it provides, or any of a hundred different lenses.
Game design taxonomies each present themselves as the way to look at games, but they're each just a way of looking at games and you should use a variety of different points of view when analyzing or otherwise working on your design.
But because I liked the video: my game Honor Bound is heavy on improvisation, and practice - but that practice is only to support the planning you will do.
In Honor Bound you play rock paper scissors but you choose a Class that has Abilities that may encourage you to use one move over another. Also you can tell your opponent what move you're about to play - you can psyche them out or gain a damage bonus for telling the truth.
There's a lot of improvising against your opponent's strategy. Previous experience (practice) will inform you how each Class is played and you will plan around that at the start. However this will always go back to improvising against how your particular opponent is mixing things up to try and psyche you out.
Just to act as devil's advocate here - I would recommend at least balancing this guy's work out with some of the more standard texts on mixing (listed below). I checked out this video a while back and was a little weirded out by his approach, which often steps into pseudoscientific territory. If you go to the author's company website, you'll see some dubious claims and suggestions about mixing techniques:
-"There are archetypal frequencies that have been used since the beginning of time to affect us."
-"As shown by the research of Alfred Tomatis, every frequency is a nutrient."
-"Tuning A to 432 hertz vs. 440 has been proven to resonate better with the resonant frequency of our cells - Tuning concert pitch to more auspicious frequencies makes the music go deeper."
-"High Frequencies activate the mind; Low Frequencies calm the body."
-"When you relate to frequencies based on ancient Chakra energies, the way you "feel" the balance of frequencies in a mix in a whole different way that goes through your whole body instead of just your mind. "
I'm sure the guy's mixes sound great - and he seems to have been a successful mixing engineer - but I personally wanted nothing to do with this guy. There are other "holistic" approaches to mixing (like Mike Stavrou's Mixing with your Mind) that work without having as much of a "snake oil" flavor to them. But as always, if this guy's approach works for you and you can look past his quirks, then I suppose it's a good resource.
Other resources: Mike Senior's Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio, Roey Izhaki's Mixing Audio, Bobby Owsinski's The Mixing Engineer's Handbook
A thread I can help with! Nighttime urban shots are my thing. First and foremost watch this video if you want to shoot low light handheld. By far it has helped me up my game more than any other advice I have receeived. Also, this has some great advice as well.
On your submitted photo
Good news:
Areas for improvement:
You have a good eye keep shooting! It gets easier every time you do it. I love this kind of work and I am happy to help with whatever advice I can. Feel free to message me with any questions.
Advice for the total newbie to lowlight shooting:
Time for some hard truths.
If you still want to shoot handheld.
Obligatory link to my work so you can get a sense of the style that I go for.
Full disclosure:
None of the links are affiliate links, they are simply products that I use every night I am out. I have bought all my own gear, this is strictly my own experience so your mileage may vary.
I recommend the same book to every single beginner. "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0817439390
Thanks to all the great photographers that recommended it to me when I was a beginner.
The most important thing that 99% percent of the photographers don't seem to know: if you want to make good photos consistently, learn the fundamentals.
Because a photo can be made in an instant, a lot of photographers work intuitively, without making any informed decisions about their pictures whatsoever. This is why a lot of photos taken without any training aren't appealing.
If you learn about composition, color, light, etc. like an illustrator or a painter does, you will be able to make repeatable successful photos. In the beginning, you shouldn't be overly concerned with sharpness, depth of field or your equipment. No, you should be concerned with how your photo looks at the most basic, fundamental level.
Since I started taking drawing lessons and reading books on color and composition this year, I feel way more confident about my photography. I make informed decisions that I know will work. I am able to analyze pictures that work for me, and I know why they work now. Thanks to drawing lessons, I can see a lot better, which is also a great help for retouching. I can think in terms of lines, shapes, forms, spaces, light, shadow. But the most important thing of all: I feel like I can reach the level of photography that I only could dream about last year, the high-end commercial automotive photography.
Some books that helped me a lot:
Believe me, you want fundamental knowledge to rely on, not a list of incoherent 'protips'. :-)
The Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook
Must have for live techs, and chock full of electronics and sound basics.
The definitive soundman's bible.
If people want to learn the same kind of basics regarding photography, but with picture illustrations and diagrams of the concepts discussed, I can highly recommend the book Understanding Exposure. It's very well written, and easy to understand.
Alright, let me give you a rundown of my personal library.
Beginner:
Intermediate:
Advanced:
I'm sure others will disagree with my ranking, and obviously my library is rather genre specific. But it's a lot of quality material that will definitely improve your playing no matter the style.
The Design of Everyday Things can be useful to keep things in perspective, particularly if you're interested in working on things that people interact with.
I'm Fuckin' bitches in the kitchen while I know there kids r listin'
Cause' I know when they are sleepin' I know when they're awake and if they cock block me, their presents I will break.
So keep quiet little fucker, Don't make a peep.
IT'S FUCKING BED TIME. GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP.
Relevant:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1617750255/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_uKzQDbAGTN3YV
If you're an editor, In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch.
Edit: link formatting
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/006097625X?cache=ae911b3558e26d125124340c0e8d2a39&pi=SY200_QL40&qid=1414291468&sr=8-1#ref=mp_s_a_1_1
Understanding Comics.
Hey, I'm an urban planner in the private sector in Canada.
I haven't seen this youtube video in a long time, at least not since I started working out of school, and HOLY SMOKE it is pretty accurate. I identify with your skill set with the exception I could never do engineering as I am horrible with math and science. I went human geography to urban planning.
What don't you like about engineering? Is it the pay level? Number of entry level jobs? The number of entry level jobs in planning is super, super slim. It's a small field with a large number of graduates.
To be fair, there are a lot of different types of planner specialities. I do regular development approvals (rezoning, site plan, etc.). I can't speak for heritage or environmental planners really.
Planning is very much limited to a combination of what is allowed in the zoning by-law, engineering, developer preferences, and angry residents.
All municipalities have a zoning by-law. Zoning controls what you can and cannot build on a parcel of land including the setbacks, density, heights, uses, and most importantly (but least mentioned) MINIMUM PARKING REQUIREMENTS. Every building requires a certain number of parking spaces, usually an inflated amount. This wastes land like nobody's business. The parking is calculated based on building size and an assigned rate (example: grocery store: 6 spaces required per 100 sq.m of gross floor area). The bigger the building, the more parking you require. Parking ruins everything. The High Cost of Free Parking is my favorite planning book and is honestly far more useful about what's wrong with cities today than anything you'd learn in a master's degree.
Secondly, engineering constraints determine if a project will happen or not. Road widenings, water, sewers, etc. These are king in any municipality (and municipal engineers are almost always by the book).
Next, developers need to make a profit. If the developer wants to build a gas station, then you will do the planning work for a gas station. It's not all glorious and exciting mega-developments.
Lastly, angry (NIMBY) residents, and the Council members that represent them, will oppose most new development. Most residents oppose absolutely any change in their area, especially next door to them. Doesn't matter what you are building. The always use the same two excuses: "think of the children who play in this area" (I can't stand that one) and "it will cause more traffic" (and therefore cars will risk hitting our children sigh). Property values and building heights would be the next biggest complaints.
Can you make a real difference as an urban planner? City Council is responsible for making all decisions, planners just make recommendations. If Council thinks it will upset residents and they will lose votes, they will likely oppose a new development even if the development is great. Planners do get a role in explaining the benefits to the public but older people tend not to care about the 'progressive' stuff.
People get a bit of shock when the realize urban planning isn't Sim City. I still love my job though. I should also point out I don't make a lot of money yet at all AND I work/live in the suburbs. Many planners start out in smaller places first. Almost nobody is getting a planning job at a big city without prior work experience.
I'd love to answer more questions, let me know.
My last art book was Hyrule Historia , a Zelda art book which was also published by Dark Horse Comics. I’m very excited for this one. :D
The question is not "for" or "against" cars, per se; it's about the high cost of "free" parking, which all of us pay, including people who have cars.
Do we want space for humans or for machines? That's a real salient trade-off in many cities, and it's one that's rarely foregrounded in discussions about the obscene cost of rent.
Yes and no.
There are great books about screenwriting for the feature film like Save the Cat, but the recent upsurge in longer-form television writing required for the binge services (Netflix,Amazon etc,) stretches the conventions of these books.
The lessons learned in a college level script analysis class apply to all types of media using theatre as an example, and are generally grounded in classics. Many film-hopefuls don't know that understanding these classic forms tend to make the difference between truly great stories and stories that will fade away.
Taking a screenwriting class after or in conjunction will improve your ability to write in a variety of forms that might be required by the different story ideas that you might have. The industry is evolving almost as quickly as it did during the invention of film and later television.
You will need to understand the classical structures and ideas at some point during your career as a writer, and so I would heartily recommend a script analysis class. But then again, I'm a college teacher. Who teaches script analysis. And often acts in movies when directors and writers don't understand these classic forms.
Think about the possibility of hitting a home run without ever been told to keep you eye on the ball or step into the pitch. It's possible. But it's much less likely.
Yamaha live sound handbook!
Edit: Yamaha Sound reinforcement handbook. Link
Time and motivation. That's the essence of it.
Also you are going to need to study some 2D math (and 3D if you plan on making a 3D game). Trigonometry, vectors, etc. Those are bread and butter stuff when making games.
Before starting to write a single line of code read about game design. This is by far the most recommended book.
If you have any intention of selling your game you will also need professional art and sound. Don't underestimate this.
Finally marketing a game is as important as the game itself. There are cases when a game sells by itself, but it's so rare it's like winning the lottery. Don't count on that.
Oh, one last thing, don't start working on the first idea that comes to your mind unless it's for practice. Research the market before embarking on a year long project. There are hundreds of failed retro platformers, zelda like rpgs, etc.
theres no joke one thats been out since 2012 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345534492/ref=
Not actually new; even bit. This dates back further to the 1960s and 1970s. All these concepts are, for example, the basis of computer-human-interaction theory. If cognitive scientist don't know about this and haven't been integrating it into their ideas already, they've been missing the boat and missing a wide swath of historical work.
It's the theoretical basis that was used practically to developed the radical computer innovations of Xerox PARC in the 1970s: you know, stuff like: window-based GUIs, mouse-based screen pointers, ethernet network connections between computers, object-oriented languages, laser printers, etc.
See the work of Alan Kay and others. It was that work that inspired Steve Jobs to create the Lisa and Macintosh, which begat MS Windows. His concept of the "Dynabook" is basically what the new Apple iPad is, for example. And yes, Apple usability taps into all this and still does.
When you use a modern computer, you are using embodied cognition theory. A mouse/windows GUI is tapping into the embodied metaphors of your inner 2-year-old self (Piaget's 1st "Pre-operational, Affective Learning" phase). Basically at that age you are moving objects in the physical world and learning physical NOUN-VERB and NOUN-VERB-NOUN concepts of manipulation and control. Note that this is also what the Montessori method of teaching is tapping into and trying to develop/enhance.
And the computer GUI metaphor attempts to recreate those actions. A mouse and windows GUI is is just a MOUSE-MOVES, MOUSE-MOVES-FILE, MOUSE-SELECTS-FILE, MOUSE-MOVES-FOLDER, etc. which are implemented in software/graphics to visually to look just like physical object manipulations.
This is just "2 year old skills" being tapped unconsciously because they've been deeply subsumed as embodied metaphors - they are second nature so anything that uses them is "easy to learn and to do".
This is the entire basis of most usability design in engineering. See Don Norman. The rest is empirical and theoretical mathematical characterization and models of the details. Things like Fitt's Law, for example, which is central to GUI design.
Contrast this with a computer command-line interface like DOS or UNIX. This is symbol manipulation rather than object manipulation (did I mention Object-Oriented Programming). You are tapping into your inner 12year-old self (Piaget's Formal operation stage with these interfaces. You can't actually "see" how the computer is doing things for you but you have an abstract response in the form of text symbols. But this level of cognition is not such a deeply subsumed level of your cognition in terms of metaphors so not so transferrable as skill leverage. It takes more effort and focus.
Some people, due to genetic or environmental reasons, never develop their abstract symbolic cognition very well. These folks usually and eternally suck at using command line computers but can do just fine with mouse-window GUIs.
This is because unless you have some serious mental retardation, everyone has about the same level of 2-yo cognition buried in their heads but not everyone the later developing 12+yo cognition. In a lot of ways, the success of computers is "proof" of Piaget after a fashion.
Edit: typos
Here are some things I (and I know others) have struggled with. I think the web is exploding with resources and information, so I don’t necessarily think we need to explain what a prototype is. There’s better places elsewhere to learn things about UX, but I think we could provide some good resources for not just people new to UX but everyone else too. I’m coming at this from what I wished I would have access to when I was trying to get into the field. I know that /u/uirockstar has some good walls of text that probably should be included as well. Feel free to suggest any changes to what I have here.
I really want to begin a career in UX/UI. What do I do?
Well, first it’s important to know that UX and UI are not synonymous. While many job postings combine them, UI is a subset of UX, just as research and information architecture are. UI is still important and if you can do both, you do increase your value. While many see UX as a research field at its core, the UX/UI title implies that it’s only about creating pretty things.
The first step is learning more about the field, which brings us to…
What kind of education do I need?
If you are still in school, there are more places recently that are offering courses in human-computer interaction. You can even try to create your own internships. There are very few UX specific schools, though they are starting to pop up, like Center Centre and General Assembly.
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. But I already graduated, so where do I start?
Any focus on people or technology can act as a solid foundation for learning UX. Because there has never been a set entrance path into the field, UX roles are filled with people from many different backgrounds. The most common degrees for those in the field though are design, psychology, communications, English, and computer science. link
There are a number of people in the field who are self-taught. There are tons of books, blogs, and designers (here are some helpful resources) which provide enough UX stuff to keep us all busy. When I first started reading about it, I quickly got overwhelmed because there was so much information available and most of it was intended for those who already had a pretty good grasp on things. The Hipper Element’s crash courses in UX and user psychology are great places to get a fairly quick overview.
There are books like The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman, 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan Weinschenk and Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug that make for great first books.
UX Mastery has a great eBook for getting started, appropriately titled Getting Started in UX. Kevin Nichols’ UX for Dummies is both very readable, yet detailed. You can even buy the eBook if you don’t want people on the bus to think you’re a “dummy.”
Lastly, Fred Beecher has a very extensive Amazon list of recommended UX books, depending on what area you are looking to learn more about.
Great. I’ve read a whole bunch of stuff and have a pretty good idea how UX works. Now how do I get someone to hire me so I can gain experience?
Hey, easy there. While, yes, there are lots of UX jobs out there, very few are entry level and not many employers will hire someone who has only read about it and not actually done it. You can’t get a job without experience and you can’t get experience without a job. I know. Frustrating, right?
You have to prove that you can do it. One way to do this is site redesigns.
Go find a website that lacks in it’s user experience and figure out how to fix it. Maybe it’s a small business down the street from you or maybe it’s a feature on eBay you think could be better. Redesigning sites is a good way to practice a process and make mistakes on your own time. If you can involve the owner from that small business down the street, that’s even better because then you can get a sense of the customers (users) that you will be designing for.
Once you have done this, you have (some) experience! Start a portfolio and add to it!
But I have a resume. Why do I need a portfolio?
Resumes are great. But resumes won’t get you a job starting out. It’s a million times more effective to show potential employers what you have done, rather than showing them a resume showcasing that you are a team player and proficient in Microsoft Office. But you should still have a resume that outlines your UX skills.
But I’ve never worked in UX! What should I put on my resume?
You don’t need to put all of your old jobs on your resume if they are unrelated to the field. Most places still want to see some work history so they know you haven’t been living in a cave for the last four years, but they don’t care about how you sold vacuum cleaners or trained circus horses. Maybe you can relate some crossover UX skills to your previous work.
Back to portfolios. They are a lot like elementary math class in that you want to show your work. Potential employers are much more interested in how you made a design decision rather than the final result. If your portfolio just has a bunch of fancy wireframes, that doesn’t tell them how you took specific personas into account and you are simply showing them something that looks pretty. And just because it looks pretty doesn’t always mean it makes sense.
Okay. I have a portfolio with a few unsolicited site redesigns in it.
Congratulations! But I have some bad news. Are you sitting down?
No one wants to hire you yet. You haven’t worked on any “actual” projects that showed how your UX skillz helped a business. I know I suggested you do site redesigns to get practice and you should because that is work you can take to a nonprofit or another small business and say, “here are some trial runs that I’ve done that prove I know what I’m doing and now I can help you for free in exchange for adding it to my portfolio.”
They’ll probably be skeptical and say, “hmmm… I don’t think my website needs this newfangled user experience you speak of and—wait did you say free?”
You both get something out of it and you’re doing it pro bono, which relieves you the pressure of making one tiny mistake. (There is a great site called Catchafire that matches non-profits all over the country with people looking to donate their time and skills.)
Once you have a portfolio displaying your work and some experience, start applying! But there is one more aspect that goes into getting hired and that is the people who will hire you.
Ugh, but isn’t networking just using people for my own professional gain?
I had this same mindset and it probably delayed my entrance into the field. I wanted to rely only on the quality of my work and trusted the rest would follow. I avoided networking and meeting people in the field because I didn’t want it to seem like I was only mooching for a job.
But the fact is people are altruistic in nature and like helping others. Many people also enjoy talking about themselves, and those are the two main principles of an informational interview. You’ll also find that people are excited to help others get started since they remember how difficult it was (see: this blog post).
It wasn’t until I started getting those informational interviews and talking with people at UXPA and MeetUp groups that I learned another side of UX, but also got more familiar with more hiring managers or those that knew them. Whenever possible, people will hire those they know and like. Until you get out and start shaking hands and kissing babies, you will be just another faceless name in a stack of resumes.
Meeting with recruiters/staffing agencies is also a good route as they make money by finding you a job, so they have a vested interest in giving you constructive criticism.
I've heard that you have to live in a big city to get a job in UX.
Move. Just kidding. But while it’s true that larger cities like New York, San Francisco, and Seattle are full of opportunities, there are plenty of other places around the country that have jobs. Here are the top 20. If you live in a tiny city, expect a tougher time finding a position.
Okay, I got an interview. How do I not mess this up?
Some great advice is to go all UX on your preparation and treat the interviewer like a user.
.......to be continued.
Blogs:
Other:
A lot of great thinking on urban parking including the cost it adds to development and the ramifications for livable cities was collected in the book [The High Cost of Free Parking](https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X). It is a thick tome, but it was suggested to me on reddit and reading it completely changed my view on parking regulations.
​
And shared use parking is a theme of some of the chapters. I think it's usually discussed in shared parking for multiple businesses that have different hours rather than apartments and businesses just because the businesses and residences are frequently in different areas.
Haha! Good start! Funny stuff.
If you want advice, the best I can give you is this:
Be mindful of the brush size and the zoom % you're doing line art in. If you're working in 3 size brush and you're zooming in and out to different % to do your line art, you'll find the line art becomes very inconsistent. Brush size is entirely relative to the zoom percentage you decide to use. So what I recommend is, rough out your animation with whatever zoom or brush works for you, it doesn't particularly matter at this stage.. Then once you're done with your rough, go back over it on another layer entirely on 200% or 300% zoom (you'll see the amount of zoom in the top right of the stage). I recommend 3 size brush, pressure sensitivity and 40 smoothing. If you're mindful of this your line art will look awesome! You'll find the imperfections on lines will be lost the closer zoomed in you decide to do the line art.
Also this book will change your life.
GOOD LUCK DUDE!!
It's actually a pretty good book.
Have you read the novels? I swear the author spends about 100 pages in each just describing food. There's even a cookbook.
The art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses should give you a decent vocabulary to talk about these things.
But no book can teach you how to make fun games. All they can do is teach you vocabulary and frameworks in which to structure your ideas. (which is in and of itself extremely useful)
Post-Mortems and dev diaries (real ones, not the marketing ones) can show you some of the realities and pitfalls to expect during the production.
But there's no replacement for pure experience. Your first game will probably suck, and that's fine if you make it about learning, and not about not about stroking your ego. Ideas mean nothing if you can't execute on them anyway.
Check the history of the people making those original indy games you like. Go play their earlier games. What's new and fresh for you may be something they've been developing gradually for a decade.
Here's really how, rather than reading an incomplete paraphrasing of it:
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Required reading at the Institute of Design, in 1994. (The Bauhaus).
There’s an important book dealing with this we read in Principles of Urban Design: The High Cost of Free Parking
Driving around looking for parking represents ~1/3rd of all vehicle miles travelled.
More: https://fee.org/articles/parking-regulations-cause-traffic-congestion-but-the-market-can-help/If you really want to go down the rabbit hole: https://www.amazon.ca/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
Edit: more on the 1/3rd VMT that says it may be much lower http://docs.trb.org/prp/17-04407.pdf
Do NOT go into debt for film school.
If it is payed for, then sure, it should be a lot of fun. But your reel already surpasses 95% of what I see from students who have already graduated film school.
If you are taking out money to go to film school.... dont. Student loan payments are one of the biggest obstacles when trying to launch a freelance career. Also, a film degree doesnt mean dick to most people in this industry. Unless you want to have a 9-5 at a studio or something. And thats stupid.
Use the money to:
or
http://www.amazon.com/Story-Substance-Structure-Principles-Screenwriting/dp/0413715604/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=
http://www.amazon.com/Screenplay-Foundations-Screenwriting-Syd-Field/dp/0385339038/ref=pd_sim_b_9
http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Journey-Structure-Edition/dp/193290736X/ref=pd_sim_b_5
http://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009/ref=pd_sim_b_2
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Movies-Sidney-Lumet/dp/0679756604
Absorb. Read again. Then write and shoot your own movies. It will cost less than film school, it will be MORE fun than listening to failed film makers telling you how to make movies, and it could potentially launch your career.
Also, if you are ever in New Orleans, PM me and I will buy you a beer.
There's nothing to it but to do it.
Well, there is a little more to it. Start by watching movies or TV shows or whatever it is you'd like to write. Watch them with a focused, critical eye, in a way you never would have thought before you considered screenwriting. Watch them as if they were pieces carefully constructed by deliberate, talented professionals--they are. Then read up on it. Most writers swear by Save The Cat but a little shopping around will show you all kinds of good material. Go back to the stuff you watch and see how closely it matches up with what you read.
Then, go about outlining your idea. Figure out the essential plot points (there's always debate as to just how many there are and where they belong in the story) and make sure they apply to your idea. Then get some free screenwriting software and get to work.
It's important to always stick to the conventions of screenwriting when you're a beginner. It's a medium that allows a great deal of creativity, but there are so many things that are industry standard for a reason (not just formatting but the placement of inciting incidents, second act turning points, resolutions, character arcs, etc.). Don't go thinking you'll change the industry by breaking all the rules. You're more than likely to end up with a bad script. It's art, but there are rules.
Since you're 15 you have plenty of time to go about it on your own for a few years. Hopefully you'll figure out if you really want to pursue it when it's time to consider schools and internships and the like. But whatever you do, have a blast!
I'm sorry, but the idea that Aladdin was based off of the Thief is a ludicrous lie. Do...do you even know what you're talking about? Do you have your sources on this? Disney had nothing to do with the Thief and the Cobbler, except for when Roy E. Disney was going to fix Miramax's terrible decisions and put together a faithful recut of the film (and then, tragically, died before any of it could come to fruition).
I'm not saying Disney is entirely innocent. But other than the above fact, it had nothing to do with The Thief.
The Thief was a pet project for Richard Williams, which is why it had such a long production schedule; official studio funding/backing for it happened much later. And then Aladdin happened. As far as I know, because of Richard William's perfectionism and (utterly insane) necessity to animate everything on ones, production for Thief even when officially funded was taking way too long. They had about 15 minutes of full animation left to do before studio execs kicked Richard Williams off, called in a second-hand director, scrapped most of the film, and hired Matthew Broderick to voice the main character that was supposed to be silent.
The above is based off of memory, but you can read specific and accurate details about the controversy here.
You could argue that the production of Aladdin is what hammered the final nail in the coffin of The Thief, and that could be arguably true. When Warner Bros saw that Disney was making a film set in a similar setting, they pretty much went "Screw it, Rich is never going to finish this film and we'll never be able to compete with Disney." But to claim that Disney STOLE from The Thief? Ridiculous. Utterly, insanely, ridiculous.
It would be more accurate to say that Disney incorporated similar story ideas. I could see that argument working to your favor.
And to clarify, Disney had no direct connection to the bungled Fred Calvert/Matthew Broderick release of The Thief. Where are you getting your info?
If you want to get into a case of legitimately suspicious Disney activities, the Kimba the White Lion controversy would've been a better, more accurate thing to talk about.
EDIT: Also, as much as I admire Richard Williams (who basically wrote the animation bible), I'm one of those practical people who think that animation on ones does not necessarily mean good animation. It can certainly look smoother, but smoothness can't help bad timing, acting, spacing, and design choices. An easy comparison would be to look at in-game character animation in any modern Bethesda video game and compare it to, say, a Disney/Pixar CG production. Modern Bethesda video games are running at 60 fps+, which is over twice as fast as ones, and yet...the animation looks like shit. Granted, they had less time to animate, a smaller crew, and needed to animate way too many things to have a consistent, good quality. For a video game, this is actually fine. But it serves a good point that higher frame rate does not automatically equate to better animation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck4NuQWZ-kk
http://hubpages.com/art/how-to-draw-learn
http://www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
https://vimeo.com/93206523
Keep practicing.
If you are looking for overall approach and not specific technique I found "In the Blink of an Eye" by Walter Murch to be pretty admirable. It is from the 90s but basic ideas and concepts behind the creativity are timeless. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1879505622
So... your only technique in mixing is moving your faders?
I don't want to sound rude, but that's not enough to get your mix to sound good. It's only going to get you a starting balance.
I'm not going to write a book here, but I'd like to give you a short overview of what concepts an average mixing process comprises of (in a nutshell and NOT comprehensive,... there's enough information out there to learn about each topic).
Seriously, educate yourself on mixing and your sound will get an enormous boost. There's a ton of resources out there, including some of my favorites:
With regards to mastering, I would really consider sending your mix to an external mastering engineer. You will get a much better result, not only because these people specialise in what they can do, but a second pair of ears is always a good idea.
Hope you find this useful & best of luck!
The first step in mixing any genre is getting a good static mix. Meaning, get your tracks to sound as good as possible using only volume and panning. No EQ, no compression, no bells and whistles. You take your lead vocal track, find a good place for the volume slider, and then leave it there for good.
The second step in mixing is compression, and you do that for when you can't really find a good place to leave the volume fader. For example - the vocalist was singing softly 1ft away from the mic during the verse, then screaming point blank at the mic during the chorus. Obviously, that's gonna leave you with a pretty sizeable volume difference - you can't decide if you should turn it up during the soft verse, or turn it down during the loud chorus. That's where compression comes in. Compression squashes some of the louder parts down to maintain a more even balance throughout the track.
As for how - youtube some tutorials and/or buy Mike Senior's book which has a whole chapter on it.
YES!!! this is the book you have right?
My boyfriend and our friends do the same thing every sunday!
For the season premier we made onions in gravy, Roasted Aurochs with Leeks, and turnips in butter- for dessert we did frozen blueberries with the creme bastard! lol
Last night we cooked the beef and bacon pie. SO delicious. Definitely one of my favorite cookbooks. However there were a few spices that i still have found that I couldnt include in certain recipes.. like Grains of Paradise. I went to 5 different markets...3 of them had never even heard of grains of paradise. =(
edit- wow! I had no idea that I can use cardamom. I read that GoP was a mixture of different kinds of pepper with citrus notes. I was using a mixed pepper mill and a tiny bit of orange zest. But if I can use cardamom- then it makes things a lot easier! THANKS EVERYONE !!!!!!!
As a fat guy who loves food, I've always loved his food-porn. Not just because I love descriptions of food, but because I really am able to immerse myself in the scene. Smell and taste are some of the most memory-triggering senses we have, and it puts you right there with the character.
However, you are absolutely right that he's using this as a way to convey the class divisions and the hardship of war, and it's not something that is often brought up.
Also, if anyone doesn't know about it, I highly recommend the Official Games of Thrones Cookbook. It's got excellent, real medieval recipes based on the food in the book:(https://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492)
Honestly if you don't know what they need from asking them, a gift card to Amazon. I'd much rather have that and spend it on what I need or whatever G.A.S. tells me I need than to receive a piece of kit that I didn't choose. I don't mean to sound rude, it's just that I rather prefer researching and choosing my own gear.
If you absolutely must, though, I recommend a book.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1907708952/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0817439390/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0961454733/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159711247X/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312420099/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Or a notebook for taking notes while out shooting, scouting, etc.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8883701127/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
As a professional animator, I can tell you that it does show a modicum of talent, but has too many amateur mistakes.
Tell her to keep at it, that's how you learn.
Also, tell her to buy "Animator's Survival Guide"
http://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
She will learn more about animation from this book, that she would from 1 year worth of classes at any of the "Art" schools.
For the lazy:
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0465067107Most recent version:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Everyday-Things-Expanded/dp/0465050654/
The Design of Everyday Things
The High Cost of Free Parking, Updated Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/193236496X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_TRPNBb707AMQM
You need to be almost more careful as an experienced musician transitioning to piano. It seems virtually everyone in your case, no matter how much or how little prior knowledge, seems to greatly over-estimate their abilities and wants to jump ahead. It's really easy to think you know something and try to skip it, but while you might understand it in relation to the harp, actually applying things like reading skills to piano is not the same thing. Yes, you might be able to read notes, rhythms, chords, etc., but that doesn't mean you actually play them in time on an instrument that is physically different. You don't automatically know where your hands go without looking at them.
You'll be tempted to jump into music that is beyond you that you feel like is more appropriate to your level of background, but that you really aren't technically prepared for and will likely end up wasting a lot of time beating your head against the wall in ultra-inefficient practice on rep that is too hard. At worst, you'll end up creating more tension than you should and creating bad habits as a result.
Take nothing for granted. Check your ego at the door and actually work through any book you have. Don't just glance and say, "Pfft, that looks easy." Put your fingers on the keys and see if you really can just sightread even the simplest tunes without mistakes. Sure, if you can breeze through the beginner books nearly mistake free without breaking a sweat, then maybe there is somewhere else to move on to, but those books are full of fundamental building blocks that you may not even realize you're skipping.
I'm speaking from experience for having made these types of missteps and I did so with significantly more musical background that you have now. I used to work through books and "yada yada yada" through sections that I felt were retreading ground I was already familiar with, but I've now realized it was a mistake. Sometimes going back to those bits I assumed I know and forcing myself to actually play through them really showed me something. Heck, even after nearly 25 years of playing trumpet, I'll sometimes still run into useful bits of information because I decided not to just skip over a bit of discussion on fundamental things I feel like I know enough about. On piano I'm still finding tons of deficits that are result of me not slowing down early on. Going back and trudging through things I felt were too easy was a key ingredient in getting my sightreading from a pathetic level to slowly increasing competence. This is what it takes to turn you into a functional pianist, and not just someone who can rote memorize 2 or 3 difficult pieces at a time to show off with.
So at worst you'll spend a few extra minutes breezing through something you already know. At best, you'll discover that you don't actually know something and will be able to work through it and prevent problems down the road.
So with that lecture out of the way, here are some books I'd recommend:
Alfred's Adult All-In-One - It's still going to start basic, but will move a bit quicker and won't have all of the colorful cartoon pictures of a children's book. The whole series is pretty good.
Progressive Sightreading Exercises - This is the book that after years of playing I wished I'd picked up sooner. It seems almost offensively easy, but I underestimated how valuable these simple sightreading exercises could be. Some sightreading should be part of your every day work. If there's ever a day when you're busy and can't do everything you want to do, don't skip sightreading. It's the skill that takes the most time to cultivate, especially for a an experienced musician. You might be able to blaze through your major scales in a few days or weeks with some musical background, but sightreading is a skill you can't cram in through sheer force of will and technical blunt force.
Scales, Chords, Arpeggios, & Cadences - This one is fantastic for all of the basic technical competency. It's far from exhaustive, but it's got more than a lot of similar books. I'd recommend same motion scales, major/minor arpeggios and cadences in every key as priority before moving on to 7th arpeggios or scale variations.
I have some experience with webcomics. I write and draw Miamaska, which has been going on for 2+years, and I'm about to start my second comic next month.
General advice for web comickers!
(or: How I learned things the hard way and eventually stumbled into a good system)
Regarding dialogue and pacing... what I tend to do is thumbnail an entire scene (3-15 pages for me) first and read through it a few times. I'll leave mini-cliffhangers at the end of each page (like a question, or a realization, or a character entering the scene). During this little review process, I'll also make sure the view for the reader doesn't violate the 180 rule too much, that it's obvious which bubble should be read next, and where the reader is going to look first.
I don't have any experience in the print form of comics yet. So no advice there. Just make sure your comics are in print resolution as well (300+ DPI), or you'll be sorry later.
Resource time
I didn't have many resources starting out, but I'm gonna recommend these for you and anyone else interested:
PaperWings Podcast -- podcast and blog on web comic-making (ongoing, good community, regular but sparse updates, good backlog). Has even more resources on its website.
Art and Story -- podcast on print +web comic-making and the comic industry (ended, but a great backlog).
Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, and Making Comics by cartoonist Scott McCloud, worth a read for any comicker. A little more geared towards print, but breaks down comic theory really nicely.
Comics and Sequential Art, Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative, by Will Eisner.
Those books are pretty popular, so you can probably pick them up from the library or find them on the web somewhere.
Oh wowzers.
So starting with your gear:
>All the speakers are beautiful wooden cabinets, handmade, w/ high quality neodymium tweeters, JBL parts, etc.
"handmade" means proprietary- they won't meet riders (if you ever encounter one) for the most part. More importantly- they'll be frowned upon because there's no consistent specs that an engineer could look up. I'm not saying they won't work in the long run, but start setting aside money now for a replacement plan. On the same thread, you're going to need to learn about the specs of your PA to set appropriate limiters to protect your speakers going forward.
> Still working on monitors, looking at active EVs at the moment.
Having monitors (if you're looking to provide for bands) is going to be vital. Ideally, they're all the same, but as you grow into this... you might start with two and then add two more once you have money coming in.
> Though part of me is worried about more equipment when I haven’t started recouping investment on what I have yet.
At the same time, if you don't have a "full package," it's going to be harder to recoup ANY of your investment. I'm going to be blunt here: No wedges? Home made boxes? A bit outdated mixer? If there's another option for a provider in your area that does have these things under control, that's who is going to get the business. If you're not getting the business, there won't be a cash flow to allow you to get the things you need to complete your package.
Story time! Couple friends of mine were big into the EDM scene in the area, back ca. 2000-2004 or so. Decent JBL SR-X rig. Now, they weren't getting it out enough to really be viable, but that's not really the point of my story. What happened to them is that one show, they blew out one of the 18" cones. Since they hadn't been charging enough to be setting aside cash for repairs, they didn't have the money to repair it. Because of this, two things happened: They had to charge a bit less going forward because they didn't have all of the capabilities that they previously had, and they had to run their remaining subs a bit harder to compensate. I think they eventually blew at least one more sub-- and the downward spiral continued.
Education Opportunity: Start with the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook. It's dated in that it doesn't cover a lot of more recent developments with types of equipment, but the underlying theory and principles of live sound haven't changed. This will help you to learn gain staging, setting limiters, and really how your gear is doing what it's doing.
Building a Business Plan
So to be candid, this step should have been completed prior to buying ANYTHING. Without a solid plan of how to move forward, you find yourself wasting money on things that don't fit the plan. Believe me, I've been there. My shop has piles of stuff that were purchased in the "early years" that aren't in use now, and most likely won't be used ever again. I have a couple things that were purchased and have never been used on a show; I "thought" they were needed, but they weren't. [We also have a collection of randomly mis-matched cases. That makes a truck pack really challenging, but that's just something I never realised was a thing early on.]
> already been running into issues w/ lots of friends wanting free/discounted use. And my own confusion about whether to focus on renting or producing my own events
Being "the person with speakers" is always attractive to people who want them for free. :-) As for the second part, I think you're a ways off from producing your own (people paying for tickets to attend) events. Being a "promoter" is really something that takes a lot of work to make profitable, and to be blunt, you don't want to also be worrying about the sound at the same time.
> (I think the answer short term is renting w/ a contracted sound guy).
Hiring a sound tech is going to eat into your profits. At the moment, you need to be able to "bank" as much of your event income as possible. So, that's where it's going to be vital that you learn how to best deploy your limited resources. As you grow, and either the events are complicated enough that you need an assistant, or you have a second rig and you need them both deployed at the same time, that's when you'll bring in another person.
This whole situation may seem daunting, but you can do this. Learn about the specs and capabilities of your rig. Figure out how you blew that top (did you kill the whole thing, or just the HF or LF of the top?), and implement protection into your system. And then learn how to repair the damage- those skills will help you in the future, if you can recone a speaker instead of needing to pay someone else to do that!
Feel free to reach out with specific questions, or post "I'm confused!" threads here, and we'll help the best we can.
-Ray
Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio - http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807
Sound on Sound Synth Secrets - http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/allsynthsecrets.htm
Music Theory for Computer Musicians - http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Computer-Musicians-Michael-Hewitt/dp/1598635034
Composition for Computer Musicians - http://www.amazon.com/Composition-Computer-Musicians-Michael-Hewitt/dp/1598638610
Harmony for Computer Musicians - http://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Computer-Musicians-Michael-Hewitt/dp/1435456726/
Dance Music Manual - http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Music-Manual-Tools-Techniques/dp/0415825644
Also all of the manuals for whatever daw/vsts you have.
Mixing Secrety by Mike Senior did a great job for me. It covers neaery every topic, goes into depth without getting too technical and it's amusingly written.
I also like Bob Katz's book, but I was honestly only able to understand what he was talking about after I had some basics covered. If you've got no clue whatsoever I'd spare it for later.
Dave Pensado's Into the lair helped me to become more creative and act more freely.
I've also watched dozens of YouTube-videos on various topics, since there isn't that one way to do it right, but many roads lead to Rome.
Anyways there is no way around just getting started, after you understood what all the different processors can do for you.
Here is a big library of multitracks compiled by Mike Senior, which you can use to practice.
And never forget the most important component: fun. ;)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0240815807?pc_redir=1413458104&robot_redir=1
Tada
This sub can seem overwhelmingly anti-car because, for many, it's a place to vent.
Look at it this way: the dominant public policy in the United States for several generations, stretching back 70+ years, has been to orient nearly every transportation, land use, and development decision around the automobile.
That has resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars (probably trillions, actually) of direct and indirect subsidies promoting car ownership, free and/or cheap car storage (parking), car-oriented residential development (suburban sprawl), and on and on. This in comparison to paltry support for public transportation, dense urban development, etc. Put succinctly, cars and cities are a bad match.
Don't get me wrong: the personal automobile is amazing technology. It makes sense that people have gravitated to it. But the planners of 1940s and 50s – whose system we largely emulate today – simply couldn't (or wouldn't) predict the massive negative side effects that accompany car-oriented development.
These planners thought that cars and suburbs would mean an end to urban gridlock. Instead, they accelerate it. They thought that building highways through urban cores would revitalize them – instead, those highways decimated communities, many of which have never recovered.
In fact, the original Interstate Highways System was supposed to connect cities (great idea!), not go through them (not so great).
For those of us on this sub who follow these trends, and have found that modern research is firmly against much of the so-called benefits of cars, parking lots, and highways, it's immensely frustrating that so much of the public conversation adamantly refuses to recognize the shortcomings of car-oriented development. So yes, you get a lot of "anti-car" sentiment around here, but I think it's more fair to say that we're pro-balance, not anti-car per se.
Cars will continue to make sense for the vast majority of people for the vast majority of trips. What we want to see are more options so that you don't have to drive everywhere, all the time, which is bad for our environmental and physical health, and is economically unsustainable to boot.
As for parking lots specifically, you won't find a better resource than Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking, which is basically the Bible around here (for good reason). I imagine you don't feel like reading a whole book about parking policy (and I wouldn't blame you!), but google the phrase and you'll find plenty of articles about it that get across the main points.
I'd also encourage you to check out the Strong Towns organization, which was started by a (conservative) former traffic engineer in suburban Minnesota (i.e. not your typical member of this sub). They come at these points from a very practical, non-ideological perspective. Here's a good post to start with.
Basic macroeconomics tells us that lower interest rates supposedly results in more spending, borrowing, and thus more economic activity and growth.
But there are some glaring holes in the mainstream economic understanding:
(1) After a transition period of a few months, the economy settles into a equilibrium that isn't much better than before the rate change. If the federal funds interbank rate is adjusted downward by only 0.25 percentage points (known as "basis points"), then there's no reason to think such a tiny adjustment will result in a meaningful boost to the economy.
(2) In fact, with baseline interest rates so low, we are in danger of entering a "liquidity trap" in which people don't even bother saving their money or investing it because the rate of return on investments and savings will be so low, the benefit of investing versus spending it today would be much weaker. Less money will be saved for financial emergencies, retirement, college savings, etc now that the benefit of doing so is reduced.
(3) Also, any boost to growth that results from reducing interest rates can only be sustained by continuing to reduce the interest rates over a prolonged period. A one-off decrease by such a small increment simply will not ripple through the economy in a way that people will appreciate.
(4) There is also the reality that simply making debt and other capital cheaper by lowering rates is not going to translate into new innovations, factories, warehouses, product lines or other new products and investments.
If new growth is the goal, we need to stop tinkering with monetary policy and commit to more Keynesian or Georgist macroeconomic fiscal policy:
Steps out of the shadows super non-nonchalantly
So kid! Word on the tabletop is you want to get into making some sweet ass reloads. Come with me, I'm going to inject some valuable knowledge into that cranium of yours.
That didn't sound weird.
First - ANIMATION PRINCIPLES
All good animators at one point have looked for guidance by the keyframe gods for this one. Good animation follows principle, and there are twelve of them:
The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams is very helpful, and it includes everything here.
PDF amazon
Second - SOFTWARE
Now its time to choose a 3D suite. Here are some of the goodies:
You can buy Maya, Max, and Cinema 4d without a subscription but Im pretty sure the cost is in the thousands.
Personally I use 3ds Max. Its a great program made by Autodesk, and they make some great stuff. They also make Maya, which has some great animation tools. I would recommend you start with Blender, or get the Maya/Max free student licences.
Third - MODELS AND RIGS
If you known how to model and rig, great. If you don't there are plenty of gun models and arm rigs you can find that are free for personal use.
I would look on either gamebanana or sketchfab
Once you become proficient with your 3D suite I would try out modeling, its a great skill to have. Rigging is a bit more technical but a skilled rigger is always sought after.
Fourth - REFERENCE
Use reference when you animate. Just do it. No animator will ever tell you not to.
There are a couple of ways to obtain reference. You can film yourself with props, or real guns. Granted you are a safe, responsible gun owner.
You can use other videogames as inspiration. Find an fps you enjoy, and look for a reload that you really like. Try to replicate it. If you like it, try to replicate it and make it your own this time. Add something original.
Lastly see what other animators do. Get inspired. Become familiar with other first person animators and their style. See what you like. See what you don't like. And PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. It can be a very time consuming process, but very worth while. And who knows you could turn it into a career for yourself.
Slowly steps back into the shadows. Slips, falls, but gets up super cool-like
Good luck friend.
From the top of my head...
I don't know every single source out there, so this list could definitely be improved.
Proportions & placement:
Sketching, life drawing, master studies, gesture drawing, … (basically building a visual library)
Form & Construction:
Loomis Fun with A Pencil (see sidebar), Draw-through (need to know perspective first)
Perspective
Perspective Made Easy + lots of practice
Anatomy
Loomis, Vilppu, Hampton, Bridgeman, … photo reference studies, drawing yourself from a mirror
Gesture
Proko, life drawing, gesture drawing.
Composition
Don’t know the go-to source for this one, but learn about: separation of foreground, middleground, background, rule of thirds + experiment by making a lot of thumbnails + analyse master paintings/photographs/classic movies
Values
Scott Robertson How to Render
Colour
James Gurney: Book, [Blog series on Gamut Mask](james gurney color gamut)
Master studies + experiment by thumbnailing lots
these were probably programmed by the cheapest programmers around without too much put into design, or the design work focused on the color scheme and not the functionality.
don norman's design of everyday things is a great read on the topic, if you're interested.
Actually, read some books about interface and object design - it is really fun and enlightening. For start: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465067107/
yeah
Much revered film editor Walter Murch's In The Blink Of An Eye is mainly about editing, but provides many insights that are helpful in other aspects of movie making. Don't know if it's the best book on film making but definitely worth a read.
sound reenforcement handbook for fundamentals
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforcement-Handbook-Gary-Davis/dp/0881889008/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0881889008&pd_rd_r=CCG9CPVAPDH3ECTFGHMA&pd_rd_w=C5R8y&pd_rd_wg=5hRnU&psc=1&refRID=CCG9CPVAPDH3ECTFGHMA
system set up and optimization
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Systems-Optimization-Techniques-Alignment/dp/0415731011/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496423594&sr=8-1&keywords=sound+system+design+and+optimization
deeper fundamentals and underlying theory behind systems,
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-System-Engineering-Don-Davis/dp/0240818466/ref=pd_sim_14_10?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0240818466&pd_rd_r=HSPA70XSS4QNR9DZF1P5&pd_rd_w=5ywPt&pd_rd_wg=X1Td5&psc=1&refRID=HSPA70XSS4QNR9DZF1P5
approachable fundamentals, but not too much deeper theory - kind of a up and running style of book
https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Operators-Handbook-Guides-online/dp/1617805599/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
I like well-drawn comics, but that doesn't mean they have to be intricate and detailed - just that they match the content very well. For example, I think John Campbell (Pictures for Sad Children) is great because he can get the emotion of scenes across really well with his simple drawings. (Though I equally love artists like David Hellman.)
I like funny comics as well as serious comics. I dislike comics that aren't even remotely funny (but are trying to be). I dislike comics that could have been funny, but they ruined themselves by either going on too long (Ctrl Alt Delete) or by explaining their punchline ((Ctrl Alt Delete) again).
I love comics that are consistently good, or at least only foul occasionally.
I dislike comics that are nothing but essays with pictures added. (I'm looking at you, 50% of Subnormality.) I think the comic form is a unique medium in itself and should not be treated in such a manner.
I like comics that are self-contained to a certain extent, in that either each comic is a unique situation (SMBC) or they only have particular story arcs (Dr. McNinja) and don't just go on forever with no resolution (Megatokyo). This is why, when I go to comics stores, I buy comic books (like Blankets) rather than serials (like X-Men). (There are exceptions to this rule, when a comic book is finished and the entire collection is sold as one, like Watchmen or Marvel 1602.)
I'm sure there's more, these are just my thoughts for now.
Start with Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
Then read GUI Bloopers 2.0, Second Edition: Common User Interface Design Don'ts and Dos
Then possibly The Design of Everyday Things
And follow up with The Non-Designer's Design Book
https://www.amazon.com/The-Animators-Survival-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
i would start with this book. its so amazing for giving you the foundation you need as an animator. I would also try out literature because its essential with story telling. you could be a great animation artist but its all the small perks to look out for that make a piece beautiful.
Hi u/TopherTheIncel - here are my filmmaking "desert island" books:
Screenwriting
Filmmaking - General
Editing
Limited Resources
Hope this is helpful and good luck on your filmmaking journey!
I'm honestly a little surprised you can't come up with anything of your own.
Some things that really stand out to me are...
There's a variety of ways you can address these issues, but depending on what you want to do with this game would inform what solution would work best.
Honestly the game looks like a programming exercise in recreating a primitive flappy bird (which is already pretty primitive), or maybe you're asking the internet to help you with a homework assignment. I would ask yourself some basic questions about what you are trying to achieve with this game? Define a goal or mission statement for your game. Once you have that, you should be able to better steer the direction of your game and provide you with the direction you seem to be seeking here. Also doing some research on what similar games in this genre have done may also prove illuminating for you. By looking at other games in the genre, you may find features in those games that you liked and want to emulate in yours.
You may also find the following links useful
If you ever want to try making a few of the dishes, give this cookbook a shot.
Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but I really like A Feast of Ice and Fire. I don't normally buy cookbooks and just find recipes online, but I got this as a gift and I love it. The Song of Ice and Fire series is famous for its descriptions of food and feasts. The cookbook contains quotes of these from the series along with the recipes. Also it has information on Medieval cooking methods and ingredients. There are Medieval and Modern interpretations for the same recipe.
I'd advise working through a method book with him. Something like Alfred's (https://www.amazon.com/Adult-All-One-Course-Lesson-Theory-Technic/dp/0882848186/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487281958&sr=8-1&keywords=alfreds+basic+adult+piano+course+level+1)
He can work through the book, and you can play the teacher (correcting posture, recommending fingering, instructing on dynamics, helping him problem solve, etc). The method starts with the assumption that the learner has no musical experience at all, so I think it (or really any other method book) will be helpful.
Not sure about websites, but these books are absolute must-reads for learning typography.
Thinking With Type
Designing With Type
The Elements of Typographic Style
In addition to what the others said, if you're unaware of this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Animators-Survival-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
Look into getting it. Will be the best thing you can get to help you learn how to animate. In order to get better, I would suggest just doing a pass of copying what he has done and seeing if you can then modify it. I use this book all the time still.
For example, I had to animate a dog walking and I very rarely do creature work. Followed his break downs and was able to get a good looking dog.
In approximate order of importance in my opinion:
If you want a site, there's reddit photo class. If you want a physical book, there's Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson.
Books. Start with your local library system and find every book they have on the subject. Scan them all, and read those that seem to speak to you. Ask for book recommendations here. The one that comes up most often for live sound is "Sound Reinforcement Handbook" ( https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforcement-Handbook-Gary-Davis/dp/0881889008/ref=sr_1_1?crid=32D1J9UME9UQA&keywords=sound+reinforcement+handbook+2nd+edition&qid=1564110323&s=gateway&sprefix=sound+reinfo%2Caps%2C194&sr=8-1 )
There are used copies available on Amazon for less. Even though it's from 1989 most of the information is still applicable.
Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book is essential reading, and worth the expense, since you'll probably use it a lot. There's also this PDF, which I just found, but it looks to be a decent quick reference (if you can stand reading the annoying "jazz" font).
I feel like you've been hammered here because of the amateurish nature of your work. Honestly though, I'm pretty sure that's why you came here, knowing that it wasn't up to par, and wanting to know how to change that. Here are some things that I would focus on if I were you:
Typography: By this, I don't mean using different typefaces, but rather the study of how to structure information in a legible manner. I work as a wireframer right now, and everything that I do is Arial. Because of that, I have a maniacal focus on size, leading, value, and block shapes to create a hierarchical system on a grid. A lot of it comes from practice, but I can also recommend some books, Thinking with Type, Designing with Type, Making and Breaking the Grid, and The Mac is Not a Typewriter. Typography is one of the most requested skills by design directors because it is hard and can be very bland, but it is absolutely vital for successful work.
Balance and Rhythm: When you are designing pieces, one of the important things to consider is the structure of negative and positive space. This structure influences the way that the piece is read, and the way that people move through the information. You seem to rely on center aligning things a lot, which is dangerous because it creates no action or movement. This topic isn't as advanced as typography so it's harder to give specific resources, but you can find information on this in any basic design text. I enjoyed Alex White's fundamentals book.
Style and Illustration: The type is amateurish, but what makes the work feel dated is the illustration style. When digital illustration was younger and the tools were rougher, the sort of illustration that I see in your portfolio was very common. The most recent trend has been "Flat", but honestly, anything that can complement or hide the digital nature of its creation can work. If you really would like illustration to be a continued part of your work, I would find some tutorials to really strengthen your Illustrator and Photoshop skills, perhaps stuff from Skillshare or Lynda, or even just internet tutorials.
In General: So to be blunt, you do have a long way to go, I'm not going to sugar coat that. That being said, you do have 2 things extremely in your favor right now.
Ira Glass has a really incredible short piece about creative work that describes the place where you are caught right now. Your taste is not aligning with your skills. You have taken the first step in the right direction, so now you need to go study more and keep seeking critique (Not criticism). Whether that is on design_critiques, or from a colleague or friend doesn't matter. Find a place where someone who is better than you can tell you what isn't working and challenge your status quo.
Good luck, and keep at it!
it's official. buy a copy of hyrule historia
The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia is meant to be the definitive source for now.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Legend-Zelda-Hyrule-Historia/dp/1616550414/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376268902&sr=8-1&keywords=zelda+timeline
If I could suggest one improvement it would be the typography. Some great places to start:
I don't believe there is a good quality website for that. However, this book is an industry standard for adults to learn reading. The lessons are well-organized and it is possible to go through it on your own. It's probably better than anything you'll find online. You can order it on Amazon if you want to avoid stores!
Way too much parking around downtown, your con sounds like another pro to me! (Way more than you wanted to know about parking policy here: https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X )
Here's the podcast, Parking Is Hell
They interview Donald Shoup, who is basically the expert on parking policy, and the author of The High Cost of Free Parking.
He's got 10 days to "Save The Cat."
There are definitely guidelines. Some are strict, but many of them can be bent.
Your script says "awesome as fuck". I don't know what that means. I need you to explain it. What makes it awesome? That's how you have to spell things out in a script.
But great work on hammering out a screenplay! If you're interested, here are some good books on screenwriting:
The line you mention from Django is really good. We see that it is a stereotypical western town. We all know exactly what that looks like because we gave seen those millions of towns in westerns before. For your line, we all have different interpretations as to what "awesome as fuck" is.
Did you use Celtx? If not, try it. Great free screenwriting software.
I've never played, but I did read an amazing book by one of the intial designers for Toon Town. If you're interested in game design you should check it out!
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965/
I've seen The Art of Game Design mentioned in this subreddit quite a few times. I haven't read it so I can't provide my opinion on it though.
Two books (and you can google talks by the authors).
Jesse Schelle - a book explicitly based on pattern languages (from Alexander's A Pattern Language)
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Book-Lenses/dp/0123694965
Richard Bartle - how do design virtual worlds / types of players / motivations / etc.
https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Virtual-Worlds-Richard-Bartle/dp/0131018167/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=bartle+designing+online+worlds&qid=1554913435&s=books&sr=1-1-spell
Both have given talks, etc. etc. etc. that are online, but both books are superb.
I can provide lots more to look at but those pretty much bracket what you are asking for and both authors are VERY knowledgeable.
Bartle was the co-author of the first shared world game, for example.
I'd also like to mention it's probably helpful to Mike Senior of you purchase his book, Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio.
He's the one that maintains that resource, also the artists who contribute.
Do yourself the biggest favor possible and pick up a copy of In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch; that will teach you the core concepts of editing and audience psychology and I believe it to be best and most enjoyable. Murch is the master, and his discussion of old film editing techniques, as well as modern nonlinear systems, will not only teach you a lot of terminology, but also the history of it (which should help in understanding it).
Then, you can move on to video tutorials specific to the editing software you are using. They are ALL over youtube, or if you are willing to spend a little money, lynda.com is great and will be much more in depth. For your application, I would suggest Adobe Premiere or FCPX (despite the complaints filmmakers people have about it, it's because the newest Final Cut has been geared more towards videography). I know others who do professional video work that swear by Vegas Pro, but it just doesn't fit my style, but feel free to look into it. Of course, you can start doing simple things in iMovie or Final Cut Express, but you are going to hit a limitation ceiling fairly quickly.
The reality is that your greatest teacher is going to be experience. Edit as much as you can, develop your craft, and keep things simple and clean until you've mastered basics; then play with bells and whistles. And please, please, please be upfront with people about what you do and do not have experience doing. A lot of what I do is clean up for nonprofits and other groups who had a videographer promise a big product and then couldn't deliver. Then I have to make magic happen and restore faith in the industry. I hope this helps.
Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. I can't imagine a better book to start with.
Edit, link: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0817439390
Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Can't recommend it enough. http://amzn.com/0817439390
The ability to become skilled at something is mostly a question of hard work, I think.
Is there a school near you where you could take a drawing course? I took one, and this book that went along with the course helped a lot too.
Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook: It's a classic.
http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforcement-Handbook-Gary-Davis/dp/0881889008.
I'm going to disagree with a few people here. Getting an education to get a job in audio engineering is most definitely a bad idea in my opinion. Is this education worthless? No...but it's usually not worth what they're asking.
Audio engineering is a hard career to be successful in. I should know, as I've been doing it for quite some time. I've finally gotten to the point where as a free-lancer I can afford a car and house note, which is good. But there were plenty of sacrifices along the way. None of which I regret, of course. But I wouldn't have wanted to tack on extra debt going to school to get a job in a field that does not require a degree.
In all my time doing this, probably around 15 years professionally, nobody has ever asked me how to prove I know how to do this stuff. My resume speaks for itself. I've worked in studios in LA, Hawaii, Az, and now I'm a production sound mixer in Louisiana. I run sound for bands in venues around my city when I'm not on a movie. I own a recording studio for music and for foley and ADR for films. Currently, I'm on a shoot in Florida where I've been for 3 weeks. I got to shoot foley with one of the worlds greatest foley artists (Ellen Heuer). it's a great life!
My advise is do what most of my peers did. Get an internship at a studio. Or if your interested in movie work, assist a sound editor or a production sound mixer. Offer to be a sound utility for free. Or approach a local sound venue and offer to assist the live sound guy, wrapping cables and plugging in mics. Or call a local sound company that does festivals and other events, and offer to clean the snake at the end of the night.
Even if you do decide to get an education, the school will always be there, waiting for you if that's the route you decide to go. But a healthy amount of time in this field not paying for that education will both help you do better in school if you decide to go, and help guide you into a program that's right for both you and the specific set of skills you want to garnish. Or, you might find you don't need it.
The point is that yeah, just "looking things up on the internet" is not a good way to educate yourself. It's a good supplemental thing to do, to be curious and read. But hands on experience is much more valuable than any education I've ever come across in this field, and worlds ahead of just reading a book.
Now, not going to school isn't an excuse to not work. You simply have to take responsibility for your own education. Read books, talk to people who are doing the things you want to do. Learn from them. Help them, and make yourself invaluable to them. Make them wonder how they every got along without you there.
There are far too many opportunities to learn from within the industry than on the outside of it in a classroom or technical college. My career has been quite all over the map, ranging from music production to movie work. Here is a list of books that are about those various fields that I recommend.
The Daily Adventures of Mixerman - A great look at a recording session, and honestly one of the funniest books I've ever read.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Daily-Adventures-Mixerman/dp/0879309458
Zen and the Art of Mixing - mixerman
http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Mixing-Mixerman-ebook/dp/B004CYE7OU/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397229955&sr=1-1&keywords=zen+and+the+art+of+mixing
Zen and the art of Producing - Mixerman
http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Producing-Mixerman/dp/1458402886/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397229992&sr=1-1&keywords=zen+and+the+art+of+producing
Behind the Glass vol 1 and 2 - Howard Massey - Great interviews with producers and engineers. DEF check this one out. one of the best books i've ever read about recording.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Behind%20the%20glass
The Recording Engineer's Handbook - Bobby Owniski - General information about gear, mic placement techniques, fundmentals of sound, etc...
http://www.amazon.com/Recording-Engineers-Handbook-Bobby-Owsinski/dp/1285442016/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397230109&sr=1-1&keywords=recording+engineering+handbook
The Sound Reinforcment Handbook - Live sound techniques
http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforcement-Handbook-Gary-Davis/dp/0881889008/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397230178&sr=1-1&keywords=Yamaha+Live+sound+manual
The Location Sound Bible - Ric Viers - Great entry into sound for TV, Film, ENG, and EPP. Pretty much covers the bases of recording on location
http://www.amazon.com/Location-Sound-Bible-Record-Professional/dp/1615931201/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397230229&sr=1-1&keywords=Location+Sound+bible
That should get you started. Whatever route you choose, good luck!
Anything by Alan Moore. Promethea is a personal fave, but might not be the best place to start. Top Ten is also very good if cop drama overlaid with some super-hero stuff sounds appealing. Watchman is a cornerstone of the form, but you will definitely appreciate it more if/when you have a fair bit of 'capes & tights' superhero work under your belt.
Blankets is just stunning. I've bought it 3 times already and have the new hardcover edition on perorder.
Stardust is another great one by Neil Gaiman. It's also unique in that if you enjoy the story you can experience it in 3 different, but all very good, forms. The original comic, the prose novel, and the film all work quite well and give a nice window into what bits a pieces work better in each form.
Of course no comic list is complete without Maus and Understanding Comics.
That's some really cool art. If you have no exposure to comics and are interested in the creative side, maybe start with Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, which is widely renowned as a nuts and bolts look at how the medium functions.
Try this.
I'm not hugely into comics, but it's seriously one of the most eye-opening, interesting and educational things I've read in years.
I highly recommend Real-Time Collision Detection.
This next book might not apply to your field directly, but I believe it is a good idea to be at the very least aware of what it discusses, and it is a very excellent book on its subject: The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses
I recommend this book as more of a reference than a tutorial; it will allow you to quickly brush up on those areas of math and physics which you will need while writing (or perhaps working with) a physics engine. I don't recommend attempting to learn the subjects through this book alone though. Game Physics
Reading 3D Math primer for Graphics and Game Development is how I learned linear algebra, although I plan on studying the subject from a textbook when I get the opportunity. I keep the book close for easy reference of the math related to 3D rendering (such as the projection and view matrices), although if you get this book you will want to read the errata document on its website. There may be better books to teach this stuff now, so please don't jump on it too hastily.
A couple books I do not own, but plan to correct that as soon as I can:
Game Physics Pearls and Real-Time Shadows
If I think of any others, I will edit this comment.
For engineering concepts, and a great general reference on sound systems and how they work, the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook
For sound system design, the best reference is Bob McCarthy's Sound Systems: Design and Optimization
For another great book that discusses both system design as well as artistic sound design, John Leondard's Theatre Sound is top notch.
Shannon Slaton's Mixing a Musical: Broadway Theatrical Sound Techniques is a great picture of how the "big shows" are run.
For a beginner's guide to sound, the [http://www.soundcraft.com/support/gtm_booklet.aspx](Soundcraft Guide to Mixing) is a good primer: not as technically dense as the Yamaha book.
There are others out there, these are my favorite.
If you already have the piano this is the book my piano class used.
http://www.amazon.com/Adult-All---One-Course-Lesson-Theory-Technic/dp/0882848186/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458688360&sr=1-1&keywords=learning+piano
Go through it begining to end, practice each song until you have it down and be sure to look up musical examples of concepts such a syncopated notes.
(Edit)
Pawn shops will have plenty of cheap keyboards that will be good enough. A proper piano has 88 keys, but in the beginning a 64 key keyboard will work just fine.
Oh boy, history of graphic design was my favorite thing in college and during my thesis research. It puts so much into perspective once you go trough all the little things in history. Here are some books i would recommend:
[Graphic Design, Referenced – by Bryony Gomez-Palacio] (https://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Design-Referenced-Language-Applications/dp/1592537421/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467706816&sr=8-1&keywords=graphic+design+referenced)
The Elements of Typographic Style – by Robert Bringhurst
The Fundamentals of Graphic Design Paperback – by Paul Harris
Design Elements, 2nd Edition by Timothy Samara
Thinking with Type – Ellen Lupton
From history, great stuff on: Bauhaus, Dada, Brodovitch,Helvetika (there's even a great documentary on Helvetica), Gestalt principles, Whitespace... You could try and get some textbooks on these topics or just google.
(protip: type into google name of the book and finish the search with filetype:pdf there are many books that you can get free pdfs that way)
As a person with no education beyond high school, take all that I say with a grain of salt. I'm a pretty successful web designer and front-end developer, having working with four startups and done a year of freelancing.
It is not uncommon to hear industry peers criticize the education system as it pertains to web design because often the practices you learn are no longer the standard or relevant. I've heard of many stories where designers exit college (with no working experience, obviously) and have an incredibly difficult time finding work for the reasons I listed above.
Education has never been brought up at any of the companies I've worked or those that I've consulted with. I believe the reason for this is that I have a body of work to show along with whatever reputation I've garnered on Dribbble, say.
All this being said, it is entirely possible for you to develop your skills on your own, such as I did, and find work. I'm happy to list all the reading materials that I own that helped me get where I am now. I'll list what I remember but I'll have to go check when I can get a second:
Hardboiled Web Design
HTML5 for Web Designers
CSS3 for Web Designers
The Elements of Content Strategy
Responsive Web Design
Designing for Emotion
Design is a Job
Mobile First
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
The Elements of Typographic Style
Thinking with Type
The Icon Handbook
Don't Make Me Think
If you invest your money in those and actually read them, you will be well on your way. Feel free to ping me. Good luck!
I think that's already been done.
Your username is so close, yet so far from the best "children's book" of all time.
Go the F**k to Sleep
Here is a reading by Levar Burton, aka the host of Reading Rainbow/Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: TNG.
Hey there, I'm a game designer working in AAA and I agree with /u/SuaveZombie that you'll probably be better off with a degree in CS. BUT... don't give up on wanting to be a designer!
 
You should realize that it's not giving up on your dream at all, in fact, it's great advice for how to reach that dream. A designer with an engineering background is going to have a lot more tools at their disposal than one who doesn't.
 
Design is way more than just coming up with a bunch of cool, big ideas. You need to be able to figure out all the details, communicate them clearly to your teammates, and evaluate how well they're working so you can figure out how to make something people will enjoy. In fact, working on a big game often feels like working on a bunch of small games that all connect.
Take your big game idea and start breaking it down into all the pieces that it will need to be complete. For example, GTA has systems for driving and shooting (among many other things). Look at each of those things as its own, smaller game. Even these "small" parts of GTA are actually pretty huge, so try to come up with something as small as possible. Like, super small. Smaller than you think it needs to be. Seriously! You'll eventually be able to make big stuff, but it's not the place to start. Oh, and don't worry if your first game(s) suck. They probably will, and that's fine! The good stuff you make later will be built on the corpses of the small, crappy games you made while you were learning.
 
If you're truly interested in design, you can learn a lot about usability, player psychology, and communication methods without having to shell out $17k for a degree. Same goes for coding (there are tons of free online resources), though a degree will help you get in the door at companies you might be interested in and help provide the structure to keep you going.
 
Here's some books I recommend. Some are specific to games and some aren't, but are relevant for anything where you're designing for someone besides yourself.
 
• Universal Principles of Design
• The Design of Everyday Things
• Rules of Play
• The Art of Game Design This and the one below are great books to start with.
• A Theory of Fun This is a great one to start with.
• Game Feel
• Depending on the type of game you're making, some info on level design would be useful too, but I don't have a specific book to recommend (I've found pieces of many books and articles to be useful). Go play through the developer commentary on Half-Life 2 or Portal for a fun way to get started.
 
Sounds like you're having a tough time, so do your best to keep a positive attitude and keep pushing yourself toward your goals. There's nothing to stop you from learning to make games and starting to make them on your own if that's what you really want to do.
Good luck, work hard!
In The Design of Everyday Things, Donald Norman goes off on this, talking about how good design "affords" only the correct action needed to perform the intended operation. It's a good read if this kind of thing interests or infuriates you.
More here
Sure. I'm an architect and when we get inquiries or RFPs the first thing we do is look at parking. I've worked on several large housing projects where the cost of underground parking has limited the size of the project because it stopped penciling out. Large complexes continue because demand is still high, but the cost is passed on directly to the tenant, which is why people complain that all new housing is expensive. Or maybe the developer wants a rooftop restaurant - those require 1 spot per 100 sf - that's huge!
In my experience, most planners agree that the market should dictate how much parking developers supply (see Donald Shoup) - if the developer doesn't think she can attract tenants without providing parking, then she's free to build as much as she wants, but others are free to try their hands renting units without a spot. I get it, parking in my neighborhood sucks too. There's an empty lot down the street from me; let's pretend I had enough money to buy it and pay the taxes on it (lol). It's a typical 50x100 RD1.5 lot, so take 5' off either side, 15' off the back and 15' off the front, leaving me with 2800sf buildable, which is a nice triplex, maybe two one-beds and a two-bed. But to do that I'd need at least five parking spaces... that eats into my ground floor space and net rentable area, pushes the project up on stilts, increases the amount of steel you need, or pushes the parking underground, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to construction costs... it very quickly becomes not worth it.
I would love this! I often make the decision to drive to work, just because my bus commute is 2.5x the journey time (drive is 25-30 minutes, bus is 70-80 minutes). One of the reasons the bus commute is so long is because my local bus runs once an hour, leaving me with a 20 minute wait for a connection. I have to use it because the P&R fills up before 7am.
I would happily pay even a largish fee if I had a guaranteed spot at the P&R which would allow me to bus to work in a much more reasonable time (I estimate 35-40min).
On topic, this book is super fascinating: https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
> In this no-holds-barred treatise, Shoup argues that free parking has contributed to auto dependence, rapid urban sprawl, extravagant energy use, and a host of other problems. Planners mandate free parking to alleviate congestion but end up distorting transportation choices, debasing urban design, damaging the economy, and degrading the environment. Ubiquitous free parking helps explain why our cities sprawl on a scale fit more for cars than for people, and why American motor vehicles now consume one-eighth of the world's total oil production.
I'm a radical Shoupian. The cultural idea that parking costs should be mostly paid for by the owner of the building, not the person parking, has led to bad architecture, bad traffic, bad environmental outcomes, and less enjoyable places. We should end minimum parking regulations, and price on-street parking better.
It's fundamentally a user fee. Americans are over-used to "free" parking, and there is a huge cost for that parking built into many prices all over the place.
https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X is relevant.
This is pretty much the best answer. The more creative works you enjoy the more tools you have to tinker around with.
For example let's pick a completely arbitrary Star Trek TNG episode and make it work better in a fantasy setting. Season 5 Episode 15 is about a group of prisoners who have been converted into energy beings as punishment for their crimes trying to take over the physical bodies of the crew both in order to escape their prison and to regain the bodies they lost. At first the crew think they're helping what seem to be victims of an accident before realizing that they are in fact about to facilitate a prison break.
Already we have some really cool ideas for adventure plots. The idea of the party trying to help the villains by accident seems like a great idea and I enjoy the thought of having incorporeal beings pulling a fast one on the group. Since energy beings are a bit too scifi for a fantasy setting how about we swap them to be ghosts? And since ghosts are dead people it's pretty obvious that instead of being prisoners we can have them be bound spirits. Perhaps the party thinks they are helping a bunch of victims of a necromancers pass on to the afterlife when in fact the ghosts are members of a cult whose ritual went horribly wrong. Or maybe they were damned by age old clerics to haunt the mortal realm as penance for their crimes.
To introduce this plot TNG uses a distress beacon, the fast an easy solution to any space plot ever. We can substitute this as rumours and nervous villagers if we want to go a similar easy route or, if we want to be a bit more devious, slot it into any dungeon romp the party is currently engaged in. Perhaps they stumble in on the ghosts by accident while exploring some other plot lead?
This adventure could potentially end in multiple ways. Maybe the evil ghosts are released and the party has to immediately fight them to undo what they just did? Maybe the party realizes that something is fishy and turn against the ghosts? Maybe the party is actually super cool with releasing some evil ghosts into the world and they ally themselves with them to bring forth an age of death and misery? In the end it'll be the party who decides what ultimately happens.
And that's just a very straightforward adaptation. Once you have a large collection of ideas you can start combining them, twisting them, and mixing them up in interesting ways. Even if you don't do anything as active as this the stuff you've seen will be there in your subconscious to provide inspiration and a reference to compare against. An adventure to rescue a princess from a dragon probably didn't come to you out of sheer creativity. It came from having encountered the story before. Just start twisting it and playing with it to see what you end up with. Maybe the party has to rescue a dragon from a princess?
As for books, I've heard Save The Cat! is good. I've never read it myself though.
TL;DR
Play with plots you've seen or heard.
I think he has a fantastic set to learn on as is. Learning on a simpler setup like this will reinforce his understanding of the basics and the roll of the drummer as a time and rhythm keeper, but that's just my opinion, and my opinions are sometimes stupid. As far as upgrades go, if he likes rock and metal, a china cymbal would be fun, and bigger crashes never hurt. He'll eventually want a double pedal, but I recommend getting a single pedal down first. My biggest piece of advice though is to get him a copy of Stick Control for the Snare Drummer. I "taught" myself how to play for 9 years, neglecting the rudiments, and it really, really hampered my progression as a drummer and a musician. Stick Control is a must-have if you're asking me. I hope he has fun playing!
Edit: typo
You need to specify which medium you're interested in learning first, since they work differently. Pick a medium, and invest in a some medium specific books and more general theory ones (example).
If you're interested in oils, check out Bob Ross. He had a tv series that ran for a while, and each episode he instructed you on how to build up different landscapes. I'm a watercolor painter, but I still looked at Ross's videos to understand the process of building a painting up (very important i believe).
Ultimately google is your friend. Just google "(your medium) techniques/tutorials/etc" and you will be pleasantly surprised. Youtube also posses a great wealth of knowledge in video form.
The Art of Game Design - Jesse Schell
very few illistrations (if thats what your into). All theory, it's the go to book for game design
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965
Level Up - Scott Rogers.
My personal favourite. Easy to read.
http://www.amazon.com/Level-Up-Guide-Great-Design/dp/047068867X
Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio
https://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1488230648&sr=8-2&keywords=small+studio
I'm very happy with it! It's A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook
There's also The Unofficial Game of Thrones Cookbook: From Direwolf Ale to Auroch Stew - More Than 150 Recipes from Westeros and Beyond but the reviews aren't as positive.
Not quite the same thing, but I was given this for my birthday:
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
It's a great book and GRRM even wrote a foreword. One of my favorite bits is how a contest entry of his was called 'food porn' by a judge.
Mixing Secrets for the Home Studio is a pretty great primer aimed at the home user.
Websites
Gearslutz Forums
ADSR
HTMEM
Syntorial
Sound On Sound
Somewhat Helpful Tip Lists
List 1
List 2
List 2's Main Site
Books
Music Habits - The Mental Game of Electronic Music Production
Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio
Music Theory for Computer Musicians
Dance Music Manual: Tools, Toys, and Techniques
Got all three labels of the Fire and Blood ale from Ommegang, which I will drink out of my Stark mug. Hubby has the Targaryen one. Probably eating nachos. Aww yeah mother fucking nachos.
I had planned to do a giant meal based on Feast of Ice and Fire but I'm moving to a new house in ~4 weeks. So I'm going to wait to cook medieval food in my new (and clean!) kitchen.
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
i would search dothraki cookbooks
This one might have a recipie
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_t
There's literally an official cookbook--thankfully, it's not just a way to make a quick buck (looking at you, GoT video games. The authors ran a GoT cooking blog that did recipes from the books (lemoncakes and all).
The Design of Everyday Things. Gave me a different insight into products/things that people use. It's not always the user's fault, somethings things are just badly designed.
If you want to get into animation, the best thing you can do for yourself is to jump right in.
Get this book
Want to go deeper? [Get this book too] (http://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284/ref=la_B001H6GEXI_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409836955&sr=1-2)
John K's online Curriculum is a series of FREE lessons and a good place to learn fundamentals
Grab yourself a pencil and a stack of paper and go. Even better, find yourself a copy of flash and get yourself a drawing tablet. This will speed up learning since you get an instant playback on your animation.
If you want to animate don't waste time sitting on your hands waiting for someone to let you learn. Get some pencil mileage under your belt. All the concepts in the world will mean nothing to you until you try them out, fail at them, re-read the learning material, and try again with a new perspective and better context to what your actually doing.
I don't have much experience with Garage Band, but also do not frequently hear much about its use amongst solid engineers. My first suggestion is to download another DAW before you put too much time into learning ones ins and outs, keyboard shortcuts, etc.
A solid option if you are of humble beginnings is to go with Reaper. They give you an unrestricted demo version on their website. When you inevitably love it and get the hang of it and get your paycheck do go back and pay them for their hard work making it.
Next I'd say learn to download plug-ins. There are many free options online that sound fantastic compared to even paid ones just a few years back. Browse this sub and others, and by all means I always advocate Sound on Sound because man have they got the slew of articles.
Just use the googs. Find some sites you like and learn, learn, learn. Finally when you're speaking of "prepping for release" I would say don't try to learn mixing purely on your own.
Go find someone who is willing to talk about their mixing theory and talk to them about how they go about it. Even if it's just someone from Reddit in a Skype session there are people who have done it and who do it and they're usually willing to talk. That way your questions can get some answers and you get better faster. However, if you're taking their advice make sure you hear their stuff and know you like how it sounds.
Finally, if you're pretty sure you've got the mix and want to release a few songs in an EP or good gracious even a CD (ahh!) then have a mastering engineer get their hands on it. That's how it goes. They don't have to be the $2000 a day kind of guy but someone who identifies as a mastering engineer who you research and read good things about will be helpful. Always always always listen to someone's work before having them do a service you're signed up to pay for. If they do it and you don't like it you still owe them money.
In the way of direct answers:
Q: What is the common practice to EQ'ing everything?
A: Start with subtractive EQ (cuts instead of boosts) and cut out spots that overlap on two instruments so that one shines bright and the other shimmers in the background. You want to cut out all of the sounds with EQ so they fit together like a nice little puzzle. When two instruments are competing too closely maybe shift the octave on one. (Yes, when you're the artist it pays to be thinking of EQ blends as early as the songwriting and even brainstorming process.)
Q: What sort of compression should be looked at for all the instruments?
A: It shouldn't. If you don't understand compression you will not make it sound good by flipping on compressors on everything. Tweak tweak and tweak anything and everything and go online once again and learn the compression. In the meantime put your vocals in a 2.5:1 ratio with a fast attack and medium release and barely use the compression as need and leave the rest alone. Let that mixing engineer we talked about do the compression, and ask again what their theory or ideas when setting compression are.
Q: other general 'effects' and alterations that should be made
A: Use those plug-ins we talked about. Also in the way of phasing it sounds like you don't understand phasing. I'll let you dig up the articles this time. You should have some sites you like now. Phasing is about how time and space affects the way sound waves line up with one another and also flipping the phase can do things. You'll figure that out. But in the mean time you can also play with plugins that do interesting stereo effects.
I don't really know why I chose this to respond to, but if you do these things you'll be off to a good start. If you have Half Price Books (or the Internet and a finger that can click these links) go find yourself a copy of the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook and become a master. Or Modern Recording Techniques. Or even a Dummies book. as there are good ideas everywhere. You find them by hearing things and deciding what you like and what you don't. Information is a buffet! Take what you need and leave the rest.
Writing Excuses is a great podcast that covers a lot of important concepts.
I'm a big follower of Sanderson's First, Second, and Third laws of magic.
Stephen King's On Writing is one of the only books that I'd recommend on the subject. There are a ton of books about how to write well, but don't read too many of them, because at some point you're doing the equivalent of buying a bunch of running shoes and never actually putting them on to go jog around the block.
Dan Harmon's Story Circle Method is my preferred method of structuring stories; it's a prescriptivist version of Joseph Campbell's descriptivist The Hero with a Thousand Faces. (Glimwarden's plot is structured as story circles within story circles within story circles next to story circles.)
Also, /u/daystareld and I will be putting out a podcast in the next few weeks, "Rationally Writing", which is about writing rationally, so keep an eye on that.
My number one advice is to read a lot and write a lot, and do both of those with an analytical mindset. Break things down to see how they work and why they work, or in some cases why they fail. If you need help getting into an analytical mindset, try reading some in-depth criticism of something that you like or are at least familiar with. (Though they're not about writing, Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud and the Youtube channel Every Frame a Painting were both things that influenced how I think about telling stories.)
Edit: Oh, also TV Tropes, which is itself a form of multimedia criticism.
Even if this is supposed to be a part of something larger, it should have its own arc. You know what's supposed to happen as the author, so maybe to you, it seems like its fine. But you need to look and craft these things from the perspective of the audience.
I'll use, say, Cowboy Bebop as an example. It's almost entirely a series of self-contained episodes, save for a few episodes that touch on this relationship between Spike and Vicious. But, the self-contained episodes are often iterating and riffing on some of the same overall themes that these connected episodes are built on. Or, when they aren't, they're carried on pure entertainment value. They feel good. They're flat out fun to watch. Or they revel in the absurd, which ties into the show thematically and also rides pure entertainment value.
Fallout: New Vegas does this as well. Side-quests seem self-contained, more or less, but they build on your understanding of the world and they often build on this theme of nostalgia for the Old World, or Old World Blues, as the game eventually puts it. All of the companion character side-quests riff on this theme of clinging to the past or moving forward, the factions all follow in this theme (whether its the major factions modeling their selves after Old World powers or the Brotherhood of Steel finding that they don't belong in the world anymore, so they either need to adapt or cling to the past and die). All of these side quests are self-contained, thus having their own arc and feel satisfying to complete, but also they build on the overarching theme of the game and give the player something to think about once everything is said and done.
You can do this with your own work. You can figure out what it is that you want it to be about and make build on those themes, even just from the start. If you have ideas and themes you want to explore, you can explore them from the start in whatever way you want, and tie it all into something more grand later if you're telling an overall story, or just keep riffing on them in different self-contained scenarios. The main, best thing to keep in mind though is that if this is intended for an audience, you need to write it with the audience experience in mind. Your ideas could be incredible, but the audience would never know it if you've written it to be impenetrable to them, or just so boring that it's unlikely they'll continue to read to get to the good parts.
As an example, I love the show Eureka Seven. Somewhere towards the middle of its run, it has a small arc with a couple of characters named Ray and Charles that culminates in some of the best TV I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. But, I can almost never recommend this show to anyone. The first ~10 to 15ish episodes are a chore. The show sort of acts like you should know who all the characters are already, or doesn't give you a whole lot to work with in terms of giving you something to come back for. For this reason, it took me from when it aired back in 2005 all the way until 2014 to finally finish the show from front to back. There was a ton of good there, but it was so, so difficult to get to it through the start of the show.
So, Entertainment value. Have you read Fiona Staples' and Brian K Vaughan's Saga? The very first panel of the very first page oozes entertainment value, while also giving some great banter to help establish the characters and introduce us to the world. This is a strong opening, and even if there is some lull to the comic afterwards (which there may or may not be depending on your tastes), its given you a taste of what it is and a promise of what its capable of delivering. This is a really great thing to have. If you're aware of Homestuck, it's the GameFAQs FAQ that serves as the end of the comic's first Act that suddenly shows you how the comic will format itself: Lots of nonsensical goofing around until hitting an emotional climax that re-contextualizes the events you had just seen. This isn't at the start of the comic, but entertainment value carries the comic until that point, assuming you're into programming jokes and goofball shenanigans. But, this scene comes so comparatively late that it's likely you've already dropped the comic before getting to the "good part" if these jokes didn't carry the comic for you.
Actual Advice and Critique
Comics are hard, because, unless you have a writer or have an artist to partner with, you're doing both jobs, and the quality of the thing depends both on being well-written and well drawn (or at least some balance between the two that makes it palatable to read). I think that if you think in an actual episodic way, you could improve your writing a ton. With this comic, the arc would be "how did Lasereye become Lasereye?" It's potentially a pretty good premise, right? You'll establish a character and have plenty of chances to create entertaining scenarios because... It's your story! Lasereye became Lasereye in whatever way you decide he did. Go crazy, tell us a story! How did some young, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kid turn into some dude in a slum with one eye glowing brighter than ever and the other dim and jaded? Telling this in three pages would actually be a great exercise.
Your art is rough in that it looks like you could use learning some base fundamental things like human anatomy. Your palette and the food stand itself reminds me of Kill Six Billion Demons though, which is great. You've created a good atmosphere in panels 1, 2, and the last panel on the last page, despite the artwork itself being rough. That's great! You know how a thing should feel. That's a great thing to have down pat that will only continue to be a boon as your technical skill improves (and it will if you work at it!). I think that if you buckle down and grind through learning how to draw, you could make very great, visually appealing work.
There's a problem in page flow on Page 2. Here I've shown how your page directs the eye with red lines. The way the page is laid out, you end up reading the fifth panel before you read the fourth panel, which will cause a reader to have to double back to read things in order. You don't want that. You'll wanna keep an eye out for how your pages read in the future. Just give them a once-over and ask where the eye would naturally go following the lines on the page.
So, if you aren't currently, learning human anatomy would be a great place to start placing effort. If you have access, figure drawing classes and the such would be a great way to start working on that. It helps immensely to have others around who can help you if you aren't sure what you're doing at first. Books on comics in general would be a good place to go as well. Understanding Comics and Making Comics, both by by Scott McCloud, are good introductory texts. Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative by Will Eisner and Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist also by Will Eisner would be good as well.
For writing, Dan Harmon's Channel 101 guides will be great tutorials as he's one of the best working writers today in episodic TV. I'm aware this isn't directly comics, but the best writing advice is rarely going to come from a comics-focused book. Will Eisner will tell you how to use visuals to your advantage in telling a story, but the nitty-gritty of actually writing will have to come from somewhere else. The Hero of a Thousand Faces by Joseph Cambell may help you understand structure further. This is what Dan Harmon is riffing on and working off of with his Story Circles, but adapted slightly for the sake of episodic television. Film Crit Hulk, an online movie critic/ the Incredible Hulk has a screenwriting book called Screenwriting 101. It's invaluable. I highly recommend it, even if it isn't directly about comic writing. You'll be able to adapt the advice as you work in your own medium.
Scott McCLoud's got two that I enjoyed: Understanding Comics and Making Comics.
They're filled with the basics, but they also have a insight into more advanced concepts. I think what McCloud really captures is that there is not "right" way to make a comic. But he does give you time-tested and proven techniques that usually work. He also presents many methods/intents/techniques as being in trade-off with others, which is an important lesson to learn.
There ARE several good books, I would highly recommend
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses
Kobold Guide to Board Game Design
BUT neither of those books actually teaches you mechanics and balancing, they just explore problems and ideas that you might run into. Playing games is how you learn different mechanics and how they combine, and balancing is just a thing that happens naturally as you playtest and observe what players do.
The coolest part of board game design is it doesnt require any previous training. Just grab some notecards and a pen and start exploring ideas. When you find something that seems fun, explore deeper into that idea.
You also might wanna check out /r/tabletopgamedesign
[Edit: Spelling]
Art of Game Design
Game Design Workshop
Thinking with Type - https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-2nd-revised-expanded/dp/1568989695
Another great book
It's also #1 on amazon.ca for the time being.
When I pre-ordered it a few days ago it was already sitting at #2.
Dark Horse is definitely going to be happy they are releasing this in North America if the pre-orders continue this way.
Also interesting of note is that there is still no cover image on any of the amazon sites that I have seen. I have a feeling Dark Horse will be creating one themselves but it will be interesting to see how it differs from the Japanese version.
God damn it, woke baby, go the fuck to sleep.
You've pretty much just asked "How do I edit film?" Which is the right question to be asking, but don't expect a simple answer. :)
Consider picking up a copy of Walter Murch's In the Blink of an Eye, which is pretty much an entire (short) book about exactly this question.
In general, the advice I would give is to consider the motion of the viewer's eye, if the scene were playing out in real life. When would they look at a different person? When would they look around the room and re-establish everyone's position? By pointing the camera where the viewer's eye wants to go, you give them all the information they need. Conversely, by holding onto tight shots or not turning the camera on someone who's speaking, you can create a sense of claustrophobia or loss of control.
At the same time, you'll (generally) want to make your cuts feel natural using the elements of continuity editing, such as cutting on action.
http://androidarts.com/art_tut.htm
This is widely considered to be one of the most comprehensive art tutorials anywhere.
I urge you to keep in mind; Simplicity. Flat shapes and well coordinated colors (Think about saturation, use color palette creators like Adobe's KULER thing- there are dozens of free ones around the web) A basic, but well explored understanding of artistic principles can net you fresh, competent visuals. Good art doesn't need to be complex.
Other great things:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_scheme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_elements_and_principles
http://www.amazon.com/101-Things-Learned-Architecture-School/dp/0262062666
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719
Few links for you
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525359997&sr=8-1&keywords=light+and+color+book
Moderndayjames
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI8GDFj5BQCQrSHITFebzkA
Marco Bucci
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcCJ2CU-bFw&list=PLLmXZMqb_9sbNLM83NrM005vRQHw1yTKn
Found all of the above useful :)
I can heartily recommend Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. For the technics of your camera your manual is likely very useful.
Whilst I haven't read it myself, I've also heard very good things about The Photographer's Eye by Michael Freeman. There's another The Photographer's Eye by John Szarkowski that I gather is somewhat different, although this is the version I own myself and is a great book detailing style in photographs, but is probably not what you're looking for.
There's a 600 page book on it
It was probably based on the book Save the Cat!. This Slate article was a pretty good review.
Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need by Blake Snyder
It's a good book, but many writers use it like a recipe book. It, and other books/articles like it, should just be used to examine what story structures are the most successful in film. In architecture there are certain basic principles that create stable and practical buildings, and storytelling is no different. There are plenty of exceptions, but most movies that resonate with audiences have certain elements in common. "Once upon a time...But then one day...All seems lost until..." kind of stuff.
Dariusz Terefenko - Jazz Theory: From Basic to Advanced Study
Others will undoubtedly recommend Mark Levine's The Jazz Theory Book, but I advise against it until you have a much more developed understanding of music because it assumes former knowledge and does a poor job of presenting topics in a progressive ordering. Plus, Levine's approach is idiosyncratic and requires you to learn terminology and concepts that do not form bridges to other areas of jazz or other music study. Terefenko, on the other hand, assumes no former knowledge and takes you deeper than Levine, even making explicit connections between jazz and other areas not traditionally covered in jazz pedagogy (such as reductive analysis and pitch-class set theory). In other words, Terefenko takes you far beyond the little box Levine draws.
How's your theory? I'd recommend The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine. It has lots of examples of most concepts taken from classic jazz recordings and simplified for piano.
If you have the technical skills, make maps. I'm a programmer, so I made a transit app for my local system. Get in touch with other transit advocates in your area. Perhaps you can agree on some low hanging fixes and lobby for them. Deepen your understanding of the problem, I suggest Human Transit and The High Cost of Free Parking
"The Jazz Theory Book," by Mark Levine is a great place to start.
The Jazz Theory Book https://www.amazon.com/dp/1883217040/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_VAffzbVAAS6WH
These two books would be a good start.
​
https://www.amazon.com/Ray-Browns-Bass-Method-Excercises/dp/0793594561
https://www.amazon.com/Evolving-Bassist-Millennium-Comprehensive-Developing/dp/0967601509/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+evolving+bassist&qid=1573349247&s=books&sr=1-1
​
Also lots of jazz students have this book which would be good.
https://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=mark+levine+jazz+piano&qid=1573349459&s=books&sr=1-2
If you can spare the money I most definitely recommend finding a teacher. You will want to start with rudiments (they can be boring, but you'll be glad you did them in the long haul) and while you can pick them up from books, having a teacher giving feedback helps a lot. You don't have to stay with a teacher on the long-term, if you make it clear that you just want a solid base most teachers know what you mean and want.
If you don't have that money, these are three books I highly recommend to anybody who wants to play any percussion instrument:
http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764040/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
Description: This book is full of rudiments. Like ctrocks said: This book is evil. You will most likely both grow to hate and love it. Hate it for both how boring rudiments can get (to me, at least) and how hard they get. But love it for the results and seeing how all those rudiments advance your playing immensely. I suggest picking this up as soon as possible.
http://www.amazon.com/Accents-Rebounds-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764067/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343162586&sr=8-1&keywords=Accents+and+Rebounds
Description: The 'sequel' to Stick Control. This book adds accents and even more difficult rhythms. I would suggest picking this up at an intermediate level.
http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953/ref=cm_lmf_tit_5
Description: Don't let this book fool you. It all starts out really simple. But this is one of those books that really lays down a foundation you will be very grateful for. And when you're getting to a more advanced level, you will see how you can translate a lot of these syncopated rhythms to the entire drumkit. I suggest picking this up as soon as possible.
http://www.amazon.com/4-Way-Coordination-Development-Complete-Independence/dp/0769233708/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_c
Description: This book is very well named. You will want to grab this book after you got the basics down, imo. You want to work on the independence of your limbs as soon as possible, but not too soon. Yet again: rudiments. But now rudiments that require all limbs.
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Techniques-For-Modern-Drummer/dp/0757995403
Description: We're starting to get into the bigger leagues with this book. I honestly don't quite know how to describe this book except for the word: challenging. Challenging in a very, very good way. I recommend picking this up once you're starting to get into a more advanced stage.
These books are for the basics, imo and in the opinion of many fellow drummers as far as I know. But don't forget: the books are merely tools. You don't want to be only playing rudiments, you'll go crazy. I tended to go for a trade: every half out of rudiments rewards me with a half our of putting on tracks and rocking out. Resulting in one-hour sessions a day. Hope this helps!
Edit: Feeling bored so added more books and descriptions.
I 100% agree with your argument about false statistical certainty - this is a tactic people have been using more and more because precision is commonly mis-identified as certainty. Donald Shoup, the great parking policy professor from UCLA, outlines this as a major issue in his parking policy bible and how our entire country's parking volume recommendations and requirements are based on absurdly precise conclusions from statistically insignificant sample sizes.
I guess the only reason I'm taking the time to respond is because of this assumption:
>the total number of rides Uber gets from poorer neighborhoods is much lower than regular cab requests
I challenge this because I'm not sure if you're assuming that people in poorer neighbourhoods don't have smartphones, which is not true. In fact, the biggest reason transit agencies have been able to justify their push for smartphone-based tracking apps is that smartphone use and ownership is more or less equal across incomes and respectably high with low income riders. The only dimension that really varies in smartphone use is age.(Looking for citation - I read this in a report from the NYU Rudin Transportation Policy Center, but they've recently re-arranged their web site.)
Nevertheless, it stands to reason that we may not be getting quite an accurate or fair statistical analysis of the situation, but it certainly does feel like Uber is providing better service. In the least it is much more transparent about costs and has much more granular data available for it to mine.
Read Shoup.
I don’t think ample on-street parking is necessary or even desirable for a great neighborhood. In fact, I’d say all the neighborhoods and towns I’ve most enjoyed living in and visiting have all had atrocious parking. There are private parking spaces for rent in Cap Hill if a lack of parking is a personal problem for you. Not to mention, there are minimum parking requirements in Denver (except for parts of downtown) which will force this developer to include plenty of parking in any residential structure.
(Side note, I'd bet that it's easier to find parking on Pearl Street on a Friday night than it is to find an urban planner who believes minimum parking requirements are good for society, but that's another topic, or book)
Because it’s generally accepted that unbundling the price of parking from housing aides in greater flexibility of mobility choice, more affordable housing, and ultimately serves as a better way to charge people directly for their use of this ‘commodity.’
Some literature on the topic:
The Hidden Cost of Bundled Parking - Access Magazine
“Unbundling” Parking Costs is a Top Way to Promote Transportation Options - Mobility Lab
Unbundling Parking Isn’t Easy but It’s Worth It - The Greater Margin
The High Cost of Free Parking
If you're just doing this for fun and not for fame and fortune: I have good news for you. Webcomics are extremely easy to get in to. You start a website or an account on Webtoons or Tapastic and you upload pages. Done.
I'd recommend something like just do it. You say you've been thinking about it for a long time now. I get it. I'm a thinker as well. I roll ideas over and over (and over and over) in my head until I think I've found the perfect solution.
The point is, you always learn the most by doing. Some people write a script, some people write a book. Some just jot down notes and write the dialogue as they're drawing. You won't know what works for you until you start applying different methods and learning what you like and what you don't. Even if you have the perfect method, you still need to apply it to learn how to use it well. This goes both for drawing and writing.
As for some resources to get you started.
For story writing: Understanding Comics, any or all the books by Brian McDonald on writing.
For drawing: have you joined r/ArtFundamentals? Great resources for people starting from scratch.
Also, look up cintematography. Choice of shots makes a great impact on how well your comic reads (and how fun it is for you to draw).
So, my advice is just to get cracking. Have fun, and if it's hard to start at first, plan in some time to practice your drawing/writing. Produce pages as soon as possible so you learn about pacing and the process of setting up a page. Write a short story to begin with. You don't have to publish them now. It's all for you to begin with.
I'd say your strongest point is your ability to convey action. The leaping on page 16 is particularly well executed. You also actually have a pretty good grasp of perspective drawing with the environments! It could use a little work, but I feel like every artist could do with more practice!!
The main suggestion I could give you is to start drawing from life. I know you are heavily influenced by Japanese comics, but trust me when I say that all professional manga artists are able to draw from life. What I mean is, take a figure drawing class, or at the very least pick up this book, or any other figure drawing book really. It will help you greatly with getting proportions correct, as well as help you with understanding the internal structure of the body. By skipping learning how to draw from life, and learning to draw from looking at Manga, you're really only taking the face value. Like, have you ever used a copy machine to make a copy of a copy? The original page looks crisp and clean, but that first copy has a few spots and scratches, and then the copy of that copy has big black splotches on it, and eventually the text is completely illegible. Not to say that your art is really bad! It's actually pretty decent for your first comics! I just believe that doing some observational studies will help your work greatly!
The next major thing you should work on is the writing. I get that his blindfold is what keeps his demons at bay, but by starting the comic off with the central character punching a guy's body in two, and then ripping another guy's arm off... it makes me not care about the character. I feel like if you would have shown the readers that he was a kind person, by like, helping the elderly, or defending his father or something, then I'd be like, "Why is this sweet kid suddenly a vicious murderer?" But since you didn't I was like, "Is this a violent comic for the sake of drawing a violent comic?" Therefore, when the dad was brought in to be killed, he started talking about how innocent the kid was, which is the exact opposite of my first impression. Also, why did they kill the dad? Why, then, did they let evil demon kid live, only to exile him? Wouldn't killing Kai solve all of their problems?
Anyway, I feel like you have potential, mainly because you were actually able to produce this much work! Do you have any idea how many people say they want to make comics but pale at the sight of how much work it is? You are a hard worker, and I know that you will be able to persevere and evolve into something so much better than you already are! On that note, buy Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. It will change your life. I'm being 100% serious here. McCloud is not only the go-to comics theorist, but he was also one of the first professional Americans to see the potential of drawing comics influenced by the Japanese! Once you have devoured this book, because you will want more, buy Making Comics, also by Scott McCloud. While Understanding dissects the medium and explains things you never would have thought about before, Making Comics applies those thoughts into a school-like setting.
tl;dr: It's good, but could be much better. Worship Scott McCloud.
You want to be a game designer, right? As opposed to a game programmer? They're very different.
And just to get this said up front, playing a lot of video games does not necessarily make you game designer material. Playing and designing are two entirely different things.
Okay, that said, here are some of the things you need:
Oh, and watch this video for anything I might have missed.
Then read this paper to give yourself an idea of some of the depth involved in game design. Check out some of the better game design books too (Art of Game Design, Game Design Workshop and others).
Finally, go make a game. Don't wait. Copy someone else's game if you have to while you're learning the ropes, but then make your own game. Make a small, crappy game. Then make it better. If it's any good, then make it bigger -- but not until then.
And then, get ready to either be a starving indie, or to get a job in QA, or if you're really lucky, to get a job as a very junior designer. Then you're off to the races.
Good luck!
These are leaning towards the design and development side, but I would recommend The Art of Game Design and Designing Virtual Worlds. The former is a reference of patterns and questions for game design (including board and tabletop games), while the latter is focused on the design of MMOs and MUDs but the concepts can apply to other things like your typical shooter multiplayer.
My suggestion would be to figure out which console is going to be at your church and search google for a .PDF manual. Those are always super helpful. Also, I'm sure this book has been referenced a lot, but the Sound Reinforcement Handbook should do wonders as well.
Ellen Lupton's book is the first recommended reading for my degree I guess thats a place to start will update when I get home and see the full list if you want to know what a uni recommends?
Link to amazon copy:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1568989695/
I can't give suggestions on hand-lettering books yet as the few I have read weren't good...so I'm trying to find better ones. But check out Louise Fili and Jessica Hische for inspiration and of course Paula Scher and Sagmeister.
There are many other books so I welcome others to chime in and add their suggestions.
First, if you want to make music for game, make music! EVERY job in the game industry is hard, including design. No matter where you start you will probably have to get your foot in the door with QA. That's a place where people "learn" where they want to move into, whether that's code, production, design, or art. If I were hiring for an audio member, I'd look at:
But back to design. Read, have varied hobbies, and make games.
A Book of Lenses and Rules of Play are both good sources to start learning "What is Design". Also, for more general design principles, study UX and Graphic Design and get a general idea of what the world means by "Usability" in general. For hobbies, try to pull inspiration from everything; if all you do is play games, all you'll do is make the same thing everyone else is. Finally, make your own games. I used to do a lot of game jams, but nowadays its focused on hacking my DnD games, thinking about board games and tabletop RPG games, and even working on my MTG Cube. Having a side project that's exercising the muscles that make you think about balance, systems, and play experience will keep you sharp and let you know if this is the thing for you or not.
Finally, understand a designers job isn't to have good ideas, but to execute on ideas and solve problems. Designers are problem solvers: "How do I make a progression based off crafting balanced, fun, and engaging?" "How do I make this F2P game meaningfully monetize while being playable for free players?" "How complicated is the character customization tool, and how do I not make it overwhelming for the players, and how do I make it fit in the technical constraints of our engine?" The faster you get away from "whats a cool idea" to "how do I solve the problems this idea brings", the faster you become a Designer.
Music theory:
Start from the basic videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTUtqcDkzw7bisadh6AOx5w
Rick Beato's channel is also decent.
Cheap and everything explained clearly.
https://www.amazon.com/Music-Theory-3E-Idiots-Guides/dp/1465451676/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1465451676&pd_rd_r=GF5SHDNNXVSHYD85SBMA&pd_rd_w=N6uHQ&pd_rd_wg=baHRW&psc=1&refRID=GF5SHDNNXVSHYD85SBMA
Or print the lessons of this site:
http://openmusictheory.com/contents.html
Mixing: MixbusTV ; recordingrevolution
https://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Presents/dp/0240815807/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0240815807&pd_rd_r=71AA09DB5BSM6697CVWQ&pd_rd_w=fruKp&pd_rd_wg=JTmnE&psc=1&refRID=71AA09DB5BSM6697CVWQ&dpID=51eoJadnMbL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=detail
Edm production tips: type "Lessons of KSHMR" - it's uploaded by a used named Splice (which is an audio samples related site)
Future music magazine: in the studio / Steinberg sessions
Tons of free vsts: https://bedroomproducersblog.com/free-vst-plugins/
http://vst4free.com/
Recommended DAW is Reaper (60 USD), because it's the most stable, the cheapest and has the most options and custom skins, so you can replicate any other DAW's key commands/mouse modifiers and skins, while having cheaper and more stable DAW - the only negative is that it doesn't include synths and samples, only fx plugins.
Reaper tutorials (around 340 videos )
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq297H7Ca98HlB5mVFHGSsQ
Free samples:
http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/free-music-samples-download-loops-hits-and-multis-627820
Paid samples:
https://www.loopmasters.com/
https://splice.com/
Recommended payed synths:
Serum (CPU killer, so don't buy it, if you don't have a good computer) or Massive for dubstep. These 2 are easy to learn and there are tons of presets for them - free and paid.
For non-dubstep anything goes as long you know what you do. You may like Syntmaster - tons of presets, cheap (100 usd) and many synthesis modes (but is very ugly and cluttered GUI). But whatever, the sounds are great (there are also cutdown versions of it, so care). The synths with that many different synthesis modes are usually way more expensive (200-500 or more USD)- but like I said, Synthmaster has pretty bad UI; still, it's a steal for that price.
At some point you will probably want NI Kontakt, because of 3rd party soundbanks, but better buy it in a Komplete bundle - it's cheaper.
Nexus is OK, if you are after some of the latest soundbanks (and they are super expensive). Factory sounds are overused and somewhat dated, so it's not worth it, if you don't get any of the latest expansions.
Tips are nice when you know the basics. I found this book very comprehensive and easy enough for a beginner.
http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807
http://www.cambridge-mt.com/MixingSecrets.htm
I really liked "Mixing Secrets in the Small Studio" for generic mixing:
http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807/ref=sr_sp-btf_title_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1381813853&sr=8-5&keywords=engineers+handbook+mixing
In the forward to the cookbook he explains that he writes the food in as much details as he does to make the world come alive. Personally I love it - although reading the books did shoot my cholesterol through the roof since I had to have plates of cheese, sausage, olives, etc whenever I read....
A Feast of Ice and Fire
My friends and I will usually make several of these recipes for each Game of Thrones season premier.
Alternatively, host a potluck and have everyone make a meal from the Game of Thrones cookbook:
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452181644&sr=8-1&keywords=game+of+thrones+cookbook
To answer your question about the recipes, a cookbook has been released. I'm sure someone has made some lemony lemon lemoncakes.
My advice, as a long time UI/UX designer is test early and often on people who have never seen your game. This has been the only way for me to ensure things are improving. Once someone has tested your UI once, they bring that knowledge with them into their next play session, negating any indications of weather or not this is easy to understand and use.
Also, don't try to reinvent the wheel. Billions of dollars have likely been spent trying to solve the very problem you are. Look at what is out there, find the good stuff, and use it as a starting point for your own problems. Shops in particular, have TONS of examples of successful and unsuccessful designs. My primary resource is the hundreds of games I own on steam, and my memories of the best systems I've encountered.
The Design of Everyday Things is about the only book I'd recommend, but it does not focus on UI/UX so much as design as a concept in itself.
I'll be graduating this June from U of T after having studied some "Human-Centric Design" processes and applications. So, I've ended up looking at a lot of things in this city as confusing and poorly made. A classic example are the many doors around the city that have handles that convey the meaning of "PULL" but instead only allow a person to physically "PUSH" them open.
These garbage cans were designed more for aesthetics than for actual use. It excluded a segment of our population (the physically disabled) and didn't take into consideration the reality of snow machines and assholes who will stomp on the metal bars - thus breaking them and rendering the entire object as useless.
Plus, their shape were odd in the relation to the sidewalks as they bulged out forcing people to kind of "dance" away from them. When people had to throw something during the rush hour foot traffic their needing to stop and press down on the metal bar created a momentary blockage, which disrupted the flow of people.
The big black metal bins you see now being put can be considered an upgrade simply because the simpler design is much more intuitive to use and simple to replace if damaged.
If you are interested in this kind of thing I highly recommend reading "The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman.
You get to see the World in a much different way and even see how some design choices are poorly made in everyday objects we use.
If UX and design piques your interests, Design of Everyday Things is a great book on the subject. Even if you don't ever planning on designin anything it gives you perspective to see things around you in new ways.
> Le Corbusier was a renowned smart ass but the poor people were not happy in the buildings he designed for them.
There's a great book The Design of Everyday Things that talks about good and bad design in buildings, software and other things we use every day. After reading it, I started noticing a lot more badly designed things around me. Also, increased my appreciation of instances of good design.
It's an engineering failure.
Yes. You should read the instructions and not do the wrong thing. But good engineering makes it easy to do the right thing.
Otherwise you end up accidentally hitting the ejection seat:
http://i.imgur.com/3UjM3Be.png
It's an engineering design failure. It's too late to fix it now - but it is still an awful, awful, design.
If you're interested in reading more about good design, I suggest the seminal book The Design of Everyday Things.
I would have used the code
jjjjtoo represent the four digit year that nobody (within the statistical margin of error) ever meant to use.Richard Williams, The Animators Survival Kit is a good one
http://www.amazon.com/The-Animators-Survival-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
Thing is, not every potential comic artist out there wants to draw actual sequential images. There are many, many artists that get far more enjoyment out of drawing pinups/covers than they do comics. Nothing wrong with that.
Also, suggesting the OP focus more on the art of drawing a sequential page than learning how to improve their drawing skills is the wrong way to go about things. A person could lay out the most wonderful sequence of panels ever seen, however if they are unable to fill said panels with good art then it is completely pointless.
Drawing comes first.
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To the OP:
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As the top voted comment has stated: never, ever give up. The first thing that I should drill into your head is that you shouldn't expect to become a talented artist overnight; drawing well takes years of toil and practice. There are times when you'll feel like giving up, but don't (in fact, any artist worth their mettle will never feel like they've truly mastered their craft, no matter how talented they are).
Anyways, if you are serious about learning to draw well, you need to start focusing on the basics first (basic underlying shapes, volume, how light affects basic objects, perspective, etc.). If you do not learn the basics, you will not become a good artist. Full stop.
It is only once you have a good grasp of the basics that you can hope to achieve more complex stuff. For example (and please don't take this the wrong way), your drawing is solid enough but there is a complete lack of any kind of underlying shape or perspective to the character; as a result, the whole image just feels completely flat. Whenever you draw a figure, you must keep its underlying shapes and its perspective in mind.
For example, when I draw a figure, I start off with a basic 'mannequin' (egg shape for head, a roundish box for the chest, spheres for the joints, cylinders for the limbs, etc.) and then start gradually adding more and more detail on top. Drawing in this manner allows the artist to get a good idea in their head of how their character will look in 3D space. Even the most basic of cartoon characters tend to be created this way.
If there is no underlying shape to your character then there is no hope of convincing those viewing your work that your character is a living, breathing being.
Also, your pencil lines are very, very scratchy right now. Obviously, this is because you're not entirely confident in your skills as of yet (don't worry about this, it's only natural). When drawing, try to draw with your arm rather than drawing with your wrist. This takes a lot of practice to pull off but you will find that it will allow you to create smooth, flowing lines. As you get better at your art, you will find that you will start using less and less lines in order to build up your creations.
One thing I would highly recommend you do is to start keeping a 'daily draw journal.' Just draw every day. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, even if you only do a few scratchy doodles, it still counts! The important thing is that you're drawing. You would be utterly amazed how much you will gradually improve over time (I often look back at some of my older work and cringe!).
If you have the money, I'd recommend picking up a 'Moleskine' sketchbook as they are compact, solid and very high quality.
Anyways, sorry about the huge block of text! I hope that this may have been of some use to you. The best of luck to you and your drawing!
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PS:
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Some books I would highly, highly recommend you check out:
Check out /r/learnart and /r/drawing. I just discovered them myself & have begun starting to try drawing. I also bought this book. It's supposed to arrive tomorrow, so I can't give a personal review of it just yet - but it's been recommended by several people on the learnart sub, so I figure it's a good place to start. Good luck!
It's hard to recommend an actual paperback, but the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook is a must-have. If you're into Kindle it's available that way too. I think you'll find answers to all your questions and more.
The majority of the money came independently through individual investors. Of course, friends and family pitched in but the majority of it was plain old salesmanship. Rob and I both spent countless hours putting together professional sales packets going over the story of the film, the location, our experience, the financial possibilities, etc... A lot of salesmanship, but always being honest with potential investors.
We used Kickstarter sparingly having just hit a $5k goal recently for some extra finishing funds.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rbhamiltoniv/the-suffering-independent-horror-film-completion-f
Screenwriting wise, Rob and I both are ardent believers in reading all scripts you can get your hands on. Particularly if they are films you have seen and are familiar with. It's the best way to understand how a script translates finally onto the screen.
Of course, reading Save the Cat, and one of my favorites,
http://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396988059&sr=8-1&keywords=save+the+cat+screenwriting
"How Not to Write a Screenplay"
http://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Write-Screenplay-Screenwriters/dp/1580650155/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396988100&sr=1-1&keywords=how+not+to+write+a+screenplay
But to be honest, it's all about the story. It's what helped us acquire our investors. Having a story that was genuinely intriguing and frightening helped us reach our goal. However, the script doesn't come easily it took well over a year to work out from inception to completion.
I think it's not bad, I would say the biggest things are around typography.
And Finally:
If you can - try to learn more about grid systems and typography, there are some great books out there that if you have cash or can ask your parents to buy you a couple books, here are some recommendations (even to just look at for inspiration):
Grid Systems in Graphic Design: A Visual Communication Manual
Thinking with Type - This one is one of my favorites
The Typography Idea book
I hope this helps :) And keep at it!! Definitely better than I was doing in high school!
For gradients, UI Gradients is your go to
Textures? Download HK's Christmas packs, covers most of the basic texures
Fonts/Typography, dont bother with that dafont bs, lots of low quality stuff on there and the popular ones are overused. Stick to standard design fonts such as these (taken from this video) If you want more info on type check out Ellen Lupton's book Thinking With Type), very helpful stuff.
Presets: The only preset I avidly use and recommend is Google's Nik Collection, very powerful stuff and not only that, its FREE.
It's all in here.
But you can read all about it in here if you don't want to buy the awesome book.
4th by my count
Here.
Walter Murch asserts in In the Blink of an Eye that 24 FPS film reminds us of dreaming, and that is one of the reasons it is so effective in storytelling. There are several confusing issues here. Many talk about interpolation on modern TVs and motion blur, but neither of these is directly relatable.
Motion blur is strictly a side effect of shutter speed (angle) and exposure. You can nearly eliminate motion blur in 24FPS by exposing each frame for less time. (Think of the beginning of 'Saving Private Ryan')
Interpolation isn't a good representation because it's unnatural- The nuances of motion are far more complex than simply adding an interpolated frame between two existing frames. You can't simulate the real-life physics of mass, inertia, and the dynamics of cloth and wind resistance by interpolation. This is not a good example either.
In my opinion, there are two good live action 3D movies: Avatar and Hugo. Both were designed as such, executed well, and therefore "work." If "The Hobbit" is executed the same way, it could very well be very close to "looking through a window"
The question-- and it's a huge one, is how do CUTS affect this effect? In Walter Murch's opinion, cuts mimic blinking, and if your brain feels your watching 'reality' this illusion might hold. However, if you're stuck somewhere between the dreamlike state of 24fps film and reality, cuts could be very jarring.
Predicting the success or failure of this tech without seeing it is silly. There's no way to approximate it accurately, and until you see 48fps 3D 'The Hobbit' you just can't know.
I'm fascinated, though, and am looking forward to finding out.
In the Blink of an Eye is pretty much the definitive book on editing. It's written by Walter Murch, one of the best picture editors out there-- he did Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, and so many great films. It's a fairly short book-- very easy to read-- and I highly recommend checking it out.
Buy me
Skin is hard, because skin isn't actually opaque. It is translucent, so it picks up light and colors and scatters them within itself, as if it were a thin layer of wax all over your body. This is called subsurface scattering, and it gives skin a softer appearance, a reddish glow (from blood vessels), and more color and depth in the shadows.
Look at this image. It does a good job of breaking down the different elements of a face. The left image, of course, is the actual shape of the face. The second image is the flat shading; there is no scattering here, just straight up "Does the light hit this spot directly?" It also includes a "specular" map, which indicates which parts of the image are glossy and shiny; notice the area around the nose is shiny, for example. I'll get back to specularity later on.
The third image includes the coloration alongside the flat shading. A "diffuse" map shows the appearance of something when bright, diffuse light hits it from all angles. Basically, it shows the colors at the brightest and most saturated they can ever be. A computer program applies shading to a model, and then adds the color, such that the colors are their most vivid where the model is lit most brightly.
The fourth image shows flat shading with subsurface scattering added. Notice how the left side of the face--which does not get hit directly by light at all, and was previously almost black--is now rather bright and varied. That's because her skin is now transmitting light, which helps even the light out. And the fifth image just adds the diffuse map (essentially, the color map) back in.
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Basically, this is what you want to create. And like a computer, it may help you to think about it in pieces, and then add all those different pieces together.
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When coloring and lighting an object, there are three basic sections: the part that falls into shadow, the part that is in light, and the part that receives a specular highlight. The part that falls into shadow tends to reflect light from the surrounding area, and it also tends to be cast in a different color from the part that is in light. Specifically, shadows will tend to be the opposite of the light color. However, when I say "opposite colors" here, I'm talking about light colors (in which red, green, and blue are the primary colors, and cyan, magenta, and yellow are the secondary colors). Here are the pairings of opposite colors, if it might help you:
So, for example, if you have a reddish-blueish light (i.e., a magenta light), the shadows will tend to look greenish. They will also take on a bit of the color reflected off nearby objects (such as the ground), though.
A common approach is slightly yellow (perhaps verging on red) light with slightly blue (perhaps verging on cyan) shadows, especially if sunlight is coming in from a low angle, as in this painting.
The opposite (blueish light, yellowish shadows) can also look good, especially if the sunlight comes from direct above.
Under moonlight, firelight, incandescent light, fluorescent light, etc., you can get different effects; for example, this painting depicts reddish light with greenish shadows.
You can very effectively avoid the use of black altogether in your shadows by making dark areas the opposite color to light areas. For example, look at this picture. The part of her face that is in shade is not much darker than the part that is in light. However, it is blueish, which makes it immediately apparent that it's shaded. (Also, note that the edge of her jaw is picking up white light reflected from her T-shirt.)
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Now let's talk about the second part of an image, the part that is in light. Remember what I said earlier about diffuse maps? How they represent the object when it is in bright, diffuse light--and they, effectively, show the color at the brightest and most saturated that it will get in that image? Well, this is what you need to do. Figure out what color your character's skin is, and give him that color of skin in the parts where he is in bright light. Where parts of his face aren't as bright, tone down the saturation and brightness a bit.
Going back to the photo here, you can see that her skin is pinkest where the light is bright (ignoring the shiny bits for the moment). You can see it in here hair, too. Where her hair is in bright light, it is very vividly colored.
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Now let's talk about the last section, the part that receives a specular highlight. The specular highlight is the part that is so bright that it gets washed out. There is very little (if any) color; it's usually just bright white (assuming the light source is also close to white).
The shinier the object is, the smaller and sharper the specular highlight becomes, and the more it reflects the shape of the light source.
The more matte the object is, the wider and duller the specular highlight becomes. It's worth noting that even objects that you wouldn't expect to have a specular highlight often still do; it's just very subtle, like on this cardboard tube.
Also, the harsher the light is, the bigger and brighter the specular highlight will be. Even matte objects can get overexposed under the right conditions. But no matter how big or bright a specular highlight is, it will never occur in a place that is in shadow (assuming only a single light source; as you add more light sources, things get complicated--and keep in mind that nearby reflective surfaces do act as minor secondary light sources).
When painting a face, think about the parts of the face that are the most oily or glossy. These tend to be the eyelids, the lips, the nose, the scalp (on bald people), the eyeballs, and so on. These are places you'll see smaller, brighter specular highlights. Perhaps needless to say, sweat also adds glossiness, while makeup tends to remove glossiness.
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If you want to learn more or if you want these concepts explained better, I highly recommend this book.
Also, this is intended for pixel artists, but you may be interested in this tutorial, which illustrates a common method for creating a rich, harmonious color palette for matte objects.
Last time I tried to give advice on drawings the person got upset and quit reddit, soooo, please don't do that. My suggestion if you're absolutely serious about drawing is to absolutely learn the fundamentals.
Fun With A Pencil: How Everybody Can Easily Learn to Draw https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857687603/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ijZZDbCWDFEAQ
Drawing the Head and Hands https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857680978/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_AjZZDb0B3RBPF
Figure Drawing for All It's Worth https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857680986/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_OjZZDbW37G79H
Successful Drawing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857687611/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_4jZZDb95Z0W96
Creative Illustration https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845769287/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ikZZDbFRJYAJD
And after the basics
Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist (Volume 1) (James Gurney Art) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0740785508/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_alZZDbZW0Y1P4
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter (Volume 2) (James Gurney Art) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0740797719/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_DlZZDb676AWT6
It doesn't matter what medium you use, learning how to draw and understanding what you're doing will help out the most.
If he's wanting to get into drawing, I'd suggest picking up a book or two from Andrew Loomis. They were written back in the early-mid twentieth century, and they're still popular among artists today, and for good reason. I personally have Drawing the Head and the Hands by Andrew Loomis, and it's a wonderful reference tool for drawing/painting the human face. [Amazon]
Another great artist's reference book is Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney. [Amazon] James Gurney also has a great informational YouTube channel that's worth checking out.
Also, please don't start with cheapo supplies kits whether they're watercolors, acrylics, or oils. They're not well made and can be frustrating to work with for beginners and pros alike. Read or watch some reviews first (YouTube review videos are a great place to see a lot of supplies in action from real artists).
I think a fun medium to start with would be gouache (it's like a cross between acrylic and watercolors). Arteza is a good quality middle of the road brand (not cheap quality, but not pro grade either) that you can get for a relatively good price [[Gouache 24 pk on Amazon]](https://www.amazon.com/ARTEZA-Gouache-Premium-Artist-Paints/dp/B077Y6TVC8/ref=sxin_3_ac_d_rm?ac_md=0-0-YXJ0ZXphIGdvdWFjaGU%3D-ac_d_rm&crid=2JWZ3D4I54A2Z&keywords=arteza+gouache&pd_rd_i=B077Y6TVC8&pd_rd_r=942fb13e-2eb9-4ca8-b9a8-bd5e0b48cb65&pd_rd_w=a9GyB&pd_rd_wg=dNTqd&pf_rd_p=ed481207-4bea-4e19-bbad-73ed40fdc292&pf_rd_r=FKJM040T2XS3HPN4EJTA&psc=1&qid=1572883675&sprefix=arteza+gouache%2Caps%2C195), and they're fun to work with too. You'll need something to paint on too. Watercolor paper or multimedia paper/sketchbook are good to start with. A plastic or porcelain palette and some watercolor brushes will be needed too. You can pick up some of these at your local art store. Heck, I've even seen some artists using porcelain plates or deviled egg servers from a thrift store as a palette for their watercolors and gouache!
There are lots of tutorial videos on YouTube that you or he can check out. Skillshare, like some of the others mentioned, is a good learning resource too.
The single best way to get better at anything: practice! In your case, take your camera and walk out the door. Go to a park, the mall, walk through your neighborhood.... and just shoot. Take pictures of anything and everything. And don't wait for something to shoot... go out and find something to shoot. You'll take a lot of crappy pictures at first but eventually you'll start finding diamonds in the rough.
As far as educating yourself, make sure you read your manual at least once from front to back. Knowing how to use your gear properly is essential. Secondly, pick up a copy of Bryan Peterson's book Understanding Exposure It's a great read for the beginner and helps you understand the basic mechanics of photography. Here are a few other links for you to check out: Kelby Training | Digital Photography School | photo.net
I use the Light Meter app on my phone in lieu of a dedicated light meter. It works really well for anything that is moderately well lit, but can struggle in the dark. For that I use the Ultimate Exposure Computer which works well on the caveat that you can guess the EV level accurately. One of these days I'm going to get a Zone IV Pentax spotmeter so I can become a true zoner (or is it zoneist?) Luckily there is about a stop of latitude with B&W film and it is possible to print stuff that is pretty far gone--it is just significantly more difficult.
If you are shooting in the daylight, go with Sunny 16 all the way. It makes things easy and I've gotten really good results working only off of that.
As far as exposure goes, I've been concentrating on creatively working with the depth of field more than anything. Exposure is just a way for the subject to be properly captured. If you want a book, I found "Understanding Exposure' by Bryan Peterson to be very helpful even though I already had a good handle on the basics.
One of the biggest elements to learning exposure from my personal experience is figuring how to see light. Next time you go outside look at where direct sunlight and the shadows fall and imagine how that will be translated to film. It takes a while to get used to, but eventually you will be able to make small adjustments to aperture or shutter speed based on the lighting conditions being faced. Hopefully this helped a bit--it's a bit late and there is a chance this didn't make a lick of sense.
Tada!
I'm in RTF, and I've taken both classes the department offers in 2D animation, so hopefully I can help you out.
The first class, Intro to 2D animation, is really simple. You begin with assignments like some drawing exercises to get you acquainted with 1, 2, and 3 point perspective, making a character sheet, animating a single second in Flash, [animating a bouncing ball] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoR2k3B0ifk), [animating a flour sack] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGPtMvIsjMY) (both of these are really standard animation exercises that basically everybody has to do when learning 2D animation). From there you work up to doing a walk cycle, doing lip sync in Flash, and then for your final project you begin with an animatic, and work from there up to a whole minute of conversational video between two characters.
Advanced 2D Animation is meant to be a direct continuation of the content from the Intro class, but I'd say this class is split into two parts: production readiness and the final project. "Production readiness" is my name for it, but basically the professor, Lance Myers, has you do certain assignments in order to acquaint you with the roles different people would have in a normal 2D animation production pipeline. For example, you do key animation, cleanup, assistant animation, and ink & paint. You also learn to read animation charts, and do a basic exercise where you make a character interact with a heavy object. Once you get into the final project portion, it's kind of the process you'd go through if you went to pitch an original short and develop it through production. You begin with a pitch document, with concept sketches, character designs, and the plot you'll include in your final short. From there you make an animatic, and then you'll proceed onto the final short. These are about 1-2 minutes in length, and can vary greatly in quality. With the pitch document, the animatic, and when working on your final project, you'll have the opportunity to get Lance's and your class mates' input on your stuff because you can share as much or as little with the class as you want.
They're good classes, but I'm a bit overambitious with my final projects, and this usually comes back to bite me in the end.
Now, what I don't like about the 2D classes is that you're taught Flash exclusively. In any creative discipline, I like to know what the cutting edge is, and I can tell you that Flash is not it. In Lance's own words, Flash has barely changed in ten years (he sticks with an older version that's basically identical to Adobe Animate CC), and in my research, I haven't run across a single studio using Flash/Animate in large scale 2D animation production in a long time. ToonBoom Harmony is basically the standard for 2D animation software now, and in Europe a number of studios use a piece of software called TVPaint. After Effects is really popular for motion graphics, and likewise DragonFrame is a helpful piece of software to know if you want to do stop-motion. There was one day when Ben Bays, another RTF professor, came and introduced us to DragonFrame, but by and large, we still stick with Flash. I know it might be a question of departmental resources, but I wish we could get our hands on some other software so we could use what professionals are actually using.
Also, I wish we had a chance to do real, traditional, hand-drawn animation on paper. Throughout both courses, all the animation we did was in software, and the only time someone did hand-drawn was because they decided to do it for a portion of their final short. It would have been a cool thing for us all to at least try.
On the whole, though, I think I've got a solid understanding of basically every aspect of 2D animation because of my time in these courses.
I'd REALLY recommend picking up [The Animator's Survival Kit] (https://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284), which serves as the optional textbook for both courses. It's not required, but this really helped me in my animation, both in 2D and in the 3D stuff I'm doing now. It's written by Richard Williams, who is basically the god of 2D animation, who gifted the world with this book so that they could become enlightened (or at least semi-enlightened) animators like him.
Also, another thing to consider is that some of my classmates started the Animators Club this semester, which is a student org devoted just to learning animation and sharing it with one another. They've had two meetings so far, but I'd say definitely look into it. Some of their meetings will even cover basic techniques and exercises for someone trying to get into animation.
Also, if you felt so inclined, you can access the course website for my Intro course [here] (http://intro2danimationfall2016.blogspot.com). It's got all the lectures up there for you to view if you wanted.
I hope this helps. If you want to talk about it more either online or in person just PM me. Cheers!
This is my favourite book on animation!
And this tutorial is pretty helpful in understanding how to use Photoshop for creating gifs.
While your end goal might be cartoons, you will HAVE to learn to draw realistically to some extent. No way would you be able to animate anything in perspective otherwise, understand lighting, or know how to composite complex scenes. There are fundamentals that you must understand that are key to 2D animation, regardless of art style, which should be continuously worked on alongside your stylistic development.
Books:
Simple book on perspective
My favorite anatomy book
A pretty simple book on light (More pictures/examples than in-depth detail)
Overall beginners drawing book
This covers light/shadow and materials decently for beginners
I personally think you should focus on fundamentals alone until you have a decent grasp before looking at animation. But if you want to learn concurrently, this book is pretty well-known in the industry: LINK
There's tons more, but I already think this might be too much to take in all at once. Discover for yourself the rest, it's not good to have everything handed to you with fundamentals, gotta reign it in personally.
THIS BOOK, and THIS BOOK, are damn near the gold standard for getting started and professionals alike.
u/KnivesMillions is dead on with the point on fundamentals. Start with a good foundation of drawing and color theory. Drawing and painting from life and observation are also an excellent way to get better quickly.
A fantastic convention/gallery show to attend would be Illuxcon (if you can make it to Pennsylvania), where you can meet top-tier working artists in the industry (Danato Gincola, Scott Fisher, Iris Compt, both of the Gerards, etc.), see their work in the flesh, and ask them questions (they are usually quite receptive to questions if you are professional and polite).
Also, there are no set in stone rules for what constitutes "amazing fantasy art" aside from craft. All is chaos, embrace it.
I have a more painterly background but I figure that this is exactly the same mindset in practically everything you draw.
> Mind the color of your background.
Everything you draw plays of the background color, it is the most important supporting character in everything you draw. So mind your hues, I love to incorporate it in my base colors.
> What is the color of the light.
Light reflecting on surfaces and bouncing into our eyes is what makes us see things. So naturally the color of the light is going to affect a surface and what hue is going to affect the shadow. Use a color wheel to find the complementary colors. I am currently subscribing to the Goethe version.
> Where is the area placed.
Further back it blends into the atmosphere, making it harder for the light to reach our eyes without being diluted on the way.
Some examples with most of that stuff.
With everything 1
With everything 2
Without background 1
without background 2
For further read I recommend Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney
I included an amazon link, but this is the internet. You can probably find it.
This is a good start:
The design of everyday things by Don Norman
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654
And depending on what you consider UX you could search for resources that discuss interior design, architecture, environmental design, product design, behavioral economics, nudging etc.
Edit: Link
If you haven't yet, then The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.
What's true in physical design is true tenfold in UX.
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0465050654&pd_rd_r=D705Q3CWE6WPCVYA94P7&pd_rd_w=WBYHj&pd_rd_wg=xga3O&psc=1&refRID=D705Q3CWE6WPCVYA94P7
Here's a little list of best-sellers on Amazon and a few from this thread:
I'm just about to graduate with my undergrad in CS with a specialization in HCI, and have had multiple UX internships. Read these two books, they'll provide a really good baseline of knowledge about user-centric design.
The Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman
Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug
While the second one typically focuses more on web, they're both amazing books that should be in the library of any UX/HCI specialist.
The best way to start building a portfolio is to, well, just do. Find anything (not just a program/app, even) that you don't like the design of, and start from there. Try and redesign it to make things easier to figure out. Show it to others to gauge reactions and get feedback. Iterate and improve.
There are a bajillion different programs for UI prototyping, but the first tool I'd suggest is good ol' pencil and paper. Get yourself a sketchbook and keep it in your backpack (or with you in some other capacity) at all times. When you have a design idea, drop everything, make a quick sketch, and go back to what you were doing. Ideas are fleeting and temporary, so it's best to get it on paper before you forget. Once you've got time, try and improve on those designs and think of what would work and what wouldn't. After you're happy (and have shown it to others for feedback), take it into some prototyping app like Balsamiq, Indigo Studio, or Sketch. Render it in high quality and start seeing how users would react to it in its natural setting (put it on a phone, or on a computer, etc. for testing). It's all about getting user feedback because one person on one computer may not have all the right ideas.
tl;dr: Read books. Redesign crappy things. GET A SKETCHBOOK. Feedback, feedback, feedback.
An Essential Reading List For Designers
Source: www.tomfaulkner.co.uk
All books have been linked to Amazon for review and possible purchase. Remember to support the authors by purchasing their books. If there are any issues with this listing let me know via comments or pm.
Architecture
Communication Design
Fashion Design
Angela ButtolphEditors of Phaidon ?Furniture Design
Game Design
Graphic Design
Information Design
Industrial Design
(cont'd)
An artist. :P
No but seriously, here are some things I'd love to be gifted as an indie game dev (if I didn't have them already):
Now, a cleverly designed card reader would have been built in such a way that the user can't make a mistake.
There are four ways of putting the card through the machine, but most people have figured out, by now, that the magnetic strip bit actually has to go down into the machine.
So, in the spirit of mr Norman, who apparently is a bit of an authority at these things, I ask of Reddit: How much would it cost to add a magnetic reader on both sides of the card reader?
That way:
See how easy that was?
Carelman did it first. See his "masochists teapot", featured on the cover of "the design of everyday things": http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0465067107
Pixel animation is a whole beast of its own but if you want to have a serious foundation for animating (without taking classes) this book is the best there is. The Animator's Survival Kit teaches everything there is to know about 2d animation and how to do it right. Lots of great examples of good and bad and why things work.
Interpolating between animation loops is a neat idea. Sounds tedious though. I'm sure that would require some serious thought on the programming/scripting side as well. High five!
EDIT: added lowest available prices on Amazon, shipping (which may or may not be free) not included
Ok this is the path that nearly everyone recommends and (I really would too) so I'll go through the ups and downs.
Get this book
Then go through the lessons with this guy
That's the cheapest way to learn piano. He's got dozens of complete method books that he teaches through.
Downside, the alfred books aren't super inspiring pieces. However they teach you the fundamentals VERY well. For $10 you can't beat it. You'll know all your scales, key signatures, hand independence, chord theory, and most importantly you'll be able to sight read. There's three levels. It'll probably take two years to go through all 3 and that's ok! After you finish the first book start adding in some Repertoire pieces from IMSLP
I'm definitely no pro; I started playing about a year ago. But I would not recommend trying to start on either of these, they are relatively advanced, assuming you've never played before.
I would suggest starting with this book:
http://www.amazon.ca/Alfreds-Basic-Adult-All--Course/dp/0882848186/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453527118&sr=8-1&keywords=alfred+piano
It will help you to understand what you're playing, not just how to press buttons.
Best of luck learning, it's a lot of fun!
Read "In the Blink of an Eye". Inspiring and quite brilliant short read that presents a foundation to thinking like an editor.
Less than $10 on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1879505622/ref=redir_mdp_mobile
I was in the same boat as you a few years ago, I played classical my entire life then started to pick up some jazz when I entered college. This is super useful, as it has really helped my playing overall and now I can make a decent amount of money playing around town because i have diversified my skillset. As a classical player I can understand where you are coming from when you say you want to learn scales. I was definitely the same way when I started, very obsessive with the theory and involved in jazz, and I think that if you have been training your brain to approach the piano a certain way your whole life, you shouldn't try to change it now. I agree with OnaZ on his book choices, and you should start picking up your modes, but don't worry about them a whole lot, they are not the end-all-be-all of jazz music. Modes are just a tool you can use to achieve a desired sound or color. If you understand the way you find modes (different configurations of a major scale) then you don't need to spend hours and hours drilling them into your head. I think you'll find that once you start playing jazz and picking up tunes, etc, the modes and bebop scales will kind of fall into place.
More than anything, I suggest you find a teacher! And a good one! One that plays jazz primarily. I would suggest contacting a university nearby and see if you can get connected with some people in your area for lessons.
So! If I had to go back in time and give myself some advice to how to really pick up jazz it would probably go something like this:
Only recently has jazz become something that you can learn in a school/university. Throughout the majority of jazz history, jazz was learned by people listening to jazz musicians. It is, more than anything, aural tradition. Find jazz that you enjoy, not just stuff that people say you should like (although you are going to have to listen and learn to appreciate some albums you may not care for). Definitely check out An Introduction to Jazz Piano (Although it leaves out my main man Red Garland:( )
Start picking up licks and riffs from your favorite players. Just steal them. The first step to becoming a good jazz musician is emulation. You don't have to transcribe whole solos (although this is ideal) you can just grab parts of them and learn some riffs here and there. Blatantly rip off the greats and start building up a bag of tricks. If you are already a little comfortable with some blues scales, I would highly suggest maybe doing a few transcriptions of Horace Silver. He is a great guy to start on and his timing/feel is impeccable. He plays a lot of blues that you check out on youtube or grooveshark.
Listening and transcribing are going to probably be the most helpful, I find that a lot of players (especially guys coming out of classical into jazz) have more trouble with the rhythm and timing of jazz, and not the scales or notes. Honestly, I like to make the argument that rhythm is superior to harmony/melody in jazz (but that's just my opinion). The Jazz Theory Book is a great place to start. I would definitely recommend picking that up, although it is cheaper than a teacher, it definitely will not replace a good one!
Wow, that is a pretty intimidating wall of text (sorry about that)! I tried to edit it down as much as possible, I could talk about this stuff all day. Although jazz can seem very intimidating at times, don't get frustrated! Your classical chops will really help you out. I really hope you find this music to your liking, I think it is the best stuff around. Good luck!!
People smarter than I will come along with useful advice, but I have found this book to be overflowing with jazz knowledge:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1883217040
Bass Fitness is, for me, the golden standard to which I hold all guitar practice books. It's a no-nonsense text that offers little in the way of guidance or assistence, but stick with it and you will notice a difference in your playing in due time. It's not perfect by any means -- in fact it is quite rough around the edges -- but it works.
For more general resources, check out 101 Bass Tips, which features of a plethora of different tips and tricks for the working musician -- everything from set-up and maintenance, to technique, to recording and tone, and much more. It's also accompanied by a CD with examples and practice songs you can play along to.
Once you've got the basics down and you're ready to move into the more advanced facets of bass playing, you might want to try out some books on musical theory. I suggest this, this, and these. Hope these help!
Listen, transcribe, analyse. Also, the Mark Levine jazz theory book has some great stuff in it.
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040
The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine is a great place to start.
The Mark Levine books The Jazz Theory Book and The Jazz Piano Book are both good resources.
i don't know about an online course, but i do know this book by Mark Levine is fantastic. the book is a jazz theory book meant to be applicable to musicians of all instruments, so it's not guitar oriented, and all of the examples are in standard music notation. but that should not discourage you. if you've been playing guitar for years and already know your way around the fretboard with some basic knowledge of music theory, then you shouldn't need pages of neckboard diagrams anyway to learn jazz theory.
this book single-handedly demystified jazz music for me. previously, i was trying to learn by a 4 book long jazz guitar method series by Jody Fisher, and i can honestly say that the Fisher series is shit compared to the Levine book. while the Fisher books were all about giving like a paragraph or two of explanation, followed by scale diagrams then practice songs you were expected to learn, the Levine book is more about giving pages of explanation, followed by a few very small examples that you are not expected to learn necessarily, but are just there to illustrate the point.
i don't know. i think the "method" books/courses just leave too much out. you need to read/learn something theory and explanation driven to really understand jazz. all the scales and exercises you can figure out on your own. so that's what i would suggest looking for in a course, in whatever form of teaching you learn best with.
You should start studying actual music theory if you'd like help with that. Music theory will teach you how to start coming up with good chord progressions, and how to develop more complicated ones than you would naturally come up with. There is jazz theory, and classical music theory, and both would be helpful. You could start with a free resource like http://learnmusictheory.net/. Eventually you might want to pick up a book like https://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040 or a comparable one for classical theory. Once you start learning you want to start looking at chord progressions in songs you like.
There really is no useless information to pick up from all of this. I blew off learning from my jazz theory courses, thinking it only applied to jazz, but now I see the same information in endless modern pop songs and am re-teaching myself all of it.
If you can find a place, this is a great option because it is a low cost, low risk (like you said, what if you learn drums aren't for you and lose motivation - you don't want to be stuck with a bunch of expensive drum stuff) way to play on a decent kit. This is what I did for a long time before buying my first kit.
If you can't find a place or if you're insistent on buying you're own, I would look for a cheap used starter kit (high hats, snare drum, bass drum, maybe one tom, and a cymbal - should be able to get a decent kit for <$200) on craigslist or your local music store. I would not recommend a new kit, those will be significantly more expensive and you won't really even know what you're looking for in a kit anyway. I'm not personally a fan of electronic kits, but if you want to, try one out at a music store and if you'd like to learn drums that way, by all means do so.
Even with all this, I would still recommend that you get a couple of lessons. Even if it's just 1 or 2 lessons, it will really help you a lot to have someone to help you get started. The first time you sit down at the kit will be the hardest, and having someone to talk to and converse with will do wonders. If you can't get lessons, it will be harder but certainly not impossible. Remember that it's only going to get easier as you play more, so don't get discouraged.
Do you have cymbals? Do you want lessons? Honestly I would go to craigslist and search up a full kit (look for decently kept pearl forums, tama swingstars, pacific x7, yamaha stage custom). If it comes with everything for $500 then great. You might have to spend around $100 for some new heads but that's okay. Then take that extra cash and get some lessons, stick control and a metronome.
Excellent. Thanks.
Here are the Amazon links for those books for anyone interested.
Uh, go to Palms at 7pm and try to park.
If you actually care about this, here's a great book about the issue. Parking in Westwood can take 15-20+ minutes due to a parking shortage, which promoted an economist to try to determine what pricing strategies could be used to solve the parking shortage in the city. The shortage is very real and has very real costs.
The source for that stat appears to be this book . It sounds interesting but it's a bit pricey for something I'm only mildly curious about. Looks like Houston Public Library doesn't have it but there's a copy in the UH architecture library if anyone's interested.
Give Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud a read. While writing theory is only so useful, McCloud nicely breaks down some things about comics writing that aren't immediately apparent. The flow of reading on a page, how art can interact with words, etc. I've found it pretty useful, and it's a brief read.
Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud.
This one used to get a lot of love in UXville. Obviously the context is allegorical. But it's a good, fun read about the abstraction of visual storytelling and narrative.
No problem, glad you enjoyed it.
If you are interested in game design, read The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schnell. At least skim it. It's great and gets deep into the emotion and psychology of game design.
For business stuff, I got a lot of input from the classic E-Myth Revisited. I won't say it didn't get boring, but the actual point of it (systematize EVERYTHING) is a really important concept to learn. That changed the way I do things and now we have systems for everything in the company.
Read Crossing the Chasm when you start getting traction. It's a very important book that answered a lot of questions for me.
Right now I'm reading Behind the Cloud by Benioff, and man, this book is also great. I had no clue they used a lot of fairly controversial tactics to get press and traction. It's a good read.
Don't let it stop you! You can do it by yourself in your freetime, here's some stuff to get you started.
I'd recommend learning either Unity or Gamemaker or something for actually making the game.
Unity2D Tutorial: http://pixelnest.io/tutorials/2d-game-unity/
Unity2D Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPV2KyIb3jR42oVBU6K2DIL6Y22Ry9J1c
Unity3D Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEFiq9_AHuTMnmPy6YAGBLg
Gamemaker Studio Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v_7URcEGm8&amp;list=PLPRT_JORnIurFYwHdWhLWR3bLH2nzChsm
Extra Credits, show on game design and game industry: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB9B0CA00461BB187
As for books, I really recommend checking out The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lens by Jesse Schell. He does a good job at explaining the basics of game design and game mechanics.
Look into Trello for management software.
I got you homie.
This book is an awesome resource when starting out. I've read through probably 6 times and I still pick up something new every read through. Also, take everything you read on forums like gearslutz with a huge grain of salt. There are many audiophiles out there that don't know any hard sciences, and for some reason try their damnedest to convince people to believe in their myths. Also also, audio is subjective, do what sounds good.
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
Its official. GRRM wrote the intro.
It's called "The Unofficial Game of Thrones Cook Book" There are a lot of good dishes in there, but watch out for spoilers if you're not caught up.
There is also "A Feast of Ice and Fire" No idea about this one . . . yet.
Thinking With Type by: Ellen Lupton: http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-2nd-revised-expanded/dp/1568989695
US: $20.99 (£13.37)
UK: £22.09 ($34.66)
ಠ_ಠ
> Im looking more for decent evidence rather than anecdotal because placebo and other factors have so much to do with how much energy you have whhen you wake up, but good anecdotal evedince would be nice too.
I'm willing to bet that there have been no double-blind, peer reviewed studies on this.
But IMO, you also need to consider what your body is actually doing during sleep- healing, growing, regenerating, etc. Exactly how much whatever drug you're on impedes these processes would also need to be taken into account.
But really, like the book says, go the fuck to sleep.
Sooooo it’s a little more a book for the parents. I wouldn’t read it to a toddler who could pick up on the language. But we still get a laugh when we read it to our 11 month old.
It’s called Go The Fuck To Sleep. And Samuel L Jackson reads the Audible for it. It’s so good!
Go The Fuck To Sleep
That's for advanced readers. Try these:
Go the F**k to Sleep, The Pop-Up Book of Phobias, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, and my son's favorite Auschwitz: A History in Photographs
Great book about technique. I read this one when I got my first job at a post house 10 years ago.
http://www.amazon.com/Blink-Eye-Revised-2nd-Edition/dp/1879505622
He also wrote a book about editing the madness of Apocalypse Now. It's required reading in film school, and Murch also directed an 80's classic; Return to Oz.
Understanding Exposure is usually the book that gets tossed around. And it's a good book. Heck, I should go re-read my copy.
I am a rank amateur photographer, but the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson gave me a good enough grounding on the ins and outs of exposure to allow me to shoot in manual when I want to. It is certainly too basic for any of the professionals here, but for anyone who is making the leap to shooting in manual mode, I recommend it.
Well first is there enough light, you would need it to be quite bright to get a good exposure with those manual settings. Even though there is plenty of light in the hotel room I am in to see without a light my camera takes a black shot with those settings.
&nbsp;
At ISO 100 and 1/250 I had to widen my aperture to f1.2 to get an ok shot
or
At ISO 100 and F8 I had to go to 1/15
or
at F8 and 1/250 I had to boost ISO to 2500
&nbsp;
But ... I would also guess that you have skipped some of the book and gone straight to the practical exercises, you are not understanding what effect the settings have
Also - understanding shutter speeds is too specific in my view, this was my favourite book to get started
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Exposure-3rd-Edition-Photographs/dp/0817439390
&nbsp;
Aperture mode (Aperture priority) means that you can change the aperture and the camera decides the shutter speed. Very simplistically this is so you can have control over the depth of field
&nbsp;
Shutter mode (Shutter priority) means you control the shutter speed and the camera decides the aperture. Very simplistically this is so you can have control over how quick the shot is taken. Fast (1/250 and faster) for fast moving subjects like animals, sports or children, slower (1/80) if you can get away with it for static objects or very slow for long exposures for effect (1/4, etc)
&nbsp;
In both of these your camera might be able to have 'Auto ISO' to be sure to get a good exposure - but you are letting the camera make decisions (Which is good for you at this point!)
I would suggest you set the camera to each of the above modes, setting the aperture and priority to the settings from the book respectively in each mode and take note of what it sets the rest to for a good exposure - so you can start to understand the relationship
&nbsp;
But... if you are only just starting photography, just go out and shoot in Auto or in Shutter mode at 1/100 with Auto ISO (1/100 is a good shutter speed to use for hand held photography, it's difficult to hand hold slower than 1/80 - 1/100 without good stabilisation)
&nbsp;
Why? Photography is about composition, just go and take some photos of things, in your back garden or around your town - go and photograph, the technical bits can come later
I’d start with this: Sound Reinforcement Handbook
Anytime you ask about a book, someone is bound to mention the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook. This is essentially the bible of sound reinforcement. It has all the things you need to know about a sound system. It is a bit dated with the lack of topics on digital systems, but physics hasn't changed so all that is still good.
I firmly believe that an understanding it the basics of how sound works is essential to being a good sound person. I run a University tech crew (full time supervisor) and I don't let any of my students use the digital boards or larger systems until they've proven themselves on smaller rigs.
That said, another thing you could do is download the offline editor for the Profile. get used to Menus, routing, effects, etc. And if you're allowed and there are no events happening, get your hands on the desk and just play.
If all you're doing is moving your car every a few spaces down every two days, why even have a car?
I don't really want to do an extended internet argument about parking and urban planning. This is basically what I'd say, but better: https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
"Half as much parking downtown" is an absurd exaggeration.
Also, there is a bloated amount of parking in downtown Milwaukee as it is. It always amuses me that people expect free or subsidized storage for their private vehicles in a dense urban core. People in Milwaukee, and America in general, have a terrible understanding of parking economics.
Honestly, the easiest way is just to watch a lot of movies. You most likely know all of these basic patterns already.
If you're interested in story structure, try checking out Screenplay by Syd Field, Story by Robert McKee, Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell, and Save the Cat by Blake Snyder (though I'm not crazy about this one)
And the book.
I don't really care about building a tower. Kilbourne Group can do whatever they want. My concern is that building the tower hinges on the city building a ramp and plaza for the tower, which goes above and beyond economic incentives given to other business development. There ought to be a level playing field for developers throughout the city of Fargo. I don't see any reason why Kilbourne Group should get special treatment.
Secondly, parking ramps tend to sit empty when there are free options on the street, even if those ramps are also free (count cars inside and outside the Island Park or City-owned ramp sometime). I know it sounds counterintuitive but there are books about this sort of thing. Unless the ramp is free, people will continue to use on street parking instead, which adds to congestion and noise. If the city wants to encourage use, and help pay for the maintenance and, ideally, other business improvement districts, they ought to add parking meters downtown and offer a ramp for less in fees or for free.
Edit: I realize that parking meters are currently illegal in ND, which is a dumb law that ought to be changed.
It is not a basic quality of life concern, are you insane? More parking is always a good thing? Read this, or any other urban planning book from the past 40 years.
https://www.amazon.ca/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/193236496X
Well, governments sort of do already, but not anywhere near the scale of the subsidies that are given to drivers.
Every car lane on a road that isn't a private toll road is an indirect subsidy for drivers and the frequent mandates that new development contain X amount of free parking spaces. There is a good book on this called The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup and you can read his original paper here for free. Free parking also subsidizes the car experience by taking valuable real-estate and making it free to use by motor vehicles.
If we take into account the subsidies for Oil and Gas Companies that keep the price of gasoline down it emerges that tens to hundreds of billions are being used in the US alone (the article references Australia but I'm more familiar with US statistics) to subsidize driving.
Some cities install bike lanes and bike parking but use a fraction of the resources to do so. Given the long term health benefits of cycling and the ecological impacts of mass driving it makes sense to me to shift some of the massive subsidies already going to drivers to cyclists.
Most cities spend less than 1% of their transit budget on bicycle infrastructure even though a much higher proportion of their population rides a bike regularly or as a commuter.
Given that the US government is willing to subsidize new electric vehicles with multi-thousand dollar tax breaks I see no reason why it should not be possible to write off on one's taxes 25% of the cost of a new bike or some similar scheme.
Alternatively it could set up a system where people who can verify that they bike to work 50% or more of the time receive a $1,000 health tax credit at the end of the year. This would also encourage people to work close to where they live (if your commute is only 2 miles it is a lot easier to achieve this tax credit) which would encourage density.
I recommend getting into books like Save The Cat! by Blake Synder and The Story Solution by Eric Edson. They're good tools on how to approach stories from a screenwriting format, giving you an idea of how to develop structure and pacing for your audience's benefit.
I can't recomend or say this enough.
You need to read three books:
It is important to learn these basics, as you need to learn to walk, before you can fly a fighter jet.
Happy to answer any and all questions for you!!! But these books are a must!!! I read them all, and still have Hero & Power of Myth on my desk.
This is what you're looking for.
Continuing:
Three Acts
A really old (but still useful) model of story-telling structure involves three acts:
Occasionally, like with Job in the Bible, shit just happens to a character. But it’s usually much more interesting when a character actively tries to solve a problem or achieve some goal.
Probably the most famous explainer of the three-act structure for screenwriting is Syd Field in Screenplay.
A similar model is in How to Write a Movie in 21 Days by Viki King.
Hero’s Journey
Another really old (but still useful) model of structure involves a “hero’s journey.”
Joseph Campbell is often associated with this model, but it’s as old as story-telling.
Basically, the hero’s journey
>involves a hero who goes on an adventure, and in a decisive crisis wins a victory, and then comes home changed or transformed.
This model was applied to screenwriting in The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler.
“Save the Cat”
Save the Cat is a series of books started by the late Blake Snyder. Some people love these books; others hate or sneer at them.
The famous/infamous Blake Snyder Beat Sheet (BSBS) is formulaic. It can also be useful in helping you start to mold your mush into a story. I often use a BSBS at the very early stages of figuring out a script. That doesn’t mean I’m wedded to it or obsess about what happens on what page. (Also, I loathe his page 5 beat.)
It’s all about theme
Craig Mazin (HBO’s Chernobyl and the Scriptnotes podcast) says structure is all about theme.
He says it’s about asking what your character believes at the beginning, and what you want that character to believe at the end.
The structure of a script thus arises out of the character confronting, and wrestling with, that thematic question.
He talks about it here.
The Unified Theory of Screenwriting
In this interview, I talked with Ashley Miller (Thor, X-Men First Class). Here’s what he had to say about structure:
>I’m not a fan of anything that smacks of formula—“If you do this, your screenplay will work.”
I don’t care if you’re talking about Christopher Vogler, or if you’re talking about Robert McKee, or if you’re talking about Blake Snyder. I don’t believe that’s how the creation process works.
What they’ve each identified is an analytical tool. They’ve identified a way of looking at a product in retrospect and telling you what the parts are.
In other words, many structure models are autopsies – but they’re not recipes.
Miller combined a bunch of different structure models into a chart that he could apply to his own work – as a diagnostic tool AFTER he wrote one or more drafts.
>I’m not saying, “This isn’t working because it fails to meet any of these standards.”
What I’m asking is, “Am I getting an insight about what’s making me feel this bump in the story?
What’s making me hear and smell the gears grinding?”
You can see the chart at the link above.
I'd start with Save the Cat because it's a fun read and does a great job of laying down the basic structure without over-complicating things.
After you've got that down I'd move on to something a bit more theoretical. I would highly recommend The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri. It's about playwriting but the structure is similar and it really impressed upon me the importance of structuring a plot around a character and not the other way around.
I'd also recommend The Sequence Approach as a supplemental structure to the traditional 3 Act structure. The book basically breaks a screenplay into a number of goal-oriented sequences that help guide you towards a satisfying resolution.
I'd keep Story by Robert McKee and Screenplay by Syd Field around for references, but they are more like text books for me and not really inspiring.
One of my professors in grad school wrote a book called The Story Solution based on his own interpretation of story structure. Similar to the sequence approach, he breaks out a screenplay into 23 'hero goal sequences' that keep your story grounded and moving forward, while ensuring that your hero is making progress and completing his character arc.
Also, in answer to your beat question: A beat is the smallest block of measurable plot. a collection of beats make a scene, a collection of scenes makes a sequence, a collection of sequences make an act, a collection of acts make a narrative. Every beat of your screenplay needs to serve the premise in some way or you end up with a bloated script that will drag. Many times writers will actually write 'a beat' into their script to show that there is silence or a pause that is significant to the plot. An example might be a brief pause before a character lies to another character.
That would be the highly controversial and often derided (not by me tho) Save the Cat by Blake Snyder.
Since format is not cut-and-dry- you may read five scripts that handle the same thing five different ways- the best education is to just read a whole lot of screenplays.
However, you'll want to pay special attention to those featured on the annual Black List, as most of them originated as 'specs'; such scripts are often a writer's first introduction to the professional side of the business, earning them their first manager and/or agent.
Here is a link to 2014's Black List scripts; this document details their ranking and provides a logline of each so you know what you're getting into. I'd recommend you read ALL of them- yes, all 71- because they run the gambit from bizarre yet captivating concepts to simple yet well-executed stories. You'll likely encounter something from every genre and will get a taste for what "voice" is (re: Brian Duffield's THE BABYSITTER).
In terms of books, a couple of stand-bys are Robert McKee's Story and Blake Snyder's Save the Cat.
Hey dude. Graduate high school first, generate a portfolio of scripts, and pay artists up front to illustrate your work, otherwise nothing will ever, ever happen.
I work on an anthology dedicating to helping first-time creators get their first published experience, and we pay artist and writers a small rate. We get 100+ pitches a year, and sift out the best 20 to develop. Think about your pitches in that context - could it stand out against 100 competitors? Is it as concise, unique, and emotionally compelling as it could be? We regularly have artists turn down a paid opportunity because they're not interested in a script, so you need to have something that is really, really good to convince an artist to work for free.
I recommend Save The Cat and Jim Zub's Pitch Tutorials as good places to learn more of the craft. I do wish you the best and hope to you see submit something in a few years.
I know some folks who have worked in The Industry.
Basically two things are blamed. First, technical effects have gotten so good--we basically can control every last pixel on the screen--that, at some level, movie making has gotten somewhat lazy and more about showing the spectacular (computer generated) scenery than it is about telling an honest-to-God great story.
Many movies, in other words, have become like porn: the story is a worthless bit of glue to hold the movie together as we jump from scene to scene. But instead of jumping from sex act to sex act, we jump from special effect to special effect.
The second aspect is that many modern big budget movies have gotten so expensive they're no longer just about telling a story--they're major multi-year business investments involving tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in sunk costs.
So, in order to mitigate the risk, story telling in these big budget movies tend to follow a formula.
And in fact, the formula is outlined in the book and the web site Save The Cat!, which breaks down the storytelling process for a big budget movie into a three-act story with specific 'beats' (or plot changes in the story which drive the story along) that gets slavishly followed.
Now the upside of Save The Cat! is that you get a formula for telling a story which creates an audience pleasing formula. Throw in a few big budget names, some exotic location, some fantastic special effects, a few explosions and a few car chases--and you have a nearly guaranteed money maker.
The downside, however, is that all the block busters become--more or less--the same story told over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and Over AND OVER!!!
I don't think you can beat On Writing. And you can always adapt suggestions/rules from screenwriting if fiction's your thing. Other than that, check out Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules for Good Writing.
Or think about what your favorite authors do, and have a long think about what you can do differently/more fitting to your you-ness. That's what I started off with, and I've had a few pieces published.
Edit: Linkage.
Save the Cat, by Blake Snyder?
Oh man do I have a list for you!
Joe Murray's Creating Animated Cartoons with Character is an amazing read and he gives some information on the creation process for his shows.
Nancy Beiman's Prepare to Board! talks about story development and character creation, but she mostly covers storyboarding in the book. Beiman also has exercises included as you read, so it feels a bit more interactive.
Jean Ann Wright's Animation Writing and Development covers writing for TV animation. Wright talks mainly about how to land a job as a writer for an ongoing show, but he does cover character in the book.
Bryan Konietzko and Michael DiMartino's Avatar: The Last Airbender (The Art of the Animated Series) talks a bit on character creation for the show and how the show kept evolving until they finally arrived at Avatar: The Last Airbender.
But you shouldn't just stay with finding books on how to create characters for animation. It shouldn't matter if they are animated or not, we need to believe in these characters!
Lajos Egri's The Art of Dramatic Writing
is my personal favorite on character development. Although this book is mainly about writing a play, Egri covers dialogue, characters, character motivation, and story development perfectly. I keep returning to this book everytime an idea pops into my head. I cannot express how much this book has helped me in creating believable characters and conflicts.
Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! is a book I have never gotten around to reading, but I feel it worth mentioning as most of my colleagues and friends keep recommending this book back to me.
And again, although you will learn many new things from these books and they will help you view stories and characters more analytically, you won't get better until you start to create more and more characters and stories. You may also start looking for interviews of your favorite creators and look for what they have to say about character.
Hope this helps!
Instead of thinking of them as rules, think of them as observed patterns. We see these patterns in many successful movies, so we look to them as best practices. Plenty of scripts go another way and work anyway.
You're talking about the moment in the script that starts the story. This is called the Inciting Incident, the Catalyst, the Start Of The Story, The Hero Meets The Problem, and many other terms. There's no uniform vocabulary in screenwriting.
The pattern we often see is that someplace around the middle of Act I, something happens which confronts the protagonist with the main issue of the movie. In a cop story, it's often when the detective gets the case. In a rom-com, it's when girl meets boy.
That's what your 17-minute rule means by finding out what the story is really about. The hero meets the problem of the movie.
Oscar®-winning screenwriter Michael Arndt has a good way of thinking about it. He says in the first half of Act I, we meet the main character in their ordinary world, and their future is set. They know what the rest of their life looks like. When the story problem runs into them, it changes the possibilities of their future.
In Star Wars, Luke is stuck on the farm, and he's not allowed to go to the Academy with all his friends. His future looks set -- he's going to be a backwater farmer and he hates it. When he meets Obi-Wan, he is offered a way to leave home and fight the Empire -- his future is changed. There are new possibilities.
In The Matrix, Neo is stuck in a dead-end day job, and spends his nights on the net trying to learn about Morpheus and the Matrix. His future looks set, and unsatisfying. When Morpheus calls him at the office to warn him about the Agents coming to get him, his future is changed. Things are not turning out the way he expected.
In the Hero's Journey Model, the Catalyst/Inciting Incident/Page 17 is called the Call to Adventure. It's where the Hero is called to undertake a quest. I recommend that you read Chris Vogler's book on the Hero Journey. It's a profound pattern that shows up in many movies. It's based on the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell, who George Lucas studied under in college.
(Dan Harmon's story circle is based on Campbell, as is Blake Snyder's Save The Cat.)
It's also important to note that it's easy to mis-identify the Call to Adventure/Inciting Incident because of foreshadowing. Michael Arndt pointed out that early in Act I there is often foreshadowing of the Call To Adventure, or of the Story Problem itself. This doesn't change the Hero's future, it just hints to us that something is coming to turn their world upside-down. Arndt calls this Storm Clouds On The Horizon.
Some folks think Luke discovering the hologram in R2 is the Call To Adventure. It's not, it's foreshadowing. The hologram is intriguing, but it doesn't give him a choice that will change his future. Not until we see the whole message at Obi-wan's does he get the invitation to go to Alderaan. (Notice how the tease of seeing the partial hologram pays off at the Call to Adventure where we see the entire message.)
In the same way, Neo meeting Trinity is foreshadowing. It doesn't offer Neo a new future, it's just intriguing. When Morpheus calls Neo on the phone and warns him about the Agents, Neo has to make a choice about his future.
In order to create a good Inciting Incident/Call To Adventure, the writer has to know the central issue of the movie. What problem is the Hero going to try to solve? The best Call To Adventure comes from already knowing the end of the movie, so you can invite the Hero onto the road that leads to that ending.
Again, these are not rules, just observed patterns from movies that work. Hope that helps.
Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics would be a good start.
>A comic book about comic books. McCloud, in an incredibly accessible style, explains the details of how comics work: how they're composed, read and understood. More than just a book about comics, this gets to the heart of how we deal with visual languages in general. "The potential of comics is limitless and exciting!" writes McCloud. This should be required reading for every school teacher. Pulitzer Prize-winner says, "The most intelligent comics I've seen in a long time."
Hello everyone. Have a great vacation /u/tehalynn
Don't forget to update the Public Calendar with your progress everyone.
As one of the new team of Mods helping to take over for /u/tehalyn I would just like to say hello and introduce the mods that are helping out while /u/tehalyn is off having a great time on vacation. Here you can see our Day 1 posts explaining why we love comics and are participating in this challenge.
/u/TeaAndMurder
/u/pixelneer
Recommended Reading: Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art If you have not yet read this book. Consider it your assignment today! Go to your public library and check-it-out NOW. I personally consider this and a few other books the bible of visual storytelling. I guarantee you it will forever improve your comic writing, drawing and understanding immensely.
EDIT Here is a really bad PDF zerox copied version of "Understanding Comics" for those of you who can't go to your library or have $12. Honestly I am not sure how this is remotely legal but, enjoy it while it's there.
> in books, it is just imagination and suggestion.
Don't discount imagination so quickly! There's a great bit in Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics where he explains that, in comic strips at least, a lot of what makes them engaging is the space between the panels, where your imagination fills in the gaps. Books can harness this too, because they can very sharply define what you are and are not told directly.
A lot of consumer-driven media, though, focuses on telling a single story, which is definitely not exploring. You can find less linear games, movies, and books, all of which give you more of that exploration sense. Creating new things (doesn't matter what; art, music, code, LEGOs) can also feel more like exploring, because there's no story aside from what you're trying to tell, much like going on a hike in the woods.
also, if you haven't read this yet, dig into Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics it's a must and worthwhile read. best of luck.
Just my opinion but I didn't like Blankets all that much...Fun Home is awesome though!!
But, in addition to the others mentioned:
Understanding Comics -McCloud
Stitches -Small
Yummy-Last Days of a Southside Shorty-Neri
Tyranny
Pitch Black -Landowne(sp?)
The Arrival -Tan
Palestine
American Born Chinese
Drinking at the Movies
Unlovable
please don't use capitals every other word. [](/derpwizard "It hurts us, it does.")
i'll be frank here and say that your colours are a little lacking. i don't have any bandaids for that, but i suppose some reading up on colour theory or some colour studies will help. they don't necessarily have to be from real life, they can be from other comics as well.
and comics dont have to be vertical strips, but that's up to you. there's a nice book on comics i read recently (and enjoyed). you could take a looksee if you ever feel the want to.
Sure! I've done a bit of research about this topic a while back in university. I don't have my scans anymore, but I'll try to find a few examples! Sorry, I don't really read manga myself anymore, so I don't remember ones with white people in them.
First, here's Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, who briefly wrote about the issue of "The Other" in Japanese comics (I found it a bit superficial, but basically true).
When looking at the links, also note that non-Japanese people often are also drawn more realistic and more detailed. That's exactly how the concept of "The Other" is depicted.
Here's a discussion of the "white"-looking faces (and "The Other" as concept).
Here's actually a picture.
Here are some more examples, also on other races.
I think the link he provided is cards that also go with this [book.] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=0KTN0WBYYBQG8VK11TTT)
I was laughing so hard at this one.
I am reading this book at the moment and it gave some good insights about the game industry.
Can't give any good advice because I'm also a student at the moment.
Mics- 414s are fantastic mics no doubt. But there are many,many other more affordable options out there that are competitive in quality. I'd suggest checking out some higher end MXLs, they are super versatile and pretty too.
don't worry about thunderbolt. people were recording low latency drums and etc....long before thunderbolt came out.
monitors...well, the NS10s are pretty standard. if you can make a mix sound good on those it will sound good on anything.every major studio but one (studio a in dearborn) I've been in has them. If you are really burning for something new I'd suggest some genelic 1030a there the older model but they were used on pretty much every hit song in the early 2000s. Everybodys got them. I know the speakers and trust thier response. and they're affordable.
preamp- This is where I personally invest the most money... there are as many preamps as snowflakes. I like the Focusrites ISAs, Rupert Neve designs, go high end... but honestly I have been fooled by the stock original MBOX pres. You're not a true engineer till you have fiddled with a non functioning micpre and thought "that sounds better" lol.
compressers- plug in compressors are great. which is why i suggest spending the money on the preamp. however it never hurts to have a hardware tube compressor/limiter handy. I recommend the ART VLA II.
plugins- trident EQ, fairchild 660, old timer, PSP vintage warmer, 1176, LA2A, smack!, MC77, there are a TON of good plug ins to choose from.
headphone monitoring? Not to sure about that one, Headphones are for performing only. I have the 80 dollar sonys for clients. ,they come with a nice bag to store them in. I don't mix with headphones( thats a whole can of worms dealing with psychoacoustics)
drum mics- shure makes good durable kits, I see them in use all over the place. CAD aren't to bad either. don't go cheap..but don't go overboard either. Approach it like preamps, go with a trusted brand name, they're selling a set of mics specifically for drums, kinda hard to fuck that up right? (IMO its more important to have a good room.)
this kind of reminds me of a joke.
how many drummers does it take to change a lightbulb?
none. they have machines for that now. just throwing it out there.
computer and software- I say go protools. but thats all i know, i was certified in 2002 and havent had a need for anything else. I have never been in a studio that wasnt using it, there are a couple in nashvile that use sonar...well, that was a few years ago.
I am not here to shit on mac. but i have used both in the industry throuought the years and they both perform fine. The last studio I was at used a quadcore w 4 gigs on XP with PT8 and never had so much as a hiccup, recording 24 tracks at once @ 24/96. I take the policy of if it isnt broken, don't fix it. I also have a person issue with avid, I refuse to upgrade to 9 or 10 because they allow any interface to be used...except there older ones. bullshit.
Trust me on this one...the client isnt going to give a shit what OS you are using until it your computer crashes. if you load up your computer with tons of cracked plugins and have poor organization and maintenance, its gonna take a shit on you.
further reading- this is probably the most important advice i can give you. read a little bit and get a total understanding on what everything does, because there is a lot of bullshit in this field.
http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Engineers-Handbook-Audio-Series/dp/0872887235
http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforcement-Handbook-Gary-Davis/dp/0881889008/ref=pd_sim_b_10
http://www.amazon.com/Master-Handbook-Acoustics-Alton-Everest/dp/0071603328/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1348852030&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=room+acoustic+music
http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Glass-Record-Producers-Softcover/dp/0879306149/ref=pd_sim_b_24
good luck
You won't find pieces written specifically for a shorter keyboard, but there are a lot of books out there that give you beginner music to work on as you start learning piano. They also try and present you with basic patterns and notes that you will see as you advance. One really popular one is Alfed's Adult All-In-One. There's enough music in there for 6 months to a year if you're a complete beginner.
Eventually you'll need all the keys, but you should be able to get started for now at least.
Alfred's All in One or Faber's Adult Adventures are common suggestions.
Another good book that surveys typography and introduces lots of general concepts:
Thinking With Type
A book you may find useful for color theory - it is about the relationships between colors, and was originally a book that came with colored paper to follow along with. It helps with seeing these relationships, not what good color combinations would be (this is some more like Kuler)
Interaction of Color
He needs a wind-up (raise the sword up a bit first), and the actual swing could be faster.
I'd suggest The Animator's Survival Kit if you want to get more into animating.
You have a nascent talent in modelling and materials. Good work!
The best thing I ever heard from an instructor was, "Nobody cares about armour and weapons. Show me something I like!"
This boils down to whether what you've made is "clever" or something which people (the ones who pay you) actually enjoy looking at.
Of the Twelve Basic Principles of Animation, appeal is the most important. Do older people like this? Is it approachably intricate? Does it look cute?
The Animator's Survival Guide is an essential resource for an aspiring modeller, animator or designer. Also check out the classic work of Preston Blair which is like a re-education of your childhood cartoons.
I hope you do well on your course.
My big advice to you is to take a step back and work on studies from life. It's much better looking than my first digital landscape, so props to that. But there's a lot of work that needs to be done here so I'll try to point stuff out as succinctly as possible (I wish I could do a live crit. It would be so much easier) but here goes.
That's all I got for now. If you have any questions I'll try to reply as soon as I see it. Otherwise, hope this helps and pushes you to improve. I do see potential here, if you commit your time and work hard. Cheers
Color and Light by James Gurney is one of my favorite books. It's a painter's guide, but it does provide a lot of insight in how color determines the mood and atmosphere of a picture, and how it interacts with our eyes. I have gotten a lot out of it as a digital artist, but it also proved useful for VFX, and might even be of help to a director. Even if it doesn't tell you anything new, the art depicted in the book is absolutely beautiful.
As a photographer, there are really only 3 settings you care about to metering properly (ISO, shutter, aperture), which is why Understanding Exposure is such a highly recommended book for beginners. The rest of the features such as white balance, color, etc can all be adjusted if you shoot in RAW. Granted, that's not possible in most cameraphones today, but to me those are secondary features anyway, and in general most P&S cameras are pretty close in terms of getting those other features down. And most of the time it's not white balance that people are complaining about for cameraphone pics.
With that said, when the exposure is set properly, your photograph is going to turn out properly. That isn't to say that auto mode should be completely inferior. It should give you decent photos. When shooting in auto mode, my photos won't be artistic the way I like them, but they won't be horrid either. They will be just cookie cutter standard. So on a cameraphone, you expect that in auto mode you should get good photos. You shouldn't get noisy photos in a standard indoor photo unless you're at a dim restaurant. Autofocus should be reliable and accurate. Your camera shouldn't go below 1/15 shutter speed unless in very dim situations or you force it to use slow shutter. Those are general rules that software makers should be aware of and place restrictions on the software for light metering. You shouldn't need to mess with all these settings to get a decent shot. It should be setup so you can achieve that as long as you point, click, and hold your hand steady.
Part of what I see with cameraphones is that they frequently:
Recommended Reading:
(Those are just the ones I have sitting on my bookshelf... I have a dozen more on my Kindle that I can add to the list if you're interested.)
---------
Authors &amp;amp; Speakers (lots of TED Talks):
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Let's start a book club! :)
For UX design, I strongly recommend The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
For UI/UX:
Game Feel by Steve Swink
Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
The front pillars that connect the roof to the hood are going to create massive blind spots if a person is driving. It looks like a prop from a low budget sci-fi tv show from the 90's. There is more to design than visuals, it has to work too.
I wish I did, but any good design book (think The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman) should mix in elements of how the human psyche interacts with good and bad design, so even if we don't have any currently, we have some books that can help fill this gap.
I am also interested in specific psych/soc application books as well though.
Looks like that thing was designed by the same guy that does the UI.
Please, please, please, do us all a favor and read this book. It's not that long, and will be the most important book you've ever read:
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0465067107
Absolutely. In fact, another book that was published a long time ago (1988) but is a must-have is "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald A. Norman. Here's an Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0465067107
The best thing about Don't Make Me Think is that it can easily be read in one day (or one plane ride, as the book itself touts).
The best thing to do is draw from life. Draw your pets or random people at a cafe. Use quick, light pencil strokes and don't erase. Just keep laying out lines as you form the object/person. Once you got the shape right, you can press harder and make those lines darker so they stand out against the exploratory lines. Basically you're chiseling away at something until it looks right. Make sure to draw quickly and not spend too much time with detail when you're drawing people and animals since they tend to move. Work on filling in detail with inanimate objects. It helps to gather random objects from around the house and make a still life.
And keep doing this. Even the best artists keep practicing and making quick, squiggly sketches. It helps you imagine things in 3D and translate that to 2D on paper. I learned all these things from art classes and talking to other artists.
My craft is animation, but having a good foundation in drawing is the most important thing before animating, painting, illustrating, and even sculpting. I learned animation with a book called The Animator's Survival Kit. And I did it by using a Wacom tablet and Flash (but there's a free program called Pencil). Even if you want to animate traditionally with pencil and paper, it helps to practice and learn quickly with digital tools.
I learned about the book and other tutorials by going on animation forums and talking with like-minded people. No matter what medium you choose, it really helps to communicate with people doing the same thing. Getting critiques is very important for improving. Others can spot mistakes you overlooked and point out how you can do better.
Do you think 60 frames are drawn for 2d games? You hold the frames, in both 2d and 3d. It's how you trick the eye into seeing more impactful action.
http://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
Animators, both 2d/3d swear by this book. I assure you it's good. Traditional animation techniques are still used in 3d.
This. For reading material, Richard Williams' The Animator's Survival Kit is a must.
I'll echo what others are saying. Nice first attempt but it's missing a lot of basics (And obviously more nuanced things as well).
Things it could benefit from:
More nuanced things I see that are problems:
etc etc
These are all things covered in books such as this, that I would highly recommend.
https://www.amazon.ca/Animators-Survival-Kit-Principles-Formulas/dp/0571202284
Don't be discouraged, you have a good start... but there is a lot of art and science to animation that's been established for over a century (Disney etc) and there is no point re-inventing the wheel. It's well worth your time reading up on it.
Keep at it!
I'd recommend: first, get a copy of this book. Then you could try any animation software, like Animata or After Effects. You can find a lot of tutorials for AE on the net.
There are a lot of great books on film out there. Don't listen to other possible saying watch YouTube or wrote your own screenplay. Well, do those things too, but learn some wisdom from some of the masters while you're at it.
You are going to want to read the following:
Hitchcock by Truffaut (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0671604295). One of the greatest directors of all time, interviewed by another of the greatest.
In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1879505622/ref=aw_d_detail?pd=1), one of the greatest editors ever. A pretty great director too.
On Directing Film by David Mamet (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0140127224). A great book on directing by one of the great writer/directors.
Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0452271878). He wrote this after El Mariachi, before he went on to big budgets. It's one of the most inspiring books you'll ever read-- you'll want to make a film tomorrow. Basically, how to make a movie wit nothing but enthusiasm.
You mentioned you like jazz, feel free to hang out with us /r/Jazz
Internet is great, and there is a lot for good free ressources. You'll have to go through a bunch of crap though, it can be confusing for a beginner and takes valuable time away to an already time consuming hobby.
So here are a few books I personally recommand.
Jazzology, an encyclopedia of theory centered around jazz that you can use with any genre. It's really good.
The real book, a good way to learn jazz standards with sheets that aren't so painful, using solfège for melody and letters for chords. This is the format I use with students.
The Jazz Theory book, or anything from mark levine.
The Complete Musician is good if you can find it for cheap, which is no easy task.
The definition of perfect pitch includes knowing the names of the notes. Without this knowledge, it's just "having a good ear". A good way to practice it is picking random notes and visualizing what the chord will sound like before playing it. That vizualisation aspect is the amazing thing about absolute pitch and helps with composing. The tuning or knowing what key you're in things are cute but fairly irrelevant.
Anyway, have fun.
Not sure what you mean by "advanced" but "The Jazz Theory Book" by Mark Levine is kind of standard at least for jazz harmony
At my school everybody takes classical theory for at least 2 years.
We used this book
Here's the work book
You'll probably need the answers too since you're teaching yourself
Really what I got out of it was being able to just instantly know chord spelling. I don't really have to think about a lot of things any more. It's just second nature. You don't really use classical counterpoint rules unless you plan on composing classical music. But it's a good vehicle for learning theory since it's rather specific and you have to consider a lot of things at once.
We use this book in our jazz theory class
But mainly I learned most from the lectures since our professor is really good. We also have to write a jazz tune every week and learn and improvise on it. As well as the ear training.
I wouldn't really even say that theory is "extremely challenging." You just have to spend a lot of time on it. There was a lot of assignments from the work book every week during classical theory. Probably spent like 6+ hours a week just on the homework for those classes. And that's not even including ear training. With any of this stuff you just have to be consistent, I don't think it's really that hard to understand and I started playing music much later than a lot of my peers.
But if you're trying to understand jazz before understanding really basic concepts like knowing your key signatures, how to spell basic triads, the chords in a given key, simple time vs compound time, etc, you're going to have a lot of trouble. Everything builds on to itself so you really have to understand the basics first which might be a little boring but you have to do it.
7th and 9th chords are the most common in jazz. I'd say if you have some theory knowledge already this book is an invaluable resource http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040
Otherwise start with musictheory.net and get a grasp on basic chord progressions first.
It's not free, but I've heard a ton of people recommend this book. I haven't even gotten partially through it yet and I've learned a lot.
http://smile.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1452998111&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=jazz+theory+mark+levine
I subscribed to Mark Michell's (Scale the Summit bassist) website Low End University that covers a myriad of topics both bass and non bass related, I'd say its a little more advanced material than what Scott Devine offers but both are great and have some good stuff for free.
As for books, I'd always been really interested in music theory behind jazz and certain video game OSTs and I can't recommend Mark Levine's The Jazz Theory book if that's your sort of thing. As someone else posted, Alex Webster's book is marvelous for not so much composition but being able to fluidly play intense rhythms and using three fingers.
Coordination and timing are big obstacles to overcome, but the more you play, the more naturally it comes. I never took lessons until I could get college credit for them (roughly 5 years after I started playing), and most of that was so I could learn to read music and maybe pick up on a few things. The biggest help for me was the fact that I could learn by ear, so if I heard it enough and tried it enough, I could figure out pretty much any song I wanted to play.
I would definitely invest in Stick Control, even if you can't read music. It's easy enough to read and it's really helpful in breaking habits when you have to think about what hand you're supposed to be striking with.
Really, the most important thing is just keep playing. Tap along to the radio. Tap along to everything. The more you play, the faster you'll break yourself from coordination/timing issues and the better you'll be. /u/crabjuice23 suggested trying different genres of music. I 100% agree. Play along to anything you can. If you hear something you like but can't quite stick it, slow it down in your head and keep playing it until it's comfortable and you'll have it full speed at no time. Patience is huge.
Rudiments are a good place to start learning drums, as well as some notation / music theory. Here's some free websites that I use:
http://vicfirth.com/40-essential-rudiments/
http://www.snarescience.com/index.php
Around here, every one recommends Stick Control and Jojo Mayer's Secret Weapons for the Modern Drummer DVD, but I have never used them.
Music wise, I'm sure there's something you like that is approachable. A lot of Alt-rock like The Strokes, the White Stripes, Black Keys has pretty straightforward drum parts.
As for lessons, it isn't a bad idea to take even just a month of lessons to assist you in basic hand / foot technique as well as musical notation.
Good luck on your drumming journey!
I definitely recommend drum lessons if you can. Especially since you have no real knowledge of drumming, this will help immensely. Someone to tell him "No, hold the stick like this" will help in the long run and save him from making habits out of bad technique. This doesn't mean that he can't learn by himself, it just means he will learn quicker, and hopefully have good technique.
Yes. As soon as he starts lessons I'm sure the teacher will recommend a few good books. They aren't really textbooks, though, as much as drumming exercises. I don't know a whole lot about different books, but I have heard good things about Stick Control for the Snare Drummer. Other than that, any basic rudiments book will be fine something like this.
Interesting question. I'm not really sure how to answer this. Does he want to play hand drums or a drumset? I know when I first started I thought hand drums were dumb (My only experience was playing a djembe in a drum circle in 6th grade music class with a bunch of rhythmically challenged idiots). There was something about all the drums and cymbals put together that just made it so powerful and awesome to me. I'd say whatever he likes to play, let him play. If he falls in love with the bongos, so be it.
This is a tough one too. I've never really messed with kid's drums, but I'd say take him to guitar center and let him play the full size kits. If he can play it comfortably and is able to hit all the cymbals with a little adjusting, I'd say get a full size kit. I just wouldn't be a fan of getting a kid's kit that he'll grow out of in a couple years. If you have the extra cash, though, it'd probably be more beneficial to get the kid size drumset.
To echo what others have said, I couldn't have played drums to save my life when I first played Rock Band. I would fail songs on medium. Now I'm actually a pretty decent drummer, at least for someone who has never owned an acoustic kit.
The key is not to expect Rock Band to teach you everything, which you seem to have figured out already. Rock Band combined with independent research on actual playing techniques (grip, sticking, the parts of the kit, etc.) will absolutely turn you into a passable drummer, just as it did for me.
A couple suggestions: first, get some new sticks. Even the better Rock Band sticks are okay at best. You're not tearing them up on tour every night; you can splurge on something nicer like these. The dip is really nice if you're prone to dropping them, and the nylon tips won't wear the way wooden ones sometimes do.
Second, get a practice pad. A book on sticking patterns like this one can be valuable too but isn't crucial. A practice pad lets you practice sticking patterns. A few minutes a day playing to a metronome will make a big difference. As you improve, you can gradually raise the BPM of the metronome and train yourself to be faster.
stick control if you don't have already have it
Vic Firth's rudiment videos are great, though the site is a bit difficult to use these days.
All American Drummer (the Wilcoxen book) is a great way to get your chops back up to snuff. Even the first solo has challenges if you don't have your hands together.
Stick Control - I don't even have to tell you why. Do read through the introduction and practice it in the way that Stone specified.
For inspiration watch Thomas Pridgen show how he practices rudiments around the kit.
The High Cost of Free Parking by vintage, urbanist pinup Donald "ShoupDogg" Shoup remains irrelevant in a conversation about customers renting curb space.
Understanding Exposure is a great book that is often recommended here.
Get this book.
It's THE classic on learning to draw when you think you can't.
May as well get a copy of the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook. I've been tinkering/fixing/modding stuff for years and every time I pick it up I am reminded of something I had forgot or learn something new.
Learn how to solder like a boss.
I used to buy cheap stereos/stereo components at the thrift store just to tear apart and dick around with; I learned a lot by destroying stuff (accidentally).
Also, building guitar effects pedals are a good way to jump in and obtain a grasp of the basics. Plenty of free schematics on Google. As well as how to mod cheap gear. (For instance- an ART Tube MP pre-amp are going for $25 on Amazon, you can find instructions on how to mod it for $20 worth of parts and end up with a decent sounding pre-amp) (Well, 'decent' is subjective, but you get the idea).
You might start with this book
/r/livesound is the subreddit that covers this, mostly professional types. /r/soundsystem caters more to the DIY/hobby side of big sound.
Yes that gear is available to consumers, it's very expensive and there is a lot of knowledge and experience that goes into designing/deploying/tuning that type of rig. It's really quite a lot of material to cover - if you're interested in doing your own events then you can find local companies to hire for sound/lighting. If you're looking to build your own rig then start small or preferably hook up with some local crews who are already doing this sort of thing. Not sure if this helps, might be able to help if you have any more specific questions.
It's not just experience, it's training and an in depth knowledge of acoustics and audio engineering. There is a huge amount of information about this on the internet, so I might guess that you just haven't found the right search terms. One oft-mentioned resource is the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook, which is about as comprehensive as you can get, if very technical.
You may also be interested in /r/livesound ...
As always, grab yourself a copy of what many professionals and amateurs alike call The Bible.
It's a very indepth overview of the world of sound. Unfortunately it doesn't go up to the digital age but the basics and physics don't change much! If someone could write a version 2 that covers digital desks, line array systems, and sections on bit rate and sample rate, I know many many people who will buy the book again without hesitation!
Buy yourself the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement book.
Sound Reinforcement Handbook https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0881889008/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_B.XCzbBZSTH6Z
It will give you so much more information and is a useful reference book.
IMHO everyone interested or doing sound should own a copy.
A couple of good books for you to check out are the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook and Mike Senior's Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio. Together they'll cost you about $50 at Amazon.
There's also this book, linked from /r/audioengineering.
Not Kibler, but if you're looking for a decent introduction, I can't recommend Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design higher.
More design than, programming but I got a lot out of The Art of Game Design. It boils down to a series of questions you should ask at various stages of designing your game. They come from a variety of perspectives from psychology and story telling to engineering and business.
Want to make games?
Read this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965
Check out this YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/extracredits
Learn some coding skills. Although this stuff may not be directly applicable learning the logic will be very helpful regardless. I recommend trying out Python, Java, or JavaScript: https://www.codecademy.com
Pick a game engine. Unity is great. So is Unreal 4. GameMaker is what Toby used. There are many options but I'd recommend picking up a well established one like those 3 I mentioned.
Keep your ideas S I M P L E to start. No no even simpler than what you're thinking right now. Expect your first game to probably suck and maybe be one level where you jump and shoot something. Expect your next game to suck a little less. Whatever you do don't make your biggest idea your first or second or maybe even third idea. You'll know when you're ready to handle something a bit larger after a few small projects.
||
|-|
|Stay determined...
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Book-Lenses/dp/0123694965
This is one of my favorites. Anyone who gets involved in game design or development should read it. It teaches a lot of how to not just make a game, but keep you directed.
Some advanced and very in-depth mixing resources:
Mike Senior was Editor for Sound On Sound magazine's "Mix Rescue" column, where you could listen to mixes submitted by readers. Mike fixes the mix, and give his reasoning to why he makes each change that he does. Great concept, great articles.
Dave Pensado is just a class act. You have to love the guy. Grammy awarded, and a great teacher. His interviews with other professionals are always a blast, but for very in-depth technical discussions, go watch his "Into the Lair" segments. You won't be disappointed.
I realize that these two resources are not EDM centric, but the fundamentals are rock solid and you'll be able to use them wherever you go.
I highly recommend this book for mixing: https://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-small-studio-Presents/dp/0240815807/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539751292&sr=8-1&keywords=mixing+secrets+for+the+small+studio
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The author has also compiled 345 multi-track recordings that you can use for mixing practice: http://www.cambridge-mt.com/ms-mtk.htm
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Practice is important!
Def want acoustic Treatments for sure. I've stumbled across some pretty crazy deals on Ebay from time to time. Upgrade your monitoring next and get a small sub. Try to get monitors and subs that are the same series, as they are often built to work together and have easy cutoff switches that end/start at the others frequencies. Something like this is ideal for a great price: https://www.ebay.com/i/182475564279?chn=ps&amp;dispItem=1
Avoid monitors that are ported in the front (i.e. rokit krk's). If you want bass traps, make your own. Just goolge the process. Keep in mind a bed is already and excellent bass trap, if there is one in your room. Generally want monitors at ear level. This book is a wealth of information on this topic and many others. Maybe check it out as well: https://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Presents/dp/0240815807/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1501967590&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=mixing+secrets+for+the+small+studio
Good luck with everything! Enjoy yourself!
Get an audio interface and a DAW.
Choose the most inexpensive or used audio interface and a free DAW to start with.
Youtube will provide you more than enough tutorials to learn from scratch.
Ask and discuss stuff on reddit and gearslutz :D
Read this! There is also a "Recording Secrets" book from the same guy, but I didn't read it as I'm not recording stuff.
They Have
...can't tell if Sarcasm...
You should look into this getting this, A Feast of Ice and Fire
If your wife enjoys cooking, I can recommend a book for her. In my house we always cook something from it for our pre-episode meal.
https://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
I was able to find it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345534492
Enjoy!
http://www.amazon.com/Nanny-Oggs-Cookbook-Information-Astonishing/dp/0552146730/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1451767059&amp;sr=8-1-fkmr0&amp;keywords=auntie+ogg%27s
or
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1451767129&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=fantasy+cookbook
http://www.amazon.com/Fantasy-Cookbook-Timothy-Hildebrandt/dp/0672527030/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1451767129&amp;sr=8-4&amp;keywords=fantasy+cookbook
http://www.amazon.com/Redwall-Cookbook-Brian-Jacques/dp/0399237917/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1451767129&amp;sr=8-10&amp;keywords=fantasy+cookbook
I seem to remember a cookbook based off descriptions from GRRM's books. Yup, here it is.
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
Frey pies with a side of Jojen paste to be washed down with the blood of The First Men.
You may be interested in A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook
I just learned yesterday there is an official Game of Thrones Cookbook. For those interested, see link below.
A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0345534492/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_48l7Ab4XN4GFJ
This is really misleading.
A Graphic Designer can work across fields including (but not limited to) advertising, and:
Just to name a few.
For your instance I would suggest it's worth developing any skills that are going to help you and give your work an edge, and understanding design and how it's made will definitely give you that.
That said, the label 'Art Director' could be used in more than one way. Typically a Senior Designer (so a graphic designer with lots of experience and talent) might go on to become an Art Director, and this role would see her responsible for interpreting the creative given to them by the ad folk. On the flip side, within ad firms there's a term 'Art Director' that doesn't necessarily require design skills, but would almost always require a solid appreciation and knowledge of art and design and the market being targeted.
Check out these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography
http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-2nd-revised-expanded/dp/1568989695/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1292171536&amp;sr=8-1
Hyrule Historia contains the timelines as well as a lot of things from Zelda lore. Here's a link.
A wall scroll? I got a huge, nice wall scroll off eBay of the Twilight Princess cover picture.
Maybe a Zelda-theme controller/Wiimote?
You could pre-order this, but it's not coming out until after Christmas.
Or clothes/t-shirts!
Reminds me of this great book for parents: https://www.amazon.com/Go-F-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/1617750255/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1525092251&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&amp;keywords=fo+the+fuck+to+sleep
> Does that make me a bad dad?
Nope, kids take time and energy, they want to be with you and around you. Enjoy that time, it is such a fleeting phase of their lives, and when it is gone, it is gone forever. Sometimes you don't want to be distracted, and it is OK to not be, other times you don't want to be distracted, and it is OK to be distracted and let them take you into their world for a while. Trust me, you will get the time to get to everything, it just may not happen as you thought or when you thought. But that is OK too. But remember, there has never been a parent on this planet that hasn't felt frustrated or at their limit, and it is OK for a parent to take a timeout too.
And if you want a little humor in your parenting https://www.amazon.com/Go-F-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/1617750255
I'll give it a try.
The first things to understand are that of cinematography. Films were shot first without sound so how you manipulated the camera was critical to the emotion of the story. It still is today but we sometimes get lost in the dialogue and forget the importance of the camera.
So everybody has their different 4 parts to cinematography (or whatever number they choose). I have Lighting/Exposure, Framing/Composition, Placement/Angle, and lenses (I'm probably missing something critical.) These all have effects on one another and take forever to master. For this I would suggest you take your camera and just start shooting pictures or short videos of random things adjusting the settings as much as possible. Taking the same shot three times over with a different f-stop or adjust the camera so your taking it from a different angle, either longitudinally or latitudinally.
The next part is sound. It is the other half of film (unless you are doing a silent movie). I don't really know what parts there are to it but it follows similar concepts of practice. Play around with it a lot. Try telling a story using nothing but sounds, like a radio broadcast.
The last thing is editing. For this I would suggest reading In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch. As far as color correction and sound editing, I'm pretty much useless. It just comes with more practice and a bunch of online videos.
If you want any help with writing I can send you in the right direction for that but this should be a good start.
Sori na kasnom odgovoru. Za fotografiju je najbolje potražiiti sadržaj o kompoziciji i boji. Iskreno, radije bi ti preporučio knjige od Burne Hogartha, pogotovo Dynamic Light and Shade. Knjige iz likovnih umjetnosti će ti daleko više pomoći oko fotografije nego knjige o fotografiji.
Što se tiče režije, scenaristike i montaže - najbolje je to skupno gledati kao jedno širinu, ali i cjelinu. Da bi se bavio režijom moraš poznavati scenaristiku i scenarističke tehnike, a da bi se bavio montažom moraš razumjeti režiju koja podrazumijeva razumijevanje scenaristike - i tako u krug. Fora kod filma/TV-a je da svi "zanati" postoje negdje drugdje osim montaže. Gluma postoji izvan Filma i TV-a, fotografija također, scenaristika također... jedino je montaža jedinstven zanat svojstven filmu i tv-u. Gledaj na montažu kao na ključni dio u procesu proizvodnje za koji izrađuješ sav materijal. Stoga podijeli učenje na pet cjelina: Fotografija, Montaža, Storytelling, Režija, Gluma.
Fotografija
Montaža
Storytelling
Režija
Gluma
Ima tu još dosta sadržaja kojeg bi bilo dobro spomenuti (recimo Sanford Meisnerova nadogradnja Stanislavskove škole glume i sl. ), ali ovo je već više nego dovoljno za dobar, široki, uvod u temu. Sve navedene knjige (osim za fotografiju) se koriste kao štivo na Columbiji i na Chapmanu i ostalim top filmskim školama. Razlika između čitanja štiva i učestvovanja na nastavi je što imaju i radionice - koje su iznimno bitne kod glume zbog glumačkih vježbi i redateljskih uputa. Kod nas nažalost ne postoji neka radionica i/ili glumačka škola koja radi po punom i ispravnom sustavu Stanislavskog, a kamoli po Meisneru, tako da ćeš i za to morati van.
The definitive book has always been In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch
In the Blink of an Eye
The Conervasations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film
Audio-Vision
I'll add more later if I can think of others I've read but do not own.
There's a great book by Walter Murch (film editor and sound designer on Apocolypse Now, The English Patient, etc.) called 'In The Blink Of An Eye' talking a bit about the differences in editing on a computer vs. editing on film back in the 90s.
Some differences were that back in the 90s, computers weren't powerful enough to work with high-res digital captures of film. Editors were working with really grainy, low res captures. For that reason, it was very difficult to see the facial expressions & eye lines between actors in wide shots. This resulted in a lot of editors choosing close ups instead - to be safe. The medium used for edited was actually determining what shots editors would choose, solely based on technological limitations.
Another difference was that in editing on film, in order to choose a shot, you have to constantly wind through a large amount of film. In the process you are going through many, many different shots - which sometimes results in seeing something you might have missed, or going over and over the footage and becoming more familiar with alternate options. Even if each take is it's own film clip, you still have to manually wind through the whole take to get to where you want. In digital, it's totally non-linear, meaning you can just click where want to go, and miss scrolling through all the content. This means editors can possibly miss a large amount of footage, and be less familiar with options.
So ya, there used to be a fairly significant impact on aesthetic choices between working on film vs. software. Those differences have obviously narrowed with modern technology. But it's still interesting. It's also interesting that editing on computer didn't necessarily make things easier. Faster perhaps, but computers have their own down sides as well.
Probably the single greatest book on editing ever written.
Aside from making things look nice they also have to function well too. Design should go hand-in-hand with user experience. I suggest reading the book Don't Make Me Think to get an understanding of why things are laid out. You can have a nice website but if it doesn't function well your users will opt out in coming back.
Start going to your other favorite websites and find what they have in common and what's different and keep notes that you could back to and reference; you'll start to notice a common theme in layout. There's Behance, Awwwards, Dribbble (though don't take too much away from here), Smashing Magazine, A List Apart, and more.
Learn color theory and typography -- I suggest Thinking with Type. Like another user said: draw inspiration not only from web design, but take inspiration from other sources.
Typography and layout are the two most important things. You need to understand information hierarchy and how to properly arrange your information on the page. I recommend two little books that will help you immensely.
Thinking with Type
Geometry of Design
You can go deep into the weeds in either subject, but these two books are short and sweet and will give a nice foundation of knowledge.
On the software front, you need a vector-art program. Obviously the entire Adobe Suite would be great, but if you can only buy one, I'd get Illustrator. If you can buy two, I'd then get Photoshop as well. If you're doing a lot of multi-page print work, then you're going to need InDesign.
Good luck.
Grab the typography manual from The Futur for free to start with:
https://www.thefutur.com/resources/typography-manual-vol-1/
Then I'd check out Thinking With Type:
https://smile.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-2nd-revised-expanded/dp/1568989695/
Firstly, drawing, Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop are just tools. Learn how to use them well but they are only tools. Design is more psychology than it is software expertise. Learning the tools is important of course, just don't confuse the two. Design is the "why" and "what" you are trying to communicate, the function. Art, illustration, type, etc is the "how" you create the form. Form follows function.
With that said. Keep drawing. Everyday. Look into illustration as an art discipline, it's very closely connected to graphic design as far as purpose and mindset. Far more so than traditional studio arts. (painting, sculpture, etc).
Learn typography. Really learn the difference between typeface and font and families. Learn why serifs work for body copy generally better than sans. Learning how to hand render type, and do it well, is an invaluable skill especially paired with illustration.
In my view these are essential to add to your reading list:
There are about a hundred others I could add. Look beyond "Best Design Of The Year" kinda crap and seek out critique and theory. These skills far outweigh the ability to look at what's popular and ape it.
Finally, remember that graphic design is communication above all else. Think about who you are trying to reach, what you are trying to say, and why you are trying to say it. Be true to yourself and your audience, and you will do good work.
Good luck!
Without going into a lot of details, I would really suggest taking some time to study design fundamentals. A lot of your work looks like it stems from quick experiments with filters and various online tutorials. A better understanding of type, space, hierarchy, etc. will take you far.
Books like Thinking with Type, [Don't Make Me Think] (http://amzn.com/0321965515), and Making and Breaking the Grid would be a great place to start. Buy those—or get them from a library—and read them cover to cover.
I'm the same way with A Link to the Past. I recommend this. Every Zelda fan should have it. Worth EVERY penny.
The preorders are open on Amazon in the US and Canada, I'm keeping them updated here: http://www.facebook.com/HistoryofHyrule
$25.89 USD: http://www.amazon.com/The-Legend-Zelda-Hyrule-Historia/dp/1616550414/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1345165616&amp;sr=8-10&amp;keywords=hyrule+historia
$ 27.16 CDN http://www.amazon.ca/Legend-Zelda-Hyrule-Historia/dp/1616550414/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1345165175&amp;sr=8-1
It's dangerous to go alone, take me. ;)
[Link has twinkle toes] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Legend-Zelda-Hyrule-Historia/dp/1616550414/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1367710874&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=legend+of+zelda)
Look on Etsy lots of custom made stuff. Hyrule Hystoria is a pretty good book for any fan.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Legend-Zelda-Hyrule-Historia/dp/1616550414
Will this be a good present for someone who says they love Legend of Zelda? She's only 14.
Go the F**k to Sleep.
If you want to do something other then the traditional formula, wipes and diapers route (although always helpful) you can try doing decor, or toys. As a young broke mom myself I think food, diapers, clothing alot of the somewhat fun things I can't afford to think about. You may also wish to include a book or two; I suggest this one it helped me through the first leg of parenthood.
P.S- You are a great sibling for doing this for your sister, I am sure she will appreciate it monsteriously!
Not entering, but I'd be a little disappointed if someone didn't have this on their wishlist... lookin' at you, Wamps.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Here you go:
First things first. It's good to be critical of your own tastes and wanting to be able to talk about it is great.
The thing is; to talk about movies you talk about intentions (intentions of the director, but also the cameraman, the lighting, the actor, etc). Although there is a common goal, these disciplines approach it in very different manners. If everything works; it's all conveying the right intentions at the right time. To get why some movies work and some don't you need to learn the "languages" of at least a couple of the disciplines. You should notice the way the camera frames the person and why at that moment in the narrative they chose to do that in this specific manner. You should notice the way the scene is lighted; is it dark, is it red, etc. All these things get you on the track of what the overall intention is. Things like this can be picked up from books like ["In the blink of an eye"] (https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Eye-Perspective-Film-Editing/dp/1879505622). Which is a great book about editing.
Now if you talk about the cultural remark a movie makes. What it says about something in the real-world; In real life. Your entering the domain of sociology, psychology, anthropology and/or philosophy. This again is a whole other beast. It's taking all the intentions of the movie and trying to see what it "means". The Why. This is also very personal. If you like dystopian settings. That can be connected with nihilism. So you read up about nihilism in Friedrich Nietzsche (although not technically a nihilist) or Albert Camus. I can go on and on.
The point I think I want to make is that it's a total package. It's not one book that can teach you how to think about movies. There is no one book that can tell you how to take them in and to express your feelings about them. I must add that I did not study film criticism so I don't know the material they teach there and I'm sure there are books that give you a glimpse or an overall view how to approach this topic. But in the end there is no book that can show you your own way of conveying your feelings. Discussing the marks a movie left on you with others.
The only way to do that is like learning a language. You have to read it but also speak it and "live in the country" to really master it. So find a friend/forum/teacher/parent/dog/cat you can talk with about movies you both saw.
Just some I like:
Dev
Design
(I am weak in the design side, so take these recommendation with a grain of salt. I recommend them off of overall industry cred they receive and my own personal taste for them.)
below are books I have not read but our generally recommended to people asking this question
You can see a lot of these are theory based. My 0.02 is that books are good for theory, blogs are good for up to date ways of doing things and tutorial type stuff.
Hope this helps!
Battery is about to die so no formatting for you! I'll add note later if I remember.EDIT: another real quick.
EDIT2: Eh, wound up on my computer. Added formatting and some context. Also added more links because I am procrastinating my actual work I have to do (picking icons for buttons is so hard, I never know what icon accurately represents whatever context I am trying to fill).
Get this book for your design team:
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1409363606&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=design+of+everyday+things
Ignore Carmack (on this one, very specific issue). His conceptual model of what a UI is, can be, and should be, are extremely one directional, vision-centric, and rooted in ancient PARC UIs made for a completely different medium under totally different constraints. VR is a spatial medium by nature, and it simulates the real physical world. In VR, the world IS the interface. You don't need to conceptualize the UI as a separate thing at all. There are only interaction mechanics. You are designing for a mind, not for a rectangle.
To really hammer this home, I recommend studying the following titles:
And reading the following books:
Be a bit critical of that last one - it's is all very old research. it's good for foundation but do not just copy what they've made, use it to synthesize new ideas.
Leap Motion's blog is also an invaluable source of 3d human computer interaction design wisdom. They recently did a series of interaction design sprints that explore 3d physical interactions
I've also gone through their blog and pulled out a bunch of articles that I found the most interesting and useful in my work:
General design:
http://blog.leapmotion.com/designing-intuitive-applications/
Fictional UI:
http://blog.leapmotion.com/fictional-uis-influence-todays-motion-controls/
Vlog FUI pt 1:https://vimeo.com/103174872
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/03/sci-fi-interaction-designers-gestural-interfaces/
3d OS:
http://blog.leapmotion.com/truly-3d-operating-system-look-like/
Sound in VR: http://blog.leapmotion.com/4-ways-unleash-power-sound-vr/
http://blog.leapmotion.com/explorations-vr-design/
If you get the chance you should play their Blocks demo to see the kind of UX that can teach a completely un-initiated VR user how to interact with a virtual world in an exceptional way. If you really care about HCI, you owe it to yourself to grab one of their devices and go all in on it. It really is an incredible new area to explore and will eventually reveal 2D-only interaction models to be the ancient dinosaurs they are.
I've posted this before but I'll repost it here:
Now in terms of the question that you ask in the title - this is what I recommend:
Job Interview Prep
Junior Software Engineer Reading List
Read This First
Fundementals
Understanding Professional Software Environments
Mentality
History
Mid Level Software Engineer Reading List
Read This First
Fundementals
Software Design
Software Engineering Skill Sets
Databases
User Experience
Mentality
History
Specialist Skills
In spite of the fact that many of these won't apply to your specific job I still recommend reading them for the insight, they'll give you into programming language and technology design.
I'd recommend you read The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.
If everything is a wall of text, it's not quickly scanned. There are visual cues that aid scanning. Organization and hierarchy helps. Typographic choices in legibility and readability are also important.
As someone who just moved, I have to agree. I think boxed books out in the garage are more accessible than this. There are reasons certain furniture designs haven't been used. Its not because they haven't been thought of, but rather that someone realized it was functionally defiant.
Seriously, OP. Get this book for your friend. As a designer, It is honestly one of the best reads I have ever had. It is very conceptual, and really cuts to the chase one how to be artistic, creative, but never loose the basic necessity of function.
I'm going to sound like a broken record and I apologize for that.
This is a reply to another person starting to use SFM. Hope this helps you and anyone else.
Do NOT give up. I'm forcing myself to go ahead and learn to animate.
Here's some stuff you can use to learn about animation.
( https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-animators-survival-kit/id627438690?mt=8 )
Plus, look for SFM Tutorial (add animation to specify) and you'll find a lot of tutorials. Some nice stuff is Jimer Lins and really, REALLY recommend the stuff from Zachariah, specifically lighting and camera tutorial.
Improvemente only comes with practice, practice and practice! :)
Also this from another post:
Check this one out from MaxOfS2D:
http://youtu.be/cKnpx9ajemg
It shows tips about light settings.
I know there's also a guide in the Steam Source Filmmaker community about Ambient occlusion.
I think you're on the right track, definitely spend time modeling and animating before leaving your current job.
I would recommend getting started doing modeling and rigging yourself (then feel free to use pre-built rigs and such if you want). This is basically just so you know what's going on behind the scenes of rigs you'll use in the future. Even if you never create a model or rig throughout your career as an animator at a studio (which many times may be the case), you'll have the knowledge to communicate with modelers / riggers to get what you need to animate.
For animation, I do think it's worthwhile to have some experience in 2D animation (a little easier to get started in and helps you practice fundamentals you'll end up using in 3D) Acting for Animators, Animators Survival Kit, and Drawn to Life are all highly recommended books for 2D animation. Oh, and good news! you can practice all the fundamentals of animation with stick figures!
On that note, I would highly recommend practicing drawing. Ctrl+Paint has some decent video things on drawing and painting. While you don't need to be Da Vinci to go into modeling / animation (I'm not great at drawing / painting myself) it does help to be able to sketch out quick ideas (concepts for models, storyboards, etc). Just a little practice each day goes a long way!
As far as 3D software goes, it depends on where you work what you'll use, but the fundamentals will all be roughly the same. The company I work at uses Motion Builder for our animation, though I primarily use Maya for any work (and I know plenty of people using 3DS Max, Blender, and other software for the whole process). Some companies may even use proprietary software that you have no access to outside of the company and will expect you to learn it after being hired. Just stick with whatever you use, learn it well and you'll be able to transfer that knowledge into whatever software you'll need in the future
TL;DR Take your time, learn some 2D animation, draw stuff, and learn a 3D modeling / animation program like the back of your hand.
PS. I know a lot of people say you don't NEED 2D animation, and I'm not saying you NEED to know it, it's just useful.
Everyone is right about getting a teacher, particularly for the basics and more advanced concepts as well. I personally started playing through a high school class for a semester then was taught all over again by a guy from my church.
Since then however I have been playing on my own (with books) and learning by ear as well. Here are my recommendations
I'm currently using Alfred's. https://www.amazon.com/Adult-All-One-Course-Lesson-Theory-Technic/dp/0882848186/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_267_bs_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=TRV8VN58287JY0698CNH
I've posted this a few times but I think its well worth repeating:
I am using Alfred's Adult all in one and there is a guy on YouTube that covers each lesson with good instruction and tips.
Here is the link:
Alfred's Video
I also hired a tutor who I meet with every two weeks, just to make sure I'm not picking up bad habits.
Amazon link to Alfred book
FAQ
http://www.reddit.com//r/piano/wiki/faq
I'd skip skoove.
http://fundamentals-of-piano-practice.readthedocs.io/en/latest/chapter1/ch1_topics/
Discussion, summary of some parts here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/piano/comments/5mn8fi/fundamentals_of_piano_practice_some_boiled_down/
Taubman technique
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHpGYrNMpSxgcftnjYolpGrnTpNzlM8Qu
https://www.golandskyinstitute.org/blog/teaching-rotation-with-robert-durso
Plenty of beginner piano videos like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSs0dBjGpv4
All in one method books can work well too, plenty of others.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adult-All-One-Course-Lesson-Theory-Technic/dp/0882848186/
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/forums/30/1/Adult_Beginners_Forum.html
Plenty of overlap in these links. Try some out, figure out what works best for you. One important thing you can miss not having a teacher is sitting and moving the right way so you don't hurt yourself. With nobody to critique you as you go, a few different videos, careful reading beforehand, and doing your best to be mindful of any tension and discomfort that develops is advisable. That way you figure out when you're sore and need to reevaluate your style with a few days of minor discomfort instead of a couple months. Certainly possible to get by without a teacher. But with the right teacher you might be able to get a lot out of a lesson once every month or two.
I recommend the following books:
Thinking With Type by Ellen Lupton.
This book is the essential introduction to typography and probably should be the first type book you get.
Lettering and Type by Bruce Willen and Nolan Strals.
This book provides an introduction to different types of lettering and typographic work, as well as a brief introduction to designing your own typeface.
Designing Type by Karen Cheng.
This book covers the intricacies and design considerations of each letter one by one. It's a great reference when designing your own type, or even if you just want a more in-depth look at letterforms.
I own Making and Breaking the Grid and Thinking with Type. Both came highly recommended.
Donald Shoup has a book by the same name that is fascinating
Here is an excerpt and you can buy it here
I thought you were going to talk about something else, which is how public planning currently values free parking above pretty much everything else. It's really shaped how cities sprawl. There's a whole book about it.
I have no problem with people who have no other option except to drive to work, but I don't see why they shouldn't have to pay extra to leave their cars parked the majority of the day/night on what could otherwise be more productive property within a community.
I recommend this book as a good primer on the issues parking subsidies cause.
I don't think where I live really matters in regards to my opinion. I work in Mt. Vernon, I've lived in Mt. Vernon before, and I'll likely live there again.
If you look at the last downtown partnership studies, you'll see that a majority of Mt. Vernon residents work within 2 miles of their residence, and still drive to work despite having multiple other less harmful modes of transportation as options. If they choose to do that I believe they should have to pay more for their choices. I'm sorry that the few exceptions you identify would suffer as well, but I think despite your complaints the neighborhood improves with more transit, bike, and walking options, as well as more retail and residential properties, even at the expense of parking and road space for individual car users.
The High Cost of Free Parking http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/193236496X
>I've only very recently decided that I wanted to go into film making for a career ...
Start with the basics then. Read Save the Cat, Story, Screenplay, and The Screenwriter's Bible.
Ask yourself what your five favorite films in the world are, that you could watch over and over again. Buy them on Bluray, and find a copy of their shooting script. This website is a good start, although you may have to buy them from somewhere. Watch the movies, then read the scripts, then repeat.
Then, with both the theory and the execution in your mind ... start to think of conflict, of drama, of characters and themes and story arcs.
Bluntly, it sounds like you're putting the horse well before the cart.
Save the Cat by Blake Snyder was extraordinarily helpful to me in just getting the nuts & bolts structure of my story ironed out. You may not think you're writing a screenplay, but if you write your book following his "beat sheet," I imagine it'd stand a good chance of being optioned.
Writers don't 'read' scripts in Hollywood from outsiders because the industry is flooded with unsolicited manuscripts every year. And 99% are horrible.
In Hollywood, readers and low-level assistants/development execs are the filter that an outsider must get through to be taken seriously. These people are handed 20-30 scripts a weekend, some from the top executive's buddy's daughter from texas, some from an agent friend, some from a writing contest. These 'readers' are so pissed that they have no weekend that they look for any small issue with the writing to tell if it is a non-professional, an industry person or some flake from Nebraska.
So to make a long story short, there is an industry standard and if the script deviates in form or style from the standard, into the recycle pile it goes. Period.
So screenwriters out there? You MUST write for the beleaguered reader, these put-upon, exhausted people that would rather die than read another poorly written script. The script has to work on all levels and the format perfect. Just having a good idea is not enough.
Try this:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Write-Screenplay-Screenwriters/dp/1580650155
Great book on the simple things to avoid.
Oh and writing screenplays is an artisan skill, incredibly detailed and complex work. If you take it on as such you will need time and knowledge and practice, practice, practice.
Another great great great book:
http://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1253374543&amp;sr=1-1
You can't do a half-ass screenplay that will sell. You need to know the rules.
Pick up some books on story structure. Save the Cat is a great one--it's about screenwriting but it has a lot of good advice that applies to writing novels as well. Joseph Campbell is a good call for this too, so you've got a good title there. I'd google "character building in novels" and check out /r/worldbuilding too, if that's your thing.
But once you read up on story structure, start practicing. Seriously, when you set out you're going to be horrible at wordsmithing (meaning you won't be able to string together beautiful sentences, and you probably won't be able to get the perfect imagery on paper) but that's ok! As a beginner, now is the time to focus on structure. Write yourself some really bad books where you just explore how to craft a plot, how to build characters, how to make a world... and the more really bad books you write, the closer the decent book is, and the amazing book.
The most solid advice is definitely just "sit down and start writing", but if you want to take advantage of being a newbie then ignoring craft for structure (at first) is the way to go about it, definitely.
Good luck! It's a great journey.
Save the Cat. It’s a good beginning book for screenwriting and it’s thin. A simple read with some good information.
Understanding Comics and Making Comics by Scott McCloud are a great place to start.
There are several things going on here!
One, I think "being high" from pot is actually a learned response, like any other skill, it takes time and practice. It takes several exposures to actually really understand the experience and get a full effect. No doubt, there's something biological to this. Over time, the effects get more noticeable. I've never really met anyone who had it completely work the first time. Everyone I know said the effect got initially bigger the more they did it (and then, past that point, you build up tolerance).
A second thing is that the effects are really profoundly different for each person. A friend of mine was heavily into chronic dope, and he would often smoke with (what he termed) people who were 'beginners'. Like, he'd share a joint, and the person he'd smoke with would be really knocked around, for example they would barf or become so intoxicated that they would be incoherent or non-functional. It didn't affect him nearly to the same extent. He could smoke 10X that amount and not get nearly as high. I've known at least three people who are really weird people unless they smoke dope, and with the dope they seem to become just like normal. Bottom line, some of this depends on how much you smoke, how often, how strongly it affects you and what your baseline state is like. The range of responses is huge.
Then, there's at least one other thing. I've met several people who have a specific drug that simply doesn't work at all on them. A friend of mine could take heroic, death-defying batches of psilocybin and they simply were inert. He would feel cheated or ripped off and it was very obvious he was 100% sober. He once accused me of faking the effects! If I took a tiny amount from that same batch, it was a mystical experience, so it wasn't that the drugs were counterfeit -- he just couldn't get high from mushrooms. That happens to me too, but only during the refractory period...mushrooms (taken all alone) don't work again for a few days duration right after you take them once (but you can ordinarily tweak that by adding some extra substances). I've known some people that get an effect from pot that outwardly seems like it's so incredibly mild it's almost non-existent. I actually think the pot that is available is getting a lot stronger, which makes me think that most people are less sensitive to it than I am, because it's almost unpleasantly strong to me now.
What's funny and interesting is that once you have experienced a drug, you can easily recall the experience/feeling of it, and what's more, you can be in a dream of being actually high while you sleep, which is basically the same as saying that you can repeat actually being high without the drug. In other words, your brain learns to get in the state once it discovers it.
My partner is a lot less experienced with drugs than I am, but I notice when she is high more than she notices. She's all forgetful and not making sense, while at the same time she feels she's not feeling it. I feel that there's a certain amount of inward observation about being high that's different from normal reality. Part of what you learn (with a first drug) is to have a kind of duality that you experience towards your introspection. Here's the sober part of my mind noticing the high part of my mind. This is different from actually just feeling or thinking one thing.
The absolute best drug experience from a first time use is from LSD. It actually works insanely well the first time you take it, it's an unavoidable and very potent experience. The problem with LSD is not the thing that everyone is scared of: bad trips. The problem is permanent insanity -- I really think it's a bit of a dangerous substance. Out of a small handful of people that I know who have done it, I personally know at least 4 or 5 people who became acid casualties and had actual damaging permanent brain changes, and none of those people were doing anything truly weird, just using it the way anyone else would. I don't really recommend it unless you are willing to take that risk. One or two normal trips don't guarantee that something won't eventually happen. To me I don't think the problems/risks are connected to what other people talk about...I don't think you have to be pre-disposed to anything to have a potential problem with it. Perfectly normal people still run risks.
It seems like the psychedelics (like Psilocybin, LSD, Ecstacy etc. and extremely strong pot) are substances that inhibit the thalamus in various ways. Basically, this is the part of your brain that is like a traffic light, which makes you only think one thought at a time versus multiple thoughts. If you soak your brain in enough of the right juices, you can definitely allow a lot more traffic. What actually ends up happening depends on the person. I knew one guy who became a really fluid skateboarder with the same drug that allowed someone else to talk about philosophy.
Drugs have been a really interesting thing for me. I've experienced synaesthesia, visual-, corporal- and auditory-hallucinations, many, many powerful insights into myself and the world. All the normal things like time-dilation, munchies, laughing, whatever. Also lots of mystical and religious experiences. I once made friends with a house cat and we went hiking together for about 3 hours in the forest. I even wrote an exam on LSD once and the professor turned my answer into a class lecture -- I guess I came up with a pithy way of integrating all the things that the course was about. I've entered states where it was like programming my own brain as if it was a computer. I've been an insect on an alien planet, and I've had a UFO encounter and found a successful way to talk a friend out of suicide. I've seen Jesus appear and saw him convince a friend of mine to become religious. I've run from the police while feeling like it was in slow-motion. I also invented a couple of legit mechanical devices. It also changes the way I see/hear and process music and art, where I can suddenly hear through distortion, understand mumbled words and see more symbolically, metaphorically etc. Pot also improved my sports performance, and I actually had some of my best ever competition results while being totally baked. A few pro athletes I know don't race unless they are quite high on pot -- it seems to improve reaction time and endurance.
I once tripped sitting beside a river, and I had every visual element (trees, ducks, kids, dogs et.) map into a very realistic miniature simulation of the overall human superstructure, where I could look down- or up- stream and get a coherent snapshot of the past, present and future. After the high went away, the mental model proved to be durable and rational and the insights probably still affect how I see things. The very first time I dosed on LSD, the drug kicked in while watching the normal TV news. I still cannot watch any TV without seeing the gears moving on the propaganda machine, it literally cured me of the hypnotic susceptibility you need to "get into" watching TV. However, I'm probably even more interested in movies now. The best book about exactly how I see movies is this one, the only difference is that movies are sequential in the same space where comics are spatially juxtaposed, but the book is highly recommended regarding how it works.
However, I basically don't do any drugs at all any more. I probably went through a period of beyond-average experimentation, but I found there are a lot of risks for me personally. I don't particularly enjoy being actually high, so for me, it's a tool only insofar as it helps me direct my life. One major thing is that using drugs turns me into a dreamer rather than someone really living my life -- this happens in a seductive way that's hard to notice. The way that my personality is, I need to actually focus on executing on real ideas rather than coming up with more and more possibilities or being in a state of creative flux all the time. As a professional creative, I have an endless stream of possible ideas all the time even when I'm totally sober, and drugs make that overwhelming to the extent I don't (and can't) get enough done. Drugs are super time-consuming.
Yo, as a fellow aspiring mangaka, I got some tips for you:
Write for yourself, not for your audience (it's fairly obvious when you're intentionally trying to play to your audience [fanservice, super Japanese sugoi nihongo wo hanase dekiru yoooooo] and fans, especially Americans, will NOT appreciate it)
Shounen heroes can range from Ichigo (shatter fate, straightforward) to Yuuhi [Lucifer & the Biscuit Hammer] (brooding and thinking protagonist), this applies to every genre; research accordingly.
Forgive me if I am wrong, but I assume you are producing an OEL (Original English Language) manga. Don't fall into the stylistic trap, take a look at Osamu Tezuka's "Phoenix" and Hiroaki Samura's "Blade of the Immortal" to really see the artistic pioneers of the genre. Even things like word bubbles and panels can change the feel of an entire page. Don't fall into the Nick Simmons faulty thinking that manga is a specific formula.
If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics". No matter how good of an artist you are, there are certain nuances to the comic trade that need to be explored, if not the entire trade of art.
Take a look at the difference between the wildly successful Jason Chan and the sadly less employed Shaun Healey
Jason Chan is employed by everyone from Wizards of the Coast to Marvel Comics. Would I read a comic of his? Probably not. He can establish a temporary narrative (paint a sweet portrait of a single moment) but so far, seems to lack the ability to pace. A crucial element of manga.
Compare Oh! Great (Air Gear) to Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist). Holy shit is Oh! Great's art freakin' amazing. Have you seen how he renders people flying upside down and shit? This guy knows anatomy like crazy! Does his story make sense? HELL NO! He seems to make things up as goes along and abandons character development in favor of explaining his ridiculously complicated made-up physics (Air treks stopped making sense like 5 characters ago). On the other hand, Hiromu Arakawa's characters look like they've been through a steam roller, but hey, you can recognize them, they are fully developed characters, and you can understand their motivations.
Naoki Urasawa is an excellent mangaka. He created "20th Century Boys", my favorite piece of literature, and collaborated with Tezuka himself on "Pluto". They guy who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize pretty much said that Urasawa should've gotten it instead. His art? MEH! But it's a style that makes characters readily differentiable!
STYLE is important. Know what you're trying to say and SAY IT. Ichigo may look like Ikkaku, but their motivations, the stylization of their eyes, and Kubo's backgrounds create entirely unique atmospheres.
Know anatomy, start from ground zero (gesture, proportions), emphasize what you think is important and become unassailable in your knowledge.
DO SOMETHING, even if it sucks, practice, post, copy, learn. Enjoy what you do, manga is awesome.
Well, first off, stay away from Grant Morrison if you're just starting out with comics. Go with writers that have more linear story writing. Additionally, I'd recommend picking up the book Understanding Comics by McCloud. It's a really great guide that will help you uderstand the sequential art that is comic books. Here's an Amazon link to it: http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-The-Invisible-Art/dp/006097625X
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Book-Lenses/dp/0123694965
I really enjoyed this book, there's an associated flash card app that has all the lenses he talks about and cliff notes for them as well.
Game Design: A Book Of Lenses is one of the best / my personal favorite.
The Animator's Survival Kit was THE book to get as far as learning animation basics was concerned. There're lots of other books out there now, but this book is a good start. I'd also suggest checking out YouTube for more specific and/or up-to-date information. Things like this, this and this are a couple examples of a few things that I found with a cursory search.
Other than that, the best way to learn how is to do. Animate bad things, critique yourself, do it again and fix what you've critiqued, and ask people for critiques when you're having a tough time seeing things to improve upon.
The Illusion of Life
The Animator's Survival Kit
Hello!
Thanks, you are very kind and I'm pleased my colour images have inspired you to do your own. Whilst I have my own way of doing things which have just come out of practice, as a general rule of thumb, I offer the following advice:
And lastly...
Cheers!
You might find this book helpful. It's more a reference manual than a tutorial, but it provides very excellent information on color.
It's not focused on pixel art, but most of the principles can be carried into pixel art (and any other art style that makes use of color or lighting).
Theres so much you need to know to make a good piece, and I'm really only starting to get there after about 4-6 years of off and on 'serious' studying/practice. I also taught myself, used books, dvds, and online articles/tutorials.. with a little assistance from some art school friends for a short period of time.
You're really going to be accumulating a lot of books/dvds/tutorials through the years.. and they're all going to be valuable to you.
Maybe you should pick something you want to focus on.. and then move towards it by practicing everything it encompasses.
Could start with the elements and principles of design.
Composition
Value
Color Theory (Color and Light by James Gurney, Kecleon Color Theory)
Perspective
Life Drawing to understand light/values.
Figure drawing to understand the human figure. (Anatomy books, Figure Drawing For All It's Worth, Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, Force: Character Design from Life Drawing.) I love the Force books because they taught me how to SEE, INTERPRET, and EXPAND on an idea when it came to figure drawings.
The Animator's Survival Kit/Drawn to Life to understand motion, even if you don't want to be an animator.
Thegnomonworkshop.com has been an invaluable resource to me throughout the years too. (It's mostly digital stuff, but there really is no huge difference. It's all the same principles, just less preparation and knowledge about brush types/liquin. Once you understand how they work.. you're set anyway.)
And I'm constantly searching for more material to help me out. I just bought that Color and Light book because my understanding of how color works was atrocious.
I don't even know if this is going to be all the helpful.. but, uhh.. here. lol TL;DR.
I picked up a m43 camera earlier this year after using point and shoots and crappy cell phone cameras for years. It's been a learning process, but it's also been a lot of fun. Here are the things that helped me most:
Really, just use it and enjoy it. I hope Santa is good to you this year!
Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson is a great place to start. Very easy read.
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Exposure-3rd-Photographs-Camera/dp/0817439390
Pick up a copy of Understanding Exposure. The book is generally light reading. It will help you understand what each of the 3 key settings are that control exposure, and why you may want to change each of them from different situations. Any time someone expresses interest in "moving beyond the A setting" I hand them this book.
I think that his/her point was that you need to wait for the light. Shooting during the golden hour--sunrise & sunset, you get better lighting. However, I don't think that this is the core of the problem, here. To reduce contrast or make other similar edits, I would recommend trying out some good image editing software, like Photoshop Elements. I'm not familiar with iPhoto, and can't comment on that.
Bu yes, absolutely you can make great images with a cheap camera--even a pinhole camera. Your photos aren't terrible, they just aren't very refined.
Issues I see with your images are:
In the first photo, which I'll call "LAKE," the treeline is quite dark, and the sky is very bright. Also, you have two wide-open expanses, the sky and the water, with objects in the middle. Typically, you'd want to put your objects (trees, far hills,) in one third (or so,) and leave either the top or bottom relatively empty. I tried an edit on this, and it was tough to crop--I wasn't able to really balance the image, but I tried.
Check out Understanding Exposure, by Bryan Peterson.
While I don't suggest trying to fix everything in post, here are some quick edits I played with. The SHORE image, I cropped more extremely. I don't feel like I nailed it with either edit, but I gave it a go. I used Photoshop, and did a number of things. (Too many, now that I look at my edits again...)
I bought this book back and lend it to all of my friends who want to learn photography. Understanding Exposure
If you can, find a way to meet up with other "professional" photographers and see how they work. Studying poses is one thing, but actually posing a person is another.
The first couple of chapters of Mike Senior's mixing book is on room design http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807
All around a good reference book to have regardless
So this is what you learn:
-How to create an 808 Kick
-How to arrange a track
-How to create a "lush sparkling mix"
-How to use reverb
-How to create a build up
-Basic sound design
-How to use distortion and compression
NOPE. Not for $40.
For mixing: http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1427666706&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=small+studio+mixing
Sound design, arranging, etc.: http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Music-Manual-Tools-Techniques/dp/0415825644/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1427666724&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=dance+music+manual
The first book I linked to is literally the bible of mixing. It's a truly great resource. The second is a great cursory overview of music theory, sound design, and several aspects of the big electronic genres: arrangements, keys, percussion. It even tells you settings for synthesizing kicks in each genre it covers.
If you want more in detailed information, buy this book and read chapter 1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807#reader_0240815807
Lemme help you with that.
In case you're not aware, and you're willing to spend the money on a whim, there is an official GOT cookbook
Okay, I got this.
The weirdest one I own is The New Joys of Jell-O Recipe Book, printed in 1975. It includes shit like, "Jellied Gazpacho", "Molded Ham and Egg Salad", and "Salmon Dill Mouse" (with lemon Jell-O, of course).
My favorite is A Feast of Ice and Fire, the official Game of Thrones cookbook (I also have the unofficial one). My favorite recipe is the steak pie with bacon lattice.
The recipes within are nothing special, but Mary Jane's Hash Brownies, Hot Pot, and Other Marijuana Munchies is a good looking and amusing book.
Finally, I love The Picayune's Creole Cook Book. It's an unabridged reproduction of a 1901 cookbook and includes all sorts of interesting info, like how to make a proper cup of Creole coffee and a brief discussion of Louisiana rice. Some of the recipes are hard to reproduce in modern kitchens, but they're worth figuring out; the desserts are to die for.
I also have a few collections of historical European recipes for food and drink, including some that utilize ingredients now known to be poisonous.
A Feast of Ice & Fire, you mean?
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
edit: One fantasy series that has always made me hungry is A Song of Ice and Fire. The way Martin describes the food is guaranteed to make anyone's mouth water. Luckily, there's an official cookbook! There's also www.innatthecrossroads.com, which similarly has recipes from the books/series. Quoted from one of their recipes for honeyed chicken:
"Yum. The sauce reduces down to a thick, syrupy consistency, which melts ever so slightly when drizzled over the hot chicken. The raisins soak up the sauce, and become absolutely delicious little morsels. Combine a bite of the chicken, dripping with the juice from the plate, with a plump raisin, and you’re golden."
What I did when I learned how to edit was taking the raw footage I shot and spending 9+ hours in Avid, self-teaching myself how to use the program. The first thing I would do is figure out which program you would like to use and pick up some footage (or shoot your own) and figure out how the program is laid out. I personally prefer Adobe Premiere, simply because I do a lot of Photoshop/Premiere/After Effects work and they all link together without having to render/save.
Pick up some books, I recommend 'In the Blink of an Eye'. Watch some movies and pay attention to how it was cut (which, at first, is kind of hard since our art is an invisible one).
A lot of corporate stuff is pretty straightforward cutting, so if that's what you're aiming for, you should be able to pick it up fairly quickly. Although, your MacBook Air may not have enough power to handle extensive projects and you may also want to pay attention to the temperature of you Air as editing can heat up a laptop fairly fast. I would actually pick up a laptop cooling system to put underneath the laptop as I don't think the Air has good airflow.
Great book to check out is the jazz theory book. Here's an amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1883217040/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_YLNAzb4MBCS34
The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine
Let me dive in with the usual recommendation: Terefenko.
Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book is a widely known and often recommended one (one of the oldest jazz theory books), and is definitely useful if studying modal and post-modal jazz, as a supplementary text, but not recommended for studying the harmony of jazz standards.
EDIT: let me just add that I agree with the Real Book recommendations. Books on "theory" would only ever be in support of books containing actual music. :-) Music first, theory second.
rudimentary technique book, one of the standards.
another rudimentary book, another one of the standards.
first metronome i pulled up under 20$. essential.
DVD by Jojo Mayer, who has (imo) one of the best stick techniques in the business. Really great video examples of proper stick grip, and various techniques regarding rebound and bounce.
edit: me not word good. changed #4 around for redundancies.
The only thing you really need in the beginning is a practice pad like that one, this book and a pair of sticks.
If you can bear practicing like this without giving up because of the boredom that is learning the fundamentals, a second-hand e-drum kit is an inexpensive and space-saving way of getting into playing on a whole set. It also means you won't annoy your neighbors too much.
https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040
$10.79 @ Amazon. You can probably get it for $6-7 from random book resellers on Google. If you approach this book with discipline, the return for your $ will be immense.
https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040
This, these, and one of these will get you started for $53.10
Or if you want to go nuts, one of these.
I don't play double bass much so I haven't tried it, but I would imagine that stick control would work just as good with your feet as it does with your hands
Well, somebody pays for it: the actual cost of a free parking spot in an otherwise develop-able area is $5/day.
It would be obnoxious of me to expect you to read all 733 pages of The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup (https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X), so I'll instead recommend this incredibly condensed and less broad 21 page paper by the same author on the topic (http://www.uctc.net/research/papers/351.pdf).
But, if you're really really really into fairly boring & long, exhaustively researched topics, I'd highly recommend the full book :D.
You should take a skim through Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking, and give a Google to "induced demand." It becomes clearer what the operating theory is.
There's extensive, well-regarded research showing that parking requirements raise rents: http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/193236496X Professional economists overwhelmingly agree with that book's core claims: http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_3aeMp7lK74rrVFa
You can choose it ignore it, and there's no such thing as conclusive "proof", but saying the evidence isn't incredibly strong is basically sticking your head in the sand.
Does it have to be an actual class? There are plenty of resources out there for self-learning. Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson is a classic for beginners to get you familiar with principles of exposure. Lynda.com also has a bunch of classes and it's free if you have a Houston library card.
Some of these are underexposed. Notice the lack of detail in the shaded part of the rocks. Here's a book worth its weight in gold
Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure
I always recommend the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson for anyone looking to take better photos. It's basically the best book possible for learning to take great photos.
The other issue that I noticed to the blown out highlights in the cloud and the overall look of the sky as you've processed it. Sunny landscapes are tough.
Understanding Exposure
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Exposure-3rd-Photographs-Camera/dp/0817439390/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1417372569&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=understanding+exposure
Just keep in mind that the principles of photography ie exposure and all that are universal. You'll be tempted to seek out info specific to/learn about the camera, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't - but it's kind of like if you got a new Ferrari with a six speed gated shifter (yeah I know they don't make 'em any more), you wouldn't be looking for a book on how to drive a Ferrari, you'd want to learn how to, I guess, "drive" at a new level. Same here.
Yeah there are all kinds of obscure settings buried deep in the menus but understanding how aperture, ISO etc all work together is what you want to learn about. Don't worry too much about the camera's specific quirks while you're busy mastering that stuff. One of the fun things with the Fujis is that they have physical controls so you can just look at them and see what you're at, vs checking a screen.
If you're into books, check out "Understanding Exposure". Best thing out there.
My first real camera was a Pentax K1000. That brings back a lot of fond memories. I suggest you pick up a copy of Brian Peterson's Understanding Exposure to brush up on the technical bits, and Michael Freeman's The Photographer's Eye to learn a bit about composition.
I can give you a few of the most important pieces of advice, and answer the most common questions right away.
The time to throw out the kit-lens and replace it with a better standard lens, is when you understand for yourself why you need to throw out your kit lens and replace it with something better. You will eventually get to a point where it's your equipment and not your skill that's holding back the quality of your pictures. That time wont come around this year. Quite probably not next year either.
You obviously have the drive. Go here next:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241
(but remember: that's just a step, too).
http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241
Try Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and, well, practice makes perfect.
At the age of 23, with the drawing skill of the average five year old, I decided that I wanted to start learning to draw. A friend / roommate of mine had a book titled Drawing on the right side of the brain, which he swore up and down is the best text for beginners. Basically, if you go through the excersizes, you will learn to be able to draw.
I made it through the book, and I can now draw decently. I highly reccommend it.
Read "Drawing on the right side of the brain." http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241
An oldie but a god-damned goodie, The Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook. Very well written and packed with the basics of analog technology.
When I was doing audio at a church as an absolute amateur I found it to be indispensable. I keep it nearby and still refer to it from time to time.
This is the best $20 you'll ever spend on photography.
Clearly you don't understand how exposure works. If that was an actual out of camera pic, either the aperture would have had to go up (gotten smaller to compensate for the higher sensor sensitivity) or the shutter speed would have had to go up, also to compensate for higher sensitivity.
EDIT: Theoretically, to keep the exposure the same from the first shot (properly exposed at ISO 100, I have to reverse it because nobody makes an aperture bigger than f/0.95) either the aperture would have to go to f/16 or the shutter would have had to go to 1/480 sec.
EDIT 2: Look into Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson
EDIT 3: Go ahead and downvote me, doesn't make me less right.
First off, let me paste this... I keep this in a text file on my desktop for this question, when it pops up:
You're on the right track, starting with the /r/photoclass subreddit. Now for your other questions...
As far as what is and isn't relevant, given most of your work would be shown on the web, don't get all hard over megapixels. Get what you can afford, but don't let yourself be swayed into getting a camera with a huge MP count. The higher numbers of megapixels come into play when you're doing close cropping, or printing large prints.
For example, take a look at this picture. I shot this several weeks ago with my Canon 40D, which has 10 megapixels. Are there cameras with higher megapixel counts? Sure. For the type of photography I do, though, this camera suits me perfectly.
As far as why you should get a DSLR versus a point-and-shoot, the biggest reason is lens interchangeability. A DSLR will let you change your lens based on the kind of shots you're taking, which gives you much MUCH more freedom in the kind of pictures you take. Also, DSLR's generally can offer you more freedom as you grow in your photography due to more advanced features (full manual mode, the ability to shoot Raw, etc), which ultimately give you far greater control over the finished product.
So to blanket answer your question, it's not the camera that produces great photos, but the photographer. Hand Ansel Adams a point-and-shoot camera and I guarantee he'll outshoot me with my 40D. You want to get a camera that you feel comfortable with, you can afford and gives you the greatest freedom to grow as your interest grows.
Does that help? :)
If you've got your camera in full auto mode, then it'll automatically pick an aperture size, shutter speed, and ISO setting for you in order to properly expose a scene. If you're already at the widest possible aperture for your lens and the highest allowed ISO setting for your camera, then the only way to compensate is to use a slow shutter speed.
Generally speaking, anything slower than 1/60 or 1/30 of a second is going to require either really steady hands or external stabilization (e.g., a tripod). So the camera tries to help you out by popping up the flash to throw some additional light on the scene; that extra light will allow you to use a faster, more hand-holdable shutter speed and avoid camera shake.
Unfortunately, the camera only uses the detected light level to make this determination, and has no idea that those buildings are so far away that the flash isn't going to help at all. So now you've got a flash going off that does nothing, and a shutter speed that's too fast to properly expose the scene. Lose-lose situation.
So what should you do instead? Now you know you don't want the flash in this scenario, and you're probably already at the widest aperture and highest ISO. Your only option, then, is to find some way to stabilize the camera so it's not moving around while capturing the scene. If you don't have a tripod with you, then you can look for a bench or something to rest the camera on. In a pinch, you can try to rest the camera on the ground (and hopefully find something to prop it up towards the buildings) so it can stay open long enough to collect enough light to show off the buildings properly.
If you're just starting out, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Understanding Exposure. As for application of the popup flash and alternatives to it, there are literally entire books written about photographic lighting, but suffice it to say that you should almost never be using the popup. Picking up a basic hotshoe flash (and learning how to use it) can make for some astonishing pictures. I definitely surprised myself with what a simple flash bounced off the ceiling could do. :)
From all you have written I am pretty sure that your camera is alright and you personally as a photographers have to learn to see light and how your camera thinks. This is absolutely normal for any beginner mind you!
Go to /r/photoclass2013 and go through all the lessons and assignments. This will give you a solid starting point and a lot of experimentation for you to see what everything is about. Additionally invest a little bit of money in this book here - Understanding Exposure.
This is more for people starting out, but it's an outstanding technical resource -
[Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson] (http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Exposure-3rd-Photographs-Camera/dp/0817439390/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1344476953&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=understanding+exposure)
Probably the two books that helped me out the most:
Understanding Exposure
and
The Photographer's Eye
Dude thanks for the proverb but I asked for book titles. I understand that I need to take more pictures, that wasn't even remotely in question. As an athlete I don't think reading a book on rugby tackling is going to make me the perfect tackler but it'll sure as hell help with the basics and knowing what to look for.
Similarly, if I know little to nothing about exposure, composition, and the basics of photography, continuing to take bad pictures will not help me as much as if I had actually read into these concepts and covered the fundamentals as to what I should be doing/prioritizing when taking a picture.
You don't go and just solve mathematical problems. You learn HOW to solve them (or at least build up a toolbox) then you go and practice solving them and using your tools until you've mastered that process.
And yes, your photography will improve through taking pictures, but to say that it will ONLY get better through photography? That's just incorrect. Reading a manual? I'll learn how to use my gear better. Better knowledge of gear? Better pictures. Knowing how exposure works? I'll know to crank up my shutter speed and change my aperture before I just resort to setting my ISO at 6400 and taking bright enough yet terribly grainy pictures. Knowing how to frame a picture or where to place the subject? That will make my photography more pleasing to the eye.
Going and taking a bunch of pictures will not inevitably make my picture quality as great as if I actually studied photography.
You don't tell someone who makes finger paintings to just keep painting. You show them what great art looks like, and maybe even teach them the basics. You don't say "eh, maybe if you do a couple thousand paintings you'll learn how to paint a beautiful landscape."
Just leave the cookie cutter answers that everyone gives when they don't want to be helpful in your head, and actually answer a question. If you have no answer, keep it to yourself.
The pretentious, non-helpful answers in this sub need to stop. Everybody knows that they need to take more pictures to get better. Help people when they ask questions.
OP- if you're looking for books I decided to look some up:
Understanding Exposure
The Photographer's Eye
These are both seen as great introduction books for beginners. From what I've read, the first will basically help you figure out what type of lighting and exposure settings you would want to get your desired look for a given scenario, whereas the second book will help you develop your creative abilities and understanding what makes a good picture.
Those might help out your photography a teeny bit, and you won't have to take a picture!
Quasi-newbie myself with a similar rig (d5100):
LY5, eh? Well I will try. Here is what I do:
If for some reason you want to go full hardcore and don't want to use your camera's built in light meter, you can learn the Sunny 16 Rule and estimate the correct exposure settings based on the available light.
I highly recommend that you actually learn this stuff inside and out. You will soon find that you don't need a reference chart. Also, why are you shooting full manual anyway if you don't know what you are doing? Just shoot in aperture priority mode and you should be fine. 98% of my photos are taken in aperture priority mode, so I don't have to manually mess around with shutter speeds.
EDIT: I recommend Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson.
I'd say get the Canon t2i kit with the 18-135mm and a nifty fifty.
That's $970 so far, but he'll probably want a bag that can hold the camera and extra lens. Tamrac makes great bags.
So you've got a great kit with a lot of range and a sharp prime that rocks at low light.
Additional recommended purchases would be the book Understanding Exposure and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.
Edit: To be fair, maybe have him check out a Nikon DSLR (D5100 would be a comparable choice) along with a Canon to determine which one feels better. Both companies make great cameras of similar quality and performance—it really does come down to personal preference. And as a side note, I personally shoot a Nikon.
I don't know that much. On this subreddit every "beginner" is told to get "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. I personally don't have this book, but I have this one "Keys to Drawing" by Bert Dodson, which basicly teaches the same stuff as Betty Edwards. Both these books will help you get started and teach you to draw what you see. I prefer "Keys to Drawing and is in my opinion better because I prefer the language he uses.
Also check out ctrl+paint. The "traditional drawing" section and the "Drawing 2" is quite helpful.
I don't know how much you practice, but you should draw everyday, even if it's just a five minute scribble. I personally try to draw one hour a day (which is really little). Maybe start with 30 min a day and then go upwards from there. It's quite hard to do this, but if you manage to do it everyday for about 2 weeks it will become automatic in a way...
>My hands are fine and I can't draw at all. I'm fairly certain nearly all of one's ability to draw comes from the heart and the mind
Nah, the heart is a blood pump. Drawing is all on the right side of the brain. The reason most people find they can't draw is that the left side of the brain is constantly saying "I know how to draw! let me do it!" and then you end up with two circles for eyes and a line for a mouth because the left side of the brain is all about substituting simplified symbology for complex real world concepts.
Now, if you can just get your left brain to shut the fuck up and let the right side work, you can actually get reasonable replication of reality. Let it really work and it can come up with some really wacky shit. The reason when you ask an artist how they draw so well they are nearly always at a complete loss to explain is because the right side does the art, and the left side handles verbalization. Left side has no clue how the drawing is happening, so you end up with something nebulous like "I dunno, I just kinda draw what I see". Most skilled artists didn't have to train themselves to let their right brain draw, so they have no experience of not being able to draw. They still had to practice drawing to get good, of course.
Anyone interested in a really good book for left-brainers who want to learn to access right-brain drawing skills more easily, check out Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Note that there's apparently a revised new edition. I have the old one so I can't compare, but apparently a few people familiar with both editions think the new version over-complicates the process somewhat.
Solid advice. This was one of my favorite books that was recommended by my Drawing Fundamentals teacher when I started college.
Check Drawing with the Right Side of the Brain out if you haven't already. I was already what most people would call good at drawing when I picked it up and it made a big difference for me.
People tend to think artistic talent like drawing or music are inate abilities, but they can actually be learned if you put in the effort and time. If you're interested in draw I suggest picking up this book Drawing on the right side of the brain and a sketch pad and start learning. It turned me into a rather decent drawer (sorry no examples online), and now I'm thinking of learning the piano or cello, all it takes is time patience and work to learn.
If you're using comics as a reference, try flipping the image upside down and drawing from that. You might be surprised.
Try this book for more exercises.
I just picked up drawing on the right side of the brain and it's workbook and it seems like a good one...I've been busy looking for a job so I haven't gotten to do a ton of the exercises yet..but I like the angle it's going for.
Protip: if you google the book title and add 'pdf'...you might get it for free
There are drawing courses that try exactly to overcome that. After a lifetime of failure it took me a week to learn to draw relatively ok by following a course that took great care to disrupt schemas.
I know this is anecdotal but it's not a top level comment.
This is the book based on the course I followed.
For mixing: The Mixing Engineer's Handbook is my favourite resource for learning the mix engineer's craft. Also many people recommend Mixing With Your Mind, but I can't claim to have read it.
For tracking: The same author of the Mixing Engineer's Handbook has one on tracking which is also quite good. I learned tracking as an apprentice, so I have read very little in the way of published books on this topic, but for guitars specifically some person archived the posts of a person named Slipperman here which I've found to be a valuable resource for information and entertainment(!).
In general: Get yourself a copy of the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook, and read it cover to cover, twice. It is an absolute building block of audio engineering and probably the best single resource I can suggest for the theory and practice of audio engineering and sound reinforcement.
Live sound is such a hands on industry, I imagine it would be near impossible to base an entire degree around it. SAE Sydney do an intensive 7 week course based almost entirely around live sound. This is as good as you're going to get in actual live sound.
In my opinion the only real way to gain knowledge in this field is to get out there and do it. If after 15 years you still don't have the knowledge you need to teach, perhaps you need to figure out what you're lacking and seek it out yourself.... If it's the actual physics part, you can study acoustics at Sydney or NSW uni's . If it's the electrical side of things you can do an electrical engineering at any branch of NSW Tafe.
Otherwise just fill in the gaps yourself by reading books such as the Yamaha Live Sound Reinforcement Handbook.
As I've already stated though, it's not really a skill that can be taught in a classroom... You have to get out there and train your ears as to what sounds good in a particular environment, how to problem solve fast and efficiently under pressure, how to pick a particular frequency if it is feeding back, how all varieties of mixing console work, what the difference between a group and a VCA is, proper gain structure, how to set compression and gates effectively, how to deal with band and management politics, how to keep your cables from getting wrecked, how to repair things on the job, how to tune a PA... The list goes on and on, and honestly these are things that you can be shown, but can only truly start to master by getting out there and figuring it out for yourself.
Good luck.
The +15 to -15 how much the EQ is boosting or cutting. The RTA overlay is in dBFS or dB Full Scale.
This book has a lot of information on live soubd systems https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforcement-Handbook-Gary-Davis/dp/0881889008
Grab a copy of The Sound Reinforcement Handbook. It explains how to run live sound in great detail. It was the textbook from my Sound Reinforcement class in university 18 years ago and still sits on my bookshelf today.
Read the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook
The Sound Reinforcement Handbook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0881889008/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_NBtDDbV6TBG8X
It has all the fundamentals you need to work with live sound.
You’ll do well to find someone who already knows how things work and shadow them on some gigs, preferably in different venues, indoor and out. Church sound can be a good place to start, but remember that any installed system has already been set up and configured so things go pretty easy.
If you play an instrument, get out there and play as much as you can, so you understand how it feels on stage and can relate to the musicians you’re running sound for.
Good luck!
If you are interested in more depth on this topic I highly recommend this book, widely considered to be "the bible" of running sound:
Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook (2nd edition)
The Sound Reinforcement Handbook would be pretty nice. It lays out a lot of information and you can learn all kinds of stuff.
It also provides a lot of diffusion in the high and mid ranges, which arguably is better than thick full-spectrum absorption panels. In other words, it doesn't sonically "shrink" the room. It just makes it sound "nicer".
For anyone curious about DIY treating their room, this was my Bible back when I was mixing and mastering for a living: The Sound Reinforcement Handbook https://www.amazon.com/dp/0881889008/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_21GODb6B4EGSV
Ok. That is much more manageable!
As far as dry, academic sources go, the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook covers a ton. It covers the physical aspects of making and treating a studio, along with a million other things.
For software, your best bet is just to cover the big ones (protools, logic, cubase, studio one, reaper etc.). Honestly, I wouldn't really spend much time on this besides saying that they can all pretty much do anything you need them to, and it is mainly an issue of user preference.
Pensando's Place and The Recording Revolution have been great sources for me as far as actual production techniques. There are some lectures on youtube by Steve Albini that are pretty awesome, too. Really- recording and producing goes from a science to an art at a certain point, so your paper will likely have two sides to it: the stuff everyone 'agrees' on, and the stuff where an engineer breaks with the conventional wisdom to do something their own way.
Not to belabor the point, but sound engineering is about as broad a term as 'painting' is, and you will find people who do it have as much or as little in common with each other as painters do.
As long as you approach it as a combination of art and science, you should be able to do a decent job. Just look up some lectures by reputable engineers, compare & contrast.
Per rule 1, please do not post links to pirated content.
You may link to an Amazon page where a user can buy that book like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforcement-Handbook-Gary-Davis/dp/0881889008
If you are looking to do sound I would definitely pick up a copy of Yamaha's Sound Reinforcement Handbook. It is a super helpful book for giving you a basic knowledge of systems, how they work and how to make them work for you. It is somewhat out of date but is still super useful. The Audio Dictionary is also a very helpful resource.
Also make sure to get a very good knowledge of power and electrical theory. I'm always amazed at how lost a lot of audio engineers/sound designers seem to be when it comes to power. It is an extremely important part of what we have to do.
Step 1. LOOK at the art.
It sounds like you're doing this, that's great! The artist probably spent 2–10 hours on that one page, I'm sure they'd like it if people did more than glance at it. You might find it useful if you pay attention to these things in particular: shapes, how lighting works (the shadows, shading, and highlights), line width, composition and layout, foreground/background and perspective, anatomy and proportions (which can be unrealistic and still look good), textures and effects.
Take a look at through the Escher Girls tumblr if you want to see what inaccurate anatomy can do to otherwise skilled artwork.
Step 2. Learn about what goes into artwork. For comics, manga, and other sequential art in particular, I HIGHLY recommend reading Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. It is not a how-to-draw book. It's also well worth your time, and odds are good you can find it at your local library if you live in an native English-speaking country. The sequel, Making Comics, is also really good.
Step 3. Keep looking at the art for multiple series, over time eventually you'll start to notice what works and what doesn't, when rules are broken to good effect and when they really should've listened.
This is called critical theory. Try https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/006097625X
On typography:
On grids:
On colour:
On usability:
On information design:
On inspiration:
On theory:
On history:
Monographs:
Do you read comics? If not, head down to the library and check out a variety of them. Graphic novels and TPB's will vary in length, some shorter ones are fewer than 50 pages. Some longer ones are over 1000.
Browse Kickstarter. I'm not a huge fan of most of the campaigns on there, but a lot of them get funded, you can see from those campaigns what it takes to get what you want done.
r/comicbookcollabs is a good place to look for an artist, or deviantart, or comic book forums. You MIGHT be able to work out a partial residual deal, but expect to come out of pocket for your project to the tune of around $100 per page.
If you're not familiar with scripting comics you should get your hands on some comic book scripts to see how they pace a page, a chapter, a single issue, a book, ect. You might be fine publishing your first chapter at around 20 pages, you might want to do a short graphic novel at 50+ pages.
Here's some books you should check out
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/006097625X
https://www.amazon.com/Comics-Sequential-Art-Principles-Instructional/dp/0393331261
Nice rundown. Here are some other books I would recommend OP check out:
Any of Scott McCloud's books. Making Comics is good for the technical side, Understanding Comics (the 1st of his series) is also good to break down WHY comics are important.
(One can probably skip his second book, it mostly examines webcomics and since it was printed is fairly outddated now thanks to various internet technologies advancing as it all does)
DC Comics has also published a series of "How-To" books which are good to thumb through , I personally own all of them but the Writing one-
-[DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics] (http://www.amazon.com/DC-Comics-Guide-Writing/dp/0823010279/ref=pd_sim_b_4)
-DC Comics Guide To Pencilling Comics
-DC Comics Guide To Inking Comics
-DC Comics Guide To Coloring and Lettering Comics
-DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics
Since you mentioned the line thickness/thinness- um, the inking one would probably be a good one to start with. It'll show at least American/western methods of going about things, minus anything digital because the book was written before digital was big in the process. The Digital Drawing book somewhat helps on that issue but with programs like Painter, you can pretty much emulate any traditional tool fairly easily. If you have a particular style in mind you want, post it up and perhaps I can help determine what tools were probably used to make it???
This one --> Understanding Comics
You should give her a copy of Comics and Sequential Art and Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, both by Will Eisner. Actually, it might be easier to read them yourself so you can augment your own understanding of the difference between comics and illustrated books. They're prose for the most part (as opposed to Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud), with examples interspersed. Eisner lays down all the reasons why comics, graphic novels and sequential art in all its forms has been, and should continue to be, a serious medium for the dissemination of ideas and stories.
Okay, I'll give a quick sumuppance. Comics and graphic novels rely on images and words working simultaneously to achieve a visual narrative much like a film. If you want to you can consider them the middle ground between books and movies. I suggest those books because Eisner gives a much more thorough explanation than I will. One of the fascinating points he brings up is the use of cave paintings and hieroglyphs as a means of communication (before or, even, as written language) as well as the difference between logographic languages, like Chinese, and phonographic languages, like English (and most other written languages).
Okay, I'm rambling and I'm not even sure I've cleared up what the real difference between illustrated books and comics or graphic novels is. Really, since you're in the business of safeguarding and sharing information, you should read those books, as well as Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud so you can gain a greater understanding of why you like comics and why they should be included in the information which is preserved for everyone.
edit: Gawd, I misspelled achieve.
Don't give it up just yet, and have a talk with your academic advisor and/or favorite professor. They've seen it all before, will not think worse of you (they're more likely to think better of you, actually!), and have the resources and networks to really give you a boost no matter what you choose.
Take classes in subjects you enjoy or find interesting! Your future is never set in stone. The average person goes through three complete career changes, and your major can fluctuate all over the place. Take this time to learn something new and useful and difficult, and don't read too much into your grades.
Freshman year is hardest before you find friends you feel you can really confide in. Taking cool classes will throw you in with like-minded people and potential friends.
I highly recommend Understanding Comics to anyone interested in cartooning.
Ναι αυτό εννοώ. Κρίμα.
Καταλαβαίνω ότι το comic είναι πολύ δύσκολη υπόθεση. Το πόσο δύσκολο είναι το κατάλαβα διαβάζοντας τη σειρά βιβλίων του Scott McCloud "Understanding comics: The invisible Art", "Reinventing comics" και "Making Comics". Δεν είχα ιδέα από comics ως μέσο και μου κίνησε την περιέργεια μία ομιλία (keynote address) του McCloud σε ένα συνέδριο που είχα παρευρεθεί. Awesome stuff!
You might be interested in Scott McCloud's 'Understanding Comics' (and later 'Reinventing Comics'). Possibly a little dated now, but there's a lot of useful information there.
Edit: There are many useful ways to critique non-representational and abstract work- Some of my personal favorite methodologies are Panofsky's three-tiered system, Semiotics, and formal deconstruction.
1). It's a portrait, with recognizable, yet stripped-down features in more or less the right places.
2). it either explicitly references Basquiat as /u/Felix-Is-Dreaming pointed out (and with whom I strongly agree), or it's another crown referencing kingliness - think 'the fisher king' if you want a more psychoanalytical analogy in relation to this piece.
3). Formally, the piece draws much of its strength from a secure composition and from its ability to span between representation and abstraction. It's angry splatter brushwork, dark colors, and broken down form all collude to present an identity in turmoil (or something close to that effect).
4). however, there is a careless amateur approach throughout the painting. In Scott McCloud's brilliant Understanding Comics, McCloud explains how someone who seeks to emulate only the style will only have a surface level understanding. I believe that to be the case in this piece. For example, there is no attempt at a ground on this piece whatsoever; does that mean the titanium white of the gesso sufficiently conveyed your meaning? Or is it a lack of foresight? Similarly, many of the colors are unmixed, seemingly straight out of the tube. Yet does that mean you are having a conversation with pure pigment as someone like Calder or Matisse? Or is the more likely story that you did not refine your intention for the color before application? When your characters crown hits the top of the composition yet the bottom doesn't, is that a conscious choice on your part or did you simply run out of canvas space?
you may be interested (or already looking at) some of the neo-expressionist painters, particularly from Berlin. If so, I recommend Donald Kuspit's: The New Subjectivism. Kuspit's a romantic, but acute critic and you might find some common ground with the artists within. This is to say, you have more experimenting and examination to do, of which I will leave to your own devices.
Best regards,
D
Edit: rephrased my intro for clarity. removed:
>
geez, you other people have no idea how to critique a non-representational piece, huh? You can still use panofsky's 3 tiered method, an expliticly formal approach, hegelian dialectic. Shit, there are tons of ways to approach this.I can tell no definite source for all the stuff I learned. I took art classes in school and also an art class with an artist here in town. I watched hours and hours of youtube videos.
Ironically, the channel that helped me the most in the end with vector art was Alphonso Dunn's channel which is mostly about ink drawing. But some of the things he says about basic lines and the communicative value of lines really spoke to me.
Other channels I found useful would be Proko, Draw with Jazza and if you feel very serious, News Masters Academy.
In terms of books, I dunno. I had various drawing books, anatomy books, etc pp. Very interesting and entertaining and totally changing the way I think about Comics was Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics"
edit: Most importantly: training, training, training. Keep working on it and you will improve. Don't rest on your laurels once you have the first successes, keep improving.
WOOOO! You should pick up a copy of "Understanding Comics". I'm not a great drawer, but I love making stick figure comics that tell stories.
Whatever you decide to draw, this will help your composition and choice in what to draw! I hope you enjoy it.
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/006097625X
go buy Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud right now!
It will help with all of these issues and more
His stuff on "The Big Triangle" is so clutch
I've noticed a few on my library shelves, but haven't read them all yet:
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. It's Bechdel's memoir about her father, and an excellent read. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618871713/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_zF8HzbJGXQY79
The Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti by Rick Geary. It covers a milestone legal case in 20th century US. https://www.amazon.com/Lives-Vanzetti-Treasury-Century-Murder/dp/1561639362
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. It's a text on the nature of comics, in graphic novel form. It's a classic. https://www.amazon.com/dp/006097625X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_sO8HzbDMZF7EJ
The Book of Genesis, illustrated by R. Crumb. He illustrated the entire text of this book of the bible. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393061027/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_8U8HzbZBERQNM
And here's a good list from The Atlantic Monthly: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/comic-books-as-journalism-10-masterpieces-of-graphic-nonfiction/243351/ (I've read and enjoyed a couple of these titles, so I feel safe in assuming the others are just as good)
anyone wanting to make better powerpoints just needs to read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud.
All the artistic skill that it takes to craft a well put together story in a series of panels is equally applicable to comics or powerpoint.
Understanding Comics!! amazing book, totally changed my perspective on the medium.
Sure.
Josiah Brooks has an active channel with all kinds of drawing tutorials that are very beginner friendly, so that is one that you should definitely check out.
Sycra has a really beginner-friendly channel as well, with a lot of great tutorials that you'll probably find super useful when you're starting out.
Circle Line Art School has a bunch of videos about perspective that are worth checking out.
Alphonso Dunn specializes in traditional media and shares a lot of tips that will definitely help you out as a beginner and as you move forward and begin experimenting with different techniques.
James Raiz specializes in the kind of artwork I think you're interested in and he shows you his process for constructing characters from sketch all the way to final rendering. Sometimes it might be a bit advanced, but it will give you an idea of the type of process you're looking at.
Ahmed Aldoori has a slightly more advanced channel that is mostly centered around digital art, but includes a lot of short videos with decent tips that could help direct you in your studies.
Joe Cornelius is a painter who is very knowledgeable about colour theory, and so when you begin to use colour in your drawings he's definitely someone you should check out.
Feng Zhu is a master concept artist and teacher who's channel is very advanced and focused entirely on digital painting for video games and movies, and so it might not be particularly helpful for helping you learn to draw comics, but he's a wellspring of information about being a professional artist and it's a joy to watch his process.
Typically you can just type "beginner drawing tutorial" into youtube and it'll give you a ton of other options to choose from. As you move forward, you can refine your searches to learn about more specific things like technique and colour theory.
Also, you should search for comic documentaries on youtube and take some time to learn about the history of the artform and master artists like Jack Kirby and Jim Lee. If you aspire to be a professional then it would be to your benefit to have knowledge about the men that made the artform great to begin with.
Another great resource you should locate is a book called Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. This book will change the way you think about comics as an artform, and I can't recommend it enough to ANYBODY interested in them whether as an aspiring creator or simply as a fan. McCloud's other books are good too, but Understanding Comics should be on every artist's shelf.
Sott McCloud would like to give you a hand
I totally see how it could be used to break down boundaries. It's like how, if your brother becomes an A-list TV actor, he's still your brother who happens to be a celebrity. He never becomes a celebrity who happens to have been your brother for fifteen years. Sites like Reddit give us an opportunity to see everybody like a member of big, adopted family (just like the study group).
The thing is, we know our family are ordinary people we can talk to because we've seen them from all sides. To trigger that revolution, you'd need to introduce a new culture among the upper/creative class, where it's okay to be transparent about yourself. Sites like Reddit could enable that culture, but peoples' inclination to do so would need to be there, regardless, for the site to work. Before Instagram, people were already showing everybody at the table what their food looked like. Until they start physically zapping our brains, computers alone are never going to change people's behavior.
Letting your insecurities and flaws be part of your public persona, letting strangers see you as a fully fleshed out person with depth... that's a pretty terrifying thing. It involves spending several horrifying nights doing nothing but unrelentingly hitting yourself with your own big fuck-ups. Most people are afraid of showing that stuff to one other person, even when they've known and trusted them for years. Showing it to everybody, including lots of people who would have liked you if they hadn't known small parts of the worst things you've disclosed - especially in a field like mass media, where the most adoration-dependant personalities gravitate - is... not an attractive prospect.
Without that culture, our idols seem like perfect points of light and positivity, which is why people feel starstruck if one of them should stoop so low as to say something to them. Closure fills in the gaps that when they're away from us, they're doing what they do in front of us, rather than considering the idea that they're sitting on a bed with their face in their hands wondering if anything about their personality is their own.
\ I'm using "closure" in the Understanding Comics sense, which, Dan, I'm assuming you've read based on my third-hand understanding that you've read the biggest books on the structure of media you work in, and knowing that you wrote La Cosa Nostroid. For anybody who hasn't, you really should, even if you've never read comic book in your life and never intend to.
Hmmm... this is a tough one to answer. I consider myself to be one who oozes confidence, so I feel like I have the authority to answer.
First, body language is a good, simple one to fix. Always walk with shoulders back and chin up. Also, from this TED talk, I learned that you look/feel more confident when you spread yourself out while seated. This TED talk has truly left a lifelong impact on me.
As far as talking goes, always be learning and always be passionate about what you're learning. I guess that's the biggest part. When I speak, I'm very enthusiastic about what I'm talking about, and I try to tailor my conversation topic to link it somehow to what the other person is interested in or has been doing lately. And -- very important -- I make sure to keep my enthusiastic rants short and to the point, always being aware of how long I've been talking. This is all a lot easier when what your learning can be related to a lot of things, or, conversely, if you're learning about a variety of different things.
You also really need to build confidence, which I think is actually easier than it sounds. If you want confidence, you need to build self-esteem. To build self-esteem, set goals and achieve them. And these don't need to be huge, difficult goals, either. For the past few years, as a college student, I've switched majors three times, so I've never been able to really pick something to obsess over and accomplish. But I have been exploring my interests, and during this exploration I've accomplished a lot of small tasks that have made me a more learned person. Even little things: over the past few months, I've gotten really into comic books, and last night I got hooked on a couple of new series (Afterlife with Archie and Trillium if you're interested). I've been reading books and watching lectures outside of school and taking notes on them. Right now I'm taking notes on Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. None of these "accomplishments" will get me any awards, but they make me a more cultured and more interesting person. And I enjoy the experience.
Make sure you're exercising. If I go a couple days without exercising, I physically feel like crap, and my self-esteem takes a dip. Make sure you're exercising, and make sure you set goals for yourself so you can build confidence as you achieve them. I've been weightlifting since the 8th grade, and just last week I was approached at the gym by someone who wanted to recruit me onto the school's rugby club. It's little things that slowly pile up to make you confident.
Lastly -- and this is more along the lines of your question -- teach yourself to be aware of other peoples' social cues. You can only really learn this through experience and/or by deliberately paying attention, but it's something that's INCREDIBLY important. If you notice that the person is "zoning out" while you're talking or that they're barely acknowledging you while you speak, stop talking to them and ask them a question. Most people enjoy talking about themselves, so it's a good thing for people to associate their joy of talking about themselves with the time they spend with you. This doesn't make you a 'beta' male or an interrogator, so long as you make room for yourself to contribute to the conversation.
And don't be a dick. Everyone hates assholes. Golden Rule and whatnot.
Firstly, I wouldn't consider my perspective of the role of art in society to be defined much by my experiences in school (esp. middle school and high school, for us Yanks)... And since I went to an art college, my perspective's further skewed here. Back in school, there wasn't much discussion about the role of Art. It simply was, and you took from it what you needed. No one ever tried to tell me art was meaningless or a waste of time, and for that I'm grateful. Art serves a million purposes. It communicates, challenges, and enriches. It can be a simple demonstration of one person's dedication or a reflection of the experiences shared by a civilization. Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" is a nice entry-level art theory/critique book. Worth a looksee.
If you wish to learn more about comics, I cannot recommend Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art enough.
As for art style... eh, it comes in all shapes and sizes, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Especially when you do it just for fun and don't go for any other style than your own.
Doesn't seem like you're as interested in getting help with writing as you are in getting help with illustration.
Still, regarding writing, I strongly recommend reading Scott McCloud's two seminal books on comic books: Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics.
I learned as much about comics from reading those two books as I learned about film from reading Story, by Robert McKee.
I.e., my appreciation and understanding of both media forms increased exponentially.
When you say "2D rpg" we all have a different view on what you might mean. You probably mean numbers in a single player game, but the thing is, the more detail you give, the better. Are there any items? Is the amount of items nearly infinite, do you pick some prefixes, suffixes like in Diablo? Are there classes in your game? Do they have a unique purpose, different play-style? I'll try not to focus on multiplayer, because it's highly improbable that it is in your game. And even if we know nothing about your game.. There are still a lot of useful tricks and rules about balance.
&nbsp;
Numerical relationships
Firstly, math, excel, custom tools.
Most things are numbers. The player has 5 health, is that a lot? No idea. Enemies might deal 500 damage, maybe they deal 1 damage. This leads to NUMERICAL RELATIONSHIPS. How does one stat work with others? Make diagrams showing enemy damage vs player health and you'll see how many hits the player can take in a quick succession in some part of your game.
There are a lot of numerical relationships. Linear, Identity, Triangular, Polynomial, Exponential, Logarithmic. Try to figure out what works best. You can see a lot of information scanning through diagrams in the Reverse Design: Diablo 2, make sure to check out the other pages, because I just gave a link to the beginning. Also check out Ian Schreiber's GDC talk A Course About Game Balance.
&nbsp;
Expected Values
Use expected values, they are a very powerful balancing tool.
Lets say we have some kind of board game and the players pick cards from one deck of cards.
Player A picks a card:
You gain 2 gold.
Player B picks a card:
If you have at least 2 buildings, gain 3 gold. Otherwise gain 1 gold.
Oh well, Player B didn't have 2 buildings, he got only 1 gold. Did he get a worse card? Maybe yes, maybe no. How do you even treat calculate things like this? Well.. If the players played this game 100000 times in a row, how often would one card be better than the other? Or.. How often does a player have at least 2 buildings? Maybe players have 2 buildings about 70% of the time, which means that on average, in 70% cases that player gets 3 gold and in 30% cases players get 1 gold. Of course, if you pick a SPECIFIC case, you get 3 or 1, but hopefully you get the point.
Expected value of card1:
100% 2 = 2 [gold]
Expected value of vard2:
70% 3 + 30% 1 = 2.4 [gold]*
Hey, maybe card2 isn't that bad after all? It actually is better than card1!
Of course there are many other relationships, maybe gold is only good at the beginning of the game and worthless later, check out how the expected value changes over time, in turn 1, turn 2, or after 10 minutes of play and so on. Maybe on your turn the chance to have 2+ buildings is 0% or only 10%, but it gets higher over time.
&nbsp;
Treating everything like numbers
Now that you know expected values, just treat everything like a number! Make sure that all players feel that the game is fair. In single player games, make sure that all characters have same power level. One way to do it is to assign a value to each attribute or ability and make sure that it adds up to the same number for all characters.
Base Value | Health | Damage | MoveSpeed
:--------|:--------:|---------:|---------:
Low | 1| 2 | 2
Medium | 3 | 3 | 3
High | 4| 5 | 4
Then look at the starting values of your classes and check if they same the same or similar total power.
Class | Health | Damage | MoveSpeed | Total
:--------|:--------:|---------:|---------:|---------:
Warrior | High (4) | Low (2) | Low (2) | 8
Archer | Medium (3) | Medium (3) | Medium (3) | 9
Mage | Low (1) | High (5) | Low (2) | 8
From these made up stats, it looks like the archer is the best character. Does playtesting support this? Maybe I got the table wrong, it needs a lot of iterations to get it right.
&nbsp;
Randomness
You might want to add some randomness (which means probability, which means expected value again). When people win, they will think they are good. When they lose, they can always blame it on bad luck. This is a very powerful feeling that works for a lot of casual players. Hearthstone might be a good example, if not a bit too extreme.
&nbsp;
Rock Paper Scissors
You can also use rock-paper-scissors mechanics. Card games have it, strategy games have it. The most common example is archers beat pikeman, pikeman beat cavalry, cavalry beats archers. Just don't make it too obvious or straightforward, just enough to prevent players from going full-on one thing. For example, look at armor and damage types in Warcraft 3, you can't just go and produce the same unit all the time.
&nbsp;
Diminishing returns
"is the decrease in the marginal (incremental) output of a production process as the amount of a single factor of production is incrementally increased, while the amounts of all other factors of production stay constant", which in RPGs it can mean that the first 100 points in strength increase your damage by 5 per point, but above 100 strength they only increase it by 3 per point. Sure, the math is usually more complex, just an example. Even Blizzard uses this in Diablo 2 and 3.
&nbsp;
Choices and dominant strategies
Giving players a lot of options is generally good, but if goals can be achieved in many ways it can lead to dominant strategies. Even if you give 5 options (you can shoot an enemy, shoot a chandelier to make it drop on enemies, sneak past them, use dialogue to avoid fights) players might pick the "best" one, even if it is boring. This is a kind of a balance problem. Make sure nothing is the best in every case, but make sure the player doesn't have to change weapons every 10 seconds in order to be efficient or to progress.
&nbsp;
Proper level of challenge
When you make it too hard, people will get frustrated.
When you make it too easy, people will get bored.
In addition to that, you will have different types of players and they will get better over time. This is one reason why you need to know your target audience, know what your average player will be and how much time are they realistically willing to play your game.
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The problem here is that the players will get better over time and you need to keep them challenged. You can have a game with waves, where the game gets harder with every wave, thus increasing difficulty all the time. This leads to a problem of boring early waves, maybe give pro players an option to skip the early parts of your game so they don't get bored and just quit the game. You can have difficulty levels and just let the player pick. It might seem I'm getting off topic here, but "too easy" and "too hard" are balance problems as well and you need to keep that "just right" level all the time.
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Sources
When I first commented I did not notice you had written a book on this topic.
In my experience people who ask for feedback after having created something are 9 time out of 10 looking for validation and/or compliments.
Sorry, no compliments or validation here. As a game designer I cannot see how your system of forms matures the game development industry. I feel this idea is severely lack in substance and applicability. The theory as a whole, is based upon definitions which are confusing, easily misinterpreted, and grossly under-explained.
There is nothing present in this system of forms that isn't already explained elsewhere but more elegantly. Jesse Schell concretely demonstrated that these things should not be categorized, in his book The Art of Game Design where he explores the differences between toys, puzzles and games.
Your new definition of a GAME as Decisions is eeriliy similar to Sid Meiyer's own more elegant definition as "games are meaningful choices".
There is nothing seminal here.
I don't want to spam since I posted a Reddit today on the topic, but our new tutorial was designed specifically for a noob. It's 3D, but the majority of info translates to 3D development.
http://www.garagegames.com/fps
If you want to be a designer, grab Jesse Schell's book ( http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694965/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1321479907&amp;sr=8-1) and make a bunch of board games and play them with your friends. You'll learn how to design more quickly if you take the tech challenges out of the equation.
I'm like you, I'm a programmer not a designer. I often times will get stuck because I feel the need to iterate on an idea over and over until it's perfect, but by that time I'm bored of it and I move on to something else. Unfortunately, there is no real way to know if a design is good until you've made something you can interact with. This is something that occurs quite frequently in the professional game design world as well. So, my solution has been to force myself to implement my initial designs so I can play it. Then, and only then, will I allow myself to iterate on the design.
Also, my base metric for a game is "Would I play this game?" If the answer is yes, then I make it. Chances are if I like it, others will as well.
Also, I would say pick up a copy of The Art of Game Design. It breaks down the different aspects of games and explains them in great detail. Some examples are the balance between skill and luck, storytelling, risk and return, etc.
Not sure about the book Dan mentioned, but The Art of Game Design is by Jesse Schell. It's technically a textbook, so it's a bit pricey, but here's the link.
The best piece of advice that I can give you is this: Figure out what you want to do, and then throw all your time at learning to be the best at that thing. I focused on programming, and that's what I'm doing now.
If you want to be a designer, read design books, study games, listen to podcasts and videos from insiders. I highly recommend Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses and Extra Credits. This is probably the hardest role of game production to get your foot in the door.
If you want to be a programmer, get a computer science degree from a four-year university. I wouldn't recommend Full Sail for this, but then again, I have no experience with them, so don't listen to me.
If you want to be a producer... yeah, I really have no idea about this one. Producers are mostly managers, people-people, who facilitate the interaction of artists, programmers, QA, and others.
Unity is good. I wish I'd spent more time playing with it. But again, your focus should be on "How do I get experience doing the thing that I want to do".
if your talking about game programming, i just got Killer Game Programming in Java from O'Reilly, it's a pretty good start.
However, if you're talking about game development, as in how to actually think of a game, i suggest The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell. Very good book IMO.
Like me, you probably expected to just jump into a making a game without much of a plan, or an actual game designed, just a bunch of vague ideas of what direction you are heading. You need to take a step back and now that you understand more on how to make things, you need to actually plan out what you hope to make by learning how to Design.
If you are also like me, where you have no clue on what it actually means to design a game, and trying to put together a clusterfuck of different ideas and hope it works, you are in for a bad time. Just because we spent our lives playing games doesn't mean we know how to design them. Also think about what design means, because it is not the same thing as someone who codes a game. Just because you can do something with code, doesn't mean you should.
You should be coding for only 1 of two reasons:
1 - you are prototyping a new idea to see if it works, or just testing/playing around with stuff
2 - you are actually trying to finish a game
If #2 is the goal, you need a game plan. What you want to accomplish needs to be written down/typed up, and you need to break out every task and estimate how long things will take. If you are still uncertain about certain ideas you have, prototype the most important ones first, knowing that it is a prototype and it should just be used as a proof of concept, being ready to throw it away if necessary. Often times, I see how unrealistic my crazy ideas are, and how long it would take me, and realize that I need to go much smaller. I'd recommend checking out this book, http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965, it is awesome and probably the most interesting thing I have ever read.
I've been trying to use some of the Lenses in Jesse Schell's "The Art of Game Design - A book of Lenses" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965)
It is a great book and is very practical, giving you a series of questions you can ask about your game to help you focus and polish it from different perspectives. I'm finding it very useful to keep me focussed on developing the fun aspects of a game and ensuring that all the elements reinforce the overall theme.
I played a few online bingo games today and also looked at some videos. My picture of how this can work is starting to get a bit clearer. I'll get some basics coded in so I have something to "feel".
Ditto on above. Also, https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforcement-Handbook-Gary-Davis/dp/0881889008
Get yourself one of these and read it like it's the ten commandments. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0881889008?pc_redir=1397818753&amp;robot_redir=1
Oldie but goodie, the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook
Basic repairs would be covered more by learning how to read circuit diagrams, and/or a basic electronics course.
Yes.
If you can't find a teacher, I recommend the Alfred All-in-One Basic Adult course. Should get you going while you find a teacher (do this).
I've been playing for six months and it's the best decision I've made in years.
Hey I'm doing the same now, been learning and practicing for about 2 months.
SCALES. Learn your scales and chords and that's what you'll be able to immediately take into making your own original music.
I've just gotten this book, which is part one of 3 and it's been very helpful for me with technique and theory.
I'm fond of the Alfred Adult All-In-One book. It emphasizes both theory and technic. When I was in the business of helping musicians find the right resources for them, this was my go-to book for players like you, who had moderate experience back in the day, but were looking to pick it back up again. It's going to start with pretty basic theory, so you might want to supplement the theory with a more theory-centric book. There's a nice accelerated version of the Theory Time series.
You're likely to find these at popular music retail chains.
I found a version for you: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~mmlau/sheetmusic/fearnotthisnight.pdf
It's not Lara's, but it sounds convincing enough (and the chords are not really difficult). Also, I highly recommend this book for beginners: Alfred's Adult All-In-One Piano. That's what I learned with and it was a foundation for branching out on my own.
I’m going to second what another poster has said. Alfred Adult all in one is where to start. There’s a guy that teaches every lesson of it on YouTube. It should take 9 months to 1.5 years to go through depending on how much you practice and how WELL you practice.
A teacher teaches you how to practice, the learning comes from you practicing.
Hi there! I'm also a beginner. I've been using Alfred's. It's a book that's used in my piano classes, and I personally think it's good~
https://www.amazon.com/Adult-All-One-Course-Lesson-Theory-Technic/dp/0882848186/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1500507658&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=alfreds+adult+all+in+one+piano+course+level+1
Alfred's All-In-One is a standard recommendation, get the spiral-bound book as it sits well on the piano.
First thing: READ THE FAQ. It covers a lot of things like how to get a good teacher, how to self-learn if needed, etc. I am going to leave this post below from before, though.
> Once again, I have to plug the FAQ's thing of at least try to get a teacher or a lesson, since the biggest challenge with self-learning is technique. That said, if you must self-learn, I would recommend getting Alfred's Adult All-in-One course and learning more into theory. The Royal Conservatory of Music has some great things, including a syllabus for piano (as well as the same syllabus for popular music) and a theory syllabus. I'll link it all below. Work through the first book until you have that material down. Also check out musictheory.net for their tutorials, as the theory can get tough very quickly. Once you have worked through those pieces, try looking at some real piano literature (e.g. Pezold: Minuet in G major) and complementing it with the scales, arpeggios, broken chords, etc. that the RCM syllabus can provide. If you are into classical music, there is a published called G. Henle Verlag that grades all of their pieces on a scale of 1 to 9 that helps a lot if needing help choosing pieces. Escalate the difficulty bit by bit. Links below!
>
> &nbsp;
>
> Alfred's All-in-One course
>
> RCM's piano syllabus
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> RCM's popular music syllabus for piano
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> RCM's music theory syllabus
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> musictheory.net
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> G. Henle Verlag
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> Some beginner/intermediate classical pieces graded by difficulty
> You're using both serif and sans serif fonts. This is very tricky to pull off as they rarely look cohesive together.
This is terrible advice. Every piece of typographic literature I’ve ever read strongly disagrees with this (like this or this). Serif fonts pair wonderfully with sans-serif fonts, but they must complement each other.
If you’re looking for quick-and-dirty examples of successful, free font pairings, check out this guide. If you’re looking for more science / rationale to expand your typographic knowledge, this article is wonderful.
Hi there. You are really asking how to be graphic designer, so there is no quick or easy answer. The first and best advice is to stop looking at "motivation" or "quote" posters. Your instincts are correct, and forgive my gross generalization, but they lack any design standards. The next step would be to look at better stuff. You can search for inspirational sites and the like in this subreddit and get excellent recommendations. A site like typo/graphic posters might not be immediately helpful, but it is the kind of work you should be looking at. While looking at good things you can also read about good things Reddit Reading List is a good place to start. You can't go wrong with Ellen Lupton's Thinking with Type or Kimberly Elam's Typographic Systems of Design.
Specifically with what your are doing now should look at typeface selection and heirarchy. Do all of the words in the quote have the same importantance, the same "weight"? Are "everybody" and "window" the most important words, and of such importance that they drown out everything else?
Hope that answers your question a little. Best of luck.
https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-2nd-revised-expanded/dp/1568989695
This is definitely a good one to start with
It seems like you're interested in UX design but not entirely sure what it entails. The role of a UX designer varies between companies and has changed over time. You can think of UX designer as someone who is skilled in interaction design, creating wireframes & protypes, user research, information architecture, etc. A bunch of skills smashed into one job title. Some skills of a UI designer includes visual design, color, layout, typography, etc.
From what I've seen, what companies are looking for these days when they say what a UX designer is that they want someone who can do both UX & UI to define, maintain, and grow a product with Product Managers. Product Managers are driven by business goals, you are driven by user goals. A Product Designer is becoming a popular term for this type of job. It's hard to find a UX job where all you do is wireframes, user research, and information architecture (as least with the big companies).
First, you need to think like a designer. Time to start reading some material. I took a class on Design Thinking at my university, and it has really helped me put into words what designers do. Link to the course materials.
You can find a bunch of lists of UX design books out there on the web. I started out by reading The Design of Everyday Things, a classic. Other books on my shelf are Design is Storytelling and Value Proposition Design. Not related to design, but during one of my internships I was given Everybody Writes and I recommend it because, well, everybody writes.
After you have a better understanding of what UX design is, start thinking about what it means for you and what you want to focus in. If you ask a bunch of designers why they do UX, you will get different answers.
From there, you need to start practicing. You can look up examples of side projects you can do as a UX designer. The most important thing here is to get critique from other people, learn from it, and iterate on it.
One common side-project is to redesign an app like Yelp. One thing I personally don't like about these projects is that they are typically "blue-sky" redesigns, or designs without constraints. This is fine to do when you're starting out, but to think like a Product Designer, you need to think about the business goals, make assumptions on why it's the way it is, and create constraints for your re-design. What's the user problem? What are the business goals? What are some ways I can solve these problems? What assumptions am I making for these designs?
Lastly, I think all UX/Product designers need to have some visual fundamentals down. Typography, layout, color, etc.--visuals are a huge part of the experience (along with copy, but thankfully I've had the chance to work with great copywriters). To get you started, Thinking with Type is a great book. I'm constantly looking at designs on Dribbble and Medium - Muzli for design inspiration. See something you like? Steal it and make it work for you.
Look at design blogs from big companies like Facebook, Google, and Airbnb. Stay up to date on what's happening like Mailchimp's redesign. Look at works from famous agencies like Collins. Watch YouTube videos from channel like The Futur.
Notice that I never mentioned any tools in this post. You won't become a UX design by learning html or js, those are for front-end devs. It may be nice for you to know, but not critical. You won't become a UX designer because you learned how to use Sketch or Adobe XD. Tools are constantly changing and are easy to learn. It's everything I mentioned above that's hard.
I will post some of my favorite books in a second for you as soon as my computer gets turned on. :)Here are a couple of my favorites from my school "Hey, I actually like these.. I'm going to purchase them!" collection.
General Graphic Design:
Graphic Design: The New Basics
This publication does a great job of showing "relationships between formal elements of two-dimensional design such as point, line, plane, scale, hierarchy, layers, and transparency." If you are looking for a general overview on a lot of subjects within graphic design I think this is a great way to upgrade your vocabulary and general knowledge about graphic design.
Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the Field
I feel like this book really can help you improve your vocabulary and general knowledge of the graphic design world offering "primary texts from the most important historical and contemporary designthinkers." It's also nice that it offers a bit of history too, analyzing the early 1900s through today.
Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop
Great. Absolutely great publication for all designers showing effective use of the grid system and how to layout your compositions. "Effective layout is essential to communication and enables the end user to not only be drawn in with an innovative design but to digest information easily."
Typography: <3
30 Essential Typefaces for a Lifetime
I loooooove this book. It gives a bit of history and usage examples of 30 amazing typefaces you should know and love.
Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, and Students
Another great typography book. This publication was one of my favorites because, at the end of the day, I'm a visual person and this book has SO many visual examples to compliment it's copy it's beautiful. "This revised edition includes ... the latest information on style sheets for print and the web, the use of ornaments and captions, lining and non-lining numerals, the use of small caps and enlarged capitals, as well as information on captions, font licensing, mixing typefaces, and hand lettering."
Typographic Systems of Design
This is a very good resource for learning, as the title states, typographic systems. It "explores eight major structural frameworks beyond the gridincluding random, radial, modular, and bilateralsystems." Overall, I feel like this book helped me to improve my positioning and creative use of type in designs.
Thanks for the reply! I can safely say I would like to focus on web/digital. I've started collecting/bookmarking resources to the principles you mentioned but is there any particular path you would recommend? I don't mind throwing down some money for a learning resource (such as Lynda) and some books. My current list of books I have in my cart:
Also, since you're a designer and developer, what is the ratio of work like for you at your current job? Do you end up doing more development or design?
I'd say the largest "mistake" I see is not knowing how to use a grid effectively before going without one. Here are a couple of books that helped me figure things out a bit regarding this:
Grid Systems In Graphic Design - Josef-Müller-Brockmann
Thinking With Type - Ellen Lupton
Both great resources for getting started.
Thinking With Type by Ellen Lupton is a fantastic little book that teaches the basic principals of typography for use in publication and print design. It's a brilliant guide and is always handy whenever I'm looking for some guidelines.
For more typography I'd also recommend Just My Type by Simon Garfield. It's an excellent collection of stories about typefaces and the history behind them.
Graphic design is everywhere and at all levels, expect to be paid accordingly. Understand too that $1000 for a logo is completely relative and doesn't by any means reflect the work that goes into it. You may have a someone who whips something together in a few minutes or have a team of designers slaving away iterating on an identity for weeks to make sure it's perfect, to make sure it becomes a household/highly recognizable piece of branding.
Now on the typography I can make a few suggestions, some of these are pretty dry and not so flashy but have very solid fundamentals in them. If you go to art school (and I highly suggest you do if you can afford it, it can be a phenomenal experience) then these are the kind of books you will be reading in the first year or two.
Typographic Systems of Design ~Kim Elam
Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type ~Kim Elam
Thinking with Type ~Ellen Lupton
Elements of Typography ~Robert Bringhurst
Hope that was helpful and I'm sure lots of other people have had very different experiences and will share their stories and opinions. It's a very diverse field.
Generally speaking, your typography needs work. If you want to get serious about design, I'd highly recommend picking up either Thinking with Type or A Type Primer
You should get Hyrule Historia. My friend gave it to me for my birthday and it's beautiful and informative. Full color, lot's of pictures, timeline, concept art.
Hyrule Historia. Great book for reasonably cheap, a real collectors item and essential to understanding Zelda timelines, previous games and lore.
Hyrule Historia Amazon Link
Other than something like Hyrule Historia?
What do I need to read to learn about the Zelda lore and all this chonological time splitting stuff?
Edit: The Hyrule Historia. Is that all I need or is there more stuff.
It's worth noting too that this is the official timeline, found in the Hyrule Historia, not a fan interpretation.
For my nostalgia fix haha
|Say something
Sure, I'll even give you an awesome GIF for free!
Find me the most amazing bed. It should be comfy and awe-inspiring.
We have the Boots and Barkley version of this dog bed. My little dog sleeps on it, even though we got it for the big one (the little dog has her own, smaller dog bed that the big one now uses. The weirdos). I know it's the best bed in the world, because she used to wake us up early whining to go outside. Now, she lays in bed until I'm up and dressed, suppressing her outstanding need to urinate in favor of laying there.
Perfect bedtime snack. What is it?
I like muffins. This is my favorite kind. They are delicious and wonderful and make the world a delightful place :)
I love classic flannel pajama sets, particularly the ones with cute pictures. What’s the best one you can find?
Owls and polka dots make a sleepy Amber a happy Amber. Now, just to find some muffins....
You are never too old for a nightlight. Find a fun one.
Ooooh, nice! I see cool night lights in Target all the time and always want to get one (ok, all of them), but I never do because we don't really need one. But I checked amazon for the best nightlight in the entire world and I found this one. Because dinosaurs. Do I really need to explain further? :)
Nobody sleeps until the baby sleeps. Can you find an item that will help baby sleep?
Have you tried reading baby a book? This one is particularly effective, I think ;)
Every night I sleep with an animal plushie I bought as a souvenir at the San Diego Zoo. Can you link a plushie version of the same animal
I'm guessing giraffe. My entire basis is that I have a giraffe stuffed animal that I recently got from the NC Zoo. My logic may not be sound, I just love giraffes :)
She used to say she could taste sleep and that it was as delicious as a BLT on fresh French bread. Thanks for the contest! This was a ton of fun. Sorry for being a bit longwinded... :)
Buy yourself a copy of this book! I own one! ;) http://www.amazon.com/Go-F-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/1617750255
It's funny, this is much different from my own interpretation of the song, which is more along the lines of Major Tom has a mental breakdown when faced with the reality of the vastness of space.
And yeah, I think this is more along the lines of a "children's book" that is actually for adults. Cf., Go the Fuck to Sleep
Go the F**k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach
First request
go the fuck to sleep
http://www.amazon.com/Go-F-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/1617750255
Yes she did. Now you need some dope ass books
Next time they keep you up, hand them this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Go-F-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/1617750255/
Although, I'm not sure why foul language would stop a book from being published.
Amazon sells Go the Fuck to Sleep by Adam Mansbach (note the back cover image: the fucks aren't censored).
How about Go The Fuck To Sleep?
Note: Obviously this list is incomplete, if anyone has suggestions please add to this. Also this list is not specifically for kevleemur, but for anyone looking to learn about movie stuffs
Online material is nice, but there are many great and more reliable resources that come in these old fashioned book things.
General
Shot by Shot
MasterShots
The Visual Story
Directing
On Screen Directing
(may be hard to find)
On Directing Film by David Manet
Cinematography/ Lighting/ Camera/ On Set Learning
The ASC Manual (some earlier editions come in one volume which is nice)
Creative Control by Michael Hofstein
The Set Lighting Technicians Handbook
Painting With Light (John Alton's book. A little outdated but still a good read).
Reflections
The Bare Bones Camera Course for Film and Video by Tom Schroeppel (very simple, a good start)
The Grip Book
The Camera Assistant's Manual
Cinematography: Theory and Practice
Producing
Creative Producing From A to Z by Myrl A Schreibman
Scheduling and Budgeting Your Film by Paula Landry
Editing
In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch (Sound designer and editor from Apocalypse Now----EXCELLENT)
Screenwriting
Story
Screenplay the Foundations of Screenwriting
ONLINE RESOURCES:
http://www.rondexter.com/
http://cinematography.net/
http://www.rogerdeakins.com/
http://www.arri.com/
http://www.mole.com/
http://www.panavision.com/home
http://www.filmtools.com/
Aside from familiarizing yourself with knowledge and technique the best you can without being involved on set, one of the best things you can do is read up and become as knowledgeable as you can with gear that you will eventually encounter, which is why I listed the last four links. Even if you do plan on going into producing or directing, it is always helpful to understand lighting and camera and why the people working with you need the things they do.
GO LEARN THINGS!
This is THE BOOK for getting into film/theory. http://www.amazon.com/Film-Art-Introduction-David-Bordwell/dp/0072484551
Cinematography: http://www.amazon.com/Cinematography-Theory-Practice-Cinematographers-Directors/dp/0240812093/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1324665695&amp;sr=8-1
Editing: http://www.amazon.com/Blink-Eye-Revised-2nd/dp/1879505622/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1324665749&amp;sr=1-1
Screenwriting: http://www.amazon.com/Tools-Screenwriting-Writers-Elements-Screenplay/dp/0312119089/ref=sr_1_22?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1324665794&amp;sr=1-22
A great book to read is In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch.
Also, just practice. Grab a movie or TV show and cut a trailer in the style of other trailers you see. Try to make a trailer for Transformers look like a Nancy Meyers movie. Or turning Pets into a Kubrick film.
Firstly, it's fantastic seeing people with an interest in editing. Editing is one of those rare things where it's both an incredible art form and a well paying job (when you get the work).
Like others have said, the three big tools you'll need to know now and going into the future are Adobe Premiere, Avid, and Final Cut Pro X (perhaps in that order). All of these tools have their own strengths and weaknesses and it's important to know all three. With that being said, editing is all about, well, editing, and not the tools you use. So I'd recommend picking up some books on editing theory. Walter Murch's In the Blink of an Eye is a nice, light read which is quite thought provoking.
But back to the software itself! Like others have said, learning Adobe Premiere first is probably wise, as you'll find it less difficult to learn since you have experience with Sony Vegas. Likewise, Premiere is becoming a real powerhouse in the industry, which is crazy because 5 years ago it was considered a bit of a joke.
The only recommendation I have is to, while you're still a student, pick up an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. As a student, you should be able to get a crazy deal.
Good luck with everything!
Fun fact, most films are edited so you blink at the same time the cut happens.
Source (In the blink of an eye): https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Eye-Perspective-Film-Editing/dp/1879505622
Estudei cinema em 2010, na época um dos livros indicados no curso era o Power Filmmaking Kit, o livro é um overview de toda produção cinematográfica, eu recomendo. Um mais recente que segue a mesma linha, e mais bem avaliado na amazon é o The Filmmaker's Handbook, porém esse eu não li.
Sobre roteiro, um dos mais indicados é o Story do Robert Mackee, o cara tem cacife em Hollywood, tem uma cena no Adaptation, onde o personagem do Nicolas Cage está com writer's block e vai numa palestra do Robert Mackee pra tentar resolver o problema, é um dos meus filmes favoritos, recomendo tanto quanto o livro. Tem também os livros do Sid Field, que também são bem influentes quanto a roteiros.
Sobre edição, In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing, do Walter Murch.
Sobre atuação e direção, da uma lida sobre o Stanislavski, que desenvolveu o Método(já ouviu falar em atores metódicos? foi daqui que saiu), Stella Adler que estudou com o Stanislavski e escreu sobre atuação/direção também.
I would say mastershots
https://www.amazon.com/Master-Shots-Vol-2nd-Techniques/dp/1615930876
Walter Murch's In a Blink of an Eye
It isn't so much a direct composition study but I certainly learned to think about shooting for a whole piece rather than just shot by shot.
https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Eye-Perspective-Film-Editing/dp/1879505622
Hit S to turn off snapping, that will let you drag your clips frame by frame.
Also, here's a place to start in regards to film editing theory:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1879505622/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_-zrZCb6SGT557
Everything by Walter Murch. Start with this one. https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Eye-Perspective-Film-Editing/dp/1879505622
Haven't got around to reading it yet, but I did order a copy of In the Blink of an Eye. It has been highly recommended to me quite a few times.
Also, here's a previous Reddit thread about editing podcasts you may want to frequent.
And another thread on editing websites to follow.
Books!
Great book to get started with cinematography: http://www.amazon.com/Cinematography-Theory-Practice-Cinematographers-Directors/dp/0240812093/ref=zg_bs_2023_6
Great book about editing: http://www.amazon.com/Blink-Eye-Perspective-Film-Editing/dp/1879505622/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1452008928&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=in+the+blink+of+an+eye
Design of Everyday Things is a really good book. Understanding how someone uses the things you build is vital in creating good products.
Are you asking how to become a better designer, or how to recognize good design?
They are different, but not separate things.
This might help, if you're after the former.
If it's the latter you're after, there's a wealth of books out there: this one among them. But really, learning to recognize good design is a long process of ingestion, regurgitation, trial and error, and experience.
Good design can mean many things. Does it look good? Is it usable? Is it actionable (Does it make you want to do something)? Does it convey a certain mood? Does it reinforce the brand? Does it speak to the target audience? Is it fast? Does it get across a certain message as fast as possible? Is it memorable?
You really have to ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish when it comes to design. What are your goals?
You might not look at something like Amazon and say, "That's great design!", but having your design as understated as possible and maximizing usability is as good design (for their purposes) as much as something like this is meant to be the opposite.
It all really comes back to: What are you trying to accomplish?
A couple of lighter reads I was glad to come across:
DMMT
https://www.amazon.com/Think-Common-Sense-Approach-Usability/dp/0789723107
The Design of Everyday Things
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654
Read these when you're feeling burned out. They are nice, real easy, feel good reads.
Regarding testing. Every function gets at least one test. Happy path always. The most common expected failures. Edge case testing when you find out you need it.
When you're really good at it, you'll be able to feed arrays of representative dummy data while your directories are being watched for changes. But first, a happy path test for every function. Start there.
Unit testing of the code.
Selenium webdriver is what I've used client side to simulate repeatable use & abuse of the final product.
Integration test are just unit tests passing when you jam everything together. A much bigger issue when you are doing a lot of Dependency Injection-- you need to check that the "handler" you are putting in actually works.
Continuous integration is helpful that your "builds" have all the unit tests and a ping to the selenium tests to run as part of the flow of a release. Just a tool to listen for you to make changes. Learn the three things separately, I've not found a good resource that chains them all together.
This probably isn't the most helpful answer, but any resources I might have used to learn the fundamentals myself are probably pretty outdated now. Honestly I'd just try to find highly rated books on Amazon that are reasonably priced. I haven't read this one for psych research methods, but looking through the table of contents, it covers a lot of what I'd expect (ethics, validity and reliability, study design and common methods) and according to the reviews it's clear, concise, and has good stats info in the appendix. I had a similar "handbook" style textbook in undergrad that I liked. For practicing stats, I'm personally more of a learn-by-doing kind of person, and there are some free courses out there like this one from Khan Academy that covers the basics fairly well.
But if you can, take courses in college as electives! Chances are you'll have a few to fill (or maybe audit some if you can't get credit), so go outside of HCDE's offerings to get some complementary skills in research or design. I usually find classrooms to be more engaging than trying to get through a textbook at home on my own, and especially for psych research methods, you'll probably have a project that gives you hands-on experience doing research with human subjects (most likely your peers). There are lots of free online courses out there as well if you aren't able to take them for credit.
You guys are making me miss school.
Getting specifically into UX self-study, in addition to a UX-specific research methods book (this is a newer version of one I read in school) I'd also go through the UX classics like Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design, Krug's Don't Make Me Think, and Casey's Set Phasers on Stun (this last one being more of a fun read than a practical one).
Non-fiction:
Fiction:
A fantastic book. Another great one is http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0465050654/ (I have the older version).
I'm reading Don Norman's book currently. Highly, highly recommended for anyone who wants to punch those one button Nespresso machines, and break the pull handles off the doors you're apparently supposed to push. Human error and crappy design go hand in hand, and I'll blame crappy design before human error.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0465050654/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=1NTCS6NR88HTCDT29XBE
Here’s a fun exercise: find a simple game you like, but don’t go farther than the SNES/Genesis generation of gaming. Play the game and study it. What makes that game special? Focus on its mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics. Write it all down too. Then take a mechanic and completely change it while also adding a brand new mechanic to the mix as well. Add your own art style and just have fun with it.
Don’t worry about it sucking, this is an exercise for your design skills. If you understand modeling and you understand coding, it seems you are just missing design. Read books on design, I can’t recommend “The Design of Everyday Things” enough. This book covers design as a whole and gets you to think about why we build things the way we do.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0465050654/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1526568855&amp;sr=8-1-spons&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&amp;keywords=the+design+of+everyday+things&amp;psc=1
Junior UX person here. Not much of a programmer myself, but it's sufficient for my needs, as I am only doing front-end design when I dabble with code. There is a multitude of ways to learn how to code, but generally speaking, I find that practicing in small repetition helps the best to retain and absorb information. When you are doing a small code example, try to rewrite differently and see how it works in each of those ways. I also recommend coming up with a small project that you can work on (design and putting a personal site live, for example), as opposed just doing the practices, that way you are presented with a real world environment that contains restrictions and possibilities.
Do you draw? It might help to learn how to draw well, which will help you illustrate designs and potentially become a fun hobby.
Some beginner level books I recommend:
Also, you might want to sign up for this course track offered by Stanford.
Lastly, learn how to meditate (or just ways to maintain inner peace in general). It will help once you enter the industry.
My Costco had these last time i was there. They were cheap. They are difficult to pour from without spilling.
There are better and worse ways to design containers
The Design of Everyday Things is definitely a classic. However, I think it's a victim of its own success - it's been so influential that I didn't find that much in it that I hadn't heard before.
You can definitely make good looking apps on your own! Keep in mind, though, that interfaces are about aesthetics AND usability. You don't need any artistic gifts or graphic design skills to create an efficient and usable interface.
I know you're looking for something Android-specific, but I'd recommend starting with The Design of Everyday Things to get a high-level idea of how you should approach design. You might also want to consider watching Sketching and Experience Design, which is a 2007 talk given by Bill Buxton that covers the process of design. He also has an excellent book on sketching UI.
I completely agree with Tootlips, design is tough for nondesigners. When making an application I often download as many apps as possible in that genre to see how other developers have built similar apps. If you are interested in learning design yourself I would recommend checking out Hack Design hack design and/or Udacity: udacity design. The Udacity course is based on a famous design book "Design for Everyday Things": Design-Everyday-Things
Also the inspiration for the cover image of a great intro book on UI design.
I recently graduated with my B.S. in psychology and will be heading to graduate school this fall to study Human Factors, also known as engineering psychology or ergonomics. Basically it's the application of psychology to the design of systems (hardware as well as software) and the environments they're deployed in. UX certainly falls under this umbrella, as the professor who will be my adviser is doing research in that area.
To answer your question, it's a yes as well as a no in my opinion. A background in psychology would be tremendously helpful in the field you're thinking of entering - knowledge about human behavior and mental processes is a pretty good thing to have when your goal is to design and improve the user experience.
As others have said, however, the minor itself won't necessarily be of any use. Employers generally won't care, and neither will any graduate schools you apply to. In other words, it's the knowledge you gained from studying the minor that will be attractive on your resume (or curriculum vitae), so be ready to explain exactly what you learned from studying psychology and how it makes you a better candidate for the position. Remember that the minor, if you choose to take it, will be little more than a footnote on your transcript in the long run.
To wrap this up, I'd like to wish you luck on this career path. UX is a really interesting subject that many people aren't even aware of. If you haven't already, check out the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Their site has some great resources for anyone who wants to learn more about the field (I used it to find grad schools to apply to). Lastly, I recommend reading Donald A. Norman's The Design of Everyday Things. It's the book that got me interested in this field in the first place, and is a really fun read.
If you have any further questions, I'll be happy to try and answer them to the best of my ability. Otherwise, good luck once again!
What a shame. Just a week ago, Nickelodeon stopped accepting pitches for animated shorts - Which they would later decide if they wanted to make it into a series. If you want you can still submit to the Nick Jr. shorts program.
There aren't as many avenues for animation sadly. I'd argue that it may even be harder than getting a live action or feature script produced. Most of the people that get to even pitch at Nick, Cartoon Network, Disney come from in-house. A lot of places don't accept unsolicited material. Or you'd have to develop some connections. Once in a while these networks may even ask for pitches. IE Nickelodeon shorts program, Cartoonstitute. Quite a few shows had been made into a series through these programs.
You can also try Amazon studios. They accept scripts/pitches/bibles, animated and live action.
If the networks fail you. Try producing it yourself. Make a webseries or put it on YouTube. Adventure time was a viral hit before it got rejected from Nick and finally getting picked up by Cartoon networks.
Everything you need to animate your own series can be done on a computer. Of course you'd need to learn how to draw and animate. I'd recommend you read The Animator's Survival Kit first. It'll get the ball rolling. Next you'll need programs to draw(Photoshop, Gimp, After effects) and you'll need to animate it (Toonboom, Flash). Yes many of these programs are very expensive, except gimp. And yes, this is gonna eat up many many hours.
If all else fails, just stick to live action work. There's dozens of contests to get your foot in the door, blacklist, writing fellowships. etc.
Definitely not too late -- I moved to Los Angeles when I was 23 to write and now I'm a professional illustrator / artist. Major change but it can be done if you're willing to put in the work!
When you say "3D," are you looking to be a modeler, a concept designer, an animator, or something else?
Drawing skills are not going to hurt you when learning 3D. Learning how to draw is not going to "mess things up" in any way. If you're a modeler or concept designer, being able to visualize forms in three dimensions is a must. If you're an animator, understanding flow and gesture is a must.
If you want to learn basic form drawing and sketching, check out Scott Robert's Gnomon DVD. It's really essential for learning basic form drawing, perspective, and line techniques (how to freehand straight lines and curves):
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/323/Basic-Perspective-Form-Drawing
Analytical figure drawing -- go through and copy all of the notes in this blog into your sketchbook. It'll take you a couple days but be well worth it:
http://analyticalfiguresp08.blogspot.com/
If your'e interested in animation, Richard Williams' "The Animator's Survival Kit" is the book.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Animators-Survival-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
As far as Wacom vs. Traditional goes, start with whatever you're comfortable with, but know that you'll have to pick up and become fluent in using a Wacom if you want to work professionally. There's a bit of a learning curve with the Wacom but the secret to all drawing is practice practice practice.
Personally, I'd recommend enrolling in a drawing class of some sort, and/or a 3D class, if they're available in your area. I find I work better with a little bit of competition around me.
Good luck!
Buy this
Then...
Practice for thousands of hours
I think part of that problem is that new animators working primarily in CG aren't being taught the motion fundamentals (weight, squash and bounce, etc) that 2D animators had to learn back in the day. This was a big reason for Richard Williams's book and other educational efforts on animation.
Animator here - couple of suggestions:
First, pick up a copy of the Animator's Survival Kit - https://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
It's basically an animator's bible. It's full of information you will definitely use during your studies and if you choose to follow this crazy artform as a career path.
Study the principles of animation starting with a bouncing ball. As you begin to understand each principle, begin to incorporate more complex things into your practice assignments. Add a tail, then add legs, then arms - before you know it you'll be animating a character.
Practice above all. reading only gets you so far. Pursue information from people more knowledgable than you. Seek out critiques and professional's thoughts on your work. Study motion, people and animals in your day to day life. Have fun and stay inspired! It's a tough road but I know many animators who are self taught. YouTube also is chalk full of tutorials and demonstrations.
Feel free to PM me or contact me here if you'd like to chat more: https://www.nick-st-clair.com/
For your walk cycles, what's really missing is the "bounce". As you walk, your body is constantly moving up and down. Just after mid-stride is the highest point the body should be at, and just after full stride should be the lowest.
Here is an image from my favorite animation book The Animator's Survival Kit which demonstrates that principle. If you don't already own that book, it is well worth the $30.
I really like your last piece, too. Definitely has some great motion to it!
The initial cost of building a garage may be cheaper, but the maintenance and opportunity cost is ungodly expensive for a parking garage. There're some really strong opinions on how bad parking is (see: High cost of free parking), but building structures that are generally really ugly, don't include any eye candy, and are single use is totally a waste of really really expensive real estate. Leave the parking garages in the suburbs and make parking so expensive that people actually take the train to the stadium.
In some places, they've decided to convert previous parking garages into usable spaces. Boston has one called the Garage and it's super cool.
http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/193236496X
Then again, during peak times Uber has pretty crazy surge pricing to balance supply and demand. Edit: People are always suprised at surge pricing, with very little sympathy as the app makes it annoyingly clear. And another example from New Year's.
Taxis being forced to have a fixed price means that can't happen, so demand outstrips supply. Some argue that it's more accessible for everyone when prices are fixed, but the flip side is that yeah, no one can get a cab at peak times, so it's not really more accessible.
I personally like the adaptable prices. Many transit systems also have peak prices so that people who aren't forced to use a service at peak time will have an incentive to offload their usage to when there is less stress on the system.
Where I lose most people is when I point out that peak pricing could do great things for parking and roads, too.
Whatever knuckleheads started this petition should read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/193236496X
Free parking is BAD. End of story.
> Sacramentans don't have a huge history of dealing with limited parking
In general, parking, especially free parking, in cities is seen as a something that is extremely harmful to the City success. So a lot of us can get pretty defensive about it because of the way that too much parking hurt Sacramento's development. UCLA Professor Donald Shoup has a good book on the idea.
Along with improving non-auto infrastructure, we will have to adapt to non-auto modes. It will take time, but will make Sacramento a much more prosperous City, and a better place to live.
Then you need the Save the Cat Crash Course.
If you've ever seen a movie that seems like it's the same beats as the last movie you saw, it's because it is. The book details a bunch of key beats every successful movie must have, and even states where they should appear and in what order.
Tv tropes doesn't exist for nothing, but Save The Cat turned it into the formula that guarantees movie success(mediocrity?)
You don't say what you want to do, so I'll assume you want to write/direct. Read Film Directing Shot by Shot. Either rent, borrow or buy a cheap camera and try out examples from the book.
Read Save the Cat! Write scripts in your spare time. Read them out loud with friends to get an idea of pacing, structure, and believability (would someone actually say that?).
I hesitate to add too much to your reading list as it really is more of a "doing" than a "reading" hobby. It's great to try to figure out FCP, but if you've never played with it it could get overwhelming fast. You can learn the basics with iMovie - again, pacing, editing for the cut, fluidity, etc.
Otherwise check out Craigslist and volunteer on any small film shoots, no matter how shitty. You'll learn a lot about what NOT to do. Invaluable! Good luck!
I like Blake Snyder's (Save the Cat) take on the logline:
> A logline is like the cover of a book; a good one makes you want to open it, right now, to find out what's inside.
(edit: formatting)
Absolutely! Start out with TV Tropes:
https://tvtropes.org/
Tropes are kind of like the Legos of building a story...I'd suggest spending a few minutes every day reading on that website, like at breakfast or something. As far as books go, the first book I would suggestion is John Truby's the anatomy of story. Read it & memorize the steps:
https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Story-Becoming-Master-Storyteller/dp/0865479933
Also read "Save the Cat":
https://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009/
Here are some sample beat sheets:
https://www.savethecat.com/beat-sheets-alpha
"Writing for Emotional Impact" is a hugely important book in my library as well:
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-emotional-impact-techniques-fascinate-ebook/dp/B004UC6E22
Just use Notepad or Word or Google Docs to write in for now. If you want to get serious about it, the only tool you really need to invest in is Final Draft, which is $250:
https://www.finaldraft.com/
Story is what drives all film & TV projects. A good story can literally make billions of dollars (Avengers: Endgame, Avatar, Titanic, Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc.). And best of all, writing is free!
There are a TON of resources available online, but I'll leave you with this article containing some writing tips from JK Rowlings:
https://www.bustle.com/articles/181377-13-writing-tips-from-jk-rowling-because-she-knows-a-thing-or-two-about-perseverance
I have two different pieces of advice but I am no professional by any means, I've only done scriptwriting properly for 3 years now and still learning a lot as I go.
Firstly, I would just say write, keep writing and as you write, you learn and develop your skills, but don't neglect the essential parts of what creates a script: Logline, outlines, character description profiles, beat sheets and so on that help hone and give your script depth.
Another is to start working on smaller-length scripts first before pursuing any feature length script and practice the different narrative structures, but this in a way contradicts what I previously said about just writing. I'm writing my first feature length this year after 3 years of short pieces and glad I took that time, but at the same time, nothing helps than to just write over and over.
One thing I would say is to definitely develop the story you want to create with the planning stages before writing (unless you have scenes in mind that you can write down, then go for it), but everyone has a different process and I take bits from everything I have mentioned here.
It's entirely up to you and what helps you at the end of the day, and if you're new to the scene I would recommend a couple of books:
Save the cat and Screenplay are both useful books for all levels and have helped me when it comes to writing. Both fairly popular books so should be easy to purchase/access depending on your region.
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Good luck with your writing journey!
Wouldn't hurt to read a few books on screenwriting to get the lay of the land.
https://www.amazon.com/Screenplay-Foundations-Screenwriting-Syd-Field/dp/0385339038
https://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=JMNPJ8QQBFVNSJHGBJ31
Decide if you want write features or television pilots.
Learn the structure of a screenplay (which is different for a feature and a television pilot)
Read scripts that are similar to what you want to write about. (i.e same genre) or any script that's highly recommended.
Some people start with a character and build a story, some people start with a story and add characters. Find what works best for you.
Dialogue will come with practice. It's going to be on the nose and full of exposition right off the bat. But it gets better as you write more. And no one every really masters it. I compare aired versions of shows to written screenplays and at least 10% of the dialogue overall is always cut.
Know what you're talking about. Want to write about cop? Read how a police organization works and how investigations work. Want to write about doctors? Know the medical terms and procedures you will be exploring. This also goes for areas of expertise such as science. For example, I am sure Vince Gilligan did some research into chemistry before writing Breaking Bad.
Source
I went to film school in los angeles, this book is bible in a lot of screenwriting classes. Those 5 pieces of "DNA" should break down into every Act, Sequence, Scene, and Beat in a good movie.
I'd just like to point out that I'm not a film maker in any way shape or form so it would be nice if somebody could verify what I'm about to say.
I've been watching a lot of videos by FilmmakerIQ.com on Vimeo and have learned a lot from them. Anyway, they have a list of recommended books that I haven't checked out yet but would like to. I'll just list them out here:
Painting With Light
Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need
The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style (Hollywood Standard: The Complete & Authoritative Guide to)
Set Lighting Technician's Handbook: Film Lighting Equipment, Practice, and Electrical Distribution
Master Shots: 100 Advanced Camera Techniques to Get an Expensive Look on Your Low-Budget Movie
Cinematography: Theory and Practice: Image Making for Cinematographers and Directors
The Camera Assistant's Manual
The Makeup Artist Handbook: Techniques for Film, Television, Photography, and Theatre
Special Makeup Effects for Stage and Screen: Making and Applying Prosthetics
Grammar of the Shot (Media Manuals)
Rebel without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player
Cinematic Storytelling: The 100 Most Powerful Film Conventions Every Filmmaker Must Know
The Five C's of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques
Check out this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1510250111&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=jazz+theory+levine
Great theory in this book, and I think it would be interesting even if you don't play.
If that's too technical then my advice would be to listen, listen, listen! Miles, Monk, Coltrane, etc didn't have these music theory classes and technical books, they listened and played to learn the craft. If you can't/don't have time to invest in learning to play then keep listening
Do you already have The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine? That starts from first principles and goes through to fluent proficiency.
How much transcribing are you doing?
Do you have the hand independence of someone like Keith Jarrett or Brad Mehldau? Are you practicing that skill?
How's your re-harmonization ability? Can you take something simple and make it more complex or take a folk tune and make it jazzy?
How's your jazz theory? Do you recognize which scales are possible with each chord beyond the simple ones? Have you worked your way through The Jazz Theory Book or Jazz Theory Resources?
Are you active in your local music scene? The best way to find a teacher is to find someone who is out there playing who really impresses you. You're not going to find players at or above your level in the yellow pages or online, it's all word of mouth.
If you have an understanding of music theory this is a great book to check out:
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040
This book changed my life
if you don't have a copy of the jazz theory book, i recommend it highly for theory and examples. the index of the book contains a list of about a thousand songs. about 300 of those are starred, with a footnote implying you better learn them or you'll be run of of new york on a rail, or something to that effect.
one thing i did that proved very useful was to make a playlist of those 300 tunes to start. i would listen to it often (i love jazz so this was definitely not a chore), and remove any song if i could hum through the entire head and name the song. after a few months i knew what all 300 sounded like, which makes it a lot easier if someone calls something random on the bandstand.
as for what to memorize and know cold:
my book 2 memorize list, made from the one's i've had to play fairly often:
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1301952085&amp;sr=1-1
I'd recommend The Jazz Piano Book or The Jazz Theory Book, both by Mark Levine. There's a ton of great stuff in both, and they'll teach you how jazz musicians conceive of how they play—not to mention give you a foundation to play pretty much any popular style that strikes your fancy.
Other books mentioned in this thread are good, but so is the Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine. Even if you're not interested in jazz, this book is useful for most styles of music, though for classical you're better off with something like Tonal Harmony
If you want to learn some basics and beyond if jazz theory I recommend The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine
The Jazz theory book is pretty good (UK Amazon link: The Jazz Theory Book https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1883217040/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_1iIPBb6419EEZ)
Otherwise the ABRSM music theory books are pretty good as well but a little boring to read...
My advice is to buy some books. There's a lot of info on the internet, but it's all spread out and often chopped up into pieces, which can make it a bitch to make sense of. If you're going to go the internet route, though, check out guitarlessons365.com (not affiliated in any way). The vast majority of the lessons are free and the music theory section is completely free, not to mention very good.
http://www.guitarlessons365.com/lessons-archive/music-theory-lessons-archive/
Regarding books, this is a great, easy to read book on music theory that won't hurt your head. I'd start either here or with guitarlessons365.
http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Music-Theory-Book-understanding/dp/1440511829
For guitar books, Fretboard Logic is a must read. Definitely buy this. It focuses on the 5 position system (CAGED). If you're interested in learning the 7 position system for the major scales and other 7 note scales, check out guitarlessons365.
http://www.amazon.com/Fretboard-Logic-SE-Reasoning-Arpeggios/dp/0962477060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1348759781&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=fretboard+logic
After that, I'd check out this as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Music-Theory-Guitarists-Everything-Wanted/dp/063406651X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1348759708&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=guitar+theory
Worth checking this out as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Fretboard-Workbook-Barrett-Tagliarino/dp/0634049011/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1348759937&amp;sr=1-3&amp;keywords=guitar+theory
Here's another important book. I'd probably buy this last, though.
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1348760257&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=jazz+theory+book+by+mark+levine
get all of your scales down. And I just mean like major/minor or Ionian/Aeolian. Just know your way up and down all of them, as well as all arpeggios. Knowing these shapes will help you to navigate charts easier. Second just start looking at charts, and don't even start playing in time with the music right away. Go through slowly and play the arpeggios (up to the seventh) of every change. Then play the song at speed and just go up and down each arpeggio. Eventually just start adding notes in between here and there and keep going like that until you are a master, and are ballin for shock calling. Seriously though, after doing that for a while start to look at things like major minor scales, and the altered scale, which are both very common in jazz (herbie hancock, wayne shorter). A good piece of literature on the subject is a book by Mark Levine called "The Jazz Theory Book" here it is on amazon for like thirty bucks, but well worth it imho. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1883217040/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_5?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;smid=A2D0XUFQTHPTMU Best of luck.
The beginning of this part of learning jazz always sucks but it will be as much fun as you make it. Don't give up. This is a genre very worth learning how to play well.
Also, get this rudiment book according to my drum teacher. It is called "Stick Control: For The Snare Drummer" and teaches you essential rudiments ($10 shipped). https://www.amazon.com/dp/1892764040 and watch rudiment videos online. I am just learning rudiments but he showed me how important they are to learn.
Stick Control is probably the best book for building up chops and, well, stick control. https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040
Practice pad, metronome, sticks and "Stick Control" by George Stone. That's where you should start.
http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764040
How about spending some time working through a book?
I have been working through both and am enjoying them! Another thing that has really helped me is transcribing drum parts and learning to play them that way. I did this with a Tool song and it was unbelievably illuminating. Really makes you think about what the drummer is doing.
PS: Nice username :P
keep it up dude! Seeing as you are a young drummer, I want to offer some advice for you to improve. You seem to lose some stick control throughout the song . I would highly recommend you work on improving your technique by going through books such as Stick Control for the Modern Drummer. You can use this as a warm up and play like 4 lines perfectly multiple times or something similar. This book is only a suggestion, there are many ways to improve technique. You just have to make a conscious effort to work on it. A good mixture of practice vs playing will keep you engaged and feel great about improving at the same time.
When I was your age, I spent a lot of time focusing on different patterns and independence and didn't really work on technique until a bit later, and I can say from experience that even though I was practicing a lot, I wasn't practicing near max efficiency because I didn't make technique a priority early on. Working on your rudiments and having great technique makes basically anything easier to learn and makes it sound 1000 times better.
I hope you find this helpful. I use to teach mainly beginners and intermediate players and if you ever want some advice or guidance feel free to shoot me a pm. Keep drumming!
edit- I looked through some of your other videos. I think your stick control was a lot better in some of them. You definitely have talent and I hope you keep at it and keep improving!
Syncopation and Stick Control are books you will never grow out of and are a must have for any drummer in my opinion. You can use these exercises around the kit as well as implementing feet.
If you want something like drum set notes it very much depends on what genre you are interested in.
https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040
My advice is don't use more force than you have to and play pick closer to the bridge, there's more tension there and the resistance of strumming the string is more consistent when you start.
I personally recommend starting with pretty thin picks, but try different thicknesses to find if there is a gauge that feels better.
One of the big aspects is that you have get very good at muting strings with your left, or fretting hand when playing since you can't really mute strings while holding a pick.
For dexterity take some exercises from a drumming a booking like this one, but instead of alternating right and left hands alternate down strokes and upstrokes at low speeds and then slowly speed up. Then start to incorporate plucking string next to each doing down strokes on one and up strokes on the other. The best one to start with is paradidle (RLRRLRLL), or Down-Up-Down-Down-Up-Down-Up-Up. The goal when doing this type of practice is to make each stroke even and full.
http://eric.frap.net/sa/bible/profsound.shtml - drum tuning bible
http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764040 - classic book, endless applications
remember to stay loose and relaxed.
www.vicfirth.com has technique videos
Play through Stick Control ^you ^own ^Stick ^Control ^right?
with your feet. After you get that down try left foot-right hand or left hand-right foot while keeping a quarter (or half or etc...) pulse with the unused hand. Play with a metronome, start slow and have fun.
This book is great for better stick control http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1892764040/ref=redir_mdp_mobile
You can learn from books if you the type of person that likes to
Marching snare player here!
I would recommend learning the 40 P.A.S. Rudiments
By Matt Savages Book (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0757902251?pc_redir=1412330082&amp;robot_redir=1)
I know Matt Savage personally and he's a great guy with a lot of experience in marching percussion.
Also buy the book stick control (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1892764040?pc_redir=1413605838&amp;robot_redir=1)
Those two books should get you started with marching percussion because they lay down the basics for everything that you will end up doing.
Lawrence Stone's Stick Control & Master Studies by Joe Morello
Great books to utilize while simultaneously working your sheet music skills. Good luck
I'm a self taught drummer also, but I think the main thing to remember is you never want to stop learning new stuff. Start with the basics and move up from there. Like others said YouTube has great tuts. Every new drummer wants to play fast, but speed is nothing without control. Your job is to keep time, that's the main thing to remember, I sometimes forget that! This is probably one of the best books to help you: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1892764040/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
Here, read this book. Parking costs $$$ to provide the ~325 sq ft of space (~550 sq ft when including the driving space), especially opportunity costs (i.e. residences, businesses, etc that would actually be productive places). Mandating its inclusion and having it be of no cost to the user does soooo much to promote a cycle of automobile dependency, to the point where expecting free parking in a large city creates the very problem it was meant to solve.
There's also the 800 page (text)book by Shoup. Which is a decent read. It does get a bit repetitive after a while. https://www.amazon.ca/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
The underlying premise is that free/cheap parking is bad. It causes inefficiencies in the whole system. The article indirectly references this book.
https://www.amazon.ca/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/193236496X
this is considered mandatory reading in planning circles.
Visit them both, look for pros and cons on the schools, courses and life after school.
From experience, most (if not all) 2d animation studios in Metro Manila are quota based work, meaning you get paid for the amount of scenes or frames you do. 3D gets paid hourly, afaik. Either way, be prepared for long work hours.
I bet the Multimedia course has animation subjects on it.
If ever you want to study animation on the side, look for these two books.
https://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
https://www.amazon.com/Vilppu-Drawing-Manual-Glenn/dp/1892053039
Mahal, alam ko, pero may paraan naman. I have it on my hard drive (wink, wink).
Animation is very very deep, but incredibly rewarding.
For characters, Richard Williams animators survival kit
https://www.amazon.ca/Animators-Survival-Kit-Principles-Formulas/dp/0571202284
It is an industry standard. It has tons of great information and people all levels refer to it constantly. There are tons of great youtube tutorials but I can't grab any from mobile ATM.
A search on YouTube for the "12 principles of animation" may be a good jumping off point. If I remember I'll try and find you something tomorrow.
Really good animation is going to take alot of time and a lot of determination, not only to learn but to just simple execute. If you can draw well and you have good fundementals in drawing you'll probably have a bit of a head start but it's still going to be alot work. Don't fret however because animating is both fun and rewarding once you have the skills down! Really if you're serious I highly reccommend buying The Animator's Survival Kit: .http://www.amazon.com/The-Animators-Survival-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284 Also watching these: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjX9SJKrPnPROi_Bc3LOBWaXi0uz61Bom
My advice is that if you want to animate, just go for it. Also buy Adobe CC because there is no decent alternative to Flash. (I have wasted too many days searching for one). Anyways good luck to you sir.
Animation survival kit is the best place to start for animation fundamentals: http://www.amazon.com/The-Animators-Survival-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
Go for both. Programming is lucrative in that you'll always find work. 3d animation is more in demand than 2d, but if you're game-making on your own you should be able to do it all to an extent.
Looks like a nice first pass, give the body some weight and move it up and down and then you can start adding some secondary motion (small belly bounce, head bob, etc)
I highly recommend this book if you're getting into animation. http://www.amazon.com/The-Animators-Survival-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
Hi Alymae! I'm a fellow furry who just so happens to be graduation from an art school for animation! My work isn't fantastic, and I'm more 3D based (just for my own personal interest) but I can already tell you your well on your way to being a good animator! If you would like a really good guide to animation that will cover everything you need to know as a beginner, but isn't too technical, I highly recommend "The Animators Survival Kit" Amazon you can see some of my own work at youtube and Deviantart
The hardest part about animation is motivation! But If you stick with it you will discover a world of beautiful motion and life! keep it up! and feel free to contact me if you need help with anything ^.^
Yeah I was going to say the same thing. That's like the best base to start at if you ask,
Here's a link.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Animators-Survival-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
If you want to do them hand-drawn, or even if you plan on moving to computer animation, buy The Animation Survival Kit by a legend animator, Richard Williams. r/animation could maybe help you more. Good luck!
Hello!
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First of all let me state that I am an animator working at a 2D studio who is currently learning 3D animation and modeling on my own. This is gonna be a long answer. Finally: I am gonna push learning 2D first, but that does not mean, you can't do both at the same time, Also I am not saying you have to have 5-10 years of 2D experience before touching a 3D software, I am saying you should really just give it a good try for like a two to three months, before or alongside of learning 3D.
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Ok, let's get started!
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I want to reiterate what an instructor who does work as a 3D animator (but studied as a 2D animator) said. A person who is applying to a 3D animation job with 2D training and experience is much stronger than a 3D animator who has no 2D experience. I am willing to bet most 3D animators who work at Sony, Pixar, Disney BlueSky, and Dreamworks would agree. In fact most 3D animation curriculum at colleges and universities, including mine, first teach 2D animation. So do not underestimate how import learning and experiencing 2D animation is.
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That is where you should start. With 2D, because it forces you to learn and calibrate not only your own style of drawing, but style of animation as well. By the way, you style, comes naturally from experience of drawing and recognizing patterns and being inspired by other artist and life, so don't worry about that too much. It means that you have to work through step by step learning how all the 12 principles of animation (the first technical thing you should learn by the way) work together and alone to create great character animation, to create something that is awesome. Weather or not you are gonna turn this into a career is doesn't matter as well. Starting with 2D will help you no matter what.
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As far as materials and sources of knowledge;
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As I stated before, you should first learn the 12 principles of animation. A good book to start with is The Animator's Survival Guide. A good video to watch for the 12 principles would be here. As far was weather or not knowing you how to draw goes; I agree with /u/arczclan. You should learn how to draw well enough to express your opinion and intent accurately. It really depends on what you want t animate and the purpose of your animation. You will find that animation that is more story oriented, may not have has high fidelity of drawings it just depends on how confident the animator is on weather or not their message got across. That being said, knowing how to draw can only help, for that, you should always draw from life. That is how you learn how to draw really well, really fast. Draw at cafe's, buss stops, still life, animal life, go to life drawing sessions. Picture are good to draw from, real life is better though. Focus on anatomy, form and movement. Here is a YouTube channel; for free life drawing sessions, i started by doing one every day:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAZZ8kXStsAD_SJS9LWNdEQ
Proko Panko is good for learning anatomy: Proko
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Next is software/materials. Now you can go out and but animation desk, disk, pegs and paper, a bit expensive though. I would say you should invest in an electronic drawing tablet, by wacom (just cause they are industry leading). As far as software, there is Adobe Animate (requires subscription), Open Toonz (free), more can be found here
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As far 3D software. Blender is free and amazing! However if you want to work in the industry, I would recommend Autodesk Maya, cause that is what every big studio uses. It does cost per month, but I think there is a free trial and TONS of tutorials.
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Now after that you look up the 12 principles and learn how to use what ever software of you choosing, you should just... animate! The first assignment most students get is a bouncing ball (focusing on timing, volume, etc.) So you could start with that. Then go to animating a bean bag walking across the screen (focusing on using the 12 principles to give is more personality, to bring it to life) Then just think of other things you want to animate and just animate them, have fun with them. As well as keep up with your life drawings. I know you said you only have 4-5 hours per day to dedicate to this, but if you keep a sketch book with you (which I highly recommend for anyone just learning animation no matter what the medium) you can just pull it out when ever you are in public and have a free minute and do a quick life drawing, it all adds up! The point is just DO, try, fail, learn, try again, succeed.
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I hope all of this talk of 2D doesn't scare you, in a nutshell you just need to be able to draw well enough to communicate your ideas and I really believe in the idea that one should animate in 2D first at least of a little bite before moving into 3D, there is a reason every school first teaches their 3D students 2D even for 2 months. Most importantly, once you learn the basic technical information and start with some easy assignments, such as bouncing ball, and swinging tail, then you just have to GO FOR IT! Have fun and welcome to the life of an animator man!
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Hope that helps!
CGTalk is a great forum for cg and animation of all types, but it's more aimed towards professionals and becuase of that it can be pretty intimidating for beginners. It should be in your bookmarks any way!
Polycount is another great forum that specializes in game art. Unlike CGTalk it is a lot more beginner friendly and a great learning resource.
As for tutorials. In my personal experience there are a few good free ones out there, but the majority are rather lackluster. Most of the time you will have to pay for a DVD or a book. Digital Tutors' introduction DVD's are fantastic, The Gnomon Workshop is great too but geared more towards intermediate and professional users.
I'm not sure exactly what you want to learn because Computer Animation can mean a lot of things so I'm not sure what specific tutorials or resources I need to point you at. But if it's animation you want to do then The Animators Survival Kit is a book that should be in the shelf of anyone who even considers doing any form of animating.
Any advice I could give will pale in comparison to reading this:
The Animator's survival Kit
Richard Williams goes over all the big stuff, breaks it down bit by bit and it really is a fascinating read if you want to get into animating. I still go back and reference it after 5 years.
James Gurney's Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter
I think your foreground needs more depth. Your background and tree are great, but the foreground doesn't match.
This is an excellent guide on creating depth with only contrast, atmospheric fading, and light. Parts one and three are also good, but rely on objects and lines to create the illusion of depth, which you may not want to add.
There's also a really useful book called Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter, by James Gurney. I can't paint to save my life, but my understanding of how color and light work grew exponentially just from reading this. I can only imagine that it would help a real painter more. :)
No, although the further you recede, the less saturated everything is, including the shadows, but also the highlights. Atmospheric perspective indicates that they start to fade into the color of the sky...but what I meant was (and this happens to everyone starting out) you picked the colors of the sky, mountain, road, as colors that you think each of those elements are. So, grass is green, right? okay I'll pick a shade of green. The road is grey, right? Okay so pick grey for the road...when in reality light is a little more complicated than that, and a pleasant composition requires a cohesive color scheme. It means picking a different color for the road even though you think of it as 'grey' you simulate grey by choosing a less saturated green for example, or blue or whatever you have in your color palette.
This book is a wonderful reference and talks more about it if you're interested. The author made this video that explains a couple exercises you can do that will help.
From the Library I've taken out
I would suggest picking up Gurney's Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter.
Color theory is a technical subject, it can be taught, and Gurney does an excellent job of teaching it. To touch briefly on the example question you brought up, the temperature and color of your highlights and shadows (and even midtones) will depend on your lighting conditions. For example, a sunny outdoor scene will have warm highlights and cool shadows.
That amazon link has a preview, I encourage you to poke through the table of contents. I think the book does a good job of showing how to put the abstract color relationships you already know into practice.
Water in my experience is a lot trickier. Again, you've got a great start by using thinner lines on the stems to show they're behind a transparent object. Since the thickness of the stems is similar below and above the water level, you could make the line even thinner (like, super thin implied baby lines) when it's underwater. Or, you could forego linework completely and rely on colour to show the form (which I think looks super cool with watercolours).
I think using a thin line for the water surface worked well. A way to push the depth further would be to use perspective. Continue the water line around the back of the vase to show the surface of the water as a flat circle, instead of a curved 2D line - image searching 'cylinder in perspective' can show I mean. If you do this, it's best to be consistent and do the same with the vase as well, otherwise it looks kinda weird.
Another theory about line weight applies to objects in perspective - the further an object is from the viewer, the less detail the viewer sees, so the line work should be thinner as the object moves back.
You've got the right idea about using colours to show some reflection on the surface of the water. I think by using perspective to turn it into a flat plane instead of a line, it'll also make it easier for you to visualize when you try to add those reflections.
As for colouring underwater, that's... something I'm still learning myself lol
There's lots of information out there on the internet about perspective and colour theory that goes into way more depth (hah) than I can, but if you're looking for books check out Color and Light by James Gurney and Perspective Made Easy by Ernest Norling.
Color theory is such a monster. That's why I haven't really tackled it yet, because others have done it better than I ever could.
I would say this is required reading for colorists: http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719
It's a painting book, but most of it applies to both.
And if you haven't seen Sycra's YouTube videos on light, shadow, and choosing colors, go watch it... TONIGHT! It's so good.
I just updated the sidebar with that book and Sycra's video links.
I've got a new video coming on Thursday that talks a little about using gradient maps to come up with color palettes, but it's really just a short cut to get you a good starting point.
I will do a video on palettes soon. It keeps coming up. I recently added a bonus video that talks about it in my coloring course, but I can throw a little something on YouTube too.
I want to make it into a website, but I haven't done that part yet. Right now, it is just standalone, so you can only run it if you have the code.
I do digital art, watercolor and acrylic. No one knows though lol. Can't get myself to go to local clubs for that stuff.
You should read : https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719
It is a very good book for color theory.
Gurney is a great resource for beginning painters. He goes really in depth about how colours work, how to use them, how to pick a palette, etc. This book by Richard Yot takes it a step further and teaches you why colour (and light more specifically) behaves the way it does, and will help you learn to properly observe colour from real life. Those are my go to resources. They are both enjoyable reads too, not overly verbose with many clear examples.
However, all the books in the world won't help you unless you actually take the time to put it all into practice. What you need is to learn about colour, yes, but also start making some paintings where you apply some of those concepts. A simple still life is a good place to start. Once you can do that, you might look into painting outdoor landscapes for a more dynamic lighting situation. Even if your paintings suck at first, the act of observing, analyzing, and trying to conceptualize light/colour from observation will gradually build up your familiarity with colour. It's no different from drawing, really. You just have to do the thing to get better at it.
Unfortunately there's no definitive guide for that kind of stuff, and it comes to different artists in different ways. "No-outline art" encompasses an awful lot, and it's kind of hard to know where the difference begins. There's no one step-by-step tutorial that's better than any others, just a basic set of rules that, when applied by different artists, create a lot of different results!
For general painterly-looking stuff, I would recommend this book. I've found it really helpful, since I struggle with color and a painterly look in particular.
Reddit has some gems hidden in the rough as well. There are several art subreddits. Some of them are pretty dead, but they'll usually have some links in their sidebar to resources! This one's alright, and you can look around their related subs to go from sub to sub! I found this user mulling around /r/redditgetsdrawn. There's tons of speed-paint videos out there, but his are faster and looser while still coming together really nicely in the end. It's a good example of simplified painterly style, although that doesn't mean he's any less talented!
Sorry to not be more help, that's a very big question! There are resources all over, half the trouble is knowing how and where to look.
When the surface of a body of water is not still, like this, it will refract light onto objects below that will looks something like this or this. You could try appying that sort of light pattern on your sea floor, but I think it would be challenging.
The further (or deeper) light travels through water, the more it is affected by the water molecules. This scatters the light, making more ambient, or coming from all directions.
Color is also important in an underwater scene. James Gurney explains this in his book, Color and Light.
> Water selectively filters out colors of light passing through it. Red is mostly absorbed at ten feet, Orange and yellow wavelenths are gone by twenty feet, leaving a blue cast.
So, I would recommend toning down your reds, oranges, and yellows, to give it a more underwater quality.
Also, keep in mind that even blue light gets absorbed, given enough distance, making far-away objects difficult to see. You might consider fading out some of the background sharks and terrain.
I took the liberty of doing a quick paintover to show what I mean with the colors and fading.
But in terms of the light and shadow itself, I think you could still have a weak light source from above (the sun), combined with an ambient bluish light. Your illustration is quite strong as is, and I don't know if the lighting need to get super-realistic.
If you're looking a book that's about color overall, definitely look at James Gurney's Color and Light.
It is THE resource every artist should own regardless of skill. As for mixing colors and paints, I can't provide too much there, but try Jeff Miracola. He's a fantasy painter who does mostly acrylic work, but he's got a lot of tutorials and walkthroughs that may be of assistance.
Color theory and application can be difficult to master, and hopefully these resources can get you on a path to other resources that may be valuable.
I bought this book years ago, when I started to get more into landscapes and colour theory. It's a good book, with solid advice.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0740797719/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Beyond that, observation and experimentation are invaluable. Don't be afraid to try different colors on things, see how they mesh and work. Don't be afraid to repaint. Knowing what works becomes natural over time, I swear. You'll instinctively know what colors to choose to enable a specific mood and how to easily mix them.
It's also not just about colour. It's about the hue, the saturation and the value. Value = dark and light. Hue = the shade. Saturation = how 'strong' or muted that color is. How close to neutral grey it is. Like, the image on the left doesn't seem to have a strong contrast in the foreground, but it does have red (okay, it's orange but orange is only red+yellow) and green shades which are complimentary colors: so it pops. The red is warm, it's inviting. The image on the right ditches a lot of the saturation in favor of strong color values, colors are muted (except for the green) and cool , there's no warmth in this image and that fence is a sharp, dark (ominous) contrast to the misty grey/neutral-ish background. Saturation and value play as much as part as just color when it comes to mood.
But this can all be learned and really easily! Youtube is also great for this kind of stuff.
Here is the mobile version of your link
> If there is literature/links/methods that you find especially effective (particularly for a newbie with 0 experience) I would be grateful. %)
Michael Hampton is my favourite anatomy artist
All of Andrew Loomis's books are available at that link, they are completely invaluable - I particularly recommend "fun with a pencil" for newbies
learn to paint with Reilly's Papers absolutely invaluable for digital painting.
Posemaniacs is my favourite site for practicing gesture drawing and poses, the pose timer is fantastic.
James Gurney is the king of imaginative realism, follow his blog and buy his books they will serve you very well.
linesandcolours is a wonderful art blog
Most importantly - read and keep a record of artists you enjoy, don't be afraid to try out their styles and techniques and copy your favourite paintings - "mastercopying" is a legitimate technique for learning how to improve your own work - as they say "all art is theft".
And the best advice I can give you - have fun with what you do. Keep multiple projects on the go, big and small. If you aren't in the mood to do a big painting, make something shitty and hilarious in MS paint. Find someone to art-trade with (hell, I'll art trade with you anytime - I'm always looking for people to collab and share with). Don't be scared to make absolute crap because being loose and free with your work at any level of complexity teaches you not be precious and will ultimately make you a more relaxed artist.
Maybe the James Gurney books, Imaginative Realism and Color and Light
Color and Light by James Gurney.
How to Draw by Scott Robertson.
Figure Drawing by Michael Hampton.
And for perspectice specifically, this $12 video series by Marshall Vandruff.
Hey, I'm a CG Lighting artist by trade, I'll let you know some good resources that have helped me.
As a lighter, your goal is things things, Setting the mood/atmosphere, Shaping (making sure you can make out forms of the scene), and Leading the eye (I feel like there is a fourth, but I can't think of it this morning lol)
Some good books to read:
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter
Light for Visual Artists (hard book to find, but worth finding a copy)
Digital Lighting and Rendering(new edition coming out soon)
Great resources to start and help train your eye, studying films is the next step. Picking apart scenes to understand how and why they lit the scene the way they did, studying photography is a great place to look as well.
Also if you can afford it, TD-U has a fantastic online course from a couple of great instructors to help you on your way of understanding CG Lighting. If you can afford the class it will be a great place to start. I took the class last year and it was an AMAZING resource, I didn't know anything beyond the technical understanding of lighting, this course really helped me understand the artistic side of lighting. The instructors are great and very helpful.
anyways, hope that helps, if you have any questions feel free to message me.
My only critique is to shoot as often as possible.
I also recommend buying this book.
Learn the basics first. It'll give you a good grounding to build on and then you can try different techniques.
Take a class if you can find one near you. Buy this book. Take lots of photos. Most importantly, enjoy yourself.
(For those in NA, Canon D1100 = Canon T3)
Honestly I don't think that the post processing is the thing to worry about. Get out in front of people, get pictures of them not of them in a group from way in the back. There are a few where you're up in folks grills, but (and I may be projecting here) don't be afraid to just go up and make a portrait of the people. Taking pictures of people is terrifying for me, so up until the last year or so my shots looked a lot like yours, groups of people from the back, obvious that the camera wasn't in their field of view or consciousness. Then I sacked up a bit and got up in their faces and started asking if I could take their picture.
You'll be amazed how easy it is to just do once you decide to do it. The camera is a great ice breaker and for a shy guy like me, having it between me and gulp humans helps a lot.
Also go and buy the book Exposure, read it, then read it some more. Then take pictures, and read it again.
And regarding free software LR and PS both have 30 day free trials to check out.
I'm on a mobile so can't give you the in-depth comment that I want to yet, but for now 2 books spring to mind. A theory of fun for game design, and, the art of game design: a book of lenses. The latter option was especially helpful for me when I found myself in your position.
edit: added links, formatting
Not Level Design but I really enjoy Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design.
Have to add another recommendation for The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell. A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster is also a very good, accessible read (and heavily illustrated, which is always nice!)
Finally, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals is good for a more exhaustive, technical look at game design theories.
For game DESIGN, I personally like A Book of Lenses and Rules of Play. I didn't get much out of Theory of Fun, and the internet seems to like Level Up! but I haven't read it.
And none of those teach you really about game DEVELOPMENT -- the process, gameplay architecture philosophies, the pipelines, the team structures, the milestones, the industry jargon. The closest I've seen to that is having a games producer de-code chapters of Rapid Development for how it relates to games, back before I joined the industry and had my trial by fire. :)
Do you know what kind/platform/genre of game you're making, and what size the team is?
This is my required reading in order of importance:
Absolute:
http://www.sirlin.net/article-archive/
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/231225/Video_Practical_Creativity__A_way_to_invent_new_kinds_of_video_games.php
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/233326/Video_Designing_your_game_to_offer_meaningful_choices.php
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U
http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/game-design/paradigm-shift.html
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design-Voices/dp/0321820274
Must read/watch:
http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/
http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/03/15/the-best-articles/
http://129.16.157.67:1337/mediawiki-1.22.0/index.php/Main_Page
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaTznQhurW5AaiYPbhEA-KA
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1449363210/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1449363210&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=atheoroffunfo-20
Good:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWqr2tH3dPshNhPjV5h1xRw
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI3GAJaOTL1BoipG41OmfyA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4JnxTxtvItQecKUc4zRhQ
http://www.gamasutra.com/category/design/
Other advice to the wiki:
Have a must read/watch section with all my absolutes.
Create a section that collects interesting discussions that has been made in this subreddit(and others). If the topic is saved by someone its probably good enough. This will also make people more motivated.
Buy this book next: The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses - http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965/
That book you have is great but a bit dry, I like it more as a reference than a book just to read. I learned from online forums mostly, picking up things from seeing other people's tutorials, techniques, sharing code and asking for help when I needed it. The internet is a neat place. If you have a chance, take a programming class. It will help a lot in understanding the basics.
Not really a tip/trick, but something that really helped me was reading Mike Senior's "Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio."
https://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807
That books does an excellent job of breaking down the process, and the purpose of different tools. Once you really know what FL's different plugins are meant for, and how to use them, making music will become much easier/faster. I really recommend reading through that book to familiarize yourself with all the powerful tools you have, I promise you that your music will improve dramatically after utilizing all the knowledge and skills presented in that book!!
Sorry if that's not necessarily what you're looking for mate, but it's something I feel will really help get you where you want to be!
This one by Mike Senior
As u/HoneyD said, you're overthinking it, imo. Not a whole lot of intricate mixing was done on most of those 90s beats. The gear they used and the vinyl sampling is what sculpted that sound.
I consider EQ, compression, and distortion to be basic level stuff. If you know the basics of those then you should be able to somewhat identify the tonal characteristics of a mix. Listen to those tracks you mentioned and try picking them apart yourself. What is the high-end like in those drums? Is it clear and 'sparkley' like modern songs? It's probably boxy (as in not much high-end past 10khz or so) and a little crunchy, which you can get from applying a low-pass filter and distortion. There's also probably not a whole lot of stereo information, so thinning the samples and drums can help to get that old school sound.
I honestly prefer Decimort2 over the S950. Sounds great, has a lot of versatility, and no hassle. You gotta remember that all of those classic machines were digital, so in theory you should easily be able to emulate them, but part of that special sound came from the inputs and outputs, most famously the SP1200 and MPC60. Read about the characteristics of the SP's output transformers and try applying what you gathered into the chain in your DAW. A lot of that dark, muddy sound comes from those outputs, and when you push them they get crunchy. A good distortion plug like Saturn, Decimator, AudioThing Vinyl Strip, Trash, etc., followed by a low-pass filter. If you have any vintage-style filters then that would help even more, as they can add some nice saturation.
If you haven't read this, I would highly suggest picking it up. It's not geared towards hip-hop, but mixing is universal and will help a ton in whatever genre you are making.
I heard this was a good book for improving your mixes. I like the author's work in Sound on Sound.
http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-small-studio-Senior/dp/0240815807
You won't have much luck finding a job, skills or not.
I always recommend [Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio by Mike Senior.] (https://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1473187120&amp;sr=8-5&amp;keywords=home+studio+book)
Vocoders and formants are kind of specific, not sure if there's a lot of books that cover those in depth. I'd probably google around for some online literature for those. Or once you understand audio fundamentals, reading a plugin's manual will give you all the info you need to know.
I learned a ton from this book. Good luck!
When you're done with YouTube there are quite a few books written in the past ten years aimed at getting people started in production as effectively as possible.
As much as I hated his eMarketing-style sleaziness, Marc Mozart's book, Your Mix Sucks, is the best “starter” manual written in the past five years.
Another amazing resource is Mike Senior (of Sound on Sound fame)'s book, Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio. This nails what audio production is like in 2018. No large format studio nonsense, no old geezers waxing about mixing Diana Ross albums in the 70s.
Wow, ALL of these replies are gold :)
I'm reading [this book]
(https://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Presents/dp/0240815807) about mixing, and it has some nifty ideas for arrangement as well. It says when you think about your mix in parts (be it verse, chorus, bridge etc. or otherwise) you might want to think about what instrument you want to be the focus of a part and make sure it shines through and any other competitive instrument makes way for the focus one, esp. if they are in the same frequency range. This seems like a "duh" idea but often times we are not that conscious in our decisions. The writer also mentions the ear can process only 3 things at a time, so it makes sense to choose our battles wisely in each part of the song :) Here's the full quote from Jack Joseph Puig in the book: "You have to consider the fact that the ear can process only three things at once. When you get to the fourth thing, the attention drops away somewhere.”
Edit: Added quote.
Mixing Secrets by Mike Senior is a pretty sweet read on everything from prepping your track for mixdown to home mastering and everything in between: http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1342531444&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=mixing+secrets
Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio
http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807
Mastering Audio
http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Audio-Science-Bob-Katz/dp/0240818962/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1425940414&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=bob+katz+mastering
I just ordered Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio yesterday from Amazon. It looks pretty damn promising.
Too many focus on plugins or hardware, and not enough learning and knowledge. Get a book or two. This one is on my wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0240815807
>Fans will agree that Game of Thrones is essentially a cookbook with an incredible story in between the recipes.
I wasn't taking any shots at his appearance! I mean he is actually really talented at writing about the joys of food and eating. It's a sensual pleasure not unlike sex, but he isn't as adept at writing about sex. Food is a huge part of all his books, so much so that a well-reviewed recipe book based on the books came out recently.
Why would you jump to the conclusion that I was smacking him for his appearance?
If you haven't already, you should check out Feast of Ice and Fire, the official cookbook approved by George R.R. Martin. I've made some pretty awesome stuff out of that book.
I love the references to relevant quotes from the books before each recipe.
Well, it did, minus the Hot Pie thing:
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
I own this, and it is delicious! :-)
Too late.
If you're looking for more adventurous GoT inspired cooking, you might want to check out the blog Inn at the Crossroads or their cookbook A Feast of Ice and Fire.
I got this book for Christmas and made a mulled wine recipe out of it. Delicious, and no one else wanted any so it was all mine!.
My sister gave me A Feast of Ice and Fire for my birthday. If only I played around a real table instead of online, I would definitely cook something from it for the group. Too bad medieval food isn't my thing, so I haven't felt the need to try anything yet. I think I have to do that soon.
If it helps, here's the UK edition, and the Hardback comes up with a search under international shipping availability.
Here's the recipe for every fucking chicken in the room, from the people who made the official Game of Thrones cookbook.
https://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
Lots of people have.
If she doesn't have it already, the Game of Thrones cookbook is really cool: https://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
There was this book list that was posted on the Google+ SCA medieval brewing boards...perhaps it can be of some help.
I also have these books: 1, 2,3, which have been some amazing and helpful resources. The feast of ice and fire book is good because it shows common medieval recipes and then their current-age counterpart.
Good lord, it sounds like you ought to be reading George R.R. Martin for his description of feasts. I seem to remember a cookbook based on it....
looks...
Oh gee. There's two.
(http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1344353796&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=a+game+of+thrones+cookbook)
And there's apparently more where that came from, for instance:
And I know I've stumbled across Harry Potter ones.....
Already been done
There is a Game of Thrones/ASOIAF cookbook that is full of stuff like that. More importantly, /u/rach11 did an unbelievable series of feasts based on it that should be chock full of ideas.
You might also be interested in The Supersizers Go/Eat. It was a great series where the hosts basically lived the life and ate the food of specific time periods, including many that would be appropriate for a fantasy game.
If you can get away with a required book, I would insist you use Theory of Fun. It's not about boardgames specifically, but more about what is fun and why games are fun. It's quite easy to read (every other page is a drawing), but it's excellent and deep. It would definitely give you a good foundation to go on and talk about games from a more educated standpoint.
"Why do you like this game?" "Ok, do you remember where the book says that's a fun thing to do?"
Or look at some critically acclaimed games and see why they fall under good design, or some popular, yet poorly designed games and why some people don't like them (Monopoly for one).
Scott Nicholson had a great video series called Boardgames With Scott that might have some useful videos. He's currently at MIT on sabbatical doing game design/teaching research (looks like maybe he just finished).
If you're looking for a book for yourself,
You'll notice a lot of them aren't specifically games, but deal with fun and play. It's important to understand those before you can talk about games. That is also a good topic. What is a game? How do you define it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game#Definitions
I personally like Chris Crawford's definition, but you get a lot of backlash from the general public for such a strict definition, as if forms of interactive entertainment are somehow inferior if they are not "games."
I'm just sort of rambling and vomiting thoughts here, but to summarize some topics I would want to go over:
Artificial intelligence could be an interesting side topic. Looking at search algorithms and how they are used to solve tic-tac-toe and how you use the EXACT same method to solve checkers or play chess and go (currently unsolved).
If you do decide to talk about a variety of games, here are some I would suggest you look at:
As you can tell, I love stuff like this. Let me know what you think about my ideas, or if you want to talk more or throw ideas back and forth, feel free.
Other sources:
Game Design by Bob Bates covers a bird's-eye view of general game theory and the process of game development from beginning to end. It's very "readable" and gives you context to help you understand how your development process can help aid your particular design paradigm that you decide upon. If I recall correctly, it also goes over a lot of the different type of design documents that are often used in the industry.
Depending on how much textbook you can stomach, Software Engineering for Game Developers by John Flynt and Omar Salem is an interesting take on the whole game design angle by delving entirely into the source code development. It follows an actual game created by the authors and the entire process used from beginning to end in designing the engine. The game itself was shitty, but the code was immaculate and the process certainly gave me a lot to mull over and cherry pick for my own projects. Be warned, however, this book is as dry as a road trip in the Sahara and twice as long.
Besides these two, I can also definitely recommend Level Up! and The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses as previously recommended elsewhere in this topic.
Our very own E-Book HERE has a lot of helpful stuff on getting started!
I'd also recommend the following:
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694965/
http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1449363210/
Got into 3D mostly because I knew a couple of people who were going to the same school for it, which pushed me to go in the same year as them instead of taking a gap year like I had originally planned.
I always planned on going into the R&D side of things, doing concept art etc. But then one day in a team project, I drew the short straw and was left to animate our characters. I fucking smashed those animations. After all that time avoiding animation- it ended up being the thing I was best at, and the thing I enjoyed the most. Finding you have a natural talent for something you enjoy is a great way to get motivation.
On a side note, if you are serious about Game design; I highly recommend This book. Its a resource I keep going back to when I run into problems. It truly covers everything.
You're very good at ASSERTING your point of view without backing anything you're saying up. Sadly, you'll have plenty of company in video games with a destructively ignorant point of view like yours. Eventually that will change as video games mature as a medium.
Your "guesses" as to my personal life are incorrect, irrelevant, and mean-spirited. Nice.
If you ever change your mind and decide to open up to the world of game design, I would recommend that you read "The Art of Game Design" by Jesse Schell for a really great introduction to the basics.
I can certainly recommend you
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses
by Jesse Schell. Also, this book has a companion app in Play Store and App Store
Make a good, 2 player, fighting game. It's as simple as that.
The thing about this is that the question isn't very useful because people have spent their entire careers trying to answer that question, it's not an easy thing to do. Questions like this are often attempts to skip over the long process of learning. Also, good is subjective.
Here's the thing about making good games/songs/paintings/etc that it really is just that, too make something good, just make something, and figure out what's good and what's bad about it, and next time maybe that will help you avoid the bad and have more good. The rule for music is don't "study" music production/theory until you've written atleast 20 songs, maybe more like 5 games, but the same logic applies. Don't focus on making something good, until you've already made something bad, and another slightly less bad, etc
Im going to talk about music because quite frankly im more confident talking about it than games. The way you learn is you just try over, and over, and over again. You learn from your mistakes, and move on. It's like how I asked my music teacher "how long it takes until I can somewhat improvise [on piano, Im new to the piano, it's new to be on the non technical part, making sound from a physical instrument instead of a computer]" and his response was "you already can improvising isn't that hard, it's good improv that is"
My first song was awful, like literally painful to hear. I kept working at it, admittingly not very consistently, and I've made progress. (https://soundcloud.com/mark-leard/october-26-song) but I have a lot to learn. Im complely lost, but one thing I've began realizing is that so is everyone else.
Also don't be afraid to be influenced by things you like, heck the term scratch is a reference to a technique used by DJ's to manipulate the sound of a already created song. The talking before rap-god is all sampled, and the funky drummer groove has been sampled thousands of times.
Also I love this book, it's worth a read ( https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Book-Lenses/dp/0123694965 )
Good luck
The only course I've taken so far was through Digipen University's project fun and it was a Programming course with only basic game design principles covered, it really focused on the programing. Link-a-dink
Being only a a Senior in highschool everything else has been personal study through Video series (Extra Credits is one of my favorite)
Lectures given at GDC, commentary on games, podcast done by studios and books(This was and is fantastic in its in depth way of looking at game design)
This year I convinced a computer teacher to let me and a friend just have a year of independent study in his class developing from the ground up our own game, so that should give a lot of learning opportunities. A line I remember from The Art of game design said it best "The first step to becoming a game designer is simple, say you are a game designer. Then, design games."
First off, I think this is the most elaborate contest I've ever participated in, so congratulations for that :P Fear cuts deeper than swords. I hope some of my items are awesome enough for some extra credit ;) Also I wasn't sure if duplicates are allowed. I will revise if necessary.
1.) Something grey and it's been on my wishlist.
2.) Rain, well not technically rain, she is a water bender :P Previously on my wishlist.
3.) Unusual, I think this is something I would use like twice a year. With ice cream or cereal.
4.) Someone else My sister and I want to start playing tabletop games. Previously on my wishlist.
5.) "Book" I took a little bit of liberty with this one because it's a graphic novel. But it's Batman, so...(Previously on my wishlist).
6.) Under a dollar.
7.) Cats There's a catbus in it, which is pretty much the best part of the movie. Previously on my wishlist.
8.) Beautiful As a Star Wars fan having the original trilogy on Blu Ray would be beautiful to me. I love high definition movies, especially ones that are aesthetically pleasing. Previously on my wishlist.
9.) Movie As a Browncoat, I would encourage anyone who has a remote interest in Sci-Fi to give this a chance. Previously on my wishlist.
10.) Zombie tool I don't think this needs explanation.
11.) (Updated) Useful for future. I have a desire to create meaningful video games. Previously on wish list.
12.) Add on I actually had this on my wishlist but removed it because add-on items are lame.
13.) Most expensive As previously stated, I want to be a game developer/designer so not only would it be fun to play with, I could create with it too. Previously on list.
14.) Bigger than breadbox Total in the box it is bigger than a breadbox. Previously on wishlist.
15.) Bigger than a golf ball It's a large book. Previously on wishlist.
16.) Smells good As a guy...I enjoy the scent of lavender.
17.) Safe for children toy I don't think this needs any introduction of why it's awesome.
18.) Back to school drawing helps keep me sane. Previously on my list.
19.) Current obsession I'm a noob to tabletop games. But have been wanting to get into it obsessively within the past month or so. And this also takes my love of A Song of Ice and Fire into the mix. Previously on list.
20.) [Amazing] (http://www.amazon.com/Sony-XBR-65X900A-65-Inch-120Hz-Ultra/dp/B00BSREQI6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1376281533&amp;sr=8-4&amp;keywords=4k+tv) I've seen one of these in person at the mall and it literally made me stop walking the resolution was so incredible. I know it's as expensive as dicks...but man...when these are affordable...
Bonus 2) Made in Oregon I would have put Tillamook Ice Cream, since it's pretty awesome...but alas not on Amazon.
Edit: Changed an item because I saw it won't count because it's a duplicate.
Graphics and OpenGL:
Engine Development: Game Engine Architecture
Game Design: The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses
I'd say it's a pretty complex set of conditions that need to be met, ranging from game DNA, the technical scope, cost of the project, and the market viability/RoI (unless you have a grant or are making an art game).
Recently, I've really gotten into Scott Rigby's work because he seems to be on to a testable idea surrounding the DNA, but I also pull from Jesse Schell and others--I just prefer Rigby because he's testing the ideas, not just arguing for them. Using his framework, I can place features into different categories before writing up actual design specs, so before the feature's nuts and bolts even exist, I know where it fits into the machine ("This aids in the competency part", "This aids in the autonomy part", etc.)
The technical scope and cost go roughly hand-in-hand after you've got the DNA and design specs going on, but you can do things in stages. Make a prototype with programmer art, the most essential features, and test it. If that does well, pull from the plan and add more based on cost. Test again, etc. Build up the team as you need. If something isn't playtesting well, figure out if its worth it to double down or scrap. And if you're scrapping something central to the DNA, then figure out if you can replace it with a functionally similar feature or scrap the game.
The market viability and RoI can be more or less important depending on the type of game. If it's something like Jason Rohrer's Gravitation, then your scope and technical cost is smaller, and you might have a grant, so there's less risk to sell. If you're making a F2P mobile game, you're at the exact opposite--business is much more at the forefront and really has to be for a financially successful game. AAA are less extreme vs. F2P, although there's high investment which certainly puts the pressure on, but the business model isn't there as much. An Indie PC, crowd-funded darling focuses much more on the developer/community relations and how the community, when treated as investors, have a voice in development, like any other investors would. So there's complex constraints there too (the public may not understand a decision at first or might disagree with you, do you explain and try to win them over or listen to the sway of the crowd?)
As you mentioned, there's also platform concerns that will change the design. A mobile phone experience is different than a tablet experience. The market's on those platforms react differently to different products. I wouldn't make a game with features that indie PC gamers would love on mobile because the market just isn't there. Likewise, I wouldn't make a console game on mobile phones, because that mistakes what people want out of mobile phone experiences over a long period of time. Other features, like VR, come with huge unknowns because we're just starting to work in that space.
Finally, I would say, "Make something you would like." and "Make something you can sleep with at night." If you want to make something like Smash, do it, but put your own spin, since you can't make Smash (unless you work at Nintendo). If you work in F2P, make something you would like to play, not just something you think will make money. And, paradoxically, realize that sometimes you aren't the consumer (AAA and mobile F2P come to mind), and in those cases, playtest and listen to the people more than your gut.
I tend to agree with u/eepoo, mainly with the inexperience part. I don't think getting a team and making a game is as simple as a white bored sesh and trying to determine common traits of your fav games. Sound like a bucket of nightmare!
If you haven't already, check out The Art Of Game Design: A Book Of Lenses. Or even download the app of the same title, which is a little trimmed version with all the bullet points.
At least get your inexperienced guys to get the app for a crash course game design.
Url for the book, posting from phone and can't figure how to hyper link.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0123694965?pc_redir=1414060587&amp;robot_redir=1
All that said, I am curious to know how the meeting does go? I may just eat my hat :-)
your low-mids to mids as well as highs are lacking. as in you need either better samples to fill out those frequency ranges or you need to eq your stuff better. along with that your sub is lacking any real presence (in terms of the kick and the bass). you can solve this by distorting/compressing/eqing your kick/bass. another problem is stereo placement -- try using the haas effect as well as panning your instruments well.
you've been producing for four years but haven't done much mixing/mastering and your track reflects that. look into buying this book and watch this video as well, i highly recommend this one.
I'm assuming this is a be-all, do-all type of room that includes tracking and mixing. I'm going to give pointers based on a "perfect world" scenario. It's up to you to make the necessary compromises.
If you're interested in where I got my information, I basically just followed any advice I could find from Ethan Winer, but a lot of it didn't make sense until I built my studio and ran some of my own calculations using this porous absorber calculator. I found it very interesting that a really thick layer of the pink insulation works way better than the dense fiberglass stuff at controlling low end for cheap. The reason people like the dense stuff so much is simply because it saves space, but it's actually pretty ineffective compared to say, 8" of pink stuff.
If you plan on mixing in this room I would highly suggest the books Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio and Home Recording Studio: Build It Like the Pros, as they both go over small, existing room treatments in great detail.
Good luck with your room.
Quick edit: Don't be tempted to put your monitors on their sides just to look cool. If they have tweeters then they should be standing upright to give the best imaging.
For a great start covering the basics of Reaper specifically, Kenny Gioia's Reaper 4 Explained series is good.
For specific questions about a detailed task you're trying to accomplish, Youtube and the Cockos forums are good. (e.g., "How do I change the tempo of a section without stretching the audio?")
For info on mixing in general, Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio is good (as others have said), but I prefer The Systematic Mixing Guide for a more straightforward, concise and practical approach.
Keep going, you'll get there! Finishing tracks requires a different set of skills, so you have to develop those too. Check out some books on mixing for info on the "final mile".
Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0240815807/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practices and Tools https://www.amazon.com/dp/0240520688/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_404wDb9DMHAWZ
http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807
Totally revolutionized my mixing
I recommend looking into some books on production. There is so much more information crammed into the better books than you will find in a week's of searching forums and youtube tutorials. For books on mixing, I say you can't go wrong with Bobby Owinski's The Mixing Engineer's Handbook or Mike Senior's Mixing Secrets for the Small Studioand for general production I recommend Rick Snoman's Dance Music Manual just be sure to get the latest edition, it includes chapters that cover everything from basic theory the popular genres (trance, dubstep, DnB, Techno, House, and Ambient/Chillout), it covers the electronics and science of acoustics, MIDI, DAW's and everything that come's along with them (instruments, effects, samplers, etc) and promoting and distributing your music. I can't say enough about this book and what a great way it was for me to see the "big picture" of what was ahead of me when I was starting out.
For recording, I'd strongly recommend the books Recording Secrets for the Small Studio and Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio by Mike Senior. They cover everything you need to know in a simple, readable format. I'd also recommend browsing the archives of Sound on Sound Magazine. It has been the leading music tech magazine since 1987 and the archives are a treasury of knowledge.
For guitar pedals, I'd recommend the YouTube channel That Pedal Show. It's a weekly series all about pedals and amps. The presenters really know their stuff - Mick is editor-in-chief at Guitarist magazine and Dan is a professional guitarist who builds pedalboards for some of the best players in the world. Their videos show off some of the best gear in the world, but they also cover really basic topics like how to power your pedals, what order to put your pedals in and how many watts your amp should be.
I highly recommend you get a copy of Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio. It's a fantastic book that carefully explains what you're trying to accomplish when you mix and how to do it.
Someone here recommended this a few weeks back and I bought it, I found it very helpful.
http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1417627197&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=secrets+of+the+home+studio
A place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfB7H4XXrYU
but it all starts with a good mix first: https://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807/
For mixing, as already mentioned: Mixing Engineer's Handbook (Bobby Owsinski), Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio (Mike Senior) and also Mixing Audio (Roey Izhaki).
For mastering: Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science (Bob Katz)
And here are some great books that are not strictly about mixing, but which are very insightful about music production in general:
I'm reading Mike Senior's Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio to figure out how to get my tracks to sound professional and a big theme is setting up the right monitoring environment and a consistent workflow. I have a habit of mixing while I compose rather than waiting to add effects later. While my friends really like my arrangements, my tracks always seem to fall victim to muddiness.
Do you have any tricks that you employ to keep a workflow organized and sounding nice while at the same time promoting the 'finish your tracks' mentality that you've already mentioned?
EDIT: Grammar...
Nice song but the audio is nowhere near release quality. You need to work a lot on mixing. I highly recommend this book.
Mike Senior from Sound on Sound wrote a book that I found really helpful. It tackles everything from how to set up a good listening environment to how to use eq, compressors, reverbs, delays, etc.
It's called "Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807
Don't really know any good "production" books, but this book on mixing is fantastic http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z. I hear very nice things about the Dance Music Manual, so thats worth checking out. You should also get a book on your DAW. Never underestimate the value of understanding what your software can do. It'll save you a lot of endless google searches when you need to get something done. :)
Get this book: Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio by Mike Senior
http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807
About the first 1/4 of that book is about monitors, how to place them in a small studio, and things you can do to control room noise. This was the most informative part of the book for me.
The author goes off on a lot of tangents but its a very good book for general production knowledge as well. It clarified a lot of things I had a rough idea of.
A good idea is to get a private teacher, someone who can listen to your mixdowns and tell you what is missing. You might learn really advanced techniques and forget them as you will never need to use them (like multiband compression). Instead, just focus on what will get your own mixdowns to the next level.
Have you read this book?
Try anything out of these cook books:
https://www.amazon.com/Unexpected-Cookbook-Unofficial-Hobbit-Cookery-ebook/dp/0990818802/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1474823426&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=hobbit+cookbook
https://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1474823982&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=game+of+thrones+cookbook
And ale.
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
It's really good. For most recipes, it has where the food was mentioned in the books, then the recipe in Old English or French or whatever, then a version of that recipe in the modern format, then finally a version with updated ingredients that better suites a modern palate.
It's incredibly well done. I mean, it isn't a full sized cookbook by any means, but it's long enough for what it is.
That must be how they created this book.
Dishes from [A Feast of Ice and Fire] (https://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492) followed by Game of Thrones.
Lemoncakes are mandatory.
I bought a book called 'A Feast of Ice and Fire'. It's based on a blog that was written by two women who attempted to recreate the recipes they read about in the books. They used some original medieval recipes to get as authentic as they possibly could.
It has a forward by GRR Martin, so he obviously approves.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Game-Thrones-Official-Companion-Cookbook/dp/0345534492/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1539710486&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=game+of+thrones+cookbook
I really enjoy the book. It has chapters on Winterfell, the Wall, Kings Landing and I think Essos IIRC.
Seems that the blog is still up so you can get an idea of the sort of thing they do.
http://www.innatthecrossroads.com/
I'm thinking of doing Cat's breakfast for breakfast and then the bacon lattice pie for tea. Haven't decided on a lunch yet.
This sounds like great fun! I recently purchased A Feast of Ice and Fire because I wanted to try some different recipes. Take a look at the table of contents for food inspiration.
I highly recommend the recipe book A Feast of Ice and Fire. George RR Martin wrote the forward to it, and each recipe begins with the passage or mention of the dish from the novels. There are some pretty interesting things in there. Here it is on Amazon
Does he like to cook?
If he enjoys Game of Thrones and cooking, how about one of the Game of Thrones cookbooks? This is the one that I see the most frequently. You could maybe pair it with a fun kitchen gadget or a nice bottle of wine. My boyfriend is a huge Star Wars fan too and I've always wanted to get him this remote controlled BB8, but it's pretty far out of my budget, haha. It could be a fun splurge item if you think he'd like it. There's also this Star Wars subscription box that came out recently. I hope this gives you some ideas!
I make a version of beef barley based on the recipe in the Game of Thrones cook book. It's fucking awesome.
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Ice-Fire-Official-Companion/dp/0345534492
I've got this official (? I think it is) cookbook amazon link. There are quite a few recipes that would be alright for keto.
Probably something from this book.
Haha no just kidding. I guess Italian kitchen is my number one, with Tiramisu as the crème de la crème. But sushi comes a close second, ha
Ninja edit: what is yours?
Haha ... You know he already for a cookbook right?
A Feast of Ice and Fire
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0345534492/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/184-8338075-7869102
I think the cookbook is really cool. There are some great recipes in here as well: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0345534492/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1450192940&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=SY200_QL40&amp;keywords=game+of+thrones+cookbook
If you're running high fantasy, get the game of thrones cook book. George R. R. Martin does the forward. It contains medieval recipes and modern dishes. I bought this for my gf and she made a bacon/fruit pie. It was great.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0345534492/ref=aw_d_dsc_books
Hey there!
UX Designer/Researcher here. I came from a background in Psychology and Neuroscience research before UX Design. Personally I used the UCSD Extension for a certificate in UX Design. I really appreciated the course work and in conjunction with the Coursera Interaction Design felt like I was given plenty of exposure while also having flexibility to work.
From my experience in the industry, I would look into what area you are interested in. UX careers can involve programming and development, but I use absolutely no coding at my current position (at others I have though). The biggest selling point to an employer is showing an understanding of the process: wireframes, flow charts, user studies, iteration (agile/scrum/waterfall), and design understanding. I have worked on multiple billion dollar webpages and can say the process is nearly identical when scaled down.
If you are interested in some resources to start on your own I would recommend Simon Sinek's Start with Why for understanding how to look at design solutions.
Don Norman has many great books, including The Design of Everyday Things.
Some actual books to look at and learn on your own are A Project Guide to UX Design, Lean UX, and The UX Book. I highly recommend the last one I find it very thorough and digestible and for ~60 bucks is a reasonable textbook.
Lastly, once you have a grasp of UX as a concept I would get familiar with the Adobe Suite, Axure or InVision, and any others from career sites that you might not know about (I really like [Sketch]() as a cheap option ~$99).
Best of luck, feel free to ping me with questions
My day job is WebGL + UI; for UI I'd recommend:
Also take a look at what industrial design courses are available.
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
It won't make you an expert on good design but it's a good start.
Puede ser The design of everyday things
No lo he leído personalmente, pero eso lo recomiendan mucho para UX y cosas de diseño.
I just chose some books that looked good from this list and this one.
The one's I got:
Clean Code
(already read)
Cracking the Coding Interview
Code Complete
Peopleware
Don't Make Me Think
Code (currently reading)
Regular Expressions Cookbook
Head First Design Patterns
C++ Primer
Working Effectively with Legacy Code
Elements of Programming Interviews in Java
The Mythical Man-Month
The Design of Everyday Things
JavaScript and JQuery
I figure that's enough reading material to last me until I graduate.
There are a few engineering folks in there from time to time. It will be very heavy on research and behavioral methodology. Not much math at all (though you could vary that individually depending on your project). I think it would be valuable to an engineer and would certainly broaden your skillset in a meaningful way.
Here is a classic by Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things. It's not strictly human factors, but gives a palatable insight into how HF researchers approach problems.
Hi. We actually used to have predictions but then removed them. It's an interesting topic actually. For years I was all about the "predict what the user wants" features. In prior jobs I built a lot of the features. But the analytics data consistently showed people didn't use the features.
I never understood why until I read The Design of Everyday Things. In it, Don Norman goes through how people's brains react to different design decisions. One core concept is that brains are almost always wanting to run on auto-pilot and not consciously processing things. Anytime you cause the brain to think it creates stress responses. That sounds obvious but when applied to design it turns out that a single unexpected result creates a much larger impact than a positive result.
When you talk about predictive features, they are often producing wrong and unexpected results. For each time we guess correctly that you want your music app because you might be at the Gym, we're probably going to be wrong 5 times.
Over time I've switched my POV to "build simple and consistent features that give users control". I might be wrong, people ask for predictive features all the time, but the analytics tend to show the simple approach of "rank by last used" is used more.
Focus on UI design.
A lot of people tend to think of programming as very math-heavy (it's not, unless the domain you're writing software for is weather simulations or something that itself requires math). So we end up thinking the technical side is important and the "soft skills" are unimportant (or at least, not worth including in our study time).
I'm old enough now where I still like programming, but I've realized I don't care about code; I care about making software that people actually use and find useful. Building a tesla coil in your garage is cool, but so what tons of geeks have done that. I want to make something useful, and it doesn't matter how elegant your algorithms are if your program is confusing, unusable, or solves the wrong problem.
I'd recommend these books, in roughly this order:
But to answer your question: personally, I'd do math. I'm so busy that I don't have time to just sit and study math for fun very often, so it'd have been nice if I did that more when I was younger. (But maybe if I did, I'd be saying programming right now.)
Sorry, ran out of time. Here's the rest of my answer:
If you are more of an engineer and not that interested in design, but in Front-End Development, start with Bulletproof Web Design, following up with Transcending CSS.
For JavaScript, read You Don't Know JS and Eloquent Javascript. (The second edition of Eloquent is going to be released on 17th of november, if you can't wait until then, there's a first edition aswell)
A very important design book I forgot aswell: The Design of Everyday Things.
Good luck on your way to mastering Web Design!
This is a great starting point and the industry references this book quite a bit.
Another is The Design of Everyday Thing, by Don Norman
I think in some respects you might be better off with By Hand & Eye
Also for a different view about the design of things: The Design of Everyday Things
You don't really need to know that tables are XX height in truth, but if you DO want to know that ... Human Dimension and Interior Space
Tricky business.
The Design Of Everyday Things
The Design of Everyday Things is incredibly helpful. It's not about game design at all, but I find some of the best advice comes from other design disciplines.
I think it might be helpful to start from the beginning and learn the principles and hierarchies behind the bells and whistles of Adobe CC.
Each of these I was instructed to read cover to cover when I first began designing and here I am three years later with an extremely successful design career, large in part due to these readings.
Take the time to do it the right way, and the rest will follow naturally.
The design of everyday things: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0465050654/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1395735493&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=SY200_QL40
It changed the way I look at the world and it altered the way I write programs, scripts and APIs.
In no particular order but all of the following are great.
Another "not really programming" suggestion:
Design of Everyday Things
I really like The Design of Everyday Things.
Does this count?
Donald Norman, The Design of Everyday Things
Design and style are highly subjective. There are elements and rules that make things "look good" (contrast, alignment, proximity, repetition, etc.), but people can come up with many different things that are all good.
Usability is the same way. There are elements and rules that make things "usable" (Flow, Fitts' Law, Kinesthesia, affordance, etc.), but people can create radically different interactions that allow for the same goals.
Our role, is to act as a mediator. As Bill Buxton said, "design is compromise." You take all these grey areas and moving parts, and create a solution that gives the end user the best experience. You'll know its the best, because you can observe and measure it through usability testing.
If you want to make things look prettier, start by reading The Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams.
If you want to make things that work better, start by reading The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.
Edit: Grammar
Apply this to the real world as well. Everything is designed like shit. I go on rants constantly. Any time anyone wants to make anything at work, they always hand it to me first to rip it apart.
Someone gave me this book back in college. You may find it interesting.
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0465067107/
Sweeeeeet, thanks! It's a moderately famous (for a teapot, I suppose) example of self-defeating design. It's featured on the cover of The Design of Everyday Things and is a prized part of the author's personal teapot collection. I have a friend who really wants one. If you can CAD it, I can get it 3D printed in ceramic, fired and glazed. If I can do all that before some undetermined time in September, I'll have a lovely gift for when said friend (hopefully) passes an important milestone.
Again, thank you so much for even attempting this. PLEASE let me do something nice for you in return!
The Design of Everyday Things is a great starting point and mandatory reading, in my opinion, for any designer (especially UI/UX).
I have not used NAS products but I used to teach ergonomics and would assign the students to design instructions as a class project.
Not sure what your approach is but if you are only testing or getting feedback from experienced users you may be missing out on some important opportunities that will help all users. Try testing things out with people that have varying experience levels. [Obviously getting feedback from experienced users as you are doing is also very important.]
A very easy read if you have not read it is:
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
You may know of this already, not sure what the training is for technical writing.
Read "The Design of Everyday Things", it's old, but still relevant.
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0465067107/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1346334935&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=design+of+everyday+things
Looks like you've got a great list already!
From an architecture point of view I really like The Design of Everyday Things.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465067107
I use it now as a reference to remind me to keep things simple.
Wow, that's a pretty broad question. I've attempted to answer this question in a number of specific ways and it always turns into a novel.
I'm not sure if you're referring to a single player experience or more of an MMORPG or even a pen and paper game. A lot of what I want is simply "good design" - things like systems that are deep enough that they offer variety, but are simple enough that I won't have to play more than an hour of tutorials (or explicit tutorials) before I can start playing the game, logical feedback (if I do something and it doesn't work I need to know why it didn't work - Final Fantasy is one of the most egregious offenders of this, using the "immune" excuse with no explanation), that sort of thing. If you haven't read [The Design of Everyday Things] (http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0465067107/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1261164209&amp;sr=8-1) it's worth a look.
This has gone on long enough. There's more, but I'm just getting preachy. Hope it's provided you with something to think about.
Oh, I forgot depth of character interaction. Take a page from the BioWare book on that and take it further, if you can.
Thanks for the fun contest!
I can't believe no one's suggested the phenomenal and foundational Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. He essentially created the idea of user-centered design, and his book is still the best overall explanations of what makes good design good.
I'm one of the founders of /r/designforpeople where we cover material like this. We're focused on the intersection between people and design, with a focus on how good and bad design affects the people that have to use it every day. We've just started up but I think you and your interest would be a great addition to it. If that sounds interesting — come check us out!
I can only choose one?!
User-experience design. I'm a web developer/designer, so much my work is to make websites intuitive and easy to use. As it turns out, doing this is quite difficult; UX design is almost a science in itself.
If you'd like to read a superb book on the subject, check out a book titled The Design of Everyday Things.
If you're still thinking "how complicated could it be?", check out this new edition to my bookshelf: The Elements of Typographic Style: a ~400 page treatment on typography alone. Very few notice the good/bad about the typography of a website or publication, if it looks nice, and less do anything more than just notice. Yet if it doesn't look so great, everyone will notice.
The mark of a good UX designer is that the user barely notices his design at all.
Or maybe number theory. If you let me, I'll lecture you about things like information theory, Euler's works, or my favorite math problems all day. :)
Experienced designer here. The best way to learn to sketch by yourself is to watch tutorials and to practice a lot. The Gnomon Workshiop is an amazing ressource for basic sketching in industrial design. I strongly suggest that you check out the "Basic Perspective Form Drawing" DVD. A lot of student try to make awesome photoshop rendering before they know the basics of perspective, dont fall in this trap.
There is also ID Sketching which is a cool website with tutorials
A good book on the subject
Drawing Techniques for Product Designers
As for design theory, one of the most common reads in university is the The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
The Design of Everyday Things
I remember a teacher saying that to be an expert at something you have to put 10 000 hours in it, so you better sharpen those pencils ! Tell me if you need more information.
These are all really great books:
Grid Systems in Graphic Design
Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type
Thinking With Type
Meggs' History of Graphic Design
Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits
Don't Make Me Think
The Design of Everyday Things
How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul
Was it The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman?
Blender is an animation program, but you could try using maya. Or if you want something easy and 2d maybe try Adobe Flash or photoshop, its an easy place to start.
Although if you really want to create natural and well made animation get this book, no animator should be without it.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Animators-Survival-Kit-Stop-motion/dp/0571202284
yeah dude.
here's some more stuff to fly your way.
John Krisfaluski's blog creator or Ren and Stimpy. This is a mountain of resources.
Get the Preston Blair animation book or use this online version. This is a MUST HAVE for all animation peoples.
Also if you want to get a head start and start animating, get the Animator's Survival Kit. This is also a must have and will teach you to animate from start to finish. I'm not kidding.
Also get a $130 light box. Light boxes are extremely useful, even for storyboarding too. Also get the 12 field size animation paper. Or you can do what I did and build a light box with $20 of wood from home depot, a $10 sheet of plexiglass from home depot, and a $3 lightbulb.
I was trained by former 2D animators of Disney, so take my advice for what it's worth.
You should also be filling at least 3 pages of sketchbook a day, even if you're drawing people while people-watching. You must draw all the time. Always do projects too even if they're not assigned. I did everything from animating to building miniature sets.
edit: one other guy above my class went to nickelodeon and worked on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season 1. He left because he got a job at Pixar. Another in my class worked at Digital Domain and after being laid off for a while got a job at Disney too. My best friend moved to Burbank, went to grad school, and is working on the latest season of Scandal at ABC.
Honestly Chris, how fast you can learn will just depend on your ability to grasp the fundamentals and those fundamentals are covered very well with the tutorials that ship with Max.
Avoid more advanced tutorials until you have a comfortable idea of a basic animation pipeline: basic modeling > basic texturing > basic object animating > rendering, then later on: character modeling > advanced texturing > rigging/skinning > character animating. It's also worth grabbing a copy of this book which is invaluable if you are doing character animation.
Great advice from sculptedpixles... I'd take a look at the Animators Survival Kit as well... If you want to see some really good animations check out the competitions at 11 second club... the winners of each month are always really good and are also a good competitive marker... That is, if you specifically want to focus on animating
Ooh I didn't see this answer before I posted mines (similar, I've always wanted my own animated series). I self-taught myself animation by redrawing stuff from The Animator's Survival Kit. I hit the ground running in 2010 with a YouTube channel that I began uploading weekly to.
Don't let "I can't draw" bog you down. Not at all-that's actually why i prefer animation to art-I'm no great technical drawer myself. My earliest stuff was literally stick figures. They moved well, and that was my focus. Heck, that was a whole huge thing on Newgrounds actually-all those stick figure animations (still big now I think).
If it makes you feel better, Bob Clampett was no strong artist himself-and look at the legacy he domianted with Looney Tunes.
Cal arts is very prestigious, so they might be looking for both talent yet room to grow, and that will Really show in your portfolio. So what should you add to the portfolio?
1: A Well executed Bouncing Ball animation. Laugh if you will but seriously, if you do this well, you will have solidified that you know the fundamentals of timing, spacing, and gravity.
2: A correctly implemented walk cycle. Again, might seem simple, but it is actually not. Walk cycles will be your bread and butter to whether or not you are a competent amateur or just a wannabe who won't put in the effort. Walk Cycles will give you the foundation of weight, anatomy, and movement.
3: Life drawings: drawings of nude people in interesting poses (don't draw pr0n, they'll kick you out if you add THAT to the portfolio). Take a cheap life drawing class. This will help increase your speed in drawing, but also help in capturing the bare bones shapes that make up the human figure. Also if the admissions office knows what they're doing, they WILL be looking to see if you know how to draw, cause if you don't know how to draw in their standards, you won't learn how to animate in their standards either.
Those three things are essential to learn and have in your portfolio. Note I said learn, not master. They don't have to be perfect, just enough that they can tell you know what you're doing, you're willing to put in the effort to practice things you might not like to do in order to improve the things you DO want to do, and show you'll be a perfect fit for their classes.
Now, how to learn these things? Youtube has an excellent amount of references for drawing bouncing balls and walk cycles, some even from Famous ex-disney 2D animators. (Bonus points btw) If you're in a spending money kind of mood, then this is your kind of book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Animators-Survival-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
It truly is the Animator's Survival Kit, chock full of stuff that will help you learn the fundamentals of animation.
Now a few addendums to add to your portfolio. Add your creative stuff after you add the first three things. Concept art, Character Design, some animations of your own choosing, heck even a demo reel would be great. Beyond seeing whether you have the drive for animation, they want to see YOU, they want to see the you that is in your animations, your style, your emotion, your verve, your kookiness, your insanity, the you that you pour out into your work, and that you love whether it's crap or gold.
That's all for now, good luck, happy animating.
Artistically yours,
Io Kusanagi
You can learn how to animate with books, videos, or through school depending on your age, income, etc.
The late Richard Williams' "The Animator's Survival Kit" is the bible for all animation students, my fellow classmates and I all had copies when we were in college.
This would be a good place to start.
Okay, first thing to know is that you're not alone. Animation is a pretty time-consuming and daunting skill to try and learn at first, but everyone has to start somewhere - and honestly, drawing skills aside, I think that animation is one of those things where with enough practice you can get the hang of fairly quickly.
I'm guessing you probably aren't out to hear the typical "just keep practicing and you'll get better" so I'll try and stray away from that.
Speaking as a current animation student, the best thing you can do for yourself is to view as many animations from skilled and professional animators as you can.
And I'm not talking just "watching" animations; Sit down and try and critically analyze a piece of animation. Find something where the movement is interesting to you and try and reverse engineer how that animator may have constructed that scene.
After sitting through a bunch of those, find animations from more amateur or beginner animators, could be of your own animations or someone else's. Compare and contrast between what makes these professional animations work and look good, and why these other ones just don't seem to match up.
I've also taken a look at some of your animations and I don't think they're totally awful. It's clear that you're making an effort to show movement and life in the characters, despite your minimal technical understanding.
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So, educate yourself on the technical side of things.
Read up on the principles of animation, essentially the core rulebook many industry professionals follow when creating animations. Here is a video which has a pretty thorough look at each concept, and here is a considerably shorter summary of each principle with short examples.
The Animator's Survival Kit is one of the most popular books people recommend to people just starting out in animation - it lays out a lot of the key parts of the 12 principles in deeper detail and focuses a considerable amount of the book to timing and walk cycles.
Here's also a playlist to the book in, more or less, a simplified video form.
Some other books you might want to look into are Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair, and The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation by Frank Thomas.
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As for the program you're using, I found that Adobe is one of the more simpler and intuitive platforms to use when first learning animation that's still considered an industry standard.
Pushing through and learning the program will help you considerably if/when you decide to move on to a more advanced program.
However, if the difficulty of the software is what's keeping you from animating, I'd recommend using flipbooks and indulging in more traditional forms of animation.
Not only will you be developing a skill in an area of animation not many people today seem to be very skilled in, but it'll keep you from being distracted by all the flashy buttons and options on some digital programs.
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Hang in there man, and keep animating.
Friends of mine have used animation mentor.
Whatever path you take, bring this roadmap: https://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284
You may not understand it all now but it will get you started, and even years later I sometimes look to it for reference on certain things.
You'll need to choose what software to work in. You can animate in Photoshop. You can animate 2D in Blender 3D using the greasepencil. I personally use Adobe Animate/Flash but also know Toonboom and After Effects. There are a lot of other programs like flip note- but I've NEVER seen flipnote used in the industry (not counting artists like Kiki who is given a project and uses it because that's what he knows best and he can make the call on any.)
Most jobs in the field use Toonboom or Animate/Flash that I see. There's other software but once you get the basics switching to something else is just adapting to another user interface so I'd suggest using either of these. Possibly even Photoshop- most animation jobs don't use Photoshop for animation but knowing Photoshop is good and has a vast amount of uses.
Start off with simple exercises like the ball bounce, pendulum swing, saving hard stuff like walks for last.
Here's a video that was recorded in a college level animation intro class: https://vimeo.com/15213159 It's unedited, but literally a recording a professional animator made while teaching his class so his students could rewatch the lesson when they got home (you miss things the first time when you're first learning it) The first one is a ball bounce.
This one teaches overlapping action: https://vimeo.com/7328290
There are a TON of other tutorials out there, but draw loose and practice the basics like bouncing balls BEFORE you try to do character animation.
Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook: http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforcement-Handbook-Gary-Davis/dp/0881889008
Shure has a bunch of great webinars online: http://www.shure.com/americas/support/training/materials
and Extron has a lot of stuff:
http://www.extron.com/technology/technology.aspx?techid=1&amp;tabid=0&amp;tab=training&amp;s=th07
"CTS Certified Technology Specialist Exam Guide" would probably be a good resource for them, as well.
This is an excellent resource: http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforcement-Handbook-Gary-Davis/dp/0881889008
I run a discord serve aimed at helping people that are new at piano, but if that doesn't work for you I also recommend these sites.
MusicTheory.Net - to give you the overall idea of what music theory should be.
PianoLessonsOnTheWeb - for overall piano lessons. Not much seen into this guy personally, but what I have seen is pretty good.
Bill Hilton - absolutely awesome youtuber that provides some good ideas and techniques on what to do
Michael New - Overall really good at describing music theory.
Alfred's - Overall one of the most highly regarded beginner series known out there. Highly recommend.
Paul Barton - Overall to be amazed by his godly voice/humbleness and his overall playing (inspiration)
Discord - Shameless plug of my very own discrod server!
https://www.amazon.com/Adult-All-One-Course-Lesson-Theory-Technic/dp/0882848186/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=0882848186&amp;pd_rd_r=9BXKZA1HQTXDF3HP8CXM&amp;pd_rd_w=C55rC&amp;pd_rd_wg=sBRPd&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=9BXKZA1HQTXDF3HP8CXM
Hello! This question has surely been answered before, but this is definitely the thread to ask it in again. I started learning piano at the beginning of this year by taking a class at my university, and what really kept me going was the weekly lessons. We used Alfred's all in one adult piano book 1 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0882848186/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_3?pf_rd_p=1944687542&amp;pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&amp;pf_rd_t=201&amp;pf_rd_i=0739013335&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_r=13PYJQZQ6C25YD6GVMVW , which progressed at a perfect pace, and I was assigned anywhere from 20 pages a week in the beginning to 4 by the end of the semester, until the book was completed and the year was over. I guess the questions I'm asking are for good incentives to stick to a regular routine of practicing (i.e. the little gpa booster the class was for me before) and more importantly, if I should move to alfred's book 2 or if anyone knows of a piano book that picks up from the basic skills I've learned yet has slightly more intriguing music! Thank you so much in advance :D
24, started when I was young, never got beyond "Teaching Little Fingers to Play". I'm picking it up again now, and after a week am 70 pages into the first book of Alfred's adult piano course.
I'm going much faster now due to increased technical ability (played the clarinet and a few other instruments in school) and the ability to sit still. Piano practice is also a pleasure, not a chore.
My wife is my teacher, even if she has some bad habits (loves keeping both thumbs on middle C - she is mostly self-taught)
That's fine. There's probably some information on self-teaching in the FAQ on the sidebar but it's usually recommended to find at least some instructor ( a lot of them are pretty cheap). Check church pianists, maybe ask your college's piano students/faculty, etc.
If you're going to self-study I'd recommend getting this book and start with a method book such as Alfred's Adult All-in-one.
You'll need a method book, such as this one. If you look at the table of contents, that should give you an idea of what you'l want to learn.
But the book can't tell you if you're holding your hands exactly right. Or that you always hit that one note wrong. Or that you're bobbing your head while you play but don't realize it. Or that you're not playing evenly.
So for those reasons and many others, a teacher is recommended.
And you'll probably want to wait and buy their preferred method book rather than trying to force them to use this one.
Former classical guitar student here that definitely agrees that piano is easier than guitar in many ways. Anyway, there are a number of method books for piano such as Alfred's Adult All-In-One Course: Lesson-Theory-Technic: Level 1. A search at Amazon for "piano method books" will turn up others. Good luck!
I would highly suggest investing the time and money in Lessons. You will improve much faster under the guidance of a teacher (even just once or twice a month) than by yourself. If you absolutely refuse to go this route, however, I would suggest getting "Alfred's Basic All-In-One Piano Course Book One" (https://www.amazon.com/Adult-All-One-Course-Lesson-Theory-Technic/dp/0882848186). Go through this book and the others in the series (I think there are 3 total) and by then you should have enough technique under your fingers to be able to learn whatever songs/tunes/pieces you want.
Speaking as a professional musician (classical trumpet player) I can't stress enough the value of practicing scales and other "boring" technical exercises. These fundamentals are the building blocks of virtually all the music you'll ever play and the more you practice them, the easier it will be to learn new music. Good luck and happy practicing!