Hello again! I’m back and writing! This is a more personal update on what’s been happening in the world of Adam (and why content has slowed a bit).In the world of the music course, I am hoping to be back in Hull next year for a Master’s Course in Music (subject to their approval)! It’s been a mad few years, but it clicked a few years back that the place and course worked for me, and I can’t wait to carry on there. Hopefully it’ll be a part-time course, so that I can get started in the world of work, and keep building up this portfolio of mine.
Most of the music I’ve been writing has been for a group of people running an online show via the Twitch Streaming Site, who are needing themes for their wrestlers to enter the arena with. It’s been exceptionally fun trying to translate a character or persona into music, and I am learning a lot from the process. There have been a few that came naturally, but a couple have been more challenging, such as conveying the idea that the person arriving is “running” the company. That character has had synthesisers, church bells and a choir thrown at it, but I found in the end that a bass guitar and a fresh start is working wonders.
The whale game port ground to a halt when going to re-import assets into a new project, as a few things seem to have been lost in translation. I am hoping to crack it sooner rather than later, and it’s still very much a goal I am working towards.
Another thing that is keeping me busy in music/coding is my start at making a small fighting game. The plan for this game type is to create a multiplayer game, learn a lot more about Unity, and also create AI for opponents. The sneaky side-goal is to start building a commentary engine, so that there is narration to the gameplay. Since starting to do procedural music in Max, I have been more and more aware of how much the variety and authenticity of commentary is lagging behind in some games, especially with the resources available in modern games.
The plan is to make a basic game where the players have some interaction, and a spew of variables are constantly updating to inform the commentary. I’ve not yet decided whether to go down the generative syntax route of massive sentence trees (Player 1 > went > forward > he did this > 2 > Minutes ago), or to pre-record lengthy phrases. It’s possible a combination would do the trick. Generative sentence structures could make a nice blog post? It might fall flat, but I’d love to explore the challenges, and learn something in the process!
On a personal note, I’ve managed to lose 9lbs in the last 6 weeks. The weight had crept on as it so often does with stress and Uni workloads, but I am now back to where I was two years ago – well into a healthy BMI! The reduced stress was another reason I am hoping to take the Masters course part-time.
I think that’s the life of Adam mostly covered, but I’ll be posting more once I’ve got some content worth sharing. Thank you for reading!