“I want games with worse graphics if it means less crunch time” is a fine sentiment, but, like, it’s still very much buying into a framing of what having good graphics means that’s been constructed to favour AAA studios at every level.

Straight up, the number of polygons a game engine can push tells us nothing in particular about whether it’s nice to look at. I’ve seen games with sixteen-colour pixel art and a native resolution of 320x240 that look amazing, and I’ve seen games with photorealistic 4K graphics that look like shit.

We’ve been suckered into accepting a notion of “good graphics” that’s defined purely in terms of how labour-intensive they are to produce. We’re like a bunch of 16th Century noblemen shovelling our faces full of whipped egg whites and pretending it doesn’t taste like eating a plate of cold air because hey, not just anybody can afford to hire some poor peasant to spend all day destroying their arms whipping egg whites by hand, and exclusivity is the measure of quality, right?

We can talk about how “good graphics” aren’t important all we want, but unless we challenge the idea that pouring hundreds of thousands of person-hours into shadow-mapping every individual hair on the protagonist’s horse’s nutsack is the definition of “good graphics”, we’re playing by the AAA studios’ rules.

Like, the AAA studios aren’t stupid – the reason they do ridiculous shit like that is precisely because it allows them to define what a quality product looks like in a way that only they have access to.

The critical thing you have to understand is that AAA graphics being grotesquely labour-intensive isn’t an incidental side-effect of chasing the spectre of photorealism.

Rather, the pursuit of photorealism is, itself, a mere byproduct of AAA studios working to ensure that the most desirable aesthetic is as labour-intensive as possible. This allows them to cordon off “good graphics” as something only they can produce, by virtue of being the only ones with access to the labour pool required to produce it.

Even if photorealistic graphics were somehow to become unfashionable tomorrow, AAA studios would simply find another way to erect a labour entry barrier. Crunch time isn’t going to go away that easily; the problem is systemic, not an unintended consequence of any particular set of aesthetic priorities.

safe space

My friend made this, it fills me with joy and good emotions. I think the idea of a "comfort character" is lost on a lot of people outside of fandom culture, and even to those within it.

With MLP G4 rising back into a viral sensation, a lot of people are using this to point and laugh at G5. "G4 got trending to beyond its peak in some spaces, and G5 is blah blah blah". That's fine, I don't think there's a problem with comparing old nostalgic good thing and new flashy 'not as good' thing. It's just part of our biology I think, to OVER value the old and UNDER value the new. But I do think a lot of the popularity G4 has been receiving recently is manifesting into people becoming bullies, ironically using the same lame talking points people did against G4 when it first came out and Bronies started leaving the dark pits of 4Chan. "The animation is bad!" "It's for kids" it's too this it's too that it's just trying to sell you toys. It's cute. It's funny. It's fun.

When I was 10 years old my best friend told me a story about a group of six magical ponies who went on adventures while we did classwork under the computer desk. It was so incredibly enticing, he would tell me all about the nerdy one, and the silly one, and the shy one, all of them. He would tell me about their adventures and I couldn't believe it! I laughed at them and I was so suprised that a show that his sister should be watching had them fight big monsters. He told me about Applejack, and I knew right then from the start that she was my favorite pony. She was a silly cowgirl who loved her family no matter the obstacle; and although I may have waivered, she is still my favorite pony to this day and forever more.

It's hard to properly explain well exactly WHY I love her so much. I mean, beyond why she's just my favorite character. Applejack is a lesbian orphan who grew up poor and has to raise her kid sister and has to struggle to be everything all at once and is constantly desperate for to prove herself and for approval because of her tramua and tries to be everything for everyone and still manages to smile and have fun. She grew up too fast and HAS to please everyone always. No job is too small to give 110%, and that includes jobs bigger than she can handle. The fandom called her the "mom of the group" and like yeah she kinda is. She basically was a mom before she graduated high school. She had to step up, and she did. I often think of the lullaby AJ sings to Apple Bloom every night when she tucks her in. Or the Apple Family Reunion episode. Or the entirety of Somepony To Watch Over Me. Behind that unwavering love there is fear, fear of time slipping through her proverbial (and non-existent) fingers. Fear of not making that 110% most out of every instant, fear of losing again.

AJ keeps it all inside, and in my giant list of things I wish they did an episode on, I really wish they did one where the lesson was it's okay to feel sad, sad about things even if they happened a long time ago. I think it would have worked really well with AJ and the rest of the Mane 6 in season nine. You can't keep it all inside, you gotta be honest with yourself. I guess that's what fanfic is for though.

Applejack is more than just a fictional pony I love, to me she is the closest thing to being real as anything fake can be. Seeing her, thinking about her, it literally makes me happy. It's like an old friend I grew up with over the last 12 years, and we still check in on each other time after time. No matter how much I change, she will always be the most loyalist of friends and the most dependable of ponies. I can count on her to be there by my side. Those crazy Tumblr folk are right, it really is more like a kinship.

I'm very happy my friend likes Misty, the same way I'm very happy my other friend loves Trixie, and Fluttershy, and Rarity, and Pinkie Pie, and Twilight, and Dashie, and all the other little ponies all my friends like. Finding that one character you can cling to and who speaks to you is magical.

Back in say 2013 or 2014, people did not love Applejack or appreciate her at all. She would be bullied constantly by fans and no one would take her seriously at all. That is no longer the case, and although she will never be as liked as the rest of her friends, something tells me that doesn't bother her too much.

I saw a lot of Misty hate online today, and I just don't get it. I've seen very little G5, but she's so cute and fun! I could have watched nothing at all and you know what, I bet she'd still be cute and fun! Because she's a magical pony. And she means the world to many people, and THAT'S awesome.

I think the idea of a "comfort character" is lost on a lot of people outside of fandom culture, and even to those within it, but I think it can be explained to people at least within the same fandom. I'd do it like this: "you know how we all feel any My Little Pony? Well, I feel that way about this character, within My Little Pony." These worlds mean the world to people, and so do three characters inside them. I know she makes me feel safe and calm, anyway. A little crazy, but so is all of this anyway.

I hope G5 only gets better, and I hope everyone stops being so mean to people who love their ponies a little bit different than what they are used to.

Stay safe, love a pony 🧡

thank you. this really did warm my heart. It was the first thing I read when I woke up, and I never looked too deeply into Applejack's character, and you really helped me see how awesome she truly is. Ponies are ponies, and if they make us feel good and comforted- that's all that matters.

CaptainHoers

Left: CaptainHoers's OC, Gote, as interpreted by @thebirdgang

Right: CaptainHoers's actual OC, drawn by brainiac (source)

See how we got there on the latest episode of Draft Horses!

My piece in the latest episode of Horse Drawfee-I mean, Draft Horses!-

oh heck i've been commissar'd!

surprised and delighted to be featured in this episode!

Based on life experiences and a song you won't find online because apple has Garth Brooks by the balls

It's called Standing Outside the Fire

I would post it but I'm afraid apple will fuckin get me

Anyways enjoy

Featuring my pony oc Brainiac who is also my mascot he's like really old made him in 2011 @captainhoers @scarletstar121 @suiginmigasuto87 @unluckyshadow @knickknacky-fox and many many more who either don't have a tumblr or if they do I don't know it

I powered through this today all in one go so pls kiss my hand it's got a booboo ;~;

Anyways lmk what you think bye

Readied actions are a useful tool in combat.

hey look a blog restarted

machine learning art has more in common with readymades and aleatoric music than it does with the mass market media it is attempting to wear the skin of. the public won't buy it, the "author" is still a fiercely engrained concept and toying with that concept has always been an activity relegated to the realm of heady conceptual art that no one understands. if a generative marvel movie ever plays in cinemas it'll be like getting a pack of normies to sit in a theater to watch Ten Skies

it is weird and ugly and awkward and conceptually inaccessible, in a very keenly inescapable way. it is ugly in a way that evades interpretation, it is ugly in a way that reveals no person's opinion on what ugliness means. that doesn't mean it's not art, or not worthwhile, or that it can never be meaningful, but it's not going to replace working artists. the infinite emergent patterns of a roiling ocean swell can't take your job.

they are pointing out shapes in the clouds and telling you that mother nature can produce season 6 of breaking bad

Ok but like. What the fuck is there to do on the internet anymore?

Idk when I was younger, you could just go and go and find exciting new websites full of whatever cool things you wanted to explore. An overabundance of ways to occupy your time online.

Now, it’s just… Social media. That’s it. Social media and news sites. And I’m tired of social media and I’m tired of the news.

Am I just like completely inept at finding new things or has the internet just fallen apart that much with the problems of SEO and web 3.0 turning everything into a same-site prison?

Long collection of resources under the cut.

Keep reading

ALSO you should consider browsing Virtual Pet List and seeing if there are any pet sites you might be interested in playing. There is a whole genre of browser games right under your nose

Another one that I just found recently is this, which is a whole collection of blogs, organized by topic!

Look guys the real internet IS STILL THERE I’m going to cry

Getting off of twitter and onto neocities has really healed me and I am so glad to see it is healing other people too ;u; let’s retreat into the self-made digital woods and away from corporate bs pls, I am so tired

One small but extremely annoying effect of Tech Modernization or w/e is how UI contrast is garbage anymore, especially just, like, application windows in general.

"Ooh our scrollbar expands when you mouse over it! Or does it? Only you can know by sitting there like an idiot for 3 seconds waiting for it to expand, only to move your cursor away just as it does so!" or Discord's even more excellent "scrollbar is 2 shades off of the background color and is one (1) pixel wide" fuck OFF

I tried to move a system window around yesterday and had to click 3 times before I got the half of the upper bar that let me drag it. Why are there two separate bars with absolutely nothing to visually differentiate them on that.

"Well if you look closely-" I should not!! have to squint!!! at the screen for a minute straight to detect basic UI elements!! Not mention how ableist this shit is, and for what? ~✨Aesthetic✨~?

and then every website and app imitates this but in different ways so everything is consistently dogshit to try to use but not always in ways you can immediately grok it's!!!! terrible!!!! just put lines on things again I'm begging you!!!!

I know I sound like a broken record when I praise Windows 95 UI, but holy fuck Microsoft figured this shit out already about 30 years ago. It's all there, black and white, clear as christmas:

So much of modern UX woes stem from not knowing, or intentionally ignoring the genuine design study put forth into GUIs in the 90s.

3D elements are 3D in a specific way with lighting from a specific side to make it obvious where a window element begins and ends.

The gradient always should from from one side, and keep it consistent.

Make your color shading and shape of scroll bars consistently side and easy to press. I have a 4K display, don't make me hunt for the magic activation pixel that makes your 3-pixel wide scroll bar appear.

It's a desktop application, I've got the screen real estate to spare to have the actual GUI elements present on screen at all times (I know, heresy).

The moment aesthetic takes precedence over form and function, you've failed as a UI designer.

And any argument about "we don't have the resolution" can go right out the window, we were having nice, clear and legible interface widgets on nine inch screens in 1984. We continued to have nice, clear and legible interfaces on machines vastly less powerful than today's and on screens vastly less pixel-dense than today's. We used to know what the hell we were doing. At least one of these examples even has on-screen instructions in case the widgets functionality isn't immediately apparent.

(images sourced from The GUI Gallery)

since this has come back to my dashboard again i want to call attention to one more thing that these GUIs have that modern ones don't even try to do.

RESIZE WIDGETS.

Do you tire of trying to grab and resize a window whose border is literally only 1 pixel wide?

Do you see how large the corner widgets are in those clips above? Those are at least 16x16 pixels. They're almost as large as the Close buttons on a modern GUI. If you can see the bottom right corner of your window, resizing it is a snap. You can aim much more easily at a 16x16 widget than you can at a one-pixel-wide vertical line.

OK, maybe technically Windows' borders are wider than 1 pixel. They're technically 3 pixels. That is still just really goddamn tiny compared to 16 of them.

We used to be a society. Look at this. Look at this.

WINDOWS FUGGIN' 95 HAD THE CORNER WIDGET. Why the hell can't Windows 11?

i finished an old sketch i like I hope you all like it as well I do these paintings to relax when im stressed and i am glad they are starting to look better

Merry Christmas

Here is a painting I put a shit ton of work into that went widly unnoticed and i feel is severely underrated

Kinematic Formulas! Used Krita brush pack by @abluskittle

imagine concorde growing up on this kind of moderately unhinged science communication

Aichmir's Room - 1st Update

I am gonna make a short update, yesterday I announced the start of a month project. I wanna do this every month this year so I wanted to document my process here. I am gonna start out with a concept board and prep for a stream on my YouTube channel. Starting with reference material, a complete board will be accessible on my Kofi. Lets start with the basic building blocks of my idea. Lets start with the already predefined world. Sunjackers: Art by @askthesunjackers

I will make more detailed notes in the file posted on Kofi later today, however, the basic gist is that a lot of the world in Sunjackers borrows heavily from Brutal-ism. Although I personally feel a lot of sunjackers feels Eourpean to me.

Here are some references from real life that I think get the gist right:

I am personally more interested in looking at how these stylized are used in this context, more of that in my Kofi update later. Ok, we are done with the buildings, please tell me that is it?

u fool.

Remember that car I was had partly modeled yesterday? I went back to look into the make and model of the car to ensure consistency. The car in question is an Alpina B12 850i E31 from BMW in the late 1980s. I felt the car would work best considering Aichmir's background back in the day, and like the boxy nature of it.

It doesn't look completely like a sports car but it still doesn't look like a generic thing from the street. It's got a unique identity and that's why I like it. However, the issue is that well... I have to 3D model it... Cars are really hard to 3D model. I have to also get reference of the inside of the car and then modify the inside to fall into line with how the cars look in Sunjackers. It's interesting stuff. Next I have to break down the idea for the room, the basic layout. I go into this further in Kofi but I like the idea of the two characters living in a reclaimed warehouse, similar to a lot of buildings in the North Side of Chicago.

Lastly, the garage, in the original render the entire inside was based on the idea that the character, Aichmir, lived in the garage while the other character, Astera, lived in the apartment. I like the idea of the garage being a little bit messy but not to the same extent. Maybe a pizza box or two, some trash in the corner ready to be collected the next morning, a cot set up in the corner. Aichmir is obsessed with cars, and pretty much works before she sleeps, wakes up to begin working on the cars again. She might get some money with selling Sun juice, or being a getaway driver, but she spends most of her time with the car.

I will keep the progress of these consistent, not sure if it is gonna be a per day consistent due to commission work. I will try to fill the quiet by posting my backlog onto Kofi and Tumblr.

Thank you for checking this out, if you wanna support me, check out my KoFi! I did a project last month and will be posting it first on Kofi, with a file download option if you are interested.