Greetings. Hopefully tonight's Making of JF will be short. I'm kinda backing up against a deadline. Hopefully I'll be able to get something done by Oct 1 to show you. My new job is picking up, so HM will lose a bit of steam, but as you can see here, I'm not giving up. No sir. No mam. This is a girl that I drew a while back at the same time as this one and . While you probably don't care, I dated the day that I scanned it as 2003-08-16. It's a good thing to keep dates on things so that I or you can know what is going on when. A year down the road no one will remember anything, so one ends up with messy memories. But my second favorite philosopher, Juliette Lewis (Strange Days, Natural Born Killers) said: "Memories fade for a reason." and also "There's one way that movies are better than playback -- when it's over, the credits roll up and you know it's over. IT'S OVER!" Anyway, I hope that one day my pack-rat-ism will benefit me or someone else. It's a burden to keep memories, data, and random info on hand or in storage, but I feel that it's quite necessary.

About the creation of this picture: I drew it on a good day. I drew a bunch of good stuff in a very short amount of time. I can't do it very often, but when I can, I just go wild. It's that way for me for everything. My dry spells are often, but when I get in the zone I can do anything. That's how I'm typing this now. I'm using a system that I wrote on a day that I was doing well in programming. I couldn't draw a chick for anything, but I wrote php, html, and xml like a madman. So a lesson on mirroring. In pencil, mirroring is very hard. It takes practice, a steady hand, and usually it doesn't work anyway. But in cg, mirroring is very easy. There is, however, a question of when to use it. Can you name each place I used mirroring and where I didn't? Can you tell me why? Because I'd really like to know myself. ^_^ Okay, the answer is here. Mirrored: face, eyes, lips, eyebrows, neck, shirt, arm, pants, pockets, and shoes; not mirrored: hair, thumb, and zipper. So, why did I mirror so much? Because: 1) mirroring is easy, 2) mirroring usually looks nicer, 3) mirroring works well with texturing. Why didn't I mirror the hair, thumb, or zipper? The hair looked pretty decent as it was. Hair is not as symmetric as everything else. The thumb was something I decided. The original had a good looking thumb and I decided to try to duplicate it as best I could. It worked out well. These hands are better than my usual, even if they aren't up to high quality. The zipper was made of seven or eight nodes and is not symmetric. Why mirror it if it's not symmetric and not complex? A person can make work for themself trying to mirror things that aren't symmetric or they could actually save time by mirroring things that are not symmetric. Think about it and you'll see how you can use mirror. The whole idea of copy and paste is central to cg. I hope you understand.

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I wrote a poem the other night. It wasn't very inspiring, but it's going to find its way into HM either as a song sung with electric banjo or a poem that one will be sent via e-mail. E-mail is a pretty important part of HM because the game is all about communication in the future. Of course, communication in the future will involve typing e-mails. So what does a game about communication have to offer a young adult who normally plays first-person shooters, massive multiplayer role-playing games, and fighting games? Well, I think players will be pleasantly surprised by the depth that Hack Mars has. It has the same structure as a FPS, but will have a story that drives it. Unlike the murdrous intent of fps, the player gets a chance at doing something right. Talking to homicidal aliens may not solve Duke Nukem's problems, but he didn't even get to try! Well, players in HM will be able to talk to Martian, Terrans, and PKs to solve their problems. In fact, that's the only way to 'win'. I put win in quotes because HM will not be afraid to ask the question: What does it mean to win a war? Players that usually play MMORPGs will find the story and role-playing system of HM quite refreshing. With normal RPG elements such as levels, character attributes, hit points, equipment, etc, an RPG player can have a good time. The story will amaze the RPG player. Sorted into missions similar to GTA3, the player will have the chance to play an active role in the story, but also to be able to change the story line by uttering one phrase. Similar to Omikron, HM will involve running around a huge city filled with people doing things. For those who like action and fighting, HM will involve a bunch of large and small fight scenes where the player (with enough ability points) has the ability to throw a combo and send an opponent (or three) into the dust. Those who like simple text-based strategy games will love the use of the electronics. As the name suggests, players will interface with a wide range of electronics, computers, and items. Similar to System Shock 2, HM will involve the compromisation of computer security in every way that a curious mind could imagine. Obviously more realistic, there'll be plenty of ping -f for everyone. ^_^ Oh no, I've just broken the law by distributing information that could be used by a hacker to destroy a government system!

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