Sliding timetable

 Posted by at 16:07  No Responses »
Feb 272013
 

February draws to a close and the New Book’s first draft remains incomplete. In fact, two of the three chapters for it that I managed to write are probably destined for the trash bin. I’ve decided to push my timeline by a month and a half, using that half-month to address the issue that caused the delay in the first place.

At the end of the year, I had finished primary worldbuilding for the New Book. I was (and am) delighted with the setting and look forward to telling its stories and sharing them with you. I set to the task of writing an outline for the first story, which is when things started to go off course. There is a central question that drives the stories of this setting, a central question that instilled the desire to develop the setting in the first place. The outline I created lost sight of this central question, with only superficial and tangential connection back to it.

Furthermore, one of the central conflicts in the story — between a POV character and another main character — had mutated to the point that it painted the POV character in a deplorable light. What had once made sense instead rendered the POV character foolish at best and demographically insulting at worst. The conflict itself also carried unfortunate implications.

So, I need to go back to the drawing board. The setting is still solid and I now have a cast of partial characters1 about whom I want to learn more. In order to do the concept, the characters, and the setting justice, though, the whole plot needs a ground-up rethinking. I need to write a story I can believe in, not just pump out a story that I’ll reflect on with distaste, so that you–the reader–have an enjoyable tale at the end of the process.

  1. Note that phrasing: a cast of partial characters, not a partial cast of characters. [↩]

Aesthetics vs. Design Requirements in Fictional Settings

 Posted by at 00:43  No Responses »
Jan 192013
 

This is a cross-post from a CG forum I frequent, spurred by discussion relating to the size of weaponry on ships in Star Trek. It’s highly nerdy1, but it’s something I care a great deal about.

Three comments spurred my response. The first comment mentioned how small the weapons on a particular ship seemed, when compared to something like battleship guns from a WW2-era seagoing ship. The second comment, in response, defended the smaller size by pointing out that phasers don’t need to worry about bullet or shell size, and so can be smaller. The third comment, posted by the same person that posted the first comment, then said:

You could also say that the beam generator IS huge, but is inside the hull, and all we see is the final beam steering mechanism. That’s kind of like the way that all you see of a WW2 gun system is the turret housing and barrels, not the spaces beneath devoted to powder storage, shell storage, powder and shell elevators, and rotation/elevation gear.

I just find it a bit irritating that so much stuff in science fiction is so SMALL. 20-foot fighters, shuttlecraft with no place that you could fit a modern car engine, stuff like that. Apparently, I’m in the minority with these thoughts, though.

I replied:

I think there’s a certain balance to be struck.

On the one hand, a lot of designs are all style and no substance, which gives rise to your examples of tiny fighters or shuttles with no place for internal machinery. I absolutely agree with you about this: an artistic rendition of something intended to represent a real thing in the context of the world in which it exists should have some level of engineering sense behind it, not just aesthetics.

That’s not to say things can’t be built impractically because of aesthetics — look around at the world for plenty of examples of this! But at the very least, the thing being presented should be internally consistent enough with its setting so as to stretch suspension of disbelief to a minimum. This is something I feel strongly about and I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard or read someone use “Well, it looks cooler this way” as a justification for a nonsensical design decision. I cry a little (on the inside, where no one can see) every time I see someone say something along these lines. Breaking reality “because it looks cooler” rarely ends up being true; reality has a lot of really cool stuff to offer if one takes the time to explore the “real” options!

On the other hand, I think this particular comparison is unfair for a few reasons.

  • First, Starfleet’s ships are military vehicles in part, not wholly warships as WW2 battleships were and modern Navy vessels are. It is reasonable that their armament would not be their primary focus.
  • Second, we’re talking about very different mechanisms with very different engineering requirements (see my tirade above). A large-bore projectile weapon needs to follow certain design guidelines to address: containing the propulsive explosion that propels the projectile (i.e. big, thick barrels); guiding the projectile’s path so that it can predictably hit its target (i.e. length of the barrel, rifling?); a turret motor strong enough to turn this large, heavy barrel or set of barrels (one governing factor in the size of the turret); and a turret mounting fixture robust enough to handle the recoil of such a large-caliber explosive. All of these factors inform how big the guns are on a battleship.

    Flip it around and look at the design requirements for a phaser. Phasers are either pure beam weapons or some form of accelerated particle beam (they’re often referred to as “nadion beams” in the shows and are explained in the TNG Tech Manual as dependent on the “rapid nadion effect,” though it makes no explicit mention of these being part of the final beam). In either case, they’re described as using plasma as an energetic first stage. If they’re “special lasers” (i.e. beam weapons), then one may suppose they’re some form of gas laser; if they’re “nadion particle beams,” then they’ll have the requirements of particle beam weapons. In either case, there’s a lot less recoil; the “barrel length” equivalents are a lot shorter; and the resulting machinery necessary to move the “barrel” equivalent is a lot smaller.

  • Third and finally, history shows that as technology advances, things get smaller per unit performance they provide as operating and design principles are better understood, manufacturing technique improves, and dependent technologies advance alongside. Suppose materials science introduces a manufacturing medium that provides all of the necessary resiliency requirements of the materials that go into big, heavy ship turrets, but at a tiny fraction of the size and mass. This will lead to a reduction in turret size with no loss in performance. When we’re discussing a ship ostensibly built 200-300 years from now, and compare the technological advances to the state of the art from 1713 or even 1813, supposing that “heavy guns” take up less space is not entirely unreasonable, so long as the earlier point about accounting for the underlying design holds true.

The key quote in all of that, though is this. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard or read someone use “Well, it looks cooler this way” as a justification for a nonsensical design decision. I cry a little (on the inside, where no one can see) every time I see someone say something along these lines. Breaking reality “because it looks cooler” rarely ends up being true; reality has a lot of really cool stuff to offer if one takes the time to explore the “real” options.

This isn’t just true in the realm of visual arts, either. To stick with a Trek example, take the recent Star Trek reboot/alternate universe/alternate timeline/whatever movie. For me, one of the biggest science issues in the movie was the reference to a “supernova” that threatened to “destroy the galaxy.” Supernovae are huge explosions that absolutely can release enough energy to wipe out life…in the immediate area. Also, this energy travels at the speed of light. Even if a star did go supernova, the faster-than-light society of Star Trek would have a great deal of advanced warning about it, and no2 supernova is going to threaten the entire galaxy, or even the entire Federation((Given the size the Federation is routinely depicted as spanning)) or Romulan Empire.

Sure, the movie had things like warp drive, Red Matter, time travel, transporters, and so on, but those are part of the setting: they are inventions that the creators request that we, as an audience, suspend our disbelief and accept. We do so because it is plausible that, in the framework of the narrative they’re presenting, such devices might exist. It is not plausible that a supernova–a real thing that we know something about–would threaten the galaxy. It’s a single line of dialog and most people aren’t scientifically literate enough to have even noticed, which I often see trotted out as an excuse to not worry about changing it. That’s just it, though: tweak a single line of dialog by consulting with someone who knows a thing or two about supernovae and other energetic spatial phenomena and you can change that line into something that doesn’t ruin the plausibility of your narrative for those that do know how supernovae work.

Justifying things and understanding the functional underpinnings of your fictional mechanisms that stand to challenge your audience’s suspension of disbelief is good for maintaining that suspension of disbelief, but make sure your justifications and explanations don’t break reality, unless you have a very good explanation for why and understand the consequences thereof.

  1. Are you shocked? [↩]
  2. At least, none about which I’ve ever heard. [↩]

Goals for 2013

 Posted by at 12:39  No Responses »
Jan 142013
 

Rather than resolutions, which strike me as unrealistically rigid, I opted instead to set a few goals to strive for in 2013. Here’s that list, for those curious.

  • Write (at least) two books. This is the biggest and most ambitious of the goals. Seeing as how it took three years to get Ashes done, shooting for writing two books in a single year is an enormous leap. I set an aggressive timetable for the New Book and my success at adhering to that timetable will go a long way toward the success or failure of this goal.
  • Get to and stay at 170 pounds. Holiday fooding is not kind to one’s experiences with the scale. While I haven’t breached 190, I came damn close. My objective is to get to and stay at 170, which is slightly more lean than my exact “optimal” weight.
  • Do 20 consecutive pull-ups. I can currently do somewhere between six and ten, so I don’t anticipate this will actually take much doing.
  • Complete my Ambassador model and complete at least one more model. I’ve been working on the Ambassador model since August 2012, which has included a great deal of re-learning of skills that atrophied while not in use when working as a tech artist in the game industry. A lot of that time went into doing and re-doing the same thing over and over, which while frustrating also ended up informative. It’s my hope that, like writing Ashes, the stumbling blocks and pitfalls of this “first” experience will result in a substantially faster second one.
  • Learn to play (at least) two songs reasonably well on the guitar. I haven’t picked up my guitar in months and that’s a tragedy. Two songs strikes me as a small-scope, attainable goal.

These are my personal goals, as opposed to larger goals that involve other people/family things. I think they’re all attainable, so long as I keep my eye on the ball.

What do you think? What are your goals?

48 Frames Per Second, Redux

 Posted by at 15:32  No Responses »
Dec 272012
 

I should really write this post later today, but since having had some time to digest the 48fps experience of The Hobbit, I have revised my opinion somewhat. When we stopped in to visit my parents, en route to see Cody’s parents, we went to see the standard 24fps version of The Hobbit with them. It seemed the logical choice, since the point was to share with them the experience of the story, not the novelty of the “new” cinematic format.

Throughout the entire thing, I found I sorely missed the doubled framerate. It felt far more difficult to track action, frame stutter seemed far more evident, and on the whole I actually wanted the increased framerate back.

I’m curious to see if this holds true this evening, when we plan to go see The Hobbit (for our fourth screening!) with Cody’s family.

In any case, I thought the before/after/before comparison was eye-opening.

48 Frames Per Second

 Posted by at 20:28  No Responses »
Dec 162012
 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, released this weekend to record-shattering numbers, is outstanding. I saw a midnight show as Thursday gave way to Friday, and I just returned from seeing it for a second time. I look forward to seeing it again with family over the holidays, owning it on Blu-Ray, and devouring all of the behind-the-scenes and extended content as I did with the Lord of the Rings films when they came out.

The show we attended opening night was the standard, 24 frames-per-second, non-3D format. I wanted my first experience with the movie to be about the film itself, the story, its characters, and so forth. I didn’t want to risk distraction by a new film format until I had taken the movie in under comfortable and familiar circumstances first. Today, Cody and I saw it at 48fps in 3D. The new frame rate has met with a great deal of contention and I want to share my thoughts on it while they’re still fresh.

The opening shots in Bag End are weird. While some claim that it “takes time” to adjust to the new frame rate, I don’t think that’s what I was reacting to at all. There were plenty of shots where the higher frame rate was noticeable, but these specific early shots were noticeable and felt off. It’s difficult to precisely articulate, and I would dearly love the opportunity to compare the 24 and 48 fps versions shot-for-shot to see if I can identify the cause, but many of these seemingly simple shots feel sped-up, jerky, or otherwise technically marred. As the film went on, these shots occurred less frequently, but continued to be noticeable, which is why I do not believe it to be a simple matter of acclimatization.

On the flip side, some shots were outright stunning because of the higher framerates. Contrary to a great deal of the criticism I’ve seen, I thought all of the CG shots were greatly enhanced by the higher framerates, gaining astounding clarity and visual character. In these shots, I felt more immersed, not less. Cody concurred with this sentiment, so I know I’m not entirely alone in feeling that way.

On the whole, I’d say the movie had a 10/80/10 split of its length where the framerate made it look amazing, was unnoticeable, or was noticeably “off.”

I have some thoughts as to why, though, that are not as simplistic as “it’s a bad way to make movies/doesn’t look as good/majestic/etc.” or “we’re just not used to it yet!” I think there’s more to it than either of these two camps. What we’re seeing strikes me as a new version of the uncanny valley.

For those unfamiliar with the term, the uncanny valley refers to the sudden drop in humanity a facsimile human likeness has as it approaches reality. Cartoon characters are clearly not really human, but we recognize them as human-like; they do not trigger this reaction. As we get more and more real (e.g. The Polar Express), the characters that are quantifiably “more human” seem more alien. They are human-like, but lack the fine distinctions to mark them as truly human, and thus make us uncomfortable. Lord of the Rings‘ Gollum might be the first CG character to truly breach the valley, and there have been many more since. As one might imagine, CG artists got better at bridging the valley as our understanding of it improved and as technology allowed us to better simulate those gaps.

I think the same thing is now happening with framerate. With 24 fps, we’re subject to images blurring across 1/24th of a second — far more than our eyes actually detect. It’s clearly not “real” to the point where we accept it as a convention of the medium. At 1/48th of a second, things have far less time to blur, but there’s still some motion smoothing going on. Our eyes see at effective framerates of ~60fps or higher, which means this 48fps standard approaches the perception level of our eyes, but doesn’t quite match it. Welcome to the uncanny valley.1

On top of that, though, I think there’s also some aspect of virgin technique at play here. Filmmakers are accustomed to working at 24fps. They know how to light a set, move a camera, set up marks for actor movement, and so on at this frame rate. They know how to make 24fps look good. 48fps is a different tool in the toolbox. It doesn’t work like 24fps and expecting it to do so results in shots that will jar viewers.

A lot of this crystallized during a flashback sequence, which I recalled from the 24fps version to feel somewhat ethereal and lethargic, not quite slow-motion but still sluggish enough to feel like some distant memory. In the 48fps version, I expected this scene might look strange–but it didn’t! It actually looked fantastic! Because they shots and motion had to be slowed down, none of the movements felt jerky or stilted, giving the entire sequence a marvelous quality.

In total, I’m not sold on 48fps yet, but neither would I consider myself a detractor thereof. I think it has great potential for providing films with a greater semblance of life than they have had before, but I think filmmakers need to be careful in its use and adapt their style of shooting (and editing! shots have to be cut more slowly so as to not feel abrupt!) to account for it. In many places throughout THAUJ, they don’t quite manage it, which makes it pull the viewer out of the film. In many other places, they nail it and offer a greater level of immersion than we’ve before had.

I’m curious to see where this leads.

  1. This is a very rough simplification of a much more complex process — both on the film and on the occular side of things. If you’re curious about this, I suggest Googling “frame rate human eye” or reading the wikipedia article on Frame Rate for more information. [↩]

Bearable Commutes, Worldbuilding, and Reading More

 Posted by at 11:08  1 Response »
Dec 052012
 

Yesterday, while talking about where I work with someone, I mentioned that I take the commuter rail into Boston—a 45ish minute commute. The other person’s response, “Oh, so you have that commute,” as though she sympathized with the pain of such a long commute.

That struck me, because while the commute I have now is about as long as the one I had commuting into Providence, I actually look forward to it. Where before I would have thanked her for her sympathy and acknowledged how unpleasant long commutes are1, I am actually quite glad to have the commute I do because it affords me the opportunity to write for an hour and a half every day with no distractions.

Worldbuilding for the next book involves Calculus and relativistic physics. The reader will never see any of this, but it has a direct impact on when the events of the story play out. I also have a very rough story outline, well ahead of my January 31 deadline and wrote a dialog skeleton for the last scene in the book while on the train this morning. Can’t wait to dive into this one!

Writers write, but writers must also read. I’ve been lax about this, much to my chagrin, but surging through Ashes, finishing it, and releasing it has stirred in me the desire to read more—a lot more. I’m angling to get a Kindle for Christmas to further facilitate this, at which point I will probably spend all the money on buying the various books on my Goodreads to-read list.

  1. Rest assured, I’m under no illusion that 45 minutes is even in the ballpark of “worst commute.” [↩]

Ashes goes live on Amazon

 Posted by at 16:16  No Responses »
Nov 262012
 

I just got the notification that Ashes is now available for download on Amazon!

The physical CreateSpace copies are still being processed, but I expect they’ll be available within the next few days.

In related news, I also posted announcements about the book’s release to the two CG forums I visit, Foundation 3D and SciFi-Meshes, as well as tweeted Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, Nathan Fillion, and The Morning Stream in the hopes that it might catch their eyes and prompt further spreading of the message. Odds are pretty slim, but doesn’t hurt to try!

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