Part 2

March something
 

My apartment has a front door, allegedly. I’ve used it a couple of times, like when I first moved in, or when I had to sign for a package, or when I tried to get better wifi signal one time I was really desperate. Most of the time, however, I exit through the back, out of the kitchen, into the garden (as they call the back yard area here).

In one of the sheds here, I’ve got my bike stashed away. I solicited Facebook for naming ideas and among many names, one of the first and best was “Tom” (cruiser). Being the sucker I am for wordplay, that one is what I’ve chosen to name my bike. But as it is, I haven’t been using his given name as much as I’ve just been calling him “my bike.” Sorry, Tom.

So I ride Tom pretty much every day, since we first met at a place called De Klein Fietsen, which runs along one of the canals in the city on a road called Lachappellestraat, just next to the city center. The center is easily identified from a distance by the tower of the Grotke Kerk (great church). Plenty of shopping, eating, and other stuff is available there.

My work style, when I get into it, requires a constant stream of thumping, rhythmic music. This led to a preference for thumping electronic music. I’m still exploring what works, but I’ve found Deltron 3030 and Broken Bells, and the old favorites of the Halo soundtracks to be great albums for getting work done.  It all depends on the work though – writing is near impossible if I’ve got lyrics piping in.

My first class of the week is on Tuesday, allowing for an extra buffer day to warm up to the week and finish any extra work, assignments, or procrastination that needs doing. The next day is GAMELAB. If you’re at LCAD, imagine that you’re on a team with USC, except that team is made entirely of LCAD students. Due to the all-encompassing nature of the program at IGAD, this is my reality: A room filled with programmers, designers, and artists all collaborating on their projects –as varied as you can get. I’ve seen a social music game, a strategic tower construction game, and a bird of prey flight simulator. I and many others ended up working on the bird game, called Sparrowhawk.

You might’ve seen the concept paint overs I made for this game over on Facebook. After working on some modular building pieces of an abbey, I was able to move on to the creature animations. Fortunately for me, not many others here are into animation as much as I am, so I get to try out my chops at animating a bird. What I’ve learned so far is that I do not know how birds move and that youtube is a godsend for video reference. I can’t imagine anymore searching the internet for videos before 2005.

Wednesday is a double dose of classes for me: I’ve got TEXTURE 3 in the morning (but everyone calls it World Building) and then ANIMATION 4 in the late morning/lunchish hour. The morning class is fairly short but proceeds at a breakneck speed that reminds me fondly of typing like a madman in Don’s class last year. I still use those notes occasionally… Texture here is all in UDK, using the material editor. If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s kind of like the layers list in photoshop all layed out in a 2d plane. Outside of lectures, the class has me on another team, texturing in a white-boxed (modeled but not textured) level in UDK. It’s pirate themed, and I chose it because they chose to have pirate ship rammed into the city as the big visual hook. Gotta say it works rather well.

Animation is still a favorite for me. It might sound like I’m starting to show my true colors, but fear not – all that deep inner thoughts of a character animation is still a mystery to me. I’m in it for the quick thrills. This class is equal parts animation and rigging. If I didn’t have my previous classes from LCAD, I might be struggling a bit more in this class in particular. The animation is just as tough as it was at home – and we’re doing it old school here! We animate in sequential poses till the end, then turn on that fancy frame interpolation. I’ve got to say, it really is a good system. I’ve seen the quality of my poses and gestures increase using this method. The rigging section is intense. It’s not impossible, but requires full attention. We’re making these really interesting rigs full of squash, stretch, all that. I’m turning my brain to full soak on this one.

Thursday is another day off. Like Monday, I spend my time on campus as much as possible getting work done. The environment makes it easier to get stuff done than at my desk in my room.

My last class is on Friday. ARCHITECTURE. Here, I get a crash course in VRay, a fancy renderer for maya. Press of a few buttons, and you’ve got a nice physical based lighting system. All you do is move the light and it calculates what color and intensity to do based on the supposed angle of the ‘sun’.  The modeling/texturing bit is still a little confusing. Most of that is because I’m working with someone else’s model and have to quickly figure out how it’s all UV’d and layed out. And it’s in Maya. I’m capable in most areas of Maya, but I’ve been spoiled by the workflow I’ve got for UV mapping in 3DS Max. As a result I'm figuring out all the ways to make texture effects without going out and taking photos. Turns out it's kind of difficult to take good photos of asphalt when you're crossing the street.

The  added focus on team projects with programmers and designers lets me see the full spectrum of game production – you can’t just focus on your single task and stay there for all day. For Sparrowhawk, I have to get my animations into the engine to be triggered by the player. For Shivered Timbers (the pirate level ), I have to integrate my textures and shaders into their packages and make sure they’re cohesive with the other artists’ styles and procedures. It’s an added layer of practicality that helps keep your eye on the big picture.

I’m not good at writing conclusions.

Part 1

Temperature is 3 degrees celcius, some rain, and winds at 27mph.

This was new.

I walked through the terminal to the train ticket counter, just outside arrivals, and past some shops. The counter couldn’t take my Chase card, understandably. Luckily the ATM let me withdraw some Euros. I  said bye to my brother, and went down to the train platform.

I boarded train at precisely 1:09pm. There was a different train coming every 2 minutes. Luckily mine had its name printed in 6 foot tall letters along the engine: FRYA. We zoomed along. Saw my first windmill at 1:16. That’s right, I took notes. It’s not the last one I see. There’s plenty of modern windmills in addition to the traditional ones around. Lots of greenhouses.

We very quickly arrive at Rotterdam, the only stop other than Breda, my final destination. I see if I could find the building Jackie Chan slid down in Who Am I. I can’t find it, but this train station looked kind of neat. That’ll do for now. Several times on the ride, I felt my ears pop going in and out tunnels.

Finally, Breda. My apartment wasn't ready yet, so I was set up in this hotel for the time being. Although next door to the station, fatigue took its toll. I checked in 100% exhausted and could barely sign my own name or pronounce my school. Hilarious. Also Seal was playing over the sound system. It called back to the kind of silly music video, and fatigue made this funnier. Dropped bags upstairs, looked over map, copied it the best I could, and set out to explore.

And got lost. I entered park, filled with walkways, moss covered trees and wild roosters askin for bread crumbs. I soon approached a cathedral and had flashbacks to playing Assassins Creed.  I walked past lots of little shops I’d never heard of. Only ones I recognize are H&M and Games Workshop. About half of the stores were closed, it being Sunday. I keep going east, end up hitting the edge of the city center, and nearly went the wrong way back. I turned back thanks to just enough map studying earlier. Followed a canal back.

After I recoup’d, I called Stefano and was brought to the Pakhuis. Recognized intersection from google maps. I was able to tour on Sunday because they were finishing up a game jam – and the effect felt like an opening montage. Met lots of interesting characters but I don’t know them yet. People with all kinds of accents. Ate sandwich of cucumber, tomato and cheese. Quick game of Smash Brothers– link vs roy, barely lost, I swear, then I returned back to hotel.

Call home, its Sunday morning back home and return upstairs to meet roommate. Can’t even hold a conversation Im so out of it. Fall asleep with a disorienting nap. Wake up thinking the ceiling was the wall.

Went downstairs for tea, had another call to pam. Much better.  It’s Sunday lunch there. Say my good afternoon/night and go to bed. Sleep wonderfully.

DAY 2

Get up pre-dawn, without my alarm. But this is winter in Holland, so that’s like only 730am. This is like 1030pm or so back home. From my window, I can see all the commuters leaving Breda by train. The sun still hasn’t risen and the trains are full.

I’m set up for a few meetings today. I walk straight down [street name] to the main campus, and hang out in the library for a few minutes. My power plug adapter thankfully works and my laptop starts charging normally. However, internet still does not work, as I haven’t received my student login information.

First meeting is at 1100am in H 0.002, a lecture hall with tray-table style desk spaces folding out of the chair in front of you. Are you paying attention, American universities? No more of this skinny slab nonsense. The naming conventions for the room follow the same logic as any building, except the ground floor is floor 0, not 1. I learned this at the hotel last night. I’m on floor 3, so there’s the lobby (0), then 1, 2, and finally, 3.

The international office gives a quick overview of the team, the  demographics, and the activities. They say something regarding our school emails. They receive a room full of blank stares. They ask “how many people have their login info, it should have been sent on December 17 to the email you provided to nhtv.” Two, maybe three hands go up. “OK, we’ll send that out again.” Then they hand it over to the student run international group, Compass. They host parties and organize trips to Paris and London. At this presentation   I also got to meet my hotel roommate properly. He’s come to NHTV from his school in Sweden to study sports journalism. Cool, I say.

We go to lunch together. “Dutch lunch is different than some countries,” I remember the intro packet explaining. “We eat cold sandwiches and don’t often eat hot food until supper.” This was new to my roommate, who told me hot foods like rice and meatballs are more common in Sweden. Then it hits me. IKEA is Swedish too, right? I offer the connection but make no jokes. Anyways I go for a sandwich. What I’m not used to is seeing is someone carefully slicing loaves of bread and making these sandwiches live. No square slices to be found. I grab a cheese sandwich, a coffee (which cost two coffees worth because I spilled it while filling and had to refill), and some Natural Lays. Gotta stay real.

After my brief lunch, I head upstairs after getting lost. I forget the deal about first floors and such. Have a meeting with two of the teachers here. They determine, after looking over my work, that I could take classes designated for 2^nd year students. Unusual, they say. I’ve got the chops in some places and don’t in others. There’s also concerns about my workload outside of class. I’m still a part of Scrapyard back home. I don’t tell them about my job at All Saints.

I get to meet another teacher, this one an American. I don’t catch from where. He’s finishing a lecture in a class about NURBS modeling. I’m familiar with nurbs, but don’t use them much. They’re like the pen tool in Illustrator and photoshop but brought into the 3^rd dimension. I don’t use them because they feel like they're more for static, photorealistic computer graphics, whereas I’m interested in animated, real time stuff. I'm sure it has its uses, inspiring polyflow in organic shapes, not having to worry about polys at all...

I’m brand new here, and all they know about me is what I briefly showed them of my port – just classwork from last semester, and a couple models prior to that. I wonder if showing more models would’ve been beneficial or hurtful. They seem to think I'm good enough to enter the program as a second year. First year is fundamentals, second year is building on that and group projects, third and fourth years are all projects and internships, so I think I'm in a good place.

After this last meet up, I head back to the hotel.