Five Genres

Five Genres

Sunday 31 July 2011

New Episodes!

Alrighty then people!  I have four new episodes for you to read!  I hope you enjoy them.

Episode Five: What's That Noise?

Episode Six: Forced Entry

Episode Seven: Fire in the Hole!

Episode Eight: Down the Hatch

I don't know why, but Episode Eight somehow got uploaded before Episode Five, so if you use the "Next" button to flip through the episodes, you will actually have to back peddle to get to Eight.   Grrr...

Thursday 28 July 2011

Finally A New Image of the Cast!

As you can see at the top of the page, I finally got around to getting a new shot of the cast including Ultrajet's character Bridget!  I think it is long over due, but since I am basically finished testing the limits of my new video card (for now), I thought I should get back to doing screenshots.  This was much easier to do than the captures I had taken for Episodes five and six.  Not having to fight with low fps to get the shot set up, then save and exit to reset the graphic settings and start up again (sometimes having to reposition the actors) made this much less of a headache.  I might even enjoy doing this again :)

I will be starting on the comic again later this evening.  The plan is to have the four episodes I wanted to give to you folks before the laptop died, posted sometime this weekend.  I am aiming for Saturday, but as we know, "The best laid plans of mice and men..."

Monday 25 July 2011

The "New" Computer

Okay, so as I type this post out, I am going through the lengthy and irritating task of installing my games onto the new computer, which I was finally able to pick up earlier this afternoon. Yay!

Since most of you are worried about The Phoenix Imperative, I decided to install Fallout 3 first, then the DLCs, then Oblivion.  After that, I drag the backed up FO3 and Oblivion files into their new home, and re-install FOMM, FOSE, OBMM and finally OBSE.  Hmm, maybe FO3 Edit would be a wise idea as well.

Unfortunately, in the process of backing up the data from the laptop's hard drive, the screenshots I had of episodes 5 and 6 got missed.  So I get to have the fun of redoing all of those again *sigh*  On the bright side, I can actually retake all those shots again, possibly with better resolution than that of episodes 2, 3 and 4 :)  I'll find out soon enough, as I plan on doing some game play to see how things go.

I have already had an inquiry as to the specs of my "new" system on the Nexus, so I might as well post them here to prevent a string of "so Dru, what are the specs of your new system?" questions.

3.4Ghz cpu (single chip)
2 gig of ram
580 Gb of on board hard drive space
Operating System is Windows XP
ATI Radeon HD 5570 Video card with 1 Gb on board memory
19" monitor

Sunday 24 July 2011

Bad News Update

Since I have gotten wind of the fact that some of the readers of The Phoenix Imperative are starting to go have suffer from lack of new episodes, I thought I would share the latest news on my "new" computer system.

I went into the computer shop yesterday afternoon (Saturday) to see if it was finally ready or not.  It wasn't...grrrr.  The tower that the store owner was waiting for had just come in that morning, and he hoped to have it finished for me by the end of the day, or Monday  at the latest.  I told him I wouldn't be able to come back until Monday, so no worries there.  He is rather appreciative of my patience regarding the time it has taken to get this gaming until built (I commissioned it over a week ago) so he is going to through in a few extras like upgrading the ram.  Personally, I would like not to be paying anymore than I have for it, but I will take what I can get at this point.

Not only do I need this system for gaming and doing the visual work on The Phoenix Imperative, but my job search files and links as well as pictures of items in storage that I plan on putting up for sale are on the hard drive of the laptop, and I need to "slave" that drive to access everything.  Yes, I could go and take the pictures again, but doing so would be an expense in fuel I don't want to spend if I don't have to, and I am also not inclined to be hauling stuff out and in of my storage unit in this heat we have been experiencing here in Southern Ontario.  Temperatures of 40 to 50 degrees C with the humidex?  No thank you.

So, hopefully, I should have some good news to share with all of you later tomorrow!  Hopefully...

Saturday 16 July 2011

Bad News

As the title indicates, I have some bad news for you folks...

My laptop has turned itself into something less than useful.  Thursay evening, while I was doing screenshots for Episode Seven, the video card stopped functioning.  Being a laptop, it is not something that can be repaired.  Production on The Phoenix Imperative has stopped for now.

A friend of mine was kind enough to loan me her laptop for a while, but it doesn't even meet the minimum requirements to run Fallout 3, so I can't even redo Episodes 5 and 6, let alone finish 7.  *sigh*

All is not lost, my faithful followers!  Even though I can't really afford the expense, I have commisioned a replacement system to be built (desktop this time!), and if the cost doesn't creep up any higher, I will have it by the end of this week.  The hard drive from the laptop can be used as a slave drive in the desktop, so I will have access to all the images I have taken.  I might redo what I have for Episode 7, just so there isn't any sudden change in image quality half-way through the strip.

Friday 8 July 2011

Yakkity Yak

Once I completed Episode Four and finished uploading it everywhere, I realised that I had all but exhausted the scripts that worked out for the story.  I am way behind in doing them.  I was thinking I should be almost done the scripts for the entire "Rude Awakenings" story line by now.  Turns out, I'm not even close!  So, I figured that instead of starting with more screenshots, I should figure out what those screenshots would entail for set up and dialogue.  So, last night I started typing away, filling in the void between E04 and the next relevant episode I have the outline for.

What I ended up with, between last evening and now, is six new episodes written out with setup ideas and dialogue.  A lot of dialogue.  It feels more like I am writing a novel than a comic book.  I think that most of these episodes will require so many screenshots to accommodate the dialogue that I will have to split them in half.  Doing that will, in theory, bring me up to episode sixteen or so being scripted.

"Hey Druu!  Sixteen episodes you say?  That's great!"

Yeah, maybe not.  I planned on a few episodes that involved Cameron giving you a look into who she is and what she knows of her origins, as well as Cameron being brought up to speed on the world she now finds herself in.  Two maybe three strips, just so I don't bore you folks to death, then back into some action.  Well, as it sits now, episodes eight and nine are the big dialogue ones that I think I will need to split in half.  That's four episodes, if I actually have to do it.  Problem is, Cameron hasn't really started answering questions about herself, nor has she really begun to ask about the world outside the Surface Monitoring Station either.  I could end up writing out two more scripts that turn into multiple episodes.  I'm not sure that I want to do that at this stage.

So how do I prevent you, my readers, from suffering from information overload and boredom?  Hmm...

Well, I guess I could break up all the  talking with some interludes.  I have a couple of ideas for episodes that set up new sub-plots, or continue one that I have going now.  Those might help keep things fresh and keep the interest high (I hope).  I don't want to start jumping back and forth too much; that would make it difficult to keep track of who is doing what and with whom.  Maybe do two strips of with all that dialogue, then do an interlude, then back to the dialogue.

By the way, those six new episodes I have typed out cover only two episode outlines!  This is starting to look like a much bigger project than I originally though.  Not a bad thing from my point of view ;)

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Story Evolution

Before posting the first episode of "The Phoenix Imperative", I outlined about a dozen different episodes, then began scripting them.  I'll be honest about the scripting part: I have only finished up to episode three.  Well episode four actually as I originally considered episode one to be a prelude or introduction strip and not technically an actual episode *shrugs*  Any way, "A Lone Wanderer" ended differently than originally planned, but kept the spirit of the script, and "A Lone Wonderer" was absolutely nothing like the script!  Nothing at all!  I did episode four entirely "on the fly".  Each screen developed in my head as I was doing the one before it, and the dialogue ideas worked out the same way.  I wonder if how many movie and TV scripts go through a similar process of evolution?

I completely surprised myself with how well it turned out, and was even more surprised by how well the Nexus community accepted it.  When last I checked, about an hour ago, episode four had gained 22 endoresments, some from people I rarely hear from!  Twenty-two is a personal best for my uploaded images, so I'm rather thrilled with that :)  Hopefully, future episodes will continue around a similar level of acceptance, maybe even break the 25 mark.

I have mentioned around here, on Nos's blog if I remember correctly, and over on the Nexus, that I was thinkng on releasing Cameron as a companion to at least the loyal readers, if not the community as a whole.  That sort of think is still undesided and might depend upon how well "The Phoenix Imperative" does in the next few months.  If I do release her, it would be easiest to do so as a RR Companion Vault character, since that is what the current companion version is built on.  Even that system would require me to make some additions, just to make Cameron more like Cameron in the story, and not a RR companion that happens to look like her.

I will post more musings on that topic later.

Oops! Sorry I'm Late!

It is Wednesday evening as I type this, and Episode Four of the story has been posted everywhere else since Sunday night.  So, for those of you that depend upon the postings here to follow the tale I tell, I apologize for my tardiness.  I hope you think it was worth it :)

Episode Four: A Lone Wonderer

As usual now, remember to adjust the strips size using the drop down menu.

Sunday 3 July 2011

More Phoeinx Imperative

I am happy to inform you that two new episodes of The Pheonix Imperative are available for your reading pleasure :)  With a little luck, I may have another one up in less than 24 hours.

Episode Two: Awakening

Episode Three: A Lone Wanderer

Remember to choose "Full Size" from the drop down menu, or it will be all blurry, and we hates blurry we do!  Gollum! Gollum!