School
I am in the second week of Visual Frameworks at Full Sail University in the Mobile Development program.
The goal is to combine design with programming to make functional applications with UI elements (ex. buttons, lists, inputs (text, radio buttons, combo buttons), in Windows Forms with C#. Now we’re researching the various features available through Windows Forms and expanding our existing C# knowledge with the various functions available with the Forms components and putting this new information to use by making Windows Forms apps.
I like that it’s challenging. I don’t like that I have to figure stuff out but it’s fun because I have to figure stuff out. I’m so happy when it works!
It’s particularly hard to understand the concept of Custom Events because the instructional material wasn’t very clear about the differences between events and event handlers.
There are three different parts of creating events:
- – event handler
- – event function
- – event call
The hardest part is figuring out what each does and where to put it in my code, especially when working with multiple forms within a program.
Another tricky thing was accessing the correct instance of a specific type of form.
Two more weeks to go.
Art
I’ve been drawing every day like I said I would. I’m trying to color most of the drawings because I want to practice shading and how the colors fit together. But when I get lazy I just do pencil sketches. Unfortunately, I can’t add skin colors because I only have light orange and it looks weird when I use that to color in the skin.
I’ve also recently started working on daddy’s Space Station Nori children’s book illustrations. The challenge is many scenes have lots of people and I’m used to drawing separate figures. It’s good practice to work on anatomy and poses, different from my usual drawing with the figure in portrait, posing and looking straight ahead.
Other
Blender
So, Blender 2.8 was recently released. The videos are interesting. It is much more intuitive and user-friendly, and they’ve added powerful functionality, including a huge cut in render time and adding 2D animation support.
World of Frosting
I’m still working on my World of Frosting universe, general details and characteristics of the three main characters: Cupcake, Almond, and Berry. I’m working on a simple draft of their origins.
It is difficult to ensure everything fits logically, is consistent and unique while remaining true to the concept of the WoF. Developing the characters simultaneously with the World Creation is helpful because considerations to develop a deep character pertain to the World. Ex: What is the character’s level of education? I have to think about how Sweetlings, the inhabitants of the World of Frosting, are educated, which I didn’t before.
Books
One to a more exciting note – Derek Landy wrote three new books for the Skullduggery Pleasant series. I only read #10, but the other 2 are on the way from somewhere in the UK. I love Skullduggery Pleasant so much! He’s witty, charming, sarcastic, cocky in a way that makes you roll your eyes. He drives a Bentley and likes his suits, the epitome of cool. And, he can fly!
Game Dev with Unity
And I almost forgot. I’m also still working on the Unity course (The Ultimate Guide to Game Development with Unity 2019) by Jonathan Weinberg. He shows multiple ways to get to the same solution and a code cleanup at the end of each section. The course is available from Udemy and was created in official partnership with Unity. Jonathan Weinberg also founded GameDevHQ, which hosts
- challenges
- webinars
- tutorials
- courses
- a growing community of helpful, successful Unity game developers
- a file base for pro members which provides access to 1,000+ assets for projects
Overall
I have so many things I want to learn and do that I have to be effective to fit it all in. My typical daily plan involves
- Reading
- Practicing French on DuoLingo
- School stuff
- Developing World of Frosting
- Unity course
- Short Blender 2.8 video
- Drawing
These are my daily self-improvement things. I try not to overload myself by balancing it all out with WWE or Psych, and weekly ballroom dancing.
Whenever I dance, it’s like the pressure of getting everything else done just floats away. I enjoy waltz even more now because it’s peaceful and swooshy like dancing into a fairyland. Dancing is magical, especially with a good dance partner.