Thursday, January 25, 2007

It just keeps getting better!

Wrestled with html-editing software all day, ended up having to do my Links page from frickin SCRATCH on notepad. But I did get shiny buttons! Woo hoo!

I'm trying to figure out more ways to screw up my site. It's working just fine, so it's time to fuck it up again! Thinking......

Frustrated!!!

Today has been the most frustrating day ever. Still sick. Then, I got free software from lunarpages for webdesign and other things. Cool stuff. You get it when you sign up for 12 months. I was messing around, uploaded the page (it was named something other than "index.html" and it overwrote my original front page! Luckily I had a back-up from over the summer.

I also lost my links page, so that sucks. I have a copy from back in the summer, as well, but I have to add all my newest stuff on there, now. For now, I've taken that offline until I get all the links I need. Oy.

Also managed to reset my brother's wireless router instead of his modem, so I had little to no connectivity all day, and my brother had to set up the network, again.

That's about all. Not in the mood to write, at the moment, just wanted everyone to know what the heck happened to my site.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Nobody knows de trouble I've seen...

Eh, couldn't think of a better title. That works.

So, I'm thinking many of my posts are going to be excuses for why I'm not updating, working on projects, etc.

I'm SICK today. This sucks ass.

Maybe if I'm bored later I'll continue on with the whining...

Saturday, January 20, 2007

New Bogus Group photo!

Yay, I did do something tonight! It was time to update the group photo of Bogus, since they've all had some changes in custom content, eye color, etc, so I "Frankensteined" pieces of different pics to get the final shot. All pics had to be sized appropriately, which probably was the most tedious part:






Had to rotate this one a bit:



This was flipped horizontally and rotated for Scott's hand, and the ring was colored out, since it's his right hand. I used the original, with the ring on, to make Jory's left hand.



Scott's left hand was cropped from this pic, then rotated around to sit on Val's waist:



Started cutting stuff, adding stuff...



Added those hands, had to add in Val's arm to properly sit in front of Scott's hand



Cut Jory's arm off, ewwwwwwww



Slid him in there, and added another hand on Shep's shoulder



Then did a lot of painting, put it to a dark background, and voila! The new pic!



The full-size one can be seen here.

Looks like I wasn't done, yet. I wasn't completely satisfied with both hands on the shoulders, so I cut and pasted again. Came up with this one (and this one was REALLY hard):

Friday, January 19, 2007

Already slacking

Yeah, here it is, the 19th of January, and I've already forgotten this blog...

Not much has happened with the site. I can't remember what I posted last, but I redid the layout on the links page, and I made some shiny new buttons for the front page, but can't figure out how to get them to show up on the page! All I get is a white box. Very frustrating. So, I'm stuck with the white underlined links until I get that straightened out. Despite the name "CuppaJoe", Java and I do not get along. (Get it? Geek joke! Oh, dear God what have I become...)

Still entertaining a few ideas for videos. Right now I have nothing concretely planned, but I do have a few things bouncing around my otherwise empty head. There are a couple songs I *really* want to do, but haven't figured out the best approach. I would love to do "Anna Molly" or "Megalomaniac". How can I get Incubus and the Sims2 to co-exist? No synchronized-dance scenes. I'm lost!

I do have some fun-type, typical "VRevis" vids in mind, too. One project I keep coming back to is a video dedicated to my forum members. I have many of their self-sims (and if I don't have a self-sim, I can make one. Bwahahahaha), so it would be fun to cast them all. Haven't decided to go with a single song (and if so, which one?) , or a medley (which would be tons more work, but fun). We'll see.

Also on my to-do list: yet another (this will be the third) remake of "Criminal" by Fiona Apple. The last one I did, I really dropped the ball. I got so fed up with it, got to a point where I literally hated the song, and I probably shouldn't have it on my site, at all. I left it there, though, because it's fun to see how I've progressed, in theory. In actuality, I cringe if I even think of watching it. I will do a much more fleshed-out storyline, this time. I have a better handle on editing, and I have a good idea of where I want to take that video. Same basic premise, but this time it should actually come through. Also, I want to re-make the very first video I did, "Hella Good", by No Doubt. I did that one a year ago, and I was so proud of it, haha. This was before I knew that Sims2 machinima was actually a *thing*. I thought I just did something really cool with in-game animations set to music (I invented machinima!!!). Now that I know there is a niche for this type thing, I'm wanting to redo some of my earliest efforts. I have started work on a re-edit of that video: cut out plumbobs, etc, but it looks like I'll have to reshoot a lot of scenes. I don't want to make it anything more than it was initially intended to be. It will remain a techno-club-dance video, but without all the newbie technical errors. I did, actually, already do a re-edit of "Let's Get It Started". I was quiet about it, because the original was so well-received. The one that is downloadable off my site is the new edit. Not a lot has changed. I like that video as is. I just wanted to make a couple slip-ups less apparent. One, I got rid of altogether. Another, well, it's still there. I couldn't really edit around it without losing the smoothness of the transitions to/from the surrounding scenes. It's in a tight spot. I'll just say it's a good thing my camera-work has improved since then, as well as my editing. Not that anything is perfect, now. No, even in the videos I'm the most proud of, I still feel they have a "rough around the edges" look to them.

Okay, just meant to write that I haven't done anything and ended up Vabbling, again.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Ennui

Not a whole lot going on, at the moment. Did a few tweaks here and there on the family tree, that's about it. I've been out most of the day.

I did transfer my old LiveJournal blog to a new one at blogspot.com. Check that out. I have so many gaps to fill in those storylines. Right now I'm putting up random picture threads, just to show some of the things happening in my game. I have another post to add this evening (looks like I'm stuck inside, tonight. Hoo-ray). It's from a few weeks back, before the Bad Mood Thread, actually, but it's an interesting one. And very hard to explain.

Edit:

I just got done putting up that very bizarre thread. It took an entire blog entry just to set it up, another to introduce the characters, and then a four-part story. Whoa. That's a lot of blogging.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Let's Get It Started

Okay. Bad enough I have to remember to blog, but I have to title each entry, too?!

The last two days, I've been working on my other site, which is the Bayfield Family Tree. That is going to be one hella huge project. I'm still working on the Broke-Bayfields, and the Goth-Bayfields are going to be at least as bad. Won't be finished anytime soon, that's for sure. At least I haven't had any new characters added. No plans to, either.

I haven't done any work on Sims2 movies since Sim Shady (see below!). I had a few projects going, but I scrapped all those to start new ones. Since I filed for divorce, I haven't had the time to put into doing any new projects, so it may be a while. Once things settle down in my personal life, I should be up and running, again. I may be able to squeeze in a quickie-vid, though. Who knows?

I'm slacking in the Ask Joe department, too. I have a few new questions to post, and I will get to that, soon. Soon, soon, soon. It's always "soon", with me.

Ya know, the more I type "soon" the weirder that word looks...

Will get this set up asap!

This must be my 10th blog. I last updated my non-sims blog last May. Obviously I'm terrible at keeping up with these things.

I wanted to make a separate Cuppa Joe Blog just to keep everybody updated with what I'm doing. Or why I'm not doing what I would be doing. There's a lot of that going on, currently, but real life does take precedence over internet life.

I'll work on making this page more presentable once I get back, this afternoon.