Alright, Week one… Today is Wednesday, right?
I said “watch this space” and then true to form, immediately had to fight the urge to disappear for six months and come back with a completely different plan. I didn’t though I’m here. I managed to do some live streams, that counts.
Trackmania
If you told me that my gateway back into consistent streaming would be a sequel from a twenty-year-old French arcade racing game about driving tiny cars over impossible geometry at ludicrous speed, I’d have called you a liar. And yet…
There’s something about Trackmania that just works for me. The maps are short, thirty seconds to two minutes usually, which means failure is never that punishing. You crash, you reset, you go again. The feedback loop is almost medically satisfying for a brain that struggles to stay locked on anything for longer than it takes to boil a kettle. You can see yourself improving, lap by lap, second by shaved-off second. It scratches the same itch as a good roguelike, except I’m not six hours deep before I’ve noticed it’s dark outside. (usually)
Live2D is sat there. Watching me.
This one’s been on the list since before the list existed. I’ve had the trial downloaded - or close to downloaded - more times than I care to admit. Every time, something gets in the way. Usually that something is me.
This week I want to actually open it.
Perhaps first I should read some tutorials, know where I am with it, and draw out the model and layers in something else, so all I will have to do is import and rig it… A subscription would only make sense if I already had a couple commisions lined up.
I know the basics - it’s rigging software, you take a layered PSD illustration and give it life through deformers and physics and what sounds like actual dark magic. Whether I can get from zero to a functioning avatar for the stream is a question I genuinely don’t know the answer to yet. But I’m curious, and that’s more than I usually have going in.
I’ll report back next week. Either I’ve started something exciting, or I have an entertaining life lesson about how it went wrong immediately. Either way, content.
Week one. It happened. See you for week two.