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Here is the original sketch for a Helios’ Forsaken session redo that I am working on…

022210 Helios' Forsaken original sketch

The more I get into Web design, the more I realize how bloated and sickly it is. To the average everyday viewer, the Web is an intangible “thing” and it either *works* or it doesn’t. In reality it’s just a cesspool of competing ideals, mindsets and technologies that are all dumped together in a way that a portal (browser) can attempt to access them and provide some predefined type of user experience.

In the old days, the Web was just good ol’ HTML. It was boring and cumbersome, but it worked. Now, there are so many frameworks and content management systems and plugins and languages and file types and filters and lord knows what else that it makes the mind numb. You can make your site in any of countless programs and view them on countless devices. And everyone will tell you that their way is best. It’s like an all-you-can-eat China buffet, except it’s that one in the back alley in the seedy part of town.

The ironic part of everything, is that there seems to be a growing shift in the internet world back towards the days of simplicity. Flash hating sites seem to be sprouting everywhere and the words “open standards” are being volleyed around by even the biggest of contenders (Microsoft non-withstanding.) It can probably be contributed in a large part to mobile devices and the need to separate __content__ <<from>> __design__. But regardless of the why, there is a shift. Of course there are juggernauts out there like Facebook who seem to be pissing on the idea of simplicity like the overgrown teenagers that they are, but as time passes, they will likely just be replaced by the next best thing.

The really sad thing is that the internet should be easy. It really should. Just look at what the internet is made up of–It can be broken down into five things:

1. Words
2. Pictures
3. Moving Pictures
4. Games
5. Stores

Most sites have a combination of these things, but there really is very little on the internet that doesn’t fall into one of these categories. So why the hell is Web design so complicated if it’s just words, pictures, movies, games and stores? Drop the last two off the list and it should be even simpler. So why does it seem you need to jump through a flaming hoop backwards with electric wires clamped to your chest and an siphon rammed into your bank account, just to put some words, pictures and movies on a Web page? Seriously?

The more I try on the Web, the less I actually want to do. I have an animated webcomic that when I created it was somewhat innovative. I have a number of stories that I want to tell and pictures to show the world. But every time I sit down to come up with a decent way to present them, I get bogged down in all this Web crap. I’ve made a site in HTML and CSS. Both I can do fine. I switched to HD video, but to embed it I need to put it in a Flash container that requires a new version of a $700 program. Or I could go with the up and coming HTML 5 and then no one would be able to view it except a few nerds who have switched to Google Chrome or Firefox. I could upload it to YouTube, but then I’d have to castrate it so as to make it family-friendly. At least 5 years ago there was only one option for online video: crappy Flash video or not.

The bottom line is that HTML is a pain. It’s cumbersome and “the world has moved on” as Roland would say. Database-driven is where it’s at. But for database-driven you have to either: A) Use a CMS or Framework or B) Learn a programming language and make your own CMS or Framework. I’ve tried Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, PHPBB, Wiki and so on. And you know what, they all suck at making three simple things: text, pictures and movies. Every time I touch one of these tools, I feel like I’m using a bulldozer to till my little garden plot in my back yard.

In all my muddling around the internet tonight, I did come up on one gem of a site, http://camendesign.com/. It’s nice to know that there are still people out there who are innovating in the Web world. And the best part, this person has made an entire site using straight text files, served up by a simple yet elegant Web interface. Eat that Joomla! HTML 5 really is a beautiful thing at it’s core. Too bad it’s being dragged down into the bowels of Web hell by the “I want to own Web video” crap that made Flash the defacto standard in the first place. Not to mention the fact that the standard won’t be solidified until 2012, and by then it will already be irrelevant.

Of course all of this just brings me back to square one. Which maybe is where I should be. Simplicity is God on the Web and I need to get my Web sites back to basics. Now if only I could figure out how…

So just finished up a big stint of advertising for my comic. Hits went up really high for a while. But now that I’ve stopped they’ve gone back down. I think I need to explore different venues for advertising the comic. It’s just frustrating. I still have some more ideas up my sleeve to pimp my comic, but I think in general webcomics are not as popular as they were.

In other stuff, I watched Office Space last night. Cute movie had some great moments and nice irony.

So, its a new year and there are going to be some big changes for Helios’ Forsaken.

First off, starting with Tuesday’s update, I am going FLV with the updates. With all the frame-by-frame animation I have been doing, it just seemed to make sense. It’s also paving the way for the future of the comic. The ultimate goal with Helios’ Forsaken is to make animated movies. So, it was only a logical next step to put them in movie format on the Web.

It’s also giving a hint of what will be to come. Session 2 will be all CG and will also be done as movies. I’m planning on upping the ante with it. I want to do podcasting and maybe even some YouTube mirroring.

So there are still some kinks to work out of the system. I was going to use iMove to create the FLVs, but that program just sucks for animation. I also tried using the FLV 7 format to make it more accessible to older browsers, but the encoding sucked and it came out all jaggy. Plus there’s the whole frames per second thing. I’ve been doing something like 14 or 16 frames per second so older computers can play it (flash can be a memory hog), but movies are different so Ive had to make the leap to 24 fps which requires more animation frames (which is why the background was a little jumpy in this update.

The other project I have in the works is a rebranding of all my Web sites. I started this long process and made a rough-draft of the Helios’ home page. Aside from the weekly updates this is my next priority. A lot of viewers I’m sure get turned away but the sucky load time of the intro movie and the general blah-ness of that page. First impressions are everything and Helios’ hasn’t been making a good first impression. But hey, it’s a learning experience for me.

I toyed around with having a Flash-based interface for the FLVs, but I think I’m going to stick with html. Keep it simple. Maybe some day I’ll go database-driven, but I don’t have the know-how or funding to make that work.

So, Helios readers take note. Today’s update is my first blatantly political satire to date. Sure I’ve had some jabs at things, but this is the first time I have put a political figure in there.

So what’s the story behind it? Well anyone up on their current American news should be able to tell right off. Our asshole of a president has once again gone on the record to defend the horrid abomination of the way we have been dealing with terror suspects in this country. Because of the fucking Patriot Act, as long as they mention the “T” word, they can arrest, imprison and torture you (Bush is so full of shit, of course the government tortures people) indefinitely. And yet, whenever pressed, our politicians repeatedly say “we are protecting the people” and “we don’t torture people.” What is Guantanamo Bay but another fucking concentration camp? How is this any better than what we did with the Japanese and Germans during World War II?

So there’s my tirade. Hopefully today’s comic made you laugh. And maybe it will also make you think a little about how awful the current regime in Washington has gotten.

This morning Helios’ Forsaken was at 76 on Buzz Comix! We finally broke the Top 100!

So thanks to everyone who is voting and keep those votes coming!
:D:D

So I’m gonna get to posting about the comic over here. I figure there may be a fan or two that wants to know a little more about the comic updating process…

1. 10,000 hits celebration: That’s right, we’re rapidly approaching 10,000 hits. So to celebrate I’ve got a new poll up that will determine what a special celebration pinup comic is going to be. It’s done like a Mad Lib so have fun and vote.
2. New Short going up today: Since I am coming to the climactic scene of Sparta, there is loads of 3D work to be done. As a result (and to prevent the comic from becoming one of those never updates comics) I am going to go back to the short on Monday and the full update on Friday. At least until I get the bulk of the prep work done. It will start this evening and will be another one of the Kliim Files.
3. Progress on Sparta update: I’ll also try to post on here about the progress of the updates.
1. The center (centrifuge) of the lab floor room is currently under way.
2. Heather made an awesome glass statue for the middle of the room.
3. I have built the basic (or not so basic) framework for the room in Modo (damn I love that program). All that’s left is some tweaking and adding of materials in Vue.
4. Other work left to do: lots of dead people, renders of mockup rooms to show through windows. Why did I have to make everything glass and metal My next space station should be all plastic, that way render times will be bearable
5. This Friday’s update will just be renders. Next week week we get back to drawings of Maha, Frayne and Lina (and a few surprises).
4. Hits: Hits lately have been flagging At some point soon I will probably be doing some more advertising. I’ve got a few bids on Project Wonderful, but the annoying thing about that place is that it is really unfair when it comes to popular sites. The bids get driven so ridiculously high by these stupid t-shirt or whatever companies that the little guys like me can’t afford to get a bid in. If I do put Project Wonderful ads on my site, it will definitely be restricted to webcomics only.
1. I’ve also been looking at my stats and have decided that I am going to switch the vote button on the home page to go to TWC for a while. I like Buzz way better, but I get far more hits from TWC. If I can get into the top 100 of TWC, I may be able to finally break out of the slump I’m in.
2. As for redoing old stuff. I’ve put it on hold until I finish Sparta. The end is in sight and I really want to get it done so I can move onto bigger and better things. I’ve got a couple short stories planned as well as session 2 to look forward to. But I want to wait and get a bunch done before I put session 2 up. If all goes well Session 2 should knock peoples socks off.

So this week my little sister’s getting married. Makes me feel old, but happy. So anyhow, the comic is on a week-long hiatus as will the blog (though its not like I’ve been posting much here anyway.

I may start further expounding on the comic creation process here, since the forum I tried to do was a flop (actually I just gave up fighting the spam until there is a better version of PHPBB out).

Anyhow, I’ve been hard at work on the next scene for Helios’ Forsaken. I’m actually going to do another rendered animation (crosses fingers). I finished the basic setup yesterday and left a preview render going over night. If all goes well, I will leave the final render of 40 seconds (over 800 frames), going while I am away, and if all goes well, there will be a massive folder of TIFFs waiting for me when I get back

In doing the animation last night, I also discovered something profound. When a program says “wizard” what it really means is a dumbed down way to do something that will inevitably make the job take twice as much work. Take for example the Vue Animation “Wizard.” Sure it seems easy (until you try to animate a camera moving into a room with a roof), but the alternative is WAYYY easier. You open the timeline, drag the time time slider, mover your camera, repeat until done and poof. You have an animation that would have taken hours of hair pulling using the “wizard.” Gotta love them computers…

This week I am doing daily vote incentives featuring exclusive previews of characters from Session 2. Today is featuring Tarpeia, yesterday was Linaeve and tomorrow will be Persephone. So vote for Helios’ Forsaken by clicking the big vote button on the home page.

Oh, and I will be posting stuff about Helios’ here again until further notice. The forum thing was a bust for now anyway. I fought the spam and the spam won. When the new version of PHPBB comes out I may give it a whirl again, but for now, I dont have time to delete 15 spam members and dozens of spam posts a day.

I finally got around to starting one of the projects that I’ve been wanting to start. I set up an Ursula K. Le Guin forum and informational site. Ursula is probably my favorite writer or one of them and there is not much out on the Web about her, so I’ve been meaning to start up a good site for info about her books and for a forum.

Also, I’ve been thinking about having a forum for Helios’ Forsaken. Rather than making two separate forums, I made one forum for Ursula books and works inspired by her. What does this mean? Well, it means a few different things.

1. The guestbook is going to move to the forum. Lately I have been getting upwards of 10-15 spam submissions per day. This is a real pain considering I only have 15 real entries in the guestbook. Forums have better spam management capabilities. So hopefully this will help with that issue. The old entries have been moved to the forum.

2. I’ve created a section over there for Helios’ updates, which means I’ll no longer be using this place as a place to post info about Helios’. This means two things, this will be more of a blog and it also means I’ll probably update here less frequently. I will try to at least update weekly though, because I love having a place to rant and rave and just blab on about stuff.

3. It means I’ve got yet another site, though at least on this one I’ve got Heather helping. She’s also an admin and has been helping me set up.

4. The site will probably be officially launched early next year. Until then it is open for people to come visit at www.jdmsphoto.com/forum. Feel free to head on over and post stuff. Over the next couple of months I am going to fill out the Ursula portion with info about the different books, etc, so that when I launch the site should be pretty full of stuff.

So head on over and check it out. It’s really pretty.