This is mainly a fandom/writing blog I guess. It doesn't really have a central theme though. I have 2 side blogs: @the-grey-wizard, and @words-and-writing which is where all my writning and etymology stuff will be going first from now on.
literally my second biggest flex is that the guy behind osha official is my mutual. first biggest flex is that there’s a discord server dedicated to hating on me
In the 80’s as computer animation was on the rise one of the thorniest problems was “how do we get this thing we made on the computer… OFF the computer?” There were a lot of unique solutions, but the one I’m fascinated by most is Disney’s solution of using a plotter.
A plotter acted as sort of a 3D printer but for 2D images. There was a ball point pen that could move up and down, and the paper underneath could be moved in and out. Using CAD based programs you could plot points in 2D space and the plotter would draw the lines between them and even do geometric shapes!
When it came time to do The Great Mouse Detective, the animators at Disney wanted to do more dynamic shots for the climatic battle inside Big Ben. Drawing all those gears and cogs would be a nightmare for the animators, so they experimented with using 3D animation.
But this was still the early 80’s. There was no digital ink and paint program, no way to merge the 2D animated characters with the 3D animated backgrounds digitally. So how did they get the 3D animated backgrounds out of the computer?
By drawing each frame on the plotter.
Every frame was printed out on the plotter, and then xeroxed onto animation cels, and then hand painted like traditional 2D animation cels are.
But why the plotter? If they were gonna have to export every frame anyway, why not use a printer? Well… because printers back then just weren’t very good. A plotter uses points and physically draws the line between them, much like how vector graphics work. It yielded a much smoother and higher fidelity line than if they just printed them out.
This was still a massive undertaking, but it was probably the best solution to getting the dynamic camera moves they wanted out on paper. 2D animation was drawn over top and then both layers of animation cels were filmed frame by frame.
And that’s how you got dynamic shots like this in the mid 80’s! 3D animated backgrounds, printed with a plotter, xeroxed onto animation cels, hand painted, and then re-photographed with the 2D animation on top!
This technique would be the standard way Disney got their 3D animation out of the computer for their 2D films… right up until The Rescuers Down Under which was the first fully digital animated feature. That movie used PIXAR’s proprietary CAPS System (hey that name sounds familiar 😉) to combine everything digitally. But that’ll have to be a story for another time!
You know technology literacy is dying because I saw this meme with 76k likes
F11 the full screen button? You’re scared of the full screen button? F10?? It opens the menu bar???
Computers are so scary what if I accidentally hit F12 in a steam game and it takes a screenshot. What if I press shift + F12 while in word and accidentally save my document 😖
If you had to learn what the F keys on your computer do through me reblogging this post, then I’m glad you did. Computer literacy is not a skill that gets taught anymore, and it is absolutely one that needs to be taught in order to be learned. Don’t ever feel bad for not knowing something, but ☝️ don’t ever stop learning learning about your environment, the tools you use, and especially the people around you
Never stop learning+ Never stop sharing what you learned
A while ago (2 odd years) I started doing HEMA (Historical Medieval Martial Arts), and while I’m not good at it, it has taught me some stuff that has made sword fighting scenes in books/moveis/t.v. shows way funnier/worse.
(Note: HEMA covers a wide range of weapons, years, locations, and there are many variations. I am no wide ranging expert, and in fact my knowledge is relatively constrained to the style I do. But certain principles are universal for a particular weapon style, and those are the ones I’ll relate.
Hence: This is about long swords/broad swords and similar [99% of the swords you see in fantasy and movies], applies far less to rapiers etc. and I cannot possible comment on it’s application to non-european sword fighting styles]
Addendum: ‘Fencing’ refers to any form of dueling with swords, including long swords. Not just the olympic styles.).
Killing your opponent is easy like…. stupidly easy if you are both semi-compotent. Event if you are a novice with just a bit of training and your opponent is a near master. The problem is you will die as well. This is called a 'double kill’ and is super common when someone is learning to fence. The difficult part is killing them in a way that they do not also kill you at the same time, which is what takes a while to learn. In fact, masters often get hit by novices because the novice does something terrible stupid that no one would actually do. In a real fight, both would die, but the novice doesn’t know that yet.
Length of a fight: Is very dependent on the skills of those involved, obviously, but much shorter than one would expect either way. Comptent person v.s. someone who just knows 'hit with sword to kill’? Not even a second: It is practically easier to kill someone when you block a strike than to not kill them. Against someone who knows what they’re doing? Longer, but not terrible long. I can’t imagine an unarmored fight with sharp weapons lasting more than a minute. (someone’s gonna get their hands cut, and then their head)
“Getting inside their range” when fighting a bigger opponent with a similar weapon is just… fucking dumb. Like the whole 'small girl being taught to get close to the big enemy’ if the both have longswords just means the big enemy will now be able to grab her. There is a whole art that is basically 'when you have a sword but your enemy is close enough to wrestle’ and it always favours the stronger and bigger fighter [well it primarly favours whoever acts first, but usually people react at the same time, then it favours the bigger person]. Whereas at a distance long sword favours speed over strength, and reach differences are minimal. Now, if you have a dagger and your opponent has a longsword, by all means get inside their reach/range, but 99% chance you will probably die before you make it.
Now this is not exhaustive, as I am not an expert still a relative novice, but they are some things I’ve noticed as of late.
If you have hoofed, sentient creatures (centaurs, fauns, etc.) do they wear horseshoes? Or are horseshoes a compromise between cost, effort in looking after the animal etc. Is there something "better" (in comfort, utility, fashion) that sentient creatures would prefer? Possibly also a metal thing that's nailed in, but different in some way?
Interesting! I’m no expert, of course, but here are some thoughts that may help you on your journey. Take what you can use and disregard what you can’t!
