More Light

3rd

The smartphone app, is something for us to try, well play with.

Anyway, its all about light painting and ISO levels last meeting. Yes ISO, controls overall light, and some parts of the photo's quality (unless it was intentional), but the main highlight was light painting. At first I thought I was light drawing, but I realized that light painting is photography itself, while the painting one is the literal drawing one, with light (and blurriness) at least. It gave me more ideas to portrait like light paintings (Unlike the common paintings, of highway cars etc), its amazing. Without sugar coating t, Sir Ray, your statement is definitely correct, You really should be the best among every class you thought, respect!

On the other part, as an assignment for light painting, I asked Michelle to come with me and do something fun with it, like putting ourselves in a picture frame, of light! With limited time, no tripod, only us two, we have gone to a low light place, where stairs are present for us to place Madonna (My 700D Camera). I have set my settings to Exposure Time10   F/10   ISO100, with the help of some bright lights provided by my phone and some gadgets for 2 seconds. Since Michelle has a Photo-phobia disorder (Eye disorder, where bright lights can cause dizziness, almost similar to vertigo), I asked to cover her face, as well as mine, to make the image look natural. Snap!

Took me sometime to perfect the frame, but this is the best i can draw so far. Its kinda cute though.

To define the Exposure Triangle, well, its consist of Shutter Speed (Tv) , Aperture (Av) and ISO. This 3 components of it controls the entrance of light to the camera. Each has a specific purpose, Shutter Speed, defines the entry of light in time, the lower the shutters peed, the faster the snap, less light will enter, the sharper and "stiller" the image. Higher shutter speed in contrast, captures more light, and is prone to motion blur, useful for light paintings and long exposure. Aperture, is the hole in the camera, where the entrance of light is being controlled. Also this defines the depth of field of the camera. ISO is managed by the camera sensor, and should be the last on to configure. Lower ISO has the highest quality of an image , higher ISO, is brighter, but grainy.

Note: The previous blog was sent to the wrong email instead of raymendoza it was "raybmendoza". Its about time I noticed as I check my mails. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Triangulation

2nd Day. 1st of July

Its all about freezing time, and the entrance of light. Its was an experience. Actually it is more of  a challenge finding something with a limited amount of settings first, since were only allowed to freely change a single setting at first. The Shutter Speed. In that way we have to capture something, duly related to shutterspeed. So what I got is a light painting, which was later deleted in my camera. That case, I have to make another one, and that is the image, I came to develop for the next meeting.

Took the shot before leaving, it was broad daylight, so I have to close all curtains, affecting the overall photocolor.I used a tripod and timed the camera for 10s. I made a lightsaber (sorta) at Exposure Time5   F/10   ISO100.

Aside from that, its another experience, learning more of the Aperture and its depth of field.

Prologue to Visual Arts

Im gonna scroll the pages of the things I learned so far in the 1st day of class. To be honest though, It sounded more like a review to me because I'm very much familiar of the basic technical terms and functions of a DSLR camera. The big thing though, of what I learned is ,emptying my cup to fill it with up once again with new things perhaps. One new thing I learned is about the lenses' depth. I saw different comparisons of shots using various type of lenses, and able to gain the idea of using the depth of a long range "telephoto" lens, for a more cinematic and dramatic image. Also aside from the depth of telephoto lenses, I learned about the most uncommonly observed image format meanings/full names. Like let's say the JPEG, Joint Photographic Experts Group, and many other more.

Still warming up!

Hey there! All the few gamers, or just random passerby, thank you for visiting my blog(at least). It was a huge help as it build up my grade in a course subject. But anyway! I'm still testing gears, for I am fresh in the world of blogging. So far though, Im enjoying it. First is boring, but I'm starting to get the hang of blog-spot.

Stay tuned up gamers! This may be the last day, for subject requirement but my blog is still warming up!

As a "something", I would like to share a video, a montage of "most games" I play in PC.
Gaming, has always been my friend. It's my final resort when things come fallling down. It gave me inspiration to meet real people as an introvert. It gave me knowledge in history and military. "We are gamers not because we don't have a life. We are gamers because we choose to have many."

http://youtu.be/MzORhssB9sk

Click the link above, and watch the gaming montage!

Good day everyone and see you in my next gaming blog post! :)

Dragons in Sky!

Hey guys! Today, I wanted to share to you one of the most popular game, and one of the most highest ranking game ever played, Skyrim! Join me in my adventure in this vast world.

Adventure

Comparing to a movie, Skyrim is Lord of the Rings. Don’t get me wrong though, Skyrim might be slightly similar to LOTR, but it’s different. Well, we have Orcs in Skyrim, but the story goes different. Anyways, this

The road, heading to Riverwood

game is one of my most played single player games, it’s beautiful, and it’s nice and sure to keep you playing longer that you will expect to be. Skyrim, is a game where, you set on your own path, explore a massive world whenever and whatever you want. As a player takes on an adventure, there is always a chance that you will meet in game character’s asking for help or offering a favor. It’s random, very. It’s that game where you plan to go to a place, and then as you to that place, you will see a point of attraction letting you go to that place and discover something very interesting and different. It’s not what the game wants you to do it’s “what the player wanted to do”. And sure, Adventure is really fun, there are numerous fantastic sceneries, events, towns and cities that’s worthy of visiting.

Customization

I would want to quote what I've have said earlier, “it’s not what the game wants you to do, its what the player wants to do in the game”. You decide on what type of Skyrim traveler you wanted to be. One can be

Selfie! of my character at Solstheim 

an assassin, using magic. Another can be a magician, using a bow. Or one can be a warrior, wearing normal clothes. It all depends of the players play style. There are many races you can choose on too, ranging from Nords(Skyrim natives, Humans) to Khajits(Cat men). Lastly, a player ca modify the face, and body of his chosen race or “character” to play. The options are very fast. One will take 1 hour just to achieve the face he wants his character to be.

As of now, my character is a Nord. I use a Crossbow as my primary weapon for long range and assassination. A scimitar (curved sword), for head on melee combat, and a Dagger for stealth attacks. Currently, my choice of clothing is a Light Armor. I intend to make my character ro be an assassin, so I chose the right gear to make the character, as silent, invisible, swift and critical as possible.

Quest

A battle against a dragon, with a Mage in my left.

Questing is fun in Skyrim. A player will most probably encounter a dragon in the game, battle vampires or

join either the Empires’ Legion or the Rebel Stormcloaks, and wage war into cities. Questing also includes, heading deeper into caves, go to a Mage College, or simply be the dragonborn (Dragon slayer) and save Tamriel(continent location of Skyrim)  from “Alduin” The World Eater, as the prophecy foretold.

In the background is the walled city of Whiterun.

Come and let’s play Skyrim! Fus Roh Dah!

Brave new Town

Lets go and join a group of exiles as they build starting from a single house into a busy town, in the game of Banished!

Unlike CityVille, or Farmville (for you casual gamers), this game is a test of balance and governance. But with less politics. The challenge of the game is to make the people alive, and increasing. The townspeople are

the main resource here, as they gather food,build,mine and etc. To keep townspeople alive, the player must have sufficient food to prevent starvation, firewood and clothing to prevent freezing, a hospital and physician to halt a disease, shelter to stay and well's to stop a fire. It's easier said than done, as most of the time, the player experiences scarcity of a recourse, either too much food but the people is freezing vice versa, and there are no extra remaining people to do the work. Every minute of the game is important, and assigning an idle villager to the right task makes a player last longer.

A graveyard

My first try of the game, I assigned at least 50% of my total villagers to gather food. Later on as my village became larger, my people one by one started to starve, and eventually dies. Like every 3 seconds there will be a notification saying that a villager has dies of starvation. "Well!, its time to leave this city"

Second try of the game, I assigned more villagers to gather food, via fisheries, few to farms. My village lasted longer than before and is also larger. But as I acquire new villagers, food started to deplete fast, disease came, death rate increased by 1 death per second. "Goodbye, scumbags! On my way for another village..."

Blacksmith provides tools for the villagers

Third try, I'm starting to have my grip on the game, assigned 70% of my villagers to farms, and the remaining

The Yellow marks are needs of the people, that is lacking

5% as fisherman's, hunters etc. In short, food is my priority. Major problems occur, execpt of starvation. Workers are loosing tools, people are starting to freeze. Good thing though, as time passes in the game, population increase, and I was able to fill out jobs to fulfill the needs of the people. That is then I realized, I made such a big town! Later, since food is staple as well as other major needs, I gave focus to other resources such as coal, wood, stones iron. All has gone well, until, my population reached 300, and woodcutters and blacksmith are not able to provide enough tools and
firewood. Death rate also increased, not because of my folly, but because of a villagers old age. That is the start of where I'm in now. From 300 people I'm down to 150. I'm still thinking of ways on how to boost villager count to provide my people with proper needs to further expand my town.

By the way, my towns name is Fort Salt Lake!

Top View of my town. Back when my Current Pop is 300

Here's a sample game play of me playing Banished

This is during the time of Winter in the game. You will notice me clicking rapidly on a window, that is to reassign villagers in a specific job. Since its Winter, Farmers wont be able to harvest anything, to I'm reassigning them to be a fisherman temporarily.

Join me in this game, and test how good you are in organizing a small town!

Company of Russians!

There's this latest game I've been playing lately, it's called "Company of Heroes"

Company of Heroes 2, is as great a World War II itself, with the player acting as a role of an Allied Russian Captain. It's a big, and robust game. This is one of the very few strategy games Iv'e played, that really uses strategy. I'll go in detail on why is it like that. For instance is, players can command the squads to move behind cover, defend something, bombard a location, repair a vehicle,
hide inside a building, build variety of defensive materials, merge with a squad and pick up vehicles. It's not that game, where players build a huge massive army and just assault the enemy full headed, and just watch then sway their swords as they overwhelm the opponent with their mass numbers. So far, I found the game really time consuming as, it will

really use your time to think, "what will happen in the battlefield" or "how will I control the battle". It all
depends in how one positions his/her squads and how well the squads is organized. When something wrong happens in the battlefield, the player will really notice his/her error,"what he/she would have did 3minutes ago to prevent losses of squads"

As for the negative, well the game usually freezes every 30 minutes (although it was probably caused by Auto Save). The mouse turns into a bar code sometimes, that even when a player leaves the game, the mouse stays as a bar code, and I find it really inconvenient. Lastly is, well, on behalf of Russians. Isn't it kinda offensive how Russia in the game (Russians are protagonist by the way) are portrait as a very brutal nation? Like, when Russian soldiers retreat for their lives are shot by their own allies, because they say its cowardice. I am not into "full" history of Russia, true that Joseph Stalin, did ordered the shooting of his own troops, for some good reason, but it might be over portrayed in the game.


Here are some videos, of my playing Company of Heroes 2

Sniper, taking position for recon and taking out a squad, in preparation for an assault

A battle, to capture a vital location, after sniper's role in taking out guards.