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About time for a new post 0_0 Update for 2016

I must have been busy or something as I haven't updated this blog since September of 2015- right after I launched thestrangeschool.com. I had a really good time making the first Unity/Playmaker course "Can't code? Who cares! Make games anyway!



I just added a new course on the Unity asset Behavior Designer called "Awesome AI Made easy with Behavior Designer"



And I'll continue to add new free as well as paid tutorials- like these free ones I made recently.






I like to share what I've learned and I enjoy trying to teach people stuff so I'll continue with The Strange School in 2016.


My nephew and I in Reykjavik, Iceland
I released a new music album with my rapping and all that stuff a month or so ago- Its called "Nu-Chrap" you can get it on Itunes, Spotify, Bandcamp and a few other places if you're interested.

I announced my next "film" project on Twitter awhile ago

Now the " " matter when I say film as its not going to be what anyone expects- Its totally new ground for me so I am very excited about the possibilities- I don't know if I can pull it off technically yet as I'm venturing into new ground for myself in the world of coding and game engines- but I'm excited and working hard on it- My pal James Id is producing our little project- its just he and I- there's no budget at this time- Its just an early barebones prototype right now as we're working out the important bits without any art- which is really important for me- as I tend to go nuts and get sidetracked by the art when I'm on my own-

So I am working on that "film" project pretty much everyday- James and I talk once a week so he can check my progress and give me new tasks to complete-


I had an interactive art show in Copenhagen wherein I used Unity(game engine) to create several interactive art exhibits. Link to the shows page.



Here's some videos from the pieces I made



If you want to play with the pieces you can download the executables from my itch.io page here http://mdotstrange.itch.io/

I also recently got a DSLR- a T5i so I've been shooting photos and making short live action videos like these




This isn't live action but here's a strange little thing I made recently



I also started making screen sharing talky videos like this



I'll try to make more of those as I move forward with my various projects-

So I've been busy the last couple months now that I look at this stuff I've released since I last posted here 0_0

I learned so much in 2015- I didn't get to put out any big projects as I'm building on them- oh yeh I forgot to mention that- I'm STILL working on my like BIG video game project that some of you may know only as TLNL- its like my passion project- I had to start from scratch as the project became a clusterfuck because of my shitty game dev workflow at the time-

I've learned a TON from James Id about how to manage game projects and I've learned a ton about game stuff/programming etc in general so I started the game over and I'm building it slowly the right way now-

I did something else since I last wrote here that isn't released yet- I wrote a 300+ page book filled with all the bizarre true stories from my fucked up childhood-

I mean I totally LOVE that I got to have such a bizarre experience- but yeh I wrote it- I just need to edit it as I wrote it really fast while on trains and stuff- I hope to clean it up and release it this year.

I've been reading a lot recently as well- mostly on programming practices and AI for games- I LOVE the AI stuff- I find it fascinating! I've upped my skills in that space a lot the past 4-6 months- Its just cool stuff- planners, utility theory- its just so cool what is possible with it - REAL living characters-

As animators we try to "breathe life into" characters- which is awesome BUT its all FAKE- throw our character and all their animations into a real time game engine scene and what do they do? Well.... nothing... they don't seem alive without us dictating their every move in 3d space at all times-

Now take that same character with some animations you the animator have made AND also create their ai system that is able to act and react to all possible scenarios NOW they are alive!

So imagine me, M dot Strange- one man animation studio me- then add a bunch of game dev skills and some AI skills- imagine what I could create! I am! And I am excited haha ^_^

So as of right now my main priority is my "film" project with James- when I get done with that every day I work on my passion project game TLNL- I'm SUPER excited and TERRIFIED by both- which is a good sign ^_^ Excited because I'm passionate about them and they mean a lot to me and terrified because I'm pushing my boundaries in every way so I'm not sure if I can pull it off-

I could have sat around and kicked out a new animated feature film every year after my last film I am Nightmare BUT I felt that I needed to expand my knowledge- I needed to be uncomfortable- I needed to start over and rebuild myself as a creator- so thats what I'm doing-

I probably forgot to post some other stuff I've made the past few months but its 6:27am and I've been up all night working in Unity- wrestling with code and workflow challenges so I'm off -

Thanks for reading and best to you my friends,

M doTs




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