My best project yet.

Man it's been a crazy two weeks!

We brought this little one home from the hospital at the end of last week.  She is an absolute doll!  I can't think of any other project I've written about here or elsewhere that even compares to our daughter.

She's not perfect, but no one is born into this world perfect.  We ended up having to leave her in the hospital for an additional two days, which caused many tears.  Her infection score was too high, so in an effort to get it down they kept her on antibiotics for a few days.  She also was having problems eating.  Thankfully the nursing staff was amazing and helped us get her fed and taken care of.

Hopefully I'll get back on track with some more projects soon, but with the amount of both homework and regular work, combined with a new baby, I'm not sure when I'll get another post done.
-Cj

My videos

I actually have a like on YouTube.

It started yesterday when I noticed I had 50 views on my videos.  50!  I'm still reeling about it!  They all occurred on Sunday for whatever reason.  When I checked today, I noticed that someone from Greece had liked a video.  YAY!

Really, when I look at these videos, I wonder what there is to like.  It's just the campaign footage from Halo Wars with no commentary!  Yet there it is, one like!

I've got a blog post on Destiny I need to finish, but it probably won't get done until Thursday or Friday when I get some more time to play.  It basically goes over the public perception of Destiny and likens the game to a trip to the mall.  Also, I have a usb cable coming in tomorrow that should allow me to record destiny game footage onto my computer and upload that.  Hopefully by grabbing the latest game play and posting it to YouTube I can gain more subscribers.

Video Recording

Success!

Yesterday I played around with Adobe's Creative Cloud Premiere software, and I was able to get a video that had been recorded a few weeks ago using an Elgato Game Camputre HD processed and uploaded to YouTube.  It's video from a recent game of Halo Wars that a good friend and I played.  Up to this point when I would upload the video from the Elgato into Premiere the audio track for the video would end up around 10 seconds late.  Going online, it turned out that because the Elgato outputs the video as .mp4, you have to enable file extension view in the folder options of your control panel and rename the .mp4 to .mov.  I don't know why it works like that, but after doing so the video was able to process and sync audio and video just fine in Premiere.

After figuring that out, I started the video processing, and quickly decided that I need to invest in a better heat sink and fan system.  My processor ended up maxed out and was over 70 degrees Celsius for about an hour.  As far as I can tell there was no damage to the processor, but sustained activities at those temperatures are not good for a computer.

Another odd thing, after finishing the video Premiere decided to dump it back out as a .mp4.  I didn't think much of it until I attempted to load that video to YouTube and it failed.  Same trick however, after changing the video to .mov and trying the upload again, it worked like a charm.

The thumbnail for the video was another cool trick.  In the Game Capture software I found a screen shot from the video I liked and clicked on the screen shot button near the play button of the software.  After clicking there, the screen shot was put on the desktop.  The picture was actually too large for YouTube, so a quick wash through Photoshop to change the file extension got the picture to the right size.

From here I have a few more video projects to add to my channel.  The video for mission 5 and 6 of Halo Wars needs trim'd and posted to YouTube.  Tu1kas and I still want to finish off the campaign and post those videos.  Additionally, I need to troubleshoot and figure out why I can't get mic audio to play through the Xbox.

Lastly, this morning I decided that it would be good to record some of Gruuler's (my gamer tag in xbox live) play through of Destiny, Bungie's latest game.  It comes out on September 9th and should provide some great game play moments to record and share.  Hopefully as I keep at recording and postings of videos, I'll learn a few more in's and out's of the process to speed up content uploads.

-Cj

Weapon placement on models

Well, I messed up my Land Raider.

When you play with vehicles, you measure from the barrel of the weapon for distance to target.  If the target is within the max range of the weapon, then you get to fire at it.  While making the vehicle, I followed the instructions that have you set the turret in the back window slot on the side, without realizing that you could put it in the front bay as well.  Since I was going with the heavy flamer variant, this means I've lost two inches from my frontal range due to the weapon being placed two inches farther back on the hull.

Honestly, it could make a difference if/when I play.However by moving it back you gain additional coverage along your side.  Since the weapon has a 45 degree arc this means that models approaching from the side will be flamed before they can get close.

One other thought, since I wanted to run the Centurion setup, it probably would have been better to set up the Hurricane bolter variant since the tank will be staying a ways away from danger, lessening the impact of the heavy flamer.  Since I've already set up a turret, it's off to ebay to see if I can't find someone selling spare side turrets.
-Cj

Land Raiders and Ruby

Everyone needs a good tank.

We sold some more Magic cards recently and I had enough money from the cards that my wife let me purchase some more Warhammer 40k sets.  Now, I know that I don't have much time during the day to play Warhammer.  There is a store about 10 minutes away that hosts games, so I'm hoping that some Saturdays I can slip away and play.

This is not a new situation however, since our last place was located 10 minutes away from a hobby store and I still did not get the time to go play.  In reality, I just like the models.  I never end up with the time or energy needed to go play.  Plus, for some strange reason the lighting in stores makes me sick.

Anyways, this one is a Land Raider Redeemer.  Well, at least parts of one.  They are categorized as the heaviest tanks my Space Marines can field.  They are armed fairly well, and armored even better.  While this tank does come in 3 variants, I prefer the Redeemer as it comes equipped with duel heavy flamers, a great close combat weapon designed to burn through infantry.  You can also equip it with a Multi-melta, a great anti-vehicle weapon for a tank that can take on both armor and troops.  The draw back is that it looses some capacity, down to 12 from 16 that you get from another Land Raider variant.  That variant comes with hurricane bolters, a good weapon that boasts a farther range, but weak enough that I'm not overly fond of it.

With the amount of capacity this variant of Land Raider comes with, you can pack quite a punch inside it's thick armored hull.  That's 12 normal models for Space Marines, 6 bulky, or 4 very bulky troops.  That's enough troops to cause problems for anything that gets in the land raiders way.  Since it is an assault vehicle, any troops inside of it can charge out of the vehicle and assault the next turn, ensuring troops get close enough to make a difference.  Terminators, some of the nastiest assault units in the Space Marine list, can assault right out of this tank.  Centurions, a new unit that boast incredible firepower, last much longer if you pack them inside this can.  Move them out, and order them out to pop any armored foe that gets in your way.

Points wise, this is a huge investment, so it's not something I'll take against every list.  The centurion setup alone runs 600 pts, a massive amount when compared to other solutions that give you the same level of firepower.  In addition, this setup can be countered fairly easily if you can disable the tank.  Still, it's something I'd love to try against my friend who runs Tau.

Anyways, that's the latest 40k news from me.  Ruby development is coming along, but today it got about 3 times more complicated than planned.  I still will be attempting to learn Ruby on Rails for the next few months, but now I've found that it's not one, but 4 languages (Ruby, Rails, CSS, HTML) I will need to master.  Shoot.

-Cj

Ruby on Rails

Well, schools out for the next week and a half, and it's been nice.  However, we've been so busy with moving into our new place that I haven't had any time to work on models.

My new pet project during this school break has been Ruby on Rails development.  My poor wife, she has to put up with me switching hobbies every few months!  It's a little different this time around, as the attempt with RoR is to hopefully design a better website and blog for all my mutterings.  I know, I know, I hardly write or post anything these days.  The goal with this project is to give me a unified platform through which I can post videos to Youtube, blog, and collect and make available URLS that I come across in my hobbies.  In essence, i want to learn a business skill that's sell able, that will also cross all my different experiences into one unified site.

What a Year

I hadn't realized how long it's been since I posted on here.  Life's been really crazy this year.  Early on in the year, we found out we were expecting and I spent the first 3 months of 2014 wondering what the heck I had gotten myself into.  Eventually my panic and depression gave way to optimism and hope, and in two months our baby girl is expected to arrive!

I've thought a lot about how this is going to affect our lives.  The first year of my daughters life is going to be filled with me attending school and missing out on a lot of important events.  It saddens me to think that I will miss her first word, her first step, and a multitude of other firsts.  But there is a trade off there, one that I can't avoid.  Either I put the time into school, to get a better life for our family, or stay for those moments.  But I can't help but feel some level of sadness at the thought that I will not be very involved for a while.

Thoughts from there start turning to the lack of time for hobbies, gaming, and everything else I like to do.  Those actives are distractions in our lives, sure, but they are still a part of who I am.  I have several projects however that I can maintain for the time being, things to keep me distracted.  Even in the midst of a busy schedule, you still find time to painting and game.  One of my cooler purchases this past year was an Elgato Game Capture HD device that I am intent on using to produce videos and content from new and old video games.  I'll link to those Youtube videos once I get a good collection up.

I'll leave you with this painting of a Space Marine Captain, one of the limited edition releases for now.  The few white spots on his armor have been touched up since this photograph was taken, and he has now become my official showpiece.  Besides, this is my hobby blog after all, 

-Cj