Curiosities for October 2021
I'm back again! Learn more about AI-generated art, my recent obsession with ray tracing, and a few notes on the best Fate/stay night route
Hey friends,
As you may know, I took a break for the past few months. It was great! I was able to rest, relax, and recharge. I went back to my province, spent time doing things I love, and disconnected a bit from social media. A lot of happy surprises happened as well!
š From the blog
I still published a few blog posts during my sabbatical. Most of these were written in advance before I took my leave. You can check this tutorial on how I did it in Jekyll and Github Actions. With that out of the way, hereās a recap of my recent writing:
Last July, my Twitter feed was flooded with AI art that were generated from text. Given a prompt, say āa cat with a hat,ā a model can produce images as if drawn by a real human. This was made possible thanks to the VQGAN+CLIP models.
Hence, I decided to study the VQGAN paper and wrote an illustrated explainer about it (āThe Illustrated VQGANā). I had fun writing it because itās been a while since I plunged deep into a paper. In addition, I also compiled a list of VQGAN+CLIP implementations. You can check it out if you like to generate AI art of your own!
Of course, I also generated my own AI art! In my exploration, I let VQGAN+CLIP imagine creatures from Philippine folk culture! It conjured images of a kapre, sigbin, and santelmo based from their descriptions alone. The results were amazing! Below is a preview. Check the link to see videos of these images being drawn:
The sabbatical has also given me time to reflect on my ideas on career, growth, and life. I boiled it down into a personal framework composed of building, earning, and playing. The goal isnāt about having a definitive statement on what I want to do, but rather to ask better questions about what I do:
If youāre interested to learn more, then just click the link above! Of course, this may not be applicable to everyone and itās heavily influenced by what I think works for me. However, I still hope that some of these ideas resonate with you!
Recently
Ok Iāll admit, some of these finds were from August and September. I immersed in a lot of things lately and it has been great to share all of them here. Also, Iāll try to cram everything in this e-mail so letās seeā¦
š Reading
Iāve read a lot during the past few months and I donāt think I can include all of them here, so Iāll just talk about my favorites!
Blue Period1: a seinen manga that focuses on an artistās life and struggles. The protagonist, Yaguchi, stumbled upon the joy of drawing and has committed his way to learn the craft. It touches upon the topics of talent vs. passion, burnout, earning money vs. pursuing your interests and more! Itās a good read for anyone who is into any creative pursuitsāprogramming, writing, etcāas the plot becomes relatable and inspirational. Also, itās getting an anime soon!
Also, if you have a MyAnimeList (MAL) account, add me up as KobeniNoAisha!2
Ray Tracing in One Weekend: speaking of colors and graphics, Iāve been dipping my toes in graphics programming for a while now. This book is great, it teaches me what I need to know while making a decent output in a short span of time (a weekend!). I like it because it fits my learning style, I am better when learning by example and when producing an output in the end. Hereās my output from the weekend book:
If you want to take things to the next level, the author has provided āRay Tracing for the Next Weekā (currently going through that) and āRay Tracing the Rest of Your Lifeā (lol weāll see!).
Patterns in Confusing Explanations: this blogpost is an interesting resource on technical writing, especially for someone like me who blogs a lot on things I learn. It talks about why some explanations become confusing instead of enlightening. Iāve been guilty for some of these, especially on making strained analogies and starting out abstract. This post has made me more mindful of my writing!
As Iāve mentioned, thereās quite a lot, so here are some runner-ups:
Linguistic Fundamentals for Natural Language Processing by Emily Bender
Currently reading Children of Dune!
š® Playing
There were a few neat surprises and underrated gems in my gaming list this month. Some of which I didnāt expect to be that good. In no particular order, I enjoyed:
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight: this game fills the metroidvania hole that Hollow Knight left.3 I actually find it a bit difficult, even on normal mode. I have to learn enemy patterns and master dodging while platforming. There are insta-kill environmental traps, and unforgiving enemies (I hate those flying ladies with spinning scythes). Even so, Momodora is still fair, I felt that each death is solely due to my impatience and sloppiness, not RNG.
If youāre looking for a well-made metroidvania with some old-school nostalgia, then I encourage you to play this game:
Frog Detective 1 & 2: The Haunted Island and the Case of the Invisible Wizard: these are two short games (around 1.5 hours each) filled with laughs and joy. Itās an amazing narrative game with humorous writing and inane absurdity. I love every second of Frog Detective! I think that the creator, Grace Bruxner, has made a gem. I encourage you to also watch her GDC talk, āBuilding Games Around Humourā:
Play this in a lazy afternoon or a cozy night. I also encourage you to voice out the characters while playing with younger siblings or cousins! I had a great time in this game!
šŗ Watching
I didnāt watch a lot for the past few months, surprisingly! I just binged a few anime and that was it:
Fate/stay night: Heavenās Feel movie trilogy: this is the movie trilogy for, in my opinion, the best route in Fate/stay night. If Unlimited Blade Works (UBW) is shounen, then Heavenās Feel (HF) is seinen. HF is a good character study of Shirou and Sakura, and a good development of the world and other characters. In this route, it is interesting to see Shirou go against his ideals of saving everyone into just saving one person he loves.
I think this movie exemplifies a more realistic version of Shirouās ideal of a āhero of justice.ā This time, itās not about saving everyone, sometimes you just need to save one. And choosing who that āoneā is entails necessary sacrifices.
The Beauty of BĆ©zier Curves by Freya HolmĆ©r (~25 min): this educational video talks about how smooth BĆ©zier curves are formed. You see them in the line tool in Illustrator, procedural art, and level-generation in games! Also, because of this video, I discovered Freyaās channel, it contains hours of good content!
So thatās it for this monthās curiosities! I hope that you had a fun and safe October. In the Philippines, weāre in the middle of the ā-berā months, that means the Christmas spirit is now felt everywhere! Wishing you a safe and happy Christmas season :)
See you again on November!
The title, Blue Period, was inspired by Picassoās āBlue Period,ā when he painted monochromatic paintings in shades of blue and blue-green. Art historians argue that this period of somber works coincided when Picasso sank into severe depression, as blue tones dominated his paintings for several years. It was then followed by the āRose Period,ā an era of warmer colors of orange and pink.
KobeniNoAisha literally means āKobeniās Car,ā a fan favorite meme-ācharacterā in Chainsaw Man. Itās not even a character, itās just an object! The funny thing is that Kobeniās Car had a higher popularity ranking than Kobeni, the actual owner!
I dropped Blasphemous for this! Yeah, I still find Momodoraās gameplay more exciting than the former. The platforming in Blasphemous feels weird and a bit offāI might pick it up again though.