Upcoming Champions [League of Legends: Arena]

With variety of fixes and visual enchantment, alpha version from my recent project - League of Legends: Arena is over, and moving on into beta state. However since the project is still a long go and I haven't fully animate some of the champions yet, I decided to made a sneak peek post on the blog which I didn't do anymore since my Fairy Tail: Battle of Magic project last time. So here is it, starting from the champions list - from the current available into some of those whose currently on my list to be included in future releases:

Currently Available: Katarina, Garen and Miss Fortune

Currently Available: Sona, Master Yi and Ezreal

Currently Available: Vladimir, Janna and Nasus

Upcoming Releases: Zyra, Nautilus and Graves

Upcoming Releases: Ashe, Leona and Ahri

Boss Mode
Boss mode will be implemented in future release as well, currently I have one between two champions on mind that has to be decided as a Boss: Hecarim, the Shadow of War or Nautilus, the Titan of the Depths.

Boss Mode illust with Nautilus as the boss

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Heroes & Shifters: Urban Fantasy and Super Powers Book Bundle #3

I'm happy to announce that I'm in my first book bundle with other authors - Heroes & Shifters: Urban Fantasy and Super Powers Book Bundle #3!

While I already have boxed sets of my own books, working with other authors on this bundle was a different experience, and I really enjoyed it.  Hopefully readers will enjoy the bundle - 12 great stories from established fantasy authors for only 99 cents!

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Snazzy Tech Tools for Indie Authors

A few weeks ago, I called my barber to schedule a time for a haircut, and he admonished me for not using his app to make the appointment.  Yes!  His app!  My barber has an app!  With a QR code and everything.

Needless to say, I was a little surprised.  I guess I had always thought of barbering as being one of those professions that stays the same for the most part, with little change over the years.  It hadn't really occurred to me that technology could affect - if not barbering itself - the ancillary matters related to it: communication, scheduling, etc.  This, of course, got me to thinking of technological tools out there which might be beneficial to writers, a few of which I note below. 

QR Codes

Aside from an app, one of the things my barber had was a QR code, which was printed on his business card. 

A QR code (the QR stands for "Quick Response") can be thought of as a square-shaped bar code. It can provide information about a product or service, connect to an app, link to a web page, etc. Most smart phones have the ability to read QR codes. 

In the case of the QR code to the left, it's one that I created for my own business cards and links to the Books page of this very blog.  Just scan it, and it will take you to where you can find out all about my novels.  (I suppose I could also create distinct cards for each book, with each of those having its own QR code as well.)  

In essence, QR codes can be a quick and easy way for authors to connect with readers. You can make your own QR codes on sites such as kaywa.com.

SmartURLs

Next, as a writer you really should be making use of smartURLs.  Practically speaking, a smartURL is one which manages internet traffic by directing it to the most geographically appropriate online site.  For instance, here is the smartURL for my most recent release, Terminus:

http://smarturl.it/Terminus

Someone in the U.S. who clicks on this link will be taken to the Amazon product page for my book.  However, someone in the United Kingdom would be taken to Amazon's UK page.  A person in Canada would be directed to the book's Amazon Canada page.  And so on.

As with QR codes, smartURLs are a great way to help your readers find you and/or your work.  You can create smartURLs at: https://manage.smarturl.it/.

Voice-Recognition Software

Voice-recognition software is, of course, a well-established tool for authors.  Unlike QR codes and smartURLs, such software is focused more on making the writer more efficient rather than connecting him or her with readers.

As implied, voice-recognition software will, ideally, simply type every word you utter, saving you from having to type it yourself. Since most people can talk a lot faster than they can type, this is seemingly a way to exponentially increase one's output.

Personally, I find that it makes my thinking too linear when I'm writing, but many authors love it. If it works for you, it is a chance to become far more prolific.  Thus, rather than being able to write, say, three novels per year, you might suddenly find yourself able to crank out nine or ten of them.

All in all, there are lots of cool tech tools out there which can be fairly beneficial for authors. The trick is simply finding which - if any - work best for you.

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Achieving Low Size On A High Visualized Map

People often asked, how do I achieve such low size projects while most of the materials I'm using are normally a highpoly products. So I decided to made a short tutorial out of it, hopefully can be helpful for certain people who needed it, especially those who care much about size.

These points I'm mentioning are what I often do and based off from personal map making experience in order to achieving low sized, yet visually high quality looking maps:

1. Models
No doubt that model can enchant your map looks into something different and eye pleasing. But too much polycount ain't necessary for wc3. Therefore Polycount Reduction is needed to do, this is a polycount reduction example on a mesh that I did:

Blackhand from Warlords of Draenor - Before: 4,57 mb | After: 298 kb
(Model mesh size only, not including texture size)

Notice the difference? Polycount Reduction meant removing unecessary parts of the mesh in order to obtain lower size. This can be done in Mdlvis or Milkshape.

Short Note: In milkshape you can do reduction for various kind of model files other than .mdx. In my personal opinion, Milkshape is also a base modelling tool to build your modelling fundamental before move on into professional modelling tools like 3ds max or Maya.

The next part we'll talk about Animations, normally WoW models had plenty of animations which is not needed as every single of keyframes here are counted as kb.

1. Try to remove every single of animations that you not needed on the model and see the size difference. Especially on a model that you use as an NPC or Vendor role, leaving only stand animation on them is pretty much a good idea.

2. If you create the animations on your own, create only animations that you needed, beside lower the size, it's also way more time efficiency.

Last but not least, remove unnecessary keyframes on each animations, normally WoW animated models had hundered of keyframes on a single animation, remove them until 8-10 keyframes. Make sure you remove a correct keyframe or else the animations would be messed up.

From that Polycount Reduction and Keyframes Reduction method above I'm able to made the model on the pic down from 4,57 mb into 298 kb.

Blackhand in-game, comparison between
30% and 100% texture quality

2. Texture

For custom texture usage only, skip this part if you using in-game textures. Reduce your texture quality under 40% using BLP Lab.

If  you using custom seperated model potrait, you can just reduce yours into 20% instead, as with wc3 normal camera distance, texture quality is not really that noticable, unless it's for huge sized doodads decorations.

As for texture resolution, 256 pixels-below is the best choice, never went higher than that for your size efficiency. Changing a texture resolution can be done in Photoshop or BLP Lab.

And for ground tile textures, I usually have them in 60% of their quality so their looks ain't broken as a ground.

3. Icon
Normally it's 5 kb below for BTN, and 4 kb below for DISBTN. If your icon size is more than that, you did the conversion wrong. I'm using Photoshop most of the times before converting all of my icons, and then using Button Manager for converting them into .blp file.

Sound Cut, because every single second
taking quite alot of kbs

4. Sound
Sounds sometimes made the map rather more alive, right usage of BGM often can made the map vibe more intensive especially on battle arena themed one. I often cut any unecessary part of the sound/music which I'm using with Adobe Audition, after that compress them into 64 kbps, lower than that only causing a broken sound. I personally use Xilisoft Video Converter or Switch Sound File Converter for compressing the sound kbps.

For BGM, you can cut certain repeatable part from the music to cut down the size instead of using them in full length.

Those are vital parts I often do in order to obtaining a lower size, other than that you guys probably already know what to do. Doing the model part (polycount reduction and keyframes reduction) would be the more time-taking out of 4 points above. Creating from scratch or editing the materials used would need even more time.

But the visual and size result? I can guarantee it's worth it rather than have oversized kbs on something that can be achieved waaay more smaller! Except if you don't care at all about the size, of course.

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