M dot Strange's blog

I've been meaning to create some proper tutorial/educational videos for some time now- I've created tons of tutorials over the years which I threw up on youtube but they were all done really quickly and were not polished at all- thats all changed with the Strange School which I launched today. Over the years I've been doing freelance work, trading crypto and selling my films to make money- I don't like doing the freelance gigs because of the time and energy they take and I don't like selling my films because it doesn't feel right to try and sell things I created as my art, and trading crypto makes me too nervous haha Now all my films and music are free as they should be- and I hope the Strange School will make enough money so I don't have to take freelance jobs so I can spend more time on my art- making games, and film/animation stuff- If I were to have made these Strange School tutorials free they would have sucked because I wo

Collaborative Paintings by M dot Strange and Rakel Musicbox For Sale for $150 each (+ shipping if International). Frame not included. Done with Black Micron Pen, Tombow Paint Pens, Water and Imagination. Contact mdotstrange@gmail.com or rakelmusicbox@gmail.com to purchase or for more information. Current pieces for sale: “Alternate Universe EMMM #7526” (8.5” x 12” - 2015) “Drained” (8.5” x 12” - 2015) “Fearless Hat Man” (8.5” x 12” - 2015)    “Hunger of Love” (8.5” x 12” - 2015)  “Right Hand Man” (8.5” x 12” - 2015)  

Since I just released a new little game in Smashy Town which was a collaboration between myself and my friend James Id made for the Subzero festival in San Jose I figured I should post about it- You can download the game here   So I needed to make a game to be played on the street at night projected on a wall or screen and it needed to be 4 player local multiplayer- those were the guidelines- The whole project took about two and a half weeks or part time work to complete- My friend Sean Boyles came up with the idea to model it after the vintage arcade game Rampage as we were going to work on it together but never got the chance too- I wanted to try something different on this little project in that I wanted to work with someone acting as a producer to help steer the project toward a definite goal- I've known James Id for about 7 years now and I value his opinion as he has good taste in stuff and is a no bullshit type of guy- So what we did was- I

From when I was a young child until when I was in my late teens I experienced what are usually referred to as an "alien abduction" experiences-  I had several experiences- probably 20-50 of this type throughout those ages- I'm not sure what/who the beings were- I'll just call them non human entities because all I really know is they were not humans as we know them to be now- Well anyway- in the majority of these experiences I would be asleep and wake up unable to move as I was already surrounded by these beings and/or they were floating through the walls into my room- in the experiences I was always put in this frozen state- then I was taken out of the room into different places- The first 10, 20, 30 times I had these experiences the terror I experienced was overwhelming- some things that were supposedly not real doing this to you night after night and no one can help you- you truly feel alone and helpless- you try to scream or move but you can't do either-

I come from a filmmaking/animation background- I started making games in Jan 2014 with zero coding knowledge- Along with Unity these are the tools that have helped me the most with my game dev as someone who can't code- Maybe they can help you too?- check out my games here Standard Assets - FREE - the prefabs included in this free package include first person and third person character setups you can drag/drop into your scenes and use without code- there's also a few camera setups included that are drag/drop as well + a ton of cool fx Playmaker - $45- $95 - THIS IS THE ONE! this is the magic asset that will allow you to make any game you want without coding- its on sale pretty regularly so buy it whenever you can BUT you won't be able to use the "I need a coder" excuse to not make your games anymore. Playmaker is a tool that uses FSM's or finite state machines to do its thing. Read about them here  If you start using Playmaker use their forums as

That's the phrase I think of when I see someone who wants to do activity X but never has and they are telling someone else about how bad they are at activity X The phrase came from an experience I had just out of high school- I was hanging out with some friends who wanted to be rappers but they hadn't recorded anything/made any songs- we were listening to this pirate radio state and some kid was freestyling on there- he was pretty good- they gave out their number and one of my friends who wanted to be a rapper called in and started talking to the kid telling him how he wasn't any good and how he was copying so and so- The kid listened to it all and just said "WELL FUCKIN DO BETTER BITCH!" and my friend just sort of stumbled on with his words- the kid hung up and kept freestyling- Thats realness right there- its common behavior that when you see someone that is doing what you want to do- to drag them down crabs in a bucket style and tell them NO YOU CAN'

I'm not trying to pass this off as some amazing secret or something but I thought I would share my morning diet/supplement routine that I've done for years- ----------------- Wake up: Drink 3 cups of water Take the following supplements 1- 5 htp- helps increase production of serotonin so it makes you happier 1- Acetyl L-Carnitine + Alpha Lipoic Acid- helps with memory, energy levels 1- GABA- makes you less anxious/mood stabilizer so helps you sit still and work longer 1- N- Acetyl Tyrosine- helps you stay focused/alert 1- Ginkgo Biloba- helps with memory Make 1 cup plain/unflavored oatmeal with 1 scoop unflavored whey protein-nothing else added After eating the oatmeal Have 1.5 cups of fresh ground coffee with 1tsp coconut oil + 1tsp grass-fed unsalted butter After finishing the coffee Drink 1.5 liters water ---------------------- This is how I start my 10-15 hour brain taxing work days- In the middle/later in the day if I feel I need an extra boost of

*This is just like my opinion maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan It seems there are many more commenters and critics these days than there are creators of original material- has it always been that way? Do any children dream of one day talking about or talking over someone else's work? When I grow up I want to play other peoples video games and talk over them while making funny faces for money- When I grow up I want to sit around and complain about other peoples work for money- Is that what you dreamt about being or doing? Sure it makes a lot of people a lot of money for sitting around and making youtube videos but what does it add to the world? Besides extremely self referential entertainment that provides instant gratification based on pop culture and flavor of the minute memes- Its all one-off throwaway type stuff- you had to be there stuff- is anyone in 20 years going to be watching this stuff? I know the status quo says you're not supposed to consider anything thats not hap

I mixed two indie feature films in the past few months and I've mixed my own three feature films so I've had some practice editing a film then sending the audio files out to be mixed in a DAW- This is the easy way to do it- I'm going to use Premiere Pro for my examples but this is the same process for Final Cut Pro or any other NLE- When you are editing it is good practice to separate your audio tracks into dialogue, fx, music, and ambience tracks like this You can have multiple dialog, fx, music and ambient sound tracks but its good practice to keep them separate- you don't want to say.... have dialog, music and fx on the same track- keep all those things separate- It makes it easier for you and the mixer is going to have to separate them anyway- so if you do it for them you'll save money and make the mixer's job faster- Looking at the example-What you would want to do is export one track for Dialogue01, one for Dialogue02, one for Fx01 etc- so fr

This post is just me thinking out loud about something I find disturbing that has become a normal part of human behavior in the U.S. that I think is robbing people of their true potential- but this is just like.... my opinion maaaaaaaaaan.  Outsourcing consciousness? When you’re in a car with someone who is not paying attention to the road and/or the road signs- when they are not using the power of their own mind to find their way but instead they are led by the hand step by step by a mobile device- it makes me wonder what the persons consciousness is being used for at that time. When someone is walking down the street with mobile device in hand looking for a particular destination or person which they may actually be standing in front of but they never notice because their eyes are glued to their mobile device waiting for instructions- it makes me wonder what they are using their consciousness for at that time other than follow instructions from their mobile device. W

So I just released the demo of my newest game POWERLESS You can download the game for PC for free here- Donations help my future game dev ^ ^ You can view the trailer for the game here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XXKOu8AFGA My goal with this game is to scare you- to create a creepy environment and give you a strange, terrifying experience in which you never know what might happen. Most of the game takes place in first person but you do play as a ping pong ball in third person at one point so you can douse yourself in gasoline 0_0 The reason that its PC only at this time is that I'm using DirectX features in the game and DirectX is not supported on the Mac- sorry about that- I MIGHT be creating a version of POWERLESS for the Occulus Rift- I have to see how difficult it is to do so- if its relatively easy AND the game is light enough to keep 60fps or whatever the Rift needs I'll do it- I know very little of the process so I have to learn a lot about it-