Bullshit In Hollywood...

So I am going to cover a lot of bases here, and talk about a lot of things that have been bothering me. First up is Clayne Crawford being forced out of the Lethal Weapon series. Watch this video:

The important part here is something I have never seen before. It's a recording from on-set, a conversation between Wayans and Crawford, and it pretty much tells the whole story. I wish we could get more material like this! Basically it looks like Damon wanted to be the front man, but didn't want to put in the work. Meanwhile Crawford was writing the episodes, working with the stunt crew, and pretty much carrying the whole show. Yet they kick him out, without giving any sort of proper notice, and now they may attempting to blackball the man.

I wish that there was some way we could get together and hold not only Wayans, but everyone in charge who supported him, accountable for their actions. What they have done to Crawford, who is such a good actor we never got a hint of what was going on during the show, is inexcusable. It is Wayans who made the environment toxic, Wayans who didn't want to show up for the action scenes, and Wayans who never really wanted to be on the show in the first place. Wayans should have been kicked out, and Wayans should be blackballed, not Crawford! To add insult to injury, Wayans has up and quit at after finishing the last episode of season 3. So why did they have to kick Crawford out in the first place, and what is keeping them from bringing him back?

I don't know about you, but I am done with Lethal Weapon at the end of season 2. I am also going to look for petitions to sign to bring Crawford back and right the wrongs that have been done here. Here are some petitions:
https://www.change.org/p/fox-broadcasting-company-we-want-clayne-crawford-in-lethal-weapon-season-3
https://www.change.org/p/fox-broadcasting-company-lethal-weapon-bring-back-clayne-crawford
https://www.change.org/p/warner-bros-needs-to-take-responsibility-for-lethal-weapon
https://www.change.org/p/warner-brothers-clayne-clawford-back-on-set-for-lethal-weapon
https://www.change.org/p/warner-brothers-keep-clayne-crawford-on-lethal-weapon

You can hear from Crawford himself all of the shit they (Damon Wayans and those in charge) did to him in this video:
https://youtu.be/Dn9wk7vp_js

Next up is the series NCIS. We are being lied to, AGAIN, about Pauley Perrette. Someone started a rumor she left for a skin care line, which she has emphatically stated is not true. Others are saying that she has said, much like Michael Weatherly, that she just felt it was time to move on. But another rumor I can not yet validate says she left over a conflict between her and the only remaining main character, Mark Harmon. This rumor is supported by the fact that Perrette did not appear in any of the scenes with Harmon in her final episode.

The conflict was apparently over a dog that Harmon insisted on bringing to the set, that bit someone. Maybe that was a part of it, but it doesn't seem to me as if that would be enough. My guess is where we should be looking is squarely at Mark Harmon. He is the common denominator in all those who have left the show. I suspect he is behind the poor script writing for the character Ziva, causing Cote de Pablo to quit, and I would not be surprised that both Perrette and Weatherly finally had enough of his crap and just quit. I suspect that the character Ducky, played by David McCallum, is leaving next.

I have never been a big fan of NCIS. But I have watched a lot with my mother. I have always admired the character Gibbs. But its sad to now suspect that Mark Harmon is nothing like the character he portrays, that he may in fact be a bully, a sexist and a bad script writer to boot. I think its time to send him his walking papers and shut NCIS down, do another spin-off series in the same way NCIS was spun off of Jag, so they can have a new series with a similar theme and fresh actors.

Finally the most important news is that Stan Lee is dead. I mentioned somewhere about how it was rumored he was being treated. I guess his fight is over, I hope that the parties responsible are found out and legally dealt with. I am not saying Lee was murdered, but I am pretty sure when an old man says something like, "I just want to die" there are people behind it, draining him of the will to live. I think that is what happened here. Lee just gave up.

He has given us so many wonderful superheros, and I have enjoyed his many cameos over the years. I wish I could have met him. I wish I had been able to help him through what looked like a tough time, surrounded by scheming relatives and in-laws that wanted his money. But he is at peace now, in a better place, and they can't hurt him anymore.

I wish I had more power, in fact that we had more power, to step into situations like these and throw our weight around, to make things change. All we have is our petitions and maybe our blog posts and videos, for anyone who watches them. But it's not enough. Too many things are being done, have been done, that I know I do not approve of, and I am pretty sure I am not alone. I wish those of us who care had a say, had real authority, and the kind of money and legal power that we could open an investigation, find the guilty parties, and punish them according to their crimes. Maybe they haven't broken the law, but they have broken our trust, and they should have to answer for that.

RIP Stan Lee.

Jason Busby, founder of 3D Buzz, is dead.

For some reason there is very little information on this on the internet, and the Wikipedia article for 3D Buzz has vanished. This news is over a year old now, but I thought it important to make a concrete web entry of some sort for it. Here is the thread I found at 3D Buzz:
https://www.3dbuzz.com/forum/threads/204974-Jason-s-fight-is-over

According to the thread, Jason Busby passed on the morning of September 14th, 2017. This is probably why 3D Buzz hasn't done much the last few years, at least on YouTube, and some users may be experiencing issues with the site. Not sure who is running the show now. I will update more if I learn more.

Years ago the folks at 3D Buzz got wind of the tutorials I was doing, and one of the folks working there made an offer to have me come in and teach or add my tutorials. But that offer was later rescinded, I never knew why. Probably I didn't do or say the right thing. So I have always had a small chip on my shoulder against them. I really believed in what they were doing and that was like your hero telling you, "YOU SUCK!!!"

But I guess it was for the best. More and more I am seeing so many things I failed to implement and learn in level design, maybe I'll even find some things I did wrong in modeling. I would have been a good teacher, as far as relaying information. But if I taught based solely on what I had learned the lessons would not have been of 3D Buzz quality. I acknowledge this.

I hope Jason is happy wherever he ended up. Maybe his version of Heaven is a giant Tron world. I hope he is having fun, and I wish him well on his journey. He will be missed, but his work will live on. He has left quite a legacy.

I have left a talk page asking for the history of 3D Buzz to be added to Wikipedia, and linked to a page dedicated to Jason Busby and his work:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:71.56.141.220

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To All Game Developers!

We're gonna go over something important that probably few in the game industry think about. We will use an illustration of parents raising a child, to correlate the process of those involved in who create and develop a game. We will use two games for our examples: Unreal Tournament and the Unreal series of games by Epic Games, and Creativerse by Playful Corp. I should also note that I understand Creativerse is a sort of clone of Minecraft, but I was never able to get past how Minecraft looked, while, for some reason, it doesn't bother me in Creativerse.

The process of making a game could, in a way, be thought of as similar to the process of giving birth to a child. There is all the same or similar mental, emotional and physical (to some extent) strain. Of course making a game does not have the same intensity or level of any of these, or the amounts of extreme physical pain. But most game development teams look upon their new creation with much of the same love a mother looks on her newborn child. Also most game development teams are very protective of their children, as are most mothers. But unlike most healthy people who have children, game development teams retain an obsessive sense of ownership of their child.

Just as a baby is completely dependant on its parents for survival, so a video game initially depends on those who made it for its survival. But just as a baby will eventually learn how to walk, and will grow up into a (hopefully) free-thinking human being, at some point a game will have matured enough that its creators no longer need to "support" it. The game will stand on its own. But there is something I think game developers forget here, some vital piece they miss.

You see just a child will mature and eventually become an adult, ultimately depending on society and the world to define who they are and to support themselves, so a video game matures and becomes dependant on its community. A video game community is comprised of the players who buy, play and create things for that game. In the same sense that parents must learn to let their grown child grow and release them out into the world, so game developers have to let go of their game and let it stand on its own.

What do I mean by this? Let's bring in my examples... Many years ago a game was released that really did change the game industry. Its name was Unreal, and it was quickly followed by Unreal Tournament. The last time I checked in on this game, a new version had been released for free to the community. Unreal was different in that it was a first person shooter, but there were elements of adventure and even a story. I still remember the fondness many players had for the Nali. When Unreal Tournament came out it became more about its first person shooter aspect, but players could, and did, design their own adventures. That is because Unreal and Unreal Tournament, and it's latest iteration, have a very good level editor.

I am not over exaggerating when I say I have a gigabytes of maps and things from the Unreal Tournament community. It may not seem like a lot now, but we're talking gigabytes from a time when a 40 gigabyte hard drive was about the same amount of space a 4 terabyte drive is to us today. The developers did things right, and Unreal Tournament reigned for many years. There may still be people playing it today. The last time I checked in on its newest iteration the developers were still doing things right. In the past they even went as far as to hire many of the most active and creative members of the Unreal Tournament community. Some of those same people are part of the game development team today.

Here is a picture from one of my Unreal Tournament 2003 - 2004 levels, when I was known as DeathBliss:

You can still some of my work at MapRaider (surprisingly):
http://www.mapraider.com/profiles/Deathbliss

Now let's look at Creativerse. Both Playful Corp's Creativerse and Epic Game's Unreal Tournament have, in a way, an editor. In Unreal Tournament the editor has always been an external program. You built your level and then played it. Here is a tutorial video showing Unreal Tournament's new editor:

In Creativerse the game and game world itself is the editor. Here is a video showing a bit of that:

You build things from within the world, much like the old FPS games Cube and Cube 2. But the developers behind Creativerse have made a mistake, and I am not going to call their attention to it.

In any sort of environment when you are making something, you need certain tools. We will use the Rotate tool as an example. Let's say a game developer releases their game and includes a functionality in some form of the ability to rotate objects. Once the game is released to the community, the members of that community will use that rotate functionality. They will come to depend on it.

Let's say that players learn they can rotate things in 45 degree increments and the game development team, for whatever reason, does not want that. But before the game development team has done anything about it, the community has built hundreds or thousands of structures using this "bug." In this case if the developers removed it the impact would be low unless everything that had been rotated was rotated back to a default position. But removing the tool or fixing the bug also removes the functionality, and this is the wrong thing to do.

In Creativerse, a year ago I guess, the community discovered that they could use something called Block Phasers to automate farming. The default farming process is to use your tool on the ground then go around and plant your seeds. Then when the plants have grown you go around and pick up your plants. But then you have to plant your seeds again if you want more plants. With the Bock Phasers players could make the seeds phase in and out. So they planted their seeds once, waited for the plants to grow after setting up everything with a switch, then flipped the switch to turn the block phasers on before they harvested the plants. When they would flick the switch again, the seeds would reappear, and the garden would be replanted.

Now think about this for a second... Hundreds, if not thousands, of Creativerse players, members of the Creativerse community, have designed entire houses, forts, camps, bases, etc. all around the idea of automated Block Phaser farms. So when the developers removed that functionality by "fixing" this bug (it did not need to be fixed) it messed up all of these things that the Creativerse community had made. That is the mistake Playful Corp made.

If they had bothered to go to YouTube or pay any attention to what the Creativerse community was doing, they would have seen how their proposed fix would have affected things. I don't think they did that. I don't think they care. They do have a forums through Steam, but as far as I know there is no way to directly contact the game development team. In my opinion they are, in short, doing this incorrectly.

Yes, according to the law a game is the property of whoever made it. Yes, according to the law they can do whatever the hell they want to their game. Just as some parents feel they can do whatever the hell they want to their children. The end result is bad in both cases. While a game development team may have legal ownership rights, once a game has been released it belongs to its community, in the same way that Einstein belonged to the human race, as any of us belong to the human race.

Imagine if all our geniuses had been shut away and not allowed to share their discoveries with us? Think of all we missed out from Nikola Tesla, all the information the American government has hidden away or destroyed. Just as what the American government did to Tesla wronged all of of the human race, when a game developer does whatever the hell they want with one of their games it wrongs all of the members of its community. Just because it is right in the eyes of the law, that doesn't make it ethically, morally or in any other way the right thing to do.

In other words, having the right to do something doesn't make what you do right. We should no more tolerate game developers doing whatever they want with their games then we should tolerate parents doing whatever they want with their children, end of story.

If you are a game developer, or a game development team, and you are reading these words, heed their message well! Once you release your game you ONLY legally own it. In order for you to be successful, your game must be successful, and for your game to be successful it has to stand on its own in its community. Be very careful when you are fixing bugs that remove functionality that you IMMEDIATELY replace that functionality, no matter what!

Understand that players will come to depend on some of the things you think of as bugs. Understand that some bugs provide functionality that improve your game and the experience of those who play it. Do not make Playful Corp's mistake and fix a bug that not only did not need to be fixed, but also drastically affected all the members of the Creativese community.