meta, a link and more meta
Service information: Majo, I’ve added your blog down here. :) Remember that though I don’t comment that much (if at all), I always read what you write. Go you!
Also, as for Blind Dreaming I just added a joined fanlistings directory. Now every time I spot a new fanlisting I won’t have to wait until I’ve finished working with the whole site (which by the way will take a lot longer than previously though, but meh).
But this wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. See the pencil submit button? While I was developing it I did a thorough search in the web for tutorials, just to see how other people dealed with the issue of working with 3D in a mainly 2D editor. I didn’t find anything especially useful for my case and I ended up developing my own technique from scratch, but I can’t pass on this great tutorial about how to create a mechanical pencil with Photoshop. It’s impressive to see how the pencil comes to life in a very plastic way; it can really be seen taking shape as more effects are added. Also read the ending comments, they summarize in a few words a very important idea in graphic designing.
Now my main idea was to end my post here but another issue came up while writing. It’s been less than a week since I’ve started working with Wordpress and I’m liking it as a publishing platform, it has everything for my needs, a neat coding and a neat concept, but let me say one thing.
Categories and tags. Aren’t they quite the same?
From what I’ve learned, categories should be used for filing the posts, while tags should be used to make a visual map of what your weblog is about increasing in size as you have more posts under a specific tag. Still, if you set the category list to display the number of posts each category has, they both give the exact same information - except categories can have a hierarchy and tags can’t. And while I’m at it, I wonder if someone has thought of an interlinked hierarchy system.
For example, let’s say I want to post about the making of a certain video game: I’d want to file it under “development”, and have the “development” category have a sub-category called “videogames” with another sub-category with the name of said game, so that if I later want to write about the making of another video game I can just add a new sub-category under “videogames”. This works with the current hierarchy model, but let’s say that some months have passed, the video game has been released and I want to review it. Where should I put the “review” category? Under “videogames”? Under the name of the game? They both have as parent “development”, but I’m not talking about development! If I reverse the structure and have “videogames” at the top, the name of the game as a sub-category and then “development” and “review” as third-level sub-categories? Yeah, and then if I want to review more than one game? Do I have to create as many “review” sub-categories as games I want to review? that’s just plain insane.
The only way this would work would be to have every game category linked both to “development” and “review”, which are single categories and not duplicates like in the last case. The whole system wouldn’t work like a tree spreading into branches, but more like a city plan where roads cross each other and all that matters is the distance from one place to another. This also leads to another issue, the idea of having a distance between categories that can show the relation between the subjects. In this example, “development” and “review” could have a medium distance from the name of the game, but two games from the same producer could be very near the one to the other.
Really, I’ll have to see if someone has already thought of all of that and how to put this into code.
Hey Rosy! I followed you here from deviantArt. I hope you didn’t leave dA to escape me… because I’m still here. =P
Ah, you sound like you are talking about the data structure in computer science called a directed weighted graph. I have not come across a website using this as far as I can tell, but it should not be too hard to program. Graphs are sets of vertices connected by edges. In your example, each vertex is one of the categories or subcategories, and each edge shows there is a connection from one vertex to another. A graph can be stored in two forms. The first is an adjacency matrix, and the second is an adjacency list. I’m just going to talk about the adjacency matrix here, because the adjacency list would be better explained with pictures, but if you are interested in trying something like this, you should look into it to determine which type makes better sense for you.
For an adjacency matrix, you have a matrix where each row represents a starting vertex and each column represents an end vertex. The number stored at the intersection of row A, column B, is the weight of the connection from node A to node B. In your case, the weight is the “distance” from one concept to another. So in your example, you might have something like (I hope that my ASCII art here is not totally destroyed when I post…):
videogames development reviews Pokemon FireEmblem food
videogames 0 1 1 1 1 0
development 0 0 0 1 1 0
reviews 0 0 0 1 1 0
Pokemon 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Emblem 0 0 0 0 0 0
food 0 0 0 0 0 0
This might not be exactly what you intended, but this is the basic idea. The 1’s could be changed to different numbers to denote the different weights.
Let me know if you end up programming something like this! I too have been frustrated by the tag systems on other sites…
Denise, December 4, 2008 - 12:49 am
oh my god Rosy, I had to read it three times to really understand what you wrote =____=
by the way…. this is really confusing @__@ but I never use tags, so it wouldn’t change for me
and I think that the “submit comment pencil” is already beautiful, so don’t change it please :(
Stefano, December 4, 2008 - 2:14 pm
Joined fanlisting:
:D
Submit comment button:
I like this pencil best :D *looks down*
The other is too much… is…!
Too grey :3
The blue one looks more… alive?(Little italian paragraph:Intendevo dire viva, ma non so se è il termine giusto ._.)
Her,tags:
@_@Is fantastic think this like you’ve said!
:D
A city that grows evry time, and grows and grows…
I hope I haven’t fail D:
Blue, December 5, 2008 - 3:49 pm
Lol at the nonsenses. I like spotting them out wherever anybody least expects them to be.
A short example should be maths, which is clearly a personal opinion since multiplying and dividing should be two opposite computings, but since you can multiply the dividing number for its opposite and do the exact same reverse-wise… this means they are the same thing. Wtf, totally different yet equal? It’s mostly like black = white or similar aberrations, but whatever.
Yes, I like coming to brag about random things
No, I don’t like disappearing
I’ll answer to your email asap and also comment on today’s news. Sorry for my perpetrated absences but it’s getting pretty tough down here with all those tests and things like that. My spare time is crying.
Hope to hear from you soon in this space ;P
And merry new opening! See you around, dear!
Ellemme, December 6, 2008 - 6:03 pm
uh! i disegni di kirby e meta night sono stupendi! hai mai giocato a kirby squeak squad per il ds? è stupendo,ciao!
lorin, December 7, 2008 - 9:19 pm
yes I’ve been awful with replies here, sorry
Denise, why would I ever escape from you? :) I actually hoped you would read this!
I’m not really into computer science but I think that would be what I was talking about. I’m more into theories than actual programming but one day I could really try and code that. But, if there is such a way to have a category system that makes sense, why no one ever thought of coding it like that in the first place? D:
(on other news: I have a new Mewtwo artwork to show you, later maybe?)
Stefano: I was serious when I tagged this as nerd ranting :O
no really, never had any intention to change the pencil, I only wanted to link this tutorial :B
Blue: really, you don’t have to speak english XD
Ellemme: np, seriously :)
I wanted to tell you about a certain song you love and a certain animation project for school…yes. you heard me. hold onto your pants, I’ll let you know more in another entry.
lorin: no in realtà ci ho giocato e non mi è piaciuto più di tanto, l’intera questione dei topi è meh in confronto ai “cattivi” classici di Kirby e la grafica è un notevole passo indietro rispetto a canvas curse. cioè, prima fanno una roba spettacolare e poi tornano agli standard del gba. D: e le bolle mi sono parse inutili
dubiousdisc, December 9, 2008 - 2:31 pm