Robots Have Big Ears

Over the weekend I completed pages 1 and 2 of chapter 11. These are largely introductory pages to setup the action later in the chapter. It involves the Magna Ambassador talking to the robot from chapter 8 (when Alexander was on Prill). What’s interesting is that I didn’t originally plan to have the robot in this chapter. It occurred to me that if the robot had been a spy all along, and was now reporting to the Ambassador, it added a whole new dimension to the previous chapter. It also allowed me to introduce some information in a more logical fashion. Originally, the Ambassador knows information, but I didn’t specify how. Now, however, I can say were it comes from (ie: the robot who has been acting as a spy). This points to an interesting part of this whole creative process: although I have an idea of how a chapter or plot will unfold, I have left enough wiggle room to incorporate additional details or plot twists that I originally didn’t think of.

Chapter 10 Online

I published chapter 10 last night without any problems. My wife, who is out of town, has promised to proofread it for me now that it’s online. Hopefully there aren’t too many glaring mistakes (although I’ll quickly fix them if my wife finds any).

I’ve already started building the main set for chapter 11. It’s actually the same Study set from chapter 1, but with different textures and a modified layout. It shouldn’t be too obvious. The whole chapter takes place in the private chambers of Ambassador Barbarosa, the same Magna that appeared in chapter 1. I still need to write the dialogue, however, so I imagine that will take most of this week, depending on how much I want done before I start rendering.

Stats

Just a few stats for the Imperium Chronicles website:

In the year or so that I’ve been keeping stats, I’ve had a total of 13,088 unique visitors (not hits) or an average of 34 visitors a day.

Also, counting the Prologue through Chapter 9, Alexander the Prince now numbers 125 pages.

As for this blog, I’ve made a total of 104 postings since starting it a year ago.

As for the visitors, I’m not sure whether this is a lot or not compared to other online comics. I assume it’s low, but it’s not too bad I think. Of course, I haven’t made a cent during that year (not counting stuff bought by family), so it’s not exactly a money-making venture. ;-) However, I’m okay with that.

Render Problems

I’ve been having technical problems with page 11. Although it’s the same stateroom set from chapter 9, I added a few extra walls and two Imperial marine models (Lt. Burke and a Sergeant). This was apparently enough to send Poser over the edge: almost every time I tried to render, the program locked up on me. This requires me to kill the program, which seems to take forever, and then reboot to recapture all the computer’s resources. It’s a real pain. Luckily I haven’t had this problem for quite a while, but I think the marine models (“SA Legion”) have a lot of polygons, which means a lot more power necessary to render. Anyway, I just have to be more careful and render things separately more. The good news is that there should only be another two pages before the chapter is done. It’s due this weekend. :-o

Btw, I mentioned that it’s a good idea to have someone proofread before publishing. Since my wife is out of town, I may have to email her some screenshots so she can take a look (and hopefully save me from public embarrassment). She may’ve thought that getting out of town would save her from these duties, but she was wrong, wrong, wrong!

Preoccupied

Whereas page 9 seemed to take freakin’ forever to get done (and there’s still more to do), I was able to get the renders for page 10 completed in one night. So-called real life issues (getting a new and much higher paying job) has largely preoccupied my mind lately. Plus, I wasn’t completely happy with the dialogue for page 9 (even though there really isn’t that much dialogue present), so I’ve been mulling that over too. Well, finally I got that done and I’m confident that I will have the final few pages done by the middle of next week. That will (hopefully) allow me to publish the new chapter by the 18th.