ataverti - Blog

ATA BLOG

Read topical thoughts of man and myth behind Ataverti, Petri Fridell.

NEW In Atary: FEMME FATALE: The woman. - What about women. Introduce Kata, my long time babe. I have been on and off with her for 11 years. Maybe I am old. Maybe I am getting sentimental. Maybe I want to continue my heritage. So I invited her to come visit me. You know, game dev lifestyle can be lonely and cold. So I wanted to start a Trial. To feel someone close to me. Not having to go to sleep lonely and longing. Heart and harmony.

My Ata home office has not been so full of life and tidy ever. I have been dining and wining better than ever. Romance is on the air. But still my heart is empty. I long for game dev. You get something you give other. Voiping, gaming and game development is hard to do when you are in single apartment with a partner. And she is not into game dev.

I made Led It Rain! Among others. Making of such game mostly by myself has required lots of solitude, time and concentration. It has been worth it. When laying with my girl I feel like I am cheating on the legacy of Led It Rain. I have plans to maybe go for publisher for better version of Led It Rain. More and more I realise that I need someone who values and supports my goals and dreams. Someone who is interested of what I do professionally. Someone who can be part of this lifestyle. But still gives all the aspects of dating a girl.

For couple of years I been thinking of sort of autobiography story or game, which is slightly based on real life events. Stories of game dev! So maybe I will do it later after couple of action games. More of drama type of game. Times are shifting towards such experiences. Action games such as Led It Rain have been most hot 11 years past. Still I am the Ataverti. No one else is going to tell exactly just these stories.(06.06.2020 Petri Fridell, Ataverti)

In Atary: COMMUNICATION DIFFICULTIES: The degeneration of communition in verge of new decade is apparent. Even thought existing and new information and culture is available easier than ever. I have became aware of absence of well-written message patterns in my own behaviour when answering someone in (((digital))) communication. And other people seem to have this too.

When you get messaged in digital interaction it is hard to come up with great answer. You have to change your brain and thinking into the subject that other conversationalist comes up. You are probably doing something else on that electronic device. It is made difficult task also because you should answer instantly. Is our evolution and are our machines good or bad? When you see someone face to face it is different.

There has been development and trend in Social Media to make it easier to answer to someone. You can unleash "Thumbs up" to react to what ever message you get. I believe that has degenerated us. Giving "Thumbs up" is very irritating. I try to avoid it if possible by trying to answer with words. Also information feed and communication is on going day by day so it is easy to get lost in the data ocean.

It is also common to get nothing at all as answer. Even thought it is called instant messaging. Why dont you write your answer after time. Have you ever thought of getting back to old subject which you did not answer earlier or subject that has been drowned in the information feed? ... YES! Nice! There, there? Well! Fact!(02.02.2020 Petri Fridell, Ataverti)

In Atary: PLAYER CREATION: We were playing this huge western multiplayer game when I encountered an interesting problem. My character was not attractive enough from the perspective of female player. I had just thrown my character together in character creator with random choice and thought that it is not such a big deal. But this event wanted me to start again with new better looking character.

As a graphics artist I spend lots of time with character creation. Previously I have liked to put scars and woreness to characters face. Similar to as it is easier to make grunge looking environments than white walls and new furniture. Rust and decay all around. It is challenching to make fresh and clean appear to look great.

Can it be possible to get better self consiousness if you are playing with character that is somehow better what you are in real life? And if you encounter events that make you feel better than ordinary days. Remember that super hero feeling when playing action games?

Maybe even a game which supports multi appareance so players character appears as a different looking depending on the other player viewing. It is a game development so everything is possible!(10.11.2019 Petri Fridell, Ataverti)

In Atary: VIRTUAL HUMANS: Recently I have been trying to produce first ptototype for Virtual Humans. Real life humans made into virtual replicas. It is first mainly for Augmented Reality. But there is clear goal to have some real life people virtualisations for Virtual Cities if it becames possible to produce those or starting with prototyping environments with real life behaviour.

I have phone which is able to "scan" virtual model of real humans head with its camera. Then it is attached into virtual body which body type maybe can be changed. Then different well made realistic virtual clothes will be put on the virtual humanoid that are changed with coding.

I made prototype of bikini-babe in AR and yes.. It gives you feeling of beatiful woman in front of you. Put what I think will be missing from digital humans is the physical feeling of your loved one next to you. Even in film adaptions that depict future hologram partners you get a feeling that it is empty, lonely feeling. You would need lots of pheriphals to feel the thouch and it will be very different of being there.

And what about Artificial Intelligence of virtual humans? The systems for realistic human behaviour are very primitive. It was immense to see a prototype where 3d human reacted in Augmented Reality to voice commands and changed its animations when told specific commands.(11.10.2019 Petri Fridell, Ataverti, ViCit Interactive)

In Atary: GAME DEV GIRLS: The evolvement of society and mankind has led to games being available world wide. Because we have now computers and entertainment systems at home it is easy for anyone to start experiencing games. There is welcomming trend of woman players already.

Also recently I have noticed that there are lots of female Developers. We devs sit on our computers and communicate through computers looking usually at very polished images of others and it is easy to send messages and except answers. Often this can be misleading.

My previous relationships have been like sinking ship. Even to exent that my ex threw an egg to my computer because "I was so much on computer" when I was working from home because it is expensive to rent a office space. It is very hard to fit game dev lifestyle and having full time relationship together. Women I have been with have been "normies" so that got me thinking and pursuing for a girl doing something related to games.

Recently I met one girl that has been developing games full time for many years. It is intriguing that she has same mindset and lifestyle. In love and dev is it better to have similar types or does something totally different aproach work better? (31.8.2019 Petri Fridell, Ataverti)

In Atary: VIOLENCE IN GAMES: Maybe it is something to do with me getting older but for long time I have been thinking of making applications and projects that have something else also than player shooting enemies. Most of my game ideas come from years ago and it was the norm to have mechanics where player moves the cursor to enemies head and presses mouse button as fast as possible.

And yes it is - our most common gameplay mechanic that is most easist to make and to have. Also as starting idea. But with the rise of Virtual Reality and computer graphics, admiring the games environments and architecture is more important, not just fast paced often moraless shooting.

And well, yes - I made "Led It Rain", b**ch. The brainless American redneck gun epos. Also then I can not obviously put moraless apoplectic violence in real life environment applications with in "ViCit" (Btw atm I do not have internet page for ViCit but it is idea of VIrtual CITies as making real life environments into virtual).

It felt too real and discusting to shoot red triangle man in the back of his head in a game in Virtual Reality so maybe we as game developers and movie makers will grow with new technology and have these virtual havens in games that feel safe and familiar and give positive memories. And Yes - games will have violent stories and shooting and mayhem - that is just fun but I hope for morale and choice also. (17.8.2019 Petri Fridell, Ataverti, ViCit Interactive)

In Atary: ATAPOTHESEUS: I have always wanted to create. Imagine worlds and tell stories. Youngling of me used to draw. I still have some 400 pictures that I made using pen and paper. Back then I thought to make comic books. And started many ideas and first panels of comics but never reached the end of the stories.

Later when I got my first computer I became more and more interested of making computer games. First modding Max Payne (because my background is from modding it shows in the products - I like to fastly gather assets and make and modify stories of my own) and then doing all kinds of games with Unity. So it never has been really anything else than making something creative.

When my parents died and when I felt not getting enough respect from the work I had bad damn burnout. So I have been getting social benefit since. Which is little f***up situation. That is the reason why I am able to do my career. If I could earn my bread myself this whole thing could be more wholesome.

I like and have been following artists and bands that started from very little and made it into highlights so for me it is a obvious dream that someones make their fame and fortune by being creative. (x.x.2008 Petri Fridell, Ataverti)