Real World Photo —> “Deer in the Trees”

Monday – April 18th, 2022  – I think there are six deer partially visibile – Cautiously peering out & wondering what the weird humans are doing – { on Lindsay North’s Birthday – And Mike T.’s Birthday as well – He was my supervisor @ TVCOGECO in Arnprior. }

"Deer in the trees" From April 5th, 2022

– “Deer Hiding Behind Trees” – on ‘Deer Hill’ { 12 feet south of our glassed in porch. Photo taken on April 5th, 2022. }” – I was surprised at how well this shot turned out – First photo taken with my new iPhone 11 ~~~ TaleRocker ~~~

“Game Shot —> From January 13th, 2022”

Easter Monday – April 18th, 2022 —> +6˚C / +44˚F —> Sunny wth very blue skies @ 12:15 pm in Atlantic Canada { on what might be Hayley Mills’ Birthday? }

"Draeydan & Shelley at a camp fire"

– ” Draeydan & Shelley in the light of a campfire in the ‘Fortress Homestead’ on the parallel world Draeydan’s Uncle Scott & friends discovered.” { Screen Shot taken On January 13th, 2022 @ 02:38 am } ~~~ TaleRocker ~~~

Tuesday, January 19th, 2016 – “Real World” Photo of the Day” from archives.

Sunset on the Ottawa River

Just to remind us that we aren’t always freezing our bums off up here in Canada – This is a sundown photo taken in Robert Simpson Park (sp?) a few years back. We saw some unusual colours looking out into ‘Chats Lake’ – the Ottawa River from the parking lot at the beach. Which was a favourite spot to sit and enjoy ice cream from the Ice Shack- I wonder if that venue is still there?    ~~~TaleRocker~~~

“Real World” Photo of the Day – January 18, 2016

Frosted Trees looking toward the weir.

Arnprior, Ontario – This was one frosty morning before the town blocked access to what had been a parking lot near the Mouth of the Madawaska River- Fog near the weir & Hoar Frost often visited the trees there, along a walking trail past the boat yard to the park and the beach on Chats Lake. This is probably either 2007 or 2008. The dark nearly horizontal line near the vertical centre pf the photo is the weir.

November 07, 2015 – Sunset On Utility Wires on Gibson Street

Sunset on wires, Nov. 07, 2015

Sunlight illuminating utility cables on Gibson Street – DreamCat, the artist, saw this and gasped, “I want to paint this!” I had my camera with me and captured almost a dozen shots, including a few we went around the block back up and around to capture farther up Gibson Street. Some came out blurry, even with the camera set on “Sports’ capture – I have a couple I like best, this is one of them ~~~ TaleRocker

Screen Shot “Faer Kingdoms” Stream Before Adding the Waterfalls –

Bright, colourful area around a very blue stream where the waterfalls haven't been added yet.

-A series of cascading waterfalls will dazzle anyone who stumbles into this area. I almost deleted this whole area – Where I made a lot of early mistakes and hadn’t learned how to do anything the ‘easy way’ – This would be an area in the ‘Faer Kingdoms’ – the Newbie Friendly parallel world where creatures related to the tiny flying Healer-Sprites and other creatures from Earthly Fairy Tales pop in and out and ‘originally came from’ We made things more colourful and bright there and don’t allow player versus player attacks anywhere in this ‘dimension’. ~~~ TaleRocker

Screen Shot – Very Early Development – Carving Ravines and plotting the Road, looking back toward the Port City.

Looking South and SoutEast from the mountains toward the sea port.

— More Very Early development here – Stretching this area as far as we could – Then connecting two areas, one much higher than the other, we began to pull deep ravines down out of the ‘mountains’ that would be a lot more like the Younger Rockies than the Older Appalachians – The dark blue in the upper right hand corner would be the ocean. The sea port area looks really tiny from here. But I think we made a pretty good transition between the two areas. We’ll know later – And I hope we don’t have to do a lot of ‘tweaking’ to smooth out slopes that look great from one angle and then don’t quite connect from another. ~~~ TaleRocker

Game Screen Shot – Very Early Development of the Road from Birken to the Capital City of Aerendel –

Birken - Aerendel Road at its bery beginning

Early development of the road north from the port city of Birken to the Capital City of Aerendel with its castle and secret entrances to the ‘The Anomaly’ – a series of tunnels and portals that can link to other worlds, other times, completely different realities – Some dangerous, some silly – & even some where ‘adventurers’ can have homes built and expanded over time. The hills will be modified as buildings, forests and forts will be added. ~~~ TaleRocker

Screen Shot – Birken, The Port City – Before Adding the Docks and Buildings

First Look at stripped down Birken.

Basic Beginning View of Where the Docks will be in Birken, with Megrory’s Pub just out of the scene to the left. There will be sailing ships and Customs Agents and thugs who will knock newcomers unconscious and rob them blind and Travelers’ Aid Society People who will give basic newbie weapons and armor and advice and directions – and Constables who will arrest anybody who doesn’t have a Bounty Hunter’s License or Bribe Money. and opportunistic thieves in the lock up who will escape and set locked up newbies free to divert the constables as they make good their own escapes.

Flower Pot Rocks and Shadows of 2014

Flower Pot Rocks and Silhouettes of People.

This was another photo I shot at Flower Pot Rocks in Hopewell in August of 2014 – late in the day, almost closing time. At ‘Dead Low Tide’ with people showing up as silhouettes. At Almost the North-Eastern End of Fundy Bay — Actually a ‘Still’ from an HD video – ~~~ TaleRocker

Game Development – Sunset in a parallel world

Landscape of North Shamrock Island, Parallel Dimesnion #2

“Sunset in North Shamrock Island, in the Parallel World” – This is a second parallel dimension inside the game world. It’s a dimension that is under attack by ‘unknown adversaries’ that previous quest winners are invited to visit to learn who or what may be attacking – and why, and what ‘they’ want and if they might gain access to either the Faer Kingdoms or the ‘Real World’ of the game. Here, in this screen shot, the setting sun hits moisture in the atmosphere and creates a yellow glow in the west. The first questors to find this dimension will choose a name or some kind of designation to identify the whole dimension. ~~~ TaleRocker

Photo – One Whole Lotta Snow on the second week of March in 2008.

High banks of shoveled, plowed and snowblower blown snow around a front yard and a whole bunch of new snow on the ground.

Canadians grow tired of explaining that their country is not buried under several feet of snow year round and we do not all live in igloos. I haven’t seen a single igloo in the 13 & 1/2 years I’ve been visiting and then living here – This, however, was a common sight in the Ottawa area of Ontario in the winter of 2007 – 2008. There’s between four and six inches of newly fallen snow on the ground and about a four foot high bank of snow looking like a castle wall around the front yart of this house. This photo was taken at about 5:45 am on March 8th, 2008. ~~~TaleRocker

Screen Shot – North Coast Cliffs and site of a future flowing waterfall

Cliffs and waterfall at the northern end of Shamrock Island in the Parallel Dimension.

Cliffs and the site of a future waterfall on the north coast of Shamrock Island in the ‘Faer Kingdoms’ parallel dimension. The building in ruins is a place-holder. It was an example of an asset that came with the Hero Cloud.  ~~~ TaleRocker

Photo – Down Inside a Gorge in Ithaca, New York.

Down inside a gorge in Ithaca, New York

This is a Gorge in Ithaca, New York. The Cornell University campus is all around this gorge. There’s a bridge just out of sight around the corner to the right and there’s a wooden stair case down into this gorge not far behind where this shot was taken. The water is only about an inch deep in spots. I took a photo of a woman walking where the water did not cover her sandals. A friend commented, “What? Is she walking on water?” — Well, sort of. ~~~TaleRocker

Screen Shot – Shaping Mountains and putting in a road.

wide view as we're shaping hills and mountains.

Here we are zoomed way out to get a look at how the world building is progressing. We were shaping steep hills to put in a road from a coastal city – Birken – to the Capital city with its castle at – Aerendel – in the hills at the base of a mountain. & Here you can see the brown fog as night is falling. ~~~ TaleRocker

Screen Shot – Just before sunrise in Absentia – in the ‘Real World’ dimension of the game world.

Character standing in a mountain pass with glowing yellow fog in the distance.

Absentia Pass in the game’s ‘Real World’. The yellow glow is supposed to be the pre-dawn sun lighting up a morning fog. This was when we were first experimenting with the colour sliders. We had no idea what colour the fogs would be. Here, early morning fogs were yellow, and at the same setting – late evening fogs were brown. ~~~TaleRocker

Game Development Screen Shot of the Day – A Young Faer Elf –

A friendly looking 'Faer Elf'

This would be a young, fully grown Faer Elf. Faer Elves are natives of the Faer Kingdoms. Their average life span would be about 5,000 ‘earth-human’ years. When they’re older they generally appear more ‘spindly’, less ‘healthy’, and not very friendly. They have been described as being extremely peevish, cranky, able to change their looks to appear creepy, unfriendly, dangerous, and just plain weird. No one knows why, but as they get older, they often turn to exploring the world beyond the Faer Kingdoms – possibly out of boredom – and find students they feel an afinity for. They will teach their students spells and practices from the school of ‘Faeromancy’ – a generally non-lethal form of ‘Nuisance Magick’ like the spell that will leave everyone within fifty meters stuck about three feet deep in a rancid, sticky pool of something that smells so bad many victims throw up and cannot fight, can barely breathe. The sticky liquid looks like ‘chicken soup’ but the noodles act more like electric eels that shock and bite. Most Faer Elves can also ‘morph’ into cats. Not big cats, ‘domestic’ sized cats. These cats can look like they died several years ago and nobody told them about that yet. But most of them look very ‘average’ and not at all remarkable. I would suggest you never kick or throw anything at any cats anywhere in this game. You never know what kind of spell it might hurl at you.  ~~~~~ TaleRocker

“Real World” Photo of the Day – Railroad Bridge with no tracks.

Interesting looking railroad bridge

This is an unused bridge in Arnprior, Ontario, Canada. It used to be a railroad bridge. Between 2010 and 2013 there was some talk about turning this into a footbridge that would be part of a park that I don’t believe became reality. The ‘real’ railroad bridge was elsewhere, up the river a bit. When the last train rolled away with all the railroad tracks and ties the other bridge ceased to be a part of a working railroad. I have no idea what may have happened since then. The Madawaska River flows beneath. The time stamp on this photo says I took it on my father’s birthday, March 18, 2007.  ~~~ TaleRocker

Game Development Screen Shot of the Day – More stuff about that Cave –

Inside a very colorful cave in a 3D game world.

After doing extensive work to get the cave to look right we messed around with ‘painting it’ because some of the colours were supposed to indicate the presence of minerals and possible gems, and after all – it was supposed to be part of another world, a parellel dimension inside the game – a place you can get to visit or stay in after you learn how to find and activate the portals – which happens as a result of a quest. A wizard type teaches you how to recognize and activate the portals. — We still did more ‘landscaping’ inside the cave after the colors made a few ‘glitches’ obvious, we worked the ‘erosion tools’ to get rid of most straight up and down cliffs and pulled some stalactites down and pushed others back up when they were blocking the pathways through the cave. ~~~ TaleRocker

“Real World” Photo of the Day – Christmas Tree Line across the melting ice on Chats Lake

Trees lined up across the Ottawa River late in the season, the ice is melting.

This is a photo of “Chats Lake”/the Ottawa River at Arnprior, Ontario, Canada. In the winter the river is frozen solid to the point where people can drive trucks across the ice here. A lot of snowmobiles regularly shoot all over the river – After Christmas, people take thrown away Christmas Trees and line them up from the end of the road where this ‘Dead End’ sign announces the end of the road. Best Guess? They line the trees up as a navigation aid for anyone who wants to shoot across the river here and probably ends where a similar road dead ends at the north side of the river in Quebec. It may be a popular crossing between Ontario and Quebec. There were announcements that doing this with Christmas trees was against a law. I took this photo in March of 2008, when the weather was warmer and the ice was melting. ~~~ TaleRocker

Game Development Screen Shot of the Day – Working on the interior of a cave.

Builder charater inside huge cave.

This is a bit of the detail inside the huge cave in the “Faer Kingdoms” – We had to make sure the characters could actually get through it. And then we wanted to make it look as realistic as possible while still being as fantastic as possible. ~~~ TaleRocker