Nothing much has happen for the most part, but I may have do some quick changes going forward.
Winds of Change
Ever since I gotten into real-life duties midway into 2021, my time on doing projects has been significantly reduced, to the point I only got few hours of free time allocations (and 2 Days offs, but now cut to 1) to spend on. While I was able to do work on VSCView Theme stuffs (more on that later), I have to be very selective on what I am going to do after work. Should I binge some new TV Show? Should I continue playing the Ryo ga Gotoku/Yakuza series? Should I work on my videos or continue writing this very blog post you're reading right now?
As you would guess, this is a very reason why this annual retrospective blog post has been delayed to a few days: Time.
and from the looks of it, it's starting to affect my unfinished projects I haven't resume since COVID-19 started. Ultimately, I might as well cancel AL2009man Voice Acting Reels" parody as I lost the desire to finish it. However, one of the scenes I've done is something I still have the desire to finish it, and it's going to be repurposed into a standalone video. The good news is a portion of the dialogues is already completed by then, I just need to re-record the rest and find the correct or equivalent Sound SFX and Music in order to pull it off (the latter is harder to do).
That's a major roadblock at the moment- and it's something I wanna finish in 2022...but with Real life duties, it's wishful thinking.
Until then, don't expect new mainline videos anytime soon.
In addition: due to recent controversies surrounding Streamlabs, I decided to disable the Donations (as potentially, Brave Rewards) as my form of protest. That also means I officially have no form of donation for you guys to support my stuffs at the moment...not that anyone sends me a Donation cash or anything.
While I haven't released any Mainline Video in 2021, I've still done stuff regardless.
VSCView Controller Overlays
Ever since DS4 Support has been added, I've been using VSCView as my go-to Overlay of choice across all of my Social media handles. Throughout 2021; you may have notice that the Overlay has done thru improvements from crusty .png. to SVG-TO-PNG. Might as well give a quick history lesson.
Around the final week of 2020, RambleTan started work on the Guide template and shared a PNG/SVG of a Steam Controller, I went "poggers" and got interested on it. Thus, I started searching around for the Internet on finding the exact angle of the Overlay you often see in Controls Settings. Eventually I found a DS4 button prompt mod from Devil May Cry 5 that has the best image quality at the time.
Thankfully, the head honcho of VSCView, Nielk1, shared the .png on the Steam Controller discord server. This is where I started learning the ropes of the program and image editing. Throughout the final week of December 2020 to February 2021 is where I completed the "Beta" DualShock 4 theme before moving on to the DualSense theme (which is proven to be more difficult to find since PS5 was released a few months by that point).
While VSCView already have the DualSense support (via DevBuild) for some time, there isn't a theme for it. So obviously I went ahead and move on DualSense work annnnd... here's a screencap if you wanna get an idea on how long it took me to get it working.
Afterwards, I ported the .png theme over to VSCView (minus for the Mute button as I'm using the Release build as my test bed) and took a break while I wait for Nielk to add it to the commit...
5 months later, I got impatient and learned how to compiled from source and do it myself. I wrote a more in-depth info on the making of VSCView Themes over on /r/SteamController subreddit...
But ultimately, this started from Learning the ropes of how VSCView Theme works into making 12 Themes (including a prototype Xbox One Controller Theme), reorganizing the Theme List, cleaned up the Theme Engine documents a bit (to make it slightly easy for Theme Makers), making under-the-hood changes to Default Theme .jsons, redesigning UI Controller Icons/Connectors and made a running joke of "VSCView Theme 2.0 comes out at the same time as Valve's codename Citadel".
But I'm just getting started.
Since the release of VSCView 0.5.0.0, I've been working on making New Controller Themes for Xbox Wireless Controller (covering Xbox One OG, Xbox One S/X, Series X|S and Xbox 360 Controllers) and most recently; Nintendo Switch Pro Controller Theme amongst making visual improvements while migrating the rest of the icons to SVG. (you can check most of them out via indev build right now!)
I'm planning to make a new Theme (such as Arcade Stick, Nintendo Switch Joycons), make new color variations, and eventually; releasing the Theme Assets to the public.
But since I've gotten IRL duties, the progress might be slower than usual, so I can't really promise anything.
Doubling Down on Gyro Controls even further
the Gyroscopic Controls Projects has been slowed down a bit, but I've been doing some stuffs as well, such as adding 3-5 New Games while updating a couple of configs that improves the gyro experiences.
During that time, I also worked on:
Text-format version of my previous Mainline Video on Resident Evil 5 PC with Gyro Aiming.
Made a short guide on Directional Swipe feature in Steam Input.
Released 5 standalone gyro videos over on AL2009man's Storage channel.
One of my highlights is both GoldenEye 64 and Perfect Dark Gyro Videos, using SDL2 Input Injector (created by TauAkiou) that enables native Gyro Aim functionality without requiring external mapping tools.
Based on Carnivorous and Stolen's KB/M Plugin, this plugin expands on it's Controller Support using SDL2's Gamepad API, while introducing Gyro Aiming settings (such as Standard, FreeAim (imagine the Aim button, but always on.), Splatoon-style and Flick Stick.
While we have similar mods such as PrimeHack , this might be the first major mod/plugin that injects Native Gyro Aim functionality to a game. (and... it's nice to see major Emulation players moving away from external solutions in favor of integrated ones).
as for my own Gyro Controls configs: welp- I haven't done much work in a while and I still have WIP Configs on the pipeline (in fact, I kinda abandoned Metro Exodus and CONTROL config while waiting for Half-Life 2's recent SIAPI update to roll-out to everyone), but I'm currently looking into upgrading the page to make it easier for me to add new configs without any sort of troubleshooting fixes, but I can't guarantee that...for now.
Other stuffs
Participated in YIIK: A Postmodern RPG's 1.25 Update playtest (but in a small capacity). You can find me on the end credits. It's weird how I came from editing hours of pain to actively contributing.
Released "My Immortal but Written by an AI" fanfic as scheduled (on April Fools' 2021)
....I don't remember what I did next.
oh, and this clip I uploaded to the Internet did...too well.
So yeah, don't expect too much from AL2009man in 2022, aside of shitposting.
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