How (not) to judge 3D printing in cosplay

This time it is not a tutorial based article. I just want to share my opinion with you and possibly find out your opinion too.
There is always some motivation behind each and every of my articles. And one of the motivations for this article was for example one comment I got when I shared my mini nuke prop. I wrote in the decription of the picture featuring the prop, that I made it and gave it to a fallout fan. And the comment was, that the prop was not made by me. After it I posted my work on birdskull, that I made for my Fury cosplay. This time also modelled and of course printed by me, awaiting the postporcessing. And some of the reaction were the same: "Can you go into a contest with 3D printed stuff? It is not your work." and some more...

my brid skull modelled and printed for Fury cosplay
You can clearly see the use of supports for the eyes and beak.

So I decided there is time to maybe educate people more about 3D printing a decribe every step you have to make to achieve good finished product, so everyone can understand it well and better understand the differences of 3d printed work with handmade stuff.

And to say I was the same like people writing me: When 3D print came into cosplay world I didn't think much about it. I thought, that you just put a model inside the printer and it prints that for you. You just sand it, paint it and wear it and that is just it. I've also heard opinions like "3D printing is cheating".
I think a lot of opinions would change with getting a 3D printer kit.

1) What is involved in making a 3D printed prop (for example mininuke)

how your failed print can look like

1) I got a 3D printer (kinda big investment for most of the ppl) + filaments, cabinet for it, smoothing and sanding stuff, ...
2) I had to assemble it and calibrate it (9 hours of assembling, 5 hours of calibrating)

3) I had to study a lot to know which filament to use, how to smooth your prints, how to calibrate the printer for each filament, which filaments are toxic, foodsafe, how they behave and what special needs they have, how to make you prints stick to the surface and how to make them not stick when they're done without destroying your printer, ... (several days of learning)

4) Right now - for each nicely printed thing I still got half of the filament as failed print, because I'm still learning and sh*t just happens.

Nukacola pencil/can holder progress was similar,
there was only no assembly needed and the painjob was easier.
You can still see some parts, that are really hard to sand,
that they have still visible lines from print.

5) Printing bigger stuff can take hours or days and you cannot just leave your printer working, since the prints tend to fail (filament stuck, bad adhesion of pieces, layer shifting, other printing fails) and some fails can even destroy your printer and in worst case - put it on fire (seen that too once). Some people solve this problem with installing camera devices to monitor their prints.

6a) I found the right model (no, I didn't model it - modelling will be an article on its own) and I had to make .gcode files from .stl files, so your printer can handle it - there you customize all the things the printer should do in matter of speed, quality, infill, supports, ... (more in 2nd chapter).
6b) Or you can make the model on your own. But 3d modelling is HARD if you don't have any courses behind you and don't know where to start. I started by editing existing models to learn how all the brushes work and since I have a lot of experience with vector graphic, where you have to work sith shapes as well, I was relatively fast learner. You basically go from making basic shapes or editing existing stuff (my lightsaberemitter guard) to using brushes form making organic stuff (my bird skull - 2 days of work on it) to making exact shapes with functional design (I'm still not that far and a long way awaits me), that is for example this mininuke.

7) The mininuke printed like 85/100 quality (there were some minor cosmetic issues - I used a cheaper filament), so I had to sand down the not so nice parts and fix failed parts with wood burning iron.
Every printer an filament prints in different quality adustments and sometimes it can have some uneven spaces, bulks or different "fails", that you have to fix in post processing. 

8) I made 3 coats of primer and filler (not cheap stuff), that I had to sand down after every coat - it took me the whole day. This part is the most important! I've seen a lot of cosplayers just take the 3D printed prop and paint it. There almost no work involved in making a 3d printed prop without modelling it yourself, printing it yourself and POSTPROCESSING it. That is what makes the difference between good and bad print - the lines from printer should be not visible at all and the surface of the print should be smooth!
Remember that because rought print is like foam armor with badly glued joints.

9) When I thought the surface was smooth enough, I sanded it down for the last time and then I spent 2-3 hours of assembling and painting. I used real iron nails for bottom part. Painting makes a big difference in what you can get from a 3d print!!!
You can watch me painting mininuke HERE.

DAT famous mininuke, 3D model by PowerHobo

So even my printer "made" the physical shapes of the mininuke, and I didn't even model it (I do not think i am able to 3D model functional or precise models yet)), I think there is still a lot of work involved!

This part of article was just a description of a working process. When I say "made" it means, nothing would exist without your work involved. You cannot just say my 3D printer made it for me, because it is not true, and you can give credit to the author of the file, which I am always giving in longer description, not in a first sentence, that explains what the thing is - but even the author did not make the physical thing for you.

In the following part of the article, I will describe the adjustments of your printer, that can severely influence your print. It may be a little boring for someone, but I think it is vital to understand, that printer does not make all the work for you. It is up to you to tell it what to do!
But still, if you are not interested, skip to part 3 - judging of a 3D printed part.

2) How hard printing actually is

I've already described, what you need to do to make your own prop like my mininuke. But what adjustements are you making actually on your printer? Why the printing fails so much? Why it is actually not that easy as it seems on a first glance? Why it takes so long to print?

3D printers work by melting a long string of (mainly plastic) filament and placing layers and layers of materials on each other in a desired shape.

a) printing quality

You can adjust your printing quality in the program you use for preparing the models for printing (Slic3r, Prusa control, ...) and it influences the layer visibility and the time of printing:

b) printing speed

You can adjust the printing speed in different stages of printing. The right/wrong speed can have a big impact on the printing quality in terms of shape and smoothness:

c) filament (= printing string)

Each and every filament and I mean not only the material or the company making it, but each and every color of filament can have different chracterstics and would most likely need you to change the adjustments of your printer regarding speed, nozzle temperature, sometimes layer height, heating bed temperature.
There are several different materials you can print with, but the most used are PLA and ABS. But you can even print with nylon, carbon fiber, flexible materials or wood, but each filament material has it's own spceifics and if you read carefully, you have noticed, that ot study those differences and choosing the best material for you can take several days of studying.

d) nozzle temperature

Nozzle temperature is the tempareature of the device melting the filament to be extruded and shaped. It changes with each and every material and most of the filaments have on their box, what temperature is best for them. But tbh - you have to try it by yourself. The temperature can have a big impact on the quality of the print:

e) heating bed temperature

Some better printer have something called heating bed. It is the part of the printer, where the printed part sits and some filaments need the printing bed to be heated in order to stick to it. Temperature of heating bed can influence, if your print sticks to the bed and will be a success or if the print sticks on the nozzle, will mess up your pinter and be totally destroyed. If you make your bed temp too high, it can shift some layers of your print and it will look bad.

f) taking care of your filament

Even the filament you have needs to be cared of and can influence the result of your print. Tangled filament can stuck and your print can go on printing without extruding any filament. Wet or moist filament can make your print look bulky or there could be holes in your print. That is why your filament comes with silica gel absorbent of mositure and that is why you should stock it on dry dark place.

g) infill

Infill is a way of sparing some of the filament, making the inner part of a model lightweight, but still pretty sturdy. On the pictures, you see some of the adjustments you can do with your infill, that can influence athe look and the charactersitics of your print:



h) supports, brim, raft, skirt ...

To make sure your print will be successful, sometimes you have to make supports for the parts, that "overhang", you have to make rafts and brims or skirts. But I won't describe it so much, since it is for longer time. If you are still interested in more, just read this article about it HERE.

i) the list never ends

I am sure I explained in a short way some of the adjustments of printing, but this is not all, there are many other different stuff you have to do before printing, that I did not mention, but I think this list is enought to have just a slight clue, how extensive the work with 3d printer actually is.

3) Judging a 3D print

The smoothness of the print is affected by printing quality
(for ex. how many layers are used) and the post-processing (smoothing)

⏩ How much work is involved in the print

1) Did the cosplayer model the prop?

2) Did the cosplayer controll (own) the 3D printer?

3) Did the cosplayer assembled, sanded (or postprocessed) and painted the print?

Controll questions:

- What modelling software/printing software/printer is she/he using?

- What techniques are used for smoothing and painting?

- What glue is used for assembly?
- What kind of filament is she/he using and why?

⏩ How advanced the print is

1) How skilled a cosplayer should be to model this?

2) Does it do anything special?

- movement, opening, turning, ...

I know it can sound maybe very challenging, to make props, that actually do something, but 3D printing has almost unlimited options in this kind of matter.

3) How many parts it has and (how much time and money is involved)

⏩ How does the print look like 

1) Are there any common print fails involved? Layer shifting, Overextrusion, Layer splitting, Oozing, bad supports, wet filament, ... Look HERE at most of the possible print failures.

2) Does the 3D print look smooth?
If you spend more time printing a prop on much detailed option, there are more layers used, so the printing layers are not so visible. But even your print goes very detailed right from the printer, you still have to smooth it, so no layers are visible. There are a lot of ways how to do it, which I will describe in another article, but the post-processing is really necessary and it is also VERY time consuming and hard. And I have to admit I have seen only a few cosplayers actually postprocesssing their prints well.
3) How does the paintjob looks like
- Does it look realistic?
- Are the colors good quality, or does the original print color peeks through?
- Are there highlights and shading involved?
- Is it weathered (if it should be)?
I took two Immortan Joe masks from Thingverse to show you the difference of the paintjob you can achieve on the same 3D model as an example:

Mask used for Halloween, so the painjob
is made fast and inaccurate

Very good and realistic paintjob of this mask

⏩ Other stuff
1) How creative the use of the print is
Even when someone did not modell something, but uses it creatively or in an uncommon way, I think it can earn him/her plus points!

I try to find creative and practical use of models all the time:

Dragons can fix anything

Using 4 different models to pimp up the respirator

3) Comparison with other techniques

Comparison of different techniques is always very hard - we know the struggle between judging the armors and dresses and 3D print comes to this enviroment of unsure point distribution in contests...

I think 3D printing is the VERY SIMILAR to other techniques - it can make your life easier in some ways and harder in other.

What is easier and what I like:

⏩You can buy or download models for free, you don't have to know how to 3D model to 3D print

⏩No pattern making, no foam cutting and gluing and shaping, ...

⏩No further thinking about shape, allignment, scale, assembly, you can wathc this all in the computer.

⏩Very sturdy outcome - no heat in car destroys your props, almost no damage caused by travelling
⏩ Very convincing outcome if postprocessed well
⏩ Even the learning curve is very slow from the start, you get to know your printer with time and choose your fav materials and adjustments and become a 3D printing fabric very soon ;)

What is harder:

⏩Initial investment is very high (3d printer, filament, 3D programs)

⏩Learning is very time consuming from the start and involves a lot of fails (and money for the filament or destroyed parts)

1 character - so many different signature styles
Demon Hunter from Diablo 3 by
Poodoki, Tasha, unknown :(, Germia

⏩ 3D modelling is not easy and involves in it a lot of learning struggles and sacrificed time. ⏩ 3D modelling of functional or precise parts is much harder and really advanced.

⏩Sanding and smoothing is very time (and money) consuming
⏩ Printing with new and different filaments ivolves a lot of fails and it's really time consuming.

What I dislike:

⏩ 3D prints do not involve your handmade touch/signature style - noone recognizes if you printed it or if your friend printed it. By normal foam armors or worbla, there are so many different styles - I have my own, everyone can recognize my work from others...

What I like:
⏩ 3D printing moves cosplayers on another level. Even worbla and foam are great materials, they have some limits and rying to make a convincing sniper rifle from those materials could be almost impossible. 3D printing also allows for better durability and it is yet another technique to show of with (If the technique wasn't by some people regarded as cheating :( ).

According to me, (we) cosplayers have problem with 3D printing in this matter:

You can make a 3D print even with only a little skill (if you download 3D modell, let it print by your friend) and there is smaller difference (or maybe just most people don't know) between bad 3D print and good 3D print (downloaded model, painting and layer visibility) than between good foam armor and bad foam armor (shapes, seams, painting, scale, decorations, material, typical handmade style of a cosplayer). That is why sometimes it seems much easier to make a 3D printed prop than a handmade prop.

And what do you think about 3D printing in cosplay? Do you still think it is easier or "cheating" to have stuff 3D printed? Don't worry, I won't judge ANY opinions, just make them well thinked and argumented ;) 

My Sith with 3D printed lightsaber emitter guards

This article was made with the support of my patreon followers and I'm really greateful to them!
If you want to take part in this and support me in making more of the content like this, you can join my patreon here :)
Thank you!


Yours
Germia

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What grinds Germia's gears #3 - Nevděk (CZ)

And that´s what really grinds my gears.

Zase jednou píšu o něčem, co mě namíchlo.

Jsem správce několika FB stránek, ať už se jedná o můj tým, vlastní fanpage, e-shop eSubawearu, nebo jiné projekty a instituce, které nebudu všechny vyjmenovávat.
A vždy v předvánočním čase se člověk snaží zintenzivnit svou aktivitu a udělat něco pro ty, kteří mají stránku lajknutou a nějakým způsobem je za to odměnit. Snažím se vymýšlet nejrůznější formy akcí, nevšední soutěže, kde kladu často důraz na kreativitu a vlastní invenci, (protože když někdo vyhraje tak, že udělá něco nejlépe, tak z toho musí mít určitě větší radost, než když ho vybere generátor náhodných čísel), nebo nejrůznější jiné giveawaye.
Co mě ale dokáže opravdu neuvěřitelně vytočit, jsou věčné negativní komentáře. Aneb ukažme si pár příkladů:

1) Black Friday sleva 15 %

Black Friday, neboli černý pátek je den po americkém svátku Dnu díkůvzdání, kdy tradičně mnoho amerických kamenných obchodů i e-shopů radikálně zlevňuje. Lidem, kteří mají často v pátek dovolenou, tak umožňují nakupovat dárky na Vánoce za výhodné ceny.
Tento trend se částečně přenáší i k nám a i mnoho českých e-shopů dělá na Black Friday akce. Rozhodla jsem se tedy přemluvit svého šéfa a kamaráda, který se stará o e-shop www.eSubaWear.cz, že bychom také mohli udělat nějakou slevu - přeci těch 15 % nám neuškodí a lidem udělá radost. Navíc budeme tady na tom českém písečku trochu "průkopníci" a uděláme něco, co je v zahraničí již zcela běžné.
A jak jsme se domluvili, tak se stalo. Připravili jsme slevový kód, který se zadá v objednávce a cena všech produktů až v košíku klesne o 15 %.
A co se nám pak neobjeví na stránkách? Místo komentářů typu: "Super, na tohle jsem čekal - budu mít dárek na Vánoce", nebo: "Díky, sleva se vždy hodí!", tam máme přesně toto:







To je ten typ komentáře, který dokáže člověka leda naštvat, a to hned ze dvou důvodů:

1) Všude slevy 85 % a 65 %?
Kde? Sama jsem se na Black Friday těšila - chtěla jsem nakoupit také nějaké dárky se slevou, asi jako každý... A v pátek jsem projížděla všechny e-shopy, které tvrdily, že mají BF slevy (Btw. v celé ČR asi 30 e-shopů). A fungovalo to asi jako slevy na slavných slevových portálech, kde se sleva vytvoří tak, že si prodejce vymyslí původní cenu produktu, která je třeba o 75 % vyšší než ta cena, za kterou chce produkt prodat a voilà - Češi kupují. Takže jsem zklamaně v pátek utřela nos a nekoupila vůbec nic. A jeden z mála českých e-shopů, který slevu udělal opravdu poctivě, dostane 1 komentář a ještě tohoto typu. Mkay.

2) Black Friday vypadá trochu jinak.
Jak? Je někde psáno, jak vysoká má být úspora, aby se to dalo klasifikovat jako Black Friday sleva?
Co takhle mít radost, že e-shop, který dokonce člověk sleduje na FB, udělal alespoň nějakou slevu, když se na to veškerá konkurence vybodla?

2) Rozdávání klíčů k SW a hrám

Tady bych asi jen ukázala typy komentářů, které se občas objeví pod obrázkem s klíčem, který si aktivuje jen jeden nejrychlejší:
"Už to bylo aktivovaný a to to tu je teprve minutu..."
"Už mám - to byla určitě nějaká srajda, co se už někde rozdávala zadarmo."
"Screw this, taken!"

3) Jiné soutěže

A zase nechám za vše mluvit komentáře:
":,("
"*** nejrůznější nadávky ***"
"so cheap skins you give away"
"i wanna win :("

Poděkování

Honorable mentions

A nakonec by se patřilo poděkovat těm, kteří pochopili, že když je klíčů/triček/itemů/merchandisu jen pár a 6000 fanoušků na stránce, tak je šance vyhrát velmi malá. Nemá tedy smysl v komentářích nadávat správcům, nebo brečet, že jste nevyhráli. Ono občas napsat: "Děkuju" nebo "Gratuluju" není vůbec od věci a dokonce to může adminy motivovat k tomu, že bude giveawayů a soutěží více. Upřímně - až budu mít jednou klíčů/věcí fakt víc, hodím snad jeden do soutěže a jeden člověku, který to tomu, kdo to vyhrál, bude přát, nebo se prostě jen chovat slušně. Prostě. jen. tak. pro. poučení. do. života.




Special thanks:
http://meme-lol.com/
http://ct.fra.bz/

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What grinds Germia's gears #4 - CS:GO female cups (EN)

And that´s what really grinds my gears.

To organize an online gaming cup could not be an easy task. But organizing a cup for females could
be a lot harder than you think. Or isn´t it?

I have to say, i have participated in a lot of cups in CoD 1, CoD 4 and in CS:GO and i have seen both well organized and poorly organized cups. But the fact, that i have seen a lot of poorly organized tournaments lately, forced (or inspired?) me into writing this small guide for any organizer of a cup or tournament, even it is only from the view of a common player.

1) Learn from other cups and tournaments

If something functions, there is a reason why (it is just well made, well thought of), so if you´re trying to be somehow original, keep in mind it could harm your tournament and discourage future participants. If there are any rules, why think of new ones just for your cup? If there is a good system, why to think of a new one?
I don´t want to discourage you from innovations, but every innovation has to be well calculated and there has to be a reason, why there is an innovation. Use the rules, mappool or any other idea from other cups, change only things, that are not well made or you don´t like.

Example: Our team played a cup, that didn´t have a check-in prior cup start (caused lot of problems), there was no mappool like in other cups, the maps wer given by the admin (Dust2=OK, Mirage=OK, New Cobblestone= RLY?-not even in ESWC mappool, finals = third map is chosen by the admin - how strange?), there was no voicecheck, no written rules... Why not to learn from other female cups not to make mistakes like that?

2) Make sure you can do it in the given time

Choose your deadlines a terms wise. If you´re organizing your first tournament, there is no rush to organize it. Always have a plan B, but for planning twice, you need time. And if you want to offer some decent prize for the winner, you have to find some good sponzor and that takes time too!

Example: New qualification cup was planned and announced. Deadline to enter it was arranged in a week and the cup was planned in two weeks. The cup was poorly planned, bracket was built from teams, that entered in the first week and there was no check-in prior cup start. So there were a lot of changes, that related to time and opponents and the whole bracket had to be changed anyway. But it was changed so many times noone had a clear idea, what awaited the team for a match and when and even which map to play. Noone even knew, if the finals should be played that day or the day after...

3) Rules

Don´t forget to make detailed and meaningful written rules. Or just respect the first point i did and inspire from other cups and tournaments and copy their rules. But be careful to forget about something. It could cause a lot of problems and a lot of negative reactions from the players, that could be so disappointed not to take part on your tournaments anymore. The rules should be clear to everyone prior match starts, any changes has to be said both capitains of the teams.

Example: In a recent female cup, the rules were following:
"Coaches are allowed to be on servers. The matches must be played on ESL 5on5 config. One player from each team must record ts3 talks to avoid cheating*. Demos must be recorded."
Wow, what a detailed and meaningful rules description! Let´s look on the word meaningful: Why there is a coach allowed? It is not normal to have a coach enabled in an online tournament, in addition to it, why should be TS3 recorded, if there is anyway a guy=coach speaking? It is not a training to have coach there. It´s a game of five players, from which one of them is a strategic leader. With coach in there, it is a great advantage to have this on player be free from telling the strategies and thinking of them. It is like playing 6v5 then. Now let´s take a look on the word detailed: Map pool info is not included in the rules, but written in the continualy changing brackets, there were no info about playtime of finals, no info about stand-ins/hosts, no info about knives, no info about taking a pause, no info about time allowed to wait on a match, no info about amount of players needed to start a match, no info what to do if the server stops, on whose server to play (pings)... and much much more. My team had to start playing on a server, I´ve sent ours and everything was ok (but what if they didn´t like our server?), but then the capitain of the enemy team said: "Btw. we have a stand-in, one of our players couldn´t play, just letting you know." - I said like what? Just letting you know? You have to ask us for god´s sake! What is the host and why we don´t know about her? - "It´s blahblah, already allowed to play by admin, he´s my friend, you know." - Huh, things get stranger and stranger. So the admin allowed a player to stand in in the match against us not telling us a god damn word about that and that stand in is a freaking Global Elite rank. Mkay. Nice thing to find out prior match starting. So I´ve told her, it´s not polite to say it only to let me know, it´s polite to ask me and the same thing i´ve said to admin. Fortunately the stand in played like a sheriff and it was no problem playing against her. And fortunately, there weren´t any more problems during the matches, that we needed to solve with help of the rules, because unfortunately and obviously, there were none. There was just the word of the admin, that is apparently friend of our opponents (good thing to know, i say!).

4) Keep in mind special cheating precautions for female players

There are many cheating precautions in the game already. And if you´re playing cups organized by big gaming portals, there are special anti-cheats, that for example make screens of what you see during the match (ESL-Wire, ...). Additionaly you have to record your match demos in order to look on your in game performance. Check of Steam-ID´s should be a matter of course...
But if you´re a female player playing a cup only for females, there should be a check, if you are a real female and not only some guy playing for you. If you´re playing some esl cup, you have to play on a given teamspeak server, where the admins visit your room during the match and listen to your voices. That is called voicecheck. So checking at least STEAM-ID and voice of a female player should be a sure thing in cups like that. Sometimes some gaming portals demand even a real photo in the profile from female players to avoid any fake accounts.

Everytime getting beaten by an apparent unknown girl gamer

Example: In a recent female cup, there were no TS servers given, so admin said, every team has to record their TS conversations during the match and record the demo in game. What a great precaution of cheating! If there was a guy playing, noone could prove it. They could record some other match together and exchange it for the original match recording (noone speaks hungarian, or czech from the admin team, so how could they know?). In addition to that, a coach was able to be on the server during the match (I still cannot really comprehend why was this even possible...), so how could we know the guy, that you could surely hear on the teamspeak recording, didn´t play instead of some of the girls?

5) Casters

Casters are always a good thing for an online cup or tournament. Casters should orient themselves on female scene, should speak at least on of following languages: english (international), language of the first team, language of the second team. It would be nice if the casters were neutral by casting and if they are professionals and speak without cursing, laughing or making fun of players. Casters should know, what is their time schedule and what teams they will cast. Casting doesn´t mean only spectating (then it´s no need to have a caster, just send the gotv to the public), it actually involves commentary of the game.
A cup or tournament shouldn´t be subordinated to the time management of casters, the players are the most-important participants.

6) Admin team

Mkay, admin

The admin team has to be present and visible during the whole cup. It should controll the whole cup schedule, inform the teams about changes personally and update the data to inform the public constantly (but not spam). The information given should be always final and the changes kept to minimum. So don´t inform everyone about a change if the change is not confirmed, don´t organize a tournament, if you´re not able to be present and solve eventual problems. The admin team is there to keep track of following the rules, not to invent the rules on the place. The admin team should be neutral and their decision should be neutral as well.

7) Give decent information about the cup prior the start

All the information should be clear, well-arranged and complete prior the cup starting. As I´ve already written above, the info should be always final, changes too. If there is always a change in something, it could confuse and enrage the players and discourage them from taking part on your cup.
So what you should always say to the participants and public:
1) General info
What is the cup for? In which game? Is it only for female players? Is this only a small night cup or is is a qualification? If it is a qualification, how many qualifications there will be? For what tournament? Is it online or offline? Which teams are already qualified? How many slots are in the main tournament? Who is organizing it? ...
2) Time
When is the cup? How long will it take? Is is Bo1 or Bo3? When does it start? When is the second qualification? Are the finals played the same day? When will be played the main tournament? ...
3) Info source
Where we could find the best and actual info about the cup? Where we could speak to the admins? (Please, choose always only one place to tell info, don´t spam the info, the important thing should be always on top)
4) Rules
Where are the written rules? What rules are there - mappool, stand-ins, cfg, anticheat, servers, ...?
5) Prizes
Why are we competing in the cup? What is the purpuose of the cup? Are there any prizes - online steam gifts or skins, games, hardware, money, or only prestige?



I hope you like my entry!
Yours

germia


http://cf.chucklesnetwork.com/
http://assets.diylol.com/
http://memecenter.com/
http://quickmeme.com

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What grinds GERMIA´s gears 2: "Velké" gaming projekty (CZ)

And that´s what really grinds my gears.

Hah, věřte-nevěřte, den po tom, co mě namíchne interview mám hned další materiál, o kterém napsat...

Řeč bude dnes o projektech. Ale abych to upřesnila, jedná se o projekty, které ještě vůbec nejsou, ale člověk, který na ně láká ví, že budou "big", že tam nesmíme chybět, že jsou v projektu zapojeny i osobnosti jako bla1, bla2 a bla3, a že proto bude ten projekt nesmírně kvalitní a my prostě NESMÍME chybět!


Ale vraťme se na začátek.

Dnes náš tým eSuba.ladies kontaktoval manažer nejmenovaného ladies týmu ze zahraničí s tímto sdělením:

"A polish project want to start something for the female scene, check this site: (následuje odkaz)"

Mkay, moc jsem se toho z jeho zprávy nedozvěděla, snad bude tedy více info na těch stránkách. Rozkliknu odkaz a přečtu si o projektu následující info:

"The main idea of the project is to help the female scene grow as soon as possible."

Aha, grow, tedy růst, bude ženská herní scéna tím, že se jí dostane větší pozornosti, dostane více sponzorů, nebo se rozroste o další hráčky? Hledám tedy na stránkách dál. A najdu pouze článek v polštině (grrr) a seznam účastníků projektu, kde najdu mnoho známých ženských týmů... Dosud tedy nevím o projektu vůbec nic kromě toho, že už pár týmů nalákal, ale co to *** za projekt je???

Píšu tedy zpět manažerovi, který mi hodil link, jestli by mi nevysvětlit, o co se v projektu jedná. Odpověď si můžete přečíst tady:

"they have big plans.. and nearly all fem teams are in the group. bmg, epsilon, atn, ex.3dmax, cm storm, ....."

Po mé námitce, že STÁLE NEVÍM, o co v projektu jde, jsem dostala kontakt na admina celého projektu, který mi prý vysvětlí více - mám si ho prý přidat na steam:

"sooo you better add him and ask. the want to create sth new for the female scene, big stuff"

A jako třešničku na dortu jsem se dozvěděla, že je v tom super projektu i jedna slavná streamerka. Co mi to říká? Jsem z toho moudřejší? Prosím, tohle mi opravdu drásá nervy, PLEASE, STAHP.

A teď co dál - přidám si neznámého týpka na steam a budu mu psát s tím, že bych měla zájem o projekt, o který třeba ve finále vůbec zájem nemám? (a budu tím tak pouze ztrácet čas) Makes sense! (Btw. občas se stává, že si chlapci vymýšlejí jakési berličky, aby si mohly hráčky přidávat do kontaktů, ať je to berlička v podobě rozhovoru, pro jakýsi herní portál, ze kterého se pak stejně vyklube www.lukyskovo-blogisek.cz, nebo pofidérní iniciativy k podpoře hráček...) Druhou možností je pak to, že se prostě nechám odradit a o něco přijdu jen kvůli něčí neschopnosti a mé nevoli se někomu vnucovat?

A nezapomeňme na poučení na závěr:
Pokud se rozhodnete vytvořit nový projekt, ať to bude projekt třeba na propagaci vložek do háracích kalhotek pro fenky, to je fakt úplně jedno, prosím, už od začátku viditelně prezentujte, o čem ten projekt opravdu je, co je jeho cílem a jakým způsobem tohoto cíle chcete dosáhnout, nebo se vám stane, že případné účastníky a důležité osobnosti odradíte od svého projektu už od začátku a jen těžko budete jejich důvěru ve vaše schopnosti získávat zpět.

Special thanks:

http://weknowmemes.com/

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What grinds GERMIA´s gears: Interview (CZ)

And that´s what really grinds my gears.

Tak dnes už jsem to fakt nevydržela a musela jsem se chopit pera (=klávesnice) a napsat tohle, i když pochybuji, že to za prvý někoho zajímá a za druhý, že se někdo chytne za hlavu..  Přistálo mi tu totiž několik žádostí na interview v celkem krátké době, které se zdály zprvu velmi neškodné, na druhý pohled už mě dokázaly některé opravdu NESMÍRNĚ nasr.. ...namíchnout.

Žádosti o interview v zásadě neodmítám - je to dobrá věc z hlediska propagace sebe/týmu i z hlediska informovanosti fanoušků o situaci v našem týmu, nebo našich/mých plánech. Ale poslední dobou začínám být na podobné žádosti alergická, protože - nebudeme si lhát do kapsy - interview je vždy pouze tak kvalitní a zajímavé, jak moc ho zajímavé udělá buď redaktor a  nebo (pouze v malém počtu případů) sám dotazovaný.

Takže přistoupíme k samotnému interview: redaktoři, prosím, vyvarujte se přesně tohoto:

1) DĚLEJ, NEMÁM ČAS!

Nejlepší jsou ta interview, která musí být samozřejmě sepsána CO NEJDŘÍVE, nebo nejlépe TEĎ. A já se jako dotazovaná před státnicemi, 3 zaměstnáními a dalšími povinnostmi mám kvůli tomu asi ***...  Obzvláště když má to vaše povedené interview (jen otázek) 2 stránky.

2) CLICHÉ

Milý redaktoři, prosím, pokládejte jen dotazy relevantní pro váš portál, případně se snažte interview
nějak zacílit! Protože pokud interview jen zběžně prolétnu a už při letmém pohledu musí následovat facepalm, protože jsem v něm byla nucena ZASE odpovídat na klišé otázky typu: "Hraješ i jiné hry než CS:GO?" nebo klasické "Je těžké být holkou v gamingu? Jak na tebe chlapci ve hře reagují?", tak něco není v pořádku. Mkay, je to to, co lidi zajímá, takže to většinou kousnu a prostě odpovím. I když množství rozhovorů s podobnými dotazy je obrovské. Pomalu si začínám říkat, zdali by pro mě občas nebylo jednodušší CTRL+C, CTRL+V... A to by snad žádný redaktor nechtěl, mít na svém portálu stejné odpovědi jako konkurence. Pokud ne, polož jinou otázku.

P.S. Možná bych i podobné dotazy akceptovala více, kdybych na našich stránkách nevytvořila celé album, které se dívkám v herním světě věnuje a dokumentuje velké množství reakcí, se kterými se při hře setkáváme. Nebo kdyby se na tuto problematiku soustředilo celé interview, protože myslím, že to by i cesta byla...

3) UTFG!

Miluju, ano, opravdu MILUJU, když mi přijde recyklované interview po dalších hráčích/hráčkách, ve kterém se mě někdo ptá, jestli raději hraju CS 1.6 nebo CS:GO, a nebo za jaký tým jsem hrála v době 1.6. Ono je totiž moc MOC těžké trochu googlit a najít si, že jsem v životě 1.6 kompetetivně nehrála (v podstatě jsem jiné csko nikdy nehrála).

A vůbec jsem na našich stránkách neudělala velmi podrobný dokument o tom, jak náš tým vznikl, jaké měl kdy úspěchy, jak dlouho jsem v eSubě a co za hry jsme hrály... Je to tak těžké, projevit dotazovanému alespoň trochu respektu tím, že si o něm zjistím alespoň ten naprostý základ?

Aby to nedopadlo jako třeba tento trapný moment v rozhovoru, kdy se interviewerka Kathie Lee zeptala herce Martina Shorta na jeho vztah s manželkou, která byla v té době dávno po smrti...

4) ČEŠTINA A MOZEK

Nemáš-li mozek a neumíš psát, neměl bys dělat redaktora. To je prostý fakt. Chápu, že nikdo není dokonalý, ale čeho je moc, toho je příliš. Když už je to interview tolikrát recyklované, tak by tam nemusely být gramatické chyby, dotazy by mohly být formulované opravdu jako otázky a když už, tak by mohly alespoň dávat smysl. Jsem učitelka a měla jsem chuť poslední interview fakt oznámkovat. A ne, nebyla to nemoc z povolání, jen se na to nedalo koukat. Hyperkorektnost je obvyklou chybu, dá se ještě akceptovat, ale když je někdo schopen napsat špatně shodu podmětu s přísudkem, nebo jinou podobnou perlu z třetí třídy základní školy, tak už se fakt neovládám. No, posuďte sami, co byste odpověděli na tento dotaz?

·           Jaké hraješ ještě jiné hry? Pokud ano, tak jaké?

Hraju i jiné hry... ...wait, WHAT?

·           Tvůj nejoblíbenější skin na CS:GO

A je vůbec tohle ještě dotaz? Ptáš se mě, jaký je můj nejoblíbenější skin NA hru CS:GO? Jo, pochopila jsem, o co ti jde, ale bylo tak těžké to zformulovat jako otázku a použít i předložku, která by dávala smysl? (Víš, co to je předložka?)

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