Rebelle

Back again. Possibly within a month. Ish. Six weeks, maybe. Feel free to be impressed.

But not for long. Because I’m really only back for a couple minutes, writing something of a placeholder entry. For reasons that…it’s hard to call them reasons; they’re more of a convoluted set of circumstances. But you’ll get it in a minute. Probably around the same time that I get it.

It’s like this….

Back in September, I had a few minutes free from sitting around marvelling at my free time—primarily because we had people out assailing the house with hammers to install new siding and stuff. And that made it impossible to think, inside the house. So, in the absence of thinking, I turned more to shopping. And I happened across…well…this:

This, as an antecedent, was a weak attempt to point a smartphone at an XPPen24Pro and record what happened when I played with the demo version of Rebelle4 [current at the time, I gather]. And of course there’s behammered zombies trying to get into my house throughout. But that’s okay. I filmed what I did, and uploaded the footage to facebook.com just to mention that I was looking at this thing.

That was about six months ago. Since then, I’ve been busy with other forms of free time.

But I remembered the other day that I’d been looking at this thing, back in September; then I sought it out online and discovered a couple important things.

One: Rebelle5 is out; it came out about three months ago, about three months after I looked at Rebelle4.

Two:

There are a couple versions of Rebelle5, and the one that looks more worth getting is a hundred and fifty bucks; but, if I mention somewhere that I want this thing, I can knock thirty bucks off of that. Which sounds fair enough. But which also sounds a bit nonlinear, since I haven’t got a lot to say about it just yet—except that I liked the demo for the outdated version six months ago and getting the newer and better version for $120 sounds okay to me.

So.

Having explained that as well as I’m capable of explaining absurdly nonlinear events, I can go live with this entry now; then I can let EscapeMotions know that I broke the timespace continuum a little; then I can get thirty bucks off some software; then I can play with that; then I can come back here and add more information into this entry, having acquired the thing I’m currently trying to write about without really knowing what it is.

So, for the moment, that’s what I’ve got. Once I’ve got more—and I’m setting up to get more at the beginning of the final hour of Friday night when no one at EscapeMotions.com is likely to see it before Mondayish—I can come back and continue with this entry, likely uploading more videos of playing with the new, full version of the old, demo version.

See ya then….

…and…we’re back.

So, that got a little strange. Like, I’m still not sure what exactly went so wrong. But it worked out in the end.

First, having written this to have this to show this to people, I EMailed people a link to show that I’d written this to have it. Because things are weird.

Then, immediately, nothing happened at all.

Then a bit more nothing happened.

Followed by nothing happening.

Mostly nothing with scattered happening.

Saturday. Then Sunday. Nothing at all.

Finally, on Monday, I got an EMail back:

So far, so corresponded.

The problem arose a couple minutes later, when I got back to EscapeMotions.com to punch in the code I’ve erased above. Because, though I’d subscribed to the newsletter, I hadn’t apparently created an account. Which might be okay, all things being equal; but, to add some inequality, I tried to buy this thing before learning that I hadn’t created an account.

I’m not sure how much that had to do with what happened next, which was more nothing. Because I tried to create an account, which remained pending until I’d confirmed something by clicking on something in an EMail I told the system to send me; and then it didn’t send it.

So now I’m not sure what to try to do about this.

I tried other EMail Addresses, figuring maybe I’d just burned the one I’d wanted to use by buying things before existing correctly. But that didn’t help.

So, ultimately, I looked at the EMail above and hesitatedn’t to contact Veronika.

Which led to more nothing for a while.

Admidst vast swaths of nothingness, the mailman showed up and delivered a creditcard. Which creditcard? The one I wanted to use to buy this software. But newer, and shinier, and with a new expiry and supersecret code. So now I wonder if part of the problem is that I’d been trying to buy something with a marginally expired card all day. Though, I also grabbed a game from SteamPowered.com using the same card, so it might not be that at all.

Nothing, for a while….

Then, ninety minutes after midnight, I got another EMail:

And that prompted me to notice that EscapeMotions.com are somewhere in Eurasia; and everything made a little bit more sense.

Whatever: I never sleep.

So, the account I was trying to create, so I could buy this thing, has been created; she just did that on her end. That just leaves trying to buy it again, with a new expiry and code and whatever.

And…nothing.

So, despite the EMail Address I use with PayPal.com being different than the one I’m trying to use with my newly created account, I gave that a try. And then, in the absence of precedent, something happened:

It’s a 1.30AM Miracle.

Okay. So, now, I’ve managed to pay for this thing; my discount for talking about it all nonlinearly is applied; I can download it and see what it really does.

Download it. Look at it a bit. Using a trackball. Because, while I’ve got an XPPenArtist12Pro tablet connected to this tower, it’s buried under more things than I wanna look at.

Do some other stuff for a while….

Eventually install it additionally on my laptop, to which is connected an XPPenArtist24Pro. And, where that’s concerned, I recorded a few minutes of playing with it:

If you’re wondering why there’s no audio: that was Morti the Cat’s idea. Or, really, it was her idea to scream interminably the whole time I was playing with the tablet, so I just cut the audio out before uploading the footage.

You’re not really missing a lot. It’s pretty evident what I was doing. Also, what I was doing mostly was dicking around to see what I could do if I were doing more than dicking around.

Opened the software—which isn’t all that obvious, since the splash loaded up on the laptop’s screen instead of the tablet; but the interface ultimately went to the tablet, where I could use it.

Changed the canvas. Just because I could.

Oil paints a bit; acrylics; watercolour; pen; pencil; pastel; marker; airbrush. In whatever colours I poked at to switch things around.

Zoomed in and turned NanoPixel on and off to see the difference. Which is profound.

Looked at Stencils. Figured that out eventually.

Played with paint a bit more, just to make a large mess.

End of Part One.

And Part Two is just that thing where I’m funny and a product of the Eighties.

So.

There’s obviously going to be more to this software, once I understand more about it. But, so far, overall, I dig it. Like, calling it a hundred and fifty bucks, I’d say it’s worth it. Once I get the hang of it, I’ll be able to do some useful things with it.

Really, for $150, it’s worth it just as a software toy with watercolours dripping down the screen. And of course I got it for $120 instead.

There might be some minor downsides. I’ve got the canvasses I’ve got. I can get other ones, but they’re not free.

This could be good, if I wanna spend another ten bucks to get it.

On the other hand, looking at the canvasses the software came with, they really look like relatively basic bumpmaps. So I might be able to just make whatever I want on my end.

Something to play with later.

The interface is mostly just the same hotkeys as Photoshop, though not entirely. So, either I’ve got to notice the differences, or I’ve got to find a way to remap some things. But that’s really just how software tends to be.

But, to go PassFail with it, I’d call it good. And, if I play with it enough, I’ll probably be good too.

Until then, I’m still doing stickfigures. Like this:

Not only are we evidently living in a simulation: it apparently operates on a random access array.

More later….

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