BooksandTrees

Thanks, I won't. I'm just gonna keep it simple and finish this week.

I like the hair effect and the eyes the most out of this. It looks like these two components are really things you've been working on and they've improved big time over the past 2 months. Are you going to ask your housemates to teach you how to cook at all?

I managed to survive the frustrating parts of today and immediately went to animate some more. I finally nailed down the smoke effect of my animation and also created the hypnosis move. Tomorrow I'll try to finalize the hypnosis effect where he moves around a little bit. So far the animation has Gastly floating around a room with his gas around him. This lasts for 15 seconds until he stops and floats around while using hypnosis. He will then have his eyes glow, open his mouth, and jump at the camera to use dream eater. I took a quick screenshot of the progress. After that I talked to my friends on the phone for a few hours. It was really nice to be able to just be myself, talk, joke around, and talk about my dreams of becoming an animator one day for my own projects and develop my work some more. I spent the rest of the night watching Hunter x Hunter. It got really good and I enjoyed it. I think overall I really enjoyed this weekend. I didn't quite finish my animation like I had hoped, but I got a lot done and worked on it for over 8 hours. It's almost done and I see it ending this week. Originally, I had set the goal to create one animation per month. The fact that I finished my second animation in just two week is amazing to me. I've learned so many new effects with this project as well. I'm grateful for my friends, my tv show, my animation, my home, my food, myself, in some way my family, but not entirely. It's complicated I guess.

Today has already been annoying. I had to talk to a few family members for mother's day. I chose to keep all conversations short because I didn't want to get angry like last week where I had a melt down after talking to my family on the phone for hours. So although I didn't enjoy talking to anyone, I kept it short and survived. I'm now listening to heavy metal music to get stress out. I might exercise and I am definitely going to play some hockey. Then I can take a shower and do some 3d modeling. I want to work on that color gradient for the smoke.

But are drug dealers, manufacturers, and others the problem for drug addicts? Tough analogy lol. I'd say you're walking the line based on your own morals. There are beer brewers who support helping alcoholics, but love their craft of brewing beer. There are others who realize there are sick people who can't drink alcohol because it releases inner demons within them and they get sick again. You also can't worry about what other people think because they're generally worthless at the end of the day in your every day life. Here's the question: How would you feel about making the game? Would it satisfy artistic creation and expression for you? Are you afraid of making people as sick as you were if they were to play your game? Which one has a heavier weight on your conscience? That's your answer. My friend who has quit games for 8 months is making a handheld game because it challenges her interests and she enjoys it. Is she a bad person? Nope. Could I make a video game? No. I don't want people feeling what I felt. But I am making a cartoon right now. Are there people addicted to YouTube and binge watching things? Yup. Do I care? I don't know. See where I'm getting at? You can keep asking and making cases for each side. Make it if you want and see how it feels. You might make money off of it or find a new passion for programming and writing and move on to something great. Good luck.

I think you should ask @Cam Adair for his opinion. But why not start now? Live life now. I don't know what the 30 day challenge contains because I never did it, but I think you're in a good place right now if you've done Respawn and you should keep going with this new lifestyle. Embrace the world without gaming and live. The quarantine is a hard time to quit games due to lack of socialization and external activities, but if you can quit gaming during a quarantine you'll be able to handle the challenges of normal life in a year. You don't know if this quarantine will last until Winter of 2021 when the vaccine is scheduled to be complete. What would you do from now until then? We might never even get a vaccine. You can't predict the future. I'd say go for it and do the 30 day challenge and see if you can reach 90 days. You came to this website during the quarantine for a reason so you might as well stay through it. Good luck. Own it.

(Sorry for the long response, but I think it's worth the read) I'm not sure your history with it, but based off of my own experience I think it's just gaming. You can play multiplayer games with friends or strangers and it still counts as socializing. Most people are drawn to video games out of loneliness. One of my biggest triggers for playing MMORPGs or xbox live was loneliness and the desire to socialize. I'd maybe suggest doing other social activities like board games or something. You're basically putting yourself in an environment where you're playing games and telling your mind that it is ok to game if you're with other people, etc. I think in order to quit games you have to expunge any situations where video games are a good idea or thing to do. I know we are under quarantine etc, but there are movies, tv shows, board games, sports, music, drawing, yoga, cooking, etc that are all good hobbies or activities to do with another person. I don't really suggest gaming in moderation to people unless they're well over 1 year removed from video games. I've seen people on this website stay away from games for over a year and start playing in moderation and suffer a complete relapse where they play games for 6-18 hours a day again. Sometimes you just have to walk away and it sucks. I went 5 months away from gaming from April 2018 to September 2018 and tried playing in moderation. It lasted 1 month and then I was playing 6-18 hours a day on weekends. I didn't play during the week, but it took me until Wednesday to no longer feel the brain fog and depression due to exhaustion from gaming. I ended up quitting again on October 18th or something and it's been 81 weeks since I've gamed. You might be able to do moderation at some point, but I wouldn't suggest it until you've spent months eliminating all the triggers. Eliminate gaming, then realize what's making you stressed out or bored or any other cause that makes you want to game. Then you deal with those triggers in new ways. If you build a well balanced life then I think you might be able to theoretically play in moderation one day, but only if you have other activities that prove to be as or more rewarding than video games and are healthy. Good luck and welcome to the website.

Thanks. I'm trying to get it done by the weekend. Maybe I can sell fan art one day lol. But that's not my total goal. My original cartoons are still the goal next year. Glad to hear about your house project and I think your comments on daydreaming are correct. I have such an active imagination and want to create these amazing things with 3d art or write something funny, etc. I get carried away because I get an idea but can also see the whole thing through to fake success and making millions of dollars lol. I just walk in circles for like 30 minutes thinking. It's addicting so I just have to stop. Hopefully I'll have an animation this week and I'll post it on YouTube. I'll share the link of course.

Today I'm 81 weeks free from playing video games. I woke up pretty determined to complete my animation and ran into a huge road block. The smoke around my Gastly kept messing up and appearing to be MASSIVE and uncontained. I was so frustrated by this. It took over 4 hours to fix and I needed to contact the creator of the YouTube tutorial over Discord to get the solution, but we finally resolved it. Here's a progress shot of it. You can't see the Gastly's face in this shot because it only shows up in final renders. I'm going to highlight the smoke to be a gradient of dark and light purple with a bloom light emitter in it. Here's a preview, but it will change obviously as the scenes develop. I'll try to finish it by next week. I got a little ambitious with timing. After modeling for about 4 hours I realized that I can't treat this like video games and needed to step away. Nothing is good for 4 hours straight besides sleep. It wasn't 4 straight hours I guess. I did laundry, meal prepped, ate food, and played floor hockey in my basement. But after all of that I watched some Hunter x Hunter and then had a 3 hour video chat with my friends and really enjoyed myself. I feel a lot better now. I miss being around others so this was good. I can now relax and go to bed. I'm grateful for the blender community for helping me with my problems, my friends, myself, meal prepping, warm clothes on a cold day, finding the name of a song I couldn't find for years, and my computer.

Welcome to the forums. I'm glad your first week went well for you. I have been using three free app called "home workout " for the quarantine. It's all body weight exercises. It has helped me get into really good shape to be honest so I recommend that if you're unable to find a gym structure. If you can use the play to reward your work then you'll be in a good spot. After that you'll realize you enjoy work first because of less anxiety in your life for procrastinating on that work. It becomes an enjoyment rather than taxing life because it might not be your favorite activity, but it will be a rewarding one since work is always in our lives. If we enjoy the process slightly or how it feels better to not procrastinate then you will have fewer feelings of escape and relapse.

Life is overall good for me. I've lost about 20 lbs during the quarantine and I almost have the first 2 top abs of my 6 pack showing lol. The virus made me realize I'm not doing what I can to be my best self and sometimes just eating and sleeping right and 30 minutes of exercise can propel you far. So I'm going to try and look a lot more attractive so I can feel better about my self image. I found that when I felt bad about myself was when I relapsed with bad habits more often. I've been 3d modeling and animating pokemon for the past month and a half and made a YouTube channel. I got tired of wanting to animate and never doing it. It was breaking my heart honestly so I finally did it and enjoy it now. Work's been good and I'm at 81 weeks in a row without gaming.

I've gotten better, but the only issue is I want to be a goalie so it's hard to get shots when you're alone lol. Plus, I already played for an hour that day.

Glad to hear from you again. I'm doing well and enjoying the 3d modeling hobby for sure. I do the same thing as you with the research before working. I think my biggest pitfall is daydreaming about the goals a little too much, but otherwise I'm learning more about balance. How are you doing and how is the house coming along?

I had to tell my friends I have a video game addiction similar to how people have alcohol addiction and need to be away from it. If a friend suggests to play it I suggest other activities altogether. If they don't understand or laugh at you just explain that you've played too much in the past, don't enjoy the feeling it gives you, and would like to do a different activity. Don't try to please others who don't respect you. Just make sure you explain briefly, kindly, and firmly.

Congratulations. I'll be at 2 years in October. Big accomplishment.

I'm pretty tired today. I got a lot of random things done for work, but I'm tired and don't want to do much tonight. I exercised and stretched again. I cooked dinner and meal prepped. I want to 3D model, but I don't really wnat to put any effort into anything right now. It's the end of a long week and I'm just exhausted both mentally and physically. I'm really enjoying Hunter x Hunter, but I'm also enjoying the fact that I don't want to binge watch it. After about 4 episodes I get irritable and want to do something else even though I love the show. I think tonight I just want to relax. No cravings for porn or video games either. It's interesting. Tomorrow my plan is to make home fries from scratch, work on my 3d model, make pulled chicken, and hang out with friends through zoom while we play board games. I'll also exercise and stretch some more. This weekend I'd like to get my 2nd animation online. I'm almost done. It should be about 30 seconds this time. I have a new animation project around the corner waiting for me which should be fun, challenging, but also encourage me to be patient. This isn't a job. It's a hobby. People always want to do their hobbies, but don't always have the energy or time. So tomorrow I'm going to do the hobby with intention and see how it goes. I'm ready. I'm pretty tired tonight already at 9 PM evne though I woke up at 8 AM. I kept waking up at night last night feeling scared so I think it made me tired today. I'm reading to relax and wake up tomorrow ready to go. Today I'm grateful for my friends, work, food, myself, my tv show, exercise, and the community on here.

Welcome back! I'm glad you're here again. I enjoyed reading your posts before and your advice has helped me through tough times in the past. Looking forward to talking to you again and wish you luck.

I wish I could do hobbies just do to them. I keep trying to make money from all of my hobbies. I grew up poor and just want to own a house one day that doesn't suck. Anything helps lol

I hear you on the burnout from drawing and talking about it. I've felt burnt out all week and haven't really 3d modeled this week. I've been watching tutorials though so I guess that works lol. Don't feel bad if you take a few days off from one hobby. They are hobbies after all.

I was reading about how that is caused by our circadian rhythm and if you take a 20 minute nap (just before you begin to dream) it improves your day and you will get mor energy by 3pm and it lasts all day. I've been doing it for a week now and it has worked a lot.

I think you're just adapting to life away from your ex. You're trusting yourself more and building confidence in being alone more often and doing things for yourself. The less you depend on someone the easier it gets. Those are all positive improvements that just come with time, healing, and action. So remember to take time for yourself and reflect on your improvement. I'd say keep doing what you're doing and working on things you enjoy.

Glad you enjoyed the read. I wish you luck.

I'm not sure how I want to spend the rest of tonight. Today was annoying. I got like 8 hours of sleep for once, started the day stressed out with work and it ruined my motivation. I then had to start a project with a severely handicap budget....AGAIN. Basically they gave a new employee an impossible task, he tried, but didn't have the knowledge or experience because it's a tough task, but spent almost 1/3rd of the budget. So I have to rescue it. It's demoralizing to have to keep rescuing projects like this. I just want something brand new with nobody leeching off of it or having some sort of handicap. It burns me out because I know the company isn't mad at either of us. They trust me to get it done because I've performed well in the past. It just kills me because most days I'm not amped up or excited to work. It takes some energy to get motivated for a project like this. When you have like 0 hours to kill. I already watched porn once because of the stress. But I realized I didn't want to do that so instead I decided to stretch and exercise and sit outside when I got stressed out again. I don't want to animate tonight. Or at least animate my project. It might be a night where I follow a tutorial to learn something new while not putting pressure on myself to work on my project yet. It's interesting because being monetized on YouTube typically takes between 1 and 4 years. It takes a combination of 1k subscribers and 400,000 channel views. That's a long time. So this pressure I'm putting on myself to make content is unrealistic when I have 15 subscribers and 100 views. I need to be patient and just enjoy the hobby for what it is. A creative outlet to express myself. Today I stretched for 30 minutes and exercised. I want to reach my head to my knees this year. I won't force it because that's how injuries occur. I'm going to treat it like my weight loss and just do it for a little bit each day. Sitting down all day compresses my spine so I'm going to be stretching more. I also found it to relax my body so I could sleep better. I'm going to do a quick tutorial and then watch some tv before bed. I want to learn how to create a human in blender and rig their body so they can walk. Today I'm grateful for my food, myself, my friends, exercise, stretching, and shower.

That makes sense. Don't force it.

I think that's awesome you ate with them and talked. It seems you get along with that one better. The other one just might not understand how to communicate. I used to text this girl who ended every sentence with "..." and it made me think she was being an asshole, but apparently she was just depressed and that's how her thoughts lingered in her head. That's interesting you get a numb leg. Like something challenges your happiness or something and it cuts out. Have you had this medically checked? When you tense up do you tighten your lower back? Have you stretched at all or seen a doctor or chiropractor? Good job drawing again today. Do you plan on coloring these?