Witnessing Leila's birth continues to be both a joy and a very instructive experience. Whether it's a novel, a movie, or a game character, witnessing the process of how the details such as what she likes or hates, what kind of music she listens to, or what kind of friends she makes, are subtly woven into the character over a long period of time, fulfills both of these feelings for me.
What does Leila, who is sitting in a café sipping her coffee, listen to when she puts on her headphones? The answer to this is known first by Nian, then by us, a group of people and finally by thousands of others. How does Leila react when she sees a handsome boy, how does she treat a friend who wrongs her, or what are the differences between her childhood and the way she treats her own child? Each answer to this list of questions, which could go on forever, corresponds to Leila's labor pains. Someone dreams a dream, then a group of people get organized around that dream, and each of the steps that will make that dream tangible are taken one by one after a long process built by difficult stages. At the end of the day, witnessing a character come to life and witnessing a soul being breathed into it becomes a tremendous experience for the whole team. And knowing that at the end of the day, there are people who will sit in front of the computer and get to know Leila, learn what she has been through, why she is the way she is, and have fun solving all the problems with her, makes this process even more amazing.
Drawing 73 Square for 8 Seconds!
One of the new goals for the new week is to give our barista some action. Our barista, who we believe to be a handsome boy under the mask he wears, will first dry the cups with the cloth in his hand and then make his way to the coffee machine. Although it looks like a short action sequence, it takes a tremendous amount of work to create this scene with traditional animation, that is, by hand drawing each frame one by one. Selahattin takes Batu's drawing of the barista and rolls up his sleeves to bring it to life, to transform it from a static picture frame into a moving creature, drawing more than 70 frames just for an 8 second-long animation. While traditional animation is a madman's work in the eyes of many, as it requires a great deal of time and labor for the final spectacular result, for others it is a passion for the purest form of art. Fortunately, we are passionate lunatics too! For more than a week, Selahattin has been working on just these 8 seconds. First the rough animation, then the clean up, then the coloring and finally the shading. That's exactly what makes this game so valuable: The fact that it includes traditional animation, this ancient tradition! Leila's world becomes much more unique with this style, which is very labor-intensive and rooted in the most primitive form of animation and has survived to the present day.
Leila is leaving the cafe: "This is outrageous!"
My warning to Selahattin that the barista should not drag the towel with which he dries the glasses on the counter is not taken seriously at first, but after I tell him, "Look man, I wouldn’t drink a coffee in this café." Selahattin is convinced that our barista should leave the towel in a reasonable clean place. In our imagination, we visualize Leila leaving the café, saying "This is outrageous!" when she sees that the same towel is being used to dry the cup and wipe the counter, and we have fun writing various scenarios about the crisis that the towel would create. While this is happening, Engin is busy doing foley for the raindrops hitting the awning of the café. Foley is the name given to the reproduction of everyday sounds to be added in movies, videos and other media. These reproduced sounds can be anything from clothes or footsteps to creaking doors and breaking glass. Engin's solution to the rain is to use a shower head to hold water in a bucket in the bathroom and record it. The result is very good. Now we can find peace with the sound of water hitting the bucket in the bathroom. Keep this in mind when you see the drops hitting the glass while playing the café section. This is the truth behind that marvellous rain sound!
The World's Worst Drawn Guitar!
Of course, we talk a lot about games while playing. In the middle of another deep conversation about games, Nian discovers a new feature of Discord. Under the Activity tab, there are games we can play together. Nian, Bora and I do a quick round of sketch head. In this game, you have to draw the given word on the screen with the help of the touchpad and others have to guess what it is and earn points. During the game, bad drawings fly through the air, but luckily Batu and Selahattin don't witness this disgrace. I draw a guitar and it turns out to be so ugly that I say "If all the guitars in the world would speak up and insult me, they had every right to do so". After the bad drawings we made with the touchpad, we put an end to the game session and go back to work. Meanwhile, Nian, who doesn't like my guitar drawing, receives a divine warning. Seeing the drawing Nian made for Selahattin to explain a cinematographic scene in her head more easily, Ismail mistakes Leila for a barista… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The conversation that ends the day is the question on the minds of millions. When will ChatGPT, or artificial intelligence in a broader sense, take away our jobs? We both admire it and say "you'd wish that, huh?" and send it away from our neighborhood for now. We advise it not to get too enthusiastic about a team that makes a computer game using traditional animation and puts "having a good time together" before everything else.
Leila still has a long way to go and there are many days to spend on Discord, many things to do and many conversations to have in order to reach that happy day. Let's see what awaits Leila and us next week.