These past few weeks my family has been doing a ton of clean up around the house, and I decided to do some cleanup in my "studio" (it's actually just a big walk in closet with my whole setup). The desk I've been using for the past year has actually been a plastic fold up table. Unfortunately, it's pretty flimsy and not very stable. A few days ago we were cleaning up a table in another room in the house, a fold up one, but much heavier, more stable, and even wood and metal. So I decided that it'd be better for my setup if I replaced my current table with this table. I then spent all day clearing everything off my table (speakers, monitors, receivers, microphones, and of course my computer). I put all of that stuff in corners of the rooms, then took down the fold up table. Then I vacuumed and picked up any junk laying around. At the end of the day, I had everything setup again except my microphones. Everything feels much better, and the new table is bigger as well. I found an extra monitor laying around as well, so I bought a cord from Amazon so I could connect the monitor to my computer. I now have 3 working monitors at once!

I recently got in contact with some of the developers of a video game called Krunker. I've actually enjoyed playing the game myself for the past 8 months, and have come to realize that many of the sounds could definitely be improved. Fortunately for me, I had one of the lead developer's contact, as we had talked several months ago about something different not related to sound design. 
A few days ago, I decided to contact that developer, Vince, and ask him if the dev team could use help with my audio work with sound effects. I didn't expect him to respond, as he's always very busy working on the game and talking with the other developers or people that are working on the game. A few hours later he did respond, and said I was just the person they needed. According to him, the main devs were the ones having to do the sound design, but they don't have experience doing that work, so usually the sounds are low quality or don't match the given objects for them. 
He then assigned me to a job immediately to test my skills. He wants me to make a new sound for one of the main guns, an SMG. I've already spent over an hour on this one sound, as I want to get it just right. You can here it down below: 

Here are two points I can improve on, after listening to myself:

• Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight  -  I think I emphasized too many words in the same sentence: the "right" word and "Aslan" word. I should only keep one in. In my opinion, it should be only the word "right" that should be emphasized. If I overdo the emphasis, it becomes too distracting to understand where the important parts are to pay attention.
• We shall have spring again  -  I think I went to rough on the emphasis on the word "spring". Most people imagine spring as a happy time, right before Summer. The way I said it, I made it feel more like Fall or Winter.

I decided to make a step-by-step list/chart showing how I make Krunker renders. Although I've made several different type of renders. So I will be showing the process of making a Youtube banner with a Krunker avatar with a Krunker map background.

1. Go to the Krunker viewer (https://krunker.io/viewer.html) and take a screenshot of the specific gun skin and (if asked) take screenshots of any hat items or back items requested by the client by using the sniping tool.
   
   
2. Edit the screenshots in paint.net (download link: https://www.dotpdn.com/downloads/pdn.html) by making them transparent using the magic tool.
   
   
3. Create a project in Mine-Imator (download link: https://www.mineimator.com/download) and then create a Minecraft player character with one of my Krunker skin textures (you can download them here, though there are a few I haven't made yet, like the crossbow class skin and the Carotine dye https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dXiyauh6RMJPUA3IvECHiUvTB2H3-Gfi/view?usp=sharing).
   
   
4. Create an item in Mine-Imator with the gun skin.
   
   
5. Make the gun skin's parent the right arm of the Minecraft character, then create more items of the hat and back items, and make the parents the body of the Minecraft character and the head of the Minecraft character.
   
   
6. pose the character.
   
   
7. Add 3D text with the client's username. It may be an image which you can make 3D by making it as an item, or a font, which you can make 3D when you create it as a font.
   
   
8. Remove the ground and save it as a transparent background PNG image. If I leave the ground, it will not make it transparent.
   
   
9. Import the background image you chose for the banner.
   
   
10. Import the transparent image of the Krunker render and overlay it onto the background image.
    
    
11. Copy just the character render (not the text) and paste him in a layer in between the background image and the first render.
    
    
12. Use the paint bucket tool and fill in the character layer completely black (you may have to do it several times if it has many dynamic colors).
    
    
13. Select the eraser tool, then go to Colors, then press More >>, then play around with the Opacity - Alpha panel (75 usually works best).
    
    
14. Erase the black character until it looks transparent. Sometimes you may have to do it several times until it looks like a shadow.
    
    
15. Stretch and or turn your "shadow" until the feet of the shadow touch the feet of the overlapping render. Then manipulate it to make it look like a shadow. ALWAYS pay attention to the background, as there may be shadows already. In which case, have your shadow point the same way.
    
    
16. Send your awesome picture to your client and take da moola!

I've been watching a YouTuber named Peter McKinnon. He's a professional photographer and videographer and makes amazing videos and takes stunning photos! He teaches how to be a photographer and how to take great videos, including editing, post, positions for photos, etc.
He uses a lot of Adobe, including Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, Audition, and After Effects. He's very descriptive with his tutorials, and probably the best teacher about photography I could find on Youtube.
I'd like to do some photography, and especially video editing, and I'd probably take pictures of around Lake California. What's also funny and what I enjoy about him is how Candian he is, the way he pronounces his "about"s and "sorry"s 😂
He's been on Youtube for about 5 years I believe, and has built up 4.47M subscribers!

Here's one of my favorite of his videos: