Evan Cameron

Author: hello.evancameron@gmail.com

  • the death of personal style

  • Unity – Farmer Sim

    Unity – Farmer Sim

    Quick video demo of a game I coded in Unity last week where a farmer has to move left and right and throw food at hungry oncoming animals. More code to be uploaded soon.

  • Wes Craven’s ‘The People Under The Stairs’

    Wes Craven’s ‘The People Under The Stairs’

    Historically I have been a big baby when it comes to watching ‘horror’ movies, but last night I stepped out of my comfort zone to watch Wes Craven’s 1991 film: ‘The People Under The Stairs’, which screened at The Thrillema (at the Natural History Museum in Halifax, NS). This was during the hellish week where Nova Scotia experienced extreme heat and out of control forest fires. It was nice to spend time with something that is a different kind of scary during such fearful times.

    This experience reminded me of a concept explored in Peter Counter’s 2020 collection of essays ‘Be Scared Of Everything: Horror Essays’ – where he frames the appreciation of life as one of the genre’s core functions.

    At the event, one of the organizers introduced the film by talking about Wes Craven’s approach to film making. They mentioned how his films were particularly popular among Black and Latino communities which influenced his style, contributing to the focus in his film’s being on celebrating survivors instead of the power of the villain. This film is also extremely relevant right now, with most pressing conflict existing between greedy landlords and a struggling family trying to avoid reno-viction.

    The protagonist (called) ‘Fool’ is introduced as his older sister gives him a taro reading, explaining the similarities between the fool card and her brother. Their sick mother audibly coughs from the other room. Fool doesn’t understand the trouble his family is in until he bumps into a person he’s never met before, one of his sister’s friends, who tells him the truths his family have been trying to protect him from. This stranger presents Fool with an opportunity to make some money and help his family.

    This movie was so much fun and re-ignited my curiosity of horror movies. It reminded me of Jordan Peele’s films how hey combine horror and social realism. I read online Peele is entertaining the idea of remaking this film.

    This movie surpassed the expectations I had based on the trailer and images online. It was scary but it was so much more than that. I highly recommend this movie for anyone interested in horror, Wes Craven, or films with a strong social commentary.

    Funny side-note, I could not stop thinking about the visual similarities of Bruno living in the walls.

  • Jillian Mayer’s Mouse Cursor Animation

    Jillian Mayer’s Mouse Cursor Animation

    I learned about Jillian Mayer from the first season of the new MTV show: ‘The Exhibit: Finding The Next Great Artist’, where 7 artists respond to prompts and make artworks in a limited amount of time. It was a good show that managed to find a voice that balanced accessibility and art-speak.

    I will probably write more about the show in a later blog post because I have a lot to say about it, but right now I am just going to discuss Jillian’s website. I have been researching the artist website/ digital portfolio format for a couple months now. So many artists have the same SquareSpace ready-made portfolio websites with the same fonts and same galleries – and it works – but it has become so dull as it becomes more and more common. Jillian’s website is a great example of how the medium (of artist’s website) is an opportunity to present your work in a way that compliments the artist’s style/ personal aesthetic. Jillian’s site is humorous, clever, and very clean + well presented. You are immediately confronted by an animation where the a mouse cursor begins to multiply and swarm inside the browser window as well as message of reassurance that you are in the right place, nothing is wrong, and prepare for things to get weird.

  • Upgrading the Ram in my Refurbished T480

    Upgrading the Ram in my Refurbished T480

    I bought a Lenovo ThinkPad for < $500 back in the fall to help me get through school. It is a solid machine, but not exactly suitable for working with game engines like Unity. I didn’t buy it for that. I bought it so I could work in VS Code when I’m not at home/ near my desktop computer. So I cracked it open and quadrupled the ram (from 8gb to 32gb).

    First time visiting the Windows Bios menu! Had to come in here to disable the internal battery and quick start up mode.

    Overall this process was pretty straightforward. I was nervous about static (‘the silent killer’) but made sure to deactivate the internal and external batteries + use a anti-static wrist wrap.

    I was thrilled my computer turned back on and even more excited it now runs 3d Unity scenes, OBS, Character Animator, and a bunch of browser tabs comfortably at the same time! It is wild capable this machine is for the price.

    I would change the iFixit instructions to be more direct about installing the new ram. I figured it out with the help of a YouTube demo – but if you don’t do this sort of thing very often it can be mysterious what method or amount of tilt is required to get the new ram installed.