Welcome to mikebelotti.com, home of Mike Belotti. Thanks for dropping by! Here you'll find a collection of works, rants, and miscellany that I've produced in some form or another. I believe that if you want something done right, you gotta do it. So everything on this site, unless noted otherwise, is MINE (including the HTML itself). So if you like something, you know who to thank. Likewise, if you think something stinks, you know who to blame.
ANYWAY! Enjoy, and feel free to send me some feedback at feedback@mikebelotti.com. I'd appreciate it!
Kicking the HabitOut With One Obsession... In With AnotherAugust 22nd, 2010It's been...almost a month--a month--since I last played Team Fortress 2, Valve's super-addictive online shooter game. How could zis happen?! Shortly before that, I was playing for, like, 2 or 3 hours a day, just submerged in the game. I noticed this, though. I noticed how unproductive I was being, and I remembered the last time this happened (with World of Warcraft, and it was worse), and what I had to do: go cold turkey.I straight-up deleted the game from my PC. All of my progress is saved on Valve's Steam servers, so if I ever wanted to go back, I could. And I might. But I haven't. My rationale was, "oh, I'll just work on some more side projects with all this newfound free time!" Well, that's...not exactly what happened. I ended up just practicing guitar--a lot. And I guess that's good, but I totally wanted to get into programming on the side again... But I kept realizing that I do eight hours of that at work a day, and...music is so...refreshing... It's so right-brain to compliment my left-brain day job. And that's when I discovered the Rock Band Network. And I haven't looked back. Suddenly my motivation came back. All last week I'd get home from work, unwind a bit, and then attempt to absorb all of the knowledge on the Rock Band creators' wiki pages--to the point where my eyes would get red and weary, and I'd have to call it a night. And then, this weekend, I got up before noon simply because I couldn't sleep when I knew that there was still work to be done on my first Rock Band song. It's so weird; I haven't been this motivated since before I started Rhythm Universe over two years ago. And then Friday night I actually was able to compile a rough song package and send it to the Xbox--successfully playing "Vacation" on the console, with the Rock Band instruments! Maybe it doesn't sound like a big deal, but I get a kick out of this--especially seeing the virtual singer bop and lip-sync along to my vocals. The funny thing is, I actually had Rock Band in mind when I composed "Vacation"--but I was like, "yeah, that'll be the day..." Well... That will be the day! Pretty soon! Well, by "pretty soon" I mean probably sometime in October. The songs submitted to the Rock Band Network go through an extensive review process which takes at the minimun a month and a half. In the meantime, I'll keep you updated, and I might even start converting another song or two... Who knows! P.S. To anyone who checks this site on a regular basis (especially Uncle Drew, Aunt Stef)... Thanks. I appreciate it. Top Wait--For Real?I've Always Wanted To Put My Own Songs In Rock BandAugust 14th, 2010...and now it looks like that's actually possible! I just found out a couple days ago: Harmonix, via creators.rockband.com and the premium XNA membership, are allowing shmucks like me to actually make downloadable content for Rock Band!It was kind of funny; I was about to cancel my XNA premium membership actually. Yeah, I was doing some stuff with it last year, but I thought it would be a waste so I was expecting to get rid of it. But I was having the toughest time navigating the XNA site, looking for a way to cancel (which, ovbiously, wouldn't be advertised very well). Well, it's a good thing: I saw some questions on the site about making Rock Band content, and I was, like, "wait--what?" I've read up on how one actually goes through the process of authoring a Rock Band song, and there's a lot to do--more than you think. Not only do you have to have the song broken out into separate tracks--guitar, bass, snare, kick, cymbals/toms, vocals (dry and with FX), backing track--but you also have to create the note charts, character animation styles, crowd animation styles, lights and camera behavior, and more. I was surprised by the sheer magnitude of the process--it's an art and a science. Once that's all done, the song needs to be playtested to make sure all the parts are alright. It'll be a while before I get there; I've selected Vacation as my first song I want to convert into Rock Band, and I'm still early in the process. But I gotta say; I'm pretty pumped. Top Wasting TimeWhat A SurpriseAugust 10th, 2010Yeah... Uh... It's pretty frustrating. I've been completely unproductive on the game development front, and it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon.C++? Too much back-end code. C#? Limited to Microsoft. Android? Too daunting. iPhone? Sucky programming language. Blitz? Can't get the cross-platform support to compile (yet). Flash? Uglier than it seemed at first. It would appear I'm running out of options. I just downloaded Unity3D game engine recently, but oh my God... That thing is a behemoth. There's so much crap thrown at you from the start--such a huge GUI... And the tutorials aren't doing it for me so far; in fact, I somehow crashed Unity by running the 3D platformer tutorial. Guess I did something wrong... And then I've been putzing around in Blender, since it exports so many different 3D model formats. It's bound to be useful, but how I'm supposed to make sense of the thousands of buttons and tabs and drop-down menus is still a mystery to me. And again, the tutorials just aren't cutting it so far; I need someone right there with me to show me... So, basically, I'm backed into a rough spot with game development. And every time I try a new approach, I'm greeted with frustration and stuff not working. Maybe I'm just supposed to quit this and just stick with music. How funny would that be... Top My RepertoireGettin' Pretty Good At ThisAugust 3rd, 2010Hey there, hi there, ho there... I know; I'm forming a bit of a trend with the updates...or lack thereof. They're all spaced many days apart, and they usually have to do with me focusing on musical endeavors or not working on my games.Well, that's not about to change with this post! I've been playing lots of acoustic guitar lately and I thought I'd try and recall all of the names of songs I can play so far. I can play most of the rhythms from memory, and even sing most of them. Here; this is the kind of stuff I'm into right now: I'm a Believer / Smash Mouth Story of My Life / Social Distortion What I Like About You / The Romantics Apologize / Timbaland Vacation / (me) Pocket Full of Win / (me) Crush on a Freshman / (me) The Remedy / Jason Mraz Wordplay / Jason Mraz I'm Yours / Jason Mraz This Love / Maroon 5 Harder To Breathe / Maroon 5 Sunday Morning / Maroon 5 Layla / Eric Clapton Walkie Talkie Man / Steriogram Say It Ain't So / Weezer Move Along / The All-American Rejects Under The Bridge / Red Hot Chili Peppers Snow / Red Hot Chili Peppers Hey, Soul Sister / Train Give A Little Bit / Supertramp Santeria / Sublime What I Got / Sublime Two Princes / Spin Doctors Nice Talking To Me / Spin Doctors Love Song / Sara Bareilles You've Got A Friend In Me / Randy Newman Breakeven / The Script How To Save A Life / The Fray Hemorrhage (In My Hands) / Fuel Big Yellow Taxi / Counting Crows Pachelbel's Canon / Johann Pachelbel Day Tripper / The Beatles Yesterday / The Beatles Hey Jude / The Beatles Any Road / George Harrison Creep / Radiohead Circle of Life / Elton John Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) / Green Day Wanted (Dead or Alive) / Bon Jovi Blitzkreig Bop / The Ramones The World I Know / Collective Soul Glycerine / Bush I'll Be There For You / The Rembrandts More Than Words / Extreme It's All Been Done / Barenaked Ladies Now, uh, keep in mind: I'm still working on some of these... And I really haven't nailed down many solos--it's all about the rhythms. Theo can do solos. I'll mostly stick to the chords and singing (for better or worse). It's really quite a lot of fun though! I feel more capable of performing live... But still not yet. Top |
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