Obituary: Baguazhang Master Si Zhen

Si Zhen (司珍), whose courtesy name (字) was Shangjie (尚傑), passed away on 2009.10.10 1:26 in Beijing. He was 84 years old. As disciple of Ma Deshan (馬德山), who was in turn disciple of Cheng Youlong (程有龍), eldest son of Cheng Tinghua (程廷華), Si Zhen represented orthodox Cheng style baguazhang in Beijing, and was well respected by the baguazhang community. Si Zhen's lineage is carried on by his top disciple, Kui Enfeng (奎恩鳳), courtesy name Shehao (社浩).

Computer Forensics (and Other Favorite) Tools

Windows Tools (Free):
Truecrypt Version 6.3a (2009/11/23)
Sun VirtualBox Version 3.1.0 (2009/11/30)
FTK Imager Version 2.6.1 (2009/8/3)
Sysinternals Suite (2009/12/1)
7-Zip Version 4.65 (2009/2/3)
Scale2x Version 2.4 (2009/7/8)
Potrace Version 1.8 (2007/5/22)
Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools (2003/4/28)
Wget Version 1.11.4 (2009/4/29)

Windows Tools (Not Free):
EnCase Version 6.15 (2009/11/19)
Forensic Toolkit 3.0 (2009/9/23)
Tableau Firmware Update Version 6.50 (2009/9/22)
Tableau Disk Monitor Version 1.2 (2009/7/31)

Linux Tools (Free):
System Rescue CD Version 1.3.3 (2009/12/07)
DEFT Linux Version 4.2.1 (2009/10/20)
dcfldd Version 1.3.4-1 (2006/12/19)
The Sleuth Kit Version 3.0.1 (2009/2/2)
Gnuplot Version 4.2.6 (2009/9/3)
Partimage Version 0.6.8 (2009/9/29)
NTFS-3G Version 2009.11.14 (2009/11/15)

All About Ditangquan (地躺拳)

Ditangquan (地躺拳) is a style well-known for its spectacular acrobatics in wushu competitions, and is hardly even seen outside of modern wushu. But where did this athletic, exciting style come from?

Pan Qingfu (潘清福) and then-competitor Zhao Changjun (趙長軍) created the modern ditangquan together after the latter was rejected from the historic "White House Tour" of 1974 because his specialties were the monkey and drunken styles. As they believed that the original ditangquan was already lost, they "built" a new ditangquan using the drunken style as a base. As a result, modern ditangquan appears as something of a demonstration of fantastic acrobatics more than a martial art, and often features movements like the head flip (頭翻), pouncing tiger (撲虎), and tornado kick to fall.

Video of a young Zhao Changjun performing his ditangquan can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzubS_5dJww

In actuality, though, traditional ditangquan has in fact survived, and in various forms in both Taiwan and Mainland China.

In Taiwan, traditional ditangquan has been passed down via several old masters who escaped to the island during war. Of these, the most extensive ditangquan style is the digongquan (地功拳) passed down by Su Kegang (蘇克綱,名克剛,號起三) (1909-) from Qingdao City in Shandong Province, whose lineage is as follows: Li Ermiandazi (李二麵袋子) -> Liu Xiwei (劉希維) -> Su Kegang (蘇克綱).

His extensive digongquan curriculum consists the following:

Single Forms:

Linked Five Palms, with Extra Version and 2-Person Version (連五掌(附‧對打))
Kicking in Eight Directions (踢八方)
White Horse Descends Mountain (白馬下山)
Slippery Cart 1, 2, and 3 (滑車一，二，三段)
Drunken Style (醉拳)

Partner Forms:

Black Tiger Mountain (黑虎山)
Seizing Forgiveness Mountain (奪諒山)
Small Five Hands (小五手)
Hooking Parrying Fist (抅樓拳)

A video of the first form of Su Kegang's digongquan can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmpcuyKJpEI

A more thorough overview of Su Kegang's digongquan can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6UCqOH3qug

Watching the above videos, one can see extensive hand and leg attacking movements; in fact, the first form has very few acrobatics at all! Later forms do show various acrobatics, however, including the drop-kick from one-handed cartwheel, scissors kick from spin-up, and kicking from arm stand back to standing.

In Mainland China, traditional ditangquan has survived as well; one notable example that has been described in literature is the ditangquan (also called "ground hopping stomping" (地踅卡) or "plum blossom falls to ground" (梅花落地)) as passed down within the Beijing style of chuojiaofanziquan (戳腳翻子拳). This lineage, passed down by Wu Binlou (吳斌樓), includes an extensive ditangquan curriculum in addition to its large chuojiao (戳腳) and fanziquan (翻子拳) curriculum:

Single Forms:

Son and Grandson Cinnabar (子孫丹)

Flying Scissors (飛剪)

Swallow Stuck (燕子卡)

Five Hopping Feet (五踅腳)

Golden Thread Hands (金絲手)

Small Eight Immortals (小八仙)

Drunken Eight Immortals (醉八仙)

Weapon Forms:

Rolling Dragon Saber (滾龍刀)

Ground Prone Whip (地躺鞭)

This style of ditangquan seems to favor some unique movements such as toad jumping (蛤蟆式); as a part of chuojiaofanziquan, it also mixes in the unique kicks of that style as well, such as mandarin duck kicking. The existence of weapon methods in this style is also very interesting.

AD&D Commentary: Magic-user Weapons

Magic-users, or mages (as they were called in 2nd edition), have always been a staple of Dungeons & Dragons, or any other fantasy RPG. Although their selection of spells has changed a bit throughout the editions, I wonder about their weapon selection a bit (from Unearthed Arcana):

Caltrops, daggers, darts, knives, slings, staves

In 3e, wizards were given the following weapons:

Club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, quarterstaff

Unlike clerics or druids, whose limited weapon selection derives from religious views, magic-users have no real reason to avoid weapons like swords, spears, or maces. One reason for limiting their weapons selection might be to limit them to only simple weapons that can be learned easily, but of the weapons listed above, the staff is most definitely not a simple weapon at all, as I have been finding out through personal experience recently!

Any weapon requires some proficiency to be able to use it to kill someone; further, any weapon requires much more proficiency to be able to use it to attack, defend, and parry other weapons skillfully. I would not expect a magic-user to be able to do much with any weapon at the latter level, but some weapons require quite a lot of time to be able to be used at even the former level.

A sword, for example, can be quite heavy, but is rather simple to use in a lethal manner, even for a magic-user (as long as he has the requisite strength to lift it fairly easily). A blunt club is fairly simple to use as well, even though it lacks a blade. However, the long staff is a rather complex weapon that is hard to use in a lethal manner due to its great size and special manner of wielding (i.e. with two hands at different parts of the pole). With skill, the staff can be a very potent weapon, using both ends to attack and defend, by poking, swinging, and blocking; however, without skill, a staff is very hard to use at all.

Thus, although magic-users are often thought of as staff-toting old men, I think that learning to use a staff well would take days and days of training - something that they would probably prefer to spend in the old, musty tower, reading magic tomes.

Perhaps a better list of simple weapons would be:

Caltrops, daggers, darts, sling, crossbow, spear, club, mace, short sword, hand axe, hammer, short bow.

A few heavier weapons are simple as well, and so perhaps a magic-user with STR 13 or more could also use:

Long sword, bastard sword, footman's mace, morningstar, battle axe, staff sling.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with a magic-user using a staff as a walking stick!

Forays Into Other RPG Construction Kits: RPG Tsukuuru 2000

This is a most famous RPG construction kit in the English-speaking world, albeit known with a different name - "RPG Maker 2000." In general, this program is rather easy to use if one is inclined to make a Japanese console RPG-type game, but requires considerable work to change what is there (combat systems, etc.). In terms of community, this program likely has the biggest one - although a lot of art is ripped from Super Famicom games.

Years ago, I used to fiddle around in this program, although I never finished a game! (Ulp!) I do have some screenshots from what I was working on back in those days - basically, I wanted to have Korean-, Chinese-, and German-themed character sets and chip sets and work on a game with various languages and nationalities from there. Some screenshots from said game:

Character sets used sprite sizes of 24 x 36, while chipset tiles were 16 x 16; basically, character set sprite sizes in generally did not fill the entire area, instead using about 16 x 24 or so. Although small, the character sets required 12 frames total, or 3 frames for each direction, so making characters was a somewhat tiresome, if rewarding, task. (In general, the right frames could be flipped and used for the left frames, so in actuality one had to make about 7 frames total.)

In the end, I decided that I preferred the old PC RPGs compared to the old Japanese console RPGs, so I went in another direction (i.e., Dungeon Craft). Still, it was a good system for what it was, with a well-made interface and nice graphics.

Incidentally, many years back I was working on quite an ambitious game with this program, with lots of art (including big, anime-style pictures), but my hard disk basically blew up and I lost it all! Needless to say, that really sucked, and I had instantly lost many hours of work. I do sort of want to "revive" that somehow, but... I would have to redraw everything and all...

Forays Into Other RPG Construction Kits: Hephaestus

Well, although I am set on making my personal home-baked CRPG using Dungeon Craft, I am not against trying other tools every so often. In the past, I did some fiddling around with the RPG Tsukuuru series (known as "RPG Maker" by the English world, it seems), but I guess that I didn't really like the boring, Dragon Quest-esque combat engine. Ah, well.

Today, I spent a few hours fiddling with a less console-like and more PC-like RPG construction kit, Hephaestus, by Mark Damon Hughes (URL: http://markdamonhughes.com/Hephaestus/index.php). This particular RPG engine requires some programming in Java, but does come with a mapping tool. Luckily for me, Hephaestus seems to use 48 x 48 icons in general, so I tried using my Dungeon Craft art and seeing what I could come up with:


Not so bad, eh? Luckily, it seemed happy with 48 x 48 icons (the sample game uses 48 x 70 for humans), although some conversion was necessary (namely, it uses separate GIF files for each frame (with a particular naming scheme), as opposed to Dungeon Craft's unified PNG files with all frames). Unfortunately, there were a few problems that bugged me:

• I was unable to make maps larger than 11 x 11. Strangely, in the Map Editor, even though you can select map sizes larger than 11 x 11, it doesn't seem to let you edit any spaces outside the minimum 11.
• I was unable to set equipment types (i.e., I wanted to have my dagger in the map be a weapon so that Irene could equip it), leaving my poor player unequipped and usually an easy target for the ice troll wandering around there...

For smarter people than me, there is the option of generating maps automatically through Java coding, but that is somewhat abstract and hard for ol' me. As it is, this RPG kit does have good potential, especially for Java-conversant folks, especially if one is into old Rogue- or Ultima-type games. I confess that my ideal is something like an overhead-view Gold Box game, or maybe Ultima VI, or something like the Baldur's Gate series; I guess I never really got into the whole Rogue-like thing.

The Deep Dungeon

Although I started off making walls and such mostly for the collaboration module, "The City," these came out fairly well and I have been lately working on using this stuff for my own personal (somewhat vanilla) module, "The Deep Dungeon."

So, what is this module about? Surprisingly, a deep dungeon is in the plans for this adventure, although most work thus far has been concentrated on the surface world prior to descending to the depths. My original plan was to have a single complex dungeon, but I am currently thinking of dividing it into several dungeons of different themes... but of course, we will see how things go.

The adventure is basically in my own home-grown version of Greyhawk - because I don't feel like spending the time matching official campaign maps with my own - placed in an as-yet not decided undetailed part of Oerth. Actually, one would probably not notice much "Greyhawk" at all about my module, except from looking at the temples and priests of the world, and maybe the two moons of the sky.

However, the new frames and background are vaguely Greyhawk-themed, if one notices (latest screenshot is above). I also changed the font of the game to Palatino Linotype, one of my personal favorites.

New Baguazhang (and Xingyiquan) Discussion Board

So, I have started a new baguazhang (and xingyiquan) discussion board over here: http://baguazhang.proboards.com/

There are both English and Japanese sections; perhaps in the future I will add a Chinese section, but my Chinese is not really up to par (not sure if I can manage that). At present, the only members are me, myself, and I, so please go ahead and join! Feel free to be the first poster (there are some events listed, however).

The name of the board is Orthodox Baguazhang Research Society (正宗八卦掌研究社), and I hope it can serve to unite the various branches of orthodox baguazhang so that we can research together. (Orthodox, meaning verifiable lineages from Dong Haichuan - no home-grown bagua, please!)

The City Combat Set

Following the background and walls I created for the City, I went and created a combat set to go with them - well, I guess that it is okay, but it does look a bit bright, even though I used the exact same colors as in the background and wall pictures.

Still, as I am a lazy person in general, I think I will use this as-is, and also leave the blank gray areas (on the tops and sides of the walls) as-is, too.

I do have to go and make four versions of the background at some point, though (so that is three more than I have now), because it is a bit weird that there are mountains no matter which direction you walk in...

Naming Species After Unrelated People

Most common animals have the luxury of being given common names such as "Least Weasel," "Red Fox," "Snowy Owl," or even "Giant Forest Hog." These names are related to how these animals look or where they live, and are thus easy to remember.

Unfortunately, a lot of rare animals discovered by science fairly late are given obscure and irrelevant names like "Przewalski's Horse," "Baird's Beaked Whale," and "Dice's Cottontail." Although it may seem that these animals were named after the scientists who discovered them, this is not the case - most often, they are named after famous people (often biologists) chosen by the discoverers. These names may be meaningful to the biologists who named them, but they aren't very descriptive of the animals that they describe. Even worse, this rather meaningless trend continues as scientists discover new animals and try to select appellations of a similar note.

Luckily, it seems that, at least in some groups, these sorts of names are falling out of favor; at any rate, sometimes we have other options to use when talking about these animals. For example, the Prezewalksi's Horse is sometimes called the "Asian Wild Horse" or "Mongolian Wild Horse;" in older days it was sometimes known as the "True Tarpan" or "Mongolian Tarpan." The Baird's Beaked Whale is sometimes grouped together with the very similar "Arnoux's Beaked Whale" and called the "Giant Beaked Whale." These latter names are much better and more interesting.

On another note, when including such animals in a CRPG (such as Dungeon Craft), these more descriptive common names can be useful, as it would make little or no sense to have your adventurers encounter a "Baird's Beaked Whale" or "Prezewalski's Horse."

Liang Style Baguazhang Seminars in NYC

Tom Bisio, a respected teacher and practitioner of Chinese martial arts and traditional medicine based in New York City, is holding a series of (mostly) Liang style baguazhang seminars in the Big Apple itself! Details can be found here: http://www.newyorkinternalarts.com/martial.htm

The seminars appear to be concentrating on Liang style as passed down through Guo Gumin's (郭古民) disciple Gao Ziying (高子英) and then his son Gao Jiwu (高繼武), taught in monthly chunks of material, from foundational calisthenics, walking circles, the old eight palms, basic palms, elbows, kicks, locks, and throws, linear palms, linked palms, and even weapons. At $150 per seminar, this looks like a great opportunity for New Yorkers to learn substantial parts of the Liang baguazhang system, which is in general somewhat conservative and closed-door. (A bit of material from other styles is mixed in, notably the Tiangan (天干) exercises which come from Gao Yisheng (高義盛) style, as well as a few exercises from other styles, like crane stepping, which comes from Yin style.) Of particular interest are the weapon seminars, like the Bagua 64 Saber (六十四刀), which is normally quite hard to get teachers to teach you...

If people are hesitant to sign up for ALL the seminars (there are 20 planned altogether), I would recommend at least the following six, which cover core Liang style material:

Seminar 2: Fixed Posture Palms (定式八掌) - circle walking, of primary importance in baguazhang.
Seminar 6 and 7: Old Eight Palms (老八掌) - technical basis of baguazhang
Seminar 17 and 18: Bagua 64 Saber (六十四刀) - oversized saber, one of the representative weapons of baguazhang
Seminar 19: Bagua Rooster Claw Yin Yang Knife (鷄爪陰陽鴛鴦鋭) - unique weapon of baguazhang, said to be Dong Haichuan's (董海川) favorite weapon

In addition, the following six would be very nice as well:

Seminar 10: Elbow Methods - various elbow forms
Seminar 11: Throwing Methods
Seminar 12 and 13: 64 Hands (六十四手) - linear forms created by Liu Dekuan (劉德寬)
Seminar 15 and 16: Linking Palms (連環掌) - linking form, advanced version of old 8 palms

Of course, all courses would be even better, but...

There is of course additional material in Liang style baguazhang (such as swordplay, additional techniques, training methods, forms, etc.) - perhaps one could join Tom's regular class for some of that...

Combating Hay Fever in Japan

Years ago, after World War II, the Japanese decided to plant hordes of cedar trees, since they would eventually hopefully become a useful source of lumber (and money). The combination of this rather foolish idea with the legendary Japanese work ethic resulted in cedar forests covering a whopping 12 percent of the Japanese archipelago today, a considerable (yet ultimately foolish) accomplishment. Today, Japan woefully does not make use of these anticipated lumber sources, using cheaper trees from Southeast Asia instead, resulting in these cedar forests becoming a source of not lumber, but vast (and sometimes visible) amounts of allergy-causing pollen.

As Japan is a rather clean country, Japan's population has steadily been succumbing to cedar allergies, while the government seems to do nothing about it at all. As a result, Japan's allergy sufferers have been quietly buying up antihistamines, surgical masks (to block the pollen), noseplugs, lozenges, and other products advertised as alleviating allergy symptoms. This is good for companies producing such products, but for most people, the cedar pollen season (from around Valentine's Day to May or so - not short by any standard!) is mostly a horrible time of running noses, difficulty sleeping (due to stuffed noses), and fatigue.

I personally have tried a number of methods to alleviate symptoms, while avoiding antihistamines (because I generally dislike medicine), and have found varying results:

1. Baguazhang Walking: the prime training method of baguazhang, i.e. walking in circles, seems to have a rather strong effect in alleviating allergy symptoms. Walking in circles for 20 minutes in the morning usually alleviates the majority of my symptoms for a whole day; walking 10 minutes or so is less effective, but is still much better than not walking at all. In general, I can also sleep quite normally (I don't have to wake up in the middle of the night), so it seems that the effect lasts for a rather long time.
2. Yogurt with Active Cultures: yogurt with active cultures seems to act as a mild antihistamine; imbibing the stuff works quickly with almost instant reduced symptoms (although they do not disappear). The effect seems to last for 5 hours or so, so it may be necessary to eat the stuff several times a day if one is depending on yogurt only. Yogurt substitutes that contain active cultures, such as Yakult drinks, seem to have a similar (if weaker) effect. This year, active culture yogurt with fruit added is being sold, which is nice; before, they only sold plain active culture yogurt, which is a bit too sour for my tastes.
3. Showers and Baths: taking a shower or bath after getting home wipes the body clean of pollens picked up while walking around outside, giving one a welcome respite from the sniffles at least until one has to go out again. This often helps one to sleep soundly as well (make sure that you change into clean, pollen-less clothes)! Some people additionally vacuum their clothes and hair when entering the house to enhance the effect, or buy air purifiers to use at home.
4. Lozenges: various lozenges purported to contain yogurt, pollen, and other ingredients that alleviate allergy symptoms are for sale in Japan, but they only seem to have a minor effect, if any. Mostly, I found that they seem to clear the nose (much like other minty lozenges), but only if one has but minor allergy symptoms.
5. Shiso and Shiso Drinks: shiso (a kind of leaf) is often purported as a good remedy for allergies in Japan, resulting in various shiso juice drinks being sold during the allergy season. Although they taste okay, they did not seem to have much of an effect on my allergies (I tried chewing on a shiso leaf as well, but that did not work, either; perhaps red shiso leaves work better, but they are not available during the cedar pollen season).

By far, solution #1 worked best for me with the longest duration of effect; nowadays I depend on it, with some of solution #2 as well for good measure (I like yogurt, anyway) or for when I wake up too late in the morning.

Hello Kitty, Child of the Netherlands?

Japan has had great success in marketing its characteristic and simply-drawn "characters" throughout the world, especially in Asia (such as Hong Kong and Taiwan). These characters are perhaps best epitomized by the arguably most famous of them all, Hello Kitty, who was created by the Sanrio company in 1974, leading way to even more characters of the same sort of aesthetic. It is this sort of aesthetic that is often seen as"Japanese" now, especially that other companies in Japan have also created similar characters (such as San-X's popular Rilakkuma, created in 2003).

However, it is important to note that Miffy, a rabbit character very similar to Hello Kitty, was created in 1955, 19 years before Hello Kitty, by Dick Bruna in the Netherlands (Miffy's Dutch name is Nijntje). Dick himself thinks that Hello Kitty is a clear copy of Miffy, as he noted in the July 31, 2008 edition of the British paper The Daily Telegraph:"'That,' he says darkly, 'is a copy [of Miffy], I think. I don't like that at all. I always think, "No, don't do that. Try to make something that you think of yourself'.'"

Perhaps it is important to give credit where it is due - Japan owes its current character aesthetic to Dick Bruna,whose Miffy is often mistakenly thought of as a Japanese creation today. (Japan has, however, characteristically worked very hard to mass-produce a huge number of characters based on this aesthetic, though, which has ironically ultimately resulted in the very misconception that that aesthetic is natively Japanese.)

Unwritten Rules for Casting Asians in Hollywood

I've already posted about how the (Chinese) main character of Dragonball Evolution (my title: Dragonball Retrogression) was given to a Caucasian actor, but apparently almost all of the main roles of another clearly East Asian-derived fantasy movie, The Last Airbender, have been given to Caucasian actors as well. This brings us to the Unwritten Rules for Casting East Asians in Hollywood, as follows:

1. (East) Asians may not be cast as leads in any movies, even specifically Asian ones, unless they are Jackie Chan or Jet Li (other Asians who happen to know kung fu unfortunately do not count). This is good because Caucasians with hair dyed black look exactly like Asians and can hardly be differentiated (pure genius!) - so basically, we don't need Asians in movies (except for Jackie and Jet).
2. Asian males are not allowed to have kiss scenes (or (gasp!) love scenes), ever, even if they are Jackie Chan or Jet Li, because that would be offensive. (Asian females are allowed to have kiss scenes with Caucasian males, however, because, you know, that's cool.)

Basically, this means that Asians may only be cast as:
1. Kung fu masters (but only Jackie Chan, Jet Li, or a few others. Being Asian (even Chinese) and learning kung fu does not give you this right. Females get it a bit easier here).
2. Yakuza/Triad members or otherwise shady characters
3. Dorky/horny/harmless buddy-type character

Now, I know that Hollywood is afraid that casting Asians in its main roles will make its movies automatic failures - this is understandable, as Asians are of course lacking in attractiveness and coolness and all that; I'm not blaming anyone. Heck, I've never even watched the Avatar TV show even once - although I am glad that they based the main character's martial art on my own favorite martial art, baguazhang. I do think that they could have at least given a few of the main characters' roles to Asians (heck, the usual rule is that Asian girls get roles while Asian guys don't) and helped a few starving actors break their fasts and get some roles for once.

These last 10 years or so, I do think there are slightly more Asian actors in movies now, but only a little - it would be nice to see more progress soon.

The Benefits of Dungeon Craft

I admit that I have never actually tried Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures (FRUA), which Dungeon Craft is based on (and emulates). In general, I have mostly avoided it because I do not want to work in DOSBox or use palettes. The low resolution of FRUA is both a strong and weak point, though, as although it seems a bit too retro for my tastes, it does mean that I would be able to finish the graphics for a game much faster than for Dungeon Craft.

Dungeon Craft, although as yet still incomplete, has quite a few things going for it, especially in terms of graphics creation - some of these points I will go through below:

1. Dungeon Craft allows any size of combat icons, as long as they are in some multiple of 48 pixels (i.e., the smallest icon will be 48 x 48 pixels, which is twice the size of the typical FRUA icon (24 x 24 pixels)). This means that I can draw all monsters (even huge ones like dragons) to a constant scale, which tickles both my amateur biologist tendencies (I can draw all sorts of existing and extinct animals to the same scale) as well as my RPG nerd tendencies (I can also draw dragons, trolls, and so on to the same scale for comparison). The size is also a fairly reusable one - I can use these same images as 2-frame animated gifs, or just line them up together to make a cetacean sizes chart (for example - this is one of my "secret" dreams) - the ability to reuse images is always nice.
2. Dungeon Craft allows various resolutions, but I use the 640 x 480 one. 640 x 480 is nice, because it is smooth and detailed enough that creatures look fairly realistic, but it is also easier to realistically achieve than higher resolutions such as 800 x 600 or greater. As I basically use pixel art as my method for creating graphics, higher resolutions means much more work, and so it is always nice to be able to find a good compromise between smoothness and workload.
3. Dungeon Craft does not use palettes, meaning that artists can freely create PNG files as they like (well, except for alpha transparency). Palettes are a headache to play with, and it is always nice to be able to ignore them (I have used them in other game maker engines and found them a headache in general).

On the downside, all of this means that I tend to spend more time drawing animals and such than working on my game... but hopefully it will culminate with my game being more detailed and interesting in the end.

Liu Dekuan (1826-1911)

Liu Dekuan (劉德寛), whose style name was Jingyuan (敬遠), was born in Cangzhou, Hebei Province (河北滄州). In Cangzhou, Liu Dekuan learned Six Combinations Boxing (六合拳) from Li Fengyan (李鳳崗); in Beijing, he learned Yue Family Free Fighting (岳氏散手), today known as Eagle Claw Overturning Boxing (鷹爪翻子拳), from Liu Shijun (劉士俊). In the south, he also learned six lines of halberd (方天劃戟) methods. In Beijing, he also learned Baguazhang (八卦掌) from Dong Haichuan (董海川) and Taijiquan from Yang Luchan (楊露禪) (via Yang's son-in-law Xia Guoxun (夏國勛)).

In addition, in the 20th year of Guangxu (光緒二十年) (1894), Liu Dekuan, Liu Weixiang (劉維祥) (Guo Yunshen's (郭雲深) disciple of the Xingyi school), Cheng Tinghua (程廷華) (Dong Haichuan's disciple), Geng Jishan (耿繼善) (Liu Qilan's (劉奇蘭) disciple of the Xingyi school), and Li Cunyi (李存義) (also Liu Qilan's disciple) met in Beijing to combine the three families of Taiji, Bagua, and Xingyi into a single family, removing stylistic boundaries to study together and improve the arts. Through these exchanges, Liu Dekuan was able to further his study of Baguazhang and learn Xingyiquan as well.

As Liu Dekuan was well-versed in many styles and methods, he is an enigma in that a great many schools of martial arts are connected to him.

Liu Dekuan taught his taijiquan, which in modern times has been called "baguataijiquan" (八卦太極拳), to Cheng Youlong (程有龍) (Cheng Tinghua's eldest son), Guo Gumin (郭古民) (Liang Zhenpu's (梁振浦) disciple), and Wu Junshan (吳俊山) (Shi Jidong's (史計棟) disciple). Cheng Youlong taught Li Cunyi's disciple Guo Zhushan (郭鑄山) in his father's name. Guo Gumin taught Wu Yue (吳岳). Wu Junshan taught Zhang Xiangwu (張驤伍) of the Baji school, Fu Shuyun (傅淑雲) who later emigrated to Taiwan, He Fusheng (何福生), and Zhang Wenguang (張文廣) of the Cha school.

Liu Dekuan taught Six Combinations Boxing to Liu Caichen (劉彩臣) and Zhao Xinzhou (趙鑫州)； Liu Caichen in turn taught Ma Yuqing (馬玉清), Wu Zizhen (吳子珍) who later founded the Simin Martial Arts Society (四民武術社), and Yin Ruchuan (尹如川) who later emigrated to the United States. Zhao Xinzhou taught Wan Laisheng (萬籟聲) who later learned the Natural Style (自然門) from Du Xinwu (杜心五) (who was famous as a bodyguard of Sun Yat-sen (孫中山)) and Liu Hongjie (劉洪傑) who later joined the Bagua school.

The Bagua school in particular benefited greatly from Liu Dekuan's efforts, absorbing Liu's qinna (擒拿) methods, spear skills, halberd skills, and the 64 hands (六十四手). The 64 hands are a linear Baguazhang set of 8 lines of 8 techniques, based on Liu's rich experience in baguazhang as well as his experience in the other arts outlined above. Another method that is often attributed to him is the fighting body spear (戰身槍), a well-known Bagua spear set. Liu Dekuan taught his baguazhang methods to Guo Gumin, Cheng Youlong, and others, who in turn passed them on to others in the Bagua school.

Dragonball Evolution - Or Dragonball Retrogression?

Well, I feel a dire need to complain about this lousy attempt at an adaptation of one of the world's most popular and famous comic books, Dragonball. Why is Toriyama Akira even allowing this to happen (oh, yeah, the money?)? Anyway, let's go through the main problems one by one, then.

1. Why is Goku not Asian?

Specifically, Goku should be Chinese, as "Goku" is just the personal name part of "Son Goku," which is the Japanese pronounciation of the Chinese name "Sun Wukong" (孫悟空), which is, as we all should know, the name of the protagonist of the famous Chinese novel "Journey to the West" (西遊記), sometimes known as "Monkey" in the English world. Yes, Dragonball was a very loose adaptation of this story, which is obvious to almost anyone familiar with it! "Goku" (what ever happened to his surname, anyway?) should most certainly NOT be a Caucasian high school boy who is being bullied at school, or whatever.

2. Why does this movie seem so much like a gazillion other Hollywood movies?

Specifically, the movie seems like any other superhero movie, where an all-American kid gets superhuman powers (rather easily), and then beats up the high school bully (yes, high school bully) with his newfound powers, and then goes and saves the world! It just seems weirder with the strange, orange uniform and stretchy staff that he has to carry around.

3. Why is Goku so old already?

Hollywood has always loved having their heroes be aged around 16-20 or so. Japanese comics prefer their heroes being aged around 10-14 or so. This is not as drastic a change as the above two points, but this also reeks of Hollywood standardization (i.e., the inability to make movies besides the ones one already has made). I also wish they kept the talking animals... Oh, and Krillin, too...

4. Why is "Roshi" Chow Yun-Fat?

Sorry - but where's the beard? And why is he so young-looking? I hope that they at least kept him a pervert... It would also have been nice if Chow Yun-Fat actually knew some kung fu...

5. What is with the "standard girl kung fu pose" that Chi Chi is flashing? (You know, front first low, back fist high and next to the cheek - check Charlie's Angels posters for other examples of this.) I wish that they would look to actual kung fu styles for better (or just alternate) poses...

I am sure that there are more problems with this movie that I will think of later...

Walls, Walls, Walls

I have not had much success in drawing Dungeon Craft walls in general, but I finally think I have a wall that I might like! I have tried various methods in doing these walls, including:

1. Draw only the closest straight wall and then use Photoshop to distort the others walls to the right shape. This method is quick compared to the others, but stretching the first wall to the size of the other walls can be tricky (my attempts always seem to be slightly wrong...). Some retouching is sometimes required after distorting.
2. Draw all walls by hand! This method is slow, manual, and rather hard! Although I have done a few walls this way, I think I will only reserve this method for special "walls" like trees, etc.
3. Same as #1, but using only a few colors to make the work faster and simpler - in this case, only 10.

At this point, I think that method #3 has won out - I like drawing monsters and animals more than walls, so the less work, the better...

Now that I have one wall that I like, perhaps I will need a new door to go along with it, or perhaps a nice background for indoor locations?

(Edit: Uh-oh - I just noticed that I made a boo-boo and stretched the closest side-walls wrong! Guess I will have to fix this tonight...)

(Edit #2: Finally replaced the image and fixed the wall! Phew...)