Where should the recording take place? Why hair shouldn't grow back after laser treatment.

), told the CPU about the qualities that a developer of successful games should have.

It's probably not a secret for anyone that marketing is not the main thing in game development, and aggressive traffic buying is unlikely to attract an army of loyal fans to your game. Increasingly, you can hear advice that at first glance seems completely banal: "Just make a good game."

But what is a good game? It is clear that the game must be original - you will not surprise anyone with clones. The game should be in demand, and at the same time have as few competitors as possible - this is the right choice of a free niche. But just a good niche and originality are only the minimum necessary, but not yet sufficient conditions.

Naturally, there is no universal recipe for creating a good game. But there are qualities, the development of which is sure to increase your chances of success.

1. Get smarter

Do not limit yourself to reading useful literature. If it's not too late, start with the basics - get a technical education, learn logic, gain critical and systems thinking, increase your IQ.

Make programming your hobby - you don't have to use it in your work, just practice, increasing the speed of thinking and the elegance of problem solving. Stop drinking alcohol, otherwise you will look like a person who goes to McDonald's after the gym.

2. Become farsighted

Purposefulness is a great quality, but only if you do not choose short-sighted goals. By becoming smarter, you can stop being a donkey running after the nearest carrot.

Be more ambitious. What do you want to achieve in a month? In a year? In 5, 10 years? What do you want to tell your grandchildren about yourself, what do you want to leave behind?

Life is not as long as it seems. If you want to achieve your main goal, then stop every day to look at your affairs from the side. Ask yourself: why am I doing this? Will it help me achieve my main goal? Am I wasting my time on things that can be done easier or not done at all? Embrace PPP - the “rule of five whys”. This will help to get to the root of any problem, understand its causes and stop wasting your life fighting windmills.

Not many think more than two or three times a year. I have achieved worldwide fame by thinking once or twice a week.

- George Bernard Shaw

3. Develop your taste

To create something good, you need to be able to distinguish this good.

Expand your horizons. Watch more good movies, read books, listen to music. Play good games (but don't get carried away). Don't limit yourself to your favorite genres or authors. Attend art courses and photography school, write poems and stories.

You don't have to become a writer or a brilliant artist. Be the Dunno who decides to try everything, so that later he understands the complexity of each of the activities. Look for patterns in your work, and one day you will learn to distinguish the good from the bad.

And finally, having known the taste of creativity, combine two worlds in yourself - the world of science and art. As in the famous book by Joseph Campbell, become the master of two worlds. And to better understand and reconcile these two worlds, read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

4. Learn to be happy

So, you already have the mind, taste and foresight. In this case, you should already know (or at least guess) what you want to devote your life to and what to achieve in it, and feel why you need it, right?

Let's do a check. Answer the question: Is your life filled with enthusiasm? Do you often happily work or study until the middle of the night, and wake up in the morning, full of strength and energy? If not, then urgently reconsider your life. Think back to when you were happy and think about what went wrong? And then rollback your operating system to that moment, and start all over again.

It is impossible to make a good game without enthusiasm. Already the work itself should be something meaningful for you and bring joy. Success, on the other hand, will be the icing on the cake for you to celebrate the completion of work and the start of the next project.

To be successful, stop chasing money, chase your dream.

- Tony Shay, CEO of Zappos

5. Get open

Making a game solo is not a bad goal, but you'll likely want more. You will need a team of like-minded people - the same enthusiasts as you. Learn to find such people, learn to tell them about your ideas. Be open and sincere if you expect the same from others. Build leadership on trust, honesty and integrity.

Avoid stupid people and people without taste. Avoid people to whom money is more important than what they love. Read the book "Drive" by Daniel Pink about motivation. Set these people really interesting tasks aimed at their development and growth. Make a commitment to these people to achieve the goal for which you have gathered.

And most importantly, do not forget to rejoice and be happy. Make a game that you and your entire team will enjoy playing. What you lacked and what will make your life better.

6. Learn to listen

You will never know in advance what you really want. And that's okay. During the development of the game, you will have to make thousands of decisions. You and your team must make these decisions in a quality manner. When they say that the game is made "with soul", it means that thousands of high-quality decisions were made in the course of work. If decisions are made anyhow, “for show”, the players will immediately feel the deception.

How to make these quality decisions? Learn to listen. Listen to your players, listen to your colleagues, listen to your inner voice - after all, you are making a game that you yourself should be interested in playing.

Break game development into stages - technical demo, alpha, beta, soft launch, release. At each stage, create a version that you can show to someone, get feedback. Do what you think is most important at the moment first.

Read Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland. This book will not only explain to you the whole philosophy of iterative development and allow you to significantly speed up and focus your work, but also motivate you to be more open and communicate with your audience.

7. Earn love

And finally, I would like to say about such an important thing as monetization. Here it is important to develop the right attitude in yourself and learn to observe the golden mean.

Avoid extremes: someone sees players as cash cows, and someone is afraid of monetization like fire and spits at the word free-to-play.

Remember that you need money - to exist, to thank the team, to make your game better and to make new games. Thus, everything that you are paid will be returned to the players twice. But at the same time, love and respect your audience, especially since you are making a game that you yourself want to play.

If you don't respect the players, you don't respect yourself. If you don't respect monetization, you don't respect your work. Love your players and value the money they pay you. Let the game be interesting even for those who have not yet paid anything, even more interesting for those who pay, and even more interesting for those who pay more than others.

If you underestimate the value of money, read Atlas Shrugged. To make a good monetization without squeezing the players, watch Scott Rigby's lecture from the Games Developers Conference.

Conclusion

So, if you want to make a really good game, learn to think, look away, feel great, connect with people, listen to others, enjoy your work, and love your audience. Keep it up and you will succeed. I would be grateful for comments and questions. You can contact me at

All efforts to create a website or an online store are worthless if you do not pay enough attention to the main thing - photos. Perhaps, it is not even necessary to explain that pictures not only make the page attract attention, but also make the visitor stay on your site for a long time. In addition, photos are easy to share on social networks, which greatly expands the possibilities of marketing.

To take great photos, you need very little: a good photographer with professional equipment, a studio (not necessarily a big one) and, preferably, an art manager who will figure out how to beautifully and originally photograph your products. There is only one catch - at the stage of launching your project, you are unlikely to have a budget that can painlessly cover the costs of such photography.

You will definitely do this when your business starts generating income, but in the meantime, you can shoot some very good shots at home. It is only important to know a few basic conditions for the correct subject photography for the site, and we will talk about them in our article.

Lighting

If the photo was taken in poor lighting, no processing will fix this situation: the pictures will be fuzzy, color reproduction will suffer. In the absence of spotlights and reflectors, it is necessary to look for light sources available at home. The best option is natural light from a window.

Avoid direct sunlight, they will give unnecessary highlights and harsh shadows. It is best to shoot on a bright but cloudy day. By the way, photos taken in such soft light are visually perceived better.

In the absence of a window suitable for filming or if you want to shoot outside of the daytime, you can make a softbox with your own hands - a nozzle for a direct light source that allows you to make the lighting soft and diffused. This is not so difficult, but it still requires skill, time and small material investments.

Look at the photo of wooden butterflies from twinsbowties.ru store. With some effort, you can take these shots at home.

Style

First of all, a cool blog or online store is distinguished by a single style that is maintained for all pictures. Don't experiment recklessly with filters or shooting angles for every new photo. This does not mean that absolutely on all photos the product should be located only in a certain way and nothing else.

Look at the photo from the afourcustom.ru store. It seems that they are all different, but they have common features that are inherent in the pictures of only this store.

Another type of photographs that are attractive to buyers are pictures that show the size of the item being offered, for example, as in the kokosina.com store.

If we talk about the variety of shooting angles for a blog or website, then everything is simpler - the visitor is simply interested in viewing things from all sides. And he will probably stay longer on your page, flipping through the pictures.

Hello dear subscribers!

Today's article will be of interest not only to craftswomen, but to all those who want to take good photos without resorting to the services of a photographer.

Today I will tell:

1. The importance of lighting when photographing.
2. How to choose the right background for photos.
3. From what angle to shoot products in order to emphasize their advantages.

Surely, every craftswoman involved in the creation of jewelry and accessories, and indeed any kind of creativity, has repeatedly faced the problem of how to take a high-quality photo.

Photography is the art of taking photographs, in which the main creative process is to find the composition, lighting and moment of the picture. This choice is determined by the master's skills as a photographer, his personal tastes and preferences.

To take high-quality beautiful photographs so that your product wants to be examined and examined, and in the best case also purchased, you should not take annual photography training courses.

For a high assessment of your product by the buyer or customer, you need to do everything so that, first of all, the photo is professional. A person evaluates primarily with his eyes.

It's always nice to look at a good photo. Sales directly depend on a high-quality photograph of a work.

Of course, you can turn to professional photographers to get high-quality processed photos of your products, but it costs a lot of money, processing time, etc. It’s easier and cheaper to learn how to take more profitable photos yourself.

Rules for taking pictures at home

So, let's consider the basic rules of the question: how to take a beautiful photo.

Rule 1. Lighting.

The very first and, perhaps, the main principle of obtaining a good photo is light. It is almost impossible to get high-quality, clear photos without sufficient lighting.

The lack of light negatively affects the quality of the picture: it turns out to be blurry. But in order to sell your product (for example, a beaded necklace), you need to show even the smallest details in the photo.

The best lighting is natural light. I always take pictures only in daylight. But you should avoid direct sunlight, which will just light up your photo. Do not use the flash on your camera or phone.

Rule 2. Background.

The best backdrop for any photo has always been a light solid background. The background does not have to be smooth, it can be fleecy fur. Use plain material (knitwear, leather), wooden substrates of a calm tone, or special professional photo backgrounds.

The worst option would be to use spotted carpets or bedspreads, striped fabrics and colorful blankets.

Of course, the best background color is white. But there are cases when, on the contrary, it would be more profitable to use a colored background.

For example, if your jewelry or other product is completely white, or in its predominance. In this case, it is better to use a bright colored background.

I love photographing my creations on thick gray scrapbooking paper. It does not wrinkle and the photo on it is well processed.

Play with color and lighting! And then you will definitely get high-quality pictures.

Rule 3. Focus.

Another very important point when photographing. Make sure that your hands do not shake or shake when you take pictures. Try to fix the camera and focus the photographed product.

When I take close-ups of my jewelry, trying to show the details of the piece, I just lean my elbows on the table. Then the focus is what you need.

Rule 4. One style.

All product photos of your store should have a certain recognizable style. Come up with your "trick" in the photos. It can be the use of colors, or vice versa, a very restrained style.

I preferred the strict style of my photographs.

Rule 5. Angle.

When you look through product photo albums and each photo is similar to the previous one, it gets a little boring. Try to diversify your photos with different angles of the product.

Take a picture from different sides, the reverse side (if it is, for example, a piece of jewelry embroidered with beads), show the fine details of the product, using macro photography.

The benefits will definitely be on your side. You laid out your product in detail in front of a potential buyer.

Rule 6. Scale.

It is very good to use third-party objects in photographs, such as a hand, plates or vases, flowers and beads. Such items will help the buyer to more clearly represent the actual size of the product.

Even better if, for example, you take a picture of an embroidered necklace, putting it on yourself or a friend.

Below is an example of a photo of a bracelet on a hand.

That's all! These are perhaps the basic rules for photographing at home. Now you can take beautiful, almost professional photos yourself.

Try, experiment, do not be afraid of innovation. And you will see how much a quality photo can give you, how it will affect sales.

A blind area is needed so that water does not get under the house. However, most often people build it in order to walk on it. But this is not its main function and purpose.

If there is no blind area, then the water will wash away the supporting pillars of the house, which will lead to its destruction and subsidence of the house. How to make a high-quality blind area with your own hands?
Before you do it, you need to find out the size of the roof, or rather, how much the roof recedes from the house. After all, most of the water will drain from the roof. Often these protrusions are about half a meter. So the size of the blind area will be equal to one meter, that is, twice as much.

Once all dimensions are measured and the size of the blind area is selected, you can begin to manufacture it. First you need to dig a hole about a meter wide along the entire length of the house and about 30 centimeters deep. Next, you need to sand it. The work is cumbersome, but very necessary. The creation of the so-called sand cushion will allow the blind area to last for many years.
Next, you need to shed the pillow so that the pillow becomes strong and does not fall when you step on it. After that, we set the guides that will show the boundaries of the blind area. The rails can be made from a regular board, but it is better to make them from flat slate, which is not so expensive and easy to get
Also, the blind area should be divided into several meter parts, for this we install jumpers between the guides at a distance of one meter. The guides should be set at an angle of approximately 5-10 degrees.

This is necessary so that the water flows away from the house, and not to it. Next, we start filling the blind area. It is filled with high strength concrete. To mix concrete, you need to use cement, water, crushed stone and sand. It is best to knead in a small trough, so that it is more convenient to fill and carry it, because you will have to fill it around the entire perimeter of the house. Mixing is done in the following proportions: approximately a bucket of water, a bucket of cement, two buckets of sand and four buckets of crushed stone. All this is thoroughly mixed and poured. Level the surface with a trowel so that it is smooth.

Then you need to give the blind area a few days to completely freeze.
Good luck in making your own blind area!

Recently, the use of natural materials in construction has become very popular. This article will focus on clay plaster as a material for interior decoration and insulation of the exterior walls of the house, as well as the features of its application using plaster beacons.

This technology, which has been known in Ukraine for many centuries, is becoming popular again throughout Europe. And although in Russia, until recently, clay plaster was used mainly for utility rooms, some house builders are beginning to successfully use it for finishing residential buildings.

The main advantages of clay plaster are:

• its high thermal insulation performance and at the same time excellent vapor permeability, in other words, it “breathes”, and during air circulation the material is able to absorb excess moisture from the room, and if it is too dry, give it back;
• clay has antibacterial and preservative properties, so mold or fungus will never appear on walls covered with clay plaster, and wall material, especially wood, does not require antiseptic treatment;
• it is a durable and easily restored material that is not afraid of temperature changes and high humidity, and a separate section of the wall can be replaced without affecting the rest of the coating;
• clay plaster can be used on any surface, due to its high adhesion it is well applied to wood, brick, concrete and just straw;
• clay does not burn, it can easily withstand temperatures of more than 1000 ° C, and at the same time protect flammable materials;
• and what is important in any construction - clay plaster is economically profitable, compared with common plaster mixtures, its use allows you to halve the cost of interior decoration of the house.

Clay plaster has much fewer disadvantages, and they are mainly associated with technological nuances:

• due to the peculiarities of the composition of natural clay, it is impossible to create a single recipe for the plaster mixture, in each individual case it may differ;
• the surface of clay plaster has a non-uniform texture and without fail, even under wallpaper, a finishing layer is required;
• difficulties in finding a specialist for wall decoration, as few craftsmen are familiar with this material.

Materials and tools

To prepare the plaster mixture for leveling the walls you will need:

• natural clay without impurities (sifted)
• river sand
• sawdust

For the second layer of clay mixture you need:

• pure natural clay
• river sand
• edible salt

For mixing and applying clay plaster you will need:

• concrete mixer
• Master OK
• plastering rules
• level
• plumb line
• perforator
• galvanized plaster beacons
• molding plaster (for fixing beacons)
• screws and dowels

Preparing walls for plastering

Despite the fact that clay has good adhesion, it has a much greater weight than gypsum mixtures, therefore, for more reliable adhesion to the surface, it is necessary to remove the remnants of old plaster or cement mortar from the walls, slightly expand the seams and treat the surface with a primer.

After that, the marking of the walls is done, in which the attachment points of the beacons are indicated by straight vertical lines. The first line should be about 20 cm from the corner.

At the top and bottom of the wall along each marked line, we hammer in a dowel-nail and set the level without screwing in the screws. Using a vertically stretched thread and a level, we check the plane of the walls. If there are small protrusions - we knock them down, if large ones - we take them into account when installing beacons: the minimum thickness of the plaster layer should be flush with the maximum point of the protrusion.

We install standard plaster beacons with a height of 6 and 10 mm according to the level. In places where the plaster layer will be thicker, pads 10 mm high are used, and for a thinner plaster layer - 6 mm high. To do this, we cut off the required length of the plaster beacon and put it on the gypsum mixture, pressing it a little until it rests on the caps of the self-tapping screws. The distance between the beacons depends on the area of ​​​​the walls, their evenness and the length of the rule.

Preparation of clay plaster

Mixing clay mortar is a very time-consuming process, so it is best done with a concrete mixer. The content of clay is regulated by the amount of sand and depends on the properties of the clay itself: if it is very plastic, or, as they say, “fat”, it may crack when dried. If the clay used is sufficiently plastic, the solution for one batch is prepared from the calculation:

• 2 buckets of clay
• 6 buckets of sand
• 6 buckets of sawdust

You can determine the plasticity (fat content) of clay in the following way: having molded a ball from slightly soaked clay, you need to put it between the planed boards and press down on top. With a high fat content of clay, cracks of half the diameter form on the ball, with medium plasticity - by a third of the diameter, and if the clay is very thin, then the ball will not form cracks, but will completely shatter. This property of clay is taken into account in the preparation of plaster. In a solution with oily clay, the amount of sand increases, and can reach a ratio of clay and sand of 1:4 or 1:5, and with low clay plasticity, the amount of sand is usually used in a ratio of 1:2 or 1:3.

In order for the plaster to have low thermal conductivity, it is necessary to add filler to it. In this case, sawdust is used as a filler. At the same time, they are an analogue of the plaster mesh, since the solution, thanks to the filler, will be well reinforced and prevent the plaster from further cracking.

After pouring clay into the concrete mixer and filling it with a small amount of water (1-2 buckets), leave it to sag for 5-10 minutes. After we add sand, sawdust and gradually adding water, we bring the solution to a uniform consistency of any plaster mixture (like thick sour cream).

For the second layer, the clay solution has a slightly different composition:

• 2 buckets of clay
• 6 buckets of sand
• 100-200 gr of edible salt

This solution is prepared according to the same principle in a concrete mixer, only instead of a filler, ordinary edible rock salt is added to it for strength.

Performing plaster work

The plaster is applied in two layers: the first is a rough layer and the second is for finishing. The first (levelling) layer of plaster is applied between the beacons. After throwing the clay mortar onto the wall with a trowel, the surface is leveled using the rule from the bottom up. In this case, a leveling layer of plaster is applied between the beacons using the rule of shorter length, or the same, but in this case the movements are made at an angle. It should be noted that for good fixing on the wall, the minimum layer of plaster should be 2.5 cm.

The second layer is applied after the surface of the first has dried. The drying time of the first layer depends on the thickness of the coating, air temperature, ventilation. Usually in hot and dry weather in a well-ventilated area, the first coat is ready for the next coat after 2 days. With high humidity, as well as in winter, this process can take a whole month.

The second layer of clay plaster is applied on the lighthouses themselves, touching their edges with the rule. If during the drying of the first layer cracks appeared on its surface, they are rubbed with this solution using a grater. Before applying the second layer, the dried plaster does not require any processing. On the contrary, small irregularities when applying the second layer will only increase the degree of adhesion of the plaster.

After the second layer has dried, the beacons are carefully removed, and the strobes are filled with clay mortar. Although some experts prefer to leave the beacons in the plaster, based on the experience of many homebuilders, it is better to take them out. This is due to the fact that often when conducting a rule on a lighthouse, the top layer of galvanization is removed, and the lighthouse begins to rust already during the drying of the plaster. Subsequently, traces of rust from such a lighthouse begin to show through the wallpaper and even resistant paint. The second reason for removing lighthouses is the likelihood of plaster cracking if a screw gets into the lighthouse, if you suddenly have to fix something on the wall. Also, some developers have noticed cases when, over time, the beacons began to protrude from the surface of the wall. This is usually due to the fact that plaster, especially gypsum mixtures, tends to shrink when dried.

After the final drying of the plaster, its entire surface must be rubbed with a brush and floor polisher. At the same time, the wall is first sprayed with a well-moistened maklovitsa, and then we rub it with a floor polisher with large circular movements.

Processing of plastered walls and their further finishing

After grouting and complete drying of the plaster, a fine (finish) finish of the walls is carried out. Drying should take place in natural conditions, excessive, increased drying with heating appliances or a building hair dryer can cause cracking of the clay.

Since clay plaster has a composition prone to shedding, its surface must be additionally treated with a deep penetration primer before painting or wallpapering. If it is planned to paint the walls, then for a perfectly smooth surface, a thin layer of putty is made using gypsum mixtures. Fans of national color can give the room an ethnic Ukrainian style by whitewashing the walls several times with lime. It is also practiced to decorate walls with clay decorative plaster, which is given the necessary shade with the help of dyes and the surface can imitate natural cracks, brick or stone.

Clay plaster has another advantage - a very low cost, about 15-20 rubles. per square meter of plastered surface. This cost does not include the remuneration of a specialist, since in each individual case it may be different. Moreover, having mastered the method of throwing plaster and using the rule, you can do all the work yourself, the most important thing is to correctly set the beacons.

Yana Kovalchuk, rmnt.ru