Gliz Caldo

Sad to see this place go, I really liked Cohost for its simplistic design and minimalistic approach to metrics.

Felt like how websites were before: lacking any ads, and if something said was good and supportive it will be recognized genuinely and not influenced by visible numbers such as likes and reposts.

This place felt mature. Such qualify significantly lacking in other spaces.

For those who follow me here, I have other social media accounts. Bluesky is where my social posts will be made. Itaku is where I'll post my artwork and animations. For my blog-like posts talking about my experience with developing my projects and thoughts, I dunno where to put those.

Anyways, I've been working on some horror animations for the spooky season. I'll post them to Bluesky and Itaku, but Itaku has video support so the animations will be viewed there.

Bluesky = https://bsky.app/profile/gliz-caldo.bsky.social
Itaku = https://itaku.ee/profile/gliz_caldo

Edit:
Won't stop posting here just yet!
I'm sticking to here until the very end!

This upcoming month in September, I am going to start working on some projects using Blender and the video editor that's built-in to make some art pieces.

The idea is to make a "visualizer" to accompany a short story that'll appear on screen. I'll make a scene in Blender, animate the camera to move slightly or pan over the scene, while ambient music plays.

I haven't seen many do this sort of thing, but it sounds right to do. And maybe it's a way to feature some of my stories in an interesting way.

September Goals

• Make unnerving and fitting ambient music.
• Finish personal texture pack with custom normal maps.
• Write short stories to go with the visuals.

October Goals

• Upload at least 2 videos.
• One video must be Halloween-focused.

November Goals

• Upload at least 2 videos.
• One video must feature a story outdoors.

Those are my most minimum goals for this project. So that way it doesn't interfere with my other projects like the game and some other stories I'm writing.

It might be nice to have someone narrate the story in the videos, short as they'll be. I'm no voice actor, although I have given it a try from time to time. Eehhh, we'll have to see. Leaning towards unlikely, but I have to give this a try and see where I can improve this particular format of storytelling.

I saw on TikTok someone suggests to leave a low opacity layer of visual noise that computers will pick up on. I do something similar already with regular noise, but with Blender I decided to make a filter that's similar to what the video was suggesting.

1st one is my usual methods: noise and an obnoxious watermark in the center-ish to deter art theft. Human art theft is easy to protect against, because I have the cleanest version available on my computer that no one has access to. However, when it comes to AI scalping my work I need to fight against the results that an AI bro would want from the generated image. I noticed how oddly smooth and sterile that some generated images have, so to fight this I decided to add noise to all of my uploaded work to assist wrecking those results.

2nd image takes inspiration from the video I saw on TikTok, where they suggested to use a low-opacity layer of specific noise patterns that ought to affect the machine from replicating details in the image. I recall how early MS DOS games have used this magenta pink and baby blue to make their graphics, so I made a filter similar to that. I am unsure of how effective it is against machines scalping off the image, but I think it gives me a different approach to protect my work.

On one hand, the noise adds to my horror-centric vibes. While the other is far more effective at muddling details. So much so I feel confident leaving my watermark far from the center because there's no way someone can easily edit the filter out for a clean upload.

For the uninitiated, Liminal Spaces are basically places meant for you to walk through. Corridors, hallways, passages, indoor paths. Stuff like that. Areas in the architecture meant to take foot traffic from an entrance to the destination. Hospital hallways, airport terminals, train stations, service tunnels and libraries. Places like that.

With that out of the way, let's talk about them! But first I want to ask a question: what do you like about these liminal spaces?

Everyone's got their favorite kind of horror, and admittedly liminal spaces became a meme in recent years. What I want to talk about is what got people so interested in liminal spaces in the first place. There's something that drew us in and exploded into a recognizable subgenre of horror.

I view horror as a commentary about life, not death. In that vein, I see liminal spaces as a horror for people who work jobs that have them exploring these areas often. A (lacking better words) working class focused kind of horror, where people are lost in recognizable places that look like the place they work at, but not getting anywhere. Like a metaphor for how they see their life as constantly moving forward but not getting anywhere. Lost in these places they must visit for their job, only aware of their existence in the first place because they need to cross through at some point.

What I like about liminal spaces is how someone can detect a threat by looking at the space in question. After all, there's nothing there. Just an empty place, but as for why it's empty and suggests infinity just tantalizes the imagination. And the scariest things are in your own imagination!

For media that features liminal spaces, I suppose there are a handful that plays with similar ideas that I've seen personally. Mind you they're not perfect examples, but they feature characteristics that I think they have in common with liminal spaces.

Twilight Zone, 1959 season 1, episode 1 "Where is Everybody?"
While there isn't literally a liminal space the protagonist is exploring, the fear of not finding a soul after exploring for so long is where I see the connection. Familiar places, abandoned, searching in vain for someone, anyone, to just be there.

I personally enjoy my solitude, but even I have anxious moments over feeling isolated and left behind. As if the world literally moved on without me and what's left is a shell of the world. Discarded by those who left it and forgot all about it, leaving behind one person to seek any sign of life that they will never find.

Dark Floors, 2008, features Finnish metal band Lordi in their creature gear.

This is an underrated gem and features a talented and cool as hell band. The story is simple: group of people try to escape a hospital that defies all logic and reasoning, while being stalked by the creatures within.

I won't spoil anything, because I want folks to see it. But liminal spaces could take something from Dark Floors. It's more populated in terms of characters, but the setting is very cool.

That's enough out of me, I want to hear from y'all?

What did you like about liminal spaces?