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Valorant 18: Strafe Clearing

Byjack

I’ve been killing it on the aim front. In deathmatch, I absolutely own.

I have been working on a new aiming mechanic, what I like to call the strafing clear. First, I went from silver all the way to gold simply off of working on my site clears. A few things I noted:

  • Practicing in custom matches is extreemly helpful
  • Way more helpful than DM flicks
  • Close angles call for very small clears, big angles are for big wide swings

I’ve been trying to pair this with the counter strafing mechanic and I think I figured out something.

Simply by paying attention to which side of the head you expect your crosshair to be on, you can get a much better strafing shot when you peek/clear an angle.

When you clear, you shoot like normal, if your shot is off, you adjust in the direction you need to.

I'm clearing CT, getting ready to clear the other side of container.
I see the Omen when I clear, I know my crosshair is on his left. So I need to adjust right.
I strafe right onto his head.
Instant headshot.

Let’s say you are clearing one angle, and an enemy pops up on your right. Your crosshair is far to the left of your target, so you quickly adjust, while strafing to the right to line up the perfect flick.

This is extremely useful because not only does this mean that your shots can be super accurate, it means you are moving a lot and making it extreemly hard to hit you (or atleast headshot you).

I think the coolest part, is when you strafe out in one direction, realize the enemy is to the other side of your crosshair so you strafe in the other direction to get the shot.

I also abuse the hit slow (how you freeze if you are hit) to get better accuracy and try to tap the enemy down if I am stopped midstrafe.

That being said, I think that there are a couple of different types of aiming mechanics in Valorant.

  1. Spray control – used for wall spams and smoke spams and long gun fights
  2. Strafing – used for clearing and gun fights out in the open
  3. Distance shooting – used for really far fights
  4. Holding – used to hold again specific peaks

Spray control

  • Got no real strat. Just try to watch the bullet tracers

Strafing

  • Watch the relationship between the crosshair and the head (whether left or right). Details are above

Distance Shooting

  • Use a lot of movement-based aiming for really accurate shots. Tap fire.

Holding

  • Prepare to duck behind cover, spray a few shots and duck back.

Sova Fanart 2: Class Unit 1 Day 2

Byjack

UNIT ONE: Sova Model Studies | Day 2 – Half Body

Today I was supposed to work on the upper body, but I found a really cool pose and decided to work on that instead. Unfortunately, it took a very long time to sketch out and I was also very exhausted from drawing until 4AM yesterday. I also had a lot of travel and work coming up so I was a bit stressed and overwhelmed.

I feel sometimes that I put too much on my plate for a challenge. I definitely felt overwhelmed coloring a drawing with this much detail.

This was the rough sketch:

And this was my attempt at more refined line art:

And for reference I used this pose:

Sova Fanart 4: Class Unit 2 Day 1

Byjack

UNIT TWO: Dynamic Figure Drawing | Day 1 – Explore figure sketching techniques/simplification

I’ve been actively avoiding working on this challenge all day. I feel like it is because it is so damn overwhelming. It took so much for me to even just sit down and start working on this.

But now that I have sat down and am working on this, I want to create a mini lesson plan for today.

Since today is about exploring figure sketching techniques and simplification, I shall design a lesson plan to make it impossible not to get good at those things. As I’ve said before, lesson plans let me connect to the present moment, on one task at a time. This in turn helps me work through the feeling of being overwhelmed.

Mini syllabus for: explore figure sketching techniques/simplification

Total time: 90 minutes (est 30 min per unit, 10 min per part)

Mini unit 1: Research

  • Part 1: OpenAI and Bing
  • Part 2: Google
  • Part 3: Youtube

Mini unit 2: Experiment

  • Part 1: School of thought 1
  • Part 2: School of thought 2
  • Part 3: School of thought 3

Mini unit 3: Practice

  • Part 1: Simple poses
  • Part 2: Dynamic poses
  • Part 3: Foreshortened and perspective poses

Mini unit 1: Research

Part 1: OpenAI and Bing

Part 2: Google

Why You Should Start with Armatures When Learning to Draw Figures (artistsnetwork.com)

How to draw figures without a model – Artists & Illustrators (artistsandillustrators.co.uk)

Draw Heads On Any Angle, From Your Imagination (howtodrawcomics.net)

Part 3: Youtube

Main school of thought to try out:

  • Basic armature
    • Circle head, half for nose line, half of that for mouth line
    • line for neck
    • line for spine
    • line for hips perpendicular to spine
    • line for shoulders perpendicular to spine
  • Head shapes
    • circle with lopped side for skull
    • cut cube for face
  • Sketchy woodwork for finding pose
    • Keep scratching until a form emerges
    • Erase or lighten then refine
  • Advanced shapes
    • triangle tricep
    • triangle forearm
    • teardrop thighs
    • diamond calf
    • box pecs
    • triangle delts
    • pen tip torso

Mini unit 2: Experiment

Part 1: School of thought 1

I practiced basic armature and it looked pretty bad. I think I started to improve when I moved the hips a little higher.


Part 2: School of thought 2

Things started to improve a little here. I really like the method of simple shapes for the head. I felt like I understood the geometry much better.


Part 3: School of thought 3

This is when I used the sketchy woodwork carving out a pose and when I refined it, I used the advanced shaped coupled with everything else I learned. I really really like this method. Gives me dynamic poses without losing the anatomy.

I didn’t get to Unit 3 because I feel complete and it is 2AM and I want to go to bed.

Very happy with today’s progress. I feel like I killed it at the figure drawings and I feel much more confident drawing figures.

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Valorant 29: My Valorant Fears and Emotions

Byjack

I wanted to do a bit of a post to understand how I am feeling right now about the Valorant challenge. I know I feel incredibly stressed, angry, and depressed because I feel like I wasted all my time on Valorant. So much time trying so hard to be good, but nothing seems to really come of it. Sometimes looking at my VODs I feel like my gameplay is the same as it was before.

I don’t really know what is going on and why it seems like I’m new to the game every time. I don’t know why I’m overthinking everything. Why is everything so hard?

I wish I could see major mistakes in my old gameplay.

I guess watching more VOD reviews will help me understand. But that takes so damn long. Maybe it means that there are still opportunities to play much much better. I feel that I maybe have gotten much better but it doesn’t seem to translate over to comp. Maybe it’s also something about understanding the maps better. I really get the sense that I got to plat last time by playing more comfortably on agents and on maps. I think I understood just how to play each map better. But I want to be a more complete player. I want to play with better movement and peeking.

Something else that I feel that I missed out on was just having more posts about the emotions I was feeling. It makes me sad that all my Valorant posts were about techniques and none of them were about emotions.

Valorant has a lot of nice emotions for me. I met my girlfriend on Valorant, I had a lot of friends on Valorant. These days I play mostly alone, but I still like the world. Cool agents and fun to get on to all these different teams. I love it when I have some really fun crazy game sense timing lurks. I guess that is one way that I got significantly better than before.

I wish I had VODs from when I was in iron. I feel that jump from iron to silver was the large one. The jump from silver to plat is weirdly small.

Ok. So I just spent a good hour or so just watching my VODs from bronze until plat then back to gold. I actually feel my overall movement is better and more consistent. The only difference in plat is that I was calmer and held an angle for longer. I also did more wide jiggles. I know for gold I held a lot more angles, and made sure to hold them wide because they would often wide swing everything.

Looking forward, I would be so happy if I kept calm and held angles for longer when moving around the map, held for the wide swing more often. Then when fighting an angle, I want to be more aggressive, swinging very fast and hard, but stopping at the edge and fighting, not leaving until I try to kill them, maybe just letting go of movement keys or crouch spraying. I would love to see my fundamentals get really really good, to a level I know they can get to.

How to Face Things Head On

Byjack

So something that I’ve been sort of obsessed with recently is how to face your problems head-on. In so many areas of my life, I struggle to do that. In my professional career, tasks that stress me out send me to my couch with my phone. When I don’t know what to say to my mom and my dad, I immediately turn on my audiobook, eager to dull the pain in my chest. When I am feeling stressed about a fight in Valorant, I rush and try to ignore the mounting feelings of anxiety.

I would really like to find a way to flip the script because it is so rewarding. When I do a task that I worry about, I feel energized, and not tired from work. When I focus on my feelings of anxiety in Valorant, I become much more aware of what my intuition is telling me, that I need to slow down and play the situation very carefully.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SgkiR5tSmo&ab_channel=TheOutcome

I think this is a really interesting concept. I want to make a bit of an amendment. In the video they talk about trying to get better problems, that being able to have money problems when you are rich vs money problems when you are poor is much better (where you invest, vs how to survive). But I kind of disagree. The problem of survival is ultimately a much more rewarding problem for me than where to invest.

I do think that this is a powerful idea, and a way to reframe problems. My thoughts are as follows:

  • Avoiding problems comes from the fear of failure
  • We can address this by embracing failure
  • But we don’t want to just fail at anything…this is where choosing your problems come in
  • Instead of failing at a random problem, embrace failing and learning from a meaningful problem
  • Ex: I am afraid I don’t know how to respond to my parents
    • The meaningful problem here is to learn to create a bond with my parents while standing strong in my own life and boundaries
    • Accept failure and believe in my ability to learn from a failure at this problem
  • Essentially, turn every problem into a challenge
  • Another example: I don’t know what to do next in my demo build and it’s overwhelming and a lot of work
    • The meaningful problem here is finding how to be efficient at my job, and to work as a team without people pleasing to my own detriment (creating boundaries)
    • Accept failure at this and my ability to learn from that failure

The Perfectionist’s Life

Byjack

I was struggling really hard on making videos recently and struggling even harder to figure out what I’m doing with my life.

I know this is in large part to the enormous pressure that I put on myself in order to do well and it makes me very angry that my parents brought me up in such a way, a way in which I feel constantly paralyzed with the fear of anything less than perfection.

There are a few things that I found relief with:

MENTALITY 1: The focused mindset

Let everything else fall away but the feeling of what you are aiming at (whether it is to walk, to move, to express) and the sensations within your body. Feel the right time to strike, to act.

MENTALITY 2: The meditative mindset

Let everything fall away, most of all, your identity. Feel the universe around you and wait patiently for something to surface, let all conscious thoughts and solutioning to dissolve like sugar in water. Only sensations remain, and the vastness of space.

MENTALITY 3: The unchained mindset

Give yourself permission to do and think about everything and anything. Accept yourself for everything. Give yourself permission to do anything. Imagine that you’ve already done it and give yourself permission to do it.

In the end of the day, I realized that it’s not about what you do with you life. You can do anything. You can always change your mind. It’s more of a question of what you want to do right now if you can do anything that you want.