Poke Press Digest Podcast: Episode 66-Day 2 Events/Discussing the music of "PokePark Wii"

In the first segment (1:22-3:54), I interview Vince Krekeler of Day 2 events, the company that runs many of the regional Pokemon tournaments in the middle of the US. I took this opportunity to talk with him about how things are going for the first full season back from the pandemic, and gave him an opportunity to talk about some of the other events they run.

The second segment (4:56-45:45) is a discussion of the music of PokePark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure. Anne from Pikapi Podcast helps me cover the soundtrack of this final fourth generation side game. As you might expect, PokePark's array of environments meant that we got to discuss a wide range of tunes. If you want to know what we thought of the game itself, we examine that after the outro:

Links:

Day 2 Events
Pikapi Podcast
Poke Casters Network

What if other Pokémon movies got CGI remakes? (via Stable Diffusion)

Ever since the release of Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution in 2019/2020, folks (including myself) have wondered what other Pokémon movies might look like if they got a CGI remake. While there's no practical way to definitively answer that, with the help of the Stable Diffusion image generation framework, we can get a glimpse of what such a movie might look like. I took stills from a number of Pokémon Movies and used a "Modern Disney" model in combination with an embedding I generated using stills from Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution (I also retouched the images afterwards to improve their appearance).

Technical Details:

Model Used: Modern Disney
Embeddings Used: Custom "Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution" embedding
Front End: Automatic1111
Base Render Resolution: 512*512 (upscaled to 1024*1024)
ControlNet Features Used: SoftEdge, Color, Canny, Reference
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3050

Pokémon Midwest Regionals 2023: Vince Krekeler of Day 2 Events

At the recent Midwest Pokémon Regionals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I had a chance to interview Vince Krekeler of Day 2 Events about the current tournament season, as well as some things in the near future.

Day 2 Events

Poke Press Digest Podcast: Episode 65: Discussing the Music of Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs

Anne from Pikapi Podcast joins me to discuss the music of Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs for the DS. This final entry in the trilogy may not change the Ranger formula drastically, but it does come with a wide array of new tunes. As usual, there’s a game discussion after the outro:

Links:
Pikapi Podcast
Poke Casters Network

I used AI to generate realistic pictures of Pokémon Masters EX characters. Here's what I got.

In my continuing experiments with Stable Diffusion, I took screenshots from Pokémon Masters EX and attempted to create photorealistic versions of the characters. Watch as Anne from Pikapi Podcast attempts to identify them:

Don't have a lot of time? Check out this short to see all the images. How many did you recognize?

Poke Press Digest Podcast: Episode 64-Discussing the music of "Pokemon Rumble"

Anne from Pikapi Podcast drops in to help discuss the music of Pokemon Rumble. This WiiWare title is definitely meatier than My Pokemon Ranch in terms of gameplay, and we try to figure out if the soundtrack follows suit. As usual, there's a gameplay discussion after the outro, where among other things we compare Rumble to Pokemon Unite:

Links:
Pikapi Podcast
Poke Casters Network

Musician Interview: GlitchxCity

GlitchxCity

The following is an interview with GlitchxCity, a musician specializing in video game remixes.

Where are you from, and how did you get into music?

I’m based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas. I got a late start in music when I chose choir as my arts elective in middle school, and then carried on with that in high school.

How did you get into Pokémon, and when did that start crossing into your musical work?

I got into Pokémon when I was 5 back in the 90s (like every kid)! It was actually the anime that introduced me to the series, and I’ve stuck with it ever since. It wasn’t until I was in high school where I wanted to have a creative outlet to show my love for the series.

How do you choose which tracks to remix/rearrange/create?

It depends on how I’m feeling and what the community is feeling. When a new generation drops, I pay attention to the characters that may have huge potential in the game and hope that their themes match up to my expectations. Outside of Pokémon tracks, I’m working on other projects from originals, to commercial work, and even tracks from other video game series!

What are some songs you've put out recently?

My most recent Pokémon track is the “Battle! AI Professor!” theme from Scarlet and Violet. The original was written by Toby Fox and I was so ecstatic to get my hands on it. It’s honestly one of my favorite battle themes I’ve worked on and I’m thoroughly proud of how it came out!

Anything coming in the near future you'd like to tease?

I just wrapped up a large project that will be launching on May 5th and I’m really excited for people to hear it! I’m also working on more long-form compilation projects that will launch during the summer in collaboration with a few illustrators!

Where can folks find you online?

You can find me on YouTube where I upload all my Pokémon and other video game related remixes, Soundcloud for an ad-free listening experience, and Spotify and Apple Music for streaming my music!