First Month

First month down and unfortunately not a lot of progress. I haven't learned any tricks and my Ollies are still very poor. On a brighter note I am having a lot of fun skating and for the most part I skate everyday.

As you will see in the video I filmed a line of very basic "tricks" and I really enjoyed the whole process of not only doing the tricks but doing them a few times to get the correct shot and putting the clips together when I got home.

It's not always easy to find enjoyment when you know little to no tricks so being able to work on something I was capable of but also wasn't super easy was a great time.

I don't plans to give up and I will keep working on my skills I can definitely feel myself getting better at Ollies and hopeful it won't be much longer :).

Blog posts and videos will be Monthly instead of weekly going forward unless I learn a new skill worthy of sharing.

Week 3 Really Bad Ollies

I focused this week on trying to Ollie and really not much else. Now technically I was able to do a few really bad Ollie's but in my opinion if you need video play back confirm you did an Ollie it doesn't count ha.


What is the problem

From what I can tell I am not lifting my back foot. The tail has nowhere to go. I am sure this is not my own problem but it's the one I notice and it's a big one


How do I fix it
Well I have seen people say to pretend like you are jumping forward off the skateboard. So I been TRYING to do that but easier send than done.


A part of me thinks I am just not very confident and jumping off the board is not something my mind is letting my body do.


As always I will keep at it and hopefully I will be able to land a real Ollie within my first month of skating.

Week 2

There seems to be the same 5 or so "beginner" tricks that don't need Ollies floating around YouTube which I was hoping to be able to land by now. No such luck unfortunately my thinking is because an Ollie is hard for most people they seek out tricks they can do that won't required them to Ollie. Truth is most of these tricks are not really easy and some harder then the Ollie itself

Towards the end of the week I gave up on these types of tricks and focused more on trying to Ollie. I am still not there but I am getting better. I did managed to get all 4 wheels off the ground but unless you play it back in slow mo its hard to tell. 

I am skating everyday and will continue to do so. Skateboarding has not been very easy for me but I do think my goal of learning to Ollie is possible.

Week 1

We made it one week down many more to come. I could see a little progression towards the end of the week but nothing crazy. I have a bit more confidence on the board and my 180 kick turns are pretty consistent. Outside of that I am still very new and have a long way to go. 

I spent most of the week trying tricks that did not require an Oillie. I landed a vanilla milkshake twice (stationary) and some finger flips. I had a lot of fun messing around on the ramps at the local skatepark and could see myself dropping in off the big ramp soonish.

Looking forward... I am going to keep working on tricks that don't require Oillies I found a few videos that go over very beginner tricks so I will focus on those. Well enjoy the video !

The Skateboard is Here

After much delay the skateboard from skatedeluxe has arrived. The delay itself was in not fault to skatedeluxe and more so on DHL and covid-19. But the board is here now so moving on :).

I have assembled the board and went out for my first session. I did video the whole thing but something went wrong with the SD card so I lost all the footage.

Setup

• Wheels: Spitfire Formula Four Tablets 51mm 99a

At first I was looking at bones but once I fell into a DLX rabbit hole I wanted a complete DLX setup. Formula four Spitfires are some of the best wheels you can get at the moment. I wanted a small wheel to avoid wheel bit with my low trucks(which is still happening) and the softer 99a duro because I will be skating street mostly and not at smooth park

• Deck: Anti Hero Team Classic Eagle 8.06

The part that started it all. After reading about how and where the boards were made it was clear that I wanted a deck from BBS as the distributor and the DLX brand decks were the best of the bunch.

DLX makes Anti Hero, Krooked, Real

• Trucks: Venture V-Hollow Lights Lo 5.25

I wanted a truck from DLX with a 8in axel. So that meant Venture or Thunder. No real reason for going with a lo truck instead of a high. low being 48mm and high being 55mm. All Thunder trucks are 50mm so I think next time I will go with Thunders

• Hardware: Independent Phillips
• Bearings: Bones Reds

Cheap and recommended by almost everyone. When they need replacing I am going to step up to bones Swiss as I hear they last longer and roll a little better

• Grip Tape: Mob Basic

I didn't trust the free grip tap and most people seem to skate Mob or Jessup.

First ride

Having been on a skateboard when I was younger the very basics like pushing and stopping weren't that hard. I was mostly working on kick turns and ways to pickup and put down the board.

FrontSide kickturns were not a issue I was almost able to do full 180s. BackSide kickturns were a mess so something to work on. 

Hills.... My main issue with hills are if I don't feel there is a natural way of slowing down I start to get nervous as the speed builds ups. I tried a few different ways to slow down first just getting off the board and then a bit of putting my foot down. I was messing around on a few hills and only ate it once. Of course it was in front of kids and in my estate and NOT alone at the near by school ha

Planning on doing weekly progression updates so next post will be in a week

The long awaited skatedeluxe order. No issues with how it arrived or how it was packaged. I liked that they put all the smaller parts in it's own little box.

 Overview of the parts

 After the first session 

Skater XL Custom Map Guide

Well since I am still waiting for the board I thought I would try to recreate the local skate park using photos on google maps for Skater XL. 

I had a very basic understanding of Blender/Unity from some training I did years ago but no way I could just do this without some sort of guide. 

The information is out there but not easy to find at first. So he is me giving back with a guide to find all the great information from the creators in the Skater XL mod community.

With the below information I was able to model my local park import that model into Unity then turn that into a playable map for Skater XL. 

Requirement

• 3d modeling software this guide goes over using Blender
• Unity version  2018.4.17f1(current version the devs are using as of 0.3.0.0B)
• DawgVinci.XXLMapFix.zip  (Required at time of writing due to the devs switching from 2018.4.12 > 4.17 of unity)
• UMM unity mod manager to install the map fix

Recommended 

• Join SXL Modding Discord Discord Channel Info
• SqueegeeDinoToy example map
• Skater-XL-Blender plug in
• Skater-XL-Map-Tools Unity Scripts from billowper
• Skater XL Skater model for Blender Download
• Skater XL Height Stats spreadsheet Spreadsheet

Step 1 

• Learn Blender. The playlist below goes over Blender 28.X which is the latest major version at the time of writing. I watched up to video 14 before I moved over to more Skater XL blender focused videos

Playlist

Step 2 

• Install the Skater-XL-Blender plug in by heading over to SkaterXLModding Github. Just download the .zip and follow the Readme.
• Follow SDT Mapping Tutorials playlist Below

• You can also have a look at Enoksi Youtube for even more Skater XL Blender videos

Playlist

Step 3

• For the Unity side I would just watch the video below. If you have trouble following head over to https://learn.unity.com/tutorials and do a beginner project or two first.
• Download Skater-XL-Map-Tools Billowper Github. Once downloaded just drag it to your project. This will give you a plug-in that will build your map into a asset file Skater-XL can read and a few grind scripts as well.

Step 4

• Open the Sample Scene do a Save-as. You can then build a working map based off this new scene. You will be able to use all the textures and prefabs from the SDT example along with your own models
• When you're ready to try the map out go the the SXL menu then Tools menu export map
• SDT video going over the SXL menu and the new grind scripts from Billowper

Step 5

• If you're missing textures in your map or any custom maps you will need to install UMM and the DawgVinci.XXLMapFix
• UMM https://www.nexusmods.com/site/mods/21?tab=files
• DawgVinci.XXLMapFix
  

General Mod Installation if you need help installing the fix

Happy Modding 

Shoes

The board itself might be stuck in Germany still but the shoes well they arrived two days early ha.

I ordered myself some Etnies Kingpins for no other reason then I remember the brand for making skate shoes. Etnies as a brand seems to still be pretty popular among skaters but none of them seem to use the Kingpin so that is not great. For starting off they will do just fine.

They appear well built and fit pretty good I was shocked how heavy they were ! My past 3 pairs of shoes have all been new balance and these Kingpins are like cement blocks.

No plans of a review just figured I would post a small update as we wait for the blog to really get going.