New signature. Thought it was of some significance as an achievement (don't know why? read the topic title).
Yes, it is advertising my game.
Yes, it is slightly faulty in two areas.
Yes, it may not look much.
But you try doing that without layers. I very nearly went insane.
It looks great Flippy! I like the way the robot walks.
Whoa, 133 without layers? Kudos to you! :o :)
AA? :)
Stupendificient!!!
ace!!!!
seriously people... 3 one word answers in a row? evil's was only 2 letters
is that all you have to say? and if it is i don't think it's helping anything besides take up space.
this is the critics lounge not the boatloads of praise lounge, i take the rule:
Critique that isn't constructive in any way, like "Oh, that sux, man"
That won't go anywhere.
from the forum rules post as also pertaining to these kinds of posts.
sorry to be so rude or whatever but the reason i don't post art here is because i hate when people post "great!" or "WOW EYEPOPPING EMOTICON!" i'd post here to have my art critiqued not praised
and flippy:
why the 3 inches of total blackness on the right hand side?
and you may think that it's an amazing feat making that with no layers but it's just a waste of time. i figured you'd want to work on your game not spend way too long making a signature icon
i'm not meaning to be harsh with that statement, just saying that you're wasting a lot of time juggling mspaint and i hope you aren't trying to impress anyone that you are, hehe
eric
!
:D
I agree even though that is kinda normal banner size , its an awful lot of black space , if u wanted it that size then at least centre animation.
Eric: Ya, but at the time I started doing it, I didn't even know what layers were. And I didn't have any decent paint program. Come to think of it, I still don't.... I wasn't trying to impress anyone - more of a warning to others.
The three inches are there... I don't quite know why. They just are. And I'm ever so slightly unwilling to remove the same area off 133 frames just to make it look better.
Anyhoo, on with the actual game, eh?
great!
Quote from: Darth Mandarb on Wed 30/07/2003 15:52:53
great!
Why did you do it without layers? (just curious)
dm
Quote from: Flippy_D on Wed 30/07/2003 13:43:43
And I'm ever so slightly unwilling to remove the same area off 133 frames just to make it look better.
I don't know which program you use for animation, but I'd think that there is a tool for cropping the whole animation. It's possible at least with Animation Shop and I think it is kinda basic feature in other programs too.
Other than that, nice work you have done! :)
I'm with Eric on this. One-word answers or qustions do not qualify as posts (besides encouraging ones, if there really isn't anything to criticize). For example, Evil asks "AA?". I'm not actually even sure what he means. But I take it he wants to ask "Anti-aliased". So... Uh, that would probably be "Make those one hundred and thirty three frames anti-aliased?". Wait, that's not a question. OK, just kidding. I'll stop messing around. But seriously, as pointed out in the rules somewhere - form full PHRASES. You have the keyboard for that. It's getting out of hands. The whole thing, that is.
Darth Mandarb, you're kidding, right? (In case not, read Flippy's last post.)
As for the black area - I like it. I know it might seem useless, nothing happening there and all that, but I think it really adds to the composition. I have no theory on this or anything though, it's just my opinion. I really like it.
I think the animation kind of jumps when the droid is going on the letter D. Not that big an issue, really, just thought I'd point it out. Otherwise the motion is really smooth! I can easily believe there are a hundred frames there. :)
Other than that, I don't think it's a bad idea to work on a signature animation. I mean, it is very probable that Flippy wouldn't have used that time working on the game. At least that's the case for me often. He did learn something valuable from the animation, didn't he? At least the fact that he could use layers to make the process easier.
Eric probably can help you out better how the layers could have made the work a whole lot easier. The only thing I can think of is that you make two layers with the droid on both, then have the other one 50% transparent and move the droid on the other layer one pixel left and down, for example. After you've saved the image, make this layer 50% visible and move the other one. Placing the droid would be much more stress free.
Actually, I'm not sure, do you mean you still don't have a decent paint program or that you don't how to use layers?
Anyway, keep it up, Flippy!
First off, the animation does look very good, although as Eric said, the blank space to the right does seem a bit unnecessary.
As for the whole "no layers" bit, if you don't have a program that can draw with layers, its pretty easy to buy/download/steal one. There is really no excuse for an animator of your caliber to be working without layers, its just a waste of time really. Once the initial sprites were all drawn, this animation could have taken 15 minutes if you just used layers.
As Pessi said, I'm also not sure if you mean you don't have a decent paint program or if you don't know how to use layers. If the first thing is the case, go out and buy/download/steal something! And if you don't know how to use layers, I'm sure someone would be glad to give you a little tutorial.
Keep up the good work!
And use some damn layers next time!
From my knowledge of the game, and watching AGSTV, the game will make the player feel very alone. By having so much dead space on the sig, it adds to the lonliness.
I think its pretty cool, good job on it.
Pessi - I wasn't kidding ... I did read his last post, I just read it wrong.
Flippy - considering you did this without layers I've got nothing to say about it other than, you've got patience man ...
dm
http://www.gimp.org/
free painting tool with layers and it appears animation support
the three inches doesn't really bother me either, i guess it does balance out the whole banner i was just curious
and darth, was your first post "great" a joke or did you not read what i wrote?
but flippy, once you start understanding and using layers you will notice your productivity sky rocketing, i recommend Photoshop because that is what i use [and it came free with me tablet] but gimp will do just as well. it may take a second to get used to the controls but i believe it's totally worth it
eric
Thanks for the responses. Eric, I'll download it tomorrow.
Heh, don't know about the number of words in the post. Evil's certainly contributed nothing.
But I don't think people should just be posting to criticise. While this may not be the 'boatloads of praise' forum as Eric said, people still like to hear that thier work looks good. If there's like 2 replies to a thread, its very likely that the content isn't good.
I do agree that one word, or smiley posts contribute nothing to the threads.
My 2 pesetas.
I dont see the problem with one-word posts or a smiley.
They become a problem when they arent complemented with constructive posts. This is where Eric n the relatively highly skilled people should step in. But unfortunately they rarely do.
To criticise constructively you actually have to have about the same skill as the artist, otherwise you re pretty much stuck with normative judgements. The higher the skill in relation to the artist the potentially more thourough the criticism.
This means that the ideal thread to me could contain any number of openmouthed smileys posts, as long as people with relatively high skills take some time to provide their thoughts.
So Eric n others, if you want some useful criticism of your work I d suggest you encourage others by providing some insightful comments yourself regularly.
I'd say eric is pretty justified withhis comments. He is a pretty big contributor to the critics forum, and afterall - this isn't him asking for detailed critiques and comments for himself. He is trying to better the overall critics forum as well as flippy's own perspective of peoples opinions of his work. Eric is hardly being greedy.
I personally have no problem with one word replies. I can understand people simply wanting the artist to know that they like the art but they dont have time to analyze it or figure out why they do. Im sure there are people who do like praise over anything else too. But eric has a valid point in that the critics forum does need to keep a good level of critiquing. I certainly dont want the forum to end up being the "Seeking Attention, Praise Me Out of Sympathy or Recognition" Forum.
As far as flippy's work, it's nice and oldschool- but not very productive. If you have all that free time- more power to you. But a great deal of becoming a great artist is effinciency- by no means Im not a great artist either, but my advice would be to make it easier on yourself. If I were to shoot a student film frame by frame with a still camera- I would hope more people would tell me I was crazy and should stop wasting my time- than tell me its a great retro acheivement. Innovate.
Yes, the rules recommend elaborating your criticism, since just a few words are not capable of improving anything or providing constructive advice, merely ego-stroking and friend-making.
Darth-Mandarb, I think we've also made clear that you should avoid double-posting, especially when your posts are that short. I also don't see the point with quoting yourself, although I can't say it's against the rules.
Even:
I believe u missed one of his posts:
Quotethis isn't him asking for detailed critiques and comments for himself
Quotethe reason i don't post art here is because i hate when people post "great!" or "WOW EYEPOPPING EMOTICON!" i'd post here to have my art critiqued not praised
Andail:
I m well aware of the rules n I support them to the extent that they encourage people to try to citicise constructively.
But they have a wierd consequence: If Bill Watterson himself would post some background in here his thread would ve no replies, save perhaps for those who don t like his style n could suggest that he oughta paint differently.
If that d happen, I think we d have seen the last of mr Watterson in here.
So wouldn t it be preferable if the rules to allowed me to post an openmouthed smiley or just express my admiration if Bill or the likes of him would pop in here?
Eric claims he doesn't post his artwork here because HE is one of the few who gives constructive criticism. And its true. You could only argue Eric's absence from this forum for a period of days, or a month... etc - but truth is Eric has supported this forum more than most since the forum's conception.
Therefore, he has full right to argue back to you, loominous, that doing what you ask won't solve a damn thing. Unless eric himself critiqued his own art, which would be fun to watch- but pretty pointless in my opinion.
And it's interesting Loominous, that should Bill Watterson one day post in this forum- that you would be too lazy to tell him anything but a smiley or one word reply. I'm glad you show no favoritism among those you deny opinions on their artwork. However, if smileys and one word replies were all AGSers offered a devoted artist such as Watterson- perhaps its best he does not post here.
My, my, I seem to have upset you.
Although I did mention Eric in my post my aim was set on the relatively skilled part of the forummembers and not on him specifically. If he s the regular contributor of thorough criticism as you say he is, it was unfortunate that I d include him.
My point was simply: What harm does oneword/praising posts do if they re complemented with some thorough criticism from skilled people who re capable of providing some insightful comments?
The idea was that we re all reduced to gasping smileys when confronted with superior skills. So if Watterson was to post something, we d all probably be stuck with openmouthed smileys or more elaborate text versions of it.
That is, we d all be short of constructive criticism so the thread would have to be empty if the current rules were to be followed.
To a complete novice Eric's pics would be in the relatively same league as Watterson to a fairly experienced artist. Hence, the novice is stuck with the same praise/openmouths posts which the rules forbid.
So if the novices are prohibited from expressing their admiration of Eric's pics using a smiley or a textversion we d all be prohibited to express ours of Watterson in any way.
Unless you re advocating doublestandards that is.
guess i better explain myself a little more, unless you and evenwolf would like to keep arguing over me? hehe
If I come into the critics lounge and there's an amazing bit of art [and it happens a lot] and i want to tell the person that it is good and that i can't find anything wrong with it then i should be allowed to do that.
this particular thread bothered me because 4 posts... in a row... barely adding up to 5 words. that's just silly. and I'd still like to know what the hell 'AA?' means but I think evil just posted and moved on.
i also don't want this forum to become one of constant total crit but again i want to differentiate between praise and just posting an emoticon. "Wow, I really like the way the wackadoo really looks like it's flimbanging in the whooha. Nice job!" that took me 5 seconds to type, that's only 4 more seconds of your life instead of posting an emoticon.
if the art is really that jaw dropping and there is absolutely nothing you can ever possibly ever ever say about it ever, like your hands just melt when they touch the keys and you have to wear gloves just to post 8 eyepopping emoticons in a row with plenty of exclamation points... then we have a problem. art like that shouldn't be out there among the people where it can do harm!
this forum is 99.9% helpful and critical, it's just this was too much.
also loominous, there are plenty of very talented people who do post here. and if i were to post some art i would do it and not just wait for other people i found talented to post. if i posted and waited for pessi then i should have just mailed it to him. for me at least i would want EVERYBODY'S reaction to it. Just because I went to art college doesn't mean that my opinion will always be better. I think that everyone has the ability to critique art, if you look at it and you don't like something about it, tell the person. it's that simple.
when it comes to things like colour theory and composition, a novice may not know the terminology for it but i still think that an artistic person will be able to spot some problems.
"The colours are wicked bright man, they make my eyeballs bleed!"
"Reduce the saturation on the reds and yellows."
i may be babbling now but see what i mean?
and i see what you mean loom, if the majority of posts are helpful crit what does one or 2 smiley posts hurt? well i guess the answer is it's just personal to me. like i said before, if they can't spend another 3 seconds saying WHAT they find so emoticonilicious about it then how will the artist know what's so good about it? it's like general praise that will make the artist feel good sure [though it would annoy me a little] but shouldn't we at least try to pinpoint one thing that we can tell the artist that will let them know why they should feel good?
also to clear another thing up, lately i haven't posted any art because my game is going well and i don't have much to ask help on. I also like to surprise people with what i'm working on.
i guess what i should have added is that when posting art it's always with a little reserve because i don't want a lot of wowowowow. i want to know what works and what doesn't, knowing what works makes me happy and knowing what doesn't makes the art better. i hope that doesn't sound pretentious because that isn't my intention at all.
hope i didn't ramble on too much
eric
The rules are there mainly for these reasons:
If a lot of people just browse this board and type "Wow" or "Great" or ":)!!" all the time, the idea with criticism is soon forgotten, and soon it will turn into a back-scratching game where you just try to be friends with as many as possible. It will turn out a routine. "Allright, time for my daily 'compliment artwork at the critics lounge-session'". "What smiley could I use today to vary my comments a bit?".
There might be a purpose for this, but not good enough a purpose to fill this board with it.
The artists will not gain from this, they will only browse through the pages of the thread counting replies with nice emoticons, instead of really being able to improve their art.
This is the critics lounge, critics mean telling somebody what he/she has done right or wrong.
Perhaps people here are too afraid they might hurt someone's feelings, but still - pretty please with sugar on top - be sincere and elaborate your comments.
I agree with the general feel in here. I like to know that someone likes my art, but what I really came here for is to get suggestions toimprove. It is really a pain when you post in high hopes of getting a suggestion on why the heck your sprite looks bad, and you end up having to pop it back to the top yourself several times before anyone replys. Oh well....Great animation, by the way.
MrColosssal - My first post
was meant to be a joke. I very much appreciate your opinions about 1 word posts and not backing them up with more substance (I even tend to agree with you).
Quote
Darth-Mandarb, I think we've also made clear that you should avoid double-posting, especially when your posts are that short. I also don't see the point with quoting yourself, although I can't say it's against the rules.
I did this to prove a point. Read next paragraph.
I try
very hard to not worry about things when I know full well it's not going to do any good. I mean, no matter how much we say, "Stop doing this" or, "You shouldn't do that" or even, "Please don't do that", it's still going to happen.
You could always put a minimum characters entered on each post ... but then you'd just get smart asses (like myself) posting a lot of smilies.
:o :o :o :o :o :o :o
cheers,
dm