133 god damn frames, sir.

[Flippy_D]

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.

[Ginny]

It looks great Flippy! I like the way the robot walks.
Whoa, 133 without layers? Kudos to you! :o

[Evil]

AA?

[Neole]

Stupendificient!!!

[danny*]

ace!!!!

[MrColossal]

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

[Necro]

!

[Necro]

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.

[Flippy_D]

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?

[Darth Mandarb]

great!

[Darth Mandarb]

great!

Why did you do it without layers?  (just curious)

dm

[Mikko]

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!

[Pessi]

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!

[undergroundling]

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!

[Scummbuddy]

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.

[Darth Mandarb]

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

[MrColossal]

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

[Flippy_D]

Thanks for the responses. Eric, I'll download it tomorrow.

[OneThinkingGal and ._.]

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.

[loominous]

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.