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I've not written music for a long time. As an excuse not to study for my exam tomorrow, I took a very old midi of mine and improved it as much as I could. You can find it here.

There's something missing, but I can't determine what. I also tried to have some kind of chorus, but had no success with that... And I hate the ending.

This is not meant to be for a game or a song.

3d Realms is no more Take Two stopped funding them, and they ran out of money.

Previously unreleased footage of the mythical Duke Nukem Forever is being released now, and turns out there really WAS a game in development. Or maybe they are still messing with us. Either way, they did make some good games, and I suppose we lost some future good titles.

A video: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YLHALVVM
If DNF manages to get released someday, it'd better be good. 12 years in development? Heh.

Hey,

I am actually writing this with my mobile phone while I am waiting for System Restore to finish.

I have this weird problem: when I booted into windows a couple of days ago, the vast majority of my applications would simply refuse to run; not including -thank God - System Restore, which is one of the first things I tried and worked. Or did it really?

Next time I wanted to turn on my computer, I had the exact same problem. And again, System Restore did the trick. The only things I did both times was that I installed divx, vcl media player and vob sub, which I thought was ridiculous to actually be the real cause. So all is well, I used my computer to only do the usual simple things and made no changes. However, the problem still appeared for the next boot, and I am currently restoring again.

Does this sound familiar somehow? I did try scanning after the first restore, with no results. Then again, if it's a virus clever enough to disable half my applications (including my anti-virus) why didn't it disable system restore?

If you have any ideas, please let me know. Thanks in advance.

Hey all,

I'm going to buy a new pc really soon (place my order within 2 days). Only this time, I'm getting a monster. I've been so out of touch of hardware developments these past few years for various reasons, and every person I try to consult has given me different answers. Anyway, I've made up my mind about most things but there are two things that concern me now:

1)Graphics Card: Is it worth buying a 500 euros card, or should I settle with something less (like GTX 260)? I think that's what I'm going to do, because getting the top-of-the-line hardware just never seems to be wise. Still, I

2) Cooling. Now I'm pretty paranoid about cooling, especially because it was never enough for any of my previous computers (and I never overclocked anything), and also because the system is going to be pretty heavy. Now I'm buying a case with 4 built-in fans, and I'm trying to decide whether I should install a watercooling system or not. Keep in mind that I plan on expanding the system as time goes by (place additional RAM and graphic cards {when they become cheaper})

Is that even safe? I shudder at the thought that it could leak. I thought about putting a radiator on the side which I suppose is safer than directly putting watercooling mods on the actual components. And is that even useful, or should I only care about it once I do upgrade my system with more graphic cards? Or is it still going to make a substantial difference?

Thanks in advance!

That does it. I was enjoying a rather peaceful sleep, when I was awaken by a roach that decided to seek for adventure up the side of my neck. I slapped off the annoyance, but when I saw what it actually was it scared the crap out of me. I have a phobia for insects (especially roaches), and my house is slowly becoming a huge roach empire.

We don't know what's wrong, we have a clean house, we keep spraying stuff and leave those poison traps at the darkest corners. Our kitchen is especially suffering, every night I go downstairs to have a break from my geeky activities I'm caught in the middle of a mad roach orgy.

At least the little buggers are some kind of breed that doesn't grow any longer than about half an inch. That doesn't make them any cuter, though.

Is there a solution to the problem without getting cancer myself? Spraying not only seems to be ineffective, but it's also unhealthy. Has anyone had this problem before?

I've posted a much earlier version of this ages ago. In particular, only the first 1:37 minutes of that version were maintained, but even so they've been edited to sound better.

I think I'm very happy with it, even though I'm still fiddling around with some minor details.

The link: http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/7/3/1986833/The_Citadel_II.mid

Any suggestions? Comments, Criticism? Also, I'm always having trouble determining the genre of my music. Some people told me this is some kind of Progressive Gothic Metal, other's say it's Avante-Garde, etc

You've all seen what happened to the mouse in the previous Spite Jam contest. He was tortured, abused, and his carcass was dumped in the toxic waste of Darkcity's Main Factory. His contact with the unnatural waste somehow saved his life, yet mutated him into something intelligent, strong and horrible. And now, he has returned to revenge!

Rules:
* Draw a mutated rodent (not necessarily a mouse) whose purpose is to revenge mankind.
* Entries will be mostly judged on technical skills, creativity and character posture.

Limitations:
* 32 colours
* No size limit, but the animal should work well as a game character
* No anti-aliased edges

Your rodent is encouraged to wear things like weapons, a villain uniform, mechanical parts, etc, but they are not essential.



Gold, Silver and bronze angry rodent trophies with ruby eyes for the winners

I've been working on this midi for a while, and I think I now consider it finished - it's a song with non-existent lyrics, but I might decide to add them one of these days.

Well, it's not like my usual stuff, because I've been experimenting. The style is something like symphonic metal, I assume. It doesn't have any complex guitar riffs, but at least it's not repetitive.

It's 4:53 long... link: http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/herguardian.mid

It tried to make it sound as good as possible for a midi. I don't know when I'll be able to escape the midi phase, but I find it difficult mostly for two reasons:
a) I can't find and/or afford good software for it - cubase is like 400 euros...FL Studio is horrible, and trackers are just not my thing.
b) I can't find anything that emulates an electric guitar with any close resemblance to reality and/or with a bearable sound.

Hey all,

Lately I've been working on an experimental music project and I figured I could create some concept artwork for it. Well, here is what I came up with:



It seems to be lacking something in the background, solid black just doesn't work right. Also, I'm not so sure about the shading on the hand.

Any suggestions?

I don't usually start new threads in here, but I need some help for my brother.

He definately loves to paint, but he somehow has the need to buy very expensive oil brushes of perfect quality, sizes ranging from very small to medium and preferably with short hair. Online shops usually offer prices ranging from 3 to 5 dollars for size #0 or #1, and he kinda feels like a professional brush should have been more expensive...

Local shops don't seem to have anything he likes. Google is my friend and everything, but I don't know how to pick from the numerous online shops that appear. I don't know which I can trust, which provide bad service, etc. Because it's real money we're talking about, I thought I'd ask this forum for recommendations as many people here work with art.

Also, how can I know about how big the brush size is equivalent in dimensions?

Thanks in advance

Hey everyone

I'm currently working to get some art finished for my portfolio, they'll ask for one since I'm going to study Graphic Design. I still have two years thanks to the army but I guess the more I practise the better I get.

Here's one I'm working on:



Colouring is still in progress, but here's what I have so far:


A larger version of the background is here, it would screw the forums up so I give you the link instead: http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/scan_.JPG

So what would you change? What bothers me is the perspective, it looks like someone bent the image. Too late to fix that I guess, unless I have to redo the whole thing. Another thing that bothers me is the legs (of the character and the creature on the left) and the lower right corner that seems empty. I'll appreciate any help

Hey all,

My computer is now officially stupid. Every once in a while it locks up in a very ugly way. Investigating it I found out that the CPU becomes 100% or close. It's like, I might just sit and stare the monitor without any big cpu-consuming programs and see CPU - just magically - fly to 100%

I can't system restore, by the way... I haven't tried, but I don't want to for a lot of different reasons

From all the scans I performed so far, my computer is virus-free and spyware-free. But I don't get it, what is it that causes the slowdown? By observing task manager, System Idle Process is what takes all the CPU. I downloaded Security Task Manager and it doesn't show anything suspicious going on. Neither does it show any process using that much of CPU, yet task manager shows there's a 100% cpu usage.

I'm not really a tech person, but I'm confused as to what might be going on. I last defragmented my drive sometime near the Ice Age, maybe that could be the problem?

I think I'm really improving when it comes to composing music.

This is my latest work, it's a song that's meant to go for a competition (yeah I'm aware it doesn't have a chorus part). I'm not sure what style it is, it has a a little bit of Nightwish, some tiny bit Tourniquet (the band) and some pop-rock elements even at the end. This is the first piece I write that I'm more than 90% satisfied with .

It's still midi though, I tried making a high-quality mp3 but I failed miserably. If anyone knows a good (free) way to simulate the electric guitar on the computer please tell me and I'll be really. really grateful. I tried a lot of soundfonts and none of them sounds good enough.

http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/_untitled31_.mid

Right Click the link and then Save Target As. It sounds a lot better if you don't let your browser play it.

So, any suggestions, comments, critisism?

Edit: Here's a version with an alternate ending: http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/_untitled32_.mid
It's the same, except that the guitar is more rhythmic at the outro and the pans/volumes and a few minor changes. Which one do you think is better?

Hey people,

It is Christmas day and yet I'll be a pure geek and live it as any other day lived dedicated to the Holy Computer. Therefore, I decided to write a tune as a tribute. And behold, the link: http://www.geocities.com/crosshead777/demonocracy.mid

I know it's boring in the beginning, but I'm planning to extend the whole song and the boring part will just be the intro to it. There's no drums or bass yet, because I'm not good at doing that and I fear it is going to ruin the song. I might add them, in the future.

I think it's the best thing I've done so far (that doesn't say much though, heh). I plan to add lyrics too once I complete it (if it doesn't reach 5 minutes I won't be satisfied by its length).

Comments, critisism, suggestions? What I'm mostly looking for is some hints from the experts. Especially for the solos, what I created sounds like a fast melody and not really like a "metal" solo.

Btw, what genre of music is this? I have no idea

[Fairies]

Hey

I took the advice I got here and improved some things, like the hands.

Note that the following drawings look twice as good on the actual paper, they lost a lot of colour due to the scanning (especially the blood). I used pencil, an ordinary pen, black + light-blue + bright red + geen + purple ink and a yellow highlighter.


Yes I know his head is too big and his hand too small. This was much better as in pencil but I screwed up the inking. The poem is in Greek


I suppose it's impossible to hold a straight cross like that, but I realised it later. Also I don't like the left arm of the demon


This is one of my random stuff, the colours blend very well on the actual paper. The thing below is incomplete crap, I know the hand is not correct I just didn't feel like fixing it. I did the whole page including the "poem" out of boredom.


The guy on the left is an angel and the dead one is a demon.Ã,  Yes his wings are uneven and he somehow tilts to the right.

Because I already had two poems I figured I'd give another one

Fairies

Yesterday I discovered life
A childish soul has died
Bears are not cuddly; they rip your flesh apart
The fairy rapes your dreams; the fairy is a slut!

And you, you stay away from me
I have a disease
And it's going to backfire on you, and only you
All this bitterness is not going to save you

I need compensation, dear friend
before you perish in your own righteousness
I want my pacifier back
The fairy is a slut on drugs!

Umm anyway... What do you think? Any helpful critisism or suggestions? Do you think I should get a tablet? Also, are there any good tutorials about human proportions and stuff?

Finally, I got a scanner!

Here is some of my art. I drew a lot of other things but I can't find them. These are my favourite ones though. They all look better (and the colors more vivid, especially the blood and the fires) on the actual paper. They're freaky, yeah, but they show what I feel when I'm lonely or depressed. Oh, and I'm not a satanist, but a lot of people claim so when they see my drawings.


This is one of my rare kinda cheery drawings. It's a donkey-ish animal I made for fun, I called her Marina because her eyes remind me of a girl called Marina.


I called this as "The House of Mutated Pumpkins". It doesn't mean anything, it's just a random thing I drew.



In this page you can see the frog-human-demon Vortagos who's eating my arm. You can also see that strange winged creature who is supposed to represent my guilts. The other drawings don't mean anything except the burning dude who is supposed to be for that poem I wrote on the left. Viva la cheesiness!


This is Peter, a walking plant with eyes! Isn't he adorable?


This is called "My precious misery". It's the latest one I've drawn so far (I drew it yesterday), but it didn't come out good at all. I should have made him kneel or something. It's supposed to be a symbolical drawing of someoneÃ,  who holds tight whatever he thinks its precious to him, but in reality what he holds is what makes him bleed. Bleh.


These were drawn in the beginning of this school year. They don't mean anything, they're just drawings. The one on the top right is supposed to be a joke. I asked some guy called Andrew what to draw next and he told me "I don't know, my brain is dead at the moment". So I drew his brain being recharged.


This contains a drawing of a girl in my school that I find way too cute (even though it doesn't really look like her all; and yeah, I do know that her eyes look like testicles. That was not intented, but I did want them to look weird). It also contains another symbolic drawing (the guy who's kneeling; people take it as satanic, even though it's supposed to be the opposite).

(zoomed versions of the girl and kneeling man are here and here)

So, what do you think of it? I'm not asking much for a theme critic, but for a technique critic. I use a lot of different pens, a yellow highlighter and some pencil too. I make mistakes that most times can't be fixed because once the pen gets there it can't get out. Maybe in the future I'll try to optimize my drawings with photoshop, or I'll get a tablet to draw instead.

I know the shading is wrong, but I wasn't trying to make it correct.

So is there anything I could do for my future drawings? I can't edit the ones I have obviously, because they're on paper. But what do do that's wrong and needs to change?

Finally, I thought that maybe a game with graphics following this style could be a good idea. Maybe the blue stripes will be visible in all backgounds too to give a sketchy look. Obviously, AGS won't be able to handle this idea right because this would abuse the alpha-channelling. But this is only an idea, I don't plan making any game anytime soon.

Hey

I've been experimenting around in Guitar Pro (a midi program good for guitarists) and decided to write an existing song of mine in it as a practise (I already have the full music and words planned out, just not recorded yet).

Well, it sounded very plain with just one guitar because there aren't any vocals (this is a midi after all), so I decided to add something more to it to see how it sounds. So I added a... banjo. A friend of mine called this "Banjocore Metal" (he was obviously joking).

This is so much different than the idea I had in the beginning. I wanted a slow, dark metal vibe, but it turned out to be strangely cute and not really metal at all.

So, what do you people think about it? Any suggestions, critisism?

Teh link: http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/mimc_vf2.mid

Edit: This is just the verse part, it's not the full song because I haven't put it down yet

[AGS: The Musical]

What is a Photoshop Phriday?

Photoshopping isn't drawing a completely new image -- It's editing images to create a new image, such as editing one image or combining several images. The contest usually lasts for a fortnight. Also, you don't have to specifically use Photoshop -- Paint Shop Pro, MSPaint, or any other programs can be used. Please make sure your image doesn't exceed the width of the screen.

See this link:
http://www.somethingawful.com/photoshop/

And for other examples, see here:
http://www.worth1000.com/

-------------------------------------

This week's topic is....

AGS: The Musical!

This competition has to be about one or more AGSers or adventure game characters (AGS or not) being in the music scene or performing a musical act.

Here's an example (well... sort of, I got lazy)



The images will be judged both on technical value and creativeness. I collect bribes via post mail. Currency should be in CYP (Cypriot Pounds), checks or credit cards will NOT be accepted.

1... 2... 3... GO!

I wrote this depressive poem.. Be gentle because I'm not really a poet person and English isn't my first language. It's called My Darkest Material (don't ask why it's just the first thing that came to my mind).

Hear my lament
As they devour my remains
As I love at my expense
As my blessing becomes torment

Watch me
Fixed Judified and forgotten
Crucified by nailing words

Cursed be my name

And as my tears are flowing wilted
Watering the dirt below my feet
A carnivore blossoms

Let my creation masticate my flesh
My blood besprinkle
Let my feathers scatter
To desecrate
To suffocate
To finalise what was procreated
So that Your Mercy be bespoken

I saw a movie once which had to be one of the funniest I've seen.. It was about a stupid family, whose dad thought people were stealing their garbage. Without knowing they got into a conspiracy that involved weapon smuggling of some sort.. I saw it a long time ago and I don't even remember it's title. Does anybody know the title of it?