Messages

I'm not a fan of sports, so I don't usually watch the Olympics. The opening ceremonies are usually pretty cool, but noting I can't watch on YouTube in a few hours.

It's really quite sad what China has been doing, but I think how people are attacking the Beijing Olympics is much more sad.

Oh, and that Nazi Germany thing is hilarious. I really wish we could see who was holding the sign. That's usually the best part.

What about having the two grey ends together and slide apart when you hover over it? That way it's not in the way of the gameplay and you still have lots of room to work with.

Very interesting concept Ben. A little off the wall, but very creative.

Gilbot, the pink ears look like your mouth and a cat is trying to claw it's way out of it.

Great entries so far. Keep them coming in!

Oh, and saving with something else is fine, even a copy paste. The point is just to work with the limited tools of Paint.

I thought this was going to be an announcement by m0ds that he's finishing Kinky Island.

I only know one language fluently, and even then I have very little grasp of writing concepts of my native language.

I don't have a problem with writing in different languages, but when writing papers or writing dialogue I write in a lot of my mannerisms and words I use a lot. "Don't know" is always "dunno" and every extreme situation is "epic."

But mainly I wanted to say that your comma use is very good. Much better than mine.

Looks good. Can't wait to see more entries pouring in.

The reason I requested just paint was to test your skills and creativity. It's really easy to traces a photo with layers, and not a lot of people are used to working completely with MS Paint. It's an interesting experience working with something so simple. Plus very few people put a lot of effort in their MS Paint Game entries.

I hadn't planned to count the bonus portraits as an additional entries. Depending on how many more enter maybe I'll count the bonus portraits as a second entry.

I like the look, but the gradient is a bit much for the GUI. You could animate it to have lots of noise and just use the images and let them flicker.

Arrows are a bit cheesy, maybe you could add another box that shows the item you've selected and just use a different cursor that you only use for objects. Or lose the arrows and make the boundaries around the interactive object big so there's no pixel hunting.

I like the idea of showing the item in color, but maybe keep the colors semi-opaque and fade in. You don't want everything changing colors if your cursor moves across the GUI.

I use Beta on Vista and I've never had a problem with it. Nothing feels beta about it. It's never crashed or errored, and if anything it crashes less than the latest stable version.

[Self Portraits]

Alright. Sprite Jam time.

A few days ago I received an email from my dad. He's a head honcho at a help desk services company, and everyone knows that those geeky help desk workers get bored. All of the people in my dad's office are doing self-portraits of themselves in MS Paint. My dad can't even draw a stick man so he "commissioned" me to draw a portrait of him. So now I ask you to draw a portrait of yourself. I'll keep the rules the same as the rules that were set by my dad's office.

Here's the portrait I did of my dad.


Theme: Self Portraits
Rules: You must draw a portrait of yourself and you MUST use MS Paint. (Sorry Mac users. You can't properly use AGS on a Mac, so get a PC. )
Size: Any size you want, but nothing wider than 500 pixels.
Colors: Use as many colors you feel necessary, but try to restrict yourself. Paint isn't designed to utilize hundreds of colors.
Bonus: Draw another portrait of a parent in the same style.

I know some of you like having more guidelines, so if you like that sort of thing, use the same work area as I used. 65 x71 pixels with a 2 pixel border.

You've got a week, but I'm in the process of moving, so I might be busy unpacking/forgetting that I'm hosting a sprite jam.

Eh, and I guess I'm being too tough on Mac users. If there's some sort of online or Mac based equivalent of MS Paint, use that.

You're perspective is way off. You really should read the tutorial thread in the critics lounge.

Well, there definitely needs to be more frames. It may be alright for low res, but for something this large, there really needs to be more frames. Her legs are moving correctly, but her arms and swaying a bit much and her hands are going crazy.

The character looks really good, but her knees are low. Or her shins are short. One of the two.

I'm not sure what the front view looks like, but the area above her breasts is sticking out a bit far. Maybe she's got them crammed in there and they'd do that, but the bump would be lower than where it is now.

I'm a musician, and am often unhappy with my work. I'll work on a project for a long time, listen to it late in the night and think it's great. The next day I hate it and never listen to that recording, or even play it again. Then people will ask to hear my work, and I'll play a song I hate and realize it's fucking great. There are songs that I've written that I hated and now love and am totally happy with.

It could be ego centrism, but I think it's just that we're amazed at what we've accomplished.

[For Inspiration, Try Moving to a New Location]

For Inspiration, Try Moving to a New Location

If you're working on a laptop, move to a different room of your house. Try working on your kitchen counter or on the front porch. If you're on a desktop, try moving your setup to another room, or even rearrange your current room. A change in environment can boost your motivation.

Yeah, I did it by hand.  I you have the buildings separate you could distort the out line, but because there's a lot of different depths and I set the "light source" so low, it's probably easier to do by hand. Just some black shapes and some gradients on multiply layers and the opacity lowered.

The sun in the background will make the shadows a lot different than where I had my shadows going, but with them going that direction it gives the image a bit more flow and visual direction.

The big head is a bit too much but the other too look great. Some higher contrast maybe, but it depends on what the backgrounds look like.

I'd move the rock over a bit to the right. Being right on that angle does make it an eyesore. Smaller rocks around it will help too. Steps need some help like Matti pointed out.

I think the contrasting outlines look neat. A clean cartoony style. I think that if you added more cast shadows around the brick wall, the roots, and some twigs and things, it'll help make the outlines less bold. Areas under the awning and the cast leaves on the house look good, but areas around the downspout, the door and the roof facing us are lacking some shadows.

A MIDEVAL ROBOT! Who'd a thunk?



Meh, I had it envisioned in my head a lot different. Sweet hand idea, btw. And even better Jam idea. Gives the whole thing some unity.

No idea how many colors. 8 for the sprite, a few more for the background?

Both what Wham and Mazoliin suggested are great ideas. Making the head turn down as well as an occasional bob would make it less jumpy.

The background looks good. The doors feel a little flat. They could also be recessed a little bit, especially the angled doors on the right. The dithering on the pillar is a bit much. If the whole room used dithering, it might look better, but it's out of place. I think just the dark shade there would be fine. The bench is also a bit flat. Maybe add a darker edge on the bottom and right side for the bottom, and a darker left and lighter top side for the back part.

I always felt weird about using this type of vanishing point, the kind where the tops of the doors are all flat. It gives it sort of a dark feeling. With this background, it definitely makes it more sinister.

The vent on the airlock stands out too much to my eye. Maybe make it a dark gray outline rather than black?

Also, everything Progz said. I like his floor, but metallic tiles would be cool. They're a plugin (or maybe it's incorporated in AGS, I have no idea) to do reflections. With a character, you could easily make a basic black tile look reflective.

It's part theme, part host, part contestants and part time.

If it's a superb theme, more people give it a go. If the host is really helpful, usually more people post their attempts. If someone does an awesome or inspiring work, people are more (or less) likely to try too. And amount of work vs. amount of time users have to work (IE: scheduling conflicts, holidays, etc.)

Animating is hard stuff. It's often overlooked.