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In Finland no one makes fun or attacks people in the media, and I imagine it's the same with all Scandinavian and Slavic, as well as many of the central european nations.

Indeed. If any joker could walk up to our President and make a clown out of him, nobody would respect him anymore.
He's our elected image (not leader) and only one who should be treated with respect. After all, Parliament decides stuff, not him.
If I'd post a message on Internet saying that he's a moron, I should expect KAPO (our Defence Police, read "FBI" or "KGB") knocking at my door 30 minutes later. Recently, defence minister accepted a law which allows to punish people commenting in Internet... Of course, it just means serious money fine, not a dark cell for a lifetime.

And I don't think that's the system limiting my rights in any way or a lack of Democracy. Laughing at someone we elected to represent country and nation is laughing at the country and nation itsself.

Making fun of press and Parliament is way another thing, of course.

I didn't know that.

But...
Though there's always joking about power, but this video, well. It sounded a bit too personal and offensive to me. Satire works when "attacked" person laughs along with the crowd and gives a nice warm forgiving smile. Where was it? Well, later?

Larger guns do not neccesarily mean more "fire", since they have longer "guns"

I'm no expert neither. Most handguns use 9mm ammo. It's 19mm long. M16 uses 5.56mm NATO ammo. And this is 39mm long. Now, how to calculate volume for a cylinder...? Well, my calculations tell that yes, 9mm bullets should have more gunpowder?

And gunpowder is what flashes, right?

Eh, but in movies and games, M16 generates a star- or x-shaped muzzle flash (if viewed from front, not side), and it's brighter and bigger than the one pistols make (which is almond-shaped from side and round from front).

It's still mystery for me.

Well, muzzle flash could be visible in automatic fire, but hardly seen from single shot. For a game sprite, I suggest still using some flash.

Dunno. It was quite funny and surprising, but I'm not sure if someone has brass balls here. Or how to measure freedom of speech / joke tolerance is such case.

Maybe - for someone like Colbert - a brave/insane? show like this guarantees stardom and a nice career. Not every comedian gets the chance to make similar appearance... and not every comedian dares to even dream about it.

Then again, isn't insulting an official a crime? Especially if the official happens to be -khm- the highest of them? And in public, media? He could be locked away in totally legal manner and no one could complain about it... It would just be bad for George's already bad ratings. I'm not familiar with laws of US, but I believe there's a paragraph for cheeky comedians insulting officials .

Well, there's not much countries where a comedian could pull tricks like this... I can't imagine how such show would end in... Russia, for example. The comedian (to trick the public) would maybe walk off unharmed, but the director(s) of TV station(s) broadcasting such show nationwide would spend unknown amount of time in a small, wet, cold room... and never be a director again. Even if there would be NO repressions, the comedian would be fired immediately, just because directors are afraid of power and trouble it may cause.

If Bush had good advisors or figured out himself (er, maybe not), he would backfire this circus quite easily in his next speech - complain about "everybody not taking things seriously enough", "we're at war, for god's sake" and "enough of comedy", etc. Only way to get rid of buffoon's image is to start acting in serious manner.

Anyway, entertaining. As a comedy has to be. So someone did his work very well here.

[is]

Impressive anims, Sektor!

But muzzle flash that gun generates is bigger than yours.

http://www.gunsmokeenterprises.net/muzzle%20flash.jpg
That's M4, some modification atleast.

Or simply google images for "muzzle flash" - even handguns seem to generate larger flash (about a size of a human head), I guess M4 generates even larger due stronger ammo... of course, the flash is very quick, and realistic doesn't mean the best if it comes to low-res sprites.

Single shot animation, 4 frames, I left feet unchanged (except that I moved right foot a pixel back)

Doesn't work so well for a burst or automatic fire, though.
But then again... no solider keeps gun near head when autofiring (I suppose it's kept at torso/stomach level). 

All I understood from the pictures was that the stance has to be comfortable to keep your head low, and crouch or jump immediately when needed.
That's not standing up straight like sektor's solider, but keeping knees bent and head low.

Well, sounds logical...
Sorry sektor, your solider has just taken a bullet from sniper 
Stance from last strip, frame 3 looks most practical to me. If head would be shifted forward a pixel or two.

I like these, simple and realistic.

But, he looks somewhat like a lazy shooter to me. Like he's not a dedicated fighter but a drunkard trying to hit a duck.

I suggest - in shooting stances, to bend his body a it more forward, eye closer to the gun, like he's really trying to snipe and actually hit something... you know, warfare makes people nervous, and not that relaxed. That should be visible in his stance too. Also, pull his one foot to more back,  more supporting position - so it would seem like he's trying to fight the recoil.

Currently, if the recoil was strong enough, he'd instantly fall onto his back.

WHY DOES IT TAKE THAT MUCH TIME?Huh If I want to create a game, then it either takes months or i have to work 8 hours a day... bah

SSSSSHH!

Don't yell so loud, some people haven't noticed it yet.
So let them start some really ambitious projects first...

The bg Looks quite good, despite too saturated colors. Only thing I'd think about is usabililty in a game... This room wouldn't make a good bg, don't you think?

Wouldn't water and/or steam be radioactive? Where'd you store it?

Because they look cool? A bit girlish and well... for a blog page, they fit like a glove, IMO. I just tried random colors to make something comparable.

I suggest color, because white font isn't quite readable from light-gray-gradient background. I mean, it IS readable, but not comfortable to read.

I suggest color. Gray is so... miserable.

I use BSPlayer for this. But printscreen always works too.
Point is, why do you need a screencap and from where? Something  encoded down to XVid or WMV rarely gives a shot with any quality.

Random video editing tool should also give the option (Premiere, Vegas are what I know for sure)

 

It works like wonder! A bit odd, how it sounds now, but muuuuch better than before.

[yourself]

Though you probably got way more help than you wanted to - I should say that the hands on your character look quite awful. Awful as with bad shape, shade isn't that bad. But you have to put more effort into outlines - these hands look more like logs to me!

A simple mspaint explanation: Left is correct, right one - yours.



Blue dots show places where you have to pay attention (and where things got wrong).
Always, always when drawing a person, observe yourself to have a clearer idea. Aren't your arms thinner just before palm?

Pressing on noticeable parts on your image helps to achieve more realistic feel.
Random google for you, to back up my point some more:



Ah, better one:



http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/rahaga-tahu/MOC/Misc/LifeSize/picture_389.jpg

Though pictures are not needed really, good reference is right in your direct reach, hehe

I DID mean separate tracks. If a track is 3 minutes long, and you spend < 30 seconds in a room, you'll never get to actually hear the track. Which makes the background music somewhat pointless.

That's why I'm suggesting integration. Sure, it could be scripted - but why add a load of script to every room just for so simple thing?

While betatesting, I came onto this idea:

I have lots of music in my game, almost in every room a new track plays. But it's quite weird that in puzzles where you have continously move from room to room, music is always reset to track start. So basically, you'll be hearing a start of a track all the time.

I believe (recall) that there's some functions to determine current position of mp3/ogg song... But I doubt that my l33t scripting skills are enough for this.

But it would be very nice for AGS to remember where last song was playing before room changed - and continue to play when same room is entered. Remember all songs if they're loaded once (not the songs, but their play/stop positions).

And it would be all as a single option from general settings - "continous music".

Would it be difficult to implement? Anyone other finds it useful?

Replace pants outline color to DARKEST blue shade of your palette! Brighter outlines are used VERY rarely and they even rarely do any good. Apart from that, you have a helluva great sprite now 

[USE]

No-no-no. You're going for wrong direction now -- why add colors? The point is to USE the colors you have, not try to patch things up by adding them. Sure, the pants are shaded better now. And shirt looks rounder too. But how are you going to animate this?

I tried to go my way again... and look.
4 pants colors
4 shirt colors
5 skin colors (snapped from NeoGeo palette)
essential black and white and gray shades (for glasses)
________
Total: 16 colors

(I didn't count hair color, since I only trimmed it a bit, but didn't change much)



This is just for ideas, I don't really like how face turned out and darkest skin shade is a bit too dark, IMO, but I hope it helps a bit. It all took about 15 minutes and is actually a very simple pixel play.

Edit
If you're going for nerdy guy (as he looks), I suggest some cool text onto his shirt, like "X-Files", "Linux", Apple logo or something like this...

[sides]

* Head is too round. Look and think and you'll agree.
* Arms are too short. Stand up and try - your fingertips should reach about halfway to knees. But on your sprite?
* Stomach area is too tall - I think that reducing there would improve arms too... so start with stomach first.
* Face could be taller and less wide. Leave more area for mouth and nose. And add a forehead.

...And most important / sticking out thing -

* Pants are shaded... a bit wrong. I love your idea of a shade, but you have to shade feet' sides darker to make pants cylindrical - as they should be. Currently, it's way too flat, like a cardboard cutout. Think and give a try.
Also, you could make t-shirt darker near both sides, it looks currently flat too.

Once again, I bring the geniality of SNK animators as a good example how to do things right:



Pay attention to proportions, shading and color usage...