Messages

FOY?
Hell no!
Ben Jordan Case 5! Grundislav needs some serious beating...

Also, my own poor project that LJUBI advertises because of unknown reasons so irritatingly much at every possible occasion...

Let's make my personal hell called "routine" really detailed...

7:40 - something hits me through my sleep - the thought that it's morning and if I won't wake up, my mom is waking me up with her usual "I won't wake you if you won't get up, I'm so fucking tired of waking you every morning, use alarm clock as everyone else, bla bla"
So, while totally unconsious, I still have some limited ability to think.
I pull my pillow under my back and set myself up into a "sitting position", lying my back against the wall just where my head is. Then, kind of sitting in bed, I pass out again.

7:41 - my mom opens door to my room and through my extremely strong sleep I still wake up for 2 seconds to see her register: "oh, already up and by himself, miracle". I pass out again. The sitting trick worked again, though I actually both want and must wake up. Sleepy brain works weird and defensively.

7:59 - mom comes into my room and sits onto my bed (weird, she never does that, just nags until the thought of not getting to work if I don't act NOW shakes me up). But no, not today. She sits and drinks her coffee. For next 10 minutes I keep repeatedly passing out and forcing myself to reality, trying to get better sitting position in bed so the sleeping would be harder to do.

8:11 - mom goes to work. I reach my hand for a cigarette. I find coffee (thanks mom). I take a sip and feel strong blow of reality breaking through my sleep. Next thing I do is my first smoke. Since I don't like to die by burning in bed, and my brain knows that, it keeps bringing more and more reality to me.

8:12 - The more puffs I take, the more panicked my mind gets. So it totally wakes me up when first 4 puffs are smoked and it's time to locate ashtray and tap off some ash so it won't fall into bed. Now I'm awake. My head still feels and hums like it's full of bees and eyes hurt, but I can think and move now.

8:14 - I finish the cigarette. Throw a look at the clock and realize that I must really-really get up now. Next move - I turn the computer on. Then to the toilet to take a piss.

8:16 - I press enter to get rid of password screen, then try to open up Mozilla and type in the address to the city transportation system, to see how bad are my chances to get onto bus and arrive at work in time. Next bus: 8:26. I take a note that there's no way I can make it. I quick-check AGS forums, though there's really no time for this, throw another sips of coffee into my throat and shut off the machine. Then I rush to bathroom.

8:25 - I brush my teeth moving both them and the brush, in a speed that leaves me with nanometer thick teeth if I continue to do this for next 2 years. Then take a note that I should have really shaved yesterday...

8:29 - I rush into my room, finish the coffee and insta-dress with 1 minute. After putting my coat on, I realize that I can't go out having a beard bigger than Jewish rabs do. I grab for a razor and rush back to bathroom, without even taking my coat off.

8:32 - after quickshave I rush out. Since I missed the bus, I have to run to another station, a bit less than 1 km away. I do this in 3-4 minutes, being totally breathless when I reach the station. Being a smoker and running really fast on icy ground with -3 degrees of celsius and in freezing cold wind really sucks.

8:42 - a bus arrives. I calculate where's the door when it's stopped, position myself there and wait. Then I force myself through fat old women to get a seat. They swear like hell something in russian. I don't care, it's a 7km trip ahead and there's no way I'm going to sleep on foot and be squeezed between them during this. I'm 21, male and not elegantly dressed so they calm down quickly anyway, because that's the age and look where most people assume that you're either a bandit or a junkie. Especially people like they are.

9:01 - My stop. Another 2 kilometres of freeze running ahead! I wait at the zebra and damn these stupid slow traffic lights.

9:11 - I enter the office. Noone noticed me being late. Success!

Nikolas' last post is SECOND time a thread here made me REALLY roll on the floor laughing 

[not]

Too much colors! Pay more attention to shading and colors and your cartoony style will do fine. I found lots of colors not visible on image, but still there (few RGB values different)... why?

Big Brother's ideas were good, try them. But I'd go with low-color shade cartoony look, which looks more like cel-shading.

Pick three or four colors per body part and put them into full effect.

Also, pay attention to them so there was not too much contrast between them (outlines on your version!) , but also that there was enough contrast to see them with human eye (these invisible shades on your version!)
I hope my crappy english still made some sense...

Example:


Also, double pixels suck.
(see your version of pants and mine, your outline had double pixels)

400% zoom:

Double pixels - 


No double pixels - 

That's the second ugliest sprite man I've ever seen!

Despite of joking, I must agree. About ugly part.
Not second part.

Roger is niiiiice  :'(

With much cooler bg's like this you definetly need a revolution in sprite stuff too. Follow tutorials, ask for help, DO something! Otherwise, you're wasting bg art with putting lousy sprites on them.

The crits on bed is there already, and everything else looks quite okay. I'd suggest to go for low res if you don't have 3D sprites. And maybe try to render with antialiasing turned off. Maybe. And add a carpet to the floor!

Also, the brick material on other building is way too stretched/large. Tile it more!

I wanna hug CJ too!


But for community, well... this is a very special and rare form of a word "community" here.
In good way.

Isn't it answered already? For a teaser, try lower res mpeg, and yeh, why not one of mentioned codecs?

Definetly XVid - the one pirated movies use. (It's Windows only, afaik)
I don't know why people still use DivX, it's larger in size, though technology used is quite similar - MPEG4 Part 2.

But otherwise, there seems to be very little of difference.

XVid is a bit difficult to to set up, I suggest older versions, like 4.12, newer compiles give most likely a headache instead of quality.

For sound compression, don't go with PCM formats. Best choice is ATRAC-3 encoder, which strongly reduces sound size but has still acceptable bitrates. If not AC3, choose LAME MP3 encoder and you'll be fine (though few (hundred?) megabytes poorer).

Rendering the edited, final version of video will actually look best if you use properly configured VirtualDub. Especially if you want to eliminate interlacing completely. And it's free.

Deinterlacing, btw, is a science of it's own. I've got best results using progressive scan...

Also pay attention to framerate and resolution. MiniDV camcorders usually capture at 50 fps. These 700mb movies have either 25 or 23 fps. That's like 2 times less image content. Anything below 23 fps will lag, so don't get lower than this.

Bitrates: for video, bit rate around 130-230 kbps will look sufficent, for sound, 128-320 kbps.

Colors: I render mine at 24bit. 700mb movies usually use 12bit.
Difference: noticeably less colors (gradients get dithered look!) and a little bit (ok, not that little  ) of smaller size, but I'd still stick to 24bit.

For Video editing, Premiere isn't that good. Only 2 video tracks? You must be kidding... And it's hell of a figuring out what and where to click whatever you need to do, like capturing something from MiniDV for example. It also often fails to recognize FireWire...

I switched over to Sony Vegas 5. And I'm really happy with this choice.

Your current skills tell me that you're really free to do whatever you want.

I mean, doing it somehow else with knowledge you don't have yet doesn't look that good. So there's two options, use gradients or take some hardcore practice and spend much time until you get as attracting bg's without gradients.

Though the gradient use on first image went terribly wrong,
first, under the ladder(?) you messed everything up
and second, the stones in wall, your gradients change too much!
Start with more similar colors to get only little change.

Increator: I partly agree with you, but this means that what you do, you do for the enjoynment of others?

Both.
They enjoy my creations, I enjoy being useful and admired.

Lovely symbiosis, eh?

I had been thinking about the creativity for a long time, too. But I couldn't find a good reason why some people is more creative. Intelligence? Talent? I don't know. But though I don't believe in the formulas for the creativity.

Outlet.

Creativity is best way to express yourself, your inner world and opinons about good and bad, beautiful and ugly. Some people need to express themselves more, maybe they're less confident, or maybe they have need to "leave a mark" into world to make their lives to be worth something to humankind. That's why some other, instead of creating, discover and research.

Atleast I feel it this way. The games themselves work in similar way - you play, forget the world and let everything out. Creativity is a step further if brought to publicity - it will give feedback. If you make high-score in tetris, it could brighten your day, but no one really gives a damn about it. If you MAKE a tetris, thousands find relief and happiness.

If I draw a good picture or make an enjoyable game, the happiness and amazement of people liking this makes the effect even greater. This also feeds my prudity (sp?), but this can be used in good way - add it to willpower to become even greater and better and make better quality stuff.

And this is better than any drug.

Tuomas,
when you live in North...
  ...keep your head cool.

This "essay" sounds interesting indeed, but doesn't make any sense to me either, and even if it did, it just doesn't qualify the standards of a student's essay.

Try writing a book, I'm sure there's people who totally dig stuff like this. Maybe you'll get rich and famous!

Dear Santa Claus, st. Nikolaus, Joulupukki, Ded Moroz or whatever you call yourself,
I've been extremely good this year, stopping this downhill nightmare that's been going on for last 8 years, worked hard to make some money and finally picked up where I left my education, ending up being best in my class...

If possible, please

* cure my dad's cancer
* help me to find a job where I could use my artistical abilities or computer knowledge, and preferably do it half-time or at home so I could continue school
* send a really nice and loving girl to my path

If not, maybe

* Give me the power to learn Photoshop, PHP and stay strong with my holiday-less life tempo
* Help me to finish Henri: Don't Drink & Drive!
* more creativity and willpower!
* Show me the way to get a driving license quickly

And if you're nothing godlike at all and miracles is not your case, I would appreciate

* a new video card
* a raise
* less spyware
* an apartment which I could afford
* licensed and legal copy of Windows

Thanks, Santa! 

Maybe here?
http://www.increator.pri.ee/ArtGem13crack.zip
(now let's pray that moderators won't smash me for this)

Since it's discontinued and not sold anymore, I think that pirating (or specifically - cracking the 30-day trial bugger thingy) isn't that much of a sin. As the saying goes, art demands some victims.

I recommend ArtGem only to those who like my style, or currently use MSPaint and want to get to the next level. If you can use something more powerful, such as Photoshop, GIMP or Project Dogwaffle, skip the ArtGem.

But my own dream is to move on to Photoshop. Now why in the hell has it to be so discouraging, boring and complicated?

Also, I'm planning on making a complete tutorial of my style, going through everything from setup to complete detailed bg.
But then again, will it be useful to anyone?

Ah, and thanks for leading me to this image, everybody. 

So let me get this right--

she:

* wants to be with you
* wants to live together

and you:

* want to be with her
* want to live alone

Easy. You both decide for yourselves, what's more important, staying together or living/not living together. If atleast one of you thinks that staying together is more important than living together thing, other one has won. If both think that living question is more important, well... sorry, it's time to break up then. If you can't decide on a thing like this without seriously endangering(sp?) the relationship, it's not too solid anyway then.
Imagine what problems you would have on more important things later, like raising kids?

If she was really clever, she'd let you go with living alone and laugh when you come back after few months 

Though I didn't think I'd draw today anymore, I still ended up with adding details. I also used !Photoshop  to get rid of middle building problem by desaturating a bit.

Also, tried a thing or two on sidewalk/road area (cracks in pavement, tyre tracks), added minor details (window reflection, lamp, laundry, sign) and drew few pixels here and there.

...since bigger improvements that take heavy time again are something i'd rather avoid...

I hate you guys 

...

Just kidding. I hope you didn't forget my bg yet...
It was paused a bit since I don't have much time!

Anyway, newest version is here: I redrew whole right part, which wasn't even half as simple as drawing everything else.

Here it is (minus some details and pixel cosmetics), most of C&C was respectfully followed. Am I getting close to declaring it finished now?




ArtGem supports only up to 16 layers, so I had to pick a save few details,reflections and improvements ago. I'll add them as soon as big changes are not needed anymore and I can merge previous layers. Damn, I so badly need to advance to photoshop - but I just can't learn it!

Eh, and I DO know how badly middle left building sticks out, I'll try to cover it somehow later - even better were if you gave some good edit or ideas how to do this.

Setting sound volume correctly may avoid lots of noise.
And it isn't as simple as it sounds.

Depends on spy.
Unarmed spies are waaay more dangerous than let's say, a platoon of heavily armed soliders. I don't mean James Bond crap here, but the damage spy may cause with stolen information. How many soliders and civilians his knowledge could lead into a meat machine.

People do insane things. 12 years ago it was Soviet age here. Every man had to serve 2 years in Soviet Army. Estonian boys didn't have much chance to survive there, since the army had all types of nations, including some really insane and hostile people and cultures, plus - untrained people were thrown straight into Afganistan war... Many of people I know tell stories about the service and well, you can't find any of similar even in the most brutal movie. Like waking up in the morning because liutenant breaks a chair in your face or not sleeping at all for 4 months just because it's unsafe.
Many cut off their toes or fingers, or caused even more serious injuries to themselves to escape the service...

But the topic thread, well...
It's impossible to answer such question by sitting infront of computer and browsing internet forums.
The situation where you have to decide on such thing is waaaay different.

I don't think that killing someone else could be that hard.
If it's the situation, you do whatever you have to do. I think I could live with that. Much harder - what I think I could never be able to do is what my nephew is trained to do - being a fighter pilot, whenever shot down, he must execute himself immediately... Now that's something that needs willpower and dedication.

Haha, it looks like Farlander now!!!