Messages

Physics? Taking a load off from CPU might be a good idea, but I smell another big and noisy cooler in the case... And I already got 4 of them, thus making my machine sound like a jet.

Nah. I'm waiting for Geo-mod to come back. Nothing could be as fun as it was tunnelling in Red Faction!

You're probably limited to your 3D software and hardware, but a bit colored lighting, (less ambient and more directional) and also some bump mapping wouldn't hurt this otherwise really great-looking picture.

Ah, and being as constructive as I possibly can - grass texture simply sucks. Because of boring coloring and bad tiling. Change it.

About bumpmapping... I'm not sure if you're using it or not. If so, make it stronger to make its advantages work. If not - and program doesn't support any, well, with so nice modelling skills, you should consider getting a stronger software. Just a quick bumpmap example I whipped together, so you'd see what I mean:


No bump mapping, just a cylinder with boring texture


Bumpmapped in 3ds Max 4, 200% and used same texture for map, just black and white one

The game IS still in production, though progresses awfully slowly lately. I still haven't buried idea to get it done before christmas...

... to make the annoyance Darth gets by people bumping this thread something worth too

NEXT: Craziest invention ever!

OR:

CJ eating spaghetti!

Just a guess, but mouse may be faulty and cause short circuit.

Also, check if you don't have heavy magnets anywhere near computer, like big speakers, subwoofer, etc.

Checking monitor cables could be neccessary too. I had some screen trouble in past when some cat fur or dust got into monitor port, which caused short circuit and weird display problems.

40 pixels on X are not enough. I barely got my entry to fit the image!

And I love Chicky's entry. Funniest faces I've seen in a long time!

Only some tiny bits that stuck out:

* The plant that's hanging in ceiling: Hook it's attached to suggests that the plant is in the very corner of the room, but the size of the pot makes that quite impossible! I suggest making more of these hanging vine-thingies (so the plant was thicker), but reduce the size of pot by half or so.

* The books seem to exactly fit into into the bookshelf, I mean, they perfectly reach the edge of shelf. By making some books shorter, you could add much more feeling of 3D.

* The cord of telephone sticks out too much. Make it a bit darker gray!

*  The floor lamp at lower right corner looks extremely flat compared to everything else. That's because very straight lines. Even if it's perfectly correct by perspective & rules, giving it a bit more irregular shape (round the shade a bit, whatever)  would fix the "cardboard cutout" illusion.

* Making shadows to everything would DOUBLE the value of this already magnificent background.

* Using dark-toned colors instead of black ones for outlines may remove some stress (stress? well, I just feel art in some way) from picture and also make little mistakes much more forgiveable / harder to notice

Huh, I hope I won't get shot for this...  Lame, I know

2x:

Spoiler

After reincarnation, Osama finally managed to fulfill his secret dream: becoming a president of U.S.

[close]

47-year old woman transferred from russian school? I doubt if she even has e-mail address.

Then again, this isn't only case, symbols like >= and <= happen too often aswell. Habit...
And I bet many programmers, when caught unaware should do this.

My math teacher asked what the hell do I mean with

!=

symbol in my test... The correct symbol for "not equal to" should look more like this =/= ,
I didn't even understand what did I do wrong at first point!

QBasic!
Ow, I remember lots of MS Gorillas remixes, remakes and modifications. First game was - if I remember correctly, "guess the number I'm thinking"-text game, in QBasic. And then some snake-games.

But then the "Worms!" came out and all my hopes to make something as cool were crushed.

Then, lot's of Game Makering... at the time where Mark Overmars acutally listened to suggestions and answered e-mails. And engine was free! In version 4.2 or 4.3, most of implementations were my own suggestions...

Good times.

Perhaps when InC started his BG, it looked somewhat like yours.

Quite so. But I never start from large empty areas like you did, because... well, in this case - in the end, I'm still stuck with these stupid large and empty areas I have no idea how to fill.

If you like my style, you must concentrate onto one word: Detail.

I'm faaar away from professional drawing (unlike DanClarke, for example, who can use lots of empty space, because it will still look good, somehow o_O), so I try to have as much detail cluttered into small space as possible. The smaller and more carefully handicrafted pixel thingies, the better. And they must be brought out with bright and varying colors.

Whole style is about faking detail. All these big empty areas are always covered using noise filter (best way to fake detail) and heavily modified using brighten and darken brushes. Which is about all the tools I need, after line tool.

I start from one thing and see where I end up. The background you posted was originally simply boring building (without V-roof). I even remember some stupid tree at far right. Thanks to community, good ideas came, as well as more interesting background. Declaring some large area which I have to fill, takes the will to go on.

The actual process of bg was a bit different, thanks to CL, but if I had to start again, I'd follow steps like on this gif:



First the building (coloring and primary shading too!), then the street, etc. It's probably easier to make sketch and outlines first, but I usually won't go that way.
If you're not using layers, leave the coloring to the last!
The key point is that making a bg starts when everything is already drawn: The detailing. Most (newbie) bg artists don't have this part in drawing process at all, which produces hundreds of identical box-shaped-room-a-door-window-poster-desk-and-bed backgrounds. Empty and boring, though functional. There's your difference.

The only way to achieve what was done in the 2nd BG is through LOTS OF WORK. You can make a very passable pic with a little effort, however.

Which is same thing what I'm talking about. Functional bg is easy to make. Get your perspective right, add some geometry and color.

But if you can "fill" this colored geometry with detail or atleast fake it well, your bg becomes 200% as interesting.

This isn't so hard work as it sounds. Especially at low res. Making whole background took only half a day, (my average) and only oncoming crits and comments prolonged that time, since everyone had something interesting to suggest or add.

None of it is rocket science, but I guess it's just the way things go that in poorer countries the funds aren't there to make it happen

While some countries have too much money, so they spend it on pointless warfare...

Ar. Just remove that (IMO, quite uninspiring) "King's Quest IX" part from game name. Give charaters unique names (if not already) and voila! Story could be simply rearranged a bit to make it a different land and characters (remove ties to original KQ names and places).

but okay i will try it in another way. but one thing i don't know is: how to make my "velvet mat" look like grass?

Holy cow! This is - like - third or fourth topic past last 3 days where someone asks how to do grass! Looks like there's new trend in Critics Lounge, asking/teaching how to make a grass!

Anyways, millennia ago, some people (myself, for example) made tutorials for easy and nice grass. Check it out: (xVid codec needed)

http://www.increator.pri.ee/kino/grass.avi

As you see, I used ArtGem to make grass. But I'm sure any over-the-MSpaint program has similar possibilities.

Enjoy!

Em... well...
It's so...


...Pong 3D.

Camera controls... well... suck. It wasn't uncomfortable, it was pain.
I'll second Vince in pointless nature of this so called "bonus", due unequality. If you want to bonus player with camera, make him see his paddle first-person view or somehow that makes it harder for *other* player to see *his* paddle!

I suggest more powerups, but better ones, such as freezing other player for 3 seconds, More cool sounds and better textures (current ball looks like straight-out example from C++ beginner's tutorial). Maybe lose the fireworks and make ball produce one when charged with some cool bonus? After all, when making a pong clone, make sure to make THIS one worth trying (by something new, of course), the competition is strong out there 

[is]

And what's weird that his perspective is quite correct. At least I tried and got close lines. I didn't use darth's point, but tried to put point where four walls meet (purple lines). Only one really missed was bottom of rightmost wall... So I used the point of other three.



Other incorrect elements are the door, bed and desk a bit.
But overall, though it IS about correct, it FEELS so wrong. Must be those stupid decisions to move both bed and desk into bizarre positions - away from walls.
Or did I do anything wrong?
............................

Suggestion - lower the vanishing point and save yourself from so unrealistic look plus extra drawing the tops of the things. This has been suggested and I will second it.

If you start drawing a room, start with this rectangle far back - the back wall. Then try to put the vanishing point onto it, the closer to the middle (center!), the better. Easiest way to do this is simply pull 2 diagonals from corner to corner (separate rectangle into 4 triangles). And ONLY then start to make everything else - you have a perfect guide now, called "vanishing point". Since totally centered vanishing point is - well - boring, moving it now somewhere a bit will produce interesting viewpoints.

Often, the 100% correct perspective isn't required at all - I, for example very rarely mess with vanishing point, since it bores me and demoralizes. But trick is to produce believeable perspective, it should atleast FEEL right. The feeling is most easier to get by either learning to do it correctly first (using the system) - or having a good memory + playing 3D games/living your real life with strong observation and memorizing. This all comes with time and experience.

As I said, the grass is shit.

Bullshit. Look at this!

P.S. Increator, did you get that idea for your avatar where I think you did?

I have no idea what are you talking about

Yeh, do like Darth did, but

* Use 100% opacity brush, preferrably not-antialiased so grass wouldn't look so blurry
* Use your-styled low-saturation greens, instead of so lime one

2 - Is 4"x5" too small? If you own a similar-sized tablet, do you wish you had a larger one; or conversely if you have a 6x8", do you feel you could have gotten along with a smaller area?

The smaller, the easier to use, I guess. My tablet is A4 format and I'd prefer a smaller one.