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Well, adding trash like this into your CV won't get you hired. Every secretary better know how to use MS Office and every artist/designer has to navigate Photoshop in his/her sleep. "Hello, I'm a graphic designer and I can use Paint.NET" is quickest way to get boot.

Which is exactly why a graphic designer should own a legal copy of his own?

What if you just finished school, broke as a bum, and as it's common today - have loans till you're 60?

This line of reasoning is also invalid simply because the open source community has pretty much got you covered for everything:

<list of crappy programs of which many don't come even near their commercial equivalents>

Paying for software is pretty much not needed now unless you are a pro, in which case you are morally obliged not to leech off other peoples software.

Well, adding trash like this into your CV won't get you hired. Every secretary better know how to use MS Office and every artist/designer has to navigate Photoshop in his/her sleep. "Hello, I'm a graphic designer and I can use Paint.NET" is quickest way to get boot.

It would sound even more tragic if you'd use -- for example -- Blender versus 3ds Max, Lightwave or Maya.

Eight Below -- despite being a Disney family movie, it's sooo good. I always go  :'( when watching... dogs make me sensitive for some reason

It's all gone Pete Tong - Totally awesome one. A great mix of funny, absurd, disturbing and at times - very scary.

Romper Stomper - mix of brilliant, shocking and awful. Good deal if you skip last 15 minutes.

(Leon) The Professional - Watched it few months back, still a cinematic jewel

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo) - Epic korean war movie. Levels of epic surpass every Hollywood war movie, including Saving Private Ryan

The Man from Earth -- There's 8 people sitting in a room and chatting. No explosions, no extras, nothing. It's still absolutely brilliant and exciting. All said.

Haha, I have mysterious skill of provoking rage and "you're SO wrong choruses" while just honestly saying what I think...

Nikolas:
Piracy milks small-scale musicians/developers. Indies.
I agree that that kid sampling your shit will make your life difficult, but I'm quite sure that 4.1 million pirated copies of Modern Warfare only added sales from people who wouldn't had bought it otherwise.
I am guilty of this myself, I pirated it 2 days before official europe launch and only awe of game and wanting more of it (multiplayer!) made me buy it officialy via Steam also. It's relative.

Ethan D:
You are one of those fanatical anti-piracy preachers. I have nothing to say to you, because frankly, I hate anti-piracy radicals. Few years ago, if I'd say to my parents that I use money to buy software, I'd be shipped off to psychiatric clinic instantly... There was no way to justify something that can be gotten for free and is simply an algorithm to light up pixel on screen "I was looking at too damn much anyway".
Did I have to live my life honest, and never pirate? I wouldn't know a thing about video games, never gotten into using computer or music apart from what radio plays. Eastern Europe, ahoy! I figure I would be an alcoholic truck driver by now, instead of structural engineer. I guess nobody would give a shit, but ffs, I DO. So I steal and don't care really. It's for greater good.

Also, there are alot of ways better than capitalism, and that means not automatically communism.

How about a dictator, monarch, elected president, etc -- ruling with iron fist and making sure nobody gets too fat or thin? Simple. Everything can be controlled via laws and taxes, and with capitalism, people moving the stuff are capitalists, so no law will be made for their disadvantage.

Which is exactly what this thread is about. Is internet censorship in interests of US nation or greedy capitalists on the hill? I could bet my ass that majority of US nation are not relatives of Ethan D... So the question is way too easy to answer...

However, (Assuming you agree that piracy is something to be taken seriously) what is your counter-proposal?  

What? There's no way to fight piracy without controlling one end. If you want to let "control objectionable content" side loose, you'd better establish heavy control over quality of software/movies/music.


Because nobody's gonna buy this shit for the price it has now with the quality most of it has now.
I know I won't.

Music is 2-hits-and-end-the-band-garbage, games take patches and some more patches before they even start, software is so ridiculously overpriced, that we'd have 1% of graphical artists we have right now, would there no piracy. license of 3ds max costs my 2-3 monthly wages here, and probably couple times more in even less developed countries!

But consuming stuff is still beneficial for everyone. "Can't buy, screw you, so won't consume" will not do good in long perspective. New stuff sells due hype, and I think heavy majority of it is generated people who got it free. You'll bitch and moan until your parents buy you that new cool shooter game after everyone in the class has it, not when only those 1-2 richer kids (who could actually afford it!) have played and told about this. Masses move things!

Best way would be to deflate economy finally, balance out price vs. wage and rich vs. poor dilemma. Capitalism sucks!
Instead of mending holes, US Government, in it's holy wisdom, could develop more fair and workable civil system.

[military]

There's no ban on gays in army, is it? Just that military has no desire to hold regiment pride rallies or other kind of handholding, like gays were more special than other soliders.
Heterosexuals don't wear "hello my name is ... and I am a heterosexual" tags on their chest, I don't see why gays would want to... or have right to...? (It's military, have some f*ckin' discipline, damnit)

And if not, what's to be so "open" about?
"Don't ask, don't tell" applies to most things about sexual preferences, I don't see why it shouldn't apply for homosexual desires. You wouldn't go around telling everyone what turns you on! Nobody wants to know about your fetishes.

Okay, it's kind of popular to add some imaginary inches to your penis by saying you're super tolerant and preaching equality and whatnot. Whatever, it's a free world, mostly. To each its own.

What I'm writing against is bringing this circus to the military. For example, an instance with capabilities to end all life on planet earth in few months (biological warfare ahoy), few soliders with hurt ego and extreme need for attention is not important. Atleast since military exists as it is today, with much more important unsolved problems it has.

Enable "Anti-glide mode" from general game settings?

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/acintro1.htm

I find that military has every right to be homophobic (or xenophobic or whatever else "intolerant" word that makes you cry).
It's a military, dammit, not some pussy hippie garage band. Don't expect pats and hugs in the people-killing business.

Military is taxed enough by being unethical, shameful beast of human civilization.
Arguing over someone's dumb feelings or taste in bed-mates would be worst hypocrisy of all.

If any attitude helps military to be strong, so be it... leave fake tolerance etc trash to civil world.
DADT seems to be a way to deal with the issue so there would be no need to deal with the issue further.
Which is how this issue should be dealt with, IMO. There's more killing to do, no time for sex life!

...
Also, and this is totally not related to games, one of my personal sources of motivation and a great inspiration in terms of how to approach a project, is Robert Rodriguez' book Rebel Without a Crew, about the making of the $7,000 indie film El Mariachi
...

Somewhat unrelated to this thread, I'm halfway through this (ebook) and totally loving it!
Thanks for tip!

Pixel interpolation is universal option for this game and anti-aliases everything anyway.

duly noted, thanks.
I'm imitating height with size and shadow offset, but that one's a bit extreme, I agree.

It worked quite nicely, I think. Pity I cannot show animation, since most of it is dynamic...
I like new trees better too!

* That's my game. Very early video though, looks a lot better now.
* Not AGS.
* Had to redraw palm anyway (thanks to previous replies here), thank you for images.

Mad:
That's an excellent idea: I think I'll animate tree leaves to rise and lower a bit (basically stretching), and dynamically make whole thing rotate and offset a bit depending on wind direction and strength. I made something similar with rain on temperate maps -- the point where raindrops aim, moves from windless center depending on wind. Worked fine!

Will try this out tonight!

Anian's suggestion - make it act like a floor mop in the wind - would be of course much more realistic, but it's impossible to do it with changing wind direction, unless I model each leaf as a vector with 4-5 points and make fully dynamic.

...which would be cool to do, but overkill for just a room decoration (honest reason is that I suck at physics). There's a game to save resources for!

I'm still struggling to animate top-down trees.... last fight ended with a victory and custom generator.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=41752.0

This time, it's about 50 levels harder: palm trees!



Now, animating this one will not work with simple leaf clumps moving over each other.
I have no idea how to make palm sway in the wind. Anyone?

Also, how's that sprite? Did I miss something major?

* Toilet scene feels very artificial, mostly because lack of shadows under stalls. Also, it's full of raspberry jam... Dried blood is much, much darker. Also, no bevel & emboss filter is needed here!
* Photoshop grass brush on last one is a total no-no. It feels worse than lens flare filter felt in 2002...
* edge brightening (or displacement map?!) on RyanTimothy's edit made broken areas of wall ALOT better. Find out what he did

Otherwise, I like!
Also, it would be cool to see sci-fi environment using your technique, like spaceship interior or something similar. I guess it could simply feel like a mix of movie "Moon" and game Mirror's Edge

Signs point to Wacom Intuos 4 Wireless..

I'm disappointed with the intous 4 series: the tips wear off way too fast, the chord (though the wireless version will lack one) is frustratingly placed, and the sensitivity calibration demands that you press really hard to achieve full opacity, which increases the tip wear, and makes your arms tense, and ruins all looseness. (you can alter the pressure settings, but not in a way that fixes this as far as I know).

So I would personally go with an intous 3 if you want something newish, which would be less expensive as well. One neat feature of the intous 4 is a "display toggle" button, which is great if you use more than one screen, but that's pretty much the only reason I'd find myself buying one again.

Now that was absolutely unneeded... just few hours after I placed an order for Int4Wireless...  
Still buying it I think... It's not like I could use it very much anyway, so maybe as an amateur I won't notice such disadvantages, just like I don't understand mouse acceleration/smoothing in fps games, and still think it's just a fake "option" and doesn't actually do anything.

It makes sense.
Maybe my game IS commercial, free to download, but money comes from ads on game website, so rehosting turns off my profit?
There's even no place to speak of ethics -- it's outright stealing.

ProgZ is right.
Don't want your game to be databased/rehosted? Add a disclaimer.
If ignored, sue their ass.

Simple in theory, probably hell and "not worth it" in practice.

Depends on local laws too. But by default, you have say in how to distribute your stuff... protected with law.

Signs point to Wacom Intuos 4 Wireless... I'm not willing to spend more on something that has 50:50 chance of being great.

Even for €400 it has to be hell of an awesome thing to justify its price.
Then again, it doesn't look too crappy, if one can trust youtube and various reviews.

I guess I'm getting this as self-bought christmas/birthday present combo.