Messages

I want one.

Should I buy one?
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That was my whole point in 2 sentences.
But really, I do want one but I haven't used one and not quite sure is it worth it.
Will it get daily usage or act as expensive dust collector?

So, if you have one, tell me which case is yours?
Please dont' give me "it depends....blah blah" replies. A quick search in Critics Lounge shows clearly what I do, and how I draw.
I'm drawing something about 3-4 times a week. Enough to justify Photoshop installation. And I want to become an awesome 2D artist.
So be down-to-earth-honest.

Also, how important is the size? Wacoms are either really tiny, or really expensive.
Is there noticeable difference between A4 and A5, for example? It's half the size  I know, but does it matter somehow?
Also, is name of Wacom foolproof quality guarantee or it varies greatly by models also?

Me too. But even more I'd love to see something like Heretic or Hexen... or even Blood. Even greater would be Shadow Warrior remake...
New games are all about M4A1, camouflage and one bullet kills. Where's that old good silver key searching fun?

* Go to a club
* Get wasted
* Pick up a blonde female with high voice
*
* Let her do vocals next morning

This has worked for 99,9% of vocal trance projects, that chick DJ banged last night is new Lasgo/Sylver/Oceanlab/etc tomorrow

d)! It's a nice jump-start for becoming an evil genius. It's not like mayhem and destruction would stop or become any smaller without you. But right now, you have a tiny bit of control how it goes--
Also, if you work yourself up, you have even more control over it. So you could preach and turn whole company from dark paths... or profit from it via your wage and get at least something good out of bad -- or donate it to suffering people, or whatever...

I'd personally do it just for sake of doing something globally evil  ..   but only if pay grade > (conscience*2).

Well, as little as I like it, pre-rendering via generator seems only option. I'd love to keep trees that dynamic as they are in gen, but resource usage in generator shows clearly how badly it'll slow down everything else, if used in game.

I think I'll tweak generator a bit today to suit my needs, use custom brushes for leaves & simulate brightness/height better and close the deal.

Well, I can ensure you that 3D they are NOT.

After few hours of thinking and last miserable attempt to animate this by hand, following happened:



Grab it here: http://www.indrek.org/i/pull/tree_creator.rar

It spits out custom number of alpha-channeled PNG frames for a (somewhat) procedural, animated, customizable tree... Maybe I need a a doctor, but this felt only way to go. There's also a GMK source, for GM enthusiasts.

Thanks for leading me there!  

* Indeed it's for Enclosed: Tower Defense

* Those trees are pure pixels. No 3D model... in fact, animating would be probably MUCH easier if I'd use 3D-renders instead of simple tree. But I love pixels and making a 3D tree is quite difficult. Also, it's like killing a fly with a cannon... Then again, I've already used some rendered 3D for graphics elsewhere in this project  

* I'm thinking about simple 10-16 frame animation. Not some crazy layer/physics. The wind in game will only affect animation speed.

* Putting branchfuls of leaves on different layers and animating swaying few pixels forth and back, did this. Sadly, every attempt at this sucks for some reason.
Actually, thinking about calin's/garagegothic's suggestion, maybe putting tree into game as set pieces with physics applied might even work.

I will try this.

* What I would absolutely love to end up with is something as realistic (or atleast cool looking) as trees in Stronghold (see 0:13+) or Settlers 2. Just top-down, not side-view.

Long story short, I've exhausted all ideas on how to animate those top-down-viewed trees.
I want them to sway in wind, with leaves shaking and stuff. And it should be fluid enough to make it dependent on wind speed (which randomly rises and lowers in game)...

Despite numerous attempts to either automate or craft this, I do not get even semi-realistic result
All I need is a technique, one nice-looking tree or tutorial... something I could use to animate much more trees.



Can YOU help?

Now THAT would be awesome box art! 

No (printing) company would accept such small image for box art. JPG format is also a no-no.
And RGB colors too, unless you're going to print them with color printer.
To do it right, find out DVD cover size (130.5x189x12mm) and make art accordingly. Using vectors is also a plus.

So your first step starts here:
Google search for "DVD cover template"

Best you can do to criticize your own image and find mistakes is to find an empty DVD case, crap the image out of some color printer, join two and take a long & serious look at it.

All said.

Here's one:

I've been wondering how would world look like if I was microscopic. A bit larger than a molecule, maybe.
My theory is that from this standpoint, friction and chemistry should look quite dramatic. For example, placing hand on a table would cause thousands of skin cells and wood/varnish pieces to scatter, loads of water and oil in skin is pushed through the cells, atoms in skin start reacting with atoms in table, etc. Like that episode in South Park with fleas where even head washing looked like tsunami.

And it's all just too microscopic to actually see table or skin damage/wear or feel any actual chemical reaction.

Is that plausible, or are materials actually much more stable than I think and nothing of sort would happen?

@grim: Not a lot to go on - if you remember the melody, perhaps you could record yourself playing or humming it? Not sure it would help, but it might be good for a laugh

You can also do it online and maybe get instant results

[I DO WORK]

First article is an excellent resource.

It describes how to use inexperienced workforce and apply brute force motivation so it would actually work.
It's based on an idea that amateur artist can screw you over and sadly it's mostly true. So that's what's it all about and methods do work.
While I wouldn't work under such anal circumstances (tbh, I DO WORK like this or even worse, but for my employer of big company, not some indie flash game dev), I don't really see anything out of line. Welcome to capitalism.

Getting most bang for least buck is an idea as old as human civilization. Every professional artist knows this. Maybe amateurs don't and that's what caused such outrage. However, it works both ways and artist also tries to do less and quicker for more money! So idea of this article making a revolution of some kind is hilarious.

Of course, same motivation scheme can be applied on positive side of ethics - like offering bonus for quicker or better work, etc.

In the end, quality and sum balance each other into something reasonable. Mostly. Or we'd be all replaced by cheap third-world workforce. Then again, that's exactly the direction western world is thriving to...

Second article is all about being butthurt, however, there's fair share of good points there.

Done also!

Thanks alot for everything 

[internet is down]

You have no idea how many results "windows 7 unidentified network" yields in a Google search.

Are you talking about case where randomly after rebooting internet is down, connection list shows unidentified network and the devil's in a stupid service with strange name (Bonjour DNS Responder if I recall correctly) that Abobe (may you burn in hell) installs so disabling it fixes the problem?

Done!

1) Having urge to make a game
2) Opening AGS or GM to take a quick look at unfinished projects
3) Being amazed how cool they are and how much work is put into them
4) Making a promise to finish them someday
5) Realizing that it's a lie
6) Feeling frustrated
7) Closing AGS or GM and retreating

Huh, I gave up.  Feeling a bit sad about abandoning initial design  :'(
Seriously, dynamic image framing a simple page is alien technology beyond simple minds of hairy dudes who created HTML.

So anyway, I went to a more spartan layout, which it works quite nicely... and is actually more comfortable.

http://www.enclosedtd.com

And after some "wtf-am-i-copy-pasting" got official approval from Hairy Dude Committee also...
groovy!

So all's fine... except that:

1) Pages that need scrolling shift contents to the left by browser scrollbar size (Firefox,IE).

I'm not sure if I should really try to do anything about this. Solving such issues feel like pixel hunting quests in games already.

2) Changing page results in ugly page refresh moment (IE8). Maybe it's only my IE, but those milliseconds page changes, everything's bright white.

Then again, who the hell uses IE anyway... besides housewives?

UK only

why!

old Cinemaware classics (you can actually download them now)
It Came from the Desert - it was "sort of" adventure game, but I'd love to see it as more traditional point'n'click
King of Chicago - Same here. Remove arcade sequences and win/fail dialogue, turn it into a proper adventure - solid gold

Gangsters - an adventure? A proper tycoon without broken, unbalanced feel? Both would rock.