Messages

[emotional]

Maybe these imagination things depend on a music genre? I don't know.

I'm ready to eat nails for belief that it DOES depend. It works so strong for me.

But then again, my favourite genre happens to be most emotional genre in a world of electronic dance music (synthetic emo?), being mostly extremely sad and melanholic (if there's no minor scales, wrong genre), yet controversially being stamped with stereotypical club-party-fun sign.

Maybe it isn't so with some other genres..?

Does any one of you try to reverse engineer the music in their mind, like, split it into channels?

Guilty as charged...

If I do listen to anything, it's usually when traveling from one point to another, most likely to work or back. At work, di.fm always plays, but from co-workers computer, and it's too quiet to hear.
And at home, any additional noise is the last thing I need. I do turn music on sometimes when it's weekend and I'm in creative mode. But those cases have gotten rare... No matter what, at home, I ALWAYS wear headphones, even though I rarely listen to music... Some kind of escapist/isolation issue?

When listening, I usually imagine some sick shit, like high-speed jet fighter chase or some weird stuff, like everybody moving in slow motion or backwards. Or sometimes, when driving a bus, I imagine a laser beam emitting from bus side and cutting everything bus passes. Not in violent and bloody, but for sure explosion-filled and steel cutting way...

I listen to progressive trance, mostly. And have loads of unused imagination.

I never understood what point is to go randomly shooting **random** people. Especially kids. Why not lawyers or bankers or IRS workers or politicians? Because

1) you will get caught, and most likely shot
2) media attention drains quickly, it won't be news after week or two
3) It doesn't change anything*
4) You wasted bullets pointlessly, and your life, and uncountable other material and moral resources

* Sure, for the close ones of the victim, and of course, victims themselves, but hurting 1-20 people among 6 billion is not something that makes world spin other way nor solve problems

If I was sick, desperate, disoriented and crazy maniac and angry at power, I would act stealthily and commit big things. Like poisoning entire city water supply or something. Bring true terror. And never get caught. Maybe give a tip to the emergency so they'd resolve problem before anyone gets hurt, but still make everybody afraid and power figures appear weak and helpless. Actually, it shouldn't be poison, but a truck full of laxatives...

But then again, supervillains are getting out of fashion with that boring and pointless hunt for Ol' Osama.

This guy clearly has a screw loose. And it doesn't really sound like there's any religion behind this.
It's simple mental disorder.

Also, I agree that labels are bad. Communities? Churches? Gays? Unitarians? Christians? Linux users?
I see making a church, closing doors and singing there, preaching yourself "different" and asking others to join as an act of extreme isolation. This is first reason why I'm practical atheist. I don't want to be a part of the flock, because I am not a sheep, damnit. If I believe, I don't need separate house, a book and a fool in black clothes to confirm this and continuously rate how "good"(like it could be measured) "believer"(like it had exact definition) I am.

Aren't we, ehm, human beings? Isn't that "label" more important than other ones?

[it feels very much like a kid has crawled into daddy's spacesuit]

I like how you realized this idea very much, and especially care that has been put into texture and details.
Therefore, I launch my full criticism at your sprite to help you make it perfect.

* Feet and pelvis feel a bit too long

* Is that a woman? Feet are so apart that it feels like she's got a huge set of balls between them... 

* Shoulders and head don't really fit together. Shoulders are so apart and low that it feels very much like a kid has crawled into daddy's spacesuit.  Head looks... totally out of place. By making head a bit bigger, pull shoulders up and together, and cut feet a bit to get everything into proportion, you could fix this. Since it's 3d model, it should be quite easy too.

One question: Reference? It's not that hard to copy-paste photo of real woman over it and compare?

* Lights? Shadows? I don't know how well this works on 3D -> 2D model, but if you plan your background lights well, I'd go for some light and shadow here.

* Side view of hand looks awfully wrong. I can't put my finger on it, but hand looks more like cooked spaghetti than human limb. Maybe try making hands fatter to fit better with torso?

* Closeup on face is ugly. I mean make-up here. Does she have a black eye? Again, google photo search isn't that difficult.

To sum it, make her a bit shorter, fix hands and shoulders and pelvis, experiment with feet also...
To make a simple check, zoom in on side view! I don't believe this woman could touch her toes...
To make pose look more natural, make her lean forward less. On side view, she's like getting ready for a jump. Make her lay back more, look more relaxed.
On front view, her pose looks pretty good... maybe tilt a head a bit down(cute,clever,friendly) or up(strong,proud,dreamy) and to the side for extra sexiness?

[absolutely disagree.]

- I'm no big fan of blurring and the burn tool, which I think you used. In low-res art it pays off to place your shades by hand. Mine are a bit off, but I hope you get my point.

I absolutely disagree.
When done correctly, soft brushes and brighten/darken method is WAY better than any manual shading.

Also, I prefer original shading over edit. But try to mix manual shades into darken thing. I mean, keep shade areas just like on Ghost's edit, then apply soft darken over it. Shadows should still be quite sharp, not such a blur as on your initial image. Follow the edit here.

And keep that level of detail in horizon area too.

Omg. Just omg.

People like walk around you on the streets and at the same time calculate square roots their head.
World is too scary for me.

Just stay away from power tools...

Why do we do this? I think that if you create something, it is sooo much to your taste that nothing can be more to your taste. Nothing someone else created. It's your work, and you see the work behind it when you read/watch/listen to it. You enjoyed the creation, and thus you enjoy the replaying. No one can serve you a thing that is more to your taste than you can, that's for sure!

That's absolutely true.
But for me, the excitement goes away after awhile, and in a year or so, I'm close to hating my creations. I'm a perfectionist, and old work describes era when I was much less experienced, not so good. So, over time, old creations feel so broken and amateurish... that I almost want that I never made them.

[equal]

I think that going into "there's something wrong with me, everybody says that"-path is a damn stupid thing to do.
Find a way to act so you get no problems with your conscience and you can sleep knowing that you did nothing evil or bad, and that's all you need to be a nice person. If you try too hard to get someone to like you, you usually end up dumped. And whatever little flaws you might have, consider them as something to make your personality interesting. Nobody's perfect!

Just, it all has to be governed by morals. You cannot be a complete shithead and get away with "you gotta accept with what I am". My ex-girlfriend did this, and still does. And regrets it badly, if there's any greater justice in this world.

Judging by your description, it's a kind of girl to have maybe a short adventure with, but worst case for true love, especially first one. I'd stay the fuck away from her, if it comes to deep feelings. Especially at such young age.

You have one chance though. If she has any attraction or feelings towards you, you might try try a bit of diplomacy:

Meet her. Sit down. Explain.
Ask her what she does and does not like about you, then explain your side of this and how you feel about her pros and cons. Tell her how fucking awful it is when she dumps your mutual weekend for a stupid movie and how insulting it is for you, etc. Lay out some your terms and bargain with hers. Maybe she still is interested and willing to work for it? But keep the deal, if it happens, equal.
If not, well, do as I said before. It's a bit early for you to notice, but life is short, and wasting even some months of it being unhappy (at this age, especially!!!) will feel 10 times bigger waste 10 years later. Don't do anything you'll regret.

I suggest a tad bit darker skin, and much more contrast in skin shade.
You did a great job shading the faces, but it's almost not noticeable due so similar colors.

Palette is a bit boring. I mean, everybody's brown. I'd use a bit more saturation on clothes here, give each of them a color.

Are they going to walk?
With feet like this, how?

...but something always happens and I end up saying something that makes her think I am an asshole.

I think this describes her feelings and trust for you very well.

When two humans, carnivores by nature decide to not treat each other as danger and decide they're "together", this should be a pact of both non-aggression and mutual trust.

If even tiny word could make your both earths spin other way, I'd say that is a damn fragile pact. How long were you together? Did she made up her mind, or she's not totally sure if you're an asshole or not?

You're 17. Man.
Love hurts, heard that one?
But a secret is that this pain grows over time if you don't let it go.

I suggest to forget about her and use the time you have wisely to sign a better pact with someone more reliable.
Doing endless CPR to a failed or too fragile relationship is totally the worst way to go, I know it because I lost 7 best years of my life over this. A well-learned lesson.

And as chauvinist this might sound, let no woman tell you how to think or talk. You're man. Act like one.
If she doesn't respect you*, and thinks that this is the way to go, let her waste her life figuring out why she can't have normal relationships.

You asked for help, and here it is: Don't let any girl, ever, make you think that something is wrong with you just because she didn't like you. EVER.

* - this sentence doesn't apply if you REALLY, willingly act like an asshole and hurt her, you know, out of evil

[nothing]

2 x 2,18 GHz Intel DualCore here.

I don't really see much improvement in music or video editing. Windows XP Home seems to burn first core, and if its usage gets near 100%, utilizes next core. Second cpu has ALWAYS less load, even when machine is really busy.


Windows performing a complex and delicate task named "Open task manager"

As you can see from performance graph, First core took about 80% of the load at the second I pressed Ctrl-alt-del.

3D rendering is better, that I must admit. I can do really cpu-killing stuff, stuff that isn't meant to be done really before next 20 years, and it's... well, doable. Like GI and caustics. It's still strange to see how those, not-so-new and not-so-complex things still cripple fairly powerful and modern machine down to a crawl.

I wouldn't say dualcore is a very big power gain, for example, going from 1GB of RAM to 2GB is waaaay more noticeable, especially in massive video and sound works, but I wouldn't go back to singlecore machine either.

This is not mathematics, I'm speaking of personal feel here, game performance, so on.

I have no clue what quadcores do, but I guess there's even less difference.

If I had to upgrade something, I would go for hard disk with higher rpm. I saw one, and nothing is comparable to how simple extra 3000 rpm could multiply speed of opening and loading everything.

It's finished... after about 50% contrast increase or even better, manual contrasting. If forest is so dark that you can see light as rays, Overall ambient light seems downright wrong. Shadows should be much, much darker.

Besides this, excellent work. I'm jealous, almost.

I suggest to find a good mix between Evil's and Mazoliin's edit.
But aside from both, you have to shade face so it would look more like spherical object and not like cardboard cutout (eck, I work as cardboard stuff designer/engineer, so trust me).

Random google hit for "sphere":



Observe. Spherical objects get darker near sides. And the point closest to the viewer (or actually, light) is the brightest. To cut this short,

* make cheek edges, eye sockets, point on nose between eyes, and area between mouth and nose darker
* nose tip, jaw tip, cheeck tops, lower lip and forehead brighter.
* And leave a shade between for areas I didn't name (don't change anything else on face).

This, and a bit of pixel cosmetics by eye, and you're done.

I think you totally got it!

It's just like I imagined when I suggested flash.
(let's use "hello, i'm a newbie" smiley here:  )

Nice!
No way back now!

Paint style had it's own advantages, to be honest. I suggest to either keep sprites small - so they look cute, or start lea(r)ning towards second (skin) shade.

EDIT: Also, mouths rock. Use mouths. Draw mouths. The weirder, the funnier.
"Worms!"-style hands are pretty cool too.

I open up MSPaint, copy-paste a piece of old sprite to easily eyedrop skin colors, and start drawing! Usually nose/mouth area, then head, and the rest of the body.

Or sometimes, do the "outline style", drawing everything and coloring/shading later, like in those 2 tuts of mine:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=33380.msg433646#msg433646
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=31167.msg400216#msg400216

It's a bit more accurate, absolutely a need when doing an animation, and easier, but for me, not so fun. When starting on a face, I prefer not to know how feet will look... yet.

I always use  400% zoom and line tool, and rarely anything else. Even for single pixel draws, like eyes. Never used rectangle, circle or pen tools.

For minor pixel work, like sprites, old-good MSPaint is still the absolute king.
I rarely bother to save the work, usually just copy-paste into AGS.

Unless you're going to something strange and blocky, 3d programs are not worth the effort. Unless you're a superb animator, of course. 3D always feels strange in a 2D game...

Hah, cursor pointer thing, this is something I told Grundislav after every Ben Jordan game....
Many other people too.

This is something AGSers tend to ignore, not sure why.

Use Linux 

Even after fresh XP reinstall, after adding drivers for all things to work, plus essential things like from winamp to video codec packs to game/art making utils, I already have a mess. And this is very standard "equipment" to use machine at all. THEN comes the software and games.

I repeat, Games

Well... I have 117 entries... Organize? I really don't have those 3 hours and billion nerves for this.
I have this habit to download whatever freeware game pops up on the grid and it's impossible to find it later for uninstalling. Every video/audio codec, VST plugin, random crap throws an entry.

Main point is that I don't want to organize something I don't use. I can't find anything, anyway.
Then again, it happens that I don't have location or shortcut for that one really important program, I must use start menu and then desperation and threads like this come.

If you have like 3 games you play, sure. What's the problem?

But this is not my case here. Even after fresh XP reinstall, after adding drivers for all things to work, plus essential things like from winamp to video codec packs to game/art making utils, I already have a mess. And this is very standard "equipment" to use machine at all. THEN comes the software and games.

I can manage maybe games and most of the software, but hardcore of amount of VSTi plugin entries renders situation unsolvable. And I DO need them.

[no]

About political games overall (not adventure) -- the situation is hopeless. I play Shadow President, Hidden Agenda and Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator - all games pre-windows era, and quietly cry. For last 10 years. (If you ever wanted a hint on politics sim, I just named gold... and they're abandonware)

Nobody haven't made a decent political game in a decade. Revolution:Republic was total suckage, I won't even start on this dumb US election game of this year, and Supreme Ruler is a mix of non-existing gameplay and really bad JPG of world satellite map. There is some good games of historic eras but none of ours.

There is no realistic, yet enjoyable political games besides first three I named.
Unless I make one, there won't probably be one.

In a dreamful mind of Microsoft developers, it should work like this:

Start -> Programs -> Subfolder(s) -> easy and accessible joy of getting things done

Throughout the whole time Windows XP exists, for me, it's been like...

Start -> Programs -> omfg how do I ever find anything in this mess?!

It's really, really annoying. And, I can't find simple way to organize my start menu. What irritates most are two things:

1) game/program companies, in their idiocy, imagine that every PC user is total fan of their company and knows every product created. So, it's good idea to name start menu item with company name. Yeah, I have mood for a quick game of Company of Heroes... Aw damn, who made/released this? Atari? Eidos Interactive? Electronic Arts? THQ? I can't find anything in this mess--! Why didn't just use name for a game?!

2) Even most unimportant, single-shot software (and there's lot's of this, especially freeware) tends to clutter start menu too. Why?!

Even AGS games that come with installer.
Do I really need a start menu item for every AGS game I try?

I installed this, I KNOW where I did install it. I can browse for it much quicker than spend 10 minutes looking at mess in programs section (start menu) and try to find it by another imaginative name you gave to yourself when releasing (and defaulting for installer path!  ).

Of course, most installers ask how start menu entry should be named. Or - with latest and (typically very good quality) software, it even asks if you DO want to create start menu item. But many things don't ask anything. They simply take a dump at my already painful start menu. This goes usually for all kinds of drivers or software that comes with hardware...

* After last XP fresh install, I decided to always name things properly, to have some order...
* After awhile, it became too time consuming. So I created start menu folder "trash" and forced all shortcuts I would never use to be there...

For example, AGS, 3ds Max, Artgem, Photoshop, FruityLoops...) I occasionally use them. I will never uninstall them (they WILL outlive XP installation, or specifically, die with it). I have shortcuts in my quicklaunch or desktop. Why the hell would I ever need a start menu item?

Thanks, NVidia. I will make sure I use your start-menu shortcut on daily basis, despite you also created one into control panel, another one into system tray, right-click menu, display settings window, asked if I also want quick launch one... your drivers control panel is a really useful thing, every human being having your video card alters brightness and resolution settings atleast twice a day. 5 points for thinking for me!

* After this, I forgot to use "trash" many times. Now both "trash" and main of start menu is one long scrolling, unexplainable mess. I will NEVER find anything there.

Is there some kind of way out of this mess? Or is there something I'm doing wrong?
How do you manage this (unless you're Excel-Word-and-Solitaire-user)?