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Did you try Startup Control Panel?  It gives you a list of things running at startup, and you can disable them....maybe the beeping thing there can be disabled?? Otherwise I don't know.

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

Well, I create concept rock...there are so many projects, it's hard to list them all.  Most of them are done with just some acoustic guitar and sometimes vocals, but occasionally I get help from others to make full songs.  I play electric too, but I've lost interest in the last four years or so.

There's Novellice, an epic story about living stories in an intangible reality where they exist in capsules floating on a beach.  There's more to it, and there are some typed up issues but nothing more yet.  There will be a webcomic hopefully by about May of 2009, depends on a successful move and if my friend Tucker will still be interested.  Beyond that there is a 900 page graphic novel planned as well, broken up into about 30 issues.
http://www.myspace.com/novellice

Kidnapping Caleb
http://www.myspace.com/kidnappingcaleb

I don't really play shows anymore, but I used to do a lot of that.

And of course I do videos on youtube, lots of Coheed and Cambria covers:
http://www.youtube.com/theredpress

I maintain a website, that's always fun! Run a forum (a small one), and that's about it for me.
http://www.novellice.com/theRedPress/

Neat title ^^ I can't really think of anything right now, except Otis sort of merges with the green center/void/portal thing.  Almost didn't see him there. 

I did want to say though, that maybe you could have her attempt to change the ball's frame of mind....say, make it feel less like a ball and more like a human or something? I can't imagine why a ball would want to be a human, just came to me all random-like.

[Edit:]

also, i dont think this way, i think handpainted backs should be excelent, the photographs already haves the detail level needed.

good, thats the feeling i expected. if the pics are already disturbing you, then i'm on the right way.

also, the images where scaled in the host, i remember clearly setting the weight of 'em all to 640.

Couple of things.  I didn't see the whole column vs row fiasco so I won't comment on that :p  But you keep saying "weight"...but art is not measured in a weight, but by height and width.  Do you mean to say width?  I suppose that would make sense with the value '640', but even still it can be confusing to some.  Not trying to force a certain lingo on you or anything, just trying to help out.

From my experience with both stylized paintings and the photographic type of backgrounds, photographic examples are much more difficult to work with.  With paintings you can get away with a lot, even bad perspectives can get the pass.  But with photo realism you're asking the viewer to believe, what with all the realistic detail, that what they're seeing is in fact real.  If it looks wonky or weird, it won't pass and the viewer's reaction may not be a positive one.

Maybe when it comes to painting concept art that must adhere to strict perspectives, lighting, and all the those things which are important for realism, then painting is on a level with photography and the artist must make the unreal seem real for film where it will be passed to an audience as a form of reality. 
Edit: Maybe that didn't make sense, but hopefully you get the idea... :/

I suppose in a Myst clone if there is no EGO character and you're never walking around, you can get away with a lot more as far as the scene and choices of photograph.  They don't seem too busy to me, but then again I really don't know how you plan to design your game.

With your photos, it seems like there is some kind of dot-dithering added in for stylized effect? Or was that just how you took the photos?  I don't dislike it, just wondering.

And finally...

Tell me what you think guys. If it rocks, if it sucks and why... Comments are welcome.

Why are you getting all defensive over Andail's crit when you clearly asked everyone to speak freely if they thought it sucked?  Me personally, I don't think it sucks, and I don't think it rocks...I think it needs a bit more work though.  There's a lot of things you could do to clean up the images and make them less crazy, which regardless of the atmosphere you're going for...if I can't figure out what the heck it is my eyes are staring at, I'll probably get annoyed and quit playing your game.  Just somethings to think about! =]

I dunno about higher resolution, but the one picture looks blurred a bit while the in-game looks a lot more pixelated.  Even still with the blurred out image, you can still see pixelated effects like on the dashed black lines on the barn.   Typically, things in the far background are more blurred than things in the foreground as well.

Wait...sorry, my fault - firefox blurs the images when they're resized.  Whoops.  Anyhow, when I saw the blurred image I kind of thought you attempted to correct it already.

I agree with TwinMoon about the tree and the stone path.  But about the blurring/pixelation...lemme just quickly show you an edit so you see what I'm saying:



I left a bit of pixelated areas for the close grass and the tree leaves and things like that, but I smoothed out the stones a bit even though they were close in.  I guess it's a matter of taste for some things, they just look less cluttery I suppose.  ^^  Cool background though!

I haven't really had a close call yet Suitor, but your story reminded me of a story that sounds similar to yours.

My brother sold my dad's 1969 custom Mustang, one of a kind beautiful car which was to be mine, to some punk kid who goes and drives into oncoming traffic to pass someone around a bend.  Not being able to see around the bend, a second car is coming and the kid loses control of the vehicle and crashes, causing his death and the destruction of the car.  This was a close call not for the kid in the car (they don't get any closer than dead), but for whomever saw this massive white 69 Mustang bearing down on them in the wrong lane at 70mph.  So yeah, your story reminded me of that.  Glad you're alright though! Let's toast to no more close calls. *clink* ^^

I gave it a listen all the way through, so I guess I'll weigh in.  There's the opening part, which I liked although it could use a little variation.  When you build from that into a verse, it's alright, but again without anything else there it seems a bit boring to repeat so many times.  Then there's a small shift section that leads back into what seems like an alternate verse that repeats until the shift section repeats again before a chorus.

The chorus bit I liked more than the rest, but later on some rather bland synth were slapped on top of it which I think doesn't help.  But if that's what you have, I guess it's not your fault! =]

Again I think everyone else had some good ideas, Viking's being the most in depth so I won't really say much more.  If it were me, I'd add another instrument or just break up the monotony with some different lines.  For being something where nobody is talking, your melody sure makes me hear vocal lines in my head. ^^  Anyway I liked it, I think it has potential.   

Edit: I've actually been jamming along with it for fun on the acoustic guitar, and I really think all you need are some interesting lines to accent the base part.

Are any components overheating?  Sounds like you've got enough power, but if the problem is related to your graphics card, either the card could be damaged/faulty, or the mobo itself could be damaged.

If it's just overheating, maybe there's not enough space and you need to create some airflow by tying back some cables or something or getting another fan?  Fire some compressed air in there and clean out the dust bunnies?  I had a similar problem to this, bought a case with more space and it came with two large fans in the front and back which fixed the overheating problem, but alas I lost a graphics card from the many failures. 

Short of these obvious fixes, you might just take it and have it hooked up to a tester at the local computer repair site - or start swapping out components. When my last gfx card died, I took it in and they let me swap in one of their older test cards for free which revealed the card as the problem...not everyone will be that generous though.

What if I shake my own hand every night? Will I father a clone?

*tries to avoid touching his own hands with a passsssion!*

[Background help]

Hey everyone, as you may know, I'm remaking Police Quest 2.  Right now, I could use some help with a few specific things.  Of course I'd love to put together a team of people to finish this game and work on the Police Quest inspired games to come, but that's totally optional really.

Background help:
I'm doing ok, but I think I need a little help with natural environments and maybe someone who just has a better eye than I do.  A second opinion is always nice to have nearby.
Here's a few examples of the current background work:

Lytton PD


Cotton Cove


Snuggler's Inn - Room 108


Old Warehouse District


That really should give you a very good idea of what things currently look like.  Since I started this back in February of this year, I find myself going back over these and improving them time and again.  In some areas I think they're still lacking something, but I really need to work on bringing the other backgrounds to a state similar to these and so I'd like someone more skilled than I, to go over the existing backgrounds and make improvements or possibly corrections without drastically altering them.

------------------------

Sprite help / Animation
The next thing I need help with, is for someone who is able to draw things like vehicles, characters, in perspective to match each background, draw them in perspective being animated, moving in perspective, etc and then be able to detail them to where they look semi-photographic to match the backgrounds and match the model of car or whatever it is that needs to be drawn.  I can draw some of them, but I really don't have the patience to draw all of these things with a mouse.  A friend has volunteered the use of his tablet, but he can't seem to locate the thing.  So any help with animation, drawing sprites, would be very appreciated and welcomed.

That's about all I do need help with right now.  If you like hard work and are looking for a team to join that will be working on many projects having to do with police work, please contact me. 

There's more here on the AGS Games in Production thread:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=33685.0

Or more here on the official project page:
http://www.novellice.com/theRedPress/?page_id=67

Thanks!
-Brent

There's no question I could do this, but I don't know how great it would turn out. :/ But it still seems like an interesting idea....never heard of it until now.  I'd consider doing it but I'm recording fourteen records this year starting in December, have to finish PQ2, and I really should take the trash out.  ;]

oh boy, i'm touching a lot of hands tonight! whoo doggie!

Are you a presidential candidate?

If I touch enough hands....maybe! ^^

Those damn kidney stones...Had me crying in pain until i finally passed it. Spent 3 hours in the ER.  They hurt like a ***********

Here here....I know your pain. :/  I spent two days in the ER for one.  Cost me a fortune too, not sure which hurt more.

Other than that I've broken my arm --- no wait, that wasn't me, my brother broke my arm.  He twisted it around and around until it snapped.  We were having fun!

I've had a hairline fracture on my foot from 8th grade, jumping off of some high structure and landing with one foot sideways.  That one wasn't so bad.

Once upon a time my fist collided with something rather hard, or well my pinky took most of the impact, thus smashing a little bone into even smaller pieces.  Had to have a large pin in my hand from my wrist to the end of my pinky.  When they removed it, they grabbed the end of this metal bit with a wrench and without any anesthesia or pain killers or anything, literally ripped it right out.  But it was neat, didn't even feel it.

Another time, working in a factory, I was using an autogun to screw in these pieces on a door assembly, and one slipped and for some reason it screwed halfway into my finger.  I had to put the autogun on reverse and unscrew it.

That's all I can think of.

oh boy, i'm touching a lot of hands tonight! whoo doggie!

As a fan of the PQ series i must say this looks awesome.
i am not an animator but if you need any music or just something to fill a spot like menu music or whatever
i would be glad to provide something for ya.
just let me know.
Keep up the good work

If you wanted to come up with various sound effects, tones, or something like that would be sweet.  As for music, I'm a musician but so far all I've fiddled with is the original midi tracks run through some Sonar synths with various other instruments I've collected here and there.   I'm thinking about using real guitar on the tracks - don't have access to real drums or anything else though, sadly.

But yeah hey -  menu music, sound effects, whatever you've got time and energy for is appreciated.  =]

Thanks a lot! ^^ I really hope I can make it all come together.   It's been a long while without much of an update, so I'll see if I can swing something here this month.  I'd love to put a quick demo out, still planning to, but I really need help with the animation because I just don't have the time to commit to improving myself in that area right now. 

After my big move in March, I'm going to be writing a webcomic and working on a graphic novel as well - but at that point I really want to devote a large chunk of time to working on my art more, and then maybe I won't need an animator after all.  Maybe I'll release a demo with incomplete animation sequences or something in the meantime.

Anyway I'm glad people are still interested in this, I've got fresh screenshots, sprites, and other things to reveal really soon.

Edit: Added a new background to the first post.

Beta-test
Proof-Reader
Dialogue
Storyline Advisor

PM me if you need my help!

Will do....in fact I probably will need help, but not this month and probably not next either.  For now I'm finishing up some animations for a demo, and they're pretty sweet I think.  But I'm finishing up a record as I work on them, so it's been kind of dead as far as progress. But I wanted to let everyone know that it doesn't mean things are abandoned at all, just means that things move at a snail's pace.  Cheers.

I absolutely love the new graphics! If you are looking for beta testers, please contact me. This and all of the other Police Quest games are my all time favorate Sierra series!

Probably will be a while before any beta testing takes place.  But, I will say again that I'm looking for an artist to assist with animation, which is holding up several scenes at the moment.  Either it will take a long time to finish them myself, or I'll need help with it.  Until then I'm still doing dialog and other scripting stuff.

Thanks for checking the project out. ^^

Joseph is working on a dialog system, but I couldn't wait and needed to work on something for the demo we're working towards - besides it needed a graphic eventually.  So I coded something that works, albeit a bit sloppy and well, it would be a situation by situation, message by message, really tedious and ugly solution.  But whatever, it works fine and if you're playing the game you can't tell the difference.

Things I've done:
1.  You can choose generic topics of conversation.  There will be portraits, and hopefully I can manage to keep dialogs going, portraits happening, and the GUI all working together in a nice, entertaining fashion that doesn't become annoying.
2.  There are Ask About topics, and instead of Tell I went with Inform, which is essentially the same thing but sounds a little bit more interesting than "tell about the park!"   For example you could "Inform him of his Miranda rights."
3.  Basic short word parser added.  So if you wanted to you could ask questions about "Bill Cole" but you wouldn't type in "ask about bill cole".  Just the topic title is all you need, then you hit the enter/return key to make your choice.  If it's not in the system, then nothing will happen, so it makes it easy and there's no need to say "I'm sorry, but that's not a word we recognize" four billion times.
4.  Multiple pages, because there's a lot to talk about and it's not going to fit nicely on one page.  And last, a "done" button, in case you want to quit chatting altogether.

That's about it, screenshot is in the first post, so go give it a look-see and I'll let everyone know how Joseph is progressing with his hopefully easier to code version when we're further along with it.

Wow I love the girl, the new vehicle, and the tree.  Of course the scenes seem rather empty but I know you're just having fun.  If you made it a short game, I would definitely want to play it.  As for each scene, I think they all need more going on, at least for a game they might.  But hey I really don't know what your vision is for such a game, and maybe I'm wrong, they just seem a bit vacant.   Awesome though, neat style.