Messages

Hey, Smokealot. Have you read this tutorial yet?

http://www.sylpher.com/kafka/tutorials/walkcycle1.htm

I think it pretty much explains the stuff that might be wrong in your animation. Basically, I think you should add more frames. You have the two extreme positions and kind of the middle position, you should make frames in between those. The standing position, which I referred to as the middle position, is not quite functional as a part of animation. In that position the other leg is a bit bent and in the air because it's moving to the front. This is covered in the tutorial, to some extent at least.

Also, in case you wouldn't pick it from the tutorial, when the right leg is in front, the right arm is in the back. Now they're both in front. The same naturally goes for the left side as well. It might be a good idea to study your own walking motion.

In your animation, the character is moving back and front, it might become an issue in-game. Basically the head should stay pretty much still horizontally. You can add a bit of motion but now there's way too much of it, in my opinion.

Yeah, that's about it. Mainly just focus on the big picture instead of the details. In other words, when you animate, concentrate on the stick figure stage and after that to the general shape of the character. Rendering the final details is of much less importance, even though it might seem otherwise.

Here's my try:



I used Photoshop CS and it took a couple of hours. Basically I tried not to concentrate on details but on the big picture. Didn't succeed so well in the perspective as it's not very calming to look at. Looks like the buildings were on downhill. Oh well, it was good practice.

By the way, Eric, when will you get yours finished? I can't wait.

Here are some progress shots.

This is a pretty tough one. The disadvantage I see in using 3D is that the scene will look too clean. You can make more lively backgrounds with 2D. It will take lots of work to get the same result with 3D.

I see you've only used primitives in this scene. They might become an issue with more complex scenes. But then again, you've used primitives in the 2D scene as well... I suppose it's just hard to judge by one background from each style. Though I'm not suggesting making more just for that.

Heh, as I said it's a tough one. But I'd probably go with the 3D style. The professional and solid look convince me. Still I recommend working on the liveliness issue. Lighting might help it. Try and get more saturation and warm colors in there. Especially on the lit parts.

I think the sprite fits in surprisingly well. It might help it if you left out the black outlines.

Could you explain the dimension issue further, Steve McCrea? I'm just curious because I think the image would serve pretty well as an entrance screen to the town. You get a good overall view of the town and you know where you're coming from.

However, I think this was used more than just as an entrance screen in Tulle's World but I might be wrong.

Anyway, I don't see what's all wrong about it.

Rock on, Ben! That's fantastic! Totally rockin.

I like the watercolor look in Blackthorne's image. Waiting to see the finished product.

Hey, Thomas.

16-bit hi-color and 640x480 mean the graphical quality from the technical aspect. 16-bit means that you're using tens of thousands of colors which means that there are no basically no limitations how to use the colors. However, the reason you might not want to use this is that it slows the game down a bit. But for artists like me, who don't really want to mind that kind of thing when creating a background, you might end up using this. The other alternative is to use 256 colors for your game. It often means that you will have to limit the way you work because you can't use blur or any other effects as there are too few colors to use.

However, as you mentioned CMI (Monkey Island 3), that game actually uses only 256 colors. They've used a program called DeBabelizer, or something like that, to decrease the colors from thousands to only about 230 or so. The rest, twenty or so, colors are reserved for the character and the inventory box. Or something along those lines.

Markings such as 640x480 or 320x200 imply the amount of pixels used in the image. Greater figures obviously mean better image quality, so to say. Ie. smoother edges for everything you see there. Again, the lower quality (320x200) is faster than higher quality, but it's often easier to work with bigger resolutions. It depends on your style though. Experiment.

As for CMI's art, it was created by Bill Tiller. The backgrounds, to be exact. He first made a pencil sketch, scanned it so he could work on it on the computer. I think he used Photoshop 6 or 7 for it. Either way, I think he used multiply layer for the sketch so it would show over the color layers. However, if you don't have a scanner you can use a drawing tablet for the outlines. If you don't have either a scanner or a tablet, I think you can mimic the style pretty well with a mouse as well but it's a lot of work though and probably very frustrating.

I personally have used a drawing tablet for more than a year and I'm really glad I bought it. I recommend it if you're really interested in CMI style and more.

Nice work. Seems like you can actually do something (a lot) with Blender.

I think you could make a significant improvement by adding more detail to the texture. Here's an example: http://www.joachimart.com/tutorial_char.htm . The character there has only 500 polys but the texture makes it look as if it was twice that.

You could also try dedicating more polygons on the joints and not that much on static and almost flat surfaces, such as the face. Try to customize the construction of every joint, not just by using extrusions. Extrusions often leave lots of unnecessary polygons. I think Counter-Strike models and such are good examples for simple but working joints. And for lots of other things as well.

By trimming the unnecessary polygons you might be able to make the legs rounder. Four faces (I hope I'm using the correct term, my vocabulary is obviously limited) is too little for legs as they are so visible. Well, considering the polygon limit.

Anyway, sorry for sounding like a know-it-all. I'm just presenting the stuff in a pretty straight-forward fashion.

Keep it up, I think you're on to something!

Looks cool. Very Cartoon Networkish.

Have you though about varying the line width? It's a good way to add more depth without screwing with the style.

Sounds good to me!

My guess for Banana Smoothie Jr. would be Helm. I don't know about his political views though, nor do I know much about literature. Wishful thinking, I guess.

Happy birthday, dude!

Nice, Shbazjinkens! Just one question - how many polygons? Can't tell for sure because of the resolution but do you have multiple segments on the supporting four cylinders?

Just curious, really.

I don't know, after trying Maya, 3D Studio MAX and Truespace I honestly couldn't figure Blender out. I think I could make a primitive object and zoom in and out with the camera and that's it. And I tried for quite some time. I'm probably just slow at learning but I already knew how to use 3dsmax to some extent, so that would support the claim that the interface isn't quite the same. I really wasn't able to make any sense of it.

My vote goes to Truespace. Mostly because of its ease of use, despite the fact that the interface isn't quite as standard as 3dsmax's or Maya's. But then again, in my opinion, Blender's interface isn't that standard either.

http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=12033;start=msg144442#msg144442

That's just my opinion.

I believe Photoshop is definitely one of the best programs to use. Can't go wrong with it really.

It's mostly just a matter of preference, what tools you need for your style. Paint Shop Pro is good in that it's easy to learn. Photoshop on the other hand, isn't quite as straightforward at first but I claim that it's faster to use once you get used to it. I, for example, use shortcuts for basically all the tools I'm using, even brightness/contrast adjustments etc. But the thing I'm most thrilled about is that you can paint in full screen without the tools or anything else on the way. It has made my painting life a lot easier.

Anyway, I haven't used Paint Shop Pro much lately so I can't compare the two very well. I think the 6th or 7th version was the last I used. Is there anyone who has recently used them both and could compare the two? From my experience, Paint Shop Pro isn't as extensive as Photoshop.

I think Evil's tutorial shows pretty much the technique that produces an accurate result. It just takes pretty much work if you want to make it exact and you usually get really close to just what looks good, so it might not be that important. Besides, if you were to apply the technique in the example image, the resolution wouldn't be enough to make the lines distinct. This is just to say that it would take some extra effort. Maybe scaling it up, making the lines there and then scaling the result down and push the pixels. Pretty much work.

Here's another way to explain it. I learned the technique from this: http://www.fineart.sk/photos/figure/016.JPG

Edit: About the central-perspective. I think it works the same way, the horizontal lines just don't rely to the other point, they're all just horizontal. But I'm not sure because I'm pretty confused by now. Right now I think this technique only works if you're able to make the closest rectangle perfect by eye.

More ideas, anyone?

Even though no one wants another Star Wars game and the like, it doesn't mean to me that Sam And Max 2 was going to be great. I mean, I think it's possible that they just realized that the game wasn't good enough and it wasn't coming out as it was imagined to. I don't think it has to be made an adventure game genre issue.

Ytterbium, I think Drownage makes logical points. Obviously you think he's wrong. Don't tell him to shut up, prove him that he is wrong. Please.

Anyway, I'm sad to hear there won't be a good adventure game coming out after all. Would have been great. Oh well.

CJ, I think the sleepwalking issue stems from the fact that body is paralyzed when you're sleeping. If the body isn't paralyzed for some reason you probably end up walking around or something. But that's not really textbook knowledge.

An interesting related issue is that it's possible to wake up with your body paralyzed. I don't think it lasts more than a minute or something but it really would be scary to notice you can't move your body. I suppose it's one of the many variations of somewhere in between dreams and reality experiences.

I think the point of dream diary and similar methods is that you remember how it feels when you're asleep. So that you can learn to recognize the dream state. Or did someone already point this out? I probably missed it.

I think it's fantastic. I seriously am amazed how you get better all the time. This one is really solid, as Big Brother expressed it. Getting more and more professional constantly.

I'm basically just saying the same as everyone else, but I think the biggest effect with a reasonable amount of work would be achieved with more accurate lighting. As Darth Mandarb pointed out the bed and chair, the reason they stand out, in my opinion, is because their values are so different from the surroundings and the shadows don't interact so much with the rest of the scene. It's just pretty tedious work with this style, figuring out bouncing light and stuff like that. I suggest taking out some of the black (shading) off the borders of the image. As it's, for some parts, light source independent.

Gotta keep this short cause I'm tired. But it was great seeing your work again, Erwin. You're really getting good at this.

Haven't experienced that, Rodekill, but it sure is interesting. And unpleasant, I believe. I'm sure most of us have experienced that when asleep but when awake? :o

On the guy who could control his dreams most of the time, the book I was talking about claims the following:

"The claim is often made by yogis and other specialists in "inner states" that they are able to retain consciousness throughout the entire night, including during dreamless sleep. Wrote a twentieth-century Indian master, Sri Aurobindo Ghose, "... it is even possible to become wholly conscious in sleep and follow throughout from beginning to end or over large stretches the stages of our dream-experience."

I'm sure you didn't mean that great a control but as this is kind of related...

I'm surprised how many are familiar with lucid dreaming. I've tried it as well and at the time I read pretty much about lucid dreaming and OBEs and stuff like that.

To anyone that isn't familiar with lucid dreaming, I'd like to point out that one of the best parts of it is that everything feels as real as it does when you're awake. If your successful, that is. Sometimes not but I think it's a really important part of it which hasn't been pointed out yet, I think.

The things that I would've wanted to hear from the very beginning are ways to not get too excited (thus wake up) and how to prolong the lucid dream. As Duzz already pointed the good way to not get excited, I'll just tell how I was able to continue staying lucid when I thought I was drifting back to the passive state. I read from Stephen LaBerge's book that when you start losing lucidity, start spinning or falling back. The falling back technique worked well for me. The sensation is probably enough to keep you interested in that moment and thus stay active or something.

The reason I stopped trying lucid dreaming is that it's pretty confusing sometimes. I mean, figuring when you're awake and when you're not, as the dreams can feel very real. For example, if you think you wake up and think "yeah, finally a lucid dream" and then you wake up again, and after perhaps several times you really get up. It's just pretty scary.

But it was definitely a nice experience and I will keep it in mind if I ever feel the need to overcome a subconscious fear or anything like that. When dreaming you're in close connection with your subconsciousness so by what I've read, it's possible to overcome fears and stuff through lucid dreaming.

Anyway, the other major reason for me not going on with lucid dreaming is that I like to pay more attention to living in real world. Basically, you can have great sensations when on computer, or watching a movie or a dream. But for me, it's important that the feeling is 'real' in that fashion. But that's just me and this might not apply to others at all. And I mean the not being able to do stuff awake when you can do it asleep part.

Nonetheless, a very fascinating subject. I was really surprised to see Mods bring this up. No offence inteded.

I think it's a good start but I think the technique needs a little work. Also the resolution could be smaller, something like 640x400.

It would make the process faster if you just quickly laid down the main colors and started brushwork after that. The thing that bothers me is the white background showing through. It gives it a cool paperlike feeling but it also makes the scene less credible. This is however, completely a matter of taste, and if it's the style you're going for, then it's all OK. But for learning purposes at least, it would be better to use simpler methods, in my opinion.

With the simple way of coloring that I'm talking about, it would probably take less than a minute to get the overall feel of the scene. Then you would just add shading there and the details. It's good to be as efficient as possible when it comes to adventure game graphics since you'll be making lots of them.

If you're interested, I can elaborate. But anyway, you seem to have a good grasp over the brushes and stuff so it might not be necessary. Anyway, keep us posted!