Messages

Most of the PnC games I've enjoyed, have been more about the puzzles than anything. (This could change with Drugs Bust).  Even so, they've still been story driven.  Action-esque reflexes haven't played a great part since Space Quest V.

Sure, the VGA remake of SQ1 had those reflexes, but I never finished that.

I prefer the non-death, "think about it, no, think a bit harder" style of gameplay that Lucasarts has offered in the past.  It's just my apathetic attitude to everything kicking in again, I think.

I can understand the possible need for an timed action sequence now and then, as long as there's some kind of warning beforehand.  IE, you're a cop, there's a timed shooting range you've been ordered to go to. NOT, you're a cop, it's thursday, SHOOT 25 HEADSHOTS in 30 seconds or be suspended.  I'd like to prepare for an "exciting" section, personally.  (SQ1 = get on bike/ride bike around stuff - not - get to planet be on bike dodging stuff).

EDIT:

Fetish for Guns?  We should totally hook up. I have a fetish for people.

I tried the gun-dealie for the PS2.  I hope our little corner of gaming survives without having to resort to "point at screen and press button".

Hope, but not expect.

Sadly.

EDIT:

Tasteless as it was, I'm glad someone got it.  Kudos, my dear.

A bit late, i realise, but..

If I leave my wallet unattended at my office, then it is still a crime if you take it for keeps.

Imagine I've just started at said office.  The company you worked for went bust/moved premises a few years ago.  Also, you left the company a while ago.  I phone the contact number/write to (and/or visit) the contact address stated in the wallet.  Nothing.  No one has a way of contacting you, as you've moved on.  There's 3 x $1 bills in the wallet, a nickel caught up it in the lining that I'd need a knife to remove, as well as a few unread business cards you've picked up on your travels.  "Suzie" tutors A level and O level French and Greek.  I've always thought about learning another language, but that's beside the point. There's also a coupon for saving 20 cents on your next VHS rental, from a rental shop that has closed down and has now become a butchers.  (Happened to me, b*st*rds).

Now, the dilemma..

I could hand the wallet in to the police, and hope they give a damn.

Or..

I could keep the $3.05, and just assume you have a new wallet and have found someone else to teach you how to swear at foreigners.

Personally, in the long term scale of things, handing in a wallet just gets dumber and dumber by the day.  The longer a game has been released, the less immoral a piracy is.

Abandonware, to me, is where the makers are past the point of caring about piracy, but are just too lazy to make it free (ie, remove copy protection).  Most people aren't going to buy it, even if it WAS available.  The few that WOULD buy it, probably already own it.

Will scripting on PS3_AGS be the same as on the PC or will it be much more difficult?

Unfortunately, the PS3's multi-core processor will inevitably make coding more difficult.

This is why I bankrolled Scotch's help a couple of years ago, I knew back then an evolution to console was in the works (admittedly, I didn't think it was going to be to our new-found friends at Sony).  He's studying some kind of code based crapola at uni at the moment, and he owes me a holiday.  It's either program for my shiny new PS3 or send me to Canada.  As a fellow tight-wad, I know which he'll pick.  Expect a game by the end of the year. "PS3"n15h award, here we "come".

*Chortle*.

Etc.

"Nob". (Hee).

Do you get a cut of that profit, too, CJ? Or are you just getting an upfront contract?

What's the res for HD anyhow, as it's getting upscaled from 1280x1024?


In other news, I'm now not going to Mittens this year, as I've just ordered my PS3.

Scotch, M0ds, everyone else who owes me favors, get your pants on: It's pay day.
At least the upped resolution means I won't have to reduce the sketches and pixellise anymore, I can just paintover.

Also, what's the situation on 3d sprites on 2d-ish backgrounds, a la Resident Evil?

EDIT:

An Emmy?  The TV version of the Oscars?  How the hell did they win one of those?

Hm.. I guess I'll find out what all the fuss is about in a few days.

How will we get hold of devkits, and how much will they cost?

The PSone and PS2 had games made by anyone.  Sony's a cash magnet.  They'll throw out the Devkits and just rake in a share of our profits.

CJ, do we have to release the stuff thru BigBlueCup Ltd, or thru Sony directly?  In either situation, how do we get paid, if at all?

Eric:
WTF is a sixaxis? Is it as naughty as it sounds?

I was personally on hoping for a contract with Nintendo.  I'd had some cracking ideas for Wii-mote based puzzles.  I'm going to have to completely rethink them now.

I won't be going to any of the festivals.  Music's too crap these days, and it's getting worse and worse with every new band.

I own several guitars and an iPod.  I have a garden.  I'll buy some beer and make my own festival at home.  At least then I can be assured of only listening to music I like.

M0ds.. Didn't I pay you to attend this year?

I should be there, assuming I can get a job.

Annie still needs to make me some tea.

Right, here comes that tutorial type thing I mentioned..

Program used:
Paint Shop Pro 9 - I like working with layers.Ã,  I can get around a lack of talent by taking my time and building up a picture piece by piece.

Tools used:
Paintbrush - 2x2 pixel.
Flood Fill/Paint Bucket.
Line tool - 2 pixel width.
Text tool.
Zoom tool.

Onwards, then..



Framing and layout.

You can do this in either at the very start, filling in the panels one by one to the preset pattern, or you could do this at the very end, cropping and positioning the seperate panels to fit.Ã,  Either way, the important thing is that you actually do this at some point.

So far, Fluke, your comics have just looked a mess because you've put no thought into how they're going to be displayed.Ã,  For this example, I'm drawing the panels first, as I wanted a set piece of 4 panels to work with.



Note, I've left space at the top left for a title, and on the top/bottom right, so I can write various info that's not part of the comic itself.Ã,  You don't have to go with the wonky angles, you don't have to make them thick black lines, but you DO need to spread your panels out in some way.



Next comes the outlines.Ã,  I'm only using a mouse, as I've no idea if you have a graphics tablet.Ã,  I'm not good at drawing with the mouse, I'm the first to admit that, and even these outlines took a while of trial and error until I was satisfied with their shapes.



The yellow one in panel 2 still looks to DOTT-like for my liking, but I got sick of try to fix it.

Note at this point, using the mouse, I've zoomed in to draw them, I means my lines are much more accurate than if I was at 1x1.Ã,  I'll come back to this point a little later, but for now, lets move on.



Shading.

Not all that a difficult section.Ã,  In fact, in all honesty, it's the paint bucket tool/flood fill/etc.



The technique isn't what matters, tho.Ã,  Even at this stage, I was analysing the comic as a whole, trying to get a color palette for the two characters that complimented each other well, but were also not harsh colors, not too bright, not too dark, not too saturated, etc.

Whilst blue and yellow do compliment each other, the actual shades you've been using aren't easy on the eye.



Above, I've filled in the details of the characters.Ã,  I've kept them as simple as possible, to demonstrate the point.Ã,  It's the expressions.Ã,  Just the eyes.

There's nothing worse than an comic, that has slacked on the expressions.Ã,  You don't even need text, if you do expressions right.Ã,  The majority of your comics have been lacking emotion, and at some points looking devoid of life.Ã,  If people don't get a sense of emotion from the character, then they won't enjoy the read very much.Ã,  You describe it as a comic about "two anthropomorphic blobs".Ã,  You've got to give them more life.

I can't teach how to draw expressions.Ã,  It comes from practice.Ã,  Buy a sketchbook and a pen, and doodle them whenever you have the chance.Ã,  The more you practice, the better you get.



I've removed the fills on the characters in the above stage, so I can explain the backgrounds a little easier.

Lets start with panels 1 and 4.Ã,  I'd already used blue and yellow, so I didn't want the backgrounds to clash, so I picked a 3 shades of green for the bulk of the image.Ã,  The darkest green outlines, to show the shape of the room, and then two very similar greens for the shading.Ã,  There's only a very subtle difference shaded greens, but it helps to add a little depth.

I didn't want the ceilings to be plain white, as I wanted the comic to have a full color look, I picked a very pale blue.Ã,  It needed to be a light color, as I'd already decided to have the text on the background itself, and not in speech bubbles.Ã,  As for the floor, I picked a dark red, to give the panels a solid bottom, as well as to contrast the text at the tops.

Panel 4 specifically, has more of the carpet in view.Ã,  This is for 2 reasons. Firstly, I didn't want it to be the same as the panel 1.Ã,  Secondly, as I look at it, the solid base makes it feel like that panel is the concluding one.



Panel 2 has no carpet in, as I felt that the dark red would take the attention off of the key feature, that being the red hat.Ã,  I wanted the backgrounds to draw the eyes into the main part of each panel, especially panel 3.Ã,  Much like Mr Flibble's comic, the dynamic background adds to the mood of the panel.Ã,  Unlike his, I wasn't aiming for excitement, so his method wouldn't be as appropriate, I found the spiral helped to draw peoples eyes into the expression of anger on the yellow character's face.

I went for green as it was the dominate color in the other backgrounds, and pink as I hadn't used it before.Ã,  Red's the color for anger, so I think in retrospect, the pink was a pretty good choice.



Lettering.Ã,  Something you've been very lazy in so far, Fluke.Ã,  Like I said, using Arial isn't a good idea for the size of the comic you draw.Ã,  It would suit the size I've drawn, either, so I avoided it as best I could.

A quick visit to Blambot and I'd found myself a couple of free fonts designed for use in comics.Ã,  The dialogue uses one called "Gorilla Milkshake".Ã,  Now, was that so difficult?Ã,  A little effort goes a long way in improving a piece.

I chose brown and blue for the text, as I wanted it to be obvious who was saying what.Ã,  Not only that, I also considered the placement and alignment of the text, too.Ã,  It's just a little touch that can improve the comic a lot.

As for panel 3, I didn't like how the brown was looking on top of the pink.Ã,  I tried various colors and styles.Ã,  I tried bolding the text. I tried enlarging the font.Ã,  Anything that I could do to try and make it slightly better, I did.

So, after this, I was finally done with the various individual panels.Ã,  It took me quite a while, even though I was keeping everything as simple as possible.Ã,  I was aiming for the art to look pretty bad, mostly as I was trying to point out the importance of composition more than anything, but I've probably spent more time on the comic so far than you have on any of yours, Fluke.Ã,  What's more, is the final piece is still unfinished..



Here, I've filled in the space outside of the actual panels, to clean up the image, and to spread things out.Ã,  I chose a mild gradient as it's another little flourish that detracts the reader from realising how sloppily drawn the art is, and makes it look like I've put a lot more effort in than I actually have.



Using the text tool again, I've added some words on the right, and added a title to the piece.Ã,  The font there is "Winter in Gotham", again from Blambot.Ã,  1 pixel outline, and a yellow-red gradient.Ã,  Only a few moments to create, but gives a much more professional look to the comic.

Now, just a final crop to the image, to remove the empty block on the right, and..

Whiz..
Bang..



A final comic, that was created with no real art skills or comedy, but still manages to dazzle the readers with a bunch of minor tweaks and tricks.

Style 1. Substance 0.





Since I've bothered to get this far, I might as well throw in some quick things you can hopefully use to scam your way through, on the art side of things..


The expressions.



You can see quite clearly there's no real detail in there.Ã,  It's just a 2x2 pixel brush.Ã,  I zoomed in the image in larger than this to draw it, though.Ã,  Probably twice that size.Ã,  The larger the zoom, the more accurate I can be with the mouse.



Notice how relatively smooth things look?Ã,  It's pretty scruffily drawn, but the larger outline manages to mask that flaw.Ã,  To explain this better, I've drawn two examples.Ã,  Firstly, is the same random character using a 2x2 brush and then a 1x1 brush.



Mr. Green has softened edges, and a nice feel to him.Ã,  It doesn't matter than he's badly drawn, as mostly, the lack of talent is masked.

Mr. Red, on the other hand, has rough and jerky edges.Ã,  His eye's are wrong.Ã,  He's got double pixels.Ã,  He's harsh and ugly looking.Ã,  A close up show how badly he needs cleaning up, whilst Mr. Green is ready to use.



In the second example, I've redrawn the blue thing from your Appleseed based comic, matching your style as best I could. I've then redrawn half in my style, to show you how big a difference a little effort makes.



For the comic, I would have stopped on the 3rd picture, but I decided to add a bit of shading in the 4th, and then a five o'clock shadow in the 5th to show the passage of time.Ã,  Not a whole lot of effort was needed, and the method is pretty simplistic.Ã,  It shouldn't take you long to improve your art, as long as you can find a method you can master easily.

I'm not saying use my style, by all means find your own.Ã,  Just find something, as recently you don't seem to be taking on any of the advice given by people.Ã,  With the aid of a tutorial and some examples of how simple changes can make all the difference, I hope you realise it's not a such great leap you need to make to improve.

Good Luck, etc.

Back view? Not really tried those before, I just assumed folk would work around it with coloring.  I guess I might as well have a stab at one.

As for a side view, I'll make one once I'm fully set up here.

Cat, can I ask a question? What program are you using for the art?

I know a lot of folks are hardcore MSPaint users, but if you use something that has layers, like PS or PSP, then you can make each item as a new layer, and if you choose to make it "pick-upable", then it's not too difficult to manage, whilst still keeping the rest of the background intact.

As for:
"In the AGS tutorial I read that there should not be too much items per room for good performence."

..has that tutorial been updated recently?

I'll post these again, for the heck of it.Ã,  (They seem to have been forgotten, despite getting no bad crits)..

Sure, they'll need resizing, and painting over, but hopefully it'll give you start in making your own cycle for that character.


02 and 04 are a joint pair, style-wise (though the speeds are off). 06 is a more natural walk.
If you really need a specific walk cycle, send me a PM after a week or two and I'll try and knock you up a template for that.  (Still unpacking after a move, and my tablet is missing a pen).

Nikolas, you're right on a few things.

I basically did that comic with very little effort, but I'll point out the key bits.

1. The bodies in every panel.  Yes, they were all different.  It might take you a bit longer, but it really is worth the effort of you doing each frame as a new picture, not just changing the speech bubbles for each frame.
This also refers to the art in general, you should try doing as much of it by hand as possible, so it doesn't look like someone using MSPaint for the very first time.

2. The expressions.  Again, drawn seperately for each panel.  It doesn't take much, but it makes all the difference.  To support this, I entirely skipped the mouths of the characters, and (not to blow my own trumpet, or to offend you) still had more emotion than the ones you've done.

3. The backgrounds were different for each panel.  One tip for drawing comics I've heard, is to treat the backgrounds with as much importance as your characters.  Reusing the same scene over and over is just lazy, but changing it adds more depth to the comic strip.

4. Like Nik' said. Dynamics.  The comic wasn't just a stardard rehash panel after panel.  The more diverse you can make it, the better.  New angles? Good.  New poses? Good.  Repetition? Bad, unless you know how to pull it off.  At the moment, you don't, so I'd suggest making the thing more interesting.

5. Fonts.  Sure, I used different colors.  Mostly so people could see who was talking.  I'm still not happy with the brown text, compared to the blue.  I mainly did this, because I didn't like how the speech bubbles I was trying turned out.
The speech bubbles and text in your comics seems lazy, though.  Arial for everything?  I'd suggest getting some different fonts, and looking at other comics for inspiration.  Unless you're doing very small comics, using Arial is just laziness.  It looks good if it's pixel by pixel stuff, but in the style and size you're aiming for, it just looks amateurish.

6. Composition.  There's nothing worse than bad composition.  You could be a fantastic artist, but if you didn't spread things out, it'd look like a mess.  This was the main reason people think my comic isn't the worst thing they've every seen.  The art was nothing to write home about, in fact, I was aiming for Bad Art.  The composition has saved it though.  The gaps between panels.  The wonky angles of the panels.  The bothering to add space for the title, the credits and the copyright notice.  It's just planning, and it's something I seriously suggest you take the time to think about.  At the moment, your comics just look like a bunch of similar pictures put together on a page, without the least bit of thought.
Take a moment to walk around your house, you've no doubt got some pictures on the wall somewhere.  They're not all bunched in one messy looking group, are they? Ask your parents why they've spread them out instead of putting them all together in a group.  Look at magazines and comics and newspapers.  Composition makes all the difference.

7. Humor.
This is a toughy.  I'm not going to criticise your style too much, as you might genuinely find it hilarious.  I went for the Limp Bizkit reference, because I was trying to imitate your humor.  Here's the thought process I used:

- Come up with a Pop Culture reference, that is either clichéd or just plain dated.
- How do I make a reference without doing to much art and/or changing the characters too much?
- Add a hat. A red hat.
- Fred Durst was famous for having the red baseball cap on backwards.

Not that great a comedic feat I admit, but I wasn't going for a joke in the cartoon as much as I was style and composition.

Note:
Nikolas: "What could be a problem for me, is that in a 4 panel comic, arriving at the joke in panel 3, seems somewhat early to me."

Where's the joke in panel 3?  I personally see the joke as panel 4, after the yellow blob flies off the handle, insulting the blue thing, everything is back to normal seconds later.  Also referencing Fluke's style of "Random and clichéd pop culture reference each week". (Again, no offence, Fluke).

Like the folk have said before, make stuff you find funny personally.  Not stuff you expect people to find funny, or imitating stuff that's already out there.  The point of comics, like all art, is not to please the masses but for you to look at and think "I'm proud of that.  I like it".

On to the main part of this post, again another quote from Nikolas:
"I doubt that fluke can make the art that you just did..."

This statement is total b*ll*cks.  If you believe it Fluke, you're doing yourself an injustice.  The comic I did was done with a combination of a mouse, an art program (PSP9, as I like having layers) and the repeated use of Ctrl-Z.  Anyone can make that comic, all they need is to do is to put in the effort.

Sometime tomorrow, I'll post again, with a step by step on how I did that cartoon, just to explain just how simple it is to improve a piece.  You just need to put some variety and effort into the art.



Personally, I dislike the style you've gone for.  It seems messy, and in all honesty, the cut and pasting is just plain lazy.  Most of the jokes you're making are either clichéd or too obscure to get without you explaining them (ie, the MGS and Pac Man strips, respectively).  The Mac jokes are just plain lame, they've been around for years.  Chances are, you've never really used a Mac enough to make a valid comment on it.  It's like the Sonic vs. Mario situation from the early nineties.

That said, I'm not going to say you don't have potential.  The erection comic actually made me chortle.  It wasn't the whole comic, just the idea of him being aroused, and shown in that way.  That was a clever idea, just poorly executed.

I also liked the jaw drop piece.  (The one place where you were right to keep the same expression on the character).  But, instead of "6 hours later" and "10 hours later", you could have showed the change in time by the use of the background.  Instead of just plain green, you could have had the first panel as day time, then night time.  Possibly even adding a 5 o'clock shadow to the character.



I hope I've come across as actually trying to help you with this post, even though most of it has been pretty negative criticism.  Hopefully, you'll take some of it on board, as you've got the basis of good comic idea, and if you put the effort in, the chance to make it something worth reading.  (The concept for the characters, tho not entirely original, is a pretty good one.  The less realistic they are, the more you can concentrate on making them seem real, if you know what I mean).

Good Luck, etc.

I got bored, and thought I'd jump on the bandwagon.

Why don't you just get them to upload it somewhere, and have them email you the link?

Vic, I don't know you that well.

Resolute to the fact I think you're a moron.

Just keep reading the above line, that way I won't have to bother replying to your next banal, arrogant and misinformed post.

You were the only one banned for a silly reason, and you were shortly thereafter unbanned.

Tuomas and John weren't banned for silly reasons.

EDIT:

Assuming someone was banned for a legitimate reason, making a whiny topic about it would not get them unbanned.Ã,  It would just get them banned and labelled as whiny.

EDIT:

Some folk found it funny.

[04:09] <spleen> it's pmdee. his discomfort is our hilarity.
[04:09] <********> it was pretty funny

I suggest you look up the following words in a dictionary.

Joke.
Humour.
Laugh.

..and all their derivitives.

Have you ever told a joke? Have you ever said something funny?  Have you ever laughed at someone's misfortune, no matter how small?

Someone's been on the receiving end of that humour at some point.  This time it's you.  Get over yourself.

pcj: Banned by spleen, as a silly joke but unbanned moments later.Ã,  I don't think he even noticed.

Obviously, from seeing the pcj banning and subsequent unbanning, you know I'm not even partly sincere, in such actions.  Failing that, you should have gathered that from the PM's we exchanged.

John and Tuomas are banned for reasons out of my control, so I'm not going to comment on thir situations.