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It's like everything is literally going in slow-motion.  So if it takes the guy 2 seconds to walk across the street, it suddenly takes him 4 seconds.  The frame rate also appears to drop.  This just suddenly occurs when you go above about halfway up the screen.  So it isn't a progressive slowdown from bottom to top; the game is running normally, then suddenly jumps into slow motion. 

I have an area where the character scales from max scaling level of 50 to min scaling level of 20, with continuous scaling.  When the character goes about halfway up the screen, the game suddenly starts to drag at about 1/2 normal speed.  It's basically like slow motion?  Is this a problem caused by scaling the character too small, or is there something that can be done to help with the slow down?  It seems to be just when the character scales down very small.

Hey, just bumping this thread due to the recent possible demise and certain bankruptcy of Desura.  I'm wondering if IndieDB will be severely impacted, and am wondering if anyone has any advice on promoting an as-yet unfinished game to get the visibility / demand / fanbase up? 

I'm thinking about itch.io, but haven't yet finished the game so that's a no-go for now.

Hm... I have an IndieDB site, hopefully nothing bad happens...

Thanks for the notes and reference pic!

I wasn't thinking of him being particularly angry at the moment, but rather just having a peculiar bone/muscle structure.  Resting asshole face.  I might just de-emphasize the arc a bit and pull the caterpillars up out of his eye sockets.  The inner ends of the brows are probably a bit low.

Thanks Cassiebsg, and yes, I think a scar is probably in order!

Thanks for the pointers!  I was kind of looking more for reactions to the character itself, but technical art fixes can't hurt.

I will disagree that eyebrows never naturally arc like that:

Latest version of the Neofeud protagonist here.  He was super low-def previously and something was super wrong...  I think I figured out why he looked too much like an anime character and not a cybernoir protagonist -- his eyeballs were two sizes two big for their sockets.  I know there's some weirdness going on with the background -- some of the lo-res hair is poking into the shot, I'll take that out later.  Also I know the shirt appears to be still fairly lo-res or with some sort of watercolor filter on it.

Main thing is, I'm trying to sell this dude as a kind of hardboiled ex-cop dishonorably discharged burnout.  Like a cyberpunk Bruce Willis from 2030 (more mixed race, obviously).  A guy with some room for redemption.  Little details that might help add some character, or out-of-character details that might be subtracted from the portrait are the kind of things I'm looking for, if you know what I mean. 

Thanks in advance!

Choice is good, but if it becomes too "Write your own novel!" It can have this weird effect of giving the characters and events less weight.  I think this is what I kind of disliked about NV; there was a lot of time just diddling around doing random little things for my taste.  Like, "Do this little quest," then, "Do THAT little quest," and "Do this quest too, if you like, but you don't have to.  Whatever." 

This is what I liked about Deus Ex, in that there are a million ways to approach an objective, but the goals remain somewhat constant, coherent, tightly-written, and each sequence of events is pivotal as part of a larger dramatic arc? 

I'm sad to say I didn't even finish Fallout NV.  I've played all the others through multiple times, though.  Not sure what it was... Perhaps I'm just becoming old or archaic or over-apocalypsed or full-time jobbed, but I felt like I'd played through the same wasteland locales and character types and dramatic beats.  I'll need to give this thing at least a try, though.

Is there a way to set an automatic border for the Sierra-style portraits or do you have to just include that in the portrait image?

I call her "The DMV Nazi Lady".  An office worker at Sentient Services.

"I'm sorry ma'am. Regulations are regulations. You need a consciousness quotient of 4.1 and above to qualify as a fually conscious and sentient entity."

"This isn't fair! These humans don't have to take a stupid test! What have they got that I don't!"

"Humans are sentient persons by default, ma'am. They have personhood by heredity."

"What makes you so goddamn special, just cause you got the right double-helix of DNA!? This is that, what's I called… Anthrocentrism! Anthrocentrist bullshit!"

"Security! Please escort this non-sentient Humanoid to the exit immediately!"

Exo-suited guards show up, grab the woman robot by her arms, take her baby and kick her out of the building.

"(exhasperated sigh) And to think we used to waste our human resources on these pathetic glorified Roombas and genetic-engineering failures.  My promotion to the Coastlandia Central Office can't come soon enough."

Thank the 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating for Mad Max Fury Road for the Fallout 4 greenlight.  Nothing like a little market priming to get your show on the road.  Speaking of which, I better get Neofeud revved up and rolling now if I want to ride this wasteland train....

Fallout is a lot of things, but it is definitely an interactive gamified Mad Max, to the point you can actually have Mel Gibson's asymetrical biker jacket, and his Australian sheep dog following you around.

The eye contains I think more visual information for the human species than any other object, and thus it gets the most scrutiny.  The magic trick with eyes for me is there's an artist tendency to want to make them bigger and brighter than they actually are, like, "Your eyes are too big for your stomach", but too big for your face in this case! 

When you wax the whites out around the irises, this is what starts giving that creepy puppet-like effect, I find.  The whites of the eyes are actually not that white, but a muted grey/mauve.  Also, it's easy to forget they have their own topography, generally spherical, and generally they are brightest near the center, and get darker towards the lids. 

Here's a sample.



I didn't touch the irises, but might want to darken them a bit, with a few brighter highlights.

Reminds me of Tex Murphy: Tesla Effect, in a good way

Looks great, can't wait!

Looks pretty good for not knowing what you're doing!  Also you have a very striking face, which is good for making your work instantly recognizable.

The oldness is a factor of the hard edges, I think.  Take a smoother or a smudger or something that airbrushes (can't remember the specific Art Rage tools) to youthify the portrait.  Especially between the cheeks and the mouth.  Maybe consider adding a bit more ruddiness / blush to the cheeks.

Looks great, keep goin!!

What's the best way to go about having a random event happen repeatedly in a room at random time intervals?  For example, a robot does a brief fidgeting / nose scratch animation at a random time.  The first time there is a 8 second delay, the next a 5 second, then ten seconds, etc.. 

Sentient Services Exterior.

Once I'm finished with Neofeud I'd be open to helping out with 58.    As it stands, I feel I can have a maximum of two spouses at once (one literal with ring and joint back account and such, one "creative project" )

Super awesome look!  The fashion is spot on.  Reminds me of Mr. T's instructional video on 'styling'.  Shelly has 'Jeanine, cool as a peppermint ice cream' vibe with the hot pink ensemble, and Kate's hat is very 'Athena'.

Looking forward to this!