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Okay,
Inspired by some post about few free books I want to mention an interesting page http://www.ebookee.com where links to many many MANY books are stored. I get most of my IT books there too. The site is completely legal as storing links to files isn't against the law . Sometimes the links are dead but most of the time you just click the same title on the list of "similiar books" and you get to another page where links may be valid  (or not, but you just continue browsing )

I hope it's helpful to some of you

About the Graphics Tablet, I've been trying to get my hands on one of those for a while now, but I cant seem to track one down. Does anyone know anywhere on the net where I might get one? What kind is best?

I think that Wacom tablets are the best there is (they are more expensive but the quality is much much better too). They have very light pens and dont need batteries for them, you have build-in eraser on the top of the pen, very fun to use

Just look for wacom on some auction pages

I suggest looking into the 'Assign to View' function if you've not already done so (and are using a recent version of the editor).

Thank you I will I have lots of planning in front of me first anyway... As it's the graduate project I can't really jump into coding right away. I have to get the requirements, design the functionality and make some class diagrams and stuff...

I'd like to add that I like "PixelRat". Sounds... very retro, in a way, and meaningful without meaning anything as such. Has a good ring to it. And R A T can make A R T too.

I know that WAS intentional I like it as an anagram of pixel art I wish I could draw a nice pixel rat
by the way ags plugin will be called "PixelRat in a big blue cup"

Well it's my fault too, I didnt investigate enough to know about this gif importing
XD = smiley...my favorite one...A bit of anime like with biiig cross instead of eyes

     

What? XD

Well, to be honest I want to go further than that. I want to write a plugin for AGS that will read the PixelRat project file (.PRPR) where all information about the animations and drawings will be stored (in PixelRat AGS project you will have folders with backgrounds, gui's, character's and their animations, equipement and other animations and sprites). You will be able to define the delays and everything in PixelRat while drawing and then let the plugin do the dirty work of adding it.
Also there's an option to synchronize what's in the PixelRat project with the AGS to change all modified files and upload new.
hopefully it will also make views, backgrounds and stuff automaticly, not just plain sprites upload.

Thank you for your cooperation I need to get as much votes as possible to be certain about the results

Ok guys and girls This is just a formality, but I really need you to vote on those polls to get some data for my user description in requirements specification of the PixelArt editor I'm making Please vote

Eyesight poll
Graphic editors poll
AGS image importing poll
Graphic tablet poll

Maybe I'll add some other polls later. Sorry for the trouble

EDIT: As it wasnt clarified enough what I am after - look down below at my reply :3

I just love Kenny here :*

Oh great! I love you guys! This helps a lot AGS is much better then it was many years ago...

So in AGS an editor plugin would be required. to import  the spx file.  You say that you are skilled in .NET and CJ is usually very willing to provide functionality required by plugin writers so I would be very surprised if this couldn't be done.

Well yes, it's not SO hard to make BUT I would need to have some sort of a source code or manual for making AGS plugins (if it supports them anyway). I need to know what kind of input it requires

[edit]
The MNG file format may be a candidate for your spx file.  It's the PNG equivalent of a GIF I suppose.  Anyway here is the link.
http://www.libpng.org/pub/mng/spec/

I'll check it out - sounds fun so far

[Project Support]

Project Support
It would be nice if there could be project wide settings, project specific templates and a project root directory.   If we are going to be specific for games then the project should contain categories of graphical elements such as rooms, characters, GUI, etc.  Perhaps these categories are configurable so the user can have as many or as few (even zero) as desired.  The root would then contain a sub-directory for each category of elements.  This would be done to provide easy navigation through the project.  When the user clicked he would first select the category and then the element or directory to open.  He could also elect to navigate the file system as one wwould normally expect.  

This sounds fun. I like the idea of beeing able to create an "AGS Project" or just a blank canvas. The project would be organized with the rooms, sprites and stuff... (I might not be able to integrate it with ags as I'm not sure if there's a possibility to write an import plugin for it) you would just "add room" where you would have areas layers and your drawing layers etc etc...Nice idea... really nice

Being able to set them on and off, and vary the size- from 1 pixel grid to 5, 10, etc. (and whether it gets 'clipped to') would be useful.

What do you mean by clipping the grid?

Nah I think I'm decided to use java. It has neat Java 2d library that will speed things up a lot :3

If your project is going to be open source and you wish it to work on multiple platforms then I would suggest that you consider Qt.  Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX are supported.  Their development tools are also multi-platform and the resulting applications are fast, self-contained and not dependent on bloated runtime package.  It was recently acquired by Nokia who appear to have big plans and a commitgment to open source with regard to QT.

Ahh... Now you really got me curious
I have 3 possibilities then...

1. .NET C# - Slower (framework dependant) and not much cross platform - but I know it really good
2. Java - still framework dependant but fully cross platform - I'm not as good at it as at C# though...
3. C++ in QT IDE+Compiler - cross platform and self dependant but I have no idea how to use it yet

I wish my university werent pro-Microsoft only, I would know other languages and libriaries much better now :/

AAAAND - Another question
I like the suggestion about it beeing designed especially for low-res game developers, what ideas do you all have concerning this? What functions (not talking about graphics now) would help you with developing the game then ? I'm sure that some presets about the canvas size would be nice but besides that I cant think of anything that could help us sprite-makers

EDIT: Oh and of course - THANK YOU ALL - You don't even know how you help me Thanks to you I'll write user stories and gather requirements in no time

Tools for manual dithering, maybe something like predefined masks where you just paint over.

Maybe something like greyscale mask where ligter/darker areas define amount of dithering?

I doubt this would work since plagiarizing is very much frowned upon in academia. In fact, it can get you suspended, at least around here.

Yeah that's true. Besides, most of the better free graphic programs have no source code released for public use anyway.

Progz - I thought that GraphicsGale was shareware? Besides, I dont want to make just another copy of it. I want to make free tool as good as it and full of new interesting tools, options and ideas Isometric toolbox is one of the things I'm sure I will include. How about the ability to make your own 1-3 tone brushes? Painting stripes in 2 different shades, or colorful dot patterns etc would be easier then. That's a sure thing to be there too. And auto outline brush? where the shape you draw has a 1 pixel (or more if user wishes to) outline of specified color? There are things that arent too hard to program but can be really useful. I'm looking for ideas like that for you to speed up the process of creation

In my opinion Cinema 4d is the easiest thing to learn (it's not a cheap thing to buy though...).
Blender is free but you have to spend like 1 year learning it's interface (it pays off when you do that though ).
The choice is your's to make anyway the preferences vary from person to person

By the way. I just had an interesting idea. Can you tell me what do you think of it?

It's about the number of colors you operate with. Usualy you have 2 colors (left/right mouse button). What if you could make a queue of colors and switch them with the secondary color using for example the middle mouse button? I think it would make the shading much easier

EDIT: Probably everyone would just use the drop eye tool to take colors from elsewhere anyway..