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Did they marry before, after, or at the same time as your parents? It's not exactly incest, as they were never really related by blood, but the whole in-law thing has to work its way in there somewhere. Why is it that sets of twins can get married and nobody bats an eyelash, but just plain siblings (by marriage) seem odd?

Sorry for getting off topic. I heard once that a good way to come up with Pornstar names is to combine your Middle name and the name of the street you live on... For some reason, however "Douglas Harvard" just sounds generically studious.

I think the light placement is perhaps a bit too even - cultural centers tend to bunch up in places, and there are usually always going to be some 'dark spots' on a planet's surface where it's unlivable (And on a post-apocalyptic looking planet like that, there ought to be a few barrens. People are also usually more focused around the sea, so there'll be a greater concentration of light at port cities. The biggest problem right now is that the ligt on the planet and the light of the stars are similar enough that it's hard to see where one ends and the next begins, except for the atmosphere's haze.

This is one image I found from Google Images searching for 'earth night'



Hope it was helpful.

If you're looking for 'Gangster Movie-esque', I'd suggest a bullet ricocheting off of the corner of the alleyway just inches above his head, having your fedora'd character to duck down, suprisedly and to dash back into the alleyway... If you wanted to drag it out even more, have him poke his head out to look again, and another plink off of the corner of the wall.

Just off the top of my head.

Good day, Ladies and Gentlemen, hope you're having a good new year. I bring to you now, the Music competiton for Mid-January.

"An offer he can't refuse"

The goal of this particular Music contest will be to create music to be played during a scene featuring an old-fashioned 'Godfather' style Don. We're talking a large man with a little moustache and a white suit. One who could have you killed with a wave of the hand by huge, angry men whose middle names are 'the'. Yet, he retains his dignity, and is a fair man, as long as you don't step on his toes. You know the type.

Douglas: it's my uncle's name.

Both of my best friends' middle names are Lee. Funny, that.

[What is the Photoshoppin' Contest?]

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first Photoshop competition of the new year. I am SpacePirateCaine and I shall be your SUPREME DICTATOR for this competition. For the sake of posterity, I will now copy and paste the rules for your perusal and enjoyment:

What is the Photoshoppin' Contest?

See this link:
http://www.somethingawful.com/photoshop/

And for other examples, see here:
http://www.worth1000.com/

The two above websites should give a fair idea of what is involved. Also you can check out the earlier Photoshop contests in this forum.

Note: Photoshopping isn't drawing a completely new image -- It's editing images to create a new image, such as editing one image or combining several images.

Also, you don't have to specifically use Photoshop -- Paint Shop Pro, Gimp or any other ~equally good programs can be used.

And now, without further ado, the topic.
Honest game boxes

Admittedly inspired by This photoshop phriday, from Something Awful, the name of the game is to name the game appropriately, in a way that the prospective buyer would know what they were getting themselves into. I'm not going to put limits on the medium or genre, as long as it's a game (That means it could be anything, from Loom, to Need for Speed to Monopoly - you be the judge).

Not the best topic in the world, perhaps, but could yield some interesting results. You have 15 days. Go nuts, my friends.

If it's just spelling, I'd suggest you just have it done automatically through Word, or whatever word processor you choose - if you're looking for an editor, however, that's a different story. What do you need spellchecked and/or potentially edited?

[Now, to the question at hand]

[Long and tangental speech follows, mostly as a rationalization of BOYD1981's post regarding X-box vs. PS2 -- my thoughts regarding the DS vs. PSP issue follow]

Speaking specification-wise, the X-box is superior to the PS2, indeed, though most people prefer the PS2 because of the software that is being released for it. Sony has exclusive rights to a good number of highly anticipated games, and has been using that to their advantage for a long time, though I remember a period of time where people were so indignant about Sony's PS2 release policy, at least in the USA, that many refused to buy them. Popularity-wise, if the X-box had been released at the same time, the results may have been different. However, one could easily argue that the selling points of the two systems lie primarily in the games available - X-Box has Fable, for example, whereas Final Fantasy XII will be released exclusively for the PS2. The entire paradigm of game development is different between the two.

X-box offers a large library of highly graphically intensive games that only, ultimately, they can handle, as the pure brute force of the X-box's processing power outpreforms the Playstation series and the Gamecube both. So Sony is fighting a name dropping battle, maintaining its customer base not because of superior product, but a loyal fanbase. Microsoft also has a problem, in that many people are rabidly against anything that they release. My friend Dave is a mac person, and has downtalked HALO without ever even playing it, on the basis of it being only available on X-box, and what he read on sites like Penny Arcade. Nintendo holds the rights to the Mario Bros., Zelda and Metroid serieses, but their fanbase is dwindling, and the people who've been Nintendo fans since the Genesis was it's biggest competitor have, for most intents and purposes, grown to prefer games that are unable to be published in their intended form, due to their commendable, if slightly (current game market business-wise) crippling, focus on 'family' entertainment.

However, Nintendo has managed to, despite their dwindling fanbase on the console market proper (Not a whole lot of reaally solid games on the Gamecube, ultimately), they have still dominated the handheld market, even maintaining strength in the face of Sega's Game Gear, and even Sony's Wonderswan (which was never released outside Japan, if I am correct).

Now, to the question at hand

In my opinion, Nintendo is definitely the master when it comes to innovation. One has no choice but to applaud the sheer guts that it must take to release half of the things that they have made, as there is a lot of money to be lost. Projects like the Virtual boy come to mind, and the DS 'stylus' concept rings in my mind as following down that same, unfortunate road. Nevertheless, it would seem that the public is more accepting of it overall - I've been in Japan for a while, so I'm subjected to incessant advertisements for the Nintendo DS featuring Utada Hikaru (Known overseas simply as Utada, because she thought her first name, which is actually unisex, sounded too girly in English) and what looks like an overwhelming landfill of gimmick games. That sort of seems to be Nintendo's M.O. these days, all things considered, with the release of Mawaru - Made in Wario for the Game Boy Advanced. By that right, I can say that it seems like the quality of game on the DS is lacking, though I could be mistaken. I have yet to see what is available, so my opinion is colored by the media.

On the other hand, we have the Playstation Pocket system. It is an interesting idea, to re-release their older playstation and its software in a more compact format - this may or may not be a good thing. They apparently jumped on the 'earphones as a peripheral accessory' bandwagon, which is a bit distressing - I like to listen to a game's music and/or sound effects with earphones, but am denied that while recharging my SP... But I digress. The biggest fault I see with this strategy is that there are going to be a large number of people put out by the idea that they are going to be forced to buy again software that they already own for roughly the same price in order to play it on their new handheld. Ultimately, it sounds to me like a system for people who either are only now climbing on the Sony bandwagon, or have the disposable income to justify re-buying all their favorite games.

There is the benefit, mind you, of having games that people already know and love - and Sony doesn't need to lift a finger, in the cosmic sense, as the games are already released and only need to be ported to a new format. They also, of course, are attempting to replace every other piece of pocket-sized equipment they can concieve of, though honestly, I already have a camera, an MP3 player and a kitchen sink, so unless they all spontaneously combust, I intend to curb my bondlike instincts and keep them seperate.

If I were rich enough and wanted a new handheld (which is unlikely, as the GBA-SP is the first handheld I've bought since my old Game Gear), I'd have to say that after weighing the pros and cons, I'd probably still go for the DS, assuming that in the future there were more tempting games to be had in its lineup, but that could easily be swayed depending on the potential for new games on the PSP. I know that if I had a PSP, I'd only be buying games I already liked, because it looks as though Sony isn't adding much to the roster aside from rehashes of their existing products, at least for a while. If I were to get either, I'd probably wait about a year, until there was plenty to play.

Ultimately, after all of the novelty of the different gimmicks have worn off, I want something I can be immersed in, and enjoy in the long run, on my tedious 9-hour international flights, and the subsequent 2-hour train ride, but my Gameboy Advance SP already has that covered. Like their hulking, sweaty grunting big brothers, the consoles, the handhelds boil down to what games are available to them, and I haven't seen much yet on either roster that has piqued my interest. Call me anachronistic, but I don't pay much attention to extra features that are already handled by something I've owned much longer.

Another possible solution to the control problem would be to create the games more akin to their handheld bretheren, controlling it much in the way that the control of Grim Fandango and Monkey Island 4 were handled - by having the character controlled using the arrow keys, and seperate buttons for different actions, (or a button to scroll actions, and another to cause the character to execute the currently selected action on the nearest hotspot, possibly selectable). Obviously, as they would be 2D, the controls would be a static cardinal direction sort of deal, but you get the drift.

I think that that's really the only truly simple option for handheld systems that don't offer touchscreen capabilities. This would, of course, rule out playing games that were designed with the mouse in mind, as it would be less a 'point and click' adventure and more a 'walk around and interact' adventure.  It would also make it near-impossible to have games that required 'throwing' objects, or interacting with distant things, unless an RPG-style cursor (Something along the lines of what Babar described, where you chose the action first, then the subject is chosen afterward) was also implemented, where you could scroll through hotspots with an indicator telling you what you were interacting with.

As long as the games don't require any truly precision pixel hunting, or timed puzzles, an adapted point and click like the method Snarky described where one would play adventures entirely with the keyboard is also a slow but reasonable option.

Come, they told me, Pa rum pum pum pum.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law, pa rum pum pum pum.
Therefore, a new born king to see, pa rum pa pum pum.

Here's my entry - Hope you like it, or are at least vaguely creeped out by it.

Voices(2mb)

I find that it sounds best listened to with earphones, with the volume up a bit.

I'm n00bier than Dart, with only 5 months under my proverbial belt... But then again, I'm practically unknown around here so far. Happy 1-year anniversary, Alec. May your games be completed quickly and without unnecessary stress.

I like the idea of a wasteland planet, especially a little burger shack on some tiny outpost in the middle of nowhere.

Sparseness is by no means a bad thing, but even the smallest outposts will tend to clump together so that the people can get around in their towns without having to travel very far. Some homes, perhaps, would be detached from the town, but usually there would be a centralized location where you'd find your main buildings; like old villages during the goldrushes of the 'wild west'. Unless Megaburger is on the outskirts of town, I'd say it almost seems to be not crowded enough.

I also noticed a lack of roadway - if the ground is too slick or sinky to walk on, people would likely travel using some form of raised platforms, or vehicles. Otherwise, even a bit of packed down ground near the main door, and perhaps parking spaces (if people do use vehicles on this world) would likely add a bit of realism to the look of the picture.

I agree with YakSpit in that the building is a bit too thin from front to back. He already touched on the lighting aspect as well, so I won't get into that very much.

The overall haziness of the image, I like very much, it makes the planet look swampy and a bit foggy - especially by means of your blurry moon in the far background. You may want to sharpen up the foreground a bit to give a bit more depth to the image.

All in all, a cool concept that I'd be interested in seeing developed. Keep it up!

I find that one of the most important thing in setting up a good room is foreplanning - what Mr.  Dnuma was attempting to express in a condensed form is how to map out your steps on your 2D surfaces, if I am correct.

Allow me to elaborate a bit, to save him the trouble.

The first step is to create what I like to call bounding boxes (mostly because of my quake level designing days). What you want to do for starters is to have your wall and floor, and to know where your stairs go on both surfaces. Your image is a straight-on, single vanishing point image, so it's relatively easy, your vanishing point is mid wall level, so the first point will be to create a 'bounding box' (In my own terminology) for your stairs, thusly:



The green lines represent your vertical surface(s), and blue, horizontal - the red is your horizon, and the little vertical line is your VP (You know this much, but I'm just reviewing for the sake of posterity. I just kind of arbitrarily decided on a length of the stairs (poking out on to your deck), and boxed it off. The purple lines are your slope - if it looks too steep, pull the bottom edge further down and make your bottom step 'deeper'. Remember, it'll end up a little shallower than this, so keep that in mind.

The next step is to determine how many steps you have, by plotting them out on your wall (vertical surface). In order to have all of your steps the same height, and consequentially depth, all you need to do is measure them so they are equally spaced on your vertical surface. Here is my image with the steps measured off:



The next step is the tedious one - you need to plot out your step surfaces in relation to the VP. They will intersect your 'slope' lines (purple) to make the slope of your steps. Now, you won't be able to see the faces of the steps above your horizon line, but it's still crucial that you measure all of your steps this way so that the steps are placed correctly. Your lines will travel from the VP through the corners of the steps, thusly:



If the last step was done correctly, the lines between your slope and VP lines should be perfectly horizontal, like this (I erased the lines on the back wall to reduce confusion):



You're almost done, now - as you can see, we have a bunch of platforms now that just need to be turned into blocks with vertical lines. As you're not doing any funny 'overhead view' perspective sort of work, that can be handled simply by drawing lines straight down from the points where your step faces and the slope line meet, like so (The orange lines):



Now, we connect those axes below the horizon line (The ones above are invisible because they're above our line of sight), and voila! after a little cleanup work, erasing the slope line and other stuff now blocked by the stairs, you're done. Deceptively easy.



And with a little coloring, for good measure.:

I wasn't a member before, but what the hell, I'm signed up for every other community on the net. Count me in.

He's a good looking gent, I'd say, though I do have one or two points that I think stand to be pointed out - the first is his hairline - In the most recent repaint, by ProgZmax, the issue is completely pushed aside, but I thought that it looked like he's balding prematurely - if he leads a stressful, or easily annoyed life, this could be a good thing to leave in, otherwise, I'd suggest pulling down the hair on his forehead one or two pixels, which would (in my opinion, at least) help to better give him a youthful look - the wrinkles added in the edit done by Damien, and then by InCreator could easily be lightened or removed altogether to further create a more young face - especially the lines from his nose to the outside of his lips could affect it greatly.

When working with very few pixels at a time, it's a tough issue to tackle, but it also looks to me that his eyes are perhaps a little too close together - not so much so that he looks deformed, but there is a bunch of open space on his head. Shading, of course, is also always an important aspect of character art - just remember, shading and in-depth features are a two-edged sword, as you have to maintain the same level of quality in all frames of animation - walk cycles for highly detailed characters can be murder.

That's all from me for now. Keep up the good work.

I was actually quite fond of the vase and its stand, myself - though removing it has helped in balancing out the angles of the room, somehow. The grainier texture on the off-white part of the wall adds a lot of atmosphere to it as well. I find that the overall grittiness of the textures offsets the, in some places, unnaturally smooth feel of the sharp angles and what-have-you. Adding the telephone on the table that I mentioned before has also removed the problem I was seeing with the odd angle.

I would say that the doorknobs seem a little low on the doors, but when comparing with the character, it is no problem. The door in the lower left corner of the room is a lot more noticeable now, though the doormat looks especially metallic, or perhaps plastic, now that much of the rest of the room has become visibly textured.

And on an only vaguely related tangent - with the character in it, it reminds me, for some reason, of the production of Arsenic and Old Lace I preformed in in High School. That or Colonel Sanders. I like the look of the character, he fits very well with the background, and also helps to explain some of the possible oddities in the room's architecture. Putting two of him in the room, one at the top of the stairs and one down near the foreground door would be a good idea to fathom how important scaling may be in the creation of the rooms.

Perhaps having the character turn their head a little to the left, creating a profile would do the trick. It doesn't even have to be a complete side-on view, but at current with no real facial features to speak of aside from the glasses, it'd be hard to do much otherwise. By having him turn, It'd be easier then to animate the character talking, as the rear 3/4 angle is a real toughie - it'd also seem more realistic that way, as people tend to turn at least a little toward the person they are conversing with, usually.

The room looks great, as one could suspect from having played Cosmo. It has a lot of atmosphere, and in a sense reminds me of Five days a Stranger; it has the same 'Big, old mansion' feel, which in my opinion is a very good thing. The subtle shadows are a good touch, though it's hard to fathom exactly where the light source is.

I don't find the clock to be particularly thin at all, if anything, it almost seems a bit short, though that may be because I haven't seen a grandfather clock since I was a little kid. The only thing I would really suggest, and it's mostly just a matter of personal preference, is a little more foreground. You mentioned it was a WiP, so I'm going to assume that that is part of the deal. As far as perspective is concerned, the table next to the stairway seems sloped for some reason - I imagine that the lack of objects of the same height in the room does that.

A lack of scaling could indeed make things seem a little odd as the character moves in and out of the fore/background, the ground space is a little too wide from front to back for no scaling. Not to mention that when the character arrives at the landing on the stairwell, providing that they are roughly just a little shorter than the doorways to either side of the room, their head will be cut off, and they will look abnormally tall.

One more point, the gray plate at the lower left side of the screen, I'm imagining that this is some sort mat near a doorway, or something of the sort, as inspection of the area below it shows a black break in the brown 'wall'. It's a little hard to notice, at least it was for me, to which reason, I would perhaps suggest adding the wooden flooring a little further down, showing the floor continuing, or something of the sort to make it stand out a little more.

All in all, looks great, and I'll be interested in seeing the finished product.