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Don't you just hate it when you notice that, while working slowly on a game over the course of a year, you discover that since starting it six months ago, your skills have increased? You end up finding that the rooms the protagonist starts in are MS Paint messes, but since then the newer ones, while more technically proficient and appealling, no longer match the character?

Or is that just me? It seems like I started by building a model space rocket and of matchsticks, but by the end of it, I lift my welding mask and find that most of enormous booster I've been building on a baikonur launchpad no longer fits with the wooden cargo module.

Nuts to that, I'll start another game!

I don't get much practice drawing at this kind of resolution, so I thought I'd give it a go for my latest crazy project. Here we have, in all his low-res, 28 colour glory, a USAF pilot in a blue flight-suit. It seemed to be going fairly well to me, until I hit his face that is.





Much obliged for any and all comments!

As an intellectual exercise, I've been doodling this...



Aaaand a lower-res one, for in case I decide to make a lower-res game.



And while I'm fairly satisfied with how the head has turned out thus far, it's made me realise how uncertain I am vis-a-vis shading when it comes to lack of clothes - after all, clothes have things like creases. Any comments would be welcome!

My brother with whom I live has decided to get a cat. I'm not going to object, I love them, I'm just concerned it might eat one of the many electrical cables in the house.

Anyhow, he's useless at coming up with names, and since he's soon to become a mother, I've been making suggestions myself - Chairman Meow, Garkov, Jess (what can I say, I liked Postman Pat!), and other things. What would *you* fine folk call a cat? What have you called yours?

Ladles and jellymoulds, I present Anthony Hampton, illegitimate son of Elizabeth I's Lord Chancellor Christopher Hatton (therefore justifying my subject line, and not just referring to how much of a pain he's been so far), and protagonist of my latest crazy endeavour.







Before I get any historians crawling up my inaccuracies, this guy is fictional. Just a way of inserting a character into the situation of Elizabethian England in a sort-of high-ish but unacknowledged place.

Part of what I do here at university (aside from sleep and procrastinate on essays) involves forumlating an ideal political system. While many others in my group have taken the rather boring route of some form of representative democracies, and some with the more innovative proto-fascist approaches, I've long been an advocate of a little something called "Technocratic Demarchy". Most of the response I got from the others (who seem in my group to be mostly chemists who are compelled to take at least one humanities module) was of the "nod and smile" variety, nobody wanting to point out anything to improve. Frankly, I think they were bewildered  by the detail I went into that the others had not.

Anyhow, I thought since is the non-adventure bit, I might as well posit it and see how popular it is. After all, few years time, maybe I'll stage a coup somewhere and get to experiment with it. Views from politicians and non-politicians alike welcome!




Political System Proposal - Technocratic Demarchy

Three Branches

1) The Technocracy - Rule by Experts

   - Executive/Bureaucratic fusion
   - Carries out day-to-day runnng of the country
   - operates like a business, with objective peak goals (education shoul have large number of literate children, hospitals should maximise quality of care)
   - experts administrating these fields; experienced hospital directors hired by technocracy to run health service, schoolteachers to run education, etc
   - certain sectors (e.g. public transport, ministry of housing) run as businesses to minimise requirement of tax drain
   - Technocracy does not make laws, rather enacts laws passed by Demarchy, and otherwise ensures optimal functioning of apparatus of state.
   - Has power to send proposed laws back to the Demarchy for modification, e.g. if they're unworkable incurrent form (maximum 3 returns)
   - Appoints 50% of the Constitutional Council


2) The Demarchy - Rule by the People

   - Legislative body
   - No direct power, but proposes laws which Technocracy would enact.
   - Not directly elected; 2,500 randomly chosen every year from all citizens of nation, to prevent buildup of interests and entrenched political movements, provide more representative sample
   - To avoid choosing politically apathetic, "citizenship" is an opt-in affair. You have to agree to it specifically (oath etc) in order to be eligible to be chosen for the Demarchy
   - Debating chamber, also has power to dissolve the senior committees of Technocracy in case of dangerously entrenched opinion
   - cannot be a member of both Technocracy and Demarchy
   - Mandatory minimum attendance of Demarchic sessions
   - Has power to modify constitution with 66% agreement within the Demarchy
   - Appoints 50% of the constitutional Council


3) The Constitutional Council - Protecting the People from themselves

   - Ensures that actions carried out by the Technocracy, and laws enacted by the Demarchy are within the Constitution
   - Half of the Councillors chosen by each "house".
   - Power to strike down laws deemed unconstitutional with Majority of Council's vote, and suspend activities of the Technocracy likewise.




Other features of the system:


Citizens -

   - Opt-in process, have to consciously choose to be "full" citizen, to avoid apathetics being forced into politics
   - Perhaps some form of test to determine suitability for citizenship, such as national service, or completion of citizenship examination
   - If not selected for the Demarchy, they can still vote on issues, once each, at their local government office. The results of these votes is provided to the Demarchy to enable them to make better informed decisions based on the will of the populace


Constitution -

   - Codified document enshrining rights of all people of the nation
   - Basic rights, e.g. freedom of speech, association, thought, religion, etc
   - Newer rights - freedom of information; citizens privy to information on *all* activities of government
             - freedom of media; not just freedom of the press, but a guarantee of net neutrality, and the provision of the national internet as an international haven.
             - right to the bare minimum; the government will provide, at minimum, a place to live, an education, security, health services, sanitation, and the most Godawful (but still technically sufficient) food necessary for keeping citizens alive. Quality of these bare-minimum services to be kept low, to encourage upward development.


National Security Forces -

   - akin to an army, but not with intention of projected force
   - while trained in combat, this will be defensive in intent, or in order to maintain social stability
   - main purpose as emergency response services, to provide firefighting/disaster response support both within the nation, and to others requesting assistance.
   - serves as everything from auxiliary firefighting to auxiliary teaching if needed.
   - combat arm will be as mechanised as possible (drones, missiles and automated sentry guns)
   - complsory national service; since not martial in nature, conscientious objection is not applicable. Position within ambulance corps/firefighters instead.
   - can skip national service if one succeeds in higher education (at least Bachelors degree).

The situation I've made has a camera that moves independently of the player character, which I've basically done by replacing all instances of "player" in the keyboard movement scripts with "cCam", who's an invisible dot that the view focuses on. As the player presses arrow keys, the camera slides around a large environment, and tells the main player character where to move by clicking.

So far, so good, but the problem I've now run into is in terms of walkable area. If I make the level into an environment of corridors etc, the camera will only move in places where there's a walkable area placed. Is there any way that I can get the camera character to move in non "walkable" areas, in a similar way to when telling a character to move "eAnywhere" when giving a move to x,y command?

Hopefully I'm being clear enough, and thanks in advance!

While the scope of my ideas fluctuates somewhat, there's one feature that's consistent - space! In this case, my latest model is that of a law enforcement agent, in an armoured environment-suit. His role is to board disabled spacecraft and clear out those left on board, so the impression I'm trying to go for is protected, but flexible enough to move.




Something I'm looking to do is add detail - personal computer thing somewhere, rank patch on the shoulder pads, etc. The texture is mostly a placeholder, I need to do some work on it (especially the back), but I felt the blue is a lot better than the development pink.

I've made an isometric sprite which, in terms of its animation, works functionally with its environment. What I'm trying to do now though, is lower the number of colours it uses, make it look a bit more 8-bit. Other than that, I think they're alright for the purpose. I want to make it consistent, too - just dropping the colour count on Paint Shop Pro gives an inconsistent result on each frame.

Fairly simple problem - I'm using the keyboard movement, character moves when direction is pressed. So far, so good. The issue arises when I try to walk on a diagonal - the animation sticks to a sideways. If I'm walking down-left, it stays animating left. When I stop moving, I can get it to face diagonal, so it stays in the diagonal standing pose.Does the keyboard movement module just not animate the diagonals?

Thanks for the help!



EDIT - Never mind, it seems that when only one diagonal has any animated content, it doesn't animate the diagonal movements.

Bonjour all!

I've decided to try a slightly different technique to doing animated characters. So, I've built a 3d model of the protagonist, from which I plan to rotoscope based on it for walking, standing, performing all kinds of other animations.






Anyway, since this is just her standing in her space-suit (minus the helmet), something about it doesn't seem quite right about the way she's standing. Since it's a bulky suit, the movement is going to be slightly clunky and unwieldy intentionally, but can anyone suggest how to make the standing seem a little more...natural?

Cheers in advance. 

I've been starting on some indoor scenes (where the rooms will be surrounded by black boxes, to contrast with the outdoor scenes that aren't), and I think I've hit on a style that aesthetically matches the characters I'm doing as well. I don't like big expanses of one colour, so I try to put a lot of noise into areas that are, in this case, wood panelling, to give more of a woodgrain look. So -

1) Does the colouring of this scene seem to fit?

2) Is the chap in the middle consistent with its style to you?

3) Could anything be improved about the perspective of the picture?

(apologies for the width of number 2!)