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My imagination is active enough that I'd like to believe in ghosts.  As a kid, I was always turning innocent shadows and asbestos ceiling-textures into creepy goblins and demons.  I knew the things didn't exist but it's hard to "Un-see" something you thought you saw so clearly before.  Unfortunately, adulthood set in and I have very little belief in the supernatural or paranormal (two words with strangely similar denotations but very different connotations).  Anyway, there have been far too many shams that have been accepted as verified truth previously.  A couple of my relatives have ghost-stories but I usually respond with, "You're either full of shit, or crazier than Grandma."  If I were a ghost though, I would definately spend awhile haunting Minimi, just for the hell of it.  

Like when I first downloaded the Lemmings, Wolfenstein or Doom demos (The latter two right after they came out) from BBS's.  My dad was trying to show me how cool Solitaire & Minesweeper were while under Windows.  I just slapped Teh Wolfenstein in his face and said, "Eat that, Windows-Demon!"

My first games were the Zork series, Castle Adventure and something called Beast or Beast Hunter or something.  They were all in glorious amber-monochrome, the latter two with pseudo-graphics.  One day, my dad brought home a Commodore Vic20 (Ooo! Color!) and we played insane amounts of Centipede, some Airhockey game and Space Invaders.  We later upgraded to a C64 and I played Street Surfer, Archon, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Gridrunner and a couple others.  Then, my dad brought home a copy of a game on 5 1/4" diskettes.  It was KQ4 on about 6 floppies.  It sucked me away from the C64's pretty-colored games into a monochrome amber world with a plot-line (kind of).  Thus began my adventuring adventure.

Hell yah, DOS was great.  I never did have Win 3.1 on my PC.  It was only after software makers dragged me kicking and screaming into Win95 that I made the switch.  I really liked having complete control over my PC.  And once I'd figured out my ideal start-up, it worked everytime.  With Windows, occasionally stuff goes very wrong and I never see an error message or conflict notice until I've got to spend 2 hours debugging the thing and crawling through the registry.  Ah, the registry, that wonderful beast equivalent to using 3 Megs of MS-DOS memory to store path= statements, settings, etc.

Well, to clarify: If a beam of sunlight passed through a leafy canopy - 1) the beam size is going to be quite random 2) as mentioned, all beams should be coming from the same light source.  This means they should either be parallel or in keeping with perspective, they ought to expand/spread as they come closer to the screen.  A matter of preference, really.  3) If you show at least one beam hitting the ground and show that the beam is shining past leaves & branches, it'll set the viewer's mindset more into the forest/sun range and less into the helicopter/searchlight area.  
Quick example of #3, a crop of a ground section I was messing with:

I think some of it is that fact that they're all nearly the same size.  If sunlight's filtering through a canopy, the beams will be randomly large and small.  Another way to address it is by doing a high-detail beam somewhere near the foreground.  If you can manage to depict light filtering through branches and leaves (by showing shadows thereof on the ground) then it'll show the viewer what the beams are with more accuracy.  Excellent work, and the beams are the primary strength of this scene.  Perfect them and you will rule the world.  Or at least make an even better looking background.

To others: a couple people have posted some background art that might demonstrate a couple different techniques?  Anyone remember who posted them?  Was one of 'em Amaranth?

And verily, verily I say unto thee welcome.  Another active Californian.  8)

I believe it's been stated once or twice already but here goes: The Aiptek, while being a hell of a lot better than the Wacom, has some design flaws.  I haven't heard from any Graphire 2 (or 3) user that finds their tablet difficult to use.  Spending about $100 isn't much when you're talking about professional (or at least semi-pro) equipment.  If you really want to test the waters and see if you even wanna blow that kind of money, get a cheaper Logitech (I believe a $25 one was mentioned) or a JamStudio (If they're still sold).  I can pretty much guarantee that if you put any use into the cheapy, you'll be salivating over the possible use of a Wacom.  [Of course, 'tis only a Yak's opinion but I think a few might agree]

Good comment..  useless to me.    I've got the Graphire 2 and it is a sweet tablet.  It actually comes bundled with its control panel/driver software, Photoshop Elements, Painter Classic and PenPalette (plug-in for extra versatility for tablet in Photoshop).  Photoshop Elements is quite useful (The options cut from Photoshop I don't even miss) and Painter is a very cool program, particularly with a tablet.

Sorry to reincarnate an old thread but I was browsing the Wacom thread and looking at the Intuos.  Particularly, I was looking at the nifty Intuos 2 features vs. the Graphire 3: Tilt detection, Grip pen, handy menu-buttons on tablet, 1024 levels of pressure vs. 512.  I was thinking, "Hey, I can actually afford this now! Hooray for commercialism!"  
So, I wanted to get an opinion or two from people with some experience with tablets, particularly Wacom, to see if it's worth the $$$ to upgrade from my Graphire 2.

[everyone]

Heh.  I wasn't aware that this was the debate thread.. perhaps the title will have to be changed.  

I just thought a certain issue was ridiculous and wanted to hear other opinions.  We got the full range before lapsing into a discussion on racism.  Personally (and I don't know everyone here all that well) I believe that the AGS community, as a whole, doesn't have too much problem with this particular social ill.  That is one of the many reasons I started frequenting the forums.  The community, in general, also seems fairly considerate when dealing with issues of gender, age, sexual preferences and country of origin.  Hooray for us, I say.  There have been some good points here but I think the thread's damned to hell and should probably be shut-off sometime soon.

I do remember the occasional funny moment in The Sims but that was effing hilarious!

I think I, more or less, agree with what DG says.  Comics are hardly an issue of debate when discussing racism.  They're there to help us laugh; mainly at ourselves.  They use racial humor (which may or may not be ethical) to help us see how idiotic we can be.  There is a subtle difference in the other-than-white comedian versus the white-comedian.  A black comedian can speak about white stereotypes and mock white people openly (using applicable terms).  When a white comedian uses racial humor (at least the majority of them) it's usually self-deprecating and is actually mocking white people for their ignorance.  

I don't want to get into that particular debate again and will just ending by saying that Bullworth (Was that the name of that movie?) had the right idea. In eons to come, we'll all embrace each other as members of the gray race.  

Teh Chris has kinda nice legs...  

It would probably break it up somewhat but I'd use 'em very sparingly.  I mean, how good can a cobblestone road be if it's got dirt patches and plants all over?  :

Suggestion: Perhaps double nominations?  At least in cases such as the Quote award, it would help.  If we have 2 nominations per contributor then we mind find a little more commonality. Since using an even number enhances the chances of a tie, then perhaps a primary/secondary nomination? (That would also allow mini-awards to runners-up)

With knowledge.  Unfortunately that doesn't always work.

Remixor, you said something along the lines of: If we want to remove all race-related labels such as African American, how is that any different than them wanting the Master/Slave labels removed?  In a round-about way, this proves the point I was trying to make by posting the article's link in the first place.  The difference . . . The Master/Slave designations are convenient labels for hardware and describe their function.  That is reason #1 why the M/S has nothing to do with race.  Reason #2 As mentioned earlier in this thread, there is still slavery in the world.  There are even countries where there are white slaves to an arab populace (White women bartered for as slaves and/or concubines seems to be the most prevalent that I've read of).  

I wish whole-heartedly that we could remove the titles that classify us by our race.  People want to know, "Well, if a black man is arrested and the PC term African-American isn't even allowed, what do you call them?"   One possible solution, "MAle, approx 23 years of age, driving a blah, blah, blah."  Wait a minute.  That's age discrimination!  Alright, "Male, driving a ____."  What? Sexism!  Okay, "Somebody driving a ____."  What? Driving a BMW, holy shit! That's discriminating against the wealthy!  

So, as in a situation where you're given a suspect discription, describing how to get to a house, etc. we use color.  It's convenient and one of the easiest ways to narrow down possible persons/locations/vehicles.  I wish we were at a period where these colors would make no difference to the person using them.  After all, do you really think less of a person driving a blue car than a silver one?  Unfortunately, it's not possible.  Too many preconceptions, too much ignorance passed down through generations, too many stereotypes passed on by friends/family/media.  What's the solution?  I, for one, say that it doesn't lie in hunting down every non-relevant item that offends a specific group of people.  Let's try to educate our society and erase racism as a factor of determining a person's worth.  However, please, I beg in the name of sanity . . . let's not perpetrate a witch-hunt, I had hoped we'd evolved past that by now.

That is absolute sweetness.  I think it adds a lot of depth and realism to the overall background.  As far as the cobblestones go..  they look a bit flat.  I guess I didn't notice before but with the added depth of additional shadows, they stand out a bit more.  Perhaps if you had some subtle highlights & shadows on the stones.  You wouldn't even necessarily have to do all of 'em but just bringing a few further out or deeper into the road would show the view that it's not a flat surface.   Excellent work still, and again.

I suppose we could just get off our asses and go to the site to view these but this'll work.    

Anyway.  I think the artwork and colors are excellent.  Someone will comment on the perspective but I don't find it distracting.  I think the only problem is with inconsistency.  You've got some gorgeous shadows on the buildings but some of the trees and bushes look rather flat.  One example of this is the tree in the ring of plants in the second pic.  It almost looks like a cardboard stand.  I think if you added some shading on the tree and possibly gave it a shadow going to ground, it'd bring in a lot more depth.  

The doors and windows tend to have a "painted-on" look.  Normally, doors are receded into the walls a bit, so I would do some darkening tricks to make them appear back a bit in the surrounding wall.  The windows could use the same treatment, except for the ones with shutters, which might just need shadow to show they're beyond the wall.  Normally, I wouldn't comment on lack of shading in a drawing as everyone has their own style but the shadowing is done so beautifully elsewhere and simply begs to be done throughout.  Last crit: some of the building edges are a bit sharp.  The backgrounds as a whole have a soft feel to them so the alleyway in pic#1 stands out like a razor's edge.  The framing purple boards shadows also make them stand out a bit.  

You did mention you'll probably drop this to low-res so some of the contrast issues might be fuzzed away.  However, I think it can only look better if it's touched up in hi-res then lowered.  Again, excellent work.  If I exhibited half the skill, I'd be posting more art instead of criticizing it all the time.  

It looks amazing!  I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped.  It looks very much Quest for Glory I-inspired.

Since this is supposed to have some constructive criticism, some comments:  

You'll have to have a very detailed character that matches the style.  Anything looking like a typical low-res sprite will stick out like a sore thumb.  

I'd love to see some buildings and/or characters against these sorts of backdrops.  Don't mess up these backgrounds, of course, just curious if more can be done in a fitting style.  

My only art-related critique is that after looking at the rocks for awhile, I found the sketch-lines disturbing.  It would be nice if these could either be smoothed out or replaced with a rock-like texture.  The best example is probably the Corby-9 picture.  In the center is obviously a rock-pile but it rather resembles a cluster of raisins.  My eyes also try to make me think that the darker lines on the rocks are overhead forest shadows.  If I stare at it too long, some of the gray rocks begin to resemble brains (mm....braaaainnnzz).  Of course, this is just a matter of personal taste.

[edit: Ah, another post!  You can edit your posts, rather than posting again immediately afterwards]  The answer to your question, use the [ img] tag rather than [url] tag.  For images this size and 3 of 'em, I think it's nice to have the URL instead.

<Edit, again: checked out the site.  So, it looks to be QFG4-inspired?  Again, great work.  The forest pictures are nearly perfect.  If you want some possibly-helpful c&C, I would post links to the pics w/ buildings.  Those have an thing or two people here might like to address.  The landscape stuff is 95% perfect, IMO.>