Messages

Mwa ha ha , looks like raggit has an STD.  How lovely.   Really, you can do a viral scan for free at several websites so there's no harm in running a couple.  If they don't find anything, lemme know and I'll send you a couple dozen virii to infect your computer with.  If you get rid of those, then at least you'll feel you've accomplished something.  

Another suggestion, if you're not infected (or even if you are) you could try redownloading mIRC, the data files may be infected or corrupt.

Warez is generally some bad stuff.  I must say that I've pirated the odd program but those that were worth anything I went ahead and purchased.  I'm one of those doesn't always do the right thing but his heart's in the right place kinda people.  If I download a buncha music off Kazaa, I'll burn it to a CD.  If I ever listen to the CD more than once, I buy something from the band.  There's probably about 200 bucks worth of CD's I wouldn't have purchased if not for Kazaa & Morpheus.  Same with games.  I never would've purchased Worms 2, Worms Armageddon or Worm World Party with warez. (I could probably name a few dozen other games or apps too).  

I'm a free-communication and give access to people who won't abuse it kinda person.  Unfortunately warez distribution doesn't produce solid citizens.  It's become the porn industry of software.  Eliminate warez and porn and you've got a 90% spam-free pop-up free bad-link free internet.  The only thing you'd hafta deal with then would be the X10 camera ads.  

Maybe I'm just old-school but dealing with warez used to be an interesting hobby that took some brains.  I'm recalling my BBS'ing days.  Having to have connections to do stuff and tradeing, hoarding and actually promoting games for purhase used to be a bit more commonplace.  If it weren't for long-distance bills, I'd be all for a BBS-style structure to the internet.  Aw, crap, I'm rambling again.

No. Sylpher CJ, Pessi, m0ds, Cornjob, Custard, Flippy and Rodekill are the members of my team on Worms Armageddon.

Someone else plays that?  

DGMc - You're confused.  The ACTOR who will play Akira in the live action is Kirk Cameron.  

All - I'm glad we all correctly figured out which actor played the Terminator.  Of course, it was Arnold.  However, I'm sure very few of you would know the name of the liquid metal guy from T2.  

Spoiler

Eric Kafka

[close]

Yep.  I may've inadvertantly posted something similar to that other guy but at least I used a good reference.

Polls?  Why do we need 'em?  They just look cool.  That's a very good reason.  And I'll do custom graphics for it...   the longer the picture of Mod's penis is, the higher the opinion!  Yay!  Really, I was just playing the Devil's advocate since I have been using the forums for somewhere around 4 years off and on and haven't yet seen any polls here.  I think we need to institute them so they can be taken away.  We're like children.  If I didn't give my kids stuff, I'd have nothing to take away when they're bad.  If I didn't give it back eventually, I'd be taking limbs pretty soon.  Besides, Mr. Colossal wants polls back.    His mom told me so...  and she's cute... so..  her opinion matters...      dammit, lock this thread already.

Out of this World?  That's what I was thinking from the onset.  I imagine it probably is, though it wouldn't be too hard to duplicate in character form in paint or somesuch.

Yep, that's the one.  His big start was in a sit-com called, "Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire"

I really like the single puzzle idea.  However, I think the Strategy/Arcade type stuff would fall under scripting challenges.  Remember, to have a competition you have to have a new one every week or two and it'll be easy to run out of ideas.  Just look what happened to Sprite Jam for awhile there.

OKay, you make one little error in a post at 4 AM and people jump all over you for not knowing the name of the guy from the Reading Rainbow/Star Trek-TNG.

The competitions section lists game-making skills but the only comps related to that are the art and music comps.  I think the debate competition is a great idea, but is it actually relevant to AGS?  It'd be cool if we had a comp or two dedicated to solving a scripting problem or making the most creative script to do X.  It would probably also spawn a few nice game ideas.  Also on the game-making side, what about an SFX compo?  Many of us can't pretend to have any music skills but what about attempting to make the best sound effect for gunshots, shoes squeaking or an elephant choking on a duck?     Okay, these might be ridiculous ideas but merely suggestions after all.

And thus, the primary advantage of hosting your own.  I could grab some of my extra parts and construct a P350 with 64 Megs of SDRAM with a 64M video card and 8 gigs of HD space (all of which would be overkill), purchase another wi-fi card and run one from home with a net cost to me of about 30 bucks.  The problem is that either no one would visit and I'd be wasting my time or too many people would come and steal bandwidth away from my female anatomy research.    

Edit: Oh yeah, also the cost of domain registration assuming I wanted a nice personalized domain.

Maybe we should turn this into a movies in general thread.  That seems to be the way it's going.  My kids and wife went to see Finding Nemo today.  I haven't actually seen the movie but it's a delightful underwater fantasy with some clever kid-humor with a joke or two made a little more subtle for adults' taste.  My one real problem with it.. I think CGI was a tad overused in this film, it looks so fake.  

In a court of law, there are some precepts that are such merely because "a reasonable person would agree/disagree."   I think the judging of movies is done on a similar level.  There are no set rules to gauge a movie by.  There isn't a benchmark that we can test it with.  You can't judge a movie solely by the amount of CG it uses or does not use.  You cannot state that a movie is horrible because it was too thought-provoking and had no entertainment value without accepting that this is your opinion.  

This is all we can do in the forums, each can state their opinion.  Others can agree or refute those opinions but with their agreement/disagreement must realize that it's their opinion as well.  I, personally thought the movie was worth the $6.75 I paid.  I took my wife to it and enjoyed her company as well.  I heard/saw no hype concerning this movie as I am only as exposed to the media as I wish to be (for the most part).  I knew the movie was coming out a few months ago.  I knew it was out the day before I saw it.  I, personally, prefer to see a movie without having seen a preview (in much the same manner that I prefer to read a book without reading the summary usually printing in the jacket or on the back).  The best I can do as far as this topic goes is to break the movie down into various categories and rate them separately.  

Acting: 3/5  -Nothing sensational but nothing that evoked a great deal of emotion, Morgan Fr eemanis showing his acting limitations in his old age and Keanu is nothing but acting limitations.  Nonetheless, it got the job done well enough and was nowhere near as bad as some movies I've seen.

Special Effects: 4/5 - Some gratuitous SFX and some that were incorrect or made the movie look worse.  I wouldn't mind seeing a "making-of" featurette.  I am biased in this category because I dabble with 3d and thus appreciate the time and knowledge that goes into it.

Plot: 3/5 - Not the best, not the worst but it did fit the Matrix style as well as can be expected.  Even if it was skimpy, I'll still take its plot over that of Master of Disguise, Final Encounter, Ballistics: Ecks vs. Sever, or a host of other movies that don't seem to bother with hiring a writer and just make it up as they go along.

Skill/Stunts: 4/5 If acting ability is determined by body language and the delivery of lines, this category is meant to address an actor's agility, endurance, physical prowess and grace.  Yes, CG was often used where unnecessary, but a good deal of those stunts took precise timing and sheer strength delivered by the actors.

Soundtrack: 4/5 This encompasses background ambience, music, sound effects, etc.  Though I'm not much of a techno fan, I found the music suited to the movie. The sound effects were well-done for the most part (I wish more movies would adopt the punching-noise philosophy of fight-club though).  The ambient noise generated by machinery, liquids and wind were all appropriate to the scenes.

So, I guess I'd rate the movie, on average, as slightly above mid-range.    God, I've gotten way too wordy and analytical with this one.

Edit: I originally said SL Jackson when I was thinking of Morgan Freeman, damn it all to hell, it was 4 AM

Of course, everyone has their own style.  However, if I were to attempt a drawing like this...   Going from top to bottom:

-I'd throw some hair in the back so it doesn't look like it just grows in front and on the sides.
-The facial shading seems a bit inconsistant.  I've run into this problem myself (excuse me if I'm being presumptuous here).  I want to shade but can't get it quite right so I do a it of subtle shading here and there.  I think it's better to skip the detail shading altogether or stick to your guns and go full-tilt.  For this drawing, I'd say lose bone-structure shading.
-I like how the breasts are underlined instead of being bulbous protrusions but I would shape out the curve a bit.  Slope in the top portion a bit and add some under-curve.
-For some drawings, four fingers works just fine, especially when going cartoony.  For this one, I don't think a fifth finger would look too crowded and would be complimentary.
-The pants currently look like WW1 pilot pantaloons.  This is mostly due to the shape of her hips.  I'd say drop the pant-line to the hips or raise the hips closer to the waist-line.

I know this seems like a lot of criticism but all of the changes would be rather subtle.  I like the drawing a lot as it is.  I like the clean lines and well-chosen colors as well as the fun curvy style of it.  All my suggestions are, of course, personal preferences and you may discard them at will.

OKay, since this seems to be on-topic now...   I had frequent Mormon visitors while living in base housing.  They stopped coming shortly after I used masking tape to make a police-style body outline on my sidewalk with a large masking-tape cross in the middle.  

Messing with them I don't approve of:  My neighbors were ultra-religious Southern Baptists.   They've told my kids they were going to hell for playing Pokemon due to the fact that it's "akin to witchcraft."  They would also call Mormon churches and tell them they were interested in hearing about their faith.  When the poor 18-19 year old kids would show up at their door, they'd invite them in, discuss theology and tell them a dozen reasons why their religion was sinful.

My wife used to get JW visitors from time to time.  She finally got tired to trying to be polite when asking them to leave.  One day, she bought a dildo and placed it in her pants, hanging out of the zipper.  She managed to keep a straight face and have normal conversation with them.  They didn't stay too long and didn't come back again.  

Basically, I feel that if I have any interest in someone's religion, I'll check out their church, website or ask a friend who is of that religion.  I don't wanna be bugged at home by 'em, or have pamphlets thrust into my hands in the airport [I wonder if I can figure out how to make an origami penis?].

Seven-hundred, forty-eight thousand, five-hundred and six.  Then, I'd definately want him to stop.  Oh, by the way, who's seen Mod's penis recently?  It's gone missing again.

Las doesn't FEEL strongly about it, he posted strongly about it.  Haven't you learned?

Anyway, I hafta agree with one thing.  To say that the Matrix II isn't Hollywood cookie-cutter garbage is a tad contradictory.  One of the film industry's favorite money-making techniques is to capitalize on the popularity of a film by making a sequel.  

If you can't enjoy an action-fest, don't watch 'em.  If you were looking for hardcore sci-fi filmography, then you're deluded.  It's a movie.  It was released in theatres.  If you prefer indie flicks, hit some rental stores and avoid theatres like the plague.  I can enjoy a thinking movie as much as the next guy, but I can also loosen up once in awhile.  I thought Pi was a decent movie and it was the first one I've watched in awhile that actually kick-started my brain a bit.  However, it was artsy for the sake of artsy-ness and seemed to be filmed in grainy black-and-white for the sheer sake of seeming more amateurish.  This is basically the same deal as the over-hollywooding of mainstream movies, just in a different direction.

Kinda on the same subject, can you use a yahoo! briefcase for web-hosting?  It doesn't seem very open-ended.  The reason I ask is that they've given me 100 Megz to work with (since when do I need 100 M for pix?)

Hell, I should just stick with hosting from my own machine.  I would except that my chipset fan is louder than my car stereo so I don't wanna leave the damned thing on all the time.

Agreed, I note that you have shading on the walls of the room but none on the furniture.  First, decide what type of furniture you'll use (plastic, metal, painted wood, leather).  For leather, use large highlights for surfaces exposed to light and make them bright high-lights.  For metal, add something denoting reflectivity (not necessarily reflecting the room, but maybe just some of the colors) and use smaller highlights made with bright highlights.  For the plastic and/or painted wood, try using a slightly lighter shade of gray on exposed surfaces with very subtle highlights.  Specifically for wood (if you want it to look wooden), you'll need some kind of grain to the highlights.  I'm sure other people have more specific/accurate suggestions, but that's the basic method I'd use. Also, I notice there are lines dividing the furniture...  these detract from the realism, making them look vectorized or flat-shaded in a 3d-progam.  If those lines are setting off different pieces of the furniture from its construction, then add some highlights and shadows to set them apart from each other a little bit.  

Perhaps...

we should have a poll about polls?



Welcome to the Department of Redundany Department.

Edit: This post was not intentionally plaguerized, merely delayed by a less-than adequate laptop keyboard and interference with my wi-fi connection.