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Yeah, like newbies are gonna trust the lord of the goats, devourer of souls.

I think my only affordable chance was NY and I missed that..  lookin' forward to M2K9.

Good point, here's hopin' someone puts together a mini-gathering, the footage from Gloves was awesome.

I dunno.  I quite liked the look of the minimized sprite he originally posted. 

I'm diggin' on the less colors, more contrast & calcium idea but the particular shades you used almost seems like MS-paint's inaccurate .gif conversion.  He's acquired quite a lot of earthy and metallic tones that make me think of post-apocalyptic armor .

I do thing you should lose the logo-ing though, Das.  It distracts from the drawing and is indistinguishable on that small of a sprite.  The green logo on the shirt (even if accurate) resembles nose-matter and the orange Puma stripes give the impression that you don't know what you're doing with coloring (though from this sprite it's quite obvious you do). 

The neck's fix still doesn't quite show that he's got a neck.  I think Helm's technique of throwing it back with the contrast works a bit better.  Maybe if you just darkened the neck a bit?

well so far, Thomas Kinkade is more famous than any of us...

And so is Martha Stewart, doesn't stop me from wanting to turn her skin into a beautiful couch-cover.

Agreed.  As far as current or soon-to-come software goes, you're SOL.  Even if decent equivalents exist they would be exorbitantly priced.  However, there are modifications you can make to a recording (whether it's your own falsetto voice or a friend's) to make it at least nearly acceptable. 

Rather that debate the probability of such a thing, why not make it more productive and get some attempts and submissions in this thread?  I, for one, am thinking of giving this a go and seeing how it turns out.

Not specifically trying to get this bumped up but wanted to give an update.

Apparently, her husband's in prison - though not for the afforementioned reason.  He's had theft, assault, drug & traffic convictions.  He thought he'd gotten all of them taken care of but it turns out there was a traffic violation (I'm not privy to specifics here) that had an unpaid fine.  His bail is set at $56,000 USD. 

I told her to leave him there.  She seemed perplexed in response.  I had to actually explain why before she'd acknowledge my reasoning.  So, I guess she'll be out of harm's way for at least a few weeks (until his court date).  Part of an unsolved citation states that he has to take an Anger Management class.  While I doubt it'll do him much good (I don't think rage is the root of the problem, merely a symptom of an attitude and a simplistic response to his frustration) at least it'll be on his record that he had to attend such a class - just in case my sister's willing to file a complaint against him at some point. 

I'm such an ass.  I should've at least sympathized with her situation of having to keep house & bills paid for while he's away.  Of course, I'll help her as much as I can but I still should've mentioned something about it.  It can be a rather stressful time. 

In order to explain some of his crappy past (that was supposedly behind him) it would take too much summary but I'll leave with this: She had to post bail on their wedding day.

I appreciate the rapid and well thought-out replies.  About all I can do is be there for her, it's true.  I can try to show her options and maybe provide a bit of self-esteem boost. 

Shbaz, your lack of ambition theory sounds like a very near miss.  I mean to say that it's quite close but not quite it.  She got ambition out the ass, always busy, always with new projects, has a couple of degrees (Ad Gfx, cooking, bible-college youth counselor cert) and just oozes self-betterment and ambition.  She still states that she doesn't think she can employ herself viably without him and seems to have all this great stuff going for her but only so she can support his career (motorcycle salesman, recent employee).

Peter, the best comment you had is that I have to remind myself not to be patronizing or dictatorly.  I find it's quite easy to lapse into either just to avoid feeling impotent.  I like helping people.  If it's someone I care about, I need to help them if I possibly can.  Standing by, hoping for the best and being basically useless is horrible.. just f-ing horrible. That "it wouldn't have happened if I'd just" was another phrase I've heard, only it revolved around her making a big deal out of having discovered him with porn.

Kinoko, while it may not seem relevant at first glance, I think there are a lot of similarities between the two situations.  One bit felt very close-to-home... the worrying.  By the time I/she/someone does something about it, will he already have taken it too far (permanent damage or death)? My gut shakes just typing that out.  I'm not sure if she still loves him or not - she claims to.  Is he a good person? Hell no.  I couldn't stand the guy at first meet but I figured it was my brotherly protectiveness coming into play.  After seeing him treat my sister well (in company only, apparently), I tried my best to respect him despite a past of promiscuity, drug-use, alcoholism, theft and violence.  He was supposedly changing all those things for her . . . seems he's kept them all going (or attempting to). 

Ugh.  Off to bed.. finding it hard to sleep recently.

Perhaps inspired by Snake's soul-bearing thread, I decided to garner some input about something very much affecting my life at the moment.

For those who only read the first couple of sentences of a post; my sister's being abused by her husband.  The first phone call about it scared the hell out of me.  I was utterly sympathetic until she started muttering things that sounded like something from a crappy TV drama (Lifetime channel here, dunno about international equivalents).  She makes excuses for him, says she brings it upon herself, says she doesn't know how she can make it on her own, says she doesn't want anyone to physically do anything about it - that it's under control, but it keeps happening. 

I bluntly encouraged her to leave him (or technically, to kick him the f__k out and ship his ass back to Florida).  I offered her many alternatives as far as placed to go: There are organizations that can provide financial, legal, and boarding support.  I told her she could go back to my parents' place, stay with me, and I even have some friends offering the same (so that she'd be someplace untraceable by him, just in case she had something further to fear).

This issue was very personal since my ex-wife's first husband was a major (think sociopathic here) spouse-abuser.  She's still got wounds (physical and mental) that'll never heal. 

My instinct, my emotion tells me to beat the sh_t out of him until he's incapacitated.  However, I've never struck someone in anger in my life.  Physically and experience-wise, I wouldn't stand much of a chance.  Fortunately, the logical part of my mind informs me that even if I did succeed, I'd probably end up in prison - accomplishing nothing but a little vengeance (and a good heaping stockpile of irony to boot). 

I'm not sure how the law works in other countries, and some US states may differ but at least here, even if I called the police and she had a gaping head wound and bruises, they couldn't do anything unless she pressed charges - if they showed up at her place at all.  All that would accomplish would be to make the abuse potentially more life-threatening.  She doesn't seem to want advice or alternatives but nothing more than a sympathetic ear, but how long can you stay sympathetic to a person in quicksand who ignores the ropes you keep throwing them and continues bemoaning their fate?  I probably sound harsh but I'm immensely pissed off at him and very frustrated with her.

We're in the 2000's now.  Haven't we seen/heard enough educational programming, enough "serious issue episodes" of sit-coms, enough made-for-tv movies that everybody realizes they've got a choice? If nothing else, don't they realize they're mimicking the characters portrayed in situation after situation that they're eventually able to escape from?

If you've got any decent advice, unique insights, experiences, education about this issue from other places, or just want to join in shaking your head - please reply.  And I don't mean to say that only women are abused..  I'm well aware that kids of all ages and some men are abused (physically or mentally).  I've had close encounters with those sorts of things as well.   Currently, I'm just frustrated that a full-grown, intelligent, capable adult feels so helpless and doesn't/can't/won't do a damned thing about it.

[modified topic title so it wouldn't act as an inflamatory attention-getter as much]

Work in San Francisco, live north of there.  I was thinking there weren't many Californians left, especially since I haven't seen Remo around, but I count a total of 4 from this thread.  Maybe CA isn't as dumbed-down as I thought . . . nah.

Speaking of work, I get to take Yoda back to the bronze sculptor tomorrow.  Yay.

Taking up the advice of not playing moderator, I've wiped my post.  In summary:

Why respond with unhelpful insults? If you think there was no effort made, ignore the thread or mention that it could use more work before C&C.

Tanker: You're getting some of the fundamentals and I'm glad to see you're doing your own artwork.  Don't fall into the trap of using techniques to disguise shortcomings.  It may look cliché but using perspective or isometrics can be entertaining and give a more polished look.  1-point-perspective is a pretty quick study and all that's required for your recent two rooms. 

I whole-heartedly agree with Andail's recommendations concerning the skewed lines.

Amazing, half have their tongues firmly implanted in cheek and the other half are scratching their heads.

Really? SETI and Protein Folding analysis are news to anybody at this point?

Thank you very much.  You really attacked this one.  I figured it out but didn't post a follow-up since the thread was naturally working its way to obscurity.

Turned out not to be hardware-related (at least not directly).  It seemed to be a problem with the new Audigy 2 drivers which support DRM (Digital Rights Management).  Apparently, a license was downloaded upon opening an audio file. Not having been a part of the transaction, I was unaware of the download - damn Windows Media codec.  I'd previously tried uninstall/reinstall of drivers but it took a hardware removal, reboot, reinsertion for it to function properly.  Well, now if someone else has the same problem, maybe this'll help.

The weirdest thing about that noise is that it isn't a constant tone or static. I would expect either or those from a malfunction, bad connection, or interference. I think I mentioned it but the sound isn't constant. It lasts the recorded (via mic->headphones) duration then nothing for about 10 seconds.  Comparing a 4khz frequency (nice analysis by the way) to a 10 second delay makes for a very strange loop.  The sound also doesn't fade in or out in volume level but its volume is determined by Wave volume and hardware volume.

Thanks again for the input.

Those games are produced by companies that acquire a license to proprietary software.  Sure, a PDA running Windows CE might be able to handle AGS (haven't tried) but the fact remains that outside of a PC OS, it's just not practical without a re-writing.   

I'm sure that the amateur adventure scene will eventually branch out into portable devices but it's not likely to be anytime soon.  This particular crowd isn't exactly well known for jumping to the latest and greatest thing.

Unfortunately, if it's in the center, that's where all the data about the contents is stored.  So, it's looking like options are 1)try different copying/recovery programs, 2)contact Interplay for a replacement or 3) get a legitimate copy of the game through illegitimate means.

Yep.  I've recovered a few CDs by extracting to hard-drive and burning to another.  CloneCD occasionally works as well.  There've been a couple that've extracted just fine to harddrive but weren't burnable so I used CD-emulation for playing the game (like Alcohol).

It's brown in the center, concentrated in the center and moving outwards? Does it look like branches, with uneven lines?  If that's a case, then you've probably got decomposing media and should probably backup the CD ASAP if it's not already too late.

Looks like a brown spill? Is there any evidence of discoloration or deterioration on the printed side of the CD?  The actual material containing the data is a layer towards the printed side.  Anything on the underside should be fixable, provided it's not too deep a gouge or crack (and assuming the brown stuff isn't too destructive (glue, paint, etc.).

If it's on the underside, the toothpaste trick might work, otherwise a thorough cleaning kit might get the job done.  Otherwise it's data-recovery operations or downloading . . .

Many apologies for a worthless post, but I found myself unable to read that last one (not Scotch's, he slipped that in while I was typing).

The primary reason for this is that I am functionally illiterate.  The secondary reason is that it seems to have been written by a hyperglycemic teenage girl with ADHD.  After finding a starting point and reading a number of phrases, I found my intestines to be raging with an unholy fire. 

The gist of the post seems to be that c++ to java conversion ought to be simple.  However, there aren't many conversions that don't suffer from some sort of data loss/corruption.  The many operations needed to import and modify sounds, images and existing script would be too offputting for converting current games and many creators would probably feel too limited by the lack of space, screen size, and craptacular audio portable devices use. 

The idea of adventure gaming on portable devices is a good one, it's just that it would probably have to be another project and not AGS.  PDA-gaming seems a worthwhile goal but mentioning cellphones seems like fantasy at this point, perhaps when they go from a very common status to an ubiquitous one.

Well, the 50 MB to 7 MB seems a bit over-optimistic.  However, you can get fairly decent ratios.  Fatman seems like a good example.  Using the (non-talkie?) Underdogs version, the decompressed size is: 61.7 Megs (on disk filesize). The total size for WinRAR archives is: 24.7 Megs.  So, roughly 40% of the original diskspace.

WinZip's ratios (v.8.1) are normally lower, though I haven't messed with their newest version.  The newer version runs into compatibility problems with other archiving software. Winzip (8-ish) has the advantage of being ubiquitous at least.  AGS only does some mild compression with the graphics but doesn't have the advantage of a full-tilt archiving program, it does more when compressing its scripting, I would guess.

[Edit: Good topic, by the way. It's been discussed before, but it's a good one to revisit occasionally - certainly better than "What's your favorite Strawberry Sundae?" I, for one, will download almost anything when on dial-up. I just do a lot of research first.]

Jeez, I'm normally the technical advisor at work and home so this just feels wrong.  However, since we've a number of audio gurus here and some knowledgeable about computer hardware, I thought I'd give 'er a go:

Within the past 48 hours, I've started receiving a noise over my headphones.  The noise repeats approximately every 10 seconds and comes in louder than all other audio.  Here are a few things I've done to try and resolve it:

- checked to see if it's white noise I didn't previously notice by lowering all volume controls.
- unplugged any unnecessary electronics in the area in case of interference.
- checked connections.  I've got an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum and normally use the front panel with decent Sennheiser full-ear-enclosing headphones.  I tried the speaker out connections on the card as well. 
- switched headphones (tried 2 other sets, in fact), the noise is the same but less clear
- muted each channel (i.e. CD Audio, MIDI, Wave), it appears to be on the Wave channel.
- lowered sample conversion in WinXP's audio panel (unlikely to fix, but WTH at this point, right?)
- checked for any changes in electronics or their connections that might've happened within the last couple days, don't come up with anything.

So, anyone have any ideas? Sorry for the crap recording (above link) but trying to record audio off of speakers with a mic is difficult, particularly trying to avoid feedback. The sound's basically the same but with no white noise and slightly lower in pitch.  Next thing to try is onboard sound (which I disabled before clean install for the Audigy) and I'm dreading that - it's crap.

Definitely agree with a couple things I didn't notice right away, that wandering blue pixel and the gray outline for the orange lights are both good fixes that shouldn't take too much effort. 

I'd agree on making the side windows transparent except that I was thinking about ease of animation.  If they're going to enter the car, it would seem much simpler to have them vanish into it than do the entire sitting/belting/driving animation.  I guess I just want it more cartoony while InC wants it more realistic.  The Critic's lounge is a wonderful thing.

I don't think the car is too detailed - the characters details include glasses, and clothing details like the logo and the stripe.  The car's details seem equivalent. 

However, there are a couple adjustments that could be made to the car to make it fit the style more.  The windshield should be more opaque, as it is now, there would have to be a very strong light source to make the side windows reflective while allowing the windshield to be utterly transparent. The shading on the paint, however doesn't quite mirror this. Treating the windshield similarly to how you did the sides, with perhaps a touch more gray would probably work. 

Also, the saturation is a bit high.  This actually looks a lot like my car, and the color is similar, but with the subdued tones of the characters, the car seems a bit too bright.  If the backgrounds are the same sorts of tones as the car, then no problem.