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this picture has improved much from the criticisms so far!

the mushrooms are all the same size.  they should be of varying sizes, and they should get larger in the foreground like the trees do

really nice stuff.  my favorite is the glowing cables

I think the other graphics methods were much nicer.  Those SQ BG's look very hand-drawn.

I have no fear of actually having trusted computer on my computer...I'll put my computer together myself and avoid their bullshit.

What I am worried about more is that certain software might be set up to NOT RUN unless you use trusted computing.

For instance, there is already a lot of software that requires hardware Dongles and to me that is just not cool.

So what if they can't draw perspective?  Not everyone is so artistically talented.  If they can't draw perspective, their 3D work isn't going to be any good either.  But what's wrong with them trying to practice in the medium that they consider themselves best in?  Isn't that what everyone does?  Is the only difference that you don't like them because they're less talented but stil trying?

colossal: sorry, I didn't want to upload a new scaled down image just to show the example

scotch: the modelling portion took me under 2 days

kinoko: I think you are misconcieved.  3D art does not really allow poor artists to "cheat" and make good art.  You may think that 3D art is a simple matter of putting the time in to get good results...but it's really not, it requires more artistic skill than any traditional 2D medium in my opinion....and on top of that, there is a pretty drastic learning curve with all the software.

Well, I was talking about QFG VGA...in which I recall there is no dithering of any sort.

scotch, this image is just a small part of a 3d scene that I was working on.Ã,  I didnt' even finish this 1 character, and I've already spent more than 200 hours working on it.

http://img202.exs.cx/img202/7358/saibekkillingfields9br.jpg

just for this character, I've got over 300 3d objects, and almost as many unique texture maps drawn in photoshop.Ã,  And physics simulations are necessary to animate this character as well.

in 3D, the time that it takes to build and render the scene is dependent on the complexity of the objects in the scene

In 2D, it is not really dependent on how complex the scene is...to a small degree yes...but mostly its only dependent on how large the scene is and how much detail you put into it.Ã,  theres only a finite amount of space and for any given resolution that you paint at it can only take you a finite amount of time.

I could paint this same image that I have in 3D in less than an hour.Ã,  It wouldn't be quite so damn detailed, but still...I mean for contrast the picture of the farm hut I painted in the EGA/VGA topic in the critics lounge took me under an hour.Ã,  to do that in 3d, it's all a question of how detailed I want to do the trees etc...using a tree modeller I could do them in probably a day of work, all in all though that scene would probably take me about a solid week of work.Ã,  I guess I just work slow?Ã,  But if I just work slowly, then wouldn't my 2D work be slow also?

QFG 1 and 2 were EGA, using the SCI interpreter. No scanned pictures were used, and pics were made starting from zero in an in-engine drawing program storing the information as vectors, like I said. QFG3 and 4 are yes, scanned pics, colour reduced and tweaked as dragonrose explained.

I forgot QFG was originally in an EGA version.  When I played QFG back seems like 10 years ago, it was the VGA version that I played so that's what I was talking about.  That's gotta be scanned, right?

When I said "no dithering" I was referring to a specific setting on Photoshop which isn't really like classic dithering.  If you convert it to indexed color in photoshop and try turing the dithering option on and off you'll see what I mean.

MrColossal,

Alright, the physics could be avoided.  But they also might need to be there.  If you're going to be animating characters wearings robes and cloaks, you'll probably want some kind of cloth simulation...and likewise, you may want to have some animated flowing hair that uses actual hair.  But there are workarounds you're right.

Still, I think it is a lot less work to hand paint a background than to build a 3D scene of equivalent detail.  A painting is probably going to take under 20 hours, whereas a single scene might contain 100 paintings as textures, each of which can take an arbitrary amount of time to draw...and there are so many other aspects that come together.

For some things 3D is faster, but you'll never see a single room painting that takes months of 9-5 work for a single person, and you can EASILY see this amount of time put in for a single 3D scene.

Although I managed to get very close results by using posterize, I now believe that it is more likely that they simply did not apply any method of dithering when converting to Indexed Color, because that produces similar results without the blatant intentional loss of color information.

I just read that several major computer manufacturers (Dell, HP, etc.)
recently began selling computers with so called "trusted computing"
modules.  This is a very important technology, and it is VITAL that
every computer user understand it, because it will fundamentally change
the way you use your computer.  Trusted computing modules are a bit of
hardware that act like a lock for your whole computer.  They get to
decide which programs get run, and which don't.  This lets computer
manufacturers make new features like email that can't be forwarded, or
music that can only be played on one machine.  They can put an end to
viruses and spam.  They way they do this, however, is VERY SCARY.

Trusted computing is not about you (the user) being able to trust your
computer.  Trusted computing is about computer manufacturers being able
to trust you.  This is because the computer manufacturers do not give
you the key to the trusted computing module when you buy your computer.
  They keep it, and use it to decide whether or not you may run any
particular piece of software.  Trusted computing means that they decide
whether or not you get to access your pictures 10 years from now, or
whether you need to pay them to do it.  Trusted computing is about
whether or not you may access a web site or not without their
permission.  Trusted computing is about ending the free exchange of
information that the internet has created and replacing it with a small
group of companies that get to decide what you see and hear.
Television, movies, news, music, emails, and IM can all be censored
effectively using trusted computing.  They say they won't, of course,
but can you trust them to keep their word?

Trusted computing is here and now.  However, before they can lock us
out, they need to gather a critical mass of trusted computers such that
users have a choice of using trusted computing, or not communicating at
all.  The next computer you buy, ask if it has a trusted computing
module.  If it does, ask if they will give you the key to it.  If they
say no, then you know that they want to keep control of your
information and communication.  Don't buy, and tell them why.  Without
a critical mass of trusted computing modules online, they are
powerless.  Tell them you'd rather deal with spam than have a computer
that doesn't trust you.  And tell your friends about trusted computing.

The above is my understanding of trusted computing, but you should
decide for yourself.  I encourage you to visit the following links, and
learn about trusted computing yourself.  These links were among the top
10 results in a google search for "trusted computing", and I would
encourage you to conduct your own research as well.  Feel free to
forward this message.

http://www.newsforge.com/business/02/10/21/1449250.shtml?tid=19
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/home
http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/trusted_computing/20031001_tc.php

Well here's a suggestion that won't produce professional results but can produce pretty nice looking results quickly, which I use a lot -- I make a custom brush in the shape of a leaf, then splatter that around pretty densely....and use a lighter and darker version to give it some dimension.

beautiful piece, andail.  is this a work of Painter?

Right now I am VERY overwhelmed with the stock Painter brushes.  I used only 2 or 3 brushes to make this painting.  There are so many...and I don't really understand the difference between them all...I'm trying to experiment so as to learn more though.

I was thinking I would use a lot of artists oils but the texture on them becomes a real problem on detail work, so I switched over to acrylic.  What brushes do other people use regularly?

Having no knowledge of the previous site, I would say that of the options you have listedd TerranEx is by far the nicest sounding.  And if you actually have regular visitors, it would also probably be an easier switch.  So that's my worthless vote.

WaitKey (int time)

Pauses the script and lets the game continue until EITHER:
(a) TIME loops have elapsed, or

(b) the player presses a key

Returns 0 if the time elapsed, or 1 if the player interrupted it.

---

Wait (int time)

Pauses the script and lets the game continue for TIME loops.

The amount of effort that goes into building and animating a 3D scene is enormously greater than whipping up a few paintings.  Artists must be hired to draw concept art, modellers must be hired to model everything, more artists must be hired to draw textures, people must rig the models, then animate the models, programs with quality physics simulations are not cheap...you can use Maya or XSI, and Max for some things...but try orders of magnitude more work.  Cell shading isn't so easy to make look like real cartoons, either.  That takes skill.  And all of it takes artistic ability...I would say, that almost everyone in the pipeline needs to be an accomplished artist.  All that when you could just paint 1 picture and scan it in?

Lol.  Transplant games.  Good one Steve  :

I know, I know...it's annoying to see so many "firsts"...they are excuses for nothing.  Nonetheless, it is  

I really like the natural approach I get with the brushes...it seems to have capabilities for a lot of things completely impossible in Photoshop and I'm going to look into it for making dirty textures etc in addition to traditional painting...

One thing I am sorely missing from Photoshop is a Navigator window...the scroll bars are difficult for me especially with a Wacom, is there some equivalent thing I'm missing?