Ironik

[ QUOTE ]
I want to do a comic... I want this comic to be purely 2 toned, black or white. However I need help with it.

How do you make characters that purely dress in black not just look like black blobs? Especially when things like hands and other details vanish with pure black.

Hope I'm clear enough there... hope someone can help

[/ QUOTE ]

Check out what Miller does with Sin City.

I'm not keen on the idea of fan art being displayed in-game. It breaks immersion.

That said, however, if Cryptic wanted to hold a contest for the design of something game-related -- say, a movie poster or a concert flyer -- which will be added to the city which would be thematically appropriate, that would be good.

I would like to see fan art featured on the official website. Do it the way other companies do: celebrate the community's involvement in the game.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hami did it all for you....ALL FOR YOU!!!

[/ QUOTE ]



[/ QUOTE ]

ROFLeswithsyrup!

There are a lot of Photoshop tutorials floating around. I used to have a thread on this very topic, but it got itself moderated. We should list links to Photoshop (and GIMP) tutorials. Or is there a guide somewhere?

I really should search before I respond, but I'm all lazy right now, post-lunch.

[ QUOTE ]
Aah! Anon artist! Attack!

(Heh, all As )

[/ QUOTE ]

"Anon artist?" Is that a pun? Or did you mean "a non-artist?"

Color (and cross-hatch) me corn-fused!

I think Juggertha might have something to say on this issue....

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, but they occasionally censure - that is my beef as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

Censure or censor? Huge difference, there. It's the difference between disapproval and decapitation.

I've certainly had my fair share of posts deleted by moderators, because I'm opinionated and sometimes cranky, but that's to be expected. Mostly, though, they leave me alone. So again I ask: has someone been banned for some reason?

I guess I don't understand the issue, Jug. It seems to me that Cryptic has given their official blessing to the whole fan art thing. I mean, Doug and Jo and all were walking on eggshells for a while there waiting word on whether they could earn money doing this, and they were given the go-ahead.

And as you pointed out, Cryptic has promoted fan art, both on the website and in the comic. Perhaps the fan art section hasn't been given prominence to your satisfaction, but it certainly looks to me that it's not only been approved of but actively encouraged by Cryptic. Has there been a recent bludgeoning of artists going on that I'm not aware of?

Sgt. Hami-Schultz

[ QUOTE ]
XD You just made me spit beer on my monitor.

[/ QUOTE ]

You just made me spit beer on Starchasm's monitor!

[ QUOTE ]
***** UPDATE *****

Updated 04:06 PM 11/03/06

Standard
1: Ironik


[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, I made the list and didn't even see this post until just now! My mind powers are amazing!

(Actually, I suspect CJ -- being the nice fellow that he is -- is carrying over my Slaughtermouse request from his last offer, where I missed the cut-off by minutes. As I told CJ privately, and I hope I don't embarrass him by saying this publicly, it's really terrific that he does this sort of thing! Thanks CJ! See, this is why I love this board, all these great people here.)

[ QUOTE ]
I don't see a lot of personal criticisms of Emmert. I see critiques of gameplay and functionality in CoX, along with commentary on the company's ability and expertise in managing subscriber expectations.

Most of the people here have spent a lot of time, historically, recognizing Cryptic's achievements and complimenting the devs on the many things they've 'gotten right'. This thread is primarily about Bases, and Bases are not one of the things that Cryptic 'got right'. They 'got close' in several respects, but have yet to 'get it right' yet.

Trust me, the devs have thicker skin than you likely have in the face of criticism. This thread is 10 times more useful to them as-is, than it would be if people just formed a daisy ring of praises and excuses.

[/ QUOTE ]

True that.

I wouldn't have come back to this game -- and I certainly wouldn't keep commenting about it -- if I didn't genuinely like it.

Cryptic made some missteps that cost them my business this year, so they've only made $30 off me instead of $300, but if they start implementing the things I'd like to see, next year they might get that $300.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Intestingly, costumes have no gameplay value. They don't boost damage. They don't boost resistance. They don't boost defense. They're only for show.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, and everyone can see them. You look at my character, you see my costume.

[ QUOTE ]
Admittedly, there's not quite the same amount of textures, colors, etc., but there's still a lot of versatility. And the layout possibilities are endless.

[/ QUOTE ]

And they're hidden away, effectively in their own dimension. Other people can see my costume and go 'wow' simply by my flying past. To see my base, they have to be in a coalition with me, or on my team while we go there (and for that to happen, we need to have a reason for them to go, other than me saying 'come check out the base'). They can't simply happen across it and go 'wow!'

When something has substantial show value, you have to be able to show it off!

[/ QUOTE ]

Read the above post. Learn it, love it. It's part of the key element we discussed way back when bases were first mentioned as going in to the game: some sort of "visitor's area" is needed, as well as a private area.

Customization has to go up, as does the ability for every player to try it out... and as Lady Sadako says, the ability to show off our talents, as well.

[ QUOTE ]
I've been doing it for years, but I hadn't really thought about it til I read an article about George Lucas discussing digital film, and he mentions archival stuff and how in the end, archiving digital is not much different than actual film. In one, you have to update your movie from format to format, and the other, you occasionally have to re-print your masters because the film degrades over time.

[/ QUOTE ]

My friend is a director at the Library of Congress Film Preservation Unit at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio, and his job is to literally save old movies. He tells me that over 95% of all old films are lost to time. They have snippets they've saved and some of the pieces of movies are tantalizing, because the cinematography is so interesting or the acting is so impressive, but they have almost no idea of who did these things; or if they do, they only have this small amount of work to look at.

Even the so-called "safety film" which is supposed to be more durable has its own issues and needs to be restored. Although it's not nearly as bad as the old nitrate film stock, which literally degrades into a napalm-like goo which can spontaneously combust. Now there's something which makes the workday tense -- opening a roll of film that might literally explode in your face! They do it in cold, low-oxygen rooms to minimize the risk of serious injury, but there's a reason why those films are kept inside an underground bomb shelter.

They're always getting films that have been in someone's attic/basement/shed for 65 years. Sometimes they've decomposed to the point where the bomb squad has to dispose of them, but sometimes they're in fairly decent shape. That's how we have film of the lost scene from The Wizard of Oz -- someone took home movies on the day, put the film away for decades, and it got rediscovered when he died. Since the negatives from the studio were destroyed, that's the only record of the removed scene.

Because reproduction is so easy nowadays, there's little likelihood we'll have another tragedy like the burning of the library at Alexandria, but the point is pretty clear: reproduce and distribute your work so that multiple people have it.

This temporariness is what early adopters of laser disks discovered: disk rot. After a while, the thing just comes apart. CDs and DVDs are somewhat hardier. Video tape has the same issue. The key is to keep backing things up as you go forward in time.

Another thing you should look into is preserving the photographs you've taken. Especially those of you with photos from the 1970s. The various papers and processes used back then were truly atrocious, and some photos have almost completely sublimated into the air by now. Most have faded over time, losing their luster. Ironically, what was considered an "inferior" process back in the 1960s has allowed many photographs from that era to retain their original color.

Cool.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
DING DING DING!

That's all, folks!

[/ QUOTE ]

That's what I get for sleeping in today.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ditto... but then, Darkfang is my fiance'. I'm only SLIGHTLY marrying him for the free art.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ulterior motive! Ulterior motive!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Here's the writeup of his speech.

The only thing that jumps out at me - he claims bases are unpopular because people don't like paying money to contribute to group identity. I don't think that's correct. I think they're unpopular because
1) they're too expensive for casual players, and
2) they don't have anything to do with our day-to-day activities in CoH/V.

[/ QUOTE ]
While those are certainly issues, I'm not sure I would dismiss Statesman's comment that quickly.

I can only speak for myself, but I would be all over bases if they were something I could build on my own, per character, not with a supergroup. Part of that is because I just don't like getting tied to a group (for various reasons), but some of it is that I want to make my base, my way. Think about what percentage of people get to really use the base building tool, for example: not just "decorate a bit with the starting prestige," but really plan it out, put together the non-decorative facilities, show off a theme, etc.....I may be contributing prestige, but only the person doing the actual building is really expressing themselves.

Now, personally, I don't think that this is nearly as large an impediment to my enjoyment of bases as the fact that I really don't want to have anything to do with a supergroup, but I could see an argument that one position is just an aspect of the other.

[/ QUOTE ]

I sent Jack a PM saying that exact thing: the reason bases are lead balloons is because they're too expensive and almost no one gets to design them.

Plus, the floorplans need to be added to. All you can make now is a single-level Ranch. We need to be able to emulate the ultra-cool bases we see in comics. We need to be able to make one-person apartments or the Batcave or the Avengers Mansion or the Baxter Building or an orbiting space station....

What we need is the building equivalent of the character creator. One that everyone can access. Look at the astonishing range of things people can create in Star Wars Galaxies. It's literally mind-blowing. They've created everything from gentleman's clubs to spaceship hangars, tree forts to strongholds, all using the same basic building blocks.

[ QUOTE ]
I tried them and was dissapointed that they were random poses. There was one that looked like flying jumping jacks. Arms flayed wide open.

[/ QUOTE ]

As stated above, they're taking the poses out of I8 so they can be retooled into "choose pose" rather than "random pose." Hopefully that'll be our Christmas present from the animators.

Looking good so far -- I like the final mask rendition, too.

I forget what WP's powerset is.

That looks cool. Your pencil work is so clean. Very impressive.

[ QUOTE ]
Hello peoples. Sorry for gushing like this but I just got back from test server. I went there to grab pictures of my hero in flight. I loved the pictures so much I just couldn't resist posting them. So if you want check out the Golden Eagle in flight gallery.

But this one I think is my favorite.

So, again, sorry for posting this but I'm just geeking out about these pictures and wanted to share with people. Enjoy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your favorite is also my favorite. That's an amazing screenshot. The angle, the background, the color... they've all come together to make for an astonishingly heroic pose. You couldn't have drawn it better.

[ QUOTE ]
DING DING DING!

That's all, folks!

[/ QUOTE ]

That's what I get for sleeping in today.

Loverly.

[ QUOTE ]
Hey gang-

Recently, this board's resident art-saint Celtic Bolt did his amazing rendition of Crimson Storm . I've admired this Scotsman's CoH character renditions and Battle Cards for a while and to see my character drawn in his style was a huge thrill.

In return, I drew Celtic Bolt for him.

Man, these art trades are fun!

[/ QUOTE ]

Very nice. Did you draw the Celtic knotwork border, or did you get that from somewhere?