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At 8/19/12 02:44 AM, The-iMortal wrote:

At 8/19/12 02:31 AM, MaskedGuardian wrote: I see, so basically you have no control, and it can easily screw things up. I guess my next goal will be to learn more about compression and EQ.

Definitely do this. I also recommend reading some extensive instructions on how EQ and compression work, and how they are designed to be used, before expirementing with these tools.

Will do. A lot of the things in FL are still very foreign to me, so I have to learn what everything does. Hopefully next project I'll have a bit more control. As for this particular song, I've gone ahead and put it up because I'm satisfied with how it turned out. Thanks for your help, guys!

At 8/19/12 01:59 AM, Blackhole12 wrote: Basically, all your instruments have their own personality, and by doing almost anything significant across the entire track (like soundgoodizer, which is basically 4 Maximus presets), you will favor certain instruments and destroy the others. All instruments require their own EQ, delay, compression, sometimes even reverb (reverb, however, often works better if you can consolidate it to groups, since that's more realistic). Each one has to be treated carefully so that it's presence and feeling can be fully expressed in the mix. Everything done on the master bus should be done extremely carefully, and in general should be really subtle.

I see, so basically you have no control, and it can easily screw things up. I guess my next goal will be to learn more about compression and EQ.

Eh, not really, because I usually feel really embarassed when one of them comes up (they suuuuuuck!) But strangely, when I do listen to them, they are eerily catchy!

At 8/19/12 12:53 AM, The-iMortal wrote:

At 8/18/12 10:59 PM, MaskedGuardian wrote:

And soundgoodizer... steer clear of it.

Be careful with soundgoodizer, it can either help you, or destroy you in a fiery ball of passion

... Can I ask why it's bad? It seemed to help quite a bit.

Update: Okay, so I just did a little experiment where I got rid of all the limiters and put a soundgoodizer on the master track, and that seemed to help. But.. are soundgoodizers recommended?

At 8/18/12 09:56 PM, The-iMortal wrote:

At 8/18/12 09:51 PM, MaskedGuardian wrote: I tried using a soundgoodizer, but it didn't seem to be doing anything. What exactly do you need a screenshot of?

Better still, upload your audio file (or a short sample of) to a file hosting site, and post the link here.

Alright, I posted it onto Sound Cloud. Like I said, it has limiters on.. pretty much everything, but that's not what's contributing to the low volume - in fact it helped, though ever so slightly.

http://soundcloud.com/maskedguardian/song-275#

At 8/18/12 09:50 PM, Kirbyfemur wrote: Not enough soundgoodizers probably :P

But in all honesty maybe you need to mix the tracks a bit different cause something is forcing them to be quieter. Post a screenshot of your fl and maybe we can start form there

I tried using a soundgoodizer, but it didn't seem to be doing anything. What exactly do you need a screenshot of?

Alright, this is starting to frustrate me.

I'm working in FL Studio, and no matter what I try, whenever I try to export a song, the volume is incredibly low - much lower than it should be, especially when compared to iTunes or even the audio portal here on the site. I've tried putting limiters on pretty much everything, especially things that were causing the dB to peak above 0, and I reached a max peak of about -2 dB within the song, but for some reason, rendering and normalizing the song (I use Audacity to normalize afterwards) still produces a pretty quiet song. Is there anyone who's experienced this problem that can offer their advice?

You really want to study anatomy a bit more. I can tell you know what you're going for, but it looks like you're just a bit off from being right.

Actually, lovingthedark pretty much nailed it with everything. The only thing I'd say to also work on is the layout of the face. It's a bit messy looking, and you really want to make it look more three-dimensional.

While I like the Starbucks/Apple logo (seriously, the two go hand-in-hand so much it's crazy), I have to agree that it's not much of a challenge to do that. Unless of course you drew the logo all on your own. In which case, good job. The second drawing looks interesting, but the coloring is a bit... I don't know, tacky? I feel like you could have done a better job with it. It looks like you either used cheap markers or didn't take your time with it.

By this point I'm not exactly new... but I'm going to keep putting things up anyway. This one wasn't really a major undertaking of a project, but I still think it turned out pretty interestingly. Let me know what you think.

At 3/26/12 02:02 AM, LordDF wrote:

At 3/26/12 01:48 AM, MaskedGuardian wrote: Been a while, but I've got some new pieces, and I'd like some critique for these too, if you don't mind.

For the red and green sunrise one:

It's got a good simplification style, and it's a start on abstraction. However, for this this to be a successful piece, you really gotta look at the colors. Strong red and strong green will never go together half and half like that. They are compliments, but they should be used with one very very faint.

Even though the grass fields are green, they will be heavily affected by the red light. What you'll end up with for the ground is very muted. example

For the underwater one, I'd say just work on your shapes/values. It's a bit hard to read right now, everything is dark and muddy. Decide before you paint what you want people to focus on.

Aside from that, keep painting and drawing! You're going to face a lot of criticism as an artist, but try not to let it get to ya.

Thanks for the feedback - I like the example you showed me. It really does work better. Actually, the bottom piece is in space, but it's sort of odd-looking, so I can understand if it looks like it's underwater. It was majorly-improvised.

It's a good start, but I'd like to see it a bit more developed. The line art could be a bit smoother, and it'd be nice if there was at least some shading. But I like the cute style, especially on the the third picture. Keep going at it.

One more.

Been a while, but I've got some new pieces, and I'd like some critique for these too, if you don't mind.

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/4 64037">http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/l isten/464037

Would someone mind reviewing my song? I have three up, but this is probably my best one. I'll stick around here and check some other people's songs out in the meantime. Thanks!

Hey folks - I'm just getting into Stencylworks, and while I'm slowly learning the ropes and feel like I can keep going, I have two problems that have arisen, one more a problem than the other.

The first problem is that my character's idling animation isn't playing, even though everything is set up how it's supposed to be. The animation is set to loop, and when I view the list of animations, everything works fine, but when it comes to actually playing the game, it doesn't seem to work.

The other, more potentially hindering problem, is that when I try to make a very large scene (approx. 2000 tiles or more), the tiles become transparent. What's weirder is that if I move my character to the top of the scene, you can see the tiles there, displaced, and you move right through them. But you drop back down onto the "real" tiles, which you can't see.

Is there a fix to either of these problems? Thank you so much.

I honestly don't know. I don't know why people would like something so stupid.

I'd put a fake phone inside, paint the words "phone booth, 25c" on it, and see how many people fall for it.

Please, for everyone's sanity, just go to Best Buy and spend ten bucks on a new keyboard. 1337 is annoying.

What the fuck did I just read?

To be honest... your stuff doesn't look very good anyway. If you weren't directly unscouted, then you must have been pruned.

At 9/3/11 11:43 PM, Nae wrote: A "Not Safe For Work" (NSFW) warning would have been nice :P

Heh, sorry ^^; that's the main reason I put it in the dumping grounds rather than post it right on the thread.

Whipped this up.

This is still a WIP, but I've uploaded the line art to the dumping grounds, and I was hoping to get some people's opinions on how it looks so far.
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/89d2 4dcb47a47db8c272507c388123c0
This was pretty much an experiment, so whether you guys think it's total shit or not, I won't know :P But I've never really drawn people this way before (by which I mean, interacting with one another), and I'd like to get some advice/criticism on how it looks, especially when it comes to posture and anatomy, especially the guy, since I'm not 100% sure that posture is actually accurate. Thanks.

At 8/31/11 05:48 PM, Fifty-50 wrote:

At 8/31/11 05:02 PM, MaskedGuardian wrote:

At 8/31/11 05:00 PM, big-jonny-13 wrote:
Reminds me of Merol's style.

Who?

MasterMerol. Come to think of it they do look very similar.

Oh wow, I like his stuff! Though I don't quite see a similarity.... but even so!

I've posted some digital art as well:
http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/maske dguardian/itoshii-at-the-water

At 8/31/11 05:00 PM, big-jonny-13 wrote:
Reminds me of Merol's style.

Who?

At 8/31/11 04:49 PM, Kinsei01 wrote:

I really don't like the angle of the photo. You got a different one to show it off a little>

I like the paint job of it. And the hair is a nice touch.

The texture on it is a bit awkward. Is it Paper Mache?

Well, I do have a photo of me wearing it, but it's not as professional-looking as this one. I can put it up here though, if you'd like. And no, it's not paper mache, but that's a good guess - it's actually plaster gauze. It gives it sort of a gritty texture, rather than making it too smooth.