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My personal preference is Android (currently own an EVO 4G, had an HTC Hero before that). I've also owned an iPhone. They're both really great smartphone devices but they're definitely for different crowds. iPhone is more for those who just want something that works and works well out of the box. Downside is that it's not very open, customization options and abilities are very limited.

Android is pretty much the polar opposite. Very open, mostly for power users who like to tweak and customize and make their device their own. If you don't mind learning and tweaking your phone to push it to its limits then you'll love Android. Again, it's more of a device for tech lovers and power users, but it's definitely gaining mass appeal lately with more simplified interfaces being used on Android devices.

At 6/21/09 05:02 PM, Esn wrote: It seems to me that the quality of the Art Portal is decreasing already. Even a few hours ago, most of the stuff there was great. Now, people are submitting crap like this:
http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/leo56 00/comic-strip-complete-silence

Who decides to unscout someone? If it is only the staff, I can see you guys quickly becoming overwhelmed with the task. There should be some user input.

I saw that earlier. I was wondering if someone was going to report it or not, but technically they didn't break the rules or anything so nothing can really be done right?

no it's not going to replace DeviantArt, but I'm definitely in love with the art portal. I've only scouted one person that I was lucky enough to find right at the very top of the unscouted artwork page and he's done well so far! I've been submitting my art slowly and it's such a rush waiting to see what overall rating it settles at! That being said, I guess the art portal isn't safe from zero-bombers either. People will vote 0 whether the picture is good or not just to lower the rating. I've seen some amazing pictures jump frrom 1st page in highest score all the way to 4th page. I had one of mine on the first page yesterday with a 4.6 and woke up this morning to find it had jumped all the way to oblivion with a 4.2.. I'm not usually one to care about "highest" anything or "most popular". DA has enough trouble with that stuff but it does kinda suck that people seem to bomb everything with 0s if it's got a higher ranking than theirs or their friend's. Guess that's the way of NG...

Awesome! I was so excited when I saw the art portal when I logged on today. Are you guys going to be hosting the most popular art submissions on the front page like with the other sections too?

haha thanks a lot. =]

This is pretty good. I really like the background especially. The animation is smooth and fluid but like someone said earlier, you may want to increase fps and work on your anatomy a bit. =] Keep up the great work!

At 6/28/08 01:26 PM, DawnOfDusk wrote: I haven't really followed much along in this forum topic, but two things,

First, Everyone open up Waterlolies, stop is on a frame, and compare it to the tree in this movie, pretty damn close visually eh?

Second, just out of curiousity, how long do you believe this will take you?

Adam Phillips is an obvious influence of mine, but like I said, this is closer to the style that I draw in on a day to day basis than anything else. So that's definitely a huge compliment to even be compared to his work.

I don't want to give a definite time frame because it'll just cause people to expect it to be out at that time and I don't like promising release dates when I honestly have no idea if I'll make it. But I would LIKE to have it done by the end of summer (i.e. mid-September for me) and I think that sounds like a realistic time frame based on how far along I am at the moment. Again, I'd rather not set anything in stone for now.

At 6/28/08 04:53 AM, swiftstylerX wrote:

At 6/27/08 12:56 PM, sfox8 wrote: Thank you. :) I've actually gone back and redone the character animation a few times already just to make sure I get it as good as I can so hopefully it turns out well.

I just re watched it, and have one little criticism(which is hard to find in something so beautiful as this). When the camera is panning on the kid and the dragon(?), it looks like they're floating a little bit. They move too far over, when the background is barely panning, so it looks as if they're sliding along the ground.

Yeah I know what you mean. I'm still trying to correct that whole scene. There's just something about it that irks me to death and that may be it. I'm gonna play around with that and see how I can make the whole pan look more natural. My original problem was that it looked UNnatural without enough movement but I agree that there's too much movement now.

And thanks for the music tips. I actually thought mp3 was a smaller size than wav. I'll try compressing the music instead.

hehe never heard that word before. Thank you. :D

You have to Publish your file. So go to File > Publish. You can also choose your Publish settings and whatnot.

Note: An swf can also be made by pressing ctrl+enter to "preview" your movie. It'll automatically create an swf file in whichever folder you saved your fla to.

At 6/27/08 12:36 PM, Resolution wrote: It's obvious you have a lot of raw talent, and also a lot of drawing skills which really show in the work in progress. I thought that the dragon at the beginning was especially good, and it would be nice to see if your character animation is as good as everything else.

But whoh, it's not everyday you get something of that standard come along, so well done and PLEASE keep on animating, never give up :D

Thank you. :) I've actually gone back and redone the character animation a few times already just to make sure I get it as good as I can so hopefully it turns out well.

trash-can: I started it late last year but had a hard drive crash and had to pretty much start over so I've been working on it on and off since about January to early February.

Wow this is actually very good. Though, I think maybe the fire needs to be worked on a bit more (just the fire in the grass after the lightning strikes. It took me a while to realize it was fire (I thought it was lava because of the way it was rising and was horizontal instead of vertical).

Still an amazing effects job. I also like the moving cattails.

At 6/27/08 06:40 AM, Seltzer wrote:

At 6/27/08 04:12 AM, VinceChavez wrote:

At 6/27/08 12:45 AM, sfox8 wrote: Well, since NG Alphas doesn't look like it'll becoming back anytime soon, I thought I'd go ahead and post my w.i.p. http://img120.imageshack.us/my.php?image =eternalinstantcs3eu0.swf&width=640 I've got more done by now, but it's taking a lot of self control not to tween the characters and to stick to frame by frame.

I was also wondering if anybody has any good compression tips? I'd rather not sacrifice the image quality too much (so I want to stick with the gradient usage and little details), but I'm already at about 1,000 frames and I don't want the load time to be humongous when the animation is actually complete. Does using graphics instead of flash fx like blur and glow help?

Wow those graphics are simply amazing! I seriously can't wait until you finish this. I think it's on the same level of the Bitey of Brackenwood series

Hah, that's funny, I thought it was too

what you have so far is amazing, and you'r style seems origonial to me.

Just as a question, and this may sound noobish, but could you outline your process a little for me?

..I can only hope I'll make somthing this well one day lol

Thanks for bringing up the stolen thing. I know there are ways to save swfs so I'm going to put my mark credit on it right away and update the file.

And thanks guys, I'm really amazed you all are liking it so far.

As for my process, do you mean animating part or the art style part?

Well I basically just use a lot of gradients to make things feel more organic. Then after filling the lines with gradients, i choose a color a bit darker than the darkest color in that specific gradient and do the shading. I don't use grads for everything. Just the more focused areas where people will definitely be paying attention to. That's basically what I did for the tree and the character. To add details, I just zoom in about 2 or three times and draw from there, using either the first or second size brush. The key is making things feel organic and blending well, so just playing around with shading and lighting can give you the result you want. =]

And animating is just tween and frame by frame so far. Nothing special. No masks, nothing. Hope that helped a bit. I may include a short tutorial as a bonus feature in the final version.

At 6/27/08 02:41 AM, DawnOfDusk wrote: I could watch this all day...

This is the type of movie that invokes all types of people to just stare in beauty and awe, and it's pure greatness.

Thank you.

Wow, I should be the one thanking you haha. So yes, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

And yeah don't worry, he'll have more organic movements. I'm still trying to figure out a better way to do that scene with him and the dragon sitting by the tree. I'm not liking the composition and it seems too unnatural looking.

At 6/27/08 02:02 AM, DarkHabit wrote: Reminded me of story of khale, it looks real good, too good...

And wow, I had never heard of Story of Khale before. Thanks for letting me know about that. The animation and style is superb. I'm now an instant fan haha.
I guess I gotta step my game up even further now!

At 6/27/08 01:49 AM, Ultimate7777 wrote: This looks really good. It's so clean and peaceful. It reminds me alot of Etoli's work.

I'd just use the effects instead of importing graphics. It's a lot less work, and the result ends up being about the same.

I can't wait to see this finished.

Thanks guys. And yeah, I'm pretty familiar with Etoli's animations. In fact, a week or so ago I was thinking of scrapping the whole project because I didn't want people to draw comparisons between this opening sequence and Etoli's "Pandora's Book" movie. We also have a similar animating style (which is not on purpose, but I tend to try to make my animations look like my artwork, so that may be where our styles meet). Hopefully people won't rate me down because of a few similarities though. =]

Thanks again! And I guess I'll go with effects and see how it goes then. It'll be easier that's for sure.

At 6/27/08 12:51 AM, ShortMonkey wrote: Bloody hell those graphics are shit-hot. Great work!

And using filter's/effects in Flash would take up less space than importing an image with the effects added to it if that's what your saying. Either way, awesome work there. Gee, Flash standards have gone high... too high.

Thanks! Glad you like it then. :)

So.. we have a split. Which is better then? Graphics or effects? I can use whichever one, but I need one or the other because I'll have to use quite a bit of blur and glowing effects throughout the animation.

Well, since NG Alphas doesn't look like it'll becoming back anytime soon, I thought I'd go ahead and post my w.i.p. http://img120.imageshack.us/my.php?image =eternalinstantcs3eu0.swf&width=640 I've got more done by now, but it's taking a lot of self control not to tween the characters and to stick to frame by frame.

I was also wondering if anybody has any good compression tips? I'd rather not sacrifice the image quality too much (so I want to stick with the gradient usage and little details), but I'm already at about 1,000 frames and I don't want the load time to be humongous when the animation is actually complete. Does using graphics instead of flash fx like blur and glow help?

This actually looks pretty good. It seems interesting so far and the action is pretty nicely animated so far. Nice use of sound and whatnot. I hope you plan on adding some cool epic chinese martial arts music to the background as well. I'm looking forward to this.

We're allowed to post WIPs in this forum?

I'm having trouble with output in fl studio. I'm trying to record via a logitech usb microphone using ASIO but whenever I switch to ASIO, my sound goes out and I cannot hear any kind of feedback from the program at all. It only happens in FL because I can hear and watch youtube videos just fine.

I'm able to record when in ASIO mode, but I have to switch back to Primary Sound Device every time I want to play it back. The "in" section lists my microphone for the input, but the "out" section says "Not Connected 1 - Not Connected 2 when I'm in ASIO mode. I'm using an hp laptop if that's any help.

Is there any way to fix this?

Post on these two forums and I'm sure you'll have some auditions before the day is up.

http://voiceactingclub.com and http://voiceactingalliance.com/board

At 6/26/08 11:11 AM, Nickwii2112 wrote: I perfer just to do it free hand by each frame. It's a lazier and longer,but it gets the job done.

How is doing it frame by frame a lazier way?

But anyway, I prefer frame by frame to tweening, just because you get more organic results. Nothing is perfect in nature, and especially movement. Humans are twitchy and are constantly moving (even if they're standing still) so redrawing each frame gives you that organic feeling. It also allows you to have more control over your animation.

I do still using tweening though. But it's basically only for camera movements.

Hey, it's been a while guys. Real life has taken a huge toll on me as of late, but I think I'm back on track now. As for the animation, I had a drive crash and lost the fla files, but I've started from a very old version. It's turning out better than last time, but I decided to upload a very, VERY SHORT preview (i.e. all I have done). You can see it at deviantART. http://sfox8.deviantart.com/art/Eternal-
Instant-Short-Preview-89121027

I'm working steadily and hope to have some more sketches and extras to add to this topic in the future.

At 12/18/07 11:33 PM, Vortex00 wrote:

At 12/18/07 11:24 PM, sfox8 wrote: *shrug* Either way. Believe what you would like. :)

no worries man. It is a good pic though, you should post more.

Thanks. :D I'll keep posting concept sketches every once in a while. At least until I can get a little further into the animation to post more WIP screens.

At 12/17/07 05:54 PM, Vortex00 wrote:

At 12/17/07 05:36 PM, Lamoureux wrote: Crazer, you tool. Why did you bump this?

@Quinc, when are you finishing those sketches you sent me? D:

I recently rescanned em,
It takes forever to pen tool I have to get use to it D:

plus I have to work on the "ahem" little project
probably post at least one tonight.

upping the pic:text ratio >.>;
raw scan, most stuff looks like this when I scan it in T.T;
Hair is kinda messed up on the curl but I'll fix all that digitally.

I don't think anything looks bad about the hair. Actually everything looks amazing. All of your stuff does. I'm impressed. :D!! And thank GOD for someone that does nudes who doesn't make it pornographic. I was happy to see an artistic nude anime picture that wasn't freaking hentai for once. You get brownie and awesome points for that. :]

Oh and I complement your understanding of anatomy as well. A very hard thing to come by.

At 12/18/07 10:55 PM, Vortex00 wrote: LMAO!

number 7 on this list

If it was my account, then yes. I've already explained myself twice though so I won't say anything further. Whenever she posts her art then that's done. *shrug* I have nothing to hide, really. lol Why would I need to bump my own thread with an alternate account? I could have just posted a new concept sketch if I was so eager to bump it. I still have lots more so I wouldn't have a problem bumping it. Plus, I don't see what I would need an alternate account for. =O

*shrug* Either way. Believe what you would like. :)

At 12/18/07 10:35 PM, Darkaxl wrote: LOL an internet slip, hard to beat. There's 2 possibilities.

1. You were trying to bump the topic/ give yourself some huge confidence boost (EGOTISTICAL BASTARD).

2. Or your friend actualy did forget to log out.

Either way. That screenshot is looking AMAZING. i love the colours you use if you keep this up theres a big career in the waterworks for you.

Goodjob

lol don't worry. My friend actually did forget to log out. She was over after school and I got on to show her my progress with the animation so she decided to create an NG account because she wants to post up some of her own artwork on the BBS.

And thank you! I really want to get into animation so if this animation works out, hopefully it'll be a nice addition to a portfolio.

At 12/18/07 10:02 PM, BlackmarketKraig wrote:

At 12/18/07 09:59 PM, TurkeyOnAStick wrote:

At 12/18/07 09:10 PM, sfox8 wrote: sorry that reply should have been on my own account. my friend didn't log out on my computer.

Uhuh ...

Hahaha..! I love it when that happens. =D

hm? When what happens?

At 12/18/07 09:22 PM, squidium wrote: I see everything is good... exept for that pesky right arm-I can't really tell you what is wrong with it, but there's something about it that is wonky

Yeah, the right arm seems detached from the rest of the body somehow.

I'd suggest that you look at some tutorials online regarding the effects of light on surfaces. There are some really helpful ones that a simple google search can yield. Also, when coloring, remember that colors are always always ALWAYS affected by their environment. If there is a bright color nearby, such as a red, then anything close to that red will have a red tint on that side. Being a mechanical style, you're going to be relying a lot on lighting and luster so if you really want something amazing, make sure you look for those light tutorials. I saw a really good one but I can't find it right now. If you want, you can PM me for it. =]

But yeah, realistic painterly coloring can be really fun once you start learning how colors work in the real world. And don't worry. Gradients can be your friend. A very very close friend, in fact. Don't underestimate the sexiness of gradients. 8D I used a lot of gradients on this.

This looks amazing actually! I love the design. Very complicated and detailed, which is a good thing in this case.

Do you plan to color it?