Sweeet! a L4D Collab. I was not aware of this. I had actually posted a request last evening looking for story board artist, looks like Im gonna find me a spot right here.

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1126 875

BTW that's the smoker before he was pre-zombified

Hey there peeps

Im looking for a storyboard artists for a short that I'm conceptualizing.
It a spin off on the Left 4 Dead Characters. Just finished drawing the smoker (before he was pre-zombified)

I am currently working on Bill and Francis.
Do check out my blog and my websitefor more of my works if you are interested in working with me.

Dont bother leaving a reply here in this thread, Instead PM me.

Cheers
Ajay

That was a good example from Xeptic.

Though I would throw in one more for you.

Here is the Preview SWF and FLA file for you to mess around with.

And a frame breakdown is here for your reference.
Hope this helps too.

damn,, here is the link

http://store.ovi.com/content/7361C869FF4 36FD2E040050A85320DBC?clickSource=browse &contentArea=games#/content/7361C869FF43 6FD2E040050A85320DBC/reviews

Was on OVI.com, its Nokia's app store for its smartphone thingy.. and came across Alien Hominid for the Nokia! (Pretty excited cause I love that game) but realized this didn't look too legit. I had mailed Tom to find out more and he had mentioned that there might be a company in UK that somehow snagged the rights to the game, even though an upfront payment was made no royalties were paid to The Behemoth for each sale of this game. I personally think that that totally sucks..

I know everyone here is a BIG AH Fan, If interestehere

my last option is to record them by myself. Will have a unique sound .. Have fun

The audio compressions can be messed around here in this box (refer the image) Remember - dont keep it too low or too high, Lower values to really make your sound files suck , higher values can make your swf bloat in size.

Here are two solutions for just checking to see if certain assets are causing this delay in exporting.

1. Sounds, In the 'Flash' tab, under the publish settings , change audio stream and audio event to the lowest quality (MP3 * bit, FAST)
2. Under the same tab, drop the JPEG quality to a very low value

These two settings should help you drastically reduce the time used to export your file for testing purposes. Change these back to the original or your preference

Cheers

Sounds pretty ambitious to know you are gonna work on it for a year, Try Boarding out your animation before jumping right into it. Looks like you have most of the shots worked out, but its always good to have an establishing shot before concluding the animation. This always help even if it is a small gag or an elaborate scene.

Had roughed out some things quick, if this ever helps for reference
All the best

here is a higher res of the same board.

Effin potential

Great work on that dude, got a good stride on it

humm, to start off you have to define your character a bit more.. Stick figures work, but it always makes sense giving your character a little more volume. And the skip timing is a bit off, thus one is not too sure if the character is jumping or skipping.

I have created a quick animation test to illustrate how a sip cycle would work. Draw out the key frames and then work on dropping more Inbetween frames to make it more smooth.

All the best!

Here are are bunch of animated arrows and two variations of the arrow flying through , feel free to use it or break it up to learn the way it moves

Preview of the animation can be seen here
Download from here
Cheers

sent you a mail with a test logo for your group collaboration .

Cheers

Here is an 8 frame and 16 frame walkcycle tutorial that I had created sometime back. Im sure it would be very helpful.. also includes FLA files to run though the whole thing once again

All the best

ref: http://vectoranimation.blogspot.com/2006 /08/simple-8-and-16-frame-walkcycle.html

At 8/15/09 01:35 AM, ForNoReason wrote: Headshot 777 and thedevilsgarage I will coauthor you both as soon as you reply to my buddy request

Bhhaa I completely forgot! Happy clock day everyone :D

Merry Trolling and a Very Happy Clock Day to all you folk!

I agree with the person above, you have to keep hitting 'save' and make it a practice as Flash is still a pretty unpredictable software.

on the other hand, you can try this "Auto Save" Plugin (doesnt work for CS3) that might save you a load of work

http://www.flashguru.co.uk/blog/auto-sav e

Hoping you have not lost a lot of work.
All the best.

At 8/13/09 06:09 PM, RapRabbit wrote: I was in the middle of working on my flash animaion, when out of no where, I got this message that popped up on my screen that said "Flash 8 has stopped working" / Not responding.

Now this is nothing new, I've seen it before, but this time it just really pissed me off.
(Never before have I gotten so far in an animation w/out saving.) I was going to save it
but, the not responding thing doesn't give much of a warning before it screws you.

so I was wondering, If there was any way to still save an Animation when this is happening?
(sence I know there's no way to avoid this all together.) Please Help! <:(

At 4/13/09 12:44 AM, Punisher33 wrote: I am having a problem with macromedia flash 8 it keeps telling me that i have low ram but i did everything recomended to fix the problem and its only getting worse if any one on here knows how to fix it can you please help thank you have a nice day

One other problem with flash is that it gets to be a memory hogger if you use a lot of 'brush strokes' in your art/animation. Since Flash is a vector tool, it creates coordinates for all those vectors drawn. Some times this can be tackled by use the pen tool to draw or the obvious.. upgrading your ram/processor to handle artwork of high vector coordinate counts.

well .. this is just an alternate way of reasoning out why Flash is giving you that error.

Time and again, we all come across a lot of users who have this fantastic game idea to pitch and are looking out for programmers, artists or voice over actors. Most of the time these requests tend to be a bit vague and thus the person requesting may not be able to convey his or her idea clearly. This causes the whole process of collaborating or getting a good team together to totally falls apart.

So to make things simpler, here (below) is a format that one can use while pitching a project out or writing up a game schematic. I have also included an example file as a case study if you might find that useful. You can also download the pfd version here to print out or the editable word document here

________________________________________
________________________________________
_____________ Template ________________________________________
________________________________________
_____________
Title:

Overview:

Game Principals :

hunting
searching
aiming
timing
hiding
puzzle
patterns
learning
action
adventure
rpg
fps
third person
top down view
escape the room
point and click
tactile- strategy
defense
arcade
experimental
etc

Game Type:

Level based
Objective Based
Level-Objective based

Game Layout

Player Controllers
Mouse
Keyboard
Mouse and Keyboard

Total Number of Levels/Objectives

Points per level/objective

Power ups and Power downs

Physics of the game

Reaction of Player with
environment
power-ups
power-downs
NPC (non player class)
enemy

UI/Others

Cut Scene Animation.

________________________________________
________________________________________
__________

Case study: I picked a random game from my newgrounds favorite list and did a case study, thus to cover one example on how to create a game template. ________________________________________
________________________________________
____________

Title: Commie Cannon (ref: http://tinyurl.com/commiecannon by Ansel Lies and Tom Brein)

Overview: Kill enemies and their projectile from destroying your nuclear stockpile.

Game Principals:

defense game

Game Type:

Arcade style game (Level progression cannot be saved)

Game Layout

Pixel based, flat 2d view with 10 nuclear missiles, 5 on each side, with the turret base in the center. Enemies are flying in and out of the screen, dropping bombs from the top.

Player Controllers

Mouse
The Base turret follows the mouse with a slight delay and fires one missile at a time on each click of the mouse. There is a slight delay between each missile of 'x' amount of seconds, where 'x' can be a tweakable variable.

Total Number of Objectives/Enemies

There are three kinds of enemies

Chopper (1st tier)
Plane (1st tier)
Zeppelin (2nd tier)

There are two kinds of projectiles

Plane and Chopper Bombs
Zeppelin Bombs

Points per objective/enemy

Each time the players missile hits any enemy, the player gets 50 points.

Physics of the game

The player has to defend his base and his nuclear stock pile.

The number of nuclear stockpiles to defend are 10 in number

The nuclear stockpiles does not have any HP and can explode on being hit by a 1st tier or a 2nd tier enemy.

The base has a HP of 100

If the base is hit by a 1st tier enemy, it loses 10HP
If the base is hit be a 2nd tier ebemy, it loses 20HP

There are two ways a player can lose the game

When the player loses all the nuclear stockpile
when the hp of the player falls below 10HP.

Enemies:

Chopper (1st tier) : One hit to explodePlane (1st tier) : Two hits to explodeZeppelin (2nd tier) : Immortal. Plane and Chopper Bombs: One hit to explodeZeppelin Bombs

User Interface

Splash screen:

Title of the game
Buttons namely : Play and Instructions
Credits

Instructions screen:

Instructions
Buttons namely : Menu and Instructions

Game Over screen

Text
Score
Buttons namely : Menu and Instructions

Cut Scene Animation.

Transition on 'Splash' and 'Game Over' screen
Base exploding

________________________________________
________________________________________
_________

Feel free to modify and contribute.
Cheers

Ajay

Hey ForNoReason, how are things coming along? Have you got enough submissions to make this collab happen?

At 8/10/09 04:52 PM, Daps26 wrote: hey everyone... i know i look and sound like the biggest noob on the earth but i thought id reqeust a tutor. I really need help with flash and wanted to know if anyone was willing to be like a teacher for me. sorry 4 sounding like a noob agaian and understand if you dont have time to help

From a poll I had conducted on Coldhardflash.com, it shows that a majority of people learn flash on their own.. this is because of two thing , one flash being a very easy and intuitive software for anyone to learn and 2) the abundant amount of resources available to learn from

I would suggest your first stop should be at the community at coldhardflash and run through the bunch of tutorials on newgrounds as mentioned by mothballs

All the best!

At 8/7/09 07:15 PM, Duffalpha wrote: Im currently trying to put together a walk cycle for my game, and I'm having a hard time figuring out the smoothest and quickest way. Do you guys usually do frame by frame? Tweening? Or by using armatures and bones?

Does anyone have a good walk/run cycle tutorial handy?

Frame by frame is probably my best option as I have more control over the walk. Though I use a good combination of motion for symbols that going to just follow an arc

here is a walk cycle I had made http://devilsgarage.com/blog/2006/10/rob ot-walk-cycle-update.html. In the same post, you can also download the walk cycle. or here

I have created an extensive tutorial on how to make walk cycles which can be found at this link
http://vectoranimation.blogspot.com/2006 /08/simple-8-and-16-frame-walkcycle.html

PM me if you are still having a lot of trouble trying to figure thing out.

All the best

Ajay

At 8/6/09 07:05 PM, ForNoReason wrote:


anyone want to make a transition movie thing? Like a one sec movie to go in between all the parts. Like a transition.

I have sent you a PM for one clock transition that can be used between each move. I could work on another one sometime later today.

Yay! Clock day .. finally gonna send in my submission :D

From Pizza Tycoon all the way to the Sims, I have always love management based games, cant believe how much time I have invested in these games as they kinda emulate real life situations and how to run a successful business. And thus with all this excitement I gladly played your game. So here's my feedback.

Pros

1. Good game play, things went pretty fast and has a very short learning curve, not complicated at all
2. Anything that has a heavy legal tag attached to it is fun to sell, from guns to lemonade, rides to cigarettes

Area for improvement

1. I played the game for 5 days; though not having played much, I have to say that the game suddenly becomes quiet repetitive. Games that involve strategy should always have a long play with a large degree of evolution. This is one of the biggest reasons a game thats has only one replay value.

2. Staging, Staging, Staging.. its very important to create a game such that you can clearly see all the elements of the game and nothing looks confusing. For example, when the customers come on screen , they move too fast and sometimes its a bum rush (even though it was intended like that) this makes the gamer find it quiet difficult to read what each customer wants.

3. Use a different colored talk balloon to show visually show the gamer which customer wants which cigarette. The People who like 'Lights' should have a light blue Talk bubble, Slims may be gray and so forth.. this helps the gamer decided how much stocks he needs to buy that the end of that round

4. Variations to the BG may help one decide how long a day is or how long the Cig shop is open. Sun rise to sun set, may be eve a timer or a Public Clock on the BG.

5. Variables always make the game fun and unpredictable
Variables like
a) Rain, this brings in lesser customers, but they may buy more Cigs.
b) Petty thieves/shoplifters : this could cause you to lose stocks
c) fires which could cause damage because of cigs that have not been extinguished properly (thus you have the option of buying a portable cig disposer)
d) Sale of Chewing gum.. by default any cigarette shop will sell gum. Introduce this in a level later
e) small amount of money can be budgeted for advertising
f) sale! sale ! to get rid of week old ciggys.

6) A better splash screen. It is a tried and tested method that a really good splash can increase your chances of getting the user to play your game. If you are having difficulty as some one to help you out, after all Newgrounds is a collaborative effort =D

well these definitely make the game more complex, but its good to have a end to the game, thus implementing a mission based strategy like sell x amount of stuff or earn x amount of money by this number of days

Cheers

Ajay

At 8/2/09 09:38 AM, SmoG878 wrote: When i export a movie, it always show small boxes where i left something selected. How do i deselect everything so i can get a smothe movie?

I believe that if you have exported your AVI file as an uncompressed version with hight audio settings, thus basically making your file super heavy on the processor to play, this causes a strain on the media player (or whatever software you are using to render it) and thus can produce varied results on the playback, like choppiy framework , or blocks on images, skipping frames, etc.

At 7/22/09 02:30 PM, Bloodspill234 wrote: Hello
I am giving away graphics for people to use in thier flash.
I am good at cars.
Just give me credit in your animation or description if you make and publish an animation using my graphics.
I can give it to you in an .fla or .jpg.
Please give me a description of what you want (color, model, width, ect.)
Here is an example, but in .jpg form:

It does not matter what the rest say, I believe what you are doing is a very noble thing. Giving out assets for free are double benefited, those who receive get royalty free graphics to use and those who offer free art .. help create a huge art library of assets.

You can use the ng art link to drop in artwork that can be used as development resources and specify if your work is a character/ background or a prop

Keep the good work going.

Cheers

At 7/1/09 08:55 PM, NickabockaglorySpoon wrote:

At 7/1/09 08:44 PM, thedevilsgarage wrote: All the best.

Thanks a lot! And I mean a lot. That really helps. I'll add as much of that as I can and more stuff I'm thinking of. This might sound a bit cheeky but when I'm further though could I PM you for a bit more advise? I like the cut of your jib.

sure thing dude.

nickabockagloryspoon, great work on the art and programming of the game. I too was a bit turned off on seeing the splash screen, but loved the way the game played. Though I have to say it looks a bit like Grand Theft Auto 1/2, it had a good game play.I wish the character walked a bit more smoother.. cause I felt there was a bit too much of drag for that specific walk cycle. IMO ,, the basic walk cycle should have a slower walk and when holding down the shit, it should play the current walk cycle. I love the choice of weapons and the ploice chase and shooting back when my wanted leve lshot up. I also like the fact that the cars blew up.

Love the way things are developing, only hope it moves away from the GTA concept.

Couple of suggestions for this specific build
1. Like the other people around the level, When one blows up a car , their debris should remain there.
2. when people die (cop too) their dead body should slowly decompose, not disappear as soon as you go off screen, more like fade away slowly.
3. Even better if the bodies and exploded cars just stay where they are, showing the carnage.
4. once inside a building, keep it the same view, and the same zoom level. It just doesn't feel like it should be any bigger or the character should be any larger.
5. Keeping in mind the physics of the environment for eg: when carrying the Bigass gun, make the character go a bit slow, when walking on the grass, make him go a wee bit slow. more agile with the baton, The guns can cause some kinda physical damage to the building like bullet marks, bullet holes on the car.
6. When you shoot a person, the person next to him/her gets frightened and starts running away or towards the closes cop for help. This thus gives the user the challenge to kill the snitch, before they reach the cops and your wanted level increases more.
7. The Machine gun and flame thrower, being very powerful should have a cooldown period before its used again.
8. When ever you are hit/shot..depending on the intensity of damage on your character, the screen should turn red.. like a blood rush (like an iris red where the center is transparent).
9. Oh you have to have bullets flying out when any gun is fired.. and bullet shells that are on the ground when you use the machine gun. and a flame burn on the ground below.

All the best.

At 6/24/09 04:43 PM, 4urentertainment wrote: You need to give out information such as whether it will be a game or movie (you keep saying movie/game) and what cut the artist will have. As well as what this thing is about, the main plot etc...

You'd also need to give out samples of programming if it's going to be a game, however if it's a movie, then you need someone to animate it all, in which case you need someone to do all the work?

I guess running through the "news" section pulled out some info
" In 2002 scientists from the whole world were brought in to the newly founded Bureau of Paranormal Research's facility located in central Alaska. What these scientists discovered was so chocking that it triggered World War lll. However, this war was not fought amongst men, this war was fought against the true Earth-dominant species. This species called itself the Herron (more about these later). When the power of the Herron was discovered, thousands of people worldwide chose to join the Herron, forming the Resistance. The war was now split into a three front war, and something had to be done. Eight years later, in 2010, the BPR (read above) created the PDAF.
Paranormal Defence and Assault Force. The PDAF (more about this later) is a small elite army specialsed in fighting the Herron and it's followers. Meanwhile the war rages on all over the world, BPR continues there research and finds that the Herron actually originates from another planet, or so they thought. More recent theories points to the ssame planets, but in different dimensions, the truth is no one knows for sure. Eventually the Herron forces become to much for mankind and an elite PDAF team is sent out to find the King of the Herron, and destroy him. But is there a sole King, or have they been brainwashed by the Herron to belive there is? They cannot know, so they have to try. The PDAF team have five members (possibly one or two more later on) and are currently codenamed D-coy, Rabbit, Pacman, Destroyer and Apokalypse, and these are the ones that the series will follow (I actually plan to make more series out of this, but only if the first ones are succesful). More about this as progress develops."

ref: http://pdaf.newgrounds.com/news/post/331 584

Looks interesting , may be I could pitch in too

Mac cannot handle Flash or Flash assets well and probably the worst ways to test flash. There has been talks that Apple and Adobe are just rivals that don't really agree with each others practices, I guess this happened because Apples started making packages that compete with Adobe and this could probably be one of the reasons why Adobe really doesn't care much about. I guess if you think through it .. this could also have some averse effect of why the Iphone does not support flash ( rather FLV) , else wont it just be awesome to make flash games for the Iphone.

enough of straying off the topic. Here is some informationthat could be really helpful from Author Tommy Lacroix, quoting him:

________________________________________
________________________________________
___

"Based on my experience, the especially slow things are:

Alpha transparency
Redrawing portions of the screen with alpha transparency is significantly slower than without.
When doing alpha transparency, avoid medium-large MovieClips that are moving, or underneath, above or very close to moving objects, as they need to be redrawn often.
Redrawing large portion of the screen
Clipping mask don't reduce the redraw region. If you have a 1000 x 1000 clip masked on 100 x 100, the hidden region is still redrawn if something changes in it.
Scaling increases the actual size of the redraw region.
Solutions: disabling scaling when dealing with slow computers.
Vector graphics
High quality complex vector graphics usually requires more CPU processing than bitmaps.
Solutions: cache vector graphic as bitmap, and reduce quality when dealing with slow computers.
Here's more. I discovered that:

Flash 8 and above uses OpenGL on Safari to speed up scaling and alpha rendering 1
G3 and old G4's with ATI cards can't use OpenGL because the card isn't compatible and doesn't support the necessary features 1
Single or dual G4 apparently doesn't change a thing (forum talk2, and personal benchmark with the problematic site)
Newer G4's with NVidia cards, G5 and Core Duo Macs will use OpenGL on Safari and will run just fine.
A dual G4 1Ghz with 2 GB of RAM and an ATI card runs slower than a single P-III 866Mhz with 512 MB or RAM (personal benchmark with the problematic site)
________________________________________
________________________________________
___

Cheers