At 4/22/08 01:24 PM, Hoeloe wrote: Proportions are not bad, maybe the angles I drew them at were awkward, but the proportions are good. I tested on a live figure. That's a real person, not a mannequin.

Ok, I'm going to try to tell you one more time because you don't seem like you're sincerely willing to consider what we're saying. Say you have a cylinder. If you look at it from the side, you see a long object, but if you look at it from head-on, you have a not-so-long object. If what you're using is a flash mannequin, then it's probably a two-dimensional collection of body parts, in which case, you wouldn't be able to see any of those parts "head on" unless you resize them to be not-so-long, see? I've provided a quick sketch (it's just a quick one, mind you), to kind of demonstrate my point. Also, below is an article on foreshortening. Please check it out:
http://drawinglab.evansville.edu/foresho rtening.html

I think it would look better with more foreshortening. This can be easier to see if you take a picture of the mannequin in the pose, instead of just eyeing it live.

Well, I think he's got a good point. I was never really that impressed with classes. I remember one time I took a computational physics class that used java, and it took forever to figure out what each command exactly did because it was so oop. It was like a scavenger hunt trying to find the source for each method mentioned in the code, but in order to really understand what was going on, there was really no other way than to look at the code.

I think that if you are going to program in an object-oriented manner, you need really extensive documentation saying exactly what each method does, and clearly what each variable is used for so that you don't feel like you need to see the code. That's the only reason I've had success in learning the built-in objects in actionscript. This can mean a crapload of initial work for a casual programmer if he was creating his own objects, and the reusability doesn't seem like a huge advantage over copy-and-paste in my experience. It's just another way to organize your information. I think one reason it gets so much praise is that it certainly has advantages in professional settings, where many tasks share common traits, and code is routinely recycled and borrowed.

Someone mentioned that he was creating a large rpg game, and it would drive him crazy if he didn't use his own classes, but I think if you're organized, creating your own classes for everything wouldn't be too much of an advantage. It's all really a matter of how you prefer to organize things.

Ok, I don't normally do this (first time posting here), but seeing as how it's been a week since I submitted this, and no one's left a review (and yes, I do leave reviews for other people), I figure might as well post here. I'm pretty proud of all the work that went into this one. Headphones are strongly recommended.

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/1 36887

Leave a review, and I'll return the favor. Thanks!

Oh, I also forgot to add that I still code in AS2 (flash 8). I hope that isn't incompatible with your standards. It shouldn't affect this sort of game.
Sorry for the doublepost (yet another inevitability when there's no "edit" option with the bbs)

Hmm, it looks like a fun game, and the coding simply involves a little trigonometry. It's very tempting... Could I take a crack at it? I know I don't have any flash submitted here, but you can check out the NG Soundstream that I made to attest to my coding skills. Quick question, though: how much actionscript do you yourself know? I only ask that because I just want to know if I'm going to also be making menus and passwords and simple stuff like that on top of the gameplay...

I just recently discovered that a popping filter is a good investment, or they're also easy to make. Those are those circular things that you sometimes see placed in front of mics. This will help reduce those horrible spikes you hear when you pronounce consonants like "s", "p", "b", etc. You can get a good one for 20 or 30 dollars, or make your own by stretching some nylon pantyhose fabric over an embroidery loop for, like, 5 dollars. Or you can be really ghetto like me and just use a paper towel...

At 3/6/08 11:36 AM, matiou1 wrote: Really sowy for the double post but I wanted to ask you people wut do i do wrong, why is my line all shaky n' stuff? does it only rely on me or is there sometin' I could do with my brush or file to fix that?My very fate depends on your upcoming kind and clever replies.thx

Well, one thing that you can do to get smoother lines is to first make an outline in a vector-based image editor like the open-source inkscape, or the expensive adobe illustrator, and then fill it in. Also, the smudge tool in photoshop helps if you need some smoothing out of areas of color in your picture (check the "use all layers" box if you're smudging the edge of a pic unless it's you're just smudging black), and never underestimate a simple Gaussian Blur to smooth things out.

As for what I don't personally enjoy about your pic, and this is just personally, is the shape of her face. I don't know, maybe it's her marionette-like eyes, or her well-defined chin. Just something to consider improving if you feel it's worthwhile, but like I said, that's just my opinion, and it's really a great job on foreshortening. Also, it's quite a sassy pose, but I'm not sure how well it would do against the more sexually agressive pics.

So yeah, just a little feedback for ya.

Please post this ad in the appropriate thread:
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/8166 29

At 3/1/08 11:22 AM, Deflektor wrote: I'm curious to see what could be done with this piece of mine

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/9 1994

I'm attempting this one. I love it!

I agree that a knowledge of music theory is helpful for writing music, even for just a catchy tune. I don't know much theory myself, but I'm always up for learning because I know it'll help in the long run.

For example, if you find a good starting for your tune, and it happens to be in the key of c for example, then it's nice to know that that ending the tune with the keys c g or e can help make it sound more concluded if you so wish, and ending in d or f can help make it sound like something's gonna follow.

Plus, if you want a happy catchy tune, using a major key might help it sound more cheerful, while a minor key might help it sound more melodramatic or whatever.

Another example is playing two keys in a major key that are next to each other might be good for adding a quirky touch to the tune (sorry, like I said, I'm not too proficient at mtheory, so the name escapes my mind, but it is definitely something I picked up from studying music).

Also, studying music opens up sounds that you might have never thought of had you not taken the time to learn about music, for example when I was younger I never realized grace notes existed until I learned a piano piece that had them, which also led me to add trills to my musical arsenal.

Principles like these can be used for any form of music, and to get the impression that a formal study of music is only good in composing harmonious symphonies or classical music is ridiculous (not directed at anyone's post in particular, just saying).

As for it being limiting, it's certainly not, because, as the old saying goes "rules were made to be broken", so once you know what rules there are, it's easier to go and break them whenever you want to see what happens. It's very empowering. I think it's funny that someone implied that using accidentals was an example of "breaking" music theory "rules", when in actuality it's just using the musical principle of accidentals, and if you know what accidentals are by studying music, it will probably be easier for you to use them.

Hi all, it's me again. I just wanted to mention the idea that for the simpler or more mundane parts, it is also worth considering just using some high-quality text-to-speech software. I recommend using the following demo page by at&t labs: http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/
demo.php

We've come a long way from Stephen Hawking-sounding stuff (with all due respect to him, of course). It's got many different voices to choose from, and if you're clever, you can even use the foreign language ones to get different accents (hint: look up the language's pronunciation alphabet and modify your writing accordingly). Plus, don't forget you can use Audacity or whatever to modify parts that you don't think sound natural.

I just thought this might be worthwhile checking out, especially if you have a lot of small roles or background voices or whatever.

P.S. I also wanted to mention, in addition to my above ad, I can also speak a little Chinese, and a little German if anyone needs something like that...

Please add more features to the Audio Portal! Like Quarl said, it definitely deserves more attention.

Example: Why is the "Best of the Week" the only list that you can loop through? It would be so much better if you could loop through all of them on NG instead of having to write/download our own apps to do it.

First of all, yes it does show which song is playing when you expand the toolbar to the right.
Also, just to clarify, I can make the NGAP radio features work just fine in this app when it's accessed from a remote server, it's just the features that are different from NGAP that don't cooperate, and I'm pretty sure there aren't any workarounds unless I get permission from the server. The whole point of the app was to listen to music anyway, not to view it as an online flash movie, so I think downloading it is not too bad of an alternative. NGAP is also recommended to be downloaded to get all the features as well.

Also, I realize my design is totally different. I personally didn't like the compact style of NGAP, so I went for what I felt was a slightly more user-friendly GUI.

Thanks for the feedback and all the positive criticism. I hope I don't sound too closed-minded here in my first response.

I usually don't shamelessly promote my own stuff, but I think this new application would be helpful for everyone here at NG who's interested in the music from the portal, so I think you guys will really appreciate this one.

It basically takes the NGAP radio a step further by offering radio streams according to genre, artist, and more. I call it NG Soundstream.

Here's a link to the download page to get more info and to get a free copy for yourself:
http://www.everjourney.com/testflash/Sou ndstreamer.html

The reason it's not in the flash portal is because a lot of its functions require information from the NG website, which can't be accessed through flash apps that are on a remote server, but work just fine when the app is on your own pc. So it's only available as a download, which is partly why I feel the need to get the word out, and I think you guys will appreciate it.

Thanks for your time (and bbs space). Let me know what you think. Feedback is appreciated.

At 2/23/08 11:59 AM, HahaBears wrote: For sounds, please don't do some cliched russian male choir because that'll only make people want to get the hell outta dodge. Instead you should do something with a moderate/fast pace with rough vocals. I think Punk Rawk would fit in well here and Classic would not, But then again it's your collab, do what you want with it.

I would beg to differ. I think something like Wagner would be great as background music, since the whole theme of the flash is propaganda (and I'm sure people understand it's not supposed to be serious- you can explicitly state that if you want). Punk rock would just confuse people, IMHO.

Sorry for the double post, but I just had an idea. One way to address this problem might be to have different sub-genres under voice acting, such as comedy, accents, readings, miscellaneous... This way, good submissions are less likely to get buried under not-as-good ones that are simply of a different kind.

At 2/23/08 03:44 AM, InsaneSmilie wrote: I was kinda under the impression that the voice acting genre was more just so VA's whould have a place to post samples. I mean is score really that important for VA clip? Do you guys post VA clips on the portal to get recognition or so you'll have something to show people if they ask for a sample? I'm curiouse as to how that particular genre is used.

Well, one thing that score does is it determines where you're placed on the list, so if someone were browsing the VA genre portal list, they'd usually only see ones at the top of the list, and not the ones a page or two down it. I think that the scoring is a little biased toward voice acting demos that are more like humorous skits, since those are the ones that usually are able to entertain and therefore get by the "gauntlet" of audio portal reviewers. The demos that choose more serious or more sincere material are the ones that really are more likelyto get misunderstood by the people out there looking for music. So the flashy ones sit at the top of the list, and the not-as-flashy ones sit further down, just like in the real world of art...
I don't think there's really anything we can do about it, except to somehow make sure the people interested in finding voice actors are informed that, unlike many of the music lists, the voice acting list may have some quite acceptable voice actors at the very bottom of the list as well as at the top.

At 2/22/08 11:57 PM, TransforWhores wrote: Do you have a suggestion to put something more fantasy?

Hmm, that's a hard one... maybe you could elaborate on the eye tattoo idea and have a whole mess of eyes everywhere. She could have, like, and eye necklace, and an eye ring (kind of like the one in Beastmaster), and in the background, there could be gothic walls and pillars with eye designs in them, as if watching her, or giant eye monsters or something. Maybe one of them could be on a leash, or she could be held on a leash by one of them... that's one idea just off the top of my head...

At 2/21/08 06:46 PM, darx wrote: I need some background ideas for this one.

critiques welcome...

Well, I've got one idea. How about have her among some racers behind and to the side of her at the starting line to a race track that twists and turns like a rollercoaster in the background?

The head-on perspective of the subject, though, might be complimented by some sort of symmetrical background...

At 2/21/08 05:53 AM, RatsInTheWall wrote: Well, I can already tell digital photoshop mastery is going to kick my ass, but here's my work in progress for the contest. So far it's just pencil and watercolor, for what that's worth. On the plus side, I NEVER try painting smut. Which may or may not be a good thing.
Any feedback would be nice...the color scheme is going to change dramatically but this is the basic "Slave to the Digital Seed" layout I was going for.
-jared

looks good so far. I'm not sure how realistic watercolor can be. I know oil paints can get pretty photorealistic, but anyway, it's looking pretty stylish. I'm looking forward to seeing how it will turn out.

Ok, I figured I'd submit my WIP since everyone else is, and it's fun to see all the different ones. I've got a LONG way to go still, adding hair, a kickass background, details such as the spilt wine on her wing, touching up, and stuff like that. The final image will be cropped and resized too.

Also, I noticed a lot of people questioning how much time people are putting into their works, so I made a little walkthrough/tutorial that you can view HERE!!! Check it out! :D

Anyway, here's what I have so far. I just "finished" one of the wings. Let me know what you think so far...

At 2/20/08 06:35 PM, EKublai wrote: your opinion on all counts, but you should know that scantily clad women are the only option since this is based off the heavy metal magazine cover which features solely scantily clad sexy women.

Well, actually, if you look at the first 45 issues, scantily-clad women only appear occasionally until issue 46, and even after that, there were the occasional non-woman covers, such as issues 63, 68, 71, 113, 152, etc.
But IMO, scantily clad women are definitely more fun to draw...

At 2/20/08 04:39 PM, darx wrote: done?

comments

Wow, it has improved so much! Good job! I think it's pretty much done. My only possible suggestion would be to improve the look of the dragons claws, as their shape doesn't look as believable to me, though I usually think along the lines of eagle claws or something when I think of dragon claws, and you might be thinking more along the lines of Godzilla claws or something... anyway just a thought, but if you submitted it now, you'd probably do pretty good anyway.

At 2/20/08 03:12 PM, Tiredguy wrote:

At 2/20/08 02:23 PM, ToplessMichael wrote: Did the line work for the body, anyone know any good online tutorials for coloring skintones im having trouble making it look real, heres WIP Gonna do an apocalyptic beach sunset in background

I know I already kind of mentioned this earlier in the thread, but check out this youtube vid by Vortex00. It shows him coloring skin and hair. I think it would really help you out in that area:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tscgQeVmf SA

Some techniques to take from this vid: filter:Gaussian Blur for highlights and things, Image:Adjust Hue and Saturation to fine-tune the overall color of the skin, the use of three skin tones: dark for shadows, base color for most of the area, and highlights for the lighter parts. Also good to know is to put your base color on a separate layer so you can Select:Load Selection, which will select everything on that layer so you don't have to worry about coloring within the lines.

At 2/20/08 02:23 PM, ToplessMichael wrote: Did the line work for the body, anyone know any good online tutorials for coloring skintones im having trouble making it look real, heres WIP Gonna do an apocalyptic beach sunset in background

I know I already kind of mentioned this earlier in the thread, but check out this youtube vid by Vortex00. It shows him coloring skin and hair. I think it would really help you out in that area:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tscgQeVmf SA

At 2/20/08 10:14 AM, ToplessMichael wrote: Decided to scrap the colored pencil thing, downloaded a trail of photoshop and im going to focus on the pirate and draw just her, heres what i got so far

Good idea. So far so good. Downloaded a trial of photoshop? Well, if you're new at photoshop, don't forget the blurred brushes which help to hide the brush strokes. Also, blurring and coloring the linework helps to hide the lines. I love your music btw!

At 2/19/08 06:10 PM, Dasneviano wrote: Any comments before I submit it to the official thread?

might want to just smooth out her forehead a little 'cause the paint strokes kinda make it look like she's got some wrinkles. Just a suggestion

At 2/13/08 07:05 AM, Ani-x wrote: dunno if im really feeling the pose..
what you guys think?

You know what might be pretty cool, is if you used that pose, except with a more intense look on the girl's face, and have the guitar shooting out electricity everywhere or something, like she's using it as a weapon, and have stuff in the background exploding.

Just a random thought. Awesome line work btw.

At 2/15/08 05:29 PM, darx wrote: Here is my second image,

I wanna get some feedback before i do a final submission...

high quality

Hey, just a few suggestions (though I am by far no authority on the subject) . I think it would look more photorealistic if you added some highlights to her skin, and to the dragon scales. Also, I think if you just resized her mouth to be a little smaller, and eliminated those lines coming out of the edge of her mouth, it might give her face a better shape. Also, her right cheek seems to bulge outward just a little too much, giving her a kind of heavy-jaw look that you might want to tone down (I suggest maybe looking up to see how appearances change when people get a face lift, and that might give you a better idea on how to make the face prettier). I respect your patience and open attitude towards suggestions. Keep up the good work!