Official Off-Topic Thread

[miascugh]

http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4811&Itemid=109

I am infinitely amused.

[Cow]

I think the point here was that with generative systems we will eventually reach a point where we can make enviroments that look photo realistic. I do think that's the only way we're gonna get there....SPORE was a start.

I wonder how long it'll take for them to return en-masse to styles with more personality.

[Cow]

http://www.creativeapplications.net/games/robert-overweg-profile-games/

[Rydin]

Jim Woodring.   

[#36005A]

And now for something completely different, tinypic.com just decided to spontaneously combust so is there any other free image hosting site that isn't slow (imageshack) and doesn't require you to make a profile (photobucket) worth checking out?
I got a lot of suddenly dead picture links to replace it seems. Bugger.

Imgur should do the trick: http://www.imgur.com

[Jakten]

On that note, here's cgi animation that claims to surpass the uncanny valley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF_NFmtw89g

And they sure didn't, that's more frightening then the picture you posted! *shudder*

[McClaneGames]

Speaking of awkward, human-esque things, this is seriously freaky.

[Jakten]

Haha, I just came back from Japan and the hotel I stayed at had one of those on the counter, there was also one that was just a nose and a mouth that was even creepier!

[Conceit]

GUYS YOU HAVE TO WATCH OUT FOR THE  GUARD DOG GLOBAL JAM.

it's going to be SIIIIIIIICK.

well, I'll try to make some more sense.

Basically, there's an independent animator called Bill Plympton, and he made a sort called Guard Dog.

Now, he's crowdsourced it, which means that he put up an online global jam in which any animator from any background can remake a shot.

http://www.shadowandact.com/?p=26352 this explains it more, plus you can see the original short

I entered in it as a way to push myself to do full drawn animation (what I've been doing isnt very pixelly anyway, so might as well go all the way)

today was a deadline to send a still snapshot what the colored version of your shot should look like.
it
was
amazing

I felt QUITE out of place, these are real profesionals...not conceited little pixel animators.

here's some stuff from it which was posted OUTSIDE the email (youtube, deviantart), I dont know if peopple want stuff from the emails to be shown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUg1zAxju0s&feature=player_embedded

http://hoekkadoogen.deviantart.com/#/d2zq0rr <-see that? that guy must fucking work for spumco...the bastard.


Ugh...actually there is nothing else posted that was outside of the email =/ sorry. but it blew me away...and it keeps on coming! more and more people post their shot and it's INSANE. KYHXBYE that was it for my irrational outburst for the day (on web forums, anyway)

[Rydin]

conceited little pixel animators

says Conceit 

[Tourist]

New Ludum dare http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2010/09/22/povs-challenge-make-a-game-sell-1-copy/.  Create a video game and sell one copy by the end of October.  No prizes, just a challenge.

Tourist

[Rydin]

No prizes?  Challenge accepted.

[Conceit]

conceited little pixel animators

says Conceit 

pun absolutely intented :p

[Cow]

I feel like I need a kick in the ass, I drop pieces whenever I can properly visualize them in my head or my silly palette experiments seems to mesh. At this point it seems pretty masturbatory and I want to kick that bad habit. Anyone have any tips on helping me rekindle my love for the more automatic, laborious side of pixel art?

[Helm]

Yes! Make a piece of art that means more to you than palettes and aesthetics. Something with an internal story that you care about.

[SwapBrain]

I feel like I need a kick in the ass, I drop pieces whenever I can properly visualize them in my head or my silly palette experiments seems to mesh. At this point it seems pretty masturbatory and I want to kick that bad habit. Anyone have any tips on helping me rekindle my love for the more automatic, laborious side of pixel art?

The wife ran into a similar problem in school. One thing that helped was to focus on doing series work, the other thing was just treating it like work. Like cleaning house, once you commit and start it is oddly satisfying.

[Rydin]

Cow, work under a tight time constraint.  Give your self 10 minutes to do something that takes you 3 hours.  Then post it here for critique, whether it's done or not.  You won't have time to think about masturbation.

On a similar note (maybe?), I've lately been obsessed with determination versus futility. Nothing is more inspiring to me than when somebody attempts something ludicrously impossible, even if they utterly fail--especially if they utterly fail.

[Cow]

Seriously, thanks a bunch guys. I will think about these things.

[Conceit]

I sometimes combined the story and time limit thing...I looked for a song I liked of a suitable time limit...and forced myself to sketch something before it was over :p

[Rydin]

Is it just me, or does Pixelation seem like more of a ghost town than ever?   

[Helm]

Doesn't to me. Do you want it to be a ghost town?

[Rydin]

Yes, but I want it to be a flying ghost town in geosynchronous orbit with Earth at a such a fashion where the sun would always be just a minute before high noon.  The cacti would be crispy--the tumbleweeds, burning.  The streets will be filled with sweaty John Waynes and Clint Eastwoods who had challenged each other to duels at high noon, skillfully waiting to draw.  And due to the nature of a floating city, the plumbing would be non-existent.

Do you have something else in mind?

[Helm]

The critique forum seems to attract people, and their art is being critiqued by regulars. So I don't think Pixelation is in any trouble. My question to you was, are you sounding the alarm because you'd like there to be a discussion about something that isn't really happening?

[Darien]

Here's some fun with numbers.

Last month definitely had the lowest number of posts since this incarnation of Pixelation.  Not by a whole lot, though.  I wouldn't be too worried about, although the trend does seem to be a general decline in activity.  Too bad we don't have stats from the Blue Board and Pixelopolis, too... it'd be interesting to look at the activity since Pixelation was founded.  I wonder if it just feels like a ghost town because the there is a high turnover in membership in art boards like this (at least it seems to me).  But as long as the currently active members are posting and learning from each other, Pixelation is doing well, I think.

Isn't our 10th birthday coming up soon, by the way?  

[ptoing]

We have stats of Pixelopolis. We are using the same database, nothing got lost from those days. But yeah, overall there seems to be a decline, but I think we are doing good.

[junkboy]

Okay, so why do people perceive it as a ghost town?

[Rydin]

Sheesh! What happened from August to November 2006?

are you sounding the alarm because you'd like there to be a discussion about something that isn't really happening?

Yep, caught me red-handed, Helm.    Seriously though, what the hell man? Take a chill pill.  I didn't have any sort of devious motivation to post what I did.  I was just thinking last night that I kind of grew up on this forum.  Maybe it's rose-tinted glasses, or maybe it's because I'm such a self-centered wannabe, but it always seemed busier.

[Darien]

I don't know.  I think a big part of Pixelation feeling like an active community is having a core group of people who are actively producing work and critiquing each other.  I haven't been active enough myself to say how the Pixel Art board feels right not, whether we have a solid group of people or just people who wander in for the odd post and who never appear again.  It feels like a ghost town to me because I'm not active and when I browse the forums I see all these names I don't recognize.  Or maybe the forums are just too inactive right now for all the separate boards it has now.  I forget when that happened, but it made more sense when posts per month were over 2000 rather than the 800 or so Pixelation is getting now.  I know I typically don't ever check the challenges board (I have always thought that it was better to keep one or two active challenges stickied in the main Pixel Art board rather than hidden in their own board).  But what really would matter is not how the forums appear to me but how do they appear to the people that are actually active.  Like I said before as long as there is a core group of people who are feeling a benefit from the place I think it should be considered successful.

So basically: when you say people perceive the boards to be a ghost town, who do you mean is feeling that?  Is it just the oldbies who check the place out but don't really post anymore or the newbies?  Helm and ptoing usually have a steadier finger on the pulse on the community than anybody, so if they feel like the place is doing okay it probably is.  Not saying it can't be improved--the numbers don't lie, and frankly most communities could always use more activity.  But I think it would be more beneficial to discuss ways to increase activity on the forums rather than being bummed out about it.  No scratch that--it'd be more beneficial to just start doing things.

Rydin:  I wouldn't take Helm's comment personally; you don't remember the times in Pixelation's past where someone would begin to feel that Pixelation wasn't "what it used to be" and this discussion would start, with little positive outcome?

[Rydin]

For lack of any rational reason, it would almost be fun to smash all the boards together and watch the resulting chaos.

[Josiah]

I guess it would be a good time from me to get active again, I've been missing this place. 

[PixelPiledriver]

But I think it would be more beneficial to discuss ways to increase activity on the forums rather than being bummed out about it.

A community game project could be interesting. Something "simple" and doable with low production value. And actually put it together not just mockup.

The game could be very loose. No need to put your million dollar ideas and art into it.

We could ignore style matching so that more people would get involved. I've always thought that WarioWare looked nice despite having lots of different styles and mediums of art mixed together. although each game feels coherent within itself compared to all the other games there is a large variety.

Another way to go would be set a very simple style. but that might not appeal to everyone.

Personally I'm not so strict with matching drawing types. Cute things can exist among violent things or vice versa. Just using pallets and number of lighting passes ties things together well enough.

The SMB1 topic seemed to generate a lot of conversation. But the game was Arne's alone. And sometimes its better to do a game by yourself or with a very small team. But It'd be interesting to lump together a game with lots of people. If every post in that topic said "hey this is what I made for the game" and attached something a lot of work would have been generated.

The challenges I foresee in random order:
1. Common Interest - not everyone has the same taste in games and art
2. Huge list of features - everyone will want to provide their own ideas. not a bad thing but good code takes time like anything else
3. Ownership - If I move to Kenya and sell for millions how will you find and sue me? or anyone else?
4. PipeLining - This is always a challenge. organization and communication.
5. Documentation - Google.docs is great for summarizing a game and listing tasks but who will have rights to edit? everyone? one guy? select few?
6. Foresight - like most things game projects need positive mentality. if that is lost the project is prone to die.

I can volunteer some game programming. Currently I have quite a bit of studying to do. Development would go a little slow. Making a "simple" game is still quite a bit of work.

It's just an idea. I'd hate to rob people of time. I'm extremely busy myself. And I understand why most people don't want to hand out free art. Its very time consuming and mentally expensive to produce. I understand if people have more important things to do like make money and eat food.

[Helm]

It feels like a ghost town to me because I'm not active and when I browse the forums I see all these names I don't recognize.

Exactly.

I don't think there's any sense at artificially trying to amp up the community. As long as art is posted and art is critiqued, Pixelation's fine. If someone comes up with a good idea for an activity, it'll be considered on its own merit and not on how popular it would be.

[Argyle]

Maybe post activity is down, but I lurk while at my day job, and by night I'm working on pixeling and animating for hobby projects and pleasure because of the things I have learned from this board.  Basically I am a less active poster now because of the activity I have partaken in and witnessed in the past.

I still click my Pixelation bookmark more often than my gmail bookmark though.

*edit: not to mention I'm anticipating new activities.  The shatterhand challenge and the Commercial Critiques are things I've learned from, but are not so much of a blast as the hexquisite corpses.*

[Tenshi]

I've been something of a sparse poster but I'm going to try and correct that.

I think I have all of my information updated here and am getting back into things.

[Dusty]

I seem to have very low patience with paper and pencil, which I find odd considering that I enjoy pixel art. With pixel art I can spend hours on a piece... however when I try to draw on paper I seem to want to get it over with as fast as possible. I rush through, I don't spend enough time cleaning up as I should, and I just don't seem to want to put the effort into it. It doesn't seem subconscious, but it seems like while I'm drawing I don't seem to want to put the effort into things like accurate lines, and I get bored fast.

[B0mberman]

I seem to have very low patience with paper and pencil, which I find odd considering that I enjoy pixel art. With pixel art I can spend hours on a piece... however when I try to draw on paper I seem to want to get it over with as fast as possible. I rush through, I don't spend enough time cleaning up as I should, and I just don't seem to want to put the effort into it. It doesn't seem subconscious, but it seems like while I'm drawing I don't seem to want to put the effort into things like accurate lines, and I get bored fast.

All you need my friend is time.
You get bored on the way, play a game with pixels to boost ..errr I dunno the brain?

[9_6]

I find that playing games and trying to draw something afterwards makes me go into exactly that state of "low patience".
Perhaps getting rid of everything that distracts you will help?
Do you hear music while drawing? I've read in a book that you shouldn't even do that, go figure.

[SwapBrain]

I seem to have very low patience with paper and pencil, which I find odd considering that I enjoy pixel art. With pixel art I can spend hours on a piece... however when I try to draw on paper I seem to want to get it over with as fast as possible. I rush through, I don't spend enough time cleaning up as I should, and I just don't seem to want to put the effort into it. It doesn't seem subconscious, but it seems like while I'm drawing I don't seem to want to put the effort into things like accurate lines, and I get bored fast.

IMO artists do three things that allow them to do what they do - the see things differently, they make decisions about what they will represent and how, and they translate those decisions through a medium.

Try switching up your 1)work-flow 2) your subject matter, or your 3)media for example:

1) Go find a good book on drawing, and re-start from the basics, if you sketch with line-art, try starting with mass or volume or value studies, and proceeding from there. You will likely make new connections or find it was your work-flow that was broken.

2) Grab a big sketch pad and head out, draw things you normally pass over, like one of R Crumb's things that he paid attention to was the power poles and electrical lines in his city images. It might just be that you are bored with your subject matter. Talk to/read about other artists and find out how they see the world.  There is a fantastic book about new drawing practice called 'Vitamin D - New Perspectives in Drawing" put out by Phaidon which is likely in your local bookstore - have a look. Also there are probably cheap, or depending on where you live free, open model drawing sessions - try attending one of those.

3) Switch to conte crayon, charcoal, graphite stick, or india ink, and wrestle with the medium a bit. It may be that your technique is too, well, technical. You may find, as I did, the you just seem to click with one (for me it was crow quill and india ink.)

Finally, a lesson from pixel art, use all of these things to start imposing restrictions on a drawing piece before hand - you may find that the structure of having certain decisions out of your hands re-invigorates your love of the process.

Also I tend to agree with 9_6 that while I do 'inspired'-feeling by seeing work that I like, it does tend to jam me up creatively.

[Kren]

Wierd we got like 300 guest viewing JunkBoy's art lol.

[Dusty]

Wierd we got like 300 guest viewing JunkBoy's art lol.

Notch linked it from his blog, announcing the new pixel artist for Minecraft.

[Rydin]

I failed the Ludum Dare, but I learned a lot along the way.

[Dusty]

The website Webhallen is having an officially recognized Minecraft texture competition, with first place 180gb SSD signed by Notch, and a painting by(and signed) Kristoffer Zetterstrand. http://www.webhallen.com/minecraft/

Also, thanks for all the above suggestions. I actually do listen to music for inspiration and to calm my mind, so it's odd to hear that can put you off.

[Cow]

(source)

[Helm]

whhaaat?

[9_6]

Is it just me, or does Pixelation seem like more of a ghost town than ever?   

The low-spec forums kind of are, aren't they?
Makes me wanna try and pick up pre-rendered or low poly stuff.
Or pre-rendered low poly stuff.
Problem with that just seems to be that you have to have a very specific idea of what you want to do because just starting to model randomly with nothing to build on won't really go anywhere.

Or maybe that's just me.

[Helm]

I seem to have very low patience with paper and pencil, which I find odd considering that I enjoy pixel art. With pixel art I can spend hours on a piece... however when I try to draw on paper I seem to want to get it over with as fast as possible. I rush through, I don't spend enough time cleaning up as I should, and I just don't seem to want to put the effort into it. It doesn't seem subconscious, but it seems like while I'm drawing I don't seem to want to put the effort into things like accurate lines, and I get bored fast.

Another thought I had on this: the more skilled you might be on one medium (pixel art here, and you are certainly skilled) the more psychologically disturbing it might be to you to return or dabble in another where the skills do not immediately translate, because the immediate results aren't as good as you're used to, so you want to subconsciously get it over with as fast as possible. I'm slowly learning to color digitally and I certainly feel this flight instinct here and there.

[.TakaM]

Just in case anyone here is ever in need of some inspiration, check this guys videos out.
He's a little crazy but in the best ways, he lives out in the woods in an awesome dome house he built himself (the third floor is a trampoline) but his main project is a giant robot.
He's documenting pretty much every step of the way, you'll see him come up with some clever solutions and how his brain works.

Really inspiring stuff, the amount of videos might be a little daunting but once you watch one you won't want to stop.

[Ai]

* Use GMIC to apply a Difference of Gaussians on a copy of the source image,
   to detect areas of high frequency detail like eyes (parameters: 0.05, 0.10, threshold 20, enable 'negative'.
* Apply a curve with a point at 93,33 and 192,192 to reduce the amount of smoothing high-detail pixels will get, even more.
* Edit->Copy
* Enter QMask mode (using keyboard shortcut or the button at bottom-left of your window) and Edit->Paste what you just copied.
* Anchor the pasted layer and exit QMask mode. Now, the low-detail pixels are most selected, and high-detail are least selected.
* Apply GMIC Anisotropic smoothing (amplitude 8, sharpness .4, gradsmooth 0, tensor smooth 0.50, iterations 2)

FWIW, I have now made this into a custom GMIC filter (thus, interactive preview etc.)
It still needs to support multi-layer application (for animations).
Anyway I'll give the current definition here, as it's short:

Code: [Select]

#@gimp Antialias: antialias, antialias
#@gimp : note = note("* finetuning")
#@gimp : Detail preservation = float(.30,0,1)
#@gimp : Smoothing = float(8,0.5,1024)
#@gimp : Sharpness = float(.4,0.001,1)
#@gimp : Iterations = int(2,1,32)
#@gimp : Gradient Smoothing* = float(0,0,10)
#@gimp : Tensor Smoothing* = float(0.5,0,10)
#@gimp : Fast Approximation* = bool(1)
#@gimp : DoG base* = float(0.05,0.001,100)
#@gimp : DoG distance* = float(0.05,0.001,100)
#@gimp : DoG threshold* = float(20,0.0001,49.999)
#
#
# XXX some way to adjust DoG parameters

antialias :
  -repeat @# -l[@{>}]
    --gimp_dog[-1] $8,{$8+$9},$10,1,0
  # -2? -> -1?
    -input [-2]x1
    -repeat $4 -smooth[-1] $2,$3,1.0,$5,$6,.8,30,2,0,$7 -done
#  # sanitize the DOG layer for masking use
    -normalize[-2] 0,1
    -apply_curve[-2] 1,{93/255},{.73-.73*$1},{192/255},{192/255}
    -image[-3] [-1],0,0,0,0,1,[-2]
    -remove[-2,-1]
    -endlocal
  -done

Paste that into the file ~/.gmic and restart GIMP in order to try it, if you are curious.
Make sure to leave that final blank line in.

EDIT:
I just fixed multi-layer application; here's an overly enthusiastically applied example based on a RagnarokOnline animation:

Original:

Smoothed:

(if this was an animation I was actually making, I'd draw some of the sharpness (eg sleeves) back in as needed)

EDIT2:

Here is a better example:


(zoom helps
(parameters: smooth = 2 sharp = 0 detail = .2 iterations = 1 gradsmooth = .7 tenssmooth = .5)

The current default settings are pretty good, but I'm sure there are better -- If you think you've found better defaults I'd like to hear about it

[9_6]

Can someone point me to that thread about the blur you get from upscaling?
It got mentioned in another thread but that comment apparently got deleted.
Opera spontaneously decided that firefox is a cool bro for doing it and now blurs everything that's being scaled up by default, even gifs which remained completely untouched in previous versions.

I'd like to turn that off but of course, that option is probably hidden in the most inconvenient manner possible.

[Photocopier]

Can someone point me to that thread about the blur you get from upscaling?
It got mentioned in another thread but that comment apparently got deleted.
Opera spontaneously decided that firefox is a cool bro for doing it and now blurs everything that's being scaled up by default, even gifs which remained completely untouched in previous versions.

I'd like to turn that off but of course, that option is probably hidden in the most inconvenient manner possible.

Type 'opera:config' into your address bar, find the multimedia settings and turn off interpolate images.