Official Off-Topic Thread

[Alex Hanson-White]

don't forget to highlight your posts, people!

[Seiseki]

don't forget to highlight your posts, people!

Do what now? xD

[Alex Hanson-White]

you know... highlight them. It's all the rage lately. That's what facebook forces you to do now.

[Mathias]

Alex. Watched some of your vidoes.

. . .

. . .

[blumunkee]

Kitten in distress!



I won't let you die little one!

Found this in our backyard. She's feral, but she was so starved and dehydrated that she didn't have the energy to run away from humans. She got a bath and some milk yesterday, so she's already looking better, but so far today she hasn't eaten or pooped. Hopefully the vet can get her back to 100% tomorrow.

[Alex Hanson-White]

Alex. Watched some of your vidoes.

. . .

. . .

any suggestions? ideas.. I'm kind of in limbo with what to do next. wish I had a bunch of junk to build stuff out of.

[Seiseki]

@blumunkee Dawww, what a cutie.

any suggestions? ideas.. I'm kind of in limbo with what to do next. wish I had a bunch of junk to build stuff out of.

Why not start drawing pixel or digital art while commenting on it while you draw? Use a screen capture software and setup the camera next to your pc to point at yourself.
Like a 'let's draw' or simply a tutorial.

[Alex Hanson-White]

seems like a good idea.. idk how i'd do it to make sure the video isn't too long though..
It's also hard for me to get motivated to create art sometimes, so not sure if I'd be able to do it well.
Kinda looking for something that isn't too time intensive. but i'll think about it.. might be a way to do something fun that is similar.

[Ashbad]

Blu: Poor kitty  

On another note, any other TF2 players here?  I'd definitely love to invite you all to one of the servers I frequent when it's moderately empty to have a very pixelated shooting session.  And by extension I can even invite bronies here to one of the pony servers I'm at.  I personally have been practicing art over playing TF2 lately but I think I'm going to push to actually take gaming breaks again

@Alex having a video series about pixeling: I'd so totally watch that.

I'd call it the "Joy of Pixeling - With Alex HW".  Bonus points for throwing in things like "just a happy banding area". 

[Ashbad]

Well, after EqD finally posted it, after flushing the queue with my game in it twice (... ) it's finally up, it's the top one: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/07/game-trailerspreviews-rainbow-dash.html

[yaomon17]

Blu: Poor kitty  

On another note, any other TF2 players here?  I'd definitely love to invite you all to one of the servers I frequent when it's moderately empty to have a very pixelated shooting session.  And by extension I can even invite bronies here to one of the pony servers I'm at.  I personally have been practicing art over playing TF2 lately but I think I'm going to push to actually take gaming breaks again

@Alex having a video series about pixeling: I'd so totally watch that.

I'd call it the "Joy of Pixeling - With Alex HW".  Bonus points for throwing in things like "just a happy banding area". 

Yeah, but I only find fun in HL Lobbies. PS is just stupid now.

[Ai]

Anyone else finding that the left two links in the bar that looks like
"Pixelation > General > General Discussion > Official Off-Topic Thread" end up going to a strange place?
I click on 'General' and arrive at

http://www.orchidsandonions.orgpixelation/index.php#1

...
Yeah, I know it's not even a valid address. .orgpixelation top level domain, lol.
Thing is, I look at the source for those links, and they look perfectly ordinary. No orchids or onions involved, and I don't have any page-rewriting extensions (eg. Greasemonkey, Scriptish, Stylish) active. moreover, grepping through my firefox profile shows that the only reference to orchidsandonions is inside the cache, as a result of this bogus linking. I'd never even heard of such a site until this whole thing started.

So I'm starting to wonder if something is dodgy on Pixelation's end, since I can browse normally everywhere else.
Guess I'll dig into the Javascript.

Is anyone else experiencing this ? 

[r1k]

nope, they work normal for me.

[Ashbad]

nope, they work normal for me.

Same here.   

[Ai]

Oh well. After disabling all Firefox extensions, this behaviour is still present. Maybe it's a bug in this particular version (14.0.1). Thanks for the feedback, anyway, I'll just have to work around it for now.

[Alex Hanson-White]

maybe scan your computer for malware or wahtever.. dunno the correct term for it.. or try clearing you cookies and temp internet files? idk..

[PixelPiledriver]

I'm using chrome on my laptop.
I also get sent to orchids and onions from the main page.
I thought pixelation was down but was surprised to see that in chrome on my phone it works just fine.
It's possible to get around this by jumping to a personal message from gmail and then using my profile to jump to different sections.
Crazy.

[Ai]

@PPD:
Actually, the distinguishing characteristic, for me, is that the link points at 'index.php' without an '?' following.
For example, if you look at the top-ish menu bar ('HOME HELP SEARCH PROFILE MY MESSAGES MEMBERS LOGOUT'), do you find that only the HOME link is crazy, and all the others work?
If you look at the two links I was referring to before, they show as
"http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php" and
"http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php#1" (1 being the number of the category "General" in this case.)

Everything else works. Since you've managed to reproduce this, I'm now moving to the hypothesis that it's an effect caused by a combination of a) the PHP giving bogus header information when no parameters are given, in a way that is harmless to most browsers, and b) A browser that actually interprets that data rather than simply ignoring it.

To demonstrate, try these links instead. They work for me:

http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?#1

It will be fascinating to see if PToing has anything to say about this (and WTF orchids and onions have to do with pixelation. Maybe they are just random junk data stuck in a database or cache somewhere on the server.)

[PixelPiledriver]

Well played Ai.

Yup these links DONT work for me:
"http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php" and
"http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php#1" (1 being the number of the category "General" in this case.)

And yes these DO:
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?#1

But not sure why this is coming up just now.

I'm now moving to the hypothesis that it's an effect caused by a combination of a) the PHP giving bogus header information when no parameters are given, in a way that is harmless to most browsers, and b) A browser that actually interprets that data rather than simply ignoring it.

It could be along the lines of a deadbeef debug value. Or not.

Whatever it is, it sounds delicious.

Edit:
http://www.orchidsandonions.org/  

[ptoing]

All these links work for me as they should. I have no clue what is going on here at all.
The hosting company we are with atm is under new management and they moved servers and because of this I have no direct access to the database atm. So it might have to do something with that, no clue really.

Things will get sorted out soonish.

[Charlieton]

Let's face it, you guys. Pixelation is HAUNTED!   



Still working as normal for me, though. (currently running on latest version of Firefox)

[Âme]

Let's face it, you guys. Pixelation is HAUNTED!   

By a ghost who has a strange fetish with orchids and onions.

I'm having the same problem as Ai and PixelPiledriver. I just have internet explorer... and the sneaking suspicion that the problem isn't on our end... 

[Crow]

@Ai:
Can't reproduce this. Once Pixelation has moved, I'll be upgrading the forums to a newer version. We shall see if it's fixed then

[Dusty]

I had a weird problem where it was redirecting to huevia or something like that. Clearing my cache was the only fix.

[Mr. Beast]

By a ghost who has a strange fetish with orchids and onions.

What!? I don't want to be raped.

[ptoing]

I had a weird problem where it was redirecting to huevia or something like that. Clearing my cache was the only fix.

Huevia is the current host.

[Âme]

Hey, it works now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By a ghost who has a strange fetish with orchids and onions.

What!? I don't want to be raped.

I bet the only reason it's working again is because you said that. The ghost was all like "Oh, shiz they think I'ma rapist... I no wanna go ta jail!!"
_{shut up... its a wannabe gangsta ghost...}

P.S. do you think it would look like a pacman ghost?

[Ai]

I confirm that clearing my cache fixed it for me. Good call Alex and Dusty.

[Ashbad]

Probably too off the topic of pixel art specifically to be posted as it's own topic, so here goes, in this thread.

Basically, I have a plan set out, to practice my drawing skills intensively for the next 4 weeks before school starts up again.  I'm getting my copy of "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" in the mail tomorrow, and I'm going to start working with it on Monday.  My plan is to finish reading every last word, doing every last exercise, etc. within two weeks.  After that, I'm going to get myself to draw (at least) 5 hours a day for the remaining two weeks (since I'll have open time; internship ends).

Here's my question: what are some things I try doing to improve over these two weeks?  I might have a good idea once I get to them, but it generally works that if I don't plan something beforehand I make a sloppy plan as I go along and everything turns out crap and I act all lazy Some advice I've heard a lot is to do a lot of life drawing; other advice is to study anatomy of the human body, the face, animals, etc.  Are these recommended ideas, and if they are, what would you recommend I do specfically?

Or should I come back and ask after I've finished said book?

Or should I even ask at all?  Should I just figure it out along the way?

Perhaps I sound ridiculous to the good artists here when I ask these questions, so bear with me   I'm simply just over-motivated to improve at the fastest pace I can push myself at with my given schedule.

Oh, and on a side note,  the one thing I've specifically planned in is MLP anatomy study (because I plan on still making tons of fan-art in the future).  Basically I'm going to spend a day (or two or three) watching through season 1 again to an extent, pause the episodes every minute, draw the undersketches/actual form of the ponies in the still frame, and keep a "pony notebook" of all of these so that I can reference them in the future for  how poses would work, but also to try and practice correct anatomy with "live" references (it's as close as I can get to "life drawing" with said ponies )

Cheers to tangible improvement by September (or so I'll hope)!

[Carnivac]

Would it be wrong if I posted a link to my Justgiving charity page for my sponsored skydive?   I've only got a couple weeks left til the date I'm supposed to do it but I'm not even quite half way to the money goal needed to actually get to take part so I'm pestering folks I know.  It's all for a good cause.  A local hospice that looks after very sick people and in the name of a local lady who died from cancer and spent her last days there.  Her widower husband spends him time arranging fundraising schemes to donate money to that hospice and this is one of his things I'm part of.   I don't just want to post the link without asking in case it breaks some sorta rule about money or something. 

[ptoing]

Sure, go ahead. If it's for a good cause I see no problem

[Carnivac]

Thank you, sir.


My Justgiving Charity Skydive Page
Ignore the photos that don't even really look like me. Had to put something up.  
Any donation size would be muchly appreciated.  It all counts.   The skydive is booked for my group on the 18th August and if i don't reach my target amount I don't get to go, so please if you could spare anything.

Gah, I hate begging.  Never even did that when I was homeless.

[9_6]

@Ashbad

You should look into actual pony anatomy (not the cartoon kind).
You might come to a point at which you drew tons and tons of fanart but have no idea what a real horse actually looks like.
So I'd suggest studying the real, non-stylized version right along with the stylization so that you understand why the shapes are the way they are instead of just copying them if that kind of thing interests you.

[Ashbad]

@Ashbad

You should look into actual pony anatomy (not the cartoon kind).
You might come to a point at which you drew tons and tons of fanart but have no idea what a real horse actually looks like.
So I'd suggest studying the real, non-stylized version right along with the stylization so that you understand why the shapes are the way they are instead of just copying them if that kind of thing interests you.

Eh, that's a wonderful idea, sounds like I need to study actual pony (and horse) anatomy then probably'll learn a lot from that, and it'll maybe even lead me to form my own stylized version that's halfway between.

[blumunkee]

Ashbad, I read that book back when I was around 15 or 16. The presentation is dry but that's a good thing. It keeps the content clear. As I recall the book has suggestions for additional exercises, or if it doesn't, it's not hard at all to think up some similar projects on your own.

As to specific practice, just draw stuff. Drawing from life is always good, thou a little uncomfortable at times. Every now and then I'll pick up a magazine like national geographic or a fashion magazine and draw animals or people. Go to imgur and draw random stuff.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

In the mail from Amazon:

The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Drawing for Beginners
Keys to Drawing



Overdoing it?

I'm also getting Hubert Selby's The Room to break the monotony.

[Alex Hanson-White]

you forgot my book.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

To be honest, I'm interested, but it is a bit pricey. 15 $ would be an ok price.

[Alex Hanson-White]

:\
createspace has a limit on the minimum price, so wouldn't even be able to sell it for that even if I wanted to.

[rikfuzz]

You could sell an ebook (PDF or whatever) directly at any price you like if you wanted I suppose?

[Friend]

I haven't slept more than 4 hours in 5 nights and I don't know how much more I can take of all of this.  And the only voice that goes to my heart that told me that everything will be ok seems to grow further from me each day and I can't sleep and I want to give up but I've never given up on anything

[Alex Hanson-White]

You could sell an ebook (PDF or whatever) directly at any price you like if you wanted I suppose?

I think the main issue is that people just don't know about my book, plus I'm a nobody.


Friend, what are you talking about? What is this voice you speak of?

[Friend]

@Alex my first love, and I recently told him I loved him. 

And Alex you're defs not a nobody, why would you tell yourself that?  For starters I know nothing about you besides you stick greatly to what you believe in and have considerable talent in art and animation

[yaomon17]

You could sell an ebook (PDF or whatever) directly at any price you like if you wanted I suppose?

I think the main issue is that people just don't know about my book, plus I'm a nobody.


Friend, what are you talking about? What is this voice you speak of?

Odysseus was nobody and he is well known across the world.

[Alex Hanson-White]

maybe somewhere an alien is writing a book about me, like homer's epic poem the odyssey.

sorry to hear that, Friend. I don't have much advice on that kind of thing.

[Carnivac]

Just a little reminder that if anyone has been considering to donate any money at all to my charity skydive then then please do it by the end of Thursday 9th August (as it has to all be sorted a week before the actual skydive takes place, actually it's meant to be two weeks but I've been given an extension).  Link in sig.

Thank you.

[Alex Hanson-White]

I forgot if i'm allowed to post this stuff, but here's something. http://youtu.be/hXuua1TUTpU

[Ai]

Just found out that GIMP 2.9 recently gained some basic indexpainting support[1]
While the performance of GIMP 2.9 is currently pretty slow while they work through all the different changes needed to make high bitdepth support available in everything, and it'll never provide the degree of control you can get with eg. GrafX2, it's quite pleasing if you just want to do some minor edits.

Support includes (this is basically a list of everything in GIMP that is currently using GEGL):

* Full greyscale selection mask support (ie. you can generate some plasma as your selection mask, and then drop a greyish color on the canvas to layer some fog over the image)
* all 'basic' operations like paste, paste into, fill, pattern fill,
* All drawing modes; and drawing with lowered opacity
* Layer modes and opacity (but you don't get an indexized preview until you do 'new from visible', only a full RGB one.)
* Painting with 'paintbrush' and 'ink' tools (ie. the brush is plotted with levels of opacity, not just binary transparency)
* gradients (heh)
* most color filters, eg curves, levels -- this doesn't modify the palette but the image content. Posterize can be surprisingly useful.
* cage transform tool, smudge tool, clone tool, dodge/burn tool
* transform tool preview opacity works.

[1] The relevant news item is 'High bit depth processing available now'. As I write this, it is the fourth item from the top.

[Ninja Crow]

This seems like a worthy project:

www.kickstarter.com/projects/project-giana/project-giana

Not a pixel game, but it is a sequel to a great pixel game

[Carnivac]

This seems like a worthy project:

www.kickstarter.com/projects/project-giana/project-giana

Not a pixel game, but it is a sequel to a great pixel game

Well that's depressing...