voxn

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Posts posted by voxn

  2. Posted

    This is an example of the sorts of things I'd like to perfect in my (theoretical) game. I want everything to matter. Even if it's simple stuff. Because in the end, that scenario in which I had to choose a character to save was really simple: both were being attacked, and one of them had a gun. However funnily enough, there's the possibility that if I had chosen the character without a gun, I would've saved him, and the gun-wielder would've finally stopped panicking and popped some caps in the zombies coming after her therefore saving both. But, I doubt that's the case (let me know if it is). 

     

    Are my ambitions too high with wanting to make the player have complete power their interactions, and also having the game acknowledge which choices they're making, why, and ultimately rewarding/punishing the player with varying logical and probable reactions to various events which the player has affected?

     

    yes.

     

    your ideal game design sounds concrete in your head, but that's the quiet + immense power of conceptualization. @_@ In strictly logical terms (ie. designing & programming a set of systems) it's basically meaningless. Which is why you need to - as quickly as you can - start actually making a game. Like, mspaint a sprite and background in 5 minutes, get them displaying, then get a dialog window to pop up and display text when you click the sprite. These are the absolute basics, and I guarantee it will take WAY longer then you expect (because making video games is hard).

     

    if you need help just post! I started messing with gamemaker a couple months ago myself. I'm still mega rookie, but can probably field even rookie-er questions (maybe)

     

     

    edit;  a great resource is http://www.youtube.com/user/999Greyfox/videos'>Shaun Spalding's youtube channel. He puts together a bunch of basic demos and walks though his making of them.

  3. Posted

    Uploaded my first stream. Did reasonably well by my standards, though it ended badly. Doesn't it always...

     

     (I don't know how to embed video here...) 

     

    its just video /video in brackets !

     

    I'd suggest using ropes (up) or bombs (down, in a pinch) to trigger traps, but your method of superhumanly whipping the arrow out of the air was way more badass

  4. Posted

    What are you guys using to record?

    Also, awesome frog knowledge!

     

    Camtasia for video and Audacity for voice.

     

    Audacity is stellar because a quick Effect > Noise Removal gets rid of the ambient static that plagues pretty much every amateur voice recording.

  5. Posted

    having watched many dailies I decided to try spelunking for myself

     

     

    I learned that bomb frogs are diffused into your bog standard blue frog by immersion in water! (the most worthless spelunky knowledge)

  7. Posted

    all my streamwatching time has been devoured by the International, but the bit of this I watched the other day lived up to expectations. The most legit match was, hilariously, a low rez leela vs winnie the pooh that went down to the final round (winnie choked) 

     

    twitch chat is also 100% hilarious which is practically unprecidented

  8. Posted

    beat Dragons Crown (on normal)!  Fantastic game, though a flawed gem. The touch aspects designed for vita went unchanged into the ps3 version and are unsurprisingly really clunky. I'm also convinced some classes are more fun then others. It might equalize later on as you expand their skills, but starting out I found mana management on both witch+wizard slowed the pace of the game down to a crawl. Whirling around and learning the quirks of invincibly frames on dwarf+amazon is a lot more intense, and my buddy liked the game a lot more after swapping witch for elf

     

    its a real shame this game got absolutely dogpiled for its character design, and the idlethumbs thread - like all the others - dissolved into an embarrassing mess of sexism anecdotes. This game has more depth the deeper I go, and a gorgeous 2d game that isn't spritework is such a rarity these days; let alone a gorgeous 2d multiplayer loot-driven ~cooking-sim~ brawler

     

    onward to Hard difficulty >:-O

  13. Posted

    Guhh! Whoa! Whoa.

     

    That is fuckin sweet. It's what I was aiming for but not able to achieve. Mind going into the process a little? Photoshop/tablet?

     

    Totally agree with everything osmosisch says, I regretted that cheap glow as soon as I added it. 

     

    sure! And ya, photoshop + tablet.

     

    Started by dropping the levels so that they ran the range from almost-black to pure white. You can use a solid black layer set to 'saturation' to easily keep tabs on your values while you paint:

     

    8d0v3JZ.jpg

     

    if you want an absolute master class in b&w value stuff check out https://www.google.com/search?q=dota+2+concept+art&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS451US451&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=0U3nUZKDEY-FqQHe7IC4CA&biw=1920&bih=979&sei=0k3nUY6BNISergGq4IA4#um=1&safe=off&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS451US451&hl=en&tbs=ic:gray&tbm=isch&oq=dota+2+official+concept+art+&gs_l=img.3...15745.18404.4.18559.3.3.0.0.0.0.88.245.3.3.0....0.0..1c.1.20.img.n5cuzPQ9GvQ&fp=1&biw=1920&bih=979&q=dota%202%20official%20concept%20art&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&cad=b&bvm=pv.xjs.s.en_US.c75bKy5EQ0A.O'>valves concept artists or http://www.livestream.com/robotpencil'>anthony jones' livestream who has a huge archive of commentated drawing that he starts (mostly) in b&w

     

    next I chopped the walls down (both because they are not that high in the game and to make the demon look  bigger), and added lines to suggest stone. Made the walls fade into fog to add depth/push demon more into focus. Keeping it simple is good, but the demon blended too much into the background to make a striking image. If somethings going to be faded that much by atmospheric fog it has to be really really big / far away. 

     

    got rid of the glow. Glow is one of those extremely powerful digital tools that can look amazing, but is easy to use incorrectly or go overboard with

     

    similarly, redid the fire spell to fit with the aesthetic of solid shapes + strokes (which is really rad)

     

    started messing with colors using Color Balance. You wanted to stick to a simplistic color scheme (good), but your colors all fall into the same narrow band of red-orange (bad). Complementary colors are best, which are typically a warm and cool color (orange/blue, red/green, etc) opposite each other on the color wheel. I went with blue/yellow

     

    the http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterArtGuide.pdf'>dota 2 art guide pdf goes fairly in-depth into color, among many other things. I made the demons body a gradient as is also discussed in this guide, pulling focus to his head + axe.

     

    Redid shadows. The sky is way brighter then a tiny fire, and if the sun was casting the pyromancers shadow behind her the demons shadow would stretch the same way. So I just took the easy route & dropped a shadow under both of them.

     

    Redrew demons head a bit & added glowing eyes as a focal point, though it looks pretty cool without them

     

    Added castle towers in the background for several reasons: adding visual interest to the top of the picture, to intersect the demons body (intersections are good, lead your eye around & show depth) and to balance the picture a little more from the huge axe head on the left. Oh, and there are towers in the game! :B

     

    rim lights from fire + sky to pull figures off background

     

    used the darkest blue for a gradient at the bottom to guide focus to the middle, and a very very light(like 5%) yellow gradient from the top for light

  14. Posted

    cute!

     

    Wasn't going to post this, but I thought I'd try to take some of the pointers in this thread and give something a go:

     

    Light/shade I've always struggled with, so I thought I'd try to create something with no/very few lines, just tones. I only really posted this for feedback, so please tear it to shreds and tell me what I'm doing wrong! I think it's a pretty good representation of how I approach artwork at the moment and I'd like to improve! 

     

    this is cool & has a lot of strong points.

     

    osmosisch was spot on with the crits. I'd take it somewhere like this if you wanna piece of dat sotc vibe

  15. Posted

    That viscera stream was rad! and street fighter was hilarious after watching evo all weekend. I would briefly wonder why one player was jumping in from half screen or not fadc'ing uppercuts before my senses caught up.

     

     

    Thing is, without a guide, how far do we really think Chris would have got? I'd wager he wouldn't have reached the Taurus demon which would have made a more frustrating watch for us. 

     

    Solid information about the game's various systems is pretty much invaluable, since the game itself is in absolutely no hurry to explain anything to you. 

     

    who cares how far he gets? Being good at a game has nothing to do with how entertaining it is to watch/play (see: every other idle thumbs stream)

  16. Posted

    ya your rendering needs work hehe. The biggest problem is the sense of light+value. Quick checklist: Its typically a bad idea to have a background darker then the foreground.  Areas directly lit by the glowin thing should essentially be left white paper. And you need to throw on ya angriest eyebrows & go way bolder with the colors. Splash it in there with gusto!! Its almost impossible to go too saturated, and even if you do it'll look way arty.

     

    I quickly photoshopped it to be more in line with the vibe from your monochrome drawings (which are really rad!) here  The lighting is still off without some redrawing, and I accidentally deleted the stalactites in the background,  but hopefully it helps

  21. Posted

    ~ gaining levels ~

     

    first in Neverwinter! A game that surprised me in how decent it was for the first ~25 levels. The game fell apart quickly though, and was poorly designed in significant ways. It had probably one of the most hilarious exploits though: bidding a negative amount on the auction house, which, when you got the refund, simply generated the amount of currency you bid.

     

    tried to gain some levels in Marvel Heroes & found it irredeemably awful.

     

    played Path of Exile on the new hardcore onslaught ladder, and made it to 74 before dying, edging out my previous record of 70! I play one character per ladder, and it makes for a fun ending to empty my accrued stash on random people (who usually wig out).

     

    went back and checked out Diablo 3 after not touching it since launch, and promptly killed my lv60 wizard. Oh well. True to form Blizzard has pushed out a slew of patches, but it still has the fundamental problem of the auction house invalidating  my desire to actually play the game

     

    y59Nby3.png

  23. Posted

    august 16, 2013

    11:48pm

     

    bringing my diary to the 24 hour walmart again. Will have to transcribe to my tumblr later. A hassle, but rome wasn't built in a day!(self deprecating laughter) Finding myself in the juice isle again, god, same as always. Staring down all these myriad juices. That damn dilemma. The Kane Dilemma, I've come to call it. God, how the hours pass. Touching every juice. Examining labels from every angle, running my hands over packaging. Which one is the Citizen Kane of juices? Glance down at my hand - force it to unclench - and examine the crumpled dollars. Enough for more then one. Two? Maybe even three with coupons. Three juices. Better odds, but there are so many choices. What if I get the Shawshank Redemption or Amadeus? Good juices, hell, maybe even great juices - but no one would call them pivotal... (the rest of the writing is illegible)

  25. Posted

     

    In regards to Axe does anyone still double stout shield with him?  I know it was one of the most common builds in WC3 at one point and in HoN it was considered core, but I don't even know if they even stack in the Dota 2 engine.

     

    the best build is shield + ring of protection + tangos. You can pick up boots, ring of regen and an energy booster all from the sideshop which allows you to have both tranquils and arcane boots, disassembling one and making the other whenever they're off cooldown.

     

     

    It was mentioned on the podcast, but I find this to be very good:

    http://www.purgegamers.com/welcome-to-dota-you-suck

     

    Also, don't play vs the bots if you can help it because they are actually way nastier than human opponents will be - they coordinate their stuns very well.

     

    playing vs. bots is fine !! Just play a solo game with bots and take middle lane (the bot there will leave). You can learn about the very core tenants of the game and try out some heroes without the typical 'sit in fountain reading item descriptions while 3 russians swear at you' intro a lot of people have. 

     

    Once you have a decent idea how things work, then you can queue into matchmaking and start grindin that dota knowledge.