Luftmensch

I may be completely off on this, but I remember reading that for the most part the Toon Boom format is based on Flash? I don't know, I've never used, much less programmed for, Toon Boom. I know at least enough about animation to recognize that keyframes and vectors are by no means proprietary, I just remember reading statements from animators (Adam Phillips, Nick Cross, John Kricfalusi) saying that switching from Flash to Toon Boom was easy because they were able to convert all their old work and keep a similar workflow, which I don't think is true between Flash and, say, After Effects. I wouldn't take my word as any authority because I don't know shit about working as a professional animator, I was just a nerdy high school student who geeked the hell over animation for a few years until I looked at animation school tuition.

It's perfectly valid to have mixed feelings and question your success. I listened to Mel Brooks on The Nerdist and he insisted that, of the films he made, The Twelve Chairs was still his favorite, and it's weird to him how everyone tells him Spaceballs is his best work. Personally I have a lot of trouble feeling grateful for any success that I have. I remember in high school we did charcoal enlargements of photos of ourselves, and mine won second place at some local high school show. My teacher berated me for not being grateful, which might be fair, but I felt weird because it wasn't really a piece I was very proud of and didn't really like anyway. It was just an in-class assignment. Even if I'm happy with my work, it's hard for me to accept praise without feeling in debt and questioning if I deserve the honor.

Can't disagree more. As a matter of community standards we don't allow sale of pornography to children, but unlike some countries, like Australia, we don't censor porn, and it's absolutely illegal to censor "dangerous" information unless its a direct threat to the security of the state. Instructions on building bombs is knowledge, which is inherently valuable. Nuclear weapons are science. If there's a problem, we regulate the sale of chemicals and materials that can make bombs, because explosive materials can kill someone, unlike knowledge of chemical combustion which can't.

I never played the actual final game, but I remember back in the day being fascinated with the progression of Kameo: Elements of Power. In 2002 Kameo was looking to be a classic platformer set in a charming fantasy world inhabited by singing choreographed tigers. Also there was going to be a variety of playable characters with different powers and stuff? Sounds cool. The opening melody is both classic and a little weird, which is awesome, and there's a catchy battle theme. Kind of an awkward bit of exposition in this trailer, but all the charming fairy tale stuff is there, you see betrayal, evil being unleashed into the world, and a bunch of cool platforming mechanics with a few cinematic twists. Alright, cool. Someone added some nonsense lyrics to that familiar battle music, which is cool, and though the tone of this trailer is a little darker, there's still some of those chimes of fairy tale magic ringing in the music. It's an Xbox 360 game now, which means that instead of wearing brightly colored fairy clothes, Cameo is dressed in some kind of huntress warrior thing with a miniskirt and has war paint. Also being on the 360 means that there's a million dudes. At all times. Also everything is really dark for some reason but everything is really shiny. The catchy orchestral melody is still there and it's still a well-done piece, don't get me wrong, I love the composers at Rare, that was the soundtrack of my childhood, but by 2005 overdone orchestral bullshit was at an all-time high, and the charming melodies have been apparently replaced by choirs and dramatic orchestra swells. Like I said, I never played this game (I never owned an Xbox 360 anyway), but watching the changes happened made me think sad thoughts. Probably they're unjustified, I bet that the game released in 2005 was way better than the builds they were making in 2002, but I still wanted stupid tigers jumping into formation and singing stupid tiger battle songs. That was great. For all I know that actually made it into the final game and I'm an idiot and can't find it.

I think the point has been argued that creation and dissemination of creative works should be exempted from any regulation because of its inherent value. I don't want to get into a discussion about nuclear energy either, just to make the point that, like with violent media, claims about its dangers are grossly exaggerated. Except you can actually kill someone with fission, of course, which is why it's regulated and video games aren't.

Cripes it only lets me embed one video. Well, all of Nick Cross' shorts are gold.

Cool, let me know when the ticker goes from 0 to 1. I'm not about to soap box for nuclear energy, but it's demonstrably safer from a global environmental standpoint than fossil fuel energy, is plentiful, renewable, and cheap, as well as being enormously accountable to public scruitiny. A natural disaster kills 15,000, and the headline is that people might develop cancer someday. Meanwhile, coal power dumps tons of heavy metals and toxic chemicals right into sensitive environments, incidentally releasing more radiation into the environment than nuclear energy plants, on a regular basis (the mining is a different issue, but right now there's no Uranium mining going on in the US. We import it all from countries without very good safety codes, which is the very thing that makes our nuclear power industry a safer business to work in than real estate). We blame safety concerns on the power source itself, not even considering that we're still using plans created in the 70s designed for submarines. I'm all for better wind and solar power of course, I'm thrilled that technology, which can be easily and safely implemented by the clumsiest amateur, is catching on and works so well. It doesn't really do the world any favors to be scared of nuclear energy though. So, like video games, I would rather we trend towards better alternatives and more diversity, but that's not a reason to falsely accuse what exists of being more dangerous than it is.

Interestingly, neither have. There were a couple big scares, but so far I think the USSR is the only place ever to manage to kill someone with a nuclear power plant.

Toon Boom is Flash-based. I tried a demo of flash recently and it seemed much less animation-oriented than when I first tries it some eight years ago or so, but it might just be Adobe focusing more of the dev side.

I'll go ahead and finish this, I don't have very strong thoughts for these two episodes. Episode 4 (written by Gary Whitta) Episode 5 (written by Sean Vanaman) I stopped feeling strongly about the quality after episode 2. Everything I think comes together well, I liked it a lot, but once it found its legs there's not really that much to critique, broadly speaking. I mean, I had a great time talking with my friends about our experiences and choices, explaining what we did and why. I think it's all really strong. So really I guess my 3-5 analysis is just for completeness' sake.

I was in the shower thinking about this, and I thought I'd give some points on what I liked and disliked about each episode: Episode 1 (written by Sean Vanaman) Episode 2 (written by Mark Darin) Episode 3 (written by Sean Vanaman) I'll finish this later.

The trailer for the Lume sequel was just released (apparently I can't embed Vimeo?)Personally, I was extremely underwhelmed with Lume, mostly because it was so short but also because some of the puzzles felt obtuse and there were straight-up too few of them. I didn't feel like there was really a fun overall arc, I don't really remember having any big "ah-ha!" moments so much as a few underwhelming "I guess I'm supposed to do this". Also the plot had a similar tone and preachiness to the scene in Ponyo when Sosuke takes Ponyo home and shows her how self-sufficient they are. But the visual aesthetic is so charming and relaxing that I'm still willing to give the sequel a shot. I'm intrigued by the concept of trailers in general. In film, sometimes trailers are just gorgeous masterpieces by themselves, like for Where the Wild Things Are, but they don't necessarily tell you much about what the movie is really going to be (although I find more often than not that if the trailer really captures my eye, I end up loving the film). One trailer I saw that actually did a superb job was for The Devil Wears Prada. Instead of a mashup collage of highlight scenes, the trailer was just three-to-five minutes lifted straight from the film, the scene where Anne Hathaway's character first goes into the Runway office. You meet all of the principle characters, in proper context, you get to know the protagonist, how she feels about fashion, what kind of person she is, what kind of people she's up against, and you get an idea of what the plot is going to be. And again, it's about four minutes lifted straight from the film, so you're actually experience, for a short moment, what it feels like to actually watch the movie. I think demos can be really good at this. Chris mentioned how much he liked the demo for Offspring Fling!, which is really just the tutorial. But it's a good tutorial; there's no hand-holding, you actually solve some puzzles, you learn almost all the mechanics, and get an idea of what you're going to be playing. There's not really a perfect formula. Sometimes the best way to communicate what makes your game special is with a trailer that highlights what kind of tone and atmosphere you'll have (Sword & Sworcery). Or maybe build some sort of broader context around the game ( ). I dunno. There's good trailers. Good demos. Video games. They're cool.

But thankfully the skills and technologies are transferable. So many people know Actionscript and there's so many great libraries that you can even compile it for iOS. Adobe Air seems Adobe's reaction to the decline of web Flash, and it's a pretty successful product fwiw.

I'm glad that you're a big enough man not to be offended by me enjoying a video game (seriously?)

I liked the episodes they didn't do still. I did feel a little unsatisfied that I didn't know much about the people who were making the creative decisions and their thought process, but they were good. I'm less convinced I would have loved it more it it was more homogenous.

FYI if Jake makes an Ed Wynn Puffin announcer for Dota 2 and submits it to the workshop I will rate it 5 stars and buy it.

I dunno, I keep ending up with games on Steam made in flash. Really excellent ones, too.

Well this is interesting: On the one hand, it's effectively a valid form of free speech and technically within the law. As Banksy paraphrased, “art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Well, clearly he did that. On the other hand, it's arguably terrorism. The man walked into a crowded grocery store with a deadly weapon clearly displayed to assert his political supremacy. Plus, he got away with an intentional disturbance of the peace because it was a politically sensitive case. People have been charged and fined for far, far more innocuous and valid protests. So anyway, in conclusion, it's shitty.

This is actually the first, and only, game I ever played on a Playstation console. Really great experience, unfortunately I don't own this game so I can't really join in the discussion that much. I love the fur. Shell-textured fur is the best. I guess people still use that technique but I haven't seen it since Star Fox Adventures.

If possible, I like to have two books to read, but when I do that I'll have distinct places to read each of them. Like for one I'll take baths every day and read it in the tub, and the other I'll read over lunch. Sometimes, especially on vacation, I'll dedicate the whole time to reading one book whenever I have the chance (Dune was that book for me one week, the Foundation Trilogy another time), or if I'm going to be travelling I'll find something appropriate to read on the long trips (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was a big one for me when I used to travel the bus between home and Louisiana a lot). I guess it depends on how my time is divided--am I living in a cyclical routine, or through a particular event in my life? Day-to-day I might just want to keep my mind active with different thoughts and material, but when it comes to a cohesive event I think it's valuable and even kind of romantic to have a single defining theme throughout.

Huh, my impression when I was tinkering with Flixel was that Flash was doing just fine. I got the impression that I was able to potentially compile my Actionscript libraries as an iOS or Android app if I just shelled out for a Dev kit. I guess that's not really Flash itself, but the fact it was so easy and there were so many up-to-date resources made me think that it was doing okay. I don't know much about the dev side of things--I've only briefly fiddled with Flixel, O.H.R.RPG.C.E. (good times, good times), GameMaker, AGS, Blender Game Engine, Unity, Source... Well, I've basically just touched them barely enough to know that I didn't really know what I wanted to do with them (except Flixel, really, but I got trapped in writing such terrible code that I couldn't read it anymore. I'll give it another shot someday). There's a few licenses that are ostensibly part of the OS movement, but technically releasing your source doesn't mean that your license has to make it free. I remember hearing Lightworks was planning on releasing its source without actually giving it a free license, which makes sense in the enormously IP-heavy film industry. As far as I heard that never actually happened though.

I don't know where it's going, but I'm enjoying the characters, style, and setting in Nimona so far. I feel like a lot of people are doing quirky pseudo-medieval fantasy comics lately, such as the completely unresolved Witch and Knight. Then again that's all I can think of so maybe I'm totally wrong.

I was amused with some of the observational dialogue in those scenes. "So that's what they did with the Sam and Max writers!"

I thought I remembered Jake saying the character summary explained that Fitzgerald had met Rothstein. I might just be mistake .