The Clockwork Mansion

Here are links to my Swords of Sorrow playlists:
Castlevania Swords of Sorrow (CV SoS) (http://www.youtube.com/user/CastlePokemetroid?feature=mhw4#g/c/1B9F4044BE4957B7)
Final Fantasy Swords of Sorrow (FF SoS) (http://www.youtube.com/user/CastlePokemetroid?feature=mhw4#g/c/BCD78648BF6B8541)

Castlevania SoS and Final Fantasy SoS are seperate series.

My series starts at zero, not one, and despite being seperate series, they share episode numbers.

So far, CV SoS is numbers 0-5, 9-10.

FF SoS takes place 6-8.

I also enjoy feed back and comments, either it be hate or love.



Edit:

This is a character list for my own use. Ignore it.

Kefka (Shows up Ep 6,7, 12?): Tezkat

Golbez (Shows Ep6,7, 12?): Basilisk2150

Kaiser Dragon (Shows Ep6,7, 13?): Tezkat

The other six or seven dragons: Lysander, Tezkat
There are no openings for elemental dragons.
(Storm drag: Ep6)
(Mist drag: Ep7)
(Frost drag: Ep6, returns ep12 or 13)

Leo (Shows ep6 only): GabrielsThoughts

Edgar (Shows ep6,7, 9 ): GabrielsThoughts

Sabin (Shows ep6,7, 9 ): Tezkat

Cid (Shows ep7 ): Non voiced.

Terra (Shows ep7 ): Lena

Gestahl (Shows ep8 ): ChaosMageX

Cristopher (Shows ep 8 ): ChaosMageX

Celes: Wuffnpuff

Guy doing episode Courtbattle episode: GabrielsThoughts??? Who the frig knows!?


Edit2:

Wow, this list is helpful at certain times.

Edit3:

Eh, I'm not using this list as much anymore.

Edit4:

Will I ever use this list again?

Edit5:

Uh, no. Highly doubt I'll be using it again.

1) it's "nonetheless".
2) you posted in the wrong place.

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on July 23, 2008, 06:12:02 AM
1) it's "nonetheless".
2) you posted in the wrong place.

Right. To be honest, I had no idea were such a thing would belong.

Heh. Tower of Art, because it's art.

You could always ask, too. ;-]

Maybe I should make it some sort of "note to self". Ask the box were things go before posting a topic.

To be honest, I didn't think of it as art. Even though it's made with only paint and windows movie maker.

I really need to learn what flash is, unfortunately.

I am seriously now thinking no one at all cares about this project. No matter were I go, there's no one to even merely comment on this.

Is a time killer, though.

I did watch it, all three episodes. I did like the Samus' parts and the Lan/Mega Man convo about jacking in was kinda funny, but otherwise, I was somewhat lost in the story and have no idea how those scenes are intertwined. Writing wise, there were a number of spelling and grammatical errors.

Don't get me wrong, you had some funny parts, but I think you need to have someone proof over your work.

No one ever wants to help. I write a script and everything, but there's just no one at all to look it over. I'm just all by myself, which can also explain the horrid animation.

The first two episode screwed everything up. I'll be spending the next several episodes tying things up. Those two episodes were just too random for their own good.

You won't believe just how much I hate the pikachu charater. But I hated pidgey even more, and actually killed it in episode three.

I never forgot about a single charater mentioned yet. Even those guys in the backgound in the game corner scenes make a return in that shop scene. Only death is made into merely a reference, though.

But really, every joke in here, I had to rack my brain upside down to make. Plus, on top of that, I have to make every single little frame in the entire thing with only paint. Yes, I am damn serious. The only used programs are paint and windows movie maker. Every movement scene I have to place the charaters one by one, frame by frame.

The pidgey vs pikachu battle in episode two was pretty impressive with only paint, though.

I was bloody surprized when this vid came out to over nine mins, though.

Sorry, but I just plain like complaining.

I'll make another episode sooner or later, just expect reused backgrounds. You can say that my stock is used up.

Yeah. For those who don't know the series, it'll make more sense to go back watch the other episodes.

Here's episode 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZibWzpwJOpM

Comments most appreciated

Alright, I'm nearly finished with a new Swords of Sorrow episode, and I want to have voice acting in it.

So far, I've done as many voices myself as I can, but there are several charaters with no voice yet.

They are:

Kefka: An insane person with great powers. He also is supposed to have a twisted voice as well.

Golbez: Just an overpowered knight. You need to sound manly to voice him. Dosen't matter if I don't find a voice for this guy. He has only one single line in this episode.

Kaiser Dragon: He's a bloody dragon. This certain dragon I would rather to sound scary.

The other six or seven dragons: I really don't care how these guys sound. I'll take anyone looking for a temporary part, they die kinda quick. In this episode there are two elemental dragons.

Leo: A charater that's not very important. Would be nice for him to have a voice, but it's not needed.

Edgar: Important charater. I would much prefer to have a voice actor for him.

Sabin: Same as Edgar. Edgar and Sabin are both male charaters.

Kefka, Golbez, Kaiser Dragon, Edgar, and Sabin are all charaters who will show up in the next episode.

I asked my pen pal if she could do the female charaters, but I haven't got a reply back yet in over a month (Which is very strange for her). I'll post here if she can't do them.

Anyways, all I am asking for is assistance. It's not a hard job at all. The only thing you need to do is record a small voice clip (not many charaters have many lines). I'm not asking for very hard and long projects like drawings or animation help, I'm just asking for your voice, which is not hard at all.

If you can't help, I understand.

But if you can help, I'll PM you with the lines. You can choose to have only the charater's lines, or to have the whole section(s) with the charater's parts.

I'll also be sure give you full credit in the credits. You can also have a full five second scene in the credits of your own, if you want.

If no one helps, I'll be a very sad puppy (Or maybe a very sad Castle, which is strange, unless you're a living castle . . . hmm)




Edit:

A list of taken and avalible charaters:

Kefka (Shows up Ep 6,7): Tezkat

Golbez (Shows Ep6,7): Basilisk2150

Kaiser Dragon (Shows Ep6,7): Tezkat

The other six or seven dragons: Lysander, Tezkat
There are no openings for elemental dragons.
(Storm drag: Ep6)
(Mist drag: Ep7)
(Frost drag: Ep6, returns ep11 or 12)

Leo (Shows ep6): GabrielsThoughts

Edgar (Shows ep6,7): GabrielsThoughts

Sabin (Shows ep6,7): Tezkat

Cid (Shows ep7): Non voiced.

Terra (Shows ep7): Lena

Gestahl (Shows ep7): ChaosMageX

Cristopher (Shows ep 7): ChaosMageX

Random Soilder: Closed

Generic Man (Shows ep 7): Not Open?

Mog: Closed

Celes: Wuffnpuff

You can also take multiple charaters, but if two or more people want the same charater, I'll take both recordings of the people who signed up and use whatever I think is the best one.

i've got a deeper voice, but if you want some samples i can do some stuff tomorrow... not much going on, and most everyone i know has work *shrugs* ... but yea... i'll help out with what i can

I voice Merlitz and Dark Pegasus in the DMFA Radio Project.  If you need that kind of voice, let me know and I should be able to help you out.

I also played Dan in this experimental clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq5LIb9TUws

I don't have a very deep voice, I'll help any way I can. I can help immediately if you PM with the details

Depending on your production timeframe, I might be able to help out as well. I voice a dozen or so of the characters in the DMFA Radio Project, in case you follow that. I'm usually pretty good at pulling off the deeper and more villainous voices. >:]

I has a midrange/high voice, male. I voice Biggs in the DMFA radio project, if you want an example.

I could be tempted to join in on something like this...just have to see if I have my microphone. Heheh, I can probably do one of the dragons...

If I can get lucky and find said device, I can try and arrange to give yah a few voice samples. No promises, but I will vouch interest.

I think I'll repost the charater names, and instead of posting how long they'll show up in the series, I'll post how they sound, and everyone will sign up for which charater they think their voice might most sound like. (I'm actually not too picky, as long as the age and gender match, I wouldn't really care what it sounds like)

Also, there are some new charaters, since I have just finished the script for the next episode.

Kefka: Male charater. You need to sound twisted or insane. Which, as we know, there are not many sane people when it comes to furries, which has been proven by DMFA. Kefka's not a furry himself, though. He is evil.

Golbez: Any guy with a deep voice can do Golbez. Also remember that this guy is one of the three main villans, and I'll be depending on who ever voices this guy.

Kaiser Dragon: Male charater. I'd rather have someone who can sound evil, or reptillain. Some special effects, if you can. Echo effect might work.

The other six or seven dragons: I really don't care how these guys sound. I'll take anyone looking for a temporary part, they die kinda quick. Girls can do these parts as well. I don't even care if a small child dose these parts.

There are three openings for elemental dragons.

Leo: Male. Very temperary part. As long as you sound like someone above the age of twenty, it dosen't matter.

Edgar: Male. As long as you can switch your voice from intensly angry to a more happy voice, it won't matter too much. This guy also hits on almost every girl he sees. Get ready to do those parts as well. He won't meet up with a girl until the third episode, though.

Sabin: Male. He's a buff and muscular charater, but he's also the twin to Edgar.

Cid: A guy in his fourties.

Terra: A very confused and depressed female.

Gestahl: He is king. You need to sound very royal.

Cristopher: Male. A teen can do his voice. He says "boss man" a lot.

Mog: I'm not entirely sure if I want a voice for him. He's a small monster. I don't think any voice would sound right to me. I'd need a sample even before you sign up.

I'm still waiting on my pen pal for Celes.

Just post a message saying which charater you'd like to voice and I'll update the first post with charaters that are taken and parts that are not. I will then PM you with your lines.

This will make it much easier for me. It'll also be much more organized.

Edgar sounds like an interesting choice... I'll probably  try out for Leo also.

Where's the script?

I'd be happy to try out for a random elemental dragon, but it's my first time attempting something like this so I don't know how it will turn out.   :januscat

Kefka: Male charater. You need to sound twisted or insane. Which, as we know, there are not many sane people when it comes to furries, which has been proven by DMFA. Kefka's not a furry himself, though. He is evil.

Golbez: Any guy with a deep voice can do Golbez. Also remember that this guy is one of the three main villans, and I'll be depending on who ever voices this guy.


i'd god for either of them... as i can do insane quite well... along with deep... actually, i can do deep and insane at the same time... so, just let me know if you've got a preference.

I hate to say it, but it looks like I have to yield. A whole day of looking and I can't find my equipment....I swear, it's like there's a black hole somewhere in this place. Well, good luck, and hopefully I get to have a listen to that show when yer done.

seriously we need a script if we're to do anything vocally...verbally...audible...immediate

Guess what? My pen pal E mailed. She can do Celes.

Also, the charaters that says "Shows Ep6" are charaters that I need voice actors more badly than the others with only "Shows Ep7".

The only other charater that I need lines for is actually Sabin. The frost dargon dosen't matter. After that, I can finish the episode and upload it to Youtube.

After that, it'll take about four months or longer to animate episode seven, giving plenty of time to get Voices for episode seven charaters.

No script has been made for episode eight, so no need for voice actors for them yet.

Auditions for Kefka and Kaiser Dragon (http://dmfa.tezkat.com/temp/Tezkat%20-%20Swords%20of%20Sorrow%20Audition%20(Kefka,%20Kaiser%20Dragon).mp3).

Yeah, I know the recording sucks. I made these on a crappy phone headset to give you a quick character sampler. The sound quality is not reflective of the more polished recordings I'd produce in my home studio. Speaking of which... my recording time with proper gear is somewhat limited. Depending on your production timeframe, I may not be able to participate at all. I've got a potential recording session slot early next week (say... Tuesday-ish). If you miss that, I probably won't be able to produce anything useful until mid-August. On the other hand, depending on your schedule, I might be able to fill in for a number of extras...

here are Leo, Edgar, some grunts, and maniacal laughter...

http://www.zshare.net/audio/6311229064c2cf9e/

http://www.zshare.net/audio/63112341a39da3e7/

http://www.zshare.net/audio/631123934c0160c0/

http://www.zshare.net/audio/63112441e048ec2b/

http://www.zshare.net/audio/631124898e28d3f3/

Quote from: GabrielsThoughts on July 24, 2009, 04:27:57 PM
here are Leo, Edgar, some grunts, and maniacal laughter...

Now, why in damn hell and all that's good did you voice Celes? The soilders are perfect, absolutly perfect, and Leo is good, even though it dosen't match his age, but that dosen't matter. The guy actually dies in the same episode he shows up in, so I wouldn't care what his voice sounded like.

But Celes, why did you feel that you needed to do her? So what if I gave the whole entire scene? Bah, I'll just use it as a place holder when I get the actual voicing. Might actually save me trouble in the long run.

Your Edgar and Kefka sound exactly the same. Don't worry, your Edgar is a keeper. I'll toss your Kefka voicing, to be honest. Don't want two charaters sounding a like.

But I also can't believe how good the soilders came out. It's really amazing. Maybe you should do all the troops.

Also, Tezkat, I'll PM your lines. Kaiser Drag sounds good, actually. You can get better quality, you say? You just might pull of the Kaiser Dragon.

As for my schedual, there is no absolutes or dealines, meaning that I can delay the project however long I wish. It is a non profit project, so I can release episode whenever I want. Timeframe is no problem. It has actually been six months since I last released an episode. Episode five was marked as being released in November of 2008.


Edit:

Actually, GabrielsThoughts, I didn't listen to the whole thing. I didn't relise that the first one with Leo and the soilders mention barmaids. That was actually some funny stuff.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on July 24, 2009, 05:28:23 PM
Also, Tezkat, I'll PM your lines. Kaiser Drag sounds good, actually. You can get better quality, you say? You just might pull of the Kaiser Dragon.

Will recordings on a studio condenser mic sound better than a cellphone headset? Maaaaybe... :mowtongue

The character voices will sound about the same (unless I change them), but the sound clearer and richer, and it will be free from all those popping/clipping/whatever artifacts.

So... would you like me to record those lines with the same voice(s) I used for the audition? I can make changes if you prefer. (Higher/lower pitched, faster/slower delivery, different accent... I'm pretty flexible.)

Okay, in my own personal opinion, I sound like complete crap, a total freak, even on the highest quality USB microphones.
But who knows, maybe there are people out there who want a freaky sounding voice, so I decided to try auditioning.

If there's one thing (I think) I can do, it's twisted, so here you go, for Kefka, or any other character you feel I'd be good for:

http://www.savefile.com/files/2164191

Sorry, it's not a direct link because this is what I first came up with when I did a google search for wma hosting.

BTW, Tapewolf, your voice reminds me very much of Ted Lewis, a voice actor from well-known animes, including Yu-Gi-Oh (Bakura) and Pokemon (Giovanni).

Tezkat:
I think they're good as they are. I'm just glad to get voices for them. Maybe an echo effect on Kaiser might help.

ChaosMage:
Could you do Gestahl or Cristopher? I already have two Kefkas. It's a bit unnessesary.

Your regular voice might be good for Chris, but there was much cracking sounds in your recording.

For Gestahl, you'll need to do something extra, though. I wouldn't know how exactly royality might sound.

Sure, I guess I can do those characters.

Heck, maybe I could see if my brother would be willing audition as well, since he shares a name with one of the characters.

The only problem is the quality of my microphones.  The recording you heard was done through the inferior headset microphone of one of my dorm neighbors.

It'll be another two weeks until I have access to my good microphones again, and even those may not be the best, but I'll see what I can do.  One USB and one line-in, that's about all I have (and maybe my brother's USB one if he lets me borrow it).

Also, I hate to sound cliche, but when you send me my lines, don't forget to give me my motivation. ;-)

EDIT: And for Gestahl, if by royal sounding, you mean haughty, I think I might be able to pull that off.  But I need to know if it's royal as in regal and to be respected, or royal as in an annoying, self-absorbed pain in the butt.
I'll try making more recordings with my other microphones of my regular voice and my best haughty voice with each one and you can be the judge if they're of good enough quality to be attached to your characters.

Two weeks? No problem. The episode they'll show up in will take a good four months to finish. There's no rush.

Also, for Gestahl, he's a king trying to take over the world. No idea how that kind of king would sound.

Chris can just be your regular voice, but yet he dose die quite quickly. Hell, probably all my charaters die quickly. The main charater (Locke) might only last for six or seven episodes.

Anyways, I'll send the lines for those charaters once I'm 100% sure the script is finished.

Alright, waiting on Basilisk2150 and Tezkat. Basilisk2150 actually probably was the first one I gave lines to, but I still never recived anything from him.

Golbez, Kefka, and Kaiser drag show up in episode six. Lines for episode seven can be put off for later.

But yet, as I said before, the episode can hold, but getting the lines now would be much appreciated. There's only four days left in summer break, after all.

sorry about not responding, i keep getting a noise in the background i can't trace... for now though, is there a preferred format you want me to send in... or... just go with MP3 and you'll work with what you get?

With the whole buzz thing, it seems that music actually has a good chance to drown it out. Only if the buzz is very loud and strong dose it seem very noticable.

Also, school starts the day after tommorow, and tomorrow is a day were I'll have no time to work on the project. With school now going to be in, I'll have less time to work on my project, which maybe indeed better for you, as you get more time for those voices.

As another note, part two of episode six is completely finished and part one of episode seven is near completion. Episode seven is rolling along more smoothly as expected. I just may release Ep 6 and 7 at the same time.

Also, I wish to know, should I make episode eight entirely of voice and less of animation? If I did, it would take only a short while to finish it, but there will be no words to follow. My episodes are mostly text, anyways. Not much animation to begin with.

Eh, the words don't matter so much, anyways. As long as you know what they're saying, right?

Yeah, sorry for the delay. I recorded all the episode six lines you sent me. Just need to sort through them... should be up sometime in the next few days.

Quote from: Tezkat on August 03, 2009, 02:15:57 PM

Yeah, sorry for the delay. I recorded all the episode six lines you sent me. Just need to sort through them... should be up sometime in the next few days.

Alright. Fine by me. School starts tomorrow, so I'll be going a bit more slowly on the project, anyways.

Amazingly, episode seven is half way done.

I decided to record some of the episode to cut down production time, and boy did it ever.

I predicted four months of work, but that's been cut to only a fourth of the time.

I expect now that episode seven will be done perhaps a week from now.

I really want to let this topic die.

I wish there was no need to revive it, but I have still not recieved the voices from Tezkat, Basilisk, and ChaosMage.

All the others who have helped with the voices had givin me them only days after I gave them their scripts. And for that, I thank those few.

Tezkat had not been true to his word, it has been more than a few days, Basilisk should stop worring about the buzz, and I don't know what the hell happened to ChaosMage.

Even so much as an update would be nice, guys. Don't leave me hanging, a waiting the day you would return with that I had requested, now.

My word? I don't recall agreeing on a delivery date. There's no news to report since my last update. I recorded all four characters for episode six, and now I need a free hour or so to put it all together (assuming that there were no problems with the recording--I haven't actually had the time to listen to it yet).

It turned out that I didn't have a free hour last week. I just got back from a 5-day convention... which is another way of saying that I haven't really slept since Wednesday. I had hoped to have my stuff finished before leaving, but I'm afraid it was not to be.

Honestly, I have only a few sessions per month to dedicate to freebie voiceover work. When I sign up for an amateur project, it means that you go into the queue with my other commitments, and you get some quality voice acting from me every month or two. Since I had asked explicitly about this subject when signing up, I'd assumed you were cool with that. If circumstances have changed, and you now require more timely delivery, I'll have to bow out of the project. I can't meet tighter deadlines working for free.

Sorry about that last message, I wasn't feeling so well. I didn't mean to type out the message on how it sounded.

School is in session, and is taking up quite a bit of time. I wouldn't be able to add the voices unless I have quite a bit of free time.

If you're able to get it within a month from now, it wouldn't kill me.

I might even take a bit of a break from the project in that time as well. School's more important, anyways.

Damn straight, episode finished.

Now I finally can take that one month break in peace.

Time to do a little catching up on Crono Trigger.

Lines are also indeed expected by that time as well, or I will have excuse to blow up.

Priortise episode six over episode seven. I don't like releasing an episode after another in less than a month's time, so you have TWO months for episode seven.

But episode six lines is indeed demanded within a month's time. I'll give you til the 30th of next month.

If you can't do it in that amount of time, you'll be breaking an arm, Tezkat. As stated before, my project can be delayed as long as nessesary, but that dosen't mean it won't hurt. Another month after five weeks seems like a bit much, and I hope you'll be able to finish in those five weeks time.

Episode six as a whole will be relying on voice acting. Without it, the episode will be nothing but terible animation and poor script. Something like some of the latest DS games coming out.

(I hope I don't get in trouble for posting in a topic older than 14 days, since this is the art forum.  If this is still a violation of the rules, I will delete this post (if it is within my power to do so) as soon as possible.)
The main reason I am making this post is that I am never sure if my PMs get through, since my Outbox remains empty no matter how many I send, and I am not familiar with SMF.

I have done my part and made recordings for the characters I was assigned to.  My brother, Gosnotsky (as he is known in Battlefield 2142), even contributed his voice.

The reason it took me so long was because life got in the way in one form or another, from my intense college studies to the inverter on my laptop's screen breaking and requiring me to buy a new one online, along with several other component upgrades.

Still, I managed to get it done before your deadline of the end of this month, so here is a link to a file containing all my raw, unedited voice recordings:

http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/61658/Chapter07_ChaosMageX.rar

Also, here are some notes on the recordings:
--The recordings were made using Audacity 1.3.9, and you can just google it to get it yourself if you don't have it already.

--The recordings are raw and unedited, as I'm leaving that up to you to do.  You'll have to dice up the sound files anyway to mix them with your other actors' recordings, so I might as well just send you the Audacity project file and data.

--All the recording data has been compressed into a .RAR archive file, which can be opened with WinRAR (just google it if you don't have it, as it's also a free program).

--The recordings were done with a Logitech USB microphone, except for my brother's recordings, which were done with his own Plantronics USB microphone.

--The recordings were done within a walk-in closet in my house with the computer in a separate room.  The clothes and door did an excellent job of eliminating almost all echo and blocking all sounds from the outside world.  Hopefully that will help with your project.

--I included an initial test recording of all the voices I could think of doing at the moment to see how distinct they were from each other when recorded, which helped in choosing the voice for each character.

--I tried recording all the voices at once in the order that they appeared in the lines you gave me, but it proved too difficult to avoid taking long pauses or tripping over my own tongue when switching between characters.

--The rest of the recordings are of each character done seperately, in the order in which they first appear in the lines you gave me.  All of their lines are repeated several times for cover-up, some slightly different from others, so you can pick the ones that you think sound best and splice them together with your other recordings.  There is at a one second pause between each line, so hopefully it will be easy enough to splice up the lines however you see fit.

About the characters' voices:

It was a little difficult for me to really 'get into' the characters, since I have no idea what they look like or what's going on around them when they're talking, or what the other characters you didn't give me are saying to them.
Don't be surprised if the recordings don't sound exactly the way you want them to sound, as all I had to go by was the vague descriptions of their motivations that you gave me.

Gestahl: I'm going to be frank.  I don't think I can provide the voice that you're looking for this character.  I couldn't create anything that sounded much different from my regular voice.
Instead, I had my brother, Gosnotsky do the recording instead.  If his voice does not sound right to you, then I can try my best to do the recording myself, but I won't make any promises about the quality.
Also, my brother used his own, separate microphone to do the recording of his voice, and this is his regular voice.

Red Wing Soldier: This was done in my drawling red-neck voice, as it seemed to suit him and it sounded distinct from my other voices.

Cid: Like I said before, I can't really do creaky old man voices.  With Cid, I was going for something along the lines of the fat high eunuch from Code Geass.  If he doesn't sound the way you want him to, then I don't know what to tell you.  I tried to give him a distinct laugh and added some para-language at the end of the last line for when he's getting knocked out by Baigan.  You can always cut that out if it wasn't necessary.

Christopher: As promised, I did this one in my normal, regular voice, which left me free to try a little harder to get into his character instead of concentrating on making a distinct voice that sounded like it was coming from the same person for each line.  I added some evil laughs at the end of the last line, but you can cut those out if you choose.

Airship Mechanic: I tried to do a nasily voice here, but it was a bit hard to do both the stuttering and make sure that it didn't just sound like Christopher with a cold.  I tried my best to mimic the stuttering you put into the lines, but I also did a lot of improvising as well, adding whimpering and extra lines, and some gagging noises for when he's being killed (even though I have no idea how Bastian is killing him).  All his lines by themselves with no improve can be found somewhere within the long recording, and if not, please let me know and I will try to re-record them exactly as you typed them.

If any of the voices are not to your liking, please let me know what I did wrong and give me suggestions of what you want them to sound like, and I will try to re-record them according to those suggestions.

I now wait to receive feedback from you on how I did.  I want to know if the voices I chose for each character really do sound distinct from one another.

--ChaosMageX

Quote from: ChaosMageX on September 25, 2009, 11:27:40 PM
(I hope I don't get in trouble for posting in a topic older than 14 days, since this is the art forum.  If this is still a violation of the rules, I will delete this post (if it is within my power to do so) as soon as possible.)
The main reason I am making this post is that I am never sure if my PMs get through, since my Outbox remains empty no matter how many I send, and I am not familiar with SMF.

1) Normally, yes, you would get growled at. However, since you were so polite as to explain why, we'll explain our side, and that way it won't happen again. ;-]
2) Under the Tower of Art rules, if it's your thread, you can post in it after the usual month. This is a bit of an oddball thread, though, so we'll give you a bye and let it go.
3) No, you can't delete your posts. We can, but the Administration decided there was too much risk of morons posting, trolling, getting a massive response, then deleting their post out of the thread and pointing the finger at the other person/people, claiming innocence. Whilst this sort of person is in the minority, it was felt that the risk was easy enough to contain, and hence... It's worked for us, so far. Note that I'm not saying _you_ are such a person, here. I'm merely explaining why we don't let users delete their posts.
4) Your PM will always get through. Instantly. the forum manages that. What it doesn't do is ensure that the other person has actually read the PM. You can check when they've logged in, though, and they might have PMs set to email them, in which case they'll get the content of the PM via email as well. Pretty much, if they've logged into the forum since you sent your PM, they've probably read it. No guarantees, though.

Any other questions? ;-]

Uh, yeah. I have a question. Is the topic creator able to have a reservation, so that the topic can be updated by anyone who is involved in the project?

I can't recall if the rules say anothing about it, but even so, even during the absence of updates, this project and thread will still be of use, until episodes six and seven are finished and posted.

When that dose happen, this thread will be of no use, as the project will continue through PMs.

You could always ask. We're reasonably reasonable people.

Okay, I have saved the separate tracks of the Audacity project file into separate WAV files, which you have stated that you are able to open and modify.

It turns out that Gmail does have a 25 MB attachment limit, so I turned back to the file hosting website that I used the last time.  Here is the link to the RAR file containing the WAV files of my voice recordings and my brother's voice recordings:

http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/61891/Episode07_CMX_and_Gos_Voices.rar

I hope that you are able to extract the WAV files and successfully listen to them this time.  If any of the recordings don't sound right to you, please let me know with suggestions on how they're supposed to sound and I will try to re-record them as soon as I am able to do so.

I still don't have any girls who are willing to help with this project. Those who I have asked were unable to help me.

I have everything except for those few voices.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on October 02, 2009, 10:56:09 PM
I still don't have any girls who are willing to help with this project. Those who I have asked were unable to help me.

I know the feeling.  I ended up having to have a lot of VAs do double-duty for that reason.
Have you tried asking Lena or Wuffnpuff if they're interested?

I'd do it if I could record sound properly. :( I don't know what's wrong with my computer.

Quote from: Gabi on October 03, 2009, 11:24:21 AM
I'd do it if I could record sound properly. :( I don't know what's wrong with my computer.

Don't worry, Gabi. It's not your fault.

And I guess I will ask those two if they can help. Thanks for the tip, Tapewolf.

Oh howdy thar ^^; I could lend my voice and hopefully do a good job of it. Just let me know what you need.

Hey there - just got your PM, if you still need females I could help out too. Just send me what you want voiced. If you want to know what I sound like, listen to Kria in the Radio Project - that's my normal speaking voice.  :)

Ah, most exalent.

Lines will be now sent.

Episode six is finished. It will be uploaded soon.

Part one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ajw3YwxQDE

Part two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So5OqMLMnSU

Comment, and what not.

I do know that a few songs don't really have good quality. I don't have anything else than that, though.

Heh... is it just me, or did my Kefka wind up sounding a bit more like an evil Jyrras than the Heath Ledger style Joker I was going for? :animesweat

It's cool to see projects like this finally come together. :mowcookie

One criticism, if I may... A lot of the dialogue is nearly unintelligible and drowned out by the music. It would have helped to soften the BGMs a bit and maybe run the vocals through compression to make them stand out more.

Quote from: Tezkat on October 11, 2009, 01:39:03 PM

Heh... is it just me, or did my Kefka wind up sounding a bit more like an evil Jyrras than the Heath Ledger style Joker I was going for? :animesweat

It's cool to see projects like this finally come together. :mowcookie

One criticism, if I may... A lot of the dialogue is nearly unintelligible and drowned out by the music. It would have helped to soften the BGMs a bit and maybe run the vocals through compression to make them stand out more.

I did edit the volume of the music. Perhaps not enough?

For King Baron, I killed the music completely. NOTHING I did could make you easily understand that one part, so I just cut the music from that part. I still can't tell what he's saying.

I also don't know very much in the arts of editing vocals. Is there a special program for it?

I see. It was probably too much to hope that this project would get anymore attention than the last one.

Months, and hundreds of hours invested into something so worthless as this. Why dose it seem I waste my life so? I reedit the series to gain plot, to gain something of value, but yet it's for naught.

Paint is worthless, it seems. In a realm of sprite animation, fast pact movement and characters beating the hell out of each other is deemed king it seems.

The first few days should be the days with the more attention, but yet for my series, it seems to be quite the inverse.

After the Castlevania Swords of Sorrow seies has gotton it's last episode, and has died, that will be it. No more videos. I should move on to a media that I can actually use.

A year from now, I'll stop wasting hundreds of hours of my life on animation. If I were to make regular sprite comics, I could finish entire story arcs in that time.

Five more episode. Only five, until no more.

Good gravy... pull yourself together.

I can appreciate that what you're doing is time intensive. I can appreciate that what you're doing is a lot of work. You need to do better work, not more work, and you need to ask yourself how to make it better, not rely on other people.

You've recycled art and plot from existing games. Your animation, voice acting, and writing are mediocre at best. You're complaining that nobody's saying anything. There's not much to say.

If you want comments, you'll need to do something original or do it well (or both... but that's really really hard). Beat-em'-up sprite animations are pretty damn unoriginal, but the popular ones are only popular because at least they're well animated. Conversely, even an original, or at least clever, idea will be interesting even if it's poorly animated or whatnot.

You might want to do smaller and more regular updates. That way, you can get feedback more frequently. Plus, you might not get so overwhelmed at the scale of the project. Either break the story into shorter chapters, or do shorter stories. Regular updates get more comments too. Most importantly, focus on the quality. Give them something to talk about, and they will.

Oh boy... :dface

The key to surviving as an artist: Do it for yourself. If other people happen to like it too, then that's just a bonus.
:kittycool

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on October 12, 2009, 03:52:51 PM
I did edit the volume of the music. Perhaps not enough?

For King Baron, I killed the music completely. NOTHING I did could make you easily understand that one part, so I just cut the music from that part. I still can't tell what he's saying.

I also don't know very much in the arts of editing vocals. Is there a special program for it?

What have you been using so far?

The most popular free multitrack sound editor is Audacity (http://audacity.sf.net). The beta release (1.3.x) is quite functional. It also supports VST plugins, which gives you access to an enormous effects library, much of which is free on the web.

I also use Adobe Audition (albeit an older version). It's significantly more powerful in several respects (realtime effects rack, much better syncing to live recordings, better plugins--especially for noise reduction, etc.). It's also a lot more expensive. And no longer bundled with Adobe's production suites.  :<


Sound engineering is a skill like any other. It takes some practice to master.

Start by learning the tools. For instance, you want Kaiser Dragon to have a towering presence. So, you might start by compressing the dynamic range of the vocals. That increases perceptual loudness, so they'll stand out more over the background. You could optionally fiddle with the EQ a bit to, say, emphasize the rumbley base tones. Next, you could add reverb sized for a large hall or cavern to give the impression of space--a big guy in a big lair. Finally, soften the music a little until it supports the monologue without overpowering it.

Quote from: WhiteFox on October 16, 2009, 08:44:30 PM
I can appreciate that what you're doing is time intensive. I can appreciate that what you're doing is a lot of work. You need to do better work, not more work, and you need to ask yourself how to make it better, not rely on other people.

You've recycled art and plot from existing games. Your animation, voice acting, and writing are mediocre at best. You're complaining that nobody's saying anything. There's not much to say.

Er... other people contributed to this work too, you know. And everyone can use constructive criticism... :B

Animation? Better? Well, Damn, don't you know that those other people use F---ing flash?

Flash is an animation program. I make things frame by frame by frame by frame by frame by frame by frame by frame by frame by frame by frame by frame by frame, and so on.

One minute of video is nearly two hundred frames, which is four hours of work. I put time and detication into my work, but yet it still comes out to grabage. I made this FF series to cut down frame rate to make it more easier to make. But easier is never better.

And really. I do it for myself. I honestly do, no matter what other may think. Why else have I been doing this for three years? Three years of my life, but I still keep going, and I will continue going for another two years after this, no matter what others may say. It took me three years to get to episode six, and it'll take me another some years to get to episode twelve, were it'll all end.

But really, I can't fix the better animation stuff. I use MS paint. Nothing more, nothing less. With the more frequent update idea, it is paint. Paint. I don't think you relise how many months it takes just to get three minutes.

With the art and sprite stuff, I don't have any sprite building skill. None. I can't make my own. With the plot thing, it may seem to be an exact copy, but that's because the characters from the two series haven't interacted with each other yet. It changes after that, but the events are the same. Notice my "Castlevania: Swords of Sorrow" it was completely original, but yet nobody cares either, now do they?

This is good. Let's start a flame war, this whole argument stuff really makes me think about these kind of things. If it's only one mind, less ideas are created. And no matter how many time I tell people this, but the damn offer in f---ing episode one still stands. Give me an idea, and I may use it. It mostly appiles to the CV SoS series, but it still can apply. This project was started as a series written by the people, but nobody gave me ideas, so I made my own. When I make my own ideas, this is what you get. I always consiter ideas and comments, go through them, and calculate several differnet ways to interpret the words, and then put it into the episode. That is what the first series was composed off, but then people stopped giving ideas, so I made episodes 3, 4, and 5 by myself and called them garbage.

I started a new series, one of my complete ideas and this is what happened.

If we can get into an argument, different ideas, and different views will be told, on what is good, and what is bad. Comments are essential, the blood of this kind of series, especially CV SoS. That project lived off of the ideas of OTHERS. Now that I have no one, that series has to end.

But yet, it's not the end yet. The final script for episode 11 has not been written. The script, nor ideas have begun yet. CV SoS is not gone yet, and it's possible to keep going with it. Even so, I doubt it'll work a second time, if the first time failed so hard.

I live to animate crap, not to make plots. Think as you may, that is what it truely is, and that is in my own honest reason why my series is now a complete rip off of Final Fantasy.



Also, Sorry Tezkat, I ignored your post when I made this.

I don't use anything, really. I put emphasis into "Paint only". The only other program is Windows Movie Maker, so that I can turn the images into video.

That'll ALL I really use.

Sad, really. I need a real animation program, not just a make believe one.

I'm not here to flame, and I apologize for being far too blunt.

If you just want to quit, you have my sympathy. Abandoning a project is a hard thing to do.

If you need encouragement, let me say this: If you've put this much work into animations so far, you must be a god-damn-unstoppable machine by now. But you do need to work on improving your abilities, not just putting out the next episode.

I know how hard it is to work hard on a project and not get much response. I went through something like that not too long ago (http://clockworkmansion.com/forum/index.php/topic,4729.msg293667.html#msg293667).

If you'd like, I'd be willing to write a script (I seem to be better at writing then drawing). Before I commit to a long term project, though, I would like to see how things go with a shorter try-out animation. Also, I have a copy of Photoshop CS2, and putting some modified sprites together would not be too hard.

---

(As a note: I do know what Flash is. I have a copy (my mother does graphic design, and I got it from her). I don't really like it that much. I did an animation as a final project in my Introduction to Studio Practice class, using a 3D program for graphics and Flash to animate it (It was pretty crappy, but it saved my grades). Working with keyframes and tweening nearly drove me insane. That was years ago, but yes, I understand how hard animation is.

Actually, for that matter, when I was 12 or so I'd do these 30-second stop-motion animations with Lego and my dad's VHS video camera. I got a Photography badge in Scouts for them. So, yes, I understand how hard frame-by-frame animation can be.)

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on October 18, 2009, 10:57:01 PM
But really, I can't fix the better animation stuff. I use MS paint. Nothing more, nothing less. With the more frequent update idea, it is paint. Paint.

Yes, you can fix it. Stop using MS Paint, and do a bit of looking around. You have a club, you need a scalpel. Finding a better program is work, and learning to use that program is also work. But it's less work in the long run then sticking to the methods you're using now.

Open Canvas ver.1.x is freeware (I've never used it, since i'm on a Mac), and GIMP is open source. Also, Photoshop Elements usually comes bundled with all kinds of things for free (I got a copy with my tablet, and another when I bought a printer. Digital cameras will come with PS:E too). It's limited, but as long as you don't really need fine control over styles, it'll do for all kinds of things. Corel Painter Essentials sells for 100$, and thats a lot more affordable then Photoshop. There are probably other low budged programs too. Sometimes you can find older versions of high end software on E-Bay, and developers will sell student-priced versions for a discount.

A graphic program that supports layers would be much more suitable for making animations then Paint. You could:
-Have each element on a separate layer.
-Move the elements a few pixels at a time with a move tool.
-Save As for each frame.
You could probably get a frame ever couple of seconds this way.

Of course, I would not be so indecent as to suggest finding a downloadable crack of Flash, Director, or Photoshop. That would be illegal, and I would never suggest such a thing in public. Even if you were to acquire a copy of Flash, you'd have to learn how to use it.

Hey, great news. While my sister was searching for random junk on the internet, she found a program called Paint.NET.

It's something like photoshop, with the blurs and layers. Yes, that's right, F---ing layers! This is amazing! Layers will make things so much easier, since I won't be starting at scratch for each and every single frame I do.

I'm so stoked!

I know all about layers. I know photoshop forward, backward, and know tips and tricks enough to manipulate it to do whatever I need. The problem here, is that I don't have photoshop.

However, flash, on the other hand, I know nothing about. All I know it it's some advanced animation program. Not much else I can tell you about it. If I did ever get it, I wouldn't be able to do anything with it.

With the whole script thing, would you suggest that I post new scripts and ask junk about them before I actually animate? Not only would that give me ideas, let people see it before it gets released, show people for grammer and perhaps spell check, but it also would be a way for everyone involved with the voice acting to see their lines there, and also it would be a way for them to see how their character interacts with the other characters.

It seems like quite a good idea to do, now that I think about it. Episode seven animation is already completely finished, so nothing I can do about that. Episode eight will be the last script I won't publicly show. Episode nine will be the first one I post then. I'll post it up when the time comes.

This is why I like arguments and collaberations. You're not the only mind at work this way, and you get to see different options and opinions. I'm a person more narrow minded, so coming up with even the most obvious stuff can prove to be somewhat difficult. However, if you're not the only mind at work, the possibilites have the potential to become limitless.

Keep coming with the tips and ideas. Even if it's only one person, it's enough for me to keep going.

Part one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5oyjmqC9Ko

Part two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8uFzCbUwKo

Part one has killed quality. Even the voices became descynced. I can't spell, so I hope you knoow what I've just said.

There was going to be a part three, but I thought it would be better to release it as episode eight.

The actual episode eight will be pushed back. I just can't finish it in less than two months.

I will use part three as something so that I can keep a regular shceduel, or at least as close to one as possible. I also need somebody to spell check whatever I type. I'm good at grammer. If a character speaks with bad grammer, it's because I did it purposely. However, speling is anoher matter.

I think I might create a theme song to play before the start of every episode. The new episode eight will be the first to have this opening thing.

However, I don't know what to put for it. Should it just be a character sideshow with rock music, or should the characters be doing certain things, like, um, I don't know. Maybe thier signature move? They each got one. The spinny sword attack Leo uses to break the magic barreir was one.

Realm gots her paint move, the one she uses to summon the chocobos, and Cecil gots his instant death "Darkness" move, the one he used on the wind dragon.

Maybe I should have anime music?

I really need honest input on this. I think at least one scene of a flying Air Ship is needed.

Maybe I could find someone to draw character portraits, or group shots for me? I doubt I'd find anyone, and the sprites are too simple for anything complex.

Hmm . . .

*merge* *merge* *tidy* Need I say more? ;-]

Whoa, I was tripping out there for a second.

Crazy.

But anyways, I'm going to assume that this gives me a free pass for me or anyone involved with the project to bump it, no matter how old it gets.

I do still wonder how I can use sprites to make an anime like intro for the series. Close ups make them all pixalated. Ah, who cares, anyways. I don't even think anyone even cares anymore. I do this just because I can, anyways.

I just might go with the pixalated close ups.

Not entirely free, no. But the Tower of Art is a bit more relaxed about how frequently you have to post to keep things alive.

Ah, I'll keep that in mind.

I also like the way that I have to talk with myself in order to discuss my project.

I think I'll hold off on the intro until after episode nine or ten.

It's not like anybody cares. I can do whatever the hell I like.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on November 15, 2009, 05:04:32 PM
I also like the way that I have to talk with myself in order to discuss my project.

I've been wrapped up in my own work, and in the middle of moving out the apartment I live in.

The voice acting for the scene in the Village of Mist was just awesome. In most scenes, though, it's kind of jarring to hear only one character in a conversation with voice acting.

Unfortunately, apart from the scene in Mist, most of the episode was pretty dull. As improved as the animation is, most of it felt like video capture from an emulator, which isn't particularly exciting (EG: The battle with the mist dragon). A lot of time was spent on background and exposition, both of which are usually boring to sit through unless handled with care.

Still. Progress has been made.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on November 15, 2009, 05:04:32 PM
It's not like anybody cares. I can do whatever the hell I like.

I'm sorry, but there's no way to put this nicely: people really do care.

Taking a "screw you all, I don't give a damn" attitude will drive people away pretty quickly.  So, yes, you can do whatever you like, but try to take a minute and consider what the reaction will be.

Of course I know there are a few people that watch my series. I'm not stupid. There's more than ten views on each of the vids, it's not like they get ignored completely. They get little attention, but it's still enough to keep me going.

What I was referring to was the intro. I wasn't speaking about the series itself. Of course I'll spend time with the episodes themselves.

What I was saying by that remark is the fact that nobody will probably give a shit of what's in the intro.

As long as it has a side show of the characters, and upbeat music, it dosen't really matter, dose it? Hell, the series could go on without an intro all together.

I'll try to make a short ten second something. I REALLY don't know why, but I feel like I should make one. It's not like anyone cares what I put in the intro, I can do whatever the hell I want with it.

Also, Part One was completely recorded. NONE of it was animated myself. Most of part two was recorded, but not all.

I had thought I established that fact earlier. Part three, the part that I'm going to make into episode eight, is the part that I made completely myself, and is complete crap in the animation catagory, just as a heads up. It is also completely done, except for the fact that I still never added the voices yet. I'm going to spend another month experimenting on the whole 'quality over quanity' thing.

Episode nine, the previous eight, will be entirely be made by me, but so far, it also looks like something recorded from an emulator. It's so freakishly weird how scenes one and two of part one came out.

I guess I'm now off to plan an intro, and waste precious hours, when I could be doing something with episode nine.

The next epsiode might be delayed a bit more that I might like.

You know, I maybe a retard for only noticing now, but episode six has a ten second intro. It has a bunch of chocobos running across the screen at the very begining.

I already have an intro, and here I was, making a big fuss over nothing.

This truely is, good sir, a face palm moment. :B

Aright, Confession time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbbD9IxpuKU

This is what was eating all of my time, and delaying the original episode eight for so long.

The newly numbered episode eight will be in January, and I'll try to make a deadline of late Feberary. (Why can't I spell that?!)

oh hey... that's actually pretty snazzy :3

Quote from: Basilisk on December 04, 2009, 04:04:30 PM
oh hey... that's actually pretty snazzy :3

Better than my regular series, right? Don't worry, I'm ready to admit that.

Though, I wonder if I should make another animation like this for some other series . . .

With things going on at home, and now of the fact I've gotten a job, for a while, anyways, I've had less and less time to work on my series.

Now that things with life is finally getting busy, it makes me regret making that CVRPG thing. Ep 9 would probably be done if I hadn't invested so much time into it.

Anyways, the point being is that I'll be delaying my series by two or three months. The third part of 7, which is now 8, will still be released in January.

Merry Christmas to all!

Well, I don't have that "job" I was talking about in the post above this one anymore. In that post, I wrongly put job. It's not the working for money type job, but instead, it was an internship. Whatever.

I was quite angry eariler today. Not only was there a tsunami warning of a giant eight feet wall of water going to hit my house from an earthquake in chile, windows movie maker fucked up and my fucking bunny died. I had that dyed pink bastered for ten + years now, but now it got old and died.

I also ran out of ice tea, and failed my driving permit test, so I have to do that again. I also have a giant english project that's worth nearly all of my grade from the quater that involves 12 pages of crap and BS that needs to be written within a few days, and my cat also took a shit in my living room since I left it in the house too long, and now these fucking neigbor dogs won't SHUT THE HELL UP since I'm yelling so funcking much, and now my fucking crap assed computer is GOING SO SLOW!

It's not like anyone should care about that, anyways. Nothing majorly important. Nope. Not even the eight foot tall tsunami generated from an 8.8 earthquake. Nothing anybody should care about at all. Tsunami didn't even fucking hit my house, which was a dissapointment.

But back with the movie maker thing, appearently I did something beyond stupid. I tried to make episode nine the same way I made the CVRPG animation thing, which is recorded with hypercam, but I also made screen shots to go with them. What I planned to do was record the animation, then with the talking parts, have it still so that it dosen't take up too much file space, since one frame is less than fifty. I made the image and video the exact same size.

Nothing wrong with that, right? Wrong. Windows movie maker streches videos to completely fill the screen, but with images, they're streched or shrunk so that both the left and right edges touch the outside of the frame. The top and bottom are NOT streched like what it dose with videos.

The difference in size and quality is rediculous. It's to the point where it's unuseable. I also recorded the animation vids to the dot, so it's impossible to zoom in, then copy/paste a fraction of the actual vid to make a still image while the basterds on screen are talking.

I really fucked up big time. Nearly five months of work, and now I have to start the damned thing all over again? Fuck.

I need a better editing video maker program. Here I thought I was being smart, and now I find out I've wasted all of this time.

There's a few lines missing from episode eight, but I don't give a fuck. At least I have all the frames, and they don't conflict with each other. I'll edit and upload that one when I'm not as pissed off as I am now.

If it isn't too late, GIMP DOES use layers and I've frequently heard it being compared to photoshop. Google "open source movie makers" or something. In all seriousness, that stuff is usually on par, or sometimes better, than commercial software. (And I'm not saying that just because I'm using PCLinuxOS, either.)

Another thing, venting DOES help, even if it doesn't seem like it. Mostly, it just allows you to blow off some steam and get things off your chest.

And it hurts when bunnies die. IT SERIOUSLY SUCKS ASS! (I'm speaking from experience here.) Take some time to mourn. Take a break, go play a FUN game, watch some anime or something. The work will still be there when you feel ready to take it on again. (Unless you're not backing up your work and haven't been saving each step as a separate file... Hell, get an external HDD if you have to! Especially if you're still using Windows!) If you feel like you can't do it, then walk away from it for a bit. If it feels like it's driving you insane, then it probably is.

As for the lack of comments, understand this... People usually only comment on things they feel strongly about. If it really angers them, they're more likely to comment. If they think it sucks (Or more likely they prefer to rip apart others because it makes them feel better, the bastards.) then they're more likely to comment. If they think it's totally freaking awesome, they'll be more likely to comment. The fact of the matter is, comments, and feedback in general, are rare. Just because somebody doesn't have anything to say doesn't mean they don't care. Yes, it's rather maddening that you're exposing your soul to the world and nobody really has anything to say.

And a heads up, YES, I've rewritten my web novel a whopping three times now. (First time I got stuck in a plothole. Second time I started using an outline. Third time I STOPPED using the outline... Big mistake. Now, it's on unofficial hiatus until I've redesigned the website and learned how to use a damn outline effectively.) Sure, it's just text and it's "easy" to change after the fact, but rewriting is as much of a part of writing as watching over your scenes and adjusting them to your liking. (AKA Editing.) Yeah, I'm aware that you probably wanna hit me because of that suggestion, but it a vital, time-sucking evil bastard.

Oh, and one last thing, you might wanna list all of your episodes in order on the first page so that newcomers have an easier time catching up. Just sayin'.

EDIT: Dang, I'm a real bastard when I post and I'm angry over something... Dunno what it was now, though... Ugh...

Castle: you have my most sincerest condolences, both for your personal and artistic troubles.

Distance, distraction, and digestion. Take some time, relax, and get some food into you. You'll feel better.

Venting does alleviate a lot of stress and frustration, and I don't blame you for it (the art forum might not be the best place for it, however). At the same time, it's hard to form a response to someones venting.

Your time has not been wasted. Skills take time and practice to improve, and the time you spent on them counts even if the work has been lost.

It's not too late to learn something even now. Make backups. If you're experimenting with a new technique, test it before you commit to something that may not work. As for times ahead? Try to look at your methods and find ways to increase your efficiency. Try to think of new things to do, and how to do them. Look at your old work objectively, and see what you don't like about it. Try to improve those things in the next project.

Getting feedback is hard. VERY hard. Asking for help from someone more experienced isn't too bad, but a general audience will rarely go out of their way to leave comments. The world would be a better place if they did, but I can't really blame them if they don't, either. Most of them come for entertainment, not conversation.

That being said, here's something to consider. I've never seen you post in the art forum outside your own thread, and I don't know if you have a DA account or the like. If you want feedback, the best thing to do is to start communicating with others. They'll reciprocate. You can't expect people to talk with you if you're not willing to do the same for them. Being more outgoing will let people get to know you, and friends will talk more openly to you then audiences ever will.

One last thing... it's never a good idea to post while mad. We (well, I should say "I") may be willing to lend a sympathetic ear and help however we can, but we're not here to get yelled at and we don't deserve it. Take some time to cool off, then speak your piece.

I took the week off to do random stuff in my free time, and I do feel better. Watching Gurren Lagaan and playing castlevania dracula X actually helps.

I still can't believe I wasted that monies dying my bunny pink. It was cool at the time though.

Anyways, I've decided to do the whole damn thing over again, which make take a good part of this year, but bleh.

As for today, I'll finish editing episode eight and put that up. After it's up, I'll edit the first post of this thread with the list of all the episodes.

My CVD web comic series will be dead for a few years. I won't be reviving that one in a while.

I'll also try GIMP. Ironically, I already have the program, as well as a few others, but I haven't tried them out yet.

Well, seems I failed in the whole time management thing.

I had five hours, so I thought, why not view just one more anime episode? It's only twenty minutes!

Next thing you know it, it's eleven at night and close to midnight.

I'll have to get it done sunday or next week it seems.

I did manage to pull together about half or less of the episode in one hour before I took that break that ate the whole day, so that's a plus.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on March 06, 2010, 04:10:11 AM
Well, seems I failed in the whole time management thing.

I had five hours, so I thought, why not view just one more anime episode? It's only twenty minutes!

Next thing you know it, it's eleven at night and close to midnight.

Been there. Done that. Want a T-shirt?

Quote from: Drayco84 on March 06, 2010, 12:23:32 PM

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on March 06, 2010, 04:10:11 AM
Well, seems I failed in the whole time management thing.

I had five hours, so I thought, why not view just one more anime episode? It's only twenty minutes!

Next thing you know it, it's eleven at night and close to midnight.

Been there. Done that. Want a T-shirt?

They make T shirts on just about anything, don't they?

Episode eight will be up by next weekend. I still need to ask someone if they're still gonna do some voices.

There's characters in the episode with no voice acting. If I can't get them all, no big deal.

Also, I think I'll put captions at the bottom of the court case episode, which is the one that got eaten and pissed me off. I think captions might help. I'm not exactly the best audio editer.

You can never go wrong with captions, IMO. I'm hard of hearing when my allergies are riled up (Because I have a lot of fluid built up in my ears.) and I can read a ton easier than I can listen. Besides, even if the audio gets botched to hell, your viewers have something to fall back on.

Just make sure that they last as long as it takes to speak the lines, and it should work out.

Quote from: Drayco84 on March 08, 2010, 12:58:42 AM
You can never go wrong with captions, IMO. I'm hard of hearing when my allergies are riled up (Because I have a lot of fluid built up in my ears.) and I can read a ton easier than I can listen. Besides, even if the audio gets botched to hell, your viewers have something to fall back on.

Just make sure that they last as long as it takes to speak the lines, and it should work out.

I was editing episode eight not long ago, and the lines for one character went to hell.

By this point, after all this time and I still can't get audio right, captions will be a requirement.

Episode eight will be up saturday.

I've moved the courtcase episode to episode ten. I have plans for episode nine.

Edit:

Actually, scratch that. It won't be up saturday. I'll delay it a few days to get a few more lines.

Part one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA161IxOgfE)
Part two (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXYKF-a9I9k)

Episode eight has finally been uploaded. It was sitting on my computer for a few days, actually.

I'm also surprized at the fact that I had to split it into two. I thought it was going to be a one part episode. The fact that it's two part dose make me feel better about seperating this from episode seven.

As another note, I haven't even started on the court case battle yet. I may even go ahead and add those text boxes if I feel the need.

Episode nine "Beta". (http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/CastlePokemetroid/966786)

I'm not sure what to call it other than a "Beta" version. It's actually the scratch version.

Maybe I should call it a preview? Then again, it is the full, finished episode, just that it's not on youtube.

I'll edit the "real" episode nine. Is that what I should call the version I put on youtube? The "real" one?

I'm not sure.

Anyways, I'll chop up this "Scratch" or maybe "Beta" version of this episode, then reattach it and upload it to youtube with full music and sound effects.

The animation has notably improved at least.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on April 03, 2010, 08:04:18 PM
I'm not sure what to call it other than a "Beta" version. It's actually the scratch version.

"Draft" might be an appropriate term.

If you put a finalized version on YouTube, you could always call that the Directors Cut.

Quote from: WhiteFox on April 04, 2010, 03:39:35 AM
"Draft" might be an appropriate term.

If you put a finalized version on YouTube, you could always call that the Directors Cut.

YES! Draft, that was the word I was looking for. I couldn't find that word for some reason.

As another note, windows movie maker hates me. The quality of the picture when moving my project from scratch to video, then into movie maker, gets, I can't find the word. The quality gets murdered? Destroyed? Pixalated?

Anyways, the quality becomes horrible. It goes from terrific to near trash. It's still useable, but it's to the point where you can barely read the text.

Sure, the animation gets better, but it's at the cost of the picture quality.

I think I'll keep all the video file pieces, and if sometime in the future, I get something better than windows movie maker, I'll just release a "redo" version.

Quality isn't always everything, right?

. . . right . . . ?

I think I would've enjoyed it more if I had played Order of Ecclesia... (Heck, I never finished Dawn of Sorrow! SHAME BE UNTO ME!)

And maybe some of the later Final Fantasy games for the FF-based Swords of Sorrow... (The only ones I've played are part of FF 1 and 2, all of FFTA, and the start of FFT... I'm just not that fond of it, okay? AND I HATE MOOGLES!)

The animation does look pretty good, though. The dialogue ran a little too quickly for even me to read everything and the bodies could've fallen a little faster, but it looked pretty good. Johnathan is annoying as heck, but I get the feeling that he's supposed to be. (Death was totally forgiven for the heavy use of slang for his efforts, BTW.)

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on April 04, 2010, 04:41:27 PM
Quality isn't always everything, right?

. . . right . . . ?

............
It isn't everything, but it does help...

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on April 04, 2010, 04:41:27 PM
Quality isn't always everything, right?

Depends.

A) How good do you need it to be? People at least have to be able to tell one character from the other, and read the dialog.

B) How good do you want it to be? If you care more about the animation then the graphics, go for it. If you have minimum standards for the visuals, stick to them.

Really, it's your call to decide what's more important.

Quote from: Drayco84 on April 04, 2010, 05:01:23 PM
I think I would've enjoyed it more if I had played Order of Ecclesia... (Heck, I never finished Dawn of Sorrow! SHAME BE UNTO ME!)

Yeah, playing Ecclesia would help. You would get a bit more of the "inside" jokes. By that, I mean, it's terrible plot. Both Ecclesia and Portrait, while having exalent game play, have simply horrible plots.

In the game, I feel like Barlow dosen't just explain the plot, but spoils it. Majorly, as the things he says are end game plot reviels. It might be just me, but that's what it seems like.

Albus is a retard who has crap for plans, and in the game, Barlow would sacrifice his life to awaken Dracula, but dosen't, and insteads sends Shanoa on some retard quest with a missing memory, and without a map as well, when he could awaken Dracula the whole time by sacrificing his own life. How the hell Shanoa survives in a monster infested land without any battle memory is beyond me. You might as well send a teenager on a quest to save the world, but that dosen't happen in video games. *Aria of Sorrow, cough*

As another note, Graham and Dario coming back to life isn't something that happens in the games. It's something I added for my own series. I guess I'm not finished with them yet.

As for the graphics thing, I'll just slap together what I can, and put it on youtube later. As long as you can read the pixalated text, I'm all good.

I asked a friend at school about the windows movie maker quaility thing, and he said that there might be something to change that. It's also been a few years since he'd use it, so I'll search the internet on info about that. If I don't get anything, I'll just slap the clips together and call it a video.

On another note, my school has Adobe Premeir CS4. However, when I import the clip, it says it can't do that, which really pisses me off. What the hell? It's a video file, not a .WMV file! Mac hates anything that was created on a windows. Premier would have perfect, if not more than, if I could use it. There's still iMovie, so I'll look into that too.

If all that fails, the text is still readable, so meh. But, here's the thing . . . If I can get iMovie or Premier to work with my crap, I'll be able to scrap and actually use the pics and clips I made for the court case episode, and I won't have to do the WHOLE thing from scratch all over again. All my work from before won't be for naught. I'll just have to work on it at school.

There was a DMFA comic were Mab answered a question from the readers. It was about Artist's vision, on how anything they make themselves, no matter how good or impressive, they're never satisfyed with what they've made. I think perhaps I may have this artist's vision. Just a random paragraph in a random location. Heh.

After I finnally get this damn thing done, I think I'll take a break from animating. If you hadn't noticed, I released the "draft" version of episode nine days after uploading episode eight. It's true that I extended the deadline for that project three to four months, and I was animating in that time, but still, you must admit that I did quite a bit in that time.

I'll start some other animation, perhaps the court case episode, within a month or more.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on April 12, 2010, 10:47:01 PM
On another note, my school has Adobe Premeir CS4. However, when I import the clip, it says it can't do that, which really pisses me off. What the hell? It's a video file, not a .WMV file!

...And that's why I hate computers.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on April 12, 2010, 10:47:01 PM
There was a DMFA comic were Mab answered a question from the readers. It was about Artist's vision, on how anything they make themselves, no matter how good or impressive, they're never satisfyed with what they've made.

Actually, that's a good sign. Any artist that isn't satisfied with their own work will continue trying to improve it.
   The trick is to like making stuff, not the stuff you make. This requires a very special kind of crazy.
   Love to work. Hate the work.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on April 12, 2010, 10:47:01 PM
I asked a friend at school about the windows movie maker quality thing, and he said that there might be something to change that. It's also been a few years since he'd use it, so I'll search the internet on info about that. If I don't get anything, I'll just slap the clips together and call it a video.

On another note, my school has Adobe Premier CS4. However, when I import the clip, it says it can't do that, which really pisses me off. What the hell? It's a video file, not a .WMV file! Mac hates anything that was created on a windows. Premier would have perfect, if not more than, if I could use it. There's still iMovie, so I'll look into that too.

Fix'd. "I" before "E" and all that crap...

What are you importing it with and what's the file extension? Some programs are better at importing different file types than others, and it sounds like you're using two different proprietary programs which tout their (often incredibly different) encoding processes.
But, to repeat the important part here, are you still using Windows Movie Maker and what's the extension you're saving the file as when using CS4?
Heck, it could even be a result of using different versions of the same software... I ran into that once when trying to work on a database with MS office once. My College had the latest version, 2000. For me, still 97. And for some bizarre reason, it wouldn't open.

I got a program at my school to work. Final cut, I believe is what it's called.

I can import, and I can edit. The only basterd problem is that the school year is drawing to a close. I DON'T HAVE THE TIME! I finnaly got something to work, but then life slaps me in the face.

My computer class, I won't have next year. I also have to focus during the next few, yes, few, classes left in the four or five weeks left of this school year.

I think I'll just cut my loss and just finish the movie maker version. You can still read the text at least, so there shouldn't be too much problem.

I hope, anyways.

The only problem with Movie Maker is that is resizes my video files. For my next project, which I'll start during the summer, I'll experiment on window size. If I can get it to be the perfect dimensions, it won't strech or shrink. Maybe.

The court case episode deal still pisses me off a bit. I think I'll igore that project for a little more. Given time, I'll forget about it. I mean, I sometimes forget episodes I made earlier. I have to rewatch episodes to remember what happened in them.

My short term memory is exalent, but my long term memory is a bit loose.

Windows Movie Maker is being a dick again. The vid should of been uploaded yesterday, but WMM won't cooperate.

I finished all the editing and crap, then I select "Save to Computer". It takes like two hours to save, but that's not the shitty part. It saves, but the files says 0 KB and 0:00 as the time and won't play, so I have to save to computer like seven times in order for it to finally pop up as a playable vid.

That's with only one part. It also gets worse, since WMM dosen't have multiple layers to put in music and sound at the same time, I have to put in music, then after sound effects, which makes it a total of four times I need to "Save to Computer", while WMM is being a dick.

On the plus side, I screwed around with the options and program hardware, and the quality is slightly better, to the point where I don't really notice how bad it is, which is quite good. The character portraits are still pixalated, but at least the text is completely readable.

I'll upload the episode next week. I need to rest after bashing my head against my desk in pure fustration.

:headdesk

Hey, hey! My pain and fustration has paid off! The quality turned out in a HQ level on youtube. I messed with it enough that it decided to finnally work.

Episode nine part one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_yu8sZnzXU)
Part two (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTGjwcqmdlM)

I can't believe how perfect it turned out. Maybe I can savage the court case episode? Who knows!

Anyways, this episode has really tired me out. I'll start working on more stuff when summer break comes around.

I also have just finished an AP US History Exam on friday. Real hard stuff, but I feel if I got at least 60% of it right. I sure hope I got a good grade on it. Cost me like ninety bucks just to take a test.

Well, I'm back from my who-the-hell-knows-how-long break, and I also finished writing the script for episode ten.

Unfortunately, it's a peice of garbage. The plot dosen't flow, there's unnessary things, and it's not funny or entertaining in the least.

It's about Rosenkreuzstilette, a video game that I doubt any of you heard of. I also plan for it to be a two or three part single episode.

Unfortunately (again), it dosen't have much plot, so it's high difficult to make a parady of it.

There's obviously things in it that needs serious fixing, but I don't have the mental capacity to make those changes. I even got rid of that "Crazy, mad animator and script writer" thing in my sig, since obviously, I'm not a good script writer.

Anyways, this is the script I'm sure I've mentioned:

I didn't do anything to it except add a charater list in the front and some character descriptions.

Here:

(Script has been removed, it's an outdated version)

I'm not asking for anybody to rewrite the script. I only want ideas.

Also, what's the HTML code to change font size? If I make the text on the above message smaller, it may shorten it by a bit.

The html code is font size="<num>", but I suspect you're looking for bbcode. In which case, it's [ font size="<num>" ] text [ /font ], if I remember correctly.

It's a "if I remember" because it got disabled after people started faffing about with font = 1, and the mods took the easy option and removed the problem. Nice how one stupid person ruins it for everyone, isn't it? But i digress...

You could upload it somewhere as a text file, and post a link to it from here.

I read the script over, but it's very far out of my style. Any ideas I might have would probably take it in a completely different direction. I could do a critique, but I only have a general idea of what you were going for to begin with. If I don't know where you're trying to go, I can't make any suggestions on how to get there.

When I run into a situation like this, where I'm at a dead end and a script or drawing just isn't doing it for me, I look back and try to remember what it was that made me start it. It might be some other piece of art that inspired me (In which case, I go read comics for a day), or an idea I had (which means staring out a window and getting all nostalgic).  Whatever it is, I try get it firmly in mind.

Then I get a new piece of paper, and start over from scratch.

I put the tags in but they didn't do anything. What I wanted to do was make the text small, then put words that said "start" and "stop" at the beggining and end. You know, copy and paste from one end to the other.

I really hate this script, so perhaps I WILL have to rewrite it. There wasn't a real reason why I wanted to write it in the first place. I just wanted to use the sprites, so there wasn't any inspiration with the story to begin with.

I think I'm either going to go find and rip off a fanfic or go to a forum board about this peticular game and ask for ideas. Unfortunately, both will be hard to find, since it's such an unheard of and hard to spell game.

In the mean time, I still have that court case battle episode that I still need to animate from scratch. I don't mind rewriting scripts, I sometimes do that throughout the animation process, but when it come to redoing animation itself, it really gets to me, since so much time has been invested.

I'll get that episode done sooner or later. My FF SoS won't continue without it.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on July 25, 2010, 02:41:20 PMThere wasn't a real reason why I wanted to write it in the first place. I just wanted to use the sprites, so there wasn't any inspiration with the story to begin with.

I saw Kate Beaton give a talk once. She took questions afterwards, and I stuck my hand up and asked, "What's more important for a comic, the writing or the art?"

She had the best answer ever: (paraphrased) "Neither is more important then the other, they depend on each other. The art needs to do what the writing needs it to do, and the writing needs to do what the writing needs it to do."

So, if the animation is the important part, the writing doesn't have to do a whole lot. All you need the script to be is an outline for the animation. Sort out choreography, timing, imagery, all that stuff. Don't worry about dialog any more then necessary.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on July 25, 2010, 02:41:20 PM
I put the tags in but they didn't do anything. What I wanted to do was make the text small, then put words that said "start" and "stop" at the beggining and end. You know, copy and paste from one end to the other.

Correct. I said: They Have Been Disabled.

This means, they won't work, even if you get them right.

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on July 25, 2010, 08:00:26 PM

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on July 25, 2010, 02:41:20 PM
I put the tags in but they didn't do anything. What I wanted to do was make the text small, then put words that said "start" and "stop" at the beggining and end. You know, copy and paste from one end to the other.

Correct. I said: They Have Been Disabled.

This means, they won't work, even if you get them right.

I just said what I wanted them to do. You also said before "if I remember", so I was also confirming that it didn't work.

Also, WhiteFox, that is true. If the dialoge dosen't work, I shouldn't give a damn. It's the story that's hampering the work, not the art. I shouldn't focus so much on the story, since Rosenkreuzstilette dosen't have much story to begin with. It's like trying to turn a turkey drum stick into a thanksgiving dinner for a family of four. It just won't work, no matter how much you strech it.

Learch and WhiteFox, you both help me so much that you guys probably don't even know. Learch gives technical support and WhiteFox gives art and moral support. Thanks guys.

On another note, I totally screwed up beyond belief. An epic fail moment, if you will.

Rosenkreuzstilette was never released offically in the states, or even in Noth America, for that matter. That would mean that it'd be quite an unheard of game in english speaking contries, which would mean that not many people have heard of it. (Note: IT DOSEN'T EVEN HAVE AN OFFICAL TRANSLATION! You'd either have to get a Japanese copy, or get an illegal rom just to play it. Don't ask how I know so much about the storyline on a game that shouldn't exist, and even a game I've never played for that matter. It's sorta like the way that I know soooooo many 300 quotes, but have never seen the movie even once.)

Trying to ask help on writing a parady script on it won't get me any farther then bashing my face against the key board until an idea comes out. It isn't like Megaman, where it's so popular that there's hundreds of fanfics to rip off. Trying to find a Rosenkreuzstilette fanfic in english is near non exisitant.

Moral Support? Exsqueeze me? Pffft, you don't need that from me.

Make stuff because you like making stuff. You can hate the stuff you make, as long as you love making it. Since you'll spend more time making things than you will looking at the stuff you made, this is a pretty good deal. Show it here, and I'll say whatever occurs to me. I'll do what I can to make it useful, too.

As for the Epic Fail explanation, well... there isn't really anything there for me to comment on. You have my sympathies, that's how it goes sometimes, and good luck with whatever you decide to do now. Post the results, and I'll say whatever there is to say.

Now I'm looking for war sound effects. You know, like two medieval armies clashing.

I'm having trouble trying to find them, who the hell knows why, but I am.

One of the troubles might be because I need it to be at least half a minute long. A minute would be better, since I'll need to repeat it as background noise.

As another note, I think life just threw me a bonus. I have a seinor project, which is a project where I can choose anything I want to do, and I chose animation. Not only that, I think I'll use this project as well. Heh.

The only thing stopping me is copyright issues. I can't exactly make graphics or sprites myself. I could, but that would practically triple (or even quadruple) the production time. I don't exactly have 2 or so years to finish this.

I only need to find out if rosen-whatever sprites are copyrighted or not. It didn't come out in the states, so who knows.

If it dose turn out that I need a new project, then I'm screwed. I can't really do anything else than this.

As for the script, I'm going to remove all sexual references, and to tell the truth, I can't exactly pull those off at all. I'm not like Darkmoon. It'll turn out MUCH better this way.

Would it qualify as derivative work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work)?

Quote from: WhiteFox on August 10, 2010, 06:03:00 PM
Would it qualify as derivative work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work)?

HOLY CRAP, YOU'RE RIGHT! I hadn't even known about that! By that law description on Wikipedia, technically, what I'm doing is completely legal. I doubt I can copyright it, but that dosen't mean that I can't make these.

Nobody can legally do anything about it. That is a simply amasing find, and has totally blown all my previous doubts out of the water.

All that's stopping me now is finding the proper sound effects.

In another unrelated note, you may not believe this, but I asked my school counciler and the digetal media teacher, and they've pulled aside a spot in my scheldual for me to work on my seinor project.

I have an entire period to work on something in school that I'll do at home anyways, and not only that, but I'll be getting an entire credit for it, since it's my seinor project. I'll also have full access to Adobe programs like Photoshop and Flash. On top of that, I have a friend in the class as well (he's in his own period, not my special period) that can help by giving his opinion about my work in progress. He's a fan of the series, so he's glad to help.

But still, they made up a non existant class just for me to take. It's called Digetal Media Tech 2. I'm the only student in the school taking Tech 2.

I'm not sure how better this can get.

I'm pretty sure you can copyright your work, as long as you give credit where credit is due. For example; if I'm drawing someone elses character, I'll add "CharacterName Copyright So-and-So, Art C. Myself."

I'm not sure how well that holds up legally, mind you, but it's worth mentioning at least.

Can't wait to see the results.

Quote from: WhiteFox on August 15, 2010, 11:40:27 PM
Can't wait to see the results.

Yeah, especially seeing that I'm supposed to have a mentor help tutor and help me make my animation better. I don't know about you, but since I'm using sprites, I don't need help with art.

However, I'm not very good with sound, so I'll try to find a specialist in sound or sound effects to help mentor me for my seinor project. I may even find out how to get my war sound effects I want. Well, if I get lucky or perhaps, even more lucky.

I made a one minute prologue, and I love it. So far, it's turning out amasing. The only problem I have is that not all characters have waling sprites. I've edited entire parts of the script and changed things around just because of it.

I'm not sure if I should make an intro, you know, anime style. It may destroy the mood, or set one. Firstly, I'll have to find a song that sets a mood. It may take too long, so I'll do it last, and put the thing I finish last to the first part of the project.

*bump* The owner asked me to unlock and bump, since he's not on every day, and if it gets unlocked, the auto-locker will lock it again.

That is all.

I guess I'm gonna haffa post "project updates" or what not. I don't really like posting the word "bump" over and over, but I guess I will if I have to.

Thanks for unlocking, learch. I guess I'll post something here every month, useful or not.

Anyways, I posted a test video on youtube.

Sky Battle Test. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ilPptr4VmU)

There's some parts that is sped up. That's due to the limitations on my computer's hardware, and that of the recording program.

I need a better computer if I'm to properly record this stuff, especially for a high frame rate scene like this.

Good thing I have a seinor project mentor just for this problem. He's currently finding a better computer for me to use. He feels guilty that he knows nothing about animation and can't help me, so he wants to find that computer for me. That'll be nice.

On another note, I was also testing how effecive that peticular music track fits in the battle. It's Luste's stage theme, and this is the only time Luste shows up for an extended amount of time in my new script. I really want to use that track, so I think I might use it there, even if dosen't really fit.

I decided to do something different. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=692WzF0E4EA)

Since no one knew what a bumper is, I decided to go for a music video. I'm also gonna post this here, rather than make a new topic, since it makes more sense to me to do it this way.

As for project updates, I got stuff and things. Nothing interesting.

Well... I'll certainly admit it's different.

Otherwise, I'm not really sure what to say.

Well, that was the entire intention. I didn't mean to make anything good.

Just different.

I also loosely use the term 'music video'. It's not really one, but what the heck would I call it other wise?

In case you're wondering how you pronounce Rosenkreuzstilette, it's said like four times in the beginning of this video. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st2DVCn9cOE&feature=related)

This is what I'm planning to emulate with the final battle. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBE-NnU5tXg)

It won't be exactly like that, but I'll be using the source game for ideas on it.

I feel the need to post a progress report. There's no need for anyone to respond to this post.

I have just completed a major scene, which involves 6 1/2+ minutes of CONTINUOUS motion, something I've never done before. Just that single battle alone is longer than some of entire completed projects, and they weren't even half way animated. Just a bunch of text boxes on a screen.

As for the scene completion rate, I have now completed 9 out of thirteen scenes. There's one major battle and one minor battle left to animate. The final battle is the last scene, and that battle alone should be at least more than four minutes, but I'll see what I can do there.

In total, I had to cut out five or six battles I planned. There's just not enough time. But even with all this content I'm cutting, there's somehow enough to make up almost 40+ minutes of video.

I must say, I am really stepping up my game here. I'm pretty proud of myself.

(http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/C-P_06/4wingdragon.jpg)

Hey, this is interesting. I seemed to of accidently made a four winged dragon. Didn't mean for it to turn out like this.

That looks pretty cool. I won't be able to use that, however.

Wing-clipping errors can be fun like that.  Rimshot

I might point out: the dragon drops into the background. The window's colour pallet matches his, and the image is fairly busy.

You think that's busy? I have a scene where I have the trouble of trying to find a free program with 15 - 20 sound layers for all the crap that goes on in it.

There's also a scene were a big part of the entire cast shows up at once.

Strange thing about that window. It was intended to be colorful, but isn't.

I wonder, how can you tell what the dragon is doing/will be doing by just a screen shot?

Oh... Oops. I meant visually busy. The dragon and the window have a lot of detail. There are so many lines over them that the outline of the dragon gets lost in the mass, and it all turns into a jumbled mosaic. His silhouette isn't distinct

The stained glass is predominantly brown and yellow, which matches the bronze and it's highlights. there's a bit of red, blue, and green in there, but only a few patches. The red doesn't help anyway, since it mixes into the brown. It's mostly warm earth tones, so that might be why it doesn't seem colourful.

By comparison, the wall to either side is much less busy. It's lines are all straight and even, and they're less bold than his. It's also dark, blue, and grayer. The difference in shade, colour, and saturation makes the dragon and the windows stand out against it. Warm vs. cool colours.

I can make out his shape in a still image, but I have to actually stop and look at him. I probably won't time to do that if he's animated, which would make it difficult to follow what he's doing.

Still, your guess was pretty damn close to what it really does. You made me stop and think if I gave away more than I did.

Also, the dragon is in constant motion when it's idle. I doubt very many people will even see the detail in the stain glass window, since the motion draws the eye away from anything else. The scene is also quite short.

That's the problem with some of these scenes, I spend so much time in editing a background, but it's there for only a minute or two. Nothing I can do about it. Keeps it from getting too stale, at least.

I can understand why web comic artists complain about background so much. It's not something you usually stop and look at, especially in something animated.

Hey, guess what? I took that image and put it into a scholarship contest thing.

If I get lucky, this image can win me a thousand dollars.

Wish me luck. I'll tell you guys if I win something or not.

I really need the scholarship, since my family has -10,000 in savings. That's a negative figure, if you can't tell.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on January 11, 2011, 10:08:41 PM
Also, the dragon is in constant motion when it's idle.

Well, if I can't easily make out the dragons silhouette, all I'm see is a bunch of movement.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on January 11, 2011, 10:08:41 PM
That's the problem with some of these scenes, I spend so much time in editing a background, but it's there for only a minute or two. Nothing I can do about it. Keeps it from getting too stale, at least.

Go with something simpler. Prioritize, and put your time into the stuff that matters.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on January 11, 2011, 10:08:41 PM
I can understand why web comic artists complain about background so much. It's not something you usually stop and look at, especially in something animated.

I never complain about backgrounds... I love doing them. 'Course, I only put a lot of effort into establishing shots, and places where the BG contributes to the moment. It's like spice.

Good luck on the scholarship, it sounds like you need it.

Quote from: WhiteFox on January 11, 2011, 10:47:12 PM
Go with something simpler. Prioritize, and put your time into the stuff that matters.

Eh, I'm handy with photoshop. I can edit an entire background in ten minutes or less. It would only take an afternoon to edit every background I need.

However, I don't have photoshop, so I need to either spend school time, or use paint.net, which takes much longer, and I spend more time than I need to. School time is quite limited, so it maybe rushed.

It's true that paint.net can do everything photoshop can, but however, it'll take much more time.

Sprites are simple. They don't need editing, but they do need cutting and rotation centering, both of which can take a bit of time. Rotation centering is finding the center of movement for a sprite. Very important, since the program scripts run off this.

But my time should indeed be managed better, like I shouldn't type posts as long as this one, for example.

I have bad news.

The board of the senior project feels that my project doesn't meet all of the requirements. Appearently, it doesn't "contribute to the community" enough. Because my research report was about how I will make my animation, I need something that relates to that AND contributes to the community. I try to add a life lesson to the story, but even after I rewrote it three times, it's not enough. 400+ hours, and it's not enough?

Well, on top of struggling to finish this beast off by the end of third quarter, I have to make a "behind the scenes" video AS WELL, and not only that, I have other classes with other projects to deal with. I don't understand. One guy is running around the island, and it's completely fine. HOW DOES THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE COMMUNITY? At least my project creates a form of entertainment and teaches a lesson that apparently isn't obvious. I have to admit that much, though. The lesson in the plot isn't obvious.

But really? I can't believe this . . .

I have to now research to find out how I'm going to make a behind the scenes video, and waste precious hours when I could be catching up in my failing AP classes. And here I thought I was almost done . . .

I've gotten this far, so I can't just back off now. I gotta do that extra thing now . . .

If you have a camera, tape your workstation(s) and explain the components and how they work, and if you have Fraps, you could also capture a tour of your video program of choice and how the program works.

Be cool, man. Be cool. This is a lot of stress when you need it the least, but panicking will waste a lot of energy when you can't afford to.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on January 15, 2011, 05:22:08 PM
Appearently, it doesn't "contribute to the community" enough.

I imagine they want it to have something to do with your local area, either inspired by it, or directed at it. Hard to say.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on January 15, 2011, 05:22:08 PM
I don't understand. One guy is running around the island, and it's completely fine. HOW DOES THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE COMMUNITY?

Because it's local. Effectively, his project pulls double duty as advertising for the area.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on January 15, 2011, 05:22:08 PM
I have to now research to find out how I'm going to make a behind the scenes video, and waste precious hours when I could be catching up in my failing AP classes.

Take screenshots, use them as a series of still frames, and add a running commentary. One part "how it's made," one part project journal. Add some photos for good measure: your work area, the building it's in, your highly essential coffee maker, all that jazz.

When I went to college, they did't just want to see your end product. They wanted to see a development process, and that you didn't just go with the first thing that popped into your head. How things evolved and/or were refined as the project progressed.

Well, I have a camera and a way to record what I'm doing on the computer.

But I'm so far into the project. I've even reedited the script so that I'm 10/11 through now.

I'll have to go back and remake key parts of scenes from scratch. Literally from the program, and from scratch, as in from the bare minimum.

I think I'll need to post several test videos to see if I'm going in the right direction with this.

It can be done, I know camera angles, depth of field, tripod usage, ect. I can wield a video camera just as effectively as I can wield photoshop or my scratch program.

The only problem I have is that it'll eat time. It's also damn well impossible to set up the camera and record while at home, since my sister and dad tend to constantly question to what the heck I'm doing if I'm not at the computer. That reminds me of a something. It's winter you know, and it gets cold, right? So I put on my jacket, and my dad asks where I'm going. It's ten at night, and I don't have anywhere to go. I rarely go outside on a good day. Not only that, he had just put a jacket on just a few minutes ago, and when I do the same, he wonders if I'm going to go outside? Strange. If I put my shoes on in the house and get ready to leave, he wonders if I'm going to stay inside all day.

I feel that it's better to respond with nothing sometimes, but then my dad thinks that I don't care and that I'm rebellious, even though I have two AP classes. My sister, on the other hand, has been arrested twice and has all "normal" level classes. She's three years younger than I and constantly gets into fights with my parents, but it seems that they let anything she does slide after a few days. She does what ever the hell she wants, and I basically do nothing at all, since my dad doesn't believe in the usefulness of computers. They're soul sucking demons to him, or something to that nature. They're man made creatures that steal your time and life. Since I do so much nothing but sit on a chair all day, he tends to try and find house work for me to do.

There's also my mom, who will think I'm weird for self interviewing myself, or doing a commentary like thing. I should record my lines at school. In one of my classes, we're expected to do such a thing, so my fellow classmates won't be judging me as much, since they don't want to be judged themselves. That, or, I can just go out back behind the house, set up a chair, position the camera, and just jabber on about my project, and add pictures and videos of my work station and videos of the work itself, and such.

Well, anyways, that was just a long rant to explain that I'll have to record, cut out the audio, then record what I'm going to say after, separately, which can make it take even longer, since there's more editing, ect involved.

My sister tends to have nothing to do on most weekends, so when ever I try to record anything, she tends to get in my way or make noises just to intentionally piss me off. Even if she doesn't, I have roosters here, and they crow all day, which is a pain.

That transformers video I made a while ago was quite a pain to pull off. It took a day. Like 9 AM to 11 PM, or something like that, for a, what, ten minute or less video? I only got to use about half of what I managed to record. I don't think I'll be doing any stop motion in the near future. It's too tiresome on the body.

I feel better now. More calm. I don't feel as stressed out as I was before, now that I have some ideas going. I do admit that I can't remember any of what I just ranted on, but I think I really let off some steam. There should be SOME ideas somewhere there. It's too late right now for me to go over and review what I just typed, so it should be riddled with grammer, or something like that. It's getting hard to tink right now. Something like 3 or 4 in the morning? I tend to type alot of unnessesary things and ramble on when I normally think things over on what I'm going to type normally. Script writing is a lot easier when I'm tired, since ideas just flow.

Monday is no school, so I think I can get something recorded then.

Yeah. Sort of a school assignment, or I wouldn't of wasted my precious time making this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRh9SmR32e0)

I still have a behind the scenes video to worry about. Not sure how I'll pull it off before the end of the quarter.

This is not only a post to keep my topic from locking itself, but one to say that I've asked both the teacher in charge of overseeing the senior project and my video teacher and they have both agreed to allow me to change my behind the scenes video into a commentary.

It'll just be me bitching about what gave me problems while watching the video. It's great. Solved the major problem I had, and also garentees that I'll be able to finish the project in time. I was almost thinking about dropping out like 65% of students who took senior project in one form or another (there's three classes relating to it) but I've decided not to.

My stress has been relieved and my deadlines are possible. I feel great now.

The commentary will be done before the actual project, since the commentary will have no sound other than my voice.

The sound editing will come after.

I also managed to sell my super nintendo and my excess children's trading cards. Sure won't need them, now that I'm going to college in a matter of months. I still failed to gain acceptance to any colleges or win any scholarships.

I had signed up to eight or nine scholarships, and lost six of them. Haven't heard from the others.

All eleven scenes are now completed. Now comes next of the tedious task of adding all the sounds.

For my senior project, I had to make a project log. I wonder if I should share it here or not. It's basically a diary style of what I've done for the entire project.

If you want to discuss it, post it. If not, don't. If you don't have anything to post, there's not really a whole lot to discuss.

I've decided that it's not worth the effort.

I would of been posting it already if I cared.

But anyways, I've decided to search for voice actors.

http://voiceacting.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=20385&page=1

Here's a topic on another board with all the details. It's a freaken long post, so I don't want to copy/paste it here.

I made this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1w2CwTrnA)

Yeah, not much else to say.

My Sprite Based Animation thing is pretty damn well near close to being done.

Uploading a one and a half hour video to youtube is going to take like two entire days of uploading, won't it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oJjefFUgoA

Go watch and stuff. The comment that I would normally make here is in the video description.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtqwlMQFmhA

I got bored and made this.

I have no idea what project I should do next. I got permission to animate someone's fanfic, so I might eventually do that, once I get the fanfic. It's hard to use a script you don't have.

It's been a month, so I'm gonna bump this topic now.

I am currently working on that fanfic project thing. The writer of the fanfic has clearly never heard of grammar before. That, or, english just isn't his first language.

Apparently, it went from me wondering what to do for another project, and asking some guy about his fanfic, to the guy just flat out begging me to turn his "hardly made and good loving" written project into an animated form, as he said himself. He couldn't send the script through a youtube private message quick enough.

At least I know that I'll have at least one viewer for this project I'm working on. As long as I have at least a single blindly loyal viewer, I'm content.

I'm getting rather tired of Rosenkreuzstillette by now, so I'll do something radically different for my project after this one.

Well, at least, I'll try to, anyways.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on June 28, 2011, 09:53:13 PM
At least I know that I'll have at least one viewer for this project I'm working on

Just so you know, I did watch Rosen. It took me three sittings to get through it, and at the end, I honestly didn't know where to start. I spend a while debating what to say, and I guess it just slipped my mind after a week or two.

The animation is very flat. There's no sense of bounce, momentum or acceleration, and everything usually slides around at a lethargic, monotonous pace. This isn't really a problem if the characters are talking, but the fight sequences plodded along mechanically, and there's a lot of time spent on characters just walking across the screen.

Most of the characters have little depth, and quite a few of them (Navi, Squid hat girl) were annoying. Maybe they were supposed to be quirky in a lighthearted way, but it's hard to say. It took a deliberate effort for me to pick up on the personalities, and the characters do have have a measure of personality, but I had to look pretty hard to get a feel for them.

The story was hard to follow. I had a good idea of the overall story, but not the particulars (Okay, they're off to save some girl from some dragon that came out of nowhere. Where are they right this moment, and what are they doing? Who the heck is this girl now?).  There's more backstory and exposition than "live" story. Everything is told, rather than shown.

The characters didn't seem to have many frames other than "walk" and "shoot," which limits their acting considerably. There are relatively few frames, which makes the animation loops look jerky when they're slowed down (particularly when walking). Nice selection of background art, though.

The plot and characters have all the elements of a good story, but the delivery and execution didn't get them across well. The pieces are there, but they don't come across. There's a lot of excess material that weighs the story down rather than moves it along. I imagine it was a lot of work, but it feels like there was more effort put into getting it done, rather than doing it well.

Good luck on the next project.

To be honest, it felt like I simply wanted to get it over with because that was exactly the case. At the time, the school year was almost up, and I either had to rush through the rest of the project or not finish at all. I rewrote the script several times just to find a way to end the damn thing already.

Despite me cutting key points out of the story, the entire animation itself still was an hour and a half, which is ridiculous. I still can't comprehend how it became that long. The original script was meant to be a 40 minute mini film.

In the end, the plot and story of my RKS animation got stuck between a limbo of parody or satire. As you can tell from my normal episodes in my SoS series, they normally compose of broken logic and incomprehensible jokes being thrown left and right. My RKS animation ended up being just flat up contradictory at the very end. A good example of this is Lilli's (the fairy) lines. She says nothing, but yet something at the same time.

Another problem is that I probably chose the wrong video game series to parody/satire. The characters in Rosenkreuzstillette just don't have very many frames at all, really. Leibea for example, has only two, yes, two frames. Standing, and being hurt. No walking, no jumping, no nothing. You might notice that when she glides across the screen.

I'm not a spriter, so I can't exact edit sprites to suit my needs. I need to work around the restrictions the characters give me to make something work.

In this new project I'm doing for that one guy, there seems to be very little battle scenes. I think there might not be any. The scenes also go by very quickly. Just a few lines, then they're off to the next scene. It's a "blink and you'll miss it" sort of a thing. Just like my first animation. (It's labeled "Swords of Sorrow Movie" in my sig)

It's really quite a change of pace. It feels like I'm going back to my roots, or something. But that's not possible, since the script is something I'd never write myself. Not sure how to explain it.

Took me a little while to decide how to respond to this.

Quote from: Castle Pokemetroid on June 30, 2011, 06:54:16 PM
To be honest, it felt like I simply wanted to get it over with because that was exactly the case. At the time, the school year was almost up, and I either had to rush through the rest of the project or not finish at all. I rewrote the script several times just to find a way to end the damn thing already.

Enjoy the process. Not the product. Rushing through production creates in a rushed product, and it shows. It really shows. If you don't care about the work, neither will the audience. Put some love into it.

One of the more effective ways to avoid burning out is to find satisfaction in the act of creation itself, rather than looking forward to the end product. That way, there's a payoff throughout the entire process, instead of the promise of one at the end.

I made a new version of my logo thing.

Here's the original one that I made back in 2006:

(http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/C-P_06/logooriginal.jpg)

These are the newer versions:

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/C-P_06/logo1.png (http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/C-P_06/logo1.png)

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/C-P_06/logo2.png (http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/C-P_06/logo2.png)

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/C-P_06/logo3.png (http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/C-P_06/logo3.png)

It's something I made myself, rather than something crafted from video game sprites.

I like the third one the best.

I'll probably use it in my next video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrjf5snx8FE

I spent too much time screwing around, so it took like two or three months longer to finish than it should of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGKRZAHd9MI

I made an animation using walfas.

http://www.walfas.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYwGYjQb3bk

I'm into Touhou now, apparently. This marks my first flash animation, and also my first HD video I uploaded to youtube.

Also, I finished that fanfic animation. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfUP3BFZBGI)

You don't have to view the fan fic animation. I most did it because I was asked to. Not going to do that again, I can tell you this much. I got bored of the fan fic a sixth of the way in, and dragged my feet for half a year until it was finally finished.

Changed the title to a generic one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzcGnBKXp-A

It also seems like my Sword of Sorrow series just doesn't interest me, and I want to make things like this instead.

Is that a bad thing, even though I never finished SoS?

Maybe I should go back and sum up the whole thing and end it in a few episodes, just for old time's sake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e-2o9FHIBI

I really love this song. I used it to make my final project for my After Effects animation class.

I also haven't posted in this topic for a while. Seems nice to put something in here.

I made my first interactive youtube video thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y-KoEJRN6s

Basically, you'll have a choice to choose one of the five characters and you'll go down their paths till you get an ending. There's 26 videos in total, collect them all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7gnlP4NEzE

Oh man, I made a Raocow animation. It's pretty great.