08/22/09 [CVRPG Live] - A 50 in 24 event! (Details Within)

[Destina Faroda]

I wouldn't mind. Chatting with others over the internet? Might be entertaining. But yet, summer break ends in less than a week, then I might not have as much time.

50+ comics in 24 hours? How much bloody time do you need to make a single comic? I could make almost two hundred frames of animation in 24 hours, and I use friggen MS paint. It's just too bad that I don't have that kind of time to spend on my project every day.

I envy you.  It took over 24 hours of work for me just to make my new sprite icon.  In fact, recently I tried to edit an unrelated animation and it took me five hours to RECOLOR one frame.  I quit after that.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

It's a touch more complicated than just putting together frames of animation...

That just may be true. I kinda slap around sprites when I make that sort of thing. One hundred frames in four hours is nothing for me (I have indeed done it before, and a single scene out of eight is useally nearly a hundred frames of length), dispite useing only MS paint. I don't even have photoshop. I just put sprites anywere and hope it looks like it's been animated. That process has been working quite well so far.

But anyways, I don't know your process, but it might be too overly complicated. It's just a bloody webcomic, chap. It's not like animation where perfection and sprite positioning is key for making a smooth motion. But anyways, I was just stating how I'd do something like that. We each have our own styles, after all.

Also, so that we're on the same page, I use paint. Do you know wallence and grummet? Were they have clay figures, and they move the figure a fraction of an inch, then take a picture, then move a fraction of an inch, then take a picture, so on an so forth?

That is simular to what I do. I take a background, then copy it fifty times, then I place a sprite on. I go back to the sprite sheet, select the sprite's next animation frame, copy, then paste it on the second copy of the said background. I repeat until the guy walks off screen, or until it gets to were I want it to, which can easily take up fourty frames. In my next episode, episode six, there will be one point were almost twelve people are moving at the same time.

It gets quite tedious, as I don't have anything even close to photoshop. Just paint, which is why I was saying that I sometimes slap sprites around, and hope the wankers do as what I wish them to. There's a link in my sig that leads to a SoS movie that demenstrates my most earliest work. In that movie is the first animation video I had done (I might of done one second animations before, but I don't remember), and it is really what I call "Slapping them around". When Soma walks across the screen, you can really notice how much the screen shakes. It was before I knew that each frame should be the same size as the other for a smooth animation.

But yet, even now, I slap things around. The screen just shakes less than it did before and I can now animate more things at once that I would be able to before.

[Destina Faroda]

I wonder how you're able to do it so fast, though...or maybe I'm just slow...

[Castle Pokemetroid]

It's all about memorization. Know were the sprite was previously, then you can just slap the next frame on without thinking.

If you're really good at that, a person can just fly by the windows.

I've also been doing it since the past three years. I don't know how long you've been doing it, but I had plenty of practice. That first vid I made took me 11 months to finish. I completed episode six in four and episode five in two and a half months. Episode four has more animation ever made myself (and it still holds that record), but I don't remember how long it took me.

Episode seven is mostly recorded stuff, so I'm half way through it, even though it's only a week and a half after I finished six. Episode seven is also a three part episode.

Anyways, to get back on topic, I revive my previous question in asking Dmoon how long it may take for him to finish a single comic. 24 hours for fifty sounds like a tad bit much to me. If he spends 20 mins on a single comic, then he could finish 72 comics in 24 hours.

[Darkmoon]

I could, but remember I set the challenge so that there had to be 4 comics with action (which always takes longer), and that the story had to be completed in that amount of time, allowing for the fact that I never can tell when a story will be done until it's done. If it taks 100 comics, then I have to do 100 comics.

[Damaris]

You also have to consider, cp, that he rarely scripts out what he's doing ahead of time.  Sure, he might have an idea as to where the story is going, but the individual comics themselves, with the dialouge and such, happen in roughly the same time frame.

Additionally, there's locating the sprites (beyond the normal ones), backgrounds, etc.  And let me tell you from experience - his collection is huge, and takes a while to dig through if you're looking for something in particular.

And heaven help him if he decides partway through the story that he needs more or different sprites.

[Darkmoon]

Yeah, if I have to actually make sprites, it could set me back hours. That's why I delayed doing this as long as I could. I wanted to get most of my collection together for this project ahead of time.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Ah, I see. When I do my projects, I always spend at the least an hour or so fleshing out a script. With a script, I can copy/paste when I'm in the flow of making frames.

Also, with the sprites, I always make sure they're in folders easily found. I have file branches that sometimes reach twenty folders I have to go through, but I always know were everything I need is.

With my project, it is also not a custom sprite comic, meaning anything that I use comes with it's own sheet of complete animation. I don't have the need to use up time making custom sprites.

With backgrounds, I don't peice. I just cut out the proper size, then copy many times. With your comics, there are mutiple frames in a single strip. You need to piece stuff together as well.

With my set up, the only thing that really takes a large amount of time is the side scrolling. That is so very difficult, also seeing that each frame must be the same size as the last for a truely proper and smooth animation. In episode seven, I tackle on sideways scrolling. What murder that was for only two frames.

[Darkmoon]

I have them organize, sure, but when you consider the several gigs worth of spritework I have saved, trying to remember where a particular sprite sheet or background I want is can sometimes take a while.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Out of interest, do you have a backup of that?

[hapless]

Out of interest, do you have a backup of that?

QFT.

"There are two kinds of people: those who make backups and those who will." - or, alternatively
"There are two kinds of people: those who make backups and those who never suffered from a hard disk failure."
//h

[Castle Pokemetroid]

To be honest, I have everything backed up myself. I have all my data on both my computer and a Jump Drive.

Also helps, since I can do my project on ANY windows computer, since they all have MS paint.

[Darkmoon]

I did. My portable HDD died recently, and is on an RMA. I'll re-backup everything onto the new one when it shows up.

[GabrielsThoughts]

I found a back up disk of old art from 2002... there's no amount of retro scripting can make sense out of it, it's just a jumbled mess of non linear storytelling... and the artwork is surprisingly good, but it sill doesn't meet my current standards

but for backups of old backgrounds in a sprite comic I'm half expecting you'd have flat 4 color backgrounds with circles and triangles representing shrubbery and your regular sprites in the foreground. A green rectangle representing the ground would be a change of pace for CVRPG

[Darkmoon]

My archive consists of a variety of sprite maps I've found through my various trolling missions on the net. There's a few sources I have, and I steal everything I can from those sites (anything i think might be of use). I also gather all kinds of random sprites, for similar reasons.

Currently, the CVRPG images folder (which has a backup of every comic, in PSD format, since #60, as well as all my sprites) is 3.6 GB. Not too small, certainly.

[Darkmoon]

The date is set.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

It's on the 22nd?

Good day to choose.

I am only able to go on the computer once every other day. I share this computer with my sister.

The 22nd just so happens to be a day were I get the computer. I just may be able to be with you for the chat thing for a few hours.

I'll have to steal my mom's headset, of course, and my sister might try to scream into the set.

She really seems to like doing that, for some reason.

[bradypodidae]

I'll have to steal my mom's headset, of course, and my sister might try to scream into the set.

She really seems to like doing that, for some reason.

Ah, sibling bonding, I know it well as the middle kid of five...

22nd is a good date barring RL's nasty habit of teaming up with Murphy and his Gremlins. I guess it's off to Radio Shack to find the necessary equipment to join the voice chat, although i hope there is a regular chat as well.

[Destina Faroda]

Oh well.  The 29th would have been better for me, but no matter what day you chose would have been limited on my end.

[Darkmoon]

Sorry to hear that.

There is a way to get a chat linked up to the UStream I plan to run... that is if I can get the UStream to work. I have to reg a program and pay some cash out... but I'm hoping it's not a lot, or that I can at least do a limited registration. I'll have to look into that.

Either that, or we find a way to run an irc while it's going on.

[Mao]

Might want to ask llearch about that, he's still running the comicfrenzy channel on llearch net, might be able to get him to set up a temporary channel for you as well.

[Darkmoon]

When it's time, yeah. He's also the one that helped me setup the teamspeak for it.

[Lisky]

hmm... this has me interested, i'd be up for chatting a little bit as well... mind you, i'll probably be in and out a bit, but either way, best of luck Darkmoon

[Destina Faroda]

Okay, for the idiots in the audience like me.  What do we have to do once Teamspeak is installed?

[Darkmoon]

The information to link up to the chat server will be provided on Friday. Probably I'll post something in here, as I don't want to overload the chat server.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Since the chat server is on my DSL link, this is a good decision. ;-]

(at least, in my opinion...)

[GabrielsThoughts]

when august 22...  I have to read through the thread.

[Darkmoon]

I'm aiming for Noon EST on Saturday. (nods)

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Since there's like a four hour difference with me all the way out here in Hawaii, might be a bit later for me. Might equal less time for me to be on, but most likely no less than an hour and two at best.

See ya til.

[VSMIT]

In case my previous bid for entry was annulled, I'll be there, both to watch and speak.