UANL resource for DC

[manikus]

For those of you interested in looking at articles on how to create art and design modules, there are some great resources available in the form of UANL, that is the Unlimited Adventures News Letter.
While these articles were written for FRUA (the game which DC is trying to emulate), many, many apply directly to DC and many just need to have DC terms inserted in place of FRUA terms. There are articles on creating icons, walls backdrops, dungeon art and on using chains, quests, NPCs, as well as a large number of articles written to help designers refine her module.

I've put together a pdf file with an index of articles that are useful for DC users. Visit my site to download the pdf. It's under the post entitled (oddly enough), UA News Letter Index for Dungeon Craft.

[Uatu]

Hmm - nice work! Lots of interesting links in there. Would have been even better if it wasn't a PDF file, though... (It is quite heavy on my computer to view PDF files...)

By the way, going to your site, I noticed that huge Cthulhu icon (and portrait)! Awesome! That thing is big and nice - would be a great final (futile) battle for a Cthulhu-themed DC module... (Might even attract all those people out there who like the Cthulhu books...)

The female magic-user is also very nice

[manikus]

Thanks.
I'll send you a PM with the html file.

I've wanted to do something with Cthulu for a while. Then, I had a dream a little while ago, in which a cultist was trying to summon Tiamat to smite her enemies. The spell didn't work, but it broke the barrier between our world and where-ever it is that Cthulu was haning out, so it came on through... I awoke in the middle of the night, and just laid there, kind of frightened to go back to sleep, and kind of wanting to get up and do some art. (I just fell back asleep.)

Edited to add: looks like I can't attach files to PMs, so I'll just email it you from the manikus5 at yahoo account.

[Uatu]

Thanks (I always prefer HTML to PDF - PDF is best for scans of books, etc....)

Gee - you do have strange dreams there! I haven't had a medieval fantasy dream in like a decade (or more)...

[manikus]

It wasn't a medieval/fantasy dream. That's why it freaked me out. It was one of those kind that begins: "Today started just like any other day..."

I like to use pdf files so that I can keep better control of them - I like a format that almost everyone can view and almost no one can edit.

[Uatu]

Hmm - can't anyone with Adobe Acrobat (or the free non-Adobe equivalent) edit them anyway?

[manikus]

This one they can b/c I didn't lock it down when I made it, but when you're creating the file you can decide the level of 'interaction' with the end user. But, I don't worry about that, as most people are unfamiliar with the way the format works and/or do not have the correct software. I've thought about releasing the tutorials as .doc files and locking them down, but the file size was bigger.

[Uatu]

Ah - .doc files are quite heavy as well (not quite as heavy as .pdf, maybe?)... It is all .html or .txt for me...

[manikus]

It's the people in the forum that I communicate with, you (Uatu), SilentThief, Dinonykos, some other folks, that I don't mind sending the easily editiable files to. If I know the person it's okay. It's just all of the people that I don't know, the folks that fly in and out like shadows in the night...
I've seen a lot of crap released for other games. You'll see a fan enhancement with 4 different people hosting it on their site as their own work, but 3 of them are exactly the same and the fourth one has the site host's name added to it in a different font. (I should dream that DC becomes that popular.)

I guess I should make sure my name is on all of them. Actually, you can do this with .png files too, in the non-visible info section (I don't know if you can do this with MSPaint) and make them read only, but then no one could change them, plus it's super-easy to change from read only unless I go all high-tech.

One solution that I've seen in the 3D world, is to use passworded .zip files, with a usage agreement on the page where the downloads are kept that clearly has the password and just as clearly states that using the password means you agree to all the provisions of usage.
But, I'm not going to start worrying about this until people are actually using my art as their own. That's one of the benchmarks I have to let myself know that I'm doing something right.

Oh, I've had way too much caffeine this morning. But, I've got to spend all day working on a router model and getting the subnetting down.

Today's networking lesson:
Learn the OSI model, and while it's only a model, use it to analyze your system, especially when troubleshooting. Always start at layer 1 and work up.

[Uatu]

Regarding copying of work...

I once put up a martial arts lineage chart (in Chinese) that I was working on on my older homepage (I didn't link it or anything); as I was working on it, it was wrong (in various places). Of course, after a few years, I find copies of it all over the (Chinese) Internet! So, my mistakes now go around the Web as fact...

3D models look like they take a lot of time to make, though, so I can see how people would want to keep their material protected...

But okay, thanks for lesson #2 - will try to learn it! (Will also order the Networking for Fools (er, Dummies) book soon...)