Art Requests

[manikus]

I didn't notice the human fighter and magic-user until today. I don't know how I missed them, unless they were snuck into the page this morning. They are pretty cool looking and noticeably taller than some of their friends. I think it's nice to have some variation (all 2 or 3 pixels of it ).

[Uatu]

Ha ha... Well, the girl I envisioned as a tall, model-type (she towers over everyone else, as a result ). I haven't done many human males yet, so the fighter just seems tall as well...

(Lots of height variation in real life, too )

[manikus]

That's good. Variation in our icons is a good thing. We don't want it tio look like all the humans are from the same template and we just change a few pixels to make them look different (even if that is what we are doing).

[Arminius]

Originally Posted by manikus I just re-advertised my site on the yahoo list, as it's hard to gauge if anyone noticed the first one a couple of weeks ago, as the hits to the site are pretty low. Maybe I just need some new content? I suppose that could help.

Yeah I read the list. But I've always kept an eye on your site quite regularly anyway so I guess I don't count. Don't feel bad, my Forum gets tons of traffic, all from bots. How the hell can those things create accounts complete with emails? Hell I'd welcome them if they could post something usefull once in a while! lol

[Arminius]

Originally Posted by manikus For darkness, have you thought about using the auto-darken feature through a GPDL call?

What is a GPDL call and how can I start using them? I also recall reading some of you talking about scripting before. Is there a lower level way of editing or tweaking DC games via the use of text files as script or something like those used by RPG Maker XP or FPS Creator? That would be awesome! I love to get into the nuts and bolts of my favorite programs and DC definately tops the list of favorites for me.

[manikus]

My forum died b/c of bots. Not just as my site, though. They were so bad the whole 40k+ forum farm at forumsplace went down, and when it came back up it was infected with bad, bad things (porn pop-ups, for example). The company couldn't fix it's problems and ended up selling the domains they owned for dirt cheap b/c people were threatening to sue them. Anyways, I digress.

The GPDL is the engine that runs all of the scripts in the game (all spells, special abilities, dice roles, etc). And as far as I know, there are only two people in the whole world who know how to use it properly and neither one of them are active in DC anymore. (They are CocoaSpud, aka Richard Turner and PAul Stevens, both of whom still follow the progress of this project.) Fortunately, Tarlanon is figuring a lot of it out, which is good since he needs to fix a bug with it that we are currently experiencing. ST is learning as well. So am I, but I'm trying to focus mroe on the in-game side, not writing compilable scripts.
There is no easy text file method. There is compiling involved if it's ourside of the editor.

[SilentThief]

And to paraphrase (if that is the right word...):

Originally Posted by manikus The GPDL is the engine that runs all of the scripts in the game (all spells, special abilities, dice roles, etc).... There is no easy text file method. There is compiling involved if it's ourside of the editor.

GPDL was originally designed as a text based conversation engine, where you set up answers to questions that have keywords that prompt the response you write in. That is the reference to compiling outside of the engine if you write a scripted conversation. There is some cool things you can do with GPDL right now, and there is much that was written for the functionality but is not currently working proplerly. But if you are interested in learning this I could show you what I know about this (it isn't much but its a start)

ST
ps I havent done a conversation script yet, either.

[Uatu]

I tried the template thing for a while (you can see a bunch of similar elf icons on my site, for example)... I guess I didn't really like how it worked out, though:

1. Everyone looks the same
2. The work itself was monotonous and not fun!

So, I am mostly back to just drawing people singly, although I may reuse an icon once or twice (but not much more than that).

It is also tiring to do males AND females of everything so... nowadays just one or the other as I feel like it

[manikus]

I still make my icons as if they were going to be templates, but then don't use them as such. Back in the day, Jorg was releasing layered psd files with many possible weapon and armor choices, each layer in grey tones so you could pick your own color...those were the days. I released my first dwarf (or two) in the same format. And virtually no one used them...though TwilightKing shrunk them down to make halfling versions, which no one used. I guess I'm not really benig fair, though, as very few icons have been used at all because there aren't any mods out there... Maybe on people's home computers, on all of those mods-in-progress, they're using lots and lots of the templated icons.

I just like doing the originals as layered files so that if later, I am making a mod which wants an orc with a spear instead of a sword, it's just turn off one layer and add another.

[Uatu]

Yeah, that can be useful, for sure - especially weapons and such (weapons are the thing that needs to be switched most of all - it is quite a hassle to draw weapons again and again, too)...

It can also be fun to put quirky arms/armor layers as well (Santa hat? Bikini? Barrel?)