Hobby vs. Occupation debate

At 3/2/07 11:25 AM, Luis wrote: Thoughts?

Well considering I've not actually finished a toon or game in twelve months, it's hard to argue that Flash was my hobby. But there is no doubt that I currently enjoy the status quo I'm under. I'm paid to tinker in Flash, learn techniques that actually work (rather than workarounds I've enjoyed in the past), and have generally had a lot of fun over the past month or so I've been paid a respectable amount to, effectively, do what I was going to do for nothing.

Nine til FIves hurt your free time. And truth be told I've thought less and less about actually getting to open the copy of Flash I've got at home. Maybe that'll change when I get the net connected to my flat tommorow and set myself an April 30 deadline.

But yes, I think your hobby can become your job happily and it can continue being your hobby. So long as you continually refresh your creativity and schedule yourself, working with Flash or Animation or Web Design for a living is no more soul destroying than a job in Middle Management or at McDonalds. And at least this way it's something you enjoy

Hobby vs Occupation
I believe it is good to do something you love as a job. Obviously you might not be making your own films as a job, you might be making commercial works for others and fitting around a brief but I dont think that means it would be has to be a lot less enjoyable. Personally I love creatively thinking my way around a brief so that works for me.
I am sttudying animation and intend to get a job within animation. I can see where you're coming from, I think, but I dont really agree.

Hobby VS Occupation
Lcukily I'm not in a financial position where I need to pay for my life, so I do Flash strictly as a Hobby. In fact I was gonna do it as a career (well game design or animation) so I began kind of forcing myself to make flash and it became not so fun. I know I'm not a great programmer (I just use lines from a book and piece them together into a different kind of game, I understand AS but I can't get a grip on the whole thing...) so then I thought I'd be an animator and that was a disaster! Anyhoo, I make flash games now as a hobby when ever I want, that way its fun and more personal. I've got offers from sponsors and as much as I'd like to say I declined because I'm not a sell out, its because I don't have paypal or a means of accepting the money! Turthfully I would like to be sponsored to make some cash and put it towards a site or maybe Super Smash Bros Brawl! But I'm not pursueing this as a career anymore. Because it does contradict the whole bit that its fun, its very hard to turn something fun into a career...

FOR THE RECORD [LUIS/JMTB02] STILL THINK FLASH MX IS THE BEST FLASH VERSION EVER MADE.

So why do you guys use later versions?

John I can understand, but Luis, couldn't most your animations be done without filters?

Buzzwerd's game

At 2/28/07 03:36 PM, TrueDarkness wrote:

At 2/28/07 02:27 PM, Bezman wrote:

Hoping the levels are more streamlined than it looks there though.

What would you suggest? I'm looking to take some advice for this one :)

It's more of a feeling than an actual observation. Hard to know for sure when it's just a video of just part of just one level. I don't know how much further than level expands, or even what the primary goal of the levels are - to beat x enemies? To flip the switches? To simply reach the endpoint?

If what we saw is all there is of a typical level, I may have been hasty and made something of an assumption. I mean it's not too sprawling to lack focus - I just saw a couple of minor problems (in my eyes) that might be repeated to worse degrees.

I wasn't too keen on the way your level split into 2 straight from the start - maybe it just reminded me of those levels where instead of basing the levels on a loose path, then packing as much as can be into that area, it's more a case of deciding upon what you want in a level, then placing it all roughly in a rectangle. Without planning out on paper the path we're going to take and ensuring we don't need to back-track, backtracking is practically inevitable. I personally think that detours are best when they sorta loop around and then bring you back to the same screen you left at.

A lot of it's purely personal preference, but essentially, in plateformers, I tend not to like levels with multiple routes as much as levels with a single path. That's one of the reasons why I preferred Sonic (MD version(Genesis)) to #2.

Also, I hate it when you jump, miss a few coins, then if you want to reach those coins, you need to backtrack and climb back up before jumping again... I just hate games that seem to be a gamble with time at stake. The part I saw at the end of the level, just kinda looked like it'd be a bit of trial and improvement, with a fair bit of backtracking before the improvement can be made.

As I say, it was just a feeling and when I try and find specific things from your video, it's only negligible points, which - in isolation - wouldn't be a problem.

I honestly think Yoshi's Island on the Snes (or, to a lesser extent, the GBA version) has the best overal level design and ingenuity of any 2D game. Certainly any platformer. Ingenious and functional. I love the way so many secrets are packed into those levels. (I'm still working on getting all 7 stars after all these years...) I find myself preferring that to Super Mario's World now - sure, the latter has more of a sense of exploration (specially in the non-linear map) but the former has more secrets per pixel and playing that has both a treasure-hunt feel, whilst managing to almost entirely avoid any backtracking.

Sorry for digressing. I just think if you haven't played Yoshi's Island, you really should.

Hobby Vs Occupation

Yeah, for me, flash is a hobby, although i don't have another job, and i make money from it (not much) so you could call it a job.

My rule is, if you enjoy it, and you make less then $50 a week, then its a hobby. Otherwise, its a job. I agree with Luis partly, but if you're doing something you love,and getting paid, what's wrong with that?

At 3/2/07 01:21 PM, Bezman wrote: John I can understand, but Luis, couldn't most your animations be done without filters?

But they are. :D

well the whole reason i upgraded was because as i found myself doing more collaborative work it became a bigger challenge to work with others and still remain attached to my beloved mx. Not all my non collaborative works are truly non-collaborative... for instance in clockday movie, i had mogly help me out with something, had cheshirepus doing something.. had the actionscript camera goin.. etc etc. sometimes ill have people who will make cameo appearances in my work and its just a huge burden to be wandering from flash version to version... im gonna go ahead and wait until it becomes a big issue later on when flash 9 comes out before i upgrade again..

Hobby Vs Occupation

Interesting topic. I myself have no actual desire to make a career in flash - sure, some animating and game-making can be kinda fun from time to time, but when it comes down to it, I'm not too sure I want to spend the greater part of my life sitting in front of my computer...

But that question is getting harder and harder to answer nowadays, what with sponsor money being so good..! Like what Tom (and others) offered me for Lars' Adventure... it's actually hard to motivate oneself NOT to make games.

I just graduated from uni in January, and the post grad I wanna take doesn't start until September, so I've decided I'm gonna do flash close to full-time until then. Partly because I really need to start paying off my frighteningly large student loans...

But when I get a proper job, I have a hard time seeing myself finding time to make flash games. If I don't get one I'll probably be forced to, though :)

At 3/2/07 01:56 PM, GustTheASGuy wrote:

At 3/2/07 01:21 PM, Bezman wrote: John I can understand, but Luis, couldn't most your animations be done without filters?

But they are. :D

I thought he has some vector blurring in most of his animations these days.

At 3/2/07 03:39 PM, raitendo wrote: But that question is getting harder and harder to answer nowadays, what with sponsor money being so good..! Like what Tom (and others) offered me for Lars' Adventure... it's actually hard to motivate oneself NOT to make games.

...well i for one dont think money should be someones sole desire to get into the buisness....

i for one intend on getting my bachalor of arts in the next 2 years, and hopefuly learn some 3D programs and possibly some clases on flash and programming. so yah, i do intend on going all the way with it all. But i need to work on my artwork, im not that great. : (

At 3/2/07 04:29 PM, 23450 wrote: ...well i for one dont think money should be someones sole desire to get into the buisness....

maybe you say that because you yourself aren't making any money off of your games? but if I said to you "hey, I'll give you $2000 for that game, whaddaya think?", maybe you would understand how I feel. not that money is my "sole desire", far from. But, still... when I was 17 years old and made AWO, Portal Fighter II and the other games I made back then, I was only in it for the kicks, you know, the feeling of ecstasy you have when you're game has been played 500,000 times. But I'm 24 now, and I need to motivate the time I'm spending in front of my computer more and more. There are things that make me happier than sitting alone in my room watching a computer screen, and that's no matter how many people actually end up playing my games.

i personally don't think Flash MX is the best version. true, it was the biggest upgrade, but now that Flash 8 is out and Flash 9 will be coming out, it's deprecated. while deprecation isn't necessarily a bad thing, it is when it's not being supported anymore. ever notice that you can't open up MX FLAs in Flash 8?

anyway...i started out on Flash MX. my dad's friend just gave a cd to my brother and i.

RE: Hobby vs. Occupation

getting paid to do something you enjoy would probably be the best career you could get. it's like being a chocoholic and working for Cadbury, although less tangible with Flash. i don't really have much else to say, except that i think being a freelance Flasher would be the best way to go in terms of Flash jobs (except working for Macro.....Adobe), because you aren't going to be going from project to project and deadline to deadline, sucking the fun out of it. each client would have a new thing for you to do and different challenges every time.

Flash Version

i have flash 6.. i've had the chance to get 7 and 8, both times i said no..

mainly cuz my pc can barly run '6 properly but also cuz i see no neeed to update..

more AS that i will never use, filters that i can do easily using photoshop or just normal drawing in flash..

And, though i have idea's for collab's, i woulnd't really want to lead another one, mainly due to the time waiting for people to send their finished .fla's, haveing all those big transfers over msn and email and so on...

only cool people use flash 6 :)

bezman! long time no see :D!

Video CD

spent about 90 minutes making a VCD today, and it didn't even work correctly < out of sync, horribly...>

So, NERO 7 was a waste of money...

the help file wans't even helpfull either... errors made on the programs account <a nd not changeable>

PAL FPS is not 25...
Why re encode a file thats not needing re-encoding..

*sigh*

Death's Curtain

Hey remeber when this was uploaded before? the newer version is better i'd say but, story and voice acting seem a little.. strange.. still good to see a movie of such style though, makes a change from hentai quiz's, sprite movies and overall, movies with pointless plots and fighting.. :)

At 3/2/07 05:30 PM, Lord-Sonx wrote: Flash Version

i have flash 6.. i've had the chance to get 7 and 8, both times i said no..

mainly cuz my pc can barly run '6 properly but also cuz i see no neeed to update..

you must have a crappy PC. my laptop is about 850 mHz and has 256 megs of RAM, but i can run Flash 8 fairly well on it. it takes a while to load up, but it runs smoothly enough after that.

more AS that i will never use, filters that i can do easily using photoshop or just normal drawing in flash..

the potential for you to learn this new AS should entice you. staying with MX because you don't think you need the new AS is like refusing to be promoted because you don't think you need the extra money.

also, the filters are made to be dynamic. photoshopped pictures aren't dynamic. so that just makes it a pain in the ass. also, you can't change the gaussian or motion blurs in photoshop on-the-fly like you can in flash (although flash doesn't technically support motion blurs to begin with, the effect can be faked with a trail or transparent movieclips).

only cool people use flash 6 :)

you're only saying that because you don't have flash 8 :P

Death's Curtain

Hey remeber when this was uploaded before? the newer version is better i'd say but, story and voice acting seem a little.. strange.. still good to see a movie of such style though, makes a change from hentai quiz's, sprite movies and overall, movies with pointless plots and fighting.. :)

i saw it wheen it was under judgement...it was interesting, but i got bored while watching it. the voice acting was pretty painful to listen to, as well \: voice-acting has never been a strong suit of SickDeathFiend.

At 3/2/07 05:46 PM, ShirtTurtle wrote:

At 3/1/07 05:08 PM, fuzz wrote: Operating systems
XP looks like a stupid smiley a cross breed between a xD and a :P

PC looks like a sad pirate...

MAC looks like a satanic orgy of underage children.

Apple is truly evil.

At 3/2/07 05:42 PM, Rammer wrote:

At 3/2/07 05:30 PM, Lord-Sonx wrote: i have flash 6.. i've had the chance to get 7 and 8, both times i said no..

mainly cuz my pc can barly run '6 properly but also cuz i see no neeed to update..

you must have a crappy PC. my laptop is about 850 mHz and has 256 megs of RAM, but i can run Flash 8 fairly well on it. it takes a while to load up, but it runs smoothly enough after that.

well it runns smoothly i guess but when it coems tot he big fla's and graphicly intence stuff it slows down a bit, .. a bit cna be a few seconds to a few minutes to 37 minutes.. ( yes i counted... that was to export a 9000+frame movie though..)

more AS that i will never use, filters that i can do easily using photoshop or just normal drawing in flash..

the potential for you to learn this new AS should entice you. staying with MX because you don't think you need the new AS is like refusing to be promoted because you don't think you need the extra money.

i'm an aniamtor, not a game maker :) i can barly understand the AS that exists in flash 6, why wouldn't i want more, even if it is ther,e i sitll woulnd't use it, i don't even want to use AS camera, movieclips and tweening is more fun :P

and if i was offerd more money at my job < that i dont have> i'd say yes and spend the extra money on chocolates for you lover ;)

lol!

At 3/2/07 06:15 PM, Lord-Sonx wrote: blah blah blah
and if i was offerd more money at my job < that i dont have> i'd say yes and spend the extra money on chocolates for you lover ;)

aww.

The Wizard of OS

Honestly, one last thought on this whole matter. I feel some of you can hardly even talk about things such as who stole what and what changed how when some of you have hardly been alive long enough to really get a feel for the older OS(es?). The oldest OS I've used might have been Windows 3.1, that doesn't include DOS because I never used a computer that didn't at least have 3.1 on it. Some of you probably haven't even used Windows 95. As for Macs, all the computers in schools used to be Macs. The REAL old ones. I mean maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but considering how quickly things change in computers, the fact that I'm 5 years older than some must mean something.

Work vs. Play

I'm making one of the few things I love my career, in a sense. Its what I'm studying at college but considering how over flooded the market is I'm not too hopeful to find a job in the field. If I didn't have such a distaste for the way college works today, and society in general, I might have picked a major in hopes of actually finding a job, maybe even one that pays well.

Re: Mx04
I Have the luxury of having both the flash 9 alpha, mx and mx04, And i agree mx 04 has the nicest layout and streamlined function, but i still find myself in 9 alpha alot, and when I'm in mx or mx04 I usually end up importing into 9 before exporting, I'm crazy and I think the exports have cleaner lines, I know that's not true but I'm willing to surcome(sp?) to my crazyness,

and I doubt as 3 will change me in anyway, scripting requires to much memory and math for me. I can't wait till they have scripting that you just give it regular sentances =)

I.E If space is pressed go to and play Mc Run in Mc character =P

in a way, AS is already in sentence form. it all depends on how you read it.

when i wrote

var pt:Point = new Point(_root._xmouse, _root._ymouse);
vx = Math.random() * 20 - Math.random() * 20;
vy = Math.random() * 20 - Math.random() * 20;

i read it as

"var pt equals new Point, _xmouse and _ymouse
x velocity equals Math.random times 20 minus Math.random times 20"

and stuff.

At 3/2/07 07:18 PM, BritishMoose wrote:

At 3/2/07 07:15 PM, NextToNothing wrote: I.E If space is pressed go to and play Mc Run in Mc character =P

All the actionscripters would need to learn how to draw :)

Ha Good point...

Seeing as I forgot to give my opinoion on ocupation vs. hobby here's my opinion

Ocupation vs. Hobby

For me at leaste, as soon as I have to do somethign at a certain time for a certain amount of time, I lose interest. Even for things like instruments, the minute I have to play, I want to quit. Although I'd love to be paid to animate, It would have to be on my terms, animating what I want when I want, which just doesn't happen, unless your like dave from R.A.B . But even he still is required to animate to survive. I think It's important to find something that facinates you with a genioune interest rather than something you love to do.

I think interest and enjoyment are two completely different things. Like, writing might interest me but I don't love to do it.

Character Sketches on Paper or in Flash

I used to always do character design on the computer as I don't have a scaner, but recently I've been sketching on paper then trying to figure out how to creat the lines on a computer. But I don't think it would help me any further to buy a scanner, seeing as if I drew it on paper scanned then imported it into flash and traced it. I wouldn't have the shape in my "fingers" while drawing on the computer, So I'd have trouble re-creating it at a different angle.

I'm just curious what other people do for character design and if they do draw on paper then scan, how do you get the figure into your fingers.

Sobriety

Yes, I know the “S” word is one of the most offensive words ever, but here me out.

Over the summer I intend to stay 100% sober (unless it’s someone’s birthday and/or I just feel like getting drunk). It’s not for health reasons, it’s purely fiscal. If I don’t drink, my alcohol tolerance will drop, so I’ll be able to get drunk for less £££.

In your life time

What even do you want to happen in your lifetime? Our parent’s had the Moon landing, so I would to see a Man on Mars before I die.

Reg Meet Up

Flash Reg eet Up 2007 :

October.

Canterbury.

Children In Heat

PISSIN’ BLOOD!

PISSIN’ BLOOD!

Sobriety
I bet you won't last 2 weeks.

In your life time

What even do you want to happen in your lifetime? Our parent’s had the Moon landing, so I would to see a Man on Mars before I die.

That would be pretty cool, I'm hoping (well, not hoping in the sense) that we witness World War III

Reg Meet Up

Canterbury.

Damn you English!
Australia Reg meetup: September, Melbourne. :P <3

A sprite thing, not on ripping.
For my space shooting game, I'm thinking of making my own sprites of the space ships in MS paint, because I like the old school look of sprites for top down shooters. But I'm worried about negative thoughts on sprites. Or is this negativity just towards well, Nintendo sprites. And do you guys think thats a waste of time, rather then just drawing up some flash looking ships that don't look too old school.

At 3/2/07 07:58 PM, Vengeance wrote: Damn you English!
Australia Reg meetup: September, Melbourne. :P <3

your from Melbourne? Geese, i know way to many people from there. There friggin everywhere. I almost whent there....

not that thats a bad thing....

RE: Reg Meet-up

screw Canterbury.

reg meet-up.

colorado springs, colorado, US.

see you there.

At 3/2/07 07:58 PM, Vengeance wrote: Sobriety
I bet you won't last 2 weeks.

2 weeks? More like 2 days!

Australia Reg meetup: September, Melbourne. :P <3

I never knew your were from down under! <3

Immortals @ Woody’s

My local pub is woody's, and at this time of year they do the immortals challenge. There's a beer challenge and a spirit challenge.

Beer Challenge

Sirrus
Becks
Stella
Brahma
Staropromen
Masterbrew
Guinness****
Coors
Peroni Nastro
Grolsch
Red Stripe
Asahi
Sol
Tiger
Castle
San Miguel
Rolling Rock

Spirits

Malibu & Cranbury
Bacardi****
Blue Curacao****
Pimms & Lemonade
Wine****
Jagermaster****
Cherry Brandy****
Baileys****
Pernod
Sambuca****
Tequila****
Smirnoff Black Ice
VK
Goldschlager****
Sabai
SoCo, Giner Ale & Lime
Martini & Lemonade

**** = drinks not yet drunk

Upon completing the challenge, you get your name on a gold plate, which is stuck upon the rafters!

OLD OSes

At 3/2/07 07:14 PM, MethodMinus wrote: The oldest OS I've used might have been Windows 3.1, that doesn't include DOS because I never used a computer that didn't at least have 3.1 on it.

I have! I have used a pure DOS computer many years ago. It had a game called "castle" and the characters, items etc were all made with ASCII, you played by typing in what you wanted the character to do. REALLY simple instructions like "get key". The main character was a + sign. The game came on a B drive which is another kinda of floppy disc drive that is much bigger, but stores less I believe, and the discs actually are floppy.
I think we also had some word and maths games called frog pool 1, 2, 3 etc
Aaah, memories.

OS

BBC Computers count? had them back when i was in primary 1 (age 5) they were awesome...

Bob goes 'POP'

Here's a question that has probably been asked a million times in the Reg Lounge (but I really don't care): What drives you to create Flash movies and games? I make animations because you can make something that is 'alive', things that move and people like and I've always been a creative person. (Plus all of the internetfame, of course...)

Also, do you guys feel all warm and fuzzy inside after watching Oprah?