At 12/11/07 01:34 AM, Coaly wrote: So Animation Invasion was really successful, now My Newgrounds is really successful, and BritishMoose...although he already shamelessly mentioned it today, made a webcam and animation combination for a great score. I had kind of thought of doing animation on video, I think it's pretty cool that other people are doing it. I'm not really sure where I'm going with this...so feel free to add your own thoughts or whatever, what you think would be cool, what ideas you have or what could be done with it...I dunno...

I was thinking of recording me and some friends in the park like attacking each other and then I'd put it into Flash and draw in some effects. I'd probably do it like Heroes, so you could see someone's forehead and then see it split open (drawn in Flash) like how Sylar does. :D

anyone got any recommendations on a cheap camera capable of recording very loud sound with no distortion?

At 12/11/07 08:27 AM, AloneInTheDark wrote:

At 12/11/07 12:06 AM, Senti wrote: My New Grounds

I LOVED it. It's not exactly a new idea, though. It's clearly inspired by the "I'm a PC/I'm a Mac" commercials but that's not to say his execution wasn't phenomenal.

Was the PC/MAC commercial a typo? It might be a little bit like that, but it is EXACTLY the same as the HP commercial. I thought i'd share it here for people who haven't seen it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4mStrgvz Xs

Good call, you are right.

One thing about My New Grounds that makes it so successful is his charismatic and likable personality. He has a great voice and a cool personality. While the effects he used can be done by anyone, it takes something more to make it a success. Unfortunately, not all animators are capable of compelling voice-acting. Then again, you could just as easily hire somebody to read your script and pretend to be you...no one would know.

Hi.

At 12/11/07 12:57 PM, dELtaluca wrote: anyone got any recommendations on a cheap camera capable of recording very loud sound with no distortion?

I've got a canon powershot A85, very good little mic, and i believe you can plug in an external one aswell. I'd go with canon powershots, reliable, cheap and they have a good movie function aswell as a good camera.

At 12/11/07 02:47 AM, BritishMoose wrote: Shamelessly? That's the first time I've ever mentioned it in this thread (I learn from my mistakes, BMK)! Even when Chilly and Keith were wooting it up I remained composed...

Good job on it, i've watched it 3 times now, gotta love the ghostbusters bit :D.

Random Animation = Good Publicity?

I've noticed, and i'm sure others have aswell, that animations, with worse art, but better "randomness" seem to get much higher scores than serious, well animated shorts. I like Awesomes' Creed, Metal gear awesome, and Bad Guys as much as anyone, in fact, MGA is one my favourites, but i don't think its fair to people who put months of work into their animations, to get beaten by an 8 hour quickie.

What are peoples opinions on the matter?

At 12/11/07 02:23 PM, Depredation wrote: What are peoples opinions on the matter?

Thats irrelevant. you shouldnt be working towards a prize anyway. Those that bust their ass for weeks and months are more likely than not doing it for a prize much more valueable than 250 dollars... and that being self fulfillment and accomplishment. If you do the math a months worth of work for only a 250 payday makes no sense and you'd be insane if thats how you planned to get by. Another point is that things are voted on by the general public... most people dont know and never will know the true effort that goes into a real animation.. its just a personality quirk of the animation scene and most veterans come to expect that its a thankless job and dont look to the feedback people have as the comfort for what they do.

People on newgrounds for the most part vote on impulse rather than really take it appart for what its worth. Which is fine, they are perfectly entitled to.. after all its their vote. I think if it were all an animator based voting mechanism then the results month over month would be far different.. as we as animators know the pain and struggle and we are more bound to to vote highly on things that we KNOW take alot of manpower and effort.

my 8 cents

Quality Voting
Along with what Luis said, you need to remember that the Newgrounds audience is voting on the submission as a piece of entertainment, beyond the artistic and intrinsic value. Appeal gets the vote 5's.

Respecting Newgrounds
I have to agree with some of the other posts. It's nice seeing someone say, "hey, Newgrounds does something for me" rather then everyone arguing about the awards they didn't win, or the crying over scores or reviews. Very refreshing to see someone actually do something nice for Newgrounds, in a positive manner.

At 12/11/07 02:11 PM, BritishMoose wrote: Surely we all learn through emulation?

Learning Through Emulation
I was asked this by some interviewer a few weeks ago. She asked, "do you think it's okay for new Flash developers to copy good ideas from other games to learn?" It's a loaded question, because I am not going to tell some Flash developer to go copy Fancy Pants Adventures... but at the same time, going and making a game similar to another to learn game mechanics and theory really does work for some people. We all started out making pong games or some other basic mechanic, such as a basic platformer.

I don't know, what do you guys think?

At 12/11/07 02:33 PM, Luis wrote: my 8 cents

Interesting point. I understand what you mean, $250 seems like more at my age ;).

Giving Something Back

I tried to give something back to newgrounds a while ago. I did an screensaver competition, it was all approved my tom, no cash prize or anything, so i started it. It got some genuinely brilliant submissions (which i still use to date), i emailed tom a few times, and hes never added them, after 2 years or so :(.

I appreciate that he's a busy guy, but a news post would have been nice. If anyone wants them by the way, i probably have them lying around, they're very nice screensavers, especially the fireworks one :).

At 12/11/07 02:47 AM, BritishMoose wrote:

At 12/11/07 01:34 AM, Coaly wrote: BritishMoose...although he already shamelessly mentioned it today

Shamelessly? That's the first time I've ever mentioned it in this thread (I learn from my mistakes, BMK)! Even when Chilly and Keith were wooting it up I remained composed...

doood, jk

At 12/11/07 08:23 AM, AloneInTheDark wrote:

At 12/11/07 01:34 AM, Coaly wrote: My Newgrounds
That was very well done, and original...and funny too, it's pretty much ace all around, props to Alan awesome, seems like I've been seeing his stuff a lot recently, what a jerk being productive!

I wouldn't call it original. It's basically an exact copy of the HP commercial.. It is very well executed though and the humor is cool and subtle.
I think it is very easy to copy existing concepts into flash and score big points with it, but in my opinion it is alot cooler to figure out your own ones.

I guess I should have elaborated on 'original'? I mean, I obviously know it's from the hp commercials, so I must have meant something else right? It's original in that he took the idea and made it his own, and applied it to newgrounds and himself as well as doing it through flash animation. I think saying that he just copied an existing concept into flash isn't giving him enough credit. His original idea was to take the hp commercial and twist it to newgrounds and himself, it was a good original idea.

At 12/11/07 02:54 PM, Depredation wrote: I appreciate that he's a busy guy, but a news post would have been nice. If anyone wants them by the way, i probably have them lying around, they're very nice screensavers, especially the fireworks one :).

Give us some screenies. (If you can - wouldn't pressing printscreen get rid of the screensaver?)

And how do you make screensavers, anyway?

Oh, and did any other google.co.uk users realize that they changed the layout deliberately to piss people off? Stupid bar at the top. Its too far way.

There's a guy on property ladder (on in the background - cant be arsed to get up and turn it off) with brown mullet and a stupid little goatee. Looked familiar.

EMULATION
I dunno if we all start with emulation, but I know I did. I used to copy Garfield the cat from those old garfield comic books, then I moved on to ninja turtles, then bart simpson, then started being more creative. My flash development has been similar with trying to recreate classic games, then creating classic games with my own twist, and finally branching out into newer concepts...

So, even if it's not how everybody does it, I think it's a perfectly good and respectable way to get there, as long as your ultimate goal is to be able to contribute something new.

I think we should be able to show our favorite collections on our user pages.

At 12/11/07 03:47 PM, BoMToons wrote: I think we should be able to show our favorite collections on our user pages.

That would be really useful and cool.

Hmm , some new user page stuff would be awsome. Mybe like have our favorite flash that we have created displayed on the front of it. That would be really cool. Plus the collections idea.

At 12/11/07 03:29 PM, trig1 wrote: And how do you make screensavers, anyway?

I have a free program to do it, does a good job too :). Screenies of a couple below, theres about 7 more. They look much better in motion, trust me.

Oh, and did any other google.co.uk users realize that they changed the layout deliberately to piss people off? Stupid bar at the top. Its too far way.

Yeah, annoys me too. Google has always been one of those sites that goes for functionality rather than looks, and the new bar just seems to be an unnecessary complication.

At 12/11/07 03:47 PM, BoMToons wrote: I think we should be able to show our favorite collections on our user pages.

I like it. Also, maybe a place where we could just post a few pictures, something similar to deviant art, to keep people updated, rather than posting new posts every time.

LOL

i was talking, and decided to put together all the source code that went towards the version of my 3d tauri game with proper physics and no proper graphics, and it came to 5377 lines of code :X

my 2d flash physics engine is currently 1400 lines (Kind of shows how heavily optimized my flash engine is compared to my C++ one really :P)

Do you like masking?

Giving back to NG.
I've always have planed that if I ever got that $250 prize money I'd keep $50 for myself and use the $200 left for some sort of contest... maybe an art or audio one. I never really gave it much thought as I don't see myself coming close to that prize money for at least another year or so.
I've also had some community project ideas but with school and other junk I'd never have the time for 'em. Maybe this summer though.. who knows right?

At 12/11/07 03:47 PM, BoMToons wrote: I think we should be able to show our favorite collections on our user pages.

dont suggest it to tom... he is obsessed with making collections.. he may take you up on that and delay the release of the store, ng mag, and pico 2.

Get involved
The 22nd of December is My Newgrounds Day

At 12/11/07 08:36 PM, Fion wrote: The 22nd of December is My Newgrounds Day

Great. First it was collabs, now the new fad is making up days for Newgrounds. :P

At 12/11/07 07:40 PM, Luis wrote: dont suggest it to tom... he is obsessed with making collections.. he may take you up on that and delay the release of pico 2.

lmfao.

and HOW LONG has it been delayed so far? Tom will never finish it.

Now, what I want to see is April squeezing some little cunts out of hers. I want the corruption of the baby Fulps to begin now. Fuck Wade's kids. It's wade. they probably sit around grooming their goatees like monkeys and play with cameras. their vocabulary consits of "Uncle Tom", "oh snap", and a few expletives.

We must condition them so that Newgrounds wil live on FOREVER! MUAH HA ha ha ha ha HA!

Also, we really need to pull together on Facebook. NG is so unorganized.

At 12/9/07 08:48 AM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: my god AS3 makes pause buttons for game SO easy.... just do stage.frameRate = 0

(beware of streamed sound and Timer events though)

Put the pause code in a KEY_DOWN event or you won't be able to unpause.

SO MUCH EASIER THEN THE OLD WAY!

Meh, I still prefer to just take a bitmap screenshot of the stage and attach it above everything except the pause options, then just bypass any event code. It makes it so simple to use filters and blurs for pause effects.

Anyway, I just got back from an Oxford interview. Go me.

At 12/11/07 07:40 PM, Luis wrote: dont suggest it to tom... he is obsessed with making collections.. he may take you up on that and delay the release of the store, ng mag, and pico 2.

Yeah, Tom is pretty biased with the whole situation. I think we shouldn't mention much to him, I'd like to see a new Newgrounds Mag, anyways. A nice little new branched off site that's redesigned for us all. It's been oh so long. I think it should of already been done.

At 12/11/07 09:40 PM, Masterswordman wrote: Great. First it was collabs, now the new fad is making up days for Newgrounds. :P

Honestly, I think Newgrounds has way too many days. Especially the ones about random Mods and than the whole thing for random branch off series. I think it's getting a bit out of hand to be perfectly honest. I don't quite think my opinion really matters, but it just seems like another day on the calendar. By the rate, we're going every day of the year will be filled up with official Newgrounds Days. -_-

Just another day for Tom to give out all his money and prizes too. Woo hoo...

At 12/11/07 12:49 PM, souled wrote: I was thinking of recording me and some friends in the park like attacking each other and then I'd put it into Flash and draw in some effects. I'd probably do it like Heroes, so you could see someone's forehead and then see it split open (drawn in Flash) like how Sylar does. :D

Well, I just made this in about an hour.

Super-me!

I gave myself some random powers and experimented a bit. What do you guys think? Should I make a whole animation like that?

At 12/12/07 02:52 PM, Rudy wrote: Honestly, I think Newgrounds has way too many days.

Disagree. I think a lot of Flash developers get inspired by a theme or topic, and it brews a lot of creativity from those who would be otherwise watching old reruns of General Hospital.

At 12/12/07 03:08 PM, souled wrote:

I gave myself some random powers and experimented a bit. What do you guys think? Should I make a whole animation like that?

Nice, there's already a flash like this, animation invasion i think its called. Does it have a massive filesize?

At 12/12/07 06:21 PM, BritishMoose wrote: Where have you been?

What I was thinking. I think this branch of Flash animation is surely unique, the animation and video mix.

At 12/12/07 07:11 PM, Masterswordman wrote:

At 12/12/07 06:21 PM, BritishMoose wrote: Where have you been?

What I was thinking. I think this branch of Flash animation is surely unique, the animation and video mix.

In a month or so it won't be unique, as everyone and their mom is going to make one and we'll be flooded with a bunch of crap noob webcam animations, which sadly will make people dislike the stuff that's actually done well.

At 12/11/07 02:33 PM, Luis wrote:

At 12/11/07 02:23 PM, Depredation wrote: What are peoples opinions on the matter?

Thats irrelevant. you shouldnt be working towards a prize anyway.

To be honest, if I spend a long time on an animation, I find good reviews much more rewarding than a high scores or tons of views. If you have a couple of people saying "I loved this, wached it 5 times, i love your style", thats a lot more rewarding than the 50 "LOL THAT WAS WELL GOOD (insert quote from movie here)" comments youd get from something like MGA