#Reasons to play CS3

[asoulofatlantis]

This. The return of my second favorite Rean x Alisa shipper in the game (the first being Sharon, obviously XD)

And also the fact that I agree with Gwin. No one can blame anyone who wants a piece of our young stud here XD

The first time ever you want to scream at them: “NOOOOOOO! DO NOT GET BACK TO THE COURAGOUS! ABONDEN THAT SHIP AND TAKE ANOTHER ONE INSTEAD! PLEEEEEEEEEAAAAASE!”

The fact that Juna pretty much confirmed that Rean and Alisas tender reunion embrace felt like it lasted 5 minutes, even tho it were barely two and a half XD

(Also, it is always amusing that Juna and Kurt talk about how hard it must be for Alisa and Rean that Angelica is missing and Ash decided to lighten the mood by asking if they have been doing... you know... “things” at their reunion last night XD)

He just got the trademark glare from Alisa because Musse was playing her “Instructor Rean, have you been seeing other woman?” - record and this is his reaction XD

Seeing how far Reans sister-complexe can bring the guy who is always saying to “detain” and “suppress” the enemy and never aims at killing anyone, no matter who or what, is definitely quite worth replaying this game XD

The fact that we here that last line A LOT from now on but still keep saying “new class 7 and old/original class 7″ anyway XD

One just has to love the auto-assignment of those teams XD Rean has half his harem right behind him. Jusis, Millium and Machias are in the same team. Ash and Musse are in the same team just as Juna and Kurt are, which is simply the way they work best. It feels like Sara just randomly got dropped into a team, while Gaius and Elliot makes at least somewhat sense. But... well... I don’t mind.

This is the Semi-Final-Dungeon and it feel a lot more like and actual final dungeon then the Gral, so I need all my strength for that part. Which is why I will take a break for now.

[sourcreammachine]

AMY’S BRIDGES

how are you supposed to cross the river in east london?

tower bridge is the last bridge over the thames until the big ol’ suspension bridge way further out. everything else here is tunnels (mostly)

for road tunnels, there’s the rotherhithe tunnel - the tenth most dangerous tunnel in europe due to lax safety features, where large vehicles including busses are banned, and “a rare example of a road tunnel where traffic, pedestrians and cyclists all share the same bore”. for the love of sin, don’t go in that hole. then there’s the blackwall tunnel for road traffic only, which only one bus route uses, and it’s under-construction neighbour the silvertown tunnel, the road traffic-only worst tunnel ever that’ll increase congestion in the docklands, won’t benefit drivers with an easier route, and won’t ease congestion out of blackwall due to not offering alternative modes bar busses

so, then there’s the tunnel of the windrush line, crossing from rotherhithe to wapping and connecting to the DLR and the jubilee. but this line serves central-south london, not south east, where it doesn’t connect to anything. its utility as a crossing in-and-of-itself is really only for the people very close to it anyway. but there’s the jubilee - when approaching from waterloo way on this is a good connection to canary wharf and the dlr. but its last station before the tunnel is at canada water, over a kilometre before the river. it’s worthless as a crossing. out of north greenwich (aka Dome) it’s got two tunnels to canary wharf and canning town - but the only reason you’ll have to cross the river there is if you happen to find yourself on the peninsula. which is why it’s fucking ridiculous that mayor disgraced journalist racist cunt built his zip line there - basically fucking mirroring a route between two tube stations. there is the elizabeth at the end of the docklands, but i don’t know if anyone would use it for the only purpose of crossing the river there, because it’s served by the only ray of hope, the DLR, which plugs greenwich into canary wharf and woolwich into the royal docks. and that’s yer lot

SO

with such awful crossings, the two halves are totally blown apart. road traffic needs to happen, yes, but in a dense cityscape people need to be on the transit systems to reduce the burden. what can we do?

the pool of london is dead. big ships do not need to go up there. london bridge has a clearance of ~9m for river boats, so any bridge we build further out doesn’t need any more clearance. this does mean the Belfast will have to move, unless we’re okay with trapping her in. the top of rotherhithe to limehouse is the best place for a mass transit-only bridge, it may be narrower than tower bridge, and connect two areas that are totally splayed open. there should be some sort of transit mode going vertically from limehouse (for the dlr), up mile end and forking to either hackney or stratford, and down to surrey quays, and then forking to greenwich for the dlr there and west laterally, either north-ish up to elephant & castle or south-ish to brixton, or better yet, both. i say mode because a lot of things could work here, but the best would be a mix of things. here’s my idea

amy fuck presents the Limehouse Bridge

with a length-over-water of 250m, this carfree bridge connects a major transit avenue to an area prime to host connections for the people of southeast london. from the centre of limehouse, exactly where the rotherhithe tunnel’s bendy route emerges, the road south intersects with Cycle Superhighway 3. from CS3, we’ll bulldoze the tired-looking building blocking the view, and fly over to rotherhithe, bulldozing some gentrified townhouses to cut past a playing field to have plugged in to both rotherhithe street and salter road

i propose two primary pubtrans modes using the bridge: the dlr, and trams. expanding the heavy tram network, often more akin to light rail, will be vital to making the transit of central-south london as good as the north, and connecting up the dlr will cement its use in the southeast as well as the northeast

i’ll cover my dlr proposals first, though, perhaps the name docklands would have to be dropped at this point. with possibly a light rail route up north, from the limehouse bridge the light rail network can return round surrey quays to connect into greenwich, creating a vital and necessary corridor. in addition, from greenwich the route can continue to woolwich and the thamesmead extension, creating a lateral backbone to ensure usage of the dlr’s tunnels rather than the road tunnels. in addition, the lateral routes can provide vital transport for the greater southwark area with two branches, one forming a new corridor to elephant & castle, through an area with appalling connections relative to its centrality, maybe even continuing onwards to waterloo or vauxhall, or even to parliament itself. the second is to serve as an area backbone for communities, through bermondsey, peckham, camberwell and brixton, perhaps continuing to battersea or closing the loop at vauxhall. the limehouse bridge will be the linchpin of this new system, its connectivity bringing rotherhithe and the surrey quays to life, becoming a counterweight of humanity against the looming towers of canary wharf

the heavy tram systems i propose, however, i will not illustrate. because i believe they should spread out from their start in wimbledon, croydon and beckenham to form a much larger network for south london, replicating, surpassing the north’s tube, much larger than i can draw today. from limehouse bridge, the heavy tram network can integrate the areas south of the brixton spoke: crystal palace, dulwich, norwood, streatham, clapham, tooting, bromley, lewisham

all of which leaves limehouse bridge: pedestrians, cycle superhighway, light rail, heavy tram, no motor vehicles. a triumph of modern planning, the aorta of the east

so with the dlr from this bridge serving the greenwich and deptford regions, no more crossings will be needed here due to the dlr’s tunnel at the end of the isle of dogs. it’s all plugged in - and the dome has the jubilee tunnels, which could be co-opted by any new over-ground “underground” lines to serve the area if they are needed. destroy the fucking cable car. fell it. yell timber

prioritising those heavy trams now, we can connect charlton through silvertown and eastenders with a new tunnel. with the unnecessary silvertown road tunnel opening 2025, more road connections aren’t needed. so - pubtrans from charlton to newham - then heavy trams in the tunnel like it’s a miniature channel tunnel. also feature pedestrian and cycle access, obviously

there had been suggestions that the suffragette line (formerly the goblin) after barking riverside might cross the river to thamesmead, where that dlr extension might go. do it. this has to be commuter rail now, as we’re threading suburbs together. after that, we’re probably well served enough until the dartford suspension bridge

but… cars and road traffic are an unfortunate reality. with ground broken (or water broken?) on the silvertown tunnel, unholy amounts of heavy traffic are going to be funnelled through greenwich and poplar. removing passengers who can be removed can only help us so much. the unfortunate truth is a woolwich road bridge, replacing the ferry, is a good idea. toll it to high hell obviously, but it should help ease congestion that has now been caused by the silvertown. with plentiful other passenger connections, and ensuring anti-car policies are kept up to make sure only people with a damn good reason are driving through the area, this bridge could be helpful. but of course, without any of that, it would be a polluting, congesting disaster. but we were on a spending spree anyway

anyway. bridges

[yomarius]

BTS of me drawing blond bois (in seven easy steps!)

1.Have an idea (If it's Draco, it must contain mittens)

2. ...

2.Draw it with pencils (from 2b to 8b). I start to sketch with 2b and if I vibe with it, I start to use darker pencils till I have the final lines. A lot of times I draw over with a pen in preparation for the next step.

3. SCAN. I move the scanner to a table or the floor, bring my laptop and my sketchbook. I connect the scanner, the the laptop and scan. This is the more tedious part and the main reason why my stuff stays on my sketchbook.

4. Clean it - _ -. I open my scans in my good ol' Photoshop CS3, select the part I want to work on and start to clean. I play with the colours, erase stuff and wing it till it's good. And yes, I do everything with a secondhand mouse.

5. The fun part starts! I create a million layers and break my wrist a little more.

6. Coloring step! I either start by the backgroung or the face/body. My favourite part :) !!! (At this point my wrist is numb to the pain so I just carry on).

7. Finally, I add some lights and little details and done! I sometimes save it, but most of the times I post it here.

-The End-

[rinnysmuses]

Honestly the main reason I'm playing 1 (besides giving myself a game to focus on besides 14) is because I wanna flesh out rhea and Rufus' relationship pre CS3/4/REVERIE and beyond ;v;]

[khuantru]

27/10/2023: Finished watching it, only 9 episodes. I kinda wished they pushed for 12 episodes or at least 10. It did definitely felt rushed towards the later last 2 episodes. It's really good, gut wrenching to be exact. The ending was so subjective, not sure if it ends on a good note regarding Doona & Won Jun or they just drifted apart from one another. This k show out of all the ones I've watched in the past when I started K TV, gave me knots in my stomach. There scenes on this show which will trigger you and make you wonder your past choices you made were good or bad. 

I've read the comments from others saying they both end up together in the end, and apparently there were leak stills which confirms this, but for what ever reason the director chose to shoot it in a subjective way making you the viewer decide their fates. 

my negative personality, my ending for them is that they move on without each other. And those clips at the beginning of them bumping into each other is one of those awkward moments when you bump into an ex or ignore em. That's my ending and fate for those two. 

Others who are positive will always shoot for the good ending, my only critic for the show is that I don't like endings that are subjective, just give us a good or bad ending. 

It's a good heart breaking show. You'll grow to love all the characters. 

Evening greetings from north London. 

ref: Doona! is an upcoming South Korean streaming television series directed by Lee Jeong-hyo, and starring Bae Suzy and Yang Se-jong. It is scheduled for release on Netflix on October 20, 2023. - Wikipedia

Based on: The Girl Downstairs; by Min Song-ah (web toon)

Doona played by 'Bae Suzy' 배수지

Software: Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator CS3

Tools: wacom pen

[inkedmyths]

Hi Ink, i played on Sunday too i was just too sleepy to write, but now i'm supposed to be working so i'm here instead :"D So uhhh lots of things happened, yea fishy activities from our villains. Would be sooo funny if their ominous leader comrade C would be the chancellor actually. i mean they are so so dedicated to bringing that guy down. :") i have a feeling though that i should know that guy (C i mean) anyway keeping an eye on him. hm i'll probably flood u with asks now bc stupid char limit

Oh this was a delight to wake up to. Congrats anon! You're in deep and there's probably no way out

Laura is indeed absolutely amazing and we all love her. Now her and Fie are unstoppable and could probably take over the world together if they felt like it. We love when girls fight it out in the middle of the night and then become besties

Ahh, yes, the enigmatic C. I won't say much regarding that one for Reasons, but your theorizing is deeply entertaining.

Same with Opera Lady AKA Vita. She's definitely weird but I am not elaborating on how, except that it's probably going to catch you by complete surprise

AND YAAAAY the final two members join the gang!! And yes Crow is great. Now you can be treated to such funny things as the fact that he can be seen dozing off in class scenes. OH and his link victories. I'm begging you his victory bits when linked with the others are so funny, esp Jusis and Millium. AND HIS COOKING please you have to have him fuck up a recipe I love his line when he does that

Ah, Millium... baby child. Spy baby child. Very interesting kiddo, since she vacillates between being Baby and being a competent spy. Her situation is... complicated, for reasons that don't start to become apparent until at least CS2 and is elaborated on in CS3. Anyways yeah now you get to play Baby Leash Holder, have fun

Legram Field Study! This one is so interesting because while Shit Goes Down on every field study, it goes down in a completely different manner and reason than all of the others. It's an outlier, representative of the other side of the plot. It's also one of those that's very interesting in hindsight.

Viscount Arseid is THE coolest guy. I mean if it wasn't already obvious from being called something like The Radiant Blademaster. Genuinely, he is one of the most powerful characters around, and this remains a fact throughout. As far as the nobility goes he's up there with the best. And yeah he's a good dad guy. We love him.

Watching you adore Laura and her dad, there's a character in the later games you are going to LOVE. She doesn't show up for a while so you'll have to wait. But if you love the big sword people, you are going to adore this one.

THE RAILWAY GUNSSS yeah you're coming up on that fast! Exciting. And yes Elliot's dad is there, which is indeed so fun, and I look forward to you meeting him

So, a bit on the bracers, since they're actually a very central group to the series as a whole. In the CS arc you get a better feel for them in the later games, as you meet other members of the guild. Those who came from the Sky and Crossbell games, though, would be more familiar with them. The protagonists of the Sky games are themselves Bracers, and the Crossbell crew works semi-in-tandem, semi-competitively with them. Each arc is fairly good at being played by themselves, but there's your fun background! They're a fun and overall very do-gooder organization. And also a veryyyy colorful bunch lol

And finally, the Chancellor. He's. Well, controversial certainly applies. Politics, child spies... once again, can't say shit, but I will say I want to study this man under a microscope.

[ms-demeanor]

You know what’s funny is whenever I make a tech post I get people going “this is blatantly untrue” and I get people going “this is really good information and everyone needs to know it” and the dividing line is how much time you spend with people who are tech literate.

Yep, I would tell my computer savvy friends where they could get keycaps and fix their keyboards; I don’t even have to bother telling my computer savvy friends how to run a fifteen year old laptop because we’re all pretty good at it.

But GODDAMN I just read a response to my “cheap computer season” post that claimed that it was totally reasonable to run a macbook from 2010 and

Look.

That’s not a reasonable thing to tell a student who needs a functional computer to do research and write papers. (have fun trying to find installation discs from when the OS was still named after cats and have fun trying to get a browser to get along with that OS)

You know why most people bring me laptops with missing keys? Because the key got ripped off by their two-year-old and damaged the soldering in the keyboard and I have no idea it’s going to be “oh, yeah, that’s a ten dollar fix” or “sorry, that’s going to be an hour and a half to disassemble and reassemble and we’ll have to order you a new keyboard specific to that model out of new old stock” and the thing is the second one is much, much, much more common in my experience than the first.

Do I think you need to replace a laptop when the bezel is cracked? No. I also don’t carry my laptop powered on in the bag with a flashdrive sticking out of the USB port. Customers do weird things that I don’t understand and when a customer tells me they want me to fix the bezel they think it’s a twenty-dollar snap-on repair because they have no idea how this works and then they get mad at me when I explain “no, you’ve gotta have this specific piece of plastic, these haven’t been made in five years, and you might be better off buying a used model online than trying to track down a new bezel.”

So here’s the thing: Can Macs get viruses?

There are three answers here.

“No, of course not, Macs are made to be virus-proof”

“Macs need antivirus protection because, while it is less common than infections for PCs, there are types of malware that can infect macs and it’s worthwhile to guard against that”

“tEcHnIcAlLy a virus has to be self-replicating and IOS’s file management system [or some other bullshit] prevents that so TECHNICALLY Macs can’t get viruses and what you need is anti-malware software if you need anything because you’re fairly likely to have security through obscurity”

I’m aware of the third position and voicing the second position to people who believe the first position.

YES TECHNICALLY YOU CAN KEEP A COMPUTER RUNNING INDEFINITELY AND YES IT’S TOTALLY POSSIBLE YOUR LAPTOP WILL LAST TEN YEARS.

“Well if you treat it right and run it well it’ll be in great shape for a long time”

YES THAT IS CORRECT DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY PEOPLE WHO DON’T WORK ON THEIR OWN CARS DRIVE AROUND WITH THE OIL CHANGE LIGHT ON FOR MONTHS?!?

Tons of people in the world today use computers. They use computers every day, they use computers at home and at school and at work.

Tons of people drive every day. They use cars for fun and for commuting and for their jobs.

That doesn’t mean that all (or even most, or even half) of the people using these things is any good at keeping them running, or even has the barest idea of how to start tracking down a problem.

Someone in the notes of that post described a green line on their screen and thought that was a symptom of hard drive problems. I don’t have the hours in the day to catch this person up to speed on why a display issue on a laptop isn’t indicative of hard drive issues.

Do you know how much people think it’s going to cost to get data off of a broken drive? Not “won’t power up” not “won’t spin” but “I dropped this and part fell off and now it won’t power up or spin and also the platter is chipped”? I’m going to have to send that shit to a clean room and the customer is *staggered* that it might cost more than a hundred dollars to get their data. “Outrageous, what kind of blackmail operation are you trying to run here, just plug it in and get my pictures.”

A year or so ago I was at Jiffy Lube (ew). I’d been shooting the shit with the mechanic when a parent and child rolled in in a panic. And they should have been panicking! They’d thrown a fucking rod because they’d been driving with no oil in the car for god knows how long because neither of them had had the oil changed in the two years they’d owned the vehicle.

*I* can keep a 30-year-old car running. I can put a belt back on an engine in a dark parking lot with a wrench and a headlamp. I can drop a gas tank and replace my fuel filter and thumb my nose at the mechanics who tried to upsell me on “replacing your old, worn-out air filter” the day after I’d popped a new one into my truck.

These folks couldn’t keep a new car running with three alarms telling them what was wrong.

*I* can power up my 2005 macbook running Leopard and use garage band to record a song or do some design work on my copy of Adobe CS3; I can kludge its FF3.5 browser into playing nice with the internet and accept that it’s going to be a slow piece of shit.

The lady who called me confused by the fact that the password to her email was different than the login information for her grocery store rewards account will not be able to function if she gets a pop-up that says she’s using an outdated browser and will think it’s a virus if her bank won’t let her log in on that browser.

And you know what, I’m kind of sick of this attitude.

I would *fucking adore it* if computers were actually easy to repair; I’d love it if you could run new OSs on old hardware (especially on macs because I think apple are kind of shitheads about planned obsolescence).

But you know what, no, most people *CAN’T* reasonably expect to use a ten-year-old computer and have pleasant experience of it. It’s going to run slow. It’s going to shut down when they don’t want it to. The battery is going to swell slightly with the heat and your touchpad is going to go nuts. Your USB ports will stop working. Standard wear and tear that most people don’t know how to protect against and don’t know how to repair is going to make it harder to use AND software requirements will outstrip the hardware capabilities of the computer.

If your old computer sucks it’s not your fault. If you can’t happily use a 10-year-old laptop to do your homework that’s okay, it wasn’t designed for you to use it that way and YOU SHOULDN’T FEEL GUILTY ABOUT IT.

Because that’s kind of what a lot of these “well anybody should realistically be able to run a laptop from 2010″ responses comes down to: if you need new hardware you���re just not doing it right. If you have to replace your computer you didn’t make good choices when you bought it. If your battery dies it’s because you didn’t take care of it.

No. No. No. No.

This shit is A) designed to fail and B) actually really hard to keep running (hey how many blown capacitors do you think someone has to have on their motherboard before you say it’s not their fault for wanting to replace the laptop)

ALSO SOMEONE IN THE RESPONSES OF THAT POST LITERALLY SAID THAT IF YOUR BATTERY DIED AT THREE YEARS IT WAS BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T DOING THE DRAIN CHARGE CYCLE RIGHT AND FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU. It’s discharge cycles and heat, motherfucker; they are going to fail at some point and people shouldn’t feel bad if their batteries stop working after a couple years.

UGH.

You shouldn’t have to be a mechanic. You shouldn’t have to be a computer technician. Yeah, your shit will last longer if you know how to take care of it but, fuck. Imagine you were still using internet speeds from 2010. Imagine all your devices still had USB 2.0. Imagine you couldn’t log onto your online bank because your hardware won’t run he software that your bank recognizes because the hardware manufacturer decided it won’t support the older hardware.

What I was trying to get across in that initial post was “computers fail, and they fail pretty frequently; your life will be better and you will save money if you plan on replacing them at a regular interval and have reasonable expectations in terms of cost and failure. So buy a cheap computer now because you’re probably going to need one at some point”

And now I’ve got to Do A Yell about how there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism and it’s unreasonable to expect tired, overworked, broke people to become experts in computer repair in order to do their homework or play the goose game.

FUCK THAT.

IT’S CHEAP COMPUTER SEASON MOTHERFUCKERS. LAPTOP FAILURE RATES INCREASE AT THREE TO FIVE YEARS AND DESKTOP FAILURE RATES INCREASE AT FIVE TO SEVEN YEARS. RIGHT NOW THERE ARE DISCOUNTS ON NEW COMPUTERS AND IT’S CHEAP TO GET AN EXTENDED WARRANTY.

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER AND WORK ON COMPUTERS IF YOU WANNA AND PLAN TO REPLACE REGULARLY IF YOU DON’T WANT TO WORK ON COMPUTERS.

ALSO CHANGE YOUR FUCKING OIL YOU’RE PROBABLY DUE.

[maleksrami]

gif tutorial ✨🎥

I got a few requests to make a gif tutorial so here it is. hope it helps :) It’s quite long so I’ll put it all under a read more. If you have any questions, feel free to ask or PM me directly for help!

Alright....sooo, I don’t remember the last time I made a gif tutorial on this site, but I figured I would even though I use the same method a lot of gif makers have been using for years. I have never strayed from this process and I’ve been making gifs on this site for a decade. 

There are a couple methods to making gifs. You can import your video directly into photoshop and cut your gif there. OR you can use a separate video player that has a screencapping tool, then import all your frames into photoshop; this is the method I use and it’s how I’ve adapted and perfected my giffing skills over time. 

This post will be long, but I want to be as detailed as I can and explain it step by step. It’s really NOT difficult once you get the hang of it, which is probably why I’ve always done it this way. 

Disclaimer: There are three programs I use and I highly suggest you look for reliable links yourself if I’m not able to provide one. I use pretty old versions of KMPlayer and Photoshop (I’ll explain why later), so be careful where you go looking for downloads. There are some photoshop downloads here, but I can’t vouch for them.

Let’s start :)

DOWNLOADING VIDEOS

I use a program called 4k Video Downloader to rip HD videos from Youtube. 1080p is the way to go, but obviously that’s not always possible. It’s ridiculously easy, all you do is click the “Paste Link” button and it’ll download your video. Clicking the “Smart Mode” button will let you set the default quality and the folder you want all your videos to be saved to. 

As you can see, here are all the videos I’ve downloaded recently for my gif posts. You can clear this download history list at any time.

SCREENCAPPING 

After your video is done downloading, I open the video in KMPlayer. Now, I use an OLD version of this program because this was exactly how I learned to do this back in the day. You can find old versions online, I don’t really know exactly which version mine is because I’ve had it forever, but it’s the old school one that looks like this.

When you open the video, it might stretch the player to full screen so I always adjust it by dragging the corner of the player inward so it shrinks to a more medium size. This will also make your screencaps not so GIANT, which will take longer to load into photoshop. 

Anyways, you’re gonna open your video and right click anywhere on the video to select Capture > Frame Extract... (or Ctrl+G on Windows). This window will come up. Make sure all your settings look like this to ensure a really smooth gif.

The first thing you should do is click that little “G” button next to the window size at the bottom. That’ll lock in the dimensions of however big you’ve made your video window, and if you stretch it you’ll see these numbers change. If you start capping without remembering to push that and you make your window smaller/bigger, your caps might be a wacky size or look stretched and you’ll have to go back and do it again. Also note the extracting location at the top. All your caps will go directly to a default folder titled “Capture”.

Once all the settings are ready, go to your desired section of the video, pause it, and hit “Start”. Play the video, pause the video when you’ve got all your caps, then hit “Stop”.

Locate your��“Capture” folder and doublecheck you got all the caps you want. This is where I take a moment to delete any caps I don’t want in my gif, that way you don’t bother loading them into photoshop and making it take longer than it needs to. 

MAKING THE GIF

You’re gonna open whatever version of Photoshop you’re using. I hilariously still use CS3 to make gifs because the next script I’m gonna run doesn’t work in the free download that I have of CS5, but that’s what you get sometimes when you don’t pay for stuff. Hopefully whatever more recent version of PS you use, you have no problems.

Go to File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack...

This window will come up. 

Hit “Browse” and locate your capture folder. Highlight all your caps and press OK. You’ll see them all come up in a list as shown above. Press OK again. Your caps will start to load into one big stack of layers. This will take a minute or so.

When it’s all loaded in, you’ll see them all stacked in your Layers window (Windows > Layers). You’re gonna open your animations timeline (Windows > Animation) and click the little drop down button in the top right corner of the window and select “Make Frames From Layers”. 

Click that drop down menu again and hit “Reverse Frames”. Click that drop down menu again and hit “Flatten Frames Into Layers” (this is so our sharpening action will work later). Click the drop down menu again and select “Select All Frames”. All your frames will be highlighted. This is where you’ll set your animation speed. Under each frame you’ll see “0 sec.” Click on that and select “Other”. Type in your desired speed. I usually go for 0.04 if it has a lot of frames. For less frames, 0.05 or 0.06. This is honestly entirely up to your preference. I actually made myself a photoshop action doing all these repetitive steps so it saves me a few precious long seconds of clicking around over and over. I just run the action after my caps are loaded. If you make gifs a lot, I recommend it.

Next it cropping. The reason I don’t crop right away after the files are loaded into a stack is because I like to see where the subject in the gif moves before I decide where I need to crop. I don’t want to accidentally cut anything off. The subject might sway in and out of frame or be off center if I crop it blindly before seeing exactly where the object moves around. So I’ll play the gif first to see exactly where to crop.

Anyways, you’re gonna set your desired width x height of your gif. I’m making this a big gif so you can see the details better. 540 px is Tumblr’s width for big horizontal gifs. If you’re making a photoset with two gifs side by side the width for Tumblr is 268 px.

Go ahead and crop your gif. It’ll resize itself as well. Play the gif back so you can see if anything gets cut off or it’s not where you want it. You can undo the crop and do it again until you’re satisfied.

Here is what my gif looks like animated and cropped. 

As you can see, it plays nice and smoothly due to our screencap settings from before in KMPlayer and with our set gif speed (I used 0.05 here).

Next is sharpening the gif. I use a sharpening action that can quickly sharpen up to 120 frames. You can download it here. Open the action by going to File > Open and locating the file. It’ll be added to your Actions window. (Window > Actions if you can’t see it.) In order for it to run correctly, you have to have the first frame selected on your animation window, as well as “Frame 1″ in the layers window. Just like this:

Click the play button on the action and wait a few seconds for all the gifs to finish being sharpened. For any gif with less than 120 frames (which I hope is always, good God) a pop-up will come up when it reaches the end of the frames asking you if you want to stop.  Click “Stop”. 

Tip: If you think you want to delete more frames, run the sharpening action before you do it. Otherwise you’ll have to flatten your frames into layers again. The first frame and the “Frame 1″ layer should always be the same (the little eye will appear to the left of the layer to let you know it’s visible when you have that specific frame selected) otherwise the action won’t work. 

Here is what my gif looks like now that it’s sharpened.

COLORING THE GIF

This is where all the fun (or pain) comes in. All your coloring will be done by using Adjustment Layers (Layers > New Adjustment Layer). I usually go in the same order of adjustments, but this is where personal style comes in and you do no have to do it in the same order I do. You can practice with this part all you want and see how you like to do it.

I start with brightening the gif first and fixing the white balance if a scene needs it. I chose this video specifically so you could see this next handy trick that a lot of people don’t even know about. It’s a dark scene and the white balance makes the subject look quite blue. 

I can fix this by starting with a Curves layer. By clicking the third eyedropper tool, you can go and click on a white point in your gif (in this case, I clicked on a white square on his shirt) and bumped up the input number a bit for a little contrast (optional). My curves look like this. Click OK.

My gif now looks like this.

It’s much better, right? The white eyedropper tool will become a lifesaver sometimes, but it’s not always needed. 

Next, I go in with a Levels adjustment to do some more brightening. This is all up to preference, but you can play around with this. I typically like to add more contrast with this layer. I just adjust the sliders until I’m satisfied.

Here is my gif now.

Onto yet another brightening layer. Brightness/Contrast. A couple teeny tiny more positive numbers and I now have this.

Next is Selective Color. I wish I could explain this in a way that makes sense, but this is the layer that takes a bit of practice getting down and boils down to how you like the colors in your gif to look. I personally don’t like a lot of yellow in mine, so I focus a lot on the Yellow and Black sliders in each specific tab. I start in the Reds, then Yellows, Whites, Neutrals, then bump up the Blacks a tiny bit.

Here is my gif now. It’s a bit more cool toned, which is what I like.

Next I’ll go in with a Color Balance layer and play with the Midtones and Shadows. 

Here it is now.

This is usually my last step unless I want to adjust the brightness again (which I do), so I might go back into my Curves and Levels layers to bump it up.

And you can totally stop there, but I would like to mention a few more optional layers to add depending on your gif. If I wanted more saturation, I would add a Hue/Saturation layer at this point, but I think it’s colorful enough so I’m not going to.

Another layer you can use is Gradient Maps. 

Setting a black and white gradient map overtop your gif and setting the layer to Soft Light and lowering the opacity to your heart’s desire (you might need to go to the little drop down menu in your animation timeline and hit “Match Layers Across Frames”) can give your gif a very contrast-y look like this.

Or you can change the black color to something else for a different tone, like a dark blue.

Here is my final gif. 

If you want to add a caption to your gif, you can do so with your font of choice (Arial and Calibri are good) and add Stroke or a Drop Shadow to it by going to Layer > Layer Style. You can make sure the text is perfectly centered by clicking on your top frame layer under all your coloring adjustments, hitting Select > All, then clicking your text layer again and going to Layer > Align Layers To Selection > Horizontal Centers. Then hit Select > Deselect and go to your little drop down menu in your animation timeline and click “Match Layers Across Frames”.

Here is what it looks like with a caption.

SAVING YOUR GIF

Go to File > Save for Web & Devices...

A big window will come up where you can preview your finished gif by pressing the play button on the right hand side. In the bottom left corner will tell you what size your gif is. Tumblr’s gif limit is a whopping 10 MB, so we’re good. 

Your gif settings should look something like this. 

We always want to keep all colors at 256 (the highest). Lowering this number will make our gif file size smaller, but also decrease the quality of the gif itself. If your file size is more than 10 MB, I recommend going back and deleting some frames or making some more curve adjustments. Some users also like to set their gif to “Adaptive” instead of “Selective”. This is up to you.

Click Save and you’re done!

[honestlyvan]

Adventures in “instant gratification”:

The NieR Automata OST is about ~20€ on Amazon as a download, ~45€ as a physical disc. I’m seriously tempted to get the download version right now, but I’m not sure I can justify buying the disc version later when I already have the music.

There’s something about physical media that’s comforting to me. Something familiar. I’m old-fashioned like that.

[benisasoftboi]

Unorganised thoughts on Trails of Cold Steel IV:

WHY ARE THEY CALLED CLASS VII?

WHO ARE CLASS VI?

Anyway - I started playing Trails in August, and I’ve finally, finally caught up (yes I know Hajimari I can’t read Japanese) and like... what do I do now?

It’s a fantastic series and I’m so, so glad I picked up Trails in the Sky on a whim last summer

This game was long. Is it longer than the other ones? It felt that way

The best part was the first chapter because Rean wasn’t in it and yeah I still don’t like him!!! But seriously, it was astonishing how much more I was enjoying things without him

I audibly groaned when goddamn bonding points returned in the second chapter

Actually that was a lie, the best part was Any Time My Angel Estelle Was On Screen

I missed her so much

I let her get the final hit of the game against the boss because she’s the best

Speaking of angels I caught three Wazy cameos!!!

Also Gilbert came back and if there had been a camera on me... I quite literally teared up a little I was so thrilled

I hate the curse it is dumb and rips all the nuance out of the characters. People do not need a goddamn evil curse to be swayed to extremes by overzealous nationalism. Trails I know you are better than this, I played Sky and Crossbell

Fav new location was Milsante (liked Alster too, though). I really like going to tiny little outposts and villages in JRPGs, they make the world feel more real

What the hell was up with the Osgiliath Basin? As in, Giliath Osborne??? Is this going to be a Hajimari thing?

Oh yeah, HOT TAKE, Alan Richard >>> Giliath Osborne. I was reading an LP of Sky FC while playing the game, and Richard’s motivation is clearer and less over-complex, more sympathetic, and he’s just generally a far more human character

Alan Richard best political antagonist in the series fight me (Rufus Albarea distant second)

For best supernatural/cult-y antagonist I’m stuck between Weissmann and Joachim. Or maybe Campanella lol

Oh uh speaking of characters named Georg I will never not hate everything about the George and Angie subplot. Angie should have died and George should have stayed evil, or it shouldn’t have happened at all. As it is, it was a complete waste of time - you could take it all out and NOTHING would change

Angie would have been the perfect character to sacrifice as well, she’s just important enough that it would feel like ‘oh shit’s getting real’ but not so important that it’s unbelievable

(like Olivier. I could not fully believe they’d actually kill him, and the moment Laura told me ‘they never found the bodies’ I was like, oh, so they’re definitely all still alive, cool)

I mean, it would be a Bury Your Gays, but honestly... there are things I like about Angie, but is anyone really looking to her as a lesbian role model? I hope not. Yikes

So yeah I guess I hate George now for getting my hopes up and then being boring. Shame

I did the Towa romantic ending, of course. I genuinely think she’s the best match for Rean, of all his love interests

Chaaaracters

Rean: Still the least interesting person. Not a good sign when I’m sadder about the robot dying than the main protagonist yeeting himself into the sun (side note, the two endings thing? Unnecessary and dumb). There is no reason girls would like him this much, blah blah I’ve said it all before. Liked his new hair. Honestly would have respected it if they’d had the balls to kill him off. I basically never even used him in battle lol, Juna became my new team leader

Juna: Honourary protagonist imo. I’ve changed my mind since CS3, she’s my fav new Class VII without a doubt. She’s just really good and full of personality and depth and OH GOD WHY IS SHE CRUSHING ON REAN WHY FALCOM WHY

Kurt: pls falcom don’t try to force this aroace king into a nonsense ship with Sully I liked her but what are you doing, anyway Kurt is great and he got cool new swords and he got to hang out with Mueller, who I adore, I love Kurt

Altina: I also love this little bunny. Her relationship with Millium is so lovely and seeing her grow and become her own person made me so happy and OH GOD WHY IS SHE CRUSHING ON REAN WHY FALCOM I LITERALLY SAID SHE HAS THE BEST RELATIONSHIP WITH REAN OF ALL THE GIRLS BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T DO THAT IN THE LAST GAME WHY DO YOU HATE ME????

Musse: Yeah I’m still not sold on Musse but I liked her better this time! I like a smart, confident girl! Just stop being weird about your teacher and we’d be golden!

Ash: Good boy. Sweet boy. Ash and Joshua game now Falcom

Alisa: Still cannot believe she’s presented as the deuteragonist by the marketing - but you know what? Solid arc, she got some closure with her parents, maybe she and Jusis can get together for tea and complain about their messed up families. She’s never going to be a character I like all that much, but I don’t dislike her. I just wish she hadn’t clearly been written as ‘Rean’s love interest’ before anything else

Elliot: I love Elliot, I really do. I mean, I wish he hadn’t been flanderised to the point of speaking in music puns half the time, but he’s a solid, consistently pleasant character

Laura: Goddamnit Falcom please give Laura anything resembling an emotion regarding her dad dying. Also you tell me she’s kind of oblivious and stuff but we never see it. I like Laura but she really could have been more

Machias: I love Machias, fight me fan base. He’s so funny to me. It feels like, at this point, all he really wants is a nice office job, near a nice coffee shop, where he files papers and sometimes gets to yell at corrupt rich people, but NO, he has to run about in dungeons and fight monsters, and are you FUCKING kidding me, ANOTHER crazy snake cultist!?!? It’s great, he’s the only one who’s just done with it all and love it

I low key headcanon that he and Jusis are kinda dating at this point, but we don’t see anything because the games are from Rean’s POV and they don’t want to tell him because they know he’d be weird about it

Jusis: I still really like Jusis! He’s interesting, and his surrogate brother-sister relationship with Millium is so sweet (yes, I saw that bouquet catch, Falcom, and I hate it, stop it, gross). Awesome to see him confront his brother, obviously I let him have the final blow. Rufus was a great antagonist. Jusis has some of the best development over the games, and is also really fun to use in battle (apparently I am the only one who feels this way though :/ ah well)

Fie: I was surprised by how much I liked Fie’s confession scene, seeing as I don’t like Rean/Fie at ALL. Fie finally gets to have feelings about her dad, and we see her working with Zin at the end! Very happy for Fie, best girl

Emma: Ahhh I still find Emma kinda dull and exposition heavy, but she also had a nice arc, I liked her relationship with Rose, all good

Rose beat me at Vantage Masters for 40 minutes lol

Gaius: It’s still extremely funny to me that Gaius became one of the most important people on the continent *off screen*. And he still doesn’t really do anything. He has his own airship now, I guess. Justice for Gaius

Sara: Kind of faded from relevance after CS1, but I do really like her all the same. And I loved her speech at the end

Crow: At the end his hair got darker and everyone was like ‘you’re back to normal!’ and I literally did not realise he was meant to have been looking different

But anyway Crow is a really good character and I literally never didn’t enjoy him. I love the bit where Jusis and Machias team up to call him a cringy edgelord, because they are right. Crow is fantastic

Towa: Towa has never done anything wrong in her life and all of Erebonia should pay for her therapy

Patrick: I cannot believe how much I love Patrick now, compared to CS1. He’s just such a sweetie. Good boy

Elise: Take her to the sun with you, Rean. Pointless character

Alfin: Is she the heir now? I hope so. She’s such a funny character, not my fav, but I enjoyed her

Angie and George: Should have died, moving on

Celine: I love her, but did she really need a human form? No, no she did not. Great character though

Tita: Special mention, because you know what? I do not like this version of Tita! Like I said, I was reading FC recently and she was so much better there! Now a third of her lines are just her saying ‘Agate’ in various different tones. And it feels like she’s lost a lot of her confidence, where’s the little girl who followed us up Carnelia Tower? I would have preferred them to just not bring her back at all

Duvalie: Haha I love Duvalie she’s great. Stop implying that she’s crushing on Rean. Literally WHY would she. Ugh

Rose: Everything about Rose is great, I would play a full game about her backstory. More Rose

Ships!

Obviously I like Machias/Jusis because I am BASIC

I didn’t like Olivier/Schera back in Sky, but you know what? They sold me. It’s cute (even if I feel Schera’s character was neglected in favour of Being A Love Interest, sigh). Though I’m not sure when Olivier made the switch from ‘Schera is one of many people I flirt with’ to ‘Schera is my one and only’?

But am I the only person who’s kinda on the Oliver/Schera/Mueller train? I’m not normally into OT3s, but Olivier and Mueller have one of the best dynamics in the series, and Schera and Mueller would probably get along great if they were ever allowed to properly interact. And you know Olivier would be down

Like I say, I do not like Jusis/Millium at all, it’s not a ‘I like another ship better’ thing, it just massively skeeves me out because of the maturity difference 

Ash/Tatiana was unexpected but adorable

Patrick/Elise, because I want Patrick to be happy and Rean to be mad

Also Elise/Alfin, sorry Patrick

I hope Anton and Sharon really do get together. Sharon deserves unconditional love and Anton deserves a happy ending

Sharon also deserves to hook up with Sara like once

I also sort of feel like Sara/Claire would be fun

I’ve actually like Gaius/Linde from CS1, I’m happy it’s kind of a thing now!

If Lila/Maybelle is the LET’S GO LESBIANS Trails ship, then Emily/Theresia is LET’S GO BABY LESBIANS

Vincent/Margarita. They’re both horrible people. At least this way no one else has to deal with them

Joining my Kloe/Josette in the ‘crack ships I love that have very, very little canon basis’ is Fritz/Kairi, based on their interactions in that one mission and then that they’re eating together at Mishelam. It’s pretty much just a height differences thing, lol

Miles/Elnan. I have literally no justification for this

Other stuff There was this one scene where Gaius says how nice it is that Mueller cares about Olivier and Mueller just snaps his head round and the scene ends, and I don’t think it was meant to be funny but I laughed for like a full minute

The intro to the music at Mishelam is extremely creepy to me

I love the Pom Party mini game a whole lot

There were... a lot of typos in the second half of the script. It’s massive, so I’m not mad, but I hope there’s a patch at some point

BERYL BERYL BERYL BERYL BERYL I love her

Uh if we’re still doing romance next arc please give us a gay option, no Crow did not count

I hate divine knight battles! I really do! That last one against Ishmelga was really hard and not in a fun way! In a ‘this is bullshit fake difficulty’ way. Please don’t bring them back!

The true final battle, though? FANTASTIC, now THAT is a final boss! One of the best in the series, like that’s such a fun gimmick!

I got it trapped in break state and spammed Heaven’s Kiss/Quick Star, because I’m a strategic gamer 

I am embarrassed by how long it took me to recognise Lucy

KLOE CAMEO!!!

Oh and I assume Kaela is going to be important next arc, since it’s in Calvard?

I love Thomas??? And Rosine???

Why was the grandmaster reveal hidden behind watching the ending twice, why do that? Great scene, though

My theory is that she is Aidios, I will cling to this for as long as possible

I probably have like a million other things to say that I’m just not remembering right now. Look forward to random shouts into the void about it in upcoming weeks, followers

I really enjoyed this overall, despite the problems I mentioned above. It was just fun, I like the cast, the gameplay is great... just a solid game

Trails is a really fantastic franchise - not perfect, but what is? I’ve had such a fun time with it over the past half-year, and I cannot wait to see what happens next. Thank you, Falcom, the localisation team, the VAs - stellar job all around

This is normally where I’d end on a joke but like. Nah, I’m just happy. Cue ‘The Whereabouts of Light’

[asoulofatlantis]

The fact that it seemed like Osborne was helping Claire to make her indebted to him, just for you, with later information, to notice that he actually seriously wanted to help her. Which is, once again, a good reason to replay a game, you can see thing from a different angle, if you have more information than before.

The fact that to this day I am wondering, after multiple playthroughs why Falcom thought it was a good idea to gave us 2 tragic background stories, supported by a cheek kiss from two different woman not just in the same chapter, but one after another. Was it to get what kind of people surround Rean? What kind of Woman that damned lucky bastard can have? How many playthrough do I have to make to understand Falcoms intentions?

Also... I guess at least with Claire, the scene was well deserved. Frist of all, her final scene with Rean in the Night of Promises is not nearly as romantic as was the other girls get and second, because given how Rean is a man now and not a boy anymore, they had to do something with his crush on Claire and her attachment to him. Can’t say I think the scene with Sara makes half as much sense tho...

Now that certainly is information I will need for the Anime. There are speculations that at least one of them is either an Enforcer OR even an Anguise. I should probably take a closer look at that person next Episode. Anyway, I have realized multiple times that my timing for replaying this part of the game couldn’t be any better, given that I just started watching the Northern War Anime. We get some valuable informations here.

It makes you wonder if it takes to be as insane as Shirley is, to stay “sane” in a Jaeger Corps. I mean, people like Rutger, Garreth and Sigmund show that you can spend a lifetime being a Jager. But we if a strong woman like Sara didn’t make it, it makes you wonder what kind of person you must be, to make it. Given what we have seen with our other former-Jaeger-Characters, its likely a lack of heart, conscience and compassion. As we saw with Randy, as soon as you start having a heart, a conscience and compassion, it will get hard to stay in a world full of death and destruction. Which leads back to Shirley, who has gotten somewhat softer compared to Crossbell and yet seems to be absolutely content as a Jaeger. And given what it would take for her to leave the corps... I think I refrain from wishing that she will leave that life behind ^^’ But that too is something that you come to think of, after replaying the game a few times and if more information and after giving it a bit more through. It seemed easy enough to think that most of our “younger” Jaeger who are partly in the spotlight would leave the crops eventually. But for a long time I never thought about what they had lost, to get to that point were they wanted to stop being a Jaeger. And also... what kind of character one wants them to be. We didn’t know Sara, Fie or Randy when they were Jaegers. We do know Shirley as a Jaeger tho and after some times you wonder if you really actually want her to change that much. Especially since she seemed to be made to be a Jaeger, something that apparently did not apply for Sara as well.

To be fair, you can hardly compare Sara with Shirley, given that Sara was a Jaeger so her homeland could survive. Shirley doesn’t have any noble motives. She was born into a corps, raised in a corpse and so she was always part of the corps simply because of that. Fie was adopted into a corps, was probably glad she had a family at all, so no choice there until Rutgers death got her out of it. Then again, Randy was born into the Red Constellation too, never had a noble goal either, but left nothing the less, because of one single painful loss. I hate to break it to myself, but we always come back to this. Giving your thought the chance to make rounds until you come to an conclusion is also part of the good reason to replay the game tho...

Its fun to see moments like those, knowing Jusis is Sister-zoning Millium in CS4 just to be as shippi as possible for those two in Hajimari. Also things to enjoy when you play a game again after playing the later games as well.

The possibility to once again witness Altina going from “She is not my sister” to “The two of us are sisters” in under 3 hours.

The fact that we know at this point that he would do really anything for her...

[invictusimvu]

Influential, innovative, and progressive, Invictus continues to reinvent a modern approach to fashion projected into a virtual world environment.  For 12 years Invictus has redefined luxury for IMVU reinforcing its position as one of IMVU’s most recognized and desired brands.  Eclectic, contemporary, romantic - Invictus represents the best elements taken from continental Europe and fuses them with the American ethos.  The results create a charged atmosphere that is confident, powerful, luxurious and just a bit provocative which equates to unconquered luxury.

IMVU started out as a hobby that later evolved into being a passion and a business.  I started on IMVU roughly 14 years ago and it was a fluke that I had even heard of it.  A friend of mine in Washington had stumbled across this site called IMVU which was a 3D chat program with customized avatars and at the time you invited friends to join you would get free credits (the in-game currency).  He sent me an invite and I signed up so that he could get the free credits but I quickly forgot about  it.  It wasn’t until a year later that I revisited it and after playing around with it I quite enjoyed it.  What happened afterwards was an interesting journey fraught with tales of perils and triumphs.

I started out with an account called Maxentius and it was simply for enjoyment.  I quickly learned though that creative talent was what powered the site and it was very inspiring to see so many artists coming together in one place to produce content the entire site could enjoy and I wanted to be part of that.  I created a new account named Invictus with some help from two users I was friends with at the time, Lollirot and MajesticRepublic, and embarked on conquering a brave new world.

What you have to understand about IMVU is that all goods on the site are digital and created by members of the community called creators.  Back then we called them developers but it’s the same thing.  I noticed that many creators started out organically and grew out of chaos and I didn’t think that would be for me at all. I wanted to get off on the right foot and set about drawing up a rough business plan.

To start with I needed a concept.  I knew I wanted to create clothing for male avatars and to me the best bit of clothing a man can ever own is a suit.  So I wrote that down and moved on to a name.  I’ve always been a big fan of Latin and my previous avatar was named Maxentius so I had to think a bit and eventually the word Invictus came to mind.

Invictus is Latin for “unconquered” and I thought that would be perfect because it conveyed a sense of power and awe and that worked with the product I wanted to sell.  Men in suits always convey power and demand respect but that wasn’t enough.  There were two other creators on the site who specialized in creating suits for men, Terrence69 and EddieOrlando, and I knew if I was going to be successful I would have to get on their level and try to “out-do” them in the spirit of competition.  I looked went through their catalogs thoroughly to see how they went about it and I felt I learned enough to know how to compete.  I figured the best way to sell the same product they were selling was to add something extra. I thought about Karl Lagerfeld who has long been a personal hero and spiritual mentor of mine and how he would approach this.  I reasoned that anyone could purchase suit for whatever reason but why not make one of those reasons prestige?  If you create a brand that is billed out as being a luxury brand then maybe people will want it more than your competitors.  So I jotted that idea down.  I knew the lynch pin to this would be branding.  Most creators at the time didn’t have very solid branding and those that did weren’t very consistent with it but I knew a bit more about branding than most users so I thought I would have an edge.  I was correct!  I opened up Photoshop CS3 and started working on a logo which ended up being the word INVICTVS written with Trajan Pro and given a metallic look to it.  While I was designing the logo the phrase “unconquered luxury” came to mind and I  knew I had an instant winner.  Now that the branding was completed I set about to creating product to sell and truth be told when it finally came down to it the job was a bit more difficult than anticipated.  

I’ve had the good fortune to know two excellent creators on IMVU, Lollirot and MajesticRepublic, both of whom took me under their wing to help nurture my skills and push me upward.  I found a derivable suit product produced by a user named Ryupa (he and I would go on to have a good working relationship for many years) and got to work.  Before I knew it I had completed my first line of suits.  Now all I had to do is wait.  Back then it wasn’t a problem because there weren’t very many creators on the site like there is now so within a week or so a few customers made their first purchase of my products and within a month the name Invictus started to spread.

The rest, as they say, is history.  Invictus became a rising star and an established and well-recognized brand on IMVU.  I won’t fill you in on all the gory details of the last 10 years but let me be clear there were definitely some ups and downs.  I took a 4 year break in 2013 and returned in November 2017.  Now that I’m back at the helm of Invictus I find IMVU to be a completely new place with many changes in the site and the user culture.  Creating and advertising isn’t what it used to be in fact I would say if anything it became more complex and sophisticated than it had been in the “good ol’ days.“  My brand was still recognized, especially by many of the older users, but for the most part it was in shambles.  I figured if Lagerfeld could resurrect Chanel then I could do the same as well and that is were we are now.  

Invictus has undergone a complete re-branding and broken away from much of its traditional offerings but continues to plow forward as a luxury label for men’s clothing on IMVU.  I hope to bring the label back to it’s former prominence and produce new and innovative products in proud tradition.  Time will tell. - Vic

[cerastes]

Hey Dreamer, if I remember correctly you took a break from CS3 for some reason but then started playing it again. Have you beaten it yet? Cause man I really want to talk about it with someone

YEAH I had to prepare my thesis defense and then I never got back to it fejiwjfi23 I’m taking a break in general, though this is normal for me. I’ll get back to CS3 with a vengeance Soon(tm).

[theantoniomabs]

Today I am here writing on my laptop because I seem to have lost most motivation on working. Not just on my game but perhaps on everything. As a last dish resort that I swear will work, I will be essentially looking into my psyche, in hopes of finding the reason to why I do this and why I want to do it. The first thing I want to think about is Moai: An Interactive Experience. In a way this is very much for me to figure out my ideas a bit better, not necessarily to gain likes, views, or comments. More for me than for you, but I hope you get something out of this as an development blog.

   What is Moai: An interactive Experience?

First Ever SpriteSheet for Moai

Moai Prototype made in Flash CS3

Spritesheets put into use to build out the first concept levels.

Moai is a puzzle platforming game I have been developing for the better part of last year. About 7 months since I started the first devlog on youtube.

About 10 videos in so far, which feels good but at the same time a little bad. I started doing the devlogs in order to promote the game but understandably that hasn’t been working too well, or rather maybe not as well as I had hoped, but that’s ok. I do enjoy the process of editing my progress into bite sized pieces of milestone markers. So in a way that’s nice.

Level Art

Level 0 Sketch

On the other side of the marketing sphere is of course the actual creation of the game. The art is awesome! I love working on this kind of stuff, the ideas are always pouring out of me. For example this is the first sketch of the first level. Technically Level 0 because this is the intro of the game. Here we can see how Moai receives life by a buttefly laying on his head and causing a flower to come to life.

  Moai Level 0- Concept Art

Level Sketches

After I have completed the initial level I decided to continue working on the next levels. I know I want a couple of puzzles but all in all what I really want for this game is to make you feel like you are there. That sorts of stuff will really help you relax as you play, which in truth is the whole idea of the game. It’s a tool for you to disconnect from the world, and just relax in a beautiful serene world inhabited by beautiful animals and a stone giant.

The music should help you with that. I think that it would be a great wonderful idea to play the bell sound I have for the frequency of love segments. It gives space to the whole game so that’s wonderful. So it can play whenever Moai does his magic life touch. I also just though that perhaps it could be a good idea if Moai got slower the more he gets close to the end. That sounds pretty cool. That way he can start fast at the beginning, full of life but as he activates the points in the island he becomes weaker. Not sure if it’s visible in the art, but perhaps it should.

Character Sketches and Base Sprites

Moai Turn-Around Sketch

I like how Moai looks right now. He can have a bit more definition here and there but overall his animations are starting to look good. Once I do the revise on the art, I’m thinking I will animate it even further in Photoshop, make the necklace move, and add some motion on the the flower and the clothes. That secondary motion really brings live into the art.

Moai SpriteSheet Twee

Moai Pose Sketches

The character continues to evolve as I continue to create art and grow my artistic skills. Which is very good because my unique art style and techniques will play heavily on the feeling this game will give to the player. The stoic expression feels very good for a stone statue that can walk. I also like that it’s gender ambiguous, because I would love for everyone to be able to feel like they are the character, not just men and women, but pretty much everyone in the whole planet, same goes for his age. Moai could be 10 years old, or anywhere from 10,000 years old. Relaxation and positivity should know no exclusion.

Meaning behind the Stone Garden and the Growth Symbol

Stone Garden and Flower sketches Tiny Loading Screen guy

When I did my research on Eastern Island, I learned several things.

1- There are a lot of birds, fishes, and butterflies.

2- There are also several plants, tress and of course the stone statues.

3- People that live there make these very pretty stone structures used to basically encompass gardens.

I love that, and I decided to make it into an important mechanic in the game. The general game is a journey, however the journey is blocked off and segmented into several sections where the player must learn something new about themselves, their environements, or their personal story, in order to progress further into the island. Every time they find a point in which they have to progress, Moai must give a little bit of life force into in a sort of exchange of energy that activates certains parts of the island that will teach him or allow him to pass.

In some cases, Moai and in turn the player must give time to the game in order to accomplish something. Like waiting 5 minutes at the docks for a wooden boat to arrive and take you to a secret part of the island. Or sitting down and waiting at the top of a particularly beautiful hill that rewards you with a cinematic pan of the whole island as seen from the highest point, which is where you are sitting.

In the case of the Stone Garden however, Moai will literally give from his own life force to connect himself into the earth and help a small plant blossom. This blossoming results in a domino effect throughout the level that changes the scenery for better. Very reminiscent of the amazing and beautiful game, Okami. Whenever this happens a beautiful bell should sound in the background, as the plants grow around Moai and his path is revealed. In some cases, like in the magical forest. Moai will not be encumbered by simple gates, but rather by secret foliage that parts it’s way for Moai to continue his journey.

In the island as I mentioned earlier there is also a lot of wild life.

Real things like:

seagulls

fishes

crabs

iguanas

snakes

grasshoppers

fireflies

insects

bugs

frogs

deer

As well as fantastical animals like:

El bugalopo which is a sort of magical deer that appears randomly and has a bone mask covering his face.While in some cases the animal will act as art assets and not necesarilly interact with the player, for the case of the bugalopo, whenever he appears he will run away from the player, and will always be behind the woods. In the forest, you can see his yellow eyes appearing through the mist. In a way he simbolizes desires, and the attainability of wordly pleasantries. Because you want to catch him, but in truth you never can. He will always be away from you, ever running, he is not to divert you from your highest truth which is to bring postivity, love and growth into the island for as long as you live.

There is perhaps another fantastical animal, something like an oax or a boar. A big leathery animal that likes to eat the grass pastures. I’m not sure what they do yet, but I can see them in my mind’s eye for this game.

    Early Moai Sketch

This is a very important sketch for me, as it started the journey towards the ending of the game. I don’t want to spoil the big ending, but here we can see Moai sitting and pondering his life as he traversed through the island. This gave way to this sketch of the moutainside.

Last Level MountainSide Sketch

Which gave birth to this scene.

      Download the Moai Wallpaper when you Join the Email List

This scene helped me create all the base character assets and animations for the game, plus it serves as a wonderful promotional piece of content. With this in mind, I am thinking that the game, even though it’s starting to look like an actual game. With levels, movements, and controls. I feel like it still lacks life.

https://www.reddit.com/r/unity/comments/glt1r6/art_assets_art_in_the_game_moai_an_interactive/

This is why I think that besides just working on polishing out the engine and it’s bugs, I wilt working on some of the more aesthetically elements, like background and foreground animations, and the creatures I mentioned earlier that will interact and live in this world with Moai.

The next devblog will have to be about how I created:

animal art assets

new stone garden assets

and a burst of energy asset for when growth has been activated

Technical things like:

sound manager system

debugging

water reflections

the sitting and waiting mechanic

the boat mechanics

loading screen mechanics

polishing up the UI

dialog system (narrator/info boxes)

Environmental Effects like rain,mist, and the interactivity of the npc creatures

In a way this devblog will help me not only to stay focused and know what to keep top of mind, with myself and this game. I feel better overall now that I’ve written this. In the next work session for Moai I think I will be able to be productive and efficient, and continue aiding the process for Moais growth and materialization.

It will also help me divide what I want this game to be versus what I want PixelPeeps to be, which is a whole ‘nother blogpost on it’s own.

Here’s a question if you made it this far. What sort of cool mechanics would help you relax? What would you see implemented in the game that will perhaps better the world of Moai: Interactive as whole? Maybe snow, and not just rain and mist? What are your thoughts, and while we are at it, what’s your favorite animal?

Moai Devblog 1: Focus on Growth Today I am here writing on my laptop because I seem to have lost most motivation on working.

[uebermacht]

Favorite antagonists/villains (Part I)

No one:

Not a single soul:

Me: Here’s a list of my top 20 favorite antagonists/villains from all kinds of media!

I recently got inspired to do this and here we go. It will be done in alphabetical order and, of course, MASSIVE spoiler warning for all the things in the tags (although most of them are old). Split in two parts because it would be just too long otherwise.

Part II: https://uebermacht.tumblr.com/post/187057042146/favorite-antagonistsvillains-part-ii

1. Ayaka Kamimochi (Gakkou Gurashi! / School-Live!)

Being an egocentric misanthropic psychopath, Ayaka is a truly dangerous and scary person. The fact that she also revels gleefully in the disastrous circumstances the series takes place in is only undermining the fact that she is criminally insane. Still she manages to have other people work with/for her, but thinking that the new world was made for her joy alone with her being the chosen one eventually leads to the inevitable doom of everyone involved. Her sheer coldhearted recklessness and willpower to do whatever it takes left me uncomfortable whenever she was on screen as I read the second arc of the manga.

2. Benjamin Linus (Lost)

Starting out as a mysterious stranger and slowly being revealed to be the main “bad guy”, he cheats, deceives and manipulates his way to and through nearly everyone in the series until he finally ends up as one of the “good guys” (kind of). Benjamin Linus (played by Michael Emerson) is a sweet talker, more brains than brawns and was one of the first characters of a show that I found really engaging and well-written, and just the way how creepily scheming and manipulative he is gets him a spot on here.

3. Count Bleck (Super Paper Mario)

Nintendo and especially Mario games are usually not known for their deep storyline and fleshed-out characters, but the Paper Mario games (especially the first 3 ones) really don’t fit that description. They are well done RPGs with rich characters and a well-written story, and Count Bleck as the main antagonist from Super Paper Mario is no different. At first he may come off as goofy and two dimensional, but as most things in the game there are darker undertones. His past is somewhat tragic and so is his reason to destroy the whole multiverse forever, including himself. I could easily put Dimentio (psychopath and backstabber par excellence) or Mimi (neck-breaking transforming spider monstrosity) here, but Blecks backstory and ending are kind of touching. Also his battle theme is epic as fuck, which you can find right below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs3-AFOSGO8

4. Father Elijah (Fallout: New Vegas)

As Fallout new Vegas is kind of the best RPG of the 3 new games, it is only natural that it had the best characters and intertwined questlines which made it really fun to play, and counting all the DLCs and main story paths, there are plenty of antagonists to chose from. I chose Father Elijah, just because how present he is in all the DLCs and the main game. As the former leader of the Brotherhood of Steel, he has strong ties to one of your friends/followers and seems at first to be a resonable and benevolent person. You hear stories about him everywhere and he has been everywhere you are going to, only for you to finally run into him in the Sierra Madre Casino Resort. But as it turns out he is a megalomaniac who enslaves people to get his hands on a corrosive gas to drive the NCR and everyone else he doesn’t like out of Nevada. The Dead Money storyline (possibly) leads to the Courier eventually trapping him in the vault of the casino, where he meets a fitting end.

5. Flowey (Undertale)

Flowey is a good example of how looks can deceive. What looks like an ordinary friendly flower at first turns out to be an almost omnipotent psychopathic monster who wants to see everyone suffer and die. Based on past experiences and what lead to him becoming the creature he is today, he kind of has a reason for that behavior and his decent into madness. Seeing his ultimate form for the first time creeped me out, anyways, and the idea that he poses as a boss enemy that can save and load your saves or close the game if he wants to added another element to the mix. In general, his character is such a cool concept that I haven’t seen before and his pure sadistic and malevolent behavior made me put him onto my list.

6. Giygas (Earthbound)

There is no list of villains without Giygas, is there? This guy/thing (actually an alien baby corrupted by it’s own powers or something if I recall?) is bad news. It is so otherworldly insane and powerful, that you can’t even fight him properly in the game and you just kind of have to give up and pray, leading to your prayers to become swallowed by darkness. Additionally to that, his appearance and especially the music/noise that plays while you fight him are disturbing and unnerving as fuck. And this was in a Nintendo game of all places. You know, for kids. I know, getting creeped out by this is edgy and as old as the game now, but it still managed to impress me just by how scary it is. If you want to listen to his “theme”, check out the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYb9kSCkjE8

7. Johan Liebert (Monster)

This was one of the first anime I watched. A manipulative and scheming serial killer who leads a neurosurgeon who once saved his life on a wild goose chase across Germany and the Czech republic in the early 90′s, that is Johan Liebert. This was the first fictional character that left me in awe by how scary he is. He looks nice and is soft spoken, but he acts utterly heartless and just wants to watch the world burn. I think the dissonance between his violent thoughts/actions and his constant nice and quiet outward appearance was what made him so memorable to me. Frequently toying with his victims and betraying every shaky alliance he may build, he even taunts the main character for saving his life when he was a kid. Johan Liebert is the titular “Monster” and as such makes a spot on this list. Bonus points for the anime to be set in Germany and making everything look so authentically German.

8. Kyubey (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)

I think Kyubey is one of the most universally hated characters. As cute and fluffy as he looks, he (or them, more accurately) is more or less responsible for every single bad thing happening to the girls in the show, but he still isn’t technically “evil”, just... completely rational and emotionless. True neutral if you will. His actions even kind of make sense in the grand scheme of things, but you can’t help but wanting him to fail. I found it was an interesting concept to have a main villain that is technically not really antagonistic towards anyone, at least he doesn’t think he is because he has no concept of understanding that. That and the “looking innocent but actually the hidden bad guy” trope are making him one of my favorite antagonists..

9. Light Yagami (Death Note)

I guess everyone knows Light Yagami, the protagonist of Death Note. But even if he’s the protagonist, he’s technically still a villain in some sorts. What starts off as a noble quest to rid the world of crime soon goes south because of Light’s super inflated ego, hubris and general douchebaggery. Light is a flawed character from the beginning, highly intelligent and cunning, but also with a high moral compass and the firm belief that he is better than everyone else on the planet. He goes so far to even call himself a “god”. But the game of mental chess he plays with L (and later Near, even if the second season was a letdown) is endearing and you kind of root for him anyways, which was really interesting to watch.

10. Mark Jefferson (Life Is Strange)

Mark Jefferson. What a disgusting piece of shit he was. But that’s exactly why I put him on this list. He starts off as the friendly and professional photgraphy teacher at an art school, but when it is revealed near the end of the game that he was behind all the disappearances of girls my jaw dropped, because I honestly didn’t see it coming. He has been drugging and abducting girls for months to drag them in his underground photo studio to shoot weird photos of them in helpless and maybe slightly sexual poses for his fucked up portfolio. That may sem comparably harmless at first, but he is not shy to actually kill someone or using mentally unstable kids with a bad upbringing to his means, which he has proven multiple times. And let me tell you, the moment you get finally captured by him and put into the same situation was one of the most uncomfortable situations I ever was in in a game. It was so threatening and disturbing I got chills down my spine.

To be continued in Part II of my antagonist/villain extravaganza.

[holmoris]

ooh ooh this is one of my massive pet peeves,

IF YOU MAKE ART: Aseprite is free if you compile it from source if you need a nice reliable pixel editor with a bunch of features. Stable Diffusion can run on your videocard if you've got anything at the 1060 tier or greater with at least 6GB ram. Don't be intimidated by the commandline, if you can copypaste and have an internet connection which you can download ~10GB of files with you can get going with this in about an hour. It's great fun to play with and can make some really great (if incoherent) concept art.

Also if you want to learn the Adobe core apps, grab the CS3 suite from archive.org because due to Adobe needing to honor their license terms the entire thing is installable with a single unlimited license key which is posted in the comments for that archive.org upload. These are ancient by computing standards (over a decade!) but I still use PS CS3 all the time because it's incredibly lightweight and gets most simple jobs done easily as long as you don't need modern plugins. The CS4 suite has the same licensing loophole but Adobe went out of their way to make it difficult to install so it's not worth bothering with unless you really need it for some reason. IF YOU MAKE (OR WANT TO MAKE) VIDEOGAMES: Godot is my recommendation for engines, preferably the new 4.0 beta release that just came out a few days ago. It's rapidly coming to parity with Unity (i'm helping! :v) and you have free license to hack the engine itself to your heart's content or dive into the code to see how it does things. Be aware the asset browser is broken for 4 currently but there's still plenty of 4-compatible projects to learn from in the asset library. Godot disclaimer: I'm mostly throwing this in here because there's a very bad situation on the horizon with Unity that's very likely going to wind up screwing over anyone who doesn't want to pay for perpetual pro licenses. Godot's a bit trickier but after being stuck in Unity purgatory for 3 years it's a massive breath of fresh air.