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the-hydroxian-artblog · 10 months ago

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Are Merch Mimics capable of using assimilation offensively against humans, for self-defense and otherwise? Like, if someone tried to break a toy/game/etc they were inhabiting, could the Mimic instead pull them in?

To a degree, yeah. I should mention though that Victor isn't "in" the TV in any magical sense; spoiler alert: he's the controller Vance is holding! Hence, the eye on the controller reacting to the dialogue. The Victor on the screen is actualy a model he rigged for a homebrew game he coded the old fashioned way, which responds to whatever inputs the controller sends to the Wii.

He actually is an active member of the homebrew community, and loves to mess with electronics the old fashioned way. Almost no one on the forums knows he's a toy bird, but are impressed nonetheless with his little projects, various rail-shooter games, and weird obsession with snarky anthropomorphic birds.

Victor could technically "jump into a game" on a tv screen, but it'd be a bit of a weird process if he doesn't know how to mod the game, so it'd look more like a shitty greenscreen effect rather than anything coherent. He'd need to learn in real time how the game is coded, how to inject arbitrary code into the system while it's running, etc etc. He CAN do that because he's a fucking NERD, but it wouldn't be a quick process at all.

I should also mention, mimics have an inherent ability to create dreams, since they come about from processing the thoughts and ideas of humans. If a human bonds with a mimic, such that the mimic now knows how the human thinks, they can pull a (somewhat) willing human into the dream when the human sleeps. So to wrap this all up: what Victor could do for a game he understands inside and out is pull a human into a dream that happens to match whatever he himself experiences as currently going on in the game. Basically the ultimate VR experience, with the mimic as a middle-man. Which might be something that'll happen in the comic soon....!

So that all seems a bit convoluted, right? Here's even more worldbuilding about matter assimilation by mimics below the cut. Stop here if you don't want a headache.

The reason so many hoops would be needed to pull a human into a game world is that assimilation is much easier on inert, inanimate objects that are not currently "in use" by a thinking thing, or something that relies on constant electrical signals to function. This can be something with brainwaves, or some other kind of animation like a normal robot. A mimic can convert a CRT TV that's turned off somewhat easily, but a TV that's turned on, with particles of every kind constantly moving into and out of it, is much harder to convert.

This means that humans and biological creatures in general are also trickier to convert, though it can still happen if done gradually enough. Hence, Victor wouldn't be able to rapidly convert Vance in one fell swoop, it'd be a whole process. It's easier to just pull a human into a dream instead, and if a mimic understands a video game, or a story in a book really well, they can basically make the fictional world into an extremely lucid reality for whatever human tags along with them.

I often describe mimics as just "jojo stands if they were corporeal and could just get up and move around on their own with no user"; you know how in jojo stand battles or old stories about magic curses, if you break the curse or kill the stand before its effect becomes permanent, all of the damage is magically undone? Like if you kill Green Day, the mold stand, all of the molding just instantly stops?

Mimics who use their powers of assimilation offensively work similarly; they can project their influence to a certain range, and partially assimilate matter in that range. If you knock out or kill the mimic, however, everything reverts to normal. A human who doesn't want to get converted can basically just turn around and walk away most of the time, or shoot the mimic, so the mimic in question needs to pull off some trick to get the human to stay within range for the assimilation to fully stick. A human can still break free and get out of range even if fully converted, but it's much harder, as assimilation usually means the mimic gaining greater control over the converted object in question. The exact range and effect mimics have is again like jojo stand ranges; it varies.

Different mimics have different affinities for different things. Victor can assimilate cheap electronics fastest because he likes them and understands how they work (it's why he's a toy bird mp3 player). Az can assimilate guns, and turn ammo into weird anomalous ammo with weird effects. Zachary is a genius who can assimilate any matter, including biological matter, faster than anyone... but he's also extremely picky and hates the sight of blood, so he only uses assimilation on things he really, really likes.

If I could somehow make another read more at this point, I would. It's gonna get messy:

What a weird power and setup though, right? Why? The true nature of mimics is unknown to most of them, but the deepest lore is that the first mimics were constructs made by a people long ago, who first made them as highly advanced machines that'd recognize the thoughts of their masters to fulfill any practical desire. Need a road built? Done. Need a ship repaired? Done. With physical needs all met, the people began to turn inward, and use the mimics to illustrate their own artistic ideas. Eventually, the will and consciousness of these people were assimilated and inherited by mimics, who themselves became people. Mimics spread, altered themselves, duplicated, deviated, fused, split, and wandered around. Getting into recreational wars, manifesting horrors and delights into reality because they could.

Somehow, after the dust settled, the strongest mimics, the angels, decide to set their sights to the stars, and observe other lifeforms develop technology and their own art. Did mimics come to earth millions of years ago, and simply watched humans grow, evolving with them in-tandem? Or did humans make the first mimics, and somehow became undone and set back to the stone age? The answer to this mystery is currently known only to the oldest of mimics. Except Zachary. He's old, but didn't care to remember.

This is generally why mimics seem so compatible with humans; they were made by either them, or people who were, for whatever the reason, very much like them, flaws and all. The ability to assimilate is basically the conversion of matter into a more malleable state of information. A virtually magical power, but this was achieved not through prayers and spells, but a very human-like obsession with developing technology to the point of exerting control over molecules, then atoms, then the lowest planks of matter. The obsession with scaling every mountain and crossing through every valley. To rip the natural world apart, and hopefully, put it back together before it's too late. Angels seek to ensure humanity walks the right path there, but with human's own desires and intent honored, for better or worse.

To answer your question: yes. A mimic of Mario can pull you into the game and you can jump with him and eat shitty low poly spaghetti with him.

The process for doing that is just convoluted and complicated, and you need to get to know each other a bit first. If he tries to use it as an attack though, it either won't work, or it might just wind up giving you mild brain damage.

#Victor #Merch Mimic #worldbuilding #Character Design #Fantasy race design

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niidsch · 2 months ago

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Would you be able to share some of your gif making process/programs you use to make them? They look great! 💕

Omg thank you,,, 🥺💕💖💕 And yes ofc! I'm going to write down everything I can think of about my gif making process but if I forget anything/you have questions about something specific let me know! ✨

(Long post ahead)

Emulators & Recording

I use different emulators and recording programs, depending on the game I want to play/record:

DesMuMe: This is the one I use for DS games, and it comes with a neat “Record AVI” feature under the “File” tab. Just click it, choose a location for the file and click OK (make sure the Compressor is set to “Full frames (No compression)”). Recordings have a limit of 2 minutes/2GB, but when it reaches it, the program will automatically create a new file and keep recording until it reaches 2 minutes, and the process will repeat (the next recordings will have “part_X” in the name file). When you’re done recording, just lick on File > Stop AVI. Also! The recordings will always have the original resolution. My DesMuMe is set to be 2x its size with a gap between the screens, but all recordings are 256x384 pixels with no gap.

VisualBoyAdvance: Like DesMuMe but for GBA games. Also has a recording feature in Tools > Record > Start AVI recording. The resolution of the video will be that of the original game but I think there’s no limit on how long the recording can be. I’d still recommend stopping and restarting the recording every 5 minutes or so.

Other games & OBS Studio: For 3DS games I use Citra, and Dolphin for Wii ones. They both have Recording features but I don’t use them because they create weird files. Instead, I record them with OBS Studio. Open the program, click on "Start Recording" and then on "Stop Recording" when you’re done. Pretty simple, just remember OBS records your screen so obviously if your emulator window is minimized it won’t record it. You can change your OBS settings to only record the emulator window but I’m too lazy to tinker with OBS so I just record the whole screen lol. There’s always a slight loss of quality with OBS. If you’re recording games with 3DS models then it won’t be too noticeable, but I do not recommend using OBS for pixel/pixelated games like Nintendo DS and Game Boy ones.

Misc: Before OBS, I used to use Camtasia Studio 8. Also does the trick, but instead of saving a .mp4 file it creates its own type of file and it requires you to manually export it as a .mp4 (it's a hassle). It has some editing features too, which OBS does not as far as I can tell. Also, besides DesMuMe I have MelonDS. Highly recommend it if you need to use the multiplayer option (to trade pokemons between games for example) and most importantly for the better mic feature (you WON’T get past the Nintendogs tutorial on DesMuMe). Also the 3D model graphics are of higher quality, but it doesn’t have a recording feature so you will have to rely on OBS and as I said it lowers the quality.

As for video file types, both .avi and .mp4 are allowed in Photoshop. However, .mkv (mostly used for TV shows and movie files) is not, so if you want to edit, say, an anime episode in that format you’ll need to convert it to .mp4. I use Format Factory for that, although I think here’s a slight quality loss.

Here's a comparison of a pixel game recorded with OBS vs with DesMuMe. It's tiny but it will have you shaking the screen violently when you notice it.

OBS recording vs. DesMuMe recording

Do not delete or move the video file until you’re done making gifs of it. Even if you save the file as a .psd, you will get an error message if the video file is gone from its original location and you'll have to start over again.

Editing (I)

I exclusively use Photoshop 2020. If you use CSP, GIMP or other editing program you’ll have to find the equivalent features or look at other tutorials, because I’m only familiar with Photoshop. Other PS versions should have either the same or similar features. Here are the steps I usually follow (names might be wrong because my PS is in Spanish “OTL):

Importing: Drag and drop your file into PS. You should have your Timeline window on the bottom part. If you import a .mp4 or .avi file you should get the Video Timeline, which is what we will work with. If you export a .gif you will get the Frame Animation Timeline; in that case you need to convert it to a single timeline. Click on “Convert to Timeline Video”, then select all the layers (click on Layer 1 and then hold Shift+Click on the last layer) and then right-click on the last layer > “Convert to Intelligent Object”. This is what your PS window should look like for both cases:

avi/mp4 file (has a Video Timeline) vs. gif file (has a Frame Animation Timeline)

Cutting and resizing: Often your file will either be the wrong size or have unnecessary parts. To resize your video, go to Image > Image Size (NOT Canvas size) and change the resolution. For good gif quality, the image resolution should always be 540 pixels wide (Tumblr’s image size), height doesn’t really matter. PS will change the height proportionally if you change the width. So, for example, a 1440x1080 video will be 540x405 after the conversion. Similarly, you can crop out parts with the Selection tool + Image > Crop. Making pixel games bigger requires a different method (more on this later).

Cropping vs. Resizing

Cutting the timeline: Your gif will likely be too long, or you might need to stitch two parts together. In the Timeline window, move the vertical red line to the part where you want to make the cut. You can precisely move frame by frame with the arrows next to the play button. You can also zoom in and out the timeline with the slider at the bottom. Once you’ve placed the red line on the part where you want to make a cut, click on the scissors. You’ll get two layers – delete the one you don’t need and repeat until your gif is the right length. Similarly, you can click on either end of the timeline and drag it left and right to extend/reduce the length, but it’s less precise. I recommend moving the gif layer out of the video group in the Layer window, especially if you’re going to stitch parts together or add new layers that aren’t Color adjustment layers (like your watermark). If you do so, you’ll notice that each layer occupies a different line in the timeline, while if it’s in a group, it will all be in the same line (this means that all layers will be one after the other, you won’t be able to overlay them).

Cutting the timeline (1-3) + Moving the gif layer out of the video group (4)

Color adjustments: The fun part! You can get hella crazy with this one. If you want to go for really fancy stuff, I recommend checking out @/usergif, they have lots of tutorials and gifsets you can use as inspiration. I am however a simple man and will mostly use the same tools: Sharpen, Hue/Saturation, Gradient Map and Curves.

Soft sharpen in the Filters tab + Curves, Hue/Saturation and Gradient Map in the Layer window

Editing (II)

Can't make a bullet list of a bullet list so here's each adjustment layer explained. Note that this part is very personal so feel free to tinker with the settings for each tool until you get what you like:

Sharpen: Used only with non pixel media, aka for 3D models and series/movies. It makes the image look sharper. You'll notice that the video layer can have two icons: a movie film or a folded paper (in the "Import" section, the Pokémon gif has a movie film icon, while the converted Nintendogs gif has a folded paper icon). If your layer has the former, the sharpen tool will only be applied to one frame. To avoid that, right-click on the layer > Convert to intelligent object. Resizing the image will also do the trick. Filters are always applied to the layer, they don't create a new one (this is what the rest of the following adjustments will do). As for settings, this is what I usually have:

Two types of Sharpen settings (original on the left)

Hue/Saturation: Changes both the global colors and specific hues. To do the latter, open the menu right above all three sliders (by default it's set to "All") and then choose the color you want to change. Be careful! Sometimes you might accidentally edit the wrong hue, for ex a bluish green if you are editing blue hues. If you want to see what parts of the gif you're targeting, set the saturation to the max. Colors play a heavy role on gif size: the more diverse and brighter the color palette, the bigger the file. Gif size will be the ruin of your gif making process, so don't go too overboard with this. More on gif size later, but for now, I recommend "unifying" the color palette (aka making some hues similar).

Two examples of Hue/Saturation adjustments (Original above)

Gradient map: Adds a gradient overlay to the image. When you open the Gradient Map window, click on the gradient and you'll be able to edit it or create a new one. To do so, click on the tiny boxes with colors (only the lower ones, the upper ones won't work), then on the slightly bigger box to change the hue. To add a color, click anywhere below the gradient; to move the colors around, drag the tiny boxes and move them, and to edit the limit between each hue, drag the tiny diamond. The way gradient maps work is by editing the colors from lighter (right) to darker (left). So if you have blue on the right of the gradient, light hues will be blue, and if you have pink on the left of the gradient, dark hues will be pink, with mid tones being a mix of pink and blue (either purple, or bluish purple or pinkish purple). The image will look weird when you add a gradient map, but don't mind that for now. Just create the gradient you want and click OK. Now, select the new layer that has been created and play with the blending modes and the opacity of the layer until you get something you like. For blending modes, I usually go for the ones in the second and third sections. To edit either the Hue/Saturation layer or the Gradient Map one, click on the black and white icons (left to the mask, aka the white box) in the Layer window.

Video showing how Gradient map works

Two examples of Gradient maps, with a readjustment of the Hue/Saturation layer (Original above)

Curves: Edits the light, dark and mid tones. Click any point in the curve/line and then drag it around to see what it does. You can make more than one point in the curve. Afterwards, change the blending mode and the opacity.

An example of a Curve and the same example with the Curves layer at 40%

Gaussian blur: Sometimes I add a blurry/fuzzy effect to certain gifs. To do so, duplicate the gif layer (right-click > Duplicate layer), then, while selecting the new layer, go to Filters > Gaussian blur and pick a small numer (0,4-1). Click OK, set the blending mode of the new layer to Darken and lower the opacity.

Two examples of images with Gaussian blur applied (Original above)

Watermark: Add a watermark to your image. Click on the Text tool, create a text box, pick the font, the size, the color and the placement, and then click the ✔ button. Change the blending mode and opacity of the text layer. Personally, I have a .png image of my watermark that I just import to the gif and then edit, instead of creating a text box everytime. Regarding watermarks, I get that they are annoying but it's going to be far more annoying when someone reposts your gif without credit or crops the watermark out. Tumblr sucks when it comes to reporting this kind of stuff and you deserve to have your work respected (you've spent time and effort on this!!), so I highly recommend putting a watermark on your gifs. If you want to avoid having someone crop it, put it towards the middle of the image and not in a place that can be edited easily. Also, I usually save gifs without a watermark and add it afterwards.

Red: Danger zone, can get cropped easily. Blue: Also Danger zone, can be edited out. Green: Too obtrusive. Yellow: Perfect place, can't be edited out and it's not on the main focus of the image

Exporting

This is the "hell on earth" part. To export a gif, go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy), then once it loads (may take some time), play the gif a couple of times to make sure it looks good and save it. These are my settings:

Settings for the Save for Web (Legacy). You'll only need to tinker with the settings on the right.

However, there's one thing to keep in mind: Tumblr has a size limit of 10MB per gif, meaning your gif won't be uploaded if it's larger than that, and you'll be surprised how easily you can surpass that limit. Also, gifs can't be longer than 500 frames, aka 8 seconds (to check the duration of your gif, zoom in in the Timeline Window, you can see the seconds at the top). Here are some pointers regarding gif size:

Pixel games and anime have a smaller size than life-action and 3D models: This is because the former have limited color palettes and the latter has way more colors. For example, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon or Sailor Moon will rarely pose problems, but Arcane, Breaking Bad, Nintendogs or Baldur's Gate 3 will.

The more complex the animation/motion, the bigger the size: This is because complex animations/motions, like a fight, have more unique frames than, say, someone moving their head up and down and nothing else, and that means there's more information to store.

The longer the gif/the bigger the resolution, the bigger the size: Kind of self-explanatory, longer gifs or gifs with big resolutions means more information stored in the file.

Bright and diverse color palettes increase the gif size: As explained in the first point, more colors means more information and thus a bigger file size.

The more it exceeds the limit, the bigger the changes you'll have to make: If it's 10.5MB you can get that number down easily. If it's like 20MB, you might need to cut the gif in half.

How do you solve this? There are a couple of methods:

Make the gif shorter: In the Timeline window, cut parts of your gif until it's short enough. If you don't want to delete certain parts, you can divide your gif in two separate ones.

Make the colors less bright/unify the color palette with an Hue/Saturation layer: If you haven't done this in the editing process and your gif exceeds 10MB, it's time to edit the gif colors.

Reduce the color palette: In the Save for Web (Legacy), you'll see that there's "Colors: 256" on the left (marked in green in the screenshot). 256 is the max amount of colors you can have, but you can reduce it. PS will automatically get rid of colors that have a smaller presence first (for example, in the anime gif above, if I reduced the colors it would get rid of the reds and magentas before the yellows or the blues).

Change the settings in the Save for Web (Legacy) window: Besides the color palette, there's a setting on the right side, marked in red in the screenshot above (the first one). I have it set to "Adaptable", which is the highest setting, but you can change it to "Perceptual", "Selective" or "Restrictive". This will lower the quality and thus the size, but sometimes it might mess up the gif. Similarly, you can change the setting below that one (set to "Motive" in the screenshot) to "Noise", "Difusion" or none at all to change the quality and size.

Optimize the gif: I use ezgif.com for this. Click on "Optimizer", upload your gif, make the Compression level smaller, click on "Optimize" and then save your gif. This will inevitably lower the quality, so I usually don't go lower than 35. Also, try to get your gif right below the 10MB limit, so if a compression level of 20 gets your gif to 9.5MB but a 15 gets it down to 9.9MB, choose 15. ezgif also has other cool features like one to slow down your gif's speed, so check it out!

Don't make gifs of media that causes problems: If you regularly find yourself being frustrated with gifs of X media exceeding the size limit, you might need to find something else. It sucks to think that you might not be able to make gifs of your favourite piece of media, but gif making should be fun, not ruin your day. Of course, it's up to you to decide how much effort you're willing to put on a gif, but don't overexert yourself either.

The Save for Web (Legacy) window is also where you can make your gif bigger in the case of pixel/pixelated games like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon or Nintendogs. In the "Image Size" section, set the quality to "Nearest Neighbor" and the percentage to 200% to double its size (it will be somewhat close to 540 pixels wide). You can make the gif three, four or even more times its size wih this method.

Closing thoughts and results

Managing a gif blog would require a whole new post with some advice so I'll leave that out for now. There are other things I've also left out like actions (highly recommend learning about them) but these are the basics methinks. Again, if you have any questions, my ask box is open ✨

And here are the gifs with a comparison to the original 🎉

Sharpen, Hue/Saturation, Gradient map and Gaussian blur

Sharpen, Hue/Saturation, Gradient map, Curves and Gaussian blur

Hue/Saturation and Gradient Map

#ysiposting #whew this took a while #now if you'll excuse me I'm going back to studying for exams. regrettably

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sometipsygnostalgic · 7 months ago

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Nintendo 3d rendering vs Sony disc size

The Nintendo 64 and the Nintendo Gamecube both had better 3D geometry than the Playstation and the Playstation 2, but the Playstations were able to have much more music and textures than the Nintendo consoles. They were also able to have more 3d objects in a space at one time. Infamously you could fit all the top 10 N64 games on a single Playstation disc, and then more.

The N64 models looked solid despite their low polygon count. It had this weird double anti-aliaising effect which made images look blurry. However, textures were very, very limited, and the cartridge could not fit much music or fmvs.

The playstation had worse geometry and even had the "wobble" effect on most games, due to its Z-buffering hardware not being used. However, it was able to make up for its weaknesses.

It used textures to elevate the look of its 3d models, and replaced backgrounds with detailed 2d textures in games like Resident Evil and Final Fantasy 7.

It also used pre-rendered videos and lots of music, things missing from the N64 entirely.

Games that use pre-rendered videos on other platforms, like "Star Wars Episode 1: Racer," had them removed from their N64 ports.

This image seems to be taken from an emulator. I'm having a hard time finding images captured from the original devices. However, you can see that the ps1 has a "wobble" effect and the n64 has lower resolution textures.

These issues ended up carrying over into the PS2/Gamecube generation.

This is Mariokart Double Dash. It's a very good looking gamecube. Its geometry is simple and it only has 16 tracks, but it's more than playable today, and still looks good when upscaled on an emulator.

This is San Andreas. While the game is graphically impressive, you'll notice that the models for vehicles and even the UI look worse when compared to Gamecube games.

However, San Andreas was able to fit so much more information on the disc than any Gamecube game.

Instead of being limited to 16 race tracks and 16 racers like Double Dash, you have an entire open world to explore and dozens of cars to choose from. You have a hundred hours of things to do in this game. There is hours of music that you can listen to in the cars.

That's why San Andreas was never ported to Gamecube - the game requires 4.2gb of DVD space, whereas the Gamecube's DVD-R was never larger than 1.4gb.

To be honest, I have no idea what black magic Capcom used to port Resident Evil 4 to Gamecube.

When the Nintendo Wii came out, it retained the Gamecube's power for the most part, while offering DVD space of up to 8gb!!! Finally it could have things like music and voice acting.

However... the PS3 and Xbox 360 were already on their way, and the standard definition Wii was far from their ballcourt.

In the Wii's early days, the PS2 was also still in a lot of hands. So developers who wanted to make games for Wii ported them to PS2, and vice versa. Both consoles ended up having lots of "previous generation" versions of games, like The Force Unleashed, which ran better on Wii than the PS2 by a small margin and had different features like motion controls.

#sony #nintendo

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dr-spectre · 30 days ago

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I've had some time to go over my initial thoughts about the switch 2 and I wanna discuss them.

I do like the bigger joy cons but I'm not sure how to feel about an all black look with coloured highlights on the connectors and control sticks. It reminds me of those RGB lights that some pc gaming handhelds have and I always found them kinda tacky. Also why is the red now orange? I don't like it, make it a nice hot red instead. It's common knowledge that red on black is one of the most pretty colour combos of all time. I hope the other colours that eventually come out do change the entire controller and not just change the highlights.

I am worried about the sticks due to well, you know, and i am praying to the gods that the joy cons have actually good control sticks that don't break down easily. How the hell does my Wii Nunchuck from 2007 have no stick drift, yet controllers made 10 years later break down so easily?

I love the chunkier look of the Switch 2 because I always thought that the Switch was a bit too flat and it didn't have enough grip to it. An 8 inch display sounds lovely even if it's gonna be an LCD panel.

Although there are these annoying bezels UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY NINTENDO WHY!?!? YOU GOT A FAT ASS PANEL! USE ALL OF IT DUMMY!!!

Now about that backwards compatibility... I got a few questions.

1. Will the system transfer process be easy and will it transfer EVERYTHING?! I'm talking saves, miis, photos, games, etc. Everything. It better be easy and stress free as possible, i wanna be able to put my Switch 1 to rest and not have to pick it up ever again.

2. Will we be able to use Switch 1 joy cons with backwards compatible titles and have all of their features intact? There are some experiences like Ring Fit Adventure and Labo that will be unplayable on Switch 2 unless you can use Switch 1 joy cons. Nintendo, i swear to god, if you lock us out of those titles and not give us the option to play them i will be very VERY mad.

I am very relieved that backwards compatibility is a highlight of the console and that Nintendo is actually not gonna abandon their old hardware like they've done time and time again. They can be very stubborn and stuck in their ways, it's actually really frustrating that it took them until the Switch to realise that MAYBE HAVING A PROPER ACCOUNT SYSTEM THAT CARRIES OVER TO OTHER DEVICES INCLUDING PURCHASES IS A GOOD FUCKING IDEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NEXT! Let's talk about the elephant in the room, new Mario Kart.

Firstly, oh my god the models are so lovely omg I'm so happy they changed up their looks.

Bowser and DK looking extra silly, we love to see it.

The animation and details look really good too. They got that nice squash and stretch.

I will say, i don't know if it's because of youtube's shit compression or how the gameplay is shown, but the graphics don't seem to have had a noticeable leap in quality, the game looks like it could run on the Switch 1 with ease. It seems like they are going for a different art style and i respect that. Then again i cannot make any major judgements on the footage shown because it only lasted for 10 seconds.

What really interests me about this new Mario Kart is that there isn't going to be just 12 racers, but potentially 24!!!!!!

If you're gonna evolve Mario Kart then this is not a bad way to do it, it's gonna increase the chaos and expand the track design. And it looks like the tracks may be actually expansive and larger in scope but we'll have to wait and see.

24 racers means that the character roaster has to be pretty damn big in order to reduce repetitiveness. However, i don't wanna see another Mario Kart 8 situation where a lot of the roaster could have easily been alt costumes, so i wanna see some changes...

MAKE THESE GUYS SKINS FOR BOWSER JR! I DONT CARE IF THEY HAVE DIFFERENT WEIGHTS! THESE FREAKS SHOULD NOT TAKE UP NEARLY A FULL ROW!!!

Make them costumes that don't fill up character slots... please... Nintendo don't be fucking stupid for once in your existence.

Leave these babies behind in Baby Park.

Don't get rid of her... Please. She's my goat, my MVP, my smingus chungus, my bingus smungus, don't get rid of one of the best non Mario characters from the series.

Add these creatures as optional costumes too.

Speaking of these fellas... Since i talk about Splatoon a lot, i can't help but bring up the fact that now we have a new console on the horizon and due to Splatoon's massive popularity, i wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo shadow drops a Splatoon 4 announcement this year or the next. Splatoon 2 did get shown during the Switch's reveal and released in the launch year so maybe by the end of the year, we could have something on our hands...

Then again, certain elements of Splatoon 2 such as the hero mode THAT I DESPISE WITH ALL OF MY HEART AND SOUL!!!!!.... and content did suffer due to Splatoon 2 being rushed. So maybe don't announce Splatoon 4 this year, please? We can wait, we'll be patient.

In terms of a first party launch lineup i wanna make some predictions and copium picks.

New 3D Mario game

Metroid representation, either a cross gen release of Prime 4 and or a bundle of Prime 2 and 3.

F-Zero representation, a new game FINALLY after the positive feedback from 99, or a GX re-release.

A Wii Sports/ 1 2 Switch like casual game

A new IP

A new Kirby, either 2D or a follow up to Forgotten Land

Something Fire Emblem related

The last thing i wanna talk about is the third party support, I'm not gonna say much but i guarantee a lot of third party companies are gonna be HUNGRY to port their PS5 and Xbox series games to a much more powerful handheld, so I'm gonna list off some games that i would absolutely love to see on the Switch 2.

If Nintendo wants to repeat the magic of seeing Skyrim on a portable tablet then i think one game in particular would fulfill that same shock or even surpass it.

And that game is....

If they can do it, if they can somehow find a way to make it run on Switch 2 and show gameplay of this thing... oh my god, it'll make peoples jaws drop. It's launching on the damn Xbox Series S, I'm sure with some programming magic it COULD run on Switch 2.

#nintendo #nintendo switch #switch 2 #long post #game discussion #splatoon #splatoon 4 #mario kart #donkey kong #rockstar games #grand theft auto #gta 5 #gta 6 #like a dragon #yakuza

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lucyav13 · 7 months ago

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NPC

Some of the NPC we saw...

Heronicus

We can found him living behind Saffron's restaurant after we got Boomer. His house shows objects from our adventures: there is the vase from Chapter 2-3, a Meowmaid-like relic, and a model of the two stone heads found in Chapter 4-2; atop his bookshelf, a dark rock from Outer Space, a totem pole from Downtown of Crag and a torch holder from The Underwhere can also be found. Heronicus additionally has a picture that may possibly depict a blue Squarp hole, and Flipping in his home reveals a picture of a sandy, dune-filled expanse resembling Yold Desert (Curiously, this picture actually shows the background Yold Desert possessed in the pre-release version of Super Paper Mario). Technilly, he spoil us without we notice.

Heronicus also appears briefly at the beginning of Chapter 6-1. After entering the room with Jade Blooper, the first Sammer Guy, Heronicus runs away and exits, apparently having lost to him. His name is also seen in the Flipside Arcade, where he holds the high scores of 550000 and 80000 in Mansion Patrol, and 100,0000 in Hammer Whacker.

Something curious, to say the least, after the game is beaten, Heronicus tells us that he spent a part of his life exploring to find a "legendary Pixl", with a partner. When they found this Pixl, there was a rock slide; Heronicus leaped into action and saved his partner, but the legendary Pixl was lost during the incident. This is the reason Heronicus stopped exploring. It is mentioned in Flopside by Hatch outside of the Flopside version of Heronicus's house that the person who lived there (presumably Heronicus's Flopside version) also went exploring for a legendary Pixl. Again, there was also a rock slide, but instead of saving his partner, he saved the Pixl instead. It is unknown where the Flopside Heronicus went, but the Pixl he saved was Piccolo, who is then found inside the house.... So keep a close eye on your friends 👀

Sipsi

According to Tippi, she is known as the "town gossip", and she is always the first to know anything that happens in town. She gives info about flipping dimensions when the player sees a row of coins. If the player talks to her after completing other chapters, they can hear her gossip about various other characters in the game.

One of 'em is what is shown in this image, and here another one that I am going to attach:

"I heard the hole in the sky was created by Count Bleck to destroy the world! And this Bleck guy hangs out with a foxy secretary type named Nastasia... So I wonder what's up between them... And I hear this Nastasia is a hypnotist, but her powers don't work on the count! Ladies need to watch out for men that are impervious to their feminine wiles..."

(A/N): I can't attach the others because I haven't been able to play because of my TV, I can't clearly see any of the games I have on my Wii, and I haven't found any gameplay that is shown.

One last fact is that, the Yold Ruin geographical setting has been used in the original Paper Mario, where Mt. Rugged is nestled before Dry Dry Desert. In fact, the mountain's environment is also similar to Mt. Rugged, despite its lack of Monty Moles, Clefts, or even some sort of bird.

Bestovious

He is the Dimensional Governor of Lineland and the so-called "Flip Wizard". He is responsible for granting Mario the ability to switch between the second and third dimensions, an ability that the game showcases throughout the entire story. He tries to charge Mario a huge sum of coins for the enchantment, but he eventually settles for a very small price or for free. His name is a pun on the word "bestow", as he bestows upon Mario the ability to flip between dimensions. It may also be a pun on "best of us", due to his arrogant personality.

Bestovius thinks highly of himself and is a descendant of the tribe of ancients. He is also a distant cousin of Merlon and merlee, and is a direct cousin of Watchitt.

Card Description: Bestovius taught Mario how to flip between dimensions. He talks about his beard and floats all the time. Other than that, he's perfectly normal.

Merlee

In the Paper Mario, Merlee is depicted as Merluvlee's twin sister and therefore also a sibling of Merlow. She resides in a hidden alley in Dry Dry Outpost and uses cards to power Mario up.

And, in a dialogue with Merlon (in this game), he reveals that she is his granddaughter. Although whether it is true or not is a mystery, since these genealogy are not 100% confirmed.

In TTYD, she has the same task as always.

The following facts about Merlee were revealed during the "That's My Merlee!" show:

Merlee was born on March 25.

Her favorite smell is fresh air.

Her favorite food is strawberries.

She washes her bangs first in the shower.

Her nickname is the "Bashful Ghost".

She has no preferred type of guy.

Her favorite animal is a bear cub.

Her hobbies include looking through catalogs for crystal balls.

She wants the newest kind of crystal ball.

Her best feature is the lobes of her ears.

In this game, Merlee is Merluvlee's rival, and has been ever since they were classmates.

When Mario and co. get the 3Ds for Merluvlee, she will give Merlee's Crystal Ball to Mario and friends. Merluvlee mentions that she and Merlee are 'even' when she gives the Crystal Ball, possibly a reference to the original Paper Mario, in which Mario had to give Merluvlee a crystal ball from Merlee.

When we we hire the Merlee's services, after defeating a certain amount of enemies, a roulette of helpful items appears and Mario is given one item from the roulette. She allows Mario to receive any level of charm for free one time if Mario and friends brought her the Crystal Ball from Merluvlee.

Charm details:

The package bought determines how many times the roulette appears. Each spin happens after a random number of enemies has been defeated (between 20-70, in which the counter resets to zero).

Trial Package (50 Coins): The roulette appears five times.

Advised Package (100 Coins): The roulette appears 10 times.

Special Package (200 Coins): The roulette appears 15 times.

In Super Mario-kun, she is captured by Mimi. Mimi then disguises as Merlee and leads Mario into the trap. When Mario defeats Mimi and rescues Merlee, Merlee gives Mario a Pure Heart.

These are the different tattles for her in every game she makes an apparence:

Paper Mario

Tattle: "She's a wizard, Merlee. She casts spells. If you let her cast a spell on you, it may affect you in battle. She's one of the pair of twins. The other one is Merluvlee, from Shooting Star Summit. When I look at a woman as beautiful as this, it makes me feel all strange! ♥"

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Tattle: "That's the charmer, Merlee. She's bright and cheery, huh? If you have her charm you, you'll receive various bonuses in battle. They're super-helpful, so next time you have a chance, be sure to have her charm you! Oh, AND I hear she's the twin sister of Merluvlee, the fortune-teller!"

Super Paper Mario

Tattle: "That's Merlee, the charmer... Her spells are empowering when you're in a bind... She lives in a large mansion in Gloam Valley, but moved here to help the heroes... She and Flipside's fortune-teller, Merluvlee, were rivals when they were classmates..."

Card Description: This charmer uses the sun to work her magic. She is a descendant of the Tribe of Ancients.

Flint Cragley

(Image credits to whom it may concern, I did not find the author of this wonderful work of art)

He's a celebrity amongst his race, Flint has the highest-rated news program in all of Crag, and is the only Cragnon encountered who wears clothes other than animal skins, does not speak in third-person, and does not insert "crag" and "brah" in place of other words. His name derives from flint (a hard, resilient variety of quartz that was often the material of choice in making stone tools like arrow- and spearheads) and crag (alternatively Cragnon). He bears some resemblance to Indiana Jones (who he is even named after in some translations) and other celebrity documentarians like Steve Irwin. He is also somewhat comparable to Kolorado, from the first Paper Mario, as both are explorers, both are encountered in a cavern, and they both star in Chapter 5 of their respective games. His TV show is called Flint Cragley, Cragtrotter, which is also the name of his theme, according to The InterNed.

(If anyone is wondering, these are the flint stones 👆)

Flint makes a non-speaking appearance when the Land of the Cragnons is briefly shown being swallowed by The Void during the final battle, panicking alongside the other Cragnons and presumably being erased along with his dimension. After the Void is closed and his and all other dimensions are saved from its destruction, Flint Cragley can be found again after beating the game, making a new rock single entitled, "Cragley Croons in Crag: Songs in the Key of Flint". It has at least 127 verses. (A/N: What the...)

In the Wii U, we can fin a trophie with him printed, with the following description:

'Who would use "Cragley Ho!" as a catchphrase, you say? Flint Cragley, of course! He comes from an advanced Stone Age civilization called the Land of the Cragnons. There they broadcast a program, "Flint Cragley's Cragtrotter," which stars Flint Cragley, is directed by Flint Cragley, and was made possible by producer...Flint Cragley.'

One last fact, in japanase his name is: "Tankenka Debiddo", translated is Explorer David; likely a reference to the Scottish explorer "David Livingstone". Yehah, that guy 👇

In French his name is: Indiana Crag. In Italian his name is Cromagno Jones, translated: Cragnon Jones. Super difficult to guess why.

And finally, in Spanish his name is: Roc Sílex, another way to say flint 🙄

Hornfels and Monzo

Hornfels' nameis derived from "hornfels," a type of rock. (A/N: Yehah, now we are all geologists)

In japanese his name is: Henry, a reference to the Welsh journalist famous for exploring Africa during the 19th century, Henry Morton Stanley. (A/N: And now we are also explorers)

In French his name is: Sonolite, from the prefix "sono-" and the suffix used for forming the names of rocks "-lite"

In Italian Audiolito, from "audio" and Italian suffix used for forming the names of rocks "-lito"

In Spanish Marmolito, a masculine adaption of "marmolite". Yehah, you guessed, another kind of rock!

Monzo's name is derived from "monzonite", ANOTHER type of rock.

His name in Japanese is Stanley, reference to the same explorer that Hornfels.

In French: Filmolite, from the masculine adaption of "film" and "-lite" (a suffix used to form names of rocks)

In German: Watzmann, from "wetzen" (to sharpen) and "mann" (man)

In Italian Videolito, from "video" and Italian suffix used to form names of rocks "-lito"

In Spanish: Calizo, meaning "limestone". I'm not even going to bother anymore, I'll just post the image and disappear into a momentary explorer and geologist.

(A/N): And those are all the npc's that I found relevant and interesting enough to make their own chapter. And let's pretend that I haven't posted in more than a week. The thing is, to do certain research I use my Wii game, but I have had problems with the connection and I have not been able to use it, hence the delay. But don't worry, the regular update will be back soon. Also, I'm running out of content to update my researches. So please, if anyone has any ideas/theories/characters/places you would like to know more about, write about it, as the research is coming to an end. But, despite that, I have other equally interesting projects. Still, write me what you think. I say goodbye. Until next time! And I hope you have learned something with these geology classes that I gave you, xd.

#spm #super paper mario #fanart #my researches #dimentio #NPC #Super Paper Mario Researches #Yehah #Not posting for a week #Srry

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a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan · 3 months ago

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Recently I've come to appreciate that pre-HD video games don't always wholly benefit from being played at HD resolutions with HD texture packs. This goes for emulation and official remasters. Even the best, most faithful texture packs (like Nerrel's Majora's Mask 64 HD) can create a lack of visual cohesion when the textures are fantastic but the models, world geometry, and animations are still very clearly products of their time. More below.

I can appreciate wanting to play Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask at 1080p/4K with HD textures and interpolation making it look like it's 60fps. That's cool as fuck that we can do that now. But it's not me. No, I'm one of those freaks who turns on Ship of Harkinian (the fanmade PC port of OoT), activates N64 mode to shift it to 240p and 4:3 aspect ration, then layers on a CRT filter to make it look extra shitty. See, I see the value in the shit. Appreciating art in its original context is very important to me, especially video games.

I'm also playing Twilight Princess on Dolphin now at 480p, 4:3, and original textures. Does TPHD make a lot of great quality of life improvements? Are its new textures impressive? Does the higher resolution make everything look sharp and crisp? All yes. But is it nice to appreciate how the lower resolution smooths out rough model edges? Is it fun to let my imagination fill in the blanks of the texture work instead of having it all laid out for me? Is there cohesion between all the visual elements of the game? Also yes. I'm having a good time with it, too. Helps that I'm not chained to my Wii U to play it too lol

Oh, but there's one old game that I think absolutely shines with high resolution and HD textures. The Wind Waker. Hoo boy, this one is crazy. I played through the game twice on Dolphin, both times at 720p (my shitty computer can't manage 1080), and the second with Hypatia's HD texture pack too. My brother in Christ, it looks phenomenal in HD. Not the official remaster, mind you, that thing looks like hot ass with the new lighting engine. Nah, I mean Gamecube original, bumped up resolution, Hypatia textures.

It's unreal how well the game visually holds up. The world geometry is even blockier than TP, and the character models are simple, but those all work in its favor. It looks like a cartoon. It's so stylized that it aged like fine wine. Increasing the resolution and texture quality doesn't create any visual dissonance because the modelling is so stylized already. God it looks gorgeous. If your computer can handle it, I highly recommend trying that out. Use the Better Wind Waker mod to add the official remaster's QoL updates too and it'll be smooth sailing. Get it lmao. ANyway that's enough ranting. Back to playing TP on Dolphin.

#ramble

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mentholmuse · 3 months ago

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The Last Of Us - Incorrect Quotes

Very Correct Actually | HBO Specific

Things that don't exist in TLOU Universe:

SHINee

Klance

Miranda's 'Cerulean Blue' speech

Australia (probs) (like aus is GONE the grain industry over here.... nah)

Wicked, post first show

Wicked loosing tony to Avenue Q

Ugg Boots on a red carpet

Me (2004 baby)

Star Wars Episode 3, and by extension mass bi awakenings

Star Wars OG Trilogy box set/being able to see carrie fisher in the mental bikini at home

The Hunger Games, ellie would have ate this UP for all the wrong reasons

World of Warcraft

Lord of The Rings 3rd movie

Swifties

Brexit

Europe Nation-States as a whole probably (baby thats cordycepsfalia now)

Facebook

Autism in women (pretty much)

Dissolving of the Asperger's Diagnosis

The Wii

The iPhone, but more interestingly Steve Job's insults

Fears abt the world ending in 2012 bc of the Mayan calendar

4Chan

Any imaging from the Hubble Telescope (launched DAYS before outbreak day) (that's kinda poetic honestly like you want to venture out. okay, well so do cordyceps)

the term "baby bump" according to wiki

flash mobs

The Kardashians™️

Shrek 2

Spider-Man 2

Howl's Moving Castle

Attack on Titan the manga

GTA 5

The idea of GTA 6

Lost

Michael Jacksons death (as we know it)

"Bimbo Summit"

The Notebook

Paris Hiltons Music career

Bling Ring

My Immortal (fanfic)

Ao3

Wattpad

DSM-5

My Parents Marriage

Teen Vouge

That one vanity fair cover with all the 2003 it girls

Legally Blond 2

Charlie's angel 2

Scooby Doo 2

Madonna and Britney Spears kiss

Britney Spears conservatorship (Britney would FUCK UP some infected)

Beyoncé's solo career (aside from first album) (she won FIVE grammys in 2004)

Ellie being an NCTizen (i just see it)

In Da Club -50 Cent

Smosh

Youtube as a whole (i feel like sarah would have liked tarot card readings on youtube and joel would also secretly eat them up)

the resolution that an american politician was the one to leave a hit and run, dead dear in the middle of a park (arent the Kennedys basically american royals. yalls royals are wild, mine just 'secretly' assassinate each other)

SPF 50+

Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban again en mass awakenings... liking wolfstar, wolfstar roleplayers, liking kinda along hair nerdy guys, liking girls who punch ppl like draco malfoy in the face.

dare i say movie adaptation drarry stans

the marauders fanon

Ashley Simpson lip syncing scandal

NippleGate

Solo Gwen Stefani

Yeah! by Usher, lowkey i think this song would have been Joels guilty pleasure

Jojo Siwa

Desperate Housewives

Pretty Little Liars the concept as a whole

Napoleon Dynamite (#voteforpedro)

Barbie and Ken Divorce

Criminal Minds

Spencer Reid

Dr Spencer Reid

My crush on Dr Spencer Reid

Mggs mockumentary

Mgg modeling picks we only see in his mockumentary

Hillary Duff "Do you know what you say" (TV Ellie would 10000% call things gay*)

Tom Cruise scientology controversy

cancel culture... all though i think FEDRA is their cancel culture

any publicly elected president in america ever again

kevin rudd sorry speech

julia gillards speech

gay marriage (in australia and in all american states)

hashtags

twitter

jihyo being a kpop trainee

girls generation

bang chan being australian potentially

the gabby hannah show.... and poetry, and music....

my chemical romance*

amy winehouse

honourable mention kinda :

could you imagine thinking the world was gonna collapse in 2000 bc of, y2k, 2001 bc of 9/11 or 2012 bc of the mayan calendar but it was 2003 instead. evolution just couldn't handle wonyoungs impending beauty apparently

there are probably a lotttt of coeliac people in post outbreak TLOU universe

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max1461 · 1 year ago

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Here are some numbers to put the history of video games in perspective. Video games are approximately 50 years old as of the making of this post. Early computer games were being written here and there for mainframes throughout the 60s, but the first commercial games (and with them, access to video games by the general public) begin to release around 1970. Pong released in 1972. The first home consoles with interchangeable games start to release around the mid-70s.

Approximately one decade after that, Super Mario Brothers is released (1985).

Approximately one decade after that, Super Mario 64 is released (1996).

Approximately one decade after that, the Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3 release (2005~2006).

Approximately one decade after that was the PS4 and Xbox One and so on (2013~2014).

Approximately one decade after that is today.

What stands out here is that the early history of video games was remarkably fast. In the same time it took to get from the Xbox 360 to today (during which, in my estimation, video games have not changed all that much in their general character) we went from the Atari 2600 to Super Mario 64. That is a stunning amount of change in the nature of the medium. Of course that change was driven by the rapid advancement of computer technology over the same period, which allowed for an ever-growing conception of what a video game could be; we haven't seen nearly the same level of fundamental change in computation technology in the time since.

In fact, it was hard for me to even pick a really satisfying decade milestone within the last 20 years; the beginning of the seventh console generation (Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii) is the last time the underlying technology of games seemed to me to change in a big way, that had comparably big creative implications. Since then it's seemed that various aspects of the technology have improved on the margin, but ultimately the creative limitations of the medium are about the same. Maybe you could even pinpoint that shift around the beginning of the sixth generation of consoles instead (I am of course just using console generations as waypoints; parallel developments were of course taking place on PC).

Well, anyway, I just think it's interesting. I think those 20 or 30 formative years of video games have kind of cemented themselves in the culture as "the way video games are", like we can expect huge technological leaps that reshape the capabilities of the medium every few years. But I don't think that's actually the case, I think those formative years probably truly were exceptional and are not to be repeated. Of course, I could be wrong. In particular, I think AI language models like ChatGPT might open the way for reliable dynamically generated dialogue in games, akin to the dynamically generated worlds in e.g. Minecraft. That could open new directions for the medium. But still, it's hard for me to imagine the shifts will be as monumental and as regular as that formative period saw. Well, I don't really know. But it's interesting to think about.

#navel gazing

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artistdove · 6 months ago

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Ok so I finished the Epic Mickey Demo a while ago and here are my thoughts. I played it on the Switch. This is gonna be a bit long, sorry in advance. Gonna put a read more in case none want to be spoiled or read this, idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Graphics: Amazing. Everything has a new model even the characters, nothing looks like it was ported from the Wii and HD-ed. Though that does mean for the Switch it may glitch at times. Sometimes I would catch the models load and unload. Though some of the new models seem a bit odd when they do certain animations. Really it's Ozzy's model that had me double take. It's great, but when he puffs out his chest it looks a bit geometric instead of smooth. Idk maybe the light sources make it look bad. Mick's ears have a slight bug when the camera sticks for a bit as they are made to follow the camera. The cutscenes do seem to cut off abruptly. I was a spamming A quite a bit, but that shouldn't have caused such jumps. I only had one second of footage of the teacup ride before it cuts to the ruined Dumbo ride. Others seems too fast for the animation to fully play out too. The thinner rivers also look odd as they are brighter in color.

Animation: Flowy and sleek. Apparently, they erased the controller Mick holds in the old cutscenes. I didn't notice it. I did noticed that some of the animations looked new. They may not be, idk. I played this game on the Wii, so. But I swear, Ozzy makes a slightly different facial expression in the intro scene. The animation does feel a tad lifeless and buffered at times. It doesn't squash and stretch like it used too, heck Ozzy's shocked expression felt quite stiff. Mickey's jump animation seems floaty in how he transitions to it. I definitely notice some of the enemies get stuck in the stage animation and took a bit to gain control. The paint/thinner streaks are crazy. It either looks normal or breaks physics with how it hits objects. Breakable objects go brr cuz they put physics on those.

Sound: Sound doesn't seem to have changed drastically. I can tell there is some new sounds or ones I just never noticed. Like piano notes when Mick tip-toes. Ozzy's new little noise when he taunts Mick. New ink sounds for his movesets. Upgraded sounds for the grunts. Though, the volume is strange. In the beginning, there is like no sound. Music was definitely present, but I could barely hear the footsteps, Gus, robot, etc. I swear the machine's cranks were like blasting in the old game. It's so muffled, and I had the volume at like 25. Later, the volume was fine. Neither sound or music was out doing each other.

Gameplay: Not bad. The new movesets and dash feature is great. Buttons layout is odd, though again. I played it on the Wii so I am too used to motion controls for it. The Switch offers it, but only when you press the buttons to paint or thin. Other than that, your stuck having to aim it with the camera stick. Took me a while to get used to it. The other layouts are fine. There seems to be a new move with the Guardians on guiding them, but idk how that works. The game plays the same as usual. I will warn that when too many enemies are on screen, causes crazy lag. Most likely due to the high graphics and it being on the Switch. I got ganged up by Splatters.

Other: I can definitely tell that the game may need patch updates or something. Some parts felt behind or laggy. Wish there was more graphic options to help it run better on Switch. The motion control could have been better. I mean Skyward Sword got ported and that still functioned like it's Wii version. The new moves are neat but until the full game, I don't understand how useful they will be. The UI is neat. I understand the charm of the old ones. Least if they remake the sequal, they have those new assets. The characters icons or eh to me. Neat poster-look, but I like the 3D or sketchy style. Nice to have Gus be optional in his tips. He'll still force tips, but it's not near as often. Some stuff does seem to be missing. The only thing that comes to mind is the first pin found has no camera swirl, poor Mick just snaps his kneck. Didn't get to look at the concept art before I finished it, but nice to know you can zoom in and know who drew it. Even nicer that there is much more concept art. Menu is amazing. Sleek and easily readable. The new loading screens are great, I will be missing the old ones though. Main menu is also cool as heck.

Overall, I have hopes for this game. I am so excited to get the full release. I do feel that a tad more improvements need to be made. Probably doesn't help I have a console that has questional performance and quality, which is sad cuz Nintendo was known for that. Happy to see Ozzy be brought to a spotlight and Mickey be used again.

#dove rambles #epic mickey #epic mickey rebrushed #spoiler warning #hopefully not many typos lol bit tired

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accessibleaesthetics · 2 years ago

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Remember when I talked about how how I wished there was some image-to-text AI instead just the text-to-image AI? Turns out there is!

This is a screenshot of an image-to-text AI called "clip_prefix_caption," specifically using the model "Coco." And while it's not 100% accurate, it still did a reasonably impressive job with this image. Of course, it kind of makes sense since this photograph is a free-to-use image I pulled off the web, which is almost certainly the kind of stuff this AI was trained on. If we get a type of image very different from what this AI was probably trained on, the results are not nearly as accurate.

But that's okay, Coco isn't designed for Optical Character Recognition (OCR). If you put this same image into An OCR-focused AI program like Image to Text Converter, you'd get:

Night Vale podcast (zioNightValeRadio A mafia guy who has really misunderstood "make it look like an accident" shouting WHOOPSIE every time he fires the gun. 1:06 PM • 2023-02-10 • 72.4K Views 3,487 Likes 776 Retweets 27 Quotes

Still not perfect, but defintely better than "a man is playing a game on the Nintendo Wii."

But what about art? How do these types of things fair with describing art? Since I'm not 100% clear on what (if any) information about the input images are put into a data set for AI to learn from, I did not want to put just any art in here. And if you play with any of these programs, I strongly encourage you not to put anything in there you don't have explicit permission to use for this.

I got specific permission from @animunerdery to use their drawing of Vinsmoke Sanji for some AI tests:

I decide to try a few different models too.

clip_prefix_caption (using coco model): A man wearing a tie and a shirt.

Blip: Caption: a black and white drawing of a man wearing a tie

CLIP Interrogator (using ViT-L model): a man in a shirt and tie smoking a cigarette, sanji, fanart ”, short silver hair, boring, lanky, zero - hour, coal, alp

I should note that the last one, while much more detailed, took a lot longer to generate than the other two.

This is by no means exhaustive. If you take a look at the post this image came from, you will find some even more detailed image-to-text AI outputs.

And this isn't even counting image-to-text AI in less open-source projects. Microsoft Word, for example, generates alt text for almost every image you put in a Word document, assuming you're using the current version. The Accessibility Checker will prompt you to check these though, because their accuracy is iffy at best, especially with images that are very far from what was probably in the data sets Microsoft trained its AI on. You can also contribute to that training data set if you want, because Microsoft gives you the option to "donate" any manually-created alt text you add to an image in your document to their database to improve accuracy. It's a case-by-case opt in though, don't worry.

Some screen readers have built-in image-to-text AI as well. For example, sometimes after reading the alt text on an image (be it properly written alt text or the default word "photo" on every image on a Tumblr post without user-added alt text), the VoiceOver (iOS) screen reader will read an additional description it makes using its text-to-image AI. I can't always get it to do this consistently, but after playing around a bit with a version of the Vinsmoke Sanji image that did not have anything but the default "photo" alt text, I got it to give me this:

Adult. Clothing. Illustrations. One.

Not the most helpful. But this technology is still pretty young, and I think it has a lot of potential if used correctly.

#AI #accessibility #alt text #image descriptions #long post

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shinysamurott9 · 4 months ago

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Alright so now that it's been a day and I've had some time to collect myself, I want to give my thoughts on Xenoblade X Definitive Edition.

Holy. Fucking. Shit. How is this real.

Ok so, I'm a pretty big fan of Xenoblade X, though I wasn't as much when I first played it in a Xenoblade marathon in the months leading up to 3. I didn't think it was bad or anything, it just didn't click with me the way the rest of the trilogy did at the time.

That is until I played it a second time roughly a year later alongside Xenogears and Xenosaga leading up to Future Redeemed. Before I got to it, I had made an effort to try and figure out the game and avoid the mistakes I had made in my first playthrough.

And I loved it.

Compared to the first time it was crazy, I didn't want to put the game down at all. Naturally after that, I really wanted to see some kind of follow up or for X to get some kind of second chance. Being a late Wii U game in a series that was at the time quite niche meant not a lot of people have gotten to play it. So a remaster on the level of Xenoblade 1's Definitive Edition felt like something X sorely needed as a way for more people to have a chance to play it and as a way to follow up on some of it’s infamous cliffhangers. People have wanted it for years for those reasons as well as the prospect of having the entire series on Switch.

And then Nintendo decides to come in on a random Tuesday out of nowhere and just drop the insane bombshell that a Xenoblade X Definitive Edition is real, is coming to the Switch and seemingly doing all of the above. I genuinely did not think it would ever happen. Monolith have put out statements before talking about how difficult and costly porting X would be, understandably so given how demanding that game was for the Wii U. Between that and just how late we are into the Switch's life, I felt like X on Switch was a pipe dream at best. Plus with the supposed Switch successor rumored to be a notable leap in power, I expected that if an XDE was on the table it would be saved for that to take advantage of the improved hardware.

But, here we are, Monolith have pulled out something I never thought possible. So far it seems like the graphics aren't overhauled as much as 1DE, which is fair, X holds up way better, especially in comparison to Xenoblade 1. But of course there are obvious changes to the character models and geaphics overall, so far everyone is looking pretty good so I'd say I'm already pretty happy on that front. There do also seem to be some minor tweaks to character designs, nothing major for the most part namely Lin only has one Monado hairpin instead of two.

What may be the most notable thing here is that finally after nearly a decade, they are finally following up on some of X's hanging threads with confirmed new story content. We can also see here the character people have called The Black Knight up until now. We never get anything close to a proper look at them in game but datamined models have shown us his model from the ending cutscene. He's we can already see he's been pretty heavily changed from the datamined model which makes sense. That model uses recolored grenada armor with a hood added so it was probably more of a placeholder than anything. I am very much looking forward to seeing where this goes.

What I am most curious about though is how this game will perform on a technical level. The original version was already struggling to run well on the Wii U even after the 15GB worth of performance patches, so I can't help but wonder how this game will turn out on the Switch. There's really no way to know til people get their hands on it.

That's about all we know for certain til we hear more, but there is a fair bit I would like to see from this game, a lot of it being general qol stuff, such as let me change my party or the time of day on the fly, give me better inventory management stuff like that. More options to customise my character would be nice too but given the precedent set by 1DE more armor pieces is probably a given. I would like it if some of the outfit pieces that differed between genders became available to both just to have more options, especially in regard to casual wear.

The biggest thing that I hope they implement though, that personally I think is borderline required for this game is some actual explanation for how the game mechanics work. The main reason I had such a hard time with X the first time is because most of its mechanics are never properly taught to you and they're just not intuitive enough to figure out on your own. Most egregiously this includes Overdrive, not just the cornerstone of X's combat system but an incredibly fun mechanic unique to X that not a lot of players got to fully appreciate because they didn't understand how it works.

I know the Wii U digital manual explained some of these things but people weren't really reading manuals in 2015, much less digital ones that are somewhat disconnected from the actual game. As far as I'm aware the Switch doesn't even have digital manuals like the Wii U so actual tutorials maybe something they need to add if they want any of the presumably many new players to figure out how to play the game.

Other than that though I'm very happy with what we've seen so far. I'm really looking forward to playing this game again with hopefully a much more active online playerbase for things like squad missions or nemesis battles. Will certainly make getting reward tickets much easier and more fun.

#Cannot believe this is the timeline we're in #Xenoblade #Xenoblade Chronicles #xenoblade chronicles x #Xenoblade X #Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition #XBX #xenoblade x definitive edition

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