#3d Animation Software for pc

[vasundhara-infotech]

Cloud Gaming VS Traditional Gaming: What Sets Them Apart?

[remidiy]

We Don't Gatekeep Art Resources | A Comprehensive List

Here's a list of some of the tools/sites I currently use or have used previously for works/studies. I'll separate it into Software/Utility, Reference, and 'Other' which will be just general things that could help you map out things for your experience with art. **[Free highlighted in pink, paid highlighted in green. Blue is variable/both. Prices Listed in USD]**

Software/Utility:

2D

Krita Painting app (PC) (my main digital art software on PC for 5+ yrs)

Clip Studio Paint [PC] [CSP 2.0+ allows for 3d modelling within the painting app and a lot of other cool features] [apparently allows up to 6 months free trial]

Procreate (12.99) [iPad/iPad Pro] (the GOAT)

Artstudio Pro [iPad/iPad Pro] (An alternative to Procreate if you enjoy the more traditional art app layout) -- I find this app handy when Procreate is lacking a feature I need, or vice versa. (you can easily transfer files between the two, but keep in mind Procreate's layer limit)

2D "Collaborative Painting/Drawing apps"

Magma Studio

Drawpile

Discord Whiteboard

Gartic Phone (Pretty decent for 2d animation practice, but has a hard limit on frames)

3D

Blender [3D Modelling, Sculpting + Layout] (PC)

Sculptris [PC] (it's an old unsupported version of Zbrush, but can help to get ideas out, and functions better than browser sculpting apps

Nomad Sculpt [iPad/iPad Pro] ($20) Works pretty well if you prefer a mobile setup, but it is a bit intense on the battery life and takes some getting used to

References + Study

Magic Poser [ PC and Mobile ] Has both free and paid versions, I've made do with just the lite version before

Artpose ($9.99) [Iphone + Steam]

Head Model Studio [IPhone] A 3D head, with both a basic blockout version for angles, and a paid version with more detail

Cubebrush [simply search "[keyword] pose reference pack"], they usually have good results + they frequently have sales!

Line of Action [Good for Gesture practice + daily sketching], also has other resources built in.

Quickposes Similar to Line of action, more geared toward anatomy

Drawabox | Perspective Fundamentals Improvement modules (Suggested by @taffingspy )

Sketchfab, this skull in particular is useful, but there is other models that can help you study anatomy as well.

Pinterest can be good, you just have to be careful, usually you're better off just finding reference pack if you have the money, sometimes certain creators have freebies as well

Artstation Marketplace can be decent [make sure to turn on the Aye-Eye filter so it doesn't feed you trash], a colleague of mine recommended this head model for practicing facial blocking, there is also this free version without lighting.

Local Art Museums [Unironically good for studying old "master work" if you're into that, or even just getting some inspiration]

Brushes + Other Useful software:

I personally have used both of these brush packs before making my own

(I actually don't know how to share my daily brush set because I frequently switch between Krita, Procreate, and ASP, but once I figure that out I'll be sure to do that lol)

Marc Brunet's Starter brush pack [Technically free but supporting him for this if you like it is ideal, there's some good brushes]

Dave Greco Brush Pack [$3]

Gumroad in general is a good place to find brushes and art resources. *Note; for Krita specifically, brush packs are a bit weird, so it may require you to find different packs, or import them in a particular way

PureRef [PC] - Reference Compiler/Moodboarding

VizRef ($3.99) [iPad] - Moodboarding/Reference Compiler

Artist Youtubers/Creators that helped me improve/guide me along as a self-taught artist from when I first started digital art to where I am today:

Proko

Marco Bucci

Sinix Design

Sycra

Hardy Fowler

Lighting Mentor

Winged Canvas

Moderndayjames

Swatches

Chommang_drawing

Marc Brunet (YTartschool)

+ Observing a lot of speedpaint art by people whose work I enjoy on social media/youtube, trying to dissect their processes

If you've gotten this far, first of all, congrats, you can read a lot, and second of all, thank you for reading and I hope this helps! I'll continue to come back and update this if I find any new resources in the future, or if my processes change :)

Much Love,

-Remidiy

[corvesha]

Your animation is so smooth! Do you have any tips and tricks for newbie animators looking to achieve a similar animation style? (fps, program, etc)? Much love :)

Tysm! And yes, I do have some tips and tricks for learners, though idk if I'll be good at explaining it, but here we go

I first started off using FlipAClip as my first software as it's free and easy to use (and I didn't have a pc at the time so it was convenient, but currently I used ClipStudio Paint).

I started off using a frame rate between 8-12 while starting (I still use 12 fps sometimes, but I now also work in between 12-18 fps) and I would often analyze other animations I saw frame by frame to understand how to make it fluid and smooth. Hell, I even studied the basic FlipAClip animations that it starts with.

I also watched tons and TONS of videos that give basic tutorials and tips on how to utilize frame rate and smear frames and such. One video that I like to go back to from time to time is this one. It highlights the necessities of animation and describes better in words than I ever could, so I'd check it out!

I'd also not go into such big animation project as a starting lesson, it'll get really overwhelming, trust me. There are many simple lessons to start off with, like the ball bouncing exercise.

Also, shapes are going to be your best friend in animation, they're everywhere!! It's good to know how to work with 3D shapes and the angles they can be drawn in. My favorite shape to work with is a rectangular prism, but most commonly spheres and circles are used in animation, it's honestly just how you prefer to work.

And that's the fun part, animation is personalized to every person who does it, and not everyone works the same way! It's always also good to experiment to see what you like and what works best! I wish you and anyone else who reads this and is starting or has been starting to get into animation the best of luck!

long rant over, I really really love animation.

[sailescaithuisce]

PSA:

**not witch related, apologies lovely followers**

I was just on twitter, and noticed a post, where someone was calling this individual out for stealing their art.

Typical. I scrolled.

Then I came across ANOTHER post by a different person, about this same individual stealing THEIR art.

So out of curiosity, I check the account of the accused.

There is art made by people I follow, my friends, and even myself. This girl is stealing art, brazenly posting as theirs, trying to sell it, and responding to any criticism with “shut up, it’s on the internet, it’s free”

DO. NOT. BE. LIKE. HER.

Point blank fucking period.

Art is expensive, i know. Commissions are expensive, I’m aware. But let me just break some things down for you.

Art is expensive because you are paying a person for their time/effort/talent/materials and usually last minute edits.

Paint isn’t cheap. Glass isn’t cheap. Yarn isn’t cheap. Hell, even for digital you need to replace Apple Pencil tips, screen protectors, software for PCs/Drawing tablets, etc etc. And that doesn’t even begin to touch the TIME.

Yes, I will absolutely charge $100+ for a drawing, because art takes TIME. $100 for a piece that took me 2-3 days alone is less than minimum wage. Let alone computer animation, 3D models, 2D animation, etc etc. I, like many other artists, know my fucking worth as a human being.

I understand with the current economical climate that finances are hard, buying art is a luxury, etc etc. But DO. NOT. steal the hard work/time/talent/materials from another and pass it off as yours. Especially to gain profit. That is disgusting fucking behavior, and I can/will fight a bitch.

Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.

[allstartrekgames]

The Roddenberry Archive

Original Release: 2023

Developer: The Roddenberry Estate, OTOY

Publisher: The Roddenberry Estate

Platform: Browser

The ultimate bridge explorer is finally here. The Roddenberry Archives brings up digital recreations of a ton of Enterprise bridges, including concept bridges brought to life. The website provides a lot of information about the various different version of the Enterprise, and what the digital recreation of the bridge is based on.

All of these bridges can be explored in full 3D. It uses cloud technology so that you get the full detail no matter what PC you’re running (although it does have to be a desktop with Chromium browser) and can walk around, interact with some objects, sit down in chairs or turn on a fly camera. With the vast amount of detail, it’s a phenomenal experience and it’s amazing to look at the bridges in detail.

It starts off with a concept bridge: the XCV-330, the ring ship Enterprise seen in pictures in films and in Enterprise. It uses an early concept for the original Enterprise, with a round holographic table and a science room above it before moving on to the NX-01, which I loved seeing in closer detail, even finding doors I never knew were there.

Then onto the NCC-1701, which gets by far the most love. It has versions of the bridge starting with a concept bridge from early production then showing us the set from The Cage, Discovery, Strange New Worlds, the TOS pilot, TOS Season 1, TOS Season 2, Mirror Universe, TOS Season 3, a live action version of the bridge from The Animated Series, the bridge from the cancelled Phase II show, The Motion Picture, Wrath of Khan and two versions of the Kelvin version bridge, each one showing different versions of the bridge.

Then we get a look at a recreation of a wild concept for a cancelled film called Planet of the Titans, which featured a redesigned Enterprise from Ralph McQuarrie, which ended up inspiring the USS Discovery. It’s a lovely bridge, but not very practical.

From there we see the Enterprise A, B, C, D and E (with the D having multiple extra rooms), all looking absolutely stunning, but it doesn’t end there. It’s fully up to date with the bridges of the Enterprise F and brand new Enterprise G, which looks absolutely glorious. It ends the Enterprises with a new version of the Enterprise J featuring a see-through hull with visible cities, parks and water inside.

But it doesn’t end there, there’s a bonus Voyager bridge, with more to come in the future – hopefully we see the rest of the hero ships as well as other locations on ships, and some non-hero ships as well as alien bridges.

I look forward to the future updates of this software.

[cookiestar360]

why are you actually so talented.

like how drop a tutorial pal

or I WILL personally place several ants inside of your pants

okay but seriously like how do you do all the roblox animating, the undertake things, and just all that cool stuff you do? I’d love to learn!!

bro is NOT subpar

I just was inspired by my friend burger to do some of the stuff he does

If you ever get to see some of the stuff he does its essentially the exact same but far better! A lot of my actual work I do is just me finding ways to avoid showing the glaring flaws in my competency to make it look presentable as nice

Although I know a lot of stuff, I'm not actually super good at anything I do truly, so I call myself subpar overall because I feel like that's the best way to describe everything I do, even if I can do a lot.

The animating stuff I tried learning more of in a day just so I could give Daisy a present, which is why it looked choppy because I stayed up super long trying to make it look nice for them, I wanted to do something kind. But some of those skills were when I tried developing games in the past on Roblox. Its only really worth animating on roblox if you can obtain moon animator for free though, otherwise itd just be better to animate in blender The sprite creation/pixel art i picked up when I wanted to make a character for rivals of aether with burger and eventually got to make a terraria resource pack which lead to me getting to speak to the creator a bit. Really most of it looks special at a glance until you get aseprite, which made everything really nice to get into and is one of the only media software I know that doesn't try to oversimplify things for a general audience but in return makes it simpler to be creative The little undertale dialog sprites I drew out of boredom and decided to use sometimes, theres a website for generating them but its only really useful for getting text the dialog stuff is better to just manually edit in aseprite https://www.demirramon.com/generators/undertale_text_box_generator its hard to explain but once you start developing skills in basic programs other completely different programs start becoming easier too, so you can always explore multiple different forms of media creation at once and it could open up being able to understand software easier. Programs tend to have some familiarities even if they do drastically different things like being a drawing application or creating 3D models. Sorry though I should talk about myself less lol

I like making stuff with a purpose, like a profile picture or something for a game or a gift for someone else instead of creating stuff just for the love of creation, which isn't that good of a mindset but it can make you far more proud of your work, even if you aren't at a level you see as good yet.

Really I'm only at a base-decent level at everything I've shown off on this profile, so if you want to go ahead and try it'd be quick to learn.

...if you have a pc

I wouldn't do any of this on a mobile phone nearly as efficient

(besides full art, I'd probably be better at that on a tablet)

Mobile creators have to put like 3-15 times the effort just for the same product sometimes due to its inefficiency and I deeply respect their efforts

The one thing I have 0 talent at though is anything social related, I should work on being a better person hehehe

Angel is really talented at being a cool person and I am inspired by them to be cooler too, same with chip and asa and a lot of other people who are helpers and above

wait this is derailing fast uhhhh bye guys!!!!!

[thedohnut]

Proud 300th subscriber to your YouTube channel!!! You deserve so much more and I’m excited to see your work!!!

Thanks so much for the kind words!

Don’t know when I’ll be able to get another full animation out the door again; the combo of a full-time job and an aging laptop makes the prospect of a 50+ hour render for 5 seconds of actual animation not as feasible as it used to be.

There is some hope though! I’m planning on upgrading my PC soon which should hopefully significantly improve render times, and I have a few rough ideas for Lego LU animations that should hopefully see the light of day eventually.

In the meantime, outside of a few one-off Lego dioramas, I’ve also begun experimenting with doing some more traditional 3D modeling/sculpting. Still very much in the figuring-out-what-all-these-buttons-do stage with the software, but I’m making progress. My test case has been a bust of one of my DND characters, Bug, and while still very much a WIP, it’s gotten me a much better grip on the program compared to when I started which I think counts as a win.

Don’t know when any of this will produce any meaningful end results, but I am definitely still tinkering away in the background despite the hiatus in actual uploads!

[canmom]

Animation Night 196: the Demoscene

Hey everyone! It's gonna be a short post today, because the hour is late, but I've been teasing this all week, soooooo~

This is a square-numbered animation night, our first in a while, and that means it's a night for something computer-related. And what is more true to the essence of computer animation than the demoscene?

And damn, what a topic. 'Computer art subculture' is the usual way of describing it, and that's accurate enough. But let's get into details...

A demo is a computer program which is kind of like a non-interactive game, and kind of like a music video. It generates images, usually synced to music, in realtime. But that doesn't quite get to the heart of it.

A demo is kind of a combination of art piece and coding challenge. The exact constraints vary: perhaps the whole program fits into a tiny size (such as 4kb). Or, it's made for a specific oldschool computer, such as the Amiga, taking advantage of the unique quirks of the hardware to push its graphics capabilities to the absolute limit.

Perhaps it's better to start with the history - a well-covered subject in books, articles and even documentaries, which I will have to cover extremely briefly. Back in the late 70s and 80s, when personal computing was really taking off with machines like the Commodore 64, copyright took a while to catch up - particularly in Europe. With network bandwidth far more limited than now, it became popular (relatively speaking) to distribute cracked software at events known as 'copy parties' - you'd bring along your files and exchange them for others.

Often, the groups who created the cracks would add a little intro to take credit for their hard work. With space at an absolute premium, these 'intros' would need to be tiny - perhaps just hundreds of bytes. But constraints breed creativity, and soon groups would compete to distinguish themselves with the most impressive intros. Perhaps you see where this is going...

I'm going to brush over a long and fascinating history here, because space is limited and I would rather try and dig into the history another time - I'm hardly the person to tell it, anyway. So let's just say this: the practice of making these intros, or more generally demos, very quickly grew into its own art form - if you didn't have cracked software you could just bring along a cool intro to the copy party. And as copyright law heated up and the cops started coming for copyparties, the nascent demoscene started to diverge from the warez scene, developing into its own, unique subculture - legal but still indebted to the hacker culture which birthed it.

Broadly speaking, the demoscene is organised around demoparties - big gatherings, largely taking place around Europe, where groups gather to enter their demos into competition, create new demos right there, and engage in related activities like live coding... or dorky shit like throwing keyboards as far as possible, don't ask me about that one. It's not all about creating demos either - over time, the categories have expanded to include music, digital art in general, 3D asset creation, etc. etc., unified more by the aesthetic of the scene than anything. Take a look at the entries for a party like Revision (the largest party, based in Germany, hosting about 800 guests each year) to get a sense of the broad scope of the scene.

But the core of it all is still demos! 4k, 8k, 64k, unlimited in size. PC, amiga. Demos have evolved a great deal over the decades, and it is hard to generalise too much. Still, in contrast to game graphics, which usually emphasise authored content, efficient streaming of assets etc. etc., the emphasis of the demoscene tends to be much more on procedural effects and more abstract visuals.

You can get a taste for what a winning demo looked like as of 2007 with debris. by the group Farbrausch, pouet.net's top-rated demo of all time: techno music, a camera flying over a cityscape as cubes stream around...

And here's one of the most popular 4kb demos, rendering a procedural snowy landscape with a bit of chromatic aberration to taste...

Modern demos have introduced tools like the node-based animation and sim software Notch, which shifts the emphasis away from programming a bit. Rainmaker, which won Revision's PC demo category this year, hardly attempts to optimise for file size, with its executable weighing in at a hefty half a gigabyte, but it certainly goes all out with all that data, hitting flashy scene after flashy scene...

Even in the space-contained categories like 64k and 4k, you can see a modern approach to HDR colour, grading, depth of field etc.:

Especially for the smaller categories of demo, the music tends to be procedurally generated - i.e., chiptunes - as well. But even without that constraint, there is a natural tendency towards many types of electronic music in the scene. After all, it's all about making computers do cool shit.

And to be clear, although technical flexing and generative art is definitely a big part of it, there's plenty of familiar animation stuff in here too. Successful demos tend to feature tight music sync, creative imagery, and definitely some kind of progression or flow in how the images are juxtaposed and how they fit the development of the music. If you felt really pretentious, you could compare it to poetry. I do feel really pretentious, so I will!

Where do you find demos? Unfortunately, there are now many dead links. pouet.net is still something of a hub, featuring a pretty exhaustive database of demos and a voting system to sort them by popularity, as well as providing a forum for the scene (hopefully not about to disappear as its main admin just announced his plans to quit). Demoscene.info tries to be a decent public-facing intro, with links to the major parties and groups that still mostly work. The scene.org awards celebrated a set of demos each year from 2002 to 2011. Youtube psenough reports weekly on what's happening in the scene. There's also Demozoo, a database similar to pouet.

We might also here mention the website Shadertoy, likely familiar to any graphics programmer, which was co-created by oldschool scener Inigo Quilez and carries much of the same spirit. Shadertoy lets you write fragment shaders in opengl to run in the browser, essentially a type of demo, and people use it for all sorts of shit.

So, that's a brief summary. Tonight, starting in just a minute, if you'd like to join me at twitch.tv/canmom, we'll be checking out a random cross-section of popular demos from across the last few decades. I'll be running them on my computer, if possible. I fully admit to being an outsider to the scene, yet to go to a demoparty and see it all in person, but I think it's cool as shit, so let's go explore it together for a couple of hours~

[boredtechnologist]

In the early 1980s, personal computers were transitioning from text-based interfaces to more visually engaging environments. Sierra On-Line’s King’s Quest: Quest for the Crown, developed in 1984 for the IBM PCjr, was a landmark achievement in this evolution. It was not just another adventure game; it redefined the genre by leveraging the limited hardware capabilities of the time to create an immersive, interactive experience that felt years ahead of its contemporaries. Technical Innovations in King's Quest

1. The Birth of a 3D Adventure Game

At a time when most games were either text-based or limited to simple 2D visuals, King’s Quest introduced a pseudo-3D graphical environment. Players could guide the protagonist, Sir Graham, through a dynamic, scrolling landscape, where he could walk behind or in front of objects—an innovation known as "2.5D."

Pseudo-3D Effect: Achieved through creative use of layers, the AGI (Adventure Game Interpreter) engine divided the screen into foreground, background, and player layers. This gave the illusion of depth and interactivity.

Character Movement: The freedom to move in eight directions and interact with objects in a visually convincing space set a new standard for adventure games.

2. Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) Engine

Sierra developed the AGI engine specifically for King’s Quest. This software framework was groundbreaking for its time, allowing:

Cross-Platform Compatibility: AGI was portable across different systems, from the IBM PCjr to later platforms like the Apple II and Tandy 1000.

Event-Driven Programming: AGI allowed designers to script events and interactions, decoupling game logic from graphical rendering—a novel approach in the early 80s.

3. Advanced Graphics for the IBM PCjr

The IBM PCjr was an ambitious but underpowered machine, featuring:

Intel 8088 Processor (4.77 MHz): A modest CPU that could struggle with heavy computations.

16-Color Graphics (CGA Palette): While most PCs supported only four colors in CGA mode, the PCjr's extended graphics capabilities allowed for richer visuals.

3-Voice Sound (TI SN76496 Chip): This was a significant improvement over the beeps of the PC speaker, enabling a more immersive auditory experience.

King’s Quest took full advantage of these features:

Rich Color Palette: By designing scenes with careful attention to the 16-color limit, Sierra created lush, vibrant environments that brought the fairytale world to life.

Smooth Animation: Despite hardware limitations, the game’s character animations and environment transitions were fluid and detailed.

4. Text Parser and Command System

While maintaining the classic adventure game tradition of text input, King’s Quest improved upon the interface:

Contextual Parsing: The text parser was more forgiving and sophisticated than previous games, interpreting a wider range of player inputs like "Take sword" or "Open door."

Visual Feedback: Unlike purely text-based games, the parser’s output was directly reflected in the graphical world, making the player’s actions feel meaningful and connected.

5. Disk Streaming and Memory Optimization

Given the IBM PCjr's limited 128 KB of RAM and floppy disk storage, Sierra engineers implemented innovative solutions to manage resources:

Dynamic Asset Loading: Only the necessary graphics, animations, and logic were loaded into memory at a time, minimizing RAM usage.

Compression Techniques: Graphics and animations were heavily compressed to fit on the game’s floppy disks, requiring clever algorithms to decompress assets on-the-fly.

The Impact of King’s Quest

The technical achievements of King’s Quest went beyond its hardware. It had a profound impact on the gaming industry and paved the way for future innovations.

Pushing Hardware to Its Limits: By making the most of the IBM PCjr’s unique capabilities, King’s Quest demonstrated what was possible with even modest computing power.

Setting a Standard for Interactive Storytelling: The game’s rich narrative, combined with its visuals and player agency, set the benchmark for future adventure games.

Expanding the Gaming Audience: The colorful, family-friendly design attracted a broader audience, including casual gamers and younger players.

Influencing Game Design: The AGI engine became the foundation for future Sierra titles, including Space Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry.

[archoneddzs15]

Super Famicom - DOOM

Title: DOOM / ドゥーム

Developer: id Software / Sculptured Software Inc. / Williams Entertainment Inc. (Midway Home Entertainment)

Publisher: Imagineer

Release date: 1 March 1996

Catalogue Code: SHVC-AD8J-JPN

Genre: First Person Shooter

I recently found my way to play Doom on the Super Famicom after I decided to take a break from playing some PlayStation games. After playing the game's first two levels, I couldn't play it anymore. It was actually giving me motion sickness; stress headache and all. I can appreciate what Sculptured Software, specifically Ray Landers, was going for when they endeavored to develop a Super Famicom port of Doom. It's an interesting little piece of technology to show off to people curious about the Super FX chip the console uses to generate 3D graphics. They built it all on top of a custom engine dubbed the "Reality Engine". The novelty of playing Doom on the Super Famicom is an interesting one and the instrumentation of the background music is quite good. Also, this console port of the game contains every level and enemy from the PC original. Something I can't say about the Atari Jaguar and Sega 32X versions. There are just so many concessions it doesn't seem to have a point to it.

The main problem is that it just feels incomplete somehow. According to many publications on this port of Doom, it contains every level from the PC original and they are all faithfully recreated. A look at the first two levels of the game basically moots this point. While the levels might be faithful in the respect that the physical rooms might be present, lots of things like walls and other aesthetic elements have been removed. In addition to this, there are no floor or ceiling textures and while this might not seem like a big deal it goes a long way to making the game look ugly and unfinished. Enemies can only look in one direction eliminating the hilarity of monster infighting. The worst thing about the enemy sprites though is the way they scale. When they are a few feet away from you enemies become a mess of pixels moving around the screen occasionally firing a potshot at you without changing their animation cycle. It's ugly.

This scaling problem extends to everything in the game, including wall and door textures. As soon as you move away from something, it loses detail and becomes a shifting, ill-defined blob. The scaling is really harsh, and it not only looks really, really ugly but it actually made me feel motion-sick after playing for a little while. The frame rate is also very low, making Doomguy feel like an 80-year-old arthritis sufferer. This is the final nail in the coffin. The game is ugly and unrefined and then the frame rate turns out to be abysmal as well. It renders the game not unplayable, just not fun. It's slow and ugly.

To sum up, Doom on the Super Famicom feels unrefined and unfinished. So, what if it contains every level from the original Doom? That means nothing while it is busy being slow, ugly, and exasperating. It is not fun to play and actively hurts you while you are doing it. There are very few redeeming features to be found with this port of one of the most important games ever made. The Super Famicom might have a huge library of great games, but this definitely isn't one of them. If you want to play Doom, there are already a plethora of modern solutions to choose from. Speaking from the perspective of cartridge versions though I would have to recommend you go for the Sega 32X version or even possibly the Atari Jaguar version. Yeah, the Sega 32X version has harsh music and lacks the BFG-9000 during normal play and has certain levels taken out, and the Atari Jaguar version has no music during play and also has levels taken out owing to the meager 2-megabit sized cartridge, but you'd get a far better game as a result.

[c-rowlesdraws]

Hi! I don't want to invalidate arclyn64 but I just wanted to assuage you on your choice. I work in an IT-related department and deal with this nonsense everyday and frankly, Windows and Mac OS are evenly matched in preference and power. I would more advise people to pick their OS based on their other devices (do you own more Apple/Samsung etc) but if Mac isn't working out for you, Windows might be your answer. No harm trying!

Thanks dude. I chose to switch to windows for a personal computer after a lifetime of Mac OS (literally, my family’s first home computer I can remember “using”—aka decorating the case with sparkly planet stickers as a toddler—was a Macintosh Performa) because I’ve had very good experiences using PCs for work and school, specifically for 3D art and animation, and as someone who likes trying out funky indie art software and playing video games, I’m ready to be done with Mac OS limiting my options. I’m ready to have the programs I want to run just work, and not have to download Mac-specific third-party software to make them work— or just live with not getting to run certain programs or use certain features (like streaming on Discord with sound!) at all.

I sometimes have a problem with feeling confident making decisions, but I’ve gone all in on this one because I’ve been thinking about it for years. There have been some bumps in the beginning and there will be more along the way for sure, but I feel pretty confident that I have made a good choice for me.

[coutelier]

This week - well, pretty much all last month to be honest - I have been playing Phantasy Star Online 2. Just because I have fond memories of the original PSO for the Sega Dreamcast and PC (actually one of the few discontinued MMO's you can still play, as fans reverse engineered the server software which you can download and run on your own PC). And it had been sitting in my library for quite a long time and I'd never gotten around to it.

First of course comes character creation. This is a 3D anime game of course, but still you've got more options than most games give you over how your character looks:

Although, really, this is the only thing that matters - this is what I'm looking at the vast majority of the time while playing the game:

I will usually play as a woman protagonist whenever that's an option in games, although even when it is - even today - I sadly find that those games are still very clearly written with a male protagonist in mind:

Which is actually odd in this case, as one of the notable things about the original Phantasy Star - released for Sega Master System back in 1987 - was its protagonist:

I've played the original on an emulator years after, with upscaling and smoothing etc. It was pretty good. But it caught my eye because of the protagonist, and even decades later there aren't that many JRPGS with females leads. To me that made it interesting. It's a bit sad that today we live in world where people have decided to eschew things like imagination and empathy, and are only able to consume media if they can sub themselves for the main character and picture Luke Skywalker handing them his lightsaber saying 'truly, you are a great Jedi and the only one who can save the galaxy!'

Er, but I digress... the game! I mean, it's an MMO; fun at first, but inevitably reaches a point where it feels like all you're doing is grinding and then start to lose interest.

[taperwolf]

When I was browsing at a local thrift store, I came across something that I might have picked up — if I didn't already have one in storage somewhere.

This is the Sony Watchman FD-C290 TV/Radio alarm clock. It has an LED clock display, an AM/FM radio, and a tiny television. You'd expect something of this size to be a little LCD display, and ten or twenty years later you'd be right — but this little guy came out in the late 1980s, so those didn't exist. No, this thing has a CRT.

(This photo is taken from a teardown of the related FD-20 by experimental-engineering.co.uk .)

Now, the story of how I came to have one of these is a bit odd. My senior year in high school — 1993-4 — I got together with another guy in my class to do a science fair project. Now, we were in rural Wyoming, and it was pretty rare for even people in big cities to have access to the internet, but our bright idea was to build a virtual reality setup.

I'd picked up a book with a CD attached which included a software package called Rend386, which would display, in real time and on 80386 and 80486 PCs, very constrained virtual worlds. These were incredibly simple, of course; to my memory it was primitive-based, where you could define cubes, cylinders, and spheres, and combine those into more complex shapes, with a degree of animation and interactivity possible. I don't think there were hardware 3d graphics available yet at all in the PC world, so this was all running on incredibly overtaxed CPUs. But it did give a glimpse of what VR would become.

The software supported two bits of repurposed game hardware: the active 3d glasses Sega made for the Master System, and the Nintendo Power Glove. By some coincidence, those two items, and a couple of Sony Watchmans (one standalone and one in a clock radio), were standing dusty on the electronics shelf of the local Ben Franklin/Ace Hardware, and by further coincidence my mom worked there at the time; she talked her boss into discounting the stuff to be purchasable by our meager funds.

The glasses worked by blocking one eye, then the other, while you looked at a screen that showed the scene from each eye's viewpoint in synchrony. The PowerGlove worked by having bend sensors to detect your hand making a fist, and ultrasonic sensors to detect its position in 3d space. The book gave directions for building a circuit to interface the two to a PC, which my friend followed, since he was the one who knew how to solder. (I wouldn't learn until decades later.) And this all actually worked, most of the time — you could steer your avatar, rendered by a single floating hand, around the simple world via joystick, see everything in 3d, and pick up and drop designated objects by moving your hand into them and making a fist. Of course, the frame rate was terrible, and using the glasses cut that in half, but it was all pretty exciting at the time. One of the big demos was navigating around some objects and walking onto a Ferris wheel, which would lift you up in the air and everything.

The book had some stuff about getting two VGA cards to run on the same machine, in order to output the two stereo views at the same time, and to use expensive displays and optics to create a head-mounted display. But our quick-and-dirty plan was to take the VGA signal from the computer, convert that down to NTSC video and use an RF modulator to put it on a TV channel, and feed it into the two Watchmans, which we'd affix to the glasses, one attached over each eye; they'd both be showing both views, but you'd only be able to see the proper ones. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and technical skills, and the science fair hit when we were still displaying on a big CRT. We actually went to the state science fair with that project, though it didn't get much love from the judges there.

I inherited most of the equipment afterwards — my friend claimed the standalone Watchman — and I'm not entirely sure if I still have the PowerGlove or not. But I do have the clock radio. Somewhere.

[3-hits]

Nintendo sues Yuzu Switch Emulator

February 28th 2024    Gaming / Nintendo / Lawsuit

KOSAMA

| Writer and Recovering Anime Addict

Nintendo has initiated legal action against the creators of Yuzu, an open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, as revealed by a lawsuit filed in a Rhode Island court on Monday. The lawsuit, detailed across 41 pages, targets Tropic Haze, the entity behind Yuzu, with specific mention of an individual identified by the alias Bunnei, who spearheads Yuzu's development. The genesis of this lawsuit was initially reported by Stephen Totilo, a correspondent for Game File.

Yuzu, which emerged in 2018 shortly after the debut of the Nintendo Switch, is a freely available emulator crafted by the same developers responsible for Citra, a Nintendo 3DS emulator. Essentially, Yuzu functions as software enabling users to engage with Nintendo Switch games on platforms such as Windows PC, Linux (including devices like the Steam Deck), and certain Android devices. While the legality of emulators per se isn't inherently contentious, their employment for pirating copyrighted games is a matter of concern. Nintendo's lawsuit contends that there exists no lawful avenue for utilizing Yuzu.

Within the legal documentation, Nintendo asserts that "there is no lawful way to use Yuzu to play Nintendo Switch games." Nevertheless, this assertion invites scrutiny and potential legal rebuttals on behalf of the emulator developers.

Firstly, the US Copyright Office generally permits users to create duplicates of legitimately acquired software for archival motives, subject to specific conditions. Consequently, accessing personal archival copies could conceivably constitute a lawful purpose for utilizing an emulator such as Yuzu.

Significantly, the Yuzu emulator, being open-source, does not incorporate copies of the necessary "prod.keys" mentioned in Nintendo's lawsuit, which users must supply themselves. This sets Yuzu apart from the Dolphin emulator, which faced removal from Steam in the previous year after Nintendo highlighted its inclusion of the Wii Common Key for decrypting game files.

In the absence of intrinsic capabilities to circumvent digital rights management (DRM), an emulator typically falls within the ambit of legal precedent permitting emulation of one hardware system on another through reverse-engineering methodologies.

Nintendo's legal pursuit against Yuzu reflects a complex intersection of intellectual property rights, digital preservation, and the evolving landscape of emulation technology. As the case unfolds, it promises to shape future discussions surrounding the legality and boundaries of emulator usage within the gaming community.

[jestrogames]

Answers under more

1. A friend got me cracked fl studio, but I never use it because of pc specs (too high!)

2. About the same for both left and right (mainly in 3/4) but front is slightly harder due to lack of practice

3. My oldest ever proper drawing was of a jester fellow who morphed into my current profile pic, and my oldest game idea was a ripoff of deltarune mostly and some other games but Metroidvania, and became the origin of most of my characters I made

4. Silver Grei. Cool fox scientist with a bunch of machinery to replace failing body parts, but those 8 spider like limbs that can come out from the spine are sooo annoying to get the right pose of him with

5. Probably about 50/50 tbh

6. This one time I wrote a melody that became a full song but I later went back and found out it was basically the same melody but minor as from a song I heard at church camp

7. 3D sculpting and cosplay are neat, but too expensive for me to get into. Ever.

8. Some game jam entries of mine (read: most)

9. UpperCamelCase, separate folders by what project and category of file they are (for instance backgrounds, characters, etc) and then named by some big category (like Cultist, Town, Player, etc) followed by a more specific title (like Idle, or Jailhouse)

10. Can’t beat a good cape/robe

11. I don’t listen while I draw, but I take frequent breaks to listen to a big playlist I made of all my favourite boss songs

12. Head.

13. Dunno

14. Machines are cool, skeletons are cool, armoured knights are cool, basically anything with an intricate design

15. Literally anywhere

16. Smaller animations. This mostly stems from my dislike of animation work that’ll probably fade as I do it more.

17. Savoury Snacks and tea, baby

18. A good couple, just from how brittle some pencils can be

19. Cool swords and castles

20. Hands

21. Papagabu’s

22. Zero nada zilch

23. I use a lot of pencil and Apple phone markup, during which I use no layers, but on my main digital software I use one main layer for character outlines and one for colors, and in aseprite I have one layer for each main body part

24. Not really.

25. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

26. Probably deliberate, but one friend of mine keeps misreading text I draw

27. Nah

28. Not yet, but I’m gonna be doing art fight in July 👉 😎 👉

29. Gravity falls and the new duck tales

30. I made a short prototype of a shoot em up platformer with an umbrella to either protect from acid rain or shoot enemies, but not both at once, that I finished levels one and two for. I want to add more content, but even now it’s pretty fun (available on itch under the name “Curse of the Acid Rain Cult!”)

Weirdly Specific Artist Ask Game

Didn't see a lot of artist ask games, wanted to make a silly one.

(I wrote this while sick out of my mind last year and it's been collecting dust in my drafts, I might as well let it run free) 1. Art programs you have but don't use

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even)

3. What ideas come from when you were little

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn't supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it)

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in

9. What are your file name conventions

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

12. Easiest part of body to draw

13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn't your thing

14. Any favorite motifs

15. *Where* do you draw (don't drop your ip address this just means do you doodle at a park or smth)

16. Something you are good at but don't really have fun doing

17. Do you eat/drink when drawing? if so, what

18. An estimate of how much art supplies you've broken

19. Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.)

20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

22. What physical exercises do you do before drawing, if any

23. Do you use different layer modes

24. Do your references include stock images

25. Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by

26. What's a piece that got a wildly different interpretation from what you intended

27. Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with

28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines)

29. Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated