Soul Train

YUMMEH KITTEH!!! *dodges claw swipe from Rowr*

actually being able to simply forward spam email to the GM's would be a godsend. having to transcribe the contents of the email into a petition is a bit tedious.


oh.. as for the web stats settings... cool, thanks for pointing them out.

Oooo more City of Nuts?


I am so in.

Khep as a dual blades would be... *bites lip* Awwwwesome.

[u]Name[u]: Crimson Dawn

[u]Currently Recruiting[u]: accepting new members, not actively recruiting, but looking for other players/VGs interested in RP

[u]RP Level[u]: RP-friendly, RP-casual, /sg IC, RP during missions, RP in base, RP pretty much wherever it fits without making it a chore... cos it's supposed to be fun!

[u]Theme/Concept[u]: A criminal cartel that rose 'from the ashes' of several Yazuka / Tong triads in the Far East. Run by the secretive woman known only as Red Eclipse (player quit CoX but still writes), the cartel is out to grow their influence and eventually take over as much territory as we can.

[u]Activity[u]: Sporadic, but that's because it was a two-player group, before one up and QUIT. So rather than let it die... I'm opening things up to others who would like a little bit of villainous organized crime with their game.

[u]Requirements for Membership[u]: must be at least level 5 to join, no limit on alts in VG, log in and say hi once every couple of weeks. Would like to see some character development, such as Virtueverse datasheets.

[u]Leadership[u]: BaronessSamedi, Lucretia de Loccia

[u]In-Game Contact(s)[u]: Global @SoulTrain for in-game contact(s)

[u]Out-of-Game Contact(s)[u]: CoV's Virtue Forum Soul_Train for PMs or email address(es) for those interested to seek more information when not logged in

[u]URL[u]: None

[u]Coalition(s)[u]: None at present

[u]Other Details[u]: Base is "under construction" but as membership and activity picks up we'll be able to afford more 'stuff'.

I can deal with Mistress Ohm getting a sound thrashing a la heroine peril... but don't kill her. She's got a daughter who's EXTREMELY protective (and a scrapper!)

Gratz!!!

very very cool, man.

Catreena, you know you'd auto-complete every underwater mission, cats don't like water!!!!

Conga Ratz!!!

Since NCSOft has been RUNNING the game all along, I guess I don't expect much to really change.

My only concern is, we really need to get better support. the standard boilerplate answers to petitions and support questions needs to be upgraded - most issues I've had to demand be escalated to a senior support rep before anyone even UNDERSTOOD it properly.

So, um, yeah, bring some of that to NorCal too, while you're at it.

That looks pretty good.

Did you have to tweak it at all?

Posi: "All those are grey to me, no Recipe drops."

if the screenie's really dark, then try pasting the clipboard into Paint or Photoshop or whatnot.

Not sure if there'll be a difference... but one could be a screen capture, while the other is a single-frame dump from the game engine (pre-image-processing).

New piece: NLSXXX's gift-art take on Soul Train

Happy birthday Plas.

Actually, from what I can see of the designs... they're pretty good.


But... yanno... can't see much of them, due to lighting, camera distance, cropping, etc.

In-game scenes are notoriously hard to get good reference screenies. But, you CAN get good ones from... the Icon/Facemaker Costuming screens.

"But Soul, how do I get those? I hit printscreen and ... no screenshot file appears!"

Just cos the file isn't created, doesn't mean the screen wasn't captured. Hit Printscreen, open up your favorite image editor, open a new file, and Paste. Hey, there's your costume! and once you crop away all the menu bits... you can composite four shots (front, back, side/profile, and closeup) into one reference image.

Plus the lighting's uniform, no worries about blending into the backgrounds... and no mobs to come along and start beating on you while you're posing for pictures.

Wow.


Those are really cool! I think the new 'style' is working really well.

Was just browsing DeviantArt and I ran across this:

Soul Train

Totally unexpected!! Thank you!!

TGA = Targa - Photoshop should be able to work with them.

Three things:

One, I love the story you're driving with these videos. There's definitely an epic feel in the way they connect from one to the next.

Two, your skill at demo editing is well beyond mine, and I bow to your superior talent. Plus you know how to script things properly too.

And three... you DO need to change up your music. The Angry Angel feel is good with the song you have for the first vid... but the Jaded Angel needs something more... jaded. She's turned away from heroics, she's fallen, ergo she shouldn't have the same theme. And then when she returns to fight alongside the heroes again, against the Rikti, you need a theme that conveys that she's NOT who she once was, neither good nor evil, just a warrior who's seen both sides.

I'm partial to "Battle without Honor or Humanity" but it gets used a lot elsewhere. maybe the first part of it to 'reintroduce' the Vanguard Angel, and then segue to something else battleworthy for the actual conflict scenes where she and her new friends kick Rikti [censored].

well there is a way to cheat...

1) take a screenshot or a photo or what have you, something that the character would be facing

2) perturb it using a shear tool or bend tool to make it look 'curved' or slanted.

3) adjust the lighting/hue to match the object it's being mapped to

3) horizontally flip it, and apply it to the metal area, using whatever method you like to add colors gradually. It's probably a good idea to use masks to limit what gets applied where.

Basically you take the principles of raytracing and apply them to the painting. say if you were doing a suit of armor, you'd start with the same 'reflection map' image, and then perturb it in different ways, cutting out different pieces, to conform to the parts of the armor. The CGI pros actually place a mirrored ball in the scene, and take a picture (or video) of it, and use the 180 degree reflection as the starting point for their reflection maps. It's a pretty cool concept, but still a LOT of work!

OOO lovely!!

I should try my hand at a few of these, I used to dabble in logos and such with ancient copies of Corel, POV-RAY, and Fireworks...

Hehe. I just wish I could delete the visual fx, but keep the actual effects of the power on the character....


(taking screenies in the Icon costume menus does away with all power auras, leaving only those elements you want to show up.)

The problem with metals is, it's not just 'shine' or 'specularity' where you have highlights.

Metallic surfaces (at least polished ones) are reflective, which means they don't just need highlights. They need to be colored to look like they're reflecting the environment. This makes them rather dicey to paint/color.