Need some advice for the comic book contest...
By
CaptainScience,
Posted on: 2007-03-28 11:56 in Multi-Media Fan Creations
You could always use the demo record in the game. Of course that's a little trickier, I'm gonna have to learn how to edit those myself to get several characters in the same screen. 
Photoshop would be perfect.
[ QUOTE ]
Photoshop would be perfect.
[/ QUOTE ]
If I'm not mistaken, Photoshop costs $600. While I agree that it would be perfect for what I need, it doesn't qualify as "cheap" as stipulated above. (And, no, I don't know anybody with Photoshop.)
Arc# 92382 -- "The S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Tyrant" -- Ninjas! Robots! Praetorians! It's totally epic! Play it now!
Arc # 316340 -- "Husk" -- Azuria loses something, a young woman harbors a dark secret, and the fate of the world is in your hands.
A few things to consider;
1- DON'T blur anything when you paste your screenshots together. The game doesn't blur anything ('anti-alias'), so adding a blur will make your paste job MORE apparent, not less.
2 - Take advantage of the screenshots' natural pixelation. If you're dedicaed enough, you should be able to select and delete the parts of the screenshot you don't want down to the pixel level without any negative effects on your character's outline.
3 - Pay attention to your camera height. Nothing screams 'bad photoshop job' like having a person's feet not match the street they're standing on.
You could try out OpenCanvas 4.5
http://www.portalgraphics.net/en/
I heard about it here on this forum - seems to be pretty full featured and pretty durn reasonably priced.
[ QUOTE ]
A few things to consider;
1- DON'T blur anything when you paste your screenshots together. The game doesn't blur anything ('anti-alias'), so adding a blur will make your paste job MORE apparent, not less.
2 - Take advantage of the screenshots' natural pixelation. If you're dedicaed enough, you should be able to select and delete the parts of the screenshot you don't want down to the pixel level without any negative effects on your character's outline.
3 - Pay attention to your camera height. Nothing screams 'bad photoshop job' like having a person's feet not match the street they're standing on.
[/ QUOTE ]
Doug...thanks for the advice, especially with #1 and #2. The #2 might be tough for me because, by nature, I'm fairly impatient. But I think I can handle it if I dedicate myself to getting this done right. I don't even care about the prize at this point (though winning would be nice) but a really good idea hit me and I'm pretty psyched to try to put this together.
#3 I'd actually already been considering this potential problem and think the real workaround is going to be using the game's coordinates system and any natural marks I can find on the streets/beaches/etc. to use as stage markers. If anybody ever saw the really bad (though, aren't they all?) Jean Claude van Damme film "Double Impact" (the one where he played twin brothers) you can see just how bad editing can ruin a movie. I mean, aside from a bad script and horrible acting. There were several scenes where the twin in the background actually looked bigger than the twin sitting in the forground, even though in other scenes they were the same size. Horrible effects work. Drove me nuts and it's something I plan on avoiding (even if it means multiple "reshoots").
Arc# 92382 -- "The S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Tyrant" -- Ninjas! Robots! Praetorians! It's totally epic! Play it now!
Arc # 316340 -- "Husk" -- Azuria loses something, a young woman harbors a dark secret, and the fate of the world is in your hands.
They seem to have a trial version of some sort, so I'll definitely check it out. Thanks for the tip!
Arc# 92382 -- "The S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Tyrant" -- Ninjas! Robots! Praetorians! It's totally epic! Play it now!
Arc # 316340 -- "Husk" -- Azuria loses something, a young woman harbors a dark secret, and the fate of the world is in your hands.
Hi, all. I'm hoping this well help a few others besides myself. I've come up with some ideas for the comic book contest and one of these involves getting multiple characters of mine into the same screenshot. This requires some tricky cutting and pasting.
What I need to know is, is there a good cheap (or, even better, free) editor out there of some sort that will allow me to cut and paste elements with some accuracy. I know MS Paint can accomplish this, but I also know it's rather maligned and I'll probably need to add some blurring effects to make the paste-ins look natural.
Any sort of help or recommendations would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Arc# 92382 -- "The S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Tyrant" -- Ninjas! Robots! Praetorians! It's totally epic! Play it now!
Arc # 316340 -- "Husk" -- Azuria loses something, a young woman harbors a dark secret, and the fate of the world is in your hands.