(I've finally decided to start my own image thread. I hope you folks enjoy.)
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...Complete ; )
>Welcome to the Hovercraft Equinox (NX-1879) self-contained retrospection and sentiment storage archive. If at any time the data encountered is unfamiliar to you, seek immediate psychiatric attention, as this can be a sign of neural damage, or inter-cranial hemorrhaging. You must be logged in to access the database. >User: Eleutherophobia >Password: ******
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-Robert Winchester : Beachhead-
"If you wish to know what a man is, place him in authority." Yugoslav Proverb
I first met him in a November, a chilly November. Robest Winchester was a behemoth, a silverback in an Italian suit. I used to sit at the other end of a mahogany conference table and watch him argue with himself about procedure, the straining weight of a thousand signatures weighing down on him. That was back when there was still time for bureaucracy. This picture was taken downtown, in the Edgewater district. We had received a report that a handful of outdated trade synchronization routines had been straining the structure of the quay. Mister Winchester straightened his fedora, and loaded a magazine into his handgun. The exiled programs were eradicated, entirely without incident.
(Thanks for all of the kind comments everyone, I'm glad that you enjoyed the first one. I took an entirely different approach to this one, trying to change the mood since AntiAequitas' account expires on Christmas.)
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-Felano Asteran : AntiAequitas-
"But to the hero, when his sword has won the battle for the free, Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word, And in its hollow tones are heard the thanks of millions yet to be." Fitz-Greene Halleck
Mythologically, Aequitas was the goddess of fair trade and honest merchants, depicted as holding the balance of equity and fairness. After being awakened, Mister Asteran immersed himself in the city's underground, surrounded by the injustices emphasized by the truth. His methods were that of a man who had gained an overwhelming understanding of the system around him, and used every aspect of it to his advantage. As only per luck, he used his virological skillset to aid the simulation, taking a position in the Tetragrammaton. Disregarding the unfortunate cranial variable that severely hindered his neurokinetic levels, he became an unmatched clandestine operative. Maybe that's what got to him, or maybe the disintegration of one-too many exiled program's code structure, or maybe the cold, unforgiving real world. Whatever stemmed it, he has contacted our benefactors, and will be reinserted, home in time for Christmas.
Wow, that turned out reallllyyy good. And yes, that is me and yes, my account closes on Christmas. I never made much of an impact on the community because I never played, but, yeah. Horaay for being down the street from someone who's good at photoshop.
((That's the best rain effect I've ever come across. Bravo. Also, a startlingly good image and a fantastic description. So much to learn about the actual Pyraci, rather than his psudonyms. ))
(hehe actually, Pyraci is a pseudonym of Ezek as I created him back in Beta and was actually my name on the beta boards. Pyraci was an experiment that caught on. )
((Yay, a substantial amount of responses! Your kindness embarrasses me, folks. I'm glad you liked the rain PBlade. As I stated in response to your thread's rain image, a large part of the rain's realism comes from a controlled degree of randomality (lol, paradox). That is to say, the more noticable, closer rain should not only be blurred, but smudged and erased at divergent angles. That way, you'll get... . (Those were made out of identical 5px thick lines.) Not to say that rain should be that long, just making an exaggerated comparison. Hehehe.))
-Fara Kerrigan Yazin : Eleutherophobia- "In regione caecorum rex est luscus." Desiderius Gerhard Erasmus No longer holding a stable connection to the simulation, Fara Yazin excruciatingly woke up, drowning. A spasming hand clawed at the thick gel keeping her lungs painfully flattened. A solitary finger broke through, chased by an arm, shoulder, body. An upset gasp escaped from the girl, her icteric eyes burning. A muted squeak escaped her mouth as her foot slipped on the rounded, glabrous bottom of her pod, and she sunk back into the translucent mud. The cosmesis-solution flowed into her mouth, and tormentingly dried the saline from her eyes.
Suspended from the all-inclusive black above her, or supported by the encompassing grey below her came an impossible beast. A mechanized nurse, as it was, clasped tightly onto the seed vessel, several of its surgically precise hands unfolding. The first coarsely clenched the small girl's throat straining her trachea, raising her to a half-kneel above the tub. Another reached above her entirely bald head, aggressively attaching itself to the neural port she was coupled with. First a sharp counterclockwise jerk, then a smooth spin the other way, the long needle left her skull, the hole already beginning to hemorrhage. Her corneas shook violently, and thin blood trickled out of her nose. Dozens of smaller fingers approached the fragile body, brutally cleaving the intravenous drip syringes from her vessels. The nurse compassionately checked for vital signs, then removed all of its hands, letting the girl drop. Her left temple smashed against the wall of the pod, her eye tinged erubescent with blood. ----- Taken from Anamnesis: Variable Case 341102
That's some nicely improved textures. The hair and the edges of the shirt could use some work, though.
By the way, to my knowledge raindrops flying down from the sky aren't waved, they're straight. It almost looks like the raindrops are coming down slowly, like snow.
Although I have seen your art work on our own forum and have commented there, I would like to say, in front of everyone here that your work here is some of the most impressive artwork I've seen utilising in game graphics as a base. From a blending of different styles to a single style all are thought out and carefully implemented. With all of this dedication I am very surprised that you even have time for the game, but you still make it on. Great work Captain!
The Demiruge Confederacy "Don't pay attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches." Andy Warhol (From the mouth of someone else) That red-haired chick that used to hang around with all those macho suits from the Tetragrammaton was here again. Y'know...umm...Fay, Fawn, whatever: the one with the annoying accent. Anyway, I think she's finally gone off the deep end. Get this, apparently the machines screwed with her brain, and now she's on these really powerful drugs in the real world. Somebody else mentioned that the drugs are probably screwing with whatever it was the machines were trying to do to her, so she's all haywire up there. She stole her own 'craft from...I dunno...whoever, and I guess wants to get sanctioned as a privateer. Like that's going to happen, yknow? Oh well, as long as she's got $info when she stops in, I've no beef with the chick.
Very nice, FaraRose. I like the implementation of the real world picture. However, I think it's still a little too obvious, so I suggest that you tune up the contrast on the real world picture and find a matching green tint to the in-game picture. It could use a bit of Anti-Aliasing, aswell.
The Demiruge Confederacy "Don't pay attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches." Andy Warhol (From the mouth of someone else) That red-haired chick that used to hang around with all those macho suits from the Tetragrammaton was here again. Y'know...umm...Fay, Fawn, whatever: the one with the annoying accent. Anyway, I think she's finally gone off the deep end. Get this, apparently the machines screwed with her brain, and now she's on these really powerful drugs in the real world. Somebody else mentioned that the drugs are probably screwing with whatever it was the machines were trying to do to her, so she's all haywire up there. She stole her own 'craft from...I dunno...whoever, and I guess wants to get sanctioned as a privateer. Like that's going to happen, yknow? Oh well, as long as she's got $info when she stops in, I've no beef with the chick.
-Walking Spanish- He's got himself a homemade special. You know his glass is full of sand. And it feels just like a jaybird the way it fits into his hand. He rolled a blade up in his trick towel. They slap their hands against the wall. You never trip, you never stumble. He's walking Spanish down the hall. -Tom Waits - "Walking Spanish"-
She made her way out of the building's corroded shell, the open-air market just past its doors looking like a scattered mess of overturned jade cockroaches in the aftermath of a frantic rainstorm. As the ground shook and the sky erupted, she reached for her telephone. War is hell, unless you're a pirate.
Thanks for the ind words, everyone. Believe it or not, neither the explosion itself nor all of the reflections gave me as much trouble as that pesky sign in the middle of the shot. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the pesky thing sharp enough, so I ended up repainting the entire sign over itself.
Explosions aren't necessarily difficult--especially as you seemed to have used the same method as me--they're actually rather fun. But the area surrounding explosions--like the sign, can indeed be a real pain.
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