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Ian Kelly @Psycosis91

Age 32, Male

Joined on 7/30/04

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Psycosis91's News

Posted by Psycosis91 - July 26th, 2008


Well Bang boom Splat has been released, it's the game I've been working on since 'Two slices Of Pie' was finished, and I can't wait to get back into animating after so long. :3

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
450778

So I thought I'd be nice and put the 4 codes to unlock stuff here:

whysoserious - Unlocks 'Silly Mode' (changes the sound effects in the level intros, changes the reload text)
chrisbingbong - Unlocks 'Bing Mode' (play as Chris 'Evil Director' Bingbong from Eddsworld's movie 'Spares')
telford - Unlocks 'Unlimited Ammo'
callumhowarth - Unlocks all Levels

Well I hope you have fun, my favourite level is Level 6, I had so much fun playing Hogan's alley back on the NES and it was great to try and recapture that awesomeness in this game.

Peace!

Bang Boom Splat!


Posted by Psycosis91 - March 18th, 2008


Ok first things first, sprite movies will never ever be the same standard as drawn movies (well, at least the good ones), I'm trying to bridge the gap slightly by introducing more and more techniques. Despite me going this a lot of people still do certain sprite taboo's that I personally despise*, I can't force you to stop doing them, but it will help in there being better quality sprite movies.

*I used to do all of these, and hated myself for it.

Clashing bits
What I mean by this is having 8-bit sprites in the same scene at 16-bit sprites or 32-bit sprites. Just don't do it, it makes the movie feel really tacky and very inconsistent, if anyone actually needs it, here are the different bits-

8-bit:
The Atari consoles (2600, 5200)
NES/famicom
Sega Master System
Gameboy /Colour (to an extent)

16-bit:
SNES/Super Famicom
Sega Genesis/Mega Drive
Turbografx
Neo Geo

32-bit:
Gameboy Advance

Those are the most commonly used consoles in terms of sprite movies, the difference between 16-bit and 32-bit for most games aren't that different, but still, it looks weird.

Clashing styles
This is similar to the previous taboo, but is far more limiting. In the most extreme cases, you should never EVER use Super Mario RPG sprites with Super Mario World sprites. Or ever use Metal Slug sprites with Sonic, or Mortal Kombat with A Link To The Past. The clashing styles are very apparent in these cases and look really weird. There are some styles that do work together, however, Super Mario World and Sonic 3 for the most part are similar, and Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter is acceptable when pulled off the right way.

Clashing sizes
Again, things clashing just look wrong, this is no exception, yet I have found this is a hard one to avoid with a big project. If you have two characters at the same resolution, yet one is half the size of the other, it is tempting to just double the size of the smaller sprite so the characters are the same size. This is, however, a bad idea. by doubling the size of one sprite is means that the pixels of the other sprite looks too detailed, therefore losing the consistent sprite style that sprite movies should have, I mean seriously if you are still making sprite movies that's obviously what you want to do, have the sprited style in your movies. Anyway, this is an easy way to destroy that style.

Same goes with ground sprites, enlarge them to the same size as the characters, backgrounds on the other hand, can get away with it.

Clashing sizes II: Revenge of the Sprite
Now this is in a similar vain to the last taboo, but this is about it taking place on the same sprite. It's tempting to edit the sprite in half pixels (by doubling the size and editing it that way) this also tends to destroy or at best hinder the sprite feel. Even though this means you can create a more precise edit with the sprites, it makes the sprite look inconsistent in places.

Make Your Own God Damn Sprites
No-one cares if you found a sweet flipping Mario animation, it's just lazy to take edited sprites from someone else and just using them in your movie. Now granted even I suck at making custom sprites. I only use other people's sprites if they aren't from the game. So I'd happily use 'Bowser Out Of His Koopa Car', but I wouldn't use anyone else's Mario fighting sprites. I mean come on; it's bad enough you're stealing the original sprites, now you want to steal already stolen sprites?

Separate limbs
Unless this is a style you are aiming for (see: Awesome Guy Adventures) having an arm separate from the main sprite and tweening that around does not look good, it's much betting to just sprite the arm moving rather than going the lazy way for tweening it around.

This one can't be easily avoided I know, I still do it with certain movies, conveying emotion in an 8-bit character is not the easiest thing to do, easier to tween the head to look down to suggest depression. Avoid where you can, anyway.

Black Box Of Lip Syncing DOOM
You've all done it, you need the character to talk, why not just put a block box and shape tween it around to show the mouth moving. Why? Cause it looks cheap. Lip syncing is the most annoying part of an animation for all movies, but you can always just use the simple '6 mouth' technique, this involves 6 different sprites for the mouths each with a different position for each sound. Closed mouth, Open mouth, Teeth clenched mouth, Circle mouth, Tongue mouth (for 'th') and Lips Together mouth (for 'ff'). Putting each of these on a different frame in a graphic means you can switch between them using the 'single frame' function the graphics have. I used this technique for 'Thwomps: The Movie', and it works so much better than a black box.

Hey look he hasn't even animated the waterfall
This is a common taboo, basically a lot of games, in the 16-bit era at least, the backgrounds are animated. Now not animating the background is stupid, in some games there are a lot of things going on in the background (Street Fighter 2) and having one image for it looks really tacky. You need to animate backgrounds to make the overall product look good. Now if you don't have access to an emulated version of the game that might be harder said than done, but if you make the effort the movie will look better.

Now that that is done, here are some pointers to make your movies better:

3D
Let us get this out of the way right off the bat, 3D effects look awesome if pulled off correctly. To pull it off correctly may need some practise but it's a great addition to a sprite movie. My latest movies (namely Spittin' Narcissism, Awesome Guy, even Two Slices of Pie) all have subtle 3D effects (SN backgrounds) and some not so subtle 3D effects (Awesome Guy.); yeah the basic 3D effect is made by skewing and rotating. It's hard to pinpoint what works and doesn't, so some experiments are needed with the backgrounds/items you want to make look 3D. Obviously skewing and rotating won't work with the characters or anything like that, for that you need custom sprites.

Custom Sprites
Speaking of custom sprites, these make the movie look overall better. Sure the movie works with Mario's basic jump sprite, but it'd look so much better with a custom crouch and jump animation.

Don't Use Mario
Yeah most of my recent movies are in the Marioverse, but it's still a bad idea. All popular characters (Mario, Sonic, and Megaman) are overused; it's really more fun for the viewer, and most of the time the animator, to use slightly more obscure characters like the Ice Climbers, Kid Icarus, and Bomberman. Sure these are still popular characters, but at least they're not that overused. A refreshing change. If you need to make it in a popular universe, the main character in the game doesn't have to be the main character for your movie. The Thwomps are a good example of this, taking a minor character from the games and giving them personalities is a good way to be that bit different.

I'll add more things when I feel like it.

Bear in mind this list is strictly for sprite movies, so it doesn't include my tastes for humour or anything like that, but since I brought it up; farting is not funny, and neither is animating Family Guy sound clips.

So yeah, that's really it, I know I can't stop people doing these, but in all seriousness, only like 5% of all sprite movies are actually good. People probably don't hate your sprite movie strictly because it's a sprite movie, it just isn't good, I seriously believe if people can make sprite movies of high quality then some of the criticism against sprite movies will be eliminated. Call it naive if you will but I don't care, sprite movies can't be as good as the high quality drawn movies and I've accepted that, but that doesn't mean EVERY drawn movie is better than EVERY sprite movie.

Also who else is there 'cept me? Like Alvin is still doing his thing I know that, Bigfoot3290 is apparently still in it. Then we've got the new kids on the block Araskin and PTHouse, they totally came out of nowhere.

~Psycosis


1

Posted by Psycosis91 - March 9th, 2008


Hey guys, I released I Would Like Two Slices Of Pie Plz (Two Slices Of Pie), and I hope you enjoy it!

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
429400

Fell free to leave comments about the movie here. :D

One for your mind, two for your soul.


Posted by Psycosis91 - January 15th, 2008


Hey, just posting to say my site Psy City now has a phpbb3 forum, as I've been asked about getting one a few times I thought I may as well get one!

Well you can get to it by clicking here, hopefully it won't be totally deserted soon.

Well flash movie-wise, I'm still making my ICe Climber movie and it's going pretty well so far, noting really new to show, exams are very soon here so I don't know how much work I can get done on it. Other than that I'm making a game called 'Bounce Coil' which is really just pong but in a circle, it was originally made for a friend at school for his psycology class but I've decided to add a few bells and whistles and release it on NG. Both of these feature music from the talented Sonic Sight. And finally work has begone on what I've just decided to call Project T.I.T.A.N, so yay for that.

Also Team Fortress 2 is awesome.

Peace.


Posted by Psycosis91 - December 28th, 2007


ello 5 people that care, my website (Psy City) recently got a new look! Click here to check it out!

I hope everyone had an awesome christmas, I got a PS3 so yay for that. I've got Heavenly Sword, Rachet & Clank, Uncharted and Assassin;s Creed. My username is predictably enough Psycosis91 so feel free to add me!

As for flash movie news, I'm currently only 15% completed my Ice Climber movie, hopefully it'll be finished soon but I don'teven know at this point.

Also ending of Assassin's Creed so so annoyingly cliffhanger'd :<

Psy City redesign is up!


Posted by Psycosis91 - December 1st, 2007


Hey guys. Today December 1st is my birthday, and I'm 16 today! Woo. In this country I'm considered an adult now but I still can't drink, well... legally anyway.

I got Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii and I'll update this post with my friend code at some point, but not right now, too busy Paint it Black'ing.

In other news, I'm making an Ice Climbers movie and it's a psuedo-sequel to 'Do You Like Salmon Ok?'. I doubt it'll be finished anytime soon but I hope you'll like it when I do finish it!

EDIT: My friends code for GH3 is 159031726906, feel free to add!

Peace.

Happy birthday me!


Posted by Psycosis91 - November 17th, 2007


And he is rather awesome.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
410704

Enjoy the movie, and feel free to ask question here, I don't reply to reviews that much but I'll try my best to answer anything you post here.

Awesome Guy is unleashed!


Posted by Psycosis91 - November 6th, 2007


In my last journal I posted a picture of a Flaming Tribal Ghosts Fly Guy, well his flash movie is hopefully going to be released November 17th.

In this movie I've been experimenting more and more with 3D (or 2.5D) effects. Also Thwomps helped me express character through voice and actions, while this movie is helping me portray a character through actions alone, I'm trying to made Awesome Guy seem curious but gets scared easily, and I really hope that comes through in the animation.

Awesome Guy started off as a hidden character in Bullet Bill 2, when a friend of mine just went:
'DUDE, GHOST TRIBAL FLYING SHY GUY'

...'ON FIRE'

Obviously that's not a lot of basis for a full movie surrounding this character, that's why this movie is like 3 short movies in one, and I hope you'll like it when it's released!

Awesome Guy, coming November 17th


Posted by Psycosis91 - October 4th, 2007


Being the only person who didn't buy Halo 3 on release day left me with enough money to buy skate. and holy hell is it awesome. I like the whole sim skating idea after the retarded story lines of the recent Tony Hawk games (Underground forward). The part that won me over enough to buy it is when in one of the trailers the dude grinds on a rail using the wheels, then the board falls onto the rail and it's a different sound effect. For some reason THAT made me get it, and I'm glad I did. The only problem I see in the camera I know they were going for that 'skate following you' idea but you can't see what's in front of you. I may need to upgrade to a gold account to try it online.

Oh, and I've started on another flash movie, it's not going to be a half hour epic or anything, but hopefully you'll enjoy. It features 'Awesome Guy' who made his first appearence as a secret racer in Bullet Bill 2, hopefully it won't be too long before I finish it, but I might change the direct it's going in since I can't really think of an ending to it. Regardless I hope you'll enjoy it, and it'll be out when it's done.

Peace.

Why don't YOU finish the fight? >: (


Posted by Psycosis91 - September 15th, 2007


So on friday I bought two games, Super Paper Mario and Stranglehold, both were just released on that day here, yet SPM was released April 9th in the Americas and Stranglehold was released September 5th, so wuh?

I just finished Super Paper Mario after a 20+ hour marathon (all one sitting) and it was a very good game, I just don't understand why there was a 5 months delay before bringing it over here. Translating it into like 5 different languages and shipping the games over shouldn't take 5 months to do. Now Halo 3 is coming out over here a day after it comes out in the Americas. Now I don't care about Halo in the slightiest (not an FPS fan) but it's cool that they're relesing it very close to each other. Same with Mario Galaxy, there's only like a 4 day difference for the release dates so mabye it's an 'Intelligent Systems' thing not a Nintendo thing.

So what do you think? With the internet being what it is now these gaps are a lot more noticable than it was before, with spoilers and all.

Also, SPM is awesome, I'm gonna go play it again.