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So, I've been planning a 13 Sentinels LP for a little while. I'm not ready to post it immediately, but I drafted a first update today and I'm wondering about a few things. First update So, because I love making bad decisions, I decided to do multiple portraits for various emotions here, but I ran into a major problem: the sprites aren't ripped anywhere, so I need to grab them manually. Which compounds with the problem of the background and lighting changing depending on the scene, so I run into parts where this will happen: quote:
quote:
In the first example, it looks kind of weird and is hard to scan quickly that the background will change, and with it the entire color of the portrait, making it hard to tell that the first and third portraits are the same character. That's less of a problem to me than the second example though, where consecutive portraits for the same character, already something I'm not fond of doing, change dramatically in terms of general color and make it hard to tell at a glance they're the same person. Can someone tell me if I'm worrying over nothing here? Also, is (parentheses) for internal monologue readable enough? I worry I should just change it to italics.
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Dec 14, 2020 04:12
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But seriously, Amiguchi… We gotta catch that guy, and quick. 
You want to hang out again that badly?
He’s got all the good video games! They’re just waitin’ for me to play ‘em.
This sucks, man. Can’t find Amiguchi anywhere. 
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 06:38 |
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I feel like if all else fails, the major characters all have their key art ripped, so you could just crop those as a last resort and ditch the emotions.
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Dec 14, 2020 04:47
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I don't want to come off like I'm an expert (I am most certainly not), but I've done/am doing three LPs with emotion sprites, so I just want to give my personal take on this. My personal take is to abandon the emotion sprite thing if you don't have the art assets, unless you are okay with doing a lot of work in Paint3D/GIMP/whatever. If you want to do what you have here (as in just grabbing square faces and not cropping backgrounds) then that shouldn't be too bad, other than the issues you brought up with changing lighting. But trying to crop out each emotion sprite individually will take forever if there are a decent number of characters. I'm having this same problem in my Sweet Fuse LP, where no transparent assets exist. This is the result of me trying to quickly crop out backgrounds on my own:    Characters with smoother heads/hairstyles won't be so bad, but then you get characters with crazy hair that result in:  I've been trying for a while to smooth out the edges in GIMP for a nicer look, but that is a much longer process than magic cropping (which will likely look a lot rougher). Keep in mind, if you have even 3 different emotions for each character (Neutral, Happy, Sad for instance) and you have 13 characters (I assume that Aegis Rim has at least that many judging by the title of the game), then you're looking at cropping 39 portraits at minimum. You're probably way better at GIMP than someone like me who sucks at artistic anything, but even if it takes 10 minutes for each portrait, then you're talking about investing 6 or 7 hours into that. That said, if you want to put in the effort, it does look really good. I did emotion sprites for my Conception II LP and I loved how that turned out, because it gives more life to the characters, which is difficult to do in a screenshot format. It makes emotional scenes a bit punchier when a funny scene has characters giving funny looks, or when a sad scene has characters looking sad. The last thing I want to point out is that even if art assets for Aegis Rim do turn up, I think that game might be making use of Live 2D (or a similar VN engine). Characters have a bit of squishiness and movement to them even when standing still. What tends to happen when you pull art assets from games like that is you get this dumped on you:  Basically, in order to get that faux movement/liveliness to the characters, the game pieces character sprites together from a ton of different parts. Parts that you have to then reassemble into a character sprite. Also keep in mind that you will then have to juggle different sprite codes for each character as you're typing your updates. You can't just pop in the tag [mc1] and then do a Find/Replace with the image code later. You'll have [mc1neu]/[mc1happy]/[mc1sad]/[mc1blush] to keep straight. That's not even getting into facial expressions that have some nuance to them, like "worried" versus "worried, but also looks kind of scared". TLDR: Emotion sprites definitely look nice when you can get them for a screenshot LP. But prepare yourself for what might possibly be a lot of preparation work. If you just want to stick with quickly grabbing square portraits, then all you can really do about the lighting changes is to stick in a little note when the background shifts, like "*It suddenly becomes nighttime now*". Of course, then you're going to have multiple different background/lighting portraits for each character, such as "mc1happyday", "mc1happynight", "mc1happyweirddigimonzoneinsidethebigrobotthings". Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Dec 14, 2020 |
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Dec 14, 2020 15:17
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My opinion on emotion portraits: A key factor in me making Somnium Files a subtitled VLP over a SSLP was that I was absolutely certain doing emotion portraits for that game would've driven me through a loving wall. Not up the wall, through the loving wall. If you don't have the sprites ripped, I would say just skip it and just stick with one portrait per character. Either it's going to look really weird with the different backgrounds like you're currently experiencing it, or you're going to go insane doing it.
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Dec 14, 2020 15:53
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The only reason I'm doing emotion portraits in Sakura Wars is that it's piss easy for me to crop them with an Irfanview preset since they're all in the same place on the screen. Even then, I kinda wish I hadn't it's a big pain in the rear end.
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Dec 14, 2020 18:22
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Thanks all, I wanted to show off the good character art but I replaced all the portraits and they look better now with one per character.
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Dec 14, 2020 21:11
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For important emotional reactions, you can always just insert a full screenshot of the relevant bit of dialog, I guess.
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Dec 14, 2020 22:03
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Does anyone have a link to that video about Vegas Pro someone posted here?
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Dec 14, 2020 23:28
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Bad news to everyone mirroring LP videos on PornHub, the site just took down all unverified videos including fan favorite "Halo 3 mad snipes" https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55304115
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Dec 15, 2020 01:51
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Putty posted:Bad news to everyone mirroring LP videos on PornHub, the site just took down all unverified videos including fan favorite "Halo 3 mad snipes" I feel a strange urge at asking if someone has actually done that or not.
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Dec 15, 2020 02:02
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Cooked Auto posted:I feel a strange urge at asking if someone has actually done that or not. There were plenty of LPs on there in the past, for sure.
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Dec 15, 2020 02:55
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:There were plenty of LPs on there in the past, for sure. And there's plenty of them there still. Just not the kind you'd actually do a thread about here. 
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Dec 15, 2020 03:16
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Cooked Auto posted:And there's plenty of them there still. No, like, legit normal LPs.
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Dec 15, 2020 03:26
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where the gently caress am I supposed to continue my narrative Hentai Nazi HITLER Is Back LP now
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Dec 15, 2020 03:31
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So much for my LP of Skyrim VR, with the cock mod and doing the helicopter
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Dec 15, 2020 08:33
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:No, like, legit normal LPs. Oh I figured that, I was just making a joke about porn game LPs.
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Dec 15, 2020 12:10
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Putty posted:Bad news to everyone mirroring LP videos on PornHub, the site just took down all unverified videos including fan favorite "Halo 3 mad snipes" Now where will I go to watch the full entirety of Bee Movie?
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Dec 15, 2020 17:59
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A bunch of ex-SA LPers are doing facecam now and i hate it because as a kid with bad autism i was trained to always keep eye contact and now i can't see the game because my conditioning forces me to look some gormless nerd in the eyes the whole time
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Dec 19, 2020 22:09
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Oh. My. loving. God
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Dec 19, 2020 22:29
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yeah it's annoying
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Dec 19, 2020 22:48
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If you want to make money, you have to dance however The Algorithm says. 
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Dec 19, 2020 23:21
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Put a bag over your monitor to shield yourself from the horrors.
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Dec 19, 2020 23:29
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StillFullyTerrible posted:A bunch of ex-SA LPers are doing facecam now and i hate it because as a kid with bad autism i was trained to always keep eye contact and now i can't see the game because my conditioning forces me to look some gormless nerd in the eyes the whole time You have my sympathies. Maybe put a post-it note over the facecam or something?
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Dec 20, 2020 00:35
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Danaru posted:If you want to make money, you have to dance however The Algorithm says. Truth. Also gets used as an excuse quite often though.
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Dec 20, 2020 00:43
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*starts "You Sold Out!" chants in the crowd*
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Dec 20, 2020 00:53
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the algorithm is built upon babies & toddlers placed in front of tablets to entertain them tapping videos with faces, often ones making exaggerated expressions, because this is what baby brains are designed to seek also because of kids who love swedish nazis
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Dec 20, 2020 05:20
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Look, we're really, really sorry about that guy. I dunno why but Scandinavia just has a penchant of creating the worst e-celebs possible.
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Dec 20, 2020 13:14
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So how does everyone handle the crushing realisation that Nobody Watches Your poo poo And Never Will? Because let me tell you, the last 4-5 updates for my LP have less combined watch time than what it took me to record/edit them and... ow. 
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Dec 20, 2020 13:27
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Do screenshot LPs. Free yourself from metrics.
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Dec 20, 2020 15:44
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Edmond Dantes posted:So how does everyone handle the crushing realisation that Nobody Watches Your poo poo And Never Will? Because let me tell you, the last 4-5 updates for my LP have less combined watch time than what it took me to record/edit them and... ow. I came to terms with it fairly early on. Granted, it helps that I have a lot of self-hatred which leads to setting very low expectations for everything I do. But seriously: Waffleman_ posted:Do screenshot LPs. Free yourself from metrics. This. Not knowing how many people are actually following the LP really helps to blunt the realization that you spent several hours on something that maybe 10 people will see.
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Dec 20, 2020 16:03
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I make videos because I enjoy making videos. People watching them is a nice bonus for me. I think, if making the videos is not reward enough, then maybe people shouldn't make them. Don't get too involved in a hobby you don't enjoy, and if you're already involved and don't enjoy it, stop doing it. When you're doing something you really enjoy, you can ignore the opinions of other people and just do it. And that's how I handle having low engagement numbers.
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Dec 20, 2020 16:16
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If you can see the viewership metrics, then I can see how that'd be demoralizing, and I'm sorry your creative output isn't meeting an audience (I wouldn't click on a Metro LP because I don't personally find those games that interesting, but that is just me), but as a random goon reader: I watch / read quite a few of LPs, but I may never actually post in the thread in question. If I'm not familiar with the game, or otherwise feel I'm not knowledgeable about the subject, I feel like I'm just posting noise by going "Yay great thread!" I realize it's not just empty-posting (especially now), it helps the creator feel like their their contribution was appreciated. I guess the flip-side is the old "LP is a hobby", and you're doing it for yourself, and exposing it to goons whether they want to or not. There's several seemingly easy ways to make content that will get lots of clicks, but that's not really the point of quality LPs. At least that's how it seems to me. Hell, best case scenario, if you make an LP that doesn't generate a huge interest at the time, if it goes into the archive people looking for that particular game will find it years from now, and may enjoy it then.
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Dec 20, 2020 16:22
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Cooked Auto posted:Look, we're really, really sorry about that guy. I dunno why but Scandinavia just has a penchant of creating the worst e-celebs possible. It's because there's nothing to do up there but stare out at the snow until your brain snaps and you become a Viking Spartan Nazi Skyrim character creator disaster 
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Dec 20, 2020 19:19
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nine-gear crow posted:It's because there's nothing to do up there but stare out at the snow until your brain snaps and you become a Viking Spartan Nazi Skyrim character creator disaster Snow is increasingly rare these days thanks to climate change. At least down on the south coast where I live. Also I'm somewhat sure he's from Stockholm or something nearby and they're always a bit... off. Norway is also great on producing those I should add to clarify what I was referring to earlier. You can draw your own conclusions after that.
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Dec 20, 2020 19:26
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Edmond Dantes posted:So how does everyone handle the crushing realisation that Nobody Watches Your poo poo And Never Will? Because let me tell you, the last 4-5 updates for my LP have less combined watch time than what it took me to record/edit them and... ow. As long as you make the kind of content you will enjoy, you will always have at least one fan. Being able to look at your own work and be proud of it goes a long way. Also crying. Lots and lots of crying.
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Dec 20, 2020 21:12
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StillFullyTerrible posted:A bunch of ex-SA LPers are doing facecam now and i hate it because as a kid with bad autism i was trained to always keep eye contact and now i can't see the game because my conditioning forces me to look some gormless nerd in the eyes the whole time
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Dec 20, 2020 21:38
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Do it for yourself, not for others. Let your creative juices flow as a means of delivering your artistic merit and care not for the tastes of the philistines. I did this and now I got a rocky LP career with a loving waifu at home and in the computer screen asking when the next update is coming out
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Dec 20, 2020 21:40
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Leal posted:Do it for yourself, not for others. Let your creative juices flow as a means of delivering your artistic merit and care not for the tastes of the philistines. Well said. I've done what I did because I wanted to and threw them into the void to get a sporadic view here or there. But honestly don't use the "I put X amount of time into this, and have only gotten .5X amount of views" metric, that won't help.
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Dec 20, 2020 21:49
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Xander77 posted:Who? Let's not name and shame here shall we.
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Dec 20, 2020 21:54
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 06:38 |
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Edmond Dantes posted:So how does everyone handle the crushing realisation that Nobody Watches Your poo poo And Never Will? Because let me tell you, the last 4-5 updates for my LP have less combined watch time than what it took me to record/edit them and... ow. I'm in the middle on this one. I think it depends on what your goals are, but I do agree that if you don't enjoy making videos for their own sake, you shouldn't make videos. On the other hand, it is very rewarding to me when I get told from time to time that, for example, someone bought a game because of an LP I did or I helped them understand a game they couldn't get into, or whatever. Producing something that's legitimately important to someone else is also a motivation of mine. I do think most people get to the 'nobody ever will' part *way* too quickly, but if that's a problem for you and you've been making videos for a long enough time to justify it, then I agree - do SSLPs or do something else. I've been close a couple times but I'm glad I didn't quit - but if you care what other people think about your work, and what creative person doesn't, it is an emotional roller-coaster sometimes. And I do come back to believing the important thing is that I do something as well as I can do it, which hopefully won't be as good as I can do it in the future, constantly get better and learn, and be willing to live with whatever influence that has or doesn't have. .
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Dec 20, 2020 22:09
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