Some help/hints/critique appreciated.

[snv]

Hello! I'm a programmer, not an artist, but I'm trying to produce additional animation frames for http://weremagnus.deviantart.com/art/Abyssal-Drake-136175584 (i.e. it is a cool design to steal for my game) with tools such as blender and photoshop `warp` to do texturing.

Can you give me some hints on how to do it better/faster? This is my first time ever doing any art and original author, weremagus was shocked and mumbled something about me botching his art, refusing to help.

picture sharing

[snv]

Nevermind. I found other way to do it. It allows almost instantly producing sprites having only single frame.

[Pawige]

Just as a side-note, if you're looking to preserve relations with this artist, stop what you're doing! It's hard for me to think of something I hate more than someone trying to hijack my art and do it "the easy way." Either negotiate with the artist for more frames, hire someone else to make more, or really, anything but this. It's going to look terrible. Low frame rates would be much better than stretching pixels and all the nastiness that you're going to incur here.

[Dr D]

(i.e. it is a cool design to steal for my game)

and


(for anyone that didn't click the link)

I don't get it.. why? You even link to the post yourself, obviously showing that you don't really care what you're doing or acknowledging that it's wrong. I hope you don't say that you'd find it perfectly fine if someone took the entirety of your code for your game and added it a few lines to it to make it 'his'.

And then you proceed to combine his piece with another piece which I assume is also not yours, and frankly the results are quite horrible. I mean, look at those skewed, stretched and messy pixels. 

People here would be more than willing to help you out if you make an honest attempt at something like this yourself. You're not going to get very far using other people's work even if legal stuff isn't concerned.

[snv]

I don't get it.. why? You even link to the post yourself, obviously showing that you don't really care what you're doing or acknowledging that it's wrong.

"wrong" and "right" are subjective concepts. Take Paletstine for example: it's okay for Jews to squash palestinian kids with tanks, but not so okay for Palestinian kids.

I hope you don't say that you'd find it perfectly fine if someone took the entirety of your code for your game and added it a few lines to it to make it 'his'.

I'll be happy. Alas my code is perfectly safe, unless you understand expressions like

Code: [Select]

get FileName |c:[T:@4.utf8 L:@4.ul D:@L.y @Xs] [[T D] @Xs,r]


And then you proceed to combine his piece with another piece which I assume is also not yours.

Yeah. I've taken it from Ultima Online, which I torrented.

frankly the results are quite horrible.

Better than nothing. I'll also try to retouch it.

I mean, look at those skewed, stretched and messy pixels. 

They give general idea, how it should go.

People here would be more than willing to help you out if you make an honest attempt at something like this yourself.

I'm not an artist and stealing is normal - everyone starts with copying old masters.

You're not going to get very far using other people's work even if legal stuff isn't concerned.

I'm not walking anywhere. Just exploring ways to quickly acquire sprites, without paying a fortune for artist work.

Just as a side-note, if you're looking to preserve relations with this artist, stop what you're doing! It's hard for me to think of something I hate more than someone trying to hijack my art and do it "the easy way." Either negotiate with the artist for more frames, hire someone else to make more, or really, anything but this. It's going to look terrible. Low frame rates would be much better than stretching pixels and all the nastiness that you're going to incur here.

I don't have money to negotiate anything and I have no relation with any artists or anyone at all, so I've nothing to lose.

[PixelPiledriver]

You have received a strike.
Please read the Rules and FAQ before posting.

[snv]

You have received a strike.
Please read the Rules and FAQ before posting.

How will your rules stop me from using the sprite?

[alessandroLino]

Why are you even posting then? If you just wanted to test the collision, just draw a big potato and test it. Or just get the sprite silently and don't be an asshole everywhere you go, since you don't seem to care anyway.

[Ashbad]

I think it's smart to keep in mind that even if you steal resources up until project completion, you won't be able to really feature it anywhere credible; copyright rules "may not apply to you in Russia" (which is actually very incorrect), but any major outlet that finds evidence of thievery will turn down your game in a flash -- many minor outlets will, too. 

Even if this is for a personal project, it's still a good idea to not steal resources without permission; in the professional game industry, stuff like this doesn't fly.  It's good to get into the habit of treating ownership of resources with respect.

I'll be happy. Alas my code is perfectly safe, unless you understand expressions like

Code: [Select]

get FileName |c:[T:@4.utf8 L:@4.ul D:@L.y @Xs] [[T D] @Xs,r]


(This just looks like poorly designed code to me.)

EDIT:

Based on the post after mine, I think it's fair to say that it's not even worth reasoning with you -- it's not even worth another post to say so.  I'm perplexed as to why you're still trying to justify what is wrong, however, given that you're not listening to anything we're saying anyways. 

[snv]

Why are you even posting then? If you just wanted to test the collision, just draw a big potato and test it. Or just get the sprite silently and don't be an asshole everywhere you go, since you don't seem to care anyway.

Read OP post: "Can you give me some hints on how to do it better/faster?"

I think it's smart to keep in mind that even if you steal resources up until project completion, you won't be able to really feature it anywhere credible

I'm not doing any commercial work anyway.

copyright rules "may not apply to you in Russia" (which is actually very incorrect)

Russia isn't subordinate to US. I.e. Russia still has it's own army and not a NATO country, while USA is considered main enemy of humanity, so Russians have no reason to respect American copyright. And while it is wrong to steal art by russian artist, I can freely rip off americans.

but any major outlet that finds evidence of thievery will turn down your game in a flash -- many minor outlets will, too.

PirateBay, rapidshare, etc…

(This just looks like poorly designed code to me.)

You're welcome to write shorter code.

Here is it's C/C++/C#/Java (hate this language) version:
C/C++:

Code: [Select]

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

typedef struct chunk {
  uint8_t Tag[5];
  uint32_t Len;
  uint8_t *Data;
  struct chunk *Next;
} chunk;

chunk *loadChunks(char *FileName) {
  int I, L;
  uint8_t *D, *P, *E;
  chunk *C=0, *T, *N;
  FILE *F = fopen(FileName, "r");
  fseek(F, 0, SEEK_END);
  L = ftell(F);
  D = P = (uint8_t *)malloc(L);
  E = P+L;
  fseek(F, 0, SEEK_SET);
  fread(D, 1, L, F);
  fclose(F);

  while (P < E) {
    T = (chunk *)malloc(sizeof(chunk));
    memcpy(T->Tag, P, 4);
    T->Tag[4] = 0;
    P += 4;
    T->Len = *(uint32_t *)P;
    P += 4;
    T->Data = (uint8_t *)malloc(T->Len);
    memcpy(T->Data, P, T->Len);
    P += T->Len;
    T->Next = C;
    C = T;
  }

  for (T = 0; C; C = N) {
    N = C->Next;
    C->Next = T;
    T = C;
  }

  free(D);
  return T;
}