Topic awaiting preservation: Desert Dawn

What else can I say? I tried to give this one a dreamy athmosphere...

Edit; I updated the sig so some older comments aren't making sense anymore... this is the final version.



[This message has been edited by mahjqa (edited 03-18-2003).]

And I can't spell. *points at above post*

I like the concept, and as you are aware i am a great fan of your work, but i am not liking the shape of it, are you able to perhaps blend the egdes a bit more into the background ? they just seem a little harsh to me, but nontheless, another great peice, but i think you have done better.

Beautiful... dreamy indeed.

That's a rough call on the edges, though. If the background was consistent you could just make it transparent, but I think that would be difficult with the background colors here. Or maybe not. Anyway, it would indeed look nicer if the transition were a bit more subtle. The animation itself, though, is superb.

It doesn't work, really. I thought about it, but the color difference's too big.

Whatever...

Be happy you spoke to me on Q when you did, it looks a lot better the way I suggested it.

Animators.....


_____________________
Prying open my third eye.

This version is halfway decent. It's also 80 Kb.

So, which one do you prefer? Anyone?

(there's also the option of cutting half of the frames away, but that looks so awful...)

I told you it would look good. Despite filesize.


_____________________
Prying open my third eye.

Ok, we get it insider - you gave mahjqa advice. Now shut the fuck up and let the rest of us have a look.

=)

Personally, I like the 'edged' version. The non-edged version looks great on the dark background, but not so hot on the light background...the transparency just doesn't hold like it should.

Either way, it's very nice.

You crushed my moment of pride!

~*grabs fish and runs away sobbing*~

YOU WON'T HEAR THE LAST OF THIS! SO SAYETH THE CARP!

I'm liking the non-edged one on the darker background.

(Maybe you could try and give it the dark background, and fade it out (feather?) so that someone looking at it can't tell that it is on that background.)

Nice work. Very atmospheric. I like the edged ones. The asylum colors don't work well in place of the black. Black equals drama. Maybe frame it like you're looking out a window if you don't like the edge?

last one...just maybe stick a name somewhere...maybe sort of like forming from the dust or something

by the way you rule!

Another nice one Mahjqa.
I like the edged version, too. Maybe a small brick border, and it could be the view from one of the cells in the South Wing..

Hmm, yes... after seeing several versions, the edged one does look cleaner.

I also really like db's idea--that would be a great way to put in a solid border without ruining the theme!

Thats a really beautiful piece Mahqa.

I also second the out-of-the-window sort of border, will take care of the transparency issues.

Updated it, overwritten the old one. I'm keeping this'un. Moth, thanks for the suggestion

Oh, now that is very nice...good job.

Very nice.
I was going to say that you should put your name into it - then I saw it

Oh... yes, yes, YES!

Sorry about that... didn't mean to get carried away.

Once again you have created something that makes me want to weep and curse the heavens for their cruelty.

Yup, much better taht way =) Nice work.

oh that is NICE! Your work is simply great.

I have a question though. When you make these sigs like this (small I mean) that are animated, do you design the whole thing as the actual size or start larger and scale it down?

I have tried to work at the actual size and it is sometime quite difficult because of the way the pixels "bleed" over for lack of a better term. Everything is so distorted.

Great work there though!

Later,

C:\


~Binary is best~

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

Moth, thanks for the suggestion

You're welcome!

Nice work, Mahjqa. Now I can't decide which of your sigs is my favorite. This one, the moon over water, or the butterfly. Guess you'll just have to get one of those sig rotators

Beautiful.

heheheh when I stumbled upon this thread and saw the pic (as it appears now with the window) you came up with Mahjqa it made me think of that bar in the movie "From Dusk to Dawn" y'all know what I'm talkin' bout!

I can hear Cheech out front of the bar right now....LOL

yeah, dude, i like the borderless best.
btw is this your first sig that doesn't include your name?

nope dude! his gun doesnt have a name too

hahaha

Damn. At a 1600x1200 resolution, you can barely even see the zoomed in name.

nice sig, as always, mahjqa

This question always seems to be asked by someone, and I don't want to poop out and not have someone ask it.

How did you go about the creation process.

Did you push each pixel, with the pencil tool, which would seem like a whole tone of extra work, or did you start with a large image using a paint brush, and then reduce the size, and then go back in an push the pixels that were nessesary.

Did you start with scanned line art? What was the process of making this at the basic level?


Me

I can't go into explaining the clouds just yet, haven't got the time. I re-used some of the buildings I made for this image . (sorry for the blue matte, have no time to fix it) as you can see I've originally made the buildings quite a lot bigger. After resizing I manually cleaned some stuff up with the pencil tool. Also, you might want to know that all this starts out in pure grayscale, and I only add colors in the end, using hue/saturation adjustment layers and gradient maps.

I still had to answer CPrompt's question; You'll find using selections very useful when working on pixel level. When you make a selection the drawing tools you use will only affect the pixels in the selection, so you have to worry less about bleeding. The best example of the results is still this little gadget:

[clicky]

My God that's beautiful...

There, now you've gone and made me cry again...

so. . . it's kind of 1/2 and 1/2? hmmm. . . that's interesting. You certainly know your stuff when it comes to PS (and graphics I'm sure)

So you do EVERYTHING in greyscale and THEN add color? Man! Now that's a trip! Sheesh!

Thanks for taking the time explaining that.

Later,

C:\


~Binary is best~

[This message has been edited by CPrompt (edited 03-20-2003).]

These are the things that make me regret that I didn't get wrapped up in computers 15 years ago...

I am SO far behind!

Bodhi - Cell 617

mahjqa, not much more to be said really, your work never ceases to both inspire and amaze me. On top of that you share your knoweledge and expertise, and often even throw in a finished sig for someone having problems.. (*remembering my xmas sig amongst others* ).

You have a real talent.

thanks for sharing it with us again.


oh yeah that final version is probably my favourit of your followed closely by that butterfly of yours

edit:why isnt this guy a mad sci? his work is the best, his help is astounding

edit2:drops hint to doc and the real crazies around



[This message has been edited by tomeaglescz (edited 03-20-2003).]

Well... with great power comes great responsibility. I know. It said so in that Spiderman movie.

Honestly, I don't mind at all. I'm a Psychotic, which means I've got moderating options for this 'BIG SIG' forum, and that's enough for me. I just about live on this part of the forums, and help as well as I can.

Being a moderator is way overrated anyway (which reminds me, I still gotta take care of some old threads) Some time in the past there was a great fuss about persons questioning the mods and others wanting moderating options as well, and that got so far out of hand that Doc de-modded everyone.
I know you say this with the best intentions, but I think it's good this way.

quote:

---

When you make a selection the drawing tools you use will only affect the pixels in the selection, so you have to worry less about bleeding.

---

That was some of the best advise I've had about pixel stuff! Thnanx

Later,

C:\


~Binary is best~

Just have to pop here!

The only thing poking my eye in your sig, is the lack of desert **wideness** .
All the rest is magnific.

I could be wrong, but how about adding 20-30px on the left, inside the frame?
(Extention of the frame is a better frase.)
Or even more?
Untill you get the sence of breathtaking, everlasting desert.

How ever you do, the sig is still dandy cool!



[This message has been edited by FLAMEhorse (edited 03-22-2003).]

great sig mahjqa!

[edit- fix spelling...

[This message has been edited by velvetrose (edited 03-23-2003).]

I've always liked Mahjqa's signatures. They've always been inspiring.

Heilige scheisse, Human Shield, where the hell have YOU been? Have I completely missed your recent posts, or did you just recently start using your old sig again? Any case, thanks for the comments.

And for inspiring, they're all simple there because I was inspired by something. Some poster I saw, a movie, a piece of music.. I'm glad I can inspire others because of that.

I don't want to stray off-topic, but:

a. short answer - I've been around... busy... contemplating stuff... not getting much design stuff done.

b. long answer - Adobe cancelled the LiveMotion project right after we shipped LiveMotion 2. They felt that Macromedia's control of the Flash code meant we'd always be one step behind, and apparently they felt it was better to not even be in the race than to be second place to Macromedia. Even cancelled, we were one of only two products to make our numbers that quarter, the other being Photoshop naturally. Anyway, most of the staff got laid off. I do QA work for a medical software company and keep in touch with my friends at Adobe. They're working on a DVD design product now using the LiveMotion engine.

Okay, back on topic: So what was it that inspired you for this one, Mahjqa? Lawrence of Arabia? Aladdin? Thief of Baghdad? I like the outline of light. It has such a more dramatic effect than an outline of shadow.

Well, what I started out with was a (very dark) landscape with some mountains in the background. I intended it to be some view you might see in Scotland, with lots of green. When I thought of Scotland I figured I'd add some mist to the full picture, and added several animated clouds. As I said earlier, I almost always work in greyscale (no colors whatsoever) and add colors later. After I had the clouds moving convincingly, I added a hue/saturation adjustment layer on top. After a bit of fiddling I scooted the slider to yellow, and for some reason it reminded me more of a desert scene than anything else. Along with the fact that the green hills of Scotland don't really match with the forum's colors, I decided to go with the desert theme. I still had some images lying around with castle parts (walls, towers and so on) and with a little tweaking gave them a bit of an 'eastern' feel to it. At some point before that I had added the sun and it's rays, and tweaked all the hue/saturation layers (you may notice that it goes from yellow, over to orange and pink, to deep purple... maybe not entirely realistic, but definately adding to the athmosphere.

At that point I made this thread and showed the first version, it had some siple borders, mainly because I couldn't figure out how to do the transparency correctly without making the filesize too big. In the end it was Moth who suggested to add a border as if one was looking through a window at the scene. After making the window I found that the left size was a little empty, so I added the web and the Lamp. A bit lacking in originality, maybe, but it was the best I could come up with, and in the end I'm very pleased with the shinyness and general appearance of it.

Phew, well, that was it in short.

So sorry to hear about the loss of you job, working at Adobe must've been great... but what does that 'q&a' stuff mean? are you working at a helpdesk? (please excuse my ignorance )

edit; don't worry about going offtopic, I believe most that can be said about the sig has been said.



[This message has been edited by mahjqa (edited 03-26-2003).]

welcome back HumanShield! i've missed your commentary, though i was mostly lurking whilst you were active

Thanks, Velvet.

Many confuse QA for Q&A.

Q&A = Question and Answer... like tech support I guess.

What I do is

QA = Quality Assurance. That's testing the product to make sure it is up to acceptable standards.

Thats amazing.... how did you make the smoke or "mist" like that? .... just using the cloud filter?

I believe he used the clouds filter. If you look in the FAQs and search for fire, you will see the basic technique.

do the transparency correctly without making the filesize too big.

This touches on something I've often wondered about. Why does making an animated sig transparent often increase the file size? It seems to me that with less pixels the file should be smaller.

Moth; Take a look at this page, it's under the header 'D. Use "super compression" - redundant pixel removal.'

What it basically does, is when an animation changes in a frame, the *.gif exporter only takes the pixels that are changed. For example in my desert sig; the upper sky doesn't change. What basically happens is that the first frame of the animation contains the full picture, and in the next frame only the part that has changed. the pixels that are unchanged are transparent in the second frame. A problem with this is that it's unusable if pixels become transparent in the next frame. Since the 'transparent' pixels are already in use to indicate that the picture doesn't change, it's impossible to use that technique.

Thank you! I bookmarked the page you provided. Nice entry in the contest, by the way.