Questions Thread - Technical Help for Art & Music

[ThereWillBePayne]

So while we're looking at the Monoprice; I am looking to get a tablet as well, and I have the cashmonies to get an intuos, but this one also looks pretty great, and a good deal cheaper. For a beginning tablet user, which one would you recommend? I figure the Intuos will probably be the safer choice, but the monoprice Elkian recommended looks pretty bitchin' too.

[Elkian]

The guy who did the Monoprice review said he stopped using his other tablets and gave some of them away once he got into it...I don't have one myself (yet) but it certainly looks good.

[Menen]

Hey fellas, Whats the best program or tool for making Animated GIFs with good quality? (And also free, but if you have a guide for flash that works too cuz i have flash))

Trying to make an animated sprite picture but I dont know what to use

[Biff]

A lot of people have said GIMP and that's what I'm using right now.

[Menen]

A lot of people have said GIMP and that's what I'm using right now.

I find gimp sometimes confusing.

Or im just stupid.

Either way ill try it out.

[FowlJ]

Photoshop is the best, but also preposterously expensive. GIMP is okay, if the UI is rather clunky, and is free. There's nothing about photoshop that makes a sprite animation easier, though, so GIMP wins out in this case.

[Menen]

Photoshop is the best, but also preposterously expensive. GIMP is okay, if the UI is rather clunky, and is free. There's nothing about photoshop that makes a sprite animation easier, though, so GIMP wins out in this case.

I have Photoshop. I got the whole Adobe Master suite for free from a school contest. Ill try out Photoshop

Or as i call it, Potatoshop

[zimzap]

this better be a thread people use
What is/are (why does neither make sense) some software(s?) that are free for making music? Or online things? I already have Audacity and LMMS.

[Biff]

this better be a thread people use
What is/are (why does neither make sense) some software(s?) that are free for making music? Or online things? I already have Audacity and LMMS.

Found this on page 48 of this thread as a response to a similar question.

Short answer, no. (Define "good".) (Also: PC or Mac?)

Somewhat longer answer: it depends.

If you have no experience, whatsoever, then you have a long road ahead of you. The more you want a program to do, the more likely it is you'll have to shell out a few bucks to get something that actually does everything you want. There are some freeware audio programs, but they may not be all that user-friendly. Even expensive programs sometimes are not so user-friendly. In addition, there are a variety of methods for achieving particular sounds, so if you have no idea at all how to proceed, you may have to sort some of this out before any recommendation can be made. For example: Do you want to stick with sequenced virtual synthesized audio, or be able to add non-sequenced "live" material (like vocals or guitar solos)? Do you understand the idea behind VST plug-ins, and whether or not a program can be a host for them? Would you be satisfied with using a library of pre-recorded "loops" or do you want greater control (and originality) in your music? There's much you ought to know if you're serious about this.

That said, I can give you some links to a few freeware "DAW"s - Digital Audio Workstations - and maybe knowing that term may help you a bit to find something on your own, as well.

http://www.mutools.com/

http://traverso-daw.org/

http://frinika.appspot.com/

http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/ind...ection=details

[awfulAlliteration]

Does anyone know if there's a tutorial floating around somewhere for drawing MSPA-style Incipisphere planets? I've been looking but I can't find anything.

[FowlJ]

I don't know if there is specifically a tutorial for MSPA planets (though I know it is typically Andrew editing pictures of the Earth or one time Mars), but for creating planets in general there is this, which could be used to create an MSPA-style planet is is generally a pretty nice tutorial.

[awfulAlliteration]

Thank you kindly sir.

[Aerok12]

does anyone happen to know of any good(ish), free drawing/image-editing(for homesuck-style things) apps for android tablet?

(sorry that was such a badly-constructed sentence)

[Recyth]

http://mygimptutorial.com/the-ultima...lanet-tutorial

The planet tutorial i'm using for the viewing pleasure of GIMP users. You will need to install the script it links you to.

[Gelatino]

I'm having some trouble importing animated gifs into Flash (CS6). Once I have a gif file in my library, how can I put it in the animation?

[Recyth]

You can't export individual frames as far as i know, since Flash compresses it into the topmost layer when you import it, removing the animated portion of the gif. You'll have to seperate the layers into separate png's or jpg's then import them individually and arrange them in the timeline.

[Gelatino]

But you can import gif files directly to the stage, right?

Also: What if I make the animation into a Symbol? Does that open up more options for easier use?

Another question: does Flash have some problem with transparency? It seems to work fine with gifs that have no transparent parts, but there is a serious quality loss on gifs that have transparency.

edit: Forget all this. I got it.

[Elkian]

Does anybody know a good freeware animation program that will let you import gif animations? Windows Movie Maker updated on me out of nowhere (corrupting my original file!) and I cannot figure out how the hell it works. All else I have is Vectorian Giotto and it doesn't let me import anything.

[Recyth]

Ok. Using AS 3.0 on Adobe Flash Pro CS6, and i'm trying to get a preloader with animation to work. Except it keeps complaining about a syntax error or some such and doesn't do what it's supposed to.

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stop();

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, preLoad)

Function preload(e: Event):Void{
var bytestoLoad:Number = loaderInfo.bytesTotal;
var numberLoaded:Number = loaderInfo.bytesLoaded;

} if(bytestoLoad == numberLoaded) (
removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, preLoad)
gotoAndPlay(40);

}else {
preLoader.preLoaderFill.scaleX = numberLoaded/bytestoLoad;
preLoader.bytesPercent.text = Math.floor(numberLoaded/bytestoLoad*100) + "%";
}

Anyone out there able to fix this damn thing? I can upload the actual file if it helps.

[Soadreqm]

show spoiler

hide spoiler

stop();

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, preLoad)

function preload(e:Event):Void{
var bytestoLoad:Number = loaderInfo.bytesTotal;
var numberLoaded:Number = loaderInfo.bytesLoaded;

if(bytestoLoad == numberLoaded) (
removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, preLoad)
gotoAndPlay(40);

}else {
preLoader.preLoaderFill.scaleX = numberLoaded/bytestoLoad;
preLoader.bytesPercent.text = Math.floor(numberLoaded/bytestoLoad*100) + "%";
}

I don't know shit about flash, but you seem to have a couple of orphaned parens there. The green one is never closed; the blue ones are paired but it kind of feels like the "else" immediately after should be referring to the "if" inside them.

[Recyth]

Thanks. That's one error sort of dealt with, here's the other two with the new script.

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Scene=Scene 1, layer=Layer 2, frame=1, Line 5 The class or interface 'Event' could not be loaded.

No idea what it's talking about here.

Scene=Scene 1, layer=Layer 2, frame=1, Line 11 ')' expected

There's no bracket to close in the code and it doesn't say where it wants it

Another thing that worries me is that the console isn't recognising "var" "if" and "else" like it does for Void. I'm gonna colour code the previous post to illustrate my point.

[Soadreqm]

Does the code in this post reflect the current state? Because that paren I colored green is still in limbo. This is just guesswork based on what I know of Java, but I'd say you need to remove the curly brace you added before the if and replace the green parenthesis with a curly brace. Oh, and add one more to the end of the else. Like so:

stop();

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, preLoad)

Function preload(e: Event):Void{	
	var bytestoLoad:Number = loaderInfo.bytesTotal;
	var numberLoaded:Number = loaderInfo.bytesLoaded;

	if(bytestoLoad == numberLoaded) {
		removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, preLoad)	
		gotoAndPlay(40);				  
	}else {
		preLoader.preLoaderFill.scaleX = numberLoaded/bytestoLoad;
		preLoader.bytesPercent.text = Math.floor(numberLoaded/bytestoLoad*100) + "%";
	}
}

[Recyth]

Knocks two down, but another comes up.


Scene=Scene 1, layer=Layer 2, frame=1, Line 5 Syntax error.

Function preload(e: Event):Void{

I stand by my opinion that ActionScript is the result of a bunch of programmers trying to recreate VB while incredibly drunk. This is ridiculous.


Edit: Poking at it changes it to this

import flash.events.Event;

stop();

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, preLoad)

function preLoad(e:Event):Void{	
	var bytestoLoad:Number = loaderInfo.bytesTotal;
	var numberLoaded:Number = loaderInfo.bytesLoaded;

	if(bytestoLoad == numberLoaded) {
		removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, preLoad)	
		gotoAndPlay(40);				  
	}else {
		preLoader.preLoaderFill.scaleX = numberLoaded/bytestoLoad;
		preLoader.bytesPercent.text = Math.floor(numberLoaded/bytestoLoad*100) + "%";
	}
}

Putting in the first line of code from the source i adapted it from

import flash.events.Event;
stop();
addEventListener(Event.ENTER_F*RAME, preLoad)
function preload(e:Event):void{	var bytestoLoad:Number = loaderInfo.bytesTotal;	var numberLoaded:Number = loaderInfo.bytesLoaded;	if (bytestoLoad == numberLoaded){	remove.EventListener(Event.ENT*ER_FRAME, preLoad)	gotoAndStop(2);	} else { preLoader.preLoaderFill.scaleX = numberLoaded/bytestoLoad; preLoader.bytesPercent.text = Math.floor(numberLoaded/bytest*oLoad*100) + "%";	}
}

Which gets rid of the syntax problem but now it's complaining about the first line.


Scene=Scene 1, layer=Layer 2, frame=1, Line 7 The class or interface 'flash.events.Event' could not be loaded.


I hate this language.

[ThereWillBePayne]

Hey so I got a tablet recently, but I've been wondering, how do you add a texture to drawings? Let's say for the sake of it, I want the two textures, one for the character, and a seperate for the background. How would I go about applying these? I figure multiply/opacity might be involved, but I think there's something I'm missing.

[Elkian]

I think that depends on the program you are using. The best answer I have is mask it, put a texture in a transparent layer and then colorize appropriately....I'm sure there's a better answer out there though