Images

[Off-Topic / Re: Documentary: The Evolution of Your Own Personal Happy Place]

Actually had to dig on my old photobucket for pictures 
My game corner have seen quite an evolution. At least I'd like to think that.

First, it was like this. A simple TV bench on wheels with a hand-me-down PAL CRT TV, a Dreamcast, a used PS2, my cousins old PS1 and my Mega Drive in storage. Oh, and my at the time newly bought Xbox 360. Quite spartan, really. My LCD-sporting Xbox friends weren't overly impressed.



Then I got myself a Saturn and I got a more Xbox-friendly TV from a friend (that also accepted NTSC signals). I tore down the old bookshelf I used before and turned it into a makeshift multimedia bench. Lots of hours was spent here playing Tokimeki Memorial for the Saturn. 


Now we're talking! Just got bought someone's unneeded pretty much new HD TV, my Duo-R and my LaserDisc player. Let's all cringe together at this setup  Oh, also got a PS3.
This is pretty much how things were looking when I joined here.


Just did the first big re-work of the room layout. Tried dividing the gaming into 2 separate setups. A modern one, and an oldschool one. I liked this idea, sadly had to scrap that because it wasn't really space effective. Or pretty. I beat Ridge Racer for the first time in this setup, felt awesome. Can't do it now on my LCD.


Now we're really getting somewhere - New shelving! Speakers! Scalers! ...well, one. Things looked a bit empty though. I got rid of my CRT now that I had a video processor. LaserDisc collection growing nicely on the shelf.


And here's how it is today, pretty much. In all it's messy glory. Went from the bigger Technics speakers to bookshelfs because they're just so much more practical. Added a cheapo sub to compensate. I've got a two-step scaling setup consisting of an Vigatec Dune-F and a DVDO VP30. Usually, for NTSC systems, I just use the Vigatec since it's connected to the TV's VGA input to decrease lag. If I want to make use of both monitors (or add a capture device) the Vp30 scales to 1080p and into an HDMI splitter. This solution can still be improved upon 

Audio is provided by two cheap Gale monitor speakers, a small sub from König and a Denon AVR-1601 amp/reciever - a very budget friendly audio setup.


Though I didn't show it before, PC corner also got a make-over. But it's much better organized than the console corner. 360 & PS3 lives here. Both consoles and the PC are using optical for audio and the video is fed to a switch, then a splitter so I can game on whichever screen I like.
Mordaunt Short MS 3.10 speakers from eBay + another cheap König sub connected to a chinese SMSL DAC & an Audioengine desktop amp provides the sound. A somewhat budget-friendly solution 

[Off-Topic / Re: Post your ridiculous TV-side pile of wires]

C'mon folks, Sam and I can't be the only ones?

I'll join you guys with this:


Certainly the least presentable part of my room. PC corner looking positively dashing in comparison.

[Off-Topic / Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime]

Please someone prove me wrong, and show me something cool like those movies I mentioned above.

Have you checked out Gundam Unicorn (have only seen screencaps) or the Redline movie? It's decidedly current in aesthetics but also does have a bit of an oldschool feel if I remember correctly. It's also kind of a rush

But oh man. I agree with you and you made me want to go on a rant : >

I think you'll be hard pressed to find the kind of realistic touches you're after in modern anime. Or at least the mainstream stuff. Your best bet will be in the movies and not TV series. And by that I don't really mean movies connected to a running TV series (as those will only look like a better produced version of said show) but more in the line of Miyazaki, Mamoru Hosoda etc (Summer Wars, Girl who Leapt Through Time, Wolf Children - his stuff does have more "current" look to it tho').

You said you liked OVAs and I too also totally love OVAs. (Original Video Animation)
They are awesome. Often done better than your average TV series but with way more creative freedom and no need for censoring since it went directly into the, then, booming home video market.

Everybody wins. Except for now - since it has pretty much died. Oh OVAs are still released but most stuff seem to be extra episodes for already existing works or smaller projects that just doesn't make much of a splash. I guess there just isn't much money to be had there anymore.

TV is where things are at right now and I'm not sure it's actually fair to compare OVAs with TV series - The drawing styles have changed, as you said, people are working at least partly digitally (i.e. the final line drawings are not printed on cels) - which dramatically change the way things look -  not to mention there is a lot of outsourcing going on (cheaper that way) and 3DCG is a thing now - which is both good and bad.

Honestly, I believe backgrounds is the one thing that have suffered the least over the years. Some are more digital than others but I've seen some stunning stuff in recent shows. There are still studios doing good animation work: Kyoto Animation, GAINAX/TRIGGER, Madhouse to name a few but they probably won't look like you want them too.

<---- Example of how much better Kanon from 2006 (KyoAni) looks compared to the one from 2002. Not a show you'd be interested in perhaps but something I had on hand  TV anime is actually looking better and better - however the aesthetics are not always for us perhaps.

Then again, some shows just makes me want to

Recent example

I'll end this rant with this:



/rant 

To brighten things up a bit. Here's a brief video showing that Production IG are still doing a lot of the animation work for the newest Ghost in the Shell installment the traditional way.

Memory of GR -making of ＡＲＩＳＥ- Production I.G
Things go digital in the end of course but it's good to know that way of working hasn't died off entirely.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Big OBEY in little Sweden]

The PC that was shown and running R-type sadly had a borked D-pad

Are you sure? I don't own the game, but I think there may be some precoded gameplay showing after a while when left on the title screen or something like that. I was in any case also there and found that I couldn't control the game, but pressing the run button a few times solved it.

Very sure. I could move left, right and a little up but not downwards. Made it very hard to dodge things like enemy bullets

By the way, Peppcon in Uppsala had both Saturn and PC Engine.

https://japanspel.blogspot.com/2013/10/peppcon-uppsala-2013.html

Now that's more like it!

PeppCon, eh? I haven't been to Uppsala since the last UppCon and that's no more : < And some of my friends are looking for another convention to visit but we haven't had much luck with local events so far.

[General Gaming / Re: Retro Gaming on HDTV]

You missed the part that the systems connected via RF look completely fine....

Well, I'm certain they could look even better then 

<-- the result of RGB directly to my HD TV. Pretty adequate* 

As for the Genesis composite issue, after a quick googling around it seems like this might be a common issue. A user on the Assembler forums wrote this:

From what ive read in the past, iirc it is caused by the genesis having a slightly out of spec chroma signal. Just borderline out of standard frequency range or something. Most devices would have some tolerance for this but some others are more picky and do not "lock" on the signal properly. I dont know if that makes sense from a purely technical point but thats how i understood the problem.

One trick that worked for me was having the genesis and another console conected in a input selector switch. With both devices powered on, switching back and forth between the two allowed my TV to properly lock on the genesis signal and it displayed colors properly.

Can't say if that will work or not - but perhaps worth a try?

*_{using the RGB to component transcoder mentioned earlier, taken with my old crappy camera.}

[Off-Topic / Re: Post your original artwork]

Bumping 'dis thread.

If you guys are interested in drawing cars, there's this really nice youtube channel with real, informative tutorials. And all drawings aren't "super pointy design drawings with enormous hub cap wheels" either, which really helps drawing, you know, a normal car. (But many are)

So trying to apply some of the techniques found there I actually made something that resembles a proper vehicle:


Sure, it's rough and not finished but it's getting there. You should try it out if you're bored!

Edit:
Update!


Redrew the front, sketched some wheels, added a bunch details and stuff. The back panel, which is the sexiest thing about this car, was hard. Also, it's not totally correct  (the lights are too "fat")

[Off-Topic / Re: Name That Anime ~ [Warning: Lots of Pictures]]

Here's one that even I can't identify: 

From Photo Kano! Episode 7...I think? He's trying to get her to take a picture of him...and that happens.

Edit:
Guess this one:


Before anyone screams "Graduation!", it's actually not.

[Off-Topic / Re: Japanese Magazines - what are your favorite]

Agreed - tons of cool Japanese magazines out there!

I have an issue of a magazine which seems promising:

Issue 5, 2007 of Animation Note


This issue focuses on anime backgrounds, and also features a (not overly elaborate) step-by-step look at the BG creation process. Still, quite interesting. There seems to be even more interesting issues out there (like this, but this is the only one I have at the moment

[General Gaming / Re: What non PCE game did you beat today???]

Managed to beat Bulk Slash for the first time tonight. Usually I always die at the last boss since I don't have enough health left to stand a chance - but now I found a strategy that worked.



Now to find/level up the rest of the M.I.S.S. ladies...

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

It's here! And completely immaculate. Now I just need a Laserdisc player...

Awesome. They could've done with a better cover though, instead of just another screencap, seeing as the official artwork to OutRun, even to this day IMO, is badass.

Is it just a superplay or are there some extras on there?

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Tokimeki Memorial has a Sidearms/Soldier Blade style minigame.]

Guys!



SHIT.YES. 

Good thing I decided to keep on going instead of starting a new game Didn't unlock it at the culture festival, but rather after new years eve, when you're awarded in a game creation competition. I forgot about that, as I thought you sending in a game for a competition was just another quirky line of dialogue without any real meaning. Now I just have to finish the game so that I can access it through the omake menu...

[Off-Topic / Re: Surugaya-a-too :how reliabale are they on orders?]

私は悪い日本人のために再度お詫び.

...yeah.

Well, one character can make all the difference so I don't blame you there Hopefully they'll get what you mean.

[Off-Topic / Re: Learning Japanese]

Personally, real textbooks only seem to work when in a shool-like environment because I can't for my life sit down long enough to learn from it without actually having to

Oh and here:


Web dictionary-> http://www.jisho.org/

Dictionary, info etc, a bit of everything -> http://www.nihongoresources.com/

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: [Ended!] RAFFLE: Let me doodle that for you]

SURPRISE COMPLETETION!



Click that shit

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: [Ended!] RAFFLE: Let me doodle that for you]

Just a little teaser to show that I'm actually doing something

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: RAFFLE: Let me doodle that for you]

... or maybe both, if you know what I mean. 

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

Thanks to paul I was able to get my hands on this Vigatec FX2+ linedoubler & deinterlacer
Works very well with my non-modded Duo, as well as other systems I've tested so far (Saturn, PS1) 

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

My latest hauls, mostly Xmas stuff:

Whoa man, I see just good stuff in there. Soldier Blade, Wolf fang, Bunring Force etc are all on my list of things to get. Nice AV Intelligent Terminal Mega Drive

Beamer, Ope, Deadite and you other guys, look what you make me do! 


It powered on when I got it but it died after swallowing Twinbee disk 1, which is still stuck in there btw 
Gotta try and see if I at least can get the power issue fixed up - totally not the right person to do this but we'll see...

[Off-Topic / Re: I can't stop thinking about skating]

Incidentally, can anyone else picture Arkhan doing this trick?
 

I can, except with a flying kick

[General Gaming / Re: Caption Contest 3 (raffle type thing for free GBA game!)]

Found this in my mail today:



First l00t of 2012 2013, w000t!

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

Dang, consider me officially "jelly".

Myself, I've been picking up some stuff over the past weeks/month(s)...


About those Mega Drives, one seems to have problem outputting a stable image (picture rolls when connected to TV, sellers mentioned possible sound issues) and the other one...must be an Asian PAL unit or something, because I could play my PAL copies of Sonic 2 & OutRun with it... :s
Neither the SFC or the MDs will give a proper image with my scaler, so perhaps I need to shop for a syncstrike unit.

Also picked up an PCFX game because...well...I was hoping that would make me get one faster :p Perhaps?

Oh and a free, small sofa from work. Now I can have friends over properly!

[General Gaming / Re: Video game fan art?]

I need to draw more often so...this happened. She's small because I plan to make her all pixelart-ish and stuff if things go well 
Used that old left over pose sketch as base
 

Armor's actually a bit weird/hard to draw because the shape of everything changes in every darn pic I have...!!
So, Nando, at least I'm sharing the same burden now! 

Edit:
While I'm at it posting, I found this old video game related 4koma....thing...in my photobucket wip folder so I'll throw it up as well. But I won't finish that one, has been too long!

[General Gaming / Re: Video game fan art?]

I think I managed to finish it. Now I can stop spamming this thread with progress updates  You all better be thankful.

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

I finally get! thanks to beamers!

An X68030?! What's the difference between that one and the normal X68000? I'm curious! It's looking mighty fine

[General Gaming / Re: Video game fan art?]

Here's some of my original music which is inspired by video game music.

*songs*

Cool. I Liked "Light" and "Cross" the most, would fit quite well in a driving game perhaps (or maybe shmup?). I tried the Forza Horizon demo yesterday and I'd rather have some of those songs in there instead 
Nice "soft" sound which isn't trying to kill my speakers or sub.

I am gonna try and get a few done before Christmas...

Artworks or music? 

Slight progress update:



Colors filled in and started adding some shading. Ran into a few bumps but think I made it out okay, was quite a while since I colored anything...and cell shading can be hard because it's hard to..."cheat" like you can do with soft cell shading and similar styles by adding soft graduations between colors. If your shadows/shapes are off in a hard cell shaded artwork, it'll stand out like a sore thumb 

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

One. One measly PCE game, clearly my Obey is not strong enough. On the other hand, now I too can have a go at Xanadu 

Is Gun Griffon 2 any good?  I played a bit of the first one on emulation the other day, it was pretty solid.

I can let you know once I've tried it, if you'd like First game feels solid, but has a quite steep difficulty curve (there's a mission I can't complete, because my forces gets annihilated and some scary mechs totally punishes me for not having a good enough grip on the controls).

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

One. One measly PCE game, clearly my Obey is not strong enough. On the other hand, now I too can have a go at Xanadu 

[General Gaming / Re: Video game fan art?]

I was debating the medium for the yuna piece. At first it was going to be all pencil art and MAYBE markers, but realistically speaking digitally is the best way to go. This will be my first fully digital piece so bare with me ;) 
It will be about 600 dpi 8x10, so you should be able to blow it up some and still retain some decent sharpness.

600 dpi with those measurements (are you thinking in inches?) is officially pretty damn big  The piece I'm working on is just about 2000 pixels high and only 72 dpi (but then again, never intended for it to be printed, if I did that, 300 dpi would be better perhaps). I don't know, I just have a hard time working on really big stuff. Photoshop zoom levels are a bit odd and file size and the performance/memory it takes is a bit of a turn-off for me Also more time consuming. At any rate, I think you should be able to work in a slightly smaller scale and still reach desirable results...

...I've got a really nice Intous at work. Lucky for me I can work on digital stuff while on breaks and no one cares. So I hope to make some progress that way. But you know how it goes...lol

...what do you work with that let's you have a glorious Intous? Man, I've wanted to try those things for the longest time, they're too expensive, even today when the old models are...well, old!   

Edit: I think I just got the Intuos-line confused with the Cintiq-line I have an older Intuos, it's a Cintiq I'd love to try (or a newer Intuos, for that matter)

I'm sure it will, work in progresses always look better in my minds eye. ;)

Hopefully it will be easier to understand what I had in mind now. Started filling in some colors and did the background last night/morning.



Background's actually darker than that, I just have fully white, semi-transparent layer on top so I can still see the lineart and what I'm doing

[General Gaming / Re: Video game fan art?]

Thanks  O:)

Slowly, very slowly moving forward with this.



I got stuck with the whole idea of it for a while but just got some momentum again. I'll try and finish this, dangit!    But I just seem to keep changing/adding stuff....

[General Gaming / Re: Video game fan art?]

we've got a sick house around here, no break for art or gaming on my side.

Aw

Using a tablet?

Yeah, but it's got the wrong "aspect ratio". The work area matches a normal 4:3 display, so I've had to make it fit with a 16:9 display instead. Now 50% of the tablet isn't in use Feels a bit like a waste.

Edit:

Small update:


Been trying to fix some of the mistakes I could find and did battle with my arch nemesis, anatomy and his sidekicks hands.

Edit edit:
Some rough linework...

[General Gaming / Re: Video game fan art?]

Just did a sketch, we'll see if I finish it or give up



Too tired to point out faults, need to look again tomorrow 

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

And the stack gets higher! lol

Love me some stacks
Which one is the newest addition and what does it do?

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: SPECIARU RAFFLE SUPAH MEGA RANDOM CRAZY 絵]

Allright

While thinking, I went a bit nuts: /Yuna_in_spaaace.jpg

But that might be a bit too much to ask so something like this would be fine too ;)


There seems to exist at least two versions of her armor, I'm thinking of the one featured in Yuna 2 as well as in the first OVA series (which you posted):

/00fcbc366c26fda7794ef55216ab91c4_zps0ac15bc7.jpg
/1189921235930_zps00f43fd7.jpg


Would this be okay?

[Off-Topic / Re: Caption Contest]

Yoshi and Mario... GONE WILD 

I AM SO SORRY

[General Gaming / Re: Video game fan art?]

Progress looks good so far, I'd love to see one with color!
I can't ink to save my live, I tried and the lines turns out all wobbly and not very nice. Blahgh! Now, digitally is another matter

This thread makes me remember that I have a DA account I haven't touched in in a year or so and...I don't want to log in and check my message center *shudder*.
I mostly did anime fanart but I remember like...3 or so game ones:

(Just a heads up, I've had that account since...like...2004 and I was alot younger back then and it shows. I act and spell like a prime time weeaboo....even more than now Judge me with that in mind )
Old -----------------------------------> New




...and now I realize I haven't done anything art-related at all this year... Gotta start again or I'll loose it for real...

Edit: Just remembered this Mega Man meme from 2008. It looks okay, even today

[PC-FX Discussion / Re: About bishoujo janshi Idol pai]

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: I finally own a PC-Engine....]

Nice   remember these times, it's an exciting thing owning your first PC Engine

The most interesting console in the world.

I don't always play video games,
but when I do, I play PC Engine

[Off-Topic / Re: Show off your whips!]

Here's an old pic of one of my cars.  It's one of the reasons why I like playing the game S.C.I., for the PC Engine. ...

Most beautiful things on those is the tail lamps. So nice!

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

Not so many games but I did accumulate a couple of things over the last month or so...






 

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

Got in a huge haul of crappy x68000s.  But no one cares about such nonsense
/x68k/CompactsEverywhere.jpg

dude Beams - can't imagine how much stash you have built up now - do you have an infinite amount of garage space??  lol.. 

I've been out of space for a long long time

You clearly need to get yourself a personal Hammerspace™

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

Anyway, I'm just about done with my game room. Added a 2nd 40" TV, and hooked up all the systems and tucked the wiring out of sight.
It's 100% functional now. Just need some kind of comfy game seats, as right now theres only a spare twin bed that I sit on while playing.

Just wanted to say I really like your twin TV-setup - very stylish! How well does those Samsungs perform for retro gaming though?

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

Bought a couple of flyers over @ the System 11 Shmups boards.

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

Some recent Pick-ups

/capture1kh.jpg

YES. 

I picked up a used Denon AVR 1601 . Hopefully I will be able to find some speakers and integrate this bad boy into my planned computer setup later this summer. Not looking for anything fancy but hopefully then I can say good bye to my Creative franken 3.1 setup. (Supposed to be 5.1 but I don't need those two back speakers, and the 'woofer is from a lower model since the better one just stopped working).

[General Gaming / Re: Nice set up]

Different SMS systems produced slightly different images as well, but I haven't bothered comparing them in component, since they'd require an audio out mod to play with sound that way.

You mean because of the encoder not having audio outputs? If so, grab a breakout box:

I just ordered that scart -> component converter. Didn't think about the audio. Need to get me some one of those breakout boxes.

[Off-Topic / Re: Game fan art]

That looks pretty good. With the brush you used for the clouds, the smudge-tool can sometimes do wonders : )

Edit:
Hope you don't mind I made an edit to show what I mean:

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

Been wanting BGC 8 & MADOX-01 for a long time. Finally showed up on Rakuten.

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

^ Sweet midi-keyboard you got there

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

Does having the Graduation anime series count as Obey? :p

[General Gaming / Re: Sexiest game console]

I forgot about this one:


Just looking at it makes me want one. Loving all the knobs, buttons and headphone jacks.

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

An Arcade Card Duo + 4 game/anime soundtracks & 5 LDs : )

Edit: