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Journal 13 - Adobe Flash Death
General | Posted 5 years agoI don't post many journals, but I know flash died recently and some people would like to still play games or such that I have made, so I thought I would share this.
The "flash player projector" file from adobe, is available here:
https://www.adobe.com/support/flash.....downloads.html
If you then download the the .swf from FurAffinity, and open it with the download from above, it should allow you to still play the game, or other flash files for that matter. :)
The "flash player projector" file from adobe, is available here:
https://www.adobe.com/support/flash.....downloads.html
If you then download the the .swf from FurAffinity, and open it with the download from above, it should allow you to still play the game, or other flash files for that matter. :)
Journal 12 - Curious IM redux
General | Posted 6 years agoSo over the past couple of months, I've been quietly working on Curious IM, or at least, what that project will now become.
I've been itching to make my own interactive world for a while and have somewhat settled on an idea for it. Curious IM as a project, will merge into that. Right now I mostly have backend stuff written. The main game engine is now at over 1000 lines of code. There are multiple python scripts each totalling hundreds of lines each, all written and working. I have developed a grasp of the underlying technologies now; HTML5, Javascript and CSS. I have learned how to use new editors and developed a good working environment, I am still developing the debugging tools to develop content for it, but its certainly taking shape.
So there it is, an update finally after quite some years.
I'm alive! uhm, again!
I've been itching to make my own interactive world for a while and have somewhat settled on an idea for it. Curious IM as a project, will merge into that. Right now I mostly have backend stuff written. The main game engine is now at over 1000 lines of code. There are multiple python scripts each totalling hundreds of lines each, all written and working. I have developed a grasp of the underlying technologies now; HTML5, Javascript and CSS. I have learned how to use new editors and developed a good working environment, I am still developing the debugging tools to develop content for it, but its certainly taking shape.
So there it is, an update finally after quite some years.
I'm alive! uhm, again!
Journal 11 - HTTYD 3 Disappointment
General | Posted 7 years agoIt's been a few weeks since I saw the third how to train your dragon movie. When I first saw it I didn't know what I thought, it wasn't until another friend saw it and we spoke about it that I realised how strong my opinions on it are.
I'm bitterly disappointed by the third movie. The animation was top-notch, some of the writing was a little hammy, especially with the main villain, but this didn't disturb me. There has always been a playful, non-serious tone through the whole series and I like that. What got me is that I feel it totally betrayed the first two movies. At their core those movies promoted and celebrated being different. Building a powerful bond and friendship between hiccup and toothless and to a lesser extent the other riders and their dragons. The third movie seemed to disregard that in favour of a cynical defeatist attitude.
They took the path of separating the dragons and riders totally at the end, made worse by the stated reason being, 'the world is not ready for them' I find that to be a total u-turn from the positive, being different is ok and you aren't alone attitude of all the franchise until now. For example "Jónsi - Where No One Goes" Official music from the second film. Quoted below
We go where no one goes
We slow for no one
Get out of our way
Awake in the sky
We break up so high, alright
Let's make it our own,
Let's savor it
Bit cheesy, but I don't care, I liked it.
I see no savouring in the third movie, just a slow destruction of something I held dear. I kinda see what they tried to do, but I don't support it. This is a horrific end to a series that touched me deeply. Maybe it's just me, but this wasn't what I wanted to see... The world has its faults, but the vision presented in the third movie sounds like the views of somebody who is sick of the world. Views I held too at one point in my life, and had to fight to escape. It's an unwelcome reminder and I'm as sad to know the creative team at the helm feel this way as I am to see this story I enjoyed following end like this.
Sorry for the negativity in this journal, but I kinda wanted to get this out of me, so I can start to move on from it. I did have some vague ideas to do some art involving HTTYD, for me this has put that on an indefinite hold. It's soured the flavour of the series for me unfortunately.
I'm bitterly disappointed by the third movie. The animation was top-notch, some of the writing was a little hammy, especially with the main villain, but this didn't disturb me. There has always been a playful, non-serious tone through the whole series and I like that. What got me is that I feel it totally betrayed the first two movies. At their core those movies promoted and celebrated being different. Building a powerful bond and friendship between hiccup and toothless and to a lesser extent the other riders and their dragons. The third movie seemed to disregard that in favour of a cynical defeatist attitude.
They took the path of separating the dragons and riders totally at the end, made worse by the stated reason being, 'the world is not ready for them' I find that to be a total u-turn from the positive, being different is ok and you aren't alone attitude of all the franchise until now. For example "Jónsi - Where No One Goes" Official music from the second film. Quoted below
We go where no one goes
We slow for no one
Get out of our way
Awake in the sky
We break up so high, alright
Let's make it our own,
Let's savor it
Bit cheesy, but I don't care, I liked it.
I see no savouring in the third movie, just a slow destruction of something I held dear. I kinda see what they tried to do, but I don't support it. This is a horrific end to a series that touched me deeply. Maybe it's just me, but this wasn't what I wanted to see... The world has its faults, but the vision presented in the third movie sounds like the views of somebody who is sick of the world. Views I held too at one point in my life, and had to fight to escape. It's an unwelcome reminder and I'm as sad to know the creative team at the helm feel this way as I am to see this story I enjoyed following end like this.
Sorry for the negativity in this journal, but I kinda wanted to get this out of me, so I can start to move on from it. I did have some vague ideas to do some art involving HTTYD, for me this has put that on an indefinite hold. It's soured the flavour of the series for me unfortunately.
Journal 10 - A Curious IM
General | Posted 8 years agoSo I've been all away and stuff, busy with life and other things. Now though I will be back to arting! yay!
Firstly I will briefly say that Feed A Dragon (Adult Version) is still paused, I find it hard to start on this one, have tried multiple times and want to get creative before trying to resume for about the eighth time or something. o..o It's hard enough to get arting after so long, let alone with such a difficult and taxing project. Internal stuff is immensely hard.
Next, A Curious IM. This is where I am thinking about resuming. I am uncertain however how to proceed. For those who don't know, I have my own website http://dragon.menu/en. I have been exploring and like the idea of more persistent games. RPG style ones, where players can leave and resume as and when they feel like with various settings and progress saved.
I've also been playing a few different interactive stories. To name two of them;
(Banned From Equestria by Pokèhidden) https://www.furaffinity.net/view/17454767/
(The Hotel by mZmm) https://www.furaffinity.net/view/24122474/
I like the direction these take over what amounts to being one long dialogue. I feel that I can do more with the story, without having to write large amounts of what essentially amounts to filler text. Text which I've found to be quite tiresome to write. If I was to resume this story, this way, I would likely start to build the images for the house immediately, alongside restructuring the dialogue. I would keep most of the scenes, but they would be reworked into the new format. Accessed through interacting with the world and Lizard, rather than through selecting the correct dialogue options.
I'm not fully fond of the interface of Quest, using it will also limit the control I have over the projects appearance and capabilities. I wrote custom flash code to make Curious IM work, I am comfortable to do the same again, and not adverse to converting to other formats also, including Android Apps or Unity. If and when support or demand for them warrants the time investment to make it work there.
[Incoming technical details!]
Curious IM is written in a custom markup language of my own design and converted to Actionscript by a Python Script. This means to put it in a new format, I need only write a new conversion script and not alter the whole project. I will likely stick with this structure, although the format itself will need to be reworked to the new demands that will be placed on it.
[/techy geekout]
My question to those who may be interested to comment is, what do you think?
What do you think the pitfalls may be?
Do you like the idea? If so, or if not, why?
What would you perhaps like to see in such a project?
Or do you hate the idea entirely and want to see Curious IM continue as is? xD
Firstly I will briefly say that Feed A Dragon (Adult Version) is still paused, I find it hard to start on this one, have tried multiple times and want to get creative before trying to resume for about the eighth time or something. o..o It's hard enough to get arting after so long, let alone with such a difficult and taxing project. Internal stuff is immensely hard.
Next, A Curious IM. This is where I am thinking about resuming. I am uncertain however how to proceed. For those who don't know, I have my own website http://dragon.menu/en. I have been exploring and like the idea of more persistent games. RPG style ones, where players can leave and resume as and when they feel like with various settings and progress saved.
I've also been playing a few different interactive stories. To name two of them;
(Banned From Equestria by Pokèhidden) https://www.furaffinity.net/view/17454767/
(The Hotel by mZmm) https://www.furaffinity.net/view/24122474/
I like the direction these take over what amounts to being one long dialogue. I feel that I can do more with the story, without having to write large amounts of what essentially amounts to filler text. Text which I've found to be quite tiresome to write. If I was to resume this story, this way, I would likely start to build the images for the house immediately, alongside restructuring the dialogue. I would keep most of the scenes, but they would be reworked into the new format. Accessed through interacting with the world and Lizard, rather than through selecting the correct dialogue options.
I'm not fully fond of the interface of Quest, using it will also limit the control I have over the projects appearance and capabilities. I wrote custom flash code to make Curious IM work, I am comfortable to do the same again, and not adverse to converting to other formats also, including Android Apps or Unity. If and when support or demand for them warrants the time investment to make it work there.
[Incoming technical details!]
Curious IM is written in a custom markup language of my own design and converted to Actionscript by a Python Script. This means to put it in a new format, I need only write a new conversion script and not alter the whole project. I will likely stick with this structure, although the format itself will need to be reworked to the new demands that will be placed on it.
[/techy geekout]
My question to those who may be interested to comment is, what do you think?
What do you think the pitfalls may be?
Do you like the idea? If so, or if not, why?
What would you perhaps like to see in such a project?
Or do you hate the idea entirely and want to see Curious IM continue as is? xD
RAWR!
General | Posted 8 years agohttps://youtu.be/fh_doTIrFRo
Enough said...
---
The draggy is moving *radio static* the draggy is moving! muhahahaha!
Enough said...
---
The draggy is moving *radio static* the draggy is moving! muhahahaha!
Journal 9 - Where else can I be found?
General | Posted 9 years agoSo, I've no doubt everyone knows about the FA issues and such.
I've not a massive interest in attacking FA, nor in promoting it either. It's a medium to connect with others, whilst I value that, I don't hold it up as some holy cow.
Could the admins have done more to protect the site... maybe. I don't really know, being the most popular furry art site kinda paints a massive bulls-eye on your forehead. I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt. Getting back to the reason for the journal however...
I have two interests in being on these sites. One is in sharing my art and seeing the art of others, with similar interests to me. The other is meeting others who share similar interests to me and getting to know them. Neither of these require I commit to only one medium, to that end I set up accounts on several other sites a while back when FA became politically unstable. Now with technical instabilities too, I felt I should extend out and try to strengthen my connections to those who share the interests I have in other places, in case this medium dies somehow.
TL;DR
Sofurry https://mauros.sofurry.com/
Never had issues here, and they offer very good support for larger flash files. (The best of any of the sites I am familiar with.) The full view option does break things in some cases, but clicking download fixes the issue. Stories and literature seem to be received much more positively than other places. I like the site, but the number of those who share my interests seems to be reasonably low. The key-wording system is excellent. Politically I've seen demonstrations of maturity from the administration that make me respect them more.
Deviant Art; http://maurosdragon.deviantart.com/
Some of my content would probably fall foul of their 'obscene content' rules. Posting will therefore not include such things. They also claim to accept flash files of a larger size, however any attempts I made to upload them, failed. The community also feels quite young, making me feel I can't be fully open here. It's a nice site, but I feel it's a bit too mainstream to tolerate some of the weirder stuff I make. There are enough immature members to cause irritation too.
Inkbunny https://inkbunny.net/Mauros
Inkbunny has a very strict, no human nudity policy. This isn't a primary interest of mine, but I have had to skip posting content in the past. (Midnight Snack) I can most certainly see that the admins both care about and put a great deal of effort into security. I'm no expert, but I see several good practices being followed here that are missed or not heeded on other sites.
Weasyl https://www.weasyl.com/~mauros
Had some serious issues with flash files breaking that I've been unable to trace or fix. It also seems deserted to me, definitely the quietest of any of the sites I tried.
Eka's portal https://aryion.com/g4/user/Mauros
It seems to me there are large amounts of Humans-As-Predators vore. Whilst I don't mean to judge people for this interest, I personally find this to be very uncomfortable.
I have been told that this can be avoided though, and I will try it.
E621 https://e621.net/user/show/239624
I'm new to being a user on this site, so I have little to really say at this point. I browsed it a bit in the past, seems nice.
Notes on art sites:
This is a good way to introduce yourself. I check my GreenBlack account on FA the most, but I do check Deviant art, Inkbunny and Sofurry a fair amount too.
IRC:
I've been offline, or not in any channels for ages. I use the nickname Mauros on both furnet and anthrochat. I may not be at my PC, so I may not respond quickly.
F-list: https://www.f-list.net/c/mauros/
I am very rarely online here, but I do occasionally check messages or so.
Skype
I do use skype, but I don't want to publicly post this. We should talk other places first and get to know one another.
I've not a massive interest in attacking FA, nor in promoting it either. It's a medium to connect with others, whilst I value that, I don't hold it up as some holy cow.
Could the admins have done more to protect the site... maybe. I don't really know, being the most popular furry art site kinda paints a massive bulls-eye on your forehead. I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt. Getting back to the reason for the journal however...
I have two interests in being on these sites. One is in sharing my art and seeing the art of others, with similar interests to me. The other is meeting others who share similar interests to me and getting to know them. Neither of these require I commit to only one medium, to that end I set up accounts on several other sites a while back when FA became politically unstable. Now with technical instabilities too, I felt I should extend out and try to strengthen my connections to those who share the interests I have in other places, in case this medium dies somehow.
TL;DR
I'm not planning to abandon FA, but these are the other sites my art can be found on... along with some thoughts about themSofurry https://mauros.sofurry.com/
Never had issues here, and they offer very good support for larger flash files. (The best of any of the sites I am familiar with.) The full view option does break things in some cases, but clicking download fixes the issue. Stories and literature seem to be received much more positively than other places. I like the site, but the number of those who share my interests seems to be reasonably low. The key-wording system is excellent. Politically I've seen demonstrations of maturity from the administration that make me respect them more.
Deviant Art; http://maurosdragon.deviantart.com/
Some of my content would probably fall foul of their 'obscene content' rules. Posting will therefore not include such things. They also claim to accept flash files of a larger size, however any attempts I made to upload them, failed. The community also feels quite young, making me feel I can't be fully open here. It's a nice site, but I feel it's a bit too mainstream to tolerate some of the weirder stuff I make. There are enough immature members to cause irritation too.
Inkbunny https://inkbunny.net/Mauros
Inkbunny has a very strict, no human nudity policy. This isn't a primary interest of mine, but I have had to skip posting content in the past. (Midnight Snack) I can most certainly see that the admins both care about and put a great deal of effort into security. I'm no expert, but I see several good practices being followed here that are missed or not heeded on other sites.
Weasyl https://www.weasyl.com/~mauros
Had some serious issues with flash files breaking that I've been unable to trace or fix. It also seems deserted to me, definitely the quietest of any of the sites I tried.
These are sites I am assessing and considering becoming active on;Eka's portal https://aryion.com/g4/user/Mauros
It seems to me there are large amounts of Humans-As-Predators vore. Whilst I don't mean to judge people for this interest, I personally find this to be very uncomfortable.
I have been told that this can be avoided though, and I will try it.
E621 https://e621.net/user/show/239624
I'm new to being a user on this site, so I have little to really say at this point. I browsed it a bit in the past, seems nice.
These are places I could possibly be contacted
I should note that I am extremely reclusive at the best of times. Please don't take this personally, I am just highly introverted.Notes on art sites:
This is a good way to introduce yourself. I check my GreenBlack account on FA the most, but I do check Deviant art, Inkbunny and Sofurry a fair amount too.
IRC:
I've been offline, or not in any channels for ages. I use the nickname Mauros on both furnet and anthrochat. I may not be at my PC, so I may not respond quickly.
F-list: https://www.f-list.net/c/mauros/
I am very rarely online here, but I do occasionally check messages or so.
Skype
I do use skype, but I don't want to publicly post this. We should talk other places first and get to know one another.
More Info
General | Posted 10 years ago
For Project Information: https://dragon.menu/en/projects
For General Information: https://dragon.menu/en/
Thanks for Favourites and Watches
Thanks to those who watch me or favourite my work!
I don't post thanks on peoples profiles because it feels like a social ritual.
When I say thanks through reflex or ritual, I feel I'm being dishonest.
Each +watch or +fave does make me feel happier about sharing my work though!
I may make comment on profiles, since I always take a look, I am curious about my watchers. ^..^
What will you post here?
Implied/Threatened Vore ... Implied Digestion ... Soft Vore ... External Digestion
What will be posted on NSFW Account Mauros?
Hard Vore ... Graphic Digestion ... Sexual stuff ... Post Vore Disposal
Journal 8 - Dragons dragons everywhere
General | Posted 10 years agoI am currently away in wales with 
We storm the country, there is even burning cars, totally not our fault... honest.
I will most likely be away and/or hard to contact throughout.
We storm the country, there is even burning cars, totally not our fault... honest.
I will most likely be away and/or hard to contact throughout.
All About Me... me me me! ;D
General | Posted 11 years agoRequests: Maybe
I am open to hear requests, but please don't be disappointed if I decline.
The only thing I require if you will make a request is, be able to accept a "Sorry, I don't want to do that."
or more likely "I'll keep it in mind, but don't plan to do that right now."
Trades: No
Currently not productive enough to consider this.
Commissions: Not Currently
It can take months for me to make things, I do not want to involve money right now, it's too stressful.
I take any commitment of such a kind very seriously.
RP/Role-Play: Yes
I am open to RPs, if you see me about on flist's chat, give me a message
My f-list is https://www.f-list.net/c/Mauros
If you have an idea for RP, you can always note me as well.
Promotions or advertising: No
I wish you well, but I feel it harassing to those who watch me to promote stuff.
People watch to see what I make, not hear about others and their stuff.
Its an imposition on their vote of support for what I do, in my mind.
---
Groups I watch/am a member of
NOM NOM NOM! *Gulp* *Rumble* ::: You will be gone for good! (Unless you reform) 
Such a powerful tool to be given freely. ::: RAWR! Dragons! 
Freedom and intimate control of my computer for me thanks. ::: RAWR, on all fours! 
For only in imagination is there greater freedom. ::: RAWR, for real! 
I was born a European and even if my home country leaves, I am still a European in my heart.
---
About Me
Mauros is a black feral western dragon.
He has horns, breathes fire and has two nice big wings to fly and soar with.
His four strong limbs allow me to be quite bouncy when I'm with people I know, or who I feel at ease with.
If I seem a bit withdrawn, don't take offence, I just tend to just be apprehensive with others at first.
I don't believe in abstention from frivolous and harmless pleasures of life, but I don't consider myself shallow.
I seek meaning in what I do, I just don't expect to find it everywhere in everything and that's ok!
Why can't the deeper meaning just be to have a good time for a while.
I'm a big fan of the open-source initiatives and the great community that surrounds blender in particular.
I hope in the future to be able to add my own tutorials etc, since I have gained a great deal from those others kindly put online.
I try to be approachable and if you see something I have done and wonder how I did it feel free to drop me a Note or ask in the comments
I'll then explain as best I can, and/or direct you toward the resources which taught me.
Hang about me for a while and I'm sure I'll corrupt *ahem* introduce you to some weird stuff.
Don't worry if you aren't into weird things though, I never force anything on anyone... except as part of RP perhaps. *whistles*
Yeah I can be quite the forceful and dominant dragon in those, just tell me if I'm overstepping bounds.
I tend to squish those things, I am quite a big, heavy and hungry dragon after all. *blinks*
Wanna judge me for liking weird stuff? That's ok I have my own way of dealing with that.
It's all lies about you being crunchy and good with ketchup you see, you taste just fine without it. *flashes fangs*
---
My tools
(3D Stuff)
For most things I use Blender. https://www.blender.org/
For image editing GIMP. http://www.gimp.org/
For transcoding I use ffmpeg. https://www.ffmpeg.org/
(Flash Stuff)
As an IDE I use Eclipse https://eclipse.org/
I use the Eclipse plugin FDT http://fdt.powerflasher.com/
The SDK I use is Adobe Flex http://sourceforge.net/adobe/flexsdk/wiki/About/
(Javascript, CSS, HTML5)
I use VSCode https://code.visualstudio.com/
(Text and other)
For word processing I use libreoffice https://www.libreoffice.org/
To edit text files I use (g)vim http://www.vim.org/index.php
I use some custom python scripts to convert content https://www.python.org/
My operating system is Arch Linux https://www.archlinux.org/
My left arm is 660mm long and my sense of humour is often sarcastic.
---
Contact Me
Up to date info for that can be found here https://dragon.menu/en/contact
Journal 7 - Getting things moving again
General | Posted 11 years agoOk, so I've been absent for a very very long time. Well several months, but still that feels like a long time to me. Creativity is important to me and to have it nearly totally absent within my life has been quite unpleasant. I won't go into why, lots going on and such. Enough about that though, this journal is about restarting things, not about why or how they ended up stopped for so long.
Firstly there is the negative. It's odd for me to think of others wanting to see what I make, I never anticipated that and it's been quite weird to say the least. On to the bad thing though, it's about FeedADragon Adult. I have a strong vision and drive for what I want to see. Sadly that proved out of alignment with my skills in no small way. I've no plans to scrap the project, but it will not be out anytime soon. It's a learning project for me and always was, as are all of my current projects actually, I just underestimated how steep and straining the curve is with internal stuff, I know I'm also not the only one to have found this when it comes to animating it. Couple that with being demotivated and you get a bad recipe for any sort of progress. There are 13 Animations to do. I have 11 left still to do. So it's likely to be a while.
Seondly I can say more positively that I've been working steadily on ACuriousIM. I work on it, and there is progress, that helps with motivation. With such a project though it's very hard to know when to release an update. I can count the number of 'frames' there are, and go on that, but some frames are never visible when you pick certain options. I don't want people to view it and then say, "uhm, so what is new?" The last posted version has about 36 frames, the current development version has 56. (Most of which were written in the last week.) I will probably keep going until some arbitrary number and then just bite the bullet and post. Maybe 80 or 100 or so. I'd like to do it sooner rather than later, as the last version has a corrupted display type.
Firstly there is the negative. It's odd for me to think of others wanting to see what I make, I never anticipated that and it's been quite weird to say the least. On to the bad thing though, it's about FeedADragon Adult. I have a strong vision and drive for what I want to see. Sadly that proved out of alignment with my skills in no small way. I've no plans to scrap the project, but it will not be out anytime soon. It's a learning project for me and always was, as are all of my current projects actually, I just underestimated how steep and straining the curve is with internal stuff, I know I'm also not the only one to have found this when it comes to animating it. Couple that with being demotivated and you get a bad recipe for any sort of progress. There are 13 Animations to do. I have 11 left still to do. So it's likely to be a while.
Seondly I can say more positively that I've been working steadily on ACuriousIM. I work on it, and there is progress, that helps with motivation. With such a project though it's very hard to know when to release an update. I can count the number of 'frames' there are, and go on that, but some frames are never visible when you pick certain options. I don't want people to view it and then say, "uhm, so what is new?" The last posted version has about 36 frames, the current development version has 56. (Most of which were written in the last week.) I will probably keep going until some arbitrary number and then just bite the bullet and post. Maybe 80 or 100 or so. I'd like to do it sooner rather than later, as the last version has a corrupted display type.
Journal 6 - FeedADragon Quality 1, Twitter and stuff
General | Posted 11 years agoIt's been a bit longer than I'd like since the last time I posted an animation.
I've been working on a new project, a story where you can choose your own direction. I will have images to accompany the tale, and probably a few animations too... guess which scenes those will be with. *giggles* Oh yeah, the story is vore-centric... I have also been working on FeedADragon, the adult version, I've not abandoned it at all! Honest! It's just extremely difficult to render internals and digestion in 3D, without it looking... awful. It gets frustrating when little progress is made, so I have to take breaks and do other stuff.
I also now have a twitter account, https://twitter.com/MaurosDragon I hope to, amongst other things, post some art updates and stuff there too, to help keep me focused. ^..^
I have posted FeedADragon to mega, they have an 'undefined' download limit for free accounts, so I don't know what will happen in terms of, if/when will the links get locked down and such. To use them you will have to download the .swf (Adobe Flash) file and save it to your computer. From there you can open it with your browser. How you would do this may vary. You may be able to click the file in your file browser, or you may have go to your browser and select "open file" If many have issues, I will probably put together a how-to guide. Please don't tell me I need to get it so you can just view it on-line, I would if it were practically possible. If you have a suggestion about how, please tell me!
Mega Links for FeedADragon 1.0 (clean)
Quality 6, A level which I feel gives pretty good quality. (Please read above for how to view)
https://mega.co.nz/#!DFcShCya!UaJTqDFhhkQsmL7D6BgSe3SbP1MglsijVeC2wOdciQE
Quality 1, the highest possible encoding quality using the system I use.
Be warned, the file is over 140mb in size. (Please read above for how to view)
https://mega.co.nz/#!6VN3USbD!J90mfHribf2pKMmtUuUjhHYWUdgF6qnh17nr_HUBKI4
I've been working on a new project, a story where you can choose your own direction. I will have images to accompany the tale, and probably a few animations too... guess which scenes those will be with. *giggles* Oh yeah, the story is vore-centric... I have also been working on FeedADragon, the adult version, I've not abandoned it at all! Honest! It's just extremely difficult to render internals and digestion in 3D, without it looking... awful. It gets frustrating when little progress is made, so I have to take breaks and do other stuff.
I also now have a twitter account, https://twitter.com/MaurosDragon I hope to, amongst other things, post some art updates and stuff there too, to help keep me focused. ^..^
I have posted FeedADragon to mega, they have an 'undefined' download limit for free accounts, so I don't know what will happen in terms of, if/when will the links get locked down and such. To use them you will have to download the .swf (Adobe Flash) file and save it to your computer. From there you can open it with your browser. How you would do this may vary. You may be able to click the file in your file browser, or you may have go to your browser and select "open file" If many have issues, I will probably put together a how-to guide. Please don't tell me I need to get it so you can just view it on-line, I would if it were practically possible. If you have a suggestion about how, please tell me!
Mega Links for FeedADragon 1.0 (clean)
Quality 6, A level which I feel gives pretty good quality. (Please read above for how to view)
https://mega.co.nz/#!DFcShCya!UaJTqDFhhkQsmL7D6BgSe3SbP1MglsijVeC2wOdciQE
Quality 1, the highest possible encoding quality using the system I use.
Be warned, the file is over 140mb in size. (Please read above for how to view)
https://mega.co.nz/#!6VN3USbD!J90mfHribf2pKMmtUuUjhHYWUdgF6qnh17nr_HUBKI4
Journal 5 - On the subject of internal shots
General | Posted 12 years agoInternal shots are proving to be something that is requiring a lot of thought. The issue is that the throat, crop, stomach and guts are all very tight, and expand around things as they enter them. I've watched a few endoscopy videos and such in the past and at the moment, I'm not sure my level of skill is such that I could pull off a realistic depiction of internals and not have it look totally awful. It may be possible, if you cheat and imagine a bubble around the viewer that the insides react to, this is something I'll likely explore in the future. Although it adds a great deal of complexity to something which is already very difficult due to how close the view is to the surfaces.
For now I'm swaying toward imagining the insides of the creature as being expanded with air. This is something I've seen in every single piece of POV internal art I've seen so far. It's understandable and to be honest, art is a representation of reality meant to illicit or convey a feeling or emotion. Not every piece needs to be as if we had taken a photo of something that exists as it exists. All the same I'm a little less than satisfied at stopping at that so I will be pushing every aspect of realism that I can forwards. In the art I produce like this, and with all future techniques.
The second less significant problem is the lighting. I do like to try and keep a sense of realism here too. However it would be very boring if all my internal shots were simply a black screen. I don't really want to go the route of my characters insides glowing, it feels a bit off for me. Most forms of light we have made, wouldn't last long in a dragon, unless specially designed. It's not really fitting to the story-lines to have the dragon eat a specialist piece of equipment to light his insides every time either. My solution for now is those little snap lights you can get for concerts. I'm also going to pursue having them breakdown and the glowing fluid spill out. This could be a very interesting thing to depict.
I have been working on ideas for how to do the internal stuff and produced a few early renders that I'm very pleased with. I will likely upload a collection of these as a scrap; a sort of sneak preview of what will come later and what I'm up to. OpenGL renders for internals tend to look awful because of the lack of lighting so some imagination may be required until 1.0, seeing an output render of the insides will help with that.
Any ideas, suggestions or responses to these thoughts are very welcome. ^..^
For now I'm swaying toward imagining the insides of the creature as being expanded with air. This is something I've seen in every single piece of POV internal art I've seen so far. It's understandable and to be honest, art is a representation of reality meant to illicit or convey a feeling or emotion. Not every piece needs to be as if we had taken a photo of something that exists as it exists. All the same I'm a little less than satisfied at stopping at that so I will be pushing every aspect of realism that I can forwards. In the art I produce like this, and with all future techniques.
The second less significant problem is the lighting. I do like to try and keep a sense of realism here too. However it would be very boring if all my internal shots were simply a black screen. I don't really want to go the route of my characters insides glowing, it feels a bit off for me. Most forms of light we have made, wouldn't last long in a dragon, unless specially designed. It's not really fitting to the story-lines to have the dragon eat a specialist piece of equipment to light his insides every time either. My solution for now is those little snap lights you can get for concerts. I'm also going to pursue having them breakdown and the glowing fluid spill out. This could be a very interesting thing to depict.
I have been working on ideas for how to do the internal stuff and produced a few early renders that I'm very pleased with. I will likely upload a collection of these as a scrap; a sort of sneak preview of what will come later and what I'm up to. OpenGL renders for internals tend to look awful because of the lack of lighting so some imagination may be required until 1.0, seeing an output render of the insides will help with that.
Any ideas, suggestions or responses to these thoughts are very welcome. ^..^
Journal 4 - A flash of a story
General | Posted 12 years agoSo I've been pushing on with flash development, it took a lot of research and such to figure out how to actually do it.
<tech-filled paragraph>
As a Linux user I bemoan paying for a product I would have to use windows, VMs or wine to use, so I have to look for alternatives to Adobe's flash IDE. After research I learned Adobe started to use a .mxml and .as combo to make flash files in their newer flex sdk. *Joy!* I can develop for flash using Eclipse IDE and a plugin called FDT (or even vim, maybe I will switch to vim yet. Hardcore style!) Progress has been quite slow, but I've gathered a good idea of what is possible and my plans for flash are starting to look realistically possible. If anyone should happen to have experience in this area, especially links to beginners resources on flash coding this way, I'd be grateful for any help. ^..^ (Reading Adobes documentation isn't exactly an easy beginners guide.)
</tech-filled paragraph>
My plans for the flashy future are as follows. I plan to make a choose your path type story flash. It will probably have some static images which change and are appropriate to the story being told. My ultimate goal is to have video interactive flash stories. I'm setting the goal at a point where it should be achievable however and starting with image and text based story-telling.
I've also been working on a rat-perspective-view of my 'pest control' animation. The texturing is not up to standard, and before I can improve it I had to finish rigging the model. Until now only half of him actually existed, the other was a mirror, hehe. I've done that now and have moved on to the actual texturing. Naturally learning as you go makes everything ten times slower.
<tech-filled paragraph>
As a Linux user I bemoan paying for a product I would have to use windows, VMs or wine to use, so I have to look for alternatives to Adobe's flash IDE. After research I learned Adobe started to use a .mxml and .as combo to make flash files in their newer flex sdk. *Joy!* I can develop for flash using Eclipse IDE and a plugin called FDT (or even vim, maybe I will switch to vim yet. Hardcore style!) Progress has been quite slow, but I've gathered a good idea of what is possible and my plans for flash are starting to look realistically possible. If anyone should happen to have experience in this area, especially links to beginners resources on flash coding this way, I'd be grateful for any help. ^..^ (Reading Adobes documentation isn't exactly an easy beginners guide.)
</tech-filled paragraph>
My plans for the flashy future are as follows. I plan to make a choose your path type story flash. It will probably have some static images which change and are appropriate to the story being told. My ultimate goal is to have video interactive flash stories. I'm setting the goal at a point where it should be achievable however and starting with image and text based story-telling.
I've also been working on a rat-perspective-view of my 'pest control' animation. The texturing is not up to standard, and before I can improve it I had to finish rigging the model. Until now only half of him actually existed, the other was a mirror, hehe. I've done that now and have moved on to the actual texturing. Naturally learning as you go makes everything ten times slower.
Journal 3 - Dragons Ahoy
General | Posted 12 years agoYay, I finally got a render I was happy with uploaded after months of inactivity.
My plan at the moment is to try my talon at comic making. In some ways this is harder than animation I think, conveying motion and such in static images... animation is probably still harder though, simply due to the volume of things you have to process and look at, I can see points where my last animation has big mistakes in, and I spent literally hours watching it over and over looking for them. Still finding mistakes is always a good thing, no better way to improve than seeing them. Focusing more time on individual frames as you do when making a comic will probably help when I move back to full animation.
With my last dragon model, I couldn't believe it but I didn't use one of the tricks I already learned for making the eyes look more alive. I experimented with a new one, using an Anisotropic shader for the iris, with results that I was happy with. The effect isn't shown off quite so much in this render as it was with one where I had badly setup lighting. Adding the previous trick involving the structure of the eye... made it look better and showed it off more for this render, but nevermind. The 1-page comic I'm thinking of involves this particular dragon anyway, and vore... of course. I have ideas for another more elaborate comic as well, but will try with something a bit smaller and more likely to get finished first. ;p
As always all comments welcome, and critiques, they are any aspiring artists best friend.
My plan at the moment is to try my talon at comic making. In some ways this is harder than animation I think, conveying motion and such in static images... animation is probably still harder though, simply due to the volume of things you have to process and look at, I can see points where my last animation has big mistakes in, and I spent literally hours watching it over and over looking for them. Still finding mistakes is always a good thing, no better way to improve than seeing them. Focusing more time on individual frames as you do when making a comic will probably help when I move back to full animation.
With my last dragon model, I couldn't believe it but I didn't use one of the tricks I already learned for making the eyes look more alive. I experimented with a new one, using an Anisotropic shader for the iris, with results that I was happy with. The effect isn't shown off quite so much in this render as it was with one where I had badly setup lighting. Adding the previous trick involving the structure of the eye... made it look better and showed it off more for this render, but nevermind. The 1-page comic I'm thinking of involves this particular dragon anyway, and vore... of course. I have ideas for another more elaborate comic as well, but will try with something a bit smaller and more likely to get finished first. ;p
As always all comments welcome, and critiques, they are any aspiring artists best friend.
Journal 2 - *Poof*
General | Posted 13 years agoSo I seem to have disappeared... I'm still here, honest. My first plan to work on the monitor lizard sort of fizzled out for now, I instead ended up working on another dragon... what can I say dragons are awesome. I decided to play with sculpting tools in blender and I was really pleased with them.
They are still being polished and such, dynamic topology will be awesome when it arrives. I have to say sculpting is amazing for organics. Up until now I've been using box-modelling, starting with geometric shapes subdividing, then moving the vertices around. Sculpting seems much better suited for organic creatures than this, so yay. I will be posting some images of my new dragon, just finishing him off at the moment. I'm also working on improving my texturing too, generating a normal map from a high resolution sculpted mesh worked out nicely in my test model dragon. I will be using this technique in the future.
Summery: I'm still here, honest. Dragon pictures are on the way.
They are still being polished and such, dynamic topology will be awesome when it arrives. I have to say sculpting is amazing for organics. Up until now I've been using box-modelling, starting with geometric shapes subdividing, then moving the vertices around. Sculpting seems much better suited for organic creatures than this, so yay. I will be posting some images of my new dragon, just finishing him off at the moment. I'm also working on improving my texturing too, generating a normal map from a high resolution sculpted mesh worked out nicely in my test model dragon. I will be using this technique in the future.
Summery: I'm still here, honest. Dragon pictures are on the way.
Journal 1 - Prods journal system inquisitively with a talon
General | Posted 13 years agoOk, so this is my first journal, I never really knew what I was meant to say and stuff here so I never used it. Since I just uploaded then removed a submission I figured it was a good time to post a journal, firstly to explain the random message (I assume even if something is removed it still leaves the notifications.) Then perhaps discuss my future plans to try and keep myself motivated and maybe speed up my upload rate.
Firstly the removed animation. Events on another site made me double-check the FA AUP. Turns out I was probably in violation. Everything except the human model and some textures were my work. Textures seem ok (they were a mix and heavily modified anyway) The human model wasn't my work or heavily modified, so I removed it. I feel a bit disheartened because things were somewhat building up to this point, but the AUP was as clear as anything and there for me to read.
The animation in question was of the terror dog. I have decided on reflection to drop this idea. Since I'm using a character from an established program, I'm unsure about the copyright side of things, as well as the ethics of taking somebodies design even a commercial one and using it in fetish material without their knowledge. Even if the particular acts are in-keeping with the portrayal of them. From now on I'll stick to creatures of my own design, or those who give explicit consent. It's not like its a great hardship.
Secondly and more positively my future plans. I will drop back to my monitor lizard and do some work developing and updating him with what I learned in the making of the animation. I then intend to make an animation using him. I will have to make the 'prey' character myself to avoid any potential issues so it may be a while before it's finished. My release rate still seems to be every two months give or take, so I'll go out on a limb and say hopefully I'll get something up before the end of the year, even if its just a preview shot or something.
It'd be interesting to hear others thoughts on the ethics of using somebody else's design in fetish material. What do you think about it? When is it ok/not ok and why?
Firstly the removed animation. Events on another site made me double-check the FA AUP. Turns out I was probably in violation. Everything except the human model and some textures were my work. Textures seem ok (they were a mix and heavily modified anyway) The human model wasn't my work or heavily modified, so I removed it. I feel a bit disheartened because things were somewhat building up to this point, but the AUP was as clear as anything and there for me to read.
The animation in question was of the terror dog. I have decided on reflection to drop this idea. Since I'm using a character from an established program, I'm unsure about the copyright side of things, as well as the ethics of taking somebodies design even a commercial one and using it in fetish material without their knowledge. Even if the particular acts are in-keeping with the portrayal of them. From now on I'll stick to creatures of my own design, or those who give explicit consent. It's not like its a great hardship.
Secondly and more positively my future plans. I will drop back to my monitor lizard and do some work developing and updating him with what I learned in the making of the animation. I then intend to make an animation using him. I will have to make the 'prey' character myself to avoid any potential issues so it may be a while before it's finished. My release rate still seems to be every two months give or take, so I'll go out on a limb and say hopefully I'll get something up before the end of the year, even if its just a preview shot or something.
It'd be interesting to hear others thoughts on the ethics of using somebody else's design in fetish material. What do you think about it? When is it ok/not ok and why?
