deviantART: by:YoungLink19

Ooh, the joy of a novice... media and program dude

~YoungLink19 — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:12:05 PST

Okay. I've done 2 things today. One, the programming of a school homework of mine. It's a small game about evading incoming bullets, but you cannot attack. My best score was merely above 20 seconds, meh...

Two, I finished the programming portion of Super Moron Bros CS4. Given the cancellation of CS5 beta, I'm not renaming it to CS5 or something. Now only the audio part is left, which is a pain since game sound effects are never easy to find, and I can't rip SE myself. Still, I'm amazed at the (ultra low) amount of programming work done. Not the work capacity that I'm amazed at, but that I actually kicked myself around and, you know, actually worked for something not in a hurry.

Also, I really look forward to the actual Flash CS5 to be released.

User interfaces, user friendliness and more (2)

~YoungLink19 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:44:48 PST

I talked about fail UIs before. So now, the WIN ones.

Opera Internet Browser
Basically speaking, the best internet suite ever. I'm talking about the desktop computer version here though, the mobile/DS/Wii ones are a bit too limited in functionalities. A few things I like about it:
Security. Since almost nobody uses Opera, not much trojan makers target Opera. And Opera's security settings are strict by default. And Opea does not do unneeded popup blocks either - it is smart enough to know what popups do you actually NEED.
Flexibility. Resizeable search bar? Check since version 10. Multiple instances of the same button? Check. Putting tabs at anywhere you want? Check. No annoying new window / download manager / RSS feeder / mail client taking spaces in taskbar? YESSSS.
Oh, and Opera does not even store web history unless when asked to - unlike some browsers that do dspite you telling them not to.

nVidia video drivers
Now now, nVidia. Unlike ATi, nVidia provides quite a lot of functions to have fun with. One of them include the ability to set your monitor to display ANY resolution, which I made great use of when I lacked money and thought 1024*768 is too lame of a resolution.

Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn
Fixed the problem in FE9 where you can't move your cursor freely when switching character's starting position, battle animation was FAR better and comes with the HIT/DMG/CRT info (FE9 is the only FE not having that info), and the game is usually very easy to navigate around with so that you can emphasize at what do you want your army to do without worrying about the controls and stuff not related to the game. The only thing bad about it would be the save file that cannot be moved.

Ribbon interface
You know, the thing that replaced the menus in Windows 7 / Office 2007 / Office 2010. Not only is everything organised, but this design is actually good for new users that it's easier to learn. You no longer have menus that block the actual document, and it's nicely strapped to a specific area. This doesn't work with multimedia software, obviously, where you still need panels everywhere. But as far as simple stuff goes, Ribbon is actually a good thing. Now that MS's done well in the upper part of the screen, how about they make the Start Menu easier to use as well?

Macromedia MX
CS4 is just too much. They expand far too quickly, and I guess that's why the Flash team is forgetting about why Flash is there in the first place: To provide multimeida elements with a low disk space. Started with Flash, Macromedia MX is a series of software that provides docakble panels among other features. It makes things a lot user-friendlier at that point. I'd say MX to 8 provided the best authoring environment - while CS4 is just too much. As for CS5, well, we'll see.

...Geez. Good interfaces are difficult to find.

User interfaces, user friendliness and more

~YoungLink19 — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:38:34 PST

Okay. So basically speaking, me writing this here doesn't serve much purpose than ranting. But anyway, here I go talking about what I think is important.

Basically speaking, every consumer product has its own way to interact with its consumer. To be user-friendly, the product needs to be operated smoothly by its intended used. For example, a pork chop burger with the steak in it not deboned is not user-friendly. Basically speaking, I deem most things I encounter in life to be user-unfriendly (I myself, for example, why can't even I have the administrative right to access the whole of my own brain?) although there are good exceptions. So anyway, here are a few notable ones I'd like to talk about.

Things I find user-unfriendly:

Wii
Yeah, Wii.
One thing I dislike include copy protection. Not being able to copy save files is an instant fail, especially when it's about save files of difficult or long games. Sure, it does prevent people from leaking full saves away, but "you cannot copy your own file and it's not because technical limitation" is outright stupid.
Other things I dislike include no GC controller support in Wii Menu, no auto startup mode (not interested in those non-game functionalities!), lack of actually good WiiWare games, far-from-perfect emulation given by VC (I can't ground pound in Yoshi's Story unless I try really hard and I want to have my 1000 points back now) and so on.

Computer monitors
Seriously. Who's idea is that everyone makes monitors of the same resolution?
It's true that several current video specifications fix the video at 1920*1080, but the problem is, what is a computer monitor for? Watching videos is one of them, but it certainly is not the only thing they do. And really, different people have different demand schedules here.
For the eyes of the average, 4:3 is a pretty good aspect ratio. 16:9 instantly creates non-screen areas above or below screen, and it's rather distracting, to be honest. Ratio aside, who's idea is to use a low resolution of 1920*1080? You cannot even use Flash properly with that resolution; although in this case, the screen is not to blame.
I'm using Samsung 2343BWX+ which has a resolution of 2048*1152 and I still cannot open everything with no trouble. If possible, I want to have 2560*1920 in the furute. Or 100 DS screens combined would suffice.

Start Menu
One thing about Windows - or any OS - is the lack of customizability. So for example, I want to open an application. I can use any shortcut I want, but if I am to use the Start Menu, It'll be anywhere depending on your Taskbar settings - one thing for sure though, it'll never appear at bottom right. And since the Start button is oh-so-important, why can't I move it to the center of the Taskbar? I can access it easier!
Windows 7 Start Menu makes thing worse by offering no traditional or XP Start Menu, and the new design takes more clicks to open an application (since you actually HAVE to click the Start Menu subfolders) as well as less clicks to accidentally shut down your computer (there is no confirmation dialog for shutdown). Way to go, Microsoft.

Adobe Flash CS4
I like the design of the new interface. I like how those new tools work. I like how you can drag stage elements with live previewing and how the program actually launches faster. What I dislike is that the Flash team did literally nothing to accomodate their software to the new skin, now universal across Adobe software.
What do I mean here? Well, the app does not launch in a maximized window even when I edit the shortcut in the Start Menu, old Main / Control toolbars cannot dock anywhere. And seriously, having a Save button instantly available is important - Microsoft knows this and Windows 7 & Office 2007/2010 components now do have instantly-availabe Save buttons in the top-left corner.
Other Flash problems include the Autosave panel's "save new version" option does not work, and the timeline is broken with Classic Tweens.
Well, at least the Flash team's leader does initiatively ask for user input.

Death counts and statistics
Some games come with death counts. Whenever you miss, whenever you get someone killed, your death count is increased by one. Early Fire Emblem games do it (up to FE8). Zelda games do it. Even Kirby did it once - in Gourmet Race.
The newer Mario games are some of my favourites. Mario Galaxy is pretty good, yeah? But it also introduced a death count. I for example, missed 125 times by the time I got all 242 stars. Same for New Super Mario Bros Wii - this one does no...

I'm wasn't lazy enough to be real lazy

~YoungLink19 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:50:43 PST

Gallery Website My Prints My Favorites

For real. There will be quite a large amount (compare to other weeks of this semester of my study, so it's still not much) of assignments and other stuff to do over the week, and as such I should be working on it instead of, for example, typing here. Yet, I'm trying to escape work - and as a result, I get no rest. LOL. I can't take a lazy rest because I wasn't lazy enough to do stuff ahead. And to think I wasn't like this when this semester started, haha.

I'll probably finish my required stuff on time. This final week will look longer than any other though. A few assignments (though GRAAAAAAA! PROGRAMMING IS NEVER TOO DIFFICULT!), having to talk to my partner on the upcoming French oral exam (which I think is asking for too much; trying to be creative with just what I learned? Feh.) and having to think on if I should resign from one subject that I kept failing in - I hope the consequence isn't too bad.

All while fighting off distractions. Especially that I need to stay out from things that link to one another, like Wikipedia. I tend to browse for almost forever for sites like that.

The reward for all these would be that I'll finally see a Japanese release of New SMB Wii. So maybe it's worth all I have to do this week.

-nocYL, the Jeigan of this world

My animation

~YoungLink19 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:02:58 PST

Gallery Faves

Never coming, yeah. But then, I'd like to say that I've got enough ideas to make it running. If not, I can always throuw in some New SMB DS/Wii moments - these games are prone to FAIL moments, or are easy to make ones with, now that I'm looking at them again. But then, they may not go well with the original goal of my current animation.

If I can kick myself around to work on it, well, then it should be near its finish. Looks like I'm lazy though... And, in a way, at the expense of gaining more time to be awake, I seem to have my powers, physical and mental, decreased. I was just in school, wanting to work on a school assignment, but my mind wandered off and I was... browsing on Wikipedia and other places for information about error screens, file systems, Mac OS X and whatnot. For 5 hours.

And how many more days before I can lay my hand on the Japanese version of New SMB Wii?

About my future animation

~YoungLink19 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:50:20 PDT

I started a project that would, ideally, include a few jokes on the Mario series, and make it a short animation compilation.

Sample animation: [link]

Development screen: [link] (don't rely on the library names)

The problem is, over time, I've lost interest, and cannot find suitable ideas on the animation. So I decided that rather than losing the entire file by not publicizing it, I'll put up the half-completed version instead.

And before I'll add in the finishing touches, I think I'll need ideas on one or two additional animation. Depending on my time and mood, it will be finished by early or mid-2010 (because I'm not in the mood for making animation... not anymore. And while I never blame animators for using sprites, I can see why some of them do. Making pixel arts is easier. Especialy for user-unfriendly environments like Flash.)

And I was SUCH a fool for making animation without working with audio in parallel. Now the "final touches" will take me forever.

Adobe what?

~YoungLink19 — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:32:58 PDT

CLICK ON THIS LINK PLEASE.

I wonder what this "AB" thing might be. I think I know the name of each Adobe product by now. Still, I can't think of anything that's remotely related to "AB". Omniture doesn't make consumer products, so it's unlikely an acquired product.

Let me recall all these shortforms...

AE = After Effects
Ai = Illustrator
Au = Audition
Aw = Authorware
Br = Bridge
CF = ColdFusion
Co = Content Server
Cp = Captivate
Ct = Contribute
Di = Director
Dw = Dreamweaver
En = Encore
FB = Flash Builder
FC = Flash Catalyst
FF = Font Folio
FH = FreeHand
Fl = Flash
= Flash Media Server
FM = FrameMaker
Fw = Fireworks
Fx = Flex (Adobe sure love their F's...)
Gl = GoLive
ID = InDesign / InDesign Server
IC = InCopy
IR = ImageReady
JR = Jrun
ku = Kuler
LC = LiveCycle
Lr = Photoshop Lightroom
OL = OnLocation
PM = PageMaker
Pr = Premiere Pro
pre = Premiere Elements
prx = Premiere Express
Ps = Photoshop
pse = Photoshop Elements
psx = Photoshop Express
RH = RoboHelp
S7 = Scene7 OnDemand Media Solutions
Sb = Soundbooth
Ul = Ultra
VC = Visual Communicator

...Really, what is AB?

Flash hates me

~YoungLink19 — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:05:15 PDT

....Seriously. I've been ranting all the time, but I am really, REALLY annoyed.

Flash dies. While I was simply moving a group. I was only drawing. I wasn't even animating!

I wasn't doing anything exceeding 16000 frames, 16000 symbols, 2 million lines of codes... No. I was only moving ONE SIMPLE GROUP CONTAINING ONE CURVE WITH TWO REGISTERED BEIZER CURVE POINTS. And what did that thing treat me? Die right away! CPU wasn't busy, memory wasn't occupied, nothing was crashing... Flash just somewhat launched a "suicide" command on its own. Seriously. How could that happen?

The file isn't even big. In terms of file size, the biggest thing I worked on was called "Super Smash Theatre" (look for it in Lemmy's Land, section 35 (Funnies)) and its size was 249MB. Flash 7 crashed a few times, to be fair, but it had a much more valid reason of dying: Not enough physical memory on my old machine with 512MB of RAM. And now? A 38MB file, working on a fairly powerful computer, but... crashes, just because it likes to?

If I didn't want to have the 3D effect, I could have migrated it back to Flash 8 where I could work on it eventlessly and faster.

And to be fair, Flash CS4 has gone through several other abuses, but it runs well or had only small lags. It's just that this time it dies because I triggered exactly NOTHING?

I want to see Flash 11. No, not "the next version of Flash 10". I meant a completely new sofftware named Flash 11. As in, Mac OS X not basing on OS 9.

I turned on auto-save, as a new version every 1 minute. I want to know if there are variations to save, say, every 10 changes in FLA though. After auto-saving, my hard disk should be full of junk files - but will save lifes in emergencies.

So yeah, there goes. If there's ever CS5 (not anytime soon; CS4.3 isn't out yet), I'd like to see a better user interface, support for actual 3D and an advanced autosave function. Nay, not just CS5. I want to see autosave in EVERY SINGLE SOFTWARE EDITOR.

10 Lies Nintendo Made

~YoungLink19 — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:45:36 PDT

Seriously, Nintendo has a bad habit. And it's called lying. I'm reciting the major ones here...

Lying about a game's genre
Kirby Air Ride is a golf game... uh no, snowboarding... uh no, racing game. Mario 64 is a straight-line platformer... well wait, it's an exploration-type game. Can't Nintendo try to be a bit more consistent? Well, these changes are made to benefit gamers, so it's just fine.

Hey, so what is NES!?
Say.... Japan called it Family Computer. America used the whole ROB bundle strategy to tell people it's not a game console, only to contradict itself by saying it IS a videogame console, and not a home computer, when Nintendo and ELORG went on a legal battle with Tengen, who claims to have obtained an Atari license to port Tetris to "home computers". So really, what should NES be classified to?

Nintendo loves cancelling games
Yeah, serious. Kirby Tilt'n'Tumble 2, canned. Super Mario FX, canned. Star Fox 2, canned. 4 out of the 8 planned Mario Artist, canned. Multiplayer in Virtual Boy, canned. Promise to rerlease VC in non-originating region, almost disappeared. Kirby for Nintendo GameCube, canned. CAN YOU STOP ANNOUNCING WHAT YOU WON'T DO, NINT?

Nintendo loves misleading people too
Say, Super Mario 128 is a tech demo. And it eventually turned out to be an experiment... elements were used in Pikmin and Mario Galaxy but Mario 128 itself is never a game... IF SO, WHY ANNOUNCE MARIo 128 AS A GAME IN THE FIRST PLACE? If you can't handle the future, don't go all over-confident.

Unexpected moves... multiple times
Nintendo pulled unexpected moves for a few times. Say, they once misled people that Revolution will be multi-colour. And? The result: just a white Wii. White, and nothing else. By the time they decided to sell black Wii, most potential players are already Wii owners. You're just trying to anger those who want a black Wii. And other unexpected stunts? Cancelling Internet Channel's fee, making it free, and giving one Famicom Virtual Console game for free as a redeem. Really, no thanks. I'd have loved to get 500 points back, merging it with another 500, and buy a Nintendo 64 game instead. Or WiiWare.

Exaggerating about a game's awesomeness
Say, look at Brawl. they were talking about it as if Brawl is going to be ever-so-groundbreaking that it's going to change the history of cross-series fighting forever. Well, it doesn't. Opinions vary, but I'd have preferred Melee over it if not for the fact that Meta Knight and King Dedede are newcomers. And seriously, 35 characters, 47 stages, 49 items? What a small roster. I wanted 100 characters, 150 stages and 100 items.

Giving false hope
Kirby for Nintendo GameCube. Anounced in E3 2005, unmentioned in E3 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, and yet announcing it in every single financial report Nintendo released if a future release list is included. It changed from "TBA 2006" to "TBA 2009" now - seriously, bu August 2009 and you still say "TBA 2009"? Is that even possible?

Acting all noobish on hardware
NOA on Game backup: "'Backup' and 'archive' copies of videogame data is not needed." See, Nintendo is a real retard when it comes to file management. I know your games are copyrighted, but can you PLEASE at lease let me copy the save data?
NOA on Nintendo DS: "Nintendo DS does not need screen protectors. It will only make the screen less sensitive to the stylus." Sure, Nintendo wants us to break our screens and buy new ones instead. Nice move.
NOA on Wii: "We're making Wii Menu more usable." Nonsense. I still can't switch to auto mode, use GC controller to control the menu and I still can't delete unwanted channels like News Channel and Weather Channel. If you ask me, only Mii Channel and Wii Shop Channel should stay.

Denying technology
I said this many times over, but while Nintendo's graphics is acceptable... Having a 640*480 screen stuck on my 1920*1080 screen is not. True to say HDMI is expensive and all, but VGA and DVI ARE NOT. Can't they at least avoid asking players to read gigantic, jaggy, ugly unsmooth pixels?

ESRB, PEGI, CERO and OFLC mean no more checking on games
Geez. These organizations aim at filtering contents unsuitable for children. CERO really knows what to do, ESRB loves political correctness, PEGI is better, but still too strict and I doubt the workload of OFLC is heavy at all. Anyway, they monitor violence contents, and not the quality of the games themselves. What does that mean? Welcome, shovelware. Seriously, why does Nintendo even allow those unknown publisher (I'm talking about YOU, D3 PUBLISHER) to produce games?

Meh. I'm tagged.

~YoungLink19 — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:13:53 PDT

Tagged by

A
- Available: I'm way tooooo free. Please, look for me when you've got time.
- Age: 7457 days
- Annoyance: Some say I am annoying.
- Allergic: If I say this out, I'll get beaten up.
- Animal: What Masahiro Sakurai likes!
- Actor: I don't watch movies

B
- Beer: I don't drink
- Birthday: March 31, Friday
- Best Friend: I don't have a specific best friend above all
- Body Part on opposite/same sex: ...Why should I like any body part?
- Best feeling in the world: Huh? ...I'm not into telling too much secret...
- Blind or Deaf: Left ear blocked since 2 days ago. Probably due to some cold.
- Best weather: Cloudy nights
- Been in Love: Huh?
- Been bitched out?: What?
- Been on stage?: Nope... And I've got stage fright
- Believe in yourself?: Nay
- Believe in life on other planets: There should be.
- Believe in miracles: Lilkie tagged me. I think that's a miracle
- Believe in Magic: I believe I'm a mage.
- Believe in God: No.... don't blame me. My belief is... unusual.
- Believe in Satan: No. The most Satanic thing would be whoever promotes Satanism based on nothing. Seriously, how can Devil World promote Satanism?
- Believe in Santa: LOL, it's Satan rearranged! Just kidding, I think if Hector survived that Bernese raid he'd be a living Santa!
- Believe in Ghosts/spirits: Nope
- Believe in Evolution: Yes! But sadly, this is why there's generation gap too...

C
- Car: Not interested in them
- Candy: Candy Mountain? (I'M REFERRING TO KIRBY SUPER STAR ALRIGHT!)
- Cake or pie: I don't favour one over another

D
- Day or Night: Night. I love... lonliness. Somehow.
- Dream vehicle: Hydra with +20 in everything
- Danced: Nope
- Dance in the rain?: But I don't wanna get wet!
- Dance in the middle of the street?: *roadkill'd*

E
- Eggs: Sunny side up, crispy edge, a little on the salty side
- Eyes: I hope mine can change colour like Mety's
- Everyone has: a chance to... die. Yet none told me what afterlife is like. Hmph.
- Ever failed a class?: You mean in college or...?

F
- First crush: I DON'T HAVE TO GO INTO DETAILS DO I?
- Full name: I don't disclose that.
- First thoughts waking up: ...Darnit. Time to wake up. AGAIN. (Seriously, I've done it at least 7457 times over)
- Food: I want to go to Oscar's

G
- Greatest Fear: ...I fear to say it out.
- Gum: I prefer mouth-freshening candies
- Get along with your parents?: ...We're... normal. Above average, perhaps?

H
- Hair color: Currently black/grey mix. Mom wants it to be brown/red, but I want to color it blue. Marth blue.
- Height: 165 cm. Shorty for a guy.
- Happy: How to be?
- Holidays: New Year's eve
- How do you want to DAI: The whole world gets killed together, all at once. This way, there's no worries and sorrow.
- Hate: Myself

I
- Idiot: Idiots are... idiots.

J
- Jewelry: Ummm.... amethyst?
- Job: Did one summer job, as a computer technician. Sooooo many networks to handle... And you know, Linux + Java = double speed fail

K
- Kids: Nice to interact with, pain to have one in home. Ouchie, my sister...
- Kickboxing or karate: I don't do martial arts
- Keep a journal?: Not really...

L
- Longest Car Ride: Once, in Korea. Tour shuttle bus failed to work.
- Love: Kirby
- Letter: Why would I like a letter?
- Laughed so hard you cried: Never
- Love at first sight: Don't think so

M
- Milk flavor: Mix milk with cream soda
- Movie: I hope there's an actual Kirby movie
- Mooned anyone?: No
- Marriage: I want not to marry.
- Motion sickness?: Nope
- McD's or BK: BK outlets are so rare in HK

N
- Number of siblings: 1, my sister who's 12 years 7 days younger than me
- Number of piercings: None
- Number: Either 17 or 19

O
- Overused phrases: "You know" and "..."
- One wish: I want to have a warp star.
- One phobia: Spiders

P
- Place you'd like to live: Castle Dedede. Watching him doing silly things is fun.
- Pepsi/Coke: Cola

Q
- Quail: Not interested in birds either
- Questionnaires: If it comes by phone, sayon...

I've stopped using Windows Live Messenger

~YoungLink19 — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:37:28 PDT

Microsoft no longer allows the use of Windows Live Messenger 8.1 and forces its users to update the software.

Problem is, the updated version requires a new version of OS, and my filthy little Windows Server 2003 without Service Packs does not handle it well. I hate service packs that give a more "secure" - and thus slower - environment, and before I get myself a new hard disk, I won't bother to change to Windows Server 2008 R2 blah blah blah.

The solution? Say goodbye to Microsoft. Welcome, Trillion Astra!

This software supports most features in Live Messenger. And I got myself an Astra account to use this software.

My Astra account is simply
younglink

Note that I haven't decided to stay with this software yet. I may want to change to another IM client. But so far, what's not good about staying with a software that does most WLM stuff - plus more?

dA: Search expectation and results

~YoungLink19 — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:26:35 PDT

I searched for: HAL Laboratory
I expected: Various things HAL made, like Eggerland and Fire Bam.
I got: Kirby, Kirby, Kirby, Kirby and Kirby.
Seriously... is Kirby the only thing they made?

I searched for: 2048 1152
I expected: Photos of the resolution I currently use
I got: Various photos, some multi-resolution ones, like 4:3 pics with 2048*1536 or 1152*864 as selections.
Turns out I had to search "2048x1152" for what I original wanted. I'd have liked a 4:3 resolution too... maybe 2560*1920.

I searched for: 3D Picross
I expected: That game made by HAL Laboratory.
I got: One result involving Picross DS.
...Guess it's gained no popularity as a choice of fan arts...

I searched for: Pole's Big Adventure
I expected: The old game (especially SMB1) parody SEGA made.
I got: Completely unrelarted things.
Guess this one's not popular enough in the west.

I searched for: Fireworks Dreamweaver
I expected: Any interactions between Dreamweaver and Fireworks, back when they were a pair.
I got: "Adobe CS4 icon set", "Macromedia MX icon set" and so on
Oops. I forgot the fact that dA doesn't even exist before 2001. And I didn't see any actual Fireworks HTML until very late, after I go through first 300 of the 600 results found.

I searched for: MS Access
I expected: Boring stuff, because I searched it out of boredom.
I got: Completely unrelated things
Now I'm amazed of dA's search system.

I searched for: Adobe CS5
I expected: Ideas of the future software
I got: Hoax.
At least the author managed to somewhat get the Adobe Clean font.

I searched for: Channel DDD
I expected: Dictator Dedede's official TV channel
I got: One relavent pic of Escargon in drag.
OH MY EYES!

I searched for: Kaabii
I expected: Kirby pics
I got: Something actually more awesome!
Just search it yourself! [link]

My to-buy list

~YoungLink19 — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:37:19 PDT

I'm in search of several rare items and want to see if ther are ever within my region.

Things to buy:

Purchase-on-contact: I'll just buy it when I see it.
- A monitor that fits my many requirements: 1600*1200 (or higher 4:3, I don't mind if I have to buy some 2048*1536 monitor), small in size, High refresh rate (100 preferred), short delay (5ms preferred)... And no, it's a consumer monitor, not a medical monitor.
- A Japanese game for Nintendo GameCube with the title "Fire Emblem: Path of Radience"

Purchase-if-cheap: I'll see the price and decide.
- Hard drive. 2TB preferred. 7200rpm is good, but 10000rpm preferred. Or, if I can afford it, SSD of this size. Doubt the possibility of a cheap 2TB SSD though.
- Several videogames I want to buy

...I'm afraid think I have to get rich in a matter of days.

(WIP reporting entry now closed)

~YoungLink19 — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 09:11:16 PDT

EDIT - My work is completed. - END EDIT

I'll post my upcoming work here: I'll divide my drawing into various stages and put the WIP here. Just don't expect a mere rookie like me to draw anything great. And I'm too lazy to read any tutorials - they make things sound easier than they are anyway.

Stage 01: [link]
Cloth Outlining
I didn't use the mighty Pen Tool from the get-go to avoid the result looks too much like it's traced.
Left to right: official art, my WIP, Littling's chibi pic used as my reference, Mario as a Paper Mario style reference

Stage 02: [link]
Vectorizing
Edits with Pen Tool. Doesn't look exactly the same as the first pic. I'll try to add the face and hand the next time, but those are the hardest part. Can't get the shoes working too; I'll save them for the last.

Stage 03: [link]
Hand Experiment
'Nuff said. I'm not quite in the mood of drawing (my heart b3longz to Nin10do Puzzl3 Collec710n nowz), but I still want to keep my work up now that it gained some publicity. Now I can simultaneously report my progress AND make fun of some poor guy. (Notice how I talk of a character without mentioning his name here? )

Stage 04:[link]
Adding the head
Now that actually looks complete. I'd say it's pretty cute. The eye position needs some working on, and getting the face right is difficult: The original one is not round enough to fit in the "chibi" style, and the reference pic is (sorry for the offend) a bit too chubby. I also need to do minor edit when I turn lines to fill; for those of you who don't know Flash, the pic needs more editing later on.

Stage 05: [link]
Complete the lineart
Did minor adjustment, added the feet, and the basic lineart's done. Next step: Colouring. Next next step: Adding shading. After that, my first ever attempt of making a digital fanart of any non-Kirby character is done.

EDIT - My work is completed. - END EDIT

Notice: Art Massacre

~YoungLink19 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:25:51 PDT

Hello to whoever reads my stuff. I would like to announce a few policies I wish to perform.

(1) I would like to delete all but one art submissions that receives zero comments and zero favourites. If a submission gets one comment or above, OR one favourite or above, the submission will not be deleted. Execution date: 7 June 2009

(2) I would like to move everything that I don't consider belong to my "main profile" to the scrapbook. I will also start categorizing my stuff. I think scrapping should be divided to multiple levels too, and one scrapbook with no distinguishments whatsoever do not suit me. Execution date: 7 June 2009

(3) I plan to edit preview images of all my Flash and GIF works (dA doesn't allow that on PNGs, too bad) so that they look unified. Like those suite software though, it's only the outward appeareance that changes. Execution date: TBD

(4) I want to delete all journal entires before Nov 2008. Oh wait. I change my mind. I'll let them stay. Execution date: (cancelled)

(5) I tend to let the number of my "Messages" pile up. Maybe I should at least say "thanks" to compliments sent to me. Maybe I will when I determine this number doesn't serve as an indicatior of my "level of achievement" (it doesn't indeed, but... yeah. psychological issues. Hmm.) Execution date: TBD

And my newest animation has got one more segment finished. It's now 10% of animation, or 8% of overall progress. I'm actually pretty proud of this segment.
I'm not showing the animation. 'Cause that would be spoilers.

E3 2009

~YoungLink19 — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:23:45 PDT

SPOILER ALERT

Scroll down for what's announced in E3 2009.

Alright. We have:

- New Super Mario Bros Wii. FINALLY a multiplayer Mario platformer.
- Wii Fit Plus. Not that I care.
- Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. The overseas version of MLRPG3.
- Golden Sun DS. In 3D. Awesome beyond words.
- Brief mention of Zelda Spirit Trackers
- Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again - trimmed version of MvsDK2.
- Wii Sports Resort. Reggie: Wheee!
- Super Mario Galaxy 2. I can die now.
- Bunch of 3rd party stuff that's already announced before
- Metroid: Other M - a first-person and third-person combination.

Best E3 ever. And it's unlikely for them to lie like they did in 2005 on Kirby for Nintendo GameCube.

Flash hates me

~YoungLink19 — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:30:01 PDT

First of all...

Look at this thing. CLICK HERE.

I'm right in the middle of trying around with my ideas of my nevercomng animation, namely, Super Moron Bros CS4 (or whatever the next version of Flash is). This particular scene has me drawing 3D tiles. (it's actually more fun than I thought)

Moral of the story: Never forget to save. NEVER. And Adobe loves to fulfil half of your wishes every time it updates. Flash 10.0.2 solved some of the problems I encountered, but not all.

Expect to see the final product by 2010 or 2011. Because I'm lazy.

UPDATED
(1) I have a new avator in places like the Nintendo Database Forum. Take a look.

(2) I'll put a simple plan of my animation here. None of the followings are confirmed besides the 3D and traced graphic parts.

The animation will be:
- Of 2'30" long. Minimum.
- Use slight 3D effects for some of the flooring or maybe cubical items.
- In Paper Mario style with traced, vector graphics. You may want to steal it, and I'm fine by it if credits are given.
- If my efforts in learning how to draw is fruitful, I may include non-PM characters in PM style. I'm already thinking of what I might draw. Characters from FE10, Lucius from FE7, my original characters, just a plan lazily-drawn Kirby... Just keep in mind, none of these are confirmed.
- I consider my animation 5% done. I'll probably work on it in summer.

(3) And for four major excuses for my slow progress:

- I am lazy
- I have stuff to do - well, after I'll be free soon
- This is my first animation to include little-to-no bitmap - in other words, this will not be a sprite animation. The end result will still look sprite-like though.
- FLASH. IT IS ERROR.

YES! End of school!

~YoungLink19 — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:59:59 PDT

My first (hopefully last too) year in college will end soon. Just half a month, in fact.

What does that mean? During the time when there's no school but before I take my final exam, I'll have free time. (Might want a job after the exam though; my last one was good; I didn't perform well, but I felt great. Hoe else can you have access to so many networks of expensive computers at the same time? XD) I can go back to my Flash work.

...That is, of course, subject to my decision to replay Radiant Dawn and my newly-bought Metroid Prime 3. I bought it only because it's affordable, to be honest. I don't think I'm a fan in the first place.

My new YouTube channel

~YoungLink19 — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:55:09 PDT

CLICK HERE TO SEE MY NEW YOUTUBE CHANNEL.

This channel will be dedicated for hosting FAIL moments - and sometimes WINs, PWNs and nonSmash's - of Smash Bros, mostly Brawl. Most video clips there are 10-second shorts, but in rare cases I'll put full matches as well.

I myself probably fail at capturing replays too. Nothing too interesting there if you look for amazing matches. More than anything, most vids aim at showing how computer players fail at recovery - instead of showing off skills.

The channel starts with 2 videos, and I'll have occasional updates later on. There will not be fixed updates. I have 24 more of these matches at hand (more to come if I ever have more interesting matches), but it's much more fun to release them bit by bit than spoiling them all at once.

And one warning beforehand: You won't see it at the moment, but I strongly urge Meta Knight fans not to blame me for setting up this channel.

...That's because of all these vids, Meta Knight loves suicide more than anything.

FE10 fan pairings observations

~YoungLink19 — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:09:00 PDT

I may be incorrect, but here shows a list of my observations, at least in dA. I do not include one-time pairings or ones that are obviously too random.

List of Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn fan pairings from my observation:

Micaiah
Sothe

Edward
Leonardo

Leonardo
Edward, Laura

Nolan
N/A

Laura
Aran, Leonardo

Sothe
Micaiah, Astrid, Tormod, Ike

Ilyana
Zihark?, Heather

Aran
Laura

Meg
N/A

Volug
N/A

Tauroneo
N/A

Zihark
Lethe, Ilyana?

Jill
Haar

Fiona
N/A

Tormod
Sanaki, Sothe, Muarim

Muarim
Tormod

Vika
N/A

Nailah
Rafiel

Rafiel
Nailah

Elincia
Ike, Geoffrey

Marcia
N/A

Nealuchi
N/A

Leanne
Naesala

Haar
Jill

Nephenee
Heather (FTW!)

Brom
N/A

Heather
Nephenee, Ilyana

Lucia
N/A (Yes. People don't ship her with Bastian.)

Lethe
Ike, Zihark

Mordecai
N/A

Geoffrey
Elincia

Kieran
Oscar, (SILVER AXE!!!!!)

Astrid
Sothe, Makalov

Makalov
Astrid

Danved
N/A

Calill
N/A (not even Largo)

Ike
Soren, Elincia, Mia, Ranulf, Lethe, Sothe

Titania
Greil

Soren
Ike (and only Ike)

Mist
Boyd, Rolf

Oscar
Kieran, Tanith

Boyd
Mist

Rolf
Mist

Gatrie
(TREE IN SKIRT!!!!)

Shinon
N/A

Rhys
Mia

Mia
Rhys, Ike

Ranulf
Ike

Kyza
N/A

Lyre
N/A

Reyson
Tibarn

Janaff
N/A

Ulki
N/A

Sigrun
N/A

Tanith
Oscar

Sanaki
Tormod, Naesala

Skrimir
N/A

Naesala
Leanne, Sanaki

Tibarn
Reyson

Pelleas
N/A

Stefan
N/A

Oliver
N/A (like he has any chance!)

Bastian
N/A

Volke
N/A

Kurthnaga
N/A

Ena
Rajaion

Caineghis
N/A

Giffca
N/A

Renning
N/A

Nasir
N/A

Gareth
N/A

Sephiran
Zelgius

...To those who actually read my stuff, sorry for having a boring post.

WHAT!? I'm THAT old already?

~YoungLink19 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:20:12 PDT

News. Important for me. Probably not to you.

I have turned twenty. That's 240 months, 1043 5/7 weeks, 7305 days, 175320 hours, 10519200 minutes or 631152000 seconds. The exact time would be 16 hours after now, but I'll probably forget about posting by then.

And that's not all. I had a little adventure in my last day as a teen too. So here goes...

The background is, I had to take a series of exams - first being English writing - in a place I'm not very familiar to. Luckily, that exam would not be a life-changing one.

Quoted from my conversation with

Here's the series of incidents goes:

- I slept in bus and woke up at the wrong station

- I was looking for taxis-for-hire, but could not spot any

- I walked to a taxi stand (took me 10 mins) and asked a driver to take me to the venue

- The driver said his line of taxis are going to the other way

- I backtracked, wandered, and after 15 deseparate minutes I got a taxi

- The driver said drving from there would take much longer time and asked me to look for someone else

- I again wandered cluelessly, wasting 10 minutes of my life

- I finally found something very similar in sight; I saw an area I was familiar with and that area is close to the venue

- I caught a taxi (finally) and travelled for 10 minutes (plus 5 minutes walking and looking for the entrance)

- I arrived the examination centre 50 minutes late

- I mistook the exam time of 1:15 as 1:30, thus thinking the remaining 25 minutes was 40 minutes

- I wrote for 10 minutes and got surprised by the "You have 15 minutes left" announcement

- I used all of my speedwriting skills to finish an article in 25 minutes (that thing is supposed to be done in one hour)

...This concludes my adventure as a last-day teen. Thrilling, no? Now imagine an image of a student, exhausted and shocked, write a 500-word essay in 25 minutes. This includes the time taken for coming up with the idea for writing too.

/*
And one minor news. Flash doesn't seem to be working properly. Moving keyframes in guided layers would unhook these layers. And Flash refuses to start up as maximized - when I manually do, it is indeed maximized, but the rounded edge corners are still there. And Adobe shows no signs of releasing an updater.
*/

FE10: How it should be improved

~YoungLink19 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 03:09:11 PDT

Some announcements first:
I am rather busy with my recent school work. And I do hope to go back to my Flash development that I have slowed down for years. I just need more free time. And 1-up Mushrooms for our poor Mario.

----------------

Now that I have finished the game, I think I should list the improvements I believe it could have done. Not that IntSys likes making finished games though - they always love releasing unfinished games too early.

Characters (story)

- Background story should be given for new characters. Making a note online doesn't count.

- More base conversations. Now that this game lacks support conversations, players have to rely on the base ones. Appearing 3~5 times is a good norm for most minor characters, but some conversations are just plain stupid. And I think it's good for conversations to involve multiple characters. Look at the ones taking place in Calill's shop. Those conversations give me good laughs!

- Some minor changes I might want to see... For example, Soren should appear in the conversation where Ike gets Rexcalibur, and Muston can directly give Ilyana the Rexbolt tome. You can't use Rexbolt without Ilyana, anyway.

- Largo has a left arm left. He should fight as a new fighter! This way you can avoid the Berserker class and still have him back. Maybe as a Warrior -> Reaver? We only have 2 Warriors.

Characters (stats)

- Characters should be given more reasonable starting stats. Jill does not use lances from the start. Tormod's group do not rejoin until very late of the game, but their stats don't look good. Renning is a level 16 Gold Knight with very bad stats. And Fiona is extremely hard to use. None of these make any sense.

- Sothe should have better growths. He's the youngest Jagen-esque character I've ever seen.

Classes

- Stat caps should be higher. I suggest +10 for 3rd tier classes and +5 for 2nd tier classes. And Whispers should not have 5 less luck cap than Rogues - that just makes no sense. Characters should, correspondedly, have higher growths.

- Sword General Disciples of Order should have starting weapon ranks of Sword A, Lance C, Axe D; not Sword C, Lance D, Axe A. This is something the developers didn't pay attention to, and now we know IntSys make their game data with copy-and-pasting, in this case from Axe General Disciples or Axe Marshalls.

- Laguz should either promote, or continue to have 20 levels with halved growth speed but doubled growth. As a result, Vika will have several 100% growths*, but I don't care. It makes inter-race level comparing easier.
*I don't think FE10 allows growths of higher than 100% because of how base level ups work, and perhaps lowering her starting level can solve the problem of having less expected final stats

- Sothe seem to know martial arts. Give his class a strike level, and an attack called "kick".

- Mist should use anima after promotion. Her strength is so low that she can be treated as a pure staff unit.

Weapons

- Magic should have higher intervals of might between each level to match the physical weapons. SS magic should have 20-ish might to compare to physical weapons.

- +3 for all thunder magic to make it stronger than fire and wind. I don't like to see this tradition dropped.

- 5 minus 6 should be 255. Japanese FE9 players and people familiar with computers should know what I mean.

- Magic ranks should be unified. Why are light and thunder a level higher than fire and wind? And uses for hand axes, javelins and wind edges should be the same. And why does Urvan has 110 hit? It that even an AXE? (22 might for both SS lance, axe and bow makes no sense in itself)

- Raise the non-dark magic ranks a little, and add rank E magic as equivalents to brownze weapons. This is because it's too hard to obtain forging points for magic (JP only) with the current system.

Stages

- The Dawn Brigade should have 10 more chapters, each filled with tons of easy enemies. And the Crimean army should have 5 more chapters.

- I think we need a better arrangement for the desert stage. Assigning a group that needs much training to a stage like this... Worst of all, Black Knight warped all the way here just to steal all the experience you need. I don't like this guy in both story and gameplay.

Graphics

- Animations for staff. For long-ranged attacks. And no more "animations occassionally disabled" glitch please. And animations for crossbow users runni...

More FE10 stuff

~YoungLink19 — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:49:11 PST

...I find it unnecessary for me to write another journal about it, but.... yeah. Beaten the game.

Basically speaking, the last few stages are just ridiculous. Too easy.

Area 1:
vs Lekain. This is a little hard with the large number of enemies. But this also means a good place to train those who're not quite the veteran yet - and here I mean Eddie and Leo and Micaiah, who have little time showing up. They end up doing fine though.

Area 2:
vs Levail. This is a bit tricky with no places to hide the weaker units. The solution is to put them near Ike's starting position and put some strong units between the weak ones and the enemies - since the enemies cannot reach the weak units, they'll simply go suicide.

vs Zelgius. Too easy. I almost pity the Black Knight for being killed not with Ragnell but with an Steel Axe. And I almost wanted to use an Iron Sword instead.

Area 3:
vs Dheginsea. The Gordo army can easily be killed with Nephenee, Soren and even Micaiah. Not to mention Ilyana roams fiercely for this stage.

Area 4:
vs Sephiran. Just ignore the spirits since they arent any threat to you. Too bad about Sephiran and Sanaki's relationship, there goes a good load of experience Sanaki could use.

Area 5:
vs Ashera. The goddess doesn't even struggle about being defeated. She just sits there waiting for you to attack, counterattacking when possible - Markesmen can finish her with ease. Someone with an easy ability to turn everyone into stone is not exactly all-powerful, eh?

...No thrill. I almost want to work for INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS and take charge of setting variables for their games. You know, I've always been dissatisfied with their stats, like how thunder magic got weakened and how Part 1 and Part 2 characters need more time showing up.

Done with Radiant Dawn. Now waiting for Mario & Luigi RPG 3.

Some FE10 stuff

~YoungLink19 — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 10:22:22 PST

I'm finally at the Final Chapter. Area 1.

My, the preparations were... what's it like to prepare for FIVE battles that I've not played before?

Anyway, it seems that playing the game at Easy is pretty simple. This is all you need to do:

Part 1: Throw Jill to the enemies. She'll kill them all.
Part 2: Throw Nephenee in to the enemies. She'll kill them all.
Part 3: Throw Mia to the enemies. She'll kill them all.
Part 4: Combine Parts 1, 2 and 3.

I'm not using the royals for part 4 because I like to use characters I bring to Lv 20 myself. Anyway, here's my final party list:

Micaiah: Lv 1, all max before promotion
She's been levelling crazily in Part 4!

Sothe: Lv 3
He doesn't have good growth. Why must we put him in?
Imagine you're playing FE1 and is required to bring Jagen in all battles. That's what it feels like.

Rafiel: Lv... 12? EDIT: should be 13 at start
He's not my fav; I'm using him now so that I can use others in later playthroughs. EDIT: I intended to use Leanne, but figured I'll do that the next time or just when I decide to use Naesala as well.

Ike: Lv 7
Bad Resistence. Good otherwise. Doesn't seem to be maxing anything though... EDIT: Now maxed strength, skill and defense.

Haar: Lv 13
Still growing like crazy. EDIT: now at Level 20. Lacks resistance whatsoever.

Leonardo: Lv 13... Sniper
The lowest-levelled member. Will BEXP bump him soon. EDIT: Now a Marksman. He's decent.

Edward: Lv 1
He's actually doing fine and can survive well! EDIT: He's now an official killer, joinging others to wipe out armies.

Rhys: Lv 1
Yeah. I know. Saints aren't good to use. I want healers and my archsages are busy bumping their anima weapon levels. No time to use staves.

Soren: Lv 7
The best sage. Ever.

Ilyana: Lv 3
Good at damaging, bad at double-attacking. Need her for dragons (without needing Dragonfoe) and SS Thunder. And we've got too much food in the army.

Rolf: Lv 14
Range 3 shooting = WIN.

Mia: Lv 20
Has bad resistance.

Nephenee: Lv 20
Has bad HP (3 less than ideal) and Magic (1 less).

Jill: Lv 20
Maxes everything but skill. What's gotten into her?

----------------------

Detailed report and review of the game will be out once I finish playing the game.

And I need more Mario/Stupidity ideas for making Flash animations.

Some complete randomness

~YoungLink19 — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:53:46 PST

Yeah. I've got something completely random to say. Mostly about my recent-day gaming.

*******

I've never seen one single fanart of EVERYONE in Radiant Dawn. Seriously. That game needs more fanwork. Even though the game is kinda incomplete due to INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS's uter laziness. No staff animation, no long-distance weapon animation, no animation for gaps (even though it is a very good thing to use)...

Anywya, I do hope to see some fanart of all 72 playable characters. My pen weapon level is - though. Yeah. Can't draw.

*******

Been very crazy about Radiant Dawn recently. I've developed an invincible one-person army consisting of a single Level 7 Sentinel with high, eh, everything. And I'm impressed of a single weapon called the "Stl Greatlanace".

*******

Recently recorded some of my battles in Brawl. I'm bad at that game, it seems.

*******

Got a chance to fiddle with Windows 7. Liked its interface and stuff. Some components, like the built-in Calculator, got a good load of new functions. Of course, the application file itself got chunky too.

*******

Flash and videos aren't compatible. Seriously. Importing videos into Flash? Not an easy task. At all.

Development of Mario & Luigi

~YoungLink19 — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 08:08:01 PST

Sometimes I thought it goes way too fast...

But first, let's learn some mathematics.

You do know that there's a notation like n!, right? It can be expanded:

n! = n * (n-1) * (n-2) * ... * 2 * 1

For example,

4! = 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 24

Now, let's look at the Japanese names of the first three Mario & Luigi games.

Mario & Luigi RPG
Mario & Luigi RPG 2x2
Mario & Luigi RPG 3!!!

The first one's fine, no problem.
The second one's actually just MLRPG2, but the logo shows "x2" as well, making it Mario & Luigi RPG 4.
Now, the third. What exactly is "3!!!"? Let's see:

3! = 6, alright;
6! = 720, wow, now that's...
Now. The serious part.

I don't even want to spoil you. Just look.

[link]
Check on the link and scream. The number's just an approximation.

Father of Sothe's children fights for his friends

~YoungLink19 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 01:27:49 PST

Sorry, just can't stop laughing at this one. ^^

[link]

*Development News: Super Moron Bros 2?

~YoungLink19 — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:03:40 PST

It seems that my Super Moron Bros animation was pretty well-received, and perhaps it's time for making a second ep of it. Details goes:

- It will be based on more games than New SMB. SM64 and SMG elements could be used. May perhaps mix with my other fandoms, like FE and Kirby.

- It will be made with Flash CS4. I need its 3D transformation effects.

- Tentative finishing date? Anyone kowing calculus will know it's gotta be somewhere in year 2010 or 2011.

- Tentative title: Super Moron Bros CS4

Other than that, I have two more ideas in mind. They will proably never come out.

- Adobe software characterization: Imagine a creative service company with different staff specializing in various tasks. Flash the rich media manager, InCopy the writer, FreeHand the sketch artist and Illustrator the graphic plotter... Once the character base is done (hence my last Journal), I could move on and spam it with comics and animations.

- Paper Mario TTYD scene builder. I originally had in mind a customizable scene builder that allows characters to be resized and rotated before thrown to the stage. This will be cancelled out of sheer laziness, since I don't want to bother with vectorizing Paper Mario characters.

Flash help... I dunno

~YoungLink19 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:26:03 PST

Well, the Flash non-artist strikes again and yell for HELP!!!!!

Basically, I want to make characters at a fast rate that I don't need to make a new moveset for each of them. My plan is to make some sort of character base of different poses (your usual running, jumping, crouching, siting, *insert list of platforming games movements here*) and to add stuff on ii to "make" characters.

Thing is, I'm pretty bad at drawing - and I don't even know where to start at when it comes to small-sized charcter design. No tutorials found, nope. T_T

And no, I don't want replies like "since you're using Flash CS4, why don't you use its new bone tools" and such. I SUCK AT AS3 TOO.

...So... can anyonne help me?

Oh, and with two years without Flash works (minus the experimental ones), I'll have a semi-major work coming out soon. Perhaps within this year. Perhaps.

10 things Adobe can do

~YoungLink19 — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 07:47:36 PST

I don't think anyone will reply with not much people caring and the few who do are fans of either Nintendo-in-general, Kirby or Fire Emblem.

EDIT: Oh, someone did reply. Thanks Tir! Should I rejoice over it or what?

Still, here goes my list:

10 THINGS ADOBE SYSTMS CAN DO TO MAKE ME HAPPY

- Re-release dead software. RoboInfo, FreeHand, JRun, ImageReady, GoLive!, Authorware, Ultra, FlashPaper, you name it.

- If they can't, provide a better integrity between competitors. Captivate should have Autorware import support, Illustrator should provide flexible multipage management support, Fireworks should have support for button states for sliced images.

- At least, add support for later versions of operating systems! A renewal of icon and splash image is also welcome!

- Stop hating server systems and add support of certain software for Windows Server! I had to edit the XMLs of the installation files!

- Give a portal of sort that leads to other software.

- Include InCopy so we don't need to buy one separately.

- Combine Creative Suite, Technical Communication Suite and indepedent software like Director and Audition to form one large package. I don't care how many DVD-9's will it take. Categorize everything to "client" and "server" and make no more distinction!

- If you hate certain software of your own, why don't you sell it to someone else! Authorware fans have been hoping for this!

- More file type support. WMA and M4A for Flash (if they could do this for Soundbooth already), UFO (obscure outside of Taiwan) for Fw and Ps, blah blah blah.

- My top wish: Adobe OS!

Some of my strange thoughts...

~YoungLink19 — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:02:14 PDT

I have strange thoughts every once in a while, and I guess I'll share the Nintendo-relaed ones... Or manybe something else.

And I wonder if there's anyone who actually read my (meaningless) stuff?

Kirby:

It is always a good idea to have a game based on the anime.

Huh? Another Meta Knightmare? Why it that we never get to use King Dedede? I want to play as Dedede in Gourmet Race!

Kirby 3 and Kirby 64 crew should really be seen again.

Kirby Super Star Ultra is, by far, one of the few remakes that I like better than original. The other exception would be Super Mario All-Stars, because it saves the game progress.

Why not actually working on a 3D game if HAL staff are doing 3DCG that well in Ultra?

I used to imagine what would "Meta Dedede" look like. Seems that Masked Dedede is the answer.

The fact Bun is half-naked in the anime startles me.

Fire Emblem:

CERO is biased. A rating of All Ages for FE4!? That game deserves a 15+! 15+ for Disaster? It should be an All Ages game!

What shown in FE is pretty much my bottom line. Anything crazier, I'll ignore them. So yeah, a really sugestive story won't be mine to enjoy.

Mario:

C'mon, Mario Super Star! If they can make a 16-in-1 Kirby game, why not a Mario game in this manner - and not being called Mario Party?

Traditional gamers and newcomers to the gaming world are probably not the same group, and newcomers take upa larger population. If not so, why is ever-worthless Mario Party 8 the best-selling Mario Party?

Mario 64 was a miracle. Mario Sunshine was not. Galaxy was. Does that mean the next main Mario won't be one?

Others:

Adobe CS4 would look better if they bundle in Director and InCopy. And with CS4, there is no need to have Microsoft Office.

I guess I need some help on drawing stuff...

~YoungLink19 — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:53:34 PDT

You may know that already, but I am a little-skilled Flash animator who knows only the slightest knowledge of making Flash stuff and cannot draw properly at all.

My upcoming Flash movie, announced for more than one year but is never finished, turns out to be a lame Mario/Fire Emblem crossover showoff, consisting of a few scenes of conversation, battle and stuff. Don't feel any excited at all, because it is aer than any of you can think of.

But wouldn't even the lamest animation need some background? Most of my so-called upcoming Flash is done, with the only thing left being the background. I am looking for 4 or so support conversation background, 1 or 2 battle background, 1 map-like thing (eh... I'll leave that to myself) and a menu background. Multiple BGs could be a good idea since I can instruct the Flash movie to load at random anyway.

...Or, in a more likely case, I will be finishing that myself. In that case, just wait. If I am working a bit harder, that could be out by this year.

And by the way, in case someone is really helpful enough to root for my worse-than-ever project, I would like vector Flash-compatible pics at 400*300 or anything 4:3 in ratio.

Some pretty random bits...

~YoungLink19 — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:35:56 PDT

Random news from me.

- Bad news: I will be unable to get n university. I still have 2 more chances to go, but that would be years from now. I don't know what awaits me at this moment, but I doubt I'll like it... The final battle starts here. I don't want to talk much into it, so don't force me.

- Development news: My simple Mario-FE crossover Flash got a better reception than i expected. That file is still in current development, and, although slowly, I haven't completely abondon it. It should be up before HAL Laboratory finally makes up its mind on the release date of Kirby for Nintendo GameCube.

- I got a few Wii games... Brawl, and Radiant Dawn, to name them. And I decided not to buy more for a while... thing is, I need to see games with a high enough quality and suit me taste goo enough before I buy one. The next thing 'll get is probably the next Kirby, whichever platform it's on.

Random stuff

~YoungLink19 — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:58:09 PDT

- I plan to kill journal entries before May 2007. Those entries includes something I feel like I shouldn't be leaking out to so many people. To people like FG64 who have replied, sorry for killing your posts there! If you are curious to see them, see them ASAP.

- School is over. Finally finished my A-Level (HKALE). Didn't expect much on university entrance though... I might fail to enter university.

- I really want to enter university!!!!! I want to get in, and study whatever I want. There are a lot of knowledge I want to gain! Computers, maths, languages, perhas accounting... (I plan not to be in the financial institute though. It's too risky when it comes to money management.) Particuar goals includes becoming a multi-linguist in both human and computer languages!

- I got a job. Working in a company dedicated in point-of-sale systems. I'm in the department that specializes in intalling. That requires some physical and human skills, things that I lack. I work more to train myself than to earn money for my first job!

- I got my computer... well, embarassing. It was all fine until my previous PC starts to shut itself down. It turned out to be a power failure jointly produced by the display card and the AC adaptor, but I oversaw the display problem and instead bought a new set of CPU, RAM, main board and display card. Costed me 2843 HKD = 235.54 EUR = 186.56 GBP = 363.5 USD = 386 AUD! I'm not regretting, though, as my computer did in fact got faster, mainly thanks to the increase in memory size.

- I saw an interesting post by Akascha :iconAkascha and posted there. Be sure to take a look at her splendid idea!

I'll be off anytime soon

~YoungLink19 — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:00:40 PST

Long story short, I'll be off - meaning, I won't appear on MSN, at dA, NinDB or anywhere on the internet that you can imagine.

Reason one, exam. I'm already studying. Anyone from Hong Kong or Britian will PH34R dA WR47H 0F A-73V3L 3X4M!

Reason two, my AC adaptor is dying. My computer had many records of suddenly shutting down just because the adaptor is not powerful enough. This is probably a result of the ATi Radeon 9200 my former schoolmate gave me. (Yeah I'm still using old video cards so what? I won't replace it until it dies!) As a result, my computer isn't very stable... And I won't have a replacement until the exam ends, or "the day of liberation" as I dub it. Soon after that I'll probably go crazyand get some new comuter items, and (hopefully and finally) a Wii plus some games... Aww, my Wii wish list is already piling up!

Attachment: Wii wish list

Alrady bought
WarioWare: Smooth Moves (got it more than one year before)

Must buy
Super Mario Galaxy (A must because Luigi is playable and is the first ever true 3D Super Mario Bros instalment)
Mario Kart Wii (12-player play makes it a must)
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Not really a must since I don't have Prime 1 and 2, but anyway...)

May buy
Donkey Kong Barrel Blast (constant hand shaking is tiring...)
Super Smash Bros Brawl (yeah, it's not a must for me)
Super Paper Mario (I'm actually rather disappointed with this game)
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (IntSys is not doing well these years...)

*Development News: Mario & FE

~YoungLink19 — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:28:05 PST

[link]
This is the demo of my flash work that I will hopefully put up. I am sooooo lazy that I should have been much faster on production. Oh well.
A few basic stuff is already finished. I'm opefully going to include some spports, and some basic idea of "demo of gameplay" to show what sort of FE-ish game I have in mind. It will never be made a full game, but what I can say here is that the thing I have in mind is uite differentfrom your average FE game.

On a sided note, when I put this thing up, I said I would scrap it "soon" - and "soon" turned out to be nearly one month.

Super Luigi Galaxy

~YoungLink19 — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:14:32 PST

Well, just one thing to say here: I'm happy to hear that you can play as Luigi in Mario Galaxy.

I was on a doubt of whether to have this game or not but I guess I should get it after all.

......When I finally get a Wii, that is.

dA needs more men...

~YoungLink19 — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 12:18:40 PDT

Seriously... Because I feel like an outcast here.

Why is dA filled with female artists? Awwwww..... I'm not suggesting that's a bad phenomenon, but I'm feeling a tad strange with that...

dA Artist FAQ

~YoungLink19 — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 07:52:22 PDT

Must've been exteremely boring to make something like this... Read only if you have, say, at least 10 minutes.

Taken from

01.] What is your pen name?
YoungLink.

02.] What made you choose this name?
It came from Super Smash Bros Melee where I found YL a hard character to unlock because I stupidly used Bowser (I'm bad with heavyweights) to fight him everytime.

03.] Do you use PC or Mac?
PC. I wish I have a Mac.

04.] What programs do you use most often?
My computer's BIOS. No kidding. You need that to start u your computer!

05.] Do you use mouse, or tablet?
A mouse. I'm not a hand-drawn sketch artist.

06.] What color or color combinations do you find yourself using most often?
Blue and white, a.k.a. BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH

07.] What part of a picture do you put most effort into?
Again, I'm no sketch artist. If I must say, it's the colour.

08.] How long does it take you do draw a picture?
Years. Because I'm lazy.

09.] Do you keep your rough drafts?
Nah. Some times though, I'd keep some of my Flash elements as micely made library archieves.

10.] What font do you use most often?
Tahoma and Verdana. Am I boring?

11.] When you scan your image, what DPI do you use?
I have 2 scanners but never use them. I just use my camera for this purpose... so I don't know. Definitely nothing like 720 or 1440 dpi though, that's kill off my time!

12.] Do you do anything else when you're drawing?
Think. My brain never stops thinking - ranging from everything to everything. Usually though, music plays in my brain.

13.] Approximately how many pictures do you draw in a month?
Zero point zero zero two or three, I guess.

14.] What kind of paper do you draw your pictures on?
Your average printer paper.

15.] What kind of paper do you use for rough sketches and drafts?
Same as above.

16.] How long does it take you to ink something?
From 2 hours to... forever. I'm lazy.

17.] Do you do comics, or fan comics?
I don't do comics. I have more fan stuff than original stuff, though.

18.] Do you like comics? Are they fun to make?
Don't know, I don't read comics much. I used to make sprite comics, but I dooubt if that counts. Those stuff are now, however, deleted with an accident.

19.] Have you ever submitted anything to a magazine?
No. I'm not really a passionate artist... I'm just your average person lacking even any sense of art.

20.] Did it get published?
Why is this question here as I answered "no" in the first place?

21.] Who are your favorite artists?
I see artpieces on their own, not depending on who drew them.

22.] Do you like anime/manga? If so, what are your favorite series?
Not in general. The only anime that really amazes me is Binchotan. And after watching that, nothing else is cute for me.

23.] Do you like cartoons/comics? If so, what are your favorite series?
Seriously, what's the difference between a cartoon and an anime, and a manga and a comic? It's just a name difference and anything else like language and style are just derived from its interpreters.

24.] Any artists that you wish you could draw like?
I wish I have JohnSu's skills... That equals to impossible, though.

25.] Do you read a lot of books?
No. I hate reading especially when they're fiction.

26.] Did you ever buy a book to inspire or teach you to draw?
Nope... I'm not an artist again...

27.] Any video games you enjoy?
Many of them. Almost all are Nintendo games, though.

28.] Any favorite characters from video games?
Wario, perhaps?

29.] Do you have a favorite writer?
I. Hate. Fiction.

30.] Any books you really enjoy?
Nah.

31.] Do you draw fanart?
Yes.

32.] Do you listen to music while you draw?
No. I an't multitask.

33.] Any recommended songs?
Game music from Fire Emblem 4, Sutte Hakkun, and... hmm... Nothing else can be THAT impressive.

34.] Any other art websites that you really enjoy?
No. dA is so far the most comprehensive art site I know.

35.] Are there any websites that you go to everyday?
Super Smash Bros Dojo!

36.] What is your dream website like?
Made with Dreamweaver.

37.] Do you like your own art?
Nah...

38.] What do you enjoy watching on televi...

*Development News: GvsV characters done

~YoungLink19 — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 08:14:01 PDT

Well, I finally finished vectorizing 4 of the Paper Mario TTYD characters - Goombella, Vivian, Luigi ad Mario, and finally I can start making my animation. Basically, I just traced the characters and coloured them. I also did some basic animations (walking, etc). I must have been utterly lazy now, since I had the idea 15 months ago.

Anyway, once my character set is done, I can do a lot of things as long as I only use the characters I made. The funniest thing is, though, other people do make their own vector version of these characters do, and they're like 1000 times faster than me on that!

And one more nightmare to tell you: The next thing I'll do will be a Binchotan fan animation (and probably will be the first thing I do without any connection with Nintendo). If possible. I hope I won't ruin her image >_< Well, I know the series well enough to make something more decent, I guess.

I'll start my engine at full rate once my A-Level exam is over. Hopefully I can make things fast enough.

And no expectation for any 2007 release, mind you, I'm not finishing anything in 2007! (I may upload some of my older works though.)

- YL Flash Laboratory
- 20-SEP-2007

PS:
One of my friends counselled me yesterday and told me not to worry about other people and things and get out of negative emo with both scientific and religious aspect.
And today in school, I went for lunch with her and some other friends and had a good laugh! Things went smoothly as ever today...
A lot of thanks to her and other classmates for boosting me up, and maybe I'll post the thank-you card (ugh.. not "card", it's in A4 size) I made for her. It was hand made that the one I gave her was the only true copy on planet Earth though.

Videogame FAQ thingy

~YoungLink19 — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:42:14 PDT

Stolen from

1: Favorite videogame of all time.
WarioWare: Smooth Moves.

2: How old was I when I first started playing videogames?
One.

3: What sparked my interest in videogames?
My mom's bro got us a Super Nintendo, and eventually I started to get addicted on that.

4: First videogame I remember playing?
Super Mario Bros.

5: Did the first videogame you played have a special place in your heart?
Ugh... Nah, to be honest.

6: Favorite franchise in videogames?
WarioWare.

7: Favorite game company?
INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS.

8: Least favorite videogame franchise?
Europe-only game Game Boy Gallery. For me it stands on its own and is not part of G&W Gallery series. G&W Gallery 1~4 (or 1~Adv(4) in Europe, 2~Adv(5) in Australia or whatever)

9: Most over-rated videogame franchise?
Please don't be offended on this one, it's Kingdom Hearts to me. I never played that so maybe I'll change my mind upon playing, but I simply don't think Disney and Square crossover would work.

10: Favorite genre of videogames?
Action puzzle.

11: Favorite era of videogames?
SNES era.

12: Favorite videogame controller?
SNES Controller. It makes me feel if I'm actually using a controller that gives me access to every button conveniently.

13: Favorite videogame system?
Super NES.

14: Game with most memorable music?
Sutte Hakkun.

15: Worst videogame controller?
Whatever it is, it's not made by Nintendo.

16: Do I follow game review sites?
Almost not.

17: Favorite current videogame system?
What do you mean by current when my SNES is still alive?

18: Favorite portable system?
Nintendo DS.

19: Most memorable gaming moment?
Beating Super Mario 64. But it was not my doing, it was my father's. It was fun watching him play. Father doesn't play games now, but whenever the kids ask him to, he'll show us what's a real gamer is like. We can hardly beat him even when he quitted playing for long.

20: Why do I play videogames?
In the past, for time killing purposes. Since some 5 or 6 years ago, for enjoying videoame music. Recently, I don't play games as much. Something's wrong on my emotive side these days, and I don't seem to really enjoy something. That's why I'm still not Wii-ing now... Sad, huh?

*Development News: Dates

~YoungLink19 — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:34:45 PDT

I have finally finished the vectorization of Mario and Luigi in Paper Mario. I just have to colour them, and I can move onto the production of Goombella vs Vivian: Who will get Mario? as well as some other PMTTYD based projects.

Also, I have a plan to put pieces of my unreleased (either too small in scale or too bad to be seen) works together to make a museum-like collection. In those unreleased, I may even renew some and actually make a full release!

Now, onto the release dates: I can't provide exact dates, but hopefully...

Goombella vs Vivian expected released date: Around April, 2008

Museum-type movie expected released date: Around May, 2008 (Still at very early stage, the project is unnamed)

PMTTYD scene builder expected released date: I dunno... somewhere in 2010 perhaps...

Once they're more into shape perhaps I'll say a date.

Eh~? 1000 Pageviews Already?

~YoungLink19 — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 07:32:57 PDT

Well, I've got 1000 pageviews!

Considering how little work I have done in the past, I'd say people are so kind give me so much support. I thank you guys all who had even visited any one of my works or my userpage, journal and such, even at the slightest.

Thanks, people!

Ideas... too much... EXPLODING...

~YoungLink19 — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 08:58:59 PDT

Well, this time I want to explain how I come up with ideas.

Ideas basically just pop out in my brain all of a sudden - well, many of human emotions come like this huh? Then ideas are stored.

One single idea doesn't make a pic or an animation in most cases, so I need to wait patiently until... POP!!

The idea though may not suit my need, so by the time I can do something complete there'd be a lot of idea leftovers, and I have to queue them up until they are of use.

And I am usually too lazy to realise ideas. By now there are some ideas left here, and I gotta note them down before I forget them.

------------ BINCHOTAN IS TOO CUTE ------------
------------ SO I MAKE A SEPERATOR ------------

Ideas:
(1) The ASC (Adobe Software Characterization) Project
Characterize Adobe software (see my scrap). So far only 3 and a half done.

(2) Computer Crack and Defend
Make a strategy game about cracking in and defending computer system. The content? Plan how to use time on virus / defender building effetively - unlike physical attacks, once a virus can be blocked, that kind of virus is done for and you need to make another - buy you'll run out of programming ideas, right?

(3) Paper Mario character vectorization
Self-explainatory.

(4) Goombella vs Vivian: Who will get Mario?
Can't start before (3) is 2% done.

(5) Paper Mario TTYD Scene Builder
Can't start before (3) is completed.

------------ RENTAN IS EVEN CUTER ------------
------------ THUS ANOTHER SEPERATOR ------------

Phew, I hope I have the energy of Chikutan's.

And I hope I can finish those before I decide to vectorize another set of character - why even with such modern technology bitmap is still being used? Don't get unreal and pixelized, dude - the real world is vector!

Pray for me that I won't consider a "Binchotan vectorization project" kay?

------------ CHIKUTAN IS ALSO CUTE ------------
------------ AND SO AS THIS SEPERATOR ------------

Finally, some extra:
I guess I understand something about Binchotan's mysterious character settings. DO NOT PROCEED TO READ IF YOU CANNOT ACCEPT SPOILER, although I doubt you (except some I know who at least know this anime exists) will ever watch that.

It's about Ubamega. Ubamega (ã¦ãã¡ã¬ ) is a mysterious "gentleman" who periodically sends Bincho some charcoal, "seen" in Eps 2, 3, 12. Added with "shi" it would become ã¦ãã¡ã¬æ°âã¦ãã¡ã¬ã·âthe name of a kind of oak tree (which is, again, charcoal related). The tree Bincho writes Ep 12 is probably a "ubamegashi" oak tree. Bincho is writing to her Grandma, who only appears in her memory. This and the "writing under a tree" idea seem to be suggesting Grandma is already dead and was buried somewhere near the tree (no one would leave her grandkid alone at the age of a kindergartener anyway, so this makes sense). And the tree can possibly grow after Grandma's death, symbolizing "the oak = Grandma" somehow. (EDIT: I seem to be wrong, in Bincho's dream in Ep 12,Grandma's ghost seemed to have appeared and led Bin to the oak.)

Therefore,
Letter from Ubamega
= Letter from the oak tree
= Letter from Grandma('s ghost)... or something. I'm not an expert in this field, so go ask Rentan aboutit, kay?

Don't hide that from us audiences, Bincho. You DO know who Ubamega is right?

EDIT: I've watched Ep 12 again and found that Bin realised that in the dream... and Grandma is ot the oak, she just led Bin to the oak, indicating she should "communicate" with her there. Still, my "Ubamega=Grandma" theory seems to be true. Well, what looked like a childlike therapy-type anime... it actually requires a few watchthroughs to understand it, huh...? If I'm one of those characters I'd immediately ask Ren about what's going on!

Great work done, Ekusa-sensei!

* Development News: Paper Mario GC/Wii Related

~YoungLink19 — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:10:52 PDT

First off, just FORGET ABOUT ALL MY PREVIOUS JOURNAL ENTIRES. They're the stupidest things I've ever written.

--------------------------------------

I guess I have to say something newer about what I actually do: the Flash stuff. Here, you'll see the laziest guy in the world's doing: Paper Mario TTYD stuff. Once done, I'll use them in many places, like scene builders, minigames, movies, pics and such. The only thing done, however, is just the vectorization of 2 characters, done with outlining official pic and colouring them. The purose behind is to descemble the characters' patrts and turn bitmap to vector so that I can indefinitely enlarge the pic. Anyway, send in the pics!

[link]
This is Vivian who, in the Japanese version, "looks like female but is really male".

[link]
And this is Goombella, a univerity student who knows everything about enemies, characters and places.

[link]
And finally, Mario and Luigi. The entire outlining of Mario is done, with only VERY few Luigi outlining done. Notethat Mario is not coloured yet, what you see are just the "backing sheets" which are the official pics.

Now, onto the most amazing part: this whole thing started on 16 July 2006, a whole year before now. I was lazy, busy, whatsoever. At this working rate, expect to see my character set finished in 10 years, 'kay?

And I once asked if anyone could draw FE character in this style. Now I guess I shouldn't ask for that now. I'll try to use my own power to finish what I want. And yeah, I'm a huge INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS fan.

Anyway... see you 10 years later!