Aquamentis12

LOL And here I thought someone had decided to comment on my posts here. lol That's interesting, though you should probably make a new topic, more people would see your question then. Anyway, I've never heard that term for modeling clay now, and didn't know it for that until I ran a search for it. XD https://www.homequestionsanswered.com/what-is-plasticine.htm That being said, I've never done that type of animation. But, I know a tiny bit about it. Besides the net in general, you should check out youtube too. Terms that should prove useful to your searching would be "Stop motion animation", "Claymation" and probably "Green screen techniques". Or variations of those terms. If you don't know about green-screens. You don't need an actual studio for them. I've seen advertisements for personal-sized green-screens for youtubers and at home puppeteers. Great for adding backgrounds, both still and moving videos. Looking up different types of camera rigs might be useful too. Hmmm... What social media platforms are you on? If you have Facebook, for example, there are plenty of groups for various things. I don't belong to any groups there for stop-motion though. But I am sure there are some. Also, studying stop-motion animations would also be useful Especially if you can find some behind-the-scenes videos for them. There was an old series called Gumby, that had character of very basic colors that were simple yet effective for storytelling, especially for children. Let's see, it wasn't modeling clay, but the Rankin:Bass production company made many classic Christmas stop-motion animations with models and things. You may be familiar with some of them. Kubo and the Two Strings was a fairly recent stop motion movie. A stop-motion series on Cartoon Network called Robot Chicken, combines action figures with some clay for reaction effects. And there are others. But those should give you a decent start on what to search for. Good luck! EDIT: Hey @winstonlukasio, I just happened to see an ad for this Green-screen setup and app. There is a video embedded in the page that talks about the myteleplay app and such, so that should give you a starting point for research on green-screening for your stop-motion/claymation endeavors! Good luck! https://try.myteleplay.com/teleplay-kit?fbclid=IwAR0WyCeUn5Ov0VZ-3khc--yG0ZuiWNy156UVWKsQNAfelsfSuvlNFu8cfA8

First off, @Duma provided you some very good advice. Second, what is your current equipment? (Neopets is down right now, so there's no rush in posting that info yet. ) Other than HP, your pet's health, the other stats, primarily Strength and Defense, don't mean very much unless you get them to certain levels. Instead of EACH point of strength and defense improving the damage you deal or reducing the damage that you take. Neopets did something, unique, we'll say. You need to get your stats to certain levels to reach what we refer to as Boosts. Each "boost" level is a multiplier for the number of icons a weapon attacks with, or defends with. The intro to the battledome link that Duma provided is a great starting place! It even explains a bit more in-depth on how the boost and multipliers work. Though I DID notice that the link to the boost list isn't working for some reason. So here's a link to the article that shows the different boost tiers. This way you can know how far you've gotta get your offense and/or defense to the next boost and what the multiplier will be at that stat level. https://thedailyneopets.com/battledome/strength-defense-boosts As for equipment. Hmmmm, I'd like to recommend the Leaf Shield. The green one from Illusen's quests. https://items.thedailyneopets.com/items/leaf-shield If I recall correctly, it's defense was variable... It kinda depended on your defense and offense boosts being the same or defense being higher to do it's best. Given the types of icons that the Mutant Walein's weapons use, that would be a good piece of defensive gear. I would recommend raising your defense to at least the next boost level, which would be to get it to 35 points of defense. It has a Green Scorchstone for healing, which will heal it 40hp when used. 1p opponents like this can use 1-use items multiple times though, same with faerie abilities. Your offense boost right now is 2. So whatever weapon you have equipped, if none of it's icons are blocked, it will do double damage based on the icons of that weapon. For example, if you attacked with 1 Scroll of the Scholar, which has 10 icons, and none of them were blocked, you would do 20 damage to your opponent. If you froze him with an item or faerie ability, and attacked with 2 Scrolls of the Scholar, you could do 40 damage that round. https://items.thedailyneopets.com/items/scroll-of-the-scholar There are better weapons than that, it's just an easy example since it has 10 icons. If you post your current battle set, and if you've got a budget for how much you want to spend on new equipment (post that too), I'm sure we can help you come up with a set to help. Also, post your current faerie abilities that your pet knows. If you get your pet to level 50, it can learn the Ability: Lens Flare, which is very useful as it stops an opponent from attacking on the round it is used. Once per battle. You can view all Faerie abilities here. https://thedailyneopets.com/battledome/faerie-abilities

Good to see you and your polls back @lianakos. I hope you're doing alright. I'm going with The Seekers, Oxbridge gives 'em a 60% chance too.

Dangit. I thought we had until the 24th to vote, but the results are in now. Oh well, I missed this year's Neopies entirely it seems. Maybe next year, congrats to those who got in, got the rewards and chose the winners! Way to go!

Ah, must be your old site then. lol Ah ok. Never tried Photoshop. just never liked the idea of renting something for something that I'm probably not going make much money at. lol Nah, but I love art and animation. Though it's all hobby for me really. At least while I try and figure things out, it's VERY slow going. I have a thread here, "Arts and Animations", but most of my images are being held hostage on/by Photobucket. So I don't know how much of the images in that thread would still work. Right now I'm working on a new music video for a cover to a song my Dad performed in the 70s, a bit before I was around. lol A friend of his who bought Dad's record collection after he died, found an old reel-to-reel tape of a recording of Dad from somewhere around here. He had it digitized to CD and sent one to my sister and to me as a surprise gift for Christmas 2020. I managed to clean up the audio a little bit more, there were some crackles from the old tape, with Audacity, and amped the volume a bit and uploaded them to Youtube. I've wanted to do a new vid for some time, and one of the songs finally "clicked" enough inspiration for me to start on it. The song is called "Armstrong", performed by one of Dad's favorite folk musicians, the late John Stewart. Dad was HUGE into The Kingston Trio, and John Stewart came in at some point after one of the original trio passed away untimely. Stayed with them a good while too. This one is taking awhile though, it's been about a year since I started, and I just found I've still got a LONG way to go, but improvements and improving, takes time and makes these things take longer. lol I did some videos in past years to covers my late dad, uncles and grandfather performed in an old 1984 St. Patrick's Day video recording. Oddly enough, I still remember things from that video, and behind-the-scenes. lol I was just shy of 3 at that time. I think the range of time for those vids was 6 months to a year, each. But it shows. lol Most of it was mouse drawn stuff, and as I went I incorporated more hand drawn sketches with stuff added after I scanned, cleaned and colored them. LOL LOL sorry, I got distracted off on a tangent there. lol Anyway, if you're still into animation, have you heard of this website? https://www.traditionalanimation.com/ It's got some pretty interesting content. They also run several groups on Facebook. Lots of talented members, from novice-beginners and hobbyists like me, to full on professionals and veteran animators. People also post requests for animators for jobs and such from time-to-time. Contests too. I honestly, don't post there much. It's kind of a LITTLE intimidating, only because I am such a novice and I have trouble learning the "traditional" way, i.e. Books, even though I have a fair few of them. lol But I do (mostly) enjoy seeing what people come up with there. I have seen a few things I didn't care for, style or subject, but can't like EVERYTHING, right? XD For me, I just feel like I'm wasting time when I've got ideas and those ideas, which could vanish anytime, want OUT. lol But yeah, you just gotta keep your dream(s) alive and keep working toward them. Your drawings are really good! So I bet you can realize them someday! EDIT: So I checked and some images still move. The ones linked from my outdated Tumblr anyway. So not much content, but if you're curious, there are only 3 pages to the thread, feel free to browse if you'd like.

That is SO cool! XD Even moreso that they used your art for that book! Interesting! I found your weebly site, but it seems the instagram link doesn't work. I get this message... "Sorry, this page isn't available. The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed. Go back to Instagram." Just thought I would let you know in case it's a mistake! You DO have a lot of cool art from what I've been able to see so far! What program(s) do you use? And do you ever dabble with animation?

WOW! Awesome designs! If they are officially licensed, aren't they "Official" Neopets stuff? I mean if Neopets acknowledges them and granted your permission to sell them.... or am I mistaken? Ah, Sadly I don't "tweet", for several reasons. But it does make checking out some artists difficult. Do you post to any viewer friendly sites like Artstation or DeviantArt? Or perhaps even Tumblr? Yeah, scanning and uploading is always easier said than done, imho. lol Do you like to draw things besides Neopets-themed stuff?

You're welcome! Lost and taken? I've never heard of that one. But it sounds cool! Good luck finding people to RP your characters! Sure! The more information you provide, I would imagine it might increase the odds of sparking the imagination of potential role-players! Btw, I checked out your petpage art gallery, LOVED seeing the peophin constellation design! Your art is very nice, do you have any other place(s) that you upload art? I'd be interested in seeing more.

lol Nice sales-pitch! Man, those are some NICE drawings! Looks almost like they were drawn on wood or something. It gives the line art a cool effect.

Ooooo this is useful! I still haven't spent my AC points from last year yet. Probably still won't be able to get the darn stamp (didn't get enough points anyway), but it's useful to know that some of the items are selling pretty well!

Going with The Order this time too. They have some ok Boons and seem to have the heavy odds on their side. XD

Welcome back to the forums Mewthree21! Nah, you're not breaking any rules that I know of, and thanks, some of us know about that petpage, but it's always useful for someone to have access to it who might not've before. The person behind that petpage is usually a pretty good predictor.

Leaning toward the Seekers, for the boon selection. Went with the Seekers.

Huh, nice stats. I only have 1200 battles against Commander Flint, 1,199 wins, and 1 loss. Which if I recall correctly happened during the war while trying to figure out what weapons he had for his 1-player profile. lol Other than the avatar and theme, I don't know why people choose the Brutes. I mean their boons aren't very good, at least, not imo. Oh well, I joined them anyway. XD

Hmmm, a 3-way tie so far? Dang. I'm not sure who I'll go with. MAYBE the Seekers for the boon-selection. I'm not committed to them yet though.

Weird! But no way! Togepi is WAY cuter than those jelly chia! lol

Yes, rotten sun-dried fish! Those lopsided stats are really suspicious!

I always save a screenshot at the end of the staff tourney for the following year so I can see all rounds I chose and who did well, and stunk out loud. My week 1 line-up turned out to be the same as my Week 1 line-up for last year. I always choose Ehlo Froyo as my Goalie though, Go Maraqua! lol Fortunately, she's a really decent goalie! I'm HOPING to select the right Star player, hasn't happened yet though. lol Good luck everyone with your picks!

Cool. I've been mashing the spacebar with little to no success, so lots of releasing as well as pressing. I wish TNT could fix it, but since the AC is now underway, I highly doubt that will happen before the AC is over. Oh yes! I hate that when everyone is crowded and the game kept/keeps switching with whichever one is a tiny bit closest to the yooyu. True, plus it's harder to know when to use a power-up if you can get to one, because there is no longer any order for the yooyus. Like, normal, random, normal random, now it's a random yooyu every time. So it's a bit pointless to power-up save. I still try to, and I decide when the yooyu pops up if I can or need to try for a power-up, but still.... If you can score faster with a power-up, it seems more worth it to do that instead of saving. Especially since multiple power-ups can be on the field at once. In the old version, the first power-up to appear, would flicker and vanish before a 3rd power-up would appear. Yeah, my theory was more pertaining to the previous version of YYB. I should try shooting straight... Force of habit to try ricochet shot my aiming down and right when I want it to go left. That hasn't been working well for me this year. ^^; Ah ok. I don't quite get it, but what ever works for you. Cool! It certainly seems more difficult to get to 13 than in the previous version. No, not bad at all! I decided to look at my PPG average, and I'm surprised that it's at 9.625! I thought it would be quite a bit lower for sure! 154 goals in 16 games though. So I guess. lol As much as I'd LIKE to compare my stats this year to my stats for most of the previous ACs I've participated in. I'm trying to view this year's AC like starting over from scratch, because YYB just IS so darn glitchy and unpolished this year! Still, when I look at previous years' stats, it still stings that I am currently unable to match those numbers with this new version. So yeah, starting over from the beginning I guess. lol Good luck with your matches today!

Best to go after the yooyu first, since the stealing doesn't work well. The 8 seconds still comes off the timer, but INSTANTLY when you score, which is different from the old version. You have to be watching the timer basically, if you want to see it. And the timer starts more quickly at the beginning of each round than it did in the old version. In the old version, scoring with only 2 or 3 seconds coming off the timer was fairly easy, especially starting a new game. But, in this one, the timer has counted down about 2-3 seconds before you can even make a move toward the yooyu. As I just said in the Maraqua support thread, it's best to try and avoid the other team's players as much as possible, since it's hard to steal the yooyu back. I've done it a couple of times, but it's VERY unreliable. So, try to go around them instead of through them. One thing I will say I LIKE, is when the opposing player is about to shoot, they DO show the power meter for them now! That gives you a little time to TRY an steal, or at least try to get in front of their shot. Shift-key doesn't work for sending all your players back into formation, and I can't seem to control the goalie to save the net, unless he, by some feat of great luck, manages to stop a shot. THEN I can move him and fire the yooyu back out. Oh yeah, and I can't tackle the other teams goalie anymore. Maybe because the tackle/stealing function isn't hardly working? In the old version, if I mashed the spacebar, you know, if I got to close to the goalie and he stole the yooyu away, mashing the spacebar sometimes would steal the yooyu back and fire it into the net. Haven't been able to do that yet in this new version.

Congrats on maxing out. I only managed about 16 games. But I was busy with other things, and TBH, I wasn't really looking forward to playing with how glitchy YYB is. On your points of frustration.... Yes, the steal is pretty broken, I find I have to move more defensively, trying to avoid them altogether instead of going through them then sometimes, the other team's steal will miss when they attempt it. The player switching IS still annoying. Definitely in part moreso because of the lack of a consistently working steal-function. but also, couples with another one of your points, the one about ANY player picking up the power-ups. For the most part, I've had better luck I guess with them doing that. In the OLD version of YYB, When you would shoot the yooyu the player-switch would also activate, to a player other than the one doing the shooting. If that newly switched to player touched a power-up before the goal screen game up, then it would activate and waste that power-up. I was a real careful saver of power-ups in the old version. And It'd ALWAYS irritate me when the next ball would be a faerie, darigan, mutant or Ice yooyu, and the power up had been something I was saving to help off-set the particular traits of those yooyus. I haven't noticed the robot yooyu's explosion not removing time yet. It does seem that he explodes much more QUICKLY for the most part though. I've had trouble watching the clock due to the glitches of not being able to steal and such, makes me focus more on the players than the timer. The 8 second run-off after each goal happens super fast immediately after the goal is scored now. In the old version the run-off would only be visible on the timer after the goal and post-goal photo-shoot or reaction shot. For the lag on the goal screens, it might be lag due to your computer or network I haven't had any noticeable problem with skipping the cutscenes. LOL The ball going through the goalie, yeah. I've had that complaint for a long time. Maraqua's goalie stinks. Like rotten fish. lol That being said, the opponent's goalie has gotten much "smarter" imho. Though if you shoot close enough with a full-powered shot, there seems like it's a better chance to go in than for him to catch the yooyu. Oh yes, I haven't kept count to average, but I'm getting a number of Darigan, Faerie and Mutant yooyus, way more than in the old version! it seems a LOT harder to figure out the Darigan's patterns. As to which way it might be likely to go the way I want it to. So maybe they randomized it even more? Normally I get a few shots off angling the darigan down and right (I play from right to left on-screen). But in most of my games where I've done that, it ended up going to the left, or downward left Instead. I never could truly figure the darigan's patterns out. I theorized though, that there were several patterns it could follow, and that each darigan's appearance followed a different one of these patterns. The forced fullscreen is definitely annoying! After each game, I take a screenshot of the score, and have to shrink the game so I can paste the screenshot into my graphics program to save it. I've got 2 more to add to your complaints. 1, The scores at the end are displayed on the wrong side. My score is over by Kreludor's flag, and their score is by Maraqua's. Still counts my scores correctly though. The other complaint, is definitely, the bounceback and ball getting stuck in/to the walls. Instead of ricocheting properly like it did in the old version. It's hard this year, saving the scores. I decided I'll save ALL the game results this year, instead of just the ones with 10+ goals. I managed to send a few games scored at 10+. But I'm averaging closer to 6-8 goals per game thanks to the glitches. It's not really that different, since the vast majority of my game-scores in previous ACs were almost ALL 10+ goals. Still, it's disheartening saving a 5-1 game, knowing I fought pretty hard to get those 5 points. The game still seems to take about 2 minutes to play, which given the increased pace, is something I was a little surprised to notice. So far, my BEST game was a 13-0 victory. But only one of those.

lol If that were possible! TBH With the glitches and getting used to the new physics, my best score has only been 9. Though I haven't been able to play much the last couple of practice days to get more familiarized with it. lol

Interesting Secre. To me, it doesn't seem like it'd be possible with just support games, but I know people do it, as you've done it, and more. Thanks for posting your stats. Nice going! I tried several practice games of YYB, it's pretty darn glitchy. I gotta wonder just what TNT spent the whole last year since the end of the last AC doing.... Plus that new power-up that seems to slow everyone down, I haven't seen that one before. It seems more annoying so far. More power-ups showing up is ok, the opponent-goalie seems more on the ball when it comes to stopping my shots, pardon the pun. Tackling/stealing is spotty, at best, and it takes very little effort now for ANY player, even the opposing goalies, to send the yooyu flying more than 3/4 of the way across the field, if nobody intercepts it that is. In the old flash version, for the goalie to do that, or score a goal, you'd need a Fire Yooyu AND the Enlargement power-up. Now just a Fire Yooyu would be enough. I do like that the movements are a bit more articlulated and smooth. But really, that's about all. Even the clock seems a little glitchy. I hit the goal with time left, and the whistle blows. Or, I hit the goal with no time left, and I still get the goal, and the game ends normally. Though when I send my scores, they've got the scores reversed graphically. It says the Practice team scored, x and I scored y, when it should be the other way around. Fortunately, score-sending still gives me the goals I actually scored. Overall, with the glitches, YYB is definitely more difficult than the flash version! Oh right, almost forgot to mention the walls. You can't hug the wall and bounce the yooyu off and have it go forward anymore. If I hug the wall tightly, and fire a ricochet shot, it bounces off the wall and back behind me, toward my own goal! Another glitch to have to try and adjust for! I should probably mention that I'm playing on a PC, Windows 10, with the game forced into Fullscreen as it says it will be for Practice week.

Welcome to Maraqua Secre! I hope we do well this year!

Haven't tried any of the converted games yet. TNT should partner with one of those independent groups/people making flash emulators that play flash content, like Ruffle for example. I have the nightly build downloaded for a couple of games some old friends made ages ago. Non-neopets stuff. Can't use it for everything because it's still in development, but I can view some of my old friends' works, which rocks because I lost touch with them awhile back. I always have a sense of DREAD about the AC. The prize points awarded are so LOW, imho. I mean sure, some people can get Multiple All-Star, somehow. I usually only get a little over halfway there, but have a very nice average of about 11-12 points per game of YYB. And the points I get are rarely enough to barely get the stamp! My YYB stats from last year. Rank 13 Goals Scored 4,996 Goals by Elon "The Black Hole" Hughlis 4,286 Goals by Oten Runeu 224 Goals by Lamelle Turow 227 Goals by Barit Jowes 259 Saves by Tonie Plessix 307 Number of Wins 390 Number of Draws 0 Number of Losses 0 A PPG average of 12.8 goals per game and I only got around 4400 prize points! I Couldn't even get the books from last year's AC! I wish we at least got something for higher point games, not just wins. I only got 390 games in last year, but things were busy, despite there being a pandemic and I couldn't play as much as I would've liked. Plus the stupid rule removing games on the weekends from counting toward our personal records still ticks me off! What's the point of playing against the practice team? 3 games for 3k? Not worth it! >( I relied on those off-days to shore up my game numbers because they fit into my schedule! I'm still angry with TNT about nixing them from counting! >( Playing YYB does take a fair bit of time. But, MSN, I can only play for a bit before my wrists get super tired and sore. SS, Starts off slow and the "sweet spot" for playing doesn't last too long, plus it takes too long, imho to get to that part of the game where the speed is not too slow. SOSD, Meh. Gets old/boring too quickly. Plus it has the least best conversion toward rank points. I prefer playing YYB because it's more consistently active from start to finish. Maybe this year I see if a "perfect score" of 18 is legitimately achievable. 17-0 is still my best score for YYB. The more you score in YYB the faster the game can go too, if you skip the between goal cutscenes.