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This character needs an avatar! Entries must be posted to this thread by 10:00 am Pacific time, Monday, October 2nd. Requirements for the avatar images:

- 130x130 pixels
- jpg or non-animating gif format
- must be a head shot of the character
- no "frame" around the graphic
- no likenesses of the actors from the movies or any game except MXO are allowed
- no images of non-Matrix properties are allowed

The winning image becomes the property of Sony Online Entertainment, and will be hosted on our server. No prizes are awarded aside from massive kudos on this forum.

This character needs an avatar! Entries must be posted to this thread by 10:00 am Pacific time, Monday, October 2nd. Requirements for the avatar images:

- 130x130 pixels
- jpg or non-animating gif format
- must be a head shot of the character
- no "frame" around the graphic
- no likenesses of the actors from the movies or any game except MXO are allowed
- no images of non-Matrix properties are allowed

The winning image becomes the property of Sony Online Entertainment, and will be hosted on our server. No prizes are awarded aside from massive kudos on this forum.

This character needs an avatar! Entries must be posted to this thread by 10:00 am Pacific time, Monday, October 2nd. Requirements for the avatar images:

- 130x130 pixels
- jpg or non-animating gif format
- must be a head shot of the character
- no "frame" around the graphic
- no likenesses of the actors from the movies or any game except MXO are allowed
- no images of non-Matrix properties are allowed

The winning image becomes the property of Sony Online Entertainment, and will be hosted on our server. No prizes are awarded aside from massive kudos on this forum.

This character needs an avatar! Entries must be posted to this thread by 10:00 am Pacific time, Monday, October 2nd. Requirements for the avatar images:

- 130x130 pixels
- jpg or non-animating gif format
- must be a head shot of the character
- no "frame" around the graphic
- no likenesses of the actors from the movies or any game except MXO are allowed
- no images of non-Matrix properties are allowed

The winning image becomes the property of Sony Online Entertainment, and will be hosted on our server. No prizes are awarded aside from massive kudos on this forum.

This character needs an avatar! Entries must be posted to this thread by 10:00 am Pacific time, Monday, October 2nd. Requirements for the avatar images:

- 130x130 pixels
- jpg or non-animating gif format
- must be a head shot of the character
- no "frame" around the graphic
- no likenesses of the actors from the movies or any game except MXO are allowed
- no images of non-Matrix properties are allowed

The winning image becomes the property of Sony Online Entertainment, and will be hosted on our server. No prizes are awarded aside from massive kudos on this forum.

These avatar contests end Monday, October 2nd, at 10:00 am Pacific time:

The Merovingian
Persephone
Flood
Malphas
Ookami
The Effectuator

The contests all have the following rules:

- 130x130 pixels
- jpg or non-animating gif format
- must be a head shot of the character
- no "frame" around the graphic
- no likenesses of the actors from the movies or any game except MXO are allowed
- no images of non-Matrix properties are allowed

The winning image becomes the property of Sony Online Entertainment, and will be hosted on our server. No prizes are awarded aside from massive kudos on this forum.

Funny the stuff you stumble across while Googling:

http://www.brickgun.com/Desert_Eagl...sert_Eagle.html

We all play MXO, or at least its cousin, MXO Forum Drama, but many of us play other games from time to time as well, and I thought it would be interesting to have a thread where people can mention what other games they're playing, whenever they happen to be playing one they feel is noteworthy for some reason or other. Other games often get their own threads in this forum, but this thread here can be more of a chronicle of what people are playing as the weeks go by.

For instance, on my little Christmas vacation here, I've been playing large chunks of Odin Sphere, which is awesome, and just today I dug into my dust-gathering copy of Puzzle Quest, which, as it seems to be turning out, is also awesome, aside I suppose from this PSP version's bug with the "companions" not working.

So, whatcha been playing?

It's on! Discuss. Hopefully I'll get to the party before all the good ads are over...

Here we are with less than a week to go before the new RSI Pills are scheduled (I think) to hit the dungeons of the Matrix. It seems that a lot of you are planning on taking advantage of these to give your RSI a makeover, either large or small. This thread is for keeping track of what you've done to your RSI. Here's how it's going to work:

1) You take a screenshot of your current RSI, and post it on this thread.
2) You give your RSI a makeover with RSI Pills, once they're available.
3) You quote your previous post on this thread, and add a screenshot of your new RSI, so everyone can see just what you changed.

Got it? Right then, let step 1 begin! Let's see your "Before" screenshots!

There was an intimate little event today involving Ookami taking a few operatives along to Ashencourte... Well the lighting there is really nice, what with the eternal sunset and all, and it seems a shame to have to throw out some of the shots that won't fit into the Live Events thread that will go up Monday, so I figured I'd just sneak some of the nicer rejects out here.

Have a good weekend!

( from http://katebeaton.com )

Discuss.

Well I got tired of the out-of-whack (wack? oh whatever) post count on the original version of this thread preventing new pages from showing up for a while, so I've archived that dead old thing, and here we are on a fresh new version of Avatar Mystery Theater! But we're still working on the same one, so, to reiterate:

It seems that some people are dying to know what the involvement of LESIG (that's "Live Events Special Interest Group to you and me) will be with the devs, aside from providing us with feedback on Live Event stuff.

The answer to this is: we're still figuring this out ourselves. How can a carefully managed focus group of dedicated volunteer players help us tell the story of the Matrix? Let's just say that many ideas are being generated.

Another answer is: keep an eye open. If our first trial run goes according to plan, you will see, or hear, about a small LESIG-assisted event shortly. If it doesn't go according to plan (what? something not working perfectly the first time? whoever heard of such a thing?), then you will have to wait just a bit while we sort these things out. =P

I'm sure most of you saw at least one of the threads about the little recruitment party thrown by the Merovingian Syntax a few days ago; for instance

http://mxoboards.station.sony.com/matrix/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=54981

http://mxoboards.station.sony.com/matrix/board/message?board.id=generalsyntax&message.id=7109

http://mxoboards.station.sony.com/matrix/board/message?board.id=Events_Syntax&message.id=585

http://mxoboards.station.sony.com/matrix/board/message?board.id=Events_Syntax&message.id=581

Well, I just wanted to take a moment to point out that, sauve as he tries to be, the Merovingian couldn't have pulled off this little shindig all by himself. Fortunately, he had help, courtesy of your Live Events Special Interest Group (LESIG).

This fine bunch of very dedicated players, acting on a few hints given at very short notice, spun into highly coordinated action, quickly levelling alts, crafting matching sets of party duds, grabbing a DJ, and flanking the Frenchman in style as he strutted into Parallaxis.

Thu Dec 15 16:37:08 2005 PST - Merovingian and Co.

Thu Dec 15 16:37:17 2005 PST - Hm, might be enough room...

Once the party started, the LESIG members pumped up the dance floor, greeted newcomers, mingled with guests, handled floods of tells, and attended to all the functions vital to keeping a party going, leaving the Merovingian free to greet or get dissed one-on-one by a record number of redpills.

And that wasn't all that LESIG was doing, either. Behind the scenes, and throughout the Mega City, even on other servers, the team were rounding up potential party-goers using a potent mix of communication methods. They kept a constant flow of guests visiting the event for a good three hours straight.

Thu Dec 15 19:12:54 2005 PST - Wrapping it up

While not everyone finds the Merovingian's politics, shameless flirting, or cake to their taste, there's no denying that the expert LESIG roleplayers were a hit with pretty much everyone fortunate enough to meet them, as far as I could see. And post-event, their feedback and analysis has been invaluable.

After three and a half years of working in various capacities on the Matrix Online project, I'm more excited about the game now than ever, and LESIG is a big part of the reason why. They're already generating future event ideas at a staggering pace. And they've proven to me that one dev who might not even get out much can still throw a pretty decent party--as long as he's got some good players behind him.

This was the very first LESIG event, and I think they've done everyone proud. It seems fairly safe to say that this is just the beginning of many enjoyable events to come. A very big thanks to the entire group!

I'd also like to thank everyone who stopped by and joined the party over the course of the evening. Oh, and the Merovingian would like to extend his own very warm personal thanks to a few special mademoise-- /slap

Each organization is currently holding a contest for the names and designs of five rank names and icons that will serve as official recognition for achievements in "hovercraft battles," which are played out in a turn-based strategy system on a virtual game board. These battles are an optional activity run by LESIG, and initial battles seem to have been pretty popular, so hopefully this is an activity that many of you will enjoy as you take your Matrix activities "into the Real." More information on hovercraft battling can be found here:

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016309

The rank design contests are open to all players, no matter what organization your main character may belong to. You can participate in multiple contests, and enter multiple submissions in any or all of them. The contests are:

Cyph
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016326

EPN
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016324

Mach
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016316

Merv
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016338

Zion
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016327

All submissions must be posted in their respective contest threads by Thursday, the 13th of September.

Vote for your favorite fan entry for rank names and icons to be awarded to Machine captains for victories in Hovercraft Battles. Voting will last seven days.

Entries:

kou_urake

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...316#36300313312

Commodore

Rear Admiral

Vice Admiral

Admiral

Fleet Admiral

Tseng.

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...316#36300313318

Rank 5 (Flying Officer)

Rank 4 (Flight Lieutenant)

Rank 3 (Squadron Leader)

Rank 2 (Wing Commander)

Rank 1 (Group Captain)

HostileIntention

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...316#36300313517

Private

Gunnery Sergeant

Master Gunnery Sergeant

Sergeant Major of the Machines

Captain

Fractor

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...316#36300314841

Brigadier

Major-General

Lieutenant-General

General

Field-Marshal

Neutrino7

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...316#36300314910

Guard

Tactical Officer

Assault Tactician

Assault Coordinator

Battle Coordinator

Vesuveus

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...316#36300317743

Squiddie

Calamari

Sentinel

Searcher

Destroyer

Shinryu (version 1)

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...316#36300321723

Tertiary Operations

Secondary Operations

Primary Operations

Operation Control

Operation Command

Shinryu (version 2)

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...316#36300321723

Tertiary Operations

Secondary Operations

Primary Operations

Operation Control

Operation Command

Vote for your favorite fan entry for rank names and icons to be awarded to Cypherite captains for victories in Hovercraft Battles. Voting will last seven days.

Entries:

HostileIntention

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...326#36300313557

Novice

Sandman

Priest

Cleric

Potent

Apost1e

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...326#36300315315

Tool

Killswitch

Blue

Elite

Superhero of the Computer Rage

Vesuveus

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...326#36300317766

Indulgant

Deferant

Rejecter

Retributor

Blissful

Fractor

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...326#36300319633

Maskman

Illusionist

Deep Sleeper

Blue Dreamer

Bluepill Facilitator

Vote for your favorite fan entry for rank names and icons to be awarded to E Pluribus Neo captains for victories in Hovercraft Battles. Voting will last seven days.

Entries:

HostileIntention

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...324#36300313494

Believer

Gunner

Pilot

Potential

Captain

Tseng.

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...324#36300313543

Delta Squad

Gamma Section

Phi Platoon

Sigma Company

Omega Division

AFGM1

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...324#36300313609

Fighter

Crusader

Captain

General

Commander

Shi+Xin+Feng

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...324#36300314224

Free Mind

Acolyte

Pilgrim

Disciple

Crusader

DevilSparda

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...324#36300314322

Believer

Churchgoer

Missionary

Soldier

Leader

Vesuveus

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...324#36300315566

Skeptic

Believer

Crusader

Prophet

Savior

RetroX

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...324#36300315664

Seeker

Believer

Fighter

Crusader

Knight

Fractor

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...324#36300318453

Neo Follower

Neo Worshipper

Freedom Fighter

Guardian of the One

Redpill Facilitator

Phrack

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...324#36300318775

Acolyte

Faithful

Devout

Parishioner

Enlightened

Vote for your favorite fan entry for rank names and icons to be awarded to Merovingian captains for victories in Hovercraft Battles. Voting will last seven days.

Entries:

Tseng.

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...338#36300313569

Baron/Baroness

Viscount/Viscountess

Earl/Countess

Maquesse/Marchioness

Duke/Duchess

HostileIntention

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...338#36300313587

Stooge

Champion

Shepherd

Advocate

Magnate

DevilSparda

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...338#36300313898

Business Man

Luxury Man

Missionary

Soldier

Right-Hand Man

Fractor

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...338#36300314105

Marauder

Avenger

Crusader

Vindicator

Liberator

Ednix

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...338#36300314861

Hired Killer

Businessman

Faithful One

Hired Man

Personal Guard

Vesuveus

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...338#36300317740

Descendant

Trafficker

Socialite

Elitist

Royalty

EndlessVoid (entry 1)

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...338#36300320502

Conscript

Mercenary

Warrior

Veteran

Warlord

EndlessVoid (entry 2)

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...338#36300320596

Pawn

Knight

Rook

Queen

King

Vote for your favorite fan entry for rank names and icons to be awarded to Zion captains for victories in Hovercraft Battles. Voting will last seven days.

Entries:

ZeroMark

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...327#36300313433

Recruit

Operative

Pilot

First Mate

Captain

Tseng.

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...327#36300313441

Operative

Lieutenant

Captain

Commander

Joint Chief of Fleet Operations

SolidRevolver

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...327#36300313879

Lieutenant

Lieutenant Commander

Commander

Captain

Admiral

Fractor

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...327#36300314955

Believer

Disciple

Prophet

Messiah

Martyr

Neoteny

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...327#36300315503

Awakened

Operative

Warrior

Ace

Admiral

PBlade

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...327#36300321604

Platoon Leader

Squadron Commander

Division Captain

Battalion Admiral

Fleet Supervisor

MeretrixMeretric (version 1)

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...327#36300321765

Inquisitive

Soldier of Fortune

Awakened

Conditioned Operative

Master Operative

MeretrixMeretric (version 2)

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...327#36300321765

Mindful

Free Mind

Trained Operative

Conditioned Operative

Master Operative

Vote for your favorite entries in the hovercraft rank contests for each organization! Polls will be open for a week.

Cypherite rank poll:
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016884

EPN rank poll:
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016885

Machine rank poll:
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016887

Merovingian rank poll:
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016888

Zion rank poll:
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016889

This topic has moved:

/mxo/posts/list.m?topic_id=36300018002

Moved to the Archive Construct.

I started experimenting with this due to something that came up in Image Retrieval. but I'm putting it together here because I'm interested in generating a discussion on some of the unexpected effects I stumbled into when combining various filters and blend modes.

The source image was a female with chrome skin from Personal Firewall, against a bright sky. The first wave of results were:

The first of those three images was done (in Photoshop 4) as follows:

layer 1: source screenshot
> Normal
- Image Adjust: Auto Levels

layer 2: Copy of layer 1
> Normal
- Invert

layer 3: Copy of layer 2
> Difference
- horizontal motion blur 210

layer 4: Hue/Saturation layer
> Normal
- saturation +100

layer 5: Copy of layer 1
> Normal
- Poster Edges, all sliders far left
- Invert
- Select the figure (polygon lasso)
- Layer mask (now you've got just the figure showing)

layer 6: Copy of layer 5
> Lighten
- Gaussian Blue 2

layer 7: Copy of layer 5
> Lighten
- Gaussian Blur 17

layer 8: Hue/Saturation layer
> Normal
- saturation +100
- bind this layer so it only affects layer 7 (hold Alt, click between the layers)

layer 9: Levels layer
> Normal
- Input levels 0 1 206

The other two images are just Inverted from the first.

There were three things here that really surprised me:

1) Difference

I don't think I've ever used a layer set to Difference blend in a useful way before, but here I found that when I copied a layer over itself, motion blurred it, and set it to Difference, it resulted in bizarre psychedelic patterns in the sky.

2) Saturation

Blowing out the saturation layers pulled out an incredible rainbow profusion of colors that for the most part wasn't evident beforehand. If affects luminosity, so you lose some subtle shading depth, but here it pushed the psychedelic Difference effect, and the neon Firewall + Poster Edges effect much further than I'd imagined they could go.

3) Moiré patterns

Layers overlaid and Gaussian blurred, then blown out with Saturation layers, results in the emergency of those cool moiré patterns on the figure. I'm gonna have to experiment with more ways to generate and manipulate those, because they really look appropriate for a digital simulation image.

Then I was messing around with cheap filters in the freeware image viewing program I use, Irfanview (Dracomet turned me on to it, it rules--get it, use it, love it--oh yah it's also what I use for batch renaming/converting the hundreds of bmp screenshots I take every day), and happened to activate an edge detection one that did something very interesting with those moiré patterns.

I went back into Photoshop and hit the image with the Glowing Edges filter (max Brightness, min Width and Smoothness), and got this:

GypsyJuggler had suggested that the first image looked like someone jacking out, so it occurred to me to see what would happen if I shifted the Glowing Edges result to all green. I did that with a bunch of Hue/Saturation operations, picking individual primary colors and dragging their Hue sliders left or right to keep shifting them to green.

Finally I duplicated that layer a bunch of times, blurred them (one slight Gaussian to build up a light blow effect, the rest Radial Zoom at varying distances), and overlaid them in blending mode Lighten and then, another surprise to me, one in Overlay, second from the top, that by darkening weaker areas of the background pattern gave it a ray effect that broke up the otherwise regular Radial Zoom results. I ended up with this:

which strikes me as a kind of Matrixy-style look. Since it's all procedurally generated with filters, it could have further uses.

This is looking a little long so I figured I'd better indulge in a separate thread; also, it takes place after most of the awesome screenshots in the MXO 3rd Anniversary Party Screenshots thread.

Due to foot-dragging, spying, and various server shenanigans, I was a little late making a Syntax character and trying to get to Virrago's anniversary party in Camon Heights Park. I had promised to tell a couple stories, though, and there were still a few die-hards hanging out on the hill as the fallout from the party-related hijinks earlier was getting under control, so I decided to go for it.

As long-time readers here will know, I'm rather fond of Photoshop's "Threshold" function, which converts a color or grayscale image into a stark black and white image, using an adjustable slider that lets you set the b/w transition point.

When I had to come up with something to use for static images in the Loading Area's "cinematics" screen, I experimented a bit and came up with a very simple method of layering multiple Thresholds of the same image to get a nice and dirty, high-contrast, sort of cel-shaded look from screenshots. You've probably seen me playing with it a bit on old screenshots in the "Assorted screenshots" thread. So, here's a little tutorial (based on my dear old Photoshop 4--specific details may work slightly differently in different versions of Photoshop) on how I used it to make the 10.3 chapter image that came up in update 61:

1) Source image

First, you need a source image to work from. For smoother results, start with one at as high a resolution as you can capture, and that hasn't been jpeg compressed, because the artifacts in a jpegged image will produce noise in the threshold results, especially when you set the Threshold slider to a high value. That isn't always a bad thing, but just something to keep in mind.

My original for this was 1600x1200, but in the interests of screen space here, I'll start with a half-size version of it, or 800x600:

(That was taken last week in Creston Heights on Vector, incidentally.)

2) Threshold it

There are many ways to do this in Photoshop (copying the image into layers, reloading the image, and using either Threshold layers, or the Threshold function, etc, etc), but essentially you're just going to use Threshold on the source image three times, at varying levels.

For this particular technique, you want to Threshold it once to get the deep shadows, Threshold it once to get the middle range, and Threshold it once to get highlights. These different ranges are just different numbers along the slider in the Threshold window. I like to jiggle the slider around until it reveals interesting shapes on the surfaces. What values you use will also vary based on what kind of overall contrast and brightness you're going for in the final composited image.

Here are the three I decided on for this particular image:

3) Threshold 1: Black

This first Threshold, using a low value, will look very washed-out, but the surviving dark areas will be the deepest blacks in the final image. With this one you want to preserve the most essential lines, and deepest shadows; here those were: the main figure's eyebrows, eyes, the shadow under her bust, the lines on the building, the dark field around the OUROBOROS logo, and the outlines of the two guards. The Threshold value of 40 did this nicely. Save this off or preserve it in a layer somehow.

3) Threshold 2: Mid-range

This middle one will be the one that really gives a sense of volume to the final image, so you want to try to get it to put lines across the middle of curved surfaces. Make sure you're starting from the source image, NOT from the thresholded image you just did in the previous step! A Threshold operation on the source image at value 55 caught the curves above her eyes, and on the main figure's arms and torso. It also began to fill in some patterning on the building in the background. Save this off or preserve it in a layer somehow. You should have two black and white versions of your source image now.

4) Threshold 3: Highlights

This last Threshold on the original source will look very dark, but the remaining white areas will be the very brightest highlights in the final image. I tried to get it to where it showed a strong feeling of directional light across the side of her face, the barest hint of curves on her chest, and the bright parts of the reflections on the windows of the building in the background. For this particular source image, a Threshold value of 89 seemed to strike a good balance. Save this off or preserve it in a layer somehow.

In catching Shadows, Mid-range, and then Highlights, we've been using increasing Threshold values on the source image (moving the Threshold slider farther and farther to the right). We now have three black and white versions of the source image. All we have to do now is combine them.

5) Combine the results

Put your three Threshold results into three separate layers, one on top of the other. Set the top one to Opacity 33%, the middle one to Opacity 50%, and the bottom one to Opacity 100%. This results in each of them blending with equal weight to form a combined, four-color grayscale image:

In Photoshop, when I want to combine layers to get a composite that I'm going to work with a little more, I usually SAVE THE IMAGE AS A PSD WITH ALL THE LAYERS, then just Flatten the image to mash all the layers into one, then CTRL+A to select the whole layer, and CTRL+C to copy it to the Clipboard. Then I Revert the image so that all my layers come back, in case I want to fiddle with them some more later. As usual, Photoshop gurus will have better ways of doing these things than my old brute-force methods.

6) Shrink it

Threshold always produces pure 2-color black and white results, with no grays along the edges, so your combined image will look really jaggy. To smooth it out, just scale the image down by 50%. In this example, we're going from 800x600 to 400x300:

I actually use the freeware program IrfanView to scale things down, because it has an option to use what's called the Lanczos algorithm to resize bitmaps, which gives really lovely results. Photoshop does a perfect adequate job, though, if you just want to stick with that. In any case, make sure you use a scale method that resamples the image, and you should end up with nice smooth lines, and no more jaggies.

7) Optional: playing with opacity/contrast

The 33/50/100% opacities we combined together give a regular four-color result. If you want to get different levels of brightness or contrast, you can simply use different opacity values, and change the order of the three thresholded layers before combining them in step 5 above. Just make sure to keep the bottom of the three layers at 100% opacity before you combine them.

For instance, when I did the actual chapter 10.3 image, I hadn't quite worked out all the math on the opacity levels, and instead of 33/50/100% opacity settings that give the even 4-color grayscale, I was using 50/50/100%. This gives double weight to the top layer, and you can try each of the three layers on top to see what different kinds of resulting combination you get. I had the Shadows one on top (the whitest one) at 50%, the mid-range one in the middle at 50%, and the Highlights one (the darkest one) on the bottom, at 100%. That gives this result, which you'll notice is brighter overall, since the white areas of the Shadows layer were given twice as much weight as normal:

8) Letterbox it

If you really want to get that cinematic feel, crop the image's height down so that the resulting width/height ratio is 16/9, which is what "high-def" uses. Hm there's another, even wider ratio that some movies use, but I forget what that one is; anyway, I like 16x9. :P This takes a little math to figure out:

Current width times 9, divided by 16, equal the new height.

In this example, with a 400-pixel width, we get

400 * 9 / 16 = 225

So, crop the height of the image to 225 if you want a nice 16x9 ratio. I then set the Canvas Size back to a height of 300, with a black background color selected, to get the black letterboxing bars on there, just for fun:

And that's it. One thing I could mention too is that since the individual Threshold layers are very simple black and white images, they're easy to edit, so you can pretty easily remove unwanted details, change the shapes of lines, add new elements, and so forth.

Oh, also, for low-bandwidth web-posting, you can change the Image > Mode to Indexed Color, using Palette = Exact, then File > Export it as a GIF.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Getting a little more in-depth:

I found that one handy way to play with the Threshold values on the fly is set your Threshold and source copy layers up in a big stack, with 33/50/100 opacity on the source copies, and then set the Threshold layers to only affect the layer below them. For instance:

A fairly quick way to do this in Photoshop (4 :p) is to copy the source image twice, then select each of the three in turn. When you have one selected, hold CTRL, click the New Layer button (the turning page icon at the bottom), and select Threshold for the Type and check the "Group With Previous Layer" box in the Adjustment Layer window that appears.

It was intended that the Beta Caps, unlike the old Beta clothing that was actually from Beta, would be items you could trade. They can't be traded right now, due apparently to some sort of confusion on our end. I am going to see that this gets rectified for the next update, so eventually you will indeed be able to trade them.

A Pacification Zone has been placed on the lower floor of Club Sphinx. This is a temporary zone, and will go away if the servers reset, or if it is deactivated by an admin.

I know that some of you are against the idea of a "safe zone" on a PVP server, but give it a try, and see what you think. It might add some interesting variety to an otherwise hostile world.

Easily confused with "sordid" dev screenshots perhaps, but in fact just a place for me to put screenshots I feel like posting for some reason.

For instance, it looks like Virrago was out today, so yesterday's event screens aren't uploaded yet, which means no Live Events post goes up today, but it also means...bonus screenshots!

All hosted-unofficially style:

This is new, I think, only in the sense that I just noticed it a few days ago. I'm sure most of you have known about it for ages; but anyway, if you look up to the top of the page at that row of text links below the SOE station.com navigation bar, you'll see that the second text link from the left is "Recent Topics." Clicking this takes you to a big page with the last, what, 50 or so posted-to topics displayed in descending order. It's like having all the boards squished into one huge, hyperactive one!

Here's the link for those too important to scroll up to the top of the page:

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...ntTopics/list.m

Anyway, just thought I'd mention that for those who hadn't noticed it hiding up there.

*goes back to waiting for people to reply to story characters on the Live Events forum*

Didn't notice anyone pointing this out, and I hadn't checked it until today, but sure enough, a "blog" type thing I wrote about MXO's story is up on the WarCry Network, here:

http://tmo.warcry.com/scripts/news/...ite=40&id=68703

Been up for two weeks already, I guess. ;) Walrus passed the buck to me from Marketing, and it looks like Marketing liked it (after Walrus edited the funk out of it, which is why it doesn't sound quite like me--which is to say that it almost sounds professional :p), so there may be more of these. In fact Walrus sent me a request for another one just today, which is what made me think that maybe I should stop waiting for someone official to tell me the first one had been posted, and just check myself.

So anyway there you go. The actual content of the article is pretty old news for you guys, but the target at WarCry, I guess, is informing people who aren't playing currently about what's up in MXO, particularly from a storyline angle. The next article is supposed to be a sort of summary of 6.3, according to what I remember of Wally's request from late this afternoon.

Our game's social structures and story encourage certain types of conflict between organizations. This often means that in a Live Event, different sides will have conflicting agendas, and if you're playing your character from your organization's point of view, you may find that your character objects to what the other group is doing in the event. Which is all find and dandy and good fun all around, usually.

However, certain types and amounts of such "role play" can make it difficult for me to manage a given Live Event. I am not here to tell you how to play the game--that's what the CSRs do. I am here to say that although you may interpret your behavior in an event as perfectly legitimate and correct role-play according to the tenets and beliefs of your organization or whatever, because of the limitations of game systems, and my own limitations in being able to plan and execute Live Events, there are situations in which, in order to make the event go smoothly, I have to remove you from it. I don't say that this is a good thing; I don't want to have to do it; it is simply, sometimes, necessary.

So, if you find yourself repeatedly saying pointed things during another org's meeting, or trying to rile up the Live Event character, or engaging in a lot of out-of-character public chat in the middle of a Live Event, or standing on top of the Live Event character, or breaking into another organization's meeting place, or other similar such things, which may be accidental or not on your part, do not be overly surprised if you find yourself suddenly moved elsewhere, silenced, put on /ignore, booted from the game, etc.

The thing is that telling a story via Live Events requires a certain amount of support and consideration by all players. There will always be things that don't quite make perfect sense in a non-game world, or typos made by the Live Event characters, or arbitrary barriers set up to prevent entry by certain organizations--things that we wouldn't have to resort to in a perfect world, but which are nonetheless realities of pulling off story events in the Matrix Online. There will probably always be an excuse for your character to act like a jerk or a loudmouth--perfectly in character, perfectly in accord with the story, but nonetheless disruptive to the event. You are free to choose how to conduct yourself, but when what you choose turns out to be unduly disruptive, I will do what I have to do to keep the event on track.

So, if you ever find yourself silenced, ignored, booted, kicked, flagged, or otherwise shut down by an admin in the middle of a Live Event, and wonder why it happened, please refer to this post, and solace yourself with the thought that the real reason is that I screwed something up somewhere in planning or execution. Thanks, and I look forward to seeing you all in many more events to come--briefly or otherwise.

This topic has moved:

/mxo/posts/list.m?topic_id=36300017214

This server maintenance issue was specific to Recursion.

This topic has moved:

/mxo/posts/list.m?topic_id=36300017243

Moving screenshot thread to the appropriate forum (Residual Self-Image).

This topic has moved:

/mxo/posts/list.m?topic_id=36300011398

Big, old, and slow--off to the archive construct with you!

Hm, looks like only admins can post at the moment. So nice and peaceful...

Gosh, it's quiet.

o_O

What if there are bears...

Due to the maintenance today there won't be a live event. At some point today I will be setting regionserver areas in DT on each server back to the free-for-all PVP setting they were put on last week (that was ~Edgewater on Syntax, ~Chelsea on Recursion, and ~Hampton Green on Vector). These settings are temporary and will go away if the servers reset again, but I'll see if I can keep them more or less operational for a week-ish. Please note that this *is* temporary, and we will not be setting up permanent F4A PVP areas within the four city districts.

This topic has moved:

/mxo/posts/list.m?topic_id=36300018045

Wrong forum.

This topic has moved:

/mxo/posts/list.m?topic_id=36300017378

I am going to have to shelve "Ask the Devs," at least for the time being. I'm just not managing to find the time to face wonderful barrages of questions here in the midst of all the other things I'm trying to get done for the game; I'm finding it more efficient to pop in comments at strategic spots hither and thither around the forums, as I still hover on the "Recent Topics" page pressing my browser's Refresh button at least as much as I always have. "Ask the Devs" has been a very helpful learning experience for me, and hopefully the often much-repeated answers to player questions found in the archived threads will continue to serve as handy references.

What are you people doing? You think the servers can take this much Mediumness??! This Medium wave will destroy us all! =O

You can pick only one of the 28, so choose carefully!