Topics

1

Fan Art / Twist on classic CT cover art (not mine)

« on: June 09, 2010, 02:57:18 am »

http://remainaery.deviantart.com/#/d2h20ey

Crono and Marle are about half a second from rocking that monster's world.  Crono + flaming guitar = awesome.

2

Chrono Compendium Discussion / The site's main background color is undefined

« on: October 03, 2009, 12:03:26 am »

Most people wouldn't notice this, since most people leave their default page background color as white, but, one day I changed my default to a light blue since the white was a little too intense on my eyes, then today decided to check up on the good ol' compendium and was greeted with the following display:

(outgoing link due to large screenshot size) http://hiddensquire.com/random_stuff/bluecompendium.jpg

The color problem remains the same on every page of the site, including the forum.  The whole issue is extremely easy to fix - just a small bit of code that actually tells the web browser to make the background white rather than just assuming the browser will make it white on its own.  Ramsus could probably do it in two to five minutes.

3

General Discussion / Nicely done

« on: April 01, 2009, 07:42:17 pm »

I don't know if many other people noticed, but, earlier today, when attempting to go to http://www.chronocompendium.com or any of its sub-pages, I was instead redirected to http://chronofan.com (I think that was the url, anyway.  Doesn't lead anywhere anymore.) and presented with a moderately convincing mock-up of an official Square-Enix announcement declaring that they had partnered with the Chrono Compendium for the purposes of creating a new fan-based Chrono game.  The page looked exactly like a number of the pages on the actual Square-Enix website, and every button on the fake page linked to a real page on the Square-Enix website.  I'm assuming Ramsus was the one who arranged all this.  I just wanted to say well done; good April Fools joke.  Although, I am glad you took it down early.  It was annoying not being able to navigate to any of the normal compendium pages or access the forum.

4

Submissions / Nu Smilies for the Compendium

« on: January 25, 2009, 06:55:47 pm »

Problem: The current smilies used on this forum are, for the most part, unoriginal, and thus boring.  Given that the compendium is supposed to represent the Chrono series in everything it is and does, it is only fitting that the very smilies used on the forum should be themed after something from said series.

Solution: The closest graphical thing to a big face for expressing oneself in the Chrono series is the Nu, since it is basically just a giant walking head with arms, legs and a tuft of hair.  Therefore, I give you:

Nu Smilies

Very Happy:

Smile:

Sad:

Surprised:

Shocked:

Confused:

Cool:

Laughing:

Mad:

Pissed:

Rage:

Zzz:

Scared:

Panic!:

I'm fairly pleased with my work for the most part, but I still consider myself an amateur spriter and there are definitely a couple smilies here I just can't get right.  The "Rage" one, for example, is right out, since it's about 9K - way too big with 40 frames and no real way to optimize it.  I mostly left it up there because it's fun to look at, even if it's not worthy to actually make it to the smiley bar.  The "Laughing" nu also bugs me; he looks just a tad maniacal.  While I'm sure plenty of people could find lots of opportunities to plug such an expression, that's not generally the way one laughs.

Constructive criticism is welcome.  I am also making an open invitation for anyone to edit these sprites, but only for the purposes of dedicating them to the Compendium's smiley bar - no using them for your own thing.  All of my working image files (a lot of them .xcf GIMP files) are in the zipped folder attached to this post.

[attachment deleted by admin]

5

General Discussion / Everyone here needs to STFU about Shadow

« on: January 17, 2009, 10:52:54 am »

Seriously, enough is enough.  He may be a tad annoying at times, but... for as often as a couple of you rip on him, you've pretty much brought yourselves to his level.  It's not funny anymore.  Everything that needs to be said about him has already been said; there is no need for you to continuously repeat it.  He already has his "FAIL" rank sitting right there every time he posts.  If you get aggravated by something he says, just don't say anything, unless you absolutely must.  As it is, you're just giving him a completely valid reason to be your enemy.  Really; leave him alone.

OH TEH IRONY~!!
                                                                                                                               ~V_Translanka

6

Submissions / Made some slick CT character avatars for anyone to use

« on: January 02, 2009, 02:00:22 pm »

So, I figured out the "random avatar" trick and couldn't resist trying it, as you all can probably see.  Of course, where there is a random avatar script, there must be many, many avatars.  To that end, I've been churning them out all day (and the previous night).  I am so pleased with my work that I think I'm going to be keeping this setting for a long, long time.  I know I'm kinda stealing teaflower's thunder since she was already doing the random trick, but, I figure as long as my avatars are more awesome, I'm justified.  Sorry teaflower.

Aaaaanyway, I made so many that I  ended up with quite a few extras that I didn't want to use because, although visually pleasing, they failed to properly represent me as a person. (That's not to say that some of the avatars in my *ahem* current rotation are perfect representations of who I am, but they are each moderately better in some way that most likely only makes sense to me.)  So, I'm giving them away.  Here they are:


Lucca



Marle



Ayla



Crono



Magus



Flea



Do not hotlink them.  They are stored on personal webspace that I pay for, and I will not leave them up there forever.  If you want it, copy the image to your hard drive and upload it to one of those free image hosting sites, of which there are many.

For those wondering, I obviously did not create the original images these avatars are made out of.  Every single image here and every image in my own rotating avatar came from fanart that was on deviantart.  Every single image I used required significant cropping and resizing, and in most cases I ended up playing with layer filters to improve the color of the final image (the two images of Flea above, for example, are the result of two different, but equally nice, filters).  You will note that none of these avatars are based off of fanart stored at the Compendium or cutelucca.com; this was intentional.  I wanted to show people a taste of how much good art was being missed. (Edit Jan 27 2009: My point was made, so now I'm using material from those sources as well to further increase the avatar library.)  And these were just the ones that made for good avatars!  You should see some of the stuff that's too big to fit in a 100x200 pixel frame.

All of the avatars contain a comment that gives credit to the original author of the image, and includes a link to the original image.  The comment was added through the program known as GIMP, which, I believe, uses a different comment tag than the one Windows Explorer is used to looking at.  As a result, you may or may not have to load the image with GIMP (a free program) to see the comment, but, whatever; it's there. (Edit Jan 27 2009: Avatars made from images in Y-E's pixiv gallery do not credit the original image creator, as Y-E did not copy that information along with the images themselves.)

I actually have a few more avatars I was going to give away, but alas, I cannot; they are made from images on a different site that explicitly forbids their use without permission.  And since the artist there speaks Japanese and I do not, I don't think I'll be able to ask permission properly any time soon.

Additional note: While I am giving the above avatars away, I would appreciate it if no one used any of the avatars that are in my current rotation (don't worry, there aren't duplicates of them in this post).

7

Welcome / Birthday / Seeya! Forum / Bah, might as well...

« on: December 26, 2008, 04:01:10 pm »

Introduce myself, that is; looks like I might become a regular on this forum.  I have been using the encyclopedia for a long time, but have only relatively recently bothered with trying to connect with people here.  Pay attention, because you will not hear me talk about myself again unless it is on-topic or unless I am directly asked.

• I go by hiddensquire for most of my online identities.  If you see it somewhere, it is probably me.
• I am in my mid-twenties, have a fairly well-paying job, and live (happily) alone in an apartment-like structure.
• I am a gamer forever at heart and don't ever want to completely grow up.
• I enjoy the occasional philosophical, moral, religious, or scientific discussion.
• Computer-wise, I am a jack of all trades and a master of none.  I am particularly skilled in HTML & CSS, somewhat skilled at Javascript and graphics manipulation, and remedially skilled at Java and Object-Oriented Programming in general.
• I have my own domain name and a sub-par website, which I update extremely infrequently.  The mini-forum on it I used as a journal is currently hacked, but mostly intact.  I have not bothered to clean it up and don't intend to any time soon.
• I love webcomics.  I have about 30 that I read on a regular basis.  Do not ask me to read yours unless it is amazing.
• I participate in D&D at least once a month among a group of friends.  I also enjoy many of the roleplaying games created by the company White Wolf.  I used to roleplay (and play moderator) extremely frequently on a forum that is now dead.  The roleplaying section here is highly underdeveloped by comparison.  :-/
• I was a very zealous Christian up until around age 18-19 when my ongoing spiritual journey reached an extreme crisis of faith that soon lead to a near-total spiritual and mental breakdown (I wasn't institutionalized or anything, but my otherwise ample mental capacities were... significantly reduced for a time).  It took me two years to come out of depression and recover to the point where I felt like I could live a life again.  I can now be best described as a deist, which basically means I believe there was a god who created everything by one method or another, but cannot vouch for much beyond that.  I will not be offended by any earnest question you have to ask me, and will usually do my best to answer.  I remain sympathetic to Christianity, and will sometimes even argue on their side if it looks like they aren't getting enough support, but I do not call myself one of them.
• Truth is sometimes more important to me than happiness.
• I championed Chrono Trigger as the greatest game of all time until a little under a year ago, when I played Tales of Symphonia and was forced to admit that there were games with just as good of a story and gameplay, but better graphics.  However, I still highly advocate the CT series.  I happily paid $80 for a used SNES cartridge of it way back when, and had no problem shelling out 40 bucks for it again on the DS.  I have played and recommend Chrono Cross, but consider it a lesser work compared to its progenitor.