Needs some Depth of Field shit going on as well. And blood, lots and lots of blood.

>>347052
It's a marked improvement, if only because the floor mat is no longer a painfully strong incorrect depth cue.
>>347056
Maybe a little heavy on the lighting though. :V

>>347052
Definitely better. Could stand to have less light contrast, though. The way you have it looks like there are no other windows. Of course, if that's how the room is set up then it's perfectly fine.

I wish people would stop using dodge/burn as a substitute for painting different shades of a certain color. It looks like shit.

>>347061
There's no dodge or burn tool used in that image :V

>>347063
And yet the effect is the same. :V

If we find a ring in a barrel or start pilfering the silverware, this quest will have the exact same opening as Morrowind. I liked that game (was a bit easy to break though).

>>347064
that is quite mean... "it looks like shit" is not constructive criticism. And it actually doesn't look bad at all.

>>347087
>"it looks like shit" is not constructive criticism.
It bears a passing resemblance to constructive criticism in that it is meant as advice -- in this case, the advice being to "stop doing that you're making my eyes hurt". But it's true that it's rather mean to deprive Theta of a proper explanation and following advice, and so I'll begin.

>And it actually doesn't look bad at all.
It wouldn't look very bad -- to /me/, mind you -- if it wasn't shaded so awfully. There's apparently a bright light source behind the girl, but the shadows on her body are anything but as highly contrasting as I'd expect from something that's brightly lit from one side and in relative darkness on the other. And then there's the problem that the shading itself fails to convey any actual sense of shape. Looking at it feels more like I'm witnessing an airbrushed excuse rather than something like real shading.

Now, mind you again, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I used to do this kind of bad shading too, and I wouldn't doubt if I fuck up my lighting more than once in a while. My further advice, then? Lo:

Don't be afraid to use contrast in shading. I used to hang out in Flockdraw and a more experienced painter than I came along one day, saw my strained efforts at painting, and told me that I needed to use more contrast between the shadows and the background and foreground of my pictures, and by God, he was right. And on a similar note, be bold and don't be afraid to try new things, because when you inevitably cock it up, kind of like I'm probably doing in my efforts to help you, it will be more apparent and more motivating to fix. Back on track. Read this tutorial: http://hippie.nu/~unicorn/tut/xhtml/#basics-lightshadow
And watch how the light plays off of objects in real life too, because real life harbors examples that you won't see anywhere or anywhen else. Yes, I'm aware that you've probably already heard that spiel a billion times, yes, this is generic advice, but it's important, essential. Read it again, read the tutorials again, study real life again and again. To an extent, of course -- one must have time to let his imagination roam, as well. But do not be afraid to study.

>>347095
An addendum, for those who are unclear on my meaning: It is not necessarily bad to do things badly, because to do things badly is a part of learning.

It was an experiment to even see if I could achieve a decent painted-like style of doing backgrounds that I've seen before. If I were to put more effort into it, it would look better, but as it is it was just one of those "Can I do something like this or not" kind of things.

Thanks for the crit. though.

>Magic is itself completely incompatible with the laws of physics as we understand them
About that; if the laws of physics apply to some part of a setting (such as f=ma still applying when not affected by magic), physics is still useful at the points where magic intersects with regular physics. For example, a magic bolt is shot at an un-enchanted wooden barricade made of crates and such.
Does it
A) Apply kinetic force (like a cannonball)
B) Apply heat, possibly setting the barricade on fire
C) Make the barricade disintegrate
D) Do something else entirely
or E) Do some combination of the above
(With the further qualification of whether it affects the impacted crates uniformly or by distance from impact)

>>347108
or cannot be reliably studied due to every mage's magic bolt being different. like a fingerprint. and so while you can get accurate readings from one wizard it would conflict with more. also things invloving the more powerful magic effects would be impossible to study, such as the amount of time a timestop appears to last for the wizard because the stopwatch also stops and the mage can only give an estimate.

>Different for every person
If that is the case, we can still find out what it does for us. If it does a different thing every time the same mage casts it is a rather questionably useful spell. We need to know, whether we can fling void bolts around inside a wooden building without risking burning the whole place down on our heads, and it is quite useful to know whether we can push an item around with low-power void bolts destroying it.
> Time Stop
There are definitely useful things you can know about time stops, like how it handles items thrown by the wizard, and whether air you interact with is brought entirely to your time-speed or is still partially sluggish. (And you could bring the watch with you in your pocket. If your clothes can't move at (or near) your time-speed, you are kind of screwed unless your a nudist mage.)

point is studying magic makes it not magic anymore so knock it off. i like to keep my magic magic okay.

>>347111
Flinging around magic without knowing its effects is like putting on a found magic amulet without knowing that it does. (You do know how that one tends to turn out, right?)

I am not asking how it works, I am asking what effects it has on the rest of the world. (And in this setting people already do use magic for stuff like giant steel airships.)

then that is just asking what the spell IS. a fireball is a fireball. a magic shell is a magic shell. figuring out the impact radius of the fireball and the size of it's shockwave is doing science to it. there is a difference between studying the magic out of something and learning the effects.

Science is not machines. Science is a systemic method of inquiry. Magic can totally be scienced.

>>347127
they are similar in almost every concept
science- robots
magic- golems

both artificial and superhuman

>>347128
But that's a fictional construct, stereotype thing.
Science is a fucking term and method, Magic is not the absence of science. Magic is... what it is I guess. It's not a term but an actual thing in concept. I think Magic is more for a theme really. For a fictional universe yeah okay man whatever rolls I guess according to the author but really we're not talking about this world's specifics we're talking about general specifics with real world applications of several concepts here. Real world interpretations are the real serious business.
Robots ARE golems. Animated by several forms of energy that exist in the world.
Hell, some lines of fiction with magic do go in line with magic expending energy. The mage is a conduit or some shit like that changes chemical energy from the body into thermal, kinetic, and other forms of energy. I'm not up with the sciences here so I'm not good with terms and specifics but I do know that energy is flowing like a motherfucker, so the practice of science is acting in magic. Otherwise there would be no true effect in the world. Cause and effect motherfucker, it's science too.
What you're referring to is a trope. Magical based conceptual technology vs. Non-magic Technology.

>>347119
Are you seriously saying it is a good idea to throw explosives (fireball or not) around without knowing their blast radius? I shouldn't need to tell you the ways that can go wrong.

>>347128
They are only superhuman if you put in the skills, resources, and effort to make them so. But that is aside from the point.

It depends on the kind of magic really. If your world has strict Magic A is Magic A/conservation of phlebotinum style magic, then you can easily treat it's study as science (see:magitek). It generally feels so inevitable that not treating it as such either needs to serve as a plot point, or leaves an entire world holding the idiot ball (even worse if your main character suddenly starts 'studying' magic out of the blue).
If you go for more woolly 'natural'/'low' magic/beseeching the gods, then structured study of magic and it's effects - or more specifically, the lack of study - is key to the setting itself.

>>347134
With consistent magic, there is also the option that sophisticated uses of it take a lot of prerequisite knowledge. (Consider as a parallel how long it took humans to do much of anything with electricity.) Sure, there are bound to be some people studying magic, but it is perfectly reasonable for them not to have gotten much further with magic than Plato did with physics. (If the setting is around for thousands of years without major tech advances that brings many more questions up than just the magic related ones.)
The protagonist suddenly having ideas on how to advance magical studies can be attributed to them either
A) Being unusually clever (at least when it comes to magic)
or B) Receiving dread and wondrous knowledge from alien planes of existence (which they kind of are)

dear god she is adorable... she is a d'awwgonkin.

>>/quest/343165

Yes.

Umm... I'd rather not stir up a flame wars again, but did we ever find out what our void bolts actually do?

And yes, there is a good reason to know.
If, for instance, we are on a ship fighting pirates (a standard adventurer activity), and a pirate dodges, we should know if the void bolt will:
-Puncture the hull, leaving everyone aboard to drown at sea
-Set the hull on fire, making everyone choose between a fiery doom or a watery one
-Bounce off the hull and blast our face off
-Turn everyone in the room (including us) into red paste because it explodes like a DnD fireball
-Dissipate without doing anything

>>351769
Firebolt = Sets things on fire
Icebolts = Coats things in a thin layer of ice/frost
Lightningbolts = Electrifies the target object. Obviously not that useful if said target is not made of electrically conductive materials
Voidbolt = Smashes/dents the target object because it's a wibbley-wobbley form of kinetic energy.

>>351776

So, thick rubber boots would make you immune to lightningbolts? :3c

>>351776
Ohh, kinetic impact. That is so much better than fire, which is messy and has lots of things immune to it.

>>351777
If you wore rubber boots in a thunderstorm, and were struck by lightning, would you be affected by the lightning strike?

With lightning magic, how much control does the caster have over the lightning's path? If a mage tried to zap someone trough a metal grating, would the lightning be attracted to the metal or would it keep going in the direction it is cast in?

Anonymous 2011/08/27(Sat)17:36 No. 41990 ID: b6ca92
File 131449180253.png - (382.12KB , 650x1588 , masseffectawkward.png )

>>351776
>Voidbolt = Smashes/dents the target object because it's a wibbley-wobbley form of kinetic energy.

So... Mass Effect?

>>351784
It follows the rule of itsmagicIain'tgottaexplainshit.jpg and will go to the intended target.

>>351794
I am completely OK with the fact that it uses magic to ignore being attracted. I just care about whether or not it does (so I can know whether we can stick a longsword in the ground as a lightning rod and take cover behind it).

Anonymous 2011/08/28(Sun)10:47 No. 42002 ID: 9c538a
File 131455365947.jpg - (97.56KB , 640x748 , lightning_rod_hat.jpg )

>>351779

Oh no wait, I have the perfect defense against lightningbolt.

ThatsNotHowElectricityWorks.jpg

Θ][Σ!TarDIs2HQE 2011/08/30(Tue)12:16 No. 42053 ID: 6f1d54
File 131473179679.png - (16.17KB , 800x821 , 123sstgt3.png )

>>351850

How long have you been waiting for a opportunity to use that?

>>351855
Actually I drew it just for that reply :V

Winston 2011/08/31(Wed)00:23 No. 42069 ID: 0d7a83
File 131477541741.jpg - (59.91KB , 330x268 , ChurchillDealtWith.jpg )

Oho! Check me out with my Paint.NET and lack of creativity.

>>351850
is this some sort of in joke? because I can't see any jpg image.

>>351896
It's supposed to be cleverly referencing an image that gets posted a lot, rather than actually posting it. Though nowadays it just gets used for whatever short response you feel like typing.

Also I'm sort of holding Arcana updates hostage against TestPattern so he updates Tozol Quest more often too.

Just layign that out there.

>>351901
:(

Ñ 2011/09/01(Thu)00:14 No. 42114 ID: ce4a4d
File 131486125002.png - (733B , 16x16 , arcana-favicon.png )

>>351901
But... you've done one update in the past 3 months. I think you have some catching up to do, Theta. :|

But hey, just so I'm not being a complete jerk have a favicon.

So yeah, pretty sure I'm completely burned out on quests. I used to be all gung-ho about them and now it's like I could hardly care. I completely forget the point of doing Arcana and I have no urge of starting something new or anything like that. Just a huge wave of apathy.

So um. Yeah. Don't be surprised if my already diminished presence here on the boards fizzles out completely.

:C

>>355450
D:
But...

>>355450
See you later. Take care.

>>355450
well that sucks :I