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-   -   Ol' West + Graal Viewer... BEWARE!!! (https://www.graalians.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39926)

Whippy 11-21-2017 12:39 AM

Ol' West + Graal Viewer... BEWARE!!!
 
Espero que tus chinchillas estén bien, amigos ʕ; •`ᴥ•´ʔ

I offered to make my buddy some customs. After weeks of demoing them in the Graal Viewer, he finally uploaded them in West. They came out functioning like a giant load of cat balls. For all your sakes, I'd like to take the liberty to share a few of the pit falls I've discovered...

Now, I know what you're thinking, "WHIPPY, THE GRAAL VIEWER CAN BE OPERATED BY A MONKEY, WHY YOU HAS TROUBLE WIT IT?!"... Take note friends, I am only partially an idiot! I truly dotted my I’s and crossed my T’s while working on this. Triple-checked my work on a subatomic level. I'm 100% certain there were no faults on my behalf. So, through my vigilance, I've come here to roughly label the mishaps I’ve discovered thus far- to label the disconnects between The Viewer and West... all of which will save you a fist-full of agony.

Now, I'd like to point out that this mainly applies to kids who make their customs from scratch (as I have done). If you're only doing edits or slightly plagiarizing existing uploads, then you shouldn't need to check your work anyways.

Without further a due, this is a slight overview of inconsistencies I've discovered after uploading. Inconsistencies that you should be aware of if you choose to demo your customs in the Graal Viewer before uploading them in Ol' West:

In the Graal Viewer, the location of where your head meets your idle (and about 1/3rd of running) body frames will be +1 pixel on the y-axis. So when you upload your customs to West, your head will be one pixel lower (-1 on the y-axis) in many cases. About 1/3rd of the time, on running frames, I found it to be -1 pixel, +1 pixel 1/3rd of the time, and miraculously 0 on spot 1/3rd of the time. I could define the exact frames in which each occur, but for now I'm just giving a rough estimate. Basically, it's a crap chute.

The northern-grabbing head frame in the Graal Viewer is not the one used in West. The Viewer uses the 1st head frame from the template, but West uses the 9th frame. This was the first flaw I discovered before I finished my work, and I thought I was losing my mind. There are 100 frames of work to be done. It’s mind-boggling enough without this broken app jerking the rug out from under you.

Lastly, and most horribly… the eastern and western-running (side-running) frames… These are the frames pulled from the body sprite sheet to create the running animations in the Graal Viewer. (Coordinates apply to the frame locations of the Graal body template):

Northern-running animation: 1×2, 1×3, 1×4, 1×5, 1×6
Southern-running animation: 3×2, 3×3, 3×4, 3×5, 3×6
Eastern-running animation: 4×9, 4×2, 4×3, 4×4, 4×5, 4×13, 4×6, 4×1
Western-runn... wait, what? What the heck is that?! 9, 5, 13, 6? WHAT?!

No, for real. Check it for yourself. I tailored my buddy's customs to that crazy Graal Viewer running animation sequence, and after he uploaded them to West, it came out looking like some B-rated exorcist film ʕ-ᴥ- ʔ Not only was his animation in shambles, but his head was popping off his body about x5 worse than the southern and northern-facing running animations.

These are the inaccuracies I’ve discovered so far, and any Westies that plan on using the Graal Viewer should take heed. Death traps await you around every corner. There may be inaccuracies in the sitting and grabbing frames, but I haven’t looked into those yet. As a bonus, I’d also like to warn about the single-arm frames (1×16, 2×16, 3×16, 4×16). I placed my customs arms fitted accurately to my body frames (which were located nowhere near the default noob arms on the template). The arm turned out beautifully while grabbing and holding bushes, but does this trippy double-arm glitch while dancing, holding guns, etc. Be warned about where you place your arms on the template if you’re making your customs from scratch!

As a final note of clarity, I'd like to mention that my buddy has only uploaded the customs to West. These are strictly inconsistencies viewing customs in the Viewer vs uploading in West. The Viewer may very well work perfectly for Classic, but I couldn't say. I am surprised that nobody has come out about this yet, but *shrug* I just thought I'd make everyone aware of this stuff, just in case kids be like "Wtf my head popping off for?"... cuz I have seen my fair share of that going down. I could dig more into this topic and share the EXACT degree of each and every inconsistency, but at this point, I feel that trying to calculate all of this is WAY too hastling (besides, it's not like I'm getting paid). The Graal Viewer is basically a lost cause if you want exact measurements. Kids would be better off screen-capturing in-game shots of Noob templates, popping them in their art program, and lining everything up legitimately (as I have done). I could easily explain this if I were to make a YouTube video. Thoughts?

Eugeen 11-21-2017 02:26 AM

Shouldn’t have relied on graal viewer in the first place really

Whippy 11-21-2017 03:33 PM

Ahh dang, Eugeen! You're so right! I really shouldn't have ignored those giant neon signs in town that said "Don't use the Graal Viewer for Graal games or else!"... Or maybe I should've payed more attention to the hundreds of people in the forums complaining about the technical difficulties they've experienced with it?! ʕ >ᴥ>ʔ

Eugeen 11-21-2017 05:29 PM

Quote:

Posted by Whippy (Post 801876)
Ahh dang, Eugeen! You're so right! I really shouldn't have ignored those giant neon signs in town that said "Don't use the Graal Viewer for Graal games or else!"... Or maybe I should've payed more attention to the hundreds of people in the forums complaining about the technical difficulties they've experienced with it?! ʕ >ᴥ>ʔ

The thing is that you’re acting like you got screwed over yet you knowingly trusted a third party application without double-checking wether everything was correct yourself.

It’s not an official graalonline endorsed website nor product so why do you even mention a scenario of where they would put warnings about it in-game?
It’s also kind of stupid that you’d expect a lot of posts about some third party application from a not very respected website like graaldepot


Nice that you’re warning people even though I personally just see this is a personal mistake that would have been avoided with a few seconds of thinking

Whippy 11-21-2017 08:50 PM

Have played Graal for five years, dude. Never once have heard anything regarding the legitimacy of the Viewer. If the owner of a brand would let a third-party website persist for this length of time, (making its way into the hierarchy of community knowledge, and performing a heavy-lifting service) it goes without saying that it should perform efficiently and never risk defacing the brand. But obviously it doesn't, and if I were Graal owners, I'd put effort into stamping it out with an official product ASAP. Doesn't that make sense?

I didn't come here to have a battle of word-punchies. I came here to warn against use of the Viewer, and report my discoveries. It personally does me no good other than to hope that my doing so could save a fellow artist a bit of pain-in-the-ass, (as I wish that someone would've done for me). If it does, then it'll have been worth it.

Eugeen 11-21-2017 10:11 PM

Quote:

Posted by Whippy (Post 801887)
Have played Graal for five years, dude. Never once have heard anything regarding the legitimacy of the Viewer. If the owner of a brand would let a third-party website persist for this length of time, (making its way into the hierarchy of community knowledge, and performing a heavy-lifting service) it goes without saying that it should perform efficiently and never risk defacing the brand. But obviously it doesn't, and if I were Graal owners, I'd put effort into stamping it out with an official product ASAP. Doesn't that make sense?

I didn't come here to play a battle of word-punchies. I came here to warn against use of the Viewer, and report my discoveries. It personally does me no good other than to hope that my doing so could save a fellow artist a bit a pain-in-the-ass, (as I wish that someone would've done for me). If it does, then it'll have been worth it.

The reason the site may exist is because it does not hurt graalonline in any way and if anything it just allows people to get easy customs making graal more money.

Also, I have never said that the graalviewer is not legit or has issues with legitimacy so idk where you got that from?
It’s safe to use but all I’m saying is that it’s not made by graal and therefor you should have no expectations of it working perfectly if at all.

Your whole statement is making it look like you think a gfx website that exists for a few years and gets used by a lot of players magically becomes an official asset of GraalOnline which is simply not how things work.

The only reason there’s a discussion going on is because I made a witty statement pointing out the obvious and you decided to get defensive with a sarcastic attitude.
I never criticised the fact that you’re doing something good by warning people in itself yet you seem to have taken it that way.

Distorted_P2P 11-22-2017 03:01 AM

Quote:

Posted by Eugeen (Post 801882)
The thing is that you’re acting like you got screwed over yet you knowingly trusted a third party application without double-checking wether everything was correct yourself.

It’s not an official graalonline endorsed website nor product so why do you even mention a scenario of where they would put warnings about it in-game?
It’s also kind of stupid that you’d expect a lot of posts about some third party application from a not very respected website like graaldepot


Nice that you’re warning people even though I personally just see this is a personal mistake that would have been avoided with a few seconds of thinking

wow you must feel proud of yourself here talking **** to someone who was just tryna save people from wasting their time

i wish i could be u bro

Eugeen 11-22-2017 01:19 PM

Quote:

Posted by Distorted_P2P (Post 801906)
wow you must feel proud of yourself here talking **** to someone who was just tryna save people from wasting their time

i wish i could be u bro

I simply pointed out the obvious, if that hurts anyone then they shouldn't have allowed their words and statements to be open to discussion on a forum in the first place

Whippy 11-22-2017 02:10 PM

Quote:

Posted by Eugeen (Post 801893)
The reason the site may exist is because it does not hurt graalonline in any way

It exists due to necessity. It's obviously a very vital tool. I've visited the site many times over the years, and had personally regarded it in high standards. Due to its reputation and allowance to exist among the community (as I had previously said in no certain terms) at the forefront, then I'd expect it to operate sufficiently enough so that the Graal owners could confidently sit back and continue to allow a third party to fill this much-needed void.

Quote:

Posted by Eugeen (Post 801893)
Your whole statement is making it look like you think a gfx website that exists for a few years and gets used by a lot of players magically becomes an official asset of GraalOnline which is simply not how things work.

But it is being treated as an official asset because there is no alternative (if there is then somebody should be testing and endorsing it), for as you've said "Making Graal more money". If a third-party is attracting this much attention and bringing revenue to a company, but not quite displaying the standards that the company wishes, then it's a common theme for the company to stamp out the third party by releasing a similar product. That is how things work. It's basic business.

Quote:

Posted by Eugeen (Post 801893)
Shouldn’t have relied on graal viewer in the first place really.

You're right. That is an obvious statement, and in my book, merits nothing but a sarcastic reply... for example: If I had done something really stupid, and one of my buddies came up and pointed out just how stupid I was for doing it, then I'd elbow them in the rib and start off "DURR HURR NO $#!% MATE REALLY?!" lol xD..... My reply was meant in that regard with no ill-intent... I've just retired as a 10-year on-road guitarist, and during that time, I'd developed the habit of being completely explicit with everyone I came across, so you'll have to excuse my informality. Aside from that, I'm too old to become defensive over something so trivial. These days, you'd basically have to physically assault my mother before I get huffy ʕ-ᴥ – ʔ

Again, I was here to display this memo:

Do not trust the Graal Viewer. Plain and simple.

If you're reading this comment and, like Eugeen, have already disregarded the viewer- if you already consider it common knowledge that this application is faulty- then I apologize for your time spent here.

ʕ; •`ᴥ•´ʔ

And with that, I have nothing left to say, and find no reason to spend any more time discussing it, cool? I've only ever come to the forums to talk extreme shop. I thought this case was worthy enough for me to drag my butt back here one last time (especially because I've seen no word on it during my five years of Graal).

Peace dudes.

Eugeen 11-22-2017 02:44 PM

Quote:

Posted by Whippy (Post 801931)
But it is being treated as an official asset because there is no alternative (if there is then somebody should be testing and endorsing it), for as you've said "Making Graal more money". If a third-party is attracting this much attention and bringing revenue to a company, but not quite displaying the standards that the company wishes, then it's a common theme for the company to stamp out the third party by releasing a similar product. That is how things work. It's basic business.

If it's not part of the company then it is not official and therefor remains as an unofficial website just like fansites and even graalians.com
It doesn't matter if people use it a lot or not, it's simply not official if it has no direct ties with GraalOnline or its creators and has not been endorsed as being an official part of their franchise.

The way you make it seem is that you think fansites count as an official part of the game they made their site about just because a lot of people visit it which is simply not how it works

hosler 11-22-2017 03:16 PM

I enjoyed only the first post in this thread

Sent from my SM-N920R7 using Tapatalk

Whippy 11-22-2017 03:32 PM

Eugeen... one last time, man.

Read what I've said.

Not once did I imply the consideration of these third party sites being officially labeled as first-party properties. I said "treated" as such. In a nutshell, I'm basically calling the Graal owners "lazy" for not publishing an official Viewer of their own, considering the popularity of this broken app... but that's my vibe, so who cares?

Personally, it doesn't even matter. This past year, I promised two of my buddies custom work. Once I've worked through my own dilemmas, there's nothing left for me to worry about. I strictly came to make fellow artists aware of my discoveries, in hopes of saving a bit of unnecessary community headache in the future... yet all that's been discussed here is nothing but a colossal waste of time and space.

Quote:

Posted by hosler (Post 801933)
I enjoyed only the first post in this thread

Sent from my SM-N920R7 using Tapatalk

Thanks, hosler. The primary post is the only one worth reading. Peace

TWIZ 11-23-2017 06:56 AM

Used it once to preview a body... never again.

GraalEtho 11-23-2017 07:28 PM

just use gimp ;)

Whippy 11-24-2017 03:12 PM

Quote:

Posted by GraalEtho (Post 802040)
just use gimp ;)

You've got to be kidding me, man.

I do use GIMP. Who hasn't? Yes, GIMP has a GIF/Animation display, but it obviously doesn't give you the proper x, y coordinates for Graal head, body alignment. Even the official head/body templates do not come with this info, because they exist only as separate entities. Aside from this, it takes a bit of effort in setting up an animation vs just popping the images in the Viewer.

The only method for a player to extract proper alignment, would be to demo Noob head + body in-game, take screenshots of every single frame that makes up a template (80+ basic frames, not including special actions/animations i.e. dances, guns), import all of it into a program, align the head and body templates to the screenshot, and finally GFX over the aligned frames. GIMP (or whatever graphics program you desire) is only an instrument, and has only a fraction of relevance to the heart of the subject.

Side note... why kids always use a winky face when they think they're being smart?


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