- Blue lines indicate base of neck - Yellow lines indicate neck - Green indicates head (with snout outlined) - Red indicates eyes Want to make sure nothing jumps out as blatantly wrong with proportions/perspective before I proceed any further, so that I can correct those mistakes while it's still easy to do so. I am not anything resembling a trained artist, so any advice would be greatly appreciated, even if it seems obvious.

"Make it less square" isn't really an option, since the attack it's used for needs a square hitbox.

technology BeamBrain • 2 weeks ago • 100%

Here's what I've tried so far: - Made the default "ASP.NET Core API" project (the weather forecasting one) in Visual Studio - Built it and copied the contents of the build folder to C:\Users\\[My username]\TestService - Ran the TestService executable. It says "Now listening on: http://localhost:5000" - Open my browser, enter the "http://localhost:5000" URL. I get a 404 error. This is all on the same computer. - Noticed that, under launchSettings.json, there were some other URLs listed, none of them localhost:5000. It gives 2 https URLs: https://localhost:7079 and http://localhost:5222. Both of these give "connection refused" errors. - At this point, I don't know what else to do Please help I don't want to lose my job **EDIT:** I was able to figure out what was going on. Solution is [here.](https://hexbear.net/comment/5348975) Thanks to hypercracker and everyone else who advised 

vegan BeamBrain • 2 weeks ago • 94%

A core tenant, perhaps *the* core tenant, of veganism is that animals have a moral worth comparable to that of humans and that we have similar moral responsibilities toward them that we do to other people. When a carnist tries to tell you that you're not allowed to compare animal oppression to human oppression, they are demanding that you implicitly accept the carnist view: that animals are inferior and lesser beings, and therefore we can brutalize and kill them without compunction. The comparison between animal oppression and human oppression is *only* degrading to humans if you start with this premise. It has nothing to do with being considerate to marginalized people (as they claim) and everything to do with creating a left-sounding justification to make your views verboten. If you are a minority discussing *your own experience* as a marginalized person in relation to animal oppression, carnists will try to dictate how you're allowed to talk about your oppression and use your solidarity with animals to get you into trouble. I have experienced this firsthand. They'll happily silence you in this manner because, for them, their concern was never with marginalized people - it was with their perceived right to not only enable the endless horrors of carnism, but to never be made the slightest bit uncomfortable about them.

copypasta BeamBrain • 3 weeks ago • 100%

Just wanna say, a little something.. There is nothing I love more.. Taking my headphones off, fuck that.. But there's this: There's nothing I love more than to, to, to sit down, comfy chair, turn on the PC, fire up a brand new RPG.. Lose myself, just, oh my God, just think of this world, just think of all the planets I can visit. All the immersive things I can get involved with, all the FIGHTS, all the relationships, all the people I meet, all the places I go. I'm so excited to go to there, and you know, I love nothing more, than with all of that laid out in front of me, I love nothing more, THAN TO BE DRAGGED DOWN, EVERY FUCKING CONVIVEABLE OPPROTUNITY, SO YOU CAN FUCKING CURRENT DAY US! "...Sorry, did you wanna get immersed in our world? Yeah, well, guess what? FUCKING PRONOUNS!! FUCKING GENDER AMBIGUITY! FUCKING CURRENT DAY CALIFORNIAN SHIT! 'CAUSE THAT'S ALL WE FUCKIN' KNOW! 'CAUSE WE'RE BORING!! ..WE'RE SO! FUCKING! BORING! ...WE. Can't SEE. Past out own FUCKING REFLECTION. .. THAT'S THE LEVEL OF OUR NARCISISSM HERE." - SAYS THE WESTERN GAME COMPANY. "FUCK YOUR IMMERSION. FUCK YOU HAVING A GOOD TIME. FUCK YOU JUST FALLING INTO A WORLD AND JUST GETTING LOST. OH, NO, NO! CURRENT FUCKING DAY!" ..FUCK OFF! YOU'RE BORING. YOU'RE FUCKING DULL. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY. YOU ARE A ONE HIVEMIND TWATWAFFLE. ..THAT'S ALL YOU FUCKIN' ARE! And you wonder why people are getting so FUCKING SICK! AND TIRED! YOU TAKE EVERYTHING WE LOVE. ALL OUR IMMERSIONS. ALL OUR FANTASIES. ALL OUR ESCAPISM. AND YOU JUST CAN'T HELP SHOVEL YOUR DOGSHIT! FUCKING CRAP! IDEOLOGY. INTO EVERYTHING. EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY FUCKING THING.

ttrpg BeamBrain • 3 weeks ago • 100%

I have an idea for campaign in my head but I need to find a good system to run it. Main thing I want is a system that would allow people to play humans, humanoids, and non-humans, with enough system and character customization depth to make the differences feel interesting and meaningful. Basically, if a player wants to be a fire magic-wielding phoenix or a psychic cat, they should be able to do that. Ideally the system would also have at least some level of support for typical fantasy adventuring stuff (dungeon crawling, combat, social intrigue, etc.)

games BeamBrain • 3 weeks ago • 100%

I love video games. I'm a hobbyist game developer. Having spent years learning and practicing the craft myself, I'm always looking for ways to better understand how and why certain games are or aren't engaging. To that end, I'm going to talk about a game that both frightened and captivated me as a child (though rather than the original, I played the SNES port, which was very good and included a much-needed option to lower the difficulty). To start with, I'd recommend watching [this gameplay video (**PHOTOSENSITIVITY WARNING AT 1:35**)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcyBtVwAsfg). It's short (<2 minutes) and neatly demonstrates the gameplay loop, which gives a frame of reference for when I discuss the game's atmosphere. # MINIMALISM *Sinistar* is not a game with lots of bells and whistles. Largely, this is out of necessity; in 1983, kilobytes and processor cycles were precious, and every one had to be made to count. This has the benefit, though, of making every element in *Sinistar* well-realized and crucial to the gameplay, and the game itself easy to learn. You pilot a ship. Your ship has a rapid-firing gun. This gun is multipurpose: in addition to killing enemy ships, it serves as a mining tool, releasing crystals from the asteroids scattered throughout the map. Collect these crystals, and you get "Sinibombs," the only other weapon in your arsenal and the only thing that can harm the game's titular antagonist. You have a radar that shows the positions of nearby ships and asteroids. There are exactly two different kinds of enemy ships: Workers, which also mine the asteroids and steal any crystals you fail to collect in time, using them to build Sinistar; and Warriors, which strafe you with guns that can shoot in 8 directions. And finally, there's Sinistar himself. He's not there at first, but the Workers are constantly building him. Once he comes alive, he charges at you, chasing you, and you have to survive long enough to pump enough Sinibombs into him to kill him. # INTERESTING DECISIONS Sid Meier defined a game as "a series of interesting decisions," and *Sinistar* forces you to constantly make interesting decisions. Immediately, you want to start mining asteroids. You don't have a second to waste; if you don't have at least 13 Sinibombs by the time Sinistar arrives, you won't be able to kill him, and it will be almost impossible to mine any more with him chasing you. Even if you get 13 Sinibombs, though, you can't relax. You can store up to 20, after all, and Sinibombs can miss - not to mention that every extra you can grab now is one you won't need to mine in the next level. While you're mining these asteroids, the Workers swarm like flies on rotten meat, ready to scoop up any crystals you don't get to in time, and Warriors constantly swoop in to fire bursts at you. Workers have no weapons and die in a single shot, so you can take them out to stop them from stealing your crystals. Likewise, a single Warrior is easily dealt with if you keep your full attention on it, since they also die in a single hit, your bullets destroy theirs, and you're not limited to firing in 8 directions. But you can't focus solely on any one thing. You will never have uninterrupted time to mine, and killing Workers or Warriors distracts you from mining, and that is time you can't afford to lose. How long can you shoot this asteroid before you need to clear out some of the enemy ships? How many Workers are you willing to risk turning your own crystals against you? Are you willing to risk dying to a stray bullet from a Warrior? Two Warriors? Five Warriors? The game forces you to constantly juggle these competing priorities. Finally, there is the matter of Sinistar himself. Your ship's main gun, as mentioned before, does nothing to him. Your Sinibombs home in on him and have very long range, but if there's an intervening enemy or asteroid in the way, the Sinibomb is intercepted and wasted. Your Sinibombs are precious, and you want to save as many as possible for future levels, to say nothing of the risk of not enough hitting this Sinistar to kill him. You want to let Sinistar close in as much as possible to maximize your hit chance, but this is of course inherently risky, since Sinistar is much faster than you are and kills you on contact. # ATMOSPHERE There were a lot of fun arcade games in the 80s. What brings *Sinistar* to the level of a classic worth studying over 40 years later is its atmosphere. As I said, I played this game on the SNES, over a decade after it was originally released. I was already accustomed to then-modern, atmospheric titles like *Super Metroid*, *Chrono Trigger*, and *Doom*, and still this game was tense and nerve-wracking to me. I can only imagine what it must have been like to first encounter it in arcade back in 1983. *Sinistar* was one of the first games to use digitized voices (the very first being 1980's *Stratovox*), with the samples themselves having striking clarity compared to its contemporaries like *Berzerk*. Upon being built, Sinistar announces his presence with a booming **"BEWARE, I LIVE."** The whole time you are mining asteroids, you will be on edge, dreading those words. The time it takes the Workers to build Sinistar varies. The only way to know how far along they are is to die, with the death screen showing you how much of Sinistar is built - but your lives are precious, and you can't afford to waste them just to satisfy your curiosity. You can never be sure how much time you have, but you know it won't be enough. Even after you hear that booming voice, though, there's a delay. You won't see Sinistar on the screen yet, may not even have him in radar range, but you know he's coming for you. It's just a matter of time. All the while as he chases you down, he continues to taunt you with lines like **"RUN, COWARD"** and **"I HUNGER."** He knows as well as you do how much more powerful he is than you, and he revels in it. Should Sinistar manage to catch you, he doesn't merely shoot you, or crash into you. No, he *eats* you, your ship spinning helplessly in front of his mouth while he roars, then *crunch*, you're dead. Is there any better way of driving home how outmatched you are, how insignificant you are compared to this monster? # CONCLUSION For a game so early in the industry's history, one made mainly with the goal to take money from children, *Sinistar* manages to feel like so much more. It's not just an excellent game, it almost functions as a sort of cosmic horror story, putting the player in a position where they face a foe far beyond them and their time is always running out.

games BeamBrain • 3 weeks ago • 100%

the cia is hosting a strategy guide for command & conquer tiberian sun on its website

chat BeamBrain • 4 weeks ago • 97%

I can't help but think that a lot of resentment from guys who aren't getting laid comes from society's notion that if you can't or don't get sex, it means you're a lesser human being and that makes it okay for others to hurt you. In that position, I could easily see a man resenting women as the gatekeepers of his full humanity, and that by not having sex with him, they're depriving him of it. It's very similar to some angry thoughts I had when I was younger, and in a worse timeline it's entirely possible I could've fully plunged into that same cesspit. That isn't to justify any of the awful shit that incels say and do, of course - many reactionaries lay blame in the wrong place for very real problems they face - but I feel there has to be a connection there.

furry BeamBrain • 4 weeks ago • 100%

lol. lmao

vegan BeamBrain • 4 weeks ago • 100%

If someone concludes that it's fine for them to eat cows because cows never invented computers, then there's not really much of an argument against aliens turning us into meat slurry because they have the 4-chambered quantum brains needed to invent hyperdrive and we don't, is there?

games BeamBrain • 1 month ago • 100%

Recently, I played a few old RTS games (Tiberian Dawn, Tiberian Sun) and a few more recent ones (Red Alert 3, Grey Goo) and I was struck by how differently paced they are. In the old games, everything happens slowly. You accumulate resources slowly. You build units slowly. Your units trundle across the map slowly. In Tiberian Dawn, for example, building even a single medium tank is a significant investment of time and money. Building a second tiberium refinery can effectively double your income, but it also means making yourself vulnerable for a long time if your opponent decides to put that initial investment into a rush instead. Everything happens slowly enough that you have time to act deliberately, and every action feels worth deliberating. New RTS games, by contrast, feel like anxiety simulators to me. You rack up resources quickly. You churn through your build queues quickly. Units charge across the map. There's never enough time to do all the things I need to do. Oops, I tried to use proper combined arms tactics to assault an enemy base, but that stole my attention away from my build queue, causing me to ram my resource cap and now I'm pissing away credits. Oops, I tried to get my build queue in order and in the process my unit blob was left vulnerable and now the enemy's flanked me and destroyed my artillery. Oops, I tried to set up base defenses and while I was doing that my enemy beat me to that highly contested resource field by a few seconds. When I lose in an old RTS, I feel like it's because I wasn't clever enough. When I lose in a new RTS, I feel like it's because I wasn't fast enough.

The character's actual walk cycle uses the first frame twice, so the pattern goes 1-2-1-3.

anime BeamBrain • 2 months ago • 100%

I watched some of them as a kid but never had a chance to finish them, and I have an incurable urge to exorcise the ghosts of my childhood

chapotraphouse BeamBrain • 3 months ago • 93%

I'm not banned yet because the admin's at least a bit sympathetic, but I sure as hell don't think 90% of the group's gonna want to speak to me after this. I told them I'm voting and campaigning for a 3rd party candidate who is anti-Israel and pro-trans and explained that I could not in good conscience vote for Biden after his blatant and willing complicity in genocide. Here are some of the arguments I encountered in response to that: - "Not voting for Biden makes it easier for Trump to win, and Trump will genocide trans people in addition to Palestinians. Therefore anything you do supports genocide, so you might as well support less genocide." - "Your trans friends will all know that you're functionally anti-trans." (I'm sure this would be a shock to my trans friends in my org, all of whom have made it clear they will also not vote for Biden) - "Trump would genocide Palestinians even harder." - "Biden wants to stop the genocide, but the Republicans won't let him." Some choice quotes: >Have pride in your self centeredness, I guess. >Choosing someone who you know cannot win, especially as they're not the chosen candidate, is only symbolically different than choosing apathy. >It's just objectively how it works in this system. There is no non vote. >And it is most depressing your friends here at home are not important enough to check one box for. And this: >[The Palestinian] genocide is going to happen regardless of the two. But the one that's happening here, that one can be stopped. And you refuse to do anything about it because you think you're so much better. >>You're right about one thing, though. I do think I'm better than people who give their endorsement to running over Palestinian children with tanks. >And I'm better than people that choose two genocides at once, I guess. If we're ranking each other. I'd laugh if it wasn't stupid.

games BeamBrain • 3 months ago • 98%

[link](https://steamcommunity.com/app/1101790/discussions/0/2996548763052515226/)

askchapo BeamBrain • 3 months ago • 98%

I have a few: - Chosen ones, fate, destiny, &c. When you get down to it, a story with these themes is one where a single person or handful of people is ontologically, cosmically better and more important than everyone else. It's eerily similar to that right-wing meme about how "most people are just NPCs" (though I disliked the trope before that meme ever took off). - Way too much importance being given to bloodlines by the narrative (note, this is different from them being given importance by characters or societies in the story). - All of the good characters are handsome and beautiful, while all of the evil characters are ugly and disfigured (with the possible exception of a femme fatale or two). - Races that are inherently, unchangeably evil down to the last individual regardless of upbringing, society, or material circumstances.

badposting BeamBrain • 3 months ago • 100%

"Social-Democracy must change from a party of social revolution into a democratic party of social reforms." - V.I. Lenin

anti_cishet_aktion BeamBrain • 3 months ago • 100%

Back in the 00s, the anti-LGBT culture war targeted primarily gay people, and it primarily used religious arguments. The Bible condemns homosexuality, marriage is a sacred institution, it's a violation of Christians' rights to make their churches marry gay people, &c. Clearly, it didn't work. During the 10s, when gay marriage was legalized, conservatives were dealt a pretty decisive blow on their anti-gay agenda, and so they shifted from targeting the LGB to targeting the T (they always targeted trans people, of course, but they really ramped it up during the 10s). With this change in focus came a shift in rhetoric. The right-wing certainly does argue for oppressing trans people on religious grounds, but you're a lot more likely to hear them use scientific-sounding justifications. They'll talk about chromosomes, about anatomy, about how "biologically there are only two genders," about "people trying to put their feelings above objective reality." They'll throw around words like "rational" and "reason." This of course ignores all kinds of actual science, such as the degree to which gender is culturally constructed, the existence of intersex people, how gender affirming care is the only dysphoria treatment shown to be effective, and a thousand other things. It's anti-scientific to its core, but it can fool a casual observer into thinking it's scientific if it's telling them what they want to hear. It's a bigotry for a materialist age, palatable to bazinga brains and nu-atheist Redditors, and maybe it's just anecdotal, but it seems to me to have more traction among a younger, hipper crowd than the religious arguments ever did. I can't help but wonder if this pivot was concocted in some right-wing think tank somewhere.

Been stuck on one sprite for hours, not having a good time.

badposting BeamBrain • 3 months ago • 100%

Fed up with capitalism ayyyyyy

badposting BeamBrain • 3 months ago • 100%

Asimov sure liked Converse shoes

games BeamBrain • 4 months ago • 100%

At least, that's what I'll do if I don't get bored before it's done (and that's admittedly a big if). Here's an early concept of it - all of the buildings in the residential zone are my designs. The largest buildings take a *lot* of effort to make, so I won't do a lot of variations of those. That should work out anyway, since it aligns with the functional commie block aesthetic I'm going for. Things you can expect a lot of in this city: - High-density housing - Mass transit - Greenspace - Video arcades - Public swimming pools Things you will not find in this city: - Single occupancy homes - Lawns - Bright, gaudy advertisements

In [a previous post](https://hexbear.net/post/2391798?scrollToComments=false), I mentioned that my schedule for each temple was as follows: - 1st month: Plot dungeon map, design and implement dungeon's unique enemy's puzzles, and other mechanics - with placeholder art and sound assets, build and test entire map except for the boss - 2nd month: Art assets, sounds, and animations for the dungeon. - 3rd month: Program and gameplay test boss; once satisfied, create art, sound assets, and post-fight dialog for the boss. Give the dungeon to a few close friends for playtesting, then make adjustments based on results. I started the Unicorn Temple at the beginning of April, and it's now close to the end of May. - 1st month goal has been **met.** Dungeon mechanics were fully implemented late in April, giving me a bit of a head start on next month's work. That ended up being a good thing, because... - 2nd month goal **will be met or a few days late.** The assets for this dungeon ended up being more elaborate than expected, and I struggled with some of the graphics. Most of the work is done, though, with only some enemy sprites remaining. Visible in the screenshot are a few different features of this dungeon: certain sections are flooded with both shallow and deep water. Shallow water can be safely walked through, but falling in deep water is functionally the same as falling into a pit. Godot doesn't natively support animated tiles (plus I needed to implement little splashes that happen when you walk through shallow water), so this took extra time to take care of. Also in the screenshot is one of the three new enemies, thornspitters, whose sprite sheets I have completed. Every couple of seconds, these spherical pods spit thorns in four directions. Some of them, like the ones you see here, are placed such that they're impossible to kill. The streams, the wheel with a handle, and the little caves are part of a water routing puzzle that will form the centerpiece of this dungeon. This puzzle encompasses many rooms, and solving it is required to collect the Master Key that opens access to the Unicorn's room. I'm currently working on a sprite sheet for another enemy, the Foxfolk. These magical menaces constantly teleport to your position and emit bursts of magical fire, forcing you to stay on the move. Here is one of the completed sprites: 

history BeamBrain • 4 months ago • 100%

en.wikipedia.org

Wolff was the last commander of the Lincoln Battalion, a unit of American volunteers who fought for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. He took the position after the previous commander, Robert Hale Merriman, was killed. The only US war he participated in was World War II, where he fought the Nazis on the Western Front. Despite being in his 50s at the time, during the Vietnam War, he offered the service of himself and the other Lincoln Battalion veterans to Ho Chi Minh (Uncle Ho declined). After that, he became an anti-Apartheid activist as well as raising money for the Sandinistas.

badposting BeamBrain • 4 months ago • 100%

Bazinga brain prestige TV treaterinos     

vegan BeamBrain • 4 months ago • 98%

The book in question is *The Vegetarian Myth* and it is full of arguments of a similar caliber

vegan BeamBrain • 4 months ago • 100%

**Omni** Consumer Products