Madmanonfire 2008-03-11 09:04:40

I'm glad you agree with me. Trash flashes like KK are the problem, like you said. Though I never knew you were blind. How the heck do you read these and type anyway? Just amazing. What's also amazing is that you think that SKM is a horrible flash. Thank god you are a minority. I also agree with you that you and adam phillips could never amount to the prowess Alvin Earthworm has as an animator. And I also agree with you that I can't wait for flashists (if you didn't guess yet, I'm talking about sprite "racists") like yourself to die off. Then we can live in a peaceful enjoyable place called Newgrounds.

Zen1th 2008-03-11 09:36:54

Well you may be right there in a sense. Art theft shouldn't be encouraged, but still, everyone knows that those sprites have been taken from some existing animation or game and the general public just likes it when they see or play something they can relate to like a parody on a game they played or a movie they saw. There's not much you can do about it.

The only real problem there would be that people that invest a lot of time into something original get moved back to the bottom and don't get the amount of views they deserve. That's kind of the negative effect of all the prizes being handed out nowadays. There's just a new goal to win something instead of making a cool/original game or animation. That simply leads to people trying to find the easiest road to victory.

Still this is hardly the thing that requires the most attention on the net if we consider the subject of flash art theft. All those game collection sites that earn money by publishing flashgames and movies made by others without the authors permission, sometimes even with the adds basically stripped out and replaced by their own adds are quite a serious problem if you ask me. They earn money by truely abusing the work of others (see <a href="http://www.spele.nl">www.spele.nl</a> for example).

And another problem arises. When would you know if something is actually original? There are a lot of games and animations that are based on something else or a remake of something else that only a very selective few have seen or played. Atleast the sprite movies are obvious.

Luis 2008-03-11 09:59:08

People always complain about this and the site hasnt gone and transformed into this or anything.. it was always this way really. You have to figure that the bulk of the traffic that goes through newgrounds are the 13-24 yr old niche.. most of THAT niche arent developers or animators.. they are just kids/people on the internet that are just wandering the web looking for a good time... much like youtube, miniclip etc... Video games and pop culture play a large role in this niche's lives and so its natural that theres a strong gravitation to it.

I think if anything is changing on the site its the fact that artists are losing sight of who they are creating content for.. they are letting the audience/their reviews dictate their creative impulses.. which is disappointing. I think that i get more out of reviews when they come from other artists.. and most of the time those reviews are actually quite positive .. most creative folks appreciate it when somoene's taken a chance or is trying something thats out of the beaten path.

Ok so you may find it hard / impossible to compete with the Super Smash Bros parody's you have to elbow your way past but that shouldnt get you down if you are getting positive feedback from your peers in the industry and if you are happy to be speaking your mind creatively.

I think artists need to stop losing sleep over this issue. We'll always be a minority wether we like it or not we just gotta keep plugging away regardless... we are creative people with alot to say... take that voice and put it in your work rather than in long posts putting pressure on tom to change how the site works.

PiGPEN 2008-03-11 10:07:46

God forbid people steal stuff oti.
And if being talentless was a crime you'd be in ass-pound prison for your crimes against humanity.

peterf1 2008-03-11 11:27:21

I can count the number of good sprite animators on one hand. (Alvin-earthworm, Psycosis91, araskin500, and pthouse. And most of them are only recently getting good or considering moving to normal animation.)

Look at the frontpage archive. This month there is currently ONE sprite movie and ONE "awesome" movie. People may like sprites and awesome, but other flashes get plenty of attention too. So I have to respectfully disagree with your opinion that sprite movies are hogging the spotlight.

Now, I have to agree totally with your opinion of the review system. As for what to do about the problems you see, you could always just blam as many flash as possible at the portal before they become popular.

OdHero 2008-03-11 11:48:15

''because sprite movies are never well written or well animated.''

I disagree, sprite movies made from orginal sprites can often be well animated for the type of animation it is, becuse of the creativity behind it. Take yesterday's 'Two slices of pie'. It used the Ice climbers but it used sprites made by the authour, and I found it quite creative, despite basing it on a videogame.

But you are somewhat very correct, it's just that not ALL of them are bad, but the majority of sprite animations are lame. Most are about Sonic or Mario, both use the same sound effects over again, both use stolen artwork, and both use the same storylines over and over.

Rather than telling people to stop using sprites, we should be getting them to make there own.

Sometimes though I do think it would be just so easy to win $500 just making a Mario and Sonic sprite anime, with just a slightly decent story.

UberUrban 2008-03-11 12:25:17

I both agree with you and are against you.....
The fact that everything whith even the slightest relation to Mario is intantly overrated is veeery annoying. But just because of that i dont like sprites and Mario. And I personaly think that both Bowser Kindom and Smash Kingdom is great. But the sad fact lasts, as fast as something whith sprites and/or mario/sonic/ X vodeogame character appears, it instantly gets high score... Even though it often sucks. But still in this amount of bad massproduced sprites it exist things of brilliance. If you for example have seen Super Mario Bros Z you gets my point. There you have an example of skilled spriting.

I agree whith the overrating thing, and i would happily see that the crap gets a lower score. But still dont oversee that some spriting actually is really good and is worth its score.

I-smel 2008-03-11 13:35:44

I hate "sprite animators" because they go to such stupid lengths to get that Low-Res look in their movies, then they go and ROTATE the sprites like crazy, enlarging and stretching them, totally ruining the Low-Res effect.
What a bunch of idiots.

ChuckDaKnife 2008-03-11 13:36:36

That's not totally true.
making a good sprite movies is not as easy as you may think, and there are some really talented flash artists who make excellent sprite movies, and deserve a high score.

Wether you may not like it, AlvinEarthworm's work is one example of this.

SuperDeagle 2008-03-11 13:40:14

To your rant the answer is, no duh.
The only thing that's hard to do is get noticed. It seems the people who suck the most admin cock and are general assholes are the ones with any publicity. Ansel, I'm looking at you. NG's content is to much based on favoritism and the admins are directly to blame in some instances.

Off topic but does anyone else find that some of there account features not working properly?

mystic8ball 2008-03-11 14:37:23

I agree with you

Sprite movies are far too overrated and the review system is a complete hack.

But then again, most of Newgrounds users never tried to make a flash animation ever, and there for can easily be tricked into being shown the amount of "skill" that goes into a sprite cartoon.

With that being said, Sprite movies do show the animator how to use easing in their tweens and how to get to grip with movie clips, but then again you could do the same thing with ordinary flash cartoons.

Now I'm gonna admit that I am entertained by SOME spritemovies. BUT quite a lot of them have big belted scores that they don't deserve.

If you ask me... a sprite cartoon shouldn't have a score over 4.00

Onto the newgrounds review system. It's just abused

I'm constantly seeing reviews on the lines of "ZOMG I LOV DIS CATO0N" and then the forget to give it a star rating so it ends up "0/10". and some of these reviews actually get marked helpful.

And quite a lot of bad reviews on a "good" movie does get marked as abusive just because they're expressing their own opinion.

Though I agree with most of this. You're going to have to face it

There are a lot of idiots on Newgrounds and they're here to stay

DieterTheuns 2008-03-11 15:10:09

I'm gonna be honest. I used to sprite.
Not because I thought they were awesome, or to get a good score. No, I wanted to learn how to animate. Then, I realised what abonimations and suck-offs they were. I deleted them from Newgrounds and My Documents, with a strange joy in my heart. I never ever felt bad about them again.

During this time, I was welcomed to the Art Forum. I improved my drawing, joined a collab or 2, and now, it's getting better every minute. I'm making my own fbf-flash now, and the feeling of working on it is so intense, for I do not know whether I'm gonna pass judgement or not. This Flash takes so long, instead of a sprite-movie which is finished immiedietly. I am sorry this day, that I've never done it earlier.

I never thought sprites weren't too bad. I was a fool. All right, I only wanted to improve my animating, but little did I know, how many people I hurt by that one sprite movie which takes part of an army. An army against drawing animators. Lots of drawing animators suffer. I think only a revolution can stop them. I am part of you now, and I will help destroying sprites whatever it takes.

-Spriters Anonymous meeting over-

Let's get some hot Coacoa!

S-K 2008-03-11 15:17:13

with zekey on this one, hell I'll pretty much say what I always say on this one. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. Case in point most of the internet or in this case the amount of times the automated voting system on here has been assraped >.>

SirPongo 2008-03-11 15:35:44

Well i would like to agree with you on this topic but your forgetting something, the Newgrounds Motto:

EVERYTHING By EVERYONE

and that includes spriters, terrible animators, harassers, jackasses who have no idea what quality actually means.

Sadly its true, sprites are basically stolen from games, but there is nothing anyone can do. Think about it, Tom Fulp himself sometimes uses sprites himself and no one seems to mind. My Marketing teacher once told us that in order to succeed in business yo have to be original, I personally believe that he's lucky that he never was on Newgrounds.

Wiiporter 2008-03-11 15:52:38

Oh, and as I recall, Every Brackenwood movie is in the top 50. If you replaced all those with sprite movies that are as (exagerrated,) horribly written, and and crappily animated as you say, I'd believe you.

And TomFulp once used sprites. You got a problem with Tom Fulp? cuz I'd like to know.

Wiiporter 2008-03-11 16:02:50

AND SO DID YOU!!!!!!!

StreakXD 2008-03-11 16:27:20

People are just paying tribute to their favorite games and jokes. I don't see a problem with that.
I'll watch any flash and vote it accordingly. Although I tend to vote higher on hand-drawn since more effort is made.
It's sad that some movies are left in the dust of a sprite movie, though. Sprite movies tend to be more popular, I don't see why, though. It's probably because they're alot easier to make. But at a certain point, some sprite movies can take alot of effort.

Don't rate a movie a 1 unless it really deserves it, though. It's about as annoying as everyone voting as if there's only a 0 and a 10. I don't think you're one to do that often, though.

That's just my thoughts.

ChuckDaKnife 2008-03-11 16:51:40

"It takes talent to blend make the sonic universe and the mario universe fight whith dragonball z sound effects blairing in the background?"

If you want to make it look good, yes.

Psycosis91 2008-03-11 16:58:32

Sprite movies have it's place, and that place is far away from drawn movies.

Now I'm a sprites 'animator' myself, I do not draw due to my lack of talent to draw, instead I make sprite movies, yet I agree with pretty much all of the points you have made. I know some people were pissed when some of my movies were 'noticed', and they have every right to be, sprite movies in no way can ever step up and be classified with movies that the author puts so much time and effort in to draw everything in it. I feel it's not the people who make the sprite movies that deserve the blame, but rather the audience. From the moment you click submit it's up to the audience to decide where the movie, sprited or not, 'should' be in the scoring system. Maybe they are the people that should be blamed for the few sprite movies having overrated scores.

I relize I'm speaking only for myself here but when I animate sprite movies I try and make them as much as my own piece of work as I possibly can. I know, however, for some people it will always boil down to 'stolen', but in my movies I do experiment with different angle shots, in depth stores, and anything I feel I need to add to, not become better than drawn movies, but manage to put in the same or a comparable amount of effort to that of a drawn movie.

There are some sprite movies out there, however, that are well written and well animated. They are just hidden under all the shit people rush to make due to the premise that it will make then popular.

And why the hell was Super Mario Bros. Z chosen to be this diety among sprite movies? It just proves all of the points you're making against them. :<

Psycosis91 2008-03-11 17:23:34

"SMBZ was chosen because its what spriters really want out of there cartoons, as much unoriginality as possible."

That's true for the most part, speaking about myself again but I try and keep my movies as original as possible despite the art being stolen. with "Thwomps: The Movie" I tried to make a 20 minute movie that can keep an audience entertained via the story, and I achieved that somewhat when it got number 1 of all time for a week or so. With "Spittin' Narcissism" my aim was to make a movie that resembled a rap video, and with "Awesome Guy Adventures" my aim was to make a movie that could effectivly tell a story without any dialouge. I may sound narcissist when I say this, however, I try to keep my movies 'original', but it's the majority of sprite animators that don't.