I know this is supposed to be an art blog, but as soon as you introduce a computer, the lines between art and engineering start to get blurred. Regardless, I found this Flash AS3 Memory Leak to be such a landmine that I just had to post it somewhere for other people to hopefully find and breath a sigh of relief when they realize why their flash game slows down and grinds to a halt the longer they play it.

Okay, no beating around the bush. Do this code once a frame (or more!) and you’re flash game will grind to a halt.

mySprite.graphics.beginFill( 0xFFFFFF );
mySprite.graphics.drawRect( vPos.x, vPox.y, vSize.x, vSize.y );
mySprite.graphics.endFill();

This was my “DrawBlock” function for my falling blocks game. I see these three lines posted all over the web in tutorial and in forums. –Worse, I often only see the first two lines and no endFill(). The above code eats memory.

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Seriously, pass this post on to everyone you know. I’m furious because I know they just screwed me. but the average person who’s never bought a domain name before won’t know the difference. I HATE seeing companies screw people just because they know they can get away with it.

if you have a domain name you’re thinking about getting NEVER search for it using NetworkSolutions.com!! they will lock the domain as if a customer is buying it (ie, you) and then try to charge you $35 for it! when the going rate on other sites, like godaddy, is $9 or $10.

but since I searched with NetworkSolutions first, now GoDaddy can’t register it because NetworkSolutions put a lock on the domain… all GoDaddy can do is offer to “buy on back order” for $20.

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I’ve been making a comic journal and a vacation comic journal (as you can tell by the links at the top of the page). In both cases I knew I had a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time. I needed a style that would get the point of the content across to the viewer but also something that was moderately fast to crank out. So I went with a loosely drawn Sunday comic strip style. It worked great. The looseness of the lines kept me moving and discouraged me from getting bogged down and spending 3 hours adding excessive detail to an otherwise lighthearted story.

However, one day I went back and cleaned up one of the pages and realized that it looked better. Not night and day, but definitely better. Here’s an example:

I thought loose drawing *had* to look sloppy. I thought having lines meet in overlapping intersections was what made it classified as “loose drawing.” However, now I realize you can still have a loose drawing with clean lines and corners. And I think it looks better. So, yes, I went back and cleaned up every page.

It’s really surprising how fast a few clicks of the eraser tool can really cleanup a sketch. I’ll definitely be setting aside more time to cleanup my work more often.

(Image From: lukeroberts on deviantart)

Well, I’ve finally arrived. I had my first piece of art ripped off yesterday. It was an accident really, the person meant well, but none the less, they took an image I spent hours making and pasted it right into their own work.

I always knew these things happen to artists, but it’s pretty unsettling when it happens to you. Thankfully, it was exactly what I thought, just someone who meant well, but didn’t realize they were crossing a line when they used it without asking permission first.

This is the reply I sent to him. Please, educate your friends and family about Creative Commons so we can all be creative together without stepping on each other’s toes.

Hey man, thanks for taking it down. but I just want to make sure you know I’m not angry or mad at you. I had a feeling it was an accident, but it was a very unsettling feeling to see how easily things can get ripped off (even with the best of intentions).

believe it or not, I was more worried about you than my image. I’m not too broken-up about it, but I was worried you might accidentally tick someone off someday if I didn’t speak up. (as in, tick off someone with lawyers or something)

the good news is, it’s really easy to tell when artists do and don’t want others to edit their work.

Just look for: “Creative Commons” here’s a link to wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_commons

Flickr has Creative Common options and I noticed that DeviantArt is doing it now too. So just look for that and you should be all set to have fun with an image.

Here’s an example: http://lukeroberts.deviantart.com/art/Creative-Block-43033454

notice the (CC) instead of (C)?

Pass on the word. The more people who know about these things, the better.

Best of Luck to You,
~Danny