I started a new Barbarian a few days ago, and one of his skills will be leap. I am into the beginning of Act 2 normal now, and have noticed a very odd bug. At least I think it's a bug. I normally have Leap bound to my right-mouse button, but have seen the bug on left mouse as well. Three separate times, I have right clicked to leap somewhere, only to have my Barbarian jump straight up. Now the weird part: after this happens, Leap is disabled Right/left clicking the skill does nothing. No mana use, and my barb just stands there. Going to another area, or going to town does not change this. The only solution I found was to re-start Diablo 2, upon which my barb will leap again. As it has only happened 3 times through one and a quarter acts, I haven't been able to ascertain why it happens, so I can't duplicate to run more tests. Has anybody else run into this??? And if so, any advice? I am of course patched all the way up through the most recent version.

I used to work at a bakery under two talented pastry chefs. I was in a good position to start learning from the (very talented) evening pastry chef when I decided that I couldn't stand the manager any more and quit. But, I still enjoy baking things from time to time. So, I thought I would share this weekend's creation with all of you-



This cake was lots of fun to make. The recipe itself was pretty standard- cocoa based chocolate cake, an almond wash, and vanilla buttercream filling and frosting. I like to try new and interesting recipes, too, but since I worked on Friday and had to have the cake ready by Saturday morning, I had to cut corners somewhere. I also didn't make enough frosting to do a full crumb coat underneath the top layer of frosting (that's why you see those crumbs coming through the green), I ran out of the good, bright, green coloring (that's why the green is pale), and I didn't take the time to pipe on any fancy icing features (hence the marshmallows for the bottom border).

But, this was a kids' cake, and I think it came out rather well nonetheless. As far as decorating goes, I think it came out rather well. Everything on the cake is edible except for the animals. At it's tallest, it's four layers, although when we cut it, I basically treated it like two different two-layer cakes (mostly because the layers were thick enough that not many people would want to eat a four-layer slice of it!). Since it's a dense chocolate cake, it held together really well, and I didn't need to add any supports to get it to hold together.

The trees were really fun. They're just fruit rolls and pretzel sticks. They turned out to be really quick and easy to make, although they didn't show up well in the photo. Each kid got a slice of cake with a tree and an animal on it.

I am particularly proud of the waterfall. The marshmallows are corny, but the foamy water and the riverbank came out nicely, I think. With a limited amout of time, I definitely focused my attention on getting the waterfall just right, and it turned out.

I guess this is just a report rather than a discussion starter, but I'd like it to be more of a conversation. So, do any of you have any hobbies like this that you'd like to share? I'd like to hear about it.

Epic Forty-seven: You've Got to be Kidding Me has opened. It's clearly different than any other Epic we've sponsored, but as to how different it is, only Sirian knows.

If you're unsure about the next Epic because of the MapStat policy, you will want to check out the "Special Exception", too.

This Epic will make you say "You've got to be kidding me," or your money back! What a deal!

Quote:We have collected quotations that we hope will help promote the art of photography...

...Our goal is to include a short biography for each source. Knowing the contribution of each source, and the time period each lived and worked, may add additional meaning to the quotations...

Fresh pic from this afternoon shooting for the assignment.



and after some brightness and satuation adjustment and cropping




But I think, especially with what I want to achieve for this series, this picture with less details is the better. Just a simple Dry Brush effect with photoShop.




Alright, I have got to admit that most my photos need help to be presentable, and this style may not sit well with some purist... But I really like what I have been doing lately

No wonder too, since This Guy was my biggest inspiration.

So be prepare to see more of this on Feb 15th.

Any comments on how to improve on the original (without art effects) either on the shooting method or darkroom work, or both, would be welcomed.


KoP

Hey everyone,

Remember how we were complaining about how some of the available emblems just didn't do it for us? (sock puppets or dodo birds, anyone?) Well, the GW team has announced a new official contest, to design (or at least give the concept) for an original guild emblem - up to 10 winners will have their emblem included in the official release of the game!

You can find the details here:
http://www.guildwars.com/events/guildemb...fault.html

So, esteemed RBers, here's our chance - what would we like to have as the Official RB Emblem? And do we have anyone artistic enough among our ranks to actually pull it off?

Personally, being a big fan of dragons, I'd love to see a sinuous Oriental dragon, perhaps coiled into an infinity shape - but I suck at drawing, so I have no hope of actually drawing it!

Anyone want to make up for my lack of talent? *hint hint*

Cheers,
Hawkmoon

hiho

once upon a time.... there was a game i started as bulrathi.
my first session in that game prooved to be very enterteining as it was a very welcome change from normal strategies.
a very good looking start turned out to be a real fight. (i wont spoiler here)

i wanted to share this game as i luckily saved it on turn 1.

until now i played this game 4 times, winning only twice (the 1st and the 4th time) although it is only "hard" iirc.
it was also very enterteining to see which things changed in this 4 games and which didnt.

if you want you can test it and tell me how you find it. (no aar i would guess, just a short report)

as said its a hard, large galaxy, 5 races, bulrathi game.
the emporer is named Therlun ...

while it showed it is possible to win it in the first run, i think it will be fun and a challenge.

save

Epic Forty-six: The Two Towers closes today. Please post your reports in reply to this post. :aar:

I use Photoshop and a package that came with the digicam called Photo Studio by ArcSoft.

The freebie, tho not as polished as Photoshop, has a couple of nice features that would require much manual work in photoshop. It has a nice little file browser that shows thumbnails instead of file names, and the program is EXIF native - it reads camera setting and date/time of the image. There is also a built in 3D text editor, not nearly good enough for critical work but it should serve most purposes. The most useful feature of the package has got to be Auto Enchance. It gives a preview of nine different degrees of enhancements to choose from. As far as I can tell, the enhancement is done with brightness, satuation, contrast and level control. it would take Photoshop 2/3/4 steps to accomplish the same thing. Other than that, Photo Studio is compatible with Photoshop plugins and comes with a few of its own version of some common art paint filters (Oil Painting, water color, etc.). Oh, lets not forget the Stitch function, it takes a series of photographs and stitch them up into one panoramic picture.

I bought a used heavy duty tripod just for this (panoramic) purpose. That thing must weigh over 30 pounds! but was too good a deal and a tripod to pass up.

As far as Photoshop goes, well, it is the industry's leader and is the best app for most applications. I am having fun learning about it, still.

None the less, there are advantages to have multiple GFX programs. For my current interest, for example, even seemingly common art paint effects, such as oil painting, can look much different from one program to another. So I am still looking for more programs, in a sense, collecting gfx effects.

So what do you guys use, what you think/like about them?

KoP

First order of things is to make up an assignment so we can go out and have some fun.

It has been freezing cold around these parts for the last while, last night hit minus 20s with a wind chill/frost bite warning. I have been home-bounded only because I hate to leave the comfort and warmth of the house but fully aware I could be missing much photo opps of winter scenery. (except that morning last weekend you saw me up at 6 am in the morning going out to shoot a Xmas scene.)

So we can have an assignment based around winter (gets us out of the house). And, even to pick a winter theme such as "water"

Or, Still Life (if we want to stay indoors) +theme.

I think one assignment per month would be a reasonable pace to start with, but I can definitely handle more.

Lets throw some ideas around.


KoP