Freedom Force Resource

[detourne_me]

LP, to make a long story short...
Gryphon was notorious for keeping his skins as low-res as possible so they would take up very little system resources,  i think he usually released skin on a size 256X256 i think or even 125X125, i forget.
Also his logic extended to meshes. So he chose to skin mainly for male_basic, male_alpha, female_basic etc. type meshes, even though there were superior character dedicated meshes available.
I think he was pretty adamant about his decisions, and only recently did he update skins (for example the black adam and captain marvel skins). 

In the end though, I think many people do consider his work some of the community's best.
I remember before Alex's site rose to prominence some of the best (in my opinion) skins available were Gryphon's.

[Tomato]

Meh, I suppose I'm a bit off the norm then... I've never really been a Gryphon fan, even back in the early days of skinning. His colors always seem muted, he overuses the refl layer (and uses inappropriate lightmaps, meh), and the muscles on his bases seem two-tone.

However, to be completely fair, my issues are much more prevalent in his almost overuse of the MB base skin he created... On the Irrational meshes, the skins are much more colorful, and more professional.

[detourne_me]

I agree Tomato.
It's also interesting to note how pretty much everyone else strove to update and improve their own skinning, While Gryphon stuck with his style pretty much from the outset.
But I admire his dedication.  Plus I love having 5 or 6 different versions of a character, each with their own distinct style.

[House Quake]

Not a bad concept or idea.

We could use another site or two which brings something fresh to the table that wasn't there before. 

[JKCarrier]

Gryphon is still one of my favorite skinners, his work is crisp and vibrant and distinctive. His original designs are outstanding. And I still use his base skins constantly.

[Spectre Lad]

New blog post:  NifTool of the Trade

[House Quake]

About the true identity of Spectre Lad

I was reading over all of the articles and .... hmmmm... I noticed a reference or two used that raised an eyebrow.  Plus I noticed a couple other clues I'm not going to mention... but... I think I new for certain who he is. 

[Tomato]

I don't care who he is, I know who he's not, and I'm cool with that 

The following is up in comment form on the blog already, but I'm posting it here as well.

As someone who was notorious for, once upon a time, kittbashing skins (I got expelled from Electric Freedom for stealing the arm bands off a Green arrow, as I recall) then going the complete opposite direction for awhile (All kittbashers must DIE!!!) I've finally settled into what I believe is the normal standing for most skinners, and meshers as well.

The problem, as it stands, is not really kittbashing itself. If a modder messages me, asking to turn my Tomato skin purple and call him Zucchini Man, I not only do not care, I will pull out my high resolution .pspimage/.psd file and turn it purple myself. We don't expect modders to be artists, just as we wouldn't expect skinners to be mapmakers or voice actors.

The problem with kittbashing, and the reason it gets cracked down on so swiftly, has more to do with claiming work as one's own. For example, one guy came on one of the non-FR  FF forums distributing C6's skins with new faces. Yes, he put work into the faces, but in effect he was claiming the rest of the work as his as well. And when pressed about the possibility of just releasing the faces, he got upset and started going off on artists not owning their own work.

Yeah, no thank you.

The same, in effect, can be said of 'skoping meshes. Having done several meshes myself, I do not expect 80% of the FF community to know how to use Max any more then I would expect modders to become C6-level skinning gurus. You can couch 'skoping in the same terms as kittbashing, but the truth is that every single one of the meshers gave permission for 'skoping, and if they reascended it, almost everyone would instantly stop. There's an inherent respect for the initial meshers, and very few have been warned more then once or twice to give credit.

[DrMike2000]

LP, to make a long story short...
Gryphon was notorious for keeping his skins as low-res as possible so they would take up very little system resources,  i think he usually released skin on a size 256X256 i think or even 125X125, i forget.

One of the reasons I loved the guy's work. He stuck religiously to 256x256.
Large textures take up memory and chew up graphics processing power like nobody's business. As a professional games programmer I'm always trying to instill this into artists I work with, and Gryphon knew this from the get go. If only there were more like him!

Bast in the Strangers (a minor character) originally had a 1024x1024 texture - whenever she was about to appear ons creen the frame rate would lurch and start chugging. Thats from one character. I've seen the same on PS2 and PSP, how one rogue texture can drop a game from smooth 30FPS to chugging away at 15FPS. One texture.

I've since mellowed in this stance. I see skins more as an aide to modding than a work of art in their own right, and I realise now that this isnt the case for the actual skinning community. I was wrong.
And I also realised that I could resize skins myself if they were intended for serious use in game, as I did with Bast. She eventually lost her time warping powers

[Figure Fan]

Yeah, I've always loved Gryphon's skins, and still do. In fact, I have quite a few of his skins installed.

I remember when he was being hassled about using the latest meshes and what have you. I never understood it. They were his skins, and he was free to choose what meshes they were created for. As for them being 256x256--it made sense considering the original game's distant camera angle. Any meticulous details were lost in the in-game shenanigans anyway. Plus, I was one who hated to have a million meshes on their system. While having some creators' character-specific meshes (Tommyboy, Renegade, Vertex, etc.) was cool and even essential, endless variants with slight changes became obnoxious.

*shrugs*

[detourne_me]

I may have to echo that simplicity is best.
probably because now I'm going through the task of trying to create hero files for all of the characters i've accumulated over the years.  really i've been at it a week and i'm just setting up the characters in EZHero, not even giving them powers yet!

Also, this latest post was nice. Not tool controversial,  but had some good ideas in there (got me thinking about making a cerebro map, hehehe)

[Tortuga]

It's a trip down memory lane to see that stuff again.  I remember using those base skins many, many times.  Gryphon's British-FF skins had great designs, colours and detail.  Great stuff.

[Spectre Lad]

New post is up and it is a preview! http://freedomforceresource.blogspot.com/

[The Hitman]

Uhhh.. is it Neil Patrick Harris? Michael Clark Duncan? Chuck Norris? (He doesn't need a dang 3- word name!)

Seroiusly, I know who it is. Are you previewing a new skin or something?

[Lionheart]

Gryphon is still one of my favorite skinners, his work is crisp and vibrant and distinctive. His original designs are outstanding. And I still use his base skins constantly.

Agreed. I've come full circle back to Gryphon's bases. I still think his female bases are the best. Male bases sometimes depend on the character I'm skinning.

[Spectre Lad]

I just got word that something massive is coming to the FF community soon. Visit Freedom Force Resource for updates as they come in.

[Gremlin]

Oh, Spectre Lad, you tease. Why must you be so cryptic lately?

[The Hitman]

Pretty cool. Pretty cryptic. I'm all ears.

[Spectre Lad]

New blog post is up: Reppin' The Westside

[Spectre Lad]

New Blog Post Up - Identity Crisis

[Gremlin]

...what.

No, WHAT? Seriously? HAHA!

[Courtnall6]

The belly buttons are still too big.

[AfghanAnt]

Yup I did 'em.

The belly buttons are still too big.

I haven't touched them since the last time I previewed them. I will probably change them but I don't know. I'd rather try to finish up Beast instead of revisiting them.

[Courtnall6]

Yup I did 'em.

The belly buttons are still too big.

I haven't touched them since the last time I previewed them. I will probably change them but I don't know. I'd rather try to finish up Beast instead of revisiting them.

Yeah I didn't know it was you originally and I didn't want to look like I was attacking the new guy...but if I knew it was you I would have complained some more

[Podmark]

Wait AA was Emperous? Darn I should have known that.

[AfghanAnt]

Yup I did 'em.

The belly buttons are still too big.

I haven't touched them since the last time I previewed them. I will probably change them but I don't know. I'd rather try to finish up Beast instead of revisiting them.

Yeah I didn't know it was you originally and I didn't want to look like I was attacking the new guy...but if I knew it was you I would have complained some more

C6, your opinion is always valued.

Wait AA was Emperous? Darn I should have known that.

I wanted to tell you guys but blah it was a secret and i was being new and different for a while.

[UnkoMan]

Oh look! A secret I was actually in on!

But hey, now you can release these if you hadn't already put them somewhere. It really was a great show of a drastic style change.

[Podmark]

Wait AA was Emperous? Darn I should have known that.

I wanted to tell you guys but blah it was a secret and i was being new and different for a while.

I was suspicious from the beginning, I kept wanting to think they were kitbashed but the drastic style made it unlikely. Also the skoping job was pretty good for a new comer. But I'm pretty good at figuring out who skins were done by so I figure if I had seen them up close I'd have figured it out that it was you.

Anyway, I'm really impressed with the style change, though I gotta be honest I think the faces are kinda ugly - which admittedly I'd probably say so about Quitely's art most of the time. Also I don't like Jean's hair. Neat trick with Scott's jacket though. Also where's Chuck?

[Blkcasanova247]

Made comments on your blog AA.

[AfghanAnt]

Oh look! A secret I was actually in on!

But hey, now you can release these if you hadn't already put them somewhere. It really was a great show of a drastic style change.

Yeah I know. I plan on releasing them once they are done.

Wait AA was Emperous? Darn I should have known that.

I wanted to tell you guys but blah it was a secret and i was being new and different for a while.

I was suspicious from the beginning, I kept wanting to think they were kitbashed but the drastic style made it unlikely. Also the skoping job was pretty good for a new comer. But I'm pretty good at figuring out who skins were done by so I figure if I had seen them up close I'd have figured it out that it was you.

Anyway, I'm really impressed with the style change, though I gotta be honest I think the faces are kinda ugly - which admittedly I'd probably say so about Quitely's art most of the time. Also I don't like Jean's hair. Neat trick with Scott's jacket though. Also where's Chuck?

Yeah I figured once someone looked at the skins they would know. I like the ugliness of Quietly art on X-Men. As weird as it sounds I hate Michael Choi for the opposite reason. His work is too pretty. I don't know where Chuck is. I guess I should make him.

Made comments on your blog AA.

I'm going to reply now.