elouai

Candybar World

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:11:40 GMT

Just released Candybar World

I finally found a way to create couple makers from dolls.
Create your dolls in the candybar 5 dollmakers and 'import' them into the room maker

'Import': Just save the doll into that small minibox above (3 empty boxes).
That is essentially saving the dolls as cookies, then when you go to the roommaker it collects those dolls back from those cookies.

More graphics will be added next week,
I now need to take a break, feel very tired from trying to get this to work properly.

Candybar World

Found a new Cute Japanese anime series

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 06:38:52 GMT

This was so adorable.
And hilarous.

I was shocked how funny it was.
It was just released in Japan 1 year ago.

I was able to find all the episodes and compiled them in one spot so I could share it.
Potemayo episodes.

Let me know what you guys think.
Includes 12 episodes (24 minutes each) and 5 OVA's (mini episodes, 10 minutes each)

Candybar 5 (Girls dress up) is out

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 11:58:09 GMT

Ok finally done, I think I got all the bugs.

Candybar 5, girls
Candybar 5, boys
Please post any comments or suggestions

Potential Errors:
1 - No images (only x's)
Fix: Restart computer.
Usually this happens to IE after not turning off the computer for a couple of days, a resource leak uses up all pointers to images and no new images can be loaded.
2 - "Error: Cannot load cookie". (Very rare)
Fix: Clear your cookies and everything should get corrected. Note, this will erase your stored dolls (including candybar3).
3 - "Saving doll, body disappears". This seems to be a AOL browser related problem, try firefox or IE to fix. Haven't been able to solve AOL browser bug (old netscape browser) and might not bother with it since its a browser that is no longer supported by even AOL.

To save dolls EMAIL them, that would create a copy that you can edit later.

Fixing:
Backgrounds are now all animating again.

Images:
There are the MORE images in candybar5 than candybar4, except I have been removing duplicates. So the NUMBER of images looks smaller.

Tabs:
Candybar5 does not include the following tabs:
scarfs
socks
Also the 2 pet tabs and the 2 item tabs were combined into 1 tab each.
I added 2 tabs, earings and makeup, I might combine scarfs with hats, and socks with shoes.
If I add other tabs it will cause errors when you 'edit' your dolls from the email since the tabs would have moved.

Candybar 5 feature - add text

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 04:04:54 GMT

In candybar 5 the text feature is enhanced to allow multi line text, changing the font size, changing the font face, and allowing the text to be placed anywhere on the doll.

1. Click on the add text button
2. Typed in Hi!!!, notice that the doll is dynamically updated as you type in the text
3. Change the font size, it dynamically changes the font size on the doll
4. Change the font face, it dynamically changes the font face on the doll

Then you could move around the text anywhere on your doll.
1.

2.

3.

4.

Still working on candybar 5

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 03:13:56 GMT

I am just adding one last feature.
Adding text to the dolls and bieng able to place it anywhere around the doll.

I still have not finished this feature and I think I will be able to finish this by Sat morning (ONE more day)

Upcoming release Candybar 5, feature save multiple dolls

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:47:57 GMT

Here is another feature neat feature everyone was asking for.
The ability to temporarily save dolls.

No logins required, all the information is saved to your cookies. So if you clear your cookies you will lose the saved dolls.

How to save and retrieve your dolls?

1. Click the save button (disk icon) to save the doll in the 3rd panel
2. As you can see, you now have a miniature picture of your doll saved in panel 3.
Now say you want to load the doll saved in panel 2. Just click the download arrow.
3. You now see that the mini doll has been transferred to the avatar window, so you can now continue to edit it.

1. 2. 3.

Any suggestions, ideas, feel free to comment below.

Botnet was installed on website

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:04:04 GMT

I finally found out what the problem was.

There was an exploit used by hackers with an old script that has since been removed.
They installed a botnet and had launched an attack on a server with that script.
The only 3rd party tool used on the site, ended up compromising it.

The scripts have been cleaned up and the botnet removed.
also certain programs were moved to root, so elouai should be much better protected in the future.

We have in the meantime changed the IP address so within 24 hours everyone should be able to see elouai.com again

try this IP
http://74.86.125.96/

one uplink provider was blocking (nulling) our IP address.

- Lou

Updates for Candybar 5 - Layer feature

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:49:22 GMT

I wanted to help clear up misconceptions about what I will release for candybar5.

It will NOT be new images, I will be cleaning up the interface to make it more functional.
Combining all features I ever had from candybar 1..4 plus a few more.

The Layered avatar feature:
---------------------------

The problem to solve:
---------------------
Sometimes one could not tell which image belonged to what tab. Was this clown's nose in the nose tab, accessory tab, makeup tab or another tab?
By deleting layers you lose what you had currently selected, with no way to retrieve it.

The solution:
-------------
The images are opened up like a deck of cards that you can selectively delete.
The flow
1. Select the layer button
2. Delete the layer you dont want
3. The doll now has the right layer removed

1. 2. 3.

Also note: the images themselves are half the size of the original doll image layers. Makes the navigation of all layers much simpler.

Any comments let me know.
I will be releasing a post a day about candybar5 until its released. Will keep you guys posted.

Valentines eCard

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 02:33:31 GMT

I just released Valentine eCard dollmaker.

It has images mostly related to Valentines day.
Valentine eCards

You can now EMBED your doll onto your webpage.
You can even embed an animated doll on YOUR Myspace profile page. (Just click on the link button and copy the second link).

There is now Cookie support on the dollmaker. So it will remember your doll when you come back to the next day or the next year (as long as the cookies where not deleted).

You can now save a jpg, gif and png files

The email feature has been improved so it sends an eCard now.

You can store a very large amount of items in the wardrobe, the limit is really how much resources your browse has available. So I dont recommend saving more than 1000 images in the wardrobe.

Let me know if any bugs or suggestions that you would like to make

P.S.
This codeset will soon be migrated to Candybar4.
That will fix all the resource issues that I had in the past, and will include all these features plus a few more that you see now with the Valentine game.

Naruto Page

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:02:59 GMT

This will be the Naruto page.

I was able to do around 12 characters from naruto and posted it into my dollmaker.
It was along the style of a portrait maker. I know its not as much images as i would like but I will try to improve my output of these drawings. By practcing I find I am able to produce a lot more each day.

Here is the link below:
Naruto doll maker

Please let me know what you think about this style.
BTW, the dollmaker code will be going through a major update for the candybar 4, Naruto and Harry Potter. Have been working on it on and off for the past 4 weeks.

All suggestions and ideas are welcome:

Should I create a full sized doll maker from this Naruto portraits?

Candybar 4 is now out

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:23:37 GMT

Candybar 4 is released!

I consider this candybar4 still to be a beta.

PROBLEMS:
---------
Huge resource drag on the servers
Missing Cookie support
Need to rework grid indexing (i.e. scrolling to reach hair 2000 requires around 12 clicks)
Does not work for Safari browser on the Mac

I had to start rewriting the engine of the dollmaker, I realized I could reduce the load by OVER 400%. I am nearing the end of the rewrite, so you should soon be seeing it live.

This is now the LARGEST doll maker on the net, and because of the size of the dollmaker, and the very large loads I get from all these fans it really helps me to trouble shoot bottlenecks on the dollmaker.

PENDING:
--------
1) MAJOR REWRITE of code ... (3 weeks done)
2) Add color tabs to ALL items (if they have 200 or more pieces)
3) Missing full body boy items, need to break apart and recombine (2 weeks worth of work)
4) Add cookie support
5) Fix wardrobe delete button.
6) Fix 'link' button
7) Remove duplicates (low priority)

Doing Harry Potter Caricatures

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:35:33 GMT

Boy it really is tough doing them,
I keep finding myself always adjusting images I previously did trying to get it to look right. Even though I believe I got the image kinda right.

Examples below:

Argus Filch

I searched the web for some decent images of him, so I finally find these 2 (from wikipedia) which I use as a reference source:

The first caricature I created of Argus Filch I thought was pretty decent.

But it just did not capture the character of the caretaker. Cranky, wide eyed, unkempt, stringy hair.
So I ended up reworking him again. Here is the final result (I hope *grin).

Neville Longbottom

This was also not so easy, because when they were kids, and now adults, their faces change quite a bit.
I tried to capture him as best as I could, my first take was off, his eye liners were too dark, his eyes too high.

Anyways here is the reference source image that I used:

Here is the first caricature I created, ... it was almost done, had the basics, except the placement was off by a pixel or two. Followed by the fixed image.

Madame Hooch

Ahhh, the broomstick instructor *grin

This is currently a work in progress.
Here is the source image:

The is my work in progress image. Still working on the hair, then the clothes.

She is looking quite cute I find :)

Creating more Harry Potter characters

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 05:06:04 GMT

I just started using deviantart.com, to try them out.

They have a really neat gallery feature.
So I started to upload each character I create to deviantart.
It was much easier then uploading first to my website and then linking to livejournal.
I will still use livejournal as my journal of choice, but I thought I should upload all my images to the deviantart account
My Harry Potter Gallery

Fav a few icons if you like them :)

Candybar 4 & the Harry Potter dolls

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 03:46:05 GMT

Candybar 4
----------
In the meantime since so many people are waiting for the new candybar images, I will be updating candybar 3 with the new images in the next couple of days. Will let you know when they go up.
(edit: They are now up)

Harry Potter Dolls
------------------

Animation of eyes:
In the meantime I was also busy with trying to get the animations to work right with the harry potter dolls. It took a lot of fiddling, but I think I now know the basic timing sequences I will use to animate eyes (and in the future mouths, items, etc). Before I tried to get away with 1/10 second a frame, but it just looked too jerky, had to do 1/25 second a frame.

If you go to Harry Potter Chibi maker, you will see what I mean. Select the eyes tab.

Character script:
The character tab is a neat little design feature. It allows you to select premade dolls, and then change an eye, the hair, etc. I realized it would be quite difficult to guess all the correct elements that made up a Harry Potter or a Ron Weasly, so this should simplify the process, by a LOT. :)

Let me know if this feature was helpful.

take care

Beta, Harry Potter Doll Maker

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 12:53:21 GMT

This will be the beta test page, where people can add comments regarding the doll maker.

Here is the link the Chibi maker - Harry Potter

I am currently working on the code for building pre-defined characters easily (see the character tab).
I am not working on images at the moment.

remember: This is BETA. I still have lots to do on it.

Update:
I just linked the game on April, Friday 13th on the main page of elouai.
There are now 19 characters done.
I expect to complete 73 characters.
There are a few problems in the code I need to fix.
i.e. When emailing a friend I still need to allow for the doll to be edited by friend if they want to.

Update on Harry Potter Avatar Maker: Hagrid images

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:07:38 GMT

Realized I had to post something, since I did not post anything for almost a week.
Went through my working files for the Harry Potter avatar images.

I decided on Hagrid, the large friendly giant that helps Harry out.

Hagrid was difficult, since I remember I spent quite a bit of time on the eyes. The eyes are the windows to one soul, so the eyes are the ones I try to make sure I get right. So here are some of the variations I had gone through on the eyes.

Originally I wanted to make his eyes look small, to somehow convey his large stature, since I had a fixed base. But it just did not look right. So in the end I went with an anime-like, simple, heavy-lidded eyes for the 100x100 avatar of hagrid.

You could see the progression, left to right. So the rule was, less lifelike, more 'caricature' like design. All other images from the other characters followed this style as well. It's clean, large and expressive. Easy to work with, and I find larger eyes are more captivating.

Here is a few of the eyebrow designs I did as well for the Hagrid Avatar:
Standard eyebrows,
suprised,
sad,
and with a beard.
Yes you can now have a beardless Hagrid avatar if thats to your liking :)

This is just a quickie post to keep everyone updated, back to my Wacom tablet and more Harry Potter characters.

Creating letters for the chibi maker

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 19:59:28 GMT

Was going through the process of creating letters for the chibi maker.
Started to work on the 'letters' for the harry potter chibi maker.

Question:
How to integrate Letters into the dollmaker? how big? how many? what style?

Here are the steps that I went through:

1) Decided on 5 letters (Harry, Louai, Julia, Jon, Ron, etc.. all fit). It could then be large enough to be easily legible. Tried block letters. My first font I used was the 'Stencil font'. Black letter did not work, too much bleeding of the letters into dark areas of the image.

2) The fonts required an outline, an outline it got. Also needed to match the colors to the harry potter theme. So I went with a gold emboss. The gold/yellow color matched nicely to the the Harry Potter title scene. The font was easily legible, BUT the font style (stencil) was not a 'Harry Potter' like style.

3) Tried the Potter font, found it was way too detailed at that size, tried other script fonts in that style and either it was too detaield or the style did not match. So I finally settled on the 'fontdinerdotcom' font from Font Diner. It had a nice feel to it, the long flowing lines worked nicely as a 'harry potter' font, PLUS it was easily legible at this small point size.

4) I had to create 5 blocks to help me place the letters into their appropriate spots. These are only placeholders just to get the alignment just right.

5) Cut up all the letters, rasterized them. Did another level of cleanup, and added an additional white outline to the letters. They are now clear, legible, bronze-like in coloration and equally spaced between each other. What you see above is a test to see how it would look in a final rendition.

I was pretty happy with the result.
Ignore the eyes, that was a test for hagrid's eyes (except for number 5), its still a bit off.

Feel free to share any ideas or features you would like to see in this maker

Someone correctly pointed out that I had the wrong hair color (and this wrong eyebrow color) for harry potter.
So I compared the images side by side and was then able to adjust the colors.

See below:

Chibi test characters

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 05:27:49 GMT

Ok, just about done for today,

My little chibi tests looks good so far.

This time around I wanted to be more careful about how I blended in the shading, since I was going to have more than 1 base for the chibi. I tested the items against a light colored base and a dark colored base.
See below:

The darker base just eats up a lot of the finer lines, but at least I don't have the halo effect.
I am not entirely happy with the results, but at least the images comes out cleanly (for the dark base).

Also the base has been modified (again) from my previous post. It has smaller hands, the legs are closer together, the body is shorter.

I started to wonder? what would I want to chibi.
Harry Potter:

Then I thought why not Harry Potter, so I tried my hand at creating a caricature of harry potter, see the result below:

Actually it came out very nicely. Off to a good start, Ron will be next :)
The "Harry Potter chibi maker". Has a nice ring to it :)

Chibi

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 18:13:00 GMT

Yesterday I was just experimenting with chibi like images.
So I created a new base.

First though, what is chibi?
It's Japanese term used to describe a drawing style of characters. The character with large heads and small bodies, the body is about the same size as the head. They are childlike in structure, meaning they should not really contain any gender specific elements, like breasts, or large hips. chibi also is used to describe a 'cute' character.

So I started to experiment with my own chibi base.
I used my lollipop base as a starting point:
As seen below I was trying to create an avatar that I could easily use as a 100x100 icon, but yet still retain a large face to create various comical expressions. There is an additional 20 pixels above the head that I was using as a guide, certain hairstyles would be too confined. I still felt the character was a bit too large.

Today I will be refining that image, probably create expressions, hairstyles, etc.. to test it out.

Here are other examples of chibi characters:
Street Fighter characters turned into chibi characters from Capcom:

Releasing MapleStory doll maker

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:31:12 GMT

Yes, I am releasing another dollmaker
It's not candybar 4 yet.

These characters are based on the online Multi player game Maple Story.

You can try out my avatar maker below, I think the maker contains around 1,200 items to play with.
eLouais Maple Story Avatar Maker

The avatar maker generates a 100x100 icon, so it should be easy to use as an avatar in your online journal.

Color tabs was added to the 'hair' tab.

In addition the color tabs are now a lot more configurable (coding wise)
I can now define any of my mini tabs (color tabs being a mini tab) any way I like.

Example:
Perhaps I want to subdivide NOT by color but maybe by seasonal clothing.
i.e. create tabs, for winter, spring, summer and fall clothes.
OR
Maybe subdivide by length,
i.e. create tabs for short, medium and long hair.

This feature still needs to be fleshed out since it was just added today.
So far I was able to easy rework the code to make the old script compatible to the changes without having to jump up a version.
Since this is mostly a 'coding' enhancement, there is nothing graphical to show.
When I create another test tab tomorrow I will let you know in which tab you will find the 'alternate' tab design.

Will keep you posted.

P.S.
These are my small baby steps towards creating a more dynamic layering system, I am moving towards candybar 4 but I am still missing quite a bit more functionality that I want to add.

Update: Color tabs

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 19:07:02 GMT

The color tabs still did not look right when I posted them on the website.
As you can see below, its difficult to see exactly which color is selected:

So I experimented with making all the unselected tabs a lighter color.
I increased the height of the selected tab by 2 pixels.
I also thickened the black line around the selected tab.
I also let the selected color bleed onto the black line supporting the tabs.
You can see the results below.
However the results were still a bit off.
It looked nice, but since the colors change in hue when selecting them, it felt off.

I decided I still needed an even larger 'selected' tab.
So I increased the height by an additional 2 pixels.
I also decided that making lighter colors (pastel-like) did not work, so I retained the original colors in the tabs.
What I really needed to do was make the eyes focus on the selected color.
So to draw the eyes away from the rest of the tabs, I made the colors into 'strips'.
It had the desired effect of creating the proper layout hierarchy for me.

Finally it clicked, it felt right, it looked right :)
See the results below:

The making of the Color Tabs

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 02:30:18 GMT

Wanted to describe the process I went through in creating the color tabs for the doll maker.
(I am testing it on the gaia online maker, in the hair tab)

The steps below is purely how I came to creating the colors, shape and design of the color bar.

So I started with the 'old' color bar. I quickly critiqued it (see comments below):

The problems now noted I went about creating solutions for them.
Reducing the tab size would be simple, it also let me review why I used a colored dot to define the colors, why not just fill in the tab with the color instead. That one simple step reduced a LOT of clutter.

Now which colors to use, how to pick them? I wanted to be certain the color set was big enough to easily accomodate the many choices one has with colors. Also I wanted the colors to flow smoothly from one color to the next.

Now to create this spectrum of colors.
I started with the root colors of Red, Green and Blue. 3 colors, but they dont transition smoothly, so I added 3 more colors. The transitional colors of Yellow (between red and green), Cyan (between green and blue) and Magenta (between blue and red). See below:

However when viewing the color spectrum I found too sharp of a contrast between red and yellow. While on the other hand, I felt I had too many similar colors on the green blue end of the scale. The Green, cyan and blue colors just kind of melded together.

So I dropped the color cyan and added the color orange. Took a look and felt the colors transition more smoothly from one to another.

To complete the set, I added the colors black and white. But I realized afterwards that white was a wonderful visual divider for the color tabs. So I placed the color white next to the 'all colors' tab. The whole tab now felt like a more coherent whole. (see below)

There you have it.

The goal I set for myself for all elements in the dollmaker code is to simply create a visually intuitive and easy to use interface. I hope succeed more often than not, to aid my chances I always review what I do. I will try to make my private musings about design more public, by posting them on my journal. Your comments will be greatly appreciated.

Hope you enjoy this feature when it's finally complete. :)

Updates to dollmakercode v3

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:15:45 GMT

Ok, I have been updating the doll maker code, and I was using the Gaia Maker to test the code out.

The wardrobe function has been finally debugged, that took a couple of days.
I also added the feature to add icons to tabs.
I added an additional twist, I made the tab icons colored or grayscale depending on whether I am using an item in that tab or not. If you remove the layer, the icon becomes grayscale. :)

I thought that was a neat feature.

Soon I will be able to post the colorbar as well.
Probably tomorrow.
It would only be available on the hair tab as a test. So you can look out for it in the next couple of days.

- Lou

Working on Candybar 4 now

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 06:19:33 GMT

Hi,

A lot of people are asking me about candybar 4.
Yes I am getting the new version ready.

The BIG change is the move from the custom made script of candybar 3 and into the generic reusable codebase of doll maker code.

The dollmakercode would be version 3, what you have on dollmakercode.com is version 1. Once I complete candybar 4, I will then work on creating a user interface to create your own dollmaker scripts using dollmakercode v3.

I am currently fixing up little bugs and adding features in the new dollmakercode version 3 (v3). You would see the the changes happen live on the whuddle maker and gaia avatar maker since they both use the same v3 codebase.

Some of the fixes and additions I will quickly describe here:
Wardrobe:
1. The wardrobe does not fully function the way I want it yet. When you open the wardrobe and switch tabs the wardrobe should stay open (or closed)
2. The wardrobe gets cleared when you zoom in, (or randomize or clear your doll). So I need to make sure the top frames know about the wardrobe as well.
3. Update the button so it has some hanger images.
4. Plus a few more additions

Color:
1. Need to add a color bar seperator for all the clothes. I am still working out the mechanics of the system. How many colors? How to display? How to make as intuitive as possible (no need to read any instructions, etc..)

Layering:
1. A way to map a button to multiple layers. Some items are composed of multiple images sandwiched on different layers. Technically need a solution for that.

Whats been done so far:
The little tweaks I like the best, like how responsive the system is, the highlighting and the speed of operation. Now you have a wardrobe that can hold more than 5 items. Also I decided to display 25 items at a time. I know some people asked for more, but this was a practical size, I did not want to go with scroll bars to display more items.

There are other additions I have in mind, but will be added piecemeal at a time.
But I wanted to post this, so people know where I am with Candybar 4.
The images are ready, but now I need to change the naming convention to make it compatible with the new dollmaker, that alone is at least 2 days work if not more.

A realistic date would be around the 3rd week of Feb for the release, though I really would like it to be ready a lot sooner. We shall see.

Any questions, please feel free to ask.

Gaia Online Avatar Maker done

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:29:57 GMT

Ok,

I finally released Gaia Online yesterday,
1 day too early
the save, print and email were still broken.

BUT today I fixed it ALL!!
So the code works now, but you need firefox.
Just go to my page and download firefox, you will see its worth it.

eLouai's Gaia Online Avatar Maker

Features:
You can print, email, save to disk as gif, png and jpg.
Also you can add items to a wardrobe, each item has a hanger that you can click on, on the right hand side you can view the items by clicking on a button to view the wardrobe.
The images also have been cleaned up from the original gaia online set. Some had sharp jagged edges, or blocky, or the shading was off or the clothes did not fit the body exactly, or the cothes were trimmed.
Also I really disliked how tiny all the images were while you previewed the items, so I placed the items on manniquins and at normal size so its much easier to view. You can also view 25 items at a time.

What I intend to add soon is a colorbar (only for the hair). Also need to add more items, jacket, items on the hand, etc....

Right now I am working on the whuddle world maker, hopefully should be out today or tomorrow.

take care everyone
- Lou