Brickdoctor

Posting images before ten posts shouldn't be a problem. I think if you weren't allowed to, you'd get an error message along the lines of, "You don't have permission to post images". The message you got, "You are not allowed to use that image extension on this board," usually occurs when you use a URL other than that of the image. Image URLs should end in an image file type, like '.png', '.jpg', or '.gif'. Which URL are you trying to use with the Insert Image tool?

It might make more sense considering whatever actions lead to the player acquiring the effect. (just like the differences between the Poisoned and Burned effects) For example, murdering a beloved NPC might give the hero the Angry effect, while using the scroll would impart the Reckless effect. Attacking a hero with a bunch of weak enemies would grant the Overconfident effect, while separating the hero from the party would grant the Faith in Your Friends effect.

Discussion of sets you wish to see or think you might see in the future belongs in Future Star Wars sets. Moving... ...and done.

OoC: We can do that. It sounds like there could be Aquatic monsters there, too, so that would work out for me. (Wood-elemental bow)

"Very nicely done, Master Emorith, Master Unth'or. "Master Rone, take Mutterfly A, again. Master Unth'or, Master Emorith, the three of us will target different Flutterflies. This will allow me to render ineffective the two strongest Free Hits, while Master Rone will only have to take one Free Hit." I attack Flutterfly A from the Back Row with my Briar Bow. Order of Actions: Bartholomew Docken Xander Unth'or Althior Emorith Dyric Rone

I agree. The shield should only be unusable if that is specified in the description of the weapon. Besides, a shield can always be strapped to an arm instead of held in the hand, allowing for the use of a second weapon. (albeit with a much limited range of movement and much increased weight and strain on the arm, which would explain why these presumably large broadswords cannot be used with a shield)

OoC: I don't think it's possible for him to be Knocked Out this Round.If you still want to give me the Essence, Legonater, I think the best actions are just to have Xander and Althior target the Splatterflies as planned while we transfer the item, which will just result in Althior's and Xander's each taking an extra 3 Damage from Free Hits.

OoC: Okay, I'll need to spend a Turn to receive it, too... I've got to log off for a little while; give me some time to rethink the battle plan.

OoC: If you want to get rid of an Essence, we'll both have to spend a turn to do it.

The use of the tan Barriss and Luminara faces now has me wondering if the Shaman King uses the old Bib Fortuna face.

"That's a lot of bugs. Alright, Master Rone, I don't know if you wish to give a Phoenix Essence to one of us... we don't want a repeat of the last battle. "We don't want anyone getting Knocked Out early here. Because of my invulnerability to the bugs, I can easily take a Free Hit from Death's Rose, so don't target it. It can't harm me, and it won't be able to use it's Special with no one targeting it. "Spread out and target as many of the bugs as possible, and target the ones with the higher Levels to reduce the Damage dealt by Free Hits. Master Rone, do not target any one of the Splatterflies. We don't want them to all get Lucky and eliminate your advantage. Master Emorith and Master Unthor, each of you should take one of the Splatterflies. Master Rone, take one of the Mutterflies; I shall take one of the Flutterflies. That should allow me to absorb the greatest amount of Free Hits from the higher-Level enemies." I attack Flutterfly A from the Back Row with my Briar Bow. Order of Actions: Bartholomew Docken Xander Unth'or Dyric Rone Althior Emorith

I'm really good at doing that. My heroes haven't fought Vermin in ages. Unfortunately, that means that everyone knows that if you want to succeed on a Brickdoctor quest, all you have to do is bring an Amethyst.

Happy birthday, Etzel. (and KDog and Chromeknight)

"Excellent work, Master Emorith. Could you please heal Master Rone? "Now then, the loot. Master Rone has no need for the Nostrums, and I have no want of them. Additionally, I have no need of Venom. So, I will give one Nostrum and one Venom to Master Unth'or and one Nostrum and one Venom to Master Emorith. I have Potions to spare, so I will give one Remedy, two Potions, one Smoke Bomb and one Venom to Master Rone, keeping two Remedies and one Smoke Bomb for myself. "Are there any preparations you would like to make before the next battle?" Once Althior has healed Dyric, I lead the party to the Butterfly Fields. OoC: Or you could just assume that K-nut will listen to me and do the healing and move on. I won't complain.

Looks fine to me. I'm fairly certain that the resizing is partially dependent on the size of your screen and browser window, though. (I think the other factor would be the size of the area of the page, if it's been specified in the code, but we already know that that's not the problem since there's no resizing for Endgame and me)

"Very well. However, these Free Hits aren't going to do anything to us, so I suggest you attack the archer, Master Emorith." I attack Bugbear Archer B from the Back Row with my Briar Bow. Order of Actions: Althior Emorith Bartholomew Docken Xander Unth'or

"Alright, we have a choice to make. We can play it safe and do nothing while Master Emorith attempts to heal us, absorbing the Free Hits until he gets a Magical Vortex and defeats the enemies without targeting them. Of course, then it is possible that Master Emorith could waste a lot of Ether. Or, we could just go and attack the enemies; an extra 30 Health not being something we can't handle."

I was talking to swils over PM, and he wants us to scout out the difficult areas for his party and go after one of the guardians. So, it's possible...

Not if my party can help it.

It's okay to discuss the absence of Jedi sets during the 30th anniversary of the movie, but lets not stray into discussion of Jedi sets you want to see... Anyways, my thought is that TLG knew that the 3D releases were coming up and knew that the target audience is more likely to have seen a PT movie in 3D than remember an OT movie from thirty years ago (well, 1997 was the last time they were in theaters, actually, but that's still fifteen ears ago). (remember that the 30th anniversary sets for Star Wars and Empire came before the 3D releases began) It looks to me like TLG, with that in mind, has been squeezing in OT sets wherever they can, so there's still a good amount of Jedi sets which have hit shelves recently, but they can still release a lot of the PT sets when the time comes. And while there may only be one Jedi set in the winter wave for 2013, let's not forget that that is the set which TLG has chosen to push into the spotlight at SDCC, so even though there is only one, the focus is going to be on that set for a little while.

I really like that you made this a little bigger so that you could make the mini model that much bigger, and then you went the extra mile with those micromotors. The Technic and System elements are also blended perfectly for this mini model. This is the kind of planet set that I could see myself paying the extra money for and keeping on display as it already is, despite the fact that I'm an MOCer and an OT fan.

"Good idea. My mistake; I had forgotten that I no longer needed to stay at the top to absorb a Free Hit."

"Take down that last Dryad!" Raising my Frozen Saber, I charge from the Front Row at Dryad B. Order of Actions: Xander Unth'or Bartholomew Docken Althior Emorith

Adding a Sky to a White Background Working with a photo that already has the correctly colored backdrop is always going to be easier, but sometimes that's not possible. If you don't have the appropriately colored paper/cloth/backdrop or if the set is too big (I needed to resort to the white backdrop for the Photoshopped title image in my review of the Kingdom's Joust - two pieces of blue paper can't cover the background of that set), then it's time to turn to the good ol' white backdrop. Once you've got a picture opened in PS and the colors adjusted, use the Wand tool to select the background just as you would for the other colors of backdrops. Taking a good picture is, again, not the purpose of this lesson; nor is achieving that clean white background. Nevertheless, I will say that what you're looking to do when you first adjust these white background photos is good contrast between the subject and the background, and as bright and as uniform a background as you can get without blowing out the subject. In Curves, I typically start by clicking on the line in the bottom-left quadrant and dragging it down and to the right, which will darken the darker areas and increase contrast. Watch the blacks in the photo (or the darkest color if there are no blacks) to know when to stop dragging. Then click on the line at the very top-right, and move it to the left, this time watching the whites to know when to stop dragging. Anyways, Wand tool: As with the other background selections, it's better to use a lower tolerance with the wand and add to the selection than to try to get it all with one click. Clean up the selection with the Lasso if you need to. No need to do anything fancy like creating masks or using the Pen tool; the goal here is to do this as quickly, as simply and as easily as possible. Now, to smooth things out, navigate to Select > Refine Edge (or Alt+Command/Control+R). The dialog box that comes up has a lot of little boxes and menus and sliders, but the only thing we're going to worry about here is the Smooth slider. Just drag it to the right, watching the photo to check the position of the edge. (if you can't see the selection preview well, click on that drop down menu, View, and switch to one of the other viewing modes - the red overlay is probably the easiest to use) And we expand: We can't contract like we did for the daytime sky with the blue backdrop, since that would expose white edges on the subject. I'm expanding by 2px here for a photo about 4000px wide, so adjust the amount you expand accordingly. Then feather by an equal amount: And then all that's left to do is fill the selection with a shade of blue (or black) in a new layer, just like you would do with the other colored backgrounds: If you've still got some slight white edges around some blurry areas, like I have here around the battlements above the bucket, zoom in with a soft brush set to the color of the sky and just 'shave off' the edges. (if the entire photo has white edges around it, you didn't expand the selection enough. Undo back to the step where you expanded, and increase the amount of pixels you expand by) Final step, if you're aiming for a nighttime sky: if you haven't done so already, you're going to need to go back to the original layer and use Curves to darken the photo and increase the blues. The reason you want to wait until now to do that is that you're selecting a white background. It's going to be easier to do that if you brighten that background, increasing the contrast between the subject and the background, than if you have to work with a dark background and a dark subject. Once the sky's in place, then you can drop the brightness of the subject to reflect the time of day you're looking for.

Adding a Nighttime Sky The process for adding a nighttime sky is almost the same as that of adding a daytime sky. (I recommend you read through that if you haven't already) Start in Photoshop with an image like this: Again, I've used a piece of paper of the same color that I want to 'shop in, just to get the right tints and reflections. The first thing you've got to do is adjust the image in Curves to get the lighting right, so go to Image > Adjustments > Curves. (or Command/Contrl+M) Darken the darker areas of the image by clicking on the black line around the lower left quadrant and dragging it down and to the right. Then darken the lighter areas of the image by clicking the square that'll already be on the line at the very top-right, and drag it down. Increase the blues of the image by switching the drop-down list labeled 'Channel' from 'RGB' to 'Blue'. Click the square already on the line at the very top-right, and drag it to the left. You can also decrease the Green or increase the Red, but you don't have to. Now, switch to the Wand tool and start selecting the sky. Remember, hold down 'Shift' to add to an existing selection if you don't get it all in one click, don't keep increasing the tolerance to try to get it in one click. I've got my tolerance set to 10 for this. As with the daytime sky, if you select any of the LEGO, switch to the Lasso tool and hold down 'Alt' while selecting to remove from the selection. Now, with this nighttime sky, we want to make sure we get rid of any lighter edges on the LEGO, so we're going to expand the selection instead of contracting it. Go to Select > Modify > Expand. And expand by a few pixels. As with the daytime sky, I'm doing this with my photo at its original size, so if you have an image smaller than the 4000px I'm working with, expand by fewer pixels, and if your image is larger, expand by more. And then go to Select > Modify > Feather... And I'm feathering by 2px. Once again, if your image is smaller than 4000px, feather by fewer pixels; if it's larger, feather by more. And navigate to Edit > Fill. Just make sure that you're filling with the foreground color. (and that should by default be set to black, but check to make sure it is) And that's your finished night sky. This is the time when I resize before adding any other effects. Adding a Moon With the foreground color set to white, start by drawing a circle in a new layer with the Ellipse tool. (hold down 'Shift' to constrain the proportions to those of a circle) If you want this to be a crescent moon, switch to the Elliptical Marquee tool and draw a circular selection of about the same size - a little larger is good. Click and drag inside the selection to move it to overlap with the white circle. Then use Edit > Cut (Command/Control+X) to remove the selected portion of the circle. Now, in the layers panel, with the layer with the moon in it selected, apply an Outer Glow. Click the square with the solid color in it to change the color of the glow if it's not already white. (I've still got the glow from the sun set to default) Change the color to white. And adjust the settings for a small, faint glow. Which gives you your finished moon: Adding Stars Adding a star shape could not be simpler. Just switch to the Assorted Brushes. PS will ask you if you really want to do that; click 'OK'. And pick one of those crosshatch brushes. Use that 'Size' slider at the top to adjust the size. I like to vary my stars between 10px and 20px. You'll notice that the brush is rotated so that the points are diagonal instead of horizontal and vertical, so place the stars in a new layer on a slope like this: Then navigate to Edit > Transform > Rotate... ...and reposition the stars. Press 'Enter', and your stars are completed. Adding a Starfield I personally prefer the simpler, almost more cartoonish look of the stars created with the Brush tool - they seem to have more of a 'Legoish' quality than this starfield does, at least outside of sci-fi scenes in space - but if you want a quick and easy way to generate realistic, randomly placed stars, this is it. Start by switching back to that layer that you filled partially with black to create the night sky. Navigate to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Apply 100% noise. Set the Distribution to Gaussian, and make sure that you've checked 'Monochromatic', otherwise you'll end up with a bunch of very colorful stars. That'll give you something like this: Now, apply a Gaussian Blur of 0.5px to soften things up. And just one more step: in Levels, drag the grey slider almost all the way to the right. You can adjust this based on your personal preference - dragging further right will decrease the amount and size of the stars. (and not dragging it as far will increase the amount and size) And that's it! You can also use Curves to apply a bluish tint to your stars or use the Brush tool with the foreground color set to black to get rid of some of the stars if you don't like where they ended up. Adding Nighttime Clouds Clouds at night start off the same way as clouds in the day do: with the palette reset to the default colors and in a new layer, go to Filter > Render > Clouds, and then use Filter > Render > Difference Clouds, twice. Now, open up Image > Adjustments > Levels (Command/Control+L). This is when things start to differ a little from the process for creating daytime clouds. For these nighttime clouds, the only adjustment we're going to make in Levels is to drag that grey slider to the right, increasing the black spaces between the rendered clouds. That should give you something like this: Now, as you did for the daytime clouds, right click on the clouds layer, go to Blending Options, and change the Blend Mode to Screen. The black spaces will turn transparent, leaving you with this: Using the Lasso tool, select a cloud (or group of clouds) that you want to move. Copy that selection (Command/Control+C) and paste it (Command/Control+V); the selection is automatically pasted into a new layer. Then rotate it into position as you did the daytime clouds. Because of the difference in the way the clouds were adjusted in Levels, these clouds are a little darker and are more wispy, which is good, but they've also turned out bigger, which we don't want. So, go to Edit > Transform > Scale. A box with small squares will appear around the contents of the layer, just like it does when you use Rotate. Drag the little squares in order to adjust the size of the cloud. (hold down 'Shift' while you do so to preserve the original proportions of the layer) Press 'Enter' to finish the transformation. By the way, one of the things I like to do when adjusting the placement of my nighttime clouds is to put the biggest, brightest ones over the moon or one of the larger stars. It's a little thing that adds a touch of realism to the scene. Once you've cut out, pasted, repositioned and resized all the clouds, you'll need to clean them up, just as you did with the daytime clouds. Set all but one of the cloud layers invisible. Add a Mask to the sole visible layer, switch to the Brush tool, and use a soft brush to mask the portions of the clouds that you don't want. Repeat with the other cloud layers, setting each one back to visible before you edit it. And one last thing to finish this up. In the layers panel, click on the drop-down button labeled 'Opacity', and drag the slider to the left. Do that with all the cloud layers, and your clouds are done: