No Stupid Questions: The Help Thread

[rookie1978]

Can't remember some kind of obscure homestuck lore? Wiki not helping? Just want to get feedback on an idea? Need help with coming up with alchemizations, or echerladder names?

Someone more well versed in your subject of choice will help you out here! (Probably not me. )

[BrobyDDark]

Did John really like hammers?

[nonsenseMnemonic]

Did John really like hammers?

Not particularly.

EB: ok, i did it.
TG: hammerkind?
EB: yeah.
TG: ok that will be the permanent allocation for your specibus
TG: i guess i should have mentioned that
EB: uh...
TG: hope you like hammers dude!
EB: yeah, that's fine i guess. i can't imagine it's going to be all that relevant.

https://www.homestuck.com/story/39

He chose Hammerkind because Dave suggested it here as a way to free up some space.

[rookie1978]

Where did the timetables come from? Where did OG dave (now davesprite) get them from? We're they an alchemization or did he find them on his land?

[calamityCons]

If I recall correctly, Dave acquired it from Hephaestus after asking him for them politely. I’ll have to double/triple check my sources on that one tomorrow

[JakeMorph]

aside from the fact that they came from a doomed Dave, the origins of the timetables are left unclear. around page 1641 in his book commentary, andrew says:

I'm not sure what he used to make them, other than his record players from home. Looks like some sort of mystical gear component he probably plundered from the local industrial ruins. He probably went on a lot of exciting but lonely adventures on this planet we'll never get to see or hear about.

in a similar vein, Aradia at one point had music boxes in her own hive, which she may have used to alchemise her own time machines.

[foreverFlummoxed]

This is something that has still haunted me even with many hours of google search and asking around: does anyone out there know of a fully complete collection of the character sprites used in Homestuck? I've searched the Homestuck archives and they don't have everything and individual sprite pieces (like arms, eyes, etc.) are not necessarily what I'm looking for.

[BrobyDDark]

This is something that has still haunted me even with many hours of google search and asking around: does anyone out there know of a fully complete collection of the character sprites used in Homestuck? I've searched the Homestuck archives and they don't have everything and individual sprite pieces (like arms, eyes, etc.) are not necessarily what I'm looking for.

I used to have one I used for character creation for roleplays a long, loooooong time ago, but it's gone alongside all my old pesterchum logs and everything on the old MSPAF. Sorry.

[Joyfulldreams]

This is something that has still haunted me even with many hours of google search and asking around: does anyone out there know of a fully complete collection of the character sprites used in Homestuck? I've searched the Homestuck archives and they don't have everything and individual sprite pieces (like arms, eyes, etc.) are not necessarily what I'm looking for.

I mean, what sprites are you missing? The reason a 'fully complete' collection is hard or even impossible to find is because the number of characters, let alone the number of sprites, is so enormous as you can never be completely sure if you're ACTUALLY done?? The best you can really do is slowly accumulate a collection as close to complete as you can manage and keep adding to it when you realize you're missing something. So is there any sprite/sprites in particular you're looking for? I know I put together a pretty decent collection of sprites taken from Collide to use for Act Omega.

For example, if you're looking for the Condesce sprites used in Collide, my friends and I painstakingly went through the trouble of recreating each of them by hand since there's obviously no way to extract them from a youtube video. We didn't do the same thing for the Lord English sprites, because he doesn't appear in sprite from in Act Omega, and also because FUCK THAT MONSTROSITY OH MY GOD. papers posted a few of the LE sprites on their blog, though, which we did collect along with all of the various sprites other Collide artists posted on tumblr. We threw all of that stuff into a google drive folder which is accessible via act omega's tumblr.

[foreverFlummoxed]

I have never seen the Act Omega archive, only heard of it, and it seems (almost) identical to the collection available on the Homestuck archives here :https://archive.homestuck.net/#/HOME/Fa ... %20Sprites Essentially I am looking for sprites that have the correct colour schemes (e.g. troll skin hex#C4C4C4/RGB 196,196,196) and I have a way to confirm if they are, all I would need is a place to get them. I am uncertain whether the dancestor sprites have a different pallet or not all I would need is a correctly coloured Porrim God tier sprite for that and the MSPA wiki's images are of varying quality. Hope that cleared up any miscommunications even with the lengthy explanation. Edit: just relised i never answered the first question of what sprites I have, I have the twelve beta troll's normal outfits save for Tavros who i have the robo-legs and wheelchair for and Kanaya who i have the red dress and rainbow drinker sprites for, dream selves for Feferi Gamzee Nepeta Terezi and Sollux Prospit and Derse, Blind and Glasses-less Sollux, God tier sprites for Aradia Dave Jade and Kanaya, Gcatavrosprite, Jadesprite, and Rosesprite

[Joyfulldreams]

Oh, wow. You're right. Those are exactly the sprites I made. I had no idea they ended up there. Would probably have been nice if anybody had thought to mention that to me or? Like, I get it's a pretty big archival project, but you'd think an important part of an archive would also be to list original sources. Especially considering looking through that, a lot of sprites that are actually exclusive to act omega got bundled in with everything else?? Jane especially doesn't even have a sheet of non-collide sprites in there. Jeez. But eh...nothing to do for it now.

I mean, a way to confirm that sprites have correct colors would just be to open them in photoshop or something? Either way, honestly when it comes to just all the different variations of the trolls' sprites and not necessarily every single pose with a given outfit, then the wiki is generally where I go. If a sprite of a character exists you can usually find it there. You just have to make sure, when you go to actually download it, that you don't just copy straight from the wiki page and instead right click the image to open it in a separate browser tab and download from there. It's usually easy to squint and see if there's any compression on it when you open it up in a new tab (look at around the lines to see if anything is fuzzy), and if it doesn't then it's more than likely correct and clean.

Like...here's that porrim god tier, I guess. On the left is the image directly from the wiki--compressed and with wrong colors. On the right, the one I downloaded and re-uploaded. Correct colors.

[JakeMorph]

unfortunately the state of sprites on the wiki in particular is in a bit of a shambles currently. we're working on it, but we're cracking down on unsourced images in general and there are currently a lot of sprites that we're still trying to figure out in terms of whether they were ripped directly from pages or put together from separate pieces or what

[Joyfulldreams]

Ooooh. I did not know that. That's good to know. My needs are never really so specific as to require they be perfectly accurate or whatever but still, good to know.

[thorondraco]

Do we even know WHAT a kernel sprite is? What its made of? Why it seems to be the coloration of someone's parent/ancestor?

[JakeMorph]

it's a game construct. the kids' sprites are the colours they are because andrew originally intended to make them just brighter versions of the heroes' colours, and then made those the colours of their parents later.

[Joyfulldreams]

Well as far as kernelsprites go, I think the reason they are colored the way they either is either literally just for theming, or foreshadowing. As for what they're made of....well. Ideas? Everything in Homestuck is made up of ideas. Different kinds of ideas and thoughts combined to make other ideas and thoughts. The kernelsprite especially, since it's purpose is literally to be an empty vessel for you to throw literally any idea into and then distribute that idea throughout a game session (the kernel), as well as receive and contain information (the sprite).

That may seem like a cop-out answer but it's about as close to an actual answer as you'll probably get. It's one of the more meta aspects of Homestuck, where it takes it's nature as a story and makes that core component of its setting's internal logic and construction.

[JakeMorph]

to elaborate on the 'what is it made of' question: a kernelsprite is an amalgam of two entities, the kernel and the sprite, which part ways once sufficiently prototyped. the kernel gets its name from a kind of mathematical function, and is essentially floating data (or an 'idea' as joyfull describes it). the sprite part is made of ectoplasm, like a ghost.

[foreverFlummoxed]

I mean, a way to confirm that sprites have correct colors would just be to open them in photoshop or something?

This is essentially the method I use. I get a colour sampler tool of some sort that displays the colour values and check it with other sprites I have (e.g eridans text colour matches his hair dye and using a sprite that matches I determined the skin and different horn colours of the trolls) The whole correct colour thing is just something that for no reason bothers me and I might be one of the few who is being particular on it for some reason , I've also noticed certain file formats don't preserve colours (PNG) and others destroy any semblance of image quality/resolution (JPG)

[JakeMorph]

I've also noticed certain file formats don't preserve colours (PNG) and others destroy any semblance of image quality/resolution (JPG)

this is essentially THE reason a lot of sprites you find won't be in the 'correct' colours. homestuck's panels are uploaded in a GIF format, which has a limited colour map, meaning that a sprite appearing in a panel might have any number of its colours slightly changed to match other colours in the image.

[foreverFlummoxed]

this is essentially THE reason a lot of sprites you find won't be in the 'correct' colours. homestuck's panels are uploaded in a GIF format, which has a limited colour map, meaning that a sprite appearing in a panel might have any number of its colours slightly changed to match other colours in the image.

This is something I have noticed, and is the reason I search for consistencies and inconsistencies in quality and colours which has lead me to determining the colour palettes of Trolls and both Space and Time god tier outfits and while finding all the sprites (all of them) will be frustrating and unforgiving, I will eventually finish the collection, no matter how long it takes it will be done. (I'm not angry I'm just being very determined, this isn't meant to cause Strife)
The quest of futility continues!