[Alexa]

It's very good to see something so creative in this Halloween-forum, because we know we have some real fans and admirers of this festival. I like this green-eyed pumpkin!

[MSL]

 Probably I AM THE BIGGEST FAN currently!  I have a question, Mojo: Can you also make animations (cartoons)? At least some simple ones like 2D? If you can, I can write pretty good screenplays (scripts) and we may become famous.
 Before I had an offer like this, but I refused, because:

• The man, who offered it said I should stay anonymous, i.e. no author of the story .
• He said he should search an animator from India and at that time he didn't find.
• He wanted a story about Chinese females + sci-fi. I don't think it's the best idea for my creative writing.
• That time I was busier than now.

[mojo]

While the programs I use are capable of animation, my computer resources are not. These take a lot of computer horsepower. For instance the specs on my present computer are:

i7 quad core, hyperthreaded cpu, oil cooled
16 gigs RAM
2 gigs vidram

With this rig, it takes roughly 10 to 12 hours sometimes, to convert a 3D image that can only be seen in the program to a 2D image I can show. That's called rendering. The time depends on the complexity of the image. The RAM available determines how complex the scene can be as it must hold it in memory while doing calculations. There are times while I run out of both Vid ram as well as hardware RAM.

Movies that do these CGIs use what is known as Render Farms. Render Farms are a series of expensive computers, all networked together for this purpose.

The reason these images take so long to do is the computer calculates how many times a light beam will bounce off an object and at what strength. This in turn determines the tint or shade of a single pixel.

It's like actually making a movie. You have lights, a multitude of cameras, settings for the focus, the shutter speed, even film type settings. Then there is the setting of the stage, the exact positioning, the making of props, the making of the textures; all this is time consuming and isn't figured in the render time. The render time is for after the scene is done and you want to show someone else. I did say in an earlier comment that this had a steep learning curve.

Then there are programs that do one thing better than another. So you have to know about more than one program and how to get results out of them. Each one is very much like an onion. The deeper you go into it, the more you find out you don't know.

When you manage to make an animation you are looking at a huge file, data wise. The whole object of all this is to fool the eye. The human eye has this remarkable ability to almost instantly determine what is real and what is fake in this stuff. It's very hard to fool it, even when you do everything right.

[MSL]

 A precious answer! I should be a bit sad, that we can't make a good Halloween animation (for example), but I felt glad to read so informative and knowledgeable answer about the animations (at least from my point of view, because my hardware and software knowledge isn't very good).
 Let me add more good words (good and true, sincere):
 I like this personal quality of yours -- when someone ask you something (or debate something with you), the responses/answers you give are unexpectedly wonderful, because they consist more information (knowledge) than most of the people may expect. It's like a good surprise.
 I hope most of the people around you offline and online will see and will respect and value this quality!

[mojo]

Blushes

[SEO]

That's true. And, from the ethical (so called 'white hat') SEO point of view (I posted it already in the 'Art'), Mojo is a very good natural generator of unique-and-useful content (aka 'quality content'). This is one of the best treasures of the optimization and it's very necessary.

[MSL]

 Yes, Mojo is one of the best, but these days he's not here.
 And something on-topic: our newest Halloween thing -- a Halloween cup: . Witch + spider. A Halloween witch-spider cup.

[Alexa]

Mojo is nearly omnipotent. We don't worry about him.

[MSL]

Halloween 2016

  It's already October 2016 and Halloween 2016 is coming soon!
 As a big Halloween fan and a recent cosplay fan, I'd like to start sharing some Halloween related photos here, now:

- -- two artificial Halloween mannequins -- a male and a female Chinese zombies. Also you may see those different Jack-o-lanterns, Halloween baskets for children (Halloween baskets for kids), Halloween masks (Halloween ghosts). I like that green goblin head up there!

- -- many different Halloween costumes. Btw, I like that 3 Jack-o-lanterns Halloween decoration.

- -- when it comes to Halloween decoration this Halloween skeleton is really something!
 Also, there is a Halloween spider, a Halloween mask, etc.

- -- a Halloween house decor. Cool.

 Now you'll see similar Halloween things from another supermarket:

- and -- Halloween spiders, a Halloween skeleton and a Halloween witch. It's very interesting to see this giant Halloween spider web with those spiders and the skeleton in between.

- and -- A Halloween devil and a Halloween Jack-o-lantern lantern.

- -- a very cute Halloween witch.

- -- a lovely Jack-o-lantern type Halloween thing. I'm not sure what's this thing exactly, but the important is that it's a Halloween one.

- -- a lot of Halloween things: the Halloween house, the Halloween devil, the Halloween demon, etc. are all so pretty and attractive (for most of us -- the Halloween fans.)

- -- a Halloween house with Halloween lanterns, Halloween witches, a Halloween devil mask, a Halloween spider and a spiderweb, the Halloween lanterns, and a Chinese "Halloween" -- "万圣节".

- -- A Chinese pioneer in the Halloween house with a Halloween mask.

[MSL]

 Okay, one more Halloween 2016 thing: . Lovely, pretty, amazing! Isn't it? A Jack'o'lantern with a witch hat; so pretty Halloween decoration!

[MSL]

Halloween 2016

Some pre-Halloween photos

 Well, you know that for a Halloween fan as me, there are pre-Halloween, Halloween and post-Halloween days, moments, feelings and even -- photographs.
 Here we go with the pre-Halloween photos (of 2016):

1. Two photos of a Zhou Yan's (Alice's) and my Halloween picture (she drew the pumpkins and she took the photos, and I drew the background, i.e. the sky and the field.):

1.1.

1.2. .

2. My Halloween picture with explanations in English (Zhou Yan-Alice took the photos):

2.1.

2.2.

(Halloween 31.10., vampire bat, vampire, ghost, "Trick or treat" -- candy, sweets, etc., R.I.P. grave, Jack-o-lantern, skeleton, strawman, flying broom, witch, spiderweb, spider, tree, haunted castle.)
 Well, I know it's not 100% Halloween symbols/things, because there are many others like: mummy, zombie, etc., but I think this Halloween picture is good and informative enough.
 We drew it in an English salon, Haikou, October 29, 2016, i.e. pre-Halloween time.
                                        * * *
 More pre-Halloween stuff:

- -- a green monster (a photo taken in a local cinema). Very Halloween thing, isn't it?

- , , , , and -- simple, but lovely "Happy Halloween" decoration. Very good Halloween stencils as you can see: Jack-o-lanterns, coffins, ghosts, vampires, Deaths, devils, moons, bats, witch hats, candles, spiders and spiderwebs. 
 And here we may see what kind of Halloween products they're selling inside of this shop: -- Halloween baskets, Halloween gift boxes, Halloween, pumpkins, Halloween lanterns, Halloween marshmallows, etc.
 

[MSL]

Halloween present

Halloween gift

 It's my Halloween present (Halloween gift) -- take a look at these Halloween pictures:

- -- a bright picture of the Halloween skull-lantern, the pumpkin and the vegetables (3 pimientos and a purple onion).

- -- a dark picture of the same things.

- -- the best one, imo.

 This Halloween skull-lantern has a laughing sound, too.
 It's made in China.

[MSL]

Halloween 2017

 It's 2017 and it's October now. The Halloween 2017 is just around the corner! So, here you are -- 2 photos:

• 
• 

Halloween masks, spiders, bats, flags, etc.
 I like Halloween!

[MSL]

 I think these photos were never shown here (they're taken during the last Halloween night). They're a bit old, but for you, they're new (in case you never saw them before; I really don't remember if I post them here before or I didn't. So far, I can't find them here, after around 20 minutes searching, so I'm going to post them now):

- -- 2 jack-o-lanterns.

- -- a ghost and a jack-o-lantern.

- -- a black jack-o-lantern.

- -- another jack-o-lantern.

- -- some in a raw.

- -- a big Halloween spider net with a Halloween spider.

- ， , , , -- medieval European Halloween costumes.

- , , , -- different interior and exterior Halloween decorations.

- , , , -- more exterior Halloween decoration.

- , , , , , -- a Halloween ghost car with a ghost (live performer; a person), who is trying to surprise the passersby. I wasn't surprised, but some of the women were very scared to see him.
 
- , , -- a dark, Halloween tunnel with live performers. Pretty scary for some people; pretty funny for me.
 
 - -- another female Halloween costume.

 - , , , , , ,   -- some more 2016 Halloween night photos. 

[MSL]

 Here we go -- 3 new amazing Halloween photos:

• -- Halloween mannequin, Halloween masks, Halloween jack-o-lanterns.
• -- I like these Halloween balloons! There you may also see a Halloween vampire, Halloween spiderweb, etc.
• -- That's something really amazing -- Halloween pumpkins and a Halloween mannequin.