What is it all about?

By now I'm sure everyone has heard of the extremist's (thext) accusations that Sudden Death, of Avenge and Cia fame, used a gif to ansi convertor to draw his outlines. If you haven't heard the full story, then I'll recount the events as they happened:

On the -- of June, Thext published an article on his review site, Operation Rescue, called "Why I don't review Sudden Death's Ansis". The thesis of the article was that Sudden Death did not infact 'draw' his ansis, but ripped them from existing high resolution pictures, using a Gif to Ansi program of some description.

It is fair to say that Sudden Death's reaction to this allegation was not pleasant, and he immediately contacted the extremist for an explaination.. From this point, things to me got a little crazy. the extremist publishes a second article, this time with catpures of conversations with Sudden Death, and a capture of an outline Sudden Death had produced (available here).

<sudndeath> i don't care guy i make money off programming and art and i will have you in court if you do not take the article down in 1 hour
<sudndeath> join #visionbbs if you want to talk

...

<sudndeath> go look at ciapacks uptill 36 i did all my art by myself another little thing you overlooked
<sudndeath> get your facts strait guy
<thext> yeah, but you sucked at shading, and CIAdraw wasn't released back then.

...

<sudndeath> guy i've been coding since i was 13
<thext> And how old are you now? 45?
<sudndeath> 23
<thext> ten years. Alot of time to master GW-Basic.
<sudndeath> haha
<sudndeath> not
<sudndeath> TASM / BASM / Borland Pascal / Delphi
<sudndeath> now take the site down

...

<sudndeath> your little freedom of speach thing does not work, go ask mommy and daddy about damaging reputations of business
<sudndeath> how did i lie?
<sudndeath> i wanna here this b4 i leave
<thext> I do not believe that CIAdraw piece of shit.
<sudndeath> never said you did
<sudndeath> but you put ciadraw v2.o down
<sudndeath> which is comming out
<sudndeath> which has
<sudndeath> the vga ansi draw in it
<sudndeath> i'm not gonna play with you no more
<sudndeath> take it down
<sudndeath> or else
*** Parts: sudndeath (quantumbbs@srv.1.5.goodnews.net)

The captures of the irc log show that both artists obviously had there own opinions about the matter, and both seemed content on wrestling with words. the extremist's article told of how he thought that Sudden Death had produced his own Gif to Ansi program, as many of the freely available software packages (DOS programs) did not produce results like that of Sudden Death's supposedly did.

What I believe is that Sudden Death has been using source code from his own CIAdraw to make a specialized gif2ansi converter. What's easier than using a graphic file and put it into memory where the binary canvas is located? It's easy to make convertible graphic files by pushing the contrast up on a pic, especially if it's from a comic-book. You end up with easily convertible pictures that have only 4 or 5 solid colors, or 2 if using greyscale.

Sudden Death responded stating that he was using a Beta copy of CiaDraw v2.0, which had VGA drawing capabilities.

Skaboy, one of Sudden Death's friends, wrote an article in response to the extremist's remarks, stating that he had known the extremist for many years, and that Sudden Death could have in no way programmed a custom Gif to Ansi convertor, as he has no expeience what-so-ever in VESA mode programming.

the extremist however made some very valid points. Sudden Death apparently does not shade his ANSIs at all these days, instead choosing to pump out outlines. Who know's why he doesn't? Perhaps he sucks at shading? Doesn't feel like it? No time? Who knows..

Who's telling the truth?

Who? It seems both parties in this argument are telling the 'truth'. the extremist voiced his opinion, all be it, not in the most appropriate manner. Sudden Death saying he would sue the extremist didn't help matters either. It seems to me that this whole situation got a 'little' bit out of control..

In my own investigations, talking with both the extremist and Sudden Death, I have discovered a few things. It seems that Sudden Death is indeed telling the truth about the CiaDraw v2.0 VGA drawing capability, as it is modeled on Hooptie's ArtWorkx package, which pioneered the feature. What happens with this VGA mode is that the artist can draw in a higher resolution, (ie. something similar to the modes in iCEVIEW or ACiDVIEW), and then save them as an ANSI file.

This method of drawing would indeed improve an artists ability to produce quality outlines. the extremist's article was not directed at this method of drawing, but to whether Sudden Death is converting his ANSIs from VGA's either done by himself or by someone else, both of which now look unlikely. Skaboy's own testament proves that Sudden Death has no means at his disposal to program such a utility.

Indeed, even this article has not stated whether one party or not is right in this matter, and it was not meant to. The facts have been laid out before you. the extremist at the end of his second article even stated that he could be wrong in his accusations.

In conclusion it is obvious that the extremist made a bad move by publishing his article, one that resulted in possibly tarnishing Sudden Death's career in the scene.