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sRPG Tools Kickstarter Brainstorm

Started by lirmont, August 19, 2013, 01:08:58 pm

Mobius

Quote from: lirmont on September 01, 2013, 02:11:27 pm
Early Morning Battle on the Plains (Event)
Cumulative Changes



Video: download.

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Fixes and other changes in this version:

  • %30 faster typewritten effect.

  • Music fade out from event test added back in.



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Perfection.

Quote
I mean, copyright issues being the point, he's probably only a chocobo sprite and some music away from having something totally free of that. Admittedly, finding someone capable of doing music like that and willing to do it for this project in this day and age may be iffy. I think I read something on one of these boards where someone wanted to trade something for music; they had a link to their other work (which did sound symphonic like FFT's stuff).


There's quite a number of decent free music and game assets out there in the web. It's just a matter of digging them out.

For example
http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3088

Now everyone sit down, relax and have a good damned cup of tea.
Then go out into the forest and see the stars.

Then come back and realize it's pointless to be so worked up over what's meant to be our hobby.
That should be my motto here, holy s

lirmont

September 01, 2013, 03:54:18 pm #41 Last Edit: September 01, 2013, 05:33:20 pm by lirmont
Yes, but, unfortunately for everyone trying to make their own game, you don't just need one perfect song. You need a pack of songs that fit well together (and maybe even adhere to your art direction). We may be at that point in time now where it's already possible to find that right now on the internet, but I don't know; I'll believe it when I see it, so somebody show it to me. :P

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Darker music version video: download (music: Orpheus-I, http://dstgames.com/, http://www.nosoapradio.us/).

Cheetah

Video thoughts:

Layout:
1) You simply do not design a cutscene where it is focused on the backsides of your characters for the majority of the time. I know that there might be spriting limitations, but you really need to flip the map around so you can see the front of the characters. It is really a waste of amazing portraits since you can't see how they relate to the characters. Plus the map would look better rotated with the characters facing the camera as well. This is definitely my biggest concern.
2) This whole situation is confused by the lack of text bubble pointers to indicate who is talking. I can tell who is who, but most viewers wont. BTW I still hate the rough jagged edges on the right of the text bubbles. They should really be squared or rounded.

Pacing:
1) Speed up the text presentation speed, but leave the complete dialog up for a bit longer than you were in previous versions. I hate reading slower than I naturally would, but then before it was moving on too quickly.
2) Having multiple characters walk on screen together can be cool, instead of just one at a time.
3) Have main character guy say his lines referring to the monsters occur after the characters come on screen. Cut the last line from visor guy.

Other:
1) The map itself his dreary compared to the character palette and needs to be brightened up.
2) More consistency. The main character doing the sing talk animation during some lines and not others is odd.
3) When the main character walks back to talk to the chick, he is going to slow or the animation is running to fast so it is out of sync.

More about the actual dialog in the future.
Current Projects:

lirmont

I can do some of these. I won't do others.

Layout:
1. Most of the characters only exist in back poses. I agree that normally it would not be good, but I read through all the events written by Mobius. Clarion seems like he has a sense of over-importance and a lot of hubris. He's the only one that you get to see the face of here and animations. I think it's actually good that way, chalk it up to a difference of opinion.
2. I can look at getting text bubble pointers. I'm not touching that jagged edges issue; that belongs on a different board.

Pacing:
1. Is it still too slowly printed? The wait is at 1/10th of a second. I can definitely leave it up there a little longer, though.
2. I can rearrange the animation so that they show up in groups, but the event description said they had just been walking through a forest. I pictured it as though they were catching up to each other (slowpokes in back).
3. I'm not changing lines; that belongs on a different board.

Other:
1. I can change the texture, but I guess I'd prefer it if you make whatever changes yourself and suggest that (since I was the one that came up with the texture in the first place and thought it was fine). Here is the texture:



2. It's more for the hand movement, because I tried to make him pretentious with what I had.
3. I can adjust that speed.

Put anything dialogue-specific on the other board. Thanks.

Mobius

Note to everyone. If we are to brighten the textures, then I'll have to brighten the map background as well, so they can fit accordingly. ;)

My opinion is that this texture+BG looks good as a dark morning scenario, and goes well with the sprites. But there can be daylight ones if Lirmont is up to it. Got to be careful to not take it overboard in brightness/saturation so it looks like an Advance game.

Quote from: Cheetah on September 01, 2013, 09:26:00 pm
BTW I still hate the rough jagged edges on the right of the text bubbles. They should really be squared or rounded.


You've been at this for quite some time. 

It's not like the textboxes look perfect to me, (In fact, decent,) but, still. Your feedback is kinda itching me to go to Pixeljoint to try and get a better textbox suggestion. Although this may take a bit of time and go way past Lirmont's Tuesday deadline.
It's Lirmont's call if he wants it for the demo, if not, I'll do it anyways, but not today as im a bit busy IRL.



And something else. I originally designed the textboxes to go with a slightly smaller screen res.



The screen here on the demo is 16 pixels wider in all directions (It would cover the black area in the above picture), which is why the chocobo portrait had some empty space to the side. Textboxes still perform well, nevertheless, but may have to be made wider.

Now everyone sit down, relax and have a good damned cup of tea.
Then go out into the forest and see the stars.

Then come back and realize it's pointless to be so worked up over what's meant to be our hobby.
That should be my motto here, holy s

Cheetah

Quote from: Mobius on September 02, 2013, 09:51:42 am

You've been at this for quite some time. 



I know and I don't want to be annoying, but it does drive me nuts. Definitely do a pixeljoint or wayofthepixel.net thread to get some feedback. It would just be great to see more of your stuff there and get some advice from some other master pixelers (I am not one).

Layout:
1) The front of the sprites just look better. What if you had the beginning as is with them all walking in from the back, and then did a 180 of the map to show the front of them for the remainder of the event?
2) Smash's text bubble pointers look great. In terms of width, why aren't they just adjustable? The chocobo's wark should just be much narrower, this is how it is done in FFT, and then the pointer can also be moved along the top or bottom of the text bubble.

Pacing:
1) The pop in of the text bubbles looks great btw. But yes, text still needs to be a bit faster.
2) It is fine either way. It is just cool to show off the tech that you can do simultaneous animations.
3) I will annoy Smash then, though I could be convinced that it is fine as is.

Other:
1) I just don't know what to think here. On it's own it looks good, with the blue background it looks good, and with the lighter part of the gradiated background it looks good. But against the dark part of the gradiated background it looks too dark.
2) Can you do evtchr like animations? Just inserting a few custom animations of him just raising his hand, or head turns to have characters look around adds a lot of flare to an event. Plus super easy to do the pixeling from what you already have.
3) Cool.

Tuesday deadline, ouch. Well I haven't read all your plans for the kickstarter in terms of goals and stuff. But my advice would be take your time. Having an excellently polished presentation, with many pictures, videos, diagrams, and such from the beginning is what will get you money. You have to make an amazing first impression, particularly for such a nich product, and you really want to avoid any copy write issues.
Current Projects:

Dome


"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

lirmont

September 02, 2013, 06:51:35 pm #47 Last Edit: September 02, 2013, 07:33:07 pm by lirmont
Early Morning Battle on the Plains (Event)
Internal Release



Video: download.

--

Fixes and other changes in this version:

  • Nature noises (reported by Ishtar; attributed to Leandros.Ntounis at http://www.freesound.org/people/Leandros.Ntounis/sounds/163607/).

  • Text pointers (reported by Cheetah).

  • Typewritten text speed increase (reported by Cheetah).

  • Text display length increase (reported by Cheetah).

  • Clarion speed increase (reported by Cheetah).

  • Entry grouping (reported by Cheetah).



Thanks, and that's also the last of the changes I'm doing to this. Feel free to continue to discuss changes, but I'm shelfing this event. As I've stated previously, the cut that makes it to the video will not be this one. It will be devoid of chocobos and music (in favor of a video-wide background music). As a reminder, eventing is only something you can do with this project. The kickstarter is not to make events; it's to finish the tools so that the process can easily be started by anyone with the time and motivation to do it. Thanks again for all the feedback and the graphical assets that have gone into this event. The project's eventing as a whole will be better for it.

--

Alistair Agnarsson


Cheetah

Nice improvements Lirmont. Text speed looks good with a nice length of time for text presentation. The speech bubble arrows are a great help, they move awkwardly at times, but better to have them than not. The entry grouping is also more dynamic, very good. Oh and Clarion's walk is matched up really nicely. I didn't notice the nature sfx, where are they?
Current Projects:

lirmont

September 02, 2013, 09:24:02 pm #49 Last Edit: September 04, 2013, 06:37:15 am by lirmont
The music is loud, but listen when it fades near the last 10% of the video. The nature track plays during the whole thing, though.

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12 minutes and 30 seconds later...

Whole video: download (451MB; ~12:30 duration).
The music that plays behind my voice: http://freesound.org/people/Kyster/sounds/197114/ and http://freesound.org/people/Kyster/sounds/197115/

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Credits Section


Lijj

Here's an update on the back walking frames of Alistair the Aegis:

I left the hair static; I was going to make it sway a bit, but i think it looks pretty good as it stands:

Update:    Original: 

  • Modding version: PSX

lirmont

Early Morning Battle on the Plains (Event)
Internal Release with Lijj's Improved Alistair



Video: download.

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As for progress, I went to verify my identity with Kickstarter's automated tool, and they don't believe I exist as a human being. Their auto-response doesn't include a "You will receive a response within X business days", so I may wait until at least Monday. If it can't be resolved (because clearly, I am either a spy, ninja, or ghost), then I will look to other options (and redo the video sections that mention the campaign specifically). Thanks for staying interested; I'd hoped to have been able to say on Friday, "It's live!" That may not happen, though, and I am sorry for it.

Cheetah

Do you have a different video for the actual announcement? Nice fixes btw Lijj.
Current Projects:

lirmont

September 05, 2013, 10:54:03 pm #53 Last Edit: September 06, 2013, 06:47:05 pm by lirmont
By "different video", do you mean the whole 12-minute promo video? The link is right above the loud credits image, or you can download it here: download (~450mb).

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Progress update. The verification hang-up has been averted (courtesy of their customer service), and the project was submitted for review at 6:45PM (EDT) today. Here's hoping it makes it through the approval process!

Mobius

This is still related to the brainstorm that was going on here, so:



Updated Textbox V2. Now resized to fit the current screen size that's slightly bigger. Also, 3 sizes; helps alot, as demonstrated in the mock-up:



I don't really want this on the video or implemented right away. It's more as an updated Tethical resource.

What do you think of my new Knight Lijj?
Now everyone sit down, relax and have a good damned cup of tea.
Then go out into the forest and see the stars.

Then come back and realize it's pointless to be so worked up over what's meant to be our hobby.
That should be my motto here, holy s

lirmont

Cue everybody freaking out about the new chocobo sprite hiding in plain sight! Looks great.

Lijj

September 07, 2013, 10:33:41 pm #56 Last Edit: September 07, 2013, 10:40:02 pm by Lijj
Quote from: Mobius on September 07, 2013, 08:54:26 pmWhat do you think of my new Knight Lijj?

I love itt!!! The front view is multiply orgasmic.
Great refinement on that chocobo too; the feathers look great.
Edit: Maybe the boots could have dual tones like the ones I did on the back-view... It's subtle cause the cape obfuscates it a bit.
Anyhow I may want to try to translate my boot idea over from that back-view into your front.
  • Modding version: PSX

3lric

Nice work Mobius, that chocobo is pretty freakin' awesome
  • Modding version: PSX

Kagebunji

Well I am surprised so much happened here. Great work on the Knight, Smash, looks far better than my Guardian, haha.

Chocobo is beyond amazing, that's what we needed in FFT, a good looking, huge Chocobo.

Lirmont, is there a way for you to upload the videos for Youtube or something? I tried downloading it, but looking at the size, I had to stop, since my bandwidth totally blows, and I would love to watch it and give some input.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

lirmont

September 08, 2013, 05:20:43 pm #59 Last Edit: September 16, 2013, 12:00:33 am by lirmont
Here you go: http://youtu.be/XrjzFce7XYY

Youtube squashed the 704x488 format, though. Font in the events section still looks badass.