Draco's Tale...

Draco9898 · October 19, 2005, 02:25:49 AM

QuoteGreat Job...hmm i guess when I will post my Tic Tac Toe game it's gonna stink really bad huh...lol You do miracles with your artwork, cograts! :)

Thanks, and tic tac toe isn't a bad start...
I haven't gotten as much done as i'd like, collage Art classes nipping at my toes and such...
Latest screenie (with those darn fangled parallax layers in):

All layers filled:

kevin · October 19, 2005, 07:33:04 AM

Now were talking.. Awesome job.. That all fits together great !

Draco9898 · October 24, 2005, 09:12:59 PM

Small Demo 1:

All you can really do is walk around and look at the eye candy in this one, as I don't have the time anymore to work on this really :( Oh well...

*Nevermind the bouncing slimes, as they're just a test...
*Use Up, down arrows to cruise around
*use left/right arrows to...well...move left/right
*Space is jump
*The walking animation is wanky, I know X_X

http://www.wirefiles.com/show.php/1674_DraADVAlpha1.zip

kevin · October 25, 2005, 02:26:08 AM

That is simply Excellent !! It'd be a real shame for you not to continue on with this project !

BlinkOk · October 25, 2005, 03:22:49 AM

yeah! it just looks fantastic draco dude. the parallax stuf is awesome and the color is so fresh and bright. very origional. i'd be happy to help with the animation and mabey a few other charaters if you want.

Draco9898 · October 25, 2005, 04:03:20 AM

I'll see what I can do, but I really want to make this game special/ live up to it's potential. This one-man army gig is going terribly slow!
I have tons of ideas for this game, but it really frustrates me that it takes me so long to implement stuff, since first I have to draw the sprites (which are the most complicated sprites I've drawn yet), then I have to rip the images with code, then actually code whatever specific object/enemy I had in mind.
I guess I'll try my best not to quit, since I really want to see how far I can take this project. I wanted to see what kind of crazy things I could throw in graphically (especially with PBFX, such as lighting, water reflection/distortion).

What I'm most concerned about is the lack of music, as I have barely any musical talent, despite reading a musical thoery book from cover to cover. <_< I'm thinking about asking this one person I know who'd be excellent, but I don't think he'd do it for free.

BlinkOK:
I'd like some help BlinkOK if you are any good at animation. I basically need a good 8-frame running animation template that I can just draw on top of. Each of Draco's Frames measures 82 x 102 pixels.

kevin · October 25, 2005, 01:11:13 PM

QuoteI'll see what I can do, but I really want to make this game special/ live up to it's potential. This one-man army gig is going terribly slow! I have tons of ideas for this game, but it really frustrates me that it takes me so long to implement stuff,

Yes sadly, All coders experience this, regardless of skill. How do you think we feel ? :)

Keeping focused on your goal(s) can be extremely hard when all you see is adversity. So sometimes we have to realign our goals to suit our abilities.

Quotesince first I have to draw the sprites (which are the most complicated sprites I've drawn yet), then I have to rip the images with code, then actually code whatever specific object/enemy I had in mind.

To be honest, I think your building the project backwards for the most part. While you've certainly got the design / art skills / ideas, but like it or lump it, we can't really avoid actually sitting down and coding the 'game engine'.

I'd much prefer to see you build a working 'game engine' with just stick men gfx, than invest so much time and effort into the art work, to only get discouraged from your coding duties after the honeymoon period has worn off.

While I know you've written your own map editing solution, but have you written a character editor ? - Just something that lets you create your game characters externally, that can then be loaded into game engine with a generic function, none of this custom stuff. It'll have stuff to store the animations/speed ( location of the frames on the frames/ sprite settings etc).. Through to the characters attributes. It doesn't have to be pretty, since your the only person who will ever use it.

These type of helper tools can remove a lot the mundane,repetitive tasks that we face while making our games. And if your clever, you'll build your tools so they can be used in more than one game. Further accelerating the creation process.

QuoteI guess I'll try my best not to quit, since I really want to see how far I can take this project. I wanted to see what kind of crazy things I could throw in graphically (especially with PBFX, such as lighting, water reflection/distortion).

Effects are great and all, don't get me wrong. But I have this awful feeling we'll be having the same conversation a month or so after FX's release. So i'd be using this time to knuckle down and get the boring game mechanic's under your belt before then.

QuoteWhat I'm most concerned about is the lack of music, as I have barely any musical talent, despite reading a musical thoery book from cover to cover. I'm thinking about asking this one person I know who'd be excellent, but I don't think he'd do it for free.

Sadly, getting music made now can be a bad idea. Some temp loops/tunes would be more than adequate . What usually happens is you tire of the music long the game is complete. and musicians really don't like being asked to replace tracks coz your bored of them... Not that'd i've ever done that.. :)

I just want to reaffirm that you've achieved so much already. It would be a shame to let this go to waste now.

Draco9898 · October 25, 2005, 07:15:59 PM

yeah, I thought It'd be nice to have the enemies just colliding automatically without having to copy/paste code all over the place. Right now everything is hard-wired in. I'm looking up how to plug typed arrays into a Psub.

BlinkOk · October 25, 2005, 10:45:47 PM

*edit*

kevin · October 26, 2005, 08:28:25 AM

Blink,

oh dear the anims are gone. Could you send me the existing anim(s). It'd be nice to use them in some PB demos..

Calypson · November 03, 2005, 11:14:45 PM

As promised here is some critique for ya...

This will only focus on the main character today - tomorrow (hopefully) i'll get into color theory dealing with your background.

so without further ado....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/calypson/fixit.png

Well, first things first. Lets talk anatomy. Now i know that the style you were going for was cartoony, and that's fine. But since i dont know how intensionally you did everything, I will show you the hard-core correct way, then you can vary off that path as much as you choose to. In my version i've fixed the following; the head was too big, legs too stubby, pectorial muscels too saggy, you locked all of your limbs so i gave them a little bend, gave him a prince/knight like posture, and a few other minor things. I'm sure that you catch on pretty quick, so i'm not going to spend any more time dealing with anatomy. (PS i was just too lazy to draw that crazy hair due you have on that guy)

Alright - now lets talk artsy. The first thing i noticed about your sprite is the retona burning amount of saturation...almost %100 saturation i think. Generally speaking, things aren't ever that high in saturation except for controlled situations. The basic color theory about game design goes as follows; background = low contrast, low saturation.... sprites = high contrast, high saturation. I'll talk more about that later, but basically its just to make sure the user can always know the difference between his sprite and everything else cluttered around the screen without losing him constantly. Now although i say sprites are supposed to have high saturation doesn't mean that it can be retna burning and still be okay. Just lower the hue to be a bit more grey and you'll be fine. In my version i raised the contrast, lowered the saturation a tad, and added an outline.

The second thing I noticed was your whomping 42 color count. Thats just crazy. I lowered the color count to 12 colors plus transparency. if you notice, even though i have about a fourth the amount of colors you have- mine looks more detailed and shaded. If you smart with colors, you can achieve this without too much hassle. Also it makes replacing colors if you need to not nearly as hard.

the last thing that i did to make your character pop out from the background was add an outline. if you look closely at the outline, its not a continuous black line. In some areas where light would be hitting, i used a technique called "selout" or "selective outlining". Learn about it here and any other pixel term you dont understand: (Selective Outlining) As you can see - sometimes on different colored backgrounds (like you might find throughout various levels in a game) makes it hard to see the sprite distinctly unless it has an outline. The outline is optional, and not all games use it, but i think you can benifit from it in your case.

Also notice how before i shaded the sprite, i 'blobbed' things in roughly. This is how i will be animating the whole sprite. Its generally not a good idea to animate a fully shaded sprite this complex - so instead, you do all of the frames in a simple manner and then shade each one individually. this will make your animation look more fluid and non-mechanical. This leads us to our next section - animation.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/calypson/animshow.png
here we have alot of useful information. Basically there are 3 steps in creating animation cycles. in step 1 you create base frames; or in this case - the 4 generic running poses that we all know. In step 2 you create the 'tween' frames; or all of the ocward stuff the body does while moving from one generic pose to another. In the last step you shade it. I didn't complete step 3, but you'll get the idea.

Usually people get overwhelmed on the mechanics of how a run animation works, but in reality you dont need to know much. Just by laying out the basic building blocks of base frames, all we have to do is look at the base frames before and after a tween in order to create a good seemless motion. Alot of useful info is typed up in the pic itself, so i'll just let it do the talking.

Here is what my step 1 looked like when i was done with it, along with my step 2.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/calypson/animdemo1.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/calypson/animdemo2.gif

Its amazing to note the big difference it makes when you add the tween frames in. Through the tweens opens the door to adding so much character and even emotion into the animation of your run to help 'define' who the character is.

in closing, here is a final comparison to see how much difference these techniques have made in the overall product. Might be useful for ya.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/calypson/animdemo3.gif

One last thing i'd like to say before i go to bed is just a quick thing about what defines a walk vs a run. In games its much better to have the character always running because it makes the game feel more fast-pased and dramatic. But what defines a walk vs run. Certainly a run is NOT a sped up verson of a walk, right? Heres a quick answer for you; When you walk, there is always at least 1 foot planted on the ground. When you run, there are moments when both feet aren't even in contact with the ground. Study the animation i made to see more clearly what i mean.

I have already started on the second half of my little critique session and i hope to have it up by tomorrow. I hope this was helpful to you in some way shape or form.

Draco9898 · November 03, 2005, 11:35:26 PM

Wow, thanks that helps x10. Wow, my anatomy is kind-of embrassing actually :blink: working on it now...

BlinkOk · November 04, 2005, 07:58:03 AM

very cool calypson dude. informative and very understandable. i'm keen to see more

kevin · November 04, 2005, 08:10:29 AM

Calypson,

Nice, once your done perhaps you could build up a generic running anim tutorial and post it in the tutorials board.

Calypson · November 04, 2005, 05:08:35 PM

thanks, I'm glad i could help a little.

Kevin:
Yeah, sure. I'll see if i can find the time to do it. It might take a while for it to actually get done, but i'll try.

some stuff I forgot to mention...

general info about animating moving things:
the first instinct of an amateur animator is just to copy+paste+move and occationally rotate 90 degrees. And the first instinct of a more advanced amateur is to copy+paste+move and edit a little here and there. This is an alright technique to use, but only under certain conditions. If the part your animating rotates at all (Like the arms do), your better off redrawing it instead of the copy+paste method. But if it moves in a different way, its okay to copy+paste+move+edit+touchup. for example. In the animation i posted above, I completely shaded the torso. I did not redraw the torso for each frame. Instead, i just squished and expanded horrizontally a copy+pasted torso to give the effect that it is twisting on the y axis. Even the base torso to begin with (seen in the first pic i posted) was a copy+pasted verson of the profile view i drew. I just edited it to appear as if it has been seen on the 3/4 view. and the shoulder pad was also just copy+paste+moved (and also flipped horrizontally on the forward stroke of the arm). But as i said - in order to have a flowy animation, all rotating parts should be redrawn each time.

Something that i should have also included in my animation was to have the character leaning into the run a little bit to keep him balanced. Also little things could have been added to even further progress the animation. things such as the shoulder pads could have bobbed up and down in due to his bodies rise and fall.

I know i was supposed to mention something else, but i can't seem to remember what it was... oh well, maybe i'll remember later on today

News:

Draco's Tale...