Aleph Null's Resources (Update 7/3/16: Weapon Icons)

[AlephNull]

Being the thread in which I post the various bits and sundries I've cobbled together so that someone can hopefully get some use out of them.


TERMS OF USE


You may use any resources posted here in commercial or non-commercial games, provided the appropriate parties are credited1. A copy of the game would also be nice.


You may modify any resources posted here however you like, and may redistribute resources so modified, again provided the appropriate parties are credited1. A link and/or PM would be appreciated, but not absolutely necessary.


You may not redistribute these resources "as-is"; link back here instead2.


Credit should be provided to Kadokawa and Aleph Null (with or without the space; dealer's choice), as well as any parties noted below in connection with specific resources.


1. I mean, it's not like I'll send a pack of rabid lawyers after you if you don't3, but let's face it - refusing others credit for their work is kind of a dick move. Don't be that guy/gal.


2. This is mainly because I am a shameless narcissist who finds comments and thread views to be a source of validation. If there are extenuating circumstances though, I'm prone to be forgiving.


3. Although I could, y'know. I know a guy.


Right, now that that's out of the way...


Skeleton SV Sprites

Spoiler

Been picking away at this guy for the last couple of days. You would not BELIEVE how many layers the PSD has. I may go back and improve him at some point, but for now I'd say he's fairly satisfactory. Intended for use with Yanfly's sideview enemies plugin, although I suppose there's no reason he couldn't be a party member.





Chalkdust's done quite a good TV skeleton sprite which can be found here, and Avery's done a "clean" skeleton face which is available here.


I designed him to be as compatible as possible with the SV generator parts (despite the fact that the KO sprite is essentially a random jumble of bones), so you should be able to dress him up any way you like in your image manipulation program of choice with relative ease. A couple of examples below:





Skeletal mage, complete with glittering eyes.





Skeletal soldier, made with resources borrowed from hiddenone and Bokou. 


You may notice the soldier's scarf overlaps his jaw, which will tend to happen a fair bit I'm afraid; I couldn't get the skull to look right and still keep within the confines of the base sprite's head area. I was going to trim the scarf away, but then decided I actually kinda like the look.

Soldier SV Sprite

Spoiler

The fleshy version of the soldier.





Again, credit to @hiddenone and @Bokou. I even remembered to ask permission this time.

Suffering Soul SV Sprites

Spoiler

I thought this would be much easier than it turned out to be... really ought to think these things through more. 





Because the subtle gradients and transparencies make the Suffering Soul files ten times the size of the others, I'll just link to the variants rather than re-posting them.

SV Weapons

Spoiler

It all started with needing a pickaxe (because you can't have crazed miners without pickaxes - it's in the charter or something), and sort of snowballed from there.





Mainly intended as low-grade stuff here - the weapons of the unwashed masses. Also a fireball, because why not. I really ought to do a shovel too.





Now the focus is higher-end thingies. There's a version of the staff with runes instead of circuit-y whatnots, but it looked a bit crap once I zoomed out. Got to fix up the tassel on the spear as well.





Mostly silver weapons, which is its own element in my game - handy for ghosts and werewolves. Filled out the last empty spot on the sheet with a grenado, because once I got the idea I couldn't think of anything else.


Honestly, this is probably not the last of them...

Templates

Spoiler

I created these for my own personal convenience/sanity, but what the hell - why not share? The first one's for SV battlers, the second for tilesets. They're semitransparent and a nice, neutral background color to work over top of. 








These get a special exception to the standard TOU, since demanding credit for such a simple tool seems absurd. Use 'em however you like.

Next addition: TBD.

 

[KingGodzilla]

Will you make Generator pieces for skeletons? Like Chalkdust did for his races, but just for skeletons? That'd be awesome. Thanks!

 

[AlephNull]

Unfortunately, that isn't really possible without fundamentally changing the way the generator works. Chalkdust's monsters work because they completely cover the base sprite, but my skeleton doesn't, so if you tried to implement it in the same way you'd just end up with something that looks like the poor bastard shown below, who appears to have been somehow turned inside-out:


 


  OH GOD WHY?!


So ultimately the simplest thing is just to dress him up with your image manipulation program of choice. And if you've never worked with one before, I guarantee it'd be worth your time to learn - I like Photoshop myself, but the GIMP is also quite good and has the tremendous advantage of being completely free. Opens up whole worlds of possibility.


Having said all that, the skull would work quite well on its own in the Accessory 2 slot, and I can think of a few interesting variations for masks and such, so I might just see where that takes me...

 

[KingGodzilla]

I can see what you mean by the difference in bodies, but you made a great point about just having a skull\skeletal hands. Maybe like a Facial Mark or Accessory, this way we can make skeletons, but they'd have to be clothed.

 

[kovak]

this is really cool and creppy as frick

 

[Slimsy Platypus]

That skeleton man... you have done such a great job with it.


What is your process?  Did you make those 100% in Photoshop?  So just layered each component anchoring them by hand?


Again, great job man and thanks for posting.

 

[AlephNull]

My process? Er, well... you've pretty much got it exactly right. I'd love to tell you more, but there really isn't much more to tell... it's pretty laborious, but it's the best way I can think of to ensure consistency, particularly for someone with no real artistic abilities such as m'self. (That's the great thing about pixel art I suppose - it doesn't really require talent, just time.) Glad you like him though. 


Anyway. Started adjusting the skeleton head/hands for use in the character generator (I still don't think it's the optimal way to get a clothed skellie, but I can understand the appeal), but I ran into a snag - the TV sprite's ears and "nose", which stick out several pixels past the skull. Didn't see that one coming. Not quite sure what to do about it. I suppose I could just ignore it, but I'd really rather not release anything that half-assed...


So I decided to work on something else for a bit, albeit still skeleton-related. Thought I'd have a go at making a Suffering Soul SV battler. Borrowed the RTP bonfire animation (the top-right one on the !Flame sheet), but I'm not sure that was the best choice - I may yet scrap it and try again with something else. Here's what it looks like at the moment though.





   A very, VERY tentative WIP.


Bit dodgy, innit...


EDIT: Here's the second pass. Better or worse?





   Again, very much WIP.

 

[AlephNull]

It seemed like such a simple idea at the time...


Here's the Suffering Soul SV sprite. Turns out getting flames to look right in conjunction with other animated parts is actually pretty damn hard. Who knew? (Well, lots of people probably. But I digress.) Anyway, after much gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair this is what I wound up with. I filled out the sprite sheet mainly because I couldn't stand not to, but there's a lot of repetition and I don't expect all of them to be used - the KO is pretty pointless for instance, and slash/stab/shoot are all copies of an identical bite-y "attack" animation, what with his lack of hands and all. 


All in all, I think I like it. Still though, I'm open to suggestions for improvements.  (Or suggestions in general, for that matter. I won't take on every request, but it can't hurt to ask - always looking for new ideas.)





And here are some variants, because why not.

Spoiler

The traditional flaming skull.





The super-evil purple variant. Muahahahaha.





The toxic version, or maybe radioactive depending on the genre. I imagine this one hissing a lot.

 

[luxer19]

I'm here to give you your fix of validation.


Now go make more battlers.

Unfortunately, that isn't really possible without fundamentally changing the way the generator works. Chalkdust's monsters work because they completely cover the base sprite, but my skeleton doesn't, so if you tried to implement it in the same way you'd just end up with something that looks like the poor bastard shown below, who appears to have been somehow turned inside-out:


 View attachment 40091


  OH GOD WHY?!


So ultimately the simplest thing is just to dress him up with your image manipulation program of choice. And if you've never worked with one before, I guarantee it'd be worth your time to learn - I like Photoshop myself, but the GIMP is also quite good and has the tremendous advantage of being completely free. Opens up whole worlds of possibility.


Having said all that, the skull would work quite well on its own in the Accessory 2 slot, and I can think of a few interesting variations for masks and such, so I might just see where that takes me...

That can be dealt with. All you have to do is to remove the "SV_body_p01_c" file from Kadokawa/RPGMV/Generator/SV/Male (or Female, depending on what gender you want your skeleton to be) this will allow you to dress up your skeleton the way you want, however, this file is what allows you to change body color, so you won't be able to do that anymore. I recommend moving the file to your desktop, creating all the skeleton characters you like and then putting it back in his original folder.

 

[AlephNull]

Added some weapon sheets; see the top post.

 

[kovak]

And how do you make the battler throw the bomb?

 

[AlephNull]

I'd suggest using the "swing" attack motion; everything's positioned to work with that. As for the animation, 107 (Neutral One 2) is pretty much perfect. The whole thing's admittedly untested, and honestly it's all a bit of a kludge since the battlers aren't actually set up to toss things, but it should be fairly serviceable. Really though, I just stuck it on there for the hell of it.  :


EDIT: Thinking about it a bit more, it probably works better with an empty "idle" frame. Updated the file accordingly.

 

[AlephNull]

Quick addition in the form of a soldier SV sprite. See top post.

 

[AlephNull]

Weapon icons this time, in the good old VX Ace style. (After much thought, I've decided I like it better than the clean-but-featureless MV style.) Sized appropriately for MV, of course. Just append them to your icon sheet and away you go. 





Gotta say, it'd be fantastic to hear whether any of this stuff is actually useful to anyone... although I suppose it could be argued that all this is really a form of procrastination, and I probably ought to focus on the more fundamental (but less shareable) aspects of game development. I guess you'll let me know, one way or the other... 

 

[RodsXP]

i like it.


I dont speak english...sorry for that.


Thanks for this great resources. 

 

[Quite.Toxick]

Wow, great stuff!


Keep up the amazing work, I'll be following your thread 

 

[chalkdust]

Great work! I've made a fully nude version of the cleaned up skeleton to better match your battler. It's posted in my thread. If you'd like to, you have my permission to repost it here for convenience.


I agree with luxer19 above: with a little effort this can be used in the generator. It requires the minor extra step of temporarily removing (and then restoring) the default base body, but it can be done.

 

[SkySurfer]

Aleph there is no greater joy than seeing you update your weapons and giving us its icons providing us the complete set of your beautiful resources. I must say, the quality and diversity is not only essential but also really a great blessing for us who are not that good at editing. 


` From the bottom of my heart, Thank you very much! And I will see to it that your resources will be well honored and your name be known in all my games. God Bless, and Keep up the great work! 

 

[watermark]

Hello Aleph. Your skeleton and soldier SV graphics have been used in our new dungeon crawler 99. You have been credited. If interested you can check out the game here:




Thanks for making them! They were great additions!

 

[graykick]

Hello Aleph, I make some web Game by using your skeleton resources


But now I have only github accout  :  https://github.com/firepunch/snowball


Thank you for your skeleton


this image is my game image and your skeleton image