October Goals & Progress Thread

[Zoltor]

To Bgilisp: Officially released, yea(I created a board game that me, and my friends played, that was based in the LC universe).

 

[TheGreatEater]

@Ksjp17: Yep fixed it. It was amazing ... in that I busted several organs laughing. But yep, it's fixed and looks more realistic. 

@Bgillisp: It is ^_^. Decided to do the newer universe of the Chained Destinies series later, and it's working out quite nicely. I'm hoping to have a somewhat lifelike group of humans out within 10 days minimum [starting tomorrow]. After that it's just building clothes, items, and what have you. Then I'll be done with Desarian [Path of Blood universe] Assets. 

 

[Marquise*]

@Marquise*


Yeah, really, daughter cat is probably a bit too old now.  I had a mental tussle trying to put together visually the info that you are almost in hibernating mode and that you are spinning like a top around the flat.  I've more or less settled on the idea of that trance-like state that some dancers in some religions reach when their whirling seems to put them into a different mental plane.

Battle tutorial cool. :3 Well yeah sounds like a Derviche! On the other hand now I am like each time I change room I have to bring something from where I am and locate it in the next and so on. It starts to be tedious and hard to concentrate in the end. About Daughter cat; I think any living being that is smart and not afraid of her and that she can care of would do theses days. (No she ain't an epic hunter!)


All right. I see/read everyone doing something really creative and constructive theses days. Well I had to get some papers delivered and sell bottles and went here and flushed some taken pictures. Many of them being references to map and... Well I got some videos I listened for me with sound on, and it perturbed Daughter cat because it was her mom that I recorded a few time when her purr was at a good height and... well... Daughter cat is in, exteriorizing her feelings now. >.<;


So here I share some of my best catches, I was to post first a small 200+Kb something video of Daughter cat smooching the camera with head butts cheek kiss and over all cooing to you all. (She have a way to thanks for anyone's support them being visibly in the same room or not)! But apparently we aren't permitted to post those kind of files in here!














Sometimes it ain't just for aesthetism... when did we saw bicycles and bicycles rack in RPGMaker VX Ace?


And yeah it is Thanks-giving time soon in Canada. So those on my northerner parallel HAPPY THANKSGIVING!


(ABOUT MY EDIT: I can't believe I yet had another dyslexia attack and instead of HEAD BUTT I placed a T instead of a D in HEAD! O.O ...and got away with it!)

 

[Vox Novus]

I've been pretty quiet but I didn't have anything to really report until now;

Been working on Aquatic battlers for my super hero game, have 7 of 8 of them done and should finish the last one within the next couple days. Seems like I won't be winning the IGMC this year (I'm still hoping for best in theme though); started to re-map and re-work my IGMC entry to balance tweak it and expand on it a little. Re-mapping it in Pixel Myth Germania.

Not sure if juggling two projects at the same time is a good idea or not; maybe I'll end up being more productive IDK.

@Marquise That's an interesting idea trying to map out real objects and locations in rpg maker. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to map out their hometown before?

 

[Kes]

@bgillisp

I wouldn't want a spell checker - think what it would do to all the made-up names!  Also, unless you could select which English you were writing in (UK, US, Canadian etc.) you could end up with a horrible mishmash.  I like it when things get to the stage of the sort of event editing you're on now; it feels like things are coming together, more coherent.  Is that how it strikes you?

@Marquise*

I like the pics, especially the second one.  btw, I have been meaning to ask for months - why is there a * at the end of your user name?

@Vox Novus

7 out of 8, not bad at all.  Will you be showing a screenie of them?  

My update

Mapping and eventing.  Nothing out of the ordinary, just the normal stuff really.

 

[Zoltor]

@bgillisp

I wouldn't want a spell checker - think what it would do to all the made-up names!  Also, unless you could select which English you were writing in (UK, US, Canadian etc.) you could end up with a horrible mishmash.  I like it when things get to the stage of the sort of event editing you're on now; it feels like things are coming together, more coherent.  Is that how it strikes you?

@Marquise*

I like the pics, especially the second one.  btw, I have been meaning to ask for months - why is there a * at the end of your user name?

@Vox Novus

7 out of 8, not bad at all.  Will you be showing a screenie of them?  

My update

Mapping and eventing.  Nothing out of the ordinary, just the normal stuff really.

Yea, what if we wanted to use old English or something, yea a Spell Checker would get in the way more, then it would help.

 

[Vox Novus]

@bgillisp

I wouldn't want a spell checker - think what it would do to all the made-up names!  Also, unless you could select which English you were writing in (UK, US, Canadian etc.) you could end up with a horrible mishmash.  I like it when things get to the stage of the sort of event editing you're on now; it feels like things are coming together, more coherent.  Is that how it strikes you?

@Vox Novus

7 out of 8, not bad at all.  Will you be showing a screenie of them?  

My update

Mapping and eventing.  Nothing out of the ordinary, just the normal stuff really.

That's a good point about the spell checker most people make up names especially in there fantasy games; although in word for example you can add any word you want to the database.

I can put up a screen here I guess, but I'll be adding them all into my ace resource thread and make them available for download.

Mapping and eventing, never usually too exciting but oh so necessary; crank it out ksjp17.

 

[bgillisp]

@Zoltor: A board game you made up? Interesting. Believe it or not my game world started out that way. Though we had no idea of some of the basics like...leveling, so it started out really, really bad. Live and learn, huh?

@Thegreateater: Good luck with that goal!

@Marquise: Nice pictures. How goes the attempt to map them in RM?

@Vampire Vox: All depends on how you manage it. I have two projects actually, a main project, and an undisclosed side project that I only open up when I want to try something and not risk breaking the main game right now. Probably will (eventually) turn it into a full game, right now all it has is 30 minutes of playtime, via two quests. Nothing too exciting.

@ksjp17: I imagine it would have to be like words where you add into the database the names. Though, I think word has given up on me after I wrote a math book in there, I don't think it liked all the math terms I had to add to the database. And yes, it does feel more cohesive, though it does feel odd to realize that you can spend an hour only reading text and looking for what to change (if anything).

10.11 Update: Light update today, tweaked a couple of cutscenes in the tower. Just need to tweak the dinner scene, the start of next day scene, then it is (mostly) dungeons for the rest of Chapter 1 polish run. The end is in sight! After that I will either return to Chapter 5, or edit a couple side quests in Chapter 2 that (still) need edits (and Chapter 2 has *many* side quests, due to the world map opening up. I guess I could technically call them Chapter 2 - 4 side quests though?)

 

[Hollow]

Here's a fun question for you all: who in there right mind thinks it is okay to assign three essays right after a break and have them due five days later????????// (Answer: it's my cultural anthropology professor. Whyyyyyyyyy  ) 
 
Anyway, now that I am finally out of essay hell, I can get back to fun things! And glad to see everyone making lots of progress :3c
 
 
October 5th--11th, Progress:
I haven't had too much time on my hands, unfortunately, but I have managed to get a few things done! Also completed another one of my goals: to fully plot out the opening. 

Here's a piece of my planning spreadsheet—dialogue is still kind of a WIP.
 
Other than that, I'm almost finished with the protagonist's bust, and I started to work on a few sprites. Speaking of which, I think I'll be amending my goal to complete the whole party's sprites and switch that over to just finishing sprites needed for this scene. I'm really really going to try and get this project posted somewhere ASAP, so I'd like to get the very beginning up and playable and not worry so much about graphics the player may or may not even see in the demo just yet. So, I think there's only...eight sprites I need? I've already got Milagros's finished, and there are a couple that are simple enough that I don't have to edit other sprites at all.

 

[HawkZombie]

October 5th--11th, Progress:

I haven't had too much time on my hands, unfortunately, but I have managed to get a few things done! Also completed another one of my goals: to fully plot out the opening. 

Here's a piece of my planning spreadsheet—dialogue is still kind of a WIP.

@ Hollow: Ummmm...holy crap that looks amazing. Is that a spreadsheet of your own making or did you find the template somewhere online? That looks like a great way to lay out direction and story for an RPGMaker (or hell, any) game. Being a writer that makes me drool a little bit. If it's your own design...I might have to steal it >.>

I am sorry I haven't been around as much lately. The novel and work have taken a huge chunk of my time...I haven't even really been playing games either (aside from letting them idle on Steam for trading cards :3). I'm 43k words deep into the novel and have successfully gotten over a few plot hurdles, and hopefully have a good plan for moving forward. The only snag was yesterday instead of writing 4k words like I planned and promised myself....I only did about 750. I was simply exhausted and words were not flowing. I feel like I let myself down, even though 4k minimum a day since Sept 30th has been insane to say the least. I will definitely have the first draft done before my birthday on the 31st, but it still kinda stings a bit that I screwed up one day.

 

[Marquise*]

@Marquise*


I like the pics, especially the second one.  btw, I have been meaning to ask for months - why is there a * at the end of your user name?

It mirrors something I don't share that much publically and also it helps me being distinguished from a doppelganger each time I can. It also means 2 other things from my good star to something as cryptic as the heart in Disney's signature. It also indicates there is more to it.


@Hollow


I love your spreadsheet planning. I once thought making an interactive text story only scenario before making my second RPG (kinda planning for C&C too!)


@Everyone interested in my mapping researches.


I'm about to choose which ones I keep and which one I dump. I am sorry but THAT and Battle animations (lightning, fire etc.) I didn't got the grip around yet. Everything is so different in Gaming than in cartoons, I need additional tutorials in those sectors. Especially with me I would almost animate every map tile if I could and in less than a year you'd have some singing toon town trees and buildings if nothing would stop me! And err yeah you don't want that! There is enough French Can Can dancing $Monsters outside; don't need buildings and roads being at it too! Very tedious to eat a soup on the top floor in those conditions!


Errr It is about to be Thanks Giving tomorrow for us ag... Wait; it is past midnight! HAPPY THANKS GIVING CANADA! and err happy pre thanks giving US! Lucky you, you have some weeks or a month more to harvest and be thankful to.


As for report... sorry no $Evilgod I tried to clean the house, kinda see more of my bathroom floor and walls and help amateur animators to do their stuff. But I did had some panic moment at taking my mail and rebooting after done when I had the blue screen and Windows kept being a j*r*! I thought I would never be able again to post here or on Steam. And started to imagine my life without computer also.... errr...

 

[Another Ned]

I've been too lazy with posting again, but to my defence, it was a week with two Paperwork Days. Only a few replies, and to everyone else: Yay, progress!

@Marquise*: Animated trees remind me of some German RM 2000/2003 games I played six, seven years ago that used animated parts in trees (those REFMAP trees mostly; don't know if it's still like this), as if some leaves were moving in the wind. So if your animationistis gets acute again, you could always try to do something like that. Little event-sized animated thingies to make a map more lively. And if that doesn't inspire you enough, I just recalled that in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, there was some plant life in caves or something that would bloom and/or start to glow when the player got near. And good that your computer still works!
@HawkZombie: I'm super impressed that you could keep the momentum of writing so much for such a long time! And 750 words is quite good for a bad day I'd say. Enough to feel like progress (in my opinion), but not too much so quality'd suffer from exhaustion or something (I mean, back when I was writing more, I used to have phases during which I'd write no matter how bad the day was, and then lost a day going back and rewriting everything I've written during the bad day. At least it was like that for me ^^").
@Hollow: So that was why you weren't to be seen anywhere. Good you made it out alive. D:
And I think I've never seen such a nicely-done opening spreadsheet-y dialogue thing before. I tend to write such things with a pretty old version of celtx, and splatter everything with notes (and then forget which colour was supposed to mean what). The little preview makes me very curious about what happens next (but that's intended, isn't it).

Progress, 8th:

• another hour of quick architecture studies (for some reason, I have the weird ability to always spend almost exactly half an hour on each one without even checking the time)
• continued working on the exterior of the first area I started some time ago (I think I never showed it). Far from a finished piece, but it's enough for what I need it for – mood/impression:

Spoiler

Some things don't really make sense and the scale is still pretty ridiculous, but the impression is what I'm going for. The player won't be seeing that much anyways, or only if I show parts of it collapsing. If.
The sky is a slightly overpainted photograph I've taken myself as it's good for setting the mood. Yay, shortcuts!

Progress, 9th:
Another Paperwork Day.

• a few thumbnail sketches  – pretty sure about the direction I want to go in for Veiril (because of the Intro, she comes next for designing things)

Progress, 10th:

• somehow ended up spending about four hours of writing things by hand: backstory, story, naming things, making up a whole family tree's worth of first and family names, planning... I can't even remember how many things I did, I only know that I now know subtle things the player probably won't even notice but should make things feel more consistent

Progress, 11th:
Was a bit lazy that day, so no progress.

Wait, what, who told you to be Monday again?!
Last week's goals:

• complete Ashanah's design [...] //totally procrastinated on this one, but I do have a thumbnail sketch for her Final Boss version
• more work on the story – [...] //done
• make a list of everything I need for the intro and either start with the next character or do some environment design //I did a list for everything I'm sure I'll need (with enough space to add everything I forgot... I hope), did a few thumbnail sketches of the next character, and finished up an environment mood piece

One personal goal:

• prepare updating my portfolio […] //done. Bunch of lists, bunch of folders, even more notes. This project is great for creating pieces for my portfolio, so I can continue working on it and at the same time work on my portfolio. Birds and stones and stuff.

This week's goals:

• same as last week: complete Ashanah's design with back view and sketches for the Final Boss version
• more design and sketches: the guards that'll appear whose uniform will inform both Veiril's design in that moment as well as another character's regular look; as well as Veiril – at least her face and preliminary colour choices; and ideally, more environment stuff
• more work on the story for the intro

 

[AceOfAces_Mod]

Progress Report #9

- 4 more plot points to connect with dialog.

- Fixing the launcher UI a little.

- Designing the Auto Backup (now renamed to Backup and Restore Center, which houses the Auto-Backup settings).

 

[Zoltor]

To bgilisp:  Cool, yea from what I gather, a lot of people evidently do that, as It's really easy to take the board/pieces of a existing game, and use them with a rule set/gameplay mechanics people create.

I figured out a easier way to handle such, the leveling system only really increased HP(and MP for the only magic user who used MP, my friend created a Sage character, and due to the the massive amount of spells she can end up learning, to give them charges, would've made the char way OPed, so we made her use MP).

Skills are learned through obtaining special equipment that is designed for the character, when someone creates a char, and that equipment gets tossed into a pool of loot that is "possible" for the DM to stash in a dungeon/quest. Also each skill gets a certain amount of charges per quest(there are no inns or anything like that, so you need to be very careful how you use your skills). Furthermore each char gets a special ability(these usually have only 1-2 charges, but they can be very powerful, then noral skills, and they are tied to the char from the start, you don't need to find a special piece of equipment to learn it).

 

[TheGreatEater]

@Bgillisp, Thanks ^_^.

____________________

 

Don't know whether to laugh or headdesk at this. 

So following this youtube video on photo-realistic skin. That's a few years old [might look  at other ones]. Get to the adding skin texture in the node editor [he does it twice]. And I go from:

[Have no idea how it turned from a white yellow to a golden bronze, but I'll fix that later].

to 



I have no idea how a skin texture multiplied transforms her into an android. Or where all those random designs and seams came from. So I'll have to look at other videos for realistic skin. Still, it's does have a little bit of hilarity to it. 

[Current goal: Get realistic skin on my human female. Then give realistic other parts. Then go to make a male.] 

Edit:

Fixed it ^_^. What do you all think of Beta Version 1 Female?


 

 

[Marquise*]

@Chiara


Goodluck with all of your plans. Right now $Evilgod might be on the animationithis state soon I gonna power up Photoshop next!


@TheGreatEater


I often hide that I do all my models sky clad before costuming them when I work realistic or with quality. Hope that there is no troubles posting a visual of it here. ^^ Is Blender just do 3D? I wanted something that covered up my scanned 2D too once!


And as typed up; I might power up my Photoshop soon! So after preparing ahead Christmas gifts from doing the reshuffling up of my apartment, I hope doing some $Evilgod and character template sheets that may or may not be used in a RPGMaker HUD/GUI!

 

[TheGreatEater]

@Marquise*,  Technically only 3d. But you can import 2d images as planes, and can use those in render mode. Here's a good video on that. And I don't think there'd be any problems, since like a life / nude model. It's for artistic purposes rather than sexualizing the female body, or anything pornographic. Merely a body on display. 

But yeah once I get the skin to my liking, and people think it looks good / realistic enough [although since it is an alien universe the skin tones are going to be a little weird [a light golden yellow [mix of Caucasian and Oriental] ; a mocha-ish, dark chocolate [mix of Middle Eastern and Black]; and  Native [mix of Aztex, Indian, and Native American]; each of which with some artistic flairs]. Then comes the clothing, and accessories. After that, I'll finally be in business, to put everything together in an animated, PnG gamebook set up. With detailed maps, minigames [for dynamic leveling], and other fun stuff.

 

[Hollow]

@HawkZombie: Thanks! I did make it myself, but you certainly don't need my permission if you'd like to use it.
@Chiara: Oh man, I tried to use Celtx, but the UI was super confusing to me, lol. And that temple looks amazing!! I can't wait to see how it'll look in-game! o:
@TheGreatEater: Her proportions look nice, but her skin is very...green? Is that on purpose? If not, I'd maybe try to make the color more of a pale orange/peach/pink if you're going for a light-skinned human.
 
 
October 12th, Progress:
Was having a bit of a brain fart today, so it was hard to sit down and focus on something. I had wanted to finish up some revisions in the opening's dialgue, but that was just not working out. So, I ended up finishing a sprite as well as Milagros's portrait--so that's a plus. Also doodled some mockups for the menu UI, which I'll may be able to start working on next month, depending on how much more I get done in regards to the opening.

An empress on the run--a very fun character to write and draw. :

 

[TheGreatEater]

@Hollow, I'll run it through some color nodes to lighten it up. Looked at it a bit longer [to me it looks on the yellow spectrum since I haven't used any greens], but I can see some of the green undertones. Thanks for the heads up ^_^. 

Edit:

Here's the newest version. The skin now has a more yellowish cast. Still don't know how the green undertones popped up. 



And here's the skin texture file that I'm using.

 

[HawkZombie]

@TheGreatEater: Holy Nipples Batman! Still, anyone who can model in 3D like that and NOT have it look like a melted pile of crap gets respect from me. I could never do anything even close to that.

@Hollow: Yay! It really is an ingenious way of organizing a story for a game. I'll more than likely come up with one of my own that's similar, unless you have a blank template I could bum off you. lol