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THE SCREENSHOT TOPIC RETURNS
Posts
S32
100
S32
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Closeauthor=Xenomic
http://gyazo.com/420ea26e653f25590ce747889327f1b9.pngDecided to get back to work on this. Trying out the water ripples effects that I have lying around in my folder. Maybe this will make the areas seem a bit more livelier...
The ripple effects don't really mesh well with your chipset, nor do they really add any real sense of liveliness to the scene.
If you want to flesh out your environments, employ some background sfx of water running and/or wind blowing. You could probably even get away with adding some fauna if it's not a hostile area.
I really like that character sprite.
Xenomic
1752
Ehhh...I tend to have a few things here and there that don't mesh well together, but that's due to using resources from a bunch of places (in particular, battle animations tend to suffer from that, but that's neither here nor there with the environments). This is the closest thing I had on me for ripples sadly (it doesn't help that the tileset I'm using, the water isn't well...lively at all. It's pretty static in other words...).
I decided that adding some birds to the map would help out at least. It is a hostile area (first dungeon of the game), but it's not unusual for life to still be going on around conflicts. Especially when they're not super big conflicts I suppose.
Hmm...not a bad idea. I'd have to figure out how to do that well enough without ruining the flow of the area (I know Parallel Process with the SFX playing, but making sure I space it out just enough so that it doesn't loop in on itself too early or too late).
All of the character sprites that are of that same style as Reimu there were done by one person, who let me use them (as long as I linked to his/her site for them). Dunno if he's/she's done anything since them or not...
I decided that adding some birds to the map would help out at least. It is a hostile area (first dungeon of the game), but it's not unusual for life to still be going on around conflicts. Especially when they're not super big conflicts I suppose.
Hmm...not a bad idea. I'd have to figure out how to do that well enough without ruining the flow of the area (I know Parallel Process with the SFX playing, but making sure I space it out just enough so that it doesn't loop in on itself too early or too late).
All of the character sprites that are of that same style as Reimu there were done by one person, who let me use them (as long as I linked to his/her site for them). Dunno if he's/she's done anything since them or not...
WonderPup
50
author=Arandomgamemaker
Do you guys like the new art style? Like, is it worth pursuing?
Personally, I prefer your flat art style. It has a lot of charm.
Dreaded
772
author=Rexauthor=DreadedDon't avoid it. It's an important part of the play and the mythology it is based on.
By the way, for those who know the play, I haven't entirely figured on how to handle all the incest, but I'd like to avoid it as much as possible - I'd be open to suggestions, but my current draft dodges it in a fairly subtle manner.
While I agree with you on the first set of the relations, which is why I've been sort of leaning towards including it - I'm not sure if I really believe it is in terms of the 2nd set of incest in the play. I don't really remember it being a point of emphasis, and while I've read analysis on the second set that kind of points it out, the analysis is kind of digging at the story. Feel free to message me to give me your take on it, I'd like to pass this conversation out of a topic thread that is supposed to be focused on screenshots versus story development. I look forward to hearing your point of view.
Thanks.
Xenomic
1752
So...I finally think I got something worth using for revamping my mansion:
Old map
God...that default 2k3 tileset with just a few extra stuff never did settle well. But I never could find something to replace it. Until now:
New version of front foyer:
Close-up
Full view
Don't worry, the size of this map WILL get cut down. That, and some parts (such as the tall walls by the stairs) will get trimmed down too. Not sure how to handle the walls though if I were to extend the stairs to a second floor. I guess I COULD have the stairs go to another screen, but since a cutscene plays here with Remilia being on the balcony of the stairs then leaping down, that's not something I'm willing to change...any suggestions on what to do here? The lobby is meant to be more...circular, but outside of that, I'm not sure what else to do for the rest of the mansion. Like...how many rooms there should be or whatnot. : S
Old map
God...that default 2k3 tileset with just a few extra stuff never did settle well. But I never could find something to replace it. Until now:
New version of front foyer:
Close-up
Full view
Don't worry, the size of this map WILL get cut down. That, and some parts (such as the tall walls by the stairs) will get trimmed down too. Not sure how to handle the walls though if I were to extend the stairs to a second floor. I guess I COULD have the stairs go to another screen, but since a cutscene plays here with Remilia being on the balcony of the stairs then leaping down, that's not something I'm willing to change...any suggestions on what to do here? The lobby is meant to be more...circular, but outside of that, I'm not sure what else to do for the rest of the mansion. Like...how many rooms there should be or whatnot. : S
Xenomic
1752
Well, that'll be for whenever I remake the room to be smaller and rounded. I do plan on doing that otherwise. The problem though is I can't really remake this room until I know how many rooms there's going to be in the entire mansion, as since this is the lobby, and thus the main room, many rooms are probably going to connect to this room (it leads to the second floor and the basement where the library is at the very least, and there's going to be one exit on the left and right. If the room's circular though, that could leave it open to several rooms across the mansion and...well, you can see the problem, yes??)
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
saw rididculously giant-ass empty map
expected it to be xenomic
scrolled up
was xenomic
No but seriously if you're making a large dungeon with any sort of navigational puzzles or anything like that, which is exactly what you're doing, you should really draw it in MS Paint (or on a napkin or something) before you start mapping it. This isn't necessary for straightforward dungeons but you will be amazed at the relief you feel when you realize that instead of a single locked room in your dungeon, you need a hallway containing two rooms -- but the only thing you have to do to make that happen is erase a little scribble that looks like a padlock and draw eight lines. Instead of, you know, having to remap the rooms in RPG Maker. And the level of confidence that I have that the rooms will indeed work once they're mapped helps remove a big reason for a lot of my procrastination.
I start with something like this:
And then once that's done I turn it into something like this:
(hidden because gigantic)
expected it to be xenomic
scrolled up
was xenomic
No but seriously if you're making a large dungeon with any sort of navigational puzzles or anything like that, which is exactly what you're doing, you should really draw it in MS Paint (or on a napkin or something) before you start mapping it. This isn't necessary for straightforward dungeons but you will be amazed at the relief you feel when you realize that instead of a single locked room in your dungeon, you need a hallway containing two rooms -- but the only thing you have to do to make that happen is erase a little scribble that looks like a padlock and draw eight lines. Instead of, you know, having to remap the rooms in RPG Maker. And the level of confidence that I have that the rooms will indeed work once they're mapped helps remove a big reason for a lot of my procrastination.
I start with something like this:
And then once that's done I turn it into something like this:
(hidden because gigantic)
Xenomic
1752
@Millenin: Don't worry. As stated, it will be much MUCH smaller than that. That was me testing out the new tileset to see if it'd work better. It does work better...but as stated, still not sure HOW to remap it. That room that I showed is the circular room by default. I can PRETTY MUCH remake that room as it stands, and just add the doorways/hallways if needed at any given time. I don't want to remap/add anything to the dungeon itself though, since yeah...not sure what to do.
@Locke: I think I attempted that a long, long time ago actually. I think it was with Eientei...and we both know how THAT turned out. >_>;;
In all seriousness though, I think I was trying to use an actual mansion layout too (there are actual mansion maps out there...maybe I should go mansion map hunting again and use one of those?). There's a fangame that I WAS trying to find a map from too, where you play as Remilia and explore her mansion, that I was going to use for the layout of this mansion. Can't find it, and fear it might make the place TOO big. People already have issues with maps being too big in my game (which I've given reasons as to why the maps are big, but that's another topic for another day), and I'm sure if I add TOO many rooms into this place, it'll be pretty bad on them.
Then again...there aren't any ACTUAL random encounters, just map encounters (touch encounters) during one part of the game, so maybe multiple rooms is a good idea? That's during the part where you have to find 5 keys to progress to the next area (which DOES have random encounters from there on out, and I'm still deciding on how big that area should be too). Decisions, decisions...
@Locke: I think I attempted that a long, long time ago actually. I think it was with Eientei...and we both know how THAT turned out. >_>;;
In all seriousness though, I think I was trying to use an actual mansion layout too (there are actual mansion maps out there...maybe I should go mansion map hunting again and use one of those?). There's a fangame that I WAS trying to find a map from too, where you play as Remilia and explore her mansion, that I was going to use for the layout of this mansion. Can't find it, and fear it might make the place TOO big. People already have issues with maps being too big in my game (which I've given reasons as to why the maps are big, but that's another topic for another day), and I'm sure if I add TOO many rooms into this place, it'll be pretty bad on them.
Then again...there aren't any ACTUAL random encounters, just map encounters (touch encounters) during one part of the game, so maybe multiple rooms is a good idea? That's during the part where you have to find 5 keys to progress to the next area (which DOES have random encounters from there on out, and I'm still deciding on how big that area should be too). Decisions, decisions...
S32
100
Like the others have said, that map is way too large.
There's something you should when designing buildings, interior or exterior: you have to think in terms of scale. If the above map was an actual house, you'd have hallways as wide as actual rooms, and rooms as big as auditoriums. Unless the tenants are monstrously fat, there's no need to have that much space.
If you absolutely must have large rooms and hallways though, split them up into different maps. By creating alcoves near the entrances to other rooms and hallways (even just different parts of a hallway) will allow you to divide one large area into several smaller, more manageable areas.
If you've ever played FF6, think back to Owzer's mansion and the large house in Tzen. The rooms and passages were relatively condensed, but both places still felt huge.
There's something you should when designing buildings, interior or exterior: you have to think in terms of scale. If the above map was an actual house, you'd have hallways as wide as actual rooms, and rooms as big as auditoriums. Unless the tenants are monstrously fat, there's no need to have that much space.
If you absolutely must have large rooms and hallways though, split them up into different maps. By creating alcoves near the entrances to other rooms and hallways (even just different parts of a hallway) will allow you to divide one large area into several smaller, more manageable areas.
If you've ever played FF6, think back to Owzer's mansion and the large house in Tzen. The rooms and passages were relatively condensed, but both places still felt huge.
Xenomic
1752
I know about the size, believe me lol. Though you reminded me of other FF games that have mansions (I'm still thinking of using Ultimecia's Castle for the SDM. For the most part anyways...). I totally forgot FFVI had some mansions and I feel ashamed. I know FFX had at least one (Seymour's place) but you don't see very much of that...blah! I'll just stick with Ultimecia's Castle for the design (minus the puzzles I think lol...)
S32
100
Ultimecia's castle is good inspiration from a design perspective, but it's even more important to consider scale in the case of a game like FFVIII which has free movement and much bigger areas. If you were to recreate the entire thing in RM2K/XP/VA for example, you'd need to compare character dimensions with the environment, determine how much space a tile would consist of by proxy, determine how much distance one tile's worth of movement would cover, etc.
Try out some more condensed designs and show us when you've got something you like.
Try out some more condensed designs and show us when you've got something you like.
Xenomic
1752
That is true...plus since SDM isn't exactly a dungeon until the library proper, the main first and second floors aren't exactly well...supposed to be dungeony. So Ultimecia's Castle just wouldn't fly in this case...darn.
I THINK I may have a map to work with, but we'll see how it goes. I'll just give the design a try-out later and see how it goes (or look at more western mansion maps and go from there).
I THINK I may have a map to work with, but we'll see how it goes. I'll just give the design a try-out later and see how it goes (or look at more western mansion maps and go from there).
Milennin
2060
Need some opinions on this chipset/screenshot. Designing my volcano dungeon I was thinking of having the feel of the interior being an ancient fallen temple inside of it to have something more to look at than just rocks and lava. I'll also have some pillars here and there, and not sure what else since I don't have much room left on my chipset. Does this look any good so far?
Kaempfer
1932
@Milennin: That is shaping up nicely! However, there are a few things I'd change.
1) Create a splashing into lava animation for the bottom of that lavafall. You can put it onto a charset if you are out of room on the chipset.
2) I'm not sure if the cliff edges are on the upper or bottom layer, but you really need to get rid of that line of brown pixels along the edge of both the cliff overhang and ceiling overhang.
3) The straight wall tile needs an intermediary tile between the wall and the ground. Currently, it just cuts off in a straight line.
I did a little mockup to show you what I mean. I also reshaded the bottom of the diagonal tiles to give them a more correct depth.
1) Create a splashing into lava animation for the bottom of that lavafall. You can put it onto a charset if you are out of room on the chipset.
2) I'm not sure if the cliff edges are on the upper or bottom layer, but you really need to get rid of that line of brown pixels along the edge of both the cliff overhang and ceiling overhang.
3) The straight wall tile needs an intermediary tile between the wall and the ground. Currently, it just cuts off in a straight line.
I did a little mockup to show you what I mean. I also reshaded the bottom of the diagonal tiles to give them a more correct depth.
Milennin
2060
author=Kaempfer
@Milennin: That is shaping up nicely! However, there are a few things I'd change.
1) Create a splashing into lava animation for the bottom of that lavafall. You can put it onto a charset if you are out of room on the chipset.
2) I'm not sure if the cliff edges are on the upper or bottom layer, but you really need to get rid of that line of brown pixels along the edge of both the cliff overhang and ceiling overhang.
3) The straight wall tile needs an intermediary tile between the wall and the ground. Currently, it just cuts off in a straight line.
1. I was thinking of doing some kind of splash animation, but to be fair I have no idea what a lava-fall splash is supposed to look like or how to begin animating something like it. Know of any games that did something similar to use as a reference?
2. I see what you mean, I'll try to work a bit on that line along the edges.
3. Yeah, agreed that looks a lot better. I have a slight bit of room to spare for that adding on the chipset.
