SHADOWTEXT'S PROFILE

My initial thoughts are that while you guys might not like the RTP for its charactersets and tiles, I really like the facesets and the art for the animations. The monster sets are decent, too.

...I mean obviously the quality of the RTP means very little, but credit where credit is due. Oh, and I like the default font, but that matters even less than the RTP since the good-looking part is for the Japanese text, not the latin alphabet, and they probably won't use the same one for the English release anyway.


Otherwise: I am reassured by the scripts I see here. It looks like it's as robust as RMXP was. And a few of the changes they've made I'm digging--like using more modules that are edittable by the user, such as the Vocabulary, Sound and Cache modules. I guess they caught on to us hacking the Cache module to make custom resources like Portraits and figured "Hey, let's just let 'em do it."

I do wish they had given us access to Input, but then again we can hack that decently well in RMXP, so I imagine it won't be too hard in RMVX either. I wouldn't have minded Graphics, either, but it was a pipe dream to think they would give us much low-level control anyway. I like them giving Game_Message its own class, too. It'll make custom message handlers easier.


...that said, most of these scripting updates look like things I could just transfer over to RMXP, more or less verbatim. I'd be a lot more excited if they showed me that I could hack the resolution (not that I have a problem with 640x480 to begin with) or something. Some of the interface things are neato, but unless the hardware acceleration turns out to work (I have no idea how to test that, so I'm waiting on WIP's response there), or basically just that the engine turns out to be more efficient all around, I don't see a big reason for Power Users of RMXP to upgrade yet. And by "Power Users," I mean people who take full advantage of the advanced features, i.e. scripting.

EDIT: Oh! Areas are back! I can think of uses for those.
EDIT 2: There are some neat new methods for the Bitmap class. Blur, Gradient fills. Sprites also have some new ones, like "wave_amp," "wave_length", "wave_speed", "wave_phase". I'm not CERTAIN what they're for. Is there a built-in thing for making waves for sprites in water? Or is it more like some sort of visual filter for making things all trippy?
And Font has some nice new things, too. A Shadow option, and the font's name can be an array, like in CSS, so that you can have backups in case the user doesn't have the font in question.

I'm uploading a development snapshot of the engine today, so if you can make heads or tails of it, feel free to use the code found inside. I'm all about Open Source.

Sorry it took me a while to respond--I didn't even noticed that anyone had commented until today!

author=kentona link=topic=381.msg5959#msg5959 date=1197165267
What defines an anime? I like Astroboy.

It's a little gray exactly what makes something anime. Some people say anything from asia, most say it's animated programs from Japan, some say animated programs from asia in the usual anime style, some say only things from japan that are in that particular style, and some say that it's anything in that style period.

Most of the time, any definition other than "animated programs from Japan" is being used by someone who wants to count something that usually wouldn't be, or to not count something that would be. In the former case, they probably like something and want to consider it anime even though a lot of people wouldn't, because they want other anime fans to like it too....and in the latter case, it's probably because they like something and don't want to consider it anime even though a lot of people would, because they don't want to like anime. Occasionally it is just because it seems more like a stylistic issue than an issue of origin, though.

Whatever definition you use, though, Astroboy counts. Astroboy is generally acknowledged as the first manga and anime, or at least the example from which all other manga/anime are descended.

author=WhiteLion link=topic=118.msg5219#msg5219 date=1195439860
Oh and P.S. Ghaleon and the Lunar games are serious business to me.

Haha. Indeed! When I saw the avatar and the custom title, I thought it must be you!

I'm not trying to turn anyone off the idea, because I think it's always a good idea to have more resources available....but any package of resources is going to end up having the same problems as the RTP if it becomes widespread, and if it doesn't, can't be depended on to be on the computer of anyone downloading the project. So you've got some logistic issues to deal with, I think.

I think the solution to the first issue would be to just have a freakin' ton of resources. Even if it becomes widespread, you can assume that few people are going to be able to use all of the resources at once. You've still got to deal with all the games looking the same in terms of style, but that's not as big an issue as everyone using the same tiles at least. For the second one, I'd say just to not use it as an RTP, even if it's available as a single archive on the site--include any resources you use in your project download. Or even better, have two versions of the project for download--with SuperRTP resources included and without.

...I'd offer to be involved, but I'm behind on making resources for my own projects. Plus the way I do pixel graphics just doesn't mesh well with other people's stuff well. And while I'd be willing to do profile/facepics/whatever (those take way less time than the pixel stuff for me), the way I draw is way too anime-styled for a lot of people's taste....not to mention quality issues. So yeah. Moral support, whee!