Artist looking for mentoring and or project

[NED]

@Cathar
ça marche.

regular coding and settings in openbor are really user friendy.
Give it a try, you will not but stuck for long time.

My problems are more about my craziness to add scripts on my edited game system to recreate more feature. I'm not good with scripting, I tend to get rusty in no time, but I try, slowly, but I try. I would have cancelled my project without the support of great guys with awesome coding skills in the community

 

[Cathar]

Here we go !
Not only I finished the sprites I planned, I also found a way to reduce the indexation damages and the cleaning time, so the quality of already made sprites improved. I also made it palette-friendly.

I hope you are proud of me sempai.​

I'm opening Open Bor right after writing this message. Wish me luck o/

 

[maxman]

Good start, Cathar.

Thanks BeasTie for clarifying what I was trying to say about palette issues.

 

[NED]

Yes, good start.
For animation, I'm pretty sure there are missing frames (they can be done by editing existing ones) and adjusting display time of some frames like the blurry effects.

Also, I highly recommand you to use CVS2 or big characters sprites anims as a reference instead of SOR.

Game sprite size resolution is very linked to number of frames.
The bigger your sprites are, the more you have sprites in an animation

Exemple
SSF2 - small sprites - few frames -> looks OK
SSF2HDR - Big sprites - few frames -> looks awfully animated

SOR - really small sprites - few frames -> looks perfect

 

[Cathar]

That is duelly noted. One more reason to stick with small frames then... again, time is definitely a constraint. Moreover, all those sprites are drawn on a rather large resolution before reduction and indexation. It's the only way I know how to work, and it eats time by big chunks

Original drawing versus final frame​

The final frame is only 25% bigger than SOR sprites, so I think working with few frames will look okay-ish. Also, as I draw more frames, I think I can reuse some unrelated frames to smooth up existing animations. What you said about frame size is definitely helpful and I will keep that in mind.

Also I have a few questions, after having played around with the engine :

What does offset means ? The tuto says to always put the same values, but I assume the option to change it exist for a reason ?
Is it possible to set the grab move to a key/combinaison instead of just closing in with the enemy ? I'd like to work on a rock paper cisor- system, where attack would beat grab, grab would beat counter attack, and CA would beat attack. Or something like this. If it's hard to code/not possible, I will just make freespecial to break guards or work my way around it

grabin {type} {distance}
Alright then

Talking about grabs, is it possible to move with a grabbed opponent ? Walking him around a little bit ? Not asking for the code, just wondering if it's possible. Before I open my claptrap I'll double check wiki.

Can the engine store and use variables ? To make a long story short, I want to keep track of the player's gang, and provide him with assisting NPCs depending on people he saved, minus the ones who died in battle. Looks like you can and this is really fine.

I have a ton of more questions, but those are the most important for now

 

[esn23]

They dont have to be as small as sor you can make them marvel vs capcom sized which is a lot larger..  Looks great.

 

[Cathar]

After a rain of sweat tears and blood I eventually came out with a working character. And by working I mean it doesnt makes openbor crash. Yay for me !

In addition to my previous questions : how do I set hitboxes ? And attack boxes ?

In the meantime, I will completely redo this ugly walk animation. BUT the attack animation is dank as hell. I love attacks. I need more of them.

 

[Bloodbane]

I'm aware that you struckthrough you questions but allow me to answer them

What does offset means ? The tuto says to always put the same values, but I assume the option to change it exist for a reason ?

Using same values will make it easy to code your character. Same goes with hitboxes and attack boxes. Position of offset will define image's position relative to character's real position in game. You can try playing around with it and see the effect
Speaking of those:

how do I set hitboxes ? And attack boxes ?

The easiest way is to use graphic editor such as Photoshop and mark the area for hitbox/attackbox with marker tool. Then get the upperleft coordinate of that marked area + marked area's length and width to define those two

Is it possible to set the grab move to a key/combinaison instead of just closing in with the enemy ? I'd like to work on a rock paper cisor- system, where attack would beat grab, grab would beat counter attack, and CA would beat attack. Or something like this. If it's hard to code/not possible, I will just make freespecial to break guards or work my way around it

Yes, just don't give GRAB animation (and its family) at all. But your system is tough to create yet possible

grabin {type} {distance}
Alright then

I don't think that's what you need

Talking about grabs, is it possible to move with a grabbed opponent ? Walking him around a little bit ? Not asking for the code, just wondering if it's possible

Well, if you're using default grab system i.e close in = grab, that's easy but it you're not then you'd need script

Can the engine store and use variables ? To make a long story short, I want to keep track of the player's gang, and provide him with assisting NPCs depending on people he saved, minus the ones who died in battle.

Yes with script

 

[Cathar]

Again, thanks a bunch for your answers. It looks like I'm getting used to the basic engine system. It's not that hard after all !

But it also seems I will have to do a lot of scripting to achive even remotely what I have in mind.

My first character seems to be working really well. It took me HOURS to rework that walk animations. Man they are hard as hell not to look wompy. I'll do some concept artwork for the stages and enemies, and I'll be sure to ask you if I have anymore questions

Thanks again

 

[Cathar]

So, I'm still working on the project, finished player character, did some concept for enemies. Creating assets take time but I know where I'm going.

But as I'm designing my first stage (a no-scroll barfight against easy enemies to set up the background and get the player used to the commands), I suddently encountered a problem.

Lights may be an issue

Basically I have two ways of doing lights. Either I paint the backgrounds already lit, which I know will work but will not produce good results due to the color limitations.

Alternatively - and I don't know if it's possible : I'd like to paint the background in neutral light, then use the engine to produce light entities (on superposition or minus color density mode). Those would have the added effect of affecting the characters aswell. Is it possible ?

Thanks again and sorry for the double post​

 

[Piccolo]

You should be able to do this with an alpha mask foreground layer. Might be possible to do this with entities too, forcing setlayer.

But for this case, a whole foreground layer seems easier. Basically you set up an image, same size as your panel image, with color fluctuation. The darker the pixel color, the darker the area will be (using negative alpha transparency). Command to set a foreground layer is fglayer. It has an alpha parameter which you have to set to 2 (negative alpha transparency)

 

[DCurrent]

Just as a general rule for creating assets: NEVER draw lighting or particle effects of any kind direcly into sprites/backgrounds.

Things like fireballs, motion trails and such should always be separated from the main entity. And as Piccolo said, the engine comes with all the transparency and special effects you'll need to create dynamic scenes and lighting.

DC

 

[Cathar]

Alright, so, basically, I paint in neutral light, and I use an alpha mask (which can be set to hard light to what I read on the wiki) for light source.  It can be done by entities, but for no-scroll scenes, a single mask is preferable. Roger that. That's definitely something I can do.

I feel really dumb for asking those stupid questions, thanks for taking the time for answering them. I hope I can make it worth your guys time.

The rough painting is almost done tho​

If sometimes I can help you back with what I can do, I'd be glad to.

 

[esn23]

Alright, so, basically, I paint in neutral light, and I use an alpha mask (which can be set to hard light to what I read on the wiki) for light source.  It can be done by entities, but for no-scroll scenes, a single mask is preferable. Roger that. That's definitely something I can do.

I feel really dumb for asking those stupid questions, thanks for taking the time for answering them. I hope I can make it worth your guys time.

The rough painting is almost done tho​

When making the stage make sure that it is in parts so that you can take advantage of using all its colors.. The way it is now its beautiful but might experience a ton of color loss if it is one image.  For light this is what you can do.  Make a new layer over your stage.. Paint the lights where you want them, then when you are done make a layer under your light layer and make it a solid color that doesnt share any colors with the light flaten the image so its just your light fx and background color.  This is your lighting save it in bgs folder and create a new folder for it.  Make a new text file, this will be for your lighting, when your done it should look something like this

name DangerLight
type    none
health 1
alpha  6
shadow  0
setlayer 9999
#lifespan 120
palette none


anim idle
loop 1
delay 10
offset 0 240
        frame data/bgs/light/1.png
        frame data/bgs/light/2.png
        frame data/bgs/light/3.png
        frame data/bgs/light/4.png
        frame data/bgs/light/5.png
        frame data/bgs/light/6.png
        frame data/bgs/light/7.png

This txt file is actually from my xmen mod, its a flashing alarm light for the danger room but its the same concept.  Hope this helps.  Load the lights in models.txt and all the usual.


If sometimes I can help you back with what I can do, I'd be glad to.

 

[Cathar]

I was suspecting something like that - but thank you ! That saves me a lot of time fumbling around and bumping on every single wall like I usually do

Also, don't hesitate to hit me up on skype, should you want to talk

 

[DCurrent]

...  It can be done by entities, but for no-scroll scenes, a single mask is preferable. Roger that. That's definitely something I can do...

It's not about scrolling or not, it's about efficiency. If you can get what you want out of the stage layer features, and in most cases you can, that's what you should do. Entities need more resources for obvious reasons - they are entities, with animation, script events, AI, and so on. But just as obviously, that means you can do much more with them.

For most things, foreground and background layers are more than adequate. You can add as many layers as you want, and they support a lot of neat effects - neon cycling, sine wave water, scrolling water, real time palette swapping, transparencies, screen rocking, and several others.

You really only need to bring entities into play for things like animation, platforms, or really complex lighting and special effects.

DC

 

[Cathar]

Duelly noted. I will need a lot of memory anyway for what I intend to do, so I will try to save it as much as I can.

Talking about this, I am surprized the patterned distribution during indexation has such a bad press in the games I played. It's really good to respect gradiants while eating very few colors, even tho it needs some cleaning time.

Here the current bg, in two parts.

Only 17 colors per part​

Maybe there is something I miss ?

 

[DCurrent]

Gradients and dithering techniques are an absolute NO for sprite work because they dirty up the images and make them extremely difficult to work - especially for animation. There's simply no need for it with the effectively unlimited graphical resources at your disposal.

Once upon a time they were somewhat necessary to give the illusion of extra color (See Eternal Champions), but now they're more or less viewed as a sign the producer doesn't know what he's doing.

It's probably OK to employ dithering or gradients with backgrounds, but generally speaking you still want to avoid it when you can for similar reasons.

DC

 

[Cathar]

they're more or less viewed as a sign the producer doesn't know what he's doing.

But sempai this is exactly the case ;A; I have strictly no idea about what I'm doing.
I know absolutely nothing of pixel art and I'm just learning as I go, and I'm looking mostly for a time effective way to turn my hand painted sprites into animations rather than working directly with pixels, which I cannot do at all

 

[DCurrent]

But sempai this is exactly the case ;A; I have strictly no idea about what I'm doing...

I find that hard to believe - you've obviously got some art chops.

Again, don't worry too much about dithering and gradients in the backgrounds. It's not the best way, but no big deal. Learn as you go. Just make sure not to use those kinds of techniques for sprite sets.

DC