In Progress Lucia's Run

[DCurrent]

Earlier I posted about trying out Blender to make sprites from models. Well, that was a bust for several reasons. Maybe something to think about for other projects, but not this one. So it's back to the drawing board - literally. I decided to just say screw it and try drawing my own sprites afterall, and figured I'd start with the most difficult first - Lucia's Idle animation. I couldn't have come up with a harder character design to try and animate because of the long dress, but hey, might as well jump into the deep end, right?

I used GI-Joe Scarlett and some real life photos of girls running as rotoscoping models, then drew the body, dress, ribbons, and hair all as separate layers. IOW, even though you can't see it, the head, torso, and legs are fully drawn out. That way I can reuse them for other characters that don't have a long dress. So far all I have is this run cycle. I haven't added all the details, and the limits of my artistic talents are very obvious. But it's better than I thought and once completed the fighting animations won't be nearly as hard.

DC

 

[msmalik681]

Very nice animation  this game just keeps looking better and better cant wait to see some action on screen.

 

[DCurrent]

Re-shading the dress - I really want to get it right before moving on. Just for fun I recorded working on one of the frames.

DC

 

[NED]

It was pretty fun and relaxing to watch even if I worl a bit in a different way.
I like the fact you create your graphics.

So, no more 3D bases tests ? I'm just curious about it if you figure how to convert or use a 3D base into 2D graphics.

 

[DCurrent]

So, no more 3D bases tests ? I'm just curious about it if you figure how to convert or use a 3D base into 2D graphics.

nedflandeurse,

Not for now. By the time I got it all going, I'd lose more time than I'd save. While doing the color work, I decided to jump further into the deep end and employ CVS style shading - here's the latest design at 200% and 400%. I'm still not perfectly happy with her hair, but am pleased with the dress. Thanks to O Ilusionista for pointing me to those Mugen CVS coloring tutorials.

DC

 

[msmalik681]

The update looks much better

 

[kimono]

I want to congratulate you, I like the new model of Lucia very much, so heroic fantasy like the Phantasy Star Saga, which is a good point . I would just change the pattern of the socks, but it's your taste for something like that:

 

[DCurrent]

I want to congratulate you, I like the new model of Lucia very much, so heroic fantasy like the Phantasy Star Saga, which is a good point

Thanks kimono, but I really choose my words wrong when I said "latest design". Lucia as a character is much older than OpenBOR, and her design hasn't changed at all. It's getting the sprite closer to what she's supposed to look like:

. I would just change the pattern of the socks, but it's your taste for something like that:

Those aren't socks. They are lattice work bracers just like the ones on her arm in the pictures. It's one of her tricks. She really is sweet, caring, and prefers not to fight, but she isn't stupid. The bracers look like they're just decorations, but those flower petal designs are actually made of high quality steel, they're razor sharp, and it's no accident they extend just a bit past her knuckles. It adds a little bit of extra hurt to her already deadly punches and kicks. 

Anyway, the sprite has them blue for color separation, but in game they'll have a similar metallic gold color as the drawing.

In any case, I really appreciate the feedback and will keep at it!

DC

 

[maxman]

The update looks much better

I agree.

The process is not bad at all. I guess CVS sprite style is kinda a go-to use for the characters? For the hair, I think you could reference from Athena, Hibiki, or Nakoruru, or whoever's got one right for it. The lightest hair color part doesn't seem to belong to the bottom of her hair. You could add a little bit of dark tone colored pixels around the hair (between normal tone and dark tone colors). Could add some meat for it.

 

[DCurrent]

The update looks much better

I agree.

The process is not bad at all. I guess CVS sprite style is kinda a go-to use for the characters?

maxman,

I like the clean look of CVS art. It's just a lot harder to do right than KOF style. For the KOF style you just always assume areas closest to player are brightest. Then you add graduated shading bars and cloth treatments until you run out of colors or room and call it a day. CVS is simpler, but also much harder to get right. I really have a lot of respect for whoever was on staff in Capcom's art department at the time.

For the hair, I think you could reference from Athena, Hibiki, or Nakoruru, or whoever's got one right for it. The lightest hair color part doesn't seem to belong to the bottom of her hair. You could add a little bit of dark tone colored pixels around the hair (between normal tone and dark tone colors). Could add some meat for it.

I used Athena as my example model. It's not a perfect 1:1 due to size difference and that at no point is Athena ever in the exact same pose I need. But there is a pose where she is turning around  that was close (see attachment). Capcom uses a highlight line along the bottom - that's why I did the same. I'll try your advice and see what happens.

DC

 

[Smart Kitty]

Each makes it much better. By the way, cute DC drawings

 

[danno]

Fantastic work Damon, I'm really curious as to how the entities are going to interact with each other, will you be using some kind of zoom feature for the enemies and projectiles?

 

[O Ilusionista]

Thanks to O Ilusionista for pointing me to those Mugen CVS coloring tutorials.

I am glad I was able to help.
Here are the mentioned tutorials:

by MaranCV
http://marancv.infinitymugenteam.com/tutorials.html

by Rolento
http://iammanyninjas.com/irwt/sprite-cvs.html
http://iammanyninjas.com/irwt/sprite-cps2.html

 

[DCurrent]

Fantastic work Damon,

Thank you danno!

I'm really curious as to how the entities are going to interact with each other, will you be using some kind of zoom feature for the enemies and projectiles?

Yep. I don't know if you remember, but I wrote a real time Z axis scale code years ago for my Illusion and The Falcon project, but took it back out. I just dug that up and modernized it a bit. The way I did it before, every entity ran the scale script itself. In Lucia's Run it's all done in one place. There's a hidden entity running an ondraw script that controls the screen effects, and it also sets drawing size for all other entities based on their Z axis position.

There's really not much to the scaling function:

// Caskey, Damon V.
// 2020-10-14
//
// Accept an entity, a Z position of minimal scale, and
// Z position of maximum scale. Sets drawmethod scale
// based on the entitiy's current Z position.
void dc_kanga_auto_scale(void ent, int z_min, int z_max)
{
	float pos_z = get_entity_property(ent, "position_z");
	float percentage = (pos_z - z_min) / (z_max - z_min);
	void draw = get_entity_property(ent, "drawmethod");

	// Drawmethod accepts size values from 0 to 256.
	int size = round(percentage * 256);

	// Cap minimum size to 1.
	if (size < 1)
	{
		size = 1;
	}

	//log("\n\n entity: " + ent);
	//log("\n\t pos_z: " + pos_z);
	//log("\n\t percentage: " + percentage);
	//log("\n\t size: " + size);
	
	set_drawmethod_property(draw, "enable", 1);

	set_drawmethod_property(draw, "scale_x", size);
	set_drawmethod_property(draw, "scale_y", size);

	//log("\n\t scale_x: " + get_drawmethod_property(draw, "scale_x"));
	//log("\n\t scale_y: " + get_drawmethod_property(draw, "scale_y"));
}

You can see it working in the demo videos - those trees are not a layer. They are entities closely packed together, continuously auto spawned and moved toward the camera. The zoom script causes them to scale as they approach. Enemies and shots scale the same way.

Collision is a little trickier since collision boxes aren't scaled. What I do for that is use the doattack event. When a hit is detected, I get the collision coordinates, and then calculate a theoretical zoomed hitbox. Then I compare it against location of the hit. If the hit location falls outside of the theoretical hitbox, I cancel the hit.

DC

 

[NED]

So, no more 3D bases tests ? I'm just curious about it if you figure how to convert or use a 3D base into 2D graphics.

nedflandeurse,

Not for now. By the time I got it all going, I'd lose more time than I'd save. While doing the color work, I decided to jump further into the deep end and employ CVS style shading - here's the latest design at 200% and 400%. I'm still not perfectly happy with her hair, but am pleased with the dress. Thanks to O Ilusionista for pointing me to those Mugen CVS coloring tutorials.

DC

Looks good. also CVS style shading si pretty faster to do (at least for me.)
Considering the small size of sprites the result is pretty good!
I like it.

 

[O Ilusionista]

Damon Caskey "set_drawmethod_property" ? This isn't listed on the manual. Its a script shortcut?

 

[DCurrent]

Damon Caskey "set_drawmethod_property" ? This isn't listed on the manual. Its a script shortcut?

O Ilusionista,

No, It's an experimental command the development engine has. But the old functions can do the same thing.

DC

 

[DCurrent]

Next step: Testing the base sprite animation only. I need to iron out the shading inconsistencies, but it's coming along. Got to love dealing with cycled animations, right?

 

[O Ilusionista]

Nice. Are the upper body and lower body separated entities? They seams to have different cycles.
When the arm goes forward, the leg of the same side should moves backward, and so on.

Will the trees have parallax movement in X plane too? At 0: 16, they seams to not have it.

And about the trees, I think you could apply a random transformation on them, flipping them in X axis randomly.

 

[DCurrent]

Thanks for the feedback O Ilusionista!

Nice. Are the upper body and lower body separated entities? They seams to have different cycles.

Yes and no. When you are attacking, parts of her are separated as needed so run cycle isn't interrupted, but when she's idle like you see here it's just one entity.

When the arm goes forward, the leg of the same side should moves backward, and so on

I see what you mean. Odd, cause I followed Scarlet from GI-Joe almost to the pixel as my example model, and intend to do the same for left/right movement. I have her body parts separated in Photoshop, so it shouldn't be too hard to mess around with. Will see what I can do.

Will the trees have parallax movement in X plane too? At 0: 16, they seams to not have it.

And about the trees, I think you could apply a random transformation on them, flipping them in X axis randomly.

Those aren't layers - they are a stream of entities, and really just kind of an experiment. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to keep X scrolling at all. If I do, I'll need to work out math to move objects based on Z distance as you scroll left/right. In any case, I'm not keeping those particular tree sprites. They're way too small and grainy. If I get proficient enough drawing Lucia and the other characters, I may take a crack and drawing the scenery too. We'll see.

Keep the feedback coming, I'm way out of my depth when it comes to artwork. 

DC