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Updated the topic with new demo, new art, etc.

I am currently polishing the finished game, adding cutscenes, finishing up sidequests and such. Game is slated for release sometime late this month/mid-February.

@DL: Yes, I know about the resizing, but by that point I was over working on it and didn't feel like respriting at a smaller size.
I probably should anti-alias that...might do that later.

@dwellercoc: I probably should of detailed better. DeathLock covered it pretty much perfectly, though.

Hi everyone 'w')/

I do a lot of pixelling for games and things all the time, and I like to think I'm getting pretty good at it.
I happened to basically do a step-by-step picture series when seeking critique (VERY IMPORTANT) so I thought I'd post it :3.

Now, if what you're spriting is something that people know of, etc, GET A REFERENCE. It's the most important item you'll have.
It can really affect how your work turns out.

I had help with this sprite because I was having difficulty with the shape. However, if I post another topic, I will go over pixel tracing, a handy technique and can be almost invaluable.

Today I'm spriting the Final Fantasy VIII airship, the Ragnarok.
This is my reference:

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Step One: Basic Shape
I suck at copying, so my much more skilled friend Archeia_Nessiah did a basic sketch for me.
You might think this is sort of cheating, but...oh well!

Now, once that's done, we FINALIZE the lineart. In order for it to be sexy, the lineart should be 1px. Just one dot. More than that looks unprofessional and sketchy.

Now we create a palette of the colours we're going to use. I used silvers, blacks, reds and oranges for the Ragnarok. A lot of the time you'll have to play around with colours, but having a palette to reference is very handy and saves time :3

(Palette is in the top corner)
Now, start shading were the shadows would be. Shadows should come first during shading because highlight can be overpowering and you'll lose your place.
I started with the windows.

In order to give your work a professional quality, create a dark tone of all your different hues and change the lineart of the different areas.
This makes your shadows and lineart blend. BLACK IS A BIG NO NO. Black detracts from your sprite and dulls your colours.
Even when creating 'blacks', use desaturated blues and purples. It will look black but will not have the same affect that black does.
This is what I had after version 1:


But there's WAY too many colours here. It's too busy, and it looks pillow shaded.
Pillow shading its filling the area around the lineart with a dark tone and then the middle having a highlight, rather than paying attention to where your light is coming from. It looks horrible and should be avoided at all costs.

Now I sought critique and started redoing my shading. Critique is GREAT. Sometimes we fail to see flaws in our own work that others won't miss. Don't be afraid of seeking critique!

So, I played around with it, messing with the windows, etc:

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I'm still not quite satisfied, and will probably work on it more later. I spent almost five hours on this.
Artwork is something to be appreciated, and time usually means you've worked hard and put quality into it.
This is what I have:


Now the sprite itself is too big to go in my game, so I resized it by 50%. This is easy. You can use paint for it and not get any horrible artifacts. You just need to have a white background, select and cut the image. Now go to the little icons underneath your tool and brush options and select the lower one. This creates transparency. Paste, and then resize by 50% using shrink/skew.
Deselect and then shrink your overall canvas. You're done!

And this, my friends, is the Ragnarok in action:



Don't be shy at posting questions/queries :3

I have returned with stuff.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Sorry for not updating in a while, I tend to update mostly at
http://cosplaycrisis.blogspot.com
and
http://rpgmaker.net/games/1741/

So *shrug*.

out the top of my head
can be wrong tough because I'm no scripter

class Window_Battlernames < Window_Base

  def initialize
    super(0, 320, 640, 160)
    self.contents = Bitmap.new(width - 32, height - 32)   
    refresh
  end

  def refresh
    self.contents.clear
    @item_max = $game_party.actors.size
    for i in 0...$game_party.actors.size
      actor = $game_party.actors[i]
      actor_y = i * 32 + 4
      draw_actor_name(actor, 0, actor_y)
   end
end

make sure that in "Scene_Battle 1" you add where you call out the windows:

@Name_window = Window_Battlernames.new

and under "# Dispose of windows" add

@Name_window.dispose

and under "# Update windows" add

@Name_window.update

I asked for this code a long time ago but I couldn't get this to work. I got a syntax error, and the game started up when I added another end to the code, but no window showed up.
This is the LAST thing I need to finish the coding for my game. Other than Limit Break but I can't get that to work at all. Oh well.

Last screen shot was taken before I implemented shadows/light effects I will be using shadows everywhere, unless I can't define a light source properly because I'm stupid. D:

EDIT: Also, Blizz, could you please move this to the normal Projects section? I don't think it really belongs in New Projects anymore.

I come bearing screenshots!

I have been working hard at this game. Right now I have about 20 mins playtime from the very beginning, however there is a lot past that that isn't linked up storyline and event wise. I wouldn't be surprised if the new demo goes over 2hrs and branches into 3.
I'm aiming for April 19th AT THE LATEST. Don't be surprised if the demo shows up earlier than then. I'll probably have all the maps, etc, done pretty soon, but there are still a lot of graphics I need to repair and create.

All facesets have been completely redrawn. I'm thinking about having a specific picture show up in game when a character is introduced if I have the motivation. If I don't, you'll only get an image when you meet Air (Aeris's counterpart) in an alley, since the image is finished. SHE DOES NOT JOIN YOUR PARTY AT ANY TIME, BUT SHE DOES NOT DIE.
...In this game.

Not saying I'll ever do a sequel or anything, I just like writing out scenarios.

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I've been looking for one, but I assumed most, if not all, class changing systems meant you lost your abilities or kept the ones you already had. I'll look through the script listings on a few sites again.

Alright, I'll brainstorm a little more. This came to my mind since I have a two-player party and I didn't want them to be constricted to their default classes.

If I can't think of something, I'll probably come back to this and see what I can change, alter and improve to make it inspired and not copied from the FFX-2 system.

Ok, ok, don't shoot me for requesting this, kthnx.

In fact, I believe that the Dressphere/Sphere Change concept, introduced in the Square Enix game Final Fantasy X-2, was innovative and actually fun to use. FFX-2 had a lot of problems but Dressphere's wasn't one of them. Well, the concept, at least. Girls changing outfits in the middle of battle was sooo ripped off from Sailor Moon.

The main reason I'm looking for it is because I'm currently working on a game with only two playable characters. That said, I'm going to also be looking for a couple of modifications to it to eliminate the few quirks that bugged me about the original system.

Now, how it works. You obtain several different character classes throughout the game. By assigning these classes to slots on something called a 'Garment Grid', you can select the class during the heat of battle, drastically changing your stats and skills. However, if the class isn't linked up on your Garment Grid and isn't in an adjacent slot to your current class, it was unselectable.

Songstress, Thief, Warrior and Gunner are currently assigned here.
There should be several different 'Garment Grids' available in game, and each member can be assigned with a different one. Characters can have totally different Classes assigned to totally different Grids, but only one of each class is available to be assigned to each Grid.
Unless you're playing a New Game+ but that's unrelated.

Skills for each class for learnt through using the class during battles. Actions that actually were unique to the class (so Sentinel for Warrior, Pray for a Healer) gained AP. You would have to select your desired skill in the menu to be learnt through AP, and once learnt it would become available for use. (This AP Skill system is very similar to the one seen in FF8 except for the action requirement)

Each character stats are determined by two things- class equipped and Level. Dresspheres do not have to level up- even if you do not use the Gunner class until the end of the game, it's Attack strength will be the same. However, it will be compromised by a lack of learnt skills.

Now for my particular nitpick- each character can only equip their specific classes in my game. So you may obtain Black Mage, Warrior and Time Mage, but only Alice will be capable of changing her class during battle, since Lex, the other character, has the default of warrior and cannot become a Black Mage or a Time Mage.

So, if the 'Garment Grid' (in the game I am requesting this for, they are referred to as Dream Catchers) has warrior in the bottom most corner, with Time Mage and Black Mage in the adjacent slots, Lex will be unable to Dream Change (switch class), even if his second class, Thief, is located in the other corner.

Each class should have a battler assigned to it. So if Alice changes to Black Mage, her battle should change from aliceeee.png to blackmageteehee.png (file names should be customizable)

This is probably a very complicated request but I do not want to add more characters to my story in order to add classes. That's just useless and annoying. I was thinking of ways I could event this, but changing classes mid-battle does not change the skills available.

Please note that the game this is for is a fully-original concept with a complete set of custom graphics. I would like to learn scripting and have attempted it, but I seem to fail to grasp the concept. *sigh*.

If anyone decides to take on my request, thank you very, very much.

Easier when it comes to the credits. Characters from other games/manga to show up though. It has a fair amount of Resident Evil influence, some FMA simularities, Sailor Moon sells you materia. The guy from Shamwow really killed Billy Mays with a Death Note. That sort of stuff.
Plus it was Final Fantasy inspired :V.

Thanks for the comments, Faint. I don't really do a lot of object drawing. I should get around to it more often =/.

On that note, completely revised Kumo's sprite hair. He and Zane have the same hair and eye colour. I'm not touching Levi's sprite because I'm still happy with his hair.

Miri is getting completely resprited however.

I updated the first post. Will update with drawings as I finish them.

If I ask something not fully script related, I apologize, but I'd prefer to keep it in a single topic.

Ok, my first issue is, how do I disable menu commands that aren't 'Save'? Do I just use the same code as the 'Save' disable script call, or do I have to do something different? And, on that note, how do you make it so that the Disabled command isn't greyed-out, but actually unable to be seen until it's enabled for the first time? I also want to be able to disable the Party Switch command after enabling it, and have it grey-out instead.
EDIT: Removed stuff I don't need to worry about 8D.

Thank you very muchlies ^_^.

*goes straight to implement script into game*

I had to put the scripts in a different order than what you said in the instructions or my game detonated. I have the main menu script (Acendent Prone's FF7) under the materia, but your script above it. Works fine, I just equipped a Carbon Bangle and no errors ^_^.

Alright, I've been having a bit of a block lately AND I've had exams, but I have done some work. There will be a lot more to the next demo, and I mean a lot.


In the meantime while I try to motivate myself:



And I've been working on Kumo's hair. A lot.

Oh and, promotional poster!


YOU WANT TO PLAY MY GAME. @_@

Hmm, not much of a scripter, but I'm wondering how I'd go about creating a static window in Battle Status that just shows the actor names.

(I say this too often)kinda like FF7, except without the 'Barrier' bars (Kinda pointless...). I'm not making an FF7 fan game, it's a parody with that system in particular. I've taken a few other systems from other FF's for it as well, but the battle/menu is FF7's mainly.

I've already moved the command window over and elimated the names from the actual Display, I just need that one box with the names in it...then I will rule the world...or something like that.

Static window creation is something I have attempted at but failed miserably. I keep back-ups for script testing of my game, but I'd rather not mess up my code completely by a simple error by floundering and guessing on my own.

Hey Jackolas, I don't mind if you post it without the materia. As I said, it was optional. Thanks for doing this, by the way, after working with RMXP for two year, it's been the last six months I've actually gotten script requests accepted. Probably because I'm now requesting smaller stuff (escape scripts, this script, etc).

I'm in Aus so this is a pretty good result D:

Face files are generally called via:

draw_actor_face(actor, 12, y + 15) (This is for the menu screen so the co-ords would have to be changed)

It's basically just replacing the draw_actor_graphic that's found in the general codes.


...that is what you were asking for, right? =/.

And this happens to be the same reason why I'm an atheist myself. More often than not, religion causes more problems than it solves, causes more grief than hope, and destroys more lives than it saves.
However, I'm not about to get a revolver and blow someone's brains out because they have a belief. Our society preaches tolerance but in truth tolerance is zilch. People rub shoulders with others, writhing in disgust at the thought that they share a different belief or come from a different culture, but have enough brains to keep their mouth shut to keep the peace. After all, it is in our nature to be intolerant of others- we just have to pretend and show a fake smile.
But then these fanatics show up, and it really makes me wonder, why? These people can't honestly say they're practicing their belief, can they?


...also upon reading of that article, I'm not telling anyone that I'm an atheist. I would freely say so if the topic came up in regular speech, but after the reading of that, I don't know who to trust.