MAPLE FOREST!! Fox-faces return!!

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FROGANUS

Guest
cool cuz my vote would be to keep the gray GB pallette.
i know it takes time to make stuff nice like this, but you owe it to yourself to keep moving once you achieve such niceness. YOLO
 
i know it takes time to make stuff nice like this, but you owe it to yourself to keep moving once you achieve such niceness. YOLO
I agree. Well said! =)

Spent about four hours planning out my entire first dungeon yesterday, and then another six actually getting my tileset in order:




Really excited about how these turned out! Pretty proud of these tiles, and I think the dungeon design is going to be really fun to play through, too! More updates soon. Want to start showing gameplay gifs this weekend, going through the dungeon and fighting enemies! Hope you guys like this stuff! =D
 
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Looks lovely and detailed. Although it's looping the tiles slightly, you have to stare quite a bit to see that it is actually looped and not all separate tiles.
Thanks, Stogden! Yeah, the tiles are pretty large, so they don't loop that much. I can do a bit more to make them even more seamless, though. Maybe I'll add some variety tiles or whatever. =)

As always Rich, your work is fantastic and you should be proud of what you have so far! Keep going man :)
Thanks, nlolotte. Really appreciate the kind words. Posts like these keep me life while I finish my games! =D
After I finish my games, hopefully money gives me life too, hahah! X'D

Thanks again, guys. More stuff soon. =)
 

CMAllen

Member
The lines on right side of the vases makes them a little hard to read against the background. Particularly in the lower right corner of the entrance. Not sure there's an easy solution, since putting the entire side in shadows would be too harsh, and you're out of color tones for anything else.
 
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Lonewolff

Guest
The lines on right side of the vases makes them a little hard to read against the background. Particularly in the lower right corner of the entrance. Not sure there's an easy solution, since putting the entire side in shadows would be too harsh, and you're out of color tones for anything else.
Looks ok to me. Maybe shifting the vases left one pixel might help in that case. Not sure how that fits with the system that @RichHopelessComposer has got going on though. As in, if things are aligned to a particular grid or not.
 
@The Sorcerer: yeah, I see what @CMAllen is saying a bit - I pushed pixels a lot to make them legible wherever they are, but with only three colors, of course you're going to lose some pixels to the background sometimes. I added the bounced lighting to the right side of the pots to help readability in shadows, and added the outline so that the left side is visible in the right. I'd be happy if I could get them even more readable, but I'm pretty happy with what I came up with. Besides, if they're in the shadowy corner, I think it's okay and realistic for them to be a little less visible - I don't think anyone will miss that there are pots down there, especially during actual gameplay.

Thanks for the advice and comments guys. CMAllen is right, though - readability is one of the biggest challenges I'm facing using only four colors. I had fun giving myself a few headaches just trying to figure this one room out, hahah! :')

Edit: Ah, items are on a grid, yeah. I could shift the jars over a pixel or two, but then I'd just run into other visibility problems on top of other tiles anyway, hahah. It happened constantly during this set, and is just a natural consequence of using so few colors - some things are going to blend together a bit. I think it's okay though, and I'm actually kind of liking that feature of this style. Kind of ambiguous where things start and end, which wouldn't happen with full color.
 
It might be possible to work in an optional toggleable "Gameboy Color" mode, if you used PixelPope's palette swap shader. In order to make it practical you'd have to come up with a relatively small overall color palette made up of 3-shade color gradients, but then you could draw all of your sprites with those colors, make a secondary palette where all of them are replaced with repeats of the same 3 green tones, and set the shader to draw over the application surface.

Never tried anything like that myself, never had a reason to, but it "should" work.
 

CMAllen

Member
It might be possible to work in an optional toggleable "Gameboy Color" mode, if you used PixelPope's palette swap shader. In order to make it practical you'd have to come up with a relatively small overall color palette made up of 3-shade color gradients, but then you could draw all of your sprites with those colors, make a secondary palette where all of them are replaced with repeats of the same 3 green tones, and set the shader to draw over the application surface.

Never tried anything like that myself, never had a reason to, but it "should" work.
You'd have to do *VERY* slight variations of the three basic colors to get a color swap shader to work (using the additional color space like bit flags). Palette shaders function by way of comparing the source-image pixel color to all the colors on the source palette, and swapping the source pixel color to the color in the same position of the destination palette. If you only have 3 colors, then you can only swap to 3 colors. If you go look at the color test, you'll notice the fox has 4 colors instead of 3.
 
You'd have to do *VERY* slight variations of the three basic colors to get a color swap shader to work (using the additional color space like bit flags). Palette shaders function by way of comparing the source-image pixel color to all the colors on the source palette, and swapping the source pixel color to the color in the same position of the destination palette. If you only have 3 colors, then you can only swap to 3 colors. If you go look at the color test, you'll notice the fox has 4 colors instead of 3.
The way I'd do it would be just like a normal black/white shader... just assign the colored sprites new colors from the four available GB shades by checking their brightness. Unless I'm really screwing up my values while picking colors, it should work perfectly.

I also already have a shader written that does palette swapping the normal way, which would also work fine, I think.

But I'm not doing it, hahah! I'm too lazy to do both! X'D

Also, I'm having fun designing my sprites and tiles to work with only four colors. Trying to convert to DX mode with a shader undermines the point of this art style...
 
You'd have to do *VERY* slight variations of the three basic colors to get a color swap shader to work (using the additional color space like bit flags). Palette shaders function by way of comparing the source-image pixel color to all the colors on the source palette, and swapping the source pixel color to the color in the same position of the destination palette. If you only have 3 colors, then you can only swap to 3 colors. If you go look at the color test, you'll notice the fox has 4 colors instead of 3.
What I meant was, you could have an overarching palette for the entire application surface, and every 3-color gradient on the first palette could correspond to a copy of the same three-color GB green gradient. Sort of like this:

So you would technically have the "same" three colors in multiple positions, and any sprite could use any or all of the colors in the left side, but all of them would effectively be displayed as their corresponding variant on the monochrome green. At least I'm assuming that would work, I could very well be completely wrong about how the shader reads colors and positions on the palette sprite. Now I'm starting to feel kind of silly for giving technical advice on the basis of "I assume that would work," but I already posed the idea, so I may as well clarify.
 
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CMAllen

Member
The way I'd do it would be just like a normal black/white shader... just assign the colored sprites new colors from the four available GB shades by checking their brightness. Unless I'm really screwing up my values while picking colors, it should work perfectly.

I also already have a shader written that does palette swapping the normal way, which would also work fine, I think.

But I'm not doing it, hahah! I'm too lazy to do both! X'D

Also, I'm having fun designing my sprites and tiles to work with only four colors. Trying to convert to DX mode with a shader undermines the point of this art style...
Oh, I'm not saying you couldn't do it. But within the 3 color restriction on sprites, something like the colored version of your fox wouldn't work. It had 4 colors, which the 4th color is reserved for transparency, iirc.
 
Oh, I'm not saying you couldn't do it. But within the 3 color restriction on sprites, something like the colored version of your fox wouldn't work. It had 4 colors, which the 4th color is reserved for transparency, iirc.
"That fox uses two sprites layered, like MegaMan did," heheh. ;)

I meant in the context of the shader anyway, though. The shader doesn't care about GB restrictions, hahah! =)
 

CMAllen

Member
"That fox uses two sprites layered, like MegaMan did," heheh. ;)

I meant in the context of the shader anyway, though. The shader doesn't care about GB restrictions, hahah! =)
That's one (more work) option, too. Been there, done that, ended up hating it because of how much extra work it involves handling all those pieces. Granted, I was dealing with 8 different layers. That might have had more to do with it.
 
Making a beach:


Doesn't look like much yet! :')
I think it's gonna be awesome when it's done, though!

Edit:


Uh..... :x

Edit edit:

Closer....

Showing you guys these crappy WIPs so that when I say "this took six hours I hope it was worth it," you'll know I'm not joking or exaggerating. This is tough. :'D
 
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Ouch...I'd be breaking down what I'm trying to do...then move onto something like blender or studio max to create the effect using particle systems. But you do you, man. If it works, don't fix it? =D
You can't emulate 2D animation with particle systems. Believe me, that's the first place my lazy mind went. :'D

It'll be worth it, though. I think it's going to look beautiful when it's done! Have to pay proper respect to the beauty of nature! =)
 

CMAllen

Member
You can't emulate 2D animation with particle systems. Believe me, that's the first place my lazy mind went. :'D

It'll be worth it, though. I think it's going to look beautiful when it's done! Have to pay proper respect to the beauty of nature! =)
Sure you can. It's all about the approach. You have two different sine waves (simple curves, easy to control and animate) and a mod to those curves that creates the low level noise. Use the two curves to create a solid surface, then spawn animated particles along the curves to break up their form. Or, well, that's what I'd try, at least. It might not actually look all that great, so you may just end up being right after all. Of course, Blender's ability to animate particles is frustratingly limited. That's one of the few parts of Max that I miss.
 
@CMAllen: yep. That was my plan, too. But then I was like, "no, that'll look like crap compared to a well done hand animation," hahah. Waves aren't just bouncing sine waves spawning bubbles at their peaks. X'D

I'm not going to get anything near an actual 2D animation without spending three months researching fluid dynamics, so I think I'll just do it by hand, heheh. ;D
 

CMAllen

Member
@CMAllen: yep. That was my plan, too. But then I was like, "no, that'll look like crap compared to a well done hand animation," hahah. Waves aren't just bouncing sine waves spawning bubbles at their peaks. X'D

I'm not going to get anything near an actual 2D animation without spending three months researching fluid dynamics, so I think I'll just do it by hand, heheh. ;D
Yup. Did a quick test of the idea. It 'works' but it's not nearly as good as something more hand-crafted would be.
 
Let me see if this works:



The parts are all separate, though I'm not certain about color limits. When exporting to a gif, it did only have 4 colors total. Needs more tweaking to image timing regardless, but like I said, it 'works' but it's still not as good as something more hand-crafted would be.
Niiice! For what it's worth, I think you did a great job here for something "automated." This honestly looks a bit better than I imagined. You handled the foam pretty well.

But yeah, it's my job to do better, for the pride and honor of all 2D animators, heheh! X'D

Thanks for posting, though. Very cool!!
 
Let me see if this works:



The parts are all separate, though I'm not certain about color limits. When exporting to a gif, it did only have 4 colors total. Needs more tweaking to image timing regardless, but like I said, it 'works' but it's still not as good as something more hand-crafted would be.
Dude, that looks great!
As much as I love 2D graphics and animation, I'm getting more and more into finding interesting ways to make it look less "looped animation" and more dynamic.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Sounds pretty great, although I agree that the long notes at 0:45 and 1:30 can sound a little strange.

Definitely think it helps build the atmosphere that you're going for with that forest though. Very much a tune you'd hear in an RPG from the SNES era.
 
Thanks guys! Appreciate the kind words and advice. I actually liked the vibrato on that last note, but I knew it would stick out. I spent like three hours listening to this while I made it though, so I might be numbed to it a bit, hahah! I'll come back to it after I finish the other two songs I'm working on and listen to it with "fresh" ears! =)
 

kupo15

Member
Sounds great! I think the vibrato sounds great too and have no issues with it! Its the underlying bass repetition that causes it to stick out so much. That's my only critique, is that I think the arpeggios in the bass and harmonic progression (or lack of inversions) from :30 until the loop could be a bit more interesting. One example being the last arpeggio before the loop, why not do B>F#>A>F#>B>F#?

You have a lot of repetition in this track which definitely comes across as intentional and fitting but some small changes could make it more effective without ruining the intentional repetition and mysteriousness. Just take a listen to the Lost Woods in Twilight Princess, it has that same repetition but the very end before the loop does something a bit different. Looks like we both took a similar approach and inspiration for our forest sections, I'm using repetition to create that mysterious perpetual effect too like TP did :)
 
You have a lot of repetition in this track which definitely comes across as intentional and fitting but some small changes could make it more effective without ruining the intentional repetition and mysteriousness. Just take a listen to the Lost Woods in Twilight Princess, it has that same repetition but the very end before the loop does something a bit different. Looks like we both took a similar approach and inspiration for our forest sections, I'm using repetition to create that mysterious perpetual effect too like TP did :)
I played Twilight Princess back on launch day in 2006, and haven't heard it's forest theme since then, because it didn't really grab me. I definitely didn't take any (conscious, at least) inspiration from that one, hahah! This song came out while I was noodling around on the piano one day. It's actually a Soul Healer piece I'm recycling for Maple Forest. The "real" version is a layered song that builds up as you get deeper into the area with some crazy counterpoint.

I have to disagree with changing the bass, though. I messed around with it, and never liked it as much. It's supposed to be a very droning piece, like the oldness of the forest is slowly pushing down on you... adding flourishes to the bassline lessened that when I tried it. If the last vibrato note stands out too much (I'm thinking it does, now that I listen again. Thanks guys!), I'd rather fix that with dynamics or by lessening the vibrato. The bass itself just drones on and on in the song in my head, even in the Soul Healer version. It's supposed to be slightly uncomfortable feeling! =)

Edit: mmm, maybe I could another part after it repeats once though, like the SH version....hmmmmmmm..... :')

My main inspirations for the Soul Healer version are probably Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana (big surprise). The "full" version's counterpoint and instrumentation definitely has a Kikuta feel!
 
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kupo15

Member
Haha well I guess its just a coincidence then ;) You got it, think about it though. You could still keep your initial 2 bass notes, those are the main notes that will give it that droning effect you are after. I fear that with such a sparse texture, hearing that extreme repetitiveness on loop will become too monotonous. At the very least maybe explore shaping the volume of the left hand in way so that its musically more interesting than hammering all the notes at the same volume. At the moment, it seems a bit too much in your face instead of being blended a bit more.

Its still a great track regardless, just being a little picky :)
 
@kupo15: Yeah, when I play it on piano, the dynamics are there even if I'm not planning them, obviously. I'll look into mixing it better later on. I don't know anything about Reaper yet. Just adding the crescendo at the end was a project for me, hahah! X'D

I'll study up on how to use Reaper more before tackling the next piece, and then I'll loop back around to this one to make changes after I'm not so set on how it sounds. After working on something for awhile, it's tough to decide on what to tweak without taking a break!
 
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Updates have been a little slow, but I've been working steadily on this! I'm building the forest maps right now:


More soon. Going to work on the town next, then the desert and beach, and then finally the first dungeon. After they're all finished, I'm going to put this up on Early Access/start giving demoes out, so you'll all have a chance to actually play it! =)
 
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