Retro - RTP for VX

[Vorpal 86]

EDIT: August 5th 09 - A year in the making.. still not finished. Ah well..
It's me again, and finally. I've had little time to work on this over the past since last pop in but I am now, working as much as possible.

I revamped several tilesets, and did some minor changes. The biggest change to get this RETRO style RTP to work is designed a 15 color palette (16 minus the color 0 as the BG) and used this palette for the remainder of the RTP so that there is no more than 15 colors used at any given time no matter what is on screen.

The Palette

I've tried my best to keep everything as RETRO as possible so please bare with me if some thing look a bit off. I've done a lot over the past few weeks and I'm trying not to loose interest.
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(Spoiler Content is of old news)

Spoiler

Hey yall. It's been slow and steady work, but I had an idea for releasing a Retro 8 bit style RTP for VX. I have some of it done already, and would like to know what you all think about an 8bit-ish retro style RTP for VX of this caliber? If not I'd just cancel the idea. It may take a while, especially for the characters and Monsters which I'm not very good at.

So, here is some of what I have already completed for the RTP. I'd also like to know what could be done to make them look better. The objective is - not to use more than 16 - 24 colors or that would defeat the retro look. I'm asking more about the design.

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Complete or almost...

At the moment, the only thing NOT finished inside the system folder is TileD and the extra TileE (an optional tileset) provided as an empty for user added tiles and the Iconset which I will work on last.

Balloon

Battle Start This is the only graphic that uses a different palette than the rest due to the fact that it doesn't make a good effect at all using less than 32 shades of Grey! Seems to be no way around it...

Battle Floor

Battle Background (Imay change it..)

Retro Title Screen Redone

Game Over Redone

Message Background

Shadow

Tileset A1 - Included a Template to use with making them, while making them.

Tileset A2

Tileset A3 There is a snapshot of the houses placed on the map below in the spoiled section.

Tileset A4 Change around this tile a bit.

Tileset A5 A few tiles in here were scaled down to a few colors using the original tile as reference.

Tileset B

Tileset C

Tileset D ....not started yet. This is the only system graphics not finished aside from the Iconset.)

Tileset E This set is blank by default for user added tiles. I'm gonna use it and add some other retro tiles like different style houses and some roof windows to accommodate the normal house tilesets (TileA3)

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Incomplete -
Working on 8 Character Classes based on the rtp with scaled down to 3 color characters. the first four characters I created mostly from scratch. The second four characters are the original characters also scaled down to 3 colors. Each character will only have two different frames as in most retro dragon warrior, ff characters.

Also included are some facesets for each. There will be 4 character faces in each faceset; one faceset is simply a 3x magnified version of the standing position, the second will be an actual face. This means, instead of "Actor1" as a faceset it will be "Actor1a and Actor1b" which will have the first four character faces in one with the two different versions of faces, and the second. NOTE I'm still a slacker when it comes to characters but i'm trying.

Icon Set Still the same..

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Sample Town

Spoiler

I also have several OBJECT characters (11, from !$Gate1.png to Other2.png) finished that I wont post yet as this thread is pretty large at the moment, unless you'all want me to post them.

That is the update for now. I will Finnish the rest of the System folder gfx before doing the rest as this folder seems to take the longest I guess.

 

[seven]

I like it, but isn't that water autotile from Aveyond 2? :l

 

[Vorpal 86]

I like it, but isn't that water autotile from Aveyond 2? :l

No. I did this all from scratch. What is Aveyond 2? Ahh, I see here. It's another rpgmaker game. But no this is all my own work.

 

[bojjenclon]

Dude if you could make this work it would be awesome.

 

[Venetia]

I agree. It'd look really retro and unique

The character's'd have to match, too, though!

 

[Vorpal 86]

I'll have to do the characters last though. I'm not too skilled with those. but simply ff and dragon warrior types would fit, and they can't be too complicated... I hope..

 

[Vorpal 86]

Hey folks. I apologize for taking so long for an update, and BUMPING. I have been working a lot since my new job and haven't had the mind to do much here. I have updated tilesets and added. Please check the EDIT for details. TileA1 and A2 seem to be working on me. Heh. At any rate, how's things looking?

Perhaps, if someone is interested in helping out with characters and maybe some battlers that would be appreciated. It's OK if not though. I'll try and have more done tomorrow if all goes well.

 

[HarryE]

I think you've misunderstood what 8-bit means. See, looking at those sprites, they all seem to have too much detail for what i'd consider 8-bit.

Give this a read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-bit_color

 

[Vorpal 86]

@Bruno
Well, I keep trying to keep it down to a minimum. I've tried not to use more than 24 colors but the one tileA2 uses a bit more than 32 colors. I guess I should have maybe decided a palette at the start and used only that palette. I was playing a game for Sega Master System called Golden Axe Warrior and it looks pretty detailed, using many colors, and all. I thought it was for Genesis at first. Heh. The MS was actually a pretty powerful machine for 8Bit.

I'll just try and keep the detail down some more. I've always had at least 32/64 colors at my disposal since I started doing pixel work back in 1993 and was only limited to that, so it figures I'm used to it and tend to add more than I should. The main purpose of this though, was to offer a new, classic type rtp.

 

[Crazetex]

This super-awesome. I love the look of this... if you want to steal some icons and stuff from one of my rm2k3 old-school projects, PM me and I'll send you a link (so as not to plug my game in this). There are custom facesets, weapons (turn into icons), battle backgrounds that could be resized, etc.

I support this thread one-hundred percent. =D

 

[Mascarpone]

Kind of adorable.

i'm confused what the one balloon is though. .. .. music note?

and maybe make the forest/mountains even more old school?

Spoiler

http://lazorsoftware.com/games/maps/DragonWarrior-Alefgard.png[/img]

 

[Vorpal 86]

This super-awesome. I love the look of this... if you want to steal some icons and stuff from one of my rm2k3 old-school projects, PM me and I'll send you a link (so as not to plug my game in this). There are custom facesets, weapons (turn into icons), battle backgrounds that could be resized, etc.

I support this thread one-hundred percent. =D

Well, that would be nice to have a look see at some icons. I already have about 98 icons from my earlier XP icons releases here " http://vorpal86.snesorama.us/rmxp_icons.html " and may tweak them some decreasing the colors used. I only want to make original work and no rips though. That's the glory of this rtp.

Kind of adorable.

i'm confused what the one balloon is though. .. .. music note?

and maybe make the forest/mountains even more old school?

Spoiler

http://lazorsoftware.com/games/maps/DragonWarrior-Alefgard.png[/img]

The one balloon? One of them is a music note. The bubbles are listed in the same order as the regular rtp. Exclaimation, Question, Music note, Anger etc.. Also I could try and add some old school looking mountains. I was trying to think of a same-idea-new-design type mountains and forests graphics since the other types are sorta used in a lot of old school's.

It's a bit tricky with the tileset cause' you only get two tile types you can use that transparently overlap their first ground tile without pushing out the tile that they are layed out on top of.. If that made any sense..? Like for instance, for tileA2; the first grass tiles and it's autotiles and the two transparent Tree/Mountain tiles beside it work together. But, if trying to place the next autotile,the completed FENCE, for instance, pushes the grass autotile out and it doesn't look too well.

It's too bad that not all transparent autotiles can safely be placed onto/top of any other non transparent grass/desert autotile without pushing the bottom autotile out unless of course, you don't use any of the autotiles, rather, just use tileset B, C and D. I guess i could if designed just right..

So, you got 3 autotiles per group, one ground type, and two other transparent terrain types per row. The first three going right, the second three going right, and, but luckily, you can use the carpet and table autotiles without pushing out the underlying autotile. Pheww. Heh. There should be a total of 8 different groups.

Sorry for the lesson but I can't stop babbling. It'll be slow, but I'm working on them. So just keep checking back periodically. Thanks for the comments!

 

[Vorpal 86]

Here is an update. I've added some of TileA3 and TileB, and also include a snap of what the houses should look like from TileA3. You'll maybe notice the top houses look more retro than the bottom ones. I've been studying some retro 8bit stuff and recreated some new designs. I hope to stay interested here. As long as I can keep enjoying doing this I'll keep drawing til I finish

 

[Vorpal 86]

It's been a while. Another update after a long time. I'm a bit tired now, but I'll work some more on this dream of mine! hopefully I'll be able to pop in more often. Let me know what I can do to make this thing work OK? Aside from actually working on it.. :sad:

I feel bad not updating this thing for a long time. I'd really love to finish this project. I have a habit of not completing things it seems.. See you all around!