TLE Sprite v2 demo

[BunnyKinx]

hiya,

we at the lost element have been having problems with are HUGE sprite template. and think we have finally got it to a good standard. This is almost completely down to Clest (Rmxp.org Member) who has worked day and night for the past month.

This sprite will contain over 200 frames for just walking and running along and many more for other animations

AND there will be 5 of these templates being released over the next 5 months

The male (this one), fat male, female, child and old person.

anyway please tell me if you can spot any problems with this

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/Clest/TLE/sideback.gif[/img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/Clest/TLE/back.gif[/img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/Clest/TLE/sidefront.gif[/img]http://thelostelement.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/front.gif[/IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/Clest/TLE/side.gif[/IMG]

-=EXAMPLE=-
1http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/daemonic_shadow/TLE/1.png[/img] 2http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/daemonic_shadow/TLE/2.png[/img] 3http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/daemonic_shadow/TLE/3.png[/img] 4http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/daemonic_shadow/TLE/4.png[/img] 5http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/daemonic_shadow/TLE/5.png[/img] 6http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/daemonic_shadow/TLE/6.png[/img]
7http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/daemonic_shadow/TLE/7.png[/img] 8http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/daemonic_shadow/TLE/8.png[/img] 9http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/daemonic_shadow/TLE/9.png[/img] 10http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/daemonic_shadow/TLE/10.png[/img] 11http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/daemonic_shadow/TLE/11.png[/img]

Spoiler: The Steps

Step one:
Grab that standard issue boring gray underwear. Remember knights, you're not here to look good, you're here to serve!

Step two:
Now, your armor is going to be heavy and sit on your shoulders for a long time... so for a small bit of comfort, put on your neck guards... notice that cashmere feel of 3000 years ago? this stuff isn't half as expensive but at least you can feel posh while patrolling.

Step three:
Now the fun part. Getting trousers that are obviously 2 sizes too small on... If yours fit perfectly then you will need wash them beforehand just to make sure that they are so tight that you guys are going to be singing an octave higher.

Step four:
The undershirt is next. Simple, arms up, shirt over head, arms down. If you can't do this. Retire now. After the shirt your extra padding goes on and straps up, notice how it matches your socks? Girls, please note that you get an extra layer of shock padding on the shoulders as your shoulder pads of your armor are lighter so blows are likely to land heavier.

Step five:
This, recruits should be simple... These shoes are slip-on, standard issue and as flashy as hell. If these babies don't turn a few heads on their own... you need to stop wearing them as gloves.

Step Six:
Easy bit now. Just Like any other skirt, undo the zip... over hips, do the zip back up. No, this doesn't mean you get to take the trousers off (do you really want to have to wash them again?). Notice the weight? No padding for these... Suck it up... You're a trooper now.

Step Seven:
Notice how the armor has little clips on the inside? Well use them, they clip straight into what you're wearing.

Step Eight:
Like Seven, just clip in place and feel the weight that means you wont be jumping about for the next 8 hours.

Step Nine:
Notice the following. These are standard issue skin-tight ultra flex gloves with full feal... Not to be confused with rubbers. These are purely synthetic and resistant to fire, water, wear, tear and even.... stains.... Remember please, that these gloves are for your hands...

Step Ten:
Now the hard part. The helmet goes on the head... but remember those gloves? they're damn annoying to wear while undoing and refastening the clips that hold this baby in place but once its on... you're ready to go.

Final Step: Step Eleven:
See that button on the side of your helmet? No? that's because this particular model (the "IaNOY_U_10ADS" model) had the button inside. It's on the left but dont worry, it's so small that you'll never hit it with your head. Found it? Good. Now notice how much grip your gloves have against your face?

If you now have your hand stuck in your helmet, everything is running smoothly. Get your partner to pull it out and you're both ready to roll.

Notice how the phrase "the future's bright.... the future's orange" comes to mind?

Okay okay. For the people that have gone out to sign up please take note. this is just a record of the steps I've taken to design the sprites for them. Please also take note... I AM NOT A PART OF THE TEAM as I'm not as talented as the rest of you but zoomzooom asked me to post any updates I have done here.

It is also requested that you take note that I am totally new to spriting anything this big so I'm doing it layer by layer and YES I DO KNOW that half the stuff I've drawn won't appear in the final product as the amour will cover it but it's fun just drawing every layer of clothing I imagine them to be wearing.

Any comments and criticism are welcomed. Thank you for reading this.

Every time I finish the next part, I'll add it here.

 

[Mac]

Wow xcemu...thats the best big sprite i've seen....great work!

Your animation is very nice for it too....but...if you watch the hand it glitches at a certain frame.

 

[BunnyKinx]

yes the feed back I have had have mentioned that and it will be fixed in the next couple of days we are working hard on getting the side and the diagonals done at the moment.

also its CLEST that did the hard work

ALSO whilst im at it. If anyone would like to help us by spriting on this template please pm me OR clest.

 

[Makasu]

It looks good I'm not going to lie about that. BUT!!!! I think the head should move a bit no? Or maybe thats just me....either way its looking good in my opinion. And man Clest has some talent. Hahaha. But good job. But why the second thread? Just update your old one.

 

[BunnyKinx]

I forgot about that one. I will get it closed thanks for the reminder.

and cause its a template we wanted the head to stay still we will add the movement onto the sprites as we make them, cause when the hair is on them that bounces and you do not see much of the face. and on the idle animations it moves

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/4066/thisbc2.png

 

[Clest]

Thanks for the comments ppl

Regarding the hands, indeed I think the arms get too short when pulled back, but the hand change is actually a perpective change from when you can't see it in the same angle.

The length issue will be fixed soon

 

[arev]

Hi XcuMaSoft. The sprite looks great, but be aware that big spritesets cause lag in rmxp. I, myself, am using sprites with 72 frames in total, and, sad to say, the number of events I can deploy on a map is rather low if I don't want the game to lag.

 

[BunnyKinx]

no its cool. we are remaking the engine and editor so its all set up different and works cool :D

thanks for your concern

 

[badmonur]

i think its pretty awsome lookin.

 

[Hevendor]

no its cool. we are remaking the engine and editor

You know, you could just ditch RMXP and make the game from scratch =x

 

[Axerax]

You know, you could just ditch RMXP and make the game from scratch =x

In addition to that...
If you are changing the RMXP editor in any shape or form, that is illegal and against the RMXP EULA. You can add onto them, and utilize what is given, but you can't change or edit what they already provide you and sell it as commercial.

In simple words, editing the default scripts, is illegal, adding to them is not. Creating custom scripts is obviously not illegal as well.

Comments on the sprite... It is nice, Clest did a great job and all, but honestly, in my opinion a sprite that big, is a huge turn off to me, you might as well went with a 3D editor, RMXP just doesn't suit sprites like that in my eyes, it is more for the classical SNES/GBA and even some DS games... 200 frames, jeez, your game will never get done at that rate. Honestly, a 3D engine, is better suited for something that detailed.

But that is just me.
~Axerax

 

[Venetia]

It IS very good looking, and quite an accomplishment to make so well animated. However I have to agree with Axerax; making a game with a sprite using over 200 frames will never get made. It's the reason why all your Final Fantasies and Chrono Triggers and Legends of Mana from the 2D realm have sprites which are animated with only a few frames. It's because there are a lot of people in the world and giving all of them 200+ frames is not only going to make your game so ridiculously huge no one will download it, but it'll slow your game to a crawl no matter what editor you use because no processor will be able to handle more than 5 sprites on the screen as it stands (and I have a nearly top-of-the-line PC). Uncompressed PNGs are NOT small in filesize, and your sprite there isn't small in size.

That isn't to say we're not all hugely impressed--it's just that I think you folks have too much work cut out for you and will be disappointed when your spriter(s) collapse from carpal tunnel and exhaustion and your game hasn't even been 1% completed yet.

I know I'm feeling that, making 100% custom graphics, and I'm not doing 200+ frames!

That all being said, nice sprite.

 

[Axerax]

It IS very good looking, and quite an accomplishment to make so well animated. However I have to agree with Axerax; making a game with a sprite using over 200 frames will never get made. It's the reason why all your Final Fantasies and Chrono Triggers and Legends of Mana from the 2D realm have sprites which are animated with only a few frames. It's because there are a lot of people in the world and giving all of them 200+ frames is not only going to make your game so ridiculously huge no one will download it, but it'll slow your game to a crawl no matter what editor you use because no processor will be able to handle more than 5 sprites on the screen as it stands (and I have a nearly top-of-the-line PC). Uncompressed PNGs are NOT small in filesize, and your sprite there isn't small in size.

That isn't to say we're not all hugely impressed--it's just that I think you folks have too much work cut out for you and will be disappointed when your spriter(s) collapse from carpal tunnel and exhaustion and your game hasn't even been 1% completed yet.

I know I'm feeling that, making 100% custom graphics, and I'm not doing 200+ frames!

That all being said, nice sprite.

That is really the main reason, along with many other main reasons why i switched from RTP to Breeze, graphically pleasing, small in size, able to be animated when needed as well. I actually can't stand sprite bigger than HK, and even those I don't much like either.

 

[Clest]

Well, thank you guys for the nice comments on the template, makes things far more bright =^.^=

And well, the templates will get made, probably at one per month rate, that is for sure.

For the actual characters, indeed we will need a lot of spriters, specially to animate (since I will mostly dedicate to template and base sprite concept). But I trust Soft and team

 

[Axerax]

Well, thank you guys for the nice comments on the template, makes things far more bright =^.^=

And well, the templates will get made, probably at one per month rate, that is for sure.

For the actual characters, indeed we will need a lot of spriters, specially to animate (since I will mostly dedicate to template and base sprite concept). But I trust Soft and team

Your welcome, critique is always a welcome helping hand. But technically, all of your spriters will have different styles, ultimately be a downfall for TLE graphic-wise. You also would need an army of robots working 24/7 to get that kind of work done, no one is going to want to do that, unless you were paying them big time dollars.

Even bigger name companies pay spriters to do animated stuff on smaller frames to resolve our issue of lag at hand. And pay them big time dollars for something smaller, it just isn't possible, people will get discouraged.

No offense to the game, I'm just trying to warn and give some nice advice.

 

[BunnyKinx]

ok time to clear some things up.

@Axerax,
Our editor will be legal, cause we are building it IN rmxp. and we are not changing the main scripts, (we are just not loading them) our editor is built out side of rmxp but the main script to load the infomation is in RMXP,

Example.
Our editor - we build the sprite rules for EACH npc
our editor - Save the information into an encrypted file NPC_001.tle
RMXP - Write our interpreter into a script (at top of the list)
RMXP - Opens the NPC_001.tle and sorts it all out

--

@Venetia
I understand the reasons you are thinking like that up until a few weeks ago I would have agreed, but because we are thinking hard it means that ONLY the party members and main npcs would need a full sprite set, and the new scripts allow us to load ONLY what we need. and save that into a loaded segment. meaning that the game saves a seprate file at the start of each map with ALL the USED sprite sections in it. Also we have scripted it to read the name of a .png file, so here is an example

Party_Seven.png - Loads the whole template
Line_Npc_001 - (line means only 8 in a line animation) loads and
uses just that line. and we can set up that line how we want.

there are more options we have all done by filenames and TLE:Events...

I hope this clears a few things up.

we should have a little demo soon, (just a tech demo)

EDIT:
Thanks clest for letting people know you are dedicated to this sprite.

@Axerax
Its not big time dollars but clest IS being paid. and also we are doing a system to ensure everything stays in style.

Clest is doing ALL standing poses. and then skye is doing the rest, with squall as well... but then i will get a seprate spriter just for shading to ensure they will be identical. AND then clest will go over and do the final check

 

[Axerax]

You realize that sprites for games like Final Fantasy make like millions a year. That is what I mean by big time.

That isn't my point. 200 Frames, is more work than I can put into a single day, having it set to a specific requirement could make it longer. It just seems overly excessive and to many frames.

And don't just think about normal characters. If you do NPC's the same way, it could take an eternity and a day to get em all edited. But hey I could be wrong, never know.

 

[BunnyKinx]

lol like we said. MOST npcs will be using our 8 frame line command. so we only load a png of 8 frames.

and i know it seems like alot, but without all them frames it just seems far to choppy, that animation only has 8 frames

most sprites will only use 64 frames at anyone time. its the running animation (10 frames) that adds up

also the jumping the climbing.

so please see the high frames to be the ONE character you play as at a time.

we have estimated ONLY 20 sprites in the whole game will use all frames.

 

[Venetia]

You realize that sprites for games like Final Fantasy make like millions a year. That is what I mean by big time.

Actually they make anywhere from $40,000/yr to $120,000 (approximately, converted from yen, depending on level, education, and experience), paid on a commission-style basis per work done for the most part. (I was given a chart on the highs and lows of character designers'/game designers' salaries based on company, and Squeenix is on there.) And their 2D stuff was most likely significantly lower, since they were not as popular as they are currently. Also, I've heard that Squeenix sucks to work for, too. 90-120 hr work weeks and difficult upper management. That's hearsay, though, they may be lovely people.

The average character designer for a big-label game should expect anywhere from $30,000 to $60,000 for 2D work and $57,000 to $80,000 for high-res 3D modeling and 3D CG art. More advanced and middle-management-level echelons can expect more. This varies wildly from country to country, from company to company, and it all depends on experience and who you know, really.

Just clearing that up, before some people who lurk the topic start getting stars in their eyes ^_^

(Also, someone with not-very-much education and no experience would most likely work for free as an intern for anywhere from a few months to a few years for a chance to get a position.)

------------
@ XcuMaSoft

That's cool, XcuMaSoft. I'm glad that you're not trying to do 200+ frames for each character, lol, and if you have a system of making it all work, then it's gravy. It just pains me to see people too overzealous, because that's really the way I am. Sucks to never finish anything completely ;')

If you do pull all this off, then it'll all be quite a great accomplishment.

 

[Meticlan]

It just pains me to see people too overzealous, because that's really the way I am. Sucks to never finish anything completely ;')

Believe me - when I became Project Director of TLE (and before I was), the first thing I did was have a long talk with BK about how ridiculous his goals were. My overall responsibility is to see that this project gets done - so, obviously, I had a lot to say.

But, after talking with him, and seeing the work our main scripter is putting into the game engine, I am fairly convinced that we can reach our goals. And, I am constantly monitoring, evaluating, and altering our goals in an effort make certain that they remain attainable.

So, I understand all these concerns about the seemingly "overzealous" disposition of BK; but if any project can make these things a reality, I believe that TLE can.

While I am not the most visible member of the team (so it's easy for non-team members to forget I'm here), I assure you, I am doing everything in my power to make certain this game gets done.

You all may not see me here very often, but I am a big part of TLE. Remember, BK isn't alone on this project.

And, with this community's continued support, there is no end to what we can accomplish together.