Utsukushii Planet - 2nd french demo released

[PyTom]

I look at this and I mostly just go "... Yeah. Okay. What?"

Admittedly, it sure looks like the guy who wrote that is campaigning for The Daily WTF?? I mean, no comments, and not even proper indentation...

I'm a bit baffled by the math involved in stretching and distorting stuff.

What's interesting is that Ren'Py doesn't even allow for anything fancy like this. It's all linear transforms + color mapping + dissolves of 2d images. It's amazing what one can accomplish with that little.

(I love the rain effect in Planetarian, which was just 2 or 3 images dissolving back and forth.)

[papillon]

I have blend modes. Blend modes are fun.

My current 'rain' effect involves a stream of particles over a background with a duplicate layer of the same background slightly magnified and blue-tinted. Don't know if I'll keep it forever, but for now it works.

Since I'm intending to pay for art in the long run, any solution that allows me to use the same image and manually recolor/adjust it for different uses is good. This is gonna be expensive enough as it is!

[monele]

I am very impressed with the special effects. You're really pushing renpy to its limits!

Thanks and yes ^^. Once I've seen something done in a fancy way that I feel is within my grasp, I can't help but try to reproduce it ^^;

It works when I put the game files (.rpyb, .rpyc, .rpa) into a fresh installation of RenPy 5.4.5

I'll need PyTom's help here since I have no idea what could cause these bugs people are having ... I guess I should have updated my version of Ren'Py before releasing this :/.

The red flash is as intended. Fade in/out would have looked too "soft". I wanted something more stressful.

All your problems seem to be caused by a lack of refresh. And clearly it is limited to the say box. Strange ô_o

If you ever finish this one and need help with the music, feel free to ask!

Wai~! Given the quality of your music, I'm flattered ^__^. I'll be sure to let you know when the game needs its melodies

Now I should test how all this animation would play on my PII/450.

Oh dear, I sense the world coming to a halt XD. It was already slow on my old 1.5Ghz... I fear what will happen on a PII ^^;. Ah! *reads the edit*... Alright... well I'm definately surprised o_o... Cool!

Now I'm sulking and trying to figure out how to pull some of those things off myself.

Most of these effects use very basic Ren'Py functions. The dissolves based on grayscale pictures being the most versatile of them. I'm curious to see what can be done with the other animation routines . In any case, I'll certainly release the "How To" for these effects at some point ^^.
Does GM stand for Game Maker ?

When I tried to run this game under Windows XP Security Edition, I get this error generated

I hope you get it to work ^^;...

Question for PyTom : do you think giving the font file with the game would be a good idea ? I guess distributing Verdana might not be something legal :/

My current 'rain' effect involves a stream of particles over a background with a duplicate layer of the same background slightly magnified and blue-tinted.

Looks good unanimated . Isn't it too taxing on the processor given the number of particles ?

[papillon]

Most of these effects use very basic Ren'Py functions. The dissolves based on grayscale pictures being the most versatile of them. I'm curious to see what can be done with the other animation routines . In any case, I'll certainly release the "How To" for these effects at some point ^^.
Does GM stand for Game Maker ?

Game Maker, yes. Unfortunately my ability to describe exactly the effects that interested me is limited. That's often the problem, though... if I know what it's CALLED it's easier to look it up.

People who understand graphical effects more than I do are always posting scripts to do neat things. There's some VERY nice reflective lighting effects out there but it's a little over my head.

Some things I'd like to be able to do but can't yet are pinch-warps (dragging the image in towards the center - if and when I ever do *my* space game this would be useful) and page-turn transitions. Just transitioning from one to the other diagonally isn't that hard, but to actually *curl* the image at a corner and roll it over is complicated.

(And while I'm sure the 'streak' sideways transition is doable, I haven't got it yet.)

My current 'rain' effect involves a stream of particles over a background with a duplicate layer of the same background slightly magnified and blue-tinted.

Looks good unanimated . Isn't it too taxing on the processor given the number of particles ?

I can put up a fairly good number of particles before I feel a slowdown on my computer, which isn't that fast, and this being a VN rather than a shooter or something, completely smooth high-speed action isn't needed. If in testing really slow machines have trouble with it I can always put in a toggle to switch off the rain.

Slightly more worrying is the spellcasting puzzle that involves lots of sparkly additive-blending bits. I've capped it to keep it from creating too many sparkles for my machine, but I don't know if it'll be rough on slower setups, and in that case just removing the particles isn't a good option. I'll find out someday when testing comes around. (It's a "trace this symbol in the air" thing, and it needs the trail of sparkly bits to show you what you've drawn.)

[Alessio]

do you think giving the font file with the game would be a good idea ? I guess distributing Verdana might not be something legal :/

No worries, the Bitstream fonts are all open source:
http://www.bitstream.com/font_rendering ... /vera.html
I've also used one of them (the Serif version) for my G!MB VN.

[monele]

People who understand graphical effects more than I do are always posting scripts to do neat things. There's some VERY nice reflective lighting effects out there but it's a little over my head.

Well if I had to code them with maths and stuff, I'd be... effect-less ^^;

(And while I'm sure the 'streak' sideways transition is doable, I haven't got it yet.)

Assuming you always transition to a black screen before transitionning to something else, you could easily cheat through this by displaying a screen wide picture that would move from ... right to left for example.
- Display "streak" picture offscreen to the right
- Make it move over your background until the whole screen is covered by it (ok, it would have to be a bit larger than the screen)
- Change the background but keep the streak picture over it
- Keep moving the streak picture to the left until it disappears.

It's a "trace this symbol in the air" thing, and it needs the trail of sparkly bits to show you what you've drawn

Yay, sparklies

No worries, the Bitstream fonts are all open source

Nice, thanks ! Fortunately there are people making free stuff out there @_@

[PyTom]

Question for PyTom : do you think giving the font file with the game would be a good idea ? I guess distributing Verdana might not be something legal :/

It's not. You can either use a free font (Like good old Bitstream Vera, or its international cousin, DejaVu), or make a SFont out of Vera (the details of which are beyond the scope of this message... hopefully someone (else) will write a tutorial).

[monele]

Thanks, I guess I'll try DejaVu then since I'll need special characters ^^


In other news, I spent today drawing UP's characters I've had in mind for a while now (click the pictures to get the full view).



She's some sort of priestess. She is usually quite serious because of her responsibilities but she certainly has a tender side.




She will be the computer maniac of your team. Despite her shy appearance she has an unhealthy love for all things robotic and weapons... Can you say 'geek' ?




This girl works for the Planetary Security Forces. She always tries her best but is cursed with bad luck and clumsiness. Not enough to make her give up though.




This lady is a ferocious pirate ! Well, ok, not *that* ferocious. She's quite cunning in her "job" but wishes for a more normal life.




And this is a random character. Maybe it will be a villain ^^;


So far, I'm still struggling with the story part... so if someone feels inspired by all this, I wouldn't mind some help >.>...

[papillon]

*hugs all the cute girls*

I'm always willing to throw out random suggestions but generally too busy to be relied on for long-term collaboration.

Therefore, I randomly suggest an intergalactic conspiracy involving smuggling in garbage scows!

[Watercolorheart]

They look cute. Are those the ones that will be starring in Utsukushii Planet that you wanted to request sprites from me for?

I can definitely clean up the linework (read as: redraw and reink digitally) and make workable sprites from these sketches alone, after being given a color palette. And if you tell me which ones are the "main" characters, I can even make multiple sprites.

[monele]

*hugs all the cute girls*

Wai ! X3

I'm always willing to throw out random suggestions but generally too busy to be relied on for long-term collaboration.

Therefore, I randomly suggest an intergalactic conspiracy involving smuggling in garbage scows!

Space scows ? (*suddenly feels a need for space cows...*)

Well, I'm planning to have an episodic/quest-centric system, so anyone could actually add a small story to the game. I'm not sure it would be great for coherence in the writing style but random suggestions definately work

They look cute. Are those the ones that will be starring in Utsukushii Planet that you wanted to request sprites from me for ?

Well, except for the fact they're all story-less, yes, they would be the main girls of the game and would require sprites ^^.

I can definitely clean up the linework (read as: redraw and reink digitally) and make workable sprites from these sketches alone, after being given a color palette. And if you tell me which ones are the "main" characters, I can even make multiple sprites.

Just to be sure : what are you willing to do ? Chibies, waist-up sprites, face expressions, anything else ? And hm... would you just draw over the sketches or redraw them in your own style ?

[Alessio]

Monele, artwork is really great, congrats! If you keep up that level, along with the CG backgrounds we've already seen, this VN is going to blow everybody away. Please, please don't give up on this project. ^_^ (Remember Lemma's #1 rule "Don't bite off more than you can chew"!)

So far, I'm still struggling with the story part... so if someone feels inspired by all this, I wouldn't mind some help >.>...

I'd be glad to help! First make sure you have a plot outline, a character overview, and some basic rules along which lines the story is supposed to develop. That way it will be easier for co-authors to come up with good ideas, and you'll have less trouble sorting them out. Probably the best approach is to develop/brainstorm the story at synopsis-level. Once the shape is finalized, there can be a next round of "who wants to write this part?"

[monele]

Monele, artwork is really great, congrats! If you keep up that level, along with the CG backgrounds we've already seen, this VN is going to blow everybody away. Please, please don't give up on this project.

Well *that's* clearly motivating XD. I'll try my best not to disappoint ^^.

(Remember Lemma's #1 rule "Don't bite off more than you can chew"!)

Oy... Alert, alert! My brain has chewed that idea and spitted it out a long time ago ^^;.... I just love epic stuff, hence I have a *very* hard time staying with simple things ._.
As you could see from the demo, there are already three distinctive paths in the beginning (and four are planned). Even though they all join up after about 15 minutes, you would then be faced with a string of missions that can be done in different orders.

Let's see... off the top of my head, I could say there would be three "axes" of interest for the players : the missions (and whatever epic goal associated with them), the spaceship (and whatever secret it may hold), the girls (and what-- hey!).

With the girls, since there are 6 of them now, I guess I'll stick to a single path, maybe with a few light variations.
With the spaceship and missions, I'm not sure yet. The missions will probably offer two or three paths/endings.

And since I'm crazy, one single game would probably be a mix of what you do with missions, how you do with girls, and how much you discover about the spaceship. Yep...

I'd be glad to help!

Yay ^.^ Thanks

First make sure you have a plot outline, a character overview, and some basic rules along which lines the story is supposed to develop. That way it will be easier for co-authors to come up with good ideas, and you'll have less trouble sorting them out. Probably the best approach is to develop/brainstorm the story at synopsis-level. Once the shape is finalized, there can be a next round of "who wants to write this part?"

Sounds good and that's pretty much what I'm working on at the moment ^.^. I need to figure out exactly what role I want the spaceship and missions to play in the story... and then how all these things could start existing together

[Alessio]

With the girls, since there are 6 of them now, I guess I'll stick to a single path, maybe with a few light variations.

You might want to reduce the number of characters, if that allows you to add more depth to the story. After all, it's better (IMHO) to have 2 completely different paths/stories than 6 identical ones.

[PyTom]

What's more, if one has a story with 6 characters, and they all know each other, there's 6 * 5 / 2 = 15 different relationships to consider. Adding in the POV character jumps that up to 7 * 6 / 2 = 21 relationships... quadratic scaling can get scary quick.

Now, it's possible to have it such that some of the characters don't know each other, which limits the size of the relationship-space that needs to be explored... but it's still probably going to go up faster than linearly.

I think it's probably best to focus on the story/relationships first, and then pick how big the cast will be, rather than the other way around.