Senior Year Development Thread

[EwanG]

PG-13 it is then

OK, enough posting on here, I've got screens to code

[EwanG]

OK, I'm sorry to be bothering folks about this, but it's driving me to distraction, and I'm hoping there might be someone out there who either already has what I need, or is willing to prepare what I need in return for a chance at fame and appreciation (since there's not likely to be any fortune for this one).

I have all the music and all the background art I need. I'm slowly working my way through my coding and script, but the fact that I have only one character I can throw on the screen is driving me nuts - because then I'm never sure if I've got the right thing coded or not, and I can't tell if I have a good flow going because I get distracted by it.

So, what I'd really (really, really, really) like would be if someone could provide or create my characters for me. The cast is:

Linda - Classmate at the college I attend. Black hair, blue eyes, and fairly slim. Not exactly bookish, but generally serious. Sweet personality, but you get the sense that she still has stuffed animals on her bed at home.
Julie - Works at a local bookstore. Blonde hair, green eyes, and an outgoing personality. Nice figure, but not voluptuous. Wears glasses, and seems to be very knowledgable.
Becky - Waitress at a cafe that both Linda and our protagonist frequent quite a bit. She has brown hair, brown eyes, and a figure that tends to look like it will not be constrained by her clothes or uniform. She also is a bit scatter-brained, though she can rattle off your orders with no problem.
Carla - Works at the college cafeteria. She has dark hair and brown eyes, and is a bit heavy set. But she's willing to help out anyone she can, and is known for feeding the stray animals on campus
Annette - An artist, she has a very intense personality, and a willingness to run a bit wild if given the chance. She has red hair and green eyes, with a medium build and figure.

For all of these, I just need the following currently:

Front pose happy
Front pose embarrased/blushing
Front pose sad
Front pose mad
Front pose confused

Eventually I will need some additional clothing sets for some of these folks, and so it would be great if I can find an artist who might be willing to work with me again in a month or so to add the finishing touches - but just getting this much would make my life a LOT easier.

Thanks in advance,
Ewan

[dizzcity]

Have you tried ALICE yet? It seems to me that what you need more than anything else is just placeholder art, so that you can work out the bugs in the script. ALICE (and Betty, and Alice 1.1) would make a good tool for that. There's just enough variety (and the ability to change the colour scheme of the sprites) for you to create enough different sprites to act as placeholders. I know for a fact that ALICE 1.1 can create all the expressions you mentioned above (mainly because I tried it out myself and produced them all before).

After you've worked out the bugs in your script and have a completed story, that would be the best time to look for artists. Not to sound pessimistic, but there have been examples of first projects fizzling out before, so in the interests of the artists, it would be good to just use placeholder art for now. Plenty of time and opportunity to replace them with the real thing once you've got the script fully-fleshed out.


(On a side note, wouldn't it be nice if someone could compile a free sprite library for use alongside ALICE? Or even gather all the assorted contributions to ALICE from the other artists on these forums... I know there are quite a few which didn't make it into the releases on Rio's page.)

-Dizzy-

[DaFool]

Actually, just check the ALICE thread, there's only about 2-3 additional packs (that's being optimistic, maybe, check again). It's not a long thread, and the attachments still work.

Then again, none of the ALICE dolls are really that complete in terms of full poses and accessories.

You can also get some sprites at the Blade Engine webpages.

But yeah, please use ready-made resources for placeholders.

[EwanG]

Yes, I did DL Alice, and eventually figured out how to create a character using the program (a tutorial is REALLY needed for that IMHO). However, I could only figure out how to get three expressions, and a limited amount of variation in looks using the package.

Which is why I was hopeful I could convince someone to go ahead and start working with me on the art for this. But, if I just have to take longer and make do, then I guess that's the cross I have to bear

[monele]

Hmmm... I keep seeing (and having) this placeholder problem... It might be nice to have a pack of ready-made charas+poses. In my case, I like to make them as shadows (colored shadows) so the placeholder graphics don't take over what I imagine (which happened with Utsukushii Planet faces...).
Do some of you have sprites from various b-games ?

[Mirielle]

Well, I'm busy with the character drawings for my own project, but I'm always willing to provide character voices.

If you want to see my resume and hear demo clips of my voice, then you can check out my resume http://www.freewebs.com/chiruha.

Just ask if you need me~!

[EwanG]

Well, I'm busy with the character drawings for my own project, but I'm always willing to provide character voices.

If you want to see my resume and hear demo clips of my voice, then you can check out my resume http://www.freewebs.com/chiruha.

Just ask if you need me~!

Cool sig art!

Anyway, it will be a couple weeks before I'm ready for voices, but I'll definately be contacting you then!

Thanks,
Ewan

[monele]

*points at sig* Tenma-chan , right?

[dizzcity]

Impressive list of credits for a 15-year old VA. And good luck with the School Rumble fandubbing project!

-Dizzy-

[DaFool]

I never knew the fandub community was so huge. I guess it's much bigger than the VN-making community

Getting voices for your game now is very tempting.

[EwanG]

Weekly Status Report - 10/23/06 - 11/3/06

Yes, I have to cover two weeks for this one, but given that it's my first status report, I hope I can be excused for that. I'll try to do better in the future

Start of this period was my finishing the outline for the project, which led me to begin looking for a VN engine and materials to start putting it together. After reviewing several packages (primarily Flash, NScripter, and RenPy), I decided to use RenPy for Senior Year. This was based on the packages capabilities, as well as the support forums.

Thanks to Resource links on both LemmaSoft and GameDev, I was able to easily complete the acquisition of the Background Art, Music, and Sound Effects required for the project. Character Art has been somewhat more difficult to come by. Currently I am using some character art that was posted by BCS, which I have added tags to in able to differentiate the characters. I am also continuing to experiment with some Clip Art manga characters that came in the "Manga Clip Art" book I purchased last weekend. Between that and a provisional offer of art from one of the GameDev forum admins, I should be able to consider the Character Art covered.

Coding so far has occurred just up to the first three-way decision tree. This is partly because I needed to sort out which backgrounds went with which character's story line, and partly because some additional coding had to be removed when I realized I had confused two characters because of the character art I was using.

In the next week, I plan to finalize the characters one way or the other, and make sure that all of them except for possibly Annette have been coded into the project. At that point I should be about 20% done with the coding. If I can keep to that schedule, then the only thing that might affect releasing the title before the end of the year would be voice acting. And since I have some leads in that area, I am optimistic that won't be a problem.

FWIW,
Ewan

[EwanG]

OK, here's my version (clip art tweaked, colored, and shaded) of Linda. Would appreciate comments since I'll be doing similar "stuff" to the other four ladies, and would like to not have to fix something over and over again...

[Mirielle]

I like it! I can't wait to see what you do for the others!

Oh! And yes, it is Tenma-chan in my sig! And thankyou for the comments on VA-ing. And yes, fandubbing does have a few large communities out there!

[DaFool]

It's a good simple style, and will mesh well with cellshaded BGs.

Actually, this is the style to use if you want to pump out those sprites quickly.

One thing I noticed about sprite creation is that while you're coloring a highly-detailed sprite you tend to notice all the little details, but once its up there on a 800x600 screen you don't notice them anymore and just see the big picture.

The big picture here is that it's pretty.