Animated sprites.

[Raijenki]

What you're talking about is not really hard to program with a few tricks.

You didn't got my point.
What I'm talking about is that the concept of visual novel I have is about story with decent sound and decent graphics.
By decent graphics I mean good-looking chars (art / colouring). I just said it's odd, anyway.

There are some cases that animated backgrounds would be nice. Rain, snow (like Katawa Shoujo opening), and others, not the way you're saying. I know they're easy to do and all, I'm just suggesting. If I want to see flashy-animated backgrounds and animated sprites, I'd just download an anime or a movie (unless you do something like this).

[kinougames]

But no one here is discussing flashy animated backgrounds and rolling animated sprites or anything crazy. We're chatting about small pieces that will increase the experience.

Did you think Phoenix Wright was "too flashy" for a visual novel? And actually, the animations I was thinking of were somewhat like the video you linked (only less 3-D because honestly, the constant, constant movement really distracted me, we'd never do that much).

(And I'm seriously confused about why rain and snow are okay, but not a moving river or a slightly moving sprite.)

[LordShiranai]

If I want to see flashy-animated backgrounds and animated sprites, I'd just download an anime or a movie (unless you do something like this).

True, to a certain degree.

Even White Album is not doing anything overtly flashy. There isn't really anything going on in the background. It looks pretty good, overall, though I would argue that the breathing motions are unnecessary.

I think that minimally animated backgrounds are okay. Things like birds flying overhead at random intervals, clouds slowly moving, blinking lights on a Christmas tree, etc. Natural things like water flow, mainly, I think would be okay.

I'd also keep in mind that sometimes certain things work for certain scenes, but not for others.

[Raijenki]

But no one here is discussing flashy animated backgrounds and rolling animated sprites or anything crazy. We're chatting about small pieces that will increase the experience.

Did you think Phoenix Wright was "too flashy" for a visual novel? And actually, the animations I was thinking of were somewhat like the video you linked (only less 3-D because honestly, the constant, constant movement really distracted me, we'd never do that much).

(And I'm seriously confused about why rain and snow are okay, but not a moving river or a slightly moving sprite.)

It's because I've grown playing different Visual Novels than the ones you played.
The first one I saw was Fate/Stay Night, which is still my "Yamato Nadeshiko". I know that there are novels with better graphics and all that shit, but the first one we play is the one that mark us. That's why I find animating weird.

About the animated background: I'll answer it.
It's okay if you make it looks natural, but you (but you I mean all of us) won't make it. Try doing a car passing through the background. For me, it would only look natural if you do the car trembling up and down due to the street, plus the tires running and all, per exemple. It's complex, and just distract the attention of the main point, so it's unecessary. But try checking Katawa Shoujo opening scene: the snow is there because its necessary and even though it's simple, the scene is well worked enough to make us feel confortable.

I think that minimally animated backgrounds are okay. Things like birds flying overhead at random intervals, clouds slowly moving, blinking lights on a Christmas tree, etc. Natural things like water flow, mainly, I think would be okay.

I make your words mine.

[kinougames]

@Raijenki

Using "Yamato Nadeshiko" towards a video game comes off strikingly creepy. >_>

Not everyone's going to like animation, but I think it's definitely a mistake to say "it's not going to be done well". Obviously, don't do something if it's going to look bad, or is done poorly, but it's not like there aren't a ton of VNs out there that HAVE done it well...that you linked to in your posts, even.

If you want to talk about necessary and unnecessary in that way, I could easily say "why did they need to do a distracting snow animation? Why didn't they just draw snow into the picture! It's so much easier and so much simpler!"

(And I'm really not aiming to model anything I do after Katawa Shoujo, admittedly, since the games are two completely different ballparks.)

Furthermore...a car going across the street is only natural to you if it's bumping along the road? Most anime don't even animate that much...do you delete them and hate them...?


@Shiranai
xD That's funny, cause I think that White Album is way more animation than I can handle, because they kind of never stop moving xD

I was thinking more of a small loop for X amount of seconds, maybe once every so often for relevant parts.

[LordShiranai]

@Shiranai
xD That's funny, cause I think that White Album is way more animation than I can handle, because they kind of never stop moving xD

I was thinking more of a small loop for X amount of seconds, maybe once every so often for relevant parts.

I will agree that some of the animation is unnecessary, but I don't find it too distracting most of the time. Maybe because the characters are voiced, so there is not as much need to look at the text. The only animation in that particular video I found to be downright annoying was the girl towards the end who appeared to be breathing way too heavily. (I'm pretty sure the point is to draw attention to her chest, but I found it to be overboard.)

[kinougames]

Actually, the R-E-A-L-L-Y H-E-A-V-I-N-G C-H-E-S-T-S are what I think threw me off the most...mostly because they don't look at all natural. xD

As far as what I'm thinking, it's more like say:

Player clicks the mouse to move to the next line of text.
Character says "Huh...?"
Sprite changes to the "confused" sprite, and the sprite blinks quickly (like people do when they're being pointedly questioning) for maybe 5 seconds and then remains still.

It wouldn't be every single line, maybe just once every 10-20 lines or something like that.

[LinWest]

I think it'd be awesome! That's one of the things i kinda liked about Shira O.. all the animation. Maybe make the delay between the blink a bit longer, I've also seen people add a third quick blink to the animation sequence just to change it up. Fire Emblem 9 +10 use animated sprites, you could look up their animation sequences for some reference.

[Raijenki]

Using "Yamato Nadeshiko" towards a video game comes off strikingly creepy. >_>

I know it sounds bad, it's just my english is so horrible I couldnt find a proper term.

Not everyone's going to like animation, but I think it's definitely a mistake to say "it's not going to be done well". Obviously, don't do something if it's going to look bad, or is done poorly, but it's not like there aren't a ton of VNs out there that HAVE done it well...that you linked to in your posts, even.

Wanna compare work of people who get paid to do it (aka professionals) and people who only do it for hobby (aka fans)?
There's a bit (I mean, A LOT) of difference.

If you want to talk about necessary and unnecessary in that way, I could easily say "why did they need to do a distracting snow animation? Why didn't they just draw snow into the picture! It's so much easier and so much simpler!"

I'll ignore this, I know you're being silly.

Furthermore...a car going across the street is only natural to you if it's bumping along the road? Most anime don't even animate that much...do you delete them and hate them...?

That's why I stopped watching anime

Player clicks the mouse to move to the next line of text.
Character says "Huh...?"
Sprite changes to the "confused" sprite, and the sprite blinks quickly (like people do when they're being pointedly questioning) for maybe 5 seconds and then remains still.

Try making us a preview of it, so we can talk better!

[kinougames]

Wanna compare work of people who get paid to do it (aka professionals) and people who only do it for hobby (aka fans)?
There's a bit (I mean, A LOT) of difference.

Not everyone on lemma is a hobbyist, I'm afraid, and trust me, I know the difference.

I'll ignore this, I know you're being silly.

It's not silly. You can say "it should've been simpler" about almost anything.

That's why I stopped watching anime

In that case, I'll take it as a personal opinion, since my target is anime fans. 8D

Try making us a preview of it, so we can talk better!

I'm pretty sure I mentioned that we're not going to do animation. 8D

[Raijenki]

In that case, I'll take it as a personal opinion, since my target is anime fans. 8D

Well, almost all Visual Novels has that target, since the VNs are originally japanese. I stopped watching animes just recently, because they just became plain stupid.

Not everyone on lemma is a hobbyist, I'm afraid, and trust me, I know the difference.

So do I, but lurking here, I still didnt see anyone professional.
Personal opinion: If I were a company, I'd prefer code a VN engine myself.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned that we're not going to do animation. 8D

I wasnt refering to animation, but about the things you were gonna add in your VN

It's not silly. You can say "it should've been simpler" about almost anything.

You still don't got my point >_>

[kinougames]

So do I, but lurking here, I still didnt see anyone professional.
Personal opinion: If I were a company, I'd prefer code a VN engine myself.

Oh my. You need to look a lot harder than you are. More than one person here sells their VNs regularly and makes a reasonable living, and others still don't use Ren'py.

I wasnt refering to animation, but about the things you were gonna add in your VN

I never said I was using anything here in my game. 8D

You still don't got my point >_>

It's more likely that your point is not understandable...

[Raijenki]

I never said I was using anything here in my game. 8D

Indeed, looks like I messed everything up. When I saw "my group did a test sprite for fun" (or something like it at first post) I assumed you'd use it. Ok, I was wrong.

Oh my. You need to look a lot harder than you are. More than one person here sells their VNs regularly and makes a reasonable living, and others still don't use Ren'py.

I didn't know that VNs had that popularity over the world (aside Japan, of course).
I'll take a better look~

It's more likely that your point is not understandable.

It's more likely I can't explain properly

[kinougames]

Nothing I've posted here on lemma is actually going into the game. xD I try to warn ahead of time that they are only tests (this picture in particular was a color test), but it gets lost in translation at times. At any rate, while we will look at animated sprites in the future, we literally do not have the time for this game.

As far as I've seen, at least 3 people have recorded sold games, there's at least one composer who has been paid to do so, and quite a few pro programmers and artists, and peoplex who offer to port visual novels for a percentage of the sales.