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Multiple "display views" & characters w/swappable heads

Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 12:35 pm
by LMartinson
Hey there Ren’Py developers!

I’m relatively new to visual novel development, having only made one test vn in Unity:
https://youtu.be/FX2DsZngAvo?t=1m48s .

I figured I’d give Ren’Py a shot for my next one.

The Unity vn convinced me that I definitely need to collaborate with a programmer from here on out. So I made a design doc explaining what I’m looking to do:
http://larsmartinson.com/vn-design-doc/

The doc goes into excruciating detail, so I certainly don’t expect people to muddle through the whole thing. The screenshots alone should at least give you *some* idea of what I want to do. (Also it’s kinda similar to my Unity vn, so if you watch a random minute or two of that you’ll probably get a rough idea of what I have in mind.)

Here’s a quick rundown of the three main ways my planned vn differs from visual novel convention:
a) Six different “display views”, each with their own unique text & image placements, animations, and default behaviors. For example, the show statement “show girl happy” would cause different character images to be shown depending on whether the [stageView] or the [talkingHeadSubview] was being used.
b) Full-bodied characters with swappable heads that can be placed around the “stage”, automatically scaling and changing zorder based on their position. It should also be possible for them to be flipped horizontally, change expressions, etc.
c) Dynamic colors based on a limited palette that change for every scene.

So I guess my two questions are:

1) Is what I have in mind viable in Ren’py? Like, would it be relatively easy for an experienced programmer to do, or would it be a massive undertaking, or…?

2) My hope is not just to create one visual novel, but to develop a framework that I could continue to refine on future projects. So ideally, I’d like to be able to continue to use/modify the code a programmer does for me not only for this project, but for future, unrelated projects as well. (Again, that’s just the ideal scenario; if that’s unreasonable, I’m flexible.)
So I guess my second question is: that a reasonable thing to request from a programmer? (Pardon my ignorance, since I’ve never collaborated with a programmer I have no idea what the conventions are, so I wanted to ask before I started my recruitment efforts in earnest.)

Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Lars

Re: Multiple "display views" & characters w/swappable heads

Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:04 pm
by gas
I really love you, if only people could explain what they want so perfectly each time!!

Anyway, you got greater chances of finding someone posting this in the "recruiting" section of the forum, instead of the technical question area :)

Re: Multiple "display views" & characters w/swappable heads

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 10:45 am
by LMartinson
Gotcha. I'll try that, thanks!