KS: The Fighting Game

[murdermajig]

Hey guys, I made a "Sprite" of Rin but is incomplete. Its still missing the head though

[Darkish-One]

And I head a sprite of rin i was making but failed on the other day, a basic head and a failure of a body. I think I deleated it though. If I didn't you can take the head and see if you can modify it to your style.

rin sprite.PNG (2.53 KiB) Viewed 6331 times

actually i found it pretty fast but now that I look at it, the face wou'ldn't even come close to your style. Eh maybe you can use the outline of the hair so you don't have to struggle as much as i did.

[murdermajig]

To tell you the truth, Im actually cheating abit. Its a 3d model I created in maya with toon shading to make it look 2d. Its easier for me to animate this way

[Darkish-One]

now that you mention it, I cant see it but only a little bit. Man very slick, i really thought it was a sprite.

[Snow_Storm]

I guess I can throw in my hat. I need to build a resume' if I ever wanna get a career composing music for a company anyways.

Name: Snow_Storm/Ben
Position: Musician, Beta Tester, Researcher (I know a few things about fighting games to help out)
Example of work (If possible to show) (See Below):


The only non-orchestra like song I've wrote in my life. I would had done more with but I lost a good chuck of music files and VSTi due to a hardware failure.

The rest are a few original orchestra-like pieces and remixes. I could do a different style of music if need be but orchestra stuff is my strong point.

(Original)
(Another original orchestra piece.)
(ORchestra remix of the Panty and Stocking ending theme)
(Other original)

And I also play violin. Just in case if Iget choosen to do the music and another sound guy need some violin work in the game or whatever.


However, I may not use the violin as much if chosen because I don't have the right gear to do a good recording (Mics, ProTools, an preamp, etc.)

[Halkure]

This...sounds..just to awesome! I wish there was something I could do to help but don't have the skillz needed:/

This project just looks awesome.

If you need somebody who's good with words, count me in.

Thanks guys. (: It's still motivating to hear there's interest!


Majig, that's pretty interesting. Are you very proficient at animating in Maya? We might be able to use a keyframe animator.

[murdermajig]

Majig, that's pretty interesting. Are you very proficient at animating in Maya? We might be able to use a keyframe animator.

Im not the best 3d animator, but I know movements. It will be easier for me to animate in maya 3d than it is in a 2d sprite maker

[murdermajig]

I got a small test walk going on along with a head. Its not finished and is a horrible walk cycle(my animation is rusty). I used a renderer I didn't want to use because the other renderer was acting up.

[blackmage62]

I got a small test walk going on along with a head. Its not finished and is a horrible walk cycle(my animation is rusty). I used a renderer I didn't want to use because the other renderer was acting up.

Not to rain on the parade, but it is my opinion that 3D sprites would not look nearly as good as 2D sprites.

[Ryto]

I got a small test walk going on along with a head. Its not finished and is a horrible walk cycle(my animation is rusty). I used a renderer I didn't want to use because the other renderer was acting up.

Not to rain on the parade, but it is my opinion that 3D sprites would not look nearly as good as 2D sprites.

Agreed.

[Halkure]

Not to rain on the parade, but it is my opinion that 3D sprites would not look nearly as good as 2D sprites.

Yeah, that's my sentiment as well. Everything will be finalized in 2D.

[Sajomir]

Not to rain on the parade, but it is my opinion that 3D sprites would not look nearly as good as 2D sprites.

Bingo. If we used 3D models for anything, it would be to set up a frame of animation, then we'd draw a sprite based on the model. Admittedly, it could be useful for certain props. Or as another example, if we were to have Emi in her leg blades, 3D modelling would be very helpful for setting up the drawing.

[iamjagman]

Name (Username, or what you want us to call you):
iamjagman

Position (Spriter (Characters, Stages, Screenpack, Intros/Endings (If we have them), Sprite Cleaners), Coder (Character, Screenpack, Stages), Beta Testers, Musician, Researcher):
Beta Tester, Researcher, and if you need me to be a Coder, I can. Know Java, Javascript, and HTML pretty well and could learn a new one if needed.

Example of work (If possible to show):
None really... Made a minecraft mod a while back, but that's a different language and buried really far down in the forums...

[Loona]

Not to rain on the parade, but it is my opinion that 3D sprites would not look nearly as good as 2D sprites.

Yeah, that's my sentiment as well. Everything will be finalized in 2D.

You mean like this: http://kofaniv.snkplaymore.co.jp/englis ... /index.php
modelling in 3D then refining frames one by one to make it more 3D?


The concept of the project looks interesting, but there not that much info in the OP - from what I read, it seems the project once had its own focrum, which is gone now, so a few important issues remain unanswered to someone who just found out about it even after reading through the topic:

- How many attack buttons do you intent to use as a standard, and for which general functions? Clearly a typical division between punches and kicks doesn't necessarily make a whole lot of sense here (Rin factor... I have a few ideas on her which I'll toss in later in the post) - I think someone mentioned something about a "low" attack button? Generally a system of making buttons correspond to attack strenghts and speeds (keeping these inversely proportional) could work well (MvC3 uses this, for example, and looks quite adequate for a diverse cast of characters which may be armed, unarmed, tentacled aberrations or riding a mech). Most importantly of all for a project, the number of buttons directly affects the amount of required animation work (i've heard about a could of years ago that there was a 1-on-1 fighting game for the PS1 called Evil Zone where there was only 1 attack button, so range and timing were what affected which attack was used at any given time, might be worth studying as a curiosity)

- What conventions will affect all characters? Mugen lets you override its common1.cns file so that standard actions every character has like jumping or blocking are no longer mandatory, and off the top of my heard, staples like blocking and throws look hard to do for Rin - it's not impossible to find ways to give them that, but it's worth considering that throws exist so blocking isn't invencible, so removing one may remove the need for the other, for example. Another example is jumping, which can work as a wy to get around a character's ranged attack advantages (Lilly, I guess), but may be tricky to use decently with Emi (the prosthetics may handle running and those little hops she does, but jumps as high as the fighting game convention of letting characters jump higher than each other's heads would be trickier for her to land from)

- How down-to-earth are animations meant to be? Can the characters summon things out of thin air for given moves or animations (that idea of having a canvas appear in front of Rin when she's blocking comes to mind), or is the intent to keep things more down to earth, with nothing being used that the characters don't have on their person? The former opens some interesting possibilities, like having Emi switch prosthetics between moves/animations to match what she's doing (something sturdier for jumps, kicks, blocking and grounding herself decently while punching, the running ones for dashes, for example, and maybe even going the extra crazy mile and having her super being her on a wheelchair with a cowcatcher ramming the opponent like a train - I recall seeing something like that in the Something Positive webcomic, I wish I could find the strip - maybe while the nurse is pushing it; chainsaw legs for kciks like Lord Raptor/Zabel from the Darkstalkers/Vampire series invariably come to mind too). Ultimately you guys decide if this is meant to be as relatively grounded as KS or as mad as Katawa Crash, but deciding on a tone for it early on would certainly help to shape the project - even if less so than the choice of buttons...


Those being said, some thoughts on individual characters (as a unifying tendency, i prefer their "civilian" clothers to the school uniforms, for what it's worth...):

Emi:
- what moves she gets depends a lot on the general system and tone of the game, but she absolutely must have some kind of dashing attack ("the haaaals are alive/ with the crashing of Emi/ Despite reprimands/from the Student Council..." </JulieAndrews>)

Hanako:
- I'm yet to play her route, but I get the feeling that the unifying principle in her gameplay should be keeping the opponent away - moves that push them back far, maybe throwing stuff, a fast backdash, a slow walk forward,that general principle...
- the latest version of Mugen lets you change a character's palette in real time, and there's a trigger detecting which direction a character is facing - so it's possible to avoid Sagat's eyepatch swapping syndrome by coloring her scars on both sides with different colors while using the palette-switching trick to make sure only the right (well, left...) side has the burned color, while the opposite side gets the default skin color assigned to it - think Gill from SF3 (I'm not sure if someone did a Gill in the recent mugen that does this, but it's certainly possible now).

Lilly:
- if you're going for a tap-into-confirm-for-hit system, you might want to look into the Last Blade series - it gives every character a universal parry button which turns into a successful attack if pressed a 2nd time after parrying an opponent's attack with the 1st press - a modified version where every button of hers taps at a different height or something as a "detect" and subsequent presses become actual comboable attacks if following a successful "detect" could be interest, but this depends on a lot of game system stuff I currently don't know about (thus the early questioning in the topic)
- given her usual composture and issues detecting other people, I keep imagining her playing like Yamazaki (Fatal Fury/KoF), a character that is at his best countering everything the opponent does while holding his ground, tossing out a few medium-distance attacks
- in Mugen there's at least one state controller that lets you turn off life bars during a match, not to mention the ability to simply cover theactive characters completely with a sprite made large enough to cover the screen - I'm not entirely sure it's possible to make the hit sparks appear on top of that, but basically it's possible to simulate playing actually blind, if not necessarily desirable; there's a trigger that lets mugen detect if a character's being played by a human or the AI, so this could trigger such a blind mode, possibly in conjunction with a different trigger detecting the currently set difficulty level.

Rin:
- stance system: for one, a lot of her tasts are done while sitting/laying down, which should reflect on her moves to some extent - Chin Gensai from KoF comes to mind as a character that uses this, and even if I hardly know the character's intricacies inside out, I figure he may be worth looking int, even if what for him is a special stance for rin becomes the default crouching state. Still, while standing up, it may be worth giving her a couple of alternate stances which could be switched by using certain moves - a "leg raised" stance has been proposed and apparently accepted to use quick quicks, but other heavier moves (like a strong headbutt or shoulder slam) could be used from an alternate stance with both feet on the ground, spread more apart for balance; for some reason I keep thinking Voldo (whom is supposed to be blind, deaf and mute, if I know my Soul Calibur lore), and while his issues are very different from Rin's, i can totally imagine her being the awkward-playing technical character of the bunch with unusual looking movements - also, at least from my experience with SC2, that game did a good job implementing stances, which could work well with Rin: for example, Ivy in SC2 has a special in short sword mode called Venom lash, where she briefly uses the sword as a while until if returns the sword mode - if she holds the button while using the special, when the move's over she goes into a different stance, Serpect's Embrase, where the sword is more whip-like and partially wrapped around her back, from which she can use some medium to long range moves exclusive to it - i liked how that system made the stance switch an optional transition from an attack instead of something isolated which was specifically triggered as in character's like SF's Gen, at least.
- paintbrush: she could hold one in her mouth, which could help he deliver short weak stabs, and maybe she could use a special where she shook her head while holding it to through out some paint, a sort of projecile attack which could do little to no damage, but leave the victim stunned for a moment (the assumption being the paint hits the victim's eyes - I guess Lilly could be immune); I keep thinking that could be replaced with a cigarrette during a super for extra damage, but it would be trickier to animate (it might be necessary to animate the paintbrush and cigarrette as objects separate from the character itself, like at least one Captain America for Mugen did.)
- (far-fetched: if any character's getting charge-base specials, Rin should be it, as pretty much everything she does requires more practice and premeditation as everyone else)

Shizune:
- it would make some sense to make Misha a part of her attacks, like calling her for specials or supers, and the button pressed determining where she appears from or attacking from which height, there are plenty of characters that do stuff like this in existnig fighting games to differing degrees (Doronjo in Tatsunoko Vs Capcom, Sankuro in Samurai Shodown 5, Chang, Yun and Kyosuke in Capcom vs SNK 2, to name a few)
- I'm not too versed in Mugen's sound controllers, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't possible to shut down all sound during a match, which could be kinda adequate while playing as her



That's it for my brain farts, and I hope if my questions have answers they'll be edited into the OP eventually for the benefit of anyone curious enough to help.

[A Humbled Fan]

Do you guys still need beta testers for the future? I can also proofread and edit scripts if you would like (B.A. Psychology with a minor in English).