FMP 10 - 23rd July

I think I have a solution to texturing the ground, and that is to simply tile the textures - I hadn't really tried this before, but once I figured out how easy this was and how easy it made making objects of various sizes, I decided this was most likely the proper way to do most of these things. I looked at Paper Mario and tried doing something similar to the jungle texture in that game, as that is where this part of the game will take place!

The way I learned to make something tileable is to create the drawing in photoshop first, then use filter->offset, with half the height and width, and then smooth out the middle! Simple and easy, and works like a charm.

This is the tile I made with the pattern tool:









I deliberately made the texture very small - somehow I felt the calling of older games and the need to preserve space! Pasted on the ground tile from earlier it looks like this:


While an improvement from earlier, it clashes a bit with the colours of some of the other objects. The very texture itself also looked a bit 'camouflage-y', and by extension, a bit too serious for what I as trying to achieve. I had another look at the paper mario games, and learned that even in the Thousand Year Door, what passes for grass need not look like grass actually, so I tried another texture again, but this time I couldn't use the pattern tool due to the shape:










And posted on the model it looks like this:











I think this harmonizes a lot more with the playful look I am going for, so I'll be using this for now. One thing that doesn't look right is the side of the object, so I made a different texture for that, and in order to cover the edges with grass I made a simple 3D-object shaped liked paper shaped like grass, to hang over the edges - a bit of a hassle to do so, but it might look good.

Here is the result (from next day):













While this might work if the grass itself was a disembodied object with shadows and such, right now it just looks distracting. I am very happy with how the rock-part of the texture went though - also tileable.
Regarding the grass, I went back and had a look, and was struck by how I hadn't thought of it before:




















It seems the grass is simply a part of the side-part of the texture, so, trying my hand at that, this was the result:















Not only is this much, much easier because, as it tiles, I need not adjust anything afterwards, it also looks better.  I am happy with this - it reminds me of older Mario games, which is exactly what it should.

FMP 9 - 21st July

Took a bit of a break - I feel like that is important to retain some level of energy and imagination.

Not many words today, but I finally dug up some of the sketches I did.

 

I am working on the main pirate character, friendly Pirate NPC's, and two different enemies right now - a boar and a monkey. I quite like the boar-design, but the monkey doesn't feel right to me yet. Guess that is the point of iterative design! I remember seeing a video on designing characters where you really just tried a lot of different combinations of facial accessories, body features and even bone structures, and then you could choose which parts you liked from which character and then combine it in the end. I should try that.

Till next!

FMP 8 - 18th July

This post will quickly be about using patterns and self-defined brushes in Photoshop.

I was messing around with creating the bush from earlier, and somehow I arrived under Edit->Fill, and through some mishap I arrived under using patterns. I tried defining a small piece of bush as a pattern, and then that actually looked pretty decent as a bush!
Here are two examples:





















I chose the top one to include in the scene because, as I had used Random Fill, or something along those lines, it looked more random and natural.












Here is the pattern-fill menu - every green piece of shrubbery is an instance of the pattern I made.

I quite liked the result, and so used it on the giant 'tiles' which represent different areas and scenes and which the character would walk on. I chose quite a hard example to start off with - a scene with grass transitioning into beach.








This looks far less good to me - the tufts of grass clash a bit too much with the otherwise kind of simple aesthetic, and I have to have giant textures for each tile in order for it to not be pixellated or blurry. I'm not really sure how to go about this, but I'll figure it out soon.

Till next!

FMP 8 - 17th July

For my post today I think I'll just talk a bit about the Paper Mario game and what kind of feel it is that I want to achieve and why. I have been programming a bit, the character moves around and the enemy, which looks like this at the moment

 

is starting to move around a bit. If you look at it you'll notice that the legs appear to be behind the actual model, which is a bit of a problem. I did 2D characters and animation before in my game Jingle Hells, but I was using an orthographic camera there, and so there were no issues. Here I am using a 3D camera, and that seems to be causing this distortion. I've posted on the Unity help forums, but I haven't gotten any help yet.

I'll get back to this when I fix it I think.

Regarding Paper Mario, one of the things I loved the most was 1: The partners, and 2: finding items and Badges, which conferred special powers and moves onto the player.

Finding a new partner was the best - they gave you access to new areas through their abilities, and you could even upgrade them through 3 different levels which granted them additional moves in combat! Furthermore, they all had their own personality, and it just really felt like you were going on an adventure with your friends, and in some of the cases, the backstory of the characters were really intense! Absolute story-telling gold!

Of course, they decided to get rid of all of that for no reason, and everyone hated that decision.

Secondly, finding items by slapping trees with your hammer or even finding a rare badge to purchase also made it feel like a living world, and that you were indeed treasure-hunting. I remember thinking there was something very aesthetically appealing about some of the items and how they acted - a simple 2D sprite which acted according to gravity - picking up a piece of fruit and having Mario eat it to restore hearts was actually fun and gave me such a warm feeling playing. They removed these kinds of things from the games, and I feel that is inexcusable. I'll try to add as much of this as I can, though how much will enter the demo version of this project is unsure as of yet, time is going by fast.

Till next!

FMP 7 - 15th July

I've been doodling away mostly (not much time to do that when you've started late on a project I'm afraid!), but I did have time to try my hand again at some 3D object.
I was inspired by some of the objects in the new Paper Mario game, objects which really look like they have been made out of paper and cardboard, and so I tried thinking about how paper would fold over each other in order to make rocks and such, and how a tree made of cardboard could be made to stand by itself.

 

This is what I arrived at after a few hours. I am not sure what to think about the result. The rock to the right has soft normals, while the one on the left has hard normals. The one on the right could maybe look like a piece of paper in a ball, but maybe better skills than mine are simply needed. The ridge across is actually protrudes so in the right angles it casts a shadow like imperfect paper-rocks would. The one on the left is a bit too hard for me, but then again, in the original Paper Mario the edges were quite hard, so maybe it will look alright in an environment like it. I quite like the 'feet' on the tree, it's paper-y without being too much.

Lastly, the bush isn't actually a 3D object at all but a sprite made in photoshop and glued onto a quad in Unity. I made it using patterns, which I havent used before and which I'll devote another post to because that is pretty cool. I gave it a white outline like Mario in Color Splash, but I don't know if I don't think it clashes a bit with the surroundings. I'll have to put it in a scene and get a feel for it.

Till next!

FMP 6 - 13th July

Back from holiday (and with slightly better internet), I thought in order to look at the forefront of what it is I am trying to do with this game that I'd look at Nintendo's upcoming Paper Mario Colour Splash game.

I dont presume to think that I can recreate their level of polish or graphical integrity, but regardless of if I can or not, analyzing their way of creating graphics and laying out their levels will undoubtedly be beneficial.


Holy moley! It seems that Nintendo has really embraced the paper/cardboard aesthetic here. If you compare this picture to one from one of the first two paper mario:



Then it's clear that it was quite a graphical paradigm-shift. I read an interesting point about the first two games, which was that, while the characters were supposedly made of paper, it didn't define the game in any way or fashion, nor was it 'thrown in your face'. The characters just happened to be made of paper. Of course, in the sequel, Paper Mario could transform himself into a paper-plane and a roll, but more than anything it was simply an adventure RPG. In the first picture above, from Color Splash (the lower is from The Thousand Year Door), everything looks like it is constructed out ofpaper - from the bends in the staircase, the bricks that look like they are glued on, to the cardboard-y texture on everything. Mario has a white outline that looks like he was cut out of paper, and if you watch a video of the gameplay, he sways gently as he walks. The attention to detail is staggering, and a personal favourite is the cardboard-wall to the right that is held together by wavy-paper.






Before going on, I'll just quickly remark on the interface - in the first two Paper Mario games, you had 'flower power', which acted like mana in most games - you could use it to employ special moves and powers, but once it ran dry you had to find more. In the last couple of games this has been replaced with an 'ammunition'-mechanic, - in Paper Mario: Sticker Star it was stickers, and here in Color Splash it is paint. This looks similar to the previous games at first, but really isn't - in the previous games, the 'ammo' was reserved for special moves, while in the latter two, it is used for everything. Sticker Star was criticized for employing this kind of ammunition-mechanic, and from the sparse look of the interface - devoid of flower power or equivalents - it doesn't look like Nintendo took the criticism to heart.

Back to analyzing!

The thing that strikes me most here is the water and the small patch of grass next to Mario - the water is in many different layers, and even moves independently from each other in clips. Furthermore, it looks made of especially shiny paper, while the grass looks like it was placed on top of whatever the beach is made of. I like the little shadow it makes - in contrast to most of the other graphics, it is subtle.

An interesting thing I noticed is the tooth-textured platform to the right: in the first two Paper Mario-games, such platforms usually acted as waypoints between different areas - I presumed that was their setup mostly due to memory shortage. From the looks of it, it seems like Nintendo decided upon this aproach again, which would be a welcome surprise (although, looking at the videos, the 'tiles' that the game takes place on are decidedly larger than previously).




 ("Ah, the worn-out jump, what no-one wants to find").

This picture gives us a better look at the tree, complete with holes and textured cardboard. The grass looks like it is physically made of lines of paper on top of each other, like the bushes, and the bridge is made out of glossy paper (the bridge reminds me a little of Micro Machines). The texture detail is staggering, and I wonder how they tiled and added their textures together - but that is for another time. One thing I will note before this blogpost comes to an end, is another look at the bushes, because I recently played Paper Mario 1 for inspiration.

Here are a bush from the first Paper Mario, and one from the latest juxtaposed.





 I just thought the comparison was amusing - I remember in the original, that when you searched a bush or piece of shrubbery, it would fall over - revealing that it was paper. In the new version however, no one is really doubting that anymore!

Till next time!

Pictures copyright:
Paper Mario, 2001, Nintendo 64 [Game], Intelligent Systems 
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, 2004, GameCube [Game], Intelligent Systems
Paper Mario: Color Splash, N/A, Intelligent Systems

FMP 5 - July 9th

Indie-games are resurgent, we all know this. Ironically, they are frequently amongst the highest rated games, critically, and show an umistakable victory of imagination over manpower and brand - quite a great evolution when you are looking to get into the world of (indie-) games!

Indie games are often able to capitalize on nostalgia, and many of the best indie-games are run with pixel-graphics or simple sprites.
My game is in the queer situation of being inspired by a semi-old game, without it being old enough to actually be considered retro - namely Paper Mario 1, from 2001 I think. I want my game to feel like the old one, that is, simple graphics rather than advanced, with cartoonish characters and a funny story. But when it comes to Games Art, it can be hard to look up inspiration for this sort of thing; there's quite a sizeable forum for low-poly art, but whilst beautiful, I don't really remember seeing that type of graphics back in the day - the low-poly graphics weren't a challenge but a necessity.

Here's an example of what I mean:

Weebo, WrestlingMarks.com

TrendHunter.com

Anton Moek

JR Schmidt

These are examples of modern 'low-poly' graphics/art, but they don't feel old to me - they are too stylized. Compare to pictures of actual 'old' game, like Spyro, Crash Bandicoot and of course, Paper Mario:


Spyro the Dragon

Crash Bandicoot

Paper Mario

It seems to be that the difference between the two types of games is that, back then, they were actually trying to make things look as good as they could (within the chosen style of course), whilst with low-poly graphics, people are deliberately reducing the poly-count on models in order to make it look less advanced than it is. It's a funny challenge then, to try to make something look like it is trying to look advanced, but is not.

In this, my poor art skills might actually come in handy!
I love the original Paper Mario, and of these 3 it is the style I will try to emulate the most - a curious mix of 2D and 3D really. I'll devote another blogpost to it later I think, but for now, back to programming.

PS: Nintendo showed some new footage of the upcoming Paper Mario: Color Splash game coming out later this year I believe, and while their decisions regarding the design of the gameplay can easily be called into question, no one can complain about the lack of graphical polish in their games, so I will likely have a look at this later.

Till Next!

Games:
Spyro the Dragon, 1998, PlayStation [Game], Insomniac Games
Crash Bandicoot, 1996, PlayStation [Game], Naughty Dog
Paper Mario, 2001, Nintendo 64 [Game], Intelligent Systems

FMP 4 - 8th July

I wanted to do a quick pirate model without a lot of thinking so I could add the model to the game and start programming - I figured it would also be funny in order to later look back at the old graphisc and see the difference!

I laid the model out separated by joints, like I learned how to do on my previous game:


















Then combined the model in game, parenting the relevant objects to each other.



And there we go! A quick and easy pirate I can use as place-holder graphics while I figure out the movement and interactions of everything.

I don't think I'll create animations for him, because as I am replacing him completely later, it would be a waste of time.

FMP 3 - 8th July

Researching look and feel:

I had already done a lot of research, and had a pretty clear idea of how I wanted my game to feel and look like, but actually achieving that with my level of artistic skills is another matter entirely!

While I won't go too deeply into what I've already written about there, I'll say that main inspiration greatly is the LucasArts game Curse of Monkey island, in look and feel, and Paper Mario. Games like the upcoming Sea of Thieves also has gorgeous colours.

Since then I've scoured the web a bit for more inspiration and artists I like.

http://www.yijenliu.com/Pirate-Characters-Design
I love her lines and sense of personality. I don't know how she learned this, but I'm logging this one for further looking into!




My artistic skills are unpracticed enough for me to introduce simple things like differing proportions and designs - all within the same style, so looking at things like this helps.




Not sure who drew this, but again, unrealistic proportions and a nice sense of character and colour.

To round up this little look (I'll add more artists later when I come across them), there's Jonny Duddle


The art in 'Pirates!' was amazing I thought (better than the story), although I've been having a bit of a hard time finding a lot of sketches by him.

That's it for now, back to work!

Artists:

Yi-Jen Liu. 2016. Yi-Jen Liu. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.yijenliu.com/. [Accessed 28 August 2016].

The Art of Patrick Ballesteros. 2016. The Art of Patrick Ballesteros. [ONLINE] Available at: http://patrickballesteros.com/. [Accessed 28 August 2016].

MURPH. 2016. MURPH. [ONLINE] Available at: http://tysonmurphy.tumblr.com/. [Accessed 28 August 2016].

Jonny Duddle . 2016. Jonny Duddle . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.jonny-duddle.com/. [Accessed 28 August 2016].

FMP 2 - planning, July 7th

When embarking on a project of any size, actual progress is much faster and more consistent if you try to plan out what youre gonna do before you start. To that end I tried briefly jotting down which elements I would need for my demo to be complete, after which I could easily go into detail with each point when I arrived at it (note: These points were all part of my planning document).

Note: I am planning to do everything myself.

• Design:
• Decide on the general look of the game
• Characters:
• Main character - look and animation
• Side character(s) - friendly 'partners'. Look and animation/personality
• Friendly NPCs - look, animation, personality, part in story
• Enemy NPCs - fauna, look, animation, battle statistics and possible tactics.

• 3D objects
• Flora - trees and flowers, leaves, bushes
• Rocks and stones
• Water objects, boats, lilypads, bridges perhaps
• Tents, crates, barrels and so forth. Objects for populated areas
• Possible enemies/characters
• 2D objects
• Flora - bushes, leaves, flowers and so forth.
• Miscellaneous objects
• Programming
• Movement system
• Character - running, jumping, interacting
• Partner - follows the main character
• Enemies - moving around, attacking, misc.

•  Combat system
• Turn-based combat, experience awarding, seamless join and exit combat scenes
• GUI-system 
• Log health, experience, items and the like. 
• Dialogue system
• Seamlessly load and display dialogue betwen characters in game
• Loading text files and parsing through them
• Combining with either GUI or in-game text to display conversation

• Miscellaneous points, like flickering fire, moving water and particle systems.

As you can see, this is a mouthful, but if we aren't ambitious then we can never acheive lofty goals either. I want this project to be good enough to get possibly Steam greenlit at some point.

Final Major Project 1

Hello reader! I'm sure there's one of you.

We started our Final Major Project, henceforth the FMP, in June, and before I start the actual chronicling of the project, I'll introduce the period around its beginning.

Firstly, I had not anticipated that I would have to do the project at all - I wanted to elect to stay an additional year, and so delay the project until September. However, after thinking that for a long time, I realized, quite late, that it wasn't actually a possibility, and so I had to start the FMP with a massive delay, both in planning and actual time.

Oh well! We have to be flexible, right?

Being that I started late, I was actually away on holiday for a few weeks, and as such didn't have readily available internet-connection - because of that, I wrote down blogposts as files on my computer, ripe for later upload. However, when I returned I felt too far behind to sift through and upload the posts in order, and that notion continued as more time passed by, which is why I havent gotten around to it now. Iwill upload each post with the date it was written, if I remembered writing it down.

To reiterate, the game I've decided to make is a role-playing adventure game in the style of Paper Mario. I loved the Paper Mario games as a kid, but recently they have gone away from the parts of the games that people liked, and the games are nowhere near as well received. When I saw their latest version, I decided to try and make a version of my own.

Next post we will begin in earnest!