[heavy - hi bandwith] Two Kingdoms Heroes bits ...

[fil_razorback]

The swamp tileset and the dungeon one are pure awesomeness :P
This is a demonstration of good use of colors and ambient light.

About the sprite, I must say I prefer the FFT one rather than yours I'm afraid >.<

[luxregina]

thanks for the nice words guys

renderhjs > didn't know about that game, I tought I had play most of the Diablo-wananbee - I was wrong

mr_malee > No enemies - I haven't started designing them yet - I wanted to create the maps associated with the tilesets I designed. Now that all maps are done for all available tilesets, wich is roughly a 1/3rd of the overall planned tilesets / maps, I have the choice to either continue on designing additional tilesets, or stop on tilesets for a while, and design enemies and NPCs for the available content ...not sure what i'm going to do ?

ImprisonedPride >I'd probably kidnap her and chain her up in my basement (...) - talking about boundless love, huh ?

Viza > file size : for now, the whole thing is under 1mb - talking about the flash file including the 544 available tiles so far (roughly, each tile <1.5Kb tall ones (buildings, etc <3kb). If the game stays in Flash, I will set myself a max limit of 2 or 3mb, and will split up content according to that limit. Graphics are mostly gifs, so they are very light, but i'm more concerned about sound and music... At the end, it will be a bit of a download, no matter how I split the content, but that would be expected for a RPG game where content and variety usually make /break the game.

Fil > I do like the FF sprite better too - that just means I will have to work more on mine - and that is another reason why i've waited to do NPCs and enemies - to first find what route I want to go with the character design

[Alluvian]

If NOTHING else, What you have here is an awesome graphical resume that leaps off the screen/page. I would hire you as 'Grand PooBah in charge of Spritely Art' in a blink if I had a company.

PS: Oh, and boundless love is over rated. The Bound kind is FAR more reliable.

[luxregina]

Tonight, I got a quick shot at designing my first enemy character ( I know... the legs are ****ed up and the hands are of different proportions ).

I'm planning 35 to 40 animations per sprite : (5 frames walking + 5 attacks + 5 alt attacks + 5 death animation )*2 ( front anims and back anims - left and right are just the same reversed animation )

It's a mockup up, for now, to get a style down ... didn't tried really hard yet to turn that into a sprite, but I was wondering if you guys had any tips on animation of "smooth shaded" sprites ? because it's going to be a pain to animate otherwise ... might go a different route then



Supposed to be a fat, disgusting patched together creature ... in the Necropolis, he is in charge in cutting decomposing bodies in chunks, and melt them in a green substance used for mysterious purpose - and he want a piece of the hero ...literally

[renderhjs]

guys had any tips on animation of "smooth shaded" sprites ? because it's going to be a pain to animate otherwise ... might go a different route then

using a 3d package such as 3dsmax model, rig and render that monster. Is a lot work but in the end perhaps less work as drawing that thingy frame by frame.

[Viza]

Haha, that ogre/troll enemy reminds me alot of the table-top Warhammer ogre's (link)- maybe you could get some extra inspiration from those models.

I think it's prett damn good and I love the shading, but I reckon it looks rather plain atm (maybe you could add some armour or tattered clothes?). Also, the weapons, small head, and skulls look rather weird (the skulls look more like they're attatched to the actual body, rather then the clothing).

I know it all sounds negative, but I've only picked out the things that I thought would be helpful to point out.

Viza.

[luxregina]

Render > humm ...I think to this point, 3D is out of the picture for me : if I know enough to do simple buildings, i'm afraid I don't know the 3Ds enough to model, texture and animate a character : learning that to the point the results are good enough to be on par with what I want to do with the sprites would certainly take way too long. I might better reconsider the shading on my sprite and go a safer route.

Viza - yeah, it still lacks a bit of details and refinements ( though, the skulls are attached to a belt, that just happen to mix too much with the flesh shading ) - as said previously, this was a quick test, most of the shading was done with the burn tool, which provides way too saturated colors anyway ... plus, if I go for the usual hand shading, it will leave room for tweaks and improvements

[Dragonusthei]

Hi,

Just wanted to say it looks amazing.

How many lines of code does a game like this use?

Something i have always wondered.

Good Luck with this.

[SaphuA]

Still looking awesome! Where the hell do you get the motivation to work on a game that long from?

About the orge; everything about it is great, except for the fact that his face looks like it's been made by sticking gum onto it. Something I would never do to an ogre, that's just dangerous.

[Baukereg]

Glad to check out this board once in a while, 2KH makes it al worth it. Great work lux, your project is the most *****ious flash-related project I have ever seen.

Since I'm a full time actionscripter at the moment, I know how hard it is to keep hobbyprojects alive, but your work is truly inspirational.

[UnknownGuy]

Glad to check out this board once in a while, 2KH makes it al worth it. Great work lux, your project is the most *****ious flash-related project I have ever seen.

Since I'm a full time actionscripter at the moment, I know how hard it is to keep hobbyprojects alive, but your work is truly inspirational.

Watch your mouth Bauk :P (Good 'ole FK censorship).

Looks really awesome lux, as others have said. It is just fun to look at.

[luxregina]

Thanks you guys like it, and hope the final product won't desapoint you all

Dragonusthei > the numbers of line is irrelevant at that point, as it is nothing more than an "evolved" engine while i'm waiting to see what happens with the game. If the whole thing is coded in Flash, I would expect it to be quite code intensive though ...

[Al Capwn]

If this game were a women I'd ask her to marry me. If she said no, I'd probably kidnap her and chain her up in my basement. I already love this game. :P

-ImprisonedPride

Hey! That's my wife you're talking about!

Great work seriously, this surpasses anything.

[strille]

Looking awesome Lux! Keep up the great work!

[luxregina]

Thanks Strille

Ok, I thought it could be interesting to show some WIP, since it didn't seem that there was a lot of answers on how to animate smooth-shaded sprites.

Here is a process I tryied ( this is work in progress, final sprite should look more co-ordinated )

step 0 :



Animation is being defined according to a 3D template ( here, i'm using an abomination skeleton animation from world of warcraft model viewer )

Step 1 :



a rough outline is made from final animation : no volumes, just movements with corrections from original template

Step 2:



Volumes are being lously added following a specific palette : the idea of kipping a restricted palette is to make the next animation match smoother the generic drawing

The reason I'm working with a bigger sprite than the one supposed to be featured in-game, is that I do not care much, for now, about pixel art, and that I hope that reducing the sprite size will be tolerant with outlines approximations I did in the original version, in order to go fast ( this because I planned on the sprite to be reduced in size )

Step 3 ( no screenshot - flattened my layer )

I overlay a filtered version of the "volume" render, with a gausian blur filter, to diffuse the shadows and higlights. the overlayed versions are then tweaked on brightness ( -25 ) and saturation (+25 )

step 4 ( no screenshots, layers flattened ....) (once all the images have had the same treatment, then, I start putting them in animated sequence - here, it's barely working - and there is obviously some work to be done, but the sprite start to get where it's supposed to be ... more soon

step 5



this is a rough animation on the walking cycle : if the game goes to DS, then, I'll have to refine the animation, if the game stays in Flash, this animation is likely to be edited, but featured colse to "as is" in-game ...

I don't know if it's the fastest way to create sprites in 2D-iso, but so far, this is what works the best for me !

[smith1302]

Thats awsome lux! Its really cool to see how you animated your dude step by step. He looks sweet.

if the game goes to DS, then, I'll have to refine the animation

what do you mean "IF" don't you mean when? If this doesnt get onto the DS imma be mad.

[luxregina]

I mean that it might not happen, and that I have to be ready for it

[mr_malee]

awesome work.

Nice idea grabbing the war craft viewer

[ImprisonedPride]

Will the enemies be prerendered mc's, or do you have a method for cycling through bitmaps for animations like the one above?

[luxregina]

not sure I understand the question IP ? what do you mean by "cycling through bitmaps for animations" ?

Animation is frame by frame bitmaps (5 for each cycle : walk, attack, etc )