Re: I have an Idea for a MUGEN screenpack/full game
December 13, 2008, 08:23:00 am View in topic context
Posted by Locoluis
in I have an Idea for a MUGEN screenpack/full game (Started by inuyasha1a December 02, 2008, 02:57:03 amBoard: Development
My game ideas predate MUGEN by a lot of years. Back in 1994 I sketched up a fighting game in Qbasic. In 2000 I tried again, in C+SDL.
I didn't use sprites at all, except for the background and character faces. All the characters were very crudely drawn by the computer.
Later, I ditched the whole idea as too time consuming. Then I discovered MUGEN. I've even made an original character, Órbita, just to see how much it would take to do the whole thing. And then I discovered that, if I ever wanted to make my project reality, I could not get away without drawing all the character sprites.
That's pretty much the only thing stopping me from creating my own MUGEN fighting game. I've filled many notebooks with character designs, animation designs, special move designs... but drawing actual, 15 colors + transparency, character sprites on the computer has proven to be elusive. I just have no time to draw them.
However, lately I've been toying with some tricks to mass-produce them. I don't own a drawing tablet, and I'm much, much better at drawing on pencil and paper than on the computer. Lately I tried drawing a sprite on paper in grayscale, scanning it and coloring it overlay. I've been toying with this one, figuring out how to draw the sprites so they:
- Keep a consistent look. Proportions must be right for all sprites of the character.
- Scan properly, so to minimize the annoying cleanup process (I hate cleaning up artwork!)
- Coloring and make them look... not pretty, but decent enough. In reasonable time.
And I'm making progress. There are still some details I can do better, but I'm getting there. I believe that, once I figure this out, the massive effort of drawing, like, a thousand character sprites, will take realistic time instead of an eternity.
I'm finally getting some vacation time soon. This mean I'll have plenty of time to sit down and draw stuff. I probably won't be able to make all those sprites I want to do... but at least I'll get a headstart. And then there will be the coding, which is comparatively much less effort. One animation at a time. One move at a time. One character at a time. I'll get towards making my dreams a reality.
AND SOMEDAY I WILL. HAHAHAHA.