AuthorTopic: 2D characters in a 3D world - Himeko Sutori, a tactical JRPG  (Read 4970 times)

Offline NathanielA

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This is a project I've been working on for a long time now.  There's a lot that I'm really excited to tell you about, but let me just start you off here:


It's a bad recording done with poor lighting and old artwork, but it gives you a basic idea.

I'm using some hand-drawn pixel characters based on ShowKaizer's half kaizer template.  Here are some of my newer sprites:



I wrote up some of the technical details on picking the right sprite with an arbitrary camera angle here:  http://himekosutori.com/?p=232

"In a traditional isometric RPG, switching sprites is pretty simple:  If the character is moving south, show his face; if he’s moving north, show his back.  That works because the player’s point of view is always from the same direction.  But what happens when the player’s view is arbitrary? ..."

I realize that I'm not going to be submitting pure pixel art here, but I am going to be using a lot of beautiful pixel art that I'd love to show off.  The game is also going to include a campaign builder that will let you create your own characters, classes, and equipment (just use the same format spritesheet and the same size for other graphics) so that you can tell your own stories with your own artwork.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2015, 10:35:34 am by Crow »

Offline NathanielA

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Hey Crow, did you fix my YouTube embed?  Thanks.  I just today saw the sticky on how to do it properly.

Here's a new screenshot showing off some more pixel armor and hair:


In addition to the pixel art, we have here a water shader, and a little sunburst cylinder that I made. I find that environments look a lot more interesting when I make a primary light coming from one direction and add a dimmer contrasting light from the opposite direction. Here there's a primary light yellow light and a dimmer blue-purple light opposite it.

And as a pointer for any other game designers around, those buildings came as pre-built meshes and they are a HUGE pain to try to lightmap properly.  So I've taken just giving them each massive lightmaps and not worrying how efficient it is. But doesn't that take a long time to build the lighting, you ask? Not really. I've pretty much stopped doing lighting builds on my home PC. My new workflow is this: I make a level on my home PC, save it to Dropbox, RDP onto my AWS graphics instance where 32 Xeon processors churn out in a minute or two what I would normally leave my computer on overnight to build, save the level back into dropbox, shut off the AWS instance to save money, and then keep going. It's working really well for me and I recommend it.

So there you have it.

I'd love any feedback you guys have for me.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2015, 01:07:53 am by NathanielA »

Offline Crow

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Hey Crow, did you fix my YouTube embed?  Thanks.

Yup. You're welcome :)
Discord: Ennea#9999

Offline RadicalDreamer

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Cooool! Is the fighting going to be like The Last Remnant, where you give general orders like (Attack & Heal, Full out Attack, Attack and Conserve Mana) to each squad? What about a story? Elevation? Are those the final unit designs, or just placeholders until you have original graphics? This is literally my favorite rpg genre. You should also consider "Leader" units that can buff the stats of the squad and use special leader-specific skills. I own almost every 2-D/3-D tactical rpg on the PS2 :) I'd buy a new PC to play this if you pull through. Don't judge. My PC is old  :P