Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

[Dr D]

Why'd you change the 'bouncy spawn', the previous version was much more fluid and better looking. Although maybe the animation on it could be slowed down a bit. I think that would be a nice in-between.

[Howard Day]

Dr Sorry I didn't reply straight off! In answer to your question, two reasons: First, I lost the original animation file, and had to re-do it, and second, the smoothness of the original was actually a problem - it didn't look like the health powerup was actually hitting the ground at any points. Adding some stutter to the animation solved that problem.

Anyhow, I'm back working on this! I've kept working on the intro and got quite a lot further on it. I've also started working on the backgrounds for the first level. Your scoutship crash-lands at night in a secluded part of the Forest outside the city I've already built. Anyhow, here's what I've got!
The furthest back layer/the sky/atmosphere base. The stars go behind this. :

Midground hills:

MidForeground hills:


So those glowing mushrooms are gonna have little bugs zipping around them - since I'm not having the trees move on the beginning levels - I'm going for a more pastoral, calm before the storm sorta feel.
Anyhow, I'm pretty excited about this. I really like how the combo of dark forest, stars, and pale green glowing mushrooms turned out. I'll post up the latest intro tonight when I get home.

Enjoy!

[Ninja Crow]

@ Howard Day:
Glad to hear from you!
I can see the stars twinkling and hear the crickets chirruping in that forest already!

(p.s. before I spend too much time looking for the right setting to change on my old monitor, I should probably ask, are the forest images supposed to be only silhouettes?)

[Howard Day]

Ninja Crow: Hahaha. Yep. Those are actually supposed to be fully detailed. hard to tell in the way they had been presented.

That should better show how it looks in-game.

[Ninja Crow]

Your colours must be very dark, because my CRT only shows a large black square with a few green dots at the bottom. 

On my friend's LCD, though, I see a violet horizon, and trees, and hills, and even stars! 

I put the image in GIMP, and when I click the auto-adjust colours button for all channels, a beautiful, vivid image pops into view with greens, reds, and purples.  It's a striking and attractive image, I must say. 

Is there something wrong I'm doing on my end? (sorry to suggest that the 'otherwise' is that it's your fault - the last thing I want to do is put a burden on your development.  )

[dkh]

It's pretty much fine here, especially when I put it in fullscreen mode.

Looks very nice as always, Howard. Two things:

- I don't like that one big cross star that's in the sky three times. It sticks out too much and looks cheap IMHO. The smaller ones are all fine.
- I don't like how the bright green spots are actually brighter than the stars. Looks weird and artificial to me. I would increase the brightness of the stars to make them pop more and reduce it slightly on those plants (?).

[TrevoriuS]

In fullscreen mode its nicely readable on my big screen; though with a bright background around it (the image being windowed, or in this situation just on the page of the forum), as well as on my laptop screen it shows as near shilouettes. Although the stars and mushrooms are visible, I suggest you compare this more to the previous display of imageinary which looks just fine on any screen; because although an image may be nice in some cases, it should be in all, regardless of anyones screen settings. Very appealing work though, the layers should read somewhat more clearly even after readjusting the colours I think, but the way the light is arranged it really pops out nice with an effect of nearly contours still displaying texture of leaves on the trees. I'm definately glad you keep going on with this, as I have been looking at its previous level from a learning perspective for myself as well.

[Howard Day]

Ninja Crow: Well, sounds like your CRT needs to be calibrated. Take a look at the Animated intro, and tell me if it looks any different.
DKH: Thanks, buddy! The cross stars were temporary, and have been replaced. Good call. I'll play with the relative brightness of the stars and glowing mushrooms.
TrevoriuS: I will be adjusting the brightness of these layers to better show up. Take a look at the moving/animated version and tell me if it works for you.

So. I’ve finished the intro…moving on to the main menu.
http://www.hedfiles.net/AbsentEdenIntro.exe -40MB

Lemme know what you think.

[Ninja Crow]

     



     

[Howard Day]

Seriously? I've run it on three different machines. Could you give it another shot?
That really doesn't make any sense.