Jump to content

Leaderboard


Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/15/2014 in Blog Entries

  1. 1 point
    Hello-lo people! I bought Humble Bundle a couple days ago, and discovered Game Character Hub. It's not exactly my thing--I tried it out and I think I may prefer my good old Photoshop way better--but it did give me some inspiration. As you may know (or maybe not), I create all of my portraits 100% from scratch--no bases (except when I first started), no templates, no color swatches, outlines, nada. And while I do love this method, it takes...a long time. Like a REALLY long time. :\ (Now gear yourself up, because this is going to be a LOOONG post.) Sooo, I decided to make my own generator. I have always considered the facegens of the RPGVXA system to be some sort of abomination and crime against aesthetics. ^^" Just my own humble opinion--and another thing I noticed was that generators tend to spin out characters that look too similar mostly because they have the same poses or big features. Small detail changes as well are big changes can totally change a portrait. Take Archeia's Emily from Porcupine Prin (all rights to her and EB! So NO, you cannot use these from me!!)) Dem eyelashes~ Now compare with the Emily (err...cover hero) she put in Division Heaven's material stuffs. ALMOST the same person. Not quite. Emily and....the other Emily...look almost the same. And they're pretty much the same person physically (both of them represent the cover hero cleric girl >>) But wow! Their faces look pretty different! Of course, Nessiah (bless you!) didn't just edit the face to make Emily or vice versa--there are some small differences in hair/pose/etc; but it's definitely the eyes that makes Emily look different from her almost-twin. ---- Another example. Sorry I'm using so many examples from you, Archeia. Ernest (default Actor 4) vs Sairen (PrinPrin Ep. 1.5) VS Ernest vs Sairen Granted, the age gap should be accounted for, but Ernest and Sairen look pretty similar in terms of clothing and hair, at least. (They use the same sprite.) But first and foremost, their faces are very different (, and it's obvious who's more gorgeous.) Last example for now, also from Porcupine Princess. Syrn. vs Syrn Material Version (cover hero) vs Syrn Porcupine Princess Version (better looking ) Besides the obvious hair differences (and don't mind the sizing), they're pretty similar. Dressed almost identically, and aside from what you might think, upon closer inspection their hair is quite similar. I think I've made my point. Facial features are important in distinguishing different characters. Rights to all the lovely portraits above go to Archeia, EB, and anyone else who contributed in making these. So, after thrusting all that lovely eye candy that ISN'T by me at you to compare, give your eyes a rub, and keep on reading. So obviously facial differences are important. But pose difference and angle difference are important too. Take a look at these random facegens. Rights to Liberty~ Since the VXA face generator only generates frontal faces, there's not much room for angle/pose deviation. In the end, they all kind of start looking the same, despite the array of facial feature differentiation that they have. Now, if you REALLY wanted differentiation, some people use portraits/faces from a variety of artists. But consistency is always the key for graphics in games, and this usually isn't wise unless styles are very similar (ex Archeia matches really well will RTP. <3) So now that I have this whole hullabaloo out of the way, what does this have to do with MY new generator? I'm glad you asked! Welcome to my new generator project, TsarGen. My messy, hurriedly created logo. I love cyan glows. <3 (Note: TsarGen so far is planned to only generate females...since that's my chosen preference.) Things that will hopefully make my portrait generator not look repetitive include: 4 different angles for the head: 3/4 facing left, 3/4 facing right, 1/1 frontal, and 2/2 profile (<<this last one should make Spectre happy) 5 different angles/positions for torso (which will blend seamlessly with all head/neck variations): equal shoulders, tilted left, tilted right, raised shoulders, crossed arms, spread arms 4+ eye shapes: round, arched, narrow, doe-eyed 5+ eye/iris/pupil designs (this is important!): split shade, gradient, starry/glassy, ripple, large pupil 5+ lash differentiations: wide-spaced, full, cat eye, flat, low 5+ ear positions/type: E-shaped round, angular edge, long, tall pointed, frontal view 9+ mouth positions: neutral closed, wide smile, small open, side-view open, side smile, closed smile, neutral open, sad open, cocky grin As well as numerous hairstyles, accessories, piercings, face decorations, and clothes Here's a grainy written-with-images picture if you don't get all those weird terms in the bullet list. I hope with so many pose, angle, and facial differentiations, that this can make a generator successfully pretend to be unrepetitive. Sadly, I have no scripting language, so TsarGen will not be an actual program that you can download and make your own portraits....since I'll be doing all the piecing things and stitching people in good ol' Photoshop. It won't be easy, but I hope to get it done. Each TsarGen portrait will, of course, be done in Tsarmina style because I'm the one developing/drawing them. They should blend in just fine with my hand-drawn scratch portraits. Most TsarGens won't have emosets I'm guessing, but maybe a couple of some of them. It all depends on the success of my generator "program." As for if I'll continue to make make 100% created-from scratch portraits, the answer is Duh Yes. But for NPCs, random people who just need a picture or two--this should do the trick. Hopefully I can make TsarGen have the same generator pieces that would match the Ace generator sprites, therefore letting you use Acegen sprites but TsarGen portraits to go along with them. I suspect this project is not going to be completely foolproof, and I may have to do some editing before I release portraits in case of small artistic discrepancies (Your head's skin tone doesn't match with your shoulder's!), but ultimately, I'm hoping to start generating portraits soon. As for if my pose/position/angle/facial theory will indeed make TsarGen a totally different generator that gives the illusion of non-repetition....only time will tell. ^-^ -- Portraits made with TsarGen will probably have the little TG symbol next to them: It's the same size as an emoticon~ Have a great day and I will be developing TsarGen from today on! Special thanks to: Archeia @Division Heaven: letting me use her portraits and PrinPrin/PorcPrin/handmade work for comparison purposes Liberty: face generator examples belong to her and EB Source: Tsarmina's Laboratory
  2. 1 point
    Hello world! This is my first ever blog entry, so hey guys... if there's anyone who would read this that is. Well, I better introduce myself by first saying that I have a strong interest in 3D animation as that's where I want to be in the future and so for anyone interested, here's some of that stuff - http://www.youtube.com/user/Flyingfoxenator Anyway, back to rpg... I just recently got VX Ace and joined this community so on my profile I'm classed as a newbie, yay haha. ...buuut I have had experience with the previous versions as well and I must say that Ace is such a huge and awesome improvement, thankyou so much Enterbrain So of course I've been playing round with all their new features (yea I know, it's like a year old now, but new to me anyway). Everything about this program is just mouth wateringly good :'D Then after coming on here, I've just been looking up all your guys awesome scripts. Still haven't quite played round with those yet (also please don't mix me up with a scripter... sure I understand it, but I can't write any myself... yet). One of them was Khas Awesome Light Effects script (http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/1003-khas-awesome-light-effects/?hl=khas) Now for some reason I looked at it and thought meh, then carried on. Later on, I saw some images on deviant art on lights and saw things I hadn't even seen or thought of before that would now change the way I use RPG Maker. I had always avoided night scenes, probably because I couldn't get the lighting to look as good as it did during day. but after seeing these images, I figured I would first draw out the scene in RPG Maker, then printscreen and edit in photoshop to transform it into night. So that's exactly what I did for my first test below. I then created a tile set out of that. Which technically is just that image spread across the space of a tile set. and during the process of this, I looked back at Khas Lights, and just realized how awesome they really are... so yea, I can understand why awesome has to be in his title lol. Just the way the shadows move is incredible, thanks Khas! So just thought I'd post the demo. Enjoy guys, I really hope you give this a go as you probably won't regret it haha - http://www.mediafire.com/download/30sjy2uuph2tbu5/Project_Day-Night_Demo.exe If there are any major glitches or anything in the game (as this is my first post of uploading a game etc.) please do tell ...especially because those doors are quite messy, event wise. Also, I know this probably isn't the place for requests, but if anyone actually does have any requests, please give me yell as I might just be able to help. I can do everything in this program but scripting and composing music/sound effects. Credit All the script credit goes to Khas. Also all his lights in that folder and used in the demo are his. - http://arcthunder.site40.net Everything else was created by me. You can do whatever you want with this (not sure what you would do with this, but hey) ...just credit me if you can be bothered, I would appreciate it, thanks. Enjoy
  3. 1 point
    Jonnaz Schedule Pretty much this is for those few requesters out there who are interested in what I'm up to and when your request may possibly be taking place. The schedule will NOT be entirely accurate so things will likely change around a bit. I'm thinking, I'll be updating this everyday(ish) though, so it should be accurate enough . (also time zone is in the future here in New Zealand in case there's any confusion ). Also if anyone has seen my resource topic recently, you might have noticed there are template sprites. Why? Well to help in some way in making those kaduki sprites a little more easier for people to create and also they're for me and the future sprites I plan on creating ...ohhh I can't wait haha (...but I also need to get that game finished ) In Progress - Boss sprite (for Vadim) Archived: LINKS: My game project - I can see clearly now my brain has gone... My resources - Jonnaz Resources My drawings - Jonnaz Drawings deviantART - Jonath4nC Video Recordings - Jonath4nC
×
Top ArrowTop Arrow Highlighted