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Cutscenes, Script & Plot


Claimed by: Kipernal and Rameau's Nephew

Current Script (7-27-12)

Above is the link to the current script of SMWCP2 that was written by Rameau's Nephew. Kipernal will be putting together the cutscenes.
Now as you are reading through the script, keep in mind that most of these scenes should be fairly easy to do with basic still shots and maybe a bit of ex-animation of the characters here and there. Most of them will take place right before a boss battle. We are fairly certain we won't be using the VWF patch due to the limited space we already have.

Anyways, Kip is currently working on the world 6 boss still, but in the meantime if there is anything about the script that you feel may need a bit of change to fit better (the small part where Mario actually says something imo) then feel free to say something.
Layout by LDA during C3.

Extras



I should have something witty to put here (even if it's just to update dated info), shouldn't I?

Advertising Space

Small change, but

Originally posted by Rameau.doc
Message box at the start of the level:

---
RIGHT - Customer Service Dept.

LEFT - Rapid transport tube to [Whatever we call the country featured in World 3]


SNN said the bosses would lead to the higher numbered world, so the LEFT message box would need to reference World 2.


Kind of a shame though since I found Rameau's semi-proposal of making it so that going from Truntec to World 2 would make Mario change his opinion on trees.

I would think placing all those letters individually would take up even more space than the VWF patch, unless Kipernal does something special to make them appear. I like the script a lot, although just two things kind of bug me a little: first, the World 3 boss never really says much about herself or how she's involved in the whole thing. Why is she working for Norveg? Second, I'm not sure what to do about this, but...if the Dreamer was exiled and cursed to sleep forever before Mario woke her up, what's to prevent that from just happening again as soon as she leaves the dream world, maybe trapping her in a place where she doesn't have the same level of control and is forced to experience nightmares forever? Just a bit of fridge horror there. Overall, though, it's great, a good mixture of humor and drama.

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.
Originally posted by imamelia
I like the script a lot, although just two things kind of bug me a little: first, the World 3 boss never really says much about herself or how she's involved in the whole thing. Why is she working for Norveg?


She doesn't go into explicit detail, but if we read between the lines, we can deduce that she's most likely an inhabitant of this land, yet deeply unsatisfied with the current state of affairs there--she explicitly refers to it as "sleepy" and "stagnant" (and by extension, inward-looking, out of touch with the rest of the world), and also refers to Norveg as "a force for progress", presumably believing that industrialization will help stir this country from its slumber and catapult it into the modern world. In short, her reasons are primarily political, and like many politcally minded but short-sighted individuals, is sure that all of her problems can be solved by adherence to a single program, the alleged panacea in this case taking the form of an industrial revolution.

Originally posted by imamelia
Second, I'm not sure what to do about this, but...if the Dreamer was exiled and cursed to sleep forever before Mario woke her up, what's to prevent that from just happening again as soon as she leaves the dream world, maybe trapping her in a place where she doesn't have the same level of control and is forced to experience nightmares forever?


The Dreamer has the exact same concern. Indeed, it's the primary reason why she views Mario's attempt to wake her up as a hostile attack:

Originally posted by The Dreamer
You want to wake me up, flush me out of this place, back to my rigid, solid world, to have this whole deranged cycle of persecution and exile repeated over and over again. Why? What good does it even do you?


Fortunately, the shape people step in at the end and explain to her that if she simply attempts to move along with the flux and be changed along with it (as they do) rather than trying to forceably bend it into shape (which, in a conscious state, she can no longer do anyway), she would be able to continue to remain in the abstract world, and exist there in a far more harmonious (and presumably pleasant) way, at that. So in short, as things turn out, she never has to go back to the normal world, but is instead allowed to live in a place which is probably better suited to her unique innate qualities than the considerably less-fitting universe she had the bad fortunate to be born into.
I've told it before, and i'll say it again. Regarding the Dryad.
Why is her trying to destroy the forest? she's a Dryad, she should protect it, not destroy. As i first created the character, i had in mind someone gently, that would see Mario as one of Norveg's minions and attack him because of that. Not only i see it is a nice change, but the most correct thing to do regarding this character. Also, the way she talks in the cutscene kinda displeases me for some reason >_>

Now about a change in the original Dreamer plot. The whole idea of "Banishing her to another dimension" kinda bugs me. When i first created her, she was not "Cursed and sent to another dimension", it was a girl that could change the world around her according to her dreams. it's not a new dimension, it is a messed up place made by her. (And since she was tied to a tree, she could be found in the forest to begin with).
Now, about her being tied to a somnus tree change is fine to me. It fits more the Mario universe then "She was tied to death, and sleeping forever". No complains about this.

That is all.



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So right now I'm coding up a custom VWF system so that we don't have to look at ugly fixed-width fonts. After that I'll begin working on the actual cutscenes themselves; I already have a few ideas for how they'll play out visually. I'm going to need graphics drawn for this eventually, but for now they can wait (for anyone wondering, the cutscenes will play out like standard VWF Cutscene Tool cutscene, only with a larger "window" and actual action instead of static scenes).

The one thing that worries me, though, is that, from what I see, we're running seriously low on free ROM space. Just the first two pages of script alone look like they'll take up somewhere around $1000 bytes (text only, excluding code, graphics, etc.). At this rate that's looking like around 2 banks of nothing but just text, and according to slogger, we don't have that kind of space, especially considering that even more things still need to be put into the ROM.

But back to the cutscenes themselves, I have a few ideas in regards to distinguishing who's talking during the cutscenes. The first is to do the rather standard [Character name]: [speech] method. The second is to give each character their own "sound" for the scrolling text, similar to what Bowser's Inside Story did (probably the most difficult, but the most interesting). The third is to display a small character portrait (maybe 32x32 or something) beside the text, replacing the character name. Just a few thoughts; I'm not sure which one I'll go with yet (comments/suggestions would be appreciated).
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.

I know GSG is working on optimizing some of the levels, though how much space that will get us back I have no clue.
a 32x32 gfx will probably work best and will probably use less space than the first option and I see the second option getting confusing to people on who is actually talking. A combination of the second and third option would be nice, but would probably use up more code, maybe its be best to stay with the second.

I don't suppose by some weird chance you can make the text read from an external file can you? :P
Layout by LDA during C3.
We could use MSU-1, but the zsnes users wouldn't really be happy about that.
<blm> zsnes users are the flatearthers of emulation

If I recall, we are trying to make everything SNES compatible not ZSNES compatible. Personally I don't see a problem with it, but that is my own opinion.
Layout by LDA during C3.
If we were doing that, I'd assume we could just expand the ROM past 4 MB and be rid of all our space-saving constraints (though that would be bsnes/SNES-only). It might be worth making a new topic on the subject of saving space; it looks like this will end up being an issue.
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.
are the cutscenes going to replay everytime i replay a level, can they be made so you only encounter them once
Here's how I'm planning it:

- The cutscene will always play the first time you encounter it.
- If you die, the cutscene will not replay whevever you re-enter the level.
- Once you beat the level, the cutscene will now play whenever you play the level, but can be skipped with the START button.
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.
That seems like a good plan on the whole, but it would probably be a good idea to make the cutscenes skippable the first time, too. I like plot as much as the next person (as one could pretty clearly guess from the circumstances), but I'm not sure there's any real advantage in forcing people to watch them if they don't want to (especially, say, if playing through the game a second time from beginning to end.

Also, would this cutscene system by any chance allow for dramatic pauses and time delayed text appearance in the manner that the VWF cutscene tool does? Some of the scenes in the script were specifically designed with such in mind, after all...
Originally posted by Rameau's Nephew
That seems like a good plan on the whole, but it would probably be a good idea to make the cutscenes skippable the first time, too. I like plot as much as the next person (as one could pretty clearly guess from the circumstances), but I'm not sure there's any real advantage in forcing people to watch them if they don't want to (especially, say, if playing through the game a second time from beginning to end.


That's a good point. I'll go ahead and make all of them skippable, though I'll probably throw in a confirmation message the first time at least (to prevent people from accidentally pressing START or some such, since cutscenes can't be replayed until you beat the level).

Originally posted by Rameau's Nephew
Also, would this cutscene system by any chance allow for dramatic pauses and time delayed text appearance in the manner that the VWF cutscene tool does? Some of the scenes in the script were specifically designed with such in mind, after all...


Since it's being coded from scratch, I can pretty much add anything I want to; pauses were basically the first thing I added.
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.
Originally posted by Lightvayne
If I recall, we are trying to make everything SNES compatible not ZSNES compatible. Personally I don't see a problem with it, but that is my own opinion.

Whoa hold your horses there. One thing people praise about ZSNES is it's fast emulation speed. Some people use systems that can't cope with the likes of BSNES. Like me. I use a netbook and ZSNES is the only emulator I can run with minimal lag.

I think it'd be best if we just try to make it work with all emulators rather than just the accurate stuff.

Having said this, reading further through, it doesn't appear to be coming up much.
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Don't get me wrong, I like ZSNES too, its really the only emulator I use. It was more or less something I was just tossing out there and I even stated it was my own opinion.I just wouldn't mind if it came to that.
Layout by LDA during C3.


Progress. Nothing fancy like word wrap yet, but as long as I have the text rendering portion of this finished I may as well show it. Also, if anyone wants to draw a custom font for this (which isn't necessary, as I actually kind of like this font, but I'm just throwing the idea out there), just note each character should be no larger than 8x16 pixels.
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.
Looking fantastic so far! My only suggestion for now is to give the picture frame some more top margin, but then again this is probably a temporary setup anyway. (What layer is the text on, by the way?)

As for the font, I quite like is as well, save for some minor height inconsistencies regarding letters like the lowercase h. I think I'll try my hand at making one, though if I don't succeed (and nobody else does) the current font will do just fine I'd say.


 
Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg
My only suggestion for now is to give the picture frame some more top margin, but then again this is probably a temporary setup anyway.


I noticed that too; I'm definitely going to move it down a bit later.

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg
(What layer is the text on, by the way?)


Layer 3; both the frame and the border are on layer 3.

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg
As for the font, I quite like is as well, save for some minor height inconsistencies regarding letters like the lowercase h.


Huh...I didn't catch that. Thanks!

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg
I think I'll try my hand at making one, though if I don't succeed (and nobody else does) the current font will do just fine I'd say.


Oh, that reminds me of something important: the font has to be 1bpp, for anyone who wants to draw a replacement. 8x16 1bpp tiles.
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.
Very, very, very nice Kipernal! I'm guessing the text space is added into the levels the text code is run? Also, I'm guessing this isn't going to be released anywhere else?

- BlackMageMario