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Cutscenes, Script & Plot

The question is, will we be able to get all of the cutscenes covered in a small amount of ExGFX files? We can easily use tilesets from the hack to fill in the landscape, but I imagine the sprites might take quite a bit more space.
Originally posted by leod
I actually don't see the problem in the current speed, it's a little bit slower than reading speed, but a lot of games do that.


Either way, I just doubled the speed of that gif to get a rough estimate of how it looks:


Doesn't actually look bad at all in my opinion and as long as you make sure to never overload the player with text before it waits for input, it should be just dandy.
If that's how it'd be in-game, that is.



Here's another idea. In Zelda LTTP, the text scrolls sort of like that. It's about that speed, and it rolls over a few lines before you hit the button to progress it. And if you hit A while it's scrolling, it speeds up until it reaches the next input point.

It may be worth making it slow, but coding it to speed up if you keep pressing A. You already have a similar idea, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Also: Seeing WYE's text in action made it grow on me. I'd say stick with it.
"(Z->)90° - (E-N²W)90°t=1"

Supporting:


Current project: Mario's Kool-Aid Acid Trip
Originally posted by S.N.N.
The question is, will we be able to get all of the cutscenes covered in a small amount of ExGFX files? We can easily use tilesets from the hack to fill in the landscape, but I imagine the sprites might take quite a bit more space.


Hopefully. I plan on taking as much of an advantage of pre-existing graphics as I can, though obviously, as I said in my previous post, we will need a few unique graphics for this. Incidentally, I can pick and choose graphics that I need from certain sets without putting them into a unique ExGFX file, which will hopefully reduce the amount of duplicate tiles.
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.
Updates! Now with 42% more animation!

Note that the settings and such used so far are very rough and generic for use until someone draws better ones (also no backgrounds at all yet, and, yeah, I apologize in advance for the..."artwork"). I've only gotten up to just after Madam Mau's scene, so as of right now it looks like Doc Croc is saying everyone's lines from that point on whether or not he should be (and, similarly, the settings for those scenes aren't set up yet).

For the record, I'm aware that when switching scenes, the sprites seem to flicker for a single frame. I'm working on it; I'm not quite sure what's causing it yet.

Current byte usage:

0x118C bytes used by the cutscene system as a whole (VWF, etc. Shouldn't get much bigger.)

0x2E0F bytes used by the current cutscene (text, specific actor code, graphics, tilemaps, etc.)
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.
Hey, it's getting pretty awesome!

Nice work, Kipernal.
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That is indeed quite impressive. Keep this up, and we'll have far and away the best cutscenes ever seen in a SMW hack.

(Also, I'm snickering to myself like a ninny at the thought of the Deedle-Ball flaring his nostrils while delivering his lines.)

Extras



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

Advertising Space

Originally posted by Kipernal
Originally posted by MrDeePay
I do have some custom/edited button graphics that could be of some use to you.


If you don't mind, that'd be great.




Sorry for the long wait, but these are what I was talking about.


Kipernal: I know you are have the "Busy" title at the moment, but do you have any news for us on this?
Layout by LDA during C3.
Not really. As I said to S.N.N. a bit ago, my current priority is finishing AddmusicK, then finishing the world 6 boss (which is practically already finished, save for a few bugs), and then this. If that's a problem I can move this up, but I really want to get AMK "out the door" as it were before I start back up on anything else.
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.
Ohai, progress.

This isn't the biggest update I could have possibly given, but it's still kind of significant. Most importantly I've improved the scene updating code significantly, which makes it about a gajillion times easier to dynamically switch the "stage" that the actors are standing on.

But in terms of stuff you can actually see, I've more or less finished everything up until the first cutscene's Mario and Luigi scene (which only has some progress on it), as well as implemented WhiteYoshiEgg's font and MrDeePay's button graphics.

Also, if someone wants to redraw my abysmal Doc Croc and Madam Mau graphics, here's the graphics file I'm using. You can rearrange it in any way you want, use whatever palette you want, etc., just make sure that the same basic poses are retained (i.e. Doc Croc walking while talking, standing still while talking, pointing offscreen, facing the camera, etc.) and it all fits into that one graphics file. Each frame can use up to 8 tiles arranged in any way.

Current byte usage:

0x11F4 bytes used by the cutscene system as a whole (+0x68 bytes from last time).

0x7179 bytes used by all cutscenes (+0x436A bytes from last time, mostly graphics and tilemaps. Most future cutscenes should be able to reuse existing graphics sets, but due to the sheer volume of different settings in this cutscene, some tilesets needed to be combined out of necessity.)
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.

That's a huge amount of progress I'd say and I love how its coming along so far.

Great job. ^_^
Layout by LDA during C3.
It's ironic I read this last night and saw the post before where you said you were working on AddmusicK, then I leave and there's a new point. XD

Great progress, Kip. I say that this hack is probably the most creative thing I've come across, and it's totally going to break much ground in the SMW hacking community.
Click here to enter the world of mediocre!
<Magi> ...do Doc Croc's cutscene sprites reeeeaaaally need to be 32x16?

Forget that. Anyway, walking animation:



I'll change the blue to grey later.

I haven't taken a look Smallhacker's concept art in a while, but your sprite strikes me as rather... different. I like the art style you have, it's just that it looks more like a generic nice guy and less like the Doc Croc I have in mind.


 
Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg
a generic nice guy


Exactly, he's on TV, and advertising Norveg Industries Inc., he has to look like a nice guy so people can think that the company is a good thing. It's just for Public Relations~.

Also.

Point taken. I still wouldn't mind a slightly more obviously evil look though.


 

Extras



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

Advertising Space

Rameau deliberately wrote all of the bosses to have their own quirk.

Truntec discriminates against lumberjacks.
Dryad is fucking crazy.
"Tanuki" is more upbeat and hyperactive.
Jelectro's just a generic enemy.
Madam Mau is dead serious and speaks in tongue nobody really understands.
Hindebird is rather trigger happy.
Frank is dumb muscle with his one line.
Doc Croc to be affably evil.
Norveg is a card carrying villian.

It's worth mentioning that I've made a few minor changes to the script since whenever the last version was posted (link above should show he most current version; he older one remains in my files). Nothing too major; just smoothing over a bit of wording such. Still waiting for the bosses to be finished/a credits idea to come to fruition before we have a "definitive" script, though.
First cutscene complete!

For the most part, at least. A few things might need to be tweaked here and there (for example, Hindenbird doesn't look right while he's flying up), but for the most part, I feel it's done. I followed Rameau's Nephew's script as closely as I could, though I had to make a concession: I wasn't sure how the fish was supposed to jump out of Luigi's hands and then sprout legs, so I improvised a bit. Don't know if it's better or worse; that's up for you guys to decide.

Also, more graphics to be redrawn for anyone who wants to take a stab at it. Here are the Doc Croc and Madam Mau graphics, and here are the Luigi, fish, and Toad graphics. As before, rearrange them in any way you like. Use more tiles; use fewer tiles; use the tiles in different arrangements; etc. Just be sure that everything fits into one graphics file.

Current byte usage:

0x1247 bytes used by the cutscene system as a whole (+0x53 bytes from last time).

0x7C91 bytes used by all cutscenes (+0xB18 bytes from last time. 0x5C42 bytes used by graphics, 0x204F bytes used by actor code and cutscene text.)

Also, for anyone who's curious what these cutscene scripts look like.
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.
I love it.

First, though, I want to mentioned the link that's supposed to lead to the luigi graphics is the same as the first link.

Second, my only gripes are, well, the graphics is a given, but also how there's a LOT of commas, I just noticed; like this sentence.

Yeah - I think we need to cut down comma use.

Also, the fact the text isn't justified, and is aligned left instead. Justifying the text makes it look more neat.

Other than that, I LOVE IT <3

EDIT: Also the fact that the girder is used wrong :v
And backgrounds are default

Also, video for you lazy butts