Anime/JRPG mod update: Aeden Story (New Title!)
After much thought, I finally managed to come up with a name for my previously unnamed JRPG mod.I also mananged to make the narrative and world building a lot more concrete than previously. Unfortunately certain art assets, such as the characters etc, no longer fit this evolved vision, and had to be re-done. Here are some screenshot mockups:
One of the more visually ambitious experiments is using the new support for parallax layers to cheat a day/night system, so to speak. By overlaying this slow moving 2048x2048 additive layer:
I can create a subtle color change to show the passage of time.
I'd admit the night isn't really dark. It's the sort of Hollywood style darkness where everything is tinted blue. But I'll just handwave it away by saying that because the moon in this world (see title screen) is so large, the night sky never really gets dark out lol. Here are some props:
The game is set in the world of Aeden. It is a modern world but with various fantasy elements.
You play as a young man named Arthur Penrose. He is the latest in a bloodline of magically-gifted people. Arthur was separated from his family at a young age when a brutal civil war broke out 20 years ago between magical and non-magical people.
The game is free-roam and open ended. You can pursue various questlines like searching for your missing brother or hunting for lost magical artifacts.
The hook of the game is exploring the unique and atmospheric world. It is a familiar world with cars, convenience stores and air-conditioners. But just around the corner and off the beaten path, you will find legendary treasure, an enchanted forest or even a fearsome dragon.
A major theme of the game is science and technology vs. nature and mysticism. It draws inspiration from 90s anime, such as those produced by Studio Ghibli and Gainax.
I'm almost done with the environmental assets. I'm currently working on all the animations and vfx for the main character, Arthur. For monsters, in order to speed up development I will be re-purposing some of the excellent art assets from Fantasycore, so expect to see some familiar faces :) I'll be waiting for patch 1.10 to officially release before doing any implementation.
- EDIT 5/7/2019 New Video:
So beautiful. I really like your approach to the day-night system.
I'm kind of busy for the rest of this month, so I'm aiming to release 1.10 around mid-May.
No worries if you're busy lol. I'm quite busy myself all the way till mid-May, and I find animation to be a real chore to do haha
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In the current Flare, it is difficult to read Japanese letter because of the font size, so it is necessary to update Flare.
I see Japanese letter when I look at the title screen on the screen shot screen. So I guess that you want Japanese people playing.
There is also a problem with Japanese input by keyborad.
In the current Flare, Japanese can be input, but the character being converted(from kana to kanji etc.) can not be displayed. Also, when using Japanese IME, the arrow key, "Delete" key and "BackSpace" key do not work properly. Even if you press the arrow key, another meaningless character is inserted.
Hi sujiniku,
I will be using my own fonts for this mod. I will check to see if it is readable. Thanks for highlighting the issue though!
Regarding problems with the Japanese input keyboard, my skill set is an artist and not a programmer, so this is something I cannot solve on my end. I can only hope that it will sorted out along the way before official complete release. I am targeting for early 2020.
As my current focus is art asset completion, I admit I have not really thought very deeply about localization to other languages.
Thanks!
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Quick update: I've begun implementation. However, I'd mistakenly thought that the blending mode of parallax layers could be changed to additive, when in reality it couldn't. I guess it was my fault, I didn't test things extensively enough. I will have to think of another way to implement my day/night system.
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After some colour tweaking I've managed to work around the day/night issue...I will post a gif of it in action soon, but right now I need figure out what is the best way to implement attack animation variations...Attached is a .gif of my simple one-two attack combo animation.
I've set them up as two different powers and am trying to get them to alternate, but replace_by_effect doesn't seem to work for that...I've tested and the effect goes off, but the animation that plays is still the animation of the first combo. Any idea how I should set this up?
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I believe that is an engine bug, as I encountered the same behavior when trying to create an example combo.
Turns out that the way replace_by_effect was working caused it to "inherit" some of the properties from the original power, which is why the animation didn't change. I've pushed a patch for this upstream.
Thanks! Glad to hear that it is a bug and not my misunderstanding of the engine capabilities.
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Just to clarify: post_effect_src only works when the caster does damage with the hazard right?
This means that in order for the player character to actually recieve the 'combo1' and 'combo2' effects without having to hit an enemy, the powers that activate the combo attack animations must be buffs, with a pre_power that references another power that actually does the damage to the enemy. Is this correct?
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Correct, but you may be able to skip the pre_power and just use buff=true and post_effect=... on the original power depending on what you want to accomplish.
@dorkster: Regarding your patch that fixes the replace_by_effect bug, would it be too much trouble to build an .exe that has the fix? I've no programming knowledge so I do not know how to set things up build directly from the source.
If the next release is one or two weeks down the line I can still wait, but I would like to get some eyes on the project soon so I am trying to get it to look as good as possible. I'll have quite a bit of free time at the end of July/beginning of August, so I would like to be able to implement the attack animations by then at the latest.
Anyways here is a .gif of the day/night cycle in action in the engine. I have increased the size of the parallax layer from 2048x2048 to 4096x4096. Will this impact the lower end devices too badly?
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Latest Windows build (v1.10.06): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1E7XyaPbL7AsMShA9WhMNUy2Z5Qg3V54G
>Will this impact the lower end devices too badly?
It might, but users with really old hardware can just turn off parallax layers. If they're using the "sdl_hardware" renderer they might not even be able to load the texture if their video card doesn't support 4096x4096 textures. I had a machine with an Intel GMA950 that only supported 2048x2048. But at that point, Flare in general might be considered slow, even without parallax layers.
Hey man, thanks for your quick reply. I'll be getting to work on things ASAP!
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Here's a video showing some avoidance-based combat. I didn't manage to capture the combos very well, but rest assured they are there :) Given that the natural combat system of FLARE is more attrition based a la Diablo, I think it's a good proof that the FLARE engine is a flexible one on top of being really easy to use. Thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q07goCXi9Wg
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Wow, cant wait to play it.
I never actually play diablo style games... :/
These are beautiful
Your style is awesome.
I like how it often looks more like pixelart than being rendered.
And regarding your commercial plans mentioned in your second thread:
If you feel like giving back you can make your game commercial and share some tiles, which you think could be most useful to others, here on oga.
flare-engine-next supports shaders, so if you are familiar with them, you can write your own lighting system. You will need more textures, use sample shader files from default mod as reference. In sample shareds light goes only from the center of the screen, but it can be improved if there are enough graphics data.
this is more of diablo souls game...
Hey guys, thanks for all the responses. I've been working on the game this past few months. Right now I'm concentrating on skills design. Hopefully there will be stuff I can share again.
Some but not all of the assets I have created is built on top of things that use a CC-BY-SA licence. If I understand correctly this means that I have to release those assets regardless of whether the project goes commercial or not. I intend to do this after the project is completed and released.
Commercial plans are not entirely off the table. But it's really up in the air. Two considerations are 1) Is there enough original and interesting content to warrant a cash price and 2) Is there a big enough of an audience that will pay. I also have the issue of whether this is the right thing to do or not, given that the project relies quite heavily on work that other people have done for free.
One of the things I was thinking of - was that if the project goes commercial - will major contributors to FLARE engine and art (Namely dorkster, Clint Bellanger, and Igor Paliychuk, just to name just a few) be agreeable to recieving a percentage cut of whatever money the project makes. I was planning to ask this sometime in the future, but since the topic has come up I might as well bring it up now :)
And I was completely un-aware of Flare-engine-next. Will check it out, thanks!
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No, gpl and cc-by-sa neither require you to release something nor to give it away for free.
They make sure that the users get some defined freedoms.
If you sell it your customers are allowed to modify and redistribute everything that's under gpl or cc-by-sa, that's it.
And well for gpl you also have to include the sources and for cc you also have to credit the original authors.
It might also be an option to sponsor running costs for flare (domain, server etc.).
@Basto: I'm not sure what you're referencing by "something", but I don't think that statement is entirely clear.
If by "something" you mean the artwork assets (and derivatives of) the stuff licensed CC-BY-SA or GPL, then yes, those licenses require you to release "something" for free as soon as you distribute your game containing those "something" assets.
@Ateo88: Yes, that is correct. you have to release those assets regardless of the commercial status of the project. As soon as your project is distributed in any way, those asssets must be made available for free and under the appropriate license. I believe what Basto was getting at is that your game's code, story, character concepts, and executable components are not necessarily included in that.
Example: I use LPC art in my RPG "dragon apprentice". The Dragon Apprentice game is under a proprietary license and I charge $5.99 on steam and the app store. Customers must pay me in order to play the game. However, I have made the LPC spritesheets, tilesets, and derivatives I've modified available for free.
As Basto stated, customers can use the artwork (even the customized sprites I've modified from the LPC sprites specifically for my Dragon Apprentice game) as long as they give credit to the original authors (and me, for my derivatives) and adhere to the terms of the license. BUT! Those customers must be able to obtain that artwork without paying me anything. Purchase is required to play the game, sure, but not to obtain the art assets.
--Medicine StormDistribute and release is the same thing for me in this context.
As soon as you give your derivatives to somebody you must:
for gpl:
give them the source code, tell them that it's licensed under gpl and give them a copy (or link) of the license
for cc by-sa:
you have to credit the original authors, mention the original works (I think), tell them that it's licensed under cc by-sa and give them a copy (or link) of the license
When you sell your game you have obligations towards your customers (those who receive your derivatives) and nobody else.
You should make sure not to put them into screenshots and promotional material you give away for free, since then again you have those obligations towards everyone who views them.
You decide who you give your derivatives to, but the licenses make sure you give them freedoms and in GPLs case also the sources and for that particular thing you can't charge them.
Only the -nc lincenses forces you give derivatives away for free, but those are not allowed on oga.
Hi Ateo88,
Is Ghostlore a AEDEN STORY?
Or is AEDEN STORY canceled?