Silver Brand - A Mini-Adventure

Dave Gilbert · Thu 09/06/2011 22:17:00

Regarding music, if you're in a hurry to hit that 6 (?) week deadline, relying on other people at this late stage would be a mistake. Google some royalty free music sites. With some digging you should find what you need.

MiGo · Thu 09/06/2011 22:23:58

Yeah. I knew my schedule was botched when my initial composer fell through, so instead of mixing and matching free music I find online (like from Newgrounds), I feel the project will benefit from a single musician. That, and I can use the extra time to put in all those little changes I'd like to see!

Dave Gilbert · Thu 09/06/2011 23:12:27

Ah, if you plan on blowing off the deadline anyway, then there's no reason not to polish it as much as you can.

MiGo · Thu 09/06/2011 23:54:10

Argh! You make it sound so horrible! I leave this post wounded. But yeah, I totally want to polish it up!

Dave Gilbert · Fri 10/06/2011 00:42:30

Pff. Don't sweat it. I've never met a single deadline I've ever set for myself.

MiGo · Fri 10/06/2011 23:22:26

Yeah... I mean, I can meet my art deadlines usually. Except for the animations, since I'm a total amateur when it comes to those!

But just today, before work, I managed to extend the episode, redraw some portraits, edit most of the dialogue, take apart my motorcycle to put new brakes on, realize my brakes were not the problem, find and fix the problem, then reassemble my bike! So, all-in-all, a productive day!

Now I'm stuck with a dilllema you might have an opinion on: To have animated portraits or not to have animated portraits. As is, they are animated, but my new portraits are more my style, and. I have not animated them yet. If I don't animate them, I could create a broader range of emotions! Hrm....

Eggie · Sat 11/06/2011 11:59:53

I'd say no, adding a jiggling mouth to a big portrait never did much for me apart from distract me from the character, and lavish, fully-animated portraits doesn't make sense either because of the requirement it be non-specific and looping. Adding the capacity to show different emotions is much, much more important than giving your character an animation with no emotion; but lots of smooth, braindead writhing.

Dave Gilbert · Sat 11/06/2011 19:08:24

It depends. I decided for the next Blackwell game to not do animated talking portraits. It's less work, and you can make more of them. Also, I realized that the animated portraits look very silly unless you can do proper lip synching. It can be done in AGS, but it a mechton of work. Grundislav once tried to explain the process and my brain shut down in protest. As with anything, it depends on how much time and effort you are willing to put into it.

MiGo · Mon 13/06/2011 22:00:30

Well, I took your all's advice and tried just still portraits. Unfortunately, we found in testing the game that the lack of animation kind of... somehow... killed all the funny of the jokes, and made every little bit of dialogue seem like a test of patience. So, I went back and am Animating several different expressions for each. Lots more work than I intended for a simple game, but... well, it's fun to do! (I'd try to do Lip-Syncing again, but well... my game is supposed to be a little silly anyway! Thank Goodness.)

Oh, and one of my animations for the game got entirely corrupted. Luckily, I back up all my stuff... unluckily, I had done a lot of work after said backup!

Doesn't matter though: We found a new game-breaking glitch, which we fixed! (We, being Girlfriend and I, who tests all my stuff!)

Finally: I just need to animate the ending, give a few more days for composers and Voice Actors to e-mail me and then I can figure out how to actually put the voices in alongside the dialogue, input the new music, input an animated ending, revise any dialogue and then... Finalize it! Yee haw!

Note: I haven't e-mailed any composers or Voice Actors yet, since I was just giving people a couple of days to e-mail me to begin with!

MiGo · Thu 08/12/2011 17:26:20

Woo! Okay, I'm well aware it's been MONTHS since I started on this: And the fact is: I have not been working on it. Yep, it's been pretty much done since forever ago, but I've been awaiting Voice-Acting/Music for some time. I've also been busy with my new job working in a factory (Messy work, but somebody's got to do it.).

The only reason I haven't put the game up is because the way I did the ending just doesn't work without voices. So, I'm considering re-working that so I can just put the darn thing up!

However, if I wait just a bit more, well odds are I'll have everything I need to finish it as intended! In fact, I have been receiving voices, and now have the music in-game!

A sample of the voices can be found here:

http://migoart.com/about/the-game/silver-brand/characters/

I'm not going to leave this unfinished, and everyone is still on-board!

Thanks everyone.

Dave Gilbert · Fri 09/12/2011 15:17:34

Miranda! She's awesome.