Topic: [RELEASED] BSG78 - Unexpected at the Rising Star

[Cassiebsg]

Thanks SilverSpook.

Well, Billy Corgan is not on the cast list... But I do have 2 male voices that have no actors, since they are made up characters. So they can sound just like you want them to.

[AnasAbdin]

Code tweaking, rendering rooms, animations, "useless" hotspots...
and then you say production is slow??
maybe in slasher's terms this is slow but seriously I'm impressed with your work so far.

[Cassiebsg]

Sounds more than it is, honest.
It would go much faster if I knew what I was doing and stopped wasting time trying to understand code I didn't write.

Anyway... got a brand new animation thanks to jwalt's work.

Anyone hungry for mushies?

[Cassiebsg]

Sorry for the lack of updates, but am still busy with the "behind the scenes", made my own VerbCoin, since I was unable to strip monkey's code to remove the default actions. Still need to thank him, cause I used his code snip from a reply to get started. Then changed here and there to fine tune it. It's almost perfect, only missing to get the @hotspot@ name to work, kind of forgotten about that yesterday. Also big thanks to Gurok, as you can now decide between playing the game with the default music, choose your own mp3s or use your our audio CD.

Besides, if I post every new sprite or animation, there won't be anything left for you to discover.

Anyway, here's the Hallway in a new and improved rendered version, with the VerbCoin visible over some of jwalt's great work and the infamous axe.
Also some tweaking at the top interface.


Still thinking about changing the portrait to a diagonal view, but that will imply some fancy coding that am not sure it's worth it at this time.

[SilverSpook]

Looking good!

I just blow off the diagonal walking animations, myself.  Sometimes I throw out the up and down walk cycles too, for certain characters.  One issue on my end is I'm having to hand-paint characters in Photoshop at 1366x768 so that's a whole lot of time that doesn't have a big return-on-investment unless it's a main character who you're going to see all the time.

I like Dave Gilbert's advice: you can invest money or you can invest time.  And I'm all outta money.  So you've got to spend that time wisely.

[Cassiebsg]

Thanks SilverSpoon... well... yes, that is right... but when you're running for love and want to make it as perfect as possible... then time is only an issue of "I want to get this done yesterday!"... But I still want it to be as best possible.

Anyway, a quick update: Original ending is now fully playable from start to end. There's still some glitches, probably buggs and a bunch of missing animations and character adjustments... but it's playable!
Meaning I'll now start working on making the alternate ending playable from start to end.
Sorry about the lack of images... but again, can't possibly show everything right?

[SilverSpook]

Sure you can show everything, Cassie, don't be a tease like that! 

Yeah since you have 3D models, it's actually a total sinch I would think to get 8-direction walking animations.  Just rotate the camera and render out a new set of frames!  Drawing out eight hand-painted animations takes pretty much literally eight-times as long, though.  I've heard Ben304 complain about that a bunch on Blue Cup Tools Podcast and it's totally true.  So in your case, it's a total time-saving advantage!  You gotta use that leverage!

[AnasAbdin]

Drawing out eight hand-painted animations takes pretty much literally eight-times as long, though.

Specially if you change suits in the game 

[Cassiebsg]

Okay a little update.

My tribute to AGS... the "always hot blue cup" in the hands of Master cook Jarl:

(yes, I realize that smoking hot smoke is a bit overkill, but hey, blender wasn't cooperating and doing that was already a win! for some odd reason it either would not render or just ignore every single setting I try to change ).

Take notice that I have solved the shadows!
Now I just need to add the node to the other characters and re-render every thing. Hopefully fixing up some small personal annoyances that have little or no influence to the game.

Also, voice acting cast is starting to take shape and sounds now much more plausible!
Am still missing one female (which I'll do my self if I have to! But I suck at it, so...) and 2 male voices!

[Cassiebsg]

Small update.

The kitchen is now fully operational with all "puzzles" in place!
I just need to add sfx and render some few animations (computer isn't cooperating), make the ending for kitchen action, add a some descriptions and such to inventory items, and then fix a bug or two I'll probably stumble into while adding those things.

Anyway... and because you guys demand pictures! Here's a GUI BG...

[Cassiebsg]

Uhm, guess it's been a while since my last update. The good news: My new work computer is now "super" fast! Unfortunately I'm as slow/fast as I was before.

Here's what is suppose to be the final version of the kitchen BG:

Now I'll have to re-render my "objects" in this low light level (as I decreased the level of lighting in relation to the previous version) before I declare this room "done", but it's almost done in terms of coding. I added a few stuff to the events in the kitchen (just to add to my headache and my "why can't you keep this small and simple?" problem. ).

Anyway, my hope is to reach beta stage by the end of the month, let's see if I can render and code the few stuff that is missing to get a flowing story in place instead of chunks of events with no connection.

[AnasAbdin]

Wow that is one awesome kitchen background Great work Cassiebsg.
Take all the time you have to re-render and fix lighting touches and so on. It's worth it

[SilverSpook]

Looks great!  Keep up the good stuff. 

[selmiak]

This is cool! I love the colorful flicker on that screen on the right! Please say it will even be animated...

[Gurok]

I tried an early alpha and I'm looking forward to the complete game now. Cassie's done an amazing job of capturing the feel of a BSG episode. It feels very well directed.

The kitchen background looks even better than I remember seeing last time.

[Cassiebsg]

Thanks guys.

Yes, selmiak, that screen is animated. Not that it's that big a deal, though, only 2 frames.

[Cassiebsg]

Thought I would put up a tease for 2 animations I did the other day.

Here's Deimos demonstrating how to use a fire extinguisher correctly:

Spoiler: ShowHide

x1 x2 x4 x8

And here's Deimos demonstrating how NOT to use a fire extinguisher!

Spoiler: ShowHide

x1 x2 x4 x8

Oh, yeah... no animation? Sucks, I'm so lazy! Yes, only a single frame from each animation... for the full thing (and context) you'll have to wait and play the game.

I can add that the kitchen scene is now almost completely coded! There's only a small thing that Blender is being a pain with (as usual!) for a "simple" animation, and I am now re-rendering the sprites for the master cook, plus will also create a new small animation for him so I can rap this bit of story. Then I may add a few more useless hotspots, we know you guys love to look at those!
Other than that, then it's adjusting x,y,z coords, - hate this part!

[jwalt]

And here's Deimos demonstrating how NOT to use a fire extinguisher!

At the risk of making my one and only Beta Tester mad, I want to point out that there actually could be an instance where an extinguisher, with trigger locked open, might be thrown into a room with an active fire.   

And you can add me to your Beta Tester list, if you want to.

[Stupot]

That kitchen looks gorgeous. Keep up the good work :-)

[Cassiebsg]

Well, been a while since I updated here, progress been a bit slow I must admit, but am now in the process of play testing what I have, taking notes of bugs, oddities, forgetfulness, polishing up missing descriptions/hotspot actions and re-rendering the animations, now with shadows... Only the cooks had shadows. Also, thanks to Problem's "miracle" script, rendering a walk cycle is now a one click process, after some fine tuning! So... diagonal views for all characters are now a reality!

Here's the Rising Star's waiter/concierge:

PS - I still have no offers for his voice... can YOU do it?

Yes, I realize I need to re-render it again... for some odd reason his left arm is not fully swinging forward.

Anyway, the game is currently playable to the end in both the locked and unlocked mode. Still need to script the alternate end a bit better, and render some new animations before it's done. Also the end "splash screen" is pretty weak... but at least it's there!

Deimos is currently being voiced by Michael, but it'll sound pretty silly if Master Cook Jarl has no voice...
Any takers?

He's a middle aged man, talks fast (or is in high gear), loves and is highly proud of his spotless clean kitchen... He has only 23 lines! All you need is: Speak clear english, a mic and a little bit of quiet time for recording. Doesn't matter if you have an accent! There are people of 12 colonies squeezed into these tin cans, who's to say which colony Jarl belongs to, and which accent he may have?