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1st thing. I never use a graphics tablet when drawing sprites of this size. Reason? Because its more trouble than it is worth. the kind of detail you need at this size involves pixelling with a mouse. You need to decide where every pixel goes. It's half science half art.

I'm not terribly impressed by either of the redraws, as mr mouths looks very much like a 5 second paintover. Ben's is nice, but there is something wrong i can't put my fingure on. Probably his head. I try not to exaggerate things too much, as i think it's a bit lazy. You can get a decent looking face with a smaller head. Look at the king's quest sprites. Look at guybrush. Look at him!!!



He may be taller, but he looks better proportioned. He also has an awesome dynamic looking pose. When I stand around doing nothing, i never have my hands parallel to my body. I may have one in my pocket, on my hip. He also has very excellent posture. Ben's looks like the world is coming crushing down on his sholders.

What is the character's story. Maybe this will help with your design. Create a backstory. Give this man a life, then bring him to life.
Oh and i almost forgot.

How I pick my skin colours.



Nice isn't it.

His head is really big and round. His eyes and ears are at the top of his head. He has no forehead. His skin tones are babyshit greenybrownyyellow. His body is totally out of proportion.

http://www.cgempire.com/forum/2d-tutorials-63/keeping-things-proportion-2588.html

This thread in another forum by our very own progzmax explains about good adventure game character proportions. Look at other sprites in adventure games. Print screen them. Try to recreate them witout a paintover. Pay attention to the colours they use. Pay attention to the structure. Create your sprites without shading first, then when you are happy with the sillouette, add in the colour and shading.

Savvy?

Whoa, 3ds 4??? Thats some serious old school! Why do you not upgrade to 3dsmax 2008? I know it costs thousands of pounds/dollars whatever, but you can 'aquire' a copy easy enough.

Critique. No door frame. Looks like you are going for a very art-deco style. the wall on the right of the image is very boring. White is boring. You need some photo frames or something to spice it up a bit. And the roof (or lack thereof) seems very high. It must be at least 12 feet up. which is slightly strange. OOh, no windows. Perhaps move the door and make a nice big window at the front. Don't forget the frames though.

Lighting wise, it looks very boring and fake.

And if you plan to use cel-shaded sprites, use a relatively new version of max. It has a material called ink&paint and works quite nicely.



Untextured, but with a simple texture or eyebrow models and eye texuring, it would look really cool. But that was just an example of what can be done. It could be adapted into an ags sprite. The effect is there and works well.

after a while, it turned out that one of them was born on exactly the same day as me

Ouch, now that's a relationship killer for sure! Nothing worse than opening each others presents at the same time, to find that she's bought you a £2000 ring, and you've bought her a Big Mac.
It'd be like having to endure two Christmasses a year...

Anyway, I keep meaning to try this line but I've never had the guts:

"Hey there darling, it's your lucky day"
"Why?"
"Because looks aren't important to me"

So that's the line my mate Rob must be using! His aim for the weekend is to get totally trolleyed and shag a monsterous bird. Looks don't matter. If they are attractive they are too much work. Body doesn't matter cause he loves a bit of meat to hold on to. And chubby uglies don't get sex that often so they work harder in bed and it's more fun.... apparantly.

It's all charity work. He's done enough charity work in the past few years, he is waiting for an OBE.

Anyway, chat up lines.

Me and my mate, now this was quite a few years ago, started chatting to these two american tourist chicks. Quite ok.  It was a bit of a crap nite, since the cashpoint stole my card, and he was skint. So we had nothing. We tried to convince these girls that it was the done thing to buy random guys drinks. This went on for ages. They didn't believe us.

Speaking of which, I very rarely buy girls drinks. I would never offer to buy a drink to break the ice. screw that, just ask the bartender for some ice and aim for her cleavage.

Pfft My error. Sorry Creed, M0ds gets the space. I am a stupid head. Can you get to bicester mark? Probably the easiest if I am heading to heathrow to pick up francisco.

Ok Creed, you can come in the Laymobile.

Which means it is full.

M0ds, will you need a lift. So I know, I can still fit you in the car but it might be a bit tight. Please let me know asap.

As for the seating arrangements. Grundislav is back left as requested. Pudding can be shotgun, whilst Mr Creed can be back right. Creed, you will need to be at Luton or Watford quite early on the 15th. My estimates around the region of 8-9am. Tom pudding, Is it too difficult for you to get to Watford? If not, I might as well pick everyone up from Heathrow. I'd prefer not to as this adds serious time to the journey. (actually no it doesn't, it adds a minute according to google)

Actually, now I think about it, heathrow is a better option. The M1 is full of roadworks and those evil 'average speed cameras', so going down the M40 would avoid all that crap.

So heathrow pickup, time tbc (probably about 9-9:30)

sound ok?

pudding, no problem, you can come with me...

where are you based?

The Road Trip.

I will be driving to Mittens this year.

My car is an R-reg Rover 214, very reliable. It has 5 seats and is a diesel.

I will of coarse take up the driving seat, which leaves 3 other seats (so not to be too cramped)

The Pick Up points will be anywhere near the M1 between Milton Keyens and the M25, then anywhere near the M20. If anyone in central london wants a lift I will do a deviation into Watford, catch a train to there, I can take you.

So, who wants to ride in the Laymobile.

I think Mr Lovegrove has asked for a ride. And If Grundy comes to england first, he has a seat.

As for the other car, I believe Mr CJ may be driving as well.

Help towards the fuel and ferry will be much appreciated. The exact plans for the journey are not specific yet, but there is plenty of time to plan.

To anyone recommending him not to fight his case. The police officer did not show him the reading. How can he know he was speeding or not?

Yes.... It's amazing...

...

...

But I admit I'm visiting this forum sometimes (as well as many other adventure-related forums) simply because I love adventure games and I love game development, and AGS forum is an interesting place connecting both. (even though some people here seem to hate me and my work with passion )

And I admit to going to the Wintermute site and forums.

And as CJ said, people have their preferences. The only reason I use ags is because I have been in the community for about 7 years, so I am a loyal agser. Oh and it is a great engine of coarse.

Did the police officer show you his speed recording device proving you were over the speed limit? Was the speed recording device in question calibrated the morning of the day of the offence??? If the officer did not show you his evidence that you were over the limit, how are you or the courts to know he wasn't simply trying to rack-up offences to make up his quota for the month???

If his speed gun wasn't calibrated, how do you or anyone else know that the gun would give an accurate reading?

There are many ways to beat these kind of offences, especially if the officer doesn't follow protocol.

You don't mention that you were provided with an accurate speed reading from a speed recording device, so I would contest it. But i don't know what the laws are like in your country (guessing america from your sig), but the officer will have to provide evidence that you were speeding. Be it a reading from the gun or what not. But he should have shown it to you. If they have that, ask for the calibration records for the gun in question to be checked over to see if it was operating correctly on the day in question. They should (if your country isn't ruled by evil dictators...) have to prove the device was correct. Which is difficult. Cause an officer who can't be bothered to show you the reding from his machine probably can't be arsed to calibrate it.

My 2 cents...

PS CS3 was working absolutly lovely until one day last week where it gave me an error on startup and ceased to load up. It continued so i uninstalled it. It also affected my other cs3 programs.

Just goes to show the wintermute developer lurks here, 'absorbs' ideas and puts it into his engine. No offense to you mnemonic. Just taking the piss. I think wintermute has far greater 2.5d capabilities than ags, since we have to us a plugin to get that...

And that wasn't a subtle hint CJ. 

i'd prefer to send a bank transfer aga.

Poor Jim here



Oh NO!!!! Not Speckled Jim!!!???

i can pay £65 as soon as aga wants it. I will probably be driving there if anyone is interested in splitting the fuel and ferry. I can see the journey maybe taking 8.5 or so hours factoring in breaks for fuel and what not. I will not pick up from greater London. Easiest pickup spot is Milton Keynes or Luton. Possibly Welwyn Garden City. In France, the best pickup point is Lille. I will let you know in a month if I will be driving there or not.

It is a good idea to know what exactly you want to put into the game.

Make up a few characters, the hero is a good start, the villain helps to (villany is not confined to a person. essentially it is an opposing force, perhaps you want to make a love story, the villain could be another suitor, or it could be the main characters flaw of being an ugly bastard) Give them a life. Backstory, history et al. Once you know who you are dealing with you can put them in a story. It creates more believable stories, because you can work it into the game. Just look at Dave Gilberts and Grundislavs games, they have strong characters. You can't make a good game with a lifeless cast.

Read the GTD thread in the popular threads forum (currently on the second page). You know the one. the one where all the threads that are cool go to die. Print them out and keep handy. They are uber helpful.

Write a paragraph defining the setting, protagonist and the antagonist, and basic plot. If you need help, just take any classic work of fiction as a basis. Most stories are relatively the same. They have a beginning, middle and an end. 3 Acts. Beginning introduces the protagonist and antagonist, and the main characters.

The middles usually is where all the main bits of the story are, where you go hunting for clues or objects, and try to solve the mystery or just develop the story. Kill one of you main characters as well, just to shock. And if you ever get stuck, kill someone else. nothing moves a story forward better than death.

In the end, you must have the protagonist facing the antagonist, with the protagonist winning. Yay, you have written a story!!!

The 20 basic plots http://www.tennscreen.com/plots.htm

If you encounter any difficulties developing dramatic situations, read this! : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Six_Dramatic_Situations

Now you need puzzles or you game might as well be a movie. I don't have much to say about puzzles because they are every adventure game designers worst nightmare.

Best idea is to read these:
http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,522 an article by yahtzee bitching about stupid puzzle design.
http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,332 an artile by josh roberts on puzzle design
http://www.scottkim.com/thinkinggames/GDC00/bates.html Some article i found on google after searching for adventure puzzle design

You may realise after you get the game all pretty much done, beta testers tell you a puzzle does not make sense or is too hard or is too easy. Thats bad, but you can always change it. That is why beta testers are your friends.

Ok, so you have written a plot, added some puzzles.

Start writing lists of what assets you will need. List every background, list every sprite.

You'd probably want to draw your art now.

Read this article by Rodekill as well. It's a pretty good guide, I just expanded a bit more on the storytelling side of things. http://screen7.adventuredevelopers.com/agdzine/articles_learned.htm

Oh and while I was writing this, DKH posted. Storyboarding is a very good idea after you have written the story, but a design document include the plotting of the game, as well as puzzles. I would never storyboard anything with out a story in place already.

Filmmakers use storyboards to decide on their shots, not the underlying story.

The typical "textbook" approach is to start with a concept or a previously completed game and from there create a design document. This document is intended to map out the complete game design and acts as a central resource for the development team. This document should ideally be updated as the game evolves throughout the production process.

But i've never completed making a game, so what do I know.

Maybe the pills didn't work. I did read he was having alot of trouble sleeping. Apparantly quite disturbed after doing the joker. Take a few sleeping pills. Not sleeping... take a few more, still not sleeping, take a few more, body cant take it and shuts down.

It could have been an accident. Actors cram a years worth of work into 3 months sometimes, it's not suprise some burn out, develop issues, and after playing such a psycologically disturbed and insane character for 3 months, something in the brain might go, hey what the f**k, this isn't me, cause nightmares or the like. And he went straight on to film another film.

Stress can do some pretty fucked up things to your body.

Shocking loss.

RIP