~Screenshot Central~

[aboutasoandthis]

Bah, ToP chipset. I tried, but nothing much came out. I would suggest another chipset, but that's just me. Something like the one I used a page or two back might suit you better.

I'm guessing you mean Tales of Phantasia. Yes those chipsets are hard to use. This was a Theodore chipset though. Ever heard of it? It, and a lot of other Theodore chipsets are set up EXACTLY like Mac & Blue. This one included, is supposed to be like the towns and the castle chipsets.

I guess the colors threw you off. I don't blame you. A lot of good horror games use Theodore, even though they're not really for horror games. The colors are usually very gray or realistic. I did figure out that if I use a lot of white houses, A LOT OF WATER, different grass and leaf sprites, and very colorful NPCs, the map will come out nicer after practicing with it.

After sleeping on it, I decided to use the chipset anyway. I did look back some pages and I guess you were talking about the flooded city. I also looked back at the castle in the mountain. I admit I'm taking some of your ideas (With my own original twist on them) and I'm putting them into the city. I decided that the city will only be 160*120 as 16 different 40*30 maps so I can use a lot of panoramas and pictures.

Expect the first finished product in a day or 2.

EDIT===========================================

Forget the day or 2 thing. I took a day off from making the Equip Menu to really work hard with this chipset. I think it turned out AMAZING! I'm really happy with this map. It's still not finished yet though. I still have to put in the NPC, Waterfalls, Water Effects, Plants, and to animate the water (which should only take me five minutes because I actually know what the **** I'm doing).

I admit I stole some of your ideas Meiscool, but I put my own spin on it. In my game, the city was built under a waterfall, then got hit
by an earthquake. The city was rebuilt on top of the old one to attract tourists. This came from Meiscool's mountain castle. I even used the reflection idea but amped it up by putting a reflection of the sky. If you want credit I'll give you some.

I'm really satisfied with this map but if you have comments for improvements PLEASE GIVE A POST! I HAVE 15 MORE OF THESE TO MAKE!

[Meiscool-2]

ROFL. Well, I would either make the water a little more transpartent so you can see the details better, and/or make the building reflections a little more transparent as well. However, I also know that screenshots tell a must different story then in-game "shots" do, so it all depends.

As to eventing that place, I would put fish in the water (naturally) and set them to be below the water events (if you used events instead of a picture. I would put lots of birds in (my mapping tut has a real easy bird script you could use if you don't know how) and that's about it for ideas. You could go the extra mile and put crates and sh!t floating in the water, but other then that I can't tell you much else.

[aboutasoandthis]

However, I also know that screenshots tell a must different story then in-game "shots" do, so it all depends.

I'm stupid today (it happens every other day). What did that statement mean. If you mean I should be taking screenshots and not shots of the entire map, I just wanted to see if I was building the city right. The REAL screenshots will be much smaller with text and cutscenes and stuff in them.

With most of the events and stuff put in how does it look now?
I couldn't fade the water and the reflections without it looking weird but I did fade the clouds. Does it look better? Plus it looks a little cluttered to me (You know I like my maps more open). Either way thanks for the mapping tips Meiscool.

This will be the last time I use a really big picture. After this I'm just using normal sized screenshots.

[Zerlina]

It's nice, however there's a flaw in it which is simple to fix (assuming that you're using pictures).

In reality, when you see a reflection, it shouldn't be an exact mirror image of the object it is reflecting. Depending on the angle you're looking at it, it should be slightly distorted (usually through compression). Otherwise, it seems like the objects exist underwater and are being seen from the top, as opposed to being reflections

[ZeroKirbyX]

Cool lillies, but look at a real body of water. Lillies tend to float in 'packs' and not just hang around randomly. Most times the majority will be near solid surfaces. Your walls for example. While some do float solo, you should make more clumps.

http://photosbymartin.com/images/ethiopia/bahar-dar/images/177_7764.jpg This is a perfect example. See how theres LOTS near the edges, but none in the open?

[aboutasoandthis]

Okay THIS will be my last big screenshot. Here are my responses:

  Originally Posted by ZeroKirbyX
 

Cool lillies, but look at a real body of water. Lillies tend to float in 'packs' and not just hang around randomly. Most times the majority will be near solid surfaces. Your walls for example. While some do float solo, you should make more clumps.

Thanks a lot. Your advice really helped. It actually solved my clutter problem (You can see my underwater city more clearly now). The finished product is attatched. Should I add anything else?

 Originally Posted by Zerlina
 

In reality, when you see a reflection, it shouldn't be an exact mirror image of the object it is reflecting. Depending on the angle you're looking at it, it should be slightly distorted (usually through compression). Otherwise, it seems like the objects exist underwater and are being seen from the top, as opposed to being reflections

I'm using Panoramas but it will only take me 5 minutes tops to edit. I do it all the time. I don't really understand what you mean about the distortion. I already tried to distort them a little. Should I scrunch them up a space. I got picture examples if you wanna help me.

Reflection 1


I didn't know what to do here. It's a flat building. Should I make it shorter?

Reflection 2


I already tried to distort it a little, so I don't know what you're talking about. If you look, the base of the tree and the grass near it are missing. That's in my first pic. If you look a the stairs and the golden walls, I did the same thing.

Should I scrunch up the reflections or something?

[drenrin2120]

wow, I'm stunned. Awesome effects dude. Real nice. Let me throw in my two cents, I blieve what ZKX means by distortion is, if you're using pics for the reflections, to set them to waver slightly, so they seem to be rippled by the water and not perfect crystal clear reflections.

I really like this. Simple but intricate and just... good.

[Meiscool-2]

It looks fine. Don't try and distort it anymore.



Where the hell did that second building (the reflection behind the tree) come from?

EDIT: Nvm, it's probally just a house that's underwater.

[Meiscool-2]

Sense aboutasoandthis posted shots of his CMS, I thought I might post some of one of mine. I just made this for the begining of a game where you choose a job class for you character. It's nowhere near complete, as I still have to show info-pictures telling you about each job, but I wanna know if it looks ok or not. Totally of 12 jobs, and 3 major classes. The Lower Left and Upper Right are the Physical fighters classes, the Upper Left are the Mixed Fighters (meaning they use both magic and melee, but arn't as good in both as a straight class would be), and Lower Right would be the Magic peoples.

Physical: (from left to right) Monk, Fighter, Knight, Ranger.
Mixed: Dark Knight (<- Looking for new name), Paladin, Rouge, Assassin.
Magic: Wizard (<- Looking for new name), Priest, Witch, Druid.

[aboutasoandthis]

I'm guessing that little space above the faces is for their names. Other than that it looks good. Everything matches. I like the one using the bridge background more than the forest one (unless you're supposed to have 2). My only suggestion would be to switch the places of that last magic user (black hair/bottom right) with another magic user. Matces his background too much so it's kind a hard to see him.

This is probably the best use I've seen of Roco art in a long time.

[Meiscool-2]

Oh, I forgot to say that there are different backgrounds for each job. Examples:

The Knight:


The Rouge:


The Wizard:

[aboutasoandthis]

Forget my above post. It looks great. I'd still switch that one mage witn another magic user unless that black thing under him is Sephiroth or something. If you need some more panoramas, I can ge you some. The ones you have still perfectly match though.

BTW: this was originally reply to the same picture thing but I updated the main CMS to look cleaner. What do you you think?
(THE GIL NUMBERS ARE PICTURES. HOW AM I WRONG?)

[drenrin2120]

O_O, awesome Meiscool. You never cease to amaze me.

[Meiscool-2]

About: Looks good. I just thought though, you need somewhere to put what condictions the character might be in. Like, poison would appear under the HP or something, ya know what I mean?

YAY! I got the info thingie done. This is all pictures, none of it is text. You can tell because the pointer hand overlaps the text and the text box. I did however use facesets and text then took a screenshot to make the pictures.

YAYZORS!!! Now I just gotta do the Mixed and Magic sections....

EDIT: Oh yeah...

Blue O means mid
Red -- means low
Green + means high
Blue O with red in it means middle low, and vice versa for green.
ATK: Attack. MAG: Magic . DEF: Defence. SPD: Speed.
EVD: Evade. SKL: Skill Usefuliness DIF: The Difficulty the game will be at should you choose that class (not preset, just means that that class is worse in the game then others)
CST: Cost of items and equiptment EQP: Amount of Equiptment available. TYP: Type, P means Mostly Melee, M means Mostly Magic.

[aboutasoandthis]

Meiscool: the symbols are a little itzy-bitzy for my taste but the CMS DEFINITLY looks good.

As to the conditions, at first I was like "OH ****!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and I tried to fix it quickly until I realized, none of my conditions lasted after battle. Now that I think about it, I might have them after battle (for more tiny sprite goodness).

I have the following bad conditions:

Death (Does'nt count. Maybe a skull with 2 crossed bones.)
Poison(I'm thinking bubbles)
Venom(For MP, I'm thinking bared snake fangs.
Darkness(Sunglasses)
Curse(Limit Bar Goes up Slower, maybe a black cross?)
Silence(No clue. Ideas?)
EDIT+3 dots for silence
Berserk(Red Face with steam.)
Confues(Question Mark)
Frozen(Ice sprite)
Petrify(Stone Sprite)
Burn(Fire Sign)
Stop(Clock maybe?)
Sleep(ZZZ?)
Arrested(Halved stats. I'm thinking handcuffs.)

If this post was illegal, here is the edited CMS:



I 1moved it over by one space. I can probably squeeze one more in for a total of 15 shown conditions. If I should make the condidions end after battle, what should I do with the extra space under the HP and MP? Total Ability Points? Character Job name? The bad condition sprites?

BTW: I have a special EXP system in my game that only needs 100 EXP for a level up. It's based on the FF8 one where if you damage, based on the percent of the kill you get exp. I can't understand the default level up system at all.