Creating Music for Spirits Unfold: Part 1

Now that we've got an art team and the game is - just about - rolling along, it's time for me to get started on music, since a lot of our technical specs are finished up. I actually started last month, but a lot of last month was pretty busy with some other priorities that I've had.

November was the first real month that I got down and dirty with my music tasks. I still was pretty busy this month, but I managed to start writing a piece of music that I actually really liked. Currently, it's the theme for the game's first town - Bydale - but the odd thing about writing music for games (especially when they're supposed to match a game's setting that has not been wholly fleshed out yet) is that the mood and the energy within each piece of music may not end up entirely matching that of the setting you're writing it for, by the time that either the piece and/or setting ends up being completed. This means - in reality - that I'm writing a piece of music to match each locale in the game, but everything may end up being shuffled around by the time all of the music is written. Maybe Bydale's theme won't be Bydale's theme. Maybe it would work better in Ollarwood - a town that we haven't even begun thinking about yet. Maybe the shroud of mystery surrounding Bydale (because of spoilers) doesn't really come out in this piece of music like it's supposed to. Maybe it sounds sad, rather than mysterious - but maybe I shouldn't fix it because that particular piece of music sounds BETTER sad - in which case, I would have to start over on Bydale's theme from scratch.

Not only does the feel/style of the music affect the mood, but it's also important to determine how to orchestrate the music for each game. It's obviously important to create the music in the right context - the original Super Mario Bros. NES game wasn't fully orchestrated with live instruments. Not only did the cartridges not have the space for something like that, but it wouldn't have worked, at all. Because Spirits is replicating that retro-RPG style through its visuals, I think real instruments would work fairly well, but it still has to match the instrumentation methods that were available during the time that these types of games were first introduced. People have expectations, you know.

It's really odd how similar music composition is to creating a landscape - you have to take into account the purpose of that area, what happens there, what visual images the music brings you, what characters will be in that area, and whether to integrate other characters' themes into that area, if they have a special tie with it. Realizing this is what makes it important for me to have direct contact and communication with the developers who are creating said area, and also receiving insight and constructive criticism on the pieces I write for each. So far, I've got two themes in progress, and I'm only half-sure that I want to use one of them for its intended area, in-game.

Music composition for games is really odd. But really fun and intriguing.

Environment Art: Bydale

Hello all! Harry here, caffeinated environment artist. I had meant to blog earlier about work on Bydale (the first map we've worked on so far), but since that fell prey to two jobs, three films, drinking, piracy, and food and sleep (just kidding [about the last two]), we have gone months without an environment post. But now seems like the perfect time to begin, as we herald in

The Birth of Bydale
(That's the largest font option)

     Chapter One: The Vision


This has been a wonderful area of exploration as we learn how the system works and what exactly we can do with the maps, and how to do tiles and all that. The same exploratory nature is true for the art, and we played around with various sorts of matte painting and two dimensional work (Joe is an Illustrator man, while I'm more of a Photoshop kind of guy [is Photoshop more "humanities"?]) and 3D modelling (Joe, meanwhile, knows Maya and all kinds of fancy stuff, and, I think, is a little horrified at the limitations of good old Sketchup).

 

As a side note, I personally tend to use a combination of edited photographs and free hand drawing for most of this (thank God for the massive online wealth of Photoshop brushes). Please also take note of Naked Blue Man above, as he may become a bonus unlockable character (if I have any say in the matter, which I probably do not).

We decided on a lovely isometric perspective, such as you shall see below. I grew up with awesome "Euro" RPGs (what's the real term for that?), like Baldur's Gate, that had pre-rendered isometric map scapes, and I was excited to try and capture something of that ilk. I myself am relatively inexperienced in the kind of games an engine like RPG Maker usually creates (the kind of fantastical, insane RPGs like the Final Fantasys and Chrono Trigger and other games I'm ashamed to say I haven't played), so I think my style was a little more subdued and "realist" than the kinds of art that RPG Maker comes with, and Joe and I have worked to achieve a harmonious union between our two artistic visions (which I'm excited to share with you below).


     Chapter Two: The System

To digress for a moment about the actual RPG mapmaker system, most of the images for the tileset in a map are stored in one big image file, which is fixed width but with infinite length. This means that if you have one big group of images (a tree, for example, would need much more than the 32px square of one tile), if it runs over that width, it has to be split up into two or more parts. While the building elements tile with each other, there are a lot of standalone elements as well, and this is something we had to take into account.

Here's where I got to after playing with tiling building tilesets for a while:

I chopped down that original barracks idea (with the tower above) into tiling fragments, and then made roof tiles to appear flat on to the viewer, and the joining tiles between angles, to make more complex architecture. Fun times. Meanwhile, Joe created this awesome watch tower, which is a fine example of a freestanding element:

(Of course these things changed in the final version, as you will see below.)

Another good discovery we made was autotiles, which exist in a separate image file, and basically act as a paintbrush on top of another texture tile, as you can see in the dirt in that last picture. You drag and click, and it makes the edges look nice. It makes life a little easier. Here's grass, thin grass, dirt and cobbles all autotiling:

Next, as a word of explanation, RPG Maker can layer tiles three deep (which isn't much and provides the occasional logistical problem when I want to put a ton of stuff on top of each other). In that way an image with transparency (like the watchtower) appears on top of the grass placed below it (you really have to think three dimensions in two dimensions to do this stuff). This came in handy when I realised that we could layer transparent autotiles on top of other tiles. That may sound like gibberish, but it means that I could make a brush just for long grass and shadow and paint it all over other stuff. Basically it's an easier way of making stuff look pretty. You'll see.

     Chapter Three: Making Pretty Stuff

Enough logistics, and on to fun art development things. After creating basic architecture I moved on to different textures and variations.

A pleasant whitewashed wall and thatched roof, and "empty wall" for stalls and lean-tos and so on. I also made a grass shadow autotile to appear on top of grass. Next, additional architectural eye-candy:

I was actually very proud of the overgrown grass fringe at the wall base. Things like that that you never notice.

Stone walls, and then stone to wood and stone to plaster:

And window slits and stone doorway. Hooray! So that was the main village architecture out of the way. It was time to begin thinking about the more specific Bydale elements.

     Chapter Four: A History Lesson, and a Recipe for Socioeconomic Prosperity

The country of Ametona is small and technologically simple. It's pretty much a feudal mediaeval society. Bydale is a village kind of out on the frontiers of Ametona; it's an agrarian community, but because of its fringe quality, it also has a military presence (not as much as the fortress town of Municro, which is the next big phase, but enough to keep them safe).

Therefore Bydale needed farming and country industry life, with also the ability to defend itself. It has wooden defensive walls, and some worked plots within (and here I break into screenshots from what is now the current iteration of Bydale, fresh out of the oven):

There's the palisade wall in the background, and a big granary tower and a bunch of nice smaller elements. We made trees and foliage as well (more to come). Also check out those sunflowers.

In addition to this, Bydale has a section devoted to the upkeep of its guards and soldiers, including barracks, training ground, and a little forge.

(^ Development)

In terms of commerce, you saw the market area around the central square above (below the granary). Here it is again, with well and trough and bucket.

 
(The bucket is kind of the focal point of the town, if you will. Everything revolves around that bucket. Perhaps it's some kind of idol. We're getting an animator to do NPC actors, so hopefully they can make a bunch of people prostrating themselves around it.)

Going back to commerce (from pseudo-religious caffeine rant), the biggest building in Bydale is the inn, which houses itinerant labourers and tradespeople, as well as travellers (and of course lively frolicking and festive merriment).

It's conveniently signposted (if only everyone weren't oh so illiterate!). I love what the clotheslines add. Also look! The new watchtower. You'll be able to climb that ladder in the game.





     Chapter Five: The Future

So that's about all I have to say about environment art for now. I could go on for hours about entertaining details we had fun sticking in (scarecrow, ivy, horse hitch, wheelbarrow . . . bucket, obviously), or the learning curve for drawing trees, or how awful it is to do all this with a mouse (Wacom tablet is supposed to arrive today), but the caffeine is beginning to wear off and I should probably eat something and try and kick my life into shape.

Next up we're working on fields and wilderness, and we prepare to confront such issues as hills and cliffs and groups of trees. (My new solution to everything: transparent autotiles. See above.) We should also have some more eye candy like ruined walls and wagon wheels and massive ballistas (of course). And water. That one's going to be fun (like really challenging). Then it's on to Municro, and the architecture of an old fortress city.

Whew. And look! I did it all without swearing! Fuck yeah!

We Make Video Games and Stuffed Puddings.

It’s already November, and while we didn’t update the blog too much during October, we had a very productive iteration from both a character and environment art perspective. I will do an extra long one to make up for October.

Environment:

Harry and I were able to pump out the remaining assets needed to complete the Bydale exterior map, which I must say that it looks amazing. Harry will blog later to talk about the Bydale map.

Next on our plate for November is to start a standard field asset tileset. We decided to do this instead of the next town because it will allow us to reuse a lot of the assets used in Bydale and also expand into some more environment assets like water, more trees, hills, and rocks. Additionally, we are going to begin some of the indoor assets for Bydale this month, because we are feeling ambitious.

Characters/Monsters:

Mike has pumped out several monster concepts and has even started making sprite sheets for the pudding, gremlin, and wraith! This is way more than what we had initially planned for this month. I also must say that I have shown the pudding around to some of my friends, and everyone is in love with it. I am crossing my fingers for pudding plush dolls in the future.

DJ has done some character concept sketches on Joseph, which look great. I think DJ did a great job capturing the clothing and personality. For November, both DJ and Mike will work on Joseph’s dialog and battle sprites for his many appearances. Additionally, DJ will pump out some more concepts some of the other characters, and Mike will do some more character/monster work if time permits.

Battle System:

I am proud to introduce Eric to the Spirits Team. He will be scripting the complex battle system for the game, and he is currently researching what is possible. Eric should have a prototype with a few monster battles this month. Dreama will be working on the UI and some battle art.

Music:

Ryan has also started working on both the music for Bydale and the Spirits Theme music. I am personally not the one to ask about music, but I cannot deny its importance in games. Have you ever tried playing a game on mute? Not that exciting…. Ryan should have both of these pieces done by the end of the month.

We are making great strides to meeting our goal in May. It looks like everything is coming together.

On Art + Teamwork

We passed our second iteration just a little over a week ago, and we got some pretty decent results from it. I guess it's relatively easy to determine who is really into the prospect of working on a game in their free time - and who's not - based on the results we got in. Fortunately, most of the work that we expected actually did come through, and we're super grateful and happy that it ended up the way it did.


We've since pulled two more people onto the art team, and already have had great response and enthusiasm from both of them. They're currently working on our main characters and the game's monsters - two of the things we've seriously been lacking in up until this point.

And now for a treat - a piece of concept art for one of our game's monsters, done by our fantastic new artist, Michael.

We're currently at a bit of a crossroads about how to transform these pieces of art into the game's sprites - whether they need to be re-sprited from the ground up, or if they can be transposed into a smaller format, and animated. I think animating frames like this while maintaining the level of detail currently present may be the biggest issue in terms of the amount of work and time.

For now though, things are going great, and I plan on having my first two pieces of music for the game finished by the end of the month. When we've got something else fun to post, you can bet that it'll be here!

Thanks for reading up.

Characters That Make Sense?

We are nearing the end of September marking the end of our second iteration. Unfortunately, we are behind on character concept art and animations, but we have made a lot of progress on environment art.

Harry has put together (I assisted a little) an almost completed tileset for Bydale, which is the first town in the game. This is more than what we had planned for environment development for the month of September. Hopefully, by the end of next iteration, we will have a completed Bydale. Ryan will even start music development for Bydale next month. The good news is Bydale is almost built; bad news is we need to burn it down.

Even though we haven’t made too much progress on character art, we have been discussing the characters’ appearances to have them look consistent to their age, origin, and class. Since the main country in the game has a very medieval setting, we are borrowing cultural appearance when designing the characters.

Admittedly, we have been focusing on the male character design a lot more since the first party members are all men. We are using the medieval cultural view on beards when designing the male characters. Beards are representation of power and masculinity. While the male characters do not have facial hair during their standard appearance (younger), they will eventually sport beards during their adult appearances.

This decision slightly concerns me as I believe it is good to have a diversity of character appearances to appeal to different audiences; however, at the same time it makes sense in this world and is a great way to show a drastic increase in age for the men. Does anyone else have an opinion?

Isometric Vs. Perspective

It's funny how you can mentally trip up over such a little incident.

This past weekend, as Joe mentioned, we got quite a bit clarified and laid out on Spirits. Now, we're getting some environment tilesets together and a question came up:

Wouldn't isometric be a cool viewpoint to employ in the game?

Okay, well, that's great. I mean, sure, it would be fantastic. While I'm not totally into the idea of an isometric viewpoint in 2D RPG games, extra definition on buildings and landscape assets can't hurt. But now comes the fun part. Having the game play in an isometric view means that the tilesets will need more work, since they're at a 45-degree angle. When it comes time to add edges and smooth out the assets we have, we won't simply be able to reuse those angled edges for everything. Not to mention - since we're using RPG Maker, our first "release" as it will, is going to be as a PC version, where the primary means of controls are UDLR arrows.

I'm not sure yet if RPG Maker has an isometric mode, but if it doesn't, that means we get to reserve half of one tile for each separate edge piece we want to produce.

Now, for the other option - proceeding with perspective design. A lot of RPGs re-create that "retro" feel by keeping the buildings and all the environments in the perspective style, where most everything is square, and facing front. I don't see any harm in doing this, mostly because it's simple to use when using a tile editor, and because I don't think much is lost, especially in the way of measuring the grandiose nature of buildings. You can still establish height and length in perspective view, but depth becomes the issue, and even then, it's really only half an issue because of ways around it - like shading.

Not only am I currently more into the idea of perspective view because of the aforementioned, but also because Spirits is our first real GAME as a team. Heck, it's our first game as individuals. No one is to say that it's a bad thing to stay simple, especially if it's suited for the project you're working on. It makes sense to flaunt your abilities, but if that flaunting is at the sake of time that can be well-spent on hammering out the remainder of an already-lengthy game creation process, maybe it's not worth it in the end. Personally, I think it's possible to have a great-looking game simply by having great artists working on assets that are suitable for the style of the game you make. This is why we're not looking to recruit a 3D modeler for our game. It's the same reason why.

Creative boundaries are frowned upon by a lot of people, because no one wants to limit the possibilities they can achieve when working on anything, games included. But sometimes creative boundaries are necessary because they prevent you from turning your great idea into something unsure of itself, a product or outcome that is a mixed bag of results. In this situation, putting our game into an isometric view produces results that will vastly change the impact made on our demographic - on the people who love RPGs and generally know what to expect when looking at RPGs. In order to not confuse them, it's important that we don't make a change that doesn't make sense. Plus, it's an uncommon thing used in RPGs - I can't remember the last isometric 2D RPG I played. I think I'd just be confused.

Moral: Breaking down the barriers for creative purposes can sometimes break down any barriers of expectation that people may have. Creating this project in that way may turn off some loyal fans of the genre, and all for a mostly unnecessary reason - to be different.

First Iteration Complete!

It is hard to believe that it is already September, and we have completed our first real iteration. Unfortunately, we have nothing pretty to show this iteration, but we have made a lot of progress on project definition, gameplay definition, high-level story definition, and recruitment.

We even came up with a goal to have the entire opening sequence of the game playable by May 2012. This is up to the part where Joseph and Myles enter the slave camp.

The majority of the tasks that got done in August were lots of high-level documentation, which is great. Ryan and I put a lot of focus in the battle system definition, and we defined a lot of the functional requirements and character abilities.

Additionally, we did some recruitment, and we now have a pretty solid art team. Yeah, we still don’t have a dedicated Ruby scripter yet, and we could always use another person to focus on animations. Yeah there are a lot of animations…. If anyone on the team has any recommendations on either a scripter or an animation that would be awesome.