UnionVGF Indie Game developers (or thinking about becoming one) corner

starseeker said:
The lines look a bit , did you use a stylus?

Some advice (if you have not already done already):
1) is to use different layer for different shades.
2) Many times, using mask is better than eraser, as it is reversible.You can always Apply mask later.
3) Use the rotate function and scale, to get the angle/Size to apply a brush stroke. Especially useful for line work.
Click to expand...

Used pen for Effect line and Marker Fill in mono pen.

Yeah used Layers for the different parts, started out in Layer 1 with making the shape, Layer 2 for stronger lines, Layer 3 for details and Layer 4 for smaller details that I am yet not sure if gone use.

Ok, thanks, masks that I need to look more into, I often use eraser :).

Yes, scaled that one, started a bit small, then scaled it to add more details.
 
Thats all for digtial painting for the week. Going back to learn more about programming in Unreal Engine.

I am testing out the painting features of Manga studio. Quite happy with it. I just made a purchase, but it seems to be called a different name for the digital version; Clip Studio Paint, & required complete download of files.

Line is traced, everything else is painted, with the reference picture on the other monitor.

fox_by_starseeker-d7og5bz.jpg
 
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starseeker said:
Thats all for digtial painting for the week. Going back to learn more about programming in Unreal Engine.

I am testing out the painting features of Manga studio. Quite happy with it. I just made a purchase, but it seems to be called a different name for the digital version; Clip Studio Paint, & required complete download of files.

Line is traced, everything else is painted, with the reference picture on the other monitor.
Click to expand...

I figured you would like Manga Studio. It's not often that I praise any program given how picky I am. And yeah, clip studio is the name for the download version. I bought the physical version since it was on sale at the time.

The picture looks good. If I had to critique anything, I'd say watch the shadows. On the bottom of the necklace and where the hair touches the back, it could use some more shadows. But anyway, don't worry about that.

I might post some landscape sketches soon.
 
DLC said:
Tried Manga Studio and after did some cleanup in photoshop.
Click to expand...

Looks cool. Like I've said before, the real benefit of these programs is adjusting the brushes to suit your needs. Once you get used to how they handle, you can get them to do what you want and make the drawing process easier.

Also, I don't like working in as many layers as you guys do. I usually only go to a new layer if I absolutely need an object or person to be separate or if I want to experiment and not ruin anything.
 
Godsmack said:
I figured you would like Manga Studio. It's not often that I praise any program given how picky I am. And yeah, clip studio is the name for the download version. I bought the physical version since it was on sale at the time.

The picture looks good. If I had to critique anything, I'd say watch the shadows. On the bottom of the necklace and where the hair touches the back, it could use some more shadows. But anyway, don't worry about that.

I might post some landscape sketches soon.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the recommendation.
The painting/Inking features (more options to tunes, & refine) are better than Photoshop, & for some reason, I can paint/line more natural than in Photoshop. Its a very good price ( I paid 45€) for what you get. The price really put Photoshop CS to shame. Now I will integrate Clip Studio Paint Pro into my pipeline in my game assert creation work. :)

Yap, I improve a fair bit since I posted the Wolverine picture; I experience with the different brushes, as well as some new techniques (which worked!), refine the inking etc. Also, thanks for the critics.


Looking forward to see your landscape artwork;)
 
I am a complete new guy when it comes to this field, but I have a Macbook Air that I want to develop with. Does anyone have any tips?
 
What type of game do you want to make, for which platform? What are your area of specialties? 2D art, programming, 3D modeling etc?

I think most major game engine are available for Mac, & you should be able to develop at the minimum tablet & simple 2D games with a good engine. I think Unity & maybe Construct 2 are free (for practice purpose), why not download one of them & give it a go.

I heard Construct 2 is pretty user friendly for non programmer.

Sometimes, you may not have an idea of what game you want, but via learning a game engine, you may discovered the game that is manage for you & that you like to develop.
 
I think I would like to make a 2D type of hand drawn game, if possible. Would Construct work for that?
 
Erics said:
I think I would like to make a 2D type of hand drawn game, if possible. Would Construct work for that?
Click to expand...

Yes, Construct 2 is fine for hand drawn 2d stuff. That's what I'm doing. You can even look for some sprite sheets of old nintendo or genesis games for placeholders while you try things out. There are lots of tutorials as well.
 
Is Construct 2 not available for Mac?
 
Okay, so here are some landscape sketches. They are rough and not finished. This was mostly for practice anyway. I did them in Painter X3.

I had several goals with these. I wanted to practice some landscapes just to build up some visual memory so I can draw them more intuitively and not need a reference (though I will still have references). Two, I wanted to customize and try out various types of brushes in Painter. Three, I wanted to try some different working techniques that would lead to fast drawings and enable me to get the look I wanted with minimum effort. I did some others, but they were not finished enough to be worth showing. I tried starting very loose and blurry, and then picking out shapes as I saw them. This let the drawing sort of build itself as the rocks take shape from random strokes. Of course, I also tried making some of them pretty close to the originals because I wanted to try to reproduce the effects they were getting.

If you did not recognize the style, these are from 1980s cartoon backgrounds. I think they are from Visionaries and Inhumanoids. Anyway, I liked the style because it looked nice and was simple enough that it doesn't need to be labored over for long periods of time. My style won't be exactly like the cartoons.

For character art, I haven't decided on a final style yet, but it will be more realistic, but not too detailed. I will probably do some experiments. Anyway, here are the sketches.

MbY0EvC.png
 
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Just picked up an orchestral vst to use with Studio One 2. It's call Miroslav Philharmonik. It was about $150 and has some really nice sounds. I think that keyboard workstations like my Roland Fantom X are going to have a hard time keeping up with this kind of stuff. They just sound so good. I got it from Sweetwater, but it's available other places. I'd advise against buying it if you can't play keyboard...or if you don't have a midi keyboard....or if you don't have a DAW...but if you do, yeah it's great.
 
Oh Painter X3 looks great, that reminded me that I have Painter 12 laying around here, bought it one time cheap and have yet to test it.
 
Painter is great. If you come from a background of traditional painting like me, it really is the best program to use.

Many people will be satisfied with Manga Studio since its brushes are actually quite nice. I didn't expect that much from it, so I was surprised. But Painter is still designed around "painting" and focuses all its efforts on that, so I give it a win on that.

Here is a screenshot of how I have Painter X3 set up. That custom palette took about 3 hours to make, and all the colors come from classical paintings (mostly by Jean Leon Gerome. I love his colors.). You can also see how I set up my 20-something custom brushes. The small image on the left is the reference image which Painter allows to upload in its own window/toolbar. I'm not sure if it's a new feature or not.

A38jex8.png
 
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Then I have tried Painter 12, playing around with depth of field and some other stuff then going back to Manga Studio and last Photoshop:


AH1ofqF.png


Edit:

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For its price (I paid around 44€), Manga Studio (Or rather Clip Studio Paint Pro I have, not sure why the different name), its massive value when compare to painter X3 (400+€) & the ridiculous priced Photoshop.

I am not saying Painter is overprice, far from it, but for someone like me, where 2D art, game asserts & painting are not the main core of the work, its a bit expensive.

Had mango Studio cost over 200€ I will just stick to Photoshop CC which I paid monthly fee of 13€.

I mean, if I made good money from my game, & can maybe hire some people, I do not mind getting a few licence, but as of now, I am trying to keep my cost low. Mango Studio cost me much less than an average fuel cost at the pump, so I am fine with it.
 
Yeah, like I said Manga Studio is fine for most people. I'd only recommend painter to artists who do a lot of illustrations, especially if they are a realistic or painterly style. Otherwise, there's just no reason to get it over Manga Studio because it has plenty of great stuff of its own.
 
Currently studying procedural generation to create random maps for my dungeon crawler RPG. I may also implement some Minecraft functionality and let you destroy tiles with a pickaxe to search for treasures (or reveal traps!) and open up additional pathways. I'm also looking into implementing roguelike features as well.

I'm getting pretty close to getting everything working. There are a lot of decisions to make in this stage. Once I get this map generator working, I'm off to make the map tile graphics.
 
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Alright, here we go. I'm excited that my random map generator is working now! It's still rough and will need more code, but it is very good even now. I first set it up as a top down set up using just squares. I then worked out how to make it a 2d isometric game. I had a little help from the Construct 2 forums. Of course, I also spent a few hours studying on my own.

Here is a screen. Note that this is not of my full game. This is just a separate project with placeholder graphics to iron out the random map system. The art is very crude and doesn't even fit perfectly.

VwBOTwu.png


And that was made in about 2 seconds. I can click refresh and get a new one easily. Most of the time, the results are quite nice for something that builds itself from scratch. I also set it up to generate a mini-map each time I right click. I can destroy the wall tiles by clicking on them as well and then update the mini-map to show the changes.

The next step will be more bitwise code to auto select the correct graphic if it is an end piece, by itself, or in the middle of a wall or whatnot.
 
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Well, so far it looks like I may not be able to have destructible environments because they are too resource intensive. Each characters needs to regenerate the obstacle map each time something is destroyed, and this can get very expensive really fast with this engine. Until improvements to the engine come out, I am not including this feature.

I did, however, get the line of sight working for enemies so now you can hide from enemies. They will wander around aimlessly if they lose sight of your entire party until they find you.

I also made some general refinements here and there. Things are getting exciting! I'm not going to show off a screenshot until I get level graphics done for at least one level, and I get the character art done at least for one pose with each character.
 
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Good AI not easy to design. You made AI with Programming to visual programming (or a combination)?
 
starseeker said:
Good AI not easy to design. You made AI with Programming to visual programming (or a combination)?
Click to expand...

AI is extremely tricky. They only do what you tell them to do, and you better be careful how you word it. I've done everything from spawning 1,000 enemies on a spot to having them accidentally self destruct.

Here is a screenshot from construct 2 for my current game. Keep in mind that you are seeing 2 events. There are roughly 150 events just for this one character not to mention references to him in other sections. There are already over 1,300 events for this game, and that number will increase a lot when I add in more enemies (there are 2 now), and some other things I need to add in. I will also start work on the inventory system soon. Luckily, you can organize the event sheet and add in notes.

I6uYQsh.png


The engine has some features built in, and you can choose things on a visual basis like select this enemy and apply that behavior (such as line of sight). But then you still have to set up the logic in the events system to work as you want. It may take several hours to do complex things if you can even figure it out at all. It's still much easier than programming because of the visual approach to the event system, but it still takes a while to create a "good" game.
 
I enjoy the new Unreal Engine. I remember back in the day using 9 different programs to do what I can now all do in the latest UDK. It's nice how far things have come.
 
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Only info.
Epic refers to the new Unreal Engine as Unreal Engine 4 (official name). UDK was the older version that power Unreal engine 3.

People have asked at Epic forum the day Unreal 4 was release what should it be called. On a side note, the Epic community reps are pretty cool, & answer many of my questions nicely.


Anyway, an update: I spend 2 months now going thought the 2nd book (Unreal programming) on UDK (first book was on overview of the SDK), almost done now, only 2 main chapter left, Multiplayer & debugging.
This programming part took me a long time, between late classes, & world cup, I did not get up to the speed I wanted. Also that I have no game programming background & programming in general only basic, so I am taking my time, so I made better codes when I made my actual game.

I however also took time off to add more game design & plots, as well as improving my digital painting skill (like the ones I posted here).

But once I am done, I will move to UE4 proper, & start making actual game asserts & more learning!
 
Moving over to a top down game instead of 2d :

Now this took about 5 min to set up after reading how set up jumping in Playmaker (Unity):

eFw4kU6.jpg
ikWe444.jpg
cNORERT.jpg


Thinking of making a top down game where can jump over stuff, rpg.
The capsule will be replaced later when I have tested the rest of the controllers: move, run and jump over cliff.
Name on capsule is there because have show state label enabled, can be removed.
 
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