Maximus And The 7 Course Meals
DevLog 06 - Improving the Waterfall Loops
Crafting the waterfall animation in this game, I felt, was going to be one of the toughest and most important textures I put together.
Like all animated Wall textures in RGM, it only uses 4 looping frames, so those frames have to look just right to give the right effect, and move at a pleasing pace.
For my first attempt at the animation, I dove in and tried to feel my way around the shapes and motion, trying to see what stuck. And for a while, this looked pretty good to me.
But eventually, the appearance and speed irked me. The frames advance at the right pace, but the power and size of the ripples is too chunky and a bit distracting. These falls need to have a calm yet attractive and appealing look to them. In the wacky world of Maximus, I could have made them over the top and chaotic. But I think it's better if they're a strong point of sanity against all the other insanity.
For this second pass, I tried to animate it inside Clip Studio Paint first, but that surprisingly ended up being far harder. I kept redrawing the ripples and waves at least 6 times, but I could never get the frequency and flow to work right. So instead, I focused on the main body of the fall and made sure each ripple was moving downwards the same number of pixels, so that when the 4th frame becomes the 1st frame again, the ripples still move down the same number of pixels again.
I eventually found out that each ripple has to be separated by 7 pixels, but only move down by 3 pixels at a time. After it moves down on the 4th frame, it will cycle back to the 1st frame and appear to move down another 3. So that's when everything properly clicked.
Then I simply worked out the foamy top of the falls separating the rolling over, and I slightly redrew and recolored the foam plumes at the bottom.
These blue Falls were actually meant to be introduced in the Roman Gardens level and wouldn't appear previously or afterwards. But I enjoy water features so much that I've actually decided to use them elsewhere as it makes sense.
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Hello there,
i m a fan of all wolfenstein alike games and i try creating them by myself. I m only a coder but not an artist. Just saw your works and i found out you re exactly the person i would need! You really work thoroughly on pixel art. I m impressed. Anyways just working on a Hellwomb (by scumhead) remake. After that i thought maybe we can do a little boomer shooter together? Have a nice day and keep the good work up!
Hi Indie Machine.
I'm a bit confused. Why would you be making a remake of "Hellwomb?"
Hello FilmGamerJ,
why confused? Well I check out many raycaster fps with retro asthethics and/or are limited to the "wolf3d engine" gameplay wise and world building. Tbh even the wolf3d engine could have handled more than "one tile" in height. If that makes sense? The limits itself were set by the fact - that devs in the old days werent aware ( or maybe lack of creativity) because it was all about shooting enemies. So they thought. But within the limits carmack could have easily done said "tiles" differ from 32x32 (pixels) to example 64x32. Then you get a wall twice the height. Rott did this and its the improved wolf3d engine. I noticed you could do a lot more gameplay wise than get key A and find Door A. Most wolf3d clones get fast boring because lack of gameplay insights.
Why no one ever did a lot more than the usual goals? I think of NPC following you and maybe they can open a specific door. I think of doors opened by a switch on the floor. I think of moving lasers vertically or horizontally. I think of more than one floor texture per level. I think about glassed windows. I think bout doors that ARE actually 3D with a depth on the sides. And so on. As for different wall heights and ceiling heights it can be easily achieved.
Sorry for the long answer and not even answering your question.
Yes Hellwomb look so nice but its a bit on the unplayable side. In fact all games made in this engine suffer from that. I try to make the game better. And i made my own engine and i want improve on my coding!
Well sure. I understand the limitations extremely well. And making a game like this in a better engine would be preferable. The reason I'm making my game is to help keep this engine alive and show what it is still capable of for new developers who want to try something with it.
The reason I ask why you're making a remake of "Hellwomb" is because Hellwomb is someone else's game. Plenty of games get fan-games, especially FNAF. But since Scumhead is a much smaller developer, I would just recommend that you ask Scumhead if he'd be comfortable with you making a remake before doing so. Unless you already have.
hi there FilmGamerJ,
Thanks for your reply. I sure have done so, sir! First thing i did when i started remaking, i asked scumhead. Ofc i understand your concern about IP but i can assure you - i only code for challenge like i stated i m not a pixel artist just a coder. Seconf reason is i made my own engine and i want to prove that my engine is better or at least up to the wolf3d clones. Like you I try to maximize the limits of my own engine😅 if this makes any sense. Thats why i constantly look for small wolf3d clones that i could replicate. Like i said to challenge and to see what my coding skills did become.
Anyways i make huge progess with the remake. Its rad. I have alot of ideas i would like to implement scumhead ( since its his arts) i d like to draw him some exclusively new content for the game. I hope i can win him for the project but i understand he is quite busy developing. What about a gun that consumes players energy for shots or slowly drain life as long as its active. Or maybe drain energy from corpses or something like that.
Because weapon 1 ( i call it foul blade) is a hitscan melee weapon, weapon 2 ( i call it void cutter for now) is the only projectile based weapon and the last (w3) i call it eldritch eater for now is also hitscan. Its quite op because it works like a chaingun. In past i wasnt a fan of hitscan enemies or hitscan weapons but i found out for those raycasting wolf clones hitscan works best even if its so unreal ( yes games are unreal) but you know what i mean. Anyways i m excited what i have for now plays already quite nice. Happy developing!
Thanks for the confirmation, Indie Machine.
In that case, I wish you the best of luck with the remake, and I would love to play it once it's released.
Since you say you are a coder, not an artist, are you rebuilding the game by duplicating the original assets? Or are you remaking each asset to look higher-resolution, and higher detail, and then remaking the game with new functionality?
Wow, it's beautiful :)
hi from Brasil