Bit Blot Forum
Aquaria => General => Topic started by: Cities on December 31, 2008, 01:13:58 am
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Well... yeah, that's pretty much it :) I am a big fan of the art, and was wondering what the process was for the actual animations? Did you animate in an outside program and import the files, or are they built into the engine itself?
Thanks!
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CQ Alec or Derek! That is a very good question and I have no idea at all?
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Well I know that the animations for things like Naija's limbs are all done with a bone structure type system..so I guess thats engine. And the waving of tiles as if they're in water is something in the engine that can manipulate sprites, so thats in their engine too.
I don't think they used any 3rd party stuff to make animations for the game. ^-^
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I don't think they used any 3rd party stuff to make animations for the game. ^-^
Nope, Alec made an own game engine afaik.
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I don't think they used any 3rd party stuff to make animations for the game. ^-^
Nope, Alec made an own game engine afaik.
That explains why this game is so special and so much a part of Derek and Alec then :D
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Don't forget the particle effects engine as well... some very nice animations come from that. :)
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There's an animation editor and a particle viewer built-in to the game/engine.
Not to toot my own horn, but I wrote the editor and did all the animations. (that's why a lot of them aren't so great, lol)
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There's an animation editor and a particle viewer built-in to the game/engine.
Not to toot my own horn, but I wrote the editor and did all the animations. (that's why a lot of them aren't so great, lol)
Oh come on Alec, those animations are what give Aquaria it's magical feel, and besides I love how they all articulate :D
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Yeah; Alec, you don't give yourself enough credit for the awesome creations you have made! I definitely wouldn't call it tooting your own horn, nor gloating. Well deserved credit, and very well earned. Excellent Coding, Animating, and Musical scoring!
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animation is an art unto itself and not all artists are good animators and vice versa. you were beyond successful in breathing life into the still images, sometimes literally just 1 profile to work with, and augmenting each fish and creatures personality with it's own locomotion characteristics. we'll toot the horn for you, the animation is brilliant and I've pointed that out in person to a few people viewing the game :)
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Just if anyone missed the Independet Tour from the Wolfire guys: Part 4 : Aquaria with some making of stuff (http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/01/aquaria-design-tour/) :D
(hopefully Alec&Derek inlcude a "large/full" Making off Special to the boxed Version of Aquaria)
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Wow! That's amazing! It deserves an extra thread in my eyes. :) (But it is highly spoilerific too, so beware, young gamer. ;))
And the stuff about badly executed puzzles is bullshit. You never get it balanced out so that it is not to hard/easy for everyone. Someone who is into game business should've known this fact... *rolleyes*
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Xiagan, I couldn't have said it better on that point. What's hard for some is easy for others, and visa versa.
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Also, his problem with unexplained features is easily solved by a visit to this forum.
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I played Myst which he mentions as an equal in the amount of difficulty in solving problems and there is no way that Quaria can be considered as hard as Myst or as uninforming..
All Aquaria needs is for the player to keep their wits about them and look around and play hard.. Of course trying out different key also helps but no one say's that you can't try everything.. ::)
The first puzzle that got me stuck was getting energy form and the only reason why I was stuck was because I wasn't being patient enough to go through the entire cycle ::) :-[ (http://smilies.vidahost.com/otn/realhappy/xxrotflmao.gif)
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I loved Myst, but you I would definitely have to say that the puzzles in it were WAY WAY harder than Aquaria. What a terrible review!
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Absolutely. I wandered around the map of Myst (and later, RHEM) for days before succumbing to sheer frustration. >:( :) The puzzles of Aquaria are child's play in comparison.
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Just if anyone missed the Independet Tour from the Wolfire guys: Part 4 : Aquaria with some making of stuff (http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/01/aquaria-design-tour/) :D
(hopefully Alec&Derek inlcude a "large/full" Making off Special to the boxed Version of Aquaria)
Thanks for that. I found the World of Goo one very interesting when I found it a few weeks back, didn't realise they'd done several more.
As a note to mentioning the puzzles being hard: Watch the World of Goo one, you'll note that it's pointed out how the game subtley explains how things are done. Aquaria doesn't do this.
It's not a criticism imo, and the guy doing the video does point out it's a design decision. The reason I bring up World of Goo is because that skirts around explaining things, which Aquaria does at the beginning then largely leaves you to find things in the background or such that aren't immediately obvious.
Finding the right spot for that sort of design in a game as complicated as Aquaria is far FAR harder than a comparitively simplistic one such as World of Goo, but the point being made in the video is that for a lot of people it was too far on the "obscure" side of the line, and as such it is deemed as hard.
Personally I can't believe people got stuck at the door mentioned... It was really obvious to me what to do there.
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I liked the puzzles. They were hard enough to make me feel smart when I solved them, but not so hard as to be completely out there (except for one or two; damn golem boss utilizing an almost completely unused feature).
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Your not wrong there about Myst (I loved it by the way and I have Riven and Uru) but some of the puzzles are very difficult to find any clues for and playing that tune in the ship when you are not very clever with tunes is just unfair!
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There's a ship? Lol, I didn't even make it past the first level. :) BTW silver - four ones! (1111) (at the time of this post, and it's an aside)
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There's a ship? Lol, I didn't even make it past the first level. :) BTW silver - four ones! (1111)
Nope 1114 now, you had to make me look didn't you! Chibi Eyes right! ::)