Bit Blot Forum
Aquaria => Modding => Topic started by: Sindhi on October 09, 2009, 12:23:02 am
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SPOILERS!!!!! Yogoda and I are still planning to finish our mod, “The Magic of Aquaria”. I’m drawing most of the the graphics and Yogoda made all the maps and animation and some of the graphics and decorating, and Sindhi is now working on the story with Nightmareshadow. We begin the story after Aquaria ends. Sindhi began by drawing with pens and scanning art into PS, but she also has a graphics pad and is playing in My Paint and Gimp. We're including some screenshots and the URL to Yogoda's Photobucket website with lots more pics. Yogoda has finished our first boss battle. We are mostly done with a second boss, and Yogoda made use of the unused creator boss from Aquaria, so that one is done. There will be fourth boss to which DangerMouse is contributing.
After seeing Avatar, Sindhi decided to modify the Secret Garden part of the forest map; pics below. Nightmareshadow is helping now with puzzles, and Yogoda will be working again the end of March after he quits running the Minecraft server. We are releasing part one of Magic probably this summer.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/TunneltoForest.png)
This is the tunnel from the waterfall map to the Forest maps; see a view where it comes out on page 9 of this thread.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/ForestMap3-1.png)
The Secret Garden, part of the Forest Maps, an homage to the Pandora forest in Avatar.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Close-upSecretGarden.png)
We plan to add creatures, both crawling and flying, and a new entity better than a pet. Sindhi drew everything but the flowers & moss.
Naija can walk along the branches and climb the trees now.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Cavepassage2.png)
An example of using Aquaria tiles recolored in Gimp for a monochromatic effect; passage to the lowest cave below the home cave.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Sunsetmaptransition.png)
Two different color schemes in the Sunset map (entire Beauty of Aquaria map re-done) transitioning from one area to another
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/thelargewaterfall.png)
This is the large waterfall,where Naija walks, climbs, and jumps to the top. Yogoda made the basic design and a puzzle
for the door, which goes to the forest maps. New pic with butterflies and toned-down ivy.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/GaiainWorldTree.png)
Gaia in the World Tree, Cave of Creation, Don Goldman's astrophoto of the Iris galaxy behind. Yogoda made the tree, I added "leaves"
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/EntrancetoMysteryCave.png)
The entrance to the mystery cave and the coolest boss we've made so far. Yogoda went crazy with the spiderwebs.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Snakebosslair-1.png)
This is where the cool boss lives, in the heart of the mystery cave; Yogoda designed and decorated this one.
link to Yogoda's website and more pics: http://s763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria
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Looking good! I'm jealous of your drawing abilities but I do have one suggestion about your coloring. I think you need to bump up your saturation. Now that I think about it Aquaria has somewhat of a darker palette than your additions. There seems to be a little to much grey coming through. The best example would be comparing your palm tree with that of Derek's. Keep at it the underlying form is there (awesome jelly!). That crystal tree looks really awesome (a good example of saturation/contrast) but that is an absolutely absurd amount of tiles. Looking through more of the pictures on Photobucket I would suggest pulling back just a little on how many tiles you're using. There's beauty to be found in open water and negative space.
Where I have no intention of spending as much time as I did with Sacrifice on another Aquaria MOD I'd definitely be willing to lend a hand at times (story/writing/mapping/scripting). You guys seem to be off to a good start so keep at it!
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Thanks, Bear; sent you a PM. You are right about the saturation and some of the tiles and entities have been fixed already (like the jelly); learning about dodging and burning. The crystal tree did take a ridiculous amount of time; I did the edges of the cave and got permission from Don Goldman (www.astrodon.com) to use his astrophoto of the Iris galaxy behind; Yogoda made the tree and I fiddled with the leaves for several days while watching TV but it's not so bad if you clone them. Yeah, Yogoda thinks I am crazy; he kept saying "Not more leaves!!!!!" Right now he is working on doing a squid boss with separately moving arms and tentacles; rather more complex than the normal boss... he does all the animation and code and maps. We're trying for a more realistic look. We'll keep posting pics on Yogoda's photobucket website as we go.
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The first couple screens remind me of Ecco the Dolphin. The (awesome) tree reminds me of Secret of Mana for some reason. It's good to see people doing their own graphics!
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Looks awesome, good luck with it, I'm sure it'll turn out better than expected!
Also don't let out too many spoilers it'll ruin the surprise. =D
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I kind of think you should just do your own story rather than try and continue Aquarias..
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Yes, we are making our own story, it will be very different from what you have in Aquaria, but we also try to make it match the end of Aquaria. This is not easy. For now the script that is the hardest part for us to do, even if we have a lot of ideas :)
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Also don't worry for the graphics too much, when we started, we didn't know anything about GIMP, had to learn everything, starting by how to remove the backgrounds.
We came across a very nice tutorial that showed how to shade graphics, and we are now using this technique to improve our graphics greatly. Look at the result on a plant :
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/beforeafter.png)
And we are still learning. Some of the screenshots are quite old, an the graphics are now much better. (note : screenshots have been refreshed now)
Here is the tutorial if someone needs : http://etomo.deviantart.com/art/Gimp-Shading-Tutorial-83424257
I would like to congratulate Sindhi for leaning to do all this complex stuff at the age of 62, she is really amazing :)
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Wow that really does look nice. Good work guys. :-*
You may not see me post in this thread every day, but I'll be sure to check up on whats going on ;)
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Good job, Yogoda. By the way I am 64 Nov. 1 (omg!), and you know what? There's this little kid inside that never ages, and just because I have brain farts doesn't mean I have one foot in the grave. I am seriously technically challenged, however, and I thank you for your patience; you're a great teacher. Hey you guys, it may not have been real obvious, but there's an URL at the bottom of the first post that leads to more photos...we will update but also take Alpha's advice and not leak everything.
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Hey, I am so proud of Yogoda; he is inventing new animations that are soooo cool; we have several new entities and new maps, and the squid moves quite fluidly (the arms waving about); almost done with that. We added the Beauty of Aquaria map to our mod and I am redecorating; we have an urchin cave with surprises and a cool new kind of missile Yogoda invented, and a snake cave above the waterline that you will be lucky to survive... hope Yogoda won't be mad at me for sharing; I know he doesn't want to tell everything yet, but I am just super excited. We are updating the pics on our photobucket site every few days. Hey, if any of you know about good software for making videos let us know. DM told me once in a Skype chat but I can't find it now...
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this looks really nice! but it's only for PC right? :-\
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Yes, a mod is an add-on to the main game, and Aquaria is only available for PC right now. But Aquaria may be ported to other platforms in the future !
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Hey, I am so proud of Yogoda; he is inventing new animations that are soooo cool; we have several new entities and new maps
I wouldn't do anything without your beautiful drawings :)
hope Yogoda won't be mad at me for sharing
Hehe, it is difficult, we are excited about what we create, and want to show it to everyone, but at the same time we know it will kill the surprise. I would suggest to put big red SPOILERS everywhere
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Yes, a mod is an add-on to the main game, and Aquaria is only available for PC right now. But Aquaria may be ported to other platforms in the future !
Mods should be compatible with the Mac version (which is already out) and the upcoming Linux version (still being ported).
Looking forward to seeing this mod when its done. :)
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Yes, a mod is an add-on to the main game, and Aquaria is only available for PC right now. But Aquaria may be ported to other platforms in the future !
Mods should be compatible with the Mac version (which is already out) and the upcoming Linux version (still being ported).
Looking forward to seeing this mod when its done. :)
really? that's awesome to hear :D
thanks!
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Some new art and maybe even music compositions would be a really cool mod :)
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I would love to have new music in the mod, but we would need someone for this :)
If someone is interested, please contact us !
We also have new entities sounds to do, we will try to do it ourselves, but we are really noobs at this ::)
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I would love to have new music in the mod, but we would need someone for this :)
If someone is interested, please contact us !
I might be down for writing a piece or two, but I don't want to take up a spot that someone else could fill.
Would rather see fans do it TBH! :)
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Wow, would be truly wonderful Alec ! :)
I understand you don't want to take the spot of someone else, we will tell you if we find someone ! (you would still be welcome to write some in that case :) )
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Oh, Alec, I love your music so much; we would be honored if you could write something for us. I am just jumping up and down, here. Nobody else has stepped forward, you will notice..... Maybe it's a sign from the universe? HEHE
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(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/2010-04-16200232.png)
An unknown creature has been spotted in the depths. It was unclear what that was, but that seems huge :)
I hope I don't spoil too much ;)
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Bwahaha, that's amazing.
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Wow those screens are really impressive. I'm particularly loving that waterfall. :D
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I'm curious. Is there any way to get those newly shaded graphics into the main game as well? A little fan-made update? I doubt there's any way to really improve this game since it's so good anyway, but a little sharpening never hurts.
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I just saw all the photos in the album. Golly Jeepers, that looks INCREDIBLE! It looks so beautiful, and has a lot of interesting ideas.
I'm eagerly looking forward to it. Any idea when it will be finished?
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I just saw all the photos in the album. Golly Jeepers, that looks INCREDIBLE! It looks so beautiful, and has a lot of interesting ideas.
I'm eagerly looking forward to it. Any idea when it will be finished?
Thank you so much for your comments :) I is great to know people are looking forward to it.
I'm afraid it will be long before we are able to release it. Sindhuma is in travel for now, but in 2 weeks, I'm flying to the US for 3 weeks ! We hope that during this time where we will be together we will be able to make a lot of progress. The maps are almost finished, but we have to work a lot on the story and adding puzzles to the mod. Still quite a lot of work.
We will keep you informed !
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Hi guys,
I'm still in Mexico but back in a few days. Thanks for all the great comments. About the art, I was sort of hoping that Yogoda's great animation and my graphics might inspire Alec to do an Aquaria sequel with which Yogoda and I would love to help. We are trying to finalize the story, which is still rolling around in my head but getting clearer, and I have a lot of work to do with cutscenes and adding creatures and other stuff to the forest maps, one of which is quite Pandora-esque. Just taking some time off but both Yogoda and I are committed to finishing the mod in the next few months. The cool thing is we work well together and are both open to suggestions. We will have more for the Photobucket site soon! Don't give up on us....
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New stuff in the first post
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Amazing new pics once again.
I do however see that a LOT of the graphics have white outlines, this is because of the anti aliasing in-game and the fact that transparent pixels are white by default, and so it mixes the existing drawn pixels with the transparent pixels and thus gives the white outline.
To fix this you simple have to draw a (black) outline with a barely/1% visible brush.
Seeing I worked on a Naija skin I ran into this myself, I'd suggest really doing this for it will most likely make everything look way way smoother.
None the less I really can't wait to play this.
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Thanks for the feedback. Yogoda helped me do this with the anemones; he said it was easy. I will ask him if he wants to do everything, but I think I will need to learn how to do this myself...
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If you want I could try making a quick how-to tutorial, depending on what program you use.
Heck, if you want you could pass over all the graphics (and a level to test them in) and I could do it for you. Then I at least have helped SOMEhow in this amazing mod.
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It's a deal. I can e-mail you the graphics file... do I have your e-mail? Thank you tons!
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I think you already do, but either way it's alphasoldier [at] hotmail.com a very known and very spammed email account. =D
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It is really strange because we already worked a lot to remove the white borders and we know how to do it. So I don't really understand when you says : "a LOT of the graphics have white outlines". I don't see any white outlines.
The only problem I could see is maybe with the mondo-grass (black grass), I tried to make it better but with no success in the past, and on a black background it looks too white. Also maybe you thought the Silver-fern had white borders, but it's its color. Maybe you saw old screenshots too ?
Silver fern
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Fernyclose-up.png?t=1273305720)
Mondo grass
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4422249/pictures/mondograss.jpg)
Can you point what graphics seem to have white outlines and I send them to you by e-mail. Already sending the mondo-grass.
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I guess I was talking about the old screenshots.
Also a LOT is very an overstatement, I just saw it a lot in one picture, that's completely my bad, sorry.
The Crystals on the big Gaia tree(?) have white outlines, but I guess it's an old picture.
The bark of the trees that grow in that secret garden has the same.
None the less, I've tinkered with the mondo-grass and I'll send you a link to it through PM seeing you took the effort to mail it to me, instead of publicly.
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The crystals in the tree were all Derek's from Aquaria; don't think we can modify them. The background of Don Goldman's astrophoto of the Iris galaxy (used with his permission) has a lot of white in it.
BTW I believe it was Danger Mouse who told me he doesn't like combining photos and graphics, but I think it's a cool idea; see below:
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/LavaCaves2.png)
Photo of Martian lava fields courtesy of NASA; I subscribe to the NASA daily feed. Plants were recolored in Gimp.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/CrystalCave1.png)
Another background of Mars used in the crystal cave in the Sunset Beach map, courtesy of NASA. NASA photos not recolored.
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Oh, about the trees in the Secret Garden... that is the only time I have made something totally in Gimp by drawing and coloring in, layering different colors until I liked it. It turned out choppy, with segments of tree-trunk I had to cover up with lots of fern and ivy. I don't see white outlines, though, just some lighter shading here and there. By the way, fans should recognize that the pink "flowers" are mushroom parts from the home cave in Aquaria. They make great Pandora-type flowers. I need to work on the tree trunks and try to make something that isn't so short and squatty. Those ferns are the same ones in the screenshot Yogoda posted (the Japanese Silver Painted Fern) but recolored in Gimp; also the same as the purple ferns in the same map, and the green ones with the rounded leaves were recolored a gaudy turquoise. I was an art teacher for years; love playing with colors and color schemes. By the way I change the first post in this thread all the time and it doesn't show up as "new". There's a new waterfall pic there and some others.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Close-upLeftsideSecretGarden-1.png)
close-up of the Secret Garden
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I don't see the white lines in the later pictures, but I'll show you what I meant anyway.
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5181268/Aquaria/Pics/Magic%20White%20Lines.png)
First is fairly obvious, second is shown with the many red lines.
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Okay, the crystals are from Aquaria and we can't change them. I don't see what you mean about white lines in the crystals; there are highlights, but I don't see lines except for the red ones. If there is anyone else out there who is bothered by this please speak up! The tree parts don't exactly have a white line, but some of the edges are lighter than the middle bits. I can take them into Gimp and spray paint the edges so the highlights are gone. There's not much I can do about the crystals; sorry, Alpha.
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We got y our changes to the black mondo grass, Alpha, and they are in the mod now; thanks. I see what you mean about the sort of grey lines in your crystal screenshot. And there are some white lines in some of the smaller crystals which are leaves on the tree. Don't think I can do anything about it. Here are a couple of screenshots of the Cave of Creation with close-ups of the crystals and the tree. I think this is about as good as it's going to get. Considering the time it took me to put all the leaves on the tree, removing the white lines would take me years.....Oh, and part of this is that Yogoda did an animation effect that makes the brightness go up and down as you move through the tree, and Gaia also has a special effect, which does funny things to the screenshots. Well, both Yogoda and I are waiting for next week when we can spend three weeks in the same timezone working on the mod... so we will have more to show you soon.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Close-upCaveofCreation.png)
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Close-upCrystalTree.png)
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Okay, Yogoda has made two butterflies in My Paint and Sindhi shaded them in Gimp (the blue and orange ones) and
Sindhi made two multicolored butterflies in My Paint (totally) and Yogoda animated them. We put them in the forest
maps, waterfall map and the tunnel map (from waterfall to forest). This is the first time Sindhi has drawn things totally
in My Paint without a sketch first; usually she colored the whole thing and scanned it into Gimp for shading. Here are screenshots:
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Waterfallwithbutterflies.png)
The waterfall map with flying butterflies. Right now Naija can jump around the map, but Yogoda will make her walk and climb
up ivy and other things. We want her to be able to climb trees in the forest map, especially in the Secret Garden. . Yogoda just
announced he has figured out how to make her climb!!!
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Naijaforestbutterflies2.png)
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/NaijaTakesaStroll.png)
Here Naija is taking a stroll in the forest, walking behind some ferns and in front of others, and if you move the cursor
faster she runs. Yogoda did this animation yesterday, making her walk naturally and run. He had to remove the cape,
which was floating behind her at a distance, like a pet.
We'll keep you guys posted except for the secret stuff (boss stuff, for surprises). We're getting a lot done working together in the same place.
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I feel bad because I can't think of anything to say other than... wow.
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I probably deserve to be smashed in my face by saying this, but I once again see a white outline on the middle and right butterflies on the last picture.
Another thing I have to say, which you guys also aren't gonna like is that I find that so many different kind of pictures, grabbed from IRL pictures mixing it with the drawn style of Aquaria makes everything look a bit off, but that's just me being picky cause I can't find any other flaws.
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Alpha, about the white lines: dude, you're colorblind. Maybe that affects how you see things. And I intend to replace all the photos with art, of course; I was just planning stuff out first to see if I liked it; you have to wait to see the final result. I kind of like that I can make stuff that looks pretty much like the photos . And I like using the astrophotos for backgrounds. If other people don't like the effect, well, you can't please everybody....so am basically pleasing myself and Yogoda. You guys should see the butterflies in action; they are pretty awesome. Yogoda is awesome.
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I'm not colorblind, and I have to agree with Alpha on this one, I also see the white outlines around the 2 right butterflies, even before reading his comment.
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Okay, you guys are right; Yogoda is working on removing them but it's not easy.
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Hmm... there's a photoshop plugin that can help fix the "white halo" problem...
http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/SL-Tuts/SLPages/WhiteHalo1.html
I know Wolfire.com had a great post about it, but I can't find it right now...
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Thanks, Alec. I knew I wasn't making white lines around the graphics on purpose but I didn't know how to get rid of them, and they are very hard to see! Yogoda is studying the link you sent now. Hopefully all you sharp-eyed people out there can breathe a sigh of relief very soon...
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Thanks a lot Alec, I figured out how to remove the white borders :)
The areas in my pictures that were 100% transparent were white pixels, and I guess the graphic card mix the pixels together before applying the transparency, that's why.
So here is what I do with Gimp :
- Transfer transparency in a mask.
- Disable the mask so I can see the transparent white pixels
- Changing the white pixels to black
- Applying the mask again.
- Fixed !
That's great :) Thanks !
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I already said earlier on in this thread that you simply have to give everything a 1% visible black outline, but I was quickly pointed out that you all already knew how to fix it. :/
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No, no, he's right on this one. There is a very minor white outline around the butterfly sprites. The kind you get from anti-aliasing your transparency in photoshop, then exporting to an image format (.gif) that doesn't support gradiated transparency. Try cutting the outer pixel of outline off of the sprites (select empty transparent area with wand, modify selection, decrease selection size by 1 pixel).
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I already said earlier on in this thread that you simply have to give everything a 1% visible black outline, but I was quickly pointed out that you all already knew how to fix it. :/
The problem here was not the black outline, but the color of the invisible pixels that should be black and not white. If you put a black outline around the graphic but the invisible pixels are white, you will still have a white outline because the graphic card will mix the pixels. This is what happened with the green butterfly that had a black outline.
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Oh, here they are !
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/2010-05-20123750.png)
Please, tell me it is fine now ::)
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Another screenshot for your kind attention.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/ButterfliesTunnel.png)
Butterflies without halos in the sunset tunnel; Yogoda fixed the white halo around the plant in the
sunset tunnel close-up after I took this shot.
Hey, you guys, we need puzzles for our mod; if anyone has a fertile mind please send us some ideas!!! We will be working on the story also but not sharing that part. Thank you for all the help and advice!
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I can't wait until this mod comes out... I'll have to torture myself by dying thousands of times over and over again just to see more beautiful places. ._.
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Beautiful. Can't wait to see more.
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If I see any more I'll force myself to play the mod when it comes out and then die horrible deaths over and over again. =^.^=
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no, Lady Succubus, we would never let you die horrible deaths... we will have lots of lovely food for you to eat to grow strong and crafty, and hopefully more puzzles than horrible mean bosses (I modified my last post, please see it and the pics are replaced. Photobucket is being very glitchy today.). We need help with puzzles. Any ideas are greatly appreciated. Alpha, just for you I will do a screenshot of the newly shaded trees. All of our bosses are beautiful as well as deadly, but nobody will have to spend more than a few minutes defeating them hopefully, and we will have convenient save crystals near the entrance to their lairs so you may kill them again and again. We are not heartless.
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no, Lady Succubus, we would never let you die horrible deaths... we will have lots of lovely food for you to eat to grow strong and crafty, and hopefully more puzzles than horrible mean bosses (I modified my last post, please see it and the pics are replaced. Photobucket is being very glitchy today.). We need help with puzzles. Any ideas are greatly appreciated. Alpha, just for you I will do a screenshot of the newly shaded trees. All of our bosses are beautiful as well as deadly, but nobody will have to spend more than a few minutes defeating them hopefully, and we will have convenient save crystals near the entrance to their lairs so you may kill them again and again. We are not heartless.
Yay! A game designer who actually cares without giving you ways to completley bypass major obstacles! =^.^=
Something that would be fun to see would be food items that can alter things in the world... like maybe something that makes you "smarter" by making puzzles easier?
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I'd love to help on creating puzzles for this mod, it looks awesome and I must say I'm really curious about it.
Though I don't know what kind of story you have and what sorts of puzzles would fit in it. I don't know if you would be able to either post it here, or pm me with some of the information to be able to make puzzles fitting in either the storyline or the overall setting of the game. At least, I think you'd want puzzles which fit in with either of those, to make it more complete.
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I want to help too, but I'm too stupid to do anything. T_T
I tend to make group efforts fail with my incompetence. >_<
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The puzzles we are looking for don't really have a lot to do with our story, which starts where Aquaria left off and veers wildly about, taking Naija onto the ground walking and climbing and running, and probably into space. It will be more spiritual than Aquaria, but not obnoxiously so. The puzzles we want are basically for getting from one place to another; through doors or secret entrances that are blocked... with a difficulty level somewhere in between having Naija stand on her head and having her do Simons Says for 12 notes. Yogoda came up with a good one for the door in the waterfall map that leads to the tunnel to the forest maps. I have a good idea for one that leads from the home cave to the Sunset map (the entire Beauty of Aquaria map redecorated). Other than that we have no other puzzles; all ideas are welcome.
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Yay! A game designer who actually cares without giving you ways to completley bypass major obstacles! =^.^=
Nice kick in the balls for Alec and Derek there, Succubus.
The original game also has save crystals before (and after) every boss.
Also about the puzzles, I'm not sure how far you are going with all the spirituality but I've always wanted a more advanced jumping level, I once started a game myself, but once I wanted platforms that move hence and forth I gave up cause I fail at scripting.
What I'm getting at is, a level/puzzle/part with a lot of floating and moving rocks, big birds flying amongst a path where you have to jump to some big floating island.
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The original game also has save crystals before (and after) every boss.
Oh, yes, I especially remember the ones that took me 2 minutes to get back to the boss, and would sometimes get me killed before I could make it back to the save point. =^.^= Remember the jellyfish?
How about a puzzle that requires using objects in unusual ways? :3
Maybe getting a miniboss to the surface of water so you can launch up to a ledge that's just past the beast form's jump, or something like that? ^.^
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A surface boss, I hope that's in there already. =D
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Maybe you need the miniboss to get onto the ledge, and the MOMENT you land on it the ground shakes and out pops a save crystal, and after you save, a boss lands on you? =^.^=
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Maybe you need the miniboss to get onto the ledge, and the MOMENT you land on it the ground shakes and out pops a save crystal, and after you save, a boss lands on you? =^.^=
We already have something like this ;)
I like your comment about using objects in unusual ways, I have to think about it :)
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A puzzle that requires you to die (or almost die) to solve it. ^.^
Maybe a door that requires them to have between 20 and 25% health, or something like that? =^.^=
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Or a big pitfall with invincible enemies and spiked walls.
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NONO. A GAUNTLET with invincible enemies and spiked walls.
That'll teach those super-violent guys to stop killing everything in sight and just run like a sensible person does. =^.^=
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Alpha, it sounds as if you are looking for Pandora-type floating islands or rocks sort of thing. Actually, Yogoda already made a map with clouds and floating rocks where Naija can fly; the only glitch is that she has a tendency to do a tuck-and-roll unexpectedly, and she can smack her head into a rock right now... maybe we need something more like floating mountains. Also talked about putting some kind of dragons in there, maybe have Naija fly on a dragon (both of us want to have a banshee to fly, in spite of what the neighbors would say, and I wonder if we all have flying dreams because we have some racial memory of remembering that we once knew how to fly, as in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I wanted to do a dragon boss before I heard that DangerMouse was doing one. This would be with the dragon in the air and Naija on the ground. We haven't drawn it yet, though. We want Naija to climb up the trees and especially the higher trees in the Secret Garden (Pandora type) map, to find a little creature like a pet only a small fairy-like entity of light, like the sacred seeds in Avatar only a little person. I would love to have flying dragon-type, banshee-type creatures in there, different enough to not get sued by James Cameron. Our game will not be as spiritual as Avatar in some ways, and there will be plenty of action. We don't want to do a platform game like Super Mario Brothers though. Done to death. We have more ideas than time to work on them....can't promise anything right now; need to finish what we have first. If Yogoda would just quit his software engineer job and move here we would have the time, but for some reason (duh) he wants to stay in Geneva and make a great salary and look for a job making indie games. I hope we finish this mod before he finds one!
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NONO. A GAUNTLET with invincible enemies and spiked walls.
That'll teach those super-violent guys to stop killing everything in sight and just run like a sensible person does. =^.^=
The "super-violent guy" solution to that setup would be run around in circles while shooting all the enemies, taking ages but ultimately clearing out the entire area...
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If they're invincible, they'll never get anywhere with that idea.
Unless they enjoy hearing that metallic noise. Then no one can help them.
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Freedom of choice is a great factor in Aquaria's succes. Forcing people to do a level or gauntlet in a forced certain way would take most fun out.
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Freedom of choice is a great factor in Aquaria's succes. Forcing people to do a level or gauntlet in a forced certain way would take most fun out.
Okay, well, they could put some routes with more currents and more monsters and some routes with less currents and less monsters. And maybe even some with more currents and less monsters! =^.^=
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There are some fun currents in the Sunset map, and a mini-Abyss area we will pack with monsters. And the urchin cave is pretty packed with monsters...and the snake cave. Lots of tricksy evil spiders...
The problem with making more monsters is scripting the fights, and since our bosses are a bit more complex, I think, than most of the Aquaria bosses they are a pain in the butt to script, Yogoda tells me... we are just too perfectionistic and picky, I guess, which is why this mod may take us another six months to finish... sometimes I just can't believe that Alec and Derek made all of Aquaria in two years, just the two of them (plus the third guy for a little while), and here we are doing just a little mod and it takes us soooooo long to make stuff and script stuff. Especially since we are doing so many of our own graphics. The learning curve seems more like a corkscrew than a curve sometimes.....
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/ForestMap1-middle-1.png)
Here are the new tree trunks Yogoda worked on (hey, Alpha, no white edges!!!) and Sindhi made new greenery for four kinds of trees and did a tree with stretching tiles to make branches, so the forest maps will look better all around.This is in the middle of the first forest map.
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Oohs! =^.^=
I wish I could help more, but I'm not smart enough to come up with "original" puzzles. ._.
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You know, we create our reality with words. "I'm not smart enough..." creates that reality. I know from reading your posts that you are very bright; don't sell yourself short, Lady. Obviously Yogoda and I are not coming up with clever puzzles either, or we wouldn't be asking for help. It's not easy! And it is tougher because we are still working on the story. And next week we are taking a helicopter tour of Seattle and going to the San Juan islands to see the Orcas, porpoises, seals, bald eagles and so on. There aren't enough hours in the day.... and as many games as Yogoda and I and all of you guys have played isn't helping any of us even steal and adapt someone else's puzzle to our mod, so we will just keep putting it out there... and maybe we will get lucky and find someone who has a puzzle up their sleeve. I am attaching another photo I worked on last night while exposing Yogoda to American movies (ah, the Swiss are so sheltered; they don't have Netflix); his first time seeing Galaxy Quest, hehe. Am almost done with a lemur. Will show you the finished product; we can cheat and use the monkey script from Aquaria to animate it in the Secret Garden. Also want to make some gigantic mosquitos of death (since I came back from Mexico covered in bites... I want revenge) so we can kill, kill, kill those nasty monsters...
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Close-upForest1left.png)
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Those trees look like a shaft jumping challenge. =^.^=
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Actually, the trees will be climbable on the left side and the right side; Yogoda is working on creating the nodes right now in the Secret Garden map which he will also do for the two other Forest maps. We will have wall-jumping maps, the snake caves, which will provide all the wall jumping your heart could ever desire. Here's a close-up of the left side of Forest Map 1 so you can see the nice transitions Yogoda made and the foliage I just arranged. I'm a perfectionist, what can I say?
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/NewPineTrees.png)
By the way, I love using shift-c and shift-v to stretch and shrink tiles for making branches in this case (press at the same time over a tile and stretch or shrink away), but the technique has a multitude of uses.
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The editor has too many "secret" buttons. ._.
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No secret buttons any more ;)
http://aquariawiki.ryanballantyne.name/wiki/index.php/Editor_controls
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Funny how F and P aren't listed there...
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Now they are :)
I don't know if you are the one that did add them right now, but thank, forgot those ^^
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It wasn't me. ^^;
But thanks anyway, whoever. :3
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Yogoda just put my new mountains (done totally in My Paint) on the parallax layer so that when Naija walks by, the mountains scroll behind the trees; it adds a lot of realism to the scene. He darkened the mountains because it was night.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/NewFirTrees.png)
We will work on the story when we go to the California redwoods late this month.
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I live in California! :D
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This Dancing Goddess tree is based on a silk tree, or mimosa, which has purple leaves and pink blooms. And yes, all you shy people out there, she is TOTALLY NAKED!!! Deal with it...
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/DancingGoddessTree.png)
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Actually, she appears to be covered in bark.
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No, that's just acne. Tree acne. Or perhaps the heartbreak of psoriasis.
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I'm sure she still makes for beautiful scenery though. ^.^
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Hey, do any of you guys know how to add sounds to a mod? I know you can buy sounds, but, uh, we're cheap. We are talking about snake-like hissing and mosquito buzzing. Yogoda just made the most incredible monster mosquito (not a boss, just annoying) because he got tired of working in the forest maps and having nothing to kill...
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/MonsterMosquitoes.png)
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Well, we do know how to add sounds to the mod ;) What we don't know is how to create a new buzzing sound for the mosquito :) Can we create this with Audacity for example ?
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Audacity is mostly a sound editing software... You might be able to find one of their generators (or whatever it was called) that might create a sound resembling buzzing though. Alternatively, you can just record a buzzing noise, clean it up in Audacity, and then use it. :3
If all else fails, there are always sound databases (http://www.freesound.org/) online.
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Thant's great, thanks a lot :) I went the lazy way, and just picked one on the database and converted it to ogg.
Now, do you know how to make a sound loop ? There are some sounds in Aquaria that loop automatically, like "waterfallloop.ogg" or "airship-engineloop.ogg", and it is not in the scripting.
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So, I drew some pine branches and added them to existing trunks; changed the fir branches too. See here with the Dancing Goddess Tree.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/RightSideForest1-1.png)
This is in forest map 1, by the way, and the mosquitoes are in forest map 2, and are attacking Naija and making this awful mosquito sound... yum. This is my revenge for getting about a thousand mosquito bites in Tulum last month...we are making them easy to kill.
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Perhaps also add forest sounds like crickets or tweeting birds or something, maybe rustling when Naija walks?
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Brilliant, Alpha; downloaded crickets and birds from www.freesounds.com (thanks to Lady Succubus) so we have a choice. Yogoda has already added the mosquito buzzing to the mod. Yogoda didn't think any birds sang at night, but I guess they do...thanks, Alpha and Lady!
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Owls then?
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I'm not sure if we can layer the sounds; we need to perhaps choose. We like the sounds with crickets and a few birds best, and there is an owl in one in the distance. Does anyone know how to loop the sounds? And/or layer the sounds? We have Audacity. We are just too lazy to hunt for the answers in this moment. I wanted to do a flying squirrel, but don't know if they make noises other than a faint "whoosh". And lemurs in the Secret Garden with the monkey script, and an exotic bird with the parrot script... and after our trip to the San Juans to see the orcas yesterday, we will add an orca or two in with the whale in the Sunset map; apparently orcas range widely, even into Mexico and other areas with palm trees... and of course we are talking about another planet anyway... a Harry Potter type snowy owl would be great in the forest...
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Maybe you could "bake" the sounds into the music?
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Isn't it possible to simply make a node that plays sound and gets louder the closer you get to it? Orrr am I talking crazy now?
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Yogoda says we can layer the sounds. About making them louder when Naija gets closer, that is also probably easy but he's not here to ask; he's taking a pre-dinner nap. I made some new fir branches to go with the new pine branches. I will go through and replace any of the post pics that got dumped when they were replaced in Photobucket.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/NewFirTrees.png)
So you can see both the new fir and pine branches together. I found some great forest sounds today and downloaded them for Yogoda to add to the mod; we will have crickets, wind, birds and probably owl sounds. Yogoda is making a queztal bird today and adding some macaw wings (different planet!) so we can use the parrot script to have it fly in the secret garden and maybe the waterfall map. He has made the mosquito sound get louder when Naija encounters them.
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Just for you, Alpha, I will make a snowy owl (Hegwig-like). And I did some more noodling in the forest 1 map. Yogoda is working on a quetzal bird to fly like a parrot.
I am getting mixed up replacing all the pics that got dumped when I changed the name of the photobucket album...
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Working in the tunnel map now, on the blue sky roof, night sky and sunset roof. Yogoda has the Quetzal bird done; She is beautiful.
See below; just some scripting tail adjustments have been finished to make the tail wave as she flies. The bird lives is in the Secret Garden, our homage to Avatar.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/QuetzalBirds.png)
Also the open tunnel roofs are done:
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/BlueSkyTunnel-1.png)
I'm using the tile-stretching keys now for the trees so they aren't made of a bunch of stubby
logs that need so much ivy to camouflage the transitions.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Sunsetareatunnel.png)
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/TunnelSkyatNight.png)
Anytime you see white squares on our posts it means the original in Photobucket has been replaced and you need to go to that link (in our first post in this thread) to see the new one. I can't get the link to work now and I can't get my avatar to load; will get Yogoda to do it when he gets out of the shower.
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Well there's always Dropbox, I believe you already have it.
Otherwise I think Photobucket is the best place to host your images.
And those new images look mindblowing, amazing work.
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I'll stay with Photobucket I think; some some glitches when I change a pic and want to post it as a replacement and it gives you the old pic, even if you change the name. Thank y0u for your kind words, Alpha. We are both getting better at drawing with a graphics pad in My Paint. We are getting so much done being in the same place for a change; wish I could talk Yogoda into taking a leave of absence for a couple of months... Everyone who does the mods has the same problem; how do you keep your job and still finish a mod? Especially when living half a world away from your partner in crime? Especially if you are someone like DangerMouse moving to Hawaii and having a new job and new baby... life "interferes" with our sometimes more interesting world. But for now Yogoda and I are having a ball working and playing together and thank all of you for your interest; it keeps us going to have the comments and suggestions.
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I'll stay with Photobucket I think; some some glitches when I change a pic and want to post it as a replacement and it gives you the old pic, even if you change the name.
I use Photobucket as well. I think it's just using your browser's cache when it doesn't update with the new picture at first. I know I was having the same problem, but managed to get it to work. If I run into that issue again, I'll be sure to share the solution.
We are both getting better at drawing with a graphics pad in My Paint. We are getting so much done being in the same place for a change; wish I could talk Yogoda into taking a leave of absence for a couple of months... Everyone who does the mods has the same problem; how do you keep your job and still finish a mod?
Both, using a graphics tablet and MyPaint, are new experiences for me and it's honestly renewed my enthusiasm for digital art in general. Now that I'm getting more familiar with using a graphics pad though, I find my little Bamboo with it's 14.7 x 9.2cm area to be lacking. It seems like having a larger tablet will give me more accuracy and allow me to draw better without zooming in too much. Is this assumption correct? What tablet do you two use?
I'm just tossing ideas for a mod around in my head and that seems taxing enough. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time for a year or two when I wasn't married, or a father, or the proud owner of a huge mortgage and just dive right into these sorts of things. ;) Then again, maybe not having the internet around when I was young was a good thing.
Also, your mod is looking really, really good. Like, inspirational good. :)
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I'm using my small black bamboo tablet, this is probably the same you are using ;) For now I love it, I don't feel like I need a bigger one but I did not draw a lot, only butterfly, mosquito and bird for now. Sindhi has a large one but I did not really try to draw with it.
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I got a used Wacom pad cheap ($49) on the internet; it's 6x8". I haven't tried to use the small ones, so I will have Yogoda use mine and see if it's better; I'm still not using it as often as I use the mouse... because I like to work on top of my bed with my laptop and it's kind of awkward. Yogoda is using my desktop right now. We will report to you as soon as he tries it out. Thanks for your comments!
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Did new flowers; a pink astilbe and a ladyslipper orchid in My Paint, and trilliums in Gimp.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/NewOrchidandAstilbes.png)
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Okay, here are the new trilliums, and a good view of the butterflies in close-up. Yogoda did a transition from the tunnel to the forest and we worked on the story script.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/NewTrilliums.png)
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This mod looks so amazing.
I'm a really big fan of the graphics! And sounds like the game mechanics are getting switched up a lot too.
Just wanted to let you know that I'm watching : P
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Yeah, the game mechanics is something I wonder too, actually walking instead of swimming around sounds astonishing, I hope it'll all work out, being able to take a stroll over land sounds perfect. :3
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First Yogoda made Naija fly, then walk on land, several months ago, in a cool cloud sky map with floating rocks which we may never actually use. Now she is able to climb, and the player can choose whether to have her jump or climb. He's using a three-quarter view so I don't have to draw Naija sideways or from the rear, and it works fine; pretty realistic. We have gotten an amazing amount of work done since he came for a visit May 15.Yesterday he merged two sound files (from Lady Succubus' suggested website of free sounds) using Audacity, so we have a background of birds, crickets and an owl for the forest maps, plus an angry mosquito buzzing when Naija gets near the mosquitoes. We have mountains, trees and rocks in the parallax layers so scenery scrolls in the background and objects in front (trees, mostly) that "move" across Naija as she walks. She can run by moving the cursor further away, same as swimming in Aquaria. It looks amazing, guys; he really is creative with the scripting. I'm finishing up a ring-tailed lemur and starting a snowy owl this week. We're taking a couple of days off to visit the California redwoods tomorrow. Yogoda told me today he is going to find a part-time job when he goes home so he has more time to work on the mod and on games; he doesn't belong working in a bank. We are hoping he can use his work in the three mods he has made (this one nearing completion) as a resume and get a job making indie games, or find compatible people who want to do this with whom to work . I would be happy to play also. Thanks again for all the comments and support!
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Oh wow, that sounds even more amazing than I thought... The three quarter view is intriguing, same with the walk/ run control!
Looking forward to it even more now! Thanks for spending so much energy on it, it shows in the screens already.
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Here is a preview of the running/climbing animations. Of course it looks much better when you see the animation ;)
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4422249/pictures/running.png)
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4422249/pictures/climbing.png)
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Woah, climbing! :D
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I believe I have fixed all of the white squares where pics should be. Think I forgot where some of them went Here is the Dancing Goddess Tree, which disappeared when I changed things out.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/DancingGoddessTree-1.png)
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Here are a couple of screenshots of our first creature in the Secret Garden (forest map3) other than the butterflies. He's a tile right now, until Joel animates him. We plan to try using the monkey script for this, but I may have to draw him again. Did him in Gimp with a mouse; put in pictures with him the cforrect size.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/LemurinSecretGarden2-1.png)
A ring-tailed lemur to frolic in the Secret Garden.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Close-upLemur-1.png)
A close-up.
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Yogoda was playing around in My Paint and made these trees from scratch so I turned the trunk upside down
(turning the roots into branches) and put them into forest map 2 and took a screenshot. This is his first effort
making something without a photo or graphic to copy. I stuck some fern clumps in one of the trees for variety
of foliage for the shot. Yogoda is getting better and better at making graphics.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Joelstrees.png)
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Wow, I've never even thought of using roots for branches but it makes so much sense when you think of it. :3
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We're taking a bit of a break, but I have been working on the forest map and it's almost done; also took a shot of the entrance from the waterfall tunnel to the first forest map. I know we are showing you mostly scenery and no bosses but that is how we want to preserve some surprises for you guys when you go to play the mod.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/ForestMap1-1.png)
Lots of branches to add; I really like how there are level 9 trees in front and trees and mountains behind on the parallax layers
so as Naija walks or runs along you can see the scenery move realistically and she walks behind things too. Also the trees
are very tall, so there is lots of opportunity for climbing and discovering treasures and stuff in the trees, and of course
Naija can jump from one tree to another, but I don't think she can jump to the trees in the parallax layer as they are in
the distance. Yogoda handles all the logistics. I know the ivy on the right part is way too big; it will all work out.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Entrancetoforest1.png)
This is where the tunnel from the magic door in the waterfall map ends, at the beginning of the forest map.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/ForestMap1-middle.png)
This is in the middle of Forest Map 1, where I added some of the fluffy trees behind in the parallax layer; the trees behind
the fluffy guy on the right are on a parallax layer also but they move faster.
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Danger Mouse has kindly offered to share resources with us, and after seeing the feral mod released in chapters, Yogoda thinks we should release the first half of our mod in a couple of months and then work to finish the second half. So, if anyone wants to do some beta-testing please let us know. We are sharing working files through Tortoise but we can also send and share files with beta-testers through Dropbox. I could use someone to go through the game and find all the treasures to see which ones I haven't used yet! Someone with a lot of free time (there are fifty of them). We still could use some puzzles for going from one place to another of getting past obstacles. I am working on getting all the script and story ideas put together in one file; I think we know what is happening now, and why. So, let us know if any of you want to play! And Alec, if your offer still holds, we would love some new music for our mod; just a piece or two...in your voluminous spare time....
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/close-uptreasureroom.png)
The treasures don't go into the same place they do in Aquaria (although we should be able to change that now), so they go here, a special cave you can access from the home map, to see which ones you have, and the outlines of the ones you don't. The treasures are photos I took of my jewelry from www.bindhu.org; pendants mostly, and a couple of pieces I made myself by casting silver. They are each displayed on an aotea stone, which carries the feminine earth energy. We have fifty treasures in our mod.
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It looks like a giant bloated hand. :S
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It was not supposed to be, but yes, on that picture it really looks like :D
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Maybe you should change it so that it looks less scary. :(
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That's just a part of the cave... here is the whole treasure cave. Sheesh, wouldn't want to actually SCARE people in a mod, would we......although I concede that the treasures are not supposed to be scary. All the fingers are my fault, I asked Yogoda to make a lot of shelves when he made the map shape; as a female, I like having a lot of options....and storage space, of course.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/TreasureCavemap-1.png)
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Once again amazing new content, sounds like getting all those collectibles will be even more work than the original game, pfew.
Heck, I bet after all the effort you guys put into this it could be seen as a new game. xD
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Thanks, Alpha. I've uploaded both the Magic mod and part 1 which Yogoda extracted this morning to my Dropbox account, but I'm having trouble sharing the main mod. Yogoda, in Geneva, is asleep, and Danger Mouse, in Hawaii is frittering away the last few hours of his holiday waiting for me to send him the mod so we can share resources. It may be too big. I've been working on Magic part 1 today, redecorating the home cave. We should be finished in a couple of months and will release that part. If you still want to beta-test it will not be much longer. Here's a screenshot from the entrance to the Treasure cave from the Home cave:
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/HomeCaveEntrancetoTreasureCave.png)
and a view of Naija and Li's bedroom after some redecorating. We have pretty much finished the story now.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/bedroom-1.png)
Yogoda said the home cave was just way too boring, so I went a little crazy....
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Your mod and dedication to it is an inspiration to all of us. ^^
I just wish I wasn't so wasteful of my time. ._.
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Doing something that makes your heart sing is never a waste of time...that's how I see it. My spiritual Teacher says we have only two tasks: to take nothing seriously, and to get maximum enjoyment out of every moment.
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Well i waste my time doing things I don't really enjoy. I should be being creative! D:
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Sweet lady S: Judgment sucks. Guilt sucks. Beating yourself up sucks. And it makes you grumpy... that's my experience, anyway.
hey, DM, Yogoda and I had a great three-way Skype chat last night, connecting Switzerland in the morning, Hawaii after DM put the kids to bed, and me in the wee hours. We exchanged stuff on Dropbox and talked about dragons.... Yogoda has Magic part 1 separated out and we will work on just that until it is done, and use that for beta-testing. When our mod is done he will help DM finish his mod. We are all feeling really good about committing to finishing both mods ASAP...
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Yay, congrats! ^^
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Yogoda has Magic part 1 separated out and we will work on just that until it is done, and use that for beta-testing. When our mod is done he will help DM finish his mod. We are all feeling really good about committing to finishing both mods ASAP...
This is great news. I'm really excited to get to see and play your mods in the near future. The screen shots you've shared are really lush and beautiful. Visually dense... but in a serene way. I really like your style, and think it's a great match for Aquaria.
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Thank you for the kind words! I wanted to emulate Aquaria, but I have a different style (glad you like it), and obviously I am a decorating fool. Yogoda keeps telling me to quit using so many tiles. We hope you guys have some pretty good systems as this will not be a small file. We have had a few problems extracting part one from the main mod and are having to redo some things, but it is really fun to collaborate with both Danger Mouse & Yogoda, and use Dropbox to trade files and graphics back and forth. Odd little things are happening (the latest being totally my fault), but they are helping us to fix bugs and make the mod better, just as you said people's suggestions are helping your mod. Actually, I can hardly wait to play it myself! Here is a photo from the Cave Passage, to which I added some critters; that map is finished now.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/CavePassage3.png)
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Lookin' good, Lookin' good! :)
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Speaking of "lookin' good", Yogoda added Moogie's long-haired sexy Li to our Magic part one mod (with permission); I have to say, being a fan of long hair, that he looks pretty hot to me!!! Thanks again, Moogie!
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/NewLiandNaija.png)
This is in the cave passage, to which I added some more "monsters" yesterday; it will be a fun "ride".
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He may look sexy, but he also looks a whole lot darker, character-wise, is that also a development in the story?
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Red eyes?
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Red eyes?
He's been possessed by an evil jelly fish! Don't trust him Naija!
As for the mod, looking good!
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Whoa, he does have red eyes; I took a really close look. No, there is no "darker" theme happening in our mod. I know one of the fans mentioned making Li a villain in their mod, but we are not going down that road... good guy, long hair, maybe a little hung over? Rainbow soup? Don't know what Moogie had in mind. I will see if we can change the color to brown so he doesn't look like some Devil Spawn Li. Sharp eyes there, trusty fans... I will ask Yogoda if we can use the smiling face, also; there are five or six faces, and this one looks like the angry face to me.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Liredeyes.png)
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There seems to be red in his hair too, maybe it was just a slip of the hand?
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Yeah, I see a blush of red too...not as freaky as red eyes, though... I fixed the eyes and saved to another file, but haven't heard from Yogoda yet... it's tough workin' with a guy halfway around the world sometimes. The graphic is very small so it's a pixel at a time... don't worry, we will remove all vampire tendencies and unhealthy taints... nothing shall sully Naija's innocence or honor...
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Better?
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/BrowneyedLi.png)
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First time seeing entity part layering in high-res. Say, was the layering for the turtles fixed? I haven't tried the mod (I need to finish the game first), but in the original game when Naija (and Li, if he's present) ride the turtles, the layering is sort of messed up so that their hands (and I'm not sure if their legs) are layered in front of the turtle, so that they sort of look like they're sitting sideways on the turtle.
(Addendum: I think Li's hair is tie-dyed, because it also has a bit of green here and then. Maybe the red parts of the hair were original designs along the "tie-dyed" theme?)
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Our mod isn't done yet; we will release part one in a couple of months. The hair is by Moogie; I saw streaks of blue and red, no green; covered them with shades of black and changed the eyes to brown. Don't remember the look of the transport turtles.. someone else perhaps can answer that. No tie-dying, I just think Moogie was going for highlights to make it look more realistic, and I have noticed different monitors have different colors; my desktop looks more purply than my laptop. Big difference in the Beach map! The shades of grey in the rocks are way more contrasty on the desktop monitor.
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I'm sure there is green in his hair, though. It looks quite different from the green foliage in the background, so I know it's not a transparent alpha.
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Well, I won't argue ab0ut the green hair... hope it looks better now. I've been working on placing all 50 treasures; some are in plain sight and some are hidden, in some cases, by being partially covered. If we don't have hard enough bosses for you, we will drive you crazy with the treasures. Also pretty much finished Forest Map 2 today; similar to forest map 1 but different stuff happens there. Enclosing a couple of screenshots.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/ForestMap2.png)
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Close-upForest2.png)
Naija meets a new friend and is given a companion for her journey. Not done with the tree trunk yet.
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Yogoda animated the lemur yesterday; here is a screenshot of Naija meeting the lemur in the Secret Garden:
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/NaijaMeetsaLemur.png)
Also I finished placing all the treasures into the mod; there is at least one treasure in every map except the Treasure Cave, where they are kept. I will be checking them before we release part two of Magic. If Yogoda hadn't stopped me, we would have a lot more than 50. It's funny, I dislike all the cloned hidden object games being cranked out by large companies, and yet I am delighting in hiding all the Magic treasures like the Easter Bunny for all of you to find....
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I've been working on new trees for a different look in Forest Map 2, and I changed the trunks to the tootsie roll method.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Forest2farright.png)
far right of the forest 2 map
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Brighterforest2trees.png)
close-up middle bit
Yogoda is immersing himself in Starcraft for awhile but he will return to working on the mod.
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Hmm... The tree textures look a bit... stretched. It reminds me of a map in BZFlag where there was a lot of wooden surfaces there (I believe it was called Louman's Desktop).
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Yeah, they are; I used the stretching to avoid this tootsie roll effect and using way too many ferns to cover up where the trunk pieces met, but Yogoda said the same thing the other day so I'm replacing all the trees with the stretched trunks with segmented trunks; hope this looks better.... Here's a pic:
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/TootsieRolltrees.png)
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Much better. If you hadn't pointed it out, I might not even have noticed the segmenting.
Can't that be fixed by making the texture tile up/down?
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They do look better. I don't think anyone playing the game will try to look for where the textures segment. IMO the trees are a bit too light, but I really don't care because photorealistic trees are over rated ;)
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Well, now I can't not see the segmenting in those trunks. >.<
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To GMMan: Trees too light? Hey, different planet....... my stock excuse.... to Lady S, you can think of this as Aquaria: the Tootsie Roll planet. To Align... glad to see you're still around!! Always good to hear from you. Yogoda made the ends of the trunk segments transparent and I did stack the tiles up/down but it still is really tough aligning them... I don't want the trunks sprouting ferns like a fan dancer to cover up the seams, so I think I will live with it.
Please, guys, don't stop giving advice and comments! I may not always take your suggestions but I want to have the options, and your interest keeps me going.
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I'm wondering how you managed to make Naija walk. Is it through some scripting interface, or just creative node/entity placement? I'm trying to do a mod on Naija, though it looks like her script is compiled into the game instead of being left out as a .lua.
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Yes, Naija's "script" is compiled into the game, we cannot change it with scripting (unless we change Aquaria code of course).
The trick here is to make Naija ride an invisible entity. So the entity is following the terrain, while Naija is playing a walking animation.
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That's clever. I suppose the entity isn't right-clickable.
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Hehe, no.
The entity attach itself to Naija when she jumps out of water, and detach when going back into the water. You can use the function entity_isUnderWater to test this.
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Interesting to know. I wonder if anything in the original game uses that.
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Do you guys need some help? There's little I can do yet, as I don't know LUA and game's structure, but...
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Well, we have been taking a break, but we can always use some help. What do you want to help with... what do you know how to do or have an interest in? You can PM me with details and we can talk, and Yogoda too. I can send you an outline of the story and what is unfinished as yet.
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Looks really good. I'll keep an eye on y'all.
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Thanks! We are still here; just doing other things too. Don't worry, we will finish it!
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Yes, a mod is an add-on to the main game, and Aquaria is only available for PC right now. But Aquaria may be ported to other platforms in the future !
Mods should be compatible with the Mac version (which is already out) and the upcoming Linux version (still being ported).
Looking forward to seeing this mod when its done. :)
but i already have the linux version.
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Because that post is over a year old...
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oh thanks
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Wow, this is an awesome looking game. I haven't paid much attention to the mods, but I'll have to get this one when it's done. Incidentally, do you guys know yet how you're going to distribute it? Forgive me if someone else has already asked this question-- I skimmed through most of the posts so I could check out the screenshots but haven't really read over much of the text.
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To Senor: Check out the photobucket site for lots of screenshots at http://s763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/. It will be a mod, part of the Aquaria package, free with Aquaria. That's why I want Alec to port Aquaria to PS3 so we can get some exposure. Yogoda, who lives in Geneva, wants to do games for a living; right now he is a software engineer working in a bank. If Aquaria were more widely seen, it would give some exposure to the genius of the game as well as to the mods by fans, which is one of the best things about Aquaria; the ability to use the editing tools Alec and Derek made available to us, plus the source code. I can't think of another game that gives the player these opportunities. And it couldn't hurt the release of Marian, either. There are a lot of games out there that you play once and are done; about 90% I think. Not so with Aquaria; it fires the imagination and touches the heart.
I'm not surprised that you haven't read the info on our thread. There is so much on the forum to read, it's not surprising most newbies are starting new threads...as a semi-"oldie" I get e little annoyed when some people start a new thread for every question they have instead of reading the forum to get answers first, as I tried to do, using searches to find threads. We all have lives and choose how to spend our time.
Anyway we are not even to the beta testing stage yet; we are starting in again soon. We will let everyone know when we have something to release. Yogoda wants to release the first half of the game and work on the second part, but we need to finish the boss at the depths of the home map first, and he has some ideas for it that are time consuming and difficult. He agreed to help me make a mod and it turned into a monster..... we will not abandon our mod after so much work, but we are certainly taking our time. And we are doing this for love, not money....
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I think you and Yogoda are doing a great job Sindhi, especially from all the great stuff on photo bucket.
Figured I should just let you know that, because the art is awe inspiring. Anyway, since you're doing this for love, it's not making you much money(though if you got noticed that would be great.) For fans who love Aquaria, we kill for mods like this and Sacrifice.
Anyway, where I'm going with this is, do you have a website or something that we might be able to contribute to the effort? Kind of like how Alec asked for anyone interested to donate to Marion. I'd totally part with some cash to show my support for this mod.
Sorry if this has been asked before, I've been out of the Aquaria loop for a few months and only recently got back to the forums. But, if you need support, can we, the fans, help out?
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Hi , Nightmareshadow! Thank you for your kind words and support. It's not money that we need; encouragement helps a lot. We have had offers to help and to do beta testing, but we are not at that stage yet. We sent the game "as is" to some people and didn't get any feedback. Everyone is busy!
I would like to light a little fire under Yogoda, who told me he would get going again after the first of the year, but who has been very silent lately. I sure don't want to throw all this work away! I know back when he promised to help make this mod he didn't know how much it would grow; it has turned into this huge elephant which is looming in front of him as he tries to deftly sidestep it. We love the elephant but we are not sure if we have enough peanuts to feed it. He has encouraged me to find another animator to help us but there just isn't anyone out there who has the amazing talent he does for inventing new scripts for the animation, and I thought we made a good team, even though he lives half the world away (he's a French-speaking Swiss software engineer and I'm an American-speaking Seattle area retired art teacher).
If the fans were to contribute, the project I would suggest is to send Alec the money to port Aquaria to PS3 so many more people could discover this wonderful game and all the mods. It's like the Humble Indie Bundle; if everyone sent a little it would add up to a lot. I don't know what it costs to make a game playable on PS3, but apparently it ain't cheap. And we could all do the same for Marian when it comes out.
And send a PM to Yogoda telling him that you are supportive and excited about playing the finished mod and hope he will get back to it soon. And for my part, I need to start working on it again, because we each get an e-mail notification when the other one updates changes to the mod. I confess I have found lots of things to occupy my time other than the mod, but I miss it...
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Send him a link to the thread, maybe, as well? I certainly want to see it finished.
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I wonder...I doubt Alec would be up for trying to convert Aquaria to the PS3, considering the work, money, and the fact that he's working on Marion and a new iphone game on IA, but there was a modder who managed to port it to the PSP. It was in the general forums...maybe he could do it...or other fans. Me, I'm rock stupid when it comes to programming and debugging, but someone with that skill might be able to make it work.
I kind of feel dumb for asking, but what's the best way to send Yogoda encouragement? I'd really love to see even half of this mod finished. What with Sacrifice and Beauty being out for a while, some great new stuff(and the art is just phenominal) would be awesome.
Also, I'm not sure myself what Beta testing might entail, but I've got a bit of free time, Sindhi. I could give it a try, if you're interested.
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You can send Yogoda a PM (personal message) by searching for his name in the members list or by clicking on his avatar in the forum, and then click on "send this person a personal message" and then just share what you told me. Tell him how you feel about Aquaria and that you are excited about the mod and ask what you can do to inspire him, I guess...
I don't know if Yogoda has the ability to port a game to PS3 but if there is somebody who can, a fan, then it would involve our contributing some money to him or her and to a fund to pay Playstation. If any fans are listening who want to support this or have any ideas we've kicked round in this and other threads, speak up! Participation in this forum comes and goes; for the past six months it's been rather sparse, and full of Malaysian junk messages (which seems to have stopped, so maybe Derek wrote the software to eliminate it as Xiagan remarked) so if people share their thoughts more, we will get more of the old faithful members as well as new ones to check it again and play. I guess this really should go in the "general" category where people are talking about a sequel. That could happen if more people supported getting Aquaria and the mods out to more of the public, most of who don't know about Indie games at all.
Alec reads the forums; I don't think we need to send him a heads-up. I always appreciate hearing from him.
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I think Alec/Derek have given up, but it's really depressing and honestly frustrating and a little angering, because honestly Aquaria isn't like a game that flopped because it's bad - as far as I've noticed, Aquaria is a special case where most people just haven't heard of it or they have but haven't played it and the vast, vast majority of people that play it not only like it a lot, they love it and say it's a really good game.
It's also a game that has aged really well to the point where that it's a few years old is really meaningless when the case is just that people haven't HEARD of the game - you could get someone to play it NOW, and they'd believe it was new if they didn't already know it wasn't, because the age doesn't show at all. Because of that reason, giving up on the game just angers me, it's just as possible for it to succeed now as it ever was, all it needs is the proper publicity.
It just never got it, but if it ever DID, it can still take off. Look at Minecraft - that was a game that existed for years and only a few people knew what the fuck Minecraft was, and even less knew who Notch was. But Notch, unlike Alec/Derek, was lucky enough to get lots of publicity - his game REALLY started taking off when he got those comics made about how great his game was, on Penny Arcade. If Aquaria could be so lucky, it could take off just the same. Even now.
To bring this back to the mods - it definitely helps. That's more publicity, and Aquaria definitely has a really really good modding system, especially considering it's just an indie game, that system really manages to be better than a lot of mainstream official games. Some actual, decent, quality, lengthy mods would really help I think, so I fully support mods with heart in them, especially given how amazing the actual world of Aquaria was.
But I mean, if a mod gets finished that's basically its own game built off of Aquaria, then people can advertise the mod around on its own merits, and in doing so, advertise for Aquaria and get people interested in THAT. Sortof like how Mario World hacks advertise Mario World, if there were someone that hadn't played Mario World, the hacking community certainly keeps it alive so that people can still be introduced to it today.
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Maybe there's some ways we can improve the publicity of both these mods and of Aquaria as a whole? I'm a little stumped, without help from Kotaku or whatever, though.
I wrote an Aquaria review using actual images from the game last summer and it's seen a fair number of hits(i even advertised it in these forums,) but apart from word of mouth over forums or what not, what can we really do? It's not like we can ask Sony to just give it a try and see if they'd put it on the PS3.
Maybe we can draw attention to this Mod and Aquaria as a whole. If anyone here has a private Blog or wants to put some info or if there were a demo for Magic of Aquaria, we might be able to do something.
Then again, I'm kind of grasping at straws. It sucks that Aquaria doesn't get noticed...I tell everyone I know about it, but they never actually TRY the game.
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Maybe someone would be willing to start a Facebook page?
I would be more than willing to 'Like' it. It might be a way of getting a little more exposure for both the game and the awesome mods...
Just a thought
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Honestly, I think the best way is to just convince some person in the gaming spotlight to help Aquaria out with getting noticed - like I said, this was how Minecraft took off, when Penny Arcade wrote those comics and newspost about it.
How to do that - get people like that to be willing to help, is another thing entirely though. Tycho is generally pretty supportive of the indie gaming scene, and I would've thought he'd love to help Alec/Derek out in this regards considering the power he has to publicize a game, but I'm sure he knows of Aquaria but yet as far as I know he never made a single comic or newspost about it, which is a little distressing.
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Yogoda set up a server and is the main admin person for Minecraft; that is why he hasn't been working on our mod. He is easing out of that, though... I think his energy was helping to make the game more popular, and a lot of people have their creations stored on his server. He is moving to Lausanne (from Geneva) and is changing from a bank to a coffee company (much better) so he is kinds busy but he wants to work on the mod again. I don't think setting up a Facebook page would be hard, but looking at it every day would be time consuming; I don't even look at MY Facebook page every day... I like the idea of publicizing Aquaria and the mods...Don't know who Tycho is. It would certianoy be much cheaper to set up an Aquaria Facebook page than to get it onto PS3!
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In http://www.moddb.com/games/aquaria/mods Beauty of Aquaria and Magic of Aquaria mods possibly to post. When Magic of Aquaria been released then post in main page and get many of people. Before releasing of mod possibly to post some news about development Magic of Aquaria and these news also seen many of people in main page of ModDB.
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Don't know who Tycho is. It would certianoy be much cheaper to set up an Aquaria Facebook page than to get it onto PS3!
http://www.penny-arcade.com/ ?
They pretty much helped jump start Minecraft becoming so popular - they made a series of comics/newsposts basically talking about how good the game was and many people jumped on the game from there, who had never heard of it before. It went from a game most people had never heard of, to wildly popular basically with their help, because they extremely large in the gaming scene - lots of people turn to them to find out about games and such.
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See, even Yogoda went with Minecraft instead of Aquaria. =p
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Minecraft is really an amazing game, it is truely infinite, I think you could play it forever, or at least years. A true sandbox game :)
It is still getting more and more popular, it reached 1'000'000 sales.
Also the community is great, there is a team of developers that creates an API for other developers to create plugins. Hundreds of plugins have been released, it allows to modify every aspects of the game and to make your server different from others, this is truely amazing.
I did create myself several plugins, and one became very popular, MoveCraft. It allows to create vehicules out of blocks (craft) and make them move, in a world where everything is pretty much static. Thousands of downloads, 50'000+ views, wow :) (but it was a lot of work)
Now I've stopped developing my plugins, but I still have an amazing server that did run for months with awesome buildings and structures. Hundreds of players have been playing on it (but like 20 connected at the same time), I've made friends, my brother and his friends are playing on it, my players spent countless hours creating a world, so you understand it is very difficult for me to stop the server like this.
My goal is to stop the server at a point so I can go back to Aquaria, but I'm not really sure how to do that and how much time it will take.
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Look at Minecraft - that was a game that existed for years and only a few people knew what the fuck Minecraft was, and even less knew who Notch was. But Notch, unlike Alec/Derek, was lucky enough to get lots of publicity - his game REALLY started taking off when he got those comics made about how great his game was, on Penny Arcade. If Aquaria could be so lucky, it could take off just the same. Even now.
I think the main reason Minecraft became so popular is because you can play it in the browser directly, for free and on multiplayer servers. Aquaria can't do this :(
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I know a lot of other browser games that aren't as popular, but that's not really the point.
Besides that, wouldn't it be possible to "maintain" the server and work on Aquaria as well? Maybe even recruit some people you trust to maintain the server.
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Besides that, wouldn't it be possible to "maintain" the server and work on Aquaria as well? Maybe even recruit some people you trust to maintain the server.
I have already people I trust that maintain the server, but only I can do the complex technical aspects.
It is not possible to do both at the same time I'm afraid, both need a 100% dedication.
I plan to spend 2 more months on the server, then I will stop playing Minecraft on the 31 march. After that I will still pay 2 more months the server, then stop.
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My goal is to stop the server at a point so I can go back to Aquaria, but I'm not really sure how to do that and how much time it will take.
I can only imagine that maintaining a server is a huge commitment. You may want ask your community if anyone is willing to take the reigns. When you do shut it down, maybe make the game server files available. I know I always appreciated that when I used to play NWN, which was all private servers.
Glad you chose to take a break from Aquaria and recharge your underwater metroidvania fuel cells. ;)
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Hey, guys, Nightmareshadow is helping us with the story/script/dialogue and puzzles; he has some great ideas so we are invigorated and I (Sindhi) am working on the mod again and Yogoda will be helping a bit too as he disentangles himself from Minecraft. I will be posting screenshots again soon as we get part one of Magic ready for release, possibly by June? Nothing written in stone yet. But Yahoo!!!!!!!! We are thinking of our mod as a transition between Aquaria and a possible sequel.... not to get all ego-proud on you...I still think it would be cool for people all over the world to work on a sequel together, with Alec's blessing, of course.
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I played around yesterday in the home cave. Still working on adding transit turtles to the game; need to talk to Bear.
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Treasuremessage.png)
When you right-click on a treasure, there is a message and it goes into the Treasure Cave, where all fifty treasures have black silhouettes until you collect them; then the treasure shows up. This helps the player find the other ones!
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/HomeCavekitchen.png)
I decided to put every stove and kitchen accessory from Aquaria in here; what can I say, I like to cook!
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/HomecaveLiandNaijasbedroom.png)
Naija and Li's bedroom, with Lucien's cradle, and some treasures and spoils they carried from Aquaria by turtle. As you can see, we are using the long-haired Li.
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We are thinking of our mod as a transition between Aquaria and a possible sequel.... not to get all ego-proud on you...I still think it would be cool for people all over the world to work on a sequel together, with Alec's blessing, of course.
I like that idea very much. I'd suggest that Alec helps outline the story though. A sequel just isn't a sequel to me if the creator doesn't have a hand in it.
Nice stuff with the screenshots. It really inspires the community when you share your progress. Honestly. Great stuff!
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Thank you, Echolocating, and I agree that an outline from Alec would be perfect! I am sure any group working on a sequel would want him to have more than just a hand in it as long as he is willing. And I'm sure fans will be coming out of the woodwork to share ideas and work on a sequel if Alec gives his blessing (and an outline)...
We have, I imagine, another six months or so of work on the Magic mod ahead of us. Nightmareshadow is playing with our mod this weekend so he can begin fleshing out the script. He already has a great idea for a greedy monster (mini-boss) blocking the cave passage...
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when do you think this mod will be done
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Yogoda is still doing work with Minecraft, until April. Nightmareshadow and I are working on the story and he is helping with puzzles and about to write a full script. We want to have real voices instead of words in our mod... originally Yogoda split the mod into two parts, part one and then the full game, so we could complete part one and release it sooner, so that will probably happen by this summer...
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cant wait!!!!!!
everything looks amazing especialy the level design
which version of aquaria are you going to release it in? i only have 1.03 :(
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I think it will work in your version; I will see which version we have. I think the mods work in any version; Alec will have to correct me if I'm wrong...I worked on touching up the dancing goddess tree today, where Naija meets a Druniad and receives a special gift...
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/DancingGoddessTree.png)
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thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D
just finished looking at all 101 pics, this mod looks amazing great job i love the crystal tree and the dancing lady tree
so in this mod, naja can walk??
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Thank you for your praise. Yes, in the forest maps Naija can walk, run and climb, although that last part needs a bit of work.
Here's a new pic. We had this rock blocking the convergence of three fish form tunnels in the Cave Passage, and Nightmareshadow suggested a greedy creature instead so we could do a puzzle. I decided to do a take on Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors; this is our first humorous cartoonish character:
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Mini-bossclose-up.png)
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That's an amazing character you've created. Even in a still shot, it has loads of personality.
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Haha, oh wow... That looks amazing.
It's like a huge blue cauliflower with a face, epic.
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Thanks, guys... I was hesitant to make something so cartoonish and silly, but then... it's a game, and we are here to play... so yahoo for silliness...Yes, Alpha, sort of like those winter purple cabbages, only one that eats...so the player must figure out what it eats ("Feed me, Seymour!") to get past him... hopefully you will guess right before you run out of food...
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this is going to be an awesome mod
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Thanks, Willowfish! Hey, forgot to add the tentacles/roots, see above.
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love that!!!!
are you taking ideas
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Sure...changed him again...did more highlighting on the leaves...
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i think cats would be interesting to include in this mod
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Well, we could add an ocelot or other big cat to the forest maps... they are kinda bare of critters at this point. And my cat, Sebastian, the King of Cats, would certainly approve...maybe a mountain lion for the pine-tree forests and an ocelot for the Pandora forest (secret garden). The second forest has killer mosquitoes that buzz horribly and get bigger as you walk along... the Pandora forest has a lemur and Quetzal birds and butterflies; that's it... of course, Joel would have to do the animation, which is the majority of the work... I will wait until April to ask him. He changed my lemur so he could use the monkey script and he lost a lot of cuteness IMO...both versions are on our photobucket site.
Messed with the greedy mini-boss, Percy, again...changed the hue and saturation on the leaves and added some roots coming from behind his head, and finished a closed mouth and half-closed mouth for the head, for animation...and Nightmareshadow and I are collaborating on some clever dialogue to help you figure out what to feed him...we have a preliminary script with dialogue almost done now. Maybe I will try a mountain lion for the forest next...
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/Mini-boss.png)
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Working on adding giant poison arrow frogs to the secret garden; they breed these at my local zoo (normal-sized, not giant, but I notice that compared to the birds, they are really big), so I have a special fondness for them and the colors go with the Pandora-like forest...also want to add an ocelot...for Willowfish, and for my cat Sebastian, who was an ocelot in another life... Yogoda made the Quetzal birds, which can hurt Naija, and drop a cloud of multicolored little feathers when you shoot at them...
(http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx278/Yogoda/Magic%20of%20Aquaria/poisonfrogs.png)
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wow, that looks amazing!!!!!!!! ;D
cant wait to see more
if you look at the palm tree leaf thing on the right side of your picture for awhile, it starts to look real
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And if you look carefully, you can see one of the collectible treasures in this shot...
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Just wanted y'all to know we are working on the Magic mod, but I will not be posting screenshots because it's some cool "secret stuff" right now; we don't want to give it all away before you get to play the mod. We may be able to just release the whole thing instead of trying to do part one and then the whole mod. I have discovered a way to do cutscenes without making paintings, especially for Naija's memories. I've been working with Nightmareshadow on the script, which is getting really close to being done so we can have Yogoda type in all the dialogue. We are now working on the fourth draft; Nightmare is still in school (Univ.) so we are not rushing it. We want to do what Alec and Derek did in Aquaria; have the dialogue read out loud as well as written at the bottom of the screen. I have friends with British accents who may help us with Naija's voice and others. If you want to try out for a voice role, send me a voicemail through Skype to sindhuma108. Yogoda is winding down with the Minecraft thing and is starting to do a few things for the mod. Nightmare and I are writing down all the bugs (like trying to put transit turtles and save crystals in the forests...) and other things we need to work; the purple plant, Percy, will be one of the first entities Yogoda will script. He is moving from Geneva to Lausanne soon, and from a bank job to a coffee job with a new apt. so he's kinda busy, but he's really happy about the move, and happy people can find time for things they love...theBear is helping with the turtles and Willowfish with puzzles. We are getting there!
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I'm replaying Aquaria for the 5th time, now and it got me searching for mods.... Your look beautifull. I've noticed it's been a while since your last entry. Is the mod finished? :)
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I am sorry to say the mod is not finished. We have help, but I need to light a fire under myself and Yogoda. I will see what I can do about rekindling the passion, so to speeak, lol
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when will you share it?