Radical on Kid 9

[tushantin]

Okay, forgive me for that weird title. Firstly, let's relive those memories (cue: emotional music)
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,8186.0.html
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,8202.0.html

Now, make yourselves comfortable, and allow me to tell you a brief story.

A couple of years back when our top secret project members buried their noses in Chrono-cannon to dig up interesting factors and make a story about them, some pondered about giving our protagonist a soundtrack theme from RD, while others inquired, "So... where exactly is Viper Manor in CT again?" You know, to tie things up. And this resulted in an explosion of threads hither and tither speculating theories and possibilities with RD universe connection with CT (and CC). The theories were wild, but it fed so much to our imagination that opportunities were bountiful and plots emerged EPIC.

Strangely enough, I also chanced upon (at the very same time) a game engine by the name of OpenBOR, a Beat-em-up engine specially designed for independent game developers. I fell in love with it, and decided to learn its ins and outs, and eventually initiated a project -- my very very very first Chrono Project -- Radical Dreamers FZ! I knew that Radical Dreamers was, in a way, an incomplete story and I sought to complete it in a way that players could kick some ass again. And since utunnels is also one of the respected OpenBOR developers (Hah! Bet you didn't know that, did you? XD), he helped me out with the coding side of things, and in tough times when I didn't know jack shit. Hell, I'm honored to have worked besides him on a game, and my very first project too!

And we had a lot planned, too! Like Elements and what attacks could be used at what buttons, what weapons we could acquire where, had six playable levels (each level had several sub-levels, eventually leading to a boss monster), two primary characters (Serge and Kid) while the rest unlockable (Magil, Glenn, Norris), etc. Hell, we even had a plot sketch ready!

But alas, inexperienced I was and thus was unable to get gather a proper team to help me finish it. Eventually, destiny called and I decided to work on Fleabane, hoping it would somehow help me develop a decent portfolio but even that was left incomplete just because I hadn't enough voice actors. Perhaps I had taken a gamble by being to ambitious. But I do not regret my decisions, because they at least helped me move ahead and gather experience.

Just to note, RDFZ game concept isn't really dead, but the project will be converted into an original (and awesome) IP in the future that you guys are bound to love (a free game which will, somehow, help me get paid for my efforts; utunnels, we'll split 50-50) and all the resources we've worked on will be recycled. But for now, I would like to give the Chrono fans something in return, something that made me spend many sleepless nights to get it just right even though the amount of it is trivial. Well, a part of it anywhos.

The first of that we'll present you very soon (Kodokami and I will be collaborating when we find the time). While for the "other" surprise...

Behold, the RDFZ beat-em-up sprites for Serge and Kid, and other resources! (These trivial animations took me blood, sweat and tears to learn in 3DsMax via FK rigging  )

EDIT: I tried putting all the sprites here, but it spammed my screen-space. x_x" Just... go to this link.

Oh, and you must be wondering what Serge looked like. Well, wonder no more!



And to say all this art and creativity was possible thanks to our Guru of Life!

[FaustWolf]

Yeah, utunnels is one of the gods of fan-gaming. I just about shit myself when I realized he was involved in developing OpenBOR.

I'm loving the cel-shaded feel of the sprites -- I take it you used stop-motion animation of models for creating those? Any particular reason why the sprites came out with such grainy outlines, though?

[utunnels]

The most important element for a fan game = a working spriter and level/map designer, considering there are so many game engine floating around for amateur fan game makers.

I'll be glad to try my best to assist if the project really seems to have a decent chance to be finished.

 

[tushantin]

UPDATE! Some more surprises from the old project.

When I worked with this excellent tool called Synfig, I decided to work on sprites using it. Serge's sprites were worked on 2D, however, as I planned on redoing Kid's too. Here they are.


Zephira and few others were eager to help out complete the sprite sets, but alas, life caught up with us all.

While planning attacks for our characters we also came upon an instance in the original RD where Serge was caught planting a bomb at a door. Where a bard would come upon such weapons is bizarre, but this eventually also became a crucial plot element. Here, I give you, Serge's potential at Alchemy -- behold, the Water Bomb special attack!



Oh, and how can we forget Kid's best attack, the Red Pin?



We also had Pentacles and auras for every element, with only shift in hues:



However, we decided that Magil especially should have a unique one for his own, since he was stronger.



And we had some mock-ups for better attacks by Level 5, jut to see how we can design / code the specials! There were other, better mock-ups too, but those files are too large for me to share... sorry.

I'm loving the cel-shaded feel of the sprites -- I take it you used stop-motion animation of models for creating those? Any particular reason why the sprites came out with such grainy outlines, though?

Yeah! FK takes the life outta ya. XDDD That grainy outlines and white artifacts were my bad. When I was rendering these sprites via 3DsMax back then I had only partial knowledge on how Indexed formats worked, and thus foolishly turned on Anti-Alias for Alpha. Converting to index kinda ruined everything.  And thus we ended up doing a lot of clean-up on those pixels.

Note to new spriters: NEVER work with Anti-Alias!

There was a logo I worked on too, but I'll release that once Kodo's ready. 

I'll be glad to try my best to assist if the project really seems to have a decent chance to be finished.

Hell yeah! I'll invite you in for my next top-secret project once Polar Detective is complete. It's gonna be fun!