MVG's Forum Posts

  • We posted a new article about Kickstarters here, on our articles page:

    http://www.mightyvertex.com/Articles.ht ... tarter_art

    It outlines what kind of project and evidence we'd need to see to be able to help by providing some limited up-front free (paid after funding) art for your project.

  • Nesteris

    That's a lot of enemies. If you can reduce the number and change their colors for alt enemies instead, or just do some small tweaks to some, you could save some money (that may or may not be compatible with your design goals, just a suggestion).

    If they're relatively simple, but unique, I'd budget about $3,500 for everything. But, if you get close to doing a Kickstarter, please send an e-mail with more exact details for a more precise quote.

    This is a tricky genre to Kickstart, since there are a lot of free options (Action Sidescroller). I'd love to hear your elevator pitch, maybe I can offer some suggestions that will help. The most helpful thing is probably a well articulated gimmick or design innovation that sets it apart.

    Looks good so far, I hope this does well.

  • Nesteris

    Looks cool. Sort of metroid/megaman?

    Being human with limbs makes it more complicated, but having to only animate half the body for 15 animations helps a lot.

    The total would be around $500 (averaging $25 per animation), assuming the average is 3 or 4 frames (as long as almost all of them aren't six frames), if there are more low-frame animations than expected, the price could be less.

    We could start next week and finish the following week if that sounds OK.

    If you want to go ahead, please e-mail biz at mightyvertex.com with the assets and full animation list (each one specifying number of frames if possible), we'll send you payment details for deposit. We can start mid next week after we go over details and make sure we understand the requirements for all of the animations.

  • Nesteris

    Thanks for the question!

    Are you talking side-scroller kind of sprite here? And what quality/detail level? Humanoid, or creature of some kind? (creatures are much cheaper), and what degree of stylization? If you can post a reference, that can help a lot.

    There are usually three components to cost here:

    1. Concept 2. 'Base' 3. 'editing'

    1. The Concept:

    This can be done in a sketch or in pixel art (although usually this stage is done as a sketch first)

    This can take a while, or be pretty quick, depending on how particular you are about the character. If it's a main character, sometimes there are a lot of revisions, and those cost more because it takes more time.

    Then if it's a sketch, it needs to be translated into pixel art. If you already have a concept, then that's easier (a picture says a thousand words), and that can be converted straight into pixel art if it's clear.

    This can cost anywhere from $25 - $250 (or maybe more if you need really finished poster/cover art to show- that can be good for a Kickstarter) depending on the character, how many revisions to get the look *just right*, etc.

    2. The 'Base':

    This is where the animations are done first ideally, roughing out all of the frames, anatomy, etc.

    You have a lot of animations (animations are the most expensive thing in 2d art: I recommend skeletal animation for cost savings if your game concept can handle it).

    If you just need one character, it would be done with that one's colors, but is easily changed later.

    If you need more characters, or if they have equipment, it's usually better to make a "naked" base.

    This can be reused (with editing) for all of your characters that have similar animations and basic body shape. E.g. it's easy to use one base for all of the human characters in a game much of the time. Sometimes there are a couple added animations per character, but a lot of it is the same (running, jumping, falling, etc.).

    This is the most expensive thing. Totally depends on the detail of the characters and animations. For what you want, it could be $200 - $1,000 (depending on if we're talking about some round kirby-like thing, or a very detailed human with predominately six frame animations)

    3. Editing

    If you need further characters, we can edit the prior character base. As little as $5 or as much as completely redoing the character, depending on how different it is.

    If you just need colors switched around, that's really easy.

    A gender change is a little harder, and might be $100 to a full new base, depending on how elaborate the base animations are, and the degree of dimorphism (like old school barbarian/maiden differences). Major add-ons like long hair or cape are a little harder to animate in too.

    Without knowing more, I can just narrow it down to something in the range of $225 - $1,250 probably.

    Simpler characters with more stylization are cheaper. NES vs. SNES colors isn't a big difference (makes some things harder if you want a detailed character).

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  • Why do you need to make the distance in tiles, rather than arbitrary distances? That makes it much harder.

    "currently ive managed to calculate the wright distance for 1/4 of the 360°, because the formula i made returns strange values for the other 3/4 of the 360°"

    Probably due to negative values?

    " i calculated the distance from the middle of the tile to the visible border for a 90° radius in 0.1° steps and saved them to an array..."

    When you start using lookup tables, you usually know you're doing something wrong.

    I don't see how this gets you what you're after.

    Particularly, as you advance out multiple tiles, your distances even out and you end up with something more circular.

    If you want tile based distances (without diagonal allowed, so it ends up like a diamond):

    1. Find which tile (X and Y in your map array) the tower and baddie are currently in.

    2. Get the difference in the Xs and the difference in the Ys

    Xdiff = Xtower - Xbaddie

    Ydiff = Ytower - Ybaddie

    3. Add the absolute value of the differences together

    Total = |Xdiff| + |Ydiff|

    If you want something more circular, you need diagonal movement rules.

    Can you make an illustration of what you want to accomplish?

  • Can you set the doors up as collision objects, and then test map position and use a lookup table to determine which coordinate to switch to in the new layout?

    Sorry, the problem isn't very clear.

  • Q: Is there any Minimum amount?

    Technically, no, there's no minimum. But for very small amounts of art (like one character instead of a set of characters for a game), a lot of the work is in communicating the project requirements, and for the artist to become familiar with the style.

    This is more the case for 3d than 2d (which is less technical, usually), but volume discount in art functions on the principle that it takes a little time (and thus money) to get started on a project. Once you get going, you can make additional art assets of the same style and with the same basic requirements much faster (much cheaper).

    Three or four characters cost less per character than a single character because of that.

    The best case is if there's enough art for an artist to spend a few days on it, which saves a lot of time, and lets them get into the groove without being interrupted to switch projects. This makes artists happy.

    If your whole game is done with programmer art, or free art assets, and you want to replace all of the art for your game quick to publish it, outsourcing is perfect for that.

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  • Sorry, for some reason I couldn't access the forum yesterday. Looks like tunepunk has a great solution for this though!

    Turret range: Can you just do a distance comparison between the sprite and the turret? Multiply the Y by 2 in the point to point distance comparison (before you do the trig), then just set a distance limit.

    Distance = Sqrt ( X^2 + (Y*2)^2)

  • irina

    I'm happy to report that it's already fixed! rexrainbow is pretty amazing.

  • It should be pretty straight forward from there, but let me know if you have any problems.

  • It looks like you got it working. So far so good.

    What elements of the isometric game logic gave you the most trouble?

  • —

    I see.

    The main points are:

    1. Horizontal, vertical, and 45 degree angle transitions (for which you need two tiles for each 45 degree angle, since they have to cross the boundary in the middle)

    Like this:

    _________.__

    |____ |____ |

    |__.__|____ |

    (if that shows up right). Your angle goes from one period to the other (the bottom center of the left tile to the top center of the right tile).

    You have four sets like that, and then your normal horizontal and vertical tiles. 12 tiles total for the transitions.

    2. Make the tiles small. The smaller they are, the smoother your curves by mixing different kinds of edges.

    3. Make the transitions as chaotic as possible (lots of grass or dirt "noise" overlapping the transition), which hides the fact that you only have straight and 45 degree angles.

    4. Mix and match random alt-tiles in order to hide the repetition in the chaotic tiles.

  • —

    Good luck! Let me know if you decide to do it procedurally, and need help with the map generation logic. It is much easier just to program the game to plop the tiles itself when you have complicated transitions rather than doing it manually. Unless you just have one map.