From time to time I like to renew my invitation to participate in the War of Gems 16-bit project...But this time I will try to bring you some explanation and indication of how to do this.
Note: Please have a little patience and read my post until the end to better understand the subject, as I know it is something more complex this time.
Why did I choose 16-bit architecture?
I started working on Mugen in 2016, and naturally I made very simple chars and often "doubtful" in quality at the beginning...This frustrated me in a way, as I put all my effort and time into them, but still there was always still What better a feeling that things could be better explained. Remembering that in this period I used the standard 32-bit method based on the Capcom structure for arcades after "Xmen Children of Atom".This path most of the time is the same as many of us in this hobby.
In 2019 I decided to move away from my current projects in this forum and see how other audiences worked on their projects.
For just over 2 years I spent developing a character for the structure of one of the most popular projects of all, HDBZ, of course independently, but throughout this time I was able to have direct contact with developers and the public that supported him.
After this time I was able to learn the process of working with sprites very similar to the original Capcom method and I was also fortunately able to finish my character in this process.
At this point you may be wondering why you returned if everything seemed to be fine. Well, I tell you that even though a character can come out with great quality along these lines, I also discovered how much this drains the capabilities of a person who has to share their adult work routine with this. And after all this I still felt frustrated, because I felt that something more appropriate for me in this environment could happen.
Over the next few days I played a SNES game and thought, wow, how do I love these console ports like Street Fighter 2 so much, if they contain so many fewer sprites than their arcade version?
I also remembered loving Zvitor's Infinity War project on Openbor and thought, why not try that.
At this exact moment I had to get rid of my "pride" that the ego of many pixel artists develops at a certain point to take a chance on porting or even creating 16-bit sprites. And how happy I was when I realized that I could print the same quality, if not better, on them than on 32 bits. Just for comparison purposes, a 1 and a half year project could be reduced by a maximum of 2 months, without stressing me out and seeing the final result much sooner.
So I discovered today's project, my big brother Vladucard, in his "Dragon Ball Retsuden no Mugen" and I was amazed at how his screenpack looked like a real game, it was so balanced and organized. From there I learned his simple way of coding characters and Screenpack and the result was the "skeleton" of what we have today in Marvel War of Gems. Soon my great partner in the MatreroG project got interested and started to develop stages very quickly for each character and my head exploded guys.
Throughout my posts I notice excitement from active and even inactive creators, but perhaps there is some confusion as to how I would be managing these sprites or structuring the characters to balance their gameplay in a single game.
One extremely important thing is that the project already has a ready-made structure, being able to use the 35 ready-made chars as a template for new ones. By the way, here is the most important point that I would like you to think about cooperating in it, because as I said, your character would be used directly in a screenpack compiled into a complete game, clearly via DLCs over the next few years, which is my goal as leader of the project.
I will use my latest work, Silver Surfer to demonstrate how many sprites are required for the game, and basically it won't deviate much from that, as naturally there is always a certain variation depending on the type of movement or content of the character.
See for yourself how the number of sprites is greatly reduced and how a "good" job, at least for me, can be done in a very short time. In this case, the sprite work lasted less than 1 month.
But you can be slower or faster depending on your routine and availability.
Honestly, the method you choose to make the spritesheet doesn't matter as much as the final result. In some cases like this I resize standard sprites and correct the sprites later by rearranging their pixels and adding the appropriate 16bit shading. In other cases I draw the movements in manual sketches and digitize them later, more or less similar to the original Capcom method. Or I just take a base from the 16-bit collection itself and edit the sprites until I get what I want.
Here is an example of a Sketch, later digitized:
Standard sprite resizing method:
1- The first thing obviously is a resize of the original sprite to SNES 16 bit aspect ratio. This can vary depending on the sprite...This one of Thanos taken from the game Marvel Super Heroes has been resized by 65% vertically and 50% horizontally.
2- After that you will notice that the sprite had its pixels disorganized, in addition to the fact that its shading is different.
In this step you will make sure to recolor the sprite with just the outline colors and then its darker base color. In my case I used Thanos' sprite from War of Gems to extract his SNES palette. If the sprite is new then it's worth looking for references in other games on the console.
3- Now you have to go back and make sure that the sprite is reconstructed but this time with the SNES look. Always use a reference to make these adjustments, at least until they become commonplace for you.
4- After that you should shade the sprite according to the SNES/16bits aesthetic. There is a clear difference between the lighting of the SNES sprites and Standard Capcom sprites, where on the SNES you will notice a lot of contrast between the darker and lighter tones.
And if everything goes well, the result should be close to this one... Like all knowledge, this one will also require practice from you, but it can be learned.
I will not teach the third method, as it is something commonly done by you when working on 32bits. The difference is just the size and number of sprites you will need to edit. Which you might notice would be a big key to your success.
Continuing, we work on coding the characters and here I leave a template for you to see how simple it is.
- Code:
-
https://www.mediafire.com/file/4d318nl5tk60y0z/TemplateMWoG.rar/file
Note that the sprites required to make the gem system are already there, in addition to other commonly used sprites such as electrified, fired, shadow, etc.
Also note that the code for the gems and gameplay details are already available in the template. Its basics already have the DNA of the project, in addition to the method used to code its AI. Clearly there are always exceptions, but the 35 ready-made characters will guide you to create most of the specials and supers you need to code. Because it is a balanced game, the moves do not differ so much in essence and this is the key to balancing it.
Regarding the character's exceptions, they are generally treated in state -2.
Basically every character has two buttons, where their basics are divided between Stand Short and Far Punches, Stand Short and Far Kicks, Crouch Punch and Kick and Air Punch and Kick. Not all characters have throws, as some characters have extra mechanics that compensate for this.
Likewise, generally not everyone will have Run or Dashes, especially if they have Teleports available.
Specials are usually 4 or 5 if there is Flight Mode. Your Supers the character's strongest moves are just one...And in this way I chose to balance the characters for the game. Although it doesn't stop much, don't be fooled, as a lot of fun is already possible at this point.
In short, coding for the project is very, very simple, as screenpack takes care of making various situations work in the common.def file.
In addition to character development, there are also tasks such as implementing interactive scene items. We have a wonderful system developed by Lasombra made for the project. We also have tasks with developing palettes and dialogue for the characters, among other smaller tasks.
Well guys, this is a very friendly community most of the time and especially the only one that still cares about superhero content as it is the focus of the project...That's why I choose this one as the cradle for the project to grow further more, because we acquire skills with time and practice, but passion for something is something that is within you and is the spark capable of igniting your true potential and freeing you.
Finally, consider looking for me or MatreroG to find out more about how you could help, remember that any help would be welcome. I am also always available to guide and teach if you need any content that you have questions about, but contact us if you are interested. I also leave the doors open here at the MMV community to contribute to the project concretely. Perhaps it would be too much to ask the forum administrators for a small space dedicated to the project, where interested people can consult this post to clarify their doubts.
I'm sorry if I used the wrong segmentation for the post or went too long in it, but I thought it was necessary to explain some things.
Here is the link to the project's Discord, if you prefer, or if possible we can also dedicate ourselves to this post or another in the future to work together... See you guys and thanks for your attention.
Discord:https://discord.gg/FJR4v2dD
by 
