   Help me save my project! (56k NO!)
October, 23, 2004:I completed a working clone of FS-Games's Gladiators (a 2D guantlet style rpg), complete with 2-player split screen.However, since I stole all their graphics without permission, I never published it.May 11, 2005:With the help of some lonely friday nights, I completed turning my gauntlet clone into a MMORPG (gasp). I invited eleven people on my two week debug spree, during which time I learned the hidden cruel nature of Procedural-C programming (The server crashed every 5 minutes during the beginning of the week, and slowed to once every few hours during the end, all due to buffer overflows).Dispite the horrible amount of bugs, my beta testers were quite impressed by my work. Some were so inspired that they set off to learn C++ (ughh) so that they could make their own MMORPG too (Three tried, none succeeded in even learning C++). At the end of the two weeks, I had solved two major bugs, and had pages of minor bugs to fix. I wasn't discouraged though, for the players had given me alot of encouragement. Well actually, some had, and some were rather discouraging; I hadn't put in A* pathfinding before the beta-testing, and so the monsters were kinda stupid, and one of the players pulled a joke saying "the ai is only as smart as the programmer" [bawling].Aug 4 2005:My next version was ready for public testing. Complete with A*, NPCs, Messaging Channels, Lighting Effects, Projectile Animations, Map Exploration (Notice unexplored parts of minimap are black), Item Stacking (Individual limits for different item classes), and many MANY *MANY* bug fixes. I also added some 20 more monster types, hundreds more items, and increased the size of the world to bibliographic proportions.The only problem now was... integrity. The lines of code was getting so large that even the slightest bug would take WEEKS to debug. It had gotten to the point where I couldn't program while tired (It wasn't worth the risk), if I accidently put in a bug, it could cost a weeks worth of time, time that I didn't have! Realizing that this is inevitibly going to KILL my project, I had no choice but to switch programming languages.Jan 12 2006:After researching viable options, I fell madly inlove with C# (Never have I wrote 300 lines of code before and had it run perfectly the first time!). In a single day I rewrote my entire CGI website in it. By January twelth, I had completed the basics of the client and server. The client now used MDirectX instead of DIBs (Performance+++++;), and was virtually bug-free (omfg!). It took soo little time to accomplish so much, that I found myself programming everything I didn't have time todo in C (Chatbox replusion, Blinking Chat Channels, Scroll Bars for the Channels), and then some stuff that I didn't need to (eg.. EMOTICONS).(new message = blinks red, after three seconds it goes yellow, white = no new messages)Progress on Fleurin was great, soo great that, it had me thinking on what I wanted to do with it (I started it as a hobby [As all good programmers do], but now I'm hoping it could be more then that (eg.. business)). Right about this time it struck me hard and fast that there is no possible way I could take Fleurin out of hiding because nearly every graphic I use is stolen from other game companies (Note: Thevenin's heart breaks here... ). I tried finding artists, and then I tried drawing the sprites myself, both failed quite miserably. Several people offered to do payed work for me, but as a student, I don't have the funding for such a venture (I calculated I'd need about $3k (CA) to do *all* the graphics I needed).June 3, 2006:I'm lying on my bed confused now on what the hell I'm going to do with my project. In my mind I'm thinking these thoughts: Paris Hilton is incredibly ugly. I'm not going to give up the project. I can't draw the graphics. I can't hire someone to draw the graphics. There is no suitable 'royality free' graphics on the internet (Trust me, I've checked for months). Perhaps I can change the project ever so slightly (eg.. drastically), so that I don't need graphics? Perhaps the folks over at GameDev.Net can help me!Note: I'm not asking for graphics, I'm asking for a solution for my lack of graphics.And here we are. What should I do? Or better yet, what would you do!(My shoes are size 9.5, if your wondering.)Edit: I'm going to be making several minor edits to this post over the next hour or two as I remember things that I wanted to say but forgot to. [razz][Edited by - Thevenin on June 3, 2006 11:09:56 PM]
  what kind of graphics are you looking for, like should list the specs of spritesize and what animations you want.What I would do is post the above information for people wanting to do art for fun in the help wanted section.   ;Quote:Or better yet, what would you do!Hmmm... Move the thread to Help Wanted? [smile]   ;Quote:Original post by eedokwhat kind of graphics are you looking for, like should list the specs of spritesize and what animations you want.I've conformed my game to use the RPGMaker character sprites and items; characters are 32x32, items are 16x16. And then these are stretched by my game engine to be 64x64 and 32x32 respectively.It should be apparent, the dimensions of all the sprites. Effect animations are also 16x16 (stretched to 32x32). Tiles are 16x16 (Stretched to 32x32).Character animations are exactly like RPGMaker.Edit: I'm not asking for animations, I'm asking for a solution for my lack of animations. Obviously (and sadly), I can't get the animations (graphics) I need. I'll edit my original post so that I'm clear on this. [smile][Edited by - Thevenin on June 3, 2006 10:54:10 PM];Quote:Original post by FrunyQuote:Or better yet, what would you do!Hmmm... Move the thread to Help Wanted? [smile]The moderator there (Kazgoroth) would probably move it elsewhere (Perhaps not the lounge though). He usually only allows posts there that conform to the template he has made.   ;  If you're interested in making your own, try reading some of the tutorials here. Try the ninja instructor in the bottom right corner, tsugumo. He wrote many of the first good sprite tutorials, and although his own site isn't up anymore, there should be some help here.   ;Quote:Original post by ChokkiIf you're interested in making your own, try reading some of the tutorials here. Try the ninja instructor in the bottom right corner, tsugumo. He wrote many of the first good sprite tutorials, and although his own site isn't up anymore, there should be some help here.I've been there, and many other sprite tutorial sites. To be fair, I guess with enough time and effort I could train myself to be quite good at pixel art, but I don't have that kind of time. Least not when I believe there are alternatives.   ;Quote:Original post by Thevenin...Dang! I'll hate to see all that work go to waste, and I'd hate not being able to play it too. I'm not an artist, but while working on my 2D engine(Currently and a basic level, and incomplete), I made some art for a game I am planning on making. You can use the art if you wish; some of it is pretty nice, if I say so myself. I could e-mail them to you. I have two sprite sheets of 100 (32 * 32)tiles, consisting of several good floor types, and several bad floor types, as well as excellant trees and decent grass. I don't have any animations though, but send me a PM, with your Email adress, and I'll send them to you, for you to decide whether you want to use them or not. They're free(of-course) and the only other game they currently might be in is my 4E5 entry. Interested?   ;  I had the same problem, coder art just doesn't cut it.Something I did do while making my 2d rpg was put in the readme file my email address and that if people wanted to they could redo the graphics and send them to me. As the graphics were just in plain data files anyone could edit them and they did. Many people sent me in graphics and the new ones looked way better.Even more so if it's an online rpg, which mine was not. You can have a motd saying you could use graphics and have your player base contribute. Many artists will want to and be doubly thrilled when you use them in the main game.Just an idea. :PParthon   ;  You might have already tried this, but post what you just posted on artist forums.  There are plenty out there.  Allowing percentage of returns/rewards can be used an incentives.  Go talk to your art teacher if you are still at school or advertise at college art courses?Basically, approach this problem just like a coding problem :), and considering you were willing to rewrite the entire thing in another language after months of hard work, I am pretty sure you can find a good artist if you tried even harder.   