/co/ - Comics & Cartoons

should we plan out some stuff so we have a structure for people to adhere to? like how many levels, how many levels per world, enemies, blocks and tiles, shit like that? i'll get started on the anon and femanon sprites maybe later tonight

is there a feature for testing sprites? or can i just insert the sprites in a test level or something?

>>9736
I believe the way you edit those sprites is to just replace the actual files in the game folder.

%ProgramFiles(x86)%\SMBX\graphics\mario

There's both the sprite sheet and the transparency mask to edit. To test you can probably just save your changes and fire up the game/editor. Making a simple test level to run around in should be pretty easy.


As far as structure is concerned, I'm torn between trying to have some general themes/difficulty targets and running it more like a contest/gallery collection where we take every level and slap em into a long hallway. The more restrictions we place the more we raise the bar to contributions, and I'd rather err on the side of too much content than too little.

That being said, if we can get some artist-types to supply some standard issue pone-related sprites, enemies, blocks, and backgrounds that would be excellent. I think having a sweet teaser screenshot for the overworld or a quickie level that demos all the custom assets will do wonders for getting people on board.

>>9737
how about we have two modes, the long hallway, and a second version which is set up like an actual game, with a difficulty curve and a story and such, and how about you make a list of things you need people to sprite for the standard issue stuff

>>9738
Sounds like a plan!

>>9739
sweet!

Player Sprites:
[ ] Mario -> Anon
[ ] Luigi -> Femanon
[ ] Toad -> ???
[ ] Princess -> ???
[ ] Link -> ???

NPCs:
[ ] Twilight
[ ] Rarity
[ ] Applejack
[ ] Penke
[ ] Dash
[ ] Fluttershy
[ ] Background Horses

Custom Enemies:
[ ] Changeling Minions?
[ ] Cockatrices?
[ ] Manticore Boss?
[ ] Dragon Boss?
[ ] Goats?
[ ] Iron Will Boss?
[ ] Discord Boss?
[ ] Tirek Boss?

Misc Reskins:
- too many to list here

Blocks:
[ ] Ponyville Parts
[ ] Canterlot Parts
[ ] Crystal Kingdom Parts

Backgrounds:
[ ] Ponyville
[ ] Ponyville Interior
[ ] Canterlot
[ ] Canterlot Interior
[ ] Canterlot Dungeon?
[ ] Crystal Kingdom
[ ] Crystal Kingdom Interior

Additionally we probably need to settle the following:
- Fire Flower -> Just carrying Tabasco Pone?
- Leaf -> Pegasus Suit? Dash Backpack?
- Tanooki Suit -> ???
- Hammer Suit -> ???
- Ice Flower -> Just carrying Coke Pone?
- Yoshi (8 variants) -> Ponies?

The only mandatory elements I can think of are the player sprites and the list at the end, since it influences the player sprites. Everything else is bonus unless people are irked by Mario/Zelda 2/Metroid enemies in their ponegame.

>>9739
i think you explained this already but i didn't really understand. how do we apply the changes we make to the game? and will people who want to play it have to install SMBX and then apply the changes, or can they download something that is essentially entirely separate from SMBX? how do we make it it's own game?

>>9742
There are several fan-made things that use SMBX as their engine. The game comes with a built-in level editor and supports multiple custom worlds in addition to the few that come with the game.

I believe in order to change the player sprites we'll be basically need to distribute a 'private install' of SMBX - you extract a .zip and run the .exe inside and the MLPG game is the only world available to play in it. The downside is that we're looking at a 450MB minimum download size if we go that route.

We could also distribute a .zip that you extract over SMBX or I could whip up a little installer that clobbers/clones an existing SMBX install with our custom junk.

>>9743
okay, cool, i'll look into those anon and femanon sprites now

what is two of the players are satyr gloomy and satyr marker

and how about we see if isaac is willing to put a link in the /mlp/ general to this thread saying we need help or whatever?

>>9745
Hmm… we'd have to map them to Toad and Princess or have one of them carry a sword and be Link. I'll try to get a list of powerup effects for every character in the thread so we can decide.

I'm all for more attention - the general should be involved with as much of this as possible!

bluh, not entirely happy with these three frames i did, is there anything you can see that i can fix? i might do some more once i finish my thing for the mlpg prompt

>>9748
Made a quick mask for it and it looks neat!

Also it seems like maybe we won't need to distribute the whole SMBX after all - custom level folders look like they accept player graphics.

>>9749
awesome

I'm doing some poking around with sprites to see if I can get a teaser level up to drum up interest and it seems like the desktop ponies are going to be too tall if we stick with the current pixel scale. Sweetie Belle is 64 pixels tall, which is the same height as full size anon/femanon.

We can either forego the free art or scale it down. If we just don't use it then we'll need custom art for ponies or at least an appropriately sized template. If we scale it down then it'll look sort of like femanon in that screenshot I posted - lots of thin lines in a world of fat pixels.

>>9751
Have a visual explanation of what I'm talking about.

We can do one of two things:

>use only custom tiles and backgrounds and scale down desktop ponies
>get someone to draw custom pony sprites in the engine-default 2x scale

Did some more booping around with custom sprites, and it looks like the engine can handle larger animations no problem. I did a test with this little number from randumb and it works perfectly.

Aside from the continuing scale issue of course.

>>9753
Huh, neat.

>>9760
oh dang this is what I get for not reading the sub regularly

Randumb! Do you have any interest in making a spritesheet?

>>9899
I'm currently already working on another project, and coupled with my job I don't really have the time. It should be done early next month, so ask me again then.

>>10282
Seeing as things are sort of stalled until such time as we get enough assets to lure in contributors, we can wait a month or so no problem.

Looking forward to it - every time I mentioned this in the general there were always a few anons telling me to get you involved.

test

>>10318
boop!

Might as well mention that the project I mentioned kinda fell through, and I'm currently bedridden by a flu. I'll be gone next weekend to attend a meeting, but after all that I should be free to do whatever.

>>10338
Seeing as I keep missing you, how about you take a crack at an Anon sprite?

The sheet is earlier in the thread, and despite all the extra area the players' hitbox is fixed at 32x64. Stuff hanging outside the box will render, but it'll clip through walls. If you double up your pixels, then we can use existing assets. Otherwise we'll have to redraw all the art to match the 'thinner' style.

I've heard you might be able to use Luna.DLL to change the hitbox size, but I haven't had time to properly boop around with it much. So just assume 32x64.

>>10533
You could make a file in yall's world folder named lunaworld.txt and define the hitbox change there, then it would run in every level in that world.