The Hunter 2 v0.21 Log #6

Hello everyone,

Today I'm going to talk about maps, mainly. But stay until the end, I'll have a little surprise.

You see, mapping in RPG Maker is probably what can be have the highest range of different result between creators by giving them the same 2D assets. You have people not even trying and for whom the map is just a mean to reach points, you have people trying to make something at least somewhat good-looking, and you have people doing their best to make gorgeous maps. The last category are people using parallax mapping, which means making the maps in Photoshop/CSP so that they can get rid of the grid feeling once in-game.

The problem is that it takes AGES as the map takes longer to create AND you have to create all the wall collisions yourself. That's the main reason I'm not doing it: time. You're starting to know the drill.

That being said, it doesn't necessarily means that creating new maps is a walk in the park even with RPG Maker's integrated map drawing system. I'm in the second category of people. I try to make maps looking at least somewhat nice to see. As such, it's important for me to try to stray as much as I can from the original tilesets from RPG Maker. Of course, they contain tons of useful stuff so I end up coming back to them a lot but whenever it's possible I use extra assets.

Thing is, exactly like with drawings, I'm not willing to use anything just because it's different. There are a lot of available assets (both free and paying) but to retain a graphical coherence I only keep those who still work in the game. For example, I own that kind of tilesets:

You can clearly see the Earthbound/Pokémon inspiration. Those are completely unsuable combined with RPG Maker original tiles. So if I use them, I have to use those ONLY. Basically, I just want to say that I don't have THAT many possibilities. Even if I purchase most tilesets that are released for the game as soon as I feel like they can be used ^^' (Tilesets and Music are the two things I buy in quantity for my games : I like having the choice :x)

So, when I started working on the new district of that update, I wanted a customized tileset. It doesn't look like it, but I'm basically taking elements from all the tilesets I have and combine them in a group of 5 files so that I can use them in a single map. I don't have the problem for inside maps cause there's never so many things in inside maps that you need the 5 tilesets to be customized. But the outside map?

I don't know you guys saw it, but Ambriosa's entrance is filled with custom stuff. The side houses, their roofs, the cemetary, the carts. I'm not even talking about the Oblivion Forest which is a complete new set. So I had to keep that level for the poor district. And it took time! XD

Everytime I see the time I spend on that kind of mapping (we're talking about more than a week, here) I'm always wondering "Will it show that it wasn't done in 2 hours?" x)

Here's a part of the homeless part of the poor district. Basically, the map is divided in 3. The bottom has the homeless living in it, the middle has dirty houses for people with not much money, and the more you go to the north the cleaner things are as you're getting closer to another district.

The map I'm showing you is not even completely finished. I still need to add stuff on the floor to make it more messy. But we can say 90% is finished. Well, just to do that, it required a lot of time. Having the asphalt merging with plain earth was an effect I wanted. But it required extra tiles. The sewer pipe releasing water is animated but it was originally meant for VX Ace so it wasn't at the right size, I had to "convert" it for MV. The houses you can see were done by PeakJump. As such, they're more customized than if I had drawn them directly in the soft. The entrance to the sewer is a 100% customized one by PeakJump too. So yeah, lot of work... The hardest part being to try to fill the map with elements that look coherent between each other so that the map doesn't look empty.

Gameplay-wise, I know it can be a pain to navigate big maps so with the unlocking of that district, teleportation withing Ambriosa will be available. You see the pannel under the sewer water? Those will allow you to teleport. You'll be able to teleport to either the entrance of Ambriosa or the north of the Poor District. This way, combined with the speed shoes, big maps shouldn't be that much of a problem for players.

Another thing I worked on is modifying the base tiles of Ominira for grass/stones/earth etc...

I don't know about you but as I grow older, the flashy kind of grass from the base RTP kills my eyes. So I decided to change the asset. And I did the same with the rest. Overgrown grass, stones, earth, wooden fences. I perfectly know most of you won't even see the difference, but it's the kind of polishing I'm willing to lose time on if I want TH2 to be a great game. You will also notice that I tweaked Lani's store. I was so bad back then that the tiles used for the meat were cut halfway through (cause they're supposed to be hidden). So I had to change things accordingly so that it works properly (it was the same for Wiola).

Anyway, mapping is work, I think you got the idea 8D

Since I promised you something good for the end of the post, I'll move to it. This is something I've been willing to do for a long time and now it's finally done. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome Sophie's new model!

You see, my major problem with Sophie's original model was that it was using a yougn morph but it was just not working. That morph has two major issues: young characters don't completely have young features (notable when it comes to the head) and more importantly, a morph isn't a skin. So you're bound to use "adult" skins that can work with younger characters, but it's often a mess (lookg at Shing, he's the perfect illustration.)

So I took the decision to not keep the original game's model and have a real young girl model that... well that actually looks like a girl her age. And it's soooooooo much better. So yeah, the model is completely different from the TH one, but hey, I'm sure most of you won't care considering how better this one is :)

That's all for today, people!

I'll see you next time o/