Power Master & Stuff

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(These first few pages in this thread are old and out of date, including this first post )



https://powermaster.gamepedia.com/User:PowerMasterAlex/Wikia_Thread_2

Two new Power Master games are in development! Power Master 1: A Strange Journey MV and Power Master 2: The Legend are both being developed at the same time using the RPG Maker MV engine. I don't have much done yet, as what you see in the photos is all I've got so far. But I will be hard at work creating both games anew.

For Power Master 1: A Strange Journey MV, the game will contain entirely redone sprites, two new characters, a revamped story, and different mechanics. While I think the original Power Master 1: A Strange Journey came out great, there were some things that either didn't work or look right (it had two different art styles for the enemies) or wasn't able to be implemented. If you read the Power Master 1R Story, the two new characters should at least sound familiar; the tall, muscle, red-head is Matt, who appeared in Chapter 10: The Failing Flirter, and the young, dark-haired girl is Alice, who appeared as Hamilton's sister in Chapter 18: The Light-Headed Digger. The two new characters will join Stephan, Jennifer, Hamilton, and Helen on the redone adventure. The game will use locations from the first Power Master 1, but will be reimagined using all new sprites!

For Power Master 2: The Legend, the story takes place at the start of Exitilus's reign, one thousand years before the events of A Strange Journey. The player will be the ancestors of the hero from Power Master 1 and depending on the gender of the chosen character, the story will play out differently. Kyle and Merlina were the original characters with the green-haired, broody-looking Marvin being included to help the story along.

For those of you that have sent in voice overs for the future games, I have some bad news: I have decided to cancel the use of voice overs for these games. Originally, it was just for Power Master 2, but now that Power Master 1 MV is being developed alongside it, it would be too much work for me to handle between two games. Maybe I'll bring the concept back when Power Master 3 rolls around. I am still accepting idea and music submissions, however.

Power Master 1: A Strange Journey MV and Power Master 2: The Legend are in development with Power Master 1: A Strange Journey MV likely being released first. Shooting for a late 2017 release, but we'll see how that goes.

The voice over bit probably doesn't effect this forum much, as I don't think any members here sent in any voice work. But, yeah, I'm working on two new games! Whoo!

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

Decided to turn this into a general thread for the Power Master stuff I do. So here's some stuff I do!



This is what I have done of Stephan's sprite sheet so far. I edited slightly since posting it on DeviantArt, I fixed that weird bump in his hair. I'm also not entirely sure what to do with the "death" set of sprites yet. Still experimenting with that, but so far, Stephan's the only one with them.



This is Jennifer. She has long, Palutena-length hair, and I added a shadow on the ground for the hair. I thought that'd be a nice touch. :D Her head looks a bit thick here, but I shortened it after posting.



I had a hard time getting Hamilton to look right, but eventually, I had to settle for removing the spikes on his armor. I couldn't get them to animate right. His battle sprite should have them, though I have yet to get to those...



Helen's attire changed vastly upon the transition to MV. I like the way the dress came out, but I'm a little iffy on the way the hair animates. I have trouble getting those down.

Will post more later.

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

this is actually pretty good, keep it up

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread



Drew up some concepts of the characters. Looks largely unfinished now. Plan is to scan them and touch them up on the computer. From left to right, it's Stephan, Jennifer, Hamilton, and Helen. Likely only going to use the neck up in-game, but I'm still going over the options.

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

Is the game going to be available on Steam?

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

Maria Renard said:

Is the game going to be available on Steam?

Click to expand...

Possibly. My first game was released on the itch.io indie game site, but no idea what the full range of options are at the moment. I know the RPG Maker MV engine is HTML5, so a larger variety of options is available to me than the last game had.

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

Alex95 said:

Drew up some concepts of the characters. Looks largely unfinished now. Plan is to scan them and touch them up on the computer. From left to right, it's Stephan, Jennifer, Hamilton, and Helen. Likely only going to use the neck up in-game, but I'm still going over the options.

Click to expand...

Not sure if you're looking for critique, but I figured I should probably mention it anyway. The level of detail in those drawings is pretty good, but there are some issues with the proportions. Specifically, the heads are somewhat big. It's especially noticable with the second one from the right, whose neck is about the same width as his torso. That's something to keep in mind once you get around to the digital touch-ups.

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

Yapyap said:

Not sure if you're looking for critique, but I figured I should probably mention it anyway. The level of detail in those drawings is pretty good, but there are some issues with the proportions. Specifically, the heads are somewhat big. It's especially noticable with the second one from the right, whose neck is about the same width as his torso. That's something to keep in mind once you get around to the digital touch-ups.

Click to expand...

Go ahead and offer critique if you have anything. Always looking for ways to improve

Proportions is something I have trouble with, but at the same time, it's been consistent. The characters always seem to have big heads, even if I don't intent to draw it that way. It just kinda ends up like that :P It's something I'm trying to improve on, though it helps show expressions once I get around to those.

Hamilton's neck is kinda thick, isn't it? He's created to be a lanky character, so I tried to design him that way. Did it not turn out correctly?
If anything, the breastplate came out kinda small. Good thing it might not show in the final version, but I can always correct things if I need to.

EDIT: The big-headedness also matches the sprites used, so I think it worked out. I'm not exactly going for realistic proportions, more along the lines of comical.

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

Been working on the more behind-the-scenes stuff, trying to ensure that the proper mechanics of the game play out before actually moving forward to what the game looks like. Here are some of the weapons in the database and a number of the scripts that will be at work.

Power Master 1 MV and Power Master 2 will both run on the same engine, so I'm trying to develop them both at the same time. They will share the same tilesets to make it easier on me, though the mechanics and database stuff will be slightly different.

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread



Working on the face portraits of Stephan, trying to come up with a good basis for the rest. I can tell I'm getting better, though some things, like highlights, I just can't quite get. So I added a glow effect to the one on the right, which gave him a bright face...

idk, thoughts/tips? What should I work on?

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

The shadow below the hairline is pretty good already.

For the purpose of demonstration I had to make a few edits to your base drawing. Don't feel pressured to keep those or anything, this is just for explaining things.



Let's start with the eyes. Eyes are a rather quirky part of the human body, because their outer layer contains both convex and concave parts, which can screw with your shading if you're not careful.



There's really only two layers of the eye that are important for drawing: The white body with the iris and pupil, and the transparent layer surrounding it. The iris and pupil area is indented (concave). Light hits a concave area differently than a convex one. That's why, when coloring the iris, the illuminated part is usually the bottom one.

The highlight on the other hand is not part of the iris. It's a reflection of light on the transparent outer layer of the eye. That transparent layer bulges outward (convex), so the light usually hits the top-to-middle area.



And that's pretty much the though process of where to place ANY highlights or shadows. You have to envision what you're drawing in 3D and think about which areas are exposed to light and which are turned away from it. The human face can be daunting to draw because it isn't a flat surface; It stretches over the skull and thus has raised and lowered parts, it casts shadows onto itself, etc.

If you think about the face in 3D space, the parts that would usually catch light from a frontal, somewhat raised light source are the cheek bones, the nose, sometimes part of the forehead. Those are good places for highlights. The eyes are usually slightly sunken in due to the skull's eye sockets, so shadows look good there (but you already did that part). What I also like to do is add a little shadow near the chin to give the hint of a lower lip.

There's a lot more stuff you can discover by trying to picture things in 3D. It's something you'll have to mess around with yourself. Practice makes a master.

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

Ah, I see how to do the eye shadows now. I've usually drawn the eyes either with no shading at all (which makes them look life-less, though that can be helpful with creatures such as ghosts) or how you saw. This way looks much better and honestly makes more sense I understood the highlight, but the curves of the eye threw me off.

Shading is one thing I just have absolute trouble with. But using the pictures you have provided, I can learn from them. Thanks for your input!

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread



Working with designing the weapons and their animations as they would appear during battle. I recreated the sword, axe, whip, bow, and lance; I left the other ones there in case I needed to do something with them later. It's a little hard to see, but the bow does have a string to it. The axe ended up getting cut off during the testing, so I made it look like it gets embedded into the ground (smoke puffs above it).

I don't know what's wrong with it, but the sword feels off to me...

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

Figured out what was wrong with the sword. The center animation frame was off centered, so it appeared to be "floating" when the animation played out during battles. Heh.

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread



Stephan's side-view battle spritesheet for Power Master 1: A Strange Journey MV. Yes, this game has side-view battles! Yay! All other playable characters will have a similar sheet. Which means I have eight more to create *groans*.

The sprites are grouped in sets of three. From top to bottom starting with the left column:

*Standard waiting
*Ready to attack
*Magic chanting
*Guarding
*Taking damage
*Enemy miss/dodge

*Thrust attack (with lances/punches)
*Slash attack (with swords/axes/whips)
*Range attack (with bows)
*Skill use
*Magic use
*Item use

*Fleeing
*Battle victory
*Near-death
*Status ailment
*Asleep
*Dead

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

Draw an artwork-ish art of Stephan over the past couple of days. It's a bit difficult to tell, but there is shading. The scanner didn't pick it up the lighter tones too well, though...

Feel free to offer up criticism, but I can't exactly edit this piece of work.

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

Drew an artwork of Jennifer and finished it up today (which was rather busy). Out of all the Jennifers I've drawn over the years, this one is probably the best! Apologies for the high contrast, though. My scanner enjoys tormenting me...

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread

By the way, while I'm working hard on this project on my own, there are some aspects where I'm just completely rubbish at.

I am terrible at creating music, for example. I have several ideas and can "see" the notes in my head, but when I try to get them down and implement them into a music-creating software...well, I suck :P If anyone is willing to help create music, please let me know!

And while I can tell I'm getting better at it, my sprites and drawings aren't exactly the best. I would love any critique you guys can offer on it; tip, tricks, and such as well. I want to make this project the absolute best one that I have done so far!

Additionally, I'm still open to idea implementing. So while you might not be musically talented or know nothing about spriting, if you have an idea you want to see implemented into a video game, let me know! The only rules I have are that it has to be something that would "fit" into a Mario or perhaps Zelda world. I've gotten requests to include a gay or polygamy character before, but those types of things I'm just not comfortable with including. I'll let you know if an idea just doesn't sit well with me...

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread (Help Wanted)



Been creating new icons to use for Power Master 1 MV and Power Master 2. The set shown here will be shared between them with additional icons added later that are specific to the game itself. The top half are the icons I created with the bottom being those provided by the RPG Maker MV engine that I'm presently keeping for reference.

Maria Renard said:

Is the game going to be available on Steam?

Click to expand...

Can answer this for sure now. RPG Maker MV has an "Upload to Steam" option, so the answer is yes.

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread (Help Wanted)

It's great that this game is going to be available on Steam.

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread (Help Wanted)

Managed to rope my brother, Aaron Bodine (who some of you may know as the writer for the "Legends End" series), into drawing the artwork for Power Master 1: A Strange Journey MV and Power Master 2: The Legend. First up, of course, is the main man himself, Stephan! More to come!

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread (Help Wanted)

What exactly do you want help with? Depending upon what it is my services are available.

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread (Help Wanted)

Mostly music, really. While I'm getting better at spriting (which I'll show more of tomorrow) and my brother signed on for the artworks, music is one thing we cannot do.

I have about 45 pieces of music in mind shared between the two games to make it easier. Otherwise it'd end up around 90 pieces of music. I know 45 seems like a lot at first, but if I can get multiple people to help me with it (and I know a few musicians myself I can contact), it'd only end up maybe 5 per musician? Also, assuming everything goes according to plan, I will be able to provide payment , but, uh... maybe don't count on that...

While I'm open to just about any form of music, and I have a list for the type of music I need, one I really want to get right is the main theme. You can find an old (poorly done) file of it here. Really, I just want music that sounds good :P

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread (Help Wanted)

I can definitely compose some stuff, but I don't have any good way to record it so unless you were capable of creating it yourself based upon what I composed... :P

Re: Alex95's Power Master Thread (Help Wanted)

The only music program I have is a piano based one, but I'm not great at using it. I'm very musically inept :P Though if you provide a sheet of the music, I may be able to make it work. Maybe.