Let's talk updates. Well, specifically - let's talk character design. Character design is a crucial aspect of MUSO, and with that comes a lot of spritework - as well as another thing! Clay models! I have posted the clay models before, but we're currently in the process of redoing the rendering for them, and making them look more photogenic. Here's what Atabi's new render is looking like as it stands,
This was done by Cheddar! Thank you, Cheddar!
Yup. We've been doing a lot of spritework behind the scenes for the game as well. As of now, this has included NPCs - both important characters who will appear several times throughout the story that won't join your party, as well as generic NPCs that will be used for towns you probably won't spend 4 chapters navigating and playing through.
Here's a small chunk of Greenthum's NPCs, a cast of residents with their own lives, stories and families.
Obviously, generic NPCs are given less detailed designs - but they're still given interesting and flattering silhouettes to make them still stand out and signify, "Hey! I'm worth talking to!"
You never know what these guys are gonna say, so we have to make sure their designs reflect that.
When it comes to important characters, they're deserving of idle animations. Pretty much any non-generic NPC in the game will have these, with some exceptions. Here are two idle animations for some characters shared above!
How are sprites made and put in game?
Well, we use Aseprite to make our sprites. Everyone on the team who is a sprite artist uses this tool, it's pretty much a must-have. We save our spritesheet files as .ase project files, and we have them uploaded on a doc where anyone can edit them. However... Some of these sheets might not be the most organized - like Atabi's for instance.
I've still got to go through and properly label some of the animations..
But, after a sprite is finished, we use a custom importer tool to import basic animations (things like walking, running, crouching, climbing, you know - the essentials) into a SpriteFrames resource file, which all Actor-based objects can use for loading sprites.
To keep it short and simple, "Actor" is what we refer to in-engine as anything that is a moving, walking and talking living being. This can be things like cows, chickens, robots, humans, or even sentient toasters.This will be important info later on, when we discuss other systems MUSO has and get deep into the depths of how we're making this game.
Well, item icons are also an important part of this game. Since knowing what an item you're about to use ACTUALLY looks like, it would make things more memorable during quick inventory navigation in battles - without having to stop and read the description to remember what the very obvious bomb-shaped object does.
You may notice that we use a unique palette for item icons!! Yes, this is true! This is the Extended Character Palette, which is an extension of MUSO's main palette for, well, characters. We needed to create this extended palette because some icons could not be properly communicated with such a limited palette (trust me, we tried.) The more unique palette is also used for other things.. but I can't really share on that yet.
Anyway, this wraps up this month's development update. Cya next month!
