I don't mind the quiet--since the multitude of releases for 3/14, most of our posts have been chatter about how great ModKeen2.0 is -- hopefully now some of those posters are hard at work piecing together our first Keen4 mods!
Personally, I've been struggling to get my title screen image to look right for my Keen3 mod. I can't get Keen's right arm to look good, and I think his nose is completely wrong at this point. Since this is a thread for inspiration, here's a bit of a question:
Where do you look for inspiration for your creatures / aliens / enemies? Usually my enemy designs are thought of from a function-and-purpose point of view. Keen2's Scrubs became my Tubs because, well, I needed something roughly square-shaped that Keen could stand on. Function. But for more animate and random creatures like the Vorticons (or, for that matter, Bloogs / Shikadi), where do you turn?
From there, what about the title screen? Ilsoap had a brilliant idea for his Lego Keen, using the "Previews!" section to show us some detailed shots of his enemy ideas. But working with a 320x200 picture is much more difficult than it seems--how does one go about getting sizing, angle, direction, focus?
I'm struggling with my title screen primarily due to the angle--I just can't visualize how Keen's right arm needs to be bent to achieve the look I want. :-P Hopefully once I get a beta version put together, I can ask KeenRush or Xtraverse to host it for feedback.
When i redrew a spaceman Spiff comic for a preview replacement, I measured all the sizes of the panel and converted the lengths into pixels, and it worked out really well! Mabey the same can be done by drawing the picture on paper and measuring the different things in the picture. As for sprite inspiration, all I had to do is read some comics! However, I incorperated some creatures from the non-spaceman Spiff part of the comic strip, as well as one Spiff alien, and one i made up. My question is: Would you like to see more Spiff aliens than just one?
And did I hear something about a possible beta-version of xkykeen3? :)
Hopefully once I get a beta version put together, I can ask KeenRush or Xtraverse to host it for feedback.
You can e-mail me anytime Xky! :)
Would be very cool to see a beta.. Ah..
Hmmm, I don't know really, I've only modded Keen 1 and those robots that you can't stun I've tried to keep as robots, and other enemies like gargs, well, if I just got some idea I have tried to draw it. :)
Ok - now I gotta work on my mod today. :) The last time I made up pogo animations, which work really well I think.
When I said I'd hope to get a beta up for feedback, I meant a similar thread to the Title Screen one I had done for my Keen2 mod. However, that was easy to do because I had an Angelfire account at the time. I could upload/rename stuff as I pleased, so I could get feedback at my own pace. Now, without the account, it'd be rude of me to ask anybody to shuttle minor updates onto a server for me.
I'm not real big on beta-testing my mods... I usually ask my siblings / friends to do that in person, so I can get more in-depth and specific responses. Besides--at this point all I have is a few sprite replacements and some minor help file changes. Nothing worth uploading.
The measure-the-sides-and-convert-to-pixels idea sounds great!
Oh, I got it.. Hmmm, well, I'm not so much into hosting only pics.. Maybe you could try a Geocities account? You probably can't show the images on the board with that Img thing, but you can always link them. :) And maybe quickly cook up some simple html to make sure people really can see them. :)
Yeah, well, it's better to see the finished mod instead of beta. ;)
here is a site about sprite design, making tiles and eliminating the grid appearance they create. It's pretty interesting and useful stuff. the site is http://pixeltutorial.cjb.net/