Chrono Compendium
Bend of Time - Inactive Projects => Darkness Beyond Time - Dead Project Discussion => Fan Project News/Updates => Topic started by: ZeaLitY on June 19, 2008, 05:53:23 pm
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If you look at most modding communities, they consist of a lot of individual people with their own projects working independently. Projects take a long time to develop because talent is spread very thin and personal research is kept private. In the end, the fans suffer because fewer projects are released from the lack of coordination. Now, reflecting on our current fan projects (and I don't mean to offend people), Chrono Trigger + is in limbo, Azala Style is totally stalled, Re-Amped is going very slowly because it's only one guy, Time's Illusion is at a standstill, and Rebirth has a title sequence done after a few months of work. Crimson Echoes has shown significant progress thanks to jsondag2, but even it is having issues due to personnel shortages.
I've always tossed the idea around of designating one fan project "Compendium sponsored", where like all the official faculties of the site are geared towards it. It'd get a prominent button on the sidebar and maybe other places, and clicking any of those would take the reader to an encyclopedia page set up by and maintained by that project's leaders which advertises opportunities for help and open positions. This way, more resources are directed to a single project chosen because of its appeal and likelihood of getting finished. Once it's done, a new fan project can fall under the Aegis.
Still, I wasn't sure how others would feel about this, or whether it would be truly effective. If it went into action, for example, a few people could clean up one map each from Crimson Echoes, and in one gesture 90% of the mapping work will be done for the project. But when one person like jsondag2 is tasked with cleaning up maps, it represents a lot of time and limits contributions to only one vision. If this system works ideally, fan project development time will be cut down and research will be shared among more people. There will also be more "accountability", as an increase in people with a vested interest in a project should increase interest and volunteering. And the small talent thats invested into projects that are stalled will instead be of real use. Anyway, feedback wanted.
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ZeaLity, I actually think this is a great idea. I've thought about this before: too many projects with too few people.
I stand behind the conceptual Aegis.
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This is a very interesting idea and it has a lot of potential.
How many people are actively working on Crimson Echoes right now? The Chrono Cross Hack is still in the R&D stages, so maybe some of the people form there can help out with getting CE finished, since the end result of CE might affect our project as well. I think it would be beneficial for all involved, but I was unsure if the CE team wanted to try and keep it only between a certain amount of people.
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In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. The project should go faster but there will be parts completely unorganized, and communication will be a problem.
A say give it a shot
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How many people are actively working on Crimson Echoes right now?
Officially, I think 20 or so people can see the CE forums. But right now, IMO, the active team is pretty much three people: jsondaq, Cybersarkany, and me. And I'm not doing much besides testing the patches jsondaq releases.
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How many people are actively working on Crimson Echoes right now?
Officially, I think 20 or so people can see the CE forums. But right now, IMO, the active team is pretty much three people: jsondaq, Cybersarkany, and me. And I'm not doing much besides testing the patches jsondaq releases.
Anything you could use some help on?
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Mapping
Nightmare is really the only skilled mapper we have but he's busy right now. Truthfully I believe people say they will map just to get access to the forums so I think if people are interested I'm going to give them flux files to edit their maps and they can give me the flux files back.
Spriting:
I made a post in kajar labs saying I needed a spriter. It's a tough job...hopefully someone will do it eventually.
There's other needs but it's for more advanced stuff (enemy AI and such) that'll I'll probably just do myself)
I plan on having a MVP beta test before the actual release composed of just active compendium members.
--JP
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jsondag, did you want to include edited techs in CE? Your tech editor is particularly user-friendly and fun to tinker with. I will continue work on the tech formats as I'm able, but it would be great to get others involved.
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Oh were there will definitely be edited techs
--JP
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I've been saying this for years about the RPGmaker community in general. CRISIS is getting so far along just because of luck, I think--we have an AWESOME team so far, though we could use a few more people.
Coordination=good things, though. I wonder if people will be willing to put aside their own projects to coordinate, though.
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Well, I know I've said this before......I'm willing to use my programming knowledge for something like Crimson Echoes. If people are needing help on it.
I don't know how low level you guys go to develop Crimson Echoes.....but I might be able to be of some use. Like I said before, I'm quite proficient in C++ and C# and still learning Assembly (a pain in the ass)...but I do have experience making little games here and there and an actual Megaman remake for my student game project.
So yeah, I can give you guys some help when needed. If the helped is wanted, of course!
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Any of the other ROM hackers wish to give feedback? I guess it's your time and talent that is highly-prized in the community..
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To the other hackers out there, you don't necessarily have to put your projects on complete hold while pitching in in a Compendium flagship project like Crimson Echoes. Doing something small like cleaning up a map every once and a while or tinkering with jsondag's tech editor & posting your findings would probably make a big difference, and it helps you earn some street cred and practice if you've just entered the hacking world.
It helps if you can find some aspect of Crimson Echoes development activities that either inspire you or that will provide useful experience. When I did the Magus portrait and ending art insertion for Prophet's Guile I learned TileMolester inside-and-out, which really helped me when dealing with the TIM format images in Chrono Cross later. While identifying the Layer 3 Graphics packs for jsondag's tech editor, I learned that there's often no rhyme or reason to the way game developers arrange visual elements when it comes to in-battle effects, and that lesson proved true for Chrono Cross as well, much to my chagrin.
If you're a newcomer to the Compendium reading this for the first time and are trying your hand at using Temporal Flux, going through and debugging maps for Crimson Echoes would provide hugely useful experience for your own planned projects. Don't be afraid to jump into it; there's no way you can mess anything up because the CE team keeps regular backups (...I hope :D).
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Perhaps we should lay out how this would go into effect, then.
- A special encyclopedia "embassy" page would be created for the sponsored fan project, listing whatever information fan project leaders choose, a list of areas needing help, contact information (like forum and e-mails) and links
- A link to the project in the navigation
- A 150x50 link button on the sidebar towards the top enough that it appears on the front
- A top sticky in Kajar Laboratories
- If I can swing it later, a long, slender button at the bottom of every page
Anything else?
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Mapping
Nightmare is really the only skilled mapper we have but he's busy right now. Truthfully I believe people say they will map just to get access to the forums so I think if people are interested I'm going to give them flux files to edit their maps and they can give me the flux files back.
Spriting:
I made a post in kajar labs saying I needed a spriter. It's a tough job...hopefully someone will do it eventually.
There's other needs but it's for more advanced stuff (enemy AI and such) that'll I'll probably just do myself)
I plan on having a MVP beta test before the actual release composed of just active compendium members.
--JP
You need a spriter do you? May I volunteer?
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I have learned some things from working with CE before breaking off to my project, that's keeps getting put to the back burner due to stuff around the house. An much recently, having to help dad at work since he hurt his knee about 3 weeks or so ago.
Rebirth however has a lot done to it than just the opening. The opening is polished and every thing. Chapter 1 is getting a rewrite, and Chapter 2 has been started. (which is on hold til chapter 1 gets finished being rewritten..)
I did do a small project a while back, dealing with Loading from a save point. Which the patch can be found on romhacking.net which i plan to incorporate with Rebirth.
I've had some help already from a few people.
Justin, JCE, Lenophis and a few others.
Check the rebirth section on more stuff. (starting to post after i made this post.)
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Yes definitely
Jp
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Yes definitely
Jp
If thats a reply to me then sign me up :D
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Rox, here's a thread buried in Kajar where jsondag describes what needs doing:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,5250.0.html
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Sorry it was meant as a reply (I sent it from my phone so it was really short). Just so you know cause qe seem to get plenty of spriters but they get stuck when I ask them to do this. We need you to not only be able to resprite a character or enemy but also be able to reinsert the graphics in the game. There are only a select few people who have successfully done this (I am not one of them) and a tutorial has not been made.
Jp
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If the graphics packet pointers just need documented json, that's something I'd be interested in taking a look at. If the knowledge is already there (like Vehek figured out sprite assembly, for example) I can synthesize it quickly and do a tutorial. It might be useful if the sprite insertion tasks were split up among artists and techies, with the artists doing the actual sprites and the techies figuring out how to get them in.
Compression is going to present some significant issues, I imagine, with recompressed graphics pack data being way larger or smaller than the originals.
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Though u am just guessing I feel as though extracting and reinserting the sprites is a major portion of debugging your new work.
I don't want someone to draw a sprite and give it to me and tell me to insert partly because I don't know how ha ha. But mainly because I feel as though I would spend as much time getting it right as it took to draw it. I may be totally wrong though?
I'm sure there is documentation somewhere but I don't know where
Jp
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I'll take a look at Geiger's notes to find the general location of the enemy and NPC graphics packets, and then document where all the pointers are hopefully. The pointers and palettes will be the most important. I started a palette location map when I was doing work on Prophet's Guile but it was inaccurate. I'll see if I can scrounge that up and fix it up. Ideally, we should have a Chrono Trigger File Structure wiki like the one we have for Cross, at least for the sections pertinent to graphics.
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Sorry it was meant as a reply (I sent it from my phone so it was really short). Just so you know cause qe seem to get plenty of spriters but they get stuck when I ask them to do this. We need you to not only be able to resprite a character or enemy but also be able to reinsert the graphics in the game. There are only a select few people who have successfully done this (I am not one of them) and a tutorial has not been made.
Jp
The only thing I can do is sprite until I get a working version of windows xp onto my mac, which could be a long time
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I'd be willing to donate what time I have towards helping out. I work around 50 hours a week, so while you might not see me every day you'd see me a few times a week. However, I don't know off hand precisely what assistance I could give. I don't really have an understanding of 'mapping', or cleaning up maps, but if it's something that can be taught I'm willing to learn.
I love the Compendium, so I'd love to do anything I can to help.
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I don't know how low level you guys go to develop Crimson Echoes.....but I might be able to be of some use. Like I said before, I'm quite proficient in C++ and C# and still learning Assembly (a pain in the ass)...
While you definately wouldn't use those skills working with CE the way your brain analyzes would make you a great candidate to work with TF. You should play around with it. also a great way to hone your programming skills is to make some sort of tool that can help people (for example it'd be nice to have a tool that edits AI this is a plan I have if someone doesn't beat me to it once things settle down). Also just a tip from a guy that just went through interviews and landed a job, don't put assembly on your resume it's an obvious resume booster that 99% of people don't care about.
I'd be willing to donate what time I have towards helping out. I work around 50 hours a week, so while you might not see me every day you'd see me a few times a week. However, I don't know off hand precisely what assistance I could give. I don't really have an understanding of 'mapping', or cleaning up maps, but if it's something that can be taught I'm willing to learn
Mapping is really easy download TF play around with maps if you feel comfortable with it post/PM and I'll send you a map. If you have any questions post them in kajar i promise I'll respond if FW doesn't beat me to it.
--JP
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it's an obvious resume booster that 99% of people don't care about.
Which is too bad. Since having knowledge of assembly is a great tool for optimization and memory usage.
Damn them. Haha.
and......uh, what's TF?
And now, an AI Editor eh? The last editor I did was a particle editor for our Megaman game. It was either that, or an Animation Editor. But particles are more fun, haha. So.......what exactly would that kind of editor entail exactly? An AI editor can go from pretty basic to something EXTREMELY complex. Where...I have done AI in the past, but I actually get my official AI course (which is pretty intense) in about 3 months.
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A little off topic, but who did the scenario and plot writing for Crimson Echoes?
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Many people have done the writing of the plot from zeality to hadriel to 99 and even me. Probably a few others as well.
The ai of chrono trigger is some If statements followed by a sequential set of attacks the hard part is decoding which bytes are which attacks and making the editor user friendly and big free there is a topic in kajar
Tf is the main CT editor.
Jp
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I know I'm not exactly an "active" member of the community, but I've been lurking here for at least a couple of years, and over at gamefaqs for a couple of years before that. I have a bit of experience with pixel art, none with spriting though. What I could do if it needs to be done is editing for the script, I have editorial experience, so I'd be good for the job, IMO. I hate seeing fan projects or translation patches with god-awful grammar, it makes it seem sloppy and amateurish.
Other than that, I used to be a fairly active member of the Cave Story modding and hacking community, and have a fair amount of experience tinkering with that data. I'm not exactly sure how close to that rom hacking would be, but if I could be pointed in the right direction, I could easily find out if I would be suited for it. I had no previous experience with that kind of thing, and I picked it up pretty quickly.
I'm in total support of the Aegis idea, too ;)
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TF = Temporal Flux, this is what everyones using to edit Chrono Trigger.
ChronoTweaker = This can edit enemy stats and what not, a very nice tool to tinker with.
Chrono Editor Companion(I think this is it) = You can edit what items are available for whomever and change a few mods on them.
There's some other things out there as well. I'm using one made by ChickenLump to help edit Sprite Assembly, and of course Jsondags Tech Editor.
Back on track: This really does sound interesting. I've actually pretty much halted my project for now because there's no one working on it except me...Then again it's technically my fault since I haven't been importing graphics into 1999 AD for Nightmare to help create maps. But I also need help with spriting here and there, so this would be a great help! I'm pretty sure other people would love the idea as well so we can all have our projects get a slight boost and get us going again.
The thing I do is, I work on too many projects and switch over from 1 project full time to another full time, much like here. Switched from Chrono Trigger - Time's Illusion to Tales of fighting fan-game called Voluspa. So once we get Voluspa out i'll probably switch back to CT. I do pop in periodically to revive or re-do certain things, like the 6th letter and 8th character. Those things I WILL work on to get it done.