lettyboxe

[lettyboxe]

I doodled Letty, Serif and Dot! (2019)

So nostalgic..

[lettyboxe]

Slight Update

I haven't worked on anything Lettre related in some time so I wanted to say a couple of things just for the record.

1. There's a chance I'll reform Lettre to be a shorter, linear game just to have the story out.

2. Should that time come I'll announce it through my twitter account @ melty_chan.

3. The characters would go through major design upheaval. But the story would remain about the same.

4. There would be less puzzles? and more general progressing/conversation.

5. I haven't interacted with the RPGMAKER community in a long time, so it's a little embarrassing to post this but I didn't want people to follow thinking this was a completely dead blog. I'm just a full time university student with little time to fully engage online.

[lettyboxe]

This is a very quick tutorial that goes over one function, the Onion Skin in Photoshop CS5. The Onion Skin is equivalent to the function of a light desk for traditional animation. If you haven’t already, please see my first tutorial about [basic timeline animation] if this is your first time animating.

Start by making a new document and drawing on Layer 1 (in this example, held for 2 frames).

In the animation panel, on the bottom you will see a little icon that looks like an onion. When you hover over it, you’ll see “Toggle Onion Skins”.

Click on it.

You won’t see its effect until you’ve drawn more, but before that, go to the animation panels settings. There will be two options: “Onion Skin Settings…” and “Enable Onion Skins”. Click on the first option.

These are the Onion Skin options. Adobe has a description for each function on their site…

Onion Skin Count specifies how many previous and forward frames are displayed. Enter the Frames Before (previous frames) and Frames After (forward frames) values in the text boxes.

Frame Spacing specifies the number of frames between the displayed frames. For example, a value of 1 displays consecutive frames, and a value of 2 displays strokes that are two frames apart.

Max Opacity sets the percentage of opacity for the frames immediately before and after the current time.

Min Opacity sets the percentage of opacity for the last frames of the before and after sets of onion‑skin frames.

Blend Mode sets the appearance of the areas where the frames overlap.

Generally I don’t play around with these, and for this simple tutorial, they’ll remain at their default settings.

Create a new layer, “Layer 2”. Although it is a blank layer, with the Onion Skin on you can see a light render of the previous frame.

Go ahead with your next drawing on Layer 2 using the Onion Skin’s function as a proportion and movement guide. I’ll be animating a sneeze.

Continue on with the rest of your animation as usual.

A clearer example:

And that’s all there is to it. When you’re done, turn off the Onion Skin and play your animation to make sure it looks good (although you should be constantly going over your frames (scrubbing) to keep everything in check anyway).

The final product:

Achoo!

[lettyboxe]

I’d like to thank everyone who has followed me, reblogged and liked my posts and sent me private messages. I really do take in your thoughts about my work and ideas.

Lettre was an idea spurned off the idea of making a mailman character which turned out to result in Letty. I then wanted to make a story revolving around her.

At times I felt that the RPGM platform would not mesh with my overall goals but the support and wok of others in a community I had never fully looked in touched me.

I’ve been working on Lettre on and off, all the while I’ve been progressing in other ideas and my responsibilities. The lack of progress, while I feel that it couldn’t be helped frustrated me. 

I’ve mentioned it many times before, but I’m not versed in game design. I play games and speak about them with others, but this alone doesn’t translate into good game making knowledge. Playing around with the RPGM engine has always been a practice I’ve done, however.

Knowing my limits and my difficulties, it became harder to say that my vision of Lettre may not fully translate into a game setting. I wanted to give the characters time to broaden and not have that be lost in expansive casts and puzzle making.

I’m not going to cancel Lettre. That goes against the purpose of this blog. But I am going to consider Lettre’s future and its future with RPG Maker.

I still want to remain in this community, even as a niche. I enjoy related posts on my board and all the other excitable things.

Thank you. Thank you for ever taking an interest in Lettre.

~ Melty

[lettyboxe]

also i like the new chipset style but the perspective is a bit weird - some objects look like it's from a side view where as some look top-down. Nevertheless, it's great!

Yes I will hopefully amend that once my schedule is less cluttered. I'm sorry that I haven't been posting as of recent, I am managing my studies and hobbies one step at a time, so it ends up slowing everything down.

[lettyboxe]

Hey there! I'm kind of curious about you choice to make your games in RM2k3. Obviously, that's what works best for you, but it is quite old and I was wondering why you would opt for that version as opposed to newer ones

Well I chose 2k3 mostly because I felt I could replicate the GBA feeling that I want from Lettre. The first ever console I played was the gameboy so I think it has stuck with me ever since. Also I find it simple to use, since I’m more an artist/animator than a game designer. I can’t really code at all either. ;w;

[lettyboxe]

Super busy right now it's really bad. Will try and respond to messages properly when I can!

[lettyboxe]

Late update again, haha.. I’m sorry this weekend knocked me out. I’ve been sleeping for hours on end lol.

I’ve been working on redesigning some characters and here is Pipit! I made her hair longer and change some aspects of her clothing.

My semester starts tomorrow so weekly updates may be a struggle to get on time, but I will still try to update either on Saturday or Sunday!

[lettyboxe]

Late Friday Post!

I was away busy from morning to evening so I couldn’t post the update as I wanted. Also it was Friday the 13th so super spooky am I right?

Right now I’m reforming the look of Pidge Town to feature a sidescroller. I’m thinking of having a parallax in the background for some added depth as well. I’m excited for how it’ll turn out. This tree took way longer than expected and it’s not completed yet. But that’s what I’m really working on at the moment.

Also I’m made changes to some character designs but that will be revealed later on.

See you next Friday!

[lettyboxe]

A new year! It’s been some time since I opened this blog thinking I’d make a small little rpg game. And seeing people’s responses to my work is really something else!

Right now I’m just re-arranging and improving assets, and also wish to do some character and scenario writing as I want to strengthen that side of the game.

This year I want to release the game, and to do that I am going to put in a lot more hard work and time myself. Although I’m busy, I still want to make routine updates, big or small. They’ll be posted on Friday like today!

Here is an idea of how the maps will look instead. I would like to receive any feedback and thoughts on this change. I’m partially inspired by many sidescrolling games I used to play.

See you next Friday!

Side note: Although I tag my posts with game dev I don’t really feel like one. I’m primarily an animator and an artist and don’t know any coding or the more intricate parts of game design. I wonder if others feel this way too.

[lettyboxe]

Update!

It’s been a while since I posted anything Lettre related. Well I’ve been thinking what direction to take it as I started to place more effort in the setting and characters than the puzzles I was supposed to implement.

I want the game to be a relaxing experience and therefore I’ll be putting more focus onto the towns and adding more visual novel elements than previously. The adventure aspect will be more hopping to and fro towns and gaining knowledge on the workings of the world.

Also some sprite and character redesigns might happen and I might make it a linear left to right scheme like Maplestory since I like that format a lot. If I make this change I can enjoy the visual and story design a lot more!

Also no work on Crossing Lines for now.

[lettyboxe]

Reblogging from main blog. I would appreciate any support and can do character designs for upcoming games as well!

IMPORTANT NOTICE

Hello everyone!

I’m opening a small set of commissions as to help with my university funds! The semester is ending in a month’s time but I’m low on funds as of now.

I’m doing coloured rough sketches for £7 a figure. £10 for two in the same scene.

I work best with girls, “moe” themes, cute creatures and pastel and muted tones.

I won’t do anything graphic or sexual in nature. I also won’t do mecha.

If you’re interested, please send an email to cutecutewitch2@gmail.com and list your references!

Anyone who commissions would be doing a great favour! If you can’t then please share with others if you can!

[lettyboxe]

I’ve been planning on redoing Anji’s uniform for some time~ I wanted to make it  little more preppy.

Crossing Lines is still very early into planning, but it’s what I want to push out first because of its short playtime, which will be around 45 minutes.

[lettyboxe]

Hello everyone!

I am currently quite busy. I have just moved into my university dorms and am  settling down and such.

So for the time being, this blog will be slowed in terms of updates!

Thank you for reading and I hope to see you soon.

[lettyboxe]

Double previews!

1. Crossing Lines - When you talk to an NPC, a little dialogue bubble will appear over their heads. On the left side is the main characters. From the left, your best friend Nanane Shiragaki, the infamous delinquent Youta Takamiya, and your childhood friend Mitsuru Sagawa. I’m in process of writing the script so I’m not working on assets.

2. Lettre - A lot of the maps have been made smaller and revamped including Letty’s House. Apart from that, there’s been little updated elsewhere. I wish to compile the script so far for a review. There are more facesets and sprites to do for the extensive cast however they are time consuming and I’m not 100% satisfied with them. But I won’t change them much seeing as Lettre is not a large project and there is always room to improve in later projects.

If anyone has any questions about either of these projects, I am available to answer!

[lettyboxe]

Posting sprite and concept art of Anji Shinonome - the protagonist of Crossing Lines.

[lettyboxe]

Small announcement! Revamping progress has nearly concluded and so I will be resuming to doing work on writing the script and inventing puzzles.

As well as this I’m announcing a smaller project called Crossing Lines which is more of a visual novel based game than Lettre. Lettre is my priority so I’ll just be working on it from time to time. It will only last 50 mins~ now but I could make a fuller version in the future.