HALF KAISER BATTLER PROJECT
#1
THE HALF KAISER BATTLER PROJECT

[Image: Anims.gif]


Table of Contents
Options may be mouse-clicked for faster access
ABOUT THE HKBP: Why and How
OF THE HKCP: Resources and a Warning
Backup of the Original Template
Custom Development Tools
Folder and Pose Names Defined
Standard Color Palettes
Development Logs
RESOURCES - Body Templates
RESOURCES - Face or Head Options
RESOURCES - Eye Selections
RESOURCES - Ear Variations
RESOURCES - Facial Hair
RESOURCES - Eyebrow Options
RESOURCES - Hair Styles
RESOURCES - Hair Extensions
RESOURCES - Custom Tails
RESOURCES - Clothing: One Piece
RESOURCES - Clothing: Tops
RESOURCES - Clothing: Pants and Skirts
RESOURCES - Armor: Full Suit
RESOURCES - Armor: Shirt, Hauberk or Breastplate
RESOURCES - Armor: Paldrons or Bracers
RESOURCES - Armor: Battle-Skirt, Greaves or Leggings
RESOURCES - Armor: Coat of Arms or Tapard
RESOURCES - Belts and Sashes
RESOURCES - Footwear: Shoes or Boots
RESOURCES - Handwear: Gloves or Gauntlets
RESOURCES - Headwear: Hats or Helms
RESOURCES - Clothing: Coats or Cloaks
RESOURCES - Weapons: Primary
RESOURCES - Weapons: Off-Handed
RESOURCES - Shields
RESOURCES - Accessories
Not all resource pages have content, but merely placeholders for resources should a spriter endeavor to submit his/her work.

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#2
ABOUT THE HKBP: WHY AND HOW


Can you trust online sideview graphics?  Maybe not.

Too many a times have people discovered that their battlers or graphics have been ripped by games such as Ragnarok Online. And many a times, the poster makes claim that he/she is the actual artist whilst posting copyrighted material. So what can one do but either work laboriously upon their own graphics or utilize graphics of a more simplistic fashion.



This is where you come in...

The purpose of this thread is to promote the creation of various graphics which can be used with the Half Kaiser battler templates.  Recolored, one hair style can make many. A mere few shirts, swords and hairs can make a good number of battlers by themselves.  So it is the intention to make a decent resource set for all users of side-view battlers without the frustration of finding their resources stolen or ripped.

I do suggest some guidelines for submission of course:

  • No ripped content.  That should go without saying, right?
  • Content posted is basically freeware. How can it be a community project if not for the community?
  • Content should be permitted for all projects, be it commercial gain or otherwise.
  • Content is posted within this thread. Please label appropriately as completed or work in progress
  • Submitted resources follow a specific naming convention (see below).


But what is a Half-Kaiser and can I use it?

Some time ago, a spriter known as Showkaiser decided to make new walking graphic styles for RPGMaker XP games, and was inspired by Chrono Trigger.  He made the Full Kaiser style and the Half Kaiser style, both larger than the default but both allowing for more detail.  Between the two, the Half Kaiser style was more popular. But it was still more difficult to have a game with Half Kaiser graphics as there wasn't enough suitable map tilesets available to accommodate the larger character size.

[Image: SalOMac.jpg]

This is a screenshot acquired from HBGames and the poster is indeed Showkaiser, now having changed his online name in HBGames to Sal-O-Mac. And indeed, he has stated that his template is public domain just so as long as you do not take credit for his work. But for any instance of using someone else's work, you must give due credit and cannot claim it as yours.  That's called plagiarism, bay-bee!



Your content is yours. 

The eventual goal is to have a bundled package or resource set for use. So material content you post will very likely become a part of the package. However,  the creator of the any particular piece owns the rights, though it will require contact with a suitable Administrator to handle the update or alterations within the listed resources.



What do you get out of it?

Fame.  Yeah... well, that's about it.  But it may go a long ways for name recognition. Anyone who wishes to use the work within this project MUST give proper credit to the artist(s) who supplied graphics in use.  If, as an example, a game developer made battlers using hair and armor from Manco and swords  and shields from Cleef, the developer would be required to have Manco and Cleef be declared as artists for his game.


About Standard Conventions...

Graphics uploaded need to use a special naming convention.  Typically, it would be the gender, the type of object, a flag number (admin made), description, its color, and then the name of the artist, each of these separated by dashes and dashes alone(no spaces between).  If Manco above made a female's brown hair, his filename would be "F-Hair-12-Wavy-Brown-Manco.png."  For a package set, changes may be made to the filename, but this perhaps to separate different types of hair (ie Hair-01, Hair-02, etc).  However, all filenames will have the name of the artist within. You may submit, if you desire, your actual name rather than forum username.  But that is your choice alone.

The most BASIC instance for the naming convention for a file resource would be:
"
(Gender)-(Item)-(Color)-(Artistname).png"

The resources themselves are Spritesheets that encompass many action poses, more than those that would be visible, over 40 poses in fact. This to be used in the now-released Layered Spritesheet Tool (see below) which allows other users to MIX-N-MATCH whatever poses they want in whatever order they want. And unlike most, each frame is 150 X 135 in size which supports larger weapon attacks to be shown.

Again, each frame is 145X130 in size. Please examine the uploaded templates (below) for more reference



How do I sprite this stuff?

Regular spriters would know this.  The work you make is of equal size as the template(s), and with a transparent background. If you are making hair for a template, the hair must be applied to each character graphic (or cel as in cel animation). And anything drawn must stay within the confines of each cel... no overlapping.  Without an actual character generator, it may be a bit harder to see if the hair moves the way you wish. But something simple to help view animations may be coming soon.  Nothing flashy, but useful at least.



Was something missing?

Well, yeah.  More than half of the battler templates had one or two 'poses' that were not completely shaded, or pillow-shaded.  Pillow shading is the term used to describe the manner in which multiple shades are used to give the sprite a more 3-D or rounded shade effect. Only the Dagger, Gun and Sword templates were complete, but all the others have been taken care of.

Along with that, the templates were all 'masculine'.  There were no existing female templates.  So I basically tweaked all of the eight original templates to provide a female option.  I did this with the understanding that the same space and features like weapons, shields, or hair needed to occupy the same space without difficulty.



Gender differences in templates...

Like I stated above, the original sideview battler templates only depicted male heroes.  Pfft---*  There's obviously a need for female action heroes, and you can't just dress up a guy with a dress.  That never works. So for any who found need to see why differences were needed, I present below a shot of the traditional half kaiser 'charactersets', both male and female renders side by side.


Normal and 3X Resolution
[Image: Both.png] [Image: Both3.png]


So without further adieu, let's have FUN!
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#3
OF THE HKCP:
RESOURCES AND A WARNING

This thread is basically inspired by the Half Kaiser Construction Project of a site formerly under the names RMXP.Org, and recreated and reborne under HBGames.Org.  As of transferring to aarpgmaker.Com, you may find the project again lost to the binary winds.

Of the hair styles initially posted, the first ten (assuming more will be brought forth) were altered variations acquired from the HKCP (Half-Kaiser Construction Project) that used to be hosted at RMXP.Org. Though the resource  links at RMXP.Org and Pixelcocktail hosted by HugeDomains.Com are now dead...

WARNING:  While one may wish to acquire the original HKCP resources, be warned that Trojan viruses were encountered and blocked attempts at retrieval with the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org).

As of now, all ten  hair styles from the HKCP have been represented. Original female hair artwork was produced by Venetia, KazeN, Akaire, Deebs, CeruleanSkye and CoyoteCraft, and it is 'required' to give due credit for their use.

These hair styles did require some extra editing to match the Half Kaiser animatics.  The battler heads are wider, and the ear placement is roughly 3 pixels lower than the Half Kaiser charactersets by Showkaiser.  So it does take some time to properly adjust each one.
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#4
BACKUP OF THE ORIGINAL TEMPLATES

While the master-template for the project was in the works, some people asked for temporary access to eight different side-view battle system templates that were defined for the traditional Minkoff 11-pose style. Each one of the templates is  rendered in the art style of Showkaiser. And perhaps, some were made by Showkaiser himself.  One of the templates can be seen within the spoiler below:

The Swordsman Template

And you can find the original Templates prior to this endeavor right here: 
.zip   HALF KAISER TEMPLATES.zip (Size: 131.26 KB / Downloads: 3)
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#5
CUSTOM DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

There were indeed development tools made in tandem with the Half Kaiser Battler Project, and these tools (made using RPGMaker XP) are listed below...

THE LAYERED SPRITESHEET TOOL

The below image is an older shot of the tool, but it is a tool that allows you to combine individual layers to form a spritesheet: Body, Armor, Weapons, Hair.

The tool can be found HERE

Editor when selecting sprite eye color


THE SPRITESET CONVERTER

A tool that can convert a battler from one battle-system's format to another, or has the ability to slice a spritesheet into individual animation frames/cels and recombine them later.

The tool can be found HERE

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#6
FOLDER AND POSE NAMES DEFINED

For developmental purposes, as well as compatibility with the Layered Spritesheet Tool, there are defined certain constants.  These constants are the names of the folders which hold the graphics within the Layered Spritesheet Tool, and the default names of the 49 individual poses within each spritesheet resource.

Within the editor, you may change the names of the poses as you see fit, knowing that it is a name change in your editor alone. However, the contents of these poses remain the same.

Please take some time to examine the names of both the folders and poses, and the intended purposes of each.


The LIST of Folders

Folder
Content Title
Description


Body
Body Template
Skins tones!


Face
Face or Head Options
When the default one isn't enough!


Eyes
Eye Selection
So many colors!


Ears
Ear Variations
How about Elf ears?


Hair Face
Facial Hair
Mustache much?


Eyebrows
Eyebrow Options
Thick, thin, crazy


Hair
Hair Styles
Strike a pose.. Vogue


Hair Ext
Hair Extensions
Ponytails?


Tails
Custom Tails
Cat tail?


Clothing - One Piece
Clothing: One Piece
Leotards, dresses, etc.


Clothing - Upper
Clothing: Tops
Shirts, tank tops, etc


Clothing - Lower
Clothing: Pants/Skirt
Shorts, slacks, skirts


Armor - Suit
Armor: Full Suit
Something Knightly


Armor - Upper
Armor: Shirt or Breastplate
Hopefully better than just a piece of leather


Armor - Arms
Armor: Paldrons or Bracers
What's on Wonder Woman's wrists?


Armor - Lower
Armor: Greaves or Leggings
A battle skirt?


Armor - Coat
Armor: Coat of Arms or Tapard
A flag you wear over your chest?


Belt
Belt or Sash
Tie up your robe or hold up your pants.


Footwear
Footwear: Shoes or Boots
Adiddas. Puma (not the cat).


Handwear
Handwear: Gloves or Gauntlets
xxxxx


Headwear
Headwear: Hats or Helms
Go Darth Vader?


Clothing - Outerwear
Clothing: Coat or Cloak
Are you cold?


Weapons
Weapons - Primary hand
SMASH! STAB!


Weapons Off
Weapons - Off-hand
Left handed?


Shields
Shields
Kite shields, Round, Bucklers


Accessories
Accessories 1 to 5
xxxxx




* Notes regarding the folders:
With the advent of Layered Battler Tool v 1.9, which was continued in Layered Spritesheet Tool 2.0, you can have Male and Female subfolders within each of these folders.  These allow the separation of your graphics, and allows you to switch between the tool with the gender buttons built into the revised tool.

The gender subfolders are not required, but available and recommended to keep things more orderly.



The POSES by Name

Pose #
Description


1
Stance - General Moving #1


2
Stance - General Moving #2


3
Stance - General Static


4
Stance - Defend / Shield Raised Moving


5
Stance - Defend / Shield Raised Static


6
Stance - Hands Raised Moving


7
Stance - Hands Raised Static


8
Stance - Sword Raised Moving


9
Stance - Sword Raised Static


10
Stance - Heavy Weapon Moving #1


11
Stance - Heavy Weapon Moving #2


12
Stance - Heavy Weapon Static


13
Stance - Kendo Moving #1


14
Stance - Kendo Moving #2


15
Stance - Kendo Static


16
Stance - Arms Crossed Block Moving


17
Stance - Arms Crossed Block Static


18
Stance - Arm Raised High


19
Motion - Charge - Run


20
Motion - Charge - Flying


21
Motion - Retreat - Run


22
Motion - Retreat - Flying Backward


23
Motion - Retreat - Flying Forward


24
Action - Archer


25
Action - Dagger Up Thrust


26
Action - Fencer Pierce


27
Action - Gun Drawn


28
Action - Heavy Weapon Swing


29
Action - Kick


30
Action - Overhead Attack or Throw


31
Action - Rifle


32
Action - Spear Thrust


33
Action - Sword or Punch


34
Action - Two Hands Waved High


35
Action - Two Hands Sides Out


36
Action - Two Hands Push - *No Weapons


37
Action - Two Hands Waved High - *No Weapons


38
Action - Two Hands Sides Out - *No Weapons


39
Action - Item Potion


40
Action - Item Throw - *No Weapon


41
Status - Struck Stiff Pose


42
Status - Struck Ragdoll Pose


43
Status - Weak on Knee Moving


44
Status - Weak on Knee Static


45
Status - Weak and Seated


46
Defeat - Face Down


47
Defeat - Face Down to Side


48
Defeat - Face Up


49
Blank or the Spriter's signature



* Notes regarding idle animations:
Idle animations are typically of two types, one that is animated with four frames of animation played in concert while the other is one single frame copied over three more times.  So the animated pose could be considered frame-1, frame-2, frame-3, frame-4 while the static one would be frame-1, frame-1, frame-1, frame-1.  Fairly simple and easy (if a bit monotonous) to sprite for.

However, there is a second idle animation style that appears (such as pose #2: General Moving 2 and pose #10: Heavy Moving 2).  This is a side-to-side rocking pose.  It uses the same basic frames as the first animated idle pose, but lacking the first frame itself.  It is set up using a frame-2, frame-3, frame-4, frame 3 design.
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#7
STANDARD COLOR PALETTES


Inherited from the older HKCP,  it is recommended that there be a form of standardization for the basic body templates available for the end users.  While not a complete necessity, it is highly recommended.  Of course, special considerations (Aliens, monsters, etc) would be understandable.  And the list can always be expanded

Here, we have merely two sets of color palettes, one set of palettes for character skin coloration, while the other for eye color.  There are merely 16 different colors used to define the skin tone of any body while eyes a mere 8 colors including lashes and optional glint of light within.



[Image: Body%20and%20Eyes.png]

16-Color Palette used for Body Style Templates

8-Color Palette for Eye Graphics
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#8
DEVELOPMENT LOGS

The logs contain breakdowns of posts made discussing artwork and tool development:

LOG 2020/09/29 to 2021/01/08



LOG 2021/01/13 to 2022/08/26
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#9
(FOR FUTURE DEV LOGS)
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#10
The Half Kaiser Body Templates

All the below templates are specially redesigned versions of the classic Minkoff Half Kaiser templates that were found only in male format and unfinished. But here, you will also find female variations with the placement of body parts, particularly the hands, feet and heads completely uniform among them all. This will make the overlapping items such as swords, shields and helmets uniform for both genders without issue.

Spacing of all battler frames was also increased in response to the need of some of the desired weapons. Spear or lance template graphics functioned, but did not have enough space to accommodate such weapons. Originally, each template was 400x1100 allowing for individual 100x100 cels with only 11 poses, Now the new templates has 49 poses available and are 600x6615 with 150x135 cels. This gives ample spacing for larger weapon animatics that was not possible before.

Recommended folder path:
{Stylename}\Body

[Image: BackToTop.png]


Skin 01 - With default Eyes and Ears

[Image: T-F-Skin-Med_DerVV.png] [Image: T-M-Skin-Med%20DerVV.png] The basic design with default ears/eyes that can be covered.



Skin 02 - With no eyes or ears

[Image: T-F-Skin-Blankface-Med_DerVV.png] [Image: T-M-Skin-Blankface-Med_DerVV.png] A revised body style for unique/different head attachments.




Skin 03 - Headless

[Image: T-F-Skin-Headless-Med-DerVV.png] [Image: T-M-Skin-Headless-Med-DerVV.png] A template with no face/head options, revised to reveal the neck stump.





All the templates are saved in a palette format with these 13 principle colors.
16-Color Palette used for Body Style Templates
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