Maps and screenshots thread

[DerVVulfman]

Seriously, Melana. Your eye for lighting and environmental ambiance is ... I am not sure if I have seen any even equal to your work.

[Remi-chan]

Been trying to make Apophis Labs a tad more appealing and vista-esque.

It very much fits the initial vision I had for this place. A secret laboratory located on the Apophis meteorite. Another of M.F. Lazarus' secluded outposts. He is very much a man who values function over form, so it not being fancy is very inline with his character, meaning the natural beauty is what I had to shine through.

[kyonides]

Here's my map after being zoomed out to let you get a grasp of how it looks like nowadays. There are also a couple of up-to-date screenshots of the dungeon.

3 Snapshots

[Kain Nobel]

Very nice screenshots!

@Melana: Zooming in on your map work, aside from the fancy lighting effects (which are well done), I see all kinds of custom rock formations and I enjoy the new wood bridge you've installed. Hard work was put into chiseling a hole through that boulder blocking the path, and I really like it. The shadow for that boulder arch is simple and effective, but needs to be slightly diminished. If you moved the two lamp lights in front of the boulder back about a tile or 3, might look better. These are nice maps and the lighting effects are great and the new rock structures are too.

@Remi-Chan: Your screenshots are packed with all kinds of interesting little details and gives off Knight Blade vibes, such as the metallic structures and the blue flood lights on top of the building. The textures of the floors and rock walls go well together, everything has a nice balance and variation, plus I'm digging all the pipes and details. Not really sure what the black with blue streaks in the background are supposed to be. All the small rock / plant / crystal things are especially cool touches so it must be a strange planet other than Earth.

Also... am I seeing a partially invisible character standing next to the two other characters? I thought I was staring at some kind of rubbish, but it distinctly looks like a person shaped figure perhaps with an invisibility cloak. The characters are well done BTW.

@Kyonides: On the simpler side, your lava dungeon has a nice balance of classical black and orange elements, which never fails to be a pleasing combination. Matching floor and wall textures is always a risky proposal because people may be confused on what is floor (with or without shadow) and what is a wall. However, this concern is not the relevant to this particular case, as it is easy to distinguish which is which with the way it was composed. The walls are significantly darker than the floor (with and without shadow) so this contrasts well and allows for dark, shady parts in the walk space. The Cerberus statues are great, but I feel it is way too cool to be placed everywhere like it currently is, might want to use some less awesome statues and reserve the 3 headed hound for the boss area or something. Lastly, the lava pool platform where the floor/wall meet looks just wrong, something needs to be changed. If you shift-click the drawing of the lava autotile and bring it down two tiles to appear like its behind the wall, it would look better. Very cool that you have sideways stairs. A simple element, yes, but it is fun to watch the character go up and down them as they traverse the dungeon and not many people use them in their games.

Overall, each one of you have some really good map designs and they each have their own stylistic themes. Any minor comment is just merely suggestions to improve the design, but I really see nothing wrong with any of them (except, of course, Kyonide's lava pool platform :3)

[kyonides]

That platform was shorter than on that screenshot, but I think somebody told me that was weird.
I've got no problem with leaving a small platform for the center room. Actually, I've been considering  it for quite some time. Now I think I'm encouraged to apply that change.

Waiting to see how Melana's map would look like after she's modified it. If she's feeling like doing that modification at all.  Not implying here that she should, just curious about the possible result.

[Remi-chan]

Very nice screenshots!

@Remi-Chan: Your screenshots are packed with all kinds of interesting little details and gives off Knight Blade vibes, such as the metallic structures and the blue flood lights on top of the building. The textures of the floors and rock walls go well together, everything has a nice balance and variation, plus I'm digging all the pipes and details. Not really sure what the black with blue streaks in the background are supposed to be. All the small rock / plant / crystal things are especially cool touches so it must be a strange planet other than Earth.

Also... am I seeing a partially invisible character standing next to the two other characters? I thought I was staring at some kind of rubbish, but it distinctly looks like a person shaped figure perhaps with an invisibility cloak. The characters are well done BTW.

The planet you're on is not so much a planet, and more the Apophis Meteor. The background is not really suiting though, I agree. I will find something less jarring, in fact, I already kinda had plans for that, you just helped show how clumsy using the hyperspeed lines was.

And oh, you saw him? Good eye, my friendo!

He refers to Mad E. Lin, another of the characters in this game, we'll encounter her in the next Disk.

As you might have noticed, yes... I already updated the parallax.

But since I know this alone cannot serve as a proper screenshot sample, I will provide another.

The beauty of Zen Aneia is matched only by the colorful nature of its inhabitants.

[Melana]

Very nice screenshots!

@Melana: Zooming in on your map work, aside from the fancy lighting effects (which are well done), I see all kinds of custom rock formations and I enjoy the new wood bridge you've installed. Hard work was put into chiseling a hole through that boulder blocking the path, and I really like it. The shadow for that boulder arch is simple and effective, but needs to be slightly diminished. If you moved the two lamp lights in front of the boulder back about a tile or 3, might look better. These are nice maps and the lighting effects are great and the new rock structures are too.

Thank you for the feedback.
Now that you mentioned it, that shadow really feels a bit out of place. These rock tiles are usually made for RMMV/MZ so these shadows have a higher saturation. I never payed attention to it. I will change that in the future for all the rock tiles from this pack... which might take a while because there are many. ^^

[Remi-chan]

It was actually seeing Melena's dope maps that made me want to upgrade the map for Apophis Labs (Uh... well. All I really did was add some fogs and change the BG.)

I'm done with maps until production on Disk 3 begins. Might go around and polish some maps, add life and critters or whatever. That'd be about it though.

For Fantasia, that is. There's nothing to say I can't do some work on other games, especially now since I'm more or less just waiting for my artists to submit their work.

[kyonides]

Melena means mane or long hair.

So guys, what do you think about the menu's layout?
And yes, the menu works fine!

[DerVVulfman]

In general, it works fine despite the empty (black area) space which I believe you are planning to address. However, I am unsure what other window you can place in the left-most side.

I expect this is a means for a skilled caster to 'Store the arcane magicka of a spell' into an item that could be read/used without SP/MP use by anyone so equipped? May I suggest that you include a limiter, making non-magery skills disabled in the menu and impossible to store as a scroll? The Bird Killer skill is meant to be a physical archery attack effect for one.