hatter wrote:@"Ex-Sirius" Hey, sorry for the really late response. I was sick last week.

To answer your questions in the order given:

• Select screen layout best suited for this is option B:  4 center columns with 12 vertical rows? (4 characters per row)
  

• Select screen portrait requirements: option C: You would like to leave it to me to create you the PSD portrait templates to suit the select screen design/aesthetic and utilize HD sizes for both the big and small portraits and you will add your own artwork for each character based on my template to suit at a later date; I will figure out how the artwork needs to be handled later on.
  

• Only require: ARCADE, VS MODE, TRAINING, OPTIONS (and all required font for all text within options) and QUIT. Omit all other modes, as they will not be needed.
  

• I think based on the 3rd option, the KH2 layout works best, as it requires less work, and allows me to be a bit creative with the artwork.
  

Thank you.

Hi Hatter
Thanks again for confirming all this.
I will now compile a final project summary including a break down of estimated workload/time and submit to you shortly.
All going well we should be able to make a start very soon once everything is good to go on boyh sides.
Be back with sumnary soon. Thanks again for your patience.

Hi Hatter, I have successfully completed a very thorough project summary for you.
as discussed, my plan of action would be to create and supply each individual part of your project as a separate job.
So I have separated your commission into 9 separate design tasks - which would be completed and supplied individually.
Also, please note that my project summary method used is the same method as used with my other recent projects with other clients.
For your convenience/interest there are examples of similar past projects using this format here:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

But without further delay, please find your Commission project job summary below:



Job Summary
Design, Create, code & import/export to def/sff/.air all requested/required elements for client's
"Capcom Vs Square: Parallel Destinies" Full-game motif.
Project to be completed/quoted/priced/supplied as individual parts as discussed to ensure timely delivery/progress.
Required designs are as follows:

1.Character Select Screen
2.Portrait System (Select screen/ VS Screen / Win Quote Screen)
3.Main Menu Screen Interface + Font system
4.options Menu Screen
5.VS Screen
6.Victory Win-quote Screen
7.Continue Screen System
8.Game Over Screen System
9.Victory Screen (arcade/story mode)

Details & Artistic Direction:

- All elements to be designed as per clients example images/aesthetic requirements as discussed.
- Theme to be inspired/based upon Capcom MVC galactic/Medieval RPG/sepia based aesthetic as discussed/examples provided
- All resources to be created/supplied in high quality, 32bit png & compiled/coded as for native 720p Mugen 1.1 Engine environment.
- All screenpack menu screens to be designed with a minimum scale factor of 1280x720 to match the existing screenpack of the client.
- Client does not require any quality limitations on the project/have any hardware limitations as discussed



Individual Job overview

Part01 - Character Select screen:

Part 02. Custom Portrait Template System:

part 03. Main Menu Screen Interface:

part 04. Options Screen Interface:

**UPDATED 04.10.22** SEE NOTES RE: FONT SYSTEM

Part 05. VS Screen System:

part 06. Victory Winquote Screen Interface:

Part 07/08/09 - Game Over/Victory/Continue Screens:

And that concludes the final summary and overview of your commission project.
Please take your time to slowly read through everything in fine detail, and ask any questions where necessary.
Please do not feel obliged/pressured to accept/initiate anything without proper consideration first.
Please take your time to consider/review and let me know your thoughts and if there is anything you would like more information on/any time/cost related questions you have or further modifications/changes you would like to make, please do not hesitate to let me know.
Also, if you feel any of the above mentioned time factors/tasks/descriptions seem inaccurate or questionable, I encourage you to be as scrutinizing as possible - I like to encourage full transparency with all of my work and ensure you are only getting exactly what you require and no less, to the maximum quality.

Otherwise, if you are satisfied/happy with all of the above, please let me know, and we will make the necessary arrangements to proceed.
I look forward to hearing from you.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Hey, so I checked your quotes, and it came to above 166 USD of the original budget I had in mind, totaling 666 USD (spooky number oooooo), which I pretty much expected, and I find them completely reasonable.

However, I should let you know, I am in the process of moving to another province, so for now, I can start only with the character select screen payment. I can give you the first 50% of it (108 USD) this Monday since it's a statutory holiday for the company I work for (perks of remote work) and thus you can have my complete focus. And then when that one is finished, I can give you the other 108 USD.

For the rest of it however (meaning the other parts), it will have to wait until after mid-August, or until the end of August; by then, I will have settled in completely and I'll be ready to work on this with you.

Thanks for taking the time to do these quotes; I'll be referring to this when I open up shop for my own work later.

I guess only question I have left, all payments from me for this will be via the donation button on the website?

Hi Hatter.
That's absolutely no issue whatsoever and is exactly as intended.
The purpose for separating each design as a separate commission is specifically for this purpose.
We only work on the part/s specifically required, and never more than one part at once.
Needless to say you only donate for the active individual part being worked on at the time.
And yes you are correct, as per the forum rules, all community commission work here is treated as donations via the website donation link.

When one task is completed and work is supplied, it is totally optional to proceed/cancel other parts.
Personal projects can often change in scope over time so it is best to only start/finish each part one by one incase of sudden changes on both sides.

With that said, that sounds great and we can definitely proceed whenever you are ready.
I will keep my schedule open then from monday to begin work on the Capcom Vs Square select screen and wait to hear from you Monday. I look forward to working with you on this excellent project.

An exciting sounding project.
I cant wait to see how it develops and what beautiful designs you will have in store for us my friends!

I'm excited to see this come to fruition. I know Ex-Sirius will deliver and I've no doubt hatter will pull off something great with all the spritework I've seen. Definitely wouldn't mind making some palettes down the road should you require any.

Hey Ex, per the message you sent me on Discord, I'm ready to start working on this. Donated the first 50% (108 USD).

Thank you for your support Hatter.
As discussed, this project is now officially active and we shall proceed as planned with the select screen creation.

To improve workflow and keep you updated, I will post daily progress images/explanations here so progress can be tracked at all times.
The first step will be to organise/fix/update the base mugen 1.1 build we are using
Based on the one you sent me so we have a clean solid foundation.
I will post some updates in several hours regarding that to explain.

Thanks By the way for sending me your copy of your SP as our base working file.
My process for approaching these projects is very logical and systematic.
So The first and most important step befpre commencing is to tidy up and consolidate the Mugen directory.
What I have done, is move/rename and tidy up all of the relative data directories where our working files will be for not only your convenience working on your game,
but also myself as I am adding/removing/updating everything.
Let me show you what I have done to start:

1.I have updated your Mugen 1.1 build with the 1.1 4GB Patch to improve speeds and handle large graphics better.
If you are unfamiliar with it I am referring to this:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

2.I have updated your .EXE launcher to include an HD graphic themed CVSQ Logo icon launcher.
 I used the Logo Image from your topic thread that Phant0mD created.

3. I have optimized all of your Mugen.cfg settings as most of them had default values.
  These various tweaks will improve performance/speed/hardware resource utilization as well as remove several character creation bottlenecks
  in regards to max helpers etc (some of these are niche improvements but better to have all options available than not).

Examples:

Code:

;Number of simultaneous afterimage effects allowed.
;Set to a lower number to save memory (minimum 1).
AfterImageMax = 100;16

;Maximum number of layered sprites that can be drawn.
;Set to a lower number to save memory (minimum 32).
LayeredSpriteMax = 15000;512;bbb chars

;Size of sprite decompression buffer in KB. Increasing this number may help
;if you experience slow performance when there are many sprites and/or large
;sprites shown over a short period of time.
;Minimum 256 for acceptable performance.
;If you set this too large you may also experience performance degredation.
SpriteDecompressionBufferSize = 16384

;Maximum number of explods allowed in total. Note that hitsparks
;also count as explods.
;Set to a lower number to save memory (minimum 8).
ExplodMax = 5000;512;bbb

;Maximum number of system explods allowed.
;Set to a lower number to save memory (minimum 8).
SysExplodMax = 10000;128

;Maximum number of helpers allowed in total.
;Set to a lower number to save memory (minimum 4, maximum 56).
HelperMax = 56

;Maximum number of projectiles allowed per player.
;Set to a lower number to save memory (minimum 5).
PlayerProjectileMax = 10000;32

;This is 1 the first time you run MUGEN.
FirstRun = 0


4. Main Directory Tidy Up
I have moved any irrelevant files such as swiss army knife/zip files that were in the directories into a folder named
  zz-hatters-files
  This is mainly to keep clutter/unnecesary files out of the main directories to keep a clear workflow/consolidation:

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5. Mugen/Data Folder Directory Tidy Up/Consolidation
I have removed all clutter/irrelevant old unused default Mugen folders/screenpack related motifs from the Data Directory
  so that there is absolutely nothing in there unrelated to your screenpack/fullgame specifically.

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6. I have Created a New Sub Directory Specifically for All of your Capcom Vs Square Screenpack related Files.
  This means that Everything Including System specific Fonts, Sounds, .def files, .air and .sff files
  Are all completely inside this folder and Mugen.cfg is pointing towards this folder.
  This is practical for a number of reasons - main one being it is where all our working files are and the main .snd/font directory for mugen
  is unaffected/unrelated to this one. You can easily cut/paste and remove this folder if you ever needed to import the work into another build with one click (also handy for potential future Ikemen migration/Mugen 1.1 virtualtek updates if/when they happen)

The directory is in DATA->CVSQ
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

All relevant files/folders relating to your existing lifebar work, and the screenpack work to follow now all here in one easy to see location
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

7. Using the Logo PSD files Phantom sent me of your game (Thanks [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]) I created a custom HD launcher for your game with logo added (just a small nice extra touch):

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Next step I will be making, are tidying up the Mugen build itself as I need to fic the non responding main menu fonts
that for some reason are not appearing in your build- perhaps they were removed in error as you mentioned on discord.
I will need the default ones back to be able to navigate to the select screen.

After that is done, I have a clear canvas and can begin creating the base editing template file for the select screen, starting with planning the slot system Layout for the 48 characters.
I will post progress footage once I have created the base template to calculate the grid/portrait sizing.

Update:
I've created an Index in the System.def For configuring the select screen options
that can be auto searched as shown below:

Code:

;==============================================================================================
;INDEX (USE SEARCH FUNCTION ON ANY @CONFIG INDEX ENTRY TO JUMP TO CORRESPONDING CONFIG SECTION)
;===============================================================================================
;@CONFIG-CVSQ-SYSTEM-FONTS
;@CONFIG-CVSQ-SYSTEM-SOUNDS
;@CONFIG-CVSQ-MAIN MENU MODES
;@CONFIG-CURSOR SOUND
;@CONFIG-CVSQ-MAIN MENU HUD
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;@CONFIG-CVSQ-SELECT SCREEN-SLOTS
;@CONFIG-CVSQ-SELECT CURSOR ANIM
;@CONFIG-SELECT-BIG PORTRAITS
;@CONFIG-SELECT-NAMEDISP
;@CONFIG-SELECT-STAGE FONTS
;@CONFIG-SELECT-TEAMFONTS
;@CONFIG-SELECT-TEAMVALUEICONS
;@CONFIG-SELECT-EMPTYTEAMVALUEICONS
;@CONFIG-SELECTBG
;============================================================
[Info]
name = "Capcom-Vs-Square-Parallel-Destinies-V1.1"          
author = ""      
versiondate = 01,08,2022
mugenversion = 1.1
localcoord = 1280,720  
;============================================================
[Files]
select           = select.def  
spr              = data/CVSQ/CVSQ-System.sff        
snd              = data/CVSQ/SND/CVSQ-system.snd
fight            = data/CVSQ/CVSQ-Fight.def        
logo.storyboard  =        
intro.storyboard =        
;======================================================================================
;@CONFIG-CVSQ-SYSTEM-FONTS
;======================================================================================
font1 = data/CVSQ/FONT/Grandma's Television_0.def
font2 = data/CVSQ/FONT/arcade.def
font3 = data/CVSQ/FONT/SYSTEM_FONT.def
font3.height    = 25
font4 = data/CVSQ/FONT/NAME_LIFEBAR.DEF
font5 = data/CVSQ/FONT/xirod.def
font6 = data/CVSQ/FONT/infofont.def
font7 = data/CVSQ/FONT/Team P1.def
font8        = data/CVSQ/FONT/Team P2.def
font9        = data/CVSQ/FONT/gunshipsemital_0.def
;========================================================================================
;@CONFIG-CVSQ-SYSTEM-SOUNDS
;=========================================================================================


I have set up the select screen slot template as we discussed to allow for 48 required slots.
What I wanted to demonstrate to you is a slight deviation in the layout:
Originally, we discussed making it a copy of the MVC1 layout using basic centre screen row columns.
Because MVC1 was originally a 4:3 ration 640x480 resolution game, it made sense that the slots were pushed as far in to the centre screen
as possible.
Because we have the luxury of 1280x720p and a wider screen real-estate to work with,
combined with the fact that one of your main features will be your personal artworks you mentioned wou will be making for your characters,
it makes sense to use that real estate more wisely.

That being said, I have slightly deviated the layout to allow for more spacing, larger portrait art sizes to show off your artwork, and also
to better space the 2nd larger portait areas:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

And now that I have the placement sorted I can add the spacing between the actual cells so there is some padding:

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Update:

Regarding our planning discussions about the Aesthetic look and design for the select screen,
the tricky goal here is to make a theme that is a combination of "Galaxy MVC Capcom style" Mixed with "Medievil futuristic style" and using the deep browny red sepia tones as per the square games such as Vagrant story, and many final fantasy titles.

So to combine all of these elements together perfectly, I have been creating various concept mock ups using a mixture of space-like theme graphics and animations, and also Final Fantasy/TPG inspired Arcane Magic spell / Summon attack type designs like you would see in most FInal Fnatasy or
other square RPG games, to create that perfect mixture.

Also of course, sticking strictly to the color scheme of your preference using those deep reds to emphasise that rustic RPG feel too.

After quite a few tests and scrapped concepts, I have created the base of what will be a very complex Animated background sequence that will appear as the Background layer of the select screen.

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Of course I still need to animate the ticks and loop them, but this is a rough idea of what the background layer theme will look like.
I think it ticks all the boxes of Galaxy/medievil futuristic/deep reds so far.

I will likely have some different animation happening in the borders top and bottom to make it not too overbearing also, but first i will complete the animation sequences for this part.

That is amazing; I wish I had something better to say but I am completely awestruck.

I can't wait to check this out and test my hand-drawn character art on this.

hatter wrote:That is amazing; I wish I had something better to say but I am completely awestruck.

I can't wait to check this out and test my hand-drawn character art on this.

Hi Hatter,
I'm happy to hear you are happy with the early progress.

Update:
I have now begun building the design for the header and footer areas of the select screen.
I am using a circular design to emphasisie a more universe/globe type effect if that makes sense, which will make more sense once you
see what i have in mind to do insode this border space

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I have then applied a suttle deep red sepia glass type effect to the border as your theme preference. This will be an overlay on the underlting graphics i have for underneath

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Then I have begun creating an animated cloud sky timelapse animation sequence (inspired by Final Fantasy VIII and several others)
Also if you look very carefully you will see some ornate/medievil style pattern overlays that fade in and out which are inpsired by FF the zodiac age

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And last but not least, once the glass like borders are placed over the top we get the deep reds effect enhanced on the clouds.
(also worth mentioning is that the cloud animation will have various distortion effects on it to, to sort of give it a retro dreamcast animation type look froim dreamcast titles that had that type of polygon sky

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So the next step will be combining all these elements and finishing the animations before I move on to creating the center area for where the character select slots will be.

Update: I have been working on the randomselect boxes.

Because you are making a fullgame which ultimately will have all slots full and not empty, i didnt think to ask about it, but then i realised that it may be some time before you actually finish all of your characters for the game and that means some slots will be empty and in randomselect mode until then, so you will need a randomselect graphic to fill those slots in the meantime.

Now I did quite alot of trial and error on this one to see what will work well with the theme and what will not work well.

The biggest challenge when making the design for a crossover game, is trying to fogure out when to make the style move towards one franchise, or the other, so as to not let one become overbearing or dominant.

Now so far, I have been making the select screen graphics very SQUARESOFT themed.
And at first i created Squaresoft styled randomselect slots, which looked like this
(the red theme, medievil/future styled)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

But then I realised that they totally looked wrong with the current theme, and I also wanted to return the balance back to the Capcom side of things.
So I went on to my Dreamcast emulator and played some Marvel vs Capcom 1 and 2 and then I decided on making the next few layers of the character select slot area be more Capcom style.
SO the colors and style of this center portion wll be more Capcom looking to keep a good balance.

Here is what I have come up with for the random select slots.
Of course, I am not just using simple sprites for this - I am using full animation wherever possible for maximum quality and detail.



Now the next step, is going to be designing the center of screen graphics for the select screen interface. I am going to keep the capcom influence goping here, drawing from Marvel Vs series and the "3D globe" style designs that they used in MVC2.

This will take some time as I have to animate the globe to be spinning in 3D behind the slots aswell.

Once that is done, I will post progress of it, aswell as the finalised graphics for the final fantasy styled galaxy animation background behind it.

Beautiful. The Square-styled select box, while stylish as all heck, won't do in this case, since some elements need a level of simplicity to recapture the Dreamcast/Sega NAOMI/90s CAPCOM era, so the one showcased in the video works great.

Excited to see how the next steps come along.

Update: I have finished creating the animation for the capcom style centre rotating sphere.
Partially influenced by Marvel Vs capcom 2.
It will have a subtle transparency to it, as will the actual Portrait slots that sit on top of it.



Next I will be exporting the frames so that I can import them into the .sff file and code the animation loop.
Then the Random select icons you saw yesterday will appear over the top of this in the center.

I have also started creating the automatic character Portrait art creator templates in photoshop for you
and they will be as easy as one simple drag and drop of your selected artwork and they will auto adjust to the select screen.
Once I have done that I will add a demonstration and screenshots of how it will work.
They are using the default 9000,0 and 9000,1 spritenos (big port small port)

As for the other animations, I will upload some footage of the actual animated borders tomorrow when they are done.

Progress Update:

I have completed the animation ticks for the Border.
This is the full animation sequence of the cloud/FInal Fantasy inspired border timelapse cloud effect I was working on earlier.
I have added deep reds like vagrant story theme and the color moses we talked about during the planning, aswell as several fading overlay patterns reminiscent of the zodiac age and other square rpgs.
This deeper colored border will complement the much more vibrant galaxy/arcane magic background animation combined with the spinning globe that will be in the centrepiece.



Also i dont know if i mentioned this earlier but dont pay too much notice of the poor preview video quality. the video is compressed for filesize and the actual in-game version grpahics is much more detailed and vivid HD than this, but atleats you get an idea of the final look.

Also I will be adding all the typical generic Arcade/retro style text overlays on the borders such as "insert coing/press start/character select" and whatnot to give it the true game feel/look.

Next is going to be the portrait frame demo system for the small select ports. I should have that done by tomorrow also.

Progress Update:

9000,0 Character Select Slot Small Portrait Template System is Complete.

I have created the seamless Photoshop PSD template system so that you can auto-drag & drop your artwork into it to create the portraits.
Allow me to give you a simple demonstration of how it works:

1. Open the folder titled PORTRAITS in the main directory

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2. Inside there is a Photoshop PSD file titled 9000,0 Template. Open In Photoshop.

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3. The template will open as shown. You will see a bordered frame.

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4. In the layer/folder menu to the right, you will see a folder titled PLACE PORTRAIT HERE.
place the artwork you want to use inside this folder.
(the artwork can be either 8 bit or 16 bit, but 16bit is recommended for highest quality)

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5. The artwork will be automatically cropped to only appear inside the bordered cube

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6. Disable the last layer in the folder list titled BG (DISABLE BEFORE SAVING) and save as png.

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7. Here is the end result

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Update:
Moving back to the main screen animation background sequence, I have finally finished animating and looping the Background galaxy/arcane magic sequence.
I have also added some additional vfx filters on it to give it a slightly retrograded effect so as to not feel too modern but at the same time not feel too out of date in terms of appearance and quality.



Please keep in mind that I have purposely downgraded the sample video footage from the actual ingame graphics. The actual ingame version is full HD max quality & smoother frames, but at-least you can get a small rough idea of what to expect in the final version from this footage.
The first screenshot I showed you is of the actual resolution, which stretches to 4K if your PC supports it since we are using 16/32bit sprites which will support OpenGL upscaling to ultra High resolutions:

Next I will be doing the exact same thing except with the Border cloud time-lapse animation sequence

Oh man, the moment of truth! It's as amazing as I thought it would be. This whole work is a highlight, but that background takes the metaphorical gold for being so well-crafted.

Im glad you are happy with it.
Update:

I have created several small overlay panels and details/accents to add the additional arcade/dreamcast feel.
They will include the following:

- Animated "Dreamcast VMU (Memory card) save data detected infographic"
- Arcade style Credits /Freeplay mode enabled infographics animation
 (like old dreamcast console ports of arcade games would have)
- Player 1/2 side indicator Tabs
- Animated Character select and Stage select infographic text

Example of the static versions below

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Update:

I have created the tab areas for the names to appear for Team mode when selected.
As you can see this galaxy themed, but also a glassy look like some of the HUDs you will recognise from Final Fantasy XIII/lightning and so on.

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Next I have to code in the Name fonts. I will likely use truetype fonts.
The font I have in mind for it will work perfect with the theme.

The next stage will be creating the template for the Big portraits.
It will also be drag and drop like the previous small portraits.

Before doing that however, I want to start layering all the animation sequence effects that we have created so far, so that I can see what the portraits will look like when overlapped on the background.

Also, the galaxy glass name plates where the team member names will appear, will be set to a higher layer number when I do that, to overlap the portraits.

I have started coding and overlapping all of the layers.
Here is what the components we have created look like so far

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Now I can begin generating the Large portraits.
Progress on that will be up tomorrow

Progress Update:

I have completed the 9000,1 Large portrait template system.
Keep in mind, this is merely a placeholder for the large available spaces on left/right side of screen within the border Areas
and does not mean you are restricted to what kind/how you choose to make the portraits display within the area.
But at the least it gives you the flexibility to drag and drop whatever artwork you like into the template and it will display correctly within the
areas without overlapping existing screenpack elements.
Also worth noting is that everything is scaled in the system.def to make sure max resolution images can be used to maintain highest quality
on your artwork.
it works the same as the 9000,0 portrait system:


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01. The PSD template is located inside the PORTRAITS folder in the main mugen directory.

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02. Open the PSD named 9000,1 Template.PSD.
    Inside are 2 folders: Background Layer folder, and the main portrait folder.
    The Background layer represents the actual select screen so you can plan how you want your portrait art to look on screen.
    (disable this layer when saving the final image as a png for fighter factory so it is on a transparent background)
    The Main Portrait folder is where you drag and drop your Artwork.

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03. Here is a sample image for Ryu I have dragged and dropped into the "PLACE IMG IN HERE" folder.
As you can see it automatically masks the artwork so there is no overlapping the important screenpack areas when it appears in game.

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04. Next, disable the Background layer folder to make it a transparent BG image and save as png for adding to your characters 9000,1 index

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05. The end result will be something along the lines of this. Easy and simple. Just rinse and repeat for all characters basically.

Also as per all the other artwork, by default i have set it to 16bit png so when/if you use 8bit images, photoshop may show a warning message which you can ignore as anything saved will automatically be output to 16bit max quality png for fighter factory import.

Progress-wise, we are at around about the 50-60% mark.
The last three remaining steps are some minor animation tuning, additional system.def formatting,
creating the select intro sequence transitions, the animated cursor system, and the font system for team modes