On a lighter note, here's a screen of Rosa.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
HDD failure
I suffered a click of death a few days ago, which as I understand it is a pretty sure sign my Hard Disc is gone. I lost a few files related to the project (mainly some older screenshots, savegames and MapZone texture files) but luckily the important stuff is backed up. The biggest problem this causes however (aside from all the stuff I lost not related to the project) is that it effectively cut my disc space in half. Folks, always back up your stuff.
On a lighter note, here's a screen of Rosa.
On a lighter note, here's a screen of Rosa.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Vampire Ladies
I have already shown the female vampire from the crypt both in screenshots and in the boss battle video, but I never really talked about her design despite the fact that I spend a lot of time on her. So get ready for some lady bats!
The most obvious change I made to her face are her eyes. In her original N64 appearance the white eyes with no irides are pretty effective, but I feel there's no way I can do justice to that look if I keep them white in high resolution. I went with bloodshot eyes instead.
Other than that I simply added color to her face with some blue and purple highlights.
It is a large part of the storyline early on that villagers (especially children) have been kidnapped and/or killed. Therefore I thought it made more sense to have her look like an actual villager instead of a random maiden in a gown. I actually used the peasant girls from The Witcher as inspiration for her new outfit.
This one is semi-new though (as in, not yet in the currently available pack)
In the Castle Center the female crypt vampire returns as a regular enemy (although it seems to be random which vampires spawn). She is basically a palette swap of her previous iteration, so in exactly the same fashion I simply changed the hue of her crypt appearance.
I thought her original appearance looked way too bland. Compared to the other possible vampires that spawn there, she looks gray. I thought a dark red dress would look way better on her.
Also, she's a complete pain to screencap properly.
Villa Crypt
The most obvious change I made to her face are her eyes. In her original N64 appearance the white eyes with no irides are pretty effective, but I feel there's no way I can do justice to that look if I keep them white in high resolution. I went with bloodshot eyes instead.
Other than that I simply added color to her face with some blue and purple highlights.
It is a large part of the storyline early on that villagers (especially children) have been kidnapped and/or killed. Therefore I thought it made more sense to have her look like an actual villager instead of a random maiden in a gown. I actually used the peasant girls from The Witcher as inspiration for her new outfit.
Castle Center
This one is semi-new though (as in, not yet in the currently available pack)
In the Castle Center the female crypt vampire returns as a regular enemy (although it seems to be random which vampires spawn). She is basically a palette swap of her previous iteration, so in exactly the same fashion I simply changed the hue of her crypt appearance.
I thought her original appearance looked way too bland. Compared to the other possible vampires that spawn there, she looks gray. I thought a dark red dress would look way better on her.
Also, she's a complete pain to screencap properly.
Face up he... wait what?
This one is the best I could manage.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Of New Year's and Skeletons
Despite me not having been here a whole lot during the last few months, it seems this blog has picked up a bit in popularity. So let me first say thank you for the support, and I am indeed still working on the project. It's just going slow because I'm also very busy in real life.
So let me start of 2012 with a few problems!
Skeletons
Because they move around so much, my work on skeletons is minimal. Since it is its most prominent feature, I only replaced the skull. The bones, I feel, are barely worth tinkering with since it would require a lot of work replacing them with proper high resolution bones which you won't even notice in-game.
Now there is one type of skeleton which seems to be a continuous source of problems: the exploding blue ones. Just having (an unaltered) one of those crawl from the ground causes framerate lag. A newly textured one actually crashes the game (especially when they explode), which is sad because I had actually made some adjustments to the original look.
I tried to make it look like their heads actually had bombs implanted in them. However, due to the problems this guy seems to cause I have opted to remove these textures for the time being.
Carrie Fernandez
I wasn't too happy with the way I made Carrie's eyes look (you can check out my previous attempt a few posts before this one). While I like this one a lot better, I might have overdone the eye shadow.
General problems
I have absolutely no idea about the settings of Rice's graphics plugin, furthermore I suspect my aging computer might be the cause of at least some problems, so these are probably my fault. However, I appreciate any help.
- Distance fog begins farther than it should (and therefore it doesn't hide distant terrain popping up)
- Aforementioned lag in certain places
- Some notes strangely don't seem to play during the intro screen
I'm currently using 'Mudlord's Rice Video Build CRC-Fix Update 10', which was advised to me on emutalk.net
In conclusion
That's all from me for now. Have a happy 2012!
So let me start of 2012 with a few problems!
Skeletons
Because they move around so much, my work on skeletons is minimal. Since it is its most prominent feature, I only replaced the skull. The bones, I feel, are barely worth tinkering with since it would require a lot of work replacing them with proper high resolution bones which you won't even notice in-game.
Now there is one type of skeleton which seems to be a continuous source of problems: the exploding blue ones. Just having (an unaltered) one of those crawl from the ground causes framerate lag. A newly textured one actually crashes the game (especially when they explode), which is sad because I had actually made some adjustments to the original look.
I tried to make it look like their heads actually had bombs implanted in them. However, due to the problems this guy seems to cause I have opted to remove these textures for the time being.
Carrie Fernandez
I wasn't too happy with the way I made Carrie's eyes look (you can check out my previous attempt a few posts before this one). While I like this one a lot better, I might have overdone the eye shadow.
General problems
I have absolutely no idea about the settings of Rice's graphics plugin, furthermore I suspect my aging computer might be the cause of at least some problems, so these are probably my fault. However, I appreciate any help.
- Distance fog begins farther than it should (and therefore it doesn't hide distant terrain popping up)
- Aforementioned lag in certain places
- Some notes strangely don't seem to play during the intro screen
I'm currently using 'Mudlord's Rice Video Build CRC-Fix Update 10', which was advised to me on emutalk.net
In conclusion
That's all from me for now. Have a happy 2012!
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Werewolf progress
The werewolf has been finished for a while now. But I wanted to comment on a couple of things I had to deal with in the making of the wolf.
Location: Forest of Silence
The main problem I had with the original werewolf was basically that, while he was pretty scary, he felt more like a ghost than a werewolf to me since the thing jumps around so much it's pretty hard to make out what it is you're fighting. I decided early on that I wanted to change his color palette to brown to make him stand out more.
I remembered seeing stills of the movie Dog Soldiers (which I haven't seen btw, just screens) and I liked the idea of basically having a big muscled guy with a wolf head as a werewolf to give him more of a physical presence. I also thought this would highlight that essentially you are fighting a monster that at some point was human. So that was my early approach to retexturing.
However a couple people at Emutalk advised me to keep him as hairy as possible since otherwise it wouldn't be a werewolf.
I did cheat a bit with actually making him "hairy" though since the only thing I did was change the color of his body to brown.
Location: Forest of Silence
The main problem I had with the original werewolf was basically that, while he was pretty scary, he felt more like a ghost than a werewolf to me since the thing jumps around so much it's pretty hard to make out what it is you're fighting. I decided early on that I wanted to change his color palette to brown to make him stand out more.
I remembered seeing stills of the movie Dog Soldiers (which I haven't seen btw, just screens) and I liked the idea of basically having a big muscled guy with a wolf head as a werewolf to give him more of a physical presence. I also thought this would highlight that essentially you are fighting a monster that at some point was human. So that was my early approach to retexturing.
However a couple people at Emutalk advised me to keep him as hairy as possible since otherwise it wouldn't be a werewolf.
I did cheat a bit with actually making him "hairy" though since the only thing I did was change the color of his body to brown.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Dining room in the Villa level
For some reason I always liked this room. Although the cutscene with the villager always scared me as a kid.
I'm taking time frame into account when choosing paintings (unless I made them myself of course).
I thought the Vanitas (Jacob de Gheyn, 1603) was a good fit opposite the mirror. For the larger painting I wanted something with a lot of detail to take advantage of the higher resolution. The Triumph of Death (Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1562) seemed appropriate. I'm also considering placing the rip of the original texture into the painting but currently I'm planning on having another ripped painting elsewhere in the level.
In some place I really want to include a painting of Shanoa from Order of Ecclessia to somewhat tighten the timeline. If I finish it it will likely look somewhat like this, although for reasons of copyright I'd probably make the picture myself instead of using official art.
I thought the Vanitas (Jacob de Gheyn, 1603) was a good fit opposite the mirror. For the larger painting I wanted something with a lot of detail to take advantage of the higher resolution. The Triumph of Death (Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1562) seemed appropriate. I'm also considering placing the rip of the original texture into the painting but currently I'm planning on having another ripped painting elsewhere in the level.
In some place I really want to include a painting of Shanoa from Order of Ecclessia to somewhat tighten the timeline. If I finish it it will likely look somewhat like this, although for reasons of copyright I'd probably make the picture myself instead of using official art.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
First Release
Hey, guess what?
Although it's still FAR from done, here's a very early version since it's taking so long.
Castlevania 64 Hi-Res
A bunch of textures have been shrunk to 3x instead of 4x to keep the filesize down. It's just an early version after all.
Constructive criticism appreciated!
---------------------
How to install
When using Project64, your folder should look something like this:
\Project64 1.6\Plugin\hires_texture\CASTLEVANIA
I can't help much with the optimal settings for the emulator since I haven't figured out those yet myself.
Although it's still FAR from done, here's a very early version since it's taking so long.
Castlevania 64 Hi-Res
A bunch of textures have been shrunk to 3x instead of 4x to keep the filesize down. It's just an early version after all.
Constructive criticism appreciated!
---------------------
How to install
When using Project64, your folder should look something like this:
\Project64 1.6\Plugin\hires_texture\CASTLEVANIA
I can't help much with the optimal settings for the emulator since I haven't figured out those yet myself.
I will not supply the ROM of the game (for reasons of copyright) and I highly suggest owning a physical copy of the game before downloading it.
For more info (and plugins) please visit Emutalk
---------------------
For more info (and plugins) please visit Emutalk
---------------------
Angry Video Game Nerd's Castlevania Marathon
And now for something completely different. Ever since the Angry Video Game Nerd did his Castlevania 64 review there seems to have been a massive growth in haters for this game, and since I'm doing this Hi-Res mod for it, I've had to deal with a couple of them. So, let's finally get it all over with, I'm going to point out all the flaws I found (some of them nitpicks, I admit) in the Nerd's review of CV64 and while I'm at it I'll tackle the other videos as well.
But let me first point out that I'm well aware that the Angry Video Game Nerd is largely a satirical character. However, a large portion of his fanbase still takes his videos at face value (as I've personally discovered). Furthermore, this video series was supposed to be a tribute (and he admitted these are mostly his genuine opinions) which makes it a bit harder to swallow than his regular reviews. By no means do I post this as a personal attack to James Rolfe though, I just think it's a little unfair that we bash every word the Irate Gamer says but somehow look the other way when the Nerd screws up.
Part 1 - Castlevania (NES)
Castlevania
04:00 - The candles represent lost souls that are trapped in Dracula's castle. I don't care for the skits he does with the candles and whipping the wall either. Was that supposed to be funny?
05:18 - It's kinda silly to say falling backwards ruins the entire series when it gets handled pretty well after the NES era.
07:41 - They probably replenish your health because the game continues from the start in a harder setting after you beat the game.
Part 2 - Simon's Quest (NES) & Dracula's Curse (NES)
04:08 - The guy named Error in Zelda 2 has a use. Some guy later in the game asks you to talk to Error.
Other than that I don't have much to say about Part 2, so I'll just congratulate James (and probably Mike as well) on a job well done.
Part 3 - Super Castlevania (SNES), Castlevania: Dracula X (SNES), Castlevania 64
Castlevania 64
Frankly, I think this review is Irate Gamer levels of horrible. He's either lying for humorous effect or way too incompetent to even think about reviewing the game. Either way he's misrepresenting the game. Even if he basically retold the story of how he played the game when he was younger, he could have still explained how all this stuff works.
07:71 - There weren't 2 games with a similar style of gameplay. 'Castlevania' was the early release and 'Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness' was the director's cut with bug fixes, changes in level design and 2 additional characters. He doesn't even mention this.
08:35 - This isn't the first time you play as a girl. Maria Renard and Sypha Belnades came before her. Furthermore Carrie is the descendant of Sypha. Basically he's faulting the game because he didn't know about Rondo of Blood.
08:40 - It's a pretty small complaint but he has a point.
08:55 - Most people agree that the Frankenstein monster (who serves as the gardener of the hedge maze, hence the chainsaw) in this game is one of the scariest enemies in the series. Especially considering he's invincible, chases you around a maze and has 2 dogs that grab you so he can finish you off.
Skeletons on motorcycles is indeed pretty odd considering the timeline, but let's not forget Castlevania is a fantasy world and Dracula obviously has access to more advanced science (which the Nerd would have noticed if he ever got to the Tower of Science or looked around in the Castle Center).
09:10 - He claims the music sucks because there is no music while showing an area where no music plays. This is obviously a blatant lie as parts he shows later obviously have music playing in the background. The only places where there's no music are the parts where it benefits the mood.
09:35 - The camera is a problem indeed but he also doesn't even attempt to center it or use a different view. Then he goes off to randomly jump into the water without looking to demonstrate this???
09:55 - Ah, the main problem with the review. It doesn't matter if you pick the Mandragora or the Nitro first. Furthermore he has no clue how to put it down so he keeps going into the menu screens. James, you are halfway the game and we are supposed to believe you don't even ATTEMPT pressing the action button? That just doesn't make ANY sense to me. Even if you try out the menu before anything else, you just played HALF the game using the action button on absolutely everything yet somehow you forget about it here?
A couple of months ago I even made a quick video about how you do this because a lot of people were asking.
10:40 - The statues ARE giving you hints. You don't have to talk to the statues to use anything, making this entire rant pointless. The statues only reveal at what location the small statues need to be in the Observatory.
11:05 - You DON'T have to get the Nitro first, you just need to press the action button ...
11:20 - Why start the game over? Let's say you did need to restart this part. You could easily reset you N64 and reload your save. Even if that didn't work you could have easily just gotten yourself killed by something and restarted the stage.
11:30 - Just a minor thing, but he makes it look like he's picking Normal but you can tell by the 'GOLD -----' on the HUD that he's still playing Easy.
11:45 - You don't have to walk really slow and you are allowed to touch stuff. You just can't jump or get hit. Meaning he is artificially making his running sequence slower (or once again making a critical mistake that could have been solved by reading).
12:25 - Again he wants us to believe he got through half the game twice and still it doesn't occur to him to try the action button.
Part 4 - Bloodlines (Sega Mega Drive / Genesis), Symphony of the Night (PS1)
Bloodlines
1:30 - This part isn't that bad but I find it pretty odd that his mind gets blown because Castlevania considers Bram Stoker's Dracula to be part of the canon. It's both Dracula and practically every other series about Dracula considers the Bram Stoker novel to be part of the canon, so why not Castlevania?
Symphony of the Night
3:25 - Valid complaint but you don't die that often and you can skip the Game Over screen earlier than he shows. Furthermore, if it bothers him that much couldn't het just reset the console the second he dies?
5:10 - SOME RPG elements? That's a bit of an understatement, isn't it.
5:45 - (Just pointing it out, not complaining here) Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness for the PS2 were also Metroidvania style games, only in 3D.
5:50 - It wasn't out back then so he couldn't know about it but The Adventure Rebirth is a classic linear style Castlevania. Not to mention the remake of Rondo of Blood for the PSP.
6:10 - No excuse here, Order of Ecclesia doesn't take place in Dracula's Castle until the last third of the game. Portrait of Ruin also goes outside of the castle.
6:30 - That's not the story of Dawn of Sorrow. That's the story of Aria of Sorrow. Also, the castle technically doesn't emerge from a solar eclipse in Japan, Soma is transported to the castle because of the solar eclipse. (Also, there's no Dracula stomping around since he is dead)
In conclusion, if for some reason you want to read more about why Castlevania 64 does not suck, I recommend this guy's post:
http://screwattack.com/blogs/Sagat_Belmonts-Video-Game-and-non-VG-Bloggings/Five-reasons-Castlevania-64-is-a-great-game-Seriously
Also thanks to the guys over at TvTropes.org for linking my video. I was wondering where all the views came from.
But let me first point out that I'm well aware that the Angry Video Game Nerd is largely a satirical character. However, a large portion of his fanbase still takes his videos at face value (as I've personally discovered). Furthermore, this video series was supposed to be a tribute (and he admitted these are mostly his genuine opinions) which makes it a bit harder to swallow than his regular reviews. By no means do I post this as a personal attack to James Rolfe though, I just think it's a little unfair that we bash every word the Irate Gamer says but somehow look the other way when the Nerd screws up.
Case in point
Part 1 - Castlevania (NES)
Castlevania
04:00 - The candles represent lost souls that are trapped in Dracula's castle. I don't care for the skits he does with the candles and whipping the wall either. Was that supposed to be funny?
05:18 - It's kinda silly to say falling backwards ruins the entire series when it gets handled pretty well after the NES era.
07:41 - They probably replenish your health because the game continues from the start in a harder setting after you beat the game.
Part 2 - Simon's Quest (NES) & Dracula's Curse (NES)
04:08 - The guy named Error in Zelda 2 has a use. Some guy later in the game asks you to talk to Error.
Other than that I don't have much to say about Part 2, so I'll just congratulate James (and probably Mike as well) on a job well done.
Part 3 - Super Castlevania (SNES), Castlevania: Dracula X (SNES), Castlevania 64
Castlevania 64
Frankly, I think this review is Irate Gamer levels of horrible. He's either lying for humorous effect or way too incompetent to even think about reviewing the game. Either way he's misrepresenting the game. Even if he basically retold the story of how he played the game when he was younger, he could have still explained how all this stuff works.
07:71 - There weren't 2 games with a similar style of gameplay. 'Castlevania' was the early release and 'Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness' was the director's cut with bug fixes, changes in level design and 2 additional characters. He doesn't even mention this.
08:35 - This isn't the first time you play as a girl. Maria Renard and Sypha Belnades came before her. Furthermore Carrie is the descendant of Sypha. Basically he's faulting the game because he didn't know about Rondo of Blood.
08:40 - It's a pretty small complaint but he has a point.
08:55 - Most people agree that the Frankenstein monster (who serves as the gardener of the hedge maze, hence the chainsaw) in this game is one of the scariest enemies in the series. Especially considering he's invincible, chases you around a maze and has 2 dogs that grab you so he can finish you off.
Skeletons on motorcycles is indeed pretty odd considering the timeline, but let's not forget Castlevania is a fantasy world and Dracula obviously has access to more advanced science (which the Nerd would have noticed if he ever got to the Tower of Science or looked around in the Castle Center).
09:10 - He claims the music sucks because there is no music while showing an area where no music plays. This is obviously a blatant lie as parts he shows later obviously have music playing in the background. The only places where there's no music are the parts where it benefits the mood.
09:35 - The camera is a problem indeed but he also doesn't even attempt to center it or use a different view. Then he goes off to randomly jump into the water without looking to demonstrate this???
09:55 - Ah, the main problem with the review. It doesn't matter if you pick the Mandragora or the Nitro first. Furthermore he has no clue how to put it down so he keeps going into the menu screens. James, you are halfway the game and we are supposed to believe you don't even ATTEMPT pressing the action button? That just doesn't make ANY sense to me. Even if you try out the menu before anything else, you just played HALF the game using the action button on absolutely everything yet somehow you forget about it here?
A couple of months ago I even made a quick video about how you do this because a lot of people were asking.
10:40 - The statues ARE giving you hints. You don't have to talk to the statues to use anything, making this entire rant pointless. The statues only reveal at what location the small statues need to be in the Observatory.
11:05 - You DON'T have to get the Nitro first, you just need to press the action button ...
11:20 - Why start the game over? Let's say you did need to restart this part. You could easily reset you N64 and reload your save. Even if that didn't work you could have easily just gotten yourself killed by something and restarted the stage.
11:30 - Just a minor thing, but he makes it look like he's picking Normal but you can tell by the 'GOLD -----' on the HUD that he's still playing Easy.
11:45 - You don't have to walk really slow and you are allowed to touch stuff. You just can't jump or get hit. Meaning he is artificially making his running sequence slower (or once again making a critical mistake that could have been solved by reading).
12:25 - Again he wants us to believe he got through half the game twice and still it doesn't occur to him to try the action button.
Part 4 - Bloodlines (Sega Mega Drive / Genesis), Symphony of the Night (PS1)
Bloodlines
1:30 - This part isn't that bad but I find it pretty odd that his mind gets blown because Castlevania considers Bram Stoker's Dracula to be part of the canon. It's both Dracula and practically every other series about Dracula considers the Bram Stoker novel to be part of the canon, so why not Castlevania?
Symphony of the Night
3:25 - Valid complaint but you don't die that often and you can skip the Game Over screen earlier than he shows. Furthermore, if it bothers him that much couldn't het just reset the console the second he dies?
5:10 - SOME RPG elements? That's a bit of an understatement, isn't it.
5:45 - (Just pointing it out, not complaining here) Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness for the PS2 were also Metroidvania style games, only in 3D.
5:50 - It wasn't out back then so he couldn't know about it but The Adventure Rebirth is a classic linear style Castlevania. Not to mention the remake of Rondo of Blood for the PSP.
6:10 - No excuse here, Order of Ecclesia doesn't take place in Dracula's Castle until the last third of the game. Portrait of Ruin also goes outside of the castle.
6:30 - That's not the story of Dawn of Sorrow. That's the story of Aria of Sorrow. Also, the castle technically doesn't emerge from a solar eclipse in Japan, Soma is transported to the castle because of the solar eclipse. (Also, there's no Dracula stomping around since he is dead)
In conclusion, if for some reason you want to read more about why Castlevania 64 does not suck, I recommend this guy's post:
http://screwattack.com/blogs/Sagat_Belmonts-Video-Game-and-non-VG-Bloggings/Five-reasons-Castlevania-64-is-a-great-game-Seriously
Also thanks to the guys over at TvTropes.org for linking my video. I was wondering where all the views came from.
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