Skull Leader

Brain.... hurts.... stop it!

So here's a more high-res example of my progress so far..... it isn't super hard, per-say... just very time consuming.

Question -- say I wanted to get into the game of printing my own decals?

Are there reasonably priced printers that are good for the job?

What sort of decal paper works best?

*most* printers on the market today will handle 80% of decal printing reasonably well... Laserjet printers can make them a little more crisp if they're really small.

A couple of things to bear in mind:

1. 98% of readily available printers in the world don't print white. They rely on the paper to provide any white areas.

2. There are printers by a company called ALPS that DO print white ink (they require special ink cartridges) but these printers are hard to find, painfully expensive, and may not even be commercially available any more, I don't know.

Testors decal films come in white and transparent, so if you're careful about your decal layout,you can work around the whole "no white" thing.

The Testors stuff is readily available and works pretty well... I'd recommend starting with that.

I've got a Tamiya kit with a Wolfpack conversion set to turn it into a F-14B (well, the conversion is for a D, but I'm pulling the engines from the set to make a 'Rogers B Model)

The trumpeter kit isn't *terrible* (I think the intake issue is overblown... certainly not as noticeable as the nose on academys 1/48 tomcat

Omg this is slow going! Any of you who have recreated an image in illustrator understand the struggle... you try to think in terms of layers and build the image from back to front... but it isn't always easy. One of the downsides to such a pixilated image is that some of the background shapes are difficult to discern. In some cases it's just random shapes for texture... other details are more obvious. In either case, I'm doing my best to make an interpretation and recreate the image as closely as I can. The outside part is finished on the left, and now I've begun on the right side.

this one may take a week or more to finish given the amount of time I have to work on it each day.

Thanks, Bub... really do hope the effort justifies the end result! I owe it to macross fans to give it my best.

If you've played the game, you remember that the main game background is a screenshot of the bridge section of the Macross. This is a perennial image because it's there for pretty much the entire game when you aren't in combat (other images layer on top of it at need )

This is a big, awesome image... but it's also packed with a lot of detail that takes time to recreate... this one will take me a while!

Well, I set a goal for myself to have a functioning title screen (with music) by the time I went to bed tonight... and I'm proud to say I met that deadline. It isn't totally refined (none of the buttons lead anywhere yet, and you have to go to the task manager to get out of it, and I want to fade the title screen in), but from never having coded anything more than a little HTML during my early college days to this, I'd say I've done alright!

Unity is proving to be a *little* steep on the learning curve, but I'm confident once I get the hang of it, I'll be swinging for the fences. There are a million tutorials out there, so I should be able to find everything that I need.

Another upshot is that I can code in just about any language and Unity will read it... and furthermore, the program can set any project up for just about any platform I want... I code the game once and I can export it for windows, mac, android, or whatever I like, it does all the footwork!

I'm not convinced for sure... but I don't know the answer either. Ah well, I doubt I'll put it on anyway.

So I decided to take a little time off from the art to try coding the title screen

.... holy $#*%, I'm stupid. Why do I get the feeling this shouldn't be this hard?

Once I finish Vrlitwhai I'll have enough to get started with, I finished Shammie earlier tonight

Vrlitwhai 7018 is coming along... I've got some details to finish and I may wind up tweaking the colors some (Zentraedi are all sickly greys and greens... hard to get right and make look good )

I'll probably start on the storyboards tomorrow.

One is clearly out of scale with the other either way.

1999.co.jp has the box art... which I'm actually less than impressed with. Ah well, it won't stop me from getting the kit. It's retailing for much cheaper than I expected!

The sky angels book may have only been a a doujin, but it was a brilliant one.

Yeah money has always been the bane of the macross collector... when you have so many releases coming back to back, it makes it hard to determine what you want to spend on.

Thanks!

Just a small update for now... I've started working on the character dialogue pictures for the story section and I've only got 3 left before I start drawing the storyboard pictures (I'm working on Claudia now, I still need to do Shammie and Vrlitwhai)

Edit: I guess I also need to do Focker and Hikaru in his blue flight suit as well.

From the outset, I'm tempted to believe half the complaints are a result of rushed building while others are people expecting too much from a model. That said, I'm doing my homework first, and I'm pretty sure I will at least replace the hands.

I'm aware of the issues of the kit but I'm still super excited to build it! Gonna buy the strike armor and a stand for it when I get a chance!

I've made some sporadic progress over the past few days. I've also set a more specific goal, and future progress past this point will be geared towards reaching that milestone.

First, I've finished a fair few of the pilot profiles... these are probably all I'll do until a little later. I've determined that for the "cannon fodder" pilots, I may add some helmet color variation just to help break things up (as it stands, you could have 2 or 3 identical pilots in a squadron)

the title screen is also nearly done! I still have one or two finishing touches to put on it, but otherwise it's finished! I have the menu box complete as well (where you see the "New Game", "Load Game", etc) but I'm not sure if I need to combine them or keep them separate yet.

also because I wanted to see what all was involved, I started rendering one of the Battroid profile shots... and it's taking longer than I thought it would. Original is on the right, my update on the left (pay no attention to the head)

Lastly, I've got a large part of the prologue story translated. Once I've got all the prologue translated, I'll adjust and clean up the syntax for a proper english translation. I even have the linguistic translation of Vrlitwhai in zentraedi.

This brings me to the goal I have set for myself. By this summer, I want to have a functional title screen and the entire prologue section done (up to where the player assumes control of Hikaru)

I cannot imagine the coding will be too difficult to figure out to make this happen... most of that time will be spent rendering the backgrounds and pictures used in the story.

That's where we are at as of now! I hope everyone had a good holiday!

Holy thread resurrection, batman!

Dude... that was 11 years ago.... and Mule hasn't been active since last may....

IT'S BEAUTIFUL! MOTHER NATURE JUST PISSED HER PANTS SUIT!

Here's a picture update of where I am going into the new year:

Pilot profiles

Started work on the title screen... need to add the color gradients to the text and build the menu box, but it's getting there!

As an interesting aside, given the point and click nature of the game, I may be able to adapt it for android as well!

Ive got a few minutes at work, So I thought I'd post another update about the intended scope of this project.

When I first set out to do this, I intended it to be an exact port of the PC98 game, with no changes or modifications to preserve the nostalgia factor. The further I begin to dig into all of the details, I've come to realize that I could tweak things a little to make for a better gaming experience.

One of the things I've always disliked about the game is that instead of squadron names, most of the squadrons are simply color coded. This just isnt very exciting, so for the remake, I'll be taking squadrons shown in the VF-1 master file and the SDF-1 squadrons book and putting them in the game. This will not only help modernize the game, but give it a more "authentic" military feel.

Along those lines, if you've ever played the game, you know that when it comes to the valkyries, there is very little or no variation in the color schemes. All the VF-1As are the same color, etc. Since I am including squadrons from the above - listed books, I will be including their paint schemes as well. This will help add some variety and spice things up a little.

Another thing I would like to do is in regards to the music. If possible, All of the original music will be present, but I've thought about adding a few tunes for the battle scenes (the battle music is pretty monotonous), I'm reasonably certain I can render a few new tunes and just cycle through them randomly.

From the outset, these modifications don't seem difficult... definitely time consuming, but I figure while I'm "under the hood", I may as well tune things up.

If you've played the game and you have feedback about what you liked and what you didn't, I'd certainly be interested in hearing about it.

Id like to thank Project Phoenix for his support, help in translations and basically serving as a sounding board for ideas. He will be integral to the success of this project I think! Lastly, Boinger was kind enough to get me the manual for the game. I haven't translated it yet, but it's sure to help in some way, and I'm very thankful for Boinger's support!

In recap:

-I've got 5 pilot profiles done, using a new technique to help streamline and speed up the process (not a big deal to illustrator veterans, but it is to me)

-menu trees for the "inbetween" segments are nearly figured out, I'll be able to begin mapping the character interactions on paper soon.

-I potentially have someone lined up to do the music. It will depend on how busy he is and how much he charges for his efforts

Big to-dos:

-play through the game in its entirety (unless someone wants to do this for me.. possibly multiple times on a chapter by chapter basis)

-LEARN C++.....

"Well now... gonna be a long trip."

(Have a happy new year everyone!)

Likewise, I've got a kit on the way and I'm interested in considering lighting it with LEDs, show us your secrets!