[sebabdukeboss20]

Hello modders, I'd like to introduce a sprite I've been working on. I'll be asking a lot of questions because I would like to see what you all would like from something like this. I've been working on a NPC female character using a 3d girl model.


It was challenging because I'm not very good with rigged 3d people, I had to exaggerate the proportions of her to match the style of characters in the Duke 3d game, and getting the lighting to somewhat match was a real pain. But once I get everything to an acceptable level I can pump out variants real quickly like the enemy sprites I made earlier. I did make the girl a little higher in resolution compared to usual enemies sprites so they can look nicer in game. I'm assuming you can just scale them down if you use them in a mod?

Another idea I had with this 3d girl is maybe a mod where you can free the babes. It's a little challenging since the resolution of static babes and moving sprites are quite different, but here's a sample I was working on:
NSFW

Spoiler

Above is the girl getting captured. Not sure if there's ever a use for this. Maybe a cutscene?
Below is the girl being rescued. If you all like this and can use it, I can continue an make freeing animations of the other slime babes.

Let me know you think.

[Phredreeke]

Looks nice. Your idea reminds me of Duke Nukem 64, although its execution was much simpler with the babes merely being warped elsewhere.

[Mike Norvak]

Can I edit them for my own mod?I think I can use them as replacement dor something and would really fit!

[sebabdukeboss20]

 Mike Norvak, on 27 January 2018 - 07:06 PM, said:

Can I edit them for my own mod?I think I can use them as replacement dor something and would really fit!

Sure, but they are work in progress. So they're not final. What do you plan on doing with them?

[-=SomeThingEviL=-]

KICK ASS STUFF!!!

I would definitely use stuff like this.

You are taking ideas right out of my head, and actualizing them. I have had ideas like this for my Duke Nukem 64 Atomic Edition mod I have planned for a long time.My mod is going to be a heavily edited version of Foxes Duke 64 mod.In my version of the game I was thinking of making rescuing the girls mandatory before you can "Nuke" the area with the end level switch.I was also going to add more girl throughout the maps in appropriate places.If I can find enough time and keep up the motivation to make it.

[Mike Norvak]

There's this new mod based on WGR I'm about to release, DT coded some female civilians, but I didn't use them for this first release because the art was too medieval, some edits on your sprites would really do the trick though. No rush needed since next release is some months apart.

[Mark]

Those look great. I have seen dozens of sprite sheets created by people here in the forums yet very seldom do I see any of them in a game. Unless there is a program to automate the process of turning sprite sheets into separate and aligned tiles it would be too much effort to do manually for so many. Is there such a program ? If not, I would hope that the artist would do it themselves to greatly increase the chances of their hard work actually being used.

[Fantinaikos]

Speaking of WGR, we could not use it to reintroduce the unutilized/cutted out character Zandra Shadowstalker from the next version?

[sebabdukeboss20]

 Mark., on 28 January 2018 - 04:55 AM, said:

Those look great. I have seen dozens of sprite sheets created by people here in the forums yet very seldom do I see any of them in a game. Unless there is a program to automate the process of turning sprite sheets into separate and aligned tiles it would be too much effort to do manually for so many. Is there such a program ? If not, I would hope that the artist would do it themselves to greatly increase the chances of their hard work actually being used.

That's good to know. Most of my 3d sprite renders come out aligned when I render them raw. I suppose I could do individual png files, but like you said it's very tedious work. I'll probably reserve that for finished work and serious modders ready to code them in.

[Danukem]

 sebabdukeboss20, on 28 January 2018 - 06:37 AM, said:

That's good to know. Most of my 3d sprite renders come out aligned when I render them raw. I suppose I could do individual png files, but like you said it's very tedious work. I'll probably reserve that for finished work and serious modders ready to code them in.

I found a program once that decomposed sprite sheets into individual files but I couldn't get it to work right. Maybe someone around here knows what I'm talking about?

In any case, modders can do it on their own, as you say. As for the bikini babe -- excellent work! I would like to see a gory death animation to go with it and maybe individual gore sprites. Horrible, I know, (and no I do not have any related fetish!) but it goes with the territory. But even without that it is very useful. I would say there is a need for normal looking civilians in Duke 3D. Gambini made a male civilian for DNF, but I can't think of any other good sprite based ones until now. If you could make a variant of the babe with a tight business suit (in Duke blue so it takes different pals), then she wouldn't look out of place running around on the streets.

[sebabdukeboss20]

 Trooper Dan, on 28 January 2018 - 11:55 AM, said:

I found a program once that decomposed sprite sheets into individual files but I couldn't get it to work right. Maybe someone around here knows what I'm talking about?

In any case, modders can do it on their own, as you say. As for the bikini babe -- excellent work! I would like to see a gory death animation to go with it and maybe individual gore sprites. Horrible, I know, (and no I do not have any related fetish!) but it goes with the territory. But even without that it is very useful. I would say there is a need for normal looking civilians in Duke 3D. Gambini made a male civilian for DNF, but I can't think of any other good sprite based ones until now. If you could make a variant of the babe with a tight business suit (in Duke blue so it takes different pals), then she wouldn't look out of place running around on the streets.

Sure that was on my to do list. Is there a specific Duke Blue palette or should I just get close to matching the blue on a Liz Trooper's armor?

[-=SomeThingEviL=-]

I think you want something like this to split up sprite sheets.

https://github.com/F...eleases/tag/v19

[Mark]

 Trooper Dan, on 28 January 2018 - 11:55 AM, said:

In any case, modders can do it on their own, as you say.

In my experience I attribute the lack of modders using these sprite sheets as either they can't or won't invest the time and effort to separate them into tiles. So after the oohs and aahs and upvotes they gather dust instead of being enjoyed in a mod. Hence my suggestion of having the artist do it. Its a shame to see so many artist's work go unused.

[Danukem]

 Mark., on 28 January 2018 - 12:28 PM, said:

In my experience I attribute the lack of modders using these sprite sheets as either they can't or won't invest the time and effort to separate them into tiles. So after the oohs and aahs and upvotes they gather dust instead of being enjoyed in a mod. Hence my suggestion of having the artist do it. Its a shame to see so many artist's work go unused.

Well, yes and no... If someone is truly inspired to code and finish an enemy, then the effort of working with the sprite sheet isn't going to stop them. To be fair, some of the work involves things that the artist may not be familiar with, such as how to properly arrange the tiles in correct order in the .art0XX file, where to leave (or not leave) gaps, and how to set the offsets on the tiles. In a perfect world, the artist would know about all that stuff and produce a nice file for us, but we'll take what we can get.

Speaking of which, I am 75% done coding the pigcop boss enemy and should have it done by the end of the day today (PST zone). JBlade was awesome enough to decompose the sprite sheet for us this time

[Jblade]

I'm just happy to have good looking new enemy sprites, so doing a bit of extra work getting the art into tiles is nothing ultimately (I'd much rather sebabduke spend his time making great new stuff than chopping the stuff up and putting them into art tiles as well, as Dan says that's a small price to pay in the end)

[Mark]

I'm not saying the artist needs to deal with all the details TD mentioned. I don't expect the artist to put them in order or to create the defs to put them in game. Just provide the sheet in separate tiles with the object aligned in each one. But I'm beating a dead horse, I'll leave it be. and be glad someone is using some new sprites.

[MajorTom 2417]

Brilliant work as always....I always felt DN3D needed free-roaming civilians, be they babes or just people in general. Hopefully, sebabdukeboss20 (can I just call you Seb for short?), people use this in more mods over the coming months/years, and you can give us more high-quality sprite sheets of aliens, allies and even just civilians which will in turn be used in more mods....etc.

tl;dr = great stuff, keep up the awesome work

[sebabdukeboss20]

Updated girl with normal clothes.

[Phredreeke]

Nice. How about a version with a miniskirt?

[sebabdukeboss20]

 Phredreeke, on 02 February 2018 - 06:19 PM, said:

Nice. How about a version with a miniskirt?

Oh I'll definitely have a few more versions.

[Mark]

I separated the sheet into individual files, named and saved them. I didn't optimize or change palette. Not sure if they are usable since I did no actual aligning or resizing. But I wanted to see how much of a chore it is to do these. I didn't batch convert anything. I did it all one at a time. It took maybe an hour to do. I'm sure once the ideal process is found it would go much quicker. If these work as is, cool. If not, oh well. I had to try. Or possibly someone can perform the final steps if needed to get them matched and usable.

Attached File(s)

•  girl npc sprites.zip (372.48K)
  Number of downloads: 532

[Danukem]

 Mark., on 02 February 2018 - 07:34 PM, said:

I separated the sheet into individual files, named and saved them.

This was helpful, thanks. You did leave out the death animation, and also 3 out of 4 of the running facing 90 degrees left frames (you had duplicates of the respective 135 frames instead). Not a big deal, though.

[Danukem]

We now have a working version of the female NPC. Here is a link: https://www.dropbox....BOSSES.zip?dl=0

I have added her to the same package that includes the new bosses, but it is designed to be standalone (you need tiles021.art, FEMCIV.CON and the femciv sounds folder). Her tile is 5376

A few notes about it:

• There are some issues with the sprites. Some of the blue pixels in her shirt are not in the correct part of the pallete, and you can see them standing out in a bad way. I think I only saw them in the standing and walking frames, though, mostly in one armpit.
  
• Her pants have a combination of blue and grey pixels. This means that if you try to use palettes that change her shirt color (e.g. pals 14, 16, 21, 23) you will get an ugly splattering effect on her pants, because the blue pixels will change but the grey will stay. Certain palettes look good, though (0, 11, 12, 13, 22). Recommendation: her pants should be all grey, NOT blue at all. Having her pants the same color as the shirt during palette swaps will look stupid.
  
• She will take fall damage, but she is not smart enough to avoid ledges. This is something I may improve. A lot could be done to make her smarter, but I don't know if anyone would care enough for it to be worth the effort.
  
• On that note, there are a few unused sounds, such as when she says "thank you". That's because I need to make her smart enough to know when to say it. Again, if anyone cares enough...
  
• A lot of her sounds are from gearbox DNF

[sebabdukeboss20]

Thanks Dan, I'll look into it and make changes for the next round.

[Danukem]

 sebabdukeboss20, on 05 February 2018 - 02:36 PM, said:

Thanks Dan, I'll look into it and make changes for the next round.

I have updated the package with the improved sprites (same link as above). I used a program that splits up sprite sheets into files, which was helpful. Unfortunately the way that it numbers the files doesn't match the sprite sheet, so there was still some work in arranging them afterwards. Would it be difficult to modify how the sprite sheets are produced, or at least make versions of them that follow certain rules to simplify moving the images into .art files?

I did add one minor feature to the FEMCIV: if you talk to her after she has recovered from a panic, and your monsters killed score is higher than it was at the start of the panic, then she says "Thank you for saving us!" This is bound to be inaccurate much of the time, but at least it will get it right in the most common scenario (she starts panicking at the outset of shooting, then you talk to her after killing nearby enemies).

[sebabdukeboss20]

Can anyone who tests this post a video? I would love to see my girls come to life.

[enderandrew]

Could you use maphacks to insert her into existing main campaign levels in a few places where it might make sense to have NPCs running around?

This could potentially be a neat inclusion in the HRP.

[Danukem]

 sebabdukeboss20, on 06 February 2018 - 07:48 AM, said:

Can anyone who tests this post a video? I would love to see my girls come to life.

I can do that soon.

 enderandrew, on 06 February 2018 - 10:05 AM, said:

Could you use maphacks to insert her into existing main campaign levels in a few places where it might make sense to have NPCs running around?

This could potentially be a neat inclusion in the HRP.

I wasn't going to say anything, but I have something similar in mind on a bigger scale. However, I want to get through the current project of making new characters game ready first.

[Fantinaikos]

Quote

Could you use maphacks to insert her into existing main campaign levels in a few places where it might make sense to have NPCs running around?

This could potentially be a neat inclusion in the HRP.

Civilians logics, almost surely coded by TD himself for the majority, already exist in some Dukeplus maps (don't remember which) and mods like DNF 2013, Hollywood Holocaust Rethinked, Duke Nukem Eternity, ecc. without need to modify a maphack. And then the HRP goal is to transform bidimensional stuff into tridimensional, not to make changes of this type.

It would be more logical introduce these features into a new Dukeplus release, possibly as settable spawn option, where it would be an expansion of the one already present and integrated with all the other gameplay characteristics.

Coming back to talk of woman characters, can we have a transformed LARD member that realistically looks like a female more than the Pig-in-a-dress from Total Meltdown?

Now that I think about it, no one ever has even done a human LARD member before, max some EDF soldiers.

[Danukem]

Here's a little video, as requested:



EDIT: The shading on the face looks better in game than in the compressed youtube video.