Near the beginning of the NZCR project (for those of your who do not know, I'm referring to my Naruto NZC full game.), I made a bunch of stages for it that were close to the originals and quite frankly really looked like crap. As I've learned more and more about mugen and improved my graphical abilities, I realize just how bad those stages are. Now it's time to fix them.

I'm starting with Suigetsu's Stage: Here's a video of it in action:


So, what do you guys think I could do to improve this stage? It's already immensely better than the source, but I want to make it better. I have plans to replace the fog with a better looking fog, but that's all I can come up with for now.

Video quality is really winging it, it's a lot easier to test these sorts of things aesthetic or not in mugen. But from what I can see via video you could do something to animate those blue lights inside the glass? Just a thought.

GLB wrote:Video quality is really winging it, it's a lot easier to test these sorts of things aesthetic or not in mugen. But from what I can see via video you could do something to animate those blue lights inside the glass? Just a thought.

I wasn't sure if I should post a download link or not. :\
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Those tanks on the side will be breakable. In the current version, not this one, I've removed the automatic breaking of the tanks and water spilling out. I created a completely custom water burst effect and have it hurt all players near it (for a small bit of damage). I'll post a video (because it's not exactly the easiest thing to download lol) when that's done too so you can see the full thing in motion.

Off topic, but not really too much: Is there any way I can take a screenshot of the entire stage? If I could, that would show the whole thing without any guessing, since the video probably doesn't show much of the (uneventful) top area.

kenshinx0 wrote:
Off topic, but not really too much: Is there any way I can take a screenshot of the entire stage? If I could, that would show the whole thing without any guessing, since the video probably doesn't show much of the (uneventful) top area.

There's a way some others do it, they just build the layers of the concept together in PS (or whatever image editor) you could show off the whole stage this way, using indexed sprites can make up for the "how it looks in mugen" argument.

Ah ok. I thought they might have been using some program I don't know about. XD.

Those lights in the tank you mentioned: To be honest I'm not sure what they are lol. I'm guessing it's NZC's take on frontal lighting for the stage? Yeeeeah, this is exactly why I'm trying to make it better lol.

Lol oh i see.

I thought it might've been some sort of reflection.

GLB wrote:Lol oh i see.

I thought it might've been some sort of reflection.

It's a possibility, I guess. XD

I'll get a video of those changes I was talking about once I'm done with them. Hopefully it will look a little better afterwards. :)

Edit: I found my old comp:
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WASSSSSSSSSSSUP Alexei!!

See man, I told you GLB would give you a lot of useful feedback if you came here. He helps out a lot man :dealwithit: 

I like this interactivity you're gonna use in the stages. I'm afraid most if not all of us don't know much about character coding but we can help you with the stages themselves.

I'll keep you up to date with the stage updates here for convenience

Sounds good. Yeah, you most certainly did. Not to mention, I've kind of been lurking here without posting for too long. Time for me to "try" to be a part of the community.)

Eh, no need to know much of anything about character coding stage interactivity. That's been a struggle of its own, but I got it handled.)) All I ask for is stage help in this thread. :)

Also, Suigetsu's Stage is scaled by 1.5,1.145 to make it look nicely with the characters on it. At a normal scale, the characters are just as big, if not bigger than the tanks... To me, that looked really odd.

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Some Topaz Filters might improve the overall look of the stage IMO.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is a topaz filter? Are just referring to a tint on the stage?

Also, your image is broken. :(

Odd, the image works fine for me.


And Topaz is a plug-in pack for Photoshop. It has many filters that can help enhance images.
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I got my copy from Watta. You could try asking him for a copy, bro. 

Weird. I'm getting a 404 on it. :\

Ah ok. I was WAY off lol. Thanks for the info.))) I'll look into it.

Spoiler:

Update: I've obtained the Topaz plugins and did some color correction to the whole stage. I've re-created the fog effect that is now an actual animation instead of a single, tiled, framed with velocity. Now that I think about it, there wouldn't really be enough wind to create a moving fog like that in a musty lab like this. In any case, here's the updated comp screen, exported straight from AE with the fog effect on it:

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Also, the whole stage now has a musty looking tint to it to further add to the creepiness of the setting.)))

Oooo looks better now man

Thanks man! Those Topaz plugins are amazing, though a little awkward to use with PNGs for some reason. Thanks for the recommendation MP. :)

Woah, that fog looks incredible!

I told MP about the plug ins in which he told you....

Spoiler:

Yo check your inbox @ MFG

Watta wrote:I told MP about the plug ins in which he told you....

Spoiler:

Yo check your inbox @ MFG

Ah ok. Well thanks to you both. :)

Spoiler:

Yes, Topaz can be quite a useful plug-in for image enhancement.

Yep! I think I'm going to use this same treatment for my others too. The Forest stage is the worst of it though. Mainly because it doesn't actually have layers that can be separated and given deltas. It feels like a still image, which is horrible because I KNOW I can do better than that crap. I'm trying push myself and get better, whereas that's just pathetic, lol.)

Final Suigetsu Stage:


Up next is the Uchiha Hideout. I've got plans for a new, more real rain effect with two layers, some dark clouds, new lightning effects with full screen flashes for the back and front. I've already color corrected it.
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Looks much better. You can tell the difference in contrast by tons.

Thanks man!)) Yeah, I know that. I guess I had no sense of that when I made this the first time. I was just going accurate to the source, which was a bad idea lol.

That stage interactivity. It looks so incredible.