My Game(s) Plan(s)

So I figured you'd like to know what my plans are for games in the future for my game projects. So here are my plans, I don't know what I am doing until do it but this is what I am hoping to do in the future.

Tilly's Rose Garden:

Okay, this is my primary project but I haven't been working with it because I'm tired of making carbon copies of the same basic features with slightly different graphics. That gets boring.  But I'm going to be getting back to it soon. I'm thinking once I release the Blox demo I will get back to my latest version of Tilly's Rose Garden which is the Spring mini-game. New features will be added and announced soon! The full version I haven't touched at all in months I don't want to work on it until these mini games give me enough new features to make the full version fun and not just a long dragged out repetitive game.

Blox:

This is my newest project that I've been working really hard on, I don't have a release date for the demo yet but I'm thinking mid June at the latest, things can happen that set me back but in general Blox is my latest game demo and should have a demo out soon. So many ideas for it, you're gonna love it I'm sure!

Paisley Butterfly; Virtual Piano:

Okay, this hasn't been touched in months, not even going to lie. But I will get to it soon, I haven't been feeling very musical but the basic foundation has been set so things should be going in the future.

 

Drawing With Factoid:

This also hasn't been touched. I attempted to because I thought I had a good idea but it didn't work. I just want it to be more interactive but I haven't gotten any ideas on how to make it more interactive without the program being overly huge which will happen if I go the route I'm on now with it. Once I figure how I'll do it to be more exciting and not so dull I'll work on this.

Take Me To Your Leader:

Yes I have opened it a few times but I wasn't sure what to do so I closed it just as fast, I know what I want with this game and I hope to make a demo of it in the not so distant future. I know when I worked on it the game felt very fun, I'm just having to get back in to the swing it's too good of an idea for me to never touch again. So I don't know when but I'm going to get to this again, I like it too much.

Fluffertini's Pizza Constructor:

This was a fully game, so I'm thinking about making a second one, title isn't for sure or anything but I have ideas that would be fun for sure! And I have a file from my game-maker mentor on how to make the drag and drop more stable than for the current release. I'm really planing on making this squeal soon. I wanted to work on it these few past weeks but Blox took over sadly. So we all have to wait longer!

Multi Lingual Games:

Right now it's just an idea, but in the future I have a confidant who is willing to translate my games in to Spanish. All my old projects I will most likely leave be but future games and projects you might see some in Spanish. Hoping this to be the case! I'd like in other languages too, but I don't know people who will translate in to other languages and I was shy enough to as this person so, Spanish for now. Another thing to consider is my "translator" is a student so "they" have to study for the moment, maybe on their breaks they can help me. So, you'll have to wait a bit for anything in a language other than English. But keep it in mind in the future!


So that's my plans for the moment, I hope this excites you as much as it does me!


~ God Bless ~

~Firefly

{Digital Art} Origa - Portrait Tribute, May She Rest In Peace.

Well, it's been a while since I attempted a portrait, and well, this time this is more of a tribute...
Origa, to those who don't know who she is, is a singer from Russia, she's best known for singing opening songs in the Ghost in the Shell anime franchise, but she also has her own music...Well, I found out last week that had she passed away a few months ago from lung cancer. Often times I see a famous person died and they were old, so it's sad but in a way expected. In her case it was a bit more surprising as  she was only 44 years old. She had a lovely majestic voice and I highly recommend her different styles of music.

So R.I.P Origa, I hope you are in peace now.
Thank You for your music.

Note: I exported this video twice to fix issues and I forgot to change the name of the song at the end of the video. The name of the Song is Rain by Origa.

The text is the lyrics to one of her songs in Russian. I have put lyrics to a song of a person I'm drawing in the background of their portraits.

May God Bless You, Your Family, The Health OF Yourself, Family, And All That Know You. ~ Amen


~ Firefly

Useful Links:

Want so see more of my art? Visit the Official Factoid Firefly Art Archive Here.
All My Factoids Can Be Found At the Official Blog Archive Here.

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Some Practices and Stuffs...

Here are some more practices and drawings. I'll post something more interesting than this soon I have a few tutorials I have to follow and I got some game updates. Enjoy!



Sketched with pencil, inked with a pilot pen and a sharpie, and colored with soft pastels.
(ignore the faded stuff that's on the next page of my book)

I dunno, I just got the urge to draw a watermelon! LoL!
Oil Pastel and baby oil (a little white paint for highlights). - Mixed Media Paper

 Oil Pastel and Colored Pencil. - Sketch Paper

This is a concept for a textless picture book that I was going to do. - Watercolor pencils and ink. Sketched with a normal pencil. - Mixed Media Paper

This was supposed to be a drawing but I don't like it so I'll call it a practice. I learned the Elephant from a book I had to figure out how to draw the girl. - Watercolor (pan and pencil) and ink. Sketched with a normal pencil.  - Mixed Media Paper

 Colored Pencil and baby oil, sketched in a normal pencil and inked with a brown fine-liner. - Mixed Media Paper

 Soft Pastel and colored pencil with baby oil on a pencil sketch. - Watercolor Paper.

May God Bless You, Your Family, The Health OF Yourself, Family, And All That Know You. ~ Amen


~ Firefly

Useful Links:

Want so see more of my art? Visit the Official Factoid Firefly Art Archive Here.
All My Factoids Can Be Found At the Official Blog Archive Here.

Have A Question?
Ask The Firefly!

Programs For Artists and Game Creators

Hai! I was thinking that maybe the programs I use and would reccomend to others for making games and graphics might be helpful for others who are aspiring artists and game creators. - Mind you, these are just the ones I have mentioned there are countless programs one can use these are just my select few.

I hope this is helpful to somebody!

Graphics:

GIMP

I do pretty much all my graphics in GIMP, some of them are edited in the program I used for game creation but not overly often. GIMP is an opened-source photo editor and graphic program. This of is as a free photoshop. Granted photoshop might be aimed more towards painting but GIMP is just as good for making game graphics and it's free no strings attached.

MyPaint

As stated GIMP is my main source for graphics, but if I ever make a more advanced game or have a more painted style in mind I will for sure collab MyPaint and GIMP together for better coloring quality. MyPaint is another Opened-Sourced art program, this is more like a free ArtRage, the boldness isn't as sharp as ArtRage but it's still a wonderful program. If you want a more painted look I'd recommend MyPaint for sure; however there is another program called Krita, I can't seem to understand it personally...But I only use a mouse and that's probably why. Can't hurt for you to try.

 

Inkscape

 

I don't personally use Inkscape for the simple reason I don't understand Vectoring. When trying to make a vector I get so lost I'm on another planet. That aside, for those who would be more apt to use a vectoring program Inkscape is like a free Adobe Illustrator, it is as well opened source and is powerful enough to make sleek graphics that are vectors instead of normal images that use pixels.

Sounds:

Sony Acid (Free Version)

 

I use Sony Acid's synth pad to create my sounds (like picking up points, impact noises, power-ups...etc). I don't have the full version so exporting to .wav is an extra feature you can only get if you buy it so I have to use another program to convert to .wav...For what I need it for it's useful. You could maybe use Fruity Loops as well, there's free version if you have no money. Or another alternative is Linux Music Making Studio, it's a lot like Fruity Loops only you don't have to pay for it. (And it works in Windows too)

GoldWave ( Free version)

 

I use GoldWave to export my sounds in to .wav (that's the format I have to use in my game creation program) and I also edit the sounds in goldwave, like the volume and some effects to the sounds. You can buy GoldWave if you want too, I honestly don't know what you get if you buy it , I've been using the free version for stuff since I'm 10 or 11 years old so...yep. If you want a similar program that's fully free you can get Audacity, it's a free program for editiing music and stuff like that it would 

 probably be just as useful.

Game Creation

GameMaker 8.0

 

This is a program you'd have to buy for full functionality (unless you learn to code out of the gate). It's a very good program for noobs like me who don't know what they're doing. There's a drag and drop option and a coding option, if you code you have to use it's own coding language. Any previous coding knowlage would probably help you understand the codes in GML (Game Maker Language) however, its it's own lauguage and you'd have to learn it.
GameMaker is currently on the 8.1 version, and if you pay the most money (which is ungodly exspensive) you can make games on nearly every platform there is; however, though, if you are just starting out you don't want to spend all that money if you don't even know if you like the program. I'd mess with the free version first. GameMaker is a primarily 2D based program, there is some 3D ability but not a whole lot.

 If you're more in to 3D you can use J Monkey which uses Java Script as the code but you'd have to also lean how to use Blender which is a legally free opened source 3D animation and modeling program (Think if it as a free Maya).

I wrote review about GameMaker, it's rather old and I have learned a whole lot more about it since then but it might give you an idea. LINK

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Program Links:

Audacity

GoldWave

Sony Acid

Linux Music Making Studio

GIMP

MyPaint

Blender

Krita

JMonkey

GameMaker

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May God Bless You, Your Family, Friend; Along With The Health Of Yourself, Family, Friends, And All Who Know You. ~ Amen

~ Firefly

Useful Links:

Would You Like To Read More Blog Posts Similar To This One? Take A Look At The Official Blog Archive.
Would You Like To See My Drawings? Click here.

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{Digital Art} Squirrel With and Acorn

Here's a little drawing of a squirrel with an acorn. I sketched over an actual drawing in GIMP and then I colored it in. I hope you enjoy it!

May God Bless You, Your Family, The Health OF Yourself, Family, And All That Know You. ~ Amen


~ Firefly

Useful Links:

Want so see more of my art? Visit the Official Factoid Firefly Art Archive Here.
All My Factoids Can Be Found At the Official Blog Archive Here.

Have A Question?
Ask The Firefly!

Did some much needed updating....

I've updated the blog archive and drawing archive after 2 months...sorry for the delay I might update the timelapse video page too and the slide show as well.

Blessings.

The Usefulness of Sketchbooks

Sketchbooks, something that I've always wanted but I never had the money to have. Whatever supplies I have (which is a fair amount) they're either old or other people bought them for me or just gave them to me. But recently I was able to buy a sketchbook and wow! I love it, it's like my friend and I hope I can have another one when I finish filling this one up with my practices and ideas and stuffs. In this blog I'd like to talk about some uses for sketchbooks.


First to say what kind of sketchbook I have, which is a Strathmore sketch book, the paper is 50lb (74 g/m²) and 9in x 12in (22.9cm x 30.5cm), it contains 100 sheets. It's good for pastels (the kind I have) ink if you don't press hard on the paper or layer it too much, and colored pencil, as well as normal pencils...okay on to “how to use” a sketchbook, or better some of the uses of one.

1: Freedom

The thing about a sketchbook is that you don't have to finish anything, it doesn't have to be good drawings, you don't even have to draw if you don't want to. It's like a diary of sorts you put your emotions and ideas in to it and make beautiful things without needing the judgement of “but it's not finished” or “it looks terrible!”. You don't need to do any of that, it's just fun!

2: Practice

Pastel and colored pencil practices

I don't know about you, but for me as stated in the opening, I don't have money to buy paper all the time so if I buy good paper I don't want to “waste it” by not finishing drawings; But with this sketching book I can doodle and plan out drawings with ease, no “guilt”, no feeling bad, that's its purpose, to be used for the less of par to make the good drawings great with better planing. And following tutorials, making terrible drawings in the process doesn't feel like I wasted anything. I can feel the accomplishment of finishing a tutorial without being like 'goodness me this looks terrible I wasted a page for nothing!” Also you can practice new mediums which is daunting if you're using good paper but in a sketchbook you can just have fun!

3: Pre-planing

I used this to draft my points system in a game I'm working on.

If you have a sketchbook you can pre-plan your drawings, doodle, work out kinks and bugs. It's a good tool for composition and story-boarding also. As well as writing notes, doing ideas for things like books and games. I personally use my sketchbook to plan out games, writing code that I think up or drag and drop options, as well as splash-screen design and menus. And many other things. Even if you don't stick to the original idea you can still use the pre-planing to help you do your final result on your project.

4: Doodling

This is a doodle.

I know that sounds like a childish thing to do, but doodling can actually teach you a lot. I've learned a lot about pastels by doodling with them, drawing without a sketch and just going alone made some nice results. I've also done things with just a pen, doodling that way is quite lovely and fun. You come up with ideas that way too!

This is a doodle too.

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Now that you've heard some good things about sketchbooks I'm going to talk about a few random things in closing.

Types of sketchbooks:
There are countless types of sketchbooks, some are in flimsy paper like the one I use, some that are almost like watercolor paper and everything in between. The size as well ranges from pocket sized to coffee table sized. You are not limited in any way to be free in what you want to do. You just have to be able to buy it, and for most that isn't a problem.


When to use one:
I  encourage those who are really in to committing to sketching as a good way to learn, to bring a book with you everywhere you go that it's permitted. Got a doctor's appointment? Doodle in the waiting room, it'll relax you. Have a late flight? Sketch a bit so you don't slap the people at that desk that can't help the plane is late but we still blame anyway.....But really putting snarky humor aside I really do think that taking a sketchbook with you can be wonderful! I took a drawing book with me when I was on my 15 minute break, so I could work on a picture a bit. If you can take one with you, do it! And don't feel bad if you don't get to use it every waking moment, it's supposed to be fun not a whip to the back.
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I hope this was helpful to somebody!




Blessings and Health to all you know and love!




~ Firefly

Useful Links:

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Creating a points system, how I did it. - Semi tutorial

I'm working on a game that will have an actual intelligent reasoning to it's point system and I figured since I had no idea what I was doing that maybe telling my process might be helpful to somebody else who wants to attempt the same thing.
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 1.

I had no clue where to start so first I went in to gamemaker and arranged all the blocks by color so I can create a point system based on color pairs. I wanted a pattern but I didn't know how to limit the points. So I decided what's the highest number I want to go with as a point value. I decided 20 was a nice round solid number not that large but not too small, which is what I wanted because I have a bonus block of 50 points and I make one or 2 others but you'll have to work to get to them.
I also wanted the highest values to be the largest blocks and the smallest value with the smallest blocks so I went with a loose guideline of splitting a number in thirds for the sizes, but I also didn't want a double point in any sub section of blocks (Large, Medium, Small) [ex. two blocks with the value of 4 in the medium block category]. So the fun starts.

Pre-point system arranged blocks in gamemaker

2.
Before I did the point assigning I first made a color chart on paper, using normal washable markers in a sketch book. I made what you could call a primitive excel-sheet splitting it by color using a maker to represent the color , and size making 3 collums to work with. I then marked with a tick mark (or a check as some call it) the sizes that go with that color. It did more of a preparation on how to figure out what strategy I was going to use to create the system than anything else since I mostly referenced the blocks in gamemaker since it was easier to read but it was helpful none-the-less.

Color Chart

3.

Now comes the "fun" part, point assigning, it was at this point that I went through the point limitation idea and thought process. I counted how many large blocks there were and I made value decisions based on that. I was going to go with factors of twenty but I ended up using another route, which was a better one because all the factors can't be split by 3 without going in to decimals and gamemaker doesn't use decimals in point-values. There are 6 blocks of each (I forgot until now! lol) but since I am going with thirds as a general though not hardlined theme I went with 3 blocks going by multiples of 6 and 3 blocks multiples of 5 skipping five so there would be a higher point value.

So the large blocks ended up being:

Point Chart

• 6
• 12
• 18
• 10
• 15
• 20

To make it easier to remember I used my markers again and marked the color and made columns like before only each column had a point value assigned to the color, but the colors stayed uniform. If a block existed in that color it got a point value, if it didn't it got an X to say this doesn't exist. I noticed I forgot to mark one the unmarked on has a value of 6.

I didn't end up being able to split in 3rds in the end, a few numbers were repeated more than once in any given column and I didn't want that so I had to be more loose; but it was a helpful general guidline to get my mind rolling.


I'm not saying much will change, but I still have to look over the points see if I can make it maybe slightly more coherent but for now I'm still happy I made it this far!


Here's what the full draft page looks like:

See how I added notes.

Final Comments:

The  main thing I want you to take away from this is preparation, even if you don't use all of it, it will help you get in to the mind set. And stay organized and undistributed I turned off distractions and put music on that I ended up blocking out. And be willing to make a loose mold to get the best results, somethings are point blank and some aren't. Also, be willing to use all your resources, if you have paper and markers draw out what you need done, whether it's a point system or how you want game menus to look. Anything you want to have you can draw out first to get the idea ahead of time. Movie producers and writers do this all the time, it's called story boarding.

I hope this was helpful!


~ God Bless ~

~ Firefly

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