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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-20 12:09:33 (edited 2009-07-20 12:14:00)
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@Terror I kind of understood how persistent data works now. I'm going to try and understand the code further A-SAP. As with the flags, I still haven't found the sample codes, even in the Ren'Py cookbook. I'd like to see a sample code if you have one. I could even try debugging it if I can. @Ugo Well, to illustrate how I tried to solve the problem of unlocking other arcs after finishing the game, I made some basic charts to help explain how it goes.  As you can see, the code is designed to give the control variable(the variable that would allow you to play other arcs after finishing the game) a value of "true" once the first arc is finished. However, since it loops back to the start of the code itself, the control variable is always set to "false." It would be impossible to unlock the other arcs this way.  The problem in chart 1 is solved by creating a blank control label(a "section" of the code containing the story, which you could jump through). The value of the variable would be changed from boolean(true/false) to integers(whole numbers and their negative counterparts) so the players could unlock other arcs in sequence. However, when the game is closed, the variables will lose their data, prompting the player to start again from the beginning. This means that the other arcs would require unlocking over and over again. That's where persistent data comes in. Persistent data are saved even though the game is closed(discovered it with Terror's suggestion. Thanks, mate!); since it is the currently known way of avoiding the problems in chart 2, I'll have to study it. The connection between using persistent data and a picture browser is still vague for me, though. |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-20 12:50:25 (edited 2009-07-20 12:51:06)
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Hope it's okay for me to just post this here... <_< lol Terror's Guide to Ren'py Visual Novel Scripting for Arc Writers! If you're reading this, you're probably good at creative, imaginative writing. You probably have the art of dialog and detailed description down to your own unique style, but writing for a Visual Novel (VN) is not your originally fan-fiction or short-story. Your primary focus should lie in the dialog the story, leaving the job of displaying the current scene to those who are suppling the art for the project. That's not to say you won't have a hand in what appears on screen. If a character goes from a neutral expression to one of surprise or a change in a character's appearance, you don't have to exactly write it out in complete detail such as: “When Aya turned around, she was shocked to find not Tyson, but a bleeding mass of horror!†No, you leave that to the artists and coders to get the extreme details across, but you still need to rely your desire to have those details displayed on screen. Further, if you wrote in the more “conventional†way with lengthy descriptions and dialog weaved in, I and the rest of us here in the coding department would have one hell of a time organizing everything from your writing into script form. Thus, I bring you this guide to help you help us save our time for the more complicated things. Put simply, I'm asking you to write out your arc in the basic form of the Ren'py code so we can just copy/paste it in and get to work on things such as the appearance of character sprites and the like. So, shall we begin? First off, you don't need to download Ren'py to type up your arc. You can write it on Notepad or Word or whatever you may use, but please try and follow the conventions as best you can. Also, for quotation marks, try to avoid the “curved†ones, instead opting for the "straight" ones. So, shall we really begin? The Ren'py engine allows the coders to give different characters a “code†so that dialog is a lot easier. Here's the list of “codes†I've assigned for the characters we have already: Aya → ay Tyson → ty Laz → la Uncle Sam → us How are these codes put to use? Say I want to have Aya say “I look pretty is this outfit!†All I'd have to type is: ay “I look pretty in this outfit!†or character-code “Dialog†Simple no? A simple scene is basically all of the lines of dialog stacked one on top of each other. For example: ay “I look pretty in this outfit!†ty “Yup.†ay “What, do you think otherwise?†ty “Yeah.†ay “You jerk!†ty “Alright kid, I'll call you later.†ay “Huh?†ty “I'm sorry, what did you...oh, nice dress.†ay “Eh...thanks.†If you don't want a name to appear (such as some explanation or exposition), just leave out the character code and start the quote. In the case of an extra names such as “Mysterious Man†or “Everyoneâ€, you'll need to leave a note along with that line so we can set that up. What is a note you ask? A note is basically a comment that is only readable in the script; it doesn't appear in the actual VN. You can make a note by making it's own line and starting the comment off with a “#†symbol. #Show ay in dress, happy; ty looking away; apartment background. ay “I look pretty in this outfit!†ty “Yup.†#Change ay to annoyed. ay “What, do you think otherwise?†ty “Yeah.†#Change ay to mad. ay “You jerk!†#Make ty smile more. ty “Alright kid, I'll call you later.†#Change ay to confused. ay “Huh?†#Make ty face ay; add pause at …; at pause change ty to affectionate pose. ty “I'm sorry, what did you...oh, nice dress.†#Change ay to embaressed. ay “Eh...thanks.†See? This is where you can dictate what should be occurring in the scene. May I request you try to be as short but descriptive as you can like I've demonstrated here so we can get the flow of the scene without it taking up too much space. You might have noticed that I added a request for a “pause†to Tyson's last line. A “pause†is where a character's line would stop midway through, requiring the viewer's click to finish up the line. This is good when you want to change a character's visual emotion, change to a still image, and much more mid-sentence. There's plenty of tricks like this that is possible with Ren'py, so go ahead and be creative. If you want a certain thing, note it and we'll try to figure it out the best we can. Another good example of a VN trick (which you will no doubt have) is the user choice menus. For now, this is the convention I ask you follow. Start off the menu with a note that says “#Menu:†followed by the question to be asked on the next line. Then, using notes, show where all the possible answers start followed by the response dialog. For example: #Menu: ty "So, what did you need?" #Answer: "Do I look nice." ay "Do I look nice." ty "Yes, yes you do." jump home #Answer: "Uh...nevermind." ay "Uh...nevermind." ty "You sure? You were screaming just a moment ago." ay "Yeah..." jump home #Answer: "Care to go out and eat somewhere?" (available if viewer said yes to question...) ay "Care to go out and eat somewhere?" ty "Sure. You alright going to Stella's? I have to meet up with a friend real quick down there." ay "Alright then. Lemme change and I'll join you in a bit." jump date Usually after a menu, you'll want to “come back†to your outcomes. This is where the “jump†and subsequently “label†commands work. As you can see, if the viewer chooses the first two options, it leads the the “home†outcome where they don't go out. For the 3rd one (which also has a condition to being available; yes, this is possible), the outcome is “dateâ€. So how to “jump†and “label†work? Jump is basically a way to say “go to this point in the scriptâ€. Label is used to define these points: label home ty "Well, I'd best be going. I have to meet up with a friend." ay "Alright..." "etc..." jump end label date "Half an hour later..." #Fade in dinner bkgd; show ay and ty. ty "Want a booth?" ay "Sure." "etc..." jump end label end (The etc means the story can go on from there. The “jump end†is just used so the test script will work when I play through it.) This way, multiple answers can lead to the same relative outcome and choosing the correct answer(s) will lead to side stories, “datesâ€, or unlock changes later in the story. If you're more curious about the possibilities in the Ren'py engine, I suggest you download it and take a look at the demo script. Not only will that outline possible tricks you could incorporate into your arc, but you might be able to learn a line or two of code that you can slip in by yourself. I'm not asking for you to do much more than the dialog and noting, but I won't refuse any other scripting you may feel like doing. It's not my goal to have the writers do our jobs, but rather I seek to be as effective as possible when things get underway. Why write up a detailed story if we're just going to cut it down to the “bare bones†script version? Why not just have it start there and save everyone (yes, I believe writing a story like this is easier than say the narrative way of doing it). Hope this give you a fairly good idea of how I hope your submissions to us in coding would look. If you have any questions, you can PM me (or Basil, I'm sure he* can answer any questions you might throw at him) on Gendou. Best of luck writing the VN. ;D ~Terror PS: Here are some pictures which better display the script (don't worry about the color scheme; rather, worry about the organization of the elements). The dialog and note example. The jump example. The label example. 
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-20 18:20:36 |
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I have one question before the Web Team gets started (even though I still need to hear back from Sayu). For the staff page, would anyone want a profile picture put up? Real life pictures of everyone would be nice, but I know for sure that not every user will want a picture of themselves posted, so I could always leave those users pictures blank or replace them with their Gendou Avy's or anime character representation. @Shuyin- So are you still going with the web team?    |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-20 18:30:44 |
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@Jon: When you get far enough along, give me a size limit for the picture and I'll get you something. >_<
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-20 23:39:07 |
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I'll do whatever I can with the Web Team. I'll probably need to be in more a supporting role then trying to really lead it or anything. I'll do whatever is needed, though. I'm not sure if it was discussed but do we have a site or hosting site, etc, picked out yet? Long as it doesn't involve raw html and coding and such I can do alot with it. Someone just needs to fill me in on everything I've missed *~* |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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whoa... getting serious here XD i'll upload my sketches in this sunday :3 |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-21 06:29:39 |
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er... guys, i need income from everyone, not only ugo... @ugo: I don't get what you mean...  |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-21 09:02:12 (edited 2009-07-21 09:13:43)
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@Schaz- I believe Ugo means that the first part of the song sounds fine, but it kind of fades out afterwards. I thought it wasn't bad, but the quality of the recording isn't that great and it's also very quiet, I had both the Volume meter on the Imeem widget as well as my speakers set to max and I could just barely hear it. @Terror- No problem. Any picture is fine if you want yours put up, I can always crop and re-size to fit the need. @Shuyin- I have already sent a list of sites I've come across to Sayu about 2 days ago (Sayu hasn't responded yet). I've just sent the same list to you. Don't worry about there being a lot of HTML, all the sites I've come across offer templates and drag&drop features. I don't any of us know enough HTML to code a website from scratch (I know a bit, but not a whole lot). |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-21 09:51:01 |
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@Jonathat I've been constantly forgetting to ask these - what application are you using in creating the website? Does anyone in the web team have either Dreamweaver or Photoshop CS3? And I might be able to pitch in a hand to the web team once in a while. |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-21 10:28:25 (edited 2009-07-21 10:31:12)
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@Basil- For the most part we will stick to using the tools provided by whatever host site we go with. There are a few reasons for this. The host for the site has to be free first of all. The sites which offer free hosting have tools for people to create their own websites, but they don't offer much outside of those tools (most do offer HTML use, but that's about it), and I don't think they support the ability to upload personally created websites. I don't have Dreamweaver, and I only have a little experience with it, no where near enough to create a web-site using it. I did have Photoshop at one point. No idea if Sayu or Shuyin have those programs however. |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-21 11:09:37 |
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@ Basil/Jonathon — I have Photoshop CS3 v10. I would say I'm ok with it, and nearly all of my signatures/avatars for Gendou are done by myself. I'm not near as good as people like Dfly and Kira and people like that, from A x S that I'm apart of, but I could put together some cool graphics for the Site one way or another. |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-21 20:33:39 |
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@ All: Oy! I may or may not be online until Monday. Have to go on a little trip to Cali(fornia) for the weekend. Hope I have internet access. @ Jonathan: Yes! Yes! People may start turning in their votes now! For a profile pic. well, I'll just provide some anime picture. @ Terror: Oh yeah. Advertising siggy would help out! We dont have all characters determined, but it would be great if we could have a secure number of VA's. At the moment, all we can do is let them know we're here. As for the guide, it looks pretty understandable so I'm leaning for it. It's possible to get writers to do that. However, I'm going to wait on Mokona and Karuzo's opinion on that. This however, will also put on an added step for coding or proofreading, as we'll need someone to make sure everything is coded in free of mistakes. @ Jejechi: I look forward to it! @ Doomlight: Everyone seems really for the voice acting thing. I am pretty certian Jonathan had a form of developer thread going. As for another language? ...... That'll have to come as post development. Unless I had an army of translators. @ Shuyin: Nice to see you again! ^-^ Jon is the head of your department. (you already know that most likley) So... I hope the momentary internet deprivation didnt hurt too much.   |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-22 06:49:16 (edited 2009-07-22 07:07:31)
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Ugo: That is sooo cool- have fun Ugo!! Oops, I just caught that? What "guide"? I'm up for it, if you think it's a good idea Ugo ^^ Basil: *raises eyebrow* simple charts??? p.s: wb! Hi to Shuyin, Jejechi and Terror!! ^^ Plus: think positively minna! ^^ whatever the situation!! EDIT: should I PM my vote (for the name) to you [Ugo]? Yayy cute Mokona mascot!! Will you be designing it Terror?   |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-22 07:37:56 |
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@Jon:yeah... I know... I really need something better to record them... |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-22 08:34:51 |
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@Ugo: Well, with the time saved on coding in "translating" a narrative style written arc into the code form, we could spend some time on making sure the code given to us works. (Plus the program finds most mistakes when we try to run it, so that shouldn't be too bad.) A question though, where does proofreading come into the picture? Right after the writers submit their arcs, or after coding releases come kind of playable version? @Mokona: I think the idea for the mascot changed to a certain "moe girl". xD I'll let Ugo give more details. :P (And how the heck did you miss my crazy long guide? It takes up about 1/4th of the thread-page, lol.) I've yet to upload pictures. >_< So, for the moment... (lol) 
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-22 10:43:06 |
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Terror: ohhs. I just proceeded to miss out all of your previous post because it was so long : P i skimmed it a bit though ^^ what's "moe girl" >< and Ugo's busy- you tell me! Oh and I like that pic xDD go Mokona!! .. i think you've missed out "never" on the pic as well O.o "Terror's never alwasy been sexy" xDDD |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-22 11:07:07 |
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Hmm, it may change depending on the name; wait for Ugo. :3 Oh, and :P. Here's the original more or less. (I cut out some of the extra elements. xD) 
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-22 12:08:35 |
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Wait for Ugo?? aww, that's loong !! >< Oh, has she decided on the name for the thing then? I didn't get to vote yet >< !! Loll- of course! Was that from the TRC manga? Extra elements?? |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-22 12:28:12 |
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Haha, good to see you again too, Mokona and Ugo! :D And Yeah, I've talked with Jon abit about the site and cast my vote with him that the web team is doing to pick up whatever host we use. Seems we are leaning towards one now, Just have to hear from Sayu. Also, it may not be that big a deal, but do we have any idea the size of the Visual Novel when it's finished? Like, how many MB we are looking at when it's finished. I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but it'd probably be a good idea to condense as much as we could *~* - However, I've never done a VN or anything, so I'm not sure if the size will really matter alot or affect anything. |
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Re: Gendou - Visual Novel Project
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on 2009-07-22 13:08:35 |
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Well, considering other similar VN's (my idea of it's length, VA included), it wouldn't get much bigger than say a DVD (4.7 MB) I would think. @Mokona: PM Ugo your choice. :P Extra elements included Sy. on the left side and a speech bubble on the right; yes, it was TRC.
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