New Logo

Some people have asked me about my blog's bizarre title, and I also needed a logo for my blog's title. So I decided to design a creature with that title in order to give the nonsensical title a bit of meaning:

Here's the biography I wrote for it:

"An esperus (plural: esperi) is a creature most foul, only spawning when a lunar stone becomes infused with the planet's magic. It is an extremely vicious and strange-looking humanoid, with several distinguishing features. It resembles a terrestrial merman with a very long tongue, slimy jellyfish-like appendages in place of hair and a swollen, calloused neck. This species uniquely finds rusty metal objects fascinating, and like a spider, weaves complex 'wings' with jagged edges and complicated geometry for their own ornamentation. Very few creatures have been seen without these decorations and one can only assume it is a hereditary trait. Lacking any claws, the esperus relies on its quickness and tough hands to bludgeon its prey. It then regurgitates a foul-smelling digestive acid onto its victim and then slurps the remains using its tongue. This creature is considered an extreme threat to any who encounter it, and you are warned to take heed of the screeching noise its 'wings' make, which will indicate the presence of an esperus."

The Message- Maya Animation Update

I've pretty much finished my Maya animation, and I'm now in the process of selecting a soundtrack and audio to go with the finished piece. I found that after a lot of work and practice, the Maya program definitely is easy once you know how to do it. You just have to be really persistent and 'grind' in a way. Although I found that Maya tends to crash a lot, so I'd save really often (more often than not) and it's definitely a program that will seem extremely difficult to beginners because of its precise workings.

One problem I had was rendering a walk with my Koya character because you can only render 24 frames each time you do a batch render (I think) and when I went to do the next step, his legs were very jerky and it didn't look convincing at all.

It seems that saving the frame on the IK Handles wasn't working too well. I think the problem was that I deleted the 24th frame, which should be the 1st frame of the next animation and so when I repositioned the IK Handle it wasn't in the same position as the previous walk and so it 'jerks' to the wrong position. I re-rendered this part recently in order to fix it, so I copied and pasted the 24th frame to the first frame in order to ensure that in the next cycle, Koya's foot is in the same space to make the walk more natural.

Another problem was that original walk was far too slow (even when sped up) and made Koya look as if he was floating along, exacerbated by the fact that his body wasn't moving at all, giving him a rigid walk. I also countered this in the re-rendering by moving his tail and having him nod his head slightly as he walks. I also filmed using two cameras instead of just one for a more dynamic effect and as a result, I feel it was much better.

Horror Project- Fear

I recently played a Japanese horror game for the PlayStation Portable called 'Corpse Party'. It was very unique as it was styled like a 2D RPG, but it had no RPG elements other than a HP gauge, and was more akin to a digital graphic novel within a game environment. One of the more unique elements was that it had a really disturbing atmosphere as it seemed to be unflinching in its description of really disturbing violent scenes. Corpses litter the game world and part of the gameplay is examining them and chronicling the gruesome method in which they were killed.

Usually, survival horror titles have reservations when it comes to violence as they are high-spec in their graphics and have to tone down elements in order to avoid censorship or restrictive ratings. This doesn't hold true for this game, as the 2D graphics aren't particularly gratuitous; it relies completely on text descriptions of events which are much more visceral for someone like me who likes reading. The game is sometimes assisted with anime-style static images which depict some of the scenes.

What was most fascinating was that the game had its origins in RPG Maker! It then went through several incarnations before being remastered and translated for English-speaking audiences on PSP. This gave me the inspiration to do a similar project, as I wish to use the unreleased RPG Maker VX Ace for Fragments, and have no other project in the meantime.

I've procured a survey to research what people would want to see if I did a similar game.

I've started the game (titled 'Fear' at the moment), designing it with no RPG elements, instead having a more puzzle/exploration driven game with an in-depth plotline (and scares of course!).

The title screen for 'Corpse Party', developed by Team GrisGris and translated for PSP by Xseed Games.

The game's visceral scenes are usually augmented by 2D artwork showing the gruesome happenings.

Being Japanese in origin, the game features frequently disturbing content, such as murderous children.

Shocks mainly come from the reactions of the playable characters, and the description of what is happening, rather than what is actually shown. This is mainly because of technology constraints, but it has a great effect as the player can imagine it looking worse than any graphics can show, such as this scene above, in which the girls discover a body completely mashed against the wall, with entrails and blood all over the floor.

This is the beginning of my project, Fear, which I want to set in a stereotypical 'haunted' mansion in homage to Alone in the Dark (the world's first survival horror).