The same place that you get essential game progressing upgrades from should also sell frivilous cosmetic upgrades that you can buy and people will comment on your new look.

As well as AGS, the Wintermute Engine is worth looking into as well: http://dead-code.org/home/

Good article on interface design:

http://www.hardydev.com/2010/01/26/adventures-in-interfacing-part-i-should-the-interface-be-the-adventure/

Grafx2

I'm checking this pixel art program out: http://code.google.com/p/grafx2/

RE Interface: navigation / menu system

You can't include images in comments so starting a new post but this is in response to the last post.

Navigation

I think we should categorise the "types" of stuff we see on the screen. The ones (I assumed) we already have decided on are the environment scenes - where you can walk around, go through doors and click on people or items to interact. We need to decide on a visual way to indicate that you can move left or right. Doors are an obvious one but sometimes when there isn't doors, what shall we have? An arrow? A word saying "Left" or "Right"? For path finding I though we could keep to a set number of "walking lines" so we are only walking horizontally or vertically. This makes it easier to animate, as well as making collision easier to manage. (Does that make sense?) This may effect environment sketches.

Another type I think we have decided on but may need confirmation, by clicking on people you bring up the dialogue screen which includes what they say, what you say/do, facial expressions, and some way to end the conversation. Whether that's you saying "bye" or a "back button" or pressing "esc".

I also like the idea of zooming into certain areas like fridge shelves (or desks, or through certain windows). You could automatically scan and add stuff to your journal from there, or take photos. Or look at the scene using your special eye upgrades. As a robot, would you have smell?

Menu System

The menu system needs some thought. What games can you think of that had a really good menu system, and what was good about them? What's better - loads of options or few? What things will we absolutely need to include?

By the way, saving or auto-saving? Pros, cons etc. Also, option to fast travel from main menu or from public teleport machines? (Personally I like this idea better as it's more realistic.)

Interface

??????

edit: maybe interactions change based on robot upgrades and are reflected in interface. Also, the actions change depending on context -- eyes are a visual description for mundane items; clue hunting mode on key items. Mouth is talk or maybe he just puts it in his mouth. Hand is use (doors and switches), take for inventory objects, and it makes people uncomfortable if you use it on them.

 

Tex Murphy: Martian Memorandum (the 2nd game in this pack) is a really gorgeous point and click game.

I forgot how to take screenshots in DOSbox so here are some phone photos:

It has video clips when talking to people and almost-FMV cutscenes (woah!).  Adding it to my inspiration list!

edit: here is a video http://youtu.be/TatoXJV0CFE

GAME PLAN

What is our PLAN OF ACTION?

We've got technical decisions to make!

We should get the first level - or just *a* level or sequence - outlined so we can cobble some placeholder art assets together and decide what we are going to make this thing in.

Brainstorm for plot

We did some brainstorming and got a little ways with plot ideas- as it stands it goes like this (I'm going to be repeating some ground here, but bare with me)

So to start with, a way, way back, there was a technological illumination. Humans cracked A.I. It revolutionalised a lot of things, and in a couple of years, robots went from being your everyday toaster to your co-worker. It didn't take long for robots to feel like, in fairness- if they didn't get a say in how we made babies, we shouldn't get a hand in how they create new AI. And so it was that robots took the monopoly on robotics micro-engineering. And then overall engineering. And then cybernetics.

Fast forward hundreds of years later, and our city is on the roads to recovering from a long, arduous war. It's only been a couple of years since martial law was phased out, there's still a bit of rationing (enough for a black market), and it's not entirely unusual to see poverty riots/ghost streets from bomb destruction. There's a lot of general languishing for both robots and humans, though it affects them differently. The need for fancy robots is getting pretty thin; they don't need diplomatbots anymore, it's a lot more practical to get car upgrades. And the regulation over cybernetics is harsh for humans, despite the levels of injuries there are both civilian and war related, because of the costs, the resources needed, and the apparently difficult procedures/health risks there are. There's a waiting list for treatment, but unless you are rich, powerful, famous, a war hero or the occasional adorable PR child, there's no chance.

Right, then.

- We have Officer Robot and Officer Buddy who are pals

- They are beat cops, basically

- They do beat cop things, small time puzzles, get-to-know-the-world type exploration

- It's nice

- Only thing is Officer Buddy's got a war wound that's stopping him from being a full detective (Officer Robot is also a couple of upgrades away from qualifying) 

- Officer Buddy doesn't turn up for his shift one day

- His house is empty

- You have to find your buddy

- Your search takes you into a what's basically a chop-shop where Buddy is messed up

- Something something about investigation, going undercover as a human so the chopshop doctors don't think you are a robot snoop

- This is where both of us started to get a little distracted

- Where was I

- Robot discovers that things are not what they seem at all- humans could very, very easily get cybernetic implants. Robots are worried that if humans can be robots, what will robots do?

- You can't take your pal to a regular doctor because then he'll be in trouble for doing illegal things. 

Subplots/Design Considerations

- multi-path endings/early game enders mean no idea is too dumb, melodramatic or cheery. Go nuts with that. If you want to see an ending where if you pick up a flower in a 5 minute window at the beginning of a game and keep it for 6 hours straight then give it to Officer Buddy at just the right moment and he doesn't go off and the game ends with everyone just being pals forever the end then I think we should go for it. Let's make Dan's life difficult and give him lots of things to program and it'll be great.

- There's animosity in a lot of groups that could be played on - the military vs. the police, the... well, I have it down as the League of Misopolemiacs, but the guys aggressively peaceful chaps, that are non-plot vital

- Officer Robot and Officer Buddy are tight at the beginning of the game, since they've been partners for a while. But at first Robot was trepiditious since he got the feeling that they were only partnered because they were the oddballs of the station and he'd worked hard to become a cop and be accepted. I like to think that Officer Buddy was the sheep to Robot's baby elephant, though, and just refused to be pushed away. Maybe it was Officer Robot's.. creation day? chip activation remembrance day? and Buddy brought him a little flower in a pot, and Robot thought he was making fun of his background but Buddy had no idea, he just thought Robot would just like it. Robot was taken aback, because did like and they were friends forever. 

- There are some robots who think it's unfair that humans get to be robots but robots don't get to be humans. There have been a couple of serial killers. One of them jammed some dude's eyeballs into his headpiece and just sobbed until the cops showed up. 

- But seriously I think this is a valid thing, I bet in the future from this game we'll see robots that have squishy human organs or something. I mean, we have some pretty rad stuff. I bet they could find a reason for jamming a kidney or 2 in a robot.

- If you do enough little side bits/exploration I think you should get promoted. NOT YOUR BUDDY THOUGH HE'S A LOOSE CANON

Things to consider

- It's at risk of going a little Deus Ex
- By which I mean I'm pretty sure this is just Deus Ex
- How do we end this
- Help

Danny, I have the full conversation transcipt you can have, but it's pretty much just this but spread out with a lot of 'no wait, what's and 'what about if not that thing but this thing' scattered in between.

That was long and boring to type up. I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT.

I don't know anything about Unity but I don't know, would going down the path of using it and something like this be a good idea?


http://www.unikronsoftware.com/2dtoolkit/

Not that I want to take anything away from Danny's programming duties - I legit have no idea how this stuff works or whether it'd make our lives easier or be a pain. The plus sides to it seem to be PC, Android and iOS compatibility, the minuses-- well I haven't looked into the difference between free and pro Unity. Money. Money is probably a minus.

Any progress? I'm still drawing stuff for it but I don't really have a direction.

adorablebot reporting for duty

I HAVE A LOT OF CLOTHES FEELINGS I NEED TO EXPLORE

probably relevant

I'm thinking a range of architectural styles - it's an old city, maybe it's seen war and it's patched together - a mix of old, new and hasty, ugly new.

Blog appearance

Hope no one minds this new colour scheme. Apparently black text on a yellow background is the most comfortable thing to look at for reading, but if your eyes happen to be vomiting at the sight of it then let me know and I'll change it to something else.

Technology in the future.

I just wanted to share some thoughts because for me the most satisfying stories set in the future are ones that are scientifically plausible. I hope this is interesting to other people too but I promise I won't get offended by anyone who's reaction to this is "urg christ Danny, shut the fuck up".

TLDR? No worries.

Anyway, in order to host an AI of human-levels of intelligence (IF we're even trying to do that), we'd need to first advance several areas of technology. Most obviously we'd need to improve our processors a LOT.

In this very moment in time it is believed that a human brain can perform roughly 1.0x1010 MOPS (million operations per second), (I do not know how this was calculated, I'm just going by quotes). To put this into perspective, the top of the range commercial CPU (to my knowledge) can do about 177730 MIPS (million instructions per second) at 3.33GHz, so in terms of what that means in operations, well... it depends on the operations in question, but you would definitely need a hell of a lot more than 56265 of the things. I reckon you're looking at twice that amount at a minimum. Think about the logistics of that. In particular imagine trying to cram that number of processors, (all properly connected up to the power supply, the memory, the hard drives, the cooling system etc), into a humanoid android alongside all the other stuff that's got to fit in there. There is consensus in the scientific community that this task is currently impossible. (Getting a computer to perform that many operations per second has been done, it's just physically massive and stupidly expensive.)

According to Marshall Brain (in a rather unsatisfyingly undetailed interview involving very little mathematical explanation) we should expect CPU's to match human brain processing power by somewhere between year 2040 to 2050, "maybe". I'm generally a little sceptical about this because what Marshall said in that interview sounds like it's based on Moore's Law which is the theory that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18-24 months. This theory relies on technology getting infinitely smaller, which obviously is not going to happen, though exactly when it's going to stop happening is difficult to predict.

Personally I reckon Computers will have to radically change (physically speaking) before they can get to the stage where we're capable of running a functional human brain in real time without filling an entire room full of crap and generating painfully high electricity bills. I reckon quantum computing is the next step but after that, something biological? A lab-grown brain in a jar? Taking this rout may sacrifice various aspects that currently give computers the edge, such as data transmission - which is millions of times slower in a human brain (based on the theory that 1 bit is the equivalent of 3.5x1010 electrons per millisecond). Maybe future people would merge things together. A bit like the whole left brain right brain thing we have going on right now I guess; on one hand it does maths, on the other hand it gets offended that you didn't thank it for the last load of maths you made it do. (God that'd be a right challenge though, figuring out how to convert brain activity into binary strings in real time... you'd have to monitor every neurone somehow. I guess it's a matter of input and output.)

On a less important note, what will hard drives look like in the future? What'll have taken over USB? (Or rather what will have taken over Thunderbolt? I assume Thunderbolt will take over USB next.) Will someone have nailed wireless power supplies? They're getting there already. But also, in terms of power supplies, what will we actually use as an energy source once the fossil fuels run out? Nuclear's plausible I reckon, but I doubt we're going to stop attempting to use natural energy resources any time soon. I quite like the idea of public power supplies that harness solar power and enable citizens to charge their phone / laptop / artificial limbs etc where ever they are. Or chargers that run on kinetic energy (eg exercise bikes). ... I'm getting side tracked again. Back to my original point:

I think it would be fair to say that if we're going to be taking our android characters beyond "passes the Turing Test" levels of intelligence and into "comprehends love on an emotional level" we're speaking way over 50 years ahead. We also probably need to advance a fair bit in terms of our neuroscienctific understanding, I have literally no idea how long that'll take, we've been studying it since Ancient Egypt times and it's said we still know more about the universe than our own brain, where as computers have only been around for a century (nearly), so I imagine that the time technology catches up to human-intelligence storing level we'll still be far from capable of generating a human brain, unless somehow we don't need to understand it to mimic it. (Possible I guess.) Anyway, I think if we're going to start integrating "android rights" into the story we are going to need genuinely intelligent androids - at least as intelligent as something that has rights.

Whilst thinking about all that, I had an idea. What if the androids' "brains" are not actually stored in their "bodies", but rather the thoughts are processed elsewhere then instructions for actions are sent to the android through the internet. The android simultaneously sends data to wherever it's processors are through a number of different input devices, including image capturing devices, audio recording equipment, scanners that record texture and terrain, thermometers, and so on. If the android move out of wireless network range you lose control of the robot and their "panic-find the internet" program kicks in, walking them around until they re-connect to a network. (Same goes for power supply if it happens to be wireless.)

In this sort of system they could rent houses to act as a giant cranium. Or maybe not an entire house. I guess alternately they could rent a space on the cloud for that sort of thing... god the internet would have to change a lot though, I mean, does wireless data transfer have a limit? And is privacy an issue for androids? I guess that would depend on their motivation. And then there's the question of validation - I assume humans would want to implement some fail safes to prevent the robot uprising... actually validation on a device capable of human intelligence could get seriously political.

This monologue has gone on to long. Time to put an end to it. If you did read it all let me know your thoughts.

I'm dumping this here to get it out of my brain

I'm trying to find the right balance between using spacey terminology and being obnoxious- like Guard vs. Legion? There's other words that have Roman basis to mean roughly the same thing, an army. Cohortes. Hastati (Hastatus). Phalanx. We need to get down a Joss Whedon amount of culture meshing.

I'm not a Roman expert, and I'm not sure how much you guys know about their whole deal, so I'll lay down the skinny- feel free, if you know all this (or don't find it interesting or important, there's no harm in that), to ignore it. I find it good to riff this stuff aloud, though, and know stuff gets better when you get feedback.

The Legion were required to be free men, and you were respected for having done your stint in it. It's turn ons included being obnoxiously large, conquering countries in wars that lasted for decades at a time, taking slaves and not being in Rome. And the thing of that was, it meant a lot of general mayhem in the capitol, because not enough of these guys were back to toe the line for people. I'm not talking casual theft, here, either; Rome, before they got their stuff together, was plagued with riots, mobs, home invasion. Gangs roamed the streets just tearing things up willy nilly; not a good place to be in.

So that's when the Vigiles came in. That's 'Watchmen' in latin. They started out as a little group of slaves sent out by the richer folk at night to stop things getting trashed, the Triumviri Nocturni. I'm not a latin buff, but the best I can make of the translation of that is 'Night-time Group of Officials Who Share Equal Power'. They didn't really do much besides protect their master's stuff, a private security force that were a sort of guard/fireman/alarm system hybrid. So they evolved (with a bit of nudging from the state) into what'd become the crux of the capitol- The Cohortes Vigilum, The Vigiles, the Spartoli, after the little buckets that they carried to, I assume, sort of ineffectively look like they were doing something to combat that massive fuck-off fires that would sometimes take ahold of Rome (they twigged on about germs pretty fast, but apparently not building furnaces in wooden houses). They were pretty similar to what we have today as a modern force- a Cohort of about 80 men would patrol their administrative area at night and beat the loving shit out of any burglars, run away slaves and would be mobs. I am joking, they weren't like our guys at all, because they also sometimes put out fires. And, I kid you not, one of their biggest deals was guarding the public baths at night. I am not sure from what, or why, but I am choosing to trust this fact blindly.

This is a lot of words, but I promise I'm going somewhere with this. Probably. I wish I hadn't promised, that was a stupid thing to do, now I actually have to make a point.

Things weren't breezey between the Vigiles and the Legion. Not's to say that I'm sure some weren't amiable, but the Vigiles weren't under the same system as their martial brothers. If push came to shove, though, the Vigiles tended to be faithful to Rome, while the Legion was faithful to the Emperor. The Vigiles were not free men, not until right at the very end, when citizenship after a certain length of service was granted as a 'you didn't die! :D!' bonus.

SO

There's been a war- the Colluctation (IT'S A WORD, I'M USING IT), the Strife, the Brigue, the Sedition. I think Liz has it nailed, there- it needs to be distant and unspecified. That's not to say we shouldn't have a more detailed explanation for it (especially if it'll help write plot better, I'm all for that, though I tend to get bogged down by details as this billion word essay on what we're calling out police force is probably telling you), but since it's not plot integral it'll be more effective just being hinted at, this ominous, bank breaking war.

I see direct parallels between Rome's struggles and what we're aiming for- they were dirt poor, by the end. By which I mean the plebeians were, the streets torn to hell as a result of generations of conquering that had no direct effect on the guys that just wanted to eat. The Vigiles were not entirely accepted, but necessary, and even when the army was limping around it was them that gots the glory. I think 4-10 years is a good amount of time for the war to have passed? Long enough that things like rationing, black markets, war wounds are still fresh, but things have mostly settled back down.

ALSO. League of Misopolemiacs. Apparently that means 'to have a fear of strife'. MISOPOLEMIACS.

There's more, but it gradually gets more incoherent as 1a.m approached.  

Day / Night

Hopes and Dreams

[00:11:00] Liz Edwards: I was thinking we could do night / day -- some things are open in the day, some things at night
[00:11:38] Liz Edwards: the game will probably be linear (i assume!) but itd be nice to revisit places and have them different
[00:16:33] Liz Edwards: i find it really sad when games are only set at night, too, i don't know why haha

[00:19:20] Danny Weatherley: haha yeah good idea!
[00:19:32] Danny Weatherley: i like the idea that its switchable and that could be part of the puzzle

[00:20:29] Liz Edwards: yeah, even if its just an option to say, "lets get some rest and check it out in the morning"
[00:20:50] Liz Edwards: but if you skip too many days without progress your boss gets mad or something haha

[00:22:50] Danny Weatherley: it'd be great it at just certian intervalls people get mad at you for doing typical game stuff

[00:23:07] Liz Edwards: i'd love that
[00:23:38] Liz Edwards: i hate getting repeated responses
[00:24:03] Liz Edwards: we should try to have that not happen!
[00:26:15] Liz Edwards: like you can ask a question a few times but the responses are "You already asked - I said,-"
"Seriously? I said-"
"Are you malfunctioning or what?"
and then the question disappears

[00:26:32] Liz Edwards: we'd have to have a note system so responses can still be read by the player

[00:27:43] Danny Weatherley: yeah like a journal or something

[00:28:06] Liz Edwards: the player should be able to write in it too
[00:28:34] Liz Edwards: i can't remember what game it is that lets you respond to emails you recieve
[00:28:54] Liz Edwards: Uplink let you, and there was another
[00:28:56] Liz Edwards: maybe the xfiles game
[00:29:08] Liz Edwards: i just love being able to write things back, mostly dumb things
[00:29:28] Liz Edwards: even if just to get a canned "this email bounced", "I am away on holiday!", response :B

Clothes Pondering

We are going to need our resident sexy toga expert to chime in, here!

Today I've been thinking about animation. Who'd have thought I'd have to dreg up knowledge from the first year of uni?

Danny, would it be possible to get a template sometime so I can practice animating in the proper dimensions and stuff? My understanding of your previous asset post is dubious at best!

I'm going to start tagging our posts now before they get out of hand. So we'll have:

story/plot,
gameplay/mechanics,
programming/technical,
art/assets
admin

does that cover everything? (for now, obviously as we get further we'll add tags and whatever)

IDEA

If we're going with the android cop vs android murder/hardware harvesting ring thing, he should go undercover.

Are the bad guys androids or human? Jerk androids would be scary but I like the idea of our android pretending to be human. If anyone sees you using android gadgets you are busted. WHIRR WHIRR. What was that? WHIRR I NEED TO USE THE BATHROOM EXCUSE ME

THAT IS ALL

Hmm, on one monitor, this looks dark and a little blue (as intended). On the other, it's not so dark and less blue. I don't know what screen to trust! How does it look for you guys?

I actually have no idea how to calibrate screens properly, argh.

edit: I fixed the blue tinge on my primary monitor but can't get it to be as bright as the other; maybe i should just make that one dimmer? Haha.

Thinking about how to deal with interiors -- looking at The Dig and Gemini Rue, a lot (not all) of interiors are done with this kind of extreme high one point perspective. And I think other areas are based on pretty much the same with just some libertys taken with perspective and such.

If you guys have any ideas of how to do interiors, though, post em up!

Drawing a genuine smile in the eyes is really difficult so I guess Frank is just a big lying jerk (or maybe there is something wrong with his brain).

Here's Frank -- I haven't got an interface in mind for the question/expression system and the actual npc face art will probably have to be a bit smaller to fit into that. But yeah I can do a bunch of expressions (hopefully) fairly easily in this style:

If one of you wants to mock up an interface with him, I can send you the PSD.

background practice

I don't know what style we're going for so I'm swinging for generic run down future city with this. Does the scale of the person look right?

Lighting will be added on a seperate layer - maybe a few (night / day / non static lights)

Let's talk androids 2

Just an extension from the last android post - as I felt these guys were worth taking a look at too.

Couldn't find a picture of this so here's the trailer - Moon robot! Seriously watch this film if you haven't already.

Wall-e and Eve

Mega Robot - (best bit's the facial expressions)

Hank

Jules

Helper

No idea who this is...

Another nameless one

And another

There was another really cool bit of cg art but I seem to have lost it. I'll ask Rhys next time I see him.

i think it gets cut off too much :(

LETS TALK ANDROIDS

Oh my god this new blogger interface is terrifying. I will try to make a coherent post but if all my photos are upside down, it's not my FAULT.

Look I am just going to add some photos of androids. And robots. And maybe cyborgs. Look, the terminology isn't important JUST LOOK AT THE PHOTOS

I, Robot (I have never seen this film):

Bicentennial Man: (This film fills me with sorrow, god, I can't even remember if this is what he actually looked like ever):

Kryten:

I mean-

Data:

"Actroid"(this would be really boring for us; it's just a person, especially when tiny and pixellated. I guess the same goes for Data but he is wearing a cowboy hat and I can't bring him down.):

Asimo:

C3PO and R2 (something non humanoid would be pretty cool, actually):

For example, my favourite Star Wars robot:

ROBOCOP

Terminator (also just a human with skin, albeit a hulking Arnie)

and the jerk terminator (DOGGET NO)

I don't know whether we want to define a world and then figure out what robots they would love and nurture or come up with a rad design and fit the world to it or WHAT

ROBOTS

Whether for character design inspiration or just pure entertainment, check this out. Awesome robots!

http://www.youtube.com/user/BostonDynamics

Things in the game

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Key

GREEN - Definitely happening.
YELLOW - Probably happening, need confirmation.
RED - No idea whether it's happening.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Basically I really need feedback on everything red or yellow, as it effects the code, story, artwork, and overall quantity of work we all have to do. The sooner I know the better.

Just to expand on some ideas...

Mini Games: When I say mini games I mean anything that takes us to a new interface (except the inventory).

I like the idea of having a reoccurring puzzle that's just part of the game mechanic, something like the Elder Scrolls lock-picking system, or maybe something like this for repairs/upgrades: 

Are we having a fake operating system?

Conversation System: Interface needs discussion, as in are we going to have text floating above their heads (like in The Dig), text in a box (like in Gemini Rue), or a new screen (like in Gabriel Knight: Sins of Fathers)? Or something else entirely?

Protagonist -> Stats : We discussed upgradable parts and combat systems, if we're doing either of these things we need to decide on a system.

Camera -> Pan -> Up/Down : This is self explanatory right? We need to decide this soon!

NPC -> Click to Interact -> Animation : Having a "facial expression" conversation system would eliminate any need for animation cutting down work, (unless we did animated faces within the conversation system).

NPC -> Buddy : Did I dream that we talked about a "click on your buddy to generate a hint" system?

Environment -> Click to Interact -> Doors to Access Connected Environments -> Animated or Static Images: What's the setting and how shall we make the door mechanic work?

Audio -> Voice : Personally I don't think voice acting adds anything to a game, and can detract a lot from the overall quality when done badly. Just my opinion though. What do other people think?

Walking Dead game.

http://www.telltalegames.com/walkingdead

I have high hopes for this, looks like an interesting game mechanic. Nice artwork too. It's getting released tomorrow, you can get 10% off if you order it today so just wanted to give you guys a heads up in case you're interested.

I'm going to get it. For research of course.

"Asset Creation" explained

This is not an amendment to the previous asset creation posts. I realise from your collective feedback that I was doing a pretty crap job of communicating (sorry about that) so I'm going to try to explain things more clearly.

Basically when we put sprites into the game the way it works is it reads that image file in a vertical order at a set height and width. So take this example: This is what the entire file looks like.

You could tell it to divide the file up into 128 by 128 pixel "rectangles", resulting in this output:

It only reads from the top left hand corner in the y direction, but you can offset it in the x direction by adding the width to the default value (which is 0). Here is an example of the output of a 32 by 64 pixel rectangle offset by (1 x width) in the x direction:

Since I'm offsetting using the width rather than a different value each time, every graphic needs spacing at equal distances. Here is a diagram to summarise everything I've just said:

The game automatically calculates the size of the file and will apply the cropping to everything in that file equally. The best way to store images in this manner is to put similar sized images together in one file. Here is an example from the last game I made.

File ONE:

File TWO:

In that game the image file was processed horizontally. This game processes things vertically. Either way, same principle.

As you will notice from the last image, there is an awkward quantity of white space at the end, which leads me onto my next point, which is FOR CHRIST'S SAKE I'VE WRITTEN THIS SENTENCE 14 TIMES AND EVERY TIME I'VE TRIED TO EXPLAIN STUFF IT'S RESULTED IN A LONG WINDED MATHS EQUATION. ...sigh. Ok, try again.

• Image's must fit within bn1 by bn2 pixel rectangles.
• Similarly, file dimensions have to equal bn3 by bn4 pixels.
• bn1 must be less than or equal to bn3.
• bn2 must be less than or equal to bn4.

Does this make sense?

Anyway, here are some templates I made for you:

https://www.dropbox.com/home/Public/Templates

"size.psd" is the above image and has a load of stuff that is the exact size's I'm talking about when I refer to "bn". Unless we have bullets we probably won't have any 2 x 1 pixel image files, but note that the bn sequence can go in any direction. Easiest way to figure it out is just to think of the binary equivalent. (0, 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000, 100000 etc). 

The ones called "environment template [something].psd" are for environment artwork.

Basically the light blue boxes are the size of the screen. The character will always appear on top of the "background" layer, and behind the "foreground".

Save "environment template multilayer" as png-24 and "environment template standard" as png-8 as described in the last asset creation post.

I'm going to implement a camera panning system so feel free to make the environment larger than the screen size in any direction. 

Hopefully I've done a better job explaining stuff this time round, but as usual ask questions and call me out on it if I start assuming you know something you don't or don't know something you do.