Project M Social Thread

[standardtoaster]

Awful jpg file?

 

[Ecks]

P:M camera is 9000 times better than regular brawl. If the zoom speed were a bit faster it'll be perfect imo.

And the "awful jpg" you mention looks pretty good to me. It's even easier on the eyes. :D

And about the FD thing, I use the blue FD mixed with the tabuu BG (They're both on BVault). It looks insanely good.

 

[MonkUnit]

Link to that plz

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

No offense to who made it but I was really disappointed to see it packaged in with the demo and hear that it will probably be packaged with the finished product, too.

It just looks bad. The resolution is pretty low, the colors don't fit, etc. If you guys want to update the menus to give the game it's own feel, I am totally down with that, just get a graphic design professional to do it. There has to be someone in this community with a strong artistic talent that can create a beautiful interface for Project M. The worst thing you guys can do is let coders design your UI. When that happens we tend to end up with something like this:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/11/this-is-what-happens-when-you-let-developers-create-ui.html

This is obviously a strong exaggeration, but when developers design UIs we tend to end up with interfaces and menus that could have looked a lot better, because they don't have training or talent for art or design. This isn't a slam on developers, it's just a practical reality: how many of you guys have rejected prettier software and continue to use older versions or outdated programs because they don't conform to your workflow or you don't care what they look like? Your average codemonkey or power user has like 600 firefox windows open at the same time and wants a different tab for each of them on the windows start bar. You use unskinned pidgin because it works and takes less system resources. Your desktop background may or may not be a playboy or underwear model. In short, you care less.

The other end is different. He or she probably has a desktop that looks like some art project on deviantart, has 7 icons he is planning to move somewhere else so he can see his desktop background, or uses a Mac.

Your UI should really try to please both the guy on the extreme end (for good press) and the guy in between, who wants the functionality and the beauty. The current Brawl interface does a really nice job at doing this, although there are a lot of organizational problems with it and I won't deny that. The melee interface is lightning fast and does everything you need it to, but is old now and suffers from low-res images, bad color distribution, and is occasionally a little confusing. It's more difficult to see that now because for most of you, the melee interface is familiar and you can probably navigate the thing without looking.

Full disclosure I'm kind of a UI nerd and I've read dozens of articles and blogs on GUIs and such, so I have a lot of opinions on them.

 

[ValTroX]

Ecks, can you upload your FD please?

 

[MonkUnit]

No offense to who made it but I was really disappointed to see it packaged in with the demo and hear that it will probably be packaged with the finished product, too.

It just looks bad. The resolution is pretty low, the colors don't fit, etc. If you guys want to update the menus to give the game it's own feel, I am totally down with that, just get a graphic design professional to do it. There has to be someone in this community with a strong artistic talent that can create a beautiful interface for Project M. The worst thing you guys can do is let coders design your UI. When that happens we tend to end up with something like this:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/11/this-is-what-happens-when-you-let-developers-create-ui.html

This is obviously a strong exaggeration, but when developers design UIs we tend to end up with interfaces and menus that could have looked a lot better, because they don't have training or talent for art or design. This isn't a slam on developers, it's just a practical reality: how many of you guys have rejected prettier software and continue to use older versions or outdated programs because they don't conform to your workflow or you don't care what they look like? Your average codemonkey or power user has like 600 firefox windows open at the same time and wants a different tab for each of them on the windows start bar. You use unskinned pidgin because it works and takes less system resources. Your desktop background may or may not be a playboy or underwear model. In short, you care less.

The other end is different. He or she probably has a desktop that looks like some art project on deviantart, has 7 icons he is planning to move somewhere else so he can see his desktop background, or uses a Mac.

Your UI should really try to please both the guy on the extreme end (for good press) and the guy in between, who wants the functionality and the beauty. The current Brawl interface does a really nice job at doing this, although there are a lot of organizational problems with it and I won't deny that. The melee interface is lightning fast and does everything you need it to, but is old now and suffers from low-res images, bad color distribution, and is occasionally a little confusing. It's more difficult to see that now because for most of you, the melee interface is familiar and you can probably navigate the thing without looking.

Full disclosure I'm kind of a UI nerd and I've read dozens of articles and blogs on GUIs and such, so I have a lot of opinions on them.

We have about 3 GFX Professionals in the PMBR. Orca(DanX), SHeLL, and someone else who I have forgotten their name. All in all, we do have GFX designers.

Also, if you really hate the menu that much, get someone else or yourself to give it a try. I'd love to see what you could come up with.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

MonkUnit, if you want I can give it a conceptual try. I don't know the dimensions or specifications for each screen element though. How much control do you have over each button/element? I know you were trying to completely recreate the Melee menus but ran into some technical problems.

In addition, the brawl background is an animation and I have no expertise in that field.

 

[standardtoaster]

imma get some more matches up soon

 

[MonkUnit]

You can download the menu file and open it up in BrawlBox, scroll down to the TextureData[0] and there will be the textures(images) that the menu uses, just look for them, export, open up in a program like photoshop, then edit, put back into BrawlBox, then load it up in brawl. If you need more help with that, ask in the BrawlBox Q&A thread.

Ecks, can you upload your FD please?

Agreed, please upload your blue tabuu FD thing. I'd make sure to show it off on stream for you as well.

 

[MonkUnit]

nevermind this

 

[JCaesar]

As long as the background is dark, I don't really care much what it looks like.

 

[Crispy4001]

imma get some more matches up soon

Yay! Good to finally see more youtube videos up with the new fixes.

 

[Shadic]

MonkUnit, if you want I can give it a conceptual try. I don't know the dimensions or specifications for each screen element though. How much control do you have over each button/element? I know you were trying to completely recreate the Melee menus but ran into some technical problems.

In addition, the brawl background is an animation and I have no expertise in that field.

And thus you've run into the problem. It's not hard to conceptualize a good looking menu. Nor is it very hard to make mockups of one. Getting the thing in game and working properly? That is hard. As far as I know, nobody has had full control of the palette colors for many of the things needed to get a proper full menu done in to the extent that we wanted, nor has anybody shown any true ability to edit buttons as far as we would like.

There's literally tens of thousands of palette color entries that haven't been documented, many of which had to simply be ignored for the menu used in the demo because I had about a week to push out a design with 99% of the assets made single-handedly at the same time. The current menu has well over 200 pictures edited in the game file.

tldr; It's very easy to look it criticize, but very hard to "put your money where your mouth is."

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Well, I acknowledge that, which is why I suggested leaving the Brawl menu as-is. If you can't do it right, don't fix what isn't broken. :|

 

[ClinkStryphart]

is this the FD you guys are talking about? because I think it looks pretty cool but thats just me.

http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=18161

 

[Vigilante]

I think JCaesar's binary code means "Sorry, I'm spoken for" or maybe "Sorry, I'm taken" or something along those lines.

And everyone who says this feels like Brawl, three things:

1. The demo we have lacks a few things like Melee landing detection.
2. THe data was all taken from Melee with Melee characters and they worked from there.
3. I don't know where you get your illusions from. Maybe character models.

 

[MonkUnit]

is this the FD you where talking about because I think it looks pretty cool but thats just me.

http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=18161

Man this looks awesome. I'll give it a try soon.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Please use that in the official release!

 

[GP&B]

Well, I acknowledge that, which is why I suggested leaving the Brawl menu as-is. If you can't do it right, don't fix what isn't broken. :|

But Brawl's default menu style is sooo boring :C

 

[Eternal Yoshi]

Exactly. It's mainly to further distinguish it from other hacks of Brawl.

Making a menu that looks good AND WORKS IN GAME is not an easy task.

 

[curry9186]

How does the camera for PM's stages work? I've noticed that on moving stages like Halberd and Delfino Plaza that it reverts to brawl camera (basically zooms way out) after the stage has done one complete cycle.

 

[MonkUnit]

That "glitch" was also in vBrawl. It's not intentional at all, it's just a bug in Sakurai & co's ****ty programming.

 

[Ecks]

Sorry for the delay. Was in class.

http://www.mediafire.com/?pmo1at3h8i71wmo

I just put two stages together so don't thank me, thank the authors lol

Edit: I literally did this the minute I saw both stages in the FD section. :D

 

[MonkUnit]

i'll load that up and use it some time today

 

[Ulevo]

And thus you've run into the problem. It's not hard to conceptualize a good looking menu. Nor is it very hard to make mockups of one. Getting the thing in game and working properly? That is hard. As far as I know, nobody has had full control of the palette colors for many of the things needed to get a proper full menu done in to the extent that we wanted, nor has anybody shown any true ability to edit buttons as far as we would like.

There's literally tens of thousands of palette color entries that haven't been documented, many of which had to simply be ignored for the menu used in the demo because I had about a week to push out a design with 99% of the assets made single-handedly at the same time. The current menu has well over 200 pictures edited in the game file.

tldr; It's very easy to look it criticize, but very hard to "put your money where your mouth is."

Shadic is correct. It isn't easy modifying the menus; some barely have any ways to handle them without hex editing, and that feels pretty complicated. In order to make a stylish CSS menu, I had to directly import the background from the menu in to the CSS menu, and even then there were some palettes I couldn't edit. Let alone editing actual buttons.

 

[Zef]

ecks i luv u

 

[MonkUnit]

and now, a word from a new person

 

[Ecks]

I remember that awesome concept shanus had for a PM menu. But it just wasn't possible to make (Maybe in the future?).

@Zef. Why thank you very much :D

If anyone wants to put that stage on BVault go ahead. I won't be doing so myself since I don't have an account there.

Edit: Monk that was hilarious and too true. lol

 

[GP&B]

lmao, Redd. That's hilarious.

 

[himynameisruss]

wouldn't it be 2x smaller?

i'm confused.

 

[GP&B]

wouldn't it be 2x smaller?

i'm confused.

Brawl = Wii game.

Wii games = normal CD size.

 

[Eternal Yoshi]

GD06, you do realize that you beat Shanus for the most posts in this thread right?

Anyway, that camera issue may be due to there being an animation for the StgPosition or for having multiple StgPositions that activate under certain conditions.
For example, Shadow Moses Island has 2 different StgPositions;

One for when the towers aren't broken and the other for when the towers are destroyed.

 

[leelue]

tomorrow, smashfest with Wes and crew. videos will be saved. **** will be committed.

 

[T_T]

when I think of Kirby, I think of his inhale move. That's pretty much it, and is the most interesting aspect of his character =/. Remember that silly kirbycide inhale trick that everyone did when we sucked at this game? What if that was changed to be consistently usable? maybe the kirby player could decide when to dump out the opponent himself or something.

Or maybe kirby could gain some sort of larger advantage upon stealing an oppenent's power than he does now. It would be cool if he revolved around getting a successful inhale to get the edge in a match-up, because his inhale separates him from the rest of the cast in my opinion.

I think such gimmicks like the swallowcide should be kept alone. It would be too potent an ability if made consistently usable. Kirby was really horrible in melee: piss poor combos, only character without chain grab at all, laughable grabs, poor mobility, overall heavily limited options to deal actually get in and deal damage and many other things. As someone who has used kirby from 64 to brawl (well In melee not too much) I firmly believe the swallowcide should just be left alone.
At most inhale could have an increase in range, because a ledge hoped inhale can be can be useful to have as a possible option. The ability it's self isn't so valuable as is the the fact that it may make your opponent hesitant when your recovering from the ledge. I don't think Kirby's inhale or swallow should be made a defining aspect of his metagame. It's just too variant with all the different possible match ups. He could maybe use a buff in copy ability in a really tough match ups like Marth and Samus and it should not be possible for him to be punished after swallowing certain characters.

 

[Supreme Dirt]

Couldn't you also break out of Kirby's grab during his throw animations?

Also I'm going to give designing a menu a try. I'm going to go for the best of the menus of all 3 games, brawl, melee, and 64.

 

[Shadic]

Also I'm going to give designing a menu a try. I'm going to go for the best of the menus of all 3 games, brawl, melee, and 64.

Would like to see it if you can get it in-game.

 

[T_T]

Couldn't you also break out of Kirby's grab during his throw animations?

Out of forward and back throw in melee. They weren't spectacularly amazing when they actually did hit anyways. They had the ability to suicide both you and your opponent but it was pretty impractical and I certainly didn't miss it in brawl.
On the subject of his throws I am happy with the apparent change in his back throw, that is exactly what I would have hoped to have done with it (low angle to get them off stage and ready for gimping). One aspect of brawl Kirby that I always liked was his nice grab game since he had a surprisingly large range and his forward throw could combo (at least until it was discovered it could be escaped usually). I hated what B+ did to it, and thought it would work well to give it an almost purely vertical trajectory (like 80 degrees) with enough BKB to pop them up to kirby's height when done at zero and low KBG. From the video's I couldn't really find exactly what had been done to it since chu used it very little. His up throw should be given more power to be a more reliable kill move like 64 kirby (but not quite so much). Even with 64 power up throw is ridiculously easy to DI on reaction since it has a long winded animation, so it still wouldn't be that special. I thought down throw should have been turned into a chain grab in melee (in particular one that would work on Marth) since this was something he completely lacked in melee. It looks like an effective tech chase move and maybe possible chain grab from what I saw when chu used it.

 

[MonkUnit]

Leelue, make sure to get Wes to update his stuff and use the full build.

 

[moleman915]

Im definitley diggin' the Tabuu background over FD. I would actually kind of recommend it for the patch. It looks 1000 times more professional than the current sloppy background.

 

[MonkUnit]

I worked on the current BG.

/notanartist