RPG Maker VX News

To Those Who Make Their Own Materials

Posted November 26th, 2007 at 5:12am CST by Jaceryl

Enterbrain has announced the newest piece of information about RPG Maker VX. As spoken by Arts Kawashima:

I believe everybody is aware of the fact that RPG Maker has a large amount of sample pictures and music compiled for it. Of course, as we've already informed you, VX will also have quite a bit of material prepared for it.

Among you, there are some that are raring for a challenge, saying that they'll "make [their] own pictures and create a game brimming with originality!" As far as I can see, there are quite a few of these people, huh? You may use the samples at first, but little by little the desire to include more originality will become stronger. As I mainly make games with just the sample materials, I'm rather envious of those people who long for a challenge. If I were somebody who could draw, I'd totally want to use my own pictures to produce a game.

So, wondering what kind of materials to prepare for those people in the Maker community, we will introduce the "Standard Materials" as a sort of aid.
Of course, I want to create materials, but I always want to support the feelings of those who invest in originality.

With the standard materials temporarily made known before the release date, you can begin making your own music and pictures now and be able to immerse yourself in your work-in-progress the moment you get your hands on VX.

And as such, tomorrow, Tsukuuru Web will introduce the Standard Materials! The subject matter will be rather thick (there will also be a lot of points with set rules).

What great news for those people who want to start preparing their own original material right now!

Pagination

Posted November 24th, 2007 at 9:00am CST by Durandal

I've updated the mainsite to utilize pagination. (OHHH yeeaaah!) Now you don't end up loading every single news post when you look at the mainsite.
(to see the pagination, scroll to the bottom)

Also, it now includes "GUID" pages so that you can link to specific news posts. (for example, the link to this news post is RPGMakerVX.com/post37)

We Made a Poster

Posted November 22nd, 2007 at 4:09am CST by Jaceryl

Enterbrain has announced the newest piece of information about RPG Maker VX. As spoken by Toshie:

There's just over a month until the release date, and little by little, we're getting promotional goods ready for the release. Of those, the one that really caught my eye was the body-sized poster! Using the package illustrations as a motif, it was quite the rare gem.

I immediately went to the sales department to grab the item and headed over to the Cyber City.


30 minutes later, I arrived in Akihabara, equipped with the item in question.

Midway through, I had an unexpected run-in with a shop keeper who was suspicious of me when I stole a glance at a maid girl. However, I was able to finish my duty as a sandwich man... or something like that.

For some reason, some foreign news corps used me for material after this.

 
Even soldiers need to take a rest. I got stumped over whether to have the canned ramen or canned oden stew.

I had to go through some unexpected guerrilla-tactic propaganda warfare, but the military gains were well worth it. That's it-- mission complete, Director M!


That's enough for today.

Promotional Video, The Secret "Making-Of" Story (Part 2)

Posted November 21st, 2007 at 5:39am CST by Jaceryl

Enterbrain has announced the newest piece of information about RPG Maker VX. As spoken by Arts Kawashima:

I'll now continue with yesterday's story on the making of the RPG Maker VX Promotional Video. We had finished the video part, and all we had left was to choose a BGM and include a narration.

For the BGM, we wanted to have an RPG-like song prepared; a song that was pop-oriented, but also held the impression of classical. We tried out and changed a few songs, but in the end we settled on one that sounded kind of cool and fit the mood of the original aim.

Who Became the Voice Actor?

Now, the problem was finding a voice for the narration that wouldn't fall short of the BGM. From the beginning, we had planned on using a professional voice actor. If possible, we needed somebody who had an able voice, was young, and had the ability to learn by ear. On top of that, we wanted a voice with impact, somebody who could cheerfully and stylishly read the script.
Yes... to tell the truth, when I thought of the script itself, one person floated through my head. For me, I had already pretty much decided.
That person was Tomokazu Seki!

A male voice actor that I'm very fond of myself. My hand is also burning red, telling me to smash this script to pieces!*
No, recently he's been the the shop owner, hasn't he? Girl A Shift---!!**
... *cough* Excuse me.

Hmm, either way we were fired up... We can do it! We can do it with this! ... a smile floated across my face as we began work on the script.
We finally got a letter addressed to the office, saying that Seki would be able to commit if we could do it in about 2~3 hours on a single day. We'd done it! ... but wow, just how popular is this person...?

The Day of the Recording

We held the recording in a studio within the city. Seki entered the room in a cheerful mood, giving a side glance to me, my teeth chattering ever so slightly at the site of him. For having a career spanning longer than 10 years, he was still quite easily approachable.



As we handed the script over, we immediately set up to do a read over as a test. We were instructed to wait in the editing booth, while Seki remained in the stuidio that had a microphone. With the instructions given by the video department, all I had to do was sit in the back and watch the events unfold.
It was so skillfully done that my limbs went numb.

The first read through was a little docile.
Seki turned to us, asking how it was on the video staff's end. Half-jokingly, I made the comment "if I had to say, that was more like Sousuke***, so I'd like to hear the Shop Owner, you know?", to which a cheerful voice from the speaker responded "understood!" It seems Seki had heard me. Oh, how embarrassing...



From then on, the recording went very well. As one should expect of a voice actor, Seki added intonations and inflections to his performance during parts I hadn't expected. Especially the "V~~~~~X!" falsetto, which was a hit with me, personally. When we were asked if we'd like to re-record, we said it was okay as it was.

So, without performing a second recording, we did a number of tests and fine tuned a few small areas, finishing everything up rather quickly.

When you watch the video, I think you'll be able to understand and feel the vigor present as you listen. The final product is enjoyable and exciting. Just the promotional video itself may not be enough to satisfy, but I hope you can wait a little longer now that you have this.

As long as you enjoy it, I'm satisfied. I hope you'll recommend the promotional video to your friends and everybody around you. I'm counting on you, everyone!

TL Note: These parts are all references to Tomokazu Seki's voice work.
*Domon Kasshu, G Gundam
**The Shop Owner, Lucky Star
***Sagara Sousuke, Full Metal Panic!

Promotional Video, The Secret "Making-Of" Story (Part 1)

Posted November 20th, 2007 at 4:18am CST by Jaceryl

Enterbrain has announced the newest piece of information about RPG Maker VX. As spoken by Arts Kawashima:

Today the RPG Maker VX Promotional Video was released on Tsukuuru Web. You'll all take a look, won't you? We've really worked hard on making it, so I hope you all give it a watch!

I'll add a link on this page as well, so by all means, please feel free to give it a look. I also recommend that you right click the link and select "save file as" in order to store and view the file on your hard drive, since it's possible the video won't be able to be properly viewed online due to connection speed and time of day.

High-Res (720x480) Version (44.1MB)
Low-Res (416x240) Version (23.7MB)
*Both videos are the same. The run-time is 3 minutes.
* There is also a 30 second video available on Amazon. (The link is underneath the "more images" buttons)



Working on the Video

We made a promotional video for our previous work, XP. However, I was mainly focused on explaining the highlights of the software, so the creation of the movie was largely out of my hands.

This time, as I wanted the thoughts conveyed by the Maker staff to reach the audience, I've been completely involved in the project from beginning to end. The entire process took two months-- it was a long one. However, I believe we have made a video that will be well received.

Image Quality vs File Size

After deciding to make the amount of text in the video minimal, we began photographing raw material to accompany the text we would have.

However, when it came time to take shots of the the Maker operating on the PC, we found that running a recording and taking pictures simultaneously with our normal work computer was... well, we noticed that we didn't have the proper specs. It's not that the specs were that small or anything... I guess video recordings do take a good amount of power.

So, we prepared a PC with specs just high enough. Despite this, it came to light that the normal equipment we used for photographing bunched up the text on the screen. We began to discuss the fact that there was no point if we didn't take pictures in high resolution, so we expanded our monitor, saying that a bigger one should fix the issue.
And so, we once prepared an higher spec PC. It cost us quite the penny, but we took the plunge hoping to display the video on a very nice screen.

Because of this, we were able to take shots that were smooth and pretty. Greatly delighted with the state of affairs, we shot 20 seconds of test footage. When the size of said file reached over 1 GB, we couldn't say that all the staff present were exactly resolute.
One problem after another. With a brand new hard drive and the memory of a dizzyingly enormous file size, the operation began.

Thanks to the Video Staff

Of course, you can't make a promotional video just with the raw images as an animation. It's necessary to order the shots well and add proper effects to make a nice, clean product.

As you'd expect, we had to leave this part up to the professionals. We asked the video staff working on "Famicon Wave" to help us with this. They really put their all into it. I'm sorry to add such private matters into this blog, but I'm going to borrow this area and extend our thanks to the video staff.
After giving out a shriek because of our inability to make any progress with such a huge file size, we wondered if we would be successful or not. However, the video staff took on the task of creating a satisfactory video for us from there on. And without altering from a single one of our detailed instructions, they slowly brought the movie to completion.

Having come to this point, the last issue was the music and sound. The biggest worry was the voice of the promotional video. We began to hold discussions about who we would have play this critical role...
We'll continue this story next time.

Comments...

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ... 10