State of Topaz: December 5th, 2011
Hey everyone, activity has been on the rise the past few days so let's keep up that trend, shall we? Especially considering that Konrad is still around and alive, and is waiting on just one particular thing. So let me settle down and lay out what's been done in the past six months and what needs to be done in the immediate and distant future. Especially since it's getting close to the 7th year of our existence, so we really should try to outpace Duke Nukem Forever's development...
Our Next Steps was a plan I had to increase focus on certain projects by having you guys lead what you felt you were capable of. It worked for about two weeks before spectacularly failing, but I still think that the idea is solid, so if you see any projects that were left around by their leaders (basically everything besides pokemon.txt and script writing) just sign up at the Project Group Signup to make a little bit of Topaz yours.
Another big announcement I have to make is the revival of the Pokemon Topaz Text RPG. The TRPG, as a lot of you know, was in the production for a while before it got mothballed for several reasons. However, I think the thing that most bogged us down was that it seemed like there was a lot of work, since we were trying to make things too fancy and complicated. This time, we'll settle down and focus on what's really necessary to make the TRPG tick before adding fancy things. And honestly, there isn't a lot to do for that to happen considering we have all the sprites we need and road infrastructure etc. So at this current moment we need two things. I need a leader for the project, and people to sign up who want to work on the TRPG full time. I keep on getting PMs from people saying "I can't sprite I can't program what can I do?" Well, this is something you can do, which is something we haven't had in a while since so much of our data and scripts related stuff is either done or on the contributor forum. Second, I need someone who knows Java or something to help create a damage calculator or find one that isn't stealing from someone else.
Pokemon.txt is the current big project we're working on. Konrad has listed this as a major requirement towards the completion of the demo. We've done a fair amount of it, but there are still a bunch left to be done for the demo. This is an excellent place to contribute heavily, and does not require any sort of programming knowledge or artistic talent. Let's finish this by Christmas, I know we can do it!
MeekRhino has been working on and off on a shiny Safari Zone map. If you read through the topic, you can see a nice progression leading to the production of beautifully mapped areas in which players will frolic... or something. In any case, he is the leader for the Mapping project in general, so if you would like to learn how to map (it's not too difficult) just post on one of his topics and one of us will assign you something to do.
On the subject of mapping, one of our newer members, junker has made us some absolutely beautiful maps of Portwind City, Saharan City and Skobeloff Town. The images are too big to post here, but I highly suggest you check them out here.
Cranky guy, after puttering around trying his hand at various things (now that Pokedex Entries are finished), has found a little something to do. He's been creating overworld sprites for Cirroft and Lupine, so that our Pokemon can be represented in the overworld just like all the other canon Pokemon. They aren't finished yet but in the topic you can see the prototypes, and I already can't wait to see how they look when they're done. So, if you support Topazmon representation, pop on over to the topic and help give him some critique or encouragement, or even maybe a contribution of your own!
Since we all crave a little bit of image to break up all this text, why not check out the new Unicrown back sprite?
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4506/unicrownedit.png
Expect to see more, now that my time is freeing up, and I'm not feeling repetitive stress disorder from doing 20-hour 6' x 2.5' pen drawings for my studio art course. This, of course is part of Reliability's project to revamp the backsprites we have that just aren't quite up to par. You can find the work here and find out what needs to be done here, if you are feeling artistically inclined. Even if you don't feel your spriting skills are quite good enough, try anyway! Your fellow Topaz members (or maybe it's just me?) are willing to collaborate with you to make each sprite better and better.
Reliability's other project, trainer sprites, has been bearing fruit too. Check out his cool new sprites for Simon, Alisa and Bradley:
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/8784/simonsprite.pnghttp://img9.imageshack.us/img9/3550/alisasprite.pnghttp://img831.imageshack.us/img831/8274/bradleybags.png
They've got looks, youth and attitude, as you'll see in the script Reliability has also been working on (except in the Contributor forums, we have to make you wait for something!) If there are three things I'm sure Reliability loves though, it's help, critiques and encouragement so if you feel like you can offer any of these, skip right over to the Trainer Sprite topic and throw in your two cents.
In terms of Concept Art, our resident ninja graphic artists One-Winged-Chaos and Phoenixsong have each submitted a similarly cute piece of two different Pokemon. The former dazzles us with his gaping Mogel
http://pokemontopaz.net/uploads/art/mogel2.png
whereas the latter wows us with a now fully coloured-in Jirachi:
http://pokemontopaz.net/uploads/art/jirachi3.png
You can check both of these out in the context of other awesome art in the concept art page of our site.
More stalwart participants in the Topaz community, such as Reliability, Tyrannigon64 and Cranky Guy, have also been busy at the drawing table.
Reliability has been busy whipping up the character concepts that would later be used for the Alisa, Bradley and Simon sprites.
Tyrannigon64 has provided come cute and quirky pieces of Topaz Pokemon.
Cranky Guy has been trying his hand at drawing Topazmon on Paint, and has been improving!
Finally, we have an epic Leoracle by weavile:
http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...60-d3ix2ll.png
Still on the graphical side, some of our items have received lovely sprites by various contributors.
The only one that is more or less complete by now is Tyrannigon64's Magic Herb:
http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg841...png&res=medium
However, Solar Cell, Toxic Slime and Sacred Veil are all being worked on and you can follow their development here.
As always we need movesets of canon Pokemon revamped with Topaz movesets, help SilentSentinel stay motivated here by helping out! I don't get it, actually. People couldn't wait to give Topaz Pokemon movesets, why not canonmon?
Alright, my hand grows weary, which is a good thing I guess. I'm sure there's a bunch of things over the past 6 months that I've missed, but I've touched upon a lot of it. So to recap the three most important things:
1. TTRPG Revival
2. Help with Pokemon.txt!
3. Let's get the demo out ASAP!
