How I got watercolor paintings into RPG Maker MV - Devlog #3

[@KelseyRodriguez]

I'm not even interested in game dev but as a traditional artist and oil painter this was so cool to see! After the movie "loving Vincent" in 2014 that was painted frame by frame in oils I'm definitely crossing my fingers that someone does some kind of game where all the assets are in oils!

[@mischa3343]

Loving Vincent is an incredible movie! Absolutely gorgeous. Oils would look fantastic as a game aesthetic

[@JovenGalleno]

How ingenious! Actually, this could work not just for watercolor but any art style. I admire your creativity and resourcefulness. Also, it's really tedious to make this especially if your game is a very large game. Imagine how it would fare if you make each map into watercolor like this. You're an underrated video creator. Hoping you'd get more subscribers someday

[@mischa3343]

Wow! I'm so, so flattered, that's one of the nicest things I've heard, thank you so much! :) Yes haha it is very tedious to make all the maps like this. There are 4 other large maps and a few interior maps that I did in watercolor and it has taken many hours of my life haha. I'm hoping to streamline the process now that I have a tablet. Oh and yes, anyone can use these techniques for any art style! Would be exciting to see anyone take these techniques and use it for themselves. Thanks so much again! I have so many other KZbin vids I want to make, but KZbin takes a lot of time. Cheers!

[@whyishoudini]

Wow this is a total game changer for me. I can't do pixel art for shit but pencil and paint in good at. I've been so hung up on the finding a tilesets that matches my art and vision,

[@mischa3343]

Hahahaha, I feel you man, I'm def much stronger at pencil and paint as well. I'm glad it helped for your process and vision. I think there is still value in tilesets to supplement parallax mapping as only using parallax is very time and resource intensive. But the outcome is worth it, personally. Also this technique is literally a game changer as it's changed our games, visually *badum tish*. I'll see myself out.

[@BURGRKNG]

This is really cool! I've never seen an art style like this in a JRPG before, this is super inspiring.

[@mischa3343]

Thank you, much appreciated! Parallax mapping is great, really makes it possible for any art style.

[@jamicassidy7955]

I love this. One idea that could simply make things easier, is to make a water-colour version of the tileset itself. Then you can use the same work in many maps and no need to double-up with layered work for collisions, etc. You did briefly mention why you prefer not to, but still. RMMZ is also much better for optimisation than MV, but different plugins, sometimes.

[@fluffdragonpurrsonal6287]

Really beautiful! I’m excited to see how your game progresses, it looks amazing so far.

[@mischa3343]

Thanks so much Kamina! You believing in me makes me believe in myself! In all seriousness, thanks again haha. Progress always feels slow, but I can't wait to show everyone more progress + tutorials.

[@LotusKay36]

8:42 Great video, a pro-tip: make sure to right click on your stitched watercolor layer and set it as a “Smart Object” before you do anything to the scaling of the layer. This will retain the details of the art much better. Hope that helps!

[@mischa3343]

Yes very true! I think I rasterized it even though I should've made it a smart object, thank you!

[@LotusKay36]

Anytime man! Yeah as a raster layer you’ll loose pixel data anytime you scale the image but even though smart object layers aren’t vector in nature, they do a much better job of retaining the pixel data.

[@baddragonite]

Love the water color art style and the tutorial is well done, definitely gonna check out your game now :)

[@skullspirit6472]

thank you sir straight to the point, explaining normally, and overall it was very useful makin' a deltarune memey game, one of the locations were too hard to make by normal mapping so i went to use this method

[@mischa3343]

No worries! Soz late reply. Glad to hear that, sometimes I worry I'm over explaining or giving too much unnecessary detail so it's nice to hear. Haha deltarune memey game is it's own genre. This type of mapping is also hard in it's own way but gives more potential.

[@-LightSmit]

Amazing. This is where I draw the line and know that I’m no artist, rather spend the time on other aspects. Thanks for sharing!

[@sleepyprinny]

This is what I want! Custom assets and maps to really make things 'pop out!'

[@justfeckit]

This is really beautiful work! I've been considering getting into making an rpg with rpgmaker but I was wondering how to achieve a really painterly look (i also really love the art style of hades - though my favourite is still disco elysium) and it hadn't actually occurred to me to just... paint it... (I work in oils mostly so I would need to photograph it, but it's still totally doable). It's also so nice to see someone using reference - and I would really recommend it to everyone, even just sitting down and doing a few studies of something really helps you understand and sort of, visually interpret what you're seeing, as well as how best (quickest, simplest) to render it. I'm so glad I saw this video! And I agree about the supplies thing, I guess especially as an oil painter because it can get reallll pricey - but the limitations placed on you only force you to be more creative anyway. If you were wondering about ways to improve - I don't know that I'd do it at the rpgmaker template stage. I think you're probably better off thinking about it once you're drawing the actual parallax itself, and maybe do a few sketchier iterations first. You can go back to reference but more holistically, so rather than a tree, look at images of villages or market squares, you might see something that inspires you. Like a cat asleep on a pile of newspapers or a full bin in front of the newsagent. Little things that might make the world feel more whole that you can set up later as little dialogues. So while you're drawing the parallax you can think about it as its own image, rather than something functional in service to the game, maybe imagine that you're looking at a painting of your world, and what you might expect to find there. Old things, broken things, new growth, cracking paint, moss between the kerbstones or a lone poppy etcetc - especially if they can lend something thematic to the game. (A poppy - a soldier returns from war, marigolds - death is in the air, bunting - a party, or maybe it's factional, or both). And if you're having trouble thinking - just look through reference images or go away and watch a film. Look at everything in the scene - someone had to make those choices, scuff that boot, leave that towel in a pile on the floor. I'll tell you my favourite and then I'll let you go. There's a show called London Spy, and there's these two fellas who are at the very early stages of a burgeoning relationship. One is this quite posh, stoic but not aloof creature, and the other is more of a poor bohemian clubkid, they met when he was getting out of a club at 5am, and the other was going for a run. Anyway the clubkid is helping the posh one work through some shit he's not really equipped to deal with, and gives him a bath in his flat. And on a long cord, leading from the bath and out the door, is a kettle. As someone who grew up poor and had to rely on a kettle for a top up to the heat of the bath it just struck me as this completely beautiful, totally unremarked-upon, virtually unnoticeable piece of storytelling. And if you translate that over to games, it would be a non-interactable purely visual element that most players wouldn't even think twice about. But some would. So I guess what I'm saying is think twice. Sorry if you've thought all this already and apologies for the essay! Keep doing what you're doing!!

[@mischa3343]

Wow thank you! What an incredible comment! No need to apologize :) That sounds awesome, I highly encourage trying it out even if for experimentation, it's honestly such a thrill seeing your drawings take new forms and interacting with it. Yes, Disco Elysium's art style is also amazing and their influences from Eastern Euopean oil painters. I was originally wanting to put footage from Disco to show a variety of art styles, but in the end I instead chose strictly 2D examples as Disco Elysium's 3D assets might've made things a bit confusing. But it's still incredible of those devs expressing the visual language and techniques of classical oil paintings but done through digital drawings in their concept art + character portraits and through their 3D environmental world detail on both micro and macro scale. Like it actually feels like walking through an oil painting. I still need to finish that game ahhh there's too many great games. Really want to reply to all your points. Yes, real life studies and references are so important, purely drawing from imagination can only take one so far. You realize how much you don't know about the world until you try to connect what your eyes are interpreting and sending that information to your hand. I agree regarding art supplies as well! I've done a bit of oil painting back in the day and really enjoyed it but was scared by the price + drying times. Such a beautiful medium though. I stuck with watercolours from how economical, flexible and fun they are. Watercolours are pretty unforgiving though if you mess up, but it's fun learning how to integrate mistakes back into the painting and make it look intentional, compared to oils where it was super fun just pushing and pulling the different layers around the canvas over the course of days, like you're manipulating the fabric of reality. But yes, the limitations you mentioned also does force one to get creative! Yes! Totally agree with the point that when drawing the parallax you can think of it as it's own image rather than in service of the game, and it would create much more interesting results. The way I did it was born from a huge level of uncertainty of how to set up parallaxes in RPG Maker, especially from how everything such as game logic, warp points for doors, character movement and collisions are locked to an invisible grid. So I felt like I had to take the safest option by establishing a general layout in RPG Maker first, then have the drawing be birthed from that. But now after another 600 more hours on it and a lot of experimenting with plugins, I've found a way where you can pretty much ignore this grid + the constraints of RPG Maker, and you can import any drawing you wish and have RPG Maker bend to the drawing, rather than the drawing be in service to the engine. It's a lot of work but it's so much more rewarding and produces much more interesting results. Really want to share this method with everyone. The vid might end up being an hour long from how much more there is to explain, but I'm trucking along haha. "Old things, broken things, new growth, cracking paint, moss between the kerbstones or a lone poppy etcetc - especially if they can lend something thematic to the game. (A poppy - a soldier returns from war, marigolds - death is in the air, bunting - a party, or maybe it's factional, or both)" This is so beautiful, wow. Honestly very inspirational thinking about how one can capture these moments in a scene to bring the world more to life. London Spy sounds amazing I'll definitely check it out! Thank you for sharing it with me, and how it relates to your life experiences and how it connected with you. Yes haha it's likely that a lot of players might not notice details like that, but perhaps even those that don't notice these things, they might still absorb these details on a subconscious level. These details lending the world more credibility. But perhaps there's an opportunity to get creative with RPG Maker and have these elements be interactive in some way, but there's also nothing wrong with keeping them as purely visual. It's certainly something I want to focus more on for my own work, and those details are one of the biggest reasons why I love CRPGs like Baldur's Gate 2 and Planescape Torment, where it feels like you're walking through interactive, ornate paintings rich in detail and personality. Thank you again, I love essays! Made my morning waking up to this. Had to write all this with my left hand, doctor said to rest my sprained hand til start of Dec. Cheers, take care!

[@NightWitch14]

This is actually help me. I’ve always wanted to draw and make my own watercolour rpg maker just because I’ve always interested in the crossover between Traditional and digital.

[@mischa3343]

Hey sorry for the late reply, was a mission getting my new vid out. Thanks so much! Wishing you the best for your project!

[@tauheedgamedev2388]

Enjoyed watching your workflow and love the art

[@mischa3343]

Thanks heaps :)

[@FriedaGustavs]

If the map scrolling doesnt work well, and your character seems stuck, try to add a ! in front of the file name. In this case: !Village Picture.png

[@guitar5039]

THANK!!! you save my life

[@dietrichdietrich7763]

beautifully amazing idea! gives the engine world a fresher look. definitely for the real art geniuses to give their art some life too. this is definitely an big idea for the ultra-talented to implement.

[@spencerkitgo]

what a beautiful map! this video was extremely helpful and i appreciate how detailed you were with your explanations. im a beginner and i aspire to make my own game one day, and this was just the video i needed. super incredible and beautiful art process! thank you and keep up the good work.

[@mischa3343]

Thank you heaps! The vid's a bit outdated but I'm still proud of it. Aw thats great to hear! You can do it man, I think its still a very rewarding, creative hobby despite it being real difficult, I def encourage anyone to try dabble in RPG Maker or any gamedev software and see what cool things you can make on your own terms :)

[@mdonnelley]

I ended up buying a copy of your game after watching this video. Can’t wait to play it!

[@kuzu420]

experimenting is the best way to learn something and remember where what is, especially in a programs like this. I'm about to try it out someday

[@mischa3343]

Definitely, RPG Maker has infinite depth. Best of luck with your endeavours!

[@kuzu420]

@@mischa3343 thank you! ❤

[@Azucenary]

I thank you for this devlog, I didn’t think of this way to import a traditionally drawn map. I thought of importing each asset individually. The pro with your method is that you don’t have to scan as much. But you could mess up on the whole map. (Also you have to cut out certain things, and if you want to reuse assets). Thank you for showing this view. Because I think I will definitely use a lot of the things you have said in my projects. Thank you so much for this video! Your game looks amazing. Your art is beautiful.

[@mischa3343]

No worries, thanks for all the nice words 🙂 Yes definitely agree with how easy it is to mess up the whole map, and cutting out certain areas to use in other maps takes a lot of editing and testing to get right. Best of luck with your projects 😀

[@LisaW_lun]

Beautiful work and great explanation! It was the push I needed to try my hand at making a handdrawn rpgmaker game 💖

[@mischa3343]

Thanks heaps, and thats great, glad to hear 💖

[@blacke946]

Wowwww this is very creative and amazing!!!!

[@mischa3343]

Thank you!

[@sugu4065]

This helped soo much thank you

[@mischa3343]

No worries :)

[@Dingo_Latrans]

Hope you keep uploading

[@Fauziputra8976]

Oh thanks a lot. This helps a lot with Parallax mapping..

[@jarwong3991]

this is amazing! checked out your game, it's definitely a standout!

[@bapisteful]

Nice work ! thanks to have shared your workflow :)

[@mischa3343]

Tysm! :)

[@dotabayr]

This scenery is amazing! this is pure art!

[@senzacuscini]

Luv your videos! many thanks

[@Icelink256]

Ah, the good old parallax method! It's been a while since I've seen somebody use it so effectively! There's an old RPGmaker 2000 game that used this method, called "Sunset Over Imdahl"

[@mischa3343]

Yea haha good ol' parallax, and wow havent heard of Sunset, thats awesome

[@christorres9643]

My dude, this is amazing

[@jacobvalenzuela2546]

Great work. That map looks beautiful.

[@lisav.2600]

Brilliant, love this look. Thank you for a very helpful video, it's a really great idea

[@mischa3343]

My pleasure, thanks for watchin!

[@AStarkSnow]

Great video, thank you.

[@mischa3343]

Your welcome!

[@EldritchSkies]

super inspiring, thanks a lot for this

[@AnthyLoneExoria]

This is going to be really handy for making something for me, who also cannot sprite to save my soul but I'm getting good at different kinds of art! People should be able to work with Krita or PS alternatives to do digital art versions of this.

[@mischa3343]

Nice! Glad it can help you out. Yes definitely, you can use Krita or PS digital art instead of watercolors. Honestly I've gone so much further than this tutorial when looking back, but the plugins I'm using are lot more complicated and I'm slowly losing my sanity over the past few months. But the plugin here, TDDPBindToPictures, still works real well. Best of luck with your work!

[@EkaterinaSTADNIKOVA]

It looks just amazing!

[@deaconsims2]

i would love to see an rpg in this style great work.

[@pata-u8p]

Thank you so much!

[@purwantooke429]

Wow so beautiful 😍

[@neoproject_st]

beautiful

[@jameswatson7246]

I call this one, "Old Greg".

[@bademume449]

That’s pretty cool. A small tip, that totally irrelevant with the limitations of the rpg maker, but it almost always better to photograph watercolors than to scan them.

[@mischa3343]

Oh thats a cool tip! Can I ask why that might be? I'm guessing because photographing will capture the way light affects the painting as opposed to flat light from the scanner?

[@noova-art3876]

@@mischa3343 is because it makes the process easier c: it also makes it so that you can work on things with layers as well, so you don't need to clip the artwork when you scan it. Not only that, is easier to follow the grid when you are able to zoom in c: Also!! A another plug-in you can use for parallax mapping is orangeoverlay plug-in!! I use it for my game, and it gives you access to fog as well c: (1 last thing!! You can make sprites larger if you want to!! By doing that you need to name the sprites with a "$" on the start. This makes you use the size you want to use (my character is 2 tiles large than the normal size, which is 1 tile)

[@d36williams]

really lovely

[@adotd]

super helpful video, thanks so much for this!! your art is so lovely ❤️

[@mischa3343]

No worries, thanks so much 😊

[@kaizze8777]

I know this maybe late, Im a digital artist, and theres a process I can imagine using for my own game so Ill add my notes for you guys to see if interested: You can add new layer and draw on TOP of the template, then you build your art as you would be the under drawing being drawn around the template. Each foreground element you create as a separate layer which then makes a seamless cut which wont look wierd when characters walk behind stuff. this part is pretty much up to you but you can keep the foreground stuff on a separate layer and then map it back into RPGM. this hopefulyl translates to less time consumed.

[@mischa3343]

Nice! Never too late haha. I'm transitioning to digital drawing now that I can afford a tablet and the process of drawing atop a template with layers and separating foreground/background is so much more efficient, so I do recommend this comment. Saves days, if not weeks of work. GALV's Layer Graphics plugin instead of TDDPBindToPictures allows for dozens of layers instead of the max of 2-3 layers for TDDP, so I also recommend that. Still need to make a new vid on this plugin.

[@kaizze8777]

That's awesome man, yeah Its easy to take for granted that going from traditional to digital is not always easy. I checked out Galvs plugin and it really reminds me of Photoshop layers lol. I can see how multiple layers can really help out a workflow AND make your game more complex and interesting. As an artist that has LOADS of layers in a single piece that sort of thing is awesome.

[@kaizze8777]

@@mischa3343 I might also add that I'm exploring into photobashing my set pieces on the map, cartoonizing it all with actions and throwing it all back into MZ. I also love AI as a workflow so may update you on that. If you want we can connect outside of yt as I really love your art style XD

[@mischa3343]

@@kaizze8777 Hey soz for late reply, IRL stuff always ambushing. Haha yea Ive always felt intimidated by digital art because of the learning curve + cost of a tablet but once I could afford I just kept at it, failing over and over like a Dark Souls boss until I'm finally ok at it. But definitely the layers thing makes life sooo much easier, I def recommend Galvs plugin. That sounds real cool regarding photobashing and looking into AI haha, few people suggested I look into AI but after installing stable diffusion, it's like a whole other process of then feeding and training the AI your drawings etc and that's way too complex for me so I kinda gave up. Think AI might have a place in optimizing workflow somewhere and the artist can still be creative, I just can't think of a way atm. Oh yep I'm happy to connect, I don't use social media much but you can add me on discord if you want, my username is thinkingdistance. KZbin def isnt the best place for optimal chats. Thanks for the nice words!

[@qeshi]

This looks really nice!!

[@mischa3343]

Aw thank you so much!! 😃

[@CaptainNow2]

This is really lovely work. Liked and subbed!

[@mischa3343]

Thanks so much!

[@timothybellette8178]

Beautiful!

[@toddgilmore118]

Don't know how you pulled this off using water color, images, pasting, free hand drawings, couldn't imagine myself doing all that for a shitty reputation of RPG Maker's! Unity Maybe.

[@KawaiiRika206]

thank you

[@_axetrax1]

awesome work

[@mischa3343]

Thanks!

[@JustToSaveYou]

I'm working on my own project and my in engine maps consist of a floor tile, a wall tile, and a black tile for doors. Lol if you're putting in your own assets, you can get away with a really simple guide.

[@mischa3343]

Love the way more efficient process! There's a term called "greybox levels" where level designers would create levels using basic collisions + meshes with no textures to work out how a level would work and get feedback from QA to make adjustments before any of the final art/textures are created for the game, think this is the best way to work. Work out how the game plays best, then put the final textures/art at the very end once all that's done. Despite this video, I do think nailing gameplay is much more important than graphics/aesthetics. There's a bit in Indie Game the Movie as well which briefly shows how Jonathan Blow made Braid and how he figured out the mechanics/gameplay first using very basic assets, then added the oil painting aesthetic afterwards. He doesn't delve that deeply into it but still interesting.

[@shaheenart]

Great Job.👍

[@Ugan5]

Hmm... Another Level !! just me me Wow

[@spencer1531]

awesome vid!

[@jayfolk]

come for the JRPGs, stay for the art lesson.

[@mischa3343]

Hahaha great comment, thanks

[@op9000977]

wow nice work!!!

[@mischa3343]

Thanks so much!

[@Essiggurke-r2h]

this was a really cool video ! thank you :-) maybe it would make sense to draw things individually and as assests ? then you cn place them like oyu place the rpgmaker trees and you dont need to crop them ?

[@d4nim470r]

Que buen video

[@CosmicDuskWolf]

I use to have that same set of water color paint as a kid.

[@mischa3343]

Whaaaat that's sick! Omg smol world haha. Think that watercolor paint was my uncles before I was born in 1993. Still works 30+ years later! Watercolors are weirdly immortal.

[@CosmicDuskWolf]

@@mischa3343 I think mine either got used up all the way or lost in a move. I use to paint and do a lot of drawings as a kid. I do like how your game looks. Different from other RPG maker games.

[@mischa3343]

@@CosmicDuskWolf that's awesome wow, must've done a lot of paintings if you managed to use it up. Thank you! I feel like I'm walking through an endless desert making it. Thanks again. 🙂

[@CosmicDuskWolf]

@@mischa3343 You're welcome. Im also interested in the story as well.

[@sidesalt8324]

thats amazing :000

[@imannatasha3302]

I would love to play a game with this kind of art style it looks so cool

[@mischa3343]

Naw thanks so much, I'm real flattered

[@imannatasha3302]

@@mischa3343 i have a question, so if you want to change something in the future during development, would u have to redraw the one part you want to change and then scan it again and reattach it to the whole map or would u redraw the entire map again? 😳

[@mischa3343]

@@imannatasha3302 Aha yea, thats pretty much it. That's the biggest disadvantage of working in this way using parallaxes compared to sprites where everything is modular and you only have to change certain bits. This way of working is quite inefficient, even though I love the final results. I've been spending 3-5 hours for each landscape and 1-3 hours per character portrait using ink pen to do black ink outlines for everything, which then I have to rescan onto photoshop then onto RPG Maker, which adds another 4-5 hours per drawing and its pretty intense, especially while balancing full time work. It's nearly done so hopefully can upload the patch like... maybe in the next week or so.

[@imannatasha3302]

@@mischa3343 that sounds like a lot of work! 😳 All i can say is goodluck man, i can't wait to see more progress on this 😁

[@mischa3343]

@@imannatasha3302 Thanks so much! Mega appreciate it. 🙂 Will definitely make more vids once the new version is up.

[@buenozapanta9223]

it reminds me of saga frontier 2 and a bit of legend of mana

[@Rafael-xr7ou]

You can use a digital camera instead of a scanner. Phone. Cameras are good enough today. With a bit post processing (straighten, remove camera barreling, …)

[@mischa3343]

Nice suggestion, definitely! I regret not testing it out with the phone beforehand as I think it would make the image look a lot nicer than scanning. Will def try next time.

[@Omoi1993]

That is really awesome =]

[@mischa3343]

Thank you! 😃

[@Omoi1993]

@@mischa3343 ^_^

[@aislingrose6140]

Hiya, really excited to find this video! It's really useful, and I love your art style. However I feel like I got a little lost in some places. Specifically, I'm not sure I understand what you were saying at the end about improving this process by breaking away from the 48x48 grid. I love the idea and you demonstrated it well, but don't understand how to go about it. Could you explain how to do that, or recommend another tutorial? Thanks!!

[@mischa3343]

Hi Aisling, thanks for the really nice words of support. But definitely! I agree that it's a bit hard to convey what I mean at the end of the video and I've been working pretty intensely for the past few months to release a new patch that updates the game to 1080p, but there's always new roadblocks that I come across, mostly bugs. Hopefully in the next week or 2. Once I release it in a bug-free state, the next video I'll be working on will specifically be on the improvements to the process like breaking away from the 48x48 grid, 1080p resolution, etc, so you can look forward to that haha. Really thanks again for the question.

[@aislingrose6140]

@@mischa3343 That's brilliant to hear! I'm subscribing so I don't miss it haha. I had another unrelated question which only just occurred to me: how do you go about adding NPCs and other sprites in a non-pixel art style? I know how to add sprites but have never strayed from the pixel art limits - is it the trick of adding a $ to the file name and making sure the sprite sheet dimensions are correct? Or is there any more to it? Thanks again!

[@mischa3343]

@@aislingrose6140 Oh wow thanks so much! And yea wow, that's also a great video topic. So technically I guess all digital art is pixel art haha, even if it's a digital scan of a traditional drawing. But yes you're 100% correct, it's mainly having the $ symbol at the front of the file name to make the sprite sheet tell RPG Maker that it has custom dimensions. It then divides the sprite sheet equally in 1/3 horizontally for each frame of the walk cycle, then 1/4 vertically for each direction the sprite is facing. Then you align the sprites to the sheet then you're good. Having 3 frames of walking animation might feel a bit stilted, but it's perfectly fine in my opinion. There's a plugin by Galv called "Galv's MV Character Animations" which allows sprite sheets with way more frames of animation for smoother character movement, but it requires a lot of work and I'm still wrapping my head around it. I guess one thing besides the actual "programming" of it is that I first tried to hand draw the character sprites, but unlike a still background image, animation heavily requires consistency between frames. Traditional hand-drawn animation like early Disney/Looney Tunes/Anime require way more work and precision and use of a light table to have all the frames/cells of animation align. Like, I found it would take me 1 whole day to create hand-drawn sprite sheets with all the necessary frames and have it look believable. But with digital tablet drawing on Photoshop, it's so much easier to align all the frames of animation and have them be consistent, and I could complete character sprites in an hour or so. Since my game has about... 20 or so character sheets (I think), I made the decision to make all the sprites tablet drawings, otherwise it would've taken me about a month to complete everything. So it's thinking about the tradeoff between the time required and the results you want to achieve. Maybe that's why Disney stopped hand-drawing their animations with Princess and the Frog and all anime studios are now digitally drawn, I'm just speculating. Hope that answers your question and that it wasn't too long winded haha.

[@nestoreon3353]

beautiful! :=

[@mischa3343]

Ty!

[@phoenixastra4429]

Instead just draw the trees and non ground layers on a different one so you don't waste time cropping. you want any same as character layers seperate [rocks and trees and constructs you can't pass] you want the water separate, and if you want anything else above or on a different 'level' like above the character/in the foreground, just make it another layer You can just use the galvslayers plugin to seprate the layers Beautiful work btw

[@mischa3343]

Thank you, yes completely agree. Ive moved onto Galvs Layers for the past year and its much better at separating layers and allowing for more layers than TDDP, so really need to make that vid eventually. Cheers

[@redjestergames3268]

@@mischa3343 Also, if you find you finished your drawing and you're like 'oh I should have done something with this area or that. Remember that Yanfly's Grid Free Doodads lets you create other water-color and pencil sketches, and add them to a map at whatever layer you decide. But I see you're using the QPlugins which are also awesome! Great and inspring work!

[@LuiDeca]

wow, this is so unique!! and it looks great. if you ever need someone to make music for your project don't be afraid to hit me up!!

[@mischa3343]

Thanks, much appreciated. Always happy to chat if you want to email me in my YT profile

[@MeowsyDancer]

cool

[@nguyennguyen-np4ej]

wow

[@TallTapper]

i like cars they're cute

[@hanllelus6725]

AND how to make bigger ítems weapons. The iconset

[@danielpovedatoran6235]

Good night! Sorry to bother, I've tried for a few days now to add a map coloured by myself and I was following this steps in order to get it to work but I can't. When I put the map (which is the same size as the one created with the default graphics) in the parallaxes folder, and then get to map properties and select the new map as you did, that new map seems like just an image that doesen't even move, it's just static and the events that were created before the painting are the only things that move with the main character. I don't understand why that happens It's so confusing. Thank you so much in advance Mischa.

[@mischa3343]

Hey Daniel, thanks for waiting, work got a bit hectic. I haven’t used TDDP in a while so I had to go back through my old backups to figure it out. It’s a bit hard to recreate the issue that you’re having, but so far I found 2 possible causes. First possible cause is that you’ve only set the image as a parallax image and you haven’t created a ‘parallel’ event on your map with the “Show Picture” function and the Plugin Commands like “BindPictureToMap 1” and “ChangePictureLayer 1 below_characters” and such. Those are the necessary plugin commands for the map to render properly and to follow your character around as shown at 11:12. You need to have the png in your ‘pictures’ folder for it to work properly, not just the ‘parallax’ folder. Make sure the event is definitely a ‘parallel’ trigger, not the default ‘action’ trigger. If you definitely have this parallel event set up properly as per 11:12, then the second possible cause is that in your ‘Show Picture’ command in the parallel event, you have to make sure the origin position is set to ‘Upper Left’, not ‘Center’. If it’s at Center, then the map won’t move with the player. Hope that makes sense. If neither is the cause then I'm not sure what's causing it. I’ll make a discord and a video where you can join and you can try explain it to me through that.

[@soccergalz7401]

In your opinion which plugin combo ended up being the best for ease of use and speed of loading? Incredible art by the way!!

[@mischa3343]

Thank you! The current build of my game uses very different plugins from what is shown in this first build, and there's so many different combinations of plugins now. But generally, GALV's "Layer Graphics" plugin is a lot more optimal at loading parallaxes compared to TDDPBindToPictures plugin, which I used here. The 2nd plugin by GALV called "MV Image Cache" allows your parallaxes to be loaded into the RAM before they are needed to be rendered and pretty sure this improved load times even further. Those 2 helped reduce load times and image stutter significantly. Will definitely make another, more comprehensive parallax tutorial vid along with a bunch of other improvements in the future!

[@soccergalz7401]

@@mischa3343 thank you so much! Another video would also be awesome!

[@김븅신]

14:17 how to make character like this

[@mischa3343]

안녕! I'm working on a 1080p tutorial which is looking to be 1 hour long, but full time work and technical difficulties keep getting in the way. Will definitely make a character tutorial after that. Happy new years!

[@김븅신]

@@mischa3343 oh thank you

[@skytiburon]

Question! Does this work for Gif files too? for example if I were to add a river and make it flow, or add in moving trees?

[@Draben_Zhio_lin]

how can you move on background parallax map?

[@maikw804]

Really awesome! Does this work for RPG maker mz also?

[@mischa3343]

Thanks, no unfortunately as TDDPBindToPictures doesn't work on MZ, but I've since switched to Galv's Layer Graphics as it can be used for both MV and MZ and allows for better parallax mapping than what I've shown here. I recommend using that. Will do tutorial on it eventually as it can be quite complicated

[@maikw804]

@@mischa3343 Thanks for your reply, that's really cool! I do have the Galv's layer graphics and try to figure it out for a parallax map how you did it here. But it's really complicated yes. A new tutorial for it should be awesome.

[@mischa3343]

@@maikw804 No worries! Yea it is quite a learning curve eh. Wish I could give a timeframe for when its done but there's a lot to explain and the script for this new tutorial is already double the length of this vid. I'd recommend checking out the new character tutorial vid I uploaded as the 2nd half shows off what Galvs Layer Graphics can do like animated layers, texture blending etc.

[@aegon1931]

how to make character like that ? 14:24 looks amazing, like anime character 😂

[@mischa3343]

Aw thank you so much! Yes I was going for anime characters but not chibi. I've been asked this question a few times. I was going to make a character video after my 1080p tutorial but that's taking way too long so I'll make a character animation tutorial first then do the bigger video after. Thanks again!

[@kingkazuma2568]

the transparent dose not work for me ? how do you fix

[@coldiaultimatebase761]

Ive tried this but with digital art, and ive done literally everything youve said but when i drag the transparent tile, my map splits into four instead of one copy of the map i drew in game. what am i doing wrong? ive been trying for ages.

[@purugatori]

Can you teach me how to make character doesn't look pixel. plrase sir i really love your art style.

[@mischa3343]

Hey there, would love to! Do you mean character walk cycles or do you mean portraits?

[@purugatori]

A character walk cycles. Thank you

[@purugatori]

Actually, can you make a teaching video about both(walk cycles, portraits) please?

[@danielpovedatoran6235]

Greetings!! I've got a question regarding the drawing, at first you used a pencil as you've said, but then when all the watercolour painting is done, you can see the borders, the houses and the path being marked with black, it gives so much depth and consistency as it is not only watercolour what you can see, how did you do it? Did you use a black pen or something? Thank you very much

[@mischa3343]

Greetings! For this first build shown on this video I only used mechanical pencil 0.5mm 2B thickness, then I watercoloured on top of it, then I went back with pencil once it dried. There are very tiny elements of the drawing where I added pen, like the red tree in the centre of the village, but definitely not everything. In the current unreleased build shown in later videos, I went back to all these drawings and drew over it a 3rd time with black ink pen that ranged between 0.05mm and 1.0mm thicknesses, which took about another 40 hours if I recall correctly, especially with the outline of the trees, leaves and stone pathways. Hope that answers, cheers.

[@danielpovedatoran6235]

@@mischa3343 Yeah, it totally answers, thank you very much, surprised for the quick answer to a not so recent vid, really appreciate it, thank you so much, I was really struggling with how I could make things being there and not just being watercolour brushes.

[@mischa3343]

@@danielpovedatoran6235 No worries, I get notifications on older vids so I'm happy to answer. Watercolour is a really weird/tricky medium by itself so I felt I need to ground it by using mechanical pencil + pen

[@MINRoadkill]

Wait do I have to make the map and then draw and then export? I thought I’d have to draw each tile and then export the drawings to each tile and then make the game.

[@mischa3343]

That's if you want to primarily use tilesets to build your environment, which is a perfectly valid way of doing things. I'm showing the method I find the easiest to comprehend in my head, which is to make the map first with the default assets, export that out, then draw on top of it, then import the drawing back RMMV. Hope that helps.

[@MINRoadkill]

@@mischa3343 yes, thank you, do you know of any tutorials that can show me how to do this? I’m making an rpg that is mostly hand draw (I color them in digitally) I’ve tried to find a tutorial to explain it to me but all I’ve seen are ones that you edit and draw in digitally (again I’m doing it hand drawn) so do you know any tutorials I can watch?

[@mischa3343]

@@MINRoadkill @Hillbilly Hobbyist Hey, so sorry didnt see this. I swear KZbin doesnt give notifications when someone replies to your comment. So I think the clearest tutorial will be "Creating CUSTOM TILESETS | BenderWaffles Teaches - RPG Maker Tutorial". He uses GIMP as his image editing software which I dont know too much about, but definitely the way he works can be done in Photoshop, if that's the way you're working. The main thing is taking a tileset thats comes with RPG Maker by default, open it in Photoshop/GIMP then overlay your drawings on top, then place the tileset into RPG Maker. I'll eventually mess around with importing custom tilesets and create a tutorial in the future when I wrap my head around it. That sounds awesome though! Hand drawing is satisfying and digitally coloring everything sounds awesome.

[@JosiahJames-h1c]

Do you have a game on steam yet? id really like to play it😊

[@scyrossel.900]

I tried to do this with some random drawing, but I couldn't make this happen 9:11, it's all empty xD

[@mischa3343]

Aw no haha, thats a bummer. Not sure why it'd be empty, there's a lot of factors involved. Working on an updated tutorial atm with better plugins and I'll provide a template project that you can just insert your own drawings into which should simpligy the process so keep an eye out for that!

[@scyrossel.900]

@@mischa3343 Oh, ok! Thank you! ^^

[@MusicTeam998]

a question. if I draw the maps by hand and then load them on prg maker, how can I animate the water the waterfalls or the streams? A1 in rpg maker are different and if I draw them I became a unique layer. Thank you .... una domanda. se disegno le mappe a mano e poi le carico su prg maker, come posso animare l'acqua le cascate o i ruscelli? A1 in rpg maker sono diverse e se le disegno io diventato un layer unico. grazie

[@mischa3343]

Hi, thanks for the question! I'm still working animating parts of the drawing and there's a lot of trial and error involved, but look into Orange Overlay Parallax plugin along with the animated plugin on this link. forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/orange-overlay-v1-1-4-animated-parallax-add-on-updated-7jul17.80917/ Ill make a proper video explaining the process once I've nailed it down. Cheers

[@cervical_detachment]

hi! its probably very late but ah, gotta try anyways where can i find transparent tile? bc ive found empty one(?) but it doesnt do anything ;;;

[@mischa3343]

Hi there, this is the tileset I made that's used in the video: drive.google.com/file/d/1OhqGgNKKzS0JqICt_A1ghoO3DfWynRq5/view?usp=share_link

[@cervical_detachment]

@@mischa3343 ah!! thank you so much!!

[@fayerune]

Does this process work in VX Ace?

[@CanalDojogames]

That is something i really wanted on rpg maker but i didn't knew how to, so i avoided rpg maker just because i didnt had the solution. now it is oposite. So you use an high scale character like anime proportion, how you do that?

[@mischa3343]

Aw thank you, I'm glad to hear that this provided you some solutions. If you want character tutorials then the last 2 videos I uploaded show how to make them, and I provided a template for you to make it in a high scale style to make it easier for you 🙂

[@CanalDojogames]

@@mischa3343 i am watching it right now, thank you very much. You got some work done there but hey your solution is very great because you also solved an issue i had about enemies.. i want to make some giant bosses like octopath on battle, so i think it is possible now but also on walkable map. I stucked on this issue many times on smile game builder, now i see the right engine for me is rpg maker and since ps1 i always dreamed to make something on rpg maker. Now its the time! Also the gene plugin is an outstanding scene maker that will help me alot and is something easy like windows movie maker did in win7. Thank you for the great tips, i am also an lover of Water color paint style. I do love the results on clipstudio and i think its an great improvement making easy animate thanks to 3d from clipstudio and also paint maps to do this method you show here that is mind blowing.

[@mischa3343]

@@CanalDojogames No worries! Oh wow Octopath Travelers great, I wish I could help you with with tips on larger sprites for battle scenes but thats still beyond my understanding. You mightve already seen but theres an Octopath Traveler plugin by Olivia which makes the battle system like Octopath, its really well fleshed out. Wow I haven't heard of GENE scene builder but it looks great! Such a cool way of doing scenes in RMMV. Yus now is the time! Love your attitude, you can do it! And Clipstudio's awesome, you can definitely achieve a unique style using that.

[@rainskoog4530]

Hi! Great Tutorial, I tried following it in RPG Maker MZ But this doesnt work at all... Do u have any tips for MZ users? :(

[@mischa3343]

Hi, thanks so much for the question. So sorry but I still don't have a copy of MZ even though I'm saving up for it. From Google it looks like Galv (incredible plugin dev) has made a similar plugin for parallax mapping for MZ called MZ Layer Graphics. I'm not 100% sure how it works, but that would be your best bet. galvs-scripts.com/2020/08/24/mz-layer-graphics/ Unfortunately plugins developed by the community are specific to the version of RPG Maker and I've seen that it can be a decent amount of work for these coders to port it. One big reason why I used MV was that it was about 4-5 years old and already had a tonne of community plugin support, so unfortunately for MZ you would likely have to wait for the plugin community to develop over the next few months/years. MV is still great though in my opinion, I'm still using it, I see it go on sale for like $20USD from time to time.

[@rainskoog4530]

@@mischa3343 Thank for takin the time to reply my friend! I had a look at Galv's plugin and it looks very competent, thanks for the help! Yeah i relized this was the case after purchasing mz... maybe i will buy mv as well! Cheers, rain

[@mischa3343]

@@rainskoog4530 No worries, good luck!

[@jomrodil9254]

The plugin bind pic to map is gone?

[@mischa3343]

The link should still be up on the RMMV forums under downloads: forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads%2Fbind-pictures-to-map.46776%2F

[@0oORealOo0]

amazing, imagine now with AI