River City Ransom: Underground Animation Featurette

[@conatuscreative3929]

We have an automated build pipeline that takes animated GIFs and cuts them into spritesheets for us. Distances are a combination of applied physics impulses (in the case of jumping) or direct offsets (in the case of an idle animation shifting left to right, for example)

[@loony2unes]

As I am personally trying to get into the into the pixel art animating field, I'm really glad you posted this. Looking forward to buying this game, day 1.

[@b2thec]

Don't wait to get into it. Go to a game dev site and find yourself a programmer and get to it. Make a small project. I realized how much faster my pixeling skills progressed through trial and error and seeing what worked in a game and what didn't. It will most likely look unprofessional (crappy) but it puts you in the right direction. So get in there, tiger! BUTT SLAP!

[@loony2unes]

b2thec hahaaa, well thanks kindly, I know what this weekend's about to be spent doing.

[@ty88]

How did it go?

[@zetaknight2143]

Really enjoy these videos after playing the game late later in these years and finding these. really cool I can see the passion.

[@ToneBacas]

love the sweet and smooth animations. hope you manage to get this game out there for us to enjoy.

[@guigondi7671]

It's finally out... thanks for your hard work Paul!

[@rkdheewon]

Awesome man! I was first attracted by the animations! I mean I played pretty much every kunio game on the nes but I love how you remastered the animations! I am really enjoying the game because of you! :) good stuff man!

[@2sallads]

I am super amazed at the fluid animation and the level of detail with the fighting moves. I can't fucking wait. You sir are awesome!

[@MrCosminm]

Great stuff Bannon! I love that you film your moves, it makes the animations so smooth and awesome. Common people keep pledging on RCRU on Kickstarter!

[@MattHughson]

Nevermind I just noticed you posted it on the kickstarter update. Thanks!

[@SteveFusionX]

really enjoyed that video, thank you! I'm also making a pixel-art video game.. so this kind of thing is very inspiring and motivational. Can't wait to play RCR Underground. You guys are doing a fantastic job, from what I've seen so far and really doing the franchise justice. I wish this was coming to 3DS, as I just bought the original "streetgangs"/RCR on it last night and was disappointed with how they hadn't sorted out some quite easy stuff before releasing it (load/save etc).

[@MinYongKim]

I loved watching the pixelating of stuff! Really looking forward to this!

[@AngrySonMetaphist]

Great vid, a lot of personality in each attack. Love it.

[@SonnyBone]

Awesome insight. Thanks for sharing your process/workflow!

[@kingnoiseyinfinite6080]

This is gold to this day, also thank you for helpin out in River City Girls... 2 ... sorry I had 2.

[@inceptional]

I enjoyed watching you pixeling stuff...because it was useful and fun watching you pixeling stuff... Might come in useful with my own pixel art and particularly trying to animate them.

[@TheFawz]

That was really cool. I'd love to see more stuff like this

[@RayGallardo]

b2thec Thanks for the reply. I am looking forward to the game! A huge RCR fan!

[@bakedturkeys2132]

It's so interesting seeing how this was all made. I love the game BTW, I've already maxed out all story characters.

[@nebyoolae]

This was really cool, as it's something you just don't see much when you're not a dev.

[@b2thec]

Thank you. But I think Michaelangelo is more amazed than anyone else right now. Look at that face

[@allluckyseven]

Mistah B, if you could do more of these... I'd appreciate it one heck of a lot. Maybe two hecks.

[@b2thec]

That is my friend, Prozak Morris. He is amazing.

[@Ethan-dw4ly]

Is that a weird remix of Seals & Crofts' "Summer Breeze?" I dig it.

[@0MPMatt]

Oh man, all amounts of YES PLEASE~ Great job, man.

[@airic21]

This game looks amazing and the fact we have someone who understands street fighter aspects is so great.... I really want this game to involve skill weather its parrying or some new concept that is what will make this game good is making the game HARD and you cant beat it in a hour ... I want this to be really hard to the point to where if someone beats it you know they got skill! Do you guys over there at Conatus Creative want that or do you want a game that anyone can beat?

[@b2thec]

We would love to put this out on every console. Hopefully we can do it someday. Especially the Jaguar and Atari Lynx. Fingers crossed!

[@conatuscreative3929]

No! Timing information is pulled right out of the GIF files, so whatever Bannon comes up with ends up in the game. We add layers like a shape collision layer and attack hitboxes.

[@hironobu64]

I quite enjoyed this. Glad to be a backer!

[@b2thec]

Around 3 or more hours. It looks simple but takes a lot of trial and error to get things to work smoothly.

[@conatuscreative3929]

It will honour the original game as much as possible, so you'll have RPG stats, items in shops, unlockable moves, etc.

[@JacOfArts]

So the characters are actually some of the Dev team? That is very creative, I'll give you that XD

[@b2thec]

I use Photoshop. What they do to make my stuff become playable stuff... uh black magic? Maybe.

[@b2thec]

You're right. It's black magic.

[@Asalieri2]

is this game coming out or what?

[@wolfpox]

Dammit, let's fund this game and hit those stretch goals!!

[@MattHughson]

That was great! Can you post the final gif for us to learn from?

[@l0chris]

Very nice! Keep it up!

[@b2thec]

I draw in the final resolution. What you saw me doing was exactly the size. re you talking about me shrinking an image down to get it pixelated?

[@Henkco]

Genius, this is awesome. I'm probably going to watch this video multiple times to improve my spriting. I am not happy with the time one sprite can take me. How are you able to organize your sprites? I suppose you save multiple sprites in one file? I've always been working in paint because Photoshop just is more inconvenient with simple selection stuff that can be done faster in Paint though but... perhaps Photoshop would be the better option. But that aside, sweet video. Thanks for sharing it!

[@allluckyseven]

How does the timing information for each animation frame goes into the game? Does somebody have to redo that?

[@lordraven]

what is the music in the back?

[@b2thec]

Look up my buddy, Prozak Morris.

[@allluckyseven]

How's that then put into the game? Do you put all the frames into a sprite sheet? Then how does one go about matching the distances that the character moves from frame to frame?

[@GenY42]

You're the Bob Ross of pixel art

[@allluckyseven]

That's awesome!

[@Sir_Bone-Head]

I really need ti find time to learn how to make pixel art. I've got a game concept in my head and I really want to just get it made.

[@allluckyseven]

Cool! Thanks for the reply!

[@andris3210]

Beautiful! :D

[@III-------------------Ill]

Give alex the "Hurricane Kick" and the "Mach kick" and for Ryan Give him the "Dragon Punch" and the "Mach Punch" Just some ideas of moves...

[@Voxavs]

So beautiful. I came.

[@AngrySonMetaphist]

Also, what's playing in the backgrounds? Sounds dope.

[@rahnyc4]

is this going to be a straight beat em up action game, or will it have the rpg aspect similar to river city on the nes/gba?

[@YMenk]

That was amazing! How long did the whole process take you?

[@BeingofEvil]

uh awesome stuff, any chance your game come out for steam too?

[@8bitjake816]

Can we get a patch to play as all characters in story mode? PLEASE!!!

[@slachx2]

i just hope that sound effects and music wont be 8-bit sounding

[@RayGallardo]

Are you drawing in your final resolution or do you later shrink it down? What is the final resolution for these games? not sure if I asked this question correctly.

[@Doomlaser]

Have you tried using Pixen?

[@2sallads]

His face gets all the attention. Am I not good enough?

[@b2thec]

Any questions, just ask them here. You might have the same question that other people have.

[@Gojiro7]

soooo, does anyone else think its funny that not only does this character look like Little Mac from punch out butthat he looks to be doing the move that he does in new super smash bro's....and this video came out several months before little mac was even announced XD

[@kristina80ification]

what?

[@AbstraktCho]

dat beat!

[@b2thec]

I've been using photoshop for years. I don't think I could ever break up with her.

[@cymandeh]

I WANT TO MAKE A VERSION LIKE THIS IN PHILLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@OnlyBadNewsDotCom]

Hey Bannon! So, while in-game, you press the punch button, and it calls up this .gif? Also, what program did you use for River City Ransom?

[@b2thec]

Just ask your question here.

[@iClone316]

So did this project get cancelled or something?

[@TFYS223]

FrankGarrett316 Nope

[@delmancefrancis2542]

NIce

[@MoluskToeCheese]

Thanks a lot for posting this : ) What program are u using to examine your reference video frame-by-frame? Im trying to learn how to animate, so this is a God-send. A Very informative god-send....

[@MondayHopscotch]

+Ham Boney Looks like he's using premier to go through his live footage from what I can see.

[@MoluskToeCheese]

Oh man, thanks for the response. I appreciate it. Have a good one!

[@kristina80ification]

"I think that's how it's pronounced"... wtf?

[@b2thec]

Still working on how to pronounce it. I'll get it down, hang in there.