updated description, draft for making demo assets

site/_drafts/makingdemosforassets.markdown

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 layout: post
 title:  "Making demos for assets (WIP)"
 # date:   2024-01-18 20:00:00 -0300
-excerpt: This blogpost is about the process of making penusbmic assetspacks demos.
+excerpt: This blogpost is about the process of making penusbmic assetspacks demos, from high level to some implementation details.
 author: Ariel Coppes
 tags:
   - personal
@@ -17,73 +17,86 @@ image:
 
 {{page.excerpt}}
 
-I am pretty happy with what I am doing right now. I am mainly focusing on Cleared Hot and at some point in the future I really want to make a blog post about how we are working, what we are doing, and how fun and enjoyable is to work on this project. I am also making assets demos with penusbmic for some of his assets packs (which I am going to talk more in this blogpost) and from time to time I work a bit on Ship Miner too.
+While working on [Cleared Hot](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1710820/Cleared_Hot/) (wishlist now!!) and [my own project](https://shipminer.arielcoppes.dev/), I also have a side project of making playable demos with [penusbmic](https://penusbmic.itch.io/) for some characters from his [Stranded Series](https://itch.io/c/3652990/stranded-series) assets pack. 
 
 ## Assets Pack Demo
 
-We already implemented two playable units (which were meant to be enemies), and they look like this:
+We have three characters implemented, two enemies and a hero:
 
 <div class="post-image">
     <img src="/assets/penusbmicdemos/dusk-jumper-01.gif" width="370px" />
+    <span>Dusk Jumper: fires projectiles and jumps and slams foes.</span>
 </div>
 
 <div class="post-image">
     <img src="/assets/penusbmicdemos/dusk-warrior-01.gif" />
+    <span>Dusk Warrior: spins in a multidirectional attack cutting everything in his path.</span>
 </div>
 
-I am now working on integrating also the main hero of that asset pack, and it looks like this already:
-
 <div class="post-image">
     <img src="/assets/penusbmicdemos/stranded-hero-01.gif" width="370px"/>
+    <span>The Hero: walks, runs and perform combo attacks while also rolling to a evade attacks. This character has more depth in terms of movement and animations directions.</span>
 </div>
 
-**[PLAY THE DEMO HERE](https://arielsan.itch.io/penusbmic)**
+You can **[play the demo at itch](https://arielsan.itch.io/penusbmic)**.
 
-So, I just implemented them, what is the interesting part of this blog post?
+## High level iteration
 
-## High level process
+Well, the general high level process is simple, penusbmic has a character (already released or not), he sends the character to me (already done or almost complete), and I implement that in the demo. 
 
-Well, the general high level process is simple, penusbmic created a character (already released or not), he sends the character to me (already done or almost done), and I implement that in the demo. 
+I start by getting the assets and think some ideas on what the abilities should be, if it is easy to implement a base idea I do that quickly and share some gifs or videos with him and we discuss and align on the ideas. For example, I see an attack I believe it should charge while holding a button and perform after releasing it, I do that (no code for the damage or anyhing, just play animations) and if he agrees with that, I continue.
 
-I start by getting the assets and think some ideas on what the abilities should be, if it is easy to implement a base idea I do that quickly and share some gifs or videos with him and we discuss and align on the ideas. Since the assets are pretty visual and clear, we normally are pretty aligned on the direction to follow so my initial interpretations of the character and animations are what I end up implementing.
+Since the assets are pretty visual and clear, we are normally pretty aligned on the direction to follow so my initial interpretations of the character and animations are what I end up implementing.
 
-We could normally iterate a bit in the middle (if he is still working on the character, before releasing it) to adjust something (for example, adding a charge animation in the case of the Dusk Warrior, or adding the position indicator in the case of the Dusk Jumper), or if it is 100% done (like the Stranded Hero), I just manage to make something interesting with what it is there.
+For some cases we iterated a bit in the middle to adjust something, for example, adding a charge animation in the case of the Dusk Warrior, or adding the position indicator in the case of the Dusk Jumper. In the case of the Stranded Hero, which was already done and published, I just managed to make something interesting with what it is there.
 
 ## From the asset to the implementation
 
-For these demos I reuse a lot of what I have implemented with all the mini games I did last year (input handling, animations, movement, footsteps, particles, projectiles, camera shake, etc), so making demos for this kind of assets is super straightforward to me. But still, there are some things to decide and make in order to implement the characters, and that might be interesting to someone? dunno, lets find out.
+For these demos I reuse the framework I implemented for the mini games I did the last year (input handling, animations, movement, footsteps, particles, projectiles, camera shake, etc) to simplify the task, in fact, I even used penusmbic assets packs for them so I am used to integrate them. But still, there are some things to decide and make in order to implement this characters.
 
-### Dusk Jumper
+### Integrating Dusk Jumper
 
-The assets normally came with everything in one aseprite file, the character + visual effects + projectiles + decals, etc. 
+*Disclaimer: this depends a lot on MY personal process, but might be as inspiration for yours.*
 
-<div class="post-image">
-  <iframe width="480" height="270" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OiM3iBJrWm8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
-  <span>This is the first time I try a video to explain something</span>
-</div>
+The assets normally came with everything in aseprite files, the character + visual effects + projectiles + decals, etc. And also come with some spritesheet png files for each animation, it depends, it is not always the same criteria.
 
-So, the first step, for all assets, is to do a manual pre process (unless I convince penusbmic otherwise xD) of the asset to separate stuff that is not going to be together in runtime. I have experience with this from when I was at Ironhide Games, so I can visualize what I need to separate and how in order to implement the Character with his abilities.
+*Note: in order to have a control on the assets you need to have [aseprite](https://www.aseprite.org/).*
 
-This is the list of things I do to export it to be used:
+Since I normally integrate everything from aseprite itself (I have a custom Unity importer), I do a manual pre process step to separate elements that are not going to be together in runtime, but the idea is applicable in general. Separating everything doesn't mean I create an aseprite file for each element, sometimes it makes sense to have them together in one aseprite file.
 
-* Make the animations look to the right (some characters, mainly enemies start looking the to other side).
-* Center the asset in the pivot point (I consider the shadow center normally the pivot).
-* Remove the background.
-* Separate in parts: character, each projectile, each visual effect, each decal. This can be done in different files or not.
-* Depending the abilities, split animations, for example if I want to make a charged attack. 
+*I based this process on the experience from when I was at [Ironhide Games](https://www.ironhidegames.com/), that applies well to these asset packs.*
+
+For this character, we have normal idle/walk and then we have two abilities, one that charges and fires a projectile away (distance depends on charge time) and one to jump outside the screen and then fall when/where you want and performing a slam (damage) when it touches the ground (+ some camera shake of course). And it also has a death animation. 
 
-*Note: this depends a lot on MY process, but might be as inspiration for yours.*
+This is the list of elements for this character:
 
-For this character, we have normal idle/walk and then we have two abilities, one that charges and fires a projectile far away (depending the charge) and one to jump outside the screen and then fall when/where you want and performing a slam (damage) when it touches the ground (+ some camera shake of course).  
+* Character
+* Jump indicator (when the character is outside the screen)
+* Bomb
+* Bomb explosion
+* Bomb explosion decal
+* Slam ground effect
+* Slam ground effect decal
 
-* Separate assets and objects in multiple parts (effect should be there if unit is not)
+This is the list of things I do to export it to be used:
 
-### Dusk Warrior
+* Make the animations look to the right (some enemy characters look to the left in the original file).
+* Center the asset in the pivot point (I consider the shadow center normally the pivot).
+* Remove the background (which is normally used to create the gifs and/or to see how some things look while designing the character and animating it).
+* Separate in parts: character, each projectile, each visual effect, each decal. Again, this can be done in different files or not.
+* Depending the abilities, split animations, for example if I want to make a charged attack I might create 3 different animations from the attack, the start, the loop and the end.
 
-* Do damage in order to feel the attacks (added some bushes)
+<div class="post-image">
+  <iframe width="480" height="270" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OiM3iBJrWm8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
+  <span>Here is a video showing the initial asset and some of the assets I created from it. Btw, this is the first time I do a video to explain something</span>
+</div>
+
+SOME IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS?
 
 ### Stranded Hero
 
+The hero has not a lot of variety in terms of attacks but gets a bit deeper in terms of animation directions and also has a walk and run separated animations, so for this one I had to change a bit some rules.
+
 * Since it is a hero, get deeper, it should feel better (added acceleration/deceleration, walk/run anims, attack movement, allow interrupt anims, etc)
 
 # Conclusions

site/projects.markdown

@@ -3,10 +3,10 @@ layout: page
 title: Games
 permalink: /projects/
 projects:
-  - name: Ship Miner (Work in progress)
+  - name: Ship Miner (CURRENT)
     url: https://shipminer.arielcoppes.dev
     videos: /assets/moonminer/shipminer.mp4
-    description: 1bit Pixelart moon and asteroids mining game.
+    description: Minimalistic pixelart 1bit miner game.
   - name: Gorilla Jones
     url: https://arielsan.itch.io/gorillajones
     images: /images/screenshots_gorillajones.png