What's up, RMers?

[DerVVulfman]

URLs and websites vanish.  Once that happens, you're bound to headdesk a lot looking for the artist's name

OH, for the Half Kaiser Sideview Battler project, I noted that the author's name MUST be in the name of the submitted file!   No piracy there. Arrr!

Oh, speaking of graphics... my work on converting a male Half Kaiser sideview battler to a female one is slow going, but it is coming along as you can see below. The head is rounded, and the limbs made slender. I do have the waist and upper body to work on though...


Doubled in scale

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

Exactly, VVulfy. 

A lot of resources, I put sites where I got them from. Gather a whole bunch, and look later when it's time to put them into the game. Oftentimes, the sites slowly disappear and I don't know if they just don't want people to use their resource or what. And also, the reason some sites disappear is because they actually using copyrighted works and claiming it as their own.
Yup. People are cracking down on it now. Thank goodness.

Anyway, I have something to talk about for a second.


I miss the "Looseleaf" character generator. I've made so many characters with it, and you can use it for commercial or non-commercial. Kinda kept it a secret for a while, but then I learned Geocities was closing, so I brought it up to some people for archiving purposes. 
It said it was called  "Mack's looseleaf", but I don't know what "Mack" it was. Nobody to contact, no working mirrors of it from what I know, and the site was in Japanese with Yahoo Geocities.
The site is now gone with Geocities. 
HOWEVER... somebody in another forum seems to have backed up some of the resources at least, including png versions. No coloration changing, though.
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php...ack.42362/
I think the original site was java, so even though archive.org has snapshots, the site itself doesn't seem to work properly. I read something about "GCH", which upon checking, seems to be a program called "Game Creator Hub". It seems to be around $25, which is quite unfortunate, since looseleaf was free. 

Also, the original homepage of "looseleaf" was also in Japanese, and seems to have been long-gone. The Geocities was a mirror, and the only one I found on the internet. The Geocities version has a copyright of 2009, and I am not aware of any updates since then. There is a "changelog" for the Geocities version, but there are no years on it. Only month/day dates. So 2009 may in fact be the latest. 

Ultimately, unless somebody makes a working version of the javascript with the resources, it's not viable. Also, the site states as follows:
"the distribution of game works using the materials on this site, you can freely distribute it regardless of whether it is free (shareware, commercial work, doujin software, etc.). However, distribution in the form of a collection of materials alone is prohibited, regardless of whether they are charged or not. Please sell it as a game work."

So the archive of the work is questionable. The person "Saving" the sources so it stays on the internet may have broken the creator's rules. But I'm just thinking out loud here. I ain't a cop, yo. 

I've also read about other people archiving the works, and a lot of people are actively searching. On a Reddit thread, they've already compiled all of this information, and basically recommend using Photoshop and putting it together yourself if you don't have Game Creator Hub.
A great idea for sure. It'll take 100 times longer, but it can work. 

Ultimately, I think Game Creator Hub's options and default resources on top of Mack's resources could be a great boon for creators. There are also people releasing a lot of parts for GCH, so it could be worth looking into. Maybe if there's a sale coming up, I could let you all know...   



Also, quick update: As of now, I'm realizing that Looseleaf's archived version KINDA DOES WORK MAYBE A LITTLE BIT?! It just takes 1-4 minutes for each part to show up, some parts are actually unclickable, and a lot just don't work at all, even after 10 minutes of sitting there. So, if you have an hour+ per sprite, go ahead and use the archived version with limited usage? 

[DerVVulfman]

Mack of "Looseleaf" was part of "Mack and Blue", the team that made seriously awesome tilesets for use with RPGMaker 2000 and RPGMaker 2003. They were so good and so widely used that they were typically referred to as the 'alternate RTP'.

On a Reddit thread, they've already compiled all of this information, and basically recommend using Photoshop and putting it together yourself if you don't have Game Creator Hub.
A great idea for sure. It'll take 100 times longer, but it can work. 

Or if they're set up for another Character generagor *COUGH*

And the RPGMakerWeb thread in question also has a working dropbox link for the resources only, bringing up
"Dropbox - Looseleaf pngs.zip"
"And here are the pngs, for those of you who prefer it that way"

OH... what's up with ME?

Well, I was working on the Half Kaiser FEMALE sideview template WIP and realized I wanted control to see still frames in my HK Tool rather than just the graphics animated. So I spent a bit of time to add a few more buttons and tie it into the animation system. Now I can choose to advance and reverse the cel animations of any pose in the tool as well as making it fully animated. Even moreso, the tool says what frame is being shown (from 0 to 3).

So I copied it to my HK WIP folder.... and ERASED MY FEMALE TEMPLAT WIP!!! Aaaarrrrgh!!!!

Well, I uploaded the tool to the forum's Half Kaiser Project thread, and got to work on... a complete restart.

*sigh* I again began to edit a copy of the default male template, I began rounding the head, adding eye lashes, and thinning the arms. It gave it a less.. manly physique... sorta. Something like that, I can't work in pure silence, so thank RsyPosy and Ted for a little background noise. A little Sweeney Todd and ... "FLASH!!! AHHHH!!!" *ahem* "Flash Gordon" ... and I got done with that stage.

I will have to widen its hips and give it slender legs. Then slender the body and eventually... deal with upper management. Then it will finally be a female template.

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

I'm actually using some converted Mack and Blue tilesets for my XP project. Those are part of a sequence that takes place on a man-made alternate dimension that uses resources (tilesets, charsets, monsters, etc.) from the RM2K era.

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

WHERE IS DOLLMAGE?!

The latest of anything I can find on Dollmage was around 2009... until today, where I saw he/she had posted in the early months of 2010, and once in August of 2010.
Yeah, I can't find anything at all. He/she's been off the map for a decade, and I'm worried.   

I know for a fact these few things:

1 - Dollmage got in an argument with someone years and years ago about the battler they had requested becoming public use instead of being personal for their own game, which ended in the person leaving and Dollmage keeping many images private from then on.
2 - Dollmage has been gone for years, and is, as far as I know, not a member of this forum, and has nothing personally posted here except for the rmrk archive we created to ensure the site doesn't get lost in time. At least, nothing under the "Dollmage" name is here, and nothing as far as animated battlers has been posted.
3 - Dollmage was working on a "Suikoden-style" game called "Aurora Dreams", and had a lot of updated versions of already-released battlers for personal use. Zig-zaggy lines were smoothed out on the gladiator battler, there are "Dead" and "bloody pieces" versions of the characters, among other random things.
4 - Dollmage has a lot of skill when it comes to making battlers, and pieces of said battlers to animated them properly. Many of the monster battlers that Dollmage has teased are in gif form, and not spirtesheets like the earlier ones were, which may be due to the above argument leading to privacy on releases.
5 - Dollmage has used Photobucket to host almost every image on the internet, leading to a lot of them becoming lost in time on sites. However, Dollmage's account (Zieg1615) is still there. The latest "known" image date is from 2011, and they're screenshots from a God Eater game. Many unshared images are there, including an image of a woman (Maybe Dollmage?) and unused kooky stuff like the Ziegfried battler riding a mount and shooting guns, as well as apparently-unused or old/obsolete signature images, one even having a quote, likely from the game they were working on. There are also side-scroll platformer type images, and possible images for another game entitled "Armed Gear" that also doesn't seem to have gone anywhere.
6 - Dollmage's game "Aurora Dreams" doesn't seem to have been released anywhere. The latest images of the game's charactersheet has blank spots, meaning it stopped being updated at some point. The images that linked to the WIP version of "Aurora Dreams" seems to lead to a dead page on a Stencyl website. The game may have been abandoned, and searching "Aurora Dreams" seems to shed some light as to why it may have been abandoned; "Aurora Dreams" is the name of a 2011 anime, which seemingly may have taken the wind out of the sails of Dollmage's ship. I know I'd be bummed if "Destiny of End: The Anime" came out and it was a cutesy slice of life idol anime as I was in the final stages of making it. 



Dollmage's absence from the internet is something I've been confused about in this thread before, but I keep coming back to the wish that I could hire them for animated battlers, or get to know them and their process, or just be friends in general. But as of right now, the Dollmage mystery still goes unanswered. After all of my sleuthing, I still- STILL- can't figure out what happened here. It worries me sometimes.
Perhaps Dollmage just got bored of making animated battlers?  Maybe something happened?   Possibly Dollmage has gone incognito under a completely different name?   Perhaps Dollmage is reading this now?   

We miss you, Dollmage. Not just for your skill, but simply because of the sudden disappearance and secrecy. I hope everything is well, I really do. 

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

Speaking of disappearances, I haven't seen Jasper in a while. His profile here says he hasn't logged in since 2017. I can't help but wonder what happened to him...

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

Oh yeah! I KNEW it was worth waiting for a sale!

Game Character Hub: Portfolio Edition is on sale for about $6! 
https://store.steampowered.com/app/52983...o_Edition/

[kyonides]

Dunno why it would be useful at all. Even Wulfo's character maker could be a better pick than such hub. The GCH is more like a copy of VX Ace's resources, except for those made for MV.

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

It has different sprite editing tools. It can make XP, VX, and MV sprites, and it can use your own custom pieces as a generator for sprites, MV-style faces, etc.
It has tools to edit those pieces as well. You can change colors of each individual piece with hue/saturation/lightness settings, use gradients, make your own gradients, layering, Draw/erase tools, random generation of characters, and other things that you could do in Photoshop, but faster with the program. And yes, it's compatible with the looseleaf assets if you have them.   

I spent the past hour learning the program, and made quite a few really cool, custom sprites with multilayered hair that not even looseleaf could make. Edited down two different shoes to make a cool combination. Yeah, I'm having a good time right now using it. It's honestly worth checking out if you make your own sprites. 

[kyonides]

Not impressed. There might be some convenient stuff for non spriters but somehow it doesn't entice me to get it right away. Plus I had posted terrible opinions on that hub some time ago. It doesn't mean I'm telling you to ditch it. If you feel like it might serve any purpose, go ahead and use it.

By the way, guys, guess what?  

I've compiled another executable of my HiddenChest engine!

This time it sports the window padding feature Wulfo suggested that RMXP windows badly needed. I don't recall any actual need for it nor has Melana ever mentioned that but I played with my engine and so far it seems it's working. Anyway I've included it in version 1.1.56 for Linux distros. Windows version would be 1.1.55 if I ever manage to get back all of the Windows DLL's I need to cross compile and test it.
VX and Ace don't need such enhancement because they already had incorporated it already.

Note: I haven't tested it under unusual circumstances. So far I've only displayed ye old windowes with default dimensions. Even so text gets aligned properly as far as I've seen there.

Probably I'll make post related stuff on its official thread once I get to compile your beloved Windows executable. Meanwhile, I can test it as much as it pleases me.  

Honestly, I'd prefer to include more features, especially some ideas not hard to implement, before releasing a new version but... Perhaps Wulfo or Melana or even Lani might come up with some interesting feature to be added in the next couple of days or weeks.