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19/10/2023
London

Hi there! Hello! Welcome! My name is Richard, I am predominantly a visual artist. This is the first, actual entry in this new blog, an exhaustive post about fun stuff, about what I am doing publicly: What I do: 1, Among other things, I paint and draw via traditional methods and via a (non-display) digital drawing tablet. see some of my work here: https://richardkramen.com/artwork/ 2, I make music again via analogue methods. I "released" my first "new" song. see here: https://richardkramen.com/music/ 3, I also have an illustrated novel / comic / video game project (mainly in the freezer). This is, apart from life events, supposed to be my "main project". see here: https://richardkramen.com/devblog/

This I put on hold for a long time as I was rewriting it and outlining main elements, aiming to create something more remarkable than what I had in mind before. Let's see... 4, And every now and then I modify games. More often programs, and even more often, just about daily, my operating system and digital desktop environment. Yet, video games. Ugh, what a topic... A non-stop electronic cabaret of "amazing!... useless!" Anyhow, here I merged and combined other modifications, did photo-manipulation on and re-painted textures, made new normal maps for them and adjusted attributes to make different variations in armor and clothing, different textures for clothing (glossy or matte, cut outs and adjustments) and new faces for the characters. This way the characters and their setup are unlike anything before in this game, mimicking South Korean-style video game trends, giving a whole new look and feel to gameplay: © Copyright 2006 - 2023, Lo-Fi Games Ltd. - Kenshi 5, And I do full-stack webdesign (that means I do everything-everything, markup, code, security, webmail, design, logos, all all...). See all these web pages i am linking in this post. 110101 very code 010101 very computer Updates! Updates! Updates! YAY! Recently I just finished a massive overhaul and update on my main website: see here: https://richardkramen.com/artwork/ With hidden features revealed this Halloween! the technicalities of it: - First and most of all, I made a full fallback, no-JS site to support it. Without flashing effects but fully functional and responsive: safe site - No external help or libraries, while it still uses some of Skeleton and Normalize those were for the previous site make up, to tone down the remains of a Wordpress theme, I will eventually remove them. They are absolutely great tools though, use 'em if you need 'em. - That's right, no Wordpress, it was just getting in the way. I can't seem to like them anymore... - Inline SVGs and CSS tricks by me. Lotsa digital acrobatics. I explored a lot in the context of how can we use less and less JavaScript and just do it all in HTML and CSS. I have to say, you really do not need JS for a very good, modern website. Blame me. - Yet, I got very confident with scripting around, there a few things which are hidden at the moment but real cool to use. HTML Canvas is pretty neat. - Custom PHP/CSS gallery with keyboard control. I can't think of a simpler, lighter gallery. - Lots of home-baked JavaScript programming. :) I mainly used Stackoverflow questions and comments to guide me and I figured everything out the best I could. Hurray! Current works in progress, current workingsss: This is the tallest ever image I've ever done, at one point i will do a full-size print: This hare is an assistant you will bump into here and there, a recurring character in my work, "within universe" and on websites etc. I updated my setup from its mobile state to something more permanent. Traditional drawing equipment not pictured, traditional stuff in another post later: -> -> As I was mostly busy with building the website(s) for a good while, I have not posted much online (except some silly "stories" on mainstream media) but stacks of art grew in kilograms here. I have managed to fill a few sketchbooks again. A "best of", compiled, touched up version may see light one day. I have prints available! Some stocked, some to pre-order: check here!! The End thank you for reading! Although, I have a few statements to make if you are curious: There will be no advertisements here ever. There are no "cookies", there are no analytics. I oppose anything about "AI" generated imagery and text. I oppose anything about NFTs I oppose anything cryptocurrency. I do not intend to sound obnoxious and delusional, I aim to keep myself in check... Yet I just can't seem to delete these lines. Sadly it is a world where we must stand tall, be strong and wield what we are. Well, as much as I know, defending our own skills is standard practice that dates back forever, so this is me doing it, I feel I must speak up a bit. I am a highly talented, expertly skilled visual artist. This is cause I have honest, deep interest ever since I remember. I am a well-experienced, confident, thoroughly trained, workaholic visual artist with a great arsenal of skills. As I kept adding to and refreshing what I do. Refusing to give up, I am still bursting of passion and I can not be stopped apparently. I must be indeed mad and crazy passionate as I seem to just keep making art, I keep creating. Regardless all the discouragement, regardless the zero support, regardless the zero income from it, I do it. In these times, this is something to cherish. I am happy and slightly proud of it. Let's do some good. RR█░░░░

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© RICHARD KRAMENSTETTER Artworks. All Rights Reserved.

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development blog


2024-March-19
entry 028.

I have relocated to my home country for a while as I was facing depression and paranoia. I am okay and in a few weeks, and when I can squeeze time until, I will start posting again. +++

2024-March-07
entry 027.

I redo the whole thing in 3D cause this template I started to build upon, the "25d demo template" is a !"#@**(^&*). Or at least a whole lot of extra work and confusing me altogether. [Edit: AAAAaaand looking into how tedious is it to rig and animate low-poly characters.] [Edit edit: It don't seem to be so scary but I first try a whole work-out in 2D with one character.] #godoting #gotgodot #gogodottodogood #godotingitoutgood

2024-March-06
entry 026.

Started an entry on the official Godot Forum [forum.godotengine.org] if anyone else is godoting, the project is debatable over there.

A little background for this, a little bit of "about me", sorry, steering back towards the game in a second. Here is an "about me" / "what do I do" post from my personal blog which I retired. It opens in a modal over this blog. I come from a working class background with close to nothing to rely on but myself. Yet, at one point of my life I had the choice to start the process for applying to an arts university (in London, UK) but seeing graduated students work and "what they gained", I in the end chose not to go that route, to "just mess around and figure life as I go". Life went on, I have made some good decisions and some smaller bad ones and, particularly, one huge mistake which stands out sharp: it turned out, not properly applying for settlement in the UK really messed and is still messing my life a lot. A way too much of a lotso lotta lot. Being a semi-rootless immigrant is not a fun life. Anyhow. I consider myself a craftsperson, not a real artist cause I have real interest in all forms of visual and physical art, including writing and dancing too but not a very defined direction among them. I indeed dance around and among. I make it as I go. So. Not much to stand on and a troublesome mind and background still has me in a curios uhm setup in life. And I am at a point where I can not lose more. Rather, I hold on to anything I have to stop myself from falling down. Like this little project. So what? So I do this and almost everything in life alone-alone by myself in short. Nevertheless, if you'd be interested in working with me, here is a page to look at: https://richardkramen.com/form/ That's all. Thank you for reading. Respect and love one another. Back to sword-fighting robots and games and such!

2024-March-01
entry 025.

Hello again! To get back on track with programming in GodotEngine properly, I went through a few things: So, it all based on the 2.5 Godot (3.6.3beta) template, mixed 2d and 3d elements, as it allows to use "simple" animation, show a lot and have the capability to utilize engine physics, gravity and overall "3d capabilities". I would of course loved to model and animate the whole thing with rigged bodies and so on but keeping it "flat" is what I have time for if I do not want this to take forever-forever. Hopefully in the future there will be a hospitable planet to live on... and I will be able to continue to create more, maybe a 3d sequel. Anyhow. Before I get to the actual fun part of it all, drawing characters properly, animating them, drawing backgrounds, making props and interactions, I must get through with the "boring" coding part. Fortunately, thanks to the vast busy-busy community this game engine attracted, the resources are plenty and I do not have to figure out everything on my own, amazing people share their work and discuss their troubles on forums and all in all, this is a superior software to work with. Yay. Here is a list of most things I've done apart from the "old code". Will upload a video soon and then some silly pre-alpha to mess with. I decided to disclose my actual roadmap [it is still heavily cropped for brevity], see it at the bottom, after the posts: Roadmap ⌁ Created off-screen point-of-interest indicators by merging two different sources and then managed to fix and trim it down to about 50 lines. Now it all works as expected. ⌁ Got a placeholder parallax background for clouds/depth. ⌁ Drew the rough animations for the first own character, walks, falls and jumps in 8 directions. ⌁ Fixed unwanted sliding of the player again: after about three hours of coding i realized i just need to adjust a slider. ⌁ Experimented with a logo idea, worked it out it in Inkscape. ⌁ Created a transparent boot splash, when the game loads, there is a neat semi-transparent logo popping up, and did some icons for files and folders. ⌁ Discovered this spatial/panning audio function: the sound pans left or right depending on where the source is on the screen. ⌁ Added a screenshot function I am at a dilemma, a problem where I have to decide to go with just a single-player mode or introduce and take on building a multiplayer option as it would make great sense according to my "story" and beyond. There will be party/team-based gameplay either way. Keeping simple but not too simple. Thank you for reading.

2024-February-28
entry 024.

Just a few more images. Photo from 2020: Figuring how the character avatar/hud should look. This is too distracting but looks cool, would take a few shaders: I think I go with small eyes for this character:

CLICK TO REVEAL 24 PREVIOUS ENTRIES

ROADMAP


PHASE 1, Programming:port all existing work to the new orthographic setup ⬂ port all existing work to the new 3D setup ⬂ port all existing work to Godot 4.3 ⬂ Core: ➨ Advanced Hierarchical State Machine + Animation Player with Signals / Modifiers ➨ T.B.S.S. (the boring skill system) ⬂NPCs hit boxes, basic actions, follow, patrol, chase, abilities... ⬂Inventory System ⬂Save/Load System ⬂Screens and Menus ⬂ implement further character actions ⬂ (inc invisibility, interactions etc.) ⬂ extend animations ⬂ fix animations... ⬂ skill tree test new shaders offscreen enemy/poi indicator parallax background make own basic anims in 8 directions fix sliding again create cool transparent boot splash for no reason create cool icons for no reason spatial/panning audio screenshot function 2020-2021: experiment with pixelart styles decide on character sizes decide on resolution and zoom levels sketch first map/level decide on color and mood fix character "sliding" unify shaders, (move on if taking too long) *it didn't add shadows (nope, i'll just draw them, 3d shadows look rather off) pause menu track that credit list! (tutorials used etc.) player attack test movable object get deeper into Godot by implementing placeholder animations modifier keys and animations basic shaders sketch first characters familiarize with Godot

PHASE 2, Art: ⬂ Blocking out characteristics colour palettes ⬂ Environment, Levels: preload and discard when offscreen two main zoom states, a little zoom in on main action areas falling ground moving rocks rooms ⬂ Character Art: characters test quirky cartoon style of mine draw backgrounds character anims add effects vehicles and buildings animations ⬂ Sound ⬂ shaders ⬂ animated avatars ⬂ black cinematic bars ⬂ Cinematic Animations ⬂ compass on top - >waypoints ⬂ weather ⬂ icons ⬂ music ⬂ text ⬂ posters ⬂ stickers ⬂ promo onto PHASE 3...


Questions and Answers


Q: What is this?
A: An adventure video game in the making.

Q: Who is behind it?
A: yours truly: RKAWX

Q: What to expect, what is the rough direction?
A: Art and design-oriented digital "play with dolls" "time-waster". The direction is Another World meets Kenshi. Wild take but there you go. ... I pour all my strange ideas into it for a long time now: there is a story and an "universe" behind it all with many details which I was world-building for many years but refer to the inspirations, zero hand-holding. It will look 2d with fake shadows (it is actually 3d with flat art on top). Oh, Dark Souls, of course.

Q: How is it going so far?
A: Most of the first map is drawn, it needs to be broken down into platform sections etc. It will take forever if my life continues as it did in the last years.

Q: Sounds like a lot. Anything else?
A: It is getting done in Godot Engine 3.6, if necessary in the future, I will transfer it to 4.2. Everything is done exclusively via Free Libre Software on GNU/Linux.



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