Buyog's Lair

What's Next? (Part 1 of 2)

Friday, October 12, 2012

So this took me a while to get back to. Sorry, I'm kinda preoccupied with things I'm not prepared to talk about here (yet).

Anyway.

As Acey predicted in the comments on my last post, my enthusiasm for MUGEN creation has returned this week, at least in part because I had to go and test all of my unfinished characters so I could write this post about what they still need. So without further ado, here's the first part of the list (more coming soon; I have a few characters still to evaluate):

Stay tuned for part 2; I promise it won't take me 3 months to write it!

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Elektra, Green Lantern, Ice, Invisible Woman, Lex Luthor, Lobo, Mandarin, Marrow, Parasite, Strong Guy

Blackest Night Hal v2.1

Monday, July 25, 2011

My friend AngelusEcks (creator of the awesome Atom MUGEN character) just reminded me that I haven't yet blogged about this (I tweeted about it, so if you follow me on Twitter, you'll already know). Back on July 1st, I uploaded a fix to Blackest Night Hal Jordan that eliminates all of the MUGEN 1.0 bugs, and a few others besides. I also gave him a dedicated character page with the download link, and more details and screenshots of all the custom lantern modes.

Meanwhile, I'm feverishly working on several character releases and updates as part of the Scruffy Dragon Team's Scruffyversary event. Head over to ScruffyDragon.com to see all the cool stuff my teammates are doing, and the few new things I'm cranking out in my sleepless nights. I'm going to keep them exclusive to the Scruffy event for the duration, but will have a big post or three to talk about them here when the month is over.

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Scruffyversary

Released: Blackest Night Hal Jordan!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Today, after far more work than I had originally expected, I bring to you the Blackest Night release for Mr. Harold Jordan, the Green/Red/Orange/Yellow/Blue/Indigo/Black Lantern!

It's been a long run to get this guy done, and I absolutely could NOT have done it without the able assistance of my fellow ScruffyDragons, Jet the Phoenix and ArmageddoN. A big thank-you to them both for all the custom sprite work; most of the new / re-paletted stuff is from the two of them.

CLICK HERE to download Hal (he'll soon have his own dedicated page here on my site, since he's so different from the previous release). Read the readme file in the archive for all the details about his different modes, give him a whirl, then I'd love to hear your feedback on the Scruffy release thread, or here on my blog.

As you know, I'd really hoped to have Hal done in time for the 12 Days of Christmas, but I just couldn't justify giving you something not as good as it could be just to meet an arbitrary deadline. I have my crack team of beta testers to thank for their role in making this release as tight as possible. Big thanks to each of them.

And, as always, thank all of you for your continued interest in and support of mine and my team's efforts. MUGEN is at its best when we are celebrating each other's achievements, and not complaining that people aren't giving us enough goodies. The world would be a better place if we all tried to be a little bit more like Saint Walker, and a little bit less like Larfleeze. ;)

Labels: Blackest Night Hal

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 18

Friday, April 08, 2011

Only one small bug left to resolve with Blackest Night Hal's Construct Corps hyper for Orange Lantern mode! It's looking like tonight will be the night. :D

Status recap:

• implemented orange mode's Construct Corps custom hyper (only one small bug left to find & fix!)

For now, I need sleep. Then work. Then family time. Check back around 10-11pm EDT tonight, I ought to have something interesting uploaded by then. ;)

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 17

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Last night I got a message from my co-creator on Blackest Night Hal, ArmageddoN, with his final list of bugs he'd found; my work these past few nights had introduced several more issues, albeit small ones. I spent tonight fixing them, then worked a bit on the Construct Corps sprites, but didn't get far enough along to really show it off yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Status recap:

• fixed broken command for the custom air specials for orange / blue modes
• fixed Emerald Swordsman sword color for black mode
• fixed broken command for blue mode's air ion storm
• tweaked yellow mode's Golden Dragons hyper (dragon hitdef timings)
• fixed dash lines for black mode
• added taunt (but not lantern charge) for orange and black modes

We're so excited to be close to releasing this guy into the wild! He's been a ton of fun to work on. That said, when he's released, I won't be wanting to work on another ring-slinger for a while (except maybe Mandarin, because he won't play at all like a member of one of the color-corps ;))

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 16

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

So tonight I cracked open my old, dead PC and dug out my hard drive full of MUGEN goodies, including the remixed version of Hal Jordan that my ScruffyDragon teammate SethZankuten did last year (sorry, it's not public yet), with an eye to grab a couple more things from his version to adapt (this was one of the three things ArmageddoN reminded me a few days ago that I'd wanted to do). Once I'd mounted that drive via external enclosure to my laptop, I grabbed what I needed, and brought that code in. The remixed, new-and-improved Emerald Swordsman is now complete.

I also tweaked the Black Lantern mode's Piercing Strike special to include a little forward momentum, further differentiating it from the regular Ring Strike moves. I'm pretty happy with Black mode now, and am thinking about cutting another YouTube vid of that mode in action.

That leaves me with just Orange Lantern mode's Construct Corps hyper to do, and it should be ready to show soon. And once that's done, he'll be ready for one final pass my my beta team. With any luck, we'll have a release by the weekend. :)

Status recap:

• tweaked Piercing Strike to have a little fwd momentum
• finished adapting Seth-tweaked Emerald Swordsman special

Now, off to bed!

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 15

Monday, April 04, 2011

I've mentioned before how I don't get much MUGEN work done on the weekends. This trend continues, and yet from Friday night until now, I've managed to do a couple of things to move this ball a bit closer to the goal, fixing the bugs my buddy ArmageddoN told me about a few days ago:

• fixed: something strange happens if you beat the opponent using selfish grab
• fixed: Smackdown sprites move faster than the gloves

The way I fixed that second bug was kind of sneaky: because Red Lantern Hal moves slightly faster than the other modes, it was a bit of a pain to fix the Smackdown hyper to work right for him, and still work the same for all the other modes... so I just changed his custom move trigger. Instead of his custom hyper, Construct Corps, replacing Soldier of Oa, it now replaces Smackdown. Soldier of Oa isn't messed up by his speed boost, so, problem solved. ;)

Latest bug tally:
Beta issues resolved: 72 of 74
Tasks remaining: 2

I've got some sprites to dig off the hard drive on my old, dead PC, before I can finish the Orange mode's Construct Corps hyper, but I'll hopefully be able to do that tomorrow.

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 14

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Last night I finished the Black Lantern custom hyper, Nekron Rising. Took more time than I'd anticipated, but I like it a lot better now. I also got a bug report from my co-creator, ArmageddoN, on a couple of minor things that he'd found in my latest build. Sooooo.... back up to 4 tasks remaining:

Latest bug tally:
Beta issues resolved: 70 of 74
Tasks remaining: 4

I still owe a post on our plans for Scruffyversary, which would normally be starting tomorrow. I'll try and put that up tonight.

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 13

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

I've got the Black Lantern custom hyper, Nekron Rising, almost done. Needs a few sound and hitdef tweaks, but it's pretty much there. That just leaves me with the Orange Lantern mode's "Construct Corps" hyper left to do! :)

Latest bug tally:
Beta issues resolved: 70 of 71
Tasks remaining: 1!!

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 12

Monday, March 28, 2011

Another weekend has come and gone, filled with house and yard work, errands, family time... and very little MUGEN work. But the new week is upon us, and I fully intend to finish and release Blackest Night Hal Jordan this week! (I'd originally thought about doing a second round of beta testing, but on reflection, he's ready to be seen by a bigger group of people than that.

As I said on Friday, there are two things left to be done; neither one is a bug, per se, but they're both necessary before the release:

1. [Black Lantern mode] Nekron Rising — this move was stubbed in when I gave him to my beta team, but it's not yet finished: no sound effects, no collision boxes, and it doesn't do any damage. That said, it's closer to being done than #2:
2. [Orange Lantern mode] Construct Corps hyper — Hal calls upon the orange light to create construct duplicates of his friends to help him attack. I'm planning on using Kilowog and John Stewart sprites, as I have permissions to both, but I may throw some others in as well if I have the time and inclination to sprite them. I still don't have a really good handle on how this move is going to play out, but as I experiement, it should start to come into focus.

Latest bug tally:
Beta issues resolved: 69 of 71
Tasks remaining: 2

Stay tuned this week for Hal, a beta announcement for another of my projects, and more.

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 11

Friday, March 25, 2011

Well, that was fun. :)

Tonight I've finished implementing Blackest Night Hal Jordan's Blue Lantern handicap. Here's what I originally wrote about this concept:

quirk: moves sometimes interrupted by the ring asking "what do you hope for?"

The idea is that, as a tradeoff for the nearly-always-full power bar that the Blue Lantern ring provides, Hal sometimes gets interrupted — even if he's right in the middle of a move — by the ring pestering him. It adds a fun, unique dimension to this mode, and I like it quite a bit (if I do say so myself).

Latest bug tally:
Beta issues resolved: 69 of 71
Tasks remaining: 2

And now, it's time for All Star Superman. :)

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 10

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Too bad not every day can be a take-the-netbook-on-the-drive day! Less got done yesterday on Blackest Night Hal Jordan, but it was in laying important groundwork.

I realized this morning that I haven't told you what the three remaining items on my tasklist actually ARE. Simple bugs? Relatively quick and easy to finish. These three, in contrast, may take as much as a couple of nights each:

• [Blue Lantern mode] implement "what do you hope for?" ring interruptions (the handicap that keeps this mode from being too powerful)
• [Orange Lantern mode] finish the Construct Corps custom hyper
• [Black Lantern mode] finish the Nekron Rising custom hyper

Latest bug tally (unchanged from yesterday, since I'm still in progress):
Beta issues resolved: 68 of 71
Tasks remaining: 3

I spent last night starting to build out the Blue Lantern mode handicap. The ring effect and voice are done, now I just need to actually code the state that uses them to interrupt Hal's moves. I have the code already laid out in my mind, so hopefully I should be able to knock it out tonight.

And when I do, I'll be taking a break to watch All Star Superman. :)

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 9

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

So like I said yesterday, I was able to take the netbook on my carpool to work this morning, since my wife wasn't going to be using it. Unsurprisingly, with 2-1/2 hours driving time travelling to work and back again, I got quite a bit done on Blackest Night Hal Jordan! In reviewing his status, I found a couple of things I'd forgotten to put on the "to be finished" list, so the number of beta issues is higher today, but I was also able to knock out quite a few things from the list, getting it down to brass tacks:

• added push-back on crouch light kick (to prevent infinite in corner)
• tweaked push-back on all other standing/crouching basic attacks
• fixed: Soldier of Oa sometimes can jump too far off the screen
• wontfix: Ion Force hyper can be spammed at least three times (it doesn't hit enemies when they're down, so spamming doesn't really matter that much in this case)
• implement lantern power-saving bonus [Orange Lantern mode] (his moves use a lot less power than the other modes, but he can't recharge until the next round)

Tonight's updated bug tally:
Beta issues resolved: 68 of 71
Bugs remaining: 3!

Just a couple of things left! :)

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 8

Monday, March 21, 2011

So I haven't been able to work on Blackest Night Hal Jordan for a couple of days (shocking, I know). Tonight, though, I finally made the time. Here's where things stand, relative to his readiness for release:

• fixed: plasma sphere in corner needs better alignment with p2 as goes off
• wontfix: hal will not jump near p2 when they are knocked back from knockout special if stage near wall

This is the first "wontfix" (i.e. "won't fix") to show up in my blog posts. It's a concept from software engineering, where some bugs are deemed too minor to fix, or sometimes (like in this case) not really bugs at all! I actually intended the current behavior, where Hal only dashes onscreen / close to P2 if he knocks them offscreen. You'll see more of these in the full changelog, which will go out with his release when it's done.

Tonight's updated bug tally:
Beta issues resolved: 64 of 70
Bugs remaining: 6

Not too much left! And I'm taking the netbook on my carpool drive to work tomorrow, so I can (hopefully) get some stuff done then too. :)

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 7

Thursday, March 17, 2011

I went to bed early last night, still trying to shake off this flu bug. Before I did, however, I fixed two minor bugs with Blackest Night Hal Jordan:

• fixed: [Orange Lantern] KOed P2 flies way up into the air before eventually falling back to the ground
• fixed: [Red Lantern] Jet Rush special is noticeably longer when in the air at the edge of the screen than any other time

That brings Hal's bug tally to:
Beta issues resolved: 62 of 70
Bugs remaining: 8

Tonight I should be able to stay up a little later, since I'm now well-rested. Should be a good chance to knock out most of the non-palette-specific bugs, leaving me the weekend to finish debugging the Orange and Black hypers.

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 6

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Monday night after work was family time; I helped my kids finish their Pinewood Derby cars for the race the following night (i.e. tonight). So, no MUGEN time. Tonight we had the race, which was fun, then I came home and put my wife & kids to bed. Should have gone to bed myself (I'm still not fully recovered from last week's flu), but like the glutton for punishment I am, I wanted to put in some work on Blackest Night Hal Jordan... so I did.

When I originally envisioned the winpose for Orange Lantern mode, it included the idea that Hal would try to steal the beaten player's identity, the same way that Larfleeze did to those he's killed. It's a creepy, unique aspect of the orange spectrum in the comics, but I wasn't quite sure if it was doable in MUGEN, so it got left off the final "to do" list. But then, in doing some testing against Splode's Juggernaut, I realized that he had figured out how to do something similar in Juggy's winposes (i.e. make him walk over and grab the player he's just beaten up off the floor). So, I dug into Splode's code to see if I could reverse-engineer what he'd figured out. Turns out I could, so now Hal's got this:

Pretty nifty. There's still a minor bug in the KO behavior (he flies way up into the air before eventually falling back to the ground), but I definitely like it. However, that brings the tally of bugs up to 70 from last time's 69:

Beta issues resolved: 60 of 70
Bugs remaining: 10

Anyway, progress is progress. Now it's time for me to go and get some sleep.

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 5

Sunday, March 13, 2011

I'm still not feeling 100%, but am slowly crawling out of the flu hole. Yuck.

Surprisingly, I was able to make some time to work on Blackest Night Hal Jordan today, so I went ahead and knocked out the remaining issues with Yellow Lantern (Sinestro Corps) mode:

• changed YL Sinister Sabers: LP creates 1, MP creates 2, and only HP creates 3
• fixed: Sinister Sabers has infinite juggle (new issue I just found today)

Beta issues resolved: 60 of 69
Bugs remaining: 9

Of the remaining 9 issues, 6 are common to all palettes, and 1 each remain for Red Corps, Orange Corps, and Black Corps modes. The 6 common ones should all be pretty easy to knock out in one evening, but the corps issues will likely take a bit longer. Getting closer!

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 4+

Saturday, March 12, 2011

So this cold/flu thing I picked up early in the week got worse... I stayed home from work Thursday and took an early out Friday, and slept a lot. Nevertheless, I did crack open Blackest Night Hal Jordan's code, and finished all the remaining issues with Indigo Lantern mode:

• Indigo Hal now taunts/charges his ring with his staff instead of a lantern:
• fixed: AI could trigger IL teleport in midair (new issue not previously logged)
• fixed: P2 could sense IL's teleport destination before he appeared (new issue)
• fixed: when in a corner, the IL Enforced Empathy hyper now backs away from the wall, since he sometimes went off the screen before

Beta issues resolved: 58 of 68
Bugs remaining: 10

We're well into the weekend now... a time when I tend to get less MUGEN work done than during the week, oddly enough. So we'll see if I have anything new to report tonight/tomorrow.

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 3

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Today I continue the my countdown to Blackest Night Hal Jordan's release. Last night I did:

• finished coding the custom winpose for Blue Lantern mode
• revamped the color of Indigo mode's constructs:
  

Beta issues resolved: 55 of 66
Bugs remaining: 11

I woke up this morning with a powerful case of the creeping crud, so haven't done any MUGEN work tonight, and am about ready to call it a night. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be back with my "A" game.

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch

[Release Watch] Hal Jordan, Day 2

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Continuing the countdown to Blackest Night Hal Jordan's release. Here's what I did last night:

• finished sprite work on custom winpose for Blue Lantern (smart-paletted version of a winpose SethZankuten made for the official DCvsMarvel version)

Beta issues resolved: 54 of 66
Bugs remaining: 12

Tonight I'm going to finish up the coding for the winpose, and dig into some of the remaining 12 issues. Probably a few of the balance-related issues: things like push-back, damage levels, that sort of thing. At least, until I fall asleep. ;)

Labels: Blackest Night Hal, Release Watch