Gabu and Mei (Arashi no Yoru Ni)

[The Great Matsutzu]

Usually I don't make another WIP topic when I have another active WIP still going, but this one's getting far enough along that if I don't make a topic for it, I might never get to (like Giro-san)


The character is Gabu and Mei from the anime movie Arashi no yoru ni. Basically, this is to go as a companion to my Giro-san character, and thus more or less complete an Arayoru character set. Hopefully I'll also be able to construct a specialized intro between the two.

Some more screenshots:






Gabu himself is basically a "Giro clone" as I can't find another wolf baisis. However, there are some differences, as follows:

1.) Unlike Giro, Gabu will have Mei as a constant onscreen helper. As I was having a conversation with Sabaki about this project that you really can't have Gabu without Mei. I'm hoping to have certain buttons cause Mei to go into some attack states, and maybe even make him have reactions when Gabu is hit. Mei is pretty much his DS sprites to a tee, as they were close to perfect. I have however extended his waist 3 pixels so he would be the approriate size compared to his wolf friend.

2.) Cosmetic differences. Beside having the appropriate head from the DS sprites, Gabu's back is 2 pixels lower than Giro's. Gabu has a slimer build than Giro, and I'm hoping to get that across in Mugen.  Gabu's ligher markings on the legs go up higher as well.

Right now I'm continuing my sprite editing, and figuring out where I want my ripped sounds from the movie to go. I am not 100% sure of the exact attacks yet, but I am considering an "Avalanche" super. Gabu may have at least one custom basic that is unlike Giro's.

And don't worry, I haven't forgotten about my DekaMaster project, it's just the spriting on that is going at a snails pace due to the detail of the sprites. Once I finish the sword/punch basics there (the kicks are done), I'll update my thread 

[giammo84]

  I love them  

[Sasuke-kun]

Everyone have the courage to make and announce those Evil, Dark, Devil, Demon, Shin, God, Orochi, Violent, Ogre, Angel, Holy, etc craps that are just a bunch of abominations...

But it takes true courage to announce something that's really fresh and new knowing that maybe nobody knows or have a single drop of info about it.

[Sabaki]

Everyone have the courage to make and announce those Evil, Dark, Devil, Demon, Shin, God, Orochi, Violent, Ogre, Angel, Holy, etc craps that are just a bunch of abominations...

But it takes true courage to announce something that's really fresh and new knowing that maybe nobody knows or have a single drop of info about it.

This definitely is a breath of fresh air & a chance at bringing something new to the community. Still looking forward to how Gabu & Mei will cooperate in battle 

[alex87]

  amazing

[The Great Matsutzu]

Everyone have the courage to make and announce those Evil, Dark, Devil, Demon, Shin, God, Orochi, Violent, Ogre, Angel, Holy, etc craps that are just a bunch of abominations...

But it takes true courage to announce something that's really fresh and new knowing that maybe nobody knows or have a single drop of info about it.

This definitely is a breath of fresh air & a chance at bringing something new to the community. Still looking forward to how Gabu & Mei will cooperate in battle 

 , Sasuke-kun, Im not quite sure how to respond to your post because it's so touching. I'm flattered, and thank you always for your encoraging comments.

@ Sabaki- Thanks! I'm pretty sure that Gabu will have buttons reserved for actually causing Mei to attack. One thing that keeps going through my mind is cooperative movements too. That will require some interesting work I have never done yet, so I'll definitley have to play around with helpers and the base character and how they can interplay with eachother. I always like learing something new!


Progress wise, all of Gabu's get hit sprites are done after this weekend and he's now got stand and crouch bite attacks .

[SesakaX]

Great work on this!

[The Great Matsutzu]

Thank you! 

As of now, all the bare-bone basics of the wolf sprites are in for Gabu:


The fall back anim. Again, this appears similar to Giro's. You'll notice Mei cannot be hit yet, I have not yet done the helper work in order to have Mei in any other states except walk and stand.


Part of the bite attack. Truthfully, I got the idea for the face expression based on this plush doll (from my personal collection )


I think that even though a lot of Gabu's attacks are reminicent of Giro's, they do have a different feel. Here is a .gif is to show the difference in build between the two. Giro has been paletted to be the same colors as Gabu, in order to clearly show the differences. Most noticably, like the movie, Gabu is smaller in build than Giro.


I assume that now that the original basics are out of the way, the rest of the work will be completley custom animations. This should also ensure that Gabu himself feels differently than Giro, despite both being based from the same sprite source.

[Sasuke-kun]

Man...
You need to share the name of the place where you get all those Anime suvenirs. T-T

Back on topic...
I still can't wait to see how a goat (It was a goat right? ) and a wolf can fight as a team.

[Acey]

I bet that's the parodox the anime was trying to create, even mortal enimies can be friends.

[Sasuke-kun]

You can't imagine or believe it until you watched it.

That's what I love of anime...
Always unpredictable.

[The Great Matsutzu]

I bet that's the parodox the anime was trying to create, even mortal enimies can be friends.

Exactly. The film sends a very strong message on this.

As for the attacks the two will have, a have a few ideas I'll have to see if I can make reality. What are they? Well, guess we'll have to see 

[BigJ]

Very interesting. I was wondering who those little chars in your sig were .

[ky 3000]

fantastic char

[Kid22 the Rookie]

   

[nexus667]

Looks promising.  Keep up the good work.

[The Great Matsutzu]

Thanks!

At the moment I've taken my attention from the Gabu side of the project and am focusing a bit more on the Mei.  . I have ripped several new animations from the DS game for him, and have been slowly putting them in the .sff. I am soon hoping to have the states for Mei to get hit, and also ones for him to react to Gabu being hit.

One difficult thing is attacks.. Mei has none from the original source. So, I'll have to creativley edit, probably.

On the Gabu side, I removed the Wolf Upper attack I had originally given Giro-san but temporarilly left in my Gabu work. It just made Gabu feel a little *too* similar to Giro. I'm also thinking of shaking up the stance a little bit... I need to use the stance he has for several transitionary things (attacks and hit states), but I'm considering making Gabu stand up on two legs if he's idle for too long (Kind of looking at the opponent wondering why they've been standing still for so long... that's my thought ). Hopefully I can work it in soon. If it looks nice, I might do the same for Mei's stance as well (since I have sprites of Mei standing upright on two legs from the game.)

One thing I'm planning for the two of them is a super where they cause an Avalanche. In the DS game, there's a mini game where (as Gabu) you run around and avoid the other wolves, causing small avalanches to knock them out temporarilly (I say temporarily because Giro and Barry are amoung the wolves you can wipe out with the avalanches, but after they've been eliminated they reappear later as the mini game continues.).

Anyway, back to my point, as of yet I have not found any baisis for the sprites of the snow for the Avalanche itself. The ones from the DS game are not workable, as 1.) The mini-game has a different overhead view and 2.) They're far to small.  I am *thinking* of taking either Armaggon's or Rikuo's wave attack and re-paletting it as snow, That may work. However, if anyone knows a 2-d game source that has useable Avalanche sprites, let me know.

(And, I apologize for the lack of updates recently... Things have been hectic, as I've been helping a family member move, which has been zapping a lot of my free time recently. Don't worry, I'm still working on my projects, just a bit slower than I do normally. ).

[Epic Win Man]

heh, this is like your 3rd wolf character 

good luck with this, there is a lack of quadruped characters

[The Great Matsutzu]

, now that you mention it, you're right. Compound that with the fact that my main in SSBB is Wolf. Strange coincidences...

[Violent Ken Masters]

, now that you mention it, you're right. Compound that with the fact that my main in SSBB is Wolf. Strange coincidences...

. I thought you had a major fascination with members of the dog family (ie: Dogs, wolfs, etc)

I'm pretty sure you have a pet dog, maybe more, but I'm sure you have at least one. 

[The Great Matsutzu]

@ VKM.. actually, nope. I have two cats, but no dog. Strange, no?

I've done a bit of tweaking with Mei in the past few days. After some trial and error, I now have Mei flinching whenever Gabu is hit.




The animation is different depending on whether or not Gabu is hit in the air or on the ground (Not sure why I did this, probably just because I had two different animations.) I am noticing in the screens that Mei is appearing in his ds palette rather than his anime one here (As Gabu is correctly visualizing in the anime one here). Obviously, I need to go back to my .sff in Fighter Factory and click to ensure it's running off the shared palette, which right now it's obviously not.

I have Mei's get hit sprite ripped and have already put it in the .sff and made the .cns adjustments to incorproate it. All I really need to do to finish that off is put in the blue colission boxes for him, which I'm hoping to get done today. After that, I need to see what I come up with for this helper in terms of attacks.

[The Great Matsutzu]

My apologies for not keeping you all informed on the progress of my projects in the past week. The computer where I do my Mugen work's HD started to go, and it's been a mad dash to get everything backed up. Luckilly, the only thing I eneded up loosing was the coding of a jump attack for Mei, since my computer had frozen before I could save it. Thankfully, I was able to acess the data after the crash and back everything up on external drives. Thanks to the Fighter Factory Portable release, I am now able to start making some segway on my projects once again.

I've started by adding a new animation segment to both Gabu and Mei's stances:



Now after 200 or so ticks, both Gabu and Mei will stand up on their hind legs and look at the opponent. While Mei's is from the DS game, Gabu's animation here is completley customized. I'm not sure if I like the position of Gabu's arms in this animation, so I may or may not change it depending on some experiments I hope to do with the sprites.

Mei is slowly beinning to interact like I was hoping he would. So far, Mei's animation changes are all based on Gabu's state changes. I need to read up on the Mugen docs in the next day or so to discover if I can make it so Gabu (parent)can have an animation change if Mei (helper) is in a certain state. There's one attack I'm hoping to utalize where I'll have Mei run to Gabu, and Gabu's animation must change when he reaches him. I'm sure it's possible, but as of yet I haven't worked with any such coding.

[Sasuke-kun]

I know you will find your way with the new codes...
Good luck.

[Sabaki]

Yes! It's looking good so far. Reminds me, I better not forget to take the book with me today 

[Kriven]

I just watched this movie for the first time today, and I'm stoked to see your Gabu in action dude. Plus he adds a tag-team and four-legged-fighter to the immortal MUGEN roster 8-)

Keep it up dude, I can't wait