The Mana World Forums

After talking with bertram it was of my own knowledge that the npc dialog box and shop display can be changed into something more appropriate (decorated and interesting) though im not a programmer myself i think this would be a very good idea to consider because from what alot of players have told me they do not read the npc dialog boxes, which is a shame since our developers spend so much time on scripting. I think part of the reason why they dont read is because the npc dialog boxes look boring and unattractive. maybe a picture and background change would help. I will post images below of examples.

So your suggestion is adding NPC portraits to dialogs?

npc portraits and maybe a nice display background possibly for each town?

While the protocol doesn't support that, it wouldn't be difficult to figure something out. Like using magic strings in dialog texts to control image output.

The big problem would be the portraits themselves. A big library of NPC portraits would have to be created. The images would have to be pretty big, the very minimum would be at least 100x100 pixels (size of my forum picture), larger would be better. Portrait painting is where the individual style of an artist becomes most apparent. Ideally, all portraits would be drawn by the same person. But you know how much personnel rotation we have. So it would be very important to develop and define a consistent style which can be immitated easily but is still visually appealing.

tl;dr: What you suggest is an enormous undertaking for graphics development.

Crush wrote:While the protocol doesn't support that, it wouldn't be difficult to figure something out. Like using magic strings in dialog texts to control image output.

I agree, adding a feature rarely was the "hard" part of the work needed.

Crush wrote:The big problem would be the portraits themselves. A big library of NPC portraits would have to be created.

I think that if done, not all NPCs should have a portrait, only the ones who are directly linked to the main quest or history of the game.

Crush wrote:The images would have to be pretty big, the very minimum would be at least 100x100 pixels (size of my forum picture), larger would be better.

I don't see why portraits should be bigger than 100x100px.

Crush wrote:What you suggest is an enormous undertaking for graphics development.

I agree, and note that we don't have any senior artists active enough to do a such work since a lot of other projects are already being worked on. I suggest you, Chicka-Maria, to go and see Evol Online developers, you'll have more luck with them I think.

Well I wouldn't mind helping out with the graphic bit, I enjoy drawing portraits. though it might take me a bit more time then people who just draw on gimp or such since I like to sketch in my drawing books first than scan it on the computer and do the digital work. But its something I would mind helping out with just wanted to see how many people were on board with the idea.

Regards,

I personally like the idea.
Interesting would be if you are able to switch the image in scripts. Then you could make more clear who is actually speaking right now. Of course it is a lot of work for artists. But you could start with only having only a few images and add further ones later.

In the same turn we could think about other enhancements to the dialouge window.

EDIT: hm for eAthena it might become hard to find someone to implement it. But for manaserv it should be possible.

Ablu wrote:In the same turn we could think about other enhancements to the dialouge window.

I think it'd already help a lot if the font size was bigger.

So my idea is that only the part of the dialogue between two 'next' could be displayed, in a much bigger font. To see what was said before, it'd be good to allow some kind of scroll-back function, maybe the text could be in a different color in the scroll-back, to make it clear that it's not the most recent thing that was said.

The only question I really have before starting all these, is if its possible to have maybe 3 emotion portraits of 1 npc, and can the portrait change as the emotion of the dialog changes? If not ill just do 1 portrait with each npc (starting with the important ones).

regards,

I think a reasonable start would be to just do a single portrait for each NPC. You already have the sprite id, so it would be done entirely on the client side.

If you want to be able to change portraits during dialog (a worthwhile "eventually" goal), that can come LATER.

ok awsome ill just work on the single portrait for now then.

regards,

just so people don't think i forgot about this project i'm posting a sample of what i'm doing with the portraits..it still needs a lot of work like shade and details in her dress (boobs i suppose) but ill do it soon. Heres a sample and [WIP] of sagatha..

Also...should i use more anime features for the face? or should i leave game features? (i know leaving game features would make them look more unique)..or should i just do a whole different pose and style with the pictures?

Chicka-Maria wrote:Also...should i use more anime features for the face? or should i leave game features? (i know leaving game features would make them look more unique)..or should i just do a whole different pose and style with the pictures?

In my opinion, the vector look of the clothes and the pixel look of the face clash badly. But it has the advantage that it is a style which can be easily reproduced by other artists, especially inexperienced ones.

well im not sure which style to do..i mean if i do the pixel faces sure it will be easy for other artists to produce but will they be edited again later on? If so i might as well just do it now...if not ill continue the pixel faces. Please give input...

Regards,

I love those.
Pixel pictures suit the game. I'll vote for those!