REINCAR Dev Log #16 | Story-board stuff & more

At first, the way i worked on my storyboards was really inefficient and clunky, basically:

I would have the project open in ren'py, the script file open on the side, and i'd write one sentence, then draw a rough sketch of the pose of the character saying the sentence, export the image over to the ren'py folder and show it on the ren'py script, and then see how it looks, and repeat.

So after i published the demo, i started thinking of doing the storyboard in another way, specifically, instead of jumping from CSP to ren'py and back to CSP and back to ren'py, i'd do the whole storyboard on CSP as an animatic. And so i tried doing the rest of the scene at the end of the demo without it being cut by the end speech, and it works, but im not used to it, especially because of the text aspect, so this process feels incomplete. So a new idea im having is this :

Basically it'd focus only on the text aspect, with place holders that would be there just to show placement, so basically it'd help me figure out the rythm of a conversation quickly, and when all of this is done and figured out, only then i'd do the animatic style storyboard, much more easily cuz i'd be using the other version i did as a base.
Basically, im splitting the storyboard process into two different storyboard (SB) types:

Dialogue SB : One where the focus is the text, and the rhythm of a conversation

Visual SB : One where the focus is the visuals, the character's body language and their placement on the scene.

Here's an example of both !

First, i work on the Dialogue SB, here's a gif exemple:

Then with this as a base, i go work on the Visual SB, here's a gif exemple:(I'll make a second post to those with tier 3 that shows a bit more of the Visual SB)

But yeah, other than that, i've been thinking of labeling different stuff about the project to help with organization. For exemple, in the demo there are a few different kinds of what i call "screens" a screen is basically a frame, and here a list of the types of screens shown in the demo:

-Action screens
Where the characters are simply, part of the scene, they can interact with the background, move around it, get closer or farther from the camera. Usually seen with their full bodies. an example of this is when Eliot wakes up in the beginning of the demo:

-Conversation screens
This is when two characters or more are talking to each other, and the focus is more on them, and maybe their body language, than their location and action in the scene. Usually, the background becomes slightly darker and more blurry so the focus stays on the talking characters. Example:

-Background/Scene Setup screens
A screen focusing on showing the background, usually at the beginning to help the viewer figure out the space the scene will take place in.
Example:

-Half-Illustration screens
A screen that shows a specific moment, from a specific angle, but doesn't have a custom background, so behind is just a very dark and blurry background like this:

Here are a few other types that i will use, but aren't show in the demo:

-Illustration screens
The whole screen is an illustration, with the background being redraw from that specific angle, im not sure if I'll really use it that much though.

-Animated action screens
I plan on having some screens include animations, be it an animation that loops until you manually skip it, or a particular sprite being animated when doing a specific action.

-Traveling screens
If characters are having a discussion while traveling, walking, i plan on making a background slide behind characters, looping, giving the impression of movement, while the character sprites themselves are roughly animated walking. It'd be good to use to show casual banter, showing time passing, and other stuff.

And i think that's it for the types of screens there is, if i forgot one, i'll edit it in this post later.

But yep, i think that's it for today's devlog, i haven't been as productive as i'd like to be this last week, i won't lie, i somehow got my hands on a copy of the new zelda and it's been quite hard not spending all my free time just binge playing it T^T, but im trying my best not to do that hjkkjhfsdjfs

But ye, thanks for reading, and i hope u have a good day !