Another Tail ( News Update April 10, 2014 )

[Lucky777]

I get 16 fps on "low" setting.
(That was the setting I used for Sakyubasu as well.)
A bit slowish, but still totally playable.

[cookie jar]

I get the 24 (to 25) FPS if I go to a low quality setting like Lucky. Medium ist 20-21 and high quality 12 to 13 FPS.

[rpgmaker]

Sup!
Just giving my stats for "AnotherTail - Version 3 (2013-05-01) - FPS TESTING.swf":

-Firefox 20.0.1
-Shockwave Flash 11.7 r700, 11.7.700.169

Low 21 FPS / 47 MsPF

Medium 16-18 FPS / 47, 62-63 MsPF

High 11 FPS / 93-94 MsPF

RP

[AnotherArrow]

Thanks for you input guys. My goal is to make this playable on high at 24FPS, not low.

I've made a lot of optimizations to the model with little success. Seems its not a matter of vectors, but the fact I've got so much "layering" going on. ( Mask, Shadows, Highlights, Outlines, Fills, Details,etc...)

I removed most mask which gave a 2-3 fps boost.
Next on my to-do is baking in the shadows and anything that uses an Alpha channel for transparency. This should give a good boost in performance. Almost every symbol has a shadow on it. >_<

Also, just a heads up. I'll be working more overtime at my RL job for the next 4-6 weeks... so... ya. Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in some working updates and demo for you.

-AA

[Tovi]

Awesome! Glad to hear that the project is still moving forward! Keep up the good work (Whether RL or not), eventually you'll get to it, and by taking a break you might have some useful ideas pop up that could make a difference in the long run. Glad to get an update from ya! ;D

[Artezz]

↑ What he said.

[Ivan-Aedler]

To optimize game speed:

Try to cut down all masks, and gradients. As for the background trees (those in black), prefer to make them as a new graphic, pained in black - so, fewer points - than using TINT or brightness.
And see if you can convert outlines to fills. Its better to have two closed shapes (one bigger than the other, one in front of the other) to create an outline than leaving with default outline.

But do not forget. What cuts more FPS is the 'BRUSH' nature of the art.
If you remake every art using pen tool (or if you edit the brushes, pressing A, and remove excess points (icon DELETE ANCHOR point , 'minus' key), making them like they're made using pen tool), and use bitmap to the far background (like mountains and some underground walls). You can make a given area up to 200% faster. I'm not exaggerating.

Each prop (say, a bush) would have between 30 and 100 curves/points to be decent and in order for the CPU to work well with large amounts of them.
I've seen projects whose bush graphic was taking up to 1000 (yes, a thousand) curves or even more. This is one of the reasons the game comes to a crawl.

Also, use copies of movie clips instead of huge art (say, a big pathway). Dont paste objects as 'GROUPED'/UNION DRAWING. Use MCs. Its faster. Of course, inside a given MC/graphic, you can have grouped shapes (its better and faster than creating layers, so try to create fewer layers).

And you can use effects like raining, wind, etc, only in the camera view (using the camera object), instead of the whole level. You can also make enemies stop altogether (a variable like non_animated=true) when they're distant from your player. If you reach a given distance (say, 100 units of flash measurement) they can 'wake up' and go against you.

Last, try not to make giant MCs. Each giant MC (say, a color background MC) will eat CPU. Prefer to apply color/rain effects in the camera mc, like above.

[OwnerOfSuccuby]

Realy good work. I like her combat moves very much.

[Giratina's Remorse]

Woah, is there a version of the game running? Or is it beta only?

[ultimateloss]

I like the sprites and the overall look of the characters. The only thing I would like to see changed is the visibility of Krystal's cleavage. The variety of attacks is awesome. I hope all is going well with this project

[Dedere]

this might be a stupid question but can someone link me the game?

[law24]

I may look like a total fool but i can not find the game or the download to it....
Someone quik tip me off to where it is, i am to dumb xD.

[NeerHeer]

I may look like a total fool but i can not find the game or the download to it....
Someone quik tip me off to where it is, i am to dumb xD.

Bad news man. The game is still unreleased. Not even a demo exists for us to play. Some say that it doesn't exist, that the coders are working tirelessly to produce one. Others say that the only copy is locked away in a temple in the deepest jungles of the Amazon. I? I think AnotherArrow just likes watching us squirm :3

Seriously though, there's nothing for us to play yet. Pity, because it looks awesome, don't it?

[AnotherArrow]

Sup everyone. I'm back... kind of...

Anyway, long story short (as I mentioned in my last post 3 months ago), I've been working overtime at my job and haven't had so much as a nano-second to touch this project. Things are finally settling down now so hopefully I'll be able to get things moving again.

When I last left you guys, I was working to optimize my characters / content... but after some trial and error and more experimentation.... it wasn't improving the fps at all... sadly.
Funny thing is, I think I just found a possible solution to my problems that I've started to experiment with.

DragonBones

In fact, I found a lot of interesting stuff on Adobe's site that I may try to incorporate. Adobe Gaming

This is going to take me some time to learn and implement, but hopefully, it solves my fps concerns.

Still around,
AA

[NeerHeer]

Thanks for the update. I appreciate your focus on optimization. I personally don't need it, I'm lucky to have a good laptop and an excellent desktop, but I have friends with toasters, and the infuriation you feel when you can't play a game because it's badly optimized is beyond belief. For someone to have the sort of focus on that with a non-commercial product is commendable :3

Can't wait for early beta

[NeerHeer]

Arrow: Oh god you poor, poor man. Just read your update. Is there any way to salvage stuff from things you've already uploaded?

[AnotherArrow]

Its not as bad as I thought.... yes.. I lost the originals. But as I mentioned in update on the front page. I was able to recover some of Krystal from the decomile. All the missing parts can be salvaged from a non-optimized version that's back from May.

On the other hand, this whole mess was kind of a mixed blessing. Yes, I lost work, but since I had to rebuild Krystal in a way, I was able to better set things up for my move to Starling / Dragonbones framework.

Below is just some code testing. Its not meant to be actual work. This code was to make sure I can still change clothes, and that clothes don't revert during symbol swaps.
A = Wear Clothes
D = Nude
S = test animation 1
d = test animation 2
//EDIT - Removed filed and posted an updated version on the front page.
I don't know how to enable wmode in the forum browser. Just download it and play it in flash player. Again, nothing special.

[kmacroxs]

Its not as bad as I thought.... yes.. I lost the originals. But as I mentioned in update on the front page. I was able to recover some of Krystal from the decomile. All the missing parts can be salvaged from a non-optimized version that's back from May.

On the other hand, this whole mess was kind of a mixed blessing. Yes, I lost work, but since I had to rebuild Krystal in a way, I was able to better set things up for my move to Starling / Dragonbones framework.

Below is just some code testing. Its not meant to be actual work. This code was to make sure I can still change clothes, and that clothes don't revert during symbol swaps.
A = Wear Clothes
D = Nude
S = test animation 1
d = test animation 2

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

AnotherTail.swf

I don't know how to enable wmode in the forum browser. Just download it and play it in flash player. Again, nothing special.

I tried to open it, but I couldn't access it at all.

[Lucky777]

...Yeowch.

Gotta remember to back up dem files, I guess, especially before attempting to delete anything.

But god fucking DAMN that sucks.

I mean it's cool that you've hit the ground running and all that but uh...

...GodDAYAMN.

[AnotherArrow]

Could have been worse... like 2/3 years ago when my hard drive died and I lost everything! This time... I only lost ~50% of my work... from my projects folder... and what I couldn't recover, I can probably salvage from the files I did recover. The files that I lost that hurt the most were my optimization files and the character sheets.