DV's Stage WIP - Avenue Blues

[DarkValentine]

Since I have no idea what happened to my older thread (searching doesn't exactly help, but it's been a few months since the last time. So I'll just start a new one), I've decided to just start a new one.

While I am ripping out all images for what is in my Retro Stages Ideas thread, I'm currently working on my first cross-engine stage. One that will work on both Mugen 1.0 & Winmugen Plus, without anyone having to do any self image stretching themselves. This is a shot of the stage below, as seen in the image.

The name of the stage will be called "Avenue Blues".



The stage itself is long, so there is room to go up and down the avenue, while you are beating other characters up

This stage will not be Super Jump ready. There isn't enough material to make it as such, due to the way the images were ripped. So there is no top layer. However, there will be glowing signs, and a few flickering street lights. Plus a few background images. So that will suffice for something. I will release this as a Winmugen Plus release & a mugen 1.0 release on the same day, whenever that comes around. Instead of making separate downloads, everything will be in one solid download. So that way, you can have two flavors, with either one being optional, but ready to go.

It's going to take a little time to get this ready for both. This is one stage I've been working on in secret, longer than the rips I've been doing for other retro stages. This is also a retro stage, but it is an unlisted one. When I am done with this stage, will continue to finish ripping layers from the games listed in the Retro thread.

Will post more as time goes on.

[C.R.O.M. - 有且只有一個]

This seems like it's going to be a neat stage, good luck with your work.

[DEMONKAI]

Im diggin the visuals already bro...you always got good taste in retro stages

[DarkValentine]

Thanks. The stage itself, as you had guessed, comes from "The Revenge of Shinobi". The "ZEED" text in the image should be a dead giveaway. However, the appearance of the stage in the image is quite different.

The stage in question is going to be a mugenized stage, that was created from "Path of the Shadow Dancer", a Streets of Rage Remake v5 mod. I'm going for direct authenticity, so it makes me bounce between making the stage, and running the mod in SoRRv5's SoRMaker. This is what it looks like in SORMaker.



The lights flicker pretty fast. The text in some parts glow. In the first image, where there is a door like entrance, in the mod, there is a green door that goes up. I plan on adding that in. So it wouldn't look so empty.

I was keeping an eye out on Path of the Shadow Dancer for well over a year, and I had got the OK to take a stage out of the mod, and make a stage worth of mugen. The entire mod itself is a homage to the Shinobi series. But the Chinatown level was the one that stood out the most.

To give a good idea of what I'm working with: The layer for the ground is 4000x240. It will need to be double, almost triple that, to work in 1.0. Again, aiming for authenticity of level design.

[C.R.O.M. - 有且只有一個]

Sound like its going to be a hell of a stage after seeing your last post. And a big stage at that.

[DarkValentine]

It is. As stated, I want this stage to be fully compatible with both Mugen 1.0 & Winmugen Plus. That is rather easy to do. All I would need to do, to pull this off, is make the Winmugen parts first, and stick them into the sff. Then blow up the sizes of said layers, and add them in at the end of the sff. This way, when I make the def files, I can have 1 def file, that has the values for 1.0 & the other def file, having values for Winmugen Plus.


So it will be two def's and a sff in the same zip. Both labeled respectively. I've done this one before, with an older stage, and it worked out well. It was also less tedious than going into the def, and just changing the values over.

I will have more shots of it's progress in a few hours. Still trying to work out a few things, and bouncing back & forth between FFClassic & SORMaker. Probably in about an hour, I'm going to show a video of what this looks like in action, from the mod's point of view.

[DEMONKAI]

another bad @ss stage on the way to battle on

[DarkValentine]

Here is a video of the stage I'm converting over to mugen, in action as it appears in the mod.
This is stage 3-2 of that mod.



Sorry for the view as it looked. I can blame BB Flashback Pro for that (seems as it's the only one that can capture SoRRv5 right it seems, since the update...)

[DEMONKAI]

First off, i gotta get that game there. sh*t looks fun.

and that stage looks dope man...i can definitely enjoy testing characters on that stage...

Btw what recorder are you using man? looks pretty damn clean

[DarkValentine]

The recorder used is BB Flashback Pro. I have three different recorders on hand, depending on my needs. In case one recorder doesn't work for something. This is what I have on hand.

BB Flashback Pro (Comes with it's own video editor which opens directly after recording)

Bandicam (Best recorder out there, as it captures everything clean. SoRRv5 doesn't work with it, since the update)

Fraps (It is better used as a Fullscreen PC Game recorder. Can be used for mugen, but not recommended)

Between the three, Bandicam is the best one of the lot. You have a LOT of control, without the BS attached to it. I often use it for recording anything mugen related, and the results show themselves.

I've used Fraps when it came to anything on the PC that I have (UT2k4 most notably).

BB Flashback Pro is something new I picked up, and was recommended by youtube user DOSBoxMom, as she is covering a LOT of old school PC games. Most of which I used to play a long time ago.

[C.R.O.M. - 有且只有一個]

Nice I just downloaded the free trial of Bandicam and my god over 900gb of data to use thats awesome.

[DarkValentine]

To trail off topic for a bit, I'd like to touch on something about that: It actually pays to just straight up buy Bandicam. As it does more than get rid of the watermark at the top. I'm not condoning you crack it, I'm just telling you from a personal outlook that cracking it does NOT work.

Regardless of what you find on it, cracking it doesn't in any way, shape or form work. It will work once, and that is it. The very next time you restart your computer, and try to use it, the exe file will simply complain that BandiFix (which fixes AVI files, if they don't record all the way) is not working. If BandiFix doesn't work, Bandicam will not work either.

I know this, Because I ran this test, long after buying it, just to see what would happen. Because I wanted to make my own portable version of Bandicam. But doing that also doesn't work. Most of my videos done from Episode 23 of City Lights, up to the last few mugen based videos I did, all used a purchased, licensed version of Bandicam. I'm going to continue using Bandicam for all my mugen needs though. At least I know what to use for SoRRv5, and BB Flashback Pro does the job right

Sometimes, it pays to pay, to record a good play

This is an example of the quality level that Bandicam can achieve, if you have it set right, and the codecs used as well.



Skip to the 2 minute mark, so you can see it in action. The video is of that Downtown Highrise stage release I did in December.

[C.R.O.M. - 有且只有一個]

Yeah I plan on buying it down the road. Oh and question how do you get the lifebars to disappear?

[DarkValentine]

Funny you should ask this. Actually, I am using a lifebar, you just don't see it. It's called the NoLife Lifebar. I had found it over at the guild over a year ago, as an answer to me having to press Ctrl+L at the start of every match, just to get rid of the lifebar. So my videos would look a little more professional when I do mugen based stories. Like for my City Lights series, that recently came to a close.

The NoLife Lifebar took out the work of doing that for me, making all of my recording sessions that much more enjoyable. With the sole purpose of using it, to not only make the fights more believable, but to give true feeling that you really don't know who will win, until someone falls. Overall, the most simple & best lifebar ever made.

I can't for the life of me remember who made it, there's no information on who in the folder for it. And it's been over a year. Trying to search for it over at MFG would take a LONG time. If you want it, I can give it to you.

[C.R.O.M. - 有且只有一個]

Funny you should ask this. Actually, I am using a lifebar, you just don't see it. It's called the NoLife Lifebar. I had found it over at the guild over a year ago, as an answer to me having to press Ctrl+L at the start of every match, just to get rid of the lifebar. So my videos would look a little more professional when I do mugen based stories. Like for my City Lights series, that recently came to a close.

The NoLife Lifebar took out the work of doing that for me, making all of my recording sessions that much more enjoyable. I can't for the life of me remember who made it, there's no information on who in the folder for it. And it's been over a year. Trying to search for it over at MFG would take a LONG time. If you want it, I can give it to you.

I might just have to get that.

[DEMONKAI]

The recorder used is BB Flashback Pro. I have three different recorders on hand, depending on my needs. In case one recorder doesn't work for something. This is what I have on hand.

BB Flashback Pro (Comes with it's own video editor which opens directly after recording)

Bandicam (Best recorder out there, as it captures everything clean. SoRRv5 doesn't work with it, since the update)

Fraps (It is better used as a Fullscreen PC Game recorder. Can be used for mugen, but not recommended)

Between the three, Bandicam is the best one of the lot. You have a LOT of control, without the BS attached to it. I often use it for recording anything mugen related, and the results show themselves.

I've used Fraps when it came to anything on the PC that I have (UT2k4 most notably).

BB Flashback Pro is something new I picked up, and was recommended by youtube user DOSBoxMom, as she is covering a LOT of old school PC games. Most of which I used to play a long time ago.

yeh fraps i used to use way back in late 2005...wasnt too flavaful. snagit 9 which i use now has its moments. but as of late ive grown tired of using it and its slow ways at times. Good lookin out on the bandi version and BB flash back (which i never heard of)..im going to download those in a bit^^

[DarkValentine]

yeh fraps i used to use way back in late 2005...wasnt too flavaful. snagit 9 which i use now has its moments. but as of late ive grown tired of using it and its slow ways at times. Good lookin out on the bandi version and BB flash back (which i never heard of)..im going to download those in a bit^^

No problem. My next off day is Friday, so hopefully, I'll have some fresh material to show, come then, or anytime before.