Rosenkreuzstilette Parady Animation Log

Log of 8/3/10 to 8/14/10

This is the start of my senior project, which marks the preparation phase of my senior project. The preparation phase consisted of script writing (script will be included in the senior project portfolio), sprite finding, sprite importing, and the program set up. The script comes first, as without a clear vision in mind, it makes it difficult to decide what to make, and how to build onto that. I have chosen the video game title Rosenkreuzstilette for the PC because of the simplicity and connivence of it's sprites and backgrounds. It is also a video game that has never been released in America and no parody or fan videos currently exist for Rosenkreuzstilette. It's an unheard of title, so it seemed to be a perfect target to make a parody sprite based animation.

The script writing for my Rosenkreuzstilette parody proved to be difficult due to the minimal amount of story it had. Script writing dragged on for longer than it should of been, and perhaps even longer than what I have logged for it. Not only does Rosenkreuzstilette have a short story, but the video game had also never been released in America. No official english version exists for it. All that exist for it is a fan translation at the very best. In my original script, quite a bit of it wasn't parody material, but written as an actual story. Efforts have been made to make it as similar to the original story as possible, but even so, there are only a few events that are the same. Original script had 47 pages, but now it's closer to somewhere in the mid thirties. The original also had 14.75 scenes, but it's been shortened to 11.33 scenes. It would be nearly impossible to finish on time with those extra scenes.

The sprite finding phase didn't take very much time. Once I had the subject on hand, all it took was a quick internet search. I found a site with all of the sprites and backgrounds I needed. The sprite importing, however, took longer. The program I use, Scratch.mit, is very picky in the dimensions of the images you import. It's one of the huge reasons why Scratch is an annoying program. The size must be 480 by 360 or under, or Scratch will resize your image and distort it. Scratch is a very simple and easy to use program, and due to this, I preferred to use Scratch. Importing my sprites was a tedious task, but that's what I have to put up with in Scratch. To import, I need to cut each and every one of the sprite sheets down to a size that the program will like. This involves copy and pasting the main sprite sheet, then moving the sprites into groups on smaller sheets. Programs like Adobe Flash do not require cutting and chopping sprite sheets into proper sizes. The entire sheet itself can be imported. But unlike Flash, Scratch has a drag and drop feature where I can drag your cut up sprite sheets right into the program itself. As long as your images are the proper size, Scratch is far easier to use than other programs.

After sprite importing, I did what I call a program set up. This involves taking the sprite sheets and turning the sheets into the individual frames of animation that each character has. This phase does not include making custom sprites, which I have made a few. Custom sprites are animation frames that aren't in the original sheet. I make custom sprites as I go along. Taking the sprite sheets and turning them into each little frame, some of which there's the chance I won't use, is a tedious task. I usually handle this by cutting out the basic standing and walking sprites, then cutting out the rest of a sheet for a certain character as they are introduced into the plot. Backgrounds are resized and imported as needed. Backgrounds take up a bit of time to resize and import, but once they've been imported, they're done. There's little need to change them any further. Sprites, however, besides needing to be cut out, also need to have rotation centers placed on them. They are the areas that position the sprite in perspective to the other frames within other sprite itself, and also controls how a sprite will rotate when program scripts act upon it. Rotation centers must be perfectly set. It it's even a pixel off center or were you want it, it can affect how smoothly the animation runs.

Program set up also involves program scripts. I usually start out with a command script I like to call "Scene End." It forces all sprites to hide and the background to go to black. It's used at the end of each scene. Another command I give to each sprite is the "When green flag is clicked" control script. In Scratch, the green flag is what you usually have to click to make the program start. It's not necessary to have, so I usually just put a hide command there, and have only relevant sprites and backgrounds react to it. Lilli, the fairy in my animation, has a "forever" command that reacts to the "when green flag is clicked" command. Having a universal script or two makes things so much easier, since I won't need to go and, for example, program each and every sprite to to hide each and every time a scene ends. As the animation goes on and I add more scenes, more and more universal scripts get added. Most of them affect a handful of characters, even so, but not all of them.

After Scratch is properly set up, I then move into the first scene.

Log two

Log of 8/11/10 to 8/22/10

Sometime during program set up, work on scene one started. Scene one wasn't a terribly difficult scene. It's primarily the introduction text on a scrolling background. The rest of scene one is a conversation between the Graf Michael Sepperin and his daughters. No scene like that exists in the original plot. It's something extra I put in that helps put a cushion between the intro and the first scene were the main character shows up. It also establishes Graf Michael's first appearance. He's the antagonist, and isn't mentioned as often as he should be in the original plot.

A problem that came up with making scene one, is when Graf Michael first comes into view. The background scrolls, and with him on it. It isn't smooth. He shakes along the background while he moves to his spot. At the time, it was too complex for me to figure out a parallel movement script, but I know how to fix the problem now. It's a bit late, though, since the scene already has been recorded.

After the primary scene one, I made a scene one point five. A half scene is usually a spot were I put something that wasn't originally in the script. Half scenes aren't necessary, but they do add additional information into the plot. Half scenes also tend to always have something not in the original plot of Rosenkreuzstilette. This half scene is only about fifteen seconds long, and it can be removed without impacting the plot. The characters shown in half scene one are both important characters, so I felt it was necessary. It also didn't take very long to finish it. It was mostly text. There wasn't even a background, which is something I don't do very often.

The next scene, scene two, introduces the main character, Spiritia Rosenburg.

Log two

Log of 8/22/10 to 9/1/10

Scene two has perhaps the most complex scripts I had ever made at the time. It involved ten movement scripts running at the same time, something I don't usually do. It has three layers of moving objects, two layers with three objects each, and a third single object layer. There's a character moving in what is made to seem to be in the far distance, and Spiritia and her fairy in the closer foreground. It uses very complex scripts that I was able to create myself. Recording just that section was also a massive pain that caused many head aches. Because my previous computer didn't have the sheer CPU power it requires to handle all those moving objects, plus the recording device, I had to borrow a laptop with the CPU from my mentor just to record it. I was far into the fourth scene before I could record the second one, and even then, scene five was done and recorded as well as three and four before I had two as a video file.

Scene two is the first scene that follows, or tries to follow, the story from the actual Rosenkreuzstilette game. In my parody, it's a scene with Spiritia walking towards Sepperin castle to babysit the Graf Michael Sepperin's daughter Iris. In the actual storyline, Spiritia is talking about dragons, Iris, and the RKS while going to the training center. After that, I go into a half scene.

Scene two point one is part of the original script and storyline. I had to cut scene two into parts due to problems with the programming scripts. Nothing really was added or deleted. Scene two point five was a huge break for me after having to deal with several moving layers at once. The only movement in this scene is when the characters walk on or off screen.

A major plot event, that most of the story is based around happens in scene two point five. Graf Michael Sepperin's daughter gets kidnapped by a dragon and now Spiritia must go save her. In the game, Spiritia goes to the training center and meets Iris, were she's kidnapped by the same dragon. The only difference in the plot that I make is that Grolla Seyfarth and Sitche Miser get introduced here.

I like to get the characters more involved with the plot. In the game, the vast majority of the cast simply sit in one spot and wait for Spiritia.

The next scene has the first battle scene.

Log three

Log of 9/1/10 to 9/12/10

In the actual game, Spiritia travels through an entire forest defeating random enemies that for some reason want to stop her from walking to this location that seems like there should be no reason for her to be. For that matter, why would Spiritia be walking through a forest, when a nobel's daughter had just been kidnapped? I couldn't really understand that. Is Spiritia trying to chase after the dragon? I'm not sure. It may just because I have a faulty translation. When I introduced Sitche in scene two point five, I made it part of her role to point Spiritia in the right direction.

When I first started making scene three, I wanted to have Spiritia walk through a forest, but however, after I got the first screen three fourths done, I noticed that it would take too long. I also didn't want to start over, but now I have to make these generic characters that Spiritia defeats part of the plot. It was changed so that Spiritia only defeats one, then ice lances come down from the sky to quickly get rid of the rest. I made Spiritia move on after that, but I later added an extra ice lance aimed at her that she jumps over. It's out of place, but then again, the original plot doesn't make any more sense than what I already have.

The generic knight characters defeated sprite is a custom sprite. The knights didn't have their own defeated sprite in the actual game. They simply crumble. Since there would be too many tiny individual parts involved in that, I took the time to create a customary made defeated sprite. It looks crude, but it does it's job.

After my problems and patch ups in the first part were done, I went into the first battle scene of the animation. This battle scene really does happen in the game, and in a similar fashion. It's with Freudia Neuwhal, Spiritia's best friend, they have a conversation, then a fight. In the game, it's because Spiritia learns that Freudia has sided with the uprising against the capitol. In my animation, it's because Freudia is destroying the forest and Spiritia wants her to stop.

In comparison to other battles in the animation, this first battle looks incredibly simple. However, it is the most complex and longest battle scene I had ever animated up to that point in time. It's about a minute or so of constant battle animation, four times the amount I had ever done before, shattering my personal records. When I finally finished the scene, I felt pretty proud that I had made something so complex.

I stood back, and hit the play button to see what I had done so far, and when I saw how short that battle was, I actually felt disappointed. I could do better than that. Those were my exact thoughts. And do better I did.

Some trivia concerning scene three, is that it's the most edited scene. I went in changed things in this scene more than any other. The frames where the ice lances explode in a cloud of ice, and the two knights getting thrown across the room while disappearing were two additions I made.

Another change I did to the original script, is after this battle, Freudia teleports away and isn't seen until their next battle. In my version, Freudia decides to join Spiritia and follow her in her quest to save Iris.

In the next scene, the plot is explained a little more and continues to follow the original plot to a degree.

Log five

Log of 9/12/10 to 9/21/10

In scene four, the plot of my story version is explained. This is a conversation that never happens in the actual, but Spiritia mentions something about a war that needs to be stopped. It then cuts to a quick scene were Grolla Seyfarth is rallying a group of undead soldiers. That quick cut is very short, but it was as much of a pain as the multi layered scrolling background part in scene two. It has an entire group of perhaps ten or eleven soldiers, making a new record in the number of sprites on screen at the same time. Not only that, but they each had to be programmed, since they all move in that scene. It was short, but time consuming.

After that, Freudia and Spiritia walk to the next room directly to the area boss. In the actual game, after you first battle Freudia, the true plot of the story is unveiled. There are eight members of the RKS, each attacking the capitol in some way, and you have to chase after each and go through an entire area to reach the area boss at the end of each level. The actual plot literally forgets about Iris' kidnapping, and she's completely ignored. I try to make Spiritia more focused on saving Iris in my version, but that also means that I have to throw out the uprising against the capitol. I try to keep the plot on track, but after this next battle scene, the plot slowly starts to derail.

For now, Spiritia is moving through a stage to a boss character, just like the actual plot. Spiritia reaches the boss room and meets with Schwer Muta. Schwer Muta Cassola Merkle has a squid named Zippy who rests on her head like a hat. Schwer's motivation for why she would try and kill Spiritia is left unchanged. It's so ridiculous that I had to leave it in. Why she attacked is revealed after the battle, but at the beginning of the battle, the door to the room closes, shutting Freudia out, so that the battle would be a bit more similar to the actual plot. Spiritia by herself versus the boss.

The speed of this battle is a more slower one. It's longer than the first battle, but the only real complex part about it is the Schwer blades. They're four blades that rotate around Schwer Muta. They have a few commands: Go to Schwer, Throw, and Rotate around Schwer in a circular pattern. Programming each took just about as long as the battle itself, but then again, the battle was so much easier to script due to those commands.

The battle ended and the text box shows up, but I decide to not end the battle just yet. Spiritia warns Schwer to not push herself and that she's lost, but Schwer keeps going. In the second part, I give Zippy his own command script. A spit ink command. Zippy joins the battle, but that's not all. To add to the difficulty, I also have the background become part of the fight. A central platform is given the commands to rise or lower when needed. I also made a rather large custom sprite just for the background. Schwer uses this platform as a weapon or as a way to quickly rise out of the way of Spiritia's energy pellets.

Spiritia finally defeats Schwer by using a charged shot. It's a rather complex command script in terms of timing. I had to make it exact down into the tenths of a second to make it work properly. This battle is three or four times as long as the first battle, shattering my personal best record yet again. It's nothing ground breaking, but through this scene, I gained a true grasp on command scripts and what I can do with them.

After the battle, it's explained to why Schwer was willing to risk her own life to kill Spiritia: Spiritia had missed Schwer Muta's birthday party. I could not make that up on my own. It might be because of a faulty translation, but Schwer's battle charged motivation was due to a birthday party. And just like in the original, Spiritia apologizes, and Schwer Muta instantly forgives Spiritia and loses all hate she had towards Spiritia. In the game, Spiritia moves onto the next area, but in my version, the boss door opens, letting Freudia in, then the group, then Schwer Muta joins Spiritia's group and they teleport together to the next scene.

Log Six

Log of 9/21/10 to 10/4/10

Scene five, the sky battle scene.It's a scene that I experimented greatly on and even learned a few tricks from. It starts off in at a volcano site, with the characters talking about how hot it is. A new character jumps in, and this is where I first experimented on how to make a curricular jump. I had characters jump before, but they jumped in an upside down V shape, with a real sharp spike. I wanted them to jump in an upside down U shape, which would seem more natural, but I couldn't work out the variables needed to do that. Instead, I used multiple move blocks to try and simulate a normal jump pattern, but instead it looks similar to a half octagon or pentagon pattern.

The new character introduced was Luste Treuber. In the original, she's a child who think everything is a game. The destruction of capitol buildings, the taking of lives, it's all a game. In my version she's a child who wants the attention of her master. I also make her personality a play on her name, while keeping her somewhat innocent sounding. You can't spell Luste's name without using the word lust, so I tried to have every sentence she says have a double meaning.

The reason why Luste had shown up is to punish Freudia for disobeying their master. Freudia doesn't cooperate, so now the scene transitions and so starts the sky battle scene.

This battle is the first battle scene that I've ever done that had no space restrictions. There are no walls, no floors that I had to make sure that were aligned with the character's feet. The entire screen top to bottom was free to play with however I wanted. And because the two characters fighting can fly, I can also use a single frame for movement, rather than a set of walking frames.

The first part of the battle was a high speed areal battle, with Luste moving as fast as an arrow, and Freudia one sixth as quick. In the next phase, I experiment with 3D. I tried to give an allusion of a third dimension. I had Luste far in the background and had her firing her wind blades and I tried to make it seem as though they're flying directly at the camera. I tried to be clever, but needless to say, it's the first and last time I experimented with a third dimension. Not even in the last battle, the second sky battle, did I try anything like that.

Another way that I experimented with it is have the background slowly zoom in while they were battling. It didn't work. Sprite based animation was meant for only two dimensions, but I still got quite a bit out of this experiment.

At the end of the battle, Freudia is defeated and crashes onto the roof of a temple. I tried to make the ceiling fall in, but couldn't get it to work. I made the ceiling fall by taking a walkway sprite and shifting it's tiles, then after that, I used a color effect to change it to match the room.

What happened next actually shocked myself, but fit in rather well with the rest of the story. Freudia was killed by Luste. I hadn't intended for that to happen, but it did. A major reason to why is due to time restrictions. At the time, September was ending, and october was getting close. The script had fourteen plus scenes and I had only managed to get to scene five. Some major script editing had to be done. Freudia had quite a few scenes, and if she would be removed, it would change the entire script. I didn't log it in the number of hours spent, but I went back and changed the entire script. Some scenes were removed entirely, like one with Freudia plotting with the antagonists. That scene didn't make any sense at all, anyways. It also detracted too much from the plot, mine or the actual.

The scene after this is a half scene. After I went through and rewrote the script, I forgot something semi important. It's conversation between Sepperin and Libea about the war. It's a quick conversation, but a few half scenes stream from it.

The next scene continues the search for Iris.

Log Eight

Log of 10/5/10 to 10/23/10

Scene six, which is a three part scene, so it took a good chunk out of october to finish. The battle that occurs during this scene is also when I finally learn how to properly make a jump animation.

The scene starts off with Schwer Muta and Spiritia in an abandoned mine shaft saying that they're in that certain location since that's where Zorne likes to hang out. This is quite different from my previous script, since Luste was involved somehow. I didn't keep that version of the script, which is a shame, since it was so ridiculous it was funny in a sadistic sort of a way. I can't exactly remember the details from it. But in this version, the reason why Spiritia would be down there in the first place is because Zorne should know how to find a dragon since her clan members know how to do that sort of thing. Unfortunately, Spiritia, nor the viewer for that matter, know that Zorne was actually adopted and thus knows nothing concerning the dragon that took Iris. It takes until the very last scene until it's explained, and by then, the viewer would more than likely of forgotten this tiny little conversation in scene six.

The conversation to initiate the battle is quite short. Zorne blows a fuse just by sight of Spiritia. One look and she goes ballistic. Schwer doesn't like the emotional output, so she flees when the two aren't noticing. Zorne complains that her daddy won't give her anymore allowance and somehow gets that Spiritia is the cause. Because of this, Zorne now will attempt to kill Spiritia due to this.

Zorne is an explosive user. She can throw bombs that appear out of thin air left and right. I spent a good ten hours plus on just figuring out how to make these things fly. With some mentor programming help, like whenever I get stuck on something major on all the previous scenes, I managed to make it work. With the same principles, I can also make a proper jump animation, with the upside down U or half circle movement pattern. What I needed to use is variables. In the same command script, I can control the variable numbers to decrease as the object moves to the top of it's peak jump, then increase as it falls. When you combine it with an X movement script, it moves forward while moving in a controlled Y movement plane. Adding a wait command at various levels can control how fast the object or character jumps. Increasing or decreasing the repeat also effects certain things. In a later scene, scene eight, Grolla Seyfarth rotates while jumping, and for that I need a parallel script working at the exact same time. It's no wonder I couldn't get the jump to work before. All these numbers are critical to the jumping process and require vast amounts of testing before I can get it right. Each time a character jumps, I have to see that same exact animation at least twenty times before I can get it to work. Flying, floating, walking, teleporting, super mega death beam, lamp post throwing, or swimming animation don't come close to how complicated jumping can be.

Something else about this battle, is that if learning and putting to use a new technique wasn't hard enough, I use a destructible background as well. The three light posts in the background can be moved, and Zorne uses them as weapons. Spiritia walks up one when Zorne throws it against the wall. Zorne also picks up a light post and spins it around rapidly. Spiritia gets hit in mid air, which means that in the middle of jumping, she gets hurt and I half to add a jump script on top of a jump script in order for it to work. Needless to say, it took many, many tries before I could get it to work.

Spiritia gets hit into the mine shaft tunnel were the scene began and I give a 'preview' of Spiritia's final powers that she gets later. Zorne throws the max number of bombs that she can at a single time, but Spiritia knocks Zorne into the air, flash steps through the bombs without taking damage, and force palms Zorne back into the boss room. All that happens, but not in that order. Zorne flies back into the room and slams into the wall, then falls to the ground. I made the background shake when that happened, which makes the force seem that much greater. I also paid attention to detail and included the fallen lamp posts in their exact previous locations. A scene end command was used between room transitions, so making sure that the lamp posts were exactly in their spot took a bit of effort. Not as much as jumping, though.

Right after the fight, Zorne relies that Spiritia uses the power of friendship in a form that's called 'link power'. Zorne thinks that she can use this 'link power' to gain attention from her father, so she joins Spiritia in her quest.

There's a scene six point three, the only 'point three' scene in this animation. I actually made it after scene seven when I was recording and noticed that I needed something short and sweet to explain something. It shows what Schwer Muta was up to. She walks outside, but quickly meets up with Graf Michael Sepperin. It ends here, but it's then implied in scene six point five that Schwer gets her head ripped of. It's pretty sadistic for such adorable sprites, I must admit.

In scene six point five, which could be it's very own scene, if I had the time, shows Trauare Wrede for the first time. The body of Freudia drops onto the floor from above, and Luste drops in. She says something about being superior and challenges Trauare to a duel to the death. Normally, this would be a normal fight scenes like the ones before, but here Luste gets her head quickly chopped off by Trauare's Leviathan Lance. Sepperin shows up and throw's Schwer's dismembered body to the floor then says that he's going to turn her home into a ritual location. Trauare opposes, and Sepperin mentions that he'll use the corpses of the four witches in that location to increase his own power by several time. Schwer, Freudia, and Luste make three, but who's the fourth? Trauare quickly figures out that it's her, so she charges forward to deliver a killing blow on Sepperin, but the scene immediately ends. It doesn't even go to black, it just ends. I was going to put a battle scene here, but it was already October at the time, so I wanted the plot to move more quickly. For good reason too, I barely managed to finish the animation in the time I had.

Scene seven is where my scene cutting and rushed attempts to save lost time catch up to me.

Log Seven

Log of 10/24/10 to 10/30/10

When is comes to rushed scenes, seven takes the cake. It's the most rushed, and less thought out scene I have made in this entire animation. All I mostly did was copy the scripts from scene two, and pasted them onto scene seven's spot. I also took Spiritia's scripts and copied them right to Zorne. A text box and text was then slapped right onto the scene. It's a complete copy, down to the dragon flying in the background. The only thing new other than Zorne is the far background in the third layer. I custom edited a existing night time background to make it look like morning, complete with a lens flare. Even then, it was photoshop work. Adobe Photoshop is nothing compared to animation. It only took a good half hour to create two morning versions of a night time background. Twenty minutes was spent thinking on what I should do, and ten were spent on the work itself.

Originally, I wanted this to be the war scene in my previous script, but it would of taken another two hundred hours at least to animate that many sprites at once, and for how long I wanted it to be, so instead, I quickly photoshoped a single image with a bunch of characters on it and slapped it right into the animation. It took little effort, but it sure was tedious placing all those characters. It also saved one hundred ninety nine hours of animation work.

The scene then transitioned to Grolla Seyfarth facedown in the ground. No effort was made to explain how she got there. She just is. Grolla walks away and Spiritia guys move onto the next scene.

The next scene is another half scene. All it shows is that Spiritia got to the castle and Zorne retired to her room. Nothing else happened.

Onto the next scene.

Log Nine

Log of 11/2/10 to 12/12/10

When it came to time wasters, scene eight has most certainly clocked a vast amount of hours. Only the last scene can compare. Both those juggernaut major battle scenes took vast amounts of time to complete. If you combine the time from both of them, they add up to what I originally though that the total time animating would take. About two and a half hundred hours.

Scene eight also ate a huge chunk of my winter break. It's the fight scene between Grolla Seyfarth and her dead grandfather, Raimund Seyfarth. Raimund was a pain to animate, since he didn't have very many animation frames. He has standing and hand reaching out sprites, and that's about it. There was no reason for him to have that many frames in the original source game. I have no idea why I chose this to be one of the major battles. I believe thought that the battle in the original game was so cool, and I just had to top it. I think I really have topped it, using the best of my abilities in Scratch to pull it off. It also marks the longest continuous battle I have ever done, at nine and a half minutes of constant battle. The last scene is the longest scene, but the final battle is cut into two sections.

It starts off with Grolla talking to herself, then Raimund comes and makes it night time. Grolla has to fight to prove herself. That's how the barbaric Seyfarth clan operates. They will do anything to gain honor and respect. The battle doesn't take place in a single place. It may indeed be a ground battle, but that doesn't mean that they have to be locked in one location. In the battle, Grolla gets slammed in the background not once, but twice. It starts off in the area where Spiritia and Zorne last left her, and goes to a roof top, then to the top of a clock tower. The turning point in the fight where Grolla starts winning is when she slices the massive clock face of the clock tower in half. Two thousand tons of stone and clock work then falls to the streets below. Not only does her single attack destroy the tower, it also obliterates Raimund's weapon, leaving him with nothing to defend himself with. Grolla easily establishes herself as the most powerful character in my version of the series. Not only had she just got through fighting in a large scale war and won, but she was also able to defeat one of the most strongest members of her clan.

I also experimented with a screen transition. Instead of having Raimund explode, I have the screen go to white in a fashion similar to the death explosions from Cave Story. It's pretty simple, but effective.

This battle scene also has a major flaw that would take maybe several hours to find and fix. I don't have the time to fix it, so I've kept it. There's a part were Grolla gets hit on the ground, but she rapidly spins and spins. I don't like it, but I was late to fixing it. A favorite part I have in this scene is when Grolla slashes Raimund into the sky, then slams him down into the ground, were the walk way from scene two that gave me an immense amount of trouble gets smashed to bits. I loved that. The walkway had what was coming to it. It deserved every bit.

I regret nothing. Except that spinning Grolla part. Other than that, nothing.

Log Ten

Log of 12/13/10 to 12/22/10

If scene seven is the most rushed scene, and eight is a time eater, then scene nine must be the wrap up scene. It brings the plot together, eliminates unnecessary characters, and pushes the remaining ones towards the end.

This is scene is the result of compressing about two and a half scenes into one. It begins with Spiritia in her room, making an odd ball off the wall remark about, well, the room. Libea then crashes through the entrance with an ice lance through her chest and hits the ground dead. The four witches that Graf Michael Sepperin had used to bring his full powers out appear before Spiritia. Spiritia questions to why they are there, and Freudia to boot. Time stops as they attack her, and Sitche arrives. This marks the exact screen were the greatest amount of storyline characters show up on screen at the same time. If you count the fairy, it's a number of seven storyline characters. None of them are generics. Making that many characters, plus the three background layers time freeze was a pain. It involved giving them each a negative brightness effect. Luste took a while to cooperate, since she slightly rotated when she attacked. Scratch also had a bit of slow down from force stopping that many scripts at once. It may of not recorded properly. Nothing I can do about that.

The next screen is where Sitche quickly gets swept away by Trauare. Spiritia gets slammed by an ice spear, but since she's more magically resistant than the useless in battle Libea, she doesn't die from it, but instead goes to a critical condition. Freudia realizes this and has an emotional moment. Originally, I was going to have an entire scene dedicated to Freudia and Spiritia's relationship, but that would take too long, so I changed it to a one minute moment. It gets the job done. I keep finding all these moments in my production, where I have to settle with "it gets the job done." I want to shoot for more, to go higher, but that'll take far too long.

Freudia realizes her potential and breaks the curse that transcended life and death. She reverts from a zombie who obeys only Sepperin to her normal self with ascended abilities. Freudia freezes the entire room, and encases the zombie Schwer and Luste in ice. Trauare's body falls from the ceiling and is impaled by a dagger. Then Freudia, Spiritia, and Sitche flee to the next screen as bombs fall from the sky and completely destroy the bodies in fire to prevent them from returning from the dead again.

The bombs came from Zorne, which is explained by the next dialogue scene. Sitche figures things out in a detective like fashion, naming evidence and everything, then realizes that Spiritia wants to stop Sepperin. Stopping Sepperin will stop a war against the capitol that would take many lives. Spiritia doesn't like war, so she wants to stop him. Sitche assumes that this means death, and tries to attack Spiritia.

Freudia stops Sitche and Spiritia and Zorne run away. Freudia then gives her life a second time for Spiritia. Freudia and Sitche both get encased in ice, then get destroyed for good. In my new script, the one I used when I made that scene, I wanted to have a final showdown between Freudia and Sitche. Time wouldn't allow it, so I had the scene immediately end there. This also marks the scene with the highest number of characters killed for good. Six, if I counted correctly. There is twelve total characters, so half the cast was wiped out in a single scene.

The original script I wrote had a side plot about grammar Nazis and some other random stuff that made no sense at all. I'm so glad I decided to not use that. The plot, even though it detracts from the original game's plot, is so much more better in it's current form.

The next scene is a half scene. It was short enough that I decided to not make an entire scene for it. What happens is Zorne and Spiritia meet up, then the dragon that kidnapped Iris from scene two point five shows up. It gets defeated by Grolla. It gets sliced in half, then explodes. In the original game, the dragon has the name of Talos and is a friendly animal character despite the fact that it kidnapped a noble child. The explosions had a random script attached to them. instead of exploding at set locations, it was random. It made things quite a bit easier since I didn't have to go in and set the location of each and every explosion. I could just give it a repeat command for the the script.

After the dragon dies, the group of three, four if you count the fairy, move onto the next scene.

Log Eleven

Log of 12/23/10 to 1/20/11

Scene ten, were the plot unfolds. Spiritia and gang find Sepperin, but find out that he's not actually the one in charge. This is true in the original game as well. It's actually little Iris who was behind everything.

In the original game, Spiritia battles against Graf Michael Sepperin. I didn't have the luxury of being able to animate that battle, so Sepperin is quickly discarded. The next scene is the Iris machine scene, but I also didn't have the time for it, so unfortunately, I had to make the battle more quickly than I intended it for it to be. A problem that I had was trying to make the Iris machine to fit properly since it's a massive character sprite.

Another problem is that this scene has enough plot to make it a long scene, so it took a bit of leg dragging to finally get to the final scene.

Despite the Iris machine battle being cut, I still managed to animate a short battle between both forms of the Iris machine. It's also were Zorne dies in my version of the story.

I manage to have just about every member of the RKS cast to be killed off except three at this point. It's a faster way to have the story end and a better way to keep track of characters, but it's not very original to handle the story like this. I have no idea what I would of done if I did indeed have the time to screw around with the plot. One thing is for sure, the plot in it's current, rushed state is far better than what I had before.

Log Twelve

Log of 1/20/11 to 3/21/11

Scene eleven, the final scene. This is the scene that I had the most hardest time writing. I had no idea on how to end it. The original game had Spiritia fight against Iris after Lilli, the fairy figures out her plot to destroy the capitol. The platform beneath Spiritia's feet disappears and she starts to walk in mid air. As the battle goes on, they move higher and higher up into the sky. Iris feints her act of begging for her life after she is defeated, then she taunts Spiritia,and finally causes the surrounding area to explode. Spiritia escapes by catching a ride on the dragon that kidnapped Iris and fly towards her group of friends.

In my version, Iris has to explain her entire plot, since Lilli speaks broken english in my version. Spiritia's personality is also as similar as possible to the original Spiritia. Without Lilli, Spiritia can't figure out anything on her own. Iris had to almost spell out everything for Spiritia.

When I animated the battle, I used everything that I learned though out the project. The moving walkway from scene eight, the jumping from scene five, and in the second half of the battle, I even reuse attacks used by the other characters.

A major problem I had with this scene is trying to find some way to end it. It was majority difficult to find a way. In the end, there isn't really an end. The parody just immediately stops, and it goes to credits.

Even so, there shouldn't be any questions at the end, or anyone wondering what happens next, since there are no characters left.

Everyone dies, so it isn't much of a conclusion. There's a whole lot of build up while I was trying to figure out how to end it, but I just figured that the best ending by now is no ending at all, which isn't much of one.