RLDev for Dummies

Someone just need to make a proper compile of this tool and release the binaries. -_-

IIRC they changed the names of the setup files for 32 and 64 bit Windows. You can just install the version you need from that link you posted.

They exist, but from my experience, more errors arise from that than working through a cygwin environment. Maybe the people compiling it just weren’t good enough :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’m trying to install cygwin with the 64 bit installer that they provided on the homepage, and in the additional packages, All/Devel/gcc-mingw-core, All/Devel/libpng14-devel, and All/Libs/w32api are missing.

Ah right, the names get mixed up every now and then.
I’ve never tried the 64 bit one, but devel/mingw-gcc-core should be the new name of the first one. You can also get a version beginning with mingw64, but I don’t know if that’s needed at all.
devel/cygwin64-libpng and libs/libpng-devel should be the correct ones for the second.
The w32api ones are under devel too, ones beginning with cygwin32, and ones beginning with w32api

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Small update. There’s now a tutorial on adding new voices to the newer VNs. Doing it for the old VNs is even simpler, and the steps in the tutorial work out the same apart from you just need to save your audio as .ogg instead of .wav, and you don’t need to do any of the ovk stuff.

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Editing sprites and CGs.

For this tutorial you will need Paint Tool SAI, and a program for editing images, such as Photoshop or GIMP.

This is less of a technical tutorial and more of an artsy tutorial. It’s a good way of messing with in-game assets without being able to actually… draw.
Before we start, it’s worth noting that an edit is both less impressive than original work, and more time consuming, so don’t be a Baka Taka, and start a project that doesn’t rely on an art style you can’t work with.

I will be working to modernize a CG from Kanon. You could do the same, or you could mess with sprites, or you could create a whole new image.

First up, I get the CG I plan to edit. I open it up in Paint Tool Sai, and trace over it to create some fairly decent line art. As I go over it, I keep in mind the differences between this older art style and the modern Key style I am trying to emulate. There are various differences, but the basics come down to this: Where there is a shades crease in the old art, there is a line in the new art. Everything else in the newer style is cleaner though, so less lines in the hair, blockier fringes. Keep it simple. I also keep out the faces, because they are easier to do without reference.
Keep the background in mind. If you can use it in your edit, then use it. There’s no point recreating something that is already perfect.

Since I am using a mouse, this process can take quite some time. I like to do bits and pieces of it throughout the day so that I don’t get bored. It’s nice to switch up the BGM for these types of things too, y’know? When I start, I might listen to Badministrator. A few hours later I’ll have switched it over to nostalgia fuel like Stereopony. Zhiend are a nice current group for you Key fans, so listen to them or something. Nowadays I just throw everything into foobar and hope it has good taste… Maybe have lunch or dinner while you work, watch some cat videos, and tweet some bad puns.

Once you are done, you can sit back and look proudly at your cheap ripoff of an artist’s work. Look at it from every angle in wonder!

Now… If you are using a mouse like me, it’s time to go through and adjust the pressure of every line you just drew. So… See you in some hours!

By the time you realize North America is bad at League of Legends, you should have completed your line art. Save it, export it as a psd, and then get ready to actually start making something!

Using your favorite image editing software (I use GIMP, but Photoshop is good too. You can also stick with SAI for this, but it’s trickier!) open up the exported psd file. You should have your line art on an individual layer. Add in a new layer below that, and fill it with a nice contrasting color. I like to go with green.

Find a source image that has something you want, then cut out it out and throw it onto your lines. I’m adding in a new head, so I find a suitable image of a head, and place it where I want. You can do this with arms, legs, hair, eyes… Anything really.

Save the psd, reopen it in Paint Tool SAI, and alter your lineart to include the head.

Then you can do some cleanup and some alterations. Make it look more like it’s supposed too~

Now you can color it in! Luckily I am only doing a minor edit, so I will only need to color in the face and the hair! You’ll recognize the bits that need a color change as you go along.

As you can see, I start off by filling in the areas with a single color. I then add some really dark shading around creased areas. In a slightly lighter color, I do the rest of the shading.

When coloring the hair, I use the Blur tool more than I should. For the highlights, I draw the zig-zag shape out, and then create a layer below that, surround the zig-zag in the same flat color, and then blur it to create a slight gradient. For the shading on the fringe, I blur the ends, both on the hair and on the skin.
Speaking of the skin…

This is blur city. Make your brush big, fill in a whole area with a single color (dark orange for shading, light pink for blush) and then just blur it. Don’t forget to add a shadow under the nose! Noses do still exist in anime!
Eyes can be a tricky beast if you aren’t used to working with them. If you are bad with symmetry, or can’t get the shape down, you can look at the eyes from works that fit with your vision, and then alter the design to match your tastes. Once you get used to doing eyes, this’ll be the quickest step.
Since I am mimicking a modern Key style, I edited the Rewrite eyes to fit my needs:

If your eyes overlap with your fringe, first, make sure they are underneath your hair layers. Then copy your eyes onto a new layer, move it above your hair, and lower the opacity of the layer until it looks good.

Now, since my image is a night-time scene, I need to fix my image’s colors.

I simply create a new layer, fill it with a blue, and then drop the opacity to around 10-20% depending on what shade of blue I used.

Once you are done, save the .sai, and save a backup of the .sai.
If you have any slight changes you’d like to make, merge all of the layers you are happy with (all of the hair layers/skin layers etc…) and delete any waste layers. Then save that as a .psd and open it with your favorite image editing software.

As you can see, my image has a bit of a problem. The background needs to be edited to match my edit. If you have the same problem, you can use the clone tool to fix it. Since there’s no godly blur tool in gimp, I make use of the smudge tool during this step.

Finally, some quick details that need fixing.

And there we go! It’s a long process, but it gets results! You may end up skipping steps, or adding new things depending on what it is you are creating, but with this method, you can effectively create a whole new scene.

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Hmmmm

For whatever reason, I’m getting kprl: command not found.

I’ll take and go through the installation steps again tomorrow and make sure I did everything right. If I screwed it up, I blame it on doing this at 3am…

Do you have kprl copied to the directory you are navigating to?

Umm…Well, Can I make my visual novel with this program?`

I wouldn’t recommend it. If you just want to make a separate story visual novel, try using something like Ren’Py or some specific creator software (I saw some cool looking stuff on Steam). It’ll be a lot easier.

Eh? Umm…Okay, I will try another program first.

Yup. You can make a VN with rldev, but it’s messy.
I’d recommend Renpy or reallivemax for something like that.

Okay, thank you for your recommendation, @Takafumi. :smile:

Hey bro how we can “enter” a new line in seen ? Add “\n” ?

For line breaks? Those functions are usually added by translation groups I believe.

I don’t think the older reallive games like Kanon or Air have the function. Maybe they just rarely use it.
In the newer stuff like Litbus, you use \r. In Siglus games like Rewrite and AB, it should be \n, assuming you use the same tools as the Rewrite translation.

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Ah about g00 do you know how to use #CENTERPOS or sth can let image center ?
When i check an xml file they have like this

This line helps to center images. We cant use “CUT based on LAYER” and “CUT based on COMMAND” at the same time according to your instruction before.

This file _ny_ef_dm_001 I checked Amaterasu’ PSD they used “CUT based on LAYER” (#CUT layer at the top)
I used g00packMAX but I checked xml didnt have these line to help center image.

Ahaha, this is my least favorite topic. I experimented with this a while back, but I always forget about what I learned! The last time I touched the NYEF images it didn’t end well.

There’s quite a heavy bit of documentation of the center and cut commands. It’s all in Japanese, but a google translate could probably get the meaning across.
http://pastebin.com/0V1PehTa

If you use vaconv to extract the image, you’ll be left with an xml and a png file. If you use vaconv to convert the png to g00 (by simple typing vaconv followed by the name of the png file) it’ll follow the instructions in the xml.
So basically, you can use those xml files for any other pngs you turn into g00s via vaconv.

You guys have any examples that are working with this center ?
I experimented everything already…
I know xml is a way too but i want to find a legal way :v:

There aren’t any examples of it provided by VisualArt’s.

Hmm… Could you not just make the psd the same length and height as the game’s window? That way, anything in the center of the image will be centered.

Working with layered g00s

Edit: This section has become somewhat obsolete with a new version of RLDev. A backup of this version can be found here.
When using RLDev to extract a certain type of g00, you will be left with a weird mix of multiple images.

This problem is especially prevalent in Little Busters! and Siglus VNs. Hackers, being the tricky creatures they are, all end up disappearing before explaining how these images can be extracted correctly, so I’m here to provide a workaround!

For this example I will use a g00 from Angel Beats!

As you can see, it is a large image with multiple areas being cropped. In-game, these red bars are used to introduce you to a new area of the AB world.
When extracting this g00 with RLDev, instead of getting a big sheet of all that red, we get… this.

All of the cropped areas have been squished into a single small image. If you were to extract it with Crass instead, you’d get all of the layers.

So by using the Crass tool you can get the g00 extracted… But what if you want to edit it and put it all back into a g00?
Well, you’ll have to recreate the exact image you see in g00lib. That could be bad, but luckily we have the power of screenshotting.

I took a few screenshots of the image in g00lib, and stitched them all together in photoshop. Then I got the exported images from Crass and put them in the correct place, using the screenshot as a guideline. You could probably just use the screenshot and ignore the Crass step, but I’m unsure if screenshots are a lower quality than the source image, so I’m being safe~

I then made an edit to the image

Then I saved it as a psd, created a text file with the same name as the psd in the same directory, and typed out the details:
#RECTCUT_YOKO 0, 0, 318, 71, 2, 11

Each layer is 318x71, there are 2 columns and 11 rows of layers to cut.

I put it through g00 pack, put it in my game’s g00 folder, and check to see if it works.

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