POL Progress Update 5/1/13

Hey POL!

Today, I can finally talk about the wiki project that’s been going on! There was some technical difficulty with getting it all up and running on the website, but it’s all fixed now so everyone should be able to see it!

Over the past months, we’ve created basically a new POL wiki. A while ago, we realized that we were way over our data limit on the old wiki, and we were having a lot of problems storing and accessing the data that we need for POL. We decided it was necessary to create a new wiki that could better meet our needs. We also decided that, while we were at it, we could make a bunch of new templates as well!

To see the new wiki, you can simply click the “Wiki” link at the top of the page! The link has always been there, but until recently, it pointed to the old wiki. It’s not completely done, as there is still a lot of POL information that needs to be uploaded.

I’ll let Creoix explain more of the details of the new wiki when he gets on next; I’m sure he’ll have a lot to say about it, too!

POL Progress Update 4/1/13

Hey POL!

I don’t have too much to say update-wise this month. Unfortunately, Platinum is currently moving to a new house, and he doesn’t have internet set up there yet, and he’s not sure how long it will be before he’s back online and leading the project. That’s slowed us down a bit, but he should hopefully be back soon. Also, it seems like a wave of business has hit a lot of the POL team school-wise, as many of us have had a lot of external obligations this past month that has prevented us from making any very significant breakthroughs.

We have made some good progress when it comes to the Appearance Data, which I’ve mentioned several times before. We actually started making the final data that will appear in game, which means that is now moving more quickly than it was before when we were just discussing how to create the data and the guidelines we will use for making the appearance rates.

Also, in the next week or so, Creoix and I are going to announce the big wiki project that I originally announced would be released several months ago. He, as the wiki administrator, now feels like it’s ready enough to be opened up. I haven’t been able to talk to him in a couple of days, so we’ll have to wait just a bit until he and I can work out the final release details. It’s nothing earth-shattering, but it is a great addition to POL’s assets!

As always, let me know if there are any questions/comments/concerns/suggestions that you might have!

POL Progress Update 3/1/13

Hey POL!

I apologize ahead of time, but this month’s progress update is going to be a bit disappointing. Not a whole lot has happened this past month development-wise, and I don’t have any new sprites or anything to show off. We do have new sprites, but just not ones that we want to reveal at this time.

As for the Wiki, we’re not ready to reveal everything about the surprise that I promised you all back in January even though I said last month that it was coming soon. We need to tidy some more things up before we can reveal it, and I promised Creoix that I would help him with that so that it can get done faster. I’ll talk to him later today and try to get a timetable set up for when we can reveal all the new stuff with the wiki.

When it comes to Mapping, we’ve finished making the source maps for a few more of the Johto cave areas, and Furs is still creating all of the missing tiles that we need to start the actual mapping process.

I also want to say thanks to the couple of people who have made suggestions about things in the past couple of months! Suggestions are great because they get us talking and help us make POL even better!

As always, leave any comments/concerns/questions/suggestions in this thread, or send me a PM. Sorry that I didn’t have anything new this month, but it has been a very slow month development-wise.

Have a great March!

POL Progress Update 2/1/13

Hey POL!

Again, I don’t have too much to say this month. Furs is still working on the new sprites, and Platinum is currently working on the new male sprite template, which is the male counterpart to the base template of the female sprites I showed previously.

We’re also currently working on making all of the missing Johto tiles. When we were creating the source maps, we mostly used tiles that we’ve already made for Kanto, where applicable. But now that we’re done with the majority of the source maps, we’re starting to make the custom tiles that we don’t already have from Kanto. Once we’re done with the custom tiles, we’ll be able to start putting the maps into the format that the POL game engine can read, which will be exciting, for sure!

As for the wiki, I apologize that I didn’t come back with the big update I promised. I’ve been trying to contact Creoix about it, but I forgot to ask him when I saw him yesterday. I do know that it’s been going well, though, and it should come out, soon! We need to do a bit more organizing of our stuff, and then we’ll be able show off what we’ve been waiting for!

As always, let me know if you have any questions/comments/concerns/suggestions! That’s it for now, but hopefully I’ll be able to reveal some more soon. I’m really excited for it, and I think everyone will be very happy to see it!

POL Progress Update 1/1/13

Hey POL! I hope everyone has been enjoying their holiday celebrations! Happy New Years!

We don’t have too much to talk about this month in terms of word count, but we do have some new images to show off! Just to touch base with everyone on mapping, we’re still almost done converting all of the Johto maps in HgSs to the POL style. Currently our main focus is the caves, so we’ll keep working on that!

As for the wiki stuff, we should have a big update for you guys soon, but Creoix has asked that I not say too much about it now. In the next couple of days, we should be able to reveal some new information with that! Unfortunately, that’s all I can say for now!

As for spriting, we’ve just finished creating the new template for female characters, and we’re now converting more characters to the new style. As of now, three characters have been wholly converted: Misty, Nurse Joy, and Flannery. I can’t show you all of the art for them, but I do have the front overworld sprites!





And that’s all I have for now! Hopefully we should be able to reveal more information about the wiki in the coming days. As always, please put any questions/comments/concerns/suggestions relating to this update in this thread, or send me a PM!

POL Progress Update 12/1/12

Hey POL! Today’s the day for another progress update~

Like last month, I don’t have too many new things to add, just a few updates on how our current projects are going.

With mapping, we’re continuing to finish up all of the Johto source maps. All of the exteriors are done (as I mentioned last month), but we still need to do some of the caves and such. Most of Kanto has gone through its final check, which means it’s ready to be put into POL! We have 2 separate teams working on these different tasks, and we’re also putting together a team to start working on some POL-exclusive areas! But no more on that for now ;)

We’re continuing to update everything to the new wiki, since we were having problems with the old one, as mentioned in previous updates. Nothing too exciting has come from that, but I’ll let you know when it’s all done.

In the graphics department, we finished spriting a lot of the Key Items for POL, which means making sure they’re in POL quality. Some of them are from the games, but some of them are POL-exclusive items!

Another project we’ve started in the last month is creating the appearance rates for Pokemon in POL. Instead of just copying the rates that were in the games, we’re using a modified Chip system that will allow for different Pokemon to appear in different areas, which means that we need to custom create all of the appearance rates in POL. Currently, we’ve only started on a few Kanto areas, as we’re still trying to come up with the best system for making the appearance rates.

That’s all I have for this month! As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, don’t hesitate to ask!

POL Progress Update 11/1/12

Hey POL! I’m gonna post this month’s progress update a day early since I’m not sure if I’ll have time to do it tomorrow; I hope that’s okay!

I just wanna give a quick update on the mapping and the new wiki. As for mapping, we are now done with making the source maps for Johto exteriors! This means that we are almost ready to start making the tiles for the Johto exterior maps (like routes and cities) so that they can be mapped into a form that is useable by POL.

As for the wiki, we’re not completely done uploading everything to the new wiki. We’re still missing some of the images that we had on the old wiki, but we are in the process of transferring them. The new wiki is up and running, and it should have all of the pages that the old wiki had, but it’s just missing some graphics.

That’s all I have for this month. Nothing huge and fancy like last month, but hey, if we came out with a new art style every month, I don’t think anyone would be that happy!

As always, if you have any questions/comments/concerns/suggestions, don’t hesitate to let me know!

POL Progress Update 10/1/12

Hey POL! It’s time for another Progress Update!

First, let me apologize for getting this up a day late. I’ve been really busy with things and I wasn’t ready to publish this update yet. Also, for those of you who noticed, our wiki was down for a few days this past month. We were going through some database cleaning since it had grown beyond the size capacity for our server.

Now, for the update! I have some pretty big news this month, and some images to go along with it. First, I want to confirm that POL will be adding 5th gen Pokemon and the Unova region. This is a very long-term thing, though, and our current priority is still Kanto and Johto. Along with this, we are also upgrading our sprites to a new art style. Here are several examples of the new style that we’re using for the sprites:







One of the reasons for updating the graphical style for the player sprites is that we’re able to update the templates with new actions to bring it up to date with all possible actions as of Black 2 and White 2, for example, balancing on catwalks in Black and White. The new template also simplifies how our sprite sheets are read by the game engine, which makes it easier for development.

That’s what I have to show this week! If you have any questions about this update or the new art style, or about anything else, don’t hesitate to ask! As always, all of your other comments/concerns/suggestions are welcome here.

Thanks for reading!

POL Progress Update 9/1/12

Hey POL! It’s the first of the month, which means it’s time for another progress update!

Unfortunately, I don’t have too much to report this time. With the new school semester starting in August (for most people) we’ve seen a decrease in activity. With classes and work and other professional obligations, many of the staff hasn’t been able to contribute as much this past month as in previous months. However, this is nothing to worry about – for the 3+ years I’ve been on staff, this same thing has happened at about this time each year. After a month or so, when people have had a chance to get settled into their new class routines, progress picks up again!

There is some good news, though! We have a new staff member, Aringon, who is working on the wiki team, and he’s been working on some of the Attack pages.

With mapping, we’ve basically completed the Johto source mapping, which is a lot of progress from last month. This means that we can start creating the Johto tileset for mapping. Luckily, we won’t have to make every single tile in Johto, since a lot of them are the same tiles that we used in Kanto. There are, however, some Johto-exclusive tiles that need to be made before we can start the mapping process. The reason why we tile everything before we start mapping is that it saves us hassle later if a mapper finds missing/broken tiles and such.

That’s all I have to say for this month! As usual, if you have any questions or comments or suggestions, feel free to ask them here or send me a PM!

POL Progress Update 8/1/12

Hey POL! It’s the first of the month, which means it’s time for another progress update!

I’ve got 2 things to talk about this month: spriting and mapping. I’ll start with spriting.

As I’ve mentioned in previous months, we’re making a big push to finish up all of the apparel for POL. It’s a big task, and we’re not done with it yet, but a lot of people have been asking for examples of the work we’ve been doing, and I’ve been cleared this month to show you some of our apparel that we have finished. This should give you an idea of what we have on the apparel. As you can see, it’s a tedious process, but we are making progress!

With mapping, I have a couple of new numbers for you. Our current task is creating the source maps for Johto. Unfortunately, we can’t use the source maps from any of the Pokemon games since there were no Johto-region games made in Gen III, which is the style that we are using for POL. Our team has been working on this for a couple of weeks, and we are currently 78% done with the outdoor areas. We’ve finished all of the Johto cities, and we only have the special areas left, like the National Park. After we finish the source map process, we can begin the custom spriting that will be necessary to fill in the “gaps” that we have, and then we can start tiling and mapping.

That’s all I have for this month! As always, if you have any questions/comments/suggestions/concerns, feel free to post them here! And if you want to know how you can get involved, just let me know and I’ll be happy to help.