Trying to get the gist of FL Studio 8, though it's proving to be a massive handful and I don't think I'd have the patience for it considering whats going on in life at the moment...

Still, I always did complain that my chosen music programs never did have the versatility or customizability I desired so I guess I should stick with it.

Let's see what happens.

Thanks to the unexpected (and much appreciated) success of my first movie aka Alucard v Richter Belmont SOTN Sprite Fight more and more people have posted positive response and asked me to continue the project.

Those who haven't seen the first can catch it here at: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
474975

I've found some great resources for a new movie, heck not only did it help me learn flash but it even sharpened my Photoshopping, something I'm not unfamiliar to, which will no doubt allow for additional sprite work as well as potentially re-creating my own portions of the castle (Much like I did in the falling segment in the first movie - The top portion of the room entered after the portal was 100% created by myself, using various other tiles from other rooms, to make my own type of 'tower top' followed by a 3-frame animation for the side walls to make it look like the characters where falling, additionally edited in Photoshop for the Alucard Super Kick so that the sides looked like they were moving much faster to the backdrop of a sky-image that isn't from the game - Simple, yet it got the job done.

That in mind, I really would prefer to keep this movie true to SOTN, considering the current story is only 'marginally' different than the PSX original (Even using the official PSX SOTN Dialogue for Alucard & Richter) so it's hard to tell how to take the movie from here.

I guess I could start by relaying what happened in the first movie, to see what potential angles can be taken in a further story.

I had no intention of adding story initially, as I just wanted to animate a fight, but the hasty story I DID implement is true to SOTN. Richter has defeated Dracula (From Rondo of Blood) and then dissapeared soon after, 5 years later the Castle re-emerges, waking Alucard unexpectedly, forcing him to investigate the sudden shift in power.

SPOLERS (For those who haven't seen the movie)

Then we leave 'official' story territory when Alucard is greeted by the 'New Lord' of Castlevania, Richter Belmont shortly on entering - After a brief exchange of words, Alucard is set apon by Bloody Zombies summoned by the Vampire Hunter, who then attacks Alucard himself once the zombies are easily crushed. The fight rages from the big room, through the second hallway until Richter mashes Alucard through the Ceiling into what is commonly known as the Doppelganger room (yes, not only has the story changed, but so has the geography of the official SOTN castle).

Back to official again when Richter confesses his desire to ressurect Count Dracula in a bid to continue his role as a Vampire Hunter, considering Dracula's defeat at his own hands has left him without purpose considering Dracula won't self-ressurect for another century, with which Richter will most likely be dead. They battle on with Richter having a considerable upperhand until Alucard counters his near-death with a Raging Demon (Akuma) style ability rendering Richter temporarily paralyzed, the force of which opens up the Doppelganger Portal, allowing Alucard to hoist the stunned Richter and passing through, into the very top of a tower set directly above Dracula's very own Castle Keep, with which the fight continues. Alucard tosses Richter out of the tower (thought in mind that he can fly, Richter cannot) and they plummet until Alucard smashes him into Dracula's very own dining hall where the fight continues.

Both near defeat, Alucard counters a potential fatal blow with a mist-transformation, grabbing a suprised Richter and pulverizing him into the ground.

Round 1: Alucard Victory (True to the 'good' endings of the game).

Richter in his defeat locks himself in Dracula's Throne room, setting more demonic slaves on Alucard... Fin...

Ok so it seems slightly more interesting when written, but visually it's very easy to space out during the movie because in truth it's just a 3.5min sprite fight with two-chunks of dialogue thrown in...

So the first question is, if this is to continue, then how can I forge an interesting plot?

Also, bearing in mind that this isn't wholly original, I'll need to create ways for any new movies to maintain viewer interest. This comes to my first idea, and the most obvious - The addition of more characters.

I had four endings plotted for the first movie (Which the viewer was able to select when the fight ended) Two for Richter, one for Alucard and one for a secret ending - The only reason I couldn't implement them was down to the dialogue - All Richter/Alucard Dialogue bar those used contain reference to, or the addition of, Maria Renard. Cutting and re-plotting the dialogue meant it was near impossible to make proper conversation between Alucard & Ricther without Maria being mentioned, who isn't in the movie.

So the first obvious choice for additional characters would start with Maria. That'll allow the story to focus more on Richters 'possession' than it does anything else, seeing as Maria couldn't care less about anything other than saving her half-brother. It also means Richter in possessed form (one I'd like to stick with) is outnumbered, then it came down to the simple question of who would join HIM.

Considering the inclusion of Doppelgangers and reincarnated folk in SOTN game, my first thoughts would be to figure a way for him to ressurect, or otherwise summon, more Belmonts... There are useable sprites for Trevor Belmont that I could easily see being used in the game, so my first idea was to have a Belmont Duo take on Alucard and anyone else who decides to join him.

There's also the matter of the 'Portal' in the game - I had another idea of merging alternate time lines - In the official game, Alucard faces two Doppelgangers of himself - In the movie, the portal used is where you first encounter a Doppelganger in the game... And the fact that both Alucard & Richter went through this 'portal' opens up a potential interesting idea of merging official SOTN story & gameplay with this potential fictional movie version - What if the movie Alucard is the one you (and I, as SOTN players) have killed after he (Doppelganger) exits the portal in the game, now that'd be pretty messed up. Same can be said with Richters appearance in Portrait of Ruin as the image of the last person to weild the Vampire Killer (legendary whip).

Then there's the matter of the stapel point of Castlevania - Dracula himself... Someone commented on the movie claiming they'd be interested to see how Dracula himself gets included in all this mess - And so would I... Assuming possessed Richter does indeed ressurect Dracula, in order to continue being a Vampire Hunter, he wouldn't nessecarily join him but attempt to kill him again - So that leaves out the idea of an evil two-some and more for a three way story with Maria persuading Alucard to assist in freeing Richter, who wants to revive and otherwise kill Alucard and Dracula, who himself is pretty sick of getting owned in almost every CV game and simply wants to kill everyone in order to control the world.

Weird...

Infact the portal itself could be used as a means of making it seem like Alucard & Richter pass through time in a fashion that allows them to interact with older classic members of the game, such as Trevor etc... Considering Alucard has been in one of the older NES games, it'd be quite funny seeing Trevor/Grant/Syfa/OldAlucard meeting Alucard/Richter in their own time period.

Still, the idea of time travel to me is still unappealing.

If I was to make a sequel it'd have to either start with the beginning of another characters tale, such as Maria, or continue on from the first, and display how Alucard fares after being trapped in Dracula's Dining Hall with Richters summoned demon minions.

Bah, so much to chew on - Infact thats the reason I made this an NG Front Page post - I guess I could do with some potential ideas (especially from CV fans) and on top of that I'm still asking people to keep voting on whom they would like to see as the initial victor beit Alucard or Richter (In any form).

I'll be brutally honest and say that as much as I like Alucard, I strongly favour Richter in this, in terms of story, likeability and ultimately effectiveness and ease of sprite animation (He's so much easier to animate than Alucard).

But SOTN being a cult-classic, I wouldn't like to dissapoint fans, either.

It's all up in the air, so if you happen to stumble on this post and think you like the idea of a SOTN retelling (or alteration) then by all means, share your ideas!

And thanks to everyone who voted/rated/reviewed/recommended my first movie - It is greatly appreciated!

I tried recommending the movie for the Castlevania Collection... And wondered why after so long that my old project never got submitted - Wasn't sure what the specifications for joining a collection where (If any) - I guess I just assumed movies got categorized into their respective genres.

Posted on the forums asking for people to help recommend my latest movie for the collection, and recived one single response claiming it was solely down to the admins, and that I shouldn't post forum threads about it, but keep it to my blog...

If thats the case, how are people even going to notice my movie exists? It's been pushed off the 'recently submitted' list after an hour of being submitted (Predictably) and may never get seen again as nobody will know it's there unless I self advertise - So wish me luck in having an Admin just happen to pass by my movie and see if it's 'good enough'...

Oh well.

Wondering if it's worth making a sequel to the project - When it came to this movie, it was made out of inspiration from Proxicide and as a means to 'give back' to the site that has provided me with a great source of Flash & Music... Sort of a repayment, to take me a step away from being just a simple leecher...

Now that it's been made, I've other things need looking at - I guess I need a reason to push for another animation... Boredome, maybe ^^

Ah well - Thanks to anyone who checked out the movie and, to those who haven't, and may do so in the future, please help recommend it for the Castlevania Collection :>

Ok ok, so it didn't go how I planned, and my inexperience led to some hair-pulling frustration and made me take the easy way out... But I finally 'kinda' finished the animation.

Heck I even took the time to post a message to the person who inspired me to make flash in the firstplace, and while mine is brain-dead dirt in comparison to most of the work that gets submitted up here, at least now I can put my hand up and say, yes, I took a stab at it - And that I'm the proud owner of an animation showing Half-Vampire & Vampire-Killer kicking the living garlic out of eachother.

Hope others enjoy it, too :)

I'll admit it, I gave up work on this shortly after I uploaded the preview (Even after saying to a reviewer that I wouldn't give up on it) and for some reason I got sucked right back into Swish with a vengeance.

Sure, the preview movie doesn't show a lot and the first half of it is very limited (Mostly due to limited SOTN sprites but largely my own flash inexperience) but after spending two days working on the third room scene, and witnessing how funny it is when you chop up sprites in photoshop to make custom work and see these two CV powerhouses smash eachother to pieces, you know you'll see it through.

After recording (Camstudio, Desktop Recorder) the fight at 19fps, it turns out the fight is 2min long in it's current state, and I've not even added the finale or closing scenes, not even a proper intro.

Guess this means the full package will be a 3-4min long retelling of the classic battle between Good and... Good but mind-controlled hero's of Castlevania SOTN in a bid to see who will be the victor, and the destroyer of Castle Dracula.

Well I'm proud to say I'm happy with the look and feel of it so far.

Suggestions have been made here and elsewhere about forming some form of intro and/or plot device into the movie, rather than an all out action fest.

I do have plenty of little non-action based mini-comedy segments in mind but I never intended for this to have any real plot outside of the official SOTN story of Alucard having to deafeat Richter in order to destroy Castle Dracula.

However I do intend to brush up on wether Richter is possessed in this movie (by Shaft, which is part of the official SOTN story) but I'd rather take that detail away from the movie and have it as a one-on-one proper fight without any predictable stalemate endings with no real loser, such as Alucard beats possessed Richter and they're all dandy friends again, yadda.

I just hope anyone who sees the movie decides to post their thoughts - Especially to vote on who they'd like to see win.