Topic: Castlevania: Umbra of Sorrow (1999 Fan Project)

[theplottwist]

I've done some voice work for online english courses.  I could give it a shot.  I could try any of the three male voices (counting Death as male) just need a little direction on what you are looking for in each voice.

All you gotta do is follow the test lines on the castingcall link. No need to make an account there: Just ZIP them all into one file and send them over via PM! It's important the quality is decent or we won't be able to hear your voice properly.

I think I want to try as well. I've been taking voice training lessons & I just got my new mic in recently!

Same thing: Just do the tests and send them over via PM!

BTW, even if your attempts at THIS test doesn't get accepted, we still know more or less what other characters sound like in this project, so we might consider contacting you again if we find that your voice could benefit another character. 

[SecretWeapon]

i don't like seeing this in second page...so i'll bump it.

[theplottwist]

i don't like seeing this in second page...so i'll bump it.

Thanks, dude

There is something nice to be posted soon, so the bumping will be given proper justice.

[Foffy]

Gah, the bump got me all excited there was more stuffs. Like a full moon, I guess it will just come in time.

I hunger for this more than a vampire's lust for blood! ;u;

[Shiroi Koumori]

Yes! I can't wait for more stuff.

[Chernabogue]

The "more stuff" is good

[theplottwist]

Hello! It's time for a "we're still alive, y'know?" update!

First of all:

What? You can't hear him? Try clicking that dialogue box!

Say hello to Martin Wain. He is the selected voice actor for Alucard. He's competent, swift, and he also has a passion for Castlevania!

As I have posted before, Alucard was going to be voiced originally by Dracula9, but this proved to be too taxing on his voice, so we set out to find another actor who could impress the entire team. Despite "cold rock with bursts of emotion" sounding simple to perform in theory, Alucard is not an easy character to nail. Yet Martin proved to be a godsend when he captured the entire character pretty much on his first performance.

As mentioned previously, we prefer a delivery closer to Robert Belgrade's voice for Alucard because, for us, not only is that interpretation the most iconic, but it also lends him an air of strangeness that he is confirmed multiple times to have in-universe. Martin is very talented, so expect his delivery to be more convincing than Alucard was on SotN -- the hammy acting is something we can do away with. And do not let this bit of audio fool you: We're keeping the real wide-range-of-emotions good stuff to the main course

Martin does not have a social media you can follow yet. As soon as he does, we will update accordingly to let you know.

And, Martin is not the only actor to join... But I'll keep this one to a mini-update in the near future.


I won't mince words here: Development is still going slow. But it never once stopped-- we're always adding new things or ironing past ones, or hunting for more new information. So we're definitely not dead. And speaking of "hunting for more information", one event happened recently that has a potential to make a slow development even slower: The announcement and release of Grimoire of Souls.

As you know by now, that game is drawing upon the classic timeline. Umbra's mission statement being to respect the canon at all costs, that meant that I had to do all research I could humanly do on this game, without having access to it, to make sure everything on Umbra was working according with it. So, from the game's announcement until this game comes out, I must be all over it collecting all information available to me. We are preemptively considering Grimoire of Souls canon even if there's no official word on this matter yet.

Bad news is that not only the game is still not fully released (barring me from looking at the entire thing and continuing with the adjustments on project's storyline), but the beta demo that WAS released contained information contradicting Umbra. Because of course it did

Good news is that this information contradicting Umbra was really minor and did NOT throw a wrench on Umbra's developed story or gameplay. Having a Plan B came in handy, and the adjustments were made without any losses to Umbra that would require a full rewriting of stuff and would bog us down even more than we already are. What GoS contradicted was nothing more than holes that we already knew to exist.

Bonus news is that this game confirmed some small stuff I had discovered/theorized a long time ago, and made Umbra even more convincing than before on this regard :O

So, in short, Grimoire of Souls could prove to be a challenge. As of now, nothing major interfered with Umbra, but if GoS reveals something TOO major once it comes out, it could mean that entire chunks of Umbra's plotline (and possibly gameplay aspects that are interwined with the plotline) must get rewritten to suit what GoS says. Anything official Konami puts out > Umbra of Sorrow.

But I'll let you guys know that I'm making an effort to account for that before it happens. At the moment everything is fine and we have much more pressing matters to take care of (graphics, engine, etc), and they are being taken care of.


So, remember the promised Gameplay Demo? It's also still coming and it was not scrapped or anything like that. You can expect MORE news on that soon outside of this update. We may have been slowed down, but new content is produced all the time for this project, be it graphics, coding, music, be it design decisions (on which we take strides constantly via internal discussions), and it all affects the demo's progress too. That said, we want to talk about and SHOW you scrumptious stuff to chew on. Ready?

-Julius Belmont's sprite is being retooled.



After testing it in-engine, after receiving feedback, and after myself growing as an artist, Julius is being edited/updated to be better read on-screen, fix pose issues, fix subpar animations or outright look more badass in general. He has over 150 frames, so that will take a bit to complete, but not NEARLY as long as it took to create him, that's for sure. And speaking of Julius' design...

-Julius' concept itself is being updated.



Junki also grew as an artist, and we felt suit that Julius needed an update to his artwork, which will get used in-game constantly. One such improvement is making him more "manly", something that was criticized a long time ago when his first concept was unveiled. And yes, that means that the other main characters are also receiving an update -- can't have Julius be the only one to receive an update, can we? This will be the first and ONLY update to these character designs.

And, here are some in-engine screensho-- Nah, to hell with screenshots. Let's see stuff MOVING:

Julius locates a secret passage. He has his Castlevania game on point. Also, is that... Is that a returning foe?

Julius fights an old enemy with his trademark Red Axe and does some climbing.

He can grapple on things, but it looks kinda different, doesn't it?

(The "green glitches" on some of these are just glitches from the recording. They don't exist on the game itself. And keep in mind you're not seeing retooled Julius yet.)

Here you can see a number of stuff. But more importantly, you can see for yourself how one of the core mechanics for Julius -- his grapple -- will work. No longer does grappling work like it did on Super Castlevania IV or Harmony of Despair. Julius, instead of merely dangling from a peg and vulnerably staying there, pulls the whip to propel himself on the opposite direction, more or less like Shanoa's Magnes glyph, but different in that he doesn't need to pull back to shoot forward. This makes Julius very fast in certain situations and enables him to move fast across long distances by himself. We felt that this was the best way to mix both the platforming and hectic action that we have planned for many sections of the game.

However, although we're showing you stuff moving, it's important that I make clear that THIS IS NOT FINAL. You'll see certain stuff off here that we KNOW is there and are working to fix or adjust, or stuff that is simply placeholder even if it looks "final graphics". Our goal with this was to demonstrate that work is happening, not that it is complete. Dracula9 felt suit to reunite some of his own coding progress to give you a general idea of what's ready or what is not:

(click to show/hide)

non-codey general progress stuffs:

-all enemies are in and working properly, simply in need of varying degrees of "finish sprites/animations". That includes a certain someone...

-inventory working with (small) selection of different items/equippables to appear in demo.

-Julius' mechanics to be showcased on the demo are nearly complete.

non-codey general to-do list:

-actually finish tiling the damn levels

-rework certain particle systems to look better

-implement new menu graphics (once the remaining graphics are completed) and submenu transition effects

-finish creating the handful of needed SFX that are left

codey progress stuffs:

-levelling system working properly

-general stuff working properly (physics, collision, stats and the like, enemy AI, etc. etc. etc.)

codey to-do list:

-restructure inventory arrays to be more dynamic and efficient (they're 6-dimensional and nested, for those who would know what this means and implies--take aspirin for the headache with me, friends!)

-try and get water shader to run exclusively at the base resolution and upscale in tandem, and not just rescale the entire shader to fit the various window/resolution sizes

-get off my ass and implement controller support and control customization for keyboards (controller has specific planned layout, that's why it isn't getting customization support)

Also yes, Punaguchi. And yes, that sprite is from Adventure Rebirth. And yes, he's getting new graphics and that is placeholder.


It's time to close this update. With that, I'll leave you with a screenshot, and a new soundtrack. Thank you people for not giving up on us. We're working hard, and we will bring you the best possible content we can -- you think all this is just for a demo, but it isn't. Every bit and piece made is going for the final game, and it is important that it looks as (close to) pristine in the demo as it will be in the final game. See ya, and I hope I can bring better news soon

♪ Iron Crusher - By our demonic songmaster Chernabogue. Can you tell where this comes from?

"A beast who rebelled against Heaven; Siding with the Dark Lord, it now fights even after death."

[Jop]

Looks nice :3

(click to show/hide)

AWESOME!!!!!

[Shiroi Koumori]

Yes!!!!
Good choice on Alucard's VA. Me likey.

I know where Chernabogue's music was inspired from. Hint: it is on a different thread.


I hope Grimore doesn't complicate things further.

[Belmontoya]

Let me say this.

Konami cannot kill Castlevania.

Bloodstained cannot kill Castlevania.

The only thing that can kill Castlevania is if we the fans stop caring.

As long as there are fans who pour their hearts into keeping it alive by creating new content, it will never die.

Here is proof of that.

[XombieMike]

Excellent update! I'm a huge fan of Junki Sakuraba and ThePlotTwist. This will be my favorite fan game ever.

[zangetsu468]

Stunning!!!

[Castle34hk]

WOW man what a nice  update tamke you time man just take you time looks so good and exellent job;)

[Chernabogue]

For those of you who would like to check "Iron Crusher" on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7p6bjUnDgk

[Foffy]

Oh my Gawd I neeeed this.

This looks so slick!!!