The Hero's Opening Scene

Before I begin, let me give a quick update on events in my personal life, as it relates to how things have developed with my Suikoden fan animation, which can be viewed here:

At the beginning of July, I moved house with my family down to Hampshire. The countryside is a drastic change from the city locale, and its a lot harder to find work out here (not that I was having that much luck in London) but the natural scenery has provided me with some inspiration, which I have applied to my most recent animated project.

From an early stage in creating my fan fiction, I decided how I wanted to introduce the hero (from the video game Suikoden IV) in his first scene.
When you play Suikoden IV's "sister game" Suikoden Tactics, you find that the hero has taken up residence on the Deserted Island, which is the central most island in the archepelago of Suikoden IV.

Check my rendition of the map below:

Map of the Island Nations, which is the setting of Suikoden IV and a big chunk of Suikoden Tactics.

And so, I decided that the Deserted Island would make the best place to kick off my story. In the opening scene, we would have the hero practicing with his swords on the shores of the Deserted Island. As I progressed with this idea, it became more clear on what sort of iconic imagery would help enhance the scene and ground us more into the heroe's world - images such as waves crashing into the shore, while the hero poses with his trademark weapons, the duel swords. His red head band blowing in the breeze. Seagulls flying overhead. And of course, the Rune of Punishment emblazoned on the hero's left hand. Usually, the hero wears gloves to conseal his rune, as people in the Suikoden world tend to panic if they notice an unusual rune on your hand, and rightly so, considering the Rune of Punishment's reputation of devouring the the life force of its barer and every human in sight.

But since our hero is isolated and all alone out here, he takes to the shore with his bare hands, untroubled by thoughts of any unwelcome passers by.

However, whilst the youth is calmly practising with his swords, the rune of his left hand begins to glow ominously, and it causes him enough disturbance that he doubles over, dropping his swords, to try regaining control of the rune. As the red glow dies down, he looks up to see another light before him - a pale blue vision which reveals the cloaked form of a familiar figure - the sorceress, Lady Leknaat.

Leknaat the Sorceress

Leknaat the Sorceress, as she appears in the video game Suikoden IV.

 Leknaat is a recurring character in the Suikoden universe. She is kind of like the fairy godmother to each of the main heroes who appears in each Suikoden game. Her story is that she was born into a clan of magicians called the Clan of the Gate. Both Leknaat and her sister Windy possessed runes with the power to connect different worlds, but Leknaat's sister, in a typical fit of rage inspired by sibling rivalry, sought to take Leknaat's rune from her so she could become more powerful. Lenaat repelled Windy's attack, but she was blinded during their struggle. However, she did develop tremendous powers of prophecy, and she became  an almost divine figure, watching over the powers of the true runes and ensuring that none of them became too powerful and end up leading to global catastrophy.

Leknaat's role in Suikoden IV was to make sure the hero used his power wisely throughout his exploits in the Island Nations. Depending on certain decisions that you make as the player, Leknaat appears towards the end of the game to help restore the balance of the Rune of Punishment, so that it no longer drains the life of its barer.

Of course, with my fanfiction, I don't want it to end there. Now she appears to the hero to tell him that the dark properties of the Rune of Punishment have been lying dormant, and are now resurfacing to wreak havock on the hero's world. And so, he must once again embark on a mission to restore the balance to his cursed power.

Animated Oceans

When it came to animating the scenes of the hero and Leknaat on the beach, I was faced with a dilema - how do I animate the sea? I've seen oceans in animated movies and shows before, and some of them look fantastic, and some fo them... not so good. Initially, I tried using photographs which I had taken from previous trips to the coast and cutting and pasting and editing them using flash and photoshop, but I was never really able to achieve a natural effect.

Barton on Sea, Hampshire - my local inspiration.

Fortunately, now that I live but 30 minutes away from the sea in my new contryside home, I have been able to film live footage of the ocean using my digital camera. It was this footage that I would edit using various programs to create an animated background, which would work quite effortlesslty for my animated scenes in Flash.

Of course, it wasn't THAT simple, as the footage I took on my camera tended to be very jerky. I'm not a professional cameraman and I don't have access to professional camera equipment. Fortunately, the web is full of valuable sources, many of them free, and I soon found that the virtual dub program, along with it's deshaker filter plugin, was exaclty what I needed to achieve my "natural" ocean scenery.

3D Environments: The King's Bed Chamber

The room that Lino wakes up in after having his dream is modelled after the Obel Palace environments from the video game Suikoden IV. Suikoden takes place in a fictional fantasy world, but it still takes influence from real world cultures. The kingdom of Obel seems to be mainly influenced by Japanese styles, so I also googled a lot of old fashioned Japanese bedrooms for inspiration. Lino's bedroom doesn't actually appear in the video game, you can only go as far as the entry hall and throne room when you explore the palace in the game, so the layout for Lino's room had to be invented.

Four pillars support the cieling in Lino's bed chamber. They are built from wood, and have shiney golden guildings for decoration. A red carpet leads to the king's bed.

The images you'll see here are very dark - thats because i wanted to keep the lighting as natural as possible. there are no candles or torches keeping the room alight while Lino is sleeping. But I have included some very pale and subdued looking omni lights to shed light on areas such as the red carpet leading to the king's bed. I also added some raytrace maps to the metallic materials to create a shiney surface effects. 3D modelling is still vastly new to me, so I'm still making gradual progress with my modelling skills.

The material for Lino's bedding is from my lense cloth that I use to clean my glasses. I scanned it in and messed with the colours a bit in photoshop. I wanted the sheets to look creasy, as it reflects Lino's personality - that he's not concerned for neatness and formalities, and that also, he's just awoken in this scene from a nightmare, so the sheets will be crumpled from where he's been tossing and turning in his sleep. The logo that you see in the background is the banner of Obel - four rings linked by a fish tail. I've placed two banners at the back of the room, flanking Lino's bed, and the head of the bed itself also has a wood carving of the logo.

The cupboards in this room have a material that I used from photos of some old cupboards in Osterley House (some of the old furniture they have there is in oriental style)

A King and his Visions

As I made quite clear in one of my earliest posts, Lino En Kuldes is one of my all time favourite video game characters. I love his backstory, and I've decided to make an animated sequence specially based on his relationship with his beloved wife, who died at sea. This is actually a prequel to the animated movie that sees Lino, Akaghi and the hero fighting against skeletons in the Rune chamber.

Here's the published result:

The dream scenario is not intended to be an accurate depiction of how the Queen of Obel died in the video game - its a dream. Sometimes we do have dreams about loved ones who have passed on (hopefully, these are usually pleasant dreams that remind us of how the deceased person touched our lives) but for the sake of making things more dramatic, I chose to have it as a sweet dream that turns into a nightmare.

The idea is that Lino is haunted by the memory of losing his wife and being unable to save her, and this compels him to help the hero, who now carries the rune of Punishment, as they travel to find out what secrets this rune hasn't revealed yet. Is the queen trying to contact Lino through the rune? What important message does she have to give him? Will he finally be at peace if he does learn the answers to these questions?

But these are all questions I'll answer as I make progress with my fan fiction (which could take years so don't hold your breath!)

Storyboard for King Lino's Dream, originally intended to be a dream within a dream sequence.

If you look at the storyboard above, you may notice that intended for Lino to have two dreams. I may do an extended version at some point, but for now I think one short dream is enough.

Most of those shots have appeared in the animation up until when Lino wakes up. You can see a couple of shots when the queen disintegrates into ash in Lino's arms and the ash scatters across the ocean - I did in fact animate several versions of this scene, but they sucked and I just was not getting it right, so I cut it down to just the first person shot when Lino is caressing his wife's cheek and she disintegrates and then it cuts to Lino waking up in his palace.

The speedy version works just fine for me - I don't think we need to many shots from loads of different angles showing a woman crumbling into dust. Keping it brief is dramatic enough, I think. And it works quite well, seeing Lino's hand reach out from the first person shot, and then jumps up in bed in the next scene with the same arm reaching out at the camera, so we can see the horrified expression on his face.

The ship and Lino's royal chamber have both been created in 3ds Max, using photographs I took of the gameplay as reference.

From Storyboard to Computer Screen

The storyboard is not only a valuable guideline for animating my characters in their scenes, but also a blueprint to the set that they exist in. This animated sequence, for instance, takes place in an ancient ruin...

Clearly, even a crumbling temple ruin is a man made structure, and since I suck at perspective drawing, I decided the best way to create the ruins would be to construct a temple chamber in 3ds Max.

From my initial storyboard above, we can see that the most important features to the rune chamber are the entry and the dais, where our hero will activate his magical rune. The area also needs to be large enough to house a sword fight when the skeletons show up.

the entrance to the rune chamber, flanked by 2 torches (which weren't initially depicted in the storyboard) details such as extra torches and arches in the walls were included as I made progress with the 3d models.

view of the 3d dais from the centre of the chamber. In my storyboard, I already intended for the inscription to be illuminated by 4 large torches giving off a blue light (inspired by the shrine that houses the Bright Shield rune and Black Sword rune in Suikoden 2, to any video game veterans reading this blog)

View of the dais and runic inscription upon entering the chamber.

The very first shot that appears in the animation is not a shot that appears in my storyboard. Originally, I just thought of having the three men walking towards the camera, and then a wide shot of the chamber. But as I worked on the environment in 3ds Max, it occured to me that we should be given a view of what the three men are experiencing as they reach the rune chamber - what is the first thing they see, and obviously, the dais lit by blue torches is dead ahead of them.

Starting the scene in this way also gives us an impression of the importance of each character. The hero comes first, as he is being pulled by the force of his rune, followed by King Lino, and the servant Akaghi. At least, I hope this is the impression people got.

Now one of my favourite shots was also one of the simplest to pull off - its when we get a full-frontal view of the dais and inscription.

first person view of dais in storyboard

first person view of dais in movie

I had no thoughts of including the hero's hand in this shot when I first drew the storyboard, but as this was a first person shot, I thought it would be sensible to have it from the hero's perspective. This is a huge nod to fans of the video game - we can't see the rune on the hero's hand as he's wearing gloves, but we know its there. He responds to the site of this inscription by holding up his left hand and making a mental comparison to the actual rune that is attached to his body.

And the best reference is of course my own left hand. Just as well, as I'm right handed, so I could function with my graphic pen and wacom tablet whilst referring to my left hand, turning it in front of me. And my physical build is quite similar to that of the hero, so I didn't have to exaggerate too much.

Another shot that appears in the animation which was not in my storyboard is when the hero ascends the steps onto the dais. This seems like a tedious, unnecessary scene to include in a storyboard, but its quite important to give the audience the idea of how these characters function in this environment I've created. It also helps build up tension for the scene, to give us more of a sense of mystery and the unknown. And, it also kind of gives me the impression that the hero is offering himself as a sacrifice! Anyone who is familiar with the Suikoden video games may be able to relate this scene to Suikoden 2, when the two main characters enter a shrine and receive the two runes of beginning, and also in Suikoden 5, when the prince enters the Sinder ruins to awake the power of the Dawn Rune.

Another shot I was quite pleased with was when the hero touches the inscription and his rune and the inscription starts to resonate, and fills the chamber with an eerie red glow...

 Simple, but i think somewhat effective. I don't think there was any human animation in this scene, just the torches flickering and the red light intensifying.

The blue torches turning red was not in the storyboard - lighting and colours are often overlooked when it comes to my storyboards. But adding in the images of the calm blue fire turning into a violent bloody red does inflict a bit more drama on the scene. I added close ups of the torches changing as I didn't feel the one perspective shot made it clear enough what was happening to the torches, and I also included Lino and Akaghi reacting to the light to make things feel a bit more alive.

And I did head back into 3ds Max to edit the lighting from blue to red.

Suikoden Tactics... And Beyond

So the story I've had in mind for my Suikoden fan fiction is sort of a sequel to events that took place in the video game Suikoden IV and its spin-off Suikoden Tactics.

Cover art for Suikoden IV's "sister game" Suikoden Tactics.

Suikoden Tactics is a strategy based Role-Playing game in which the characters are set up kind of like chess pieces. While the graphic style is very different from Suikoden IV, it takes place in the same world, and gives us a glimpse of what the characters have been up to since liberating the Island Nations. The game actually gives you the option of carrying over data that you've saved on your memory card from Suikoden IV, and this determines how you go about recruiting certain characters to aid you in your quest.

So when you reach Obel, you find that King Lino En Kuldes has been working hard to keep the Island Nations at peace. He has also recruited two former assassins, named Mizuki and akaghi, as his personal bodyguards (this is pretty much explained in the epilogue upon completing Suikoden IV.)
We also find out that the hero has been living on a deserted island, away from society.

I liked the idea of the hero choosing to live outside of society, in case his Rune of Punishment begins to have negative effects and the vicious cycle begins again. I decided to base my fan fiction around this idea.

In my story, the rune of Punishment becomes imbalanced. It doesn't actually drain the hero's life like it did before, but it has been causing him to have strange dreams and visions. He also feels some sort of gravitational force pulling on the rune, as if drawing him somewhere. Reluctantly, the hero decides to ask his old friend King Lino for help, and Lino, who has also been troubled by nightmares involving his late wife, decides to set off with the hero on his ship to find out what this mystery is revolving around the Rune of Punishment.

Official Konami artwork of Akaghi the ninja

Lino takes with him his spear and his most trusted crew members, including his personal attendant, Akaghi (Mizuki is off attending to Princess Flare on one of her pirate patrol missions.)
Akaghi is a ninja who once worked for a corrupt merchant and his mission in Suikoden IV was to kill the hero and claim the Rune of Punishment for himself. This would surely have killed Akaghi, and once he became aware of this, Akaghi dedicated his life to making sure the rune did not end up in the wrong hands. After the liberation of the Island Nations, Akaghi became Lino's trusted servant. In the video games, Akaghi uses only one chakram as his main weapon, but there is a special feature in Suikoden IV in which Akaghi confesses that he once had two chakrams, but he lost one. So for my fan fiction, Lino En Kuldes has given Akaghi a newly crafted chakram, identical to the one he uses, as a gift and token of appreciation.

The quest takes the hero, Lino and Akaghi far from Obel's shores, to a remote, uncharted island where the Rune of Punishment guides the hero deep into the bowels of an ancient ruin (Much like the ruins of Obel that we see in the video games) In these ruins, the hero finds an inscription of the Rune on a wall. When he touches it, the rune reacts and a powerful magical surge engulfs the ruins. While the hero collapses from the strain of this magical surge, Lino and Akagi draw their weapons and stand ready for combat, as the rune's power begins to summon its long dead victims to kill the intruders... And this is where you can see my first animated sequence telling the story.

Introducing the orignal Suikoden IV video game by Konami

 WARNING: This blog post contains many spoilers about the storyline, characters and events from the video game Suikoden IV, created by Konami. If you have not played this game and have interests in playing it, please be aware that this post may ruin a lot of the surprises that the game has in store for the player.

For a long time, I've wanted to create my own fan fiction based on one of my favourite video games, Suikoden IV, created by Konami.

official cover art for the PlayStation 2 video game Suikoden IV..

I like this particular chapter in the series, because the characters and environments have been developed quite richly, although they don't give us too much detail about the world that the game is set in, so it leaves a lot to the imagination as well.

Suikoden IV takes place in an island nation and revolves around a powerful magical entity called the Rune of Punishment.

Explaining Runes

The Rune of Punishment

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Suikoden mythology, think of the runes as magical symbols that are used to invoke magical powers (much like the rune symbols that vikings would carve into their weapons to invoke the powers of the gods and ensure victory or good fortune)
Whereas the runes in Suikoden actually allow their bearers to strike at enemies with the elemental forces of nature. The Rune of Punishment is a special rune that represents the power of vengeance. It grants its user devastating power, but at the expense of draining the bearer's life. Eventually, the bearer will die and his or her body will be consumed by the rune, and the rune will attach itself to a new host and continue the cycle.

Introducing the Characters of suikoden IV

In the video game Suikoden IV, you play as a young man who has just graduated from a knight's academy, but he comes into possession of the Rune of Punishment. As you progress through the the game's story, you are able to use the rune's power in combat against enemies, but at the cost of the rune draining your own health. So it's necessary to have your companions protecting you in battle (fortunately, the suikoden video games let you make many friends to aid you in your quest).

Screenshot of the hero of Suikoden IV, as he appears in the game.

Official Konami artwork of King Lino En Kuldes.

About halfway through the game, you arrive on a small island kingdom ruled by a man named Lino En Kuldes. Lino is probably one of my all time favourite video game characters. He's just incredibly cool. He's not a typical RPG king with a stern expression on his face and long flowing robe and big bushy beard - He has a rugged outdoorsy appearance, with a very stylish hairdo and trimmed goatee.
What sets him apart from other kings most of all is his taste in fashion - he does not dress like a man of royalty. He wears a casual pink sleeveless shirt that he never buttons up, so we all See his impressive biceps and abs, cropped jeans that reveal his muscular legs and leather sandals. Strangers who travel to Lino's kingdom often mistake him for a commoner.

When Lino meets the young knight, he accepts his services, but Lino is already aware of the power of the Rune of Punishment. In fact, the rune itself was first unleashed into the world from where it was buried deep within an ancient ruin, located in Obel, not too far from Lino's palace. And the very person responsible for unleashing the rune from its hiding place... Was Lino's wife.

Official Konami artwork of the Queen of Obel.

We find out towards the end of the game that Lino's wife died using the Rune of Punishment to protect her family from invading pirates. Lino also mentions that his son went missing during the attack, and only his daughter, Princess Flare, survived. With King Lino's help, the young hero manages to unite the people of the scattered Island Nations into one unified force to stop an invasion from an enemy empire.  Soon after this, the hero succeeds in neutralising the rune's power, so that it no longer drains his life when he uses it. Lino becomes the chairman of the united Island Nations Federation, and the young hero, who is unsure about his power, departs to live on a deserted island. This is where my fan fiction begins....