Print Page - SDo0m's Fundamentals to PSA - Let's Begin with the Top Tips ;)

SDo0m's PSA Fundamentals

Wazzup people SDo0m here to give you some of the fundamentals of being a good PSAer. Before I get into the proper tutorials, let me start with just tips and reasons as to why you should consider PSAs.

Why Make PSAs?

Making PSAs is quite difficult to ease into at first. Unlike other kinds of hacking, it requires you to take quite a bit of time asking questions and watching tutorials. Once you get the fundamentals down, then you can start to go for stuff that's a little more ambitious. However, I must say that making PSAs is rather rewarding. The satisfaction of seeing those moves on that character, knowing that you've developed a new way to play is really satisfying imo. It makes you feel empowered over the game, like you can do whatever you want despite the restrictions.

The Helpful Links

There are a number of really, REALLY useful links to help you guys out with PSA. I shall post a number of them here:

Download to PSA 2.1:
http://www.mediafire.com/?nztttqt1zux

Download to PSA 2.65/1.85:
http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=17599

Download to Brawlbox (contains both older and newer versions):
http://www.mediafire.com/?fcdu0u85i1xpab4

Guide to Hitbox Flags (contains all the info on hitbox flags): http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=286748

Velen's Guide to Animation Principles:
http://forums.kc-mm.com/index.php?topic=7064.0

The PSA Help Thread (contains LOADS of links to lots of other helpful places):
http://forums.kc-mm.com/index.php?topic=5321.0

...Now you may be wondering why I put download links to both 2.1 and 2.65. The reason is the fact that there are some events and parameters in 2.65 that aren't in 2.1 and vice versa. I like to use both. Not to mention using both allows you to have two PSA windows open at a time.

My Tips and Tricks

Note that these tips don't really tell you how to specifically do things in PSA, but rather they are a guide on how to approach about learning how to pick up and apply aspects of making PSAs.

1. Start out small

As tempting as it is to dive straight into a big complex character for some project, don't. Firstly, you most likely won't finish it. The challenge and the prospect will be a bit too difficult. Instead, start quite small. Maybe just make a simple character upgrade. Not something too basic, since no one will care. But something that isn't too hard to make and grabs people's attention. A good example is the Drako Yoshi mod I made a while ago.

However, you may find that the expectations of PSAs nowadays have changed and that people won't really pay attention to your mod. If you feel this is the case, then PM me your hack. If I can find the time, I will try my best to do some playtesting of it and give you feedback so that you know you've received some kind of response ^^

2. Learn from feedback

One of the most important things a PSAer can receive is feedback. Without it, one can never truly get better. If you find that you aren't really receiving any/any useful feedback on your PSA, again feel free to PM it to me and I'll try my best to help you out. Some of the best ways to attain feedback are to:

1) Make a topic
2) Make videos of your hack (or ask people to make videos of it)
3) PM some people you think would give you some nice feedback

3. Learn from others

One of the ways that I learned how to do a lot of things in PSA was not by tutorials, but by looking at the coding in other people's PSAs and seeing what they do. Honestly, this way of learning is SOOOOO useful (I bet almost all of the better PSAers on this forum will agree with me here). This requires you to also use your logic too. But playing and taking a good look at other PSAs will really help you get to grips with things.

4. Style and Substance

If you're making a PSA of an actual character, whether it be from another game or anime or something, prioritise the playstyle of the character. Think carefully of how you want them to function. This is one of the more difficult things to do. Despite what people may think, making a character that feels well thought out and have a lot of depth is difficult. Characters that have a learning curve, but are still fairly accessible even to newer players (i.e. ones that are easy to pick up, harder to master) are the best kinds of characters. These have the most lastability and are not only the most rewarding to make, but are also the most rewarding to those who play as them because they actually feel like they are getting something out of using the character. Here's my advice on how to give characters substance and make them feel as though they belong.

- Always try to not abuse graphic effects too much. Unless you want to create an over the top and super flashy character, I would recommend using them discretely. No character in Brawl has graphics that flashy (barring Final Smashes), and abusing generic graphics (especially elemental ones) makes the moveset seem rather generic and uninspired. However, it is possible to make moves flashy whilst remaining balanced. Sephiroth by DivineOverlord, Hollow and BigBadBooya is a good example of this. However, that took A LOT of criticism and feedback to get the state of the moves correct. Despite having a lot of flashy moves, they are balanced by being slow, and they clearly had thought put into them.

- When making a PSA based upon another character (whether it be from another game or anime etc), it is more important to make the character feel unique and have their own playstyle rather than trying to take a load of moves that the character would be able to use and chuck them around in any old fashion. This may sound strange at first, but think about it like this. If you take the time to think about how the character would play in Brawl, and construct a moveset that will fit both the character and Brawl then you will heed good results.

5. Presentational values

This, in my opinion, is one of the most important things about making a good PSA (this even applies to overpowered PSAs). There are multiple things to take into account with the presentation of a hack. Are the hitboxes in the right places? Do the graphics suit the move? Are the amounts of damage realistic and relative to the rest of the hack (for example, fast aerials are doing more damage than fully charged smashes then something is wrong)? Are the hitbox flags suitable? And many other things. This requires you to be quite strict with yourself. You have to say to yourself "actually, this doesn't really work, let me try something else". It takes a level of discipline, but it will be worthwhile in the end.

6. Animation Customs

Due to how standards of hacking have changed and how much easier it has gotten to animate stuff, it pretty much now is a custom to start creating your own animations for movesets. Using custom animations is what makes the character you're making actually feel like the character, rather than a mess of animation swaps that are attempting to seem like another character.

However, this does NOT mean that you shouldn't do animation swaps. Even I do them from time to time. However, be clever with your animation swaps. Use slightly unique animations. If you're making a sword wielding character for example, try to avoid using stuff like Ike's F Air and U Smash because they are abused beyond belief. Instead, have a look at the beam sword attatcks for some characters. If you want to make a flashy and graceful sword wielding character, Peach's and Sheik's beam sword attacks work nicely.

Animation isn't really something that can be taught, and it's definitely something that you get better at as you do more of it. Furthermore, different people have their own ways of doing it. Here's how I used to go about doing it (I do it slightly differently now):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny9K_v5l-CA

Finally, when making animations, always make sure that you make them suit properly to the anatomy of the character you are making them for (my Viewtiful Joe PSA is a good example). Animations shouldn't be too stiff, unless the character's moves are quite stiff in how they move. Always make sure to balance out the right number of key frames Too few makes the animation look lazy and stiff. Too many will increase the file size by too much. The key is getting the right balance.

7. Normals over Specials

Some people may tend to disagree with me here, but I find that making the normals is a lot more important than making the specials and it's why I always do them first. If you only do the specials, it just makes it seem like "oh it's just *insert Brawl character here* with new character changes*. The fact of the matter is, in Brawl you will use a character's normal attacks much more than their specials. Not to mention that there are more of them and they are much easier to make.

Of course, good special moves are important too but I feel that when starting off any PSA, you should go for the normal attacks first since they build up a foundation and ease you into PSA much more easily.

8. Compremise and think outside the box

PSA is probably the most restrictive kind of hacking. There are LOADS of things that we can't do. Instead, you have to be creative. If you find that one of your move ideas isn't working, then try a different approach. You have to use your initiative here. There's not too much else I can say.

9. Find your own niche!

It's all well and good listening to all the stuff I say, but the most important thing about PSA hacking is to find your own style and way of doing things. All of the good PSAers on this site have their own way of doing things. For example, I do things completely differently to DivineOverlord, KingJigglypuff, Hollow, Cpt CeeGee and other PSAers, but we each have our own way of doing things.

And remember, this first section isn't about telling you guys how to do certain stuff in PSA, but rather a sort of general guide to how to go about approaching it. Specific tutorials are far more situational and they don't really help you too much in the long run. When if comes down to it, you have to be able to think for yourself.

Peace out...

Kitty Corp Meow Mix Forums

Help & Tutorials => A/A Tutorials => Topic started by: SiLeNtDo0m on June 17, 2011, 05:13:23 PM