Kitty Corp Meow Mix Forums

A simple topic posing a simple question.  Which is the most difficult?

As somebody that does it probably more than almost anyone else on this site, I'd have to say animation.  The concept of it isn't hard to grasp at all.  Or you're doing is moving a ragdoll in a space and time frame.  Anyone can do it (much like texturing) but few can do it well and it's hard to get good at.  I've been making animations for around two years now and I've still a lot to learn. 

Learning and appreciating what makes a good animation is hard.  Then of course is the fact that it's rather unrewarding for how time consuming it is.  Fun fact, I spend the vast majority of my time making the animations for my movesets, despite the fact that the PSA stuff is what I find more drawn out and tedious.  However, it's the one form of modding you literally cannot do on its own for two reasons:

1) You can't release one animation for one character no matter how long or impressive it is.  For example, the Deadpool MC Hammer dance I did took me 2 and a half weeks to make (working EVERYDAY).  Longer than the vast majority of textures, vertexes, imports heck even a good few movessets), but it's no where near substantial enough to release on its own.

2) If you make a set of animations for a moveset, you have to (or have to have someone) edit all the frame data of the attacks in PSA or an equivalent moveset editor so that the mod actually works well. 

So yeah, that's my view.

I swear, this topic has been made before.... though my memory is a bit dodgy.

Anyway....

I myself would be a bit torn between textures and animation, since I'm awful at both and they are kept at higher standards (to be considered worth using). However, since animations are generally coupled with a PSA, meaning there are a lot of animations, I'd go with that since I rarely make models that need more than 2 or 3 textures.

But I look at the amazing vertex hacks and how I've never even tried stage hacking so I have no idea what goes into that.

I have to say PSA'ing. I love animating so I enjoy doing it. But after you finish animating and you have to PSA the move to work just like it does in the animations, that's pretty annoying. It's taking me almost 2 weeks to get Riku's up-b working the way I wanted it to.

When I finally found out what was wrong, it was just a simple error that I overlooked. It really pissed me off.

I guess model importing is annoying. When your fixing the vertices. Especially if you're importing someone with a coat. Webbed feet and all that.

i will say PSA/Movesets/Animating is 2nd hardest
PSA coding if making something that has not be done before like glide or making hardcoded stuff

Animating cuz it take long time/hard to get it 100% perfect but its atleast easy to get started with it but hard to get it good  

model importing is not that hard but then again it can be hard
like if you try to rig a human like model over pikachu or sometimes stuff on lucario with his weird legs bone translation
took me months to get my super/kid buu over lucario as good as it is now and still i dont think its so good

SFX is easy idk why it is so hard and even now ppl got problems with it with the new super swandz i will say SFX is the most easy to make
installer a SFX pack is just 1 button press and place the brsar in Sound folder and use Rii or replace the file in the .iso and still ppl have problems with that  and it can´t be easyer

stages idk about since i have never done it

Other (specify) if you mean programming stuff like model importing/PSA with model preview on brawlbox so i will say that is the hardest

Animating.
I try so hard, but no matter what it comes out horrible. I don't have the patience to learn it either. :p

Easiest is making .brstms.

I say vertexing.

Textering can easily be done in paint. tho the good ones in paint.net or photoshop. I find it easy
Animation is tricky, but not as had as vertexing.

PSA, again, is easy but harder for better ones.

SFX you take .wavs then get the right ids. Not hard.

Rigging U also put into the Texture, Animation, and PSA section, that its easy but harder if you went better results.

Stage, i have never done that, so i cant really say anything about it.

On this topic, I gotta agree with Gamma that doing things is easy. Doing things well is hard. Quality is hard. I don't even know if there IS one I can say is the hardest.

There isn't a particular order to these, but:

- Good Textures are hard
- Good Custom Modeling is hard
- Good Vertexing is hard
- Good Animations are hard
- Good PSAs are hard

- All of them take a very long time for good quailty.


Now, I can only speak for these because these are the ones I've successfully completed personally, but it's my opinion that good modding in general is very difficult.

On what you said, SDoom, I can agree as a fellow animator that Animation has the lowest work/reward ratio. It's the only thing that can't be released by itself, after all.

On another note, I don't find rigging that hard. Might just be me, though.

Textures.

Not sure if they're the hardest, but they're probably the most important. Because you can have a great rig or a great PSA, but if your textures (the first thing that will catch a user's eye) suck, you'll have a tragic time.

In general, animating. There a lot of things to get right, and you have to keep muscles and bones in mind. Balance, comfort, movements that look natural- They all play part in an animation.

But for me right now, it's rigging. Specifically the waist. Everything else is pretty simple, but man... I've been working on the waist for a week. (Maybe longer)

People think it's animating... Really?
For arguments sake it's fairly easy to animate -
and I have no trouble finding that comfort/smoothness when I animate. It can take a-lot of time sometimes; hell most of the time it does - but it's not difficult. At least not for me, but I'm to busy of a person to be working on animations non-stop.

Now PSA - (and I've been messing with it for a few years) is a pain in the ass.
And you have your [censored] PSAs, and your Good PSAs, there's not really a middle ground. They either suck or don't. In the actual program its self it's got some easy bits, and it's got annoying bits. Adding damage/hitboxes, adding graphics, Adding flags, Changing amount of jumps, Momentum, it's all fairly easy- but you get around to screwing with sub routines, specials, learning where to place said coding that effects all of the other coding. (If, Else, Loop, etc) It's a-lot to have memorized, plus a [censored] ton more.

Beyond2cents here...


Personally I think Texturing and Animating are the most difficult forms of modding. Stages have the potential to be the most difficult as they can encompass both those things.


Texturing and Animating both require a level of artistic (I'm not sure if this is the right word to use for this) thinking and ability to pay attention to details that other forms of modding don't.

How difficult something is shouldn't be how long it takes or how tedious it is but the amount effort it requires to get right. Rigging, PSA, SFX, music... are either you know how to do it right or you don't, requiring more technical skill and knowledge.


So ummm.... In order from most difficult to least difficult.

1) Stages
2) Animating
3) Textures
4) Vertexing
5) PSA
6) SFX
7) Model Importing
8) Music

Most definitely agreed here.

Never tried vertexing or texturizing, so I don't know much of it and im pretty sure I would do terrible.

So here's what I have to say...
In short from difficult to easiest according to my skills...
1) Stages - Most Difficult
2 & 3) Character Importing/Rigging and Animating - Difficult
4) PSA - Fairly Difficult
5) SFX - Easy
6) BRTSMs - Easiest

Everything is subjective. It's easier to learn how to do something than how to master it - and yet people somehow still manage to botch up BRSTMs, so THAT's completely [censored]ed up.

Seeing that I am [was?] strictly a PSA hacker, I guess that's all I can vouch for. Well, PSA, and what's involved in making a clean one.

Animation:
- The concept in itself is very simple...but very, very tedious. Days can be spent on only a handful of animations. The task is not inherently difficult, but the refinement and natural movement of the character is directly proportional to how much time you spend perfecting it. Not to mention matching the movements with the hitboxes coded for the character.

Code Work:
- I can account for over two years of learning PSA, from the first day of its release to retiring sometime in 2011. And with this "experience," I honestly believe it is the most difficult form of modding.

- Your first few months of PSA are spent experimenting. Learning how to code hitboxes, playing with graphics, changing subactions mid-move, it's like an introduction to CAD. It's incredibly fun when something goes your way.

- The next few months are spent learning how to fix bugs. Spotting that extra integer in your knockback parameter, finding your loop isn't functioning properly, realizing that there's some hidden coding you can't quite edit, and finding a way around it. Bug fixing is easily the most frustrating task involved in "PSA-ing", and can involve weeks of running around in circles trying to figure out exactly what went wrong.

- The rest of your PSA career is spent being inventive. You're learned and studied over a hundred different codes and the minute differences in using one over another. New codes are being discovered on a weekly basis, changing the realm of what hackers can achieve. How can I make this projectile curve? How can I make this string of moves connect properly? How can I make a fun, engaging, mechanically unique character without it being inherently broken?

- TL:DR PSA work requires an incredible amount of knowledge, dedication and experience to execute properly. It's what separates the good hacks from the legendary, timeless hacks. The sheer information pool required to be proficient blows all other forms of modding out of the hypothetical water. That's partly the reason why I fell in love with it  ;D

Just my [very large] two cents.

- .Fade

In my opinion the easiest thing to do is brstm.
But the most difficult thing to me is texturing as textures files show characters like if they are  "spare parts". Modified files need to be often checked to see if results are good. I have spent a lot of time to make my 1st texture (which i submitted recently).
I admit that PSA is very hard for someone who don't know anything into programming stuff, which is not my case.
Animating may look simple but it's not as Fade said. Good animations requires a lot of time.
I didn't try vertexes and stages editing.

So my top 3 of most difficult things to do is :
1-Texturing
2-Animating
3-PSA

For me I am pretty much strictly PSA. I've tried animating, just small things really and I spent over 10 hours just getting Link to dual wield and hold his other sword naturally. Then the same day I finished someone else releases their own dual wielding Link and I just throw mine out. So without a doubt, animating is extremely difficult to master. In case of Brawl it's even harder because you don't want your animations to look too smooth or it won't fit in with the game, but if it ends up rough and choppy that also won't fit in. (unless you want a Wario type character)

I've tried texturing stages and that wasn't too difficult if you swap, but I could say differently for completely custom made textures. I'm not at all artistically talented enough to texture anything naturally, and a great texture has to start as a great idea. Even if your detail is astounding the colors have to go well together and the patterns need to make sense for the character or stage design that they're on.

PSA isn't too hard for me though I could only claim being at most an amateur at it. I understand the basics easily, and some of the other things like placing graphics on bones, but it is pretty time consuming. I spent a pretty long time altering a PSA just to get Link to have a specific type of Arrow. Then there were numerous bugs when messing with certain subactions that just makes fixing them all take longer than actually making the hacks.

So... for what I've tried the most difficult would be...

Animating
Texturing
PSA

Have to say Importing.Not so much doing it but getting it work the way you want. Out of all the different forms, its the only one that id say im not even somewhat good at.Animating is hard and takes awhile, but when you get it in game and it looks awsome its satisfying enough.PSA isnt really very hard, but troubleshooting is the single most annoying thing in this universe.  Vertexing is in the same boat as importing, but it doesnt take 2 weeks to do only for it not to work.Texturing is not hard at all but im not very artistic so i dont bother releasing textures.Only ever did one stage, and it was pretty simple.
So it would have to be
1.Importing
2.Vertexing
3.Animating
4.Texturing
5.PSA
6.Stages(not much experience though...)

Texturing- Second to easiest of hacking                                                                                                                                                                   Animating- possibly hardest to the do                                                                                                                     Importing/ Rigging Beside Kirby hats it look quite   simple tearing models  out from other games                  PSA/Moveset second to the hardest but since I have been fund on learning how to do it I might figure how to do it easily                                                                                                                                                                Stages- Tbh  I have no idea since i've never done it before hence I'm not really fund  on it either                                SFX- one of favorite/easier one of them                           

Animation is easily the most time consuming and challenging of the ones listed here, with PSA being a close second. It takes time to make a decent animation, while getting decent at PSA becomes easier if you go to the OpenSA Wiki and update your .txt files with the data there as Toomai, the B-BR, and the PMBR post their finding on new events there.

For Example, the command that the Master Hand uses for Catch Collisions is also the one that Pikmin use for Catch Collisions, which is 060A0A00.

Keeping up to date with your. txt files makes PSA easier to get into than animations, and also takes less time as you eventually discover less ghetto and space saving solutions and methods. :)

http://opensa.dantarion.com/wiki/Events_(Brawl)/Group_I (http://anonym.to/?http://opensa.dantarion.com/wiki/Events_(Brawl)/Group_I)

Texturing and modeling take skill and time too, but not to the extent of animating.

Rigging is mostly time consuming than hard. You can save yourself hours by modifying the envelopes of bones before you pick individual vertices. There WILL be moments where you have models with special needs.

Brawlbox makes Music hacking sooo easy if you have a goods ear for keeping tempo when you loop.

The hardest form of modding that isn't there is easily .rel editing, which seems to be written in a form of PPC-ASM.

Here goes my response.

As far as I know with my opinion animating for characters is the like the hardest thing to do espically when your trying to make dancing animation for like a character that does a breakdance like what Silentdo0m did with his Vegeta PSA that use to be his, which must of taking him 15 hours to complete, or even wait animation which probably take just as longer.