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Hey Ninjas, It's been a long time since I've made a development log. Though there has been so much progress going on. I finally decided to do one regarding a new jutsu which has had a very unique development process. For awhile now, I've been resting on completing the Jutsu kits for all our 1st Tier Masteries and focusing development on the Sand Village and other aspects of the game. But with the Sand Village coming to completion, I'm moving some of my time back into developing our kits to it's completion. We've had this piece of art @Fernando made, lying around for almost a year, which both of us found very hard to animate in 2D. Most of our Jutsu animations are usually pixel art animations, which mean they are done pixel by pixel, but for the first time in Nin Online history, I decided to use my 3D art skills to create a Jutsu animation. The task at hand was to create a Spiked Exploding Ball for Weapon Masters. So first of all what I did was create a simple 3D model of a ball with knife sticking out of it. This is Autodesk Maya and the model I made in a few minutes Next I textured the model with a simple texture of metal and an explosive tag on both sides. Next I made a simple looping rotating animation for it. Our 2D sprites are all shaded in a method called Cell shading, or Toon shading in Maya. So I used a shader to get this look. And finally, once I rendered it out and did some post-editting, I achieved this! It's a complex animation that fits in our game's artstyle and makes weapon masters that much more awesome! Hope you guys enjoyed this dev log entry! If you guys have any part of my art creation process you'd like to know more about in-depth, feel free to suggest it and I can try to document it in the next development log. Regards, Rory

I think I have once and for all finished music changing. This one sounds good.

Late Nights and Puzzling Motivation - Stephen's Dev Log Sup Ninjas, Some of you might have noticed that I haven't posted anything in this section of the forums since I revealed the "Underground" and some of it's mysteries. However before you get your hopes up and think you're going to see some sweet sweet teasers I just wanted to warn you that this post is going to be a bit... wordy and less visual. Over the past couple weeks, I've been planning and re-organizing myself for what only can be called the longest working month of my NinOnline career. As I write this at about 5:09am on the eastern coast of the United States, I am reminded how grateful I am for the opportunity to work on such a lively and recently.... expansive project. No amount of gratitude could fully be given to @Rory, @Seth and even @Akiro for giving me the chance to work on something that I've been part of the community of since the early 2000s. Thank you to each of you, however; for the community members reading this I bet you're wondering why I'm even posting this as a development log? Well question it no further because for the last few days I've been hard a work cushioning the current content that you know and love with a bit more fluff to make your stay with Nin Online a bit more comfortable. What is cushioning, and why would this effect everything you know and love about NinOnline? Well to be completely honest, I can't tell you the exact details. Consider this entire topic to be a verbal teaser of things to come, for now enjoy a brief look into my near-daily process and what I've been doing for you! Design These past few days have pushed me towards an amazing growth spurt of creative ability, I've designed things that we haven't previously used in any of the current areas of NinOnline's world and hidden them in such a way that you'd never guess they were even tucked away right below your bloodhound-like noses. From the most obvious changes to the smallest tweaks of existing areas, you'll find more things in areas that you've probably written off as "completed" or "dull". My goal for the next month is to design puzzles, areas, mazes and even encounters that will push me and perhaps even you to the limit! I've thought about what I've wanted from this game, and I'm even thinking of things that weren't even thought possible before. I can't show you what I've been working on mostly because it'll ruin the fun of you figuring out how it all works, but I absolutely believe that you will love what I've come up with and have placed gently into certain areas of the game Inspirations Pardon me for this but I've always considered myself to be a bit of a thinker and puzzle-geek so when I started to design these new experiences I put my mind in a place that even I haven't put myself in since I first picked up my Nintendo 64 Controller and embraced the puzzling world of Ocarina of Time. I'm a fan of brain games, challenges and having to use your mind to advance through a series of tasks. I'm not exactly a fan of hacking and slashing your way through a situation so don't expect my brain children to be as linear as previous experiences. However, much like a classic RPG, I couldn't have you walking through a treacherous area and expect you to happy with the reward of just making it through... Right? Low and behold, I'm not exactly a seasoned professional at these things so expect my inspirations to be deeply rooted in my experiences as a gamer, and also an avid Role-player. I'm sure there will be tons for you to learn, and even more for you to unlearn before you can find your way. Conclusion I bet you're wondering when you'll get to see all this stuff I'm very very gently insinuating to exist, well when the flood gates of the Closed Beta raise then the precious expansion of sandbox-style content I've been working on will surely begin to leak out in all forms of guides, instructional and tutorials. Oh and before I leave you with a sore taste in your mouth, I figured I'd give you a little bit of candy for all the trouble I cause by making you read this rather.... plain development log. I didn't say it was the best candy, just a little bit of mystery... Where does it lead? Stephen