Pixelation

General => Challenges & Activities => Topic started by: Dokozai on November 04, 2008, 05:20:55 pm

Title: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Dokozai on November 04, 2008, 05:20:55 pm
Sooo, when is the next Mockup Frenzy?
Title: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: xhunterko on November 05, 2008, 06:39:29 am
Well, I was thinking about suggesting a Castlevania monster type sprite/stage mockup. Peferably something other then the usual zombies and skeletons. It would have to be finished before the december snows set in when evil is scared off. But, since Holloween is come and gone, its a bit late for that now. Or is it?
Title: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Jad on November 06, 2008, 04:34:49 pm
Well, I was thinking about suggesting a Castlevania monster type sprite/stage mockup. Peferably something other then the usual zombies and skeletons. It would have to be finished before the december snows set in when evil is scared off. But, since Holloween is come and gone, its a bit late for that now. Or is it?

If you wanna do it, then do it :D There's no particular rules surrounding these challenges (:
Title: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: xhunterko on November 07, 2008, 06:02:39 am
See, there's a small problem with me starting something. I don't have the authority to do so. Besides, people are still interested in cough* Isocollaboration* cough challenge to finish. And besides, I think some of the interest is lost on Holloween. I'm sure they're all looking forward to doing Thanksgiving and Christmas activities. Furthurmore, I have no good examples to put up. It'd be kinda a loss on inspiration.
Title: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: rabidbaboy on November 07, 2008, 03:29:30 pm
I think what he means is you can make a mockup of anything, if you like. No one's really stopping you. :D

I have an idea for a Challenge; "Games you will never EVER get to see",
Title: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Chris2balls on November 07, 2008, 10:53:30 pm
I think what he means is you can make a mockup of anything, if you like. No one's really stopping you. :D

I have an idea for a Challenge; "Games you will never EVER get to see",
http://z3.invisionfree.com/MP2D/index.php?showtopic=2228
Good thinking Liksmaskaren :D
Title: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Conzeit on November 08, 2008, 06:33:04 am
http://z3.invisionfree.com/MP2D/index.php?showtopic=2228
Good thinking Liksmaskaren :D

OH MY GOD "The Carebrears' shock training" XDDD
Title: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Chris2balls on November 08, 2008, 01:02:54 pm
So is this a good idea for a challenge? We draw a list of names of games with http://norefuge.net/vgng/vgng.html and we get to choose one. :D
Title: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Fatalis67 on November 12, 2008, 02:36:23 am
That page is awesome. Definitely something we could all do. I clicked it and got "Dangerous Whale Tea Party"
Title: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Chris2balls on November 12, 2008, 06:25:05 pm
Eternal Janitor in Crazyland FTW
Zombie Mind Control Tycoon XD
Distinguished Volleyball Paratroopers
Kung-Fu Polka Mansion LOL
and so on...
Title: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Chris2balls on November 13, 2008, 08:44:21 pm
Yes. Who should create the thread be created by? I'm a n00b on this forum...
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Jad on November 13, 2008, 10:11:50 pm
(hmm. shouldn't this 'next mockup frenzy' better be discussed somewhere else ?)

Yeah, I think so, but it also seems that this particular thread of discussion was separated from another thread; something that can only be done by a moderator. So I think this thread is allright (:
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Chris2balls on November 14, 2008, 07:39:27 pm
Thanks whoever did this, it'll avoid any confusion :D
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: cerealkiller54 on November 28, 2008, 03:03:11 am
I liked the one where you would start out with 5 frames of animation and then someone else would animate next five

or something like Isochallenge but not iso
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Atnas on November 28, 2008, 01:02:08 pm
I'm waiting for The Retro RPG Challenge 2.

I didn't want to start one because of Secret Santa (which I wouldn't want to distract people from) and then the following Commercial Critique.  :-[

But hey, the last one looked like everyone had a good time.  ;D
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Reo on November 28, 2008, 01:11:52 pm
I'm waiting for The Retro RPG Challenge 2.

I didn't want to start one because of Secret Santa (which I wouldn't want to distract people from) and then the following Commercial Critique.  :-[
Only mods can start challenges you know?
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Atnas on November 28, 2008, 01:18:07 pm
Quote
If you wanna do it, then do it  There's no particular rules surrounding these challenges (:

Musta read that wrong.  :sry:

Edit: And looking at the older challenges' starters, double oops.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Dokozai on November 28, 2008, 03:06:39 pm
Art games?

Like, what if the Mona Lisa was a game?
 :crazy:
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Jad on November 28, 2008, 04:50:15 pm
Quote
If you wanna do it, then do it  There's no particular rules surrounding these challenges (:

Musta read that wrong.  :sry:

Edit: And looking at the older challenges' starters, double oops.

What I meant was: only mods can start the challenges, and there are guidelines as to what to make in them, but if you want to bypass some of the rules, you're still welcome to post the result in the appropriate challenge thread. As long as it doesn't stray too far.

'There's no particular rules' was of course just me being more or less wrong, heh.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Opacus on November 28, 2008, 10:29:54 pm
I'm hoping for another Pixelator sometime soon.
And this time not get a first round against Snake.

:(
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: TrevoriuS on November 29, 2008, 03:17:38 pm
The pixelator was well done, I believe I came here around the time that was nearly ended though. I'll be sure to join in if there's a next one :D
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Draco9898 on November 29, 2008, 06:17:30 pm
How about a game character design challange

you need to design a character using any style you want, but he has to be X by Y pixels large and use Z colors. Also he must be drawn in such a way where it fits the genre of the game your pixeling for.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: I Am Uh on November 30, 2008, 12:36:24 am
I'd like to bring back the old pallet challenges, I really liked those.  :-[
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Sherman Gill on December 01, 2008, 02:25:14 am
I'm hoping for another Pixelator sometime soon.
And this time not get a first round against Snake.

:(
:D
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Mirre on December 01, 2008, 07:08:46 am
I'm hoping for another Pixelator sometime soon.

Seconded. Preferably sometime after Christmas and New Year is all over...
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Opacus on December 01, 2008, 03:35:06 pm
I PM'ed Panda. He said that there are some other activities that the admins have come up with too that might be done first,
but we can expect it in early 2009.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Chris2balls on December 04, 2008, 12:21:50 am
I'd like to do some GB Demakes :D
I even did a super Mario Sunshine mockup until I realised I was more than a year late -_-
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Panda on December 04, 2008, 08:35:18 am
I'd like to do some GB Demakes :D
I even did a super Mario Sunshine mockup until I realised I was more than a year late -_-


You can go ahead an make one.
The activities are open forever unless mentioned otherwise.
In the Mockup Frenzies, the dates are just for giving you a sense of a due date so you finish yours before the next one starts.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: JJ Naas on December 04, 2008, 10:35:04 am
It's been hinted that another ISO challenge will happen sooner or later, probably later, but still, eventually. Some day. Once Ptoing has recovered from this one.

So I'd like to tell again the idea I mentioned somewhere in the depths of the ISO-C thread: The bg should be black, there'd be no general light coming from the sky so all the light sources should be created on the iso grid itself.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: vierbit on December 04, 2008, 01:16:04 pm
If we do another collaboration, why not using hextiles next time?
(http://www.phyer.com/vierbit/edits/hex.png)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: TrevoriuS on December 04, 2008, 02:15:58 pm
You would have to numberl these per whole block I think, though it would be interesting. Risk is, however, that people start with stuff facing to the front. It will suggest people to create non-uniform tiles.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: ILikePie on December 04, 2008, 05:57:44 pm
Cool idea, I was just wondering what happened the mockup frenzy.
Also, not sure if this is the right place, but can we start our own challenges, of does the "staff" (Mods and stuff) start them.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Opacus on December 04, 2008, 06:42:54 pm
Cool idea, I was just wondering what happened the mockup frenzy.
Also, not sure if this is the right place, but can we start our own challenges, of does the "staff" (Mods and stuff) start them.

Only the staff can do it. Well you might be able to aswell but you'd need their permission atleast.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Panda on December 04, 2008, 08:21:29 pm
Cool idea, I was just wondering what happened the mockup frenzy.

If Adam is up for it, he will make more. But while the Secret Santa is on, we will not start new activities.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Chris2balls on December 04, 2008, 08:50:43 pm
You can go ahead an make one.
The activities are open forever unless mentioned otherwise.
In the Mockup Frenzies, the dates are just for giving you a sense of a due date so you finish yours before the next one starts.
Okay. I'll finish the SMS GB mockup then ;)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: flaber on December 05, 2008, 08:17:00 am
I saw an activity suggestion thread..

I just wanted to let some people know,
I will be putting together another Pixelator this coming year.
I suspect sometime around april/may.

I was told to give it a break between the next one. I feel this has been a suitable break.

Just wanted to say - a new one will be out soon.
This also allows me more time to work on some ideas and such for it..
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Opacus on December 05, 2008, 08:19:07 am
Ah that's fantastic to hear. Already looking forward to it.
This time I won't go down so easily!
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Luzeke on December 05, 2008, 01:10:31 pm
I have this idea for a challenge I've been mauling over for a while, though I can't start it myself.  The idea is to take a frame from a movie and reinterpret the image in pixelart. All visual styles, methods etc are ok as long as the frame is recognizable. Paintovers are not ok though, that'd just be lazy.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Opacus on December 05, 2008, 01:35:45 pm
I have this idea for a challenge I've been mauling over for a while, though I can't start it myself.  The idea is to take a frame from a movie and reinterpret the image in pixelart. All visual styles, methods etc are ok as long as the frame is recognizable. Paintovers are not ok though, that'd just be lazy.

They actually did that over at Pixel Joint. It was a weekly challenge.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Luzeke on December 05, 2008, 01:45:49 pm
Dangit  :huh:

And here I thought I had an original idea going...  ::)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Metaru on December 10, 2008, 05:35:35 am
I'd love to see that last challenge i did in PJ months ago, in pixelation.
 is something like this

you're encouraged to choose between 2 and 4 colors(2minimun 4 maximun) that you believe are the ones that represents you or your work -or- are the ones that you like. use one of the templates below to portrait your palette. its important that yu chose well, because you can only choose once.

(http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/5867/base4bh8.png)-(http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/9884/base3vn9.png)-(http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/765/base2ci8.png)

now the fun part: when you have choosen your colors(and posted them so others can use them), you must pick another user's colors(just 1 user) and combine them with yours to create a 100x100 image with them.(by combinating I mean taking your colors+his/her colors to create a palette)
(http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/3601/frame100x100it2.png)

As an example, My colors are:
(http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/4523/metacolorsyh4.png)

wich combined with LazyCat colors
(http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w34/Lazy-Kat/pixels/metachall.gif)

results in:
(http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/3191/carnivalbymetaruah3.png)

you can check how it ended here (http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6446&PN=1). Was quite popular on PJ, and i bet i can be even more crazy here.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Red_Mist on January 04, 2009, 01:49:00 am
I noticed that we have a few programmers here on pixelation... maybe we can do a collab to make a game I know just the perfect way to do it! its brilliant!

we should do an "epic pinball" collab in the old dos format style! the boards wouldnt be that hard to do... and if we get enough submitions we could make a whole new series of epic pinball boards!

or maybe we can have some sort of commercial critique for this one or somthing...
in case you guys need a refresher here are the screen shots: http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/epic-pinball/screenshots (http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/epic-pinball/screenshots)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Joseph on January 05, 2009, 09:43:31 am
just throwing it out there...a scary scene.  an piece of art that actually scares you when you look at it.  I've seen several, but I'd love to see more.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Terley on January 08, 2009, 05:35:58 pm
I think it'd be awesome if we could make a forest, given a canvas for various things even, tree's, bush's, ruins, lakes etc. Each artist could post a tree and let it build  :) Im sure people would be creative with it.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Reo on January 08, 2009, 06:07:27 pm
I think it'd be awesome if we could make a forest, given a canvas for various things even, tree's, bush's, ruins, lakes etc. Each artist could post a tree and let it build  :) Im sure people would be creative with it.
I like that idea ;D
Kinda like an isocity thing(except not iso and with trees :P).
I can definetly imagine the outcome!
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Shrike on January 11, 2009, 04:23:59 pm
That's an awesome idea. :D

Hey, I joined this forum mid-last year, and the new smileys were already done. Unless there's a specific time that I'm unaware of, can we start working on the new smiley set? Although, Snake's are awesome. I just really want to participate this time.

Btw,
Quote
I'd love to see that last challenge i did in PJ months ago, in pixelation.
 is something like this

you're encouraged to choose between 2 and 4 colors(2minimun 4 maximun) that you believe are the ones that represents you or your work -or- are the ones that you like. use one of the templates below to portrait your palette. its important that yu chose well, because you can only choose once.

[image]-[image]-[image]

now the fun part: when you have choosen your colors(and posted them so others can use them), you must pick another user's colors(just 1 user) and combine them with yours to create a 100x100 image with them.(by combinating I mean taking your colors+his/her colors to create a palette)
[image]

As an example, My colors are:
[image]

wich combined with LazyCat colors
[image]

results in:
[image]

you can check how it ended here. Was quite popular on PJ, and i bet i can be even more crazy here.
is a kick-ass idea. I would really love to try that.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: ndchristie on January 16, 2009, 02:10:54 pm
I second (third? fourth?) the forest concept :D
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Tobe on January 28, 2009, 03:18:04 pm
Have anyone tried the legend of princess by Konjak? It's a great side scrolling version of Zelda and can be found in the following link.
http://www.konjak.org/ (http://www.konjak.org/)

Anyway, this reminds me of something I always wanted to do - a remake of a classic, in another genre. Maybe a side scrolling earthbound/ dungeon style final fantasy and all sort. I'm gonna do it when I'm finally free... who's with me? : )
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Jakten on January 29, 2009, 07:01:13 am
I want to play that so badly, this cursed mac!!  :yell:
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Atnas on January 29, 2009, 01:34:36 pm
Hey Tobe, I'd be glad to help you when I'm free as well. Maybe a competition could be teams of people working on a similar thing? "The remake Competition" has a nice ring.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: pixeltao on January 29, 2009, 11:29:40 pm
Have anyone tried the legend of princess by Konjak? It's a great side scrolling version of Zelda and can be found in the following link.
http://www.konjak.org/ (http://www.konjak.org/)

Anyway, this reminds me of something I always wanted to do - a remake of a classic, in another genre. Maybe a side scrolling earthbound/ dungeon style final fantasy and all sort. I'm gonna do it when I'm finally free... who's with me? : )

I love the eye-popping colors and fast paced action of Legend of Princess. It's not exactly how I would have seen a sequel to the Adventure of Link though.

The idea of remaking a classic in another genre is great, but it's a pretty huge project. However, I would love to participate to a new Mockup Frenzy with this idea.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Tobe on January 30, 2009, 10:31:01 am
I'm sorry for not being clear - but, I did mean it as a mock-up frenzy, haha.

Then again, who knows - maybe some crazy coder and artist will actually get together to do something like that. The retro demake was pretty successful both as an artwork only mock-up frenzy and an actual demake of the game. Maybe just create a single level with boss and stuff. It'd be awesome.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Conzeit on January 30, 2009, 05:44:42 pm
I think that's a really weird thing about Pixelation, I feel Pixelation is stuck somewhere between being about gameart and being about pixelart as a standalone art piece. We mostly still do gameart, but barely ever stick it into a game ourselves. We do have the jobs section but it's not like the art that goes into those games actually gets posted here  :-\

Our art is inherently linked to programming but it seems coders dont abound...and those who are here arent willing to code up any of the crazy stuff we'd come up with. What's even stranger is that pixelation spawned from a coder board called the Game Developer's Refuge....the GDR still exists but the communities seem to have grown appart  :mean:

 ;D Anyway...the cross-genere remake seems pretty interesting to me!
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Gil on January 30, 2009, 06:03:08 pm
Me, Alex, BadMrBox and a few others are still part of both communities I guess, so it'd be nice to do a crossover challenge someday. Get the communities back together and all you know?
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: pixeltao on January 30, 2009, 07:52:39 pm
Most of you probably already know it, but there is also the Game Maker Community (http://gmc.yoyogames.com/ (http://gmc.yoyogames.com/)) where there is a lot of programmers but a lack of pixel artists. And Game Maker is easy enough to learn for anyone, so it could always be a solution for anyone with pixeling skills who wants to see his art in a game.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Gil on January 30, 2009, 07:58:08 pm
I made an easy game in game maker in like half an hour. It's a fun tool to mess around with.

We could have a game maker competition where we offer a few basic games, members can download game maker, edit the game and post it. Should work. It's not that hard to work with.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Zenobia on January 30, 2009, 08:10:40 pm
I made an easy game in game maker in like half an hour. It's a fun tool to mess around with.

We could have a game maker competition where we offer a few basic games, members can download game maker, edit the game and post it. Should work. It's not that hard to work with.

Hah I have to learn how to use it for IT at the moment and I am really struggling with it. But I'm on the art side of games, so that explains.
(Feel like helping on my final project in a couple of weeks? ^^; )

Edit: I love the idea of a community game though!
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: TrevoriuS on January 30, 2009, 09:31:41 pm
It would be pretty damn cool to just make a 2D game with the community all together; someone just thinks up a concept and posts it, and everyone can contribute to it by designing enemies, bosses, environments and behaviours! Then who knows we  could actually DO throw it together in gamemaker (I've been messing with it for quite some time now and although results may vary, most of it works flawless!)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Dokozai on January 31, 2009, 04:06:38 am
I think a community game could turn out hilarious.

Seriously.
:crazy:
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: TrevoriuS on January 31, 2009, 09:12:16 am
Why would you think otherwise =D
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Gil on January 31, 2009, 01:11:04 pm
I imagine a community game to be the trainwreck that is the IsoCollab coming to life to form one big awesome game of clashing artstyles. And the only one who "gets it" will be Conceit anyway...
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Conzeit on January 31, 2009, 02:12:47 pm
hahahah, why do you say that? because all the fuss I made about my tile? I still feel bad about dragging that on for so long...atleast I'm clean of guilt now :p.

that's a weird thing about community projects, how they can be such trainwrecks because there's no telling how much commitment or avaialbity each participant will have, on top of the job of coordinating all the people to make something midly coherent. I would still like to believe some anarchic form of artistic collaboration CAN work...if it were just flexible enough to allow for people to contribute when they can and have their freedoms without making the whole thing too incoherent.

Anybody remember the King of Spriters thing? that was a bit glorified for a fightgame select screen, but it seemed to work well enough!
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Gil on January 31, 2009, 04:25:12 pm
I have a small RPG engine ready in Game Maker, I might create a demo with easily changeable graphics out of it and post both the game maker thing and the executable with resources. Just to see what people do with it.

And yeah, Conceit, I was just poking some fun on your story analysis for the isocollab, because it seemed like no one knew what the hell they were doing and you were like "Oh, I see, it's an invasion of 7 alien races *goes on for two pages*"
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: TrevoriuS on January 31, 2009, 04:39:19 pm
Now I think this should be set up and can actually go around and work! Now I'm all for the platform genre, because it's much easier to create loads of fancy effects and animations when not having to think too much about perspective (and topdown is boring!); though I guess isometric can work.

But basically you can set up a to do list and get the game up and running, and every temporary sprite in the game is probaly a brightly coloured block to display size and nothing but that; so if you have that, and post it here, together with all the sprites extracted form the game with a bit of description (but absolutely not too much!) and have everyone state which object they are going to make, it won't be too hard to get at least 75% done in a short while, the other 25% is probably stuff nobody wants to do combined with stuff somebody signed up for but never finished, so at that point the rules and reassignments kan kick in.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Zenobia on February 01, 2009, 09:03:54 am
We don't know if it works, until we try!
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: TrevoriuS on February 01, 2009, 10:01:27 am
Okay, who has a silly design to post? If I find time I'll actually make it ><
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Gil on February 02, 2009, 04:31:44 pm
My "grand design" was just going to be dude walking around, some items, some sort of inventory, done.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: TrevoriuS on February 02, 2009, 07:11:58 pm
What's the dude gonna do, apart from walking? Does he have enemies, or is he just going to walk around from left to right and picking up items by walking into them alone? ;) You pretty much need to set a theme or age for the world, and a basic gameplay goal to start off a design there :p
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Gil on February 02, 2009, 09:24:01 pm
Wow wow, that sounds like way more work than I'm willing to make free. If people want to create full games out of it, let them, I'm just providing something that has basic walking and equipping.

I do not need a design document and all that jazz for a demo that should take 3 or 4 hours of my spare time.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Tobe on February 03, 2009, 05:45:02 pm
Erm... so the whole "create a classic game in another genre" is already out of the picture now?
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Atnas on February 03, 2009, 08:19:05 pm
I sure hope not. I figured maybe it could be something as simple as a set of mockups showcasing different areas or maybe a whole level. When I said teams I figured that redesigning a whole game would be too much work to ask of one person and would be unreasonable. Anything to do with coding or even the requirement of Game Maker doesn't sound like a good idea to me. The whole purpose would be to recognize the traits of a given game that makes it stand out and translate them into another genre while keeping likeness but innovating given the different play mechanics. Not to actually produce games.

Or wait maybe I misunderstand and the whole game maker thing was talking about something else entirely. :? There's already a competition going on to replace simple game graphics. http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=7810.0

I'd really like to see the genre swap activity go on some time.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: TrevoriuS on February 03, 2009, 10:35:35 pm
Well we could always work on the same game with the entire community :O There's no problem in that really; and I can still offer my game-maker ability to make it interactive and more motivating for anyone participating. (Warning, any outcome would be windows PCs only, although it is vista compatible).

And since when did game maker come in as a requirement? It's just that it's more motivating and more fun to see an actual outcome that is more than visual. That simply means that it is a challenge and activity to translate a game in genre A in genre B graphically, and as an extra treat I can offer applying it and posting .exe demos of the pixelart in use. Anyone participating then also may have some cool portfolio item involving massive teamwork, and more than static art :P

So yeah, I guess you misinterpretated it Atnas - and any idea that involves making graphics for a game could work with my idea here :P
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Atnas on February 03, 2009, 11:49:33 pm
That doesn't sound too bad. :) I was talking about Gil's idea, though. He said he didn't want to spend much time on it, and I wondered why we'd spend any time on it at all if a playable version did nothing more than what could be conveyed with mockups. I think if we were to do this it would be better to convert an rpg or overhead action game to platformer. (for obvious reasons, the side view is much easier in my opinion and more people have experience with that kind of sprite.)

I would personally like to see Final Fantasy I translated into a platformer. I don't like Final Fantasy all that much as a series but I think FFI did a good job because it didn't beat you over the head with directions or make you listen to windy speeches and didn't have set in stone characters. Basically it just set you down in the world with a party of your choosing and said 'get the crystalslol'. It has some okay designs, pretty plain but they work. Dragon Warrior was also okay.

The game doesn't have to be ancient but I uhh haven't played that many games in a while. Anyone else have any games they would like to see genre swapped? And if it really isn't a good idea we could always just design something original but I thought things would go more smoothly if it was a genre swap.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Panda on February 04, 2009, 08:03:26 am
He said he didn't want to spend much time on it, and I wondered why we'd spend any time on it at all if a playable version did nothing more than what could be conveyed with mockups.

My thoughts exactly. Seeing everything in movement has its satisfaction though.
But if an activity was to be made, it'd be awesome if it was something proper.


Anyone else have any games they would like to see genre swapped?

Uhm, let's see:
- Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior)
- Pokémon
- Mr. Driller (though I guess if it was made into a platformer, it would be similar to Drill Dozer)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Metaru on February 04, 2009, 10:09:41 am
- Blaster Master. I'd turn it into a full MMO strategy game.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: TrevoriuS on February 04, 2009, 12:35:28 pm
Just wanting to notify you that there's a bunch of 3D games around begging to become 2D! :D
Think about metroid prime as an RPG :O Or halo 2 as a platformer maintaining the multiplayer mission mode and huge ass boss fights :P
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: skamocore on February 04, 2009, 12:49:31 pm
PONG MMORPG
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Gil on February 04, 2009, 03:59:56 pm
I understand that it needs to be a more complete game if we're going to do the "make graphics for a game" challenge. I was simply offering art in motion though, so if we need more than that to make that particular challenge work, I suggest we look for some other programmer interested, since I really can't free the time to do a game engine, even basic, just for the sake of a challenge.

Maybe we should look into getting help from GDR or Game Maker community. A crossover collab could be tons of fun. I'm sure that the Ludum Dare folks would be up for something like this too, since they are used to making a quick, fun game under a time limit.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: TrevoriuS on February 04, 2009, 07:18:53 pm
Maybe we should look into getting help from GDR or Game Maker community.
Picke me, pick me =')
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Metaru on February 04, 2009, 07:55:55 pm
i'd say lets make a one level, 2 player SHMUP action platform puzzle where everyone makes a 64x64 sprite~tile. where characters get shuffled from being the hero to enemies. something like what happens on ROM CHECK but less random. it could even host a versus  functionality.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: pixeltao on February 05, 2009, 01:34:55 am
I really like the idea of a game made by the community. It would be fun, really... but I doubt it will succeed. It would be a huge chaos to manage unless one person act fulltime as a producer/programmer to lead the project, code the game, swap graphics and post lists of needed assets. It is a lot of work.

I'd be more comfortable with the idea suggested by Tobe: A Mockup Frenzy "Create a classic game in another genre".
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Gil on February 05, 2009, 03:35:51 am
I really like the idea of a game made by the community. It would be fun, really... but I doubt it will succeed. It would be a huge chaos to manage unless one person act fulltime as a producer/programmer to lead the project, code the game, swap graphics and post lists of needed assets. It is a lot of work.

A community game will NOT work. I'm talking small demo here, not full game. We don't have to kid ourselves

Once you start talking producers, team leaders, etc, it will fail without a doubt.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Jakten on February 05, 2009, 08:24:47 am
depends on the game and if you go about it as if it were the ISO collaboration where you have people hunting you down for not finishing. Say it was a Space invaders or Galaga game and we all create the enemies. An arcade game like this could have infinite levels with each level being generated randomly even. If we gave everyone restrictions like size and pallette then it wont be so visually chaotic. At the least we'd be able to generate a mock up with all the enemies on it or something if we were unable to get a programmer who was willing. If there were to be bosses or even for the main ship, maybe raffle those sprites off.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: huZba on February 05, 2009, 10:19:29 am
Everyone makes one wave of enemies for space invaders? That sounds simple enough. Is it possible to import resources from one game maker file to another?
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: TrevoriuS on February 05, 2009, 03:20:58 pm
@Huzba, Yes that is possible
@Jakten, a very suitable idea
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: pixeltao on February 05, 2009, 06:15:28 pm
@Gil: Ah ok, I guess I misunderstood. So we agree. :y:

@Huzba & Jakten: Looks simple and fun. Nice idea!
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: blumunkee on February 09, 2009, 01:54:28 am
I would totally be up for another King of Spriters. I was in hermit crab mode during the past two.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: lollige on April 19, 2009, 07:13:14 pm
Back on to the game idea stuff:

How about contacting pixel artist, game developer and programmer Derek Yu, for teaming up 2 communities to create a beautiful game?
Tigsource (must be known by a lot of you, else look it up)

They have game developers, programmers, and a nice amount of artists as well but never enough. I believe teaming up with TIGsource for a one time game project could make something extremely extremely awesome!

Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Tourist on April 21, 2009, 05:24:46 pm
Silly idea, but why limit it to computer games?

The community could take an older board game and come up with a new set of graphics / artwork for it.  BoardGameGeek www.boardgamegeek.com (http://www.boardgamegeek.com) has a bunch of game images and rules to choose as a starting point.

Or make a graphic set for something like How to Host a Dungeon http://planet-thirteen.com/Dungeon.aspx (http://planet-thirteen.com/Dungeon.aspx).  That would make an interesting project.

Just a thought.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Mathias on May 03, 2009, 01:47:16 pm
I really like the idea of a game made by the community. It would be fun, really... but I doubt it will succeed. It would be a huge chaos to manage unless one person act fulltime as a producer/programmer to lead the project, code the game, swap graphics and post lists of needed assets. It is a lot of work.

A community game will NOT work. I'm talking small demo here, not full game. We don't have to kid ourselves

Once you start talking producers, team leaders, etc, it will fail without a doubt.


Unfortunately, I completely agree with Gil here. Just being realistic. A fully featured game is most likely doomed to a stalled out failure sooner or later. Reason I'm so certain, is that I've come to understand the woes of game dev, with only 3 people on my team, and what can happen. Lots I could get into, but don't see a need.

So, something small will work best. If at all. Beware the Ides of March.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Shrike on May 04, 2009, 01:27:48 pm
Yes, a game would not work.

Another one of those animal-creating things would be fun.  Like where you take two or more animals and make one out of them?   :D
Another emoticon thing would be nice as well, I never got to be in one of those.

Shrike
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Kren on May 15, 2009, 04:43:30 am
Soo, I was wondering, will there be a new mockup frenzy D:!?
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Opacus on May 15, 2009, 06:46:11 pm
I saw an activity suggestion thread..

I just wanted to let some people know,
I will be putting together another Pixelator this coming year.
I suspect sometime around april/may.

I was told to give it a break between the next one. I feel this has been a suitable break.

Just wanted to say - a new one will be out soon.
This also allows me more time to work on some ideas and such for it..

Bring it on  ;D
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Chilly on May 28, 2009, 11:56:59 pm
Will there be anymore commercial critiques soon? I love those.  :'(
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Panda on May 29, 2009, 08:27:40 am
Feel free to participate in the current one (see banners up there) or any already existing one here: http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?board=16.0
But I suppose we'll put more in the future.

Anyway we should put an activity soon, but right now I'm pretty busy... so perhaps in a week or two, unless another mod decides to do so before.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Conzeit on June 13, 2009, 01:03:21 pm
Yeh Chia....go n post at the CC...it's lonely there  :(

I thought the Hex Corpse was fucking genious...like even if u go out and look up exquisite corpses it seems no one thought of a way of making an image exquisite corpse as awesome as this.

I really like the format and had a wacky idea.

Remember the fuss I made about the allegged 10 point perspective a while ago in some random 2d perspective thread? yeah....somehow I matched that up with the hex collab in my head.

What if we grabbed the 5 (six???) point perspective grid

http://www.treeshark.com/images/Persp/Grid.jpg and censored...in a manner similar to what Ptoing did in the Hex Corpse

Then everyone fills up a portion, and when we're done.....we can even mount it on a java app so the reveal is actually getting INSIDE the result of the collab...maaan thad' be trippin  :huh: :crazy:
http://www.inaball.com/pleinpot/asadelta_swf.html
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: 32 on June 13, 2009, 02:09:44 pm
I cant imagine the whole java thing working so well for pixels, but I could see a cool scene with a set perspective, although you would have to rely largely on the communities understanding of that perspective.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: robotriot on June 20, 2009, 06:19:39 pm
What about a 3D pixelart challenge? I created a stereo image of one of my old pictures as a test, see below. Props to those who create actual rotated 3D objects instead of just depth layers :)

[in case you don't know: you have to cross your eyes until both images match, take the street light as a reference point for example. It might be easier if you're further away from the screen]

(http://www.elitepigs.de/trash/stereo-pixelart.gif)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: lollige on June 20, 2009, 06:33:36 pm
Man, with just 2 images that is incredibly hard to see. Also because I did not train in ages. And the effect is not so strong..

Explaining everyone how it works is already a lot of work, it would not be such an accessible challenge. but I like the idea of making 'm in general.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Perciv@l on June 21, 2009, 05:17:40 am
how about creating something similar to this but with pixels?
http://zoomquilt2.madmindworx.com/zoomquilt2.swf (http://zoomquilt2.madmindworx.com/zoomquilt2.swf)

maybe with an increase of 2X zoom in every following pixelart.

supposing that it is workable, in theory it can have any lenght, with any number of entries. (course it demands a minimum)
It just needs that someone make the last image bridging with the first to loop endlessly.

Edit: didn't know the same idea was posted in the Hexquisite Corpse Suggestion Thread, meh
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: saehn on July 31, 2009, 02:14:53 pm
Pixel compo ending soon if anyone is interested:

Quote
A friend of mine (e5frog, a.k.a. Fredric Blĺholtz) is a big fan of the Fairchild Channel F. You may have read about him and his homebrew Pac-Man game. He is working on some more homebrews like International Karate.

Now, Fredric on a different forum has issued a small gfx compo. He is looking to put together a slide show of some nice images, and possibly the artist making the best image would get a custom Channel F cartridge with the slide show. I don't know if this is anything that interests you, perhaps from a purely challenge point of view.

Some specs about the Channel F graphics: The image size is 102 x 58 pixels. Possibly one can squeeze in a bit more on screen, but this is the image format Fredric is working with. Each pixel is a bit taller than it is wide. He says in 16:9 mode the pixels are quite square. It's pretty close to the Commodore 64 pixel ratio.

On each (raster) row, you can select one of four palettes:

1. Light grey, red, green, blue
2. Light green, red, green, blue
3. Light blue, red, green, blue
4. Black, white

That means you can't use black and white on the same row as any colour. The three light colours are pretty close to each other:

http://w5.nuinternet.com/s660100106/files/channelf/test-picture.png

Fredric wants submissions until August 12. If you would like to participate, please let me know and I can either forward your creations or point you to where you can submit them yourself. Of course you could also email Fredric with your pics at frog@home.se.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: xegnma on September 18, 2009, 07:06:29 pm
Here's an idea for an activity. A while back helm posted on his blog a lengthy spiel
about EGA graphics of games long past (see link here (http://asides-bsides.blogspot.com/2009/05/mandy.html)).
What I found intriguing about the post is that he took a non-too-appealing image
and revised it within the constraints of the original palette to create a great piece of art.

Throughout his discussion of the piece he expounded on his interpretation of the original piece
and how it shaped his version. Great though the art was I found myself in disagreement with
the interpretation. I looked at the original and I couldn't quite find the discontent evident in
his version. The thought occurred to me that no two people would supply the same interpretation
and wouldn't be cool to see these interpretations in the form of a pixelation activity?

So here's the activity : Select a piece of pixel art and have participants in the activity revamp
the piece maintaining the original palette, supplying the rationale for your interpretation of the
original piece.

We could kick this off with versions of the "Codename: iceman" snapshot from Helm's blog post.
We could call it, REVAMP ACTIVITY: "VISIONS OF MANDY"...
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: lollige on September 18, 2009, 07:17:50 pm
cool idea, but then id want an image that really enables you to be creative, because otherwise the entries will all be the same. Don't forget that also the entries will highly influence each other.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Dex on September 19, 2009, 03:07:15 am
I actually really like your idea. It would surely be interesting to see two different takes on the same piece!

It would also be creative to make it so two entrants get the same image and compare their interpretations of the same original. I think it'd be quite fun to do, but if it would work, I'm not sure. Still, good idea. :)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: lollige on September 19, 2009, 09:09:01 am
We could have a big quiz: Per image there are 5 participants, they all 5 make an image based on that ugly original one, the 5 are posted together and we have to guess who made which ;)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Aelyrin on September 23, 2009, 02:56:44 pm
I'd like to know if there will ever be another I Spy challenge. :crazy:

In other news, I'm back after a long time of forgetting about this site. To those of you that may remember me, I'm sorry I was so immature. :-[ I swear, I'm not a child anymore.  :(
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Pixelized on October 07, 2009, 05:37:41 am
I was staring at a sketch of a robot I drew last night that looks like it could have been an exclamation point... ! (watching to much venture brother's lately I guess) and I suddenly pictured him rolling out on his little wheel at the end of a sentence and stopping, sucking in his arms and actually becoming an exclamation point...

Ok... so here is my idea for a pixel challenge... everyone could animate their names! And I mean like each letter comes out individually or all at once, not just moving text. Like someone could make each letter a robot that comes into the picture and stops to form a name, animals that are shaped like letters... etc.

Now that I actually read it it sounds crazy lol.... seemed much more doable in my head :P
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Red_Mist on October 17, 2009, 01:28:23 am
you know the classic repeating background you see in low budget cartoons n stuff... well, what about a collab where we all take part in adding to the background making on giant seemless one! it would be a nice change of pace from the iso and hex form were all used to and would be simple enough to pull off... we could call it: "Where the sidewalk ends" in honor of shel silverstein!

Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Stratto on October 21, 2009, 12:32:44 am
How about something similar to this?
little circles or X's on white background, and users can paint anything using it, without moving it or erasing it. 
http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2009/05/06/school-of-art-and-design-creativity-test/

;D
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Mathias on October 29, 2009, 12:05:27 am
How about something similar to this?
little circles or X's on white background, and users can paint anything using it, without moving it or erasing it.  
http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2009/05/06/school-of-art-and-design-creativity-test/

;D

Hmmm, interesting idea. I'd forgotten about that concept. I remember activities like that in school.


Don't miss this development. (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=8629.msg101701#msg101701)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Triple on December 07, 2009, 11:23:54 pm
I think we should consider having a competition for a mockup off "Zelda; A link to the past", but for the 2nd version (if there would have been one on the super nintendo entertainment system). If you get what I mean.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Don risotto on May 31, 2010, 02:29:30 am
you know the classic repeating background you see in low budget cartoons n stuff... well, what about a collab where we all take part in adding to the background making on giant seemless one! it would be a nice change of pace from the iso and hex form were all used to and would be simple enough to pull off... we could call it: "Where the sidewalk ends" in honor of shel silverstein!



F*&$ YEAH
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: CrazyMLC on May 31, 2010, 04:08:48 am
Pixelation City?
You know those isometric city community project deals? We could do something like that.

(I actually made rules for that sort of thing to make it more like SimCity. It plays like an art competition, and I'm trying to run it on another forum. (http://forums.datarealms.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=18810&start=0))
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: xhunterko on June 19, 2010, 06:17:44 am
Here's one: Indie Game Critique.

I just wonder how some indie games (including, but not limited to: super meat boy, cave sory, Redder(lovely), hydorah, luynne dyversity, Coal, The life of a pacifist is often wrought with conflict, Blackfoot, Tormshire(wip), Gungirl 2, Hot Ninja Moon Moon, Dust an elysian Tale, Runman Race around the world, desktop dungeons, loved, Fleet assualt, Generic, Rocket ninja cyborg, Level Up, etc, etc, etc) would be critiqued on here. I mean, some of them are obviously not pixel art but some of them are. I just wonder how these and many other games would look under edits and what critique would be given to them to improve on there art. Just a thought.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Jon on June 19, 2010, 12:30:29 pm
Perhaps there could be a game collab, like they have on some other pixel forums...
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: flamesterart on July 29, 2010, 05:23:57 pm
i just had an idea, though i would not be ablle to participate, most likely, depending on your thoughts, if it gets up, how about something like i made, except based on YOUR favorite video game(s) a band stage or something similar, heres an example, the one i have been working on for the past couple of weeks. (http://a.imageshack.us/img829/5306/supermariobandstage.png)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: flamesterart on July 29, 2010, 05:26:33 pm
the challenge would be that you have to make a band stage or something there alike that is based on your favorite video game(s) and submit it, and then we can have some sort of public votes to see whos is best.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Cow on July 31, 2010, 11:00:21 pm
Draw a self portrait in your 'final form'.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: VDX on August 01, 2010, 11:57:29 am
the challenge would be that you have to make a band stage or something there alike that is based on your favorite video game(s) and submit it, and then we can have some sort of public votes to see whos is best.

I'm kinda interested in this. :P Scratch Sprites and a stage, the theme of one of your favourite all time games with characters acting as a band of artists. Animated/non Animated versions.
Hmm....
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: flamesterart on August 02, 2010, 12:41:38 am
i got the idea for the whole thing on newgrounds, from a flash movie, here is a link, http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/viewer.php?id=223362&key=DgLiYoXzltOzdxbStiM2YwNzIxM2Y5Qjg1NzIrMl9xOWI3MDE7Qjk0QlYxOzJWMDJiNzIyZjUrVnFf (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/viewer.php?id=223362&key=DgLiYoXzltOzdxbStiM2YwNzIxM2Y5Qjg1NzIrMl9xOWI3MDE7Qjk0QlYxOzJWMDJiNzIyZjUrVnFf) on the page that shows up, just click the blue letters to go to the page where the movie is located. and if the mods or whoever is on control of the competitions will let me do it i will start coming up with the overall rules and other stuff, and then later i will send them to whoever is in charge of the competitions, and once they get approved i will start the competition and start watching the entries come in.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: yaomon17 on March 29, 2011, 04:00:38 am
I was waiting to participate in my first one! :crazy:
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Atnas on November 17, 2011, 01:13:22 am
Just a bit of a quote from the off topic thread to redirect the discussion here:

I was wondering if anyone can help me find a program someone posted awhile ago on here. It generated images that looked like this:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v206/MANDRAGGANON/randommonster01.png)

I tried the search function but I wasn't able to find anything. I think Happymonster created it but I'm not sure.

Yep!
Found an old mirror of it on my site from 2009. (http://lolipopsicle.com/linky/Rest.zip) It's called Richard's Evolving Sprite Tool, for reference.

Awesome little program, a challenge/activity involving it would be neat.

I would love to participate in some kind of a challenge involving it.

Second this notion. :y:

Those are wonderful, and a CHALLENGE! centered around this would be ace. Question is, what should the challenge be?

Brainstorm!

Two obvious notions that come to mind are using a randomly generated base and pixel what you think you see in it. or the other way around, turning something existing into one of those, which in my opinion is the unattractive cousin of notion #1.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Atnas on November 17, 2011, 01:41:37 am
Here's the link to the program (http://lolipopsicle.com/linky/Rest.zip) in case you missed it. Happymonster made it close to 3 years ago I think.

An example I made a few years back of the 1bit patterns interpreted as sprites:

(http://lolipopsicle.com/uploader/uploads/interp.gif)

Anyway, ideas:

Ideas? Probably January or February is when this would happen.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: surt on November 17, 2011, 11:28:07 am
I mocked up a super simple thing like this in HTML5/JS here (http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.html).

(http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.png)

It is the simplest it could possibly be just every pixel an even chance of being foreground or background and mirrored.
There's a wierd bug in Firefox where every sprite is identical (RNG seems to be getting reset or not reseeding, if I stick an alert in between tiles they do generate nicely, wierd. :crazy:), but it works fine in Chrome (apart from the ubiquitous blur).
Refresh to regenerate. If you've got chrome hit the image button to get an image to save.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Atnas on November 17, 2011, 01:10:45 pm
Awesome! Any chance for further development? The original has the source visible iirc. If you have a problem with the web one I could port it to mac/linux.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: rikfuzz on November 17, 2011, 02:02:35 pm
I mocked up a super simple thing like this in HTML5/JS here (http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.html).

(http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.png)

It is the simplest it could possibly be just every pixel an even chance of being foreground or background and mirrored.
There's a wierd bug in Firefox where every sprite is identical (RNG seems to be getting reset or not reseeding, if I stick an alert in between tiles they do generate nicely, wierd. :crazy:), but it works fine in Chrome (apart from the ubiquitous blur).
Refresh to regenerate. If you've got chrome hit the image button to get an image to save.

Works fine for me (Firefox 8.0 OSX), really cool!  Be really interesting to tweak it. 

eg.
Closer to the edge slightly less chance of being on, closer to centre slightly less chance of being off might avoid so many looking so square.

Next pixel influenced by previous pixel (again very slight influence) to promote larger clusters and less noise. 

Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: surt on November 18, 2011, 12:05:52 am
Closer to the edge slightly less chance of being on, closer to centre slightly less chance of being off might avoid so many looking so square.
Next pixel influenced by previous pixel (again very slight influence) to promote larger clusters and less noise.  
Done and plan to do.

Updated:
You can now specify parameters using GET parameters in the URL. eg. http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.html?size=12&spacing=2&probMin=0&probMax=1&falloff=cosine (http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.html?size=12&spacing=2&probMin=0&probMax=1&falloff=cosine)
Falloff so fewer pixels at the edges. Falloff types: constant, linear, cosine, spherical. Defaults to linear.
Now randomly mirrors in x, y, both or neither.

Thing: Set spacing to 0, falloff to constant, probMax not too high and go hunting in a tapestry (http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.html?size=12&spacing=0&probMax=.4&falloff=constant).
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Redshrike on November 18, 2011, 01:50:21 am
I mocked up a super simple thing like this in HTML5/JS here (http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.html).

(http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.png)

It is the simplest it could possibly be just every pixel an even chance of being foreground or background and mirrored.
There's a wierd bug in Firefox where every sprite is identical (RNG seems to be getting reset or not reseeding, if I stick an alert in between tiles they do generate nicely, wierd. :crazy:), but it works fine in Chrome (apart from the ubiquitous blur).
Refresh to regenerate. If you've got chrome hit the image button to get an image to save.
I've spent quite a bit of time playing with RIST over the years.  I think your may produce better results, though of course the "evolve" button was fun.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: surt on November 18, 2011, 02:17:32 am
I've spent quite a bit of time playing with RIST over the years.  I think your may produce better results, though of course the "evolve" button was fun.
I should hope not given that mine works purely randomly. Most of the work is in the human brain anyways, to draw meaning out of the noise.

I've found a workaround (not a solution) for the Firefox bug in case it was affecting anyone other than me.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Redshrike on November 18, 2011, 04:49:10 am
Random, but not all randomness is equal.  Something about the proportion of black to blue, the spacing and the patterns of mirroring seems to give me better results in terms of "seeing things."
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: surt on November 18, 2011, 10:04:13 am
Added despeckle: remove single pixels by removing the pixel or adding a neighbour (parameters: despeckle [off, remove, extend, random], despeckleProb); and despur: remove pixels with single neighbour (parameters: despup [off, on, random], despurProb). eg. http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.html?despeckle=remove&despeckleProb=1&despur=on&despurProb=1&size=24&zoom=2 (http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.html?despeckle=remove&despeckleProb=1&despur=on&despurProb=1&size=24&zoom=2), http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.html?despeckle=remove&despeckleProb=1&despur=on&despurProb=1&size=12&zoom=2 (http://tools.putpixel.com/spritegen.html?despeckle=remove&despeckleProb=1&despur=on&despurProb=1&size=12&zoom=2)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Mathias on November 28, 2011, 05:16:22 am
Wow, great job, Surt! I see so many "recognizable" things in the results. Very cool.

But, how do you change the parameters? Manually change the booleans in the URL?

Is an interface with buttons very far off?
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: surt on November 29, 2011, 01:57:01 am
Added a quick and dirty GUI. Ugly, no validation and basically untested.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Mathias on November 29, 2011, 04:32:49 am
Nice!

Just some things to help:

-Tilesize max cap. It didn't my input value of 465348754367.

-Reset to defaults button. I messed the settings all up and got useless results. Wanted to revert.

-Zoom shouldn't accept 0, everything just disappears.

Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Atnas on November 29, 2011, 02:02:51 pm
very very nice. This image has countless great designs in it:

(http://lolipopsicle.com/uploader/uploads/rand_surt1.png)

I think the original was good for fine tuning and finding variations on a certain design, but this one just outputs some crazy nice stuff all around.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: big brother on November 30, 2011, 01:03:50 am
I see a lot of character/monster design potential in that sheet.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: surt on December 01, 2011, 01:18:38 am
Added load and submit validation, reset, colour pickers (jscolor). Also changed some of the properties a little. Lots of behind the scenes refactoring so probably some bugs.
Colour pickers don't like my layout css in Firefox, so if any CSS guru could suggest an alternative to get the canvas and form to sit next to each other while remaining auto width would be cool.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Redshrike on December 01, 2011, 03:13:54 am
Hmm...  I'm not getting nearly the results I was with the last version, and my brief tweaking of the settings doesn't seem to have gotten me much closer.  I'm also finding the settings a bit hard to understand apart from trial/error, though that's probably my lack of programmerly background showing.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Atnas on December 01, 2011, 03:25:24 am
yeah I agree the image I posted earlier was done with 1 tweak and now I can't seem to replicate it, perhaps set the defaults to how they were before if possible? because I had hit a sweet spot.

Also, 1x zoom by default would be nice if anyone else also feels that's better. Chrome users will love you for it.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: surt on December 01, 2011, 05:28:19 am
Tweaked the defaults to hopefully produce better results.
I won't pander to a browser's shitty design choices. You can set zoom to 1 then bookmark it.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Jakten on December 01, 2011, 08:05:25 am
Oh man!! This is is awesome Surt! Thanks for this, I think this produces some really nice results and I really like how varied each sprite is.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: PypeBros on December 01, 2011, 02:50:19 pm
I see a lot of character/monster design potential in that sheet.

I see space invaders meeting spelunky.
Just need some tool that adapt the behaviour of the sprite to its shape (e.g. wing-shape make it fly, legs shape make it jump, sting-shape make it shoot) and we're ready for unlimited blast-off !
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: #36005A on December 19, 2011, 02:39:17 am
Amazing work surt! I love this tool. I'm getting good results (and similar to yours, Atnas) with 100% horizontal reflection and falloff set to "cosine".

btw, have you considered using sliders (html5: input type="range") for the probabilities? just so that there isn't as much typing numbers.

EDIT: Also, for Chrome, you might want to use add the new CSS property "image-rendering: -webkit-optimize-contrast;".
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: surt on December 19, 2011, 03:06:46 am
btw, have you considered using sliders (html5: input type="range") for the probabilities? just so that there isn't as much typing numbers.
I considered it but thought I would have to code it in JS and couldn't be arsed. I never knew about the range type. I'll chuck it in if it degrades nicely to a standard text field in FF (which doesn't support range yet).
EDIT: Also, for Chrome, you might want to use add the new CSS property "image-rendering: -webkit-optimize-contrast;".
So is this working in Chrome now? I did have it in there but it had no effect for me.

EDIT:
Sliders in.
Still blurry in Chrome, even with Canary.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: #36005A on December 20, 2011, 01:32:24 am
Working for me, thanks for adding it! Perhaps it's this issue:
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=106662

Looks like a problem in the Windows implementation of Webkit.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: janiczek on January 03, 2012, 11:38:12 am
Well, it's already being done with canvas, so why not zoom it programmatically? (I might help if the author isn't sure how to do that.)
If it was a server-side generated image, spanning the width and height CSS would make sense, but with canvas you don't have to think about how browsers stretch images and how to force nearest-neighbour ...

Edit: and, oh, here's some info about how it renders on OSX:
Chrome Canary (18.0.993.0) - blurry.
Firefox 8.0.1 - fine! yay.
Safari 5.1.2 - blurry AND non-random (repeating sprites for whole rows - JS issue)
Opera 11.60 - blurry.

I really think doing it in canvas would be better and easier and would work for everybody.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: tyrannotorus on March 18, 2012, 04:51:30 am
There's something very similar to the sprite generator here as well!
http://levitated.net/daily/levInvaderFractal.html

[Challenge Suggestion]
I'm making a star wars game in the river city ransom beat'em up style. You can see it here http://tyrannotorus.blogspot.ca/p/star-wars-demo.html (http://tyrannotorus.blogspot.ca/p/star-wars-demo.html) with my official beg for help in the unpaid work section here http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=13755.0 (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=13755.0)

Regardless, it would make a great challenge to make star wars characters (for my game ::)). I would really like to make it a community project actually. The demo has a new and functioning Load Character option, so pixelers can share and play the character they pixeled right away in a functioning game. Plus, it's pretty fun to pixel chibi-ish characters. And who doesn't like Star Wars?

(http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y126/Colin_Sick/darth_vader.gif) (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y126/Colin_Sick/leia_150x150.gif)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Starstew on October 15, 2012, 05:13:28 pm
I'd like to propose an activity. More like invite you all to an activity, I suppose. I'm developing a pixel-art collaboration called Yono. The structure of Yono is that each new piece added extends another piece already in the structure by inserting itself in between the halves of the "parent". Each image can have two children -- one in the horizontal direction (inserted between left/right halves), one in the vertical direction (inserted between the top/bottom halves).

Here's an animated logo for the project I made that shows how images insert inside other images:
(http://www.sito.org/yono/anigifs/yonoSlatsLogo_BIGGY.gif)

So, as images continue to get added, the Yono structure becomes a tree of images that you can only see by crawling around interactively, expanding and collapsing links. You really have to see it to fully grasp the nature of this beast. I have made a prototype navigator -- http://sito.org/yono/navigatorBeta.html (http://sito.org/yono/navigatorBeta.html) -- for this. Try it out and let me know what you think!

If you'd like to add pieces to this growing project, just drop me a line here or via links on the main Yono page -- http://www.sito.org/yono (http://www.sito.org/yono) -- and I'll set you up with a slot. Pieces are 64x64, with a mutating 16-color palette. Each image uses the palette of its parent image, but may change up to 4 colors.

Currently, I'm putting it all together by hand (editing the data files, uploading the images), but our ultimate goal is to automate the entire thing so people can reserve/upload their pieces via the web. Also, we want to set it up so articipants can set up their own custom Yono Uchus (cosmoses) with specific parameters.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: surt on March 13, 2013, 12:21:28 pm
Picked up my spritegen toy again. A few more options, palettes, scalers.
spritegen.html (http://img.uninhabitant.com/spritegen.html?controls=false&controls=true&autorandomize=false&pal=arne&colours=2&bg=0&size=12&spacing=8&tiles=16&zoom=1&scaler0=eagle2x&scaler1=none&advanced=false&advanced=true&seed=1363177051286&autoreseed=false&autoreseed=true&falloff=linear&probmin=0.1&probmax=0.9&bias=0.8&gain=0.8&mirrorh=0.9&mirrorv=0.1&despeckle=1&despur=1)
(http://img.uninhabitant.com/spritegen15.png)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Conzeit on March 22, 2013, 06:17:06 am
that's crazy good surt. Before it was a neat anecdotal thing, but somehow multi color just blows my mind. I'll go to your toy when I'm stuck artistically and I want awesome iconic nes sprite inspiration. IDK if Arne knows about this but he should dig the hell out of it with his habit of drawing illos from convoluted sprites...someone should make an activity out of this O_O some very nice person

PS: what number is black in NES pal ?

PS2: are you Happymonster or am I remembering the authorship of this tool wrong?
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: surt on March 22, 2013, 07:31:15 am
Not Happymonster, this toy is inspired by his tool though.
NES black is 55. I've got to get around to setting a sensible default for background when changing palette.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: rikfuzz on March 22, 2013, 09:52:47 am
This tool is pretty amazing.  Every refresh, with the right settings, seems to have at least one sprite that could actually pass as if it was drawn with total intention.  Nice work!

You should make it 'randomly' spit out actual mario sprites for april fools.   :lol:
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: yrizoud on March 22, 2013, 01:02:23 pm
I like a lot what it generates with the default settings except scale2x. For larger sizes like 32x32, it would benefit from a setting that gives a chance for a pixel to get the same color as a contiguous neighbor, it would help create vertical and horizontal lines, as well as solid areas.
Title: Re: Possible activity "Season Kombat"
Post by: PypeBros on March 27, 2013, 01:16:42 pm
Given the winter/spring tussle we've been observing here in north-west Europe, I'd suggest a mockup compo on the theme "Season Kombat". Fighters VS screens, fatalities, fighting poses.

Get wild.
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kdT8J4LXdvs/UVLmF9sCQtI/AAAAAAAAEVc/-GFyQ0jcsDQ/s320/Photo-0017.jpg) (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EbwWjyWbFBM/UVLmFxfynRI/AAAAAAAAEVY/C-5oJ8sPnbo/s320/Photo-0016.jpg)

(apologies for the low-quality of brain-to-web bandwidth)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Facet on March 28, 2013, 12:11:56 am
Pypebros:  :lol: it's been practically strobing snow/sun over here, I guess there's a limited shelf life there though? Some kind of zombie/T-1000 snowman situation is pretty amusing though, might sketch.

Surt's random gen thing is pretty darn sweet and seems popular to boot, I'd love to see a challenge done with it. It isn't obvious what that challenge would be though, ideas on that front would be great. I'm thinking something like everyone choosing and posting a random sheet and then having to incorporate a number of raw sprites (plus new 'uns) into a themed mockup. Might be fun to extend that spirit of randomised and emergent work into the challenge proper, thoughts?
Title: Re: Possible activity Season Kombat
Post by: PypeBros on March 28, 2013, 11:21:03 am
I'm thinking something like everyone choosing and posting a random sheet and then having to incorporate a number of raw tiles (plus new 'uns) into a themed mockup. Might be fun to extend that spirit of randomised and emergent work into the challenge proper, thoughts?
You mean like "Season Kombat" meeting Surt's random generator ?
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Facet on March 28, 2013, 10:35:37 pm
Yeah! The generator is great, but I think introducing a theme like that might spark some really interesting stuff in adapting the generated sprites to purpose.

Or maybe super-sizing one and rendering it out, as envisioned here? (http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/64944.htm#) I'm jus' spitballin' here, don't want the tool to get forgotten about for lack of application.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: PypeBros on March 30, 2013, 06:15:41 am
Aha ... it's a theme that you want. So how about this:

(edit: new backstory in development)

The SURT virus affects both structural libraries and active processes on the system.
- Some of the 16x16 tiles (data blocks) that are the building bricks of the environment are corrupted (i.e. merged with a tile gathered from a randomly-generated sheeet)
- depict at least two "monitoring bots" (typically multi-sprites) with parts being replaced by some derivative of the generated sheet)
- include at leas two "completely randomized" process, that are made only of SURT sprites derivative
- pick two sprites and turn them into larger (background?) structure.

How to proceed:
-  Generate a sheet, select your mandatory tiles (4 blocks, 2+2 sprites and 2 larger structures), post them on the board unmodified.
- Follow the GBA constraints: 555RGB colors, 4 planes + sprites, 15+alpha colors per sprite and per 8x8 tile, 16 tiles palette and 16 sprite palettes at most.
- an entry is a 256x192 mock-up with revised versions of your mandatory tiles. The shape of the tiles must be identifiable and may not have been altered. You're free to colour them as seen fit
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Facet on March 31, 2013, 08:52:58 pm
hm, I think creating assets for any personal project (even non-profit) isn't really in the spirit of the 'official' challenges here, there's a lot of folk who would want to be able to have a whole community of artists for visual development on their work.

That said, the idea is sweet and the generator a great match for it; why not start a personal thread as a break from Bilou and have folk chip in with ideas as per usual?
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Conzeit on April 02, 2013, 12:39:47 am
I dig the idea of supersizing the sprite. I think the sprites can be inspiration enough, we could give a screenshot size and a sprite size, and then allow anybody to contextualize the game as a shmup / topdown rpg / scroller / fighter or whatever they feel their sprite fits the most.


PypeBros: I dont mind the idea of using the assets here for a game, and I dont know anybody else but personally for me to think of contributing anything I think it would have to be a community game, the protagonist being a "winner" among all the adaptations of surt's generated sprites or something like that. a Pixelation project not a PypeBros one. (Although that whole community sourced development method hasnt turned out so well for TIGsource's Indie Brawl and Balding's Quest)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: PypeBros on April 02, 2013, 04:38:03 pm
PypeBros: I dont mind the idea of using the assets here for a game, and I dont know anybody else but personally for me to think of contributing anything I think it would have to be a community game, the protagonist being a "winner" among all the adaptations of surt's generated sprites or something like that.
Yep, that would make sense. I'll draw back the "biokid-related" parts and propose a seed point that would use a more generic character for which I won't mind handing over the IP.

I'll post an update of the proposal ASAP.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: PypeBros on April 24, 2013, 08:46:18 am
How about a HeroCore revamp ?
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2u1YiRkRJCs/UCVjIMCYEPI/AAAAAAAADtk/97aWoEv1dCY/s1600/herocore_map.png)

Each entry would re-visit one room of the map, and try to fit SURT-generated tiles/monsters where we currently only have pure-black or pure-white 8x8 pixels squares, using the rules proposed above.
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Seiseki on December 12, 2013, 01:15:57 am
I want to start a Sonic 1 Commercial Critique thread and I'd like to know if anyone else is interested?
It will be a while, maybe few weeks, until I have time to do it, mostly posting as a reminder so I don't forget.  :crazy:
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: surt on February 05, 2014, 08:41:27 am
Massively Multi-creator Map Collab
Like most collabs: fixed palette, view, lighting.
Everyone create regular reusable map tiles.
One giant map created in a tile map editor such as Tiled (http://www.mapeditor.org/).
Everyone can mix creating tiles and fleshing out the map with all the available tiles.
Something kind of like Rings of Power (http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=9235.0) map: big-arse image (http://caverider.com/temp/merged_map.png).
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Ellian on February 18, 2015, 03:41:05 pm
Just sharing this link:
https://twitter.com/DailySilhouette

New silhouette every day, pixel something, good exercise~
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Pinux on March 17, 2015, 02:18:07 am
 ;D Hey, I would Like to make a good but simple challenge(It might have been done before.. but) for people to do Involving this


(http://i.imgur.com/dJ1ac4v.png)

Yes, a box however you have to make a image with the box

(Rules)
-1) Must be in the box shape form

-2) You CAN change the colors and add colors as you please

-3) Allowed to change the Image's Size

-4) Add on to it as long as there is a box that looks like a box

-5) Must be a new Image that you created

*~If you have questions just ask~*
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: AlexHW on February 04, 2016, 05:46:29 pm
Find stuff in nature(that isn't created by humans) that exude similarities to pixel-art:
(http://i.imgur.com/Pipg7C2.jpg)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: yaomon17 on February 04, 2016, 09:28:43 pm
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Honey_comb.jpg)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: tomic on March 04, 2016, 12:13:04 pm
HEXQUISITE CORPS ADVENT CALENDER

hey there. pixelling my tile for the Corps i had that idea yesterday...
In Germany we have this Tradition of "Advent calenders", dunno if the world is familar with this :) It's sort of a countdown calender, consisting of 24 doors (december 1st to december 24th) with a motive, chocolate or anything else behind it. I once had one with little liquor bottles :) The doors are opened every day leading up to chrismas.

Idea is to have a Hexquisite Corps in November with 24 tiles (for December). The finished Tiles then get unmasked each day, starting on december 1st (or 48 tiles of which 2 are unmasked every day until chrismas)


can be combinded with a "find santa"-challenge :)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: spaceman00 on March 23, 2016, 05:48:01 pm
Does someone ever tried to do ansi pixel art?
Rules:
Each pixel must be 8X16
Image size must also be divisible by 16 and 8
Pallete is VGA pallete (or EGA).
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: tomic on April 30, 2016, 09:00:41 am
Does someone ever tried to do ansi pixel art?
Rules:
Each pixel must be 8X16
Image size must also be divisible by 16 and 8
Pallete is VGA pallete (or EGA).

yepp,
there are "text eitors" like aciddraw fir that.

(http://piexeln.de/ansi/tmc_argh_prefinal.png)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Probo on February 08, 2017, 08:34:13 pm
Anyone else a bit disappointed with the backgrounds in Double Dragon 4? whether its breaking NES limitations or not using enough black, there's a bunch of stages I don't like.

Activity Idea - Choose a stage and M4ke Dubble Draggon 4 L@@k Gud!!!1!


Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: Haddy22 on May 22, 2017, 08:59:27 pm
I joined recently hoping to get in on a Hexquisite Corpse-  but it looks pretty dead-  is there going to be a new one of those any time soon? I have participated in a couple in another group and have a lot of fun doing them-  I hope it can be revived? isint it about time for a new one?
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: ZeroByte on June 19, 2017, 02:43:13 pm
I've been playing around with this technique created by iLkKke (https://twitter.com/iLkKke/status/875906845625303040) that he's calling polar pixels, might be fun to do an activity around it.

(http://i.imgur.com/Si4JfMQ.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/rQnRtu4.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/dE1Rrrt.gif)
Title: Re: Possible activity discussion.
Post by: yaomon17 on June 23, 2017, 10:17:45 am
we should make a comic
https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelArt/comments/6ixmtg/occcfirst_full_chapter_of_a_pixel_art_webcomic/?st=j49p4sqw&sh=a5eb7a15
like this one, but with a super cool story starring the most good looking pixel artist in the world, yoaman - any relation to any character living or dead is purely coincidental