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Messages - Sunjammer
Pages: [1] 2

1
Pixel Art / Re: Castlevania-style naked girl statue
« on: February 17, 2015, 05:13:42 am »
dude that was incredibly illuminating, thanks so much

i revised mine, was trying not to rip off your version too much so i changed parts of the pose but it's pretty similar

i made a new one with the insight i got out of it though, i think it's a big improvement over my first one but maybe shaky in pose and probably value as well


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Pixel Art / Castlevania-style naked girl statue
« on: February 14, 2015, 02:50:54 am »
first time trying something like this out. i think the forms are maybe adequately described but there are probably tons of problems i can't see. with koji igarashi's 2d games gone the world needs more cv statuary and i need to address that

new:



old:




3
There's a lot of wisdom and analysis out there about making sprites but creating pixel environments isn't touched upon nearly as often.

Most articles that exist on the topic have a focus on how to create individual tiles which I've come to feel is misleading in that it places the focus on making an environment one tile at a time, which doesn't seem to work if you're trying to achieve any kind of artistic vision for the mood and atmosphere of the environment using color and light.

For those of you who make tilesets for games, what's your process like? Do you block in colors and values first as though you're establishing an environment like a traditional/digital painter would?

The Pros to this approach as far as I can tell are that it'd be easier to get the colors you want down and establish the value relationships in the scene and get the proper mood and lighting. The Cons would be that it'd be hard to take these blocky shapes to a final level because unlike painting, blocks of solid color don't communicate the final scene as well - so much relies on the rendering.

(Tales of Phantasia example)


Another possible approach would be to draw out all the architecture of the scene exactly as it will appear in line art and then color and render it afterwards. The Pros here might be that it'd easier to imagine the final appearance of the environment and nail down the architectural details, while the Cons might be that it could be harder to visualize how to put color into it and it might focus too much on minutiae rather than nailing down the feel of the level.



Starting with an individual completed tile does have the benefit of giving you something fully rendered to work with which can help you visualize how the rest should look, since pixel art appears vastly superior with the full ramp of colors rendered in, versus when it's just solid blocked-in value.

Regardless of your approach, how do you manage color ramps throughout the environment? If you did Process 1 would you create ramps for each major hue segment of the environment, or just add colors as needed when rendering the textures in? How much do you think in terms of traditional painting where you make the piece complementary or monochromatic or analogous? And how much of that translates to devising ramps?

The entire concept of 'color ramps' is very useful for sprites but almost seems like an artificial and awkward principle for 'painting' game environments. Of course ramps exist in all game visuals but maybe it's not as useful to conceptualize it that way when creating tilesets than thinking about it like painting a scene.

How important is it to have concept art before pixeling a game environment?

I don't know if there's been much discussion of these things before but I haven't been able to find it  anywhere. Maybe this topic is just mysterious to me!

4
Pixel Art / Re: SNES/GBA-ish Dark Mansion
« on: November 11, 2014, 08:12:24 am »
Thanks for all the  advice guys, that was really insightful about the floor reflections Fickludd. I did intend to have texture in them but never got around to it, but that idea about the marble is ace.

I would def like to have closed curtain variations, adds some mystery.

I feel like there's larger problems in this related to how I'm using hues or saturation which make it feel uncomfortable to me, but all the art/light/color theory knowledge I've absorbed isn't leading me to identifying and fixing it.

I tried out a quick diamond floor like suggested and my first light animation ;



5
General Discussion / Idea: Paid 1 on 1 [Skype?] Pixel Art Tutoring/Lessons?
« on: November 10, 2014, 01:30:43 am »
Note: I'm not really making a job offer here, just putting the idea out there to see if there's interest.

I'm wondering if anyone has ever proposed the idea of doing hands-on screen sharing pixel art instruction or critique. Like you'd pay one of the great artists around here a fixed rate for an hour of tutoring on Skype or Google Hangouts where you can ask them questions and they can do edits and show you stuff, whatever.

I know there's a fantastic altruistic desire to pass on the craft to newcomers and the Pixel Art forum has helped a lot of artists develop through feedback and edits. I love that spirit of passing on knowledge for the love of the art, but at the same time that knowledge is valuable and the 'masters' have limited time, so they deserve to be rewarded for their efforts.

I'm interested in developing my skill as effectively as possible so some real guidance would be amazing and I'd be willing to pay for it. There's no pixel art colleges so...

If you're interested in this concept, either as an instructor or as a student, post your thoughts!

6
Pixel Art / SNES/GBA-ish Dark Mansion
« on: November 04, 2014, 09:14:33 am »


Am I doing the largely monochromatic thing right? Should everything be more the same color, or less of the same color (e.g. walls/floor)? Is the red in the yellow ramp okay? Why does it look so bad if the red value is straight yellow instead? Am I using too many colors for the style? Is the saturation TOO low? Do I suck at drawing? Stuff like that :blind:

I've messed with this a lot and done several revisions, I feel like I'm in the area of the moodiness/atmosphere I want now, with the image really dominated by the desaturated yellow, but it still feels like very poor art to me. Not sure if the drawing is inadequate or if it's mainly a color issue or both. I'm getting closer ... I think


7
Pixel Art / Re: Background and foreground
« on: October 03, 2014, 09:07:00 pm »
Lower saturation can separate the background plane, warm/cool differentiation can help as well. Distance changes how things appear because of particles in the air and stuff, reading about light will help you with these decisions too

8
Pixel Art / [Color] Establishing an eerie sunset environment
« on: October 03, 2014, 08:54:55 pm »
This is obviously really sloppily drawn, but it's not the real tiles I'll be using

It's meant to try getting the colors right for a melancholy type distant sunset, probably in autumn. I feel like the chosen colors should work but something feels wrong about it.

Is the orange too overpowering or garish?

Any insights would be wonderful, getting the feeling of an environment and the necessary value ranges to convey the intended lighting conditions is something I'm trying to learn.


9
General Discussion / GraphicsGale HSV Scale 1-100 vs 1-255
« on: August 10, 2014, 09:14:37 am »
I updated my version of Gale today and found that the HSL/HSV goes up to 255 instead of 100 like the previous version. I don't know if that larger scale offers more precision but I'd learned about colors using a 1-100 scale and have a lot of mental associations built up with that numerical range. Does anyone know why this changed and if there's a way to change it back? Is there an advantage to using 1-255 I should care about? Thanks

10
Pixel Art / Re: Cute Girl Action RPG Sprite
« on: July 13, 2014, 05:04:01 am »
learned a bunch about doing heads. the forward bangs style is hard to get looking as good as many other hair styles but i want it so bad!!

cloak is questionable i think, i've tried so many variations and looked at tons of sprite cloaks but am tired of looking at it for now. going for a 3value + shadow thing to keep sprites uncomplicated to animate without going super modern flat.

my colors here are so bad, trying to get them communicating a very dark surreal/gothic game but not getting anywhere close!

some variations. don't know if i need the lighter value on the cloak


the values get muddy in grayscale but the hues separate them in color so idk??

there's mega ultra omega world shattering banding in the center of the body that i don't know how to get around

(unrelated) i find larger sprites much much easier for some reason



ambivorous, i implemented your advice into a previous version of the sprite and learned from it even though it may not be apparent in these, thanks!

rip me apart, i can take it >:3

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