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Messages - PixelPiledriver
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901
Pixel Art / Re: (WIP) Tree for a game
« on: May 04, 2012, 08:32:35 am »

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Why is it important to have few colors in a palette
A few words come to mind:
Combination
Control
Meaning

Combination

Art is a visual language.
Let's explore other languages that exist.

Words
The English alphabet contains 26 letters.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
In combination they can create infinite words.
Different combinations of letters have different meanings.
We do not need every letter to express a single thing.

Programming
The C programming language has 32 keywords:
int, float, double, struct, if, else, void, const, etc.
In combination we can write infinite amounts of software that do whatever we want.
How the components of the program are structured is a choice.

Numbers
In the base 10 number system there is:
0123456789
However there are other number systems.
Such as Hexadecimal which contains:
0123456789ABCDEF
And Binary:
01
Combinations of these can produce infinite numbers and even the same numbers (to a certain degree of error in the case of floating point numbers).
Depending on what we need to do, something as simple as binary can be much better suited to our needs than base 10.

Food
Different pizzas have different toppings:

Combinations of ingredients create different flavors.
By limiting the number of toppings we can create a more specific taste.
Of course EVERY topping is also a taste.
They also naturally create different balances of color.

Color
A common way to look at color is the combination of 3 components:
Hue, Saturation, and Luminance.
With different combinations of these we can make a crapload of different colors.
But the colors themselves can be used to draw infinite images.
Or even the same image with different combinations of colors.
A generic example is, we can draw a Green dragon, a Red dragon, a Blue dragon, a Yellow dragon etc:

No matter the color he is still a dragon.

Control

Process
In interest of saving me some time:
Read this.
And this.
Photoshop has similar features I assume but I am not as familiar with them.
Look thru the documentation or find another source.

Composition
We can control images and how they are perceived thru the use of composition tools and techniques.
One of the many is color.
With color we can control eye movement.
Re using colors in different areas lets the viewer's eye flow around the image easily
On my doodle (which is nothing special at all) I had this in mind:


Even a character is a composition.
Much better examples exist.

Game Code
Image data can be manipulated to do cool stuff.
Many visual fx in games use colors as data to create different fx.
The code that does this is called Shaders.
Colors can be stored as a data type called float4.
It contains 4 values in a group that range from 0-1.
Like this: color(r,g,b,a).
It's a massive topic and I'm not going to cover it here.
But realize it can be important because some code might be expecting certain colors to use as data.

Meaning
Colors have meaning.
These meanings can change depending on context, purpose, culture, expectation, and even someone just saying this = that.
By narrowing or widening the color range we can create different meanings.

Some common examples are:

Time of Day
Morning, Noon, Evening, Night:


Season
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter:


Elements
I'm out of time to create an original example for this.
There's plenty of examples elsewhere.

Characters
With the use of color the exact same sprite can perceived as a different character:


Countries
USA, Japan, Germany, Brazil:


The flags are not mine.
Grabbed them from here.

The crappy palette edits of your scene are not intended to be examples of good color choice.
They are meant to show change in color is perceived as different.
You can do much better.

So... What?

There's an amazing amount of other things that can be considered.
Covering them all in extreme depth is outside the scope of this post.
I can recommend this old book as a general source of good information.
There are many other sources out there, perhaps better and even free ones on the internet.
Search around.

The idea here is not to bog you down with theory.
Just realize that colors are tools used to convey information.
What are you trying to tell the viewer?
Do you need 7,000 colors to tell them that?
Or is it possible to tell them in only 64?
32?
16?
8?
2?

In all art forms the answer to every question is always "It depends".
Mess around and see what happens.

902
Pixel Art / Re: (WIP) Tree for a game
« on: May 03, 2012, 01:16:22 pm »
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i used the same palette because i suck at making palettes
Relax.
Only what you believe can remain true.

I also like the old image better.
But you don't actually have a palette.


While the original colors aren't perfect it has some fun stuff in there.
I pulled out a handful and made a doodle without changing any:


Many of which could be compressed or thrown out completely to make room for other hues.

903
Pixel Art / Re: running sprite animation. CC badly needed
« on: May 03, 2012, 11:23:17 am »
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why not try to offset the frames
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i use graphics gale and yeah, there is the same problem.

Actually there's an option for this.
There's no need to shuffle frames:






Aside from it showing the first frame in onion skin while on the last, you will also jump to the first from the last when you press Next Frame.
And vice versa.

Press F1 and read the documentation.
Go through each of the menus.
Especially File->Preferences.

There are more helpful features you're missing out on.

904
Pixel Art / Re: [WIP] Female doll base
« on: May 03, 2012, 03:16:11 am »
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Graphics Gale edits colors based on an index.

This is a decent supplement to Mike's post I wrote a while ago.

Sorry no time for crits or edits.

905
2D & 3D / Re: [Digital Painting] - Graveyard
« on: May 02, 2012, 05:43:37 am »
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Man the tablet takes a lot of getting used to
The tablet feels slippery right?
When you draw on paper there is much more friction.

Here's a cool trick.
Get a really cheap, thin, fabric top mouse pad.
You can find one at Office Depot or whatever for a couple bucks.
Throw it on top of your tablet.
Draw with the pen on the surface of the mouse pad.
It will still work.
The pad will add more friction, slowing down the pen.
This will give you more subtle control and feel more familiar.
You could even throw a sheet of paper on top for a more classic friction.
But the mouse pad is nice because of the pad on the bottom.
It stays put.
And its soft.

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I'm quick to default to my safety, the mouse
I also use the mouse for 99% of the art I do, pixels and vectors.
However tablets are really fun for Photoshop painting.

906
Pixel Art / Re: running sprite animation. CC badly needed
« on: May 01, 2012, 10:29:43 am »
Break the problem down into many smaller steps:


Working in passes will allow you to isolate and refine.
Personally I prefer to use a single finished drawing and do all select tool animation for the first few passes.
Then I make another pass to make each frame more unique to show rotation and asymmetry and such (not shown here I mean many passes after this).
Although it is not the "traditional" animation process I find it much easier to work with and clean up.

Sorry for a short explanation but I'm out of time for the day.
You can check this thread for a very similar post from me that covers the topic more thoroughly.

907
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: Project Entropy
« on: April 27, 2012, 09:31:38 am »
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My animation skill level has nearly doubled just from two posts of yours.
Great!
I'm attempting to be as clear and general as possible.
Honestly my posts could use twice as many diagrams but I don't have time for that right now.
Glad its helping.

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currently I suck at effect animations, and I have even less patience for them than movement animation.
FX can be tough.
It's very different than character work.
Just play around and try stuff.
Of course there's a bunch of good theory that makes sense of it.
When I get some time I can talk about fx too if you're interested.
Might be a while tho.

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PPD are the particle effects by hand?
Yup.
That's why they're so messy!
I really enjoy drawing particles directly into an animation.
It's not the most flexible way of doing things but its fun.
Sometimes I rip them out and put them in their own sprite, so they can be faded and scaled and stuff.
But sometimes its cool to just leave them burned in because its simple and rough.

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Are you using an automated process?
No.
But I also do game/graphics programming.
I was the particle fx coder on my team for the last couple games.
I've done a bunch more in the past just for fun.
I'm familiar with how to do something like this with numbers as well.

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Like Pro-motion anim paint?
I use graphics gale.
I assume what you mean is some sort of tween feature?
Like Flash style?
Never used Pro-motion.
Tweens can be good to get things started.
Sort of fill out how much time and space you want to take up quickly.
Then break them into keys and edit by hand.
They're also really good for color transformations.
And for really slow motions that just have gobs of frames, like 100+ where not much really happens.
The spheres on my blog are a good example of that.
But most of the time I don't use them.
I find it easier to just dive in and make a mess.

Also I realized that I mention the "Shrink Frame".
But I don't say what it does.
In summary, it creates an extreme moment of "change".
But I don't have time to detail that topic thoroughly right now.
So It'll have to wait.
Just keep in mind that a balanced amount of "change" in animation is a good thing.

Cool mockup!

908
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: Princess Piledriver
« on: April 26, 2012, 08:53:23 am »


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theres a part in the animation where her hip disappears wasn't sure if that was your intention
The entire animation is constructed from a single frame.
I like to do the first few passes using only the select tool to get motion.
The missing piece is from me making a box around her arm and just ripping it off for rotation.
It might seem crazy but I find it to be much easier to clean up, and more relevant than animating a skeleton.
Perhaps later I'll detail my process on that a bit more.
At this point it was more of a draft to make sure I liked the character and what she could do.

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A princess inspired me to make an edit. I did proportions more to my liking. I hope you like it.
Yes I like edits!
There's some good stuff in there.
Especially the hip bone and the more angular jaw.
I'll try adding a couple inches to her height as well.
I didn't work on Bootie this pass, so I'll integrate later.
I've been wondering for a while if the pokey hairstyle and the horns is cooler.
The fact that you've edited that one makes me think I should revisit it.
It makes her look a little more scruffy and I like that.
It'll also be more fun to animate.
I like the current hair shape too, so maybe ill throw it on a different character.
Thanks for taking the time!

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I don't know what it is but this specific area...is amazingly attractive to me.  Who knew lighting could be so hot?
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Hips my friend, beautiful hips.
Agreed.
Very sexy.
I've covered that area with the hand.
But when she's animated I'll be sure to expose it.

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seeing little action drawings couldn't help doing this
:lol: awesome

I'll still be revisiting the other characters, even princess piledriver, for some more passes.
I like to get a collection of characters going so that I can compare and work on them simultaneously.

Thanks for compliments!

909
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: Project Entropy
« on: April 25, 2012, 08:08:58 am »
It's looking much better.
Great progression.
The new key helps a lot.

The animation you have is very physical, and fun.
I would suggest you keep it as primarily a slam attack, as if he is making contact with a surface.
You could still have stuff pop up or a wave shoot out or something.
But If the player gets under his fists they should definitely take physical damage.

If you're going to make him shoot special stuff I would say make it completely different than the slam:


From a gameplay perspective it will allow the player to pick up instantaneous visual cues about whats going on.
This will allow them to react more quickly.
Sound and color is also a good way to alert the player of a specific action.

Then throw in a move that tricks people.
"Oh hes gonna sma..... oh no! he did the other thing!"

I just realized that I didn't even explain the bounce in terms of animation theory.
This is whats called "Resolve".
It can take on many forms and is used in general to dissipate energy.
In this case we are trying to "resolve" a fast motion and an impact.
Effectively we are trying to show weight.

To simplify, basically weight bends stuff at joints or "pivot points".

Try doing this attack in front of a mirror.
But hit a pillow or something so you don't hurt yourself.
This is known as "Acting for animation".

The most resolve will come from your upper body, head, and shoulders.
They will bounce a lot as you naturally stabilize your weight.
The primary pivots will be your fists.
They will not move much.
The Secondary pivots will be your elbows.
They will bend some but will also act as a pivot to your upper body.
Something like this:


The main reason why he appears "jelloish" is because you are implying a pivot by stretching from here:


Where as a more natural pivot is the elbows (and/or hands):


Where you place a pivot isn't really right or wrong.
It doesn't matter so much if there should be one there or not.
Depending on the character and the action unrealistic pivot points can work really well.

Also keep in mind that no matter what you see in the mirror, you will want to exaggerate.

There a bunch of different ways to use resolve.
This bouncing type of resolve about fixed pivots implies that he is making contact with a surface and stabilizing his weight.
If he were not hitting something, or something very light, you would still use resolve but in a different way.

Take for example a golf club.
Hitting the ground and hitting a golf ball.
In both there is anticipation.
In both there is action.
In both there is impact.
In both energy dissipates.
In both weight stabilizes.
In both there is resolve.
But they feel and look different.

I completely glazed over this topic last time, so sorry for that.

Another cool trick I've used here is the "Shrink Frame".
Just before he shoots I shrink down his upper body.
Then on the next frame I make it larger:


You can use this trick in lots of situations.
When you find a good spot for a shrink, try sizing it down more than you would think possible.
It's often surprising how exaggerated this can be and still work really well.

910
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: [WIP] need help with pixel character
« on: April 23, 2012, 08:10:03 am »
This is how I usually start a walk cycle:


Just move around the main mass and figure out the amount of time and space you want to take up.
This would be after removing his limbs, so go ahead and draw them in when designing what he'll look like.
Don't worry about it being perfect, just move stuff around and make something happen.

Then go for the feet.
You can start out by making them all look the same:


The eye is drawn towards objects of focus like hands and feet.
The end of a limb is more important than the limb itself (but of course still important).
The bend of the limb can be determined directly from the placement of the foot.
No need to worry about drawing that now.
Focus on contact.

The feet will generally have more motion and action than the body in this sort of cycle.
This will affect your time and space.
Don't be afraid of this.
Just add new frames where you need more time and move around the body if its position doesn't make sense relative to the feet.
Also I threw these on a new layer just to make things a little more flexible.

Once you get the general idea of your motion we can add more passes to it:


Add the limbs.
Change the form of the feet to better match the action of each frame.
Add follow through elements such as the tail.
Tweak the timing.
More passes could be done to clean up, introduce asymmetrical timing, add the flaming eye fx, etc.

The tail I've done isn't as polished as I'd like but serves as a guide if I were to finish it.
Get used to working in passes.
Every step is a tool to the next.

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