AuthorTopic: Next Commercial Critique (July) Suggestions  (Read 52800 times)

Offline Helm

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Re: Next Commercial Critique (July) Suggestions

Reply #30 on: July 10, 2006, 04:27:42 pm
We should go with original development platform. In this case, SNES?

Offline AdamTierney

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Re: Next Commercial Critique (July) Suggestions

Reply #31 on: July 10, 2006, 09:14:26 pm
See, I was thinking Yoshi's Island because it's a beautiful game. But the pixelling is also very, very simple so it might not be ideal for discussion.



Looks pretty, but there's not much to analyze. I think we need to select games that really exhibit strong pixel technique. This on the other hand (assuming it's not all just scaled and auto color-reduced) is quite lovely.



- Adam
« Last Edit: July 10, 2006, 10:23:31 pm by AdamTierney »

Offline Darien

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Re: Next Commercial Critique (July) Suggestions

Reply #32 on: July 10, 2006, 10:20:26 pm
Tyrian.

Though I've never heard of the game, I just ran across the blog of someone who's worked on Tyrian (not sure what part exactly, I am assuming the art itself):

 http://lostgarden.com/2006/07/more-free-game-graphics.html 

Could be useful if we ever do that game and we have any design questions.

Also, for Yoshi's Island... they attempted a sketchy "coloring book" style, which I believe Kirby's Dreamland 3 also tried, but less effectively.  It might be interesting to compare the two and any other games that tried as well to see which ones were most effective.  Also we could do the same things with dark, creepy games and cartoony games or whatever...

I can't really vote since I've haven't heard of half these games before, perhaps I'll look them up, but people making arguments for any one game would do well to post screenshots.

Offline danctheduck

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Re: Next Commercial Critique (July) Suggestions

Reply #33 on: July 11, 2006, 05:03:42 am
Saw a link to my website and happened upon this thread.   

Whoa...folks are talking about Tyrian graphics.   :-)   I drew roughly 90% of those over summer vacation in 1994 on an Amiga 1200 using a program called Brilliance. I think the palette was about 215 colors and the tile size was something odd like 12 x 14 due to the wacky rendering code in the engine.   

Out of curiosity, what constitutes 'pixel art' vs. 'painted' art?  It is so wonderful seeing folks still practicing pixel art these days. 
-Danc.

Offline AlexHW

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Re: Next Commercial Critique (July) Suggestions

Reply #34 on: July 11, 2006, 05:34:40 am
Hi, Danc
welcome.
Out of curiosity, what constitutes 'pixel art' vs. 'painted' art? It is so wonderful seeing folks still practicing pixel art these days.
To be brief, It's generally agreed that pixel art engages the artist to work at a pixel level, where focus and intentions revolve around the details suggested by carefully placed pixels.
There is also digital painting on the other hand, where the precision is more broad scale, where artists commonly use tools which place details consisting of hundreds or thousands of pixels at a time. An airbrush tool would produce results considered as digital painting.

Offline danctheduck

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Re: Next Commercial Critique (July) Suggestions

Reply #35 on: July 11, 2006, 05:42:16 am
Ah...your explanation is very much appreciated. In that case, all the artwork in Tyrian was certainly pixel art.  The majority was done with a single pixel brush, though I certainly used the paint bucket. :-)  My favorite technique was to use the 'shade' mode.  I'd set up nice linear gradients in my palettes and then use the mouse to increment or decrement the colors by one notch.  Lots of control, but it also allowed me to work quite rapidly.

take care
Danc.

Offline Conzeit

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Re: Next Commercial Critique (July) Suggestions

Reply #36 on: July 11, 2006, 06:10:15 am
Wow, danctheduck. Wether or not is a leading game as the next CC candidate, I'd love to see some kind of breakdown of how you went by making Tyrian, even if it is only of a single screenshot.

Offline miascugh

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Re: Next Commercial Critique (July) Suggestions

Reply #37 on: July 11, 2006, 09:17:29 am
Oh, heh, i stumbled over (was shown) lost garden yesterday, but never knew that you were involved in tyrian. it's one of the games that got me to sketch tons of new features and powerups as a kid. nice one :)

Offline Helm

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Re: Next Commercial Critique (July) Suggestions

Reply #38 on: July 11, 2006, 02:30:16 pm
Hello Danc, nice work on tyrian, it's one of the few great-looking top-down shooters for the PC. Lots of tilesets in it, too. Much much work.

About your question, on top of what Alex said where anything using millions of colors is probably painted, we usually refer to some tools, even in indexed color paint programs like Dpaint or Brilliance, as 'dirty' tools. Dirty as in 'unclean' not as in 'bad', where the result is fast to make, but undermines the pixel-art-type of detail that we usually like to see. Using shade modes (or darken or other similar ones) is borderline (if Brilliance is anything like Dpaint and Pro Motion), really, it can get kinda dirty as a tool because lots of passes to a lot of area can be applied pretty rapidly as you said, and the attention to pixel-level detail can be weakened. Mainly though automatic AA and Smear mode brushes are the main offenders when it comes to 'dirty' pixel art. For example, a lot of the demoscene art from the Amiga days that I'm sure you're familiar with would more likely constitute as index painting than pixel art. Most of the time, it's indexed painting with a reasonable amount of repixelling on top. Some artists are more of pixellers, some more of painters. For example, Danny is a painter, Made is in-between, and Cyclone is more of a pixeller. Danny practically used Dpaint like Photoshop. A lot has to do with palette control and using every shade to it's maximum effect. If you find yourself making 16 color ramps of one hue, you're probably about to index paint :P

I was reading your blog and you seem very erudite and intelligent, not to mention passionate about your interests. Would you be interested, since you're around, to have a thorough talk about your process when it comes to pixel art, and answer the questions of the users of Pixelopolis on the subject? Kind like a Commercial Artist Q&A?
« Last Edit: July 11, 2006, 02:36:53 pm by Helm »

Offline Ryumaru

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Re: Next Commercial Critique (July) Suggestions

Reply #39 on: July 11, 2006, 02:41:47 pm
that would be too awesome. i would love to know the process of pixelers from that age, in most of my works i long for the look of amiga art.