AuthorTopic: Tileset WIP not looking the best :(  (Read 6425 times)

Offline Sokyogoku

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Re: Tileset WIP not looking the best :(

Reply #10 on: May 13, 2017, 12:51:21 pm
Hello, I nearly finished the project, there is a quick mash up of the tilesets, background, plants and sprites I did so far.

Offline eishiya

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Re: Tileset WIP not looking the best :(

Reply #11 on: May 13, 2017, 03:45:05 pm
Seconding Cyangmou that the rocks are too small. Even ignoring the scale problems, they create a lot of noise, making it harder to see the important parts - where the playable area is, and the details of the characters in front of them! If you don't have time to redesign the rock tiles, consider at least playing with their colours to help the scene read more readily.

I'd reduce the contrast on the background rocks, or maybe even use just the two lighter colours on it. The characters get lost against it.
I'd also make the borders between the tops of the rocks (in the walkable/playable area) thinner and perhaps use a 4th colour to make them lighter. As-is, it's not immediately clear what's horizontal and what's vertical because they have about the same value. Try creating the tops of the rocks with just the two lighter colours, using the 3rd colour very sparingly to create a little bit of extra depth.

Here's a small edit, I modified only the colours of the background rocks, and some of the horizontal surface to the right of the white cat:

Isn't it easier to tell what can be walked on and what's a wall like this? Personally, I'd go further by either adding a 4th highlight colour to the tops, or using the current lightest colour much more sparingly along the vertical parts, so that the playable area is even clearer.

Offline Sokyogoku

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Re: Tileset WIP not looking the best :(

Reply #12 on: May 13, 2017, 05:43:52 pm
Thank you your explanation is really helpful. And yes I agree about reducing contrast for background rocks and increasing it for the top of the walk-able rock ground. I will do those edits quite soon and post an update.

For the future though, would it be better if I only drew rocky pattern around edges or should I keep them on each tile only bigger and less attention grabbing?

Offline Seiseki

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Re: Tileset WIP not looking the best :(

Reply #13 on: May 13, 2017, 07:21:25 pm
I think you could work more with gradients to get the right sense of depth, try gradually decreasing the brightness of the rocks to get a fade effect.

I also think you are overloading everything with detail. Reduce detail where it's not needed, prioritize the areas that the players eyes should be drawn to.

I made a very rough edit to give you some ideas.  :)


Offline Sokyogoku

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Re: Tileset WIP not looking the best :(

Reply #14 on: May 13, 2017, 07:29:04 pm
Yeah I'm not really thinking strategically about this... probably because I'm hurrying. And I haven't been producing much pixelart so I'm really unsure where to add lots of detail and where to leave just fewest colours possible. This tweak in colours is really good Seiseki, I will make my middle part of tileset darker if I will have spare time.

I changed the top to brighter and that's how it turned out:

Offline Seiseki

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Re: Tileset WIP not looking the best :(

Reply #15 on: May 13, 2017, 07:46:56 pm
Don't stress about these things though, just keep them in mind, take a step back and look at the whole picture every now and then.

And I haven't been producing much pixelart so I'm really unsure where to add lots of detail and where to leave just fewest colours possible.

It's not a pixel art only thing, if you look at concept art for environments you'll see how they use light, shadow and level of detail to put things in or out of focus and reduce detail where it's not needed. For all kinds of environment art it's important to know how to gradually shade things to get depth.

It just happens to be even more important for video games, because the player will be inside the environment.

The brighter top looks much clearer.  :y:

Offline Sokyogoku

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Re: Tileset WIP not looking the best :(

Reply #16 on: May 13, 2017, 07:59:48 pm
I did notice it in environment concept art actually, and finished pieces too but I thought they were just lazy and didn't want to make everything look nice xD

I will try to remember it, this information should help since I'm studying games design. Once the deadlines are over I will try to tweak this tileset more or make a new one from scratch but better.