AuthorTopic: Pixelator: RESULTS (round 1)  (Read 273043 times)

Offline Helm

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Re: Pixelator: DUEL MATCHUPS

Reply #340 on: February 05, 2007, 02:52:19 pm
I finished my rating and critique, should I just post it here?

Offline Zach

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Re: Pixelator: DUEL MATCHUPS

Reply #341 on: February 05, 2007, 03:00:22 pm
mmm pk, snake, and filax

topppp notch yo
EAT PUNAJI  BECAUSE IT'S GOOD AND TASTY

Offline Filax_666

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Re: Pixelator: DUEL MATCHUPS

Reply #342 on: February 05, 2007, 03:22:56 pm
Amazing stuff, everyone. I was expecting something awesome from Delgneith, I'm so sad he didn't submit anything :'(  I really like Evil-Ville's, GND's, Buloght's and PK Mays ones :y:

Quote from: Helm
I finished my rating and critique, should I just post it here?
Oh, please, do it ;D

EDIT: Yeah, forgot to mention that I was also looking forward to Godslyer's entry...it would surely have been awesome.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2007, 03:25:23 pm by Filax_666 »

Offline pkmays

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Re: Pixelator: DUEL MATCHUPS

Reply #343 on: February 05, 2007, 03:25:37 pm
Oh wow, top tier work everyone. There's no way I'll make it past round 2 if I dick around again.

I'm most impressed with Buloght's entry. Great colors, style, and readability.

And yeah, I was lucky mine came out looking anywhere near decent, and even more lucky I didn't get beasted by Godslayer. If it weren't for Pro Motion's dirty tools, the whole piece would have ended up like the hand and left ear in the current one. I'm gonna finish this, simply so I can look myself in the mirror when I wake up each morning.

Offline GOODNIGHTdestroyer

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Re: Pixelator: DUEL MATCHUPS

Reply #344 on: February 05, 2007, 03:40:21 pm
Wowowoww. All of the entries are amazing. It really does seem like this competition made us all try are very best.

So last night an hour before the deadline I saved my piece as a JPEG, I was so lucky I had saved it earlier under a different name. But I still lost a lot of work I had done on the skull. :(

I love 9_6's entry so much. Probably my favorite.

And Khris, yours is really great. This is going to be a tough duel.
And I am finally seeing that you were the one worth eating.

Offline Helm

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Re: Pixelator: DUEL MATCHUPS

Reply #345 on: February 05, 2007, 03:48:51 pm
Snake vs Opacus:

Snake does a few very difficult things here. First of all, liquid translucency. Then, a full scene, not a sprite. Finally, he adds 'speedlines' that make this amazingly dynamic-looking. To top it all off, the character design, as bizzare as it is, it's also extremely novel. This is an all-around amazing entry, suffering if anything from a palette that could be made to work better in places and a few rough spots in thers of AA.

Opacus suprized me with his entry, as it is quite alright. Hue-shifting in effect, a dynamic post, good aa and light-dependent outlines most of places, sadly an underdeveloped lower body that doesn't seem to be able to withstand its top, and a lack of refinement of the detail work mar this a bit. It's a competent entry, sadly for the purposes of this duel, it cannot compete with snake's wardrobe jelly monster.

Winner: Snake

Delgneith VS 9_6

Delgneiths entry is underwhelming. I find the sparseness of the design taken a bit too far, and the palette is far too monochromatic. It could use some hue-shifting. Sadly this isn't the only invisible monster in this compo, so we can't talk about originality either. I expected more from Delgneith.

9_6's entry is very cute. There's a few issues with lightsource, and the 'to-dark' shadows don't appeal to me. The design is good, however, and so is the pixel arty polish. With a bit more attention paid to AA and coloring this would be one of my favorourite entries thus far.

9_6's psychic slug destroys Delgenith's invisible stalker.

Akzidenz vs SolidIdea

Akzidenz's monster design is lovable. However the pixel technique suffers in places. First of all, AA seems to not be even attempted at most places. The artist should use more shades where he needs them to smooth things out. The background is stylized and interesting, the forms of the beast pleasing, but it needs a lot of pixel-art polish.

Solididea's lawyer shark is a good pun, and the design is pretty okay. I think he needs hands, or at least less malformed fins though. While this wins in terms of pixel art application (though not by lots) the design is a bit underwhelming and seems unfinished in places. Broken outlines don't help!

This is a very close match. I have to hand it over to Akzidenz but a small margin due to more interesting design. If he'd like to survive in further rounds he should hone his pixel artistry foremost.

Lawrence VS Evil-Ville

Lawrence's evil tree has a few things going for it. First of all, amazing pixel artistry, as almost always with Lawrence. Sadly, this piece seems dejavu-ish, and that sorta hurts it in my opinion. I'd love to see Lawrence stepping outside his comfort zone of dark-scenes with secondary lightsource and trees and whatnot. Still, not much fault can be found with his lush lighting and great rendering.

Evil-ville's piece suffers from bad ramping (shade closest to black is too dark) which makes the detail and clarity of the piece suffer, also from anatomy errors. It has nice lightsourceing, although again in the vein that Ville has accustomed us on. There's confusion on what's going on with the face. The design isn't as strong as it'd have to be to win. Cleaner-reading art and more daring choices would probably have to occur.

I have to hand this one over to Lawrence's grinning tree, although not by far. I hope to see more innovation and risk-taking by him in later rounds.

Ryona vs Mirre

Ryona's invisible entry again seems rushed and forced. More effort should be put into it, I feel. Also, I don't want to stress a point, but do we really need the T&A fanservice on this? I mean, okay, it's half-woman, but do we have to see everything? A few points substracted for fan-service trickery.

Mirre's piece is great. It's both cute and well-pixelled. Reminds me of a cthulhoid lesser servitor race or something. Lovable detail. The dithering is a bit too uniform under the neck, but lovely tentacle shading, and the ground is a nice extra touch for not too many extra colors. It seems like it's waving hello, not wanting to have much of a fight. It wants friends to play with, sadly it has a petrifying gaze which makes rock statues out of all potential friends. It's very sad.

Lesser Race of Yith makes yet another statue out of Ryona's half-naked invisible zebra girl, and remains forever lonely :(

Khris vs Goodnightdestroyer

Khris' entry suffers from anatomy (really small legs, chest not wide as needed) harsh lightning without antialias to smooth it out and a underwhelming design, I feel. It has a few interesting color choices going for it, plus some good detailing on the face, but it's not enough. It looks bite-sized against Goodnight's BRAINMAW OF CYBER and as such it is hastily devoured, which is a shame.

Speaking of which. METAL LEGS PROPEL THE POWER OF THE CRACHLING MAW OF DEATH. TO DESTROY! TO DESTROY. This is a hilariously awesome entry, though I feel some more aa and a bit less burny shades towards the red would make this even better. Not much I can say about the design, it's realyl fun and it looks like it wants to eat all other entries alive, which is what should be going on, damn it. Just don't let it meet the lesser race of yith otherwise it'll also become a statue :( Perhaps the inside of the mouth should have a texture and not pure blackness. Nonetheless, this COLLAPSES AND CRUSHES THE OPPOSITION

B.O.B. vs Xion Night

This is very close.

BOB's piece has a nice, novel design going for it. It has good, interesting shading.

Xion's piece has a nice, novel design going for it. It has good, interesting shading.

BOB's piece not so much suffers from anatomy as it avoids it. However not to an unpleasant degree. Xion's piece has issues with anatomy (the legs mostly, the pecks too) so BOB has a slliiiight edge here.

BOB's piece suffers from broken-outlinage to deth. Xion's doesn't. Xion gets a small edge. Again pretty much even so far.

BOB gets a few points for attempting interlace dithering, but just in one place and it's well-known that if you dither in one place in a pic, you better dither in others too to keep the balance. Xion doesn't interlace, but his dithers are very effective, and he does very nice tints on the stone slab with them. Very slight advantage to Xion on this one.

AA is better on Xion, though he still has issues.

I have to hand this to Xion for an extremely small margin. If BOB worked on his more, finalized it more he would have won.

MOD vs Feron

MOD, monkeys are an overdone cliche, nobody laughs at them anymore. Pirate monkeys is going too far. CYBERNETIC PIRATE MONKEYS... give me a break. CYBERNETIC INVISIBLE NINJA PIRATE MONKEYS... you're disqualified due to memetic overload.

Feron's piece reeks of Henk Nieborg. Which is a good thing. I really like this entry though I feel a little more could be done with making the floor mesh better, and the anatomy of the beastie is suffering on the legs a bit. But nice palette, a very foreboding atmosphere too. I salute you for making your piece actually eerie. Your green beast crushes cybernetic monkeys under hooves. Move to next round.

Souly vs ZoSo

This is again a close one for me. Both pieces could have better pixel art technique, though Zoso comes a bit on top in terms of aa and color mixing. The two lightsources, though a bit amateurish, are way more daring than Souly's uniform, almost blanket-shaded lightsource. There's no need to have the palette in the final, piece, ZoSo. I like Souly's design more than ZoSo's, but it's underutilized I feel. ZoSo wins, but if he wants to keep going, he must do better than barely survive a round. He must conquer with satanic might as his name suggests.

Snader vs Mccow28

Snader's piece has painfully straight ramps. It's however well-pixelled. The design is fun. The animation servicable for the subject matter and I love the little old dude. How did you know that I love old dudes? Are you trying to bribe me?! A bit more smooth aa in places could help. It's a very solid entry.

Mccow's entry is hilarious. I just want to print this out and put it on my wall. The pixelling is competent, although extremely two-dimensional, the creature seems paper-thin. The color selection is outdated (purple shadows) but workswell enough for this piece. I love this piece to death but quirky design and good dithering cannot overcome Snader's more fully-realized pic, plus old man.

Snader triumphs. I am sorry Mccow. I love this but... but!

Rerg1 vs Buloght

Rerg, your design is inconsistent, difficult to read and you suffer from anatomy errors. Plus, don't antialias the contours of a sprite with the main colors when it's against white, what the hell? Also, do we need all that dead white space around the image? Being invisible doesn't help. Disappointing.

Buloght's piece is one of the better in this compo. Cool design -though it seems a bit thrown together in places- robust shading, nice background and floor, really likeable. I don't like the black selout on the ear and the almost mono palette, but he very easily conquers Rerg's...thing and seems very prospective towards next rounds. Congrats, Buloght.

Takam vs Scidt

Takam's design is solid, though I dunno if it's his. He's shown sadly, a great propensity towards mindless copying from design and games from companies etc. I hope this isn't from some Zelda game or something again. Good rendering, good colors, very dynamic pose. Also, cute. Seems it could be worked more, but for the purposes of this duel it's enough. Hope next rounds produce more worked stuff.

Scidt's piece has the shiny evil occult going for it, but sadly it suffers in terms of color selection, rendering, anatomy, and pixel techniques. Therefore it's a good idea that needs to be taken back to the drawing board before it can win against practised pixellers like Takam. I really like the gaze the dude has though, generally, I'm sold on the mood, but the technique sells this short.

Takam wins.

Rydin vs Blick

This turned out to be a match made in heaven.

Rydin's character, though a shade is a bit wasted, is hilarious and lovable. It's also different and generally the coloring choice makes it very pleasant to look at.

Blick is a veteran of the boards, and though his piece is a bit minimal, the pixel technique is spot-on. I like the clever play on 'monster', originality counts for a lot.

Between the two, Blick knows pixels best. But he sells his artistry short here due to how minimal the rendering is on his piece. Rydin can learn a lot about technique, but the color selection is daring, and it's just fun to look at. If I could, I'd have to keep you both in the compo (I'd rather new piece from you than all these invisible entries). If we CAN keep you both, that'd be great. Otherwise, Blick wins for VERY LITTLE because overall, the design he attempted is more difficult to pull off successfully.

Kubol vs Sherman Gill

Kubol's piece doesn't have much going for it in terms of pixel technique. The design is cute. Sherman's piece suffers from bad aa, nonsmooh shading and generally underwhelming design. This is a close one, not because of good reasons. From the two, Kubol wins because he's doing more things and doing them a bit better. If he wants to survive next rounds he needs to step it up, though.

Godslayer vs Pkmays

I wished Godslayer would have submitted an entry.

Pkmays' piece is hilarious and all sorts of awesome for 100x100. The pixelling is rough and could have a few hours of cleaning. The colors are strong. This is a very good entry that deserved opposition by something other than the invisible brigade. Next round, pkmays... next round.

Filax666 vs Stwelin

Filax earns the 666 in his name with this one, as it is positively nightmarish and satanic. It is also however, borrowing technique from ahem, other pixel artists, and Filax has a long history of doing that. He should stop it, it's not very flattering for him, as he can do better on his own strengths. The face is very well designed and rendered. I'd be absolutely horrified if I saw this in the middle of the night, hovering slowly towards me, mumbling esoteric prophecies through its glowing mouth. Very good, aesthetic appeals to me. Just stop doing what other people do in terms of pixel art.

Stwelin's piece suffers from bad technique most of all. It's a solid entry in terms of design, though not very threatening a monster. This simply seems like it needed more time to be done, really. The floating skull destroys you, but due to your own lack of polish mostly, Stwelin.


ChrisDaPixelMan's entry is not very good. But it defeats all the invisible entries anyway.

Offline Opacus

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Re: Pixelator: DUEL MATCHUPS

Reply #346 on: February 05, 2007, 03:53:41 pm
Hehe, I didn't excpect to win, but the fact you were surprised by my entry still makes me quite satisfied with the result :)
Congrats to all winners.

Offline Helm

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Re: Pixelator: DUEL MATCHUPS

Reply #347 on: February 05, 2007, 04:07:50 pm
Wait, wait! I need to make it perfectly clear that the people I nominate for winning aren't the final winners! There's more judges that will post their critique soon. I'm just one of them! Don't get ahead of yourselves.

Offline ZoSo

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Re: Pixelator: DUEL MATCHUPS

Reply #348 on: February 05, 2007, 04:10:28 pm
Hehe what do you mean with "conquer with satanic might as his name suggests." :P

Anyway, thanks Helm. I know mine were a bit shitty and could have been allot better. If i win through this round you will for sure see something allot more stunning. I promise you that, this piece was just bad becouse of lack of time.. and i blame myself for starting doing it so late. Anyway thanks again :).

Offline SolidIdea

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Re: Pixelator: DUEL MATCHUPS

Reply #349 on: February 05, 2007, 04:14:36 pm
Solididea's lawyer shark is a good pun, and the design is pretty okay. I think he needs hands, or at least less malformed fins though. While this wins in terms of pixel art application (though not by lots) the design is a bit underwhelming and seems unfinished in places. Broken outlines don't help!

Broken outlines FTL!

But hmm, where and what is this broken outline? (I lack the pixel talk understandment and/or english)

Thanks for the critics Helm.
---
Anyway, good job Akzidenz!