tocky mockathon: round three

[tocky]

I'm trying to increase my output lately, get a portfolio together.

Anyhow, this is what I'm doing, today:

Crits, comments, on the roof and water especially, would be mighty appreciated.

Thanks. 

[Argyle]

When I look at this the thing that immediately catches my eye is this part of the roof, outlined with reddish-orange:



The way you have that part of it now throws me off as I can't find a way that the roof would work the way it is now with the blocky edge cutting into the slant where it's much different on the slant of the roof closer to us.

[ndchristie]

what purpose do the parts under the awnings serve?  if you can walk under them, you should probably have some sort of shadow to indicate that there is space there.  If you cannot, you should probably put an obstacle there.  either way, the sunny spot is playing with the spacial read.  the piece is nice though and i like the idea

[tocky]

If I read you right, the problem is sometimes you can walk under those awnings, and sometimes you can't, depending on the shape of the building.
Obstacles is a good idea, though. Does this work?

[ndchristie]

not really, although the new tile is fine .  the issue is a spatial one.  what i should have said is that without either the space filled or a shadow put in, the grass is visually above the roof (or at least on the same level) and it needs to sit under it .

[tocky]

Everything I tried using fills/shadows looks wrong, though - and besides that, I really don't want to be adding more greens to my palette, so shadows is kinda messy.

I think it's mostly a colour priority problem, does it work if I shift the roof to something warmer?

[ndchristie]

no, it works if you fill it in or put a working shadow under it...

it's not the kind of issue you can beat with hue changes

[tocky]

You can fix everthing with hue changes.

Wait, no - What I mean to say is that I can't come up with a fill or shadow tile that makes it work. I really don't know how to do the things you're describing.  I haven't been able to make anything that fits.

[tocky]

more stuff:


Edit:

[skamocore]

EDIT:



I really love the style  Your latest edit is a huge improvement on the characters.

I think the thick outline is a bit much, though, and doesn't really suit the style. I suggest remove it or use something more subtle, like what I have in my edit. I also played around with the colours a bit, mainly the grass, which I think should be a bit greener.

[tocky]

heh, I got rid of a lot of the outline, just a short while ago. I like the sickly grass, but I have an odd taste for yellow-greens, maybe I should play with it a bit.

Edit: something like this, maybe?


That's all for tonight, I think.

[tocky]

Okay, what I'm doing today:

I'm trying to do a mockup for a sham-3d first person game, but I haven't really done anything like this before.

I'm using sort of a fisheyed perspective. The player would be able to face and move in the four cardinal directions, and see to three layers of depth.

I need help, I think - I don't really know what I'm doing.

[tocky]

npcs:

[tocky]

[pi]

Very nice, although I would've liked to see more from the first mockup. (the samurai eye or something, if I remember correctly)
Also, I liked the puke/yellow/green grass color.

I've actually visited this thread like 5 times a day since you made it, hoping for updates on the mockup 

[tocky]

Thanks, pi - I'm pretty sure there will be more to that one, just not yet. I'll get sick of what I'm doing and then I'll loop back around. Everything happens, and then it happens again.

edit: more depth testing:

[tocky]

(jpegged by photobucket, I think.)

-going without the fisheyedness
-tried a horizon/vanishing point behind the scene, which breaks if the sprites don't shrink in the distance. I think I have to keep the horizon above the view, if I want the sprites to stay the same size. sort of like the zelda-ff perspective, again.

I'm done being hung up on how to render depth, I'm going back to drawing things.

[JonathanOfDrain]

Leonardo Da Vinci used a technique called Atmospheric Depth. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Pretty much things get grayer and less detailed the further they are.
Landscapes use it a lot, the hills near you are clear, colorful and you can see all the flowers. The far away hill will be slightly less vibrant and the flowers will just be dots instead of a cluster of petals.

[Kazuya Mochu]

atmospheric density or distance cue, or atmospheric depth or smufatto as they called it in italy. but its basically what you said. the biggest contrast areas are the ones that are closer to the viewers.

my bigest issue with the landscape mockup you've made, is the river and cliff sides. since there's no indication of a cut, or terrain changing, I allways looked at it and it seamed like a buch of tiles that weren't done yet. that you had not finished. you should add some sugestion of an edge or just some haniging grass to help cut into the river. otherwise its a really weird to see such perfectly chopped earth.

[tocky]

like this? I'm not totally sure how to go about it. Do you have a game in mind that does it well?

[Kazuya Mochu]

well to do it propperly, you'd have to create a whole set of new tiles to cover that. so lets say, now you use a grass tile to do the fields and the edge of the cliff. you need one to do the fields, and another one to do the edge of the fields
like in advance wars. if I can I'll mockit up for you

[xhunterko]

Darn, Kazayu beat me to it. I'll probably go ahead and do it anyway to see if we coincide. We'll see what I can come up with.



Or not maybe. In the edit I've made, (trying to make it myself understandable) I've broken up the edges of the river like Kazuya said to. I think your moving in the right direction with that ledge piece there. But remember you need to cover all the sides and corners to make it readable. (Yes, I know your going to do that.) Also, that ledge of grass would only work in that situation. It needs to be moved closer to the edge a bit. Also, with the rock edges, they need to be broken up as well. I was going to show something else but I wasn't sure of (if any) your restrictions on the piece.

Oh, your colors confused me a bit. I thought that the foreground was supposed to be lighter then the background right? And, that taller things were more brighter up at the, uh, top. I also think you need to change the water color. I couldn't tell what was water and what was holding places. (Other then what was obvious that is.) Oh yeah, with the cliff edges. Those, sides appear to be jutting out seperatlely away from the cliff edge. Like they're pillars. Try using some of the same brown colors of your house there. I was going to say a few more things, like about the cliff side bottom color and texturing the grass tile some. But I think I'll let others say it.

Also, this looks a bit like the GBA style. You might get some extra help looking at the Fire Emblem and The Sacred Stones tile set.

(Your probably wondering what business I have trying to help You in this area. Well, the thing is, I like doing map pieces. Give me a map editor and I'll make a bunch of maps. I may even try to edit some and make my own tiles as well. So, I know a few things about game maps and wanted to see if I could help you out any.)

(I probably should've waited for Kazuya's edit though. To me, I seem a bit harsh and could probably give myself that advice. Sorry if I offend you though, great, now I feel like a stuck up and idiot.)

[tocky]

Hunter: don't worry about whether you have any business trying to help people - you do.

I'll answer the rest of your post in a while. But yeah, It matters more whether the things you're saying are useful (they are) than whether you're some kind of pixel god (nobody is, really).

[tocky]

current:

I don't want to just push out the river edge and then feather it, for a couple reasons. I want to make it clear that the overhanging edges aren't walkable, and I don't want to make up a separate set of tiles for where the underwater stuff and bridges collide with the grass edges. It's really not a bad idea, but it creates some problems that I don't want to deal with.

The water is gray just so to see if I could do it not blue. There's not much more to it than that, I just wanted to see if I can make it work.

The rock edges are flat just so that they could be reused to work next to other stuff than water... It's more for the sake of using fewer tiles, than anything.

I'm using some (invented) restrictions. It's not really to suit any hardware, it's just restriction for restriction's sake:
-tileset uses less that sixteen colours
-four colours per tile
-three colours plus transparency for sprites

I'm also doing some stuff just to see if I can get away with it, like all the tile flipping and the grey water and giving everything a face. Everything should have a face.

[Kazuya Mochu]

well here's my edit. what I did was add sort of an edge to the grass there. and then if you wanna go further, wich you should, add some new tiles for the corners. based on the old ones allready made.



the idea is that it doesn add that much noise to your tiles, but it ads information like "this is an edge" and thats helpfull for the player cause it has readability.

if you add thoses big bushes on the side, I'm gettin the feeling I can walk there, if I fall or not, the colision will take care of that, but if I think I can go there, or if I see that like a walkable area, thats the graphics talking.

[EvilEye]

I like your stuff tocky, very cool style.

Wish I could find the motivation to churn out art that fast.

The lack of any shadows at all bothers me. Just a simple light shadow would work, like around the building, cliff and under the people.

*EDIT* I liked tockys grass tuffs better, Kazuya Mochu.

[xhunterko]

About the edge tiles walkable issue. I'm not sure what your using to program, but, most languages allow for you to define what is and what isn't with a few lines of code. I think what Kazayu also demonstrates is,you don't need to compromise edges of the river like you think you have to.  If you do it right, you can have an edge like that. Just make the edge of grass, the actual edge. And the water tile the non-walkable part. Take a look at games like Star Tropics, Red Alert 1, and maybe the RPG Maker tile sets.

[tocky]

something new:

[tocky]