Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: EyeCraft on March 04, 2009, 01:10:07 pm
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Well, I've been watching some of the pixel videos on here, and reading some of the threads about Pro Motion, and decided to download the trial and give it a bash. Very glad that I did; it's excellent! I felt like doing a quick mockup, and I've had this idea in my head for a very long time to do a re-envision of one of my friends' games: The Cheese Factory Incident (http://www.klikforever.org/archive/downloads.php?dl=view&id=10)! So it felt like as good a time as any to have a go at it, here's what I've got:
(http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z212/gastrop0d/tcfi_11.png)
Still very WIP-ish, but I'm getting alot of fun out of it. Also seems like a great opportunity to try to mimic Helm, st0ven & Nieborg all at once! :o
Btw it's supposed to be a cave made of cheese? ;D
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Yay, another convert! ;D
Anyway, looking good so far, I hope you are using the Tile Map feature in PM6 :)
Does not look too cheesy tho, some holes do not cheese make.
Did you just upload an edited file or am I going bonkers?
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Yeah I'm using the tilemap feature, though I keep turning off the Sync Mode and forget to turn it back on :yell: Regardless, I'm pretty sure I'll be buying this app.
I did change the version of the image and some kind of OCD inside me didn't want to clutter the post or something :crazy: Sorry, here's the old version: http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z212/gastrop0d/tcfi_08.png
I basically thought some holes, cracks and crumbliness would give it enough of a cheese vibe, but now I think I might have to think more carefully about it. Isn't cheese really slightly translucent? Hmm..
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I guess it depends on what kind of cheese it is. Swiss cheese is quite smooth and rubbery, it doesn't really crumble at all. Judging by the holes I'm guess you were going for that? The crumbly cheeses have more mold in them, I believe. Cheese does become hard and translucent when it starts to dry out on the edges, so naturally worn areas could look like that... and then you could also have "man-made" carvings where you can see the serrated edge that cut it.
Are you going to just have cheese instead of dirt? Or would you consider stacking levels out of separate pieces of cheese?
EDIT: Swiss is actually very translucent. I did a quick google search and one of the first images I found has a beautiful example of lighting. Mmmmm...
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/Swiss_cheese_cubes.jpg/600px-Swiss_cheese_cubes.jpg)
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I like it so far :y:
I think you need to go easier on the floor tiles, its getting too dark at the bottom and it will sink into the background.
What's the big advantage of promotion vs something like photoshop?
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It has a Tilemap mode where same tiles get autoupdated. So if you work on tile 1 on one side of the map all other tile 1s get updated accordingly and so on.
Also Promotion is made specifically for pixelart and working with indexed images (unlike photoshop)
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@Ben2theEdge: thanks for the investigation! I'm actually not very much of a cheese eater at all, so these things are like some distant ritual to me. Looking at it now, the image in my head never really leant itself to the reality of cheese. I'm happy to shrug the concept off now as just `porous rocks' or something along those lines.
@EvilEye: the idea I had was actually to use darkness and lightness to define the sort of `game play tunnel' of the level. But when I pondered it more, the idea in my mind actually contrasts dark non-walkable foreground against a brighter background. Basically the orange parts of the platform you can walk on, and all the dark purply stuff you can jump through, so you can jump from a lower orange part up through purple onto a higher orange part above you, for example. So I kind of wanted the platforms to recede into the background, in that sense.
Also, the things I love about PM6 are:
- the tile map mode, as ptoing mentioned
- the fast sort operations you can perform on the palette, for instance I can sort by brightness, and then use the [ and ] bracket keys to jump up and down in brightness of my currently selected colour
- fast manipulation of the brush with shortcut keys, for instance I can select a circular brush and press Shift+H to double its size and H to halve its size
- the way you can set up ghost images of frames around the current frame you're editing in animation to see how the flow of the sprite is going through the animation
- the incredible variety of brush modes available, I'm especially interested in experimenting with Multishade, which lets you define ramps in the palette and then dodge/burn stuff where the colours go up or down in brightness exactly according to the ramps you've specified. Genius!
Check out the video tutorials they have, they basically go through a bunch of the features it has:
http://www.cosmigo.com/promotion/index.php?Documentation/Video+Tutorials
I'm a complete novice with the program and probably can't even begin to praise it fully. But I can see myself becoming much faster with this program than with, say, GraphicsGale (which is what I've been using for ages). I personally can't use photoshop for pixelling, it feels all clunky and cumbersome and I just end up getting frustrated with it.
Anyway, update:
(http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z212/gastrop0d/tcfi_12.png)
Basically just a quick sketch of the backdrop. I haven't really done very many backdrops before, and when I have I've generally found myself struggling a fair bit, so I think I'll try to keep this one pretty simple on detail. Concept is essentially `giant wondrous cavern'. Here's the backdrop isolated (1st), and a version I was thinking about where there are more columns in the distant plane (2nd):
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z212/gastrop0d/tcfi_backdrop_02.png
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z212/gastrop0d/tcfi_backdrop_01.png
I'm thinking I prefer the second, but the first one has more of a subtle luminance to it. I don't know...
Thanks for the comments!
EDIT: Orrr something like this:
(http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z212/gastrop0d/tcfi_backdrop_02-1.png)
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Either raise or lower the value of the whole BG to separate it from the foreground. Just a little bit will do. Currently it's pretty much equal all around. Look at the picture in grayscale and you'll see what i mean. If you're gonna use photoshop, DON'T use image -> grayscale, cause that conversion looks very off to me. I recall it's done right in ProMotion.
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I think greyscaling my work has to become a more common practice :)
I've attempted to raise the overall value of the background by removing the darkest pillar and adding more negative space, which focuses the piece more on the background (which is lighter):
(http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z212/gastrop0d/tcfi_backdrop_04.png)
I think it's definitely helped:
(http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z212/gastrop0d/tcfi_14.png)
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Evil, you just convinced me to try PM6. I use PS and yes it does feel cumbersome. I try and fake the tools PM has with PS by using complicated adjustments layers/smart objects/effects but it's not efficient enough.
Your subterranean mockup uses really nice colors/lighting. One unusual thing I like about it is the subtle slant to the terrain/bg, it creates a dynamic sorta compelling sense of motion, I can't quite describe the effect.
Not sure what the story behind this one is; don't know why you're modeling the cave out of cheese. It simply doesn't look like cheese to me. The only elements that might be perceived as cheese are the circular indentions, but my eye tells me they're just features of the wierd underground rock. You need some obvious cheese clues, like a stack of triangular slices comprising a column or something. I can't really think of any decent visual clues to let the viewer know it's cheese, other than a lot of yellow color everywhere, but I see you're after a darker mood, which I agree with. How about some cheese grater (http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/937/50598434.JPG) or slicer (http://images1.hdpi.com/product_enlarged/Rosle_CheeseSlicer_12738.jpg) statues in the bg.
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Your subterranean mockup uses really nice colors/lighting. One unusual thing I like about it is the subtle slant to the terrain/bg, it creates a dynamic sorta compelling sense of motion, I can't quite describe the effect.
Thanks. That's exactly what I was going for, actually!
Small update:
(http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z212/gastrop0d/rand_mock_2_0.png)
I decided this tileset could potentially be used in one of my projects; a platformer I started fiddling around with a long time ago (that's what sprite is from).
I swear I'll start cleaning it up soon! ;)
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That was intentional eh, well now that's design then! Do you think that walking left and walking right would feel differently?
So, are you re-purposing this tileset to no longer be made of cheese? Mushroom doodads are a nice touch.
The ganja-smoking zombie demolishes that over-sized pumpkin, although it's contrast against environment is a bit much (I know you just threw it in there from another project, but I have to crit what I see). On that subject, I'd like for the walkable ground to stand out more from the rest of the terrain. Kinda like Big Brother did with his set he's been working on here - it's clearly evident what's walkable. It's just that the "cross-section" art fades too well into it. I think this issue is partially subjective. But, as is, it's not like I'm struggling to know I'd be able to walk or anything.
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yeah i agree uber cool zombie, but may be a tad too lit for being in a cave n all. A really quick tone down and palette tinker.
(http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/3307/tonedwn.gif)
Think this is looking great, heading for a real nice mockup here.
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i admit that your mockup came out so well and i was kinda afraid that i couldn't hire you for the level design ^^;
excepted for that, the green guy remind me one of character from the good old game called "oddworld : the odyssey of abe" ^^
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@Terley: thanks a lot! That's pretty much exactly what the sprite needs, I agree. I played a little bit with the palette in this update. I'm using a global 256 colour palette, so I really need to sit down and tweak to get it looking right. I think I've moved it in the right direction, though.
That was intentional eh, well now that's design then! Do you think that walking left and walking right would feel differently?
Yeah I'd say so. With any luck it will make the player feel uncomfortable moving to the left. I like doing that. :)
So, are you re-purposing this tileset to no longer be made of cheese? Mushroom doodads are a nice touch.
As mentioned earlier, I'm basically going with `porous rocks' now, instead of cheese cave.
The ganja-smoking zombie demolishes that over-sized pumpkin, although it's contrast against environment is a bit much (I know you just threw it in there from another project, but I have to crit what I see).
He is forever held dear to me under that title, now :lol:. No, that's a fair observation. To be honest, I was pretty tired when I was putting that update together, and thought to myself it was a bit over the top, but I decided to see what others thought.
On that subject, I'd like for the walkable ground to stand out more from the rest of the terrain. Kinda like Big Brother did with his set he's been working on here - it's clearly evident what's walkable. It's just that the "cross-section" art fades too well into it. I think this issue is partially subjective. But, as is, it's not like I'm struggling to know I'd be able to walk or anything.
Yes, I think that will be something I'll look at as I refine the tiles into actual...tiles. At this part of the game the player actually gains the ability to walk on the ceiling, so I'll really have to come at the ceiling with a different approach, probably utilising the green ambient lighting to push that surface.
i admit that your mockup came out so well and i was kinda afraid that i couldn't hire you for the level design ^^;
excepted for that, the green guy remind me one of character from the good old game called "oddworld : the odyssey of abe" ^^
Thanks :). Yeah I basically couldn't stop thinking about Abe as I fitfully tried to make an interesting character. My friend calls this game `Abe's Odyssey: The College Years' (further drug references :lol:).
Trust me, I'm too spasmodic to work for anyone! :crazy:
Another small update, starting a little of the clean up, toned down the darkness of the foreground, tweaked character brightness:
(http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z212/gastrop0d/rand_mock_2_1.png)
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great stuff!!
i'd suggest removing the mirrored tiles around the pool of water.
other than that, polish this shit up!!
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i admit that your mockup came out so well and i was kinda afraid that i couldn't hire you for the level design ^^;
excepted for that, the green guy remind me one of character from the good old game called "oddworld : the odyssey of abe" ^^
Thanks :). Yeah I basically couldn't stop thinking about Abe as I fitfully tried to make an interesting character. My friend calls this game `Abe's Odyssey: The College Years' (further drug references :lol:).
Trust me, I'm too spasmodic to work for anyone! :crazy:
Another small update, starting a little of the clean up, toned down the darkness of the foreground, tweaked character brightness:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z212/gastrop0d/rand_mock_2_1.png
*poulp face* i'm not sure to understand what you mean ? forgive me because i'm from france ^^;
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This is looking great EyeCraft, I love the tiles and the character. Will you be turning this into something playable? From what I remember of TE2 you've definitely got what it takes. ;)
I second Feron about the mirrored tiles, also since this is a direct side view I would maybe consider having a single pixel top surface to the water, doesn't have to be too bright. I'm really looking forward to seeing this progress.