Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - wzl
Pages: 1 [2]

11
General Discussion / Dev tools in the current humble bundle
« on: July 15, 2015, 12:12:41 am »
There is Pro Motion 6.5 and several other tools and resource packs available in the humble bundle right now
https://www.humblebundle.com/

Just wanted to mention that :D

12
Pixel Art / Material and Texture References
« on: April 20, 2015, 11:41:22 pm »
I started to do some texture practice and i was wondering if you'd be interested in collaborating to create a repository to look up styles, color, technique etc. for reference.



Feel free to edit/fix existing samples, create new ones to demonstrate your own style or just as exercise .
Don't feel restricted to spheres, although i find it is a nice way to show the surface from any side.

I wanted to create this in the Activity forums, but scrubs aren't allowed to  ::)


More balls for everyone \o/

The first two are attempts at scales, simple and more detailed, and a random goop.
Also experimented with a low saturation palette


13
Pixel Art / Secret of Evermore - Welcome to the Jungle
« on: April 19, 2015, 05:21:35 am »
I am working on some fan art of Secret of Evermore. Specifically portraying the first few minutes of the game.



I have a bit of a struggle with the fuuuuuuuurrr and hair right now though.
At first i thought the dog looks ok, but oh well. in retrospect it doesn't :P
I have no clue how to pixel fur effectively though. I want to have the colors limited to the actual colors used in the sprite, so i only have 3 shades of gray + 2 brown at my disposal.

Another big poop is the haircut of the boy. It's pretty tough to find out what his hair actually does. I like to imagine it as a John Travolta style haircut:





But again, no real idea how to translate it properly.

PS: Yes the canvas is huge, and i'm sort of regretting the decision to work in that resolution, but i'll persevere through it :D
Also it's a refreshing change from working on super tiny sprites



Ok i consider it done :P


14
General Discussion / Dev tools
« on: February 08, 2015, 11:45:13 am »
Oooooooookay so, let's see.

Recently the programmer of Irkalla (dhontecillas) showed off one of their tools, which is still in production: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=35320.msg1105750#msg1105750

It made me think about the general landscape of tools available to pixel artists and game creators. Let me quote my reply on that thread:

Quote
Honestly, the available toolsets to create 2d games at this point is really low. We have general purpose pixel and tilemap tools, but they all do just what you would expect. There are barely any tools that go beyond that (like your sprite library for instance). Compared to the huge scope of 3d dev tools (meshing, scultping, material painters, context sensitive mesh generation etc etc) it is really lacking. Admittedly 2d dev doesn't require any fancy stuff most of the time, but if you want to do something slightly out of the box you're stuck to writing it yourself, distracting you from the actual game dev.

The lack of tools may be a reason for 2d games being stuck with mostly simple mechanics and gameplay. It feels like they barely progressed from the 90ies.

Admittedly there are a few that increase the workflow like pyxel does for tile sheet creation or this which allows for interesting lighting effects.

Personally i'm working on a tilemap editor where you can paint on top of your levels, to easily create new tiles dynamically, so special details don't need to go into the tilesheet but can be drawn at the artists leisure.

And then there's the sprite library by dhontecillas which allows for more control about how animation frames are composed and used in game.

Things that should be simple, like replacing a weapon or clothing on a sprite is an excruciating amount of work and there are other problems with aren't solved as well, resulting in tacked-on solutions or scrapping of interesting features or mechanics entirely.

What's your take on this? What tools do you use or feel missing?
Do you even think 2d games need to advance any further?

15
General Discussion / Pixel art and games
« on: February 07, 2015, 09:11:09 pm »
Disclaimer: i might be generalizing things and making assumptions for lack of knowledge or sake of argument, bear with me.

There's something i'm wondering about. Browsing through these forums, and other pixel art resources i'm finding all these wonderful sprites and environments. Interesting and delicate animations full of details and attention. It makes me wonder, why are so few 2d games nowadays as enthralling? Personally i find, especially with indie games, that art is often times an afterthought, and i find that disappointing.

From what i've seen, a lot of indie developments start by a programmer who at some point tries to hire or involve an artist into the project. That would, as i imagine it, result in the artist not feeling as involved in the project. It isn't his baby and he wouldn't pour as much work and refinement into it as much as he'd on one of his own works or practice pieces.
Do indie devs feel they get away with so-so art because it's indie, and retro? Are we coders expecting too much, too little?

When artists are trying to develop a game, i often hear that it is rare to find programmers skilled or reliable enough to accomplish their idea(l)s.

When i put that against a lot of debates (artists vs programmers, even if they're childish in nature) i wonder why there's such a distance between the two. I feel they should embrace and flourish together, but it seems it is hard to pair the two.

Is there a lack of mutual understanding between the two disciplins? Do you think coders should themselves get more involved with art? Should artists learn to understand programming? (here we go with the assumptions  ::) )

What are your experiences with game development, finding/joining teams, both for fun and professionally? Since i can only talk from a coders point of view, what is your take on this?

16
Pixel Art / Johnny J - Animated
« on: February 02, 2015, 07:18:40 pm »
Hey ho

Here we go with some of Johnny's animations.

Initially i worked only with a silhouette:


But the desire for colors was strong.
I wasn't aware at that point that it double the frame count (for walk loops at least).
With a sprite that low resolution, the amount of details you can add, as well as the amount of shading is quite minimal so i decided to just shade the back-facing limbs minimally.




I keep getting back to slightly modify them from time to time, to move a pixel one more to the left or right.
It is quite challenging to make accurate animations if you can only have that much pixel estate to work with.

One thing i have briefly tried is using different shades to imply movement, but it turned out to be too subtle when compared to the pixel jumping off to the side.

I just did a little rework on the jump animation, and i can't quite get the landing right


Few days ago i created the climbing animation but i'm still not sure how i'll need to offset them in-game since the sprite would need to be anchored at the grab-position. Need to look into that.


Other than that:



 :crazy:

Edit: Wow, the interpolation really looks horrible on these. No way to interpolate with nearest, eh?
I suppose i could upscale them, given the tiny resolution

Since nobody complained  ::)

I've been actually thinking about the technical approach of implementing the animation.
Games that used roto-scoped animations like flashback, blackhawk, prince of persia, and to a lesser degree heart of darkness and another world, just had such an interesting approach to animation and movement.

Instead of the velocity dictating the animation, the animation dictates the velocity and it is bound to that as well.
You can not jump at any time to cancel the movement cycle, you'll have to wait until the foot touches the ground in order to transition into the jump.

Traditionally those were grid bound. I'd intend to loosen that restriction and have the animations frames more free-flowing. if one walk cycle moves me 1 tile or 1 tile and 2 pixels is fairly unimportant i'd assume. Although it would alter jump distances (i.e. 6 pixels away from the edge vs exactly spot on). This could feel pretty arbitrary i suppose.

I realize this has some of pitfalls.
It would require a number of animations twice. When you jump and your left leg's down, raise the right one. Otherwise do it the other way around. and this would apply for stand-to-walk/walk-to-stand/walk-to-run/run-to-walk/run-to-stand and the list goes on.
I wouldn't want to wait for a specific frame (ie. left foot down) in order to transition into a jump. That would in most cases feel arbitrarily delayed, especially if it isn't grid bound.

I guess i should just go ahead and try it out instead of rambling on..

Whatever are your thoughts on this kind of animation/movement handling?

17
Pixel Art / Johnny J
« on: January 28, 2015, 06:59:45 pm »
Hey people, long time!

I've been working on a game for some time now, on and off. I guess it started around 2 and a half years ago just to play around with flash. I've been fiddling with it ever since, never being happy enough with its art style. I've swapped tilesets a lot, always getting more where i wanted to be, but it never quite clicked until just last week. But let's start from the beginning:

At first there was Johnny


i wanted to go for a low res design to begin with so i can animate fast, turns out that was the right choice for me.

Except when it came to tilesets. To make the environment responsive enough for a sprite that size i went for 8x8 tiles. Which makes it really difficult to place a lot of detail, while remaining tile-able and not feel ridiculously gridded.


After that i tried to embrace it and go for a more abstract approach but after not too long i got sick of looking at it


Some time passed and i picked it up again, desperately trying to figure an artstyle for the game.
The first attempt was to give some color to the sprite in hope to gain some inspiration for the environment aswell. It was quite a challenge to choose a palette that doesn't look ridiculously bad, and i think there's still ways to improve it


Interestingly enough, while i introduced colors to the sprite, i removed them from the tileset, resulting in an interesting esthetic, but still not quite what i was looking for


Pause again, for close to a year. Then, few weeks ago, when AGDQ2015 were airing i felt it again. The urge to create. Remembering what state i left it in had me hesitate a bit but i kept thinking about it. Finally, last week i decided to give it another shot. I sat down and took a couple days to work on a new tileset, trying to use photos as reference to get a more... seizable feel. It turned out ok, but it still left me empty. This is not what i wanted.


Then, this weekend it hit me! I was showing a friend Irkalla, which in my eyes has a quite amazing design. Why does it look so much more awesome? It seems like a world that has structure, and and depth, yet it is not bloated with details and colors. It's not flat! That was it. It has an actual floor, layers seem actually distanced. So simple, yet it was so far away from me for such a long time.

As usual, i'm still having trouble getting a decent color palette, but the general style is developing towards where i actually want to have it. I'm very pumped about this

After putting some work in it over the weekend i made some realisations:
1. Making this mockup was tremendously enjoying, putting little things here and there to make every corner look a little different
2. But this will not something feasable for a tile-based game.
3. Or is it?
I loved the hand-drawn(hand-inserted?) details so much so i ended up wanting to draw my levels. Not all of it naturally.
Luckily enough i've also been working on a tile-map editor (which started around the same time as the game), which now has the ability to create tile-sheets dynamically, so i can roughly tile my map using basic shapes, and use a pencil to draw all those little nooks and wedges and boulders wherever i want! :D

This is, so far, my journey with this game. It's been delightful working with different styles throughout it, especially since i discovered one that really hits the spot. Of course this is only a stepping stone as well, and there will be hurdles (like that water over there) which i wont quite find comfortable with, but this is a big step for this project!

Thanks for letting me share this :D


After a couple long days of only coding i eventually got around working on the mockup some more, to get a better feeling for the shapes and shades.


I added more shades and highlights. It helps especially in the water area, to get a better feel of submergedness.
I saturated the palette and brightened it up a bit. But after looking at it when it is not at 800% zoom makes it feel pretty dark still. It's tough to get the atmosphere just right.

The background so far is a mystery to me. Should it be darker? Less saturated? Brighter even? I cant manage to find the color that still makes the fore- and background readable enough while still implying a dark desolate place.

I also added a bit of perspective to the ceiling to give it a more roomy feel. not quite sure about adding details to it yet. maybe its not even necessary, as it might grab too much attention.


I tried to explore more ideas with this style last night.


There is still a bunch of issues i have with it. For one thing i'm not certain about the level of detail on it. That's something which needs to be proven when tested in actual production, but for a mock-up it's fine i reckon.
One thing i liked about this style is that you can get interesting results by using basic strokes and suggest interesting shapes with it. As it turns out, it just isn't that simple.

With the current use of the palette it is hard to differentiate foreground from background, see the little descent above the lava pit.

Liquids are tough! I don't even...

Glows...urrrrgh..

In the lower part of the cave i tried to blend the background with the floor and ceiling, but it turned out more chaotic than it should be. especially the ceiling doesn't read well like that.

Here's the thing with collision in case you're wondering how that would work



Still cant leave that palette alone. Gave it a slightly bluer touch. Removed the arbitrary highlight color and replaced it with the floor color. Feels more settled somehow.



When trying to create a basic tile sheet out of it i got a little confused. drawing by hand makes it so easy to not abide any rules and just go with the flow. I tried to make some sense out of it and came up with a simple basic outline for it



Tilesets consist of the floor, left/right walls, fore(back?) ground with a lighter and a darker greyish shade, and either a blueish shade when ceiling or the dark grey shade when being used as a crevice.

I am still confused as to when and where to use each specific shade. Its easy to overdo it and just go crazy on this thing. otherwise sometimes less is indeed more. I guess balance is the key.

18
Unpaid Work / Collaboration for MultiplayerRPG
« on: July 09, 2013, 09:55:52 am »
Hey folks,

We are Jonathan and Stefan, looking for an artist who's interested to work with us. We've dealt with a number of failed online-collaborations on our own, and just want to make a game, so we're looking for someone honest and dependable.
Jon is the designer behind the game idea. It's been worked on for many month and finally starts to see the light of day. He picked me up on gpwiki.org looking for a programmer. Since then we're working on a sort of demo for it, but there is one thing we desperately need: Art!

Your role would be to lay down an art style for the game, so even if you decide to not stick with us after a while, we'd be building on top of your work.
This project is unpaid for either of us, but has a commercial goal. Since this hasn't been completely worked out yet, just regard it as unpaid collaboration for the time being.

The game is a sort of JRPG with a touch of modern CRPGs and a multiplayer focus. The dungeons and challenges are also designed with cooperation in mind, so it emphasizes on teamplay. The design is influenced by games such as Zelda, Secret of Mana, Terranigma, and similar titles from that era but it also takes hints from GuildWars and World of WarCraft (This Is Not An MMO!)
The world is a medieval/fantasy-world sporting anomalies like antropomorphism, magical doodads, chimeras, demons, all sorts of nice and nasty creatures.
We're currently working out the story, so if you have a hand for that, that would help too.



A core feature in the game is the darkness-mechanic which will be implemented by using dynamic lights. This also means for you to be able to adjust to some technical guidelines regarding this.



The art in these screenshots are placeholders and in no way associated with the final looks of the game. The design we have in mind shouldn't be too chibi/cutsy style. We will have a certain amount of depth and maturity in the game, so we'd like the artstyle to illustrate that, otherwise you have a good amount of freedom on the direction you want to go (except we will be prodding you with sticks if we think something wouldn't work). Dimensions we work in are 32x32 for human-size characters and 16x16 as basic tile size.

The engine is being built off a framework i've been working on for several month. Over the past few weeks i've been working on implementing 2D game capabilities like mass sprite rendering and tile-map setups, also basic gameplay components, as well as the dynamic lighting. So the grunt work is mainly done and things will be progressing pretty fast from this point on.

In short, we're not just looking for straight execution, but collaboration and conversation. You will be a part of the team and you will have a say in the decisions made.

If you'd be interested to get to know us and the project a little more, or if you're sold already you can hit me up on skype (teh_weezl) or i'll also be hanging out in the #pixelation irc.

Thanks for your time :D

19
General Discussion / Request for old unused tilesets
« on: December 04, 2012, 10:37:44 pm »
Hello chaps,

I'm currently working on a tilemap editor. It is still in early development stage but it includes the basic feature set it needs to create a level. What i am lacking right now is a tileset for testing and demonstrational purposes. Either sidescrolling or top down view is fine, both would be awesome. It can be some older stuff you've just flying around and arent using, I just want to build a few sample maps with it, and possibly provide it with the tool if you're fine by that so people can start testing it immediately. However, I cannot offer much in return except for mentions of you/your twitter/portfolio or whatever else you'd prefer.

As for the editor I am still working on advancing the featureset to go beyond basic tile editing, mainly trigger zones and entity locations, and i am constantly trying to improve the usability and workflow and reworking the interface every now and then, as right now it looks rather... well, judge for yourself ;)



More details can be seen on the homepage, or if you want to try the current release you can download it.

Thanks for reading
wzl

20
Pixel Art / Astronaught - A pixel adventure
« on: March 11, 2012, 01:53:50 pm »
Hello,

I found this forums on a random google stroll and found it quite nice :)

I started with pixel art with around 4 weeks ago. I know my way around with illustration, but i wouldn't say i'm a good artist. But i know some of the basics at least.
Since i'm unexperienced with pixeling i was looking for ways to improve my tiles and animations. I read a few tutorials about different forms of dithering, coloring and shaping, and they all really helped. What i feel would further improve my skill would be some actual feedback and criticism to get a broader perspective on how to solve little problems.

I'm currently working on a horror themed adventure game





There's also a bit of ingame footage found in this video, which is a bit of a shameless plug :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlfBwfTbrA0

I was drafting around with some concept art yesterday. I don't like the pose too much, the arms look twisted and the spine too stiff. However, i think the proportions are quite good. Something i usually have problems with  ::)




So long
wzl

Pages: 1 [2]