Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: doofer on April 02, 2008, 06:32:07 pm
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Hey everyone! I'm new here. :)
I'm a programmer trying to make some sort of art for my various game tests.
Here's a tank I've been working on today (and a stripped down one I made by just deleting parts of the first one) for a top-down game. It is symmetric as it will be rotated, so the light source is assumed to be straight from the sky. The design was slightly inspired by some pictures that an old sent me of his games (so the design is not 100% original, though it is pixelled from scratch). I also included versions with shadows to give you an idea of how it might look in game.
(http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/858/redtankik9.png)
I'd like some C+C on how to make it better. I'd like to make it cleaner and more clear looking. The parts I'm mainly worrying about are the two round plates on the turret and the rounded side plates on the base, but feel free to comment any other parts too. What about my colour selection? I didn't think much when I picked them, but I guess there's some theory behind that too.
Cheers!
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Welcome to the forum
I'd say this is is good deal better than the average programmer posting here, tho it might not be the most original of tanks, I like em.
C&C
As for the colors. You've sidestepped the basic beginner mistake of over-saturating, and I'd say you could easily continue using those and do some decent sprites. If you're up for it, you might wanna try some hue-shifting tho. In any case, you've used too many, contributing with a "fluffy" kinda look (and not the intended smoothness). This should be your main concern if you want it to look more "clean". Speaking of clean, you might wanna study this thread
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=4211.0 (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=4211.0), i think it could be useful.
Edit: oh yea, forgot. I think they would benefit a lot from bigger contrast + way brighter highlights
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Thanks for the feedback, it's greatly appreciated!
Here's an updated version with reduced colors - it did help a lot in my opinion. I'm still not quite satisfied with the colour selection yet though. I've been experimenting with the contrast and different hues as well as saturations, but I feel like I've stared myself blind at this and don't really know where to go from this point. I think this looks a little too saturated, but changing it makes the highlights less apparent.
(http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1892/bluetankcn1.png)
What does everyone think?
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For programmer art this exceptionally good.
I think you need to think more about how your shades are effecting the shape though. For example the piece of armor that covers the tank treads looks curved, like it should actually be going through the treads. It's okay to make flat things look flat by keeping the shading mostly on the edges.
The design of an object requires creativity but rendering is very very technical - in fact at my job I have been corrected by programmers about my lighting :P Study from life and keep at it!
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Conversely, it looks like the rounded plates on the turret have gotten very flat. I think another buffer shade might be in order. If the extra color bothers you, you could merge the brightest blue and the brightest gray (I would do this regardless).
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You're banding (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=5556.msg66232#msg66232) the rounded wheel-tread covers! :'(
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Thanks everyone for the feedback! I very much appreciate it - and it feels like I'm learning a lot from it.
I've tried to adress everything you said. I ended up adding two shades for the turret's rounding to look good to me.
(http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/1636/bluetanksa1.png)
What do you think?
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I like it, but one thing that I'm unsure about is the rounding of the front of the cannon. I know that the tank is going for a more rounded look, but it just doesn't make sense to me. With a tip like that, the muzzle would be saddle-shaped. Squaring it off would fix that.
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It's looking pretty nice, but I think it would look better if the colour usage on the top parts were more distinct from the bottom - currently I'm finding parts of the barrel aren't immediately readable against the base of the tank (the blue, ridged part of the turret in particular - it kind of blends into the grey lines on the base.)
Of course, the shadow and independent movement of the turret will help a lot with this, but it might be worth try to separate the two pieces by using slightly darker colours on the base and brighter colours on the turret. The older, red version was actually slightly more readable to me because the only place the brightest reds were used was on the round part of the turret.
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Thanks again! I refined it a little bit more (but I'm not sure how much it shows). I think I'm going to leave the tank for a little bit - I'm pretty satisfied with it.
I made a soldier that I'd like some C+C on. I found it difficult to get the shoulders and arms looking right, but am unsure of what I would need to do to make it look better.
(http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/2420/bluetankvo2.png)
Opinions welcome! :)
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I don't know about the rest of you but I just think having a straight-on top view lightsource on this tank isn't doing this any favours, I personally would go off from the side or something and plonk in some shadows and lighter spots judging on what you think would be hit more by the light. My very quick/rough suggestion.
(http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/8729/tankwe5.png)
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Wow Terley, that really made a world of difference! I tried your sprite in my game just to see if it would work rotated to, and it did! It really gives it a better depth feeling. You don't really notice that the tanks have different light-sources in-game anyway.
So I'm going to have a go at this too - but I'll leave the turret shadow casting to the engine, as they will be rotated separately.
In the meantime, what are your impressions of my soldier graphic?
A side question - what do you guys use for animating? I'm using Photoshop for pixelling, which I feel quite at home with, and guess I could use Imageready, which I also have, but I'd really like to have something simpler with more features to make animating easier.
Edit: Here's my new version with a moved light-source. The lower images have added drop shadows with semi-transparency (which will be similar to how they're finally rendered in-game), so they are not true to the palette.
(http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/2687/bluetankfu1.png)
C+C on both the tank and the soldier appreciated!
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Pretty neat. Maybe this is a personal preference of mine, but I don't like the metallic look which comes from going all the way to the highlight color (white-ish), esp. on the turret. This makes the color of the tank hard to get a grasp of (and it makes it look like metal/chrome). If it's blue, you should stay with blue for a while and use highlight sparingly. Another problem with a metallic look is that it makes details noisy. The stuff on the barrel kinda gets lost against the hull now.
There's some orange tanks a bit down here. Pretty flat, with slight highlights going around edges, which mostly try to be angular.
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=4211.0
Also, going from black to blue to white produces a rather boring gradient. Hues are nice to throw in.
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=1025.0
Just something to ponder about, not trying to conform you here.