Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: mtmbTomSmith on September 01, 2014, 05:42:26 am
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Firstly let me figure out how to insert sprites, they're in the game as (name)_##.png
I've been doing them all in Aseprite, a program i'm absolutely in love with over things like Gale.
(http://i58.tinypic.com/rrtf13.gif) - a robot bug bouncing towards the player
(http://i59.tinypic.com/zino1h.gif) - a hovering enemy that fires large shots in an arc
(http://i62.tinypic.com/12375ev.gif) - a small, halftile enemy that is too short to shoot, but can be meleed if you're doing things right
(http://i58.tinypic.com/2aj7rf5.gif) - more of a hazard than an enemy
(http://i58.tinypic.com/29bc8bn.gif) - one of the first enemies you run into, it floats at you.
Here's some of the player's animations (some of my gif exports are slow, we set the flip speed in game)
(http://i59.tinypic.com/6s6hq8.gif) - regular movement
(http://i61.tinypic.com/282qs5k.gif) - jumping
(http://i59.tinypic.com/9fqiib.gif) - falling (triggers when you walk off a ledge, or after your jump peaks)
(http://i58.tinypic.com/29opeab.gif) - ground melee (there's a graphic that follows the motion and makes a large swoosh that acts as the damaging object)
(http://i60.tinypic.com/2qlev7c.jpg) - air melee (for jump smacking)
(http://i58.tinypic.com/34hfnva.gif) - slide (holds on final frame, you can slide under standard enemy shots and its good to get out of the way quickly)
(http://i60.tinypic.com/117fxh5.gif) - Boost, for moving quickly through the air horizontally
There's more, but i just wanted some opinions. Tell me what sucks, tell me what doesn't. There's still tons of sprites to do, and everything here is very much WIP.
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It would help if you posted mockups/screenshots to see the graphics used in context and mention if you adhere to any specific sort of palette or not.
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I'll have to use dropbox i guess. tinypic can't handle these gifs.
Also, the game is limited to 'the' nes palette. I realize that there's more than one NES palette, depending on some color emphasis shenanigans. I basically went into nestopia, loaded the palette display rom and screencapped the version i liked best out of what it displayed, and i've used that for everything, sprites, tilesets, etc. It's not the prettiest palette, but it's fun for me.
Tiles are 24x24.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/some%20animations%202.gif)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/some%20animations%203.gif)
they may take a moment to load ^^
Slow day around here, i guess~
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That looks really nice!
Looks a lil bit too much like Megaman.
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It's very hard to offer useful critique on something that seems so blatantly ripped-off -- I mean, it's clear your design is more than inspired from megaman. The reason it's so difficult is that you've done a lot of edits to its graphics, and in some cases (like the floor spikes in the gif) you just about retain the exact look of the original sprites/tiles.
You have done a passable job of overhauling the specific features of the original sprites, but if you don't understand why those features existed in the original sprites in the first place (and judging by your edits, you don't), you're better off making completely new designs with different palettes (i.e. don't use Shadow Man's colors/stage to start with -- count the colors his stage uses, and select your own palette for a new stage, and if you want a similar look, learn how to make that look with the new colors because).
As far as I see it, great pixel art is 75% great selection and use of colors, and, at most, just 25% great pixel placement.
That said, your emphasis on placement (i.e. your lack of confidence in drawing your own pixel stuff completely from scratch, instead using edits of others' work to start) tells me you don't understand how to create forms with color contrast, which is limiting you drastically. Just because NES games use a lot of flat colors and lines, it doesn't mean they simply omit form (which is created from the contrast of light and shadow). You'll see the representation of form more clearly if you truly study the game graphics better -- a lot of the larger sprites in megaman (i.e. the mini-bosses like the penguin in Gemini Man's stage or the Lantern Fish in Bubble Man's stage) clearly show the flat-colored sprites still take into account form and lighting, and a lot of the level tiles show this accounting for form and lighting as well.
Once you understand how form is done in 2-3 colors, you can begin to see how form and lighting are taken into account in the character sprites as well. As mentioned before, the secret to the representation of form is the creative use of the contrast between the colors you have available to you in your palette. Study what I mention here, and you'll be able to create your own stuff easily. Your game wont look like a simple Megaman clone -- if you apply what I'm trying to teach you here, it will look like something uniquely yours.
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It's really hard to critique raw sprite components ripped out of an environment that slaps more effects on top of it like color or that slash animation of which literally half is missing in the gif you posted.
On top of that, huge dumps make critiquing even harder since it's just too much to focus on anything specific. One specific piece to focus on at a time tends to generate better results.
I tried making the walk a bit more fluid and have it convey some weight by alternating the vertical motion with rather limited success.
(http://i59.tinypic.com/6s6hq8.gif) (http://i57.tinypic.com/mwbq1k.gif)
The legs appear to snap into position rather than moving since some inbetween frames just have them stay in place.
If you want a floaty walk that slides over the floor more than actual walking that's fine I guess.
If not, you need to smoothen the inbetween leg positions out a bit more.
It's very hard to offer useful critique on something that seems so blatantly ripped-off -- I mean, it's clear your design is more than inspired from megaman. The reason it's so difficult is that you've done a lot of edits to its graphics, and in some cases (like the floor spikes in the gif) you just about retain the exact look of the original sprites/tiles.
You might want to back that up with side by side comparisons.
Just because something looks similar doesn't mean it's an edit.
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Background looks like Airmans background.
Then we got shadow mans background...a bit of Elecman(?) tileset.
I know those tri-spikes from some megaman level...
There might be a bit of sparkman too....
Its like a enhancment to some megaman stuff.
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Background looks like Airmans background.
Then we got shadow mans background...a bit of Elecman(?) tileset.
I know those tri-spikes from some megaman level...
There might be a bit of sparkman too....
Its like a enhancment to some megaman stuff.
(http://i58.tinypic.com/25pn0pt.gif)
Inspired? Definitely. Edit? Seems unlikely. I couldn't find any larger scale overlaps.
I don't really want to do all the legwork for the rest of those since I didn't bring it up.
That's on you, don't be all "I feel, there might, perhaps" about this and also not everyone has the looks of all megaman stages ingrained into their memory so please provide the examples you're talking about or else we'll assume innocent until proven guilty.
Or at least I think we do. Seems more productive.
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The reason it's so difficult is that you've done a lot of edits to its graphics, and in some cases (like the floor spikes in the gif) you just about retain the exact look of the original sprites/tiles.
Originally the game was going to be a quick, thrown together not-megaman game. The player design, his walk cycle, etc were all supposed to resemble the original. As time went on, we kept throwing more and more into it until we decided that we should move it away from its roots.
I must point out though, that there are no borrowed assets. The tile size in this game is 24x24. Even if i wanted to yank something out and use it as a placeholder, it would be way too small.
but if you don't understand why those features existed in the original sprites in the first place (and judging by your edits, you don't), you're better off making completely new designs with different palettes (i.e. don't use Shadow Man's colors/stage to start with --
What? It's shadowman's stage insomuch as it's orange with lava, and plumbing. I specifically wanted it to feel 'sort of like that'. Is it too much? I mean you've gone right off the bat claiming i basically edited a ripped tileset, i'm not sure if i should be offended or flattered that you thought so :S
That said, your emphasis on placement (i.e. your lack of confidence in drawing your own pixel stuff completely from scratch, instead using edits of others' work to start) tells me you don't understand how to create forms with color contrast, which is limiting you drastically.
? What? You think the enemy sprites i have up there are also edits? Okay :T show me what they're edits of if you're so confident about it. There's a difference between going 'man your stuff looks pretty bland and samey, like old mega man stuff' and going 'wow way to post a bunch of ripped recolors on the forum'.
I came in here expecting to show off my work, and have people tell me that things didn't move very well, or that the enemy designs were boring. I didn't really expect all that garbage.
a lot of the larger sprites in megaman (i.e. the mini-bosses like the penguin in Gemini Man's stage or the Lantern Fish in Bubble Man's stage) clearly show the flat-colored sprites still take into account form and lighting, and a lot of the level tiles show this accounting for form and lighting as well.
The larger sprites are rendered like cell shaded anime characters. Megaman is supposed to look like a cartoon show. The box art has it, the large ingame sprites (megaman gets equipped, etc) as well as the larger bosses all follow that design. I was under the assumption i was doing a similar thing. Black outlines (again, as a cartoon would do), broad fills and simple shading (with a light source in the top left, generally). Also 'flat colored' and 'lighting' don't go hand in hand. If something is truly flat colored, then it has no shading at all, and is evenly lite from all angles. What are you talking about. Please provide some examples.
Your game wont look like a simple Megaman clone -- if you apply what I'm trying to teach you here, it will look like something uniquely yours.
I guess what i can take away from this is that the game as a whole looks too close to its inspiration, and that is setting off some red flags for people.
Here's hoping that manually quoting will work.
and to 9_6
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The legs appear to snap into position rather than moving since some inbetween frames just have them stay in place.
If you want a floaty walk that slides over the floor more than actual walking that's fine I guess.
If not, you need to smoothen the inbetween leg positions out a bit more
The edit does look a bit better. His sprite was pretty much the first thing i did, back when so we could get the test build running with something better than a rectangle. His walk cycle does look like he's skidding his feet across the ground, which would be cool if he had slippery traction. But, he doesn't. I'll definitely give the walk cycle a go over, since you specifically pointed it out.
-- to slimeblaxun
Background looks like Airmans background.
I definitely looked at airman's really cool clouds to see how they were animated. You edge the blue in from the outside, and there are three steps. it looks great. Are you going to claim that a waterfall made by cycling three blues over a tile is also an edit? Pretty much every game ever did it that way.
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In summation, yeah, i was definitely drawing from the classic mega man games as inspiration, but everything here is work i've made from scratch in aseprite (or pyxelEdit for the tilemaps). I didn't realize trying to make it look like it would fit in was going to activate the ICBMs.
ps, the trispikes. They're similar to a spike that faces downward underwater in some level, i don't remember which. They're a brilliant idea, they fill up the hitbox very well, and look like they'd cause damage when approached from any point. You can rotate or flip them and they'll work anywhere. I used the idea, but it's a totally different image.
There's a lot of games with similar ideas. We have logs that you ride down a waterfall, too. Mario 2 did that, one of those bible games did it, and i'm sure someone else did. If people didn't reuse ideas in their games, there wouldn't be any games.
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The palette and your the player character looks really dull and flat..
The character is also really dark and doesn't have much contrast between colors. If I squint my eyes he just disappears into a dark blob.
I had a go at it and went a bit overboard.. The colors are too crazy to fit in with the levels..
(http://share.cherrytree.at/showfile-16623/funkyman.png)
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The palette and your the player character looks really dull and flat..
The character is also really dark and doesn't have much contrast between colors. If I squint my eyes he just disappears into a dark blob.
I had a go at it and went a bit overboard.. The colors are too crazy to fit in with the levels..
(http://share.cherrytree.at/showfile-16623/funkyman.png)
I actually really like that~!
The player sprite is animated in those grays that i initially posted, and we change his color on the fly in game. Originally we planned every level would give you an upgrade you could select from the mission hub to use in the next level, and that loadout would give you a new color scheme, changing your health bar color and weapon energy color as well. That way when people played it would be immediately obvious what upgrade they have (extra hp, one grace fall into a pit, momentary invincibility, etc). Your attempt here got rid of his armor plating and made his body all one color, instead of the two i had going on previously, but sacrificing that let you shade him. I dunno! It's definitely not bad, man.
as for him being really dark, when i started this i was using the 'nes palette' you get when you google the term, which had a really vibrant red. He was that, originally, and was much higher contrast because of it. After doing some digging around i realized the palette i was using was incorrect, and he got a little duller.
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I think the game looks lots of fun!
I wouldnt worry about using a few non-nes accurate colours. People in general wont notice if a red is too red, as long as it fits with the nes's saturated palette.
Its not a problem, but can i ask how come you went for the high tile-size and resolution (compared to a nes)?
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I guess what i can take away from this is that the game as a whole looks too close to its inspiration, and that is setting off some red flags for people.
Hit the nail on the head. I had a bit of a knee-jerk reaction myself when I saw these earlier. That being said, this looks really good. The only thing that bothers me is that the NES-style backgrounds clash a bit with the character's style (looks like he came out of a DOS-era game). You have plenty of room for both outlines and shading detail, I think. The animations are nice though :)
The game from your gifs looks rad, and the slash-jump blobs look like a fun mechanic!
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The player sprite is animated in those grays that i initially posted, and we change his color on the fly in game.
If you change the colors why do they have to be gray? Can't they start at the default colors?
He does look very monotonous, since you're using just dark reds. Which makes for a really dull and dark looking sprite, which is hard to see and especially telling shapes apart.
Or just make different sprite sheets with different palettes, plenty of image editing software allow you to replace all colors in an image at the click of a button.
And performance wise it shouldn't matter much, especially with pixel art.
(http://share.cherrytree.at/showfile-16634/megaguy.png)
I tried getting the sprite to stand out more and look a bit more interesting.
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Or just make different sprite sheets with different palettes, plenty of image editing software allow you to replace all colors in an image at the click of a button.
And performance wise it shouldn't matter much, especially with pixel art.
(http://share.cherrytree.at/showfile-16634/megaguy.png)
I tried getting the sprite to stand out more and look a bit more interesting.
It's funny, the middle one is basically what he looked like before i changed the game's palette across the board to be more accurate. And the one on the right is pretty rad, actually! Got some ironman thing going on with the red+gold, but i like the face. The slices in the metal make it look a bit less ambiguous, and more robotis. And the guy's got a monitor face, so that's not a bad thing.
Its not a problem, but can i ask how come you went for the high tile-size and resolution (compared to a nes)?
Well, it was a combination of things. The game is a bit higher than an nes game, but that's more to fit it into 720p/1080p evenly. With 640x360 internal, 24 pixel tiles gave us 15 vertical tiles, and 26(and 2/3, egh). Considering how much bouncing around there is in this game, having that much playspace seemed like a good match for the tiles. In hindsight, we'd go with something that uh
you know, perfectly divides into it so we don't have 2/3 of a tile on one side when the camera's locked, say, in a boss fight :T but
yeah.
The player sprite is animated in those grays that i initially posted, and we change his color on the fly in game.
If you change the colors why do they have to be gray? Can't they start at the default colors?
Oh, he's those grays only internally. The player never sees him like that. There's actually a number of decent er, outfits, we made with different color combinations, but the default was to be the red. I dunno here's some of them.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/schemes/3wg9jXy.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/schemes/4y5y6Wk.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/schemes/73LLULw.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/schemes/85Hc3sf.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/schemes/cGiXGGS.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/schemes/GS2QcRH.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/schemes/i81Q4j3.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/schemes/ltb8TGp.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/schemes/N0oLEUl.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/schemes/qkN1ZFy.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/schemes/vrE2cOJ.png)
each row represents a fill area (one of the grays in the default sprite). The first number is a swatch's x coordinate on the palette grid, and the second, the y.
Anyway these were going to be assigned to the player when you equip a boss upgrade in the mapscreen. It would stick with you for the duration of the next level, but none of that's implemented yet. At the moment he's just red by default. Screens taken before the clouds were animtiles.
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And the guy's got a monitor face
Maybe there shouldn't be the brightest point of the character on it then or else it's a really shitty monitor that reflects all the light and makes seeing things on it impossible, especially since the helmet seems to reflect absolutely no light.
That highlight should probably go on the head since it's armor and would look harder that way.
The brightest red could also be one note brighter so he pops out more and if the darks on the screen are black, the value range on him is so high, he'll stick out on every background.
(http://i58.tinypic.com/21aaef4.gif)
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And the guy's got a monitor face
Maybe there shouldn't be the brightest point of the character on it then or else it's a really shitty monitor that reflects all the light and makes seeing things on it impossible, especially since the helmet seems to reflect absolutely no light.
That highlight should probably go on the head since it's armor and would look harder that way.
The brightest red could also be one note brighter so he pops out more and if the darks on the screen are black, the value range on him is so high, he'll stick out on every background.
(http://i58.tinypic.com/21aaef4.gif)
I could use the visorhighlight(the spots along its top left edge) on his helmet, and see how that looks.
I also spent about an hour screwing with the run cycle, and here's the new one.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/newrun.gif)
Yeah let me look into the highlight on his armor.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/boost%20and%20doublejump.gif)
oh, and the boost and double jumps you get later in the game. Boost is limited to the bar under your health. you get it back by killing an enemy with melee, or standing on special energizing tiles. Double jump is pretty straightforward.
egh. This will show it off better
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/boost.gif.gif)
and
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7480965/double%20jump.gif.gif)
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One thing that you inherited from Megaman the wrong way is the posture of the character: he should lean forward a little when walking, and even more importantly when jumping forward.
In Megaman the character normally stands upright, or leans back, in preparation for an upwards jump and/or for the iconic slide forward with raised legs which is important enough to deserve some anticipation in other animation states.
In your game jumping up is uncommon and the slide forward is a marginal move at best: the level mockups are mostly based on precise forward jumps, and therefore forward jumps are the animation that must look as best as possible, at the expense of the others if necessary.
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As a non-artist, I just want to chip in and say that I really like these gameplay GIFs. Please keep us updated on the progress of the actual game, this looks very promising.
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Personally, I love what I see so far.
And glad you weathered the rip-claims as professionally as you did. I'd rather see this project grow, not disappear.
I could never do an NES restrictions game. I would want to break the rules all the time.
Yes, it's definitely extremely similar to the original Megaman series, in appearance. But that's one reason I like it - I love the old Megaman's and the character himself (colored a friend's megaman lines a while back) (http://i.imgur.com/bvfp7V9.png).
You wanted to create a Megaman look-alike. So what? Not a crime.
But in order to avoid reactions like you've already gotten, you might just say right up front in your marketing something like "homage to the blue bomber". Ya know . . . something to quell the comments before they even begin.
Visuals aside, you already have movement mechanics that go beyond the old Mega games. I like that.
In platformers, a powerful, capable character is what you want to play as.
You got some great tiles.
Those flora tiles you just posted also distance your game from Megaman - nearly everything in the old Mega's was metallic looking.
Like everything is made from metal. Look at Woodman's tree's even:
(http://disturbed.vgpiano.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/woodman_stage.gif)
I agree with the protagonist issue. He could use some sprucing up.
He kinda looks like a diver, as in a deep-sea diver. Not an LCD mask but a glass visor.
If his face is a screen, why not flash crazy RGB patterns and symbols and different colors and stuff per certain events? Something dynamic like that. It never changes. Only displays rarely-changing eyes therefore doesn't give off a screen impression, to me.
___
I'm reminded of this article:
http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2012/05/24/the-guide-to-implementing-2d-platformers/
Just in case you haven't seen it.
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And the guy's got a monitor face
Maybe there shouldn't be the brightest point of the character on it then or else it's a really shitty monitor that reflects all the light and makes seeing things on it impossible, especially since the helmet seems to reflect absolutely no light.
That highlight should probably go on the head since it's armor and would look harder that way.
The brightest red could also be one note brighter so he pops out more and if the darks on the screen are black, the value range on him is so high, he'll stick out on every background.
(http://i58.tinypic.com/21aaef4.gif)
The dark monitor looks pretty cool actually..
I tried messing around with the idea for a bit.
(http://share.cherrytree.at/showfile-16638/megaguy.gif)
Now it looks more like an actual monitor and it's not sticking out as much, rather it looks inset into the head.
I used colors from a palette I found here: http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Games/Hacking/Wiki/index.php?title=NES_Palette
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@9_6:
You're right, I could have provided edits. I grew up on Megaman, and keep forgetting there are people now who don't even know who Mario is. I simply assumed the look of them at first glance was proof enough to anyone who knew the game. However, that being said, my reply was to the OP, so I didn't think that an edit would be necessary because I was sure he knew what I meant. I wasn't trying to prove a case to anyone because I'm with you on the "innocent until proven guilty" idea -- I wasn't trying to accuse (although it apparently did sound that way at first) I just didn't know another way of saying what I wanted to convey at the time. I certainly wasn't trying to be argumentative. I only wanted to help.
@TomSmith
Apparently it came across as an accusation, so I apologize for being careless with my wording. I shouldn't have said "blatantly ripped-off" because I didn't mean to sound like I was saying that you stole anything from anyone. I stand by the fact that I do feel it was "more than inspired" by megaman, but I couldn't find another way to say it. However inspiration means something a little different to me than it does to you as far as I can tell.
In my opinion, being "inspired" by a design means you *can* use some unique elements of another's design in your own design -- but -- that unique element should be applied to your own design in a way that reinterprets the element rather than just reuses it in a way that simply recycles it.
Upon looking at it further, it appears that you up-scaled some graphics a bit (like the clouds that were mentioned) and tried to tweak them from there. That said, it's really not a big deal how you do it. Once again, your methods are your business -- it's up to you whether or not you want to improve your pixel art skills or not by doing all your assets from scratch. Some of your assets do look somewhat original (like the baddies), but, at first glance, it really does look like Megaman graphics (because of the colors and tiles in the level, and the shape of the main character's body, etc.) so don't be surprised if others point this similarity out (after all, only you know what methods you used -- everyone else can only speculate).
All suspicion of your methods aside, I only intended to say that, if you didn't paint it all from scratch, it's not very good practice if you really plan to move forward as a pixel artist. If nothing else, trust me on this: I wasn't aiming to spew "garbage" at you. I've got better things to do with my time. I only wanted to help.
My other point about your sprites/tiles/etc. looking flat still stands. It's clear you're not using any NES restrictions, so why does it all seem so formless and non-specific? Seiseki's edit brought out more form and made the character look a lot less "Megaman" (despite the similar body style and added colors). I assure you if you study the tiles you were inspired by, you could achieve better form.
A final note on the sprites -- the reason they chose to use 2 colors for a majority of the smaller sprites is likely because they wanted clean-looking clusters of color on the stuff the player would be paying attention to, making it stand out more clearly. Nothing wrong with that. But they had a bit less room to work with and their pixel size was a lot fatter than yours. You can afford to add an extra pixel blob here and there to address form, light, and shadows. And guess what? It might even set your visual style apart from Megaman a little further if you did. Seiseki's edit shows how form is easily possible to represent at your current resolution -- no matter the amount of colors you want to use.
That also said, your game does look very nice and it has quite a lot of potential. As said before, I grew up on Megaman, so I love that you're making a game inspired from it. I'm only trying to help your art reach the potential it has to make both your art and your game able to stand on its own.
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Oh yeah, one basic thing that wasn't mentioned so far, try to avoid singular pixels wherever possible.
If you go out of your way to minimize them, the image will be a lot less noisy and have better readability which is crucial in a fast paced game like this.
At the resolution you're working at, you should be able to describe everything you need without a single 1 pixel cluster.
(http://i57.tinypic.com/206btie.gif)(http://i57.tinypic.com/14p2xy.gif)
The lavafall and bricks are especially bad about this. Way too busy, especially for a background.
(http://i57.tinypic.com/jqkd4l.gif)(http://i57.tinypic.com/35c332u.gif)
Try to avoid line dithering like in the highlights of the head.
High contrast single pixels are especially distracting and you should only use them if you have a very good reason why it has to be this way.
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Oh yeah, one basic thing that wasn't mentioned so far, try to avoid singular pixels wherever possible.
If you go out of your way to minimize them, the image will be a lot less noisy and have better readability which is crucial in a fast paced game like this.
At the resolution you're working at, you should be able to describe everything you need without a single 1 pixel cluster.
(http://i57.tinypic.com/206btie.gif)(http://i57.tinypic.com/14p2xy.gif)
The lavafall and bricks are especially bad about this. Way too busy, especially for a background.
(http://i57.tinypic.com/jqkd4l.gif)(http://i57.tinypic.com/35c332u.gif)
Try to avoid line dithering like in the highlights of the head.
High contrast single pixels are especially distracting and you should only use them if you have a very good reason why it has to be this way.
Done and done, i'll go change things that qualify. I'm a small details, zoom in on it kind of guy generally, so i figured it was the way to go but what you said there makes perfect sense. I'll take care of it.
I tried messing around with the idea for a bit.
Now it looks more like an actual monitor and it's not sticking out as much, rather it looks inset into the head.
The only time i've got something really monitor-looking going on is when you take damage. the screen goes dark, and then washes back in, but it happens real fast amidst some bright damage-flashing, so i imagine no one really notices it. It's not a bad idea to add that to the rest of the animations, to better get it across.
But in order to avoid reactions like you've already gotten, you might just say right up front in your marketing something like "homage to the blue bomber". Ya know . . . something to quell the comments before they even begin.
That should probably preface it before i bring it up anywhere, yeah~
If his face is a screen, why not flash crazy RGB patterns and symbols and different colors and stuff per certain events? Something dynamic like that. It never changes. Only displays rarely-changing eyes therefore doesn't give off a screen impression, to me.
Another really good idea. I'll play that up a bit more, especially if it isn't coming across at the moment.
One thing that you inherited from Megaman the wrong way is the posture of the character:
His stiff, slightly incorrect posture is on purpose. I wanted him movements to be sort of rigid, and his standing posture is a sort of rigid arms down back up pose. I could lean him forward for the walk animation, but his face is so big it'd stick out of his hitbox a bit, and it might look odd bumping into enemies. A lot of games had badposture walkcycles, (castlevania, mario, journey to silius. well really, everyone. They all did) and it was to keep the sprite really close to the hitbox. it's not beautiful, but it keeps the art within the game logic as best as you can. Still, i could offset the art to make the hitbox line up with his face? It's worth considering.
A final note on the sprites -- the reason they chose to use 2 colors for a majority of the smaller sprites is likely because they wanted clean-looking clusters of color on the stuff the player would be paying attention to, making it stand out more clearly. Nothing wrong with that. But they had a bit less room to work with and their pixel size was a lot fatter than yours. You can afford to add an extra pixel blob here and there to address form, light, and shadows. And guess what? It might even set your visual style apart from Megaman a little further if you did. Seiseki's edit shows how form is easily possible to represent at your current resolution -- no matter the amount of colors you want to use.
That also said, your game does look very nice and it has quite a lot of potential. As said before, I grew up on Megaman, so I love that you're making a game inspired from it. I'm only trying to help your art reach the potential it has to make both your art and your game able to stand on its own.
The reason they, and most all other nes games used 3 color sprites was because you could only apply 4 values to a sprite at one time (usually alpha, black, and 2 colors). Mega man himself apparently cheated this by layering another sprite on top of him, his face. I've tried to keep the color count on my enemy sprites low, usually 5, to not look too detailed or too out of place.
I was actually rather impressed with the alternate ideas you guys came up with for the player sprite. I think the biggest issue (barring the design for him itself being a little boring) is that i didn't shade him at all. He's flats, period. That was originally to keep the color count down, and secondly to not have the issue of his apparent light source changing direction whenever he did. HOWEVER, i've shaded some enemies and never once has it stood out to me that their shadow turns with them. Do you think i should shade the guy?
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I personally think you should at least shade him from a front-top source wherever possible (especially where his armor is) to give him some sense of depth. Even if this is where an appendage overlaps another, it would be great because it adds depth.
Here's what I mean:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v84/aceallen/jqkd4l-1.gif)
versus
(http://i57.tinypic.com/jqkd4l.gif)
The above only uses the colors in your current sprite. Figured you might be able to see the depth better in greyscale.
And just FYI -- Megaman's face was created from 8x8 tiles (4 colors, including transparency, per each 8x8 tile), so they didn't cheat much. Kasumi, our resident NES specialist should be able to verify that. As far as I'm aware though, true layering wasn't possible on the NES without some real complex voodoo. Overdraw, flickering and the like when sprites overlapped one another would make it hard to use multiple sprite layers just for his face I would think.
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And just FYI -- Megaman's face was created from 8x8 tiles (4 colors, including transparency, per each 8x8 tile), so they didn't cheat much.
I think he knows that dude!
Its tough trying to make something high-res look like the nes. the extra real estate really makes me want to add more colours and shading, but then you can lose some of the 8bit vibe. its a balancing act!
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@Probo
Yep, lol. He did. I just didn't finish typing out my thought completely. My bad.
Judging by this comment:
Mega man himself apparently cheated this by layering another sprite on top of him, his face.
I didn't think he realized that the NES most likely couldn't layer sprites in a single draw call since he didn't seem to realize that both black could be any other color in the palette and transparency could even be an opaque color.
That being said, maybe I'm wrong (I'm no expert), but I was pretty sure the NES didn't allow you to layer sprites on top of sprites in a single draw call -- after all, I remember all that flickering when enemy sprites overlapped the player sprites. It looked pretty bad, and I doubt Capcom would have left this flickering in there on purpose if it could have been avoided. A separate draw call just for Megaman's face would be even more expensive and exacerbate that flickering problem most likely.
The only way I could see around this (if sprites couldn't be layered) is using carefully drawn and repositioned (upon displaying them) metatiles for the sprites, making sure the face didnt enter a portion of a tile canvas that was using transparency. After all, Megaman's face fit pretty well inside a single 8x8 tile if you were drawing carefully.
With that said, maybe TomSmith is right -- maybe they really *did* layer the face somehow. It wouldn't surprise me. The NES is a surprisingly versatile system.
I do agree though that trying to retain the NES look with hi-res graphics is pretty tough, but shading is still possible while retaining the NES look if you're careful -- and it's actually a lot easier with more space on the canvas since you can give more definition to stuff.
There are some NES games out there that look pretty close to their SNES counterparts, but the limiting factor is usually the number of colors allowed per tile chunk on the character/bg/etc. than a certain number of colors overall. That's really the main difference between my edit of the running guy and the OP's original sprite (style-wise at least) since they use exactly the same number of colors. Mine just looks more SNES-like than NES. However, at the same time, at that higher resolution, you have no excuse to not add better shading or form because it starts to look bad without it if there's shading on anything else.
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if i remember rightly, the flicker was programmed into games to get around the amount-of-sprites-per-scanline limit - without programmed flicker the nes would just stop drawing the amount of sprites over the limit, the flicker alternated this between sprites so that although flickering, the sprites were still there as far as the player is concerned. I dont think theres a problem with overlapping in and of itself
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I didn't think he realized that the NES most likely couldn't layer sprites in a single draw call since he didn't seem to realize that both black could be any other color in the palette and transparency could even be an opaque color.
Transparency for sprites could never be opaque.
This is exactly how it works:
(http://a.imageshack.us/img641/290/megamanlayering.png)
3 colors+transparent in a sprite palette. Because transparent is one of the colors, you can draw sprites on top of each other. Note that 0x00 is both black and transparent in that image. The number in the transparent slot can be any color in the palette, but it will still be "drawn" transparent for sprites. (The transparent color controls the "background" color, so one way to look at it is that background palettes are also only 3 colors + transparent. The background color fills the screen. The background tiles of 3 colors+transparent are drawn on top of it if they're set to be. The sprites of 3 colors+transparent are then drawn on top of that if they're set to be.)
I'm not sure what draw call means. The NES does the same logic for all sprites every frame they're enabled. If there are more than 8 in a scanline, the extras straight up don't get drawn. It depends more on what the programmer wants to do, the hardware is like, "Should I draw sprites this frame? y/n". And that's it. To "not draw" a sprite, you have to actually set its y position below the screen (or make it use an entirely transparent tile, but then it will still count against the 8 sprites per scanline for the sprites you might actually want drawn), but either way it's like... still being drawn.
Flickering is caused by the programmer changing which sprites are the "extras". So if draw call means ensuring all sprites of his head are drawn first so that none are ever considered extras, that's possible. As well, it's possible to make only whole objects not be drawn instead of random parts of them going in an out. Either one doesn't really take more CPU time (some methods might take longer to actually implement, but they'll generally run just as well on the hardware), it just depends on what behavior you want. Some games decide the player character should NEVER disappear (which as you stated means the enemies usually will much more). Even more off topic: Maybe some day I'll make some actual ROMs to throw into the giant guide (http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=10784.msg115062#msg115062), so people can just run the rom in an emulator and press some buttons to how 8x16 sprites work, or how different flickering methods look or whatever else. I guess the text is pretty dense.
Sorry I'm always that guy about this stuff, but with all the posts going back and forth on this... here's what really happens.
Edit: WOAH! I've been using that image for years, and I only just realized it seems broken, hah. 0x20 (which is supposed to be white) is also drawn transparent. I guess I'll fix that. Regardless, Megaman's sprite layering is a single extra sprite for him, so it wouldn't affect sprites per scanline much. (It's probably one sprite precisely because of that.)
Edit 2: Oh... maybe not. It's not white, just a color that's REALLY close to the current forum background.
Edit3: Okay, one more edit. Even though in the above image the parts of the helmet are transparent to make room for the "face", this isn't necessary. Those could be non transparent, and it would still work with one caveat: The face must always be drawn on top or the non transparent parts of the helmet would show through, which is harder to manage when you're constantly changing the draw order to get around 8 sprites per scanline. With the way Megaman did it, draw order doesn't matter. But it's certainly possible to layer even over non transparent stuff, it just requires some extra checks. (which don't affect CPU time much either.)
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a million billion things
That was all pretty fascinating. I knew his face was somehow separate, but i didn't know how it worked.
I spent most of the day shading, undoing, highlighting, undoing, etc. Nothing seemed to look right. At the moment i'm sticking with the new runcycle, and i simplified the reflection on his face. I'd put the highlight on the top right, but all the tiles in the game are lit from the top left :T
i mean the enemies flip around, and their shading goes with them. How odd would it be to have his highlight be on the wrong side whenever he's moving right (which is at least 2/3 of the time.)?
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Hullo! I really like where you're going with this so far, I never grew up with megaman but I've played a few of the older ones for the NES and really just fell in love with the game play and style. I think it's pretty awesome that you're finding a lot of inspiration from a great source as it seems to be giving you a great direction for your game. I (like many others in the thread) wanted to take a shot at your character to add to list of ways that he could be improved.
(http://i.imgur.com/rQyH44B.png)
Now, I realize it's not perfect (and I'm pretty sure I'm breaking a few rules here and there) but I mainly wanted to show you an alternative way to make your pose/design less Megaman-esqe, so I redid the head and inner body design to give it a different feel while still hopefully fitting in with your level designs. I used the colors linked in a previous page which may or may not match up with the ones you're using.
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@Kasumi
Thank you for correcting me on that transparency stuff -- I had heard somewhere that depending on the type of layer it was drawn on (i.e. sprite vs tile/bg) that transparent color could be opaque. However NES stuff used to be pretty ambiguous to find clear/accurate info on how the games worked internally, so thank you for clearing that up!
And thinking back on it hard, I do remember the face flickering separately once or twice in the early Megaman games, but I just thought that was a glitch or something, so that image is right on the money. That said, I had heard the flickering was a way to overcome the sprite limit, but never understood the why. Thanks to you it makes a lot more sense now. :)
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Hello! I also am fairly interested in this game - the gameplay looks Megaman-ish, for sure, but it also looks a lot more fast-paced than Megaman. Nice work on the graphics, too! Everything's very readable.
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Hullo! I really like where you're going with this so far, I never grew up with megaman but I've played a few of the older ones for the NES and really just fell in love with the game play and style. I think it's pretty awesome that you're finding a lot of inspiration from a great source as it seems to be giving you a great direction for your game. I (like many others in the thread) wanted to take a shot at your character to add to list of ways that he could be improved.
(http://i.imgur.com/rQyH44B.png)
Now, I realize it's not perfect (and I'm pretty sure I'm breaking a few rules here and there) but I mainly wanted to show you an alternative way to make your pose/design less Megaman-esqe, so I redid the head and inner body design to give it a different feel while still hopefully fitting in with your level designs. I used the colors linked in a previous page which may or may not match up with the ones you're using.
This looks really great actually. I think the lack of shading matches well with the style and the bright colors makes the sprite stand out!
Also the perspective you get when one eye is a bit thicker!