Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: ptoing on December 20, 2006, 11:49:15 pm
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First image I made in the so called Advanced FLI mode (pretty shite name for what it is, but I guess here noone cares)
The limits are 2 colours per 8x1 pixels but the first 3 columns (speak the 24 pixels on the left) are affected by the FLI-bug which renders them light grey.
Then again, that also does not matter here since I only used the center of the given space :B
(http://www.ptoing.net/skelefunk.png)
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looks great!
Is it a WIP?
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This is really kickass, no crits whatsoever. reminds me of Grim Fandango
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Is it a WIP?
No, does it look like one to you?
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for people not keen to c64, its hard to judge. wip vs final, style vs limitations, who knows. I have a hard time critiquing it myself as I have never tried it. I really should some time
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Is there a reason only the eyelid farther from the light source is highlighted?
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Yeah.. I think that the reason it still looks WIP-y is because the screen dimensions lead to a lot of empty space. I understand that the restrictions are why that space needs to be there, but without knowing that, it just looks like a bad crop. Maybe you could toss another focal point in the background somewhere, or do something with the white space to give it some more shape. A simple pattern, or even a horizon line.
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Thanks everyone for the replies.
Technically I could use the full space of 272x197 (apart from the 3 columns getting bombed on the left, a bit at the bottom gets bugged as well),
but this was a) just a quick testpiece (took about one and a half hour) and I like negative space.
I liked the horizon suggestion so I put one in and it helps quite a bit, cheers for that.
I also added a bit of a border around the 320x200 area as the C64 has a quite massive border going on in which you can only draw with sprites (due to a bug in the graphics chip) and you can change it's colour. So I took in mind that this border will be grey as well in the finished thing, watched on a c64 or emulator, which results in more breathing space at the top and bottom.
I replaced the old version so you might have to reload to see the new one.
Oh, and both eyes have a highlight, look close.
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It looked like one because the sides were empty.
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The horizon line definetely helps this alot. I love the simplicity, and commend your use of whitespace. The random dottyness of the shadowline bugs me slightly however, seeing as everything else is pretty solid looking.
Tis cute, in an odd way..
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awesome, never used this method of pixeling but i'd betch'a if I tried it wouldn't be as good as this.
the face is hypnotic and scary but its got a cute little body haha. :crazy:
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The random dottyness of the shadowline bugs me slightly however, seeing as everything else is pretty solid looking.
The dottyness is for a very specific reason.
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FLI mode bug?
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No, it's not to do with a bug. It was a decision I made.
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ah.
when i first read the description and i thought it said 8x8 instead of 8x1, and was thinking" how could ptoing have made so many mistakes!"anyways, i love it. id love to see something organic made with the restrictions.
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ptg6?
http://www.babbage.demon.co.uk/morseabc.html
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ptg6?
http://www.babbage.demon.co.uk/morseabc.html
HAX!
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ptg6?
Either an extremely clever way of signing (ptoing '06)...or a convenient coincidence :P....I'll give you credit for the former.
I think this is a nice piece. Extremely smooth and angular :y:. One small thing bothers me, and it's the bags (bone?) under the eyes; they're inconsistent. I'd personally switch them around, based on the where the light source is, or make both of them the same....although, I'm sure, due to constraints, I may be proposing the impossible.
Still...very cool...reminds me of the face from the Iron Maiden album covers (I think he was called Eddy, but I really donno).
Keep on pixeling!
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Sharp eye, checkworth.
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I think it's rocking
In the day, C64 artists would have your balls for all that wasted space. I have an idea to further the "romantic" aspect but you may not like it:
1. add logo to the screen either sides, describe the game some what, including info for controls or highscore.
2. move on to make an in-game mock-up using strict C64 limitations.
If you went on to make these additions, and I feel the character could work well as a sprite in a game of his own, it would feel complete! I understand that C64 art has a place of its own, but this more suited to a game mock-up than pictures of half naked girls, which C64 art "for arts sake" so well reproduces.
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Well, as an oldtime C64 coder my main crit would be that you really are not pushing the AFLI mode much. That is, the fact that you can have 2 new colors per 8x1 block is not utilized very much, atleast from a quick glance.
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Checkworth: You win!
Rydin: I kinda see what you mean, but I wont change it now, it's on CSDB already and staying to be unaltered.
hawken: As far as visual understanding and communication goes the C64 artists of old can be ignored mostly, as they had none, which is due to the fact that most of them were young and not trained artists. Negative space can be nice and I in no way feel that cluttering it up with stuff you said would help it.
Sdw: I am a strong enemy of doing stuff JUST because you can. I could have used the 2 colours per 8x1 more, but it was my first try at AFLI and I focused more on the more than 2 colours per 8x8 aspect. The "JUST because you can" lead to horrible stuff like rainbow-fairy-dust FLI pictures like I like to call them, every colour needs to be there, at best in every character, JUST because you can, tons of different fonts, all blinking in different colours and stuff, JUST because you can (and it looks shit). I know why people did it (and some still do), because it was novel and new at the time. But I grew up outside the world of the C64 demoscene when it comes to art, so I do not feel the need to do the same things they did. You will for sure see more AFLI stuff from me that is cleverer in the future, this one is but a mere test.
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ptoing: One of the reasons for the "Rainbow-fairy-dust FLI" of the old days was to make sure the viewer was aware that infact was FLI he was looking at. Back when C64 demos was mainly about hardcore coding, it was very important to establish this.
Say for example a routine that has sprites in the sideborder with an FLI picture. For the viewer to accuratly be able to judge the technical quality of the part, it is important that he can see without a doubt that it IS a FLI he is seeing, not oridnary multicolor, since the routine then would have been much simpler to code.
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Sdw, I realise this, but it is possible to make a FLI picture that looks like a FLI picture without going all rainbow on it. To me that just looks ugly aesthetically
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Sdw, I realise this, but it is possible to make a FLI picture that looks like a FLI picture without going all rainbow on it. To me that just looks ugly aesthetically
It sure is, it never ceases to amaze me what the graphics artists can squeeze out of a 16-color computer from 1982! :)
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Aaahh, that is some fancy signature ptoing. Kudos. Defintely doesn't bug me now. :P
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Astounding! This one has some better colors chosen, great job.
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hawken: As far as visual understanding and communication goes the C64 artists of old can be ignored mostly, as they had none, which is due to the fact that most of them were young and not trained artists. Negative space can be nice and I in no way feel that cluttering it up with stuff you said would help it.
just needs a bit of jazz! razamataz! As stated here by other posters, it's not really in the spirit of AFLI. I guess half naked women were the only thing that would make one go "WOW WTF HOW!!" at the time. As grotesque as that might seem, it really did show off at artists "skill" ;)
The thing is, a lot of those demo scene guys are trained artists, they were just going mental with computers because they could!! Kinda like HTML and webdesigners 10 years ago
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The great majority of demosceners back then were in their teens. No trained artists at all, I spoke with quite a few of them at the last big C64 demoparty I went to :P
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so that's another good example of how zeal and patience can make you a good artist.
Well, for me as for someone who was born in the second half of the 80s, C64 scene is a kind of black magic. I like the art itself, but I can only try to get the right feeling of it. Anyway, it's nice to see someone interested in it and still doing something interesting, aesthetically appealing.
The guy reminds me, like said before, of (Manny from) Grim Fandango. Great design, palette and a proper example of an AFLI piece!
PS: Thanks for the tip on those Crest prods! It was a good time spent on digging through their resources.