Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: dustinaux on March 03, 2014, 07:29:14 am
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(http://i.imgur.com/MmedTCF.gif)
What do you think? This took way longer than expected, but I'm pretty happy with it. Some of the animation could probably be smoother in places, but I need to move on to other things. Just wanted to get this out there and get some C&C on it.
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I`m not sure if the anvil is too overturned or it is supposed to be set like that, but I see only one important thing: why does the blacksmith pulls his hand back instead of just lifting it up? It doesn`t seem to be very natural. May be you tried to show how heavy the hammer is? Anyway, even if it is kind of his style of forging, it lasts quite long for such a heavy thing as a hammer.
Also I would add an animation of the air distortion over the smoke hole.
Everything other looks fine, good work.
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Thanks, here's an update:
(http://i.imgur.com/CH7m7vO.gif)
I redid the anvil a bit with a simpler angle, so it looks a little better. The swing is supposed to be from a heavy hammer, but I agree, some parts seems like a heavy hammer, and others make it look light.
The blacksmith is also a she actually, but definitely not the typical overly feminine RPG girl, so it's hard to tell without any context. She's wearing a long skirt which is a little tough to animate, but other than that she's wearing some basic work clothes and has medium length hair since she is a blacksmith after all.
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The perspective seems off on your anvil and stump.
They are pointing upward (as if into the sky) where they should maybe be more lateral to match the rest of the elements.
Look at the bricks along the opening of the furnace. Those bricks are approximately the same size as your anvil surface, but they do not point upward at such an extreme angle, even when they are slanting backwards away from us.
If your sprite was standing directly beside the anvil setup, the closest portion of the anvil would be at her breast while the further back would be in his neck region. It makes it seem too tall to my eyes. <-- That's a result of the angle though.
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This has rather low readability, mostly because of low color contrast and no obvious light source.
You've also have an issue about outlines (part of the contrast problem): they're rather useless as they are. Make them much darker if you use them, or skip them altogether. You might also use them on the she-smith only, or smith + anvil, and not on the 'background' elements.
Simplify the vegetation, it's a bit messy, it isn't part of the story either. Maybe try a different, darker color for the pants.
Give that scene a proper light source and use it to increase volume and readability: shadows, highlights on the metal when it's cold, etc.
Also you should post pixels at their actual 1x size: it's important to judge a piece a various scales, and there is a built-in pixel-crisp (in Firefox) image zoom (click images).
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I like the vibrance achieved in the coals, but think as it's outdoors you could carry the vibrant glow to the surrounding elements as sunlight
non-pixel edit to illustrate something along those lines
(http://i.imgur.com/X5J0Atq.png)
and if it's a standalone animation that doesn't need to fit into anything then I 2nd the statement it could use a more strict lighting regime, light direction, shadows etc
also regarding the anvil, i prefer the original design, but you didn't fix the issue, here's a quick 3D mockup of exactly what the issue with it is
(http://i.imgur.com/wUysyuk.jpg)
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Here's the anvil shape I intended; just a primitive basic shape:
(http://i.imgur.com/9IoBOHQ.png)
Nonetheless, I've changed the animation to a more common shape people are familiar with:
(http://i.imgur.com/DEa2Om6.gif)
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it's not the shape or design, but the read, it reads tilted and out of perspective, i was showing with a tick how it should read more or less in the context of the log and scene and ground plane, and the red X representing how it is rather reading like on your's, "overturned" as someone previously stated, and judging by almost everyone's comments it reads like that generally not just to myself. ironically I think you've actually made it read worse in this regard in the latest edit, it's in 3 quarter view, i think it needs the width of the anvil visible like in your render the area in black on the anvil itself. hope you understand what i mean :)
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(http://i.imgur.com/kzzUoWm.gif)
Better? I think it is, but my eyes have failed me in the past. :-\
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I guess if you would put the anvil and the furnace in the same picture in 3D, and try to compare, you might see where the perspective is inconsistent.
The anvil seems to have a more top-down view than the furnace. Or are you trying to do diminishing perspective?
Also, the vertical lines in the anvil should remain vertical in the image or else the anvil will appear tilted to the right.
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yeah that definitely reads a lot nicer and anvil-esque, and does look more settled on the stump, but yeah there is still some perspective issues, but they aren't that jarring,
and if it's on a hill it's pretty close to a 3D render, just reads like it has a bit of a wide focus camera lense
(http://i.imgur.com/ddfth36s.jpg)
so it's not major enough to overhaul the image in my opinion, but something to keep in mind is mocking it up in 3D upfront to avoid mistakes, because with that kind of structure using perspective lines is really difficult to construct and nail from instinct, and if it's isometric then yeah it needs to adhere strictly to diametric or trimetric orthographic isometric angles, which it doesn't, is it just a stand alone piece?