Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: bonofthedead on June 12, 2010, 03:20:21 am
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Every time I play a vertical shooter, I get this urge to want to make one. So recently I've started making one. Not a whole game, just a level. I've been coding and working for four days now, and wanted to make sure I was headed the right way with my sprites. Any critique?
(http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee154/BonOfTheDead/Laserbeam.png)
No background as of yet, but I'm working on it. And I'm starting to not like the yellow winged ships, but I'm not sure if I want to scrap them yet.
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Sources of light, fire, for instance ;) don't have shadows. Also that laser's pretty puny, you should make it more than one pixel thick, either than those two things this has a lot of potential to be some great stuff, just keep workin at it.
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Nice work. I like your overall presentation with the HUD and everything.
- I would personally like to see the "noise" reduced on the sprites. Backed out the enemy ships are somewhat confusing to look at, the wings look too much like the afterburners, etc. Work on defining some detail/shapes that stand out so they don't look as flat. I also don't think the grey outlines are going to pay off very well for you either.
-peace
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As for the laser, it's a lot thicker, I just snapped the picture a little to late. It's about three pixels thick.
"noise" reduced on the sprites.
Backed out the enemy ships are somewhat confusing to look at
Work on defining some detail/shapes that stand out so they don't look as flat.
Noise? In the sprite? If it's the yellow winged one, I think I'm going to redo that one. As of the fire, I didn't think I was shading them, more darker colors where the fire starts, then got brighter as it went further. And right now the only sprites I like are the player, and the middle ship there.
And there's the laser normally. It fades in.
(http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee154/BonOfTheDead/Laserbeam2.png)
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The laser beam gets darker in front of the large pink ship, but also in the exact place that this ship's shadow lies. This makes it look like the laser is not a special effect, but a physical object. A laser should create its own light! At the moment it generally looks a bit dull. I really like the protagonist ship (well.. the gray one), for its simplicity and cuteness.
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I made the laser on top of objects now, and fixed up where the laser hits enemies. As for making it look more interesting, I'm not to sure how to do that. I spent a lot of time trying not to make it look to much like a line.
(http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee154/BonOfTheDead/Laserbeam3.png)
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I can remind of a few technique for pixel laser, most of which are suited to animation, not to still pixel art.
A) make it flicker. A white line displayed only on even frames at high framerate (1/60s) will look "immaterial" and thus more laser-like
B) make it a "plasma beam", with bubbles flowing from time to time
C) while it flicker, change its color.
D) make it fast. That's the nature of a laser. It doesn't bend, it doesn't propagate. It's moving at lightspeed !
E) make it reflected when it hit a shield, make it "heating" the target when it hits a target. I'm unsure about what happens to the target in your example.
I also note that very thin lasers can do a great job
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I changed the yellow winged ship to a tinier version of the other ship. Also, I changed the laser to flicker more, and have tiny dust-like particles flowing with it. And when the laser hits, it just kills enemies a lot quicker than the other weapons. And the part where it meets the ship kind of flickers about.
(http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee154/BonOfTheDead/EnemySmall.png)
(http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee154/BonOfTheDead/laser.png)
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just a few thoughts.
i like the feel to it. it's still obviously just a start but i like the direction.
something that i didn't realize at first was the yellow-winged ships; i thought that they were engines on the side of the ship, might be interesting to break the generic shmup mold.
another thought is switching around the score and the weapon select since most people read left to right, the first eye place they should look is at the weapon, not score. the HUD is nice though, very simplistic.
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There's currently what I've done. I haven't been working on it for a couple days, but I got back into working on it. I've realized that my sprites are hard to see once I've added some backdrop to the scene. And as for switching the score and weapons around, I tried and it didn't quite feel right. Probably because I've been looking at it like that forever. And as for breaking the generic shmup mold, I think I'll try making a unique ship. Something different.
(http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee154/BonOfTheDead/CurrentProgress.png)
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are you using flixel or flashpunk as your game engine? :P
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are you using flixel or flashpunk as your game engine? :P
As much as I'd love to, no I'm not. I've tried to learn Flixel and Flashpunk, I didn't get anywhere. So right now I'm using that program gamemaker. I had used it a long time ago, and remembered a lot that I learned.
I you had any good tutorials on Flixel though, I'd love a heads up :D
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basically i followed just two main tutorials. then i went on the flixel forums and skimmed through all the posts in the help section and just experimented with code. in the end i learned enough to make a game.
here is the main tutorial that got me started:
http://www.creativeapplications.net/flash/flixel-2-tutorial-flash-tutorials-games/ (http://www.creativeapplications.net/flash/flixel-2-tutorial-flash-tutorials-games/)
and then this one built on what the first turorial already covered:
http://wiki.github.com/AdamAtomic/flixel/seifer-tims-tutorial (http://wiki.github.com/AdamAtomic/flixel/seifer-tims-tutorial)
but beware this second tutorial stops working when you get to the "adding enemies" section because the tutorial is outdated, but no worries because the first tutorial covers adding enemies also. btw, i like the graphics a lot, especially the bridge and the trucks.
(update)
i just discovered this:
http://flashgamedojo.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Flixel (http://flashgamedojo.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Flixel)
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I tried it again today and kept getting errors, though I was using the outdated one. I'll try that shooter one. Thanks!
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A shoot'em up needs a straightforward visual indication, which your plane doesn't seem to have, of what part of the player's ship is vulnerable (usually called the "hitbox", even if it isn't a rectangle).
Usual choices are the whole craft (in this case engine fires should be clearly marked as safe by transparency or flickering) or a small part of the fuselage around the cockpit (in this case genre conventions demand starkly different and often bright colours, not grey on grey).
Whatever your choice of hitbox, players will be grateful for unreasonable paint jobs and exaggerated highlighting.
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you can also use the touhou danmakufu engine for this; specifically designed for bullet hell shmups (but can work for regular ones too)
(http://newsimg.ngfiles.com/18000/18525_OH_GOD_THE_COLORS.JPG)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1EdoR8mdY8
http://touhou.wikia.com/wiki/Touhou_Wiki/
www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?topic=3654.0
i haven't actually used it that much, i don't have a programmers patience, but i started doodling for a while with it.
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I was thinking more on the lines of U.N Squadron. It's one of my favorite shooters.