Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: pulsecode on July 13, 2011, 06:22:56 pm
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Hi all!
It's been a long time since i posted here (so long my account expired it seems!) so its nice to be posting again.
I'm currently working on a bit of planning for an adventure platformer.
I've been inspired a bit by games like La-Mulana, Pitfall 2, Rick Dangerous, Aban Hawkins & the 1000 Spikes and so on.
So here is my main sprite so far:
(http://www.absolutewebhostingservices.co.uk/img/adventure-guy.gif)
He is actually a development of an old character of mine that i never fully developed.
EDIT: And here is the run animated (as i forgot to add it earlier!)
(http://www.absolutewebhostingservices.co.uk/img/adventure-running.gif)
So, i'm looking for feedback on him so far, crits, suggestions etc! All good and highly encouraged :)
I am also looking for some advice from anyone kind enough to offer some wisdom!
The jump and fall sequences have been causing me some problems (as you can probably see!) I'm having trouble figuring out how his limbs should position and move for a jump and fall sequence.
I think the jump portion is... well its ok i guess for the moment (though it bears far more similarity to the run that i would like) but the falling sequence is fairly bad and i'm kinda stumped as to what to do with it.
Any help is very gratefully accepted ;D
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It looks nice, and awfully similar to Spelunky's protagonist. However, it looks a bit too blocky and the shading is very soft. It looks like a gradient, actually.
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Haha, ah yes Spelunky! Forgot about that one.
Similar vibe to the others i listed as inspiration. He has a little mining lamp on his hat though (the Spelunky dude).
Not totally sure what you mean by soft shading. Could you elaborate a little?
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By soft shading, I think he means you don't have enough contrast, and your ramp from shadow to highlight is too widespread. Think an auto-gradient tool in an image editing program. One of the things you could do to combat this problem is increasing the contrast, that is, darker darks and brighter brights, as well as the saturation. This is also one of those instances where I don't think it'd hurt to scrap a few colors, which would also benefit this. Another thing you could do is bring hue-shifting into the picture, which is done by tinting shadows to a color and highlights to another. Most commonly used is blue/cool shadows and yellow/warm highlights.
Here's an edit I did addressing that.
(http://i.imgur.com/0hjah.png)
There's not much differentiation between running, jumping and falling honestly. For a sprite with this size and proportions, this is something you have to have to make sure each pose is recognizable and distinct. For example make his head tilt up more when jumping, and/or have both of his arms in the air. Try to think of creative poses that clearly represent the character's state. Be dynamic!
I have to say, though, I like the run cycle.
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Ahh, ok cool!
I've been doing this for years and years, but over the last couple of years, work has been so busy i've ended up being reeeally badly out of practice! haha!
I just wasnt sure what soft meant in this context so thanks for clearing that up :)
Definately needs a bit of a colour cull! I was trying to keep the count low but i got to the point where i wanted to flesh it out and check the animation etc so, yeah too many shades in there.
I really like what you have done with the pallette. The contrast is nice and i think it'd be nicely workable for the kinds of environments i'm planning.
I'll have a tweak and see how it turns out.
Not overly keen on the outline being bitty. I know its quite a common practice to use darker shades of the sprite as outline rather than just plain black, i just dont really like it.
Plus to be honest, it might interfere with the characters viewability on darker portions of what im planning.
All good though! Very much appreciated edit pistachio, thanks :)
I'll have a tinker and post my results later.
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Im like all your work, it remind me very fun pretty old game "Marvin's Marvellous Adventure"
Just proposition: I jumping, II falling
(http://i.imgur.com/R3nl0.png)
Animation
(http://i.imgur.com/U6zHW.gif)
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Thanks Koyot1222! ;D
I did toy with the hat flapping about a bit when he runs. I wasnt keen on it as, because hes so small the minimum it can move (as you have done) makes it look really floppy.
I'd prefer it to be a more subtle movement (to make it look a bit more rigid) but he would have to be bigger for that really. Nice idea though.
I quite like the jump and fall propositions!
The fall is more an "Arrrgh i'm falling" kind of thing, like falling a long way, which is cool! (is he holding on to his hat? hehe nice!)
I think i should have been a little more specific though. When i said fall earlier, what i meant was falling back to earth from a normal jump, like the end of a jump sequence.
I see a lot of sprites where the jump, viewed on its own, looks like a standing jump as opposed to a running jump. I think maybe the standing jump style is the way i'll go as it's farther removed from the run cycle, as far as the pose he would have to be in is concerned.
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Okey doke, managed to find some spare time!
I've ...ahem... "borrowed" your pallette pistachio!
Well, i did modify a few of the colours a little, but i really liked the dark green (though i edited it very slightly) and dark pinks, with regards to contrast etc :)
So, i've re-coloured all of the frames and adjusted the shading where nececary.
I still went for the white t-shirt as thats just the style i want for him. I also carried on using the solid black outline... because i'm stubborn :P haha!
(http://www.absolutewebhostingservices.co.uk/img/adventure-run-low-colour.gif)
(http://www.absolutewebhostingservices.co.uk/img/adventure-running-low-colour.gif)
I think the reduced pallette defines the run animation a little nicer.
Thanks so much for that input pistachio :)
So now i need to get on with figuring out the jump and fall (and any other tweaks based on feedback of course!) ;D
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old frames, less flopy
(http://i.imgur.com/Uxcdi.gif)
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Looks nice. Koyot, your versions have 9 frames. What's the idea behind that?
Run- and walkcycles should have equal frame amounts per step, unless you want to have a limping effect or something.
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Looks nice. Koyot, your versions have 9 frames. What's the idea behind that?
My mistake sorry :) Two doubled frames.
8 frames
(http://i.imgur.com/rTmgG.gif)
Different timing
(http://i.imgur.com/npK39.gif)
This animation is so beautiful so its even looking great in 6 frames ;)
(http://i.imgur.com/MJkPA.gif)
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Cool Koyot!
Still, i probably should have explained what i meant about the floppyness a bit better!
What i meant was, the minimum travel up or down is 1 pixel, and as a percentage of his total height, thats more travel than i would want.
It's not supposed to be a floppy cloth hat y'see. Still, nice edit though :)
Right-o! I've been tinkering with some small items for him to collect.
I'll animate the gems to sparkle at some point. Not all of the fruit has turned out exactly as i'd like. But lets see what you folks think :)
Hopefully you can identify what they are all supposed to be... hehe lets see!
(http://www.absolutewebhostingservices.co.uk/img/dude-gems-and-fruit.gif)
EDIT: Also a little coin i forgot to post:
(http://www.absolutewebhostingservices.co.uk/img/little-coin.gif)
I probably should have named the thread something slightly different as i was kind of planning to post more than just the guy here.
Eventually tiles and what not (when i get time!)
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i think that only the key is little bit too small, rest of the things are quite ineresting. I wonder how the game will gona look like. I was thougt that suppose to look like 16 bit pitfal game, but nice colours of items suggests something diferent. Thats why im very curious how its going to be look like.
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Yeah, thats a good point Koyote, the key is a bit tiny.
I think i was trying to make it a bit more the same scale as the guy (so it didnt look like he would need 2 hands to use it!) but it might be unworkable in the game if its too small.
I'll have a tinker with a larger version. I actually started with a bigger one, so i have something to go back to.
Hehe well, it is kind of planned to be along the lines of a 16 bit pitfall (pitfall 2 specifically) but i have inspiration from various games, and i didn't want it to all be dark and muddy / cavey.
The plan is to try and achive that sort of exploration vibe that Pitfall 2, Rick Dangerous and games like La-Mulana have too. Fingers crossed :)
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Extremely impressive, I can totally tell what those things are, although if that's a kiwi, shouldn't it be a bit brighter in the middle?
I agree with the key too, make it diagonal so players can easily recognize it.
If you release this I'll get it just for the pixel art :P
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Thank you very much Seiseki :)
Yeah, it is supposed to be half a kiwi. I did try and make the middle lighter, but i was also trying to restrict the pallette a bit. I'll see if i can improve it.
Ah you know, making it diagonal hadn't crossed my mind! I'll have a crack at that later.
For the time being, here are some other key attempts... not all particularly successful.
I tried to make a half step between the key i did first (left most) and the tiny one i posted earlier. hmm..
Also, some gem variations (or one variation but 7 colour copies).
(http://www.absolutewebhostingservices.co.uk/img/keys-and-gems.gif)
I should probably get back to making the guy jump and fall! I tend to go off on tangents :P
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Those keys are nice, they are a lot easier to recognise. Mine probably little bit worse...
(http://i.imgur.com/gJthe.png)
I was looking on last sprites of main hero an i was started to think that maby would you consider to ad some pixel in few spaces. In my opinion hero right now is looking little bit like hes running without pants, or like he suppose to have very short pants, and no shoes.
This is my edit, youll understand probably and youll make it a loot beter :)
(http://i.imgur.com/ZE9VR.gif)
(http://i.imgur.com/QoCQJ.gif)
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Exactly the kind of art I'd love to have for a revamp'd version of Pharaoh's curse (C64) (http://sylvainhb.blogspot.com/2008/06/pharaohs-curse.html)^_^
Well, I tried to edit the crystals
(http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/pype-gems-edit.gif)
so that they'd have a more "angular" look, but I'm afraid that's too small for me to handle properly.
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Looks nice. Koyot, your versions have 9 frames. What's the idea behind that?
My mistake sorry :) Two doubled frames.
8 frames
(http://i.imgur.com/rTmgG.gif)
Different timing
(http://i.imgur.com/npK39.gif)
This animation is so beautiful so its even looking great in 6 frames ;)
(http://i.imgur.com/MJkPA.gif)
That second one is the best if you ask me, looks more like a jog, more relaxed. The first looks really aggressive and fast, not sure what style you want to go with but that second animation is really smooth and looks very natural to me.
The items looks cool, but I agree with the larger key. It would be really interesting to see a mock-up of this! ;)
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Sorry i didnt reply sooner!
I'm in the process of moving house and have no internet there just yet, so i'm back and forth, online and off!
I will post more updates and any new material as soon as i have the time. I'm keen to get more feedback from you all :)
Koyot, i can see what you mean to an extent. The main reason for picking white shoes was to define the run cycle better. I figured also as it is white (well very close) it wasnt something you could mistake as a bare foot!
White shirt again was for separation so the trousers were nicely defined (and i kinda like the whole white t-shirt thing haha!) so i'm not sure how it could look like he had no pants/trousers on!!
PypeBros, I see you have a few different approaches in there. I definately see what you mean about trying to make it more angular. I'll have a tinker when i get the chance.
I think the way you added the white hilight on to the front face helps, so i'll try and develop that a bit :)
Ahh yes Pharoh's Curse! There are actually a few games from the C64 that i think i'm inadvertantly drawing inspiration from.
C64 in general had a big influence on me. I should go back in to my library and see what old gems stick out as inspirations :)
Aaand Kragagam! Once i have some more sprite stuff done (i want to get the jumps sorted before i go off on a tangent with tiles and such if possible) i will start mocking the game itself up.
I do have a pretty solid idea of what i want it all to be like, play style wise, environment settings etc. I'm sure people will have some nice ideas and/or suggestions too :)
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I really, really like the way those jewels look! The fruit's nice too.
Aaand Kragagam! <response snipped>
Random information: for some reason this reminded me of Harry Potter #4 when the announcer (for the Quidditch World Cup) says, "Someone! So-and-so! Aaaaand... Krum!"
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Ahh yes Pharoh's Curse! There are actually a few games from the C64 that i think i'm inadvertantly drawing inspiration from.
C64 in general had a big influence on me. I should go back in to my library and see what old gems stick out as inspirations :)
Hehe ^_^ mockup this (http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/pharaohs%20curse%05.png) if you dare.
I'm fairly sure a 4-player deathmatch in the synapse's pyramid would be fun.
Well, anyway. I shouldn't be diverting you from your original project by just pushing the Nostalgy64 button. That's not fair from me :P