Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Peltast on March 30, 2013, 05:32:58 am

Title: [WIP] Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: Peltast on March 30, 2013, 05:32:58 am
Hey folks, my last thread got swallowed up and I figured I'd wait 'til I had some progress before I revived it.  Any and all feedback would be very appreciated!   ;D



(http://i.imgur.com/k59rylO.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/eCdaeaJ.png)
Title: Re: Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: r1k on March 30, 2013, 05:48:00 am
maybe try putting shadows at the bottom of the headphones so the read as round.  I would make sure to have a portrait of the character in the menu or dialogue, in which it is obvious they are headphones.  Because they are recognizable as headphones, but I think only after you tell us that they are, infact, headphones.
Title: Re: Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: Nmb910 on March 30, 2013, 06:22:30 am
maybe try putting shadows at the bottom of the headphones so the read as round.  I would make sure to have a portrait of the character in the menu or dialogue, in which it is obvious they are headphones.  Because they are recognizable as headphones, but I think only after you tell us that they are, infact, headphones.
This!

I thought maybe for his idle you could have him put it on and chill out to emphasize that they are headphones.

On all of your views, it might help if you had the ear parts obscure his face slightly and moved closer together, so they don't look attached to his shoulder blades, and have a more realistic perspective.
(http://i.istockimg.com/file_thumbview_approve/4710605/2/stock-photo-4710605-headphones-around-neck.jpg)
Additionally, if you could change the color the the headband, so it might not clash so much with the side and back views of the character, which are oddly devoid of detail, not to mention the green shirt design on the front.
Title: Re: Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: Zizka on March 30, 2013, 06:24:29 pm
Very Earthboundesque, am I wrong?
Title: Re: Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: PypeBros on March 30, 2013, 08:40:24 pm
you used a lot of black outlines, and suddenly, you don't use any for the headphones. That makes it tricky to integrate them.

Plus, they would definitely read better as earphones if your character had them on his head. I'm afraid the kind of "wrapped around the neck" approach will never read well at that resolution and with perspective. I think you should have them much more close to each other and located under the chin, but then people will constantly ask you why your male character has green boobs.
Title: Re: Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: Peltast on March 31, 2013, 08:10:41 pm
Thanks for all the feedback guys!

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Plus, they would definitely read better as earphones if your character had them on his head. I'm afraid the kind of "wrapped around the neck" approach will never read well at that resolution and with perspective. I think you should have them much more close to each other and located under the chin, but then people will constantly ask you why your male character has green boobs.

I'll definitely toy with some of the other solutions, but I think I'll probably end up going in this direction.  Even if I do get a better position around the neck, having them on the ears is 100% guaranteed to get the meaning across.  It would seem weird for him to be wearing them all the time, but oh well.

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you used a lot of black outlines, and suddenly, you don't use any for the headphones. That makes it tricky to integrate them.

Yeah, since I made the shirt color the same color as the outlines, I wasn't sure how to outline the headphones without losing lots of visual information...and I kinda like how the shirt looks.  Another problem that could be solved by putting them around his ears.

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Very Earthboundesque, am I wrong?

You are correct, I'm going for the look of Mother 2&3.  I find it very appealing.    ;D

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Additionally, if you could change the color the the headband, so it might not clash so much with the side and back views of the character, which are oddly devoid of detail, not to mention the green shirt design on the front.

Yeah, the color of the headphones really isn't working.  Even if I change their position I'll need to recolor it.  Also, I'm not sure how to add more detail to the back/side...they just don't have as much going on.  Maybe ripples in the shirt or something?

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I would make sure to have a portrait of the character in the menu or dialogue, in which it is obvious they are headphones.

I wasn't thinking I'd have character portraits, actually.  Aside from the time it would cost / my limited skills, it's kind of a design choice.  Yes, an indie game dev using minimalism to justify not doing something.  How original.   :D   But in seriousness, I don't want the characters to be portrayed in great detail.
Title: Re: Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: Facet on March 31, 2013, 09:37:27 pm
Yeah, I woulda thought the headphones were sci-fi pauldrons or something. It's a challenge but I think they could be made to work under the chin as in the above ref. just so long as you get rid of the competing design on his shirt, something like my example below (with the proviso that it would be sensible to have a full-size illustration in the intro or titles or wherever, if not a UI portrait; it really isn't a lot of work to do so) 

(http://i.imgur.com/xImggw8.png)

Animating at twice the size is a strange choice, it seems like a  bit of a messy solution to break the resolution just get a more subtle movement. Going for a 'grooving with the headphones on' idle instead, like Nmb910 mentioned would get my vote too ;D.

The lighter outline on the girl's hair looks like bad AA, there's no need if it contrasts well without it.
Title: Re: Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: Peltast on April 19, 2013, 08:22:57 pm
Reaaaally sorry about the long wait!  I loved your edit, Facet, thank you so much.  I wanted to come back with another version that took your edit into account earlier, but I got tangled up in programming for the game and now here I am.

(http://i.imgur.com/W2rGDCD.png)  --->  (http://i.imgur.com/OMmw3rN.png)

I tried to keep myself from taking too much from your edit, but your earphones were basically perfect so they ended up almost the same.

I mostly realized through your edit that I was taking the concept of outlining far too literally and heavy-handed.  I was also trying to add more detail than is wise at this resolution.  Hopefully I've improved on that.

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Animating at twice the size is a strange choice, it seems like a  bit of a messy solution to break the resolution just get a more subtle movement. Going for a 'grooving with the headphones on' idle instead, like Nmb910 mentioned would get my vote too .

Yeah, I think I'm going to scratch the idle animation that I have now.  I definitely plan to have an animation where he puts the headphones on and starts headbanging a little, for when the player leaves him alone for a while.  But for future reference, is breaking resolution universally bad?  For some smaller motions, I can only think of subpixeling as an alternative.

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The lighter outline on the girl's hair looks like bad AA, there's no need if it contrasts well without it.

Noted.  I'm also going to see if I can redo her a bit in the same way as the earphone-guy.

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(with the proviso that it would be sensible to have a full-size illustration in the intro or titles or wherever, if not a UI portrait; it really isn't a lot of work to do so)

It's impossible to know this since he's the first character I started working on, but the earphone-guy is one character out of ten, and not really central to the plot.  He's not really "deserving" of a UI portrait unless all of the others have them.  And again I feel it would be a bit out of place.

I hate to give a negative example (especially since I also love this game), and perhaps people won't even agree with this, but just to illustrate what I'm trying to say...in my opinion Lone Survivor (http://gameosaurus.com/roahr/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/lstitle.jpg) gives more visual information than it really needs to for the protagonist, and in a way that's kind of out of place.  Especially for a horror game, the players don't really need to know exactly what the main character looks like when the sprite conveys all the important information, and for me the portrait actually was a bit jarring in the horrific atmosphere of the game.  The style is somewhat cartoonish, which doesn't really reinforce everything else going on.  Similarly, the tone of this game will be making some pretty big peaks and valleys, and I don't think I'd be able to do it justice in my character portraits.
Title: Re: Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: Facet on April 19, 2013, 11:08:05 pm
No problem, looks good :),  that implied outlining for avoiding blocky bits is a nice trick I use a lot, Arne uses it a bunch with black line in a couple of sweet NES projects that you might look at here (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=10953.0) and here (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=8251.0).

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is breaking resolution universally bad?
Nah, If you were to make a feature out it I'm sure it could look good, but if all your other aesthetic decisions are being tailored to the apparent, lower resolution, then 'cheating' situationally is potentially quite alien/jarring. I feel like there's probably better reasoning than that to be made actually, but I'm tired :blind:.

Personally I would just forego subtle animations like breathing etc. in favour of bigger and bolder motions, in much the same way that you've already simplified the sprite of details; it's just not that important really.

I pretty much jive with the idea of blank slate characters, I just meant you could clue in the player to details like the headphones in some other fashion than having to make that judgement on the sprite alone. There's a decent amount of interpretive space with a little sprite, so if you plant that clue first (with a little description or anything) then the player is primed to see headphones or whatever.
Title: Re: Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: Peltast on April 21, 2013, 04:37:28 pm
Those Arne threads are awesome!

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Personally I would just forego subtle animations like breathing etc. in favour of bigger and bolder motions, in much the same way that you've already simplified the sprite of details; it's just not that important really.

Ah, that makes sense to me.

I could probably introduce the character when they're using their idle animation where they're using their headphones; I think that would be the simplest cue.  They'll also be talking about music all the time.

I'll have to revise the animations to fit with this new version, but I thought in the meantime I'd throw up stills of other characters and see if anyone has feedback.  Now that I think about it, it doesn't make much sense to do all of the animations before the base sprite has been more or less finalized.   :blind:

(http://i.imgur.com/KD8kfkJ.png)(http://i.imgur.com/TbToqwk.png)(http://i.imgur.com/ZWGDGhQ.png)
Title: Re: Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: Peltast on June 22, 2013, 01:22:17 am
Hey guys, I've been silently plugging away and I've got new stuff.  As always, any and all critique is much appreciated!

First up, here's the mugshots of all the characters, keeping in mind they'll be viewed at 2x magnification:
(http://i.imgur.com/k59rylO.png)

They're all animated, but I'm taking a break from animating for the moment, so I feel it'd be disingenuous to put those up right now.

Mainly I've been working on the actual game environments, meaning tilesets and scenery.  To be honest, I think I'm doing a pretty bad job at it though!

Here are some mockups with varying floor tiles.  I'm pretty sure I know which one is the best, but I'll post them all for the heck of it.
(http://i.imgur.com/6RkC6Pu.png)(http://i.imgur.com/9rJtoRu.png)(http://i.imgur.com/Jhonjvk.png)

And a mockup of a separate room in the lattermost floor tile:
(http://i.imgur.com/eCdaeaJ.png)
Title: Re: [WIP] Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: YellowLime on June 22, 2013, 11:55:23 am
Isn't a "mugshot" a picture showing exclusively the face? That would be the "mug" part, right?  :crazy:

The jump in resolutions may be a conscious decision, but to me it looks jarring as well (as Facet argued)
I'd rather solve the problem some other way... use more colors, bring the room to the characters' resolution, or even bring the characters to the room's resolution.

Personally, I'd just lower the environment's resolution, and if readability issues arise, change the environment to fit to its new res :)
Title: Re: [WIP] Mystery/Adventure Game Art
Post by: Peltast on June 24, 2013, 12:13:45 am
Thanks for the feedback!   ;D

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Isn't a "mugshot" a picture showing exclusively the face? That would be the "mug" part, right?  :crazy:
Er, oops, I guess I was thinking of a police line-up.  Or something.  Close enough!   :D

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The jump in resolutions may be a conscious decision, but to me it looks jarring as well (as Facet argued)
I'd rather solve the problem some other way... use more colors, bring the room to the characters' resolution, or even bring the characters to the room's resolution.

Personally, I'd just lower the environment's resolution, and if readability issues arise, change the environment to fit to its new res :)
Yeah you're right, I need to stop cheating like that.  It's tempting for me to break resolution for more detail/smoothness, but it's not worth the inconsistent look.  I could up the resolution of the characters, but that'd be straying too much from the style that I was going for in the first place!

I've lowered the background's resolution, and fiddled with the colors to make it less bland.
(http://i.imgur.com/RNWw92q.png)(http://i.imgur.com/70H2duM.png)