Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: aamatniekss on November 28, 2014, 06:38:27 pm
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Ok, so I've been working on this There was a Caveman (http://www.indiedb.com/games/there-was-a-caveman) game, and im trying to make a nice looking background for my game, with all the skills I got. Now this is how far I've got at the moment. I don't know about the trees though. The trees that are further should be lighter or darker like I have in the gif? I tried both ways, and this one seemed better. Anyways does it look ok, or something's totally bad? I can't tell myself as I've been watching at it for so long.. :/ :D
Here's a gif to see it better how it looks in game.
(http://i.imgur.com/GuVPQiA.gif)
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http://www.mrwallpaper.com/wallpapers/ukraine-landscape.jpg
Things farther and farther away should ideally fade to the color of the atmosphere ;)
The way the trees are currently drawn conveys a flat fan as all branches are going off to the sides; instead, some branches could point toward the viewer map others may point away. I suppose the flat-fan 'mistake' doesn't look too bad when the landscape is already a flat tileset but I'm just throwing that out there
Oh, and the turtles are dangerously camoflauged. If you want to keep them green, they could be a more chartreuse yellow-green hue to distinguish from that flat-green grass, but it should be lighter overall for visibility
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The problem with the trees is they are more or less the same shade of green as the foreground. I would make them a lot less saturated and probably give them a different hue so it's not so confusing. And they should probably fade into the mist the further back they are, like Pix3M said. Look at the backgrounds for some other similar games to see what I mean.
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Hmm, ok taking into account your suggestions, I've come up with something like this. Is this better?
I will definitely draw those branches pointing towards the viewer, I just noticed they do look kinda weird.
And about those turtles, they won't be in this area, I just put them in from previous area. ;)
EDIT: The trees were bugging me too much now, so I kinda fixed those.
(http://i.imgur.com/SwOKYgs.gif)
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Sketchy thoughts...
(http://i.imgur.com/S1Vlzv3.gif)
I found your tiles to be confusing here's an example how you can communicate more clearly to the player where the solid edges of gamespace are.
Also just a rough idea to make the spiky turtle thing pop a bit more using higher contrast. you could further make him pop by giving him more saturation.
You have HEAPS of colours within a single layer that aren't doing you any favours so try to reduce your count.
(http://i.imgur.com/kKPUwuX.png)
I also notice in ur gif is of the game being played at 2:1 scale, and ur player moves 1 pixel instead of at the 2:1 scale.
This is perhaps due to you needing to scale your art in game.
Might be a small thing many people won't notice but some people would be offended :lol:
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Sketchy thoughts...
(http://i.imgur.com/S1Vlzv3.gif)
I found your tiles to be confusing here's an example how you can communicate more clearly to the player where the solid edges of gamespace are.
Also just a rough idea to make the spiky turtle thing pop a bit more using higher contrast. you could further make him pop by giving him more saturation.
You have HEAPS of colours within a single layer that aren't doing you any favours so try to reduce your count.
(http://i.imgur.com/kKPUwuX.png)
I also notice in ur gif is of the game being played at 2:1 scale, and ur player moves 1 pixel instead of at the 2:1 scale.
This is perhaps due to you needing to scale your art in game.
Might be a small thing many people won't notice but some people would be offended :lol:
Holy crap man, that's so beautiful! :O If i wanted to go that way, maybe I cold make this level like that, but I don't think I could keep with this style for the rest of the game. Im not that good of a artist. 0.o
Damn, I'll finish my game in kinda my style, how I can.. And then in the end I'll try to improve everything..
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Whoa yeah those are some pretty nice "sketchy" thoughts Decroded. :y:
The game looks pretty neat, if you're worried about being able to work in that more rendered style (which is lovely) I might suggest you instead simplify, work with blockier more stylistic shapes and details. Focus on colour pallet, something like risk of rain maybe?. That stuff is easy to produce, lets you focus on animation and can look pretty good.
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That could be a possibility. But I think I'll try to work in this same style I got going on, but instead try to do the best I can, and improve everything all the time... I've changed the look of the game quite a lot of times already actually.. So im already pretty happy how far I've come, but anyways I still need to improve a lot.
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That first revision is definitely an improvement, but I think you could still emphasize the visual hierarchy (http://purplepwny.com/blog/visual_hierarchy_for_game_developers_a_practical_guide_to_making_important_stuff_seem_important.html) a little more. I know your character doesn't have outlines, but you could experiment with some outlining on the foreground layers to bring those out more. Also, The colors of all the elements are still very similar, and I know green is a particularly hard color to work with, but maybe try using relative color to suggest green rather then choosing a distinctly green hue for everything. As things recede into the background, the saturation and contrast should decrease, as well as the level of detail and shading that is necessary. Try integrating a teal tint, similar to the sky, into the rest of the background elements to group them together visually.
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Just as an encouragement post. I would play a game of the quality of the original post, so you're on the right track. It's visually very coherent. There's a certain simplicity to it that feels a little crude, but not enough that I perceive it to be "bad". The parallax is actually quite stunning and works really well for me.
The edits to the trees and background colors definitely make a difference and I agree with making sure to keep separation between enemies/scene.
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Ok, so I improved a little more. But anyways, this is where im staying at now. Im kinda happy with the way the level looks. And when playing you can understand where you can go, where you can't and you can clearly see everything etc. Also the monsters in the previous gifs, were from other level, I just put them in for testing. This level will have different ones, something like in this gif.
Also, I don't really have the skills to make it so good, im trying, but it sometimes turns out weird. I have to study all this art stuff more to produce stuff like Decroded posted. Anyways this is the best I could do. Im sure, that by the end of the game I'll have improved my art skills, and then I will be able to improve this level further. Like for example, the previous level looks way worse, im learning stuff constantly. A few more zones, and I'll improve the previous ones. :)
So here's the new gif.
(http://i.imgur.com/cbQbCiM.gif)
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Your game looks cool. Would play :y:
You've got good hazy atmospheric perspective in your latest version.
I don't think u should copy that "painterly" style (ie lazy sketching with no real pixel level control) as it obviously doesn't match yours.
But I would invite u to take a closer look at the value of colours especially in the foreground and how they help established a visual hierarchy as others have mentioned.
Basically, you can easily tweak the edges of your solids to make them stand out better.
EDIT: I see you've fixed the confusion about the edges of your solids :y:
Here's an illustration anyway for the hell of it :lol:
(http://i.imgur.com/O1sUGAe.png)
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Hey, thanks a lot. :)
I will definitely try to improve the visual hierarchy some day. Im reading on color theory and stuff quite a lot lately.
And yeah, I kinda fixed the edges of the solids. :D :)