Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Galiant on May 06, 2015, 10:51:12 pm

Title: [C+C]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on May 06, 2015, 10:51:12 pm
Hi all. My name is Andre and I've been part of this community in the past. Long enough to become a huge fan of Adarias (ndchristie), and his Tactic project "Partisan"- Someone whose art I am totally studying to improve mine, and who I also want to acknowledge. :)

Recently, a couple friends of mine decided to develop a Tactics type of game based on the legend of mystical armors, and warriors who would fight for them and are chosen to borrow their power to protect the realm. The game is a single-player, Tactical RPG, who tells the story of a little kid grown in a small island by his old man who was also his master.

Here's what I got so far: C&C is highly appreciated! :)

(http://i.imgur.com/d4akSuS.png)
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: CelioHogane on May 07, 2015, 02:10:40 am
Well, you are using hexagons, so +1 for you.
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on May 07, 2015, 02:38:23 am
Never used them before, let's see how it goes @CelioHogane!

Just reviewed the young lad. After some C&C from Redshrike (you may know him from the forums as well) we figured that my palette had contrast issues (a bad new for laptop users like me atm). Also the pose wasn't very appealing, so we improved it a bit based on the golden-form of classical sculptures. I do see improvement! =)



Same goes for the old grampa



Also decided to go for a color change towards a red-ish color..to make a better overall contrast while also poping the characters out when in the grass tile.


Also, it is known that the characters should not use their armors all the time. Usually we would just stick to the unequiped character as shown here. But... What if he could carry his armor in a box like ol'good animes back in the 90's? :D Hehe

Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on May 07, 2015, 08:34:29 am
I'd say I'm pretty much finished with our old friend still poses.  ;D
                  (http://i.imgur.com/UQTEobv.gif)
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: SteamCaptain on May 07, 2015, 12:17:20 pm
First off, I think the sprites look great!
I don't know if the rotating grandpa animation is meant to be shown like that, because the mirroring/change of the light source becomes obvious.
If so, it might be better to us a more top down light source.
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on May 08, 2015, 12:58:05 am
Thanks! Yeah it does seem strange! The animation was done to verify those issues...I probably will revisit it then! :D
Right now I'm having headaches on the tiling system. I'm planning to have the central hexagon as a firld marker. Dunno if its better than making an outline of the whole tile in red. At least it seems cool enough for now. ^^
(http://i.imgur.com/aCl7f3p.png)

The tiling is a b*%$ tho...seems like normal square tiling won't work :(... and we need to interpolate the horizontal lines:
(http://i.imgur.com/wr97PMe.png)
Hopefully nothing hard to program! :P hehe
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on May 08, 2015, 07:15:17 am
After a few tweaks in anatomy I think our hero is game-ready now. :)

Also a version having a Han Solo type of jacket for extra awesomeness!  :P
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: skittlefuck on May 08, 2015, 09:50:51 am
Hey there, really nice stuff you got going on!

Just throwing a little bit of input about the character in, I think that it would be best if you shifted the right side of his face and right eye up one pixel instead of having both eyes aligned with each other imho.

Looking great overall :)
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on May 08, 2015, 07:44:27 pm
Thanks! Just had a good time studying your suggestion on the eyes! And you're right! ^^ Thx!
Also, just figured that the tiles were all wrong! Haha those previous hexagons would give both me and the programmers a pain in the ass when making straight pathways like roads. Now I guess it's properly fixed.  :P
(http://i.imgur.com/JHlNxxQ.png)
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: hapiel on May 08, 2015, 08:58:50 pm
I don't know what was wrong about the old hex tiles, but for the new ones I would recommend taking the 1px top corner px off. Example:

(http://i.imgur.com/3nLOA87.png)
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on May 08, 2015, 09:40:59 pm
You're right! Thank you! =) Basically old hex tiles were not in the same perspective of the characters. This could lead to confusions further in the game development. At least I assume. :P Although removing that pixel would require the weird line in the laterals...which bothers me a bit. Well, I guess that's only an issue with the blue "test" tile! Will definetly consider changing it for the othen tiles then! ^^

Thinking about cursors...The protagonist is supposed to get the "Peregrine Falcon" armor... which justify the feather over there. :P
I'm more inclined towards the armored hand...letting the quill for Menus and skip the other two. White gloves hand is too mickey mouse/mario-ish whereas the Gem is just too The Sims.


Character also needed a slighly perspective fix to fit the new tile;


I do think this backside could be improved. But can't really tell what's wrong with it. He seems to be looking up rather than upfront, but guess that's the the perspective effect. =(
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on May 10, 2015, 01:48:01 am
Soon we'll be dealing with Combat, and since I'm still finishing the main character walking animations (God, those are hard!)
I dicided to finish up a common enemy found on tactics game that's also the easiest placeholder for future sprites!

A Jelly cube!


However, I has having so much fun with it that I decided to push it a little more using subpixel animation (a popular technique on tittles such as Metal Slug that consists on animating the antialiasing rather than the main pixels). I'm far from being a specialist on this, but it was a good chance to give it a try!  :P
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: surt on May 10, 2015, 02:29:55 am
Why is it foreshortening in the horizontals but not the diagonals?
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on May 10, 2015, 02:37:38 am
That was the result of my confusion with the perspective. I don't really know how to display depth in the horizontal sprites. Part of it is due to the  fact that all those are seen from a lateral view, which I assume would render them as a plane, with depth being given in the direction of the vanishing point central to the cube.

Would you do any different? Please share your thoughts! :) Thanks for commenting.
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: hapiel on May 10, 2015, 10:04:32 am
Yep, I would not display any perspective on anything. Mixing parallel projection with perspective looks funny..
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: rikfuzz on May 10, 2015, 10:12:10 am
Agree, I would not pinch in the top, should be parallel to the floor's edges. 

Subpixeling looks niice. (Not sure why, but I can't zoom some of your pics on this forum tho).
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on May 10, 2015, 09:12:44 pm
I see! Thanks guys! That's how it would look with no foreshortening seen at the inside:
(http://i.imgur.com/E4JKVq4.png)
However, I  believe that the upper pinch might be necessary for depth sugestion since what we see in this perspective has kind of a top-down view to it. The counterpart of that, making it a plain view to the vanishing point would make it too flat (as seen in the right example in the picture shown above).

Am I wrong? The same issue is seen on the human sprite. The sideviews totally screw the coolness of the character imo... and the reason behind it might be that I'm just not getting it right:
(http://i.imgur.com/Dm9SXOO.png)
Or maybe it is just how the perspective works, and it sucks... (which would explain why people working with hexagon-maps choose the up and down (north and south) projections of their sprite (which end up being the front side and the back of the character) rather than my lateral projection that results in the crap sideview.

But actually, the character is much more interesting if we apply a bit of perspective projection.
(http://i.imgur.com/y6QHFTs.png)

Ahh and @rikfuzz! The reason is because I used [nozoom]  bbcode in my images as recommended in the rules. It should zoom in now that I've used the normal [img] code.

:) Cheers guys, and thanks again!
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on May 11, 2015, 08:03:08 am
So, our storywritters were asking for portraits of the main characters. They are supposed to be 15 when the story begins!
Here's my try on the little guy above:
(http://i.imgur.com/DLCu3qW.png)

 :D :P
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on July 06, 2015, 05:16:10 pm
Hey guys! New update coming up! Here I present the design of a few environment elements. I Wonder if I should pixelize these too, or maybe go for a SquareEnix solution to the hard working associated with it and just pixelize the characters...what you think?

(http://i.imgur.com/DnK2neR.png)
Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on August 03, 2015, 07:13:55 am
Awright guys! This time I brought a few new ideas and I would really appreciate a few thoughts on this.

Our main character Aiba/Artoria (name yet to be defined - opinions?) lives with his grampa, who have been raising him since he was a baby. The old grampa always told him stories about great myths from the past, where legendary heroes wear powerful armors blessed by ancient spirits, and use those to bring peace to those who suffer. By the age of 12 Artoria started to have constant dreams with a peregrine falcon. Dreams who went unexplained, and were set aside by the necessity to look after an old beloved grampa.
(http://i.imgur.com/0fniOt5.png)
With the sudden death of this old man, Artoria found himself lost and scared, and the only thing he could think off was his grampa final words: to persue this inner voice. That urge him to leave the village they both lived and enter a quest for the sacred Peregrine Armor (which is an animal armor under the sign of the Peregrine Falcon).

After years, Artoria arrives in the citadel of Merida - far from his home. At this point, he changed his clothes and atitude.
(http://i.imgur.com/azaEBc8.png)

=== Continues...===

The idea is to have him obtaining the Peregrine Falcon armor, which will undergo a few evolutions over time:
(http://i.imgur.com/SaUgcHU.png)

Title: Re: [WIP]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: CelioHogane on August 03, 2015, 12:43:49 pm
The idea is to have him obtaining the Peregrine Falcon armor, which will undergo a few evolutions over time:
(http://i.imgur.com/SaUgcHU.png)

Are you shure about the color choice? like, getting a gold armor and then going back to the silver looking? I mean i get is not the same gray color, but still is not so diferent, it feels like a step backwards.
Title: Re: [C+C]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: Galiant on August 03, 2015, 04:46:48 pm
Hi, thanks for the comment! The final armor should be somewhat divine/sacred. At first I gave it a slighly pearl color, maybe adding a small pink/green shadow here and there should work, do you agree?

The idea of having the second armor being golden is to give the false impression that the  evolution is over... so the third comes as a surprise and is uber awesome. :D
Title: Re: [C+C]-Andragoras: Tactics Battles
Post by: CelioHogane on August 03, 2015, 05:06:35 pm
Yes i agree, maybe a pink/green shadow will help more.

Hmmm, maybe if the armor is more like the animal and less like an armor would help, maybe changing the helmet too? since it will be the first part the players will look (because is the bigger part)

something like this for the feet, making it more claws. (Shitty fast edit, sorry, im not an expert in your way to sprite XD)

(http://i.gyazo.com/55708f0fd3e9bdd5e3a26afb60362dd4.png)


Mostly i think the basic problem of the last armor is the fact is just a recolor with wings, so doesn't not give the feel of "YEAH POWERUP"