Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Hagane on May 30, 2015, 09:15:02 pm

Title: [C+C] Beat'em up - Fighting game sprites
Post by: Hagane on May 30, 2015, 09:15:02 pm
One year later, sprites for a beat'em up project. They changed somewhat, and I'd like some critique as this character is nearly finished. Took much more than I wanted due to learning to draw better then redoing stuff many times, having a subpar working process and having to code too.

The old sprites

wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=16705.msg151613#msg151613

Some of the revised versions

Not sure which shading is better for the portrait

(http://i.imgur.com/T0rhVwL.gif) (http://i.imgur.com/6zVigRn.gif)

Some attacks

(http://i.imgur.com/RpYDsen.gif)
(http://i.imgur.com/jwXT8LO.gif)
(http://i.imgur.com/e8orqxL.gif)
(http://i.imgur.com/k8luIvK.gif)

Neutral stances

(http://i.imgur.com/iqAhX2H.gif)(http://i.imgur.com/szdlzKX.gif)

Knife dissappears because it needs to be a different sprite.

(http://i.imgur.com/RDbT5vG.gif)


Will post some new characters and an attempt at a stage later. I'm very unconfident with stages in particular, not sure which kind of perspective to use. From what I've seen, sidescrollers such as Metal Slug use a vanishing point to the sides, and fighting games generally have it directly at the center of the stage. I guess the first is better for a scrolling game? Any tricks I need to be aware of?
Title: Re: [C+C] Beat'em up - Fighting game sprites
Post by: Glak on May 31, 2015, 02:33:13 pm
The shading on the first picture is much better.  The one on the right gives that fake anime look.
Title: Re: [C+C] Beat'em up - Fighting game sprites
Post by: rikfuzz on May 31, 2015, 05:50:34 pm
I do love all this

This isn't C&C, was just messing around in photoshop for fun/procrastination:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1534394/facetime.png)

Fun to push pixels around again - was thinking about Super SF2 era arcade style so allowed myself to do a little bit of dithering, which I certainly am not suggesting you do.   :lol:
Title: Re: [C+C] Beat'em up - Fighting game sprites
Post by: hawken on June 01, 2015, 11:16:56 am
These are really nice, are you using some kind of 3d software to do the base?
Title: Re: [C+C] Beat'em up - Fighting game sprites
Post by: kullenberg on June 01, 2015, 12:11:07 pm
rikfuzz just curious why would you not suggest him to use dithering?
Title: Re: [C+C] Beat'em up - Fighting game sprites
Post by: rikfuzz on June 01, 2015, 01:07:06 pm
kullenberg, I wouldn't suggest dithering because it's not really in-line with the style he or she is clearly going for - I was just playing around doing something a bit different.   :) 

More generally, I think dithering is a bit weird... Unless you're specifically going for that look, it's kind of solving a problem that you've arbitrarily enforced on yourself, and it has a lot of drawbacks and takes extra effort and considerations. (But it can certainly be fun in a self-indulgent way).   :lol:  I mean, it's kind of nice to me, in small localised clusters on this sort of sized art, but...  Very easy to make a destructive mess, especially on smaller/animated pieces without extra care. 

Title: Re: [C+C] Beat'em up - Fighting game sprites
Post by: Tourist on June 01, 2015, 05:36:18 pm
The animations bug me a bit.  I think it's because there is almost no bend or twist in the torso.  All of the motion is in the arms and legs.  It makes her look stiff.

Tourist
Title: Re: [C+C] Beat'em up - Fighting game sprites
Post by: Decroded on June 08, 2015, 06:27:34 am
For perspective of scrolling fighting game I suggest a consistent oblique view such as this
(http://www.gamefabrique.com/storage/screenshots/genesis/streets-of-rage-2-04.png)

I think this view is good because it shows the front of things.
It seems more important to see what is coming such as enemies and doorways and because who cares where we've been in a linear scrolling game?
Staying consistent with the perspective seems simplest unless ur game to attempt mixed perspectives  :mean:
Title: Re: [C+C] Beat'em up - Fighting game sprites
Post by: Hagane on July 26, 2015, 10:26:53 pm
First of all thanks for the responses and sorry for the delay, I have no internet so I can only answer like once in a month when I go to a friend's house.

Rikfuzz: I like that take on the portrait! Definitely feels like Super Street Fighter II, or maybe Streets of Rage 3.

I probably won't use dithering for the faces in women portraits, but maybe I could try to use some for male portraits, as in SSF2. Chun and Cammy have a simpler, anime-ish look with little dithering in their faces, but for males they use it extensively and it gives them a more rugged, stronger look. I'm pretty bad at dithering though, it requires a degree of skill I lack to do it well, but will give it a try.

I tried to apply some of the ideas I liked from you version to mine. I particularly like how you did the face bandage, really looks like a piece of cloth instead of looking flat like in my version. I attempted to pull off something similar, though it looks nowhere as convincing.

(http://i.imgur.com/ZQBbE0U.gif)

What do you think of this?

Hawken: I used to draw everything by hand on paper and then scanned and traced those drawings to convert them to sprites.

That method proved to be tedious and counterproductive, so nowadays I draw everything directly on the PC with graphicsgale, since it's easier to keep things consistent that way. I also use rotations for some inbetweens to give animations more weight at a fraction of the time it takes to draw a framw from grounnd up.

Once I get the design of a character down I draw a single neutral frame to get key measurements (how many pixels long is the waist, head, legs, shoulder to shoulder, etc), and then decide the palette. Once I have that, I plan the keyframes and timings on paper, and decide beforehand which frames are eligible for rotating for inbetweens.

I draw the initial roughs on a single graphicsgale frame with layers for each animation frame, so I can clearly see the previous drawing, which increases accuracy and efficiency, and once I have things in place and the animation works well I make each of those layers a separate frame and proceed to fully draw all the keyframes and main inbetweens to the last detail.

Then I use asesprite's rotprite algorhythm to do some extra padding inbetweens. It's a much less destructive rotation than what most editors do, so it doesn't take that much work to clean a sprite rotated that way.

When I started with this project my process was much less methodic and I ended up having to edit and re-edit things many times due to inconsistencies, bad production decisions and plain lower drawing skill (I constantly had to revise things to make them look consistent with my latest work)... I guess they were unavoidable mistakes I had to go through to learn to do things better. With the way I do things now newer animations are ready much faster.

Tourist: do you see that in all animations, or just in some attacks? Would you specify a bit more so I can try to fix them?

Decroded: Makes sense, I didn't think it that way even though it seems obvious.

I was talking about using a fully frontal vanishing point too since boss battles will have little advancing scrolling and be more like in a versus fighting game (KOF; SF; Guilty gear, etc) with back and forth scrolling so perhaps that kind of view would be good for those fights.

Lately I've been practicing slashing effects. This is the character's super move, and is supposed to be a very strong slash that leaves a lingering wave over her. Timing is a bit off since the slash effect should have its own timing, but it shares the character's so it looks strange towards the end. Also, right now the slash has only one color. What could be improved? 

(http://i.imgur.com/2YXrFWq.gif)

Lately I decided to drop cel-shading on shadow areas, since I don't think it really adds that much in terms of style and it adds a lot of time to edition, particularly when rotationg frames. Now I only use that darker color to delimit areas and do some details. I decided this after looking at this artist's work (http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?id=2595023, some NSFW content). I think the sprites look cartoony enough without them due to the low color count, what do you think?

I've started to give the finishing touches to the sprites of other characters too. I should say that the game is suppossed to take place in a WWII setting with fantastic elements, so designs make a bit more sense. The main character and her allies are based on Allied countries and the enemies on Axis forces.

An ally

(http://i.imgur.com/XclEYwB.gif)

Making Chinese girls look distinctive is very hard since they are very popular in fighting games. I tried my best but she ended up looking a bit like Bao from KOF, which does not speak very well about the quality of her design. Perhaps I should give her a Chinese sword, though Namco already did that with Xianghua...

What do you think about the pallete? Skin color right now is the same as the girl I've been posting and seems to work fine for this one too, but probably could change. I'm also not sure about the shading on her dress; it's meant to make it look tight with the tension points on her waist, but doesn't look that convincing.

and enemy bosses

(http://i.imgur.com/1kJNta9.gif)

I think this one needs more contrast to differentiate the armor and uniform better, but I can't think of another pallete for metal. I could change the uniform's color to black, but I already have many characters that use black and I don't want to make colors that monotonous.

(http://i.imgur.com/nDnATUe.gif)

This is supposed to be a magician. My main problem is the book, which, well, doesn't look that much like a book. Perhaps I should add some runes or magic symbols to make it look magic-er. Tried with a pentagram but I can't make it look right.

Sorry for the wall of text and for what will probably be a late reply next time I'm here.
Title: Re: [C+C] Beat'em up - Fighting game sprites
Post by: The Phinx on August 02, 2015, 01:47:38 am
Was there a 3D model used as reference for these animations ?They seem very structured.
Title: Re: [C+C] Beat'em up - Fighting game sprites
Post by: BlackTerror on August 05, 2015, 10:56:38 pm

Lately I've been practicing slashing effects. This is the character's super move, and is supposed to be a very strong slash that leaves a lingering wave over her. Timing is a bit off since the slash effect should have its own timing, but it shares the character's so it looks strange towards the end. Also, right now the slash has only one color. What could be improved? 

(http://i.imgur.com/2YXrFWq.gif)

I'm confused. You call this a slash but it looks more like she's thrown something upwards: why are there two motion blurs, each of which fades independently of the other?
Title: Re: [C+C] Beat'em up - Fighting game sprites
Post by: Gil on August 05, 2015, 11:11:54 pm
I'm confused. You call this a slash but it looks more like she's thrown something upwards: why are there two motion blurs, each of which fades independently of the other?
That's actually a pretty classic animation pattern? Traditionally, smoke puffs are used for these secondaries. It represents air pressure, making the animation more powerful, while still retaining speed.