Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: fxokz on November 30, 2016, 10:16:31 am
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(https://i.gyazo.com/da005c26b6d266a1ba7b4c679b433c76.png)
How can i make this treasure chest look much more juicy and rewarding to open? Right now it doesnt even look like a chest. It feels more like a mechanical briefcase. The major flaw i see is the fact that it doesnt really have texture.. Any advice?
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The key issue for me is that it doesn't spring open in an exciting manner, nor display rewarding goodies when it has opened. I want to see expensive riches, big golden goblets etc, not a bunch of little insignificant coins.
I've attached the chest animation from my game to use as a bit of an animation reference.
(http://i.imgur.com/TSJ4vrg.gif)
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The key issue for me is that it doesn't spring open in an exciting manner, nor display rewarding goodies when it has opened. I want to see expensive riches, big golden goblets etc, not a bunch of little insignificant coins.
I've attached the chest animation from my game to use as a bit of an animation reference.
(http://i.imgur.com/TSJ4vrg.gif)
How can i make it look more exciting as it opens?
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Instead of a jelly jiggle you could give it more of a tilting bounce up off the ground. I know of some games that do this but can't think of what they were, some action game like ratchet and clank or kingdom hearts I think?
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The key thing to making motion look exciting is to avoid linear timing. By that, I mean avoid having each frame (=moment in time) be the same amount of physical movement away from its neighbouring frames, like you have in your sprite. Instead, have speed-ups and slow-downs, and have things overshoot their motion, and have segments lag behind.
In Pixelnick's example, the chest starts opening slowly, then greatly speeds up, and then it bounces a little as it comes to a stop, this feels very springy and happy. If it had bounced at the start, it would've given a different look, one of hesitation, or of difficulty opening.
Look into animation timing. It might seem like a very general and basic thing, but that seems to be your struggle currently. Learn about timing and I'm sure you'll have an easier time figuring out how to make your chest animations great, along with all your other animations. Here's a very basic illustration to get you started. (http://eishiya-refs.tumblr.com/post/51522827004/ryan-c-cole-rubberninja) All of the animations have the same number of frames and the frame rate is constant, but the timing of the motion is different.
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Another idea could be to roll with that briefcase thing and actually make it one for things like documents or item rewards, rather than money rewards! Would be a neat visual cue to help players understand better what rewards they're getting!
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Hey everyone. After seeing all of your replies i decided to COMPLETELY change up my chest design to make it look more rare and precious and contain ALOT of gold and etc etc.. I changed up the color palette and the shape of the chest
However, it STILL feels weak in its current state. It obviously isnt finished but i thought id show it anyway
PS: its inspired by clash royales magical chest
(https://i.gyazo.com/e068086db23c41883e8769384f14e16c.png)
REFERENCE
(https://i.gyazo.com/e57a6b2298b5ffbe9c9d625286fa4ed7.png)
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(http://i.imgur.com/jzRGtws.png)
Defined a more clear 2nd ramp and made colors more exciting to match reference and purpose of the chest (Woo loot!). Tried to do something with perspective, like putting the gem further to our left, though canvas is small. Use some clusters of pixels to define the form like on the darker bumpy thingy on the reference. Try to have the colors mean something on the chest since right now the blobs of darker color on the non darker bumpy thingy part seem randomly placed. GL :y:
EDIT:
Also here are some old chests I drew a bit over a year ago (Note, there is a few extra frames of anticipation b/c they would be made to jump in-engine so I had to match the timing)
(https://yaomon.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/71-wo4cezp.gif?w=150&h=)
(https://yaomon.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/72-kqupk7h.gif?w=1000&h=)
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Oh My God.... Your improved version of the chest looks beautiful...... Im at a loss for words man it looks amazing.. The thing is whenever i try to use colours that are bright next to ones that arent the sprite ends up looking like crap. How do you make the colors complement eachother so well? Also i cant help but ask how do you sculpt the chest into the perfect shape? I can almost feel the texture of the chest when i touch it with my hands lol..
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well, i decided to change the colors so it doesnt look like i completely copied that damn thing;
OLD: (https://i.gyazo.com/e068086db23c41883e8769384f14e16c.png)
NEW: (https://i.gyazo.com/8329603534c64626307f1bb8ebfafe85.png)
So basically i realised that i wasnt using enough colors to properly define the chest so i added some. I also focused on making the brighter areas bright and the darker areas dark. thoughts? I think im slowly improving :>
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(http://i.imgur.com/bjqLZpA.gif)
Really it comes down to breaking the chest down into shapes, and then just using basic/fundamental shading techniques from there. The main chest is comprised of something like half a cylinder sticking out from a box/rect prism. Going further off that, you can break down the brace thing into several thick disks and prisms. Then you can just shade the planes different colors and decide what to do with cast shadows and ba-bing, instant chest. Ok it isn't quite that simple. Hopefully the process gif shows a bit more. Note I only used 3 tones here so some of it can become befuddled XP
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(http://i.imgur.com/bjqLZpA.gif)
Really it comes down to breaking the chest down into shapes, and then just using basic/fundamental shading techniques from there. The main chest is comprised of something like half a cylinder sticking out from a box/rect prism. Going further off that, you can break down the brace thing into several thick disks and prisms. Then you can just shade the planes different colors and decide what to do with cast shadows and ba-bing, instant chest. Ok it isn't quite that simple. Hopefully the process gif shows a bit more. Note I only used 3 tones here so some of it can become befuddled XP
Thank you for showing me that explanatory gif. Rather than stressing over the chest itself i decided to improve the animation and now it seems much more exciting than the first chest i showed to you guys.. heres the sprite sheet
(https://i.gyazo.com/41adfa0b02fc2b84b67635cae5b327d5.png)
How it looks in the game:
https://i.gyazo.com/5d3378fde6a4943e947a3ebf51cad50e.gif
What do you think? Im actually somewhat happy with this. Still not good enough though.
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Close! I'd add more extreme squash and stretch, really make it BOUNCE!