Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: RetroNuva10 on May 03, 2018, 04:16:17 am

Title: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: RetroNuva10 on May 03, 2018, 04:16:17 am
Hey there! I've been recently planning out and doing some early art for a game that I hope to make (currently titled Falchion). I'm hoping for it to be 100% NES-authentic, with all the delightful limitations. It's obviously inspired by Castlevania, and is supposed to be akin to Dark Souls.

Here is a mock-up room with a tileset (only 2 of the 4 background palettes have been utilized so far) that I've made. It uses a slightly modified NES palette that has a better brown shade (because, in my opinion, it looks kind of crappy and can't be used well) as well as other minor changes (hues, saturations, and brightnesses).

Please give any and all criticism that you can! Tell me what you like and dislike, and what you think works and doesn't work. Additionally, I'm curious as to what other colors to use along with the aqua + orange scheme that I have. Thanks for reading!

(https://i.imgur.com/ZSX0k96.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/87CWM8N.png)
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: RetroNuva10 on May 03, 2018, 12:24:56 pm
Bump.  ;)
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: Mnots on May 03, 2018, 01:44:47 pm
The use of pure white on the background assets makes them pop a bit harder than the foreground tiles you're using. As a rule of thumb, I tend to stick to more saturated colors from the palette for platform tiles, as it makes them stand out well against the neutral colors in the background. Here I swapped out your brown for the purple shade, and went with the more saturated red midtone, as opposed to that muted orange from before.

(https://i.imgur.com/mNJR8jS.png)
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: Xorceles on May 03, 2018, 02:17:19 pm
that tiles looks awesome like a pro keep it up  :y: :)
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: Kairos on May 03, 2018, 02:53:11 pm
Not bad but the texture at the bottom of the red blocks feels a little noisy, maybe you could clean it up into cracks or fully commit to dithering in a way that conveys texture better? Also the pillars feel very pillow shaded, the highlights should be towards the top left not the middle of it.
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: had0c on May 03, 2018, 07:11:44 pm
this is taken from castlevania right? or at least heavily inspired.
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: RetroNuva10 on May 04, 2018, 02:57:52 am
this is taken from castlevania right? or at least heavily inspired.
It isn't from Castlevania. If so, I wouldn't've posted it if it were ;). However, you are correct in saying that it is inspired by it. Hopefully the future art that expands upon this will look more original.

that tiles looks awesome like a pro keep it up  :y: :)
Thank you! I'm rather happy with it so far.

Not bad but the texture at the bottom of the red blocks feels a little noisy, maybe you could clean it up into cracks or fully commit to dithering in a way that conveys texture better? Also the pillars feel very pillow shaded, the highlights should be towards the top left not the middle of it.
(https://i.imgur.com/hTLCMHY.png)

How does this look? Better?

The use of pure white on the background assets makes them pop a bit harder than the foreground tiles you're using. As a rule of thumb, I tend to stick to more saturated colors from the palette for platform tiles, as it makes them stand out well against the neutral colors in the background. Here I swapped out your brown for the purple shade, and went with the more saturated red midtone, as opposed to that muted orange from before.
(https://i.imgur.com/0EbZN8O.png)

Maybe a hue change? It might make it look softer.

And this is where the limited color palette becomes a problem. I'm not sure I want to make it darker, as I believe it sort of ruins the color "pretty"-ness of it. I'm trying to do something similar to what Batman did; largely black backgrounds (dare I call them "blackgrounds") where the color and important shapes are more specifically placed as opposed to just having color fill most of the screen:
(https://i.imgur.com/9x3ZA9h.png)

(lots of color and tiles completely or nearly completely full of color, which is what I don't want to do:)
(https://i.imgur.com/iSxyyuY.png)

Instead of like what Metroid does, I want the very unimportant background tiles (such as the ruined small stone bricks and rocky terrain) to only use the 2 darkest colors (excluding black, of course) of the palette, important background tiles (such as the pillars, windows, and Minotaur statue pillar) to use all 4 colors with a usually cool-er tint and more saturation (hence the original usage of grey and white), and the interactable tiles (like platforms and staircases) to use a more vibrant and visible palette (and utilizing all 4 colors of it).
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: Xorceles on May 04, 2018, 04:24:32 am
with any color and black  as background you can achieve this effect this method is used in 1-bit games and very limited palette like the nes one
(https://cdn.pbrd.co/images/Hjz4EAu.png)
i used here 4 colors,is my first crappy try to make a nes style graphic :P (anything was created using 1 color)
(https://cdn.pbrd.co/images/Hjzhzvc.png)
hope it help i made this with graphicsgale :y: ;D
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: MysteryMeat on May 04, 2018, 08:55:31 am
I think mnots has the right of it here, you really should remove that extra highlight from the background elements.
it reduces noise considerably and makes it a lot easier on the eyes just through that, less elements vying for focus.

it also helps sell that NES aesthetic way better.
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: eishiya on May 04, 2018, 02:40:04 pm
Agreed with MysteryMeat. That background has too much contrast, just about any character would be easily lost in it. I recommend having some character sprites in the scene on a separate layer as you work on it, so you can easily gauge how well they stand out.

You could tone down the contrast without losing those lovely blues or any details though, you'd just need to use a narrower range of values, something like this:
(https://i.imgur.com/j87L3tH.png)
I don't have the exact palette you're using so the colours aren't exact, but hopefully it conveys the idea.

There's no escaping having a darker background overall if you want the neutral areas to be solid black while also having the characters overlap the backgrounds. If you have both the solid black and a bunch of light colours in the background, that creates too much contrast. A solution might be to replace the background black with a lighter colour in those areas where you want a "light" feeling:
(https://i.imgur.com/bIbP5mI.png)
(I think this is still too much contrast though, unless the characters are all super-dark.)
Whatever the values of the background are, you generally want the overall value range to be narrow, so that the characters aren't lost in the high-contrast areas. You could also use darker colours as outlines in some cases, but this can also create high-contrast nose, so you should be careful with outlines. In general, if you want more value range in your backgrounds, you have to put the extremes in areas where characters won't touch them.

Digging this tileset, by the way!
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: RetroNuva10 on May 04, 2018, 04:10:24 pm
Agreed with MysteryMeat. That background has too much contrast, just about any character would be easily lost in it. I recommend having some character sprites in the scene on a separate layer as you work on it, so you can easily gauge how well they stand out.

You could tone down the contrast without losing those lovely blues or any details though, you'd just need to use a narrower range of values, something like this:
(https://i.imgur.com/j87L3tH.png)
I don't have the exact palette you're using so the colours aren't exact, but hopefully it conveys the idea.

. . .

Digging this tileset, by the way!

Thanks for all the feedback, and I'm glad you like it! Coincedentally, after I made my most recent reply, I proceeded to make a version that is just like yours:
(https://i.imgur.com/OYphoLA.png)

My main reason for being hesitant on darkening it was because I didn't want to lose the grey stone feel, since each level will have a distinct color palette. I decided to use the 3rd palette in this level to highlight the important bits: the columns and Minotaur. They might be too bright and not make sense, but they convey them as "landmarks" without being littered really frequently all over the screen, and they also add in some grey-ness that I was afraid of losing. Tell me what you think of it!
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: eishiya on May 04, 2018, 07:53:52 pm
You could retain the grey stone feel by using a grey colour instead of one of the blues. You don't have to use only blues or only greys, you can use both.

I think the Minotaur looks fine since it's mostly midtones with just a little bit of white, but the columns stand out too much. In my edit, I think they're still distinct, but don't distract/clash quite as much. The white-heavy columns would work well if they're meant to be interactive elements, but if they're just background landmarks, I think they're too much.
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: RetroNuva10 on May 05, 2018, 02:22:57 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/GR18Ts1.png)
How's this? I'm not sure I'd be satisfied removing all the white from the cylinder of the column, as I think it loses the nice depthy nature of it.
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: Decroded on May 07, 2018, 12:26:25 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/GR18Ts1.png)
How's this? I'm not sure I'd be satisfied removing all the white from the cylinder of the column, as I think it loses the nice depthy nature of it.
i think white columns have too much visual priority so they appear as obstacles
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: 7Soul on May 11, 2018, 04:11:06 am
Played around with palettes a bit (my colors will differ from yours, idk which nes palette you're using) but I mainly tried to make the pillars look less refined and metallic and gave the main block tile a texture

(https://i.imgur.com/4elpO6A.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/jDr9yhS.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/jv1JX8T.png)
Title: Re: [Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic
Post by: MysteryMeat on May 11, 2018, 06:25:23 pm
ooh, that second one is perfect. good work!