Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: +peter on June 09, 2007, 06:57:04 pm
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Alright, well this is my very first post here. I have visited many times in the past and slowly built my inspiration to the point where I had to start making something. Thus I present to you 38 hand pixeled, 16x16 tiles, arranged in a way that begin to function as a mockup to an RPG of the 16 bit era. I understand this theme has been done to death, but you have to start somewhere.
I know of many problems that you all will probably spot pretty quickly as well. The layout does not break the grid as much as I hope, and there still needs to be more variety. Palette wise, I am using about 30 colors in total. I would love to get that number down in future revisions as there is a lot of wasted green. I believe this simple mockup might already be outside of SNES spec memory wise.
Any advice and crits you can offer are extremely appreciated!
(http://www-personal.umich.edu/~peteralt/files/build_3.png)
My next step on this is to work in a bit more variety into the existing tiles, then move onto more set tiles such as dirt paths, water and trees and buildings. :)
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i think Snes is like 16 or 8 or something around there. Ya a lot of different shades of grren you could take out. other then that your better then me!
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theres a strange thing about this where the grass is far too many colors and the steones are far too few. the entire thing is a bit dull. the whole look of it is that of something done before.
Basically, i'd suggest something non-seiken densetsu in order to learn the most for your work. Dont try and take so many leaves from square's pages, go into something headlong and really explore in order to get something that is more "you"
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its just a rip of Secret of Mana
(http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/3508/som2ad8.gif)
not 100% rip but theres too many similarities for my liking.
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Feron: I'm not seeing a rip. I'm seeing some similarity, maybe due to SoM referencing, but nothing along the lines of a copy.
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It's not a rip, but it's so close that he could have called his references. Same thing as posting a portrait without reference. Now that we have seen the original, there goes a lot less credit to this piece, seeing that he only had to copy general shapes.
Anyway, I would work on the grass texture, it's a little random and doesn't say "grass" to me yet. A little bit more contrast on the flowers wouldn't hurt either...
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hey
@Gil: I think it's a bit far fetched to call the Secret of Mana tiles or whatever the original.
Firstly, why doesn't anyone care to ask +peter if SOM was even a reference? or if they were thinking of SOM when pixeling this? or if they copied anything? or if SOM tiles or whatever were used as a base? Maybe they just had this sorta style idea in their head or something. Anyhows sorry to go off topic.
Now about your pixels... I do find it hard to read the flowers, eveything seems to blend together a bit much I think. I don't seem to like the highlighted grass off in front of the cliffs, as I think they ruin the depth of the cliff. But yea, as I said earlier I think nothing looks very sharp, and seems to blend together to much, and maybe it would indeed help if you reduced some colors and added some darker shades or whatever to give greater contrast. Anyhows I think I will leave it at that for now.
Hmm, I do seem to be comparing this to the SOM tiles or whatever now that Feron has posted this screen.
Hmm, I actually quite like the older blander/duller or whatever ya wanna call it colors that you see in alot of the Super Nintendo games, when compared to the Gameboy Advance. Although I think there was a purpose to make them brighter on the Gameboy Advance, as the screen is smaller, and less bright. But really it's a hard choice, and more of a personal taste when you look at the graphic changes on ports of Super Ninendo games on the Gameboy Advance.
cyas
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whoa! was not expecting this .... ???
Adarias - yeah, it is kind of dull, but I am not going to expect my first attempt to be completely oozing with original, creative energy. hopefully my second will. When I have beaten this to death, I really want to try something much more divergent.
Feron - it is not a rip at all. no copying took place. I studied similar images for about an hour when I first started, just to understand the methodologies of pixel art, not to recreate the original.The last 15 hours were without reference to shapes or forms. After that first hour, I just problem solved the entire tileset into working. Despite coloring similarities, the more I progress, the more my method develops and style hopefully emerges.
As I continue on more tiles, hopefully the similarities will start to give way to my own vision of a cliched RPG world.
yosh64 - Thank you for the support! Haha, those flowers still dont work do they. I spent a lot of time trying to get that to work. That was maybe my third tile though, so I should probably revisit now that I have a better idea what I am doing.
That is an interesting note about the grass on the cliffs. I was hoping that by altering that grass I could break up the monotony of the grass tile while really pointing to the fact the ledge is indeed coming to an end. I wonder how that could be solved, by instead of cutting that grass, adding a bit more brightness to the cliff's crest or maybe coming up with a shadow tile for the base of the cliff, or putting more contrast into the cliff face.
Others' points regarding the grass, I agree it is not defined on the tile itself, however I am interested in using supplementary tiles to fill in that knowledge for the viewer (note the existing long grass tiles pointing left and right). We'll see how that works.
The massive palette on the grass, I think will remain on this one (though I agree with the suggestions) allowing me to continue on to more tiles that should really help the piece "pop."
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hey
Just to be more clear, I made a really quick edit to point out the grass I was talking about earlier.
(http://img451.imageshack.us/img451/337/build3edityosh64lf8.png)
BTW, after looking at the number of colors, I think it has a rediculous amount of simular not needed colors :\. Anyhows, I would find it very hard to keep track of all the different colors you are using.
cyas
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Yosh64 - okay I now see what you mean regarding the grass, sorry for misunderstanding. That is a case of trying to use a tile in a place that it was not originally intended. That's funny because it is doing the complete opposite of what I had hoped. Ah, the problems with staring at your own piece for too long.
The palette IS embarrassing. I made an error (unknowingly) when creating some tiles early on, the problem was compounded as I continued using those tiles as a source for new ones. What I ended up with was a palette of 30 colors, only half of which I make effective use of.
I guess its a learning thing. Challenges I did not even know existed reveal themselves as I continue the process. My next tile set will obviously have this problem remedied. Thanks for your input!
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Feron, next time please consider a more gentle approach to asking someone if they've ripped, if your evidence is so flimsy.
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Okay, my post seemed a bit harsher than it should, but as it was obvious you referenced from SoM, I thought it couldn't go unnoticed. The flowers for example are almost exactly the same. On the other side, yours seems to fix a lot of problems with the original SoM graphics, such as the small ridges being too harsh. You could learn a deal from the colour use though, as you are lacking some saturation here and there. To avoid a big fuss around this (it's not necessary, your piece is unique enough to stand by itself), here's the style comparison. It's interesting to note which parts work better in which image.
It's a very interesting study anyway, one which I tried out too years ago (http://resume.game-designer.org/portfolio/pixel/MOCKUP_grass.png)...
SoM - yours:
(http://art.game-designer.org/pixelart/edit/SD3.png) (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~peteralt/files/build_3.png)
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i think a huge number of people started out learning from SoM etc; particularly people who read tsugumo when they began.
(http://xs216.xs.to/xs216/07230/Tiles.gif)
one of my early tilesets, for RPGmaker 95. same story really, although with a few different problems
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i think a huge number of people started out learning from SoM etc; particularly people who read tsugumo when they began.
Well, that is exactly who I was reading when I first started learning! When he says things like "Now let's talk Secret of Mana 3, which is quite possibly the most beautiful game I've ever seen" A beginner like me thinks "hmmm, I wonder what it was that they did so well?"
Which is why, Gil, the flowers look very similar as they were literally the second tile I made. I was heavily under the influence of the tutorials at the time, trying to figure out just how an organic shape was pulled off using pixels. As Yosh64 stated before, they still don't work that well, and all the better reason to revise the vegetation.
As I continue to learn more, I hope my methods will help remove the similarities that exist between this and the other works that aided in teaching me the basics.
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I have no problem with the similarities at all ;)
I think you did a great job on the ridges. I would make the shadows a bit darker though. Try creating some more flowers with the technique you learned to see if you can reapply it.
And I think we all read and learned from that tutorial.... He posted a nice thread here by the way, check it out: http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=3421.0