Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: zephiel87 on February 23, 2008, 08:10:32 am

Title: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: zephiel87 on February 23, 2008, 08:10:32 am
Just realized I joined months ago, and have posted almost none of my pixel art. Perhaps it's time to change that.

Anyway, my most recent work:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v510/zephie87/adofthemon.png)

yeah, I know there's some perspective issues, but overall I think I did a decent job.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: yosh64 on February 23, 2008, 10:45:07 am
hey

I just wanted to say that I really like it :).

Anyhows I have no advise or anything yet.

cya
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: ptoing on February 23, 2008, 02:49:39 pm
Overall very nice. Fun concept.

You have quite a few colours which are not really neccessary as well as some aa which does not really work, colourwise. Esp. the green on the mountains and on the nose of 8bit Mario.
The 45 degree lines on the Mountains technically do not really need AA, just makes them blurrier.

The pipe in the shadow behind the big Mario would not have a light and a dark side because it is completely in shadow, and shadows from just one lightsource can not multiply.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: Conzeit on February 24, 2008, 08:24:13 am
why shouldnt the pipe in the darkness have shading? it is not being hit by the main lightsource (which in the broad daylight would be the sun) but it would certainly be affected by the radiosity of the sky, which would only make the shading on it more diffuse and far darker.

I must say the image is quite striking..somehow the thought of a 3d mario1 sprite made me hungry for a mario shaped cookie C_c those boots look chocolaty :p. I feel like stomping in the town and eating everything up.

I'm more concerned about the volume and clarity of the real mario. You may refuse to give perspective to the background, but you MUST bring the same kind of volume the statue has to the real mario, give it perspective and make the lighting on it follow the lightsource established on the statue. The light is clearly hitting the top of the statue MUCH more than the side, as the jump in contrast from the top to the side is QUITE a bit, the highlights on mario should hit him in the same direction and with the same contrast....but all we really see is the highlights loosely scattered toward the left of the figure.

I also noticed that mario is wearing a red shirt of the SAME red as the statue, why is the red tone you used for the side of the statue so sparse for mario? it should hit him a lot more, and you probably should add another red for the top, to replicate the lighting of the statue.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: ptoing on February 24, 2008, 12:34:00 pm
why shouldnt the pipe in the darkness have shading? it is not being hit by the main lightsource (which in the broad daylight would be the sun) but it would certainly be affected by the radiosity of the sky, which would only make the shading on it more diffuse and far darker

It looks like the pipe is in the shadow cast by the big Mario, hence it would not be lighter on the front and darker in the back as it is in shadow entirely and does not recieve direct light.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: sevenfingers on February 24, 2008, 07:32:24 pm
(http://sevenfingers.awwright.com/temp/mario.jpg)
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: eck on February 24, 2008, 07:36:08 pm
in that model the shadow doesn't cover the pipe, as the shadow in zephiels piece does.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: sevenfingers on February 24, 2008, 07:40:10 pm
no, my point actually. compare the angle on the cylinder shadow on the render and the pixel, reasonable match, the mario model should not shade the back pipe, at least completely.
As for Ptoings crit, he's correct, in a general sense. You'd have to take in to account bounce-light and other messy things though. But shadows ona whole do not multiply. They do scatter though.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: VictorR on February 24, 2008, 08:09:56 pm
Wow neat concept. What I find odd is the wooden fence to the right, it looks higher than the one to the right.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: zephiel87 on February 24, 2008, 08:35:54 pm
Thanks for all the advice guys!

Conceit is right that the pipe would have at least a little shading, the sun can't possibly hit a scene from exactly one point. But I probably made it too noticeable.

I'll work on fixing up the shading on Mario and the other foreground elements.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: ptoing on February 24, 2008, 09:01:32 pm
the sun can't possibly hit a scene from exactly one point.

Astrophysics 101: The sun is ONE object and such pretty much is ONE point of lightsource. Also light can not go around corners.
Go outside when it's sunny, place something in your yard, then take a piece of cardboard or a book so that the shadow covers said something and see if it has super distinct shading.
There can be some bouncelights and such, but it would still be minimal if it's in complete shadow.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: zephiel87 on February 24, 2008, 09:08:35 pm
Yeah, i didn't word that very well, the sun itself can't light an object from more than one point, but there will be some shading from bounce light and refraction and such.
but yes, it would be minimal, I did admit to shading more prominently than would actually be noticeable.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: Terley on February 24, 2008, 09:17:02 pm
wouldn't it depend on how strong the lightsource is, maybe the sun is behind a cloud ?  :-X

would of thought the sun lights up the whole sky giving anything with view of light some dimension, if anything don't give the pipe in the shade so much contrast.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: ndchristie on February 25, 2008, 12:23:50 am
it actually turns into an inside-outside thing, where the interior parts and curves receive significantly less reflected light (therefor having very obvious shading at times, look at your hand or something), but that's not useful in this case where the entire thing is pretty much convex.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: Kren on February 25, 2008, 01:41:52 am
hmm, it seems that the mario statue is falling down.. Am I right ? or are my eyes failing <-<.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: Terley on February 25, 2008, 02:23:53 am
He said there were some perspective issues but I think it adds to making the big mario more towering, more interesting imo, but yea kinda does look like he's about to topple.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: Conzeit on February 29, 2008, 06:31:59 am
Ptoing: You said shadows "should not multiply"  I think that phrase came from one of Arne's/Prom's tutorials, and you did not understand the concept he was conveying.

http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/tuts/shadows.jpg do you mean "shadows dont add"? what is shown there is true, but you missunderstand it if you think it means anything under a shadow shouldnt have light and dark. Look at the correct examples, the parts of the object under shadow have shading but it is far subtler and uses far less contrast, this is because they have the diffuse shading a reflected light produces.

What is true and what Prom examplifies is that when a lightsource makes two objects project shadows, wherever those two shadows overlap eachother they should nod add, instead they should merge.
This is because when something is "in the shadow" what makes it look slightly darker than anything around it is that it's only being lit by reflected light. This is common sense, look at anything around you under a shadow, it DOES NOT look flat, but all the volume on it is very vague and it's hard to tell what the lightsource is.
http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials/02-bright-overcast-tree.jpg this is a good example of what something lit only trough diffuse (reflected) light looks like. See how hard it is to tell what it's lightsource is?


http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials/light03.htm
Now, when this happens in an exterior the object is still pretty well lit even when in shadow, because it is being lit by the SKY. When the sky reflects the light of the sun, since it is such a big object that makes it so strong it can be considered a second lightsource.
The only difference is that anything lit by the sky doesnt show very clearly what is lighting it up, since the sky is all around everything in the outside the lightsource would pretty much be all around the object.

Now....for the whole "should the shadow reach the tube" thing:

Consider what the picture is about, everything in it but the statue is completely irrealistically shaded and placed in perspective, but this is about an irreal character in a NES world that is characterstically badly shaded, so putting ONLY the character and the main object he's interacting with in decent shading and perspective makes sense as an artistic choice.....so if he wants to over-extend the shadow a little for a dramatic effect..that's good
I'm gonna aim my critiques to making sure both the character and the statue are both rendered with the same quality and have the same level of protagonism, because otherwise the picture completely fails at communicating what it was made to communicate. 

But if you want to get realistic yeah, given how strongly the light hits the top of the statue, I do think the sun should be pretty much on top of the statue and it should not project over the tube, but the long shadow works for the picture so I didnt say anything about that.


Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: ptoing on February 29, 2008, 12:31:32 pm
No need to write an essay, I know what I wrote and I know how this stuff works. Just said that if that pipe is covered in shadows it would not have such a defined light on one side. I know about reflected light, kthxbye.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: Helm on February 29, 2008, 09:43:38 pm
Mario's gesture is not clear. He's polishing I take it. Move the hand to a clearer position so the body language reads better, we can see the item in mario's hand better and the point of the picture isn't undermined by the execution. This is wonderful otherwise!

Ptoing please don't 'kthnxbye' Camus for doing all the work to explain his position, we're here to help each other.

Another point of interest is that the three-point perspective on the huge mario doesn't work because the third point is placed too close on the horison, and the warping is too extreme.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: spik on March 02, 2008, 07:21:52 am
something looks wrong with the fences. they almost seem to be on different angles. other than that, everything else seems to have been mentioned. excellent work. :)
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: Conzeit on March 03, 2008, 09:45:29 pm
(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b340/baybaybom/MarioCookie.png) quick rough edit on the mario person there  :P
PS: What IS he supposed to be doing?
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: infinity+1 on March 03, 2008, 09:58:36 pm
looks more like little cliffs than fences to me.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: Terley on March 04, 2008, 02:17:53 am
They are little cliffs, or rises in ground level.  ::)

Interesting stuff, it's like if mario where real would he know he was a famous game character? As if he's built his own statue.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: ilkke on March 04, 2008, 10:17:44 pm
Mario is holding it so it doesn't fall over :D
I don't think the statue is falling, I just think that it's a wide-lens thing. What makes it not-so-obvious is that the background isn't deformed in a similar manner.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: Atnas on March 04, 2008, 10:20:35 pm
Actually, that's a very good observation. The statue is under some form of torque, just look at the positioning of it's legs.
Title: Re: 8bit Pixel Art
Post by: zephiel87 on March 06, 2008, 07:27:42 am
To clear up the Mario pose issues, he's supposed to be resting his hand on the statue and looking up at it in admiration, the hand above his head is supposed to be shielding form the sun. I realized after the fact that the sun's direction makes that unneccessary, but didn't bother to change it.

And yes, those are cliffs in the background.

So assuming i have time to fix this up (laziness and business have been problematic the last couple weeks) the major crits right now are the shading on the pipe in the back and the small Mario (possibly his pose too). I didn't miss anything too important otherwise, correct?