Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: xestro on April 27, 2008, 06:23:23 pm

Title: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: xestro on April 27, 2008, 06:23:23 pm
Im planning on making a little starcraft battle

these are my first sprites and tiles so their not that great

(http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/3568/bluehv7.png)  -> (http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/6625/marineee1.png) -> (http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/9867/marinejd8.png)
(http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/4679/tankkd8.png) -> (http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/9307/tankdz0.png) -> (http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/9006/tankdj9.png)
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: Tremulant on April 28, 2008, 07:13:44 pm
using a smaller, higher contrast palette would benefit these sprites greatly. You've used at least 10-12 colours where you could've gotten away with about half as many. I made an edit of the blue guy to demonstrate:

(http://h1.ripway.com/tremulant/Edits/xestred.png)

I also altered the pose a little, as yours seem slightly off balance, and a little stiff. I spread the legs, and shifted some stuff backwards to help give an improved sense of balance and weight. My edit doesn't look much like a space marine, but hopefully will be helpful nonetheless.

Good luck with this.  :)
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: ceddo on April 28, 2008, 08:25:29 pm
I am totally digging that edit. Makes me feel like doing a remake of starcraft!!

xestro: do you want to do these in the same angle as the original starcraft, or by side?  right now it looks like you're angling between both :)
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: xestro on April 28, 2008, 08:54:25 pm
I want to do a side view

here is a little edit based on yours

(http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/1382/marinezl9.png)
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: Tremulant on April 28, 2008, 09:14:11 pm
That's definitely a step in the right direction. Just move his head back by a pixel or two and I think you'll, for the most part, have fixed the balance issue.
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: dkh on April 28, 2008, 09:16:41 pm
Please, please do change the eyes away from that generic cute anime-rpg thingie, it really doesn't fit the Terrans in StarCraft any... AT ALL. They're rough guys, they smoke, the swear, they're dirty.

Apart from that, the Space-Marine looks better with the new colors. For the Siege-Tank, I'd advise you to study more reference material (both from the first and second part currently in development) - that is, if you want that tank to actually be a Siege-Tank. It just looks way different design-wise.

Can't comment on the tiles. What do they represent? Sand? They are not readable in the slightest, try thinking more of a structure behind the shapes and not of the shapes themself (ie. try drawing/shading little stones or whatever, don't draw random lines and dots in a way them seems nice when zoomed in).
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: xestro on April 28, 2008, 09:32:40 pm
(http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/1746/marinext3.png)

moved the head and changes the eyes

also I'm using SC2 so thats probably why the siege tank looks different to you.

also I'm scraping those tiles, just going to start over.
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: Shrike on April 28, 2008, 09:48:10 pm
the marine does look much better now, but the shading lacks form, and light sources conflict. i did a small edit:

(http://www.maj.com/gallery/exendia/Misc/marine.png)
i make a messy palette, lol. otherwise, fantastic idea, good job, especially for a first! and follow dkh's good points, especially about the siege tank.

i edited your last one, with the different eyes and better balance. the new one is better, but the face doesn't read well.
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: xestro on April 28, 2008, 10:00:29 pm
i like your edit
thanks

this is the reference i used
(http://www.gamemeca.com/news/img_data/200707/Siege-Tank.jpg)
i know its still off a little, but i think its close


EDIT-

i was just looking at their site and i see what you mean
its a lot different from the concept. im not sure if ill change it or not...

(http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/9307/tankdz0.png)
(http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/6625/marineee1.png)
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: Kcilc on April 29, 2008, 02:16:04 am
Your Marine is looking much better now, but it doesn't really say solder-in-a-gigantic-exoskeleton as much as it could; while you have a some good building blocks so far, I think it's time you started working on the details. There are lots of tubes and little pieces of metal all over the place in the concept art, even the shoulder-plates are segmented; and the legs look really sweet with their knee-plates and shin-guards. All in all there are tons of little things that really make a Marine, a Marine.

Here's an edit to illustrate my point.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/Daroge/Edits/marineee1kcilcsedit.png)
if you're planning on animating it, I would suggest to not put in quite so much detail so that the animation doesn't look all noisy.

I made the head quite a bit smaller and sunken in to give it that in-some-very-big-armor look,
increased the size of the limbs to help with detailing and that big heavy feeling,
and tried to squeeze as many details as I could into it to get it to say "Marine."

EDIT:forgot to add that I didn't use any highlights on the far leg and arm to give it a little bit more depth.
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: xestro on April 29, 2008, 02:30:18 am
I think you made your point  :o
and i was planning on making it animated
ill try to work on it tomorrow

also i think I'm going to try to do a platformer type thing with this...
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: Shrike on April 29, 2008, 02:58:28 pm
Kcilc, thats excellent.  :y: ;D

one more point, i think the palette is too saturated, and the marines don't look dingy enough. gotta have a few battle marks, right?
Kcilc never quite said that, so i thought i'd point it out. good luck!
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: xestro on April 30, 2008, 01:28:07 am
i used Kcilc's edit to remake him
i also made him alittle bigger
(http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/9867/marinejd8.png)

i think he looks more rough now

not sure how to add fine details to a small sprite...

also updated the tanks...
not sure if i like it or not ???

(http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/9006/tankdj9.png)

Here are the new tiles
im going to try to make it more a platformer style instead of rpg

(http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/4404/tiledg9.png)
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: xestro on May 02, 2008, 01:12:45 am
I have found a problem....

what do you think?

(http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/5075/mockupku4.png)
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: Joseph on May 02, 2008, 03:35:27 am
well first off, you can't 'use' someone else's edit.  even though it's kind of your idea, you didn't draw all of it, so therefore, you can't call it your own. correct me if I'm wrong, but, his newest version is only an alteration of Kcilc's.
edits are used to show a personal opinion, not to give away free sprites.

second...I guess that kind of puts a hold on your player to tile issue for now.
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: TrevoriuS on May 02, 2008, 09:17:30 am
Or just maintain a 2 tiles empty space everywhere....
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: xestro on May 02, 2008, 09:20:53 pm
I know what your saying....
i did change it a little but i don't know what you consider ok...

i did make him smaller...

(http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/4224/marinesmallki0.png)

(http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/8783/mockup2to8.png)
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: Doppleganger on May 02, 2008, 10:17:32 pm
Unless your game is going to be running in a 110x110 square I don't suggest you make him that small. He will very easily get lost in a larger resolution. Unless of course you somehow cater the entire game to sprites being that small, but if that's the case then you better make him stand out a little more.
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: xestro on May 03, 2008, 01:04:50 am
Unless your game is going to be running in a 110x110 square I don't suggest you make him that small. He will very easily get lost in a larger resolution. Unless of course you somehow cater the entire game to sprites being that small, but if that's the case then you better make him stand out a little more.

I see what your saying
I was only testing what would happen if i made him smaller
I'm have no idea what size its going to be yet...

ill do some more work on it sunday...

SATs tomorrow....
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: Rosse on May 03, 2008, 06:59:28 am
Xestro, I think the direction you're heading now is not good. "To put many details into it, just because" is a bad reason imho. The most important thing is readability. And you really achieve the opposite with putting much details into a small sprite. I think Tremulant's edit is great because he pushes simplicity and volumes. Head in that direction.

About the size of the player. Normaly they are a multiple of 8 (8,16,24,32 and so on). Keep at this sizes and you're on the save side, same goes for the tiles.

I think it's coming great, keep at it!
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: Kcilc on May 03, 2008, 06:21:16 pm
Xestro, I think the direction you're heading now is not good. "To put many details into it, just because" is a bad reason imho. The most important thing is readability.
I don't think anyone said anything like this. If you're directing this at my post, then I suggest you reread what I wrote, because nowhere did I say to just add many random details. I said to put in more details so that people will be able to recognize this sprite as a Starcraft Marine; to help with the readability, not the other way around. Take trem's edit for example, it's a very good edit, but it builds upon my fears of initial readability; it doesn't look much like a Marine, just a random solder in cool blue armor.

As for the updates on your sprite, xestro, I think that my style blended in with yours looks tacky at best; they just don't mix. I'd say to just use my edit as a guideline rather than a remake.
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: xestro on May 03, 2008, 11:26:36 pm
well i remade it.... still looks like yours though....

too tired to think right now...

New-(http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/1612/marine2lq1.png)
Old-(http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/9867/marinejd8.png)

Edit- Iv been thinking of some other ideas for some sprites.... i think im going to put this on hold and work on my other ideas...
not sure yet though..

feel free to keep giving me some cc though
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: Rosse on May 04, 2008, 10:14:15 am
Kclic:
First of all, please excuse me. Maybe it's because of the language barrier (english is not my mother tongue), but with my sentence (the one about details) I didn't want to insult you or anyone. I just needed a example and abused your sentence to make a statement (and a small joke). So please forgive me. But I still believe in what I wrote, please let me elaborate:

Let's take the StarCraft 2 Space Marine as a example. Dkh said “They're rough guys, they smoke, the swear, they're dirty” and you said “There are lots of tubes and little pieces of metal all over the place in the concept art [...] All in all there are tons of little things that really make a Marine, a Marine.” To display this mental image, let's take a look at the concept art of StarCraft 2 here (http://eu.starcraft2.com/features/terran/images/bg-marine.jpg). He's really a tough guy. But now look at the ingame model here (http://starcraft2.4players.de/bilder/terraner/marines.jpg) or here (http://eu.starcraft2.com/features/terran/marine.xml) (look at the running animation). Do you still see a tough guy? Maybe, but the model is a generic soldier in a (maybe) cool looking armor. So what does that mean?
Scott McCloud (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_McCloud) calls this “induction”. You see a smilie and induce yourself into it, you look into a mirror. Something similar happens with the StarCraft 2 models. You have a “mental” image of a Space Marine (from conceptart and/or the small image in the UI), and when you see this small guy in a armor running around the battlefield you see a tough guy which sweat, smokes and make cool statements about war (didn't play the game, so please forgive me again ;) ).
This effect happens all the time in computergames (in good ones). You don't have the ability to put all these fine details into a model or sprite. Look at the old NES games. Look at all the monsters (Zelda for example). You have a manual which nice illustration from monsters. When you look ingame, you have 16x16 pixels with 3 colors - scary monster you say? Yes, but why? Induction! Other example, Rogue-like games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_%28computer_game%29), where a & is a big, scary deamon.You see?
Helm made in another thread (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=6286.msg73507#msg73507) a similar observation:
Quote
At such sizes, a single pixel is a lot of real estate. It turns out visual clarity for me is more important than signifying detail such as a zipper or seams to the jeans when a pixel is about 10 CM in that ratio. A jeans seam in real life is milimeters big, but now it's as big as his eye, so to speak. Simplyfy, make the volumes read more and don't worry so much about detail. The mind will invent details when it looks at something that seems correctly set up.
Sorry for abusing this thread, but somehow I think it's very on-topic for pixelart.
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: Kcilc on May 05, 2008, 03:39:21 am
@Rosse:
While induction works well within a game, or something to that effect, it would not work at all with a single sprite or tile; when I looked at that ampersand for the first time(it being bold, it caught my eyes before I read the sentence) I saw "and," not a big, scary demon; but If I was, say, playing Nethack, then yes, it could pass as a demon, only then though. This is actually the opposite of what I was trying to create; I wanted something instantly recognizable to avoid confusion of what, exactly, this supposed to be, so that someone who knew what a Starcraft sprite was, he could say, "yeah, that looks right," or someone who didn't know what a Starcraft Marine was, could google it, and say, "oh yes, that does look like what he made."

I think I found a bridge over the gap in our views; we're both striving for information, Helm defines this very well.
Quote
detail is pixel placements. If you can use less colours and still maintain the pixel placements that you've done, then this is good. This is relatively easy. If you take a 256 colour pic and you turn it into 128 shades of gray, it is very possible even automatically, a machine will induce no loss of detail.  Information isn't pixel placement, though, it is WHAT the pixels are. What colour, what they signify as texture and symbol.
What I was trying to say in my post was that, in order to have this essential information, he needed to place the pixels with more of an idea of what he was trying to create. In other words, he had a bunch of volumetric balls and other shapes, with a small bit of detail, but not enough to inform the viewer of what, exactly, he was attempting to create. I'm not saying that you should bog the sprite down with tons of details like I implied with my first post to this topic, and I apologize for that; I really do value simplicity and lighting, but if you focus too much on these it can, and will, make your sprite look just as bad as if you had over-detailed it. This also reminds of a post I made a while back:
Quote
But you must be careful when applying shades. Just remember that the fewer the better, as far as colors go; the reason for this is that when you have, say, fifteen colors in a little 32x32 square, it ends up being so smooth and flowing that none of the few details (that you can actually fit into that amount of space) really show up.

On the other hand, if you try to cram too much detail into your 'lil sprite, it takes on a noisy quality; which is, most definitely, not what you would want. Because most, if not all, of the volume would pack its bags and go off in search of something that could make good use of its illusion.
What I was saying here was that you need to find a good balance between volume and detail to really have an informative sprite, at any size.

@Xestro:
Your sprite is looking much, much better than what you had when you started out. Just a few crits to push it even farther:

First, it'd be a good idea to get rid of the highlight his (not our) left shoulder plate.
Second, I don't think that the dither is necessary for a sprite at this size, and dithering never really works with animations anyway.
Third, he's a little off balance, just move his torso and arms a pixel to the right and it should look better; a good way to check balance is to mirror the sprite, then work on it for a bit from that perspective.
Fourth, contrast, you need more of this; the colors are just a bit too close to each other.
Fifth(this is more of a nitpick), the visor looks as though it is bending towards the sprite's head a little bit, you could fix this by not using any buffer shades from the highlight to the shadow to create a thinner looking top-piece.

Other than those few things, though, it's looking really solid.

Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: Helm on May 05, 2008, 06:59:11 am
I am slowly amending my own views about dithering and animation. It seems plausible, and I've repeated it enough times myself, but I don't...really thing there's any problem with visual identity and dithering on animations. Any examples where it fucks up? I think we want this to be true, but it really isn't. Dithering is lost in motion, but then again, so is most aa and subtle shifts and generally the whole art of pixelling, if there's enough frames. Yet if you put the work, the mind will subconsciously pick up a fuller, more convincing effect. I think even dithering has a place in animation.

About the information/detail argument, I think that's the right track for this sprite. But if you look at starcraft concept art, and you say 'I will replicate the basic information of this in a small sprite' what are you left with? Huge shoulders (in the current sprite), that headcovering arch (not properly done in the sprite) and massive STOCKINESS. He's tough, he's compact, he's a van of a marine! The sprite doesn't read like this.

If a sprite doesn't hold like a NES sprite, it will never hold with more colors. Let's try to put that information in a NES sprite version of a starcraft marine first.

(http://www.locustleaves.com/marine.png) and halfsize (http://www.locustleaves.com/marine2.png) (http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/9867/marinejd8.png)

My sprite is smaller but conveys more attitude in its space. It uses less colors yet there's more definition of the parts that make up the marine. What is there to learn from this?

*High contrast is useful for small sprites
*The pose of the character must convey something about his demeanour
*It makes sense that the startcraft team is not trying to put faces to these soldiers at this resolution
*The design of the starcraft marine is pretty bad, lacks angles, to begin with
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: ceddo on May 05, 2008, 06:52:00 pm
Great post, Helm! I shall keep it in a folder for future reference, it'll help me :)
Title: Re: [Wip] Starcraft sprites
Post by: xestro on May 08, 2008, 09:34:12 pm
Hmm...

i haven't read your post yet helm but ill change if i can

i decided to chance it a little...
i didn't want to copy starcraft so i changed it to something I'm a little better at, penguins  ;D

(http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/1293/penguinmarinehb4.png)