Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: megane on May 06, 2008, 10:20:00 am

Title: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: megane on May 06, 2008, 10:20:00 am
So, hi.

That aside, I made these for a faction in Wesnoth, but unfortunately the feedback I get in my thread there (http://forum.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17439) is generally of the ego-boosting, rather than the art-improving type.  Hopefully you guys will be a bit meaner.

(http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/6622/sheetrq0.png)
I did these essentially from the center outwards, and it shows in the fact that the early ones are terrible (well, more terrible).  Magenta's for recoloring.  I marked the ones that stick out to me as being particularly unacceptable, and in general I'd like to completely redo the heads, hair, and shadows.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: Ben2theEdge on May 06, 2008, 01:43:25 pm
The big thing is that they're too blurry. You're using what's referred to as "dirty tools" - the photoshop paintbrush with anti-aliasing for example. This is generally frowned on in the pixel art community, but for good reason: it's impossible to control and it makes stuff blurry. It saves you a little time because you don't have to mix as many colors yourself but the visuals take a big hit for it. When working at this scale every pixel needs to be placed with precision and intention. As it is, everything is very soft-looking and you're missing out on a lot of details, opting for basic shapes instead, because you're using tools that were meant for a much higher resolution.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: TrevoriuS on May 06, 2008, 01:47:41 pm
May I partially disagree with you Ben... These tools give great anti-aliasing when using alpha transparancy in the engine. Also, it turns out quite nice when you draw at 200% - 400% size and then shrink it to the desired boundaries. However, after that a lot of manual retouchings may need to be made, and sometimes this may even get MORE time consuming, but it DOES result in nearly perfect anti aliasing.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: megane on May 06, 2008, 01:59:26 pm
You're using what's referred to as "dirty tools" - the photoshop paintbrush with anti-aliasing for example.
Nope.  No blurry tools here.  If they look that way, it's just because I suck.  These were all done with the hard-edged pencil tool; what you're seeing is just subpixel smoothing and the transparency anti-aliasing I do on the outside edges only, and those're done by hand with the pencil as well.  If you don't believe me: (http://exong.net/wesnoth-attach/files/scribe_195.png)(http://exong.net/wesnoth-attach/files/scribe_108.png)(http://exong.net/wesnoth-attach/files/scribe_217.png)

Edit: if, however, this makes them look bad, I suppose I can stop doing it.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: infinity+1 on May 06, 2008, 02:59:02 pm
May I partially disagree with you Ben... These tools give great anti-aliasing when using alpha transparancy in the engine. Also, it turns out quite nice when you draw at 200% - 400% size and then shrink it to the desired boundaries. However, after that a lot of manual retouchings may need to be made, and sometimes this may even get MORE time consuming, but it DOES result in nearly perfect anti aliasing.

yeah, but you're not drawing at the pixel level. it's a shortcut, and the artist isn't creating the piece pixel by pixel. i strongly disagree.

and wait, how would the shadows and light balls so perfectly blending in the background of the forum? isn't that a sign of photoshop blur, and transparency? or am i off base here?
unless he's working on a canvas that color..
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: megane on May 06, 2008, 04:57:26 pm
...the shadows and light balls aren't done by hand, they're Gaussian blurs.  I figured it would be fairly clear which bit was the sprite and which the background elements (and for the record, the shadows are only blurred because that's how Wesnoth's official art style dictates it should be done).  Does adding transparency and a blurred shadow to something you laid down pixel by pixel somehow make it not pixel art? :-\

Let me repeat: I did these with the hard-edged pencil tool.  I'm failing to see how you're coming to other conclusions.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: AdamAtomic on May 06, 2008, 05:11:51 pm
Does adding transparency and a blurred shadow to something you laid down pixel by pixel somehow make it not pixel art? :-\

Of course!  Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are bad GAME art.  However, just because you use the pencil tool doesn't mean you're making pixel art either - if you use the pencil tool with opacity, or just sketch wildly without any set plan or control, then the pencil tool is the same as any other "dirty" tool - the computer is doing some of the work for you!

But...as much fun as it is to quibble over tool usage, etc, the bottom line is even disregarding the blurred shadows and glows, these pieces suffer from many of the same problems that a "dirty" piece suffers from:

l1 - Lots of unnatural black shadows

2 - Wide shadows with no color identity/info

3 - Small details that SHOULD pop don't, because they are over-AA'd

4 - Very little cohesion between palettes (even in the non-shifting areas) - that is to say, straight, unmixed ramps

A limited palette is not so much a crutch as it is a boost in most cases, especially when you are working at very small resolutions.  In fact, many traditional acrylic and oil painters will only use a palette of 10-15 colors (with some washes) because this is an acceptable range of values for rendering.  Even without the blurring and edge AA it looks like you're using maybe 25 or 30 colors on a single sprite, despite the fact that you could easily use skin tones to highlight the hair, share shadows between the blue and gray areas, use teal to add eye color, etc etc.  While you may have executed all these things using the pencil tool, they are all hallmarks of sloppy non-pixel art and should be fixed!
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: megane on May 06, 2008, 07:04:43 pm
Well, I tried doing it your way.  15 colors, of varying hues, and 1-bit transparency ('cept for the shadow, which is just set to %10 and not blurred).  Didn't change the structure much, but it looks better, aside from the fact that the jaggies make my eyes bleed.
(http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/2864/seekerep2.png)
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: AdamAtomic on May 06, 2008, 08:28:01 pm
That's actually MUCH harder to read than the original, I had to look for a long time to figure out what was going on there!  The face and torso are especially difficult to see.  Don't just mix your colors willy nilly - you have gits of gray in the hair, face, spear shaft, but they don't really make any sense, neither does the purple all over the boots.  Overall the image is extremely noisy and cluttered!

I think a good experiment would be to start by rendering the shape as simply as you can, using 4-6 colors (I like to use black, white, and 3 grays on a first pass), and just work on your basic shapes, lighting, priority, depth and readability.  Once the shapes are clear and you can easily see what it is you're looking at, then start adding in your colors and a smidge of AA if it suits.

Quick (and messy) paintover to show how with just 4 colors, all of the forms can be perfectly clear:

(http://www.adamatomic.com/sprites/crap.png)

This is what you want to have before you start painting in colors; lots of trad artists do charcoal studies before they paint, this is similar to that.  You want to have a really solid idea of your lighting and basic forms before you start dabbling around with colors!
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: EvilEye on May 06, 2008, 08:56:15 pm
 Heh, welcome to pixelation. Mostly people here frown on anything that isn't done pixel by pixel with no shortcuts like smudging tools etc ( been that way since the old pixelation.swoo.net ).

 One of the reasons why I don't post my work here, most of it isn't done pixel by pixel.

 But anyway, it would help if you posted your sprites one at a time instead of in one big jpeg. Right now when I click on the jpeg to zoom in the whole thing gets bigger and the sprites on the right side are pushed off the screen.

 So far from what I can see the sprites look good as far as the general artwork.

 The colors could use some improvement. A lot of the coloring is unexciting and lacks depth. Besides skin and hair tones it seems to be just purple and grey.

 The shading is too blended IMO. It could use some contrast and not so much smudging.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: TrevoriuS on May 06, 2008, 09:48:39 pm
Well lets at least give the guy the comments he want instead of critisizing work methods he can't derive from because he has specifications from the Wesnoth game.

Have you ever asked yourself - "Do I need colours to see it?", well here goes.
(http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/4489/editci8.gif)
Now we discover more easily, that the lightest/ligher robes lack a bit of contrast. Even when an object is white, it will have a darker shadow than that. It's a gif so you can notice the difference by the way. I roughly added some darkness to define more of the depth (not paying too much attention on volumes though). Therefore I personally do not make full use of AdamAtomics method (did do so) simply because you lose the structural function of colour - you only build on volumes and depth there, while colours can define alot as well, sometimes allowing you to 'cheat', necessary because of the small sizes you may be working on.

Of course you never need to be completely independant of colours, colours are a good thing, they add to your work, and you can build upon it as well. But when doubting quality of definition, it is a good way te see what's wrong in the shapes & shades to turn your image greyscale. Now the error in the new (lower colour counting) work is that you lost some important lines around the neck and chin in an attempt to shade with too high contrasting colours. Also the boots are more sloppily shaded and have less volume-guided highlights which make them lose their shape.

Good luck with this, I tried Wesnoth a while ago and am curious to see how this would play,
Trevor

License agreement note that these comments are created by personal opinions and people may completely disagree with me, though I derived my opinions from experience and explanations of people that are more experienced than me.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: megane on May 06, 2008, 10:12:48 pm
(http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/1482/seekerbwfh8.png)(http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/7163/seeker2gi0.png)
Tried AdamAtomic's method; right is just a recolor thereof.  Now it's time for sleep. -_-
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: Feron on May 06, 2008, 10:41:11 pm
that looks 100x better  :P
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: AdamAtomic on May 06, 2008, 11:16:15 pm
Hey!  That looks way better :D  great job megane, keep at it!
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: Helm on May 07, 2008, 08:02:35 am
Hello. Here's some critique.

(http://www.locustleaves.com/speargirlpal.png) - slow animation, be patient, or open in an animation program.

If you think my edit looks better, you might ask yourself what did I do? What I did was to apply principles of pixel art. There is going to be a large post coming up (need to restart), so grab some coffee and sacrifice a goat while I do that.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: robotacon on May 07, 2008, 08:22:00 am
Also, it turns out quite nice when you draw at 200% - 400% size and then shrink it to the desired boundaries.

I'd like to see an example of this where it works.

I have a couple of ideas of how it could be done using masking and what not but honestly I've yet to see anyone do shinking of pixelart that looks good.
If you rely on retouching shrunken pixel art then why not draw it small to begin with?
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: Helm on May 07, 2008, 08:41:27 am
Alright, restart done, codecs work, I'm letting GENS renderer this avi and I'll give you the rundown in the meanwhile. First of all, welcome to pixelation! This isn't a place like other places, it's a place of magic!

Let's talk about what a video game sprite does. Before we discuss how it is as a collection of color, we need to discuss its quality in gameplay terms. The first and most important thing a sprite must do, aesthetic considerations aside, is read well. So the player knows what he's looking at and how it works, which is the business end of the pike, so on. In this term how does your current sprite above fare? Pretty well! I can tell it's a girl with an anime haircut, holding an elaborate weapon, that she is in her battle stance and that she's wearing bright purple armor. This is good, a lot of game art doesn't even arrive to this much. However there is much more you can do with this. Let's talk pose, is this a grounded stance? It looks a bit wobly to me, and she seems to be leaning forward also. I think if you try to hold this pose in real life, you'll fall down. It's mid-squat but the legs do not seem to suggest the needed curve so her center of gravity is supported. This is a common effect, she seems to be sitting on an invincible stool. I changed the pose to something more grounded. The upper body now, though how she holds the weapon is probably how you'd hold this weapon, is this a battle-worthy weild? When she thrusts forward with that thing, do her arms have the space to extend the thrust properly? Is her body going to move forward with it, giving it the necessary momentum to pierce? Furthermore, as in any martial arts school, she'd be in a sideways position relative to the enemy and will have her fore leg and fore arm in between them to maximise cover and minimise space she can get attacked in. Is that limp fore arm in a good position to deflect strikes? I pulled the hand up and coiled it, ready to both deflect and extend with the necessary force to pierce. The far arm was also tucked in and made a sensible length, as in your version the length suggested reaches far below the knee. I pulled the whole upper body 3 pixels to the northwest so she seems in balance and has the room to thrust forward if needed be.

That's it as far as stance critique goes. These are the issues that elevate a sprite from just being there, to feeling purposeful. The player will not appreciate these things consciously, but he will unconsciously. He will leave the game with an impression that the sprites and presentation was vivid, realistic and alive, though it's just a bunch of pixels, and the aesthetic is relatively safe-anime. That labouring in the fine aspects of the craft gives your art a level of class, regardless of what aesthetic you're going for.

As far as shaping goes now. In this sprite, how big do you think a pixel is? Since an arm is made of 5x5 pixels, let's go with 5 cm per pixel or so. That's a big ratio, and suddenly a single pixel has great strength to alter a shape by being or not being there, being a pixel lower or higher, so on. Groups of pixels have even more power, and their shapes do most of the work to suggest volume, contour and texture. Speaking of texture on this size, you did well to simply forget about straight-ahead rendering it and instead implying it. There's no sense to try this for such a small size. Instead we have simple planes, lit and rendered according to their volumetric qualities. How do you fare on this respect? Passably good, but it needs a bit of work.  Let's talk about banana-legs. Is that a shape you want for a leg? Does it suggest the firm stance of a warrior? An abstraction of course is necessary at this size, you can't very well go in and pixel toes and veins, but you can certainly imply a heel in there. The heel is the most powerful part of the lower leg, and all you will do as a pikeman will be to plant them down and thrust from them straight to your upper body. Likewise, this whole sprite is too 'round', too 'soft'. Not a warrior, but an anime plush toy. You shade everything equally, almost a bit pilloshaded, so the gal seems flat. There is a severe lack of contrast and depth to this piece, and this is amended by not treating an 'arm' in your brain as 'flat color, then outline it, then put an even highlight on it' but as a collection of blobs of color, shaped with intent, where pieces of them will cast shadows on other pieces and where your biggest strength is implying volume by going from dark, to light. You do this wonderfully on the skirt for examle, where the body and spear cast a shadow, but the arms are a bit messy, and the legs are not volumetrically considered well enough. You'll see in my edit that both far leg and far arm are darker than the fore ones, and that I tightened up all the shading. Your shading is noisy, you haven't spent enough time with your pixels, you don't know yet what they can do. There is no shortcut to this, you have to do what you are doing for a few years, and then you'll look back on your pixel art today and you'll go 'jesus christ, that's some careless pixel placement'. Again, careful a single pixel placement means nothing to the consciousness, but it's a cumulative effort and eventually the subconsciousness knows it is looking at something robust, intentful and real. Not real as in 'realistic', real as in achieved, reached an end, serviced an end. Final.

And a few words about pixel art tricks. Look at your palette entries next to the art and look at mine. Do you see waste of resources? Do you see lack of control? Do you see lack of intention? These things are the bane of the medium. It must not only look like pixel art. It must be pixel art. Otherwise it's just wastefully 'retro' "omg it looks like snes art, my nostalgia, I can feel it swelling up!". That is meaningless and best left to the intellectually bankrupt. What matters is that it has the grace of what almost a decade of continued research and application of the modern form of pixel art has to lend it. We don't need to do this, in the era of millions of colors and 3d, yet we do. Why is that? To make the art real, to make it reach its desired end. Tighten up your color usage. Travel the whole range of contrast available to you, from black to white. Later on you'll say 'you know what helm, fuck that, this piece needs an etherial quality so I won't use pure black, and my top shade will be a bright gray' and more power to you. This piece here doesn't need an etherial quality, nor was such intended. Right now the colors you're using confuse the forms, though not too much. Close one eye and defocus the other and look at your piece and mine (might have to zoom them back a bit to do so) and think about which of the two reads best. You don't need too many hues to work with for game art, what you need is strong contrast to portray depth and shape. NES art is in some ways so much more Final than the blurry snes art that followed. If you cannot do it with 3 colors, you will not be able to do it with 16 or 256 when it comes to small sprites. The smallest the more difficult.

Think about the power of the outline in these sizes. Look how I am separating the spear from the body behind it. That might be for you a useful effect, yet you don't want full outlnies all around the sprite, and you definitely don't want that selout madness that capcom does because it kills puppy souls, so what do you do? I use light-dependent outlines. This means that since the implied lightsource here is above, the darker parts of the outlines are below. On the top outlines tend to almost dissolve into the bodies of color they're contouring, but not completely. If you check my piece against any background color you want, from the pleasingly vague pure black to the warshest pure white you'll see all the parts still read and there are no annoying jaggies. This is kinda difficult to get a hold of, but it's worthwhile.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: megane on May 07, 2008, 08:02:35 pm
New: (http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1805/seeker3ac9.png) Old: (http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/7163/seeker2gi0.png) Helm's: (http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/4121/speargirlpalua8.png)
I tried to edit mine and sort of imitate the stance you created, but I ended up having her stand even more upright, and I'm not sure I accomplished all the things you suggested.  However, this one makes the old one look like she's falling asleep, so I guess that's good.

I'm still not sure I get the palette bit.  I'm pretty much unable to see any rhyme or reason in Helm's selections... :sry:  Oh, and the purple's obnoxious, I know, but there's a very specific set of colors required by the recoloring engine, so there's not much to be done about it.
Edit: looking at it now, maybe I should knock the second- and/or third-darkest blue-greys down a bit? Hmm.
Edit again: maybe my screen is too dark?  Hmmmmm. :-\
Edit plus plus: fixed the skirt.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: Helm on May 07, 2008, 09:23:08 pm
The new one is much better in my opinion. I like the lower legs you did more than mine. I object to the selout pixels on the hair and I still think the contrast could be pushed a bit on flesh shades and lower outlines, but it's a matter of taste from a point onwards. Be careful of how the dress drapes over the right (ours) leg, it's not following the rounded shape of the thigh and like that, displaces the leg and suggests an untrue angle.

Coming along. Search the forum for 'color theory' for some interesting posts on colors.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: Serendor on May 07, 2008, 10:08:53 pm
That was really interesting to read Helm. I couldn't imagine it was so many "errors"

megane, the newest one is really cool! and by far better than the previous.

/Albin
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: Opacus on May 07, 2008, 10:16:01 pm
Awesome stuff, Helm.
That was a lovely read.
Certainly deserves a spot in the 'top threads' topic.

And some nice improvement too.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: megane on May 08, 2008, 07:58:15 am
(http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/1392/weaveruw6.png)
Made a start on the Weaver, thought I'd see what you guys thought before coloring it.  Bow's not in yet, on account of being hard as heck to draw. :-X

Oh, and I'm not trying to use selout, but rather to put a really weak outline, if you see what I mean.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: Helm on May 08, 2008, 08:39:32 am
That's what selout is, though. A weak, broken outline.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: megane on May 08, 2008, 10:16:44 am
(http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/8020/weaver2vg0.png)
OK, I tried to get rid of it.  The palette for this one's similar to the seeker's, but I tried making the ramps a little less straight.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: Helm on May 08, 2008, 10:36:13 am
Your 3 darkest shades are basically the same one, you're just wasting shades. The jump from your darkest shades to the immediate next one on all 3 ramps is too wide I think. That shirt needs definition under the arms and such, so it doesn't look as amorphous but instead says 'here is my torso part, here is my upper arm part), readability, so to speak. That magic spell should well enough work as a secondary lightsource on the side of the figure, and I would suggest a more adventuours, fourth ramp for it, something like a bright saturated blue for it.

The face you're using are very distancing, with the single dot eyes and squished face space. I can achieve no connection with them as represantations of humans. The seeker sprite before didn't suffer from this because of eye-white and more space generally. It'll still be a bit generic-anime-ish but that doesn't mean it can't be more human.

If you want an edit with various nitpeaks and the above points illustrated, shout.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: megane on May 08, 2008, 02:36:39 pm
(http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/3492/weaver3yn9.png)(http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/3756/seeker3jw1.png)
How about green?  :D
She's got a few green pixels on her arm to show the color of the light, but I don't know if they're helpful or just ugly.  Also, part of the problem with the shirt is that... it's not really a shirt, but rather a sort of poncho-like thing; the torso bit and the arm bit are all one sheet of cloth.  Yes, I realize that, were one to set out to find the absolute worst garment in which to practice archery, this one falls short only of a bourka, but anh, it looked good.  In any case, design is always second to clarity, so I tried putting some separation anyway.

As for the face, I pulled her hair back a pixel or two, added some more light, and gave her a 2x2 eye. :-\  If you're willing to do an edit, the thing to focus on would be that, and/or the palette (which is a bit better this time, hopefully).

Edit: as EvilEye suggested, here are the lv1's in a smaller format:
(http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/4517/lv1ta1.png)

Edit again: OK, I redid the palette and made them both the same.  The two greens I might use in other places, or they might just be empty spaces if I need other colors later.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: Helm on May 08, 2008, 04:20:14 pm
(http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/1424/weaver3ry8.png) (http://www.locustleaves.com/weaver.png)

Various edits, and how I thought a secondary lightsource of MAGIC could look
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: megane on May 09, 2008, 09:32:54 am
 D: That much light's a bit overwhelming for me...(http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/9586/weaver3ho5.png)
(http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/3182/gatekeeperus7.png) This one looks terrible, but I have to post it eventually or I'll be fiddling with it until Sunday.
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: Vertigo-zero on May 10, 2008, 08:10:12 am
It looks like none of the comment-posters have ever played Battle for Wesnoth. I can understand what they are saying and I agree, but you are doing it exactly like they did in the game, so good job! :) Did you also make all the animation for them and have you coded the attacks yet? If this is finished, can I download a patch or something because I'd really like to update my wesnoth to add your characters!!! :D (I play this game with a friend when im bored at school)

Please let me know :)
Title: Re: Windsong Sprite Revamp
Post by: megane on May 10, 2008, 10:50:41 am
They're in the Era of Myths (which is on the campaign server), but no, I haven't animated 'em.  Gameplay-wise, they're essentially complete; it's just the art that's lacking, due to my being hopelessly slow and sucky.