The green background looks boring. Can I suggest you work on a mockup instead of posting WIP in game graphics.Hmm, well, indeed. the plain green bg isn't meant to remain, of course. i guess i'm too proud of the result and expected it would be graphically convincing that way :-[
No mouth for the ball?as a matter of fact, no. (not unless he shouts)
The outlines for the rocks above the ground on the edges don't fit.Not too sure i understand how they "don't fit" ... do you mean (http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/wip.png) ?
except the tree tops which still comes from Zelda: Minish Cap.
Think about adding one to make the character more identifiable.as a matter of fact, no. (not unless he shouts)
No mouth for the ball?
Yep. The outline is very dark and is inconsistent with the rest of the piece. For example, the grass does not have a dark outline. Also, the hole in the rock is much brighter than this outline.QuoteThe outlines for the rocks above the ground on the edges don't fit.Not too sure i understand how they "don't fit" ... do you mean (http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/wip.png) ?
Out of curiosity. When you write games for DS, what language to you write them in?The game engine is in C++, and i'm using my own ugly scripts for behaviours, events and things alike (drawing inspiration from how Eric Chahi programmed Another World). Most people prefer to stick to C and use 'PALib', a wrapper around the hardware that makes the DS easy to use even for newbies in C (that still have good background in e.g. VB or similar languages).
The outline is very dark and is inconsistent with the rest of the piece. For example, the grass does not have a dark outline. Also, the hole in the rock is much brighter than this outline.okay. I'll work on that.
It does look a bit...anti-gravityish[?] in my opinion...I think it would look better if it looked more "solid" to the ground.would something like this do it better -> (http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/desmume-snapshot.png)
(about the mouth) Think about adding one to make the character more identifiable.Well, i have to add that the character's programming isn't complete (e.g. sub-sprites for feet and hands aren't there yet). The complete character looks right like the blue ball on my avatar. Does it make it more identifiable or does that one still need a mouth anyway ?
Did you change anything there?? :-\No, i haven't touched Bilou (the name of the ball).
I didn't mean the ball man, person, thing if that's what you changed.
I meant (...) that the space that you pointed out in your "look bad?" edit made the platform not look solid/secured to the ground because it "didn't fit".yep. And to fix that, i tried to move the tree and the extra piece of ground a bit "deeper" in the grass line, to make them better "anchored" in the ground, rather than just "dropped over the ground". I intend to add more "visible" grass around it (like around the tree's roots, but looking better :P )
I'm sorry I say things that appear to be completely random. :-Xnp.
(http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/139/colourlowkm9.png)Hmm. Very interesting update. it's a bit hard to me to admit i like the look of your Bilou while i've been giving him a rather "plastic" and highly-saturated look for about 10 years now :P As for the colours, the nintendo DS provides 16 palettes of 256 colours, so i tend to "overuse" some ... I might try to rationalize all this ...
Kill like half a dozen colours. You are using way to many and to little effect
Use a grey background as the placeholder background, the green you have set on right now is way to saturated and will affect how your sprites seem to look.Good point. Currently my sprite editor uses almost magenta background (it was supposed to be "stylish"), but it's indeed hard to work with low-saturation colours then ... i'll give grays a try :)
Could you be any harsher on him, Adam? Where's the "constructive" part?
Personally, I don't see enough content to give a real opinion for, Pype. I need to see more development before I can provide what little advice I'm capable of.
Your environments use straight brown and green ramps with colors that are way too close together
You need to think about shapes, volumes, color, contrast, and the fact that your character is even less interesting to look at than Kirby.
Adam: My post was merely being honest. While it's true that he has some work there, I don't think that there's enough to start critiquing. There's not enough content. I'd like to see him add more to the piece. That's pretty neutral, and not a criticism. I don't think it was necessary to tell him his character looked less interesting than Kirby. That's a really good way to piss somebody off and not respect what you have to say. For all we know, he may have upgrades and other gameplay mechanics to attach to him and make him a more interesting character. Quite a few games start out with the main character looking rather drab and end up with him/her/it decked out and impressive. His shape may also be a gameplay mechanic in and of itself; he may roll and require momentum in order to jump.
So "helping someone improve their work" consists of telling them how bad their subject or concept is? There's a difference between offering good criticism that can help someone and regular, negative criticism that any person can give. It doesn't take much to be negative toward someone's work. I understand where you're coming from Adam, but there's no real excuse for being so harsh. As far as the "truth" goes, I'm beginning to see it quite clearly.
I'll get back to work now, try to integrate your remarks, work on better animation and palette manipulation tools, add rayman-like animation to the main character, and come back when i'll consider to have any improvement.
I need advices to progress, that's certainly a fact. You gave pretty good ones, and i'm grown up enough to take critics the way they are, even if they are as rude as "less interesting than kirby".I take it he is mature enough to listen. :D
I just wish people had given crits over the complete character (e.g. the ball with hands and feet):P the shapes are fine, just use the same principles I applied to the blue body to the entire character, furthermore the entire scene. Everything needs its palette reduced and colour selection improved. Rather then going from just dark to light add yellow as you get lighter (highlights), also add blue/magenta as you get darker (shaded), this is known as hue shifts as oppose to straight luminosity shifts. Also dont forget to alter the saturation of colours, you can make the highlights and shadows more desaturated then the midtone to help improve the palette. A lot of this is trial and error.
Rather then going from just dark to light add yellow as you get lighter (highlights), also add blue/magenta as you get darker (shaded), this is known as hue shifts as oppose to straight luminosity shifts(http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/trunkraster.png) tried to apply your suggestion and get an alternate raster to build trunks, and just in the last minute, i realised i used red shadows rather than blue purple shadows :P (with three alternative rasters at varying saturation) ...
English isn't his first language#true, though i have quite good level to discuss (computer-science) technical issues. However, all that colour/shape/drawing vocabulary is new to me ... and i don't get at all the meaning of sentences like "Don't cop out on this like that" :-[
Anyways, the character "Pod" looked almost EXACTLY like Bilou - he was a blue ball with big, joined eyes, little light blue feet, and little rayman ball hands. Aside from his similarity to Kirby, to me this type of character has come to represent sort of the ultimate in extremely lazy character design.
I would love to see you push the design beyond this stage, and create something more memorable and recognizable!
The strike was unwarranted, since I'm acting within the rules of this community. I wasn't being an ass or anything. I'd ask why you added the strike, but I'd get the same response I'd get from any other mod on any other forum, "I'm a mod and I can do that, now stfu." I'm not taking it to PMs because the discussion started in this topic. It's also very easy to just delete a PM without even considering its content. If you want your message to be noticed, you post it in the relevant topic.
Pypebros: Your character does have personality, but the problem is that visually he's not recognizable. Having a blue ball as your main character is fine and all, but it still needs some unique feature. Since he's pretty much made of circles, I think it'd be best if it was something angular. Perhaps...
Even Kirby had unique features. He grew 4x his size when he puffed in air, for one, and his ability to absorb enemy features helped (it changed his appearance in later games), and his design was originally just a placeholder sprite.
Now, I won't lie to you, ball main characters are the absolute staple of 'hello, I am a programmer making a game for the first time!' types of games. They evolved directly from programmer placeholder art, and they're not a very good idea for a game character outside that context, Rayman legs and arms notwithstanding.
I edited your post above to take away the flames, yet you edit them back in, just to pick a fight. Instead you will get a strike, as will anyone that derails this thread any longer.Wait, do you mean me? I'm sorry! I left the "Modify Post" window open while I was working on my edit! I didn't know you had ever edited it! I only meant to update my post with the edit. I never would have put those comments back intentionally!
Good post, zeid! The character really does need some unique flair. A specific way I think you could give Bilou some more personality is to simply add a mouth. That's not gonna solve the problem completely, but I think it'll help.I really love your edit. it's impressive to see how close it is to hand-drawn personnality, and the sub-pixel effect in the eyes opens many perspectives in the animation. And, yes, considering the way you dotted the mouth, i think i'll re-work my sprites to show it more (after all, Bilou *has* a mouth. It's just almost invisible when he closes it).
Edit (based on zeid's):
(http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/2680/bilougp0.gif)
Hope that helps any. :)
PypeBros -> never take the pixel made by other for yourself with 2/3 corrections on it... REcreate it !#true; though i wanted to quick-test the possibilities. I'll re-create for the game, of course, or it wouldn't be fair (and i'd learn nothing)
i definitely needs my editor on DS to be backhence the quick-edit in the Gimp, which is too unpractical during coffee-break for a complete remake.
a try...heh. reminds me of loco-roco (is that feathers on his head ?) more than bilou, but nice anyway ... it's amazing to see how every artist has his own style and vision of "a blue ball with eyes".
(http://www.madpxl.com/pixel/other/bilou.gif)
I hate to drop this bomb, but...http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2006/05/within-deep-forest.htmlIf PypeBros is going to keep Bilou's hands and feet (like the drawings), I'm not convinced that's really such a bomb.... Also hopefully the environment will have more personality than those screens.
I hate to drop this bomb, but...http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2006/05/within-deep-forest.html
I hate to drop this bomb, but...http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2006/05/within-deep-forest.html
makes me come with a nice alternative: powerups that alter the material Bilou is made of. I'll have fun pixel'ing "steel Bilou" that crash into walls, but indeed needs to gain momentum or "superball Bilou" that bounces again and again (and is more translucent like Zeid's first edit), etc.
Why have the lightsource coming from his back?Well, because lightsource is topleft in all other tiles of the game. He'll have his face illuminated when he'll turn the other way, i guess (still have to figure out if that's realistic).
No outlines for hands?Well, at that size, i didn't managed to make some, but he'll definitely need them. I'll give it a try on the new, larger base.
(...) changing to a 'James Pond' facial structure is always an optionyou mean giving him cheeks and big node so that he better catch the light ? hmm ... i'd rather not, i fear.
I'm not sure it's such a good idea for Bilou to be smiling the whole time he's beating up bad guys and facing epic perils.... :olol. He won't, don't worry. It just happens that it's the only sprite that is completed with hands and feet atm. He'll have a more neutral expression for the rest of the game, smiling at the player is for the "idle" animation, after he blinked a couple of time. :P
Trees are looking better! I'll give some more real critique, but I'm too tired atm...np. /me staying tuned.
I don't know what angle you want the game itself at, but the trees seem to disagree with the angle the rest of it is.well, the angle is roughly similar to what you can see in Rayman 1 : you won't see walls, but you're slightly above the ground, so a circular whole on the ground would look like an 4:1 ellipsoïd or so.
Trees that are on the same z axis as the player indicate to me that the tree is an impassable wall.OOps. You're right. These trees are supposed to be impassable walls, indeed. Fixed the mockup so that Bilou is no longer in a wall (though he's trapped, now). Added bonuses, too.
I would recommend recycling the kinds of trees you have now just so you can use them as platform elements, but add to the background you have.
Your character reminds me of lolo from Adventures of lolo/eggerland but with snorkels eyes.If i'm to admit influence in the character design, it will be Pacman (i mean, in the cartoon, not in the game) rather than Lolo(lo) of eggerland (which i only discovered through his cameoh in Kirby's Avalanche game, after years of Bilou drawing), honnestly. But again, it's so damn far away in time, that it's cultural background more than real "reference material" ... As Helm pointed out, it seems that a ball with hands and feet is just a stereotype of "i need a character for my game" just like "a red hammer" is the stereotype for "think of a tool of some color" (at least for french-speaking guys).
Perhaps you could add some bleeding over of the grass into the bottoms of the tree-trunks or a few piles of rock around the base of that platform.You mean something like (1) ? (please, excuse the very ugly-edit-in-a-rush-at-work)
Unless the blockyness is an aesthetic choice, which it doesn't appear to be from what I've seen illustrated on your blog.blockyness is only partly a choice. It's over-blocky here due to WIP, and (2) shows more how it's meant to be. I say "partly a choice", because leaves and treetops are meant to be platforms you can climb on, so i decided to stick to "rounded rectangles" look for the trees.
for your background, take a look at World of illusion on genesis :Hmm yeah. background is popping up as if being beamed on a screen behind the scene, isn't it :blind:
make more contrast on shadows for example, your character is in a forest, so try to create a light/dark ambient :)
(http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/newtree-sketch.png) vs. (http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/newtree-sketch-darker.png)I think the single biggest problem here is the middle layer, where you're using darker colours than the foreground, and just as much contrast (i.e. the tree behind Bilou, and the bushes). I think this is why the darker image looks better - the middle layer feels more like it fits.
any chance a contrast/brightness change improves it, or should i completely start with new colours and style ?
hopefully this will give you some ideas.Yep. I'm re-working grass, roots and things alike ;)
but is there a fixed palette in this?Well, there is a palette of max. 256 colours taken freely in the 5:5:5 RGB space, so that's not a fixed palette as on a NES or C64, but i'm supposed to stick to relatively few colours. Though, i'm editing the mockup in Gimp, so erasing some pixels and changing contrast etc. produced an insane amount of sub-colors that are not intended to survive :P
I do not understand the progression of grass shades, particularly the greyness of the lightest shade.true, i've got troubles with that one. Sometimes i see it and fix it (e.g. on the slope), sometimes i miss it when importing stuff. Btw, the way you introduced darker shades in the grass on top of the rocks. i'll try and see if i can edit in that way.
(the tiles ...) have a definite appearance of an empty space you had to fill with your boulder shapeshmm. not sure of what you're talking about here. The larger rock in the middle of the platform, maybe (which was intended to break monotony in larger patches of rocks) ? I could agree it does not really belong here ... From your reference cliffs, i see i missed something with more global highlight/shading of the cliff as a whole. I have a straight wall of round rocks rather than a coherent platform. Reusing cave walls as cliffs definitely doesn't make it. I'll give those tiles of their own.
At least for me, something that has helped my level art a LOT is to draw basically to-scale mockups in my little sketchbook, usually away from the computer entirely. I'll go through and doodle sections of the level, and any part that I'm having trouble executing int he sketchbook i KNOW i will have a lot of trouble executing in pixel art.
-Used darker colors on the leavesthose darker colours made we want to try a third layer behind the rest, but it doesn't really came out nicely. It somehow looks ... flat :/ i also fixed some odd effects of the initial "construction", but there are few things i want to fix in the lightest "bush" anyway ... i'm using too dark colours near the bottom right (but not quite at the bottom).
-Reduced amount of colors used on the wood from 13? to 5
Pypebros: in most day scenes from platformers the foreground is actually darker while the background is more washed out and lighter/tinted to blue.agree for "open" areas, where you see the landscape far away and get direct sunlight, but i wouldn't apply that straight for a scene that takes place in a forest (well, unless i'm wrong to think this, of course)
grass hurt my eyes.Well, enough with rumbling and "i prefer it like that" etc. let's try if i can fix those readability and eye-hurting stuff (though you picked an edit where i still had some of this "ugly light-grey-tainted shade of green").
@zeid: kinda surprised that you actually did an edit with "fg darker than bg" here and another with "bg darker than bg" there...Well I never said that a light background was wrong or a darker one was wrong. It is all completely dependent on the mood you are trying to set, with the trees and colouring you provided I assumed you wanted a lighter background. Typically when someone wants to create a happy upbeat forest they choose a brighter sunny background where as the jungle scene I made the edit for has canopies blocking out much of the light and creating a completely different atmosphere and environment.
Sorry for such a late reply.np ;)
The higher the range is in the foreground, the more range you can put into the background. This will make ndchristie's suggestion of making things look more organic and natural a lot easier.Hmm. Haven't thought about it that way so far. Thanks for pointing that out.
I think the walking animation looks nice, you should research a little "sub-pixeling". Particularly sub-pixel techniques concerned with animation. That way you can get some of the motions such as that of the eyes to look smoother.Will try that. And i will try hard to avoid introducing more colours while doing so :P
I vote #2. Also, nice job :) You're definitely improving!
i think it would look the same and just as good if the leaf was all one colour.My initial intent was to have the leave reinforcing the tilt, sometimes showing its upper side (shinier), sometimes showing its lower side (darker). maybe i should extend the range of that green ramp (?) ...
the animation looks good from what i can see i think it conveys character maybe more then the main guy...Somehow, i find it easier to give character to baddies/npc than to my hero. The hero is not allowed to express excessive aggressivity or fear (since he's the good guy) ...
The right eye also got a pixel smaller then the left eye, looks weird.point taken. i tried to fix that (though with sub-pixels, you'll barely notice it). And i think i'll need an intermediate shade if i want to keep the eye outline...
I think an easy way to accomplish this is by having the platforms drawn OVER the player.Yeah, that was my intent, though i'm having hard time to figure out how i'm going to do that (i have 2 hardware layers for the foreground, but sometimes Bilou need to stand in front of both, and sometimes between the two).
I tried to do some sub-pixel animation on him, but i'm not sure i completely understood the technique.Well I think you nailed it pretty well.
I don't know if it's been mentioned already, but I think you really need to look into how to shade cylindrical or round objects.You mean i haven't been frank enough in how dark the tree gets on the edges, i guess ... i'll try to fix that.
Also, leaves! Think of these clusters as a pile of disks. Make them more fragmented. Look at some reference if you're not sure of how to place them or shade them.Given how great it looks, i hope it'll help. I initially did studied the "minish cap" style of leaves, which i unfortunately wasn't able to reuse. I came with the current buch of very small and dense leaves as a refined version of those clumsy bunch of leaves with "polka dots" seen in the background of the scene.
Hope that helps! ;D
The leg-movements look good! Some minor things: Is his head turning while walking? Then his pupil should move too.The head/body moves, right. But since he's focusing on where he goes, his pupils compensate the head move (or at least, i figured out that if it was me, i wouldn't have my gaze go right and left while walking)
I would change the color of the green shoes. (because of the green grass)That'd be the easy way out, but i want to keep the shoes green (he'll cross other lands too where there won't be grass). Instead, i'm trying to fix that with more contrast on the "shoes", but i'm not satisfied with my shading yet.
If there is only one movemode, I would prefer the running animation, because it does look more dynamic.Both walking and running will be available in game. Haven't decided which one would be the default one, though. I'm not that fan of SuperMario run that requires you to hold a button down during the whole game. Clearly running is more interesting, so i could go for the "prince of persia" approach and have a "keep quiet" button to avoid running rather than the other way round.
More creatures please! ;)Heheh ... i'll try the 'fruitbat' tonight. Thanks for your support.
More creatures please! ;)
Mushroom needs contrast and lots of it.(http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/toadstool.png) ----> (http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/toadstool-contrast.png)
Some squash of the face during landing might give it more character.I'll try that tonight ...
I played with it a bit much, but I think it should demo a better contrast level at least.
I removed the blue from the sunglasses as I think it only confused things. I think solid black works well enough, or a simple specular highlight as in the edit.
(http://surtspixels.googlepages.com/pypebros_toadstool_edit.png)
Bouncing mushrooms, and yellow worms (almost look like the slugs).Well, more influenced by inchworms than slugs in first place, though they received a Worms 2 - inspired revision (like many other characters in the game ...). I swear i won't make them poop around ^_^
Don't be afraid to play with the contrast on foreground objects and sprites, it makes them pop and stick out from the other things, which is probably what you want/need for them, and in that case, the hat could be a little brighter, if you want it to.
The specular thing on the sunglasses have right now aren't really reading as speculars, but more as just a dot, or a pixel, placed there, or possibly an eye that you can sorta-kinda see through them.
You need the tips to go up as he pulls down if that makes sense.sorry, but that goes beyond my english skills :-[
(http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/bubbat.png) --> (http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/bubbat.gif)
(http://139.165.223.2/~martin/scene/bubbat-purple.png) <-- possible alternative colors, 'blackcurrant' look.
I'll have to dig for more videos of flying bat, but i have to disagree with your proposal of "full force down" reverse-flapped wings. I agree that a sheet of paper would do that but unlike a wing, a sheet of paper don't make me fly.