Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: samw3 on August 31, 2008, 02:09:42 am

Title: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: samw3 on August 31, 2008, 02:09:42 am
Hello all,

Was just introduced to this site from a friend who I think is just a lurker here.  I am a programmer, a hobby game developer, and a bit of a pixel artist.

Here is something of a project I'm working on.

Very low-res and 16 colors in the whole palette.

What do you all think?

(a 3x version)
(http://sam-n-rachel.com/ccn/classes.png)

(and a 1x version for the purists)
(http://sam-n-rachel.com/ccn/classes_tiny.png)

Any comments and critiques will be heartily welcomed?

Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: nw15062 on August 31, 2008, 02:13:14 am
looks good, they are some pretty small sprites, how many colors you got there by any chance?
Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: samw3 on August 31, 2008, 02:22:45 am
all 16 of them :)
Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: nw15062 on August 31, 2008, 02:28:20 am
Sorry I should have paid closer attention to your post, must be getting late, what I mean to ask is what kind of color pallet did you use? anything specific?

I am pretty new to pixel art and just submitted my first one a few minutes ago, it is something I spent all day working on. I used a 16 color pallet but it is simply the color pallet provided on the Isometric collage IV challenge.

Your sprites look good although small have you thought about making large detailed versions to accompany the small ones? Many new games when providing dialogue  will have a detailed portrait to accompany the imagination.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: samw3 on August 31, 2008, 02:36:48 am
heh, its ok. its late here too.

I started with a the 6 primaries RGBCMY, their half-brights, and white and black but then tweaked them a bit.

I'm going for a retro feel.  The game will (hopefully) play in 3x.  I do larger pixel art.  The low-res is just the style for this one.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: nw15062 on August 31, 2008, 02:51:13 am
Cool, I would love to check out the complete project when you finish, One of me favorite games was completely low res... cave story, had great dialogue, fast game play and, and some slick retro style.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: tocky on August 31, 2008, 06:16:55 am
I think
-this stuff is pretty cool.
-the outlines on the ninja should be outside the actual silhouette, so that the ninja doesn't look smaller than the other characters.
-what kind of game is this? what are the two stances for each character for?
-the monk's staff looks kind of flimsy beside the other weapons, and maybe you need to meat it up a bit.
-some of the colours are a little too close, like the dark green/brown on the monk's clothes, and the light grey/light green, which, based on the zombie, I think you could merge into a single colour, in order to free a spot on the palette that you could use for maybe a bright red or something.
-using the same colour for skin shadows (on most of them) and hair (on the monk) is kinda ambiguous, makes it look like maybe he has a misshapen head.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: EvilEye on August 31, 2008, 06:49:57 pm
This brings back memories of some old dos rpgs.

The palette you're using is pretty bad. Way too saturated. If you are going to limit yourself to 16 colors ( and I am not really sure why you would in this day and age ) then you must carefully choose your colors.

I recommend looking at this thread: http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=4306.0 (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=4306.0)

Using the palette from the above thread I remade your knight to give you an idea of where you can improve:

(http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w104/chris_6713/knightedit.png)

BTW, you don't have to post a 3x version, this forum has a feature where it scales an image if you click on it.

 
Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: samw3 on September 01, 2008, 12:04:59 am
Thanks for the points tocky, i'll keep those in mind.  I tried fixing the ninja's outline and he ended up looking like a spaceman.. Any ideas?

Old
(http://sam-n-rachel.com/ccn/newninja.gif)
New

The game is a medieval gauntlet-ish platformer with not your usual character classes. The two stances are "armed" and "stand", but I also have the arming animation and a walk for a few of the chars.

I appreciate the edit EvilEye, you've got talent, but it is totally not what I'm going for.  It's way too realistic.  I should have said that I'm going got a saturated look on this one(kind of like the old EGA graphics), but I honestly didn't know you could get that much of a realistic look out of 16 colors.  Nice job.  I do appreciate the palette link though and will consider that on other projects.

I like how you added the cape.  It's interesting to see others' perspectives on your art.  I presume you though he had a yellow cape from the stand image which was supposed to be his sword on his back.

Here are a couple of animations: (posting these at 3x since that's how i have them rendered right now. Oh, and that's how the game will be played.)

(http://sam-n-rachel.com/ccn/testanims.gif)
(http://sam-n-rachel.com/ccn/archeresswalk.gif)
(http://sam-n-rachel.com/ccn/dwarfwalk.gif)

But this is a WIP still so any other c+c would be nice.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: EvilEye on September 01, 2008, 01:21:06 am
Nice animations.

As was previously said, the ninja is a little small.

Are you actually going to use a 16 color graphics mode ( can you still do that in windows?? ), or does this limitation just apply to the sprites?
Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: samw3 on September 01, 2008, 01:40:17 am
Yeah, I'm stumped on the ninja.  Any pointers would be helpful.  I'll take a couple more stabs at it in my free time too.

No, it will probably be an emulated 8-bit mode.  I just want to use 16 colors for the retro feel.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: EvilEye on September 01, 2008, 04:34:44 am
Just make the sprite a bit bigger?

(http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w104/chris_6713/ninjaedit.png)

Against anything but a pure black background, the ninja's outline is pretty hard to see. You might want to use some lighter colors.

(http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w104/chris_6713/ninjaedit2.png)
Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: tocky on September 01, 2008, 09:54:57 am
Evil: If I'm not mistaken, this game would keep a constantly black background.

(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y13/tocky/samw-ninjas.png)
I'd try something like this, with a looser cowl and fewer outlines. The spaceman syndrome is really hard to shake, though.

Those animations are really smooth.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hello and some pixels
Post by: Zolthorg on September 01, 2008, 05:06:56 pm
spaceman syndrome is likely coming from the purple outline, because we think he's being half lit by the moon and half lit by the purple planet nearby
do a test with just the one blue, or with two blues if he must have two differently colored outlines.
maybe making his outline's color dynamic based on the stage's elements?