Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Titan on December 08, 2008, 01:56:19 am
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Hello dear people of Pixelation
I have recently started working on a new game, Flash with Pixelart, Medieval Strategy.
Ill be posting new graphics and progress of the game in here, so do check back ;P
This is a little sketch of the game (MAP VIEW) :
Sketch (http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/new_game_design.gif) - i don't wanna image it cause its kinda big
Now... on to the things I'm working on is the TILES, we all know what they are.
Well what I'm looking for is a criticism and how to improve it.
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gfx.gif)
12x12 tile map, just something i quickly made with these little graphics.
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/emaple_map.gif)
Many thanks dear people of Pixelation
Iggy
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A little more work with the tiles and the forest,
Also changed the size of the tile to be a little larger.
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/emaple_moretiles.gif)
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A little more work with the tiles and the forest,
Also changed the size of the tile to be a little larger.
http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/emaple_moretiles.gif
I've done few of these things and I think I've reached the point where transition tiles like that feel like too much work to end up looking machined anyway. Rather, for the same number of tiles, I suggest doing 3 "Dense forest" tiles, 3 "Wooded" tiles, and 3 "sparse trees" tiles and assign them irregularly in a radial fashion.
Care to elaborate on the rules? Any other adice will change greatly whether this is, for instance, similar to advance wars, carcassonne, or chess.
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Thanks for the advice mate, im not quite sure if i really should be doing 3 for every tile, might really improve the looks, but is it worth it in the end? ill keep the idea in mind though.
As for the rules:
Max players 4, you can play 1vs1, 2vs2, 1vs1vs1vs1 or whatever you want like 1vs3 (ofcourse 1 player vs AI's)
There are villages across the map. (Wesnoth/Advance Wars)
You get more resources while you own them (Wood,Food,Stone,Gold)
You buy units from your main castle
Units walk with a speed, its time based, not turn based.
You build/research stuff in your main castle.
And ofcourse Destroy/Capture your enemies Castles to win.
This is the basic idea, there is much more in the Kings.txt but you really dont need to know all of it
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This looks really good and professional.
my crits would go to the contrast issues. I think that you pallete, being so warm, tends to blend stuff together.
I would sugest having a colder color to act as a backlight, so it would help on the reading of the forms. a bit like saying "this here is a diferent color cause its facing the other way and getting light by another light source". know what I mean?
I think that if you went on to photoshop and desaturated you image you would probably have a hard time telling what is what.
well, thats what I have to say. good work non the less
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Thanks mate, yeah i noticed it too, i need to give it so more shadows.
As for the updates:
Tile are made with Code already but this is how it looks with the original colours:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gfx_mapColours2.gif)
And i got this little warmer colours one, not sure which one i like more:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gfx_mapColours3.gif)
Need crits on the Mountain, and ocfource im gonna draw more than one of those.
i decided to get rid of all the trees tiles and keep just - 3 black forest tiles, 3 sparse forest, 3 even more sparse forest.
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maybe you could make it more realistic like this :
(http://omploader.org/vMTAzeA/quickedit.gif)
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maybe you could make it more realistic like this :
http://omploader.org/vMTAzeA/quickedit.gif
Feels so cold! perhaps its way too realistic... i think ill go with the original one after all.
And here a tiny Citadel i just made, tell me what you think:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gfx_caslte.gif)
i was trying to keep my palette as low as possible, but as i need more shadows now im adding more, that castle is 12 colours already with out counting the grass tile.
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so far, i'd mostly complain about the "sands" tiles (that we see e.g. on top of rocky base for castles), which looks mostly like some ink dropped on the map.
While your forest tiles did a good job at looking "not too squary", your montains could definitely use a bit variety as well. having at least two different heights would be a plus, and if you manage to avoid having a checker of aligned peaks, it wil certainly work better.
HTH.
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I recommend you making different rock-bases for different types of structures. The citadel is now way too much like the castle.
Here's another take at the colours:
(http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/7278/image1rh1.png)
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I really like the look of this, and I hope you stay with the original colours.
Would it be a good idea to have a shadow tile for when trees or grass are placed on the dark side of a mountain piece?
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PypeBros Thanks mate, and yeah the heights would be the only problem for the engine, rest im going to get in to.
TrevoriuS the colours in the image you gave have a much stronger contrast, im not sure if i want it to be like that.
And what kind of bases do you recommend doing, like say... Castle with wooden walls stands on the ground, then Castle with Stone walls has a ditch and stands on a little hill, and the citadel stands on a high rocky hill, is that what your saying?
dock - Nice idea about the shadow tile, i haven't thought of that before, just thinking it would be kinda hard to make the maps that way though. Im gonna try doing it.
thanks for all the advice guys, on to work again for me
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Okay so we have more Mountains now, i don't know if its a good thing that i added outlines or not:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_mountains.gif)
And time for an updated Map:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gfx_mapColours4.gif)
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It looks really great so far, but I feel the mountains are a bit too tall and too bright, they stand out a lot.. Perhaps changing them to a slightly more subtle color, like brown, would help. You could still add contrast to the piece if you saturate them enough.
If I were to play your game, those mountains would really bother me, sorry.
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I think it looks awesome so far.
Can't really tell if there is a problem with saturation or contrast until I've seen some armies on there.
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No matter how many variations of mountains you add, I don't think it's helping the cause. It still looks pretty repetitive because one is not really discernible from the next. Maybe you should use the opportunity to create larger mountains or smaller ones and such.
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perhaps i should make 3 big mountains 3 normal size mountains and 3 small ones, something like in that Stronghold game, if anyone tried the editor...
i tried changing the colour of the Montains into brown but it just doesn't look that great.
and armies are gonna come in a while since i have to complete all the Landscapes first, we've still got to do: Water, Rivers Flowers, Stones, Villages, Castles, And ofcourse all the tiles edited specially for grass, snow and sand:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gfx_lands.gif)
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Hello, your tiles are looking good so far. You might consider having a fuller range of values on your attackable elements as a way to make them pop out more from the environment. What I mean by fuller range is going from near white on hte brightest highlights to near black on your darkest shadows. It's a very effective way to make things pop and you can see it used in lots of games, for example in side scrollers the middle ground hte player sits on always has a wider range of values than the background.
About hte mountains, I think you've got the right idea using height to break up the monotony. Jsut one of each might be enough to do the job.
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so basically what you mean is to have outlines and more colours with stronger contrast?
and thanks for the advice mate, im gonna see what i can do
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tried making different mountain sizes, removed the other 2 "BIG Mountains".
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_mountains2.gif)
i dont know but the connection between the ground and the mountain feels terrible, anyone care to show me an example of how the both can be connected?
Mountains outcome on the Map:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gfx_mapColours5.gif)
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More random ground tiles:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gound_tiles.gif)
On to the Water Tiles!
Okay this is where the biggest problems starts, im terrible at water... this is what i got so far:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_water.gif)
now what do i do next... i should probably start with giving water a better texture... im not sure how that works though.
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About the mountains.. I think a good start would be to remove the outline at the base of the mountain, where it is meant to connect to the ground. Then just draw some grass creeping up the base of the mountain.
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True that Mr Dr D!
I was just about to show an edit with that thought in mind.....but I guess a simple sentences pretty much explain everything :P
(Damn Food delays everything!)
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ah yes dr D, good deal.
it looks much better, still need a little work though:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_mountains3.gif)
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Blend the colours of the grass in with the base of the mountain a bit more.
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pine trees all around the mountain could do it too.
Plus it would ease connecting different height of mountains together. Imho, you shouldn't have your "high mountain" able to connect with plain ground anyway: the "high mountain" should look mostly when surrounded by "lower mountains".
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true facts, well i thought pine trees around the mountain was a great idea, but it just doesn't look that great when i actually put them there
and well... currently im trying to smooth out the connection between the tile and the mountain.
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Had work all day couldn't do any pixel work, but now... this i hopefully is the final version of the mountains:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_mountains4.gif)
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Could we see 'em in action :P?
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just realised that you're doing *convex* mountains. Maybe having them concave instead would give a better result ...
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PypeBros by concave do you mean a kind of a hole in the ground? that wouldn't make it a hill that way. ;P but im just not sure what that word means.
and here's a pretty random map with the new Mountains:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gfx_mapColours6.gif)
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Looking very yummy there. The different mountain sizes makes it look much better, as do the tiles with rocks on them.
With the water you're going to have to have some sort of animation. You could have it scroll as though it was a lake blown by the wind, or you could have it expand and contract at the shore. Sparkles of wave highlights glowing and dimming would work well too.
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mmm thank you dock
And yeah static tile for the water looks really bad... but im thinking if only 3 frames for water animation would do, say like 1 frame per second, im thinking it can look alright for a strategy game. ;D
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mmm thank you dock
And yeah static tile for the water looks really bad... but im thinking if only 3 frames for water animation would do, say like 1 frame per second, im thinking it can look alright for a strategy game. ;D
Yeah, 1 frame per second would be enough for this sort of thing. :) Don't forget you can have rocks in the sea as well.
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ofcourse we will have rocks on water :y:
thanks for the good advice matey
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This is looking awesome, I'm intrigued to see how your going to make this a strategy ??? Like "Heroes of might and magic" or like "Seven kindoms"(the old ones, I don't like the new 3D one as it doesn't have the economics any more :yell:)
I already have an image of how the water would look! if it was a lake though.
so for intrest sake.....what program are you going to use to make this?
I like the mountains now.
but I don't like the hills as they catch the eye, and it seems to catch allot of light up there....more so than the mountains?
I would bring the down in saturation and brightness(luminous) a bit, not to much though as they should contrast.
now back to my Course work which is worth 20% of my grade!
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I change my opinion with the colors :) (forget the quick edit i made earlier, your colors really are brilliant ;D)
(actually i'm too creating a Wesnoth, Age Of Wonders kinda game, i'll maybe make a new topic after modeling the game couple painfull months :yell:)
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Super quick suggestion for water: Adding small highlights in the water that move on a subpixel level can help greatly with feeling of movement and fluidity on a small scale. See chrono trigger for example! O:
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Am I the only one that doesn't think the color reads as water?
Everything else is beautiful though :] all the tiles read perfectly- no complaints on anything else.
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PypeBros by concave do you mean a kind of a hole in the ground? that wouldn't make it a hill that way. ;P but im just not sure what that word means.
no. I mean that you're currently have mountains that are shaped like a rocky hill (convex)
(http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:gw6YwJ9JqkovzM:http://www.sacred-destinations.com/england/images/avebury/silbury-hill/silbury-hill-hdr-cc-tag.jpg)
Instead, i'd suggest a shape like this (concave)
(http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:LxgqSreId__EJM:http://img.tfd.com/wn/FA/684B3-mountain-peak.gif)
A concave mountain will be nearly-horizontal on the tile edges, and so it should ease connecting them together.
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@ Jim16, the game play is going be real time, you click a unit tell him to go on another tile and it will slowly move, im using Adobe Flash CS3 to make this, all in Actionscript 3, c: , and im gonna have to edit the hill, yeah. many thanks
@ Batlorder, haha thanks mate, what program are you going to use for the game? and as you say modeling is it gonna have some 3D? q:
@ Jad, your little suggestion will probably work for me, the water in Chrono trigger is pretty amazing, im gonna have a more detailed look at it, thanks for the advice.
@ Ryumaru, thanks matey, and do you think the water should be really blueish? cause right now its that colour of a ditch.
@ PypeBros, Okay remember, i want to make the hill tile walkable for the units, if its gonna be another mountain/rocky shaped, i dont think that units will be able to walk on there,
think maybe we could improve the hill with a soft way?
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@ PypeBros, Okay remember, i want to make the hill tile walkable for the units, if its gonna be another mountain/rocky shaped, i dont think that units will be able to walk on there,
think maybe we could improve the hill with a soft way?
*sigh* i've been misunderstood again.
i'll work on an edit for this this week end. there seems to be no hope i make my point without actually showing what i mean.
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This all looks great. I love the style.
I have a problem with the grass though. It looks like felt. I can't say i know how to fix this, and it's certainly passable, but if you want this to look really good i would work on it more. Who's programming this? do you have a deadline for the art?
And Titan, what Pypebros means is that, for the mountains, the slope on them currently is rounded, like a rocky hill. Mountains in real life are more pointy on top. Here's a demonstration: (extremely choppy since I'm in a hurry)
Currently, they go like so:
(http://www.majhost.com/gallery/exendia/Misc/lol2.png)
Maybe try something more like this?:
(http://www.majhost.com/gallery/exendia/Misc/lol1.png)
Here's a good example:
(http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/physics17/chapter12/divergingconverged.jpg)
Left one is concave, right is convex. Get it now?
Nice work!
Shrike
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PypeBros is talking about your mountains, not the hills. I also misunderstood that in the first place. But I must say that I really like the convex style of the mountains, which gives them more of a comic look. And the transition to green on the bottom is awesome!
Keep working, your artstyle is interesting!
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Uhm, he clearly said in the inital post "you're doing convex MOUNTAINS" really and well, Shrike makes the rest of the point clear I think, although I don't think the mountains need that kind of reshaping. It would decrease realism, and decrease the amount they blend into eachother in groups.
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oooppsss, i dont know why i thought we were talking about the hills.
well in this case i understand what PypeBros ment, now i don't really think making the mountains concave would make any difference in making them look better.
but hey thanks for the help now i know what concave and whats convex is q:
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I wouldn't suggest a very straight blue because that might look kinda fake, but more so a blue green slightly more on the blue side would be better than you have now :]
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Well enough about mountains, time to go on to water, its stressing me out right now, i have never really done any water-related pixel art works.
What we have is this little tile right now:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_waterTile.gif)
Don't know whats wrong with it, but something really feels wrong. Tell me what you think, Colour, texture...
Heres the original look of it:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gfx_mapColours7.gif)
And here how it will look with the Beach later on:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gfx_mapColours8.gif)
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I like the water there dude.
I do however think that that darker water is distracting. You have seemed to do this to add depth in the water, but I think this is unneeded.
I've been looking into how these games are made and so on. Here is an example of water, at a different perspective though:
(http://www2.fileplanet.com/images/10000/11528ss_sm2.jpg)
I think to make the water look good you either have to have a veriaty of tiles(this is probably not needed though, as they don't look like there following a trend). you can however make the transition between water and land better, but at the same time simple.
For reference I would have a look at all strategy games. Even if there not "Time Based Strategy's".
A list of one's I know:
-Seven Kingdoms(TBS)
-Age of Empires(?)
Those are the simplest ones.
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Looking good so far!
I think your water needs white froth / edge treatment when it hits the shore. I also think it's too high contrast right now - it's quite distracting from the rest of the scene, so you might want to tone if down a bit.
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Right now what you have is a swimming pool which to me is jarring, like i'm playing in a literal sandbox. this is something you could work with but not i think something you intended.
the reason is that from far away water (and most other things) have no texture. If a castle can be a few pixels wide, I think you'd be far better served by a fill with some beach transitions than by just about anything else.
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So we've animated the Water tile, and changed the colours a little:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/img_waterTileAnimated.gif)
basically the only animation here is the Texture movement to the right bottom, it feels like a strong wind on the map, im not sure if thats a good thing.
I've started on some beach, tell what you think so i could work on other sides and corners as well:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/img_waterTileSide1.gif)
And sorry cant show the actual water animation on the map, Have to clean up my flash file, then ill be sure to post it. but an image will do for now:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gfx_mapColours9.gif)
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Right now what you have is a swimming pool which to me is jarring, like i'm playing in a literal sandbox. this is something you could work with but not i think something you intended.
the reason is that from far away water (and most other things) have no texture. If a castle can be a few pixels wide, I think you'd be far better served by a fill with some beach transitions than by just about anything else.
hmm well you got a point there, i should probably consider adding some little textures.
I Actually noticed that before, but no one really complained, thanks though ill get in this.
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@ Batlorder, haha thanks mate, what program are you going to use for the game? and as you say modeling is it gonna have some 3D? q:
Heh... i'm going to make the game with c++ and with modeling i mean designing the game races and how much health they have etc.
Oh... and btw. looking great so far :)
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This is cool, like Age of Empires kind of... Water looks good, should make some Units.
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I really like the way the new water turned out. Looking forward to seeing the corners!
I think the animation could be better, so that each frame blends into the next frame, somewhat.... wait, on second viewing I can see that it is scrolling, I misread it at first (worth knowing that it can happen though). I think you have to see a body of water to understand how it looks truly. :)
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Alright sorry it took ages to update, i have been programming some stuff, and mainly being lazy at drawing, but i took some time to make the corners and actually polish the engine a little for the viewers , and thanks I Am Uh and dock.
ill have to redo the water animation a little.
so... we have the few corners now (4 more left to do):
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_water_tiles.gif)
This is what they look like together:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_water_full.gif)
And ofcourse the long awaited engine:
KINGS THE GAME (http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/kings.php)
tell me all you think c:
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And the other 4 tiles:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_water_tiles2.gif)
and full:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_water_full2.gif)
gonna put all this in the engine in a little while
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So far i have been trying to make the game as realistic as possible, now i come to a point where i also need to make units look realistic, which also means they will be extremely tiny and probably grouped as an army.
i dont know how to make that look goood.
So i was thinking if maybe i should do it like Advance wars where all the building are bigger than mountains and units are huge compared to the landscape,
Have buildings look more abstracted and a 1 huge Unit for each kind.
Heres a sketch, just tell me what you think, if you think its gonna ruin the feel of realism. or anything!
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_changeRules.gif)
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Have you ever played age of empires on the DS?
(http://dsmedia.ign.com/ds/image/article/664/664694/age-of-empires-the-age-of-kings-20051104052618731_640w.jpg)
could be idea you already had, but I was thinking that its going to be extremly hard to make realistic armies on this size resolution.
Well hope it helps. Not much to say. Very busy, have a good day.
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on interesting ive never seen this one before, thanks for the image
but yeah im thinking ill only make the units bigger, rest will keep realistic size.
thanks again
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I think what he means is the (much older than AoE DS) method of using a single unit on the battle-map but having several on a second attack screen when they engage.
Personally my vote is almost always for clarity, although units can be nice.
The thing about units is that they don't work well on this screen size. here's a quick try for swordsmen against your knights:
(http://xs134.xs.to/xs134/08515/knightss775.gif)
what it comes down to in my mind is this : what purpose does seeing men serve you?
if the shape of a unit is important, then you'll need 6 units in each squad to make proper formations:
xxxxx - firing line - ranged weapon bonus
x x x
x x x - battle ranks - melee weapon bonus
x x
x x - march column - movement bonus
x x
x x
x x - square - no flanks (foot only)
x x
x
x x - wedge - charge bonus (horse only)
x x x
etc etc. You won't be able to do these well with any less men (5 can service but not as well).
This will be quite hard at your res (which almost def. cannot do 6 abreast unless your men are just colored squares).
if the number simply represents "hitpoints," than anything from 2-6 works fine for you. i actually recommend using, as i have here, 6 for a large infantry unit and as you had 3 for a smaller horse unit (even if more reasonable proportions would probably be 5:2).
If there is no interface/gameplay purpose than you're by far best served by a single man for each unit.
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Thanks for the image ndchristie, that actually makes me want to have multiple units,
But as the gameplay will be i thought units would do much better as clarity.
Plus it would be much easier to see what units are what.
im gonna make a quick horse man in a bit.
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sorry for no updates, i have been mostly programming the game and being lazy.
i've worked a little on the menus, and the actual game idea and how everything will work
heres a little preview:
and i wanna hear if you think something in the menu should be placed differently, since there is nothing much graphically to talk of here.
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/kings_menus.png)
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That looks great. I've got nothing else to say apart from working on the HUD. Can't wait to play this!
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I find it very strange that the enemy profile is placed on the bottom left, yet your own profile is placed on the top right. It makes it look like the selected unit is always your enemy's unit (not helped by the yellow text).
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thanks Chris2balls, its always inspiring to hear things like that :D
Larwick do you think any other place would do better? cause i tried a few different variations of this layout i find this one to be the best one.
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I think that if you mirrored the interface it would work better. your profile avater on top left and the enimi on top right.
people usually follow a big Z shape when reading a screen or a paper, so you should make clear who you are talking about first. then after the information is over, the player instinctivly knows that since you are batteling someone else, that the next profile information will be on the enemy. also changing the background color would help separate you from the enemy.
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You must remember its a diplomacy window, it only shows up when you click the enemy castle, its not that important to take space on the top, but i think ill switch "user profile" to top left and "resources" to the top right. and yes ofcourse im going to have to draw some fancy background for the menu, probably some wood with some metal around.
thanks for the advice c:
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Sorry I ment your profile avater on top left and enemy on BOTTOM right!!!
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ahh so its just as you said... mirror it, on second thoughts i might just do it, its just i feel it would be weird to see the selected unit window on the left.
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is the selected unit your unit? or the enemy's?
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depends on what you select eh? :P
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Yeah, flipping it horizontally would make a lot more sense to me too. :)
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yeah the selected unit is what ever you click, your unit or the enemy.
now flipping the layout does make it look more standard.
what you think?
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/kings_menus2.png)
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Much better. The font on some of the stuff is a little hard to make out.. Like, it took me a while to figure out that said "Csar" in the upper left. Not a huge deal though.
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imho, you'll definitely need more "kings faces" so that you can be immediately distinguished from your opponent. Flags and names won't be sufficient.
(erhm. Shouldn't it read "Tsar" rather than "Csar" ?)
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ofcourse faces are going to be different, random hair crown eyes nose mouth, its not that important right now... but will sure work on it once the main engine is working properly.
as for the coat of arms, there will be like 4 only for the 4 colours you can play as red blue green and yellow.
And yessss actualy it is written as Tsar, its just the font shows T very similar to C... as you can see its using the same T for Teutonic Knight,
does anyone know any better Medieval Fonts?
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I like it lot more. I find it a lot easyer to read
medieval fonts: http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=401
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I think the reason it feels better to have the enemy on the right is that one could more easily reach him with one's weapon hand, were he real.
Edit: There's also the unpleasant sensation of reaching across oneself to click buttons, which is why most GUI's put buttons and scrollbars on the right side of windows.
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Alright a little graphical update:
A little village with which i am totally not happy with how it looks way too flat, and i have no idea whats wrong:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/img_tileVillage1.gif)
Finally tried to make a unit - a basic man-at-arms:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_unitProcess.gif)
And this is how the rest is looking:
also Please tell what you think and all the edits are very much appreciated.
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_gfx_mapColours10.png)
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I don't mean to nitpick or be an ass or anything, but am i the only who thinks the water looks too...swimming'poolish'? it's just soo blue.
I personally think it'll look better with some more green up in there. After all, the game is going to have lakes and so on. That water looks way too clean as it is now imo. You don't need to change it but that's just my opinion ;)
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i've really tried changing the water colour for almost too many times that i cant do/care for it any more, but maybe if you could show me an edit of what colour you think it can be i might change my mind. thanks for the thought.
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I do believe it looks 'poolish' due to the texture. The water wouldn't normally really have waves and ripples like that, I believe it would be a lot more flat.
I like the way the units look, btw. But I feel they're somewhat too large.
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well i agree about the unit size cause when i think about adding horses that gonna be a problem to fit it all on one tile,
about the water, im having a problem if i have to change them all, i have 10 in all (corners and such) so better make the choice worth it,
now really... is it the colour or the texture? or both? im gonna try a little variations,
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i really like the soldier but if you make him smaller it might be nice aswell.
buildings need to be executed in a similar manner to the characters i think, theres some incongruousness about the whole thing atm.
I stand by my original assertion that the pool is way overtextured and would be served better by a fill, with perhaps a few subtle lines to indicate ripples
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The water looks nice, but I don't understand why you want to show depth in the actual lake? I think its this mostly this make it feel like a pool. I also think its the transition between the water and land that puts me off. Why? because lakes don't look like this, if you however used the those tiles almost like a sea bay(where the outside of the map is covered the sea tiles and not the inside).
I've been staring at the water for a while, and have come to appreciate the amount of effort you have put into it. Well done. Ermm now off to work :-\
Hehehe keep going.
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(http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/8288/watertilega2.png)
This i think is more like what you should strive for. I'm no expert or anything but i think this more rings 'natural body of water'
I add darker greens than expected, to make i a bit more opaque, as what should be typical for lakes and seas. When the sea reaches the beach fronts, i would suggest using using a shade of greyish green for the foams, as well as add another highlight that is lighter than the lightest colour in the palette i show there.
What u guys think of it?
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Alright a little graphical update:
A little village with which i am totally not happy with how it looks way too flat, and i have no idea whats wrong:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/img_tileVillage1.gif)
there isnt enough contrast! the colors on the buildings are a big problem. compare them to your castles. they have highlights, and that rich dark red as the shadow color! try taking the colors from the castles and adding highlights to the buildings. do the same with the rest of the tile! more contrast = more depth. just fool around with it more. :)
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(http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/36/citytilepv4.png)
I took the liberty of editing the city tile to give it mroe depth. I didn't add any colours, i used the existing ones. Tell me if u like.
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The icons and gui in general need to be a whole lot less invasive I think. the coins are huge, and the events are also enormous. you'll need also to be able to easily identify who owns which town - since this can change it is far more important than the giant coins. if all towns produce gold and all castles produce three food, that's not very urgent information after the first turn of the game.
Similarly, you have a very large space in three corners dedicated to portraits. I realize that the portrait is mroe or less what you started with, but it's huge and you've got flags as well - a far more readable identifier anyway. This space sucker is the reason you can only see one enemy at a time which is a huge drawback when it comes to strategy and simply moving the game along.
My suggestions:
- make the icons smaller and place them on the side of the towns, not centered. this way they don't interfere as much with the image itself.
- don't show icons that are not immediately important. For instance, your enemies towns do not need production represented.
- show all three enemies in the corner with flags only - no silly large portraits. show diplomacy options for all 3 with the scores attached and most importantly a "current state" area (so you know whether you're already trading or at war).
- tuck those news icons half out of the screen, there are too many and they distract. furthermore, have clicked events turn gray or disappear entirely.
- dump the unit window if the portrait is just some crossed swords, and display his stats floating next to him when clicked.
- try to make the grain icon more distinct, right now it looks like a lot of things. you could cross two of them, maybe, or use the more traditional apples or meat-slab as they read easier at small scales.
- What does a tax collector do? where is he built? is it a unit or a building or just an abstract bonus? it certainly doesn't need to be on screen 24-7, not that large anyway, try tucking it smaller or clearing it entirely unless selected.
- Use a more readable font. Scripts from those days served two purposes: to decorate and appeal visually and to absorb time. Being read was an afterthought maintained only by the holy orders and they, for the most part, already knew what was written. The modern player cares more about reading at a glance than honoring god with poorly pixellated calligraphy.
- As i suggested before, treat towns and units similarly as they are important. towns don't need to take the same priority but they do need to be clean and simple to look good.
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@hotnikkelz
Your water looks much better and very professional, it is kind of dark for the style of my game i think. ill try fooling around with your water if you don't mind ;D
this is how it looks with your tiles:
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_water1.gif)
also you gave the village a much more cleaner and stronger contrast look, i really like it.
@fortunato
Contrast is what im lacking of! that's true, haha thanks.
@ndchristie
You really sound like a proper game designer!, really thanks for all the advice, some things you mention was the unfinished parts but other thing i do agree with and will work on.
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Hmm glad u liked it.
Looking at it now, if i do a re edit of the water, i'd probably edit the saturation a bit to be consistent with the overall colour..also forgive me, cuz i haven't made tiles before in my life.....but when they're being tiled they don't mesh perfectly...meaning that I can see each water tile like a separate entity, so can you like adjust the edges so that each water tile meshes seamlessly, cuz i don't think i know exactly how to go about doing that hahaha. I will give it a try though. Glad u liked the village.
edit, here u go
(http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/5193/watertilesetgb7.png)
Made it a bit brighter this time.....and i put them together to see how it looks
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awe man your tiles are beautiful :D
i was just making my own tiles in this kind style, but since you just made them all repetitive i decided to compare the new and the old water tiles together:
i really like the new darker ones, it does make it look more of a rainy weather, while the old one has a feel of a Caribbean sea.
Does anyone think the beach is needed or should be replaces with some kind of mud?
(http://www.toxicportal.com/ignatus/kings/example_water2.gif)
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not a problem.
Well, hmm, is it a pond, beach, lake? Depending on which it is, warrants a different look where water meets land. As it is right now, it seems to me that it's like a huge lake and as such deserves a more muddy, fine sediment with probably some grass kinda. Naturally beaches will hit sand, and seas/oceans will hit gravel with darker sand with maybe some rocks....generally imo.
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well basically i want to have only 1 type of water corners that could fit sea, lake, ocean...
from the beginning i was thinking of doing something like this http://www.gamershell.com/static/screenshots/2918/46649_full.jpg
or i might just stick with the beach...
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if u stick with the beach then i'd say go with a darker colour for the sand as there will be too much contrast i think. Hmm, just test out different colours, post it here and we'll see which looks best :) I can't envision such things in my mind honestly haha.