Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: ndchristie on April 23, 2009, 08:39:14 pm

Title: Partisan - take two
Post by: ndchristie on April 23, 2009, 08:39:14 pm
Been out of practice, wanted to do a little bit of a warm-up exercise before really launching into things again :

(http://xs138.xs.to/xs138/09174/bouncy923.png)
 - just a warmup

(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4254/partipack.gif) (http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/8678/partisand.gif) (http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/306/heyy2.png)
- new Partisan tiles!  We're starting almost completely over, smarter, faster, better than before!
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: JonathanOfDrain on April 24, 2009, 01:08:59 am
Not sure why, but they look disconnected from the ground. The grass feels like a wall they all have one foot against. The other foot seems to be floating almost.
They're in a dimetric perspective and the grass is being seen from directly above. Some overlapping might help the cause.
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: Dusty on April 24, 2009, 02:05:44 am
Probably the lack of a character shadow that usually goes along with sprites.
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: ndchristie on April 24, 2009, 02:16:10 am
yeah, I didn't think as far as getting the characters to stand on the ground, it was more like making a character and then making tiles and finding an excuse to put them both here/

if this was a real project i would lean towards overlapping, since shadows start to look really awkward once you get above a certain size, especially at this angle.  Some sort of soft shadow could work...but that's NPA anyway...

(http://xs138.xs.to/xs138/09174/bouncy670.png)
quick and dirty method - applying alpha to the sprite itself.  would work if there was generally one or two heights of tall grass, but not if i wanted to tailor things...
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: Doppleganger on April 24, 2009, 03:43:45 pm
Those are some really excellent grass tiles! Sorry I don't have anything better to add.
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: Scribblette on April 24, 2009, 05:25:58 pm
I'm with Dopple. I'd love your understanding of leaf blades there.
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: Mathias on April 24, 2009, 08:45:40 pm
Heya, these sprites kick butt! Well drawn, but my favorite thing is the perspective you chose, and it looks like you nailed it. I'm not worried about the grounding issue. A quick shadow always solves that. You just hadn't done it yet. Though, a combo of drawing order organized leaves drawn in front of the human sprites as they walk around and a shadow would be great. IF you're using alpha that is. 50/50 dither and solid shadows usually aren't so hot. Something else contributing to the problem may be difference the grass and human sprite colors. Grass is a bit on the bright/neon side in comparison.

Is there a future planned for this, or is it just random stuff?
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: EvilEye on April 24, 2009, 11:59:53 pm
The heads are placed too far back on the characters, especially the guys with the helmets. And for that matter the helmets don't appear to be at the same angle as the rest of the body.
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: ndchristie on April 25, 2009, 01:37:43 am
The heads are placed too far back on the characters, especially the guys with the helmets. And for that matter the helmets don't appear to be at the same angle as the rest of the body.

addressed the head position i think, but does the head really seem out-of-perspective?  maybe I don't see it...

(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/5992/bennylava.gif)

Also. what do people think of the character design?  As in, who are these people? Do we like them?  Does the character in general appeal to us?  What about the colors/palette?  It's a doodle yes, but I don't know, it COULD go somewhere...
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: EvilEye on April 25, 2009, 06:11:35 am
addressed the head position i think, but does the head really seem out-of-perspective?  maybe I don't see it...

Yes it does.

At least do something like this:

(http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w104/chris_6713/edit1133.png)

As for the helmet, its passable if you adjust the head.
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: ndchristie on April 25, 2009, 11:28:58 am
yeah something like that might be correct perspective, and it's what I had started with...it just looks like shit. 

There's a reason the head got set further back originally, I don't just think people's spines are broken that way :P.  I think I may have overcompensated to start though so I'm happy with it adjusted forward one pixel as above.  There's a tradition of "leaning a little back, looking a little high" sprites anyway so I don't think it's jarring.
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: crab2selout.png on April 25, 2009, 05:34:20 pm
I think the farther back head also helps give the impression of a neck, NDchristie. Evileye's edit looks like he's got a posture problem. My only crit would be the arms which seem either a bit too short, or you need to shrink the hands. They're a bit stumpy at the moment.

I really enjoy the design. Puffy shirt medieval? I'll have to give a it a try.
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: Ryumaru on April 25, 2009, 06:11:23 pm
In general I like the characters, of course im for more of the badassery type so you'd have to give them a 64 pixel long sword for me to really like them.
Just wanted to say that the grass is stunning, are they just plain tiles? if so, what size and can you show a tileset?
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: Accident on April 25, 2009, 07:00:06 pm
Normally, I'd go off crazy, but I understand that you'ven't pixelled in a while. So. c:

WHERE IS THE FLAIR??!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!11

(http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/1618/18541288.png)

Lols, sorry. xD Personal taste went above all else. I think I also removed a colour, and unified things a little more.
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: Shrike on April 26, 2009, 01:23:49 am
Good going, ndcristie.   :D

One thing I noticed, just thought I'd share it:
A majority of the character seems overly-soft.  The red parts look like marshmallows.  I would say over-complicated, over-Anti-Alaised, and I think you lost some of your shading in complexity.
Now this may be largely due to the fact that you use more advanced techniques than I, but I thought it was worth sharing.  Example (edited from the edit by Accident):
(http://www.majhost.com/gallery/exendia/Misc/winpossibly.gif)
Just a thought.  Keep it up!
Shrike
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: ndchristie on April 26, 2009, 02:00:44 am
Good going, ndcristie.   :D

One thing I noticed, just thought I'd share it:
A majority of the character seems overly-soft.  The red parts look like marshmallows.  I would say over-complicated, over-Anti-Alaised, and I think you lost some of your shading in complexity.
Now this may be largely due to the fact that you use more advanced techniques than I, but I thought it was worth sharing.  Example (edited from the edit by Accident):
(http://www.majhost.com/gallery/exendia/Misc/winpossibly.gif)
Just a thought.  Keep it up!
Shrike

Shrike - I might follow what you're saying in the text, but i'm getting confused when the image comes in - isn't your edit far more complicated than the original design?
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: Shrike on April 26, 2009, 02:24:07 am
Heh.  Well, maybe so.  I tend to get carried away.  The edit didn't really apply to the text crits...  I was just tweaking some shading.  All I really care about is the text crits, the edit was just an impulse done while simultaneously doing homework.

I'm definitely not a knight in shining armor when it comes to pixelart, though I like to think I have a good eye.  As long as you're with me on the text.  Do you think the critique from the text applies?

Shrike
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: JWW on April 26, 2009, 04:56:24 am
i really don't have anything constructive to say; the sprite looks solid to me, but I'd really be interested in reading a tutorial on tiles by you!
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: Helm on May 07, 2009, 12:48:02 pm
I'm happy with how you've reigned in your color selection here, makes for much more readable sprites.

About who these guys are: they're well paid but faceless soldier pawns for me. I don't know if that's what you're going for. No overlying emotion.
Title: Re: Warm-up
Post by: Jad on May 07, 2009, 02:35:00 pm
Seconding helm here.

It seems to me they're working for a more or less clean and tidy faction, what with the ruffles and all. So either they feel like good guys generally, or very decadent bad guys, hah : D
Title: Re: Warm-ups
Post by: ndchristie on May 08, 2009, 03:52:11 am
alright, I think I got what I could from that sketch...fil and I already have 3 long-term projects (spherrets, vikings, partisan) and there's no use in starting a 4th.

here's another doodle....there's an idea behind it but I haven't run this past Fil, so don't put too much stake in this:

(http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4254/partipack.gif)

I think I've become more commercial in style over a year without any major pixel art, but at the same time this makes work faster and more attractive.  Long story short, where I left partisan there were a lot of confused points, I was halfway to revamping large swaths of tiles, but hadn't really done that yet...animations were strange, colors...etc.
What I want to do, if i have the time, is rebuild from the ground up in this fast-paced bright style on the theory that I could get to where I was and past pretty fast.  I thought about doing 3d for a bit but I don't have the skills to do that quickly yet and partisan began as a pixel-project and I know Fil wants to keep it that way too.

One thing you'll notice is hey, aren't these tiles not 48 pixels across?  Damned straight - they've been cut by a third!  Characters though will remain the same size. 
The reason behind this is mainly that the animations required the player to step very far forward for every attack, and most melee weapons fought similarly no matter how we tweaked them.  Now there can be distinct advantages and disadvantages to more weapon types, with more weapons being able to hit farther than the simple adjacent square.  This should even the playing field for more acrobatic characters, such as fencers, and characters who rely on intercepting a more mobile enemy, such as a heavily armored guard with a halberd.  Pikes will now threaten more ground, covering a wicked 3 square distance.  This will also make side-arms more important, with each character carrying smaller weapons in case of close-combat emergencies, where their primary weapon is too long or big to properly hit the squares immediately in front of them.  The focus would be less on battering and more on out-thinking the opponent.  We'll also be able to make guns less predictable in terms of what square they hit, without losing additional plausibility.  A lot more of the heavy-hitting weapons, such as great swords, dutch axes, etc will now require hitting multiple squares, friend or foe, to reduce gangbanging.  If you want to hit a guy from all sides, you'll need to do it like Brutus and Cassius.  Animations will also be simplified and reduced to the bare-bone frames to reduce my chances at poor decisions as well as make things run faster and look a little more punchy.
Title: Re: Warm-ups
Post by: Helm on May 08, 2009, 07:15:23 am
That whole revamp sounds like development hell to me, but from the start I was more interested in helping along and witnessing your artistic growth as a pixeller than getting a final game out of your efforts, so good luck with remaking everything. Keep posting here for critique and help and so we can see the pretty art.
Title: Re: Warm-ups
Post by: ndchristie on May 08, 2009, 11:00:14 am
That whole revamp sounds like development hell to me, but from the start I was more interested in helping along and witnessing your artistic growth as a pixeller than getting a final game out of your efforts, so good luck with remaking everything. Keep posting here for critique and help and so we can see the pretty art.
Think of it not as a revamp but as a second attempt starting from 0, which is actually far, far simpler, using what we learned from the first try.  Most importantly we just be adding more ingredients to a bad soup the way I was in the last topic, we're stating a whole new dish.

Only a couple weapons are left in each category, differentiated not by an abstract sense of having a better attack value, but by physical properties and attack patterns (essentially, force, weight, effected gridspace, damage type, accuracy, and nothing else).  There are no more branching character classes, no more traveling, no more shops - everything arises through actions of the players, which Fil can handle very easily as variables.  Battles will be faster, consisting of initial plans, a chance to react, and then decisive action - no grinding down for ages like we were experiencing.  The pieces will be more chess-like in their relationships to each other, and most smart attacks will get a wound or better.  Riflemen can expect to fire 2-3 shots per battle if they fight well and they survive the battle, more often only 1 (on their first or second turn).  This is a game that's going to have to be made 15-20 minutes at a time, so we want it to be a game that can be played 15-20 minutes at a time.

Either way I appreciate the support and the critique that I know is going to hit once I get my act enough together to post more than 6(9) tiles :).
Title: Re: Warm-ups
Post by: Helm on May 08, 2009, 12:23:58 pm
Actually that preliminary design-doc sounds much more focused and compact than in the past so I'm looking forward to a game as well, a couple of years down the line!
Title: Re: Warm-ups
Post by: Caergrim on May 08, 2009, 02:32:15 pm
Awesome work! :)
Title: Re: Partisan - take two
Post by: ndchristie on May 09, 2009, 03:03:12 pm
Fil and I have been discussing more...

(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4254/partipack.gif) (http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/8678/partisand.gif)

although this mostly shows what was done in the other tiles, it shows it over a wider range.  the border is because the battles will take place on an actual stage.

although this shows characters directly beside each other, this won't happen often as, like was mentioned, most weapons suffer penalties for getting so close.  Not to mention IRL both the masked man and the purple-caped guy would be like hey man, some personal space?

i'm aware that there's a little hiccup where the rock ledge block hits the other tiles, i'm going to fix that soon.  The little blue spikey things on the far left need help as well...and the leafy bush is about 2/3rds done.

Next on the agenda after those: sand :) edit - sand actually came first.  And maybe think of a better way to integrate with the ledges...
Title: Re: Partisan - take two
Post by: BlackTerror on May 10, 2009, 02:47:19 am
Hmm, the rock-on-rock outlines don't really work... Maybe you need variations with only outlines on the right, and only outlines on the left, so rocks don't have those thick outlines against each other.

Also, the sand doesn't blend into the other tiles to fit in this tileset yet, but I assume you're going to make grassy send and other transition tiles.

Chess piece sort of character design for a tactical rpg does sound interesting -- does that mean all characters' looks and weapon/armor will be essentially fixed?
Title: Re: Partisan - take two
Post by: ndchristie on May 22, 2009, 08:56:41 pm
(http://xs139.xs.to/xs139/09215/sample733.png)

still heavy wip and not much progress on the tiles themselves but i'm working out block heights...
still missing a lot of transitions of course and haven't addressed yet the outline style of the rocks.

by chesslike I was thinking more in terms of each piece playing a role and following a distinct pattern of attack.  I would hope that that unit lists remain largely customizable, at least by the later game.  In this case the player would be allowed to take several knights and no rooks, as it were, albeit at his own choosing and risk.
Title: Re: Partisan - take two
Post by: EvilEye on May 23, 2009, 04:57:06 am
Looks damn nice, especially the terrain. I think you'd give the pro's at squaresoft a run for there money.

Is this all just a mockup or is there some playable demo in the works?
Title: Re: Partisan - take two
Post by: Ryumaru on May 24, 2009, 03:47:21 am
Any reason that particular platform on the right doesn't have an outline?
Good stuff as always, I love the tighter rendering. Pixel art may not be something where you always want to " go loose" like all the painting teachers say :]
Title: Re: Partisan - take two
Post by: ndchristie on May 24, 2009, 05:00:26 pm
Any reason that particular platform on the right doesn't have an outline?

the jaggedness is because it's a WIP (still figuring the overlap, which was dependant on tile-height (Fil and I have finally agreed on 6px per height measure, other options were 4, 8, and 12...actually it's kinda like 12 here since sixes can easily make twelves...)

the lack of a hard outline is because it's actually a ground-tile.  We'll (eventually) have a hard-lined tile for rocks hanging into space, and similarly a soft-lined rock pile (only a hard-lined one seen here) for when rocks lead into each other.  I'll be drawing those separately so they'll take a little bit of time...
Title: Re: Partisan - take two
Post by: ndchristie on June 02, 2009, 04:09:39 pm
This might be a premature update, but I started fiddling with the building pieces...:

(http://g.imagehost.org/0713/funtiles613.png)
Title: Re: Partisan - take two
Post by: ptoing on June 02, 2009, 05:09:39 pm
This looks really nice but imo has one big flaw atm. Height differences are not visible on a glance. This will probably be better once you have sprites on there, but it might be an issue gameplay wise.
Title: Re: Partisan - take two
Post by: ndchristie on June 02, 2009, 08:34:39 pm
Good point - working on it!

(http://xs140.xs.to/xs140/09232/heyy603.png)

heavily WIP edges for raised tiles....again probably too early, but it shows where we're going :).
Title: Re: Partisan - take two
Post by: Gil on June 02, 2009, 09:21:51 pm
Final Fantasy Tactics advance did it like that, which worked really well. They used pure black edges.

I love the new edges in terms of readability. It does improve the immediate visibility of height changes and looks aesthetically pleasing enough. On the other hand, the original looked very organic and natural, heightening immersion.
Title: Re: Partisan - take two
Post by: ndchristie on June 02, 2009, 11:02:24 pm
On the other hand, the original looked very organic and natural, heightening immersion.

I wonder if this is because of the design; in the second example i just threw several quick stacks together without rhyme or reason (just haste).

Here i've recreated the old swatch for the sake of an easy comparison:
(http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/306/heyy2.png)

still losing an organic quality, or not as much?
200% for two reasons - one is that i ended up with a blurry firefox and the other is that I'm going to argue for that (or higher) being the in-game res.

Here we also see the biggest frustration of isometric - like over like will always cause some confusion with height/placement of tiles.  We'll make every effort to see that tiles are generally floating over things of a different color/material to lessen this.
Even the best have trouble with this.  Here's an early level from FFTA:
(http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/537/ffta.png)

the first time i played this level i thought that closest orange tree was actually a bush on the square diagonally up from it - i didn't see the trunk at all until i'd completely goofed my deployment.  luckily FFTA is an easy game!
Title: Re: Partisan - take two
Post by: Gil on June 03, 2009, 07:31:52 am
The original still looks a little more organic, even with non-random placement, but I think it's worth it, because of the clearer difference. Looking good either way.