Pixelation
Critique => 2D & 3D => Topic started by: Arne on September 10, 2009, 09:09:52 am
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I like to draw stuff based on old sprites, especially if there's very little other high-res art around.
Maybe I'm not alone? I think it would be fun if others joined in.
Z - Bitmap Brothers
(http://androidarts.com/z/z_bitmap_brothers.jpg)
Ref:
http://www.bitmap-brothers.co.uk/downloads/images/z/index.htm
http://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#Z
Since the sprite and 3D version of the robot looks different, I took the liberty of picking the cherries.
The 3D guys had a nasty solid red (or whatever color) look, making them look like plastic soldiers. I decided to use the light gray (looks kind beige) torso color from the sprite to break up the monotone. The ribcage area (and perhaps the whole chest) still needs some work.
The eyes are green on the smaller sprites, but not on the portraits. I went for green eyes even though it's cheap (glowing cool eyes) and not as expressive as the organic eyes in the portraits. I thought it would be a good way to mark the face with a special eye catching color contrast.
I did draw some inspiration from the 3D designs. The belly disc was fun and serves to break up the red armor plating theme. It suggests some kind of core / engine.
I was trying to keep the 90 and 45 degree angles which are often used in the pixel art.
The darker piston parts are intended to break up the red with something of a darker value.
The rifles and grenades are based on the designs in the game. The head is just some kind of average of all the different portraits in the game though.
I made the drill sergeant a human because I like to add a familiar scale reference. The design is pretty much made up by nonsense and needs some work. The torso clothing splits in two around the abs, just like on the 3D robots. The beige color comes from the drill sergeant. The rifle is a modified version of the sniper rifle in the game.
The sketches are the exploration thumbnails which I haven't explored further, but I wanted to try and go for light, medium and heavy designs.
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I did this yesterday along with the Z stuff.
Journey to Silius / RAF world (Rough world?) - Sunsoft
(http://androidarts.com/silius/rough_world_silius.jpg)
Ref: There are no (good) sprite sheets. I doodled these while watching a 'let's play' (pausing for ref shots) and listening to the excellent music.
This game was apparently intended to be based on Terminator. The story seems to have been changed last minute or something, and it doesn't really work with the gameplay. The main character (only character) is pretty flat too.
Perhaps some dimension can be brought to the main character if it's revealed that he's actually a machine built by his father, and that the father also made the terrorist robots by mistake (and that they killed him). That would give the ending some tension, with the main character finding out that he killed his own kind, or that he needs to insist that he's different from them. Maybe the terrorist robots only wanted their own lot in the universe. Maybe the main character has... a... ssssisstahh?
So, yeah, I made the main character into a chibi thing, again. There are 3 or 4 versions of the main character. The Japanese cover, the Japanese sprite, the US sprite (no helmet and more chibi), The EU sprite (same as the Japanese one, I think). There might be some art in the instruction booklets too, but I have not researched that far yet. Anyways, other than basic use of colors, I didn't stay close to any design in particular. The Japanese armoured version has more blue on it, and the US one has a more white baggy pants look.
The enemies I just made quick roughs of. While the designs in the game are really haphazard, I think there is a fun thing going on with the white nonsense lump look.
I'd love to turn this into a 'metroidvania'.
Edit: Added a rough of the US main character. He's got some kind of thing going on with a black bar over his chest. I interpret that as some kind of hole/shadow under a collar of some sort.
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Just wanted to say that I really enjoy looking at your reworkings of my favourite old game characters, it always brings a smile to my face :) Your style is as cool as ever.
Jason.
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Awesome as always, Arne... I haven't played Z but from judging by the screenshots, it's got this weird sort of Spaghetti Western or possibly even American Civil War flavor mixed into it, except that's genuinely futuristic and not simply garden variety steam-punk. From a conceptual standpoint it seems that there's a lot of untapped potential there.
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I've always loved your stuff, man. These are great. I might join in, cause I've been watching some videos lately that I think you'd probably appreciate:
World of Longplays - http://www.longplays.net/
There's a guy who seems to be systematically posting these on Youtube as well.
http://www.youtube.com/user/cubex55
Basically they're full playthroughs of entire games. There are Amiga and C64 videos as well. Much nostalgia to be had. So I might end up going back and re-envisioning some of those older games to work in a modern sort of way. Actually, I've always wanted to do a remake of Kid Chameleon, so that's probably one I'd do...
You want us to just post our own interpretations in here?
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Yeah, it would be nice to see other people's interpretations. I tend to give everything a chunky toy look.
Been subscribing to cubex55 for years. Youtube is great for quickly finding out what a game is about, or zooming to a certain point in the game. Perhaps I'm old, but I find it more fun to watch people play games nowadays.
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I gotta say I love these things, you are so good at it and I love that you post your thought processes. I really admire your stuff.
I've tried similar things before but nothing really good came of it, I've got a couple of games lined up that I'd like to try. Here is my first one:
Castlequest/Castle Excellent - ASCII Corporation
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v206/MANDRAGGANON/castlequestinterpretation.jpg)
Gameplay video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_H0AMSt_yA)
I used to play Castlequest a lot as a kid, i never made it anywhere though as we did not have the map that went along with it. I enjoyed the idea of it though and always thought it could be better than it was.
Anyways when I first started I didn't realize there was hardly more than 5 sprites in the whole game. I took the ones I thought were the most interesting and decided to redesign them. So I chose the main character, some birdman with a hammer and an angry viking who was basically just a giant beard.
There were 2 decent sized pieces of art i could find for the main character, the box art and there is an image of him from the ending of the game. I decided to play more off the in game sprite though. I added some blue because i though it looked a bit bland. I kept his inconveniently short dagger because I thought it left him at somewhat of a disadvantage which could make for interesting gameplay as well as making the castle seem a bit scarier.
As for the bird i thought it would be more interesting if he had a larger hammer and I decided to make him blue as the brown looked horrible with the pink. The viking is beardier than ever.
Thats, all i've really got. My thought processes aren't nearly as interesting lol. Ignore my horrible use of gouache, I'm just learning how to use it.
My next game I want to do is Legacy of the Wizard.
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Fun stuff. Unfortunately http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Castlequest insists on ruining the sprites, but I managed to find some pictures there. The mage is kind of generic looking, but perhaps something interesting could be done with its face (it has a rat face on one of the covers). The knight... well, it's a knight and it's always fun to do those. Seems like it is gray in the NES version and has a different visor with slits.
I never liked huge feet on chibi characters, so I mostly make upside drown drop legs too. It helps put the focus on the upper body portrait part. Not so great for clearly showing the walk animation on sprites though, if you want to do that. I've been struggling to find a scale and style which works for sprites as well as character art.
Milon's Secret Castle has some pretty... fun and awkward designs.
I've been wanting to Legacy of the Wizard as well (dump (http://androidarts.com/valkyrie/lotw_characters_web.gif) of the latter). I have some thumbnail sheets of LotW, but nothing online atm. LotW has pretty good enemy designs I think.
I'm trying to clean up my Air Fortress doc now.
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I didn't get very far into my Air Fortress project (http://androidarts.com/airfortress/air_fortress.htm).
Psycho Fox
(http://androidarts.com/misc/PsychoFox_thumbnails.jpg)
This is a Sega Master System game which I have fond memories of. It's one of those games which I only played a few times at a friend's place, so it kept its magic, never seemed repetitive, etc. It is certainly better as a memory. There are not enough enemy variants in the game, and the few existing designs are kind of all over the place. There's a Shinto (?) theme showing here and there, but the overall theme is... silly/nonsense.
You can't see ahead of yourself much, which is bad because you can potentially run quite fast. The levels are linear but offer some degree of exploration (horiz+vert scrolling). Unfortunately there's not much to find, because there are so few power-ups / collectibles.
The main strengths of the game are character switching, cuteness, and a feeling of happy-fun. There's also a few interesting mechanical devices in the game, such as the folding stair cases and pneumatic 'springboards'.
Ref:
Psycho Fox video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0PzwMxtr0A), maps (http://www.smspower.org/maxim/Maps/PsychoFox), screens (http://www.mobygames.com/game/sega-master-system/psycho-fox/screenshots).
EDIT: Updated image.
The SMS had more colors per sprite than the NES, but I haven't really seen a SMS game with delicious pixel art. Maybe I just haven't seen enough games. The SMS used a 6-bit_RGB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monochrome_and_RGB_palettes#6-bit_RGB) palette, and according to the gfx specs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Master_System#Technical_specifications) it used two 16 color palettes with colors from the 64 color (r4*g4*b4) palette, one for the FG (sprites) and one for the BG.
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I'm glad to see you bump this thread because I love seeing stuff like this.
Ultimately your redesign looks a lot more like a Sega game than the original did! But I'm curious, why did you decide to give them guns? I guess it seems to fit the story and name a lot better in my mind. The enemies feel a lot more like they are from sonic so the guns might seem out of place if the enemies they were killing were also the creatures they were saving. I guess it depends on what the gun would fire.
I love how much character each of the main animals have.
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Thanks. The enemies in the game feels too simple, lacking 'range'. Most of them are just a lump body with eyes and some kind of appendage. I tried to nudge the enemy designs a bit to make them more interesting, but there's not much I can do. They might be cybernetic, so there's an idea to play with. I'm thinking of using the existing enemies as a base and extrapolate new heavier designs from them. Right now I'm pretty much just drawing the stuff from the game to gain a feel for things. A first iteration.
You defeat the enemies by: Punching them. Gradually stomping them into the ground. Throwing the fuzzy bird at them. Using the voodoo doll. Using the super potion (invulnerable).
Yeah, I forgot to mention the guns. I'm not really into the Shinto thing, so I played with the idea of a 'darker' (but happy-looking) sci-fi setting, because it feels so disjointed from the original concept. Fantasy Zone is pretty dark, a tragedy even, if you look at the story line. It's also one of the cutest games around, and I like that contrast. Dai Mahou Touge is another example.
Also, the cybernetic/robotic enemies would belong to a sci-fi setting. I'm a big Megaman fan, and I liked what Sonic did too. It was fun to watch the cute animals appear from the destroyed enemies. Maybe in this game, cute small animals are piloting the robotic enemies. I like games with small figures piloting stuff. In Megaman Legends the Servebots would emerge from the wreckage of destroyed vehicles. Such things add life and dimension to the enemies.
I think the characters become more interesting if they can carry stuff. Otherwise they're limited to standing there with their arms at their sides.
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I still remember the ridiculously bad punching animation from this game :lol:
I like the idea of cyborg type animals, if you do that I hope you maintain the cuteness you've kept in the main character (the monkey is perfect).
Wonderboy 3 (and maybe the first 2, but I can hardly remember) has some pretty nice graphics.
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Chaos Engine characters might be nice as the victorian setting is a little unusual in games. :)
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I just bought myself a Bamboo and I'm in need of some sort of practice before I do real work. This seems like a fun exercise. I'll try to join in soon :)
Something like Castle of the Winds seems up my alley.
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do these count or did i totally fubb up my first post here?
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v244/SAKKET/4d52d6da.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v244/SAKKET/4eabbddd.png)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v244/SAKKET/b91d3ebc.png)
also this one is an extreme deviation from the original material but i still like it..
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v244/SAKKET/db1c83c7.jpg)
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Lord of the Sword is pretty awesome. I will participate in this soon enough.
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thanks! Song of the Boy did some pretty similar works once upon a time. http://www5c.biglobe.ne.jp/~kurekure/
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(http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/7936/metroid1.png)
Interpretation of Metroid's Samus. I guess I cheated if I looked at some artwork too :p
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I've been doing redesigns of the nearly incomprehensible Action 52 characters (http://androidarts.com/megalonia/Action_52_characters_c.jpg), and here are a few of the sprites (http://androidarts.com/megalonia/action_52_sheet_crop.png) for reference. Might be doing some of the spaceships soon.
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Those are sex for my eyes.
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Yeah, that Pompadour Pig needs to have a platform game of his own. Great stuff! I feel like doing some interpretations as well.
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Thanks. Here's some progress on the miniboss ships (http://androidarts.com/megalonia/megalonia_miniboss_ship_preview.jpg). I'll have a little UFO pop out of each.
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Arne, I'm going to challenge you to a boss fight and steal your powers.
Dang, those look so good!
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Something from nothing, you might say. Brilliant stuff, Arne.
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It's for the Action 52 activity (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=12439.300) btw.. I'm posting stuff in that thread.
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Here's some other stuff (untouched by Photoshop):
(http://androidarts.com/misc/A4_lineups.jpg)
Turtles was ruined by the dam(n) level (2). There was an interesting city level to explore later (3?) but I rarely felt like playing all the way to it.
Castlevania 1 had some character. I liked Simon's Quest a bit back in the day, but now when I played it... it was really confusing because of reused screens.
Hebereke (Uforia here in the EU) was interesting, because it appears to be swapping tile tables (or parts of?) on the fly to squeeze in more character animation frames. There's some differences between the JP and EU version. Personally I think the main character sprite should've been left untouched. The lizard isn't so bad though. The game is far to linear for my taste... it suffers from slap you in the face come back later 'exploration'.
Milon's secret castle has some potential. The secrets (which needs to be uncovered to progress) relies heavily on security though obscurity though. It's not very fun to play, but looks kind of cute. I wish the NES have had 5 colors per sprite, even though it doesn't make bit-sense.
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Marvelous interpretations, I'm looking forward to it being coloured! :)
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Been participating in this all by my lonesome in traditional medium. Hopefully I work up the courage to launch a digital attempt soon!
Out of curiosity: Arne, what's your process, here? Are these first passes, or do you thumbnail for a bit first. Are you actively playing the game, pausing when a pose/scene inspires you, or do you rifle through sprite pages via google and draw as you wish?
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Knowing arne as little as I do, he's probably playing the games, then stops, and draws them in as he sees stuff.
But the variety though would suggest the latter if he's just doing quick sketches like that.
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I do a lot of research usually. Maybe 90+% of the time does into research, ignoring the time I have spent playing some of the games.
First I just search for info pages, fan pages and sprite sheets. Usually the sprite sheets on the net are poor 'rips', so I have to 'dump' them myself. I've developed my own programs for this. Watching youtube videos is good for seeing / remembering certain areas of a game, but in many cases they're too blurry to work as ref.
If there are several versions of the game, I research those. There might be a NES and Famicom version. The JP/NA/EU versions sometimes have different sprites, changed or ripped out story sequences. See Contra as an example of a game that's different in all three regions. Sometimes I dump both games and run a comparison check to see exactly what was changed.
Then there could be versions for different systems. Metal Gear was changed quite a bit from MSX to NES. Rygar and Section Z were originally for the Arcade, but turned into adventure-exploration on the NES. It's often difficult and time consuming to acquire sprite refs from all versions.
Flyer material is interesting, as is gaming magazine 'spot art'. There are also guides which have some official art. Finding this kind of stuff is quite difficult as it's often Japanese material. Over the years I've saved some quite hard to find stuff. Auctions show up a lot as people tend to take photos of box contents and extra materials (maps, flyers, etc).
Then of course I play the games.
I save all that I've got in a folder (subfolders if it's a big project). Since I have got a luxurious dual screen setup I can bring up the ref on the second monitor while working in Photoshop. Sometimes I put on music from the game. I've also got a EeePC which is great if I want to be creative on Real Paper at exotic locations (i.e away from the stationary) with ref available.
It's very interesting to restrict yourself rather closely to the design of old sprites, because when you to, you go outside of your bounds and explore new solutions - which leads to increased vocabulary.
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I never imagined your process would be so involved, Arne!
I've wanted to participate in this forever, but I struggle to think of games that feel appropriate. Must... think... harder... :yell:
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(http://androidarts.com/faxanadu/faxanadu_2010_wip_a.jpg)
Also, some quick pixel play with the player sprite and palettes. The superbright palette of the player character is different from the 'Chiaroscuro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiaroscuro)' of the two enemy palettes, and the light-shadow shading (rather than flat colors) made things hard to read. Given how brown the game is, the main character should probably be blue. A lot of the backgrounds are dark, but I think black lines survive pretty well, judging by the enemies. Some Faxanadu screenshots and info (http://www.the-interweb.com/serendipity/index.php?/categories/1-Faxanadu).
(http://androidarts.com/faxanadu/faxanadu_edit.gif)
Faxanadu does some interesting things with the mist (just putting the background in the foreground I suppose) and it also appears to be streaming in tiles into the tile tables as it needs them. This can be seen if observing the tile tables in the RAM while playing. During a conversation, letter tiles will gradually appear, and the mist is animated by replacing tiles.
Chick inspired by the sexy Xanadu cover (http://www.mobygames.com/game/msx/xanadu-dragon-slayer-ii/cover-art). Otherwise, there are a lot of bare chested men in this game series (http://hardcoregaming101.net/xanadu/xanadu.htm).
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Haha, yeah, I sorta wondered why you'd suddenly paint all 80's bangs-style chicks - although I dig it lots : D
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I'm interested in both 80's1 and late 70's2 animé style. It's more appealing than 90's for sure.
1Because I recently played Chaos Angels for the MSX.
2Starzinger for example, long faces with a pronounced nose ridge and narrow eyes.
Quickies:
(http://androidarts.com/goldenaxe/golden_axe_chibi_2010.jpg)
Experiment. What makes a character recognizable? Color certainly plays a huge role. In other cases a silhouette is very important of course (Mickey Mouse). When I redesign sprites I try to preserve the main features and their relative placement, and this goes for the color chunks as well, even if it's just a few pixels on the sprite. See my take on Samus (http://androidarts.com/metroid/metroid_samus_aran_ridley_rio.jpg) as an example.
(http://androidarts.com/misc/not_mario.jpg)
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I didn't get very far into my Air Fortress project (http://androidarts.com/airfortress/air_fortress.htm).
Psycho Fox
hmm.. not a bad idea. I may try that.
The SMS had more colors per sprite than the NES, but I haven't really seen a SMS game with delicious pixel art. Maybe I just haven't seen enough games. The SMS used a 6-bit_RGB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monochrome_and_RGB_palettes#6-bit_RGB) palette, and according to the gfx specs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Master_System#Technical_specifications) it used two 16 color palettes with colors from the 64 color (r4*g4*b4) palette, one for the FG (sprites) and one for the BG.
Oddly enough, you might be better off looking at the Game Gear for more interesting pixel art. It has a 4096-color master palette compared to the SMS's 64; for example the art for the GG sonic games easily beats the SMS ones even though it has less pixels on-screen. It just plain looks more interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8iNPRBeF9s seems like a good illustration. at about 1:58, I find that pretty impressive looking
I'm considering doing something like this activity, and looking at games like:
* Starquake
* Switchblade
* Super Cauldron
* Knight Tyme
* Hydrofool
* Sweevo's World
* Batman (the isometric game by Jon Ritman/Bernard Drummond)
EDIT:
* knight lore
* nightshade
:)
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Hey Arne: do you find interpreting Mega Drive sprites more or less inspiring than those on the NES & Master System? I was working on some Mega Drive interpretations—it's the system I'm most familiar with—but the sprites are so comparatively detailed it feels like I have to actively modify the character to interpret it in a substantial way, whereas those other systems are pleasantly ambiguous.
(apparently there was a Master System Golden Axe, but the MD & Arcade versions were more definitive so I'm kind-of assuming you used that—in any case, the sprites in the port look pretty large too)
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StarQuake has an awesome title, and the game looks interesting too, even though I'm no big fan of blobby characters. It's the one thing which bothers in Gimmick for the NES too.
Yeah, it's less interesting to redesign hi-def stuff, and I too feel like I have less room to play around without violating the design. In the case of Golden Axe, it started out kind of hi-def, then they made the C64 version etc. Not sure how to go about that. I once made some redesigns of the sprites from the Atari 2600 version of Galaxian though. They look like large legged mecha rather than bugs. At one point I wanted to redesign the Atari force universe.
These old 1:72 miniatures are fun to reinterpret.
http://androidarts.com/starguard/starguard.htm
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Hey. Hey! Been lurking in this thread for quite some time now and ever since I first saw it I thought "great idea! I want to do the Gianna Sisters(and went on wondering for months why noone did them yet).".
I find your drawings highly inspirational Arne and you make it look like it's really fun and not hard to do at all. :)
So today I found some time and started working on The Gian(n)a Sisters (even tried to mimic your process a bit or what I think to see to be your process, hehe).
work in progress (good construction practice for me as well):
(http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/6619/20100727wip.png)
Reference: http://www.lemon64.com/giana/ (and of course countless hours of playing the game)
update (starting to feel a bit like I'm doing it wrong(adding too many details which just aren't there in the original sprites) but I'm having fun, so it must be right):
(http://img814.imageshack.us/img814/4871/20100727wip2.png)
update2 (the little bug always looked more like a small mini-turtleish creature to me (also I kept reading 'the eye' as a lion when I was a kid, should probably doodle that as well))
(http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/179/20100727wip3.png)
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Nice! I've actually done Giana Sisters (and Hard'n Heavy). I might have taken that stuff offline though. When you compare GS to SMB, you notice all those little touches which made SMB great, like the collision feedback (blocks bouncing, turtle shells, sound design, etc).
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also I kept reading 'the eye' as a lion when I was a kid
I am glad to know I was not the only one.
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Hard and Heavy was originally a Giana sequel. Due to Nintendo's objections, the game was
probably reshaped a bit. Still, you'll be able to spot quite a bit of stolen sprites and tiles in
the game (Metroid, Kid Icarus, etc.). It would be neat to merge the two settings and add a
'Magical Girl' element.
(http://androidarts.com/misc/hard%20and%20heavy.jpg)
Sprite ref (http://androidarts.com/misc/hard%20and%20heavy%20ref.png) - I only ripped a few. Interesting combination of 1bp squarepixels and 2bp widepixels. The cover (http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/hard-n-heavy/cover-art) has some enemies featured on it.
My old Giana Sisters (http://androidarts.com/misc/giana_sisters_old.jpg) art. Some of it may be salvageable. I want to breathe life into the setting
like Miyamoto did with the anthropomorphic (later walking) Koopas. The items might be alive too,
like the Miyaeti (small Yeti) which is my take on the ball which gives you fluffy hair.
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For some reason, I never managed to develop the same love for Hard N' Heavy as I had for Giana. Maybe it was because I found HNH too hard to play after Giana (I used to be able to beat the whole game without dying while still getting most of the diamonds and items and killing almost every killable critter) or I just couldn't find as nicely flowing run patterns through the levels as in Giana. Or maybe it was the music... I don't know, never finished HNH, maybe I should replay it some time.
I really like those Giana drawings of yours and the way you made everything look so cute. Also for breathing life into it, I'm starting to feel that the most effective way to do that is to have character interaction in a drawing (like you did with Giana patting the little eyeball and the eyeball riding that gun-droid).
Meanwhile I've finished the other monsters (http://a.imageshack.us/img844/2808/gianaspriteint.png) (even tried the 'lion' :) ) from Giana and I'm having quite a few ideas for some interaction drawings(1). But currently I'm still struggling with constructing (http://a.imageshack.us/img836/4755/20100802.png) (reference used (http://www.corbisimages.com/images/67/50374573-B636-42D4-9470-6A459367104A/42-16177388.jpg)) a Giana version which does not look too cute/cartoony but also not too sexy/realistic as I want her to look innocent and love-able and not like a porn doll (Giana has never been a sex symbol to me, which is why I also never liked the original cover art very much which is trying too hard be sexually appealing imho but I'm rambling..)
rough ideas(1)- giana huggleing and snuggling/squeezing a surprised owl almost to death while she herself smiles very innocently and satisfied rubbing her cheek against the owls cheek
- giana throwing a ball at the eye, eye closing in pain, ball bouncing off to the side
- giana glowing in mid air / hair growing out, ribbon exploding off, arms in a strong "I'm the one! (kind of Manowar-ish) pose"
- power jump through stone block, spikey hair turning stone into dust, pieces of crumbled stone flying off in all directions
- giana sweating, trying(partly failing) to carry as many diamonds as possible in a really awkward pose with an embarrassed smile on her face (supposed to be a funny remark on how it would actually be impossible for her to grab and keep all those diamonds)
- giana elegantly jumping up, focusing power in air, forcefully trampling down on the crab (we see the crab with those cartoony crossed out eyes, legs up in the air, tonge hanging and jumping off
- a full featured hardcore lesbian scene between giana and maria and maybe a couple of eyes and worms involved (heh, just kidding...plus someone probably already did that)
Before I can do those though, I need to work more on building a bridge over the huge gap that spans between what I have as blurry images/rough ideas in my head and what I'm currently capable of rendering on paper (need a lot more construction practice and to develop a feeling for what looks right).
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Here's some Marathon (http://androidarts.com/misc/marathon_pfhor_lineup_3.jpg) stuff. It used large hand drawn billboard sprites (http://www.spriters-resource.com/search/?q=marathon&g=1), unlike most other Raycasting games which mostly used... I guess physical sculptures (http://romero.smugmug.com/Video-Games/The-Archives/480_BdMqY#14482_rE9zd). Marathon later had some prerendered 3D model sprites, but the earlier colorful hand drawn style is pretty distinct and differs from other hand drawn billboard sprites.
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Moonstone (http://androidarts.com/misc/moonstone2010.jpg) roughs. Apparently the game proved difficult to dump/rip, since the frames have different dimensions. I'd guess there's a table for it somewhere though, but I'm guessing the data is compressed on disk (the game does a lot of loading), so you'd have to dump from a save state of each enemy encounter. Anyways, I couldn't find any good sprite sheets / refs.
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That sounds about right as far as compressing/loading the art on Moonstone on the Amiga. However there's a PC version that might be less packed, did you check that one out? It's buggy but playable. Well, Moonstone on the original Amiga was buggy too, the game was never very stable. But oh, so fun.
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It's possible that it's easier to dump... I didn't really know there was one. However, now I have moved on to other projects.
Dragon Slayer 1 (http://androidarts.com/dragonslayer/dragonslayer1.htm). I've also dumped a few sprites from Xanadu (http://androidarts.com/zelda/xanadu_partial_dump_anim.gif) (DS2) and added a few to my comparison sheet on my Hydlide page (http://androidarts.com/hydlide/hydlide.htm).
I also ripped the very nice mech sprites (Map 4) from Lord Monarch (of which there's a free Windows version (http://www.falcom.com/monarch/index_e.html)). Not gonna plug that here though because it's not complete and kind of sloppy. I actually failed to properly dump the sprites as they were compressed . Too bad. It's a game which would be fun to mod graphically.
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Hey Arne, I have a metroid book on the way with exactly this - old 80s sprite interpretations :D
If you want, when it arrives I am willing to scan it for you, I thought it might be interesting for you to see (though yours are better)
(http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii47/L___E___T/Metroid__guide_IMG_2886.jpg)
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That would be great :)
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I also ripped the very nice mech sprites (Map 4) from Lord Monarch (of which there's a free Windows version (http://www.falcom.com/monarch/index_e.html)). .
I am kindof amazed someone else knows about this - I mean I shouldn't be I guess, it is the internet after all... I thought this game was fun until I realized that you win every map with the cheesiest strategy imaginable, mooting things like taxes, etc. Anywho.
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I also really like your art pages and the great designs. Have you done any original sci-fi character drawings or sprites that you are happy for other people to use btw? I've still got a turn based sci-fi game that needs good designs and sprites! ;D
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I also really like your art pages and the great designs. Have you done any original sci-fi character drawings or sprites that you are happy for other people to use btw? I've still got a turn based sci-fi game that needs good designs and sprites! ;D
Why don't you read whar Arne has to say on the subject on his website?
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/main.php?id=profile (http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/main.php?id=profile)
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Ah, I didn't know about that profile. A shame he won't be able to help with free stuff though.
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I don't know how much of that FAQ I believe. I bet that under his crusty exterior lies the heart of a benefactor.
Maybe you should just ask him very nicely for help on your project. As a sign of goodwill, you could give him a gift of $60 per hour. That way he can tell that you want to be friends.
And who wouldn't want to help out a friend?
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:P I haven't got that kind of money to throw around unfortunately! :)
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I really like to work with game stuff, but I have to give stuff close to me priority, because it's more fun and I don't really need money atm.
Kagirinaki tatakai / Endless war (http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/kagiri/kagiri.htm) is a rather obscure but interesting old game. Three weapons: Laser, Rocket, Grenade, the latter destroys terrain but uses ammo. The enemies have pretty varied behavior.
(http://androidarts.com/misc/endless_war_kagirinaki_tatakai.jpg)
I just surrendered to the wild use of colors. Could be kind of fun and toyish.
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I like the rubbery yellow spider-bot thing best.
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I love the way you add detail but preserve simplicity. You read a lot of personality into the generally stiff sprites. The originals succeed with the distinctive sprite silhouettes, a necessity with the old specs.
Your sprites seem overly rounded out -- to the point of being plush toys. Adding a few sharp corners would help greatly. It would give the shapes more contrast and add more visual interest. Maybe sharpen up some of the missiles, too.
Great work!
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This thread is too inspirational to be left for dead.
Did a little Bubble Bobble construction study based on the original box art and the in-game sprite (sprites (http://www.spriters-resource.com/arcade/bublbobl/sheet/14077/), box art (http://www.giantbomb.com/bubble-bobble/3030-4995/images/)):
(http://abload.de/img/2016_04_07_bubblebobb1pod0.png)
Mind has a bit of trouble imagining the volumes which is certainly in part due to lack of construction skill but I also believe some of it is because the original artwork does not seem to have too much working structure either, so I had to invent some that was not in there. My goal for this was to find volumes which might work when modeled out in 3D (which I will attempt next because I'm highly unsure about the back view and how the legs/feet would work out... also, the face and the cheeks seem very strange in the original design but I tried to keep the whole flat-face-with-bulging-cheeks-and-almost-no-lips design as much as possible).
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You know that someone do a good job when you distractly see a picture and say "Wait. Have i just seen a Journey to Silius enemy?"
From pixel to draw, my memory did not noticed the difference. 'Cuz that was exactly what those pixel drawn into my childy eyes.
Yep.
Today i saw a really good job.
I am surprised. (both from the human brain and the drawing XD)