Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: coffee on December 11, 2009, 11:06:33 am
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Working on a small platform game to make bonds with a friend of mine who is a programmer.
We decided to not go into anything big yet and started with this
Quick mockup:
(http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj114/johanaronson/Mockup2-1.png)
The background is just temporarily tho I think it fits very well and the trees are not totaly finished yet.
The waterfall is ready and animated same with the hero. Not too sure about the guardian yet, some small things
I might need to change, but that's why I need your help!
Mockup Edit:
New Interface updates
(http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj114/johanaronson/Mockuptest.png)
here is the running animation of our hero:
(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Johiene/animation4.gif)
Edit running animation (Sorry bout the non-transparent):
(http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj114/johanaronson/Animationtest2.gif)
Tried to make it more living and personally I think it got a lot better, fixed the small movements of his body to be more in a circle also.
This is a quick setup with breathing and slidestop, just to give u a feeling of how it will look moving:
(http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj114/johanaronson/RunningBreathingtest3.gif)
Tell me what you think (:
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I really really love your clean and confident style, and the game (even just from these two mocks) looks like a whimsical place I'd like to explore.
Main character seems a tiny bit bland. His run anim is very wobbly too. I don't think the individual frames need much more than tweaking, it's mainly the frames need moving about I think. I'd also make the two forwards extremes of his arm positions less extreme - he should be slowing down to bring his arms back again, so moving less - little bit jerky atm. (Behind is fine).
*editted to improve some terrible English!*
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very nice! I'm fond of your trunks and the leaves of your trees show very interesting "character". You might want to drop the outline on the trees, however.
I'd suggest that you don't keep both layers of tree aligned horizontally, though. You could also possibly try to alter the hero's goggles so that he's more looking forward. Right now, his right eye is pointed straight towards the player which gives him an odd "chameleon" look.
Keep up!
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Well, I really like this a lot, so I'm going to try me best to tear it apart for you!
1. I think the rocks stick out a little too much, I'd take out the shadows and highlights as you get further from the edge so that it blends into the flat gray better.
2. Why are the hearts for his health quad-pixeled? I think they should be redrawn to fit with everything else. Though perhaps you just grabbed them from somewhere to mock it up.
3. For the animation, he probably shouldn't move back and forth at all, keep the mouth pretty much on a vertical line, and the odd "jumping" will disappear.
4. You could also turn the toes of the feet up on the frame before they hit the ground, it adds a bit more interest and give a little more power to the foot's contact.
5. PypeBros is right about the goggles, while I think it works fine on the idle pose, it looks pretty odd when he's running.
6. His close arm appears to swing back all the way across his back to his far side because you've shaded it with the dark colors on two frames. Actually, I think the biggest problem is that his shoulders don't really move, if you rotate the chest and shoulders to counter the hips and legs it will help a lot.
7. The white spot on his chest moves very erratically, jumping back and forth between frames.
8. I don't think it's good to have the black on the background tree and the forest guardian when the main character is so low-contrast, the black is a little out of place as it is, maybe replace it with another color? Or in the case of the tree, just turn it to transparent.
9. Why is the forest guardian's pose so still? Is he meant to be animated in-engine, with rotateable parts perhaps?
But as I said, I do like this quite a bit! The colors are very nice, and I like the style you've got going, it's very clean and just looks fun to play.
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just somthing I noticed that you're probably allready aware of but I wanted to point out: The rock faces seem to be rotated and mirrored but should be re-shaded to accomadate proper lighting... Its not really that noticeable I guess since it hasn't been mentioned yet I just thought it looked kinda odd.
Great work tho, definately looks to be a fun game!
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The guardian really needs serious fixing. He's incredibly cool from the chest up, but below the chest, the theme suddengly changes to ugly angular objects with black outlines... why not continue the swirly stone theme all throughout his body? Also, he is standing with his legs like he is about to take a dump... or someone's shoved a tree up his ass. Sorry.
It's got potential for greatness, though! :y:
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It looks really good! Just tell me it's not flash. I'm tired to see people wasting their talents on flash these days.
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It looks really good! Just tell me it's not flash. I'm tired to see people wasting their talents on flash these days.
Is there any other real alternative? Flash, from what I can see, is the most easy and clear way to publish and monetize your game.
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It looks really good! Just tell me it's not flash. I'm tired to see people wasting their talents on flash these days.
Is there any other real alternative? Flash, from what I can see, is the most easy and clear way to publish and monetize your game.
There are plenty of alternatives. Flash games are regarded as mere timewasters rather than real games, not to mention the only clients you will ever get are huge flash games sites like armor games or miniclip, where there's so much variety your product is most likely to end up forgotten in a matter of days. If you're amiming for actual acknowledgement I'd say create something on a real game engine, and release it for free, adding the possibility to expand it later with extra levels and so on.
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I disagree completely. I think adobe is doing great work with Flash. The problem lies with the portals, who are selling sometimes great games for no money and throw them in between a bunch of mediocre games.
I've seen great Flash games and some of them are very popular, outside of the portals. Have you seen AdamAtomic's work?
I find your comment very derogative towards Flash developers. Would you like it if 3D artists would tell you to work with a "real" art style instead of pixel art too?
real game engine
I'm sure Adam will love it if you say to his face that Flixel (http://flixel.org/) is not a "real game engine". I'm sure he would be better to spend his time on engines like Game Maker or BYOND, which are not Flash and therefore real.
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Monochrome
Then why not do both? Publish on flash platform to catch up publicity and collect some stray bucks, while also create a stand alone free distributive with a possibility of expansions and put it on a separate website.
The main problem in being recognized is to reach your audience. If not by extrimely popular ArmorGames then how else?
This bothers me now, because I also have a platfomer mockup in my sleave and an idea to release it somehow with profit.
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Monochrome
Then why not do both? Publish on flash platform to catch up publicity and collect some stray bucks, while also create a stand alone free distributive with a possibility of expansions and put it on a separate website.
The main problem in being recognized is to reach your audience. If not by extrimely popular ArmorGames then how else?
This bothers me now, because I also have a platfomer mockup in my sleave and an idea to release it somehow with profit.
This is getting pretty OT but Flash is easily THE most convenient route to reaching the widest audience and there are fair few well documented ways to monetise the platform. Wasn't Playfish recently sold for $400m or something crazy?
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I disagree completely. I think adobe is doing great work with Flash. The problem lies with the portals, who are selling sometimes great games for no money and throw them in between a bunch of mediocre games.
I've seen great Flash games and some of them are very popular, outside of the portals. Have you seen AdamAtomic's work?
By no means I am discrediting flash development. The problem is the audience and the way the product is delivered to the consumers. Flash portals incentivate a "play once and trash it" mentality that only very good game designers or a the marketing support of a publishing company manage to counter. Yet one must admit flash itself has a few shortcomings regarding longevity such as no mod support, no expansions, etc.
I find your comment very derogative towards Flash developers. Would you like it if 3D artists would tell you to work with a "real" art style instead of pixel art too?real game engine
That's a bit of a logical fallacy you just did there since the two examples are not comparable at all. Exactly one of the problems with pixel art and general 2d art for videogames is that, or at least that is what I feel, nowadays it's excessively focused on flash development, which somehow diminuishes it's status towards a more "hardcore" gaming scene (if I'm allowed to use such expression). People tend to think 2D is either limited or outdated because they've got used to 3D on more solid game platforms, and most of the contact they have with 2D is essentially via flash games, which tend to be simpler and a lot shorter.
I'm sure Adam will love it if you say to his face that Flixel (http://flixel.org/) is not a "real game engine". I'm sure he would be better to spend his time on engines like Game Maker or BYOND, which are not Flash and therefore real.
You're putting words in my mouth. When I said "real game engine" I was merely considering flash as a language/platform, not as an engine. Which no matter how good it looks, sometimes, it's still pretty limited. And I personally dislike game maker and byond.
Monochrome
Then why not do both? Publish on flash platform to catch up publicity and collect some stray bucks, while also create a stand alone free distributive with a possibility of expansions and put it on a separate website.
The main problem in being recognized is to reach your audience. If not by extrimely popular ArmorGames then how else?
This bothers me now, because I also have a platfomer mockup in my sleave and an idea to release it somehow with profit.
If you want to make money, I'd say go for flash. Just like rikfuzz just said:
This is getting pretty OT but Flash is easily THE most convenient route to reaching the widest audience and there are fair few well documented ways to monetise the platform. Wasn't Playfish recently sold for $400m or something crazy?
And personally I think he's totally right on the point he makes. Problem is there are different kinds of audience, and the one that frequently plays flash games is not used to replay old titles unless you're talking about something with a greater longevity like runescape. Mainly what defines it, is your final objective. If you ultimately want quick cash. flash is indeed the way to go. If, however, you intend to create a small yet solid community around your game, I'd say pick something else. Still keep in mind the second choice means little to no cash at all. Then again, it's all up to your choices.
And finally, I want to apollogize if I offended anyone, but I merely stated a personal opinion regarding consumer pratices and modern game development based on personal experience. Like all platforms flash has it's advantages and shortcomings; it's merely a tool, and it's us that choose what to make of it. Yet be warned that ignoring reality itself for the sake of platform preferences might be a mistake, especially if your objectives don't match the platform of your choice. I've seen some great flash games around the internet, but aside from runescape and a few more memorable ones, they're essentially oriented to quick casual play rather than providing a more durable and enjoyable experience to the player which is, to a certain extent, connected both with the limitations of flash itself and general market tendencies. And on the other hand I often feel sorry because every once in a while some amateur developpers come up with great game mechanics (fancy pants adventures for example) which end falling short to a community that's not used to play the same game twice.
That is all.
*EDIT*
Another thing I would like to reiterate is that flash can actually be a good platform for starting developers who want to get some attention or experience so they can later venture into more complex development. The Behemoth (http://www.thebehemoth.com/) devs are natural flash programmers who felt the need to go beyond flash in order to venture into a more professional market. Yet they used flash as a marketing strategy when they created a demo to promote their first game, alien hominid (http://www.alienhominid.com/).
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Time to get this back on topic ;D :
What really bugged me is that the guardian's feet seem to be floating off the ground: upon further examination I see that he is standing on grass/moss, but (imo) it took too much examination on my (the viewer's) part to distinguish this. I believe the problem lies in two areas:
1: platform consistency. You lay a solid rock formation in the foreground, visually distinguishing it as the main foreground component (and therefore the object acting as the platform), and then you make a sudden shift to grass/moss right before it reaches the characters' feet; might I suggest making the shift to moss more gradual? (maybe make some moss and vines going down the top of the rock face from ground just a little)
2: background/foreground recognition. The color you have used for the moss is very close in value, hue, and saturation to the green you used to fill in the background space adjacent to it and all the colors in the tree trunk. Maybe choose one or two of the HSV properties, and try adjusting it to distinguish the layers.
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One thing that really throws this piece off for me is the lack of depth or blackness to the rocks. It just looks so odd because usually the rocky shapes are faded into blackness, while these don't really fade into anything... the rocks just stop.
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I really like this, especially the trees. I disagree with most crits towards the rocks or the guardian, I think the only problem is the hero and his animation. It looks of less quality then the rest, especially the run animation. I think the problems are that his arms don't move in a pendular way, his legs never extend, and he pushes backwards every time he moves up.
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Edit running animation (Sorry bout the non-transparent):
(http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj114/johanaronson/Animationtest2.gif)
Tried to make it more living and personally I think it got a lot better, fixed the small movements of his body to be more in a circle also.
This is a quick setup with breathing and slidestop, just to give u a feeling of how it will look moving:
(http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj114/johanaronson/RunningBreathingtest3.gif)
Lots of comments etc. I am doing this in paint and the animations are just made with a simple tree GIF animator
working great atm and is not planning to change to anything more complicated :)
Cool that the thread got popular however, some great crits that I will apply sooner or later.
Working on animate the Guardian atm, and yes he is split in different parts, so everything will be movable as you wish when it's coded and done.
Not something I can do in paint without it becoming rubbish because parts will turn etc. So it will be jagged for some moments.
Starting on some new small enemies that i'll upload as soon as I have time!
Thanks again and merry christmas!
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Oh geeze. I thought his brow ridge was bouncing when he ran! JELLY BROW. The bangs aren't that readable. The single pixel thick 45 degree exposure on his left thigh when idle looks unnatural, try spilling the light over that thigh a little more. Fresh character!
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Hehe, his glasses just have that much inertia.
EDIT: oh, not jelly brow. I understand now. Why is only part of the hair colored?
It seems you have a double standard, when the arm goes behind the body it gets darker, and when the leg goes behind the body it stays lit! This makes it very confusing to watch the running animation, because it looks like he has two left arms. :blind:
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bouncing glasses is cool, but what if you try keeping the eyes from bouncing? I'm not sure it will be good, but I think is worth trying a take.
Anyway... it makes me wanna have time to jump around, platform to platform...