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Topics - Dusty
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1
Pixel Art / Zelda Gameboy Color inspired stuff
« on: August 01, 2012, 06:37:26 pm »
Before I post the graphics I'll say I was very inspired by the Zelda GBC games. Link's Awakening and the Oracle games were great games and the graphics were quite charming and simple. You can find some of their likeness here:

http://www.spriters-resource.com/gameboy/lozla/index.html

Anyways, I was gonna have a stab at making my own Zelda-like game and I wanted to do something a little new for myself. I don't usually work with restrictions nor smaller resolutions, so I thought it'd be pretty fun to do graphics fit for GBC... and it is fun. Even though my graphics won't be strictly fit for the GBC hardware I do want to try to stick to the restrictions as best as possible(4 colors per tile, mostly). I think I might stretch that a bit for some things like transparency on sprites, but I dunno. I'm also not referencing the graphics as I work on them, but I do compare them when I'm done to make sure it doesn't coincidentally look like I simply edited tiles(which has happened a few times so far).

So ya, tiles so far here:


and a small mock-up:


A small edit today, can't decide on what cliffs are most fitting:

2
Pixel Art / WIP: HEY! Watch out!
« on: June 13, 2011, 04:54:57 pm »
I started this yesterday and I thought I finished it last night but I am really unhappy with the last leg of the image.



The last thing I added was Link(dude in green) and I think he's ruining everything. I'm mostly happy with the rest of the image, but I am certainly not happy with him. The original idea was to have him ignorantly walking around, unaware that anything was hiding behind him in the shadows. My concern though is that he's messing up the lighting and I can't do anything with his pose that complements the rest of the piece.

I was thinking of ditching the unaware idea and have him turned around in an action pose, which would compliment the lighting as his face would no longer be visible to the viewers, thus I can black out his back without losing anything.

References:
http://www.ocarinaoftime.net/queen_gohma_pic.jpg
http://www.zelda-infinite.com/z-images/gohma.jpg

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Pixel Art / Cavestory inspired tiles
« on: March 30, 2011, 07:08:23 pm »
I've been learning Java lately and I thought instead of just ripping tiles it would be fun to make my own stuff. So I started making these. Right now their purpose is something to use while I learn, but I eventually plan, if they end up going in the right direction, to finalize them and actually use them. Right now I'm kind of stumped with colors. I also think I've got some contrast issues as well. The BG is just placeholder until I get something else happening. I think I may need to revisit the blocks, I don't think they look too swell when they're not embedded in the stone.



Level mockup:


And old colors:

4
General Discussion / Rapid animation for palette saving?
« on: January 13, 2011, 07:27:33 am »
I'm a bit curious about this but I couldn't manage to get Photoshop to save a gif that animated rapidly enough to achieve the effect(or maybe that I wasn't doing it right, or that it might not even be possible).

I've seen a few games with strict limitations use flickering to achieve a pseudo transparency. For example the Zelda games on the gameboy flicker the shadow so fast that it looked transparent. What I'm curious is could this be done to make new colors if you're stuck with a limited palette?

For example: http://www.pixeljoint.com/2011/01/10/3358/Pixel_Art_Challenge-_Unportraitable.htm
You have this contest that gives you a limited palette BUT allows you to use animation. Would you be able to have two frames that alternate say... one of the colors to black to create a new, darker color?

I tried saving it in Photoshop but it seemed to animated way too slow in any browser I used to achieve the effect. But I know it has to be somewhat possible since games that run at 60fps pulled off the fake transparency fairly well.

5
Pixel Art Feature Chest / GR#072 - Minecraft Texturepack
« on: October 30, 2010, 11:54:49 pm »
I wasn't going to post this here because of the liberties I was taking with it(not stealing, but just being lazy), and the medium of which they are being used for(3D)... but in the end they're still tiles and icons and pixel art, and I need help. The Minecraft community is(no offense)... I dunno. Some people don't like the blue in the grass, some think the grass is too bright, some think the brown in the rock is ugly, some don't... It's this over and over. In the end I don't know what direction to take it so I think I'd be better off getting help from you guys. Again, if this is not the appropriate spot feel free to move it I suppose. Currently there are two things that I'm working on, the terrain textures(which are just composed of tiles) and icons.

The current icons are here:


Inventory gui:


Mojang Logo(sorry, generated text), I think I messed up the AA on this:


And the current terrain:

You can ignore the semi-transparent effects in the water and ice. That water isn't being used as I'm using an animated version and I have to apply the transparency in the texture pack as Minecraft doesn't handle that internally.

Everything lower resolution is the original graphics not yet replaced, you can ignore those as well. You may recognize the grass and dirt from old graphics I've made... yes as I said I was lazy and threw them in very early to just get rid of the default textures. I had no idea what to do with a grass texture for a 3D game as it's new territory for me so I never revisited. Also, I apologize if the textures don't make any sense for those not familiar, if I need to write out what is what I'd be glad to.

Here is my to-do list and concerns:
> I need to either touch-up or redo gravel completely(currently a grayscaled version of dirt)
> I'm not sure if I'm yay or nay on the crowdedness of the mine track turn texture. Too many planks of wood is the general consensus, may remove some.
> TNT fuse lines are way too noisy and incomprehensible. Will probably just have one fuse.
> Cotton(the mostly white tile) is plain and doesn't really work well as a texture. Will possibly replace with cross-stitch or pillow-like texture.
> Iron(the grey ore) doesn't stand out apart from diamond very well. I already changed the colors but forgot to update it.
> Diamond perspective does not match the rest of the icons. I had a lot of difficulty with it so I ditched the perspective early on. Need to revisit.
> Stone(cracked) tools aren't immediately differentiated from iron(non-cracked) tools. Need to make them easier to tell apart. Possibly make stone tools darker.
> Ingots shapes are awkward, and I had a very hard time even getting what I have. I need to possibly fix this somehow, but I'm not sure how.
> Paper icon(looks like a hand of cards) sucks. Need to revisit.

So, any help would be appreciated! I don't want to post screenshots as they are not pixel art(given they're 3D and all) but if they're needed I can post them.
There are other odds and ends not posted here since they're mostly model textures(skins) and such. Also, while on the topic this relates possibly to some pixel artists here: http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11159&PN=1

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General Discussion / Red vs Green?
« on: August 18, 2010, 12:14:39 am »
I have always noticed this problem, though I'm not entirely sure how big of a problem it is, and if there's even a solution. The problem is when you put red on green and vice-versa, it creates a contrasting effect in which it makes the inner color 'pop' out.

For example:

I see a 'highlight' on the left side of the circle and a 'shadow' on the right side.

I've tried applying some AA by adding some transitional colors like yellow, but that didn't really seem to have the slightest effect. Am I doing the AA wrong? Or is it just one of those things you have to learn to ignore?

7
Pixel Art Feature Chest / GR#023 - Hud/Tileset
« on: April 27, 2010, 09:08:59 am »
I've been bored lately and thought I'd start doing some RPG stuff to pass time.

First is the HUD I started. It's fairly early in design, and I'm not exactly sure where I'm going to take it. The idea was to keep it simple, with an icon for HP and MP, with numbers to represent the values, and an experience bar in the center.

This isn't the screensize it's intended to be displayed it, though... so my concern is that at larger resolutions it will become too spaced out and make it troublesome for players to easily grab the info they need when it's spaced out on each side of the screen. However... I don't like the idea of placing all the info on one side as I feel that would clutter one side and leave the other empty. Also, I did the heart first, and eventually did the orb(it took me a while to decide what sort of object best represented magic like a heart represents health)... so between that time I think I started towards a new border design. Right now I think the border on the heart is skinny compared to the orb, and that bugs me. I'm not sure if it's bad enough to warrant a redo, though. Also, the numbers are not my design. I took this image:

And scaled it up 125%, then AA'd and fixed them up to my liking. As well, you may notice the image uses a lot of alpha channels. I'll note that I actually pixelled and AA'd the images on a white background and simply took my AA and fixed it up to work on any background... so technically it's still all my pixel work. The only thing I didn't manually do is the drop shadows on the numbers.

Anyways... next up is the tileset I started on.

And the tiles themselves:

I was having a hard time getting grass I was happy with, and I'm not sure if I'm content on how many tiles I ended up with. At first it was simply 4 tiles, but I established that by taking the 4 tiles and moving them around and then flipping them horizontally, I ended up with 8 tiles that worked great together and killed the monotony the original 4 had(when straight tiled). Then I took those tiles and removed the highlights to add a little more variety. I think it came out looking alright. However, I'm not exactly sure about the flowers.

Also worked on these rocks:

I started off with one rock design. Then I started a new design with a new color scheme, then again once more. Then I took those 3 rocks and recolored them with the other rock palettes. Then for safe measure I recolored them all gray(ya, I didn't start with all gray rocks, as you might expect). I'll be the first to admit I'm horrible with volumes, so these might not make much sense from a technical standpoint. That doesn't mean I won't try to fix them if they need it, though.

And lastly, for safe measure, a blob I started a little while ago.

I'm not happy with this, so I might just start over from scratch.

So help is welcome!

Update(April 28th):
Added a new big boulder and started on the dirt and transitional tiles.

I realized with this boulder how much my skills were lacking when it came to volumes and such. I had started with a blob and thought it would be easy to shape and flesh it out... I ended up just scribbling and refining until it looked semi-decent in my eyes. This disappoints me, to be honest.

8
General Discussion / Exterior AA and selout
« on: January 11, 2010, 03:22:48 am »
I find myself doing this a lot simply because it irks me so much to see such jagged black outlines. Is it acceptable to just have jagged black outlines for the sake of background compatibility? For example, I started some icons simply for practice and fun:

And it started off without any exterior AA because I felt it didn't need it. But as I started playing with more shapes on the swords I started adding more and more. Should I just resist the temptation and keep the black outlines or can AA like this be excusable, even if it does happen to pass over lighter backgrounds? Is there an alternative method to making it more appealing? This is the sort of thing I have a constant problem with in all my work.

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General Discussion / Pixelling reflective windows
« on: October 18, 2009, 10:08:15 pm »
I've been doing some urban pixelling -- buildings and such, and have come to windows. Normally I shade them with bland streak highlights, but I'm so tired of that. Does anyone have any good references as to how I can pixel windows that look lively and nice, without using the boring highlighted streaks?

10
Pixel Art / Treasure Chest
« on: January 13, 2009, 10:53:37 pm »
Had an idea so I went with it. I can't say it came out like I had imagined, but I'm still working on it.

The top row is with the lid removed, and the bottom rows are different alternations I was thinking of. I'm happiest with the bottom row. Ya, I know it's a crapload of colors, I'm also having problem with the inside, something just seems off.

I plan to add a lot of overgrowth to this, inside and out to give it a sort of abandoned, long-lost treasure sort of feel.

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