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Messages - Chonky Pixel
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Devlogs & Projects / Re: Project: Acenn a 2D Metroidvania Style Game
« on: November 19, 2019, 01:37:35 pm »
A quick point on the gameplay front. The "Save Station" looks incredible and the animation is completely gorgeous. However, it does go on a bit. I can imagine loving it the first time I saw it, then quickly getting to resent it as I see it run through for the nth time. I could also imagine avoiding using a save just because I'll have to wait so many seconds to do it.

Metroidvanias happen to be my favourite kind of platform game. Possibly my favourite kind of game. But if I compare the save point in Axiom Verge for example (several seconds) to Hollow Knight (probably less than a second, if you don't want to hang around) or Ori & the Blind Forest (just a long button press) I much prefer the latter two.

But that's an opinion and nothing more, take it with a pinch of salt.

A more objective way to think about it might be putting it in the context of the game. Is gameplay going to be fast and frenetic? Or slow and methodical exploration? If the latter it may make more sense in context. If the former, it may be a bit incongruous.

Anyway, I'll be watching this with interest. Not least because I'm also in the first stages of putting a Metroidvania together. ;)

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General Discussion / Fix for tile gaps in Unity
« on: November 19, 2019, 11:21:35 am »
I suspect a few of us on this forum are using Unity and the Unity tile system for our 2D pixel art games. If you're one of them, and you've come across Unity's propensity to display gaps between tiles, I've added a free asset to the asset store to sort it out.

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/textures-materials/2d-tile-gap-fixing-tool-157060

This is usually a manual process of surrounding each tile in a ring of pixels that matches the edges of the tile. The asset automates it.

I've seen a number of other quick fixes, but they all have inherent problems, don't fix the issue in all modes, or (in my case at least) stop working after a time.

That's all. Enjoy.

3
Pixel Art / Re: I'd like some feedback on a grass tile.
« on: September 24, 2019, 01:45:39 pm »
Apologies, I've been on holiday for a bit. Do you still need help with grass? :)

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Pixel Art / Re: I'd like some feedback on a grass tile.
« on: September 09, 2019, 11:43:57 am »
If you post images at the original size (not scaled up) then we can made edits to demonstrate points. We can also expand them ourselves by clicking on them.

What kind of game are you making these tiles for? What perspective will in have? Seen from directly above? Isometric? Etc. If you want to make great grass tiles, that will have an impact.

Also, is there a style of pixel art you want to go for? Can you provide examples of games that have a similar style?

I agree with Curly's comments, but we can do a lot better.

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Pixel Art / Re: Fly Fishing Pixel Art Collection
« on: September 02, 2019, 12:17:25 pm »
The gameplay scenes look like the pixels aren't being displayed properly. They're bleeding colors into their neighbors.

Unless this is an effect you want, it could be due to compression on the images themselves, or it could be a rendering issue in your game engine.

How do the images compare with the actual gameplay screens?

When it comes to the other images, if you upload them as PNG files with no pixel resizing (1 pixel is represented as 1 pixel) then it allows people looking at the board to zoom the images themselves (by clicking on them) or make edits to them to demonstrate a point.

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Pixel Art / Re: [WIP][CC] help with run animation
« on: August 21, 2019, 01:03:55 pm »
This is looking a lot better IMO.

Personally I like the 12 frame animation more out of those two. There may not be quite enough difference between frames 1&2 and frames 7&8, but it's minor and anything I do to it makes it worse! ;)

In frames 3 and 9 his lower leg is way too long compared to the surrounding frames. This could be causing a bit of a disjointed feel. I may have a play with those frames later to see if shortening it could help.

There is some odd flickering on the gun holster (if that's what the 3 orange pixels on his leg represent). Between the last and the first frame it mirrors horizontally and goes from 3 to 2 pixels for no reason. The result is a bit flickery, which doesn't help with the smooth leg movements.


As an aside, this is interesting. The following tutorial:

https://twitter.com/i/status/829350756004175874

seems to suffer from the same leg issue as your 8 frame animation, until it flicks to showing the character as block colours. Then the animation looks a lot more convincing. I don't think the author is using enough shadow to differentiate the legs, so for me it's a good demonstration of the importance of this technique.

It also points out an interesting technique at the end: displacing the rear leg and arm to avoid a completely mirrored look.


7
Pixel Art / Re: [WIP][CC] help with run animation
« on: August 20, 2019, 09:20:47 am »
I'm reading the leg movements a little easier now, but the scissoring effect is still there. I'd really like to see what happens when you do the foot work.

So if you look at the example animations in the tutorial you'll see that the artist is careful to move the feet similar distances when they're on the ground. I haven't run the numbers, but I'd be willing to bet they're close to pixel perfect, if not exact.



And if you're reading the Animator's Survival Kit, you'll be learning a lot about key frames. If you want to think about things that way, your keys here could be the extremes of movement: foot on the floor extended fully forwards, foot on floor extended backwards, opposite foot on floor extended fully forwards, opposite foot on floor extended backwards. Similar to the 4 frame animation in the image above. Now you can choose how many frames go between each key, but space them evenly between the keys. This should automatically space the foot positions evenly. As per the tutorial above, you probably won't need many extra frames.

There is a bit of a conflict here as this tutorial shows the character as always grounded, but IIRC the Animator's Survival Kit shows a lot of air time in its run cycles. It's up to you which direction you want to go in of course, but an air frame or two might help to sell the idea of running and give my eyes even more of a chance to separate the two leg movements.

8
Pixel Art / Re: [Feedback][CC] Retro 90s RPG Mockup
« on: August 18, 2019, 08:28:13 am »
Definite improvement! :)

I can still see some obvious patterns in the grass. It's better, but it could be even better! As it makes up a good deal of the image I think it's worth picking away at for a few minutes.

Top left of the image there's some odd mirroring of grass going on...

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Pixel Art / Re: [WIP][CC] help with run animation
« on: August 18, 2019, 08:20:36 am »


Some things I learned on this very forum about run/walk animations:

 - When in contact with the ground, the feet should move the same number of pixels per frame. I've counted them as you can see above, and your guy's feet are accelerating sharply. This will make it impossible to marry up the speed of the character with the platform he's on in-game.

 - A run animation includes an 'air' phase. In all your frames the character is grounded. Do a Google image search for "run cycle animation" and choose one to base your frames on. I like the Preston Blair cycles, but you may want something a little less cartoony:

http://www.angryanimator.com/word/2018/03/20/preston-blair-deciphered/

I find that it looks like his legs are scissoring rather than running, unless I look really carefully. The points above should help, but you may want to differentiate the front and rear legs and arms a bit more. Make the rear ones darker, the front ones lighter. It will help sell the idea of depth and allow our slow brains to pick out which is which when it's moving quickly.




10
Pixel Art / Re: [Feedback][CC] Retro 90s RPG Mockup
« on: August 17, 2019, 04:37:44 pm »
I worked the grass tiles here to make it a bit more even and less clumpy.



The process is:

 - Zoom out and look for details that line up to make obvious vertical and horizontal lines.
 - Zoom in and break the lines up. Move things around or delete or add blades of grass
 - Repeat.

I use Pyxel Edit, which has a great tool for tiling. You can immediately see the effect of your edits on a tiled image. Aseprite has a similar but less advanced feature and apparently more tiling tools on the way.

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