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General Discussion / Re: There are treasures - let's fill up the feature chest
« on: February 17, 2014, 08:36:57 pm »
It's even better now since I've been working on it lately. 
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12
General Discussion / Re: There are treasures - let's fill up the feature chest
« on: February 17, 2014, 05:02:04 am »
Oh, one of my old threads is in the list! It has been so long that I thought no one would miss it. I just moved the images, not deleted them so I just went through that thread and updated all the image links. It should mostly work now. (http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=13728.0;prev_next=prev) You're right, Facet's edit is amazing.
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Pixel Art / Re: Working on this RPG sprite base animation again. [nudity]
« on: January 11, 2014, 06:04:21 am »
I wish I could add more frames like that, but I can't with the engine. Unfortunately the animation has to be done with 3 images making a 4 frame animation. 1213. Sorry, I forgot to mention that in the first post. Still, thanks, I think I can see a few things I can tweak.
I haven't done the flower sack test, is that the one where you imbue emotion into the sack? Mostly by study I mean life drawing, people watching, and looking closely at how other people do their animation. I guess I should go back to basics and set aside some time to do a more thorough study.
I haven't done the flower sack test, is that the one where you imbue emotion into the sack? Mostly by study I mean life drawing, people watching, and looking closely at how other people do their animation. I guess I should go back to basics and set aside some time to do a more thorough study.
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Pixel Art / Working on this RPG sprite base animation again. [nudity]
« on: January 11, 2014, 02:52:14 am »
I've been working on some older stuff, including this base:
I've improved quite a bit since the last time I worked on it but it still seems a little off, especially the legs in the side view. Despite my effort and study I'm still terrible at animation. Help would be most appreciated.
I've improved quite a bit since the last time I worked on it but it still seems a little off, especially the legs in the side view. Despite my effort and study I'm still terrible at animation. Help would be most appreciated.
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Pixel Art / Re: Trying To Sprite A Qilin (WIP)
« on: August 08, 2013, 04:43:18 am »
Hmm, depends on how good you want this to look. Right now it's cute but there are a lot of major flaws that won't be easy to fix. If you're looking for a simple fix, take the shading out, up the contrast and shade following the form of the body and not the outlines. Worry about the details of the scales until after you've got the volume looking right. However, if you're looking to make it look really amazing, it's going to take a lot more time and effort.
Step 1: Find references. If I were doing this myself I'd look up goats, deer, lions, dogs and alligators. You will want to look at the hair especially, the shapes are looking matted at the moment.
Step 2: Using the references as a guide, go back to the outline and fix the anatomy issues. There are a lot of things in your image that are combining to make this guy look really flat. There's no room between the forelegs for a chest for instance. You'll get a lot more room for that once you put the shoulders up next to the back where they should be, right now it looks as though his legs are only attached at the collarbone (which four legged animals don't have). If you're having troubles seeing how things attach with the normal references, try looking up skeletons. I'd also fix where the mane goes, right now you've got an off centered horn and a mane that looks like it starts as an eyebrow. I'd rethink seriously the decision to do this guy completely in profile, it's less dynamic and in some ways can be harder.
Step 3: Shade using form and volume. Use the references. Don't worry about details at all, in fact I'd leave out the scales for this stage. Pick colors that have a wide enough range to be noticeably different, you can go back in later and make it super smooth if you really want. Use hue shifting. Imply muscles and skeletal structure with your shading. That's a good point to show what you've got here, before it gets refined and complicated.
Step 4: Imply detail. You'll almost never want to draw every single scale, instead you'll want to imply the shape of a scale with shading or partial lines. When smoothing out shading, there will be many places where you won't want every single shade. If you try to put them all in it will flatten everything out.
Step 1: Find references. If I were doing this myself I'd look up goats, deer, lions, dogs and alligators. You will want to look at the hair especially, the shapes are looking matted at the moment.
Step 2: Using the references as a guide, go back to the outline and fix the anatomy issues. There are a lot of things in your image that are combining to make this guy look really flat. There's no room between the forelegs for a chest for instance. You'll get a lot more room for that once you put the shoulders up next to the back where they should be, right now it looks as though his legs are only attached at the collarbone (which four legged animals don't have). If you're having troubles seeing how things attach with the normal references, try looking up skeletons. I'd also fix where the mane goes, right now you've got an off centered horn and a mane that looks like it starts as an eyebrow. I'd rethink seriously the decision to do this guy completely in profile, it's less dynamic and in some ways can be harder.
Step 3: Shade using form and volume. Use the references. Don't worry about details at all, in fact I'd leave out the scales for this stage. Pick colors that have a wide enough range to be noticeably different, you can go back in later and make it super smooth if you really want. Use hue shifting. Imply muscles and skeletal structure with your shading. That's a good point to show what you've got here, before it gets refined and complicated.
Step 4: Imply detail. You'll almost never want to draw every single scale, instead you'll want to imply the shape of a scale with shading or partial lines. When smoothing out shading, there will be many places where you won't want every single shade. If you try to put them all in it will flatten everything out.
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Pixel Art / Re: Tileset with RPG Maker VX Ace limitations
« on: August 07, 2013, 04:20:08 pm »
Oh, good edit, PypeBros! Making the foundation blue is a good idea. Unfortunately I can't make the house shorter, it'd break the tiling and doesn't work with the character height. I didn't want to put a character into the preview because I'm not ready to work on him yet, but I'll put him in this time for scale.
I'm not sure what to do with the door frame. If I put it above the door height it'll start to compete for attention with the roof and I'll have to redraw the windows and use more tiles. If I put it below, the character will go through it as he enters the house, something that will bug me every time I see it. Does that sort of thing bug anyone else? I tried to fix the shadows and the door's perspective, if that's enough to make it work I'd prefer that otherwise I'll just have to deal with the poor guy hitting his head every time he enters a house.
I added some shadows to the plants, I'll have to tone down the outline later. Other than that is there anything else that looks off about them? I think I also fixed the window, I think the shape gives it a lot of character and I'd rather not lose it.
I'm not sure what to do with the door frame. If I put it above the door height it'll start to compete for attention with the roof and I'll have to redraw the windows and use more tiles. If I put it below, the character will go through it as he enters the house, something that will bug me every time I see it. Does that sort of thing bug anyone else? I tried to fix the shadows and the door's perspective, if that's enough to make it work I'd prefer that otherwise I'll just have to deal with the poor guy hitting his head every time he enters a house.
I added some shadows to the plants, I'll have to tone down the outline later. Other than that is there anything else that looks off about them? I think I also fixed the window, I think the shape gives it a lot of character and I'd rather not lose it.
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Pixel Art / Re: Newbie trying to pixel elephants
« on: August 07, 2013, 01:54:02 pm »
Even with R1k's edit I find the spots distracting and neither looks very cute to me. Cute things have large foreheads, large eyes, short pudgy extremities like arms, legs, fingers, and noses. Right now he's pretty cute but facet's edit is cuter because it has a larger, more defined forehead and the lighting gives structure to the face that emphasizes his cute features and sad expression. BTW, at the moment your elephant's hind legs are smaller than the forelegs. It should be the other way around.
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Pixel Art / Re: Tileset with RPG Maker VX Ace limitations
« on: August 07, 2013, 05:12:17 am »
I see your point, but I disagree that those are the only two options. Thanks though, you made me realize that a lot of the examples I found that had the no back roof also had other things let the viewer know it what they were looking at, like gables and intersections with the roof going in the other direction. That also explains why there would be houses with roof backs and without in the same game, I just thought it was an artifact of different artists working on the same thing but it may be on purpose. The more complex roofs had no back while the simple roofs on small houses had backs.
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Pixel Art / Re: Tileset with RPG Maker VX Ace limitations
« on: August 07, 2013, 04:49:38 am »
Reason 1: I'll be able to make a larger roofs and alternate roof elements with fewer tiles.
Reason 2: It works better with the way autotile is set up in Ace. (Which, by the way, is stupid.)
Reason 3: I want to figure out how to do it correctly. Just putting the back on is easier. I'd like to find out why it works in games like FF6 or Breath of Fire 2, but looks flat when I do it.
It doesn't have to be at a side view to get an angle where you can only see the front half of the roof, the angle that I'm trying for is about 60 degrees. And, as I said before, the games where I've seen it done well are all RPGs with a top down perspective. Anyway, I'm not changing my mind about not showing the other side of the roof.
Since the well didn't look as out of perspective as the house did I figured the problem might be the slanted sides. I did a quick attempt at a fix, it's obviously unfinished.
Reason 2: It works better with the way autotile is set up in Ace. (Which, by the way, is stupid.)
Reason 3: I want to figure out how to do it correctly. Just putting the back on is easier. I'd like to find out why it works in games like FF6 or Breath of Fire 2, but looks flat when I do it.
It doesn't have to be at a side view to get an angle where you can only see the front half of the roof, the angle that I'm trying for is about 60 degrees. And, as I said before, the games where I've seen it done well are all RPGs with a top down perspective. Anyway, I'm not changing my mind about not showing the other side of the roof.
Since the well didn't look as out of perspective as the house did I figured the problem might be the slanted sides. I did a quick attempt at a fix, it's obviously unfinished.
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Pixel Art / Re: Tileset with RPG Maker VX Ace limitations
« on: August 06, 2013, 10:56:05 pm »
Let me rephrase, I would rather change the perspective on everything else than show the back of the roof. It works better that way with what I want to do and with the program I'm using. I've also seen it done in many professional and beautifully pixelated RPGs so I know it can be done well.