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Messages - Xedrai
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11
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: Xedrai's sprites
« on: February 17, 2014, 09:42:09 am »
I tried to make one based on your anivl, used colors from your too.
Mine was a bit smaller and not so much space between the base and the anvil itself, so there is no highlight underneath. I don't know if this is correct but it doesn't look wrong imo, might be wrong though.

I also tried to add a curve to the "north" end (as seen on the stock image you posted and here http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/0/3257/600443-anvil.jpg)

Also it feels like the "south" bit is off centered. I believe this is what you was demonstrating with your skecth? I tried to fix it by adding a line to the outline on the <- side of the south bit.




Made an edit to try to fix the south thingy:


12
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: Xedrai's sprites
« on: February 16, 2014, 11:25:09 pm »
Quote from: BatElite on February 16, 2014, 08:53:28 pm


You use a lot of colours where a few would also do well. On the left the colourcount on the sword was reduced to 8 including background, and it looks the same as the original. The right has 6 including background.

I only replaced colours though, except on the guard where it looked segmented otherwise. You woudl probably have to redraw some things. Also, the contrast on the blade is very weak.

I tried to make it with 6 colors at first, but felt like it was too few colors. I'll study your edit and try making something more with just the colors you used! :)


Quote from: Cyangmou on February 16, 2014, 10:50:40 pm
Seems you got a lot of thougths on your icons, but none for your environment stuff.

For my edit I chose your anvil, but the principles should also help your other environment pieces, since a lot of the stuff I am pointing out can be applied 1:1 on other graphics.
It's not really palette-restricted pixel art, rather low res digital painting, but yeah, no problem if you want to go for that (Tibia has pure pixels - saw some stuff on PJ and that kind of style - I dunno).

The underlying forms and proportions you have going on are pretty solid. The peak of your anvil seemed a bit detached (to wide at the left) and wrong in terms of perspective (the straight line looks nice there, but is construction-wise off) - I suppose this is more a matter of taste - I just adressed it since I remarked it and applied it to my edit.

What's actually really bad are the internal lines

I talked about internal lines here: http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=16261.msg148111#msg148111
(example number 2)


You should avoid them if possible, since they really easily destroy the form impression of a drawing and rather go with contrasts -
It's ok to use them if you have stones with gaps when the line illustrates a shadow (like at your street tile those shadows are missing).
You just shouldn't illustrate boarders with dark lines. Someone mentioned that looking at an edge of your room helps you to understand that principle.

The next thing which isn't solved optimally is that the top and side plane are in terms of value pretty similar (shows up once you remove the internal line). The light seems to come from the side (brighter than the frontplane) and the positions of the highlights confuse the lightsource further (front one at the peak seems fitting, rear one at the knob seems to come from the left side) - that's bad.

All in all the anvil seems to be to bright for the material - it rather looks like platinum, than iron or steel. The ones I know are significantly darker and look somewhat like this



If you study it you will see that there isn't a lot of saturation, the highlights aren't that bright and that it can get really dark.

I applied this observations and some small little details (like the form of the base and the hole at the top plane) in my edit and also changed the direction of the light from the side to the front - why that?

If you are going to add an additional cast shadow which will anchor the graphic in the surrounding environment I suppose that this angle for the light direction is one of the best options you have (I just went ahead that the top plane is brighter than the side planes - sunlight, ceiling lamp?).
Can't say for sure if it's the best direction for cast shadows which will be casted from-the-object on-the-object as well.

Read carefull ythrough all points and compare my version with yours



Do you see the big differences:
That your anvil seems to be floating?
That your anvil has a weaker form?
That your anvil seems to be to bright?

Actually that isn't my anvil. I noticed that I didn't really explain in detail in my first post that the image with the well and anvil etc. I wrote underneath the image that "Here are my sprites", but I admit that it was a bit misleading to have that image there. I'm sorry I didn't make it clear enough from the beginning, but from now on I'll try to explain better in my posts!

But I will definetly try to make an anvil first thing tomorrow, your edit looked amazing in comparison and I'll study it when I make my own.

The lighting and perspective is a bit special, they explained that everything from the top is seen straight from the top, but everything else is at an angle. Will find an image where the pixelartists of Tibia explain it in detail.

Again, sorry for not explaining it properly. I removed that image so it doesn't confuse anyone. :(

13
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: Xedrai's sprites
« on: February 16, 2014, 12:48:37 pm »
A couple of stone tiles I made. I think I got the texture to look quite good if I say so myself! :)



Ingame picture:
(NOTE: The only sprites I've made in this picture are the stone tiles for the streets. I'm replacing more sprites as I go along.)


14
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: Xedrai's sprites
« on: February 15, 2014, 02:55:36 pm »
I had a go at a stone. Not really sure if the textures are right or not.



Here's the armor with a little bit more shading on the right side:



And the sword with changed colors, will try to fix the metaltexture on it too:


15
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: Xedrai's sprites
« on: February 14, 2014, 06:09:59 am »
@Vakinox:
At the moment I'm visiting 3 forums where 2 of them are dedicated to the style I'm making sprites in and in this forum is where the most constructive crituiqe I've got so far. So I'm getting used to no response at all but I'll keep trying, I want to get better :)

The cavetroll isn't really done yet, just started with the legs to see if I could do it. I have a reference from Tibia which is in the  correct perspective of the game that I'll add arms and head with!

@Ryumaru:
I found a link in another thread here which made color gradients which I used for the armor and sword to try to limit myself a bit, think I used 16 colors. I've never been good with metals IMO so I'll certainly look into reference images for those.

@Johasu:
Why the equipment is flat and the environment not is because the style that Tibia use. That's also why there's a black outline on some things and not on other. Now when I've looked closer at their sprites I've noticed that it's not a black outline everywhere so I'll try to experiment with no black outline on some of my next sprites. And yes I'm making the border first and then filling it in.

I've made an edit of both the sword and armor where the sword is less greenish yellow and more orange and some better shading on the armor but can't post them until tomorrow.
I'll also try to explain the perspective and light sources so everyone will better understand the sprites.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I'll try to make something new as soon as I can and I'll post it here when I do! :)

16
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: Xedrai's sprites
« on: February 13, 2014, 04:49:18 pm »
I made an armor!
Feedback needed, I need to know if I'm going the right way or learning wrong techniques.



EDIT:

And here's a golden sword:


17
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: Xedrai's sprites
« on: February 10, 2014, 10:10:57 pm »
Here's a start to a cavetroll.
Just started a little bit on the legs, do you guys have any suggestions on what could be better?


18
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: Xedrai's sprites
« on: February 04, 2014, 05:00:15 pm »
Quote from: Adam on February 04, 2014, 09:10:39 am
Quote from: Xedrai on February 03, 2014, 06:48:13 pm
Because I like the style of those kinds of games and I use existing tools and and game engine/server that is made for this kind of game and perspective.

I'm really interested which tools/game engine you are using. It might be of use for my will-never-be-done RPG.

As for crits. The dwarven sword looks too pillowy, banded even. Try to define the planes with "clusters". Look at those swords you posted as reference! They all have flat/semi-flat surfaces.

The Narsil looks OK, but the inner black lines look too strong. If you are about to follow the movie art, you might consider to make the hilt area a bit more slim, otherwise a I would suggest making it a bit more "fancy" - it's a legendary sword.

I would also suggest adding some saturation to the metal parts.

The tools I'm using are developed for people how want to make their own servers with the Tibia client (their game engine thingy) and graphics, but there is an open source client made by the community on OTLand.net that works the same way but without any copyright issues. Also all the tools I'm using (map editor, server etc) are over at OTLand too.

I don't really know what you mean by clusters but I'll do a search for it and try to learn! And I don't really know how I wanted the blade to be. At first I wanted it to be kinda flat and just sharp at the edges, but I don't know if I'm satisfied with that concept.

I'll try to edit Narsils hilt, although I think it might become too slim. I don't really know how to make it fancier if I should use the moviesword as a reference, I tried with the hole in the pommel and there should also be a small gold detail there but it might be too small to get in, I'll se if I can do anything about it.

Here is an update on Orcrist.
I've tried doing the blade atleast 50 times and this is the one I think looks the best, but it still doesn't look right...


19
Pixel Art Feature Chest / Re: Xedrai's sprites
« on: February 03, 2014, 06:48:13 pm »
Quote from: Cyangmou on February 03, 2014, 05:58:16 pm
Why bothering in 2014 project-wise with that dead military perspective, which is outdated since several years.

This perspective biggest issues are the followings:

-unatural feeling, weak form impression (that projection is from the viewing angle and the axis relationships practically a lot worse than Iso or Oblique)
-no possibility to mirror sprites (you need to draw 4 directions for sprites to make them work for that projection. For a basic rpg perspective you will have 8 directional sprites, if you draw animations for 5 directions and mirror them - and they are easier to animate because the main axis is straight)
-hard to illustrate detailled stuff on low res, 45° lines are suboptimal for getting crisp and clean pixel art

It simply leads art and project-wise to nothing good and you have much better options.

Because I like the style of those kinds of games and I use existing tools and and game engine/server that is made for this kind of game and perspective.
Although since I'm interested in trying to make other kinds of games too I'll try to make other kinds of sprites too. :)

And if I'm not mistaken in Tibia they only make the backside and frontside and then rotate and flip the image to cheat a little bit, not 100% sure but yeah. And they only use 2 animations and 4 directions.

But to get back to the sprites, do you have anything to say about the ones I made?
(The first picture isn't my things btw)

20
Pixel Art Feature Chest / GR#175 Xedrai's Sprites - Gameart
« on: February 03, 2014, 05:37:04 pm »
Hi!

I'm making a project for a kind of "mod" for a game called Tibia, where I make the world of Middle-Earth from LOTR.
Right now I'm using most of their graphics but I want to replace as much as possible so it becomes my own game. Right now I'm doing the more simple things like groundtiles and items, but I hope to learn to make creatures and animations too.


Here are a couple of sprites I've made:

Some boulders


A dwarven sword (based of this picture: http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110926150049/lotr/images/thumb/7/79/Dwarven_sword.png/200px-Dwarven_sword.png )
I'm not really happy with the blade on this one...


Narsil


Orcrist


Mithril armor (I think, not sure yet)


Golden sword


Some groundtiles:
They need more contrast, will update on this...


I'll try to post new things as soon as I make them!


/Xedrai

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