11
Pixel Art / Re: [C+C] Character Mugshot Thing
« on: February 02, 2015, 01:38:21 am »
Recolor of Ptoing's edit. That purple background is throwing off your color balance.
Hope this helps,
Tourist
Hope this helps,
Tourist
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12
Pixel Art / Re: Walk (failure)
« on: December 31, 2014, 06:05:37 pm »
An even number of frames, of course! I am enlightened.
The realism is nice, but more importantly the walk data is consistent across frames and different animations. But consistent position (angles) and consistent shape (form) are mutually exclusive thanks to the grid. Vectors and 3d tend to provide consistent shapes, mocap provides consistent angles.
This animation wasn't made for any particular story to tell. I have this lovely walk data, and wondered how to use that for pixel animation. Exploring process and seeing how efficient and effective it was at producing animation. Trying the oddball ways of doing things helps me understand why the traditional methods work. Also, laziness.
On to the next attempt,
Tourist
The realism is nice, but more importantly the walk data is consistent across frames and different animations. But consistent position (angles) and consistent shape (form) are mutually exclusive thanks to the grid. Vectors and 3d tend to provide consistent shapes, mocap provides consistent angles.
This animation wasn't made for any particular story to tell. I have this lovely walk data, and wondered how to use that for pixel animation. Exploring process and seeing how efficient and effective it was at producing animation. Trying the oddball ways of doing things helps me understand why the traditional methods work. Also, laziness.
On to the next attempt,
Tourist
13
Pixel Art / Re: Dragon [C+C] Textures, color and form
« on: December 31, 2014, 02:15:42 am »
Here's what I see:
There is a problem with readability caused by tangents. One of the horns and the lower body, the rear leg(?) and the shoulder joint, these all run into each other.
From Thumb War ( http://www.autodestruct.com/thumbwar.htm ):
Overlap // Overlap shows what's in front (outline thickest around things closest to you) and what's in back. Use draw-through to get overlaps correct. In addition to giving you cheap dimensionality with a minimum of perspective tricks, overlap frees you from drawing whatever is obscured. Often the viewer will fill in those obscured details themselves. Pay attention to overlap that occurs WITHIN objects. Make all overlaps obvious to avoid tangents : lines/objects that appear to touch or intersect awkwardly, weakening your depth illusion.
The shadows on the tail don't match the shadows on the body.
I can't tell what those ridges on the center back are. Seats? Scales? Coils?
It's kind of odd to have one wing edge on and the other almost flat to the view. The visual masses are balanced by the head and tail, it's just a bit odd.
Overall this image is ok. I don't think you can get a lot of texture detail at this scale, so maybe a use a few representative scales here and there instead.
Hope this helps,
Tourist
There is a problem with readability caused by tangents. One of the horns and the lower body, the rear leg(?) and the shoulder joint, these all run into each other.
From Thumb War ( http://www.autodestruct.com/thumbwar.htm ):
Overlap // Overlap shows what's in front (outline thickest around things closest to you) and what's in back. Use draw-through to get overlaps correct. In addition to giving you cheap dimensionality with a minimum of perspective tricks, overlap frees you from drawing whatever is obscured. Often the viewer will fill in those obscured details themselves. Pay attention to overlap that occurs WITHIN objects. Make all overlaps obvious to avoid tangents : lines/objects that appear to touch or intersect awkwardly, weakening your depth illusion.
The shadows on the tail don't match the shadows on the body.
I can't tell what those ridges on the center back are. Seats? Scales? Coils?
It's kind of odd to have one wing edge on and the other almost flat to the view. The visual masses are balanced by the head and tail, it's just a bit odd.
Overall this image is ok. I don't think you can get a lot of texture detail at this scale, so maybe a use a few representative scales here and there instead.
Hope this helps,
Tourist
14
Pixel Art / Re: Walk (failure)
« on: December 31, 2014, 01:44:18 am »
It looks realistic because it is motion capture (mocap) data. Probably from someone on a treadmill.
The problems are:
The 3d model has no toe joint, the data does, so the ankles and feet look wonky. This is fixable by changing the model and re-rendering.
The real human motion doesn't correspond nicely to the grid. There are a lot of small movements and angles that don't work well at this scale. The head should swivel or tilt a bit, but at this scale that requires sub-pixel work. Likewise the angles of the limbs either produce jaggy edges or shape distortions; watch the shape of the bright red shin/calf.
This process needs some more work.
Tourist
The problems are:
The 3d model has no toe joint, the data does, so the ankles and feet look wonky. This is fixable by changing the model and re-rendering.
The real human motion doesn't correspond nicely to the grid. There are a lot of small movements and angles that don't work well at this scale. The head should swivel or tilt a bit, but at this scale that requires sub-pixel work. Likewise the angles of the limbs either produce jaggy edges or shape distortions; watch the shape of the bright red shin/calf.
This process needs some more work.
Tourist
15
Pixel Art / Walk (failure)
« on: December 30, 2014, 08:44:22 pm »
Lesson learned: Mocap data is rather boring. Also, if you don't include the toes, the walk looks clumsy. I guess I have to actually learn this animation stuff instead of taking shortcuts.
Image is mocap on a Poser skeleton figure, colored lines and head added by me. The bobbing head is just a copy-paste thing that I didn't bother to edit out.
Tourist
16
General Discussion / Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014
« on: September 15, 2014, 07:01:48 pm »
Thanks for the recommendations. I'm off to dig into some software.
Tourist
Tourist
17
General Discussion / Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014
« on: September 14, 2014, 05:21:29 pm »
I'm looking for a software recommendation. Preferably free, but cheap is ok too.
I've some success at creating art by starting from simple shapes. Just flat blobs and curved lines that can be moved around to lay out the composition, lines of action, and so forth. It's easy to do with pencil and paper. I would like to do this with a software tool. So far I've looked at some free vector art tools and they aren't quite what I'm looking for.
Here's is an example use case:
Here are two circles of different sizes, and a path that connects them. The circles might be arbitrary blob shapes. The path may have more than two intermediate points.
Moving one of the circles should pull the intermediate nodes of the path in the same direction, but not the other end point. Moving an intermediate node changes the curve of a path, but doesn't move the endpoints. This means the nodes of the path need to be in a hierarchy; endpoint position influences midpoints, but not the other way around.
Changing the size of one of the circles should change the width of the path at that end. This change can be toggled to propagate along the path or just to the first intermediate point.
I think I'm looking for simple 2d plus built in rigging, and something like inverse kinematics. I haven't found this yet. The free tools either work with a single whole object at a time, or fine tweaking of individual points. Nothing that has one shape adjust another, nothing that propagates info from one point to another.
Do you know of any software that does this?
Thanks,
Tourist
I've some success at creating art by starting from simple shapes. Just flat blobs and curved lines that can be moved around to lay out the composition, lines of action, and so forth. It's easy to do with pencil and paper. I would like to do this with a software tool. So far I've looked at some free vector art tools and they aren't quite what I'm looking for.
Here's is an example use case:
Here are two circles of different sizes, and a path that connects them. The circles might be arbitrary blob shapes. The path may have more than two intermediate points.
Moving one of the circles should pull the intermediate nodes of the path in the same direction, but not the other end point. Moving an intermediate node changes the curve of a path, but doesn't move the endpoints. This means the nodes of the path need to be in a hierarchy; endpoint position influences midpoints, but not the other way around.
Changing the size of one of the circles should change the width of the path at that end. This change can be toggled to propagate along the path or just to the first intermediate point.
I think I'm looking for simple 2d plus built in rigging, and something like inverse kinematics. I haven't found this yet. The free tools either work with a single whole object at a time, or fine tweaking of individual points. Nothing that has one shape adjust another, nothing that propagates info from one point to another.
Do you know of any software that does this?
Thanks,
Tourist
18
Pixel Art / Re: [C+C] Wings of Aetos Character Portrait
« on: September 13, 2014, 12:58:35 am »
Mostly this look fine to me.
There's a problem with the sideburns. In the original sketch, they follow the lines in the throat, in your edit it follows the line of the jaw and runs into the blue stripes (woad I guess?).
The blue stripe on the near shoulder (our right) is straight, which flattens out that part of the anatomy. You might have to look at a reference to get a better curve.
You might increase the value contrast of the skin tones. The shadows under the chin are overpowered by the stronger orange-blue contrasts.
Tourist
There's a problem with the sideburns. In the original sketch, they follow the lines in the throat, in your edit it follows the line of the jaw and runs into the blue stripes (woad I guess?).
The blue stripe on the near shoulder (our right) is straight, which flattens out that part of the anatomy. You might have to look at a reference to get a better curve.
You might increase the value contrast of the skin tones. The shadows under the chin are overpowered by the stronger orange-blue contrasts.
Tourist
19
General Discussion / Re: Hexagonal tile woes
« on: August 05, 2014, 09:17:18 pm »
Your link goes to a thumbnail. Remove the _mt to get the full sized image.
Gammarauders used hex tiles like this:
A bit ugly, but it meets your requirements. Each tile is self contained so they can be arranged in any fashion.
Magic Realm used tiles like this:
Nodes connected by paths. The full set can be viewed here:
http://www.thewinternet.com/magicrealm/tiles/index.html
Keep in mind that cutting out a large number of hexagonal tiles by hand is not fun.
Good luck with the game,
Tourist
Gammarauders used hex tiles like this:
A bit ugly, but it meets your requirements. Each tile is self contained so they can be arranged in any fashion.
Magic Realm used tiles like this:
Nodes connected by paths. The full set can be viewed here:
http://www.thewinternet.com/magicrealm/tiles/index.html
Keep in mind that cutting out a large number of hexagonal tiles by hand is not fun.
Good luck with the game,
Tourist
20
General Discussion / Re: Uncanny Valley/Cuteness in relation to pixel-art
« on: July 26, 2014, 03:12:16 am »
I'll toss an uninformed opinion in.
There's a bit of philosophy that says that says the self is not a single object, but an aggregate of things. Of relevance to this thread, it includes
1) The external world and stimulus (the pixel image)
2) Feelings toward the thing (emotional reaction)
3) Recognition of the thing (memory and identification)
4) The collection of associated memories, ideas, and whatnot that are connected to the idea of the thing. The surrounding mental map in the viewer's mind as it were.
5) Items 2, 3, and 4 in aggregate make up consciousness, which we perceive as a whole (the mind)
With this model,
1) the cute image tends to stimulate on an emotional response
2) the realistic image tends to stimulate the recognition and memory
3) the cartoon tends to stimulate the association response. Jessica Rabbit doesn't look like a real person, but she has all the associated pieces.
Of course these aren't singular responses. The cute image also triggers the recognition and the viewer's mind is adding in all the associated concepts to what they see. The others work the same way.
It's also possible to have some responses but not another. An image can provoke an emotional reaction even if you can't recognize what it is. Or you can recognize it but feel no emotional reaction. I expect the uncanny valley happens when associations of an image conflict with the recognition of the image as a real thing.
We normally operate at the aggregate (conscious) level so we aren't really paying attention to the different divisions. I could blather on, but I imagine you get the idea. This all comes from Buddhism, and I'm no expert on Buddhism nor philosophy, but maybe you can find it useful.
Tourist
There's a bit of philosophy that says that says the self is not a single object, but an aggregate of things. Of relevance to this thread, it includes
1) The external world and stimulus (the pixel image)
2) Feelings toward the thing (emotional reaction)
3) Recognition of the thing (memory and identification)
4) The collection of associated memories, ideas, and whatnot that are connected to the idea of the thing. The surrounding mental map in the viewer's mind as it were.
5) Items 2, 3, and 4 in aggregate make up consciousness, which we perceive as a whole (the mind)
With this model,
1) the cute image tends to stimulate on an emotional response
2) the realistic image tends to stimulate the recognition and memory
3) the cartoon tends to stimulate the association response. Jessica Rabbit doesn't look like a real person, but she has all the associated pieces.
Of course these aren't singular responses. The cute image also triggers the recognition and the viewer's mind is adding in all the associated concepts to what they see. The others work the same way.
It's also possible to have some responses but not another. An image can provoke an emotional reaction even if you can't recognize what it is. Or you can recognize it but feel no emotional reaction. I expect the uncanny valley happens when associations of an image conflict with the recognition of the image as a real thing.
We normally operate at the aggregate (conscious) level so we aren't really paying attention to the different divisions. I could blather on, but I imagine you get the idea. This all comes from Buddhism, and I'm no expert on Buddhism nor philosophy, but maybe you can find it useful.
Tourist