Okay, I'm jumping on the edit train too. Choo choo!
Thanks!
You've made a lot of good points and changes.
Unfortunately I worked on my edit before you posted.
The directional outline is cool.
But I'm considering popping them all off and just adding lines with Shaders so they can be colorized, thickened, stippled and react to lights and such.
The bounce light will actually act as a color property for a shader and can be shown in any color or removed completely.
I need to make it a unique color value tho as I've used it in other places.
Or I may bump it to a new layer.
Not sure yet.
Other cool effects can be done like color interpolation, glowing stuff, and palette indexing.
Getting stuff like that working is actually not too much code using basic HLSL and some helper functions.
PixelShader// Current pixel is color to shade?
if(IsColor(color, PrincessPink()))
{
// Shade pixel
return float4(Green().rgb + (wave *0.5), 1);
}HelperFunctions// checks if colors match
bool IsColor(float4 color1, float4 color2)
{
float3 c1 = float3(color1.rgb);
float3 c2 = float3(color2.rgb);
if(FloatEquals(c1, c2))
return true;
return false;
}
// checks if float3s are equal
bool FloatEquals(float3 n1, float3 n2)
{
if(n1.r == n2.r)
if(n1.g == n2.g)
if(n1.b == n2.b)
return true;
return false;
}
// special color for shader I can call by name
float4 PrincessPink(void)
{
return ColorFromRGB(242, 154, 222);
}
// color[0-1] from color[0-255]
float4 ColorFromRGB(float r, float g, float b)
{
return float4(r/255, g/255, b/255, 0);
}Having done this, I agree the sprites are too large to animate. Something more Capcom proportioned seems feasable.
I definitely agree with sprites being too large tough idk if these are for just animation or for game oriented
Also I'm sure it's a matter of finish level but I enjoy your pixel clusters more in the smaller size.
Agreed the sprites are large and a lot more work to deal with.
However they are more to my liking and feel more like how I draw on paper.
There are different processes for animation.
They balance quality, speed, feeling, order of steps etc.
My animation training is actually in film style which is drawn extremely large.
In the film environment it is acceptable to take 2+ weeks on a single animation for a character saying a sentence or two.
It's made me very patient but also realize how wasteful old style animation techniques are.
I don't want to spend so long on a single animation or use so many steps to the final render.
It's surprising how much motion you can pull out of a single key, and how messy fast inbetweens can be.
Many parts of an animation can remain rigid and reused, while only the main areas of focus, or effect, change.
This let's you get away with less unique drawings and more time spent polishing motion, which will sell the animation better than really nice drawings with bad motion.
Of course this has its own result and feel.
Traditional process and techniques have a great feel, but are much more expensive.
Well, about the new version of BB... she might be a bit over stylized, I liked the previous version more, it was simpler, but still carried some character.
I think both have and interesting personality.
The 1st design is more like someone you would add to your party after meeting her twice in a cave and she unlocked some doors for you.
The 2nd design was intended to make her more brutal, like a caveman almost, someone you wouldn't want to bump into.
The 3rd design pushes more towards the 1st while still twisting it a little.
If this were 3D I'd just ship all 3 as costumes.
Much easier to change props and details.
your newest renditions seem to be more traditional character design ex: giving bootie bandit a prop to go with her name, which on a fundamental level is good, but your earlier designs seemed to break some rules and I liked them for it.
Its true that giving them props that fit their name or class very closely make them more archetypal and generic.
The trade off is basically Visual Recognition vs Original Concept.
The game idea is based on 3 items like Rock-Paper-Scissors:
This can be thought of as Actions instead of items.
Attack-Defend-Shoot.
Even the defense item should be unique in some way.
In Booties case I want her to be able to steal/grab stuff with her shield.
A bag seemed like a classic choice.
But a summon shield is a little more interesting to me.
And magic boots!
But of course!
The design reminds me of something from Cosmic Soldier, Psychic War.
http://hardcoregaming101.net/psychicwar/psychicwar.htm
Also relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuS1ngU9jlc#t=2m16s
Thanks for these great links arne!
I love this sort of old style.
Slamming a brain into the ground is highly entertaining.
It's exactly the kind of stuff I want to animate.
Over the top violence with unrealistic characters.
And lots of particle effects!
