GR#020 - 16-Color Strategy Game

[Heavy Stylus]

Looks lovely.  This would make a great Atari STE game, if only it could actually handle that many sprites

[EyeCraft]

Maybe try to stay away from texturing and go towards detail? A tile with some small rocks and one with flowers perhaps?

Good point. I think I vaguely had this idea earlier on in the piece thinking "do it like Link to the Past", but then I guess I forgot  

The palm trees seem a bit too rubery methinks. Perhaps it's the green tone that gives it that appearance or perhaps it needs a bit more detail to look a bit better.

Hmm. I can see what you mean about the rubbery appearance, and when compared to the more gritty surfaces if the buildings you have a valid point. Nice analysis on Cannon Fodder's art, I think its also because it was in the time of CRT screens, where a lot of that noise would be blurred together that that kind of stuff could be done.

I've got an idea for what I can do with the trees to give them a bit more texture; working on it now. Thanks.

I wonder how slavishly you intend on sticking to Arne's pallete. I feel on the whole this is far too warm and muddy.

You're not alone in those sentiments  . Indigo mentioned it too, and I agree. I started this using Arne's palette mainly out of curiosity. I've found it's useful for roughing out things quickly, because normally I can get caught up in epic AA-fests where I spend a tonne of time on just a few tiles making them look really smooth, when I could be working on other stuff. So the idea I have is to basically do a first pass with this palette, get the vast majority of things drawn and defined, then on the second pass I'll start expanding the palette, getting the balance a lot more pleasing and adding detail.

Looks lovely.  This would make a great Atari STE game, if only it could actually handle that many sprites

A shame. Out of curiosity, what kind of old machines could run something like this?

[EvilEye]

Looks nice for such a low color count.

I don't understand why you dithered the shadows for the trees, it looks awful.

As someone else mentioned, the problem with running this on an old console is the processor speed required to draw that many sprites. The old 8 bit consoles just couldn't do it without major slowdown.

[Lazycow]

A shame. Out of curiosity, what kind of old machines could run something like this?

For RTS games, a framerate less then 60 FPS would be ok, so I think Atari ST and Amiga could handle it. (Atari would maybe need page flipping instead of scrolling) Examples for games with many small sprites on these computers are Megalomania, Lemmings, Settlers...

To use hardware-scrolling and a vertical status-display on Amiga, you would have to use sprites for it. (which means a maximum of 64 pixels wide status display with 15 colors or status-display with up to 128 pixels with 3 colors)

[EyeCraft]

Small update:



Not much to show since I've been focusing on filling out the sprite sheets so the programmer has something to work with. I've gotten all but 1 direction of the death animation for the soldier finished, and all but the death animations for the cannon finished, including the delicious shooting animation.

I'll add the animations to the thread as soon as I sort out an animation program that doesn't drive me crazy (trying to use gimp to animate makes me want to stab something). It'll probably just come down to me finally buying graphics gale, unless anyone has a suggestion?

Wondering if the selection boxes and health bars work well?

I don't understand why you dithered the shadows for the trees, it looks awful.

Yeah. I think I did it with the idea that it would go over the top of semi-transparent shadows. Will change, thanks.

[Lizzrd]

For the selection, I think outlined in white/yellow/red would work better.
The health bars are ok, if not a bit big.

[EyeCraft]

For the selection, I think outlined in white/yellow/red would work better.
The health bars are ok, if not a bit big.

That's a neat idea. I plan to give it a test at some point, unfortunately it requires a lot of work because there needs to be a selection box for each frame of animation of each unit. Still, it might end up being the best way to keep it readable. Thanks.

Okay, so I finally got full version of GraphicsGale, so I can show some animations...

First the Soldier:



Love this guy.  



Basically I want to give the impression that these guys are reliable. They're trained, and they have the gusto to get the mission done. Either they trust each other completely... or they have no idea what awaits them in the jungle  



All the animations for one direction combined together. The death is used for all down-facing directions. Will be making one for the up-facing directions later on.

And the cannon:



Found the down-facing diagonal really hard on this one.



These have been fun. Trying to get a real feeling of power to the shots by emphasising the recoil.



This is the explosion for wherever the cannon shot hits. I want it to look like a concentrated, armour-piercing explosion. Something that is bad news to vehicles, basically. But also reasonable splash damage against light units like infantry.



The "working" animation for the Barracks. Plays when the building is doing some work, like building a unit. Fans bothering me on this.


And finally just a very unexciting screenshot of the level editor I started putting together. You just paint the tile-types (water, dirt, grass, trees) and it calculates the transition tiles for you. So...much...faster...  

So that's these two sprites mostly done. All that's left is a general vehicle explosion for the Cannon death, and a "parachuting" animation for the Soldier, then they are completely functional. After these I'm going to be working on finishing up the existing building animations, and creating the 4th building; the Machine Shop. Fun times!  

[7321551]

Very excellent.
The soldier walking north looks a bit like he's climbing - although I like what you're going for. Just needs a bit of shift on the emphasis, somehow.

As for the barrack's fans, I've found 5 frames makes for peculiarly smooth revolving animations.

Might seem like overkill at that size, but it's just one more frame than it has now.

[CrazyMLC]

I love how it all looks, very cartoony and stylistic.
Inspiring me, personally. Makes me want to make an RTS!

Reminds me of Warcraft or C&C.

(The water, though, is another story, its very, very dark. I had to look at it a few times to see that it wasn't just a hole in the map, or a pool of oil.)

[EyeCraft]

Thanks 7321551! Will apply that.

CrazyMLC: good point. I think I might start my palette tweaking earlier than I planned.