Working On some Rocks

[Red_Mist]

So I think I may have made a post about some rocks a while back, and am taking another stab at it. These rocks are for practicing basically. not for a mockup or game or anything.
My first attempt was mainly to see if I could tile some rock platform. I think I achieved my goal as it tiles well, and looks rockish, altho I guess It could stand some improvement.
I used this same method for my secret santa gift this year if anyone missed it! www.fuzionllc.com/pics/pgilsgift.gif

I then decided that I wanted something a bit more realistic, so I decided to go back and try this again! This time I wasn't so worried about tiling and focused more on the shape of a rock.
Altho Its not horrible, its still lacking in texture and lighting, but I think a more 3d effect was achieved.


After that, I thought I could take it a step further. I started over. Thinking I had a grasp on things I began my next set of rocks, after the attempt I think the overall effect looked neat, but not quite what I imagined in my head. I tried to take some advice on colors and highlights but I dont think I quite understood. Also, the new set almost looks like layers of bricks or rocks hovering on rocks. Definately not what I was trying to achieve.


Trying not to get discouraged, I remembered that I wanted to also "focus" on texture. Somebody suggested that I dither to give the rocks texture so in my last pic you can see what was achieved. I also messed with the palet to go from 28 colors to only 10. I also changed the format from gif to png in the process.
 

So overall, I am still not satisfied. I'm planning on starting a 4th set of rocks to illiminate the brick effect and make it appear more like rock comming out of the earth. Go back to making it
tileable I think. I would love to hear your suggestions and hope to post an update soon!

I hope you guys dont think I abandoned the layered attempt to soon, It was really buggin me that I didnt tile them, so I started over again to impliment that.
I also really didn't like the "layered effect" I achieved. Altho intesting, My goal was to make solid rocks and not layers, rather then fix it I just started over... but I think This has more promise!

[Chis]

Honestly I think the first one was the most realistic out of all of them. The main problems with your most recent one are that all the rocks are about the same height/shape, there's no change in the amount of light as you go further down, and both contrast and saturation are probably too strong. I do like the part of rock at the bottom left; something like that would be better.
Check out these rock textures from Cave Story. You can see the rocks generally have a dull color, they are split into all sorts of shapes and sizes - some giant, some just crumbs - and the grass is lying on top of the rock instead of behind it, casting shadows. Obviously rocks come in all different categories and this is just one example, but in general they have a certain feel to them which can be hard to grasp
Dithering comes later; it's important to first finalize shape and volume.
When you start on your 4th tile set, something that'd be most helpful is a reference of real rocks. Nature is the best teacher Good luck!

[snakesqzns]

What Chris said!

[Ultimaodin]

Ok I like what your aiming for in the second and third but your shading is blagh. The design is great but I think you need to choose your light source and think what part of each rock said light will hit.
Right now it looks like your light is from directly above and each individual rock is shaded as if it's directly under the light source.
You need to imagine the rocks overlapping and how that would affect light and shadow. That should halt the floating look. The colour choice in your second image was much better than the third and forth. In fact the origional one was alright too. (the three colours I like to use are a yellow a brown and a purple plus any ramp colours I decide to use)

[Dusty]

Like I mentioned in IRC, I'm not sure how I like the layered rocks. Naturally I don't think it makes a lot of sense, and aesthetically I think it's a lot of stuff going on, and the layers of similar rocks ends up being boring.

I think filling underneath the first layer of rock with some natural dirt layers could help a lot, and also make the rock as a platform stand out to its fullest potential:

[Dr D]

The rocks look like they have large gaps in-between them, which I think lends to the floaty effect. Lower or completely remove the lighted planes from the rocks, they shouldn't really be visible. Then again, that's only assuming you wanted it flat, I guess. If each layer is supposed to jut out a bit more than the layer on top of it, then that's cool, too, but you would probably be wise to make them darker and less noticeable as you go down, to give priority to the usable part of the platform, like Dusty mentioned. (At the same time, you could do things to the top layer of rocks/ground to make it stand out as well, such as increasing contrast, details, maybe the size of the rocks, etc.)

[Red_Mist]

I hope you guys dont think I abandoned the layered attempt to soon, It was really buggin me that I didnt tile them, so I started over again to impliment that.
I also really didn't like the "layered effect" I achieved. Altho intesting, My goal was to make solid rocks and not layers, rather then fix it I just started over... but I think This has more promise!

...like Dusty mentioned. (At the same time, you could do things to the top layer of rocks/ground to make it stand out as well, such as increasing contrast, details, maybe the size of the rocks, etc.)

I'm definately gonna do this on this verion of my rock attempt!

Dusty! thanks for the feedback here and in the chat room! Much appreciatied!
UltimaOdin! Definately think I improved on the shading... I will probably mess with the colors more once its finished... imageready is pretty good about palette manipulation. Thanks!
Chris! I thought your advice was the biggest influence on me that was posted so far. I took your advice and found some great refs.. I think its helped me out a bit, tho my artistic ability (or lack there of) keeps me from pushing realism as much as I wanted too.

[Red_Mist]

Just wanted to make an update... Obviously by constantly changing the way I'm doing things... i'm not making progress with the platform.. but the idea is to make progress with my abilities not the ficticious platformer that isnt going anywhere. Right!?

So.. I played around with some more rock ideas.. and came up with this...

After comming back to it I was like BLAH! What was I thinking... I felt like I had taken a step backwards and Decided to study some metal Slug.

The result I think is much better. And I'm constantly learning.. I cant believe the difference! Now thats not to say We cant still improve so, I could use some feedback!

[7321551]

Definitely improving, good job. I actually prefer the first one, but I like the edge highlights on the second.
The only thing I find lacking is the colors. When I was drawing a rock recently, I played around with the colors for a long time, & what I arrived at was completely gray in the mid-range values. So, I suggest trying that out.
darks: blue, middle: gray, lights: green-ish

edit: actually, make that "lights: chartreuse-ish"

[Gil]

Be sure to read this thread for reference:

http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=7798.0