Variety of game tiles for Pokemon fan-game

[Alais]

Alright! Firstly, I am the vector sprite and pixel tile artist for a pokemon mmo fan-game, Pokemon Universe. I am currently working on this alone, as it isn't easy finding artists, but the game has a decent sized team of around a dozen. There is a job thread on this site if you are interested. This game is my first experience of pixel art, and it's been a bit of a steep learning curve with really not very much feedback (particularly from other pixel artists), so I'd very much appreciate any advice.

Below are a couple of screenshots to give you a feel for what I have so far. I'm looking for general comments as well as specific points on any of the items. Let me know if I should post individual elements separately as tilesets. Apologies for large pictures.





I am aware of the obvious errors, such as misalignment of boards on a house roof and misplaced house tiles; some blending errors on the short/long grass interface; missing character shadows; variable shadow colour, angle and lightness (particularly bad for trees). There is also some cheating with the light/shadow on the long grass and dirt, using a soft brush which has added many many colours. All of this, and some of the points mentioned below could be (and arguably should have been) fixed before posting here, but I have been working on this for four months now, unfortunately it will take a great deal longer to make everything perfect.

Here is a list of my notes:

• The water will probably be completely changed to a system with "real" depth, i.e. a semi-transparent overlay on top of cliff-type drops in elevation.
• The shore tiles look more at home in a muddly jungle, so please try to think of them in that context. I will be making something more suitable for grassy areas.
• The rocky ledges don't feel as though they are standing vertical from the ground, perhaps more shadow and the base, with grass growing up around it would help. In fact, the bases of all objects need better interaction with the ground.
• I think there is something wrong with the rock, perhaps perspective, it also looks like it's made out of clay.
• I have not kept careful track of colour count, and I am certain there are many "stray" colours that could be tidied, but I don't have time to clean it up at the moment. The game is not colour-limited, so it's not a huge issue, but of course pixel art looks much better when it's kept clean. I will fix it eventually.
• I really don't know a lot about colour palettes, so I think maybe it's a bit confused colourwise.

This is probably a real pain to comment on, as there is so much there! Any advice, even if it's small and only relating to one part, would be greatly appreciated.

Alais

Update:

[Bkeegan]

Hey man, good work on what you have so far. Here are a few issues I see.

-First of all, the sprites look a bit flat. It kinda looks like they are all lying down, either that or they are all staring up at the sky.

-The shadowing/shading on the building with the pokeball on it is inconsistent with the rest. The rest of the shading has the light source directly above and that one has it is off to the left.

[Jon]

The sprites aren't all that bad, actually. However, the tiles do not really mach up with the game. They are very blended and have very little contrast; besides that, they lack the stylism of the rest of the game. Furthermore, the grass shore tiles have a way too abrupt transition, clashing with the smoothness of the tiles. Though no element is too bad by itself, they lack many unifying characteristics, and make it hard to no where you're going with the look and feel of the game.

[Dr D]

-The shadowing/shading on the building with the pokeball on it is inconsistent with the rest. The rest of the shading has the light source directly above and that one has it is off to the left.

The rock, too.

[McClaneGames]

 - Define a light source.
 - Place consistent shadows.
 - Add some AA.

Your grass and sand tiles seem to be NPA, but I'll assume that you just want critique on the pixel art parts.

[Chrispy]

I don't like the characters (brandon?)  face. It might be whole whole sprite though. It looks like a mix between detailed and chibi, and it's not working out. I would pick one and stick with it.
That rock in the first pic next to wasabi is flat. I recommend reworking the shading so it has less shine and maybe changing the palette to a more gray color. That would make it seem less like clay.
It's too obvious that the pine trees were stuck to a restricted space, make them thinner and/or smaller.
I would make a little bit of grass over the edges of the walkways so it looks more natural.

[Alais]

Thanks for the feedback!

The sprites aren't all that bad, actually. However, the tiles do not really mach up with the game. They are very blended and have very little contrast; besides that, they lack the stylism of the rest of the game.

Which tiles are you referring to? I mentioned there was some photoshop cheating on the dirt edges and grass shadows/highlights, but that will be fixed when I get the time to do it properly.

Furthermore, the grass shore tiles have a way too abrupt transition, clashing with the smoothness of the tiles. Though no element is too bad by itself, they lack many unifying characteristics, and make it hard to no where you're going with the look and feel of the game.

I agree about the shore. The idea was to keep the transition in the thin strip which the player does not walk on, but I think I will extend it across the whole land-side of the tile. I am thinking of adding diagonals, to smooth the shoreline, just trying to figure out the smallest tileset size that I could achieve this in. The reason the elements are ok by themselves and not so great together is because they were made separately. Honestly, I don't know what the exact style I want is, and it's hurting the unity of the thing. I have no choice but to dive in head first as it were, and hope that I can make it work as I go along.

Your grass and sand tiles seem to be NPA, but I'll assume that you just want critique on the pixel art parts.

The only NPA element is the blending, which is shameless cheating. The basic blend-less tiles were drawn pixel-by pixel and have a low colour count. I plan to mask out the areas where there is blending and, remove the blending layer, and replace each colour with a lighter/darker tone.

I don't like the characters (brandon?)  face. It might be whole whole sprite though. It looks like a mix between detailed and chibi, and it's not working out. I would pick one and stick with it.

The player sprite was a rush job, I'm not actually the player spriter, but it was better than using an upscale from the official games. I don't think he looks too bad, but his face is a little fat.

[Alais]

Apologies for double posting, I have some new art:



It's from the same game, and I do realise it's much more realistic than might be expected from a pokemon game, but the it's the style I am pursuing.

[WM]

Did different people contribute to this? I know you said you're currently the sole graphics artist, but were there previous contributors?

I ask this because what I see are not a bunch of nit-pick mistakes, but an overall failure to define and keep a consistent style. Your best bet are these two steps:

1) Go back and lay out a style both in both technical and conceptual terms. Are there palette restrictions? If so, what's the color count? How much contrast? What type of outlines, if any? Amount of detail? What mix of cartoon and realism elements are you wanting? Viewing angle (45, I'm guessing)? Do you want any distortion (in terms of perspective) on objects? Also establish a scale that objects should abide by (i.e. "this is the height/size of a standard person, and based on this, this should be the height/size of an evergreen tree next to that person"). I understand that scale is skewed in 3/4 perspective rpg's such as this, but there are instances where objects look unaffected by any sort of scale, such as the two tree types in your first pic.

2) Rework or redo pieces based on these new guidelines, and make sure to give would-be contributors these guidelines before they start work. I know this is a monumental step, but, if done over time in conjunction with the addition of new tiles/sprites, is not too big a deal.


The graphics themselves are good quality -- they just don't match up.