F1 Cars

[Hyun]

I'm currently wishing to program an unofficial F1 fan game - I'm nuts about the sport. So I'm having a go at pixelling the cars. Crits would really be helpful here, as I want to get it right on these cars before I pixel the rest. Reference pictures of an overhead view are pretty hard to find at the moment seeing as it's a new season - so any pointers on where to find overhead views of the 2006 teams would be extremely helpful. I know AA is hideously wrong in places - and some points look jaggy as hell - I need help fixing those bits up. I think I need to use selout seeing as its for a game. Although I really need to read up on how to do it before I attempt it.

Comments and crits are appreciated. Also, for F1 fans on this board, can you guess the four cars I've pixelled so far - the ability to recognise them straightaway is a factor in the game - and I hope I've got the look across.

Just for some additional pluggage - I'm working on my new site at http://houseofninzha.co.uk. Full of pixel stylings, only the first four pages are up - i.e. Home, About, Blog, Games. You can view the current games I've been working on as well as past projects. Comments can be posted on the site. Many thanks everybody!

[Andy Tran]

 Great work there man. I like how the anatomy resembles those of the real ones. Nicely done in 16 colors, my favorite setting heh.

[Hyun]

Thanks Andy, I'm trying to differentiate each car, so that it looks like some effort went into making these sprites, instead of simply working off one template, and simply shading clones in different colours.

[neverest]

Ooh I'll look forward to seeing this game! Nice work so far, you've done well to make all the sponsorship recognisable, but I wonder if some of it compromises the form a little?

I think because of all the extra colours the adverts force into your pallettes, and the fact that these shouldnt need much animation, you'd be forgiven for not being too conservative with colours.
I had a go at doing a bit of an edit for the Ferrari:


Now I've not done much, but the first thing I've done is slightly changed your pallette and added two extra colours ( I actually found two stray colours not in your pallette so technically I didnt add any). If this was mine, i'd probably add another couple just so I can aa some parts better.

The most notable pixel changes I suppose are the tyres, hopefully they look a lot smoother and more rubbery. Also in some places where you'd used black on the body, I've gone for the next nearest colour, and I've added a few more highlighted areas to give a greater feeling of height on some parts.

I couldnt find any reference pics for this year, so I havnt done much to the form, but one thing I did do was try and show the shape of the central fin (the vertical bit) a bit better, by making the advertising on each side darker, and leaving a bright stripe down the middle.
This is what I meant about the sponsorship compromising the form, at this sort of scale, any text or logos are only symbolic anyway so personally I'd put a bit more emphasis on showing the shapes of things. You seem to have done this well on the plain colour areas.

Just a personal approach but hopefully some will help, again good work so far.

[Hyun]

Nev, wonderful edit and explanation. I can see why my original Ferrai was lacking depth and didn't have the smooth look I was after. That vertical bit (the air intake for the engine) was bothering me, because I couldn't quite get the height I was after. And now the tyres pop out instead of looking like flat rectangles Sponsorship I guess is one of the key components on an F1 car, and is true that it forces me to use more colours. Of course Text and symbols at this size become negligible so it's the general shape I should be trying for - rather than trying to downscale and accurately depict logos.

Massive thanks Neverest, I'll update the other cars with my the tips I've picked up from your post.

EDIT: For those interested, there's a few reference images here: Ferrari 248 F1 Chassis Top View.

DOUBLE EDIT: Updated version of the four cars. Removed the dithering on some of the cars and replaced with solid shades. Also increased the number of grey shades as Nev suggested. Added highlights to the wheel axis of all cars, and cleaned up the third car a bit. Also replaced all the tyres with Nev's as well as adding the tyre manufacturer to the side of the tyres (they lean inwards slightly on F1 cars).

Still a few things to fix I think - but I can't see what it is! Jaggies are still an issue I think.

[Hyun]

Updated with a Super Aguri model and made background transparent. I'm still having problems with the cars. Namely the fact is that they look too flat. Especially compared to the tyres which pop out more than the cars. Any advice on how to breathe some volume into them?

EDIT: The cars don't look good with a transparent background on this forum.

[neverest]

I think the white cars in particular is a problem. To help with the depth Id try adding a lot more contrast. make the deeper bits darker, but also add some contrast with the hues.
Here, I hope you dont mind, but after I saw the reference pics I carried on fiddling with my previous edit:

From the pic I interpreted the body shape rather different, more like how you did the blue one (benneton? I don't know!).
To add some depth I've tried to add more contrast in the pallette as I described above.
Where I mentioned about contrasting hues - if you look at my pallette, the mid tone is a plain red, but the highlighting colours shift towards orangey yellows and get more saturated, and the shadow colours shift more towards purple and less saturated. This seems a fairly common trick but it instantly helps with contrast and vibrancy. I've also made the greys more bluish, and the white more greeny yellow. Pure white always looks a bit flat to me, save it for the highlights on the white cars.

Basically on those I'd try to use the same technique, exaggerate the depth on them, dont make the bodies pure white, just use that on the shines, and steer away from using a flat grey on the shadowed areas.
I wouldnt worry too much about remodelling the bodies like I had, I think the blue one and the super aguri's bodies in particular look good.

I'm really just mentioning techniques I've picked up from others here, but hopefully It'll help!

[Hyun]

Sweet edit Nev - you have come to my rescue more than once. I owe you a lot! Pure white should definitely be reserved for highlights, and I can see why it looks pretty uninspiring on the cars. Same goes for the dull greys. I think after that edit, I may have a go at redoing the bodies of the cars. I've got a good idea of what to do now from that edit. Should help out with getting some depth into the cars. The blue one is Renault, Benetton stopped sponsoring them quite a while ago. And the third car is a Panasonic Toyota, fourth being Honda F1 Racing - if anyone cares!

[Hyun]

Now with EXTRA CONTRAST! Thanks again Nev for the help! Shame I can't get other people's opinions on the cars - guess this isn't a place where people like cars!

[setz]

It's not that I don't like cars, it's that know nothing about them . EIther way, they look pretty awesome. the 3rd one looks abit flat, but other than that i really don't see much wrong with them.