[WIP]: Crackhouse RPG Tiles

[jams0988]

Graphics gale, go to All Frames -> Color depth -> 256

Your palette will be indexed and from there every tweak of the palette is echoed in the image.

.....Really? You just made my pixeling about a thousand times easier. I had no idea Graphics Gale had indexed palettes! Thanks, Atnas!

[Corinthian Baby]

My preferred way of working is pixeling in raw true color 24 bit, and converting to 256 when done, for importing.

[Facet]

Forgot to mention you've got lots of nice subtle patterning and surface detail, but in the mockup there's pattern everywhere, so much so that it's hard to read.

Try rendering the wooden floor more holistically, less rigid outlines and add some drop shadows to items. 

[Corinthian Baby]

Ok, so here is a quick redux update, trying to incorporate some of the crits, mainly:
-wooden floor tile was made more subtle to increase readability of sprites walking on it.
-Created a shadow tile for the wooden floor. (crude light test in bottom left)
-Added drop shadow on some of the smaller objects, which gives them more weight.
-Edited the highlight on the round wooden table, but didn't change its texture.
-The border does help the door I think, seeing it in use now.



Also tested some versatility, with the rubble being used to show some deterioration of the walls.

Facet, I've looked at some of your edits in the other threads, which are great. The holistic style is something that I've noticed a lot lately, the idea behind "less is more" and abbreviated detail that games like Minish Cap exploit and revel in. And while it is useful in the realm of readability and low res 2d graphics, it can also be somewhat of a crutch. Although I do believe in the artist's responsibility to visually lead the player through a space.

I guess my resistance comes from an enthusiasm of detail. (which may be my downfall, or say a skill better equipped for 3D work) It also works in favor of the game, to embellish the gritty realistic structures that adorn this 2D world, even though it is only 2D, expressed in 16x16 tiles at a 320x240 resolution. I feel like its style was more prominent in the sega gens/snes era, which this is a throwback to. 2D styles can still be detailed/realistic, and I want to enact that.

[Facet]

Definite improvement but you could go a lot further.

I think you might be misinterpreting what I've said. Considering the scene as a whole and not a collection of disparate elements is essential to effective picture-making. If everything has the same visual priority nothing is visually interesting. I'm not trying to advocate a simpler approach but a smarter one, detail only where it counts.

Remember that rendering > detailing.

Edit - Felt I should demonstrate what a difference lighting could make. Black here being little or no detailing, white lots. I don't know how you'd go about tiling something this extreme but try applying some of these principles.

[Corinthian Baby]

OK yeah, well put, I agree. Now the million dollar question is, how do I do that? I suppose the current mockup speaks to my efforts, I thought the yellow/orangish wooden table would read above the floor/walls, same with the green chair, the blue couch, and the red door.

Traditionally the 2nd layer should get more 'attention' than the first, and the sprites more so than that. Technically, does that just mean adding more luminance to the 2nd layer objects? Brighter colors? And how does that work with lower color counts where colors are constantly being re-purposed?

Just some thoughts, here's an update concentrating on adding new objects:

Some smaller rooms showcasing them:

I see the problem, with some objects blending in together, like the blue couch into the blue wall, or the grey shelf into a similarly toned wall, but when you're always using the same colors it's hard to differentiate each object and not have them similarly colored/toned.

Edit: Oh wow, just saw your edit. Ambitious indeed! Def gives me more to think about.

[Facet]

Traditionally the 2nd layer should get more 'attention' than the first, and the sprites more so than that. Technically, does that just mean adding more luminance to the 2nd layer objects? Brighter colors? And how does that work with lower color counts where colors are constantly being re-purposed?

Higher contrast = higher priority, warm colours pull forward, cool recede.

Love some of the new tiles, floors especially.