AuthorTopic: [WIP] Adventurer sprite  (Read 9443 times)

Offline pulsecode

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[WIP] Adventurer sprite

on: July 13, 2011, 06:22:56 pm
Hi all!
It's been a long time since i posted here (so long my account expired it seems!) so its nice to be posting again.

I'm currently working on a bit of planning for an adventure platformer.
I've been inspired a bit by games like La-Mulana, Pitfall 2, Rick Dangerous, Aban Hawkins & the 1000 Spikes and so on.

So here is my main sprite so far:

He is actually a development of an old character of mine that i never fully developed.

EDIT: And here is the run animated (as i forgot to add it earlier!)


So, i'm looking for feedback on him so far, crits, suggestions etc! All good and highly encouraged  :)

I am also looking for some advice from anyone kind enough to offer some wisdom!
The jump and fall sequences have been causing me some problems (as you can probably see!) I'm having trouble figuring out how his limbs should position and move for a jump and fall sequence.
I think the jump portion is... well its ok i guess for the moment (though it bears far more similarity to the run that i would like) but the falling sequence is fairly bad and i'm kinda stumped as to what to do with it.
Any help is very gratefully accepted  ;D
« Last Edit: July 14, 2011, 03:06:39 am by pulsecode »

Offline Voxxitronic

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Re: [WIP] Adventurer sprite

Reply #1 on: July 14, 2011, 03:41:22 am
It looks nice, and awfully similar to Spelunky's protagonist. However, it looks a bit too blocky and the shading is very soft. It looks like a gradient, actually.

Offline pulsecode

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Re: [WIP] Adventurer sprite

Reply #2 on: July 14, 2011, 01:04:43 pm
Haha, ah yes Spelunky! Forgot about that one.
Similar vibe to the others i listed as inspiration. He has a little mining lamp on his hat though (the Spelunky dude).

Not totally sure what you mean by soft shading. Could you elaborate a little?

Offline pistachio

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Re: [WIP] Adventurer sprite

Reply #3 on: July 14, 2011, 05:02:46 pm
By soft shading, I think he means you don't have enough contrast, and your ramp from shadow to highlight is too widespread. Think an auto-gradient tool in an image editing program. One of the things you could do to combat this problem is increasing the contrast, that is, darker darks and brighter brights, as well as the saturation. This is also one of those instances where I don't think it'd hurt to scrap a few colors, which would also benefit this. Another thing you could do is bring hue-shifting into the picture, which is done by tinting shadows to a color and highlights to another. Most commonly used is blue/cool shadows and yellow/warm highlights.

Here's an edit I did addressing that.



There's not much differentiation between running, jumping and falling honestly. For a sprite with this size and proportions, this is something you have to have to make sure each pose is recognizable and distinct. For example make his head tilt up more when jumping, and/or have both of his arms in the air. Try to think of creative poses that clearly represent the character's state. Be dynamic!

I have to say, though, I like the run cycle.

Offline pulsecode

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Re: [WIP] Adventurer sprite

Reply #4 on: July 14, 2011, 06:10:45 pm
Ahh, ok cool!
I've been doing this for years and years, but over the last couple of years, work has been so busy i've ended up being reeeally badly out of practice! haha!
I just wasnt sure what soft meant in this context so thanks for clearing that up  :)

Definately needs a bit of a colour cull! I was trying to keep the count low but i got to the point where i wanted to flesh it out and check the animation etc so, yeah too many shades in there.
I really like what you have done with the pallette. The contrast is nice and i think it'd be nicely workable for the kinds of environments i'm planning.
I'll have a tweak and see how it turns out.

Not overly keen on the outline being bitty. I know its quite a common practice to use darker shades of the sprite as outline rather than just plain black, i just dont really like it.
Plus to be honest, it might interfere with the characters viewability on darker portions of what im planning.
All good though! Very much appreciated edit pistachio, thanks  :)

I'll have a tinker and post my results later.

Offline Koyot1222

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Re: [WIP] Adventurer sprite

Reply #5 on: July 14, 2011, 06:41:44 pm
Im like all your work, it remind me very fun pretty old game "Marvin's Marvellous Adventure"

Just proposition: I jumping, II falling

Animation

Offline pulsecode

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Re: [WIP] Adventurer sprite

Reply #6 on: July 14, 2011, 06:52:34 pm
Thanks Koyot1222!  ;D

I did toy with the hat flapping about a bit when he runs. I wasnt keen on it as, because hes so small the minimum it can move (as you have done) makes it look really floppy.
I'd prefer it to be a more subtle movement (to make it look a bit more rigid) but he would have to be bigger for that really. Nice idea though.

I quite like the jump and fall propositions!
The fall is more an "Arrrgh i'm falling" kind of thing, like falling a long way, which is cool! (is he holding on to his hat? hehe nice!)
I think i should have been a little more specific though. When i said fall earlier, what i meant was falling back to earth from a normal jump, like the end of a jump sequence.
I see a lot of sprites where the jump, viewed on its own, looks like a standing jump as opposed to a running jump. I think maybe the standing jump style is the way i'll go as it's farther removed from the run cycle, as far as the pose he would have to be in is concerned.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2011, 03:34:45 am by pulsecode »

Offline pulsecode

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Re: [WIP] Adventurer sprite

Reply #7 on: July 14, 2011, 08:00:28 pm
Okey doke, managed to find some spare time!

I've ...ahem... "borrowed" your pallette pistachio!
Well, i did modify a few of the colours a little, but i really liked the dark green (though i edited it very slightly) and dark pinks, with regards to contrast etc  :)

So, i've re-coloured all of the frames and adjusted the shading where nececary.
I still went for the white t-shirt as thats just the style i want for him. I also carried on using the solid black outline... because i'm stubborn  :P haha!





I think the reduced pallette defines the run animation a little nicer.
Thanks so much for that input pistachio  :)
So now i need to get on with figuring out the jump and fall (and any other tweaks based on feedback of course!)  ;D
« Last Edit: July 15, 2011, 03:53:38 am by pulsecode »

Offline Koyot1222

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Re: [WIP] Adventurer sprite

Reply #8 on: July 15, 2011, 09:49:51 am
old frames, less flopy
« Last Edit: July 15, 2011, 10:05:11 am by Koyot1222 »

Offline ptoing

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Re: [WIP] Adventurer sprite

Reply #9 on: July 15, 2011, 10:41:47 am
Looks nice. Koyot, your versions have 9 frames. What's the idea behind that?
Run- and walkcycles should have equal frame amounts per step, unless you want to have a limping effect or something.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.