[wip] Bilou's school : Pendats goes marchin' in [c+c]

[PypeBros]

Hey there. Just wanted to let you know that the project is still moving forwards, although not really on the "pixel" axis, but mostly along the 'animation' axis.


That's what my shiny 'AnimEDS' editor allowed me to do.  I still have many details to fix, and unfortunately, the "video capture" mess up the colors, but I hope you'll enjoy the refreshed animations compared to the old, 16x16-constraints little moves I had before.
Oh, and yeah, there's a bug mid-air that prevents smooth animation. I still have to fix the game engine to adjust that.

PS: dumblador is deliberately stepping the same foot ahead again and again, as if its left foot would hurt if it pushed it forward. (Or maybe it's so dumb that he applied "step one foot ahead, repeat" a little too litterally. I haven't decided yet )

I hope to be back later this summer with a more complete art set, or some ink droplet animation.

[Ryumaru]

Those animations are charming and the entire style gives off a classy, sega genesis vibe for me. In a great way. Looking forward to more!

[Lazycow]

old -> new

I always missed the body of Bilou, but the rayman-like animations are polishing him up very much. What about making the jumps more dynamic?

And the walking bottles (?) could walk a bit faster. They look too lazy.

edit: oh, these are pencil sharpeners? Then there should be walking pencils, too!

[PypeBros]

old -> new

I always missed the body of Bilou, but the rayman-like animations are polishing him up very much. What about making the jumps more dynamic?

I like that a lot. I'll work on something similar. Thanks ^_^

And the walking bottles (?) could walk a bit faster. They look too lazy.

They mostly serve the purpose of being thrown at stronger ennemies in my level design, but they could definitely use a slight speed-up, I agree. A few more bugfixes and I'll get into it.

edit: oh, these are pencil sharpeners? Then there should be walking pencils, too!

Yes, they are, and yes, there will definitely be some walking pencils too: the pendatz. I haven't presented them yet because I initially planned to use 3D hardware of the DS for their "body", but I'm no longer so sure it would be a benefit against some more traditional pixel art. I'll sketch up a pixel art prototype over the week-end

edit: just keeping reference of some Henk Nieborg pixels that was laying on my HDD which could be useful for background design:

[PypeBros]

concept "art" on deviantart

Coding took me longer than expected, and so did the work on new animation. Meanwhile, I've tried to find things to fill the background of the library level while keeping a "intimate" tone. I think I've got at last some ideas, thanks my little daughter watching Snow White and Pinoccio movies

I hope I'll have the required level to convert that into pixels...

[PypeBros]

A first attempt to convert last weekend's sketch into pixels. I can't call it "art" yet ... i've got a long way to run to come with cleaner lines, better contrasts and stuff. Hints welcome.

The new elements (mustache-like pattern and owl) should look like crafted wood and sit behind the playground (red books, square-ish wood blocks.
Same goes for the purple book.

(hm, please ignore non-sense tiles at the top of the book pile on the leftmost corner: it looks like my map converter tool isn't aware of tile swapping yet )

@Facet: I'm busy with an upgrade of my sprite/tile editor that would allow me to "tint" books at will and go further with the kind of "book mess" you suggested.

[PypeBros]

one more iteration ... hope it improves the owl.
N.B. in final version, the "purple" book would not hide behind the owl: it would be on a layer between owl and playground.

[Final]

Looks awesome sir, Keep it up and stay going strong on this project, your work is the one that inspired me to do pixel art. ^.^

[PypeBros]

Looks awesome sir, Keep it up and stay going strong on this project, your work is the one that inspired me to do pixel art. ^.^

Thanks for the motivation. I'm almost ready for a first demo release, so I'm freezing all art until that point. I'll do a second run on the art after that. I still hope to get more comments on how to tame large pieces like the owl meanwhile.

Let me also recap' a todo list from former anwers:
- pixel the pendats (lazycow)
- landing animation (lazycow)
- animate inkjet (facet)
- turn wooden blocks into proper shelves (facet) and add 'storage names' carved in the wood (me)
- a chalkboard for closed-space areas (Hugh)
- more colour, sizes and orientation (and design) for books
- tiles to allow stretching of laying books at will (cyangmou)
- give non-spiky ink a try (slym)

(erhm. That's a whole lot of things to do. I think that will keep me busy for a while )

Thanks to everyone who helped even though I haven't got the time to convert most of your comments into pixels ... yet.

[Facet]

Grats on the approaching milestone, looking forward to giving it a go . I almost don't want give you any more to think about/do but I know ya gotta work where inspiration strikes sometimes . I'd think about going more chunky/planar for the wood carvings, also symmetry; symmetry is great for finding elegant, appealing designs even if you want a directional lightsource or detailing in the end.

I thought the BG whorl pattern was a bit busy/repetitive, perhaps some occasional stand-alones might be nicer, mine actually turned out way heavy-handed and a bit weird, but the idea is there anyway.