GR#129 - Labyrinth - RPG Projection Sprites and Tiles

[Facet]

Awesome painting , I think tradition dictates it should rattle occasionally and perhaps flash disturbing glimpses into a hellish parallel dimension. Austere portraits of the mansion's previous owner who might well have met a mysterious grisly death are another favourite.

I like the four frame run although I'd try moving the hair further off the shoulder in step with the outline in order to counter the impression of the hair's volume changing. Capping at four frames might prove wise if you've got quite a bit of animation to do, you can always add more at your discretion later.

Cuteness abounds in the shiny portrait. I can't resist evangelising the expressive potential of hands here though. It seems a shame not to take advantage of more extensive changes if you have a waist-up portrait installed in the corner of the screen as a status indicator. I think this type of thing would make for a lot more empathy with the character. Also removed partial rim light which was banding with the outline.

Nitpicks; doorframe casts no shadow on either the door or wall and bizarrely I'm reading the lights as a praying mantis with an outsize head ; going bigger, more planar would help.

[StarRaven]

Small update:

Animation:

Mockup:

[Corinthian Baby]

The inventory looks good, easy to read.

I like that you are going for some shadows for a dark ominous effect. But I think your application is too stark. It's the same shade as the ceiling, which is a cut out so to speak, whereas the floor is actually there. I would say either soften it up, or use some sort of transitional color so it's not so harsh moving between light and shadow.

A similar effect is happening with the door. While you give it some volume by making it darker on the bottom which is good, but it creates a disparity in its relationship to the floor. To remedy make a darker floor color, or transitional color like I said before. Also I would argue for more contrast between the floor and walls in general. The lack of contrast flattens it out. Also remember how the sprite is affected by any bg change. The colors you're using for the main chara are bright enough to be easily distinguishable but you also are using bright colors for the tiles, which if you're not careful can battle for the player's attention against the sprites. (Also, please follow Facet's character edit when it comes to rpg perspective!)

I think it's interesting that you are making a game of this genre in this cartoony, vibrant style, because on paper it seems to be a mismatch but I think it is a graphical challenge that is very possible. Scooby Doo was mentioned as a reference earlier, and even if you didn't ref it, it's worth studying because it is an example of how the style and genre can be blended successfully. Good luck can't wait to see more.

[StarRaven]

Sorry for the brief update last time, I was really tired.

I never really intended for the flat lime-jello-green and ambiguous-grey to be what I used for the walls and ceiling. It was supposed to be more like a placeholder until I came up with some decent tiles for them. Heh. Anyway, so here's what I'm trying out now:

Looking more and more like a house! I also mocked up some lighting effects for the sconces. Hopefully that helps a little bit with their readability. However, I was going for an insectoid look to them (I'd like for some of them to be monsters in disguise, who could attack characters that get too close) and "praying mantis with a candle for a head" was exactly what I was thinking.

I was going to do a portrait of great-uncle Horace but I haven't designed him yet. I'll get on that, though. Glowing eyes optional? ;P

Haaands! I forgot to mention those. I added some (though not as good as Facet's, unfortunately) to the previous mockup. I would much rather redraw every portrait, but I have a fair few characters and I'd like to save a little time. (Plus, having interchangeable parts for the faces makes it easier to write in new scenes on the fly without having to stop and draw a new portrait if so-and-so doesn't have a "laughing" face, because most expressions can be made with a few different eyebrow positions and a few different mouths.)


Corinthian Baby:
I agree about the floor shadows. I have to admit; it's a bit of a short cut, but the other reason I'm doing them like that is to give the shadow monsters a place to hide. I'm looking at different ways to do the shadows, though, so I'll keep your advice in mind.

I have to admit that I initially tried to go for a darker, grittier style and... well, it's just not my thing. Too many games are dark and gritty these days! I will have color! Lots of it! Bright and shiny! I am thinking that I would like to have some sort of darkness overlay that is cleared by light sources.

I thought about the character perspective and I think I'm going to keep the side-on view. I know it's not technically correct, but I feel like you see more of the character that way.

[Corinthian Baby]

The wallpaper looks great. One thing bothers me about the wall though, the lower tile, those selective 1 pixel length highlights.

The floor I think has too much contrast within itself. To remedy this, I would remove those black outlines because it makes the floor much too stark and gridlocked. Traditionally, floors should be lower contrast, so the higher contrast/colorful sprites will stand out when walking on them. Right now those outlines are the same color as the chara's outline, which makes them easily get confused when an outline's purpose is to make an object stand out. Hm, what if you made the main color of the floor that medium greyish brown?

Maybe add some texture to the rug next?

Oh and about those insectoid sconce lights, I think they're too small, or perhaps understated. It's hard to make out what it is because of the 1 pixel width. This is an instance where an outline might help distinguish what it is and support it.

[StarRaven]

Ffff stupid forum ate my post. :<

Anyhoo, quick fix:

-->
Made the dark purple darker and used that instead of the black.

Tried some alternate sconces but I think I like the single candle on the other ones better. (I know none of the issues with them have been fixed; still only one pixel, etc etc I made these when I made the other ones and I just wanted to see how the shape looked.) The sconces are supposed to be something like this:

I don't really see any good way to add an outline or make them bigger without completely changing the design, so if they're that hard to read even in context, that's what I'll have to do.

[Facet]

Some really nice progress, love the wallpaper & hands. I think adding elements like the hands as a separate entity, a few variants on top of a static portrait is a nice middle ground between the ideal of many entirely redrawn emotive portraits and the much more attainable static base with facial expression change which can look a little stilted sometimes. With the addition of the lighting effect the original sconce is of course much better but I still think it just gets lost a bit at that size and as also a consequence of being comprised mostly of line; I would however very much like to see it come alive .

Corinthian Baby makes some great points about readability and shadowing; increasingly you're introducing quite busy global patterning whereas implied detailing with lower contrast, some flatter areas would allow the eyes to 'rest' more on what's important, ie mechanical elements. I'd tone down the brown swirls on the UI a bit which distract a little and seem like space-filler and concentrate on making the lighter, structural swirls look great, perhaps shiny, metallic in addition to creating a few tile variants of the boards. Also, lengthening those a bit, perhaps just removing every other divide would look more floor-boardy.

You mentioned a shadow overlay earlier which sounds like a great idea instead of getting caught up too much in per-tile rendered lighting, a test run of these would be great too.

Ffff stupid forum ate my post. :<

Ctrl-C that sucker for security before posting, that can be an enormous pain .

[StarRaven]

Yeah, I was trying something with those swirls but it's better without them. Some other stuff will pretty much cover those spots anyway. Anyhoo, mocked up a darkness effect finally:

Still working on those sconces. Nothing I want to show off just yet.

Worked on the run animation:

I'm pretty happy with the front view so far.

And I'm testing out the portrait with the expressions I have done so far. No hands yet. Okay, I admit it, I did it for fun. XD I just wanted to watch her blink.


And some scraps:

Characters, items, character status doodad.

I am thinking that one of the top corner bits of the UI could extend into a place for a mini-map. It could be toggled open/closed maybe? Hm....

[Facet]

Frontal run is great (awesome hair bounce) as is the adorable animated portrait and item icons.

Minor stuff; the jaggys at the widest point of the hair in the static frontal sprite and the lack of a corresponding far hand in the profile run.

The shadows definitely inject some good old-fashioned ghost story atmosphere. The whole thing's looking great   

[kab00m]

Looks great. Are you actually turning this into a game?