AuthorTopic: tutorial sprites  (Read 13730 times)

Offline Grimsane

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Re: tutorial sprites

Reply #20 on: June 16, 2012, 12:15:55 pm
yeah you struck upon some of the things, it is all down to subtleties and use of colour and overall tones, there is something intrinsic, expressive & emotive that can be tapped into with all of those things,
and on tiles not looking alike, that isn't necessarily accurate, there are, but I agree there are a greater many tiles that define themselves absolutely from one another stylistically, and it's just that styles and artistic licenses, styles can also emerge collaboratively over time like art movements,

the only thing is Video Game artists as a collective are not concentrated or arrogant as a whole if that were the case you could be sure that there very well could be a collective pretentiousness that would seek to define a label for each style established, like groups of artists of the past (surrealists for example, not even a century past a group of people formed connections with each other and began exploring the subconscious and what not, the theme that tied the group together was vague but pointed and definitely one worth exploring, they established and kept pushing "surrealism" "Surrealist movement" and now it is an established genre (or whatever you'd like to call it) and each of those artist had an entirely different approach to conveying so sub-genres emerged etc etc which just doesn't seem to happen in this medium), that and there aren't enough critics in the 'art critic' sense, they usually imbue and push their own interpretations and terminology upon everyone else when the artist's and pretentious enough to proclaim their own :lol: while such labels would make referring to each style relatively convenient in conversation it isn't entirely necessary

I personally don't like the pigeon holing and restricted expectations genrelizing things brings, so to some degree I think it may well be a great thing that we have generally avoided that type of thing, one reason I am drawn to games in general is the immense potential for creativity, you can't draw people into a world as viscerally or interactively as you can with games, the potential for story telling and exploration of worlds is unparalleled, written literature for instance relies on time consuming descriptions and well articulated writing to give you the imaginative experience but then every individual has the potential to imbue and interpret something entirely different from the written source, with game art you absorb complex and potentially magical scenes objects characters and worlds like you would a painting, and the narrative unfolds more naturally and instantaneously, for comparison sake a scene in a game could run 30 seconds that contains pointed dialog effective animation that conveys a story, that exact same scene could potentially take several pages of text to convey, and the aesthetic will be completely formed based on the readers imagination and the writers proficiency to convey the scenes. I could keep going but won't  :P

and we are indeed journeymen, claiming mastership would (likely be wrong, but also~) be like dropping every intention of exploring and experimenting, there are almost unlimited possibilities, why stop and be content with anything when there is always places to improve or explore? and arguably flaws imbue character and without our flaws we and our work could be quite dull


Quote from:  Facet
Grim; your 'observations' thread seems to be the place to collate some of those 'tricks of the trade' anecdotally. Then an appropriate nugget of insight could be rolled into wherever it's needed later, (so long as you can steer the thread back on track ) fyi I'm sure I don't know of what of you of mean of my grammar.
decent enough suggestion, I would simply keep the OP updated with the collection of information to be easily viewable, and haha yeah, it's starting to derail quite obviously. but I was getting the impression no one was really up to engaging in the topic too much, I can definitely spend sometime thinking upon creating and gathering relevant material to collate.
:lol: there's nothing wrong with the grammar per-say, it was just an interesting flow of phrases, it was eloquent enough  ;D

ow ninja'd, @Cyangmou: I am in complete agreement and look forward to collaborating/contributing to it. I find it quite exciting  :) Great new additions too.
btw I am doing an interesting experiment with your silhouettes, mostly for my own benefit and to see how good my predictive, and style skills are. I'll post soon  :D
« Last Edit: June 16, 2012, 12:18:09 pm by Grimsane »

Offline Corinthian Baby

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Re: tutorial sprites

Reply #21 on: June 16, 2012, 06:59:58 pm
Yeah that's also something that I've thought about, that there are no "movements" in pixel art, really just core principles/techniques to guide people. It stands as an example that not everything has to be hyper organized or codified under a solid brand or label. However in terms of styles, people will usually refer to the games the graphics come from as that style. Like for example, the old (snes) masters who created Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and Seiken Densetsu 3, have their work refered to as CT style, etc. rather than the style of a movement.

I agree that games are an ambitious outlet of imagination and creativity, which is also why I am drawn to them. But I think to compare the medium to literature is inaccurate in a way. One clearly shows, the other suggests. I think it however might be more worthwhile to compare to cinema because they are both visual forms of story telling. But do games trump cinema because it implicates the player in the narrative? That's a matter of personal taste, and certainly each have their own merits and exist as competent art forms. Games are more involved though, opening up the possibility of failure for a specific task rather than watching the hero (usually) complete it on his own without any investment from the viewer. This is a debate of medium, but I think the context of games, and pixel art's involvement in it, facilitates a truly unique experience.

This new bench looks good, very art nuevo, and I'm curious to see what it looks like rendered in color. I think it would also be cool to see for the bench, the basic shapes/forms that define it, and then how you can deviate from that, and add stylistic characteristics to it, to create something more unique than the basic/ideal, like you did with the crate. I'm also guessing it's still for the 32x32 res. (There was only a question earlier of whether or not that pillar was more fit for 32 or 16.)

Offline Cyangmou

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Re: tutorial sprites

Reply #22 on: June 16, 2012, 07:22:06 pm
yeah the  bench, I am not quite sure what to do with it, as I said something is bothering me at it. Maybe I won't render it, to its finish.

Now I revamped the chars. I am very proud of them, not at least because of the face.

"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

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Offline Grimsane

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Re: tutorial sprites

Reply #23 on: June 16, 2012, 08:03:33 pm
yeah the  bench, I am not quite sure what to do with it, as I said something is bothering me at it. Maybe I won't render it, to its finish.

Now I revamped the chars. I am very proud of them, not at least because of the face.


ohhh those are lovely  ^-^

here's my doodley experiment btw:

got a few things right, but didn't spent time detailing anything, and based most the colours off your chest

@Corinthian Baby, yeah I wasn't really comparing with a bias toward either, and in now way putting down written literature in any way. Just for the point of illustrating how effective games can be at story telling, each medium has it's merits and equally enjoyable to the right audience

Offline Cyangmou

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Re: tutorial sprites

Reply #24 on: June 18, 2012, 09:46:34 pm
should be self-explainable. Is it?

"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

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Offline deadlock

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Re: tutorial sprites

Reply #25 on: July 01, 2012, 09:36:32 am
Thanks for this, it's very educational. Will follow your topic and hope to learn a lot from it !

Offline Lackey

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Re: tutorial sprites

Reply #26 on: July 01, 2012, 03:24:35 pm
I'd like to see your thoughts on how you'd make a tile set consistent with the correct axonometric perspective. You run into problems if you're using 32x32 pixel tiles and you want to have a ground made of square bricks or something, do you just avoid that kind of situation?



Edit: you can get some pretty good square shapes if you use 2x1 tile constructions and don't mind a pixel gap or so every tile.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2012, 03:49:14 pm by Lackey »

Offline Cyangmou

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Re: tutorial sprites

Reply #27 on: July 03, 2012, 01:54:48 pm
general you have 4 possibilities for a problem like this, if you really want to have square tiles. If I'd make a game I'd avoid them, or use method 4, but not because of the tileability



1) like an artist - ignore it (1 tile)
2) like a cheater - 32*21 tiles, 32x24 would be the correct one, you need 2x1 tiles
3) like a perfectionist - exact perspective 3x1 tiles, can cause some problems with level design or if you have a strongly limited amount of tiles
4) like a boss - as I already pointed out, nobody will see the difference in the perspective + you have all the advantages of an iso game, it draws you in, it looks awesone ... needs 2x1 tiles

from the deviations:
1 biggest dev
4
2
3 correct perspective

it's awesome how you can baffle the eyes  with the impression of angled or curved lines. Although method 4 is actual a 32° angle (45° in iso) it's so flat it will read as 45° angle in an axonometric RPG perspective too.

With the gaps and details you can lead away the eye from the perspectivic issues. Although I think a checkboard pattern with some square objects on it looks always cruel and cluttered with 90° angles - this is the actual reason why I'd avoid it.
« Last Edit: July 03, 2012, 02:03:27 pm by Cyangmou »
"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

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Offline Lackey

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Re: tutorial sprites

Reply #28 on: July 07, 2012, 04:25:10 pm
Somehow I missed your reply. Doing the iso style tiles makes sense. As you say, it breaks up the all the 90 degree angles too.