AuthorTopic: B/W Space RTS  (Read 3555 times)

Offline wurfle

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B/W Space RTS

on: July 17, 2012, 11:17:51 pm
Hello!

First time here, I thought I would share some sprites I have been working on for a game I call Pulsar.
Keep in mind that the lack of anti-aliasing is entirely intentional, though if rotation edginess is a problem, I may reconsider.








More colorful stuff to come in further topics!
« Last Edit: July 17, 2012, 11:27:30 pm by wurfle »

Offline ptoing

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Re: B/W Space RTS

Reply #1 on: July 18, 2012, 12:09:37 am
The fuzzy edges could be fixed if you made the gfx double size but the actual game res higher as well.
So that the sprite pixels are bigger than the actual pixels.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline wurfle

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Re: B/W Space RTS

Reply #2 on: July 18, 2012, 12:26:08 am
Not a bad idea...
Only problem is that the window is quite large for a flash game as is (the screenshot here is cropped). Would 200% zoom help much?

Offline ptoing

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Re: B/W Space RTS

Reply #3 on: July 18, 2012, 12:29:40 am
It would help a bit. But seeing as you are using flash, could you not use vectors and disable smoothing/force low quality?
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline wurfle

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Re: B/W Space RTS

Reply #4 on: July 18, 2012, 01:35:13 am
Won't I just end up with the same thing in that case? I think the real problem lies in 1px wide detailing.
Though I admit vectors would help if I wanted to resize on the fly...

Offline ptoing

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Re: B/W Space RTS

Reply #5 on: July 18, 2012, 01:54:48 am
If you have a diagonal pixel line and you rotate that so it is straight it will be very fuzzy. Not gonna happen with vectors. Vectors keep their line integrity.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline Grimsane

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Re: B/W Space RTS

Reply #6 on: July 18, 2012, 07:11:24 pm
I thought it was 1bit until I noticed the red, which I might add is not very noticable at all at 1x, but probably not so bad on black

seeming as you already broke past 1 bit, why not 2 bit (unless you're using the 4th colour as alpha, but I'll assume a seperate 1bit alpha mask (all simulated & self imposed restrictions of course))

could do something like this


the 1 bit aesthetic definitely has something going for it though, looking forward to seeing more

Offline wurfle

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Re: B/W Space RTS

Reply #7 on: July 18, 2012, 08:45:32 pm
I like the look of that, but I am pretty committed to 1bit right now.
Those stray red pixels are used by the game to determine the weapon locations and types. They are removed from the bitmap when the image is loaded.

Offline Grimsane

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Re: B/W Space RTS

Reply #8 on: July 18, 2012, 09:35:27 pm
oh okay makes sense, maybe you could have a 2 bit intro sequence or menu system and use black+white and 2 greys, and ship loadouts in menu could be something along those lines *shrugs*

btw is the one I edited side on or top down? it reads side on. I like the one in the test screen, which reads obviously top down. and as ptoing mentioned sprite resolution would help the rotation, or if you use vectorized pixels and have a higher resolution you'll get some pretty smooth rotation, 200x zoom will just zoom in on the identical effect, if it's emulating a fixed pixel resolution. but if you mean 2x scaled game assets then yeah that'll help it will have visible sub pixels when it rotates so



here is an illustration, with generic rotation, obviously the higher the resolution the smoother the turning, you just have to decide what angles you want, do you want it to rotate 8 angles in 45 degree increments? then 1x isn't too bad, but you want 16x rotation then even 2x produces artifacts, 3x is a sweet spot because the central pixel in the (upscaled 1px) cluster essentially acts as a pivot point for every upscaled pixel and is the resolution I'd lean towards if you have enough screen resolution for such sprites (which you should, if you make everything relative to a 320x240 display in mockups and tests and playfield planning , then that'd translate to the same aspect and resolution between the 3x sprites and screen to 960x720 which seems reasonable resolution and is only marginally larger than SVGA (800x600)

also I can see the logic in the lettering but it's incredibly hard to read, might be worth doing the method of having it repeated in small font under the title or something, because if not for the fact you mentioned it was called pulsar I wouldn't have been able to read that

Offline wurfle

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Re: B/W Space RTS

Reply #9 on: July 18, 2012, 09:52:10 pm
The one you edited is top down as well, and it is a lot easier to read as such when in game.
300x zoom looks good but I will have to enlarge the window a bit.
For the title, I am happy you can see the logic. I have had one or two complaints, but I wasn't sure if a rework was necessary. The game will display the title in the window border and next to the version number when I get GUI completed, so it shouldn't be a problem.
Thanks for the feedback! Eventually I will have some better screens to show... but no promises.