Bar scene corrections

[Volter9]

Hello everyone!

I'm newbie to this forum, and to pixel art, I need help to correct my bar scene. Here's bar scene:

You see, my bar scene looks ugly. I need advices how to improve my skill of pixel art  . Thanks for any help 

[PypeBros]

imho, the cyan is too bright and saturated for use as a background. Plus vertical black stripes makes a lot of contrast noise that renders the rest almost hidden by the background.

Do you set a restriction to EGA colours ?

[Volter9]

Thank you. What do you mean "EGA restriction"? Using 16 color pallette? If yes, then no, I'm going to use something like "WebSafe colors", pallette from 1952 color. (GIMP Pallette)



Which color I should use for background?

P.S.: This one better than was?

[PypeBros]

Thank you. What do you mean "EGA restriction"?

I meant the EGA palette. Not simply 16 colours, but *those* 16 colours.

I'm going to use something like "WebSafe colors", pallette from 1952 color. (GIMP Pallette)

Aha. I note that those are all fully saturated colours (except when drifting white), while backgrounds rendered with de-saturated, medium colours usually work best.

P.S.: This one better than was?

Yup. You're still using a lot of ditherings, and the reason for doing so evades my understanding...

[tim]

Yup. You're still using a lot of ditherings, and the reason for doing so evades my understanding...

It's JPEG compression, not dithering.
Please save pixel art using non destructive formats like gif or png, and upload them on sites like imgur. We can't really appreciate the pixels here.

[rikfuzz]

it's dithering.. in a png..

[tim]

Actually, you can clearly see the jpg compression blocks and the color bleeding introduced by bad jpg compression. This is a renamed jpg or a jpg recompressed into a png.

[Carnivac]

I see no jpg compression.  It's over-dithered but far too clean to have been a jpg.  And it's 'only' got 49 colours (and the original version has 44).  JPG artifacts tend to push the colour count into the thousands.

[rikfuzz]

Actually, you can clearly see the jpg compression blocks and the color bleeding introduced by bad jpg compression. This is a renamed jpg or a jpg recompressed into a png.

Dunno what you're looking at but: 

[Ashbad]

While I hate going further off-topic, perhaps it's not such a terrible thing to clear things up with an example.



Here's a zoomed portion of the image at an low-to-average JPG compression ratio; as you can see, there are a ton of artifacts and thousands of extraneous, noisy colors present.

EDIT:  This isn't the original image scaled up; I took the original image, JPEG'd it, and then scaled it

[Dr D]

Seems like some people are seeing different things here?

I don't see the .jpg compression either, it's a clean .png.

[r1k]

dithering is more of a way to blend between 2 colors, and should be used sparingly.   The only time you really use it to create flat areas of a new color are when you want to keep color count very low, and are using a preset palette.  In that case you still have to be careful that it doesnt create too much noise.

In your case you can just replace all your dithered areas with different, but almost identical colors from your palette.  In this picture the top row of colors are the ones you dithered, and the bottom are not dithered


also, due to the fact that you have a bright, light background, and dull dark foreground, the foreground essentially just reads as a silloughette.

[tim]

Oh I'm very sorry for the off-topic discussion, but I think it's interesting.
I am currently in Hong Kong and I basically this is what I see.

----



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Ignore the smoothing due to the browser of course.
Very strange, as I don't have these issues with any of the other topics.

I don't know why, maybe postimage.org compresses the images before
sending them to me in Asia to reduce their peering costs ?

R1K's edit displays perfectly here.
End of discussion, sorry for the misunderstanding.

[PypeBros]

Oh I'm very sorry for the off-topic discussion, but I think it's interesting.
I am currently in Hong Kong and I basically this is what I see.

I don't know why, maybe postimage.org compresses the images before
sending them to me in Asia to reduce their peering costs ?

That would be extremely bad service from them, but on the other hand, they wouldn't be the first to offer a JPEG hosting service disguised as a image hosting service...

[Crow]

That would be extremely bad service from them, but on the other hand, they wouldn't be the first to offer a JPEG hosting service disguised as a image hosting service...

I've edited the thread on image hosting, removed hosting services which are no more, added imgur and also added a note about postimage.org. If anybody else has any suggestions for the thread, send me a PM.

[Volter9]

Crow, if it's prohibit to post images on other hosting... then sorry. I didn't knew. Then how I can upload the png pictures?

[Volter9]

Thank you. What do you mean "EGA restriction"?

I meant the EGA palette. Not simply 16 colours, but *those* 16 colours.

I'm going to use something like "WebSafe colors", pallette from 1952 color. (GIMP Pallette)

Aha. I note that those are all fully saturated colours (except when drifting white), while backgrounds rendered with de-saturated, medium colours usually work best.

P.S.: This one better than was?

Yup. You're still using a lot of ditherings, and the reason for doing so evades my understanding...

PypeBros, thank you for reply. If you have bigger color palette? Something like 32 color palette, or 64?

[Crow]

Crow, if it's prohibit to post images on other hosting... then sorry. I didn't knew. Then how I can upload the png pictures?

It is not, don't worry. If postimage.org does, however, sometimes show JPGs (and it seems it does), it's really a bad idea to use it for anything related to pixel art.

[Volter9]

Then how I can upload Images? May be you advice me a service or photo hosting with PNG support?

P.S.: If you are coding, which language you use to code?
P.S.S.: I'm coding Objective-C with Cocos2D-iphone ^_^

[Crow]

Then how I can upload Images? May be you advice me a service or photo hosting with PNG support?

P.S.: If you are coding, which language you use to code?
P.S.S.: I'm coding Objective-C with Cocos2D-iphone ^_^

I personally like imgur.
What language I use depends on what I want to achieve. JavaScript, PHP, Python, Lua, C++; whatever works/is required. Enough with the off topic stuff though. Carry on, please.

[Volter9]

Sorry.

Here's my updated version:



That one better? Or still require improvement?

[Beetleking22]

Thats is much better..

You have little bit of perspective problem with the bar shelf. Try to do all thing with same perspective. I have little suggestion.. Lamps lighting would make your bar more atmospheric 

[Volter9]

Thank you very much!) Can I ask a question: Did you used some palettes to draw?

[Phlakes]

Visual Priority

is how a piece of art tells your eye what to do. Naturally, important things (foreground elements) should be at the top of the list. That way, the second you look at something, your eye immediately recognizes "I should be looking here".

There are a few ways to do this.



This is a striped box on a striped background.

1. They sort of run together a bit. It's obvious why- they're the same colors and have nearly identical features. If it wasn't for the two horizontal lines, the box would be nearly invisible. This has very little variation in visual priority.

2. Contrast- Look at a picture of a landscape. The further the land goes back, the more is dissipates into the atmosphere. That's about all there is to it. High contrast things stand out, and standing out is exactly what brings your eye to that thing.

3. Hue- This is basically the same principle as contrast, but this is not the one you want to rely on. It's still good to use, though.

4. Value- Also the same principle as contrast.

5. Shape- This can either be achieved externally (the silhouette, e.g. that circle) or internally (the pattern in the box). It's probably where your piece is the weakest. It has a lot of vertical lines, and with the background being at the same priority in most other aspects, they're very hard to separate.

6. Level of Detail- And back to the same principle as contrast. This is a big one for games. With a busy background, foreground elements easily get lost.

I'd go into more detail if I had the time but I don't. EDIT: That sounded really douchey, I hope it didn't come across too bad.

[Volter9]

Thank you a lot!) 
I have another question: I created 64 (64 + 4 color of grays) palette, it's good for color restriction? Or I should use something like 32 or 16 color palette?

Palette:

[PypeBros]

Thank you a lot!) 
I have another question: I created 64 (64 + 4 color of grays) palette, it's good for color restriction? Or I should use something like 32 or 16 color palette?

The number of colours you've got in the piece doesn't matter as much as which colours you pick. Beetleking has ~50 colours, but he picked them according to the elements he wanted to depict, rather than trying to have some pal=red(i)+blue(i)+green(i)

Plus, de-saturated colours are naturally 'in-between' and can largely be reused in different places of the image.

[Volter9]

New update:



I think it's a little bit better, but there's a lot of colors (no restriction) and no using techniques.
It here's tutorials about pixel art techniques? Or how to choose right palettes?

Thank you very much for any responds.

[NaCl]

That is a quantum leap forward. Nice job. Now apply the level of care and attention you put into the barstools, stairs, and chairs, into all the other aspects.

[Beetleking22]

New update:



I think it's a little bit better, but there's a lot of colors (no restriction) and no using techniques.
It here's tutorials about pixel art techniques? Or how to choose right palettes?

Thank you very much for any responds.

Thats is pretty big improve there! Youu should learn color theory and Hue shifting if you want better colors.

Here is 2 good tutorial about pixel art colors.

Cure color tutorial:

http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299

Hue sifth:

http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=2836.0

[Volter9]

One question: when I shifting brightness, do I need to shift hue with the same amount as the brightness? Or I shifting it differently?
And one more question: how much colors do I need, to restrict my color palette?

[Phlakes]

One question: when I shifting brightness, do I need to shift hue with the same amount as the brightness? Or I shifting it differently?

I'm sure there's some math you can put to it, but it's really just whatever you feel like. Some games go as far as having the shadows be solid purple and highlights be solid yellow (i.e. shifting about as far as you can), but it's perfectly fine to just have hints of cool and warm. I'd suggest playing with it and seeing what you prefer.

And one more question: how much colors do I need, to restrict my color palette?

Just like the shifting, it's all about what you're comfortable with. You probably don't need more than 5-8 colors per object, and you should try to use the colors you have as much as is appropriate (like using the highlights of the wood for other yellowish things). If you want to challenge yourself you can always set a hard restriction, maybe 32 for something like this. But again, it doesn't matter unless you want it to, as long as you still keep it controlled.

[Volter9]

I'm interesting, is here something like saturation shift?
I found tutorial: http://kiwinuptuo.deviantart.com/art/Pixel-Art-Tutorial-Colors-184802567

But I'm not sure it's good. Do you know some tile set building tutorials?
I still don't understand how much colors I should to put in object...

Thanks, anyway.

[Dr D]

Honestly, no one can tell you how many colors should use. It all depends on the level of detail and shading you want, as well as the size of the object. You will probably need to increase the amount of colors in a particular ramp for larger objects, but in a scene like this I don't think it's totally necessary to have more than a few colors per object.

Often times you will find pixel art with either 8, 16 or 32 color limitations, but like Phlakes said, there's no real reason (anymore) to have to do that.

It's not really about how many colors you use, it's about how you use the colors that you've selected.

For me, this is the point where I study other people's pixel art, find something similar to what I want to create, see how they use their limitations, study their palette choices, etc.

Just keep experimenting, like others have said your last update is about 20 times better than the original. 

[Volter9]

A little improvements: (Monochromatic, no hue, I worried only about values)



I think I should to learn how to choose colors

[Daimoth]

I apologize in advance if this post violates some rule or another, but that hue shifting tutorial (the thread from THIS board) has several dead images in it. Is there any chance of seeing them again? That tut pops up seemingly any time somebody asks about hue shifting, and I feel like I'm missing out.

[Cage]

It's good you've upped the resolution of the piece, I recommend you do so further - not exactly a big picture, but use a bigger scale for your objects - I think that working in larger scale helps learning the principles, since it's harder to get things right by "trial and error" than in a smaller scale.

Stuff I'd like to point out:

1. Everything has black outlines except the bottles in the back and the jug/dispenser thing to the left of the character. (What is it actually? It's not clear) I assume you didn't outline them, because they're supposed to be made of glass, and so, transparent, but it looks weird - it could work if you could see the difference in used material in the shading - shininess, a bit of reflection etc, but it looks the same as other objects. I recommend the video game/cartoon aproach - ditch the outlines in the background completely (or make them very light) and use outlines for objects which can take any action (characters, vehicles etc.) or are in the foreground.

2. The pitcher thing on the counter again - it seems that it's top lid/whatever is shown. This conflicts with the straight-on perspective you've used for everything else - unless this object's top is supposed to be at an angle to the camera/viewer.

3. A bit of a "future" note: in case of any textures, create them after shading your objects. You should work from general to specific.

4. Left part of the bottles shelves/rack behind the bar - is it a shadow (From what? What casts it?) or is it shading used to make the bottle shelf look angular like this:

Code: [Select]

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5. Shading objects - while the highlighted edge "beveled" look works for blocks and flat stuff, it seems you've used it everywhere. Try to give the scene more variety, like making the tables and bottles actually rounded - this will require different shading. Try to look for any cylindrical objects around your house and see how they behave in different lighting conditions (you can use a flashlight or a desk lamp), or look at some photos. For example:


Besides shapes consider the actual materials used - this table for example has some shine to it.

5. If you want to challenge yourself with limited color, try to reduce the amount used in the latest picture - if I'm correct, you've used 20 shades and I'm sure you could safely cut down the amount to 8 for example. You might even end up with better contrast in the process!

6. I wouldn't worry about hue shifts too much for now. Try to focus on contrast and values, and try to pick hues that fit the theme and mood of your scene, try to make them not dull and, at the same time, not over saturated. If you necessarily want to make some hue shifts, I'd try to make the lighter shades/higlights warmer than midtones, and you can try to pick a shadow color, blue or green for example, and make the darker shades in your color ramps gradually shift a bit to those hues before going black (You can try not to use 100% pure black too, but I leave this to you, as your stylistic decision)

Hope this helps, you've already made progress. Good luck!