Official Off-Topic Thread 2014

[Carnivac]

That looks really nice overall. One crit I have is that mountains do not generally look like that. The shape of your mountains are very naive (for lack of a better word) and look like pyramids more than anything.

I know.  I've tried so many ways though to do decent mountains in limited tiles (had a whole folder of mountain reference pics but I found it so difficult to develop a small but usable tileset of them that wasn't complex).   I have made those ones in the screenshot fairly pointy though but there is a flatter top tile that I use in various ways.  I kinda went with pointy diagonal ones in that shot because it's the coast and so it's like the mountain range's starting point.  Maybe I'll play around with them some more.  I've just had another idea about how to redesign the mountain tiles and may have a go later but at this point I'm kinda getting sick of redoing all the early bits for the nth time and I just want to move on to new things.

You got such nice and organic clouds, perhaps you can put some more work into making your mountain tiles more modular as well. Also I would make some tiles which would allow for overlapping clouds and mountains, both clouds going infront and behind them. This would add a lot of depth to your backdrops.

I like the idea of clouds in front of mountains but I can't see how that would work without creating a load of new tiles or deleting the sky colour from the cloud tiles so they can be placed over things (though I don't want too many tiles with a transparent colour as I'm not sure if there's a limit on things like that on a real CPC or not although I have realised I don't actually use that sky colour in any of the other tiles on that sheet so that might lead to something).

Also, I think at this point it would not hurt to make an own thread for this, instead of posting pixelart related stuff in the OOTT.

I'd rather not to be honest.  If it's a problem I just won't post them here in the future.

edit: replaced the screenshot with one I just took from the game now.  Got rid of the points on the mountains and the diagonal overlapping and tried to 'scuff' up the details a bit more using tiles already in the sheet particularly on the mountain on the left.  Think it looks a bit better and there's something else I'll try later. 

[Grimsane]

Hey guys I'm back, haven't had internet access due to some hectic events around accommodation. But now I'm settled in with a couple housemates and back on the interweb, been keeping crazy busy, getting ingrained in the local indie dev scene (my 2 housemates are aspiring game dev programmers).

I've strayed away from pixel art for awhile and concentrated on 3D, but now a project I'm doing has a retro style target so I've been doing pixel style textures etc, I'll be sure to post it all soon time permitting, good to be back I'll try dropping in as frequently as my schedule allows 

[#36005A]

Also, I think at this point it would not hurt to make an own thread for this, instead of posting pixelart related stuff in the OOTT.

I'd rather not to be honest.  If it's a problem I just won't post them here in the future.

Why not the pixel doodles thread?

[Charlieton]

Welcome back, Grimsane!

Also, I think at this point it would not hurt to make an own thread for this, instead of posting pixelart related stuff in the OOTT.

I'd rather not to be honest.  If it's a problem I just won't post them here in the future.

Why not the pixel doodles thread?

I think this thread was created for precisely this purpose.

Surprised it didn't last longer. Did I kill it?

[Mathias]

Cool. Thanks, Carni.
Hey, Grimm.

[Grimsane]

cheers charlieton, heya Mathias, is he holding someone's hand and guiding them or something else? the gestures remind me of kids playing soccer.


here's some of the activities I'm upto, it's for the AVCON (Anime and Video-game Convention) an annual event here in Adelaide, I've found myself as an exhibitor with my own table, So I'm putting together an exploration game set on an anonymous moon. leveraging the Blender Game engine to make production rapid, and also to showcase it's capabilities, I've been wrapping my head around screen space shaders, and thanks to the blender community have some impressive features implemented already, including SSAO, Light Scattering, HDR with simulated eye adaption, Tonemapping, vignetting and noise. also through the bullet physics Library there is Occlusion culling so my detail can be quite dense without issue (if i implement the right level design approach)


from my prototype

and just a screen shader and occlusion culling test

and here is another project I am active on

cityscape for skybox scene.

and a few props.

cyberpunk retro title, the programmer whom's project it is has just upgraded his working level editor from BSP (Binary Space Partitioning, what doom and Quake used) to CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry, what Unreal Ed uses) I've done 3 iterations of the environment style so far and it looks like pixel level with specularity etc is what we'll be doing, kinda retro meets modern.

oh hope these images aren't too big, if it's an issue i can reduce them or link to them.

[Mathias]

Naw man! He's saving the universe, it's in trouble! Look at that blaster pistol. Hehe just a generic run an' gun action pose. Part of a random, sloppy, daily sketch mashup I'm doing, slowly filling up an 8000x8000 image with sketches trying to nail down some art direction for a potential game.
I really need to get back into 3D! Such cool stuff. For me, when doing 3D, I found it very immersive. Could get lost in it all day.
Worked 4 years doing "architectural visualization" for an architect firm, whose primary client was walmart. I might have modelled (per an architect's directions) and printed massive 30x42 prints of the resultant renderings of that walmart (or Sam's Club) you go to all the time, who knows.

3D Max and Vray:
   

[Grimsane]

nice, and yeah tis quite easy to lose yourself once you're in the mind set, I've got hundreds of different 3D files all over my PC most unfinished I wish i had mucchhhhh more time, to do EVERYTHING haha

 actually they don't have Walmarts here in Australia, maybe a few in the major capitals on the east coast,
because they tend to have american store chains there and Burger King here is called "Hungry Jack's" but in Sydney it's Burger King,
if for no one other than american tourists..

nice, I basically find it as easy as drawing now, I like 3Ds max, my close friend and fellow artist uses 3Ds max, and I've used it a few times, Maya on the otherhand I'm not very fond of at all (and I'm forced to use it in my current curriculum)

Ed: More of the same, Had way too much fun messing with this, he's implementing model loading today so that should be exciting. last two images aren't image manipulated.
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[Mathias]

Those are interesting! Can you fly around those cityscapes or something?
What if the buildings had a linear gradient blended to their lateral faces - starting bright and colorful at the base, and gradually fading out as it went up?
Those screens with a dark grey sky seem to cry out for a colored gradient sky, or some kind of color.
I don't know how psychedelic, crazy you're wanting to go with these city shots, but how's 'bout some transparent refractive texture maps? Like 'iss - http://imgur.com/gallery/H6yM7Rf
As a graphic designer, your negative kerned signage kinda bugs me. Have you tried marrying the merging letterforms together with actual ligature lookin' edits? It would mean manual work per sign, but could better justify the wounded readability with extra style.



QUESTION - Does this character remind you of any existing char you're aware of? (don't make fun of his shoes. they're traditional)



I don't get around to watching a lot of stuff, or even playing many games, and I often worry my "original" concepts are actually old news.

[32]

Definitely reminds me of Earthworm Jim with the head and the big shoulders.


Interesting character though, is he gonna have more of an outfit or just the fabulous shoes?