[WIP] Town Screenshot thoughts

[skaytr]

Hello there!
First post on this site, pretty excited to get involved in this awesome community

So, I'm making a game for my portfolio. The game-play doesn't really matter at this point, but it is Fantasy  RPG style, set in the "Old" times. Kind of a vague timeline, but essentially, not much machinery. This town is set somewhat out of the way of civilization, but it remains a popular stay for travelers, and consists of a popular market. The town is neighboring a dense forest, and a small  stream.

Now about that artwork. This is obviously super early in development, as there are hardly any assets.

Focus: How the buildings sit in the environment in relation to the grass, dirt, and wall.

Points I feel:
- I'm quite happy with the dirt! only three colors used.
- I feel the grass is a little too "Noisy" I'm not sure what to do with it though. I'm thinking of increasing the length/size of the blades, and decreasing the amount of colors.
- Shadows... I like shadows. I'm not sure I like these shadows. I think they are perhaps a little too dark, and not saturated enough... not sure though.
-things to add! there are many things on my asset list to add, but I figured since this is the basis of the town, I would get some more opinions before I continue in a certain path. I intend to add potted and wild flowers, sign posts, long patches of grass, grass patches in the dirt, stone rubble, smaller crate, WagonWheel, Bucket, Plank, Anvil, Market stall tileset, Clothes line with and without clothes, butterfly, birds, chickens, wooden fence, tree, tree 2, tree stump etc...

I may adjust this asset list as I continue, but given the setting/style of gameplay, I feel that I'm setting up just the sort of HUB I wan't for the player.
-HUD is a placeholder, same with the text font/size/colour.
-Will likely update character sprite. There is no idle animation for him as of yet.
- The shadows have some noise in them, that will be fixed next.

So given all that, any opinions on what I have so far?

P.S for the shadows, thinking about ambient occlusion style shading... could be pretty





Thanks!

[Cyangmou]

the perspective of the wall seems to be fine. The perspective of the boxes is off.
If you draw a house with an 45° angle and you illustrate it like you did it doesn't provide any form.

additional information about this kind of perspective:
http://cyangmou.deviantart.com/gallery/37668128

[skaytr]

ahh yeah haha, the box is almost front-on perspective.. Il have to keep that in mind when I create more assets, cheers!

[Decroded]

Welcome 

FYI its easier to work at a lower resolution.

Perspective is way off you will deff benefit from the tutorials at Cyangmou's deviantart.
A simple thing to keep in mind is that in alot of "RPG perspective", you will see both the top and fronts of the crate as full squares.
Practice making a few low-res objects to speed it up.
Then fix the guy's feet, the bottom should be curved as he looks like a cardboard cutout.
Some of the shadows are the wrong shapes like windows in the roof, and some shouldn't even be there like windows on front of house.

Assuming this is pure 2D, consider pushing the shadow away from the camera instead of toward.
This allows you more interesting lighting on the front of objects, highlights etc, and will bring things out of the scene instead of dulling and flattening everything.

Good luck with it.
PM me if you wanna talk about Game Maker coding, I may have examples that can help you depending on ur skill ;-)

[skaytr]

hmm yes , I see what you mean by the shadows I'l try pointing the lightsource at the front of the buildings.

As for the character, it is just a quick front facing version from my placeholder i had haha. I do intend to focus on the character more at some point.

I feel as is if every single word you guys write, I am absorbing knowledge 
This is literally my first attempt at pixel art hahaha, I'm quite fond of 3D art however... but lets not go there.

I wish I had more time to work on this project, its going to be many months before I have an alpha ready to export

As for GML, it's all self taught. I have a working combat system with level-ups, NPC and Monster AI, random/rare monster drops for customization etc... I feel pretty confident with GML and game functionality.

For now, I wan't to nail a solid canvas for the rest of my assets to sit AKA, THE TOWN.

Perspective.. Sheesh. Gotta work on that.

Thanks!

Edit: I feel as if i should basicly start from scratch, again. I started this project about 2 and half months ago, and have made very little progress as yo u can see. I think it would just be better to start from the begining, 1 tile/sprite at a time. At least I still have all the code for Game Maker, All I have to do is update the sprites

bleh.

[Cyangmou]

if you are fond of how to work with 3D apply it to your 2D knowledge.



->Make a 3D model, set the viewing angle, the perspective and the lightsource
->Resize it
->Apply clean pixel lines
->Color the main values
->now you can add as many details as you want to your raw object

This works pretty good with simple geometrical objects.

[skaytr]

Ive already used 3D to generate sprites

Honestly I could make every single asset out of 3D and clean it up in photoshop


Here is "Blazing_Orb_Drop_Animation" Asset. The idle then proceeds to glow on a loop. This is almost a direct export from Maya.

*NOTE: It does look like its rolling down a glass pane inbetween the orb and the camera, but I can fix that no problem

Thinking about adding particle effects, but thats not exactly a priority right now Thanks!


Update:

Made some new Grass. Much Bigger blades that you can actually see, Tile size is 64x64. Pretty pleased with it so far. Will try making some dirt and connecting tiles. will probably just use the dirt I already have as a base




*Note the darker grass is the second version. I like it better Slightly darker, less saturated, and tweaked some of the pixels.





Hmm not sure about the dirt, Mihgt make the circles more defined. Either way, I think the colour works well with this tone of grass allot more than the first post