[WIPs] Kai's Sketchbook - Need Help w/ Rocks

[AzKai]

Hi everyone!

Decided I would start a sketchbook. That just means that it's all of my recent pixel art. I love feedback and critique so please feel free to give it! I only started doing pixel art 2 years ago. My goal is to eventually work at Square Enix doing games such as Children of Mana. I grew up on the Mana series and used to play it with my father on our SNES, so it's very close to me. You'll probably see a lot of my style derives from styles such as those!

Everything below is 32x32 isometric tiles. Unfortunately the game client I'm uploading it on has the crappiest palette available to man [and women ;P] so I've decided to start doing it NOT in their palette, than forcing colors into their palette and fixing it later. That way I might have some better portfolio pieces. The game is "Furcadia" and I'm creating my own "level" on it, so I'll be sure to let you know which ones are the Furc color palette. I know we'll have some comments about how gross the colors are.

Most of these are for my game level "EcoVerse". It's an RP game via text based chat, so there's really no mazes or monster fighting. It's more a social game. So more areas for people to sit / interact with other people. Please also note that the game client I am using this for does not accept alpha and all lighting has to be "faked" using tiles.

The Black Market



Right now this is the only one I am going to post, since the others are old and outdated. Obviously no colors here yet, and it's not finished either! I'd still love some feedback on the non-finished bits.

This is The Black Market, the area where players can go to sell and buy illegal items. Since there's no honor among theives, there's also a prison here--or an area where things such as live animals can be held for purchase. I've been thinking about putting the 'prison' inside a wall... but I just have to make sure I can code that in the game client.

TBM is constructed out of a ruined temple that was build on the inside of a mountain. And since I don't think theives would be too concerned about making the place look 'hospitable', I'm thinking of trying to bring a bit more beauty into the scene by adding overgrowth or other natural things. (There's a forest right out side with glowing plants and such, so maybe that would work... although that color scheme is different than the color scheme I was going to go with here )

This is not the actual room or how things will be laid out. This is just a small room where I can build and test the tiles.

[Decroded]

I love this, gives off a great nostalgic feeling.
Small crit (so my post isn't deleted )

• Perspective of the lighting on the wall behind torches feels more front-on and throws off the perspective a touch for me. I like the 2-ring gradation but variying the shape of it to follow the forms of the bricks would look better and automatically fix the perspective.
• I feel the highlight in the middle of the column is too straight and makes the whole thing feel too square. Would be more interesting to emphasize the carved forms and let them contrast with the squareness of the top and bottom blocks.
• The floor could use a little extra darkness around the corners and sides
• Tops of crates could use some variation in the texture, it looks a little "tutorialish" at the moment.

Please can we see more?

[AzKai]

Hey thanks for the reply! Haha I like that--nostalgic! I'll take that

Definitely I see all of your points! I'll work those edits in, as I agree with all of them! Thanks for the input

[AzKai]

Okidokey so here is an updated version!

Decroded I worked on the elements that you said, however; I chose to keep the pillars square. When I was working on them I wanted them to kind of have a 'chisseled out of a square pillar' feeling >_< I feel like maybe I should go back and fix it if they *don't* look square. <.<; But I'll try non square ones later as well to see which look better--just haven't had time yet.



I also need some help with these rock walls. Like tons. I'm using Sword of Mana's walls as a "guide", both for color and shape. But clearly I'm missing something here... I can't figure out how they're placing the last highlight color. The second to last I understand (or think) is the shape of the rocks themselves and that's all well and good... but I can't make the final color work. >_< (Also, I can't vary the colors much. They're snapped to the game client's colors.) And no, this is not a rip so I figured it's OK to post.

I don't know why but rocks have always been the hardest thing for me... >_<

[Ambivorous]

Definitely an improvement! Looking awesome.
I'd say the lighting on the ground is a little too perfectly round. The lighting on the walls looks much more real. Also, why do the walls get so little detail compared to everything else? Poor things!

From a design point of view, I'd think prison bars shouldn't be bent, or they would be easy to escape from because bent metal is easy to bend more (not to mention the giants gaps any human could crawl through), but that's just a touch of realism. It's fantasy though, so anything goes.


Now, as for your rock wall problem. I tried my hand at a rock wall quickly using the colours from the image on the right (which I assumed were the colours you had to choose?), and then realised I am useless at imagining a rocky texture, so I made a spikey ball instead.
Then I realised that if you look at the spikey ball differently it could look like a rocky hole! Woo! Accidental thing that is good.



What I learned from this is that every colour/highlight is used exactly the same -to define the shape more- just in a lighter situation. I think you are just using your second lightest colour (the pink) incorrectly (and also you're missing an intermediate colour between it and the purple).
In the picture on the left they've used that pink very liberally with only a touch of orange after (my images do not do the same).

I'd say draw some irregular objects that you're used to drawing using that colour palette, and also try drawing a rocky wall with just grayscale (and perhaps only 4 shades). Then put the two together later.


Aaaand that's my 2 cents. Keep up the good work. ^^

[AzKai]

AWESOME spikey ball! Thank you!

Thanks for all of the awesome help! I facepalmed because I have no idea why I didn't think of doing this in greyscale before. XD But here is my go at it: (Mine is on top, Sword of Mana on the bottom)



While I feel like it's BETTER I'm still frustrated because I know it's not "there" yet. I still don't know WHY. I feel like I'm getting a better grasp on that second lightest color that I wasn't using correctly before (and the brightest) but my rocks look so "soft"... I don't want them to look "soft", I want them to have that jagged look that they do in Sword of Mana. So than I tell myself "Well it's obviously the pixel clusters", but, I can't figure out what's "different". Are my pixel clusters too soft around the edges? Too 'perfect'? Do they need some jaggies? WTF is up >_<

And thanks for the critique! I definitely agree with you about the prison bars. However; when I had them straight they just looked too... 'neat'. But we certainly wouldn't want people to crawl out! Maybe I'll add some decoration bars that'll keep people from being sneaky--hehe. And doh! You're right, that light it way too perfect. >_< I was on this 'simplistic' streak before trying to make things too detailed... so I'm still getting there. XD Thanks! I'll work on all of those things too

Now, as for these rocks...

[Ambivorous]

Haha, glad I could be of help!

Your rocks issue has me intrigued. I once made some nice looking rocks and it must have been by pure chance because I couldn't replicate it afterwards.
Here they are for reference:


So I did a quick study (quick for me means an hours or so) on the effects of clusters and contrasts with regards to the "sharpness" of objects.
Here's how that turned out:


Basically -if you want sharper looking rocks- not only do you need straighter lines around your clusters (so essentially you'd be using skewed rectangles to draw your rocks), but you also need to keep the contrast high. Which is to say, putting your lights next to your darks separated only by a thin line or possibly nothing at all.
In the end I was able to give all my rock surfaces more awesome with nothing more than a few pixels (line or cluster) of the darkest shade to highlight (lowlight?) cracks or depressions.

And also remember, the closer the light source to your object, the less of the lightest colours will appear on your surface, so since the light source for Mana's rock wall there is quite far away, they've used lots of the two lightest shades (ie. the liberal use of pink), whereas your latest edit and my earlier edits have a closer light source (very close for mine) and so a lot less of the lighter shades.

Good luck!

[AzKai]

Heya Ambi.

Thanks for all of the help! I definitely see what you mean with the light and using the contrast with sharp angles to get that sharper look. I did that and it DEFINITELY worked. Than I tried to translate that 'style' into a style more like SoM and that's where everything fell apart [again]. 



So, I feel like these definitely look more like 'rocks'... but I'm still not where I want to be. >_< I've been trying to nail these rocks down for about a month and I'm ready to throw my hands up. Maybe I should just give a try at something like this instead http://www.wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=7798.50

The more I look at fantasy games that I like the more stylized I realize they are, and I feel like my stuff doesn't even touch that.

[Ambivorous]

So I tried my hand at making your rocks more SoM-like, but alas failed horribly. I couldn't replicate it either, so your rocks are currently above my level entirely.
That said, I don't want to feel discouraged by the fact you can't mimic another artist's work. All art is about finding a way that works for you and then perfecting it after all. And lots of practice of course. 

Why not try making a small scene that only involves a few rocky surfaces and shade them using any colours you like (ones you use more often preferably)? You should include other things you are used to pixeling -or want to pixel- in the scene as well. This should help you come up with a rocky surface that matches your style.
Alternatively, you can take a break from rocks entirely so that you don't burn yourself out. If that's the case, try helping other members here with their pixel problems, or take part in the Pokemon Challenge and then come back to this later.

Also! I'd love to see more of that dragon in your avatar! I keep forgetting to bring it up, but it's a really cool dragon. I take it you made it?

[Decroded]

I feel your pain Kai, many of us struggle with rock.
Biggest problem is at the root as I can never seem to sketch good forms that don't have odd and conflicting angles.
The more I study references the more confused my brain gets 

Forgetting SOM and any tileability, I made this progress.

I typically get to this point and lose track of forms, they start to conflict with each and appear more like a random pile than a natural formation.
If someone can perhaps help to rescue this mess, it could be of use to others who suffer the same fate.

The process of breaking up larger shapes into seemingly random, different sized pieces is the trick, but this requires a skill and understanding.
There are many different kinds of rock formation, perhaps someone can shed some light on how they go about drawing some of these types??

Hope something useful comes of this for you Kai I don't mean to hijack your thread!

EDIT:
Since I'm fairly hopeless with the sharp planar style rock forms I decided to try again in a style I'm a bit more familiar with.
This time I gave myself more rounded forms to work, and more texture rather than smooth blocks.
While time consuming and still kind of weird looking, I find this style easier to produce as its more forgiving.