GR#211 - Zelda Style - Sprites&Tiles

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

I second facet, I keep noticing that on people's zelda-alikes but can never remember to say it.

[Decroded]

Before I forget, thanks Pypes I fixed the chest perspective at my end well spotted.

Solarus looks interesting but this game is coded from scratch in Java by a talented French guy, complete with cutscenese and throwable chickens.
Here's his site http://alembrume.fr/
Episode 1 but its already playable for free on Windows and Google Play Store.
English is a bit sketchy and I came in really late and hardly did anything (besides the title screen which was an unfinished draft )
Ep 2 won't be too far off as he's a pretty quick developer.
To be honest, some of the stuff I'm doing probably won't even make it into this project but we're discussing starting another project soon in a similar vain but with fully custom graphics and more in-depth gameplay.

I like the Zelda all directions wall thing, but to me it only feels right in perspective:

Ugh...the more I think about the perspective the more my head hurts.
Doing it your way looks heaps better for that static image but it makes so many extra tiles that can only be used in certain places and not in others or there will be some nasty perspective conflicts.
Especially the way your pillars have 2 sets of perpsective.
The problem amplified by this game's resolution being higher than Zelda, so we have potential for more conflicts visible at one time.
Here's an example of how my tiles work now with the outside corners added in:

Simple solution would be to simply not design rooms like this but the coder seems to like these outside corners.
Or I could simply do the pillars on the corners instead as Pypes suggested, making perspective along walls and doors much easier to fudge.

Thanks for the input though.
Hopefully I get time to revisit this or I'll be forced to learn from it and move on.

Need to design a kind of grand entrance for this coming in from the forest which will fill the top part of the whole screen (like Seyken: Crystal Kingdom does but with a straight 3/4 perspective).
Just lacking the creativity I need to base this on

[Larwick]

Hey man your progress on this has been great.
Just thought I'd pop in and say that those walls look very pillow shaded. As a result everything kinda looks disconnected. You'll notice in the Zelda screens PypeBros linked that they tend to have a single gradient from light at the top to dark at the bottom. The effect you have looks nice in small areas, such as where the torches are, however I'd avoid making it so intense everywhere.
Keep it up! 

[Decroded]

those walls look very pillow shaded....The effect you have looks nice in small areas, such as where the torches are, however I'd avoid making it so intense everywhere.

Yeah correct. Thats something I discovered the hard way after spending too long fiddling to get a nice effect, THEN piecing it all together to realise it has that problem.
And its even worse once I add the outside corners
Hope I get time to redo it all.

Right now I'm trying to design a grand n entrance to the place but I'm totally devoid of creativity.

Any suggestions of a nice ancient palace like in some movie I can watch or something to get me in the mood??

[Decroded]

Some progress on the sideways biting animation:

Still unsure about using blurs :-S

Draft sprite for a lillypad platform to be used in some kind of sequence where you float down the river.
Surrounding tiles and sprites are not mine, just there for reference.

I like the strong specular but might have to tone it down a bit to fit in with surroundings.

[Larwick]

Some progress on the sideways biting animation:

Still unsure about using blurs :-S

Ahh I love it. I think you could work with the blur on the pullback and make it more like an exaggerated stretch of the plants face/jaw when it grabs onto its target. At the moment it sticks a bit too much.

[Facet]

Ugh...the more I think about the perspective the more my head hurts.
Doing it your way looks heaps better for that static image but it makes so many extra tiles that can only be used in certain places and not in others or there will be some nasty perspective conflicts.
Especially the way your pillars have 2 sets of perpsective.
The problem amplified by this game's resolution being higher than Zelda, so we have potential for more conflicts visible at one time.
Here's an example of how my tiles work now with the outside corners added in:

Simple solution would be to simply not design rooms like this but the coder seems to like these outside corners.
Or I could simply do the pillars on the corners instead as Pypes suggested, making perspective along walls and doors much easier to fudge.

Yeah, there's quite a few caveats; scrolling breaks the illusion as does the internal walls/any large features that would have to be treated case-by-case for best result; works great on the original but has to be planned around if you want it. I think Minish Cap on GBA actually does use perspective with internal walls and it looks a bit odd. You could actually try all fully top down walls internally (no side visible) and that could work ok, but as you say, easy to snowball into various tiling issues and it's effort that might be better expended elsewhere...

Like a kickass grand entrance! Have you an idea of the kind of period/style you want? I have a massive ref. folder somewhere; fairly organised. You could take up more of the screen for effect, I think, or maybe try some perspective there instead, as a one-off; this Chrono Trigger beaut was recommended to me the other day.

Edit - ''but with a straight 3/4 perspective'', ah right there's always good 'ol Seiken Densetsu 3. (all maps here)

[Decroded]

I think you could work with the blur on the pullback and make it more like an exaggerated stretch of the plants face/jaw when it grabs onto its target. At the moment it sticks a bit too much.

Ugh been too busy >.<


Bit better?

[PixelPiledriver]

It's looking decent. 
The most noticeable thing to me is that there is no action frames that show the biting.
The mouth is violently open, then shut.
I also feel like you might want a couple variations, 1 for a successful bite, and 1 for a miss.
The current version feels like it could be a miss.
I'll try to do an edit sometime soonish.

[Decroded]

Thanks for chiming in mate your feedback always appreciated.
I'll mess around with your suggestions soon.
I was trying to be clever where there mouth is wide open until the very point where the stalk becomes stretched, then snaps closed as if that is the mechanism it uses to trap things.
But yeah probably doesn't have the right effect