AuthorTopic: GR#226 - Snake Curses - Gameart  (Read 42287 times)

Offline HezaKey

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Re: Snake Curses [C+C]

Reply #10 on: December 01, 2013, 04:48:43 am
Wow, I started this in September... didn't feel that long.

So I'm really slow, and I'm only really posting to show that I'm half done, with half the things I wanted to do.  (instead of, you know, falling off the face of the earth.)


The current state of things.
Haven't really touched the leaves or grass, pretty much just that tree.
Actually considering making the tallest tree one large object, cause it's getting hard to make the tiles disappear and also look natural.

Also new player sprite.  I actually used PixelPileDrivers critique a lot on this one.



That I then proceeded the animate.  No plan of attack, just... make it move.


Then a half finished walk cycle.  Needs the second step, multiple fixes, and clean up.


See you in the next two months. (my goodness, I hope not.  Ridiculous casual pixeling, what next.)
« Last Edit: December 15, 2017, 08:57:29 pm by HezaKey »

Offline PypeBros

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Re: Snake Curses [C+C]

Reply #11 on: December 01, 2013, 09:13:53 am
Given the amount of cloth involved, I wonder to what extent it wouldn't be better for you to find similar outfit and shoot short movies of someone walking with them, and then use rotoscoping techniques to have the baseline for your animation...

Offline HezaKey

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Re: Snake Curses [C+C]

Reply #12 on: December 05, 2013, 04:25:20 am
I thought I'd post tonights progress, mostly because I just don't know what to do with these dead leaves.


I really just want some rather flat mushy looking leaves, but I don't know how to attack this one next.

There's about 4 tiles there that I'm using.  I dunno, I might be making this tile too complicated for it's own good. 

I dunno, possible solutions:
Make flat color texture and then accent with complicated objects on top. (texture=flat/easy to tile, leaves=object)
pray to the pixel gods
keep trying until something good happens

Can anyone find some examples of this kind of tile?  That would be awesome.


I also pixeled a Faun, one of the forest inhabitants.


aaand still working on this one.  Mostly still need to make things move (hair, folds in clothing), not to move (shading, weird jumps), and cleaning up strays.
Also her left hand... it's killing me.  It drags so much.  Doesn't look natural at all.

PypeBros, if only I had some cloth and some space... that would probably help me a lot.  I'll see what I can do.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2017, 09:02:32 pm by HezaKey »

Offline wolfenoctis

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Re: Snake Curses [C+C]

Reply #13 on: December 06, 2013, 09:15:45 am
Your sprite is not in iso perspective, which from what I can see in your environments are what you are going for (correct me if I'm wrong). I find it useful to construct a grid in the background when drawing my sprites in iso, maybe it will work for you too. An edit of your sprite:


I broke up the monotony of your sprite's green attire by making some parts reddish. Also noticed that you have a lot of high saturated, dark and low contrast colors in your original, try to vary those a bit more. Additionally you could explain what type of gameplay you're going for, it will make things easier to critique  :y:

Offline YellowLime

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Re: Snake Curses [C+C]

Reply #14 on: December 06, 2013, 02:16:50 pm
Those dead leaves look nice enough to me, especially since they're supposed to be a background element.

You could always add detail to both the leaves and the soil, but run the risk of over-saturating the scene visually...

Offline HezaKey

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Re: Snake Curses [C+C]

Reply #15 on: December 07, 2013, 05:20:56 am
Buh, today was pretty much all leaves.  But I think they did turn out quite nice.  Maybe not perfect, but very nice.


I need to make a couple more tiles to smooth out some edges here and there, but overall I think it's much nicer than the last one.  (I may be a little too pleased as punch about that walk animation... even though it's still not done.  It also looks a lot smoother when I shoot it into Stencyl/flash based game editor, but I don't have any way of sharing that file)



YellowLime:
I think I may have been just tired, and a little overwhelmed by the detail I had to do.  This pixeling stuff is pretty much all new to me. 

Wolfenoctis:
You're probably right that the perspective is a little bit off on the sprite.  I'm not sure if the current one really bothers me that much, but maybe with a tad more of a top down view would be more convincing. (like maybe more of the top of the head and shoulders)
I was mostly aiming for a 3/4 view though.  I'm trying for something that works much like the Legend of Zelda overworld, or even most of the Pokemon games, as far as how the environments are built.

As far as gameplay, I'm sort of borrowing a lot of elements that made me fall in love with games.  I love the exploratory nature of LoZ: Ocarina of Time and all the little side quests that enrich that world, and the same goes for Okami and Journey as well.  I also like games that combine unusual elements, like the 3D transitions in Abe's Oddysee or the live actions endings in the first Twisted Metal and live-action cut-scenes in Omega Boost as well.  I don't think i'll do anything as extravagant as those examples, but I may break out of the mold to tell this story I want to tell.
I really wanted to make a game as a kid, but kind of gave that up when I realized that they're not the type of thing that one person can make (least that's how I felt about it in the late 90's).  Anyway, a game just felt right for this idea.
And really this game is to explore and discover things, as well as being on the defensive of dangers that might be present.  This is an endless forest of sorcerers and mythic gods, and I want to encourage the player to find creative ways of getting around them, since the player character is not a fighter. (eventually I want to give the player sprite a staff to wield, but it's a defensive weapon that only pushes back enemies to give some room to flee and escape.)

I also want to thank any and all who have looked at this so far and offered their advice.  This is fast becoming a fun pet project of mine, and it wouldn't be the same without you.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2017, 09:05:09 pm by HezaKey »

Offline HezaKey

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Re: Snake Curses [C+C]

Reply #16 on: December 27, 2013, 04:27:11 am

More tree shenanigans.  I can see pretty plainly now, that my player sprite is not in perspective.  Yay, more work!


All the current tiles for the trees.  Making everything tile flawlessly is probably going to be my last step.  Just because... so much work, and I really want to make some more plants and foliage.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2017, 09:16:29 pm by HezaKey »

Offline tim

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Re: Snake Curses [C+C]

Reply #17 on: December 27, 2013, 05:05:44 am
Wow, what an incredible improvement over your first post.
Your tree textures & the pixel clusters are looking much better, the leaves are good.

I feel annoyed by the very harsh difference between your tiles. We're going from "full leaves" to "no leaves at all". You could add a tile with just a few leaves instead of none. Also, leaves should packed under the trees where they fall, instead of being randomly placed on the ground.

Also, even if your trees are incredibly better than before, I think that somehow, you could make your trunks less straight and twist them more. It would make them more interesting. Why being stuck on a grid ? Some trees could have way bigger roots. Some patch of grass, flowers, and mushrooms would be nice too. I don't know how you plan to finish your trees if the player goes up the screen, because the foliage would cover the whole area. It seems almost impossible to me to make a dense forest with such a view, especially with high trees.
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Offline HezaKey

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Re: Snake Curses [C+C]

Reply #18 on: January 17, 2014, 11:24:21 pm
@tim
Ahh, those are all such good points.  I hadn't even thought of how upward movement was going to be a problem with those trees.  I suppose I'll have to be careful with that when designing different screens, but I think I can handle it by either covering up sections or terminate the trees into stumps.

You're right on the dead leaves, they're going on the two fix list. (and gosh, such a list it is)



So I tried to make some bushes.  These were a no, but I'm showing them for the sake of process.



And then, I really like the texture on these, but somehow they ended up so flat looking.  Only a couple or so seem to have volume, and I'm still trying to figure out how to fix it will still keeping it tileable.


So I gave up and kind of used them as a flat texture on here.  My ultimate goal is to make some bushes run along the top to indicate that area is impassible.


mo trees.


Then I got tired of all that and went back to making this snake temple.  Still needs x10 more snakes, but I was really trying to get the overall structure down first.

This are some thoughts for myself, but I may be reaching a point where I need to plan a little bit more.
Since besides more trees, vegetation, and ground cover, things that need to be made now will more likely rely more on the needs of the game itself.
It'll also help me decide which objects should ultimately be tile-able (more usability, less uniqueness), and which ones should be just be giant objects.

and then I have no idea how layers work in a game that pulls all the stops, but some of the trees might be annoying to layer since the sprite is taller than the tile.  The sprite needs to walk in front of, and then behind some individual tiles depending on how high or low the sprite is on the screen.

But yeah, I really don't know all that much about how tiles work, all said.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2017, 09:21:53 pm by HezaKey »

Offline Crow

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Re: Snake Curses [C+C]

Reply #19 on: January 18, 2014, 09:25:26 am
Damn, this is coming along nicely. I love it. Two things regarding the latest post: the "small", leafless trees should cast shadows. They look a bit out of place/glued on right now. The bushes look really nice, but I believe the thin tiles (bottom left for example, right above that cut off (?) tree) don't work very well. Besides that.. <3
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