GR#175 Xedrai's Sprites - Gameart

[Xedrai]

Hi!

I'm making a project for a kind of "mod" for a game called Tibia, where I make the world of Middle-Earth from LOTR.
Right now I'm using most of their graphics but I want to replace as much as possible so it becomes my own game. Right now I'm doing the more simple things like groundtiles and items, but I hope to learn to make creatures and animations too.


Here are a couple of sprites I've made:

Some boulders


A dwarven sword (based of this picture: http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110926150049/lotr/images/thumb/7/79/Dwarven_sword.png/200px-Dwarven_sword.png )
I'm not really happy with the blade on this one...


Narsil


Orcrist


Mithril armor (I think, not sure yet)


Golden sword


Some groundtiles:
They need more contrast, will update on this...


I'll try to post new things as soon as I make them!


/Xedrai

[Cyangmou]

Why bothering in 2014 project-wise with that dead military perspective, which is outdated since several years.

This perspective biggest issues are the followings:

-unatural feeling, weak form impression (that projection is from the viewing angle and the axis relationships practically a lot worse than Iso or Oblique)
-no possibility to mirror sprites (you need to draw 4 directions for sprites to make them work for that projection. For a basic rpg perspective you will have 8 directional sprites, if you draw animations for 5 directions and mirror them - and they are easier to animate because the main axis is straight)
-hard to illustrate detailled stuff on low res, 45° lines are suboptimal for getting crisp and clean pixel art

It simply leads art and project-wise to nothing good and you have much better options.

[Xedrai]

Why bothering in 2014 project-wise with that dead military perspective, which is outdated since several years.

This perspective biggest issues are the followings:

-unatural feeling, weak form impression (that projection is from the viewing angle and the axis relationships practically a lot worse than Iso or Oblique)
-no possibility to mirror sprites (you need to draw 4 directions for sprites to make them work for that projection. For a basic rpg perspective you will have 8 directional sprites, if you draw animations for 5 directions and mirror them - and they are easier to animate because the main axis is straight)
-hard to illustrate detailled stuff on low res, 45° lines are suboptimal for getting crisp and clean pixel art

It simply leads art and project-wise to nothing good and you have much better options.

Because I like the style of those kinds of games and I use existing tools and and game engine/server that is made for this kind of game and perspective.
Although since I'm interested in trying to make other kinds of games too I'll try to make other kinds of sprites too.

And if I'm not mistaken in Tibia they only make the backside and frontside and then rotate and flip the image to cheat a little bit, not 100% sure but yeah. And they only use 2 animations and 4 directions.

But to get back to the sprites, do you have anything to say about the ones I made?
(The first picture isn't my things btw)

[Facet]

Why bothering in 2014 project-wise with that dead military perspective, which is outdated since several years.

I think that’s pretty close minded; why use 'outdated' pixelart This is oblique projection and 45° lines are pretty crisp? There are definitely advantages to this approach too imo, particularly to do with clarity and tiling that I don’t really want to go into but I dunno why this is a issue.

I'm a bit tired to give a full crit, sorry, but those rocks are very repetitive in size and shape, almost arranged in rows, the weapons look nice and in style with Ultima... I mean Tibia.

[Kren]

Cyangmou, that's like asking: "Why use pixelart in the first place?".

hmm my main concern in the boulder is the lack of depth compared to the stone well,  the sword do look fine, perhaps improve the black outline AA? compared to the ones in tibia yours is just lacking in the AA. Even the last one the curve does look fine, when adding the shade  and the black AA the curve will look better and less pixel-ly

[Adam]

Because I like the style of those kinds of games and I use existing tools and and game engine/server that is made for this kind of game and perspective.

I'm really interested which tools/game engine you are using. It might be of use for my will-never-be-done RPG.

As for crits. The dwarven sword looks too pillowy, banded even. Try to define the planes with "clusters". Look at those swords you posted as reference! They all have flat/semi-flat surfaces.

The Narsil looks OK, but the inner black lines look too strong. If you are about to follow the movie art, you might consider to make the hilt area a bit more slim, otherwise a I would suggest making it a bit more "fancy" - it's a legendary sword.

I would also suggest adding some saturation to the metal parts.

[Xedrai]

Because I like the style of those kinds of games and I use existing tools and and game engine/server that is made for this kind of game and perspective.

I'm really interested which tools/game engine you are using. It might be of use for my will-never-be-done RPG.

As for crits. The dwarven sword looks too pillowy, banded even. Try to define the planes with "clusters". Look at those swords you posted as reference! They all have flat/semi-flat surfaces.

The Narsil looks OK, but the inner black lines look too strong. If you are about to follow the movie art, you might consider to make the hilt area a bit more slim, otherwise a I would suggest making it a bit more "fancy" - it's a legendary sword.

I would also suggest adding some saturation to the metal parts.

The tools I'm using are developed for people how want to make their own servers with the Tibia client (their game engine thingy) and graphics, but there is an open source client made by the community on OTLand.net that works the same way but without any copyright issues. Also all the tools I'm using (map editor, server etc) are over at OTLand too.

I don't really know what you mean by clusters but I'll do a search for it and try to learn! And I don't really know how I wanted the blade to be. At first I wanted it to be kinda flat and just sharp at the edges, but I don't know if I'm satisfied with that concept.

I'll try to edit Narsils hilt, although I think it might become too slim. I don't really know how to make it fancier if I should use the moviesword as a reference, I tried with the hole in the pommel and there should also be a small gold detail there but it might be too small to get in, I'll se if I can do anything about it.

Here is an update on Orcrist.
I've tried doing the blade atleast 50 times and this is the one I think looks the best, but it still doesn't look right...

[Cyangmou]

Why bothering in 2014 project-wise with that dead military perspective, which is outdated since several years.

I think that’s pretty close minded; why use 'outdated' pixelart This is oblique projection and 45° lines are pretty crisp? There are definitely advantages to this approach too imo, particularly to do with clarity and tiling that I don’t really want to go into but I dunno why this is a issue.

I don't intended to make the thread bad or to question what kind of style somebody uses. If one wants to do something, he should go for it.

although my concern was: if you have 1000 assets and a single asset takes in average an hour to produce and looks alright or an asset takes with another perspective in average half an hour to produce and looks also alright and maybe a bit less awkward (or just animating it is a lot easier due to the straight axis), then it might be worth to consider a different approach.
This question however don't appears here, because we are talking about a Tibia Mod - which wasn't stated initially.
Tibia solely supports that perspective and there is no other way and so it's perfectly fine to use it.

Clusters:
http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=8110.0
http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=15566.0

[Xedrai]

Here's a start to a cavetroll.
Just started a little bit on the legs, do you guys have any suggestions on what could be better?

[Xedrai]

I made an armor!
Feedback needed, I need to know if I'm going the right way or learning wrong techniques.



EDIT:

And here's a golden sword:

[Vakinox]

I don't mean to jump in to be the bearer of bad news or anything, but unless you are a community favorite or presenting a piece that is acceptable to their tastes, it is very hard to get proper feedback from my experience. Portrait pieces tend to be a big thing and platformers too, and RPG 3/4th perspective pieces (Beetleking) if your art seems serious enough. Newbies tend to frequent the place often so it's understandable that most community members try to ignore them and let most pleas or requests for constructive criticism sink to the bottom of the forums. What I've noticed is members here take their art very seriously, as if the medium were for new-age picassos or da Vincis, and unless you're deemed a potential asset to their community or already have a quality enough post that feels adequate enough to win over a response, it will be very hard to get constructive input or even a simple reply. You're exceptionally lucky to have gotten this many so far.

So understand, because even though you may feel like you're putting enough effort and progress into your project that may make you feel like you deserve a response, the community is more likely to sigh and click the next post in a search to find what makes their insides giddy. And even though pixelart itself is an outdated medium that is retro at best, there's still a shunning or taboo around certain styles or perspectives of pixelart.

I'm not a professional, but I believe your "normal" icon art is fine and nearly perfect for the common eye. The cave troll however needs a bit of work, regarding both it's feet, legs, and shading. I wish I were more experienced to give you the proper response that would be required, but one of the things that catches my eye most is the mixture between flat shading around the shoulder area and the dithering in the rest. The black outline needs to be removed, and try to focus on chest muscles rather than ribs. Not everything needs to be buffed. Had I have the proper experienced to do so, I'd take my time and try my best to work and reedit the sprite towards your next step which would be a proper model with head and arms.

[Ryumaru]

I don't mean to jump in to be the bearer of bad news or anything, but unless you are a community favorite or presenting a piece that is acceptable to their tastes, it is very hard to get proper feedback from my experience. Portrait pieces tend to be a big thing and platformers too, and RPG 3/4th perspective pieces (Beetleking) if your art seems serious enough. Newbies tend to frequent the place often so it's understandable that most community members try to ignore them and let most pleas or requests for constructive criticism sink to the bottom of the forums. What I've noticed is members here take their art very seriously, as if the medium were for new-age picassos or da Vincis, and unless you're deemed a potential asset to their community or already have a quality enough post that feels adequate enough to win over a response, it will be very hard to get constructive input or even a simple reply. You're exceptionally lucky to have gotten this many so far.

So understand, because even though you may feel like you're putting enough effort and progress into your project that may make you feel like you deserve a response, the community is more likely to sigh and click the next post in a search to find what makes their insides giddy. And even though pixelart itself is an outdated medium that is retro at best, there's still a shunning or taboo around certain styles or perspectives of pixelart.

Vakinox, it would be in your best interest not to generalize this entire community, and bad mouth the people that make it possible in the first place. We value all members that are serious about what they do and are looking to improve their skill. Many members here, myself included have felt the sinking feeling of putting in an hour or two of time into editing a newcomer's work and constructing a well thought out critique only to have the thread dwindle and the user lose interest in the piece and even pixel art in general. The work in this thread also in my opinion suffers from an area of not being bad enough to critique easily, and not being completely outstanding, where the entire thread is people grasping at enough words to create more than one liners saying " awesome!"

Personally I find Cyangmou's comments on this view not very useful; we may say to new users to start smaller or focus less on stylizations, but we are not here to say " do something completely different".

This is not a warning, but I invite you to drop the overly sarcastic feelings about this community and become an active member that helps pixelation grow. We are always in need of new people that don't just peek their head in for a month or two.

Xedrai: Your weapon icons seem generally well made. I think your art is suffering from too many shades for small sprites, and a more general, almost pillow shaded form as opposed to trying to replicate textures such as highly reflective metal. Finding references of the items you are wanting to represent, and perhaps even scaling them down to a similar size might give some insight into how to better represent these forms on such a small canvas.

[Vakinox]

Not to press the issue, but a generalization would be using specific instances limited to only my experiences and using them to judge the community overall. This constructive criticism is coming from the two years I've been on this site and watching other threads, alike my own, banished without care or welcome to the bowels of the forums.

There's only been one genuine offer and exceptional tutor from here in my time here, but they didn't stick around long and hastily abandoned any and all progress with me despite it being the same simple request I've had since the last two years which is help on one GB style 8-bit sprite which I am patiently still working on with very sparse input from any pixelart communities because of their seemingly narcissistic in-crowd circlejerk. Most will drop in one critique and leave it at that. And because people find it's unnecessary to lend me or anyone in my situation a hand, we're the ones that has to suffer for it and has the hard time learning or correcting ourselves in the end. Thus spend years wading through trial and error to no avail. 

Not to mention I have those real life issues (jobs, bills, etc) too, or a.k.a that lack of time to do this stuff but I still make time to do it and come on here and comment anyways. Yet somehow, this excuses other people's rudeness instead of my own when I pointing out theirs. As for other new users of the community, the description in my other comment still stands which is even further confirmed by the comment you made. It's not sarcasm, maybe a bit sharp but it's from just the simple truth these things exist and happen which is even acknowledged and reflected by your own statements.

Personally I would've loved to be a part of the community, to grow, expand my portfolio, and learn as much as I could. However, it's you guys who rejected people like me and the rest of the people that simply gave up. You don't need new comers, you only value people who are already professionals to come and further bring traffic and reputation to the site and to help yourselves feel validated by other artists you believe are on the same or a higher level than your own. Apologies for my experience and evaluations, but it's been long needed to be stated and taken under advising.

[Johasu]

@Vakinox ~It's been my experience, despite being quite terrible and presenting work that was likewise terrible, that if you continue to work at it and post edits showing your efforts, someone will eventually chime in with advice.  You don't have to have a straight up edit from a master to take advice and improve and even people with very little skill are willing to point out the things that seem off to them.
It's unfortunate that you feel the way you do Vakinox.  I feel as if I have grown immense amounts in the short time I have been participating in this forum.

It's a skill that requires time and practice.  Like any skill the best way to learn is to just do.  Look at how others did things and try to pick it apart.  Keep trying new things until it begins to work.  The members of this forum aren't obligated to respond to any threads, that I know of.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
On topic:  It feels odd to me that your weapon, armor, and other elements are all at odds with one another on perspective.  The anvil stands up with the well and the troll.  The helmet is sitting up at a different angle or is it laying down on it's back?  Now the armor is straight forward.
Maybe these are typical of the perspective/style you are going for. (I don't know)

Are you constructing the sprites within the dark border line around the outside?  The black border will eat up some of the value on the colors you are using which is partly why you are struggling to create curves and angles (and needing so many colors).

[Xedrai]

@Vakinox:
At the moment I'm visiting 3 forums where 2 of them are dedicated to the style I'm making sprites in and in this forum is where the most constructive crituiqe I've got so far. So I'm getting used to no response at all but I'll keep trying, I want to get better

The cavetroll isn't really done yet, just started with the legs to see if I could do it. I have a reference from Tibia which is in the  correct perspective of the game that I'll add arms and head with!

@Ryumaru:
I found a link in another thread here which made color gradients which I used for the armor and sword to try to limit myself a bit, think I used 16 colors. I've never been good with metals IMO so I'll certainly look into reference images for those.

@Johasu:
Why the equipment is flat and the environment not is because the style that Tibia use. That's also why there's a black outline on some things and not on other. Now when I've looked closer at their sprites I've noticed that it's not a black outline everywhere so I'll try to experiment with no black outline on some of my next sprites. And yes I'm making the border first and then filling it in.

I've made an edit of both the sword and armor where the sword is less greenish yellow and more orange and some better shading on the armor but can't post them until tomorrow.
I'll also try to explain the perspective and light sources so everyone will better understand the sprites.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I'll try to make something new as soon as I can and I'll post it here when I do!

[PixelPiledriver]

Vakinox I'd like to talk with you about this.
Perhaps this can be discussed more on the General board?
If so please start a thread in the General discussion stating your problems with the community -----> copy paste what you have here is fine.
Then I and others can post and we can try to sort it out.

[Xedrai]

I had a go at a stone. Not really sure if the textures are right or not.



Here's the armor with a little bit more shading on the right side:



And the sword with changed colors, will try to fix the metaltexture on it too:

[Xedrai]

A couple of stone tiles I made. I think I got the texture to look quite good if I say so myself!



Ingame picture:
(NOTE: The only sprites I've made in this picture are the stone tiles for the streets. I'm replacing more sprites as I go along.)

[BatElite]

You use a lot of colours where a few would also do well. On the left the colourcount on the sword was reduced to 8 including background, and it looks the same as the original. The right has 6 including background.

I only replaced colours though, except on the guard where it looked segmented otherwise. You woudl probably have to redraw some things. Also, the contrast on the blade is very weak.

[Cyangmou]

Seems you got a lot of thougths on your icons, but none for your environment stuff.

For my edit I chose your anvil, but the principles should also help your other environment pieces, since a lot of the stuff I am pointing out can be applied 1:1 on other graphics.
It's not really palette-restricted pixel art, rather low res digital painting, but yeah, no problem if you want to go for that (Tibia has pure pixels - saw some stuff on PJ and that kind of style - I dunno).

The underlying forms and proportions you have going on are pretty solid. The peak of your anvil seemed a bit detached (to wide at the left) and wrong in terms of perspective (the straight line looks nice there, but is construction-wise off) - I suppose this is more a matter of taste - I just adressed it since I remarked it and applied it to my edit.

What's actually really bad are the internal lines

I talked about internal lines here: http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=16261.msg148111#msg148111
(example number 2)


You should avoid them if possible, since they really easily destroy the form impression of a drawing and rather go with contrasts -
It's ok to use them if you have stones with gaps when the line illustrates a shadow (like at your street tile those shadows are missing).
You just shouldn't illustrate boarders with dark lines. Someone mentioned that looking at an edge of your room helps you to understand that principle.

The next thing which isn't solved optimally is that the top and side plane are in terms of value pretty similar (shows up once you remove the internal line). The light seems to come from the side (brighter than the frontplane) and the positions of the highlights confuse the lightsource further (front one at the peak seems fitting, rear one at the knob seems to come from the left side) - that's bad.

All in all the anvil seems to be to bright for the material - it rather looks like platinum, than iron or steel. The ones I know are significantly darker and look somewhat like this



If you study it you will see that there isn't a lot of saturation, the highlights aren't that bright and that it can get really dark.

I applied this observations and some small little details (like the form of the base and the hole at the top plane) in my edit and also changed the direction of the light from the side to the front - why that?

If you are going to add an additional cast shadow which will anchor the graphic in the surrounding environment I suppose that this angle for the light direction is one of the best options you have (I just went ahead that the top plane is brighter than the side planes - sunlight, ceiling lamp?).
Can't say for sure if it's the best direction for cast shadows which will be casted from-the-object on-the-object as well.

Read carefull ythrough all points and compare my version with yours



Do you see the big differences:
That your anvil seems to be floating?
That your anvil has a weaker form?
That your anvil seems to be to bright?

[Xedrai]

You use a lot of colours where a few would also do well. On the left the colourcount on the sword was reduced to 8 including background, and it looks the same as the original. The right has 6 including background.

I only replaced colours though, except on the guard where it looked segmented otherwise. You woudl probably have to redraw some things. Also, the contrast on the blade is very weak.

I tried to make it with 6 colors at first, but felt like it was too few colors. I'll study your edit and try making something more with just the colors you used!

Seems you got a lot of thougths on your icons, but none for your environment stuff.

For my edit I chose your anvil, but the principles should also help your other environment pieces, since a lot of the stuff I am pointing out can be applied 1:1 on other graphics.
It's not really palette-restricted pixel art, rather low res digital painting, but yeah, no problem if you want to go for that (Tibia has pure pixels - saw some stuff on PJ and that kind of style - I dunno).

The underlying forms and proportions you have going on are pretty solid. The peak of your anvil seemed a bit detached (to wide at the left) and wrong in terms of perspective (the straight line looks nice there, but is construction-wise off) - I suppose this is more a matter of taste - I just adressed it since I remarked it and applied it to my edit.

What's actually really bad are the internal lines

I talked about internal lines here: http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=16261.msg148111#msg148111
(example number 2)


You should avoid them if possible, since they really easily destroy the form impression of a drawing and rather go with contrasts -
It's ok to use them if you have stones with gaps when the line illustrates a shadow (like at your street tile those shadows are missing).
You just shouldn't illustrate boarders with dark lines. Someone mentioned that looking at an edge of your room helps you to understand that principle.

The next thing which isn't solved optimally is that the top and side plane are in terms of value pretty similar (shows up once you remove the internal line). The light seems to come from the side (brighter than the frontplane) and the positions of the highlights confuse the lightsource further (front one at the peak seems fitting, rear one at the knob seems to come from the left side) - that's bad.

All in all the anvil seems to be to bright for the material - it rather looks like platinum, than iron or steel. The ones I know are significantly darker and look somewhat like this



If you study it you will see that there isn't a lot of saturation, the highlights aren't that bright and that it can get really dark.

I applied this observations and some small little details (like the form of the base and the hole at the top plane) in my edit and also changed the direction of the light from the side to the front - why that?

If you are going to add an additional cast shadow which will anchor the graphic in the surrounding environment I suppose that this angle for the light direction is one of the best options you have (I just went ahead that the top plane is brighter than the side planes - sunlight, ceiling lamp?).
Can't say for sure if it's the best direction for cast shadows which will be casted from-the-object on-the-object as well.

Read carefull ythrough all points and compare my version with yours



Do you see the big differences:
That your anvil seems to be floating?
That your anvil has a weaker form?
That your anvil seems to be to bright?

Actually that isn't my anvil. I noticed that I didn't really explain in detail in my first post that the image with the well and anvil etc. I wrote underneath the image that "Here are my sprites", but I admit that it was a bit misleading to have that image there. I'm sorry I didn't make it clear enough from the beginning, but from now on I'll try to explain better in my posts!

But I will definetly try to make an anvil first thing tomorrow, your edit looked amazing in comparison and I'll study it when I make my own.

The lighting and perspective is a bit special, they explained that everything from the top is seen straight from the top, but everything else is at an angle. Will find an image where the pixelartists of Tibia explain it in detail.

Again, sorry for not explaining it properly. I removed that image so it doesn't confuse anyone.

[Cyangmou]

Shit happens.
No need to search for how the "perspective" which is exactly called a "projection" works (just for me, I know it).

The problem I talked about was the following one if you'd draw it out with some construction lines)

look at the red and the blue line and at the red and purple area



If there would be a hard edge the Tibia anvil would be significantly off.
If there is a soft edge it might be alright - but it is really hard to say, fact is that the tibia peak of the anvil is placed to far at the left.

However:
If the edge is hard the plane is symmetrical
if the edge is soft the plane is asymmetrical

that was what I was talking about exactly.
Although it also always depends how you render it with limited pixel space.

[Xedrai]

I tried to make one based on your anivl, used colors from your too.
Mine was a bit smaller and not so much space between the base and the anvil itself, so there is no highlight underneath. I don't know if this is correct but it doesn't look wrong imo, might be wrong though.

I also tried to add a curve to the "north" end (as seen on the stock image you posted and here http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/0/3257/600443-anvil.jpg)

Also it feels like the "south" bit is off centered. I believe this is what you was demonstrating with your skecth? I tried to fix it by adding a line to the outline on the <- side of the south bit.




Made an edit to try to fix the south thingy:

[Tapsu]

I like the scene and the perspective, but the trees, especially the fir trees, make me dizzy. That is because they don't seem to be in the same perspective. Maybe I'll illustrate it with a little drawing, but I am busy elsewhere right now, I hope you are not in a hurry.

[Xedrai]

I like the scene and the perspective, but the trees, especially the fir trees, make me dizzy. That is because they don't seem to be in the same perspective. Maybe I'll illustrate it with a little drawing, but I am busy elsewhere right now, I hope you are not in a hurry.

The trees aren't mine. Only the stonetiles for the streets are mine in that picture. I will make my own trees though so your advice will be helping either way, but just so you know those trees aren't mine.

And I think that the creators of Tibia didn't use traditional pixelart when they made those trees, cause some sprites looks scaled down or dodged/burned.

[Xedrai]

I made another stone, feels like the perspective is kinda off though... Anyone got any ideas on how it could be fixed? I tried tilting it a bit ^ that way and making the top a bit lighter and it helped, but still feels like it's leaning <-

[Xedrai]

Triple post

I've made some stone and framework walls. Also the stone tiles inside the house I've made too.
I'm really pleased with the wooden texture, the clay/plaster could be better but I think it's atleast decent

[Xedrai]

Tried making a custom grass tile:



I think it might be a bit contrasted, made it on a laptop so the colors were a bit off on the screen. And I'm also gonna do some variation tiles so it doesn't get to repetetive.

EDIT:
I noticed that the pictures shrink somewhat and become blurry when I post them on this site, so open it up in a new tab/window and it becomes a bit clearer.

[Xedrai]

Made a set of walls.

ONLY THE WALLS ARE MY SPRITES!!! THE REST I'M REPLACING AS I GO ALONG!!!

[Neirda]

@Xedrai, sorry that can be a little bit rude, but this perspective is almost unreadable, I think you should really restart entirely, based on a real isometric perspective like this : " deleted "

edit : Wtf that was a wrong link, sorry about it : http://www.google.fr/search?q=dofus+game&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Q6YhU5K0GIWK0AWo_4DABw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ

[||||]

Neirda, Xedrai's persective is more isometric than your example.
I think Xedrai's is top-down oblique perspective while your example is neither isometric nor oblique.

[Quake]

@Xedrai, sorry that can be a little bit rude, but this perspective is almost unreadable, I think you should really restart entirely, based on a real isometric perspective like this : http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=16419.0

He's doing it for a game that requires that angle. His decision to do a mod for the game included this perspective.

On topic:

There's a real improvement throughout this topic! I must admit I'm not a huge fan of the perspective, and I agree with the above in regards to it unreadable.

Does Tibia shadow the walls as they become closer to the ground?

Perhaps one become accustomed to the angle the more they play, I don't know.

[Johasu]

I would suspect it's no different than anything else as far as readability when you get immersed into a full experience.
It's always easy to look at each individual piece and tear it apart for individual flaws.  In a full setup with complete interaction you rarely take time to consider all of the minor details of each thing.
Consider all of the odd perspective situations that have been done over the years that people didn't catch or even think about until much later.
Think of Dwarf Fortress.  That stuff is just symbols but you get where you SEE it for the representation after some time playing.
I remember playing games like this and they always gave a bit of an odd feeling like you were sitting above and to the side or hanging in the air at an odd angle, but it didn't hurt readability.

Right now the biggest problem I have with reading this is that he has his own style mixed into a previous set of work to show how it fits, but it doesn't fit because the art styles are pretty different all the way down to the palette level.  The pieces clash at this point.

[Xedrai]

@Xedrai, sorry that can be a little bit rude, but this perspective is almost unreadable, I think you should really restart entirely, based on a real isometric perspective like this : http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=16419.0

He's doing it for a game that requires that angle. His decision to do a mod for the game included this perspective.

On topic:

There's a real improvement throughout this topic! I must admit I'm not a huge fan of the perspective, and I agree with the above in regards to it unreadable.

Does Tibia shadow the walls as they become closer to the ground?

Perhaps one become accustomed to the angle the more they play, I don't know.

Tibia doesn't shadow their walls the way I do, they make one sprite and then flip and rotate it to make the vertical ones. I make diffrent ones for each direction because of the shading.
Here is an example with Tibias walls, ONLY TIBIAS SPRITES IN THIS PICTURE: http://imgur.com/aPZc6Qg

I would suspect it's no different than anything else as far as readability when you get immersed into a full experience.
It's always easy to look at each individual piece and tear it apart for individual flaws.  In a full setup with complete interaction you rarely take time to consider all of the minor details of each thing.
Consider all of the odd perspective situations that have been done over the years that people didn't catch or even think about until much later.
Think of Dwarf Fortress.  That stuff is just symbols but you get where you SEE it for the representation after some time playing.
I remember playing games like this and they always gave a bit of an odd feeling like you were sitting above and to the side or hanging in the air at an odd angle, but it didn't hurt readability.

Right now the biggest problem I have with reading this is that he has his own style mixed into a previous set of work to show how it fits, but it doesn't fit because the art styles are pretty different all the way down to the palette level.  The pieces clash at this point.

All the diffrent sprites Tibia have clash from the beginning. They implement new ones but (almost) never remake the old ones to fit the new. So some look like scaled down images and some look like real pixel art.

Would it be better if I show my sprites against a one color background instead of with Tibias existing sprites?


Here is a roof I'm working on. As you can see it doesn't tile that well to the side right now, any ideas on how that could be fixed? The diagonal beams on the edge of the roof is seperate sprites and the actual roof itself is split into two sections (upper and lower, I just have the outline of the lower one) so I can't really break the outline to the left without it looking odd against the beam.

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

  I had a post that apparently didnt post here.

Basically what I said was that the important details such as the building should have more contrast, more detail, a highlight made by shading (if possible) and a slightly red ish tint compared to the background. All of those things will help it stand out from the ground tiles.

Check out this picture by facet:

I can explain it some more if you need it. Its a sidescroller perspective in that diagram and it shows how to differentiate between the background and the foreground. A lot of the concepts can be applied to this projection as well though.

[Xedrai]

I had a post that apparently didnt post here.

Basically what I said was that the important details such as the building should have more contrast, more detail, a highlight made by shading (if possible) and a slightly red ish tint compared to the background. All of those things will help it stand out from the ground tiles.

Check out this picture by facet:

I can explain it some more if you need it. Its a sidescroller perspective in that diagram and it shows how to differentiate between the background and the foreground. A lot of the concepts can be applied to this projection as well though.

Do you mean that everything except the groundtiles needs more contrast?
I agree on that, although I think I would need more of my own groundtiles to make correct adjustments. (Hint hint does my grasstile I posted earlier look okay or is it crap? )

I got the roof to tile better, I'll post the result later tonight!

[Xedrai]

Here is the roof finished.

Only my sprites in this picture.

[Tapsu]

I would suggest more contrast on the light colored walls (at the lit side, not at the shadow side), because they seem a bit too clean at the moment. And some more contrast towards darker along the edges to make the edges look less perfectly straight.

[Xedrai]

I would suggest more contrast on the light colored walls (at the lit side, not at the shadow side), because they seem a bit too clean at the moment. And some more contrast towards darker along the edges to make the edges look less perfectly straight.

The problem I'll have then is that the walls won't tile upwards because it will be a seam. I might be able to make som kind of grass border that cover s the lower pixels so the grass gets some volume.

I'll have a look at the brighter side of these walls if it'll fit with more contrast.