AuthorTopic: 'Level 2' Sprites [WIP]  (Read 2847 times)

Offline Lazy Brain Games

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'Level 2' Sprites [WIP]

on: March 15, 2014, 08:20:41 pm
Hi all! I'm working on a shooter for a metal band tentatively titled "Level 2". The goal is to highlight and showcase the music, so there's plans for animated lip-synch sprites (although none are created yet) and a lot of the in-game action and locations are timed with the music.

For such a short game there's actually quite a bit of content to create, so I'm just making this thread to see if anyone's interested in offering pointers or advice for some of the creature designs.

Here's the creature/enemy I'm currently working on. The idea originally was to have the face be sort of like a low-poly matte kind of texture, but figuring out how to light all the various surfaces has proven to be a challenge, not to mention the added issue of making it something that's going to be reasonable to animate.

Here's the primary enemy:


And here's a sort of secondary enemy that I'm generally happy with, but I'm interested to hear any critiques on:



Here's the two together in-game


This is my first time posting a thread for an entire project (as opposed to just one specific sprite) so let me know if there's anything else I should be including in this thread  :) Big thanks to all who reply!


Offline d13f00l

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Re: 'Level 2' Sprites [WIP]

Reply #1 on: March 16, 2014, 07:12:10 am
Sweet!
I like the dithering on the cheeks.  It feels like the jaw and brain should have similar style shading.  It looks like you're still working on it though.
Animating that might be tough.  Feels like his jaw should unhinge like a snake and he could barf out some laser beams!

One thing that seems hard to get right in animations is rotating components at an angle.  How are you thinking of doing it with the jaw?  You could maybe get away with it sliding down, or something, which would be easy to animate.

Offline Fizzick

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Re: 'Level 2' Sprites [WIP]

Reply #2 on: March 23, 2014, 02:18:08 am

Move towards striking visuals within simplicity. Cut down on colors. Simplified and boldened structure. Moved around colors to suit your background a little bit.
I see that you're using outlines in places where you barely need them; think less outlines, more crease shadows. You had 0, 0, 0 black surrounding bits of highlighted color where you could have merely suggested form by using shades you had already created. the shadows I made bluer because you had these blue lights all around the head, but the bottom light I kept warm because it seemed you wanted a warm light to come from down there. Try to bring some of these elements in so I feel useful!  :lol:

Offline Lazy Brain Games

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Re: 'Level 2' Sprites [WIP]

Reply #3 on: March 23, 2014, 07:56:03 am
Thanks for the replies guys! I agree the I shouldn't be using outlines on the face. Great insight into how it's lit. Technically I suppose the back should be bathing in blue light so I'll give that a shot. The edit on the face is extremely useful, thank you! I'll get an updated version out soon.

Here's another mini boss...



The idea is that the environment is pitch black except for the light being cast by the blue flames at the bottom. This is supposed to be rim lit so rendering this thing was tough, it was really challenging working on the palette too. Let me know how I did!