8x8 Game Sprites (Critism pls)

[Meanapple]

Im making a very simple game with a friend of mine and I wanted to try it on a 8x8 scale. I also tried to use as little colors as possible.
Here are the tiles thus far



I dont have much problems with the tiles however the characters are a problem though since we making them go in 8 directions:



If you are confused what sprite means what direction here is  a sample sprite I copied the style from.


Critism pls!

[Imagician]

your tiles looks nice so far. i wonder why you did constrain yourselves so much, since with 8x8 it will be somewhat harder to create something recognizable. i think good contrast between the elements (background and player, for example) is imperative.

so what i would like to see to give some feedback is two things for now:

• put your sprites on your background tiles, to see if they are recognizable in the "use case"
• show us your sprites animated (on a plain background for starters), to see how it works out then. one can't tell that reliably from looking at the frames singularly.
• as a third point (I know, I said two ) put your sprites animated on your background tiles

looking at your still frames, my prediction is, that it won't work out exactly well, at least for some of them, since on the walk upwards you only changed the brightness of the leg-pixels without really "moving" something.

but let's verify that in action

[Meanapple]

I want to try doing it with 8x8 thats why.
While overlapping the sprites I noticed how horrible the second character actually is lol, lets cut him


To you 2. and 3. Point: I have no idea how to create gifs

[Imagician]

on animating your frames: i think it would help you to see if the software you're using is capable of that or find some that can (i guess there are tutorials on this online). it's a big disadvantage if you can't check your animation before it's implemented, which would also mean you have to put it into your game each time you fixed something on the gfx, just to check your fixes. you should be able to verify your changes after each pixel immediately, so to speak.

[Imagician]

PS.: readability is ok  (but probably improvable). I agree, the "skinny" guy doesn't only look different in style, it's also harder to read on the bg (due to the pale color and he's so "skinny").

[Ashbad]

I want to try doing it with 8x8 thats why.
While overlapping the sprites I noticed how horrible the second character actually is lol, lets cut him


To you 2. and 3. Point: I have no idea how to create gifs

It's honestly very hard to see the character at 1x magnification and still hard to see him/his details under 4x magnification.

If you are still dead-set on 8x8 sprites (really even something like 10x10 or 12x12 would be a huge improvement) then consider toning down the colors for the background tiles to be a bit more washed out, and make the characters' colors  saturated and bright by comparison.  Then maybe consider giving the characters dark outlines if possible.

As for animation, GrafX2 has decent animation support (it's also just a very nice tool overall), and GiMP has decent animation support as well.  Both of which are free of course.

[Meanapple]

I use paint.net.
Also the sprite wont stay 8x8 on screen, its going to be bigger ingame but ok I will make the background more greyish

[Meanapple]

like this?

[Imagician]

I use paint.net.
Also the sprite wont stay 8x8 on screen, its going to be bigger ingame but ok I will make the background more greyish

On what device and with what zoom will it be? Just to get an idea how big the player will see it.

[Meanapple]

java and 8x

[Imagician]

Java is not a device... But I guess since you use Java it will be for desktop machines (i.e. not for mobile devices) ?

[Meanapple]

hah sry yes its for windows

[thebombsauce]

I use gifmaker.me at 100 speed to make gifs if that helps you at all.

[Meanapple]

I use gifmaker.me at 100 speed to make gifs if that helps you at all.

that site is great!

[quervo]

Hi, i wanna share you the program I use to make animations and to check sprites, is really simple to use and weights 1.20 megabytes. Although it didnt fit for all the process of pixeling, it has some bugs....but again, for create a gif, is pretty straight forward
http://www.aseprite.org/

The other program I use is GraphicsGale, something odd but also very powerfull, but is not free like Aseprite
http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/

I would like to help you but im really new in this and im only gonna entanggled myself in an answer that probably dont help you
Keep working

[Meanapple]

Thanks but I will stick with the link thebombsauce send me