AuthorTopic: 8x8 Game Sprites (Critism pls)  (Read 10478 times)

Offline Meanapple

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8x8 Game Sprites (Critism pls)

on: March 22, 2014, 12:40:12 pm
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!
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Offline Imagician

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Re: 8x8 Game Sprites (Critism pls)

Reply #1 on: March 22, 2014, 02:12:39 pm
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 ;)

Offline Meanapple

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Re: 8x8 Game Sprites (Critism pls)

Reply #2 on: March 22, 2014, 02:23:30 pm
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
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Offline Imagician

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Re: 8x8 Game Sprites (Critism pls)

Reply #3 on: March 22, 2014, 02:55:54 pm
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.

Offline Imagician

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Re: 8x8 Game Sprites (Critism pls)

Reply #4 on: March 22, 2014, 02:58:06 pm
PS.: readability is ok  :y: (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").

Offline Ashbad

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Re: 8x8 Game Sprites (Critism pls)

Reply #5 on: March 22, 2014, 03:03:14 pm
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.

Offline Meanapple

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Re: 8x8 Game Sprites (Critism pls)

Reply #6 on: March 22, 2014, 03:18:59 pm
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 :y:
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Offline Meanapple

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Re: 8x8 Game Sprites (Critism pls)

Reply #7 on: March 22, 2014, 09:17:48 pm

like this?
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Offline Imagician

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Re: 8x8 Game Sprites (Critism pls)

Reply #8 on: March 22, 2014, 11:56:48 pm
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 :y:

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

Offline Meanapple

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Re: 8x8 Game Sprites (Critism pls)

Reply #9 on: March 23, 2014, 12:22:23 am
java and 8x
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