AuthorTopic: [WIP] Assorted RPG assets  (Read 8563 times)

Offline grue

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[WIP] Assorted RPG assets

on: December 23, 2014, 01:17:53 pm
Started work on some art for an RPG and realised I have no idea how to make anything in this perspective and have it look good. (Yes, I know. I could use the practice.)

My last attempt at a field sprite:


Another sprite (not meant to be used for anything) that looks somewhat better, but still far too cute for my liking:


What the character is actually supposed to look like:


The problem is obvious, heh.

Not sure if anti-aliasing the outline is a smart thing to do, but I figured, since I've already decided to use gradients and other non-kosher techniques, I might as well do it to make the sprites blend in better.

I'm also unsure about the art style in general. I'm planning to paint some of the assets due to their size, so I need to ensure nothing stands out as obviously done in a different style, but I'm not certain I can pull it off. The player party and menu here, for example, are probably going to be pixel art and everything else - painted.



Is this even a good idea? Can it be done well, or should I just bite the bullet and prepare to pixel many large, blurry and mostly featureless backgrounds?
« Last Edit: December 23, 2014, 02:20:24 pm by grue »

Offline BatElite

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Re: [WIP] Assorted RPG assets

Reply #1 on: December 23, 2014, 02:08:00 pm
I can't see any of the images, Copying the image URL doesn't do much for me either, as I lack permission of some sort.

You can use Imgur instead.
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Offline grue

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Re: [WIP] Assorted RPG assets

Reply #2 on: December 23, 2014, 02:22:03 pm
Sorry about that, it's been a while since I last used it for linking things. Is this better?

Offline BatElite

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Re: [WIP] Assorted RPG assets

Reply #3 on: December 23, 2014, 03:02:37 pm
Images are working fine now on my end.



I think you should not make the entire body of the character black, but shade it a bit. Maybe not like in my sloppy edit, because I'm assuming the form of the jacket isn't meant to be conical.

If you AA the outline to pure white, it'll look wierd on darker backgrounds, so i'd suggest not doing so.
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Offline YellowLime

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Re: [WIP] Assorted RPG assets

Reply #4 on: December 23, 2014, 08:03:57 pm
If you AA the outline to pure white, it'll look weird on darker backgrounds, so i'd suggest not doing so.
I agree :lol: When you set your sprite over a dark BG, it'll have a weird outline...

You can paint the BGs no problem, I think some games have done that... It's not going to look bad unless there's noise or the colors blend.
Just try it out and fix the things that look bad as you go, but it's not going to look bad just because of the clash of different "mediums". :)


As for the field sprites, you just have to "tilt the base" away from the viewer. :P
The typical top-down view has the characters tilted slightly downwards (you can see the top of their heads and the top of their shoes).

You don't look at them from the side (as you have them right now) nor do you look at them from the top (where you would only see their head and some shoes sticking out)
It's kind of like a 3/4 perspective, except here it's vertical tilt and not horizontal :)

Offline grue

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Re: [WIP] Assorted RPG assets

Reply #5 on: December 23, 2014, 10:43:31 pm
I'm going to be anti-aliasing to transparent, not white. The only reason the backgrounds are white is that it's easier to work using different colours than different transparencies (and some programs don't support that, anyway). It takes about a minute to convert them, so it's not much of a problem.

Regarding the perspective issues - the sad thing here is, I'm well aware of what I'm supposed to be doing. I just failed at it so thoroughly that it looks like a side view instead. I have a bit of a problem drawing characters in perspective in small resolutions without making them look like little people and went too far in the other direction here, I think.

As for the colours - I see what you mean, but I'd rather not touch them until the more obvious issues are sorted. I'll need to make some more mockups before I can figure out what to do with them, anyway.

Tweaked the sprite a bit - it looks a little better now, at least to me, but there are probably plenty of things to be fixed that I'm not seeing.


Thanks for the advice about the backgrounds - I don't think I've seen any games that mix paintings and pixel art, other than some terrible RPG Maker projects, so I wasn't sure.

Offline NowvaB

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Re: [WIP] Assorted RPG assets

Reply #6 on: December 24, 2014, 10:19:40 am
IDK I kinda like the original better. When I started an edit it was giving a heavy tribute to the original.

The original just looks more interesting and matches the concept art's proportions for her better.

as far as critiquing the recent one I would just make the torso look thinner, move in the legs at the hip,
and lastly make the arms look a little more dynamic

Offline Gil

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Re: [WIP] Assorted RPG assets

Reply #7 on: December 25, 2014, 03:26:18 pm
Do the AA to transparency indeed. That'll work best and it'll mostly work on any background.

Your pose looks very boring, kinda like my avatar. It's an old RPG trope to make characters that look like lifeless dolls, we should strife to get away from that.

Your latest one seems to be better in terms of perspective. NowvaB's edit has a few nice changes, but that perspective is a step in the wrong direction I feel.

Offline grue

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Re: [WIP] Assorted RPG assets

Reply #8 on: December 26, 2014, 01:41:33 pm
Tried to get rid of some of the straight lines, as suggested. I didn't make it too similar to the edit, since she's the main close-range fighter and needs to look a little more 'solid'. The original looked less stiff, I know, but I'm not fond of the 'fighters looking like adorable school-age kids' thing that's so prevalent in the RPG genre, so...



The pose is still boring, but since this is meant to be a base for walking animations, I don't think it matters much. I'm considering making larger, visual novel style sprites for conversations, anyway, since the field sprites are relatively small and the faces can't be changed much. It would be more work and might look a bit odd with two different representations of a character visible at the same time, though, so I haven't decided yet.

Edit: Worked on it a little more. The perspective looks wonky to me now, but I could just be too used to how it looked before. Also started another character, but that one doesn't look like much of anything yet.

« Last Edit: December 26, 2014, 11:46:45 pm by grue »

Offline grue

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Re: [WIP] Assorted RPG assets

Reply #9 on: January 01, 2015, 09:38:22 pm
Made some more adjustments (for the last time, I hope) and a few animations. I'm not sure if breathing animations are even needed at this size, but there it is. As for the walk, a person I showed an unfinished version to said that she walked like a model, which doesn't fit the character at all. Is it still an issue?



Also started making some tiles for mockups, but I can't decide what to do with the walls. The first option looks less flat and better overall, at least in my opinion, but what I've done with the perspective there could make Escher cry. Even if it kind of works for small rooms, it might look bad when used for anything larger (haven't tried it yet). Painting everything with proper perspective would obviously be the best-looking option, but this wouldn't ever be finished if I tried that and it wouldn't work for larger maps either, so it's not an option.



Does anyone have any advice on what to do here or suggestions of games I could use for reference? All of the ones I could find either looked as flat as my attempt (Final Fantasy and most of the others) or mangled the perspective so much it was hard to tell what was going on (Legend of Zelda).