AuthorTopic: [C+C] 8x8 Roguelike Sprites  (Read 3514 times)

Offline LD

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[C+C] 8x8 Roguelike Sprites

on: February 10, 2015, 01:05:06 am
I've been working on another roguelike project, now with 8x8 sprites.
So far I have a series of wall/floor tiles, which have various lightings, as well as items, and a bunch of characters with 2-frame animations.

Mockup:


Full Tileset:


The biggest problem right now, is that grey characters have no contrast against the grey flooring. Brown flooring was easy to contrast from brown characters, because it's easy to make a lot of shades of brown, but they grey on grey is almost impossible to make out.


I'm looking on advice to fix this, as well as general advice on the tileset and characters. Thanks in advance!
« Last Edit: February 10, 2015, 01:46:55 am by LD »

Offline Ai

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Re: [C+C] 8x8 Roguelike Sprites

Reply #1 on: February 10, 2015, 02:38:46 am
Tint the 'grey' floor yellow (since you have already tinted the 'grey' on characters blue.), to maximize the contrast created by hue difference. This seems to increase the readability of the grey characters to roughly the same on brown and grey.

Alternatively, you could reverse the tint: yellowish on characters, blue on the floor. This is more 'conventional' in the sense that characters would normally be receiving more light and that light will probably be yellow/orange. It may create the opposite situation, where the characters read well on the stone but not on the dirt, though.

You could also apply either of the above choices but only on the outer edge of grey regions (eg. have a blueish-grey border on your character's greyish helmet). This is like a version of having a double outline (black / white) so that you get a certain amount of guaranteed contrast; only  without needing to expand the character silhouette.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2015, 02:46:32 am by Ai »
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Offline LD

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Re: [C+C] 8x8 Roguelike Sprites

Reply #2 on: February 10, 2015, 02:48:45 am
How's this

I yellow-tinted the characters and blue-tinted the floor, I also darkened the brown floor as to not clash with the more yellowy grey characters.

It may create the opposite situation, where the characters read well on the stone but not on the dirt, though.
It's supposed to be wood not dirt, anyways, I did have that problem, but somewhat solved it by darkening the wood floor tiles.

Just saw you're edit, I'll try that that last part later, when I have time to
« Last Edit: February 10, 2015, 02:55:25 am by LD »

Offline Johasu

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Re: [C+C] 8x8 Roguelike Sprites

Reply #3 on: February 10, 2015, 03:29:50 am
Usually you want your sprites to be more saturated than the background elements that aren't as important.  The problem with using grey as sprite colors is that when you desaturate a color you move it towards grey.  So your sprites are going to seem more neutral space when you use grey colors on them.

You could always try something a little different and rather than working on trying to find a contrast point between shades of grey, you could adjust the bricks that are gray to something that works better with your sprites.

For example why can't your bricks be a dull purple or red color?

I did an edit toying with the colors. Brought the saturation on your sprite greys up and changed the environment colors to something that let them stand out more I think.
A lot of old games worked very hard to avoid grey colors on their sprites.  This is why you see so many blue/green/red sprites.  Those colors just pop out and are easy to see.
Not sure if this is anything you can use or if it helps you find a happy place but I will post it.
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Offline LD

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Re: [C+C] 8x8 Roguelike Sprites

Reply #4 on: February 10, 2015, 11:57:28 am
I did an edit toying with the colors. Brought the saturation on your sprite greys up and changed the environment colors to something that let them stand out more I think.
A lot of old games worked very hard to avoid grey colors on their sprites.  This is why you see so many blue/green/red sprites.  Those colors just pop out and are easy to see.
Not sure if this is anything you can use or if it helps you find a happy place but I will post it.

Thanks a lot for the edit, those definitely have a far greater contrast, but I don't really like red-tinting the whole background. When you look at the first mockup I posted, the colors are so rich, reddening them detracts from that mood. I might try to add a deeper blue/purple to the blue walls and grey floor though,  because I did want those to be cold/dark, and the red makes them look very warm. Later today I'll try messing around with the colors and shading, I'll post an edit when I'm either satisfied or stuck. Any comments/critique on the sprites besides on the grey coloring?
« Last Edit: February 10, 2015, 12:18:17 pm by LD »

Offline LD

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Re: [C+C] 8x8 Roguelike Sprites

Reply #5 on: February 11, 2015, 02:08:10 am
I changed around the coloring and contrast, added shadowy outlines on the characters to add detail and make them more visible. I also added some colors and characters, and decreased contrast between tiles that were illuminated and dark.

I also made a small mockup showing grey/blue characters on the stone background, I think it looks pretty good, accidentally placed a dark wall tile right above the torch, ignore that.


Any further suggestions with coloring, or other things? It's definitely improved, but I'm not sure I'm completely happy with it yet.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2015, 02:17:40 am by LD »