[WIP] 4bit RPG Tiles and Sprites

[Luke]

Hey there,
I'm also a big fan of the palette and the scale.  Very cute.

I was wondering if you could explain your shadows and light source a little more?  I mean, with the big thick shadow on the left hand side of each wall, it gives the impression that there is actually no roof on this structure and that the light source is coming from outside, above the building.  This is sort of interesting.

Also, I can think of two methods for making your brick tile less severe.  You can perhaps make your mortar colour more similar to the actual brick colour.  Or perhaps you could put gaps in the mortar to sort of break the grid and minimize the amount of that colour you need to use.
I feel like a douchebag for citing my own stuff, but I struggled with this issue for quite a while myself. Maybe it will help.



 

[StarRaven]

Thank you for the compliments! <3 I've been struggling with some other art so I haven't had time to spare for this but I'm still working on it.

@Luke:
The light source in the house is kind of faked -- the shadows are there to give the impression of depth and shadow, but accurately portraying shadows would require a much larger amount of tiles than I can reasonably work on! As it is, these shadows only require the wall as a transition point. It's a technique that's used in a lot of old 2d games, like here in Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete which was really formative to me as a lover of these kinds of graphics. (I guess it's my Seiken Densetsu, haha.) If you'd like though, you can imagine that these are giant dollhouses and we've taken off the roof to look inside. Some girls have dollhouses of wood or plastic, mine are made of pixels.

With a palette like the one I'm using, which is only 16 colors for the whole game, adjustment to colors has to be done very carefully. Pushing that purple-grey a little lighter will affect everything else in the game, as well. I've got to keep that balance between "what do I need for this one tile?" and "what will be useful throughout the game?" In order to keep the colors consistent, I either have to decide that I won't change the palette much at all, or I have to keep all my graphics in one document so I can quickly examine the affect of all changes on every tile! There's a lot of strategy involved in picking just the right colors. It's a lot of fun. I love it. It's amazing how you can make those colors stretch!  At the same time, sometimes you've got to end up making compromises and I think at this point, that particular tile is as good as it's gonna get. (I did try the lightest green and blues as mortar colors, as well as some others, but the result wasn't generally what I was looking for. I also tried taking out pixels, but at this size and level of contrast, talking out pixels looked a little silly and was really noticeable.)

Don't feel bad! I've been following your thread since you started it quite a while ago and I remember thinking how nice that tile was. It looks almost photo-realistic. I know you struggle with contrast issues too -- if you ever feel like it, working with a seriously limited palette definitely stretches your art muscles!

Sorry for the little ramble here! Guess I'm just in a good mood today. <3