AuthorTopic: Help with Non Metallic Shading  (Read 93093 times)

Offline Decroded

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Re: Help with Metallic Shading

Reply #10 on: September 10, 2015, 03:39:25 am
off topic a bit but for technical reasons I personally tend to make a canvas that is a number of grid units of the tile size of the game.
the size is enough to contain the sprite in all its extremities (add a grid unit when needed) then image is aligned to centre based on the hitbox.
while wastful on memory (asif it matters) making most sprites in this way for me removes the steps of repeatedly aligning and checking in-engine as everything can just align to centre and feel free to go nuts stretching about inside its space.

Offline Rosier

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Re: Help with Metallic Shading

Reply #11 on: September 10, 2015, 11:47:33 pm
off topic a bit but for technical reasons I personally tend to make a canvas that is a number of grid units of the tile size of the game.
the size is enough to contain the sprite in all its extremities (add a grid unit when needed) then image is aligned to centre based on the hitbox.
while wastful on memory (asif it matters) making most sprites in this way for me removes the steps of repeatedly aligning and checking in-engine as everything can just align to centre and feel free to go nuts stretching about inside its space.

I'll keep that in mind, but this is just spriting for fun.  I might have to unify the animations I have, though.

Offline Conzeit

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Re: Help with Metallic Shading

Reply #12 on: September 11, 2015, 08:15:49 pm
what I meant with the chest was make it a really cool looking design, not just sort of arranging them a bit more. The chest is really big and in the center, if you're gonna put something there make it cool.

this was what more or less I thought of with concentric arches.


except the arches outside should be the biggest, like this

and maybe this vibe is more aproppiate for an ancient god, but of course with not nearly as much detail

I also mentioned the possibility of exhausts because you mentioned fire coming out of him

« Last Edit: September 11, 2015, 08:17:23 pm by Conceit »

Offline Rosier

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Re: Help with Metallic Shading

Reply #13 on: September 12, 2015, 05:51:30 am
I do kind of want to want to keep the seven different furnaces that are depicted on all the art of the wiki page.  I'm not sure arches like that would make that possible. 

I'll probably go for the exhaust ports or something similar.




Edit: Didn't think I'd have time so soon... 
I ended up increasing the "chest piece" and split it into three different sections that contain the furnaces.  Also made a version for ports opened/closed.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2015, 07:09:17 am by Rosier »

Offline Gil

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Re: Help with Metallic Shading

Reply #14 on: September 12, 2015, 12:19:21 pm
You need more shadows, everything has equal visual priority right now

Offline TMT

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Re: Help with Metallic Shading

Reply #15 on: September 12, 2015, 01:42:15 pm
The perspective on the arms needs a bit of work. The rest of the piece suggests he's facing left at a slight angle. In contrast the arms look almost the same which would suggest he's facing directly forward.

Offline Night

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Re: Help with Metallic Shading

Reply #16 on: September 12, 2015, 08:12:38 pm
Oh man, depicting bronze is pretty annoying.. It has to do with the colour changes that exist in bronze after being exposed to the air for a long period of time - patina. With the colours ranging all the way from a dark red to a cold light green.
Not sure as to how true this is, but from what I observed patina begins to form in parts with creases in sculptures (armpits, between fingers, nostrils, wrinkles, etc.); so you can try and use that to your advantage (it will be kind of irritating for a beginner though, I reckon).

Here's my take on this:


1. Plan out how everything's going to look (don't leave room for ambiguity), so that later on as you progress with the piece you don't run into unexpected problems that are going to waste your time and force you to come up with a half-assed solution on the spot.
 This stage, along with the second one which I'll get to in a second, is the most important one as it allows you to fix mistakes and think in advanced about what you're going to add before it spirals into something you don't want.

2. Figure out where your your light source is, where shadows are cast, and what colours you're going to use. The first colour your should figure out is your background colour (or if you have a background, you should figure out how it'll look first), I went with a somewhat desaturated blue to contrast with the bronze. The bronze itself should be much darker than how you depicted it in my opinion (bronze is a rather dark metal).
The colours I went with are a dark green-ish colour for the shadow (to create a vague simulation of patina), and a desaturated brown for the mid-tone (the main colour).

3. Add in some light - start to create a 3D form.
Just as a side note: I really don't like using dithering to the extent that I have in that edit; but in this case it was just a case of not wanting to add another colour for what is basically a single transition (colour control nomsayin).

4. Add in the highlights (remember to keep them sparse though, to give it a metally feel).

5. Add in the darkest and lightest colours in order to emphasise on those areas (this is mainly just something I like to do; I feel that in order to create a balanced palette, the single lightest and darkest colours most be used the least - imagine it kind of like a graph showing the use of colours, with the darkest and lightest colours on the edges of the graph being used the least and the mid-tone, in the middle of the graph, being used the most).

6. Add reflections, this is kind of pointless with bronze, but it doesn't take away from the piece if used carefully.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Offline Rosier

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Re: Help with Metallic Shading

Reply #17 on: September 13, 2015, 02:39:40 am
You need more shadows, everything has equal visual priority right now

The perspective on the arms needs a bit of work. The rest of the piece suggests he's facing left at a slight angle. In contrast the arms look almost the same which would suggest he's facing directly forward.



Added purple to make the furnaces pop out a bit more, and hopefully fixed the arm perspective on the arms. 


@Night, I want the bright, shiny side of copper rather than the dull, faded side.  I'll keep that in mind in case I decide to go dark on another sprite, though, thanks.

Offline Conzeit

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Re: Help with Metallic Shading

Reply #18 on: September 13, 2015, 06:09:21 pm
k, so I know you're basically going from no shading to shading here, therefore making a  reflective surface specially one that takes as much subtlety as bronze is too much (you just had to go straight to metal didnt ya?) What you have does not look like metal at all, but it's good enough for now I think.

I thought the chrysler building would make it really clear, but you still dont know what I mean by making a design for the furnaces.
look at these, the smallest arches have 3 holes, each hole could be a furnace, then you have an extra hole below and it would look cool.

When you design that furnace shape, you probably want to temporarily eliminate all the shading, and just look at a black sprite with white holes, that way you know you're not being distracted by all the detail.

Your fire is just as bright and saturated as your gold and that will not do. Fire is a lightsource while gold is not, you have to make it lighter somehow.
I went and designed something myself, just white or black holes like this would actually be better than what you have, there is no distinguishing anything that's going on in your chest right now.
see how the fire here is emanating from the opposite source than the light, that creates contrast. You cannot have fire with shades similar to your gold because it'll all blend together. This animated version has a less saturated gold for that purpose.

Also, these have a lot less stuff going on, I pixeled most things iwth a 2x2 brush

Now for the Bronze, the reference posted here was lovely

But trying to achieve that in pixels this small, specially ones meant to be animated is madness. So I just went for the dark metal with red-ish highlights. as I shaded it I was thinking the same way I would've as if it were black metal.

I actually made it before the gold one,gold one is the same with some shades shifted around.
that sillouething light (a secondary lightsource coming from the borders) is a very easy way to achieve that reflective look. But I want to show some other ways it can be done

This is a good, simple example of dark shiny material from Galaxy Fight

This is a metal guy from Waku Waku. This one  just has really contrasted highlights right next to the shadows, that is the easiest way to fake metal, going right from lightest highlight (specular) to darkest (core) shadow.

Galaxy Fight and Waku Waku make good starting points for shading, good volume, no overcomplication...as I keep saying over and over :p

This guy is an example by me of that aproach. See his big metal fist? all I did was put a big bold core shadow right next to the higlight and BAM metal.


some more really simpy shaded metal objects by me for Deathroad to Canada

EDIT: I just had to bring St0ven's brass monkey into the party =)

You should look at proko's shading video for tips on shading https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3WmrWUEIJo and maybe Arne's tutorial http://androidarts.com/art_tut.htm#materials and if you really want to get deeper on how light works you can look at the "itchy animation" light tutorial http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/light.htm


After messing with your sprite for a while  I felt bad I couldnt really call it my own and made my own take at your idea. I know you probably werent going for tron-lines for furnaces :p

This is my full proces+refference file on this. You'll notice there are several frames that are just black with the white furnaces, that's to make sure I'm focused on getting that right. You should've probably designed the furnaces before you ever started shading
« Last Edit: September 13, 2015, 07:17:32 pm by Conceit »

Offline Gil

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Re: Help with Metallic Shading

Reply #19 on: September 13, 2015, 06:42:26 pm
Conceit, that post is wonderful!