AuthorTopic: [WIP][C&C] Parchment Style Pixel Palette  (Read 6506 times)

Offline Tycho Magnetic Anomaly

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Re: [WIP][C&C] Parchment Style Pixel Palette

Reply #10 on: June 20, 2017, 09:34:46 am
Linaru

heh, yea it did turn out a bit dough like.. but eh,, isn't dough made of paper? ;)

Originally it was looking like a stone tablet, .. spotted this post , never did paper type before so thought to have a bash... I had another earlier version with less detailing and more of a burnt edge look.. but i posted the (above) more developed one instead.. here is the simpler one:

not great I'll admit, i think your mod is better then both for sure

Offline Linaru

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Re: [WIP][C&C] Parchment Style Pixel Palette

Reply #11 on: June 20, 2017, 02:25:29 pm
Taking into consideration all your advice, I have moved the parchment border tiles into their own .png and reworked them to look nicer.
The originals were 16x16 tiles designed to make different sized pieces of parchment as screen resolution in the game will vary.
The colour palette has been tweaked again, I have also removed the wooden background tiles for now as the colour seems off and blends too well with the parchment.


I have also done a quick lazy mockup of world tiles border and character so far:



I'm still struggling how best to draw the characters so they will not blend with the background, it is hard to so while using the same palette for all the world tiles


====

Some more attempts at character variation, still having issues with them blending into the background tiles..



====

Programmer sent me a screen cap of the new parchment border in the game editor.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2017, 06:52:05 am by Linaru »
Linaru Greyfall

Offline RAV

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Re: [WIP][C&C] Parchment Style Pixel Palette

Reply #12 on: June 22, 2017, 10:07:09 am
Regarding the problem of the characters blending with the backround. Is there a reason you avoid outlines for the main characters? Do you think it would take away from the parchment style? Do you think it costs too many pixels for other details? I noticed from looking at old games with these sort of restrictions that they go for very heavy outline anyway, and try to use the outline for working the details.

An example is a game screenshot that Ryumaru posted in the game art appreciation thread:





I know that it also very much relies on colours to differentiate things. But still, maybe it helps to study the style of how it manages outlines on this small space.

« Last Edit: June 22, 2017, 10:12:21 am by RAV »

Offline Linaru

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Re: [WIP][C&C] Parchment Style Pixel Palette

Reply #13 on: June 22, 2017, 01:15:45 pm
Regarding the problem of the characters blending with the background. Is there a reason you avoid outlines for the main characters? Do you think it would take away from the parchment style? Do you think it costs too many pixels for other details? I noticed from looking at old games with these sort of restrictions that they go for very heavy outline anyway, and try to use the outline for working the details.

An example is a game screenshot that Ryumaru posted in the game art appreciation thread:





I know that it also very much relies on colours to differentiate things. But still, maybe it helps to study the style of how it manages outlines on this small space.

I was trying to limit the entire colour pallet to the 6 parchment colours I did attempt drawing a version of the character with an outline but it became difficult as the outline would join or blend with the hair colour and make the character look odd if the outline was light and it would look incredibly weirdly shaped and out of place if the outline was dark:


Trying to make the characters look like they are on the parchment along with world details and only using 6 colours is proving difficult for me, it's not a style or palette limitation I am used to working with

a lot of the older games that use outlined characters have the luxury of using a completely different colour (such as the green and red in your example) to separate it from the outline.. but working with 6 shades of very similar colours for the parchment look and feel makes  the outlines blend into the appearance of the character?

having issues explaining what I mean here, hope that is clearer...
« Last Edit: June 22, 2017, 01:29:48 pm by Linaru »
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Offline eishiya

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Re: [WIP][C&C] Parchment Style Pixel Palette

Reply #14 on: June 22, 2017, 02:08:37 pm
Are you going for a "stains on the parchment" effect, or a "drawn on the parchment" effect? In the latter case, you should certainly have at least one dark colour for important gameplay elements (characters, interactive objects) that isn't found on in the parchment texture itself.
In the former case, you should study GameBoy games like Wario Land and Trip World, which use monochrome 4-colour palettes to great effect.
Personally, I think allowing yourself one darker colour (doesn't have to be an additional colour, you could darken your darkest one) would be best. Your current palette looks washed out and dull to look at. Even if that's intentional, most players prefer something with more contrast.

The trick in either case is to avoid using your darkest colours anywhere the characters might overlap, have them always on top of your lightest colours. This is as much a palette challenge as it is a tile- and level-design one.

Offline RAV

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Re: [WIP][C&C] Parchment Style Pixel Palette

Reply #15 on: June 22, 2017, 02:16:43 pm
I was trying to limit the entire colour pallet to the 6 parchment colours I did attempt drawing a version of the character with an outline but it became difficult as the outline would join or blend with the hair colour and make the character look odd if the outline was light and it would look incredibly weirdly shaped and out of place if the outline was dark:


Trying to make the characters look like they are on the parchment along with world details and only using 6 colours is proving difficult for me, it's not a style or palette limitation I am used to working with

a lot of the older games that use outlined characters have the luxury of using a completely different colour (such as the green and red in your example) to separate it from the outline.. but working with 6 shades of very similar colours for the parchment look and feel makes  the outlines blend into the appearance of the character?

having issues explaining what I mean here, hope that is clearer...
Ah, thanks for detailing the issue. Sounds tricky indeed. Hrrm. I am not actually qualified to help, but until someone comes along who is, I will throw in what things I stumbled upon, okay, because I like how dedicated you are to your work no matter what. (Oh, eishiya already stepped in, good. Anyway:)

I suspect that despite the difficulty of the outline, you will have to find a way to make it work, even if it means a bit of a sprite redesign, because otherwise I see no real way you can ever make the chars work on the backround at all. But whatever the case, I just remembered another piece that seems to have a similar restriction, maybe it's a more useful reference. Maybe look more classic Gameboy Titles for inspiration, (likewise to what eishiya just suggested).



by neofotistou on PixelJoint.

Offline Linaru

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Re: [WIP][C&C] Parchment Style Pixel Palette

Reply #16 on: June 22, 2017, 02:46:10 pm
I was trying to limit the entire colour pallet to the 6 parchment colours I did attempt drawing a version of the character with an outline but it became difficult as the outline would join or blend with the hair colour and make the character look odd if the outline was light and it would look incredibly weirdly shaped and out of place if the outline was dark:


Trying to make the characters look like they are on the parchment along with world details and only using 6 colours is proving difficult for me, it's not a style or palette limitation I am used to working with

a lot of the older games that use outlined characters have the luxury of using a completely different colour (such as the green and red in your example) to separate it from the outline.. but working with 6 shades of very similar colours for the parchment look and feel makes  the outlines blend into the appearance of the character?

having issues explaining what I mean here, hope that is clearer...
Ah, thanks for detailing the issue. Sounds tricky indeed. Hrrm. I am not actually qualified to help, but until someone comes along who is, I will throw in what things I stumbled upon, okay, because I like how dedicated you are to your work no matter what. (Oh, eishiya already stepped in, good. Anyway:)

I suspect that despite the difficulty of the outline, you will have to find a way to make it work, even if it means a bit of a sprite redesign because otherwise, I see no real way you can ever make the chars work on the background at all. But whatever the case, I just remembered another piece that seems to have a similar restriction, maybe it's a more useful reference. Maybe look more classic Gameboy Titles for inspiration, (likewise to what eishiya just suggested).



by neofotistou on PixelJoint.


Okay yet another attempt, this time I reworked the pallet to make a few of the darker shades  darker this might cause issues when working on tile maps further down the line I'm not sure yet, your references are actually quite a lot more useful than some of the Gameboy tilesets I have looked at for reference so hoping this is better:



these new darker shades look a bit 'Grey' to me but its hard to tell

===========

more work on the character:


 struggling a little with the face on the side profiles

===========

Started playing with characters standing rotations

« Last Edit: June 26, 2017, 11:41:03 am by Linaru »
Linaru Greyfall