AuthorTopic: |Beginner| Does this couch look like it's game ready?  (Read 2852 times)

Offline Muscles

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|Beginner| Does this couch look like it's game ready?

on: October 26, 2017, 02:44:52 pm


(Picture url is uploaded from ImageShack, I don't know if it's a problem or not.)

So hey, I made this couch in like 30 minutes and I added some dithering to it etc, in my opinion it seems game ready, but
i'm far from expert, so I'm looking for a professional's review if it looks like ready or not.

It's for a 2d side scroller horror game if that matters
Please help me, thanks a lot in advance! :)  ;D

« Last Edit: October 26, 2017, 03:05:00 pm by Muscles »

Offline danmanr98

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Re: |Beginner| Does this couch look like it's game ready?

Reply #1 on: October 26, 2017, 03:03:27 pm
Yo!  :)
What's the style of the game? If you can show us the setting this couch would be in, I may be able to drop some edits if any are required.

For example, if the room the couch would be in has a light source on the left, that would influence how i'd review the couch's lighting etc etc

Offline Muscles

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Re: |Beginner| Does this couch look like it's game ready?

Reply #2 on: October 26, 2017, 03:11:22 pm
Ohh, of course! But it's my first sprite that  I've created so I Can't really do it, but I'll try my best.
First I planned to create most of the sprites then add them to the world
 
Btw, there won't be any lights in the room I plan the couch in, only the light source from the flashlight which is in the player's hands
you know, from 2d side perspective

Offline eishiya

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Re: |Beginner| Does this couch look like it's game ready?

Reply #3 on: October 26, 2017, 03:57:34 pm
(I typed this up before the replies, so none of this takes the new information into account.)


Whether it's game-ready depends on the look of the game xP That's a meaningless question without context.

I think you did a great job on the outline. It looks like an actual couch and not just some simplified, abstract idea of one. However, I feel the colours and shading fall short.

The greens are very dull because all of them have the exact same hue and nearly the same saturation. Varying up the hue (and to a lesser degree, saturation) helps give the colours more life. Hue-shifting the shadows and highlights on all the objects in a scene towards the same colours can also make the scene feel more unified, as it gives the impression of the objects being lit by the same light sources. If you just keep everything its own hue, all the objects will feel disjointed, like they don't belong together.

The shadows are "pillow shading" - you're placing dark pixels around the edges of shapes, rather than choosing a light source and shading according to that. This also plays into objects looking disjointed, and it also makes them look very flat, as shadows are important in creating a sense of volume.

The dithering along the bottom cuts straightly off into the lightest colour, which looks strange. Dithering mainly does one thing: it creates transitional "colours" when using an extra colour isn't something you can or want to do. Using it on its own rather than as a transition just creates meaningless texture.

Here's an edit that shifts the shadows towards red. I chose red because couches are usually found in interiors, which often have many warm-coloured objects and therefore a warm ambient light. Hue-shifting towards blue or purple would've been fine too.

It's a minor change, but it makes it look more interesting.

In this edit, I redid the shadows to follow a light source that is above the couch.

I got rid of some of your lineart where it was just adding too much detail, namely at the top of the seat, and the little Xs, which I understood as those dents where the fabric is fixed in place, creating a segmented surface on the back of the couch. I created the look of those segments with shadows instead.
Since the light is coming from above, I removed the shadows from the top edge. However, you might notice there are still some darker pixels there - that's anti-aliasing so that the outline doesn't look quite as harsh against the light green.
You might also notice I didn't use any dithering. I didn't feel there was a need for it, since there are plenty of colours, and couches tend to have a relatively smooth surface, whereas dithering creates a rough look.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2017, 03:59:42 pm by eishiya »

Offline danmanr98

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Re: |Beginner| Does this couch look like it's game ready?

Reply #4 on: October 26, 2017, 04:33:13 pm
Ah understood!  ;D In which case good start!

Since this is your first sprite for the game, it means you don't have an established style for your game yet-
In which case, this Couch will be the starting point to determining the aesthetic of the rest of the game. Main point being, make sure the rest of the assets you create fit within the same style as the Couch.

Personally here's a few edit's i'd make [With a GIF to demonstrate]:
1 - Make sure to establish each individual shape of a Couch
2 - Apply Base colour [I wasn't a huge fan of the original green, so I shifted it to have a blue-ish tint]
3 - Apply shading, Darker Greens (Still with blueish tint)
4 - Added detailing and a last outlining and a bit better shaping

[Note: The reasoning behind changing the green to have a more bluish tint to it is that, within a dark setting, Blues are often the type of lighting applied, so this might work for your scenario?


Hopefully this was somewhat helpful !

Offline Muscles

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Re: |Beginner| Does this couch look like it's game ready?

Reply #5 on: October 26, 2017, 05:16:35 pm
Wow guys! You are truly amazing... Thanks for everything! I can't believe how helpful this pixel artist community is !  ;D :)

Offline Muscles

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Re: |Beginner| Does this couch look like it's game ready?

Reply #6 on: October 30, 2017, 12:32:35 pm
Okay so after the weekend's over, I had my birthday party, and so on so I didn't had time to draw pixels, but now it's time to get back on track.

So after watching theese two awesome edits, I started to realize that shading isn't just about dithering. Okay it can make things look better, but in some cases, like this, it just doesn't fit in. So I need to learn about shading a lot more to learn how and when to, or not to use dithering..

I loved eyishia's edit, especially the one with the light source coming from the top.

danmanr98's edit was perfect either, everything was just fine and perfect, but in the horror game I'm creating it seems like eyishia's edit fits more into it.

I know that I wont make any progress by copying the edits You two gave me, so I tried to make it somewhat look like Eyishia's edit while still containing some of my ideas.



That's what I managed to do. I feel like shifting that green color to this red is a good idea, because you said, in an interior scene, There are more warm coloured objects, and this way it fits more into the enviroment (okay there isn't any enviroment yet, because this is the first sprite, but the others will have the same warm setting like this

Please tell me, what do you think of this edit, and if there any problems I slipped over or something please let me know! :)

Thanks for everything!  ;D ;D
« Last Edit: October 30, 2017, 12:36:23 pm by Muscles »

Offline eishiya

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Re: |Beginner| Does this couch look like it's game ready?

Reply #7 on: October 30, 2017, 03:16:04 pm
I feel like you copied my edit rather closely xP That's not inherently bad, but make sure you understand the purpose of each change, of each cluster before you copy them. If you copy without thinking, you'll learn less, and you'll probably make some odd mistakes when you mix copied elements with original ones.

For example, you copied the little gaps in the shadow cast from the cushions, but not the breaks between the cushions, so what's creating those gaps? You made the darkest shadows on the back very similar to mine, but while mine were a (failed) attempt to be shadows made by the segments, yours don't seem to correspond to anything.

You've still got a shadow on top of the back. What is creating that shadow, if the light is from above?

You're back to having no hue-shifting and using colours of all the same saturation again, so it's looking dull. When an object is lit by a light of a similar colour, that increases its saturation where the light hits. So, if the key light is red, the light parts would be higher-saturation. If the ambient light is red and the key light is not, then the shadows will have higher saturation. If both are red, then the lightest and darkest parts would be more saturated, but then you've got a very boring lighting situation xP

Also, you can create a warm look without resorting to making the furniture red xP If the environment has a warm ambience, that'll affect even cool-coloured objects in a way that makes them look part of the warm setting, and a few cool objects don't ruin the warmth created by light sources, wooden furniture and flooring, warm wallpaper, etc. Mixing some cool objects into a scene can even emphasise its warmth by providing contrast.