AuthorTopic: Stage Mock-Up (Feedback, Critique)  (Read 11269 times)

Offline B-Rokal

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Re: Stage Mock-Up (Feedback, Critique)

Reply #20 on: January 09, 2018, 07:01:45 pm
Think I have to agree with eishiya, the background looks sort of much more realistic than the foreground, so it looks a bit weird. I think most of the issue there is the very squarish tiles you have going on. Try rounding those corner tiles a bit and such. Make the tiles a bit more organic, using less straight lines etc. Especially in the back tiles. I mean since you dont interact with them and dont need a straight platform on any of them, you can just go wild with it.(Tried to include it a bit in the edit)


Also I think the characters kind of dont fit in with it all too. I think the best way to fix it would be to tweak the tileset a little. Maybe give it a slightly darker outline around it. Basically give the outline to everything that is a main foreground element and is interactable with in any way. And the grassy part of the tileset I feel is too brigh, you could show a little depth by leaving only the very top brighter and making the sides a bit darker sort of like in the quick edit I made here.

Good job overall on it though! I like the monster animation especially!



Like so?



(I know that one of the layers are kinda "jumpy", is because I must make more tiles to achieve naturality)

Ok, now, someone tell me what the situation is like, i'm not quite understanding all this art style mess-up and I really REALLY donīt want to blow this game :(

  • Should the characters and tile set be replaced so they match the background art style?
  • The tile set does match the background but the characters doesn't?
  • The characters does match the background but the tile set doesn't?

Also, this is going to be a video game, the idea is that people must actually want to spend their precious money just to play this and an art style mismatch pretty much renders the game "unpurchasable", is the game looking at least "$1.99 worth"?

Also, I really hope there could be a way in which I can pay you back for all this help :( (other than adding all of you in the game's credits) I never expected that much help and i'm very grateful

Offline questseeker

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Re: Stage Mock-Up (Feedback, Critique)

Reply #21 on: January 10, 2018, 10:26:02 am
Of the two layers of platform-like dirt tiles, the foreground one is so much simpler and more primitive than the background one (strict squares and flat platforms vs. continuous surfaces with slopes and semi-natural shapes) that it doesn't belong in the same game. I don't know what character movement are you planning to use and whether you want slopes or staircases, but you shouldn't use both.

In many platform games there is a functional second layer of platforms above the ground plane, often special objects like buildings or trees (e.g. Metal Slug); in many games one homogeneous layer of platforms is enough because platforms are placed at any height and above one another (e.g. Bubble Bobble, New Zealand Story, Boulder Dash).

 The simple square tile style can be enhanced with variations and decorations, with vertically linked grass tiles for the common configuration of stairs with grass above grass (it shouldn't look discontinuous), and with softer edges in the dirt part, but eliminating the sloped tiles that make it look cheap by comparison would have the greatest benefit.

If you choose the sloped tile style instead, I think you should improve visibility of the platform profiles with thicker grass and undergrass borders, up to the size of the exaggerated ones you have on the square tiles.
 

Offline B-Rokal

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Re: Stage Mock-Up (Feedback, Critique)

Reply #22 on: January 11, 2018, 06:46:19 pm
Of the two layers of platform-like dirt tiles, the foreground one is so much simpler and more primitive than the background one (strict squares and flat platforms vs. continuous surfaces with slopes and semi-natural shapes) that it doesn't belong in the same game. I don't know what character movement are you planning to use and whether you want slopes or staircases, but you shouldn't use both.

In many platform games there is a functional second layer of platforms above the ground plane, often special objects like buildings or trees (e.g. Metal Slug); in many games one homogeneous layer of platforms is enough because platforms are placed at any height and above one another (e.g. Bubble Bobble, New Zealand Story, Boulder Dash).

 The simple square tile style can be enhanced with variations and decorations, with vertically linked grass tiles for the common configuration of stairs with grass above grass (it shouldn't look discontinuous), and with softer edges in the dirt part, but eliminating the sloped tiles that make it look cheap by comparison would have the greatest benefit.

If you choose the sloped tile style instead, I think you should improve visibility of the platform profiles with thicker grass and undergrass borders, up to the size of the exaggerated ones you have on the square tiles.

Thanks for your answer

What sloped tiles, again?

BTW, my progress


EDIT(2): I said something stupid and cringy, donīt mind me, it was in a moment of heat, the only thing important from that "message" is that I really don't know what should I do to make the game look more "integral"
« Last Edit: January 11, 2018, 09:35:47 pm by B-Rokal »

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Stage Mock-Up (Feedback, Critique)

Reply #23 on: January 11, 2018, 11:19:34 pm
no, dont scrap your game over this. learn to accept "good enough" and move on, most non artists (ie the majority of your audience) wont notice these things.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
MAJOR BORK TALLY: |

Offline eishiya

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Re: Stage Mock-Up (Feedback, Critique)

Reply #24 on: January 12, 2018, 12:31:14 am

I think the outlined tiles are the major thing holding the tileset back. They look like artificial brown lines rather than like natural rocks/dirt. The rest of your dirt tiles look great, try to incorporate that look into these. Break up the vertical linear features at least, and maybe add some variant tiles with larger rocks. Try not to have the rocks all fade out to "black" so evenly, have some of the "columns" fade quicker than the others.

An edit to show what I mean about breaking up the vertical lines:

Same number of tiles, but I think it feels less repetitive and artificial like this. This edit is a little noisy, I'm sure you can do a cleaner job.

By the way, it looks like your backgrounds are blurry in some spaces. Double-check that they're getting rendered pixel-perfect by your engine.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2018, 12:33:06 am by eishiya »

Offline B-Rokal

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Re: Stage Mock-Up (Feedback, Critique)

Reply #25 on: January 12, 2018, 04:55:04 am
By the way, it looks like your backgrounds are blurry in some spaces. Double-check that they're getting rendered pixel-perfect by your engine.

Ah, that, the background is a crude screenshot pasted as an image layer in "Tiled Map Editor" (the mapper I use)

The reason I use that is because in the real game the one that is messed up is the map, not the background, that's because of a glitch of the program I use to transfer Tiled maps to Unity (Called, rather accurately, Tiled2Unity by seanba), so to show progress in terms of design, I screenshot Tiled instead of Unity

Offline B-Rokal

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Re: Stage Mock-Up (Feedback, Critique)

Reply #26 on: January 16, 2018, 06:16:12 pm

I think the outlined tiles are the major thing holding the tileset back. They look like artificial brown lines rather than like natural rocks/dirt. The rest of your dirt tiles look great, try to incorporate that look into these. Break up the vertical linear features at least, and maybe add some variant tiles with larger rocks. Try not to have the rocks all fade out to "black" so evenly, have some of the "columns" fade quicker than the others.

An edit to show what I mean about breaking up the vertical lines:

Same number of tiles, but I think it feels less repetitive and artificial like this. This edit is a little noisy, I'm sure you can do a cleaner job.

By the way, it looks like your backgrounds are blurry in some spaces. Double-check that they're getting rendered pixel-perfect by your engine.

In the next episode of me doing random stuff until things somehow ends right:


I know is not precisely a solid "9/10", but i'm still kinda proud for being able to improve so much... I'm going for a contrast of cartoony characters with pseudo-realistic scenery, i've seen games like Freedom Planet that does this so...

Of the two layers of platform-like dirt tiles, the foreground one is so much simpler and more primitive than the background one (strict squares and flat platforms vs. continuous surfaces with slopes and semi-natural shapes) that it doesn't belong in the same game. I don't know what character movement are you planning to use and whether you want slopes or staircases, but you shouldn't use both.

In many platform games there is a functional second layer of platforms above the ground plane, often special objects like buildings or trees (e.g. Metal Slug); in many games one homogeneous layer of platforms is enough because platforms are placed at any height and above one another (e.g. Bubble Bobble, New Zealand Story, Boulder Dash).

 The simple square tile style can be enhanced with variations and decorations, with vertically linked grass tiles for the common configuration of stairs with grass above grass (it shouldn't look discontinuous), and with softer edges in the dirt part, but eliminating the sloped tiles that make it look cheap by comparison would have the greatest benefit.

If you choose the sloped tile style instead, I think you should improve visibility of the platform profiles with thicker grass and undergrass borders, up to the size of the exaggerated ones you have on the square tiles.
 

Has the Tileset improved?, i'm going for a sloped style, but for the early version of the game (you know, the one that goes into kickstarter if I decide to make one) I'm not planning to add that "functional layer" mostly because I suck at trees :P maybe with the money I can find someone to do that, so, without said layer, does it still look "decent enough"?

also, I'VE NEVER STOP THANKING to all of you guys, I promise the instant I finish the demo all of you are going to get it inmediatly  :'( :'( :'( :lol: :lol: :lol:

Offline eishiya

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Re: Stage Mock-Up (Feedback, Critique)

Reply #27 on: January 17, 2018, 12:03:16 am
I like the colours in the dirt. The lower contrast and cooler hues make them feel lit by the same blue sky as the grass.

However, aside from the colours, your tiles are identical to my edit :/ Please do your own work! Apply what you've learned from my edit and draw your own dirt according to your tastes. You'll learn more that way and be able to do better work on your next bunch of tiles. Plus, you copied my mistakes/laziness as well! The edits I made for you don't tile well with your existing grass-dirt transition tiles at all, they make noisy-looking shapes instead. You should probably also have more than just one tile for the middle row of dirt-tiles, as it gets rather repetitive even with the more organic shapes.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2018, 12:05:43 am by eishiya »

Offline maxvalley

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Re: Stage Mock-Up (Feedback, Critique)

Reply #28 on: January 18, 2018, 11:33:46 pm
I really love the sky. It looks great.

The rocks don't look so good to me. I think one of the problems is they're too small. Also the ground could use more contrast. Try brightening up the brightest color and or darkening the darkest color

Like someone else said, the green doesn't fit particularly well

Offline B-Rokal

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Re: Stage Mock-Up (Feedback, Critique)

Reply #29 on: January 21, 2018, 07:55:52 pm
I like the colours in the dirt. The lower contrast and cooler hues make them feel lit by the same blue sky as the grass.

However, aside from the colours, your tiles are identical to my edit :/ Please do your own work! Apply what you've learned from my edit and draw your own dirt according to your tastes. You'll learn more that way and be able to do better work on your next bunch of tiles. Plus, you copied my mistakes/laziness as well! The edits I made for you don't tile well with your existing grass-dirt transition tiles at all, they make noisy-looking shapes instead. You should probably also have more than just one tile for the middle row of dirt-tiles, as it gets rather repetitive even with the more organic shapes.



A WIP of the new tile set... I'm really having a bad time with this, what should I do when i'm blocked like this?

Anyway, some tiles have not been edited yet, I want to check if this style for the rocks works, is this better or worse than the last one?

Sorry for using your edit, I liked it so much and I really think it was way better than my edit (even if is a lazy one, you're a pro after all XD)

Thanks