AuthorTopic: [WIP] Arcade Academy  (Read 53545 times)

Offline crab2selout.png

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Re: [WIP] Arcade Academy

Reply #60 on: October 28, 2007, 02:32:27 am
Oh wow, that looks pretty cool actually. Works really well at picking your colours. Nothing really strange looking in there. Definitely could see this working in a sprite with little AA like yours. Do you need to draw the depth map for every time your sprite changes(like in an animation?). The white specular in the helmet looks odd now though.

BTW, is anyone else unable to see any of the images posted by robotacon in this thread? I gotta use anonymouse.org or else nothing shows up besides the text

Offline robotacon

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Re: [WIP] Arcade Academy

Reply #61 on: October 28, 2007, 08:48:46 pm
I have to draw an extra sprite sheet with the depth map so yes, every time the sprite changes. The good thing is that I haven't used that much AA or dithering and the sprites are basically depth-colored already except for the helmet that needs to be dome-rendered.



I have no idea why you can't see my images. That's a bummer. If someone knows, please let me know.

Offline Opacus

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Re: [WIP] Arcade Academy

Reply #62 on: October 28, 2007, 08:56:37 pm
I can see all the images fine really.

Offline infinity+1

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Re: [WIP] Arcade Academy

Reply #63 on: October 29, 2007, 05:02:46 am
can someone give me an in-depth explanation of what robotacon is doing, exactly?
i for one find it incredibly attractive, despite it maybe not being strictly pixel art.
or is this one of those things i have to be a programmer to realize and replicate?

Offline robotacon

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Re: [WIP] Arcade Academy

Reply #64 on: October 29, 2007, 08:04:26 am
can someone give me an in-depth explanation of what robotacon is doing, exactly?
i for one find it incredibly attractive, despite it maybe not being strictly pixel art.
or is this one of those things i have to be a programmer to realize and replicate?

I hope you guys feel that this is the right forum to post about what I'm doing. Perhaps it's not traditional pixel art but alot of what applies to pixel art still applies. The pillowshading on the helmet (in the depth map) that makes the helmet look flat is one thing that I've noticed that I have to change. If the sprites don't carry themselves in 2D space they won't transfer to 3D space. The sprite sheets and the depth maps are also all pixeled by hand and the only aspect of the art work that I'm changing are the highlights. My focus is maintaining a pixel art look so that any screenshot would look it was pixelled all my hand.

I'll try and expain what happends quickly since I'd rather talk about the pixel art aspects of this and not make this into a discussion about programming (Because you need to be a programmer to reproduce this). The gray scale depth map is read into memory using a custom pipline that turns it into a normal map. That map is rendered so that every pixel is colored according to what angle the pixel is facing in 3D space. I've then got a pixel shader that adds light to the original spritesheet according to this information by taking the dot product between the normal map and the angle of the light that I update inbetween each frame. That would give the results I had at 12 October. This is then enhanced by adding another filter in the pixel shader that calculates the distances in color space between the highlighted pixel and each of the 16 colors I've selected to use (I've got a slightly modified Arne-palette) so that I remain the integrety of that palette.

All you need to know can be found in this tutorial for XNA developers.

For what it's worth I'll try and focus on posting more pixel art and less techincal stuff in the future.

Offline sharprm

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Re: [WIP] Arcade Academy

Reply #65 on: October 29, 2007, 10:01:43 am
I think that you should have the white dot on the helmet move according to the light source. You should also remove how some of
the outline for helmet is white and some is grey. That would make the lighting effect better i think.

My only crit with anims is how shading on helmet oultine changes when he hangs onto ledge, so i you don't remove then make it
consistent (ie grey suggests light from right for that frame).

Will you have shadows for your game also?

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Offline baccaman21

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Re: [WIP] Arcade Academy

Reply #66 on: October 29, 2007, 11:14:03 am
RE: the helmet and the specular hilight on it (that doesn't move)

What an excellent use of old skool and new skool tech. Height maps on sprites what idea...
Here's what I think regarding the helmet.

People are expressing a dissatisfaction of the white hilight on the glass - which looks weird when you've got this light source moving around and picking up the colors on the rest of the character.

You've already picked up that the height map on the helmet isn't quite right, (not round enough - at the moment it's profile is a point [I'm assuming you know what you need to do to rectify this?])

If you're using a pixel shader then it stands to reason that it's entirely possible to incorporate a specular map? I'm not sure how it could work with 2D sprites but my experience on 360 and material mapping indicates that technically it can work.

But first things first, i'd remove the hilight off the helmets. And you may need to remove the white pixel line that indicates the helmet's edge as I think this could interfere with the effect?
Also, to add an extra layer of complexity to this, you may be able to incoprate an alpha mask overlay on the sprites... if so, then perhaps this layer could be your helmet?

It's a lot of effort though... but you'd get a cracking effect at the end... especially if you're thinking of having gun flares and explosions being light sources...

This is Looking great... is the intention to publish it on XBLA?





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Offline robotacon

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Re: [WIP] Arcade Academy

Reply #67 on: October 29, 2007, 01:10:07 pm
I think that you should have the white dot on the helmet move according to the light source. You should also remove how some of
the outline for helmet is white and some is grey. That would make the lighting effect better i think.

My only crit with anims is how shading on helmet oultine changes when he hangs onto ledge, so i you don't remove then make it
consistent (ie grey suggests light from right for that frame).

Will you have shadows for your game also?

I've removed the white specular on the helmet and fixed the outline of the helmet while on the ledge.

I HAVE had thoughts about real shadows too but I'm not sure how that works. I'll look into it.

If you're using a pixel shader then it stands to reason that it's entirely possible to incorporate a specular map? I'm not sure how it could work with 2D sprites but my experience on 360 and material mapping indicates that technically it can work.

But first things first, i'd remove the hilight off the helmets. And you may need to remove the white pixel line that indicates the helmet's edge as I think this could interfere with the effect?
Also, to add an extra layer of complexity to this, you may be able to incoprate an alpha mask overlay on the sprites... if so, then perhaps this layer could be your helmet?

It's a lot of effort though... but you'd get a cracking effect at the end... especially if you're thinking of having gun flares and explosions being light sources...

This is Looking great... is the intention to publish it on XBLA?

I had this idea of a material-map which I'm guessing is what you (and the rest of the world) calls a specular map. If it stores information about how reflective a material is then that's what I'm going for. I'll investigate.

I can't see why I couldn't add an alpha mask. Are you saying that I should add a glass like effect for the helmet that is partially see-through?

X-Boox Live Arcade? Hm... no such plans...
« Last Edit: October 29, 2007, 01:12:53 pm by robotacon »

Offline infinity+1

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Re: [WIP] Arcade Academy

Reply #68 on: October 29, 2007, 02:12:28 pm
thanks for the response. i figured this was going to be one of those thingst that are out of my league, but i'm glad i know more about it.

Offline baccaman21

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Re: [WIP] Arcade Academy

Reply #69 on: October 29, 2007, 03:00:47 pm
I had this idea of a material-map which I'm guessing is what you (and the rest of the world) calls a specular map. If it stores information about how reflective a material is then that's what I'm going for. I'll investigate.
That's precisely what the specular map is yes...

To clarify - A 'material' is collection of maps that group together to form an effect, be it, rough stone, or shiny mirror, or scratchy vinyl... and so on... so this case it may have a specular map, height map and alpha map.

I can't see why I couldn't add an alpha mask. Are you saying that I should add a glass like effect for the helmet that is partially see-through?

Absolutley. With the specular map (if you get the contour of the helmet right) and the alpha applied it should look really nice.

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