"Crystaline River" Forest tileset.

[Ryumaru]

some new tiles for the project Crystaline River.
heres the actual tileset:

aswell as a little mock( shadows and and other effects like water will be done with code)

you may remember some tiles i did a long time ago, and these are actualy me redoing them( i found i didnt like the style or the skill used in them)

comments and critique welcome and encouraged. : D

[lilwing]

heheh, that's pretty cool looking. what engine are you using? vergeC?

[Ryumaru]

im an artist, i dont know anything. i just place the pixels to make something pretty.
maybe when Q.K comes to this thread hell tell you  : O
edit: this is in response to eyecrafts comment but i dont like posting so much.
i forgot to say that the pallette is subject to LOTS of changes, preferably colder and with more contrast.

[EyeCraft]

Yeah I remember seeing this quite a while ago. I like the darker style of the original, but these new tiles are perhaps executed better. Im not digging th dirt tiles...they dont convey texture very well, I believe. The contrast is very subdued for the most part. The logs seem to have more contrast than everything else, which makes them stick out. I definitely prefer the style of the new cliffs/shore. The lightsource on things is confused.

[Ryumaru]

update:

will see what i can do with the dirt tiles later.

[Q.K.]

@The latest update/colour swap: That might be a bit too extreme there. I know I said I was looking for a darker, more serious tone, with blues in it, but I think that's slightly overkill maybe? Looks a bit like there's a blue filter on top of it. Anyways, the tiles themselves are looking fine. There are some things I prefer in the darker/bluer version like the dirt tile, however for the most part I think meeting somewhere in between would be best. Maybe just less of such a "tinted" look overall?

@ lilwing: I'm not the programmer, so I can't say for sure, but I do know that the programmer has used a C language variant (whether it's ++, #, or a combo, I'm not sure). He wrote our very own in house game dev kit with it's own libraries and scripting language from the ground up. Apparently it's very fast and highly optimized. All the code, and libraries for such things as audio, graphics, are custom.

If anyone has more questions about the game, feel free to ask. Maybe it would be best to stick to critique for the art's sake? Heh, still, feel free to ask.

[lilwing]

that's cool. do you know what platforms it is available for? i used to program games for only windows systems, but now i don't even use windows and i cross-platform them. just curious how other programmers do it.

[halu]

Holy shit, Ryu's spriting for CR?
They look beautiful Ryu, and I believe CR is being made in Infinitus's own game engine "Fusion."
I'm probably wrong though <_<;/

[ndchristie]

in my opinion this is a huge step backwards, sorry.  it's blurry now and the colors are boring.  Who did the new character? i know mine was not stellar, but the new one is unreadable...

[Xion]

the blue cliffs are teh suk. The old brown ones were not.
You made it look more nighttimey, which I guess is what you were going for, but man, you're supposed to tint things a nighttime atmosphere, not completely change it to a bright, unnatural blue. It's okay for the rocks, because they need to pop out of the ground as obstacles, but the stone path and cliff...no, man. The stone path pops out too much for something that's traversable. On a similar note, the bushes need to pop out more. The cliffs...they just...don't look...good. Too much contrast, too bright hilights...I can't tell where the lightsource is coming from, or what shape the cliffs are due to that.

And I agree with Adarias in that the colors are boring in both of your updates compared to the original original.

[halu]

wait, I just noticed the new char.
Where's the older small one

[Ryumaru]

adarias + xion: eep. seems like i have alot to work on. ill try and satisfy.
halu: haha adarias made that one and it doesnt fit the style of the new tiles. the ones in the mockup i made but we might not even use those because im lazy and cant animate so im no longer doing the chars.

[halu]

I like the old little guy, I saw screens of him in mockups on zfgc.

[Delgneith]

I must say these are nice tiles but I still prefer the older ones. I think the only thing I really like better about the new ones is the tree the way it was rendered but not the colors. Colors on the old one were much nicer and had just the right amount of contrast I'd say. New logs look a little plasticy.

Something also irks me about the dirt path. I think the texture of it doesn't read well.

Keep up the work though cause give these some tweaks and they'll look real sweet.

[.TakaM]

This is a strange one for me.

Personally, I think it looks like you've treated each tile/object as an individual piece of pixel art, the amount of hue shifts and the heavy sway to blue keeps each object rather dominating- they don't complement each other, they just demand attention.
and most objects look kinda like they have two separate ramps, as if the grass darkened to a point, and the picture burnt through revealing the necessary shades for a rock, the paths, the bushes etc

Again, I have the feeling this is just my personal taste, and some may feel the complete opposite.
But I prefer a more generic style of colouring for the tiles, preferring intricate details rather than unnecessary hue shifts

[Ryumaru]

delgneith: thankyou. yes the dirt path is horrible, will get on that.
.takam: you are actually right i took a more individual approach to each part in hopes to make it so that the tilesets would not appear so... square? just the general look that tiles give that make you know they are tiles, i wanted to avoid. will work on all points given.
this is real quick but does this help at all?( this only takes into account some of the points given)

[ndchristie]

grass is better by a lot, but everything still seems to be soft and blue

[Froli]

Adarias already pointed out some stuff about the character sprite...but I would like to add some of my newbish insight if it's alright.

I think there are problems with the shading so I made a fast edit, emphasizing mostly his elbows and some of his clothes. A dynamic pose of a character standing, has his back in an arc so there should be shadows in the middle of his clothes.



And are you sure about the jacket covering the back of his hair? From my observation, hair styles improves a lot of the characters overall design.

[ndchristie]

the original design does have a higher collar (in addition to the white sleeves).  Yay for high-waisted, tight-fitted croquis!


but as far as overlapping the hair, that's pretty much a readability call, it could go either way for the outfit (which has changed a lot anyway).

[Ryumaru]

woo, it seems well be using the original ones afterall.