AA help

[TrevoriuS]

Yes it is, but your boorts are too curvy on the sides and these pants need some realism by foldings. Also you need to shade the legs more round. Search for photo reference and try to learn from it. If you modify this with some effort I don't think much more critisism is needed at all.

[brigadon]

Okay, I have tried definitely to make the lightwork come from 10:45.
and I hope, Bengoshia, that you don't feel you have wasted a half an hour of your life on me.


Thanks for the advice, folks, I will put up more at a time, I don't have much option to work on this one anymore for the time being.
I will try to put them up as animations or multiple at a time. I really appreciate your help.

[bengo]

Better but still needs more contrast especially for the skin colors.

[BG]

a quick edit increesing contrast. Dunno if it helps.


I didn't do anything about it, but I think you should add one more shade of brown. You have one more collor to go (if you're gonna stick to the old 16 color rule) and I think the pants could actully need less contrast. Also, shouldn't his coat be visible behind his legs?

I like pirates so I can't wait to see more stuff.

[baccaman21]

Ha! another old timer born in 1971... join the club - there's not many of us post 30 on this forum...

Just out of interest... is this figure going to be:

a. animated?
b. in a top down 'game'?
c. in a side on 'game'?

You talk about 'floors' and wanting to outline the sprite (in grey  ) as well as a mention of some RPG game or other which leads me to suspect that it's a top down view...? I may be wrong?

Why? Well, the figure you have ATM isn't in that perspective plane and may look a peculiar in such a setting.

As for animation - well that's a whole world of hurt - especially if you're considering 40odd costumed characters? But then one has to factor in your intention...

OK, you've got me intrigued... Cartoon Adventure? Script writing... what is it you're trying to do exactly?  Knowing a bit more about the intended purpose will help with Critique, anything else is out of context and (I think the posts here already may have shown) are superfluous to your needs/requirements... particularly as many members on these boards tend to focus mainly on singular pieces without any further need for application.

There are a number of us here though who have a great deal of experience of what you're striving to achieve (i.e. Professional Game Developers) and knowing the bigger picture just helps fill in the blanks and ultimately gives a bit more insight into what you should and shouldn't be doing...

I appreciate you may not want to divulge too much detail, just an High level flavour is all that's required.

[mobichan]

<- OLD    NEW->

I added 3 more colors (don't know if you had intended it to have 16 max) and tried to illustrate where you would get the benefit of some cast shadows.  I also shaved pixels off the boots in some places to give them more shape and to define the heel/toe of the feet.  There are a few colors that can be consolidated overall (although I didn't do that in the edit).  You might try starting with 3 shades of each color (a light, medium and dark tone) to help keep things simple when you start.

Nice work so far. 

[brigadon]

Okay, details

Umm... It's Called Abaddon, a33% top-down game.

The figures are more-or-less straight-on, in the style of many of the older nintendo, playstation, and final fantasy games. i am using a custom version of Eclipse Evolution that Baron made for me since I am not a terribly good coder. I am also hoping(!) that my brother can actually lay hands on the PSP dev kit he's supposed to be getting as part of the business purchase agreement for his business' dissolution.

I have been working on the scripting for about a year, primarily in quests, storyline issues etc. I have a friend of mine that is doing some of the flash sequences, but she is a 'regular artist' and has neither the interest nor the time for pixel pushing. the majority of the outfits are already designed and I have done concept art of a large portion of the creatures.

It is 'technically' an MMO. but the eclipse engine is not terribly robust for multiplayer, so the realistic maximum number of players at one time is around 20 or so... if it gets any bigger than that, well...I don't know.

There is no seperate combat screen. all combats happen in real-time and the character sprites were expanded from 32x48 to 32x64 in hopes that that would increase the appeal of characters that you have to look at ALL the time. The problem is that instead of smooth transitions from tile to tile, eclipse moves 'choppy' (ie, hop from 32x32 tile with no transition between them) admittedly a problem, but i think Baron might be willing to address it if he thinks there's profit in it for him


We had a pixel artist, but he was moody. He started to do a standard 'japanese chibi' style, and then I found out that every single 'original artwork' that he sent me was actually a recolor of someone else's work. Well, to make a long story short, my job was pretty much done, I am a fair to middling artist, and I pick up technique quickly, and I have a bit of time. So I decided I would go ahead and run the graphicswork while the code is still getting patched into place.

But I know I have a long way to go before I  can turn out professional-quality graphics. so I threw together something of the style that we wish to use although it may not actually make it into the game, and asked for help in hopes that some of the things I didn't understand or cannot apply very well. I learn by doing, not by reading or listening or tutorials.

I think I am improving quickly, and my speed is fairly good once I understand the basics intuitively. So I do appreciate the critiques immensely.

Any other questions?

[brigadon]

More Details:

colors are an issue primarily because of load times and graphics memory. Since the game uses an interpreted language, it's going to be slow going for a lot of figures anyway, so special effects and so forth need to be kept, if possible, to low numbers, low colors, and a high amount of visual appeal and reusability for each rendered entity.

The good thing, however, is that the engine is capable of rendering up to 12 layers, so layering can add a lot of 'uniqueness' to the images used. outlines, multilayered backgrounds, spell 'auras', status effect graphics, emoticons, etc. will all be handled on their own, seperate layers.

The actual 'hard cap' on the colors is 16 bit, but in the interests of saving memory, we are trying to stay within 8 bit colors. that means that some of the figures are going to use signifigantly less than 16 colors if it can be achieved attractively.

[baccaman21]

fx with alpha?

[brigadon]

Nope