AuthorTopic: my little world, monsters! ... [please C&C]  (Read 105533 times)

Offline PypeBros

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Re: my little world ... [please C&C]

Reply #70 on: June 12, 2008, 11:17:28 am
for your background, take a look at World of illusion on genesis :
make more contrast on shadows for example, your character is in a forest, so try to create a light/dark ambient :)
Hmm yeah. background is popping up as if being beamed on a screen behind the scene, isn't it  :blind:

vs.
any chance a contrast/brightness change improves it, or should i completely start with new colours and style ?


does that light/darkness things explain too the contrast seen in the above picture of Yoshi's island?

Maybe my error is to build a whole "ceiling" of leaves while my tiles are currently drawn for "open air". Though most pixels are not directly from me on the image below (my blog's banner), the same mix of colours seemed to do a better job, somehow.
« Last Edit: June 12, 2008, 11:30:47 am by PypeBros »

Offline Ichigo Jam

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Re: my little world ... [please C&C]

Reply #71 on: June 12, 2008, 10:28:37 pm
vs.
any chance a contrast/brightness change improves it, or should i completely start with new colours and style ?
I think the single biggest problem here is the middle layer, where you're using darker colours than the foreground, and just as much contrast (i.e. the tree behind Bilou, and the bushes). I think this is why the darker image looks better - the middle layer feels more like it fits.

Still, I think both its overall brightness and contrast range (of the middle layer) should probably sit in between the foreground and background layers.

Maybe try something like this? (I also had a quick fiddle with some of the hard edges such as the base of the near trees and platform.)

Although I may have overdone the de-saturation if you want a really bright look, hopefully this will give you some ideas.

Offline PypeBros

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Re: my little world ... [please C&C]

Reply #72 on: June 16, 2008, 03:25:09 pm
vs vs vs
experimenting contrast/lightness/saturation adjustment of the various planes ...

That starts looking like a wood, but i can't decide whether it did the job ...

Quote from: ichigo
hopefully this will give you some ideas.
Yep. I'm re-working grass, roots and things alike ;)
« Last Edit: June 17, 2008, 08:25:38 am by PypeBros »

Offline tehwexxl0rz

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Re: my little world ... [please C&C]

Reply #73 on: June 16, 2008, 08:13:41 pm
The contrast and readability in number three looks great. :D

Offline PypeBros

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Re: my little world ... [please C&C]

Reply #74 on: June 17, 2008, 08:24:23 am
thanks. I have a doubt on the bushes contrast, though. I find them too far away while they should give the impression that we could move behind them easily, but that they aren't on the path. Also included my more recent grass effects (thanks again, ichigo) and a (hopefully) more recognizable mushroom.

I might try other colours for the mushroom, though. It's currently so eye-catching (imho) that it could be used as bumper. Maybe orange mushroom would be better.

--
Also worked on some 'slope' tiles (only 5 new 8x8 tiles for a 22.5 slope ... /me proud  ;D )

(PS: included the image as #4 above too for comparison purposes ;) )
« Last Edit: June 17, 2008, 08:39:03 am by PypeBros »

Offline HughSpectrum

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Re: my little world ... [please C&C]

Reply #75 on: June 17, 2008, 09:10:58 am
The outline on the rock formation is a bit...  Hard, especially compared to the trees.  It has enough contrast on its own to separate from the background, so it should be okay to outline with some of the shades.

The grass on the ground and on the rock formation could probably use a bit more contrast as well to define its shape a bit better.

Offline PypeBros

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Re: my little world ... [please C&C]

Reply #76 on: June 17, 2008, 10:19:01 am


you're right, thanks. Historically, those blocks of rock were designed to be read against darker bg rocks to do caves etc. With the higher contrast, they really don't need any outline, indeed.
I tried to improve grass around the rocks, too, but i'm not sure i got your point completely ...

Offline Lackey

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Re: my little world ... [please C&C]

Reply #77 on: June 18, 2008, 07:31:20 am
Hmm, sorry for not reading the whole thread (I did, I just skimmed!) but is there a fixed palette in this?  I do not understand the progression of grass shades, particularly the greyness of the lightest shade.
This isn't an even spread of colours and it's a bit dark, but I think it makes a bit more sense:


Conceptually I think you could do more with the cliff tiles.  I know this is a platform game and all but forests tend to display a distinct lack of 90 degree angles, maybe you could go for something a little rounder, a little lumpier?  I think the tiles as they are have a definite appearance of an empty space you had to fill with your boulder shapes.  The slope tiles will alleviate this, but you still have open cliff face which I think will look odd.  I don't know if this will be helpful:

Offline PypeBros

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Re: my little world ... [please C&C]

Reply #78 on: June 18, 2008, 11:57:25 am
Quote
but is there a fixed palette in this?
Well, there is a palette of max. 256 colours taken freely in the 5:5:5 RGB space, so that's not a fixed palette as on a NES or C64, but i'm supposed to stick to relatively few colours. Though, i'm editing the mockup in Gimp, so erasing some pixels and changing contrast etc. produced an insane amount of sub-colors that are not intended to survive :P

Quote
I do not understand the progression of grass shades, particularly the greyness of the lightest shade.
true, i've got troubles with that one. Sometimes i see it and fix it (e.g. on the slope), sometimes i miss it when importing stuff. Btw, the way you introduced darker shades in the grass on top of the rocks. i'll try and see if i can edit in that way.

Quote
(the tiles ...) have a definite appearance of an empty space you had to fill with your boulder shapes
hmm. not sure of what you're talking about here. The larger rock in the middle of the platform, maybe (which was intended to break monotony in larger patches of rocks) ? I could agree it does not really belong here ... From your reference cliffs, i see i missed something with more global highlight/shading of the cliff as a whole. I have a straight wall of round rocks rather than a coherent platform. Reusing cave walls as cliffs definitely doesn't make it. I'll give those tiles of their own.
<-- does this address your concerns, or are you more worried about the grass on the rocks being horizontal ?
... or maybe you mean i having both horizontal grass and mainly-vertical rocks is one too much ?

i first noticed i could do it that way while looking at Dan's website banner :

which seemed a better way to go that the "random jigsaw rocks" i used to do (very) earlier.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2008, 12:23:33 pm by PypeBros »

Offline AdamAtomic

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Re: my little world ... [please C&C]

Reply #79 on: June 18, 2008, 02:34:06 pm
I think lackey's point is that your wall appears to be a pile of rocks that are all kind of glued together or stuffed into an invisible cube, rather than looking like a boulder or an outcropping you might see in real life somewhere.  This is not, obviously, to say that it should be realistic, only that it should be more believable.  Most of your tiles right now have a distinct flavor of referencing other platformer games more than they are referencing art or real life, and I think because of that they are very scattered, abstract, and flat.  You'll notice on both Lackey's mockups and Indigo's banner that the stone/rock/dirt tiles seem to form one cohesive surface, rather than a shambles of stones piled up like an old midieval hut of some sort.  This is a more believable surface than a pile of stones that are sort of unbelievably vertical in their orientation.

At least for me, something that has helped my level art a LOT is to draw basically to-scale mockups in my little sketchbook, usually away from the computer entirely.  I'll go through and doodle sections of the level, and any part that I'm having trouble executing int he sketchbook i KNOW i will have a lot of trouble executing in pixel art.  For things like rocks, dirt and grass especially this has made a huge difference for me.  Sketching is generally much faster than doing a fully realized pixeled test, and it can go a long ways toward helping you explore what works and what doesn't.  It's an opportunity to think about and explore the materials and surfaces that you want to render without getting hung up on the particulars of palettes and AA and all of these trappings of good pixel art.

I feel like if you were just making a pencil drawing of some grass with a rocky outcropping you would not draw it like a pile of pebbles!