Mockup Frenzy #8: Megaman!

[AdamAtomic]

From user QuickSilva, a.k.a. Jason, a new Mockup Frenzy activity!

Mockup Frenzy #8 : Megaman!



Challenge
Were you excited by the announcement of a new Megaman game but equally dissapointed by Capcom's decision to take the graphics all the way back to the beginning of the series? Well now is your chance to show them how Megaman 9 should have looked! Your task is to create your very own boss character, one complete tileset and set of enemies to populate your stage using the limitations of the original NES (See NES specs below.)

Start Date
Monday 18th August 2008

Deadline
Monday 1st September 2008

Notes
No rips or edits please. All entries must be 100% your own work apart from the possible inclusion of the main Megaman sprite.

NES colors, resolution and restrictions.
(Kindly supplied by AdamAtomic )



And finally some samples to get you started. These are from Megaman 6 and show just how far Capcom had come with the series graphics towards the end.




For extra inspiration take a look at some real Megaman levels and sprites from the following sites.

http://www.vgmaps.com/
http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/

Lastly, a sample boss avatar. Please make sure that your boss avatar fits inside this template.



All that is left to say now is to have fun and enjoy the challenge


RESULTS:

Alex Hanson-White, floatvoid, floatvoid:


gamingjustin, huZba, joe123:


Lord Ash, mice, mice:
 

mice, moket, Mt:


Mt, Pietepiet, ptoing:


QuickSilva, QuickSilva, QuickSilva:


rdcarvallo, rdcarvallo, Red Mist:
 

Rosse, Rosse, Rosse:
 

Ryona, Tobe, vierbit:


Zccc, Zccc, Zccc:


Xion:



Finally, we had a bunch of submissions that weren't full-on mockups but still get at the heart of the activity:



Sorry for the INSANELY LATE COLLATING AND UPLOADING!  Happy holidays, pixelators 

[vagabondarts]

amazing challenge!

I love old-school MegaMan.  ...looking forward to contributing and seeing everyone's submissions!   
Those MM6 screens show how skilled capcom became on the NES hardware. 
Didn't MM6 also use one of the advanced chips on the actual cart (like Castlevania 3) to provide a greater variety of colors on screen or something?

[AdamAtomic]

I don't believe so, but they did use more than 4 palettes per level, which very few other games did.  They would change the palette once you had advanced well past the screens that used the old one.

[Zurnathus]

man...looking back at these i'm amazed how good it all looks with the limits they had

[Dex]

Wow, this looks pretty awesome. I might just have to try this out! 

[Conzeit]

Oooohkay, been doing research for my own reasons...but...might as well post it here. The most popular of these games have entries in VGmaps, and even complete runs on youtube...so this is just to give you some ropes on the best NES stuff out there.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/ninja-gaiden-iii-the-ancient-ship-of-doom/screenshots/gameShotId,83318/
Ninja Gaiden 3, the first levels in particular have great graphics

http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/batman-the-video-game_/screenshots/gameShotId,42623/
Batman. I think it's got the best atmosphere in NES bar none.

Some screens I myself grabbed from TripWorld, a game for GB that is equally well done.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/little-samson/screenshots/gameShotId,253929/ Little Samson....among of the best and most unknown NES games. good thing there are several screenshots here, this one doesnt have an entry at Videogame Maps


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnp6P7Kgeoo
Aaaand as reiterative as it might be, Star Ocean Blue sphere footage, AGAIN. I reaaally should play trough that game..bummer, an RPG and in japanese -_-

Let's show Inafune some ingenious tile conservation =O

[Ryona]

Ooh! This sounds like it could be fun! 

...Though, I'd hate to sound like a ditz, but can anyone explain to me what all this below means?

[tehwexxl0rz]

Personally, I think this prompt is much too narrow for a Mockup Frenzy.... Everyone is asked to make a mockup of the same game?
An already existing game no less! Even when I don't submit, one of my favorite things about this activity is seeing everyone else's diverse ideas for original games and hopefully finding inspiration from them!

[Ryona]

Even though this mockup-thingie is based off of a videogame franchize, people can still get real creative! And it's a nice base to work from.

Here's my boss character so far. And yes, I know I deviated away from the "blank" man consistancy in the series, but I wanted to break away from the monotonousness by making this boss a woman.

Sue me. lol 

Now, without further ado, I give you WARP-WOMAN!
Her main power is teleportation.



Oh, and I used Mega-Man for size reference.

I'm thinking I should probably make Warp-Woman bigger in the portrait pic.

[MrMister]

Mega Man 9 actually has a woman boss. I kinda agree with The Weckslors, because everything has to subscribe to the mega man series. Subscribing is bad. Ascribing good.. Level ideas could be fun to come up with, though.
Think I got a good idea too

[Ryona]

Oh wow! I just looked on Wiki, and you're right, there is a female boss by the name of Splash-Woman.
Also, I had no idea that this new Mega-Man 9 game was being designed to look like it's out of the 80s! That's neat!

I'm actually a little confused... I heard of and played a Mega-Man game called 'Mega-Man X' for SNES. Doesn't "X" mean it's the tenth game? If so, why is 9 just getting made now?

[ptoing]

Mega Man X is an entire different spinoff series.

[Conzeit]

yes, megaman has like 5 different series by now; each characterized by a specific tone and a different look (for example megaman characters have little detail (blips, knick-nacks, fins, spikes...etc) on their armor, and can have bare chests. X characters must by rule have chest armor and usually have a lot more bulk and clutter...MegamanX as a character also goes from a total boy scout to someone who is concerned about the effects of war and whatnot.

Or atleast it used to be, now it's like they're creating new series for the hell of it, no diference in tone or look.Just re-set continuities and a few minor gameplay tweaks.

Personally, I think this prompt is much too narrow for a Mockup Frenzy.... Everyone is asked to make a mockup of the same game?

You're missing the point! this is our chance as pixel artists to prove our worth and restore honor to pixelart by showing CAPCOM that NES does not equal halfassed graphics 

or something

[Luzeke]

I think this is an awesome challenge, being the mega Mega Man-fan that I am 

Going to work on this instantly!

[Zccc]

I would participate, but I don't know the NES restrictions...
Those in the image are confusing me.

[AdamAtomic]

Mockup Frenzy #7 was also on NES specs, and there are lots of helpful posts in that thread that go over some of the more confusing parts of the spec.  Also, no one is going to string you up if you have one extra color in one tile or something, the main idea here is just to show capcom what they COULD have done, instead of what they did

[Lee N]

Oh wow! I just looked on Wiki, and you're right, there is a female boss by the name of Splash-Woman.

This is what she looks like (in greyscale at least):



It's from the official achievements list for the game:

http://inside.mygamercard.net/2008/08/12/achievements-for-mega-man-9-reward-the-hardcore/


edit: apparently they didn't appreciate me hotlinking directly to their server, so I fixed the image url.

[AlexHW]

i think it would be worth mentioning how many tiles a person should be considering using since this would also be a valid limitation on the NES and this challenge though i dunno how many tiles the new megaman will be using per level or whatnot(i guess you can find/look at the original tilesets as an example)..
i did some digging and found this: http://nocash.emubase.de/everynes.htm#pputilememory
from what i understand(and i could be wrong) sprites and tiles are stored in some ppu memory thing inside the cartridges.. and up to 512 8x8 tiles can be used for tiles/sprites.
also you can use a background palette for each 2x2 group of 8x8 tiles i think..
if anyone else wants to interpret that information on that site, go ahead.

[PypeBros]

and up to 512 8x8 tiles can be used for tiles/sprites.

true. That's what will be your practical limit within a level. The specs remain vague on "whatever mapping mechanism (blablablah)", and imho that's for purpose. Electronically speaking, you could very well make your cartridge in such a way that a special "write" to character rom switch the circuitry so that you're now using the tileset for level 2 rather than the initial tileset.

That's theoretically possible, and i guess this has been done in latest games, but be prepared to be charged a higher price per cartridge if you opt for that technology

[gamingjustin]

That's nuts. I was going to do Warp Man myself until I saw Ryona's Warp Woman!... Sorta had an idea he'd pick Megaman up, teleport to drop you above some spikes, and you'd have to navigate the right way in time-- something along those lines. Ya beat me to it! Anyway, I ended up creating TEMPO MAN. I guess the series never felt the need for a music-themed boss what with all the music references already (Rock, Roll, Blues, Bass, Treble) and the great music, period.

This is all I have done for now, but I plan to make a Megaman-sized sprite as well as some level tiles. He's just got some shades, spiky hair and some big headphones. Yeah, nothin' too exciting yet.


And yeah, I agree Warp Woman needs to fill up a bit more of that frame. It's great the way it is now, but I've seen your other excellent sprites and I'm quite sure it could be even better. (I think mine's too big actually...)

[Lord Ash]

count me in
I'll post something soon

[floatvoid]

I was curious, if the limit for sprites its 8x16, how are we able to get characters much larger than that? (gutsman for example) Or, these guys: http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/files/Classic/MM1/Boss/mm1bigenemysheet.gif

Does this use some kind of code trickery to tile up a bunch of sprite images in sequence?

[AdamAtomic]

Does this use some kind of code trickery to tile up a bunch of sprite images in sequence?

Yes - even super mario is made up of some 8 sprites, at least.  But the really big megaman enemies (just like the giant bosses in lots of other NES games) are just tiles

[MrMister]

Here's what I got so far

[rdcarvallo]

Here goes 2 of my 8 robot masters: Katana Man and Scorpion Man, still W.I.P.


The original design of Katana Man:


I'll try to make my 8 robot masters.

The tileset/stage will be the Katana Man ~ Samurai themed stage.

[floatvoid]

AdamAtomic: Cool, thanks .

Ok, here goes. Just as a preface, I haven't touched pixel art in a good number of years... probably 5 or so. Just getting back in the groove of things.

Obviously I haven't been following the rules 100% yet. Since this is my first foray into the pixel domain in a while, I'm kind of pushing past NES limits to get in the groove, then I may push back and re-optimize later. Goes without saying, this is VERY VERY w-i-p.



I call him MOUNTAIN MAN. He's a gunslingin' cowboy from the west (west of Dr.Wiley's evil factory!). He rocks a big-ole beard and six-shooters for hands.

[AdamAtomic]

Aaah badass start, floatvoid, looking forward to seeing where this is going   At least on my screen your cowboy looks a little bit like a terrifying owl right now, maybe better delineation between the 'stache and the...cool clint eastwood mexican shawl thingy?

[Ryona]

That's nuts. I was going to do Warp Man myself until I saw Ryona's Warp Woman!

Aw, sowwy. But Tempo-Man is actually a really cool idea. I like the portrait pic.
And actually before I came up with Warp-Woman, I was going to go with Galaxy-Woman, but I then changed my mind. Glad I did because I later found out that there will be a Galaxy-Man in MegaMan 9! haha


Anyway, here's an update of my schtuff...
I updated Warp-Woman's portrait and created a few enemies so far.




I like what I see from everyone else. 

[Pietepiet]

I've been lurking for far too long, figured I'd finally show myself for this challenge.

Because I'm not actually sure if my idea is allowed, I figured I'd post this WIP first before I start working on the tiles. This is SneakMan, with the power to, obviously, sneak around and completely disappear in stealth. Also included is an enemy. My source of inspiration should be quite obvious, which is why I'm asking if something like this is allowed for this challenge. If not, I'll think of something else, no problem



Cheers!

[QuickSilva]

Solid Snake? Of course it`s OK. At this small size you can hardly tell anyway. Just have fun with it. The rules are only there as guidelines but the main emphasis is on enjoying yourself. Of course, being original is always the best option though.

Love all of the other entries so far, especially yours Ryona! Keep em coming guys (and gals ) Looking forward to seeing some tilesets too.

Jason.

[Luzeke]

Here's what I currently have on my guy: Brute Man!



I think I overshot color restrictions with 2 colors with the axe. The level theme is going to be a medieval battlefield with wooden siege machines and stuff 

Edit// May change the axe, it looks a bit off...

[floatvoid]

Aaah badass start, floatvoid, looking forward to seeing where this is going   At least on my screen your cowboy looks a little bit like a terrifying owl right now, maybe better delineation between the 'stache and the...cool clint eastwood mexican shawl thingy?

Thanks . I see part of the problem here, as that's supposed to be a giant beard, not a 'mexican shawl thingy'. Although, that's not a bad idea.

[huZba]

Only Pietepiet's character is within limits so far i think?

Bruteman would flicker even if he was alone on the screen. Also it's using all the allowed 4 different sprite palettes by himself.
Check out the cinematendo thread for restrictions.

[Luzeke]

I used Stone man for size reference, but maybe he got just a little too big . Anyway, hacked away at the colors and scaled him down to using 2 palettes max. 
Also fixed the axe. Does it look better?



I'll see what I can do to scale him down, without loosing the effect I wanted.

[huZba]

Still no go. One sprite is 8x8, 3 colors + alpha (one color is always alpha? Can't have a tile with 4 colors without alpha? have to check on that)
I can't slice bruteman to 8x8 pieces without some pieces having too many colors.
8 sprites per scanline and at the tip of the axe there's a part that needs at least 7 sprites. So width is the issue here.
Notice how stone man is exactly 4 tiles wide and 5 tiles high. The face has two sprites on top of each other. Same with the red sphere.
So at maximum stoneman has 5 sprites on one scanline. Megaman has 3, so that's a total of 8, so stoneman probably flickers when you shoot at him.

I'll check around for NES sprite editors to see how the enemies are built.

-Edit-
Here's how stoneman is divided. His legs are mirrored and use the same tile.
also portrait   16 tiles + 3 sprites make the final image.
(NOTE that the black is actually transparent in the portrait and shows the BG fill color, so there's no black in the tiles or sprites.)

Technical things aside, i really like bruteman. He fits megaman and has character. With a bit of headscratching it should be possible to get a result very similar to what he looks like now AND meet the restraints too.

[mice]

Sprites can be 8x16 as well.

Still don't get this, we're supposed to do a mockup, right?

[Luzeke]

Tried to make him smaller without sacrificing too much. I guess he's still too big . Made so that the feet uses the same sprite.
Then I tried to further make him less wide.


De-widening > Further De-widening > 8x8 breakup of the leftmost sprite.

Technical things aside, i really like bruteman. He fits megaman and has character. With a bit of headscratching it should be possible to get a result very similar to what he looks like now AND meet the restraints too.

Thanks 

[Krut]

You could prolly´ save up a tile by mirroring the top of the head (and retouching the shading on that part), one tile on the shoulder pad could get the same treatment also.

[huZba]

Start counting the colors in the tiles  In the middle there's plenty with 4 colors, which is 1 too many. Use one palette with black, white and orange. And other one with black, orange(could try something else?) and red. I guess 2 unique palettes for the enemies is the maximum, cause megaman always hogs 2 for himself, of which the other one is rotating when you charge and the other one is white, black and face color. I guess the face colors can be used on the enemy palettes too.

It's getting there, just a bit more sprinting and we have a nes-able boss.
I find this NES stuff, pondering the same things as the developers of ancient times, extremely fascinating.

[Pietepiet]

I find this NES stuff, pondering the same things as the developers of ancient times, extremely fascinating.

I fully agree. I'm still a bit confused, though. I divided MegaMan's original sprite into 8x8 tiles, and he also has a few tiles which have four colours, mainly around the face area. How does that work exactly? I see StoneMan has a seperate tile for the eyes/mouth. Does that one get pasted on with code, or something like that? And does that apply to MegaMan as well, then?

[Luzeke]

I think I've managed to make him NES-ok. Had to take away the axe for that though, it took up too much space. I also made him monochrome. Save for the face there's only black, orange and dark red. I could make him use double sprites, as Pietpiet talked about in the above post. Sort of like I guess they did with Plantman. But that up the sprite count unreasonably.



I guess the axe has to magically appear when needed 

[Dusty]

I find this NES stuff, pondering the same things as the developers of ancient times, extremely fascinating.

I fully agree. I'm still a bit confused, though. I divided MegaMan's original sprite into 8x8 tiles, and he also has a few tiles which have four colours, mainly around the face area. How does that work exactly? I see StoneMan has a seperate tile for the eyes/mouth. Does that one get pasted on with code, or something like that? And does that apply to MegaMan as well, then?

Overlaying sprites?

[mice]

'I'm Pipeman'
Sadly, not megamanish at all.

[Squiggly_P]

Check out the flicker on this. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIBcpowkU3A
MM6 being taped from a TV / NES
I think by the end of the series' run on the NES they weren't really that concerned with flicker.  Most of the bigger enemies flicker, even if you're not shooting at them.  Even the bosses.  Just being on the same level as them will cause it, let alone the two or three projectiles that might be on the same line.  So I really think your original Brute Man wouldn't have been so improbable a design in the games.

[Timpa]

I'm not very familiar with pixelart but I gave this a shot... Have no idea if the restrictions are correct or not but what the heck..

[PypeBros]

'I'm Pipeman'

Oh well, pipeman *must* have a mustache or a red hat, doesn't he ?

[crab2selout.png]

If it's 4 colours per tile then how do the purple flowers in this screen work? they've got white, yellow, two purples and black.

[AlexHW]

if you watch the video squiggly posted, youll see at that spot that they are flashing sprites or some sort o fpowerup things i thinK(i dunno what you call em)

[Souly]

I just realized the red wouldn't be allowed.

[Mt®]

Hey, I'm stopping by to post some mockups I did today, for this challenge.
It's been a year or so since my last post, so noone probably remembers me.

So here's.. well, the mockups




I tried to stay true to the original megaman art. Obviously Mega man's sprite + the HPbar/E-tank and the bullets aren't original, however
I can assure you the rest is! :[

Aaand.. the boss:

I call 'her' Snow Woman.. for now (name pending)
Also them yellow thingies in the mugshot are the blinking sprite thingies you see while you're selecting a boss.

[mice]

Mt®: Gorgeous!

[Ryona]

Aaand.. the boss:

I call 'her' Snow Woman.. for now (name pending)

I gotta be honest, neither the sprite nor the portrait pic looks like a woman. The shape of the sprite isn't really "femme", and the face in the portrait looks rather masculine.

The levels you made though are fantastic!


And on the topic of the color restrictions and 8x8 shablangy... Do I really have to worry about that stuff? I assumed that NES sprites could have five colors because MegaMan does, so I simply went with that.

Some of us are techno-gaming-computer-programming-mumbo-jumbo-illiterate *cough*me*cough*, so if we really have to go by the restrictions, could someone explain them in plain English please?

[AdamAtomic]

Megaman is made up of some blue sprites for his body and a peach+white sprite for his face.  So yeah, he does follow the hardware restrictions that were necessary for games to even run at all on the NES   I think snow woman does read as a woman but could also be more feminine.

As far as the uh, techno-babble, there are a lot of posts in this thread and the last mockup frenzy that break down some of the crazier parts of the NES spec, but it really isn't 100% necessary for this activity.  As long as you aren't using craploads of colors everywhere (which won't look like an NES game then anyways) it's really fine.  If you WANT to follow the spec 100%...well, do a little research   It's really not that complex!

[Conzeit]

This is awesome =) I have some good ideas, and I HAVE to do something on this one...I dont wanna go for the regular robotmaster (the official ones disappoint me quite a lot, they are all old designs with one minor armor part changed)

I want to make one of those GOOFY looking robotmasters...I think they're hillarous.

Ryona...

hahah. I know what you mean with the 5 colors! I started pixeling with megaman sprites so that boogled my mind as well.

Basically, think of it like this: Normally, for nes everything can only have 3 colors per tile.

The megaman developers wanted to make megaman more realistic, they wanted to give him a face with skin color, so they wasted a 8x8 sprite there for that.

So if you want to use more than 3 skin colors, try to make it only in a 8x8 area of the sprite.

Even though I'm no expert I could try to explain the other limitations, but you have another doubt you can post it here unless you want me to give u more lip than I have to 

EDIT: DAMN u adam Atomic 

and a crit for your WarpWoman Ryona...while you know how to make a curvilcious woman, you are not posing her like one, so when one reads her in real size the negative space that indicates her waist gets totally lost, because the way her arms go straight down create a sort of square that brings all the attention away from her body...

[Mt®]

Aaand.. the boss:

I call 'her' Snow Woman.. for now (name pending)

I gotta be honest, neither the sprite nor the portrait pic looks like a woman. The shape of the sprite isn't really "femme", and the face in the portrait looks rather masculine.

The levels you made though are fantastic!

Thank you Ryona, I can see what you mean and I agree with you. I tried my best to fix it and hopefully it looks better now:
Old:

New:


Better/Worse?

[Zccc]

I present you Honey Man, my first NES pixelart. I tried following the restrictions, not sure if worked. Otherwise, I don't like it, cuz' it doesn't fit Megaman   

[Luzeke]

Went back a step and messed around and came up with this:



Cut off the legs and made him fly instead 
The chest detail is a separate 8x16 sprite (I assume 8 is height and 16 width).
Anyway, he stays this way. At least for now, flicker be damned.

And here's an enemy:



A bird-bot. I'm actually not sure if I think it fits at all...

Working on the tileset. That's always the hardest part 

Mt®: The new avatar is an improvement, looks good.

Zccc: Looks cool, beehive stage ftw!

Btw, is the 8 sprites per scanline a finite amount restriction, meaning there can't be more than 8?
Or is it that more than 8 causes severe flickering?

[AdamAtomic]

more than 8 causes severe flickering

 

[rdcarvallo]

I know of the "no edits" rule ,but Mettols(the yellow hats) and Sniper Joes (the green men with shields) themed for the stage???

[Amon]

Recently got done with a dealie similar to this one.  Only it was just making the robot masters, so I've got a whole sheet of my own creation done.  Just a matter of making levels and enemies.



Sharkman!

[vierbit]

wip!

Have trouble to come up with a theme which is not used yet. but whatever.

@Mt®
Very good, only the stone tiles could be a little more simplify done. Like the background in your second screen.

@luzeke
the bird bot looks actually not very robotlike. Maybe show more the mechanical joints.

Otherwise great topic, but i like to see more backgrounds.

[Ryona]

That Sharkman looks really cool, Amon. Totally diggin' the style.

BruteMan is looking good too, though I gotta say, I liked his original design best.
I think making him hover doesn't really work with his name because flight suggests agility. A guy like BruteMan would work best being well-grounded with thick legs, like an inmovable mountain.

Mt®, your portrait and sprite definetly improved. I can definetly see a woman there now.

And thanks for the critz, Conceit. I'll work on her poses.
How are these so far?



WarpWoman here has a blaster attack, similar to MegaMan. She can teleport, as you can see. And she has a neat power where she creates a warp cone that will suck MegaMan in (if he's in range), then creates a new warp hole on the wall which pushes MegaMan out, hurling him against the oposite wall.


MODIFIED:

That is one sweet background, vierbit. Love the style.

[AdamAtomic]

I know of the "no edits" rule ,but Mettols(the yellow hats) and Sniper Joes (the green men with shields) themed for the stage???

No, draw your own you lazy git!

[AlexHW]

nice depth vierbit, looks like you broke out of the style very well.
i'm trying to take a different approach aswell,
here's my wip:

[Krut]

I think the eyebrows on your sprite are a bit distracting Kon, maybe a lonely dot, or vertical line would do the trick better; tho, the shape of the helmet looks a bit funky too, but that might be the work of the tiles..i love the aproach you took tho!
Vierbit´s, Ryona´s and Kon´s are my favourites right now.
I love the scenery on his, and i love the character of Ryona.


Might enter this when i get a change

[Sherman Gill]

If you want to be more efficient, Kon, you could reduce the use of pink of yellow to one 8x16 block so it's only one extra sprite.

[Froli]

New:


Better/Worse?

I edited the eyes and lips, hope this gives you another perspective.

another edit 


Vierbit, that's looks awesome 

[Ryona]

Those edits are nice, but I believe they stray away from the MegaMan art style. The face proportions are too close to realism where as the MegaMan style is more exagerated.


MODIFIED:

I was just playing a ROM of the first MegaMan game for NES and noticing how stupidly difficult it is. Damn you, NES, for being so hard! 
Seriously, most NES games are way too difficult. I can't believe that they were actually designed for kids. No wonder us adults of my generation are so messed up in the mind.

[Conzeit]

Veirbit indeed that is quite awesome, as usual. Why oh why must you kick ass at tile sets?
I've been thinking of a way to make clouds that give the sensations yours do but couldnt quite think of a way. I would love to learn to tile the way you do...have you ever thought of recording yourself while you make a tileset? I would love to see something like that.

Ryona: Here's a suggestion for your warpgal....=) is she projecting her warp cone from her vagina?...that reminds me of the hilt suggestion I gave ya on the ninja topic =) I think warp is a much better theme for the debutant robotmaster-woman. I mean call me a perv but I couldnt help but think of squirting when they came up with SplashMa'am O_o

[Sherman Gill]

How does every topic Ryona is in end up on the topic of female sexuality?
And Conceit, I am gonna call you a pervert. Seriously, I think you're the only non-13 year old who made that splash woman connection .


And oh great now I'll have to make a Megaman boss because I posted in this thread.

[Rosse]

Great mockups here already! I especially like vierbit's approach of a slightly tilted perspective (so that you can see where megaman's walking on).
NES restrictions are very fun to work with, definitely going to do more mockups. I did a very generic one (Megaman 1 perhaps?), but I won't work further on it (adding enemies or a boss). I'll try a new one from scratch.



[edit]
Is tile-flipping (x/y) allowed? I think it's possible for sprites (Zelda 1 did it at least), but what about background tiles?

[AdamAtomic]

sprites yes, bg tiles no, but you could store 1 extra tile and voila

also, <3 sharkman, awesome stuff

[joe123]

 

This is my mock-up..
Might change some things, take the turret anyway. Planning to do the boss soon.

Btw, do we just create one.. 256x224 map? or the whole.. level?

Also, on the boss picture, do we use the colours in the pallete or can we use our own?

[Ben2theEdge]

Aaand.. the boss:

I call 'her' Snow Woman.. for now (name pending)
Also them yellow thingies in the mugshot are the blinking sprite thingies you see while you're selecting a boss.

I'm a little late commenting on this, but I think you can push the feminine qualities a lot with the pose. Right now the football player-like stance is communicating "macho" - all the other robot masters have it but they're dudes so having a female robot master requires a bit of straying from the beaten path.

[mice]

'I'm tinman'
Still not megamanish.

[Luzeke]

BruteMan is looking good too, though I gotta say, I liked his original design best.
I think making him hover doesn't really work with his name because flight suggests agility. A guy like BruteMan would work best being well-grounded with thick legs, like an inmovable mountain.

Yea, on second thought I agree. He'll get his legs back.
I like where Warp Woman's going, looks good.

Here's the avatar for Brute Man 

[Atnas]

I didn't know spriting with restrictions was so much damn fun, why didn't anyone ever tell me?!

Someone tell me if I broke any rules. All I really followed was the color restriction per tile, is there some kind of height restriction on these things?

[Dusty]

Heh, that's an awesome take on Megaman, Atnas. The only thing I think needs fixing is the face... the eyes look absolutely empty, for some reason. Perhaps because they're 'attached' to the helmet. You actually did great with the limitations... I broke apart the sprite and you pulled off some nice work. The transition between the skin tone and light blue wasn't even noticeable until I actually broke apart the sprite.

It actually looks like it'd go great with Vierbit's tileset... which is also awesome, even if it doesn't really look anything like Megaman in the slightest.

[Atnas]

Thanks.  I kind of meant him to look lifeless because of something Arne said which made me look at the first few games in a whole new light.

Megaman has always been a silent lethal assassin to me. He got in there and did the job without bla bla bla teen angst. His mouth is just a neutral line most of the time, and the first games didn't really have any lines/speech for him.

I'll do some tiles for the little guy tomorrow.

[Conzeit]

Megaman has always been a silent lethal assassin to me. He got in there and did the job without bla bla bla teen angst. His mouth is just a neutral line most of the time, and the first games didn't really have any lines/speech for him.

WHAT?...he's nuts! if he's just a silent assasin then what was the megaman2 ending all about?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiT_3kwgvwQ

I thought that obviously said murderer trauma, and a Pinochio complex!  O_o interesting though....I just cant wrap my mind around getting "silent assasin" out of that 

maybe he could be played as a robot who because of Dr.Right's morals WANTS to have feelings...and that's his pinochio complex =)

Atnas: Awesome little megaman! that's an excellent blend of good volume and symbolic anime-ish expression!

[Lord Ash]

@ Conceit, I always saw at as a recollection of the travels he went through during the game,j like it took him a whole year to defeat the robot masters, and restore peace. Rock is the the perfect assassin, he travels alone primarily, and defeats  insurmountable odds. All without complaining, and with the same melancholy attitude about destroying billions of dollars in rogue machinery. Just my interpretation.

[xenobond]

These all look real cool guys(&gals). Just saw this so hopefully I can get something in on time. XD

Already got my idea, just need to get it going, son!

[mice]

ZX anyone? Tried to, anyway.

[Dusty]

Thanks.  I kind of meant him to look lifeless because of something Arne said which made me look at the first few games in a whole new light.

Megaman has always been a silent lethal assassin to me. He got in there and did the job without bla bla bla teen angst. His mouth is just a neutral line most of the time, and the first games didn't really have any lines/speech for him.

I'll do some tiles for the little guy tomorrow.

Well I did a minor edit:

I think the problem was his eyes and mouth were so spread apart from each other that it ended up looking like a mask instead of a face. I know this is kind of against what you were going for, but it was really distracting me.

[Zombiechao]

I'm guessing this won't count but it is only a work in progress anyway. I'll post the final product later. (When its done. DUH)

[Ryona]

Ryona: Here's a suggestion for your warpgal....=) is she projecting her warp cone from her vagina?...that reminds me of the hilt suggestion I gave ya on the ninja topic =) I think warp is a much better theme for the debutant robotmaster-woman. I mean call me a perv but I couldnt help but think of squirting when they came up with SplashMa'am O_o

That's a pretty neat style, Conceit. I might make her hands black like what you got there.
As for the warp-projection-thing, yeah, I guess it does look like that. lol ..She's actually just creating the warp attack infront of her in mid-air.
Oh, and about SplashWoman, when I first saw that she's a robot mermaid, my first thought was that Mirre would get a real kick out of her.

Anyway, I had some fun with WarpWoman and animated her!






Good work with everyone else!

Rosse, that's a solid level you designed. Really looks like it would fit in a MegaMan.

There's some interesting styles some people are coming up with, but aren't we supposed to design bosses, enemies, and stages that would actually fit in a classic MegaMan game?
Some of the new stuff I've seen here seems to defeat that purpose.

How does every topic Ryona is in end up on the topic of female sexuality?

Much like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know...

..Oh wait... That's been answered.... http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/367432

[Atnas]

There's some interesting styles some people are coming up with, but aren't we supposed to design bosses, enemies, and stages that would actually fit in a classic MegaMan game?
Some of the new stuff I've seen here seems to defeat that purpose.

I figured the purpose was to show what Capcom could have done with the NES restrictions in MM9, rather than reverting back to MM1. Sure, they had a strong style going, but that doesn't exclude a change in style from being possible. If a new style looks better while maintaining restrictions, I don't see why it wouldn't be a plausible step Capcom could have taken.

[rdcarvallo]

Update of KatanaMan:
Some stage tiles, the boss fighting MegaMan complies with the NES restriction, there is a bigger version of the boss.



Also Here comes a new Robot Master, DinamiteMan



C&C welcome!

Edit: added DinamiteMan.

[AlexHW]

still a wip:

megaman now uses 9 sprites

[ptoing]

Some very nice stuff so far.

Alex: I like the pixelling going there, good technique, superb details. But atm it's a priority mess. It's very hard to say which tiles are supposed to be be background or foreground.
I think a fiddling with the palettes is in order.



Rough edit with respective greyscale versions underneath. Apart from the colours I also removed the highlights on those background tiles (or what I assumed was background anyway) Actually looking at it, the details, while being nicely done, hurt the readability. Low contrast and fuzzy = not good.

[AlexHW]

i understand your point, but i don't want it that dark or contrasty, its not the type of atmosphere i was going for regardless of what benefits it has.

[ptoing]

Well, then I would suggest to make something that depicts the atmosphere you were going for but is more readable.

[AlexHW]

edit: nvm
i dont see why everything should be readible. from my perspective reality is not always readible, so games shouldnt have to always be(even though it might assist the player).

[ptoing]

So games are supposed to depict reality now?

Also, it's not fun to fall into a hole and die because you thought some background stuff was a platform. In games readability is very important. Your way of argumenting actually makes me wonder if you play games at all.

[AlexHW]

if a game's style is consistant, then the player should be able to adapt to it. i dont think my mockup is that unreadable so as everything becomes incomprehensible. sure things have to make sense, and sometimes unreadability makes sense.

[Dusty]

I do have to concur it is very hard to read, especially when you factor in the fact NES has no background scrolling, which would usually aid in separating even low contrast backgrounds from foregrounds.

[Ben2theEdge]

I think the problem is the *lack* of consistency; there's no clear distinction between positive and negative space. This is one of the fundamental challenges of creating video game art, it can't be skirted around. But it's perfectly fix-able without doing exactly what Ptoing did in his edit.

[AlexHW]

so if something doesnt implement any positive and negative space, it is inconsistent? i dont understand this statement.
i don't think my mockup lacks positive and negative space.. i find it easy to comprehend where the player can go and collide with. basically the orange and light grey is collidable, and the dark grey isnt.. how hard is that?

[Dusty]

i don't think my mockup lacks positive and negative space.. i find it easy to comprehend where the player can go and collide with.

No offense, but I think there is a bit of bias with that statement. The fact that you made it means you're going to see a lot more than the random viewer is. It might be easy for you to see, but perhaps near impossible for someone else to notice it.

[Atnas]

I myself have a little bit of trouble with seeing whats what, but it would be honestly kind of cool to have Megaman style platforming and have the background kind of disconcerting.

[AlexHW]

well like i said before, if its consistant then the player would become use to it and adapt their perception/comprehension.. obviously someone isnt going to instantly get it if all they've been looking at or been favoring to view is towards a different visual style. im just exploring something different i guess or something which isnt the norm.

[Zccc]

Here's where my work is going. I have the boss sprite, 3 enemies so far and some tiles. I'm not too good at tiles, they are not very tileable, but megaman style follows that.

I'm amazed on how you guys take with the restrictions. The different styles are sweet!

[Conzeit]

KON: it is NOT consistant, the foreground grass tiles have none of the telltatles the dirt or metal tiles do. I'm still not sure wether they're supposed to be platforms or not...

It is good for mood to be mysterious and keep changing your communication methods, but not for clear-cut logical things such as level design.

[Pietepiet]

Zccc: I LOVE the tiles with the honey dripping off. They look rather delicious.

I haven't been able to work on my mockup for a good while now. Some other things got in the way, unfortunately. I'll get to it again today or tomorrow.

[Rosse]

I think you use your tiles too random in your mockup, alex. It looks almost like these scenes in classic games where you have destroyed a endboss and everything exploded and now you have to escape (imagine your mockup shaking on the screen with lots of small explosions and a fast alert background music). All this tiles which doesn't really fits together gives this impression to me. I tried to make a similar mockup with your tiles which I think the screen could have looked like before the explosion.

[Pietepiet]

Update on Sneakman. Here's what I've got so far for his level:



Still very basic, I guess. Not sure about the change I made to the enemy. I'll have to mess around with it some more.

And Sneakman himself:

[mice]

I'm with Alex on this one. The early castlevanias had some readablilty issues as well, without being frustrating. But I can't see it being a problem in Alex' mockup.

[AlexHW]

KON: it is NOT consistant, the foreground grass tiles have none of the telltatles the dirt or metal tiles do.

Conceit, if all the levels would be sharing the same artistic styles and design choices, the game would feel consistant. there will always be a process the person has to go through to learn how to comprehend anything. There will always be inconsistency between the two variables making up a contrast because you need inconsistancy to make contrast. So inconsistancy itself isn't always bad or to be frowned upon. and consistancy/inconsistency itself shouldn't be the only measureing stick for anything.
I believe you're looking at it and selectively finding certain inconsistencies and responding from the standpoint that it should be just like other elements in the mockup(so that every tile looks similar and less interpretation needs to be done, or so the interpretation can be simplified into some primitive polarized way essentially dumbing down everything). Most gamers wouldn't be like "oh this tile should be more contrasty", instead they'd simply see the tile for what it is in the context it is in, and not for how contrasty it is. and thus how they choose to interpret it would be relative to the context it is represented.

[Helm]

Kon, I understand your point of view and I agree to a degree, it's alright to train the player in something they might have taken for granted. However if you make a player try to stand on each and every one of the tiles on your level to know if they can stand or fall through them, the unnecessary deaths will make the player feel fed up and just give up on your game, see?

[AlexHW]

can you spot any tiles which a person can mis-interpret and furthur more die from in my mockup? i can't. the grass tiles are pretty clear to me that i can stand on them, and the dark grey tiles are pretty clear to me that i can walk in front of them. you dont need neon yellow caution tape on everything.

[Dusty]

I think the problem is, when you're dodging projectiles and enemies(especially in a game as difficult as Megaman), the last thing a player wants to do is micromanage whether or not a tile is safe.

[ter-o]

You guys seem to miss out the fact that after the first screen the player knows that the dark grey tiles are only a background element. You see your player walking in front of them and obviously you can't land on them after jump etc. and also they have this unique look, apart from other tiles. So after the first screen your mind has interpreted that those tiles are not for any interaction. So later in the game you won't mix them to the other tiles, even when in a hectic battle. Imho.

I guess this debate is more about personal tastes and opinions how games should look like (based on the games we've played) and not whether Kon's mockup is actually playable or not.

[Ben2theEdge]

I guess this debate is more about personal tastes and opinions how games should look like (based on the games we've played) and not whether Kon's mockup is actually playable or not.

It's an uneducated assumption to presume that people are just trying to conform Alex' mockup to preconcieved notions about what games look like. Personal opinion is a factor, but things like positive/negative space, layout, and presentation of information are staples of graphic design. The debate is about whether or not they are relevant. I would argue that in video game art they are not only relevant but the priority.

can you spot any tiles which a person can mis-interpret and furthur more die from in my mockup? i can't. the grass tiles are pretty clear to me that i can stand on them, and the dark grey tiles are pretty clear to me that i can walk in front of them. you dont need neon yellow caution tape on everything.

The grey tiles and the grass appear to be on the same plane to me, and they both seem solid since they're similar levels of contrast to the other positive spaces, and very much separate from the sky which is the only obvious negative space. This is easily fixed by just separating the dark gray from the light gray a little more. As Rosse's edit points out, the layout is complicated to begin with, so some visual assistance is necessary. You can call it "caution tape" if you want but if someone on my team were to tell me "it's the viewer's responsibility to discern what's solid and what's not", I would call that lazy design.

Anyway it's your art and no one is paying you, so have it your way. But your work will suffer from an attitude like that.

[ter-o]

things like positive/negative space, layout, and presentation of information are staples of graphic design. The debate is about whether or not they are relevant.

You got me on that. Thanks for making it straight.

[AlexHW]

ben, why do they appear on the same plane? because of their similar level of contrast? just because something has more contrast doesn't mean its on a different plane than something which isn't as contrasty. That is just an illusion artists tend to take advantage of(sometimes to a certain extent exploit) to suggest such things. Should that mean i have to go by that presumptive thought? no, because there are other ways to discern between which plane something is on, one being with the context it is within.
just because something is easier, doesnt mean it is the best way or only way.
also yo uhave to keep in mind the restrictions and any necessary sacrifices one has to make along with the direction the artist is taking things.. im not oblivious to these facts you present, i just choose to make certain sacrifices to keep with the intended look that i want and find alternative methods to go by.

[AdamAtomic]

By disregarding useful color theory your end result is flat, confusing and uninteresting, despite the fact that by simply applying some basic graphic design ideas and not changing the actual tile designs you have something that is really fantastic.

Part of challenging established conventions is realizing that SOME conventions aren't done just because they're easier, they're done because they work better than everything else.  People have been doing art for a pretty long time now!  I think you've chosen some very strange things to re-invent.

Also, I don't see how applying MORE limitations in this already cramped space makes the design work any easier.  I think it's much harder to come up with some cool, original tilework that would actually be playable AND fits the hardware restrictions.  It's easy to make something "different" when you don't have to worry about whether or not you would alienate anyone who tried to play the game.

[AlexHW]

i dont think im reinventing, if anything im exploring. why does everything have to be so strict that we can't allow ourselves or others the luxury of considering other possibilities.
I do agree however that the level design is somewhat disorganized, but i was going for a more organic layout, not something stiff and straight as was suggested with an edit by rosse

[AdamAtomic]

we can't allow ourselves or others the luxury of considering other possibilities

That's not what I said at all.  I said:

Part of challenging established conventions is realizing that SOME conventions aren't done just because they're easier, they're done because they work better than everything else.

I don't know how else you find that out EXCEPT by exploring them.  Exploration is great, most pixel work that most of us do is the result of trial and error and experimentation, this is not some rare value or motivation only found in specific artists.  However, I don't know how to benefit from exploration and discovery if you don't have a keen enough critical eye to be able to tell what experiments work and what experiments don't.

[AlexHW]

well, i feel i balanced things pretty well in my mockup considering the limitations
i cant just add more contrast into my grass tile as that would totally change it and go against the intended look i want to achieve.. I also dont want neon green grass. if i took a color out(such as the grey) and added another lighter green color, that would take away the detail in the dirt, which is necessary for the tile to blend well into the other dirt/rock.. also, that would stop th eplants from blending into the sky since the grey would be gone.
you can't have everything.. i shared my point of view, i don't think there's anymore i can say about it. i still prefer my version over the edits made.

[ptoing]

Alex: Some general suggestion. Learn to take a crit. I don't recall you ever taking any crits, suggestions or edits into account.

But enough of this.

[AlexHW]

not to sound negative/stubborn or anything but whenever i post my work, i can practically predict what types of crits im going to get(most of them i have already thought about and investigated while working). hence if i ignore something, it's not out of spite, but simply because it would conflict with my original expression/goals, and end up leading me away from what i original sought out to do.
I suppose i just have to be more clear outfront what i intended to accomplish and what i chose to ignore or sacrifice.
I was being arguementative because i wanted to delve into areas which would actually be of interest to me and end up helping me, but noone was even interested in exploring the thoughts with me. maybe this thread/etc just isnt the place to do that

[Helm]

Just cuz you know what crits you will get before you get them doesn't mean you should disregard them if you get them. It means things you thought might be problems turn out to actually be problems in the eyes of the theoretical player of your videogame. Of course you shouldn't do everything the player would like and I agree there's a point of necessary sacrifice and then there's compromise after that which is not artistically a good thing. But if you find yourself rarely or never taking crits you should reassess what you're expecting from your own art. If you're certain what you're trying to do before you do it, it just may be the case you're not communicating with anybody with your art but with yourself. If you want to communicate with others, give a little way towards their desires. There's expression, and there's communication. In the latter, critique matters. In the former not so much.

[QuickSilva]

Really like the direction that ptoing has taken. Games like this, that seem to be all the rage in indie gaming at the moment, would have worked wonders on the actual NES hardware as they only need to use tiny sprites. There is also a strangely appealing quality to games that have tiny characters.

Jason.

[Krut]

Really like the direction that ptoing has taken. Games like this, that seem to be all the rage in indie gaming at the moment, would have worked wonders on the actual NES hardware as they only need to use tiny sprites. There is also a strangely appealing quality to games that have tiny characters.

Jason.

I think that in the NES era, people wanted big sprites with expression...umm more "detail" and better graphics if you will.
The appealing quality, i believe is something of an "acquired taste" for us, same with dunno, 2x sized pixel art...i love it, but most people find it hideous...same with retro gaming graphics in general.

*I* dont think it would have been "graphically" aclaimed in it's time, tho, personally im loving the aproach.

[tehwexxl0rz]

Still, trying to think up a boss. In the meantime, here's my Mega Man:



C&C?

[Rosse]

I'm not sure about my mockup. I'd like to create something which fits into the original megaman universe and has a simple and (maybe sometimes) abstract geometry like ptoing's nes stuff (e.g. U-Head), but I end always to detailed.

[QuickSilva]

Looking good. I have the same problem and have restarted my entry several times trying to simplify things. I guess this is the same problem that the Megaman 9 team have been facing.

Jason.

[Ben2theEdge]

I'm diggin' it, Rosse... I think it just needs more variety in color. You essentially have a single brown ramp right now.

[Conzeit]

not to sound negative/stubborn or anything but whenever i post my work, i can practically predict what types of crits im going to get(most of them i have already thought about and investigated while working). hence if i ignore something, it's not out of spite, but simply because it would conflict with my original expression/goals, and end up leading me away from what i original sought out to do.
I suppose i just have to be more clear outfront what i intended to accomplish and what i chose to ignore or sacrifice.

I feel like I'm reading my old self

if you have to be argumentative about it, you already lost. People see only what you show trough your picture, so if they see only one option it's your fault. I personally would have gotten into whatever alternative you proposed, but I saw nothing of the sort in the picture, if you opted out of using brightness contrast to convey the platforms, it would've been fine if you used maybe direction of your lines to do it, or some kind of alternative. Instead, I have yet to see what you are trying to implement that leads you to "experiment". You just argue that clarity simply isnt necesary because you can just expect the player to accomodate to your mistakes.

Experimenting is ok, but to come up with no results and expect people to see some kind of wisdom in this is nonsense.
http://www.davidhellman.net/blog/the-art-of-braid-part-3/ Baird does far more visual experimentation than it is perhaps posible in a NES mockup, yet when an element in the background was simply a little misleading it was removed for the player's sake.

ROSSE: What the hell happened to your mock? I *think* what I see somewhere there underneath looks cool, but to be honest it is far too darkened to know what the hell is going on. Are you trying to use the "fade" raster feature?

[ptoing]

Nice start Rosse. I made a supersimple sloppy edit to show how a bit variation in lightness can go a long way.

[AlexHW]

when i get some more time, ill see if there is anything i can do to help make things clearer without conflicting with the intended look. the use of lines is a good suggestion, maybe not in the alignment of the tiles but maybe i can experiment with th euse of lines within the details of the tiles.. that sounds like it might help other's concerns

[Helm]

Alex also perhaps a simple visual cue: where the plater can stand, the top of the tile has a brighter single pixel line!

[ptoing]

little update, still only 2 background palettes.

[rdcarvallo]

Mockup for Dinamite Man stage.



Ptoing's micro-mega-man is very nice!

[Jakten]

I was always under the impression that NES worked with 16x16 tiles and could only use 3 colours for the entire character sprite. I am pretty sure I have to many colours in this though, I'm trying to figure out how to fix it. Heres what I have so far.

[Rosse]

Thanks a lot, ptoing. I learned much from your edit. I used 2 palette-rows for this so far. Not sure about the dithered gradients (old vs. new), tho...



This vucking color management ensures headache. I set my photoshop (pixeling on MacBook) to "no color management". Now, I hope you can see the colors like I do.

[Zccc]

Finished my first mockup. I'm going to do three more, including the boss one.

All of yours mockups look great!

[ptoing]

Looks like you are going for parallax layers. That would not be possible like you did it on the NES.

[Zccc]

It's not really parallax, there's just a pillar behind the other in front, but it's not meant to cicle in diferent speed.

[ptoing]

What I meant is the red beehive thing. They are not restricted to 8x8 tileborders, so you have too many colours in a few tiles.

[Zccc]

Oh, I get it... The cutted tiles have too many colors... Im going to delete those cutted beehive tiles and only have square tiles.

[xenobond]

@Zcc- you've also got one too many colors in the palettes for your sprites. You've got Black-Orange-Yellow-White-Transparent. Unless you plan to have another sprite on top of each enemy to add that extra color. But that'll kill how many you can have on screen. For the hive head buys it would make more sense to give them an extra sprite for the blue tone.

I'd also think about thickening the stripes on those bees. Would probably help them read a bit better, too. Kind of noisy with the 1/1 stripes.

[Pietepiet]

Still think it's a bit boring. I've already got an idea for the background, but any suggestions as how to spice up the tiles a bit?

[Indigo]

lol, I've looked at your mockup, ptoing, several times now.  Each time I thought to myself "Cool.  Looks nice, but when is he going to add the characters"  It wasn't untill I realized that pillar was a skinny tiny ladder, then i was like "OOOHH!  *THOSE* are characters?!"

I'm not entirely sure if thats a good thing.  Such a large screen with barely visible/recognizable characters

[Helm]

Indigo, download and try out DESTRUCTIVATOR

[ptoing]

Haha, thought the exact same thing, Helm. Also of course if you would play it it would be blown up to full screen, and then they would not be that small relatively speaking.

[AlexHW]

an insect themed game would work well with that small scale style.

[Atnas]

Jakten I'm really digging that, but his offhand when he shoots looks kind of like a mop, and not a wedge with phalanges.

[Rosse]

New mockup. It is based on the idea to fake parallax scrolling on a NES and I came up with following idea:

Generic forest tilemap with green, blue and cyan lines at top of the trees. There are sprites simulates gaps between treetops. While scrolling, the green/blue sprites scrolls too, but with a slower speed and the blue/cyan with a even lower speed. The sprite maximum is 6 for the lower and 4 for the upper line. When heavy sprite load on screen, the sprites disappears to prevent slow-down. Enemies won't fly that high, so flickering is no problem.

The red arrows next to the enemies (thx to Zccc for the inspiration) indicates their move direction.

[ptoing]

I don't think you would have to use sprites for that even. I am quite sure there is some possibility of doing screensplits on the NES.

[Zccc]

Geez, guys, I didn't saw that. When I read about the restrictions I forgot about the transparency and tought that there were allowed black, white and two other colours.

Hope this works now, even if it's not the way I wanted, limited to restrictions.


Changed background tiles and the sprites, eliminating a colour in each one.
The beehive guy doesn't need a change, because he already has 3 colours for each sprite (8x8).

[Delkaes]

hello all, juste started yesterday, thinking if i can try or not, so i try.
The boss is Monkeyman, will do shortly the avatar portrait.
His weapons : Bananas.


first try :


actually, working on background.


comments ands crits are welcome of course. But i'll be back only sunday at night  .

[DrunkBurger]

Thats funny, i already made my own megaman boss. Im also already busy with making m y own stage and characters. But seeing that im kinda busy with school and such ill skip this mockup 

Oh well.



enjoy and dont steal 

[Ben2theEdge]

Those certainly are some big... um... subwoofers.

[xenobond]

Was going to go with Music Man (yeah, really).

So I was going to head towards a spooky organ/castle music hall. Looked less like something for Music Man and more like something for a Bat or Dracula Man. >_<

So now I'm going to scrap what I had started and do something else. Didn't take me long to get those done. Just kept fiddling with the darn palette.

[snader]

i have a question.. what are the sizes for the background tiles? also 8x8? and can backgrounds be animated?
also.. can the palettes swap between screens?

so in the first screen i have pallettes ABCD, then a wile further i have just AC and then later on fill it up like ACEF.. or something like that?
and does the same go for sprites (im my head i have his blaster change colour, dependant on what special attack it has)

[xenobond]

Yees, I was just playing mega man with the palette window displayed.
In top man stage in mm3, the background lights strobe through a few colors for one of the colors in that palette.
When going from screen to screen, palettes can get swapped out for both background and sprite palettes.

[ptoing]

Background tiles are 8x8 pixels, but the colour matrix on them usually is 2x2 tiles, 16x16.
Also keep in mind that for sprites you can overlay them without them being on a grid of any kind, sprites are freely placeable.

The palette changing thing works as well, just as you said. Palettes can be changed at ANY time, but if you do not want it to be a visible change you have to have a screen with less palettes before you introduce new ones. So yes colourcycling and changing colours on a palette is possible as well, that would obviously apply to all the tiles using said palette.

Same goes for sprite colours, you can change the 4 sprite palettes at any time.

[Lord Ash]

well, I have several other pictures, but this is pretty much the culmination of them all. It is the "GeoThermal PowerPlant", the tubes dump lava between them, with timed gaps, the gears are background objects. Of note, the gears are 'auto-shapes', and aren't aligned to the grid yet, so they are pretty inefficient, but I wanted to see how they would look.



it is pretty shabby compared to the awesome work I see you guys doing, but I can tell that I have gotten better. I should really do a lot more on this, but school has me pretty pressed for time.

EDIT: I just was going over the previous entries, mine is very similar to Rosse's, but his is much better 
I am hoping it is not too similar

[AdamAtomic]

Awesome stuff so far guys   Just to expand on the whole scrolling issue, the NES could by default do a single screen split (as seen in Megaman 6's sunset area) and in lots of other games too (e.g. the hud in Super Mario Bros).  But you could also do scrolling by having animated tiles, which I think in the case of the multi-layered forest one of you posted would work great.

[Rosse]

LordAsh>

mine is very similar to Rosse's, but his is much better

Stop saying such foolish things! Or I stop posting my pixels here and that would be very bad for my further growing as an artist.. do you want that?

I am hoping it is not too similar

I don't think so. Maybe it has a familiar color scheme, but that's the case of the fixed palette, how colors work together and the intented look. I really like your Idea and I hope you continue to work on your mockup.
I suggest you put more different tiles in the foreground to break up the grid slightly and to push the volumes more. Maybe some technical gadgets like the gearwheels in the background (like pietepiet)? The lavastream could have a more down-ward direction, maybe with vertical lines this could be implied more.

AdamAtomic>
Thanks for the hint with the animated tiles - totaly forgot about them. I wanted to to everythinh with overlayed sprites first. I think in my secound mockup animated torched would look great. Is this heavily used in megaman games? On the nes I just played Zelda 1 (I never had a nes but Wii's Virtual Console is a great opportunity to play old games) and I can't remember animated tiles.

[Zccc]

I finished my mockups.



Mini-Boss



Boss Room

[Pietepiet]

Here's all of my stuff:

Mugshot + Boss:


Mockup:



and a little bonus:



C+C?

Zccc: Really like that Mini-boss shot. I always loved those bosses that hid in the shadows.

[QuickSilva]

Hi Guys, I`ve finally managed to get something together.

The challenge was actually a lot more difficult than I first imagined and I now know why Capcom were having trouble trying to hold back on the detail after several failed attempts of my own. Keeping things simple is the key I think. I really had to hold back on the AA as it seemed to take away from the authentic Megaman look. Anyway, I had lots of fun doing my mockup and I hope that you all did too. I`ve really enjoyed looking at everyones entries.

Here`s my take on a Megaman boss. I didn`t have enough time to draw my own version of a Met but I wanted to stick one (two actually) in anyway as the level somehow felt incomplete without some sort of enemy. Hope you guys don`t mind.

Enjoy

Jason.

   

[Delkaes]

Update :
sprites of monkeyman :

and the ugly avatar... looks like some simpson wolfman than my monkey man 


update again : added an top. The level still feel blank, can someone point me how to improve ?

[xenobond]

Maybe think of additional gameplay elements? Something like a waterfall, that they'd have to avoid, or maybe metal logs that they have to jump across.?
I like the color combo in the background. Kind of sells a hot misty jungle.

[vierbit]

@Delkaes
From the technical standpoint I must say that some things wouldn´t work.
There are several spots with to many colors. Take for example the tree(where megaman stands on).
Here you have black, three greens and the low saturated yellow and green from the background, 6 colors.

Appart from the technical stuff, Some graphics could be done a bit cleaner. The hanging grass at the three platform,
or the stone on the left side for example. Your monkeyman is actually quit good, good readable.
He only looks not very robotic though.

@QuickSilva
Nice! looks really magaman-ish.

@Zccc
Love the liquid honeydrops.

[Stefano]

Tsc. I don't think I'll manage to finish until midnight.

EDIT: oh. It was past midnight already.

[Delkaes]

@ Vierbit : Thx a lot for the tips, i thought the tiles can have transparency :s, i ll go changing that so. The rock is still wip arghhh i need to finish it. Changing the monkeyman too, its true it needs some cybernetics thingys.

@xenobond : i'll try to add some elements you pointed out, thx too !

Argh midnight, must worry 

[ptoing]

It's no problem if you submit later, it's not like there are prizes to be won

[xenobond]

Aiee! As soon as I start making more pieces, I start hating the ones I made earlier.


  on the MoleMan. ='_'=

[Stefano]

It's no problem if you submit later, it's not like there are prizes to be won

Silly me. You're right!
Will be posting soon.

[right here!]

[Ryona]

Made it! And with five minutes to spare before midnight! ^_^

Finally made a tile set and stage scene. It could be better, and I think I'll work on it some more and post an update later.






By the way, kickass stuff everyone. I think we have enough material to actually make a game if there was a programmer among us who'd be interested. Just a thought 

[rdcarvallo]

Dump of the work from this week:

BOSS:


MOCKUP:


TILESET:


Only two palettes used, so I can give more color to the stage.

[Rosse]

Ryona>
I really like your mockup. It has a cool techno-feel and looks mostly consistent, which is not easy. Did you intended use the nes restrictions? If not, ignore my further techno babble.

The nes don't have any layers, thus a background like yours wouldn't work. I counted the colors of some of your tiles and on some you have 5 or even 6. For the tiles itselft you have mostly a correct amount of colors, but don't forget: Background tiles have the same restrictions as sprites. You have 3 different colors and and one color is always shared throuh all palette rows (4 rows for background tiles and 4 rows for sprites). In sprites your 4th color is always transparent, meaning, you can see the background tiles through it. The same to the background tiles. You can use 3 colors, but one color is transparent. But now you can't just add a new background with tiles. Think of a background color you paint on. Sometimes the background color can be part of your tile.. thats where you use transparency. What you have as a far away background should be one color. If you want to have such a background , then look out for the borders of your platforms where you tried to use the 4th color.
I made a small paintover to show some places where the nes restrictions were brocken. You can ignore what I did with the sprites, because I don't know how you aligned them to the 8x8 grid, but maybe they have some errors too.

[Delkaes]

update of my monkeyman boss. replaced one color, maiking him now in some armor. added an banana on helmet.



i need to redo all my mockup, it doesn't fit on megaman style, need to be more blocky and bigger tiles.

[Ryona]

Ryona>
I really like your mockup. It has a cool techno-feel and looks mostly consistent, which is not easy. Did you intended use the nes restrictions? If not, ignore my further techno babble.

Ah, thank you, Rosse. 

I don't really know the NES restrictions, so all I attempted at doing was not use too much colors. But I guess I didn't even succeed at that. lol
Oh well. I may Have a read through the NES restrictions after all and maybe make an attempt to correct the errors.

[Feron]

a more realistic type megaman:



lylac color represents a transparency.  1 tile overlay for the face.

would this sprite work?? i don't really know much about restrictions and that...

[xenobond]

It could, it'd just mean that there would be less on the page for enemy or other sprites you might need. You have a block of 16x16 8 pixel blocks [128x128 pixels total] for sprite data. Data can get switched out so you can fit different enemies/boss data, but can only have that to fit things in.
Snapped this while I was playing MM5-

[gamingjustin]

Wow, seeing all this great work might actually inspire me to try again... Lots of variety and styles, too. Also, reading up and paying more attention to restrictions really makes me appreciate the NES more.

I think it's been linked in these forums before, but there is a fanmade mock-NES version of Rockman 7. From some initial impressions I don't think it quite adheres to the NES restrictions but it definitely retains the NES feel. Also, you are free to browse all the graphics of the game, as they are (if I remember correctly) just regular image file formats. So it could be a source of extra inspiration: http://www7.atwiki.jp/wakuwakusuru/pages/13.html just hit the ver.final2 link.

[Mt®]

Very nice stuff thats been posted so far!
Here's my last update.
I tried to adress the crits I got and changed some of the stuff that wasn't originaly mine, like the E-tank and HPbar.

[Dusty]

That really screams Megaman... love it.

[xenobond]

Really cool, Mt®.
Choice of colors look great and really sell that Mega Man look.

[QuickSilva]

Hopefully Adam will put all of the mockups together into the first post at some point so that we can look at them all in one place.

Jason.

[Delkaes]

yop, redoing my mockup, changed the grey stone to some aztec chimp rock. redo the rock floor, but i don't know if i must keep the flashy floor (at left) or the new chocolate floor at right.



edit :

update 2 colors, i can't decide  maybe purple looks better  and so the rocks need to be flashy since the back ground is totally black. comments on ?

[Ben2theEdge]

Delkaes, I think your second one works a little better; purple and yellow are opposites on the color wheel so if you put them together they look great but they will also steal attention from everything else in the image. Sometimes this is useful but I think for this instance it's much better to go subtle. Having said that, if I were you, I would either work purple into some of the other tiles or find a hue that matches the existing tiles a little better. I personally like the purple since it adds a nice creepy vibe, but you can take it further by giving the foreground a similar dark moody feel.

[Waltuo]

Wow, nice work everyone!:) I'm new here (initially found this place through a GoNintendo link, I believe) and now that I've been lurking here for a couple of days, I'm really digging many of the entries I'm seeing. It's a shame I found about this Mockup challenge quite late, as I would've definitely liked to participate (and probably will if the time is extended:)

Anyway, I got inspired by all of this and just wanted to pixel something, since it's been a long time since I made anything game pixel art related (used to love it back in the days!). I decided to try if it's possible to achieve something close to the SNES MegaMan X style within the NES limitations, because, well, I enjoy the challenge of trying to downgrade something and secondly, because there were already so many awesome original entries I thought I'd take a different approach:)

Sadly, as I just found this place all I really have ready for now is the character sprite (and a few random tiles), but I decided to post this anyway. Hopefully I have time to continue on this and see where it goes. The character currently uses three different palettes (one for the legs and helmet, another one for the hands and torso, and one overlapped sprite for the face like on the NES originals, totalling 8 different colors). It may be a bit much in the long run, and I probably have to go with the same palette for the whole body (except face, of course) in the end..

EDIT: D'oh! I thought it was 8 sprite palettes and 8 background palettes for NES, but now on closer inspection, it seems it's only 4 of each So I very likely have to cut that middle body palette and I guess I can say goodbye to getting to even distantly similar results than the SNES... you can still at least switch palettes between levels, right??

[Delkaes]

thx for the comment, i'll try some color change to fit the background.

quick edit, don't know if its th egood way, now its feels a level at night.



making a pause now, 5hours on my eyes are bleeding. coming later  

[xenobond]

@Delkaes- I say that's a definite improvement, as now that it's a lot more cool, the eyes in the background really show up. Spooky!

@Waltuo- pretty interesting but without the black outline he can easily get lost in a number of level backgrounds. Oh, and welcome.

[rdcarvallo]

Playing the games in the Megaman Collection (PS2) loking for inspiration and reference, I found many tricks used in GeminiMan Stage from MM3, They have a scrolling star field, made with sprites, and then they use color cicling in the palete for the background.

Didn't play MM6 to see the Sunset scene in Tomahawk stage, maybe it's not split screen, but sprites well done.

In the Star Ocean videos, there is a wave/ripple effect in all the screen, some ideas in how they achieved it.

[huZba]

Really nice stuff all round. Delkaes has too many palettes. Should be easy to fix. Could use a bit of mechanical elements just to create that weird techno-organic feel that's very prominent especially in the MMX games.

@ Waltuo. Checking out some megaman sprites, it does seem like a waste to include black in most palettes, so maybe it would be a good challenge to make that NES X without black outlines and separate him from BGs by other means.

@ Mt® awesome mockup. The health bar uses megaman's face palette in the games. If you include mega-blue in the health bar it will flash when you charge the shot and it's a bit of a waste to overlay sprites in the health bar.

Here's part of my artilleryman stage.

The orange cannon is mostly BG tiles while the grey parts are sprites. When you blow it up, the small guy comes out BOING BOING.

[Ben2theEdge]

huZba that mockup is dead, dead sexy! 

One thing you might want to consider changing is the gray color of the enemies. I guess it depends on whether or not you want to go against established video game language... gray usually feels solid/impenetrable/deactivated. I'm sure now that I said that someone will find a dozen screens of gray enemies but I think they feel a tad lifeless.

[Froli]

huZba that mockup is dead, dead sexy! 

Indeed. That looks awesome 

[huZba]

Ah.. that's a good point. I'll change the enemies. It's giving me all kinds of ideas too, using the color as a gameplay element. Active/inactive enemies and stuff. Thanks!

[Conzeit]

Hubza: Indeed! Very very cool. Did you mean to remake the beggining of Neptune's stage in Gameboy's MegamanV/RockWorld5 ? it is freakishly similar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl-w4WWDM-0

Waltuo:I thought you'd be interested in seeing the official take on it. These were from GB remakes of the X games.

http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/files/X/Xtreme1/X/
http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/files/X/X/xcmsheet.gif

[Dusty]

Was playing Megaman 2. This might seem a little off-topic... but I was going through Windman's stage and then came to some clouds. These clouds are drawn in front of the player... and I'm not talking small clouds, but huge, take-up-half-the-screen clouds. I thought NES only have one BG layer? Any idea how this was pulled off? All the while, birds dropping eggs that hatched 7+ little chicks, and fragments of egg, and huge sprite platforms.

[mice]

Dusty:
Sprites can be behind the background. But in front of the background color (the common color in all palettes).

[QuickSilva]

Yes this technique was used very well in Mario Bros 3 too where you could drop behind the scenery in the first level for a secret exit.

Jason.

[PypeBros]

as for the "large sprite" (80x80 plus expenses), you could try to do that with 5 'wide sprites' that you reprogram on horizontal return so that the hardware has 5 new sprite again on the next line. Also, you could try to do that by reprogramming characters if the sprite's movement is slow enough and easily predictable (e.g. a platform that always moves up or that always moves down). When your "sprite" has then moved by 8 pixels, you come back to the initial "frame" and show it one tile above its former position.

Depending on the hardware, that can be just a trick or a programmer's nightmare, but i could suggest both software and hardware tricks to achieve something alike (including bank-switching hardware trickery that would be über fun to code with).

[Dusty]

Dusty:
Sprites can be behind the background. But in front of the background color (the common color in all palettes).

What about the platform, though? Perhaps they used sprites for that... but these I dunno. That's a lot of sprites.

[QuickSilva]

The platforms are probably part of the background too just with collision detection for the top most part as that is the only part you interact with. The horns that come out are sprites though.

Jason.

[L___E___T]

I have a feeling I remember both being animated, doesn't that make a diffrence?  I can't remember if you could have animated BG tiles or not..

[xenobond]

Yep, the bricks with the clouds in front are separate parts. They don't 'animate' like the normal cloud bits do.

[Schu]

I'm still trying to think up something for tiles... but in the meantime I doodled out this.

[Froli]

I kinda feel left out , so I whipped this out. I was testing how megaman looks like by removing his mouth.

Cleaned it up.

[skamocore]

I couldn't really be bothered making a whole mock up, but seeing everyone else's crazy versions of Megaman, I decided to make my own.

Introducing the Megaman bobo doll:

[infinity+1]

i was feeling inspired by all of the new versions of megaman:

[skamocore]

you inspired me to be more inspired...

[Tobe]

I thought I needed some pixel warm up before I get started on my own project -> http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=6436.0

To my surprise, the warm up lasted over hours... and it's finally time to turn in.

Man, this thread is really addictive- I can't stop! Now all I can think about is Rockman and more Rockman!
Anyway, here's what I have done so far, mainly re-designing the characters from Rockman series, especially rockman 4, my favorite on the NES.

I tried my best following what I thought was the restriction, mainly working on NES colors palate. As for the 8 x 8 grid, I ain't too sure either. I just try to not make them bigger then the original.

A few things you might be interested is, "Bass and protoman"- in the game, they're mainly duplicates of rockman, but here, I tried to give them more expression from the way they stand. Protoman is folding his arm, while Bass is more of in a Kungfu Stance. Wireman is someone I came up with. Since my favourite moves was the wire ability, which allows rockman to gain access to all the weird areas, I thought I might as well work on an actual boss that holds the ability.

Lastly, I'm typing all this with a fever and tons of drowsy medication... so please pardon me if everything looks messed up.

[skamocore]

ok, last one, I swear...

[Helm]

[LMR]

I like helm's version of megaman. 

And here's my version of him:


small edit

[ptoing]

i was feeling inspired by all of the new versions of megaman:

That looks so much cooler than the original Megaman, it's not even funny. Tons more character.

[Conzeit]

hahahahaha. Do you hate the jump frame too? I kinda see what Ptoing was on about with that caricature  I like that megaman best of the ones here so far 

Tobe...those are some loving renderings of Rockman =) I specially like how Wily and Light finally have some character. and I know what you mean about the Wire adaptor! wasnt it just AWESOME when you pushed up and Megaman actually LOOKED up?....I cant explain that but back then that was pure genious

[Tobe]

I added a few more characters and a actual mock-up of the stage...

It looks horrible. Btw, can anyone explain further regarding the NES restriction?
Is there a limited different color for each tile? Or is there a something like only how many colors can appear on the screen at a time?

Airman + Quickman + Zero and "that water guy from MM4"

[Helm]

Conceit: no I don't hate the game or it's art at all I think it's pretty charming. But seriously, wouldn't megaman be more useful if his dick was the cannon so he could grab ledges and shit with both other arms or I don't know... tweak his nipples while he shoots?

[infinity+1]

if his dick were the cannon, you could have a field day with the DS version of that game.

[Metaru]

You're all wrong. this is how megaman was really until these japanese creeps changed it to blue. because green was totally awesome for him

[Dokozai]

Hehe, making this was fun!

I'm gonna make some more.

[PypeBros]

Definitively love the look you gave to megaman. He's cute, readable and even show some determination once his helmet is on. Regarding the NES restriction, they have been über-detailed in this post, but to summarize them, you can have only 3 color + transparent for both tiles and sprites, plus a backdrop color (that shows through transparent pixels of the BG tiles). You can have different palettes for different tiles, and you can change the backdrop color while retracing the screen (though i wouldn't bet on more than 3 or 4 changes per screen).

You also have a single background layer, so what you sketched in your level will either be weird for the player (e.g. scrolling a deep-perspective picture without altering the perspective lines) or a terrific challenge to the programmer (reprogram those building side' tiles so that they actually give depth-field feeling. In the case it's just a static screen, i note that far buildings have orthogonal perspective when the front containers have regular perspective, which is ... odd.

[infinity+1]

protobro

he looks like a power ranger....but in a good way.

[Jiisuki]

My first thought was Teletubbies! 

[L___E___T]

I really like Tobe's, they have a nice restyle but look more reminiscent of the neogeo pocket for some reason.

I still think Megaman belonged on the master system, it would've looked alot nicer and we could've had it on gamegear too

[Tobe]

Hey guys, thanks for liking them. I always welcome critics, but it always brings me extra joy when someone points out what they like about the work, and all the little things you did to make your design slightly more interesting.

Btw, PypeBros - thanks for redefining the NES restrictions. I guess they were detail enough, but kinda technical for me- I have a much clear picture now. In fact, now that I know that pixel art on NES can be so detail, I'm thinking of a "Character redesign challenge thread" with the NES restriction. Anyone interested? We can redesign all the classic character in all the NES glory It should be fun.

We're all free to start a challenge... right?

[Ryona]

OMG! LOL! That totally made me go "whoa!"

I think that's totally creative and definetly thinking outside the box. I like it. 



I'm really liking all the unique styles. So much infact that I may redesign WarpWoman and MegaMan.

[Batzy]

Here's mine:

i call it BoneMan or has someone that name guy already ? btw. making this was fun 

[Amon]

protobro

he looks like a power ranger....but in a good way.

Reminds me of Katamari and Tingle

[Metaru]

I really like Tobe's, they have a nice restyle but look more reminiscent of the neogeo pocket for some reason.

its for the colors and general desing of the sprites... i had the same feeling when i saw those.

[The B.O.B.]

I'm in yore NES, Breaking yore Restrickzons...




more restriction fitting sprites:



Honestly, though, I'm clueless as to what the nes can handle, animation wise. I think this sprite is too big, anyhow, but I liked the simple palette. Think I'll try to create a mock up stage before this thing is over.

btw, great job, and style everyone!

[Tobe]

I'm still pretty much stuck to this thread. There's just so much fun in this.

Anyway, I've redesign some of the boss character designed by fellow forum members just for the fun.
Let me know if this is too far off the topic though.



They are warpwoman, moleman, axeman, snowwoman, sharkman and of course, sneak man.
I gave all bosses white eye so viewer can recognize them as the antagonist. Then again, warp woman looked more like a "forte" or "protoman" kinda character, so I gave her the black eye anyway. I also added the hair and heels since I was having problem making her "right"

Anyway, I've been spending too much time in this, I guess this is the last post

[QuickSilva]

Love what you did with my Moleman character Really enjoying looking at everyone else's work too. I think that they are all great in their own unique way.

Jason.

[Ryona]

I'm still pretty much stuck to this thread. There's just so much fun in this.

Anyway, I've redesign some of the boss character designed by fellow forum members just for the fun.
Let me know if this is too far off the topic though.



They are warpwoman, moleman, axeman, snowwoman, sharkman and of course, sneak man.
I gave all bosses white eye so viewer can recognize them as the antagonist. Then again, warp woman looked more like a "forte" or "protoman" kinda character, so I gave her the black eye anyway. I also added the hair and heels since I was having problem making her "right"

Anyway, I've been spending too much time in this, I guess this is the last post

Those are awesome renditions of our boss characters. Well done!

And yeah, I did design WarpWoman with the idea that she would eventually switch sides and fight along side MegaMan and the gang. You got a very good read on my character.

By the way... WarpWoman isn't a blonde. Just so you know. lol
My plan with her is that she'd have purple hair, blue hair, indigo hair, or simply black hair. Possibly even pink or magenta.

[Larwick]

That is so, so brilliant. Even if it doesn't follow restrictions.

Also infinity+1, lovin' that megaman.

[Pietepiet]

B.O.B: Oh man, I love those animations. Very cool!

Tobe: Those are excellent. I especially like how you did SnowWoman. Of course, SneakMan looks great. I feel honored.

[Jakten]

I've actually got ideas for a set of 8 robotmasters I'm going to make, heres who I have so far. Hopefully I'm keeping within restrictions, im classing them both as using 2 palettes, one for thier colours and one for face colour and white. (these are unrelated to my previously posted megaman)
SKYWOMAN
PLASMAMAN

The other six I plan to make are:
Psyman
Cannonman
Warpman
Musicman or Noiseman
Novaman
Mirrorwoman
Also thinking of making an antihero named Viralman

[AnarchoElk]

Well, with Megaman 9 coming up fast, and after seeing this thread, among other things, I got an idea for a game.
I'm not very artistic, but I was bored today and decided to sprite some of the robot masters I was making for this game.
For the most part, all of them are going to look more humanoid. Some of them will have helmets, just not these three.
Coal Man didn't turn out well at all. The three Robot Mistresses turned out better, although I'm really not pleased with Thermal Woman. Any Feedback would be appreciated.



From Right to Left
Thermal Woman
Wind Woman
Solar Woman

Not Pictured
Coal Man, Hydro Man, Battery Man, Energy Woman, Fuel Man

Edit:


Fixed up Thermal woman a bit, the hair and torso were bugging me. Still looks a little off though, I can't tell what unfortunately.

[Ryona]

The other six I plan to make are:
Psyman
Cannonman
Warpman
Musicman or Noiseman
Novaman
Mirrorwoman
Also thinking of making an antihero named Viralman

Warpman? Uh, excuse me, I already created WarpWoman. Must there be a male version?

Now, I won't accuse you of stealing my idea because I'm sure you didn't see my posts of WarpWoman.
Go back some pages, you'll see her.

And just for convenience, I'll post one of her here now.

[Jakten]

sorry, I had seen your idea for warp woman previously, and think its amazing as well. I apologize.

The ideas for the robot masters were all thought up by a friend of mine who doesn't come to the forums. He came up with all the characters and story related stuff I've just been making the sprites for him. The only character I had any part in coming up with was Viralman. It was purely coincidence, I meant no harm.

[moket]

Hi, I was so tempted to give a try after seeing all your works.
After all those years I learn about the NES specs
Really dig your typo Ryona.

so Phaseman, I have to built more tiles (specs aren't right in the tiles)

[Ryona]

sorry, I had seen your idea for warp woman previously, and think its amazing as well. I apologize.

The ideas for the robot masters were all thought up by a friend of mine who doesn't come to the forums. He came up with all the characters and story related stuff I've just been making the sprites for him. The only character I had any part in coming up with was Viralman. It was purely coincidence, I meant no harm.

No worries. Just so long as I don't see a rip-off of my idea, I'll be cool.

Really dig your typo Ryona.

What typo? I made a typo? Where? What are you talking about?

[Turbo]

Megaman is a cyborg killing machine. Also, Robocop.

Barely any room left on the same line for enemy sprites. Maybe i'll make the game so he just shoots below himself. Yeah, that's a good idea, make the game around the main sprite.

[Helm]

Yeah, that's a good idea, make the game around the main sprite.

Whole era of Amiga gaming.

[Ben2theEdge]

Make sure to populate the levels with statues that look like unused boss art.

[Turbo]

lol

[Eirikr]

I still think Megaman belonged on the master system, it would've looked alot nicer and we could've had it on gamegear too

Sorry if I'm pulling up an old post, but they actually did have Megaman for Gamegear. It's a rehash, and just ok, but it does exist. It's not a great game though, and it's rare too. Here's a link to it:
http://www.mmhp.net/gamehints/MMGG.html

Sorry to interrupt, continue the spriting.

[lmsyhmic]

Tobe and Infinity+1 Awesome jobs! 

[Xion]

finally got on this:
I intend for the true character of the characters to be in their animation.

Infinity+1,  <3

[gamingjustin]

Such great designs, everyone. Anyway, here's a wip of the "real" Mega Man we all know and love from the ever-popular boxart...


Yeah, his crotch isn't quite lined up yet but, hey, it's better than Mega Man's backwards ass from the first game!  ...... 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MegamanBox.jpg

[tocky]

If you're drawing western-boxart megaman, draw him inexplicably holding a gun, rather than with a gun arm.

[Dusty]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MegamanBox.jpg

Some things just shouldn't be attempted to be reproduced.

[Xion]

[Larwick]

Oooh i really like those.
The bottom one especially. Although i don't think the top one really works, it just looks like he's punching really.

[vpk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MegamanBox.jpg

Some things just shouldn't be attempted to be reproduced.

[Conzeit]

Hrm. X actually has a buster attack that looks like he`s just punching. I assume that Xion is basing his version more on X than the original. Really like the way that little dude shakes it....keep it up

[Larwick]

Hrm. X actually has a buster attack that looks like he`s just punching. I assume that Xion is basing his version more on X than the original. Really like the way that little dude shakes it....keep it up

Ah ok, that's cool then. 

[Xion]

Hrm. X actually has a buster attack that looks like he`s just punching. I assume that Xion is basing his version more on X than the original. Really like the way that little dude shakes it....keep it up

naw, not really. I always thought it'd be cool to have a megaman that sort of "throws" his shots instead of just arm-extended type stuff. Guess I missed the mark. I've never even really played a megaman game all like that. He just never seemed like a very inspired character to me.

[Eirikr]

Here's my try at it. It's quite an amateurish effort, but I thought I'd stretch my limits beyond what I normally do. The only sprite I'm really happy about is the energy charge, although I do like the sickly tone of the hard hat guy.

[Shrike]

Just for clarification, how many colors do i get for my sprite? from the NES restrictions thing i gathered i get 4 palettes of 3 colors? plus 1 alpha? seemed like too much to me, i don't mean to sound like a ditz. i just didn't understand. 

Are there any size limits to the sprite?
Lol, im late to this whole thing. i prolly wont post anything, just want to clear myself up on NES. seems like something i should know.

[Jad]

Just for clarification, how many colors do i get for my sprite? from the NES restrictions thing i gathered i get 4 palettes of 3 colors? plus 1 alpha? seemed like too much to me, i don't mean to sound like a ditz. i just didn't understand. 

Are there any size limits to the sprite?
Lol, im late to this whole thing. i prolly wont post anything, just want to clear myself up on NES. seems like something i should know.

about sprite size:

a 'sprite' is technically an entity of 16x16 (it's not 8, right?) pixels with 3 colours + transparency. For making anything larger than 16x16 sprite-wise, you just tile a bunch of sprites just like you'd tile background elements. Thus, trying to be efficient about sprite size really helps, since the amount of possible visible sprites on-screen is limited (wtf is up with my grammar today?).

About colours, I as well am trying to wrap my head around it, but read the thread carefully and I think you (and me) 'll get it soon enough! LET'S IMPROVING PIXELS!

[PypeBros]

a 'sprite' is technically an entity of 16x16 (it's not 8, right?) pixels with 3 colours + transparency.

Actually, it's either 8x8 or 8x16. Awkward, if you ask me, but that's what i see everywhere and that is confirmed by this technical programming reference. So ...

Btw, that document also explains that, despites tiles (on bg) are 8x8, you can only assign a palette to a 16x16 (a SMB block) or 32x32 meta-tile (a SMB pipe) ...

[Jad]

a 'sprite' is technically an entity of 16x16 (it's not 8, right?) pixels with 3 colours + transparency.

Actually, it's either 8x8 or 8x16. Awkward, if you ask me, but that's what i see everywhere and that is confirmed by this technical programming reference. So ...

Btw, that document also explains that, despites tiles (on bg) are 8x8, you can only assign a palette to a 16x16 (a SMB block) or 32x32 meta-tile (a SMB pipe) ...

Ah. So even though you can mix 8x8 tiles however you want, you have to restrain them to a 16x16 area where they share the pallette, right?

[ptoing]

Jad: Indeed. Also ALL sprites have to be 8x8 or 8x16. You can not mix.

[Rox]

Hrm. X actually has a buster attack that looks like he`s just punching. I assume that Xion is basing his version more on X than the original. Really like the way that little dude shakes it....keep it up

JUST punching is a bit much. He does freeze momentarily after each shot. I quite like those animations, actually, the X series has been a huge inspiration for me over the years. Heh, it actually does look like he sort of flings those charged shots away...

The stuff legends are made from!

[Rolf Soldaat]

Couldn't resist posting this thing I made a while ago.
Disco Man:

[Dex]

Meh, I got bored. Will probably make some more.

[michael]

ive always loved everything about megaman...except playing it  its so hard! i decided to mock up a zeldalike megaman. im following colors, but for some reason i felt compelled to use 18x18 tiles.

megaman:


met:

[PypeBros]

ive always loved everything about megaman...except playing it  its so hard! i decided to mock up a zeldalike megaman. im following colors, but for some reason i felt compelled to use 18x18 tiles.

which surprisingly show how much the design of a character is influenced by the game perspective ... in top-down, recognizable features of MM and the Met merge into blue and yellow blobs, respectively ... or maybe this is something that could be fixed with a new mixture of highlights/shadows/etc ?

[FuzzballFox]

I've been waiting for years to show this off...*shot*

This is Hentaiman...<_<

[Atnas]

michael those top down sprites are really neat. :3

[asiekierka]

Btw, that document also explains that, despites tiles (on bg) are 8x8, you can only assign a palette to a 16x16 (a SMB block) or 32x32 meta-tile (a SMB pipe) ...

WRONG.

There's this MMC5 thing, which allows you extra RAM, which allows assigning palettes to 8x8 blocks. It also allows you some other things.

[ptoing]

It also was quite expensive to have that in your cart and not many games at all used it

[Shrike]

Awesome mockups, guys.  too bad, i never got around to it. No halloween mockup? 

[QuaziGNRLnose]

ive started work on a character, but im unsure how palletes work?, must we choose a premade line, or can we choose any of the 3 colours we want for each pallete
eg
3-0
6-1
2-2
?
or can it only be a column from 0-F?

[QuaziGNRLnose]

I Present
HYDRAULIC-MAN

dont be fooled, he is 100% NES-ABLE
to make room for the extra colours in his palletes he uses transparent against a black backdrop
!!!!111
and a spinny animation

[Dogmeat]

I used the palette from the NES'd image above:

[skamocore]

[Helm]

make him duck

[QuaziGNRLnose]

my hydraulicman can extend and shoot you in the face 

[Arne]

Oooh, megaman thread!

First, I must defend my stance that Megaman is a white faced silent assasin. I had the European version of Megaman 1. I did play the second one as well, but I never owned it. Megaman had a light yellow skintone with white eyes in the early games (maybe just the first). The later games used a darker pink skin tone, and gave him more character development graphics. In the first game we're told very little about Megaman, there's hardly any art of him, the ingame sprite aside. Rockman (JP) has a chubby Megaman all over the main screen, but the EU version only has the logo. I'm sure people who played the later games have a different impression of the character.

I really disliked how they changed the gfx for the dropped stuff in MM2, but they made up for it with the cute little mini frogs and mini birds.

Here's my most recent take on MegaGirl, but it needs to be iterated more. It's a bit similar to Atna's thing on page 2. I was never a fan of cone feet chubbyman.

I think MM9 should have been to MM what Dwarf Fortress is to RLs... 2D, but with massive feature creep. I don't mind breaking limitations. Hardware restrictions are useful to force a more consistent, unified, readable look. Sometimes artist can go a bit bonkers with pointless muddy gradients if they're given too many colors. I tend to think that the NES palette was a bit too restricted though. Another bitplane would've been nice, and a better global (64 color) palette.

I like Moleman. I think the 'body merged with head into a tube' shape has potential.

Hydralic man. Does he really need to use a black BG? Elaboration:


Mt®'s snow woman... I think I would skip the lips. in anime, lips are rarely pronounced on girls.

huZba, Tobe, delicious.

[QuickSilva]

Hi Arne, I have always been a huge fan of your work, love the MegaGirl! (And your other Megaman remakes). Any chance you could honour us with some redesigns of some of our characters? That would be great!

Jason.

[Tobe]

Geez... it's Arne! Like QuickSilva, I'm a fan of your work. Glad you like my version of MM too. It bring tears to my eyes

[QuaziGNRLnose]

Hydralic man. Does he really need to use a black BG? Elaboration:

first off
 Arne im a huge fan of your stuff, its a great inspiration to me and ur one of my idols for art, love ur style.

i dont think he needs it, but i was looking for more of a shiny look, less of a matte colour, and i couldnt show enough shine in his color with only 2 purps and black. i like your redesign, but he doesnt have those trademark mean lookin MM boss eyes. He looks more like one of his pals.

also when hes in full contraction his arms would make a scanline with 6 sprites, which would cause flickering with bullets and mm sprite overlapping

besides i think the black BG for extra colours makes him more original, i like doing original things ^_^ thats why i made hydraulic man extendable and different than any other MM character

nice edit tho!!! its more polished than mine

[Conzeit]

Oooh, megaman thread!

First, I must defend my stance that Megaman is a white faced silent assasin. I had the European version of Megaman 1. I did play the second one as well, but I never owned it. Megaman had a light yellow skintone with white eyes in the early games (maybe just the first). The later games used a darker pink skin tone, and gave him more character development graphics. In the first game we're told very little about Megaman, there's hardly any art of him, the ingame sprite aside. Rockman (JP) has a chubby Megaman all over the main screen, but the EU version only has the logo. I'm sure people who played the later games have a different impression of the character.

I really disliked how they changed the gfx for the dropped stuff in MM2, but they made up for it with the cute little mini frogs and mini birds.

Here's my most recent take on MegaGirl, but it needs to be iterated more. It's a bit similar to Atna's thing on page 2. I was never a fan of cone feet chubbyman.

I think MM9 should have been to MM what Dwarf Fortress is to RLs... 2D, but with massive feature creep. I don't mind breaking limitations. Hardware restrictions are useful to force a more consistent, unified, readable look. Sometimes artist can go a bit bonkers with pointless muddy gradients if they're given too many colors. I tend to think that the NES palette was a bit too restricted though. Another bitplane would've been nice, and a better global (64 color) palette.

First off...I was complaining more about the personality that "silent assassin" implied, rather than to the fact that he's very pale white...that's pretty much up to artist's interpretation =)

Secondly, I really really fucking loved that CrashGal you made once...I secretly worshiped that picture for ages before I met you...now I can just tell you straight up 

Third......that seems much more megamanish than the real hydraulic man. Awesome =D

[Dogmeat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MegamanBox.jpg

is this seriously the artwork?

You mean, I could of had an art job at capcom when I was in 3rd grade?

WTF!

[Arne]

Regarding my sprite:

I think the scanline sprite limit thing could be avoided by either:

A, Having the arms and legs baked into the same sprite chunk when he's not extended.
B, Flipping the arms up or to the sides. The arms could be floppy and flail about as the body bit moves.

I didn't align much of the stuff to an 8*8 grid, so quite possible I'm being inefficient there.

As for highlights, they're generally not done on early MM sprites because the of the color limitations, so I thought it would be more consistent to remove the highlights.

---

Silent assassin might not be the best term. Silent... lone commando, Silent Ronin. Silent one man army. Whatever. Assassin might be the wrong term because assassins may spare the body guards of their target. Megaman's mission is assassination though. His goal is to eliminate the leaders of a a regime. Perhaps in speed-runs he's more of an assassin, only killing grunts when he absolutely have to, getting swiftly to the boss.

---

The EU artwork (which I have) was different from the crappy US one. The JP artwork was the most faithful. MM9's cover is playing on the US cover, not the EU or JP one, so the joke is kinda lost over here.

---

As for my MegaGirl designs. Yeah, the Crash girl turned out the best. I've been wanting to return to that project for some time, but... I have a lot of projects. Perhaps such a project could be posted in the low spec forum? Going from low spec to high spec while staying faithful to low spec might be something that is interesting to this community.

[Dogmeat]

[Chris2balls]

LOL

[TrevoriuS]

Things can go too far... Really..

[Conzeit]

As for my MegaGirl designs. Yeah, the Crash girl turned out the best. I've been wanting to return to that project for some time, but... I have a lot of projects. Perhaps such a project could be posted in the low spec forum? Going from low spec to high spec while staying faithful to low spec might be something that is interesting to this community.

Dont think I need to say it...but I for one would LOVE to see that =)

[berserkx33]

I'm just finished this Boss, he is Tupanman, and is based in one native hero from my homeland, his weapon is the Seed Thrower, he is a gram demon, but he is the one who told humanity how to be wise, kind, fair and inteligent. His desgine is a mix of Sun and Plants

His first designe looked like a Frensh-Friesman, but this i liked must, i will be making his stage soon, wish is located in Amazonian Forests.

Spect a lot of water, a Fire Snake sub boss and a lot of Tree action.

[Conzeit]

that is very cool  You do know that megaman has featured mythical characters before right? there is Buster Rod.G (Goku...since he is based on the same monkey god as the DBZ protagonist) you could probably call him Tupan if you wanted


Looking forward to ur mock enemies

[Red_Mist]

I know this challenge is over, but I wanted to share mine with everyone anyway! because because!
er, I didnt make a boss or a boss portrait, oh and obviously the megaman isnt mine.

[AdamAtomic]

Collated and archived a mere 95 mockups and animations!  HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS

[Larwick]

Collated and archived a mere 95 mockups and animations!  HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS

Haha well done! Thanks.

[QuickSilva]

Thanks AdamAtomic for taking the time to do this, it`s great to see everything all in one place.
Jason.

[Delkaes]

argg my files were lost on last ftp...

there are again Adam ! :


and
Monkeyman :

[Dex]

Aw, it's over? I was gonna remake mine. :C

Aw well, good job everyone, I'll be sure to partake in the next one.

[Conzeit]

it is NOT over Dex, you just missed the first collection of all the mockups and sprites, the topic is still open you can still redo whatever you want!

[easyname]

Hi, I'm new here.



Just decided to have a go at a lava stage :/ and I don't know what those weird fire robots are, but meh.

[Shrike]

Haha!

That's awesome!   
Totally reminds me of the first metroid, the arcade one. Like, a ton of a lot.  Maybe inspiration came from that?

[easyname]

Actually, I never owned (or played) an NES . I think the earliest consoles I played were the SNES/GB.

I had seen some screenshots and stuff of metriod though, so it probably did have SOME influence .

[Shrike]

Even so, they look alike!




(Lol kraid)