AuthorTopic: Official Off-Topic Thread  (Read 1004331 times)

Offline Jad

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1048
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #1630 on: July 01, 2010, 10:36:20 am
Actually! I am in a quite good position right now, my company is making some (not very good, maybe) platformers and it's all feeling quite nice.

The best thing, though, is how when working on this and seeing how flawed our games are in some aspects

THE FLAME OF GAME DEVELOPING lights up in me with furious heat : D and I'm so goddamn stoked to get home and make some games of my own * 3 *

and actually, this position is quite a privilegied one. So I'm not really complaining about myself! Until, of course, our company bombs and has to start making facebookgamblingsocialbejeweled to survive. But right now making flawed platformers is very inspiring!
' _ '

Offline Indigo

  • Administrator
  • 0011
  • *
  • Posts: 946
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Artist, Indie Game Dev
    • DanFessler
    • DanFessler
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/849.htm
    • DanFessler
    • DanFessler
    • View Profile
    • Portfolio

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #1631 on: July 01, 2010, 05:58:06 pm
Atnas:
Yeah a bunch of the buildings were done by me, but also Monsoon.  In the screenshot I posted above, I did all the buildings except for the cottage houses which were done by monsoon.  The character sprites and portraits were done by nvision.  I provided the 3d rough-render for the trains and nvision rendered them.  Monsoon did all the greenery.

Jad:
I hear ya.  Despite working on social games, this particular product has been pretty good for me as well.  The content and style is interesting enough to keep me motivated and drawing.  I'm lucky one of the co-founders is a big fan of pixel art ;)  I've bumped up a notch too at this company to lead artist.  So i've been managing the contract work/artists and general direction for the visual feel of the game.

Offline JJ Naas

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 409
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile
    • My Deviantart page

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #1632 on: July 02, 2010, 12:29:18 am
In regards to Habbo and Sulake I'm glad I have a lot of independence and freedom regarding the pixels I push, the company is doing better than ever, having been 10 years in the business and all etc. so.. great. At least I'm not working in an ad agency.

Here's some stuff I've done during the last year/year and a half. Some of these are animated, but that won't show here.





Offline Ryumaru

  • Moderator
  • 0100
  • *
  • Posts: 1683
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • to be animated soonly
    • ChrisPariano
    • View Profile

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #1633 on: July 02, 2010, 01:57:43 am
I have a pro motion question for anybody out there. When I loop the animation, in the animation window the frames go ridiculously fast- even though the delay is only 4 frames a second on all frames. if any one could help that would be greatly appreciated ! It's currently bugging the hell out of me and made me lose all motivation to animate since I suck at it anyway - _ -

Offline st0ven

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 200
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • spriteart

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #1634 on: July 02, 2010, 05:26:39 am
Ryu: cant remember which it is but make sure that its not a millisecond delay vs fps delay.

also if i remember correctly, you have to play the animation in the preview window to watch the proper time delay between each frame, doing so by just scrubbing through the frames in the editor view will just result in super fast frame cycling.

On a side note, whats with the latest graphics from  you? going for this game thing, huh? i saw some of your recent pieces on pj (i feel like ive seen the bleach one a while ago), you have a tendency to really twist up the cloth in the upper arms, as if someone was wringing out a wet towel. careful of that! If you ever sign on........ you can catch me up on all your latest, yeah? also dont forget to paint here and there on your break (p.s. im setting up my easel this weekend).

Offline Ryumaru

  • Moderator
  • 0100
  • *
  • Posts: 1683
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • to be animated soonly
    • ChrisPariano
    • View Profile

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #1635 on: July 02, 2010, 07:42:37 am
St0ven: well the thing is promotion shows the delay in both millisecond AND fps delay and they change accordingly AND the  preview window is what is going to fast! D:
All those pieces on PJ are actually years old, with some finishing on one or another, I was updating my pixel art portfolio in hopes of getting a pixel job I responded to in the forums. I have been keeping up with painting :] Got a long term piece going on and I just painted something for a pretty girl last night ;]
I'll update you more when I get on aim when you do! you go to sleep too early these days :p

Offline Atnas

  • Moderator
  • 0100
  • *
  • Posts: 1074
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • very daijōbs
    • paintbread
    • paintbread
    • View Profile

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #1636 on: July 02, 2010, 12:24:48 pm
Indigo: Never would have guessed, you three did a good job at blending styles.

JJ Naas: I always love seeing the stuff you do for habbo because the game is full of plasticy iso art, and you manage to sneak in stuff that goes with better pixel aesthetics.

Offline Mathias

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1797
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • Goodbye.
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/9542.htm
    • View Profile

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #1637 on: July 03, 2010, 03:03:41 am
quick and dirty doodle for the escargot club

Offline saimo

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 164
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • R37R34M
    • View Profile
    • RETREAM

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #1638 on: July 05, 2010, 09:23:05 am
Ai, just wanted to say I admire your AA research!
I only hope the results won't be so good to tempt lazy pixellers :crazy: (just kidding, of course)
« Last Edit: July 05, 2010, 09:28:00 am by saimo »

Offline Ai

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1057
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • finti
    • http://pixeljoint.com/pixels/profile.asp?id=1996
    • finticemo
    • View Profile

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #1639 on: July 05, 2010, 03:28:04 pm
Ai, just wanted to say I admire your AA research!
I only hope the results won't be so good to tempt lazy pixellers :crazy: (just kidding, of course)
Did you just apply it on your avatar, or was it already like that ? heh.

Thanks :)
Here's an update.. I've changed my method again and it's much simpler (and WAY more effective :D)

* Use GMIC to apply a Difference of Gaussians on a copy of the source image,
   to detect areas of high frequency detail like eyes (parameters: 0.05, 0.10, threshold 20, enable 'negative'.
* Apply a curve with a point at 93,33 and 192,192 to reduce the amount of smoothing high-detail pixels will get, even more.
* Edit->Copy
* Enter QMask mode (using keyboard shortcut or the button at bottom-left of your window) and Edit->Paste what you just copied.
* Anchor the pasted layer and exit QMask mode. Now, the low-detail pixels are most selected, and high-detail are least selected.
* Apply GMIC Anisotropic smoothing (amplitude 8, sharpness .4, gradsmooth 0, tensor smooth 0.50, iterations 2)
* Done




Here's the previous attempt, for comparison:


And here is one I tried today:
(done with slightly different smoothing parameters -- sharp 0.30, iterations 1, to get stronger lines.)




Some things to note:
* outer lines are preserved, inner lines are AAed. So we don't sel out.
* Face details still end up smoothed somewhat more than I intended, but
I view this as an acceptable tradeoff -- a few touchups of detail vs manually AAing *everything*. complicated shapes such as hands seem to be preserved *quite* well
* you might want some more AA on long lines.. I've concluded the most useful
  approach is either to AA them manually, or select and smooth them separately to the main iteration, using GMIC Anisotropic Smoothing  In that case you mainly care about sharpness (which controls amount of smoothing relative to amount of color difference),  amplitude (which can be quite high for much more smoothing if you set sharpness well.. if not, soggy result), and possibly secondarily gradient smoothness, which effects how smooth borders are interpreted as being, and tensor smoothness, which effects the smoothing of the angles in shapes
* extremely high contrast areas are left alone (which is generally good, unless you actually DIDN'T want your high contrast to stay high)
* Depending on the exact style of the pixel art, sharpness will need adjusting.

I'm quite happy, the major remaining challenge is to auto recolor back to plausible colors found in the original graphic.
(other things: try the process on other graphical styles,  eg. SNK)

The results are good enough (with high amplitude value) to help as a general guide of how you could AA a shape well. Hopefully it would be used only as a 'finishing' filter
in all other cases.
If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.