AuthorTopic: Remaking Flashback...  (Read 18347 times)

Offline dkh

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 52
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth

Remaking Flashback...

on: November 16, 2008, 11:55:37 pm
No, I'm not gonna try it, just kidding. :P

In fact I was referencing a piece by Helm that I found on pixeljoint. Take a look here.

I instantly liked the style and the - as he says - somewhat bland palette and tried to design some assets that would fit.


Ignore the black pixel...

This was only done as a practice and I hope I don't break any rules by doing this study of style or however you want to call it. Some of the pixels in the image above (namely, the blue pipes in the background, the fan block thingie on the celing and large parts of the general design of the big gray gates - the palette as well) are taken from Helm's work, I'm not trying to call them my own or anything - they are in there as to capture the style. If there are objections, I will delete the thread.

I do think there is enough own material in there to allow some general pointers as to where I should improve though, and that's exactly what I want.  :D

Also, here is a running animation for the player character, six frames (I realize eight would probably look smoother, working on it):



Also note that it's all designed to work at fullscreen!

Offline Helm

  • Moderator
  • 0110
  • *
  • Posts: 5159
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Asides-Bsides

Re: Remaking Flashback...

Reply #1 on: November 17, 2008, 11:11:04 am
You have a problem with the depth of the room. It's cut in half, if the person is supposed to pass through that passway on the top floor on the left at least, that's super narrow.

A thing I can tell you is that you need to stop looking at my inferior version and examine the actual Flashback pixel art to do better. This goes for the animation of your main character too. Nearly nothing I did in that piece was right or good so I'd hate to passively inspire through that.

That being said if you fix the depth issue and perhaps dress the tileset a bit more this will look good. The design acumen of the actual Flashback will not be there because you're not studying Flashback, heh. You really should.

Offline dkh

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 52
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth

Re: Remaking Flashback...

Reply #2 on: November 17, 2008, 04:52:24 pm
Thanks for the feedback. The reason I chose your art over the original Flashback is simple, yours seemed a lot more accessible. I have tried drawing in the Flashback style but it always keeps failing because I can't quite put my head around it yet, I guess I'm lacking in the technical department, composition, color theory etc. It just doesn't make any sense beyond looking good yet. But your work seemed logical from the start up, I instantly saw why you did what (that's what I'm thinking at least). But don't worry, look at it as some kind of stepping stone in between working with the real Flashback stuff! ;D

Thanks for the practical advice, too:


Fixed the depth issue (hopefully, I just doubled the depth), what exactly would fall under "dressing" the tileset though?

Others are invited to answer as well, I appreciate any feedback. Edits are welcome etc.

I have also worked on some more animations (after firing up Flashback and taking a close look) but it's not yet at a presentable stage.

Offline Helm

  • Moderator
  • 0110
  • *
  • Posts: 5159
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Asides-Bsides

Re: Remaking Flashback...

Reply #3 on: November 17, 2008, 06:38:51 pm


check the top floor. Perhaps a drop shadow from the ceilings will help show the planes more?

Also check what I did to how the doorway connects to both floor and ceiling. I hope you can see that the original broke perspective there.

Your main character's arms are a bit short btw. One or two pixels.

What I mean by more furnishing is just that. More tiles and variations. Objects, radiators, tubes, sci-fi mubmo jumbo. Dirt tiles for the walls, cracks, different sort of terminals, perhaps a series of objects in a complementary color scheme like chairs of room divisions or whatever else. Think ahead what you might want to use in the future in this tileset and draw it today.

Offline dkh

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 52
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth

Re: Remaking Flashback...

Reply #4 on: November 18, 2008, 06:05:49 pm

New version is up, I fixed the perspective (thanks for pointing that out, can't believe I didn't see that before), added more details and made the player's arms one pixel longer. I think it makes a great difference already, thanks a lot for the advice and the edit!

Anything else? Again, everybody is invited to comment, I'm sure a 'community' effort/discussion is more productive than an ABAB chain of replies (no matter how valuable and appreciated your input is in this case, Helm).

Offline Helm

  • Moderator
  • 0110
  • *
  • Posts: 5159
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Asides-Bsides

Re: Remaking Flashback...

Reply #5 on: November 18, 2008, 07:27:30 pm
One point I'd mention is that nobody idles with their hands, their palms pointing back and their knuckles pointing fore. People idle with their hands at their sides, thumbs front. This will help make the idle pose of the sprite more natural. It is already better I think so too. It might be a good time to mention that pure greys are pretty bullshit non-colors to have straight ramps of in videogames and to suggest you try some subtle metalic tinting, it will help lots.

Offline Sokota

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 148
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • WeThePuppets
    • View Profile

Re: Remaking Flashback...

Reply #6 on: November 18, 2008, 07:39:22 pm
One quick thing that stood out to me were the pipes making a blocked doorway. They seem one or two pixels out of perspective, to me, anyways. Perhaps just making them shorter would help?

Sokota

Not an expert, at anything, but just thought I'd let you know.

Offline dkh

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 52
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth

Re: Remaking Flashback...

Reply #7 on: November 19, 2008, 06:34:35 pm

Note: there are actually two lifts in there to show how the platform would look in position and how while moving, forgot to add the rails to the second one...

I tried to follow your advice for the arm/hand of the player character to make him look more relaxed. I also tried to steer away from the gray and go into a slightly blue tint, does it work yet (I'm not very trained at palettes yet)?

Sokota, I'm not quite following your point there, making the pipes longer or shorter would not break perspective (or make it 'right'), it just alters depth. Can you elaborate? Anyways, I shortened the pipe by a pixel because I might have made them pretty long in the first version but shortening them any more really doesn't look good. Maybe a little image would help illustrate your point!

Please keep the input coming!

Offline Tobe

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 111
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • www.rayteoactive.wordpress.com
    • View Profile
    • Rayteoactive

Re: Remaking Flashback...

Reply #8 on: November 19, 2008, 07:46:57 pm
I don't quite get it.

Is Flashback kinda art very hard to produce?
I was working on a game design of a similar genre, though it didn't occur to me that it's any more difficult to produce than other genre.

Offline Jad

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

Re: Remaking Flashback...

Reply #9 on: November 19, 2008, 10:59:58 pm
Haha, flashback is no genre : D

Nah, It's probably as hard to replicate as for example seiken densetsu 3 or any henk nieborg graphics (I'd say?), but Helm is particularily infatuated with and fascinated by the flashback art, so that's clearly his point of interest. (:
« Last Edit: November 19, 2008, 11:16:08 pm by Jad »
' _ '