Of Value, Saturation, Hue, Contrast and gray;

[Willows]

I think you need to be louder and bolder when you do use colour, otherwise it'll look boring, not stylistic. Either have a small amount of colour in everything with saturations high enough that you can notice 'em at normal view, or go for solid flecks of reasonably high saturation colours in strategic locations.

'Course I'm not terribly familiar with exactly how to go about that, so the above are experiments I wouldn't exactly consider successes. I feel as if it could be pushed a lot further than I have, and to greater effect.

An' from what I saw in the video Conceit posted (good ref btw!) nothing seems to be without colour, but nothing seems to be much above a certain level of saturation unless they want you to stare at it.

[ndchristie]

Lots of good things being said here.

lacks the atmosphere/style I'm attempting to attain.

Hmm, ok, interesting.  I would not call whistler warm and colorful at all.

Could you perhaps elaborate on what atmosphere/style you are "attempting to attain"?  So far I've heard things like grey, castle, misty...all of which are more descriptive than definitive.

The big issue here is that your current palette isn't doing the trick and probably won't.  Relying on grey to create a mood is like relying on a stick to keep you warm - sticks aren't the only thing that burn and even if they were you need to use them right.  Right now you just have a rather dull wash that makes me more sleepy or disinterested than anything else and it's hard to know what to suggest.

For instance, I doubt gregory crewdson is what you are going for, but look at this image :


This is dark, grey, and misty; except for the castle isn't nearly everything you've described, yet i have a hunch it's not what you want.  This is probably as good an argument as i can make for more clear communication of intentions .


Also based on descriptions your monitor is broken and it's probably a good idea to stay away from making color judgments if you're being forced to use a different set of values.  It's a mistake i've made before, relying on bum machinery...and it's not one that is reconcilable.

[Gizmonicgamer]

Lots of good things being said here.

Agreed.

Hmm, ok, interesting.  I would not call whistler warm and colorful at all.

With the exception of the blueish-grey BG, most of the colors it uses are yellow or orang-y, and alludes to more of a festive night involving fireworks and a bon-fire then a cold, gloomy kind of setting.

The big issue here is that your current palette isn't doing the trick and probably won't.  Relying on grey to create a mood is like relying on a stick to keep you warm - sticks aren't the only thing that burn and even if they were you need to use them right.  Right now you just have a rather dull wash that makes me more sleepy or disinterested than anything else and it's hard to know what to suggest.

I agree that the current palette isn't really doing the trick, especially when put with some newer computers and equipment. As far as the mood I'm attempting to create is concerned (which requires more then just grey; in fact more then just a visual aspect there has to be a heavy audio quality as well) I was thinking more along the lines of melancholy, gloomy, lonely, maybe even subtle; a sort of heavy kind of "gothic" atmosphere. In a subtle way, Shadow of the Colossus was somewhat of an inspiration in this regard (particularly in the solitude factor (and with more a dark/gloomy emphasis)).

As far as references are concerned, the following are about as close as I can find to showing my intent:
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s12/QueenDrusilla/GothicCastle.jpg
http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/d30-32/merced-river-in-winter.jpg
http://www.weatherpicturesweatherphotos.net/weather-picture-photo-mist-rain-RedDeath.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/181/410938189_a3a8462252.jpg

And while yes, the picture you posted isn't really what I "want" its still an excellent picture that may prove useful later in other projects, so thanks.

Also based on descriptions your monitor is broken and it's probably a good idea to stay away from making color judgments if you're being forced to use a different set of values.  It's a mistake i've made before, relying on bum machinery...and it's not one that is reconcilable.

Not really "broken", just about 8 years old at this point. It displays hues and colors properly, it just seems to display things a bit darker then most new machines, which just happens to be much more noticable in this project. This particular issue however should be easily reconcilable with a few quick brightness/contrast/palette alterations once new machinery is obtained.

I think you need to be louder and bolder when you do use colour, otherwise it'll look boring, not stylistic. Either have a small amount of colour in everything with saturations high enough that you can notice 'em at normal view, or go for solid flecks of reasonably high saturation colours in strategic locations.

'Course I'm not terribly familiar with exactly how to go about that, so the above are experiments I wouldn't exactly consider successes. I feel as if it could be pushed a lot further than I have, and to greater effect.

That's actually somewhat of a brilliant idea; the execution as you said was more experimental but I believe that idea could be utilized fairly decently.

I've also decided to put up two more screenshots, both with a little more color (or atleast, more going on) then in the previous ones. Obviously wip; the sky and BG are more placeholder until I get better at it (as evidenced by the accidental blur in the corner) and second still has some apparently glaring pallette issues on brighter monitors. The sprite in the second screenshot is also slightly newer then in the first, as it has a revised palette.


Not sure if either of these look any better, though. Also being in game, the second screenshot has two instances of transparency (afterimage, and the light)

So far it looks like I'll have to implement heavier shadows/more black, more contrast, try and weasel in some more color (this will admittedly be the most difficult thing for me to do properly). I also have to play Soul Reaver, apparently. Am I on the right track?

[JonathanOfDrain]

You'll need to play with the contrast a bit more and overall pixeling technique. I think a lot of things look tube-ish.
If you want to keep this pure grey scale... I suggest you don't. Use a strong accent color. I've been watching a lot of trailers for "The Spirit" so maybe that's where my desire of an accent color comes from.
Try it, if it's lame then don't do it ever again.

[Gizmonicgamer]

You'll need to play with the contrast a bit more and overall pixeling technique. I think a lot of things look tube-ish.
If you want to keep this pure grey scale... I suggest you don't. Use a strong accent color. I've been watching a lot of trailers for "The Spirit" so maybe that's where my desire of an accent color comes from.
Try it, if it's lame then don't do it ever again.

Not so sure about an accent color, but blood will appear as a decently saturated red and a few other effects and maybe environmental things like water and trees will have more of a tint then the rest of the game.
And I agree about the contrast, though as has been pointed out my computer is really old so to me it does look heavily contrasted. Though I'll hopefully be getting a new computer for Christmas, so maybe then I can that remedy the issue. It should also be noted most of the backgrounds and tiles here were made months ago, even up to a year ago. Hopefully new backgrounds and tiles will look better.

But right, I'm still working on fixing up the characters palette and reshading most of the animations so far. Nobody really said anything about it, but:
NEW:

OLD:


Is that any better? What about the two screenshots I posted in my last post?

[Jad]

If you want hands-on critique on your sprites and background as is, I suggest you make a thread for it in the Pixel Art forums, and we'll keep the discussion more general in this thread.

Either that or I'll move this thread there for you. What do you prefer? O:

[Gizmonicgamer]

Either that or I'll move this thread there for you. What do you prefer? O:

Here. I wasn't really asking for critique on the sprite but rather if it was felt that that sprite dealt with the issue of black and white and the apparent lack of contrast more in regards to the game itself - I'll make a mockup of the sprite on an in-game BG though for comparison if that'll work betterr? It wasn't my intention to lean it towards sprite critique.  As for the sprites and stuff I'll make a thread over there later on, as this is more trying to deal with specifically the black and white/gray/contrast issues and on whether or not on the whole it is capturing the intended atmosphere or how exactly to capture that kind of atmosphere. Or even just move this more towards those concepts and guide it away from the game in question, either way it works and is something I'm interested in.

Jad: Ok, that's cool then. Do post it against a background though, so we have more stuff to look at.