[WIP] Yet another tile mockery, please tear it apart.

[caimgenji]

First of all, this is pretty heavily influenced by (Super) Metroid.  I actually drew the first ground tile while looking a screenshot from the game, I just really like the purple soil.  I just hope the ground is distinct enough.

This uses pretty much every tile I've currently made.  It shows them the exact way the game engine would.  The tree will have leaves later, but since the tiles in the tree are going to be repeatedly used, I didn't want to cover it up before you all can have a shot at tearing it apart.  I pretty much suck at making those bloody trees.  Every time I tried to make it look better it wasn't tileable with other pieces anymore.

I don't really have any restrictions with the tiles, but I kinda liked the look when I kept the colour count low.

This is going to be "programmer art", but I wish I could make it at least decent by that standard.  So, if you could give me few pointers I would be glad.



Edit:  Here's the screenshot from Super Metroid, just so that you can compare the ground tiles if you wish.

[Overkill]

Here's an edit, which addresses a few issues with your piece (or at least points them out)



To be honest, the floor tiles are less problematic than the other parts of this piece (hero, tree).

[vierbit]

@Overkill
I must actually say your palette edit doesnīt work for me. The stone tiles are a way to dark now.

@caimgenji
ok. first here is my edit

First of all, I suggest you should keep your palette entries more seperated, for example that the playersprite donīt have colors
that are already used for the ground. I also encountered a few stay pixels here and there.

Apart from the palette edit I also fixed the shading on the tree, as already mentioned by overkill it was pillow shaded wrongly shaded.

[Kazuya Mochu]

Im sorry, how what that tree pillowshaded???  it was not propperly shaded, Ill give it that, but that is NOT pillow shading, or I have been away to long and definitions have changed!

[Overkill]

Hm, I see! Okay I guess it makes sense that a foreground objects should be brighter regardless... And shouldn't typically be darker than the sky. :/

And... yeah, no that isn't pillow shading. Eeek. I was afraid this might happen

Vierbit's edit seems to be on the right track anyways.

[Kazuya Mochu]

Overkill, man, Im not having a go at you, but it just puzzles me, and you are not the first, not by a long shot, to point out pillowshading out of a situation where there really is no pillow shading involved.
and I start to wonder where people get the idea from. is it a miss conception, is it just a more broad usage of the word for "wrong shading"?

you admit its not, and you did provide with a good head's up about the tree. but I get the feeling that probably more people would come in and say "its pillow shaded". I dunno, maybe I'm hunting ghosts!

[Willows]

Nah, "It's pillow shaded!" seems to be the general response whenever anything is shaded wrongly. I fully support your battle against that uprising, Kazuya!

[balls01]

there needs to be more distinction between what is platform/ground and what is sky/background make a constant tile for the dirt/ground what ever you want to call it, the character looks like its got a torch shining on it but nothing else is really effected and isnt effected by the night/dark sky that surrounds him/her/it.

P.S. that isn't pilowshading in my books

[Jad]

That sure is some gradient shading, mah bruvvas. It's like pillowshading viewed from the side ; D

Err, vierbit, actually, I'm digging overkill's edit just a tad bit more, and I'll explain why:

Except for the rocks, which really are a bit too dark, I like how colours intertwine between objects and background. Although the pallette separating way is a good one, in my personal opinion, you can separate elements in a lot of other ways as well. I like how the ground is darker than the sky, this means that the foreground has a broader range of contrast than the background, which is good in my book (although since it's night, things getting darker as they are more far away also works well).

Creating contrast between objects, foreground and background is very important, but there are several ways that work differently with different graphical styles.

Animated vs. Non-animated <- this comes naturally

High-contrast vs. Low-contrast

Bright vs. Dark <- vierbit's edit

Saturated vs. Gray <- vierbit's edit also in some regards

Unique Color vs. General Colors <- vierbit's edit

Color vs. Complementary Colors

Warm vs. Cool coloring

Detail vs. Smoothness.

I just want to point out the different ways to attack this issue. I do not disagree at all with vierbit's edit, it proves a great point and is well concieved, but it's not the only way to go at it! So I thought I'd try to present a larger picture of possibilities : D

[caimgenji]

A lot of thanks to you all for all the pointers and tips you've given me.

Here's a bit of progress I've made, I tried to address most of the things you have mentioned.



The evil tree's gone!  I reshaded tree using vierbit's edit as a base (I pretty much traced it), and tried to do it so that I'd learn how to do it so the next tree wouldn't be so awful as the last one.  I darkened the tree and cut off the contrast a little so it actually looks like background and tried to get more attention drawn to main character.

I also changed the palette somewhat using both edits. 

Jad:  I really appreciate your post, I'll be sure to test these out at some point to see what works with what.