Raziel Idle Pose

[Mamoruanime]

I tried my hand at giving Raziel an idle pose in SotN style. There's a bit more detail to him than SotN style typically allows, but meh. He's a tough cookie to make look plain.



And with a temporary Soul Reaver-


C&C please ^_^

[Elrinth]

here's an image from SotN, if is an abbrevation of Symphony of the Night:

Not sure what SotN style doesn't allow which you are doing. But here's my crits:
* it looks like you've accidently clipped his right side. it's a straight like down and then suddenly a knee sticks forth. is it supposed to be so?
* does he only have one arm?
* I don't really see what the part on his stomach, what's it supposed to be? a belt?
* maybe you can make the character slightly broader?

[Mamoruanime]

Ah; lol yeah Raziel has *no* stomach; so that thing in it's place is his other arm; I really shoulda shown some references lol...
Here's some concept art in the Soul Reaver 2 bonus features-

http://www.thelostworlds.net/LoKSeries/Images/Soul_Reaver_2_Bonus_Material_-_Raziel-raziel_7.JPG
http://www.thelostworlds.net/LoKSeries/Images/Soul_Reaver_2_Bonus_Material_-_Raziel-raziel_9.JPG

His knee is something I've been working on, because it bothers the hell outta me lol

As for SotN limitations; I stepped a bit past the number of colors they typically use on parts of the sprites. They have a tendency to shade with 2 to 3 colors, and make things more solid. I went with 4 to 5 colors per element.

I should also note that I purposefully left his shoulders uncovered, and I didn't sprite in his wings. His wings in-game are going to be low poly meshes that move dynamically.

[Conzeit]

ugh....I like SOTN and I like Raziel but I really think this is just not a very good idea at all.

Look at the way LOK models are done, they are all about the exagerated faces with tons of expression and very exagerated features, just like their body build.

Now look at SOTN sprites, the face is basically just a piece of blank space, and they are elongated and refined...it doesnt match, and your sprite shows it.

 Raziel looks like a random blue dude. You also made him specially elongated, even for SOTN I believe, his features are not human-like at all in the game he practically has megaman legs...you cant even show his pointed ears!

[Mamoruanime]

Nah his proportions are correct for SotN style; I made sure of that. The loss is the oversized lower arms and lower legs that LoK seems to pride itself on, and IMO that's not much of a loss, given the style change.

I have to disagree with the facial expressions though. Soul Reaver 1 had absolutely no facial movement whatsoever. They were just still faces. I know this because I have every single model ripped and sitting for reference. It wasn't until SR2 and Blood omen 2 that they had facial expressions in general. SR1 was just annoying, as they would have full dialog bits and absolutely no facial movements.

Take a peek at this vid (MAJOR SPOILERS; but it's good reference for the lack of facial expressions)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENosWOAWUgo

Throughout the entire thing, they either avoid showing their faces head on, or they do distance shots. Technical limitations kept them from going too detailed in that aspect, and because of that I don't feel I'm doing any wrong to the series if I don't go out of my way to make raziels ears pointy on a 4x4px surface.

For height reference-


Either way; the whole point of the project is to take the game from one style (the original) to another style (SotN style). Things such as the huge ass lower arms and such won't be present, because frankly; I'm not making a 2d LoK style.

[Gil]

All three of the references have 8 pixel high heads, yours is 5 or 6 pixels high. All those poses are really dynamic, yours is a stick figure.

More studying of the style will be required.

Also, the silhouette reads a 1000 times better than the finished shaded piece. Try figuring out why and bring the clarity back into the piece.

[Jad]

Styles are vague, do not compromise readability because of 'style', not even SOTN did that.

Alucard has his cool guy pose because it expresses his character. Raziel is FALLEN and TORN, so he stands much more hunched and non-proud than Alucard. Wider pose, I guess. Reference first-guy for pose I'd say!

Also please more definition on his legs. Alucard's legs look like straight cylinders because he's wearing trousers and boots.

Making Raziel's legs look like pants does not really make the style SOTN so drop some of those breaking-style-fears and define, define, define!11

Raziel is not a normal human, his physiology is like a skeleton with some rudimentary muscles and some blue paint all over that. Thus there is a lot of difference between the wideness of joints and limbs.

All of this should be visible in the finished sprite, but isn't, so congratulations, you can now make your sprite more better!

If I sound like an ass please just imagine this post with a happy tone! I'm desperate to go to bed so I'm just splurting out the last critique I've got in the system!

Also Good luck and never give up!11

Oh plus, shading-wise you're close to the original 'style' and stuff so you're obviously on the right track, and it's obvious that you've got some good pixel skills, so don't doubt that yourself, and don't doubt that I think so either for even a second! <3

Yes. That's it, good night!

[Mamoruanime]

Styles are vague, do not compromise readability because of 'style', not even SOTN did that.

Alucard has his cool guy pose because it expresses his character. Raziel is FALLEN and TORN, so he stands much more hunched and non-proud than Alucard. Wider pose, I guess. Reference first-guy for pose I'd say!

Also please more definition on his legs. Alucard's legs look like straight cylinders because he's wearing trousers and boots.

Making Raziel's legs look like pants does not really make the style SOTN so drop some of those breaking-style-fears and define, define, define!11

Raziel is not a normal human, his physiology is like a skeleton with some rudimentary muscles and some blue paint all over that. Thus there is a lot of difference between the wideness of joints and limbs.

All of this should be visible in the finished sprite, but isn't, so congratulations, you can now make your sprite more better!

If I sound like an ass please just imagine this post with a happy tone! I'm desperate to go to bed so I'm just splurting out the last critique I've got in the system!

Also Good luck and never give up!11

Oh plus, shading-wise you're close to the original 'style' and stuff so you're obviously on the right track, and it's obvious that you've got some good pixel skills, so don't doubt that yourself, and don't doubt that I think so either for even a second! <3

Yes. That's it, good night!

Actually you gave me the responses I wanted Instead of focusing simply on the change from one style to another, you focused on the pixels themselves I'm going to work on those very things ^_^


Also Gil- Raziel has no lower jaw :p his head is going to be a tad smaller.

EDIT:

I've made some minor tweaks to Raziel;


Nothing major though; I touched up his legs a bit, and removed the stay knee pixels. I've given the illusion of a slight hunch; it was lacking the full scarf before, and I think that helped imply that he's hunching a bit more, along with the additional leg definition. I added the rest of his hair, since he has 2 pointy bangs that pop out. His scarf has been expanded, and I'm using an additional color outside of the existing 3 on the brown cloth parts (the darkest blue already on Raziel appears to fit well). I'm still working on these things; so this is just a quick edit.

EDIT 2:

I've been fleshing out the sprite a bit, and started working on the lead-in to his run animation. I started the animation primarily to see how easy it would be to animate him having so many colors (I'm not the best animator either when it comes to sprites.)

As a WIP I came up with this; keep in mind, I'm still working on all 3 sprites-


Please note that I am aware of the goofiness of the legs during that animation. It's still a WIP. Also please note that this animation will never go to frame three, and directly back to the first frame. It's a lead in. A lead out will handle going back to the idle pose.

[Helm]

Most of Jad's critiques still apply. More definition of character is needed, physiological knowhow is also needed.

Don't start an animation just drawing the next frame after this frame and then the next. First keyframe, then draw the paths you need and then animate the in-betweens. Someone more knowledgable like Ptoing or Fool or Conceit on matters of animation will probably chime in when you've got something more than what you have, but I'm just trying to save you some grief early on.

[crab2selout.png]

I actually like the far right running sprite better as an idle stance. It captures more of the Raziel character with it being hunched over, though the legs would need some work. You can finally see that Raziel doesn't have a stomach, whereas in your actual idle his background arm looks like a belt as someone mentioned.

[Mathias]

Oh, it's that soul reaver dude, I thought it was a soldier until now. Correct, I hadn't this thread, just skimmed it a few times prior to today. He's much more recognizable now.

[Mamoruanime]

Most of Jad's critiques still apply. More definition of character is needed, physiological knowhow is also needed.

Don't start an animation just drawing the next frame after this frame and then the next. First keyframe, then draw the paths you need and then animate the in-betweens. Someone more knowledgable like Ptoing or Fool or Conceit on matters of animation will probably chime in when you've got something more than what you have, but I'm just trying to save you some grief early on.

Yeah, I always keyframe- I only did the next frames just to get a feel of how difficult it's going to be to animate him Those will probably not be used at all. It's more of a "Well does this look right while he's moving? Nah... *changes*" sorta thing. Actually it served it's purpose, because after having made those 2 other frames, and gotten more of a 3d mental image of how I want raziel to look, I see that his idle stance's legs are too small, and his body looks sorta goofy in comparison.

Although, after reading through this thread, I replayed Soul Reaver a bit to get an idea of Raziel's idle stance. He doesn't really *hunch* as much as he just moves around a lot... He bobs his legs up and down, and moves his torso side to side. I'll capture that in his final idle pose animation. The biggest difference between my initial idle pose and the original 3d idle is that his arms... are too close to his sides in mine. It looks odd in comparison

[Conzeit]

that is a GREAT improvement with the last Raziel, I really didnt think it could get there. so  for that

Main thing bugging me right now is that the pallete you've chosen makes all the features mushy. Now...I could see two ways to go about this....

1-embrace the mushyness and grab quite a few SR screens, grab the colors that often pop up on good ol Raz, then try to replicate the same atmosphere of misty gritty decay, which at present is not visible at all in your project, and IMO a REALLY BIG defining feature of the original game.

2-seek better contrast and define every shape, check some actual SOTN sprites...they abound now-a-days they're very good at stating just what's necesary and creating good clear volume. PLEAAAASE dont look at AOS POR...OOE...etc...it's a miserable mishmash of clashing styles.

(ps:.....how are you going to do the spectral realm that deforms the BG in 2D? I really cant picture something called SR without that)

[Mamoruanime]

that is a GREAT improvement with the last Raziel, I really didnt think it could get there. so  for that

Main thing bugging me right now is that the pallete you've chosen makes all the features mushy. Now...I could see two ways to go about this....

1-embrace the mushyness and grab quite a few SR screens, grab the colors that often pop up on good ol Raz, then try to replicate the same atmosphere of misty gritty decay, which at present is not visible at all in your project, and IMO a REALLY BIG defining feature of the original game.

2-seek better contrast and define every shape, check some actual SOTN sprites...they abound now-a-days they're very good at stating just what's necesary and creating good clear volume. PLEAAAASE dont look at AOS POR...OOE...etc...it's a miserable mishmash of clashing styles.

(ps:.....how are you going to do the spectral realm that deforms the BG in 2D? I really cant picture something called SR without that)

Yeah the palette is bugging me too lol... The original Raziel texture's color was bad too; sad thing is he's just really dark. I've never been good with color selection, and it's one of the reasons I quit spriting years ago... I'd hate to have to use an outline on him in-game, but it might be needed. I'll show an example of a few ideas I've had-

Raziel Original; No trail, No forced outline (bad)



Raziel - Forced Outline



Raziel - Trail



And finally, Raziel with both the outline and the trail



--

I'm not too terribly fond of the mixmatched styles in the DS Castlevania's, although they got better with PoR. The Raziel shot with the outline reminds me of the DS Castlevania games.

I would probably have to outline every vampire in the game though, just for uniformity. I think it gives it a bit of an ethereal feel, but I don't know.

Also I should mention that the background is just a quick mockup I threw together using textures from Soul Reaver. Doesn't look too different from SotN though.

I'm going to rework his palette quite a bit though to match the original feel but not appear too dark for 2d low res.

Also- the transition to the spectral realm will be easy We're using a vectoring technique, so most of the tiles and stuff will actually be 3d textured objects that will bend and move when you transition. Some simple objects may be fully 3d, and twist and stuff, so it should look decent. The background images however are another story; I need to figure out how exactly we're going to handle those images. May need to make them all extremely multilayered to manipulate everything properly. Either way, I never hold back when it comes to visuals in games, so it should still be neat

[Conzeit]

uhm, if you dont know color choices watch what people who know do. You're realizing your color choices are bad and then decide to add a useless outline? not the way to go.

if you're going to work on the sprite you're much better off knowing already what this sprite will be placed on, otherwise you're gonna be endlessly tweaking the sprite and the background to match eachother....and get so-so results.

Look at Raziel in SR, he might look too dark and ugly if you take him out of the screenshot, but he blends really well with the misty barren landscapes of the game.

SOTN on the other hand....DOES look different from your mockup, the crate that in 3d would stand out because of the mists, here is lost looking like a background element because there's nothing separating it from the BG. if you plan to use the SR textures you're better off emulating it's mists....probably you can pick out the colors of a completely ereased spot, and then apply that as a mask to the textures on photoshop.

The other way would be to try and recreate the same kind of lightness shifts that SOTN had,
http://www.spriters-resource.com/psx_ps2/cvsotn/ now-a days Spriter's Resource is chock full of SOTN map references.

[Mamoruanime]

I'm not so much saying my color choices are bad as I'm saying that it's bugging me a bit from it being lighter than the original Raziel texture's color range. The palette I did use was an existing SotN palette. My original palette sucked balls, so I rebuilt the sprite from the ground up, and posted it here (the original made me a bit discouraged). The mockup is simply a texture to tile composite, no clue if I'm going to go with that entirely. There are a lot of spots in SotN where styles clash with the backgrounds; I want to avoid that.

I am going to emulate the mist and fog to make the world more immersing. After all, it is a generally *dead* world, and if I can't capture that with the artistic design of the game, then the users would be missing out on a large chunk of what the games about

I do want to thank you all for the advice you've already given me I've applied a lot of it to the sprite already and I'm building from there.