AuthorTopic: Swamp mockup revisited [WIP]  (Read 6405 times)

Offline EyeCraft

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Swamp mockup revisited [WIP]

on: February 18, 2009, 06:23:01 am
I doubt anyone will remember, but ages ago I did a little work on a swamp tileset to be used in a little death match game (which died). I got a fair bit done, but since the team had pretty much disbanded the tileset sat on my hard drive, forgotten. Well I decided to dust it off and give it another look, since it simply seemed a waste to leave it half finished. First off, here's what I had done up to where the project fizzled out:


Player sprite. Yech... EDIT: Oh I remember, the ultra-red was designed to be replaceable by any colour the player selected.


(EDIT: WIP Updated tileset on right) The chunks of tree trunk below the trees are lazy collision masks for trees. The tall grass is broken up into layers so when you walk through it it actually comes up around legs. Bridges supposed to be ramshackle, assembled out of spare pieces of metal pipe and sheets of metal lashed together. Bit of a mess. I started fiddling with it, lowered contrast on some ground stuff, dressed the grass tiles a little, started adding some things to do with gameplay, got something like this:


Little shadows added at runtime.

Converted over to using [pretty lazy] global 256 colour palette I made quite a while ago:


So now, this is basically where I am:


New tiles in progress. Supposed to be under-maintained bitumen pavement beginning to crumble, and sandbag walls... insane amount of colours... :D


Enemy sprite, 4 directions, no animation. Basically evil corporation henchmen that only mildly resemble SS officers (ssh!)


Reapproaching tree, considering readability and lighting.

It's a pretty big task going back over it all, and my eye is likely to skim some things. I was hoping you guys might have some c&c :)
« Last Edit: February 18, 2009, 08:30:57 am by EyeCraft »

Offline Dusty

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Re: Swamp mockup revisited [WIP]

Reply #1 on: February 18, 2009, 06:29:58 am
I remember your old swamp piece and I remember it being great... I didn't think it ever needed to be revisited. The main problem I see is everything looks like it's stacked instead of naturally transitioning. I'd like to see a pic of old vs new next to each other, for better comparison.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2009, 06:31:30 am by Dusty »

Offline Dr D

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Re: Swamp mockup revisited [WIP]

Reply #2 on: February 18, 2009, 06:39:52 am
Hey this looks great, I've been needing a tile set to draw inspiration from.

About your trash-bridge, it's hardly readable, I'd suggest losing a few pieces of scrap to make it easier to edit for readability.

And to give the ground some layering over the pavement, so it doesn't look so stacked, as Dusty pointed out.

Offline EyeCraft

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Re: Swamp mockup revisited [WIP]

Reply #3 on: February 18, 2009, 08:33:30 am
I'd like to see a pic of old vs new next to each other, for better comparison.
Updated first post.

I'll have a look into transitions and bridge once I nail these trees down, I think. Thanks for response.

Offline x-death

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Re: Swamp mockup revisited [WIP]

Reply #4 on: February 18, 2009, 01:46:26 pm
the sand bags on the far right of image, shouldn't be hanging of the edge of the platform as it is.
and the caution mark on the barrels looks like its floating. i don't know if its suppose to look like that but it seems odd.

Offline Jim16

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Re: Swamp mockup revisited [WIP]

Reply #5 on: February 18, 2009, 02:15:08 pm
"bitumen pavement"- Was this originally going to be a road? At the moment from what I see in the Mock-up there, it seems that you want to use this to add hight and brining it into the foreground.

I actually love that bridge concept. And see no faults at the moment. But I think its been mentioned that the bags are going over the edge  over there matey. But its not like you haven't seen this already.

I also agree that the exclamation mark on the barrels are weird due to you not adding shading at all. It seems like no task at all to get this up and going.

Well it seems I'm no help as usual, always stating the obvious and all/
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Offline x-death

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Re: Swamp mockup revisited [WIP]

Reply #6 on: February 18, 2009, 02:24:41 pm
alos the colors on the character you posted up the first image in post it is. well when put on design it looks really wierd, the colors don't fit the style at all. i'm not sure the right word to use to describe it but it just doesn't fit in as well as the other guys do.

Offline zeid

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Re: Swamp mockup revisited [WIP]

Reply #7 on: February 18, 2009, 05:07:01 pm
*shouts* Hey they kinda resemble SS :P (this is the best way to make a soldier look evil you broke the code).

I remember these they look very nice indead.  So what is the plan, are you going to be finishing this into a game?  Or just picking up the graphics again.

As far as CC, the only thing I can really say is the pavement tiles don't seem to blend to well to the left in that mockup.  I would suggest breaking them up a little more with some transparancy so that you can see some more grass and/or dirt going through from the other tiles.  Your a smart cookie so I'm sure you get what I mean despite my rather poor explanation. ;D
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Offline Ben2theEdge

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Re: Swamp mockup revisited [WIP]

Reply #8 on: February 18, 2009, 06:45:48 pm

I think the biggest thing to fix from this original piece is the visual priority. The big split is between the bog and the dry land. In an action game it should be between the characters and the backgrounds. There's always this conflict of over form versus function but in an overhead action game with small characters and detailed backgrounds it becomes very important to be deliberate about what stands out and what doesn't.

Take a look in grayscale; this is not always a good litmus test for readability because you can use different hues and saturations to separate things visually as well. But looking at things without the benefit of color can sometimes reveal things about your art that you wouldn't normally notice.


The guy on the dirt reads WONDERFULLY! The guys on the grass not so much. The hero fares a little better because he has nice high contrast. But overall the values are all very similar and with such tiny details we lose a sense of positive and negative space. And the water is incredibly stark compared to everything else; the lazy human eye favors the distinction between wet and dry land and ignores any other distinctions that you intended.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2009, 06:58:49 pm by Ben2theEdge »
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