AuthorTopic: GR#073 - Coder Dept. Weapons  (Read 56803 times)

Offline Redshrike

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Re: Coder Dept. Weapons

Reply #60 on: February 14, 2011, 01:58:39 am
So, so so glad to see this thread active again!  This has to be one of my favorite pixel series ever.  It's hard to critique at this point, beyond my thoughts that you've taken the design in a great direction--it's gonna be heck to render, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the results.

Offline HelloPeople

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Re: Coder Dept. Weapons

Reply #61 on: February 14, 2011, 03:57:03 am
WOW... My eye are tearing with joy... sure they have nicks and nacks but still, Amazing work you...

Offline Mush

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Re: Coder Dept. Weapons

Reply #62 on: February 14, 2011, 04:38:54 am
I too am glad to see this resurrected.

The new green flamestuff seems a bit too similar in color to that of the middles'. I really liked the purpley color scheme you posted more than a year ago.

Offline Mathias

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Re: Coder Dept. Weapons

Reply #63 on: February 14, 2011, 06:08:58 am
@ Tuna, whuzzup!

@ Redshrike, looks like you de-lurked, too. This one won't disappoint, I'm planning a ton of work to go into it. I'm now letting myself use the entire palette so it'll even be high color count, compounding the workload to complete it. But, hey, it's the master sword!

@ Hellopeople . . . sorry!  (thx)

Hmm, *head-smack observation, @ Mush, thanks. I would much rather differentiate the master from the buster more. And though I did try other color schemes for the master flames I settled on green, dunno why. I now wish I hadn't used both blue and green for the buster cuz now all primaries are gone. Dangit. Yer probably right, those pinks/ purples may come in real handy now. . .
« Last Edit: February 14, 2011, 06:12:27 am by Mathias »

Offline Mathias

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Re: Coder Dept. Weapons

Reply #64 on: February 14, 2011, 11:45:48 pm
New color scheme. Has a much better more even luminosity ramp. Achieves a more interesting effect. Gonna try to give those flames as 3D an appearance as I can. The buster is so flat.



It's kind of a bad habit because I think it biases me to painting methodologies that are sometimes less than intuitive, but I tend to try and figure out exactly what kind of real world physical material something is made out of so I know just how to "render" it, whenever I set out with something new. I'm just gonna let myself go with that tendency here - I'm thinkin' I want the sword itself to be shiny refractive translucent crystal. The whole thing. Not just the blade or hilt. Makes me think of Helm's coloring techniques. Gonna try for some interesting coloring clusterage.
Trick is gonna be to keep it's form defined enough to not be annoying to try and pick out. It's already getting lost. Will need some good crystal lighting ref, too.
 
But anyway, with these decisions, I'm confident the master will easily be the dominant one in the bunch, as it's meant.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2011, 06:50:26 am by Mathias »

Offline st0ven

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Re: Coder Dept. Weapons

Reply #65 on: February 15, 2011, 05:06:16 pm
Mathias - Im not sure if you use this technique in your regular production flow... but even if so i felt it might be beneficial to illustrate this point. Values.



this is your true test of your image being able to 'read'. Off the bat i have to say i love the designs, theyre seriously great, you can immediately recognize whose swords they are :P. Claymore's blade's values blend in quite closely with the fire, while it looks cool with color, this illustrates that perhaps some of the value choices arent as best as they could be. the blade quickly flattens and the white outline effect to indicate its sharpness doesnt quite work anymore. 

Check the buster stword - i think the balance here is much stronger overall, the hit flattens a good bit, however, as the shadow side's reflective light is the same value as the highlighted side. also the lack of darker formation around the bottom of the hilts handle flattens out the depth even further. (noe the good use of black up near the hilits neck where it attaches to the blade has a better volume read because of the stronger blacks used). Also a bit worrying is the lack of value blending from the whitest 'bursts' of white coming off the blade. It does do a nice job of making it look 'overexposed', but i think just a little bit of softening there in its value transition will make it look smoother, which should aide the read of the energy to the eyes.

moving onto your latest update,



This looks really cool and i like the concept youre going with. Master sword is kindof supposed to be a sword of light, but this makes it look as if ganon had corrupted it, its got a great/cool evil vibe.

Check the values though to help decide how you want to continue rendering it. The blade's edge is getting slightly lost in the energy enveloping it. i think your sword will have a stronger read if the blades edge is darker overall and those whiter values help silhouette the darker edge of the sword. Id like to see the energy's motion that of the dynamism the claymore and buster sword have as well :)

Notice that your hilt has a very interesting 'molten metal' look to it in the black/white view. i think that has an awesome quality to it, just a bit of cleaning up in its shapes to make it a bit more crisp and consistent will make that area quite stunning.


on a side note, these are rather large pieces... hats off to you :)

Offline Mathias

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Re: Coder Dept. Weapons

Reply #66 on: February 16, 2011, 04:38:40 am
Hmm, some good information and reminders there steve, thanks a bunch for taking the time.

Ya know, I used to do a lot more with a view to good greyscales but I kinda got away from it. A few years back I posted the C64 palette I used Photoshop to greyscale because I was confused as to why it didn't turn into a nice even grey ramp like it's supposed to (the C64 pal consists of nice gradual luma pairs). See my study image here.

It turned out PS's greyscale conversion sucks and is almost random. ptoing informed me of this. He, using Pro Motion easily converts the C64 pal and gets the right result. Since then I noticed how confusing it was to accurately determine a pixel's true luminosity; darkness/lightness value. I just gave up and started just eyeballing everything.


Like, see here. This animation:



The "Photoshop  : (" frame is actually what you posted, but after it I added the Pro Motion version. See the confusing difference? What the heck. What do you trust?


Your point remains intact, though - use the grey version, no color bias affecting you, to really get down to the roots of your image's contrast. Putting color aside to see things more clearly can be greatly beneficial. One of the more striking reveals from your test is how flat the buster hilt really is. That's a little surprising. Or is that greyscale conversion trustable? You usin' PS, too?

Do you think the firey effects obscuring the blades' actual edges is hurting them as designs? A little ambiguity used correctly can be fun sometimes. But other times, it's just annoying hehe.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2011, 07:29:53 pm by Mathias »

Offline Elk

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Re: Coder Dept. Weapons

Reply #67 on: February 16, 2011, 06:05:48 am
The best grayscale is to switch to L a/b colormode and just tick the L channel...

The automatic grayscale function sucks because it fucks with all the R/G/B values together since a pixel has all 3 informations, instead of the pure L mode

It's actually easy, not confusing :P just need to know about colormodes



« Last Edit: February 16, 2011, 06:11:52 am by Elk »
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Offline st0ven

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Re: Coder Dept. Weapons

Reply #68 on: February 16, 2011, 03:05:08 pm
Quote
It turned out PS's greyscale conversion sucks and is almost random. ptoing informed me of this. He, using Pro Motion easily the converts the C64 pal and gets the right result. Since then I noticed how confusing it was to accurately determine a pixel's true luminosity; darkness/lightness value. I just gave up and started just eyeballing everything.

You know - when i was doin a quick greyscale preview, and looking back at the regular color one... i thought i was going crazy because certain values seemed way off to their greyscale counterpart....

Quote
The best grayscale is to switch to L a/b colormode and just tick the L channel...

The automatic grayscale function sucks because it fucks with all the R/G/B values together since a pixel has all 3 informations, instead of the pure L mode

It's actually easy, not confusing Tongue just need to know about colormodes

yes thanks mr elk. That is quite easy indeed.

I sure look pretty foolish ;D - but if you need any 'help' or 'hints' on how things are 'looking', doing this b/w test is always a sure bet to gauge values, given that youre looking at a reliable representation of the actual values, lol.

Offline Elk

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Re: Coder Dept. Weapons

Reply #69 on: February 16, 2011, 03:14:27 pm
Quote
It turned out PS's greyscale conversion sucks and is almost random. ptoing informed me of this. He, using Pro Motion easily the converts the C64 pal and gets the right result. Since then I noticed how confusing it was to accurately determine a pixel's true luminosity; darkness/lightness value. I just gave up and started just eyeballing everything.

You know - when i was doin a quick greyscale preview, and looking back at the regular color one... i thought i was going crazy because certain values seemed way off to their greyscale counterpart....

Quote
The best grayscale is to switch to L a/b colormode and just tick the L channel...

The automatic grayscale function sucks because it fucks with all the R/G/B values together since a pixel has all 3 informations, instead of the pure L mode

It's actually easy, not confusing Tongue just need to know about colormodes

yes thanks mr elk. That is quite easy indeed.

I sure look pretty foolish ;D - but if you need any 'help' or 'hints' on how things are 'looking', doing this b/w test is always a sure bet to gauge values, given that youre looking at a reliable representation of the actual values, lol.

I showed the best way to make a b/w image with little to no value loss.

If you want to tell me something "indirectly", do it via PM.
instead of making me look dumb.
« Last Edit: February 16, 2011, 03:18:37 pm by Elk »
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