AuthorTopic: Sprite interpretations  (Read 72666 times)

Offline junkboy

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Re: Sprite interpretations

Reply #20 on: May 06, 2010, 05:43:52 pm
Yeah, that Pompadour Pig needs to have a platform game of his own. Great stuff! I feel like doing some interpretations as well.

Offline Arne

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Re: Sprite interpretations

Reply #21 on: May 09, 2010, 05:03:33 pm
Thanks. Here's some progress on the miniboss ships. I'll have a little UFO pop out of each.

Offline xhunterko

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Re: Sprite interpretations

Reply #22 on: May 09, 2010, 07:35:40 pm
Arne, I'm going to challenge you to a boss fight and steal your powers.

Dang, those look so good!

Offline CrazyMLC

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Re: Sprite interpretations

Reply #23 on: May 09, 2010, 08:03:35 pm
Something from nothing, you might say. Brilliant stuff, Arne.

Offline Arne

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Re: Sprite interpretations

Reply #24 on: May 10, 2010, 02:01:13 am
It's for the Action 52 activity btw.. I'm posting stuff in that thread.

Offline Arne

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Re: Sprite interpretations

Reply #25 on: May 14, 2010, 10:19:47 pm
Here's some other stuff (untouched by Photoshop):



Turtles was ruined by the dam(n) level (2). There was an interesting city level to explore later (3?) but I rarely felt like playing all the way to it.

Castlevania 1 had some character. I liked Simon's Quest a bit back in the day, but now when I played it... it was really confusing because of reused screens.

Hebereke (Uforia here in the EU) was interesting, because it appears to be swapping tile tables (or parts of?) on the fly to squeeze in more character animation frames. There's some differences between the JP and EU version. Personally I think the main character sprite should've been left untouched. The lizard isn't so bad though. The game is far to linear for my taste... it suffers from slap you in the face come back later 'exploration'.

Milon's secret castle has some potential. The secrets (which needs to be uncovered to progress) relies heavily on security though obscurity though. It's not very fun to play, but looks kind of cute. I wish the NES have had 5 colors per sprite, even though it doesn't make bit-sense.

« Last Edit: May 14, 2010, 10:26:46 pm by Arne »

Offline Chris2balls

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Re: Sprite interpretations

Reply #26 on: May 15, 2010, 09:57:04 pm
Marvelous interpretations, I'm looking forward to it being coloured! :)
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Offline Stab

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Re: Sprite interpretations

Reply #27 on: May 15, 2010, 11:42:26 pm
Been participating in this all by my lonesome in traditional medium. Hopefully I work up the courage to launch a digital attempt soon!

Out of curiosity: Arne, what's your process, here? Are these first passes, or do you thumbnail for a bit first. Are you actively playing the game, pausing when a pose/scene inspires you, or do you rifle through sprite pages via google and draw as you wish?

Offline xhunterko

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Re: Sprite interpretations

Reply #28 on: May 16, 2010, 05:18:12 pm
Knowing arne as little as I do, he's probably playing the games, then stops, and draws them in as he sees stuff.

But the variety though would suggest the latter if he's just doing quick sketches like that.

Offline Arne

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Re: Sprite interpretations

Reply #29 on: May 17, 2010, 04:49:02 am
I do a lot of research usually. Maybe 90+% of the time does into research, ignoring the time I have spent playing some of the games.

First I just search for info pages, fan pages and sprite sheets. Usually the sprite sheets on the net are poor 'rips', so I have to 'dump' them myself. I've developed my own programs for this. Watching youtube videos is good for seeing / remembering certain areas of a game, but in many cases they're too blurry to work as ref.

If there are several versions of the game, I research those. There might be a NES and Famicom version. The JP/NA/EU versions sometimes have different sprites, changed or ripped out story sequences. See Contra as an example of a game that's different in all three regions.  Sometimes I dump both games and run a comparison check to see exactly what was changed.

Then there could be versions for different systems. Metal Gear was changed quite a bit from MSX to NES. Rygar and Section Z were originally for the Arcade, but turned into adventure-exploration on the NES. It's often difficult and time consuming to acquire sprite refs from all versions.

Flyer material is interesting, as is gaming magazine 'spot art'. There are also guides which have some official art. Finding this kind of stuff is quite difficult as it's often Japanese material. Over the years I've saved some quite hard to find stuff. Auctions show up a lot as people tend to take photos of box contents and extra materials (maps, flyers, etc).

Then of course I play the games.

I save all that I've got in a folder (subfolders if it's a big project). Since I have got a luxurious dual screen setup I can bring up the ref on the second monitor while working in Photoshop. Sometimes I put on music from the game. I've also got a EeePC which is great if I want to be creative on Real Paper at exotic locations (i.e away from the stationary) with ref available.


It's very interesting to restrict yourself rather closely to the design of old sprites, because when you to, you go outside of your bounds and explore new solutions - which leads to increased vocabulary.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2010, 04:56:17 am by Arne »