SNES-style RPG stuff

[Perihelion]

It doesn't loop, but I'll probably make it do that eventually. At any rate, this is my first real attempt at pixeling clouds, and I'm not sure I quite got it right in some places. Also, a couple parts look weird, especially the smaller fragmented clouds in the upper right corner. Thoughts?

[Zoggles]

For a first (real) attempt, it's pretty darned impressive in my book.

My first comment however, would be that there appears to be a curvature to it, the main clouds dip in the center making the clouds on the left and right edges look closer.

The second comment would be that the directions of the wispier clouds at the top seem to shift around a lot, particularly the ' \ ' angled ones in the very top left which seem to contradict the movement/flow of the other clouds and shading.

I think it mostly boils down to deciding upon which way the clouds are moving, and thus from which direction they are forming.. in the case of the small 'mackerel skies' type clouds in the top right, they seem to (given the general '/' direction of the rest) be more like clouds dissipating, rather than small puffs of cloud growing larger as they travel and grow.

Bottom half is lovely, soft and fluffy looking with a good indication of movement (just needs to be a bit more level horizontally.. especially if you plan on looping it) Top half has a few too many indecisive directions I feel, but that's a lovely blue showing through at the top.

-Z-

[Perihelion]

Well, when I first made it, I wasn't planning on looping it, and then I realized it's much more viable if I do. As far as direction goes, yeah, I agree with you that it's inconsistent. I sorta wanted it to look like it was arching overhead, coming from the background like this, but it didn't quite work out because it shifts around so much. And if it's gonna loop, it probably needs to not do that. Thanks for the feedback! I'll try evening it out and making the movement more consistent when I revisit it.

[Perihelion]

Well, I left it for a few days, but I'm still too sick of looking at it to do much in the way of substantial edits. I did make the cloud direction more consistent and made it tile, though. That said, Zoggles, I really do appreciate the critique, and I'll keep things like formation and evenness in mind in the future.

[Dr D]

Those clouds are just lovely, looks very painterly. Soft and fluffy, like Zoggles said.

They're wavy though, due to the aforementioned dip. I don't think it would be a big problem though, if there would be a lot of stuff in the foreground. But if there isn't it may make it noticeably less seamless and increase repetitiveness.

Are you using this for a game or some sort of project or are you just practicing?

[Perihelion]

I'd like some hard critique on this before I start mass-producing sprites for my game. They'll be seen in-game at 200%. Vaguely inspired by Chrono Trigger.




And here are a couple sample sprites:



I think I might be overdetailing them and using too many colors, and consequently they're sorta hard to see against similarly-colored backgrounds. The first one in particular is too dark, I think. Thoughts? Here's an example map with a sprite on it:

Not all of the environments are gonna be this dark, but the sprite is still hard to see. I think darker outlines might help, but the colors of the sprite itself might also be too dark. I'm loath to change them tremendously, though.

Finally, I'm trying to make it eight-directional, and I'm having tons of problems. I've looked at references and everything, but I just can't get it right. I'd appreciate some help!

[Perihelion]

Yeah, it's for a game. The dip is pretty noticeable, but I'm hoping it won't be an issue since, as you said, there will be stuff going on in the foreground. I tested it out earlier, and this is what I got:

[Dex]

me do believe you could've used both of your topics for this.

however; what you have looks very nice. it's sprited fairly well. the only issue i see with the bases are the animations! they don't look very fluid nor well fleshed out. i think you'd benefit by checking out a human in motion- it'd help build upon what you have now

about the sky panorama: i think what you have is excellent, but i've never seen a sky background particularly work in an rpg. i'm not sure, i don't play many rpg's but it just seems strange to me to see those two different angles.

keep at it

[Perihelion]

Yeah, I should've just made one thread for all the stuff for my game. I didn't want to dump a ton of other stuff in that thread that was unrelated to what it was originally about, but it occurs to me now that I could've just edited it. Oh well, too late now! I'll keep it in mind for next time.

That's a fair point about the sky background. This was supposed to be on a mountain, though, maybe overlooking a cliff. It's definitely not going to be on every map.

Thanks for the tip about the animations; it's one of my weaknesses. I'll go check out some professional sprites and look at people walking and go back to it.

[Phones]

The tiling is most certainly very nice, but the contrast between the BG and the characters needs a lot of work.

The grass also is way too busy for my eyes to enjoy looking at. I know a lot of people like to sprite grass that way, but I never found it particularly attractive. That being said though, it may be just another contrast issue.