TANK (very small - in isometric perspective)

DoorKnobHandle · Sun 19/11/2006 13:55:44

Through heavy pixel-pushing, I've managed to draw a good-looking tank-body, but now it seems near impossible to me to add a cannon on top of it. Whatever I try, it looks awful and destroys the image. That's why I'm looking for advice on how to improve the sprite and how to add a cannon onto it. Paint-overs are especially welcome!

Here is the work-in-progress sprite of the tank:

And this is how the tank is supposed to look like in a different resolution and from a different perspective (credit goes to Miez for this picture):

Thanks ahead of time!

Miez · Sun 19/11/2006 22:14:10

Quote from: dkh on Sun 19/11/2006 13:55:44
Thanks ahead of time!

Shouldn't that be tanks ahead of time?

By the way - the base looks great already!

Ghost · Mon 20/11/2006 02:56:14

Try and google "advance wars". That should provide some good reference material, though the game's not exactly iso.

DoorKnobHandle · Mon 20/11/2006 10:30:06

Quote from: miez on Sun 19/11/2006 22:14:10
Shouldn't that be tanks ahead of time?

By the way - the base looks great already!

Hehe, thanks! The inspiration image (drawn by you, Miez) looks great, too!

Quote from: Ghost on Mon 20/11/2006 02:56:14
Try and google "advance wars". That should provide some good reference material, though the game's not exactly iso.

I tried that, but wasn't able to find anything suitable through Google or the official website (which seems broken to me). The newer game is in 3d and the old version is too different from my desired drawing style, I guess.

Actually, I do have enough reference material (from Command & Conquer, StarCraft and Dune 2 mainly), it's just that my problem with the cannon is so specific, that all those resources won't help me anymore, they already helped me a lot when drawing the base though.

Anybody got any suggestions? I never knew how unbelievable hard it is too draw such low-resolution sprites in isometric perspective for real-time strategy games. Seems way, way harder than anything I've tried before - including (rather simple, granted) backgrounds and characters for adventure games. Heads off to the artists who pulled this off back in the day.

EDIT: I'm just corrected some typos, but I decided to leave "Heads off to the artists [...]" in the message. Of course, what I meant was "Hats off [...]"!

DoorKnobHandle · Thu 23/11/2006 11:33:01

I'm bumping this, because it's about to fall off the front page and my question/request still hasn't found any feedback.

Also, I want to show you how my cannon ruins the sprite, so you can see for yourself. Here:

Looks like complete crap now, doesn't it? Quickly, somebody, do it BETTER!!

Tuomas · Thu 23/11/2006 11:56:37

yep, zoom out and it looks quite good.

DoorKnobHandle · Thu 23/11/2006 12:00:43

Thanks!

Unfortunately my game runs at 320x240 in fullscreen-mode (not using AGS by the way) and the sprite is still rather big - approximately half of the size of what I posted here (on my screen). I don't want to draw it in a simplified way, but I also think it looks to chaotic and confusing.

Miez · Thu 23/11/2006 12:04:42

I think that to make it look better (not that it looks bad) you need to focus on two things when designing for such a low resolution:

- use as few colours as possible
- avoid any extraneous details

I would like to do a paintover, but it won't be today ...

InCreator · Thu 23/11/2006 12:40:18

Try simple 3D model for better reference!
I always do that.

Nacho · Thu 23/11/2006 13:59:27

Just a stoopid note... But maybe you should take a look to the sprites of "civilization"... If I remember well, they were in Iso.

Fabiano · Thu 23/11/2006 17:18:48

here:

DoorKnobHandle · Thu 23/11/2006 19:54:11

Quote from: Fabiano on Thu 23/11/2006 17:18:48
here:

Now THAT's useful! Big thank you for posting this sprite-sheet, man!

Quote from: InCreator on Thu 23/11/2006 12:40:18
Try simple 3D model for better reference!
I always do that.

That's actually a good idea - why didn't I think of this!? Thanks!

Quote from: miez on Thu 23/11/2006 12:04:42
I think that to make it look better (not that it looks bad) you need to focus on two things when designing for such a low resolution:

- use as few colours as possible
- avoid any extraneous details

I would like to do a paintover, but it won't be today ...

Thanks, Misja. I'll definitely try to stick to your two tips there! About the paintover: don't worry, I know you're working on more important things...

----------------------

Okay, even those sprites from the sheet, that Fabiano posted, are more then two times bigger than what my current resolution allows. I guess it's just not possible to draw good looking sprites in isometric perspective for a realtime-strategy game in 320x200 or 320x240, without having tanks as huge as half of the screen.

Having said this, I'm currently rethinking the choice of perspective and will likely change it to 640x480 in order to be able to use those sprites from the reference-sheet as... well... reference to draw my own stuff.

Thanks to everybody's participation and help, that was much appreciated, it seems like some threads just wait to be bumped up again. If I wouldn't have done this, I would've never got this great resource from Fabiano!

Mikko · Thu 23/11/2006 21:05:18

Even though this might be late considering what you wrote, here is anyway a quick paintover.

5x

Edit:

I tried to make it more clear lined. It's maybe more boring, but in this roselution it's probably the only way to make things recognizable.

It definately would need more work, but if you stick with lo-res and get any ideas out of this, then - thats great!

Edit: While I was at it, I did another.

Fabiano · Fri 24/11/2006 13:34:35

I like it. Just the end of the cannon look like a elephant's nose

Maybe if you remove the last pixels of the cannon it will look more like a cannon.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Sat 25/11/2006 06:26:16

I did a quick edit that might help you.

1. Removed one color.
2. Adjusted the shape of the tank and shading.

The main thing I did was give it a solid outline to bring out the shape and clean up the shading a bit. Hopefully you will find this useful.

Nacho · Sat 25/11/2006 13:02:19

From which game did you ripped that sprites Fabiano? They are not from Civilization... Is there a mod? Or are they yours? They are fantastic!

Kweepa · Sat 25/11/2006 16:38:03

Quote from: dkh link=topic=29127.msg371664#msg371664
I guess it's just not possible to draw good looking sprites in isometric perspective for a realtime-strategy game in 320x200 or 320x240, without having tanks as huge as half of the screen.

You should know better than to say that!

Quote from: Nacho on Sat 25/11/2006 13:02:19
From which game did you ripped that sprites Fabiano? They are not from Civilization... Is there a mod? Or are they yours? They are fantastic!

Blitzkrieg 1936:
http://sleague.apolyton.net/index.php?title=The_Blitzkrieg_Series
Looks like some sort of Play-By-eMail version of Civilization.

DoorKnobHandle · Sun 26/11/2006 18:09:06

Hehe, thanks to everybody again, I really appreciate your interest. Both paint-overs are really well, however I now think I need to reconsider my choice of resolution (as I said before). If I'll stick to 320x240, I'll take both your images, ProgZ and Mikko, as references, if I'll go with something higher, I'll take the posted sprite-sheet (and the others over at the website that offers the sheet) for reference.

Thanks again!