sprites for my rts

[bog]

I'm doing this rts which is supposed to be done in about 10 days or something and i'm kind of rushing the graphics cause i need to get all the coding done first. The setting is kind of futuristic, i also have robots. Here are some of my first sprites, i'm trying get some kind of comical pixelated look cause it seems easier for me.

They're supposed to be: command center, supply depot, gold mine and some unit. The unit sprite is just for reference, i don't want to change it much cause i've already animated it.

The buildings are all grey cause when they're done i need to add team specific colours(maybe the roofs?)





For the supply depot(second), the door is supposed to be closed but i don't know what colour to use, if i make it lighter it looks bad i think

Also the gold mine looks like crap. I'm not even sure i want to make a gold mine, i just need a resource structure where units can enter and come out with something. And i don't want something that you need to build on top to be operational(like for gasses in starcraft)

So yea, all your suggestions are welcome

[Matti]

The radar building is okay. The supply depot is abit out of shape. Why not making the door brighter, that worked with the first sprite? The goldmine.. er.. looks like a baloon or something, should be completely redone, I think.

Also, your sprites aren't drawn in the same perspective as shown below:




btw.. how do you make a translucent color when posting a pic in the forum?

[Alarconte]

With this cartoony like style, perspective isn't too important, at last how he draw it. But yes, need more  coherence between buildings.

And yes, the gold mine has no sense, If you don't say it's a mine... I'ndt notice

[Khris]

btw.. how do you make a translucent color when posting a pic in the forum?

Use a gif with its transparent color set to the background color. Png with alpha channel should work, too.

[radiowaves]

Does such massive graphics have any benefits for strategy game? Seems like waste of space, blocking the view, very unstrategical.

[bog]

i'm going to fix the perspective between the first two, i'm not sure which to keep though, the second one fits the character better i think

i'm going to redo the goldmine or maybe find some other resource structure to replace it, i really don't like it either.

i don't think the buildings are that big, one tile is 32*32  and only the first  one is 3*3 tiles, rest are 2*2. I figured 3*3 is ok cause you're only going to need one building of that type and it should stand out as the most important.

i made the background transparent in gimp(select background color, set color mode to indexed and check save background color in the export dialog)

[InCreator]

First, I don't see any image. Find a working host! It's not like there isn't looong threads over AGS for this, with many options and resources. Just search. Then again, I do see your avatar, which seems to be in same place. Maybe you messed up the image somehow?

I only see matti's edited version. I guess it's pretty much same anyway.

Oh... It's quite awful.

* First, buildings in RTS game should not have near-zero saturation. Those are buildings. You want player to see them, click on them. No saturation makes them unimportant and hardly visible. Boring.

Saturation overall is a tricky thing. When making backgrounds for adventure game, map tiles for RTS or anything else similar, an amateur artist couldn't go very wrong with using low saturation. Actually, it's much easier to choose too saturated, bright tones and mess up your picture.

Now, GUI elements, buildings and units for RTS, cursor graphics and whatever else meant to click, look, notice - this usually needs more saturation, to catch attention and be easily located. Low saturation would make a nice choice for windows wallpaper, but not for important sprites.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

This image shows high-saturation colors. See how bright and noticeable they are?


Here, saturation is down by 75%. See how foggy and much more boring it looks? The lower the saturation, the more gray color is... Your buildings are totally gray. That's really bad choice, IMO. What emotion is described gray? Boredom. Color of dust, spiderwebs and ashes. Not interesting things. Never make gray your main color, ever. Unless you draw something that totally needs it.

* That cylindrical building looks quite cool. You can shade alright if you want to. Why isn't it visible on other two?

* Heavy lack of ANY detail. The bigger your sprite is, the more detail you can add. Well, I guess it's WIP yet and you do amaze with some nice details on whichever building you keep.

But I wouldn't keep any of those buildings. Exactly because what matti pointed out. Perspective.
If you want to make perspective that couldn't go wrong, learn to draw really quickly getting professional looks almost instantly, there's a way for game like this: isometric perspective.

I think that isometric perspective is mirrored version of "traditional" drawing. Typical sprite/background drawing needs 80% of skill/talent and 20% of care and measuring (to get lines straight and avoid errors/jagged lines/whatever).

Isometric sprites are opposite: You have to be very careful to make lines, but if you succeed to do so - keep lines correct and shading/outlines as needed, your lack of skills or talent doesn't mean much. It looks good anyway. So, basically, isometrics is good if you're beginner and better with numbers than pencil. For a 2D RTS game, it's almost a must.

Also, isometric art works better with both higher and lower saturation. But finding a good balance is what you need anyway. Don't take my previous text as a thumb rule and make everything look like a bright, contrasty lights of christmas tree. For RTS, usually there's a main color, known as player color. Like red or blue or something, it's always bright and large portions of buildings and units are colored with it, so you'd know is it your or opponent building you're looking at.

So, look here now --
This a bible for isometric drawing:

http://www.rhysd.com/tutorial/index.php

Why do I suggest isometric graphics? Because I've done about 20 (kinda lost count already) unfinished RTSes in my life. It's much easier to go for blocks instead of some cartoony things that really won't want to match with each other later.
...Or even easier is to make everything 3D and set up ortographic camera, such as they did in Age of Empires II. But that method has it's own cons and main is time: to model, to render, and workload on retouching to make it look more like pixel graphics... might take longer than previous two.

Good luck!

[(deleted)]

(deleted)

[Matti]

I also think that the grey is okay, you should just add some details and some other colors too.

Here's a crappy and speedily drawn example:

[bog]

Sorry for taking so much time to reply, i've been really busy finishing all my coding and i didn't have time to do any more drawing

InCreator: i don't know about the host, my avatar is in the same place, as you say and i haven't touched the sprites image since i posted it.
I 've lightened the gray now, i still want to use gray colours for the base sprites of the buildings and then add team-specific colours. There's no trouble in noticing the buildings in my game, the tiles are grass, dirt or water, and everything is really easy to spot.
There's something about isometric sprites that i don't like plus my engine has square tiles and it would be way too late to change. The tutorial you posted was really useful though(thanks!), it helped me fix my perspectives:



i guess this is not isometric since it's a different angle? Blue is the owner's color as you can probably guess. They're supposed to be: barracks, command center, supply depot and mine.

matti: i like your details, i'm going to try to add some of your ideas, thanks

[DoorKnobHandle]

New versions look better, but how are you planning on drawing units in that perspective? Do you have some drawn already? Because - as long as you're not rendering them in a 3d-program (doesn't look like you will because buildings are pixel-art and both styles do not mix well at all) - I know that drawing units in all directions is a major pain in the behind. MAJOR.

[bog]

The units i'm using are like the one from my top post. It doesn't look bad at all, the first command and conquer game was doing the same thing

[DoorKnobHandle]

Sure, but do you have frames of the guy rotating? Looking in any direction (8 or 12 minimum)? Walking in any direction? Are there going to be vehicles, how do you draw these?

[bog]

sure, here it is:
http://fwt.txdnl.com/6-10/b/o/bog/ags/marine.png


i'm not doing vehicles, just some worker robot and some tougher robot soldier based on this sprite ^. They're not done yet

some anymations are mirrored and the gun changes hands..i'm not sure i'll have time to fix this but i don't think it's that bad

[InCreator]

Added about 3% noise, brightened/darkened opposing edges by 5%, randomly darkened by soft brush by 5%,
made windows using 8px soft brush and blue-greenish color, then darkened bottom window area and brightened upper area.

It's not hard to give(fake) them a bit of detail. It took less than 5 minutes.

[bog]

wow that looks so much better, i'm going to do something like that, thanks a lot!