My PC sprite, I need urgent advice!

Tuomas · Sat 26/08/2006 14:31:40

So I started a game, and got the script almost done, You don't need to know it yet, BUT, I did all my drawing this far with my tablet, since I'm so keen on it at the moment. I realised colouring with pencil-thingie is easier, but yet leaves it unfinished. So after I cut this off, it looked like this

2x
(yes, it's low res)

Then I went through dozens of painting programs, and decided it doesn't matter if it's on transparent background, so, I modified it a bit, taking out what seemed to be trash pixels, but now I'm undecided if it's good as it is, or should I even go about giving it clear lines and outlines with pixelling. it'd surely look completely different. I haven't done spriteart for a long while, so I've quite lost my touch, anyhow:

2x

So what is there to do, because I don't knowÃ,Â

dÃ¤nks

EDIT: and the front view, or the 1st version:

Nacho · Sat 26/08/2006 15:35:15

Restart it? The most specific tools you use, the better. And a tablet, IMO, is not the best for pixel art.

Tuomas · Sat 26/08/2006 15:53:58

Yeah, that's why I'm about to do the pixel art with some other program, but the posture was easier with a real pen imo. And so was colouring, or the program seemed to be very clever in the way the colours turned out.

Though I really don't want to throw this into carbage because I like the sprite-

cleaned up a bit:

Nacho · Sat 26/08/2006 16:01:36

Mmmm... The pose is basically correct, might be fixed a bit, but almost OK. I think that if you have a program that support layers you should trace over the painting, so, you do't really throw it into garbage, and use the best tecnique to make it. Two birds shoot down with the same bullet! For knowing the tecnique of tracing from a scanned (or a tablet painting) I recommend Eric's tutorial.

Tuomas · Sat 26/08/2006 17:08:46

They say she looks like a man. I don't get it. I know she does, but I don't know what to do better. Well anyway, thanks to advice on #AGS I tried to do something, I also corrected the pose a bit. dunno then. She seems to grow different each time, which is not what I meant, but hey, I just need a sprite.

Yeah, well, actually that looks very horrible. here, I did something again

Well my brother gave me some clues. He's a real artist, so I tried it a bit...

THey said the head is too big etc

Krysis · Sat 26/08/2006 21:59:10

Some cleaning up would do wonders to a sprite.

Tuomas · Sun 27/08/2006 14:48:43

To pop this up, I'm trying to make a front view to her as well. I believe that once this is ready it'll be all easier. So give me your comments on this one, thanks.

Somehow I didn't get the same grip to my pen as last time, maybe because I didn't have a hangover this time :

But still...

EagerMind · Mon 28/08/2006 00:00:03

In general I like the style and colors you're using here. But I think from a purely technical standpoint, you may want to put these into photoshop and look at how many colors you're using. It's looks like you're using an awful lot, and if you're going to use these in a game, I think you're going to want get her down to some defined color palette. (At least, that's what I keep reading!

) You may want to do something along the lines of what Krysis was doing.

As for the problems with her looking like a man:
If you take a look at the face in your original drawing, it's curvy with soft/subtle features. You lost some of this as you "sprite-ized" it. You kind of fixed it in your last side-view version. But her face was completely flat, with a beaky nose, and square jaw. I'd suggest trying to get back to your orignal.

You may also want to check out her proportions. I might look at moving her waist a little higher and giving her longer legs - kind of hinting at her feminity. I'm not sure though. But your last side-view is a good improvement.

For the front view (and, actually, the side-view as well) the eyes need to be lower. They should line up with the top of the ear - right about 1/2 way between the top and bottom of her head. (There's plenty of information on the internet about human proportions if you need a reference - I've used them a lot myself!).

Also, people tend to lean "against" the load they're carried (to maintain their balance). The way she's leaning, the camera(?) kind of looks it should be on the other shoulder. Also, given it's just a camera, the lean looks a little exagerated.

I don't know, hopefully this helps!

Floskfinger · Mon 28/08/2006 13:45:40

I think the style of the character in your first post looks cool. I think you should go for that style. It's cool couse it looks hand drawn and not like the usuall pixelish characters you normally see in lowres adventuregames. But then it comes down to making the backgrounds in a style that fits the characters. if you manage that you'll have a pretty uniqe style for your game...

Tuomas · Mon 28/08/2006 14:09:59

What an intriguing idea. Yet anyhow as this will be in my first game I don't want to try anything revolutionary. Keep it simple said the priest when... etc...

Well here's some changes. As Eagermind and many others pointed out, I also realised the eyes are too high, so behold... and I did some little things and a back view (which I left out because it appears to be horribly wrong

:

Nacho · Mon 28/08/2006 16:25:50

Flosk, this sprites look a lot like the ones SSH does, so, they are not very original...

Anyway, originallity is not allways good... Sprites must have 16 colours as much. If not, they are a pain in the ass to animate. Conventionality is good for walkcycles.

Tuomas, do you really need help? Because I think that there is consensus that the sperites need cleaning, and you are keeping the style without any explanation. If you are going to follow exactly the same line you sat at the begining, why asking?

Tuomas · Mon 28/08/2006 17:14:35

Actually I've got a lot of help with different proportions, but mainly from #AGS, where I asked as well. It's easy to have these sprites here where they can go and see them and then give crits, and other people can comment on them too. I think you notice thgat I've changed the sprite every now and then, after getting some advice. But please forgive me for ignoring your comment on starting the whole thing again while the others have encouraged me to do a few minor changes to reach the best alternative, that I think I have here now.

Quote from: Nacho on Mon 28/08/2006 16:25:50
Flosk, this sprites look a lot like the ones SSH does, so, they are not very original...

Haven't really seen the ones he does, but I reckon Flosk meant the original one in the first post.

Quote from: Nacho on Mon 28/08/2006 16:25:50
Sprites must have 16 colours as much.

Oh, ok, I'm sorry, I didn't notice that, is that in the forum rules or somewhere else?

Nacho · Mon 28/08/2006 19:37:33

No, it's a tip that helps... If you don't want help, then I desire you good look animating that.Ã,Â

EDIT: 747 colours... wow... Like the aircraft! Was that on purpose?

Tuomas · Mon 28/08/2006 19:44:03

nah, didn't count them. I'll just use the same tactics in animating.. you'll see

Nacho · Mon 28/08/2006 19:47:55

Then I suggest to look for a pallete with less colours, probably 50 would do the same effect, and keep the same pallete during all the frames of the animation, because otherwise the pixels could "shake", or make a weird glow. I never attempted to animate one of those with zillion colours, please show us the result ASAP, I am curious.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Tue 29/08/2006 01:18:45

Use the photoshop color reduce to bring it down to 16 colors or so and see how that looks. Right now it is far too blended to fit in well graphically. I did an example to show you:

1. Reduced colors to 16
2. Removed dither effect to clean up image

Removing stray pixels and cleaning up the image took me 5 minutes. Hopefully this will help.

n3tgraph · Tue 29/08/2006 09:24:05

Hey progZ,

very nice edit as usual,
But I have a comment on your edit

I once read something about bra's and boobies. It said, that when a woman wears a proper bra, the breast should be in the middle of the elbow and the shoulder.

Being fond of boobies I notice that this one has got 'hanging' boobs

It's a shame!

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Wed 30/08/2006 01:13:54

My edit wasn't an attempt to redesign the character so I didn't change the position of elements such as her chest. All I did was reduce colors and clean it up.

ThreeOhFour · Fri 01/09/2006 17:15:52

I actually think that this style can be animated fairly simply.

I did this as a demo, going for a similar style as the first character.

The first pic is a basic trace in Paint of the first sprite posted. This is the one you would animate.

No.2 is in PSP 4 with the soften tool to get rid of jagged edges.

No.3 is in PSP 4 with the darken tool to add shadow.

No.4 is in PSP 4 with the lighten tool to add highlight.

No.5 is reduced to 256 colours - voila.

Step 2,3,4 & 5 combined took me a total of about 2-3 minutes. So if you were to do each frame of walking in the style of frame 1 and then go through and do this to each one, I think it would be a bit easier than trying to draw each one seperately...

Just my 2 cents.

Oh, and can I add that I think that those are the best sprite sandals I've ever seen? Tuomas, you are truly the sprite sandal king. Ok guys, its not THAT strange to be impressed with sandals. Guys? Guys?

EDIT: Oh, dude, its a camera? I thought it was a handbag. Oops. Ignore the bag when looking at my sprites.

Tuomas · Sat 02/09/2006 19:40:01

Actually the handbag looks better than the lame 80's camera.

Anyway, exactly mypoint. nothing is impossible, thanks for showing it when I'm busy atm, maybe next week when I get the back view done.

Quote from: Ben304 on Fri 01/09/2006 17:15:52Oh, and can I add that I think that those are the best sprite sandals I've ever seen? Tuomas, you are truly the sprite sandal king. Ok guys, its not THAT strange to be impressed with sandals. Guys? Guys?

Apparently the fact that I wore bloody bad sandals for 6 weeks somewhere helped me achieve something. Thanks for recognition.

That this post would not seem in vain, I say I shall update with new sprites soon...