Aloha!
I've painted many a picture in me days, but pixelation has never been my forte.
However, my new project will be in low-res, so I'm pretty much forced to pick up that trade now.
Here's one version of the main character:
(http://esseb.com/andail/graphics/ord4.gif)
(http://esseb.com/andail/graphics/ord4.gif)
Any immediate reactions?
He's supposed to be a rather laid-back PI, and and the game's set in the early 80s.
I'm worrying maybe the face has too few shades, especially compared to the jacket, which perhaps could be simplified in return. Well well.
Left side of his head - why can you see the hair, I think you're losing a pixel and blending eyes with hair for no real reason.
Left shoulder, why is it shaded? Nose and rest of the jacket kind of indicate source of light from the left front, but that shoulder is shaded like the light is coming from right side behind him.
Is he supposed to be going bald? Kind of looks like that.
Loose PI from the 80s? Pop a hawaii shirt on him, for heaven's sake. ;D But seriously add maybe more color, he looks more like a 90s detective, like Bruce Willis from Last boyscout.
Some might say that it doesn't have color contrasted enough, shirt has 2 tones, but pants have 4, face 3 etc.
Trying things out, moved the legs a pixel back and changed the hair style and the jaw:
(http://i.imgur.com/oCma4.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/oCma4.png)
I really like the character btw.
edit by Andail: added larger version
Tried smoothing the shading a bit and played around with the palettes.
(http://i.imgur.com/8cFVR.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/8cFVR.png)
Edit by Andail: added larger version
Thanks a lot, guys, really nice edits!
That's the beauty of pixel art; just a few pixels in this or that direction, and the whole expression is changed. I'll definitely use your ideas to proceed :)
My first reaction was it looked like he is wearing ear muffs or big headphones. I like Anian's modification to the character's hairline.
He looks pretty cool, a PI eh...! No Selleck mustache? :P
This is great. The only thing that looks a bit off for me is the bright yellow pixel on his forehead. It looks more like someone has stuck a post-it note on his head. Other than that, though, it's a superb sprite.
Here's what I hope might be the final version of my character:
(http://www.esseb.com/andail/goodord.gif)
(http://www.esseb.com/andail/goodord.gif)
I'm throwing in this background as well:
(http://www.esseb.com/andail/livingtapestry.png)
You think it should work?
I think it looks good, if a little dark (the character and the background). The ceiling on the right hall out of the room is also a bit confusing to my eye because the wood paneling continues across unobstructed. I would make it turn at a right angle and follow that wall out of the room. I'd also add some depth to the fireplace by using the light source in the room as a guide. I made a rough edit below to show you what I'm talking about.
1. Made the wooden paneling follow the edge of the wall leaving the room. This gives me a clearer idea of what is going on.
2. Added some rough darkening of the fireplace interior with the dodge tool at 50% to make the area facing the light source lighter and the area opposing it darker. The fire doesn't look strong enough to me to light up the entire interior and it looks like the fireplace has depth now.
3. Used the dodge tool with midtones at 50% to make the fireplace a bit brighter and then applied a brush with 16% opacity and a yellow tone to give it a little glow.
4. Did the same as above for the globe light source, using larger to smaller brush sphere sizes with varied opacity to give it a fanned out glow look.
(http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr218/ProgZmax/livingtapestryedit.png)
The fireplace area could use more work, particularly with light from the fire itself. If you plan to animate it I would take the entire interior out as one piece and work with it that way. Aside from these few little things I think it's a great background.
Thanks Progz, and nice edit!
The reason the fireplace has been left largely unfinished is that, as you mention, I plan to animate the fire and I don't know how much of it needs to be shaded at this point.
And good point with the wooden panel :)
Your character doesn't have any outlines and the room is very detailed with shading and textures so I wonder - wouldn't it look nicer without the black outlines?
I think the background would look much better without the outlines.
Walkcycle:
(http://www.esseb.com/andail/ordright.gif)
(http://www.esseb.com/andail/ordright.gif)
C&C appreciated.
Maybe a bit softer moves and a little less pronounced (as in smaller leaps and less arm swinging). This looks like he's in quite a hurry, while the stand pose make him seem mellow.
Also, now that I compare the 2 sprites, in his new idle pose, he seems to have a wider (too wide) head, because of the hair on the right side of his face. In a 3/4 pose and with short hair, you probably wouldn't see much of the hair, or when it comes to pixels, you probably wouldn't see it at all.
I still think he looks cool, if he was a little taller and skinnier, he'd remind me of Chevy Chase in the Fletch/Invisible man era.
Btw I think you only need 1 parameter (either width or height) in the img tags when you're zooming in, it just automatically changes the second parameter.
Thanks Anian, good points! When it comes to his being in a hurry, I've noticed that a slightly more pronounced stride looks better in-game. Maybe it's just a matter of taste, but when I've made walk cycles more relaxed, the motion comes across as too subtle in the walking animation on screen, and he seems to almost glide. But I agree that it doesn't really match his mellow pose in the idle stance.
As for the width of his head, I've tried without the extra hair-pixels, but found the head far too narrow. It's hard when you have so little to play with - one extra pixel makes it strangely wide, and one fewer makes it narrow. For instance, I find the head too narrow in your previous edit. Again, it's a matter of personal preference... I'll still to try to find a middle way, I guess.
Thanks for the re-sizing advice, I would never have thought of that :)
Ok, probably the last thing I'll post before I'll get more secretive about this project.
(http://www.esseb.com/andail/masterbedroom.png)1
(http://www.esseb.com/andail/masterbedroom.png)
It's not entirely finished, to start with, but I'm rather sceptical about it... I really thought the 3D-esque perspective could be cool, but now I think it just messes up the low resolution. Moreover, I can't put the character anywhere near the edges, or he'll look weird with his verticalness...
Btw, the room is supposed to be dimly lit - these are all night scenes so far.
The floor is a sketchup texture (too realistic?), the model for the mat was nicked somewhere on the web.
Any thoughts?
PS:
The living room has been updated, if you scroll up. The interior of the fireplace looks a bit weird without the fire animation there, in case you wondered.
It's not that bad, although putting a character inside might be troublesome cause of the perspective.
I thought that first one was in SketchUp, not that I consider that a bad thing.
About the floor...it's not so much too realistic, what bothers me more is that it seems like the texture is too variant and kind of distracts, also the actual texture might be the wrong size and is too small (proportion wise), it makes the room seem larger than what everything else (like furniture) points to...jeez it's kind of hard to explain.
Maybe try a more subtle texture with less contrasting surfaces.
...I think that floor texture would work if it were homogenized a bit more. Try throwing a layer of flat brown in a 100% Color layer over the floor, and then duplicate that flat brown as a Luminosity layer at about 70% or so.
It'd look like this, but less sloppy:
(http://ericnewsom.com/ags/sloppyroom.png)
You might want to punch the color of the rug up a bit while you're at it. Or just choose a better shade of brown for the floor than I did!
Remade the whole floor with manual "texture":
(http://www.esseb.com/andail/masterbedroom3.png)
Something like that?
I like this room very much and I think the perspective will work sufficiently well with the character.
I also like the new floor, although my paintover is of an older version.
(http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab12/Mad1978/darkRoomPO.png)
If the lamp in the right-hand corner is the only lightsource, I think the room could be darker overall, and the lighting a bit more diffuse. I also think the depth of the room could be improved with a few more highlights and deeper shadows. The same goes for the view from the window (if it's a moonlit night).
Going back to your sprite, it looks like whatever program you used butchered the colors when you saved it because there are green and bright orange artifacts littered through the frames. I corrected this and a few other issues I list below.
1. Cleaned up the arm motion to be more symmetrical and less jerky. Before, there was a huge jump between the arm being all the way back and being all the way forward.
2. Made the jacket move backwards when his arm was back like it was moving forward when his arm was forward.
3. Animated the hair so the head did not look static.
4. Adjusted certain leg frames so feet curved more naturally when bending and actually looked different at different frames. Also fixed one of the legs on the down step being a pixel too high.
5. Cleaned up some color artifacting, though the entire sprite could use more ordered shading.
(http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr218/ProgZmax/ordright2.gif)
(http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr218/ProgZmax/ordright2.gif)
I hope this helps. The actual leg motion was pretty smooth so I didn't mess with it.
Oh, a thousand thanks, Progz :)
It's looking really great now, I'll just clean up the shading a bit more and then it's pretty much perfect, imo.
Mad; thanks, I see your point. I'll definitely increase the contrast a bit, to improve the sense of depth.
I probably won't show more material from this project until it's time for a GiP, in half a year or so, so thanks for now!
Those backgrounds look like it heavily downscaled with lost aspect ratio.
I'd smoother it with manual antialiasing here and there. Especially contrastier places.