Heres some of my work from the past. Critique as you will:
Complete:
(http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/FOY/2D/Backgrounds/minca_site_day.gif)
(http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/FOY/2D/Backgrounds/minca_site_night.gif)
Characters:
(http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/FOY/2D/Characters/Guard-Dog.gif) (http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/FOY/2D/Characters/Cliff-Reed.gif) (http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/FOY/2D/Characters/Hugh_Mandle.gif) (http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/FOY/2D/Characters/Tie_Boyde.gif) (http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/FOY/2D/Characters/Tom-McKalen.gif)
Portraits:
(http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/FOY/2D/Characters/Indy_Head.gif)
Work in Progress: This room wraps around to meet again. Basic outlines for now.
(http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/FOY/2D/Backgrounds/ballroom.gif)
Sparky.
The critic lounge is not for pimping your stuff... make a game already! :=
Wow, looks great.
I was always wondering if your signature is a work of yours and probably be part of a game in progress...
I second Buckethead: Make a game already!
A game is indeed on the way folks. Stay tuned.
Hey come on my work isn't THAT perfect. Any constructive feedback? You know you want rip these baby's apart! :P
Cheers,
Sparky.
I have a question... The huge amount of colours used for the sprite is intended or happened something with the file conversion? Because you are really good, but you could be one of the greatests if you start studying pixel art with limited palletes.
Well I got down to the pixel level. However I prefer not to limit my palette because I believe pixel art evolves with time. Just as our computers have gone from 2 bit to 16 bit right up to 256 bit, now our palettes aren't hindered by any visible technical limitations and we are free to create art in the form it might have originally been imagined.
Another example might be MIDI. Most AGS'ers these days seem to have dropped MIDI altogether and gone for digital music not for the sake of upgrading but for the quality of the presentation. The same does apply to art.
Of course, I love good pixel art and the limited palette is more of a style to me than a mark of a genius.
Actually this piece has already been reduced to 256 colors but you won't notice that thanks to modern palette down-sampling.
Glad you like my art.
Cheers,
Sparky.
Quote from: subspark on Thu 16/04/2009 20:46:17
Of course, I love good pixel art and the limited palette is more of a style to me than a mark of a genius.
Yeah, I never understood the point in limiting one's palette. I say go for it, your artwork is brilliant (sorry for not having mentioned that before ;))
Really looking forward to your game (yet another Indie game it seems..).
Quote from: Mr Matti on Thu 16/04/2009 21:29:52
Yeah, I never understood the point in limiting one's palette. I say go for it, your artwork is brilliant (sorry for not having mentioned that before ;))
Well, if you do limit your palette, than really limit it, to for example just 6-8 colours like Ben uses in his games. Use it evoke a certain atmosphere or mood.
Back to topic: great artwork, subspark!
I really like the characters, are they inspired by the Indiana Jones style?
How did you do the night/day background? Pixel by pixel or using layers in photoshop?
Quoteyet another Indie game it seems..).
Nope. A completely original commercial title called Adlanto. We have a team of 8 spanned across the globe working hard on it right now. I've got a couple of friends in Canberra who are also interested in helping. Tom Vandepole has also been a BIG help to this project so look out for his name in the credits. Although we are working on this in our free time, due to the scale of the team, we're not looking at the usual 4-5 year development cycle. If we're lucky, we'll have a demo out early to mid next year.
Cheers and thanks for your interest gentlemen.
Sparky.
QuoteHow did you do the night/day background? Pixel by pixel or using layers in photoshop?
Layers in Photoshop and then pixel touchups. The first scene (day) took me 11 hours straight. The night time version took me half an hour because I had already laid out the bulk of the work.
Cheers,
Sparky.
Edit: Please don't double post. -ProgZ
What Nacho has offered to you is good advice, particularly in light of the brilliance of your backgrounds. The sprites you've designed here fall short of the backgrounds for several reasons:
1. No distinct light sources.
2. Random, dithered shading with gradients
3. Overuse of similar shades of color. My number one sprite rule is if you cannot clearly distinguish one color from the rest it's wasted.
4. Washed out colors that don't lend any character to the characters.
With the first three points in mind I made an edit of the large guy:
1. Reduced color count to a selection that kept reasonable contrast while allowing for natural shapes to come through.
2. Reshaded character to bring out his natural bulkiness with a basic front-overhead light source. Also adjused the left leg and arms to have more natural shapes.
(http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr218/ProgZmax/hughcl.gif)
(http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr218/ProgZmax/hughcl.gif)
The main piece of advice here is that it's not the amount of colors you use but how you use them. Dithered gradients with lots of colors aren't improving these sprites at all, so a simpler application of well-contrasting colors (and perhaps trying out some more visually pleasing hues) will greatly improve these sprites. Again, the backgrounds are wonderful so you definitely want the sprite quality to measure up in terms of clarity and detail.
Looks great!
The rocks look really nice, did you create them from scratch or from a photo? The reason I ask is that there's quite much light inconsistency, where the rocks on the right are lit from the right, and the light on the center left one is from the front/left, while the left is kinda hard to tell but leftish, almost from behind, so it kinda suggests a photo montage, but it could very well be a creative decision.
It's the same thing with the grass/plants on the right side, which would be in shadow from a lightsource from the left. I think placing them in shadow would make that area a bit less monotone and make the whole thing more dynamic (though it's a very interesting scene as is).
A few small things:
(http://marcus.krupa.se/AGS/ss_c.jpg)
#1 The light seems to be coming from a strange direction on this object, making it feel a bit pasted in. It's a tricky angle though, but there's something not right.
#2 The ground tiles/bricks (or whatever they're called) seem to correspond to a higher horizon (a bit too little X rotation) - we seem to be looking "down" on them too much for our perspective. They seem a bit too uniform as well, making them seem almost like polished bricks.
#3 The light in the cave seems rather tame and uniformly lit (there doesn't seem to be any real light strength fall off)
#4 The tree crowns don't strike me as very natural, more like trimmed trees/bushes you'd find around a castle. I don't really get a sense of regular leaves either, more like large bushes with tiny leaves.
But all in all a really nice scene!
Awe shucks, ProgZmax and loominous. You guys are a BIG help.
I've got a little work to do on the characters. Some of them were a bit rushed.
The reason for the lighting angles in the scene are because of montage. I use techniques akin to matte painting where you'll take a couple of photos, mod them and place them around and then paint over them many times. I guess I simply flipped the photo invalidating the light source.
The rock tiles are particularly disturbing to me now that you mention it loominous, I'll tend to those right away.
Tree's definitely need to be less trimmed hedges and more wild willows or something. I was kind of going for a magical haven kind of look but I think I'll throw the ol' hand of time on this one. It will be a stronger image if this place feels long uninhabited or cared for.
I'll keep working on these rooms and characters and post results soon.
Thanks again guys!
Sparky.
Aww man, matte painting. I always hear about it and wish I could do it ;D
Some of the sprites have things that caught my attention but ProgZ mentioned them all. The backgrounds look really great, good work :). I'd buy something that looks like this :=.
Thanks Ben, that means a lot. :)
Updated mr fat guy. His name is actually Hugh Mandle. And here he is:
(http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/FOY/2D/Characters/Hugh_Mandle_revised.gif)
Again thanks for the constructive pointers ProgZmax.
Cheers,
Sparky.
The character portrait looks a bit like Indiana Jones... or is that just wishful thinking on my part?
It IS Indiana Jones my good man. He's one of my favorite movie/game characters so I just had to take a whack at it.
Cheers,
Sparky.
If so, then you could put some more work into his facial details and into the shape of his hat. It's a step in the right direction, but as for now the portrait looks more like an, uh.. a redneck (sorry for the term) version of Indy made for a parody of Indiana Jones series. Or at least as if you were trying to sprite a farmer head using Indy picture as a reference. Something like that.
A quick paintover for a better explanation:
(http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii203/Kastchey/indy_hat.png)
Damn, those backgrounds look awesome! Incredible I say :o :o :o
btw I'm looking forward to seeing the hall with colors and shade. I'm sure it'll be amazing. ;D
My friend, the "limiting pallete" thingie is not for being a smart ass elitist... It actually makes the sprites cleaner, brings a new world of contrasts when you have to chose between values and makes it easier to work with... Less work, easier and better result. Try it, at least once, and you' ll realise that 16 colours is more than enough for small sprites :)
Oh I wasn't referring to the characters sorry Nacho. I thought you were talking about the backgrounds the whole time. As for the characters, your absolutely right and I agree on every point.
Having said that, I do prefer a 'little' extra pixel detail and shade to my character sprites. They feel.....fuller/fleshier.
All my characters actually use 64 colors but under the recommendations of ProgZmax and yourself, they do need to be used in moderation. Admittedly, many of my character's colors are mushed together making the sprites appear blurry and dull.
I'll take your recommendations into consideration. Thanks again.
Cheers,
Sparky.
Your updated sprite looks pretty good, Spark! You're still using rather more colors than necessary for such a small sprite, but the shading is much more uniform now and the colors on the pants in particular are much more eye-grabbing. It seems to me like you started from a hybrid of the old FoA palette (at least for the skin tones) and sort of adapted it from there, so if I can make a suggestion, why not try for some more natural (less grey-red) skin tones? Shifting them a bit towards pink and making them somewhat brighter with more contrast (highlight, midtone, shadow) would make the faces much clearer. I don't think the washed out sprite palette is a good fit with your background but I could be wrong.
No probs ^_^ Anyway, still, 16 is a good option for main characters, less colours to animate, less possibility of "animation bugs". If you use more in NPCs, which usually are static sprites that talk, it shouldn't be a big headache... Could annoy some of the purists, though! :D I am not one of those, I must say... :)
If you really want to know I am definitely a purist and a perfectionist. I like my characters and their animations to be state of the art. That means animating every wrinkle in the pants and swaying of arms with shadows moving etc. I'm not sure I would use a limited palette to make it easier to animate. I'm much too of a quality over resourceful kind of guy, hence the reduction of colors 'after' my work has been completed in 32bit RGB. ;)
Still, I do recognize the convenience and benefits of a using a 16bit palette but I'm going for the hyper detailed look.
I don't pretend to know why or where that idea started but I have a feeling it's been with me since I played The Secret of Monkey Island in 1993. I've always loved the smooth animation in the cutscenes and I guess over the years I saw room for improvement.
I really want to take classic 2D character sprites to the next level which is why I'm experimenting with so much detail (see the gardner character on the first page for a good example of the kind of detail I'm after). And it does animate.
Quite well actually:
(http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/walkcycle_left.gif)(http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/walkcycle_front.gif)(http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/walkcycle_back.gif)(http://www.shuugouteki.net/paul/Development/walkcycle_right.gif)
Cheers,
Sparky.
I sense Eric's sprite dealie paintovering..
I'll *never* get used to those legs.
Thank god no one pumped an old thread and this is new.
Btw your art sucks.
Btw I lie.
LMFAO!!
I think a lot of people get the wrong idea about limited color palettes. While it's true it would make things a bit simpler, it's also about restricting yourself so you can be more creative.
For instance we all saw how the star wars movies turned out. The first one was great, because Lucas under extreme pressure to get something done on time and under budget, had to be creative about what to leave in and what to take out, and what to change. He couldn't get all the aliens in the cantina due to budget constraints. They had to reshoot all their front projection shots, because it didn't work and thus had to switch to blue screen (optical compositing), so they had even less time and money to do those shots. We all saw how it came out. But then compare that to the prequels. No pressure on Lucas, he had as much money and time to do whatever he wanted and it turned out poor movies. Same thing happened to Rod Serling and Gene Roddenberry, where they wanted to have social issues in their stories (twilight zone and star trek respectively) they had to be creative about it when the network censored them, thus the shows turned out better than they would have.
So my thought is that restricting your palette makes you more creative, and more choosy about how you use them. You can always add colors and things later.
It's sort of like building a picture, you don't paint it all perfectly the first time, usually you start with an outline, maybe add some colors, then flat shade it... then, whatever... You can work out your layout and composition in the sketch stage.
QuoteIt's sort of like building a picture, you don't paint it all perfectly the first time, usually you start with an outline, maybe add some colors, then flat shade it... then, whatever... You can work out your layout and composition in the sketch stage.
That IS how I work. ;) What you see is the finished stage after I have added all the colors in and animated. But thanks for your perspective. I find that even painting everything by hand feels like I'm slogging through production on a 90's LucasArts Adventure title. It's fun but hard work. Still, worth it I beleive.
Thanks again,
Sparky.
:o So F****** incredible! :D is that REALLY pixel art? it cant be! How do you make the collor choice, and how do you shade it? This is a wonderfull work brother, a walkthrough vide would be AMAZINGLY incredible!
Note; please do a background creation video. Or i will hunt down at least 200 signatures on a sheet of paper and show to the judge, so he will force you to do one! Is this way that democracy works isn't it?
Finally we get to hear a "bit" about your project!
Ive been waiting to see any information about it on here for ages!
Lovely backgrounds and characters!
I also think the last version of Hugh Mandle is alot better than the old one!
Nicely done!
Looking forward to see more about this game soonish?? :P.
I cannot explain this very well or be constructive on this, but
* The left side of daylight background is my absolute favourite. It's totally great, and what makes it great are yellow flowers and high rocks. Almost like a photo.
On the other side, literally - right side of image is poor. Attention to detail and colors is incredible, of course, but everything looks like from someone who cannot draw very well. Can color and paint, but not draw realistic shapes. They are like a child drew them. That's a HEAVY contrast with left side, since left one is really realistic in it's weird way.
* Characters are okay, I guess. Your shading makes them a bit flat, and "attention to detail" is actually overdoing gradients (thus killing shading) and not much else... faces still look quite -er- functional. Not interesting or artsy, simply functional, like in every better AGS game. Pay attention to what ProgZmax said and remember that it's low res - don't try to treat it like high resolution picture. That's your main mistake... for example: if you have 13 pixels available to wrinkle clothes, you cannot cram every "realistic" wrinkle in -- it will look like horrible mess.
You have to choose only thay ONE wrinkle that REALLY has effect and pleases eye.
EDIT: fixed some typos
Thank you very much for your critique and comments, InCreator. They are the most honest and frankly the most helpful yet.
Gracias. :)
Sparky.
hey sparky, when are you gonna do a tutorial? the pics look great!
Thanks cosmicr. I'm tied up working on an Xbox360/Wii/PS3 title right now but I'll see if I can spare a weekend or two to do a proper comprehensive tutorial for you guys.
It'll give me a chance to implement some of the suggestions you guys have made into my work so you can see how I go about it.
Would a video tutorial be cool or perhaps a webpage with steps?
Cheers,
Sparky.
Coming back to admire the picture, I finally noticed the cave.
The cave... Caves are usually made of 3 different ways: collapses (random), hot air and water. I'm reading an awesome book by Hungarian speleologist right now about karst and there's whole science behind caves.
This cave you drew doesn't look to be made in any of those ways. It rather looks like it's hand-made by really crafty giant.
Quote from: subspark on Fri 19/06/2009 04:01:08
Would a video tutorial be cool or perhaps a webpage with steps?
Cheers,
Sparky.
Would we beg for even a tutorial made of dead fish tied up together to give the illusion of animation?
YES MAN, anything!!
Wow, I'm acting like a little girl...