Bart's C&C thread -- post your art here for comments
Thursday, August 6, 2009 - 07:42
Greets!
If you're interested in C&C on your art, please post it here and I'd be happy to critique it. Please let me know what kind of comments you're looking for.
Bart
Hello good people at OpenGameArt.org,
Before I get started, I just want to say that this is a fantastic site! Artistic resources seem to be much scarcer than code in the open source community, and anything that helps in balancing this out is welcome.
I've been trying my hand at some pixel art, but I'm not sure how to polish it off. I have the general form (or lack thereof) done decently, but the shading is a bit off and the image looks too flat. I was just wondering whether someone more experienced in this area could give me some pointers.
Also, is it advisable to stick with the 256 colour palette for pixel art?
Thanks for the great work, Aiden
First of all, welcome to OGA! I'm a horrible spriter, and any observations I could make you've already said yourself. Hopefully some of the less spriting-challenged people will be able to help you :). That said, I believe the reason the image looks flat is because it *is* flat. Almost the whole surface of the monster is done in a single color, except for a few details. I think you need to be much more "bold".
Have a look at the PSG Art Tutorial and the translated tutorial from Les Forges, if you haven't already!
Now, I hesitate to post this crappy edit because yours looks way better (and I arbitrarily switched the position of the lightsource, so a lot of the shading is off, heh). Still, maybe what I'm trying to say will become more clear:
ceninan hopes someone will be horrified enough to make a decent mockup ;)
First, I'll answer your color question: Generally, when you're doing pixel art, you'll want to pick out your colors first. It's exceedingly rare to ever have 256 colors in a single sprite. Generally you'll have far less than that -- somewhere between 4 and 32 colors is fairly normal. If you're making multiple sprites, I wouldn't necessarily worry about limiting yourself to 256 colors among all of them. The vast majority of computers out there don't need to worry about that anymore, and that holds true even if you're making software for mobile phones.
Now on to the critique. He looks cool thus far, but you're right about the shading being off. I'll see if I can help you out with that.
The first thing you'll want to consider is color. In natural lighting conditions, your highlights and shadows aren't the same hue as your midtones. Highlights will be more yellow (due to sunlight) and shadows will be more blue (due to things not lit by the sun being lit mainly by the sky). The effect is subtle, so don't overdo it, but a little bit of color variation can make your colors look a lot more vibrant. You might also consider making your highlights slightly brighter and your shadows slightly darker.
Now, on to the shading. When I look at your image, I get a general feeling that your light source is somewhere above and to our right, but I can't place precisely where it is. There are some places where it almost looks like the light is coming from below (take the bottom of his hand, for instance). When you shade, what you want to do is imagine your subject as a 3 dimensional object, and then picture where the light source is relative to it. The areas of the surface which are facing *directly toward* your light source are going to be bright, and the areas that are facing away from it are going to be shaded. Be analytical about it.
One other thing I'm seeing is that you have some bare 1-pixel lines. In my experience, those never work very well, as they don't convey any sense of volume.
If you haven't seen it already, we actually have a great pixel art tutorial right here on OGA:
http://opengameart.org/content/les-forges-pixel-art-course
I recommend reading the whole thing if you haven't already, but pay particular attention to the chapters on color and shading, as I think they'll help you here. And of course, feel free to ask questions. I'll keep an eye on this thread. :)
Bart
Bart to the rescue ^^.
(And I definitely recommend the PSG tutorial as well as the Les Forges one - they both help a lot with thinking in 3D and how to shade!)
@Bart: I had forgotten about this thread, good thing it was brought up again. Maybe I'll try to get my scanner working... ;)
For the record, I'm not an expert, but I know enough about theory to give critiques. For anyone else here, feel free to add or contradict me. :)
Bart
I haven't looked at the PSG tutorial, so I will probably read through that.
@ceninan: I think I can see what you're trying to achieve with the mock up, but I do wish to keep the light source at the top-right (it seems that this is a common practice). Any ideas on how to shade the arm when it is perpendicular to the light source?
@bart: I see what you mean about the location of the light source being dubious. I'll try to be a bit more disciplined with how I shade, but at the same time be bold (somehow!). I will also attempt to put together a better palette, as I have been using the default browns from GrafX2.
Unfortunately I have exams coming up, so I probably won't be able to move at a lighting pace. Comments are still appreciated, and I look forward to submitting the Mud Monster some day soon!
Contrary to my last post, I have created a new version of the mud monster:
He still feels somewhat flat, particularly his head. This may be a shading issue, or it may be the general shape. Also, I can't tell from here whether his arm is facing up or whether it's supposed to be reaching toward the viewer. In the latter case, you'd probably want to shade the entire arm.
(ó_ò)b
O_o
\[°_o]/
well, first of all you have to make your pixel art more dynamic, even if its just a monster sprite, you have to design it as if it actually does something, something dangerous for example[tries to grab the player, melting away]
then you have to add details, because the detail per pixels is what pixelart is about, more details is better.
you could also work with different colours for different lightsources, many classic nintendo rpgs had that.
and then of course the appropriate shading :)
edit: and never gradient from white to black in pixel art
edit: and grass aint 0 255 0, so use more grayish colours even surrealistical shifts in spectrum looks good,[brown grass, violet grass, grayish-pink grass > toxic green grass]
That looks friggin' fantastic! How long have you been doing pixel art for?
I think I was probably restricting myself to the shape too much and not adding the details that you mention. I won't be able to top what you've done, so you should submit it. Maybe I'll try something similar with different colours and pose or something.
Long time ago I was an more or less active member of the 'RPG maker 2k' community, but I havent done any Pixelart for at least a year.
tbh, I think pixel art is more of a problem, not a solution.
@Misha: that's a nice sprite... give it an open-license and upload it to the actual site ;)
--
http://freegamedev.net
Hello again!
I've decided to ditch pixel art for now and give the hand drawing/GIMP combination a shot. This fellow is the result of my efforts so far.
Any ideas before I submit?
What jumps out at me the most is the lack of contrast between shading and highlights. Be bold. And remember, shadows are more blue, whereas highlights are more yellow.
OK, I've tried to be bolder with the shadows and highlights this time and it does make the image look more realistic! I've also lowered the saturation a bit to make the portrait less cartoony. I'm quite pleased with the new version, so thanks for your advice.
Do you think that it's ready for submission yet, or should I just stick to coding?
I've been making this elevator for 2d platformers, but I am not sure where to go with the lighting on the motor and gear, and the support pillars seem a bit plain. Any ideas?
It's choppy because I only did the first 6 frames so far.
Roflknief. looks pretty fun so far!
One thing about platformers and pixel art (and this may be a style choice) is that not everything has to have a black outline. E.g. sometimes background elements don't have outlines at all, and foreground elements might only have distinct outlines to to hint at where collision happens.
If those pipes are supposed to be, say, chrome-like, use a greater range of grays (darker and lighter) and maybe a splash of the sky color for that level. Google Image Search for "chrome pipe" and you'll see that chrome has bands of reflected colors and isn't just smooth shaded.
Also, remember that specular highlights are never at the edge of an object unless the light's coming from directly behind it. And I'm having a hard time determining your lightsource... it looks like light's coming from several directions at once. Other than that -and this is a stylistic issue as well as a technical one- you might want to change the value of your outline shade to reflect the lightsources. In other words, have the outline lighter in places where the light hits it directly, and have the outline darker in places that are in shadow.
Meh. It lacks some additional antennae and stuff.
http://rgames.tuxfamily.org/wp-content/shipwip.jpg
http://rgames.tuxfamily.org/wp-content/wipship2.jpg
http://rgames.tuxfamily.org/wp-content/wipship3.jpg
Would be nice to tell what your exact plans with it are. At least at first sight I can tell that such an uneven poly density distribution is not very good. The bottom round part and the exhausts are way to detailed (smooth round) for a low-poly mesh (unless you really aim for the super complex >20.000 poly ingame model, that always covers half of the screen), and even if you want to make a sub-d model it doesn't need to be that detailed as the catmull-clark algorithm will take care of that for you.
Otherwise hard to tell what crits to give, as you gave zero info what the end result is supposed to be.
--
http://freegamedev.net
Nice work so far. :)
One thing I might suggest is turning on the smooth surface modifier, along with edge split. That should make it so that your sharp angles stay sharp, but the very mild angles (like for your engines in the back) will be rounded out.
The other thing you might try when you texture it is to use a specular map. If you take a look at a lot of pictures of spaceships, you'll notice that they're made up of small metal panels, and there are subtle differences in reflectivity from panel to panel. A specular map gives you this effect and adds a lot to the ship.
a very unaware question, what is C&C, the two things I know of are :-
1 Command and Control
2. Command and Conquer.
The first used in military, the second a strategy game.
a very unaware question, what is C&C
As far as I know, it's short for "constructive criticism", although why there is an '&' inbetween I do not know. :P
At least at first sight I can tell that such an uneven poly density distribution is not very good. The bottom round part and the exhausts are way to detailed (smooth round) for a low-poly mesh (unless you really aim for the super complex >20.000 poly ingame model, that always covers half of the screen)
Hehe, chill! Well, I really don't have any concrete plans for it except hopefully getting to finish the model and its texture. The whole thing is ~1050 quads -> ~2100 tris and I can still tweak it down to a reasonable level later on, though the engines are definitely not the parts which will lose their smoothness. *g* You'd be surprised what kind of poly level one can squeeze into models of a space game and still get decent framerates, since all rendering methods are pretty simple and LOD'ing can be exploited to the max. Anyway, I will try to tweak it, though.
It's actually supposed to be a transport or drone-carrying mining ship of some sort. The opening at the top back part of the ship's body is supposed to be the drone bay.
One thing I might suggest is turning on the smooth surface modifier, along with edge split. That should make it so that your sharp angles stay sharp, but the very mild angles (like for your engines in the back) will be rounded out.
Will try it later on. :)
The other thing you might try when you texture it is to use a specular map. If you take a look at a lot of pictures of spaceships, you'll notice that they're made up of small metal panels, and there are subtle differences in reflectivity from panel to panel. A specular map gives you this effect and adds a lot to the ship.
I'm quite aware of this phenomenon, in fact, I tried it several times to copy that effect, but since I suck mightily at texturing, I usually failed. :P