Trying to make Cape Bleue good looking
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: WIP (Work In Progress)
Forum Discription: Get crits and comments on your pixel WIPs and other art too!
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25252
Printed Date: 05 September 2025 at 4:58pm
Topic: Trying to make Cape Bleue good looking
Posted By: mkd
Subject: Trying to make Cape Bleue good looking
Date Posted: 05 July 2016 at 1:23am
|
I'm working on a metroidvania game for some time. I rushed most of the graphics because I needed them immediately to code the game. Now that the programming is quite advanced, I'm trying to rework some of the assets. You can see everything about the game here: http://mkdgames.blogspot.fr/ - http://mkdgames.blogspot.fr/ Previous topics about this game: http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25169 - http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25169 and http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25147 - http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25147 (thanks for the big help on these) Now I will try to only post in this topic, it will be easier to follow. Thanks for helping, or commenting! |
Replies:
Posted By: mkd
Date Posted: 05 July 2016 at 1:26am
|
I'm trying to recolor / redraw the buildings. Here is the hero's house (old version left, new version right):  What do you think of it? (I think I'll redo the door as something more sci-fi, and make it an autonomous animated object I'll use on a lot of buildings) |
Posted By: mkd
Date Posted: 07 July 2016 at 11:09am
I changed some stuff on hero's house, and used it as a template to redo other buildings:  |
Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 07 July 2016 at 11:20am
|
The remakes are looking niiiice. The simpler projection without perspective looks very nice, and the little details add a lot of life! Having highlights right up against the shadows on the roofs looks a bit jagged to me. I'd either not have the highlight there, or AA the highlight on the shadow side using the base colour, depending on the exact details you want to suggest. On the middle house, I'd move the trash a little away from the house, so that it breaks up the silhouette. That'll make the whole set-up look more lived-in, plus it'll avoid that unnatural-looking tangent. The store's brick walls having greater contrast in the shadows looks a bit weird. Except in overexposed images, shadows tend to have less contrast/detail because the human eye can't discern detail as well in the dark. "Logic" nitpicks: The balcony on the two-storey building looks like it needs supports. Balconies like that are definitely possible to build, but Are the flat things on the houses solar panels? If so, they should be dark. If they're light-coloured, they'll just reflect the light they're meant to absorb! Also, why are they facing in such different direction? It might make for more variety, but it doesn't make a lot of sense since those things are set up to face the sun as much as possible. |
Posted By: mkd
Date Posted: 07 July 2016 at 11:41am
|
Hi! thanks for your answer. Highlights on roof: it was to add a blocky feeling but it's not really good, yes. I'll work on this. Middle house trash: this objects is separated in the spriteSet used in Unity, so it can be anywhere. I put it here too fast, just for posting the pic in this topic, sorry. Store right side : Ok I'll try to solve this. Logic: some of these things can be done (I even tried two different drawings of pillars under the balcony, but it wasn't good), but overall the game's historic background can let me do some bizarre things, because it's set 1000 years in the future. So solar panels could do different things like receive radiowaves or stuff like that, and they could be white because they are biomechanic based on microscopic firefly organs... So I think there can be ideas to justify all this (and I even can use dialogs to justify explicitly some technical stuff), but if every player thinks it's weird it can be a problem (and thank you for pointing solar panels in every direction, I never thought of it, it's dumb  ) |
Posted By: mkd
Date Posted: 12 July 2016 at 9:02am
|
I'm trying to chose better colors for the background grass layers. I'm really not sure about these greens. What do you think? (some things are not recolored yet: door on right, houses in background, policeman, and I'll probably have to recolor all the trees) Before / After   |
Posted By: mkd
Date Posted: 01 September 2016 at 10:38pm
| http://mkdgames.blogspot.fr/2016/09/latest-screenshots.html - Here you can see screenshots showing the current state of the game. Recently I worked almost only on programming, so the changes aren't huge, but you'll be able to see the recolor in new scenes. |
Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 02 September 2016 at 5:53am
|
The world in the new screenshots feels very sparse and empty. The background buildings seemed to help with that before. The main "fix" for that is to tighten up the level layouts, though. Keep things compact, and any empty areas you keep should have a purpose (e.g. to make the really crowded places look even more crowded in comparison, or to give the player downtime after an intense encounter). |
Posted By: mkd
Date Posted: 02 September 2016 at 2:53pm
|
Thank you so much for you constant help. I think you're right, the village looks a little empty now that I removed background houses. In fact, there are two levels using this background, Plains and Village. In village there was buildings, but in Plains it is normal if it is a little empty (it was the level's theme: grass, blue sky and emptiness)... I hope it's just not too much empty... I'll do soon a Youtube video showing the game in motion, and how the levels are organized, and I hope to hear your opinion again. And if I can do something good looking, I'll try to put again some buildings in Village. |
Posted By: MIGUELbM
Date Posted: 03 September 2016 at 1:24pm
| It looks good, but the rocks bother me. Alone, they are well made, but they don't quite fit with the aesthetic of the rest of the game, which is much more stylized and square. |
Posted By: mkd
Date Posted: 28 September 2016 at 12:01am
|
Are voxels relevant on this forum? Because I took some vacations from Cape Bleue for some time, & worked on a voxel brick-breaking game. If you want to see this: screenshots: http://imgur.com/a/cQrQR (for some reason I can't make this a hyperlink, sorry) itch.io page: http://https://markadet.itch.io/voxel-baller - https://markadet.itch.io/voxel-baller One downsized screenshot :  Originally posted by MIGUELbM It looks good, but the rocks bother me. Alone, they are well made, but they don't quite fit with the aesthetic of the rest of the game, which is much more stylized and square. Yeah you're right. I have a problem with this, I also think some objects & monsters have a different style than the rest of the game. |