Pinnacle Rock - Progress Thread
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=19356
Printed Date: 11 September 2025 at 12:58pm
Topic: Pinnacle Rock - Progress Thread
Posted By: skittle
Subject: Pinnacle Rock - Progress Thread
Date Posted: 17 July 2014 at 10:58am
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Okay, so I've been working on a project for little over two months or so now, but I've ran into a few problems.... I can't seem to get anywhere with colour.
I've been doing a lot of comparing, and mostly analysing games such as Cavestory, Chasm, Owlboy and a bunch of other 2D games to see how they do their palettes (specifically, colours that are used for their characters) and I just can't seem to create a palette that I am happy with. This is how the current character palette looks along side Chasm's main character palette in an environment. 
The problem is that the chasm colours just look sooo much better, and I can't figure out the secret to making a nice palette such as the chasm one. The palette that I'm using is predominately inspired by this pic from a show -however, it does not look right at all http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11/117031/3388703-aaaaaang.png - http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11/117031/3388703-aaaaaang.png I've never understood much when it comes to colours, it's been a sort of luck based thing for me, either I get the right colour or I don't. Even when I read a lot of resources (especially the "COLORING "I dont get it"" thread on here) I still have trouble making a good palette from the ground up. So how does one go about building a proper colour palette that has consistency but looks nice at the same time -like the chasm character. And please do not think I'm asking for someone to make me a palette, I'm just confused by the process of making one, or rather a process that doesn't involve choosing colours at random. tl;dr Does anyone have any tips on how to build a better palette than the one that I am using right now for my character and to divulge the black magic that is used to make a palette such as the one for the Chasm character? Oh pre-made palette, where art thou? |
Replies:
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 17 July 2014 at 2:46pm
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We all think the same thing about colors (cept maybe DB). Every single person who make pixels and always use great colors never feel that they do. Some just give up and use the same palette forever. The colors you have here are nice. ------------- |
Posted By: Daruda
Date Posted: 17 July 2014 at 3:04pm
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Well, the colors there are good.
If you want more control over colors you should read some "color theory" article/tutorial. On Da there are many of them, There are even 2/3 with pixel art on mind. (if you're interested I'll search them for you!) A little way to make the palette more united is choosing a color and mix it to all lights, then another to mix with the shadows. With that all the ramps will have more consistency with each another. I'm no master on this, I just hope to help you. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 17 July 2014 at 3:59pm
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@Jal
Perhaps you're right, it's hard to think that other artists have problems with their palette when it looks so amazing though. At least I won't stick to the same palette forever :P @Daruda Yes please! I'd appreciate that. If they are hard to find don't worry about it though, I'll also go and look for more papers or tutorials on colour theory jazz. And that is a very good idea too, I should try taking advantage of the option to change colour opacity more and do what you said. Update. I just re-read the "COLORING "I dont get it"" thread again, I think it helped. It's getting closer to that Chasmy colour look I think. The Chasm character palette seems to go all over the place in terms of saturation though, not sure what to make of that. 
The face seems to be a bit flat looking, so I'll have to see what I can do to fix that. I was also thinking, that perhaps I should also try redoing the palette for the environment and try to "link" it to the character palette so everything doesn't seem out of place. |
Posted By: DatMuffinMan
Date Posted: 17 July 2014 at 4:20pm
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I think your main problem is inconsistency. On the one hand, having a cool low-sat bg (referring to the first pic you posted) with a warm and bright player is great for having a contrast between the two. http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=16674.0 - Example . On the other hand, the enemies/things you posted in your last picture are very purple-y and blue-y to match the same effect. (Side note, this is why I kind of disagree with the blue enemies in the mockup I linked).
I've got no idea if this is a good rule of thumb to follow at all, but looking at stuff like http://johan-aronson.squarespace.com/wanderer/ - this and stuff like http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/54398.htm - this makes me think that having consistent patterns of coloring between characters and environments seems to work well. |
Posted By: JustinGameDesign
Date Posted: 17 July 2014 at 5:20pm
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I think you may be being a little hard on yourself as well. I totally saved a copy of the sprites you posted here to look at later. That mask is great. |
Posted By: SuperTurnip
Date Posted: 17 July 2014 at 5:44pm
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Maybe the saturation differs because the colours represent separate materials, which react to light differently? For instance, skin generally has more saturation in the mid tones in bright light, because the mid tones are where the light goes through the skin and gets absorbed by the blood before bouncing back out.
that said, your colours are fine! Don't mix the ground and character palettes--keep a strong visual pattern as DatMuffinMan suggested. If you're really, really unsure about your legitimate and reasonable choices, take a peek at this image: 
Grayscale can really help me, and hopefully others as well, compare two colour schemes. In a roundabout sense. If you really really like a sprite made by someone else, or your sprite in someone elses palette, look at them like this. Suddenly, it's not about that magenta-red or subtle shift towards cool colours in all the ramps. It's technique--note how the darker hands are easier to see, and that the sprite with Chasm's colours is largely similar in tone except for the face? What I find interesting is that any one is not better than the others. The hands are a nice addition, but your original face looks way, way better, especially because of the light hood and dark eyes. Your original scheme is balanced for your character. Chasm's is not--though it shows some notable ways to improve your design on the body. The hybrid looks okay with colour, but it's much harder to read without (that's possibly the grey background being almost identical to your dark tones, so consider what darkness your backgrounds are going to be before you edit your sprite). At the end of the day, I'd say it's good to just be pleased with your really well made sprite. It's a good one! |
Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 17 July 2014 at 6:17pm
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Gonna echo that it's wise to keep foreground/background, (inter)active/passive objects separated by using contrast in lightness and in saturation, and possibly in hue.
One thing I'd try to do in your sprite is to have a bit more complementary coloring. First of all the color ramps seem to all be the same hue/sat, which makes for boring interaction between lights and shadows. Secondly, your overall palette is very brown/orange; at least Aand has those arrows for a bit of spice. This is just when looking at the sprite in isolation, though. When you put it in a game you might end up with very valid gameplay reasons to limit your palette. SuperTurnip - while that approach is valid to a degree, make sure you don't rely on it completely. After all, contrast in hue+sat is very important and to change a color in grayscale may lead to it looking worse in the endresult. ------------- ▄▄█ ▄▄█ ▄█▄ ▄█▄ |
Posted By: DawnBringer
Date Posted: 17 July 2014 at 6:20pm
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Are you just talking about the colors of the character? The colors on their own is barely half the story...the context is the rest.
Red is a (physiologically) alarming color, so it can be hard to make it play nice. Your 2nd desaturated version is an improvement. Don't be affraid to blueshift the shadow-colors a bit. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 18 July 2014 at 3:11pm
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@MuffinMan
Yeah, very good point, and good examples too. With WingedDoom's project, I was thinking that he is able to pull off a blue background with blue enemies due to using black outlines (something that I am not using)? But yes, undoubtedly you are correct, having a consistent background to go with the characters will be very much needed. I'll be sticking to that cool blue from now on (and tweaking the enemy colours so they stick out more from the bg):D @Justin Mhmmm maybe, but I don't know, something honestly seems off with the sprite :P. Glad ya like em though! @SuperTurnip I see why you say the original colour scheme is balanced, but I don't think I want to stick with it since DawnBringer pointed out that the red is a very alarming colour -though it does make the sprite "pop" quite a bit. But yea, the greyscale really does help a lot with seeing the technique of it all though. But I think why one is not better than any of the others when in greyscale is since there is no actual colour besides grey which could make one of the sprites look more pleasing on the eye than one of the other sprites (that probably goes without saying though). Doing it in greyscale does help with a lot of things though, thanks for the helpful tip :D @PixelSnader I tried doing a bit of complimentary, it's more of a sloppy edit in terms of colour but did you mean something along the lines of this? (perhaps the green should be shifted more towards the yellow and the blue towards purple?). 
@DawnBringer Yeah, I prefer the second version too. I gave blueshifting a shot, not sure if I did the right though, but I think it makes it pop more imho. 
The orange looks considerably more vibrant after doing it, but I'm not sure if the difference in the darkest red looks noticeable or not. I'm concerned that blueshifting the red will make it blend more into the background. I was also thinking, what if the palette for the main character changes depending on what environment he is in? So far, I have seen no 2D game do that, I know it would definitely be feasible, but is it something that you would want to do when making a game? Will be posting another update in a bit. |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 18 July 2014 at 3:26pm
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Most game projects never fool with the sprite colors because it can be overwhelming to code variations.
Its doable, but in a commercial project it is simply not cost effective at all. No time to study colors on update but do want to mention the ground tile is great. ------------- |
Posted By: Daruda
Date Posted: 18 July 2014 at 4:50pm
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I feel that the right sprite is better than the left one, it's more colorful so it pops a little more.
About the tile, I like it, it's really good, but I tend to focus on it watching the mock-up because it feel more bright overall. For the color theory, I think you know most of it. Well, if you want take a look at this, it's one of my favorite, check part 2 too. http://www.deviantart.com/art/The-Color-Tutorial-Part-1-186760922 I wanted to share the pixel related too, but seems the user got angry after some rip and decided to remove all the material and I don't feel right to re-upload it. |
Posted By: DatMuffinMan
Date Posted: 18 July 2014 at 5:17pm
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I mean, if all that's going on is a recolored sprite being loaded, if you have a different scene for a new environment (walking in spring scene, exit, load winter scene, for example), then wouldn't it be pretty easy to just load a different (recolored) sprite into the new world.
It's a cheesy way of doing it, but it sort of accomplishes the effect. |
Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 20 July 2014 at 2:35am
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That's defnitely possible, but like Jal said, you have to add the code for every switchpoint, and have to make the sprites, which can get messy.
And yes that could work in terms of complementary colors, but it's not what I mean. If you look at the one collage with 3 sprites, you see that the bottom one has a bit of a purplish red. That pushes the shadow towards blue, as a complementary of yellow light. Here's an extreme example by mulletdulla:  ------------- ▄▄█ ▄▄█ ▄█▄ ▄█▄ |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 20 July 2014 at 4:05pm
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Sorry for the long response time. Not a huge update, was putting a bit of time into my running animation so that I can pump out a character on the screen soon.
(this is getting off topic :L) 
@PixelSnader Ahhh, that makes a little more sense now. Well, here's my attempt again, better than the last, but I'm not sure if it's exactly what you meant still :S. The one thing with the red version is that it really stuck out more than the other two, but maybe if I raise the saturation I can still get that effect. And I'm not sure if they blend too much into the background, still needs a lot more tweaking. Dragon thing was just a doodle. 
@Jal Oh, I see. That's a shame :(. I guess a lighting engine would be the best route to go then -hypothetically if I was going to change the colour depending on the environment. And thanks! Here's the rest of the tiles, I still have a lot more to do but right now I'm focusing on the sprite and a running animation. 
@Daruda Thanks so much for the link! That was a super helpful read! And yeah, I agree, the sprite on the right for that pic pops a lot more. @MuffinMan yeah, that's what I was originally thinking. I was thinking that it's probably an uneeded mechanic though since if all I'm shooting for is just a little more complex, Cavestory-esque platformer. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 20 July 2014 at 9:26pm
Was trying to figure out skin colour, also made an npc old man to test it out on. The main change is that the darkest colour for the skin is no longer a deep red but rather a low saturated brown. I may stick with the red.
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Posted By: Daruda
Date Posted: 22 July 2014 at 1:12pm
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I think that the darker palette is better, because it gives more light.
The old man seems good. Would be funny to see it in game. |
Posted By: rrrod
Date Posted: 23 July 2014 at 12:06am
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I'm loving the new palette and the sprite of the old man.
Glad to see you've reached a consensus on the palette. It's definitely something that bugs me out everytime I start a new sprite. That being said, I really suggest that you experiment with colors on future projects. Like, go crazy in color theory. I've just seen your gallery and it seems that you have so much potential for that. Getting out of your comfort zone is always a good choice, imo. Also, I agree that you should build a universal palette for your game. The logic is the same as placing all characters in one sheet. Do they match? do you need to add more stuff or is it just fine the way it is? Anyways, keep up the good work. Really looking forward to your work in this project. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 23 July 2014 at 10:31am
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@Daruda
Yeah, hopefully he will be in the game. And by the darker palette you mean the reddish one? @rrrod Thankee! Yeah, well, I think I've reached a consensus but it will probably get changed around a lot still :P. Yeah, maybe I should make a universal palette, I still need to think that one through a lot. And thanks again, I'll be posting a mockup soon (hopefully)! -- To bad I can't rename the thread to "my game progress" or something :S |
Posted By: AshCrimson
Date Posted: 23 July 2014 at 10:41am
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Originally posted by ADrawingMan @Daruda Yeah, hopefully he will be in the game. And by the darker palette you mean the reddish one? @rrrod Thankee! Yeah, well, I think I've reached a consensus but it will probably get changed around a lot still :P. Yeah, maybe I should make a universal palette, I still need to think that one through a lot. And thanks again, I'll be posting a mockup soon (hopefully)! -- To bad I can't rename the thread to "my game progress" or something :S I'm pretty sure you can go to your original post (the first one), edit it and it will give you the option to change the title. That is what i did with my current thread. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 23 July 2014 at 10:49am
| Oh you're right! Thanks for the tip |
Posted By: Daruda
Date Posted: 23 July 2014 at 1:32pm
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Yes, the reddish.
I love high contrast generally. Well, maybe not really a Universal palette, I noticed that most artists use always the same darkest color and some midtone. You may need just those. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 26 July 2014 at 9:07pm
Trying to put together another mockup, I'm looking at sohei's work a lot so you may see some familiarites. I'm not happy with the colour so I will probably pull all the assets out and redo the palettes individually. I also can't seem to figure out what the wall colours should be -perhaps I should go a bit more red/purple? I'm definitely not going to be using dark blue as the background :P
I'm probably going to try to shift the saturation down for a lot of things. What's nice is that the character doesn't blend in with any of the assets atm, which is good. |
Posted By: JustinGameDesign
Date Posted: 27 July 2014 at 11:36am
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Looks great so far. Don't sweat it if the player does blend in with certain assets. Players rarely stand still in exactly one place long enough to actually make isolated color issues matter. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 29 October 2014 at 11:23am
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Progress.
I've done a whole lot of re-designing of the game. The whole project will be a snapshot of a bigger game that I have in mind, in other words, think of it as a little demo for the actual thing (since the actual game that I have in my mind is quite big, making a little demo-esque game is the only thing I can do atm). Even though the demo will be pretty short, I want to try to fill it with as much atmosphere as I can manage. Sketch of what the final area will look like (where you fight the boss). 
Without the middle ground elements. 
Still have to fix the yucky bark on the trees. All of this is still in it's WIP stages though. WIP run animation 
I have a looooot of other stuff that I've scrapped up to this point, but I'm a bit happy in the direction that this is going. Feng Zhu's videos have been helping a lot, I think. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 02 November 2014 at 10:22am
Someone told me I shouldn't focus too much on detailing the scenes immediately, so now I'm moving on to designing the pinnacle. Planning for this to be a cutscene type of thing that shows after you beat the boss. Will be touching this up and the forest mockup later.
I don't really know much about perspective, so a lot of stuff was just eyeballed. |
Posted By: Finlal
Date Posted: 02 November 2014 at 10:55am
Perspective is allright. Everything else looks good too. |
Posted By: SuperTurnip
Date Posted: 02 November 2014 at 11:10am
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I'm just a little stunned. You are an extremely talented artist! I've got a few things to learn from you...
For the perspective view, what is happening in the space between the mountains and the pinnacle (which is gorgeous, by the way)? It is empty, and even a fade into mist would help give it a sense of space. For the forest background, I'm not a fan of how you drew the leaves in poofy spheres. Try fluffing them together a bit, like the roughed out leaves on the closer trees. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 03 November 2014 at 9:35am
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@Finlal
Yeah still working on the perspective, just starting to learn how to do two-point. Thanks mon! @SuperTurnip Likewise, I've learned a lot of stuff from examining your work : ) That's a good idea! But instead of mist, I decided to add clouds (so... I guess this game will be taking place really high up in the sky now :P). As for the leaves, those were just hastily put there, they definitely won't be staying poofy like that -- I'm going to try to keep the leaves consistent with the leaves in the previous forest pic (though I did tone down on the puffiness a bit). Looking forward to your newest aquatic piece btw. 
Also did a big palette change (that obviously still needs working on). wipgif http://i.imgur.com/127z0VU.gif |
Posted By: DrTripwire
Date Posted: 03 November 2014 at 1:24pm
| I love the new palette. Definitely shows two distinct areas. Great start to this one! |
Posted By: Mr.Fahrenheit
Date Posted: 03 November 2014 at 3:22pm
| Yeah, those detailed tree's were definitely pillowshaded. |
Posted By: jtfjtfjtf
Date Posted: 03 November 2014 at 10:06pm
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Looking good ADrawingMan! Since you like Feng Zhu look up Scott Robertson for perspective stuff. He has a youtube channel and was the guy who taught Feng the draw through method. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 04 November 2014 at 8:49am
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@DrTripwire
Thankyou! @Mr.Fahrenheit Yeah, the reason that they are pillow shaded is because I tried to make it look like the light in the background was seeping around and hitting both the left and right side of the trees. It's hard to make it look like light is hitting both sides without making it pillow shaded : ( The trees in the middle ground kind of (unintentionally) hide the trunks now though. Will be fixing those for sure though : ) @jtfjtfjtf Oh, I just looked him up, he has some really great vehicle designs, but I do wish he had more tutorials like Feng, though this guy's videos are really informative to watch too. Thanks for mentioning him, I'll be watching more of his vids for sure! 
Changed the whole concept again- but I think I'm happy with the initial design now. Also, having multiple pinnacles like this might be even better for gameplay, since it would mean that there can be bridges connecting each structure, or something like that, which would allow for the player to venture outside more often instead of being inside the pinnacles all the time. The light from the back also makes everything seem more epic, I think. Here's the updated wip gif that shows some more steps http://i.imgur.com/AW1altX.gif |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 10 November 2014 at 1:27pm
Small-ish update. Also started drawing some some building designs.
The buildings are really cartoony looking atm, so working on fixing that. I'm trying to go for a washed out, almost dead village. |
Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 11 November 2014 at 6:27pm
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I think it currently looks toony because of the outlines and flat coloring. Should go away as you get closer towards a finished piece.
For an empty village, this is a huge f**king inn. There'd be a lot of buildings around it, I reckon, a pretty sizeable town. I figure you want to build something that was doing okay until some catastropic event? Even then, still I think it's rather large. Also, you're working on a flat piece of grass here, so it would be much easier and cheaper to expand in width than to make a building higher. Tall buildings tend to be common in places where ground is at a premium, such as a town center. Your cinematic image shows steep mountains, which makes sense for such a cramped building style, but I'd imagine the buildings to be anchored to and embedded in the rock a bit more. I know this might go a bit far, but I just wanna try and keep your worldbuilding logical and consistent. =P Also, consider making some modular reusable pieces. For example, if you make a 256x256 tile of bricks, you could easily cut and paste parts from it, and then just tweak them a bit. Similarly, if you have a wooden texture of 256px tall, you can easily grab any random piece of it and have a 50,75 or 100 pixel beam. And just like you have your standard barrel copied a few times just with different tops, have an assortment of doors/windows/lamps/etcetera that you can plop down and tweak a bit. ------------- ▄▄█ ▄▄█ ▄█▄ ▄█▄ |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 12 November 2014 at 6:55am
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Yeah, I'm ditching the outlines completely now and just trying to make the base of the building, working out much better this way now.
Haha, yeah, by 'dead' I don't mean small population, but more like the plants are dying, the buildings are washed out looking, stuff like that. These two pics are a good example of what I'm shooting for http://www.pencilwoodstudios.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/050_184_B.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0u4v0vUqHLE/RsyGpikU44I/AAAAAAAAARk/VzXhqAhiAfk/s1600/050_318.jpg Also, Korgoth of Barbaria is what I'm trying to get the inside of the Inn to look like, a cross between that and the refs above (with a touch of medieval in it?). In any case, I'll try to work it out :P Great point about the height of the buildings! I'll switch that up so they're not so tall. Oh yes, I'm definitely going to try to make things as modular as possible (shingles on roofs, bricks etc). Thank you for the valuable feedback! I'll be posting another updated image soon! |
Posted By: Limes
Date Posted: 12 November 2014 at 9:24am
| I think it looks excellent as a cartoony village but that's just my opinion. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 27 November 2014 at 2:37am
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Thought I'd post a few things again since it's been a bit more than two weeks.
I've gotten a lot further with buildings, gone through so many iterations and it's still not close to being done. It doesn't really have that 'dead' feel that I wanted to have, but so far the design seems to be working pretty well (and now it doesn't look as medieval-ish as the previous wips) I'm now trying to sketch up designs on paper before just starting to sit down and immediately go to pixelling, the process takes wayy too long -even when I don't procrastinate a ton. 
Also a tileset that I may or may not end up using. I was going to use them for the forest, but I'm not entirely certain if I will. 
The really cool thing about using this type of perspective in a side-view game is that you don't really run into the problem of the character's legs floating above stairs :P @Limes I think the cartoony style looks pretty neat too, but it just wouldn't fit in with all the other assets. |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 27 November 2014 at 4:58am
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The grass tiles are great. The sky colors are awesome. ------------- |
Posted By: revolver
Date Posted: 27 November 2014 at 11:52am
| brilliant pixels! i only wish i could pixel like this haha |
Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 27 November 2014 at 12:14pm
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While it might be possible to make planks that curved for a roof, I think it'd be much simpler to have them horizontally mounted, http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/old-large-white-wooden-barn-curved-roof-26213665.jpg - like this . And the brick wall currently feels very cylindrical because of the soft/wide gradient in the shadowing. If you're going for an AO type effect, you should focus more on http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/042/0/d/ambient_occlusion_by_ctl3d-d4pe3se.jpg - corners .
I quite like the volume you have in the grass overhang, although the colors could use some tweaking. I'd expect the top plane to be the brightest color, so to have that one high-sat green in there seems weird. Also, you've got some obvious repetition going on, but you already know that. You're using a flat color for the ground. Something I'd usually commend as it makes the game a bit more simple to visually process. But. If you're going to go with the whole floating islands in the sky (or at least steep cliffs) story... this would be an excellent way to have your cake AND eat it. Showing detail underground AND having it work well with the mythos isn't something you see all that often. I might make the stairs a wee bit more head-on in perspective, a 1:1 ratio instead of 2:1. Also consider adding in a sort of hill behind the stairs to give context of why the stairs aren't simply on the same plane as the camera. And even though you might not use them, I feel your slanted forest tiles are a teensy bit of a wasted opportunity. With this perspective (projection, to be accurate) you can screw around quite a bit without having floating characters, like you mention. So why is that ramp such a flat/artificial angle? https://artisticexpression.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/cave-story-mimiga-village-psp-port.jpg - Cave Story , while seen from a perfect side-view, has wobbly tiles, and that makes it feel a lot more natural. ------------- ▄▄█ ▄▄█ ▄█▄ ▄█▄ |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 29 November 2014 at 2:29pm
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@Jal
Hey thanks Jal! Trying to be a little weird with the sky palette, I'm getting some cool results :P @revolver There's always time to learn! 
@PixelSnader Sorry for my bad response time! I was considering making the planks look like that, but imo I kind prefer the more curvy style that I have atm, it gives it a more magical feel, I think (though they obviously still need a lot more touching up on). I did however change the shadows on the bricks, with that reference being super helpful. I think the colours of the grass are looking better now imo (maybe too saturated when compared to the building though?), but the actual pixelling is still pretty messy and reeeally repetitive -but I'll be making some tiles to break up the pattern when I get a hang of what I want the general feel of the grass and cliff to be. Also, the rocks kind of look like they are being viewed from a weird perspective so I'll be changing that (and making them more triangly). Not so sure how the stairs look at a 1:1 ratio, but maybe I just executed them poorly? Also still trying out your hill idea (still very WIPy) Yeah, that would be kind of a big waste if I just ditched them. You're totally right about the straight slant on the ramps though, I think that I can give them one more shot and try to spice them up and make them more natural. I'm also aware of the wooden supports near the top of the building looking weird (working on fixing those too) :P |
Posted By: Mr.Fahrenheit
Date Posted: 29 November 2014 at 5:08pm
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Damn ADM, you've gotten so much better at pixelling in tha past year. You really are an inspiration!
The colors are spot on, the pixelling is crisp. This is some high quality stuff man, it really is. My only crit on the finished stuff is I think the transition from the edge tile of the grass and the actual part that you walk on is a little too linear and could use a little breaking up. Great work! Edit: Missed your latest update. I like the one before it better :/ |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 30 November 2014 at 10:01am
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@Mr.Fahrenheit
Thanks man! Hearing that gives me a lot of motivation! Doh, maybe it's the rocks that's making it worst than the previous version? I did redo those tiles though, so maybe it's better now? 
Only problem now is that they kind of differ in style from the grass. Now I'm torn between switching the grass, or switching the rocks again :( I also made a second version with reduced highlights so it doesn't pop so much. 
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Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 30 November 2014 at 10:08am
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I like the new rocks, to me they actually feel more in line with the style of the rest of it than the previous ones did! The previous ones were much more reliant on lineart than everything else. If the new ones seem too detailed to you, maybe flatten some of the planes instead of having everything round? So, something halfway between the two - no linearty borders between rocks, but less detail and subtle shapes. I think since these are meant to be floating islands, it's a bit odd to have the fading to black, though. Is there any particular reason you're making the rock-grass interface made of such large tiles instead of smaller tiles you could mix and match? Killing the repetition would be difficult with such large tiles. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 01 December 2014 at 2:20pm
Hey, I took your suggestion and made 2 more. The third one tiles both horizontally and vertically, yay or nay?
Yeah, I'm not planning on the rocks to fade to black or anything like that, that's just like that since I'm still experimenting with tiles. They won't be there once I make some more progress with the rocks. And yeah, there's no real particular reason why I made those ones 64x64, was just goofing around I guess and they turned out that way :P I will be sticking to 32x32 from now one though (with the exception of the 32x64 tile above). --- Also taking a shot at a rocky texture for the building. I'll try to finish the the whole house up the next time I post. 
I'm also thinking about how I can make the pillar have a darker side, and lighter side that is made out of tiles like this http://www.dpadstudio.com/images/otusIsland.png - http://www.dpadstudio.com/images/otusIsland.png |
Posted By: DatMuffinMan
Date Posted: 01 December 2014 at 7:33pm
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Man, every time I check back here you're doing something else that's enormous and great.
As far as game design goes, yeah, the art is totally brilliant so far, especially with this latest house scene/level/whatever. But there's really no need to have that much rock at the bottom. I'd rather have a closer view of the platform and maybe a few layers of rock beneath so that I know it's not just floating sh*t in the middle of nowhere; the extra "stuff" is sorta distracting, and probably wastes a lot of time to make it in the first place. Also the "grass line" where it borders the rock is really repetitive, so you might want to make a few more tiles for that alone. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 03 December 2014 at 2:39pm
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@DMM
I see your point about the rocks, and I totally agree! However, I kind of have to show the rocks under the pillar because of this problem http://i.imgur.com/DCvSXUZ.png (hyperlinking isn't working?) I have to figure out a way to tell the player that they can walk past pillars like the ones above and the only way I can seem to do that is with showing all of the rock below the grass. There's no good way for the player to realize that they can walk past pillars like the one in the pic above if there's mostly black underneath the grass. It's an annoying problem, and you're right, it does really make the workload a lot bigger :( However, I will be able to use that method for things that don't take place outside (inside buildings, dungeons etc) and for platforms that you wont be walking under. Unless I do manage to think of a method where I can use black and just reveal a bit of rock near the surface of the grass like you said, then I will definitely roll with that. But until then it's a super annoying problem :' ( The house is pretty much done though. I know the palette needs a re-working, and I'm not too sure how good the wood looks (especially the wooden roof), but a second pair of eyes to give some crits would be appreciated! 
edit: @DMM nvm, fml I'm stupid, I can do it like you said. They make it work using your idea in this image pretty well http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/7608/z79x.png . Guess I'm going to go with that method now 
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Posted By: DatMuffinMan
Date Posted: 03 December 2014 at 6:47pm
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yeah I don't see why drawing less rocks would be that big of a deal.
Your textures are inconsistent though - the yellow clay on the house has the textured shadows that are more than enough to sell the form, but then on the bricks you outlined every single stone. Just one or two of them should be good enough, and that area isn't too important anyway it seems. Also it's weird how there's more contrast on the background (clouds) than in the foreground, but the sky's color scheme is really pretty so far. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 04 December 2014 at 7:34pm
Update. Rocks don't tile, but they will soon :P
Have to think of what to put in that huge blank space on the front of the house. |
Posted By: DatMuffinMan
Date Posted: 04 December 2014 at 8:09pm
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I kinda liked the old textures/colors on the yellow parts of the house before. Bricks are much better now.
Fool's old website (down now I believe) had a great set of house animations, some details I remember was a water drain/pipe going down, a rooster (?) coming out of a window, etc. I think with the palette you've chosen, there's almost no way to get a totally realistic look, so you should go and exaggerate things to make assets more interesting. Somewhere along the way you lost the charm that the flags on the roof and the pointy wood planks added to the atmosphere. |
Posted By: RebeaLeion
Date Posted: 05 December 2014 at 1:28pm
| the new house is great! (with blue texture) |
Posted By: Mr.Fahrenheit
Date Posted: 05 December 2014 at 1:59pm
| I agree with dmm and I still think the rocks looked the best on your nov. 27th post |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 05 December 2014 at 2:23pm
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@DMM
Yeah, looking at Fool's stuff was pretty good for inspiration. I tried switching the palette up and brought back the old building textures, but it still looks cartoony :/ @Rebea Hey, thanks a lot! @Mr.Fahrenheit Doh, what about now? I could always switch back to those, but I'm not sure how well those types of rocks would fit into a cliff type, sort of biome. 
Erg, maybe I'm overthinking things and should just roll with it after touching up some of the rough spots(though it's still not at the stage that I could say I'm happy with it)? At this point it's been a little over a month since I've been working on fleshing out the building design, which is waaaaay too long, especially after going through so many different building styles  Going to go and pick apart Chasm's and Owlboy's palettes now :P
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Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 05 December 2014 at 2:48pm
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What's making the banner move under the beam instead of just hanging down from it? xP I think you have a lovely style happening here, but it sounds like cartoony isn't what you're aiming for? I think it all so far fits together well and matches the character art. If you want a less cartoony look, you'll probably want finer textures (no large-scale details, e.g. no giant curves in that wood, no big rocks in the wall texture) and duller colours. However, I think the style as-is, especially with the current wall textures on the fronts of the buildings, has a lot of charm and reads very well. The grey walls look odd. I think the previous colours worked fine. If the walls felt bland, consider adding some details like a big crack in the plaster or some farm tools propped against the wall. As much as I love turf roofs, I think they look out of place here, especially if they're not platforms you can jump onto. Since the grass-green is, at least in this area, a dominant "walkable" colour, the grassy roofs immediately read as also walkable. If you really want to keep the turf despite that (or if it is walkable) but make it more believable - give it more thickness! Grass needs dirt to grow in, and will tend to grow/overhang beyond its container instead of being bound neatly by it. I like the rock colour. It's less rock-like, but I think it matches the warmth of everything else in the scene better. Maybe you could try having a mix of brown and grey? It might end up too distracting, but I think it's worth a shot. By the way, about making it clear that you can walk past the rock-pillars: how about making the interior black, but having texture closer to the bottoms of the pillars, perhaps even with some grass growing up onto the rocks, to show that it's a smooth transition and not a wall? Having that extra grass would make the walkable grassy area a little wider and thus more noticeable, as well. |
Posted By: Limes
Date Posted: 05 December 2014 at 11:06pm
| Those grass roofs XP killin me I love it. |
Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 06 December 2014 at 6:19am
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Hey man, this looks really cool.
Just want to point out a few things that stand that I think can be quickly remedied. I've circled them in red and numbered them. 
1. I really like the support beam, don't think it would hurt to do it on the lower part of the building too. 2. The building looks like 2 entities rather than one. A shadow might help, removing the beam there would definitely help. 3. This ones not so much a problem, I've seen snake use this to great effect in owlboy so far, but I guess the question is where and how to use it. I don't have this answer, but it doesn't look quite right yet. 4, Looks flat, needs a bit of refinement to match the light source used on the house. Right now it creates a bit of an optical allusion in that its hard to see where it is in the foreground. Also theme wise, adding grass on top of the beams might add to the look and design of the house. |
Posted By: Mr.Fahrenheit
Date Posted: 06 December 2014 at 7:05am
| Its your game man, I definitely agree that they are more in with the style of everything else. Its not like they look bad or anything haha. Whatever you think looks best. |
Posted By: skittle
Date Posted: 08 December 2014 at 3:39pm
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Got super busy on the weekend D:
@eyshia I was thinking it was draping over the wooden supports or something like that -but it doesn't sound like it looks like that though :( Well, my plan was more-or-less trying to get something that looked similar to Chasm or Owlboy in terms of style. Not exactly realistic, but not totally cartoony, however I don't want everything to be washed out with no colour either :l I'm sure I'll find the style that I'm looking for as I make more progress though. I'm going to try to keep everything as it is atm, then go back to it after I pump out some more things. Farm tools are a bit of a hassle since I'm not using outlines, and the colours that make up the tools would be pretty similar to the colours used on the house, so I'm still thinking about that. I made the grey walls a bit more blue, does it still not look right? I was trying to get some cold colours for the shadows. And that is a fantastic idea! That could totally sell the illusion of making the player think they could walk past it. I'm going to keep that in mind! @Limes NOOooo! Don't die limes! :P @Damian Thanks for pointing those things out! I tried touching down on all the things you circled. For no.3 though, I just didn't add a rocky texture there before posting :P But does the blue just not look right in general? I ditched the rock sticking out, but I'm also going to put that on hold because I'm getting to the point where I really need to move on to other assets (explained further down) I'm not sure if I completely understood what you meant by no.1, did you mean make another beam above the door? I did get rid of the beam in no.2 but it still doesn't look fully connected (will be working on that more). @Mr.Fahrenheit Yeah, but you did give me something to consider though. It's not like any of this stuff is final, I'll more than likely be redoing the rocks all over again, so it might just turn out looking a bit like the older tiles. 
I also started working on the interior which I'll try to get to a more presentable stage before posting. However, since this has already taken up a huge chunk of time I think I'm going to start working on other things (related to this project of course), then re-iterate on them in the future to make them look better. Because I mean, if it takes this long to make just one asset, I don't think I have much of a chance at making a whole game, so maybe it would just be better to pump out a lot of assets and then go back over them later, even if I'm not totally happy with the current state of how things look. |
Posted By: DrTripwire
Date Posted: 08 December 2014 at 4:05pm
| I don't know if the grass on the right side of the roof would be seen from here. The little tip near the flags, that is. |
Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 09 December 2014 at 7:00am
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The blue shadows look too much like those walls are painted a different colour, rather than being the same yellowish colour in open (blue) shade. Those shadows would be appropriate for a white building, but are just too different to read as shadows for the yellowish colour. Unfortunately, yellow tends to turn to unsightly greyish browns in open shade, which is why in artwork they're usually shaded with reds and purples instead of blues, even if it's not entirely consistent with everything else. It tends to look fine as long as it reads as "cooler" than the lit sides, even if it's not actually "cold". On a related topic: two sections of the house still don't feel connected, because you're jumping from cool shadow to warm shadow. There's no reason that the shadows on the fronts should be different from the shadows on the sides, use the same colours for them. The texture should provide sufficient visual interest. If the values aren't dark enough, then try adding an extra shade. If it all feels too warm, you could make all the shadows slightly cooler. Don't treat the sides as being in totally different lighting conditions, that's the important thing. I think your updated roofs look fine, and having them mostly in shadow helps them read as non-walkable. Great job on that! I think it's fine that the grass is visible on the far side of the roof, but maybe it should be pulled back a little bit. To look the way it does, it'd need to be growing downwards on a vertical surface, which grass doesn't tend to do. Edit: As for cartooniness: what makes your houses look cartoony is those curved wooden beams. They don't read as realistic, so they read as cartoony. Those shapes are possible, but are impractical to produce, so you only see them on buildings meant to be shown off. Curves on wooden function-oriented buildings are produced from multiple straight sections instead. Perhaps that could help you with making it feel less cartoony? |
Posted By: Limes
Date Posted: 10 December 2014 at 12:54pm
| Looking at some of your earliest pixel art made me wonder how you got to this level in 2 years. |