Game-related pixels thread/critique

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chill-e
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Post by chill-e »

It's nice that people are using my tutorial :D Anyways, some CC:

Rocks:
For the random darker shade on a rock, I literally throw them on randomly. But, be sure not to throw an extremely contrasting shade on to the rock. Directly on one specific shade, randomly dot the next darker shade on, and ONLY on that base shade, then repeat on to the next as necessary.

In addition, try throwing on an additional dark shade extreme on the bottom of the rock. Think of it as shadows of the blades of grass. Similarly, add a darker shade of green just behind the rock to ask as a shadow for the rock.

Sign:
First off, you should probably make the sign bigger. Use the whole tile! You got 20x20 pixels to use, don't be shy. And while you're at it, make the actual board of the sign bigger as well. There's way too much stick.

So, as a technical thing, you should make the top of the pole darker so that it stands out a bit more. Add highlights to the top so the board doesn't look flat. And the texture should be more lines rather than random pixels. Think of the texture on a wood table. You see a lot of long twisting and intertwining lines.

Water:
Since my water tutorial was brought up, there's not much else to say, lol

Bricks:
Textures are fine in this one. The only problem is the practicality/realism. If a bricklayer laid all the bricks as stacks, it would probably fall over and not be so supportive. This is what i sort of see from your bricks. The vertical lines are much too close together making it look more like a tiled wall rather than a supportive brick wall.

... uhh, that's all i have to say for now. Honestly, I'm not sure if what i said was cohesive or not, but forgive me, for I am dead beat tired. Anyways, my next tutorial will be on buildings and architecture, so I'll cover more on wood textures then.
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Newbie Newtype
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Post by Newbie Newtype »

If you're going to make bricks differently sized, I would be more consistent with it. What it looks like right now is that you were tiling but then ran out of room. I would really differ brick size horizontally rather than vertically.
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Momoka
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Post by Momoka »

Twinconclusive wrote:I like that your bricks aren't all the same size, regardless of whether real bricks could actually work like that, as it takes away from the monotony of tiles.
Yeah. I made more uniform bricks, and they're more realistic, but I don't think they look as good. I feel like if I took that aesthetic and applied it to some kind of "chaos realm" kinda place (all-around, things not quite right), I could make something pretty cool to look at. But you gotta know the rules before you can break the rules, etc.
If you're going to make bricks differently sized, I would be more consistent with it. What it looks like right now is that you were tiling but then ran out of room. I would really differ brick size horizontally rather than vertically.
I'll try that. I feel like there's a middle ground to be had here.
With a palette this dark and saturated, it's pretty difficult to pick apart colors that are too similar.
That's a feature, not a bug. Personal aesthetic, I admit, but I don't like colors that are too far apart. The palette is dark just because I'm mostly trying to sprite dark things like rocks.
*Yoink*. Thanks.


Chill-e, I'm going to apply your suggestions and see how it goes before responding to you in any detail, but thanks.
Last edited by Momoka on Mon May 04, 2009 5:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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the drizzle
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Post by the drizzle »

I like that your bricks aren't all the same size, regardless of whether real bricks could actually work like that, as it takes away from the monotony of tiles.
Sure but there are definitely ways to break up the monotony while maintaining realism. You could make cracks in some bricks, gaps in the mortar, grass growing in spots, a lot of other things.
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(+[]::)<GBA
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Post by (+[]::)<GBA »

however realism is a must if your going to use some kind of real life object in my own personal opinion. takes away from the imagination part of the game. hard to imagine chaotic brick walls in a serene world if you know what i mean. my 2 cents
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Momoka
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Post by Momoka »

Image

Realistic (but bland!) bricks. Two different attempts at a water tile, though differing only by palette. Based off the posted tutorial, but I think something's wrong. The tips of the waves don't look very good, and there's something off about the whole thing.

Don't think I'm going to get around to the sign tonight, but I did a decent amount of pixelwork tonight, so at least I'm getting something done.

ETA - Note to self: Make a "top wall" and "wall side" for those bricks. The edges look weird when not tiled to things.
however realism is a must if your going to use some kind of real life object in my own personal opinion. takes away from the imagination part of the game. hard to imagine chaotic brick walls in a serene world if you know what i mean. my 2 cents
.....

What?

Anyway, I think there's a place for stylization in graphics, but that's not someplace I'm quite ready to go right now. It looks cool, and I'll come back to it when I'm more experienced and better able to judge it. For now, realism.
Last edited by Momoka on Mon May 04, 2009 6:10 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Uncommon
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Post by Uncommon »

The bricks shouldn't line up vertically. If you look at most, if not all, brick walls, they will <a href="http://www.pixel2life.com/twodded/staff ... ig-zag.</a> You can variate on brick length if you like, but most walls won't.

Also, I'm not sure if it wasn't an issue before because of the brick pattern or what, but that crack is really straight. It looks more like a slash.
The water looks pretty good, just a little too griddy.
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Post by Newbie Newtype »

I hope I'm not too nitpicky, but both your bricks and your sign are too dark as well. They're nearly black in an environment that doesn't call for such dark foreground objects.

(I usually work on a medium grey background to get desired brightness of things).

I'm a fan of dark graphics, but it's also important to be able to discern details.
Last edited by Newbie Newtype on Mon May 04, 2009 9:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

If you get rid of the texture of the water, it'll look good. Keep it with just the circles and a nice solid blue.
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lost.pebble
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Post by lost.pebble »

@Momoka: I'm loving your grass tiles, and the rock, but the signpost and the bricks need some work. As said earlier (I think), bricks are not stacked like that on buildings, go and look at a brick building and get some reference - it'll help you. The water is not too bad actually, you've just got to make it not seem tiled - even though it is tiled - you've got to make the one side of the tile "flow" into the other side of it (indiscriminately) so that you're water doesn't seem like a grid of water tiles when you place them together. Always keep that in mind when you work on a tile that is going to be placed repetitively in an area.

Anyway,

This is something I've been working on lately.

Image

Any critique would be most welcome.
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Spoonweaver
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Post by Spoonweaver »

looking good lost.pebble. The only thing I could suggest is the water be a bit less water and a bit more blue. But that's not really that big a deal. Your work is great lost.pebble, keep it up.
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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

I like the water. I wonder how it animates?
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Momoka:

I'll side with the "water is too griddy" camp. But I think getting rid of that outlining border will do loads to fix it.

One thing I've been discovering about water lately is that you can do wonders just by using Layer 1 as a shoreline. This way you can keep one animating tile for the water and still have a decent topography in your game. This will also give you some practice in drawing sand.

Lost.pebble:

I actually think that water is amazing. I wouldn't change anything about it. The only thing you might want to add if you haven't already is some crashbreak along the cliffs. I could see some serious ocean spitting going on here.
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Momoka
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Post by Momoka »

Pepsi Ranger wrote:Momoka:

I'll side with the "water is too griddy" camp. But I think getting rid of that outlining border will do loads to fix it.

One thing I've been discovering about water lately is that you can do wonders just by using Layer 1 as a shoreline. This way you can keep one animating tile for the water and still have a decent topography in your game. This will also give you some practice in drawing sand.
Outlining border? Wha? There's quite a bit going on around those edges.

I'm also a little confused as to how to make the water tile properly. Here, I'm going to try again, and this time I'll post the step-by-step so you can tell me exactly where I've gone off.


Step 1: Make a blue fill.

Image

Step 2: Make the endpoint using a blue two shades brighter. I make the endpoint across from each other so that it'll tile properly if rotated (in theory)

Image

Step 3: Randomly connect the endpoints.

Image

Step 4: Going up another two shades of blue, highlight the intersections. Go down another shade and fill in around them. Surprisingly few intersections this particular roll; normally I'd have more.

Image

Step 5: Take a shade of blue one shade down from the line to smooth out said line.

Image

Step 6: Take a dark blue, shade it in, and dither whatever's left. At this point, right at the end, I realize that I've done something fundamentally wrong, because this tile is terrible, and makes the baby deity cry. Not sure what happened, though.

Image
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Mogri
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Post by Mogri »

[s]Leave out step 6 for the love of all that is holy[/s] :gonk:
(edit) step 6 only looks really bad when it's zoomed in, I guess. Up to you, but I still think step 5 is better

Step 5 looks fine except for the way you connected your points. Your squiggles make it look like postmodern art or something.
Last edited by Mogri on Mon May 04, 2009 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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