What kind of art? What kind of future? What kind of engine?

[SwordPlay]

Hi folks! Consider this my informal introduction.
I'm a wandering artist of words, colour and melody.
I luuuuurve making video games, especially using CUSTOM.
I've been using it on/off for many years, especially to draw and doodle in.
However, I never really got into it that much due to the steep learning curve.
Anyhoo, I was thinking about the engine, and what might happen in the future
I really enjoyed the 8bit graphics set by Fnrrf Ygm Schnish (???) and I was feeling inspired.... It's really a good idea to share some resouces for the engine to show off its capability, feed the imagination, and help those less skilful than us.
Just like James did in releasing the engine!

It'd be nice if OHRRPGCE had a full compliment of resources.
I mean, I know it already does, with Vikings of Midgard, and Fnrrf Ygm Schnish' 8bit graphics.
But what about animated enemies? WHAT ABOUT THEM!?
Yeah. But, no, I've seen some of the art you guys have come up with, and you guys are way better than me, probably.
And I have nothing to offer you, really, except, maybe if people want, we can undertake a project(s) (possibly with the community, you folks) and make something cool.

The things you see here aren't finished by a long shot btw.
If there is something (genre/style) you'd like to see, why not

Please note the templates for walkabouts. I made it for you guys, as a present!
I know that SD is better for emotions and things like that, but a realistic style is fine too.
Maybe a mixture of both? who knows.

I hope I am able to produce something worthy of the community, in every sense.

[SwordPlay]

Oh and here's a picture of me sitting at my keyboard and using CUSTOM.
It's becoming really handy now that my mouse is broken
(it's on the left in blue. Hiiiii)

p.s. using Ctrl + '+' and Ctrl + '-' makes most web browsers zoom in and out :p

[SwordPlay]

I know you guys like to have contests. I think that's fun!
I would sincerely love to join in, making games, graphics, music, writing and more!
In the end, we can enjoy eachothers work.
I am also on a journey, trying to improve as an artist.
I think fielding requests and learning how to take criticism is a big part of perfection.
Most of all it's about drawing inspiration, from the world, people, friends and things.
I hope to be inspired by, and to inspire you, to make awesome games, resources and generally lives!

Let's share ideas and suggestions!
I can't wait for the next contest(s)! I intend to enter (time permitting)

[TMC]

Wow. Thanks for these! We should link to them from the wiki (and ideally upload things there as well; well, I guess just the tilesets and templates since the others are unfinished? Uploading can be pretty tedious.)

I like your drawing style. And the tiles too. Doodling poses is definitely a lot of fun. I think some of these which look incomplete at first glance are actually fully-posed, once you see the form. You could even make a game with monochromatic graphics like these. But the big problem is contrast to the background tiles/backdrops, which is why games like that often are nearly entirely black and blank. Not good looking at all.

I'm really tempted to string together those sprites from your second post into some dance sequence. Maybe that was actually what you had half in mind for some of them?

But what about animated enemies? WHAT ABOUT THEM!?

I voted for animations :)

Actually I was getting worried that I would implement animated enemies... and then what? How am I meant to demo them? I can see it now, I'll spend 4 hours browsing opengameart.org looking for something suitable, the right resolution, etc. There are, naturally, zero OHR resources!

So, there's a gap in the market for you, animated enemies and templates :)

Please note the templates for walkabouts. I made it for you guys, as a present!
I know that SD is better for emotions and things like that, but a realistic style is fine too.

What's SD?

I think those walkabout templates look pretty nice, except there's a really strong flashing effect as the swap; it's better with the palette modified a bit. Maybe with another animation frame :)


Oh no, you tricked me into starting on zooming in the sprite editor - now I've got yet another distraction from animations!

[BMR]

But what about animated enemies? WHAT ABOUT THEM!?

I voted for animations

Actually I was getting worried that I would implement animated enemies... and then what? How am I meant to demo them? I can see it now, I'll spend 4 hours browsing opengameart.org looking for something suitable, the right resolution, etc. There are, naturally, zero OHR resources!

So, there's a gap in the market for you, animated enemies and templates

Dude, just say the word and I'll have a bunch of animated enemy sprites for you ;) Just tell me the resolution you want and I'll whip something up post haste.

[SwordPlay]

thanks. None of these works are finished, just rudimentary drafts.
SD stands for "super deformed" and is analogous to chibi (large faces)
Yep, need to match palettes to make sure sprites/tiles work well and don't burn the ol' eyes
I was thinking we might have a tileset contest, and people can put down things they'd like to see in a tileset like this:

-stair tile
-tv (animated)
-cupboard
-bar
-sword stand
etc.

and someone (me... well, us, I know there're lotsa great artists here :p) can try to make a tileset with all those features... perhaps we could even collaborate and share/mix tiles to make a SUPER TILESET :p

If you wanna make a dancing thingy go ahead. But they don't quite match perfectly, have different proportions and such, so it'd look like it was warping.

I look forward to zooming! and animations! woot!

[Wendigo]

I was thinking we might have a tileset contest, and people can put down things they'd like to see in a tileset like this:

-stair tile
-tv (animated)
-cupboard
-bar
-sword stand
etc.

and someone (me... well, us, I know there're lotsa great artists here :p) can try to make a tileset with all those features... perhaps we could even collaborate and share/mix tiles to make a SUPER TILESET :p

This sounds like a really cool idea. I'd definitely be interested in participating.
But it would need to be strictly coordinated in order to make multiple artists create tiles in the same art style.

Maybe we could do it as some sort of "chain thread":

• The first participant creates an empty tileset with just a floor tile, walls and corners and posts it on the forum.
  Additionally he/she creates a room out of them and adds an image of the complete room (1:1 ratio) to the thread too.
  
  Then the next participants have a reference for creating assets harmonizing with the art style of the previous posters. They then create some assets on their own, add the new tiles to the existing tileset and post it together with a modified version of the room with their own assets included.

So as the thread progresses the tileset should grow bit by bit until we have a complete tileset.

What do you think?

[BMR]

Certainly sounds doable, but yeah, you would need strong coordination to make sure the styles are similar. There's a very wide variety of styles among the artists here, something to keep in mind.

[SwordPlay]

I think the format should be like a contest, and we should challenge each other to draw in other styles, for example, setting a theme which everyone should strive for.
Another idea might be to imitate each others style, or using a really basic style which can be easily edited to be more continuous. I think we would have to leave shading until the end to make things consistent.

I think the best way would be for spriters to learn more genres, adapt their spriting to be more versatile, able to create sprites to fit with another style, although not everyone will want to or be able to.
Still I think it is an admirable goal to copy the style of another so as to become seamless!

Another way might be to simply choose a tile, we all make submissions for it (more than 1 possibly) and we stitch together the best tilesets (more than 1 hopefully) and if an artist keeps up with all the submission, should be able to stitch together their own tileset (at least 1 hopefully)

1. try to get everyone to use a similar style (difficult)
2. use a basic style and edit afterwards to make it consistent (easier)
3. have everyone copy and learn each others styles so that at least some stuff will fit (moderate)
4. make a lot of tiles and stitch the ones that work best (easy)
5. everyone put pants on your head and walk the dinosaur. you heard me.
6. have an editor who will bring our work in line using shading and a little light modification and make sure the styles match through, uh, editing
7. let people do their own thing, but try to create stuff that could fit in other peoples sets. this is good practice for spriting!

If we start off with some simple theme, such as 8-bit or some such, it should (theoretically) be easier.

Depends how comfortable you guys are at changing, adapting and learning styles.

8. We create a graphical monstrosity held together by a theme, idea, or feeling. This is appealing to me, cus it'd create some variety, and most games have different artists working on different parts of it anyway. Not sure, but might be funny, good for a laugh or create a cool parody type game?!

[TMC]

(Oops, sorry for the slow reply. Also, funny, I already forgot a few days ago that I was working on zooming; I'm working on THAT many things at once.)

Trying to imitate someone else's style would be a great exercise.

Drawing a whole tileset sounds a lot like work to me, since I almost always draw pixel art out of need, but just drawing a few tiles doesn't sound bad, and piecing together tiles to add something to an existing map out of it sounds like fun! Gradually building up an interesting map also helps to ensure a cohesive style (you can see straight away if something doesn't fit), allows natural editing-as-you go (eg adding variants of previous tiles necessary for them to actually fit together), sets up some one-up-manship, and means we end up with much more variety and creativity (not necessarily fitting on one OHR tileset), since someone else already drew the basics.

To that end, it makes sense to have more than one tileset/map/game passed around (maybe one per person?), in different styles to intimidate, and prevent bottlenecks when someone disappears.

Of course, this means that it would be a challenge or collab, not a contest. In fact you could just allow doing whatever/however much you want.
However, contests are probably more motivating. Hmm...


BMR, if you want to contribute some examples then draw some sprites you will actually use in a game once you can!

[SwordPlay]

I have tonnes of graphics that I'm playing with.

I'm actually firmly convinced that CUSTOM is the greatest spriting tool that ever happened to me (if only it supported layers/slices)

Anyways, I'm tired of clogging up the "show off your graphics" thread because what I'm posting isn't finished material and I feel embarrassed posting my sloppy unfinished crap.

hopefully this will motivate me to complete my games so i dont feel like a blowhard :p

[SwordPlay]

Even though I'm not really sure why, I've begun doodling an epic classical political rpg populated with animal/anthro characters.
I don't have any hope of finishing it, I'm just working throwing around some ideas and playing with palettes and such.

[charbile]

never give up hope of finishing it YOU ARE THE VIRTUOUS SWORD

Really liking the look. You'd have my vote in whatever contest. Maybe aim for something shorter--doesn't always have to be a 60 hour rpg, can have one or two dungeons and a good short story plot. There's more to rpg making than graphics / lots of stories to study and practice too.

[SwordPlay]

Thank you for the kind words and good advice. That was oddly reassuring.

[SwordPlay]

I had some inspiration.
I intend to release most of my work (art/music) for public use