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Jackard
Oct 28, 2007

We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

SGR posted:

Some bits and bops I've been working on:


Little late for a reply, but it took me a while to see the bridge against that background.

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anothergod
Apr 11, 2016

^^ Totally same. If you can desaturate and/or push those colors towards blue that'll help a lot.

Also, more sprites



I'm hoping to do a 90s japanese D&D punk rock thing with these sprites. Any crits or leads on reference material will be super cool. Thinking about getting a funimation account to stream Lodoss War.

Scut
Aug 26, 2008

Please remind me to draw more often.
Soiled Meat
^^^ these lil sprites are cute ^^^

Olive! posted:

It is the arrow keys.
e: is it possible you're using an old version of Aseprite or something?

It nudges the selected pixels but not the selection itself.

Jewel
May 2, 2009

Scut posted:

^^^ these lil sprites are cute ^^^


It nudges the selected pixels but not the selection itself.

Yeah I know what you're referring to; photoshop has arrows for nudging selection, ctrl+arrows for nudging the pixels

Shoehead
Sep 28, 2005

Wassup, Choom?
Ya need sumthin'?
Hi guys guess what I'm excited for?




That's right the Gears of War funko pop game

Olive!
Mar 16, 2015

It's not a ghost, but probably a 'living corpse'. The 'living dead' with a hell of a lot of bloodlust...

Scut posted:

It nudges the selected pixels but not the selection itself.
Ah. Just select/create an empty layer then.

lllllllllllllllllll
Feb 28, 2010

Now the scene's lighting is perfect!

MikeJF posted:

Nice. It looks like Sonic's been run through a Ristar filter.
Or perhaps if the Bitmap Brothers got the license to port Sonic on the Amiga. Well done.

anothergod
Apr 11, 2016

Olive! posted:

Ah. Just select/create an empty layer then.

Yes this is how you do it in aseprite

Odddzy
Oct 10, 2007
Once shot a man in Reno.
Has anyone here tested pyxel edit? I've done some stuff with it and enjoy the tile manager it has but I'm curious to know how the good pixel artists of this thread think it scales in comparison to Aseprite.

Misandry Cannon
Mar 7, 2012
new to pixel art and i've played around on paint.net but i honestly don't like how limiting it is. i've been shopping around for software and i've narrowed it down to two and i was hoping some goons with experience with them could help me decide:

Aseprite: the one i found the most coverage on, and the one i see the most around here. but the feature set seems a bit lacking for lack of better word.
Pro Motion NG: i have seen basically nothing on this one but it seems the most fully featured and the one im leaning toward. it seems like photoshop but made exclusively with pixel art in mind. but i dont want to just jump at a 40 dollar price tag because of similarities

i am a software idiot but i like to challenge myself

Scarodactyl
Oct 22, 2015


What features do you see as missing in aseprite?
Most of the pros I know use aseprite but promotion has a solid reputation, though I have not tried it myself.

Ash Crimson
Apr 4, 2010

Misandry Cannon posted:

new to pixel art and i've played around on paint.net but i honestly don't like how limiting it is. i've been shopping around for software and i've narrowed it down to two and i was hoping some goons with experience with them could help me decide:

Aseprite: the one i found the most coverage on, and the one i see the most around here. but the feature set seems a bit lacking for lack of better word.
Pro Motion NG: i have seen basically nothing on this one but it seems the most fully featured and the one im leaning toward. it seems like photoshop but made exclusively with pixel art in mind. but i dont want to just jump at a 40 dollar price tag because of similarities

i am a software idiot but i like to challenge myself

I'd recommend giving graphics gale a try

Scut
Aug 26, 2008

Please remind me to draw more often.
Soiled Meat

Odddzy posted:

Has anyone here tested pyxel edit? I've done some stuff with it and enjoy the tile manager it has but I'm curious to know how the good pixel artists of this thread think it scales in comparison to Aseprite.

Pyxel Edit is a good program. I still keep it for making tilesets. Aseprite has become my main workhorse pixel art tool. If you mostly make sprites and paintings, Aseprite is my tip. If you make tilesets, get Pyxel. Both are cheap, you money goes to indies, if you can afford both I say do it.

Scut
Aug 26, 2008

Please remind me to draw more often.
Soiled Meat

Scarodactyl posted:

What features do you see as missing in aseprite?
Most of the pros I know use aseprite but promotion has a solid reputation, though I have not tried it myself.

Aseprite could use easier selection tools, especially for modifying a selection on the fly. Tiling is not a strongpoint, although as my previous post mentioned there are some cheap specialized tools for tiling available. Aseprite added 2x1 pixels recently which is cool but last I checked I couldn't set a custom pixel ratio (more a fun feature than essential). I would love some sort of greyscale matching tool, or value matching, so that I can assemble palettes that have colours of different hue or saturation that match value to their neighbor.

anothergod
Apr 11, 2016

I use Aseprite, Paint.net, and Pyxel Edit in that order.

Everything Scut said about Aseprite and Pyxel Edit are spot on. Aseprite is for characters. Pyxel Edit is for tilesets. Both together are cheaper than Pro Motion NG alone. AFAIK PMNG is supposed to feel like very old pixel art programs, and it works for the old guard.

I use Paint.net for recoloring sprite sheets. It's also better with fonts, and I like its selection tools better than Aseprite. I might do paintings more in it than Aseprite, but IDK.

Shoehead
Sep 28, 2005

Wassup, Choom?
Ya need sumthin'?
Aseprite has some tiling options available atm but there was an amazing looking tileset mode that's still incomplete

Misandry Cannon
Mar 7, 2012
i decided on aseprite because its cheaper and the barrier to entry doesnt seem as daunting as PMNG.

so i spent like 3 hours trying to understand how lighting works and im still not sure. this is like the first image i drew so its bad, but im not sure if i did the lighting correctly on a fundamental level or if the color distinction and separation was too strong. i cant really pick up on those things quite yet.



thoughts? whatd i do wrong and how can i not do that wrong thing

anothergod
Apr 11, 2016

1) Your tree looks great

2) You have a lot of colors! You could try using index mode (Sprite > Color Mode > Index) to keep the color count down. I generally start with 2 or 3 colors per section: the color of the object, the highlight, and the shadow. Sometimes I'll have desaturated shadows or more reflected light.

3) I'd look into reflected light from the sky (blueish, usually) or changing the highlighted part to be more dawn (orange) or dusk (pink).

4) If you're starting out w/ pixel art you might want to try the "no stray pixels" rule. That means that every pixel must have a partner either expressly adjacent or connected by a diagonal.

This tutorial is really helpful
https://www.androidarts.com/art_tut.htm

Scut
Aug 26, 2008

Please remind me to draw more often.
Soiled Meat

Misandry Cannon posted:



thoughts? whatd i do wrong and how can i not do that wrong thing

You are using some transparency (alpha) in that sprite and I would recommend against that. It tends to make pixel art more difficult to manage and muddies your results.

Here's how I would adjust your palette. I tried to create clear steps in value between each colour, as well and shifting hues warmer as they get lighter and cooler as they get darker. Greater saturation on darker hues helps too.

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Misandry Cannon
Mar 7, 2012

anothergod posted:

1) Your tree looks great

2) You have a lot of colors! You could try using index mode (Sprite > Color Mode > Index) to keep the color count down. I generally start with 2 or 3 colors per section: the color of the object, the highlight, and the shadow. Sometimes I'll have desaturated shadows or more reflected light.

3) I'd look into reflected light from the sky (blueish, usually) or changing the highlighted part to be more dawn (orange) or dusk (pink)

I'm reading into color theory but I don't quite understand it yet. But the documentation of the color modes don't make much sense to me. But what does index mode do that RGB doesn't?

The resource you linked is providing a LOT of insight though. Thank you!


Scut posted:

You are using some transparency (alpha) in that sprite and I would recommend against that. It tends to make pixel art more difficult to manage and muddies your results.

Here's how I would adjust your palette. I tried to create clear steps in value between each colour, as well and shifting hues warmer as they get lighter and cooler as they get darker. Greater saturation on darker hues helps too.



The transparency was more me fooling around with the tools but it was making things a bit weird and I couldn't find out why. Thanks for pointing that out.

One thing I was having a problem with that I could recognize was that the colors I chose or edited either looked too similar or different from the origin color I wanted to use. So being a bit more aggressive with the step differentiation is better? What led to the addition of the reds and purples?

Thank you guys for taking the time btw

Scut
Aug 26, 2008

Please remind me to draw more often.
Soiled Meat
Indexed mode means the document operates within strictly a limited palette. RGB means you have access to millions of colours. If you are using Aseprite I would suggest just leaving it in RGB mode but use the palette swatches on the left side of the screen and select one of the preset palettes.

Having distinct steps in your colours is good because you are working in a deliberately small number of colours with pixel art and you want each cluster of pixels to be meaningful. If they are too similar you spent all that time for very little payoff to the eye. Closely similar colours also mean an image that appears flatter and less interesting.

I chose to add reds and purples because those felt like colours that would make sense in the deep shade of a tree. Brown is really just orange that has been desaturated or darkened, but trees can have lots of other colours happening in the bark. I also thought the dark red could work in some areas of foliage where you want to show gaps in the lit areas. The purple would act as a good deep shadow across either the bark or foliage. Shadows make a surface appear cooler, more blue or violet, to the eye, especially under sunlight.

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Pentecoastal Elites
Feb 27, 2007

Misandry Cannon posted:

i decided on aseprite because its cheaper and the barrier to entry doesnt seem as daunting as PMNG.

so i spent like 3 hours trying to understand how lighting works and im still not sure. this is like the first image i drew so its bad, but im not sure if i did the lighting correctly on a fundamental level or if the color distinction and separation was too strong. i cant really pick up on those things quite yet.



thoughts? whatd i do wrong and how can i not do that wrong thing

Two things that might really polish this up:
- Try hunting for single pixels of color and remove them or change them into "splotches" of several contiguous, round-ish pixels, like you were emulating a bit of paint. The more you push these splotches into clearer shapes (even irregular ones) the more you'll tend towards stronger silhouettes . The size and shape of the splotches can also move you towards different styles.

- I'd move your trunk shadow a bit to the right and lay down at least a column, if not two, of your middle trunk shade. The way the light is hitting the top of the tree makes it seem like some of that light would bleed around the side of the trunk. It'll also help to make it look more three dimensional.

Misandry Cannon
Mar 7, 2012

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

Two things that might really polish this up:
- Try hunting for single pixels of color and remove them or change them into "splotches" of several contiguous, round-ish pixels, like you were emulating a bit of paint. The more you push these splotches into clearer shapes (even irregular ones) the more you'll tend towards stronger silhouettes . The size and shape of the splotches can also move you towards different styles.

I'm have a bit of trouble visualizing how this would work. Could you elaborate? When I try it just ends up looking either flat or too much.

anothergod
Apr 11, 2016



How do I start making a roguelike?

anothergod fucked around with this message at 05:40 on Mar 6, 2020

leper khan
Dec 28, 2010
Honest to god thinks Half Life 2 is a bad game. But at least he likes Monster Hunter.

anothergod posted:



How do I start making a roguelike?

http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=How_to_Write_a_Roguelike_in_15_Steps

Jewel
May 2, 2009

anothergod posted:



How do I start making a roguelike?

hot drat I want a roguelike that looks like this

A LOVELY LAD
Feb 8, 2006

Hey man, wanna hear a secret?



College Slice

anothergod posted:



How do I start making a roguelike?

This is awesome and reads really easy

I've recently delved back into pixel art for a game I'm working on once I found out how hostile 3d modelling software is (again).

Im fairly happy with these, maybe too many dark colours? Also annoyingly I switched the pallette to dawnbringers 32 colour one and there's a few reaaaaaly similar colours hidden in the frames somewhere, but I can cross that bridge when I come to it with photoshop.

Scut
Aug 26, 2008

Please remind me to draw more often.
Soiled Meat

A LOVELY LAD posted:

Im fairly happy with these, maybe too many dark colours? Also annoyingly I switched the pallette to dawnbringers 32 colour one and there's a few reaaaaaly similar colours hidden in the frames somewhere, but I can cross that bridge when I come to it with photoshop.



It reads quite well I think. Most of your dark colors are concentrated in the feet, legs, body. Hands, head and face pop out against that and those are elements the player will focus on more.

McKilligan
May 13, 2007

Acey Deezy
Finished the last HORUS mechs! That's 2/4 Manufacturers done.



Edit - And a custom, non-Horus AC-inspired one too.

McKilligan fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Mar 18, 2020

ButtsFromTheSky
Mar 12, 2018
-----

ButtsFromTheSky fucked around with this message at 22:24 on May 24, 2022

Ash Crimson
Apr 4, 2010
Finally got a style I'm content with, tried occluding the leg to make it look less flat and static. I tried changing the torso repeatedly, but couldn't make it look normal or non-warped at this size (18x29)


Any and all critiue is welcome.

Shoehead
Sep 28, 2005

Wassup, Choom?
Ya need sumthin'?
I got mad at a load of my assets for not looking "Game boy" enough and now things like this are happening

anothergod
Apr 11, 2016








Been working on explosions. I'm going to need to work on more magical-y explosions and lingering fire explosions. After drawing all of these I've developed some interesting techniques, and I realized I never really have utilized the full repertoire of tools that Aseprite has available to me. As far as I'm concerned I have like.. the jumble tool and really nice layering and frame organization. Anyone have tutorials for leveling up my Aseprite skills?

Ash Crimson
Apr 4, 2010
With all that's going on I've got alot of free time and since i find pixelart helpful and therapeutic I've being going back to it more in the last few months.

My issue is that I feel like I've hit a wall with art in general, I've spent alot of time drawing, studying anatomy and doing pixel-art over and over again but i still feel my progress is barely incremental and because I look at other artists for inspiration and to see what i can learn from them, it kind of makes me more depressed about where i am atm and it's no longer as fun and feels like busywork.

I've spent hours going over stuff again and again in hopes of making it better, even if it's minute single pixel details, because i don't want to feel like i've given up but i haven't really gotten anywhere, I mean this is the latest thing I've made:



It's literally just a slightly bigger version of what i've made before. I feel like i should either just start afresh and go onto something totally different in terms of what i make, even though i started pixel-art with the intention of making characters or just drop art altogether.

I guess i could try pixel dailies but i always feel constrained by the time limit, same with PJ contests.

McKilligan
May 13, 2007

Acey Deezy

Ash Crimson posted:

With all that's going on I've got alot of free time and since i find pixelart helpful and therapeutic I've being going back to it more in the last few months.

My issue is that I feel like I've hit a wall with art in general, I've spent alot of time drawing, studying anatomy and doing pixel-art over and over again but i still feel my progress is barely incremental and because I look at other artists for inspiration and to see what i can learn from them, it kind of makes me more depressed about where i am atm and it's no longer as fun and feels like busywork.

I've spent hours going over stuff again and again in hopes of making it better, even if it's minute single pixel details, because i don't want to feel like i've given up but i haven't really gotten anywhere, I mean this is the latest thing I've made:



It's literally just a slightly bigger version of what i've made before. I feel like i should either just start afresh and go onto something totally different in terms of what i make, even though i started pixel-art with the intention of making characters or just drop art altogether.

I guess i could try pixel dailies but i always feel constrained by the time limit, same with PJ contests.

Definitely try something different - a gem, a tree, an animal, something fundamentally different from a biped. Hell, maybe even just a texture or two. Whenever I hit a wall I find that working on something completely different lets the back of my mind chew on the problem, and by the time I'm ready to get back to it it's stumbled onto a solution or at least some minor inspiration.

Ash Crimson
Apr 4, 2010

McKilligan posted:

Definitely try something different - a gem, a tree, an animal, something fundamentally different from a biped. Hell, maybe even just a texture or two. Whenever I hit a wall I find that working on something completely different lets the back of my mind chew on the problem, and by the time I'm ready to get back to it it's stumbled onto a solution or at least some minor inspiration.

Thanks for the advice; I've going to look at some of the pixel daily prompts and pick the ones that interest me, and I'm thinking of submitting a piece of two for the PJ challenge, I've made a sword, harpoon gun and chess piece so far, but I'm going to keep doing some each day, which i'll add to this post so i'm not spamming this thread:



So far:

Harpoon Gun, Swords of differing sizes, an axe and chess pieces.

Ash Crimson fucked around with this message at 21:13 on May 13, 2020

anothergod
Apr 11, 2016

That new stuff looks nice! Your palette and style come through even throughn real strongly, too.

Does anyone have tips on how to develop your own palette? I've been using Arne's FamiCUBE palette with some tweaks and 1) I need more colors 2) my colors I do add are very one-use and kinda don't match

Scarodactyl
Oct 22, 2015


Francis Coulombe (Frankiesmileshow) did a nice little writeup on his weekendrpg palette which I think is a decent starting point.
https://frankiesmileshow.tumblr.com/post/134216038666/how-do-you-go-about-picking-your-own-colors-do

anothergod
Apr 11, 2016

Scarodactyl posted:

Francis Coulombe (Frankiesmileshow) did a nice little writeup on his weekendrpg palette which I think is a decent starting point.
https://frankiesmileshow.tumblr.com/post/134216038666/how-do-you-go-about-picking-your-own-colors-do

Thanks! This was pretty helpful! I love this dude's work. I also found out you can open up a second image to use as a palette. It's kinda messy, but it helps a lot.

Very mildly related, I'm working on an overhead tileset. The palette is coming together. Woo

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Shinmera
Mar 25, 2013

I make games!

I'm not sure if I've introduced myself here:

Hey, I'm primarily a programmer and am currently working on a pixel art game called Kandria. Today I finally managed to convince myself to start working on enemy animations. Here's the first of that:





Gonna do attack and damage animations tomorrow.

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