The Resource WIP Thread 3

[Sharm]

The two biggest helps with getting lighting right is using references and understanding the underlying shapes of what you're drawing. If you understand that a bullet is pretty much a cylinder with a cone on top it becomes easier to find or make the references needed to see how the light interacts with the object in the position and lighting you want. Your current icons have rim lighting (the light source is coming from behind the object and lighting the edges), which is interesting but can make a piece look flat. It might help to pick a more traditional light source position and be consistent with it. It'll probably help with the lip problem.

 

[MakerZeroOne]

@Sharm - Wow. i had no idea that i was even doing that. to be honest, i tried finding references through google images, but its hard for me to tell how many light sources, including flash, that i'm dealing with. Also, when trying to apply a glare, like i try to do on the top of the bullets, do you want to use an unsaturated color of about the same hue; or just use a much lighter, almost white pixel?

 

[Sharm]

That's the nice thing about understanding the shapes making something up. Then you can just take a cup from your kitchen and light it with a lamp to see how a cylinder works in the light you want instead of needing an actual bullet and so on. Or you could look up cylindrical objects. Try to avoid product images for this sort of thing, they tend to have a lot of light sources.

As for the highlight color, you're confusing some terms I think. If you were to unsaturate the yellow you'd just get light grey, it wouldn't look any brighter. In general the highlights are a little less saturated but what you really want is to increase the luminosity. Or, to put it much more simply, go ahead and make it more white.

It may help to look at other icons and see how other artists solved the same problems you are currently facing. Avery's stuff is the best, lots of options and very high quality work.

 

[MakerZeroOne]

That's the nice thing about understanding the shapes making something up. Then you can just take a cup from your kitchen and light it with a lamp to see how a cylinder works in the light you want instead of needing an actual bullet and so on. Or you could look up cylindrical objects. Try to avoid product images for this sort of thing, they tend to have a lot of light sources.

As for the highlight color, you're confusing some terms I think. If you were to unsaturate the yellow you'd just get light grey, it wouldn't look any brighter. In general the highlights are a little less saturated but what you really want is to increase the luminosity. Or, to put it much more simply, go ahead and make it more white.

It may help to look at other icons and see how other artists solved the same problems you are currently facing. Avery's stuff is the best, lots of options and very high quality work.

lol yes. I tried to make my bokuto based off of her icon sheet. she is quite skilled. Especially with the complexity of shades she uses. zoomed out, it looks like light blue... zoomed in, it's 5000+ shades of blue I'm going to try to keep the curve on the bokuto, as the others looks like sabers, instead of a uniform curvature from the tsuba to the tip. I'm OCD like that. But by taking your advice and adding a tsuba, it may help to keep that part from looking so, broken...

Also, i should have guessed that other pixel artists would have drawn shotgun shells before me, referencing one of those for colors and a frontal light source, instead of a real shotgun shell, helped quite a bit.

So, this is where i'm at. I didn't do any shading to the edges, as i'm not sure how it would apply with the lighting. However, it seems that my colors may not be dark enough on the edges, especially at the top of the brass, and the lip, to give the image definition. Also, i tried to update the holsters so that they look less dithered and more... threaded or woven... i guess. Not gonna lie, i'm kind of at a shoulder shrug point now.

 

[Sharm]

That is significantly better. I don't think you should have any problems using it as is.

 

[MakerZeroOne]

I did try to add some shade to the top , to kind of help with the contrasts though. i wasn't satisfied with the contrast around the brass. Yay or nay?

Also, thanks a lot for the instruction! it helps!

 

[Sharm]

I'm not seeing a difference between this one and the last one, so I guess it doesn't make much difference. I'm glad that I'm helping, I like helping people get better at pixel art.

 

[MakerZeroOne]

I'm not seeing a difference between this one and the last one, so I guess it doesn't make much difference. I'm glad that I'm helping, I like helping people get better at pixel art.

Just a light bit of shading on the right sides, as if the light was offset a little to the left. Also, i just redid the Handgun ammo icon. lighting the cone on top kinda got me for a little bit, and I almost couldnt figure out what to do with the one on it's side... but here it is. And if you like helping, just wait until i start trying to create sprites or generator parts... lol i will need help in droves!



Edit: @Sharm I fixed the machine gun ammo belt and the rifle cartridges as well. I felt like I had to dither a bit at the top, where the brass part of the cylinder slopes inwards; so I'm not sure if i got the lighting at that part correct.

Also, I redid the bokuto, and added a tsuba, and hopefully rendered the lighting a bit better. As if the light source were offset slightly from the lower left. Also, I found that adding a "wrapping" to the hand guard helped quite a bit in masking the hard edge of the pixels from the overall curve, yet still allowing me to maintain the shape. If that makes any sense. Thoughts?


And new stuff, my attempt at making a Silvered Steel, "Slug/Bolt" that would be used for a Rail-gun. getting the lighting on this was difficult, as the flanges are supposed to be angled outwards from a cylindrical center.

And finally, my imagined "Energy Packs" for lasers and stuff. It's kind of a challenge as I wanted the bottom to be kind of a concave surface, as if the sides of a cube were curved inwards; whereas the top is supposed to be cylindrical... Also, I want to show the energy inside the cylinder, and also the "glow" that it emits... could definitely use some advice on this one for sure.

So, I did a bit more, and i'm still not sure about lighting on a spherical object; especially when the entire object i supposed to be OD Green. Can you tell what it is having never seen one in real life? M68 Frag Grenade.

 

[Remix]

so I've not really done anything to do with making games since RM2K3 was the mainstream RPG maker back in the day, got a bit of spare time on my hands that i wouldn't mind being productive with.

I've got a futuristic setting in mind, just trying to nail down the art style i want to go with, I'm leaning towards something very simplistic to save time.

although I'm not an artist i want to be able to get most of the assets done myself.
Edit: hm im not sure whats happened to the images on here.
heres a direct link https://ibb.co/e8R7Pm

 

[Kes]

@Remix Your images are not showing up. Could you edit your post and try again. It might be easier to use the 'Upload a File' button on the post itself.

 

[Sharm]

I'm all for doing simple and getting things done over complicated and pretty and never finishing. I like the color stuff better, of course, but both styles have a very different mood. I think you should choose between them according to what would better serve the story you're telling.

 

[Remix]

I'm all for doing simple and getting things done over complicated and pretty and never finishing. I like the color stuff better, of course, but both styles have a very different mood. I think you should choose between them according to what would better serve the story you're telling.

yeah i know, its finding a style that suits the game and my ability thats the thing haha. so just trying a bit of everything and maybe learn some things along the way! thanks for the feedback!

im not sure why the images arent showing for everyone though so i provided a link.
Edit: still working on the tileset ive uploaded an image with some mock up maps.
print screen seems to blur the image slightly, but you can still make out whats going on.

 

[Winter_Beetle]

I've been doing some custom spriting for my RPG Project, how does this look? Any tips to improve this? As this is my first ever time trying to draw custom sprites, feedback is greatly appreciated. I'm using paint tool sai to draw, using Khas' ultra lighting for the fog. I'm trying to go for a distinct, alien feel to the fog effects.

https://i.imgur.com/VMEDzpv.png
With Weather Effects

https://i.imgur.com/Zoctfez.png
Without Weather Effects (And with some sneaky eventing, shh!)

I am going to improve the dirt path autotile, add more plantation and maybe add a more visible shadow to the base of the tree, but is it a good idea to mix sprites and hand-drawn graphics together? I seriously don't know how to "hand draw" with a smaller sprite box like the character, grass and dirt, I also have no idea how to sprite a tree, so I'm wondering if its a good idea to mix them together.

 

[MakerZeroOne]

Can anyone tell what this is? I know what it is because i drew the darned thing. But it has so many flat surfaces and angles, that I may have effed it up :/ Or I may just be trying to show too many details... i dunno. but i want to punch my computer screen.

Spoiler

It's supposed to be a flash bang...
http://www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/a/a7/M84-Flash-Bang-Grenade.jpg/150px-M84-Flash-Bang-Grenade.jpg

 

[Rukiri]

Son portrait wip

 

[Winter_Beetle]

Can anyone tell what this is? I know what it is because i drew the darned thing. But it has so many flat surfaces and angles, that I may have effed it up :/ Or I may just be trying to show too many details... i dunno. but i want to punch my computer screen.

View attachment 78242

Spoiler

It's supposed to be a flash bang...
http://www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/a/a7/M84-Flash-Bang-Grenade.jpg/150px-M84-Flash-Bang-Grenade.jpg

Overall, sprite quality looks great! I think what you need to do is to brighten the hollowed out circles in the body of the grenade, so that they "pop out" and the sprite is more recognisable. The colours of your sprite are a little murky, but looking at pictures of flashbangs and seeing how they can be all black, I honestly can't blame you. Maybe if you lighten the black to a darker grey and change the colour of the inner ring from green to some shade of yellow, that might work? Probably not a good idea though.
https://i.imgur.com/2pPlg6m.jpg
Although the design of a Flashbang can differ, for such a tiny sprite box its a good idea to make certain details pop out, so the whole image becomes more recognisable.

 

[Leon Kennedy]

My little 1966 mustang gt concept

 

[Moo]

Hello everyone

I have been working for some time (I started early 2016) on a complete pack of tilesets for RPG maker MV, for a game project but also maybe after to share it, I would like to present some screenshots to show a little my work at the community and have your opinion

These are not really maps built to play, there are no animations or characters yet, the goal is just to show the tiles a little, there is for the moment lot of outside I just begun the interior and donjon (the rest is being manufactured).

Thank you in advance for your attention Bye

Spoiler: Maps which demo the tiles.

 

[Moo]

 

[M.I.A.]

I'm diggin' the black thorny vines in the first screenshot! Great work. Keep it up.

-MIA