The VG Resource

That sprite is very appealing, friend! It could use a little more contrast, but I'd say you're on a roll!

By the way, the way Mario walks/runs is a little funny. Here's something I swiped from Omnikariz to give you some ideas.

(04-22-2014, 09:59 PM)Neweegee Wrote: [ -> ]I wanted to start a fresh topic, but someone might've killed me if I did.

I used to hate outlining my sprites so I could fit in more detail, but as time went on I really just gave in and outlined for sheer clarity in designs. But with that being said, I think outlineless sprites are a great exercise in shading and it definitely works for some people.

As for your Mario, if you're going to be working without outlines, you're going to need to up the contrast of your colors...The animation also looks a little off, IMO. The back leg isn't vertically offset from the front leg at all which is going to give you hell in the long run.

Oh, but one way outlineless sprites work is if they're set against a black background. A lot of early NES games (Bubble Bobble, Kid Icarus) went with outlineless designs that were intended to always be set against black...it might be a cool experiment to see if you can go for something like that.

Okay, I tried changing it again. I added a darker shade of Blue and Brown.


And of course, the walk has been edited a lot to look more like a Mario walk. Still not quite sure if it's there yet, though.


I'm sure it looks better with black or at least darker background.

Also, the vertical speration between Mario legs isn't there because I was going for bit of a NSMB style.

Of course, I'm not going to limit the style in this way, like I did last time.

(04-23-2014, 07:48 PM)Neweegee Wrote: [ -> ]Okay, I tried changing it again. I added a darker shade of Blue and Brown.

Hey, that looks pretty nice once you stick it in the screenshot! Your sprite looks a lot cleaner than the lazy 3D-model frames that NSMB used.

But I should probably mention that even after changing the color of the background leg, the animation doesn't look right at all. There's a lot I could say about it, but I think it would be better to just show you the Demon Hunter sprite I've been referencing recently...



Whether you're going for this amount of realism or not, there are a lot of tips you could take from it. The arms of a running animation should move up and down a small amount, and the arms should be naturally bent. Another thing I notice here is that when a leg is it's farthest forwards, it only stays there for a frame. It seems to linger a bit in your run.

And you know, it's coincidental, but I'm actually working on my running animations right now, too. If it could serve as any kind of encouragement, I'm really just learning animation too.



Heh. My runs always come out too stompy and the arms don't look quite right.

I saw some issues with your shading and colors so I made an edit. For the shoes, you have too many shades (both shoes have a separate shade color "group"). You also have some banding going on in general (hat, legs)

- light direction check
*Note: I only showed normals that are perpendicular to the screen (not facing the screen).

The red threshold line represents the "0" brightness value (perpendicular). The blue line represents the threshold for a secondary shade, which I chose randomly.

Okay, so I failed at explaining this to E-Man months ago, so I decided to spend some time making an example. How bright a surface is lit by a directional light (the sun), depends on how much that surface is facing in the opposite direction of the sun ( surface ---> <---- sun lightdirection). The brightness magnitude range is [-1,1]. If the surface is facing the same direction as the sun light, it's value is -1. Perpendicular surface? -> 0. Facing the opposite direction of the sun light? -> 1 (at about this brightness, you'd probably add specular light/shiny light or w/e).(Edit: Sorry, I made a mistake. "1" is just the brightest color. Specular/shininess is when the light reflects off the surfaces towards the eye-which doesn't necessarily happens at the "brightest" surface)

One example I want to take from Mario is his right leg. You're probably thinking "huh? The surface is shaded correctly!". And you'd be right -if you interpreted his leg's surface as facing top right. I'd call this a special case, where how you light that section is up to you and how you want others to interpret it. I shaded my version like so just because I thought it better described the form of his leg.

(yours is the leftmost)

I was just going to do about 2 shades per color (middle), but I felt like I strayed too far from your style so I added a shade to the last one.

__________

DragonDePlatino:

It doesn't look like his leg is extending all the way, or atleast not as a steep enough angle. Also, when a leg goes all the way back, have it stay back there for a bit. I noticed that the legs jump from back to front too quickly.

For the arms, perhaps rotating the upper body might help?

Edit:
All I did was have his leg stay back longer. I didn't add any frames.

You should probably add another frame right after the leg comes forward all the way.
*Note how...:
*his knee forms a backwards 'L' shape.
*His thigh mostly rotates as normal

_____

Nice sprites to the both of you

I tried what you said Shyguy and changed the light to be more directional/3D, but I couldn't do it too much because mirroring Mario's sprite might look weird. I hope I got it right, because it's a bit confusing(I know I would've understood it better if I messed with 3D models more).


I'm going for a cel-shaded type look now, since it makes the sprite look cleaner.

As for the walking animation, I did the same thing while attempting to fix what DDP said to, but I might need to remake the animation and use 8 frames.


I remember Mario arms are supposed to be straight in NSMB though.

After I get the Walk and Standing right I'll be able to make the rest of the sprites, because it's really sucky when you make 50+ frames of animation then find out the huge shading/detail problem with EVERY FRAME you just made.

I made a King Boo spritesheet for a change.

(^ Click on it ^)

Also I made a 2nd icon for TSR's new icon system


...That's about it.

BTW Don't worry my new Mario isn't dead.

It's Luigi! Well, almost.
But I'm working very hard on him; people want Luigi, so that's what I'll give them.

I'm probably going to update my old Mario sheet to prevent obvious graphical differences(My Mario sheet is worse than I remember it being).

Also, if you didn't know already, Nintendo has shut down their Wi-fi servers
So here's a little present for everyone who is sad about no more Mario Kart Wii Online play(or basically anyone who doesn't know about CTGP Revolution 1.03)

(^Click it)

Also, an icon for the future.