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05-08-2009, 06:32 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-09-2009, 06:23 PM by Skye McCloud.)
The other day I was looking at a set of sprites I made several years ago of my own original characters, noting how... BAD most of them were. I also noted how different the designs were now in my webmanga than they were from the sprites.
So as part of an incentive to do spriting again, I redid them!
![[Image: sprites_redux.png]](http://www.starofdestiny.com/sprites/sprites_redux.png)
I still need to make tweaks on them, especially the female. I will also note, I'm not really considering many things when I put them together.
Anyway, really hoping to get some advice on how to improve myself (Especially on the female. Her legs feel wonky to me). These were done using sprites from Groove Adventure Rave, aka Rave Master, as a base. Save for the hair on the female, which was done by an old friend of mine long ago, I put these together.
Oh, and here is artwork of the characters. I tried to get the sprites to be as true as possible to the artwork:
http://www.starofdestiny.com/artwork.php?nav=1
http://www.starofdestiny.com/artwork.php?nav=26
http://www.starofdestiny.com/artwork.php?nav=30
http://maksn.deviantart.com/art/Contest-...-103501317
Any thoughts?
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So I went and designed a few more. I'm really hoping someone can inform me of any problems with them (especially towards shading).
![[Image: sprites_wave2.png]](http://www.starofdestiny.com/sprites/sprites_wave2.png)
I did kind of cheat a bit on the first two. Since they're technically the same as someone from the first one, I used the same sprite and rebuilt the armour designs onto it.
The artwork for these three are...
http://www.starofdestiny.com/artwork.php?nav=9
http://www.starofdestiny.com/artwork.php?nav=10
http://www.starofdestiny.com/artwork.php?nav=21
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They look good, just they seem to look a little pixelated.
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The larger ones should. The smaller ones are the original size, while the larger are just blown up for the sake of noting some of the harder to see details (Such as the gold bracelet around the girl's wrist (Check the hand with the white glove)) as well as to show the shading better so someone can yell at me if I'm doing something stupid (Like pillow shading and not realize it). The smaller ones are the size I'll be aiming to use.
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05-10-2009, 01:49 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-10-2009, 01:52 AM by Mega_Virus.)
(05-10-2009, 01:36 AM)Skye McCloud Wrote: The larger ones should. The smaller ones are the original size, while the larger are just blown up for the sake of noting some of the harder to see details (Such as the gold bracelet around the girl's wrist (Check the hand with the white glove)) as well as to show the shading better so someone can yell at me if I'm doing something stupid (Like pillow shading and not realize it). The smaller ones are the size I'll be aiming to use. No i meant the smaller ones, you didn't use much various shades of colours thats why it looks Super-Nintendo style, but that could be the way you want it to look? I don't know.
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(05-10-2009, 01:49 AM)Mega_Virus Wrote: (05-10-2009, 01:36 AM)Skye McCloud Wrote: The larger ones should. The smaller ones are the original size, while the larger are just blown up for the sake of noting some of the harder to see details (Such as the gold bracelet around the girl's wrist (Check the hand with the white glove)) as well as to show the shading better so someone can yell at me if I'm doing something stupid (Like pillow shading and not realize it). The smaller ones are the size I'll be aiming to use. No i meant the smaller ones, you didn't use much various shades of colours thats why it looks Super-Nintendo style, but that could be the way you want it to look? I don't know.
Ahh, ok! That makes more sense.
Err, I'm gonna go with the style I'm looking for. I can't really say it's intentional, but given the style the sprites I used as a base are, it was a style I liked and didn't want to differentiate much from. I did let myself try to get more shades in when it came to the armour, due to my adjustment to MMX 32-bit sprites, but clothing I put less in. Do you think it'd be a better idea to get more shades in?
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(05-10-2009, 02:28 AM)Skye McCloud Wrote: Ahh, ok! That makes more sense.
Err, I'm gonna go with the style I'm looking for. I can't really say it's intentional, but given the style the sprites I used as a base are, it was a style I liked and didn't want to differentiate much from. I did let myself try to get more shades in when it came to the armour, due to my adjustment to MMX 32-bit sprites, but clothing I put less in. Do you think it'd be a better idea to get more shades in? Mmm... if you want to have them look more 3D than yes, also it depends on you and what your going to do with them, so if your going to make them animate than it will be harder to do so adding more shades of colors, but thats what makes the members here say wow to your sprites when you do add more shades of colour and make it animate.  So if you do make sure you do it with there hair aswell to smoothen it out.
I like the characters though good job.
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Hmm... well, I can't say if I want a fuller 3D look. The game the bases come from is based off a manga, so they have a manga feel to them. This could be why they had less colour; to give a more 2D feel to relate closer to the original style. Given the characters are from my own webmanga, having that kind of a style is probably what I'm more aiming for.
Most of the sprites I make (Only two of the above are being used immediately) are going to be for a game I'm trying to develop.
Outside of using more shades to give a more 3D look, is there anything I can do to fix their shading up, in particular for the red armoured guy and the red haired one with the sword? These two are the ones I need immediate fix ups on (especially the red armoured guy, as I've already begun making animations for him and I'd rather not have them all done before I find out I should've done the shading different for an improved look). The things I keep looking at are a lack of difference between the shades I do use, or using certain shades in the wrong places.
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05-11-2009, 01:46 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-11-2009, 01:53 AM by Mega_Virus.)
Well most of the old games used less shades of colours only because to save memory/space for there game but now we obviously have more space to work with so now we have more of the ability to work with various colours.
Hair is usually thin when it reaches the tip of the hair so what you would do is use lighter and lighter colours till it reaches the tip of the hair, Note it depends where the light is coming from is how you can determine what side of the head the hair is dark and where area's are not.
Smoothing out circles would mean you would need to add lighter shades of colours at the area's where it seems sharp making the dark pixel not visible thereby making it less pixelated.
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Hmm... Alright. I'll try working in more colours overall. I know where the light source is, so hopefully I can keep my shading consistent with its position.
Since I was working on the red armoured guy, I decided to try and do some shading rework on him. This pose differs from the original above, but not by much.
![[Image: shading_test.png]](http://www.starofdestiny.com/sprites/shading_test.png)
There's some funkiness with his backside that I need to fix (Trying to figure out the best option), but aside from that, is the shading any better? The areas that got new colours were the grey areas mostly. The red on the legs got some work (though that was less about new colours and more about proper shading), as did the hair and black areas.
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05-11-2009, 05:14 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-11-2009, 05:17 AM by Mega_Virus.)
I can't tell because you in larged it, you should next time show me original size I have a good eye on things trust me.
Here's a example, when working with this sprite I only added about 4 extra shades so you basically had all the shades just they where in some place wrong area, to make a sprite smooth you need to realize what pixel color is neigboring to another pixel. Pixels work together separating them meaning out of nowhere a wrong colour of shade can screw up the smoothness of your sprite, but you almost had it.
![[Image: af917c5fdf.png]](http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/af917c5fdf.png)
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Ok, so using your tips (And looking at the one you edited for further help), I put this one together.
![[Image: armour_standing.gif]](http://www.starofdestiny.com/sprites/armour_standing.gif)
As far as I can tell, it's smoothed out the shading to an extent that was pretty similar to the 32-bit MMX sprites (And given the robot-esqueness of this character, I felt going for that was a good idea). I didn't exactly go with all of the ideas (Such as lightening the armour between the eyes, mostly because the character needs to look like his brow is furrowed, and that bit of darkness there helps with the effect.
Just to add this again, here is the artwork of the character:
http://www.starofdestiny.com/artwork.php?nav=10
If you look at it, you can see some funky plating designs in the chest armour as it goes around the body, as well as the design on the legs. These were probably the most annoying elements to deal with, but hopefully they're done well now.
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still doesn't look smooth to me but oh-well, and the hair doesn't match the character you showed me, but asuming you want it that way.
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Hmm... not sure what to say. It looks pretty smooth, like flo-jo in a tuxedo, to me.
As for the hair, the style in the artwork is technically incorrect. It may need a rework to get it to where I need it.
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the more shades you add, the less smooth it will look. adding more and more gradient-like to every part its just turning it more and more blurry, specially with the growing pillowshaded effect you're giving it. its not about the amount of colors you put in the sprite but rather wich and where you place them.
mind if i do an edit to ilustrate my point?
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