E-Man's Sprite R & D

[DragonDePlatino]

Hmmm...Since you asked me for a crit, you had it coming. ^.^



First and foremost, your color usage is incredibly inefficient. There are numerous colors on the goomba that could be reused elsewhere. For your palette, it seemed you used a separate palette for the head, body and shoes. A goomba is a monochrome creature, so you can easily get away with reusing colors for the whole thing without having to make separate "color ramps". If you reused your colors throughout your shading and blended the two brightest colors together, then your palette would be reduced by 7 colors. And working with less colors would definitely improve your workspeed. ^.^

Hmmm...You had a really strong sprite to start with, so from this point the line between crit and personal opinion might be blurred a bit...

Right now, the goomba doesn't seem to be looking at anything in particular. If you added some foreshortening to the left eye and made the goomba look over a bit more, then it might add a bit more "life" to the sprite. Some reworked shading using circles (as opposed to rounded triangles) might also help improve your perspective. And lastly, some larger fangs and highlights on the shoes would add just that little bit extra flair to the sprite.

And last but not least, your animations. I don't have a lot of time for this crit, so I'll just look at your walking animation. I can kind of see what some people were talking about, because it looks like your showing the soles of the goomba's shoes too often. For my custom walking animation I only show the soles for one frame, reduce the frames to 4 (as a rough example) and add a bit more "stomp" to the animation. Yours looks quite smooth, but there really isn't any friction to the goomba's walk because the shoes seem to just slide along the ground.

And that's pretty much it! I know a lot of my crit is pretty subjective, but these are just some suggestions in case you'd like to make some final tweaks.

[E-Man]

Well! That's some very good advice! Thank you for taking the time to explain all this to me! I'll be sure to take it into consideration.

Anyway, even though you gave me some good advice, would it be OK if I were to disagree with you on some bits of it? For the first bit, I actually like the original palette for the Goomba more than the one you used. There is nothing wrong with the palette you used, but it makes it look like it's from another game instead of what I originally wanted. Also, if you look at this sprite from Mario & Luigi 4 (the game that inspired my current sprite style), you'll notice that there isn't that much (if at all) color sharing going on.



Forgive me for the blurry quality, but this was the only image I could find on the Super Mario Wiki. Hopefully, the image I provided would give you a good idea. Of course, now that you brought up the matter of color sharing, I'm actually interested in doing a smidgen of it. Besides, even though Mario & Luigi 4 is released on the graphically superior 3DS (as compared to other handhelds released by Nintendo prior to it), I know for certain that the Luigi sprite I demonstrated earlier in the topic has a bit of color sharing going on. It wouldn't hurt, right? The only problem would be parts of the Goomba "merging" together when it moves about (it already happens with the soles of the feet).

Secondly, I'm questioning if the circular shading you used is actually any better at portraying depth than my previous method. The shading method I use takes the body shape into mind without trying to look too much like banding (although something tells me that I'm not succeeding at it), while your method looks like a brown sheet of paper with a light brown circle in the center that is cut into the shape of a Goomba… No offense or anything. I was only giving my opinion on it. For all I know, this is actually the correct way to shade anything. I'll try working on it later.

For the eyes and the shoes, I don't know about them. You have the right idea with the shoe highlights, but I don't picture the shoes being extremely shiny or anything. For this exception, I think the shoes don't need the highlights. As for the eyes, I'd like to keep the eyes in a generally natural position for most of the sprites (with some exceptions, such as walking). That way, anyone who is working with my sprites would arrange the irises how they see fit. Of course, I do have to say that I like the fangs. I think I'll use that size for the next revision.

Now, as for the animation, I think I will take your advice and no show the soles so often. The only word of advice I'll disagree with here is your decision to reduce the number of frames. It's nothing personal, but I actually like smoother animations. Instead f keeping my animation as it is, though, I'll just take the animation you created already and apply more frames for it. Of course, I gotta be careful not to make my feet slide about again and try not to show the soles too much.

Forgive me if it seems like I am turning down your advice, but this is the way I see it. While i will do my own thing at this point, I won't forget what you told me and see what I can do about my Goomba.

While we're on the subject, though, if I'm going to make such drastic changes to my Goomba, I may as well see what I can do about this other sheet I made.



Anything you or anyone would suggest to make this sheet look better before I play around with it on my own, DragonDePlatino?

[DragonDePlatino]

Yeah, it's perfectly understandable that you rejected a lot of my critique and gave me that little critiqueception there. If it doesn't seem like it would be an improvement to you, then just disregard that as I'm still trying to learn to pixel myself...Also didn't have a lot of time to crit before I had to go to a marching band game. ^^;

Your item sheet looks OK...My only complaint would be the banding on the flag. You should probably clean it up a bit and make the shading perfectly vertical. That normally doesn't count as banding if you can pull it off well.

[Alaby]

Hey E-man

I looked at your various goomba animations and I wanted to say they look great! It shows your inspiration and hard work! Keep up the good work!

I had a small crit. I studied some animation in film school, and when I looked at your "squish" sequence I thought it might be a little bit slow. You could try to take out some of those in-between sprites to make it faster. Right now you have 8, so maybe try to have only 4-6?

If you intentionally wanted it at that speed then by all means go ahead with it, I don't want to change your intentions. I thought it could be more comical if he gets squished faster as well

[Kelvin]

That raises an interesting question: is it considered banding if the lines are different widths? Or only if they're all the same width?

[DragonDePlatino]

That raises an interesting question: is it considered banding if the lines are different widths? Or only if they're all the same width?

Ah, and here I give my answer...Parallel dithering!



Here I removed the banding on the flag by straighening out the lines, adding in a bit of anti-aliasing as a little personal touch. It arguably looks a bit more artificial but faaar cleaner and easier to draw. A nice trade-off, in my opinion. I also added in some exaggerated parallel dithering. To parallel dither, you simply add in parallel lines of different thicknesses and layer them to create a smooth gradient. In my book, I wouldn't consider it banding. Here's another extreme example I fished up while looking through 2-color art on PixelJoint: http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/33541.htm

[Kelvin]

Thanks for clearing that up. I think you're right; it does look nicer.

[E-Man]

I was going to say something once I get a bunch of material together to present, but since my sprite work is on the back burner for some time now, I guess I should say something now.

Originally, I wasn't going to use anti-aliasing because the style I was inspired by (the one used in Mario & Luigi 4) isn't use it at all; however, when I tried to make the sprites look "blurry" like they do in the game (I'm not going to submit these versions because I'm leaving it up to the person using the sprites to figure it out), I was unable to replicate the effect. As a result, I think a little anti-aliasing wouldn't hurt (and I think I have an idea on how to do it). My only concerns are how it would increase the palette count for my colors (people keep telling that i should use a smaller palette and do more color sharing, but I'm okay with using as many colors as needed) and how anti-aliasing would look on the outer edges. It's nothing personal, but the lighter pixels found in some places on the edge look a little out of place. It works well for the inner edges because it is lying over colors that are already there and will remain consistent to those colors, but the exterior edges are at the mercy of the background color. The best way to solve this (without pixels that look brighter than they should be) is to employ transparent pixels on those edges, but not everyone is able to use sprites like those.

By the way, DragonDePlatino, I like what you did to my flag overall, but I don't care for the outline you added to my flagpole and the ball at the top. You see, I don't care for working with outlines because they constrain the shapes of my sprites and make it harder for me to apply details. While outlines look nice on some sprites, I prefer not to use them.

[Gors]

Look, i for one detest that 'parallel dithering' thing. It looks ugly and not like a flag at all. I liked the older one better

this being said, if you did the technique with the same number of shades Platino did, maybe you could come up with something really nice

[E-Man]

Okay, I gotten a lot of things to work on for my sprites, so I should be busy for awhile! For now, though, I decided to experiment with the general palette. I desaturated the colors a lot, so I hope this works!



In addition to changing up the palette, I decided to add a little anti-aliasing here and there to make my spites look better. I don't care for the one with heavy anti-aliasing because they make the details look too thick (and the one sprite with exterior anti-aliasing would be impossible for MS Paint users to use). In any case, what are your thoughts on my newest "renovations" before I fix up the rest of my Goomba sheet?

Also, I'm going to see about applying some similar changes to my Mario Item sprites, but before I do, I made this for fun.



I realize this probably isn't the correct way to initiate parallel dithering, but do you think it's a good look for my pipe? If it is, then I might even consider using it for the final sheet when I get around to it.

[SchAlternate]

I realize this probably isn't the correct way to initiate parallel dithering, but do you think it's a good look for my pipe? If it is, then I might even consider using it for the final sheet when I get around to it.

It looks way too overdone. Try simplifying it a little bit.

[Kelvin]

I think the goomba looks best without the AA. As for the pipe, the first one looks banded around the highlight, and the long sections of a single shade make it look faceted. I'd maybe mess around with dithering to soften it, although that might take away from the metallic look. But parallel dithering doesn't seem to work either, so I dunno. Your pick.

[DragonDePlatino]

Okay, I gotten a lot of things to work on for my sprites, so I should be busy for awhile! For now, though, I decided to experiment with the general palette. I desaturated the colors a lot, so I hope this works!

Ohhhhhh I'll definitely say the AA2 looks the nicest, from just a glance. Looks like it'd be a pain to get that onto ever frame, though.

Hmmm...Yeah, and I'll have to say the parallel dithering isn't working judging from the comments I've been seeing here. It's mainly for super-restricted palettes and was really only just a suggestion.

[E-Man]

Actually, I was going to post another attempt of my pipe with parallel dithering before you said that, DragonDePlatino. Like you said, though, I think it would be for the best that I don't bother with it. I tend to use more than two or three colors for a bulk of my sprites and I think someone mentioned not to use any kind of dithering earlier in the topic anyway.

As for AA2, while I can agree that it looks nice, it's not exactly usable with some spriters. Not only that, but it makes the eyebrows look too thick and the teeth look square? If I must use anti-aliasing, should I just stick with my first attempt (the one that is by the words "Some Anti-alias")? Otherwise, I think I'll go with Midi's suggestion and not use it.

[DragonDePlatino]

Actually, I was going to post another attempt of my pipe with parallel dithering before you said that, DragonDePlatino. Like you said, though, I think it would be for the best that I don't bother with it. I tend to use more than two or three colors for a bulk of my sprites and I think someone mentioned not to use any kind of dithering earlier in the topic anyway.

As for AA2, while I can agree that it looks nice, it's not exactly usable with some spriters. Not only that, but it makes the eyebrows look too thick and the teeth look square? If I must use anti-aliasing, should I just stick with my first attempt (the one that is by the words "Some Anti-alias")? Otherwise, I think I'll go with Midi's suggestion and not use it.

Not exactly usable? HA! Try some semi-transparent anti-aliasing on the outside. It'll change depending on what color you lay it over:



Generally, to do this I just select all of the outside anti-aliasing with the magic wand. I cut it out, and put it into a new layer above. Then I set that layer transparency to 128/256 and merge down. Incredibly quick, and if you dedicate a single color to your external AA (like Superstar Saga did) then you can easily just select it all with the magic wand when you're moving it up a layer.