Style Evaluation (Formerly: Non-Sonic Sprites)

[Deebs]

The following characters are eligible for Mod.Gen sprites, due to having participated with Sonic in games or other media. Note that Super Smash Brothers is not currently part of this, for a few reasons (Not being a 'Sonic' game, the sheer scale to an already technically massive project, etc).

http://deebs.shatteredmoonlight.com/ModG...index.html <- (Link to characters)

If you see a character listed there that has a sprite but think that it requires a facelift, feel free to try and it will be considered. If you see a character -without- a sprite listed there, feel free to make one. It will then be considered for the representative sprite for that character for Mod.Gen.

[Ton]

Looking great, and loving the updates! I don't think I saw the Iron King or Naugus there. Do you plan to do them still?

[Gors]

dropping this here



tl;dr this style is unnecessarily overdetailed, it hampers readability, makes things hard to sprite/replicate, proportion issues, needs better pixel cluster managing.

[mutantyoshi]

I saw that you had Yoshi there, and IMO I felt he could had used a touch-up, not sure if I am able to, but here is what I came up with:

[Deebs]

In regards to the Mario sprite-

1. This is a multi-person project. The Mario sprite you are currently critiquing is very, very little like the original Mario sprite I had made for the project*. It's gone through a lot of revisions by multiple people to get to the form it is now- the point being that I am trying to make here is that there is no 'you' involved here and at this point it would be difficult to pinpoint who contributed to each 'fault'- so please refrain from saying 'you' to me on a good majority of the sprites shown on the site, as I'm not the one behind all of them- a good deal, yes, but I personally dislike receiving critique aimed specifically at me for something of which I am not responsible for**. I would also appreciate in the future that critique would avoid phrasing such as "'there's a thing called 'hip bones'." This is, in my opinion, unnecessarily catty and there are just as easy, more civil ways of explaining the exact same concept. Saying "The legs are far too 'V' like and don't show the hip structure well enough" is just as illuminating without also being condescending. While I understand in some cases a condescending attitude can bring results to some and that some may easily brush off such behavior as simply being a cute behavioral quirk, I am telling you now that it will not be helpful in the long run here and I am requesting that in future critiques and communications that this behavior be knocked off.
   *Which was terrible, and thus was completely discarded before coming to the current sprite. The current is actually much better than what I had personally made and I will not claim anything to the contrary. I will also not claim that the current sprite is perfect, thus my asking for people to have a look over and fix what they see off.
   **With the understanding that I am responsible for saying "yeah, that's good enough to be put up"- though I will speak that my personal judgement is not very good, and is part of the reason why these projects rely quite a bit on outside input both for contributions and for critique.
   
2. THAT OUT OF THE WAY- I'm all for simplifying things and proportioning things better. Thus asking for 'face lifts'- there's been a big push in this project recently with getting things updated for better accuracy, so I thank you for your critiques and pointers on various portions of Mario's anatomy. I'd like him to look as much like 'himself' as we can get. As someone who does not play or work with Mario related material often, my ability to tell what's a good looking 'Mario' is not as refined as those that have grown up with the little guy, so having the opinions and critique on the subject is very helpful. Because of my lack of education on the matter of Mario, I don't know entirely for sure if your improvements are more accurate or not. My personal thoughts (being uneducated in the matter as I have said) is that his head seems just a touch too squat in the fix ups. I think the facial profile on the right side looks generally better, though, with it's shorter width. I also think that the body on the right looks proportionally better, though I admit that my first instinct on seeing it was "he looks really fat". The more I look over it however the more 'right' it feels. Mario is famous for his rotundness after all, eh? Overall, I like the right one better but I would like some minor portions of the left version integrated into it, if possible. For instance, I would prefer that the cuff of his glove be more distinct as it is in the left. Other than that...
   
3. I would prefer the shininess restored to the sprite. Yes, I realize that Mario is not wearing a latex suit, but that is part of the visual style. The way I think of it, each sprite in this style is like a tiny plastic figurine- not outrageously shiny, but just the small occasional dot of highlight for a more three dimensional feel. All the other sprites have this level of shininess to them, so excluding Mario will cause him to stand out awkwardly among them and look quite bland, despite the strength and skill of the sprite. So I ask, even if you see it as a step back, to please keep that aspect.
   

I would really love to see a merging of the two modified sprites together, as well as hear more opinions from the matter from everyone.

Thank you for the critique, and I hope you'll continue to be able to help out!

---

I saw that you had Yoshi there, and IMO I felt he could had used a touch-up, not sure if I am able to, but here is what I came up with:

I really like the head on that Yoshi, especially considering how much I struggled to get it 'right' on my own go. I think you did a fantastic job on that, but I'd love to hear more thoughts from those more educated on the Mario series about it too.
I'm not sure on the body however- I think it's the arms throwing me off. If I could see the armless base, that would really help me figure out if my issue is with the arms or not.

Other than that, please try to keep to 16 colours in your pallets if you can, but I think this is a pretty great job!

[Gors]

I won't read through all that because I am dealing with my own projects but guess what

First of all, I did aim the criticism at you. But why? Because you are responsible for this project, thus any problem this project has will be directed to you. This is how leading projects work. I have led several community projects and that's how it always worked for me. If a partner of some group fucks up, the leader will take responsibility for that. I, as a critique person, won't even care about who made what. I am here solely to point the wrong things so they can be corrected.

Second, if you took my criticism as an attack, you seriously need to rethink browsing tSR because that's how 90% of the people around here gives criticism. I wasn't being blunt. I was being direct to the point. If you felt offended by that then well, tough luck, it's not getting any 'softer' than it is. My advice is as helpful as your fluffy version, and if you can't see my point in the way I wrote that, then you should post them at somewhere like dA: you'll get plenty of 'omg amazing' comments.

Third, sticking to style "handcuffs", as I'd like to call them, is a dumb idea. It's a handcuff because it's keeping you tied to visuals that don't make sense at all. That small one-pixel speck is not making the sprite better. It is instead making him look like he's made out of plastic. Mario is not plastic, therefore that technique is unnecessary. Tridimensionality is achieved by shading accordingly, not by tiny specks. Same with the 'light gray' instead of... white. This brings the whole style down and it makes the sprites look severely handicapped. It's "up to you", though. You can either have a clean, sharp style or an aged, illogical style.

---

The point is, I am not trying to attack you or your project, but it sucks to see such potential being wasted on blurry and cluttered sprites. I also am fed up of people who can't accept a """""harsh""""" (inside a lot of quote marks because it wasn't even harsh at all) criticism without going 'you could at least say (insert euphemistic version of the same exact criticism)'.

I'm glad that you accepted the changes starsock and I did, but there are much more flaws you should take care of.

[Deebs]

I won't read through all that because I am dealing with my own projects but guess what

First of all, I did aim the criticism at you. But why? Because you are responsible for this project, thus any problem this project has will be directed to you. This is how leading projects work. I have led several community projects and that's how it always worked for me. If a partner of some group fucks up, the leader will take responsibility for that. I, as a critique person, won't even care about who made what. I am here solely to point the wrong things so they can be corrected.

... receiving critique aimed specifically at me for something of which I am not responsible for**. ...

** With the understanding that I am responsible for saying "yeah, that's good enough to be put up"- though I will speak that my personal judgement is not very good, and is part of the reason why these projects rely quite a bit on outside input both for contributions and for critique.

Already noted and aware of, along with details that I know my limitations and therefor rely on the understanding and wisdom of others to help come to decisions. I am not an expert in any degree and have never claimed otherwise. I do my best to lead the project because I want to see this get off the ground. There is a degree of trust that I must put into other people who are more skilled than I am that they know what they are doing. To me, something may look good- but I do not trust my own perception. For this reason, I have polled a great deal of the sprites for what was the preferred version, believing that the masses will, overall, chose which is correct. Often times in these cases sprites that I have thought were 'good' or even 'perfect' were tossed entirely wayside. In the end, looking back, I see where my own perception was faulty and I believe that the eyes of many triumph over my own.

Second, if you took my criticism as an attack, you seriously need to rethink browsing tSR because that's how 90% of the people around here gives criticism. I wasn't being blunt. I was being direct to the point. If you felt offended by that then well, tough luck, it's not getting any 'softer' than it is. My advice is as helpful as your fluffy version, and if you can't see my point in the way I wrote that, then you should post them at somewhere like dA: you'll get plenty of 'omg amazing' comments.

There is a solid difference in asking for critique without condescending additions and asking for mindless praise. Mindless praise is nonconstructive- I prefer constructive dialogue. Part of being constructive is not clouding your critique with added cruft and sarcasm. Just say what you need to say without adding snipes. I try my best to be reasonable and I see absolutely no reason why it 'has' to be this way other than 'most of TsR' is like this. Why can we not speak to each other on a base level of respect for each other?

Third, sticking to style "handcuffs", as I'd like to call them, is a dumb idea. It's a handcuff because it's keeping you tied to visuals that don't make sense at all. That small one-pixel speck is not making the sprite better. It is instead making him look like he's made out of plastic. Mario is not plastic, therefore that technique is unnecessary. Tridimensionality is achieved by shading accordingly, not by tiny specks. Same with the 'light gray' instead of... white. This brings the whole style down and it makes the sprites look severely handicapped. It's "up to you", though. You can either have a clean, sharp style or an aged, illogical style.

I understand that you have issues with the shading and that you see my request to keep to it as a handicap. However, as I said, I -do- in fact want a more plasticine look. If you can achieve that without the grey specks, I would be greatly appreciative of you showing me that method so that I may learn from you and update my work accordingly.

The point is, I am not trying to attack you or your project, but it sucks to see such potential being wasted on blurry and cluttered sprites. I also am fed up of people who can't accept a """""harsh""""" (inside a lot of quote marks because it wasn't even harsh at all) criticism without going 'you could at least say (insert euphemistic version of the same exact criticism)'.

I'm glad that you accepted the changes starsock and I did, but there are much more flaws you should take care of.

I want to see the best for this project so I find criticism very important, as it's a vital key to evaluation and improvement. Each critique not only helps the sprites, but it also helps fine tune my own ability to discern areas in need of improvement in other sprites.

It's just that I see no reason why there shouldn't be at the very least a thin layer of civility. I hope I've made it obvious, or if I have not that I soon will, that I am dedicated to positive change and improvement and that I do in fact highly value critique. I hope you did notice that I did not disregard your critique despite having issue with your method of communicating it- the method of communication did not eliminate the importance of critique given. I am simply asking that in the future that we can do without the additional barbs- they cloud the matter are are entirely unnecessary. I will continue to voice my request that in the future that critiques be given plainly without additional cattiness- I will listen just as attentively to your critique.

Thanks.

That said, lets please move on to improvement and creation of sprites for this project, please.

[Vipershark]

I never really wanted to get into it because I wasn't sure if I was the only one who felt this way, but seeing somebody else comment on the overabundance of shading (aka the plastic look) confirms that I'm not the only one who noticed it and I'm sure there are many others that did as well.

To be frank, it's ugly and makes all of your sprites look bad.

For example, the light gray color in Mario's mustache is just... well, it's way too bright. It sticks out and is really obvious and clashes with the rest of the sprite. Mustaches aren't shiny, so why is Mario's? That one single white pixel in the middle of the blue is the same way. Why is it even there? It sticks out like a sore thumb and its placement really makes no sense to me. It just looks completely unnecessary, almost as if you accidentally placed the wrong color pixel but didn't catch your mistake or something. Not only that, but the highlight on the mustache just flat out doesn't make sense. It appears that the light source is almost... under(???) Mario while his hat and clothes are lit from the upper right corner.

I'm not trying to come across as angry or rude or anything, but I really can't put it any other way than the plastic look simply makes your sprites look bad. The shading just makes no sense. In a lot of places it's almost as though you're throwing colors and shades on the sprites just to have them there, and you add so many colors in such small spaces that you might as well just be pillow shading. It just comes across as... really amateurish, I guess.

Note that this doesn't just apply to Mario; I feel this way about all of the ModGen sprites (including and especially Sonic). I think it's really cool that you want to put a bunch of different things in one unified style, but when the style itself is ugly, you might want to rethink what you're doing because it just brings everything down.

[Gors]

just finishing this argument,

when I said 'most of tSR acts this way', that didn't mean we like to be dicks to each other. We simply give C+C this way. As I said before, that's hardly insulting, almost no one else is insulted to this and if you felt this way, it certainly wasn't my intention (also, thought this was harsh? Try 2010/2011 1up-style critique).

I got that you're fine with criticism, but as vipershark said, this style is just bad. I would even make some sprites for this style if it wasn't so damn incoherent/unreadable/illogical.

basically this style is 'let's cram the biggest number of pointless colors per square inch' style, something I can't bear. More colors doesn't mean better sprite. Using gray instead of white doesn't mean better sprite. but yeah, my two cents. .o/

[Deebs]

I am in fact an amateur, so that would explain why it looks amateurish.

That said, I want what's best for this. If the style itself is an enormous problem, I would like very much to see your suggested changes to the style (not a specific sprite, but generalized style that all other sprites must be unified under for this project) and how things can be improved, preferably with the reasons why explained so I can improve my own understanding of spriting. It will be difficult, but I am willing to modify 500+ sprites in order to be better- but it must actually be better.

There is one thing that, even in the development of a new style, that I will like clung to as the ideal and would request be kept in mind during the development of a new style- This style was first created as a modified form of the S3&K sprites, and was designed in mind to be a successor of sorts to that style.


I want to keep this general concept (successor to S3&K), and if possible, also keep the pallete limited to 15 working colours (plus one for transparency).

Those two things in mind, what would you suggest for the general style? If providing visuals, I would like to see it demonstrated on 'mainstay' characters (Sonic, Tails, Mario, etc) as this will help me understand the differences and changes more clearly.

Thanks.

[Ton]

Just "because this is the way it is" isn't a reason to keep doing something. You can still do a harsh criticism in a constructive way. TSR has a really shitty reputation because of the way we treat people, and it's not cause we use "fuck" freely on our board, it's because a lot of us are tactless when it comes to being constructive in our criticisms.
So let this be a reminder and a jumping-off point. PLEASE continue to be harsh in your criticisms, but before you hit that submit button, think about if you're talking to someone who is familiar and comfortable with the frank way you might say something (This sucks) or if they'd benefit from a more decent approach (This is on its way to being great).
And if something DOES suck, point out some guides to help them. Don't leave it at that. I don't want this forum to chase everyone off until it's a handful of us whining at each other. Just try to take things into consideration.
Thanks.

[Gors]

I wouldn't know exactly how to make a successor for such style since I'm not into Sonic. But even the official style isn't that good. It uses the same low-contrast white-gray ramps and those tiny specs, yet again. While it kind of works for Sonic (he curls into a smooth ball, and some shine would reflect that gimmick), it doesn't work for other characters such as Mario.

In the end, it'd be better to just aim for a /better style/ instead of being /S3&K inspired/. Take Mario games, for example. The first NES SMB Mario sprites are quite simplistic and some of the proportion/perspective is dumbed down in favor of readability (Notice how his idle sprite puts his whole body facing us and his head, in profile, kind of like those ancient Egyptian drawings). Newer games quickly ditched this style completely (SMB2, 3, World) and it didn't feel out of place in any way.

A successor should be a better style, not a style that carries the same flaws over.

So, basically, put readability over anything, don't overshade things, don't put random shiny specs etc. Sonic will be a problem due to his thin limbs, but I'll try making an edit soon.

---

Also I agree, Tonberry. I'm only going to defend myself a little here because I did give actual input to the sprite, and there was no insult involved at all in any of my posts. I am not exactly the 'softest' person in tSR, but this doesn't make me a jerk at all. This is my way to analyze things, give input and help people.
Maybe I was a tad acid in my posting, though, so I'll try to be more lenient next time. I probably should've have in mind that this project has already got quite a progress and criticizing it is a huge shock.

I'm only fed up of people not acknowledging criticisms just because I didn't start it with 'good job!' first. I know it's not Deebs' case, but I've seen this a lot around here and it's been annoying me quite a bit.

---

Sorry for the rant, so let's just get back on the topic! As I said before, Deebs, I'll try coming up with a visual example to aid you find a better style.

[Deebs]

I appreciate that and really look forward to seeing what you come up with! I'd like to see other people's attempts as well as yours, so I can have a broad range of ideas on what can be done for improvements.

I understand that S3&K style is seen as a weak/sub-optimal style, but I would prefer to see it 'upgraded' rather than completely discarded. That is part of the core ideals of Mod.Gen (even where it got it's name from, as the concept came before the name)- a modernization of the old Genesis sprites. If we can somehow keep to the spirit of S3&K, I would be very happy.

[Ton]

I don't want you to think I was attacking you, Gors, nor are you the number one perpetrator by any stretch. I'm just putting the reminder out there. I think your crits were at the worst, helpful and at best, spot-on. I just want us all to be mindful of the bow we put on these packages, you know?
Thanks all around, guys!

[Vipershark]

There is one thing that, even in the development of a new style, that I will like clung to as the ideal and would request be kept in mind during the development of a new style- This style was first created as a modified form of the S3&K sprites, and was designed in mind to be a successor of sorts to that style.


Those two things in mind, what would you suggest for the general style? If providing visuals, I would like to see it demonstrated on 'mainstay' characters (Sonic, Tails, Mario, etc) as this will help me understand the differences and changes more clearly.

Thanks.

One of the other problems that I have with this style is that all of the sprites look really busy. It doesn't happen so much with sonic but you can see it on Tails and Knuckles (and if I remember correctly it's taken to extremes on Amy and Blaze). I'm not sure how to describe it correctly and maybe some else can do it better, but it's like as soon as you go under the head, you try to squish the entire body in a space far too small for it, making what's in the area between the chin and shoes just look like a jumbled blurry mess of pixels. You can make out what stuff is after looking at it for a second, but if the readability is so low that you have to actually try to figure out what you're looking at then it's a problem. Again, I'm not sure how to correctly describe it, so maybe someone else can do it better.

As far as how to improve, here, I made a quick edit to sonic.


I removed the gray highlights and made the blue highlight less contrasty eye-burningly bright blue, changed the white highlight on the skin tone to a skin tone-colored highlight (though that may present an issue with your palette amount, I didn't count) and removed the brightest highlights on the shoes.
edit: In retrospect, my blue highlight is too dark and makes the contrast too low but imo it's still better than the super bright blue in the original.

That didn't fix all of the problems, but I think even with those few minor edits, it makes the sprite look a ton better.