E-Man's Sprite R & D

[E-Man]

Hello! I never got much of a chance to try out my spriting skills for various reasons that would take a long time to explain. One of the primary reasons is that although I was a fine spriter (or at least in my opinion) awhile back, the reality was that my sprites where "meh" compared to everything else on this site.

After polishing up my art skills at Full Sail and picking up a few things from you guys (including hue shifting), the thought of applying those skills with sprites popped into my head. Since I didn't have much to lose, I decided to whip these sprites up for this occasion. I know it's only a Mushroom from the Mario games, but we gotta start somewhere, right?



While I could just create a simple Mushroom sprite with the style I developed and leave it at there, I wanted to explore all my options, which is why I created nine variations of the shading. Tell me what you think and decide which one I am better off sticking to. (Note: The Mushroom is in a 2-D side-scrolling view that is common for Mario games.)

Note one

This is the first Mushroom sprite I created for this sheet. Since there is no shading whatsoever, any Tom, Dick, and Harry would be able to create this in a matter of seconds. Still, I needed something to apply shading to, so this had to do. Anyway, do you see anything positive about it, so I could (possibly) repurpose this style of shading (or lack of thereof) for any sort of project?

Note two

This is my first bit of shading for the Mushroom. I only used the the mid-light/mid-dark values to shade it. It's better than the Mushroom that I started with, but does it still seem a little bland to you?

Note three

This Mushroom is the same as the previous one, but I actually replaced the shading with darker/lighters values instead. This makes the shading more apparent, but does it make it look better?

Note four

I took the previous Mushroom and applied a little more shading by using the mid-llight/mid-dark values. Compared to the previous Mushrooms, this one looks more professional and has a better chance of being accepted by this site's standards.

Note five

In a sense, this one is a bit of a downgrade of the previous Mushroom. This time, the mid-light/mid-dark values are only used in a form of anti-aliasing. I would say it's a nice touch, but it hardly looks any different from the third variation of this Mushroom. By the way, I was planning on doing a bit of an anti-aliasing effect on the edges of some parts of the Mushroom, such as the spots. Since that would make the sprite appear cluttered, though, I thought better of it and just stuck with hard edges. As for why I did not use any transparent pixels on the outside edges of the Mushroom, it was all a matter of making my sprites easier to use. Besides, since most people use MS Paint to fiddle around with sprites, it wouldn't make sense to include elements that would be useless to them.

Note six

Basically, this is an upgrade of the fourth variation of the Mushroom. I managed to increase the coverage of the shading created with the mid-light/mid-dark values to make the Mushroom seem just a hair bit rounder. In my opinion, the result looks a lot more professional than the fourth variation.

Note seven

Up until now, the direction of the lighting is coming from above, which appears to be common for most video game sprites. Since I normally don't use light in that direction, I decided to change the direction just a smidgen to replicate how I usually shade. Compared to the previous six variations, this one looks good enough to be featured on the main site in my opinion. The only downside is that if I were to create other sprites using this light direction in mind, then that would mean that I have to almost double the amount of sprites I need to create if I am going to create poses for the opposite direction. Sure, a sprite like this one is no big deal since it is symmetrical (mirroring it would only change the direction the light is facing from), but more complicated sprites would demand more work to avoid the oddities associated with flipping (i.e. Link switching his sword hand if you mirror his sprite). Since this would would also apply to the shading I placed onto the sprite, then that would mean that I have to create a new set of sprites with the correct shading that are in that direction. Either way I look at this, this would either lead to two separate sprite sheets for the same character or one big sheet that would take a while to sort out. Which would be the better choice?

Note eight

This one is the same as previous Mushroom, but I added a shadow underneath the cap. Did I manage to do this right, or should I not bother with shadows like these at all? (Note: I'm not sure why it did not cross my mind to apply this shadow to the Mushrooms with the topdown lighting. Maybe I was thinking it wouldn't look good? Also, should I use the topdown light, or the light at an angle the next time I create sprites like these?)

Note nine

This variation breaks the rules of a sprite palette just a bit. To create the shadow underneath the cap of the previous variation, I used a color darker than the one in the shading area the shadow is going through. The only two exceptions where when it was running through the area with the strongest highlight (I wasn't sure if it looked appealing) and the area with the darkest shade. In the case of the later, the shadow underneath the cap and area with the darkest shade "merged" together. As an experiment, I decided to create one more shade value to create a color that is darker than the darkest shade value I was currently using for the Mushroom "head." Do you think this is a good idea? Should I remove it since it "breaks" the "rules" of how sprites appear in video games, or should I remove it because it looks visually jarring?

These are all my thoughts on the sprites. They actually turned out better than I imagined, but you guys know better than I do about these things.

Before I conduct any new experiments involving sprites, I have a question about frame-rates. Is the typical frame-rate for sprites 24 frames per second, or is it something like 12 or 10 frames per second?

By the way, I have other ideas in mind relating to sprite research. I will place them here in case any of them sound good to you. Which of these projects do you want me to tackle? I would like to do all of them to be honest, but I know that not everyone would care for them and/or some of them have been done already.


- Emulating the Paper Mario style to create the faries that will appear in Super Mario 3D World (loosely suggested by Devicho).

- An annalisis of the sprite style featured in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team and ideas on how to rip/emulate it.

EDIT: Not everyone wants to read a wall of text, so I took the liberty of placing all my thoughts and notes into spoiler tags to reduce clutter.

[Gwen]

You go to Full Sail? On campus or are you online?
EDIT: Also, way to many shades per color, dial it back a bit.

[Vinn]

Looks good to me. I got a minor problem with the shading on the middle white dot but your okay with me.

[E-Man]

You go to Full Sail? On campus or are you online?

I am an online student. It's a tough job and sometimes I consider quitting, but since I'm more than halfway done, I still trek through anyway. Without exposing too much about my grades, I am actually doing alright. I just don't care about spending long hours to complete each assignment.

EDIT: Also, way to many shades per color, dial it back a bit.

Forgive me for this statement, but I honestly don't see why a lot of people have a problem with me using too many values. I can understand why it seems like a problem for my usual art style (some people say that it looks beveled due to the feather shading), but how is it a problem when I only use a sliver of the amount of colors I usually use? The second and third variations of the Mushroom have far more limited palettes than the later variations, yet I find it odd you didn't say anything about those. Besides, even though my opinion has no say in a situation like this one, variations six through eight look more polished to me (I will agree that the extra shade on nine is a bit overkill). Is there something I am not getting?

[Gwen]

Because, for a sprite that size, it just muddies up the contrast and it gets difficult to even pick out different shades.

[E-Man]

Hmmm... I think I see where you're getting at this. For my palettes, the values of the cap and "head" are five for each one, while black and white use four values each. For the second and third variations, the total is reduced to three for each color, but they don't dramatically appeal to me and I have doubts that they would be accepted onto the main site.

For the look I'm going for, I was actually inspired by this style of sprites, whihc has more than three values for each color (or at least at certain angles).



In that case, what would you say would be a fair amount? Four values per each color?

[StarSock64]

Idk if the number of shades needs to be decreased but they definitely need a bunch bunch more contrast between shades.

[E-Man]

Since I didn't get a reply in awhile and this topic is starting to become a bit buried by the others, I thought replying to my previous post would be called for in this situation. Please don't get too frustrated with me over this.

Anyway, I looked into my shading and decided to to whip these balls up for research. I didn't number these, so I will talk about them from left to right.

Note one

This is the ball before any shading is applied. It is bland, uninspired, and nothing to write home about. Still, it's a start!

Note two

Here is the ball with three values. Since the mid-light/mid-dark values are not going to cut it, I used the lightest and darkest values. It's the bare basics, but is this shading style acceptable by the site's standards?

Note three

If I had my way, this would be the variation I will use without second thought. It looks relatively appealing, but Gwen is telling me that it makes it hard to see the values. I wish I could keep this method, but if no one else finds the appeal within it, I may as well drop it.

Note four

This is another variation using only three values. Since it would not make too much sense to only do it for the lighter values (I think it would make the sprite look flat), I decided to only use the darker values. The only reason why I use highlights at all was due to a suggestion someone gave me ages ago. Personally, I have no gripes about not using highlights and only saving them for shiny surfaces.

Note five

This variation of the ball is one of two that uses four values. While I only used the lightest value as a highlight, I stuck with two values for the shading. For some reason, this one looks very appealing to me.

Note six

The other variation with four values is the opposite of the previous ball. This time, the shading has only one value, while the highlight has two. I am not sure how appealing this one is, but I don't care for it myself.

So, what do you think of my thoughts on this one?


EDIT: Oh! I didn't even need to double post! Thank you, StarSock64! Anyway, to respond to your critique, I'm assuming that you would like the values to be darker, right? (i.e. darker shading, brighter highlights) Like I said in my art topic, I choose to avoid making my values look too intense because I think they would not look so good, but if you want me to experiment with them, I don't see why that can't be arranged.

EDIT2: I placed all my thoughts into spoilers. Sure, they are shorter than the thoughts of my first post, but you can't be too careful!

[StarSock64]

If the values seem to get too intense, it's not really a sign that high contrast is a bad idea, but other problems can be going on (-too- much contrast {you should fear not having enough contrast MUCH more than you fear too much; people who don't sprite a lot almost always don't have enough}, poor distribution of saturation, badly blending hues)

Don't let that gibberish confuse you though. First things first, try adding more contrast, and then we'll see how to fix it from there. And yeah, darker dark shades, but -not necessarily- brighter bright shades. That -is- a way to increase contrast, but trying to brighten up reds can turn them pink, so it might be a good idea to only work on the darker shades. You should basically play with it and see what you can get out of it for now.

edit: Oh, that very brightest red shade for the highlight, that probably needs to be a bit brighter. I meant the base red doesn't need to be changed much

[Gors]

i got extremely bored after reading the first paragraph of your post

you talk too much for something as small as this. While you're trying to "mimic" M&L 4's shading style, you really don't need all those shades because you aren't going to animate it smoothly. The official sprites has many shades because that way you can add a lot of antialiasing and thus helping in the smoothening of the sprite.

your mushroom is weird because the 'face' is placed forward instead of being in the middle, like a mushroom would be. Therefore it looks more like a Toad than a shroom. Also because of that, the face looks like another sprite than a single entity because the cap should cast a shadow on it, but it isn't.



here's my take on it, light coming from top right. The direction of your shading doesn't matter as long as all other sprites follow it. There is no 'correct' direction the light comes, therefore you shouldn't be hellbent on shading the sprite from all possible sides like you are doing. Adding in-between colors also don't matter if you are going to pick way too similar colors. If that's the case, increase the contrast and work well with what you have.

[StarSock64]

I was taking a peek at your color values and noticed that all your shades seem to be at the highest saturation setting. I'm pretty sure that in general, shades in the shadows should have less saturation than shades in the light (aka lower saturation on dark shades, keep some higher saturation on bright shades)

I think I heard somewhere that highlights should have less saturation than the base color, but I don't know if that's true. I'm not really well-versed in how shading works...

Anyway, I think some of the best advice I can give you is to take a bunch of random official game sprites you like (probably more modern games; some SNES games and such contain bad habits)

then pick the eyedrop tool for lots of different shades within the sprite,
and look at all the hue, sat, lum, rgb values in detail. The visual representation on ms paint is probably easier to comprehend than looking at the numbers, but you should probably kinda keep an eye on both to see what affects the numbers.
Basically look at this thing:


then try to get a feel for how the professionals pick their colors and what kind of trends there are in their decisions

[E-Man]

Heh... Sorry about talking too much, Gors. I just wanted to explain as much as possible to ensure I can convey my thoughts properly, but I guess I horribly confused you. Since you mentioned something about my Mushroom looking like a Toad head, perhaps I could repurpose the "failed" attempts as Toad sprites once I get around to that? *chuckles*

Anyway, both you and StarSock64 have very good advice! I already made a new set based on some advice StarSock64 game me. SInce you got confused by my wall of text, Gors, I took the liberty of placing all my notes and thoughts on each group into spoilers. That way, that should hopefully make my posts appear less daunting. (Note: Each set consists of two spheres that are above and below each other. The order is from left to right.)

Set one

These are the shaded spheres I started out with. The one on the top has all five values, while the one on the bottom only has four. You can't see the values very well, so allow me to fix that.

Set two

These spheres now have improved shading. Compared to the previous ones, they are more appealing.

Set three

In addition to fiddling with the shading, I also tweaked the highlights. Not bad!

Set four

This last set is a little different from the previous sets. The one on the top has three values, while the one on the bottom has the usual four, but the highlight is not as intense.

What do you think of my thoughts? Anyway, I was wondering how many values should each color have. It looks like three is a good standard, while four should only be used for shiny objects..... Or is five a good maximum for shiny objects, while four should be used for everything else? Also, the thought never occurred to me to tweak the saturation in my highlights and shading. Maybe that should be something to look into for my next experiment?

[StarSock64]

Well, there's not really a hard-and-fast rule when it comes to number of shades. It depends on a lot of factors, from size (bigger sprite means more shades might be necessary, and bigger areas within a single sprite may need more rendering than smaller areas), to practicality (less shades=easier=faster production and cleaner-looking work), to plain old personal preference.

I don't even think about my shading in terms of how many shades I have. I never count my shades if I don't have a reason to. Instead, I typically think of things like:

1) Are my shades currently providing maximum clarity/readability?
2) Are my shades currently demonstrating a proper amount of depth?
3) Can I combine existing shades without losing anything important?
4) Will adding a shade contribute to readability and depth? Will it make it look more muddy and cluttered?

These are things that you learn over time through observation and practice. Don't feel like there's a golden rule you should stick to. Just go with what feels right and ask for advice like you are and keep doing your best!

[Gors]

the answer is

you are making a storm in a cup of water. You are worrying and overdetailing a lot for something so small as this, and not only it's annoying, it's unecessary. Look at the other threads, they aren't as gigantic as this and they work fine (maybe in a better steadiness than your topic).

it's not about confusion, it's about -being utterly unecessary-.

Also you are still way too hellbent on finding an optimal style or technique when there is not. I am actaully tired of saying this but it doesn't matter if you want to use 5 shades, 4 or 3. There is no rule saying what's the optimal number of shades. I mean, it even feels like you have no self-awareness at all. Do you really need to post all the steps for the two spheres you just shaded? Really? Maybe it's your way of learning but I just feel it's tacky and not direct to the point.

The balls you shaded are all correct depending on situation. There is a type of shading for each situation (I told you this too) and what matters more is if your current style works for your work. Sometimes you will need more shadows, sometimes you will need to hueshift more. There are no fixed rules for this, there are just guidelines. For example, Starsock's advice is valid, but sometimes you won't use it. And what defines it is the environment and the use of the spheres. (And I think the darkest shade could be a tad more dark and unsaturated).

The rule of thumb for picking colors is if the color you are adding onto the palette WILL CHANGE CONSIDERABLY the art you are doing. If two colors are too similar to each other and don't add anything positive at all, you may cut one of them off.

[E-Man]

You're right, Gors. I'm way too paranoid about whether or not my style is "perfect" and I should chill out.

Despite all that, though, I love the advice you and StarSock64 gave me and I'm happy to keep on learning.

Anyway, I decided to create some more sprites and this time, I shaded them base on how they look from a distance. I did my best on all of these, but don't be shy to point out anything I could do better.