E-Man's Sprite Drop-off

[E-Man]

Hello there! I would like to make a request for a Mario sprite that has movements similar to how he is in Super Mario Bros. Z and...

Ha-ha! Just kidding! I'm not here to make a request! Considering that some newcomers make petty request topics on anything but the request forum, I decided to poke fun of that a little bit before I actually move onto the real reason why I created this topic! ...... And no, you don't have to do my "request." I only chose the most generic sprite request as part of my joke, so please don't pay any attention to it.


Anyway, with that out of the way! The actual reason why I'm making a thread on this board is to submit my custom sprites. After I develop them in my R & D topic on another part of the forum, I bring them here to see if they will be submitted to the main site. I wasn't going to post this topic until I'm absolutely sure that my sprite sheet is ready, but since nobody else said a whole lot after I organized it into the final sheet, I think I'll take a chance and submit it.



Also, I took the liberty of creating an icon or two for this sheet. Which one should I go with?





UPDATE: Well, I got some last minute feedback and I did a minor alteration. This time, frames five and six of my flag have more of a curve at the top.

[Ton]

Oh geez, I had to reread that first sentence 3 times before I realized you were kidding. I was so confused.

[E-Man]

I will admit that it was a bit of a head or tails situation regarding if I were to use that joke or not. Maybe it wasn't the best move... Then again, how many other users cracked a joke similar to that (even if it was a bit of a bad joke)? Forgive me for any confusion I caused.

With that aside, though, what do you think of the sprites?

[Ton]

No no! Don't apologize! It was funny! It just took me a minute to realize you were joking, haha.

As for the sprites, for the most part I think they're great. I love the flag and the coin and the fire flower. I do think the Star could use another shade to make it look more like a Mario 64 shape. (That is what you're going for, right?). The mushroom looks too much like a big circle instead of a mushroom, and the axe is a bit flat. Those are the big things that jump out at me.

[E-Man]

Alrighty! That's fair enough! Giving the Star an extra shade is no skin off my nose (to be honest, Gors and Gwen were the one who suggested not to use too many shades on some sprites, which I thought would be the case on an object like the Star). Of course, the big problems would be the Mushroom and the Axe. The former's case would be that I'm not sure how to make it look less like a circle (a thought I had would be to make the cap bigger), while the latter would be how to shade it properly. To be honest, I was never really happy with the shading of the Axe and I was wondering how to tweak that a little.

Of course, I'll be discussing these changes in my R & D sprite topic on another part of the forum to avoid cluttering up this topic with WIPs. Would you like me to give you a link once I posted the modifications in the topic?

[Ton]

Or just make/update an existing topic in Sprite Discussion. You'll probably get more feedback there and people will catch things I may have missed/tell me I'm wrong.

[Garamonde]

Not to be a party crasher but many of these need more work. I know I haven't paid attention to your sprite thread but these have some various kinks that stick out to me, like banding, awkward/not enough shading or-- ...well okay looking closer at it I'll excuse the less amounts of shading cause I see it's a style you're going for. But banding and not enough hueshift in your shades is something you should practice. Did you look at this?

[E-Man]

Mighty, I know you're one of my good friends on this web site and I respect you, but why didn't you tell me all of this and specifically pointed out the flaws during the many weeks I worked on these sprites in this topic?

http://www.vg-resource.com/showthread.php?tid=23952

Forgive me if that came off as impolite, but if you see some problems with these sprites, then it would have been easier for the both of us if you pointed these out a long time ago. On top of that, since I didn't get a whole lot of feedback on these sprites and I keep getting advice that contradicts the other bits of advice I get, I did my best with the information I had to work with.

For the hue shifting, I'm already trying to decrease the saturation and make my shades darker than they already are. Even though I have a solid understanding of how hue shifting works at this point (a red base color gets orange highlights and violet shading), you suggest that I crank it up. I would consider it, but what if I end up going too far and ending up with a yellow highlight for a red base color? I try to alter my hue value in the hue/saturation window by about 10 or 20 ticks for each lighter/darker value just to be safe.

As for banding, I can see some of the areas that would suffer from this. Sadly, according to Gors, there are just some areas that are nearly impossible to avoid banding, such as a vine or a pole, due to how thin and cylinder-like these areas are. Even though those areas are excusable, I think what else you mean are the areas with wonky shading, such as my Star. I get why those areas look funny, but since my skill at shading areas is anything but perfect, I was almost hoping that someone would take the problem sprites and show me how to properly shade those areas in the style I have chosen. That way, I can learn from that mistake and eventually apply better shading without the help of others.

Do you get what I'm saying, Mighty? Please forgive me for this rather blunt opinion. I didn't mean to sound impolite during my explanation. I'm just confused about what to do for this whole matter.

[E-Man]

Okay, Ton, how about this then? You think I finally worked out all the kinks and this sprite sheet is ready for submission?





I feel a little guilty by removing all my tips on how to use my sprites, but since a lot of people are saying that they aren't necessary, I gave in and dropped the notes.

[Davy Jones]

Cleaned it a little bit up:

- deleted additional thanks because you already credited them
- deleted unneccessary boxes
- deleted loop notes (because these animations are simpel enough)
- removed text and and your sprites to the top/bottom
- deleted the "ask me before use" because it's annoying and they already give you credit
- put all palettes to the bottom left

[E-Man]

Okay, I think this layout could work. It took me awhile to see if it is what I'm going for, but it looks like everything is all here! Thank you!

[Vinn]

The ax could use some shading improving

[E-Man]

Where did you come from? I didn't expect you to pop in like that on a topic I haven't touched in awhile.

Anyway, I can see what you mean by how the axe looks a little off. I'm planning on altering these sprites later. Maybe I'll correct the problem then.

[Vinn]

Goodluck, I'm not used to the site's format.