2D Zelda Higher Resolution Community Project

[-Ash-]

Valo

-post-

Who says I didn't try though?  Maybe I did it when it was first suggested, but saw it looked awkward.  Seeing is believing, so...

Whoa. That escalated quickly.

The fun of the experiment is seeing what details people add so I actually like Valo's Link a lot. It's faithful to the blonde-haired design of the time but stays faithful to the original sprite.

First, the base with no changes.


Am I -post- meme yet?

Don't mean to kick up old dust, and I don't want this post to seem like a "You're bad" or "I'm better than you" type post as thats not the intent. Just that, your presented examples, doesn't show anything. You seem to be making the point of "my attempt wasn't looking good so it can't be done." While also using a more 'flawed' way of doing the pixel art to begin with.

Now, to go more in depth with what I said about flawed way of doing pixel art, because you basically just did a x2 version of the normal sprite with the exact same amount of detail, it gives it a horrible 'chiseled' look. Like you carved a generic shape of something rather actually made it(Doesn't make any sense but i'm not a worder). You need to remember that almost all 2D art forms tend to be illusions and that form is important. But as yours has that chisel look, it becomes flat, similar to tracing a photograph. It's a link shaped sprite rather than a sprite of link. At the size of links awakening sprites, the best illusion of an eye you're going to get is 2 pixels stacked vertically. It also works at the resolution.


Tried my hand at it to give an example of what I mean while trying to keep the original feel of LA.

TL;DR version: I don't think your original points on 'it doesn't look good when ____ is added' have any merit. As your examples shown didn't show that it can't be done, but rather you didn't do it right.

[Koh]

Still looks busy to me; you guys keep forgetting the most important rule of sprites: Readability. If you can't tell what you're even looking at, that defeats the entire sprite, lol. The main problem with that one: His eyes bleed into his hair. And once again, his expression has changed from a neutral expression to an angry or annoyed expression, so it definitely changed the feel of the original.

[-Ash-]

Still looks busy to me; you guys keep forgetting the most important rule of sprites:  Readability.  If you can't tell what you're even looking at, that defeats the entire sprite, lol.  The main problem with that one:  His eyes bleed into his hair.  And once again, his expression has changed from a neutral expression to an angry or annoyed expression, so it definitely changed the feel of the original.

Readability is super important, but if you have the same detail as the Links Awakening sprite on a much larger surface, you're creating the equivalent of a traced drawing of a photograph in visual appeal. One of the best ways to have it so your sprite remains readable is to give certain parts visual priority. Things like eyes need to be more defined as you increase in size, or facial lighting just to give it some depth.

The sprite of link with near no detail, had I not originally known it was link would have confused me. Ears don't protrude from the face that way they're literally starting from the corner of his face rather than far back, his eyes coming out of his hair like that makes it seem like barbs at first glance. It really doesn't look like a face in any way. There is no visual distinctness to the details present and they're also just visually wrong at an anatomical level. And about the eyes bleeding into the hair, this isn't an issue. Hair typically covers eyes if it grows forwards. Link's hair does and is even shown to be growing over his eyes in the original sprite. Readability is nice, but should be second to actuality.
So yes, keeping things uncluttered for readability is nice and all, but if the thing trying to be read is just inaccurate to how the eye works and interprets details and lighting, then you still have terrible readability. As it doesn't look like anything.

Link is typically shown to have an angry/determined expression in almost every zelda game where they could fit that detail in and is very common in artwork for him. It's part of the character at this point. Minish cap link, wind waker link, Twlight Princess link, OOT/MM Link, all of them will have a a curled brow. Now I can't say for certain if the detail would have existed in LA, but it couldn't have due to the size of his sprite. But looking up concept art and the such images, it probably would have been there if the sprite was large enough for it. As he continues to have the determined look in concept art.

[Koh]

I disagree; above all else, the sprite's features should be able to be made out from regular distance, instead of having to either zoom in or get closer to the screen.  The sprite is a representation, after all, so it shouldn't look like a garbage dump of pixels moving across the screen.  If you're going to accentuate detail in higher resolution, the use of antialiasing and shading is what helps the most.

I accentuated his eyes just by adding two green pixels near the top corners of both sides.  That's it; extra shading to the face to shape it out a bit more into the chibi head style like before, two green pixels to show his parted hair, and more black pixels to represent the sideburns.  A mouth isn't necessary at all here; adding one doesn't help with identifying a face, it's more for identifying expression.  Which is why in these 2D games, the mouth only shows up where expression plays an important role:  Attacking, holding up items, falling down and screaming, etc.  Otherwise, it can just not exist and be fine, keeping the neutral expression.

[-Ash-]

I disagree; above all else, the sprite's features should be able to be made out from regular distance, instead of having to either zoom in or get closer to the screen.  The sprite is a representation, after all, so it shouldn't look like a garbage dump of pixels moving across the screen.  If you're going to accentuate detail in higher resolution, the use of antialiasing and shading is what helps the most.

I accentuated his eyes just by adding two green pixels near the top corners of both sides.  That's it; extra shading to the face to shape it out a bit more into the chibi head style like before, two green pixels to show his parted hair, and more black pixels to represent the sideburns.  A mouth isn't necessary at all here; adding one doesn't help with identifying a face, it's more for identifying expression.  Which is why in these 2D games, the mouth only shows up where expression plays an important role:  Attacking, holding up items, falling down and screaming, etc.  Otherwise, it can just not exist and be fine, keeping the neutral expression.

I'm very confused, you say you disagree, but you then pulled out things I never said. "the sprite's features should be able to be made out from regular distance, instead of having to either zoom in or get closer to the screen." I've never said anything so stupid. Infact due to the original just being a x2 Link sprite without added details, it honestly felt like a zoom in of it but of worse quality, as parts that were on the x1 scale that created certain illusions were now gone due to the rescale of it.

The complaint was you didn't add anything to the scaled up sprite originally and it looked downright awful, and hurt it's own readability. The attempts done prior by Valo and I weren't "IT SHOULD BE DONE EXACTLY LIKE THIS" just that you should be doing it. There are multiple different ways it could have been done. Don't like a mouth? don't add one on yours. Don't like the way of handling eyes I attempted? do it differently. And now you've done exactly what should have been done from the start and what we had an issue with. And did it (by my standards" better than the other attempts. Since it does look like a properly revamped LA sprite. It was starting to look more like you were being defensive about it for no reason.

Just remember in the future, too little detail hurts readability as bad as too much detail. It initially had too little detail to make out what anything was without the prior knowledge of the character and original sprite.

[DragonDePlatino]

It's art...can we not argue about the "right" and "wrong" way to do it and instead make some more nice sprites?

...Please? 

[Koh]

Animation update for that.


HUD stuff.

[Azure Spectre]

Here's my attempt at aLttP Zelda:



Animated:




This is a bit trickier than I though it would be.

[Koh]

The only thing that really looks off to me is the chin area. Shading seems off. But otherwise, I think it looks pretty good. Sort of reminds me of Graal. Put it in the overlap section of SNES Zelda, since BS Zelda Ancient Stone Tablets used the same sprites.

[DarkGrievous7145]

If anyone actually would like me to try and re-scale the entire cat sheet from Minnish Cap, I'll maybe give it a try in the far future. But no promises. I was actually hoping to be working on it already, but I've been both busy and extremely stressed/depressed. I honestly do not know how long this will take me to recover from, and to be blunt, I may not at all.

Also, Koh, love the hud sprites!