First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

A place for your artistic side. Discuss techniques and tools for pixel art on the NES, GBC, or similar platforms.

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Drew Sebastino
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by Drew Sebastino »

I'd have though with what was drawn, something like the picture I showed earlier would be the logical next step. You aren't adding that many more colors, but are instead just adding more different shades to pre existing colors. I usually find myself going with something like 4 different colors, with the amount of shades being what's left over. Basically, 4 colors is divided like 4,4,4,3. Off course, there are plenty of exceptions for this. With explosions, I'm only going to use about 2 different colors, for the fire and for the smoke, with maybe some transition colors.

It's really pretty difficult to make a volume sprite on the NES and have more than one type of color, because you generally want 3 shades for something, which leaves you absolutely no room.

You know though, people always dismiss Mode 0 on the SNES as being garbage, but with all the inaccurate "retro" games that seem to be pretty popular, I imagine it wouldn't be too bad for that. If you take something like Shovel Knight, it uses about 4BG layers and somewhat follows 2bpp graphics. Sprites are usually more colorful, but that's been covered.
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Myask
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by Myask »

darryl.revok wrote: an armored cup.
Espozo wrote:No
Codpieces were a common element, and often quite ostentatious. But if you prefer tassets (草摺) [hanging plates] or faulds [armored skirts]...well, they were done too.
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darryl.revok
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by darryl.revok »

So I tried my hand at coming up with an animation for the new character, and here's what I came up with. This is just one attack out of an eventual many.

I borrowed your idea of putting the tasset on his armor, Espozo, but I applied it to the last sprite I drew. I liked the way the armor was shaped better.
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Bregalad
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by Bregalad »

Looks excellent - it remembers me the amazing Fire Emblem GBA fighting scenes.
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darryl.revok
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by darryl.revok »

Thank you! Interestingly, Marth in Smash Bros. is my biggest inspiration for how I want the control to feel.

Another idea I had for the fight with these guys is for the lights to go off at certain intervals. Fighting them in the dark would look something like this:
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by Drew Sebastino »

It's Rayman! :lol:

You know though, something about what is his left arm looks kind of awkward at the end of the animation. I think he should have his shoulder in a different place, because it's unlikely he'd finish that with his shoulder in the exact same position as earlier.
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darryl.revok
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by darryl.revok »

He lands with his shoulder in a different place, actually. I think there's something that looks weird about it too. I tried a lot of different things. Honestly I feel like there are too many frames of animation for the arm but it didn't feel right when I tried to remove some too. I guess I'll figure it out later.

Check this out. It's really rough, but I just put this together for a boss idea that I have. I'm going to need to condense it into 64 tiles, so I'm either going to have to make it a little smaller or keep the detail down so I can reuse tiles. The idea I have is for this tank to come out on a bridge, and you'd have to have the tank shoot out the bridge under it. The bridge would be in multiple sections, and I'm thinking I could do this with three bridge sections if I use my 1KB CHR windows for backgrounds in this scene. So one window would be the tank, and there would be one bank for each of the three bridges, and the non-animated tiles would be spread out between the bridge banks. Each bridge would have a few frames of animation for it taking damage and then getting destroyed. Unless SMB3 where each individual block has to be destroyed, in this instance I'm basically imagining the bridge would progress one level of damage for each tank shell it takes, until it collapses. So, that would be about 7 x 1KB banks for the tank, probably about 6 for each bridge, total of 25 KB. Most of the non-animated background would have to be black, especially the horizontal strip where the tank is, which would scroll independently.

I imagine the turret would be a sprite, and the rest of the second 2 KB sprite window would be for the tank shells and explosions.

I think it could be pretty cool if I could pull it off. What do you guys think?
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dougeff
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by dougeff »

:D
nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by Drew Sebastino »

Well, I was thinking about trying make my own tank to show you, but I don't think I'll be able to only use 64 tiles... This was it so far, and the green is a separate palette from the gray, as I imagine the gray could be used for the bridge. The green was just kind of to say where I couldn't put the gray, it's not meant to be pretty yet.
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Edit: Okay, I'm sorry, but after seeing this, I just had to show it. :lol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiR-T6eKGRg
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tokumaru
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by tokumaru »

Why do the bridge sections have to be so big that you need individual CHR slots for each one? Falling bridge sections will have nearly all 8 sprites of a scanline at their disposal, since there will probably be no other sprites down there... can't you simply use the good old "erase from name table and turn into sprite" method?

Here's one game that did this: https://youtu.be/XPFTznI9yeE?t=16m41s

They screwed up a little though, as the sprites appear to not be properly synchronized with the background, and sometimes the floor disappears for a while before the sprite shows up and falls. Also, if you are willing to use all 8 sprites, the falling sections can be 64 pixels wide, or 1/4 of the screen.
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by Drew Sebastino »

Wow... That's actually a pretty good looking tank.
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darryl.revok
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by darryl.revok »

Espozo wrote:Well, I was thinking about trying make my own tank to show you, but I don't think I'll be able to only use 64 tiles...
Did you do this from scratch? It's really cool.

I'm not sure if the perspective as it is would work though. Everything else is directly from the side, so I think the tread would have to be shown from a perspective more like the one in the Batman game tokumaru linked.

The aesthetic for the game would best be described as fantasy with a blend of 1800s and fantasy technology. That is essentially steampunk, but there are a lot of connotations to that term which may not fit so I at least wanted to go about saying it in a convoluted manner. :) The player character, main villain, and the mentor are all Japanese inspired fantasy, but still fantasy. The area of the game will largely be a more european style castle with cannons and a tank and a flying machine. There will also be a large underground section which would bring the same fantasy/primitive technology vibe into a dungeon setting.

If you wanted to make stuff that I may put into this game, just don't get too modern or anything.

I actually modified the tank to be under 64 tiles. I'll probably still have it as a background object while fighting, so that I can have sprites for bullets and explosions, but one thing that I realized is that I couldn't make the tank fall into the pit if it's in the background nametable.

I made an animation of the turret turning but it needs work so I'm not going to post it yet. If you want to draw one, please feel free. If we do separate ideas not inspired by one another then maybe we'll both have cool elements and combine them. Anyway, try to keep the tank under 8 tiles wide. It's a small tank, but it'll still be effective. Mine is 8 tiles wide and 5 tall.
Edit: Okay, I'm sorry, but after seeing this, I just had to show it. :lol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiR-T6eKGRg
LOL The Rook! I have a buddy that I've got to tease to get one of these. He wants a bullet proof truck.
tokumaru wrote:can't you simply use the good old "erase from name table and turn into sprite" method?
I guess I didn't think about that. If I can manage to do the scene the way I have it planned, it's going to take some heavy consideration. I'll storyboard it out soon. Basically, for the boss of the level, I want to have the tank come out on the bridge, and after you defeat it, I want a flying machine to come from the top in the same area, with the bridges still destroyed. I'd also like to have the screen scroll in both directions during this battle, because after the bridges collapse you'd be able to fall down to the ground. If I figured out a way to work it like you're suggesting, and still keep my 1 KB windows for sprites, then I could still have enemies on the screen at the same time, which would be a benefit to keeping the challenge up without having to mount a bunch of rotating guns on the tank. I haven't done any scanline split scrolling yet, but I imagine this will be one of the hardest portions of my game to develop.
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tokumaru
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by tokumaru »

darryl.revok wrote:one thing that I realized is that I couldn't make the tank fall into the pit if it's in the background nametable.
You definitely can't have a sprite that big either. I assume that in order for the tank to fall, most of the floor/bridge will have been destroyed, right? As long as you have 64 or less horizontal pixels worth of floor remaining, you can fake it using sprites and have the background tank fall. You can even do something à la Wile E. Coyote, and have enough of the floor/bridge fall or blow up to make sure that no more than 64 pixels remain, at which point you replace whatever is left with sprites, and then have the tank fall after a short comical delay.
I haven't done any scanline split scrolling yet, but I imagine this will be one of the hardest portions of my game to develop.
A single split is usually pretty easy, but once you need more complex effects you need a more robust system, with a queue of effects that you have to process in order. If you need to modify the vertical scroll, that complicates things a bit too, since you need to use the $2006/5/5/6 trick, but as long as you time the final $2006 write correctly, it should work just fine.
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by Drew Sebastino »

darryl.revok wrote:Did you do this from scratch? It's really cool.
Yes.
darryl.revok wrote:I'm not sure if the perspective as it is would work though. Everything else is directly from the side, so I think the tread would have to be shown from a perspective more like the one in the Batman game tokumaru linked.
True. It would also probably use less tiles.
darryl.revok wrote:If you wanted to make stuff that I may put into this game, just don't get too modern or anything.
Well, the tank was supposed to be. I guess you want more of a "WWI style" tank?

Image
darryl.revok wrote:LOL The Rook! I have a buddy that I've got to tease to get one of these. He wants a bullet proof truck.
I honestly thought is was a joke at first. :lol: It's like a heavily armored forklift.
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Re: First Sprite Designs - Opinions?

Post by Fjamesfernandez »

I fixed some of the lines that made the shape of your tank. I think I could had detail the crap out of it with the right reference but yeah :D love the animation though.
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