2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

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FrankenGraphics
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2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by FrankenGraphics »

I think this is getting critique ready:

Image
Image

This time, i tried to convey light/shadow effects with just one single palette for the playfield, in order to have more to spare. The other palettes used for backdrop and the placeholder status bar don't do much here and could easily be used for other stuff.

It started out as an investigation on how diablo might look like if it were to be demade, but it quickly evolved into something else (but a bit similar looking). I made a bunch of notes too on how this may actually play if anyone's interested, but i'd like to hear what you think of it first.
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by Rahsennor »

:shock:

How you managed to shoehorn that into NES restrictions, I have no idea. How many tiles in that screen?

If I had to nitpick, it's a little monochromatic. But attribute boundaries are pretty limiting for unaligned graphics.
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Thanks! I counted to 143 or $8f unique tiles in use. Some could possibly be replaced by lookalikes.


Regarding monochromatism, i want to do something about it, but first i wanted to be sure i could do something that looks convincing with just one. Changing the common colour from black to middle blue should open up some possibilities, but generally speaking/in many cases, two colours need to be common for a transparent effect. Other than that, i guess a game engine could alternate between attribute tables to increase the granularity but i don't know if that is practical or feasible.

Another note on the same is that it probably shows of that i'm much more used to scribbling with black on white than with colour pencils.
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by tepples »

Two-player co-op? I'm curious to see your character designs for Will and Faith.
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by FrankenGraphics »

2 player co-op is the aim! I'd like to have players choose from four characters (much like Gauntlet which is a prime reference), and one of the characters would be a thief boy named Wart, in reference to *some* character in Diablo 1. Haven't thought much about their looks yet, though.

EDIT: Will and Faith was actually just attributes, but i think they are perfect as character flavour. Mind if i use it as such?
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by Drew Sebastino »

To try and make it look less monochrome, what I'd do is I'd make the whole building thing a different color than blue while keeping the ocean that, and at the boundaries of where the building and the ocean meet, use another palette that's kind of intermediate. You could make the edge of the building appear more roughed up to work better with BG attributes.
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by M_Tee »

I quite love it. If you ever want to pick my ear by PM for more specific feedback, feel free to do so.

Otherwise, I'll keep an eye out for what you have in progress.
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Thanks! Something like so?

(edit: old pic moved to link - *new* pic inserted for new details and cliffside)
Image
Last edited by FrankenGraphics on Sat Apr 23, 2016 1:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by Drew Sebastino »

Yeah, except I'm not sure how you're going to explain what that black mass to the side is. I'd also try and go for more varied colors still, which would make you need to fix the bottom part with the dirt of it'd look really messed up. I actually notice that you're using a gold and a gray palette, which could be a bit of a problem.
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by Sik »

Probably the biggest change would be making the walls have another color (right now they look the same as the floor, even contrast-wise, not just hue). This would also be the most likely thing to cause trouble with color clash. Would be worth trying to figure out though.
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by FrankenGraphics »

that black mass (mess?) was me throwing something cheapo there made from recycled cloud and mountain tiles before dinner just to have something that could serve as separation. It's replaced with dedicated ruin/cliffside tiles now, in the same post.

@M_tee: Thanks! I like your style, it is very clear. That's something i can take lessons from. :beer:

@sik: food for thought. It could be easier to implement in the dungeons where no palette is bound to the lake/ocean.
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by Sik »

Well, my biggest worry would be more the boundaries where walls and floor meet, since that diagonal would make it some serious hell to cleanly avoid an attribute clash.
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by Drew Sebastino »

Yeah, personally, I don't think the walls need to be a different color than the floors. Anyway, One thing I did do is I made the sunset a bit taller changed the color of the clouds, because I don't know why they'd be blue in this case. I actually tried to make the ocean less blue and more of that golden color, but I couldn't get it to work. I'm not to sure what's up with your ocean, as it goes from dark, to light, to medium, and then to dark again. I'd have thought it'd be a steady gradient from dark on the bottom to light on the top.

And yeah, the wall is 16 pixels taller.
New Sunset.png
New Sunset.png (973 Bytes) Viewed 8530 times
tepples
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by tepples »

WheelInventor wrote:one of the characters would be a thief boy named Wart, in reference to *some* character in Diablo 1.
But could Wart beat up Wart?

EDIT: Will and Faith was actually just attributes, but i think they are perfect as character flavour. Mind if i use it as such?
Go ahead.

Anyway, the walls facing the light source do kind of blend into the floor. You might want to draw a line between them. It doesn't have to be a cartoonish outline, just something to suggest the ambient occlusion of a concave dihedral. (In plain English: It's harder for light to get into a corner.)
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Re: 2nd attempt: Isometric excercises

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Anyway, the walls facing the light source do kind of blend into the floor. You might want to draw a line between them. It doesn't have to be a cartoonish outline, just something to suggest the ambient occlusion of a concave dihedral. (In plain English: It's harder for light to get into a corner.)
Is this enough of a line? Also added the opposite for the stairwell edge, and there's an attempt at fixing the ocean:
Image
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