Graphic Critique

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

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Denine
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Graphic Critique

Post by Denine »

Ok, after This topic I decided to leave programming(for a while) and improve my pixel art "skillz".It's not a making music, after all(IMO much harder than grafics).
So, here it goes:

Library:
Image
Inside of submarine:
Image
Forest:
Image

About library:
There's a room for improvement-I'll can use sprites to fill some books with different colors.

About Submarine:
Maybe I'll draw some curves at bottom to mak it look smaller.

About Forest:
All grafics, except wishing well, are from The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy But I consider drawing my own forest.Wishing well was drawn by Micrus for another project, but never used.

I also consider using black out line for sprites.

Ok, now for Inventory Item Art:*
Dynamite:
Image
Umbrella:
Image

Yeah, Dynamite is supposed to not have fuse.

While are at the topic, I'd like to ask about something else.
In the topic mentioned at the start of this one, some people agreed that using ripped grafics is bad.But what about "downgraded grafics"?
Inventory items are traditionally 32x32 in size.
These items are in perfect size(with few exceptions) looking great, pixel art, and can be downgraded without losing too much quality.
Example:
Image
LEFT:Original art, RIGHT: Downgraded for NES.
How do you guys feel about that?(about the act of downgrading some one's** grafics and using it in game)

*These shows up when you acces inventory(by pressing Select) and are somposed by using background AND Sprites to make 6 color items.

**Guy will be credited and I'll ask him about permision first, of course
Shiru
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Post by Shiru »

First picture has too much small details with high contrast, I think - looks noisy.

In the submarine graphics I would work on the gaps between the elements - sometimes there is 1 pixel, sometimes is 2, and sometimes is none. Also, there is inner shading on the ladder, but not on the other things - probably will be better with shading on them too.

Ripping - using without a permission. If you have the author's permission, is it certainly acceptable, downgraded or not.
Primitive
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Post by Primitive »

I think the first one could look good as a standard piece of scenary in the background, if you can put sprites walking through it where you see their heads I think that would be really nice. After all, libraries are generally row after row of books.

The second looks quite simplistic to me. Almost like something you'd see on a "pre-NES" videogame.

The third looks amazing. Is that with 256 lines still or are you/they using a high rez mode? (wrong, sorry that is SNES).
Last edited by Primitive on Wed Jan 11, 2012 8:26 am, edited 2 times in total.
Denine
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Post by Denine »

Is that with 256 lines still or are you/they using a high rez mode?
I'v never heard about "high rez mode" for NES.It's just normal resolution.
Primitive
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Post by Primitive »

There's none, sorry. I guess I was thinking of some discussion where I was surprised at an old console having a high resolution mode, but of course that is SNES... and maybe later I stopped thinking of SNES being so old.

Very nice graphics for the NES.
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Bregalad
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Post by Bregalad »

I agree with shiriu - the first picture looks noisy. There is too much small details, and you don't even see what it represents.

On the second pic it's the exact opposite - it lacks some detail. This gray background looks weird, I suggest you should have some repeating pattern instead.
Also I have no clue what those green things are.

The third pic looks great to me. The sprite looks weird - lacking black outlines - but the BG looks perfect.
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tepples
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Post by tepples »

Bregalad wrote:I agree with shiriu - the first picture looks noisy. There is too much small details, and you don't even see what it represents.
Probably because the background "pops" enough that it doesn't look visually any farther back than the books. Changing the gray to dark gray ($00) instead of light gray ($10) might help.
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tokumaru
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Post by tokumaru »

tepples wrote:Changing the gray to dark gray ($00) instead of light gray ($10) might help.
Adding some projected shadows would surely add more depth to everything (i.e. the book cases could cast shadows on the wall).
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Bregalad
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Post by Bregalad »

Oh, those brown things were book shelves ?
Yeah you should definitely do what tepples say, and also make the book shelves darker, but keep the walls bright. That way the layout of the room is very visible.
Useless, lumbering half-wits don't scare us.
Primitive
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Post by Primitive »

I thought the green things were doors first, but now they look more like windows. However what are those columns doing, windows don't need something to hold them up. :P Or they could be doors randomly 10 feet off the ground on columns.
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tokumaru
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Post by tokumaru »

Primitive wrote:I thought the green things were doors first
Green? Your monitor must be defective, because that's cyan, not green.
Primitive
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Post by Primitive »

Cyan isn't really part of every day language in western countries. Green, red, blue, yellow, purple, grey, brown, black and white are.
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tokumaru
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Post by tokumaru »

Then "blue" is a much better substitute for cyan than "green", IMO... Most swimming pools look cyan, would you call them "green"? =)
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infiniteneslives
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Post by infiniteneslives »

tokumaru wrote:Then "blue" is a much better substitute for cyan than "green", IMO... Most swimming pools look cyan, would you call them "green"? =)
Probably, either that or blue ;) People would say "blue-green" before cyan. In fact I would think the general public wouldn't even know that cyan is a color, let alone what color...
tepples
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Post by tepples »

tokumaru wrote:Then "blue" is a much better substitute for cyan than "green", IMO... Most swimming pools look cyan, would you call them "green"? =)
The color scheme of Slashdot.org looked "green" to me until I loaded the logo into GIMP and found it was cyan. Perhaps my expectation was tainted by the fact that it's "news for nerds", and printed circuit boards are traditionally green. And perhaps now is the time to mention a Cracked article about color names.

The only reliable color names we have on this board are hexadecimal: $02 is a dark blue, $10 is a light gray, etc.
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