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O Praise Christ, O Praise Christ, He Is Holy, He Is Holy - O Praise Him,

Nice start!

I didn't take time to tile very many of them, I just focused on the brick ones.

brickW1 tiles very nicely vertically, but it doesn't tile horizontally very well:



Normal brick.png is a little too plain. I think brickW is probably my favorite as far as horizontal/vertical tiling, and having enough variation to be visually pleasing.

The trees don't have much contrast to them, and it's hard for me to see much definition. A hilight color to draw out the bark could possibly help here.

Thanks for sharing! Keep up the good work!

--clint

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited July 05, 2007).]

Llama - Gread idea! thank you. will do, ill get on that as soon as im done taking apart this house and putting it into tiles.

Han - Thank you for your feedback, first of all. I should have given an explaination, though, but hey, thats one way to learn. Brick is kind of the generic brick tile that is for tiling throughout the body of a building. BrickW is the beginning of the rounded corner for the west side, and brickW1 is the final rounding. Ill post a picture on my site to let you know what i was intending.

Also, i agree that the brick tile is a little plain. When i was working between a few different computers, i lost track of what was where, so i do have some variations somewhere. I'll get on adding some variation to the set on this computer soon.

Thanks a lot, and keep them coming! Check back later and ill hopefully have taken care of some of what you each have pointed out!

EDIT
Alright, it's been updated!
End EDIT

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O Praise Christ, O Praise Christ, He Is Holy, He Is Holy - O Praise Him,

[This message has been edited by LegaianLight (edited July 05, 2007).]

Regarding the pixel work:
* The windows look cool.
* The brick wall looks nice too. Seems like the rounding off of the west side needs some variation
* The logs on the house look pillow shaded.. Maybe try a pattern like you did on the tree.
* I'm seeing circles in one of your grass tiles.

From the angle of art and reality:
* The roofs of houses rarely end right at the wall. They normally have eves that over shoot the wall. Adding those should help eliminate the "monopoly" feel you've got going on.
* You really need to establish a light source and use highlights and shadows. There is another post in the forums here that links to an excellent pixel tutorial showing this.

Also, I'll throw in a pointer could have saved me frustration when I was attempting a 2D rpg back in the day. Maps are always drawn in layers! At the least, a foreground and background layer (sometimes a third if you are doing covered bridges). If there is something that the player walks behind, you need to draw two tiles one for underneath the player and one for above the player.

I still remember when this dawned on me after spending like a month making a tile set, then having to redo more than half of the tiles... very frustrating.

A very revealing exercise is to download zsnes and your fav 2d rpg rom, then use the 1,2,3,4,5 keys to toggle the layers on and off and see how the pros do it.

But, I encourage you to stick with it and do well.

God Bless!

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Sam Washburn

one thing: the brick wall is at a different angle than the houses. maybe it's just the roofs (because now looking at it, the front faces are the same) that make it look weird. if the roofs weren't so long and didn't seem to angle straight up it would look more realistic.

just a tip. otherwise looks pretty cool. you working on a game?

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that post was really cool ^
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[|=D) <---|| me

I know it's only somewhat better (at least in my opinion) but it was just a quick thing and I wasn't redrawing the whole image (which would be the best way to fix it). I just made the roof wider and shorter and set it on the house. A better way to show it would be to make the tiles thinner and such. also you really shouldn't be showing much of the roof from the angle you're drawing it. it's tough.

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that post was really cool ^
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[|=D) <---|| me

We should really have a Pixel Art dump thread

So, lets start with the bricks. I smoothed some things out again in getting the color palette straight and continuous. I also added in a few variations for some of the tiles, specifically adding cracks.

The House - i didnt do a lot, exactly, but i did change the shading so it doesnt look quite so plain. As far as extending the roof, ill definitely take that into consideration. I was considering making this a poorer characters house and leaving the eaves off and even adding a hole in the roof or something. But ill do the eves on future houses that are for even somewhat richer characters.

Grass - I decided to try a different look, hopefully eliminating any circles that may have been in the old ones. I intend to add a third tile, since i only have 2 right now.

Buddboy - I am working on a game, but i think i'm going to start with a sprite storyboard (like a sprite comic but for the purpose of storyboarding), that way most of the art assetts will be in order before hand. As far as the roofs go, ill have to do some looking and thinking. It will probably help more when i have more examples, especially off buildings, so that things will be more continuous and not look so strange! lol

In any case, the page has been updated with a new scene. It has two new tree styles, the new house, and the new brick wall (west side, plus curve, and a bit of a roof). The brick wall is unfinished, though.

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O Praise Christ, O Praise Christ, He Is Holy, He Is Holy - O Praise Him,

Wall:
The wall looks great! I like the variation. I'm getting a little lost at the top though. Is that the top of the wall, or a roof? Its a little hard to tell.

Grass:
The grass is a lot nicer, I like the texture.. I'm picking up some tiling still. I think you are right, a third variation might help.

House:
Keep the roof however you like . Love the wood panels tho. Very nice. Hmm.. The black outlines seem overbearing now, do you agree? Oh, and maybe add some texture to the shingles.

Trees:
(DISCLAIMER: Trees can be such a subjective thing in games. I've seen everything from the knee-high christmas tree single-tile style to Zelda's bubble trees to some incredibly elaborate work in SquareSoft's old titles. So, take this part with a grain of salt. )
First I find it a little difficult to see the branches of the trees, and the branches are small compared to the trunks. It seems like the tree anatomy is off. Check out this artist tutorial on how to draw trees. I just googled it and read though it.. Its pretty cool.

Color:
I noticed you desaturated the colors. It now takes on a whole new mood, like barren and drab. I guess that is what you were shooting for. Good Job!

All in all, this is great progress! Keep up the good work. I look forward to seeing this progress more!

God Bless!

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Sam Washburn

[This message has been edited by samw3 (edited July 11, 2007).]

see, the one on the left is a house from the front, and the one on the left is what you're doing. now either you can not show the roof (but a view like that almost never happens in life) or you can show everything from an angled view so you can see the side of the house and the roof. like this:

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that post was really cool ^
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[|=D) <---|| me

Its called the projection. The lower of your designs is call an Isometric projection and LL's design is more of an oblique projection. Both have been used successfully in 2D video games. An oblique projection can be a bit harder to draw if you have very tall items, and maybe this is the LL's struggle with the wall. Most games that have tall items in an oblique projection make it go off the screen (like the wall in the zelda shot below).

Oblique (Zelda):

Isometric (DOFUS Arena):

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Sam Washburn

As for the top of the castle: it looks like you're trying to show depth there by shrinking the tiles. I wouldn't suggest doing that unless it's a solid background image. The roof of the house really sets up the scene so i'd aim for at least the depth of the house.

Again, i may have covered stuff that other people said so sorry. keep up the good work though!

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Visit my portfolio (and check out my projects):
www.JestermaxStudios.com

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that post was really cool ^
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[|=D) <---|| me

Grass - I added a third tile in my own personal collection, and ill post it soon.

House - Yeah, i see what you mean about the black outlines. I'll look into editing that out soon. As far as adding texture to the shingles, i dont know exactly what to do other thatn make a few look broken for this house (it's supposed to be for more of a poor persons house).

Trees - Yeah, i understand about the branches. I'll see what i can do about that. Thanks for the link, it looks interesting!

Color - Thanks for the compliment! yeah, this is supposed to look a lot more drab as its near a forest and the darkness is supposed to be partially because of the influences of the town (demonic).

Also, as for your more recent post, i appreciate that. I was going for more of an oblique projection.

Jestermax - Thanks for your post! May i ask why you think it would look better to have the panels going the other way?

I am going for more of a realistic look, but im just getting started so i do intend to work on the colors and shading, and will continue to appreciate any constructive criticism, so thank you .

For the castle, i was trying to show some depth, but i get what your saying about the house setting the depth for the scene. I'll get on that soon hopefully .

BuddBoy - Yeah, i was going for more of an oblique look, but i'm not sure exactly how i could change the house to have a different angle on the front. Any pointers on this would sure be appreciated!

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O Praise Christ, O Praise Christ, He Is Holy, He Is Holy - O Praise Him,

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Visit my portfolio (and check out my projects):
www.JestermaxStudios.com

Yeah, i'm working on something that will make them stand out more as we speak.

Thanks again, everyone, and keep it coming

Edit: Also, does anyone know of a good tile mapper for Mac? I have one called Reptile, but i'm looking for something that supports layers, different sized tiles, and still places by tile as opposed to by pixel

Edit 2: I have updated the pixel art section of my page with a new picture of some of the work for today. It was rough, but its a huge praise God that we did it .

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O Praise Christ, O Praise Christ, He Is Holy, He Is Holy - O Praise Him,

[This message has been edited by LegaianLight (edited July 13, 2007).]

[This message has been edited by LegaianLight (edited July 13, 2007).]

So I've redone the houses so they not only have extended eaves but so that they are a bit better perspectively. Also, the roofs are now better looking in the shingles, in my opinion. I have yet to add texture to the roof outside of the shingles, but that will come soon, hopefully.

I did add in a third grass tile, and i also started working on a sprite version of myself (which is shown in the most recent picture.

Also, and a little off topic, i added a links section which i wouldnt mind any feedback on as well. Thanks a lot!

One last question, and idk if this should be put elsewhere - are we allowed to bump topics like im doing now?

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O Praise Christ, O Praise Christ, He Is Holy, He Is Holy - O Praise Him

We're standing on the shores of forever - where stars are shining brighter than before. And peace is the Prince of the moment. Our hearts are so weary from the war.

Who is on first. ~ Well what are you asking me for?
I'm not asking you, I'm telling you - Who is on first. ~ I'm asking you who's on first!
That's the mans name. ~ Thats who's name?
Yes. ~ Well go ahead and tell me.
Who. ~ The guy on first.
Who! ~ The first baseman!!
Who is on first!!

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Eric Pankoke
http://www.polsoftware.com

So for right now, its back to the writing stage until i can figure out where to go from here.

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O Praise Christ, O Praise Christ, He Is Holy, He Is Holy - O Praise Him

We're standing on the shores of forever - where stars are shining brighter than before. And peace is the Prince of the moment. Our hearts are so weary from the war.

Who is on first. ~ Well what are you asking me for?
I'm not asking you, I'm telling you - Who is on first. ~ I'm asking you who's on first!
That's the mans name. ~ Thats who's name?
Yes. ~ Well go ahead and tell me.
Who. ~ The guy on first.
Who! ~ The first baseman!!
Who is on first!!

quote:

---

Edit: Also, does anyone know of a good tile mapper for Mac? I have one called Reptile, but i'm looking for something that supports layers, different sized tiles, and still places by tile as opposed to by pixel

---

I have one called Mappy, and it does all of that, plus isometric and hexagon maps and lots more. I don't know if it runs on mac, and the site is down('Bandwidth Limit Exceeded') so I can't check.

hope that helps!

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-Evdude

"trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your way's, acknowledge him and he will direct your path" proverbs 3:5-6

[This message has been edited by evdude (edited July 30, 2007).]