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Author Topic: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]  (Read 2210873 times)

HELMUT

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3435 on: March 03, 2014, 11:22:11 AM »

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This is roughly the same lightning as Starsector. Left will usually be brighter while right will be darker.

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Your version seems like right and left are mirrored. On the right i tried to make it brighter on the left side, that way, it give the illusion that it's a volume. To do this, i copy/paster half of the "egg", i applied a white layer on it with very low opacity to make it appear brighter. You can use the eraser tool just to keep the edge, also think about using the opacity % of the eraser for the gradation.

After this, you can use "Drop shadow" for every parts you will add that "pop out" of the main hull, like the bridge.

kazi, i like this one. Its is fatter than other Mayorate ships but still retain their usual style. But yeah, the flight deck kinda look like a giant gun, not surprising given that every Mayorate ships main weapons are usually placed there.
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Sathe

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3436 on: March 03, 2014, 02:42:43 PM »

...Left will usually be brighter while right will be darker...

This seems to be truth only for few high tech ships (and it is mostly 1-2% brightness difference), curious if that was really planned design decision, David?
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HELMUT

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3437 on: March 03, 2014, 03:18:26 PM »

Shading is only really important for high-tech ships due to their "smooth" armor. Greebling can give the illusion of volume for other ships, when you don't have greebling like for Lcu's ship they tend to feel "flat" without proper shading.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2014, 09:27:23 AM by HELMUT »
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David

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3438 on: March 03, 2014, 03:31:19 PM »

...Left will usually be brighter while right will be darker...

This seems to be truth only for few high tech ships (and it is mostly 1-2% brightness difference), curious if that was really planned design decision, David?

I generally don't want ship symmetry to be absolute but then I don't want to strongly suggest any a lighting direction either. I consider shading (and scale, and everything to do with ship sprites) to be, hm, fairly "subjective" to the particular ship. The overriding rule is that it has to fit 'naturally' into the game.

An example: You can see that I rendered asymmetric highlights on shiny bulbous elements on the Prometheus but flipped them somewhat inconsistently without noticing (until now, cough).
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xenoargh

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3439 on: March 03, 2014, 03:57:59 PM »

@David:  I just figured things like that were just a result of early workup towards the designs; I see a lot more consistency in the light sources in most of the final art.

I definitely don't see a lot of left-right lighting as a deliberate choice; it's always forward and upwards, but left-right is inconsistent between ships and other objects and even certain greebles may not be lit coherently within a single design.

Personally, I think that trying for a "sourceless" approach is generally a mistake; it makes designs feel flat or, worse, creates incoherency.

This is especially evident with things like weapons, where a right-left asymmetry creates a noisy effect when it breaks the illusion created by the hull's lighting.  A really strong source may obliterate details or create too much contrast and should probably be avoided, but coherency's pretty important.  The viewer's eye shouldn't see depth in areas where it shoudn't be or curvature where it shouldn't be.
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Lcu

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3440 on: March 04, 2014, 12:56:22 AM »

I never thought shading would be so much of a problem....

I read it in the first two pages of this thread, that the vanilla shading's source is from the top and slightly front.
And HELMUT brightened up the left side, so i am confused.
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kazi

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3441 on: March 04, 2014, 02:04:41 AM »

Glad everyone is on board with my sprite so far  :D. I'll see if I can reduce the "gun-liness" of the hangar for the final version. I'm probably going to redo the large turret mount as well, it doesn't quite fit the style of the other mounts.

Also Lcu, I find that just having the lighting be front and centre looks pretty good and still lets you mirror everything for easier spriting. The light source for my ship above is located directly above the two "bars" in front of the flight deck (about an inch up, if that makes any sense). I typically use the "soft light" layer mode in GIMP for lighting. Just paint on white for highlights/black for shadows using the airbrush tool. Adjust the layer opacity until it looks good. Use hard light if you need to create really dark/sharp shadows.
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Lcu

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3442 on: March 07, 2014, 10:18:33 PM »

How do you make custom glows for weapons, is there a method at making them?
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Zudgemud

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3443 on: March 08, 2014, 02:04:21 AM »

How do you make custom glows for weapons, is there a method at making them?

If you open your gunsprite in Photoshop or a similar program you can make a new layer. In that layer paint with white paint where you want the glow to be, and then delete the layer with the original gunsprite art so that you only have the white painted layer left. Then save your file as a PNG file and voila, you  have your custom glowsprite.
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Lcu

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3444 on: March 08, 2014, 10:37:19 PM »

what about phase glows?
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Zudgemud

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3445 on: March 09, 2014, 01:00:43 AM »

what about phase glows?

The exact same procedure except you do it on a shipsprite and you need to make two separate glows instead of one to make it look like vanilla. These sprites should also be named according to a certain convention for the vanilla cloak system to recognize them properly. I suggest you check out how they are named and drawn for any of the vanilla phaseships, I recall the convention to be something like yourshipname_glow01.
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Doogie

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3446 on: March 13, 2014, 08:30:07 PM »

Potential Starsector ship here.


Thoughts?
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xenoargh

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3447 on: March 13, 2014, 08:43:39 PM »

Rockin.  Would like to see some micro-detailing, mainly lights, and there are some spots where the lighting could be improved, like the lack of shadow where those "tanks" overlap- feels a little flat there.  Overall though, that's very cool thus far!
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Doogie

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3448 on: March 13, 2014, 09:57:56 PM »

Well that's just the BSF ship. I have done zero work to it otherwise.
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MesoTroniK

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Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« Reply #3449 on: March 14, 2014, 01:59:40 AM »

Hard to say without understanding what you want it to represent. But even without knowing, I think you could likely do something more interesting by cleverly manipulating ring graphics.

Kind of like Tasserus maybe?

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