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Author Topic: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]  (Read 2210698 times)

maximilianyuen

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #255 on: October 14, 2012, 12:08:30 AM »

And while we're on 'bashes, I'd like to throw one of my own in for consideration:

Spoiler
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this is the Bakoros, compared to my other 'bashes it's quite odd. My brain is convinced it's flying backwards. what do you guys think? (anything that i could improve?)

will you hate me when i say i like it more than the normal one you got ? :P

Spoiler
1: I would say it need more shading to make the contrast a bit higher, just a bit since you got it already
2) since it's a drone carrier, probably can visually emphasis the landing deck more? brighter/ some signal light and so?
3) i know it will be supremely slow but is the only engines at the wing's tip? the rear green hull is suppose to be hanger?
without recognizing the elements within, the overall shape is more in harmony when it's upside down, mainly the tail looks so much like the front of the common hull

just my 2cents
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Hyph_K31

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #256 on: October 14, 2012, 12:47:01 AM »

1) Ahh, shading. My arch nemesis. I'll give it a go, but it'll most assuredly be terrible. Any advise on how to,eh, do it?

2) yeah, I'll try that.

3) yeah, the engines are at the tip because this ship is also a small auto factory. And in keeping with heat, I kept the engines far away from that centre. I will however try adding some more smaller ones. The rear gene hull is the assembly bay, aka the factory. I don't really know what could be done to fix the backwardness without changing the concept of the ship altogether.

And no, I don't blame you for liking it more than I other 'bashes... It's my favourite too!
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TheHappyFace

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #257 on: October 14, 2012, 02:57:05 AM »

1) Ahh, shading. My arch nemesis. I'll give it a go, but it'll most assuredly be terrible. Any advise on how to,eh, do it?

2) yeah, I'll try that.

3) yeah, the engines are at the tip because this ship is also a small auto factory. And in keeping with heat, I kept the engines far away from that centre. I will however try adding some more smaller ones. The rear gene hull is the assembly bay, aka the factory. I don't really know what could be done to fix the backwardness without changing the concept of the ship altogether.

And no, I don't blame you for liking it more than I other 'bashes... It's my favourite too!
i can only figure out one way of fixing the backward look and that is.... turning your brain...
just kidding. best way is probaply adding more engines or increasing there size.
if you dont want to do that or it still looks awkward than just leave it be.
In game the engines will always glow so that will probaply override the backward look.

@ Erick Doe
I am too late D;
I really liked that assymetrical bridge it just needed to be brighter than its surrounding to make it look higher than the other parts.

besides that i only think the engines look a bit akward.
they just look like they have random pixels on them :/
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maximilianyuen

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #258 on: October 14, 2012, 06:02:51 AM »

my turn :)

a revise of my previous design that i don't want to mention anymore :P
spent the whole day on trial and error finally get the built-in weapon glow up to the bearable standard....

Spoiler
ship

glow

what in mind is a high speed assault heavy destroyer/cruiser
3x forward long range pulse artillery (represented as 10 sec charge of 3 pulse shots in a single weapon)
6x small mount PD/multi purpose en weapon (thinking removing it
2X rear mount large missile
4x deck
ship system is drone to represent dockable fighter squadron

intended to be flat to minimize chance of being hit from horizontal plane as it's obviously a hit an run type using long range weapon

here's the perspective angle to help visualize a bit
Spoiler
[close]

[close]
« Last Edit: October 14, 2012, 06:04:57 AM by maximilianyuen »
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Erick Doe

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #259 on: October 14, 2012, 08:55:54 AM »

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I've finished the vulture and turned it into a working ship with multiple variants. I'll post the mod containing the vulture soon.



There's a civilian-esque variant called the Venture-class Light Mining Cruiser, well armoured, no shields, mining weapons. The military grade Vulture-class Light Strike Cruiser armed with military grade weapons and fair armour. And finally there's the more high-tech variant Vulture-class Light Beam Cruiser, armed with beam weapons and a frontal shield system.
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #260 on: October 14, 2012, 09:06:08 AM »

Looks good!  I can't wait to see it for myself. :)
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Cypher

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #261 on: October 14, 2012, 10:14:02 AM »

@maximilianyuen the top-down view of your ships don't do them justice
the perspective view is awesome!
but, maybe a bit paradoxically, they look a bit flat top-down, possibly more shading could fix that :)?
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xenoargh

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #262 on: October 14, 2012, 09:26:15 PM »

@maximilianyuen;  Took a look and here's an edit and some critique.  

Before/after:


Critique:
Spoiler
I like the colors and the form is great; the subtle lighting is cool and the rendering approach is working fairly well.

That said, I really feel that you need to add bevels to the greebles to give better lighting results when you shrink them to final sizes and do a lot more pixel work.  

What's happening is that, as the pixels get averaged, there's a lot of pixel blending that's distorting the lighting and AO results, resulting in a very blurry, sub-optimal result.  The ship looks great in huge renders but is extremely blurry at final scales.  There is no one "easy fix"; to get really perfect results, you must spend time doing final editing by hand.

I am sure you will improve a lot as you become more familiar with this art form :)
[close]
« Last Edit: October 14, 2012, 09:31:41 PM by xenoargh »
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TheHappyFace

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #263 on: October 15, 2012, 01:08:07 AM »

@maximilianyuen;  Took a look and here's an edit and some critique.  

Spoiler
Before/after:


Critique:
Spoiler
I like the colors and the form is great; the subtle lighting is cool and the rendering approach is working fairly well.

That said, I really feel that you need to add bevels to the greebles to give better lighting results when you shrink them to final sizes and do a lot more pixel work.  

What's happening is that, as the pixels get averaged, there's a lot of pixel blending that's distorting the lighting and AO results, resulting in a very blurry, sub-optimal result.  The ship looks great in huge renders but is extremely blurry at final scales.  There is no one "easy fix"; to get really perfect results, you must spend time doing final editing by hand.

I am sure you will improve a lot as you become more familiar with this art form :)
[close]
[close]
dont want to spoil te fun but spoilers people!  ;) use them.
thanks in advance!

@xenoargh & maximilianyuen

I would go for a mix between both versions.
the contrast in the second version is a bit too much for the mostly white hull.
Spoiler
- also the smaller part between the main hull and the engines got sloping on the sides but this is not shown in the final sprite.
- if you give it all those details that xeno gave to you, you should also increase the amount of shading you put in to it since at many parts the details are overuling the shading. the shape is just not visible enough.
- could you give a pic with the ship having the glow on it? I cant since i dont know its transparancy in-game....
- could you make it more clearly what the mounts are? maybe use vanilla once or something that looks like them.
[close]
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xenoargh

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #264 on: October 15, 2012, 05:38:51 AM »

Well, to add more shading's not too hard, since it's pretty flat:

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Erick Doe

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #265 on: October 15, 2012, 06:43:05 AM »

The added contrast looks nice. It brings out the details.
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TheHappyFace

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #266 on: October 15, 2012, 08:09:58 AM »

Well, to add more shading's not too hard, since it's pretty flat:

Spoiler
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sorry to say but wrong!
see the 3d picture.
almost all sides are sloping
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xenoargh

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #267 on: October 15, 2012, 03:29:09 PM »

OK, I gave it one last try :)

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Piroton

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #268 on: October 15, 2012, 05:37:42 PM »

OK, I gave it one last try :)



Ooh, this is pretty. The shading does make it look a lot better - the finer details become sharp. On the other hand, I see almost zero discernible difference between picture 3 and 4, but maybe that's just me.

Overall this sprite's pretty nice looking, even if it doesn't look like the original model. Don't worry too much. It still looks as good.
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xenoargh

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Re: Judgement thread give and receive comments on sprites
« Reply #269 on: October 15, 2012, 08:01:47 PM »

The last pass was really subtle; I used some gradient techniques to soften the lighting of the edges somewhat and give the light a little more natural-feeling falloff.  I could take it one more stage, and emulate the intended geometry a little more, but at that point I'd have to redraw a lot of it, which is why I stopped; the form's a little different than the model, but it looks like a spaceship :) 

That said, maximilianyuen's overall approach is solid, and if I wasn't getting fast results from the technique I developed over here, I'd probably do it like this.  The AO pass in particular really helped it out by adding contrast lines where panels meet, etc., which a non-AO raytrace, or one with softer, more natural AO wouldn't have done.  

I think he's really taking the right approach to executing ships in 3D for post work into 2D sprites and it was a pleasure trying to figure out how to get it to the next stage and get the details sharpened up, even though it took a fair amount of pixel work :)

It would have been easier to get it just right if the original render had been available, especially if it had been rendered at a power-of-two size to the intended resolution so that final blending worked a bit better; these are just small refinements of technical stuff though and I am sure he's going to make some amazing stuff in the future :)
« Last Edit: October 15, 2012, 08:03:35 PM by xenoargh »
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