THE SCREENSHOT TOPIC RETURNS

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BizarreMonkey
I'll never change. "Me" is better than your opinion, dummy!
1625
author=Ratty524
@Bizzare Monkey: Can't say much on the visuals myself, but I will say that "No" should end with a comma in your second screenshot.
Ah, thanks! I'll fix that before the time it matters.

Funny shenanigans you can do.

Polish all around!

Oh.. and also!

Zelda-level theft brought to a whole new level. This house can look pretty empty by the time you're done. I left some stuff around to provide context to the screenshot. :o
author=Erave
A few new shots. Any feedback is appreciated.


I really dig your pixel work. It looks like a lost Sega Game Gear RPG that I would've loved to have on long car rides as a tiny child. I would love to have it now. I look forward to seeing more of your work.
BizarreMonkey
I'll never change. "Me" is better than your opinion, dummy!
1625
I am become height, topper of page

I apologize for being the page topper so much, even if it is entirely accidental. :o

Also, one of the new Tier 8 Weapons.

author=nurvuss
author=Erave
A few new shots. Any feedback is appreciated.
I really dig your pixel work. It looks like a lost Sega Game Gear RPG that I would've loved to have on long car rides as a tiny child. I would love to have it now. I look forward to seeing more of your work.


Thanks Nurvuss. I guess I should have clarified, I didn't do the pixel work. I'm actually part of a team that is designing an SNES style JRPG for commercial release. My main job is to compose the sound track but I have done some of the mapping. Our primary artist is Tim Wendorf who was also known as "Doppleganger" back in the old GW days (Creator of Whack a Food). I'll pass along your kind words.
Erave, that game is looking mighty fine! Make a game page for it so that I can stalk it.
@Erave, Send regards to the artists, that looks really solid and fun. Can't say I'm a fan of the battle HUD though.

@Bizarre Hmmmm...I'll give it to you straight-
- Really don't like the super large facesets. I mean, I appreciate the fact that you made them or whatever, but I think the large facesets could work with some super detailed interesting looking portrait (actually fuck that I hate those giant portraits that take up half the screen). Yours look like they were made in MSPaint in 5 Minutes. Maybe spend a little longer on each one, really try to hone in on the style you want, then edit those masters for the different expressions or whatever. Or consider using smaller portraits, ya know of like just the face?

Cohesiveness is really important with graphics, look at Erave's screen. Everything fits together so well. It feels like your game had 3 different people make the facesets, sprites, and maps. I'm having a very hard time deciding what to feel by the look of your maps.

The portraits are SUPER cell shady/cartoony. The sprites are weird chibi edits and the maps are drab and boring compared to the zazz of the characters.

Maybe consider reworking the art direction so everything works together.
Anyway, you didn't get much feedback- just trying to help.


Still working on the Dump Game World Map


sorry if this is kind of big
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
@BizarreMonkey: Despite being so much larger, the portraits are somehow even less detailed than the sprites. I think your flat art style for the portraits and enemies would be okayish if it had outlines. Without outlines you are gonna need a lot more detail and shading to make it look good.

@Dookie: Holy shit, man. I can see some parts that aren't done and some shorelines that need to be cleaned up, but you're clearly still working on it.

You should have some giant bent nails suck in various parts of Carpentos. And perhaps scatter some little trash bags or stacks of cinderblocks in Garbagia, since right now it's the most generic-looking section.
Meshing tiles. ;0 I think I got the cliff surface as close to blending as I can!


Day and night version(s).
I think the cliff face looks still a touch too saturated during the day but damn that's a nice atmosphere.
BizarreMonkey
I'll never change. "Me" is better than your opinion, dummy!
1625
author=LockeZ
@BizarreMonkey: Despite being so much larger, the portraits are somehow even less detailed than the sprites. I think your flat art style for the portraits and enemies would be okayish if it had outlines. Without outlines you are gonna need a lot more detail and shading to make it look good.
It's a bit late in the game's development to change all that now! Maybe if you'd said something back in 2012 when i released the beta here that wouldn't have been anything too major to work on. In future projects I'll be diverging away from the MSpaint style but changing 16 facesets just for a graphical upgrade is too much. Also yeah the sprites look detailed because someone with decent pixel art skills made them at my request.

Most of the graphics in the game share the Ms-paint looking style. If you look at the tilesets those sprites are standing on you can see they are much more simplified than RTP.

Also outlines and MSpaint never works... believe me I've been working at this stuff (MSpaint rendering) for 10 years.

A more solid idea would be to just tone down the complexity on all the sprites.

author=Dookie
@Bizarre Hmmmm...I'll give it to you straight-
I appreciate that, even if I end up sounding upset, please know that the straight honest to god opinions you have is what I want, sugarcoating annoys me.
author=Dookie
- Really don't like the super large facesets. I mean, I appreciate the fact that you made them or whatever, but I think the large facesets could work with some super detailed interesting looking portrait (actually fuck that I hate those giant portraits that take up half the screen). Yours look like they were made in MSPaint in 5 Minutes. Maybe spend a little longer on each one, really try to hone in on the style you want, then edit those masters for the different expressions or whatever. Or consider using smaller portraits, ya know of like just the face?
Okay well first off, The large facesets aren't often intrusive so I don't see a large problem with them. Secondly, they are made in MSpaint because most of the game is in an MsPaint style. Updating the faces would give the unspoken obligation to update each mspaint picture, of which there are over 500 (no I'm not joking!). But if it makes you feel better, they took far longer than five minutes. Also I like being able to use characters arms in portraits because they can lend greatly to expression.

author=Dookie
Cohesiveness is really important with graphics, look at Erave's screen. Everything fits together so well. It feels like your game had 3 different people make the facesets, sprites, and maps. I'm having a very hard time deciding what to feel by the look of your maps.
Probably because I did have three different people working on said things. I understand where you're coming from, but making a game of this size cohesive would be a tremendous amount of work, I've certainly done more to lend to it's general aesthetic than I did in Intelligence or Hellcat, that said...

author=Dookie
The portraits are SUPER cell shady/cartoony. The sprites are weird chibi edits and the maps are drab and boring compared to the zazz of the characters.
If i find the time I'll de-zazz-ify the character sprites. They definitely do clash, the tilesets were designed to go along with my mspaint stuff (I had them made to my specifications) but the sprites were made while I was still using RTP tilesets.

author=Dookie
Maybe consider reworking the art direction so everything works together.
Anyway, you didn't get much feedback- just trying to help.
I appreciate it, even if I sound disapproving I really do! It's more I'm just annoyed I sorta trapped myself into this thing. So it's disapproval on myself, not you or Locke's feedback.

Before I close this thoughtbox, what if I just updated my tilesets to mesh well with the sprites? There's a clear bounds box between the messages face and the surrounding environment, so maybe that'd be passable?

That'd make cohorency in its little bit a lot less work, there's only one tileset in my game that adheres to the MSpaint tradition, If you look at the following shot are you genuinely displeased by the clash in aesthetic, or is it excusable due to the clear presence of a divide? (that is if you can ignore the dumb mspaint logo thing at the top middle area)

It looks okay to me, but then a lot looks okay to me!
@Monkey
I don't think "it would be too much work" is a excuse that will work if you're actually serious about improving the game, which you seem to be, at least. Apart from the already mentioned problems with clashing styles, there are also problems with the mapping. It's suffering from the very common problem of the maps being too large and too empty.
Dookie, that's looking absolutely lovely. Might I ask what the area below Garbagia is called? I see a letter there but not the whole name.

As for me, here's a very early screenshot with a specific question.

As you guys can see, I'm working with the First Seed graphics, along with some larger message busts. A friend of mine made it, and I'm just wondering, how is it looking? I'm not aiming for the game to be a visual masterpiece of any sort, but I'd at least like the graphics to invite the player to start/continue playing.
@Bizarre

I wasn't ragging on MSPaint, thats all I use as well. And I have nothing against cartoony style (see anything I;ve done), but my biggest complaint was the lack of detail... So I tried to put my money where my mouth is and in 5 minutes do a quick touch up.




The shading and detail is by no means perfect (or even very good), but I think it has a little more life and character. (Still doesnt match the map imo but thats a tileset issues ((outlines or no the textures and colors dont lend itself to the portrait style)))


SO I mean, yeah, saying that its too much work is a bit of a cop out. I'd say crop the portraits smaller, and up the amount of colors and detail. It doesnt need to be photo realistic, but I think you can do better.




p.s. what is it with these giant portraits? When did that become the thing? Imagine if a cartoon Terra and Locke appeared all over the screen in FF6 when they were talking...ugh. Get that shit off the map and either make them smaller and inside the message box or save them for the menus. Just my opinion.

Also Ralph consider adding a nose to that character and be wary of the white outline.



The kingdom below Garbagia is the bug/roach kingdom of Blattaria.
@Ralphrius, there's a white outline around your message bust.
And I think it could use some darker outlines too.

@Dookie, it's really nice! Though some areas are notably empty. Like the Rubberlands, for example.

@Blindmind the cliff face juts out too much from the rest of the scene. Maybe you could tone those down a bit?

@BM, I'm with Dookie and SnowOwl. Your facesets don't fit in with the rest of the game.
Also, the face graphic for the monkey has a different color from the sprite. I think you overlooked that one.
Yes, the white outline has been noted, rest assured it won't be apparent in any final product.

The giant portrait thing is something I might be reconsidering, indeed. There's sure to be a number of instances where I'll use them no matter what, but the discussion on here has made me reconsider using them for general dialogue.

At the same time, I'm very much not a fan of using face graphics inside the message box. Would the use of smaller face graphics above the message box itself be a decent compromise? In any case, thank you for the feedback!

Testing ripping with VRAM + a few sprite edits :3c
These results are actually rather convincent
A nice fangame could work its way there >.<

but i'm not even gonna bother thinking about that
BizarreMonkey
I'll never change. "Me" is better than your opinion, dummy!
1625
author=Dookie
@Bizarre

I wasn't ragging on MSPaint, thats all I use as well. And I have nothing against cartoony style (see anything I;ve done), but my biggest complaint was the lack of detail... So I tried to put my money where my mouth is and in 5 minutes do a quick touch up.


Okay holy shit that's awesome.

I see whatcha mean. God I'm not even that good at MSpaint waaa!

The shading and detail is by no means perfect (or even very good), but I think it has a little more life and character. (Still doesnt match the map imo but thats a tileset issues ((outlines or no the textures and colors dont lend itself to the portrait style)))
Ugh, now I don't know what I'll do! :o This is gonna be needing much more thought.


SO I mean, yeah, saying that its too much work is a bit of a cop out. I'd say crop the portraits smaller, and up the amount of colors and detail. It doesnt need to be photo realistic, but I think you can do better.
You've inspired me to certainly consider it.

p.s. what is it with these giant portraits? When did that become the thing?
Only since virtually every visual novel ever to exist. Comparatively mine are pretty small.
author=SnowOwl
@Monkey
I don't think "it would be too much work" is a excuse that will work if you're actually serious about improving the game, which you seem to be, at least.
The Remaster is to fix a whole heap of gameplay issues and focuses on making the storyline more clear cut and the characters more charming and human. It's not a HD remake.
author=SnowOwl
Apart from the already mentioned problems with clashing styles, there are also problems with the mapping. It's suffering from the very common problem of the maps being too large and too empty.
Ahahaha, well I'd be happy to kill some of the size in maps, most of that is at fault for me using the sample maps as a template. I usually do make maps pretty small and cluttered (see Haven).

The contrasting styles is definitely an issue I'm going to look into. It would still actually be a lot less work to upgrade it graphically all around than to simplify the realistic looking graphics. Menagerie is very much a victim of time overload, since most of the tilesets that actually look good are on display in some of the best maps I have to show, I supposed it'd be ideal to update it all to that sort of style... I could do it-- it'd take a while, but it may be worth it.

Just to give a little context of how many things would need to be updated...
Yes, that thing down the bottom is the scroll bar, to clarify, some of these are already in a HD style (mostly planetary stuff) but this just gives you a sense of scale.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Working on Iniquity and Vindication recently. Spent like six hours trying to figure out how to resolve a giant gameplay hole without causing a giant plot hole, and eventually decided I need another dungeon between dungeons 4 and 5. Oh well. At least now I know what I want to do... which was enough to inspire me to actually do real work on the game instead of just brainwracking. So I got the paranormal investigation lab done! And also sprited one of the characters, the little ghost girl in this screenshot.



My problem is that every time I draw a map, I feel the need to make a bunch of new tiles for it. In this case I actually pulled up a video of Ghostbusters to see what was in their lab, and then took screenshots and shrunk down some of the objects to make a lot of the clutter in this screenshot.
That is some really awkward wiring going on in there.