LOTUS_GAMES'S PROFILE

Those are some very helpful suggestions...I didn't realize the pixel consistency till it was mentioned so I'll play around with that some more for the house especially. I'll also make the trees larger...that makes sense to me. Also Lockez, it's suppose to be a wand...I was inspired by Ni No Kuni haha, I've never played Treasure Adventure Games but I'll take your advice on adding more parallax scenery. Thanks for the feedback guys/gals they helped a lot this time around =D

@Daria: Wow, a lot closer to how you envisioned! I like the added touch with the light source and I see you have a carpet now to break up the section of the room below =] Did you make that carpet from scratch? By the way what is that triangular object over the carpet pointing down?

@Joseph: I really like that style man, it's very retro and interesting to look at =]

@Karsuman: If you take the time to read, my map is based off of what Daria wanted which was clutter. As far as the beams I added them after Daria himself/herself added them just to show how it could be done without looking too broad. Anyways I based my example map to help Daria and his or her own style which is a lot more than I can say you are doing with your post, which is being blissfully ignorant of my image and not really helping Daria. Yeah too much clutter can block navigation..but this is an interior map, not a two tile width dungeon. When was the last time you went into a shop and it wasn't cluttered with decoration and items for sale, placing these on the outer edges does not limit navigation by the way. I'd suggest people be careful of your suggestions personally.

@Daria: I see someone already gave you feedback to make those beams smaller. I made an example map for you with the previous suggestions I gave you in mind. I couldn't find the chipset you used so I had to improvise and because I don't have xp or vx on my computer (though it looks like you might be using gamemaker?) I had to make the example map below using Photoshop.



So here are my suggestions:

1. Think about structure when you are making your maps. A support beam is going to be both vertically and horizontally connecting the ceilings to the walls.

2. Think about the real world when making your maps. You have no light source inside your map, it's fine during day time as natural light might come in through window cracks but what about night time? Your map would realistically go completely dark and make it impossible to see during lights out. In my example map, you can see I added two chandeliers on the table as well as fire in the section above.

3. What would happen if a person came from the outside into your shop? Your floors would probably get dirty. It's an added detail but you can see I added a straw mat near the entrance of the shop.

4. How would the shop keep/blacksmith get from the entrance to behind the counter? Does he hop over it everyday he comes in for work? That might make for interesting dialogue in game but more likely he would need a section of the counter open for him to pass through. You can see from my example map how I set this up.

5. Your storage room is closed off on all sides. How would a broom and sink even get there? How would the blacksmith or npcs get into this room? You can see from my example map I just added a door connecting the two sections.

Finally you can see what I did using my previous suggestions to you in mind. I used double ceilings rather than single to give more depth. There is a carpet/rug to break up the wooden floor more. I placed objects on various sides to add to more clutter. I also added more npcs to give the scene more life. And the plants and vines I placed add more eye candy to the scene. Of course this is an interior map and not some deserted ruins so you have to limit how many vines you would use, but I feel it break up segments of the walls for a more interesting look.

You can see what a subtle lighting effect...emitting a glow from the fire place can do for your map as well.

Ok so hopefully my example map helps. I enjoyed making it, cheers =]

@Trujin: I appreciate the feedback, I'm not sure I understand what you mean in your first point but I agree that the trees could use more variety and perhaps more work on their base. The tree sprite actually has two branches though, I suppose because of the style and size they are hard to see.

@Corinthian: You're right I am using photoshop effects so I guess it is NPA as you say but I didn't use brushes for anything you see, they were all made using the pencil tool. I guess the pixel effect is lost with the gradients and the transparency with the clouds but I feel my clouds are weak right now so that was the only reason I chose to reduce their visibility. I agree with the forced perspective comment, it could use more work in terms of my color values but something important to note is I made this on my HD 32" monitor which has a wider range of color than my laptop and when I was making it I kept hue, saturation, and value in mind which is why it looks great on the 32" but when I viewed my post on my laptop which does not display as many colors, my pixel art became more flat. That could be why it appears that way to you but I realize I have to work for all monitors so I'll adjust those colors even more. Finally aside from the gradients, the rest of the image is pixel art with each pixel considered. I think the smoothing effect you see is the anti-aliasing effect I went for but maybe it's too much anti-aliasing? I'm not going for the cell-shaded look, I can see where you are coming from but I think it's because the image is a relatively flat landscape with minimal texturing applied. I was going for a more modern retro style and minimalist approach with this piece.

I appreciate all the feed-back so far I'll continue to study up on it, if anyone has any more suggestions I'd love to hear them.

P.s. Thanks for the link KOG, I've actually looked into it already but it's nice to re-visit =]

By the way if there are serious/interested pixel artists looking for inspiration, I ran into this guy...Paul Robertson's work...it's very cool to check out!

@Mr. Slash: Awesome, it's cool seeing another member here who uses Unity though I'm still learning myself =] Haven't tried the particle system yet, I'll have to look more into it!

@Mr. JosephSeraph: That's a huge improvement from the previous screenshot you posted. I see you are finding your stride.

Here are some more suggestions: The view you have set up in the new screenshots is a side view but you are mixing certain graphics such as the ghost sprite, the windows, and the two houses in the first pic which have a top-down 45 degree perspective with the side perspective of the "view port" This can be confusing to for players to look at. I'd suggest making the houses 2 dimensional rather than the 2.2-2.3 you have with the added depth of the roof top. Also have all npcs only move side to side rather than up and down.

Another thing you might want to do if you choose this perspective (which looks great in your second screenshot by the way) is take all the character sets and edit them so that they have the same side view perspective as by default they follow the top down 45 degree perspective.

Finally there is a lot of color loss occurring with those lighting effects. The reason is rpg maker 2003 does not have alpha channel support for pictures and in your case is limited to a 256 bit color pallet for your panaromas. You would be better off creating lighting effects as a picture in photoshop with a black non-transparent background color and than applying it as an overlay picture with fairly high transparency in the engine. Or if you go for a non-feathered lighting effect (use a solid brush) you can set the black background as transparent when importing into the engine. This will get rid of color loss. Finally if you want to go the lazy route =p you could play around with the index color dithering options to get the optimal effect with minimal color loss.

Hope that makes sense =]

P.S. if you look at my example you will notice everything follows the 45 degree perspective and that set-up would save a lot of trouble if you're going for rtp graphics.