Lands of Adventure: A Gold-Box Inspired CRPG

[ProphetSword]

Try this, then...

 

[V_K]

 

[Alchemist]

There's nothing wrong with it being colorful - but I think the high level of saturation is an issue here. The old 16-color EGA games were that way because they had to be, using a palette that was never designed for games, but instead for functional business software.

This one is a bit better on the saturation level. Still colorful, but more naturalistic.

I tried toning down the saturation on your screenshot (the 3D view) :

It feels a bit more comfortable and easier on the eyes, in my opinion.

Anyway, I'm glad to see you working on this still!

 

[ProphetSword]

The saturation of the colors is caused by the lighting in the scene from the torches. The code that was supposed to turn them off during daylight wasn't firing correctly. Once I corrected this, it got better.

For now, I also had to remove the roofs. They didn't look right at all angles. I will try a different approach with them to see what I end up with.

For now, here's an updated screenshot, and I think you can see the colors aren't nearly as glaringly bright (though I think the lighting itself could be slightly higher):

 

[Rhuantavan]

That's better, though you may want to make the doors a bit taller (unless you know, dwarves).

 

[Alchemist]

Yep that definitely looks better! And I agree a smidgen more lighting on that one and it will have a good balance of values.

 

[Mustawd]

FYI, I'll be attempting to create some 100X100 fantasy sprites. Not sure if it fits the style you're looking for, but I'll link here when it's done anyway. They'll be open source, so feel free to use them once they're complete, if you like.

Posting animated gif below, but since my animation skills kind of suck at the moment, the rest will only be two frame sprites.

EDIT: Also, this was a test sprite,. so complete ones will be more polished.

 

[ProphetSword]

That's a pretty nice combat icon.

 

[MRY]

FYI, I'll be attempting to create some 100X100 fantasy sprites. Not sure if it fits the style you're looking for, but I'll link here when it's done anyway. They'll be open source, so feel free to use them once they're complete, if you like.

Posting animated gif below, but since my animation skills kind of suck at the moment, the rest will only be two frame sprites.

EDIT: Also, this was a test sprite,. so complete ones will be more polished.

I'm not an artist, but one thing I've learned from the projects I've worked on -- especially Fallen Gods -- is that the key to really good sprites is to not just move things for the sake of moving, but to focus on the key frames and their logic. Here, I actually think that aside from the axe, you may have failed to move the one part of him that most "wants" to move in that stroke, namely his forward leg. At the same time, the leg you've moved -- his back leg -- seems to move in the wrong direction. Try swinging an overhand stroke while stepping back with your back leg, and I think you'll see it throws you off balance. The back leg is where you'll be driving forward from, perhaps stepping forward with the front leg, but at a minimum shifting weight from the back to the front to contribute to the strength and momentum of the overhand stroke.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a good animation to show you, but here're the frames from the Sega Golden Axe first miniboss:

If you look, you'll see he leans back before the overhand strike, then leans forward, his front leg flexing -- there's no actual movement in the leg, but the artist has defined the muscles in it to show that it's bearing more weight. The back leg rises up a little (because it's dragging as he shifts his wight forward).

Anyway, I might be entirely full of crap, so feel free to disregard all this, but I think it might be useful.

 

[Mustawd]

Anyway, I might be entirely full of crap, so feel free to disregard all this, but I think it might be useful.

No, you're totally on point. This was my first uneducated, shooting completely off the hip, and crappy attempt at animating a sprite. On top of that I did it in one evening, with zero planning. Just messed with it till it looked meh enough to test out.

Your feedback on his forward leg are also accurate. Once I animated the whole thing it was the first thing I saw. The whole sprite was moving except for that. Then I realized I had accidentally forgotten to render the rest of his...apron (?)...in the later sprites, which is why it's colored darkly in the middle.

here're the frames from the Sega Golden Axe first miniboss:

Good example for sure. I will say that in my defense I was experimenting a bit with some of the old SNES JRPG animations, where attacks would only be 2 or 3 frames. So there's a bit sense of "movement", but it's a bit more abstracted. Versus your example, where the animation is a lot more smoothed out with a variety of frames. Regardless, this was my first attempt, and surprise surprise it sucked. I also didn't finish rendering the axe, which is why it also sucks. But I'll be dropping animation completely until I finish the sprite packs, and then maybe revisit once I have a handle on the basics.

In the meantime, this was my first real attempt at painting anything in color or digitally (most of my digital stuff is just line art), so I'm pretty happy with it.

EDIT: I should probably start my own thread on sprites. Didn't mean to derail this one.

 

[MRY]

Just to further derail here:

in my defense I was experimenting a bit with some of the old SNES JRPG animations, where attacks would only be 2 or 3 frames. So there's a bit sense of "movement", but it's a bit more abstracted

The attacks in Golden Axe are only three frames. The sprite sheet above shows a wide variety of actions: four frames for walking, one for the shoulder charge, three for the hammer attack, two for the kick attack, three for dying, three for winded. The main thing is, the fewer frames you have, the more important keyframing becomes. If your frames represent the logical turning points of a motion (for example, still -> leaning back -> end of forward strike), the brain will interpolate the motion between them. If stuff is just moving for the sake of moving, then the brain can't do anything useful.

I'm going to try figure out how to make a public link for one of Dan's gifs to explain, but really you can look at any good sprite to see the same thing (I just love showing off his stuff).

-EDIT-

This is slowed down a bit to make it a little more clear, but I think it's four frames of animation for the attack and four for the death. But we could probably cut the first frame of the attack and it would still work.

 

[Mustawd]

TL;DR Mustawd sucks at animation lol.

 

[MRY]

Well, since I have no artistic ability at all, I can't really criticize anyone. Your stuff is 90% of the way there, the keyframing thing is something I only learned recently. I'm pretty sure Vic was not using the technique in Primordia, which is why even though there are lots of frames of animation, the animations seem a little weird. It's easy to get misled when you look at amazing animations (like King of Fighters sprites) -- so much is moving in so many different directions that it suggests that movement for its own sake suffices.

 

[curry]

Did you finish the game already? Can't wait to try it bro

 

[ProphetSword]

The game evolved into another project, found here:

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/magic-mercenaries-the-curse-of-eternal-darkness.127056/