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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperArtWorkshopachievement icons
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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« on: April 06, 2014, 02:10:27 AM »



these are some achievement icons ("medals" that you earn) i created for immortal defense's next patch (v1.2) -- any ideas for how to improve them? i asked john sandoval and he said the main problem is the colors, so i'll probably try out some changes to that, but if anyone else has any advice to improve these that'd be helpful. they're all 20x20 and will be shown on a black background
« Last Edit: April 06, 2014, 08:55:50 AM by ஒழுக்கின்மை » Logged

Rasse
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« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2014, 03:06:20 PM »

Here's something I came up with.

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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2014, 04:44:42 PM »

that's pretty great; i'll see if i can study how you did that and try to apply the improved technique to the others
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Uykered
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« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2014, 06:02:47 PM »

My attempt to understand what Rasse did in words:

  • I think he picked a single color for the shape, unless the form has texture like the medal cloth
  • simplified some of the shape so it reads nicer at this low-resolution (noticeably the skull shape and tear flow)
  • he's determined a nice light source to give it a better form (bit of strong highlight color on the skull, a shadow color on the bones under the lit skull, highlighting aspects of the medal etc.)
  • Used a bit of anti-aliasing transition color on some of the angles/curves so they look smoother (skull head edges, angled blue texture on the medal)

One of the main things I've learned is to avoid "banding"[1][2][3], it generally helps low-rest art look better if you don't do it. Nearly all your images have banding in them.
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Rasse
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« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2014, 06:35:47 PM »

What alastair said, also since you liked my edit I made you a small tutorial:

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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #5 on: May 25, 2014, 11:29:25 PM »

i did my best to take the advice above (thanks again!) and this is the result. better? is there still anything major to improve?



i think for one or two of them, the old version actually looks better to me (even with the banding and such) though -- but the vast majority seem improved to me
« Last Edit: May 25, 2014, 11:37:52 PM by ஒழுக்கின்மை » Logged

Alicecomma
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« Reply #6 on: May 26, 2014, 12:11:14 PM »

Hello, I made a mockup on how I'd redo these;



--

Also some points of improvement:

- It seems like you started every icon on a black background, and didn't take time to see what it looks like on lighter backgrounds. Make sure your icons look good on EVERY background, especially if you're gonna use them on every colour background. You can see in the mockup how the darkish outlines kinda ruin the icon on a light background.
- You can see lots of jaggies in some icons, which really makes it hard to read their shape. Some icons are very smooth, and they read a lot better (medal_cut.., medal_dar..).
- Other icons (medal_big...) have an especially poor colour palette (you don't need 4 browns to show that the medal has brown in it). You might want to find a limited palette to learn how to use fewer colours to colour an area.
- The icons have little in common, and you might want to give them a similar colour palette / the same shadow colour. Better would be to work all of them over in the same kind of style (cause it's all over the place at the moment).

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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #7 on: May 26, 2014, 05:55:49 PM »

well, in the game, they will only appear on a black background. they aren't going to appear over anything else; they aren't semi-transparent, the background is always black.

also, your mockups (notably the "AA" one) employ banding, which alistair above just told me was bad, and which i was purposefully removing in my edit. so i'm not sure it's a good idea to re-add the banding that i had just removed.

you also change the design for several of them; e.g. you make the oval round, and you remove the second A within the larger A (and remove the gate-like element at the top); those aren't optional parts of their designs, they have essential symbolic meanings, and are part of the game's story. i do like your third re-do, but the first and second ones change their meaning too much.

for an example of what i mean, here's one of the in-game cutscenes:



it's important that the Aa design in the achievement icon match that cutscene. by changing it so much, it becomes unrecognizable almost.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2014, 06:00:56 PM by ஒழுக்கின்மை » Logged

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