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[oahda]

I'm the programmer and currently the only artist (since the other one decided to dedicate himself to other things in life) of a 2D platformer in the works.

A pretty long while ago, I made this (still not entirely complete) house for the game:



Now, though, I've been playing around, and I actually like this:



Which style would you prefer?

[michael]

in general, plastering filters (poster edge?) is not a commendable practice. similar to the use of lens flares and generated gradients. if you write your own filter, thats better. id say stick with the original and focus on stronger colors and design

[moi]

filters=bad

[DYRE]

filters=bad

Usually.
Sometimes they can be nice.  A decent NTSC filter can make pixel art look really nice/retro, for example.
Of course, as far as standard Photoshop filters are concerned... yeah.  Bad.

[John Nesky]

As a fellow programmer, the hardest thing for me when I do art is avoiding the temptation to let Photoshop do all the work. Laziness is an important aspect of my productivity, but in art it shows.

[oahda]

You are probably right, and I got carried away.

But would black lines look nice if I actually added a bit of my own touch to it?

[team_q]

It looks very flat, either way.

[oahda]

Further playing around:

[oahda]

This looks quite okay to me. Just a bit sharper graphics, and a simple outline (no, that ugly, purple circle, the almost circular thing within it and the number in the top-left corner are not part of the final HUD; I'm just playing around with fading and animation code; likewise the white "ground" and triangular "character" are just for testing, and the background is obviously not to be grey in the final game):

[michael]

ok well now youve just used a paint daub filter 

[oahda]

ok well now youve just used a paint daub filter 

Never heard of it.

I sharpened the lines by extracting an outline of a copy of the image, which I put on top, then changed the blending mode and lowered the opacity.

For the outline, I just made, well, an outline.
At least I've made that house on my own. ]:

[pen]

I have a suggestion : Different textures and colours for different materials. This is just a very simple edit to show what I mean.

[moi]

Don't just take some art and use a generic filter on it - unless there is a good reason-.
There is no good reason there, it looks amateurish.
The original version is rather ok. It's flat yes, but it's a videogame, isn't it?

[J. R. Hill]

I like the first filtered one best.

[oahda]

Well, the house isn't done either, after all.
The wall looks very clean now. It is going to get some imperfections and darker spots.

[Farbs]

Suggestion: Finish the game before worrying about details like this. You might find your time is better spent on other, rougher areas.

[oahda]

Don't worry. I've been refusing to do graphics for a long time, even though the composer is whining, and I've been focusing solely on the programming and getting the engine to work. That is my main purpose, and hopefully we will find somebody else to do the graphics.

Any way, this is more of a... style test, I guess. We'll probably not use this house exactly as is, since we want to have the game levels tiled. I've made a simple tileset out of the bricks in this image now, and already there are differences, as I have rescaled them to fit the tileset:

[oahda]

I have this tileset now:



Here's what I've been able to make so far with it (and I actually like this simpler style):

[gimymblert]

filters=bad

Well when i open toshop i only use filter, layer and fusion mask (partly because i work with a touchpad). The problem is to use them for shortcut for not thinking your graphism, or ignorance of what makes a functional graphic design (readability, mood, composition, balance, etc..).

As long the result is correct there is no reason to do everything in filter. The filter = bad comes for beginner that stop at the amazement of the effect.

[oahda]

Windows.