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[Red Phantom]

Please see my latest post at the bottom of this thread and give me feedback on my graphics:
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=68504.msg1412703#msg1412703

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I have significantly improved my graphics thanks to the help(feedback/advice/edits) of: Lurk, Yal, HeWhoShallNotBeNamed, pixeltroid, zuurix, toque, niels, sitebender, and rayek.

Before and after of graphics of graveyard scene:


Before and after graphics of city scene:



Before and after graphics of residential buildings interior scene:


Old residential buildings sprites:


New residential buildings sprites:


Old laboratory sprite:


New laboratory sprite:



Once again thank you so much to everyone who has provided feedback.

[Lurk]

Are you using tiles? It doesn't seem so looking a some of the designs. A tileset would allow you to work more efficiently in testing 'grunge' on your buildings. In my example, tile0 is the variant, tile1 is the main wall, tile2 is the left side of the doorway, tile3 is inside left, tile4 is the top tile(I cheated a bit on the connection for the top extruded bit and used the main tile bottom side brick to fake the extrusion and saved two tiles that way), tile5 is the inside right and tile6 is the right side of the doorway.
The tileset could be reduced further by only having one black tile for the inside and putting the inside connection in the doorway side tiles, but you then lose some of the control you have on collisions(it messes with the 16x16 tile grid).
The colors on your bricks are a little to close to each other in my opinion, it makes them a bit flat and it's harder to create volumes in your scene. In my example, I use 5 colors and have grunge, darkness and lighting, because the colors are ramped with appropriate distance between the value, and one is a different hue to create depth.




To insert images, just select your link and click on the insert image button.

[Red Phantom]

This is seriously the best response I could ever have hoped for!
Sincerely thank you Lurk!

"The colors on your bricks are a little to close to each other in my opinion, it makes them a bit flat and it's harder to create volumes in your scene."
This makes perfect sense, I completely agree that this limits the ability to create volume in the scene!

"In my example, I use 5 colors and have grunge, darkness and lighting, because the colors are ramped with appropriate distance between the value, and one is a different hue to create depth."
Honestly this is genius. You definitely know what you are talking about and this makes perfect sense to me.

The one thing I am not familiar with is the concept of grunge in pixel art. My guess is it's this 'dirty but good' look you give graphics in pixel art using a colour of slightly different hue in small,rare, different patterns.
What exactly is grunge?
When do you use it?
Most Importantly - How do you properly create/apply it?  (Because I tried creating grunge and it looked bad)

Main post updated. See top of page.

Thank you for putting the time and effort into creating this tileset for me to reference. You have also taught me alot about how to create a good and small tileset!

[Lurk]

Grunge is adding some 'dirt' to break the neatness of the pattern.


So the first tile is too clean. Adding some dirt on the second, then on the third, lighten the black lines and add two variant to break the repetition.
Grunge depends on the tileset.

Most walls you just add some dirt, just be careful not to make the grunge too much lighter or darker than the main tile texture. Try to avoid the isolated pixel, which really stands out. Squares(4x4) of a different color are much better. Also, balance it out over the whole tile, not adding a lot to the middle and leaving the rest clean, for example.

[Red Phantom]

Sorry for the late reply, I accidentally cancelled notifications for my own thread...

Grunge depends on the tileset.

Q1. What do you mean by this?

Squares(4x4) of a different color are much better.

Q2. What do you mean by this?

Q3. Is grunge just for walls, platforms and buildings? What kind of other objects should grunge go on? e.g. should grunge go on tables and chairs? vases and pots? I assume grunge does not go on characters

Q4. Do you apply the variant randomly? (which I think you do) or do you apply the variant systematically/-in-a-pattern e.g. every 4th tile in row 1, every 2nd tile in row 2, every 3rd tile in row 3 etc..

Once again sincerely thank you for your wisdom, I will include you in the game credits: "special thanks to Lurk for graphics advice"

Main post updated, see top of page.

[Lurk]

Q1. If you make an old castle tileset, the grunge will be different from a space station tileset, where you would probably want clean walls with very faint panels and cables.
Q2. Single isolated pixels are best used for anti-aliasing purposes. A single isolated pixel in a brick doesn't look as good as a 4pixel square in the same brick, or a 3 pixel 'L'.
Q3. You don't necessarily put it everywhere; but if you look around while you walk in a city, everything is a bit broken down and has dirt. Characters are different- it depends on the resolution of your sprites, as long as they stay readable on screen, you can dirty them up.
Q4. The variant is random, but usually I make a 'main' tile which is repeated often and I break the pattern with one of the variants.



For your roofs, it's better to go a little lighter than the brick tiles, to give better volumes(you can look at the roof tile to see what I mean about the 4x4 pixel grunge). Also, on a 16x16 tile, you can do a 3full-line-3full-line-3full-line-3full-line pattern that repeats easily and you don't need a black line tile to separate the sides, better make an alley tile to separate buildings and maybe show some backdrop.

[Red Phantom]

Thank you for answering my questions. I understand your answers.

As for the roof great thinking! I can see how a slightly lighter value gives better volume.
Great thinking also with the tile production and backdrop idea. Your roof looks amazing!

I can not explain how much better you have made my buildings look in my game. Thank you again.

[Red Phantom]

I am seeking feedback and criticism on about 60% of all sprites in my game.
Note all these sprites are being used currently (except only 1 where there is an 'option')
Everything below is the current actual size of the sprites.

Scenes
Graveyard


City


Main Character


Buildings
Residential (repeated and most common building, comes in green, grey, gold too) - This sprite is finalized. -credit to 'Lurk' for editing


Laboratory Option 1 - needs to be rescaled bigger


Laboratory Option 2


Enemy Hideout


Research Building


Background Tiles
Graveyard


Cities


Wooden Water Path


Forest Option 1


Forest Option 2


Paintings


Gravestones


Lights Off - Different Lights For Different Types of Buildings


Lights On


Shelves


Tables & Chairs


Vases & Pots


Game Icon


Game Map


Sign Post


Bat


Trees - credit to Toque for edit


Grassy Plains Area- where the enemy hideout is


Shooting Practice Target on Wall


Grass


Ancient Tribal Mask on Floor


Child Sitting on Tree Stump


Wind Chimes - on traders table


Wooden Logs Blocking an Area of the Forest


Cannibal Enemy Boss Hiding


Cannibal Enemy Boss


Rocks and Sticks


Lake Area and Wooden Water Path Platform



Mountain Trees


Bushes


Beds


Electric Power Supply with Control Switches


Health Bar and Health Piece


Death Animation


City Street Light


Broken Bike


Danger Sign used in Laboratory


Electric Sphere Piece in Open Crate


Open Crate


Elevator Power Socket - Electric Sphere Piece Fits here


Goods Trading Poster


Empty Inventory


P.S.I files - P.S.I stands for something in the game
Single File:

Multiple Files:


Test-tube Rack in Laboratory


Weapons and Artillery Shelf


Window for Interior of Research Building


Locked Steel Box

[woodsmoke]

I like the mountain trees the most. They'd look even better with a second darker&cooler green for some shadows. Keep pumping those images out, practice makes perfect!

Have you tried colour palettes?

[Red Phantom]

Thanks woodsmoke. I agree that they'd look better with a second darker & cooler green for some shadows, I will change this!

Also I am currently still working on the scenes: graveyard, city and buildings interior. I got a lot of good feedback on the GMC forums. Please give me 1-3 days and I will post an update on these scenes for further feedback everyone!

Also I actually like your old pixel art from your 2nd game Monkey Munch!

[Red Phantom]

Here is the history of change of my character:


Despite everything else being in 2D, I've noticed 2D platformer games still have the character in an isometric view. So I'm going to put the characters in an isometric view because they look a lot better that way.

Do you agree?
How could I improve my final character?

[-Ross]

That's pretty awesome progress. A couple more suggestions:

• Is the character a zombie? If he is, it's fine, but if not I would make his skin colors less green.
• A little bit less "lightbulb head" syndrome.
• A nose?
• Add hair to the temple/sideburn area.
• Cut down the top of the chest a bit, so it doesn't look like he has a stick up the front of his shirt. If you look at a person you'll see that the shoulders are high at the back of the neck, while the chest slopes down in the front. It's not symmetrical front-to-back. (Actually my version is pretty symmetrical, but at least it's closer to correct.)

[Red Phantom]

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement.

The character is not a zombie.

Great suggestions and edit! I'm going to go with these changes!

[Red Phantom]

Please give me feedback on the graphics in these scenes in my game:

Interior of Houses:


Water Path:


Laboratory Interior:


PSI Building Interior:

[Gagz9k]

You really have a solid base here. And the fact that you want it to take to perfection is great. So, here's my input. As always, I'm not expert, and this is just my perception.

One thing I noted is that the walls have a lot of details, but the furniture and the character are a lot stylistic in the details. This inconsistency make the rooms look unfinished. Adding more details to the sprite, and more furniture to the rooms can help with that. Or try to make the tiles of the wall less detailed.

For less detailed brick walls try taking reference in cartoon. Nothing is more styled-from-real-life than cartoons.

For example:



Look like not all the walls are not completely detailed. Few bricks here and there, plus the right color, can give a lot of information without saturating the room visually.

Also, you can take the old edge approach for tiling. Only rendering details on the edge of the iluminated tiles can do a lot of things at once:

Saving a bit of information/size on the tileset.
Focusing the attention on the action and usable parts pf the map.
Reducing the visual noise.

A good example of this kind of tileset for 2D games is the really fun game Monster Sanctuary:



See how everything is so detailed on the map, yet the attention and focus of the visual is always centered on the important parts. Every (usable) surface is detailed, but the entire scene doesn't feel cramped.

If you go for a more detailed feel room, that's equally cool. Your current wall tiles are very well done. I'd recommend using more real life reference to fill the room with life and make the scene less empty. Emptiness when not used correctly in level design can make things look boring or incomplete.

For a good examples on how to overly fill a room and make look awesome you can check Owlboy or Scott Prilgrim vs the World:




And finally, some toughs on specifics of your levels:

Water Path:

Really like the idea of the wooden path. Looks like a door to me. The background wall needs more information, just looking at the scene I don't know if it's a port of a sewer, under or above ground. Some details giving context would be great.

Laboratory Interior:

Really digging the lasers here. But labs need more tech stuff! Some wall computers, surveillance cameras and weird tech around would help a lot this lab. Also, the background, try not to use patterns so embroiled. Think in what kind of walls a lab would have. Plain old white-ish, with a few guide lines would work (think in a hospital for example)

PSI Building Interior:

Be careful with colors! The legs of those tables look like place-holders, because of the color decision there. I would highly recommend to pick a color palette and stick to it.

For more information on colors palettes I recommend: https://lospec.com/palette-list

Hope this help you! And keep it coming, you are doing awesome stuff here.