Level Art - Approved WIP Art Only, ***CURRENT GOAL: UBER - EMERALD HILL ZONE*** Options

[Vincent]

***CURRENT GOAL***

UBER - Emerald Hill Zone


****Contributors Guideline****

Since we upgraded to million colors, 256 color limit don't exists anymore.
HD stands for "High Definition". Any upscaled / hq2x filtered original 4X art, with few color shades or details will be not qualified.
For this reason, being inspired by the "Original Level" feeling, you can picture and add as much details as your creativity dreams of!

• Vector Art is Required. Your program of choice must be able to save Layered and Unrasterized files (Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Inkscape..).
  Layered work save us time to redraw parts from scratch and if exported correctly, we can easily put them into the engine.
  
  
• All new Level Art attempts must be posted on "WIP General Art Topic"(Level objects - BG - Foreground or altoghether).
  
  
• After different ideas, Art and examples have been gathered, S2HD Staff will decide and specify which idea will be worked on.
  
  
• S2HD Staff will upload the "Approved Idea" image on the Database, and communicate the parts to be "officially" remastered on the Current Project Targets topic, splitting the "Required Level Art". (ie: Grass, Tubes, specific Level Objects)
  
  
• Contributors must publically state their desired "Required Level Art" which they want to remaster, BEFORE working on it. (Avoid redundant work)
  
  
• If any Art piece is discontinued by the Contributor for ANY reason, it must be publically stated!(or privately to S2HD Staff members)

DRAWING STYLE

• Start a new base by tracing over the original 4X Level Art shapes*
  
  
• You can *with caution* use gradients on metal plates to make them look right!
  
  
• We accept textures if they feel perfectly integrated into the level
  
  
• To produce it faster and better, using "grid" helps ALOT in "tiling it"
  
  
• Place this "New Sonic Frame"into your level art to test the IN-Game feeling.
  
  ****Mini-Tutorial****
  
  Part 1
  1 - Import the Original 4X art, than Lock it.
  2 - Create a new Layer, and by clicking on the "Layer spot" (or layer properties) change its opacity by 75%
  3 - Draw!
  
  Part 2
  1 - To properly check the results, you can switch back the opacity to 100% by selecting again the layer properties.

TOOLS

-HD Tiles Viewer:



Notes:
-It takes a while to load because it must compile the BMPs into the internal format
-One of the waterfall tiles gets fucked up due to palette animation - I know so don't bug me about it
-The parallax is using 16x16 tiles instead of 8x8 like Sonic 2, and is slower than S2, but I know about it so don't bug me about it
-It uses a 16-bit timer so expect wonky movement - will fix later
-The engine uses palettes
-The palettes are PER TILE
-The palettes are generated by picking the first 255 unique colors in a tile
-If a tile uses > 256 colors, IT DOES NOT pick the closest matching color, instead, the engine resets the color to 0
-Therefore, make sure that the tile is <= 256 colors before pasting it in ehz_rgb.bmp
-Up/Down/Left/Right = move around the map
-W/A/S/D = move around the map
-Z/X = normal mode/widescreen mode
-You can directly alter the ehz_rgb.BMP file in DATA folder to try out your results!

Download

This post has been edited by Vincent: Jan 8 2009, 08:17 PM

[Athelstone]

Here is the latest WIP example of one of the Emerald Hill tiles produced together by Neo and Trunks.



Suggestions:

- Thicker shadows ought to be added as in the original sprite
- Perhaps something to slightly contrast the shiny blocks (perhaps either a gentle texture or some shading)

Remastered artwork of all the following is still required. Any and all members of the community are welcome to post their attempts;



This post has been edited by Athelstone: Apr 26 2008, 04:53 AM

[ICEknight]

It's looking good, but I think the right eye is supposed to go behind the red part of its head, judging from the pixel art and the official artwork.

[Polygon Jim]

The cg is nice, but isn't it gonna clash with Sonics art?

[SANiK]

Top Buzzer = by DiscoKing
Bottom Buzzer = by Drex

[Athelstone]

DiscoKing, thank you so much for this excellent contribution. We've been looking at the possibility of CG art for certain assets for a long time, this gives a perfect opportunity for further discussion and feedback from the community. Fantastic work!

This post has been edited by Athelstone: Apr 27 2008, 04:58 AM

[Vincent]

That's an excellent contribution! :D

However I think it detaches too much from the characters style. Can you try to make some kind of "cel shading" on it?

[Drex]

Made in 4 hours. Colors, shapes and shading can be changed easily.

Well shit...

That looks great DiscoKing. I wish I knew how to to that

Oh well here are my latest one's for comparison.




=P
(This gold and silver one actually looks a bit better than I would have thought. I stil choose the silver with open eyes though)

Edit 2 @ V: Yeah, that's what I suggested earlier and still plan on doing if my art is the decided one.

This post has been edited by Drex: Apr 27 2008, 06:18 AM

[The Taxman]

Perhaps the eyes could be open in the regular frame, and then angry when it's shooting?

[DimensionWarped]

I think all of this highly shaded artwork is clashing with the existing character artwork. If you don't mind me saying so, toss the gradients.

This post has been edited by DimensionWarped: Apr 27 2008, 07:33 AM

[Drex]

No granites 1st attempt.

All granites were taken out barring the shine under the body and the ring connecting the pole and thorax. Anything else that may be there was missed.

[ICEknight]

Hmm, It's very cool, but the pupils are a bit too big, and the holes in front of the rockets could be a little bigger, among other little things that look a bit diferent from the original.

Both styles are looking quite good, I'm thinking we could work with 2 different sets of enemies.


PS: Also, it would be amazing if you could give a shot at the Emerald Hill backgrounds... Please?

This post has been edited by ICEknight: Apr 27 2008, 11:44 AM

[SANiK]

Drex - that looks very nice.

For artists, gradients are the problem; see:
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?s=&...st&p=191085
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?s=&...st&p=191115

With CGI - if there was a way to step down the gradience to make it look like hand drawn, things would then be perfect.
The problem with CGI is, it goes from 0% black then 1% black then 2% black
Whilst Sonic (if you look at the sprites) goes from let's say 10% blue to 50% blue to 80% blue, etc.

Until we get the CGI gradience thing fixed, Drex's bee is the best

This post has been edited by SANiK: Apr 27 2008, 11:17 AM

[Tweaker]

No granites 1st attempt.

All granites were taken out barring the shine under the body and the ring connecting the pole and thorax. Anything else that may be there was missed.

That looks great! Still detailed whilst not overdoing it. Very well done!

[uk resistant]

Flat shading keeps being mentioned and whilst im not sure I agree that sonic was flatshaded due to hardware limitations (for example check out box artwork to see gradient styles). however,I do think that with streetfighter hd employing the same style then this should be pursued.
That said I think we need more shades, as the game may be in danger of looking like a flash game, for example the shield tv graphic could be smoothed out a little with extra shades in between the ones already there. Im not meaning to dump on anyones work, because there is some great stuff being made, I just think some of it isn't pushing itself as much as it could. for example I have edited the emerald hill artwork to show what I mean.



On the right are changes I have made, including adding a lower shadow to give volume as well as adding some edges (as these pick up more light). I also highlighted the corners for extar detail.

aisde from the rant, great artwork is being done so keep it up everybody!

cheers