Levels & Items Art

Okay, I've been gone for the last few days, so I haven't had much time to work on stuff. But I have started re-drawing the building from OOZ.

I think I need to work on sharpening the corners more...

 

That grass is a curved translation of the original artwork at 4x scale. The whole point of me doing this is so that people can use it as a base to work their ideas on.

 

Lol, don't listen to Trunks

He's one of those people sitting on the side hoping to God the projects fails - so that he can laugh at everyone

He started all those badniks - but he's not gonnah finish any of them either.
So all the work he's started is a waste and needs to be redone by others.

Also Trunks, I wouldn't be talking about art, esp. when your own webcomic looks God awful:

 

I really hope this is some sort of joke, there's no need for this pointless drama. Whomever contributes to this project, no matter large or small, it's still valid as it is a contribution. Trunks can actually produce good artwork when he puts his mind to it, webcomics aside (Aren't they all awful, by default anyway?).

 

Lol hi I'm sanik I think I no whut im talking about~

I won't go into his flamebait too much, but let me address it
-I wasn't aware that that was placeholder grass. In that case, awesome. It's definitely wicked to have something to use as a base. And that definitely looks workable.
-I don't draw my webcomic. I color it. If you notice, it's called "Trunks and Soto", whereas it's two people, not just one.
-The badniks aren't going to get finished until I get a definite "badniks will be finished in raster" comment. Everyone keeps asking for the vectors, and I keep trying to tell everyone, these aren't vectors. They're raster.
-And I don't want this project to die, I'm just almost certain it will. It's people trying to start shit with other people (some people whose names I won't mentIon, kay?) that I'm distancing myself from it all.

That said, I'm not going to give in to some little kid's desire to start a flame war. Quit being childish.

 

"Lol hi I'm sanik I think I no whut im talking about~"

You failed to read the topics - it is you who is at fault here
And I think you owe Acaeris an apology

 

If you read the post, you'll notice my first bulletin handled that directly. The grass does look awful, but it's a placeholder. That's cool.

And like you're one to go around demanding apologies.

 

The badniks should be raster. This shouldn't even be debated.

One thing that I think should be core to everyone's mind is the very reason this project started: The WiredOtaku image of Death Egg Zone, which has a distinctly textured Death Egg Mech, and not a flat-shaded vector one.

Don't get me wrong, there's some lovely art going on here, but it all looks quite amateurish without the sort of texturing we see on the image. *sigh* Let me remind y'all;



Isn't this our initial mission statement for the entire Sonic 2 HD project?

Add a little. Enhance, don't replicate.

And SANiK, grow up and get off your high horse. Trunks has taken back his ill-informed statement, let's get back on track.

 

Well - the reason for the vectors was because it makes it easier to develop multi-framed sprites.

Given a sprite with only one frame of animation - sure - I'd say raster is ok.

The person who ruled 'vector' though was actually Tweaker

Yet, I'm glad that the backgrounds are getting new life with raster =)

 

When did I decide everything was supposed to be vector? I thought it was Vincent who made that call—if I did anything "endorsing" it, it was to explain the reasoning behind why everybody else wanted vector.

Though, it may be interesting to do the initial linework in vector, and then touch it up with textures, et al in raster. I think that's a reasonable course of action.

 

This is exactly how I think it should be done. Similar to how animation is done anyway, with a rough pencil outline being later rendered, which used to be on cel but is now digital -- Vincent's amazing work should be inbetweened and sharpened up, things like additional inbetween shades added, that sort of thing.

 

Wouldn't detail like what's in the DEZ picture be impossible since we're using the 16x16 chunks as a base? We would need a lot more chunks to account for the extra detail.

Unless we use the 128x128 chunks as a base, then it might work out, but I think I read that something like that would take way too much space...

Anyway, I feel that the art that Death of Rats posted is near perfect. We should try and keep this style.

 

I think the problem becomes, "when to stop with too much detail?"



The way we're going right now, things are looking like anime done in HD: Clean textures, etc. (I have no problem with this)

The alternative would be to add lots of details - which might kill the "cartoony" look - but the question is - would that still be Sonic 2? Or a Quentin Tarantino Sonic 2?

 

Precisely the reason why I earlier (MUCH earlier, before the project got it's own thread) suggested we maybe draw 128x128 chunks, but some people are totally against the idea of effort.

An alternative idea of mine, though; how about the custom engine have different definitions for the 128x128 graphic chunks?

It's hard to describe what I mean, but with the 'blocks' of EHZ as an example, instead of breaking them up into 8x8s, just draw the blocks which are arranged, plus the grass and whatever into a 128x128 which looks a lot better than one comprised of repeated small tiles; we can put a detailed texture on them and not have it repeat, and this might be able to give us a more organic look if, for example, tiles could be overlapped in the new system (Imagine that, we could have one basic rivet graphic that could be re-used all over CPZ, or whatever). When all is said and done, the levels are comprised of 128x128 data anyway, so it wouldn't matter if our HD chunks were comprised differently, so long as they had the same basic silhouette that the existing collision data would work.

I hope I've explained this clear enough, if not I'll draw some pretty picture as an aid.

 

Bare in mind that the vector art is already pushing the palette we've been limited to. Adding texture to it all would basically make palette based work difficult, if indeed still possible.

I've just been doing as I've been outlined to do, as I have to with any project. The only problem with this one is, we keep changing the fundamentals of the project. Minor tweaks later are fine but at the moment, the core choices of the project haven't been made. It's becoming tiring and difficult to work on when people post criticism about the artists work, because it was done to spec, and not the choices that have put the artists in the position they are in.

I have a full time job as a designer, some nights the last thing I want to do is be using Inkscape. Other nights I'm fine and can do a good three or four tiles, but as I'm the only one making bases for people to work on (especially at a tile based level), you get what you get. I have ideas for how I'd enhance the tiles, but the most important thing at the moment is that they match up to the originals in terms of seems. Something that couldn't be done with the concept art we had for EH.

As Taxman said, doing full chunks just to add more detail will make the project huge. Doing it by tiles has the overhead of being careful about the tiles joins. Believe it or not, as I keep saying, I've drawn this stuff before at this scale, the first time the project flopped because it was just me. The first time I did it, I started with Hidden Palace and did it in raster. This time I have Emerald Hill and vectors, give me time and I'll give you something closer to what I'd actually submit but right now, I'm doing templates.

 

If it's done in tiles first, one can go back later and assemble chunks and add detail to that if desired. Start with tile, and if need be, go for chunk.

 

Exactly the reason why I decided to stop contributing for now.

 

<!--quoteo(post=199290:date=Jun 8 2008, 09:39 PM:name=SANiK)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SANiK @ Jun 8 2008, 09:39 PM) [/quote]

That's not detail, it's clutter. As such it is ugly.

Detail isn't just the amount of small, fussy things an image has, it's things like shape, form and depth. All of which are very important.

Seriously, what we're doing collectively right now does look amateurish -- there's nothing wrong with it, it's fairly competent; but it needs to be developed from this competent framework. The example you cite was worse than amateurish, it was lazy and rushed. No understanding was taken into form, for example, so we have a texture that doesn't work with the original shapes and colours.

 

<!--quoteo(post=199295:date=Jun 8 2008, 04:44 PM:name=SillyJonna)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SillyJonna @ Jun 8 2008, 04:44 PM) [/quote]

That's not detail, it's clutter. As such it is ugly.

Detail isn't just the amount of small, fussy things an image has, it's things like shape, form and depth. All of which are very important.

Seriously, what we're doing collectively right now does look amateurish -- there's nothing wrong with it, it's fairly competent; but it needs to be developed from this competent framework. The example you cite was worse than amateurish, it was lazy and rushed. No understanding was taken into form, for example, so we have a texture that doesn't work with the original shapes and colours.
[/quote]


Well my only worry is - we cannot change gears all so suddenly.
A lot of people will get POed and quit.



The art style we have right now is that "playful clean" style
Do we really want to change this?

 

One of the reasons I'm not exactly tripping over myself to get my concept work done. But, I draw attention to the fact that it's a concept work; I'm developing a fully-textured mockup using a lot of photographic source materials and heavy Photoshop rendering, just to see if it's a possible way we should go about this project. This sort of thing should be done first before any 'final' work is done, but it's not. Everyone seems to just want to draw tiles without a bigger understanding of how it'll work together as a whole.

I'm intrigued now -- I'm a qualified designer myself, but I was keeping hush-hush about it to try and avoid being requested to do things I don't have time for, heheheh. But, I digress...

Hence my suggestion above of a more organic way of organising 128x128 chunks. If nothing else, it should be looked into before a solid decision is made.