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General Project Screenshot/Video Thread

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by Tweaker, Jun 26, 2008.

  1. Devon

    Devon

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    I don't think there's anything wrong with taking inspiration as long as the result of it ends up being different enough.
     
  2. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    There is nothing wrong with taking inspiration, but from my experience, that's not what happens. Instead, people end up being influenced into creating an almost carbon copy, some even try to hide it by making alterations which make it look worse, this is not taking inspiration from, but people think it is. While there's no law saying you can't do it that way, 1. you will piss off the original creator, 2. you will degrade the originality of the original creation, and 3. your own creation will not have such a high surprise factor. (People will get bored of the style very quickly if it's everywhere).

    So long as it is just "taking inspiration from", then yeah, it's no problem. But I strongly advise on remembering the difference.
     
  3. Shoemanbundy

    Shoemanbundy

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    I just hope CodenameOmega's friend who is going to be doing art actually is capable, since we didn't see any of that in those green recolored Sonic sprites. We don't need to see HorriblePerson's art that they kindly shared being recolored and reclaimed as being this Blaster character.
     
  4. RetroKoH

    RetroKoH

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    Project Sonic 8x16

     
  5. pixelcat

    pixelcat

    The Holy Cat Jr. Member
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    WELCOME TO THE NEXT LEVEL
    WITH 32X POWER

    - - S O N I C V - -

    [​IMG]

    Coming SHC2018?

    (by Hardline Team)​
     
  6. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    Well shit.

    Idk what this is but that is an amazing looking title screen.

    EDIT: Quote for new page
     
  7. SuperSnoopy

    SuperSnoopy

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    Slice of life visual novel, coming soon...?
    Is it gonna be inspired by Chaotix ? 'cause I love the way Chaotix looks, it's probably my favorite Sonic game in the art department.
     
  8. 360

    360

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    Colour me super interested. That's a slick and cool looking very impressive title screen you've got there - with evidently lofty ambitions.

    It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen on here. Looking forward to this!
     
  9. Shoemanbundy

    Shoemanbundy

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    Anything 32X gets my vote. I don't see anyone ever touching that past what Chilly Willy was doing some time ago.
     
  10. Clownacy

    Clownacy

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    ...Normally I keep quiet because of the whole 'if you've got nothing positive to say, don't say anything at all' thing, but I don't see why I should keep my feedback to myself just because it's not positive.

    Anyway, if you want my opinion, I don't really see why I should get hyped over a title screen(?). If anything, it's having the opposite effect. I know I'm guilty of doing the exact same thing, but that's because I had nothing else to show off. And now my project's dead. It just doesn't reflect too well on the project, to me at least.

    Also, I might be the minority on this, but I think it's worth putting out there: I don't really like the vertical-line-CRT-dithering thing. I don't really like dithering in general. I'm no pixel artist, but S1/S2 seemed to like their colour-banding, and I was fine with that. The only use of dithering I really agree with is to define shading on something with a rough surface, like cloth. That might be why I don't like dithering in the first place: everything just starts looking like felt or wool to me.
     
  11. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    Clownacy... I didn't wanna bring it up on SSRG because it was getting some good press.

    Giving negative criticism to something when the masses are acting in the opposite wouldn't have exactly put me in people's good books, and I didn't really want any shit for mentioning it (it's pretty much a moral injunction so to speak). But since you've brought it up, and I'm not the only one, I feel a little more comfortable mentioning it. Though I will edit this post out if anyone gets overly offended by what I have to say (I'm not exactly in the right situation right now to be making enemies...).

    You are not a minority. The problem with Mr.Cat's work, is that he just throws line dithering at everything as the solution to making something look good, if you ask any good pixel artist, they will supply you with hundreds of reasons why it's wrong. You need the right technique for the right scene, line dithering only works on certain items and to simulate texture as you rightly pointed out, some things look better when they are not dithered at all, or dithered in a different way. Another problem with it, is that the line dithering is actually used incorrectly:

    [​IMG]

    The left is what it is, the right is what the line dithering should look like. For a cloud/wing though, the standard cross stitching type of dithering would've worked better here, because it gives it more of a fluffy texture. Another important aspect about techniques, is that they can fluctuate and change on the very same surface you are working on, a stone for example can look brittle and rocky when you're looking at it head on, but when you look at the edges or from the perspective where the flat surface is angled to one side, the brittleness becomes less, and the dithering technique should be used less.

    For example, this stone-like face (please note, I'm not saying below is a perfect example, but it's all I've got right now):

    [​IMG]

    (Please excuse the random lines, it's incomplete)

    Cross stitch dithering is used in some places, but not absolutely everywhere, the teeth don't use it for example, in fact, the teeth use no dithering at all, if we attempted to apply any sort of dithering to the teeth, he'd end up looking like a soft toy. The wrinkles around the lower part of the eyes and nose don't use much dithering either, because the shape is very drastic around this part, thus, you would not see the stone-like texture.

    I do not mean to shit on Mr.Cat, it's not his fault, he just hasn't been challenged by critics negatively enough to know when he's doing it wrong, most people will positively praise him because they cannot even get close to producing such nice results. He is still a good artist, I just think he still has a lot to learn and has some refining to do, he needs to look at using different techniques, and sometimes no techniques, and to use them in the right way instead of relying on one technique for everything. Likewise, he has to learn that sometimes it's bad to over-dither an image to death.

    There is certainly no doubt in my mind that he will do this project some good justice though, and for what it's worth, it does still look wonderful, it could have been a hell of a lot worse, and let's face it, he's still providing some of the nicest looking works by comparison to most. He will become a brilliant and well refined artist one day, but I feel this will take time (hell, I myself am still learning tidbits), but he has a wonderful scene full of friends to praise him and keep his spirit and inspiration up.
     
  12. Devon

    Devon

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    I've expressed a similar reaction to Mr. Cat's dithering style before and attempted to talk about it to him (on multiple occasions I think). However, I can't articulate my thoughts very well at all.
     
  13. Sparks

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    Markey, I dunno if it's just on my end, but a lot of those images aren't loading.
     
  14. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    hapisan is down, sorry. Nothing I can do.
     
  15. pixelcat

    pixelcat

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    Well... first of all, I'd thank Markey for the post. I'm in no way offended, and I respect criticism, especially as well-written as Markey's post was, so nope, there's no need to edit that :P

    What you've said about the materials is something I was trying to educate myself for a while. A lot of the parts (including the wings) are approximately a year old now, and I did learn a lot since then, but most of the stuff I've been practicing were "natural" things like soil, grass, sky, etc. (what made me do it is the fact that line dither didn't work so well there xD) You will probably see the result of that in the further updates of the hack.

    As for the logo, I didn't have enough time to both revamp the logo and see how metallic/fluffy things are done, so I just went with how I did it months ago... I guess it wouldn't hurt to revamp it.

    That dither technique you showed is actually quite neat, I'll try it (I do still think that the line dither fits some parts there)..

    With that said... thank you for actually providing such in-depth criticism, as that's something I definitely don't see a lot. Have a good day!
     
  16. RetroKoH

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    I don't have much to add outside of what Clownacy or Markey stated... other than that I wholeheartedly agree. The base of your art for the title screen looks amazing, but that dithering is distracting.

    As well, I agree with Clownacy w/ regards to posting just a title screen. I'd recommend at least a sprite or two, or maybe an in-game screenshot/mockup accompanying it...

    Speaking of Clownacy, I saw nothing wrong with your criticism, it may not have seemed positive on the surface, as it was critical, but it was constructive, making it a bit positive and meaningful in the end... though I understand the notion of holding it back.

    Looking forward to your work Mr. Cat!
     
  17. Pacca

    Pacca

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    [​IMG]
     
  18. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    I disagree on this - I think the solid vertical lines play well to composite monitors. Or at least CVBS mode in Kega Fusion.

    Opting for a "rougher" form of dithering (or the checkerboard style) has different drawbacks. I think mostly the right call was made.


    I say "mostly" because I think the colour choices are bit... un-Sonic-y, and first glance doesn't suggest this needed the 32X to exist. But I can't make much of a judgement on a (resized) title screen.
     
  19. RetroKoH

    RetroKoH

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    Is this... a BIOS edit??
     
  20. FireRat

    FireRat

    Nah. Fuck it. Banned
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