Character Art

I think one of the points of making something 'HD' is making the screen resolution wider anyway. Especially since most computers now actually have wider screens.

 

That's what I've been hoping for months

 

I knew somebody would bitch, which is why I made the third version.

The problem is, like I've said, white is 255,255,255, while all the other colors seem to have a maximum brightness of 231 in any channel. In the third example I simply dropped everything after 231 and mapped 0-231 to 0-255, fixing the brightness issue.

When was it discovered that highlight doesn't affect pure white? There's always been a split over whether it should be 0-224, or 0-255, or even 0-238. It's cool that there's finally a definitive answer, I'm just curious.

 

I've always used 238 as maximum brightness for SMD's normal palette, so I guess I should change my ways too. Not that it really matters that much.

I like the third version of Sonic best. I think it'd help him stand out just a tiny bit more.

 

Huh, I hadn't noticed this before but I do think the darkened eyes look better. Making everything else brighter makes it look like there's some weird light source that only affects white. My two cents, and since I'm contributing jack shit to the project I guess they don't really matter. =P

 

I would love to have some proof of this!

 

That's from Sonic Jam, correct?

If you're going with that direction, maybe it would be a better idea to completely change his normal standing sprite to match that. His original genesis sprite doesn't seem to look very good in HD, unlike Sonic.

It's probably a shitty suggestion, but maybe you guys could make a brand new standing sprite based off these two pictures, if you plan on using the concept artwork for reference on his running animations.









Maybe you can mishmash these (and the genesis sprite) to get a good look for Tails.

 

The S3&K sprites would make a good basis for HD Tails. It's mostly just an improved version of the Sonic 2 styled Tails sprites anyways.

 

Personally I think that the HD sprites for this game should all be inspired off the artwork, not imitations of the original sprites. I get the whole authenticity behind why you would try to get the HD sprites based off the old ones but if they had the option back in the day do you honestly think that they would have had Sonic look exactly like he does in the game or would they try to base him off the Sonic on the box art covers and stuff from Japan?

 

They're exactly the same.

Just the red shading on his fur is changed to brown.

 

Yeah, and the shading looks vastly better. That, and his flying animation was a huge improvement.

 

Which reminds me... Is Tails going to be able to swim?

 

That's a pretty good question now that you mention it. We haven't given any consideration to it yet. I don't have anything against it, and I'll bring it up with the others to get their take on it.

 

I did ask ages ago. I thought you had already come to the conclusion that it was going to be done. Though I asked if the Sonic 3 abilities was going to be option in the option menu.

http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?sho...nsta&st=630

 

I disagree. Tails' Sonic 3 sprites are missing the red shading on his fur, it's the same color as the brown shading which takes away a shade which makes parts of his fur lose detail. Basically, it's a result of Sega being lazy and, while they designed a new 3D model for Sonic's sprites, did fuck all with Tails and used a 3D model only where they needed to which doesn't match Tails' sprites at all and looks like a hot mess on steroids.

I'm going off Sonic 2 for the shading since it's not off. And I liked Tails flying animation in Sonic 2. He looked cuter.

Though my progress is slow... I'm having trouble shading in InkScape, not because I just can't do it but because it requires a ton of objects on screen at once and it makes my computer lag. Is there a way to use the gradient tool in Inkscape with custom shapes? So far the only ones I have available to me are lineat and sunburst, there is no option for, say, making the gradient conform to the shape of Tails' tails other than warping a circle slightly.

 

Personally, I think the colors look much worse in StH2 but oh well. We all have our own preferences. I liked Sth1&3's Sonic sprites better than the StH2 sprite. >_>

 

Why even base it on the sprites at all? Just use the concept art which already looks much more lovely than any upscaled sprite would look.

 

In part, to get the proportions right. But I do think the art, in this case, is probably a better reference.

This is what I did at first, I've been using this as a base. It's not shaded and the colors are wrong but I've been doing the sprites off this concept. (and part of why it took me so long to even come up with the few that I have is because I constantly redo things and this is a rough idea)



I have recently edited it a bit after realizing one of the sprites I was doing was off. This isn't really meant to be totally detailed, and I'm trying more to go with what the example mockup was showing on the actual sprites, but anything that anyone could toss out there that would be helpful would be appreciated. I was going off the official artwork when I made this base.

Edit: And the image became warped when resized so I need to go fix that.

 

That's quite impressive Volpino. This is the only Tails mockup I've seen so far where the proportions are looking very tight. Only thing that I can really notice is that his head is a little too big and out of proportion at the back.

 

This is why the game should use graphics based off official and concept art using the sprites as references rather than upscaled sprites. The head's too squished, the shoes are too long and pointy, and the eyes look weird. Of course you were basing this off the sprite and it does a good job of doing that, unfortunately the original sprite doesn't look that good. Granted, the poses are good, and those should be imitated as much as possible, but the proportions and the art should be based off artwork and concept art. Same goes for Sonic too.

Like why can't the characters be based off these images?

http://sonicresearch.org/art/albums/Sonic/.../sonic07_32.png
http://sonicresearch.org/art/albums/Tails/.../tails03_32.png
http://sonicresearch.org/art/albums/Knuckl...uckles01_32.png
http://sonicresearch.org/art/albums/Eggman/eggman01_32.png

The sprites may not come out as pixel perfect in the end but they'll look better because of it anyway