I figured the bright colors would be alright in a circus level, taking inspiration from Carnival Night, but perhaps a toning down is in order. What would you folks suggest, simply darkening the tiles? Or should I add some blue and yellow to the tiles as well?
I'd recommend just dimming the bright reds and blues. They almost hurt to look at, they're so bright. Otherwise, everything else looks pretty good.
Where do I even start? Okay, first, read my post on Sonic color theory. The long and short of it is, you're using about three shades too many in the foreground alone. Your colors are too saturated with hardly any shades to speak of, and the foreground lacks depth as a result. Also, I've never seen any artist anywhere achieve something palatable with a color scheme made up entirely of all three primary colors. Which is to say nothing of the actual art. Diamonds and rectangles? What is this, Mario? Is this creativity? I don't think this is creativity. Let me address the whole forum for a second: Your goal is to emulate the visual style of the classic games as accurately as possible, right? Just what game are we using as the visual basis for this project, then? Because this doesn't even stack up to the geometric simplicity of Sonic 1. And I might as well just come out and say that Rika, Phoebius and Chimpo- neither of which I think are still creating art for this (Unless Chimpo plans on contributing more than cockslaps)- are just about the only competent artists I've seen on this forum, and I haven't yet seen them create anything above Sonic 2 quality. There's too much everyone here needs to learn in too short a time. All I can really suggest is, start here. Analyze the screenshots of every level of every relevant game, or actually start the games up to get a more in-depth look at things if you can be assed. Give Chaotix a look, too- even if it's a tad more complex than what we're shooting for, you'll still learn something. Keep studying until you understand why shit like this just isn't going to fly.
Are you joking? Sonic art is practically based in surrealistic geometric patterns arbitrarily etched into the environment—especially in a circus-based level, where even in the real world you'll find random geometric patterns strewn about the designs. Not only are the shapes and general motif of the level fitting, but even the colors—red, white, and yellow, specifically—are very common and appropriate in a circus environment. It's all totally solid. I really, really don't see where your complaints are based. If I had to add my own criticism, I think there aren't enough flat shades of color; specifically, there is too much defined shape. The patterns in the original games were simply done, and not overemphasized—you had a flat pattern, a well-defined ground or upper detail, and maybe some indents here and there. These shapes weren't all detailed as possible, though, and that was part of the appeal; the beauty in the art was how simplistic it was whilst still providing a decent feel for the environment. No need for faux-realism, here—this is Sonic, not Resident Evil. Overall, though, I think that with some aesthetic tweaks, this could look pretty cool.
<!--quoteo(post=270284:date=Jan 19 2009, 08:06 PM:name=Tweaker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tweaker @ Jan 19 2009, 08:06 PM) A flat checker pattern should raise a red flag for any post-NES game, but it's made acceptable here through the use of indentations made up of larger quadrilaterals which break up the monotony with pools of depth, and the grass is actually a rather complicated texture, which compensates for the general lack of detail. That was cool the first time around, but it's a stale act by now. Labyrinth Zone is almost equally as simplistic in design, but it breaks the mold through the use of intricately detailed character portrait tiles and shapes with angles other than 90º. Oh, but it gets even simpler: This here? This is as simple as it gets. Nothing but rectangles, delineated through the use of indentations roughly two pixels in width, and it's still more interes- tolerable that what we've got going here. Marble Zone is made acceptable only through the use of texture, which in and of itself is about the most basic texture one can achieve with pixels. Texture is important- it can make the simplest of geometric compositions visually tolerable, if not pleasing. Case in point, Spring Yard. It doesn't have much going for it in the way of shapes at all, but it strikes me as being one of S1's more sophisticated stages on account of its texture alone. Now, let's level the fuck up: I don't really have much to say about Emerald Hill. It's very clearly an evolution of Green Hill, it follows the aesthetic principle to a T, and yet, I don't think there's anyone here who could objectively claim that it isn't an improvement. In fact, most all of S2 very clearly adheres to S1's philosophy of geometric simplicity, but the art manages to stand out on account of its shapes being clustered together much more closely and differing drastically in size and appearance, and its textures are no longer uniform- EHZ is the simplest example of this. Here, we see a direct evolution of the Marble Zone design philosophy, where geographic irregularities are at a bare minimum and the foreground relies almost exclusively on texture to captivate the player. The difference is, they didn't just run over the tiles with MSPaint's spray tool this time. This is, like, real texture, here. And it's wonderful. This is probably the most relevant example here, as I really can't stress just how important texture is when you're shooting for the simple geometry approach. There's a hell of a lot more going on in these foregrounds than DIAMOND DIAMOND DIAMOND, SQUARE SQUARE SQUARE. (Also of note is how the foreground is dramatically enhanced by the foliage, which is another skill I think we all need to work on- the use of tiles to take a relatively simple object and weave a terribly complex arrangement out of it.) That at least explains why this zone looks like shit, but if you want me to really explain what makes a good foreground, I'll have time for that tommorow. Being pretentious is awesome!
whilst I agree with all you're saying I would just like to point out one thing. The point of making this a community project was so that everyone could post concepts and art then have the more experienced spriters take that and improve upon the bits with potential. Shooting down every contribution just puts people off even attempting to improve on their own work. You are right in the majority of your points, the dimaonds are flat and texture-less, the blue metal fence is crudely drawn in MSpaint but all of those things were just simple ideas to get a feel for the level in the hopes that someone can make something of worth out of them further down the line. Edit: Im looking foward to your description of what makes a good forground (not being sarcastic there) but im hoping you provide some actual examples rather then just analyzing screen shots of old games
Talk about pretentiousness. Good point, bad presentation. You could pretty well get your point across without sounding like a patronizing prick. Way to go fretting about preliminary art. Do you really think we're gonna put MSPaint-cobbled wire in the final game? Didn't you notice the variations in the art just a few posts before, which feature indentations (at least some attempt at such), a star pattern on the squares, spiraled half-columns, and images of Eggman's mug? By the way, using the primary colors was MY idea. Don't chastise the artist for it.
You ass Although I agree with the tiles, they just feel somewhat wrong. I think we should give them a light feel, since this is almost certain to be one of the first zones of the game. Like the one that Thundertimi posted, a bunch of stars. We just need to put a whole more detail in them and add more different tiles, since many zones in Sonic 3 & Knuckles messes around with a mix of different types of tiles and not only one, a.k.a. Carnival Night Zone is the best example of that.
.....So. I'm thinking either take the "Crimson Carnival" Unleashed name, or something along the lines of "Vermilion Vacation."
Okay, I was bit busy, so I quickly made this. There are some things, What I would like to see in level.
I must admit it is a lot more fitting, but even though the background fits well, it's completely unrelated and too generic, it's need character... The level needs a background with Carnival rides in the background like a Roller coaster with a Cart running on the tracks.
I'm attempting the foreground roller coaster tracks. I'm basing this of the concept art on the first page of this thread. So far I have a flat section of track and a 128 tile of supports. Someone please add some decoration to the supports. I like the idea of those shiny gem looking things from the concept on the first page for this, but I think other people would do a better job of drawing them than me. I'm working on a level to 45 curve right now. Here's the two bits I have so far. The tracks are Vekoma-esque, but taller. Please write something about them even if you don't like something. I need to know the bad and the good to improve it.
Chimpo gets to be mean to people and everyone loves him for it, what am I doing wrong I haven't really been paying attention to this project up until now, so I only ever bothered to look at the first and last pages. But then, aren't we past the preliminary stage already? What about all that concept art at the very start of this thread? Phoebius drew up a great basis for the zone and even got started working on the actual pixel art, and it just seems to me that everyone is completely ignoring his work and just doing whatever. And then I saw the squares and the colors and I raged. Do I really think you're gonna put MSPaint-cobbled wire in the final game? For a second, I really did! It seemed to me that everyone thought Guirk's art only needed some minor tweaks and was otherwise fine, so I flew into a panic and made damn sure that everyone raised their standards appropriately. But then, no one answered my question: What game are we modelling the art direction after? In that last post, I kind of got sidetracked and wound up giving a suitably pretentious account of the evolution of the art of Sonic games, as I keep seeing people touting this project as being the next step in the classic Sonic vein, though no one really seems to be doing any research as to how the games got where they did or where they would've gone next. So, are we making a fangame, or are we really making Sonic 4 here? Oh, I forgot about you. You're not half bad, honestly- technically, you're way better than I am at this shit right now, but you're a ways off from nailing the classic Sonic formula. Which might not be a bad thing- this is why we've got to establish some proper art direction before we start shooting in the dark. EDIT: Oh, more McGuirk art. See, that's much better. You can do this shit if you just take the time to study the source material. I won't level judgement at this point; just watch those flat shades, and keep adding to it. Don't stop. Tear the frame on that pussy.
I really like that! Too give it the perfect shape you should make those Grey bars go in a Diagonal and keep flipping them over when they progress downwards.
Very good job, McGuirk! Maybe it look too "Real" for sonic game, But adding random shit in level, make it look very fitting.
Sorry. I mean like this if you can make it out: |\|\|\|\| |/|/|/|/| |\|\|\|\| |/|/|/|/| |\|\|\|\| So the straight ones are the Red Poles and the ones Diagonally are the Grey ones.
Let's not get carried away now Those gems? I really don't like them. They're adding extra color to a level that's already saturated to max capacity. If you really, really want those jewels, I'd advise that you shrink them down, keep them purple exclusively, and learn how to render a crystalline structure with pixels. It'd be a whole lot less work to find some other gimmick to jam in there (Mabye something you'd actually find in a circus?).
<!--quoteo(post=270510:date=Jan 20 2009, 09:12 PM:name=Ritz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Ritz @ Jan 20 2009, 09:12 PM) [/quote] He has contributed artwork to the project, good artwork I might add, whereas most other people are just contributing bullshit opinions. I like the red and white tiles but they're quite jagged, needs smoothing out before adding light/shade. Also, if this is going to have rollercoaster rails will there be grinding?
