Siolfor the Jackal
Member
It's good practice. In my art class at the moment we are supposed to be learning and practicing compositions through grayscale to highlight the importance of shading and stuff.
I agree. Well said! =)i know it takes time to make stuff nice like this, but you owe it to yourself to keep moving once you achieve such niceness. YOLO
Thanks, Stogden! Yeah, the tiles are pretty large, so they don't loop that much. I can do a bit more to make them even more seamless, though. Maybe I'll add some variety tiles or whatever. =)Looks lovely and detailed. Although it's looping the tiles slightly, you have to stare quite a bit to see that it is actually looped and not all separate tiles.
Thanks, nlolotte. Really appreciate the kind words. Posts like these keep me life while I finish my games! =DAs always Rich, your work is fantastic and you should be proud of what you have so far! Keep going man
Looks ok to me. Maybe shifting the vases left one pixel might help in that case. Not sure how that fits with the system that @RichHopelessComposer has got going on though. As in, if things are aligned to a particular grid or not.The lines on right side of the vases makes them a little hard to read against the background. Particularly in the lower right corner of the entrance. Not sure there's an easy solution, since putting the entire side in shadows would be too harsh, and you're out of color tones for anything else.
You'd have to do *VERY* slight variations of the three basic colors to get a color swap shader to work (using the additional color space like bit flags). Palette shaders function by way of comparing the source-image pixel color to all the colors on the source palette, and swapping the source pixel color to the color in the same position of the destination palette. If you only have 3 colors, then you can only swap to 3 colors. If you go look at the color test, you'll notice the fox has 4 colors instead of 3.It might be possible to work in an optional toggleable "Gameboy Color" mode, if you used PixelPope's palette swap shader. In order to make it practical you'd have to come up with a relatively small overall color palette made up of 3-shade color gradients, but then you could draw all of your sprites with those colors, make a secondary palette where all of them are replaced with repeats of the same 3 green tones, and set the shader to draw over the application surface.
Never tried anything like that myself, never had a reason to, but it "should" work.
The way I'd do it would be just like a normal black/white shader... just assign the colored sprites new colors from the four available GB shades by checking their brightness. Unless I'm really screwing up my values while picking colors, it should work perfectly.You'd have to do *VERY* slight variations of the three basic colors to get a color swap shader to work (using the additional color space like bit flags). Palette shaders function by way of comparing the source-image pixel color to all the colors on the source palette, and swapping the source pixel color to the color in the same position of the destination palette. If you only have 3 colors, then you can only swap to 3 colors. If you go look at the color test, you'll notice the fox has 4 colors instead of 3.
What I meant was, you could have an overarching palette for the entire application surface, and every 3-color gradient on the first palette could correspond to a copy of the same three-color GB green gradient. Sort of like this:You'd have to do *VERY* slight variations of the three basic colors to get a color swap shader to work (using the additional color space like bit flags). Palette shaders function by way of comparing the source-image pixel color to all the colors on the source palette, and swapping the source pixel color to the color in the same position of the destination palette. If you only have 3 colors, then you can only swap to 3 colors. If you go look at the color test, you'll notice the fox has 4 colors instead of 3.
Oh, I'm not saying you couldn't do it. But within the 3 color restriction on sprites, something like the colored version of your fox wouldn't work. It had 4 colors, which the 4th color is reserved for transparency, iirc.The way I'd do it would be just like a normal black/white shader... just assign the colored sprites new colors from the four available GB shades by checking their brightness. Unless I'm really screwing up my values while picking colors, it should work perfectly.
I also already have a shader written that does palette swapping the normal way, which would also work fine, I think.
But I'm not doing it, hahah! I'm too lazy to do both! X'D
Also, I'm having fun designing my sprites and tiles to work with only four colors. Trying to convert to DX mode with a shader undermines the point of this art style...
"That fox uses two sprites layered, like MegaMan did," heheh.Oh, I'm not saying you couldn't do it. But within the 3 color restriction on sprites, something like the colored version of your fox wouldn't work. It had 4 colors, which the 4th color is reserved for transparency, iirc.
That's one (more work) option, too. Been there, done that, ended up hating it because of how much extra work it involves handling all those pieces. Granted, I was dealing with 8 different layers. That might have had more to do with it."That fox uses two sprites layered, like MegaMan did," heheh.
I meant in the context of the shader anyway, though. The shader doesn't care about GB restrictions, hahah! =)
The only way! =DPixel by pixel, frame by frame?
Ouch...I'd be breaking down what I'm trying to do...then move onto something like blender or studio max to create the effect using particle systems. But you do you, man. If it works, don't fix it? =DThe only way! =D
You can't emulate 2D animation with particle systems. Believe me, that's the first place my lazy mind went. :'DOuch...I'd be breaking down what I'm trying to do...then move onto something like blender or studio max to create the effect using particle systems. But you do you, man. If it works, don't fix it? =D
Sure you can. It's all about the approach. You have two different sine waves (simple curves, easy to control and animate) and a mod to those curves that creates the low level noise. Use the two curves to create a solid surface, then spawn animated particles along the curves to break up their form. Or, well, that's what I'd try, at least. It might not actually look all that great, so you may just end up being right after all. Of course, Blender's ability to animate particles is frustratingly limited. That's one of the few parts of Max that I miss.You can't emulate 2D animation with particle systems. Believe me, that's the first place my lazy mind went. :'D
It'll be worth it, though. I think it's going to look beautiful when it's done! Have to pay proper respect to the beauty of nature! =)
Yup. Did a quick test of the idea. It 'works' but it's not nearly as good as something more hand-crafted would be.@CMAllen: yep. That was my plan, too. But then I was like, "no, that'll look like crap compared to a well done hand animation," hahah. Waves aren't just bouncing sine waves spawning bubbles at their peaks. X'D
I'm not going to get anything near an actual 2D animation without spending three months researching fluid dynamics, so I think I'll just do it by hand, heheh. ;D
Whoa, you tried it?! You're much quicker than me at that kind of thing apparently!Yup. Did a quick test of the idea. It 'works' but it's not nearly as good as something more hand-crafted would be.
Niiice! For what it's worth, I think you did a great job here for something "automated." This honestly looks a bit better than I imagined. You handled the foam pretty well.Let me see if this works:
The parts are all separate, though I'm not certain about color limits. When exporting to a gif, it did only have 4 colors total. Needs more tweaking to image timing regardless, but like I said, it 'works' but it's still not as good as something more hand-crafted would be.
Dude, that looks great!Let me see if this works:
The parts are all separate, though I'm not certain about color limits. When exporting to a gif, it did only have 4 colors total. Needs more tweaking to image timing regardless, but like I said, it 'works' but it's still not as good as something more hand-crafted would be.
I played Twilight Princess back on launch day in 2006, and haven't heard it's forest theme since then, because it didn't really grab me. I definitely didn't take any (conscious, at least) inspiration from that one, hahah! This song came out while I was noodling around on the piano one day. It's actually a Soul Healer piece I'm recycling for Maple Forest. The "real" version is a layered song that builds up as you get deeper into the area with some crazy counterpoint.You have a lot of repetition in this track which definitely comes across as intentional and fitting but some small changes could make it more effective without ruining the intentional repetition and mysteriousness. Just take a listen to the Lost Woods in Twilight Princess, it has that same repetition but the very end before the loop does something a bit different. Looks like we both took a similar approach and inspiration for our forest sections, I'm using repetition to create that mysterious perpetual effect too like TP did
Yay, can't wait to see what it's actually like to play.I'm going to put this up on Early Access/start giving demoes out, so you'll all have a chance to actually play it! =)
I'll have gameplay *videos* later this week, at least! =)Yay, can't wait to see what it's actually like to play.