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Author Topic: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Ironhand - Discussion and Suggestions  (Read 430524 times)

Plump Helmet

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #750 on: September 07, 2019, 08:32:18 pm »

Personally I think this works fine for the animal men. It gets the point across and it's easier than making a custom sprite for every single one.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #751 on: September 07, 2019, 08:47:40 pm »

Oh yes. The only way to keep this practical is to find more and more ways to put critters together from generic bits. Otherwise there's no way you'll cope with Mythgen when all the main races might be replaced with endless varieties of procgen monstrosities.
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Manveru Taurënér

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #752 on: September 07, 2019, 09:03:10 pm »

Looks good to me, save for the Oriole man but that might just be my red/green color blindness (can't make out any details at all on it).
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voliol

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #753 on: September 08, 2019, 01:41:44 am »

Looks good enough to me, though of I'd prefer some size variance. Something like the elephant/rhino/giraffe/elephant seal people using a bigger base frame than the others would probably suffice. Still that would mean making new sprites for all applicable armor parts. I suppose you could use the kobold base for smaller animal men (i.e. those derived from vermin) and you wouldn't have that problem?

Regarding individual ones, the neck of the ostrich man is a bit too white and thick, and it's head is too tall; I'd probably guess it to be a goose man if I didn't know better. I also find it strange that the snail/slug, worm/leech and spider men are so large here while they really are among the smaller animal people in-game. Even if nothing changes among the other animal men it would be nice to see them shrunk.
The oriole man I don't quite get either, shouldn't it have some black plumage? There are many kinds of birds bearing the name "oriole" though, so you might just be basing it off some species I'm not thinking of.

Inarius

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #754 on: September 08, 2019, 04:15:55 am »

I like them, regardless of the size issue. It's really cool and fun.
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Meph

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #755 on: September 08, 2019, 05:39:55 am »

Thanks for the feedback so far. :)

Three sizes, small, medium and large, are what I'm personally are hoping for in the end.
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Cruxador

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #756 on: September 08, 2019, 08:05:13 pm »

Overall they look great and I think you've gone well beyond the level of unique details that would be necessary here. Sure, different sizes would be cool, but it's not worth making new equipment sprites for each size. Not if you can already fit humans, dwarves, elves, and goblins in one equipment size and make it look good, at least, but if you decide you need sizes for them anyways, then I reckon it's definitely worth utilizing that for these guys too.

Dealing with specifics:

The emphasis on distinct and clearly defined pinions makes the birdman wings feel more like demon wings or dragon wings; the proportions draw too much from fantasy and not enough from reality. Look at the size and angle in particular. Of course it's gonna be hard to make them look super accurate with the amount of space you've got no matter what, but having them come to such a sharp point at the elbow while pointing out rather than down is definitely not doing you any favors; bird wings just don't work that way. The raven wings are an exception to this, so the simplest fix would probably be to just recolor those wings for the others; I would shift them one pixel up since they look more like they're behind him than attached to him, but they're definitely preferable to the other wing design even before that.

I agree with Manveru that the shading on the oriole could use another pass.

The leech is way too long. Some of them can stretch out but in general they're stubby little critters, assuming the worm man is meant to represent annelids in general, they certainly shouldn't be longer than that.

It's certainly weird for a skink to be green... And for that matter, for an anole to be purple. Did you just swap their labels by accident maybe? Not that skinks are purple either, but I guess that it could look brown in some context, which plenty of skinks are. The shape of the one labeled anole looks more like an anole than the one labeled skink, but it also looks more like a skink than the one labeled skink so I can't really tell based on that.

Pond turtles are also not typically very green. I guess some species can be, sort of, but definitely not that green. The art is really solid and looks great on the desert tortoise, but I would consider another pass on the coloring.

I'm not 100% on board with that chameleon's face, he's giving me pepe the frog vibes, but they're weird looking animals at the best of times, and very diverse.

The ostrich head doesn't capture their wedge-like shape, that big flat bit right in front of the eyes isn't accurate and makes it look like a goose. Even though they have proportionally smaller beaks, the swan head would capture the feel of an ostrich's head better than the one you've got now. Or, better, recolor the emu head for it and make the neck one pixel longer if you've got the room.

I appreciate that it's not easy to make these into cute little humanoids, but the roach and beetle heads don't look anything like roach and beetle heads. In fact they look less like roach and beetle heads than a human head does.

I suspect you have limited space to work with for technical reasons, but the snail and slug would look a lot more like snail and slug if their antennae weren't bent, since they don't do that in real life. You could also give them the two little feelers down below, if that wouldn't complicate the layering.

The gila monster also looks unnecessarily weird. I think because the angle of the forehead, especially, but really I think that position is just too ambitious for the amount of pixels you've got available. There's also no need to give them those glowing white eyes; I know the eyes would be hard to make out otherwise but they are in real life too. Finally, you've given it a skink's tongue – gila monster tongues are forked, so it you remove that bottom left pixel (assuming you don't redraft it entirely), you'll have improved it a lot.


Those are the things that stood out to me when evaluating it as I would if I was making the sprites myself, though I know if I do that it'll be useless to you for legal reasons. The mammals categorically look great and most of the reptiles do too, and the spiders and ants are adorable and the bird faces are super cute too.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2019, 08:27:42 pm by Cruxador »
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Magistrum

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #757 on: September 10, 2019, 09:29:20 am »

This is good and all, but can we talk about how Meph was just ousted as a light mode heretic?
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Meph

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #758 on: September 10, 2019, 09:35:03 am »

This is good and all, but can we talk about how Meph was just ousted as a light mode heretic?
A what?
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snow dwarf

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #759 on: September 10, 2019, 09:44:10 am »

Quick question. One of the great things about ASCII dwarf fortress is the need to be creative with your colors. For example garnierite. It's only useful, because it's the only thing that gives that amazing light green. Or black bronze that gives the dark purple. Will that still be the case with the tileset, or do you guys plan on adding more color variety?
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Meph

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #760 on: September 10, 2019, 10:16:37 am »

Quick question. One of the great things about ASCII dwarf fortress is the need to be creative with your colors. For example garnierite. It's only useful, because it's the only thing that gives that amazing light green. Or black bronze that gives the dark purple. Will that still be the case with the tileset, or do you guys plan on adding more color variety?
That's up to Toady One.

A couple hardcoded colors are nice for sprite making, to avoid the entire object looking purple or yellow, but I wouldn't mind more colors.

TWBT offers that option btw, if you want to try out more colors, you can use that. ;)
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Cruxador

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #761 on: September 10, 2019, 01:54:03 pm »

This is good and all, but can we talk about how Meph was just ousted as a light mode heretic?
A what?
The implication is that, because of your choice of font color, you must browse this forum on light mode rather than the correct Toady-ordained dark color scheme.

Quick question. One of the great things about ASCII dwarf fortress is the need to be creative with your colors. For example garnierite. It's only useful, because it's the only thing that gives that amazing light green. Or black bronze that gives the dark purple. Will that still be the case with the tileset, or do you guys plan on adding more color variety?
That's up to Toady One.

A couple hardcoded colors are nice for sprite making, to avoid the entire object looking purple or yellow, but I wouldn't mind more colors.

TWBT offers that option btw, if you want to try out more colors, you can use that. ;)
Increasing the color range would be a pretty basic improvement, and the current color limits are something that Toady has mentioned specifically when describing the array of limited display/usability features that are far short of what they ought to be. Although I know you're not wanting to make an official statement on something that isn't officially confirmed, from an unofficial perspective it seems pretty certain.

Also, there's no reason, depending on Toady's implementation, that you couldn't have a full 32-bit color on a sprite, with a separate channel (or more than one, which would require deeper changes in order to be done meaningfully in most cases, but for which there's already obvious application in creature sprites) to fill with the color that's designated in the raws. Even with a ground layer, a building layer, and an item layer or two, plus a creature layer, this isn't going to tax systems at all when compared to modern 3D games. That can maybe get more when the amount of potential layers a creature could be made of, especially if there's a lot on screen, so for older systems it might be better to use 16bit color with index transparency, but adding a channel for the raw colors is still plenty compatible with having "hardcoded" RGB colors in the sprites, if that's what you're talking about.

As far as [the beneficial effect of] having a limited amount of colors that raws can supply, I think that's an art/design concern rather than a technological one, but considering that you guys aren't adhering to any design limits on the palette so far, I think it would be meaningless to apply one to the colors inherited from raws.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2019, 08:38:43 pm by Cruxador »
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Meph

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #762 on: September 10, 2019, 03:32:57 pm »

This is good and all, but can we talk about how Meph was just ousted as a light mode heretic?
A what?
The implication is that, because of your choice of font color, you must browse this forum on light mode rather than the correct Toady-ordained dark color scheme.
Thanks.

No, I'm not a light mode heretic. It's just that the animal men sheet was not made for this forum specifically. It was originally posted somewhere else ;)
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Magistrum

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #763 on: September 10, 2019, 05:00:22 pm »

Alright, the story seems to check out, but I'll keep an eye on you from now on...

Tried TWBT extra coloring some time ago, but the original color just feels more right after all this time. Maybe with Steam DF the sprites will make it fit in.
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Pillbo

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #764 on: September 21, 2019, 04:06:35 pm »

The animal people look good to me in general, thanks for posting them.  A couple suggestions:

- Cave fish people look kind of like horses in the face.
- Orioles have a good amount of black in their plumage.
- I see what you're going for with the slugs/snails but it looks like they have eye-stalks instead of heads.
- Muskox horns look a little more like hair braids that drop down the side of their face then turn up. Yours look more like longhorn cattle.
- Ant person reads kind of spidery, though that has to be tough to distinguish
- Roach and beetle are also tough to read, not sure what you could do about it though.
- I don't mind the Merfolk body but I would imagine the head as less standard human than that.

These are all just suggestions, you're doing a great job.
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