ThatGuyDownTheStreet's Sprite Topic

[ThatGuyDownTheStreet]

Portraits

Please feel free to tell me if my work is good or not and why. Don't just say it's good or bad, but tell why you may think that.

Edited June 9, 2012 by ThatGuyDownTheStreet

[eCut]

Why did you make new topic? You're other one is perfectly fine...

And as for the portraits:

The first two kinda lack necks.

They are all pretty clean though.

[ThatGuyDownTheStreet]

Why did you make new topic? You're other one is perfectly fine...

And as for the portraits:

The first two kinda lack necks.

They are all pretty clean though.

Last time I checked, if you revive a thread over a month old, you get warned or banned

I personally don't want to go through being banned.

[deleted35362]

You can post if you come back with an update or contribution to the topic.

[ThatGuyDownTheStreet]

You can post if you come back with an update or contribution to the topic.

Seriously? Well that's good to know.

[AstraLunaSol]

As long as it's your art thread, you can post in it at any time.

Clicky~

[CT075]

Well, if you have new sprites to add you can go ahead and bump it.

Since it is basically your project thread, you can bump it when you have updates.

You can't bump it for any other reason, though. Like if you just want it nearer the top of the forum to get more people to look.

I asked Narga and this is his response. Just for future reference.

[ThatGuyDownTheStreet]

I have a new portrait below

This is for a new hack that I'll be starting for FE8

Oh and BTW, she is a shaman.

Below is for my what I need to insert, It's pretty much the same thing as above

Please if you say the portrait is good or bad please tell me why.

[Darros]

Is the chibi just the sprite shrunk down?

Also there is too much Idoun in it.

Edited February 6, 2011 by Darros

[AstraLunaSol]

Where the neck and the body connect you might want to add some shading. The closed eye frames could also use some work, reference other frames. The chibi looks like it was just shrunk down, but not fixed after. Fixing includes making the face in a typical chibi style and cleaning the shading and border. Use references fir the chibi face.

[ThatGuyDownTheStreet]

Is the chibi just the sprite shrunk down?

Also there is too much Idoun in it.

Where the neck and the body connect you might want to add some shading. The closed eye frames could also use some work, reference other frames. The chibi looks like it was just shrunk down, but not fixed after. Fixing includes making the face in a typical chibi style and cleaning the shading and border. Use references fir the chibi face.

To answer both of your questions, no, I didn't just shrink it down, though really I should recolor the face.

Anyway I'm going to work on the portrait a little bit more to make it better.

[Darros]

Her left eye (chibi) is much to big. Idoun (your base) doesn't have such huge eyes.

Reference that for eye sizes.

[ThatGuyDownTheStreet]

Her left eye (chibi) is much to big. Idoun (your base) doesn't have such huge eyes.

Reference that for eye sizes.

Thank you very much, I'll remember to ref. off of the unspliced chibis in the future.

Edited February 6, 2011 by hithere1

[ThatGuyDownTheStreet]

Hi everyone, been a long time since I posted in this thread. Anyway, here's another portrait:

It's for Tales of Serenes and what not.

[Joerachi]

For lil' miss Idoun's blinking frames, look at Seph's tutorial (It's on youtube).

As for the SE mug, OMG A BLACK GUY I'd move the Head+Neck up a bit since it looks a little weird.

I'll be back with a more in-depth analysis in a few.

EDIT:

Pink Box: The hair borders the skin with it's second lightest shade. The third shade needs to be on the skin, especially since it contrasts with the skin more, making it more noticeable.

Yellow Box: The eyes look like they got stretched down and that's never a good thing.

Red Box: The second lightest skin tone is bordering the collar. That's just not right.

Blue Box: This just needs a third tone for the cloak, the border color doesn't work well with this color.

Green Box: The collar level isn't consistent and it makes the head look like it's lower than it really is, and it's sorta like that to begin with on this sprite.

Edited March 12, 2011 by Joerachi

[deleted35362]

How do you know he's black? He could be Dominican!

About the cloak, the color that was there before only really needed to color shades

of it's own. The color you used here, though, is too light and too different from

the border color to have only 2 color tones. Also, it might just be me, but the

shoulders seem too narrow for the head, unless a big head was the intention.

[ThatGuyDownTheStreet]

I think I'm going to poast the edited ToS portrait later.

Anyways, here's the map for my FE: The Fate of Magvel hack:

It's a WIP but please critique about it so that I can improve more on this map. The tileset I used was 01 02 03.

[Chocolate Kitty]

Chests... Why.

Village leading to a house directly in front of it doesn't really make sense.

It's quite boring, but like you said it's a WIP so I expect some spicing up!

[Joerachi]

I already have dibs on Magvel 2, so don't think about it.

Tile spam asdf.

Why have the clover pattern everywhere? Why the chest, in the middle of a field? Again, WIP, but just saying.

[Astelaine]

Heya, ThatGuy! :) Since you asked for crit, here are my thoughts. I apologize for any bluntness - my only intent is to help you improve your hack. So, without further ado:

This map lacks direction. As a player, I can't decide how I would approach it. It doesn't really tell me much about how the chapter will play, about the story taking place here, what the setting is like, etc. None of the different elements (villages, houses, forts, trees, etc) are motivated. I can't tell why they are there, other than "hey, this map should have a village, a shop, some forts... yeaaah, let's throw in some chests." But the question that must be answered is why?

To answer that, let's look at what a map should accomplish.

• It should visually suggest to the player how the chapter will progress. By looking at it, the player should be able to tell where they'll start, where the fighting will take place, and where the final objective of the map is (either a place they will sieze or where the boss will be parked.)
• It should offer the player more than one path to get from the start point to the goal.
• It should give the player different strategic points in which to engage the enemy. This means providing different kinds of terrain, choke points, walls, etc. These spots should both challenge the player and give them opportunities to use the space to their advantage.
• It should provide visual information on the setting (for example, from looking at this map, what can I tell about Renais and its geography and climate?) and establish an atmosphere (idyllic? bustling? eerie? etc.)
• It should be visually appealing, and avoid tile spam, improper shadowing, inconsistent height levels, unnaturally symmetrical arrangement of elements, and too many or too few elements.

Right now, your map isn't really meeting any of these requirements.

So, what you need to do is really hammer out your chapter's story. Conveying your story, and giving the player interesting strategy choices within it, are the motivations for everything on your map. When you design any section, place any tile, ask yourself, "Why is this here? How does this element fulfill one of the map requirements in the list above? How is this part of the map conveying the story or giving the player an interesting choice?" If you can't answer that in specific, then that tile or element does not belong on your map. Everything needs a purpose. Keeping that in mind will solve most of your map's problems.

That aside, some comments on your map's visual aesthetic:

It looks bland because the different elements are spread too evenly around the map. There's no place for the eye to really "catch" on because the distribution is so uniform. Instead, try clumping some things up to create a more interesting play space. Think about how a village, a fort, a forest, would actually look or be set up in real life. Study some existing maps from the games or poke at the mapping competition threads to get an idea of what you should do.

I think that's it. I hope this helps you. Good luck with your Magvel hack, I will definitely play it!

Edited March 16, 2011 by Astelaine

[ThatGuyDownTheStreet]

Chests... Why.

Village leading to a house directly in front of it doesn't really make sense.

It's quite boring, but like you said it's a WIP so I expect some spicing up!

I already have dibs on Magvel 2, so don't think about it.

Tile spam asdf.

Why have the clover pattern everywhere? Why the chest, in the middle of a field? Again, WIP, but just saying.

Heya, ThatGuy! :) Since you asked for crit, here are my thoughts. I apologize for any bluntness - my only intent is to help you improve your hack. So, without further ado:

This map lacks direction. As a player, I can't decide how I would approach it. It doesn't really tell me much about how the chapter will play, about the story taking place here, what the setting is like, etc. None of the different elements (villages, houses, forts, trees, etc) are motivated. I can't tell why they are there, other than "hey, this map should have a village, a shop, some forts... yeaaah, let's throw in some chests." But the question that must be answered is why?

To answer that, let's look at what a map should accomplish.

• It should visually suggest to the player how the chapter will progress. By looking at it, the player should be able to tell where they'll start, where the fighting will take place, and where the final objective of the map is (either a place they will sieze or where the boss will be parked.)
• It should offer the player more than one path to get from the start point to the goal.
• It should give the player different strategic points in which to engage the enemy. This means providing different kinds of terrain, choke points, walls, etc. These spots should both challenge the player and give them opportunities to use the space to their advantage.
• It should provide visual information on the setting (for example, from looking at this map, what can I tell about Renais and its geography and climate?) and establish an atmosphere (idyllic? bustling? eerie? etc.)
• It should be visually appealing, and avoid tile spam, improper shadowing, inconsistent height levels, unnaturally symmetrical arrangement of elements, and too many or too few elements.

Right now, your map isn't really meeting any of these requirements.

So, what you need to do is really hammer out your chapter's story. Conveying your story, and giving the player interesting strategy choices within it, are the motivations for everything on your map. When you design any section, place any tile, ask yourself, "Why is this here? How does this element fulfill one of the map requirements in the list above? How is this part of the map conveying the story or giving the player an interesting choice?" If you can't answer that in specific, then that tile or element does not belong on your map. Everything needs a purpose. Keeping that in mind will solve most of your map's problems.

That aside, some comments on your map's visual aesthetic:

It looks bland because the different elements are spread too evenly around the map. There's no place for the eye to really "catch" on because the distribution is so uniform. Instead, try clumping some things up to create a more interesting play space. Think about how a village, a fort, a forest, would actually look or be set up in real life. Study some existing maps from the games or poke at the mapping competition threads to get an idea of what you should do.

I think that's it. I hope this helps you. Good luck with your Magvel hack, I will definitely play it!

To Hero of Time: Have absolutely no idea why I put a house in front of that school..

Chest was just a misclick

To Joerachi: Again, chest was just a misclick. Clover pattern was to make it look less empty, but it doesn't seem like it's doing that.

Good luck with Magvel 2, or whatever you're working on. I'm sure your creative ideas will get it very far! :)

To Astelaine: I put your response in a spoiler box because it was particularly long.

Anyways, thank you for all of what you said, I think that will extremely help throughout finishing this map. I've actually thought of some other ideas on the story of the chapter.

Thank you all for your responses, hope y'all come back when I release the next screenshot of the map.

[Chocolate Kitty]

Kool skittles, looking forward to it.

[ThatGuyDownTheStreet]

Here's the new map:

I figure I'd ask for some critiquing like last time before I say it's finished or not.

[Chocolate Kitty]

Red: Looks just bad

Green: Tile spammy

Those rivers are extremely uniform and straight. Looks kind of odd IMO

[ThatGuyDownTheStreet]

Red: Looks just bad

Green: Tile spammy

Those rivers are extremely uniform and straight. Looks kind of odd IMO

Ugh, I hate it when things don't work out, but I shouldn't be too hard to fix these mistakes.

Anyways, here's a battle sprite of a female merc:

After looking at Iavasechui's hack thread, I realized that a something like this should be made. I'll sheet it later when I feel like it.