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Author Topic: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Ironhand - Discussion and Suggestions  (Read 459578 times)

Rose

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #870 on: February 20, 2020, 11:28:53 pm »

Making the inside of the tree black would make it look less like a stump.
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Cruxador

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #871 on: February 21, 2020, 12:41:22 am »

That may be, I'm not familiar with the full body of what he's done, but just enough to be familiar with his style. But professional work isn't hitting a high note occasionally. Art is a competitive field, and professional work therefore requires being able to consistently output excellent work, and with an ease that allows it to be a financially rewarding use of time. As far as I'm aware, the only professional artist who does DF stuff is ......... and his art isn't really of the sort suitable to a tileset. Plus, he's presumably busy with his art career.

We have different definition of professional, a professional is anybody good enough to earn a wage getting hired to do a thing, the text book definition is "a person engaged or qualified in a profession." and both Meph and Mayday have been "Engaged" to produce art for a commercial product, they are therefore professional artists as far as I'm personally concerned, are they at the very top of their field probably not but that is just the nature of art, nobody can ever be the very best because of stylistic BS.
By that standard, there are even fewer professional artists since most art is lump sum or per-output and not wage-based.  I don't think defining "professional" on the basis of the type of contract signed is meaningful for purposes of defining it (however loosely) as a quality or ability standard. While type of contract might make sense if you're writing tax policy, in practice I think who has or doesn't have that kind of gig is more based on networking ability and inclination than artistic ability. That being the case, I think being able to live off the money is a pretty solid (albeit somewhat variable, according to cost of living) metric for differentiating between a professional and a hobbyist that takes commissions.

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I don't mean to belittle wither Meph or Mayday by saying this, but I'm not sure you understand the amount of knowledge on display in that game. The mastery of both palette and shading that's on display there is impossible to replicate without both training and practice, and not a tiny amount of either. Not only do I think it's beyond Meph and Mayday, but I think it's beyond anyone who hasn't spent years of their life with the primary aim of gaining skill in that style or in a similar style but in applications very nearly identical to that situation. Everyone who can do that is probably doing it for money right now, unless they've retired. Most games that make it to market don't have anywhere near that level of art, and it isn't because the idea of having better art never occurred to anyone on the dev team.

I got to be honest and just agree to disagree, But that is because I don't view professional art with same.... reverence you seem to, I'm not saying its not a skill as it definitely is a skill but it is not a skill that requires a degree to be considered a professional, unlike say a doctor or nuclear physicist where the degree is required.
At what point did I say "degree" or reference formal education at all? Doctors and nuclear physicists need formal qualifications to verify that they're as skilled as they say they are, because of the severity of the potential problems if they turn out not to be. Even then, you can do any research you can get funding for and publish in any journal regardless of your qualifications, if the research is good enough. But that's beside the point. No matter what populist view you take on it,  the art you posted as an example showcases a lot of skill. Nobody has that skill who has not acquired that skill, and although talent can mitigate this, at the end of the day gaining skill always requires time spent learning. There's no "reverence" there, that's just how it works.

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This would be less representative, and wouldn't look as good as your example game or necessarily better than what Mike&Meph are planning now anyway.

I personally think it would be more representative as its showing you more info at the same time,
That's not what representative means. Because what it shows you bears less relation to the actual situation (the trees don't lean north along the ground, but go up to the next z-level) it is less representative; it does not represent the "reality" of what happens in the game engine. Unless the game were converted to full isometric, it basically has to be top-down to not be confusing, games that use the method you describe have to have everything carefully constructed and make exceptions in all the right places where they won't be noticed. Otherwise you'll have tons of situations where you can't see what's going on because it's behind a tree or castle or mountain. Of course, most people's idea would be "like Stonesense but in the game" but the degree of rework would be substantial and might also necessitate functionality changes.

In short, there's a limit to what's reasonable to expect.
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Meph

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #872 on: February 21, 2020, 07:20:04 am »

Just quickly about the trees: making them 3/4 view is really odd because you can go up/down zlevels and the trunk and crown would be shown in the wrong place. They have to be top-down. Walls too, just imagine multiple constructed walls on top of each other.

Black interior for trees is something we tested, didn't quite like it, though it would be the logical fit to the black interior we use for earth/rock atm.

Is there any more feedback about the creature sprites posted? Because that's something we can work with. :)
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #873 on: February 21, 2020, 08:59:59 am »

Just quickly about the trees: making them 3/4 view is really odd because you can go up/down zlevels and the trunk and crown would be shown in the wrong place. They have to be top-down. Walls too, just imagine multiple constructed walls on top of each other.

Black interior for trees is something we tested, didn't quite like it, though it would be the logical fit to the black interior we use for earth/rock atm.

Is there any more feedback about the creature sprites posted? Because that's something we can work with. :)
Would a darker (but not black) tree trunk interior work (sorry, no useful critter feedback: I think you're doing a good job)?
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voliol

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #874 on: February 21, 2020, 09:00:33 am »

Is there any more feedback about the creature sprites posted? Because that's something we can work with. :)
  • Some of the creatures need more polish, obviously; the latter ones like the giant mole look much less finished compared to the giant toad, draltha and dromedary.
  • Sizes are always important; as much as I like the current giant toad (giant cave toad?) and jabberer the proportions between them and the giant olm seems off. Remember, jabberers are not much less volymous than elephants, and giant toads and giant olms are the same size, less than a tenth of the jabberer's.
  • The sasquatch and yeti also look a bit small to me, but that might just be my mind playing tricks; they should still be larger than the standard humanoids.

Mike Mayday

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #875 on: February 21, 2020, 09:15:37 am »

Yeah, we've tried the dark insides.
But don't worry guys, we're going to continue the discussion on trees when the coding work on them starts. For now we have what we think is the best compromise, we want to test it and see how it goes.
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Mike Mayday

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #876 on: February 21, 2020, 09:27:23 am »

@Voliol, I am indeed paying attention to size, but there is very little I can do to represent differences and proportions between creatures. Due to the way the game displays sprites, I need to do my best to keep most of the creature within 1 tile horizontally, only putting less relevant body parts like tails or wings outside - otherwise we couldn't tell what a creature is standing in a 1-tile wide North-South corridor. At the same time, I need to be able to put enough details in the sprite so that its easily identifiable. Because of this, we're not able to get appropriate size differences between creatures, rather than that I'm just trying to denote if something is larger than a dwarf, much larger than a dwarf or smaller than a dwarf.

I agree that some icons are simpler than the others, but what would you add to the giant mole specifically? Personally I was satisfied with it so I moved on.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2020, 09:48:00 am by Mike Mayday »
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voliol

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #877 on: February 21, 2020, 10:14:58 am »

...what would you add to the giant mole specifically? Personally I was satisfied with it so I moved on.

Highlighting/texture for the fur I think would go a long way. Moles all seem to have quite reflective fur (I haven't seen one myself IRL, so I'm using pictures on the internet), and the current giant mole sprite is untextured compared to the other sprites.

I am sorry for the sass, I genuinely believed these were WIP and acted without any further thought.

Also, thank you for the size explanation, and all the great sprites :)

Mike Mayday

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #878 on: February 21, 2020, 10:20:09 am »

No worries, I fully accept that there are noticeable differences in the amount of polish between sprites, I appreciate your input and don't treat it as sass.
I'll see about adding more texture to the mole.
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Pillbo

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #879 on: February 22, 2020, 09:08:37 pm »

Is there any more feedback about the creature sprites posted? Because that's something we can work with. :)


I really like the toads, camel, wolves, mole, olm and swallows. It's hard for me to really understand what I'm looking at with the molemarian, I don't have a suggestion, it just seems indistinct. The Draltha, I'm a little confused by it's front legs, is it walking on it's elbows? The Rutherer body looks like a white crocodile to me, at first I thought it was a cave croc with a strange head.

Looking back at the hair images- I wanted to say the Long and Very Long Unkempt hair options actually seem very short.  In fact the Very Long Unkempt hair is shorter or comparable to the Stubble Braided and Stubble Ponytail.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

When I think long unkempt hair I think big wild hair, more like:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oh and about the ramps!:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

edit- oops draltha not drunian
« Last Edit: February 23, 2020, 07:06:34 pm by Pillbo »
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jecowa

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #880 on: February 23, 2020, 02:31:32 am »

I think the Drunian is in-motion. I think the unusual part of the molemarian is that it's head doesn't seem to be facing the same direction as the other creatures. Is there any significance to which direction the creatures are facing? It looks like most of these are facing left, but the cave swallow faces right. Is this because cave swallows aren't hostile?
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Pillbo

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #881 on: February 23, 2020, 12:19:38 pm »


The Rutherer body looks like a white crocodile to me, at first I thought it was a cave croc with a strange head.

Looking again I think I know what's going on.  Are those tufts of fur coming out of the top of it's back?  Since they align with the legs on the other side they appear to be toes, giving it a squat, wide-legged look (like a reptile) instead of appearing to have the legs directly under the mass of the animal (like in mammals).



Maybe rotating the the Draltha a little will make it look more in-motion and less laying-down.

edit- oops draltha not drunian
« Last Edit: February 23, 2020, 07:06:04 pm by Pillbo »
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jecowa

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #882 on: February 23, 2020, 12:38:01 pm »

I think those are his legs on the Rutherer.
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Mike Mayday

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #883 on: February 23, 2020, 04:21:03 pm »

Oooooh, now I get it.
That's the Draltha, the Drunian is under the giant tick. I envisioned it as having long, sloth-like arms and it's supposed to be walking on its claws/elbows. Kinda like this: https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/sloth-walking-on-sand-at-beach-picture-id962246776?s=2048x2048
So - I guess you got it right!

And those are indeed tufts of hair on the Rutherer, I may move them to other places so that they don't look like legs. BUT! I did want the legs to look like they're a bit to the sides, like a crocodile's!

The problem is that there's very little description to go by for many of DF's original creatures, so I'm trying to give everyone some weird features to make them stand out.


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Pillbo

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Re: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #884 on: February 23, 2020, 07:14:27 pm »

Ah, my mistake about the draltha/drunian. Adding a few more tufts to the Rutherer might make be enough to look more like fur than other legs.

Not that I want to deny you creative control, but in general has Toady made any attempt to describe his invented creatures to you? Or done any crayon drawings that could be helpful?
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