Beginner "Naur" Needs Help

[Naur]

Since this is my first post > Hello world :)

My name is Naur and I am Lead Designer at middle scale game studio. Recently we was tasked to make-do sprites for upcoming project.

Thing is ..... I never done sprites ! Fire Emblem sprites strike me as very elegant tho. So after 2 days of recoloring / shifting parts / making small parts etc I decided to do an original.

After reading this guide :

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/BwdYeti/media/FullCustomTutorial.gif.html

+ few hours of work ( sigh... I hope I will be able to do it faster)

Questions :

1) Would you say I did menage to keep FE style ?

2) What would u improve in this particular sprite ? ( please do whatever u want with my sprite)

3) Is it suitable for animating ? ( bow to big perheps ? or other parts ?)

4) Overall opinion, tell me what should I do :P

I know pratice makes perfect but any useful tips ? I have seen many amazing sprites on net

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sprite Revision History :)

Female Elf Archer

3 x Goblins

3 x Bandit

Mage

Cheers ! I will be sure to post more of my....struggle with sprites.

@ EDIT

Added Revision Hisotry

and...

Thanks for so much feedback :) It rly helps a lot.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Naur

[vilkalizer]

Well first of all it uses 38 colours (how?!), so it definitely isn't insertable in its current state. It has to be 16 or less, background included.

Not quite FE style - they generally use the darkest "black" to outline most of the sprite, with some exceptions. It's still pretty close, though.

She seems to have extremely wide hips compared to her waist. I'd probably move the left leg in one pixel.

My biggest complaint is that the bow is way, way too long - as is, she'd have to be standing on a chair or something to hold it like that, or put the lower part in a hole in the ground. I think it'd still hit the ground in firing position. A little taller than the user would be appropriate for a longbow, but not that much taller. It's also lacking a sting.

[Naur]

@

About colors > I am not planning to insert it into any FE game. Never said so I belive.

So number of colors is not a problem.

About Hips and Bow > I am fixing it right now :)

Thank you for suggestions.

[Lt.Smirks]

First of all, is this your first sprite? if so then good job!

While you may not need to limit the colors it gives it a much cleaner look.

The style is really close but like Vilk said it needs more black or dark grey outline.

I disagree about the bow size though, it's only one pixel longer than the sniper's bow and your character is taller so it should work, but the way she's holding it is weird. kinda like she's showing it to us not preparing to shoot it.

Here's your sprite and then an edit I made to show some of the things vilk mentioned and the female sniper for scale.

[Naur]

Done the sprite again :P

Here is the resoult :

@Smirks

Yeah as I said, its my first.

Thanks for your effort! I am looking thru it now.

EDIT :

I KNEW SOMETHING WAS OFF. MY bow angle totaly sucks......

K next quest : Redo bow angle + reduce number of colors a little...(still dont agree with it xD)

Edited April 6, 2015 by Naur

[ghast]

you'll begin to realize that just abiding 15 colors (16 w/background) just makes your sprites looking cleaner once you develop your skills.

trust us on this, lol

[Eliwan]

Well first of all it uses 38 colours (how?!), so it definitely isn't insertable in its current state. It has to be 16 or less, background included.

@

About colors > I am not planning to insert it into any FE game. Never said so I belive.

So number of colors is not a problem.

Actually, it is. Your palette to the right of the sprite has 23 (24, if we include the background) colors, but your image has 38. :V

While you may not need to limit the colors it gives it a much cleaner look.

you'll begin to realize that just abiding 15 colors (16 w/background) just makes your sprites looking cleaner once you develop your skills.

trust us on this, lol

To expand on this

I actually highly recommend working with 7 colors.

or three

The fewer colors you have, the better the work should end up.

For example's sake (this is the best example I know), Legendary Super Warriors, a Dragon Ball Z game, and somebody random's spritesheet (literally the first result for "lsw goku sprites", link is to the page I got it from)

Both the top row and the bottom row are easily identifiable as Dragon Ball Z's Goku.

The one at the top, however, has 15 colors, and accordingly has a lot of detail (you can see the difference between his gi and his shirt, where the bends are in his face, how his hair falls, etc)...

But it's still the same sprite. They're all easily identifiable as Goku, because of the work the artists did (the creator, the pixel artists for LSW, and the pixel artists who made the improved piece) to maintain a consistent character with consistent image.

1) It's possible to add heels to female characters so they dont look stiupid. (example PLEASE)

2) This girl has quite long and slender legs. It's possible to recreate that feel in FE style art ? I sadly feel there is not enough place.(example PLEASE)

1) Not REALLY, in the FE style. The bottom of the foot and the shadow use the same color, and since the high heel / platform would be cast in shadow, it would have to be a very dark color (to the point of possibly barely being used on the sprite), or the shadow color, in which case it would instead just look like they're on the balls of their feet.

2) With a lot of difficulty, and is clothing dependent. I know Gabriel Knight (whatever they go by now) and Square Root of Pi managed slender legs, but I can't remember any long ones off the top of my head.

Edited April 7, 2015 by Eliwan

[Naur]

First, thanks for so many suggestions.

Big edit to my first post. Check it out and let me know if it's any better !

@Less Colors Ppl

Obviously I am trusting on the colors part, just 1 thing bother me insanly. Why to trim pallete so much ?

As for example the img which @Eliwan posted.

Yeah true I can recognize 2 of them. The top one(more colors) being cleary superior. So why should I limit colors if u can make Sprite superior by adding better shading // lighting (with more colors).

If I were a customer playing a game, I would surly prefer to have more detalied sprites to look at.

[Eliwan]

Because if you use TOO MANY colors, it just becomes an unidentifiable blob.

Working with a restricted palette makes the quality better, even if it isn't necessary because insertion isn't planned.

While the top one is superior, the bottom is identifiable-- which means that it does its job.

But on that last point, if you were playing a game...

The NES and GBC have a color limit of 4 per sprite. You can cheat a bit, and divide the sprite into multiple pieces that get drawn to the screen at the same time, allowing instead for 4 colors per section that is rendered that way.

The SNES and GBA, on which Fire Emblem truly made its claim to fame, have color limits per sprite of 8 and 16 respectively if I do recall my things correctly. The SNES may have a limit of 16, though.

I'm sure you'd rather play a game with 3-color sprites than not play a game in the first place, or play a game with so much lag that it's unbearable to play.

Because in terms of hardware of the era, that was an important problem. e_e'

[Naur]

@UP

Thanks, since our studio project is not GBA based obviously, guess as long as I keep it resonable those restrictions shouldn't concern me to much.

But I guess, I will go with max 16 anyway just for training sake + feedback.

That being said, here is today worth of my pitiful existence : (first post updated as well check out the Elf there)

So few goblins, they are supposed to be trash enemies, wanted to keep them simple. I will be trying to animate them as my next quest.

Feedback is welcome ! Kept within 16 colors.

And here we go with some bandits. Doing the clock to look properly... I think I chewed to much for starters.

Feedback please ? I think the sword wielding one is somehow not very natural.

Tried FE black-outline.

Feel free to mess around with my sprites for feedback purpose.

Edited April 7, 2015 by Naur

[Eliwan]

re: Cloaked ones

If they're standing at that angle, we should be able to see a LOT of shoulder, but there is hardly any.

This is particularly obvious with the sword wielder, because their arm is extended, and as a result even more of their shoulder should be visible.

Also the bow user isn't holding the bow, unless the bow is phasing through the cape.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Eliwan

[Naur]

Thanks, just did read it. I will try to fix them now.

Meantime my new work :

It's 17 colors, dont bash me xD

[Naur]

Time for first try at animating (well second...but let's forget that)

1) Circle effets + fire are not mine, so please don't bother comenting on their looks xD But feel Free about implementation !

2) I know characters are static and aside from mage making small hand movmets are not moving at all. Wanted to keep it simple for my 1 try :(

Now :

How about animation timings ?

Are there to many/few frames on certain point of animation ?

Would u say its bad / passable / good ?

What can I improve ?

Come at me !!!!

... I mean comment please :>

[Baldur45]

Your animation timings are off. The animation is moving way too slow. And I would have to say that you are missing quite a number of frames. Look at the Mage from FE7:

When you compare your animation to the original mage animation, you can see the differences.

There needs to be a lot more movement. The cloak, the hair,and the hands as well need to move to achieve a mage like animation. And twirls as well, for the return pose. But for a first try, good job.

I personally like the symbol made by the hands,

Hope it does not seem harsh. Just trying to help.

[Naur]

Thanks for feedback ! I am posting precisly becouse I want my work to be corrected.

In fact I would rly like more feedback. Guess my sprites are not yet interesting enough :P

Anyways here is speed up animation. (about movement of characters - sure, when I am ready to do animation so complex)

[vilkalizer]

The problem is that most of the stuff that really moves in that animation isn't your own work. Your actual character looks pretty good, but she only has what, three separate frames here? Which doesn't make for much of an animation. The arm raise needs like 2-3 more frames, and the cloak needs to move with the arm. The "spellcasting" frames (which are barely noticeable behind the big glowing rune!) are just the hand moving one pixel up and down. It would look good if she was actually drawing the symbol, but that would mean spriting more elaborate gestures.

This is a quick and dirty example. I added frames of the arm rising. (The cloak also needs to change in the frames with the arm fully extended, because it is being pushed back by the arm at this point, but I can't be arsed to actually do it.) Also, the hand now moves in the direction the lines are appearing instead of just up and down. It's still not very noticeable, the gestures could certainly stand to be larger, but it is more interesting than what it was before.

Basically, the only way to get good at animating is to animate. If you keep saying you're not yet ready to do complex animations, you'll never make any progress. Just get in there and try. It may look like shit the first time, but that's fine. Make the attempt, make mistakes, learn from them, maybe make less mistakes next time. That's how learning works.

[Naur]

Haha, thanks I love how u are pushing me :P

I meant, that I want to do simplier... (move !~) animations before I go into fully blown out magics animations ;)

K wait for me, i will try my best for 2 next day at work animating the magic ( full orginal without borrowing now ;P)

Thanks for your effort. I did look at the example, will go with much mroe motion on character.

[Naur]

Animation fully reworked.

Opinions ? What can I improve here ?

Oh and I did use 1 speed on whole GIF for feedback purpose. Can obviously and will mess with speeds of certain parts.

Quick Self Edit :

Make 1 more cape rising frame.

Rework hand Size

Hair movement durning main casting.

Cape fall down after casting

Edited April 12, 2015 by Naur

[Baldur45]

Not bad, not bad!

However, the cape falling back after the casting, add a few more frames to smoothen it out. That part takes place too fast in your animation. Add some frames for it going back down. I like it otherwise.

Hope that helps!

[vilkalizer]

Personally I think I would omit the smear frame for movements that small, and probably have the book appear closed and then open as part of the animation - but either way, it's a lot more animation than you had before, so definitely an improvement! Keep it up.

[Naur]

@Up

Thanks for feedback as always. I will keep posting new thingies when I am done ;)

Tommorow will redo animation + Elf(a little) + Sword Bandit

As for today :

Edited April 13, 2015 by Naur