Pimping a sprite.

[lukasz1985]

I was playing OpenTTD with ECS industries set, and I've looked at some sprites, trying to figure out how can I pimp(?) a sprite. Lately also I've been watching some drawing tutorials on the net, and I've decided to give it a try, just for fun. So here is a sprite that comes from the ECS set - one version is original, the other is altered by myself (I wont tell you which one is the original). They are labelled "FIRST" and "SECOND" in the following animated gif. So what I ask is you to vote for which sprite you would prefer.

[kamnet]

I like the cleaner pavement and extended shadows of the first, and everything else about the second.

[lukasz1985]

I like the cleaner pavement and extended shadows of the first, and everything else about the second.

Haha, thats kind of weird answer, because the extended shadows, brighter pavements is all the difference (maybe except the rust-less containers). So by no way I can guess what you mean by ll the rest of second sprite.

[kamnet]

I like the cleaner pavement and extended shadows of the first, and everything else about the second.

Haha, thats kind of weird answer, because the extended shadows, brighter pavements is all the difference (maybe except the rust-less containers). So by no way I can guess what you mean by ll the rest of second sprite.

The first sprite the rooftop pattern on the large building appears different and brighter, there appears to be windows and doors open on the front, and the water silos look a different color, like you tried to make them look newer/shinier compared to more worn/rusted in the second.

[lukasz1985]

I like the cleaner pavement and extended shadows of the first, and everything else about the second.

Haha, thats kind of weird answer, because the extended shadows, brighter pavements is all the difference (maybe except the rust-less containers). So by no way I can guess what you mean by ll the rest of second sprite.

The first sprite the rooftop pattern on the large building appears different and brighter, there appears to be windows and doors open on the front, and the water silos look a different color, like you tried to make them look newer/shinier compared to more worn/rusted in the second.

Hmm, ok. So do you have any suggestions?

[kamnet]

No, it still looks good.

[Krutzelpuntz]

You did a lot of things right. It's generally important to highlight details by adding smooth and calm areas for contrast, and a place for the eye to rest.
If there is no calm areas, the sprite will look messy. (over detailed)

This can be seen with the second on the pavement, and the tile roof on the first.

The extended shadows' a really good thing, as the sprite rests much better, by being true to the light direction.
But don't overdo it, like the shadow on the tile roof, it breaks the calm area.
The shadows on the original buildings aren't particular realistic anyways.

The buildings shadows on the pavement is really good, though

The silos break the art style, the dithered style. And the gereral weathered look of the factory.
Maybe try to adding rust running down the sides from rain water, or something?


Also if you feel like it, you could check into some shadow theory,
I'm not going to get into the details here, but there is two light sources,
the sun, that throws a powerful yellow light, with a very distinct direction.

Without any other light source, you would have very dark shadows, but then there is the heaven.
It reflects the sun with a blue light, with less direction.
And it causes the shadows of the sun, to get more blue, while the sunlight is yellow.

Try to add a bit yellow to the bright colors, while the shadows get blue/purple

Just a bit of added realism Nice job though

Oh, and the shadows on the windows add depth, which is great, and REALLY important. The walls on the second looks incredibly dull. Sorry original artist

Edit: Here's where I learnt about colors
http://picturewars.net/forum/showthread ... 7&page=210

E2, I just looked again and I don't like that you took away the brick details on the main building.

[lukasz1985]

Thanks for your suggestions.

I certainly see the issue with silos. As I prefer rather to keep things free from entropy effects as much as possible - creating a fresh look of these silos was my intended action, still it could use dithering, and this would fit very nicelly, I guess.

About the shading - I'm aware of this. Actually I wanted to stay within the hue values of the original sprite - partly because the OTTD palette is very limited, partly because I was lazy.

But in the end you're right - this can be done with some effort.

About the brick details: you mean the bottom-left face of the building? I guess you do, because it's one of the parts of the image I didn't settled with.

[planetmaker]

Just a note on the 2nd version with the long shadows: the sun direction is wrong. It appears to be at 3h. But for consistency reasons it should be placed at 4:30...5:00h.

[Krutzelpuntz]

Thanks for your suggestions...

About the brick details: you mean the bottom-left face of the building? I guess you do, because it's one of the parts of the image I didn't settled with.

Yeah, that's what I was talking about, I actually thought you did it to all the walls, but I was wrong

Just a note on the 2nd version with the long shadows: the sun direction is wrong. It appears to be at 3h. But for consistency reasons it should be placed at 4:30...5:00h.

I has no idea about this, thanks!

[lukasz1985]

Ok, so I tried to improve it (not really a big deal, as I'm doing this to learn something), and finished with the following results.

The yellow lit; hue shift is barely visible. I also aligned the shadows(I had really bad time figuring out the shapes) and ambient occlusion, redraw the roof of the secondary builiding, and changed the silos look (although they are not dithered yet - I'm not really sure if this is a good idea in the end, becaus I've tried and it looke somehow miserable).

I had to say goodbye to OpenTTD palette and moved onto 32 bit graphics.

BTW: To the person who moved this thread - no need for that I guess - this won't probably ever become a serious stuff (of course the creators of ECS may adopt the graphics if they want, but I guess that ain't gonna happen).

[andythenorth]

Third shows nice progress

If I was working on this sprite, I'd probably sort the windows out first Then I'd work on increasing the contrast even more than you have. I'd also pull it back into the 'standard' palette used by the original TTD base set. The palette is a matter of taste, but lack of contrast kills a sprite - you're clearly improving that already, but I'd go further.

I used to spend more time adding directional shadows, but too many is overkill, super-realism doesn't help 8 bit pixel art. The other problem is that full shadows need to extend over the tile border, which isn't possible. Some are nice though, on parts of roofs, chimneys etc.

My advice about the silos - knock off the sharp conical tops, they remind me of rockets For dither, I'd just put in one or two pixels from an adjacent colour.

Large buildings like this auto plant are hard to make look good. The FIRS stockyard sprite I've attached below - I'm not happy with, and will be reworking at some point (break up the buildings, add contrast). The Dairy and Grain Mill are better examples.

My 2p.