Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Share graphical tips, notes and queries related to our favourite screen layout and its editors.
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RMartins
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by RMartins »

R-Tape wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 10:07 pm Nice logo work, I had a little play with the upper lip and think dithering is the way to go:

Image
LOL

It really looks weird now ;)

Due to scale the upper lip only has 2 or 3 pixels max. And I have no idea what you are trying to do to the mouth.
Those black spots work like lower lip shadow, not a mouth. So it "moves" the mouth up, making face proportions wrong.

The issue here is that dither is used to shade the face, hence any kind of mustache needs to be darker. On the other hand the nose uses bright which makes any yellow pixel on the upper part of mustache too bright, so dither will probably not work as you expect.
I had already changed it a bit when compared with the first version I posted, and it seemed an improvement.
R-Tape wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 10:07 pm This was my other attempt:

Image
That reminds me of a farwest gun slinger, like one of the guys from "The good, the bad and the ugly".

I don't mind that you play with the image.
It can work out as a nice way to practice.
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Ersh
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by Ersh »

It's a good picture, you should definitely try to finish it! :)

Looking at the reference image, it's not a very thick nor dark moustache. I totally understand the restrictions of 1-bit dithering but I think it might look more recognisable as Indy with just simple shading. The beard on his chin already suggest to the viewer that there might be a moustache.

Had a (very) quick go:

Image
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R-Tape
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by R-Tape »

Ersh wrote: Mon May 07, 2018 11:21 am Had a (very) quick go:
Image
Much better than my pouting version!
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RMartins
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by RMartins »

So what is concerning you guys, is that the guy doesn't have a mustache, but an incomplete 2 days beard, that look s like a mustache :)

OK, I'll se what I can do, probably with dithering.
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Ersh
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by Ersh »

RMartins wrote: Mon May 07, 2018 2:22 pm So what is concerning you guys, is that the guy doesn't have a mustache, but an incomplete 2 days beard, that look s like a mustache :)
That's probably it. :) A prominent moustache isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I remember the character, just more of a slightly unshaven type of deal.
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R-Tape
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by R-Tape »

This one is a bit of a howler, that would definitely not see the light of day were it not for this thread.

Image

Sorceress doesn't have a loading screen, so I thought I'd have a bash then see if the author wanted to use it. I simply could not make it fly and gave up.
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by Ralf »

This one is a bit of a howler, that would definitely not see the light of day were it not for this thread.
For me it absolutely has a chance to become a decent screen. Just add some shadows, details and dithering and it could be all right.
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RMartins
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by RMartins »

R-Tape wrote: Fri May 11, 2018 10:19 am This one is a bit of a howler, that would definitely not see the light of day were it not for this thread.

Image

Sorceress doesn't have a loading screen, so I thought I'd have a bash then see if the author wanted to use it. I simply could not make it fly and gave up.
The witches are fine, except for the arm facing us, which is too short, and there is no hint of being bent to be able to be at that position.
But the right one, seems to have chopped off hand :(

The skull, needs a lot of work still, and those hands on top corners, feel cartoony, when the rest of the drawing is more "serious" looking.

I like those colorful balls/bubbles,
They give a good feel of magic, but I believe they need a Cauldron, or something else to be coming out of. :)

If you put the work, it can improve a lot.
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Ersh
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by Ersh »

R-Tape wrote: Fri May 11, 2018 10:19 am This one is a bit of a howler, that would definitely not see the light of day were it not for this thread.
Sorceress doesn't have a loading screen, so I thought I'd have a bash then see if the author wanted to use it. I simply could not make it fly and gave up.
It's a really good start, just some tweaks and details and it'd be great screen. :)
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by redballoon »

R-Tape wrote: Fri May 11, 2018 10:19 am Image
“IF INDEED YOU REALLY ARE A...” <does air quotes with fingers> “...SORCERESS”
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Joefish
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by Joefish »

redballoon wrote: Fri May 04, 2018 9:31 pm Found another lot of all unused graphics. This time from a shmup.
Image
The mountains look great. It's cool to have 2-4 large tiles that can be repeated in any order (or maybe 1 big and a couple of half-sized ones) so that they're not blatantly looping in the background. Then you can just about afford the memory to pre-shift them in their entirety. What you would need though is for the furthest right and left 8 pixels of each tile to match up so that they still tile when pre-shifted.

A long time ago I tried to write a shoot-em-up with UDG-based sprites, accelerated a bit with machine code. I've long since lost it as it would have been on tape or wafadrive.

Anyway, I designed some similar looking sprites to those (inspired by C64 stuff like IO and DELTA where ships are always flipping over) but using 3x3 characters. This let me use the paper colour to set a coloured orb in the centre of the sprite about which the outer part rotates. I'd use white ink with e.g. red paper in the centre cell, then there'd be three pixels in an 'L' shape set in each corner, then four white pixels alongside it in the adjacent character cells. It looked like a red ball with a 1-pixel white outline, which was pretty neat. Then the rest of the sprite was animated around that.
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Joefish
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by Joefish »

This is the sort of thing I used to sketch - you'll have to imagine it animated to flip over. Original version on the left, stippled and detailed to the right, depending on how organic or techy you want it to look. Not sure if the use of BRIGHT adds anything . Maybe the first one was better all just brilliant white.
Image

Being character-based, the idea was to re-use parts of this basic enemy design for other types of craft, e.g. different coloured cores, C-shaped craft, craft with fixed cockpits and rotating mid-sections, or using the middle frames of the flipping animation for side-on-ring ships banking up/down.
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RMartins
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by RMartins »

Joefish wrote: Fri May 11, 2018 5:25 pm ...
Image

Being character-based, the idea was to re-use parts of this basic enemy design for other types of craft, e.g. different coloured cores, C-shaped craft, craft with fixed cockpits and rotating mid-sections, or using the middle frames of the flipping animation for side-on-ring ships banking up/down.
You do realize, that now, you have to find the missing graphics and/or remake them into an animated GIF right ? 8-)
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RMartins
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by RMartins »

Some more participants, would be nice.

Go fetch some from the dust trunk :D
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Einar Saukas
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by Einar Saukas »

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RMartins
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by RMartins »

Image

This "Multicolor Editor" needs to be finished :)
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R-Tape
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by R-Tape »

RMartins wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 9:17 pm This "Multicolor Editor" needs to be finished :)
I agree. Even though ZX-Paintbrush is the gold standard for multicoloured graphics I'd still like to see a Spectrum designer.

So many things, not enough time :cry:
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Joefish
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by Joefish »

Love the Q*Bert setup.
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RMartins
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by RMartins »

Still hoping for some more participation/sharing. 8-)
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RMartins
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by RMartins »

Here is a laughing skull, that was meant to be used on SteelBall Game Over condition.

Image

I have a few more skull experiments, but I haven't converted the SevenUp files into animated gifs yet.

EDIT: Here are some more variations.

Image Image

NOTE: These could also be used on that pirate game I mentioned before.
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RMartins
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by RMartins »

And here is a character for another game, in the idle/tired loop.

Image

NOTE: Timing between frames was not "polished" yet, they all take the same time (200ms), which doesn't work as it was supposed to.
This makes it look too fast, instead of having 2 phases, speed up and slow down.

The shoulders/upper arm also need some extra movement.
The belt, needs one extra pixel of movement too.
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R-Tape
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by R-Tape »

RMartins wrote: Tue May 29, 2018 9:14 am Image
Nice. I like this one best, the shading on the lower jaw works. I never really nailed skulls, I always felt the need to give them 2 nostrils and if it's 16 pixels wide it's difficult to avoid a cartoony appearance.
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RMartins
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by RMartins »

Here is a minor update.

Image Image Image

NOTES:
Left = 0riginal
Right = A few pixels and frame timming reviewed.
Center = A look animation I had laying around.
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RMartins
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by RMartins »

And here is another one, turning left.

Image
constandip73
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Re: Put Here Graphics That Have Nowhere Else To Go

Post by constandip73 »

Image



I've been working on some retro graphics myself, trying to get my game idea off the ground.

Image
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