TH_AVOCADO MAYHEM

[erico]

Another 3d rendered asset was the trycicle the monkey boss rides around.
While hand drawing it dosen´t pose much trouble, drawing it taking a turn is sure hard, even for ~4 frames.

So here is the 3d project and the final with a sketch of the Boss.
Again, 3d dosen´t quite render pixel art properly, there is always a bit of clean up and image processing to do.

BONUS for who can tell the reference I used to design this tricycle!

[Hark0]

BRAVO!

Very good sample about design games...

[Marmor]

My best Gfx Art is a Dot in a space .
So can you provide the steps in 3d to anim
in a video ?
A how to make a 2d anim with 3d and the workflow
For ?
How much image i need for a cool looking animation
And much moore !

Thx

[erico]

My best Gfx Art is a Dot in a space .

Drawing this stuff has a lot of technical paths that it is a matter of practice and time. Anyone can do it.

So can you provide the steps in 3d to animin a video ?
A how to make a 2d anim with 3d and the workflow For ?
How much image i need for a cool looking animation

In a video is a bit hard right now as recording is work, but I hope if I journal enough info here I could do it in the future after the game is done.

Yep, the idea for this game is to use the minimal possible number of animated frames. Few examples:
.the players and creatures usually alternate 2 frames when performing.
.the objects usually have 1 frame explosion

Other things have a broader frame number, very few things a high one.
.the ´fx before a power up shows up´ has 5 frames.
.collecting stuff usually has 4 frames.

At the end it will look ´cartoony´ and take a shorter time to produce.
I also don´t want transparencies as I want the 16bit look. So alpha, only on or off (the pink color).

The cool looking animation can have from 2 to eternal frames. I like the very fluid animation you have on some parts of animes (Akira for ex.) and you also like the parts with very few caricatural frames. Sometimes I think I could do with more animation frames on this game on a few more situations,  but best not wonder much if you are wearing lots of hats.


Current workflow is more or less like this:

.references
.layout (with references, or pictures, or hand draw scan or tablet, or 3d, etc)
.final art

Usually done on the likes of PAINT, GIMP and PHOTOSHOP.
The animation can´t be really tested on those so I usually leave to check and fine tune animation in code.
 
Let me use the tricycle as an example:

1.The preferable reference is the tricycle from the race between worlds on MAGIK POCKETS (amiga). I love that one and the sound!
2.Using the source image as a layout, I modeled a 3d one using primitive shapes, nothing fancy. There are some modifications and interpretations but they are very similar.
3.I prefered here, to render the image with a more exact final size in game, about 48x40 pixels. 3d packages don´t quite like pixel art, so after setting off antialias, this is what came out.
4.Fix all anomalies on a paint package, you only actually need a pixel brush and zoom. PHOTOSHOP is really overkill. Position your frames for GLB to read and done!

You can check these advices from Derek Yu:
http://makegames.tumblr.com/post/42648699708/pixel-art-tutorial

For the majority of the art, instead of a 3d input, I used photographed hand draw or did on the tablet. If drawing is not your thing, you can do with basic shapes, like lines and circle to get to a good start. The 3d tricycle is pretty much a bunch of tubes with colors.
 



 

[erico]

Thanks Harko, It is all somehow based on what you do on your blog. I like it.
But I can´t open a blog just yet, and besides using other forums, which may reach more possible consumers, I thought best to publish it all on a thread around here and maybe later bring some stuff anywhere else as a cheap marketing.

The last cowardly 3d done piece is the background.
It was by that time that I figured 320x240 won´t go ok on mobiles.

So final res is set to 428x240, which will scale nicely to many devices.
Some art had to be fixed.
I still want this to run 320x240 for the caanoo, so code has to accommodate that too, and it works fine.
(you can see marks on the final backgrounds depicting crops that will happen on certain systems)

Here the background can do with some very small antialiase, similar to backgrounds on fighting games.
I also would like it to darken when a thunder storm is going by, so I did a few background transition images.

The rest were icons and some objects, that also got a bit scaled and changed shades.
I tried to keep the light coming from top-right, while on objects it is more to the top and background it is more from the right.

The background render is crude and carries only colors and shade. Texturing was done on photoshop using pictures I took.

[fuzzy70]

A simple piece of 3D there Erico, but very effective & fits in great .

It was a good idea of yours to texture it in Photoshop as all the extra work required to do it in the 3D package would have produced worse results due to the final image render size.

Keep up the good work mate as I'm following this with great interest 

Lee

[bigsofty]

Lookin very nice Erico, keep it up! 

[erico]

...
It was a good idea of yours to texture it in Photoshop as all the extra work required to do it in the 3D package would have produced worse results due to the final image render size.
...

Exactly, Fuzzy.
It is horrible to 3d render to small pixel art.

But by doing that we can get to a good shape and light faster, and some shapes are really hard to hand draw.
Luckily, the monkey bike was a lot simpler. Just some garbage and wrong/missing lines.

I had spent the last 2 weeks figuring out the last boss...but alas there are always trouble creeping up.
As it is, it will need a huge amount of frames, and that tree´s texture was extremely hard to do for 1 frame only.

Last couple days I attempted to create the tree is 3d so to easy up frame quantities and maybe automate the texture somehow.
Of course it was time wasted, the amount of time required to animate the tree in 3d is just too much too.
And I could not even get one good looking tree.

Such is life. But yesterday I managed to compile this tree-monster (yeah, a lovecraftian tree enraged by pissed off gnomes as a boss, comes cool), into 2 separate parts.
Like head / body. It will dramatically reduce the amount of frames needed. I also found a way to work out the place were they attach to each other so you don´t get that feeling of only half of it animated.

Either way, it is still going to be ~30 frames. I can´t afford to finish up final art for the pieces now for time´s sake.
I will start drawing this monster as a black outline only and will code its behaviour this way.

I hope by the time I do a ´last-pass´ on the core game art I can then finish it properly.
I will post a few outline frames later today. 2d B/W shape-only animation is something at least quick to make. 

[Marmor]

I have testet 3d to sprites with a simple programm
Written by me.
But dislike the result.
To get better looking sprites is much harder
As i expected.

I hope you show us the next steps .

Thx for showing your workflow !
I need it so much.

[erico]

Great to hear Marmor,
true, 3d is a beast when it comes to 2d.

It ends up we have to try to scope what best it can do for us.
But on my tree case I only wasted time (but again, I won´t fall for that again... hopefully).

There is a set of stuff I can do and others I can´t.
Point is to mix that up to productivity/Quality.
Easy said then done.

I got some base tree boss draw, but nothing really good at all to kick it up yet ...(kick it up ~30 frames )

[erico]

Well, the tree boss has 29 frames now.
3 directional attacks, 2 located ground attacks, 1 gorfing plasma to slow players down.
It also scrambles players if they pass through the roots while the tree is moving about.
Should be hard enough with all the normal hell braking loose.

It is far from finished and the expressions and general animation quite don´t feel nice.
But I guess I can´t be bitten by the perfection bug...it is going to be a while to fine art it, and Im starting to think I should definently finish it before proceeding.

Here a test video of a few of its frames. Hammer time!

[Marmor]

Hahaha ! Looks great . Id like to see the full game .

[erico]

hehe tks Marmor.

I will probably get some in-game videos up soon after I finish this last boss.

I have babbled a lot about gfx, but what is really important is the gameplay.
First I thought to not talk about it as it is sure a spoiler for such a short game, but then, hey, who cares?

I will try to cover the game play these days.

[erico]

Some update...final 3rd boss coming out more or less fine...it just required way too much work.

Let´s see if I can get it alive these days.
Info on gameplay soon..

[mentalthink]

Eyy !!! all this stuff it's new today I never see this post before..
The three it's fantastic, the animation too, the bicicle fantastic, very very good models and final product...

I like a lot the PS images , very very nice work... I hope you finish nearly , too much time the forum without new titles in the market!!!