51 replies to this topic

[WindStrike]

NoeL - B-e-a-utiful shot there. Two complaints: The bridge looks absolutely awesome... but it can be taken for two different perspectives. Well... it just looks a little confusing. But it's fine nonetheless; Secondly, the sprites of the guards look... out of place. With the rest of the shot, they look like they're from another dimension. Link is fine.

Blue Link 2007 - Wow... overly triforce-religious place you got there. A little too plain as well in the center... but seriously, you do NOT need that much on the walls. Overdecoration of a room on the walls with nothing on the floor makes it look not-so-good.

Myself - Palm trees: out. Dead trees - a little more. MC-style trees and bushes - out. Blank green tiles on the ground - replace a few, because right now, the entire ground is filled with non-blank tiles. Link - WAY TOO BRIGHT in comparison to everything else there. Even if a hero must shine like light, he just looks uhh... way out of place there. I should probably change the route so that you have to go through a cave to reach the other side of the rock... instead of going all the way around to the cliff top on the left and walking onto that upper-most grass tile. Blank-like 2x2 trees - out. Yeah... as much realism that I try to go for the quest, I seem to get a little happy on the variety of the trees and the variety of the ground. Speaking of the ground, I should cut down on the color varieties of the flowers: just look at the name of the place. I mean it's SHADOW FREAKING VALLEY! ... I'm talkin' to meself again. Plus a few other comments... I believe that is all that I need to do to change that shot. That... and it's WAY TOO GREEN.
Just an fyi, this IS my first SotW, so I just tried to go for a typical and general-looking screenshot. And it is from my quest. Wow... I'm getting a lot more advice than I might have thought I'd get...

Revfan9 - LOL! The shot is fine... but in terms of difficulty, that looks really freaking easy for a final boss. Oh, and the PureZC part at the top is uhh... kinda rough.

Sharon Daniel - Heh... that looks pretty cool. A few things though: The grass is a little repetitive; the cliff face is a little repetitive as well...; The greyscale could be better... right now, it makes the shot lack a bit of detail. Nice job though.

I voted for NoeL... darn custom graphics. It's a pity that I pretty much just have to work off of what everyone else makes, as I can't make my own graphics, nor do I really have to time to do so... or rather, it'd take too long.

Fyi, for most SotWs that I enter, I'll probably enter shots from my quest "The Alternate Hyrule (TAH)." This shot right here that I submitted is also from TAH.

[Sharon Daniel]

/M/, this tileset is based on Pok�mon, not Final Fantasy. I don't play Final Fantasy games and I don't look to them for inspiration. And, as I said, the sprites are custom, not ripped.

I wouldn't say that I have a history of basing my ideas on different games; it's really just Pok�mon that my style is impacted by. I'm not a gamer and I don't have experience with many games outside of the worlds of Zelda and Pok�mon.

[/M/]

S.Daniel: Actually, you do have a small list.

1. Shoelace's Next quest, The Dark Shadow or something similar.
2. Exate's Metroid Quest
3. Pokemon

Now, about FF similarity, here's some pics of it, that, resemble your screen. You also, have bats on the OW, like it does in the start of the game.





It doesn't look exactly like it, but it does look similar. Also, the tiles that resemble pokemon alot is the mountains. The rest you can see in your average GBC RPG games.


And if you look at your character closely, it looks like a sprite from the game, even though I know it isn't. I already know most of it is custom.


EDIT: Now that I look at it more closely, I relize that mostly all the GBC RPG's look the same. Which is why I probaly confused your game with FFAdventure/Legend. Sorry about that.

Edited by /M/, 06 November 2006 - 10:04 PM.

[Deathbringer]

Then again, the water and trees are heavily inspired from Pokemon too. Especially the edges. Hmm....Gives me an idea.

[NoeL]

Awww man, I thought Radien and Linkus were supposed to be entering as well

Oh, and for everyone that said the bridge looks on a weird perspective... that's because they're stairs

But on to the critiquing...

NoeL: A bit more variety in the floor tiles wouldn't go astray, and the tree on the left doesn't seem to be casting much of a shadow... It's symettrical, yes, but i like the fact you took the effort to not flip any tiles and make sure the shadows are always facing the right direction, and those subtle vines on the walls look cool

Blue Link 2007: OMG what a sexay Link portrait! *votes* My only woe is that you've covered up those awesome wall tiles too much decoration

WindStrike: Cool, Dance of Rememberance! Wait a minute... that's not Serina! Bit hodgeypodge, and the mountains give is a weird angle.

Revfan9: ... how'd Link even get on top of that mountain? I think that's my sword sprite too...

Sharon Daniel: Awesome concept... but those trees, that dirt, those mountains... it's all the same repeating pattern The graphics are nicely done, though i'm not a big fan of Pokemon...

...However, I find that NoeL seems to like my brick floor/wall idea from a shot I sent in for SotW a long time ago....Even if that idea didn't come from there...

... you sent in a brick floor/wall shot now? I didn't know brick walls and pavement were that uncommon You should have entered something!

Kudos to SD for trying something different.

Noel: Absolutely, amazing, stunning, leaves us speechless. I like every tile in this shot, but I have to admit, it doesn't resemble the Zelda feel. It reminds me more of "FF", like most of the other members. The custom grass, makes it even less Zelda. ( Zelda game never has anything besides a plain green grass tile. ) Those knights look strange, but they are better than those ugly GBC ones.

OOT had textured grass But I know what you're saying. Just from playing SD3 and looking at how their mountains are constructed really drove me to try and create something beyond LttP style graphics. I guess I'm going with a more Squaresoft feel.

EDIT: just noticed that none of the shots this week have a custom subscreen... how peculiar!

Edited by NoeL, 06 November 2006 - 11:10 PM.

[Revfan9]

Yeah, I made a pretty horrible submission this week. The shot is Pure, but if I was actually making this scene in one of my quests, I would have mixed up the trees, added much more detail to the grass, and changed that straight slab of mountain on the bottom half and more modelled it after the top. I also would have probably cleaned up that PZC logo, which I didn't due to Pure laziness. As you can probably see, I did a pretty crappy job of reducing the colors, and I probably could have gotten rid of all of that yellow if I wanted to.

I do find it pathetic that Matthew was the only one who got the joke there... And of course: NoeL is the outlier. I would have voted for you, but as always, I don't vote for outliers. It makes SotW "no fun" to do so.

I'll probably enter a much better LoP tileset shot showing off the mountains I have for it, if Moonwhisper gets me somemore enemies...

[NoeL]

Well if people entered like they said they would (not mentioning names, but i'm looking at YOU, Linkus and Radien... oh wait, I just mentioned them) there wouldn't have been an outlier this week.

And Revfan, if you hate outliers so much, then why don't you put in the effort to make a worthy shot? You just posted about how you made no effort at all with this weeks shot, then claimed that outliers take the fun out of SOTW. Maybe outliers are outliers because the people behind them have put a heck of a lot of effort into making their shot the best it can be!

SOTW is a competition, and any competition where compeditors aren't trying is bound to suck. (I'm directing this at Revfan, I'm not saying the rest of you weren't trying... but if you weren't then shame on you!) I know it's just for fun, but a sack-race where no-one tries isn't fun.

[Revfan9]

I know I didn't try, and that was wrong. That was the whole point of the above post. *slaps own wrist*

[NoeL]

As long as you've learned your lesson have a cookie

[Deathbringer]

Oh, and for everyone that said the bridge looks on a weird perspective... that's because they're stairs

Those stairs are on a horrible angle.

[Linkus]

... you sent in a brick floor/wall shot now? I didn't know brick walls and pavement were that uncommon You should have entered something!

NoeL, actually I was talking about this:


And here's where you commented on it:

Linkus has a great shot... simple... love the pavement.

[Peteo]

Windstrike gets my vote. That's a good and well constructed forest screenie.
Yeah, NoeL's screen is good as well and I love custom graphics, but other than the cool castle, there's nothing interesting in the shot.

[NoeL]

Ah, that shot. Yeah, my pavement needs more variety like that... but I wouldn't call your shot a brick wall/floor shot... more of a slab of concrete wall/pavement shot...

Those stairs are on a horrible angle.

... care to elaborate?

What you're supposed to be seeing is a bridge that goes across a 1 tile "moat", but is also stairs going up 1 tile. The front bank is at water level, the bank where the temple is is one tile higher.

[link3505]

... care to elaborate?

What you're supposed to be seeing is a bridge that goes across a 1 tile "moat", but is also stairs going up 1 tile. The front bank is at water level, the bank where the temple is is one tile higher.

I think the problem is because the bridge/stairs is narrower at the back end, it looks more like a bridge in perspective than a staircase. The stairs themselves also look like parts of a bridge instead of steps. Maybe that's just me, though

A little indication that the water ends at the lower bank would probably help, too. Like, a couple brighter shades of blue, animated to look like the water is flowing and distorting against the bank. Just something to show the waterline

[WindStrike]

Windstrike gets my vote. That's a good and well constructed forest screenie.

Yeah... but after all the comments and my own critique on it, I managed to significantly improve it. Not to mention there's a palette change:

Maybe not as realistic, but then again, it's frigin' Zelda Classic, so I really don't care if it's a little unrealistic.
As you can see, I'm really just entering SotW to get feedback on how to improve my shots while at the same time trying to win.