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Screenshot of the Week 774

Taco Chopper Architect Abdiel Feenicks Mitchfork Twilight Knight

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Poll: Screenshot of the Week 774 (30 member(s) have cast votes)

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#1 Taco Chopper

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Posted 20 March 2023 - 02:34 AM

Architect Abdiel
ArchitectAbdiel.png
Sir Kudjo returning to the Lynel Base after a successful mission.

Feenicks
Feenicks.png
hedgemage.qst

Mitchfork
Mitchfork.png
oh wow you put the button over there so i'd have to take the moving platform to get to it. really breaking new ground here in terms of "puzzle" "design"

Taco Chopper
TacoChopper.png
the source of the flow

Twilight Knight
TwilightKnight.png


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#2 Twilight Knight

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Posted 20 March 2023 - 03:53 AM

Architect Abdiel
Looks good and well designed. Plenty of details on the ground too, which I always like, but some of the other screens submitted are simply more intricate. I feel like this could be improved by two things: having some borders for the ice and having some purplish colours in there to make it less monotone.

Feenicks
Snazzy looking maze. The design is neat, but this screen is lacking colours in my opinion. Maybe some coloured flowers here and there could do the trick, or maybe some darker tones in the green. Also the 3 adjacent bushes at the bottom look a bit off to me. Otherwise a very good screen!

Mitchfork
Would be my second choice. I like the amount of detailing and these awesome graphics. Having those little openings in the walls for the water to flow too is a great detail too. The borders here threw me off a bit, they are very noticeable on such a high detail screen. I think it would look much better if some of those borders appear to be "broken", so the empty spaces make sense. I can mock something up if it isn't clear what I mean and also I'd understand if you don't edit that at all, it will make designing the screen even more tedious.

Taco Chopper

I voted here. Very well designed screen and I always fancy some waterfalls. I think maybe the screen is lacking some darker tones and could benefit from some more contrast.

Twilight Idiot
Horrible
 


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#3 FieryBirdyThing

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Posted 20 March 2023 - 12:32 PM

I, too, voted for Taco Chopper. Such a bright - almost summery - scene. :)


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#4 Mitchfork

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Posted 20 March 2023 - 12:56 PM

Architect Abdiel
Good screen! There are a couple of GB quirks on this that I would clean up - but the screen balance is fine. I think that if the right side of the screen is inaccessible, you could put a bit more detail here.

  • Ground color under the trees doesn't match your ground tone - a slight recolor here would help.
  • Ice borders - Since this is outdoors, you should use the normal water borders for these.  You can see how Oracle of Seasons does it, especially in the east part of the overworld.

Feenicks
I like the concept of the hedge maze. The lack of real elevation makes it feel a bit odd as an overworld screen. Normally you kind of count on cliffs and trees to add some depth, but you are limited here.

Ebola Zaire
Sucks, obvious rip off of arceusplayer11

Taco Chopper
Great screen! This one is my favorite. I saw an early version of this and was worried the cliffs would feel too blocky, but with the detailing you pulled it off. One suggestion would be to have dedicated ground/water transitions with the blue in them so that the borders look a bit less blocky - but this is nitpicky.

Twilight Knight
Like what you did for the water, here - I worry about what might happen when the tall grass starts getting cut down, but I'll suspend it for SotW considerations.  I think I would lean a little more into the water as opposed to grass - might be cool to see this tall grass growing out of water, like a real-life fen or marsh.


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#5 Colin

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Posted 20 March 2023 - 01:48 PM

Architect Abdiel

It's decent, the structure of the screen is pretty good. I'm imagining the caves on the right and left connect some way to lead into the center "main" cave which is cool whether or not my assumption is correct. The cave entrance on the left seems a tad mismatched texture-wise.

 

Maybe one nice detail that no one has said yet is you could put a broken ladder or something directly south of the main cave. The grassy path and the tiles outside the main cave seem to suggest that at one point that type of access point would have once existed.

 

Feenicks

I like it overall. I'm reminded of the screenshot from Lost Isle's sky garden that was posted to SotW years ago, so a little bit of a nostalgia bomb for me. I'm not really feeling the brightest color on the hedge tops, I think that tannish color works sparingly as a highlight but not for the dominant color of the hedges.

 

Mitchfork

Please tell me the bubbles are blockable in some way because that seems like a nightmare to stay on the platform while dodging bubbles. Does the switch reverse the water flow?

 

Yeah, it's really good, the color of the water's nice, and I love that there's puzzle mechanics clearly readable in the screen. Especially since the puzzle has such unique design :) This is second place for me, I don't really have any specific critiques.

 

Taco Chopper

I voted here. I love the colors, the submerged armoses, the vines climbing to the screen above. It's fantastic. The one thing about the design that bothers me a tad is that the cliffs on the back of the screen seem kind of flat since they begin their rise from the rearmost tile of the lower cliff platform. I don't really know how you navigate around this given you already have a backdrop though.

 

Twilight Knight

So I really like the water such as the smooth transitions between shallow/deep water. I like the deep green of the base layer of grass. I also like the brush in the northwest corner. The tall pokemon grass doesn't exactly fit in my opinion, I think though this could be mitigated with a medium-height variant of the pokemon grass to break up the starkness.

 

For the trees, the red and purple trees have a highlight color that makes them stick out in kind of a bad way though the orange and green are OK.


Edited by Colin, 20 March 2023 - 01:49 PM.

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#6 Ether

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Posted 20 March 2023 - 01:54 PM

Architect Abdiel's screen is pretty. The tree tiles have been edited in kind of an awkward way, where the bottoms really stand out against the snow because they use a different shade of white. And the tops have been changed to use transparency but kept in some antialiasing--antialiasing that only works against a lighter background, and shows as little gray dots when the background is something darker like a mountain or another tree. There's something about the elevation that also doesn't feel quite right for me--I think it might be tied to the way that the left side and the higher right side use the same 16 pixels of side tiling, but I'm not 100% on this.
 
Feenick's screen is nice! I'm a little confused by those larger plants on the south edge--are those also hedges? They seem like they should also be fused. I think Twilight Knight is right that this screen suffers a little bit from being almost entirely green, although it is a very pretty shade of green.
 
I do have mixed feelings on some of Mitchfork's color choices--the red wood of the wall supports looks great to me, but the red wood of the raft still looks funny to me. I'm not sure about the darker yellow of the border/lanterns either. This screen is still an instavote for me.
 
Taco Chopper's screen is pretty! I'm not really sure what else to say about it, your screens in general are very good at evoking Oracle nostalgia.
 
I'm not a huge fan of Twilight Knight's screen. The water is gorgeous but the palette is otherwise not really doing it for me. The land feels kind of oversaturated for how dark it is, and I'm really not a fan of these pillow shaded alien tree tiles. (Or the practice of having four different colors for the same tree type in one screen, for that matter.)

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#7 Twilight Knight

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Posted 20 March 2023 - 02:15 PM

Twilight Knight

Like what you did for the water, here - I worry about what might happen when the tall grass starts getting cut down, but I'll suspend it for SotW considerations.  I think I would lean a little more into the water as opposed to grass - might be cool to see this tall grass growing out of water, like a real-life fen or marsh.

Ah, this tall grass can't be cut down for... reasons. I guess it is stronger because it is deeply rooted or something

And that is actually a brilliant idea, thank you. I will definitely add that grass to water as well.

 

Twilight Knight

So I really like the water such as the smooth transitions between shallow/deep water. I like the deep green of the base layer of grass. I also like the brush in the northwest corner. The tall pokemon grass doesn't exactly fit in my opinion, I think though this could be mitigated with a medium-height variant of the pokemon grass to break up the starkness.

 

For the trees, the red and purple trees have a highlight color that makes them stick out in kind of a bad way though the orange and green are OK.

I already tried that kind of thing with the pokémon grass, normally it is only one variation at the tallest height you can see in my screenshot. I already made many edits, but I think I could attempt making an even lower version of the grass. Thanks for the tip

And I will go less wild with the colours. Ether pointed it out as well, and I agree with you both after looking at it critically. I personally always find it very pretty to have many colours on screen, but it doesn't make sense here and the colours don't fit the palette all that well.

 

I'm not a huge fan of Twilight Knight's screen. The water is gorgeous but the palette is otherwise not really doing it for me. The land feels kind of oversaturated for how dark it is, and I'm really not a fan of these pillow shaded alien tree tiles. (Or the practice of having four different colors for the same tree type in one screen, for that matter.)

Yeah I agree about the palette looking at it now, I should tweak it. Though if you are referring to the water, it is intentionally off-colour and the colour of it gradually changes (with palette cycling).

I don't like those trees either, I should find some different ones. These are the default LttP swampy trees btw. Thank you for the feedback!



#8 Architect Abdiel

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Posted 20 March 2023 - 02:57 PM

Architect Abdiel
Looks good and well designed. Plenty of details on the ground too, which I always like, but some of the other screens submitted are simply more intricate. I feel like this could be improved by two things: having some borders for the ice and having some purplish colours in there to make it less monotone.

  
Mhmmm. That’s by design really. I wanted to step back from my way of screen design in the past because I found it distracting when in game as a player. So I cut down on a lot of old details. Even remade some screens. xD Your suggestions are good though. I definitely can work on the ice borders and look at purple stuff. But I’m not good at all with graphics. :P At least when it comes to replicating a preexisting style.

Architect Abdiel
Good screen! There are a couple of GB quirks on this that I would clean up - but the screen balance is fine. I think that if the right side of the screen is inaccessible, you could put a bit more detail here.

  • Ground color under the trees doesn't match your ground tone - a slight recolor here would help.
  • Ice borders - Since this is outdoors, you should use the normal water borders for these.  You can see how Oracle of Seasons does it, especially in the east part of the overworld.
 
Link didn’t work but I looked it up and I see what you mean. I’ve been trying to do a better job of replicating the Oracle style, but my mind likes to drift from its goal. I have to look at that mountain there are certain mountains around the overworld that are very bland right now cause I don’t know if I will be using them for side content or not. But I can say this particular mountain side I imagine won’t be used. I will work on bordering the ice and with those shadows.

 

Architect Abdiel
It's decent, the structure of the screen is pretty good. I'm imagining the caves on the right and left connect some way to lead into the center "main" cave which is cool whether or not my assumption is correct. The cave entrance on the left seems a tad mismatched texture-wise.
 
Maybe one nice detail that no one has said yet is you could put a broken ladder or something directly south of the main cave. The grassy path and the tiles outside the main cave seem to suggest that at one point that type of access point would have once existed.

Your assumption is correct. I like to connect things. The normal cave entrances are really just normal caves while the main entrance is the Lynel Base where many lynels live. I do plan on having a little shortcut that connects these caves together though later so you don’t have to run around the mountain after the first visit…. Unless that’s just your cup of tea. I ain’t judging.

That would be cool to have a broken ladder. I’ll have to look around at the tileset and see if I can work with something. Maybe a sideview ladder that I can crack and break.

  

Architect Abdiel's screen is pretty. The tree tiles have been edited in kind of an awkward way, where the bottoms really stand out against the snow because they use a different shade of white. And the tops have been changed to use transparency but kept in some antialiasing--antialiasing that only works against a lighter background, and shows as little gray dots when the background is something darker like a mountain or another tree. There's something about the elevation that also doesn't feel quite right for me--I think it might be tied to the way that the left side and the higher right side use the same 16 pixels of side tiling, but I'm not 100% on this.

Hmmm, looking at it, maybe the mountains aren’t properly elevated. The lower mountain is 2 tiles high while the upper is only 3, yet it connects at the bottom. I’ll have to look at that. And I see what you are saying on the trees. That’ll be a pretty simple edit I think. Especially the top halves since I should be able to just edit out the dots. I’ll look at the the bottoms too. Maybe I can clean them up some. (I’ve never been particularly good with shadows)
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#9 Twilight Knight

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Posted 20 March 2023 - 03:52 PM

But I’m not good at all with graphics. :P At least when it comes to replicating a preexisting style.

I think that if you add a border in the style of the grass borders in the same screen it could do the trick, as if the grass has grown over the ice. Wouldn't make sense the other way round though, but heh



#10 Architect Abdiel

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Posted 20 March 2023 - 03:56 PM

I think that if you add a border in the style of the grass borders in the same screen it could do the trick, as if the grass has grown over the ice. Wouldn't make sense the other way round though, but heh


True. I have some tiles already that might work for an overlay on the ice. Been using them on my rivers and water sides.
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#11 Mitchfork

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Posted 21 March 2023 - 02:26 PM

Mitchfork

Please tell me the bubbles are blockable in some way because that seems like a nightmare to stay on the platform while dodging bubbles. Does the switch reverse the water flow?

 

Yeah, it's really good, the color of the water's nice, and I love that there's puzzle mechanics clearly readable in the screen. Especially since the puzzle has such unique design :) This is second place for me, I don't really have any specific critiques.

 

These are actually kind of complicated projectiles. They bounce off solid objects and walls, deflecting depending on the angle of incident.  Hitting the bubbles with the sword (and other TBD weapons) will also deflect them.  They slow down as they travel and pop when they stop moving, too, so there's definitely a way to respond to these.

 

That all said, this room gets pretty chaotic and may be tuned down during more formal playtesting.

 

This switch doesn't reverse the water flow,  just opens the doors - the platforms travel in opposite directions so you can get to both sides of the screen.



#12 Colin

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Posted 21 March 2023 - 02:46 PM

These are actually kind of complicated projectiles. They bounce off solid objects and walls, deflecting depending on the angle of incident.  Hitting the bubbles with the sword (and other TBD weapons) will also deflect them.  They slow down as they travel and pop when they stop moving, too, so there's definitely a way to respond to these.

 

That all said, this room gets pretty chaotic and may be tuned down during more formal playtesting.

 

This switch doesn't reverse the water flow,  just opens the doors - the platforms travel in opposite directions so you can get to both sides of the screen.

Ah, based on how I was reading the screen, I thought maybe rafts would flow in from off-screen from those mouth things, traveling in the direction of the water flow which all looks leftwards. If the raft on the bottom of the screen moves from left to right, is the flow down there rightwards as well?

 

EDIT: Oh, lol, I just misread the flow on the bottom of the screen, those do go to the right :doh: everything on your screen makes sense to me now. I think a solid divider running horizontally to split the opposing flows could look pretty good.


Edited by Colin, 21 March 2023 - 02:49 PM.

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#13 Mitchfork

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Posted 21 March 2023 - 07:06 PM

Ah, based on how I was reading the screen, I thought maybe rafts would flow in from off-screen from those mouth things, traveling in the direction of the water flow which all looks leftwards. If the raft on the bottom of the screen moves from left to right, is the flow down there rightwards as well?

 

EDIT: Oh, lol, I just misread the flow on the bottom of the screen, those do go to the right :doh: everything on your screen makes sense to me now. I think a solid divider running horizontally to split the opposing flows could look pretty good.

Oh yeah, I can see how without the animation the current direction may not be clear.  The only reason I don't want a divider is because there's gameplay considerations (the bubbles interact with solid combos, etc.) that may not play well, but I think it looks decent enough in motion.


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#14 Twilight Knight

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Posted 22 March 2023 - 03:45 PM

TwilightKnight.png

I processed all the feedback everyone gave and I think the palette looks a whole lot better now (the water is changing colour over time, it looks a bit odd in the screen now). Also the replacement swampy trees I have here are made by Ether (https://www.purezc.n...e=tiles&id=1673).

And the subscreen has changed a while ago, but the screen I submitted is rather old and was for an old unreleased SotW. I like the darker colours better, easier on the eye.

3aKKnj9.png


Edit: also here's my edit of Ether's tree for DoR (uses more colours, recoloured for palette, and various terrain variants) if anyone wants it

KSh34li.png


Edited by Twilight Knight, 22 March 2023 - 04:01 PM.

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#15 Taco Chopper

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Posted 23 March 2023 - 07:49 AM

I like it! I think the new trees have made the most difference here. The old trees look really good in the orange and green versions, but the colouring on the red and purple ones really detracts from the rest of the screen. Ether's trees suit the screen well, but the difference in design - and reduction of the variety of colours used - really has improved the quality of the screen. Same with the change of palette - it's funny how minor changes like that can shape the bigger picture, in this case literally.


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