Jump to content

Photo

Screenshot of the Week 754

TheManHimself Valerie Jared Mani Kanina

  • This topic is locked This topic is locked
8 replies to this topic

Poll: Screenshot of the Week 754 (50 member(s) have cast votes)

Cast your vote!

You cannot see the results of the poll until you have voted. Please login and cast your vote to see the results of this poll.
Vote

#1 Matthew

Matthew

  • Administrators
  • Real Name:See above.
  • Pronouns:He / Him
  • Location:Ohio

Posted 26 April 2021 - 03:47 PM

Jared
Jared.png

Mani Kanina
ManiKanina.png
Down we go!
 
TheManHimself
TheManHimself.png
Lay your heart down onto the sea of stars.
 
Valerie
Valerie.png
Climb in my mouth you look yummy!


  • Anthus and Hari like this

#2 TheManHimself

TheManHimself

    Real Human Bean

  • Members
  • Real Name:Shane

Posted 26 April 2021 - 04:57 PM

I am obsessed with Valerie's cyclopean dungeon mouth design, but the adaptation of the Zelda 1 map is a bit too literal for my taste: I would love to see what she can do with a less strict approach to her BS remake. From what I've seen so far, her custom tilework for the BS set is evocative of something that has been lost to the Zelda aesthetic: stark, surreal bizarre designs.
 

Mani Kanina's screen composition is excellent. It's an indoor room made with a GBC tileset that isn't symmetrical! I love the contrast of the 2-tone floor/wall palette with the striking red torch light.
 

Normally, I'm not a big fan of the Pure Tileset; something about the default palettes and the unnatural fusion of GBC and SNES style graphics always rubbed me the wrong way, and Jared's quest looks to be using a lot of Pure-derived assets. Reservations about the tileset aside though, Jared's composition is excellent, and the tile choices for the most part don't clash (I would find a less GBC tile for the flowers, since this looks 90% on the SNES side of Pure). the screen is detailed but not cluttered, and it manages to avoid a problem I see with a lot of mountain-themed screens: It takes place in a mountainous area and half of the screen is a starry void, but still has plenty of room left open for maneuvering and fighting monsters (if any were included in the shot, that is). I guess my only problem with it is that there doesn't seem to be any sense of elevation: I see hills and cliffs, but nothing to signify how high up you are.


Edited by TheManHimself, 26 April 2021 - 06:24 PM.

  • Jared and Matthew like this

#3 Jared

Jared

    Deified

  • Members
  • Real Name:Jared
  • Pronouns:He / Him
  • Location:New Hampshire

Posted 26 April 2021 - 07:16 PM

Normally, I'm not a big fan of the Pure Tileset; something about the default palettes and the unnatural fusion of GBC and SNES style graphics always rubbed me the wrong way, and Jared's quest looks to be using a lot of Pure-derived assets. Reservations about the tileset aside though, Jared's composition is excellent, and the tile choices for the most part don't clash (I would find a less GBC tile for the flowers, since this looks 90% on the SNES side of Pure). the screen is detailed but not cluttered, and it manages to avoid a problem I see with a lot of mountain-themed screens: It takes place in a mountainous area and half of the screen is a starry void, but still has plenty of room left open for maneuvering and fighting monsters (if any were included in the shot, that is). I guess my only problem with it is that there doesn't seem to be any sense of elevation: I see hills and cliffs, but nothing to signify how high up you are.

 

Thank you for your critique! Your comment made me realize I forgot something: to update the flowers to Lost Isle flowers! I also shaded up the slashable flowers.

 

Ab5Qa6I.png

 

I'm not too sure on how to remedy the problem where you can't tell how high up it is, but oh well. It is just a test screen, anyways.

 

I'm doing my best to make everything fit in the same style. I hope you can see that! :)


  • Shane and TheManHimself like this

#4 TheManHimself

TheManHimself

    Real Human Bean

  • Members
  • Real Name:Shane

Posted 26 April 2021 - 07:49 PM

Thank you for your critique! Your comment made me realize I forgot something: to update the flowers to Lost Isle flowers! I also shaded up the slashable flowers.

 

Ab5Qa6I.png

 

I'm not too sure on how to remedy the problem where you can't tell how high up it is, but oh well. It is just a test screen, anyways.

 

I'm doing my best to make everything fit in the same style. I hope you can see that! :)

Any more cliffs in the playable area would just get in the way, so I think the best solution would be to have some sort of smaller, distant land along the horizon line. That way you can still keep the starry skies without the perspective issues, and have a visual cue signifying the elevation of your screen.

Those simple edits to the flowers worked out perfectly!

[edit] maybe some sort of terrace with objects layered underneath the cliff edge could be used to suggest depth too!
dwQdxLA.png


Edited by TheManHimself, 26 April 2021 - 08:06 PM.

  • Jared likes this

#5 Shane

Shane

    💙

  • Moderators
  • Pronouns:He / Him
  • Location:South Australia

Posted 27 April 2021 - 01:05 AM

Jared's and TheManHimself's are really cool. I'm a sucker for those kinds of ethereal settings. Both are amazing, but I think Jared's edges out for me.


  • Jared and TheManHimself like this

#6 Zagut

Zagut

    Experienced Forumer

  • Members
  • Location:Somewhere in the universe.

Posted 01 May 2021 - 01:11 PM

Jared: I love what you did with the starry background. I see a few comments arguing it could be better if there was a way to tell how high up you really are, but I personally don't see that as an issue. Leaving that piece of the puzzle unfilled I think actually makes the screen more interesting, as it's up to the player to piece together what sort of place they're in. Sometimes leaving certain pieces of design open rather than explaining too much actually makes for a more interesting experience. Love the otherworldly nature of this shot. (Also grooving on the new link tiles.) If you do plan on adding some depth to communicate more precisely the area's height, I do like the idea of showing some smaller mountains/islands in the distance.

 

Mani Kanina: Personally I'm not the biggest fan of minimalistic GB-style shots, but I do like the consistency you've got with this design. Nothing looks out of place, and it feels really faithful to the feel of the GB Zeldas.

 

TheManHimself: OK what you have here isn't bad by any means, but I've got two problems with it. 1, the colors of the land tiles, ground and tree alike, all clash with eachother alot, which isn't always a negative. I notice in the other shot you posted earlier, that sharp changes in color can actually be utilized to some great effect to suggest shade and depth, but on the contest screen all the different colors feel a bit out of place. 2, the planet Saturn also feels out of place compared to the rest of the screen, and that's in part due to the rough dithering/jagged edges on the very edges of the rings. I like the idea of Saturn being there, but the sprite work just feels a bit rough at this point in time.

 

Valerie: Honestly, I don't have too much to say about this one. It's nice, and I gotta say that dungeon entrance looks great, but it feels a bit too faithful to the original BS Zelda. There isn't too much unique stuff going on here aside from the entrance.


  • nicklegends, Jared and TheManHimself like this

#7 TheManHimself

TheManHimself

    Real Human Bean

  • Members
  • Real Name:Shane

Posted 05 May 2021 - 01:56 AM

TheManHimself: OK what you have here isn't bad by any means, but I've got two problems with it. 1, the colors of the land tiles, ground and tree alike, all clash with eachother alot, which isn't always a negative. I notice in the other shot you posted earlier, that sharp changes in color can actually be utilized to some great effect to suggest shade and depth, but on the contest screen all the different colors feel a bit out of place. 2, the planet Saturn also feels out of place compared to the rest of the screen, and that's in part due to the rough dithering/jagged edges on the very edges of the rings. I like the idea of Saturn being there, but the sprite work just feels a bit rough at this point in time.

As far as the colors are concerned, The palette was derived from a single reference image; the pinks and greens are supposed to be reminiscent of the artwork Naoya Matsuoka and Wessing's  The September Wind mixed with a Lisa Frank acid nightmare. I know some of color choices for the trees are a bit jarring, but that's what I am going for. That being said, I agree with you that some of my color decisions for the mockup version of this screen did not fit with the style that I was shooting for, especially the layout of the ground tiles (i.e, cset 6 (oof!?) yellow flowers, the white flowers with red streaks on the ground around the edge of the cliff, the splotches of cset2 grass). This was an early reference screen used to establish a visual key for how the region around it would be designed; as I have spent more time working in the medium and drawn more screens in its style, I think I have refined the style a bit more.

I decided pretty early on I would try to organize the ground tiles in horizontal lines instead of huge clumps of differently colored tiles running into one another, so as a result the flower placement makes the ground look less schizophrenic and the straight lines are more evocative of the bold parallel lines found in the NM&W art that I'm using as a reference. The palm trees have been shifted over to allow better transit across the screen, and the weird squiggly placeholder shadows at the bottom of the cliffs have been replaced with a black dithering pattern. If I were to redraw the screen entirely, I would shift Saturn one tile up, and one tile to the right, reduce the void just a bit, and extend the playable area of the bottom half of the screen 2 tiles to the right.

gqOekGb.png


As far as the planet looking out of place, I'm still trying to find a happy medium. I agree that it is not quite cooked at this point, but It's very close to what I want it to be. I'm not sure if I agree with your diagnosis that the dithering pattern is the source of the problem, though your critique has forced me to at least consider that perspective as it honestly wasn't the one that would have occurred to me. My assessment of the Saturn problem has less to do with the ring, and more to do with the planet itself. When I think of computer graphics from the 80s, I always think of low colors per tile, and generous use of dithering to create the illusion of more color on low-indexed images --- the dithering is fine, but the planet has too many gradient colors which is the reason for the stylistic clash. I'm thinking of cleaning up the color transitions, reducing the colors of the planet itself to ~3-4 to match the average number of colors-per-tile in the classic tileset; then using some light dithering to suggest transition between the colored zones and the eclipsed area of the planet, making up for the reduced true colors. With all of that said, if I absolutely hate the result of my idea, I will try to tackle it from your perspective, getting rid of all the dithering and creating a solid outer ring (while still cleaning the color gradient on the planet): if I still hate it, I'll revert to what's already there because while I agree it could be a little less rough, I really don't think it is that bad.

Thank you for your critique, and sorry for the essay response! I'll be on the lookout for the more (unintentionally) egregious clashes of colors during map revisions in the coming weeks.


Edited by TheManHimself, 05 May 2021 - 03:42 PM.

  • Zagut likes this

#8 Lordkronos

Lordkronos

    Hero of Dark World

  • Members

Posted 08 May 2021 - 04:44 PM

Wow What Spacy Entrys we Have Here Realy Nice The Night Sky on The Green Hill Looks Realy Byuitifull and The Planet Mixed with The Classic Zelda 8 Bit Style very Suprising and Unique :D


  • Matthew and TheManHimself like this

#9 Matthew

Matthew

  • Administrators
  • Real Name:See above.
  • Pronouns:He / Him
  • Location:Ohio

Posted 12 May 2021 - 08:06 PM

With 47.83% of the vote, the winner of Screenshot of the Week 754 is TheManHimself!
 
TheManHimself.png
Lay your heart down onto the sea of stars.
 
Congrats! The power of the planet cannot be denied.
 
Voting totals:
- Jared - 12 votes [26.09%]
- Mani Kanina - 3 votes [6.52%]
- TheManHimself - 22 votes [47.83%]
- Valerie - 9 votes [19.57%]





Also tagged with one or more of these keywords: TheManHimself, Valerie, Jared, Mani Kanina

0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users