25 replies to this topic

[Jared]

Cremeens, your shots keep getting better and better!
10/10.

ZL - I like it, but I have to give you a 5/10 for doing the same thing for the third week in a row.

Orin - Nice, very dark! Reminds me or time stopping. 8/10

Voted for Cremeens!

[Isdrakthül]

Cremeens, your shots keep getting better and better!
10/10.

ZL - I like it, but I have to give you a 5/10 for doing the same thing for the third week in a row.

Orin - Nice, very dark! Reminds me or time stopping. 8/10

Voted for Cremeens!

It seems a bit unfair to base your judgment of the screen upon the fact that he's posted screens from the same area in the previous weeks as opposed to its intrinsic merit. The screen wouldn't be any better in and of itself if he hadn't posted the others.

[Shane]

Cremeens1000: Its very cluttered in my opinion and the trees were meant for snow not detail. The bridge is meant to be brown not grey cause its wood. There is to many stuff on top of each other. 6/10.

ZeeLiam: Nice winter shot desprite the few errors the open coner is not that bad. You can have open coners but not all the time. It has a chiling feeling. Overall a winter wonderland screen. 8/10.

Orin XD: This is the best screen out of all the pallet is appealing throguh. And the same clup of bushes are to straight take out 1 to give it a better look. 9/10.

Also a been noticing a few people here and there judging grpahics not the screen itself and people voting for their freinds.

Edited by Midnight_King, 19 January 2011 - 07:24 PM.

[Lemon]

cremeens1000 is nifty, but the awkward cropping and fact that it was taken in ZC make me sad and thus no votey.

ZeeLiam; another GB shot. Is it from a quest? I can't tell. It looks more like you just opened up the GBZ tileset and built a shot to send in so the contest can stay afloat. With closer inspection, yeah, you just cropped out the menu. At least you tried to make it look authentic.

Orin XD: As you mentioned I'm guessing there's supposed to a layer of fog or something. Eitherway, unless the missing layer of creepiness has any color in it, it won't help this out much. I get that it's supposed to be a depressing area, undead or something idk, but the pallet is so incredibly dull. Maybe some flowers somewhere. Or some spark of color. A torch, a flaming skull.

Null'd

[Bayta]

Not bad this week!

Creemens: I rather like this screen, especially for the ground-detail. I was also going to comment that the treetops looked weird, but I see Evile already did that for me. The only real problem I can see here is that the tree in the middle should be moved, so that it doesn't look like it's blocking the path to the bridge (even though it's not anyway). I also really think it should have been taken in ZC. Voted!

ZeeLiam: Somehow, it doesn't seem as impressive as your last few. :/ Maybe it's just because of that open corner? I also see a misused tile here: The corner piece of the mountain, right next to that cave is incorrect. Unless it's supposed to be buried under the snow, but even then it doesn't work. Definitely not bad over all, though. I also notice that these shots of yours are taken in ZQuest, but with Link and enemy graphics put in via FFCs or layers? why not just take a shot in ZC?

Orin XD: I very much like the palette here, and the screen design over all is pretty interesting. There's just a few problems here. First is the mountains. This may just be personal preference, but I don't think they curve enough. The changes in direction are too severe. They look okay as-is, but they could look a little more natural. Second thing is... well, it seems a tad lively for a wasteland. Got plenty of grass, a few trees, and bushes. I suggest making it look a bit more... dead-ish. Like, replace some of those smaller trees with dead trees, get rid of some of those bushes, replace a lot of that grass with dirt, and so on. Doesn't make it any less of a good screen as it is now, but I just found that a bit odd. This one just barely missed my vote, if you just fix up the mountains a bit, I think this would be a fantastic screen!

[Rambly]

Null vote. None of the screens really impressed me this week.

cremeens' is okay, I guess, but some issues with it (the miscolored trees, the awkward aspect ratio) prevented me from voting for it.

ZeeLiam's is pretty nice, but I've seen so many wintry GBZ shots from him that by now it's just kinda... well, it doesn't really catch my eye.

Orin XD's is too monochrome, and the layout isn't terribly great either. At least there's some backstory behind it... but I'm not voting for the quests here, I'm voting on the way the quests look.

[Radien]

cremeens1000:

Here's the thing: your shot is definitely the best designed this week. But I'm really starting to wonder what's up with the weird sizing. I'm not sure whether this screenshot started off huge, and you shrank it, or whether it was roughly the same size as the others and you somehow enlarged it, but either way, it issn't the right dimensions and the pixels are getting distorted. Two tips:

1.) When choosing a new size for a screenshot, either enlarge it to TWICE the previous size or reduce it to HALF the previous size. Otherwise the size and shape of the pixels will distort.

2.) You don't need screenshots that big. If you're using a larger resolution mode in ZQ, I recommend turning it off before taking snapshots.

Aside from the sizing problems, and the lack of any sprites, subscreen, or on-screen action, this is a well-designed screen. Yes, you've got some no-walk flags really close to the edge of the screen in a couple of places, but those problems are easily remedied. However, don't use snowy trees if you aren't using a winter palette. Yes, there are more shades of green, but the snow isn't MEANT to be green, so it just looks speckly and wrong.


ZeeLiam:

Very simple, straightforward GBC shot with absolutely nothing wrong. Except there isn't much happening on the screen, and no subscreen. Basically, just keep up the good work. But consider working on your subscreen so you can show it off to people.


Orin XD:

On the other end of the spectrum... a very elaborate subscreen you have here. It almost seems a bit much to have all those counters stacked like that (yes, I realize default Classic does it too), but aside from that it looks all right. I wouldn't center the hearts and magic, though, because it'll look weird as the meters grow.

This screen is all right, but... what gets to me is the palette. Is it supposed to be greyscale? Because it's a little too brown for that. If it's supposed to be a flashback or an eerie area, I'd give it more of a sepia tone, or whitish, or even slightly blue. The brown just looks like you're using the wrong palette or something. Also, consider adding mist.



I'm rather torn here. Each shot has something the others are distinctly lacking. Normally I'd vote for cremeens but his really needs some work on presentation (too big, taken in ZQuest, etc.).

Hmmmm. I guess..... I'm just gonna null vote. Sorry.

[Mitchfork]

cremeens1000:

Here's the thing: your shot is definitely the best designed this week. But I'm really starting to wonder what's up with the weird sizing. I'm not sure whether this screenshot started off huge, and you shrank it, or whether it was roughly the same size as the others and you somehow enlarged it, but either way, it issn't the right dimensions and the pixels are getting distorted. Two tips:

1.) When choosing a new size for a screenshot, either enlarge it to TWICE the previous size or reduce it to HALF the previous size. Otherwise the size and shape of the pixels will distort.

2.) You don't need screenshots that big. If you're using a larger resolution mode in ZQ, I recommend turning it off before taking snapshots.

I was confused by the resolution as well. Usually when I get a submission that's the wrong size, I can index the image colors and resize it and it looks great, but since this isn't an even multiple of 256, I couldn't do it without severe quality loss. I actually don't know of any way to capture the screenshot in a non-256 resolution.

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I voted for cremeens1000; it's a solid shot, although you really should use the non-snow covered trees; at first I thought it was quality loss due to the resize. In addition, I think you should find alternate path tiles; the LttP rocks look more like random field rocks than something somebody would lay down as a path. On a broader scope, the left side of the screen feels really cramped; this is partially due to the dirt border you have around the river. The way that it lies on the edge of the screen calls attention to the fact that it's the edge of the screen; good design calls attention away from the border, not towards it. Detail and tile use was very well done, however; perhaps less variation on ground details could have benefited you, but I don't have much experience with that tileset. Overall, 7/10. A few design tweaks could easily get this to an 8/10 in my opinion.

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ZeeLiam's shot isn't bad either, but it feels really... off-balance? Even though you have no open corners (I'm assuming you can't walf on ice because of your caption), the bottom left ice section isn't different enough from the regular terrain to give the impression that the corner is filled. Thus, it looks like there's nothing in that entire quarter of the screen. (Opinion: although the no open corners "rule" has practical uses because of how ZC handles enemies on the edge of the screen, the main reason I hold fast to it is because it pulls focus away from the border and into the center of the screen.) In addition, GB ground details are kind of random; you've got dirt specks, different grass tufts, pebbles, etc. Pick only a few, limit yourself to those, and your screen will look a lot more consistent. Otherwise, I've never liked those trees, but that's purely taste and not really a problem with the screen. Overall, 6/10. Functionally good, but missing in some areas that would really improve the shot's appeal.

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Orin XD is working with a tough tileset this week, and it's a good effort with a lot of the basics done right, but I felt it was the weakest this week. The palette is totally not my cup of tea and it's not aesthetically pleasing, but that's just a trial and error thing. The biggest thing that hurt this shot was repetition. The mountains aren't too straight, which is good, but they're all going the same direction; up and to the right, with no variation. When using a high detail tileset, you have to put in more effort to breaking up the monotonous bits (like mountains) so you can't be afraid to wind them and go both ways. Potentially a bigger problem than the mountains, however, is the grass.

SD3 grass does have a pattern, and you picked up on it and used it. That's great; when used like that, the grass really breaks the 16x16 tile feeling; however there has to be variation to keep things interesting. For example, the row of grass tiles where Link is standing, or the row just above the big pine tree; it's very apparent that those are just two grass tiles repeated ad nauseam. Look at how the actual game where those tiles come from did it: here. Even though there's a pattern, it violates it sometimes to be more natural (nature is not ordered) and always throws in other details (tall grass, paths, trees) to interrupt the pattern. Your shot needs more ground details, but in the right places to break the pattern.

Otherwise, your bushes are in straight lines (another repetitive feature), so jazz that up a bit. I also never like cutting a mountain face in half on the edge of a screen, so perhaps consider splitting this screen into two bigger screens; then you'd have more space to play with the mountains and other details. Overall, 5/10. You have to be a bit ambitious to make DoR really work for you; play with it more, and don't be afraid to make tweaks.

[Alestance]

cremeens: The design itself is ok. What I have a problem with is that you misused the dirt graphics. You just splotched random sets of it everywhere and there are repeating patterns in it. On top of that, your using the snowcapped treetops.

Orin: the colors are very dull and the screen is way too busy. I don't know whats going on in there

Zeeliam: A decent shot. *voted*

[Rover]

My vote goes to ZeeLiam, it just looks like a great shot. Plus I am favoring the snowy look. :3

[Mitchfork]

cremeens1000 - 16 votes = [41.03%]
ZeeLiam - 10 votes = [25.64%]
Orin XD - 13 votes = [33.33%]
Total Votes: 39

cremeens1000

Scene in the meadow.

creemeens1000 takes this week!