my first attempt at pixel art

[straelyn]

Attached is something of a modified skeleton, that I like to call a wight. I used mtPaint (I'm relatively new to the program and the artform), and it took me a few hours to do the modifications (I wanted it to look decent). Let me know what you think. The idea was they'd be something akin to a harder-hitting skeleton that gives a little bit more exp. They have red glowy evilness! (which is extinguished when they die)

[straelyn]

version 2, with modifications to the ribcage and right "fist"

[straelyn]

Here's a tileset to go with it: catacombs1

[o11c]

We don't really need new palette-swapped tilesets ... there are some technical problems with the main cave tileset (among other things, some walls are not the same height, and there are some feature that can't be built)

[straelyn]

well, the ice caves were a palette swap; if you'll notice, the torches on this are normal
I figured the moldy green would be perfect for under the swamp/graveyard area.
I don't understand though, how can there be a problem with it if it's used everywhere?

[o11c]

if you'll notice, the torches on this are normal

I noticed, but if they're exactly the same as the other tileset, they shouldn't be in this one at all.

Are the other items from a tileset I don't have memorized, or did you draw them from scratch?

I figured the moldy green would be perfect for under the swamp/graveyard area.

True, but it doesn't look quite right as a palette swap - even without considering the technical issues.

I don't understand though, how can there be a problem with it if it's used everywhere?

One of the big things to learn is: just because something is done in a certain way, doesn't mean it's right. I had issues creating certain shapes in a new map.

Speaking of which ... I need a couple of new tiles for the cave tileset: an up ladder and a down ladder (maybe a trapdoor). Unless you want to make a whole new tileset for Hell, even though it only has one small map ...

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Sorry that I can't actually help with pixel art.

[straelyn]

None of it is from scratch, although I did have to colorize two different tilesets in an attempt to get a match. I started w/ icecave.png, but decided I wanted the skulls from cave.png, so (after first copying the torches) I colorized it side by side and copy/pasted them in (I tried being careful with the pixel alignment and color/shading). The mushrooms are slightly colorized as well (taken from mushrooms.png); I wanted a nice contrast w/ the colors, and given the moldy dirty motif, it just made sense to me. The coffin is from Crypt-Fringe_x3 (and honestly the only thing I'd have changed would be adding crypts/nooks in the walls).
I guess it'd be easier to help if I even had a clue how tilesets get translated to workable maps. I don't even know much about mobs/sprites other than them using xml files for the animation. If the map thing is just an alignment issue, it's probably a lot easier to fix that and modify existing sets rather than starting out from scratch.
I mean it's open source, what better use than if not to upcycle. That's kind of the point. Can you imagine what the state of open source code would be if nothing ever got reused?

[Jenalya]

If you have a look at how e.g. the Reinboo is done:
https://github.com/themanaworld/tmwa-cl ... s.xml#L436
https://github.com/themanaworld/tmwa-cl ... mouboo.png
https://github.com/themanaworld/tmwa-cl ... ntlers.png
you can see that there isn't a seperate reinboo sprite, but it uses a mouboo sprite on which the antlers are put on via xml.
I think it'd be nicer if you could design your red eyes for the skeleton a similiar way, as accessory. Then it could be used for various monsters, as long as the distance between the eyes matches the distance of the monster it's used with. Actually I'd be very interested in that, since I'll need some evil version of some woodland monsters for the orum and waric follow-up quest.

I guess it'd be easier to help if I even had a clue how tilesets get translated to workable maps

I suggest you to get tiled, the program we use to edit and develop maps, and have a look at the maps. That should give you an idea of how tilesets are used.
There's also a mapping tutorial and a tileset tutorial on the wiki, which might be helpful.

[straelyn]

Regarding the tiling/tutorials, it's something I'm looking into. Who knows maybe I'll get lucky.
For the monster, I'm not sure the accessory idea would really work here, due to how it's incorporated into the animation. If it was simply the eyes that would be one thing; but after I did the first, I felt leaving it simply at that (just the eyes and a few barely noticable red lines) would be a cop-out (on my part), so I added more to the ribs and right fist (so that from any angle or hit you could tell that no, this isn't just a skeleton). After posting these two sets, I played around with some color inversions, hues, gamma (examining it both close-up and panned out) in an attempt to make it look darker, and the results were good but I felt too much of the shading was lost (though I managed to preserve some of it). I'll attach the image just so you see what I mean. I guess this was just me having fun and seeing what I could do with the concept.

[Crush]

I'm not sure the accessory idea would really work here, due to how it's incorporated into the animation.

As far as I know, the skeleton is derived from the playerset and has compatible animations, so that all their gear works on each other. The fallen, for example, uses sub-sprites made for player characters.

[straelyn]

Here's a few screenshots of what I've been able to get so far out of tiled. I examined some of the existing .tmx tilesets to get an idea how things work. After trying this & that, I modified a set of the floor-bones to be transparent, at first because I wanted to throw a few between the walls, but then I realized with that transparency I could layer the things over anything. After a few hours of experimentation, I ended up with something resembling a catacomb

[Jenalya]

Those bones on the walls look as if they're floating.

[straelyn]

ladders and bone-piles!

[tux9th]

I just comment on the maping here
I marked one tile with 1 you should use the tile there where the 1 stands. at the edge.

keep up the great work

[Reid]

I just comment on the art here,

There's already a start of a crypt tileset, did you look at it?
The cave tileset that you used is very old, it needs to be replaced but nobody have the time to change it right now. So working on a recolored version of this tileset for the mana world is a very bad idea, unless that you change everything.
Recoloring tileset in general is also a bad idea, you can use an ambient layer if you really wish to change the ambience of your cave, and pixel art is not just about color manipulation, and even less when it's about using a tool.

I encourage you to put your effort in creating a new cave tileset instead of editing that old one, because there're little chance that this actual work will go in game.

About the skeleton redo, that's the same as the cave, tools like color replacement with alpha selection is a bad idea, and adjusting the contrast and the gamma is... Not what you should do.

Did you read some pixel art tutorial before to start anything? If no, you should try some which are listed in the TMW wikis, because you're going on the wrong direction for making pixel art.

The concept of a new skeleton could be a good idea, but I don't advise you to start with such a big piece.
Did you try to do some icons or small art before?

Don't discourage yourself, try to understand what I've said, and you'll progress!