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[DIS] gagggo's pixel learning thread

Posted: 21 Nov 2008, 21:13
by gagggo
Hi!

I just wanted to help the game in any way, but don't have any experience. So I decided to start making tiles and post them here. I would be happy about comments, so I can improve my skill in making tiles.
Yes, I know they may not be useful to the game, but this is a learning thread. If you comment I'll get better and in some time produce something useful...

Here my first tile:
My first tile is the stone ground of a castle, inside... This is the first tile I ever made^^
My first tile is the stone ground of a castle, inside... This is the first tile I ever made^^
Steinboden Burg.gif (257 Bytes) Viewed 1183 times

Re: My pixel learning thread

Posted: 21 Nov 2008, 22:30
by Crush
You already understood the meaning of dithering. That is already a big archievement. But to become a good tile artist you will need two additional skills: Light direction and color selection.

First about light direction: The key of good tile art is not drawing shapes with lines but drawing shapes with light and shadow. You can do this by imagining a light source (usually above and to the right or to the left) and drawing surfaces and lines facing the light source brighter than the rest and those away from the light source darker than the rest. I added a bright line to the lower and right edge of your bricks. Do you note how they look much more three-dimensional?
Steinboden2.png
Steinboden2.png (835 Bytes) Viewed 1153 times
Second about color selection: You used pure greyscale shades. The problem with greyscales is that they look boring and transport no atmosphere. By adding a tiny bit of color to shades of grey you can add a lot more "feeling" to your tiles. Here are two versions of the tile. I added a tiny bit of blue to one and a tiny bit of orange to the other using a graphic filter (When making real tiles I would have added more saturation to the darker shades than the brighter ones). Note how the blue one gives a cold, sinister feeling like the castle of a dark lord while the orange one seems warm and friendly like the castle of a beloved king.
Steinboden3.png
Steinboden3.png (3 KiB) Viewed 1153 times
I hope that this was helpful for you.

Re: My pixel learning thread

Posted: 22 Nov 2008, 11:38
by i
gagggo: Your work reminds me mine, when I was starting.
I got some hints:
1. Making of tiles start from concept
2. Don't be afraid to experiment and play with pixels
3. Learn some tricks and pixelart techniques and try use them in practice
4. Try to make tiles tillable on angles different than 0° and 90°
ground-tile.png
ground-tile.png (6 KiB) Viewed 1087 times
ground-tile2.png
ground-tile2.png (7.06 KiB) Viewed 1086 times
5. And of course have fun! ;)

Re: My pixel learning thread

Posted: 23 Nov 2008, 17:48
by Crush
I would only suggest experimenting with skewed patterns after gaining some experiments with organizing tilesets for mapping, because there is a big danger of creating tiles which are pretty but very impractical for building real maps with them.