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Messages - Orion Pax

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1
Game Development Artistry / Re: OrionPax/Jeff C Thread
« on: 2017-07-30, 12:11:23 AM »
Nice to meet you. I'll try to answer in the order of your questions.

1. Mostly self taught actually. I mean I read books and tutorials online. This is a side story but I did meet Bob Ross once in NJ (mid 90's). As for Pixel art, check out https://pixelation.org/ I learned so much from that community.

2. Spaceballs was a game I was working on with a few friend. We had it pretty far along aside from the netcode. http://web.archive.org/web/20031231225033/http://www.spaceballs.org:80/

3. Yes and no. http://opx.deviantart.com/ you can find some of my old work.

4. Mostly Abobe software but also free tools like The Gimp, Blender, Audacity (audio) as well as the editor built into SGDK2 (which I helped design with Ben)

5. I use a Wacom intuos 4,  9x12,  at the time of FTS (2005) I think it was an intuos 2. (not that you need either for pixel art)

6. That's complicated :) Lot of things happened in that 10 year or more time frame. Thats a talk over a long drink :)

7. Since I could write my name I was hooked, as a preschooler, I was drawn to art and learning. At now 36 I know much better artists than me, some of whom are near 15 years my junior!

8. Despite whatever my old readme.txt says, feel free to use that old tileset for whatever you want. Credit would be nice but its fine either way. Though I'm curious what you have planned.

I do have a facebook, https://www.facebook.com/jeff.cruz.5686322

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Game Development Artistry / Re: OrionPax/Jeff C Thread
« on: 2017-07-29, 08:43:15 PM »
I'm about. I don't check forums often but Ben relayed that there was a post to me, how can I be of help?

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Game Development Artistry / Re: Pixel Genie
« on: 2017-05-27, 02:46:34 AM »
Happened to refresh. Everything makes a lot more sense now for some reason? Very cool!

Also I can see now its quite different than what I had worked on which was mostly palette swapping effects.

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Game Development Artistry / Re: Pixel Genie
« on: 2017-05-27, 01:15:35 AM »
The height map generator is non-functional or empty for me. I played with every option but its just blank.

It sounds interesting and I want to play around with it.

This is what I see. Well I clipped off the Lock light origin frame in the screenshot but that also had an empty scroll list.

I don't think it is at all bloated, it looks very utilitarian to me, which is a good thing. So I am either missing something stupid simple or I maybe lacking a browser addon?
These sad times we live in... you have forgotten me? lol, Granted I disappeared for nearly a decade. I am really interested.

 I was working on something kinda similar a long time ago that never came to fruition.

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Game Development Artistry / Re: Pixel Genie
« on: 2017-05-26, 09:15:44 PM »
Sorry, I'm probably missing something, am I suppose to import a base tile in some way? Or are they generated via algorithm? I played with some of the options, mainly palette generation but I'm confused on how to either upload a tile or get some sort of displayed tile. The samples look nice

6
Off-Topic / Re: I like to do drarwings
« on: 2007-01-12, 05:32:47 AM »
The character's extended leg is a mess, but I never felt like fixing it  :-X

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Off-Topic / I like to do drarwings
« on: 2007-01-12, 05:30:18 AM »
Hello all,

I don't post much so I decided to post some art of mine.. Its off-topic so I do wha I want! :P


8
General Discussion / Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« on: 2006-11-18, 02:11:07 PM »
I've just been using the test project so far. After playing around with it bit more it seems to do with not recording thw last value I type , in this case the repeat count, if it was the very last thing I did before hitting f5. if i deselected the frame, selected another frame, activated another dialog box, closed the dialog box.. anything afterward confirmed the value I typed in and the project ran as expected. My .net framework folder contains 2 version folders, v1.0.3705 and v1.1.4322.

 
are you just referring to an automated way of aligning the graphics to a particular region relative to the solid rectangle of a sprite?  Maybe I could make a wizard for that if that would be helpful... it would just change a frameset frame's parameters based on the settings of a particular sprite that uses the frame (or change all the frames that a sprite state uses).  If that's what you're talking about, it shouldn't be too big a deal.

yep =] In the Sprite definition window I changed the height of the player sprite from 32 to 16 for the walk left and walk right states. Frameset editor to then adjust the Y offset of the individal frames. I was thinking some quick alignment buttons in that dialog box or even what if black box(solid area) on the layer mask window(when mask lvl set to zero) was positionable but you're right, part of the functionality of the frameset editor just seemd more convienant.

Oh incidently If I changed the player sprites width from 32 to 16 the test project crashes when I try to run it with . I'm not sure I understand why that is happening, is their something in the test project that depends on the player sprite's width being 32? any value up or down caused a crash apoun loading/running.

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General Discussion / Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« on: 2006-11-17, 04:43:16 PM »
It should be possible to make an animated tile where each frame consists of multiple "sub-frames".  Frames are compounded by setting the frame delay to 0.  If you add a number of frames with a delay of 0, then add a frame with a delay of 1, then add some more with a delay of zero you should end up with an animated tile consisting of 2 "compound frames".  Let me know if this doesn't work. It's  designed to and needs to be fixed if it doesn't.

It seems the problem I was having is related to not closing the tileset editor window before running the project. The animation wasnt behaving in accordance to the delays I set and i was getting some odd behavior. After closing the tileset editor before running the project the animation responded as intended. Similarly this likely explains the problems I was having when changing the size/binding box for the sprite (to indent into the surface) and getting some odd behavior, crashing (sprite falling off the screen), falling through tiles walking one direction but fine the other.

Just tested it, it was indeed the cause of the problems I was having while adjusting the player sprite's binding box (side note: do you think there will be a feature to align the bindingbox: left,right,top,bottom,center?). I had assumed everything was updated without closing the windows.

10
General Discussion / Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« on: 2006-11-16, 10:25:11 PM »
Still here =]

 I've been poking around the lastest version the past couple days. Thanks to the test project/experimenting with it I shouldn't have any problems building/testing a tileset.

 I'll see about putting the improved shfl set together. It's rather disorganized at the moment but somewhere in there is something usable so I'm currently sorting through it. I'll see about updating whats there to take advantage of some of new things that can be done in sgdk2. I've got some interesting ideas for the graphics to try out after the bulk of the existing work it is sorted/completed. I'm not sure how long it'll take but I'll see what I can get done on it over the next month or so.

 Is there going to be a way to change the opacity of a tile, perhaps in the frameset editor? Hue, saturation, luminance? If not then in engine/runtime?. I ask so I know what I need to render on the tilesheets vs. what to do in the SGDK2 environment. I know I can flip, rotate, resize and combine multiple tiles. Though I can't seem to both combine a number of tiles and animate it at the same time, example: an object blinking over a few static images as 1 tile animation.

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Game Development Artistry / Concept art & character sketches
« on: 2006-04-21, 04:16:01 PM »
Do you sketch out concept art before commiting to your final game art? If so post it here =]

For modern 3d games its pretty much essential. You can get away without doing much, if any concept art for some simplistic 2d games. However it may have played a bigger part in your favorite title than you realize. The goal of concept art is to show the possibilites, personalities, environments, etc before commiting to actual game art and code. In a commerical setting it may be what gets you the green light to futher pursue the project. Anyway I thought it might be a good topic for this forum. So please share your Ideas and concepts =]  I don't care if you think it seems crude, rough, etc.... post it anyway. Just try to visualize various portions of the games you intend to build.

I'm attaching a character sketch. I doubt I'll be using it for a game but the same principals apply. Had it been intended for a 3d game I would have also added a front and back view (for 3d modeling the charactor).

12
Game Development Artistry / Re: Are these graphics any good.
« on: 2006-03-31, 07:24:45 PM »
The problem with your background color involves understanding some color theory. To be honest its one of my weaker subjects but it is so very important. Anyway... I'm just going to copy paste a bit on a document I was writing for this section. I've been slacking around here but this is a small peice of my framework document from which to expand into specifics.

paste:
__________________________
This is by no means a complete explanation as color theory is a complex subject. However I will list a few basics and related topics to consider when employing color theory in your game art.


Warm (yellow-red) colors & more saturated colors will naturally come to the foreground while cool (blue-green) colors & less saturated colors will recede into the background. The same is true of contrast. More contrast comes forward while less recedes. Keep this in mind while designing your foreground, background layers and also elements that require the players attention.



Typically your background layers should have less saturation, less contrast, less detail and often times, but not necessarily use cooler colors than your foreground layer. With these factors we are creating a sense of depth while putting our attention on the player and what he/she needs to see & do. Combined with parallax scrolling the illusion of depth can be quite powerful. You should study some 2d existing games to get a feel for this. Plenty of screen shots can be found through google images.



Note: If the end user is constantly straining their eyes to find elements of focus from the background or surroundings it will become a frustrating, unpleasant experience. If a game's graphics make the goals unclear or worse causes eye fatigue how long would you keep playing it?
___________________________
http://poynterextra.org/cp/colorproject/color.html - Flash tutorial, probably the best I've seen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory - It's a bit dry ad technical but still full of usefull information.


Looking at your last screen shot... the vines, which are in front of the trees are very hard to see against the tree line. Try using a brighter or warmer green on vines. You could also add some blue into the tree green.

You have an issue with your objects appearing flat. This is because you know no defined light source. Typically in platformers you will find that the light source comes in at a 45 degree angle from the top left. For the tree trucks that means a spotlight close to the left side and a shadow on the right. You may want to cheat in a secondary lightsource to highlight the far side of the tree trucks. Getting the lighting right is more important than adding detail. It may be a 2d game but dont think 2-dimensionally... even in cartoons there is a simplified light source.. light and shadow give form.

You've added a lot of texture to your trees (leafy part) in order to mak them more interesting. However they are still flat. Again this is because you need a defined light source. If you are going for a realistic approach this will be kinda tough however with simplified lighting (think of the green areas as somewhat sphereical) the light would spotlight in top left with shadow on the farside.

While not perfect by any means you can look at the forset tileset demo. Even there, like you, I applied a texture to make them less bland. However, there are 3 shades of green in the leafy trees... spotlight, ambient, shadow so to speak.

In beginner art classes/school among the first things you do is build a color wheel and draw/shade cones,boxes and spheres. As boring as that can be these fundementals really effects everything you create.

Your animation on your lizard, the walk cycle could use some work. While I'm tempted to get deep into that its not the most pressing matter and not even a bad attempt. There was a thread I would link to on the old exboard forums but I think those got damaged? Anyway hope this was useful. =]

13
This is a late reply however a point of concern...

okay, what if I wanted my character to follow slopes(tilt)? From the SGDK2 demos I gather there is rotation of tiles but what about realtime rotation of sprites? I would think rotating the collision box would come into play but maybe not.

Otherwise geometry based sounds good to me, considering I can controll the size of the collsion area to the sprite. Usually per pixel collsion isnt noticable. If the area is sizable & independant of the sprite hills should no longer preset an issue (walking on air).

There are still many related issues to bring up.. mostly combination of collision detection,vector data and phyisics model. Tethered objects, birdges that bow with the player on them, etc.

14
Game Development Artistry / Re: drawing characters
« on: 2006-03-31, 07:15:55 AM »
I remember trying povray, almost 10 years ago... all text based, ack. I'm not well suited for that =] Movray makes it easier but it's still hard for me. Zbrush in an amazing tool I ran acorss thx to a short lived forum member, polaris. Its the closest thing to digital clay I know of, which is far more intuative for me. The price isn't bad but its still too much for me right now. You can't save your models with the demo but its amazing to work with non the less. I've been thinking about selling models to the poser community (renderosity.com) to recoup the purchase price. You have to bon the models with another program, however as I understand it that feature will be in the next version making it an all in compassing modeling tool.

Post goes off topic kinda but being the artistry forum I think it fits in.

15
Game Development Artistry / Re: Are these graphics any good.
« on: 2006-03-31, 07:02:22 AM »
wow... just wow. This thread makes me ill. I planned a longer post, with crits but this is all I can muster at the moment.

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