NES Dev Collaborative Fighting Game

[Bregalad]

Oh my those 3 last sprites looks *so cool* !!

And yeah dithering doesn't look any good when animated. Or you must make it with care so that the dithering pattern is the same in all animations ?
As much as I like Street Fighter, we must know from the start that NES is not SNES. When punching, there is no reason the bottom part of the body moves significantly, this should be a waste of memory. And yeah, all moves have to be extensively eggagerated to look normal. If you make moves that looks normal it will look like the character barely moves. Oh and sprites from SFA2 are better than those from the original SF2, in case of.

[Celius]

The dithered one isn't so bad, it actually kind of reminds me of GB games like Donkey Kong Land or Gameboy Camera. Maybe I just think it's good for nostalgic reasons, I don't know.

Anyways, I think the right most animation looks pretty good, though I think it needs some more non-computed work. It would be nice to have some sort of editor where you could flip back and forth between animations while editing, so you could really fine tune every frame of animation. I would add some highlights, and possible make it so he isn't yellow. I see that making him the usual skin tone would probably screw some of the shading up, so you'd have to put in some of the brown in place for the original shading.

[UncleSporky]

The dithered one isn't so bad, it actually kind of reminds me of GB games like Donkey Kong Land or Gameboy Camera. Maybe I just think it's good for nostalgic reasons, I don't know.

Anyways, I think the right most animation looks pretty good, though I think it needs some more non-computed work. It would be nice to have some sort of editor where you could flip back and forth between animations while editing, so you could really fine tune every frame of animation. I would add some highlights, and possible make it so he isn't yellow. I see that making him the usual skin tone would probably screw some of the shading up, so you'd have to put in some of the brown in place for the original shading.

It was NES skin tone in the editor, I swear.

But really I was just doing it for a mockup, to test different styles and see what we might be looking at once it's up and running. Doing it by hand, pixel by pixel at the right size will always look much better than reducing existing graphics.

[Celius]

I think actually the best way to go about it is to trace reduced models. I'm doing this for my game where I draw the models on paper by hand, and just scan them, scale them, and trace them. Of course, lots of times, I have to trace over them with thick outlines before I scale them because sometimes the scale is so drastic (going from like 600x800 to 24x32 type of stuff) that when you shrink it it is hardly recognizable. Actually, more often than not I have to do multiple trace-and-scales. I shrink it to 25%, trace it, shrink it again, trace, etc. I get some decent results though:



The top right corner has a really really quick sketch that's scanned, and then next to it is where I traced over it with a thick outline. I had to scale it down to the larger size, then down to the smallest size, as is seen in the bottom left corner. The only thing that sucks is the finger pointing. It's rather hard to get it to look right.

EDIT: Sorry about the page width stretching; I'll fix that in a sec.

EDIT 2: Updated image so it wasn't stretching the page to be so wide.

[Bregalad]

Mmh, I often draw stuff by hand, and draw at pixel art without scanning or anything, because I find it's worthless. I often end up with different results, but I don't really care - as long as they look decent.

[Petruza]

hey I can't vote. Is the poll closed?

[UncleSporky]

hey I can't vote. Is the poll closed?

Judging by the first post it was open for two weeks back in November.

[Bregalad]

Well, err.... anyone to start something serious npw ?

It seems in the poll big sized characters wins, but by a very close match. So I'd say let's go with averagly-big-sized characters in mind, right ?

[Celius]

I agree on having average sized characters. The problem is is I'd like to suggest 3.5x6 tiles in size, but there's no using 3.5 tiles; it'd have to be either 3x6 or 4x6. Is that too small?

[Bregalad]

4x6 sounds like a great size to me. It would allow the character to still be chiby/cute deformed (head is more than 1/7 of the body) but not too much either (usually in games head can get as big as 1/2 of the body).

Also this would allow the 1 character 2-layered sprite & 2nd character 1 layer sprite + 1 layer BG sheme introducted by Bananmos.

[egfelixdcg]

Seems like many people are interested in making pixel art. The more the better. I'd like to contribute animations too, I can do it to any character at any size, any amount of frames(preferably few, otherwise it would take too long). But anyway the sprites can be non animated nor detailed during the programming. Quick done images, and if the main gameplay gets done, then add detail and frames to the images. So you don't waste talent in something that is not clear if it will be ever finished, until the phisics and moves get done. Look at my only decent finished game(Game Maker): http://snowmoons.com/downloads.php?cmd=get_file&id=641
The graphics and animations was the last thing done. Before that, there was just two images of Felix (one with the pressure against the floor) and a lot of different colored and sized rectangles to represent enemies, floor items, etc. because I never knew if I was going to finish it or leave half way through in favor of another project.
I'll see if I can do something about this fighting game with rushed images in Game Maker, then I'll show it to you so we can discuss the changes, and eventually, when everybody likes it, someone can adapt it to the 6502 language, because I'm pretty newcomer to that.

[Bregalad]

But anyway the sprites can be non animated nor detailed during the programming. Quick done images, and if the main gameplay gets done, then add detail and frames to the images. So you don't waste talent in something that is not clear if it will be ever finished, until the phisics and moves get done.

Well, I don't really agree.

I'd say I'm not programming anything before I have good graphics and animation for the game I'm programming, because I don't want to waste my programming talent for a game that is never going to be finished.
In my current game I'm making, the thing that causes me most problems right now are the graphics. Programming is easier than doing graphics in my opinion (I know many people don't agree, but the same task isn't the same difficulty for everyone). I wish I had done all graphics first.

So your logic doesn't really hold I think.

[tepples]

But don't you need animations as a reference for setting the hit boxes?

[egfelixdcg]

Maybe you are right Bregalad, it's a matter of preference.

But don't you need animations as a reference for setting the hit boxes?

Just have a quick drawing of the fighter in the punching pose, and set the hitbox in the arm, this image would be still during the needed few frames. When the greater part of the programming is complete, the punching animation gets done and you modify the hitbox adjusting it to the frames in wich the fist hasn't reached the extreme.

[egfelixdcg]

I managed to do something: http://snowmoons.com/downloads.php?cmd=get_file&id=717

zip includes an executable and an editable game maker 5 file. Screenshot:

By tinytoonboy at 2009-03-24

You can walk and jump with the arrow keys. By now only a simple punch with key Z. The grid around the characters(representing the tiles) will be removed, I just thought it was ok by now.

I think now we can continue discussing the game and change/add things.