Author Topic: Pixel school (Read 16491 times)

lief · « **on:** August 04, 2005, 01:17:49 am »

sign up here...

Evan · « **Reply #1 on:** August 04, 2005, 01:20:49 am »

Ooh, can I be the class clown?

I don't wanna be the teacher's pet.

I'll sign up. I don't have any inspiration. I'd rather pixel what people tell me.

lief · « **Reply #2 on:** August 04, 2005, 01:27:32 am »

mmmm'kay class.... drugs are bad mmmm'kay?

can you post your most recent work evan? just need to see where you are at...

Evan · « **Reply #3 on:** August 04, 2005, 01:30:57 am »

That wasn't a piece I took much time on, perse, it was just a quick 20 minute sketch for that activity thing.

lief · « **Reply #4 on:** August 04, 2005, 01:40:59 am »

post something you took time on

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #5 on:** August 04, 2005, 01:47:19 am »

Alrighty. Here's that second task.

( I will italic the keywords)

Ambient Lighting - A kind of lighiting that surrounds an object the whole object visible.

Primary Lighting - A direct kind of lighting that could point a specific point on an object but may not make the whole object visible. (Had a bit of trouble explaining this one, had to look it up)

Secondary Lighting - A kind of light that is used to define things like glass or different kind of materealized objects. (Had lots of trouble with this, didn't find anything useful so just guessed pretty much)

Color - Eh... Well... Hmmm... I'm stuck.

Luminosity - Brightness of a specific color. Goes from totally white to the different shades of the color to totally black.

Saturation - Amount of color. Usually used to define style or shading of objects.

Hue - Mix of color. (Kind of hard to explain for me) How much of a certain color is in another color. (Sounds cheesy but I tried my best)

Primary and secondary lighting are the once that I had the most problems with.

lief · « **Reply #6 on:** August 04, 2005, 02:32:03 am »

Ambient - Correct. Remember light is like lots of little rays, so it doesn't literally surround it like a gas, it more correctly hits the object from no particular direction. All light does have a source, so this light is more like second-hand light. Remember that as it bounces around it will change color/wavelength depending on what it has reflected from.
Primary - Correct. Main light. Could be sun. Could be lightbulb right above you.
Secondary - Correct. Just like a primary light, but not as strong and in a different location, usually used to create effects such as colored back lighting on objects. This can create strong moods and atmosphere in your art
Color - ill move this under the other 3
Luminosity - Nearly. Goes from black to the full strength of a specific color. To go to white we will need...
Saturation - The intensity of a color (grey -> color). White actually has no color in it, so it requires dropping saturation to achieve the spectrum from full intensity of a color to white. high saturation colors will burn your eyeballs out, low saturation colors will give you depression.
Hue - The actual wavelength of a color... Red, Blue, Green - these are descriptors of hues... but as we have shown there is more to a color than a hue...
Color - A complete combination of Hue, Saturation and Luminosity

you were correct with both, except the glass example while usually having more highlights oftentimes this is the result of an effect called refraction.

all clear? ready to proceed?

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #7 on:** August 04, 2005, 03:10:02 am »

Think so. Let me just save a few of those terms in my brain harddrive... Processing. Loaded. Saved. Ok ready

lief · « **Reply #8 on:** August 04, 2005, 03:28:45 am »

good, do a CD backup as well.

Onto some more essentials...

Pixelled Curves and Lines

All lines have a gradient or a slope. Some are better suited to pixelling than others. These are :

From left to right: Straight, 3:1, 2:1, 1:1

Most curves can be fitted to these. Stick to these and you will have shiny clean lineart. A nice curve is constructed by stepping down through these ratios.

Draw me a small wiggle and apply these line gradient ratios to the wiggle. If you don't understand this, just draw a small wiggle, post it (approx 20 x 40) and we'll work from there.

Evan · « **Reply #9 on:** August 04, 2005, 03:46:27 am »

Uhh, a squiggle? Like, a line, or some lineFART.

Did you notice that I replaced ART with FART?

HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #10 on:** August 04, 2005, 03:54:20 am »

2 minute job

Including saving, converting to gif (+transparency) and uploading.

Helm · « **Reply #11 on:** August 04, 2005, 04:16:57 am »

Hehe okay good luck with all of this. The 'clean lineart' pixel lines are only useful for iso work and extremely low-colour spriting. Anywhere you have a few shades more, you can aa any sort of curve into cleanness but I see the point.

goat · « **Reply #12 on:** August 04, 2005, 04:32:34 am »

Quote from: Helm on August 04, 2005, 04:16:57 am

Hehe okay good luck with all of this. The 'clean lineart' pixel lines are only useful for iso work and extremely low-colour spriting. Anywhere you have a few shades more, you can aa any sort of curve into cleanness but I see the point.

Don't forget large lineart; the so-called 'perfect lines' suck megaballs for large curves.

lief · « **Reply #13 on:** August 04, 2005, 04:48:06 am »

Please kids, sit up straight while the headmaster and inspector are in the room!

Good points Helm, goat.

I feel for the small art they are doing / will be doing it will be beneficial. It also leads easily into the anti-aliasing lessons.
MIIIIISTER EVAN!! PAY ATTENTION OR GET OUT! *throws handful of pixels at evan*
very good negative. nearly top marks, poor choice for crossover point though.

Lets lead easily into the next lesson.... which is...

a practical session! draw up a small lineart, about 64 x 64 pixels on the topic of Alien Invasion (use your imagination). post it, and we'll do some C&C, then a quick introductory lesson on tone, then we'll color our pics. I'll participate as well, so you can practice your C&C skills on me. (I'll C&C you on your C&C). If you wish to get involved, please jump right in and submit a lineart.

get to it!

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #14 on:** August 04, 2005, 05:32:47 am »

You can call me NG for short

(Honestly I don't like being called Negative

)
Here is my Invasion!!
I call it Floating Icecream. Pretty original, eh?

Lmnop · « **Reply #15 on:** August 04, 2005, 06:13:14 am »

hey mr lief sir, id be interested in joining.

my latest thingymabobby.

lief · « **Reply #16 on:** August 04, 2005, 06:45:47 am »

QUICKLY!! pull up a chair!
j/k. you have some fairly solid skills already.
have you reviewed the current lessons?

your first tasks....

1. Explain briefly what happens to our color perception at night, or in low light conditions and why.
2. Get a piece of lineart made on the topic of Alien Invasion at around 64 x 64 pixels.

NG: Nice lineart. Might be too detailed for such a small piece for now, but should be OK. I'm not sure how the UfO is working.... whats the triangular piece in middle (not the beam)?

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #17 on:** August 04, 2005, 06:51:49 am »

Something like this

But with 4 triangles.
And most of the details will go away once I color.

lief · « **Reply #18 on:** August 04, 2005, 06:56:25 am »

are we looking at underneath or top of craft?

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #19 on:** August 04, 2005, 06:57:53 am »

The top of course. That's the style of design I did on the top of the UFO, but modified a bit.

Lmnop · « **Reply #20 on:** August 04, 2005, 09:56:55 am »

first thing that sprang to mind was the same thing as what NG did, so i thought id go with something different.

Godslayer · « **Reply #21 on:** August 04, 2005, 12:23:27 pm »

I'm afriad I'm to late? I've only had a years practice, and I really want more progression than I'm getting on my own.

Latest: (not including the load of 2 color drawings)

Lmnop · « **Reply #22 on:** August 04, 2005, 12:50:33 pm »

Quote from: lief on August 04, 2005, 06:45:47 am

1. Explain briefly what happens to our color perception at night, or in low light conditions and why.

At low light levels, blue and green objects appear brighter than red ones when compared to their relative brightness in stronger light. This effect is known as the Purkine Shift.In the Purkinje shift, the dark adapted eye becomes more sensitive to blue than to red as the retinal rods take over from the cones.When the light become brighter, there is another in hues, called the Bezold-Brucke effect. This causes most colours to appear less red or green and more blue or yellow as the intensity of the light source increases.

Is that adequate?

Evan · « **Reply #23 on:** August 04, 2005, 03:58:42 pm »

Quote from: lief on August 04, 2005, 04:48:06 am

Please kids, sit up straight while the headmaster and inspector are in the room!

Good points Helm, goat.

I feel for the small art they are doing / will be doing it will be beneficial. It also leads easily into the anti-aliasing lessons.
MIIIIISTER EVAN!! PAY ATTENTION OR GET OUT! *throws handful of pixels at evan*
very good negative. nearly top marks, poor choice for crossover point though.

Lets lead easily into the next lesson.... which is...

a practical session! draw up a small lineart, about 64 x 64 pixels on the topic of Alien Invasion (use your imagination). post it, and we'll do some C&C, then a quick introductory lesson on tone, then we'll color our pics. I'll participate as well, so you can practice your C&C skills on me. (I'll C&C you on your C&C). If you wish to get involved, please jump right in and submit a lineart.

get to it!

YOU NEVER FRIGGIN TOLD ME WHETHER IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LINEART OR A SQUIGGLE.

(That wasn't real anger, don't kick my ass.)

lief · « **Reply #24 on:** August 04, 2005, 10:09:45 pm »

Perceived Color at Low Light Levels

Quote

At low light levels, blue and green objects appear brighter than red ones when compared to their relative brightness in stronger light. This effect is known as the Purkine Shift.In the Purkinje shift, the dark adapted eye becomes more sensitive to blue than to red as the retinal rods take over from the cones.When the light become brighter, there is another in hues, called the Bezold-Brucke effect. This causes most colours to appear less red or green and more blue or yellow as the intensity of the light source increases.

Hey, thats slightly more in-depth than was required, but yes. Also, as the retinal rods take over almost fully (the green receptive cones are the last to give up, hence the Purkine shift) night vision becomes less color sensitive, with less perceptual hue contrast.

What this boils down to while pixelling is that in shadows, or night, or low light, the colors are not just darker. They usually lose saturation as well (or applying saturation loss is a good way to emulate the effect anyway).

Ireland, your lineart is good, and clean. The cow will be small when you color it - good luck. Your UFO is very pointy on the ends for a round object too (only by about 2 pixels i believe). See if you can fix it, if you need help let me know and I'll post an edit.

Everyone get that?

Welcome to the class Bel and Godslayer. If you have studied the thread so far, please prepare a 64x64 lineart on the Alien Invasion theme (no UFO's from now on... be creative

Quote

YOU NEVER FRIGGIN TOLD ME WHETHER IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LINEART OR A SQUIGGLE.

Evan: I said a WIGGLE not a squiggle OR lineart. Interpret it your own way, thats what art is about.

Ok, while we wait on the stragglers with lineart, first students start coloring pieces please.
If anyone would like direct or private help just PM me.

BeL · « **Reply #25 on:** August 04, 2005, 10:17:22 pm »

Hello!

I'm glad to be on board.

anyway here's my very nasty alien tentacle monster from andromeda (mmmm tentacles) good thing I did a tentacle monster and not a UFO

. I know the tentacles suck (more than the rest of the piece anyway) but I don't know how they'll look until I colour them.
oh and btw, the monster is in the sea.

BeL

lief · « **Reply #26 on:** August 04, 2005, 10:29:59 pm »

Cool idea Bel. Has potential for larger piece. Monster looks very nasty doesn't he? slightly flat, but we'll fix that with the coloring.

Students, look at Irelands work, or rather his choice of focus. See how he has focussed on one larger object? For a small image size such as 64 x 64 you will find that you quickly get cramped trying to place accurate pixels for the whole canvas. Even the best artists find it hard working on really small pieces. I'm pretty sure Mr Helm will back me up on that. (Mr Helm is the school inspector for any students who don't know him...).

These ideas all have potential, but for now we might do some modification. Bel, I want you to zoom in on the monster... get creative with the composition. Pretend you are viewing the image through a camera, looking for an action shot. "Yea baby, work those tentacles... thats it.. give me a raaah!!". Example: From behind the monster at a low angle (over shoulder shot) looking at tasty people on shore.

NG, the effect of the house being ripped from the ground is lost when the house is only about 4 pixels wide. The idea is good but won't work well on such a small scale. You zoom in, find an area that you want to focus on. Maybe the house being lifted in a bright beam of light, as aliens are pretty much patent holders on the technology there would be no doubt as to what it is caused by.

Good work so far everyone.

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #27 on:** August 04, 2005, 10:49:43 pm »

Dang, I only saw your critique on the hung of ground being torn away after I've got some coloring done. I'm not really sure by what you mean but the idea is that the aliens are using their beam to tear away the hunk of land and there happened to be an ice-cream shop on that piece of land

here is my progress. I think I over did it with the colors...

27 colors + black and white = 29

lief · « **Reply #28 on:** August 04, 2005, 11:01:39 pm »

lookin good so far, just stick with that.

Get the house brighter... there is a 10000 watt lightbulb on it at the moment... get the roof white, dark shadows under it... the grass on hunk of land bright, under hunk dark
Light the circle of land up.
Ditch the black outlining. Looking good ng...

Don't worry about color count, im not a pre-90 IBM.
(keep it under 64 for god sakes...)

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #29 on:** August 04, 2005, 11:57:20 pm »

Did another update before saw your critique. I've only done the coloring on the ship and sky for that one. For this one I did a big on the hunk and the house. I'll try your suggestion/critique.

lief · « **Reply #30 on:** August 04, 2005, 11:59:20 pm »

Work on whichever one you like more at the moment.

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #31 on:** August 05, 2005, 12:29:22 am »

Ok I got this first update. I did the grass accordingly to the sun's lighting. Then did it with lower saturation on the beam background.

Then I thought that it looked pretty bad and the beam was supposed to be a beam... not a ... dark beam $:-\$
So rather than low saturation I increased the saturation on the greens. Think it looks much better.

50 colors! How nice

lief · « **Reply #32 on:** August 05, 2005, 01:19:39 am »

Ok here are some things to step through, consider, and fix.

1. Why is the under the clump of earth being lifted highlighted? It would be in almost complete shadow, the sun is shining from behind it and a light is shining down on it from above.

2. The saturation increase is a good start. Looks very cartoony so far. What look are you hoping to achieve? Removing the outlining has improved it dramatically. Do the same for the UFO.

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #33 on:** August 05, 2005, 01:44:51 am »

Well it started out as a cartoon before the coloring bagan I think. So I'll just keep it that way. I'll fix that hunk of land and remove the outlining.

Thanks.

Alright. Here are two versions. I though that the ship looked very odd without the dark gray, what do you think?

ehwhy · « **Reply #34 on:** August 05, 2005, 02:14:45 am »

I need some help with dithering and things, so I'm joining.

Here's my alien invasion lineart. It was done quickly, so I'll probably have to work on it more.

lief · « **Reply #35 on:** August 05, 2005, 02:42:38 am »

welcome ehwhy.

you have a very good grasp of tone and composition. you have used several excellent techniques for introducing depth into images.

1. overlapping form - doing this (and make sure you overlap it the right way, kiddies) will very plainly make something look like it is in front of the other

2. atmospheric rendering - simulating the effects of the gas and particles in the atmosphere around us, and the effect they have on light as it travels to our eye. Light will actually, at different times of day take on different colors as it refracts through the atmosphere. Because of the amount of blue light that is scattered through our atmosphere this will often show up as objects in the far distance looking pale and blueish.

One more technique used (these may all just be natural, but they are still there and can be learnt from) is making the UFO objects the same color as the foreground terrain, creating the illusion by association that they also are in front of the background terrain, despite the fact there is no other way to tell this. I would suggest making one or two of the UFOs (top ones) the gray to drop it back in the image space further than the other.

I would alter the terrain on right where background and foreground meet and touch, but don't overlap. either move background up, or drop foreground down. It is where the background terrain dips down and meets the foreground terrain before moving back up.

very good job.

ng: the reason why it looks odd is because the darker gray actually darkens the entire UFO. Without it the UFO is pale, and it should be a lot darker, once again the sun is on the horizon so what is lighting the top of the UFO? It should be basically be night time up there... and we remember what happens at night don't we?

Lmnop · « **Reply #36 on:** August 05, 2005, 03:08:30 am »

hey, back with some progress on my colouring attempt.
kickass lines ehwhy.

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #37 on:** August 05, 2005, 03:22:50 am »

Quote from: lief on August 05, 2005, 02:42:38 am

ng: the reason why it looks odd is because the darker gray actually darkens the entire UFO. Without it the UFO is pale, and it should be a lot darker, once again the sun is on the horizon so what is lighting the top of the UFO? It should be basically be night time up there... and we remember what happens at night don't we?

It's a UFO you never know what it miight throw in

Common if I make it dark it won't be the same catchy effect... It has lights on top

lief · « **Reply #38 on:** August 05, 2005, 04:43:36 am »

you little smartass.

its wrong how it is. draw the lights if it has them up there, cause i can't see them.
there is no catchy effect at the moment, there is a incorrectly shaded image. add colored lights, and make it christmas time, but don't make excuses for not doing something. i am trying to help you out.

lief · « **Reply #39 on:** August 05, 2005, 04:56:42 am »

Ireland: Good job so far.
Tips:
Shade the inside of the cockpit, it will make the cow stand out more.
Where the dark shading is on left of UFO, it has a thin buffering shade. I would pull this out to fill the remainder of that panel, as that panel edge line seems to be approx 90° around from the light source.
Is there any way to fill out darker areas more, and add a secondary lightsource coming around from the back? Maybe a purple or red?
Also, around the edge of the ufo it looks sharp. Try darkening it slightly, to make it look like a flattened edge. If you are ambitious you maybe able to get a curved appearance. To do this you could simply dip the highlight down at the end so it rolls around the edge of the craft, and add a secondary shine a bit further along. How do you feel about it so far? Any troubles?

Bel: Hows yours coming along?

Lmnop · « **Reply #40 on:** August 05, 2005, 05:24:07 am »

um troubles, yeah. The whole secondary light source thing, i dont know where to begin.
When you speak of the buffering shade, what exactly are you referring to, the second darkest green before the line on the left panel, and when you say fill out hte remainder, you mean with the second green shade?
about darkening the edge, do you mean making the actual outline darker? and the secondary shine coming from the secondary light source, or are you reffering to the highlight i have in the middle of the panel and just to move that across a bit.
Excuse me if im just stupid but i didnt quite understand what you said.

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #41 on:** August 05, 2005, 05:44:44 am »

Quote from: lief on August 05, 2005, 04:43:36 am

i am trying to help you out.

I know you are, and I"m completely accepting your help. I just have no idea how to make it darker to make it look good because I would want the highlights and.... I'll try it

lief · « **Reply #42 on:** August 05, 2005, 06:23:42 am »

ireland:

reference image, may help you to understand my confusing explanation. the secondary light source should come as a couple of shades coming in from the edge indicated (starting with lighter shade at edge). Any light used should not be brighter than your existing light source however, only about as dark as the 2nd and 3rd darkest greens.

once done, we'll get some cool effects on the glass.

ng: just darken all the greys down, you will still have highlights relative to the rest of it. any other problems? i'll be gone for the weekend in half an hour.

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #43 on:** August 05, 2005, 06:35:27 am »

No, don't think so. I'll work on it though. Oh and one last question. Should I dither the whole picture? Or just the ship and the grass? Or not dither at all?

lief · « **Reply #44 on:** August 05, 2005, 06:39:16 am »

Try just the ship and grass for now. Grass will be more important though. Before you dither, move the grass lighting so it radiates out from sun position, instead of middle with the sun to the left. Its looking really good ng...

Negative Gravity · « **Reply #45 on:** August 05, 2005, 06:51:45 am »

Yeah I was thinking about that as well. Well thanks for all your help for now hehe. Have fun whereever you are going

lief · « **Reply #46 on:** August 05, 2005, 07:02:55 am »

schools out! have fun!

Lmnop · « **Reply #47 on:** August 05, 2005, 07:54:50 am »

alright thanks lief, i tried to take onboard what you said, hopefully this is a step in the right direction.
The lightsource thing looks a bit wierd, and its hard to get right.

edited secondary lightsource

BeL · « **Reply #48 on:** August 05, 2005, 08:23:53 am »

Good morning sensei! Yes.. I was actually sleeping

Anyway... you wanted an action shot... so here's your action shot

:

It's supposed to be on top of a beach and those round things are supposed to be umbrellas... I tried not to put much detail into the background but it seems dull and boring to me.

Over and out
BeL

edit::

Here it is partly colored:

(coloring tentacles is hard

)

Fredde · « **Reply #49 on:** August 05, 2005, 05:48:52 pm »

Is it to late to sign up?

News:

Author Topic: Pixel school (Read 16491 times)