WayForward Contest #3: Background artist (tiling)

[Captain Blood]

Ok, now I'm more confused.  We doing the exact place in the photo right?  Or do we get to do just any sort of street based location? Saying this cos as good as Helm's piece is, it doesn't look a thing like the photo...

I'm wasting all my competiton time, not getting this...

[AdamTierney]

From the instructions:

"Create a background in the same perspective as the Double Dragon map above, adapting elements, color themes and details from the above photo (basically, making a game background of the scene in that photo)."

- Adam

[Helm]

Helm, that looks incredible, but shouldn't you try to use more shades of color? I mean, you have the option and 2D-games generally don't look like that anymore.

This is a restriction-based skillbuilder, for me. I spent as much time making the art as I did trying to make it fit in 40 tiles. Therefore, I place conservation on all fronts very high in my to-do list for this image. Adam wants to see conservation, without the image suffering, I show him conservation without the image suffering. 'Many colours == more interesting image to look at' is an illusion. I've trained for years on how to unify palettes that have very disparately tinted slots, and this is what I do here too. Every end of the colour spectrum is represented, reds, greens, blues, yellows, purples and browns.

Plus, given that I have only 40 tiles, adding more colour to some of them would create many problems of cohesion and reusability of the tiles, no?

[AdamTierney]

I think Helm did a wonderful job. There's definitely that spectrum to go back and forth on - to decide whether to favor a high-detail high-color background like his, or favor simplicity for a greater object count and more obvious color variation. Either method (or a combination of the two) works fine and what's nice about such a low tile limit is it really forces the artist to make these considerations instead of having the best of all worlds.

- Adam

[Ryumaru]

lovin the shiny sidewalk helm
ive started an entry, but i have basically no idea where im going with it.

[sharprm]

Here's my more rule conforming attempt. The whole image is only in 16 colors. Its on a hill btw.





In case the jpeg looks bad on people's computers:
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e199/sharprm/back1.gif

[vierbit]

Some nice entries so far

Here is my background
This contest fits more my abilitys than the last.


The street looks a little monotonous because the lack of unique tiles.
4 palettes, I dont no why someone need up to 10 for this one.

maybe add a hud and some random bad guys in the scene.

[flaber]

ehh perhaps ill try this one too...

who knows i might do better on this than the last one

[Helm]

vierbit, excellent entry!

[ptoing]

Vierbit, that is quite a solid entry there Glad to see more people like me and helm that like restrictions
Kinda has an Amiga vibe to it.

I really want to make one as well, Have to find some time after work!

[Blick]

Saimon, your building is flat. It should project backwards at a 45 degree angle. Remember that tiles that are flipped horizontally, in this case, don't count as more tiles. Use that among your best judgement to collapse a couple tiles to make more that actually show the side of the foreground building.

[Turbo]

For the horde!



Nice contest! motivated me to finish a tileset (first one here). It's fun to see the whole thing together in the end, after spending all that time looking just at the just small parts . Hope there aren't any errors, i don't know if GGale has grid-snapping abilities, so it was mostly eyeballed while assembling the mockup. 35 colors, some used only in a couple of spots. Took me like 10 hours (i'm slooow). I was going to do the whole street sloped (and a city bg with sky and pretty tiled clouds), but realised that i couldn't make it work into the tile budget.

Edit: oops, noticed a few stray pixels. Fixed.

[flaber]

Saimon, your building is flat. It should project backwards at a 45 degree angle. Remember that tiles that are flipped horizontally, in this case, don't count as more tiles. Use that among your best judgement to collapse a couple tiles to make more that actually show the side of the foreground building.

doesnt have to be 45 degrees. im using kinda an altered 45.. but yes, it should be angled in some manner

[neverest]

I have never really been a fan of this perspective, but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway.
I'll no doubt edit this further:

EDIT: I removed this version to avoid confusion.

[jalonso]

Hello my name is jalonso and I'm an.... oops wrong forum. I am posting early since I'm a bit n00bish and hoped if there are technical errors I could fix them before the deadline.
This is the entry I wish to submit



Tiles and colors used


I submit these different versions because the rules stated "fully realized world". I will remove if needed.

[vedsten]

excellent contest! quite challenging and great fun
kinda miss-used a couple of tiles so i might go back and tweak it a bit (same goes for colors ~ i could save a few), but this is more or less my finalized attempt:





40 tiles (suprise, suprise), 31clrs overall, missed the colorramp part of the rules, but i should be fine, ill post 'em when i summon the energy to make 'em

thanks to adam for doing those contests, great to see all the different styles and interpretations it spawns, might dew another one

[David]

Yours is definitely my favorite, vedsten.

[GOODNIGHTdestroyer]

You guys are all so good, i'm so discouraged from even attempting this.

[Miguel]

Great work Vedsten, I really like how you used your tiles to make the scene.

[Crazy Asian Gamer]

Oh crap. Now I have to work harder. 
GraphicsGale does have tile snapping capabilities, Turbo. Just turn on a 16x16 grid, and there is a button that says "Grid-Snapping". You can basically select 16x16 squares (or larger, in those increments), and then, you can copy them, and wherever you move your tiles, it'll be snapping to the 16x16 grid. It works for any other dimension as well, depending on what grid you set up first.
vierbit has me rootin' for him. vedsten's has total sweetness. TakaM's not bad as well.
Helm's has some sexy colors. Ptoing's is nice.

[vierbit]

A update


-fixed the the street tiles
-added some details
-change colors
-here and there some minor changes

[Dhaos]

@Helm: Pimpin' colors. All hail the Yus bird! *worships*

@Vedsten: I swear your entry looks like a cleaner version of terranigma's world... Awesome work!

@Vierbit: I really love your entry. Great details, great color, excellent composition. You're making me jealous *pouts*.

[Tremulant]

I almost didn't enter 'cause of all the sexy, but I decided this afternoon to give it a go after all:

40 tiles, 22 colours, if I'm not mistaken. Kinda bland results, but fun to pixel all the same Oh well, guess I have a week to play with it before the deadline...
everyone else's are looking great!

EDIT:
Here's a mockup:

I thought about making my background more cluttered, like the ref pic, but then I decided I liked it simple

EDIT(again):
Changed the tiles (and mockup) slightly. Now people over 3 feet tall can use the doors!

[Turbo]

Hey, thanks, Crazy Asian Gamer! I'll look into that, guess i didn't look hard enough the first time. Good luck with you entry!

[Blick]

Vedsten: I just have to say I love the clever use of sky tiles in the shop windows.

Tremulant: You should probably mix up your palette more. It feels very bland as is.

Jalonso: You have a lot of room to add colors, I would suggest adding some to bring more life to the street and buildings. The signs don't do it enough. The scale of the image is also very small.

[Alex Hanson-White]

bleh..

[Lick]

Alex, that's amazing! Love it!! Really do!! You might want to tone down the road-colors though.

[vedsten]

wasn't too happy about anything but the tiling in my last entry, so thought i'd give a new one a quick go:




(the colorramps are made afterwords, so they're pretty fucked up, 27 clrs overall)

the tiling in the first one was way better, and im not too happy with it overall, so i hope i'll have the time to redo the coloring my first entry
~thx for all the comments

[Faktablad]

Wow, we've got some great ones coming through here. 

@vedsten: I'd say your first submission is the most aesthetically pleasing for me; It works very well as a background.  The colors preserve the detail while keeping it second in importance to the sprites that will go in there.  Not too much detail, just right.  The second one doesn't work as well for me; The outlines and dark, bold colors pop it out a bit too much.  It still shows some amazing technical detail, though.  Great entries.  I love your style.

@Alex Hanson-White: The composition of the street is very, very well done.  You keep great visual interest with your tiles, I just love the changes in elevation and the street twisting away into the background.  I like the colors, they give off a classic "summer street brawl" feeling.  Really no crits here.

@Tremulant: The bland colors and lack of stimulating details bring down the excitement of the piece.  Definitely breathe some life into the colors and use the tiles for all they're worth.  In the mockup, there's a little too much space above the fighters' heads.  Keep going, man.

@vierbit: Gosh, your details are so cool.  Beautiful colors, except maybe those window teals...they aren't too appealing.  Quite the solid entry; The details are amazing.

@jalonso: The world you've created with your tiles is very hard to grasp.  The same colors are used pretty much everywhere, and the textures make it hard to distinguish brick from door from window from road from sky.  The signs, though creatively made, only add to the confusion.  Also, the world is a bit too small to support fighter sprites with fully articulated moves.

@neverest: It's very technically well done.  However, the colors/style aren't quite enough to distinguish it from the other entries.  But the basic details are all there, and it's got a solid area to work from.

For all of you guys, I'd love to see more of what jalonso did: taking the tiles and making different rearrangements.  Though I don't really have any importance in this contest, It'd be great for me and WayForward to see what can be done with the tilesets--I'd love to see some other realizations.  Well done everyone.

[Schu]

After deleting 5 times I've decided on this and I'm finally pleased, albeit a little sparse...


(40 tiles, 32 colours)

...but after a snickers bar, some ice cider and a lot of Jrock on my winamp:

It seems functional at least.

Vedsten - Your first one was so nice, it was truly my favourite. There was just some weird thing going on with the brick of that back building though, I couldn't tell if it was a slanty, attached piece or if it was going behind the front building. But I have to say, I liked that one so much more than your new one (Though also cool, but too dark for my personal taste...it doesn't seem finished so I'm reserved in commenting more on it).

Alex Hanson-White - I like yours as well I kind of imagine little dudes skateboarding down around on it.
------
Schu

[jalonso]

@ Blick and Faktablad
Thanks for the c+c, I will rework and re-submit before the deadline. It seems I read the directions very differently than everyone else. n00bitis.

[baccaman21]

Woh... Double Dragon... blast fromn the past... Wigfod!!!

I did this on the spectrum back in 87... ha ha haah...

[Tremulant]

Ok, one more try. Palette probably still sucks, but I couldn't figure it out so this is what came of it.
Scenes:

Street level                                              Rooftops

An assload of colors, but only 38 tiles. The sky is hiddeous No more time though, so this is where it ends. First one was better.

[Niss]

whao that's fun. so far I've used up 36 tiles and 13 colors
Hopefully I will find some more time to tweak this. Well anyways here it is>>

and the tiles>>


helm: man your colors are remarkable! Looks a bit like crayons or something. Master of sexy greys you are

vedsten: Very much liked your first one. Smooth and lovely.


Great contest Adam. Thank you.

[Turbo]

and the tiles>>

HOLY that's sweet! Teh colors rule! And bricks! Me like

A larger tileset (using 2 or more tiles for each element like doors and windows) allows for more detail, but limits the variety you can introduce with the tileset. The majority of people seem more inclined into doing that apparently... I'm noticing that everyone's picking just a couple of elements from the picture, like the signs and doors/windows, and forgetting the general look of the street (i don't see any bricked walls on these buildings except on the corners, yet most everyone's going that way. And doing night shots and stuff).

Just a rant.

[balam]

looking good...

[baccaman21]

"What's with the 16x16 tiles? GBA has 8x8 tiles natively and i am pretty sure you can flip horizontally and vertically and it's still the same tile, no matter how you flip it (noflip / x / y / x,y = same tile). You can not rotate tho. and why only 10 palettes and not the full 16? I guess reserve for hud or something? Could you clarify?"

When we build levels, we do so with 8x8 tiles but 16x16 matrixes. Level building is done in 16x16's not 8x8s. Horizontal flips do not eat up additional tiles, but vertical do - that's GBA. As for the 10 pallette rows, that's just the number I decided on.

I just checked the AGB documents (official Nintendo guide to GBA Specs) and tiles CAN be flipped BOTH horizontal and vertical unless you use background modes which allow rotation and scaling, in which case you can not flip tiles at all.

This only horizontal flip thing is simply not true, whoever told you that is talking out of their ass.

And personally i think limiting yourself to 16x16 tiles when in the end it will be 8x8 tiles is a bit silly.

example:


4 8x8 tiles. Using hv flipping i made 12 16x16 tiles and there are way more possibilities. Calling this 12 tiles is silly because the gba handles them as 4 tiles and not 12. Using your restrictions you are not using the possibilities of your tiles to the fullest.

If the restriction is just to test how artists can cope with them i guess it's ok, but using stuff that makes sense for the platform you work on would make more sense imo.

I totally agree with ptoing here... I was gonna mention about horizontal AND verticle flips... but I guess ptoings already said it...

[neverest]

thanks for the crits Faktablad, I finally got the patience to spend a while making it a bit less ugly. I may tweak it some more yet though.





40 tiles, 32 colours.

[Faktablad]

Oh wow, excellent improvement.  It looks 100% better.  Well done.

[Niss]

FINAL thing
just a few color tweaks and 2 new tiles. That's it
pic>>

tiles>>


oh and 13 colors

[baccaman21]

FINAL thing
just a few color tweaks and 2 new tiles. That's it
pic>>

tiles>>


oh and 13 colors

Hi niss...

The amount of colors your using really shows, (in a negative way) - I think that one of the technicle points of this excercise is to demonstrate the understanding of using mulitiple pallettes across a character mapped image. Background development on GBA isn't the same as producing a sprite that may (or may not depending) be in 16 colors.

Each Character square can consist of 16 colors taken from a bank of 16 pallettes making a total of 256 color indexes. Certain restrictions are applied prior to development (depending on what else you may want to display on the screen using the screen pallette) so it's generally a good a idea to keep your color use as economic as possible. But I think 13 colors is perhaps a little too economic.

If you have a look at neverest's post you will see how he/she has arranged 4 'banks' of 16 colours.

A good Background artist needs to understand this. Color sharing across banks is also important if you want to blend from one pallette range to another. This is also demonstrated in neverest's image, although he/she has taken full advantage of this sharing which is evident in the straight edges - (having said that it's nice work)

he says..."Each tile can have a maximum of 15 colors in it (this is one 'pallette row'). The scene can have a maximum of 10 different pallette rows across all tiles"

This means you can have 10 banks of 16 (or 15 as adam more correctly puts it) colors. 150 colors in total.

It's a shame as you've made such a good effort but I think you perhaps misunderstood Adam's description?


I've just had a look at a few of these images and it seems that the pallettes aren't arranged well in a number of them?


I hope it's not just me but the majority of these backgrounds don't conform to a GBA pallette structure. Now, call me mean but in my opinion, regardless of how good they look should any of these go through for consideration?! I am mean aren't I? but I've read the rules and the reason why I didn't enter is because I know how tediously complicated background development can be with regards to making the pallettes work correctly across the character squares and tiles (someone in the know back me up on this one - Ptoing? Adam!?) - if this comp was purely on asthetics then most of these are strong contenders, but as is so often the case people overlook the underlying technicle elements because you can't SEE them... or because they don't understand... but take it from me it's important to understand... particularly if you want to win this contest.... or more importantly making sure that the art in question would work on a GBA!? which in most cases here present... they wouldn't...

yes I am mean aren;t I!?

[baccaman21]

I like this one the most... just curious to know what the pallettes look like...

Damn my version of Promotion won't load PNG's anymore!! GRRRR!?!

[Niss]

Nope I think I got Adam right - just happen to be such a color count(yeah I understood the palletebank thing - not so complicated).
Just have to step back from it for a day - can't judge mine properly without some distance(too late for the deadline maybe but I like to tweak and improve my pics over time...)

[hondo]

I've got mine done.  I tried to capture the feel of looking down the street like in the example.  I'm pretty happy with it ^_^  I grouped all my 40 tiles on the left and made sure each tile had only 15 colours.  Then, just because I'm anal, I grouped the tiles that used a specific pallet together so it'd be easier to see what I've done.  Five pallets in total.  I must say the I cranked though my 40 tiles super fast and had to go back and optamize a lot before the final result.

I think I got all this right.



If I had to pick wich ones like the best I'd say that Schu and Vedsten are tops.

Good work everyone. ^_^

[baccaman21]

excellent work hondo.

You demonstrate the notion of the task well. Particularly with regards to what I've been saying about pallettes (see my previous post on pallette ordering...) Do you think you could process your work again bearing in mind the color grouping you've demonstrateed on the right of your submitted image?

In other words, actually set up the five pallettes you have highlighted and remap each tile into the relevant pallette and then finally rebuild the image?

This would be the final step you need in order to make the image 'GBA legal' - as it stands right now, the GIF image I'm looking at the pallettes amount to 3 rows - amounting to 41 colors, with all color 0's of those banks being used...

Aside from the underying techinical crit... it's looking very nice and cleanly pixeled.

good work fella...

(go on... try palletting it properly... It's not that hard and you're 90% of the way there already!)

Good Luck...

Pete

PS... If you don't palletize it I may give it a whirl in the morning...

[neverest]

I dont understand this: "In other words, actually set up the five pallettes you have highlighted and remap each tile into the relevant pallette and then finally rebuild the image?"
at all. What is it exactly we need to change?

[Conceit]

man, the content is too good, I'm gonna give it a whirl but I'm not sure I'll submit because I'm not sure I'd even make it to 3rd

great stuff in here, I'm impressed pixelopolis =)

Neverest: well, let's being by the beggining, do you know how to edit a gif's pallete?

[Schu]

Say... I don't mean to sound rude or anything, and I'm sure we all appreciate you lending your knowledge and help but I'm starting to feel like this technical stuff about pallettes and GBA legality is really starting to kill any fun factor of this contest and might be scaring away others who haven't submitted their entries yet...
-----
Schu

[Conceit]

well, baccaman IS a little out of place, much like I was in the popeye challenge in that he IS making valid truthful points, but it is not his place to be telling people how they're supposed to make their entries for the contest since however truthful his points may be they might just not be Adam's intention.

but In all honesty I think baccaman IS doing it purely to help people have a better chance at winning. in my oppinion if you want a real chance at the prize you DO need to be pallete-row aware.

[vedsten]

-----------------------------------------------------------------

ENTRY A   /   ENTRY B    /   ENTRY C

-----------------------------------------------------------------

                   

                                     

~31 colors; 40 tiles, 7 paletterows / ~27 colors; 40 tiles, 5 paletterows / ~14 colors; 40 tiles, 1 paletterow

______________________________________

"I like this one the most... just curious to know what the pallettes look like... "

- thx, palette rows are now included

"Vedsten - Your first one was so nice, it was truly my favourite. There was just some weird thing going on with the brick of that back building though, I couldn't tell if it was a slanty, attached piece or if it was going behind the front building. But I have to say, I liked that one so much more than your new one (Though also cool, but too dark for my personal taste...it doesn't seem finished so I'm reserved in commenting more on it)."

- the back building's supposed to "pop" out, the odd lines are there to preserve tiles, it's a re-use, and though ill have to admit it looks a tad odd when you look at it for too long and zoom in, t shouldn't be too noticeable (or that, atleast, was the plan ^^), i agree, the second one's too dark, i actually tried making a pisece w. alot of contrast, cuz im pretty bad at it, and thus ~ i failed misrablely ^^, btw, quite the nifty entry you've submitted

"@vedsten: I'd say your first submission is the most aesthetically pleasing for me; It works very well as a background.  The colors preserve the detail while keeping it second in importance to the sprites that will go in there.  Not too much detail, just right.  The second one doesn't work as well for me; The outlines and dark, bold colors pop it out a bit too much.  It still shows some amazing technical detail, though.  Great entries.  I love your style."

-Glad you like the first one, agree on your comments on the second ^^


Thx for the comments, and thx for the contest, excellent training!