DWLlama arts and stuff

[dirtywhitellama]

I've no idea whatsoever what you are referring to by "young warthog graphics" unless you are just teasing about the proportions of my deer.


Anyway I put another hour or so into reworking the heck out of it tonight. I tried with light from the top right and it just didn't look right, searched around for reference images and all the references I found for light/shape that weren't either way, way too high contrast (IE sunset) or way too low contrast (very little shape defined by light at all) had the light on the upper left...so that's what I used. I think he has a little better deer-shape now. oh, and his antlers are seen from something resembling the same angle now, too made his neck longer and made his near-side hind leg less contorted and broken (in other words his knee is no longer stabbing him in the side at the same time as his ankle is thrown way out to the side) and tidied the far-side hind leg up a little so the pose didn't look as extreme in relation to the rest of the changes I made. lighting on the legs was difficult as the majority of the deer I found pictures of had little to no lighting (by which I mean noticeable highlight and shadow in contrast) on the legs. So I guess deer legs don't get highlight much, so I put brighter highlights only in a few key spots, and not so bright as on his back and shoulders.


Anyway enough with my changelog critique away!


Edit: fixed 2 pixels that were bugging me on his rump. reuploaded.

[homunculus]

The warthogs are here.
Please pay attention that they are somewhat old, and tsi probably didn't know of using a [acronym=Limited palette means: as few different shades of a color as possible = only as much shades as needed. Usually it is too few shades if some smoother gradients start to appear as angular shapes because the eyes/brain enhances the line of contrast if areas of same color are wider than 3 pixels.]limited palette[/acronym] for sprites, etc.
Also, I do not agree with tsi about some of the shading as he did it back then, I guess he would do a lot better now (assuming it was not some kind of artistic decision).

As I see that, rather than being helpful, I have confused you with the shaded balls, I made some partial initial shading on the tusker the way I understand shading (not beyond criticism, as always).
Some noise makes the rough fur look better, but I did it smooth (and please don't notice the black outlines).

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If you select by color, you should be able to see what point of the sphere some shade was picked from.
And also, you should be able to see that I have used some lines along the sphere that correspond to the lines along the belly, for example.

The balls were not really meant to be used as a replacement for body shading, but as a reference.
The deer still seems not to have any back width, and it seems to have a hump on the back.

If the back is horizontal it should be the same shade as the topmost point of the sphere (which is where the vertical axis passes through the top of the sphere).
For illustration where using a part of a shaded sphere directly might be considered, is the belly of the tusker (the one with the green belly).

I did some trigonometry about shading a sphere a while back, and found that a reasonable 45-degrees-south-east shaded reference sphere can be drawn by a radial gradient from lit side of the sphere, at 1/3 radius distance from the edge of the sphere, to the corresponding point on the shadow side (1/3 from edge again).
Those two points would be the brightest spot for diffuse lighting and the start of flat shadow.

I don't know, maybe all this is confusing, and relying on shading in a reference picture and trying to 'punch pixels until it looks right' is the thing you will need to do instead.
At least I hope the sphere might be a reference if the result of punching pixels does not look right.

As for the coordinate axis, the antlers look great, except the tips of the first horns right on top of the head are still not aligned with the rest.
Edit: another look at it, both the spot where the antlers start on the top of the head and the first horns are in side perspective.

[thespaceinvader]

Yeah, I updated those when I did Meridia, they look a bit better now.

[melinath]

Oooh. More animal sprites. Excellent. I'd like to use this in a campaign someday.

This isn't really "artistic" criticism, but in terms of conforming to Wesnoth sprite styles, you should have a look at this wiki page about sprite shadows. Basically, the style is no longer feathered black.

[dirtywhitellama]

As for the coordinate axis, the antlers look great, except the tips of the first horns right on top of the head are still not aligned with the rest.
Edit: another look at it, both the spot where the antlers start on the top of the head and the first horns are in side perspective.

I couldn't relocate the image I mainly used as reference for perspective on the antlers, however: those first two prongs of the antlers tend to be close enough to parallel in a majority of animals that they typically appear parallel from most angles. Also I fudged the perspective just slightly from where I wanted it to be, because the frontmost prong on the near antler completely confused the main body of the far antler when I put them where I thought they should be (not enough pixels to make it clear what was where in a given space)


As far as the shadow: it is not feathered black, it is feathered in the exact shade suggested by that same wiki page, then set to 60%. But are they not supposed to be feathered at all then?

And of course I would be happy for it to be useful to anyone. I am trying to decide if I need to do more work on the sprite as is or if it looks good enough to have a go at animating it now.

Edit: This is the main reference picture I was using. I didn't make the antlers the same shape, but that was my main reference especially for the front prongs.


Edit again:
The sprite just didn't fit in the same style as most sprites and I figured it was the lack of distinct outlines. So I gave him some and adjusted the shape of the back a little bit. The part of me that likes shading things "realistically" says it's too much, but looking at the sprite at regular size compared to without outlines, I'd say its a huge improvement! It makes it 'pop' a lot more from the background and makes it much more clear what parts are where.
Any more thoughts or comments before I try animating it?

[homunculus]

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The green lines are nicely almost parallel and in a good direction, but the red lines somehow aren't, and the first prongs 'have their own perspective'.
Most people are probably not going to look at antlers that closely, but the same also applies to other parts, like the shadow.

those first two prongs of the antlers tend to be close enough to parallel in a majority of animals that they typically appear parallel from most angles.

It was not at all about the first two prongs being parallel.

[melinath]

As far as the shadow: it is not feathered black, it is feathered in the exact shade suggested by that same wiki page, then set to 60%. But are they not supposed to be feathered at all then?

Yes, the style now is to not feather the shadow at all.

[dirtywhitellama]

Made a few adjustments to shading and outline especially in the antlers. Also a new shadow, albeit one I am not any more happy with than the last one. (if nothing else I guess I updated it to more accurately reflect my light source.)

not sure how much more I will mess with the antlers, because 1) they are not regular or symmetrical necessarily even in proper live animals and 2) there are only so many pixels with which to try and show perspective and foreshortening. the near antler should be angled a little toward us - I did make it shorter to make it hopefully look a little more "right', but it still has somewhat the same problem. also extended the antlers onto the head a little more.

[homunculus]

The antlers example was not just about the antlers.
Like shading the warthog example was not just about shading the warthog.
Is that so hard to understand?