FluxGlutton

The sprites just look too cartoonish. Another thing, it's like the monster is "morphing" when it animates... um... how do I explain this, it's like each frame was drawn from scratch with no care to how it relates to the other frames.

The thing is, the sprites won't cut the mustard in their current state. And the monster can't pass on behavior alone either, since the behavior is nothing special.

Well, an original sprite - FULLY original. I think this kind of thing should be encouraged. As for the cartoon-y vibe, it could fit with Other - I could see myself using this in a less Doom-y mod, maybe a space themed thing with slightly weird/silly enemies. I dunno, throwing it out because of the style of the sprites seems harsh when so much work has gone in, and the animation could be a helluva lot worse. Its just my 2 cents worth, but I would at least like to see this turned into an Other category monster. But im not an admin, so I just gotta suggest.

MagicWazard wrote: Still, before you do anything about the sprites, do consider whether or not you're happy with the result as it is now, and whether or not you want to change it to fit into a particular game environment.

That's good advice, but in this case I was indeed going for Doom. So, I'll go back at some point and alter it. I keep every version of a project before making a major change, so I wouldn't be losing anything, anyway.


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MagicWazard wrote: Oh, and on a technical level, the sprites are all in truecolor format (32 bits with full transparency). We generally ask for sprites in paletted/indexed format (256 colors with single-color transparency). They can be saved in a custom palette/index in order to preserve as much color depth as possible. This will also sharpen up the edges as well.

You're right. I caught this just before submitting it, but I wasn't sure if it would make a difference. Now, I see it does make a difference. The next pass I do at this monster, I'll tweak it as necessary to make it work in the 256 palette.


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Blue Shadow wrote: The sprites just look too cartoonish. Another thing, it's like the monster is "morphing" when it animates... um... how do I explain this, it's like each frame was drawn from scratch with no care to how it relates to the other frames.

If by cartoonish, you mean there's too strong of an outline around the monster, then I agree, I went too far with shading the edges. If it's something else, then please specify.

As for the lack of fidelity between frames, I'm not sure where you see that, but I can guess. Are you referring to the stomach? The idea was to have the stomach sloshing around chaotically as the monster walks, but maybe the framerate is too low to convey that... and so it just looks sloppy. If the stomach is the problem, then maybe I should go back and make all the pink spots and shading more uniform.


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skelepound wrote: Well, an original sprite - FULLY original. I think this kind of thing should be encouraged

Thanks! The amount of effort that went into this was indeed ridiculous. If there is a next time, it might be more efficient to model an original monster in 3D modeling software, and then take snapshots at different angles, and then do Photoshop edits of those snapshots. Basically, to emulate the original sprite making process. Either that, to use Flash from the start. With this monster, I started by drawing each frame in Photoshop first, and -THEN- used Flash to test the fidelity afterwards. This meant a lot of use of the Brush tool.... a lot of copy-pasting dozens of frames into Flash.... very tedious.

Has there been any progress on the sprite work?

Blue Shadow wrote: Has there been any progress on the sprite work?

I've been working on a different art project, so no. I will return to this project, sometime in this Winter. Once I return to this project, I'll likely also create a weapon drop, and add unique behaviors (with more animations).

After taking a long time off from this project, I've regained some perspective on the monster's appearance. I can see where people would find criticism in certain details of the animation. I can see how it affects pretty much all of the frames, too.

So, yeah. I haven't returned to this yet, but I'm back in the art groove now. When I resume work on this, I'll make a note of it here.

RoboticRocketeer wrote: I will return to this project, sometime in this Winter.

Based on that, I've changed the status of the submission to "On Hold".

Almost 3 years later, and the links are dead. If OP is still around, can you please reupload them?

Yep, I'm still around. The "notify by email" option is active.
Every few months or so, I still think about this project.

Gradually, the distance of time and additional practice have allowed me to see where this design needs redoing. I've come around to basically agree with Blue Shadow on this.

As for reuploading, I plan to switch domains. Until I do that, I'll have to upload these files to a GitHub account or something.
Will probably do that this weekend. I'll leave a post to confirm it, once I do.