2D Graphics Preview: Need Feedback

[Accname]

Hi guys,
So here i am again with a little preview of hand-made pixel graphics.
I would like to get some feedback on these.
I am not very good at making graphics but i tried to do my best to make them visually appealing.

The first image shows a space ship, once the hull from the outside and once the inside with a grid based room layout.
Every pixel was set there by hand @_@, so what do you guys say?

The other images is some icons, windowskins and miscellaneous graphics.

Each icon has a set size of 32x32 pixels, the first two are for window skins and button skins.
The next two are some misc icons i use in the menu, the final 4 icons in the row are different kinds of crosshairs, each used by a different weapon kind.
The next row consists of indices which are used together with the crosshairs to indicate the ID of the weapon the crosshair belongs to.
All other icons, row 3 and below, are icons for the various systems. These are put inside the space ship graphic above, they fill out the rooms in the grid based layout.
They will be coloured depending on their hitpoints ranging from green to red.

Here is a legend (from top to bottom, from left to right):
1st Row:
1). Stockroom
2). Cockpit
3). Life Support (O² and radiator)
4). Radar and sensor array.
5). Communications and hacking.
6). Security
7). Generator
8). Engine

2nd Row:
1). Quarters
2). Shield-Generator
3). Med-Bay
4). Hangar (For drones, probes and transports/fighters)
5). Hull (For the interface)

3rd Row:
1). Coilgun (Shooting Bolts)
2). Rocket launcher
3). Grenade launcher
4). Burst Laser
5). Pulse Laser
6). EMP-Cannon
7). Bombs/Mines

4th Row:
1). Bolts for the Coilgun (as shown in the inventory)

Here is an example of a window with a button how it would look like in the game:

The Font used is "System", the same which is used by the native command line of windows.

I would greatly appreciate any feedback.

 

[tom_mai78101]

The background of the window seems a bit dark. The light and dark constrasts drastically, probably may make eyes watery if prolonged exposure is required.

Unless you intentionally placed the icons on the orange-yellow colored grid, so as to let others look at it clearly, your icons should be placed on a single-colored background, so you are able to easily exclude that colored background for transparency.

Your indices are not aligned correctly in each of the 7-equally-divided pieces of a circle.

 

[Accname]

The background of the window seems a bit dark. The light and dark constrasts drastically, probably may make eyes watery if prolonged exposure is required.

Unless you intentionally placed the icons on the orange-yellow colored grid, so as to let others look at it clearly, your icons should be placed on a single-colored background, so you are able to easily exclude that colored background for transparency.

Your indices are not aligned correctly in each of the 7-equally-divided pieces of a circle.

I am using a pure white text, like in a command line, so a dark background is needed. I will see if i can make it a brighter shade of blue.

The background in these images is only there for the preview, the actual png-files used by the programm use a 32bit color code and full alpha channels. So there is no coloured background at all in the images.

I can make a preview for the numbers in combination with a crosshair to show you how it is supposed to look like:

This is what it would look like if you had 7 different weapons target the very same spot.
Each number is representing the ID of the weapon.
I am still not quite sure what i would do if a ship would have more then 7 weapons active at the same time. Although an unlikely situation it might happen.

 

[tom_mai78101]

I would suggest you use 9 grids instead of 8 for the cursor. 9 grids mean that you have 8 spots around the center spot (your crosshair). 8 grids is the one you're using. With each empty spot around the center, you can easily put your indices in it with easier math, instead of actually having to draw 7 individual frames overlapping one another.

If you have more than 7 weapons active at the same time, why not try combining them with higher upgrades instead? Or you can let the player(s) choose whether to disgard one of any weapons it current have, so that there will always be 7 weapons at max throughout the game.

Also, I kind of have a hard time looking at the 3 and 6 not aligned in a straight line... It just erks me.

All situations must be considered, else there may be hidden logic bugs that will become harder to find in the future.

 

[Accname]

I would suggest you use 9 grids instead of 8 for the cursor. 9 grids mean that you have 8 spots around the center spot (your crosshair). 8 grids is the one you're using. With each empty spot around the center, you can easily put your indices in it with easier math, instead of actually having to draw 7 individual frames overlapping one another.

If you have more than 7 weapons active at the same time, why not try combining them with higher upgrades instead? Or you can let the player(s) choose whether to disgard one of any weapons it current have, so that there will always be 7 weapons at max throughout the game.

Also, I kind of have a hard time looking at the 3 and 6 not aligned in a straight line... It just erks me.

All situations must be considered, else there may be hidden logic bugs that will become harder to find in the future.

I would still have to draw a new quad for each index "number", this way i dont have to do any calculations for the position of the index, but maybe in the future i will decide for a different way of dealing with this.
I dont want to limit the number of weapons you can carry. I dont like artificial enforced limits, especially when the only reason for them is that the graphics are limited.
I am playing with the thought of simply not showing any further weapons, of course it would be an inconvenience but at least i would give the player the option to use 35 burst lasers if he really deems it neccessary. He would need a gigantic space ship with alot of generators though to power all of these weapons..

 

[rover2341]

I think the ship and all icons look of very close to the same quality.
Overall I think it looks pretty good as you have added in some fine details, and overall randomness on the ship, only thing that sticks out to me is the bottom of the ship, where it goes from dark to to light.

I am not sure if i dislike the gun on the ship, but it jumps out at me, as something to look at twice.

Cool Pics.

 

[Accname]

I think the ship and all icons look of very close to the same quality.
Overall I think it looks pretty good as you have added in some fine details, and overall randomness on the ship, only thing that sticks out to me is the bottom of the ship, where it goes from dark to to light.

I am not sure if i dislike the gun on the ship, but it jumps out at me, as something to look at twice.

Cool Pics.

Thanks for the feedback.
Its actually not a gun on top but just a big *thing*. I have already remade that part to look more like this:

Hopefully it looks more like a big pipe or something rather then some sort of gun.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Hopefully it looks more like a big pipe or something rather then some sort of gun.

It still looks like a gun of some sort to me. Maybe, if you remove a few of those lines, including the very top line, it will probably look more closer to a pipe than to a gun. Or you could just put big words on it saying "PIPE" or something.

 

[Accname]

Another update on the space ship.
I decided to rework the complete style.

I hope i get some feedback on the changes. What do you guys think? better?

Also i would like to get feedback for the icons. You think its visible what they are supposed to be?
(I know, communications start with a C in english not a K @_@ i am a dummy, its already fixed.)

 

[tom_mai78101]

Your ship looks more nicer and more detailed than before.

Icons: You'll want to add a few more colors to it, other than just black and transparency. And they need to blend in with your ship's art style to go along with it.

 

[Accname]

Your ship looks more nicer and more detailed than before.

Icons: You'll want to add a few more colors to it, other than just black and transparency. And they need to blend in with your ship's art style to go along with it.

The icons are actually pure white (they are black in the picture just so you guys can see them more easily) and they change their color depending on the hitpoints of the system associated with them.
If an enemy ship, for example, launches a rocket into your shield generator the shield generator will take damage, your shields will become weaker (or possible be gone until repaired) and the icon will change color.
The colors range from green == fully healed to red == destroyed.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Just like in Starcraft, where the units change color depending on their health bars.

Perfect.... Can't give you thumbs up (removed from vB).

 

[FireCat]

better?

Yeah, It looks "thousand times better.

 

[Accname]

Here is an animated Crew member.
Currently i have only made the "walk / down" animation. Others are yet to come:

Edit: Just realized the quality of this .gif is horrible, lol!
But the sprite is only 16x24 anyways.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Wow, your character is rather small, when compared to a single grid in your ship.

 

[Accname]

4 Characters per cell in the grid.
Previously i thought about one character per cell, but that would be pretty silly if you think about boarding and moving around through the ship. In most cases the rooms are either 1 cell or 2 cell in size, only rarely they are 4 cells or even bigger.

 

[Accname]

Hello guys, i've got a new mockup and i would really like to hear your opinions about it.
I've got 3 different versions of the same graphic and i would like to know which one looks best.

Its a space ship with many different systems, crew members and doors.
The systems are coloured depending on their individual health. Crew members are animated and moving.

Please tell me whether you like version 1, 2 or 3 the most!

Its just the background color of the ship that is changing, right now i am using the dark grey one but i think the beige might be a good choice too.

 

[Slapshot136]

the grey seems too dark.. I would go with a light grey/blue, the beige/green don't quite seem to fit, but they are better since they are lighter than the grey - perhaps colorize the uniforms instead on the people?

 

[tom_mai78101]

Why are characters not in the center of the grid, when the doors are centered in the wall? It's confusing me for a bit.

 

[DrEvil]

I would say to make room for another guy to walk past...
But it doesn't look like you can get 2 people in one room (Like above each other, there is plenty of space horizontal )