What are you making? - TTLG Forums

demagogue on 24/4/2013 at 06:42

I made some (http://forums.technicpack.net/threads/request-32x-summerfields-pack-for-tekkit-technic.19322/page-2#post-215538) textures for Minecraft (making my favorite texture pack compatible with Technic to be precise). There's a certain kick to pixel art, like anything where you're very restricted in what you can do. It can sometimes bring out your creativity in unexpected ways. I found myself getting better at it as I went along.

Renzatic on 24/4/2013 at 06:56

That's some fairly decent work. They kinda remind me of these wooden blocks I had when I was a kid.

One thing I've noticed about the whole process is how you get quite a bit out of doing very little. Just a few stray pixels can change the look of what you're making by huge amounts. The smallest subtle suggestion is the difference between a flat looking piece of crap, and an incredibly good piece of work.

It's all at once really easy, and pretty difficult to do. There's definitely a certain flow to it. You have to be aware of every single thing you place on your sprite.

Right now I'm gonna see if lightning can strike me twice. I'm making a wooden crate! :D

demagogue on 24/4/2013 at 14:48

Quote Posted by Renzatic

Once I got the feel for how it's all done, I looked for a relatively simple object to use as a reference guide, slapped them side by side, and copied the style (no tracing, because you don't learn shit from tracing).

For the record, I wasn't as scrupulous on this; whatever gets the job done. But I had to deal in volume since there were a lot of textures to make, so I wanted to make them fast. I took pieces from other things, especially characteristic features, and a common technique was to reduce the size of a source photo to like 10% or 5%, and then build off of that (although by the end much of it would be replaced with my own pixels). But a few things I did completely by scratch. Probably the one that turned out the best was the solar panel, since I gave it some sunglaze on the glass and shadows.

One technique I picked up from that texture pack (Summerfields) that I really like is using a checkerboard pattern of light & dark, and then varying the shade for one or both. You can see some of that in the window panels I did here.

Inline Image:

http://i34.tinypic.com/35k76ug.png

sNeaksieGarrett on 24/4/2013 at 17:30

Nice bucket Renzatic. Yours is a bit different in style, but I actually like yours even better than the reference image.

Renzatic on 24/4/2013 at 21:20

Quote Posted by demagogue

One technique I picked up from that texture pack (Summerfields) that I really like is using a checkerboard pattern of light & dark, and then varying the shade for one or both. You can see some of that in the window panels I did here.

Yup, I've been reading about checkered gradients. One thing I really want to get good at is doing shading like (http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Pixel-Art-Tutorial-Shading-184136991) this. My stuff looks sorta uncontrolled and overly stippled in comparison.

And Sneaksie, thanks. I'm cheating a bit since I don't know exactly how to make my own palette yet. While I'm drawing all the stuff myself, I'm still getting the colors from what I'm referencing. I'm nowhere near 100% able to do this myself yet.

Also signpost...

Inline Image:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Signpost.jpg

...which I messed up by making it a little too small. Eh. It's all about baby steps here.

sNeaksieGarrett on 24/4/2013 at 21:55

Ah I see. Yeah that palette your using looks an aweful lot like what's used in Eld Pack for Minecraft, one of my favorite texture packs ever.

Volitions Advocate on 28/4/2013 at 07:33

Hey Renz, Where / how did you learn to do the 3d modelling?

Were you trained or did you learn on your own? I might be delving into it myself soon to work on some personal projects and maybe doing some weird 3d printing.

I'm also a bit excited because Terathon (c4 engine) just started a successful indiegogo campaign to build an exporter for 3DSmax, Maya, and Blender for their own proprietary 3d model format since they're having so much trouble with collada in their art pipeline. So I might just opt for Blender since I'm not really a 3D artist and wont lay down the coin for a commercial suite. But first I have to learn....

Renzatic on 28/4/2013 at 21:02

I learned on my own time by watching and buying a bunch of tutorials, and spending a crap ton of time practicing.

For what you want to do, Blender is about the one best way to go. It's gotten to the point where it's not just the choice for the poor and desperate. The only real difference between it and a $1500 package is a bit of extra polish and smoothness. Honestly, as good as it is these days, I'm surprised the Blender Foundation isn't charging at least $800 for it.

As for learning, I'd suggest hitting up (http://cgcookie.com/blender/) Blender Cookie and going through the newbie tutorials there. (http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-series/blender-basics-introduction-beginners/) Learn the UI, the hotkeys, and the basic modelling tools (which won't take you nearly as long as you think), then hit up a good newbie tutorial, like (http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-series/introduction-hard-surface-modeling-blender/) this one. Yeah, you'll have to sign up for CGCookie Citizenship, but it's well worth the $10 a month. Hell, over the years, I've probably spent a good $500 on tutorials. $10 ain't nothing.

edit: (http://vimeo.com/26339130) I should also throw this in since it's cool as hell, and was one of the things that made me start recognizing Blender. As far as I know, no other modeler has anything quite like this.

It's pretty damn awesome.

Fafhrd on 29/4/2013 at 01:05

I keep trying to like Blender, but I just cannot stand its interface. Everything about it feels so counter-intuitive (especially the modifier stack). Probably my own fault due to teaching myself Lightwave before any other 3D program. That BSurfaces demo is incredibly slick, though.

Renzatic on 29/4/2013 at 01:45

I know from personal experience that people who start out with more free form LW-like modelers tend to struggle with editors that use a more rigid setup like 3DSMax.

Blender's kind of somewhere in between the two, but leans more heavily towards Max with all your geometry being separate objects on creation and a reliance on heavy use of modifiers. It weirded me out at first, too. But after dabbling with it over a year or so, I've kinda come to terms with the way it does things.

...kinda being the key word here. I still can't quite get used to the lack of manipulator handles for everything and context sensitive tools. I've gotten pretty used to the interface, and can find everything easily enough, but I'll always end up missing those two features when I leap over from Modo to Blender. It always feels like I have to take an extra three steps to do something I'd normally achieve with a single keystroke and a quick left-click mouse drag. I'm good enough with Blender to do just about everything I want to do, but I still feel clumsier and slower than I would in Modo.