Pixel artists

[lefnire]

Hey guys, been getting a lot of pixel artist chiming in with desire to contribute (which effing rocks! thanks guys!). I'm trying to figure out a way to process this (or decide on someone?), so I figured I'd start a discussion here.

There will definitely be need for more pixel art. I want it to as closely resemble our current setup (browserquest iconset) as possible. We'll need a female avatar, character customizations (tabards, pets, mounts, etc) that people purchase with tokens, custom weapons / armor, and way later down the pike we'll want custom iconsets for white-label (don't worry about that now).

If you want to contribute, read the bottom of this wiki, reply here with maybe a sample? Just so I know it's the "type" of work Habit wants before sending you on designing a lot of stuff, just to have the pull-request denied. Let's keep the convo rolling, if anyone has other suggestions for going about this.

[ghost]

As you know I have my guy working on designs but he doesn't know pixel art.
I can think of at least 1 place I can find pixel artist Google +
communities. I will post a thread there when I get home.
On Jan 17, 2013 12:55 PM, "Tyler Renelle" notifications@github.com wrote:

Hey guys, been getting a lot of pixel artist chiming in with desire to
contribute (which effing rocks! thanks guys!). I'm trying to figure out a
way to process this (or decide on someone?), so I figured I'd start a
discussion here.

There will definitely be need for more pixel art. I want it to as
closely resemble our current setup (browserqueshttps://github.com/mozilla/BrowserQuestt
iconset) as possible. We'll need a female avatar, character customizations
(tabards, pets, mounts, etc) that people purchase with tokens, custom
weapons / armor, and way later down the pike we'll want custom iconsets
for white-label (don't worry about that now).

If you want to contribute, read the bottom of this wikihttps://github.com/lefnire/habitrpg/wiki/Business-Model,
reply here with maybe a sample? Just so I know it's the "type" of work
Habit wants before sending you on designing a lot of stuff, just to have
the pull-request denied. Let's keep the convo rolling, if anyone has other
suggestions for going about this.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/107.

[lefnire]

I've got some pixel-pros i've forwarded to this thread, they should be
chiming in

On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Wesley Pennock notifications@github.comwrote:

As you know I have my guy working on designs but he doesn't know pixel
art.
I can think of at least 1 place I can find pixel artist Google +
communities. I will post a thread there when I get home.
On Jan 17, 2013 12:55 PM, "Tyler Renelle" notifications@github.com
wrote:

Hey guys, been getting a lot of pixel artist chiming in with desire to
contribute (which effing rocks! thanks guys!). I'm trying to figure out
a
way to process this (or decide on someone?), so I figured I'd start a
discussion here.

There will definitely be need for more pixel art. I want it to as
closely resemble our current setup (browserques<
https://github.com/mozilla/BrowserQuest>t
iconset) as possible. We'll need a female avatar, character
customizations
(tabards, pets, mounts, etc) that people purchase with tokens, custom
weapons / armor, and way later down the pike we'll want custom
iconsets
for white-label (don't worry about that now).

If you want to contribute, read the bottom of this wiki<
https://github.com/lefnire/habitrpg/wiki/Business-Model>,
reply here with maybe a sample? Just so I know it's the "type" of work
Habit wants before sending you on designing a lot of stuff, just to have
the pull-request denied. Let's keep the convo rolling, if anyone has
other
suggestions for going about this.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub<
https://github.com/lefnire/habitrpg/issues/107>.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/107#issuecomment-12383174.

[ghost]

Sweetness of the highest caliber. Maybe hold a graphic design contest
between the designers to see which graphics get used?
On Jan 17, 2013 1:02 PM, "Tyler Renelle" notifications@github.com wrote:

I've got some pixel-pros i've forwarded to this thread, they should be
chiming in

On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Wesley Pennock notifications@github.comwrote:

As you know I have my guy working on designs but he doesn't know pixel
art.
I can think of at least 1 place I can find pixel artist Google +
communities. I will post a thread there when I get home.
On Jan 17, 2013 12:55 PM, "Tyler Renelle" notifications@github.com
wrote:

Hey guys, been getting a lot of pixel artist chiming in with desire to
contribute (which effing rocks! thanks guys!). I'm trying to figure
out
a
way to process this (or decide on someone?), so I figured I'd start a
discussion here.

There will definitely be need for more pixel art. I want it to as
closely resemble our current setup (browserques<
https://github.com/mozilla/BrowserQuest>t
iconset) as possible. We'll need a female avatar, character
customizations
(tabards, pets, mounts, etc) that people purchase with tokens, custom
weapons / armor, and way later down the pike we'll want custom
iconsets
for white-label (don't worry about that now).

If you want to contribute, read the bottom of this wiki<
https://github.com/lefnire/habitrpg/wiki/Business-Model>,
reply here with maybe a sample? Just so I know it's the "type" of work
Habit wants before sending you on designing a lot of stuff, just to
have
the pull-request denied. Let's keep the convo rolling, if anyone has
other
suggestions for going about this.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub<
https://github.com/lefnire/habitrpg/issues/107>.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub<
https://github.com/lefnire/habitrpg/issues/107#issuecomment-12383174>.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/107#issuecomment-12383259.

[atom-sgt]

Here's an example of a sprite I just finished for a current game project. I think the style matches nicely, and I can definitely make a lot more.

[racuna]

Sweet!!! good job @acsargent. I would love a great animation of me (my avatar) killing an orc when i level up. :D

[lefnire]

(megusta)

On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Roberto Acuña notifications@github.comwrote:

Sweet!!! good job @acsargent https://github.com/acsargent. I would love
a great animation of me (my avatar) killing an orc when i level up. :D

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/107#issuecomment-12390466.

[atom-sgt]

Funny you should say that, because I'm currently working on an orc.

On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Roberto Acuña notifications@github.comwrote:

Sweet!!! good job @acsargent https://github.com/acsargent. I would love
a great animation of me (my avatar) killing an orc when i level up. :D

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/107#issuecomment-12390466.

[racuna]

LOL (or kissing a hot lady elf too) just saying

[sigboe]

Oh, I'm no artist, at least not a good one, at least not pixel art.
But might I just add my opinion, I like pixel art, but lending effects from other types of graphical arts makes it more awesome.
Look at this effect for lighting, from the game Radiant

I alos like pixel art which handles dept like PaperMario

Also I cant find a picture of it, but Ive seen pixels spinn with their sprites in modern pixel art games, that is a nice effect.

What Im saying really is that I personally would not mind if you had the chance to use effects such as this in HabitRPG
Think, torches with light, or animations with depth and spins and such.

[atom-sgt]

Finished that orc I mentioned. Have a look!

(some white detail in the helmet may be lost in the white background)

[lefnire]

I love these small ones, because they can fit the task divs as boss battles. i'm gonna be off the grid for a bit fixing the server, i'll check back again here in the future

[racuna]

Well done @acsargent

[hookang]

@acsargent very nice indeed. It'll be great to see these being implemented in the future.

[lefnire]

Also, full-disclosure guys - my goal is to exhaust the BrowserQuest icon-set of anything we can use in our app before moving to new art - this will make a cohesive feel really easy from the get-go. There's not a whole lot in there we can use that we haven't already, there is one female avatar, a few more items, and a bunch of mobs for when boss-battles come. But we'll still be needing a whole lot beyond that, like character modifications. See the bottom of the FAQ for my reasoning on this.

[racuna]

Yeah, I like the SNES look. And share my avatar on Facebook or G+ everytime I level up would be amazing too.

[superlikelikes]

this is an idea: what if this could be a place where pixel artists just upload their own pixels and/or pick from submitted pixel characters, items, etc. You could even rip them right from the games we love and played!

"Spriters Resource" is a great place to chop up some pixels.
I'm actually a 'depixelizer artist'... www.superlikelikes.com...

But I have experience with how to set up small pixels to become large pixels.
With these being used as an avatar thing, I don't think there would be any legal issue.

I don't know where to apply, but I'd be happy to rip/cut you up some PNG files with a clear background for any game you wanted to include the characters and icons for here.

I've always wanted to do something like this, but I'm not a code person.
So far your idea is very good. I checked out "Super Better" before and your idea is much better than that already.
Keep it customizable! Good Luck!

-Kari
PS i donated 5 bucks.

[hookang]

I'm going to leave this open because its a beast on its own.

[hookang]

I went over the weekend and beat Browser Quest - where all of the current creative assets for HabitRPG are coming from. There's a ton of assets we still can use that we have yet to use.

http://browserquest.mozilla.org/

We just need to implement them eventually.

[Pandoro]

I really suck at this, but I though the girl in the BQ set looks pretty hideous and not really anything like an adventurer. So I created this. If you like it feel free to use it. It created it based on the BQ set.

If you REALLY like it, I might take the time to give the armor sets a try as well ;)

[lefnire]

nice! i don't see why it sucks in any way, and we need something to get started - so until further notice, that's our girl

[superlikelikes]

I think she looks cute!! Nice work!
On Jan 25, 2013 1:52 PM, "Tyler Renelle" notifications@github.com wrote:

nice! i don't see why it sucks in any way, and we need something to get
started - so until further notice, that's our girl

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[ghost]

Sweet a pixel artist has been found.
On Jan 25, 2013 12:52 PM, "Tyler Renelle" notifications@github.com wrote:

nice! i don't see why it sucks in any way, and we need something to get
started - so until further notice, that's our girl

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/107#issuecomment-12715055.

[Pandoro]

Thank you for the nice comments ;) But this was my first try at pixel art ever :x People like acsargent will probably be by far better at creating new content. I just figured I could give it a try and see where it goes. This is pretty much just the head of the guy and the legs of the guy sticked to the girl with a pony tail. If you are serious about integrating the gender into the game though, I am willing to give the armor sets a shot, but please by no means consider me as the pixel artist ;)

[Pandoro]

If desired also available without the flower. I did it like this to somehow distinguish the female from the male character with this armor.

Should I continue ^^; ?

[lefnire]

👍

[Pandoro]

Buuuuh done for today, I hope I can finish the last one tomorrow. Sorry for spamming this thread :-/ Maybe I should fine somewhere else to post this stuff.

Since I found these to look way too much like the male character, I decided to try some stuff to get them to look a little more like females. That's why there are always two of them. Pick whichever you like most!

[Shaners]

They are on a different level in what is currently being used by the system: https://raw.github.com/lefnire/habitrpg/master/public/img/sprites/male_sprites.png
https://raw.github.com/lefnire/habitrpg/master/public/img/sprites/female_sprites.png

I believe there was supposed to be a move to: https://raw.github.com/lefnire/habitrpg/master/public/img/sprites/player_sprites.png that hasn't happened yet. Though I'm not really sure why that version has outlined hair and non outlined hair with outlined pony tails. It must be some layering device.

I would not worry at all about keeping things separate. It'll be very easy to integrate whatever you come up with.

[lemoness]

Awesome. Hairstyles coming up soon, then!

In the meantime, here is the finished dragon with edits :D

[Shaners]

Took a look at the original BQ stuff, that stray pixel is in there, and I am almost 100% certain it was not an accident. In additional to the asymmetry it looks like it helps with the walking animation read better. This is just my opinion but I say we should respect the original artist intention and not remove it from the original hair style. No reason why it'd have to be in any new hairstyles though!

[lemoness]

Okay, here are hairstyles!!

As we discussed earlier, bangs are now separate from hairstyles. I'd strongly recommend that they also be separated from the two body types (broad-shouldered and slim-shouldered) for this update, especially since we were already planning on it. (Yay, boys can have ponytails now!)

Frankly, during this update we might as well add the other colors of T-shirt, since they are already there in the sprite sheet.

Without further ado:

Specific changes:

1. I added a third type of bangs, like a bowl cut.
2. I added red hair.
3. There are now many other long hair styles. We can decide which are naturally available, and which are token purchasable.
   My recommendations would be that the non-token be all three bangs, and then no ponytail, single straight ponytail, and single curly ponytail. Three of each, for a total of nine hairstyles :D
   The rest would be cheap token purchasable. (As of yet there are no custom colors. So red hair is an option you can naturally have!)
4. There is one there for shaved head/bald, but I haven't adjusted the skin yet. Stay tuned for that.

[lefnire]

Excellent!!

On Friday, May 10, 2013, lemoness wrote:

Okay, here are hairstyles!!

As we discussed earlier, bangs are now separate from hairstyles. I'd
strongly recommend that they also be separated from the two body types
(broad-shouldered and slim-shouldered) for this update, especially since we
were already planning on it. (Yay, boys can have ponytails now!)

Frankly, during this update we might as well add the other colors of
T-shirt, since they are already there in the sprite sheet.

Without further ado:
[image: hairstyles]https://f.cloud.github.com/assets/3494081/489374/6e5a455a-b99a-11e2-8df5-cf9a61135272.png

[image: customization sample]https://f.cloud.github.com/assets/3494081/489357/9c7dd948-b999-11e2-87bb-6ac1fada2ced.png

Specific changes:

I added a third type of bangs, like a bowl cut.
2.

I added red hair.
3.

There are now many other long hair styles. We can decide which are
naturally available, and which are token purchasable.

My recommendations would be that the non-token be all three bangs, and
then no ponytail, single straight ponytail, and single curly ponytail.
Three of each, for a total of nine hairstyles :D

The rest would be cheap token purchasable. (As of yet there are no
custom colors. So red hair is an option you can naturally have!)
4.

There is one there for shaved head/bald, but I haven't adjusted the
skin yet. Stay tuned for that.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/107#issuecomment-17734748
.

[Shaners]

Love this stuff Lemon! It looks really nice and adds lots of choices to people for personalizing their character.

[lemoness]

Thanks, guys :)

Next up from me will be flying boar, and then I'm going to leap back into costuming for Rogues and maybe Healers - I have some rejected mage drafts lying around that I am hoping to retrofit. We'll see.

Though once we get that miscellaneous layer all set up, I'd love to make some token-store facial hair :)

[lemoness]

WAIT STABLES

What was the stable consensus? I really do want to get that done, actually. The current layout is still bugging me as the main layout, even though I like it as a side option.

[lefnire]

Pretty set on the unlocker interface. It elucidates further achievements, and we've seen more pets discussion since the interface. But what changes would you like to see in design, layout, etc?

I love your cubbies, pet info & customization screens. I think your general screen with Matt left, active right, & grid bottom is great. What are our thoughts on where Mounts will go?

Probly all this will do better hashed out verbally in our Sunday chat

[Shaners]

Before the integration of the new mount system I'm thinking we should rename all the pets with cub in their name and just have them just what they are. E.g. Tiger Cub becomes just Tiger. The reason being that if they all can grow up then it's just assumed that the pet version are in a child state. This may also help a bit with the layout on the market page.

I was going to do it myself but I'm not too sure of where the pet and egg names come from. Is it just from pets.css? Does pets.coffee parse out the names and even have the ability to process camel case to determine where a space should be? If so that is pretty cool!

[lemoness]

PIGGIES

Any feedback before I make us a nice base mount spreadsheet?

[zoebeagle]

Finally! I've been looking for this thread... Tyler encouraged me to strive for the Contributor achievement... what do you guys think?

Wanted to get your thoughts before doing the other colors, if my art is acceptable! Also, the shadow is removable if you don't think it fits.

[lefnire]

The names of things are a bit tightly integrated at present, kinda a nifty
coding trick to tie css to the item, but which puts our setup in a finicky
state. I'll see what needs to be changed to remove "cub"
On May 11, 2013 10:03 PM, "Shane Lister" notifications@github.com wrote:

Before the integration of the new mount system I'm thinking we should
rename all the pets with cub in their name and just have them just what
they are. E.g. Tiger Cub becomes just Tiger. The reason being that if they
all can grow up then it's just assumed that the pet version are in a child
state. This may also help a bit with the layout on the market page.

I was going to do it myself but I'm not too sure of where the pet and egg
names come from. Is it just from pets.css? Does pets.coffee parse out the
names and even have the ability to process camel case to determine where a
space should be? If so that is pretty cool!

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/107#issuecomment-17767438
.

[lemoness]

@zoebeagle Hooray, more artists! @lefnire THE CONTRIBUTOR ACHIEVEMENT IS WORKING!!

Your slime is adorable!!! A couple quick comments -

1. The shadow looks nifty, but it actually doesn't fit our current art style. Luckily you had the excellent forethought to notice that, so just whisk it away :D
2. Is this going to be a pet? I think that was your intent. Buuuttttt..... we actually have some pretty similar slime pet art already - Pixel artists #107 (comment)
   Thoughts on integrating both? Maybe Zoe's could be renamed something else/tweaked and be made to be part of a random encounter? (Like, a Baby Flame or something?) It's adorable, and I would love to use it!!
3. You can check out the Pet Trello card here to see what other pets we are hoping to make in the future. (Feel free to suggest new pets there, too!) https://trello.com/card/pets/50e5d3684fe3a7266b0036d6/255
   Zoe, feel free to jump right in any of those other pets that you want to try. As for the variety of colors, here's the pet reference sheet, so that you can draw from these color palettes!

Checking here before doing all the work is a very smart move, in case people have feedback :)

Speaking of which, @Shaners @lefnire @Pandoro Any pig comments, or am I good to go with the sprite sheet?

[zoebeagle]

@lemoness Yes, I saw the marshmallow slime thing after spending about an hour (or more) reading this thread. Should I continue with the pet color variations, or treat it as an enemy (in which case, what needs to be done other than shadow removal?

(Also, fyi, I changed my username in Habit to this one... I used to be Oreotoothbrush.)

[StanLindsey]

@lemoness - The pig looks fantastic! No crit at all unfortunately =D

@zoebeagle - We'll come back to you this evening - we're having a team meeting and one of the subjects on the agenda is the pixel art (what to work on next etc). It could easily be a pet, an enemy or even a drop for later features.

Also - I'm going to re-organise the community forums a bit and ask if can move this conversation over there. Only because this page is becoming very unwieldy. =P Don't worry about it right now I'll post the link here once I've done it.

[zoebeagle]

@SlappyBag Thanks! =) Look forward to helping out anyway I can!

[fuzzytrees]

Hey all- I don't have much experience with pixel art, but I thought I could help out a bit by working on some of the "recoloring" of mounts into the various forms. Here's the Shadow Flying Pig Mount. Let me know if this is good, and if continuing along this vine would be useful.

[lemoness]

Wow, so much to say!!

1. This thread has gotten huge and unwieldy, so Stan is going to be splitting it soon into a couple of themed pixel threads. Don't worry, we'll link everything from here so it will be organized and easy to find them. I think it will just be so much easier to navigate.
2. @fuzzytrees That Shade recolor is FANTASTIC and also 100% necessary! Seriously, recolors are our biggest hurdle right now. @zoebeagle, you can help with that too, if you want!
   Here is the mount spritesheet. Please use this as the base for all your recolors (note that the head and some wings are spread for layered implementation).
   
   Obviously, use the colors in the pet reference sheet as your palette guidelines.
   And so you guys don't waste time with duplicate implementation, I've already started work on the Gold and the two Cotton Candies, so don't bother with those recolors yet.
   And I want to make one final tweak to the cactus, so don't recolor that quite yet. It'll be up soon.
3. @zoebeagle I would hold off from spending all your time on the slime/flame if you want to do something that will be immediately implemented - right now, recolors are our biggest immediate need.
   But if you want to continue work on that, you should absolutely feel free to do so! Having too many assets is not our problem. Frankly, I'd love to see that expanded into some kind of cute flame pet! We've started gathering new pets for our next round (upcoming). But you can follow your heart.

Now just waiting for the new threads to be opened...

[fuzzytrees]

Yay! does a little dance of joy-at-usefulness Great, I'll finish up the Shades and then work on the Deserts.

[Shaners]

Just some quick points:

• Polar bear won't need recolours
• That mount sheet isn't really setup correctly (simple to fix later though)
• The hooves on the pig mount feel a little too square / mechanical, Lemon have you tried a more round version? The legs also seem a little short or the belly / body a little big

[StanLindsey]

So this thread will end here and the discussions moved to the issues referenced above. If the lovely @lemoness could update #942 & #943 with our progress in relation to assets developed that would be mighty handy!