Commercial Critique Challenge - Mock the Ocean's Sphere

[Panda]

This time's Commercial Critique Challenge is to study Blue Sphere's screens and create your own mockup following a similar style.

Now some points:

- Use GBC's Limitations
   - 8x8 Tiles
   - 8 four color palettes for the BG
   - 8 four color palettes for the sprites (one of the four being transparent)
   - RGB555 for the colors (optional for those who can't set the colors that way)
   - 160x144pxls
- Be clever with your tile usage!
- Animation is optional


Some references:



Find more screens in the Commercial Critique thread.

[Shrike]

YAY FOR ACTIVITY!

Been waiting for another commercial critique (+cc challenge).  Thanks, Panda.  I'll have to try my hand at these!

Toodles!
Shrike

[Emtch]

This looks interesting.
I'll try some.

[L___E___T]

   Sorry, I'm confused - is the mockup a star ocean game or just a similar style RPG game in general?

I just wondered, as I'd love to make a Zelda style one of these, would that be allowed?  It may be a little unoriginal but would it be ok?

[Jad]

That will be no problem, we encourage you to be original, but the main point is following the restrictions, the second is to try and see what makes the style tick and try to use it for yourself.

To actually make it a 'star ocean' mockup would be completely redundant in this case, so I'd definately reccommend you guys stray from that!

Oh, also I'd reeaaaallly like to try my hand at this : D

[Shrike]

Can I do some characters and just post those?  I'll probably do a mock eventually, but I never have much time anymore.

By the way, 8 four color palettes.  That means you can have 8 total palettes of four colors (One for transparency) in the entire game for sprites?  Am I right?  I suck with limitations and such.  Also, RGB555.  What does the 555 signify?  Thanks in advance.

Shrike

[Shrike]

Does this follow restrictions?

Sorry, I couldn't wait.   

Doing a mockup with tiles seems intimidating, I think I'll try though. 

[pixeltao]

@Shrike:
"8 four color palettes for the sprites" means each 8x8 tile used in a sprite must use only 1 palette of 4 colors from the 8 palettes loaded in the video memory of the GameBoy Color. It is not for an entire game, but for all gfx loaded for one level, for example. The same thing applies to the backgrounds.

RGB555 means the GBC can only display 32,768 different colors.

And yes, your sprite seem to follow restrictions.

[Shrike]

Ah, thanks.  That's really helpful.  I'm going to try and make a desert mockup, but first I think I'll make a battle screen.  So long as that's OK. 
Loving this challenge.  Very clever stuff going on in this:

screenshot.
I especially love the way it looks and the way the ship is shaded.

[lollige]

I still do not get the rgb555 thing. How do I know if the colors id like to use are useable on the GBC?

[PypeBros]

I still do not get the rgb555 thing. How do I know if the colors id like to use are useable on the GBC?

You've got 5 bits for each channel. HTML colors are 8 bits/channel, comparatively. That means GBC valid colors would be #rXgXbX where X can only be 0 or 8. (so both R, G and B values must be multiples of 8. As HTML notation #rrggbb uses hexadecimal triplets, it makes them end with either 8 or 0 (multiple of 16 ))

So #cccc44 is not a valid GBC color. #c8c840 is, as is #d0d048.

HTH

[Ryumaru]

I am also confused. Does that simply mean that the rgb values must either be multiples of 8 or 10( to end in zero)?

[ptoing]

Basically it means that you have 32 steps for each R,G and B instead of 256 like in 24 bit images.

So these would be your valid hexvalues in an unstretched (as in values stretched from 00 to FF) 15 bit picture.

00 08 10 18 20 28 30 38 40 48 50 58 60 68 70 78 80 88 90 98 A0 A8 B0 B8 C0 C8 D0 D8 E0 E8 F0 F8

[skamocore]

Been working on this for the last 4 hours and I think I'm ready to call this done



Heavily inspired by this sprite

[lollige]

I do get it now.
But I also need to know how to work with 'm. I do not know how to select these colors. At first I work with RGB, but if I divide 256 by 32 I should have the right thing right? the number every number should be able to get divided by. But, that would make it very hard creating colors. I would almost have to manually select every color. Is there a full (quite large) palette I can use? Or any (free, not pro-motion) tool that enables me to only use those colors? Or is there an easy way to select the right colors when working with MSpaint, MTpaint or GraphicsGale?
Thanks in advance.

[johnnyspade]

In ProMotion:



Search for something like this in your paint program.

[saimo]

I do get it now.
But I also need to know how to work with 'm. I do not know how to select these colors. At first I work with RGB, but if I divide 256 by 32 I should have the right thing right? the number every number should be able to get divided by. But, that would make it very hard creating colors. I would almost have to manually select every color. Is there a full (quite large) palette I can use? Or any (free, not pro-motion) tool that enables me to only use those colors? Or is there an easy way to select the right colors when working with MSpaint, MTpaint or GraphicsGale?
Thanks in advance.

Even if you don't have a suitable tool, just make sure that the values you choose for R, G and B are always multiple of 8.

saimo

[lollige]

Thanks saimo and Johnny, ill figure it out now . Ill hope to make some sprites and tiles soon

[L___E___T]

So how many individual colours is that in total then?

It would be really great to get/see a colour table.  I'm afraid I'm still quite confused by all this even after re-reading. 

I understand HEX and the theory etc, it's just not easy to work that way.  I'd make a colour table but thought I'd ask if there's more than 256 colours first, or whatever?

[saimo]

So how many individual colours is that in total then?

It would be really great to get/see a colour table.  I'm afraid I'm still quite confused by all this even after re-reading. 

I understand HEX and the theory etc, it's just not easy to work that way.  I'd make a colour table but thought I'd ask if there's more than 256 colours first, or whatever?

RGB555 is 15 bits (hence the "555", meaning 5 bits per channel), so the total number of colours is 2^15 = 32768.
You can see this also from another perspective: as ptoing said above, you have 32 possible values per channel, so the number of combinations is 32*32*32 = 32768.

Deciding whether a normal RGB colour is "legal" is easy*: it is when all of its channels are multiple of 8. F.ex., the colour <255, 240, 72> (FFF048 in hexadecimal notation) is not an RGB555 one because the red channel value (255) is not multiple of 8. <248, 240, 72> (F8F048) would be the "correct" colour.
Picking colours requires a bit more work than usual, but it is not that difficult.

*Actually, this is a simplified method that most likely does not give 100% accurate results. For now I would rather not go into details not to make the matter even more confusing.

edit: well, after all, providing some handy ready-made palettes won't hurt

"simplified" values palette:


"correct" values palette:

(no time to explain this, sorry...)

edit: I don't know what happened with Imageshack, but at some point the first palette disappeared... oh, well, I'm seizing the chance to post more useable palettes.

saimo

[lollige]

The correct is indeed weird. It contains a lot of colors of numbers not divideable by 8. I would like to hear the idea behind that, I am interested
I do understand how the simplified works, but I believe I am better off just drawing, and correct my (not too much anyway) colors manually at the end

[KittenMaster]

Graphics Gale seems to allow making new images in 15bpp, but I'm not sure if it's the same as RGB555.

Also, does anyone know how Visualboy Advance accomplishes its "Gameboy Mode" like the example compared to the video Ptong made in the other thread?  Is it simply a brightness increase?

[Conceit]

video? I dont think it was ptoing that posted that youtube video....and no, it's not just brightness...it lowers the saturation too. might be a tricky thing, I think some colors get more desaturated than others...give it a whirl tho!

[KittenMaster]

*checks other topic*

Oh, YOU'RE the one that posted the comparison pics.  I got confused.

[saimo]

The correct is indeed weird. It contains a lot of colors of numbers not divideable by 8. I would like to hear the idea behind that, I am interested

OK. I'm not sure where to start from - there are lots of ways of explaining this simple (yes, it is simple) thing -, so I'll sort of resume from where I left.

With the simplified RGB555->RGB888 transformation we have seen that a "full" channel in RGB555 becomes 248 = F8 in 24-bit RGB (RGB888 from now on). However, F8 < FF: if we consider full white, it is easy to see that the simplified method does not allow a real full white, F8F8F8 being the maximum possible (which is slightly darker than FFFFFF).
Looking at this from a more practical point of view, hardware issues aside, ideally GBC's full white is supposed to be equivalent to FFFFFF, not the almost-but-not-quite-white F8F8F8.
The same goes for all the other colors, of course.
In other words, RGB555's range should cover RGB888's range - the difference being only the bigger grain.

In RGB888 a channel value goes from 0 to 255 = FF.
In RGB555 a channel value goes from 0 to 31 = 1F.
RGB888's 0 must look the same as RGB555's 0 (and viceversa).
RGB888's 255 must look the same as RGB555's 31 (and viceversa).

This gives us a strong hint about how to do the RGB555->RGB888 transformation: it must sort of "stretch" the 0...31 values to 0...255. To do this, all that is needed is this simple formula (where C5 = 5-bit Channel and C8 = 8-bit channel):

C8 = (C5 * 255) / 31

Not only this converts correctly the extremes (full black and full white), but it also maps proportionally all the values in between.

saimo

[lollige]

Thanks for your explanation! I wont work with it, but I always like these kinds of background information!
Also, I don't think using the correct palette is very important. Of course, you can for example indeed not use full white in the simple version, but who says you could on the gameboy itself? Screen settings make the difference (a lot actually)
Or am I wrong and do all LCDs(which I do not know much about, I have a thick oldschool CRT) show colors exactly the same?

[L___E___T]

Ok, but it's quite feasible to just invent my own colours for this and correct them at the end right??

I was concerned that this 'correction' would result in a strong difference in colours, which can make or break sometimes.
If the correction is just minor (as it seems) and won't make much difference then I'll shut up

I just mean that, if we were to do that with a NES/Famicom palette it would change things greatly.

[Schu]

Been a while...
(Hope these work, I'm using a new location to store them. If they don't work, I'll move them when I get home).

[sfried]

In ProMotion:


Search for something like this in your paint program.

Err...I do I find something similar in GraphicsGale?

[surt]

I'm quite confident GGale lacks any such feature. We'll have to do it the hard way. 

[sfried]

I'm quite confident GGale lacks any such feature. We'll have to do it the hard way. 

Um...what exactly is the "hard way"? I'm kind of confused where to input the hex/deci values mentioned in this thread.

[lollige]

I'm quite confident GGale lacks any such feature. We'll have to do it the hard way. 

Um...what exactly is the "hard way"? I'm kind of confused where to input the hex/deci values mentioned in this thread.

You should enter the RGB values (those that should be divideable by in here:

[rdcarvallo]

In GGale you can set the color depth to 15bit color.

The you can set the RGB value to anything and GGale will paint with the nearest valid color.

To see the real RGB used, just pick the color from the image.

[marcoaslak]

are in some ways a basic way to create them so they are the same style as the original Star Ocean Sprite?

[xhunterko]

I found this off of wiki-pedia. Some may find this useful.



I'm pretty sure this has all the useable colors here. Since this is the exact palette that the Game boy color used. If I'm wrong here please let me know.

[saimo]

I found this off of wiki-pedia. Some may find this useful.



I'm pretty sure this has all the useable colors here. Since this is the exact palette that the Game boy color used. If I'm wrong here please let me know.

Actually no, that palette does not contain even half of all the possible colors. The bottom area, being 255x65, contains only 16575 pixels, less than 32768 (for which a 256x128 area would be needed); moreover, it contains repeated colors.
This, however, does not mean that it is not useable - indeed, it is much more useable than those I posted above.

saimo

[Endpiece]

I'm having a go at this challenge, but I've hit a point of indecision. Typical.



(1) shows where the foliage and gravestones will be place, (2) shows the cut-off point for player movement, and (3) shows the general area of movement. Question - what sort of textures should I be going for concerning (3)? More grass, soil/dirt, a brick footpath, or something else?

Edit: I should add that the only things considered 'complete' in this picture are the gravestones and foliage. Everything else is expendable!

[Animated Toupee]

Been a while...
(Hope these work, I'm using a new location to store them. If they don't work, I'll move them when I get home).

I had to register for this board just to say how awesome I thought these were.  AWESOME!!!!

[EkbatDeSebat]

I thought I'd give this a go 



I know I'm missing Crais and Pilot! Actually, I think I'll do some screens, if I can find the time. But for now, I think Jool and Sikozu are pretty cute. What do you guys think?

[Atnas]

omfg farscape <3 <3 <3 <3

One thing that strikes me as off are the legs. From the characters I've seen in SOBS the legs are usually colored, but you've got a kind of lego thing going on, and the poses in some of them are lego too. Though there does seem to be an abundance of black leather pants in Farscape... Scorpy's head could probably do with more face, less cooling suit. I don't know what's going on with Jool but Sikozu is awesome!

[RadiationGloves.Drugs]

Been a while...
(Hope these work, I'm using a new location to store them. If they don't work, I'll move them when I get home).

Fifth FTW!

BTW can I use your TARDIS for one of my own?

[Schu]

Fifth FTW!

BTW can I use your TARDIS for one of my own?

Sure I guess. Only 'cause you got the Brig in your avatar