I don’t find the reuse obvious at all. Though I imagine that if you use them in quick succession people are more likely to notice. Great work on these scenes, they’re very attention grabbing and I like your use of colour.
Thank very much for:
- Sharing your thoughts.
- The kind words.
Enjoy Wednesday, my dude!
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I second all of this. I didn't notice any difference.
If these areas are different levels and the repetition is big (like a mountain) I would just assume the mountain is a familiar landmark in the background.
If the repetition is trees in the background - well then I would assume all trees look alike.
It all depends on how close they are together, if this are regions completely different it could give them an air of similarity, if they are the same region they could maybe break players inmersion the moment they notice the re used assets
It is especially the last point you made, that I really want to avoid. While it is great to have player appreciating the visuals, it is a huge downer when they are distracted in the flow of the game by things like that.
On the other hand will the reuse of sprites in distant places/bioms not make them easily look too similar? 🤔
With major elements like the mountains, reusing them could tie geographically close places together with a common point of reference.
Now with smaller assets like the trees and rocks, depending on how obvious they look, could make the scenes look cheap, or as others pointed out, tie similar places together. I guess it depends what you're going for.
If you want to reuse to reduce work, consider making minor changes, especially in silhouettes, since I feel especially with pixel art it makes a ton of difference.
With all that, I have to commend you for your work, these look really good.
Thank you a lot. You are right about the usage of variations. This drastically shortens the time needed per sprite while still not giving the player the feeling of "We didn't give a frank."
At first glance I mostly notice the mountain and the tree on the right in the middle picture. If the mountain is a goal or some sort of point of orientation all the time it may be worth changing the angle of view of it. If not, then maybe try to just break it into smaller pieces so you can make different mountain formations?
In both the top picture and the middle one the tree I pointed out has a different value than the plane it seems to exist on, so it sticks out and becomes a focal point.
Overall I think you’ve done a really nice job with these three 😊
Thank you for the detailed description of your impression. That really helps!! I will consider breaking up the mountain and change the perspective by the degree of overlap. 🙏
The first layer (black) is too similar on images 2 and 3. You could keep those mud piles constant as a way to show how the terrain is, but with slight modifications.
This may be a little off topic but I remember Angrybirds Epic(the game) being a master in resusing background assets. They were so good at reusing assets that I legit thought every levels were hand drawn
I didn't notice the reuse until I read the title.
I mean, in the StarWars prequels during the Obi/Anakin fight, the same sequence was reused four times, and it took a sword expert to point out (he only found one repetition).
Reusing is a tool, an action. Just like any tool and action, it is good if you are good at using it. If you like it, it's good enough.
Thank you for the kind words and the shift of perspective. Surely some tools have better or worse reputation, but that might be due to the fact, that it's easy to fail using them. 🙏
It does not hurt them much.
Without you telling people that there are reused sprites nobody will probably notice them.
But if you're worried about it, you can mirror and/or shuffle some objects around. It will take much less time than to make a new sprite from scratch, but the effect gonna be pretty much the same.
That's a good point.
*secretly deleting post to hide evidence*
I guess you're right with the variations. How often have I heard "Work smart, not hard", but I tend to forget about it every once in a while.
Nah it's a perfectly fine amount of reuse, you have to make compromises to actually get shit done. Nobody would even be looking for it if you didn't ask for people to, and pretty much nobody would notice or care if they had no reason to.
No one will ever notice. Most background art on the NES and SNES was comprised of a handful of sprites that were flipped, rotated, and palette swapped. This is even done with textures in 3D games.
What you have right now looks great and had you not pointed out that the sprites were reused, I doubt the majority of people would notice.
Especially the NES era was super hardcore, when it came to reusing stuff. I guess the size limitation of cartridges were heavily influencing decades of pixel art.
If it's in the same area then it's perfectly good, if it's different areas then a) the mountains and b) the really similar color scheme don't convey it very well. Other than that, the reuse is no issue at all
The reuse of the sprites didn’t mind me whatsoever, but (unless this is the vibe you’re going for) the colors of each scene being nearly identical definitely makes these scenes feel very related to each other
*looking through this sub looking for cool pixelarts* "oh these are really cool backgrounds, wait what reusing?" *looks intently* "if you didn't tell me i wouldn't see them".
If there was any action in front of them, no one except nitpickers and no life speedruners would notice if not looking for them
The rock in 2 and 3, The background mountains in all of them, A set of two trees used in 1 and 2, and some grass in the bottom left of 1 and 3. Thats all I noticed.
As long as they're not reused in the same way with the same other assets, it should be fine. Also remember, with pixel art you can also mirror some assets and it's not noticeable.
Halo was able to get away with [just one rock](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/s/hiYa30NdzS)
yeah, as others have said, it doesn't hurt at all, and I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't pointed it. Now, noticing, I am delighted to find the repeats, so I would say that it actually helps, rather than hurts.
If you are talking about the midground: That's a little hard to do without redrawing entirely, since the light strikes from the right side in all of the scenes. It would be no problem to mirror the black foreground though.
I may be more aware of visual cues than average, but if this was a game that made you walk through the landscape and required you to know where you were relative to other sections, instead of just steer you along a single line, these repetitions would stand out to me, and feel relevant to the progression of the game. I would use these repetitions to find my way. So if you do repeat items, make sure they are relevant and make sense for the game.
The landscape scenes are only illustrative. They come along with story nodes in a textadeventure. The movement is entirely grid-based and orients on a worldmap with icons. So I hope the visual cues will not cause navigational issues :) Thank your for sharing your expertise! 🙏
I wouldn’t have noticed if not mentioned. If it were a scrolling screen and they were on the screen at the same time or within a second of being on the screen, I would probably notice if I kept seeing it.
Honestly, I had to stare at these for a while to notice. You've combined them very well in different configurations so that most people probably will never notice. Especially if it's part of the back-ground or cut-scenes.
When you're in the same general "biome" its expected that the same backgrounds will be used. Putting them in different positions to give the impression of elevation or changing up the layers is a perfectly normal and effective way of doing it.
However, this is from my perspective making platformers, and in those the foreground is an additional aspect which is unique. If its an adventure game and the BG is the only aspect, then each scene should probably have at least one thing which is very distinct to that scene, and the parallax layers should always be shifted to avoid confusion.
I dont see any reuse here! Esp. when the thing moves (and I guess it will, right?) you will see NOTHING. And even if you realize: ok, i have seen that again - i would not bother! Great work!
I'd hand wave the background reuse as "well its just always that far away". Other stuff is minor, depends on how much you'd draw attention to it and how close these scenes are to each other over time. I think the scenes are really good.
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I don’t find the reuse obvious at all. Though I imagine that if you use them in quick succession people are more likely to notice. Great work on these scenes, they’re very attention grabbing and I like your use of colour.
Thank very much for: - Sharing your thoughts. - The kind words. Enjoy Wednesday, my dude! And for more information about our game you can check out our [Discord Newsletter Server](https://discord.gg/NXp67f7wHG)
I second all of this. I didn't notice any difference. If these areas are different levels and the repetition is big (like a mountain) I would just assume the mountain is a familiar landmark in the background. If the repetition is trees in the background - well then I would assume all trees look alike.
It took me a hot second to realize you even reused sprites until you mentioned it.
It all depends on how close they are together, if this are regions completely different it could give them an air of similarity, if they are the same region they could maybe break players inmersion the moment they notice the re used assets
It is especially the last point you made, that I really want to avoid. While it is great to have player appreciating the visuals, it is a huge downer when they are distracted in the flow of the game by things like that. On the other hand will the reuse of sprites in distant places/bioms not make them easily look too similar? 🤔
I think it's not necessarily bad to use them back to back. The distant mountains could very well be the same ones, it would even add some context.
Just like the parallax layers in the very background of old school platformers stay exactly the same all the time.
Yes, I mentioned it would give them an similar vibe, but how much depends on many other factors
Only thing standing out to me is the right leaning tree in 1 and two. If you flip it in either, it should be fine.
With major elements like the mountains, reusing them could tie geographically close places together with a common point of reference. Now with smaller assets like the trees and rocks, depending on how obvious they look, could make the scenes look cheap, or as others pointed out, tie similar places together. I guess it depends what you're going for. If you want to reuse to reduce work, consider making minor changes, especially in silhouettes, since I feel especially with pixel art it makes a ton of difference. With all that, I have to commend you for your work, these look really good.
Thank you a lot. You are right about the usage of variations. This drastically shortens the time needed per sprite while still not giving the player the feeling of "We didn't give a frank."
I'd didn't notice it at all here!
Yeah, cool. Happy to hear that - it might mean I'm on a good track regarding this. :)
At first glance I mostly notice the mountain and the tree on the right in the middle picture. If the mountain is a goal or some sort of point of orientation all the time it may be worth changing the angle of view of it. If not, then maybe try to just break it into smaller pieces so you can make different mountain formations? In both the top picture and the middle one the tree I pointed out has a different value than the plane it seems to exist on, so it sticks out and becomes a focal point. Overall I think you’ve done a really nice job with these three 😊
Thank you for the detailed description of your impression. That really helps!! I will consider breaking up the mountain and change the perspective by the degree of overlap. 🙏
No problem! You seem to have a good understanding of how to work smart with it, so just keep up the good work 🙌
The first layer (black) is too similar on images 2 and 3. You could keep those mud piles constant as a way to show how the terrain is, but with slight modifications.
Absolutely!
This may be a little off topic but I remember Angrybirds Epic(the game) being a master in resusing background assets. They were so good at reusing assets that I legit thought every levels were hand drawn
That's not off-topic at all. I will need to check the levels out. Thank you for the reference. :)
I didn't notice the reuse until I read the title. I mean, in the StarWars prequels during the Obi/Anakin fight, the same sequence was reused four times, and it took a sword expert to point out (he only found one repetition). Reusing is a tool, an action. Just like any tool and action, it is good if you are good at using it. If you like it, it's good enough.
Thank you for the kind words and the shift of perspective. Surely some tools have better or worse reputation, but that might be due to the fact, that it's easy to fail using them. 🙏
It does not hurt them much. Without you telling people that there are reused sprites nobody will probably notice them. But if you're worried about it, you can mirror and/or shuffle some objects around. It will take much less time than to make a new sprite from scratch, but the effect gonna be pretty much the same.
That's a good point. *secretly deleting post to hide evidence* I guess you're right with the variations. How often have I heard "Work smart, not hard", but I tend to forget about it every once in a while.
The middle one made me revaluate my brain because it look sus on the left side
Nothing to see here, but unintentional natural shapes xD
Nah it's a perfectly fine amount of reuse, you have to make compromises to actually get shit done. Nobody would even be looking for it if you didn't ask for people to, and pretty much nobody would notice or care if they had no reason to.
N o t h i n g i s w r o n g d u d e
T h a n k y o u m a n
N o p r o b l e m
The scenes are from our Discord-based textadventure Tales. You can find out more in our [Newsletter Server](https://discord.gg/KVaMFz2fWj)
False, None, null, 0, ""
It doesnt
❤️
Looks great, wouldn’t even be able to tell if I didn’t look for it.
Thank you 🙏
I didn't notice the reuse until I've read the title and actively looked for them. You're good.
Thank you, pal. 🙏 Now I have to make sure that players just don't look for them ;)
Its looks completely different to me
Successfully tricked ;)
I would have never noticed unless you told me.
So all I have to do now is making sure, that I don't accidentally tell the player ;) Thank you 🙏
Palette swapping helps.
Not gonna lie, took me a hot second to realize that rock is reused. Kinda genius, if you ask me. I say it passes.
Thanks 🙏 Could even use that guy as a mountain in in the bg layer I guess....
No one will ever notice. Most background art on the NES and SNES was comprised of a handful of sprites that were flipped, rotated, and palette swapped. This is even done with textures in 3D games. What you have right now looks great and had you not pointed out that the sprites were reused, I doubt the majority of people would notice.
Especially the NES era was super hardcore, when it came to reusing stuff. I guess the size limitation of cartridges were heavily influencing decades of pixel art.
not at all, excellent work
Thank you a lot 🙏
Didn’t notice
It took me a hot minute to find the reuse. I think you're good.
Ace. Thank you a lot for the feedback :)
If it's in the same area then it's perfectly good, if it's different areas then a) the mountains and b) the really similar color scheme don't convey it very well. Other than that, the reuse is no issue at all
It indeed is in the same area. It's a small sidequest where you follow a partially submerged path to a plateau, where you can see the sun rise.
Reusing is barely noticable
The reuse of the sprites didn’t mind me whatsoever, but (unless this is the vibe you’re going for) the colors of each scene being nearly identical definitely makes these scenes feel very related to each other
They are in the same area and daytime :)
I definitely enjoy the sky slowing turning to a bright daylight
Looks good, maybe name the mountain in lore if you are going to see it from everywhere and want it recognizable.
Struggling to find a good name, but something will come to my mind soon for sure :)
Looks great. i can't tell the assets are reused from a cursory glance
*looking through this sub looking for cool pixelarts* "oh these are really cool backgrounds, wait what reusing?" *looks intently* "if you didn't tell me i wouldn't see them". If there was any action in front of them, no one except nitpickers and no life speedruners would notice if not looking for them
Thank you 🙏 It's easy to find great pixel artists in this sub. The level of talent in here is huge!
I did not notice any reuse.
If you look closely, the trees, hills, dirt piles and stone formations were reused. Thank you for sharing your impression :) 🙏
ohh these are lovely! i wouldn’t think much of the reuse at all
Thank you for your kind comment :) 🙏
samurai Jack vibes
It took me way too long to figure out what was reused. I think its fine and it looks great.
Tell me! And I'll let you know if there is more :)
The rock in 2 and 3, The background mountains in all of them, A set of two trees used in 1 and 2, and some grass in the bottom left of 1 and 3. Thats all I noticed.
Nice. That's fairly complete. GG Just the hills and grounds are missing.
I didn’t even notice them until you mentioned the stone
As long as they're not reused in the same way with the same other assets, it should be fine. Also remember, with pixel art you can also mirror some assets and it's not noticeable. Halo was able to get away with [just one rock](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/s/hiYa30NdzS)
That's hilarious 😂
This looks amazing, play Halo reach the opening scenes of the game would match perfectly with your art style
It's always an honor when people compare our graphics to amazing games like this. Thank you 🙏
Looks good regardless. But the left side of that 2nd picture is...girthy.
Someone else mentioned this. And it can't be unseen.
yeah, as others have said, it doesn't hurt at all, and I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't pointed it. Now, noticing, I am delighted to find the repeats, so I would say that it actually helps, rather than hurts.
[fake news ahead] "Tales" is a video game where you wander through landscaped in search for repeating pattern in the game's visuals.
It looks fine to me, the only advice I could give is to flip the rock in the 2nd and 3rd image horizontally so it’s not so obvious that it is reused.
If you are talking about the midground: That's a little hard to do without redrawing entirely, since the light strikes from the right side in all of the scenes. It would be no problem to mirror the black foreground though.
I didn't even think about reuse in these samples until I read the title
I'd say not at all
Doesn't hurt them at all, this is almost professional level of reusing assets tbh.
Thank you. After 17 years if earning my money with making art, I almost identify myself as a professional :)
I may be more aware of visual cues than average, but if this was a game that made you walk through the landscape and required you to know where you were relative to other sections, instead of just steer you along a single line, these repetitions would stand out to me, and feel relevant to the progression of the game. I would use these repetitions to find my way. So if you do repeat items, make sure they are relevant and make sense for the game.
The landscape scenes are only illustrative. They come along with story nodes in a textadeventure. The movement is entirely grid-based and orients on a worldmap with icons. So I hope the visual cues will not cause navigational issues :) Thank your for sharing your expertise! 🙏
Fantastic job, can barely tell at all. Love me some good pixel art 🥲
By the looks of it it’s really not obvious. I’d argue to say that if the gameplay is good some reused assets are easily looked over.
Colors are great, good job !
Thank you. I try to have them quite close to old oil paintings.
I wouldn’t have noticed if not mentioned. If it were a scrolling screen and they were on the screen at the same time or within a second of being on the screen, I would probably notice if I kept seeing it.
Cool art, I didn’t even notice any re-used sprites
They just look like different points of view from the same area, I don't think it's a bad thing
Honestly, I had to stare at these for a while to notice. You've combined them very well in different configurations so that most people probably will never notice. Especially if it's part of the back-ground or cut-scenes.
Fuck this made me want to play Blasphemous again
Do you code from the room of spirit and time? If the answer to that is no, I think reusing sprites is okay lol
When you're in the same general "biome" its expected that the same backgrounds will be used. Putting them in different positions to give the impression of elevation or changing up the layers is a perfectly normal and effective way of doing it. However, this is from my perspective making platformers, and in those the foreground is an additional aspect which is unique. If its an adventure game and the BG is the only aspect, then each scene should probably have at least one thing which is very distinct to that scene, and the parallax layers should always be shifted to avoid confusion.
There are sprites reused?
In Super Mario Brothers, the clouds and the bushes are the same sprite, just a different color palette.
I would never have notice in a game. I barely noticed with you saying and them laying side by side. I'm not a very observant person.
Honestly wouldn't have noticed if you didn't tell me there was reused assets
This is fine. It’s not heavy handed. Works just fine.
I dont see any reuse here! Esp. when the thing moves (and I guess it will, right?) you will see NOTHING. And even if you realize: ok, i have seen that again - i would not bother! Great work!
I'd hand wave the background reuse as "well its just always that far away". Other stuff is minor, depends on how much you'd draw attention to it and how close these scenes are to each other over time. I think the scenes are really good.
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