Prism's Art and GameDev Thread

[Prism]

Your art is just so awesome.

I’m honored to hear it, thank you Ryvius.

Is that animated water an effect filter, or did you hand draw all the frames? Either way, it looks great.

It’s a shader which is made of two parts. The first part distorts the things underneath the “surface” of the water - it makes it wavy based on a Perlin noise pattern that’s hidden from view.

The second layer is the glistening on top, which is done by taking the highlights of two overlaid, scrolling textures in opposite directions and only showing the brightest spots. Because they’re overlaid and scrolling, the brightest spots keep changing, making the glistening dynamic. Thanks!

This probably doesn’t make sense without a visual representation. I’m on my phone, but can provide visuals tomorrow if you want.

 

[Odysseus]

Yeah, I'd be pretty interested to see how it all works. I've never done anything like this myself.

 

[Prism]

Apologies for the holdup on this explanation! I got so swept up in Remake hype and everything that I'm only getting around to it now, @Odysseus. Here's the explanation broken up into two parts.

Spoiler: Floor distortion explanation

To make the ground floor look wavy, we distort it based on an input. Basically, if a pixel is white, it moves in one direction. If it's black, it moves in the opposite direction. Any shade of gray is in-between.

As an example, let's use this star texture as input:

See the star distorting it?
There's a lot of pure black and pure white, which produces the extreme edges in the star. If we use a ton of shades of gray, we can get more nuanced movement. We can get something wavy and water-like if we use Perlin noise:

Spoiler: Water highlight explanation

First, we take a black-and-white image of a water ripple texture.

Then, we overlay it over itself, and scroll in opposite directions. This creates an illusion of water flow.

But there's a lot of pixels we don't need here - so, we just look at where the image is the brightest. Because the images are combining, the brightest point will always be where two of the original highlights are overlapping. And, because the images are scrolling, the brightest points are always changing. This is the only part we show. Then it's all made the same bright blue color.


This is how the highlight's done. The two layers are then put over each other.

 

[Prism]

Also, while I'm here, here's a drawing I did of the main character of that project.

 

[Odysseus]

Don't worry about it, my life pretty much went on hold for a week too. That's some really interesting stuff! I would probably need the software in my hands to really perfectly understand, but its all pretty impressive none the less.

 

[Prism]

Yeah, I agree that the "why" would need the software to be truly understood. Like, sure, it distorts it based on black and white pixels, but how? I actually wonder that too, aha. I just use the tools Unity offers.

 

[Prism]

I started a 2D FFVII screenshot as if it were on the PSP. (though I know you can play the OG on PSP anyway, lol)
Now, I have a question for you guys - what enemy / boss do you think would be cool to use? That very rough scribble is the Carry Armor, if you could guess. Safer Sephiroth or JENOVA were considerations I had, but I think it might be inconsiderate to post on Twitter - there are a lot of people just getting into the game now because of Remake, and that would spoil them in a major way.

 

[Odysseus]

If you don't want to do carry armor, how about hundred gunner or motorball? Or Hell House. Actually yeah, do Hell House.

 

[Rydeen]

HELL HOUSE!

 

[Prism]

chanting
HELL HOUSE
HELL HOUSE
HELL HOUSE

Hell House it is! That'll be really fun. I'll end up doing a few of them as a set, maybe mixing the party members. And maybe a few overworld shots. (like two)

When I'm done with my job stuff, I'll do FFVII Demake

 

[Prism]

Had some time to kill tonight, so I painted a sky!

 

[Prism]

Another quick standalone piece.

 

[Prism]

Glad to be able to show these off! I contributed pixel art to a charity mini-cookbook themed around Animal Crossing. (The food items are all based on food villagers can have in the game)

The proceeds were originally just based around COVID-19 charities - these were made roughly a month ago - but the righteous spotlight on unjust police brutality affected our priorities big time. We’re splitting the proceeds between two groups. One for Campaign Zero, to help end systematic police abuses, and the other to help those afflicted by COVID-19.

These were also made pre-tendonitis, naturally.

 

[Rydeen]

What are the green thingies?

 

[Prism]

What are the green thingies?

Cookies based on the Animal Crossing leaf!
(I didn’t bake these, but they look pretty good)

 

[Shademp]

Top-tier pixel deliciousness

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Prism, I love the art you make!

 

[Prism]

You're all very kind. Thank you very much, all.





As one of the first pieces post-hand recovery, I started an HD rendition of Ocarina of Time's Master Sword. I left the contract work I had before for the sake of my hands (the boss was very understanding), so now I have more free time - which means I'm looking forward to starting that 2D FFVII rendition I've been meaning to do. I'll start when the inspiration strikes! (chants) HELL HOUSE.

But yeah, this was another project that was swirling around in my head during my Remake playthrough - OoT was FFVII's contemporary in its era, of course. What would it look like authentically remade? That's my state of mind when working on this. My brother gave me a few pointers that helped out the 3D high-poly process.

 

[Prism]

Here's a collaboration I did with a friend! He programmed all of the animation (background distortion, the pieces snapping into place, etc) and I pixeled all of the individual components and pieces.

Well, now I have the interior of this particular model of PS1 (it's some PAL model) memorized...
Some of the parts are skewed due to simulated perspective (i.e. how the disc is drawn as an oval instead of a circle - the parts are drawn in a similar way)

 

[Rydeen]

I love that. Are you a computer nerd, Prism?

 

[Prism]

Thanks! It’s a hobby of mine that I’m learning more about as I go on. There’s definitely way bigger computer nerds out there, but consider me interested.

 

[Shademp]

That is one goddamn sexy animation piece. Absolute glory. 10/10.

 

[Prism]

Thanks Shademp! My friend did a killer job when I collaborated with him. We're gonna do more down the line!





In the meantime, I finished the Master Sword I was doing. Will do additional parts of Link when I have time

 

[Wol]

just came across THIS topic

simply gorgeous art

 

[Prism]

Here's an update on the Ocarina of Time Link I've been doing for the past few months. I studied FFVII Remake's method for hair when making his hair, as Square Enix has it down better than nearly anyone else.