Sprite Suggestions

[MagiqueForever]

I think the sprites should go back to how they looked like before.
Mainly void-suits, weapons etc.
I feel like they are starting to look weird and lose detail, compared to what they looked like.

For example:

Before


After


I gave this example but I feel the same about all the other sprites that were changed
Am I the only one who thinks they looked better before?
 

[DeadLantern]

I disagree. More detail is not necessarily better. The old suits were uninspired Dead Space copies with no unique aesthetic. The new suits have less detail, yes, but they achieve a more unique aesthetic and fit the server. On their own, I still prefer the latter suit, as I think it is more distinct than the "black army man" suit.

[MattAtlas]

The screenshots you posted are an unfair comparison. The former one is full size, while the bottom one is stretched due to your screen being on stretch to fit. Here's a better representation:

[Scheveningen]

The current sprites look completely fine. It's weird to call for a reversion to an aesthetic that was in the 2010s.

[Kintsugi]

Hi. I think you’re wrong and I also think it’s very disrespectful to the spriter who has put in dozens of hours reworking these suits and weapons to try and say “the new stuff is just worse, revert”

[KingOfThePing]

1 hour ago, DanseMacabre said:

Hi. I think you’re wrong and I also think it’s very disrespectful to the spriter who has put in dozens of hours reworking these suits and weapons to try and say “the new stuff is just worse, revert”

This is unnessecarily passive aggressive. Just because someone put a lot of time into something does not mean it is immune to criticism. OP stated his opinion, said why and gave a comparison. I don't see the "the new stuff is just worse, revert" part here.

[Kintsugi]

2 minutes ago, KingOfThePing said:

This is unnessecarily passive aggressive. Just because someone put a lot of time into something does not mean it is immune to criticism. OP stated his opinion, said why and gave a comparison. I don't see the "the new stuff is just worse, revert" part here.

Not my intention, but I can easily see why it came off that way— I blame grouchiness and phoneposting. Apologies to OP regardless - I will say that my original point still stands, though. This doesn’t seem constructive - it really does read like “I prefer the old stuff, and that’s that.” You’re allowed to have that opinion, but from an objective standpoint they are no less detailed.

[Cre77]

i'd say something about piling on the OP too, but his non-descriptiveness kinda dug that grave for him. fine, i'll do it myself :^)

in my humble opinion, yes, the recent spacesuits and rigs are a downgrade of sorts. their virtue is that they perfectly fit the artstyle constructed for aurora over the years, but their core problems still stand. they rely way too much on power ranger color coding. with few details and secondary colors to compensate for that, and with aurora's general low-contrast style, most end up looking more like shapes of solid color. and, personal opinion, kind of uninspired.  and i get where that might come from, considering with plate carriers, and with general clothing a lot of that detail can just blend into noise when coupled with all the accessories our christmas tree storefront of a crew wear.

and it's not to say that kyres is bad. he's not just a good spriter, he's a great spriter, even able to take feedback and criticism as shown with the whole e-carabine debacle. something some "cool" spriters don't even bother with. (yes, i'm still gushing about the new e-carabine sprite.)

anyway, what am i getting at? yeah i dont like these lmao, but they can definitely be improved, and it just seems like a poor design choice, which is a shame. kyres' previous stuff highlights this, with TCFL being very uniquely creatively designed, if not a bit wacky with certain shading, and mining voidsuits having a great use of secondary colors and design details, like a more pronounced undersuit/plating separation.

again, i'm not putting anyone down, just providing opinions. kyres could benefit from more feedback with the suits, a forum post like the guns had, since i think most of the feedback he got was relegated to the github's original PR. 

 

tl;dr spritework good, actual design questionable. muh details. feedback ftw.

[ImmortalRedshirt]

Alright, so I don't exactly know where to give feedback on the current hardsuit sprite PR that's open, but it seems the topic is gearing towards it, so here goes. I really like the new engineering and hazard suits. There's little details that make them feel really industrial, which is a style I like seeing on this server. These suits look like they were designed to get stuff done, and keep the inhabitants protected from the elements while at it. Other than a bit of over-reliance on one specific color on the hazard suit, I have no serious complaints.

The Chief Engineer's suit, on the other hand...now, I never fail to be impressed by the effort that goes into these sprites. The CE's hardsuit just feels kind of weird in comparison to the other two I just mentioned. For one, the color is a bit too close to the regular engineering suit, but still feels too bright a shade of yellowish-orange. Other thing is the sprite for the head for humans. It kind of looks like there's a hardhat there(with brim.) This honestly feels rather silly and a bit cartoonish. As a whole, the suit just doesn't feel as down-to-earth as the other two I mentioned were, and even with the advantages it provides, I'd still rather wear the engineering hardsuit over this.

In essence, just plain remarkable skill that you're showing off here, bring the CE's hardsuit closer to the other two's more industrial theme while still giving it a way to stand out.

[kyres1]

19 hours ago, Cre77 said:

i'd say something about piling on the OP too, but his non-descriptiveness kinda dug that grave for him. fine, i'll do it myself :^)

in my humble opinion, yes, the recent spacesuits and rigs are a downgrade of sorts. their virtue is that they perfectly fit the artstyle constructed for aurora over the years, but their core problems still stand. they rely way too much on power ranger color coding. with few details and secondary colors to compensate for that, and with aurora's general low-contrast style, most end up looking more like shapes of solid color. and, personal opinion, kind of uninspired.  and i get where that might come from, considering with plate carriers, and with general clothing a lot of that detail can just blend into noise when coupled with all the accessories our christmas tree storefront of a crew wear.

and it's not to say that kyres is bad. he's not just a good spriter, he's a great spriter, even able to take feedback and criticism as shown with the whole e-carabine debacle. something some "cool" spriters don't even bother with. (yes, i'm still gushing about the new e-carabine sprite.)

anyway, what am i getting at? yeah i dont like these lmao, but they can definitely be improved, and it just seems like a poor design choice, which is a shame. kyres' previous stuff highlights this, with TCFL being very uniquely creatively designed, if not a bit wacky with certain shading, and mining voidsuits having a great use of secondary colors and design details, like a more pronounced undersuit/plating separation.

again, i'm not putting anyone down, just providing opinions. kyres could benefit from more feedback with the suits, a forum post like the guns had, since i think most of the feedback he got was relegated to the github's original PR. 

 

tl;dr spritework good, actual design questionable. muh details. feedback ftw.

 

30 minutes ago, ImmortalRedshirt said:

Alright, so I don't exactly know where to give feedback on the current hardsuit sprite PR that's open, but it seems the topic is gearing towards it, so here goes. I really like the new engineering and hazard suits. There's little details that make them feel really industrial, which is a style I like seeing on this server. These suits look like they were designed to get stuff done, and keep the inhabitants protected from the elements while at it. Other than a bit of over-reliance on one specific color on the hazard suit, I have no serious complaints.

The Chief Engineer's suit, on the other hand...now, I never fail to be impressed by the effort that goes into these sprites. The CE's hardsuit just feels kind of weird in comparison to the other two I just mentioned. For one, the color is a bit too close to the regular engineering suit, but still feels too bright a shade of yellowish-orange. Other thing is the sprite for the head for humans. It kind of looks like there's a hardhat there(with brim.) This honestly feels rather silly and a bit cartoonish. As a whole, the suit just doesn't feel as down-to-earth as the other two I mentioned were, and even with the advantages it provides, I'd still rather wear the engineering hardsuit over this.

In essence, just plain remarkable skill that you're showing off here, bring the CE's hardsuit closer to the other two's more industrial theme while still giving it a way to stand out.

As a note, literally anybody can request a feedback thread from git or personally to a person's DMs or through a server ping. As far as I am aware you are obligated by the contribution rules to provide one, even if you're a dev. With that said, I'll give you guys a thread you can slap this input on. Not to shoot down your opinions, but I would appreciate more direct criticism - your feedback is good, but I need tangible ways to work on the sprites as well beyond "fix it," for example. This isn't saying that's what you said at all, just an example.

[CyberCide]

I somewhat agree with the OP, I've seen some sprite changes but the first one that I was unhappy with were the new exosuit parts sprites. The old versions looked distinct, you could tell them apart easily, even without much knowledge of robotics. The new ones are a lot more similar, which is good for custom mechs, you can mix and match the parts without making it too disproportionate, but you lose the complexity  of every part.

Aside from the sensors, all the components are nearly identical,

 

I would believe it may be due to a repeating pattern of "Square with dot/dash in the middle" which is present in just about every part:

On 01/03/2021 at 08:21, Cre77 said:

i'd say something about piling on the OP too, but his non-descriptiveness kinda dug that grave for him. fine, i'll do it myself :^)

in my humble opinion, yes, the recent spacesuits and rigs are a downgrade of sorts. their virtue is that they perfectly fit the artstyle constructed for aurora over the years, but their core problems still stand. they rely way too much on power ranger color coding. with few details and secondary colors to compensate for that, and with aurora's general low-contrast style, most end up looking more like shapes of solid color. and, personal opinion, kind of uninspired.  and i get where that might come from, considering with plate carriers, and with general clothing a lot of that detail can just blend into noise when coupled with all the accessories our christmas tree storefront of a crew wear.

and it's not to say that kyres is bad. he's not just a good spriter, he's a great spriter, even able to take feedback and criticism as shown with the whole e-carabine debacle. something some "cool" spriters don't even bother with. (yes, i'm still gushing about the new e-carabine sprite.)

anyway, what am i getting at? yeah i dont like these lmao, but they can definitely be improved, and it just seems like a poor design choice, which is a shame. kyres' previous stuff highlights this, with TCFL being very uniquely creatively designed, if not a bit wacky with certain shading, and mining voidsuits having a great use of secondary colors and design details, like a more pronounced undersuit/plating separation.

again, i'm not putting anyone down, just providing opinions. kyres could benefit from more feedback with the suits, a forum post like the guns had, since i think most of the feedback he got was relegated to the github's original PR. 

 

tl;dr spritework good, actual design questionable. muh details. feedback ftw.

I believe Cre77 said it best, not all new sprites look bad, I like the medical voidsuit a lot, the smooth and clean texture fits the theme of the suit perfectly, however, that same style may not be the best for a supposedly heavily armoured space-proof suit as the OP implied. I don't mean to talk down the sprite work, but in some cases it does look sub-optimal and could use some improvement.

I don't think reverting SOME sprites would be completely objectionable, perhaps creating a poll to determine what sprites people are unhappy with would be a good idea?