I've been working on a texture pack for a couple of months now, and I need criticism from more than two people. I only have a good chunk of the terrain done, so don't ask about any other textures. Please give as much feedback as humanly possible, and try not to be rude. Thanks
Please note: This is from 1.1. I will draw in the new textures when I get to those rows. Anything that looks like the default texture is the default texture.
screenshots are much better than posting your texture pack images, and the space on terrain.png for the chest is not used for that anymore.
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"I'm an outsider by choice, but not truly.
It’s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out.
I’d rather be in, in a good system. That’s where my discontent comes from:
being forced to choose to stay outside.
My advice: Just keep movin’ straight ahead.
Every now and then you find yourself in a different place."
-George Carlin
Fair enough. I put a screenshot of every block I've drawn in the original post. And please, more feedback. If this is going to be a really good texture pack, I need more people to give feedback: tell me what can be improved, what's overdone, etc.
It's a good start. However, the highlights in grass make it tile badly, the wood doesn't look much like wood, the bricks and stone bricks look very much default. Bricks more than stone bricks.
I like the gold and iron block. I did something similar to my pack, but in mine the gradient is highlighted in the middle and darker at the corners, but not shadow dark. I feel this is more true to the specularity of metal, and makes it look more "reflective". It looks fine as it is, but I think it would look better how I did mine.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I'm an outsider by choice, but not truly.
It’s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out.
I’d rather be in, in a good system. That’s where my discontent comes from:
being forced to choose to stay outside.
My advice: Just keep movin’ straight ahead.
Every now and then you find yourself in a different place."
-George Carlin
I see what you mean about the bricks. My initial intention was to just make the stuff look better, and not change it to a style of my own. It's obviously not this way now. So I just touched up the highlights on a lot of the blocks, and I didn't really edit anything special with the bricks yet. I'll get to that sooner or later.
As for the stone bricks, I really like how they look, and I can't think of any ways to make them look better. I guess I could try to do something like Sphax did, but I don't know how well it would turn out on 16x.
Metal blocks, I completely see what you're saying, but there's this thing most experienced pixel artists have nightmares about called pillow shading, where the middle is the highlight and everything gets darker around it. As shown in this simple apple tutorial, it's something to avoid at all costs, even if it doesn't look half bad.
And the oak wood, well, it's oak wood, and it has grainy bark with overlapping, jagged shreds of wood like shown in the picture below. It just doesn't resemble oak at all in most textures because people don't take into consideration that it is oak. Granted 16x may be too low of a resolution to fully achieve this effect, I still think it looks pretty good.
Picture:
And please don't take any 'rejections', for lack of a better term, to your suggestions as stubbornness or anything like that. I'm just providing my side of the input. Thank you for all of the suggestions though. I'll definitely get to thinking of a good way to really make the bricks stand out, and I'll pretty much redo the grass. I wasn't very good at tiling a few months back when I made that...
Well an apple and a sheet of metal do not have the same specualrity....
pixel artists don't like pillow shading because it makes items lose their form... and because it makes objects look weird.
but, a flat piece of metal doesn't have any form! And it doesn't make metal look weird, it makes it look... like metal.... The light source doesn't necessarily have to be right where the view is, and different pieces (like the edges) of metal will be shaded differently.
EDIT: a better way to say this is.... pillow shading gives a "flat" look.... but with an iron block, isn't that what you're going for? Even if it is or isn't technically pillow shading.
And for an experienced pixel artists how about this:
This is a screenshot from Danori's Dithered Delight.
He did exactly the same thing as I did. Shiny in the middle, darker but not shadowy in the corners.
(and he is a respected pixel artists within the MC texturing community)
This shading method makes it look more reflective, as opposed to a block lit from the top-left corner.
EDIT: Also, I don't think it is technically pillow shading, as if the light source were straight out, a flat surface would have very little shading, as it does not have the form of an apple. I would say that as metal is more reflective than an apple, where an apple would diffuse or ignore outside light sources/reflections, shiny metal would reflect it, and be effected by more light than said apple.
As for the wood... it looks too crowded... you can't possibly achieve the look of your reference image....
"I'm an outsider by choice, but not truly.
It’s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out.
I’d rather be in, in a good system. That’s where my discontent comes from:
being forced to choose to stay outside.
My advice: Just keep movin’ straight ahead.
Every now and then you find yourself in a different place."
-George Carlin
Well, I did do the sides of my furnace/dispenser exactly that way, and since I'm trying to keep reoccurring themes, I could use that for the iron and build the other ore blocks off of it. I do think the ore blocks right now look a bit dull and could use something. I think that may be it. As for the wood, I'll try to work with it, see if I can't get something to work with upside-down triangles and have that be a reoccurring wood theme. Again, thanks a bunch for the input. The texture pack will turn out a lot better because of it. And anybody else's input would be great too.
I edited the main post. Anything that looks like default is most likely default. Give as much feedback as possible. And I don't like the junglewood either. I'm still thinking of how to fix it to make it look right, but I think I got the oak wood perfect.
Please note: This is from 1.1. I will draw in the new textures when I get to those rows. Anything that looks like the default texture is the default texture.
And the blocks I have drawn so far
"I'm an outsider by choice, but not truly.
It’s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out.
I’d rather be in, in a good system. That’s where my discontent comes from:
being forced to choose to stay outside.
My advice: Just keep movin’ straight ahead.
Every now and then you find yourself in a different place."
-George Carlin
I like the gold and iron block. I did something similar to my pack, but in mine the gradient is highlighted in the middle and darker at the corners, but not shadow dark. I feel this is more true to the specularity of metal, and makes it look more "reflective". It looks fine as it is, but I think it would look better how I did mine.
"I'm an outsider by choice, but not truly.
It’s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out.
I’d rather be in, in a good system. That’s where my discontent comes from:
being forced to choose to stay outside.
My advice: Just keep movin’ straight ahead.
Every now and then you find yourself in a different place."
-George Carlin
As for the stone bricks, I really like how they look, and I can't think of any ways to make them look better. I guess I could try to do something like Sphax did, but I don't know how well it would turn out on 16x.
Metal blocks, I completely see what you're saying, but there's this thing most experienced pixel artists have nightmares about called pillow shading, where the middle is the highlight and everything gets darker around it. As shown in this simple apple tutorial, it's something to avoid at all costs, even if it doesn't look half bad.
And the oak wood, well, it's oak wood, and it has grainy bark with overlapping, jagged shreds of wood like shown in the picture below. It just doesn't resemble oak at all in most textures because people don't take into consideration that it is oak. Granted 16x may be too low of a resolution to fully achieve this effect, I still think it looks pretty good.
Picture:
And please don't take any 'rejections', for lack of a better term, to your suggestions as stubbornness or anything like that. I'm just providing my side of the input. Thank you for all of the suggestions though. I'll definitely get to thinking of a good way to really make the bricks stand out, and I'll pretty much redo the grass. I wasn't very good at tiling a few months back when I made that...
pixel artists don't like pillow shading because it makes items lose their form... and because it makes objects look weird.
but, a flat piece of metal doesn't have any form! And it doesn't make metal look weird, it makes it look... like metal.... The light source doesn't necessarily have to be right where the view is, and different pieces (like the edges) of metal will be shaded differently.
EDIT: a better way to say this is.... pillow shading gives a "flat" look.... but with an iron block, isn't that what you're going for? Even if it is or isn't technically pillow shading.
And for an experienced pixel artists how about this:
This is a screenshot from Danori's Dithered Delight.
He did exactly the same thing as I did. Shiny in the middle, darker but not shadowy in the corners.
(and he is a respected pixel artists within the MC texturing community)
This shading method makes it look more reflective, as opposed to a block lit from the top-left corner.
EDIT: Also, I don't think it is technically pillow shading, as if the light source were straight out, a flat surface would have very little shading, as it does not have the form of an apple. I would say that as metal is more reflective than an apple, where an apple would diffuse or ignore outside light sources/reflections, shiny metal would reflect it, and be effected by more light than said apple.
As for the wood... it looks too crowded... you can't possibly achieve the look of your reference image....
"I'm an outsider by choice, but not truly.
It’s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out.
I’d rather be in, in a good system. That’s where my discontent comes from:
being forced to choose to stay outside.
My advice: Just keep movin’ straight ahead.
Every now and then you find yourself in a different place."
-George Carlin