Smash Brothers - MetalMan
Hey all,
Since I'm a fan of smash brothers and side scroller looking things, I decided to make a Megaman 2 inspired level for SSBB. Naturally I chose Metalman since he's the one everyone remembers
Saddly though the NES level isn't exctly the most inspiring; it has greens and yellows, with gears and crankshafts floating in a black void.
So I'm gonna fill in the background and detail as best as I can, keeping a mechanical factory feel to everything. Lots of conveyers, gears, junk, debris and very dynamic. The two right pillars will move up and down, the two horizontal platforms, will alternate left and right. And the right pillar with do a bit of both.
I'm still in block out stage finding what looks interesting for the background, etc. As I haven't done much side scroller art everything is going a bit slower than I thought.
I'm also using a custom gear creation max script for this project to save some time
I'm also using The Matrix to help with references
Since I'm a fan of smash brothers and side scroller looking things, I decided to make a Megaman 2 inspired level for SSBB. Naturally I chose Metalman since he's the one everyone remembers
Saddly though the NES level isn't exctly the most inspiring; it has greens and yellows, with gears and crankshafts floating in a black void.
So I'm gonna fill in the background and detail as best as I can, keeping a mechanical factory feel to everything. Lots of conveyers, gears, junk, debris and very dynamic. The two right pillars will move up and down, the two horizontal platforms, will alternate left and right. And the right pillar with do a bit of both.
I'm still in block out stage finding what looks interesting for the background, etc. As I haven't done much side scroller art everything is going a bit slower than I thought.
I'm also using a custom gear creation max script for this project to save some time
I'm also using The Matrix to help with references
Replies
When dealing with 2D gameplay titles, it is important to differentiate between the interactive areas, and the non-interactive areas. Some designers make the mistake of making their backgrounds too complex and showy. Think of ways to visually push your background into the background, while making your foreground "pop."
Chains could add for a nice foreground element, too.
Also could use some different sized gears. Hellboy 2 for example.
The big horizontal ones between sapien and hellboy in the back.
The big tapered one here, too.
Mega man 2 was teh shit. Good work on the environment, btw.
As for references you could check some Bionic Commando Rearmed screenshots. Grin did an awesome job separating the foreground and background while still using the same "old school" colors of the original game.
It's smash brothers!
Wow, I've only played through the first level of Bionic Commando Re-Armed. (and the challenge missions) They really did do a fantastic job on the separation between foreground and background! You'll notice that they often use haze/fog to mute the background a little, while the foreground elements are crisp and sharp. They also go out of their way to use solid color pallette discrepencies between the two. Grin did it up proper with Re-Armed, no doubt.
Thanks for all the feedback. Colour is something I'm definitly gonna look into, as well as lighting. I'm still working on filling in the detail: Putting in more gears, different sized gears, etc.
Rendered:
Viewport:
Next up I'll be working on the foreground / play area and adding more detail.
Render:
Viewport:
Anyway, this could be very cool. I'm assuming it will all be stylized diffuse and no normals? If so, it will be a good challenge.
Make it happen!
i
I just remembered there were gears in one of the early sonic games on the megadrive, they had these gear where u can run on it in a certain direction to make it ascend or descend
All geo is now default gray and renderer is Mental Ray + final gather instead of scanline + light tracer.
I'm not too sure about making the foreground green, or green-ish; it ends up looking kind of weird.
What do you guys think? I've always seemed to have troubles with colours and saturation, so I could use plenty of feedback and suggestions here
- An area with molten lead (lots of (oranges, reds, and yellows)
- A dimly lit abandoned look with lights flickering on and off here and there and parts sparking (various shades of blue and some gray or a color palette similar to Shadow Moses)
If you have Brawl, take a gander at some of the choices of their color palettes and lighting they used. Maybe they could set you on the right track as well. You can still stick to the original design and put an interesting color twist on it.
As for the foreground, I'm thinking something cooler / neutral to contrast the red fog and lights in the distance. Then letting the textures add the greens and yellows.
Video <-- Divx 6.8 AVI
First off I changed the fog from dark red or pale yellow, this really makes the scene a lot more alive I think. It's not drowning in and in blackness.
Next I'm gonna add more detail and debris everywhere, but not 'war-torn', just making it look like this place has been around for a while now.
There will be more elements that will lead the eye back into the scene to where the action is.
So yeah, this is what I have so far: more texturing progress, and finally some lighting. There is one ambient light shining from the top, and a bunch of point lights. All the shadows you see are fake
Video fly around
The whole scene weighs in at just under 35K tris, and when I was looking closely at the levels in SSBB I realized just how little detail they have :O I guess the trade off is that some of them are really dynamic.
What's next:
The middle will be textured with more neutral colours (or something slightly yellow-ish)to blend the background and foreground.
More molten metal moving around in the back ground to have an excuse to make it red / red-ish.
Any comments on lighting and textures so far? It's still 1st pass but I appreciate the feed back
I just have one criticism at the moment.
Right now, everything, save the magma in the background, sort of blends together, and I think it's largely because of the greenish/grey texture being everywhere. Don't be afraid of color. Maybe consider some vibrant red rust on the gear cog faces or elsewhere, just to break it up a bit. Also, what is emitting the red light on the center/left? I know you're early on in lighting and texturing, but I'd consider giving that light a source.
Anyway, I don't agree with your color choices and like the original greens and reds. I played around in PS and threw this together. I don't think the greener foreground looks weird at all. Maybe that's because I'm the type of person that loves it when artists almost abuse color? Either way, to me it looks far more interesting and more 8-bit "Mega Man"-y than the bland gray textures. Start bold; you can always take away if it's too much.
Aside from the colors, I'm not getting a Mega Man vibe from the stage as a whole. I made the conveyor belts look more like the ones that are in Metal Man's stage. Maybe you'll be adding in more nods later? Like metools or those drill things that go from the ceiling to floor that you can farm for health/weapon energy and lives?
Here is how it looks so far:
Spacey, thanks for the feedback. For sure it could use more colour, it's something I'm gonna be working on once I finish the 1st texture pass. However I've noticed that SSBM and SSBB's stages go for a more muted look, so I don't know if I would go overboard with trying to emulate the extreme contrast of the original NES version like they did with Bionic Commando. But rest assured that more colour will be added, and the lighting will also be improved
I like the idea of having some more mega man related detail in the background, heh, I kind of forgot about those