[Sprites] New Swordman Skin

[Korby]

So if I'm going to be perfectly honest, the current Swordman skin is awful.
He's enormous - the tallest skin in the game by a long shot! -, his coloring is weird and doesn't really reflect the original design, and the overall quality of the original sprite is fairly low.
So I made a new base sprite.

In general I think my version is an improvement, but I don't think it's as good as it could be - particularly, I think the front head is pretty meh.
Because of that, and issues raised with suddenly changing skins in the past, I'm making a thread to get a general opinion on it much like we did with Maestro.
Let me know what you think, and feel free to make any alterations you want.

[bass44]

If this ain't an April Fools prank then I approve of this.

[Trillster]

For those who aren't keeping up with the Discord's #core_feedback channel, a bunch of discussion occurred with the hopes of improving this sprite, and these are the two options we ended up coming to, with both of these options including different sword angles. The first one tries to focus on mostly blue and cyan while the second one adds in some white for his feet and antennas.

Normal Size

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4x Size

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Personally I'm not sure which of these four sprites should be used, but I would say that any of these versions are certainly better than the one that is posted there.

[Pegg]

Alright, so it's been almost a month and nobody's really been talking about this. In my opinion I really like the ones Sonic posted, but that's probably me being biased since I helped with it.

There's also been another Swordman sprite made by Molly/Geno, which also looks pretty nice.

(click to show/hide)

Anyways, getting to the point. I think there should be some kind of poll on this. Keep the current skin, Use Korby's, Use the one Sonic posted, or use Molly/Geno's. I'd be fine with pretty much all of these except for using the one that's used in the OP, but it'd be nice to hear other people's opinions on this too.

[Max]

Hello yes I have done some useless scribbling



Molly's is the best and core's is a fairly meh attempt at doing the same thing, the other ones are radically different
Overall I like sprites that capture the game they were from as perfectly as possible
Due to my belief that we're representing MM8 as best we can and not some stylised variant - similar to how core uses NES sprites and not resprites, or something

Comparing directly to the MM8 sprite his chest and head tilt back are the most standout traits but the other swordmen have straight heads and korby's original has no chest puff
The angle of the sword is slightly too low in core and the edited korby's one, korby's original doesn't even try, Molly's is near perfect given the resolution
Core Sword has an inaccurate shoulder, Korby's have less accurate shine, Molly's is perfect
Core is almost completely missing the knee things and they're quite weakly emphasised in Korby's
His feet are only captured in Molly's, the other ones don't have the round toe guard or large platforms (core is especially bad and slanted)
Foot detail around the shin is missing in all but Molly's (the joint line)
The angle of the fist is too curved and wrong in the last two
The waist might be too large in the last two
Chest circles are really big and at a different angle in the last two
No shine outline of the bottom of his chest in any of them except Molly's

Core is OK, Molly's is a huge improvement, all the other ones are cleaner sprites but worse representations of Swordman

[Gumballtoid]

I quite like Geno's attempt but I think it boasts a few too many colors. If those were cut down just a bit (particularly on the sword) I'd be all for it.

EDIT: Actually, it occurred to me that one of the inherent problems with current Sword Man -- his height -- was not addressed with Geno's version. That should probably be considered as well.

[Max]

I never had a problem with the height in the first place really

included less-colour variant for comparison but i'm a fan of the way the colours were handled so i'd use the one with the blue and green on it personally

[Geno]

oh hey, talking about that swordman sprite i made

saying my swordman sprite has too many colours is like saying plantman, needleman, drillman, gravityman, yamatoman, tomahawkman, windman, gyroman, stoneman, etc. have too many colours

but i'm glad my swordman still looks good even with reduced colours

[fortegigasgospel]

I think the eyes on Molly's should be moved so he looks like he is looking down. But yea the height thing was brought up because Frost and HSH were both scaled down for 8bdm, so they wouldn't be ridiculously huge, a pain when shooting at (due to hitbox), and 8bdm's Frost is based on his official MM10 sprite. When comparing the MM8 sprites the top of Sword's ear piece reaches the same height as Frost's shoulder (making them the same height) but Frost's sprite was still much wider then Sword's. So the comparing Sword's MM8 size to Mega doesn't match up for an 8bit version when Frost's 8bit sprite isn't the same scale to Mega, which results in Frost looking drastically smaller then Sword.

Edit: The problem has never been about Sword's height compared to Mega Man, it is his height compared to everyone else.


Look how drastically downsized Frost was, it only makes sense Sword get the same treatment.

[Pegg]

Almost three years later...

Wow, I can't believe it's actually been that long.
I also can't believe I thought that Swordman I helped with was good...

Well regardless, I've come to redeem myself. Finally, an update on this whole debacle. After countless hours and countless concoctions of questionable legality, I present to you...



THIS is the new Swordman we've come up with.
Since most people seemed to agree that Molly's take was the most accurate, the logical course of action seemed to be to use that one. HOWEVER, that sprite does not alleviate a key point from the original post- the size.

So, I was able to downsize Molly's sprite to be comparable to the one presented in the original post, without compromising too much detail. I think, personally, it's the best possible outcome for the sprite. You get all the cool detail and accuracy for the sake of visuals, and the smaller size for the sake of gameplay.

I figured I'd share it with everyone to gain external feedback, since for the better part of 2 years, it had only been seen by those within the internal devteam.


So, with that said, I'd like to invite anyone to provide critique and feedback on this "New-er New" Swordman.

[falco]

Almost three years later...

Wow, I can't believe it's actually been that long.
I also can't believe I thought that Swordman I helped with was good...

Well regardless, I've come to redeem myself. Finally, an update on this whole debacle. After countless hours and countless concoctions of questionable legality, I present to you...



THIS is the new Swordman we've come up with.
Since most people seemed to agree that Molly's take was the most accurate, the logical course of action seemed to be to use that one. HOWEVER, that sprite does not alleviate a key point from the original post- the size.

So, I was able to downsize Molly's sprite to be comparable to the one presented in the original post, without compromising too much detail. I think, personally, it's the best possible outcome for the sprite. You get all the cool detail and accuracy for the sake of visuals, and the smaller size for the sake of gameplay.

I figured I'd share it with everyone to gain external feedback, since for the better part of 2 years, it had only been seen by those within the internal devteam.


So, with that said, I'd like to invite anyone to provide critique and feedback on this "New-er New" Swordman.

nice job on turning him into a manlet

[Ruzma]

For my part, I say it's clean, reads well, is accurate, doesn't pose any problem and especially not the problems plaguing that boi
looking off in the distance funi, but otherwise, wow!

It can't have been easy to make, such an angle ought to be a nightmare, but man, it is very much worth it

Great job, I approve and salute your work, Pegg!