Tajara Base Sprite Reshading

[Puckaboo2]

Straw poll for people who cannot vote.

Oh, boy, where do I begin with all the problems I see, here? There is a GAP between the female's legs where the tail should be, for one! Feet shouldn't be shaded when they are only one pixel wide. The ears are darker than the head. The tail is darker than the rest of the body. I have so much to cover for these little guys, and it's saddening.

Let's start with the colors. I do not even need to explain how unprofessional the amount of near-duplicate colors I see on the original sprites. This is screenshotted from the actual sprite palette from Dream Maker.  There are exactly five duplicate colors, four 3-of-a-kind colors, and one 4-of-a-kind colors. The top palette represents the colors of the current Tajara and the bottom represents the current updated ones I have.

Zoom in on the tail. For some reason, 9 acts as the shading for the tail from the north direction, while 11 and 12 act as shading for the tail in the east and west position. I've decided to match the tails' colors to whatever part they connect to and color the border as the same color as the body. 

Now that I have addressed the color issues,, pull all images I show you in in Microsoft Paint and zoom in as I explain what I have fixed. The reason why I asked you this is because some of the changes are very subtle.

Let's start with the heads. I'll target problem areas in bold and explain them.

This is the male's head.

Ears:

1. The border shading of the ears do not match the rest of the border shading of the body.
2. The ears, from the north position, are more dark than the rest of the fur, which does not make any sense as they were not like that in the original Tajara design. I re-shaded the ears and the back of the head to match the rest of the body.

Muzzle:

1.  On the front, it has lost its shading. To fix this, I went to the original sprites for a reference and I matched the shading to it. The 'chin' on the reference Tajara is part of the torso's body patch, so it doesn't clip onto clothes.
2. On the sides, there is a dark pixel on the cheek that has no purpose. In fact, it looks like a side mouth. I've removed it, and also an outline pixel to the left of the dark pixel (the mouth on the muzzle)

 

Now, let's look at the female's head.

I'm not going to say anything about the ears because they are the same as the male's.

Female Muzzle

1. First, the shading on the side of the face from the south position is inverted.
2. The female's mouth has a pink dot and this is an issue because when people make female Tajara with lighter colors, that pink dot ends up looking like a tooth and the end result is a buck-tooth hamster Tajaran. Credit to SideCat for my daily dose of lols for the hamster comment.
3. The female muzzle from the side not only has unsightly speckles of dark fur, but the color of the muzzle marking flare does not match the color of the belly patch (Don't believe me? Look at the full body on the first image,) nor does it have the shading the male has. I shaded the muzzle flare with an outline so it is still obvious the marking is different than the male's, but it does not reduce the surface area of the muzzle.

 

Let's look at the bodies, now.

The reason why the flesh is darker than the original is because the flesh color does not stay the same when people have lighter Tajara. For example, my pure-white speshul snowflek has pure-white fur and her resulting flesh is a light pink.

Now, someone please tell me why the female looks exactly the same as the male? I'm not joking; there is no pattern difference or body shape difference from male to female. To fix this, I've used the human models as references and gave the females some hips from the north and south state. I have honestly attempted to give females a different body patch than the males, but they ended up looking they had a giant dick plastered on their chests no matter what I did. I can try again, if you want, though.

 What I COULD do, however, was give the upper chest, below the neck, a little bit more shading so the muzzle would connect with the patching on the chest, but not too much.

I also gave the kitties some shoulder blades and armpits like humans have. But, the sides... 

Ahh, the infamous dangling arm when the thing should have been amputated. I removed it, as you can see.

 

I think I am pretty much done explaining the flaws of Tajara. In other news, I have added some markings to Tajara.

No, we had none of those markings before. And YES, YOU CAN HAVE A MONO-COLOR TAJARA. Angora kitties unite!

 

Well, that's it! 

If all goes well, next, Unathi!

Edited August 25, 2017 by Puckaboo2

[willior13]

Good to see the models being cleaned up and updated. Do you plan on cleaning up all of the races?

[Puckaboo2]

Just now, willior13 said:

Good to see the models being cleaned up and updated. Do you plan on cleaning up all of the races?

I do. I have Unathi and Grey planned, right now.

[jedr]

Any chance for some ingame comparisons? It's always more productive to see how they would look in a game enviroment, instead of just a blank background

[Puckaboo2]

6 minutes ago, jedr said:

Any chance for some ingame comparisons? It's always more productive to see how they would look in a game enviroment, instead of just a blank background

I'll post some tomorrow.

[Hylocereus]

As I've already said, I do love these and hope they gain some traction. The changes improve cohesion and overall graphic quality and oh my god yes solid color cats. Personally I kind of like that the male body and female body are almost identical - cats aren't as sexually dimorphic as humans, after all - but eh. Everything else is great, I hate that stupid bucktooth pixel on the mouth and I didn't realise how bad the facial shading was until you fixed it. :P

[Birdtalon]

I approve of updating sprites. Well done.

[ZN23X]

Very well done. Curious to see what you plan to do with Unathi. I don't notice anything wrong with em but maybe it'll be one of those "Wow I never noticed how bad it was" things like Hypo had.

[Puckaboo2]

19 hours ago, jedr said:

Any chance for some ingame comparisons? It's always more productive to see how they would look in a game enviroment, instead of just a blank background

If you want 64x64 view, open the image up in Microsoft Paint and size 200% (not resize, just the scroller.) Males on left, females on right.

[ConfectionCore]

I'm not a big fan on putting obvious curves on the female (having male and female look bodily alike is one of those subtle things that make it stand apart a little more from the human race), but the other changes look fantastic. That subtle clarity is very pleasing to look at in a side to side comparison

[Shadeykins]

On 8/23/2017 at 2:34 PM, Puckaboo2 said:

If you want 64x64 view, open the image up in Microsoft Paint and size 200%

Here's what it actually looks like seeing as I already had these handy in a viewable format. Originals left, new ones right.

There's issues with the chest being too wide and extending too far into the neck in WEST/EAST, the shoulder area being ill-defined in SOUTH, and the shading on the ears in NORTH.

Here's what it would look like if those issues were fixed. Originals left, edited versions right.

 

[Puckaboo2]

15 hours ago, Shadeykins said:

Here's what it actually looks like seeing as I already had these handy in a viewable format. Originals left, new ones right.

There's issues with the chest being too wide and extending too far into the neck in WEST/EAST, the shoulder area being ill-defined in SOUTH, and the shading on the ears in NORTH.

Here's what it would look like if those issues were fixed. Originals left, edited versions right.

 

Considering the belly, all I did, from east and west, was lighten the border near the belly. Additionally, the belly markings extending to the neck when the Tajara faces south is an extension of the chin, which is which you wanted to remove.

No, that does not clip into any armor or clothing. Without those lines of pixels, they give the face a squarish appearance and leave the face feeling something to be desired.

See? The muzzle just stops. It feels unfinished.

About the ears, I have no intentions of shading them because most Tajara you see running around the station sport over a dozen styles of manes, Tajara can wear, all of which usually blended into the ears unless the mane is really dark.

The way you shaded the ears makes the ears actually appear to make them shaded and facing inward, rather than them facing away from the skull.

 

Which is why I rather leave the ears unshaded so they appear to be facing forward.

 

Edit: I realized the fix for the tail gap between the female's legs causes the tail to clip into the groin of clothing. I may have to add an extra black pixel on the female's groin (You won't notice it unless both legs fly off) just to compensate for the dot.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Puckaboo2

[Shadeykins]

1) You have a full extra line of pixels along the belly in East/West which obscures the arm. I never mentioned anything about clipping, I said "chest ... extending too far into the neck in WEST/EAST" - which it does. See the first and second pictures respectively.

2) Talking about the chin is a little disingenuous unless the sprites that were given to me directly from your PR are somehow wrong. The left is yours, and on the right is the example edit I made to it. Your sprite's SOUTH doesn't actually appear to have a chin whatsoever, which is what my edit added back in. This is what I was referring to when I said "the shoulder area being ill-defined in SOUTH".

I also noticed for some reason that you flat-shaded my edit, despite neither my edit nor the original having flat shading for the chin (which you then proceeded to criticize).

3) Given that light doesn't actually interact with sprites on SS13 (because there's no actual depth), detail and distance are things that are ascertained by light/dark values in SS13 - with darker objects appearing further away. We can also use overlapping line to signify whether an object is closer, or further away depending on where and how the lines overlap. I honestly feel like if anything, the original is the best option out of any of these - because yours feels naked and front-facing, and the edit I made only mitigates this issue slightly.

[Puckaboo2]

I'm sorry, but I'm not changing anything, except that pixel on the side of the body.

I am not making the border of the belly shading any darker than I made it. The border does not and never has or will represent the arm; it represents the belly, so it should be a lighter shade than the rest of the body. 

The way Taj look from the south is fine, and you are nitpicking issues which were present BEFORE I made my fixes, and you only brought them back. You are the only one complaining about the chest and the chin, even after I elaborated on why I chose to do what I have done.

My model DOES have a chin, right below the head. It is part of the torso, but it isn't intrusive or clips into anything.

 It is light in color because it completes and rounds out the muzzle, below the face, instead of coming to a square stop. The way you made it completely separates the head from the rest of the body and gives the Tajara a permanent sad expression. Why would the chin not be the same color as the muzzle? It makes no sense.The original Tajara design was not like any of your suggestions--look at the head reference on The beige Tajara--the original. The original translation was lost due to poor spriting, so I restored the designs that were lost and improved upon them.

All I did was make the border of the belly a bit lighter from east/west to make it appear more fluffy. The opposing arm isn't supposed to show, but the hand is. The glove and the hand only have a 1x3 dimension, so the hand does not need to go into the belly, anyway.

Aside from maybe making the female's torso on the north/south the same as the male's, the models are a upgrade, and 90% of the community thinks so, as well. I don't like your changes, to be honest, because they take away the focus of the most important aspects of what make a Tajara, a Tajara: large ears, large muzzle, light belly.

I don't want to make any more changes, again, aside from the female's waist.

 

Edited August 26, 2017 by Puckaboo2

[Shadeykins]

On 8/25/2017 at 6:06 PM, Puckaboo2 said:

Aside from maybe making the female's torso on the north/south the same as the male's, the models are a upgrade, and 90% of the community thinks so, as well.

Your own poll disagrees.

The chin issue may be related to belly-markings, but the absence of it in any form is native to your sprites in those pictures - it does not appear in Paradise's current sprites while utilizing the white underbelly. Original is left (bucktooth and all), and utilizing the same colour scheme and markings is yours on the right.

There is no chin. I suggest you look into that as it is an actual issue that's been identified with your sprites.

The belly sharing the same colour schema as the markings also serves to have it bleed into the environment, even taking into account if it's meant to represent the belly. Again.

Contrast the original on the left, to the one on the right looking at the belly region specifically.

Quote

... take away the focus of the most important aspects of what make a Tajara, a Tajara: large ears, large muzzle, light belly.

The default Taj does not have a light belly. Out of 11 possible options (including the default non-light belly) only three provide the option for a lighter belly (with one being partial at best). Taj ears are smaller than Vulp ears. Taj snouts are shorter than Vulp snouts, whilst being slightly blockier than the similar sized Unathi snout.

This is a non-sequitur anyways, as you haven't actually changed the silhouette of any of these features you're speaking about. My edits served as demonstrations to highlight existing issues with your sprites, not as the end-all be-all.

I actually like quite a few of the changes you've made (rounding the hand, sensible shading on the head, and even the contentious waist-pinch on the female sprites), but the identified issues are part of the reason why nearly 50% (not 10%) of people both on your poll and on your PR do not want to see these changes.

[Puckaboo2]

After overwhelming amounts of displeasure from people. I have decided to revert some of the changes I have made in favor of Shadeykin's suggestions.

 

The new muzzle extended beyond only three masks, which I have edited. No helmets were affected.

The muzzle fits on top of the body. Body markings have not been modified

 The male muzzle and muzzle w/ inner ears has also been modified with a chin. Don't worry.

 

Here is what they look like in game: 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2017 by Puckaboo2

[PrincessWilly]

I want the leg shading back. The one thing that really distinguishes the Tajaran feet and makes them look like not-a-reskinned-human was the shading that implies (in this low res game) that the feet are a different shape. In fact, in general, I really dislike the overall removal of shading that you've done. With such a low-res game, you need that shading to give it some depth (of course, keeping in mind that we're not looking at your blown-up examples, we're looking at a much smaller sprite, the shading is important to make it look more detailed)

 

What I really, really don't understand, is, to what end do these updates really matter? I don't think you're fixing any glaring bugs, and in fact in your older threads (which you've deleted instead of updated for some reason?) it was pointed out that some of the things you had changed before were actually breaking the game (for instance, not showing both hands so people can confirm you're unarmed)

 

I believe in fixing bugs, I don't believe in changes for the sake of your personal tastes.

I honestly feel like you don't understand a lot of what you're changing, most of the time. That seems to be a prevailing theme throughout this whole process you've taken it upon yourself to go through. You've changed a lot of shading without understanding why it's there.

Edited September 1, 2017 by PrincessWilly