What is LF2 style? - Printable Version

What is LF2 style? - Printable Version

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What is LF2 style? - Karma - 03-06-2013

This might be noobish topic, but guys, what do you think lf2 style is?
Because i saw many sprites which is just sprites(no offense) and get comments something like thats LF2 styled or something like that.
Share your opinion.

RE: What is LF2 style? - empirefantasy - 03-06-2013

79x79 size (might be a few more)
not high quality
2-3 colors for shading

And in thematic:
drawing little kids, you can see that little fighters are little kids and have big heads

RE: What is LF2 style? - YinYin - 03-06-2013

Mimic Martis character drawing and animating style he had during the development of LF2 perfectly.
It evolved heaps if you compare the hero characters (early/1.7 versions, he did touch them up a little later on) to the last ones: Knight/Bat/Julian.

Could you show examples of sprites that were called LF2-styled when you think they weren't?

edit: I can make a list of what I think the core features are, but that will take more time than I currently have.
Maybe later.

edit again: Also I think this discussion won't be noobish at all. Most of all because beginners often cannot spot their mistakes or what's important and advanced artists usually speed far past the goal (too many details/wrong contrast/complicated colour schemes/super clean shapes/long animations/etc).

RE: What is LF2 style? - NewToTheEra - 03-07-2013

according to me lf2 sprites are fat (muscular) sprites of 79x79 size
it depends on you for the cooler shading and also
face bigger which should look according to body

RE: What is LF2 style? - YinYin - 03-26-2013

(03-06-2013, 11:34 PM)YinYin Wrote: I can make a list of what I think the core features are, but that will take more time than I currently have.

Let's start makin' that list. I think it will be best to tackle this chronological in the sequence one would create a character:

Sketch/Proportions
Colors/Shading/Details
Render/Outline
Animation (steps 1-3 with a bigger picture in mind)

Proportions then! Looking at this templateified Davis:
[Image: davis200copy.png]

A general rule that seems to roughly apply to all characters: they are about 3 heads high.
Also LF2 characters (almost) have no neck, which is why the shoulders meet up right below the ears and the chin covers a part of the torso.
On Davis here torso and legs (without feet) have the exact same height, but are both a little shorter than the head.
Without having measured it I'd say the characters are generally about two heads wide.
There's a lot more about proportions such as facial structure or hand/arm/feet sizes that seems to be rather constant among characters, but I think this describes the whole thing well enough already as details are what makes an individual character distinguishable. (like a bulky Mark or small Sorcerer, they already don't really fit this well enough)

Next: the colour palette, shading, shaping and possible tools.
This 200% Davis shall assist us with that:
[Image: davis200.png]

Will continue later - feel free to post your own observations though.

RE: What is LF2 style? - YinYin - 05-02-2013

(03-26-2013, 05:36 PM)YinYin Wrote: Next: the colour palette, shading, shaping and possible tools.
This 200% Davis shall assist us with that:

Let's look at it then shall we?

The colour palette is held very simple: hair, skin, bandages, pants/shoes and jacket. That's just 5 with only the blue really sticking out (everything else having less saturation). This simplicity applies to all LF2 characters and few of them have a high colour contrast (example: Louis' cape and armor).

The shading in general is achieved with only two different shades per colour surface using a simple brush. An exception here are the lines between the white bandages. You may argue that skin and shoes or pants have more shades, but here is why I say they don't:
The face/hands and the chest skin are really two different colour surfaces (if they were not shaded yet). That way both only have two shades. The same applies to his shoes. Unshaded they are already divided into top and soles.

The pants lastly were not shaded with a simple brush. I'd say they were pre shaded the same way as everything else and later given more structure with a smudge tool, but it could also just be a smoother brush.

So yeah, simplicity all the way. Starting out with drawing a few simple shapes using the main colours and then shading them in with just one more shade each and an LF2 character can look as good as Davis.

(03-26-2013, 05:36 PM)YinYin Wrote:

Sketch/Proportions

Colors/Shading/Details

Render/Outline

Animation (steps 1-3 with a bigger picture in mind)

The MyBB list feature does not allow it, but this list actually needs a step 0. Character Design. (I don't think I can say a lot about it though. At least not using just Davis.)

What would be next? Rendering and outline! We got a pretty big Davis here so let me shrink him down to game size quickly:
[Image: Ca1Lj6u.png]

Aww crap what's this? I guess you get what this will be about :D
Considering all the small black dots that were on LF2s sprite sheets I'd say Marti didn't pay much attention to this initially. And if you worked clean and have the right image interpolation when scaling down you may not have to worry about this point at all, but as you can see here it can end ugly.

The analyzing part itself will be pretty short, so I will also tell you how I do this process.
(Be sure to tell me how you do it!)

RE: What is LF2 style? - Gad - 05-03-2013

Well, I would like to add something from myself.

Proportions in lf are not constant - that's the rule. You sometimes shall pull on some parts of body to make them longer, just to make look animation more realistic(?).
They're ususally extending when they're 'inmove' but not only.

[Image: 5d9p5i.jpg]

RE: What is LF2 style? - LutiChris - 05-03-2013

@Gad
Perfect example!
Some of my early (but not too early) versions, the arms were longer than needed to be and i was trying to figure out why that was.
This is why i was getting confused with proportions so i restricted myself to 4 heads instead of confusing myself with 3.

RE: What is LF2 style? - YinYin - 05-03-2013

True - even better example is Davis' DvA. His arms stretch to ridiculous lengths for that animation.
I think this stretching is only the case for short frames during attacks to give the characters a reasonable reach without twisting their bodies in weird ways.
(Deeps crouch for example isn't that different and you could say that his arms just aren't stretched while standing)
The same is done on super smash bros.:
[Image: Mario_vs_Sonic__Punch_Out_by_KairiTheValeyard.jpg]

[Image: Mario_vs_Sonic__Punch_Out_by_KairiTheValeyard.jpg]

[Image: Mario_and_Sonic_Brawl_by_dragonheart07.jpg]

RE: What is LF2 style? - The Hari - 09-09-2013

Can I revive it? No? Okay.
I can't bring anything useful to the topic, but rather ask about few things.
- Do we have to firstly draw sketch of figure (template), or straight away trace shapes with bigger color brush?
- How to choose, when it's better to use 3 instead of only 2 colors of shading?
- What about copying AND ROTATING parts of character? Allowable or not? (in 200% size ofc)
- How many layers? One for base and second for shading? Or maybe one for everything?
- Bakcgrounds! Also in 200%? Without use of opacity brush?

Oh right. That might sounds silly, but I'm not asking "hey guyz, how to sprite?", or how you usually do it, but HOW THE MOST PROBABLY MARTI WERE DOING IT.