Author Topic: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog  (Read 39300 times)

SamIAm

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #285 on: May 28, 2016, 05:27:29 PM »


The latest version. (236x32)

- Lowercase letters re-rendered and stretched to be one pixel taller before applying outline. With the f at 32 pixels tall, we're now at the maximum height for the image.
- T and L raised in height by one pixel, done by hand.
- The II is redone to be a couple of pixels larger and sit one pixel beneath everything else.
- The old X was sloppy and shorter than the T and L. I re-did it and brought it in line.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2016, 05:43:55 PM by SamIAm »

Phase

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #286 on: May 28, 2016, 07:07:13 PM »

That does look good, a few of the letters are a little sharp like the E. I'm curious how that would look not italic?


Updated the letter spacing, smaller II, also tightened the word spacing a little to get it to fit within the background tablet.
Are we just using the colors on the title screen or is there a palette? I think I used some colors from the original concept, and perhaps the outline is a little bright right now.

   
Side by side isn't too close, and it is turbo related heh. I also like that its clean and the tall text kinda gives it a chisel
look to go with the background tablet/stone. On the other hand you are right that it doesn't have any connection.

Well, all of them are interesting  :-k  :)
« Last Edit: May 28, 2016, 07:38:11 PM by Phase »

SamIAm

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #287 on: May 28, 2016, 08:34:54 PM »

That does look good, a few of the letters are a little sharp like the E. I'm curious how that would look not italic?

"Italic" is basically an element that's baked into the font itself, so even the non-italic version actually renders about the same.

Another problem is that we're very short on space, and you'll notice how tightly things are packed around the two e's in "Legend" in particular. If rounding them out displaces the next letter by very much at all, it'll be a problem.

You could definitely call it an inherent flaw of this whole design.

But maybe there is another e from another font that fits the style and doesn't have the sharpness. I'll have to experiment.

Quote

Updated the letter spacing, smaller II, also tightened the word spacing a little to get it to fit within the background tablet.
Are we just using the colors on the title screen or is there a palette? I think I used some colors from the original concept, and perhaps the outline is a little bright right now.


AFAIK, we'll need to keep this within the colors you see in the original graphic only, which is made of sprites and uses its own palette. None of the extra colors from the background layer can be copied. So, that's two shades of light blue for the outline, two shades of dark green for shading, and one shade of moderately dark blue-green for the main body.

Those might be changeable, but I'm not sure if it's possible to go beyond five colors.

I think you've got this one looking better than ever, but I'm afraid that once it gets simplified into the limited palette, it will look a little rough. The font itself is also still maybe a little on the gaudy side.

Quote
   
Side by side isn't too close, and it is turbo related heh. I also like that its clean and the tall text kinda gives it a chisel
look to go with the background tablet/stone. On the other hand you are right that it doesn't have any connection.

Well, all of them are interesting  :-k  :)

Definitely  :)

This last one is my favorite of the ones you've done, and I would say it's already a very serious contender. The "chiseled" look is something I was hoping I could incorporate into a lowercase rendition, but I can't seem to find anything that will work for that.

I don't think it looks too similar to the Final Fantasy or Turbo Grafx fonts. However, I do worry that it's a pretty big stylistic departure. It looks so powerful and in-your-face, but the original games as a whole, especially the second one, are a little more subtle and gentle in terms of overall style.

When you load up Xanadu 2, you see only the background layer first, and then the title graphic dissolves in. When it's finished, this music starts. Eventually the background layer fades to black, and you see twinkling blue crystal shards start falling down the screen behind the title graphic like snow while the music continues. It's all supposed to be very pretty.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2016, 09:57:03 PM by SamIAm »

SamIAm

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #288 on: May 29, 2016, 01:05:27 AM »
Managed to get that e rounded out a bit. It cost me two horizontal pixels, which isn't bad.


(238x32)

I'm not sure whether I really like it, though. "Sharpness" itself is supposed to be an element of the font. Once I round out the e, there is more pressure to round out the n, and once you've done that, the whole thing is a bit less striking. Also, even though it looks good after the h, the rounded e doesn't jive so well with the g or the n.

However, this did get me to realize that it would actually not be difficult at all to go back to the original e and just lengthen its tail a little, which it needed.

I like that we aren't coming too close to the maximum size with the original e. 236 feels like it isn't quite spilling out of the background border yet. I also remember elmer saying that Nintendo would reject a game for having a title that spanned to much of the screen.

While I was at it, I put the X-and-the-a and the d-and-the-u each one pixel closer to each other, then turned that savings around to spread the The-and-the-Legend and the u-and-the-II out one pixel further apart.

« Last Edit: May 29, 2016, 02:19:02 AM by SamIAm »

SamIAm

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #289 on: May 29, 2016, 03:39:43 AM »
This fixes (or at least attempts to fix) the last of the major things I was worried about.

(237x32)

- The T is much improved at the cost of only 1 horizontal pixel.
- The tips of the h and d's are modified so that they're not so dang round anymore.
- The left base of the h is also de-rounded.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2016, 03:41:32 AM by SamIAm »

elmer

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #290 on: May 29, 2016, 04:29:28 AM »
Updated the letter spacing, smaller II, also tightened the word spacing a little to get it to fit within the background tablet.

Thanks!


Quote
Are we just using the colors on the title screen or is there a palette? I think I used some colors from the original concept, and perhaps the outline is a little bright right now.

The palette for each game is in the logos that I've uploaded here, those are game-ready paletted images (the red backgrounds are color 0 which becomes transparent) ...

http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=19674.msg458266#msg458266


elmer

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #291 on: May 29, 2016, 09:23:28 AM »
Well, SamIAm and Phase have inspired me to put some more time into pushing pixels in the old logo, and I've cleaned it up a bit more and used small-caps for the letters instead of all-caps.

I think that it makes it a lot nicer and more readable to the eye.

Anyway, here are the current contenders, all mapped into the game palettes.

It's really unfair to put Phase's logo in here, because I had to remap it myself, and I'm sure that he'll do a cleanup pass and make it look a lot nicer, but I thought that it would be interesting as a size/style comparison anyway.












<EDIT>

Whoops, got the interior color wrong on the Xanadu 2 logos for a second ... fixed it!
« Last Edit: May 29, 2016, 09:54:58 AM by elmer »

LentFilms

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #292 on: May 29, 2016, 09:54:06 AM »
Personally I like Phase's logo at the bottom. It is similar to the English logo used by Falcom and it looks the least stiff, if that makes sense.

Phase

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #293 on: May 29, 2016, 10:10:14 AM »
Looks like all of them are improving  8)

I'm late, was just changing them to the palette  :) and trying the purple out.







elmer

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #294 on: May 29, 2016, 10:54:28 AM »
Looks like all of them are improving  8)

That's the magic of competition! :wink:

I've just checked, and it looks like none of the other colors in the logo palette are used anywhere else on the screen ... so that gives us all an 9 extra palette entries to create some new anti-aliasing colors if we want to.

That's where my meager programmer-art skills give up, so if Black Tiger isn't interested in improving the logo some more from where it is now, then the field is going to be open for you guys.  :wink:

schweaty

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #295 on: May 29, 2016, 12:39:57 PM »
I also like phase's version.  I think he is a graphic designer by trade, so we should take his free work he has given us ;)

SamIAm

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #296 on: May 29, 2016, 12:54:48 PM »
In terms of shape, I think I'm about done with mine, too. From here on out it, I would only change the colors and maybe add a external horizontal drop shadow on the left. Depending on how things go, I might also do a tiny bit of modding so I could add drop shadow on the bottom, too.

In terms of alternate colors, I would be interested in having an alternate intermediary shade tone between the primary blue-green color and the darker shadow color, if one exists. The current intermediary tone is the same as the main background color and doesn't work so well in the places I might like to use it.

Also, if we add any external drop-shadow to whichever one we go with, it might be better to have it as black. The background layer screen fades out to black for the crystal-snow, and if we use a not-quite-black color, it might stand out in bad way. Of course, it might not.

Anyway, nice work, Phase and elmer. :D

Black Tiger

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #297 on: May 29, 2016, 03:24:06 PM »
I'm currently working on a 100% pixelart version of the official English logo (no fonts or photoshop effects used).

It's 240 x 64 pixels.






« Last Edit: May 29, 2016, 03:40:27 PM by Black Tiger »
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NightWolve

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #298 on: May 29, 2016, 03:33:58 PM »
I'm currently working on a 100% pixelart version of the official English logo (no fonts or photoshop effects used).

It's 240 x 64 pixels.






Now that I kinda like and nice idea to center 'II' as a background to gain more width for the rest!

spenoza

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Re: Xanadu II Translation Development Blog
« Reply #299 on: May 29, 2016, 03:40:20 PM »
I'm currently working on a 100% pixelart version of the official English logo (no fonts or photoshop effects used).


That's very nice, actually. My only complaint would be the giant "II" is a bit too giant, and obscures too much of that neat design in the center of the background. I think a slightly slimmer variant would be the bees knees.
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