2021-03-13 - Sprite Updates

[High Lord November]

22 minutes ago, Kandycat said:

To be honest, the new sprites are fine. Not entirely sure why everyone's taking so much issue with this.

 

I will miss the way magis used to look, but the revision is more detailed and adds more to the anatomy of the dragon which is an improvement. Out of all these, the thunder revision is the best. The old sprites appeared to be really "rough" to me- now they're more sleek-looking, which allows them to stand out more. Will ice and magmas be updated next?

 

I'd like to see vine dragons get an update in the future.

 

The new Thunder suffers from an ill-defined silhouette around the horns/head/neck/back wing, and too much detail of the same colour clustered in the same area (the horns/head/neck/wing). The back horns also aren't positioned correctly for the perspective, and there's an almost triple tangent with the back of the head, the bottom horn, and the back wing. It can be fixed/edited and I hope it will be.

 

The spriting and lighting is really skilled, but it needs some more work to be clear/readable.

 

For the Lacula, I'd say the body spriting is absolutely gorgeous, but the head was significantly changed, and it has really blunt fangs for a dragon based off of a serpent.

Edited March 15, 2021 by High Lord November

[DyingLight]

On 3/13/2021 at 5:32 PM, CellyBean said:

 

 

This is completely subjective on your part. I'm not seeing it and the people with actual art background and knowledge don't see it either. 

 

 

People are allowed to disagree with your frankly hostile complaints which are borderline accusing of animal abuse imo. 

 

 

Thunders are literally the same color. Its just not pillow shaded to be the same exact shade everywhere. So now it has the same colors with a few highlights. How does that equal them losing all their color? Genuinely asking. 

 

 

 

 

 

These updates on all the dragons are very good and were necessary. Nostalgia and refusal to adapt to change will not stop that. 

 

The only legitimately objective complaint that I can find so far in this thread are the people saying that the magis take up less space in the lineage view if that is actually correct. Everything else is subjective and based on personal preference and open to disagreements. 

Your opinion is as subjective as mine. And your ability to see or not see something is not any more or less valid than what I see.

 

There was no accusation on my part, only context as to why I'm more sensitive to imagery displaying ribs and a very thin waist. As my statement lacks a tone and you are the one providing it, your view of my thoughts is subjective.

[Sylph264]

20 minutes ago, DyingLight said:

Your opinion is as subjective as mine. And your ability to see or not see something is not any more or less valid than what I see.

 

There was no accusation on my part, only context as to why I'm more sensitive to imagery displaying ribs and a very thin waist. As my statement lacks a tone and you are the one providing it, your view of my thoughts is subjective.

 

I'm sorry the new Magis remind you of your experiences with malnourished animals. If it helps, I believe the new definition behind the Magi's arm isn't visible ribs- I'm pretty sure we're seeing where the serratus anterior and oblique abdominal muscles meet around the middle of the ribs in a zig-zag pattern that shows where the ribs are, but doesn't showcase the ribs themselves. It's a slight increase in muscle definition, not starvation-level thinness. Additionally, I don't think the Magis are themselves thinner- their body type appears to have changed from a bearded-dragon-esque pancakeyness (where the reptile squooshes out when it lays down) to a more snakelike roundness that doesn't flatten and spread when stationary. 

I know you aren't a fan of thinner dragons with more visible muscles, so I don't expect this to make you like them more, but I hope it might help make you less uncomfortable with the update.

Edited March 15, 2021 by Sylph264

[requiesticat]

16 minutes ago, High Lord November said:

 

The new Thunder suffers from an ill-defined silhouette around the horns/head/neck/back wing, and too much detail of the same colour clustered in the same area (the horns/head/neck/wing). The back horns also aren't positioned correctly for the perspective, and there's an almost triple tangent with the back of the head, the bottom horn, and the back wing. It can be fixed/edited and I hope it will be.

 

The spriting and lighting is really skilled, but it needs some more work to be clear/readable.

 

I will admit that some of the body parts blend into each other too much, making it difficult to distinguish them. Perhaps darkened linework, or more obvious highlights, would accomplish that?

 

Given the amount of feedback received in this thread, more changes are bound to be made in the future. I'm looking forward to seeing them.

[wrenchwench]

Thank you for letting us know.  Thank you also to all the spriters for their hard work.   

[DyingLight]

37 minutes ago, Sylph264 said:

 

I'm sorry the new Magis remind you of your experiences with malnourished animals. If it helps, I believe the new definition behind the Magi's arm isn't visible ribs- I'm pretty sure we're seeing where the serratus anterior and oblique abdominal muscles meet around the middle of the ribs in a zig-zag pattern that shows where the ribs are, but doesn't showcase the ribs themselves. It's a slight increase in muscle definition, not starvation-level thinness. Additionally, I don't think the Magis are themselves thinner- their body type appears to have changed from a bearded-dragon-esque pancakeyness (where the reptile squooshes out when it lays down) to a more snakelike roundness that doesn't flatten and spread when stationary. 

I know you aren't a fan of thinner dragons with more visible muscles, so I don't expect this to make you like them more, but I hope it might help make you less uncomfortable with the update.

Thanks... That... actually helps quite a bit. Can't really find the words. Maybe not with being able to look at magis any time soon, but having someone share their perspective without forcing it & in detail, really helps with my mental state. Thank you.

(Edit: the way you worded things and examples help fill up some holes and flesh out some issues, making it easier to deal with)

 

And maybe one day I'll accept that the pancake lizards hit the gym so hard in preparation for summer that their babies became buff. 😄😊

Edited March 15, 2021 by DyingLight

[Sextonator]

Imo it doesn't really feel like the site has an overall style, just a set of standards that keeps being raised as the site grows. The site has been around for 14+ years. Each artist definitely has their own style, and it's usually easy enough to tell which artist did which sprite, because the way they do things is different than how another artist does things.

 

But, some of the sprite really are old! And usually that's fine, not all old things are bad. But with that age marks a period of time where things like anatomy/shading/just general definition of body parts wasn't stressed, and the color palette was limited to 16 colors, and that's including transparency. And, in my opinion, it should be ok, now that there's better knowledge out there, and there's not such a strict color limit, that artist have the ability to go back and adjust things.

 

And no one has to be happy about the changes, it's kind of like when a retail company decides to heavily rearrange their stores so that it takes you three times longer to find all those necessities you were dropping in to buy and now you're mad because your time was wasted having to wander around the store because the employees aren't used to it yet and had no idea where anything outside their department was. I mean, admittedly, it looks better somehow, and a few things make more sense, but the old layout was perfectly fine. The old sprite was fine, maybe not perfectly fine, but it did it's job but now the corporation has decided to change things for what the corporation thinks is better. And that's fine, but it knows not everyone is going to be 100% happy with it.

 

I.. hope this ramble post makes sense, lmao. I just wanted to toss my two cents to the witcher.

 

Also love the new changes, I'll have to nab me some Lacuas! I felt they were the weakest of the Harry Potter release despite the awesome pose because of the scales and shading. Love them now! Love the Magis too. I know seeing them so thin can be shocking, but some dog breeds(and honestly, humans) are just naturally thin, and don't normally have that much fat to them. I like the changes to the Sakuhanas, and the new Thunders are absolutely boss, although I do see how people can be upset with the horns. And I like most of the snow update, but I don't know if I really understand the new shading on the wing arm.

 

Lovely Lovely work from the artists, keep up the work you guys. ❤️ I appreciate you all.

[tjekan]

1 hour ago, Sylph264 said:

I agree that many people in the comments are indeed simply making "this is good" or "this is bad" statements. However, "this style isn't consistent with the site's art and direction" is meaningfully different from saying the art isn't good enough.... but you are right that it's confusing wording. Uh.... it's like saying Miles Morales of Into the Spiderverse would look out of place in Wolfwalkers. Both movies have incredible art, but they have unique, internally consistent styles- and if you took a character from one movie and put them in the other, they'd look out of place. That doesn't make the character designs or styles present in either movie bad. They're just different. 

True. And for the people who ARE seeing it that way, I think what's happening is that we're falling into two different camps. Some people, like you, are envisioning the site as a movie and it would be weird and jarring to have Miles Morales and Wolfwalkers interacting in the same movie. Other people, like me, are envisioning the site as an art gallery and it's not weird or jarring at all to have a Picasso and a Renoir in the same gallery. We're kind of just looking at the same thing from two different angles, I think... 🙂

[random_dragon_collector]

7 minutes ago, tjekan said:

True. And for the people who ARE seeing it that way, I think what's happening is that we're falling into two different camps. Some people, like you, are envisioning the site as a movie and it would be weird and jarring to have Miles Morales and Wolfwalkers interacting in the same movie. Other people, like me, are envisioning the site as an art gallery and it's not weird or jarring at all to have a Picasso and a Renoir in the same gallery. We're kind of just looking at the same thing from two different angles, I think... 🙂

 

That's a great analogy!

[KrazyKarp]

When the Nilias were updated, the new sprites aren't my cup of tea and I prefer the older ones. But that's ok, I can prefer the old sprites and still have an appreciation for the new Nilias. I don't see much of a point in dragging a dislike for the updates on and on and on and on. Yes, it's valid to not personally enjoy sprite updates. There's no point in excessively rambling about it. Sprite updates happen, they've happened in the past, they'll happen again. Just do your best to enjoy them and appreciate the new sprites!

[random_dragon_collector]

1 minute ago, KrazyKarp said:

When the Nilias were updated, the new sprites aren't my cup of tea and I prefer the older ones. But that's ok, I can prefer the old sprites and still have an appreciation for the new Nilias. I don't see much of a point in dragging a dislike for the updates on and on and on and on. Yes, it's valid to not personally enjoy sprite updates. There's no point in excessively rambling about it. Sprite updates happen, they've happened in the past, they'll happen again. Just do your best to enjoy them and appreciate the new sprites!

 

It feels good to discuss it.  I come to terms with it better when I discuss it with others.  I actually rarely weigh in, but this time one of the sprites was a particular favorite.

[HeatherMarie]

 

44 minutes ago, random_dragon_collector said:

 

It feels good to discuss it.  I come to terms with it better when I discuss it with others.  I actually rarely weigh in, but this time one of the sprites was a particular favorite.

 

This, so much. TJ and the spriters are going to do what they think is 'best' regardless, but giving us users an outlet to talk out the changes, to explain our points of view, even to see other's viewpoints and maybe understand things a little better ourselves... That's very important. I for one very much appreciate all the posts that go into detail on why things were changed, why such-and-such was needed, different views on why such-and-such was done, etc. Any time a controversial change is made, it's very helpful for the userbase to be able to talk it out and share views and knowledge. 

 

As far as people seeing DC differently ie movie vs art gallery and such.... To me it's a collecting game. I mean, that's literally what it is, we grab/raise/collect these little pixel sprites. The focus of the entire game is, at it's core, these pixel sprites. We can breed and describe and name and organize, but the base of game is pixel sprites. People have their favorite sprites, sprites they maybe don't like as much, sprites they specifically don't collect or collect a whole ton. Sprites *are* the game. So when dozens or hundreds of sprites that I've collected over the years (individual dragons, I'm meaning, not necessarily different breeds) suddenly change in appearance and are no longer the sprite I actually collected.... That hurts. I have nothing against wanting more accurate/consistent artwork in general, but when it includes *replacing* things we've collected for years (as opposed to simply releasing more and more new dragons with the 'newer' style), that's going to take awhile to get used to and be comfortable with. 

 

That's how I see DC. A collection game. I love my collection very much. It's difficult when my collection suddenly changes with no warning and I have no control over it.

[Keileon]

1 minute ago, HeatherMarie said:

That's how I see DC. A collection game. I love my collection very much. It's difficult when my collection suddenly changes with no warning and I have no control over it.

I've seen this sentiment come up a bunch and I'm genuinely curious: would it make a difference if sprite updates were done in the vein of the Silvers, where we KNEW the sprites would change? People still hated that change, so I'm not sure if giving warning would... actually help.

[random_dragon_collector]

8 minutes ago, Keileon said:

I've seen this sentiment come up a bunch and I'm genuinely curious: would it make a difference if sprite updates were done in the vein of the Silvers, where we KNEW the sprites would change? People still hated that change, so I'm not sure if giving warning would... actually help.

 

For me personally, it wouldn't help.  As @HeatherMarie said, you might have been collecting dragons for years, naming and breeding them based on the sprite and what you like about it, and then that's all taken away.  I don't think it should be done at all.  Make new dragons instead.  No warning makes it much, much worse, but a warning wouldn't make it better.  And as for something like the Lacunas--they are so new!  As are the Valentines they updated  That makes the site seem all the more uncertain!  I might be able to understand them updating the first 50 sprites, but for them to be updating new dragons?  Truly no sprite is safe, no dragon is off the table.

[surelychoo]

what lovely timing! I've just started revisiting Dragcave again after having stopped playing around six years ago, and have been amazed by the gorgeous new dragons that have come out since then. The standard of art has definitely increased exponentially, and looking through my scroll, the contrast between the older dragons and the newer ones was very very evident (I actually remember noticing a contrast between the earliest dragons and newer releases even back then). These sprite updates are beautiful and make my entire scroll more cohesive and comfortable to scroll through 🥰

 

It's funny because two breeds that I had in mind right when I started playing a few days ago were the Magi that I noticed on the Trading page ("oh yeah, I forgot how wonky they looked") and the Lacula that I had picked up and hatched ("shame that the overly dark shading makes it hard for me to decipher the features"). and then tada! updates addressing my concerns 😄 thank you to all the spriters!

 

On 3/13/2021 at 12:25 PM, angelicdragonpuppy said:

What other sprites would people like to see updated most? A lot of the older sprite updates have been more and more faithful and cautious about preserving existing lineages and collections, so I'm less skittish of them then I used to be.

 

I'd say:

- Dorsals

- Stones

- Geodes

- Vines

- Balloons

 

Man I'd love a super shined up Geode, I still like them even now and they have not aged well. They'd look great with a polish!

 

the ones that stood out to me as most mismatched with the rest of my scroll were (in decreasing order): shields, stones, vines, greens, dorsals, storms, balloons, albinos, and ices, although a lot of the older ones could do with a slight outlining/shading upgrade. Fingers crossed for shields and stones in particular!!

Edited March 15, 2021 by surelychoo
Teleport → Trading; added albinos

[Luckystarz103]

Old lacula looked inline with rest of DC and I liked the sprite but new one is sick asf lol. Looks like a pencil drawing with that detail and has another kind of nostalgic air to it despite being new.

 

Gonna miss the little totem hatchies of old Magi but didn't care much for their design either way, new design is nice.

 

New Sakuhana actually feels like a downgrade. By rounding out the wings, lengthening the face a bit, and de-emphasising the thicc neck a bit, it gives it this generic sort of look/appeal. Plus the old round chest was like a nice callback to old GoN design. idk new one just feels generic now.

 

Will say I defo loved the old design for the Snowy boi but new changes are kinda subtle so prolly forget bout em in a week.

 

New Thunder is an absolute chad now, looks too cool to hang with the other 2 lol.

 

tbh tho with these sprite updates does the Guardian always get overlooked or is it intentionally left back in 2008? I find it one of, if not THE ugliest dragon/sprite on DC to this day lol.

[Keileon]

Hilariously, I find that Guardians (Shields) are one of the better-aged original sprites, along with Dark Greens/Vines and Whites. They could use a shading touchup, maybe, but the rest of the dragon seems pretty solid.

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, Keileon said:

I've seen this sentiment come up a bunch and I'm genuinely curious: would it make a difference if sprite updates were done in the vein of the Silvers, where we KNEW the sprites would change? People still hated that change, so I'm not sure if giving warning would... actually help.

 

Personally, yes. It won't take away the frustration over the idea of updates in general, but personally if I *knew* ahead of time that they were about to change it would help me plan, help me cope, help me.... Kinda mourn, I guess? Like, I remember when Frills and Bright Pinks were discontinued, we had fair warning it was going to happen, and it gave us time to kind of have closure and deal with it *before* it actually happened. .... The phrasing I'm using sounds weird to me, they are 'just' pixels after all, but that's how I see it. Knowing ahead of time is much better than being blindsided like this, regardless of what I think about the specific sprite updates themselves. 

[Infinis]

@Arionid

 

please don't call sprites ugly. 

 

it's one thing to not like something and you are free to express that you don't like it, but there's "i don't like this" opinions and constructive criticism and then there's just being mean, and calling a sprite just outright ugly crosses the line into "mean" territory.

 

however much anyone dislikes any given sprite(s), there is at least one person with feelings who made it, and it is worth considering that when posting things that are publicly visible.

 

---

 

i am glad the snow update was finally put in, yay. no more bulbous weird shoulder ;w;

[Luckystarz103]

It's personally unpleasant to look at, can't do forums this day and age cuz even redundant opinions are a grave offense. Let me rephrase then, the sprite is bland and lacking detail. DC has an ever increasing standard for sprites yet there are some that get left behind when they need a bit of love the most. Guardians look extra bland now compared to Lacula 2.0. I just don't get why a sprite released in 2019 gets priority treatment over one from 2008?

[angelicdragonpuppy]

@Arionidwhat nooo, guardians are cute! I agree with @Keileonthat they're one of the better of the older sprites. Oh yes they could definitely use some polish, but compared to, say, Stones, Dorsals and Vines, they don't look bad at all. 
 

As for why newer sprites are being updated, it looks weird at first glance but it's simple: the sprites being updated are those whose artists are still around to want to see them polished to their best. Most of (all of?) the Guardian spriters are long gone. Even then they're probably going to be updated in time, but based on the fact that Hollies, Reds, Magis and the like have all been updated separately, I'd wager the most beloved older sprites are given plenty of time between each being tweaked to give us time to adjust... which I can appreciate. 

[miaou]

3 hours ago, Keileon said:

I've seen this sentiment come up a bunch and I'm genuinely curious: would it make a difference if sprite updates were done in the vein of the Silvers, where we KNEW the sprites would change? People still hated that change, so I'm not sure if giving warning would... actually help.

 

for me it would help, because it would let me grab screenshots of any of my lineages that were going to be affected. that way i could still have the projects to look at the way i designed them originally. 

[Spiteful_Crow]

18 hours ago, random_dragon_collector said:

Yeah, well, I for one, am devastated.

 

I'm sorry, I didn't mean in any way to downplay how you feel about this. I was simply stating that for me it wasn't as big a deal as, say, the Thunders. For me, the Magis serve a mostly utilitarian purpose, but I can tell you love them, so I'm sorry this update has hit you hard.

 

4 hours ago, Keileon said:

I've seen this sentiment come up a bunch and I'm genuinely curious: would it make a difference if sprite updates were done in the vein of the Silvers, where we KNEW the sprites would change? People still hated that change, so I'm not sure if giving warning would... actually help.

 

I think for myself personally, it would at least cushion the blow a little bit. Yes, I'd be distressed if more of my favorites were slated to be replaced, but at least I'd have time to prepare. And since you mentioned the Silvers, I didn't find out about that until it either happened or was close to happening, since I wasn't very active back then. The Silver change was really hard on me, although I have since adjusted. I always liked the shading of the new ones and touch-ups on little things like their tails, but I will forever mourn the design of the original males, weird, anatomically-incorrect necks and all. I wish there was a way to have the best of both worlds.

 

And as a general request to everybody in this thread, can we have time to mourn the sprites that have already been charged before people start talking about which other ones should be next on the chopping block?  You can say I'm being dramatic, but that's really how some of us feel. And what those of you who don't like us "complaining" don't understand is that we aren't doing this to bash spriters or their artwork, we're doing it because we love so many of the original sprites. We are praising the original artwork and are sad that it's gone and we will never be able to use it on the site again. We are distressed that lineages we've put so much time and effort into have been altered, sometimes for the worse. And in some cases, when different spriters do the replacement art instead of the person(s) who originally created them, we feel bad for the original spriters, because it feels like everyone is telling them their work isn't "good enough" for the site anymore, it's "old/boring/outdated/ugly" and that's just as mean as ripping on the new designs.

 

It would be nice if we could all have a civil exchange about our differences of opinion without belittling or demonizing the other camp.

[Mewtie]

7 hours ago, High Lord November said:

 

The new Thunder suffers from an ill-defined silhouette around the horns/head/neck/back wing, and too much detail of the same colour clustered in the same area (the horns/head/neck/wing). The back horns also aren't positioned correctly for the perspective, and there's an almost triple tangent with the back of the head, the bottom horn, and the back wing. It can be fixed/edited and I hope it will be.

 

The spriting and lighting is really skilled, but it needs some more work to be clear/readable.

 

For the Lacula, I'd say the body spriting is absolutely gorgeous, but the head was significantly changed, and it has really blunt fangs for a dragon based off of a serpent.

Yes, there is much detail in one area, because the far wing, horns and neck were in that area in the old sprite. It's not ideal, but I thought this was preferable over more extensive changes.

The dragon is facing slightly away from the viewer, and we are viewing it from slightly above, so the horns do take the perspective into account.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

8 hours ago, High Lord November said:

 

The new Thunder suffers from an ill-defined silhouette around the horns/head/neck/back wing, and too much detail of the same colour clustered in the same area (the horns/head/neck/wing). The back horns also aren't positioned correctly for the perspective, and there's an almost triple tangent with the back of the head, the bottom horn, and the back wing. It can be fixed/edited and I hope it will be.

 

The spriting and lighting is really skilled, but it needs some more work to be clear/readable.

 

For the Lacula, I'd say the body spriting is absolutely gorgeous, but the head was significantly changed, and it has really blunt fangs for a dragon based off of a serpent.

omg someone else feels me on the Lacula head ;w; most of the rest of the changes I can appreciate (even if I kinda miss the old body shading, I know it was weird) but I preferred absolutely everything about the original head. It looked sharper and more menacing and, well, viper like. The new one gives me very little snake vibe at all with how thick the snout is.

For the Thunders I just wish the horns had been made brighter and the underlying wing darker to separate them better, even if doing so would have to be slightly inaccurate to the light source. Better to do a few lighting adjustments and look clearly defined then be lost for the sake of technical accuracy, imo. With just that and a return to the brighter yellow lightning I'd be mostly content, even if something about the old sprite still feels lost.

 

Edit: hm the more I look at the Thunder the more nostalgic I feel. I like the new sprite, but a lot of what I liked about the original seems lost. The wispy quality of the horns (honestly they always felt like tendrils more than anything), that long pulled back swan neck, the bright golden eyes and lightning... the new sprite is very sharp and cool and looks smug af and I like it, but it feels like the cockier cousin of the original mysterious storm boi rather than a direct analogue.

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by angelicdragonpuppy