Tomba/ponkadunk pixelstudy

"Tomba!" by Ponkadunk, published in 2019 on pixeljoint and dug by PixelProspector. A pixel art mockup of what could have been the PSX game "Tomba" if developers had not opted for polygonal textured levels instead. It's been teasing me to pixel-study it for years now, so let's give it a try. About everything in this scene is a mastery: the characters, the pick-ups, the ground ... but if you don't mind, this time I'll focus on the background and maybe the rocky ground as these are the parts in my green zone that could use some more work.

I always interpreted the background as "leaves in jungle", but if you actually go beyond the fact that it's all green, you quickly note that these are bunch of leaves here and there over a rocks background. By playing with the palette, I could spot that the greens for the rocks and the greens for the leaves are actually two distinct ramps, only sharing their darkest parts.

The rocks ramp goes from h120s66v30 to h118s79v15, with hue shifts towards h107 on the 2nd lightest shade and h123 on the second darkest. The leaves ramp goes from h93s84v33 to h103s76v20. (oh, I used a "hsv hue" layer in Gimp to tint the "rocks ramp" towards yellow so we can distinguish it better from the "leaves" ramp.

Note in the middle of the snippet that we have blade-like shapes with the rocks ramp, so likely darker leaves more than odd-shaped rocks. A reminder to not let the initial purpose of colours dictate you how you use colours when doing pixel art... not until you really have to ;)

The common darkest shade at h123s71v11 unifies the things together in a single shadow. While some elements are fully detailed over that background, other blend in and only reveal their contour with some of the darkest shades of the ramp.

The tiling of the pattern is huge -- some 164 pixels wide, which does not correspond to any hardware-friendly size, and this is no issue for a mockup.

Compared to Eagle Island or Sonic Mania background, this one has the advantage that it could fit fairly well the colour count and the memory of the "farground" in my engine.